A Tool Consumers Need

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently issued a report on "pre-dispute" arbitration, also known as forced arbitration. That is the ubiquitous corporate practice of requiring consumers to agree in advance to use arbitration for any dispute that arises from a company's products or services, rather than go to court.Banks and businesses love forced arbitration, because it is a process they control for their own benefit. It shields them from accountability by closing the courthouse door to consumers. But no one should have to forfeit consumer protections and legal rights to use products and services.In the Dodd-Frank law,Mention Becomes A Full-Fledged Media Monitoring Tool With Buffer Integration lawmakers banned arbitration clauses in most residential mortgages. However, they did not prohibit them in other consumer financial contracts, and instead authorized the bureau to decide if a ban is warranted after completing a thorough analysis and reporting the findings to Congress.

The bureau's report is the first step in that process. It presents initial findings on the use and complexity of forced arbitration clauses in checking accounts, credit cards, prepaid cards and payday loans. These findings are intended to serve as raw material for further analysis, but even the raw data is compelling.The report found, for example, that most large banks put forced arbitration clauses in basic contracts and that 90 percent of those clauses bar both individual lawsuits and participation in class actions. This results in a systematic denial of justice.In disputes over financial products — involving, say, excessive fees, inflated loan balances, faulty credit reporting, or fraud and discrimination — the damages at stake may be significant for an individual but not enough to warrant the cost of a legal challenge unless grouped in a class action. Forced arbitration also fosters abuse, since there is no check on wrongdoing that takes small amounts of money from potentially millions of customers.

To the extent that consumers are aware of their vulnerability, they have learned the hard way. In the past several years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld arbitration clauses, leaving consumers with virtually no meaningful way to challenge corporate wrongdoing. Ideally, Congress would pass a law to remedy that injustice. For now, it is relying on the consumer bureau. To work its way toward an effective ban on forced arbitration, the agency need only follow where the evidence leads.

Mention Becomes A Full-Fledged Media Monitoring Tool With Buffer Integration

French startup Mention just received an important update that should make it more compelling to its user base. Whenever Mention users receive a new alert, they can share it on their social channels using Buffer, lining up status updates to share later. As a reminder, Mention is a media monitoring tool that works a lot like Google Alerts with a web interface to skim through your alerts. It is mostly targeted toward business users.While there was a way to tweet and share individual alerts on Facebook, you had to do it manually throughout the day. With today's update, you can spend a few minutes every now and then to see all your alerts regarding your company or product, and decide what to share. Then, everything will happen automatically — your social feeds will stay active with updates about what you are doing.

Combining Mention with Buffer makes a lot of sense. Mention's strengths were its monitoring tools, not its social features. Instead of making a Buffer copycat to fill this gap in the product offering, it partnered with Buffer. In the meantime, Buffer users will be able to get an alert stream right from the Buffer dashboard.So far, Mention has attracted 150,000 users and 2,500 paying subscribers, including CrunchBase, GitHub or Microsoft. It is tiny compared to Buffer's 1 million users, but media alerts feel more like a niche product — the new partnership will help both user bases grow. The company has received $800,000 in seed funding. Converting more users to its paying plan will probably be the next challenge for the startup.

The discovery of a 1.4-million-year-old hand-bone fossil reveals that the modern human ability to make and use complex tools may have originated far earlier than scientists previously thought, researchers say.A critical trait that distinguishes modern humans from all other species alive today is the ability to make complex tools. It's not just the extraordinarily powerful human brain, but also the human hand, that gives humans this unique ability. In contrast, apes — humans' closest living relatives — lack a powerful and precise enough grip to create and use complex tools effectively.A key anatomical feature of the modern human hand is the third metacarpal, a bone in the palm that connects the middle finger to the wrist.

Dyn acquires service status tool ReadyStatus to integrate into its Internet performance offerings

Internet performance solutions company Dyn has acquired ReadyStatus, a tool that provides a status update page for online services. Dyn will integrate ReadyStatus with its products, including its managed DNS feature Traffic Director. This will mean that if a company's site goes down, its homepage can automatically switch to a status update page.The all-cash deal is Dyn's third acquisition this year, following website monitoring service Verelo in January, and mobile analytics dashboard tool Trendslide in May. ReadyStatus will continue to serve existing users.

Duke University researchers are developing a program that will help users start conversations with their loved ones regarding their family health.MeTree is an online tool that will allow users to build a family pedigree by inputting family health information. The tool will then create a risk profile for each family member along with criteria needed to help lower their health risks."Family history is much more likely to be able to tell your doctor about what we should do to lower your risk for certain conditions than any other test available today," said Dr. Lori Orlando,Security concerns raised over visa program for foreign investors an assistant professor of family medicine at Duke University who is helping develop the tool.MeTree is still in the research phase and won't be available for two years, but as families gather for Christmas, there are resources available to help relatives start crucial conversations about family health.

Duke offers a guide to family health history that has information about what questions to ask and how to build a family health pedigree – information that can be shared with the doctor. As a result, they may recommend steps like early and more detailed screening or genetic testing and counseling to help lower health risks.Such discussions can be difficult to start with family members but are needed because they could reveal patterns of inherited risk for heart disease, diabetes, various cancers or other diseases, Orlando said.

Security concerns raised over visa program for foreign investors

Grassley, in a Dec. 12 letter to ICE Acting Director John Sandweg, asked what ICE is doing "to help ensure the U.S. does not provide EB-5 visas to individuals and entities that are involved in international terrorism."Some argue major security improvements to the program have been made over the past several years and that Congress has been apprised of them as members continue to reauthorize the program.However, Grassley argues the ICE memo -- which he released -- shows Congress needs to know more."It appears that there are additional concerns about national security that Congress has not previously heard and will need to consider as the program continues," he told FoxNews.com on Monday.

According to the memo, federal agents learned two Iranians were trying to "facilitate terrorism" and were "involved in an illicit procurement network that exports items to Iran for use by 'secret' Iranian government agencies."At least one of them was indicted and arrested in connection with allegations cited in the ICE investigation, according to the heavily redacted, five-page memo. The connection to the EB-5 program is unclear, but the memo appears to indicate that a company involved in the investigation was participating in that program. DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said Monday the federal government has taken "unprecedented steps" in the past four years to improve security and detect fraud within the EB-5 program. He also said the internal memo focused on just one regional center, which was suspended from participating in the program until an investigation found no evidence of "nefarious" activity.

The EB-5 visa program was created by Congress in 1990 to stimulate the domestic economy through foreign investment. It originally required applicants to invest at least $1 million and grants them and immediate family members a temporary visa with the potential to get a permanent one after roughly two years.The Regional Centers program was added in 1992 and requires only a $500,000 investment into projects that help economically depressed regions.

Climate change is likely to make the problem far worse

With the global population expected to reach more than nine billion by 2050, however, the world might soon be hungry for such varieties. Although agricultural productivity has improved dramatically over the past 50 years, economists fear that these improvements have begun to wane at a time when food demand, driven by the larger number of people and the growing appetites of wealthier populations, is expected to rise between 70 and 100 percent by midcentury. In particular, the rapid increases in rice and wheat yields that helped feed the world for decades are showing signs of slowing down, and production of cereals will need to more than double by 2050 to keep up. If the trend continues, production might be insufficient to meet demand unless we start using significantly more land, fertilizer, and water.

Climate change is likely to make the problem far worse, bringing higher temperatures and, in many regions, wetter conditions that spread infestations of disease and insects into new areas. Drought, damaging storms, and very hot days are already taking a toll on crop yields, and the frequency of these events is expected to increase sharply as the climate warms. For farmers, the effects of climate change can be simply put: the weather has become far more unpredictable,Wetmore Tool and Engineering in Chino a leader in cutting tools and extreme weather has become far more common.

The central highlands of Mexico, for example, experienced their driest and wettest years on record back to back in 2011 and 2012, says Matthew Reynolds, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in El Batán. Such variation is "worrisome and very bad for agriculture," he says. "It's extremely challenging to breed for it. If you have a relatively stable climate, you can breed crops with genetic characteristics that follow a certain profile of temperatures and rainfall. As soon as you get into a state of flux, it's much more difficult to know what traits to target."One advantage of using genetic engineering to help crops adapt to these sudden changes is that new varieties can be created quickly. Creating a potato variety through conventional breeding, for example, takes at least 15 years; producing a genetically modified one takes less than six months. Genetic modification also allows plant breeders to make more precise changes and draw from a far greater variety of genes, gleaned from the plants' wild relatives or from different types of organisms.

Wetmore Tool and Engineering in Chino a leader in cutting tools

Wetmore also produces more adapted shank cutting tools for the aircraft industry than any one else in the world, Kurtz said.More recently Kurtz and the company were honored with the title of the Spirit of the Entrepreneur's 2013 "Corporate Entrepreneur"award for its high standards, attention to detail and quality control.Entrepreneurs and top business leaders across the Inland Empire were recognized at the event that celebrated "The Art of Entrepreneurship" at the Ontario Convention Center on Nov. 19.Spirit of the Entrepreneur organizers received 162 nominations this year. The list was narrowed down to 27 finalists in nine categories.Runners-up in the "Corporate Entrepreneur" category were Bruce Himes, president of Western Water Works Supply Co. Inc. in Chino Hills, and Roger Orton, general manager of the Chino-based Globe Plastics Inc.

