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  • Facebook Home Screenshot Leaks Suggest We’ll See An Image-Rich Interface With Sharing Close At Hand

    top (1)

    Facebook is set to debut a special Android product tomorrow, and now 9to5Google has an early look at what we might see, courtesy of Evleaks. The screens depicted on renders of the so-called HTC First smartphone hardware being created by the Taiwanese company. The images show tweaks to the basic Android UI that include easy access to status updates, photo sharing and check-in functions, as well as an emphasis on images.

    The screens look to take a mostly minimalist approach to re-skinning the Android OS, with a widget similar to the one available for Android home screens occupying a spot near the top of the app tray. A notifications screen uses what looks like it might be a Facebook cover photo as its backdrop, and seems to display a user’s FB profile pic as the unlock mechanism. There are Instagram, Messenger and Facebook sharing options shown in the built-in gallery app, and Evleaks says the whole point is to put Facebook functions close at hand wherever possible in the OS itself, making it less necessary to jump into the dedicated app to share or engage with content posted to the social network.



    The description and screens from this latest leak match up with what Josh reported was on the way from Facebook for this event last week. Overall, it looks like what FB is doing is making a product that can make Android a better funnel for prompting mobile users to post content and updates to its network, and to better keep up to date with new activity from their friends. If Facebook can successfully demonstrate that it can actually improve the Android experience with deeper hooks, its Home product could become attractive to other OEMs as well. And even though it has built an impressive user base on its own, shipping on a range of Android hardware around the world as an element virtually baked into the OS goes well beyond traditional user acquisition methods.

    We’ll have live coverage of the event tomorrow as it happens, beginning at 10 AM PT, so you can tune in to find out whether what Facebook really is presenting matches these early leaks as it happens.

  • AT&T Launches 4G LTE In 14 New Markets

    AT&T

    AT&T has rolled out LTE to 14 new markets which now marks a total of 175 markets with LTE coverage. Eight locations are in the south with Florida taking the top spot. Here they are:

    • Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, Arkansas
    • Fort Smith, Arkansas
    • Fresno, California
    • Palm Coast, Florida
    • Lakeland-Winter Haven Florida
    • Fort Pierce, Florida
    • Mount Dora, Florida
    • Carbondale-Marion Illinois
    • Houma/Thibodaux, Louisana
    • Jefferson City, Missouri
    • Las Cruces, New Mexico
    • Binghamton, New York
    • Temple/Killeen Texas
    • Mount Vernon, Washington

    Source: AT&T

    Come comment on this article: AT&T Launches 4G LTE In 14 New Markets

  • Jesus Franco Dies; Director Was 82

    Cult film director Jesus Franco has died. He was 82.

    According to a report from the National Enquirer, Franco died on the morning of April 2, though the cause of death has not been revealed. He was reported to have been working on his latest movie, titled Al Pereira vs. the Alligator Women.

    Franco began his career in 1961 with the cult classic The Awful Dr. Orloff, which features a killer who attempts to steal women’s faces. He went on to direct well over 100 movies, most of them low-budget horror, exploitation, or sexploitation. He was fond of using pseudonyms in the credits of his movies, and often went under the names Jess Franco and Clifford Brown. Though he never found mainstream success, he became well-known in cult-horror fandom for movies such as Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein, Oasis of the Zombies, and Vampyros Lesbos.

  • Apple to reportedly unveil completely redesigned next-gen iPad in April

    iPad 5 Release Date
    Apple (AAPL) has long been rumored to be prepping a completely redesigned full-size iPad that will debut this year, and the new tablet will reportedly be unveiled at a press conference later this month. A number of well-known Apple bloggers held a public discussion on social site Branch on Tuesday, and they covered a number of topics. Among them were Apple’s efforts to overhaul the user interface in iOS 7 and the company’s plans to unveil its next-generation iPad during a press conference this month. Earlier reports suggested that Apple will release a redesigned iPad this year and images of a purported rear shell from the fifth-generation iPad leaked in January, revealing a new design resembling Apple’s smaller iPad mini tablet.

  • Facebook Mobile Exec Emily White Is Your New Director of Business Operations at Instagram

    Facebook Director of Mobile Partnerships Emily White is leaving that job, but she’s not going very far. Facebook has confirmed that White will head up Instagram’s expansion as the new Director of Business Operations.

    According to All Things D, White will work closely with Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom in an effort to “expand partnerships, improve user operations and, presumably, come up with ways to make some money.”

