Author: Serkadis

Friday afternoon in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, First Lady Michelle Obama donned pink to honor the millions of women and families affected by breast cancer. Speaking to a crowd of survivors, lawmakers, and doctors, the First Lady highlighted the importance of adequate health coverage for those facing the disease. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and these women deserve to battle their disease without the worry of their insurance companies letting them down:

And this is a disease, as we know, that affects not just those diagnosed with it, and not just those who’ve survived it and those who’ve lost their lives to it, but it is a disease that also affects those who love and know them — which these days seems like almost every single person in this country. 

That’s why it is so critically important that we finally reform our health care system that is causing so much heartache for so many people affected by this disease.  Now is the time. 

Fortunately, that’s exactly what the plans being considered by Congress right now would do.  

So just to be clear, under these plans, if you already have insurance that works for you, then you’re all set.  You can keep your insurance and you can keep your doctors. 

The plans put in place some basic rules of the road to protect you from abuses and unfair practices by insurance companies.  That would mean no more denying coverage to people like women we heard from today because of so-called preexisting conditions like having survived cancer.  (Applause.)  Because there’s a belief that if you’ve already fought cancer, you shouldn’t have to also fight with insurance companies to get the coverage that you need at a price that you can afford.  (Applause.)  

These plans mean insurance companies will no longer be allowed to cap the amount of coverage that you can get, and will limit how much insurance companies can charge you for out-of-pocket expenses, because in this country, getting sick shouldn’t mean going bankrupt.  (Applause.)    

And finally, these plans will require insurance companies to cover basic preventative care — from routine checkups, to mammograms, to pap smears — at no extra charge to you.  And though I want to emphasize that in the end, as we all know, it’s our responsibility as women to also talk to our doctors about what screenings that we need and then make the appointments to get those screenings, even when it’s inconvenient or maybe a little bit uncomfortable.  It’s something that we owe not just to ourselves but to the people that love us.  

What happens when you pull off a Night Elf Huntress rush and see it fall apart before your eyes? You get a counter rush in the form of an Undead ghoul rush of course. What to you do?

You run.

You run back to your base and hope your micro can save your failed onslaught and hopefully win you the game. Which was what happened.

The videos of me and my friend duking it out in Echo Isles in a Warcraft 3: The Frozen throne 1.24b after the jump.

Amazon’s infamous “one-click” patent is quite often rolled out as an example of how ridiculous our patent system has become. At times, even Jeff Bezos has indicated he realizes this… and yet, the company still keeps on fighting for control over the “one click” concept. In the US, the patent is still involved in a re-exam, but up in Canada, the patent was rejected this summer, along with a rejection of pretty much all software/business model patents in Canada — saying that without specific new laws from the government, such things would be considered unpatentable in Canada. Michael Geist points out that Amazon, rather than leaving well enough alone, is appealing the rejection in Canada.

I have to admit that I don’t understand why Amazon is fighting for this patent any more. The management there has to realize that this patent is case study #1 in the problems of the patent system. And, while it did try to enforce the patent against Barnes & Noble in the past, as far as I’m aware, it hasn’t bothered to enforce the patent against anyone else in many years (anyone have any info to the contrary?). Continuing to fight for this patent in both the US and Canada doesn’t seem to add any value whatsoever to Amazon, but just highlights how the company appears to be abusing the patent system with ridiculous patents.

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Cross-posted from the Department of Transportation’s Fast Lane blog.

This is the final week of the GreenGov Challenge, and I urge everyone to view some of the remarkable sustainability ideas submitted thus far by government and military employees.

And for those readers who are government or military employees, I urge you to share your suggestions. Though nearly 6,000 have been submitted thus far, that good idea in your mind right now could rewrite the way the Federal government reduces energy use, conserves water, reduces waste, and supports clean technology.

