Category: News

The official introduction of the Sony NEX-3 and NEX-5 (APS-C) interchangeable-lens cameras rocked the photography world last week with its slick design, thin exterior and light weight. How can it not be droolworthy when the first version packs so much power in practically the same (body) size as a point and shoot camera? The feedback to Sony’s new camera system was overwhelmingly positive, and many found the NEX system to be better in specifications and appearance than competing interchangeable-lens cameras from Samsung, Panasonic and Olympus.

After the smoke clears from the excitement of a new product announcement, it is inevitable that questions start to arise. One of the most important questions is – what type of lens are available for the NEX cameras?

This camera uses E-mount lens, which is an entirely new system – its important to note that Sony will offer a E-mount to A-mount converting adapter, which allows you to use your previous A-mount lenses with this new camera. This is a huge sigh of relief for many of you photographers out there who have expensive lenses and were worried that they would have to reinvest their money in a whole new system. The hit won’t be so big with this adapter. Here is a picture of the adapter (LA-EA1), which includes a detachable tripod attachment:

Now that we got that out of the way, lets take a look at the official first generation NEX lenses and attachments:

Here’s the 16mm Wide-Angle Lens (SEL16F28). Stylishly designed to match the camera, it’s a portable and versatile lens that’s perfect for both movies and photos. It’s light, compact and easy to carry. This lens has smooth, quiet AF operation and you can expect exceptional low-light performance.

Next we have the 18-55mm Zoom Lens (SEL1855). This is great zoom lens for everything from scenic photos to snapshots and formal portraits. The SEL1855 excels in shooting at slower shutter speeds. We’re also impressed with the fact that its one of the first lenses to have built-in Optical SteadyShot image stabilization, which was usually a feature found in a camera, not the lens.

Don’t think Sony would launch a new camera system without a 11x Telephoto Zoom Lens (SEL18200). It’s a wide-range zoom that covers virtually all shooting situations and features performance optimized for movie capture as well. The lens is light, compact and easy to carry and has smooth and quiet operation. There’s also an advanced Active Mode for steadier movie shooting.

The high quality and sleek designed E-mount Ultra Wide Converter (VCL-ECU1) offers excellent depth of field and exaggerated perspective, instantly expanding your photographic horizons. It attaches easily and securely to the front of the lens and is designed for use with the SEL16F28.

The high quality and sleek designed E-mount Fisheye Converter (VCL-ECF1) captures dynamic dramatic images with curvilinear distortion, exaggerated perspective and extreme depth of field. It attaches easily and securely to the front of the lens and is designed for use with the SEL16F28.

By Phil Mattera, Dirt Diggers Digest

The catastrophic Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 gave rise to the modern corporate social
responsibility movement; the current spill in the Gulf of Mexico marks
its collapse.

The past two decades have been an experiment in corporate behavior
modification. An array of well-intentioned organizations such as CERES
promoted the idea that large companies could be made to do the right
thing by getting them to sign voluntary codes of conduct and adopt other
seemingly enlightened policies on environmental and social issues.

At first there was resistance, but big business soon realized the
advantages of projecting an ethical image: So much so that corporate
social responsibility (known widely as CSR) is now used as a selling
point by many firms. Chevron, for example, has an ad campaign with the
tagline “Will You Join Us” that is apparently meant to convey the idea
that the oil giant is in the vanguard of efforts to save the earth.

What also made CSR appealing to corporations was the recognition that
it could serve as a buffer against aggressive regulation. While CSR
proponents in the non-profit sector were usually not pursuing a
deregulatory agenda, the image of companies’ agreeing to act virtuously
conveyed the message that strong government intervention was
unnecessary. CSR thus dovetails with the efforts of corporations and
their allies to undermine formal oversight of business activities. This
is what General Electric was up to when it ran its Ecoimagination ads while lobbying to weaken
air pollution rules governing the locomotives it makes.

