Posts - Americans

Baby Gear Rental Shows The Economics Of Sharing

Entertainment News

The sharing economy has produced some innovate ways to better match usage and ownership. Rent The Runway allows women to rent designer dresses, which are often only worn a handful of times if purchased. Airbnb allows house and apartment owners the opportunity to let someone else use it when they aren’t around. Dogvacay does much the same thing for pets. And then there’s Uber, the darling of regulators everywhere, who lets you share rides.

A new startup aims to achieve similar results by renting baby gear. Spoiled-One, started by two sisters, allows you to pay for only the baby gear you use. An added bonus is that they take all the research out of purchasing decisions which saves time – a precious thing for new parents.

Founded in Toronto and coming to America in the near future, the company offers modern, eco-friendly and non-toxic equipment for babies and toddlers, delivered straight to homes, hotels and airports. Their service, started in 2013, takes time, high cost, clutter and commitment out of the equation, leaving parents with a convenient, affordable and hassle-free experience.

For consumable products the service allows parents to “try before they buy” to ensure that any future purchases are a good fit. Her baby grew fast (as all babies do), which required her to constantly replace outgrown toys and gear. This was quite expensive, time consuming and on top of that, created clutter.

“I quickly realized that many mothers were experiencing the same challenge and recognized an opportunity to help address this. I took the idea to my sister-in-law Vicki and asked if she’d be interested in partnering. She agreed that this was a unique concept with plenty of potential and jumped on board. We put a plan in place and soon after Spoiled-One was founded.” Vicki said.

Typical customers for the service are young parents in major cities but also parents from out of town traveling to a new world.

The service is clearly a very modern approach to parenting as many of customers find them through social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter), traditional media and word-of-mouth. The company also works with high-end hotel concierges who help refer guests.

It will be interesting if this sort of service catches on in the American market, particularly with regular Americans. The service is currently high end but it seems there is no reason why it should remain there. By effectively managing to re-sell used baby gear to other new moms, the service should be able to create value for all parties and get a cut of the action for themselves.

Bees At Risk Of Addiction From Nicotine Related Pesticides

Culture

It’s not just human smokers or vapers than can become addicted to nicotine. New research has found that bees may be getting hooked on nectar laced with widely used nicotine-related chemicals in pesticides.

In addition to being hooked on the contaminated nectar the researchers also found that exposure to so-called neonicotinoids affects reproduction and colony growth in some bee species. The findings could help explain the rapid collapse of bee populations that have been observed over the last decade.

In Europe, restrictions have been placed on three such pesticides due to concerns for bees, but debate continues about the impact of low doses on these and other insects.

Companies including Bayer and Syngenta, makers and supporters of neonicotinoids, say the benefits outweigh the risks because they destroy pests and boost crop yields.

Researchers, however, fear they contribute to a decline in bees, which are crucial for crop pollination. Bee populations are slow to recover from dramatic die-offs and anything that encourages such events can have long last impacts beyond what can be observed in a lab or field study.

To learn more about the chemicals, Geraldine Wright of Newcastle University and colleagues offered bees a choice of drinking pure sugar water or a sugar water containing very low doses of neonicotinoids.

The researchers were shocked to find that honeybees and bumblebees drank far more from pesticide-containing solutions, implying that bees foraging in the wild would do likewise.

“There’s a conundrum that they are attracted to the stuff that actually is having a negative impact on their motor function and their ability to collect food and forage,” she told reporters.

The cause of the addictive behavior seems lie in the similarity of the chemicals to nicotine, which is actually produced by tobacco plants to prevent attacks by insects. In large amounts it is highly toxic.

“As soon as it gets into their blood they are getting a little buzz, as it were, and they are responding to that,” Wright said.

Evidence against the chemicals is growing

Backing up the researcher’s findings is a Separate study conducted by a team of Swedish researchers. The study found that oilseed rape sown from seeds coated in neonicotinoids reduced wild bee density, bumblebee colony growth and solitary bee nesting.

“At this point in time it is no longer credible to argue that agricultural use of neonicotinoids does not harm wild bees,” said David Goulson, a biologist at the University of Sussex, who was not involved in either of the research efforts.

It seems to be yet another case, similar to Monsanto’s stance on Roundup, where big commercial chemical companies are putting profits ahead of health. Perhaps its time we eliminate these chemicals from our own food supply.

Why Oil Prices Could Stay Low For Years

Finance

Oil prices have been rallying lately and there is mounting evidence that oil prices are poised to rebound from a historic bust.

– Rig counts hit new lows this week. Baker Hughes says the U.S. lost 34 oil and gas rigs, bringing the total in operation down to 954.

– Domestic crude oil production looks to have plateaued and the EIA expects it to drop lower in May. Virtually every driller is dramatically scaling back spending, which will increasingly cut into new output.

– Oil consumption is finally picking up, as drivers across the country take advantage of cheap fuel.

But what is the bust really over yet? ExxonMobil’s CEO Rex Tillerson thinks talk of a price recovery is premature. Speaking at the IHS CeraWeek conference in Houston, Tillerson said he thinks that oil prices will remain low for the next several years.

There’s quite a bit of evidence to suggest that Tillerson may be correct.

For one, oil inventories continue to build. Although this build has slowed in recent weeks, it is still far higher than the average over the last five years. Until production slows to the point that consumers are drawing down inventories faster than they can be replaced, oil prices have bo room to increase.

Another notable factor that could limit any further increases in prices is the enormous backlog of wells awaiting completion. Most of the value of oil and gas coming out of shale, the most popular form of production right now, occurs in the first few months of production. Drillers are avoiding finishing hundreds of wells because selling into the low-price environment would earn them a lot less money than if they wait until prices rise again. The result is that there is a vast collection of shale wells that will be completed once oil prices increase which could bring a flood of new production online.

