Category: News

  • Goldman: The REITs Rally Just Died And Commodity Stocks Were Creamed As Well

    Wow, these industry performance tables from a Goldman ‘Wavefront Market Monitor’ piece show how the REITs rally was put to an end lately. Office and retail REITs fell last week, underperforming the S&P 500 (SPX):

    Chart

    Note that commodities related industries such as steel and mining were creamed as well.

    Now contrast the above table vs. the three month performance table below. Residential REITs are the top performer in the 3-month chart below, but aren’t even on the map for performance in the chart above. Also, office and retail REITs weren’t doing so badly before. Thus there’s been a big relative performance change for the REITs space.

    In fact, overall Industry performance over the last three months (below) has changed a lot in the most recent week (above).

    Chart

    Join the conversation about this story »

  • Square Enix announces DLC packs for Just Cause 2

    It ain’t over yet for Agent Rico Rodriguez Square Enix has just announced two incoming DLC packs for your strike against Panau. Extra extra, read all about it.

  • Samsung’s Bada-powered Wave coming in June, Not April

    Is the world ready for yet another smartphone platform? Probably not – but it’s got until June to get prepped. According to Samsung, that’s when they’ll be launching the Wave, their first phone to be powered by Bada.

    The good word comes after a handful of UK retailers started promising that Wave pre-orders would be filled in the next few weeks, implying that the handset would drop in April or May. Check out Samsung’s statement after the jump.

    The comment from a Samsung Spokesperson, which was sent to TechRadar this morning: “The Samsung Wave is not currently available for sale in the UK, but we look forward to its launch in June 2010, at which time details of tariffs and stockists will be released by our operator partners.”

    So what do you think? Are you dying to ride the Wave?

    [Via SamsungHub]


  • Fly Into a Star Nest [Space]

    This is a picture of the majestic Carina Nebula—a cool hydrogen and dust titan in the Milky Way Galaxy—as captured by Hubble. NASA has turned it into a 3D volumetric model, allowing you to fly right in: More »







  • Oprah Mobile: You Get an App, You Get an App!

    Harpo Studios has announced the release of the brand new Oprah Mobile app aimed at hardcore fans of the daytime giant.  For a one-time $1.99 charge users can keep up with just about every aspect of Oprah, from the talk show to her magazine and twitter account. Users can enjoy video clips, vote in polls, listen to audio, and order tickets to the final season.  Oprah Mobile also provides instant help in locating the local channel and time(s) for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” based on their location.  Download the app out of the Android Market today!

    Might We Suggest…

    • Heathrow Celebrates Resumed Flights with Android App
      Heathrow Airport is celebrating their resumed flights this week with the announcement of Heathrow Airport Guide for Android handsets.  As the official app for the United Kingdom’s largest airport, thi…


  • 2face Idibia to hit Washington DC

    2Face, a contemporary Nigerian artist, will be performing live at The Days Inn Gateway in Washington DC.  A very popular artist with a string of international music awards, he usually performs with such energy that his audience is usually brought to their feet with rousing applause.

    2Face

    2Face

    Born Innocent Ujuba Idibia, he started his music career in a group he co-founded called the Plantashun Boyz.  Popularly known as Two-Baba in Nigeria, he has built up a solid repetoire of songs and racked up a notable list of awards including:

    • MTV Europe Awards 2005 – Best African Act
    • MOBO Awards 2005 – Best African Act (Nominated)
    • MOBO Awards 2007 – Best African Act (Won)
    • Channel O Music Video Awards 2005 – Best Male Video and Best African Video (both for “African Queen”)[
    • KORA Awards 2005 – Revelation of the Year
    • Hip Hop World Awards 2006 – Special Recognition Award
    • 2006 Channel O Music Video Awards – Best African Pop (”Ole“)
    • 2006 Channel O Music Video Awards – Best African West (”Ole“)
    • Nigeria Entertainment Awards 2006 – Special Recognition Award. Nigeria Breakthrough Artist of the Year
    • Nigerian Music Awards 2008 – Album of the Year and R&B Song of the Year (Won)
    • World Music Awards 2008 – Best Nigerian Act (Won)
    • MTV Africa Music Awards 2009 – Best R&B
    • MTV Africa Music Awards 2009 – Artist of the Year & Best Male & Best Video (”Enter the Place“) (nominated)

    In addition to making an impact internationally, his song “African Queen” (probably one of the most over-played songs in the history of African contemporary songs), was used in the soundtrack for the movie “Phat Girlz“.  He is also one of the singers in a song  that was produced for the 2010 World Cup to be held in South Africa later this year.