Recent events put into question the meaning of a commitment to CSR.
The company at the center of the Gulf oil disaster, BP, has long
promoted itself as being socially responsible. A decade ago it adopted a sunburst logo,
acknowledged that global warming was a problem and claimed to be going “beyond petroleum” by investing (modestly) in renewable energy sources. What did all that social responsibility mean if the company could
still, as the emerging evidence suggests, cut corners on safety in one
of its riskiest activities — deepwater drilling? And how responsible is it
for BP to join with rig owner Transocean and contractor Halliburton in
pointing fingers at one another in an apparent attempt to diffuse
liability?

BP is hardly unique in violating its self-professed “high standards.” This year has also
seen the moral implosion of Toyota, another darling of the CSR world.
It was only months after the Prius producer was chosen for Ethisphere’s list
of “the world’s most ethical companies” that it came to light that
Toyota had failed to notify regulators or the public about its defective
gas pedals.

Goldman Sachs, widely despised these days for unscrupulous behavior
during the financial meltdown, was a CSR pioneer in the investment banking world. In 2005 it
was the first Wall Street firm to adopt a comprehensive environmental
policy (after being pressured by groups such as Rainforest Action
Network), and it established a think tank called the Center for
Environmental Markets.

Even Massey Energy, which has remained defiant in the
face of charges that a preoccupation with profit over safety led to the
deaths of 29 coal miners in a recent explosion, publishes an annual CSR report.

When the members of a corporate rogues’ gallery such as this all
profess to be practitioners of CSR, the concept loses much of its
legitimacy. The best that can be said is that these companies may behave
well in some respects while screwing up royally in others — the way that
Wal-Mart is supposedly in the forefront of environmental reform while
retaining its Neanderthal labor relations policies. Selective ethics,
however, should be no more tolerable for corporations than it is for
people.

Heaven forbid that we violate the free speech rights of CSR
hypocrites, but there should be some mechanism — perhaps
truth-in-image-advertising laws — to curb the ability of corporations to
go on deceiving the public.

New RealtyTrac numbers show that in April there were well over 300,000 foreclosures and the figure in on track to be higher in 2010 than in 2009. Several research firms say that underwater mortgages have moved above 11 million.

The National Association of Realtors found that “in the first quarter, 91 out of 152 metropolitan statistical areas showed higher median existing single-family home prices in comparison with the first quarter of 2009.” But some cities posted double-digit drops for the period.

See the markets that have no chance of recovery ->

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the NAR data for the first quarter along with Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment levels by city. The two databases should match one another very well. Each has municipalities defined by metropolitan statistics areas (SMA) as set by the US Office of Management and Budget in 2004.

City unemployment rates are compared to a 9.9% national rate for purposes of this article. Government numbers for joblessness do not include part-time workers looking for full-time jobs or people who have become “unattached” from the work force. These additions would bring the national unemployment rate to 17.1%. That means that if a city has unemployment of 14%, joblessness could be closer to 21%

Home prices were based on NAR indexes for the first quarter of 2010 compared with the full-year 2007, near the top of the housing market.

There are some areas where housing prices have dropped but unemployment has improved, so home values may recover.  Honolulu is an example of this. But, most cities with sharp drops in home values are also the hardest hit by the recession’s impact on employment. These areas may take years to get back to “normal” unemployment rates of 5%. In the meantime, home prices will continue to stagnate, or worse, continue to fall because of a lack of buyers.

These are the thirteen cities where, based on home values in 2007 and current unemployment, housing will never return to the levels of three years ago.

13. Providence, RI. Home prices down 27% and unemployment is 13.2%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

12. Las Vegas, NV. Housing prices are down 51% and unemployment is 13.8%

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

11. Rockford, IL. Housing prices are down 16% and unemployment is 17.9%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

10. Boise City, ID. Housing prices are down 34% and unemployment is 9.9%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

9. Toledo, OH. Housing prices are down 30% and unemployment is 13%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

8. Reno, NV. Housing prices are down 44% and unemployment is 13.3%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

7. Grand Rapids, MI. Housing prices are down 30% and unemployment is 14.3%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

