bullfinch subscription: October 2013

Monday, October 28, 2013

Rheumatoid arthritis and heart disease: Mayo Clinic studies shed light on dangerous connection

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

26-Oct-2013

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Contact: Sharon Theimer
newsbureau@mayo.edu
507-284-5005
Mayo Clinic

Early menopause is risk factor, research presented at American College of Rheumatology meeting shows

SAN DIEGO -- People with rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic inflammatory conditions are at higher risk of heart disease. Who is in the most danger, why and how best to prevent and detect cardiovascular complications are important questions for physicians and researchers. Mayo Clinic studies presented at the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting shed new light on this connection, in part by revealing factors that seem to put some rheumatoid arthritis patients in greater jeopardy of heart problems: early menopause, more severe rheumatoid arthritis and immunity to a common virus, cytomegalovirus, among others.

MULTIMEDIA ALERT: Video of Dr. Matteson is available for download from the Mayo Clinic News Network.

In one study, Mayo researchers discovered that patients whose rheumatoid arthritis is more severe are likelier to have heart problems. That becomes true soon after rheumatoid arthritis strikes, making early treatment of rheumatoid arthritis important, says co-author Eric Matteson, M.D., chair of rheumatology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

"One thing that we learned in particular in this study is that the high disease burden on the joints in the first year of disease already is a very strong predictor of cardiovascular disease subsequently, and that seems to be mitigated as time goes on if the disease burden can be reduced too," Dr. Matteson says.

In other research, a Mayo team looked at a common virus called cytomegalovirus, a bug many people get and do not even know they have. They found correlations between rheumatoid arthritis patients' immune response to the virus and the development of myocardial disease.

If it turns out that there is this relationship, then it may be that one way to spot patients who are at higher risk for heart disease would be an immune profile or biomarkers related to the cytomegalovirus and its associated immune activation signaling," says Dr. Matteson, a co-author.

Another study found that women with rheumatoid arthritis and early menopause -- menopause before age 45 -- also seem to be at higher risk of heart disease. About two-thirds of patients with rheumatoid
arthritis are women, and researchers have long studied possible hormonal influences on development of the disease, Dr. Matteson says.

"This study shows the complex relationship between rheumatoid arthritis, hormones and heart disease," says Dr. Matteson, the senior author. "We also found patients who have had multiple children, especially seven or more, are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease compared with women who have menopause at a normal age or have fewer children."

Other Mayo Clinic studies found:

A higher incidence of the heart rhythm disorder, prolonged QT interval, in rheumatoid arthritis patients, particularly those who had a higher "sed rate" -- a blood test that can reveal inflammatory activity when their rheumatoid arthritis was diagnosed.
Rheumatoid arthritis patients are likelier to develop a high uric acid level, a condition called hyperuricemia, and that is a significant predictor of peripheral arterial disease, but doesn't appear to be one for cardiovascular disease.
Multiple risk factors for heart disease were spotted in patients when they were diagnosed with giant cell arteritis, inflammation of the lining of the arteries. However, giant cell arteritis patients do not seem to be at higher risk of acute coronary syndrome, a condition whose symptoms mirror those of a heart attack.

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To interview Dr. Matteson or other Mayo Clinic researchers about these studies or for expert comment on other research being presented at the ACR meeting, please contact Sharon Theimer in Mayo Clinic Public Affairs at 507-284-5005 or newsbureau@mayo.edu.

About Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org/about and http://www.mayoclinic.org/news.

Journalists can become a member of the Mayo Clinic News Network for the latest health, science and research news and access to video, audio, text and graphic elements that can be downloaded or embedded.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Rheumatoid arthritis and heart disease: Mayo Clinic studies shed light on dangerous connection

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

26-Oct-2013

[

| E-mail

]

Contact: Sharon Theimer
newsbureau@mayo.edu
507-284-5005
Mayo Clinic

Early menopause is risk factor, research presented at American College of Rheumatology meeting shows

MULTIMEDIA ALERT: Video of Dr. Matteson is available for download from the Mayo Clinic News Network.

Other Mayo Clinic studies found:

A higher incidence of the heart rhythm disorder, prolonged QT interval, in rheumatoid arthritis patients, particularly those who had a higher "sed rate" -- a blood test that can reveal inflammatory activity when their rheumatoid arthritis was diagnosed.
Rheumatoid arthritis patients are likelier to develop a high uric acid level, a condition called hyperuricemia, and that is a significant predictor of peripheral arterial disease, but doesn't appear to be one for cardiovascular disease.
Multiple risk factors for heart disease were spotted in patients when they were diagnosed with giant cell arteritis, inflammation of the lining of the arteries. However, giant cell arteritis patients do not seem to be at higher risk of acute coronary syndrome, a condition whose symptoms mirror those of a heart attack.

###

About Mayo Clinic

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Share

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/mc-raa102213.php
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Moving In With Manufacturers, Amazon Delivers A New Approach

Faster delivery is the new frontier of Internet competition.

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Faster delivery is the new frontier of Internet competition.

iStock

Amazon's business is built on three basic concepts: faster delivery, greater selection, and cheaper prices.

In service of that, it has built enormous warehouses staffed largely by robots that shuttle around, pulling goods out of bins at remarkable speed. It can take just a matter of minutes to go from order to shipment.

And lately it's pursuing a program where Amazon goes directly into manufacturers, and manages their logistics and online retailing.

"It fits right into world domination for Amazon, because what this is doing is now allowing them to even broaden wider the scope of products that they're going to offer," says Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst for NPD Group.

He says Amazon's so-called Vendor Flex program benefits manufacturers, because they can sell more of their products directly to consumers. And it gives Amazon a bigger warehouse footprint, enabling it to ship more goods faster and cheaper.

"It's kind of like a win-win-win. There are three wins," he says, for the manufacturer, Amazon, and the consumer.

"The only ones that's not going to win are traditional brick and mortar retailers, which now have just gotten an additional competitor in categories that they've traditionally not had online competition in," he says.

Amazon declined to discuss the program, but it has shopped Vendor Flex to various manufacturers, including Procter & Gamble.

It allows Amazon to set up shop and hire its own workers within a manufacturer's warehouse or facility. Amazon essentially runs the e-commerce and logistics for the manufacturer, which can sell direct to the consumer.

John Replogle is CEO of Seventh Generation, a cleaning products company that has worked with Amazon since the online retailer's early days. Although he declined comment about Vendor Flex, he says the company is thinking about new sales channels.

"I think the notion of what it means to be a big box is being redefined," Replogle says.

He says for his company, direct online sales make up a low, single-digit percentage of sales. But he expects it to double in the next few years, because fewer people want the traditional suburban experience of hauling bulky consumer products in their cars.

"If you look at the consumer today, it tends to be young and well-educated," he says. "And increasingly, what they're doing is living in urban centers. Their shopping behavior is shifting increasingly to online and in urban centers. So, as we think about strategically how we position ourselves, we've got to move with that consumer."