The precise effect on prices is debatable but the CEO of ConocoPhillips thinks it could send oil prices down once again.

“If you get a price signal, you’ll see more supply come on,” ConocoPhillips Ryan Lance said at CeraWeek. “That certainly has the opportunity to exacerbate the problem depending on where demand is.” He went on to add, “If $80-$90 [per barrel] comes back, there’s a good chance that $50-$60 comes back as well because of all the new oil that will come online from completed wells. Boom, bust, boom, bust.”

In addition to these factors if we look at the substantial declines in costs for drilling and Saudi Arabia now producing oil at the highest level in decade there seems to be lots of reasons why oil could stay low for some time.

Nobody knows where oil will settle for the next few years but we figure the CEO of Exxon would be fairly knowledgeable on the subject.

Why Is Our Country Only The 15th Happiest Place In The World?

News

Today the third World Happiness Report was released and America has come up short again. The report, which analyzes well-being through measures such as life expectancy, per capita incomes and perceptions of corruption, ranked the land of opportunity just 15th.

The results are surprising but we shouldn’t get mad. The report shows some key areas for improvement that don’t arise when looking at traditional measures we associate with happiness. We should take the feedback as a learning opportunity and not a failure. Our country is still great (and beats all others in one key metric, shown below) but we can always do better.

More countries, such as the United Kingdom, are looking at broader indicators, beyond GDP, to track their progress and inform policy decisions. The report, released Thursday, is edited by John Helliwell, professor emeritus of economics at University of British Columbia, Richard Layard, professor at the London School of Economics and Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute.

“We are encouraged that more and more governments around the world are listening and responding with policies that put well-being first,” said Prof. Helliwell. “Countries with strong social and institutional capital not only support greater well-being, but are more resilient to social and economic crises.”

Given the top countries are Scandinavian, not quite comparable to our country, Canada provides the most similar counterpart from which to measure ourself.

Canada has moved up a notch from its last report in 2013. Compared to its southern neighbour, “the U.S. is higher on GDP per capita, but Canada is higher on all five of the remaining variables: healthy life expectancy, social support, corruption, generosity, and freedom to make life choices,” noted Prof. Helliwell. “The net effect of the latter is much larger than the former, putting Canada significantly higher than the U.S.”

These areas for improvement are useful as we decide the future direction of our country. Should we support leaders, like Hillary Clinton, who seem to operate with impunity from the rules that govern our country?

Should we continually be re-hashing personal freedom issues like abortion and medical marijuana or allow people to make their own decisions?

And should we allow big corporations to dictate terms to the population on key issues like drug patents, international trade agreements and even new laws?

It seems we need to leverage our superior productivity, a huge advantage relative to the other countries in the top 25, and catch up with the rest of the world on the other factors. The good news is we’re probably further ahead than the report indicates. With medical marijuana reform sweeping the nation it likely signifies a trend towards more personal decision making and less ‘father knows best’ state interference.

Facebook Invents Caller ID, Reveals Problems At Company

Finance

Facebook has released a smartphone app called Hello that matches the numbers of incoming calls to friends and businesses on the social network, in a 21st century version of caller ID.

The tech press is going bonkers about it exclaiming “if you’re a retailer and you target millennials, it’s time to take note. This new Facebook feature could be a game changer,” exclaimed the Huffington Post.

Hello runs on Android and also allows people and businesses to call each other directly from their Facebook pages. This perhaps handy if you don’t have their number on hand.

“When you get a call, Hello will show you info about who’s calling you, even if you don’t have that number saved in your phone,” wrote Facebook product manager Andrea Vaccari. “You will only see info that people have already shared with you on Facebook.”

The more interesting element of the story is that the announcement came along with Facebook’s profit numbers, which were down 20 per cent year-on-year. While revenue was up it shows that Facebook’s business is in a tough spot.

As it stays around for longer it must continually invest in research and development to maintain relevance. By trying all these new things (not because they want to but because they are forced to), the company’s true business performance is revealed: not great.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, in emails leaked from the Sony debacle, summed it up best:

“Facebook has continued to perform in the market despite declining user engagement and pullback of brand advertising dollars — largely due to mobile advertising performance – especially App Install advertisements. This is a huge red flag because it indicates that sustainable brand dollars have not yet moved to Facebook mobile platform and mobile revenue growth has been driven by technology companies (many of which are VC funded). VC dollars are being spent on user acquisition despite unknown LTV of users – a recipe for disaster. This props up Facebook share price and continues to justify VC investment in technology products based on abnormally large mkt cap companies (i.e. “If this company attracts just 5% of users that FB has, it will be HUGE” – fuels spend on user acquisition as user growth is tied to values).”

What we’re witnessing, in the release of Hello and Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus, is that the company must resort to increasingly more expensive ways to drive user engagement. This shows clearly the underlying sickness in Facebook’s core business.

It will be interesting to see, as the tech sector cools and VC dollars dry up, how the situation plays out for Facebook and its investors.

New Study Shows Babies Feel More Pain Than Adults

Health & Wellness

In what is sure to stir up the corporal punishment debate new research has uncovered that babies feel pain in much the same way as adults and perhaps even more. The findings challenge some experts’ beliefs that babies don’t feel pain.

The logic behind the seemingly ridiculous idea that babies don’t feel pain is that babies’ brains aren’t developed enough for them to really “feel” pain, said study lead author Dr. Rebeccah Slater, who works in the department of pediatrics at Oxford University in England. “Our study provides the first really strong evidence that this is not the case,” Slater said.