6. Fort Meyers, FL. Housing prices are down 65% and unemployment is 14.2%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

5. Orlando, FL. Housing prices down 49% and unemployment is 15%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

4. Sacramento, CA. Housing prices down 47% and unemployment is 17.5%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

3. Palm Coast, FL. Housing prices down 63% and unemployment is 16%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

2. Lansing, MI. Housing prices are off 38% and unemployment is 11.8%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

1. Riverside, CA. Housing prices are down 52% and unemployment is at 18%

Image: Wikimedia

Source: 24/7 Wall Street

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Join the conversation about this story »

Amonix invests in solar manufacturing capacity in Nevada.  …

…   “Amonix announced that plans to use $5.9 million of a $9.5 million investment tax credit from the Recovery Act’s Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit awarded in 2010 to establish a new manufacturing facility in Southern Nevada are well underway, and that the facility will be open by the end of 2010.

When fully operational, the facility will have an annual production capacity of 150 MW of CPV solar systems and employ 278 people in management, technical and production jobs. ”   …

Via Amonix: CPV Nevada Plant.

Amonix designs and manufactures concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar power systems that require less water, use land better, and produce more energy per acre than any other solar technology.  Amonix is headquartered in Seal Beach, California. with expanded manufacturing facilities planned for Nevada and Arizona.

Just a day before voters cast their ballots, a new poll out by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling for the Pennsylvania 12th District predicts that the special election for the late Representative John Murtha’s House seat is going to come down to the wire, and voters are saying they’re unhappy with the status quo in Washington.

“It looks like this will be an extremely close race on Tuesday night,” says Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “With both parties very unpopular in the district it will be difficult for either to claim much of a mandate based on the results.”

The poll surveys 831 likely voters and finds Republican Tim Burns is leading Democrat Mark Critz 48 – 47 percent, with a margin of error of 3.4 percent.

“If Burns does pull out the victory on Tuesday night it will be more because of a continuing gap in interest between Democratic and Republican voters in the off year election than anything else,” said Debnam.

Debnam also notes, “This race is not an example of people who voted for Obama who are now unhappy with him and voting Republican.”

“Critz is actually winning over more McCain voters (14%) than Burns is Obama voters (12%).

The poll also found some numbers that should could be bad news for politicians inside the Capital Beltway. It shows that politicians in leadership positions on both sides of the aisle aren’t high on anyone’s list in this race.

Fifty-five percent of voters in the district disapprove of President Obama and 63 percent have an unfavorable opinion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. However, Republicans don’t fare much better in the district with 60 percent of voters expressing a negative opinion of congressional Republicans and 63 percent say the GOP ran the country poorly under President George W. Bush.

Approve or disapprove of President Barack Obama’s job performance?

55% …. Disapprove

35% …. Approve

Have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?

63% …. Unfavorable

23% …. Favorable

Approve or Disapprove of the job Democrats are doing in Congress?

60% …. Disapprove

29% …. Approve

Approve of Disapprove of the job Republicans are doing in Congress?

60% …. Disapprove

20% …. Approve

Back in 2006, the Pension Protection Act instituted a new requirement: that all non-profits need to file a 990-N annual return with the Internal Revenue Service in order to retain their tax-exempt status. Before then, non-profits with annual revenues less than $25,000 did not need to file papers.

Small, non-religious non-profits that have not filed a tax exemption since 2007 lose their status today. And the Urban Institute estimates there might be up to 365,000 of them. Those organizations will need to file papers, pay a fine and possibly pay back taxes. The Urban Institute has created an online map where people can input their zip codes to see charities in their neighborhoods that might be impacted. (There were more than 100 in my neighborhood alone.) The think tank and other groups, such as National Council of Nonprofits, are urging non-profits to file today. The IRS has indicated it might provide some lenience, but expects non-profits to comply with the new law.

Next time I run a contest on CrunchGear, I am definitely not going to commit to selecting a random winner. The submissions for our National Photo Month contest were great! They were clever, artistic, and truly enjoyable. You guys outdid yourselves, and I really wish I could reward everyone who entered with a prize. But alas, I committed to selecting three random winners.

