Category: News

On Thursday, President Obama leaves on a three day trip to Mexico and Costa Rico, where he will meet with key leaders to discuss a range of issues. In Mexico the President will meet with his counterpart, President Peña Nieto, on ways we can deepen our economic and commercial partnership.

In Costa Rica, President Chinchilla will host a meeting with President Obama and heads of state of the other Central American countries and the Dominican Republic, where the leaders can discuss our collective efforts to promote economic growth and development in Central America and our ongoing collaboration on citizen security.

We asked Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, to preview the upcoming trip and some of the issues the President would be discussing in his meetings. Check it out below or watch the video on YouTube: 

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Private equity firm Sun Capital Partners plans to merge five of its plastic packaging portfolio companies to form what it says will be the sixth-largest plastic packaging company in the world, Reuters is reporting.

(Reuters) – Private equity firm Sun Capital Partners plans to merge five of its plastic packaging portfolio companies to form what it says will be the sixth-largest plastic packaging company in the world.

The new company, which will be called Exopack Holdings Sarl, will be created by merging its Exopack, Kobusch, Britton, Paragon and Paccar businesses, the company said in a filing with U.S. regulators on Wednesday.

The combined revenue of all the companies was around $2.5 billion in 2012, Exopack said. The deal will generate annual savings of around $65 million from efficiencies generated in its back office, manufacturing and global procurement operations, it said.

The companies had around $255 million in total EBITDA last year, Jack Knott, who will be chief executive of the new Exopack, said in an interview. That would translate to around $319 million after the cost savings, he said.

“This gives us a lot of optionality that we didn’t have before,” Knott said. “It gives us optionality to continue to grow through acquisitions in different geographies and different market segments. It gives us optionality to continue to invest in organic growth, which we’ve done quite well in.”

Knott said the larger company will also give it more options in raising capital for the new company.

The deal will combine packaging businesses with operations in Europe and the Middle East with Exopack, which was previously focused on North America. It will create a company with 63 plants and 8,650 employees

The new Exopack will be based in Luxembourg.

Knott expects the extended geographic reach will help it with its largest customers, who include global companies such as Procter & Gamble Co and Unilever Plc.

Sun Capital bought Exopack in 2005 and picked up the other four companies over the last three years.

Scott Edwards, a Sun Capital managing director, said the move should help the private equity firm’s eventual exit from the business.

“Size in this industry is very helpful. It certainly enhances exit possibilities no matter what route you want to take,” he said.

The merger is subject to Exopack receiving amendments to its term loan and another facility from GE Capital.

The post Sun Capital to Merge Five of its Plastic Packaging Businesses appeared first on peHUB.

Today EA brought their freemium iOS hit Monopoly Hotels to Google Play. In the game you play a hotel mogul, building various themed rooms and catching money from the sky to build your hotel up. Upgrading your rooms brings VIP guests like Mr. Potato Head and G.I. Joe to your hotel. Achievements can be unlocked via in-app purchases, but EA has built a game that is fun no matter how you choose to play it. 

This and 16 other games have been optimized for the Galaxy S 4, so S4 users will definitely wanna try it out just to get the most out of that gorgeous screen. Not an aspiring hotel mogul? EA dropped the price of Need For Speed: Most Wanted down to $0.99 so be sure to grab that before the price shoots back to $4.99.

Monopoly Hotels is free from the Google Play store, and should run on any device running Android 2.2 and above.

Play Store Download Link

Come comment on this article: EA Brings iOS Hit Monopoly Hotels to Google Play, Lowers Price of Need For Speed: Most Wanted to $0.99

A lot of people don’t carry cameras anymore, now that they have smartphones. But that means that you could miss opportunities to capture great moments, especially when you’re missing out on the great optical zoom available on some more expensive or specialized dedicated camera devices. That’s what Snapzoom hopes to fix with its binocular mount for smartphone cameras, and the best part is that it’s completely universal, meaning it fits a wide variety of both phones and binoculars.

The project got started when Hawaii-based co-founders Daniel Fujikake and Mac Nguyen started using their own smartphones to film their surf escapades via a completely DIY, garage-made mounting device that they hacked together. They saw the utility, and other surfers asked them about it every time they went out, so they partnered up with a professional designer to form HI Resolution Enterprises and build a proper prototype using 3D-printed materials.

The duo took to Kickstarter to fund a production run for Snapzoom, and has already blown past its $55,000 goal in just over a week. The funding will help the two turn the 3D printed prototype into a glass-filled nylon injection molded retail product, which the company hopes to manufacture both in the U.S. and overseas.