“Our study suggests that not only do babies experience pain, but they may be more sensitive to it than adults,” she said in a press release issued by the university.

The study was composed of 10 healthy infants, ages 1 to 6 days, and 10 healthy adults, ages 23 to 36. All were subjected to MRI scans of their brains while they were poked on the bottom of their feet.

The MRI scans showed that 18 of the 20 brain areas that were active in adults in response to pain were also active in the babies.

Most interestingly, the scans revealed that babies had the same response to a weak poke as adults did to a poke that was four times as strong, which suggests that babies have a much lower pain threshold than adults.

“Up until recently, people didn’t think it was possible to study pain in babies using MRI because, unlike adults, they don’t keep still in the scanner,” Slater said.

But babies less than a week old are more calm than older babies, and “we found that their parents were able to get them to fall asleep inside a scanner so that, for the first time, we could study pain in the infant brain using MRI,” she explained.

The findings are particularly important since babies can’t articulate well their experience of pain and it is tough to assess pain from visual observations.

Practically speaking, said Slater, babies undergo painful procedures every day, but there is usually no pain management guidelines available to help clinicians.

“We have to think that if we would provide pain relief for an older child undergoing a procedure, then we should look at giving pain relief to an infant undergoing a similar procedure,” Slater concluded.

An interesting line of further research will be the pain tolerance of children versus adults and the implications this has on discipline techniques like spanking, which could turn out to be more severe than we assume. The researchers intend to pursue several different lines of inquiry related to their findings, according to the report.

Self Driving Cars Estimated To Cut 90% Of City Traffic

Finance

New research shows just why Google and Uber are so interested in the idea of self driving cars. European transportation experts say congested cities could become a thing of the past, so long as people are prepared to be chauffeured by a robot driver.

A new study, published Thursday by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, suggests that wide scale adoption of “taxibots” could cut the number of cars needed to perform the same number of journeys per day in major cities to just 10% of their current numbers.

The scientists used data from Lisbon, Portugal, to simulate how such self-driving cabs would affect traffic. Even with only one passenger per ride and no public transport like streetcars or buses in operation, the number of cars would still drop by 77 per cent.

The authors said replacing personal cars with self-driving cabs would also open up valuable real estate currently used for public parking to lucrative development opportunities. In Lisbon’s case this would be the equivalent of over 200 football fields.

The scope of the opportunity shows the potential size of the market and who would stand to capitalize – those making the automated cars and more importantly whoever was controlling the dispatch of them.

While Uber seems poised to control dispatch it’s unclear whether such cabs would be privately or publicly run. Given they would operate very similarly to public transit and be under tight regulation by the city, its conceivable that such ride sharing services could be an extension of public transit and not the taxi industry.

Hillary’s Tax Troubles Just Politics As Usual

News

Headlines are starting to mount against Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. After fellow contender Rand Paul tipped a major scandal to drop against the former First Lady, revelations broke that Clinton’s numerous charities had been given tens of millions of dollars in contributions which were not disclosed.

It now appears, according to Reuters, the Clinton’s numerous charities will refile half a decade of taxes to correct “mistakes”. While we of course expect better of our elected officials, the honest truth is that this is nothing new or remarkable.

When treasury secretary Timothy Geithner went through his Senate confirmation hearing the process exposed he, too, had ‘forgotten’ significant tax contributions towards Medicare and Social Security. The former Goldman partner, known for his financial wizardry, must have just made an honest mistake. The same honest mistake former Rhodes Scholar Clinton surely made by forgetting millions in donations from controversial governments like Russia.

The unsettled numbers on the tax returns undermine the concept of 990’s, the legal structure for political charities, role as a form of public accountability, experts in charity law and transparency advocates said today.

In Clinton’s case, for three years in a row beginning in 2010, the Clinton Foundation reported to the Internal Revenue Service that it received zero dollars from foreign and U.S. governments, a dramatic fall-off from the tens of millions of dollars it received in previous years.

The foundation now says those entries were “errors” and that several foreign governments continued to give tens of millions of dollars toward the foundation.

The revelations come weeks after the former Secretary of State and First Lady acknowledged she ran a private email server to conduct State business and then deleted nearly all emails from this time despite strict laws that forbid such actions.

Hillary clearly has ethical problems and believe the ends, no matter how extraordinary, justify the means.

But a bigger concern is our convoluted system of campaign finance and being elected to office. Between specific finance laws and our messy tax code it is all too easy for people, especially those with great means, to play games and hide the truth from American voters.

It’s high time we simplified this system so that the American public can have faith in the process and its easy to audit. It would mark a return to the simplicity that used to define America’s democracy.

Another Day Another Bank Scandal – Deutsche Bank Fined $2.5 Billion

Finance

Americans should be outraged today as The New York Department for Financial Services announced that Deutsche Bank will pay a $2.5 billion fine “in connection with the manipulation of the benchmark interest rates, including the London Interbank Offered Bank (“LIBOR”), the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (“EURIBOR”) and Euroyen Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (“TIBOR”) (collectively, “IBOR”).”

Predictably this latest fine is “the largest fine to date in the sprawling worldwide Libor investigation” according to the Financial Times. And yet it still amounts to just a slap on the wrist for another megabank as we shall explain below.

The bank’s fines will be allocated as follows: New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) will get $600 million, $775 million will go to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and $340 million to the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). $800 million will end up in the bank accounts of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Legitimate traders hope that the CFTC which can now afford to upgrade its systems to actually have some sense of the pervasive manipulation taking place in the S&P futures market on a daily basis.