    White has a history of working on monetization, both as head of Facebook’s mobile partnerships and as a Senior Director of Emerging Business in marketing and ads with Google. Facebook stole White from Google back in 2010.

    Here’s what Systrom had to say about the move:

    “I’m excited to bring Emily White onto the Instagram team. As we continue to scale our operation to support over 100 million active users, her experience with partnerships and business operations will play a major role in our future success.”

    It’s no shock that Facebook is making moves to monetize Instagram, which it bought for close to $1 billion last year. Presumably, White will work on finally bringing ads to the service. As you may remember, that concept sparked quite a bit of controversy last year when Instagram changed its terms of service to allow for future use of user content in advertising.

    The lead photo is from White’s personal Instagram account, on which she’s already changed her title to Director of Business Operations at Instagram.

  • Can Samsung and Mozilla Revolutionize the Mobile Browser?

    Anyone who has owned a BlackBerry smartphone knows the pain of mobile browser evolution. Before 2007 we merely accepted it as reality. There were no good mobile browsers, so users didn’t think much of it. But then came the iPhone with Safari, and with it a much smoother and easier mobile browsing experience. We can credit Apple with showing us what mobile browsers can do.

    Safari for iOS has taken several steps forward since then. Google has its own answer, not with the default Android browser but with a mobile version of Chrome. There are some decent third-party browsers such as Skyfire, which allows Flash on iOS, and Opera Mini, but they’re mostly for niche audiences. The masses will get along just fine with Safari and Chrome.

    (I suppose it’s not shocking that more people use the Android browser than Chrome, but it’s still a head scratcher. Chrome is a far better browser, and it’s free.)

    In the above link you’ll see market share information for mobile browsers. What you might not notice is the absence of a very familiar browser: Firefox. There is indeed a Firefox for Android, but it doesn’t get much traction. On the iOS side, Firefox doesn’t have any interest under current conditions. That leaves Firefox developer Mozilla in a tight spot. Mobile browser usage is increasing, and all it can boast now is a fledging mobile OS.

    It comes as little surprise, then, that Mozilla has had a mobile browser project in the works. What might surprise a bit is that they’ve teamed with Samsung to develop it. In a blog post today they describe the browser, Servo, which is built with the Rust programming language. Mozilla hits the major points in the second paragraph:

    Servo is an attempt to rebuild the Web browser from the ground up on modern hardware, rethinking old assumptions along the way. This means addressing the causes of security vulnerabilities while designing a platform that can fully utilize the performance of tomorrow’s massively parallel hardware to enable new and richer experiences on the Web. To those ends, Servo is written in Rust, a new, safe systems language developed by Mozilla along with a growing community of enthusiasts.

    The idea is certainly noble. Mobile has change the way we interact with the internet, and so current browsers might not best fit our needs. Selling a new browser can be tough, but it appears that Mozilla and Samsung have a novel idea.

    Security appears to be the main focus of the browser. That’s certainly going to play well with consumers who are concerned about the recent rash of hackings. Mobile is a uniquely personal platform and people are rightly concerned about security vulnerabilities. Explicitly addressing them with a new solution could win Servo major points with consumers.

    It will be a while before we see the fruits of this project. In most cases it would be easy to dismiss yet another mobile browser. But in the case of Servo there’s too much going in its favor to ignore.

    Via Phoen Scoop.

    The post Can Samsung and Mozilla Revolutionize the Mobile Browser? appeared first on MobileMoo.

  • Learn About The Best Design Tools Available To Android Developers

    Design is an incredibly important part of any mobile app. A solid aesthetic and UI could be the only thing standing between your app gaining wider use, and being tossed to the bottom of the download charts. This week’s Android Design in Action might just help your app avoid such a fate:

    Join Nick Butcher, Adam Koch and Roman Nurik as they discuss various elements of Android Design. This week, we’ll explore the design of a podcast creation app and share a list of software tools that Android designers should be aware of.

    If you want to better follow along, Nurik has shared the slides shown during the video on his Google+ profile.

  • Man Behind HTC One Camera Talks More About The UltraPixel

    UltraPixel

    The HTC One is set to launch on multiple U.S. carriers April 19 and one feature that has people talking is the new UltraPixel camera. Instead of a higher megapixel camera, HTC went with a four megapixel camera that has some different technology behind it. As any photography geek knows, more megapixels doesn’t always mean better image quality. Factors such as image sensor and the quality of lens have a large impact. With a sensor that can capture 300% more light than any 13 megapixel smartphone camera on the market, HTC believes its UltraPixel camera is better than the competition. JR Raphael of Computerworld got to sit down with Symon Whitehorn who heads up smartphone imaging at HTC.