According to the Spirit Awards program guide, under the direction of Kurtz, Wetmore has transformed from producing a commodity with little concern for quality and dependability into a world-class manufacturer with ISO, or International Standards Organizations, quality.Wetmore was nominated by Bob Velker, who is the Chino Airport business liaison and community outreach manager for the San Bernardino County Department of Airports."I've been in the aerospace industry for a long time and they have become the dominant player in the production of supplying these tools to aerospace companies," Velker said. "In this small town Chino, Wetmore is high on the food chain with a major world-wide corporation like Boeing. That speaks volumes and it's all because of (Kurtz)."

Velker said one of the ingenious ideas Kurtz has had as an entrepreneur is that he treats his employees to a real-world demonstration of Wetmore's tools by hosting the company's holiday party at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino."We're brining to life planes by using the tools that his employees make," said Velker, who volunteers at Planes of Fame.The cutting tool company has about 200 employees and expects double-digit growth and product line expansion beyond its current core markets.

A tool to help you in the hunt for value stocks

The Value Line Investment Survey starts with its universe of 1,700 stocks that make up about 90 percent of the market capitalization of all stocks traded in U.S. markets. Value Line ranks those stocks into quintiles based on three propriety measures called Timeliness, Safety and Technical.The quintiles place the stocks into five categories so that you can quickly grasp which equities are at the top, bottom and middle of the pack.For Timeliness and Technical rankings, the very top and very bottom each have 100 stocks. The middle contains 900 stocks, and Ranks 2 and 4 contain 300 stocks apiece. The distribution of Safety Ranks is not arranged in a set parameter.An aggressive investor would look for stocks ranked 1 or 2 for Timeliness,When used in conjunction with the Fed's power based in part on recent earnings momentum and stock-price performance.

These are stocks that Value Line believes will lead the pack for relative price performance during the next six to 12 months. They tend to be more volatile and have smaller capitalizations than the general market.Stocks ranked 3 are expected to be "average performers," but still might be quite appropriate for more conservative investors. Stocks ranked 4 and 5 would probably be weeded out by most investors, since those stocks are viewed as being less likely to perform well during the next six to 12 months than the vast majority of the 1,700 stocks.The Safety ranking is more useful for conservative investors, who will want to search for stocks ranked 1 or 2, while aggressive investors may be happy with 3, 4 or even 5 as long as they keep a watchful eye on the stock.

Safety is based on the company's Financial Strength grade, a measure of the financial condition of the company, as well as the stock's Price Stability, which is based on the stock's volatility standard deviation of weekly percentage price during the past five years.Aggressive investors also will want to focus on the Technical ranking, which predicts short-term three to six months price changes, based on a proprietary model evaluating 10 recent price trends.

When used in conjunction with the Fed's power

Mr. Potter said that market participants have told the Fed that the overnight reverse repos "should be an effective tool for increasing the Federal Reserve's control of short-term money market rates through a stronger floor." He added, "money market experts have noted the exercise's importance in the current environment of promoting market functioning; for example, it reduces the likelihood of pervasive, negative short-term rates trading."Mr. Potter said that the reverse repo facility is particularly helpful because it reaches a wide range of market participants, and he said that it doesn't even have to be used heavily to help the Fed gain greater control over short-term rates in some future tightening cycle. But he added that the reverse repos are unlikely to be a silver bullet on their own.

When used in conjunction with the Fed's power to pay interest on reserves–that helps keep cash on the Fed's books and out of the economy–Mr. Potter explained the reverse repos "may strengthen the floor for short-term interest rates and, with it, the Federal Reserve's control of money market rates, by surmounting the competitive and balance sheet frictions seen in money markets and by extending the central bank's payment of interest to a wider universe of relevant counterparties."Simon Potter, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's markets group chief, said the Fed's new reverse repurchase agreement tool probably will be a key part of how the central bank eventually tightens monetary policy.

Market "participants have indicated that they expect that a facility, if executed in full scale in the future, should be an effective tool for increasing the Federal Reserve's control of short-term money market rates," Potter said yesterday in a speech in New York. He is in charge of the System Open Market Account used in implementing monetary policy.Fed officials have been testing the new tool -- known as a fixed-rate, full allotment overnight reverse repo facility -- aimed at improving their control of near-term borrowing costs when they tighten policy by siphoning off excess cash in the banking system."Operationally, market participants generally characterize the exercise as smooth, with minimal disruptions," Potter said.The program would allow banks, broker-dealers, money-market funds and some government-sponsored enterprises to lend the Fed unlimited amounts of cash overnight at a fixed rate, currently 0.05 percent, in exchange for borrowing Treasuries in so-called reverse repo transactions.

The beauty of 'Minecraft' is it's not language-based

"The beauty of 'Minecraft' is it's not language-based," said Lorraine Yurshansky, executive producer for the new Google Creative Lab. "Over half the traffic is international. It's a global game, which makes it a global reach."Yurshansky tapped Michalakis to develop a fun and engaging way to get kids interested in quantum mechanics as part of the Google Creative Lab's STEM initiative.In the beginning, Michalakis didn't know "Minecraft" from "Minesweeper," he said. He originally pitched that the educational game center around either the Super Mario Bros. or Zelda franchises, but Yurshansky suggested "Minecraft" was more topical, and the game's cubicle world would be more conducive to teach quantum mechanics.

"You need to strike a balance between being fun and inspiring," Yurshansky said. "You want them to go down the rabbit hole. You want them to be excited about physics."Chatwin-Davis and Kubica both were more familiar with "Minecraft," and consulted on "qCraft.""We had some suggestions in how it should behave so that you enjoying playing this mod,Because you would have an economy but at the same time, you can learn a bit of quantum mechanics," Kubica said.Schools across the U.S., including New Los Angeles Charter School, have built lesson plans around "Minecraft." The sandbox game can act as a history lesson, a math lesson or even a science lesson."Since it's a building game, you can build anything you want," said Joel Levin, cofounder and education director of MinecraftEdu, headquartered in Finland. "Teachers can and do use the Minecraft world to teach whatever they want."

"QCraft" was a hit when Michalakis, Kubica and fellow Caltech consultant Aidan Chatwin-Davis presented it at the popular MineCon convention on Nov. 2 and 3 in Orlando, Fla."It was pretty intense," Chatwin-Davis said. "There was a continuous stream of kids and adults. I'd say what was really cool was getting just as many questions from the kids as the adults."Taxation, representation and slavery were up for debate recently at Wauwatosa West High School, where juniors engaged in a multi-day, in-class simulation of the first Constitutional Convention in 1787."I hope that today's debate ends with a decision on how representatives are chosen," Andrew Gleason typed on Twitter.

Because you would have an economy

Yet throughout that time, Sir Bernard was employed as a civil servant, not as a political adviser like Alastair Campbell or Andy Coulson.Mrs Thatcher had not come across him before she entered Downing Street, and probably would not have appointed him if she had thought that a press secretary's job was of major importance.It was Sir Bernard who persuaded her that she had to apprise herself of what was in the newspapers and take seriously the practice we now call spin-doctoring.Before Mrs Thatcher, his political boss was the Labour Secretary of State for Energy, Tony Benn, of whom he speaks with mocking affection: "He's a sort of endearing national treasure now. I find him quite hilarious."The other unusual aspect of Sir Bernard's story is that he is the son of a Labour councillor from Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, who once ran for a council seat as a Labour candidate and worked as a journalist on The Guardian before joining the civil service.

When The Independent caught up with him, he was intent on compounding the offence"They're thick as two planks, aren't they?" he said, laughing as he spoke. "As I said, it's bovine stupidity. Never mind, they'll get over it, when they've had a dose of [Ed] Balls."While he does not claim that the 2008 banking crash was entirely caused by "Gordon Brown and his acolytes" – which seems a fair point, since the problem began with people defaulting on their mortgages in the US – he repeats the often heard Tory allegation that the UK government's deficit is a product of "gross overspending".

But how could it be in the interests of people in northern cities, where unemployment is rife and the state is the main employer, to vote Conservative, when the Conservatives are on a mission to cut back the state?"Because you would have an economy: you wouldn't have one with this Labour lot," he replied. "And this is the problem: people get into their minds that there is a certain class of people in this country, ie the Tories in this case, who are dangerous and damaging. I don't even believe that of a lot of Labour MPs, but I do think that the economics of Labour are potentially damaging, especially in the hands of people like Balls. They think that the Tories are all la-di-da, but the Tories aren't like that any more."

Divorce As a Teaching Tool

Parents are superheroes. You keep your children safe, protected and cared for every day. As parents and caregivers, you are capable of putting aside anything when it comes to the welfare of your children. Consider the mother who lifts a car to save her child trapped underneath or the father who works multiple jobs to pay for his son's private schooling. Parents are the everyday heroes of our lives and, like all people, face down adversity and sometimes reality for the betterment of the children. However, when confronted with the trauma of separation and divorce, many parents falter.Divorce, in many cases, is to parenting what kryptonite is to Superman. Just as Superman time and again worked around or through the devastation of kryptonite,Explain that during divorce so to will you have to work parenting around the wreckage of divorce. Divorce doesn't have to render you powerless, you just have to consider it from another angle and turn it to your advantage.