Most shockingly, despite the record fine, nobody will go to jail. Again. Just like JP Morgan. Just like HSBC. Just like UBS. Etc. Etc.

The latest fine should have Americans outraged. There are clearly two set of standards being applied – one for common folks, who go to jail for much lesser offences and one for rich bankers, who simply pay to avoid jail time. To cap it all off the fines are socialized amongst the banks shareholders, including your pension funds, so effectively it is main street America that pays the fine and not the bankers themselves.

To give some sense of absurdity the fine works out to Deutsche Bank paying $25,474 per employee to keep its Libor-manipulating employees out of prison, which is a bargain compared to the $150,000 per employee JP Morgan had to pay late last year.

When Cronies Play Cop The Public Is At Risk

News

Police and sheriffs departments all over the country use civilian volunteers to boost their forces. The practice allows them to wear badges and uniforms and even authorizes them to carry guns. If best practices are followed this can be a smart way for cash strapped departments to stretch their resources or to vet potential full-time hires.

Every once in a while, however, things go bad. Seldom do they go as bad as they did in Tulsa on April 2.

That’s when volunteer sheriffs Deputy Robert Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive, shot and killed a suspect who had fled an undercover sting. Bates later said he thought he was pulling out his Taser but drew his gun instead and fatally wounded 44 year old Eric Harris.

Bates pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to a charge of second-degree manslaughter, posted $25,000 bail and got permission from the court to go to the Bahamas. The act displayed a tone-deafness about the killing that has plagued this case from the beginning.

The Tulsa incident is a vivid example of the terrible risks of giving unqualified people the life or death power police have.

It should remind every sheriff and police chief that they’re putting the public at grave risk if they use volunteer programs to do favors for the wealthy or well-connected people who have no business being on the street.

That’s what appears to have happened in Tulsa. Bates is far past the age when most active duty street cops retire and there are indications he was inadequately trained for his backup role.

Bates and sheriff Stanley Glanz are long-time friends. Bates has donated tens of thousands of dollars worth of vehicles and police equipment to the department. Bates ran Glanz’s 2012 re-election campaign and gave the sheriff a $2500 donation. Glanz initially excused the incident as a simple “error” saying that Bates had done nothing wrong.

Prosecutors took a different view.

Whether the friendship and the donations persuaded Glanz to look at the other way might become clearer during Bates’ prosecution. If that’s what happened, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Police chiefs and sheriffs desperate for money, besotted by celebrity or simply doing favors for friends, have too often handed out badges and guns to people who should have neither.

The chief of Oakley, Michigan sold the right to be a reserve officer for a donation of $1200. More if you actually wanted a badge. The Los Angeles County sheriffs department suspended a special reserve unit for celebrities in 1999 after one reserve deputy was arrested for brandishing a gun and another for money laundering.

Some departments run their volunteer programs the right way. Reserves are restricted to tasks such as office duty or crowd control or allowed to carry guns on the street only after rigorous training and careful supervision.

In Tulsa we know have a reserve deputy who face’s a manslaughter charge. This level of scrutiny shouldn’t be reserved for just the ride-alongs. Officials who let cronies play cop should face just as much scrutiny and be forced to account for the consequences of their decisions.

Google Blames NSA For Its Sloppy Security

Finance

“Randomly watching and surveilling what’s going over the internet and invading the privacy of American citizens is not OK. Encryption is the solution.” answered Google Chairman Eric Schmidt when asked his thoughts on the state of cyber security during a conference yesterday.

While Schmidt has an extremely valid point – wanton surveillance of the citizens of our country puts us back in the middle ages – his words ring hollow when compared to Google’s role as a huge collector and commercial beneficiary of people’s data.

“When the Snowden revelations came out, we were very upset,” Schmidt answered. “It was not in collaboration with us. NSA stands for ‘Never Say Anything,’ and they didn’t say anything to us. We embarked on a programme to fully encrypt and secure the information that customers entrust with us. That means encryption at rest and encryption in transit. We know that it worked because now all the people who were snooping are complaining.”

Yet this explanation is far too convenient and ignores the dirty little secret of Silicon Valley: it’s all about making money. You and your data are the product and nobody cares what happens to you so long as it doesn’t hurt profits.

Take Snapchat, the social media darling that “destroys” pictures after a fixed amount of time. Yet it doesn’t actually destroy anything – the pictures remain on your phone and on the company’s servers in case that data becomes useful at some point.

The downside is that any of our numerous police or secret police can request any and all of your data without so much as a warrant. A polite letter on official looking letterhead is usually enough to do the trick.

Then take Mr Schmidt’s Gmail product. The premise there is to store every single email you’ve ever written or drafted, forever.

The premise is so scary that Schmidt himself deletes, twice, every single email he receives. He understands the implications of having every email you’ve ever sent looming over your head. Imagine how damning some of them could be if, say, you were facing an anti-trust investigation by the European Commission? Hillary Clinton too knows the danger of this.

If big tech companies actually cared they would engineer clever solutions to make sure the information the CIA / NSA and everyone else so critically want wasn’t collected and stored in the first place. But this type of truly sophisticated engineering is difficult and costs money. Companies like Google, Facebook and Snapchat would rather make gobs of quick cash than create products that truly advance society and prevent abuse by authorities.

The lesson here is that if you log it and store it the NSA or other secret police will come calling. To truly prevent this kind of spying the data needs to not be collected in the first place or stored in such a way it is impossible to use for spying. That is Silicon Valley’s real challenge and it will be interesting to see who steps up to the plate.