Wal-Mart and others also realize that, and are responding by beefing up their online presence and delivery speeds. But retailers like Wal-Mart also have a big advantage over purely online retailers. Namely, they have physical locations close to their consumers.

"Wal-Mart has a huge, much larger logistical footprint than Amazon," says Tom Forte, an Internet analyst with the Telsey Advisory Group.

And by partnering with manufacturers, Amazon is essentially trying to expand its geographic footprint quickly, to get closer to the customer.

Forte calls faster delivery the new frontier of Internet competition. EBay's eBay Now service is experimenting with delivery of goods in an hour, and Google's Shopping Express promises same-day delivery.

"Amazon's adding fulfillment centers outside of major metropolitan areas, and eBay and Google are leveraging the retail stores within the major metros," Forte says. "So they should, at least in theory, be able to get the merchandise faster to the consumer than Amazon, which I think's a risk for Amazon."

But Amazon, too, is running its own same-day delivery experiments in Seattle and Los Angeles.

"The average consumer visits a grocery store 2.2 times a week, so one of the reasons that Amazon is rolling out grocery is they want that frequency of purchase," Forte says.

And, he says, that's only skimming the surface of what's to come.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/28/240742832/moving-in-with-manufacturers-amazon-delivers-a-new-approach?ft=1&f=1019
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A Look Into Facebook's Potential To Recognize Anybody's Face

Social media companies like Facebook won't talk about who can access face-tagging data. That silence is a problem, privacy advocates say.

iStockPhoto.com

Social media companies like Facebook won't talk about who can access face-tagging data. That silence is a problem, privacy advocates say.

iStockPhoto.com

Revelations about NSA spying have left people wondering about the privacy of their digital data. But what about the privacy of their faces?

The movies make facial recognition look easy: In the 1998 film Enemy of the State, a team of NSA agents simply freeze a surveillance tape, tap some keys and identify the face a few computer beeps later.

But Neeraj Kumar, an expert in computer vision at the University of Washington, says we're nowhere close to just grabbing anybody's face off a security camera and coming up with a name.

Facial recognition has become pretty good at one-to-one comparisons — for instance, checking your face against the photo on your company ID. The accuracy is up to 95 percent.

But that's not so good if you're trying to come up with a name, and you're comparing one photo against many possible matches.

"Each time you do a comparison, there's 5 percent chance that it's wrong," Kumar says. "And that adds up. In fact, it multiplies up. Very quickly, you find that a 95 percent accuracy leads to pretty terrible results when you're actually trying to answer the question of, 'Who is this person?' "

Universal Challenges

That's a hard question for a computer. It's even harder when you ask it to identify a face in what experts call an "image from the wild."

"You're looking at surveillance-type images from low-resolution cameras," says Manuel Cueva, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who trains officers in their facial recognition system. "If the image is such poor quality, you may not get any results, period."

The software can get confused by shadows and weird angles. Even a goofy smile can throw it. So that's problem one.

Problem two in this quest for universal facial recognition is that the software needs to compare one picture to another. In LA County, for instance, officials will run the image against their booking photos — about 6 million mug shots.

But if you've never been arrested in LA County, their system won't name you. And that's usually the end of it.

"There really isn't a set standard that we follow to be able to extend our searches into other jurisdictions," Cueva says.

Some agencies and states are working to increase sharing of mug shots and department of motor vehicles photos. But as of right now, we simply don't have a universal database of faces.

Or ... do we?

A Billion Custom Facial Models

Look at Facebook, says Amie Stepanovich, director of the domestic surveillance project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C.

Facebook has the largest biometric database in the world — "and it's all been formed by people voluntarily submitting pictures to Facebook and identifying who they belong to," she says.

Theoretically, every time you label faces by tagging a picture, you're chipping away at those two big challenges for universal facial recognition. First, you're helping to build a super-database of labeled faces. Second, you're uploading multiple versions of each person's face, which can improve a system's accuracy.

"If you had lots of photos of each person ... you could build a model for Martin, a model for me, a model for other people. Now you have a custom-tuned model for each person," Kumar, from the University of Washington, says.

Multiply that by a billion — a billion custom-tuned facial "models."

Facebook would not answer NPR's questions about what it does with facial recognition information; social media companies rarely talk about their internal systems.

But they're surely aware of their huge database's potential. Last year, Facebook bought Face.com, whose company's founders had published a paper titled "Leveraging Billions of Faces to Overcome Performance Barriers in Unconstrained Face Recognition."

Transparency And Possibility

Stepanovich wants social media companies to explain how facial models can be used. On Facebook, for example, you can't identify faces of people who aren't already your "friends," but she wonders if, behind the scenes, Facebook can do broader searches — say, at the request of the government.

"As we're seeing specifically over the past few months, no matter how much a company attempts to protect your privacy, if they're collecting information about you, that information is vulnerable to government search," Stepanovich says.

Facebook won't say whether this is technically possible; Google, which offers the competing Google Plus service, also won't comment on the record about the feasibility of broader face searches.

Kumar doubts anyone is doing universal searches of Facebook faces. He says the numbers are just too big.

However, if social media companies are able to narrow the search — say, if they can compare a photo with the facial models of everybody who "likes" NPR, or everybody who lives in Des Moines — then, Kumar says, you'd have the makings of a useful search tool.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/10/28/228181778/a-look-into-facebooks-potential-to-recognize-anybodys-face?ft=1&f=3
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Livescribe 3 smartpen digitizes notes straight to your iPad, starts at $150

Livescribe broke new ground last year with the Sky WiFi pen that could transfer handwritten and audio notes straight to the cloud (well, to your Evernote account anyway), so that they'd be accessible anywhere there's an internet connection. Having to jump on WiFi to send and retrieve those notes didn't make it the most convenient thing when out and about however, especially if you rely on your smartphone or tablet as a daily driver.

Enter the Livescribe 3, which offers a solution to that problem. The company's latest smartpen is positioned as a companion specifically designed to work in concert with a compatible mobile device, which in this case only applies to those that run iOS. Once paired via Bluetooth LE, notes written in a Livescribe notebook will automatically appear on the accompanying Livescribe+ app. Indeed, the application and mobile device are so integral to the Livescribe 3, that unlike the Echo or the Sky, the 3 does not have a built-in microphone. Instead, it hands off the audio recording to your iPhone or iPad when you hit the record button either on the paper or the app. As before, it'll sync the results with your scribbled notes -- the app actually highlights the coinciding text as the audio playback occurs. Of course, this means that these so-called "pencasts" are simply not possible if the pen is disconnected from the device. However, notes written while not connected will still sync up later on.