SolarWinds (NYSE: SWI), an Austin, Texas-based provider of network management software for the SMB/SME market, has filed to sell 11.5 million shares via a secondary public offering. The company itself would sell 1.5 million shares, while the remainder would be offered by existing backers like Insight Venture Partners (approx. 2.5 million shares), Bain Capital Ventures (2m) and Austin Ventures (276k). Each selling shareholder would retain an equity position in SolarWinds.

SolarWinds stock closed Friday at $19.84 per share, compared to a May IPO price of $12.50 per share. www.solarwinds.com

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Real, and available to pre-order. I refer to that BlackBerry wristwatch that was rumored for so, so long till it was “made official” several days ago. Created by Allerta (and not RIM), the watch, officially named the inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry, will set you back $150 when it’s released in February, 2010.

Ares Capital Corp. (Nasdaq: ARCC) has agreed to acquire Allied Capital Corp. (NYSE: ALD). The all-stock deal is valued at $648 million, or approximately $3.47 per Allied share (27.38% premium to Friday’s closing price).

PRESS RELEASE

Ares Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: ARCC) and Allied Capital Corporation (NYSE: ALD) announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Ares Capital will acquire Allied Capital in an all stock transaction currently valued at $648 million, or approximately $3.47 per Allied Capital share. This represents a 27.3% premium to Allied Capital’s closing stock price on Friday, October 23, 2009. The Boards of Directors of both companies have each unanimously approved the transaction.

Under the terms of the transaction, Allied Capital stockholders will receive 0.325 Ares Capital shares for each Allied Capital share, resulting in approximately 58.3 million Ares Capital shares being issued in exchange for the approximately 179.4 million outstanding Allied Capital shares. Following the transaction, Ares Capital stockholders will own approximately 65% of the combined company and Allied Capital stockholders will own approximately 35%. The combined company will remain externally managed by Ares Capital Management LLC, an affiliate of Ares Management LLC and will remain headquartered in New York. Bennett Rosenthal, Michael Arougheti and Richard Davis will remain in their current roles as Ares Capital’s Chairman, President and Chief Financial Officer, respectively. It is expected that one member of Allied Capital’s Board will be nominated to serve on Ares Capital’s Board.

Consummation of the acquisition is subject to Allied Capital stockholder approval, Ares Capital stockholder approval, customary regulatory approvals, certain Ares Capital and Allied Capital lender consents and other closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2010.

“We believe this transaction presents an extraordinary opportunity for value creation for both Ares Capital and Allied Capital stockholders,” commented Michael Arougheti, President of Ares Capital. “This transformative transaction creates a middle-market capital provider with leading market coverage, access to capital, scale and diversification. We believe that our portfolio composition and prudent balance sheet management throughout the current cycle have positioned us to deliver value for our stockholders and to be an industry consolidator.”

“We are excited to have entered into this mutually beneficial combination with Ares Capital,” commented John Scheurer, Chief Executive Officer of Allied Capital. “Our stockholders should benefit through resumed receipt of dividends and ownership in a company with a stronger balance sheet and proven access to the capital markets. Through this transaction we expect to create a stronger company that is well positioned for future growth in a market which presents tremendous investment opportunities.”

Ares Capital expects to reposition Allied Capital’s portfolio into higher yielding assets and to seek to lower its financing costs. Ares Capital believes that it will be in a position to provide additional capital for portfolio company growth in order to optimize portfolio returns while mitigating the need for asset divestitures. Ares Capital expects the transaction to be accretive to both its net asset value and its core earnings per share in the first year. At closing, Ares Capital expects the combined company’s debt to equity ratio to be in a range of 0.65x to 0.75x.

The combined company had a pro forma investment portfolio at fair value of $4.5 billion as of June 30, 2009. Ares Capital believes that a balance sheet of this size will allow the combined company to commit greater amounts of capital in a single transaction, which should drive higher fee income and greater control over portfolio composition. This transaction also meaningfully expands the breadth of Ares Capital’s relationship network, particularly within the private equity community.