“It’s going to be extremely tough, since it’s something that’s meant to be used outdoors,” Fujikake told me. “You can put it in your bag, you don’t have to worry about babying it, you can get it wet, you can drop it, it’s very very tough.”

Already, before even closing its Kickstarter funding, Snapzoom has had a lot of interest from well-placed retail partners, including U.S. camera equipment and accessory retailer B&H Photo. Based on funding interest and prospective retail partner enthusiasm, the team seems to have tapped a strong, unaddressed consumer desire, even if it is a bit niche. And it’s not just voyeurs who are interested; this is great for nature photography and action sports, too.

Snapzoom is looking to ship in September, and retail price for the mount is expected to be around $79.99, but currently pre-order backers on Kickstarter can get one for just $70. The team is working on stretch goals now, since it has already earned almost $10,000 more than its original goal.

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Smart grid company Silver Spring Networks just finished its first quarter as a public company after it held an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in March. The company’s earnings was basically flat for the quarter, reflecting the inherent slow pace of rolling out smart grid networks for utilities, and signing up new cautious, risk-averse utilities.

Silver Spring has decided to focus on its non-GAAP (general accepted accounting principles) numbers, because it says non-GAAP numbers more closely reflect its cash flow. The company takes many months to do pilot projects with utilities and then many more months, if not years, to deliver a broader commercial rollout of its network. It recognizes GAAP revenue for those customers significantly after the deal is closed and the tech is deployed.

For the first quarter of 2013, Silver Spring said its non-GAAP revenue was $73.78 million, which was up from its non-GAAP revenue of the first quarter of 2012 of $59.50 million. On a GAAP basis, revenue for the first quarter was $53.70 million, which was flat from the same quarter a year earlier of $55.45 million.

When it comes to the quarter’s net loss, the GAAP vs non-GAAP actually made a much larger difference. The company’s GAAP net loss for the first quarter of 2013 was $64.37 million, which was a far greater loss than its GAAP loss of the first quarter of 2012 of $18.43 million. Silver Spring Networks execs said that the greater GAAP net loss was due to one time charges related to its IPO. However, its non-GAAP net loss was more reasonable for the first quarter of 2013 at $8.39 million, a slightly larger loss from its $5.27 million net loss from the first quarter of 2012.

In the earnings call, Silver Spring Network execs touted new customer wins including CPS Energy, the largest municipal utility in San Antonio, with 700,000 homes and businesses, and Singapower Power, which was its first utility deal in Asia. In addition, Silver Spring also said that it has been working with Masers Energy in Malaysia and moved its partnership with Dominion Virginia Power from a pilot project to a deployment for 195,000 homes and businesses.

Silver Spring Networks sees growth in beefing up its services, beyond its networking hardware, and also in international markets. The company has already contracted with many of the early adopter U.S. utilities, and is looking to gain marketshare in Asia, and South America.

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Ever since Insomniac changed Overstrike into Fuse, it seems that interest in the title has dropped somewhat. The game still looks like a fun shooter with interesting weapons, but it ditched the colorful and humorous style shown in the original trailer.

The new trailer – dubbed “Fable’s Vision” – doesn’t really do much to sell people on Fuse beyond its weapons. In fact, it seems that the title only has that going for it, just like Insomniac’s Resistance franchise. The games are fun enough, but they lack the creativity and fun that have always been a hallmark of the developer’s Ratchet and Clank franchise.

Still, what do I know? Insomniac could knock it out of the park with Fuse. It could present a serious story that’s actually worth paying attention while having the fun gunplay mechanics of its other franchises. It’s just that the trailers thus far haven’t really inspired much confidence. It doesn’t help that the game continues to look more and more like a Borderlands clone that takes itself far too seriously.

Fuse will be released on May 28 for Xbox 360 and PS3.

President Barack Obama announces the nominations of Rep. Melvin Watt, left, as Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and Tom Wheeler, right, as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in the State Dining Room of the White House, May 1, 2013.

(Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

President Obama announced his intent to nominate a new director of the Federal Housing Finance Authority and new Federal Communications Chair, “two outstanding individuals who are going to help us grow our economy, but are also going to be looking out for the middle class.”

Seven years after the housing bubble burst, we’re starting to see some bright spots in one of the most important parts of our economy, President Obama said. But we still have more work to do:

We've got responsible homeowners who have never missed a payment, but aren’t allowed to refinance.  We've got working families who are doing everything right, but still owe more on their homes than they’re worth. We've got young people who are trying to start a family and get into the housing market, and have seen difficulties in terms of financing.