Livescribe 3 hands-on

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Livescribe+ app

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Because Livescribe 3 gives over so much functionality to the app (which we'll get to later), the design of the pen is surprisingly minimal. Indeed, Livescribe's VP of Marketing, Bryan Rodrigues, told us that the company wanted it to look more like a pen than a gadget. With the screen and the on/off switch gone, we'd say they succeeded on that front. Instead of hitting a button, you turn it on by twisting the textured middle ring clockwise, which reveals the ballpoint nib as well. When you power it up, a tiny LED on the clip lights up; it flashes green in pairing mode, solid blue when connected and flashes again if it's low on battery -- Livescribe tells us the pen is able to capture information for 14 hours between charges. There's a capacitive nub on the top of the pen, which you can use as a stylus for your touch screen device. Take the nub off and you'll reveal the microUSB port.

As with its predecessors, the latest incarnation has an IR camera at the tip that works with special Livescribe paper, which is printed with a fine dot pattern to let the pen know where it is on the page. We tried out the Livescribe 3 with the accompanying app in a brief hands-on and were impressed with how quickly our written scribbles appeared on the app. The pen itself still felt pretty hefty in our hand compared to other writing utensils, but it's certainly much more pen-like than previous Livescribes.

Livescribe 3 Standard press shots

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Livescribe 3 Pro press shots

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The Livescribe+ app, as we said earlier, is where the real brains of the pen come in. It'll automatically prompt the phone or tablet to connect to the pen when it launches, and there's an icon at the top that shows it's paired. There's even a Find My Pen function that'll cause the pen to beep loudly if you happen to lose it. As you might expect, the app lets you manage your notes and listen to past pencasts. If you have multiple Livescribe books, it knows exactly which one you're using and pulls in notes to the right one automatically. Using a transcription technology by Vision Objects called MyScript, the app can turn handwritten notes into searchable text as well. If you like, you can add photos to your notes too, by either grabbing them from the Camera Roll or just snapping right within the app.

But what really makes the app special is something called "the Feed." It's essentially a time-based view of your notes that attempts to collate relevant pieces together. This is especially useful when you're writing down short actionable items such as reminders and to-do lists, which Livescribe describes as "micro notes." When that snippet of information is captured in the feed, you may send it to the Reminders app or tag it as a to-do or a favorite. It's also smart enough to recognize URLs, addresses and phone numbers so that you can do things like create a new contact or tap the address to bring it up on the Maps app. Once you're done with your notes, you can select multiple snippets or whole pages and turn them into PDFs. The app will then let you share those notes via email, Dropbox, Evernote or iCloud.

The Livescribe 3 comes in two versions. The $149.95 version is black and chrome and comes with a 50-sheet notebook, a charging cable and a black tungsten carbide medium-tip ink cartridge. There's also a $199.95 Pro Edition that upgrades the package to include a leather portfolio with a 100-sheet hardbound journal, a year's subscription to Evernote Premium, plus the aforementioned cable and cartridge. So for pen and paper aficionados out there, have a peek at the gallery and video above to see if the Livescribe 3 belongs in your pocket protector.

Show full PR text

Turn Your Words Into Action With The New Livescribe 3 Smartpen

The Ultimate Note-Taking Companion Combines the Best of Pen and Paper with Mobile Devices

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL MONDAY OCTOBER 28, 2013 12:01 AM EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
OAKLAND, CALIF. – Oct. 28, 2013 - Livescribe Inc. (www.livescribe.com) today announced the release of the Livescribe 3 smartpen, the fastest way to make handwritten notes useful on a tablet or smartphone. Customers simply twist a ring on the elegant black and chrome smartpen to begin writing and watch their words and diagrams appear in the companion Livescribe+ mobile app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. This latest addition to Livescribe's line of award-winning smartpens is designed as a premium writing instrument, with the look and feel of a quality ballpoint pen combined with the intelligence of a mobile device.
The Livescribe 3 smartpen lets people:
• Write on Livescribe dot paper and watch everything appear instantly on iPhone, iPad or iPod touch devices with Bluetooth® Smart wireless technology.
• Use the built-in microphones on a tablet or smartphone to create interactive "pencasts" that synchronize recorded audio with written notes.
• Convert handwriting to text to create tasks, reminders, contacts and calendar events.
• Add photos and text memos to notes to add context and clearly communicate details.
• Share written notes, photographs and diagrams as PDF files over Mail, Messages, Evernote, Dropbox and other apps.
The Livescribe 3 smartpen captures everything written on Livescribe paper as soon as it starts up, and then transfers that content to Livescribe+ when the app opens. This allows people to take notes with just a smartpen and notebook, and then do more with that information on their mobile device later.
"People shouldn't have to choose between their pen and their digital devices. The Livescribe 3 smartpen sends everything they write on paper to their tablet or smartphone, where our mobile application makes this information useful in truly innovative ways" said Gilles Bouchard, CEO of Livescribe. "It's simply the most elegant and versatile pen we've ever made."
The Livescribe 3 smartpen's wireless connection allows for easy pairing and instant transfer of notes with very low battery drain, enabling the Livescribe 3 smartpen to capture information for 14 hours between charges. The Livescribe 3 includes a capacitive stylus cap to control the Livescribe+ app, and Swiss-made, premium ballpoint cartridges to use with any Livescribe paper notebooks. Livescribe 3 is compatible with iOS devices that are Bluetooth Smart Ready, including the iPhone 4S or later, third-generation or later iPad, iPad Mini, and the fifth-generation iPod touch or newer. The free Livescribe+ mobile app is available from the App Store℠ for devices with iOS 7.
The Livescribe 3 smartpen is available in two versions. The Livescribe 3 smartpen, available for $149.95, includes a sleek black-and-chrome smartpen along with a 50-sheet Starter Notebook, as well as a micro USB charging cable and a black tungsten carbide medium-tip ink cartridge. Priced at $199.95, the Livescribe 3 smartpen Pro Edition includes a leather smartpen portfolio with a 100-sheet hardbound journal, a one-year subscription to Evernote Premium, the charging cable and an additional ink cartridge. The smartpens are available for sale on Livescribe.com, Amazon, Paradise Pen, Apple.com and select Apple stores across the United States. The Livescribe 3 smartpen will also be available in Canada, Europe, Asia and other international markets.
Pen and paper notes become more valuable when they are available on the digital devices people use daily, and Livescribe offers products for all scenarios. The new Livescribe 3 smartpen connects to mobile devices with Bluetooth Smart wireless technology, while the Sky wifi smartpen uses wireless cloud syncing straight to Evernote, and the Echo smartpen connects via a USB connection to a Mac or PC, providing the perfect solution for any device.
For more information on the Livescribe 3 smartpen, visit http://www.livescribe.com/livescribe3
Follow Livescribe on Twitter at @Livescribe and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/livescribe‎.
About Livescribe
Livescribe brings notes, words and ideas to life. Livescribe smartpens make it easy to connect paper and pen to the digital world and fundamentally change the way people capture, access and share what they write, draw and hear. Livescribe's family of smartpens includes the Echo smartpen, the Sky wifi smartpen and the Livescribe 3 smartpen.
Media contact
TriplePoint PR for Livescribe: livescribe@triplepointpr.com
(415) 955-8500
Tags: Livescribe, Livescribe 3 smartpen, Evernote, Bluetooth

The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by Livescribe is under license. Other trademarks and trade names are those of their respective owners. Apple, iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/28/livescribe-3/?ncid=rss_truncated
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Cumberbatch's 'Sherlock' back with 'Downton'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — "Sherlock" starring Benedict Cumberbatch will return to public TV in January, keeping company on Sunday nights with the "Downton Abbey" crowd.