Why Our Politicians Should Study Singapore’s Prime Minister

News

John McCain, the senior Arizona Senator, revealed in March he doesn’t use email. Senator Ted Stevens, of Alaska, once referred to the internet as a “series of tubes”. Mitt Romney, regarded as one of the brighter Senators, was “amazed” by touch screen technology during a 2012 campaign stop.

And then there’s Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, a man who makes monumentally important decisions about all aspects of society, crime, business, politics and daily life in America.

In response to a case that involved social media, Roberts admitted “I don’t think any of us have a Facebook page, or tweet – whatever that is”.

Time and again we see legislators struggling to understand the subject they are passionately debating, yet lots of politicians talk about the importance of wielding technology.

Our elected officials and the people who put them in office should take note of Singaporean prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, who puts his money where his mouth is.

Yesterday he revealed he’s upset that he doesn’t have time to code stuff anymore.

The PM did so in a speech outlining the city-state’s many and enviable innovations. While touting the achievments he highlighted that the minister in charge of Singapore’s Smart Nation Programme Office, Vivian Balakrishnan, “… used to be an eye surgeon but since he does not get to operate on eyes nowadays, he dabbles in building simple robots, assembling watches, wireless devices and programming apps.” Clearly more technologically advanced than virtually all our elected officials.

Prime minister Loong said he envies Balakrishnan having time to code. “The last programme I wrote was a Sudoku solver in C++ several years ago, so I’m out of date.” he remarked.

But Loong already sees his next personal skills upgrade: one of his two MIT-educated kids recently gave him a book on the Haskell programming language. “One day that will be my retirement reading.” he said.

We should look at Loong and the elected officials of Singapore to see what it takes to be a truly technology-driven economy. While we have Silicon Valley a plan to turn all of America into a truly progressive, modern economy will take leaders that understand both the technology and the issues. It seems our current class of representatives could use a little personal skills upgrading themselves.

Comcast Interference In Hulu Deal Could Torpedo Time Warner Merger

Finance

Comcast is reported to have interfered in the sale of Hulu, a competitor to its cable TV business, in a move that could derail its mega-merger with rival Time Warner.

The cable giant allegedly talked its fellow Hulu investors out of selling the TV streaming service to DirecTV or AT&T by insisting it could steer the business to financial success.

The accusations are serious because Comcast had explicitly agreed with the FCC and US Department of Justice to keep its hands off the management of Hulu. After Comcast’s interference, Hulu’s investors Disney and Fox decided against selling the upstart to Comcast’s cable rivals.

The allegations were published in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal: it reports that, during a convention in Idaho in 2013, Comcast repeatedly assured Disney and Fox executives that it would position Hulu as a money-making rival to Netflix.

The indiscreet bragging apparently torpedoed a sale Hulu had planned to Comcast’s competitors DirecTV and AT&T. If the allegations are true, it means Comcast broke its 2011 agreement with the DoJ before Comcast acquired NBC/Universal from General Electric. In the deal Comcast promised it would give up any management control over Hulu, including its seat on Hulu’s board of directors, and make its content available to Hulu for streaming over the internet.

Comcast has thus far been silent on the matter.

Should the DoJ pursue a case against Comcast, the cable giant’s proposed $45bn acquisition of Time Warner Cable would likely be in jeopardy. The merger already faces stiff opposition, and is headed for a formal hearing with the FCC. A further DoJ complaint could be the final nail in the coffin of a deal already considered to be on the rocks.

What We Can Learn From Belgium’s Stance On Uber

News

Uber, the American taxi hailing app the is dragging the industry kicking and screaming from the dark ages, appears set to score a rare victory in its war on middle ages taxi hailing.

Belgian Mobility Minister Pascal Smet has put out a plan to fully legalize the service, which is still technically illegal in Belgium despite the widespread popularity of the UberPop ride-sharing app, which connects travellers with drivers who are not regulated taxi drivers.

In addition to over 13 lawsuits statside, Uber has faced issues in France, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain. Belgium looks set to be the first country to overturn its existing ban on the service and bring it within legal regulation.

Smet’s plan — which includes a complete overhaul of current normal taxi rules from 2016 — has a good deal of political support. Sources from liberal party Mouvement Réformateur said they would back the Flemish socialists’ move and had long supported it.

Uber has over 700 drivers in Brussels, some of whom have been the victims of violent attacks from traditional taxi drivers who see them as a threat.

According to insiders familiar with Smet’s proposal, Uber drivers would be liable for tax on their earnings but would be free to operate so long as it was not their main job.

This is exactly the type of approach every single state, county and city in our country need to take with Uber. There is nothing dangerous or inherently wrong with Uber. The negative headlines come from ancient taxi monopolies who are loath to see competition in their markets.

Uber, in fact, makes taxis more accountable and safer. There is a permanent record of who drove whom, to where and in what vehicle. Uber holds its drivers to a higher standard than your average cabbie and makes communicating feedback about drivers easy and painless. Gone are the days of asking for a business card and calling into a switchboard to complain or inquire about lost items. If you forget your purse or laptop just text your driver. Simple. Painless.

It’s sad that a truly innovative company like Uber, which indisputably makes America a safer, better and more efficient place must waste hundreds of millions of dollars fighting red tape and bureaucracy.

Our country was founded on being a place that is easy to do business. Today we should look at Belgium and reflect on our founding principles. If we don’t, we’ll risk ending up just like the country we fled from all those years ago.

Idaho Native Creates Ingenious Shoe That Grows

Entertainment News

Having proper footwear is a serious health issue in the developing world. There are more than 300 million children in the world without shoes, with many more wearing shoes that don’t fit or are hanging together by a thread.

With no footwear, it’s easy for kids to get cuts on the soles of their feet which lead to infections and parasites. These health issues not only threaten their lives but they keep them from school.