The acquisition would also significantly strengthen Ares Capital’s middle-market asset management platform, Ivy Hill Asset Management, L.P.. The acquisition will result in a platform with approximately $5.6 billion in committed capital under management and investments in a significant number of portfolio companies. Ares Capital believes that the size and breadth of Ivy Hill’s platform provides a robust source for new balance sheet investment opportunities and unique market insight.

In a separate transaction, Ares Capital has reached an agreement to acquire Allied Capital’s interests in its Senior Secured Loan Fund LLC (the “SL Fund,” formerly known as the Unitranche Fund) for $165 million in cash. With approximately $3.6 billion of committed capital, the SL Fund was formed in December 2007 to invest in “unitranche” securities of middle-market companies. The SL Fund currently holds unitranche loans totaling approximately $900 million. The SL Fund acquisition is expected to close by the end of October and is subject to completion of final documentation and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. Upon closing, Ares Capital and its SL Fund partner expect to utilize the SL Fund to make new commitments to future unitranche transactions.

J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. served as financial advisor to Ares Capital and delivered a fairness opinion to the Ares Capital Board with respect to the acquisition of Allied Capital by Ares Capital. J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. also served as financial advisor to Ares Capital with respect to the acquisition of the interests in the SL Fund. Proskauer Rose LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP, Venable LLP and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP served as Ares Capital’s legal counsel in connection with the Allied Capital acquisition. BofA Merrill Lynch served as financial advisor to Allied Capital and delivered a fairness opinion to the Allied Capital Board and Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP served as Allied Capital’s legal counsel. Sullivan & Cromwell LLP served as legal counsel to the Allied Capital Board. Sandler O’Neill & Partners delivered a fairness opinion to the Allied Capital Board with respect to the acquisition by Ares Capital.

CONFERENCE CALL INFORMATION

Ares Capital and Allied Capital will be holding a joint conference call to discuss the transaction on November 5, 2009 at 11:00 am EST following Ares Capital’s regularly scheduled third quarter earnings conference call. A presentation outlining the transaction will be posted on the home page of the Investor Resources section of Ares Capital’s website on November 5, 2009.

ABOUT ARES CAPITAL CORPORATION

Ares Capital Corporation is a specialty finance company that provides integrated debt and equity financing solutions to U.S. middle-market companies. Ares Capital Corporation invests primarily in first- and second-lien loans and mezzanine debt, which in some cases includes an equity component. To a lesser extent, Ares Capital Corporation also makes equity investments. Ares Capital Corporation is externally managed by Ares Capital Management LLC, an affiliate of Ares Management LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor and alternative asset investment management firm with approximately $30.0 billion of committed capital under management as of September 30, 2009. Ares Capital Corporation is a closed-end, non-diversified management investment company that has elected to be regulated as a Business Development Company under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

ABOUT ALLIED CAPITAL

Allied Capital (NYSE: ALD) is a business development company (BDC) that is regulated under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Allied Capital invests long-term debt and equity capital in middle-market businesses nationwide. Founded in 1958 and operating as a public company since 1960, Allied Capital has been investing in the U.S. entrepreneurial economy for 50 years. Allied Capital has a diverse portfolio of investments in 92 companies across a variety of industries. For more information, please visit
www.alliedcapital.com

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Because we run a huge dating site—OkCupid, which is free—and we studied math together, Chris and I like to sit in a circle (a line, really) and look at your data. Normally the data is pertinent and leads to revealing studies of human interaction, like our last post about how race plays a big […]

On the same morning that Verizon announced the availability of Wi-Fi packing BlackBerry Storm2, Sprint has come out and announced that the Wi-Fi lacking Palm Pixi will go on sale in just under three weeks time. Available from November 15th and onwards in stores, online, over the phone and through retailers like Best Buy, RadioShack and select Wal-Marts, the Palm Pixi will set early adopters back $99.99 on contract after factoring in $150 worth of instant and mail-in rebates. If you ask us, it’s a lot of money to ask for what it offers considering the iPhone 3G can be for the same price (oh, boo and hiss all you like) and the flaghship Pre is only $50 more. And did we mention no Wi-Fi?