Season three of the modern Sherlock Holmes mystery series will began Jan. 19, PBS said Wednesday. It was previously announced that the fourth season of "Downton" will begin Jan 5.

The scheduling reflects PBS' new strategy of pairing dramas on Sunday, part of a broader effort to build "flow within a given night in our schedule," said Beth Hoppe, PBS' chief programming executive.

Prime-time viewership on Sunday, home to primarily British dramas, grew 26 percent last season with the new approach, Hoppe said, and "Sherlock" and "Downton Abbey" were seen as good partners.

Overall, PBS' prime-time ratings were up 7 percent last season compared to the year before, Hoppe said.

"Downton Abbey," the hit drama about the lives and loves of landed gentry and their servants, will be preceded by a Dec. 1 special, "Return to Downton Abbey." Hosted by Susan Sarandon, it will offer a look at past seasons and a peek at the one ahead.

As in the past, the drama's new season already is in progress on Britain's ITV. PBS has resisted timing the U.S. to the U.K. airings, saying the January debut works better for its schedule — a move that's allowed spoilers to cross the Atlantic.

But PBS relented with BBC's "Sherlock," which is scheduled closer to its yet-to-be announced British airing, Hoppe said.

Other returning U.K. dramas include "Call the Midwife" and "Mr. Selfridge" starring Jeremy Piven, both debuting Sunday, March 30, and "The Bletchley Circle" on April 13.

The busy Benedict Cumberbatch, whose current movies include "The Fifth Estate" and "12 Years a Slave," is part of another PBS program, "Hawking," a Jan. 29 documentary about British physicist Stephen Hawking as told by him. Cumberbatch, who played Hawking in a 2004 TV movie, is a friend of the scientist and appears in the film, Hoppe said.

A lineup of science and nature programming for April includes a three-part special with the working title "Inside Animal Minds," debuting April 9 on "Nova."

More midseason programs scheduled to air on public TV stations:

— "Salinger" (Jan. 21), an "American Masters" documentary about the late "The Catcher in the Rye" author J.D. Salinger that includes interviews with his friends and colleagues.

— "Barrymore" (Jan. 31), a "Great Performances" presentation of Christopher Plummer's stage performance as John Barrymore.

— "The Amish: Shunned" (Feb. 4), an "American Experience" documentary that follows seven former members of the Amish community as they adjust to a new life.

— "Story of the Jews" (March 25), a five-part series with historian and author Simon Schama examining the Jewish experience from ancient times to now.

— "Muscle Shoals" (April 21), an "Independent Lens" look at the fertile musical Alabama breeding ground, with the perspectives from Mick Jagger, Etta James, Clarence Carter and others.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cumberbatchs-sherlock-back-downton-151101915.html
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Kinder, Gentler Simon Cowell Spends the Day with Lauren Silverman

Looking quite the happy couple, Simon Cowell and Lauren Silverman headed out and about in Beverly Hills on Saturday (October 26).

The "American Idol" judge wore dark shirt and jeans as he carried his pregnant girlfriend's groceries back to their vehicle.

On Sunday morning, the British music producer took to Twitter to share his thoughts on "X Factor" and positivity.

Early in day, Simon began, "On Tuesday X factor USA returns. The first live show. We have some very special talent. And they all want to win. The stakes just got higher. On the uk X factor show I see three acts who will go on to sell records. A couple more if they dig deep can do the same."

After, he gushed, "So I feel proud of my team this week. The music side and the TV company. And I am excited for the artists competing. And like I say to my staff and artists never forget who makes everything possible...the people who watch our shows."

Finally, a much-sunnier Simon concluded, "Rambling a bit tonight. But calmly thinking good energy is a better feeling than hatred to others . The latter will eventually bite you."

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/simon-cowell/kinder-gentler-simon-cowell-spends-day-lauren-silverman-1063357
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From the Editor's Desk: Headed to SF for the Samsung devcon

From the Editor's Desk

So it's been a couple weeks since we last chatted. Thank the cold rains in London and the allergens in Florida for that, I suppose. But here we are, back again. And things are about to get crazy.

I'm on my way to San Francisco today for the inaugural Samsung Developers Conference. Android Central is the official community partner for the event. And seeing as how Samsung's doing something new (by throwing this little party in the first place), we figured we'd step up our game as well.

So you'll be getting live coverage from us Monday and Tuesday. That includes not only liveblogging the keynote — but we'll be streaming it online as well. Plus, we'll have three hours of live video coverage on top of that. We'll be doing a couple live podcasts, and interviews from the conference.

So join myself and Andrew Martonik. This is gonna be fun. It's all going down at www.androidcentral.com/sdc13.

A few other thoughts runnin' through my head ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/AVR6nnJOW7I/story01.htm
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Minneapolis confronts chaotic race for mayor

In this Sept. 18, 2013 photo, Minneapolis mayoral candidate, Captain Jack Sparrow holds up a poster for a proposal he has put forward for community ownership of an NFL football team. Sparrow, who initially showed up at campaign events in full pirate drag, is a self proclaimed "occupirate" who espouses Occupy Wall Street ideology. (AP Photo/Star Tribune,Jeff Wheeler)

In this undated 2013 frame from a campaign ad video that went viral, Minneapolis mayoral candidate Jeff Wagner, an airport baggage handler, emerges from a local lake in a swimsuit. Wagner calls himself a regualr guy who is trying to wake people up. (AP Photo/Wagner Campaign,HO)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The next mayor of Minneapolis might be one of two City Council members. It could be one of two former City Council presidents, or a former county commissioner. Or maybe it will be Captain Jack Sparrow. Or the hairy dude who comes striding out of a lake in an online campaign video, points at the camera and promises to stop visiting strip clubs if he's elected.

It's a weird and wide-open race for mayor this year in Minnesota's largest city.

With no incumbent on the ballot, an exceptionally low candidate filing fee of $20, and the city's continuing experiment with a novel voting system, the November general election has a whopping 35 contenders on the ballot.

"It's like mayor soup," said Katherine Milton, a Minneapolis voter and arts consultant who is one of many trying to figure out the city's "ranked choice" voting system. "It's like putting together a 5,000-piece puzzle."