    Other artists that will be performing include Laj, Tonestar, Kunzo, Certified Bangers, and Viper.

    Location: The Days Inn Gateway, 2700 New York Ave NE, Washington DC 20002
    Price: $25 In advance; $50 VIP
    For more Information: 240 784 0975

  • Beijing 2010: Ford Start concept

    Filed under: , , ,

    Ford Start Concept – Click above for high-res image gallery

    As we were checking out the new Ford Start concept at the Beijing Motor Show, we ran into the head of Ford’s advanced studio in California, Freeman Thomas, and the mini car’s lead exterior designer, Jeff Nield.

    According to Nield, he wanted to create a vehicle that retained elements of Ford’s “Kinetic Design” language while at the same time create something more subdued, able to stand apart from the noise surrounding the show. Thus the Start has a cleaner simpler shape that’s slightly more serious than past concepts. Nield mentioned the Mini and how it’s always had a cute, happy demeanor about it. He wanted to create something different – a thing of beauty injected with very natural, organic elements.

    Thomas explained that the designers wanted to experiment with a hybrid construction consisting of a mix of aluminum, high strenght steel and composites. This allowed the creation of a very open, airy cockpit, with thin pillars for good visibility, while also providing occupants a feeling of safety with the high belt line.

    One of the more interesting interior details is the monorail front seat tracks that have the thrones on a central pedestal, thus increasing foot room for rear passengers. There are no production plans for any of this right now, but some of the ideas could shine a light on where to go next – and that turbocharged 1.0-liter three-cylinder is definitely finding its way to market.

    Photos by Sam Abuelsamid / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

    Beijing 2010: Ford Start concept originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Why We Need an Open “Like” Standard

    Mark Zuckerberg in his keynote at Facebook’s f8 conference this week did his best to convince attendees that the launch of “social plugins” powering a billion or more “Like” buttons across the web was the best thing that could ever happen to the Internet. Not everyone was sold on the idea, however. To some, it sounded like a company that wanted to get its proprietary hooks into every corner of the web and suck users’ activity data back to the mothership. That’s fine for Facebook, of course, but not so fine for anyone else who’s interested in that information, and doesn’t want to have to go to Zuckerberg on bended knee and ask for it.

    Chris Dixon, co-founder of Hunch, is one of those people. So while Zuckerberg was announcing Facebook’s ambitious plans, Dixon and some like-minded programmers were cooking up their own launch: an open-source standard for recommendations called Open Like. The idea behind the project, which is still in its embryonic stages, is that websites and services would be able to federate recommendations or “likes” by adopting a uniform standard for the data. In the same way that OAuth (which Facebook is now supporting) is an open standard for sharing user information, and OpenID is an open standard for logging into websites and services, Open Like would allow anyone who adopts the standard to make use of recommendation data.

    “I feel like everyone is falling asleep while Facebook and Twitter are taking over,” Dixon said in a phone interview. “I love Facebook and Twitter — I think I’m even an investor in Twitter through some venture funds I’m a shareholder in — but I just think it’s a bad thing for the web. What if HTTP or SMTP were owned by one company?” What Facebook is trying to do with its open graph protocol might be good for Facebook, the Hunch co-founder says, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for anyone else. “They’re acting in their economic interests — there’s nothing evil about it,” he says. “But people who think that it’s some kind of move towards being open are just naive.”

    It’s worth pointing out that Facebook’s attempt to aggregate and understand the “semantic web” is a direct threat to Dixon’s Hunch, which is also trying to extract meaning from the behavior of users online, whether through Twitter or some other social network. And Dixon says he doesn’t want to be in charge of the Open Like venture in part because there’s a perception of conflict given his interest in Hunch (which he co-founded with Flickr creator Caterina Fake). But that doesn’t mean having an open standard for recommendations and related behavior isn’t a good thing, because it undoubtedly is, in the same way that having OAuth and OpenID are good for the web as a whole.