In 2007, after graduating university, Idaho native Kenton Lee had travelled all the way to the Mothering Care Children’s Home in Nairobi, Kenya, to see if missionary work was really for him.

One day, while walking in the dirt to church with a group of orphans, Lee looked down at the ground and saw a little girl in a white dress who had cut open the tops off her shoes so that her feet would fit.

“Wouldn’t that be nice if there were a pair of shoes that could adjust and expand their size?” Lee thought.

Now 30, Lee can confidently say that there are. While he ultimately felt a little too homesick to be a missionary, he returned to Nampa, Idaho, with a mission: create a Shoe that Grows.

“I realize that my life isn’t just about me here in Idaho. We’re all in this together,” he said.

Like his customers Lee had to overcome many great challenges to make his dream a reality.

Upon his return Lee founded a non-profit, Because International, focused on what he calls “practical compassion.” He approached every big shoe company they could think of: Nike, Reebok, Crocs. And every one of them turned him away

Except one. Proof of Concept, a shoe prototype design company based in Vancouver, Wash., heard about Lee’s idea and instantly saw both the potential and the opportunity.

“I’ve been in the footwear industry for 30 years, and to my knowledge I’ve never seen one that did that. So the first question is: is it possible?” stated Gary Pitman, president of Proof of Concept.

While an average shoe might go through two or three prototypes, Lee’s shoe went through eight.

They arrived at a high-quality, durable leather and compressed rubber design to make sure the shoes are flexible and strong. They decided to use snaps because they are less likely to break than Velcro or buckles.

The final product is an ingenious sandal that uses straps and snaps to grow up to five times in size, meaning growing kids get to keep their shoes for years.

To get the shoes to markets that needed them, Because International joined with four aid groups to distribute the shoes around the world, but it also accepts orders from any aid group that knows of kids in need of shoes.

“I don’t know every kid who needs a pair of shoes out there,” Lee said. “We really rely on people who work with kids anyway.”

The shoes are collapsible and can be packed tightly into a suitcase, which makes them easy to bring overseas. An order of 100 pairs comes to $1,200, or $12 a pair.

Lee’s American ingenuity and enterprising spirit are something to be celebrated, despite the fact he is a very humble guy just trying to make the world a better place.

To donate or purchase Lee’s amazing shoes visit: theshoethatgrows.org

North Korea Guilty Of Cyber Attack Against South Korea

Entertainment News

South Korea has concluded their investigation into a devastating March 20, 2013 cyber attack that terrorized the nation and resulted in significant damage.

The malicious attack raises new questions about what constituted an act of war in the digital age as the strike, known as “Dark Seoul,” paralyzed an estimated 48,000 computers at a number of major banks and broadcasters, disrupting network systems and wiping their hard disks clean.

Live footage of the attack showed computer screens at the media companies completely down, while bank customers were unable to make withdrawals, or transfer money online, wreaking havoc on the economy.

“It would try to delete essentially all your files… then restart the system. You would come back up and nothing would be there,” said Joshua James, a cyberwar expert.

“If it infected more financial systems, it could have deleted all financial data in Korea. I mean, it is dangerous,” the professor added.

The attacks were similar to those used against Sony Pictures and North Korea is the likely culprit there, the motive being the film studio’s release of The Interview, a fictional account of a plot to assassinate North Korea’s dictator.

The investigation into a new attack on South Korea, which happened on Dec 23rd of last year, brought fresh evidence clearly showing the North’s involvement. Computers at South Korea’s nuclear operator were breached and again cyberwar was suspected.

The source of these attacks? North Korea. And South Korean investigators say they have proof — the actual malicious codes used in the attacks. They shared this data early Thursday morning.

Proof of who did it

“From a law enforcement or investigation side, we’re trying to actually trace back to who did it,” said James.

South Korea announced in mid-March that the IP addresses used in the December incursion could be traced back to Shenyang, China, which is easily accessed from the North Korean border.

For convincingly the actual code used in the attack, which were recovered by South Korean intelligence officials, were said to be very similar in pattern to those used by the North Koreans, according to South Korean authorities.

“The malicious codes used in the attack were same in composition and working methods as “Kimsuky” codes known to be used by North Korea,” the prosecutor’s office that leads 17 other government agencies and Internet companies in the investigation said in a statement.

Pyongyang has dismissed the claims it launched these attacks, calling them a “plot and fabrication that can never win over the truth.”

North Korea is operating a “cyberarmy” of 6,000 workers as it focuses on strengthening its asymmetrical warfare capability, particularly in cyberspace where it avoids going to war yet can still inflict damage on its enemies.

The case brings up an important question: at what point is hacking war? Should facilitators, in this case clearly China, also be held accountable?

While it is likely the South Koreans are working on a counter-attack the findings highlight the urgency of developing a set of international rules and norms for waging and identifying cyberwar.

Virtual Reality Experiences Help You Remember More

Entertainment News

In research that somewhat validates the tech industry’s recent obsession with virtual reality headsets, researchers discovered that people who receive instructions for a task remember them better when they are accompanied by a virtual reality experience.

The team, from the Human-Computer Interaction Lab and based out of Ital’s Udine university, published their findings in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

But virtual reality was not the only thing the researchers did to help people remember more. Instead they employed an element of fear, scaring the users and effectively giving them a ‘teachable moment’ using the VR goggles.

These experiences are called immersive serious games, combining game elements with reality.

In their experiment, the researchers used an aviation safety game that allowed players to experience a serious aircraft emergency with the goal of surviving it. The team compared the proposed approach to a traditional aviation safety briefing – the beloved back of the seat safety card used by most airlines.