The cluttered contest comes at an important moment for this city of 393,000, as its population has begun to shoot up after decades of decline. Popular outgoing Mayor R.T. Rybak made himself a high-profile booster-in-chief by luring young professionals and empty nesters with the city's dozens of parks and lakes, many miles of bike trails, thriving restaurant and nightlife scene, diverse cultural amenities, pro sports venues and legal gay marriage.

After 12 years, Rybak, 57, is calling it quits. That means the first serious test for ranked choice voting, which asks voters to pick a first, second and third choice for the job. Those selections come into play if no candidate gets more 50 percent of the first-choice votes, triggering a series of automatic runoff counts.

That's put the candidates in an unusual position.

"It's an unnatural act for a politician to ask to be somebody's second choice," said Mark Andrew, a Democratic former county commissioner who's among a handful of front-runners. "But if people tell me they are supporting someone else, then I ask to be their second choice."

That dynamic has even led to political opponents — gasp — saying nice things about each other. Betsy Hodges, a Democratic city councilwoman and another leading candidate, has had kind words for Don Samuels, a fellow councilman, and Cam Winton, a Prius-driving, gay-marriage supporting moderate Republican who hopes that ranked choice is his opening in this heavily Democratic city.

"They have shown integrity in this process, and if you vote for either of them you know you're getting what you voted for," said Hodges, hoping their supporters keep her in mind as a fallback choice.

Hodges and Andrew both said they frequently encounter voters who complain of not understanding the system, which was instituted in 2006 as a progressive reform that eliminates costly, low-turnout primaries and gives voters a wider selection of candidates.

The race features eight relatively conventional contenders who boast a wide range of experience in local politics. After that, things get freewheeling.

"I'm just a regular guy who is trying to wake people up," said Jeff Wagner, an airport baggage handler whose offbeat swimsuit video went viral.

Then there's the frequent but always unsuccessful candidate who will appear on the ballot as Bob "Again" Carney. And the aforementioned Captain Jack Sparrow, a self-proclaimed "occupirate" who espouses Occupy Wall Street ideology. Sparrow — it's his legal name — initially showed up at campaign events in full pirate drag, but he's lately taken to wearing business suits to be taken more seriously.

"Twenty bucks down and you too could be the mayor," said Casey Carl, the Minneapolis city clerk, who's proposing an increase to the lowball fee. Neighboring St. Paul, which also has ranked choice voting, has a $500 fee, and just four candidates for mayor this year.

A handful of other U.S. cities including San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., also employ ranked choice voting. It has had little impact in Minneapolis elections before this year, with Rybak's popularity making the also-rans moot.

Whoever comes out on top Nov. 5 will be faced with keeping up economic growth and managing property tax rates while addressing the problems of the public school system and the struggling north side, where the heaviest concentration of non-white residents live.

"I'm a little confused by it," said voter Carl Goldstein, a nonprofit executive who says he's trying to sort out the names and choices. "I think in theory it's a good method, but I don't know. I think we have to try it a few times and see if we like the results."

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-28-US-Minneapolis-Mayor/id-1441cfc681b94ca7b1a75c5156698352
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Sunday, October 27, 2013

Lou Reed, iconic punk poet, dead at 71

FILE - In this Sunday, Aug. 9, 2009 file photo, Lou Reed performs at the Lollapalooza music festival, in Chicago. Punk-poet, rock legend Lou Reed is dead of a liver-related ailment, his literary agen said Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. He was 71. (AP Photo/John Smierciak, File)

FILE - In a March 27 1989 file photo, musician Lou Reed poses at the American Sound Studio in New York. Reed's literary agent Andrew Wylie says the legendary musician died Sunday morning, Oct. 27, 2013 in Southampton, N.Y., of an ailment related to his recent liver transplant. He was 71. (AP Photo/Wyatt Counts, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 17, 1996 file photo, Lou Reed takes the podium as the Velvet Underground, the group he once headed, is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during a ceremony in New York s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Band mate John Cale is at left, and at right is Martha Morrison, accepting for late band member Sterling Morrison. Punk-poet, rock legend Lou Reed is dead of a liver-related ailment, his literary agen said Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. He was 71. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

FILE - In a June 13, 1986 file photo, Lou Reed performs during musical number at a benefit in Chicago, for Amnesty International. Reed's literary agent Andrew Wylie says the legendary musician died Sunday morning, Oct. 27, 2013 in Southampton, N.Y., of an ailment related to his recent liver transplant. He was 71. (AP Photo/Fred Jewell, File)

FILE - In a Wednesday, Jan. 17, 1996 file photo, members of the band the Velvet Underground, from left, Maureen Tucker; Martha Morrison, attending for her late husband, Sterling Morrison; John Cale and Lou Reed pose backstage after their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Punk-poet, rock legend Lou Reed is dead of a liver-related ailment, his literary agen said Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. He was 71. (AP Photo/Joe Tabacca, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Lou Reed was a pioneer for countless bands who didn't worry about their next hit single.

Reed, who died Sunday at age 71, radically challenged rock's founding promise of good times and public celebration. As leader of the Velvet Underground and as a solo artist, he was the father of indie rock, and an ancestor of punk, New Wave and the alternative rock movements of the 1970s, '80s and beyond. He influenced generations of musicians from David Bowie and R.E.M. to Talking Heads and Sonic Youth.

"The first Velvet Underground record sold 30,000 copies in the first five years," Brian Eno, who produced albums by Roxy Music and Talking Heads among others, once said. "I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!"

Reed and the Velvet Underground opened rock music to the avant-garde — to experimental theater, art, literature and film, from William Burroughs to Kurt Weill to Andy Warhol, Reed's early patron. Raised on doo-wop and Carl Perkins, Delmore Schwartz and the Beats, Reed helped shape the punk ethos of raw power, the alternative rock ethos of irony and droning music and the art-rock embrace of experimentation, whether the dual readings of Beat-influenced verse for "Murder Mystery," or, like a passage out of Burroughs' "Naked Lunch," the orgy of guns, drugs and oral sex on the Velvet Underground's 15-minute "Sister Ray."

Reed died in Southampton, N.Y., of an ailment related to his recent liver transplant, according to his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, who added that Reed had been in frail health for months. Reed shared a home in Southampton with his wife and fellow musician, Laurie Anderson, whom he married in 2008. Tributes to Reed came Sunday from such friends and admirers as Salman Rushdie and former Velvet Underground bandmate John Cale, who mourned his "school-yard buddy."

His trademarks were a monotone of surprising emotional range and power; slashing, grinding guitar; and lyrics that were complex, yet conversational, designed to make you feel as if Reed were seated next to you. Known for his cold stare and gaunt features, he was a cynic and a seeker who seemed to embody downtown Manhattan culture of the 1960s and '70s and was as essential a New York artist as Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen. Reed's New York was a jaded city of drag queens, drug addicts and violence, but it was also as wondrous as any Allen comedy, with so many of Reed's songs explorations of right and wrong and quests for transcendence.