    Even calling what Facebook has launched an “open graph protocol” is misleading, according to Dixon. “It doesn’t open anything, except for Facebook. It’s basically a system for tagging pages so that Facebook can understand them.” Just as Google has an open operating system in Android but keeps a lock on its search and ad algorithms, he says, Facebook is only being partly open. “If it’s open, then why can’t I download the whole social graph? I can get it piecemeal, but not the whole thing. These companies make noises about being open, but they aren’t where it counts.” Wikipedia, he notes, lets users download the software that powers it, along with all the content, and create their own version of Wikipedia if they want.

    It isn’t so much that he is anti-Facebook, Dixon says, as he is pro-open. Why? Because that’s what spurs innovation. Some might argue that the “Like” system Facebook is implementing isn’t really that important — and certainly not as important as HTTP — but in the social web, knowing all about someone’s interests and behavior around those interests is an incredibly powerful set of data. “I don’t think their ultimate goal is nefarious,” says Dixon. “I just think it hurts innovation to have this kind of thing controlled by any one company.”

    The Hunch co-founder says he is currently looking for an “open advocate” — possibly even Google — to take over the Open Like initiative. Would Google be interested? The idea certainly seems to have caught the interest of Chris Messina, an open standards advocate who is now working for the search company. Messina mentioned the Open Like effort approvingly in a post about Facebook’s social graph, in which he says:

    When all likes lead to Facebook, and liking requires a Facebook account, and Facebook gets to hoard all of the metadata and likes around the interactions between people and content, it depletes the ecosystem of potential and chaos — those attributes which make the technology industry so interesting and competitive.

    Messina added that he’s “looking forward to what efforts like OpenLike might do to tip back the scales, and bring the potential and value of such simple and meaningful interactions to other social identity providers across the web.” Indeed, that’s something we should all have an interest in.

    Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

    Can Developers Help LinkedIn Learn to Have Fun?

    Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Stuck in Customs

  • SB 1070….Not Your Average Bill

    UPDATE
    We have just been told that the Governor will announce her plans in a press conference this afternoon about 6 miles from her office at the Arizona State Capitol.

    About 10 feet from my computer sits a massive brick of a radio truck, that when the side of it opens, reveals a stage. Owned by a local hispanic station here in Phoenix, the truck has become the rallying point for the thousand or so who have gathered on the front lawn of the Arizona State Capitol. Between chanting “Si Se Puede” (Yes we can) and U-S-A, the protestors hears from a variety of speakers. Mayors, locals, radio DJ’s, all are in opposition to SB1070, the proposed crackdown on illegal immigration that now sits on Governor Jan Brewer’s desk.

    The bill would make it a state crime for illegal immigrants to not have an alien registration document, require police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants, prosecute those who knowingly harbor illegals, among other provisions.

    The bill passed here by state representatives back on April 19 and if Brewer doesn’t sign it by midnight Saturday Night, the bill becomes law anyway. Most observers on either side of this issue agree that her action will be groundbreaking whether or not the bill passes, possibly changing the political climate here in the Grand Canyon State and across the country.

    President Obama said today this bill is partly the result of Congress’ fail to action, he condemned it and hinted the feds might step in and are going to monitor it closely if it passes. Will this legislation have the dire economic and social consequences predicted as some have predicted? Will it hurt the Republican Party here, or bolster their power? These questions will soon be answered. What do you think?

    Meantime, we’ve been told by Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman that Brewer’s Office has half a dozen people answering the calls at all times. Due to budget battles and other issues in the last year, the phone lines are always lit up…but this case has taken the lead with calls coming in from all over the country. So far he believes the majority of those calling are asking Brewer to veto the bill.

    While some fear this new bill if approved could be used for racial profiling, especially for the numerous Latino immigrants living in the state, the state legislature disagreed. Those who voted in favor said in a press release posted on the website of Arizona State Legislature, “the new bill a new way to protect churches, community organizations and civil rights.”
    “The Bill gives our local police officers the tools they need to combat illegal immigration, while protecting the civil rights of citizens and legal residents.”