    Whitehorn doesn’t see the UltraPixel camera as a drastic evolution, but more of a forward-looking step. HTC wanted to focus on performance versus cramming in more megapixels and marketing that bigger number to consumers as better. When it comes to why they went with four megapixels, they found that it was more than enough in 90 percent of cases. Also, it gives a much more manageable file size which allows users to do more cool things with Zoe without sacrificing performance. What also makes the HTC One camera unique according to Whitehorn is the optical image stabilization and F/2.0 aperture. Early preproduction units appeared to take grainy photos and Whitehorn claims it was an automatic ISO issue that has since been fixed and shouldn’t be there once the HTC One makes its way to consumers.

    Source: Computerworld

    Come comment on this article: Man Behind HTC One Camera Talks More About The UltraPixel

  • Nlyte 7 Extends Further Into the Data Center

    The name of the game with data center infrastructure management (DCIM) has been aligning it with all of an organization’s business IT management. It’s what Nlyte has focused on in the latest iteration of its DCIM software.

    With version 7, the Nlyte suite now includes extensive real-time monitoring of power and virtualized resources,  as well as centralized management of all the assets of the data center.  The suite includes a business intelligence engine, a contextual data repository, an intuitive web interface, improved workflow and business process management, global scalability, asset discover and reconciliation and resource visualization now extended to the rack level.

    “The complexities of the data center have grown, so in developing the seventh generation of our software, we have responded to hundreds of customer-inspired feature enhancements,” said Rob Neave, Co-Founder and CTO of Nlyte. “We’ve created a next generation data center management platform that leverages Nlyte’s patented intelligent asset placement technology, state-of-the-art data storage and retrieval techniques and business analytics for real-time business decision making. Nlyte 7 ensures the management of the data center fabric is aligned with existing business practices and ITSM solutions in place today.”

    The Nlyte data repository provides contextual relationships between all enterprise data center attributes. These interrelationships, and related workflow and analytics capabilities, support SLAs, technology refresh projects, data center consolidations and/or migrations, allowing for advanced capacity planning and facilitating “what-if” scenario planning.

    Visualizing the Infrastructure

    In addition, the Nlyte 7 suite offers contextual visualization that encompasses physical, logical and virtual infrastructure views.  The Nlyte 7 DCIM platform offers what it claims to be the industry’s only business intelligence engine, providing enhanced real-time reporting and dashboard information, automated asset discovery and reconciliation on your network. It has direct support for Intel’s DCM real-time energy metric technology.

    The capabilities are extending both within a data center, and within an organization. “The operational value of DCIM is well understood,” said Rhonda Ascierto, senior analyst, datacenter technologies and eco-efficient IT at 451 Research. “Companies are now seeking greater financial insight and management of their datacenters—to address capacity limitations and to make IT service decisions. Nlyte Software is helping not just datacenter operators but also C-level and other executives better understand their large-scale data center environments.”

    Aside from the operational benefits, there’s a big push to make and present DCIM as user friendly. Nlyte provided a customer example from Grasshopper, which provides phone forwarding and management for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

    “Before Grasshopper adopted Nlyte as our DCIM solution, we tracked our data center assets and managed capacity with spreadsheets and Visio drawings – that old system was time-consuming and nearly impossible to keep current,” said Craig Tata, Compliance Manager, Grasshopper. “With Nlyte, I am able to save five to six hours a week thanks to its repository tracking our data center assets, capacity and performance. With Nlyte 7, I am especially looking forward to the Physical and Logical Row Viewing with the Cabinet Device Overlay Reports as they’re able to discover and represent data that I would otherwise not have access to. Armed with reporting capabilities like these, I can begin to look forward to previously unforeseen ways to manage the Grasshopper data center to further our savings.”

    Grasshopper’s previous strategy – using spreadsheets and Visio drawings – is what a lot of companies continue to do to get by. Nlyte’s Mark Harris Vice President of Marketing and Data Center Strategy, uses a good, general example as to the benefits of using DCIM.

    “You can do your taxes with an abacus, but why not use TurboTax (or other tax software)?” said Harris.

  • Four years in the making, Vdio finally opens up to Rdio subscribers in the U.S. and U.K.