The scientists did not focus on learning immediately after the experience but instead looked at knowledge retention over a longer time span. They felt that this was a fundamental requirement, because people need to remember safety procedures in order to apply them when faced with danger.

A test administered before, immediately after and one week after the experiment showed that the immersive serious game was superior to the safety card. Moreover, the study showed that the immersive serious game was more engaging and fear-inducing than the safety card, a factor that contributes to the superior memory retention.

Safety education of citizens could be a particularly promising domain for immersive serious games, because people tend not to pay attention to and benefit from current safety materials.

New Study Shows Coffee May Slow Breast Cancer Growth

Health & Wellness

Interesting research was published this week in the prestigious journal Clinical Cancer Research indicating the the key ingredients in coffee – caffeine and caffeic acid – may slow the the progression of breast cancer in women.

The study, conducted by researchers at Lund University in Sweden, followed 1,090 patients with invasive primary breast cancer in Sweden. The researchers looked at coffee consumption on patient and tumor characteristics and disease-free survival rates.

The researches looked at two particular types of cancer cells – estrogen positive and estrogen negative to see if coffee intake affected them differently.

Drinking between two to give cups of coffee per day was associated with smaller invasive primary tumors and lower proportion of estrogen positive tumors. Caffeine and caffeic acid were also found to suppress the growth of both types of cancer cells the researchers were looking at.

Patients were treated with standard anti-cancer medication tamoxifen will also ingesting coffee.

The researchers concluded that coffee consumption somehow weakens the cancer cells and makes them more susceptible to the drug tamoxifen. While the exact mechanism of doing this was not apparent they plan to study the results further to pinpoint the exact cause.

The news is great for cancer sufferers who often are unsure as to what they shoud and should not eat when undergoing treatment. The findings mean that patients who drink coffee can comfortably continue to do so and it will likely help rather than hurt their condition.

Alabama Latest State To Move Toward Legalized Medical Marijuana

News

In a fairly surprising move, a comprehensive medical marijuana reform bill passed in an Alabama Senate committee late Wednesday. While not yet law, it marks an important step for the state.

Sen. Bobby Singleton’s bill found favor with the Senate Judiciary Committee and a 4-3 vote in favor after little debate. The Medical Marijuana Patient Safe Access Act can now be considered on the Senate floor.

As Senate leadership could refuse to put the bill on a calendar so it can be debated and voted on, it may not end up making it into law.

The committee room was packed with a standing room only crowd hoping to participate in a public hearing on the bill. That hearing, however, was removed from the committee agenda prior to the meeting.

An anonymous marijuana supporter at the hearing, said he is happy the committee passed the bill. He has looked into moving to another state in order to purchase medical marijuana for treatment of his cerebral palsy.

Traditional prescription drugs have not been effective for him.

“I have been more than 10 years sober waiting for something like this,” the man said.

Unfortunately for patients in the state Republicans, who have opposed the idea, have a super-majority in the Alabama Legislature. The medical marijuana bill managed to pass today with a Democratic majority.

In an interesting twist the favorable report was achieved because Republican senators Arthur Orr, Greg Reed and Tom Whatley didn’t attend the meeting. Sen. Greg Albritton, a Republican, abstained. This could be politicians testing the water in order to re-align their platforms with what is popular.

Democratic senators Vivian Figures, Linda Coleman, Rodger Smitherman and Singleton voted in favor. The remaining senators, all Republican voted against.

Singleton, D-Greensboro, claims he lobbied hard to get the committee to approve the bill. He said he will continue to work diligently to get lawmakers to put the bill on the calendar and heard on the Senate floor.

In order to achieve his goal, in light of almost certain Republican opposition, Singleton admitted he is considering substituting the current bill for a constitutional amendment, which would then be put to a public election.

Singleton believes Republican lawmakers will be more likely to pass the Legislation if it leaves the decision ultimately up to the voting public.

Which brings up a powerful point. There should be more measures, especially ones that have great impact on society like criminalizing petty drug offences, put to public vote. It’s healthy for democracy and prevents simple pieces of legislation getting stuck behind a few obstinate elected officials playing partisan politics.

Russia Signs Rare Aircraft Deal With Cuba

Entertainment News

Russia and Cuba announced an agreement today on new aircraft deliveries, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin stated following the 13th Russian-Cuban Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation.

“We have agreed today on new deliveries of modern Russian aircraft to the Cuban market. There may be deliveries to other countries’ markets as well,” he said.

Rogozin highlighted that Cuba’s aircraft fleet was already equipped with Russian planes, adding that Cuba and Cubana Airlines demonstrated successful commercial realization of Russian aircraft, which tends to be rare. While simply built and therefore easy to maintain the lack of technology means Russians blames have some of the worst safety records in the world.

When asked directly why most would say Russian planes are non-competitive, Rogozin suggested taking a look at Cuba, “which makes money by operating and maintaining Russian aircraft.”

The reality is that the purchase was likely made for political and not product or technology reasons. The planes sold were strictly commercial aircraft and not destined for the military, which could have caused issues for thawing U.S.-Cuba relations.

Native Desert Plant Could Give Us Made In America Rubber

Culture

Since the very first discovery of rubber tire manufacturers have been dependent on this critical raw material from a single region of the globe, and in turn, have seen their supply chains become very vulnerable. Everything from disease to bad weather to political upheaval, and environmental issues all have the potential to inflict significant disruptions on their business.

It’s pretty sensible for manufacturers of rubber products to search for an alternative to the single supply source. In World War II, the Japanese cut off rubber supplies, making it necessary for the U.S. to find alternatives. This problem birthed our domestic synthetic rubber industry, and along with it, our modern petrochemical industry.