    The passing of the SB1070 bill comes in the wake of the murder of local rancher Robert Krentz who was allegedly killed It is alleged Krentz, 58, was killed after a confrontation with illegal immigrants in a potential case of drug carter scout, theft or retaliation.

  • First Full Face Transplant–Jaw, Nose, Teeth, Etc–Declared a Success | 80beats

    full-face-transplantA hospital in Barcelona has announced that it has successfully carried out the world’s first full face transplant.

    A team of 30 doctors conducted a 24-hour surgery on the patient who had lost most of his face in an accident; in the end the surgeons gave him new jaws, cheekbones, nose, teeth, skin, and other features.

    The patient now has a completely new face from his hairline down and only one visible scar, which looks like a wrinkle running across his neck, said Dr. Joan Pere Barret, the surgeon who led the team [Associated Press]. She added that if you ran into the patient at the hospital now, you would not notice anything unusual.

    This is the first time that doctors have performed a total facial transplant. Over the past few years, partial facial reconstructions have been performed on ten patients, including on an American woman who suffered an unspecified trauma and a Chinese farmer whose face was mauled by a bear. All the patients were put on a strict regime of immunosuppressant drugs after surgery to ensure that their bodies didn’t reject the transplanted bones, muscles, and skin, and were also given psychiatric counseling.

    The current Spanish patient is reportedly a farmer in his 30s who accidentally shot himself in the face in 2005. Prior to the face transplant, he had to breathe and be fed through tubes. After looking at himself in the mirror, post-surgery, he is said to be happy with his new visage.

    Related Content:
    80beats:First American Face Transplant Is Successful (So Far)
    80beats: Bear Attack Victim Gets Successful Face Transplant
    80beats: Woman Gets Transplanted Windpipe That Was Grown in Her Arm
    Discoblog: Organ Transplants Gone Horribly Awry
    DISCOVER: How Do Transplant Patients Wind Up With Killer Organs?

    Image: Valle d’hebron Hospital


  • Hitting the jackpots at MGM Mirage …

    When you walk into a casino, you should pretty much count on leaving some money behind — everyone knows the odds usually favor the house. But shouldn’t casino-company investors expect something different?

    Maybe not at MGM Mirage (soon to be renamed MGM Resorts International), to judge from its latest preliminary proxy filing.

    Let’s face it, 2009 wasn’t a good year for MGM Mirage, or for its shareholders: Revenue fell 17%, and MGM’s net loss widened to $1.3 billion from $855 million. Counting dividends, MGM shares handed in an abysmal total return of -33.7%, trailing the S&P 500 by 57 points and other resorts and casinos by more than 5 points. 2008 wasn’t pretty either.

    Nonetheless, the champagne seems to have flowed a little faster, and the disco balls glittered more brightly, in the executive suite.

    Chairman and Chief Executive James J. Murren saw his total compensation for 2009 jump to $13.75 million, from $4 million in 2008 and $6.6 million in 2007. Much of that came in the form of stock appreciation rights and options ($7.1 million), but he also got $3.4 million in cash incentive pay, a $500,000 bonus, and a $500,000 raise (bringing his salary to $2 million a year).

    At this rate, the worse MGM does, the better Murren seems to do: By our calculation, Murren personally pocketed the equivalent of about 1.1% of the company’s losses last year — $1 for every $93.93 MGM lost. By contrast, in 2008, his total pay worked out to just under half of 1% of net losses. Other top execs saw their compensation rise sharply as well, by as much as 36%.

    The pay came under a new contract that took effect in April 2009, just four months after he took the CEO’s job, and the bonus came “in recognition of their efforts relating to the financing of CityCenter” — the sprawling and troubled complex jointly developed by MGM and Dubai World — “as well as executing capital raising transactions that improved the Company’s financial position.”

    Nor does Murren stand to suffer much if shareholders and the board decide he’s no longer playing his hand as well as he might. He already cashed out $3.5 million last year from the company’s deferred compensation plan — a sort of super-sized 401(k) arrangement sometimes described by consultants as a loan to the employer — leaving just over $65,000 behind in the company’s care. And if he’s fired, he stands to collect up to another $14.6 million in severance, including $7 million cash. (He can get a similar package if he quits after a merger.)