    Vdio, the premium video service founded by Skype co-founder Janus Friis, emerged from private beta Tuesday night with an offering that looks more like Vudu or iTunes than Netflix. The service offers users streaming access to major Hollywood movies and TV shows from all of the major studios, with titles either being available for rent or purchase.

    Vdio is at least for now limited to paying subscribers of Rdio, the music subscription service that Friis launched in 2010, and both services are closely joined at the hip.

    Vdio: Like Rdio, except pay-per-view

    Vdio looks a lot like Rdio, but the similarities aren’t just ending with the design. Vdio requires a Rdio account to log in, and the site also uses the same take on social discovery to surface content. Rdio is known for letting users follow other users whose taste in music they share, and the same users one follows in Rdio also show up in Vdio. The service also displays which of its users have watched a certain movie or TV show, much in the same way that Rdio displays music consumption.

    Vdio currently offers movies from most of the major players in Hollywood, including Disney, Fox, Warner Bros. and Universal Studios. The catalog It also seems to have all the big TV networks on board, allowing it to carry shows from NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox as well as Comedy Central, Showtime, the BCC and others. Notably absent is still HBO content, meaning that you won’t find any episodes of Game of Thrones on Vdio. Competitors like Amazon carry episodes from past seasons, while HBO keeps current-season episodes exclusive to its own HBO Go service. Rdio’s VP of Product Malthe Sigurdsson told me Wednesday that the company is hoping to bring HBO on board soon, and that Vdio’s catalog currently consists of “several thousand movies and tens of thoudsands of TV episodes.”

    Vdio is currently only available to paying Rdio subscribers in the U.K. and the U.S., but the site’s help section hints at a wider roll-out some time in the future. It also seems like Vdio is going to use Rdio as a promotional vehicle for its service: For its launch, the site is giving Rdio subscribers a $25 credit.

    Videos from Vdio can be streamed with a web browser as well as an iPad app, which comes with a curious work-around: The app doesn’t actually allow users to rent or purchase content, presumably to avoid Apple taking a cut for in-app purchases. Instead, it only lets users play content they’re previously purchased on the web.

    There is no word yet on apps for connected devices, but one should expect that the service will eventually arrive on the usual platforms as well. Rdio’s music service is currently available on Roku as well as a variety of mobile devices.

    The story of Vdio: It’s been a long time coming

    The official launch of the service ends a period of secrecy that surrounded Vdio ever since work on the service began in 2009. The company began its operations in stealth mode under the code name Project WBS, and Friis hired an expert team of online video veterans, many of which had been working with him on the failed P2P video service Joost.

    GigaOM broke the story of Vdio’s existence in late 2011, and in an official confirmation of our story, the company said that it was in private beta testing in the U.K. It didn’t reveal any further details about its business model, but compared itself to Netflix and Lovefilm, hinting at a subscription offering – something that made a lot of sense, given that Rdio is also a subscription business.

    I learned in the following months that Vdio was considering to combine a subscription plan with VOD credits, much in the same way Redbox Instant is now offering its subscribers a subscription tier with coupons for DVD rental. But that kind of offering never launched, and Vdio went through a bit of a rough patch. A big part of its team, including its CTO Justin Erenkrantz, Creative Director Priidu Zilmer  SVP of Engineering Sander Striker, were let go.

    The remaining staff merged with Rdio, and the company moved key staffers like SVP of Operations Scott Barrow from Los Angeles to the Bay Area to rebuild Vdio from scratch on top of Rdio’s platform. Vdio restarted private beta testing in the U.K. and the U.S. in November, already hinting at a transactional VOD model as well as close ties to Rdio.

    Why no subscriptions?

    Numerous Rdio users stumbled upon Vdio late Tuesday and early Wednesday, and a question often asked on Twitter was: why doesn’t the service offer any subscriptions? The answer may have to do with the economics behind the subscription business, as well as the huge headstart Netflix already has. Building up a subscription catalog is tough, especially when companies like Netflix and Amazon tie down many titles exclusively, and begin to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into their own productions.

    Sigurdsson told me that timing also played a role: The company wanted to launch what it felt was a compelling offer now. However, he told me that some kind of subscription component could still be part of a future offering:

    “That is something we would love to do.”

    This is a developing story, more to come soon.