He had one top 20 hit, "Walk On the Wild Side," and many other songs that became standards among his admirers, from "Heroin" and "Sweet Jane" to "Pale Blue Eyes" and "All Tomorrow's Parties." An outlaw in his early years, Reed would eventually perform at the White House, have his writing published in The New Yorker, be featured by PBS in an "American Masters" documentary and win a Grammy in 1999 for Best Long Form Music Video. The Velvet Underground was inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame in 1996 and their landmark debut album, "The Velvet Underground & Nico," was added to the Library of Congress' registry in 2006.

Reed called one song "Growing Up in Public" and his career was an ongoing exhibit of how any subject could be set to rock music — the death of a parent ("Standing On Ceremony), AIDS ("The Halloween Parade"), some favorite movies and plays ("Doin' the Things That We Want To"), racism ("I Want to be Black"), the electroshock therapy he received as a teen ("Kill Your Sons").

Reviewing Reed's 1989 topical album "New York," Village Voice critic Robert Christgau wrote that "the pleasure of the lyrics is mostly tone and delivery — plus the impulse they validate, their affirmation that you can write songs about this stuff. Protesting, elegizing, carping, waxing sarcastic, forcing jokes, stating facts, garbling what he just read in the Times, free-associating to doomsday, Lou carries on a New York conversation — all that's missing is a disquisition on real estate."

He was one of rock's archetypal tough guys, but he grew up middle class — an accountant's son raised on Long Island. Reed was born to be a suburban dropout. He hated school, loved rock 'n' roll, fought with his parents and attacked them in song for forcing him to undergo electroshock therapy as a supposed "cure" for being bisexual. "Families that live out in the suburbs often make each other cry," he later wrote.

His real break began in college. At Syracuse University, he studied under Schwartz, whom Reed would call the first "great man" he ever encountered. He credited Schwartz with making him want to become a writer and to express himself in the most concrete language possible. Reed honored his mentor in the song "My House," recounting how he connected with the spirit of the late, mad poet through a Ouija board. "Blazing stood the proud and regal name Delmore," he sang.

Reed moved to New York City after college and traveled in the pop and art worlds, working as a house songwriter at the low-budget Pickwick Records and putting in late hours in downtown clubs. One of his Pickwick songs, the dance parody "The Ostrich," was considered commercial enough to record. Fellow studio musicians included Cale, a Welsh-born viola player, with whom Reed soon performed in such makeshift groups as the Warlocks and the Primitives.

They were joined by a friend of Reed's from Syracuse, guitarist-bassist Sterling Morrison; and by an acquaintance of Morrison's, drummer Maureen Tucker, who tapped out simple, hypnotic rhythms while playing standing up. They renamed themselves the Velvet Underground after a Michael Leigh book about the sexual subculture. By the mid-1960s, they were rehearsing at Warhol's "Factory," a meeting ground of art, music, orgies, drug parties and screen tests for films that ended up being projected onto the band while it performed, part of what Warhol called the "Floating Plastic Inevitable."

"Warhol was the great catalyst," Reed told BOMB magazine in 1998. "It all revolved around him. It all happened very much because of him. He was like a swirl, and these things would come into being: Lo and behold multimedia. There it was. No one really thought about it, it was just fun."

Before the Velvets, references to drugs and sex were often brief and indirect, if only to ensure a chance at radio and television play. In 1967, the year of the Velvets' first album, the Rolling Stones were pressured to sing the title of their latest single as "Let's Spend Some Time Together" instead of "Let's Spend the Night Together" when they were performing on "The Ed Sullivan Show." The Doors fought with Sullivan over the word "higher" from "Light My Fire."

The Velvets said everything other bands were forbidden to say and some things other bands never imagined. Reed wrote some of rock's most explicit lyrics about drugs ("Heroin," ''Waiting for My Man"), sadomasochism ("Venus in Furs") and prostitution ("There She Goes Again"). His love songs were less stories of boy-meets-girl, than ambiguous studies of the heart, like the philosophical games of "Some Kinda Love" or the weary ballad "Pale Blue Eyes," an elegy for an old girlfriend and a confession to a post-breakup fling:

___

It was good what we did yesterday

And I'd do it once again

The fact that you are married

Only proves you're my best friend

But it's truly, truly a sin

___

Away from the Factory, the Velvets and were all too ahead of their time, getting tossed out of clubs or having audience members walk out. The mainstream press, still seeking a handle on the Beatles and the Stones, was thrown entirely by the Velvet Underground. The New York Times at first couldn't find the words, calling the Velvets "Warhol's jazz band" in a January 1966 story and "a combination of rock 'n roll and Egyptian belly-dance music" just days later. The Velvets' appearance in a Warhol film, "More Milk, Yvette," only added to the dismay of Times critic Bosley Crowther.

"Also on the bill is a performance by a group of rock 'n' roll singers called the Velvet Underground," Crowther wrote. "They bang away at their electronic equipment, while random movies are thrown on the screen in back of them. When will somebody ennoble Mr. Warhol with an above-ground movie called 'For Crying Out Loud'?"

At Warhol's suggestion, they performed and recorded with the sultry, German-born Nico, a "chanteuse" who sang lead on a handful of songs from their debut album. A storm cloud over 1967's Summer of Love, "The Velvet Underground & Nico" featured a now-iconic Warhol drawing of a (peelable) banana on the cover and proved an uncanny musical extension of Warhol's blank-faced aura. The Velvets juxtaposed childlike melodies with dry, affectless vocals on "Sunday Morning" and "Femme Fatale." On "Heroin," Cale's viola screeched and jumped behind Reed's obliterating junkie's journey, with his sacred vow, "Herrrrrr-o-in, it's my wife, and it's my life," and his cry into the void, "And I guess that I just don't know."

"'Heroin' is the Velvets' masterpiece — seven minutes of excruciating spiritual extremity," wrote critic Ellen Willis. "No other work of art I know about has made the junkie's experience so horrible, so powerful, so appealing; listening to 'Heroin' I feel simultaneously impelled to somehow save this man and to reach for the needle."

Reed made just three more albums with the Velvet Underground before leaving in 1970. Cale was pushed out by Reed in 1968 (they had a long history of animosity) and was replaced by Doug Yule. Their sound turned more accessible, and the final album with Reed, "Loaded," included two upbeat musical anthems, "Rock and Roll" and "Sweet Jane," in which Reed seemed to warn Velvets fans — and himself — that "there's even some evil mothers/Well they're gonna tell you that everything is just dirt."

He lived many lives in the '70s, initially moving back home and working at his father's office, then competing with Keith Richards as the rock star most likely to die. He binged on drugs and alcohol, gained weight, lost even more and was described by critic Lester Bangs as "so transcendently emaciated he had indeed become insectival." Reed simulated shooting heroin during concerts, cursed out journalists and once slugged David Bowie when Bowie suggested he clean up his life.