When we step back and look at divorce from a distance, we see two people attempting to function in adversity. What many parents forget to take into account is that the ways in which you behave and present yourself directly impacts your children and will implicitly teach them how to act in the face of heartbreak and distress.You not only need to act with integrity to teach your children how to behave through conflict, but you also have to grasp the opportunity to explicitly teach them ways to handle complex emotions, develop tools to cope with change and provide an environment that supports positive thinking. Imagine empowering your children with the tools to face change and heartbreak in the future. In this regard, divorce can become a teaching tool for life skills and emotional intelligence that will not only make your children more resilient but also better people.

There is a wonderful saying that comes from Yogi Bhajan:"If you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it."Divorce is your time to become a master of change and emotional intelligence for your children. You may be hurt, but you are still wearing the cape of parenthood. You can continue to be the superhero by making your pain and recovery teachable moments for your children.You can set your intention each day by focusing on your goals and how you plan to achieve them. A proactive approach to your divorce will show your children that even in conflict, one must act in order to accomplish their desires.

Explain that during divorce

Teachable Moment: Open a dialogue about divorce. Share that your heart is hurt without going into detail but explain that you still go to work, buy groceries and make dinner -- even when you'd rather just sleep it all away. Have your children share a time when they were upset about something and did not want to go to school. Ask them to share how they worked past their hurt feelings and carried on. How did they feel after the day was over? Use this moment to show that continuing your routines and practices actually helps you feel better.You can be a SuperParent through divorce by consistently acting with integrity. Keep the same rules and routines you had from before the divorce to create stability for your children. Divorce is just as hard if not harder on children as it is on you. Speak only with integrity about your ex; saying hurtful things about a child's parent is traumatizing. Use your coach or your journal to purge negative thoughts and speech.

Teachable Moment: Explain that during divorce, husbands and wives often get angry with each other. Sometimes, when angered, people will say cruel things or act inappropriately - neither of which helps anyone feel better. State that rather than acting in anger, you can choose to release your emotions in a constructive way. Counting to ten, writing your feelings, and vigorous exercise are all great outlets for anger and frustration. Have the children share ways they they can let out their anger without hurting another.

Divorce is complicated and the process can be frustrating even for the boldest of SuperParents. When your children see you receiving help - and recovering - you teach them that it is perfectly acceptable to seek assistance from others. Hire a coach to help you understand your emotions. Then master them by sharing what you learn with your children. Be sure to rely upon the assistance of divorce financial planners and attorneys as well. Their advice will only help you to reach a satisfactory settlement.Teachable Moment: Explain that sometimes even adults face challenges that are too difficult to work on alone. Share an experience you've had receiving help from others. Have your children share their own experiences. How did they feel after getting help? What did they learn from their helper? Finally, brainstorm ways you can all help each other.

Researchers primarily from the University of Maryland

Researchers primarily from the University of Maryland, along with Google, have created a new tool to help scientists monitor forest disturbance. The researchers have synthesized 12 years' worth of satellite imagery into a maplike interactive tool illustrating recent changes in the extent of forest cover around the world. Their findings were published Thursday in the journal Science.Can This Tool Predict Your Next Facebook Status? By providing a record of changes in forested areas across the globe, the tool can be used to help track threats to biodiversity, the effectiveness of policies that protect forest areas and the release of carbon long tied up in trees and other organic material, among other forest health issues.Trees absorb carbon dioxide for use in photosynthesis, making them one of the most effective natural tools to remove the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.

The map includes any area that charted gains or losses in forest cover during the observed period. Areas that experienced no change in the amount of forest cover are shown as blacked out.More than 650,000 Landsat satellite images taken between 2000 and 2012 were drawn on to create the map. By some estimates, it could have taken a lone computer 15 years to process that volume of data, but because of Google's involvement it took just a few days, said Matthew Hansen, a professor of geographical sciences at the University of Maryland and the study's lead author. Still, he said, even with its enormous processing power, Google's servers broke a sweat.

"When they ran it, the lights dimmed," Dr. Hansen said.Previous efforts at forest mapping have been at very coarse resolutions, he said. With a spatial resolution of 30 meters almost 33 yards, the map stands as the most visually refined tool of its kind."At 30 meters you start to see things a lot more clearly," Dr. Hansen said.At that resolution, he said, the tool can be used to help shape deforestation policy, even on a local scale. Still, despite an interface much like Google Maps — the resource was developed using the Google Earth Engine platform — the interactive graphic doesn't zoom down to individual stands of trees, for instance, the way a pastiche of satellite images might. Rather, it illustrates changes in land character using color blocking.

Can This Tool Predict Your Next Facebook Status?

Shaw said he has no idea when Bryant will take the court for the first time since undergoing surgery in April, but added, "I know he'll do everything in his power to strengthen up that area that's injured and give himself every chance to come back and play at the level that he's accustomed to playing at."He also knows that whether Bryant is playing or not, he'll still be a valuable reference point when trying to connect with his Nuggets team."Kobe, there's a uniqueness about him in terms of his will to compete and to want to be the best -- his thirst for being the best -- that no one else has, and so I understand that," Shaw said. "But anytime I can use a story or an analogy to try to motivate guys to understand what it really takes to be good and to perform on that level night in and night out, especially when every team is game planning to stop you, I use it."

On "what would I say?" — which appears to have been created over the weekend for the hackers conference HackPrinceton 2013 and is being circulated on Twitter — users log in with their Facebook accounts and click the "Generate Status" button. Using a Markov bot, the app takes text from your past Facebook statuses and blurts out one based on what it thinks you would write. And the tool itself does not store your Facebook information; "only your browser ever sees your post history," according to the site description. A user of custom timelines could create a list of anything on Twitter, from news about major events, like the destruction caused by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, to less weighty matters like the best cat jokes ever posted on Twitter.

"Whether you want to collect the best tweets about a TV show or help people find the latest information about fast-moving real-time situations, custom timelines lets you give everyone a place to follow along," wrote Brian Ellin, a product manager at Twitter, in a blog post announcing the tool.Custom timelines also help Twitter address one of its biggest problems: It is often hard to find meaning amid the chaos of half a billion Twitter posts a day.Essentially, Twitter is hoping to enlist its most dedicated fans as tour guides. The company said the political news site Politico, the British newspaper The Guardian and Carson Daly, host of "The Voice," were early users of the timeline tool.

Google launches crisis tools to help the Philippines deal with the aftermath of a powerful typhoon

The bills would also require scrap dealers to take still pictures or video of items offered for sale, which law enforcement officials say will make it easier to connect stolen goods with the thieves responsible.Michigan makes the 10th highest number of claims for scrap metal theft in the nation. Earlier this year, the Michigan State Police told the Free Press that the number of illegal scrapping incidents reported skyrocketed from 527 in 2011 to 1,402 in 2012.The Michigan chapter of the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries, the scrap dealers' trade association, has opted not to weigh in on the House bills, saying that the group is working with legislators. The bills are widely supported by law enforcement agencies,Tigers making moves to re-tool for another 2014 run as well as by utility and railroad companies — both frequent targets of scrappers.

Scrapping is a perennial problem, and it's one that needs fixing. State Senate approval of these bills is an important step.A second set of anti-scrapping bills is making its way through the state Senate. That package, among other things, would require a permit for scrap dealers, require the State Police to make a registry for scrapping offenders, financed by half of a newly created $1-per-scrap-transaction fee, paid by dealers.It's important to remember that most scrap dealers are legitimate businesspeople who operate in compliance with the law. Any legislative remedy must strike the right balance, providing tools for law enforcement, realistic safeguards and significant penalties for wrongdoers without imposing unfair restrictions on honest dealers and honest scrappers.

Google announced today it has launched crisis tools to help gather and relay information to do with the devastation wrought by a powerful typhoon in the Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan also known as Yolanda left a trail of destruction over the weekend, with officials fearing that up to 10,000 people may have died.The tools include Google Person Finder, a Web app for individuals to either search for someone else or leave details about yourself and others. "As the number of names and records build, the tool will hopefully make it easier for those who are safe to pass on their news to anyone worried about them," Google notes. A mobile version of the tool is also available.Google has also come up with a Typhoon Yolanda Relief Map, which provides updates on shelters and other information from the disaster zone.

Tigers making moves to re-tool for another 2014 run

Our GM tenure began the moment Koji Uehara vanquished our World Series aspirations. While Dave Dombrowski did a great job leading the team this far, myself and Mr. J were brought aboard by the Ilitch family to get the team over the top. Our youthful exuberance and fondness for GIFs as teaching tools in the clubhouse were seen as big positives during the interview process, which consisted of an email or two.The simulated winter meetings began on Monday, November 3rd at 9:00 a.m. While there were preliminary talks with other teams over drinks during the weekend leading up to the meetings, no action occurred until the meetings began. It was not soon after, however, that we made our first move.

We're still not sure why Dave Dombrowski turned down Mr. Veras' services in real life, but the Fake Tigers sure are glad to welcome him back in the fold for 2014. Our organization will be changing its game management philosophies in part to maximize the bullpen's efficiency, and we saw Jose as part of that plan. Speaking of changing our organization's philosophies, that leads me to our next move...During our interviews with the Fake Brad Ausmus that I made up in my head, Brad was eager to implement our sabermetric philosophies into his game planning. Terms of his contract were not released, in part because I didn't have time at work to negotiate with myself over what our fake manager would make.One of the most important aspects of a general manager's job during the offseason is deciding which players to retain and which to let go.