The booq Boa Flow camera bag goes to commenter Jay, for the photo of his camera bag!

The Joby GorillaPod goes to Jsarrafi, who submitted this photo to our email address!

And the lensbaby Composer lens goes to Alan Brandon, who submitted his photo via Twitter!

Really, though, you guys outdid yourselves. The quality and creativity of the submissions completely blew me away. Here are a couple of my personal favorites for your viewing pleasure.

Mary’s bag:

Ansel hates his bag!

Eric’s bag:

Raymond’s bag:

Gregory’s bag:

Kevin’s tripod:

Ricky’s tripod:

Daniel made up some wonderful stories to accompany his photos, which were a lot of fun to read.

The tripod decided it’s going to cross the street. All the major intersections in Salt Lake have flags that pedestrians are supposed to wave to make them better targets…I mean more visible to cars.

Ketaki’s tripod:

Georges’ tripod:

Palak’s lens:

Doug’s lens:

David’s lens:

Carson’s lens:

Michael didn’t care what he won. I wish I could have rewarded him and his dog Chewbacca. Maybe next time, guys!

Max Roper didn’t seem to read the contest instructions at all!

Once again, let me say that everyone who submitted went all out, and I’m really grateful for your efforts. Looking at photo after photo of bags and tripods and lenses wasn’t exactly something to look forward to, but you all made it a blast. It was also a treat to see people getting their friends and families involved in this!

Stay tuned: we have more stuff to give away soon, and you’ll definitely need to bring your A game the next time!

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Chega ao fim a 8ª edição do Tuning World Bodensee, o maior evento de tuning da Europa e que no final dele uma rainha do tuning é eleita. Esse ano, a vencedora foi Kristin Zippel de Mering, que vence o título de Miss e será a sucessora de Martina Ivezaj, a Miss Tuning do ano anterior.

Kristin Zippel tem 26 anos de idade e se superou, entre mais de 500 participantes, conseguiu receber o título que manterá até o próximo ano, sem falar nos outros prêmios que recebeu, como um Nissan Micra e a participação de um ensaio fotográfico na região dos Grandes Lagos, que fica na América do Norte, e aparecer no calendário Miss Tuning 2011.

A segunda colocada no evento foi Jennifer Ziegener aus Kleinmachnow e a terceira colocada foi Irena Then aus Düsseldorf. Confiram as fotos de todas as participantes a seguir.

Participantes do evento

Via | Mais Tuning

Astronomers have found a bloated, massive galaxy that may be a record-breaker: the most massive galaxy in the near Universe. The mass isn’t exactly clear, but it may be 13 trillion times the mass of the Sun!^* That’s easily twenty times the mass of the Milky Way!

Here’s the guilty party:

OOoo, purty. Click to record-breakingly-massively embiggen.

That’s an image from the 8-meter Gemini South telescope in Chile, and it shows the cluster Abell 3827, a 1.4 billion-light-year-distant collection of hundreds of galaxies all bound together by their own gravity. It’s a pretty rich cluster as they go. Many like it have one big galaxy in the core, called the central dominant galaxy (or sometimes cD for short), and it’s usually a few times bigger than any other galaxy in the cluster.

In the case of Abell 3827, though, the cD — called ESO 146-IG 005 — is out of control. The Milky Way is considered a big galaxy, and has maybe 400 billion times the mass of the Sun in total, but 146-IG is hugely bigger, swollen and ginormous. It’s far more massive than any other galaxy we’ve seen out to that distance. That glow you see in the center of the cluster is just from 146-IG all by its lone self, and it dominates the entire core of the cluster.

So how do we know this, and how did it get so big?

How it got this way is clear from a close-up of the galaxy itself, shown on the right. As you can see, the galaxy has more than one nucleus! In this zoom, there are two foreground stars marked with an S, so you can ignore those. The other five objects are all galaxy cores, which to an astronomer is like a smoking gun: ESO 146-IG 005 has been very busy lately, eating other, smaller galaxies. Yup. It’s a cannibal.