"Lou Reed is the guy that gave dignity and poetry and rock 'n' roll to smack, speed, homosexuality, sadomasochism, murder, misogyny, stumblebum passivity, and suicide," wrote Bangs, a dedicated fan and fearless detractor, "and then proceeded to belie all his achievements and return to the mire by turning the whole thing into a monumental bad joke with himself as the woozily insistent Henny Youngman in the center ring, mumbling punch lines that kept losing their punch."

His albums in the '70s were alternately praised as daring experiments or mocked as embarrassing failures, whether the ambitious song suite "Berlin" or the wholly experimental "Metal Machine Music," an hour of electronic feedback. But in the 1980s, he kicked drugs and released a series of acclaimed albums, including "The Blue Mask," ''Legendary Hearts" and "New Sensations."

He played some reunion shows with the Velvet Underground and in 1990 teamed with Cale for "Drella," a spare tribute to Warhol. He continued to receive strong reviews in the 1990s and after for such albums as "Set the Twilight Reeling." And "Ecstasy" and he continued to test new ground, whether a 2002 concept album about Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven," or a 2011 collaboration with Metallica, "Lulu."

Reed fancied dictionary language like "capricious" and "harridan," but he found special magic in the word "bells," sounding from above, "up in the sky," as he sang on the Velvets' "What Goes On." A personal favorite was the title track from a 1979 album, "The Bells." Over a foggy swirl of synthesizers and horns, suggesting a haunted house on skid row, Reed improvised a fairy tale about a stage actor who leaves work late at night and takes in a chiming, urban "Milky Way."

___

It was really not so cute

to play without a parachute

As he stood upon the ledge

Looking out, he thought he saw a brook

And he hollered, 'Look, there are the bells!'

And he sang out, 'Here come the bells!

Here come the bells! Here come the bells!

Here come the bells!'

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-27-Obit-Lou%20Reed/id-6716c629b45d41899675b697fc7d0e14
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Lou Reed, Beloved Contrarian, Dies

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American rock singer-songwriter Lou Reed performs at the Hammersmith Odeon in London in 1975. He is playing a transparent, plexiglass guitar. Reed died Sunday at the age of 71.

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Reed and Nico perform with Velvet Underground in 1972.

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Reed, Mick Jagger and David Bowie share a joke at a party at Cafe Royal thrown by Bowie in 1973.

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Reed performs at the Regent Theater in Melbourne, Australia, in 2000.

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Maureen Tucker, Martha Morrison (wife of Sterling Morrison), John Cale and Lou Reed pose for photographers shortly after The Velvet Underground was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Jan. 17, 1995.

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Reed performs his album Berlin at the CCH Congress Center in Hamburg in 2008.

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Reed presents his photography exhibition at the Matadero cultural center in Madrid on Nov. 16, 2012.

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Reed attends an event for the photography book Transformer, by Mick Rock, in New York City on Oct. 3.

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One of rock's most beloved and contrarian figures has died. Lou Reed epitomized New York City's artistic underbelly in the 1970s, with his songs about hookers and junkies. He was 71.

Reed died Sunday morning on Long Island of complications from a liver transplant earlier this year, his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, said.

The famous iconoclast actually got his start as a staff songwriter pumping out pop tunes in a wannabe hit factory called Pickwick Records. Reed recalled his days as a frothy pop lyricist in a 1989 NPR interview.

"When I first started out I really liked the spontaneity of it, cause you know I've got a B.A. in English — not that that means I should be good at it, but it gives me some kind of background in it," he said. "I thought I was pretty fast."

Lou Reed was fast. In more ways than one. He went from hit factory to Andy Warhol's Factory, the epicenter of trashy, avant-garde experimentation in '60s New York. Warhol mentored Reed and his band, The Velvet Underground. He urged them to keep things gritty. The band's Welsh co-founder, John Cale, told NPR in 2000 that the band was never easy listening.

"We were not user-friendly at all," he says. "Anyone listening to a bass guitar and regular guitar coming out of the same amp — it couldn't have been a really great listening experience."

Beyond their sound, The Velvet Underground disturbed even hard-core scenesters with graphic songs about debauchery and doing drugs. In an interview on WHYY's Fresh Air, drummer Moe Tucker remembered performing the song "Heroin": "We got fired from the Cafe Bizarre," she said. "The woman came rushing up to us and said, 'If you play one more song like that you're fired.' "

They did, and they were, and the band's albums did not sell very well. Reed left and embarked on a spotty solo career that reflected his up and down life enthralled with New York's darker corners and the hustlers who hid there.

"Walk on the Wild Side" became Reed's only Top 40 hit, partly because a number of radio station programmers had no idea what it was really about. The album it came from, Transformer — co-produced by David Bowie — brought Reed critical acclaim and attention. Which Reed, in characteristic fashion, hated. That played out in interviews, including one in 1989 with NPR's Bob Edwards, who asked Reed about his choice of subjects.

"I mean, it might be harder to write about a chair," he said. "As a matter of fact, it would be harder to write about a chair. I mean, I could write a song about a chair: Who sat in this chair. Who built this chair. How long had this chair been here. You could do that."

And a few years later, while promoting his album The Raven, Reed vented to another NPR host, who wanted to know how other journalists had somehow mixed up Reed's original lyrics with the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.

"Well, if you're deaf, dumb and retarded, it's easy. I can't believe people interview me for this stuff and don't notice," he says. "I grade them and I put them on my website when they fail really badly, to warn other people, other musicians: 'Watch out for this interviewer.' It's like talking to a squirrel."

As ornery as Reed was with journalists, he was often supportive of other artists. He influenced REM, The Replacements and Talking Heads, and he collaborated with musicians ranging from Metallica to a young woman he met at a concert.

"I just said, 'Hey, hey Lou Reed. This is Emily Haines.' " Haines talked to NPR in 2012 about her band, Metric. She said Reed asked her if she would rather be in The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. She said The Velvet Underground. Then she asked if he would sing on her album. "I just asked him, and he said, 'Yes.' "

When Reed was not onstage or working with other artists, he was happiest in New York City, where he mellowed into a Lower Manhattan elder statesman, riding his bike, practicing tai chi and taking photos. He could get cranky about his own composition.

"I did not place that stupid bird there," he said in an interview he gave Weekend Edition in 2006, walking around his neighborhood with his camera. "The light comes and goes so quickly when it's perfect. You know that. There's a certain time in the morning, certain time around dusk, where the light is golden."

An ephemeral moment, like Warhol's Factory. Or a city sunset. "And I wanted to catch that," he said. Lou Reed caught it — on celluloid and vinyl.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/10/27/240819314/lou-reed-beloved-contrarian-has-died?ft=1&f=1001
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Foursquare PreCheck-In Wins The First Ever Disrupt Europe Hackathon, Teleapp And Colorful Gift Place Second And Third

TechCrunch Disrupt Europe’s first-ever hackathon has just concluded, and the judges have crowned a winner. There were 91 companies presenting hacks at this year’s inaugural event, and 24 hours after they sat down and started hacking, the teams stood up on stage and ran through 60-second demos of what they built.