Luckily for us, things were not so difficult. Of the Tigers' nine arbitration-eligible players, Phil Coke and Don Kelly were the only two to not receive contract tenders for the 2014 season.At this point, our main goal was similar to what the real-life goal should be for this Tigers team: re-sign Omar Infante and shore up the bullpen. Both of these goals have been met.According to sources, the Tigers' deal with Fake Infante is worth $30 million over three years. In a vacuum, the price seems steep. However, compared to what other free agents are getting, this seems to be a bargain.

Islip offers golf to kids with autism

"The kids don't think it's therapy. Aiden thinks it's just sports time," said Lorenzo, an aide to town Councilman Anthony Senft who learned about the program when therapist Alexander Lopez spoke at a recent town board meeting.Through Councilman Steve Flotteron, the town has worked with Lopez in the past on a golf program aimed at mentoring troubled teenagers in Brentwood.The program was so successful that Lopez launched similar programs at universities in Newark and Salt Lake City.Flotteron noted that these collaborative programs reach out to local youths without costing taxpayer money. "It costs the town nothing," he said.Lopez said he started Inclusive Sports and Fitness to help the children improve through the fun and activity of the sport.

"They're working on their balance, working on their coordination," Lopez said, adding that golf involves core exercises such as "crossing your midline" and hand-eye coordination.The 10-week program takes place on town golf facilities and at Give It Your All Sports in Ronkonkoma, which rents Lopez the facility at a discount. The town waives fees for use of the golf courses.While Lopez and other therapists volunteer their time along with student interns from Stony Brook University and Touro College, Lopez charges a $30 fee for each 90-minute session to pay for facilities and for a yoga teacher, who provides the youths another form of exercise.Golf is especially useful for teaching body motion to children, said Holbrook Country Club's golf pro Bill Leposa, who advised Lopez on developing the program.

"It has the instant gratification of seeing the ball move," Leposa said. "There's no body type required, either. As long as you can move this way and that way," he added, demonstrating the classic golf swing.The golf program, now in its second session,To keep things interesting is geared toward high-functioning children with autism who are 6 to 11 years old and left out of mainstream youth sports."Sports after a certain grade level gets very complicated, very cliquish," Lopez said. "These kids, they just need attention. They're not getting the resources anymore and they become sedentary. This is designed to help them strengthen their bodies."

To keep things interesting

In a way, one could think that Precision Moment Targeting is like Facebook's advertising platform where it's not a pray or spray model, but catering towards a consumer's interest, background, and what they've been talking about.The launch of Precision Moments Targeting could be incredibly useful in Japan, where the company recently signed a real with Yahoo Japan, the largest media company in the country with "tens of millions" of uses across the Web and mobile services. At the time, Kiip said that the deal would see its service integrated into the Yahoo Japan iOS and Android apps and serve ads and rewards for completing activities within the app. Sounds like 'moments', to us.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has repeatedly said that one of the company's mobile goals is to create apps that helps you take care of your daily habits, including mail, search, weather, and more. Granted Yahoo Japan is only one company, but its reach isn't something to laugh about. And if Kiip rolls the same integration into other platforms and services, it could potentially get real interesting for the company.The company says that there are more than 511 million moments taking place each month and these include things like favoriting a song, finishing a task on your to-do list, or saving a recipe. It wouldn't be too far-fetched for a consumer to receive a coupon at a grocery store when they cross off items from their shopping list, or perhaps a special at a restaurant when saving a recipe for a particular dish.

To keep things interesting, Kiip has also teamed with comScore to be one of its data sources. Now, when advertisers reference comScore data and insights on mobile advertising, some of that will come from Kiip.Practically all common purchases, from a can of soft drink to a new pair of jeans, are more expensive in Australian cities than in urban centres in the US and UK, crowd-sourced data shows.Having recently moved to Sydney from London, I can attest to doing frantic calculations in my head while staring at a standard pack of chicken breasts, trying desperately to look at my new shopping experiences in a favourable light.So it was with trepidation that I faced up to the figures using a new online tool, Budget Direct, which shows users exactly what they are paying for goods and services compared to others in the world. Yes, a standard white loaf costs around $3.50 in Sydney, not the $1.64 it would in London. A kilogram of potatoes costs $3 in Melbourne but just $2.16 in New York.

As spy U.S. row grows, Europe threatens to suspend cash tracking tool

Merkel said Friday that she is open to the idea of suspending the SWIFT agreement, saying she "needed to look at this again more closely" and weigh "what we will lose for the security of our citizens and what we don't."Germany and other European governments have made clear they do not favor suspending the U.S.-EU trade talks which began last summer because both sides stand to gain so much through the proposed deal, especially against competition from China and other emerging markets.Still, the Europeans have said they will insist that the trade agreement includes stronger rules for protecting data as a result of the NSA allegations. Data protection laws in Europe are generally stronger than in the United States.

"It's obvious to us that we have to and will bring our European convictions regarding data protection, and protection of privacy and business information, into these negotiations," Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters in Berlin on Monday.Elmar Brok, the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, told reporters that failure to resolve the differences over data protection could threaten the trade talks. Brok,Twiage's tool helps EMTs forward data a member of Merkel's party who was in Washington to discuss the spy allegations, said the challenge is to strike a balance between security and personal freedom."We are fighting for the rights of our citizens," he said.

The steady drumbeat of reports stemming from documents provided to various media by NSA leaker Edward Snowden has created a sense of urgency among European governments that, at the very least, they need to be seen in the eyes of their citizens to be doing something to stop the spying.At the same time, European leaders are anxious to avoid lasting damage in relations with their major ally. So far the issue has not hurt Obama politically within the United States because Republicans have blamed Snowden rather than the White House for the flap.In the latest allegation, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo published a document it said showed the NSA had eavesdropped on more than 60 million phone calls in Spain between Dec. 10 last year and Jan. 8. The U.S. ambassador to Spain was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for an explanation.

Twiage's tool helps EMTs forward data

Running the Twiage app on a smartphone, an EMT can dictate notes and send them to the hospital as text, and also share photographs of a patient's injuries, identification, and EKG readings. It's like Twitter for triage. Get it? Twiage.The company was born out of a recent hackathon at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Fittingly, Twiage is the brainchild of an MIT grad named Crystal Law, who also happens to be an EMT.In addition to the smartphone app, there's a version of Twiage for Google Glass, which means John Rodley is involved.Rodley has been working for months on an app called ArrtGlass that uses the wearable computer's first-person camera to let a doctor who cannot be in a hospital room see a patient through the eyes of someone at the bedside.

At the hackathon, Twiage won the Ariadne Labs Prize, which comes with a chance to pitch for a $100,000 grant in the coming months. Ariadne Labs, a center for health systems innovation, opened last year as a joint venture of Brigham and Women's and the Harvard School of Public Health.When Disney's animators were feeling constrained by their digital tools, Sarah Frisken got the call. A former boss of hers was running Disney's research-and-development division, and he told Frisken that the animators felt they could not do their best work using existing software. "It was taking them twice as long to use the digital tools, and they wanted them to be more responsive," Frisken said.She spent four years developing what became the Sketch Drawing Engine for Disney.

The guiding philosophy, Frisken said, "was that it is so easy to pick up a piece of paper and sketch out an idea. We wanted to do that same thing with software, where you could just open it and start to draw."This past summer, Frisken, a former Tufts computer graphics professor, released a new version of the software, called Mischief. She is targeting professional artists and designers who tend to use a tablet and stylus for input — though you can use a mouse, too. The software sells for $65, and it is available for Macs and PCs. The company, 61 Solutions, still consists of just Frisken and a handful of contractors. She has boot-strapped the Cambridge start-up so far, but may try to raise outside funding.October is National Pizza Month, which at some of the start-ups I visit is sort of like saying October is National Oxygen Month.

Paramus police charge West New York man in 'Tool Town' generator thefts

"This study suggests the tremendous power of using systems biology and bioinformatics to better understand health and disease," Hood said in a statement. "These systems approaches convert blood into a window that will readily allow us to distinguish health from disease —While the species of the crow family and if disease, which disease. This is just the beginning. The principles used to develop this classifier should be applicable to a range of unmet diagnostic medical needs."A West New York man has been charged with stealing more than $5,000 worth of portable generators from a borough hardware store.Jose Portalatin-Boigue, 52, was observed by multiple passersby as he fled Tool Town on Route 17 Sunday at around 4 p.m., Paramus Police Chief Kenneth Ehrenberg said. The store was closed at the time in accordance with Blue Laws enforced by the borough and Bergen County.

Officers were dispatched to the scene, where they found the store's front door had been pried open, and three generators had gone missing.Witnesses said that a man had fled the scene in a 1999 Dodge Van, and were able to provide police with a license plate, according to Ehrenberg.That information was broadcast to area law enforcement agencies, and Paramus officers Laki Pothos and Jay Makroulakis quickly stopped the van as it traveled east on Route 4.Portalatin-Boique was taken into custody and charged with burglary, theft and possession of burglary tools. He was taken to the Bergen County Jail, where he was held on $15,000 bail. Significant African opinion appears hostile to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

In Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto, both under ICC indictment for crimes committed during post-election violence in 2007-2009, included in their campaign rhetoric that the ICC was a tool of Western imperialism. This view is shared by many.Others argue that the ICC is somehow "unfair" because its current cases all involve Africa. In Kenya, the parliament has called for the withdrawal from the Treaty of Rome that established the ICC.The African Union has called for the Kenyatta and Ruto cases to be referred back to the Kenyan judicial system. A special African Union summit meeting is convening in Addis Ababa to discuss the Union's relationship with the ICC. Some hope that the AU member states will withdraw as a block from the Treaty of Rome, though few expect that will actually happen.