We have seen this countless times. Heck, the Milky Way is in the final stages of devouring several smaller galaxies, but in our case the process is almost complete. The nuclei of galaxies are hard to digest, so to speak: the stars are tightly bound to the core by their gravity, so it’s hard for the larger galaxy to absorb them all. It takes time. 146-IG clearly has been gulping down a lot of the other cluster members, and this is why it’s so massive. We think that most large galaxies in the Universe grew to their present size by eating other galaxies.

So we know it’s massive. But how do we know how massive?

Take a look at that zoom picture again. See that little arc of light to the lower left? That is a gravitational lens, an image of a distant galaxy whose light has been distorted by the gravity from 146-IG. When light passes near a massive object, its path gets bent, like a car driving on a curved, banked road. The mass of the intervening galaxy acts like a lens, hence the term, and it can have all sorts of weird effects on the light.

The amount of distortion depends on lots of things, including the mass of the lensing galaxy, in this case 146-IG. There are other lensed background galaxies in the image as well, and the astronomers used those to get the mass of 146-IG. However, it’s not all that straightforward; it’s hard to separate out the mass of the galaxy from the cluster itself, and from gas and such inside the cluster that may not be part of the central galaxy. So all we get is an estimate.

Worse, the astronomers used a second method to find the galaxy mass, and got a much different amount. Gas inside a cluster gets heated as it moves around and falls to the center. The amount of heating (measured by looking at the X-rays emitted by the extremely hot gas) depends on the mass of the cluster, and can be used to estimate how much stuff is there. The astronomers found an “X-ray mass” only a tenth of the mass found using the gravitational lens method. There could be any number of reasons this could happen: the models for the gas assume it’s spherical and smooth when it may be neither, for example.

But either way, ESO 146-IG 005 is still one of if not the most massive galaxy in the nearby cosmos. It’s much larger than our own galaxy, by a comfortable amount. In the case of our galaxy, we ran out of smaller galaxies to eat, whereas 146-IG is basically still standing in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open.

It makes me glad the Milky Way is nowhere near that cluster. Sure, we got to our present size by eating other galaxies, but the time of unrestrained gluttony is in the past, and that’s good. It would make our neighborhood something less than the calm, peaceful place it is now. Having undigested galactic nuclei flying around, quadrillions of tons of gas and dust sloshing hither and yon, and all that million degree X-ray emitting gas sitting out there… that can’t be good for property values.

Filed under: GM, Earnings/Financials

General Motors has just posted its first quarterly profit in three years, and it’s not exactly chump change. The General just announced it managed to rake in a net income of $865 million during the first quarter of 2010. According to The Detroit News, the change in direction is thanks largely to GM’s rebound here in North America. The company’s domestic operation pulled down a $1.2 billion profit for the first three months of the year thanks to a slimmer debt load and the sale of Saab to Spyker. During the fourth-quarter of 2009, GM posted a $3.4 billion loss.

Likewise, things are looking up internationally. The Detroit-based automaker also returned a $1.2 billion profit from its global efforts as well. That marks a $500 million increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2009. This is all good news for those eying when the fresh-from-bankruptcy manufacturer will start selling stock once again. Currently, GM is shooting for an IPO late this year or early in 2011. Tax payers and investors can’t wait. Hit the jump for the press release.

[Source: General Motors, The Detroit News | Image: Scott Olson/Getty]

Continue reading GM earns $865M first quarter profit, first in three years

GM earns $865M first quarter profit, first in three years originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 17 May 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a radical overhaul—or even fully functional, since it’s missing search and QR codes—but Google’s Android Market site is definitely more pleasant and navigable than before. [Android] More »










Android Market – Google – Android – Handhelds – Searching

BP Managing Director Bob Dudley discusses containment plans and liability costs:

Hot Topics

Gulf oil spill | Global warming | Green cars

Last Friday, the National Rifle Association held its annual gathering in Charlotte, N.C., where ThinkProgress asked a number of participants whether the Second Amendment should extend to folks currently on the country’s terrorist watch list. (Under current law, it does.) The responses are a clear indication that, at least on this thorny issue, gun owners are more than ready to take on NRA leadership.