    All of which just goes to show: Few things in life are like betting on a sure thing — unless you’re an MGM executive.

    Image source: joevare via Flickr


  • YouTube Celebrates Fifth Anniversary

    Can you believe it’s been 5 years since the very first video went live on YouTube.com?

    Geez, what did people do for chuckles before we had knee-slappers like “Scarlett Takes A Tumble” and “The Breakfast Song” to split our sides to?

    Today, April 23, is the anniversary of the day a 19 second clip entitled “Me At The Zoo became the first video uploaded to YouTube. The world’s leading video-sharing interface has become such a pop culture phenomenon it seems hard to believe it’s only 5 years old. Over the past half a decade, millions of videos have been uploaded and shared all over the globe.

    The video that started it all shows YouTube co-founder Jawed Karin during a trip to the San Diego Zoo. A caption accompanying the footage reads: “The first video on YouTube, uploaded at 8:27PM on Saturday April 23rd, 2005. The video was shot by Yakov Lapitsk.”

    “Me At The Zoo” now has more than 1,975,791 views.


  • Blippy: “We Take Security Seriously”

    After this morning’s revelation that Blippy.com — the site for people who think foursquare isn’t enough oversharing — had somehow leaked users’ credit card numbers to anyone with Google, the company wants everyone to know that the problem is not as big as it seems and, yes, they are taking it seriously.

    From the NY Times:

    In a phone interview Friday morning, Blippy’s co-founder, Philip Kaplan, said the card numbers in question belonged to four Blippy users. He explained that when people link their credit cards to Blippy, merchants pass along their raw transaction data – including some credit card numbers – and the site scrubs that information to present just the merchant and the dollar amount spent. But several months ago, when Blippy was being publicly tested, that raw transaction data was present in the site’s HTML code, where it was retrieved by Google.

    And then over on Blippy’s official blog:

    Here are the details:

    * Say you buy lunch at Quiznos. Your credit card statement shows a complex entry like “Quiznos Inc Store #1234 San Francisco.” But Blippy cleans this up to only show “Quiznos.” We refer to these as the “raw data” vs the “cleaned up data.”

    * Raw data is typically harmless. But it turns out that some credit cards (4 out of thousands in this case) show the credit card number in the raw data. For example, “Quiznos Inc Store #1234 from card 4444….”

    * Many months ago when we were first building Blippy, some raw (not cleaned up, but typically harmless) data could be viewed in the HTML source of a Blippy web page. The average user would see nothing, but a determined person could see “raw” line items. Still, this was mostly harmless — stuff like store numbers and such. And it was all removed and fixed quickly.

    * Enter Google’s cache. Turns out Google indexed some of this HTML, even though it wasn’t visible on the Blippy website. And exposed 4 credit card numbers (but a scary 196 search results).

    * We’re working with Google now to remove Blippy from their cache, and they inform us it will be completed within a couple of hours.

    Not once, but twice in their blog post does Blippy emphasize that they are “taking it seriously.”

    Also, Blippy says that having your credit information splashed over the web to billions of people isn’t such a horrible thing. “You’re never responsible if someone uses your credit card without your permission,” they say. “That’s why it’s okay to hand your credit card over to waiters, store clerks, and hundreds of other people who all have access to your credit card numbers.”

    We’d sure love to hear from some of the people whose card numbers have been seen by a few million people to see how they feel about this.

    Blippy And Credit Card Numbers [Official Blippy Blog]
    When Over-Sharing Leads to Problems [NY Times]

  • BritisH Council holds ‘ I Rep Africa’ festival in Ghana

    wapi poster finalThe British Council will conclude its Words and Pictures (WAPI) series with a festival dubbed “I Rep Africa” at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel courtyard on May 8. The festival is a celebration of what it means to be young and African in the 21st century. It’s an event for Ghana’s established stars to come together with the stars of tomorrow, to have fun and network.

    There will performances by R2Bees, alongside Ghana’s best young WAPi artists, underground Ghanaian musicians, a fashion show and spoken word. Other activities will include: expert discussion panel for young creatives to learn from the professionals; plus acting workshops, spoken word, craft fair, and much more.