President Obama’s pick for FHFA director, Rep. Melvin Watt, has served for 20 years as a member of the congressional committee that oversees housing policy.

And in that capacity, Mel has led efforts to rein in unscrupulous mortgage lenders. He’s helped protect consumers from the kind of reckless risk-taking that led to the financial crisis in the first place. And he’s fought to give more Americans in low-income neighborhoods access to affordable housing.

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Today, Facebook reported their Q1 2013 earnings. The company slightly beat revenue expectations with a total of $1.458 billion. In all, revenue was up 38% year-over-year, with ad revenue up 43%.

Alongside the earnings, Facebook also filed with the SEC, and in this filing they announced that their Chief Accounting Officer, David Spillane, would be leaving the company in a couple of weeks. There’s no stated reason for the move.

Spillane first told Facebook of his intent to depart on April 25th, and Facebook says that he will officially leave the company on May 10th. Jas Athwal, Facebook’s revenue controller since 2008, will take his place.

Spillane sold 256,000 shares of Facebook stock last November, and another 60,000 back in January of this year. That still leaves him with around 160,000 shares.

With today’s earnings, Facebook also updated their user stats. Monthly active users have increased to 1.11 billion as of the end of March, which is an increase of 23% year-over-year. Daily active users have also increased, to 665 million, up 26% year-over year.

More importantly, Facebook is growing rapidly when it comes to mobile. At the end of the quarter, mobile MAUs were 751 million, up a whopping 54% year-over-year.

To think about it another way, more than 68% of Facebook users access the site via mobile.

In November 2012, a Montana animal trainer was mauled and killed by a bear while cleaning its cage. 24-year-old Benjamin Cloutier was an animal trainer at Animals of Montana, which trains animals for photography, TV, and Movies.

Now, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is issuing fines against Animals of Montana in connection with the incident. In particular, the business has been cited for “allowing employees to have unrestricted, direct contact with grizzly bears.” OSHA has also cited Animals of Montana for a violation related to failing “to report an occupational fatality within eight hours.” The citations carry $9,000 in fines.

“This is a tragedy that could have – and should have – been prevented,” said Jeff Funke, OSHA’s Billings-area director. “The use of a secondary holding area while cleaning cages is standard practice when working with animals capable of being dangerous to workers responsible for their care.”

According to its website, Animals of Montana prides itself in over 20 years of experience raising and training animals. The Facebook post below shows the bear, named Griz, that was responsible for the attack on Cloutier. Griz was put down immediately following the incident.

Animals of Montana, Inc.221 days ago

Happy Weekend to all! Troy and “Griz” sharing some quality time together

Powered by socialditto  85 likes ·  16 comments

Home entertainment server maker Kaleidescape officially opened up its download store Wednesday, offering what it calls “Blu-ray quality” HD video downloads of movies like Inception, Sherlock Holmes or various titles from the Harry Potter series.

Kaleidescape is known for its DVD servers, which allow users to rip their disc collections and serve them to TVs and home theaters. The devices earned the company a lawsuit from the DVD Copy Control Association, which is currently pending after Kaleidescape was able to obtain a stay of an injunction. However, the legal proceedings didn’t stop Warner Bros. from licensing its titles for Kaleidescape’s download store.

Kaleidescape’s movie server just got a download store.

Titles purchased through the Kaleidescape store can be played back with a Kaleidescape system, and also accessed on the web and through mobile devices via Ultraviolet, the studios’ locker system for digital movie purchases. However, even moderate users of the service could easily burst through their ISPs’ data caps.

The HD download of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, for example, comes in at a whopping 54GB. AT&T’s Uverse data cap restricts users to 250 GB of data consumption per month, after which the phone company charges $10 for each additional 50GB. That kind of overage charge would essentially double the price of the movie download.

Of course, this problem would only get worse if Kaleidescape — or any other movie download store — would start to offer 4K movie downloads. The company’s current HD fare comes with a resolution of 1080p. Back-of-the-envelope math would suggest that a 4K download of the same Harry Potter movie, if it was available to consumers, would consume 200GB of bandwidth.

This isn’t a hypothetical: Sony is considering adding 4K movie downloads to its next-generation game console, and Sony Electronics President and COO Phil Molyneux recently went on the record saying that those downloads would be “100 gigabytes and plus” per movie.

ISPs have long insisted that only a small percentage of their customers ever exhaust their monthly data allotment. This may be true today, but next-generation movie services show us that it caps could be a much bigger problem soon.