Video after the jump:

Virtual Toys has already released VT Tennis into the App Store and DSiWare, but come May 26th, it’s the PlayStation Store’s turn to get this one as a minis download.

YouTube has been doing a lot of celebrating lately — of the 5-year anniversary of the purchase of its URL back in February, then in April, of the first video uploaded to the site. Now the online video site is celebrating the launch of its first beta version in May 2005 with the announcement of some significant milestones.

YouTube streams more than 2 billion videos a day, with a full day’s worth of video — 24 hours — uploaded to the site every minute, according to a post on the YouTube blog today. Meanwhile, its partner ad revenue tripled last year, and it now monetizes over a billion video streams per week worldwide.

All that momentum has gotten YouTube (finally!) on the brink of profitability, with analysts saying they expect the site to actually make money for the first time in 2010. According to research from Citi earlier this year, YouTube is expected to pull in about $945 million in 2010, with revenues forecast at $1.1 billion next year. That’s not bad for a video site that just a few years ago was best known for stupid pet tricks and pirated video.

To celebrate the five-year milestone, YouTube launched a page featuring some of its most successful and recognizable contributors — like Tay Zonday and Ryan Higa — talking about their YouTube experience during the first five years of the site’s existence. YouTube is also asking its users to upload their own videos about how YouTube has affected their lives.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: TV Apps: From Novelty to Mainstream (subscription required)

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[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] 7-2 in United States v. Comstock [Cornell LII backgrounder] that mentally ill sex offenders may be civilly committed beyond their prison sentences. The court upheld the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act [18 USC s. 4248 text], which allows a district court to order the civil commitment of a mentally ill, sexually dangerous federal prisoner beyond the date he would otherwise be released. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss proceedings, holding that section 4248 exceeded Congress’s powers under the Commerce Clause [Cornell LII backgrounder], that the “clear and convincing” requirement did not meet due process standards, and that the statute violated the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments of the US Constitution. The court reversed and remanded the Fourth Circuit’s decision, stating that the Necessary and Proper Clause [text] grants Congress sufficient authority to pass such laws. In delivering the opinion of the court, Justice Stephen Breyer stated that several considerations were used to compel the court’s decision.

We take these five considerations together. They include: (1) the breadth of the Necessary and Proper Clause, (2) the long history of federal involvement in this arena, (3) the sound reasons for the statute’s enactment in light of the Government’s custodial interest in safeguarding the public from dangers posed by those in federal custody, (4) the statute’s accommodation of state interests, and (5) the statute’s narrow scope. Taken together, these considerations lead us to conclude that the statute is a “necessary and proper” means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned, and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned but who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others. The Constitution consequently authorizes Congress to enact the statute.

Justice Anthony Kennedy concurred in the judgment only, joined by Justice Samuel Alito. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia.

US Solicitor General and recent Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan [official profile; JURIST news archive] defended the law [JURIST report] in January stating that it was necessary to protect individuals from people who have the kind of mental illness that is going to cause grave danger to the community. She stated that the federal government is in the best position to prevent this kind of danger, and therefore has a duty to act as a federal custodian. While some of the justices were skeptical of Kagan’s position, the majority of the court agreed with her assertion in its opinion. The court did not reach or decide any claim that the statute or its application denies equal protection, procedural or substantive due process, or any other constitutional rights.

Watch your back, Biebs! Greyson Chance has landed a recording contract with Interscope Records just one week after the 12-year-old Oklahoma singing sensation captured the affection of tween girls nationwide with his cover of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi.”

Chance made his first television appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last Friday, and Lady Gaga tore herself away from selecting kooky attire for the day to call in with some words of encouragement for the “Little Monster.” Industry tattles say that Interscope were anxious to close the deal before any other label got the chance to meet the young star.

An official announcement is expected sometime in the next few weeks.