While the species of the crow family

While the species of the crow family – including jackdaw, magpie, crow, rook and raven – are renowned in myth and legend for their intelligence, a scientific basis for this has been hard to establish. Until, that is, researchers discovered a crow species living on the South Pacific islands of New Caledonia that manufactured tools more complex even than those used by humans' closest relatives, the chimpanzee.The original report from the 1990s described how the crows' tool making displayed three characteristics not seen before outside of humans: a high degree of tool standardisation, distinct tool designs that involve obvious imposition of form onto raw material, and the use of hooks. Sharing some traits with those of stone age humans' tools, this led to a surge of interest in the species.

Research over the past ten years has found a great deal of interesting behaviour in New Caledonian crows. They have been shown to make tools out of novel materials, use tools in novel ways to solve physical problems at which our close primate relatives fail, and to solve problems in a way that suggests abstract reasoning. Their impressive problem solving skills appear to be backed up by a relatively large brain, but more important than relative brain size is the neurological hardware inside it.There is some evidence that the crows, like primates, have a relatively large forebrain where most decision making occurs. The crows and certain other birds have distinct cell clusters in the forebrain, consisting of a neuron surrounded by supporting glial cells.

The density and distribution of these clusters in the forebrain varies between species, but the New Caledonian crow has a high density of them. If these clusters, as is believed to be the case in humans, play an important role in underpinning cognitive skills, they may help explain the crows' sophistication.In a new volume on tool use as adaptation from the Royal Society, the New Caledonian crow figures prominently. One study questions whether the birds know that the hooked end of a hooked stick is the functional end.A similar question has been asked in a previous study about the hooks they fashion from screw pine leaves.

"App Mention Alerts" Is A Google Alerts-Like Tool For Mobile App Developers

Developers wanting to keep an eye on their app's download growth, chart position, revenues, user engagement patterns, and more have a number of tools at their disposal, like those from App Annie, Distimo, AppFigures, Flurry, and other analytics providers. But when it comes to keeping track of press mentions and blogger reviews, many still turn to plain ol' Google Alerts. Today,Forget the Intensive Screening Tool a new service called "App Mention Alerts" is launching as an alternative, offering both alerts and a tracking dashboard designed specifically for mobile app developers.

Google Alerts, which is continually rumored to be on the chopping block these days as the product falls apart, does a decent-enough job in tracking new, relevant Google search results across Google's verticals, like web, news, or blogs, for example. But App Mention Alerts' results are better for developers, because the service weeds out most of the websites that simply reprint press releases or App Store descriptions, explains founder Tomasz Kolinko, whose other product, AppCodes, is focused on App Store Optimization.

Today, AppCodes has 700 paying customers, and that number has been stable for several months. For a bootstrapped team of two, he says they're happy with its progress. With App Mention Alerts, the original idea was to incorporate the app tracking into AppCodes, but they decided to spin it off into their own product because it's easier to market and monetize it this way. However, AppCodes will also now present these "mentions" to its users, but without the "alerting" function, or dedicated window for the previews of the links it finds.

The way App Mention Alerts works is that, after sign-up, developers type their app's name into the search box (a checkbox lets you designate the app as being for the iPad) and hit search. In the results section, matching apps – including competitors who may have similar words in their app's title – will appear. You can then click the provided "Follow" button for the apps you want to track."It's similar to Mention.com, or MuckRack.com, but focuses on the iPhone and iPad apps," explains Kolinko. "The tracking is based on App Store links compared to more generic tools which track phrases, so the results are much cleaner…Before our tool, it was quite hard to add all the app competitor names to Google Alerts et al., and weed out all the false positives. We bring this down to just a couple of clicks."

Forget the Intensive Screening Tool

Three weeks before the freak accident that left me visually impaired I ended a relationship with a person I loved. I got hurt, before I got blinded. Unfortunately I fell in love with someone who was closed off and was never capable of loving me. A story that now, as I look back, sounded familiar and was part of my pattern: the pattern of dating unavailable men.

For almost two years he played the role of the ambivalent male, vacillating from being in and out of the relationship. And for maybe the first, or second time, I walked away finally knowing that somehow I deserved better. It was a conversation that started when I decided to divorce. The conversation that you have when you know you can be happier elsewhere and deserve more, even if it hurts right now. Prior to the accident I had made a decision to wholly be open to love. I wanted that to remain true after love kicked me in the ass and the accident whacked out my central vision.

So, at the time I was grieving the loss of my sight, I was grieving the loss of a person I loved. And all that love and all that loss became tied up together in a knot that could not be untied. It somewhat magnified the grieving, amplified the pain, turned up the volume on the "your life has changed drastically" message so loud I had to deal with it, continually.During the eight months after the accident when I was single and not dating I decided to read a little about love. I was not really sure I understood it, how to get it or now, disabled, if it was even a possibility for me. One book I read was Elizabeth Gilbert's book Committed:

A Love Story. In the book she talks about the need for companionship as a way to share your experiences and to weave a shared history with another person. That idea, that dream, of having someone beside you to share in your story and to witness you and your life is compelling. It is the question of if a tree falls in the woods when no one is around, does it make a sound? Similarly, do the experiences and stories in our life have meaning if they are not witnessed or shared? What I knew after reading the book was that private intimacy and companionship was something I would like to have in my life. But that meant finding someone who can listen to your story, tell theirs openly and be willing to lose a part of their independence to commit to the interwoven nature of creating a shared journey.

Cheers for peers

"What we're interested in isn't who's saying it, but rather what's being said. By being anonymous, it encourages much more truthful, forthcoming feedback than I'd ever get by asking someone in person, 'How are we doing?' 'How's the culture?' Sometimes people will disguise themselves using broken English to ensure their candid remarks are never traced back to them. But we get unvarnished truth from this."Anonymous feedback also ensures every employee is given an equal vote on every question that's asked. No one person's feedback is given greater weight; the loudest voice can never drown out the others.When leaders first launch TinyPulse, they have a common fear that employees will use the technology to throw rocks at them. While some comments can be raw,Tool Rental Depot opens on South Main Street leaders are often surprised by the constructive and even praising feedback they receive.

It's a gutsy move to ask employees "How valued do you feel at work" and to then disclose that several people aren't currently feeling the love. But Niu insists the constant polling would be disingenuous were the results never released."Our philosophy is that it's incumbent upon the leader to share it," he told me. "The choice by companies to use TinyPulse inherently signals an organization's inclination toward transparency and sharing more information versus less." While managers always have the discretion to withhold some data, "we tell CEOs it's better to put it out there and acknowledge that some people aren't happy. These are great opportunities to remind employees that you're always reviewing strategy and culture; the whole reason you ask these questions is to give them a voice."

We can all recall times when managerial decisions affected us personally--and negatively--yet felt uncomfortable voicing concern. According to the TinyPulse methodology, leaders respond to all feedback they receive without knowing to whom they're responding."When managers reply this way," says Niu, "people know immediately that they've been heard and their feedback is taken seriously. And having an influential voice like this is a basic human need that's really important to people. Very often, employees get a better understanding of intended solutions or even why the business decision will go unchanged." Clarity is also the antidote to ambiguity--a known cause of employee discontent.

Tool Rental Depot opens on South Main Street

More conventional online moving tools, such as the calculators on bankrate.com or CNNMoney.com, are based on data from the Council for Community and Economic Research. The council's data allows you to compare the cost of housing, food, insurance, clothing, fuel, medical care and other common consumption items in different cities. The same data is used to provide the city-to-city cost comparison chart in each issue of Where to Retire magazine.The Tool Rental Depot, an extension of Hydraulic Depot and Custom Design, is open for business.

The three service-oriented businesses form one family-run, locally-owned and operated company at 2001 S. Main St. They are all located in the 70,000-square-foot former W.A. Brown facility.Tool Rental Depot's expansion was funded in part by a $10,825 Industrial Building Revitalization grant from the city of Salisbury.

"We are excited to expand our business and appreciate the wonderful turnout we had at our recent open house," said Phil Butler, owner of Hydraulic Depot and now Tool Rental Depot. "We look forward to serving the rental, repair, welding and fleet management needs of Salisbury, Rowan County and the surrounding area."Tool Rental Depot rents all types of tools and can service and repair a variety of construction equipment, including concrete saws, pressure washers, ground compacting equipment and aerial lifts.

The business also offers annual aerial lift inspections.Local business representatives, frequent customers, vendors and the Rowan County Chamber of Commerce and RowanWorks Economic Development Commission celebrated a grand opening and ribbon cutting event earlier this month.

Coming up with strategies

Microsoft won't say when the Remix Project will be on sale, or how much it'll cost. The company's working with both pro and amateur DJs to seed the kit, and plans to see how the response and feedback is before the product becomes widely available. Based on our experience it's a really fun, Traktor-style accessory that's going to make at least a few people think they're the new house-party DJ to beat.What makes a city a success?A Lightweight Editing Tool That Is An Opening Salvo Against Microsoft Office It's a lot of different things but in our experience economic vitality, livable neighborhoods, environmental sustainability and opportunity for all residents are critical elements.