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Facebook released its Q1 earnings report on Wednesday, including revenue of $1.46 billion, an increase of 38% year-over-year. Revenue from advertising was $1.25 billion (85% of total revenue), up 43% year-over-year. Mobile advertising accounted for 30% of advertising revenue for the quarter. Revenue from Payments and other fees was $213 million.

The obligatory Mark Zuckerberg quote is: “We’ve made a lot of progress in the first few months of the year. We have seen strong growth and engagement across our community and launched several exciting products.”

Facebook also dropped some new user numbers. Daily active users were 665 million on average for March, up 26% year-over-year. Monthly active users were 1.11 billion as of March 31, up 23% year-over-year. Finally, Mobile monthly active users were 751 million as of March 31, up 54% year-over-year.

Here’s the release in its entirety:

MENLO PARK, Calif., May 1, 2013 /PRNewswire/ – Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) today reported financial results for the first quarter, which ended March 31, 2013.

SOURCE Facebook

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s boutique division, Mondo, has worked up 3 gorgeous posters for the premiere of “Iron Man 3″ which will be available on Friday, and fans are sure to eat them up. But act quickly, because these are extremely limited edition. The first one will only have a run of 450 prints and goes for $50.

The second poster will only have 200 prints made and is an alternate color version of the first. It will go for $75.

The third is–get this–glow in the dark! And will only have a run of 250 prints. It’ll go for the bargain price of just $45.

Hat-tip to Buzzfeed.

Dogs, drones, and digital controllers, oh my! This year’s Disrupt conference in New York was full of amazing webs services and software, but Hardware Alley brought out the best in hardware startups and showed the world that hardware is finally serious business.

Darrell Etherington and I wandered the halls of Hardware Alley today to meet some amazing companies. We met with Fitbark, a way to see how happy your dog is and Thermovape, a way to smoke without taking in harmful carcinogens. We saw Extreme Flyers zip and zoom around the room with their brand new mini drone and Social Bicycles with their new system for bike sharing.

We’ll call out individual hardware alley companies over the next few days but until then enjoy this quick look at the coolness that is Disrupt.

We can't talk about We the People without getting into the numbers — more than 8 million users, more than 200,000 petitions, more than 13 million signatures. The sheer volume of participation is, to us, a sign of success.

And there's a lot we can learn from a set of data that rich and complex, but we shouldn't be the only people drawing from its lessons.

So starting today, we're making it easier for anyone to do their own analysis or build their own apps on top of the We the People platform. We're introducing the first version of our API, and we're inviting you to use it.

Get started here: petitions.whitehouse.gov/developers

This API provides read-only access to data on all petitions that passed the 150 signature threshold required to become publicly-available on the We the People site. For those who don't need real-time data, we plan to add the option of a bulk data download in the near future. Until that's ready, an incomplete sample data set is available for download here.

A couple months ago, we invited a group of developers and tech experts to the White House for a hackathon to kick the tires on an early version of the API, and we've also published a gallery of some of those projects — including links to live examples and GitHub repositories. You'll see maps that show the geographic support for a range of petitions, a time-lapse visualization of zip codes where petitions are being signed, an embeddable thermometer that shows progress toward crossing the signature threshold for any given petition, and a range of data analysis.

Coming up on June 1, as part of the National Civic Day of Hacking, we'll host another hackathon here at the White House. Today we're also making the GitHub repo open to the public — where participants will be collaborating with each other and the White House development team.

This first version of the API is just the start, by the way. Now, we're turning our efforts to a Write API that will allow individuals to collect and submit signatures from their own platforms without directly sending users to We the People. After that, we'll work to decouple the presentation and data layers of the application and begin building a new, streamlined signature process. We hope you'll follow the process and continue offering your thoughts and feedback.

At its most basic, We the People is a conversation. Individuals ask questions of the White House, and the Obama administration responds. What this API allows us to do is broaden the discussion — make it as flexible, open, and transparent as possible. And if you take the time to build a tool that leverages the API, you'll be making it easier for others to take part in this national dialogue.

So we hope you'll check it out.

To learn more about open data and open source projects at the White House, visit WhiteHouse.gov/Developers. Also, please feel free to contact us via the WhiteHouse.gov developers feedback form or to follow our tech team on Twitter @WHWeb.

Leigh Heyman is the Director of New Media Technologies for the Executive Office of the President. 

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Wednesday said it paid $2.05 billion cash to buy the 20 percent it did not already own of toolmaker Iscar from the Israeli company’s founding Wertheimer family, Reuters reports.

(Reuters) – Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Wednesday said it paid $2.05 billion cash to buy the 20 percent it did not already own of toolmaker Iscar from the Israeli company’s founding Wertheimer family.