Read

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Today, Palm announced that the Pixi, the company’s second webOS device and slimmer, lighter-weight cousin to the Pre, will be available for the holiday season on November 15 exclusively through Sprint.

With a 2.63″ multi-touchscreen, 8 GB of internal memory, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, a 2 megapixel LED flash camera, and integrated GPS, the Pixi lightens up on many of the Pre’s specs (smaller screen, slower processor) and eliminates the Wi-Fi radio entirely.

The Pixi will be available for $99 after rebates and with a two-year service contract, landing it on the sub-$100 tier which proves vital in stimulating consumer interest.

As fans of Palm have already pointed out, on the day that Pixi was announced in September, the Pre dropped to $149.99, putting only $50 between Palm’s upper and lower tiers after subsidies and rebates.

However, this tight pricing scheme likely means that a new high-end device is on its way, and that the Pre is actually destined to be the company’s midrange handset. As Palm CEO Jon Rubenstein said in September, webOS will be the only operating system the company supports from now on, and there has not yet been a replacement for the Treo Pro, Palm’s final Windows Mobile device and last flagship device up for replacement.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

 

If you think about it, you’ll probably only need to hang your flat panel TV on the wall once. Maybe twice. Maybe three times if you really move around a lot, like in the middle of the night when you hear a knock on your door and thank god you slept in your clothes because there’s only enough time to put on a pair of Velcro shoes and grab your 40-inch TV.

Basically what I’m saying is if you want your one-time TV hanging experience to be as smooth as possible or if you have a habit of bolting down fire escapes in the middle of the night, then Samsung’s recently-unveiled 3.3 millimeter thick 40-inch LED TV might be right up your alley.

There’s not a whole lot of info other than that the TV contains a 40-inch, 120Hz panel, a total thickness of just 3.3 millimeters, and a contrast ratio of 5000:1 – pricing and availability (and weight) are unknown, although Akihabara reports that Samsung is looking to get the TV on the market as soon as possible.

[via Akihabara]

The personnel push-and-pull between tech companies is always interesting to watch; who goes where can be a sign of how insiders are placing their bets.  And more than bragging rights appear to be at stake as Josh Elman, who used to work for Facebook, has joined Twitter.

We’re not saying that Elman’s move signals the end of Facebook, of course.  It’s just that he was an important fellow at the company.  Elman served as the Facebook Platform’s program manager and led the launch of Facebook Connect, so he may deserve a lot of credit for establishing Facebook’s relationships with other sites.

That also means that Elman has a lot of experience with apps, and they’ve obviously become key to Twitter.

As for the years before Elman worked for Facebook, he spent time at Zazzle (two years and eight months), LinkedIn (one year and seven months), and RealNetworks (six years and one month), which is an impressive enough bunch of companies.  Elman attended Stanford University, too.

Anyway, a hat tip goes to Louis Gray, and Jeremiah Owyang commented on his article, "What a smart move for Twitter.  Josh is a standup guy, knows his stuff, and will do a great job at Twitter."

Related Articles:

> Misleading Ad: Twitter is Hiring

> Twitter Adds New Exec Talent

> Twitter Obtains Lead Lawyer From Google

John Fenderson was the first of a few of you to send in a link (via Slashdot) to the story of how SPARC, the computer architecture company owned by Sun, is threatening SparkFun over trademark infringement claims. SparkFun is an electronics shop, which sells components and kits and the like. The two are pretty different. This whole situation apparently was “sparked” (heh heh) when SparkFun applied for its own trademark, at which point SPARC sought to block the trademark application. From there, they went on to sending a cease & desist. The folks at SparkFun do a nice job breaking down why the two marks are entirely different, and why even Sun employees seem to have no trouble understanding the difference between the two. This seems like yet another case of overly aggressive trademark enforcement, just because some lawyers feel the need to oppose anything that might conceivably be considered even close to similar.