    This is also a chance for the best artists to win star prizes by showing how they ‘Rep’ Africa in their chosen art form. If you are a visual artist, musician, spoken word artist or photographer, you stand a chance to win a place on the British Council’s Creative Entrepreneurs Training scheme, worth GHC1800. All entries in visual art and photography will be judged before the event, with spoken word and music battling it out on the day.

    There will be an opportunity for young, upcoming creatives and artists to network with the experts in the field. A panel of professionals in journalism, broadcasting, photography, music and advertising will also be there to share their experience and give tips on how to survive in the industry.

    ‘It’s gonna be great to come here and see all the young up-and-coming artists playing the fresh sounds of tomorrow. It’s important for us to support up and coming artists because they are the future of the Ghana’s music industry’, says R2Bees.

  • Energy Answer Not Blowin’ In The Wind by Doug L. Hoffman

    Article Tags: Doug L. Hoffman, Windfarms

    Image Attachment

    The future look of the American coastline.

    The wind is notably capricious, varying in strength and direction in seemingly random ways. The output of wind turbines, which capture the energy of the wind and turn it into electrical power, also varies unpredictably. Leveling out these fluctuations is the biggest obstacle to wind power serving as an effective alternative to conventional power sources. A study, just published in PNAS Online, claims that wiring together offshore wind farms, from along the entire length of the US East Coast, could provide a steady power source for the area. This has led to proclamations by a number of green power advocates that America’s energy problems can be solved by wind power. Unfortunately, steady to a scientist is not the same as steady to a power grid engineer, or consumers.

    The potential energy of wind is tremendous. One estimate puts it at nearly five times as much as the world’s entire existing electricity demand. To environmentalists and climate change alarmists who fear the emission of CO2, wind offers a seemingly perfect energy source: it requires no dirty fossil fuels or hated nuclear power; no drilling, mining, or uranium enrichment; and wind’s carbon footprint is essentially zero. The catch is that wind is notably unreliable, and if there is one thing consumers cannot abide, it is unreliable electrical power. A study, to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and made available online, claims to have tamed the wind and smoothed out its inconsistent behavior. Motivation for the study is stated in the paper’s first paragraph:

    Source: theresilientearth.com

    Read in full with comments »   


  • Where no meat has gone before | Bad Astronomy

    Now I know why watching Trek made my blood pressure rise.

    meat_enterprise

    Hey, y’know what would go well with this? Antipasto. HAHAHAHAHA!

    Anyway, this one certainly looks like more of a meal than the Tiny-E. And it’s weird: the secondary hull looks like a Shuttle external tank. Life imitates art imitates life.

    Tip o’ the meat grinder to BABloggee cturner301 and MyFoodLooksFunny.


  • Daley says Rahm Emanuel didn’t step on his toes with mayor remark

    Posted by John Byrne at 1:14 p.m.



    Rahm Emanuel’s recent remark that he wants to be mayor of Chicago isn’t an affront, Mayor Richard Daley said today.

     

    "Sure, everybody would like to be mayor. This is a great city," Daley said when asked to respond to Emanuel’s recent attention-grabbing comment that he’s interested in the job.

     

    "It’s not stepping on my toes. Rahm’s a good friend of mine," Daley said at a news conference to welcome an international biotechnology conference to the city. "I thought it was something he should be proud of, that someday he would like to be mayor of the city of Chicago. There’s nothing wrong with that."
     


    Daley said he and Emanuel, a former North Side congressman who’s serving as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, have discussed Emanuel’s future plans.

     

    "Sure I talked to him, I talk to him. Sure, I know about it," Daley said.

     

    But Daley said he hasn’t offered Emanuel any advice about a mayoral run. "I don’t give any advice, I don’t give people advice. I don’t advise people, I’m not an adviser."

     

    Emanuel said during an interview on the "Charlie Rose Show" Monday that he would like to run for mayor once Daley steps down. Today, Daley declined to say today whether he plans to run in next year’s city election.

     

    "Why, what happened?" Daley said when questioned about his future plans. "Next question."

     

    "I’m at a press conference, I’m not here to tell you what’s going to happen in the future," Daley added, saying he does not know when he will decide if he will campaign for another term.