Berkshire in 2006 bought an 80 percent stake in Iscar, a maker of metal cutting tools whose formal name is IMC International Metalworking Cos, for $4 billion.

At the time, that purchase was one of the largest acquisitions involving an Israeli company, and Buffett’s biggest bet outside the United States. Wednesday’s purchase suggests that Iscar’s value has since more than doubled.

“As you can surmise from the price we’re paying for the remaining interest, IMC has enjoyed very significant growth over the last seven years,” Buffett said in a statement.

The acquisition was announced three days before Buffett will welcome more than 35,000 people to Berkshire’s annual meeting in its hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.

In his annual letter to shareholders on March 1, Buffett described Iscar as one of Berkshire’s five most profitable companies outside its insurance businesses.

While Berkshire does not break out Iscar results separately, it said the Tefen, Israel-based unit’s profit fell in 2012 because of slowing economic conditions in some non-U.S. markets.

A year ago, Buffett in his shareholder letter described Iscar’s management as “brilliant strategists and operators.”

Iscar ended 2012 with more than 11,900 employees.

The Wertheimers’ sale of an 80 percent Iscar stake in 2006, announced one day before Berkshire’s annual meeting that year, made the family among the richest in Israel.

Stef Wertheimer, who is German-born and founded Iscar in 1952, has established a number of industrial parks in Israel aimed at promoting peace by having Jews and Arabs work together.

The law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz advised the Wertheimer family on the Iscar transaction. The law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson advised Berkshire.

The post Berkshire Buys Rest of Israel’s Iscar for $2.05 billion appeared first on peHUB.

Like every console before it, the Wii U will eventually be hacked and people will use that hack to play pirated games on the console. The challenge comes in the form of actually hacking the console to allow this functionality. One group claims to have done it, and will soon be selling their secret to the world.

Wiikey, a group that sells mod chips for the Nintendo Wii, have announced the WiikeÜ. Like the mod chips before it, this soft mod for the Wii U allows gamers to play Wii and Wii U games off of any USB media. The official line is that gamers can use this mod chip to play backups of Wii U games, but most would obviously use it to play pirated Wii U titles.

Some are calling shenanigans as the group has yet to provide any proof of the exploit. The group says it’s real though, and will be selling the USB emulator in the near future to allow others to hack their Wii U consoles.

So, what does Nintendo have to say about all of this? The company takes a hardline against piracy so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Nintendo is watching this very closely. In a statement to Ars Technica, Nintendo said it’s “aware that a hacking group claims to have compromised Wii U security.” That being said, the company has “no reports of illegal Wii U games nor unauthorized applications playable on the system while in Wii U mode.” Nintendo finished up its statement with a classic by saying that it “will take the necessary legal steps to prevent the facilitation of piracy.”

If the Wii U is anything like the Wii, the system’s security will be constantly compromised during its lifetime. Of course, this will only lead to Nintendo issuing more frequent mandatory system updates to patch security holes that only serve to annoy legitimate customers while doing nothing to stop those hellbent on playing games off disc.

More tablets were shipped during January and March this year than the entire first half of 2012: 49.2 million units during the three-month period, according to IDC. The analyst firm’s Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker was published Wednesday and it shows that tablets continue grow at a rapid clip. Every major tablet maker saw large gains in shipments during the first quarter — and one of the notable results of that is that Apple’s overall share of the tablet market is decreasing.

Apple is still the world’s largest tablet seller; it shipped 19.5 million in the last quarter, up from 11.8 million the same quarter a year ago, according to IDC and its own numbers released earlier this month. That’s an increase of 64 percent. Its No. 1 mobile competitor, Samsung, saw its shipments grow even faster, from 2.3 million tablets a year ago to 8.8 million in the latest quarter. Rounding out the Top 5, Asus and Amazon also more than doubled their tablet shipments from a year ago. Microsoft, which did not start selling tablets until October 2012, shipped 900,000 Surface units between January and March.

The overall growth in tablets means Android is now the most popular mobile OS in tablets shipped during the quarter; a year ago it was on 8 million of tablets shipped worldwide, compared to the 11.8 million iPads. This past quarter saw Android shipped on 27.8 million tablets that were shipped and 19.5 million iPads and iPad minis.

All this does not mean doom and gloom for the iPad. Apple’s tablet sales continue at a rapid clip, increasing every quarter – faster than the iPhone right now. And while its overall share of tablet shipments may be slipping, it’s still selling more than double the number of tablets each quarter as its closest competitor, Samsung (see chart below).

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