    Check out the image gallery below for a closer look at Vdio:

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  • Robert Ebert: Cancer Returns as Reviewer Takes a “Leave of Presence”

    Roger Ebert, perhaps the most well-known film reviewer in history, has announced that he will be taking “a leave of presence.” Though Ebert stressed that this does not mean he will quit writing for good, it does mean that his output will slow significantly.

    Ebert made the announcement in a post to his Chicago Sun-Times blog. The reason for his leave was also revealed in the post – his cancer has returned. He is currently being treated with radiation therapy. Ebert was first diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002, and lost his ability to speak after complications from surgery in 2006.

    Ebert used his post to thank his colleagues and everyone who has helped him in his 46-year career. He has stated that he will now leave most of the reviewing work to his hand-picked reviewer colleagues. Ebert expressed excitement that he will be reviewing only the movies he wants to. He may also begin writing about his health troubles. From the post:

    At this point in my life, in addition to writing about movies, I may write about what it’s like to cope with health challenges and the limitations they can force upon you. It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital. So on bad days I may write about the vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness.

    Ebert’s film review website, rogerebert.com, is being re-launched with a new design the writer states is “highly interactive and searchable.”

  • This Custom Chocolate Mold Was Made With A 3D Printer

    Easter has come and gone, but there’s always a reason to make some custom molded chocolates. Unfortunately, you’re usually limited to whatever shapes the local stores sells molds in. With the help of a 3D printer, however, you can make any mold you want.

    With a Stratasys Objet260 Connex printer, the fine folks at Proto3000 created a custom chocolate egg mold for unique creations that would make you the envy of any chocolatier.

    Making amazing chocolate designs should always be your first priority, but Stratasys notes that its Digital ABS material can be used “for many injection molding purposes.” Let’s just hope that aspiring chocolatiers don’t take their 3D printed injection molds past the creepy line.

    [h/t: Stratasys]

  • Google engineers’ robocall-blocking scheme wins kudos from FTC

    Google Engineers Robocall
    Election years have become nightmares for many Americans, who are not only subjected to an endless stream of campaign ads but must also put up with campaigns and third-party advocacy groups overloading their phone lines with annoying robocalls. The Federal Trade Commission this week announced the winners of its “Robocall Challenge” competition to find ways to stop robocalls and gave special kudos to Google (GOOG) engineers Daniel Klein and Dean Jackson, who proposed “the creation of a system that allows users to report, to an online database system, the originating telephone number of unwanted solicitations, advertisements or robotically placed calls.” If the Google engineers’ system is successfully implemented, blocking robocalls could soon become as simple as blocking unwanted spam messages in Gmail accounts, which is certainly a welcome prospect for Americans who are tired of having their dinners interrupted by automated messages.

  • Samsung working on new generation Galaxy Ace device

    Samsung_galaxy_ace_2

    According to reports, Samsung is working on a new generation Galaxy Ace device to succeed the Galaxy Ace 2 released last year. The third generation in the Ace line will have a 4.0-inch display, a 5MP camera, 4GB of internal storage and will run Android Jelly Bean. No information on a processor is available yet, but some are guessing it may carry a 1.2GHz dual-core chip. Samsung is expected to release the new Ace device in four colors – Metallic Black, Metallic Blue, Pure White, and Wine Red – sometime in June. The device’s model number is GT-S7272.

    source: SamMobile

    Come comment on this article: Samsung working on new generation Galaxy Ace device

  • Weightless finalizes its white spaces networking standard for the internet of things

    The Weightless Special Interest Group has put the finishing touches on its wireless radio standard for that uses white spaces spectrum to glue together the internet of things. The SIG finalized the 600-page set of specifications at its Plenary Conference in Cambridge, U.K., on Tuesday.

    The final approval is largely a formality, since Weightless SIG members such as Neul, CSR, Cable & Wireless, ARM and Google have already begun working with the technology. Neul has developed its first commercial Weightless chip, and has launched an experimental smart grid network in Cambridge. Google has begun using the technology in broadband trials in South Africa.

    Weightless White Space ChipBut the approval does cement the standard, allowing the SIG’s membership to begin developing products without worrying about technical specs shifting from under them. As defined, version 1.0 of the standard is pretty flexible, allowing it to be used for any kind of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications network, whether it aggregates tiny transmissions from millions of nodes, such as in a smart grid, or utilizes a more traditional high-speed mobile data connection.

    The SIG is also making some pretty astonishing claims about the technology’s capabilities: a range of up to 10 km (6.2 miles), allowing for far-flung networks; device battery life for up 10 years, which means monitoring devices could be deployed in the field for long periods of time without maintenance; and chipset costs of less $2, making the barrier of entry for including Weightless in a device extremely low.