  • Rogers: Europe Should Just Let Greece Go Bankrupt

    Jim Rogers spoke on CNBC this morning about how he sees Europe bailing out Greece as a huge mistake that will bring further problems in the future.

    • 0:40 They need to let Greece go bankrupt, it would clean up the system
    • 3:10 Far more downside to come in the news
    • 3:40 Can’t solve a problem of debt with more debt 
    • 5:25 This is not just a euro zone problem, this is a global debt problem, and there is little slack left in the system

    Join the conversation about this story »

  • Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7 only for select few developers

    Andre Vrignaud, Director Games Platform Strategy at Microsoft, has made it clear on his blog that only some titles will receive the honour of XBox Live Integration on Windows phone 7. Ostensible a move to maintain quality and provide a differentiator that will prevent the “race to zero” that has seen many quality titles prices at only $1.99 on the iPhone, he said:

    To answer, it’s important to understand that we have a managed portfolio for Xbox LIVE titles on Windows Phone 7. As we looked at how the mobile gaming industry was evolving, it was obvious that there’s a significant problem with the “race to zero” – or having too many, mixed quality titles available on a marketplace. Too many offerings makes it very hard for any specific title to stand out (no matter how high-quality), and negatively impacts the overall business ecosystem by making it almost impossible for developers to earn a fair return on their work. Our goal with the Windows Phone 7 games that utilize Xbox LIVE services is to cultivate a portfolio of high-quality titles that are regularly released – this is very similar to the portfolio management we do for Xbox LIVE Arcade titles.

    Of course developers are still free to create games without achievements and other Xbox Live paraphernalia, but if you think your idea is Live Worthy you can try your luck by applying at [email protected].

    Do our readers think this strategy, which will likely see only tens of games versus thousands featuring the integration, will be successful in the face of Apple’s most likely more democratic and open service? Let us know your thoughts below.


  • The 15 Best Mutual Fund Managers Of Q1

    cindy-sweeting

    We’ve already outed the Worst Mutual Fund Managers of Q1.  So now it’s time to give credit where it’s due.

    The first three months of 2010 had a sucker’s dip that sent the weak-kneed running.

    But then the market rallied again, ending the quarter with 4.87% gains in the S&P 500.

    Mutual fund managers who stayed the course–or, better yet, bought the dip–were able to lock down big gains.

    So who were they?

    15. Robert T. Deere (photo not available)

    15. Robert T. Deere (photo not available)

    Q1 return: +6.16% 

    Fund: DFA Global Equity I (DGEIX)

    Size: $1,521,000,000

    Top holdings: General Electric Company, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., AT&T, Inc., Wells Fargo Company, Bank of America Corporation

    Source: Morningstar

    14. Robert Gardiner (left) and Blake Walker

    14. Robert Gardiner (left) and Blake Walker

    Q1 return: +6.27% 

    Fund: Wasatch Global Opportunities (WAGOX)

    Size: $171,000,000

    Top holdings: Wirecard AG, O2Micro International, Ltd., Dollar Tree Stores, Inc., Eps Co Ltd, Ted Baker PLC

    Source: Morningstar

    13. Bill Nygren (left) and David Herro

    13. Bill Nygren (left) and David Herro

    Q1 return: +6.41% 

    Fund: Oakmark Global Select I (OAKWX)

    Size: $350,000,000

    Top holdings: Compagnie Financiere Richemont, The DIRECTV Group, Inc., Adecco SA, Rohm Company Limited, Sap AG

    Source: Morningstar

    12. David Winters

    12. David Winters

    Q1 return: +6.48% 

    Fund: Wintergreen (WGRNX)

    Size: $1,093,000,000

    Top holdings: Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited, Berkshire Hathaway, Anglo American PLC, Imperial Tobacco Group PLC, Japan Tobacco Inc.