Coming up with strategies that accomplish all these goals is a tall order, but that's the job of city leaders.In Pasadena and Santa Monica we pride ourselves on community engagement and effective planning that achieves results, such as revitalization of the 3rd Street Promenade and Old Pasadena while protecting our single family neighborhoods. We've crafted successful polices to direct new development to our downtown areas with the best transit. We've created opportunities for people who live and work locally by requiring a portion of all new apartment buildings to include some homes with affordable rents, called inclusionary zoning.

Along with 140 California cities and suburbs, we've found the sweet spot with locally crafted inclusionary policies. We get some new affordable apartments-- which are in short supply--without undermining new private investment.  More than 80,000 Californians live in homes created by inclusionary policies providing lower income and working people access to neighborhoods with good schools, jobs, and other opportunity-drivers.

A Lightweight Editing Tool That Is An Opening Salvo Against Microsoft Office

Therefore, Box, having moved files from the desktop to the cloud, has put itself in the position of providing document- and file-editing capabilities to companies large and small.Innocuous in itself, but important as that's been Microsoft's domain, I think, since before I was actually born. That same dominion has also been curator of Microsoft's bottom line for almost as long. Box is nibbling Microsoft's pond and I doubt that Redmond is happy. Box will happily tell you that it isn't out to get Office, but please.

I spoke to Levie and Box more generally about the tool, and they expect that a lightweight tool could be "Editor enough" for the average computing user. To quote the group, "most of today's tools have overshot customer needs to solve their problems."So, Box Notes. The goal, and I paraphrase Box here, is to avoid fitting our work to the tools that we have, and instead fit our tooling to our needs. This is implicit knocking of Word and the rest of the Office suite that has become — through time and agglomeration of new bells, whistles and buttons unknown — a bit bloated.

That's the goal of Box Notes, which is a simple real-time editing tool that combines collaborative typing with the Box file stack. If your company uses Box already, this will eventually the beta will remain small for now be an option for you and your colleagues to bang out simple documents. A feature called 'NoteHead,' think Facebook's ChatHead feature for analog, let's you see who is typing and where. It's a simple editor.Importantly, Box Notes is as compliant with security standards as Box is itself. Therefore, where you once could Box, but perhaps not use a different cloud-based file editing tool, you can now Box Notes, as well. In certain health-care and financial environments, this matters.

Cage: next-gen hardware is "a better tool" which offers devs "more subtlety, more nuances"

The young co-creators of the Asheville Tool Library have been working on the project for months, slowly building support and putting together applications and paperwork for grants, matching funds and the launch of the ioby campaign.It's been long, tedious work, resulting in fiscal sponsorship from Empowerment Works, a national nonprofit that supports community-based projects, and a $1,000 matching funds contribution from the Center for the New American Dream through the ioby fundraiser.

The three founders are not strangers to this work. Llewellyn is founder of the REAL Cooperative, a former director of Sustainable Living Roadshow and a current campaign organizer with the Dogwood Alliance.Letts is former site manager for the Missoula Urban Demonstration Project in Montana, which is home to a longstanding tool library. Dominic is the founder of Charlotte Got Crops!,Educators describe the device's dynamic display a North Asheville neighborhood garden for single moms and their kids, and is a local permaculture activist.

Their mission is pretty straightforward: increasing access to a "share economy" while decreasing resilience on "traditional currency"; increasing access to shared tools and therefore decreasing overall consumption; increasing the knowledge base and skill sets in the community to promote self-sufficiency; and being a host site for community and educational events for residents and local teachers."We want to develop a class series around tools, tool maintenance, safe and proper tool use, tools for home and the garden, a tool class just for women, just for kids, etc.," Letts said.

Educators describe the device's dynamic display

Educators describe the device's dynamic display and touchscreen as engaging and enabling for students, stimulating and motivating. Teachers can customize it to meet a variety of student needs. "It keeps learning very focused," said Cheryl Levin, education director at PACE School.The iPad's relatively low cost, light weight and portability are also factors in its popularity.Educators also say it's no exaggeration that the device is transforming education from the world of paper, pencil and textbooks into the world of their students' future.

"It's super-engaging. I've seen kids who have never taken interest, take interest," said Lauren Enders, assistive technology consultant for Bucks County in eastern Pennsylvania. "It increases the level of engagement and without engagement, you don't have much learning."The benefits for students with special education needs are many. Students with fine motor difficulties find the touchscreen easier to use than a mouse and keyboard and, of course, pencil and paper. Built-in features, such as the capacity to quickly enlarge what is on the screen and vocal text-reading, address many different types of disabilities. For students who cannot speak with their own voices, the iPad can serve as a communication device.

Furthermore, "it's a cool kind of technology" that does not call undue attention to a student's area of need, said Ms. Enders, who described a student with speech difficulties who refused to use a traditional communication device in front of his peers but now uses an iPad without self-consciousness."As a teacher, it makes you feel that the possibilities are endless," wrote Los Angeles special education teacher Neil Virani in an essay about the success of iPad use among his students.

Biotech Tool Providers

And they need to engineer the organisms' circadian rhythms to someday produce organisms that work around the clock making a fuel or chemical. Natural Synechocystis 6803, for instance, performs a yeoman's task of producing and storing energy molecules during the day through photosynthesis, but at night, it uses a different set of metabolisms to consume the stored energy.The natural circadian rhythm has to be rewired to make a biofuel 24 hours a day.

Zhang's research includes developing gene expression tools, new chemical biosynthetic pathways and circadian control tools for cyanobacteria."I'm confident that in two or three years we will have more potent tools to engineer gene expression levels and timing,Breakthrough Could Make Electronics Smaller and Better which will speed up the process more accurately and efficiently," he says.Also, his group has been working to develop dynamical control systems in microbes that function like meters and valves in a traditional chemical production plant – the meters calculate pressure and flow, and the valves control them.

"It's a biological version of the valve-and-meter model to control the flow of metabolites that make the production of fuel and chemicals more efficiently," he says.Following is a list of 20 current or former CEOs of life sciences tools and technologies providers who led their companies for at least part of 2012, ranked by their "total compensation" last year. Total compensation goes beyond salary to include bonuses, stock awards, stock option awards, nonequity incentive plan compensation, and all other sources of compensation. For each CEO ranked, the list offers 2012 and 2011 compensation, the percentage change between the amounts.

Breakthrough Could Make Electronics Smaller and Better

Thus the new work is "consistent with the hypothesis" of coevolution between language and toolmaking, "but not proof of it," says Michael Corballis, a psychologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. "It is possible that language itself emerged much later, but was built on circuits established during the Acheulean" period.Thomas Wynn, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, is even more cautious about the results. He thinks that the fTCD technique, which measures blood flow to large areas of the cerebral cortex but does not have as high a resolution as fMRI or PET, "is a crude measure, even for brain imaging techniques."

As a result, Wynn says, he is "far from convinced" that the study has anything new to say about language evolution.Combining several standard nanofabrication techniques -- with the final addition of the Scotch Magic tape -- researchers at the University of Minnesota created extremely thin gaps through a layer of metal and patterned these tiny gaps over the entire surface of a four-inch silicon wafer. The smallest gaps were only one nanometer wide, much smaller than most researchers have been able to achieve. In addition, the widths of the gaps could be controlled on the atomic level. This work provides the basis for producing new and better nanostructures that are at the core of advanced electronic and optical devices.

One of the potential uses of nanometer-scale gaps in metal layers is to squeeze light into spaces much smaller than is otherwise possible. Collaborators at Seoul National University, led by Prof. Dai-Sik Kim, and Argonne National Laboratory, led by Dr. Matthew Pelton, showed that light could readily be squeezed through these gaps, even though the gaps are hundreds or even thousands of times smaller than the wavelength of the light used. Researchers are very interested in forcing light into small spaces because this is a way of boosting the intensity of the light. The collaborators found that the intensity inside the gaps is increased by as much as 600 million times.

Concrete blocks for tool storage

A few concrete blocks can be used to create some super storage for your yard tools. The more you have, the more versatile you can make it. Three or four blocks can be stacked up and the handles placed into the core created by the blocks. If you set two or three on the ground, then stagger stack a couple more on top of these and add a third row, also staggered, you will have created a whole line of storage holes for these tools.I have a free-standing range/oven combo. It's a great appliance, but now that we have a child I am wondering if I should try to attach it to the wall somehow to prevent it from accidentally tipping forward.

What do you suggest? The barrier to entry for game development Check your owner's manual or the manufacturer's website to see if it offers an anti-tipping bracket. Most manufacturers will have this available to you. Good for you – it's a smart thing to do. If you cannot find one, you can use some screws and a metal angle iron shaped to fit.We decided to use epoxy paint on our garage floor this summer. I wanted to do it because I wanted it to look better. I cleaned off most of the stains and followed the directions. I had no idea what the paint would do to the cleanliness of the garage. There's no more dust!

For years, we had concrete dust on the floor that got tracked into the house. Now it's gone. The garage is always clean now. Who knew? Well, I guess you probably did. – H.S.I have a new shop vacuum and it's a lot better than my old one. When the old one quit working, I was going to throw it away but decided to save some of the parts for other projects. The cord is long, so I cut it off and saved it to use with another appliance at some point. I also saved the canister part. It's large and on sturdy wheels, and I keep my garden tools and other supplies in it. It's perfect and very handy.