    Those three specs make up the holy trinity of wide-area M2M communications and would make the technology feasible for all but the cheapest devices in the future internet of things. But it remains to be seen whether Weightless can live up to those promises.

    White spaces broadband in the U.K. is taking a different shape than in the U.S. On this side of the Atlantic, white spaces are viewed more as unlicensed broadband wireless technology — sometimes dubbed “Super Wi-Fi”. White spaces are the unused frequencies between TV transmissions, and since the TV airwaves are much more crowded in urban areas, white spaces likely will be most useful for rural broadband in the U.S.

    Feature image courtesy of Cillian Storm.

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  • Here is an IPO you didn’t expect: Moleskine

    If you work in technology and still like to take notes, write, draw and imagine, then you are quite familiar with the Moleskine brand. What was once a cool but obscure brand of notebooks has become a product so ubiquitous that you can find it in swag bags for conferences, and venture capital firms hand them out like candy.

    In other words, it is very mainstream and very big. And that is why Moleskine went public today on the Milan Stock Exchange. Its shares were priced at 2.30 euros a share. The company raised 245 million euros, or roughly $314 million. It is valued at roughly $626 million. Moleskin had revenues of 78.1 million euros and a profit of about 18.1 million euros in 2012. The stock jumped 3.9 percent today before falling slightly.

    Here is a little background on the company from its prospectus:

    The company grew out of the experience of Modo&Modo, a small Milanese publisher that in 1997 created the Moleskine trademark, rediscovering and renewing an extraordinary tradition. In the fall of 2006, Modo&Modo was purchased by SGCapital Europe, now Syntegra Capital, with the objective of fully developing the potential of the Moleskine brand. Since 1 January 2007, Moleskine has also become the name of the company that owns the worldwide trademark rights for the brand.  In the fall of 2006, Modo&Modo was purchased by SGCapital Europe, now Syntegra Capital, with the objective of fully developing the potential of the Moleskine brand.

    evernote-smart-notebooks

    The IPO is a windfall for Index Ventures, one of the investors in Moleskine. The company is making efforts to cash in on its tech connections. It recently partnered with Evernote for a smart notebook and also has started a community for Moleskine customers. By the way, all the cool kids are now using Field Notes, which is, well, cooler.

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  • ‘Your Survival Instinct is Killing You’ Author Marc Schoen Gives Google Talk

    Dr. Marc Schoen, author of Your Survival Instinct Is Killing You, recently spoke in one of Google’s “Authors @ Google” talks. The company has now posted that video to YouTube for your enjoyment. It’s about 42 minutes long.

    More recent @Google Talks here.

  • How to Deal with a Toxic Client

    Law firms have a hard-earned reputation for being really tough places to work. Today I see an increasing amount of toxicity in those firms. Over the past couple of decades, I’ve met with partners and managing partners at regional and national law firms, who have not infrequently found themselves bullied by greedy, selfish, entitled, angry clients or even other partners.

    Why are law firms such toxic places to work? While there is no shortage of obnoxious lawyers in firms (and sadly too often these “shrieking wheels” get the grease and a promotion), in many cases the clients set the tone. When they are not able to push back on or fire these clients, partners will often take it out by “kicking the dog” in the form of yelling at their associates or staff. I’ve even seen some turn to drugs, alcohol and a variety of unhealthy habits to redirect their frustration. The fact is that as much as there are some clients that law firms would do well to turn away or fire, they won’t. They’re just too profitable.

    Whether you’re dealing with law firm clients, or any difficult client in any industry, what is the best way to deal with such clients to prevent them from abusing you — and to prevent you from taking that frustration out on someone else?

    Start by planning for the worst. Expect such people to act awful, especially when they’re not getting their way.

    Go into the conversation holding a little of yourself back; when they reach that “tipping point” into toxicity, you won’t be blindsided. Prepare for that knock-out punch insult by saying to yourself, “Here it comes.” Then take a deep breath, look them straight in their left eye (which is attached to their right emotional brain), pause until they realize they haven’t provoked you into losing your cool (even if they say something else to insult you) and then select one of the following replies:

    • “Say that again?”
    • “Do you really believe what you just said?”
    • “Huh?” (as in, “Excuse me”)
    • “What was that all about?” (said the way a big brother or big sister might say with an almost affectionate, playful tone of incredulity)
    • Or one of my favorites: “Excuse me, I apologize, but my mind wandered over the past few minutes, can you please repeat what you just said?”