    Source: Morningstar

    11. David Fingold

    11. David Fingold

    Q1 return: +6.53% 

    Fund: Dynamic Discovery I (DWGDX)

    Size: < $1,000,000

    Top holdings: Schweiter Technologies AG, Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Apache Corporation, Visa, Inc., Accenture PLC

    Source: Morningstar

    10. Bob Taylor

    10. Bob Taylor

    Q1 return: +6.67% 

    Fund: Oakmark Global I (OAKGX)

    Size: $1,999,000,000

    Top holdings: Snap-on, Inc., Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, Oracle Corporation, TF1 – Tv Francaise, Daiwa Securities

    Source: Morningstar

    9. Jonathan L. Knowles (photo not available)

    9. Jonathan L. Knowles (photo not available)

    Q1 return: +6.85%

    Fund: American Funds SMALLCAP World A (SMCWX)

    Size: $19,462,000,000

    Top holdings: XinAo Gas Holdings Ltd., Kingboard Chemical Holdings Ltd., Container Corporation of India, MSC Industrial Direct Co., Inc., Cochlear Limited

    Source: Morningstar

    8. Barry McNeil and Oriosto Medrano Santana (picture and chart not available)

    8. Barry McNeil and Oriosto Medrano Santana (picture and chart not available)

    Q1 return: +6.85% 

    Fund: Simple Capital Fund

    Size: < $1,000,000

    Top holdings: NA

    Source: Morningstar

    7. Sarah Ketterer, Harry Hartford, Jonathan Eng, and James Doyle

    7. Sarah Ketterer, Harry Hartford, Jonathan Eng, and James Doyle

    Q1 return: +7.10% 

    Fund: Causeway Global Value Inst (CGVIX)

    Size: $4,000,000

    Top holdings: Technip, Fanuc Ltd., Sanofi-Aventis, Deutsche Post AG, Tnt NV

    Source: Morningstar

    6. Timothy Malloy (left), Christopher Arbuthnot (right), and Roger Hamilton

    6. Timothy Malloy (left), Christopher Arbuthnot (right), and Roger Hamilton

    Q1 return: +7.56% 

    Fund: JHancock Global Opportunities A (JGPAX)

    Size: $406,000,000

    Top holdings: Sirius XM Radio Inc., Denbury Resources, Inc., Liberty Media Corp., Capital Shs A, Warren Resources, Inc., OGX Petroleo E Gas Participacoes S.A.

    Source: Morningstar

    5. David D. Basten (left) and David M. Basten

    5. David D. Basten (left) and David M. Basten

    Q1 return: +7.58%

    Fund: API Master Allocation A (APIFX)

    Size: $20,000,000

    Top holdings: API Efficient Frontier Capital Inc A, API Efficient Frontier Value A, API Efficient Frontier Growth A

    Source: Morningstar

    4. Cindy Sweeting, Bradley Radin, and Harlan Hodes

    4. Cindy Sweeting, Bradley Radin, and Harlan Hodes

    Q1 return: +7.61% 

    Fund: Templeton Global Smaller Comp A (TEMGX)

    Size: $1,034,000,000

    Top holdings: Tempur-Pedic International, Inc., FNMA, Sealy Pfd, Dah Sing Financial Holdings Ltd., Bk Of Ayudhya

    Source: Morningstar

    3. Francis X. Claro and James Tringas

    3. Francis X. Claro and James Tringas

    Q1 return: +8.21% 

    Fund: Evergreen Global Opportunities A (EKGAX)

    Size: $348,000,000

    Top holdings: 51job, Inc. ADR, Monster Worldwide, Inc., Evergreen Inst US Gov MMkt, USG People NV, New World Resources NV

    Source: Morningstar

    2. Brian McMahon and Vinson Walden

    2. Brian McMahon and Vinson Walden

    Q1 return: +9.07% 

    Fund: Thornburg Global Opportunities A (THOAX)

    Size: $321,000,000

    Top holdings: Global Crossing, Ltd., Fifth Third Bancorp Pfd, Dell, Inc., Willis Group Holdings PLC, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd. ADR

    Source: Morningstar

    1. James Drasdo, Gregg Ireland and Gordon Crawford

    1. James Drasdo, Gregg Ireland and Gordon Crawford

    Q1 return: +9.44% 

    Fund: GMO Flexible Equities III (GFEFX)

    Size: $426,000,000

    Top holdings: NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORP., Orix Corp, Mitsubishi Ufj Financial Group, Inc., Seven & I Holdings Co., Ltd., Sumitomo Electric Industries

    Source: Morningstar

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