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The cost of health insurance could hinder President Obama’s goal of achieving universal coverage.

“The high cost of health insurance premiums would continue to put coverage out of reach for millions even if Congress approves legislation President Obama says is intended to ensure ‘that every American has affordable health care,’” USA Today reports. “The number of people who remain uninsured will depend on how House and Senate leaders reconcile separate versions of health care legislation to arrive at a final bill. The factors include the size of government subsidies to help low-income families pay for insurance and the scope of penalties that would be charged for those who don’t buy a plan.” According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis, 17 million Americans would remain uninsured under the Senate Finance Committee’s 10-year, $829 billion health care bill,” including many “families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to pay for insurance. Others who could remain uninsured under the Finance Committee bill include people who choose to pay a proposed $750-a-year fine rather than buy coverage and those who are eligible for Medicaid but don’t enroll” (Fritze, 10/26).

The Washington Post reports that “the question of whether people will follow a government order that they carry health insurance — an issue that will help determine whether universal health care is a success or costly failure — will depend on more than the penalty they would pay for refusing, many economists say. This, they say, is the lesson of behavioral economics, a school of thought that holds that people do not necessarily make decisions out of well-reasoned self-interest. It is an approach that has gained a powerful foothold in the Obama White House.”

Behavioral economists say that “compliance will depend not only on the penalties and cost of coverage, but also on the ease of signing up for coverage and whether people can be persuaded that it is a widely accepted social norm. They point to the large number of eligible people who fail to take advantage of Medicaid, food stamps and Pell grants as a sign that perceived inconvenience can keep people from taking steps in their economic interest” (MacGillis, 10/26).

TomTom’s iPhone car dock is now available from the U.S. Apple Store for $120 with a shipping time of 2 to 3 weeks. You’ll recall that the actual TomTom iPhone app runs for $100 on top of that.

Aside from secure windshield docking, the kit also includes a secondary built-in GPS chip for “a truly reliable signal – even in high-rise urban areas,” according to the product description. There’s also a built-in speaker and microphone for hands free calling and a 3.5mm audio out connector that allows you to feed it directly into your car stereo’s audio-in jack.

TomTom Car Kit for iPhone [Apple Store via SlashGear]

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In Q3, Uncle Sam was the green IT king maker. Read the, “Green IT Q3 Wrap-up.”

If you want to wear your BlackBerry, your chance will come sometime next February. Allerta is producing the inPulse Smartwatch for BlackBerry. The company is working with RIM on the smartwatch and they have started taking pre-orders. The first BlackBerry watch will ship in February and it’s priced at $149. The inPulse Smartwatch features a 1.3 inch OLED dispaly, glass lens, full metal body, vibrating motor, microUSB port and a rechargeable battery that lasts for four days of normal use.

Interesting device, but is it practical? Let us know if you’d wear your BlackBerry? To pre-order, visit getinPulse.com.

[via Engadget]

Kaiser Health News staff writer Jenny Gold reports on issues related to using gender to set rates for large businesses. “Insurers say women under the age of 55 cost more to cover because they use more health services, and not just for maternal and infant care. But Bettinazzi, the president and CEO of Visiting Nurse Association of Indiana County, believes there’s something inherently wrong in charging her company more because it hires a lot of women” (10/25). Read the entire story.

In a story done by Kaiser Health News in collaboration with USA Today, KHN staff writer Phil Galewitz reports on a hospital in Tulsa, Okla. “An hour into knee replacement surgery — with U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For playing in the background — Dr. Yogesh Mittal smiles as he raises the left leg of his patient, 76-year-old Frank Morrow. While holding Morrow’s thigh, the surgeon lets the bottom half of the leg fall. ‘Look at that,’ he says, pointing to the wide range of motion permitted by the metallic-colored implant. ‘He’s going to love this new knee.’ Medicare, the government program that is paying for Morrow’s surgery, likes it, too (10/26). Read the entire story. Watch the related video.