The barrier to entry for game development

"The barrier to entry for game development has been demolished," says games developer Christer Kaitila. "These are exciting times for an emerging art – the gates have been flung wide open."Though it started as a niche hobby, DIY game design is set to go mainstream. Microsoft's Project Spark aims to turn the making of games itself into a game. Players are given a fully configurable world that can be moulded with gestures recognised by Kinect – mountains are sculpted and valleys scooped out with a swipe of the hand. Buildings, characters and objects of almost any kind can be added via graphical interfaces.

Once it is all in place, users can devise simple scripts that give their creations programmed behaviours. One demo of the game showed how a rock, for example, could be turned into a faithful sidekick by adding a few short commands.Early testers have already created a wide variety of games, from block-matching puzzle games to side-scrollers, top-down shooters, and 3D first-person adventures – many of them recreations of existing games. Project Spark makes this level of creativity accessible by hiding hundreds of lines of code beneath the interfaces that are second nature to gamers.

Game Maker, a tool for creating games on the PC, has been used to make several successful titles, including Spelunky, Hotline Miami and Gunpoint. "Game Maker is great because it's good for beginners," says Tom Francis, who used the tool to make Gunpoint. "But it doesn't keep you a beginner." When Francis started making the game he was working as a games journalist and had no programming experience. What he likes about Game Maker is how it lets you move from sketching out the basics of a game in a drag-and-drop interface to adding in blocks of code bit by bit, as you learn. "It's a great way to ramp up," he says.

New High-Tech Tool Helps Coloradans Find the Right Health Care

The goal is to connect with the people in the town they are serving, Olsen said."We really want these Facebook accounts to be personal to your area so they know you're there for them," he said.Kris Mecham said the ward's Facebook page helps missionaries make quick connections when they move into a new area."You're already connected with dozens and dozens of people, and then you get a chance to follow up with them as time goes on," he said. "That compares with taking days or weeks knocking on doors."No one is required to use the online tools, but missionaries who do must agree to certain guidelines, Olsen said. They have to adhere to their daily schedule, including their daily study, and "maintain the dignity and decorum of missionaries at all times and all places with all groups."

Thousands of Coloradans are preparing to enroll in the state's health insurance exchange, called Connect for Health Colorado. Understanding the system isn't easy, but now there's a new high-tech tool called the "Blue Guide," available online and through mobile devices, to help people search for the right insurance or the right care.In Aurora, Jake Wilson, Build a title team with the SAP Player Comparison Tool, Inc., gave the Guide a try."It pops up with their hours, their address, their phone number, their website information, so it's just all kind of a one-stop place to get it all," Wilson related.The "Blue Guide" was created by the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.

The website and mobile apps enable people to search by location, medical condition, language and further criteria to find the best and most affordable health care services and coverage.According to Adam Fox, director of strategic engagement for the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, having something like the Blue Guide is an invaluable tool as people make the decisions for themselves and their families."There's been a fair amount of misinformation out there as to what's really happening, and the Blue Guide tool is really a way to help Coloradans kind of sort through that clutter," he said.

Build a title team with the SAP Player Comparison Tool

Last week, we introduced you to the goodness that is the SAP Player Comparison Tool. This week, we return with more comparisons and more ways to determine how best to build your league's strongest roster.The tool analyzes a player's strengths based on five different categories -- Performance, Matchup, Consistency, Upside and Intangibles. And once again, we put it up against the NFL Fantasy LIVE player rankings.These two dynamic, but not-so-durable running backs have shown flashes of fantasy greatness, but have never quite reached the potential that many expected of them.

When it comes to 2013 drafts, the pair presents quite a quandary. But being a pass-catching back in a pass-happy offense seems to be a good fit and the SAP Player Comparison Tool gives the edge to Reggie Bush over DeMarco Murray.Similarly, it was a tough call between the two backs for the NFL Fantasy LIVE crew. But the idea of Bush as a dynamic run-catch option in an already high-octane offense was too much to ignore -- especially when compared to a player who has struggled to remain on the field during his first few seasons in the NFL.In the battle of two of the NFL's high-profile second-year quarterbacks, it's Robert Griffin III who earns the nod here, thanks in part to a high amount of upside.

Earlier in the offseason, the fear of RGIII's knee injury might have frightened a few fantasy enthusiasts, but as Griffin's rehab has progressed, his risk has lessened.While both Griffin and Russell Wilson are both top 10 options, according to the experts at NFL Fantasy LIVE, it's the reigning Rookie of the Year who has a slight edge. Wilson certainly has the potential for a fantastic season, but the loss of Percy Harvin could put a damper on a year that had even higher fantasy football expectations.

Need to prove you're a soldier?

Hall, a former platoon leader who hunted insurgents in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, said the pair came up with the idea for the service back in 2009.At the time Microsoft was offering free e-learning vouchers to veterans, but those wanted to take advantage were required to first go to the Department of Labor with documents to prove their military service."Doesn't that defeat the purpose of e-learning?" Hall asked.Additionally, many retailers offer in-store military discounts, but those same discounts weren't being made available online because of fears that people would falsely claiming military status to get the deals.

VA Innovation Initiative director Jonah Czerwinski said online stolen valor is a real concern."Making promotions available to veterans or providing discounts to veterans quickly b'es unaffordable if you have no confidence that only veterans are availing themselves of your offer," he said.To solve the problem, Hall and Thompson worked with the VA and the United Services Automobile Association, which had experience verifying people's military records to'ply with special rules for lending to servicemembers.

They created a'puterized system that can verify in a matter of seconds if somebody has been on active duty at any time since 1950.After a user sets up an account, ID.me serves as an intermediary to prove a record of service,They have a fascinating lithic culture similar to how PayPal might verify an online purchase.Active-duty servicemembers and family members can verify their status simply by sending a confirmation email from a .mil email address. Veterans might need to provide information such as their name, date of birth and their dates of military service, which is then checked against Department of Defense records.

They have a fascinating lithic culture

Because these macaques are forced to b'e more vigilant and seeing less of a food supply, they are spending less time and energy learning tool-using patterns from their elders."Traditions need safety and stability to properly develop, otherwise, the coasts just b'e a danger area that macaques must learn to avoid, rather than a stable learning ground for developing tool-use," Gumert said.The NTU researchers discovered that 88 percent of the more than 190 macaques on the island use stone tools on a daily basis.

"They have a fascinating lithic culture," Gumert said. These Burmese macaques are the only monkeys in Asia that use stone tools. Only two other primate species, out of several hundred in the world use stone tools – the chimpanzees in Africa and capuchin monkeys in South America."Knowing about primate stone tool use has important implications to'pare with early hominine tool use, as well as the origins of cultural behavior," he added. "Studying traditions allow us to investigate the cultural capacity of animals."The NTU researchers said they hope to develop a long-term research program on the tool-using macaques in conjunction with Thailand's Chulalongkorn University.

Gumert said he also plans to set up permanent research sites around these animals for research and educational purposes."We should also explore into Myanmar, because we think the behavior may be more'mon there," he said. Macaque stone tool-use was first reported back in the 1880's in the journal, Nature, by Alfred Carpenter, an English seaman. We need to get into Myanmar and see how the macaques have changed since a century ago."These monkeys are extraordinary and a natural treasure to the Southeast Asian region," he added. "I believe stone-using macaques will b'e a symbol of coastal preservation here, a symbol for protecting Thailand and Myanmar's wonderful coastal ecosystems, and all that depends on them."

Kathleen Alfano, senior director of child research

Kathleen Alfano, senior director of child research for Fisher-Price, said in a statement that toy development at the East Aurora, N.Y.-based'pany begins with extensive research by experts in early childhood development "to create appropriate toys for the ways children play, discover and grow.""Grounded in 80 years of research and childhood development observations, we have appropriately extended these well-researched play patterns into CoRI is'prised of several factors," Alfano said.Linn's group alleges that the'panies violate truth-in-advertising laws when they claim to "teach" babies skills.

For example, Fisher-Price claims that its Laugh & Learn "Where's Puppy's Nose?" app can teach a baby about body parts and language, while its "Learning Letters Puppy" app educates babies on the alphabet and counting to 10.Open Solutions says its mobile apps offer a "new and innovative form of education" by allowing babies to "practice logic and motor skills.""Given that there's no evidence that mobile apps are beneficial, and some evidence that it may actually be harmful, that's concerning," Linn said.According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, more than half of American adults own a smartphone while about one-third of adults own a tablet. With the number of mobile devices on the rise, mobile software applications have b'e lucrative money makers.

Even apps that are downloaded for free will often collect personal information from a consumer that can then be sold to marketers.Most of the Fisher-Price apps, for example, are free but warn in their privacy policies that "third parties" can collect information about a person's device for possible marketing purposes.Federal law says advertising can't mislead consumers and, in some cases, must be backed by scientific evidence. In 2012, the FTC — which enforces truth-in-advertising laws — agreed with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood that the developer of "Your Baby Can Read" lied when it promised consumers it could teach babies as young as 9 months to read. That business shuttered after the FTC imposed a $185 million settlement.