Our panel of judges evaluated their efforts, and awarded them with three top prizes based on the merits of each. Here’s who walked away with the big prizes.

Winner: Foursquare PreCheck-In

Foursquare PreCheck-In Wins The First Ever Disrupt Europe Hackathon, Teleapp And Colorful Gift Place Second And Third

Foursquare PreCheck-In allows people to express their intent to visit places before they even go. That can make it easier to plan trips with friends, and it can allow businesses to offer up services and products to potential customers in advance to help encourage them to actually go through with their visit and deliver better customer service.

The video of their one minute on-stage demo is above; below, you can see our conversation with them backstage after they were announced as the Hackathon winners.

Foursquare PreCheck-In Wins The First Ever Disrupt Europe Hackathon, Teleapp And Colorful Gift Place Second And Third

Runner-Up #1: Teleapp

Foursquare PreCheck-In Wins The First Ever Disrupt Europe Hackathon, Teleapp And Colorful Gift Place Second And Third

This is a Google Chrome browser extension that intelligently combs web pages for App Store links and then pushes that out to a user’s phone so they can download the app directly. Saves an email or a message, and is probably a handy tool for tech bloggers like myself.

Runner-Up #2: A Colorful Gift

Foursquare PreCheck-In Wins The First Ever Disrupt Europe Hackathon, Teleapp And Colorful Gift Place Second And Third

An app that allows couples getting married to crowdsource their honeymoons, collecting payment from family and friends to pay for their trip, in a gamified, playful way.

Each of the winners gets to present their hacks during the main show at Disrupt Europe 2013, which kicks off on Monday, and the grand prize winner gets $5,000 for the team. Everyone who presented gets two free tickets to Disrupt, and sponsors have offered up a number of prizes to different teams, too. Sponsors this time around included Box, ChallengePost, CrunchBase, T-Mobile, Foursquare, Lufthansa, Mashery, Paymill, Xing, Yammer, Interoute, Nexmo, Watchmi and Weather Underground.

Our judges for the event were Deutsche Telekom hub:raum incubator founder Peter Borchers; Microsoft Developer Platform Evangelist Anika Klauss; SoundCloud VP of Engineering Alexander Grosse; and GetYourGuide CEO and co-founder Johannes Reck.

As a bonus, check out where the many participants hailed from at this year’s show, broken down by country.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/xWMm2FK_OvI/
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Wilde and Sudeikis expecting first child

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis are expecting their first child.

Wilde's publicist, Joy Fehily, confirmed the news on Sunday. This will be the first child for both actors.

The baby news was first reported by People.com.

The couple became engaged in January. This will be the second marriage for both actors. Wilde's divorce from documentarian Tao Ruspoli was finalized in 2011. Sudeikis and "Pitch Perfect" screenwriter Kay Cannon divorced in 2010.

Wilde, 29, is known for her roles on TV's "House M.D." and in films like "Tron: Legacy" and "Cowboys & Aliens." She recently appeared in Ron Howard's "Rush." Sudeikis, 38, rose to fame while starring on "Saturday Night Live." His latest film was "We're the Millers" with Jennifer Aniston.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wilde-sudeikis-expecting-first-child-002719912.html
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White House Turns To 'Rock Star' Manager For Obamacare Fix

Jeffrey Zients, then the acting budget director, testifies on Capitol Hill on Aug. 1, 2012, before the House Armed Services Committee.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Jeffrey Zients isn't exactly a household name. But if he can cure what ails the Affordable Care Act website, he'll be one of the best-known figures in the Obama administration.

Zients (rhymes with Heinz) is the professional manager President Obama turned to in order to solve the by-now-infamous problems with the federal government's Obamacare website.

Zients was settling into his job as the head of Obama's National Economic Council when the president tapped him to help rescue the health exchange website. The 46-year old is known as a brainy problem-solver with a knack for cutting through bureaucratic knots.

It was Zients, for instance, who Obama turned to at an earlier point to unstick the "Cash for Clunkers" initiative. That 2009-2010 federal effort to lift auto sales out of the doldrums by underwriting dealer rebates to car buyers had stalled when the computer systems were overwhelmed with requests. Zients is credited with overseeing that fix.

Zients performed a similar managerial feat to break a bottleneck on GI Bill benefits for post-9/11 vets.

"Jeff Zients is a rock star," said Vivek Kundra, who served as the Obama administration's chief information officer from 2009 to 2011. "He has an amazing ability to convene the right people, to be pragmatic about problem solving and to focus the energy of the administration on execution. He can close the gap between the theoretical and the ability to actually deliver something meaningful."

Besides being the Obama administration's chief performance officer during the first term, Zients served two stints as acting director of the Office of Management and Budget.

His OMB experience gave him plenty of experience testifying before Congress. That should come in handy since he's likely to find himself planted for hours on end at the many hearings Congress promises to have on the Obamacare website problems.

Fred Malek, long-time Republican fundraiser, adviser to presidents, corporate chieftain and Zients fan said: "I think he's very well suited for the job. Look, he's not a technology expert but that's not what you need. You have a lot of technology experts being imported to help with this fix.

"What you need is somebody who can manage a team, lead a team, figure out what the most important aspects of things are and drive them toward a positive result," Malek said.

"Jeff is a very good CEO. He works very well with people. He's highly analytical but at the same time has a very nice personal touch which enables him to get buy-in to what he wants to do, to get followership and to get people moving in the right direction" said Malek. "He understands the world of business. He understands the world of government. He knows enough about technology. But above and beyond everything else, he's just a damn good manager."

That said, here are few more things to know about Zients:

He and Malek led an investor group (that included Colin Powell) that got Major League Baseball to agree to return a team to Washington. But in one of Zients' few high-profile failures, the MLB awarded the franchise to another group. Still, Malek credits Zients with getting city officials in Washington, DC on board the effort, something Malek hadn't been able to achieve before Zients joined.

He honed his management chops early and hasn't let them dull. Shortly after graduating from Duke University (summa cum laude, of course, in political science) he became a management consultant, eventually holding the chief executive officer's job and other top posts at two firms that provided corporate clients with research and management advice.

He had a supersized payday when the companies went public. In 2002, Fortune estimated his wealth at $149 million, which placed him 25th on their list of the richest Americans then under 40.

His mother, Debbie Zients, thinks the world of him, telling USA Today that he "has a lot of brains up there but he's very caring and very compassionate."

(Revised at 6:08 pm.)

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/10/23/240283860/white-house-turns-to-rock-star-manager-for-obamacare-fix?ft=1&f=1001
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