    If they see that you didn’t flinch from something that was supposed to knock you out, you may notice their not quite knowing what to do. (A lot of what I learned about dealing with difficult people I learned from dealing with F. Lee Bailey during the O.J. Simpson trial.)

    However, an ounce of preparation is worth a pound of abuse. Even if you keep your cool in the situation above, you’ll still find it very stressful. An even better approach is to prepare with difficult clients for the inevitable time you’ll have bad news to deliver. If you wait until crap happens (and it will), the likelihood of your conversation turning into a combative conversation is high and the ability for people to listen to each other when both are reacting is very small.

    Take a preemptive approach by saying to your client, “Going forward, in the event I have to tell you about a bump and obstacle or setback, what is the best way to tell you?” They probably haven’t been asked before, and may have never given it any thought. If they’re not sure what to say, you can continue with something like: “My other clients have told me such things as, don’t do it by email; don’t tell me on a Friday; when you tell me, tell me what happened, your understanding of it, the implications of it, what options we have and why those, what solutions you’d suggest and why those, and what you need from me to make the best of it and get it back on the rails. What works for you?”

    After they reply, say, “This is much too important for me to not get exactly right, because in the event we need to have such a conversation, I want to do it exactly as you have suggested.” At that point repeat back exactly what they told you and ask them if you got it right and wait for them to respond with, “Yes.” If they change what you have said, repeat those changes back to them.

    Then when you hit that bump, remind them of this conversation by saying, “I’m not sure if you remember a conversation we had about how to best communicate with you about bumps in the road and if memory serves, you gave me these guidelines (then repeat what they told you above) and we’ve hit one of those bumps (and then follow exactly what they explained as the best way to communicate with them in such a situation).

    It amazing how having had a preemptive conversation can make it easier to approach — instead of avoid — the conflict you feel about delivering upsetting news.

  • Web discovery engine Trapit launches publisher tools, with Here Media as first client

    Trapit, a discovery engine for web content from the team behind Siri, is rolling out a set of publisher tools on Wednesday. The tools allow publishers to serve up their content through white-label iOS and web apps and offer personalized recommendations for readers around specific topics. The first client is Here Media, a media company that targets the LGBT community with magazines like The Advocate and Out, websites like Gay.com and Out.com, and the Alyson Books publishing division.

    With Trapit’s existing web and iPad apps, users search for a subject or URL and save it as a “trap.” Trapit then uses artificial intelligence to surface relevant web content from a pool of around 140,000 sources. Users can improve their recommendations by tapping a thumbs-up or thumbs-down and selecting the reason they don’t like a piece of content. There are now over 10 million people “inside the service,” Trapit cofounder Hank Nothhaft told me, though the company wouldn’t disclose the number of registered users.

    Trapit’s new Publisher Suite lets publishers deliver content from their own publications and from across the web. They can also add their own sources to Trapit’s pool and can push out all of their content to readers in a somewhat Google Reader-like fashion. They get access to analytics and can see how users are engaging with content. And publishers control the advertising within their app. Pricing starts at $1,000 a month.

    Advocate Discovery app 2Why Here Media chose Trapit: Control over ads and sources

    Some of Trapit’s new publisher offerings sound similar to the new publisher services offered by Flipboard. The new features, rolled out at the end of March, let users create custom magazines using content pulled in from anywhere. From the beginning, Trapit has differentiated itself from Flipboard by emphasizing both the fact that it digs up content readers wouldn’t find on their own and that it doesn’t scrape content from publishers’ sites. (Trapit serves web pages within its app but shows their original design, videos, comments and ads.)

    Paul Colichman, CEO of Here Media, told me that’s what attracted him to Trapit. Most discovery apps “literally lift the content from publishers and don’t compensate them at all,” he said. “When an app takes all of your content and delivers the whole story without any need to link and [without] showing any of your ads, it is not helpful for publishers.” Trapit, he said, is “more fair and appropriate for the publisher” because Trapit users see the same ads that they’d see on a publisher’s site.

    Here Media customized its white-label Trapit iPad app, “Advocate Discovery,” for its users. “With all of these [discovery] platforms, the gay and lesbian community are often terribly underrepresented,” Colichman said. Trapit’s sources “didn’t pull from the hundreds or thousands of sources that are LGBT-specific.” So Here Media added about 1,500 custom sources to its app, and plans to add around 2,500 more in the next 60 days. “In my opinion,” Colichman said, “Advocate Discovery will be the only gay app any gay person ever needs.”