CoRI is'prised of several factors

CoRI is a suite of U.S. bond indexes that allow an investor to see how much it costs to fund a retirement. Investors need to be aware that volatility plays a part in retirement planning, and the cost could go up or down, depending on a wide variety of factors. Since it's an investable index, made up of U.S. Treasuries, U.S. Treasury STRIPS fixed-i'e securities sold at a significant discount to face value with no interest payments, and corporate bonds from the Industrial, Utility and Financial sectors.Not only is BlackRock creating the CoRI indices, it's also created a calculator that anyone can use to figure out how much one needs to save for a'fortable i'e level during retirement. If you've fallen behind your goals for retirement saving, the calculator shows how much you need to save to catch up.

If you have $1 million currently saved for retirement and you're going to retire in 2018, the calculator will show that you're annual i'e in retirement will be approximately $62,266 based off the July 30 price of the CoRI index.If you have a set annual i'e for your retirement years in mind, say $70,000 per year, the CoRI calculator will show how much you need to save to get to that goal.CoRI can be used not only as a retirement tool and calculator, but also as a benchmark to see how you're doing with regards to your goals. However, there could be a big difference between how your own portfolio is doing, versus the indexes.

CoRI is'prised of several factors, as part of a two-part process. First, it uses the cash flows needed to fund retirement. Then, it uses inflation expectations, interest rate changes, an adjustment for mortality, as well as something known as longevity pool risk premium, to'e up with the final CoRI index level.With so many people getting closer to retirement in the 55-64 age group range, BlackRock created an innovative family of bond indexes to make it easy to calculate how much i'e you'll need to retire. Combined with the advice of a financial advisor and BlackRock's suite of CoRI indexes, it'll make it easier to figure out your retirement goals before you reach retirement.

A top secret National Security Agency program

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its "Snowden's father says won't be 'emotional tool'" system for developing intelligence from the internet.The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs.

They'e as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary'mittee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian's earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10."I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence'mittee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying.

It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from'puter networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence. One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.

Snowden's father says won't be 'emotional tool'

"If Firefox gets exploited, the malware could circumvent the Tor tunnel entirely," he said.The SOCKS server problem prevents TCP proxying via SOCKS in most cases, and in cases where the software supports it, DNS proxying isn't.Tortilla solves both of these issues and allows Tor to be used with virtual machines. This, Geffner said, makes it an excellent tool for security experts who want to visit or test attack Web sites, or blogs written by people who run attack Web sites, without leaving traceable tracks."It acts on DHCP, ARP, DNS, and TCP packets, and drops everything else," Geffner said, in explaining what kinds of Internet traffic work with Tortilla.

He added that Tortilla is failsafe, so that you can run it before or after you start your virtual machine or Tor itself.The benefits of Tortilla for security researchers are apparent, but there's nothing stopping people who are concerned with their online privacy from using it, either, Geffner said. "The fact that we're using Tor isn't a secret," when using Tortilla, he said, "but our identity is." The father of former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden said he would not fly to Russia to serve as an "emotional tool" in the United States' efforts to persuade his son to surrender.Lonnie Snowden told the Washington Post that FBI officials had not been able to guarantee if he would be allowed to see his son, who faces espionage charges in the United States for exposing secret U.S. surveillance programs."

I said, '??I want to be able to speak with my son...Can you set up'munications?' And it was, 'Well, we're not sure,'" Lonnie Snowden told the Post. "I said, 'Wait a minute, folks, I'm not going to sit on the tarmac to be an emotional tool for you.'"The elder Snowden earlier told state-owned Russian 24 television the FBI had suggested a "few weeks ago" that he should travel to Moscow to talk to his son.Edward Snowden, whose exposure of the surveillance raised questions about intrusion into private lives, has been stuck in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since arriving from Hong Kong more than a month ago.

Bridge survivor sees art as healing tool for youth

Walz, 30, opened Courageous HeARTS in April, on a busy corner at Cedar Avenue and E. 42nd Street, where a convenience store once stood. The center's mission is to offer youths a safe space to heal, create and lead through a plethora of artistic endeavors, including gardening, yoga, filmmaking, sewing, tie-dye, songwriting, poetry, hip-hop dance and improv.The center is a work in progress, its walls and beams newly painted in lime green and purple, couches and art supplies trickling in. Walz, too, is a work in progress, patiently stripping away layers that held her back and pushing forward to fulfill a dream she's had since she was 16, although the path has been vastly altered.

On Aug. 1, 2007, 24-year-old Lindsay Petterson was heading to her Minneapolis apartment when her Volkswagen plunged into the Mississippi River as the I-35 bridge collapsed. Now-husband Dave Walz, with whom she worked at a group home for high-risk teens, would have been in the car, too, but he had the overnight shift."That was a good thing," she said.As her car filled with water, she punched and kicked at every surface before somehow breaking free. She spent five months in a back brace with a broken vertebrae, then years trying to regain her physical and emotional footing. Physical and massage therapy, chiropractors and yoga, as well as a survivors' support group, all helped then and help still.

Economic Impact of Construction and Demolition Waste, as the sixth anniversary of the bridge collapse approaches, she's hoping "to change the story a little," she said. "Post-five-years, I wondered, 'What do you do a story about?'?"Her answer began in the hospital, when she read about a class called Soul Painting. "It drew me in right away," Walz said. "Obviously, my soul needed a little work."A month later, still wearing her brace, she attended her first class through St. Louis Park.munity education. She recalls an ice cube tray placed in front of her "with every color you could imagine," plus a blank piece of paper and brushes. Her first painting was of a big brown river. "I was so angry, so sad," she said, recalling reaching for reds, grays and blacks.

Economic Impact of Construction and Demolition Waste

This tool reduces the environmental impact caused by quarrying, due to the fact that it gives value to inert solid waste with little commercial outlet that accumulate in landfills. In addition, the economic costs are reduced, since research by Joan Esteban Altabella shows that currently there are landfills in operation or closing phase that could obtain significant savings if they employ aggregates derivate from construction and demolition and not from quarry.The programme estimates the aggregate demand in phases or periods of time, thus getting a better organization and cost reduction that can be quite significant. It is a multifactorial dependency tool that identifies the variables that influence a greater or lesser demand for aggregates and relates them mathematically, so that it changes the result if any of them varies.

Labwaste.12 offers the possibility of using specific facts of a landfill or, by default, use the average data already included in the programme. It also provides information on other materials required in this type of installation, such as geomembranes, pipes, geotextiles, etc. Finally, the programme provides a final report to check the entered data and it automatically generates a budget with the required aggregate costs.In the month of July, Francisco J. Colomer has presented a paper on this work entitled "Labwaste.12: herramienta de cálculo para el dise?o de vertederos de residuos sólidos con valorización de residuos inertes" in the 17th International Congress on Project Management and Engineering that was held in Logro?o, which has been awarded the prize for the best paper of the congress.

In October, he presented the communication "Aprovechamiento de residuos inertes para la construcción, explotación y clausura de rellenos sanitarios" in the V Latin American Symposium on Waste Engineering to be held in Argentina, and the book Aprovechamiento de residuos inertes para la construcción, explotación y clausura de rellenos sanitarios will be published in the collection "Sapientia" by Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume including a CD containing the software and a user manual.The research by Joan Esteban Altabella and Francisco J. Colomer is part of the project "Evaluación de la viabilidad teórica, ambiental y socioeconómica de la transformación de un tiradero en un centro de manejo integral de residuos" funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation in 2009 within the subprogramme for the Promotion of International Scientific Cooperation of the Programme of National Internationalization of R & D of the Waste Engineering Research Group at the Universitat Jaume I.

Saudia Cargo unveils new online tool to speed up goods shipment

OK-2-KSA will enable Saudia Cargo's clients to request approvals online for automotives, dangerous goods, high value goods, human remains and live animals.Additionally, OK-2-KSA will enable Proof of Delivery to be requested online for shipments to the airline's hubs in Saudi Arabia."The OK-2-KSA tool replaces the current manual approval process of emails/faxes for import shipments to Saudi Arabia. As the global specialist for cargo to Saudi Arabia, Saudia Cargo will handle the OK TO FORWARD-status as required by authorities for the shipments to the Kingdom for our clients. This new online tool is part of our vision to exceed customer requirements through innovative technology," said Peter Scholten, VP Commercial at Saudia Cargo.

"We hope that this new service will provide our clients with the appropriate tools to enhance their business and ensure a smooth shipment process to Saudi Arabia," he added.Saudi Airlines Cargo operates a fleet of 15 freighters and sells the belly-capacity on 145 passenger aircraft for Saudi Arabia's flag carrier Saudia, spanning a rapidly expanding global network of 225 destinations. In addition to its scheduled freighter services, Don't use our leader as bargaining tool and practical worldwide charter flight solutions from a growing fleet of dedicated charter aircraft.The Australian Government launched an online widget to help tourism operators offer online booking and payment options to customers.

Tourism businesses such as hotels or tour operators can install the Australian Tourism Booking Widget on their websites or Facebook pages to offer a basic system providing real-time booking, payment, and helpdesk options.The government launched this tool to help the tourism industry capitalise on the visits to their websites by providing an easily accessible booking and payment facility."The challenge for the Australian tourism sector is converting potential visitor interest into a booking", said Gary Gray, Tourism Minister. "This Widget aims to fix this by getting more of our tourism operators online for bookings and payments – and help them grow their businesses, particularly in regional areas where online facilities may be the only channel for operators to directly engage with their customers".