    Trapit’s Nothhaft said that the company is in discussions with other publishers and expects to announce new partners soon. Non-publishers are signing on, too; consulting firm Deloitte used Trapit’s tools to create an internally available app that surfaces knowledge and information about the industries Deloitte covers.

    Trapit is based in Palo Alto, Calif. and is backed by Horizons Ventures and SRI International.

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  • UCLA brain-imaging tool and stroke risk test help identify cognitive decline early

    UCLA researchers have used a brain-imaging tool and stroke risk assessment to identify signs of cognitive decline early on in individuals who don’t yet show symptoms of dementia.
     
    The connection between stroke risk and cognitive decline has been well established by previous research. Individuals with higher stroke risk, as measured by factors like high blood pressure, have traditionally performed worse on tests of memory, attention and abstract reasoning.
     
    The current small study demonstrated that not only stroke risk, but also the burden of plaques and tangles, as measured by a UCLA brain scan, may influence cognitive decline.
     
    The imaging tool used in the study was developed at UCLA and reveals early evidence of amyloid beta “plaques” and neurofibrillary tau “tangles” in the brain — the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.
     
    The study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, demonstrates that taking both stroke risk and the burden of plaques and tangles into accout may offer a more powerful assessment of factors determining how people are doing now and will do in the future.
     
    “The findings reinforce the importance of managing stroke risk factors to prevent cognitive decline even before clinical symptoms of dementia appear,” said first author Dr. David Merrill, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.
     
    This is one of the first studies to examine both stroke risk and plaque and tangle levels in the brain in relation to cognitive decline before dementia has even set in, Merrill said.
     
    According to the researchers, the UCLA brain-imaging tool could prove useful in tracking cognitive decline over time and offer additional insight when used with other assessment tools.
     
    For the study, the team assessed 75 people who were healthy or had mild cognitive impairment, a risk factor for the future development of Alzheimer’s. The average age of the participants was 63.
     
    The individuals underwent neuropsychological testing and physical assessments to calculate their stroke risk using the Framingham Stroke Risk Profile, which examines age, gender, smoking status, systolic blood pressure, diabetes, atrial fibrillation (irregular heart rhythm), use of blood pressure medications, and other factors.
     
    In addition, each participant was injected with a chemical marker called FDDNP, which binds to deposits of amyloid beta plaques and neurofibrillary tau tangles in the brain. The researchers then used positron emission tomography (PET) to image the brains of the subjects — a method that enabled them to pinpoint where these abnormal proteins accumulate.
     
    The study found that greater stroke risk was significantly related to lower performance in several cognitive areas, including language, attention, information-processing speed, memory, visual-spatial functioning (e.g., ability to read a map), problem-solving and verbal reasoning.
     
    The researchers also observed that FDDNP binding levels in the brain correlated with participants’ cognitive performance. For example, volunteers who had greater difficulties with problem-solving and language displayed higher levels of the FDDNP marker in areas of their brain that control those cognitive activities. 
     
    “Our findings demonstrate that the effects of elevated vascular risk, along with evidence of plaques and tangles, is apparent early on, even before vascular damage has occurred or a diagnosis of dementia has been confirmed,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Longevity Center and a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences who holds the Parlow–Solomon Chair on Aging at UCLA’s Semel Institute.
     
    Researchers found that several individual factors in the stroke assessment stood out as predictors of decline in cognitive function, including age, systolic blood pressure and use of blood pressure–related medications.
     
    Small noted that the next step in the research would be studies with a larger sample size to confirm and expand the findings.
     
    The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grants PO1-AG025831, AG13308, P50 AG 16570, MH/AG58156, MH52453, AG10123 and MO1-RR00865); the UCLA Claude Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, funded by the National Institute on Aging (grant 5P30AG028748); the American Federation for Aging Research; and the John A. Hartford Foundation Centers of Excellence National Program.
     
    UCLA owns three U.S. patents on the FDDNP chemical marker. Small and study author Dr. Jorge Barrio are among the inventors. 
     
    Additional UCLA authors included Prabha Sidarth, Pushpa V. Rajaa, Nathan Saito, Linda M. Ercoli, Karen J. Miller, Helen Lavretsky, Vladimir Kepe and Susan Y. Bookheimer.
     
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