But the chemical properties of natural rubber make it an essential ingredient for use in truck and aircraft tires, and there can be no substitute. This is why tire manufacturers have long sought an alternative to using natural rubber from rubber trees.

Still, there are other products once made using natural rubber can be made using alternative sources. Now scientists have finally been able to extract rubber economically from a plant called guayule (Parthenium argentatum Gray), that’s native to the southwestern U.S.

Chemical and Engineering News published an article this week that explains how scientists have developed an extraction process to get the rubber trapped in the cells of the Guayule plant. The process is already being used in the manufacture of numerous latex products and a very popular wetsuit. While the process is still a bit costly, tire manufacturers are poised to benefit, and test crops are already being grown in arid locations in different parts of the country and around the world.

The discovery shows how with advances in technology resources we have in our own backyard can be used to make products using processes we might not have thought possible in years gone by.

Disruption Is Coming To America’s Jet Manufacturers

News

The last time the U.S. Air Force developed a stealth bomber it was the mid 70s. The Air Force was looking for something to replace the slow and unstealthy B-52 but something that could also carry a B-52 level heavy payload. The B-70 was a bust and B-1 was too small.

Nearly 15 years later the B-2 finally flew yet it cost $2.2 billion per plane and couldn’t sit out in the rain on account of its stealthy but sensitive coating. None of the 20 planes are currently based overseas, where it could respond faster in a crisis. While they have been stationed at Guam and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean these operations required special hangers to be built and significant logistic support to care for the sensitive aircraft.

The B-2 bomber remains in service but the Air Force is now looking for a replacement. The replacement aircraft still needs to be a heavy bomber, capable of carrying the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which would be used if the U.S. sought to destroy a hardened target such as Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In order to meet the long list of classified Air Force requirements, the project will not go into service until at least 2030 and probably much longer after that given how the F-35 and F-22 programs have faired.

In fact the F-35 is probably a good template for how the program will work out – the most expensive of all time. Currently the F-35 is projected to cost $391.1 billion for a fleet of 2,443 planes. Given the B-2’s price tag of $2.4 billion a unit it seems like a great deal however its still ridiculously expensive and could yet come in well over budget.

Yet the biggest issue with a replacement heavy bomber program is the evolution of aerial combat. There is a trend toward relatively cheap yet very fast missiles and smaller drones that attack in large numbers due to advances in UAV technology and the deployment of sophisticated radar systems that can track even the stealthiest fighters. If this is the current reality on the battlefield what will that battlefield look like in 30 years?

The likely reason for the push to a next gen bomber is the fact Northrop Grumman, one of the big 3 aerospace contractors does not have a prime aviation program like Lockheed’s F-35 fighter or Boeing’s KC-46A Pegasus tanker. In order to keep a third company in the industry they need a program. This does nothing to improve the odds of a competitive bomber hitting the battlefield in the mid 2030s.

The winds of change are blowing in the military aviation world. Advances in technology are pushing air dominance towards drones and missiles. Cyberwar is reducing the need for bombing – Iran’s nuclear program was not delayed by a Massive Ordinance Penetrator, the military’s heaviest and most powerful non-nuclear bomb, but a sophisticated cyber attack.

Our military should think long and hard whether this program makes sense. Hundreds of billions of dollars buys an awful lot of drones, missiles and cyber gear. Increasingly the next gen heavy bomber program just looks like a solution looking for a problem. Disruption is coming to America’s jet programs and jet manufacturers. We can either be ahead of the curve willingly or forcibly behind it.

Governments And Banks Want To Track Your Money

News

Disturbing news has leaked today that some JPMorgan Chase customers are receiving letters informing them that the bank will no longer allow any cash to be stored in safety deposit boxes.

The details of a post on the Collectors Universe message board, a site for currency collectors, suggests that stuffing bank notes under the mattress may soon make a comeback.

The new safety deposit box agreements apparently contain the following clause:

“Contents of the box: You agree not to store any cash or coins other than those found to have a collectible value.”

The letter, entitled “Updated Safe Deposit Box Lease Agreement,” was sent out to customers at the beginning of the month.

It seems the too big to fail bankers are phasing out accepting cash, as last month it instituted a new policy which, “restricts borrowers from using cash to make payments on credit cards, mortgages, equity lines, and auto loans,” writes Professor Joseph Salerno of the Mises Institute.

The news arrives on the back of deeply disturbing comments by Citi’s Willem Buiter, who recently advocated abolishing cash altogether in order to “solve the world’s central banks’ problem with negative interest rates”.

It’s not just banks, the agent of government, that are waging this war on personal freedom. Last month it was also reported that the Justice Department is ordering bank employees to consider calling the cops on customers who withdraw $5,000 dollars or more for their own bank accounts.

This news is troubling because just two days ago Greece confiscated all bank balances of municipal governments. The electronic transfers were done without the consent of the owners of the money or the account signatories. At the push of a button funds were moved without any consent.

It is not a stretch to assume that if things got bad here a similar tactic would happen only it would main street Americans who’s savings would be wiped out at the press of a key.

Another disturbing aspect to this is what having a cashless society does when combined with comprehensive surveillance like that conducted by the NSA. Without cash, the NSA and whatever other secret police organizations are part of the club could literally track and trace every single transaction by every single person.

That is a deeply scary thought and one which is not far removed from our current reality.

Why A Utah Shelter’s Remotely Operated Pet Toys Are Important

Culture

The Human Society Of Utah launched an innovative new website that allows visitors to control 3 remotely operated pet toys and watch the animals on live video. It effectively allows users to play around with a cat from the comfort of their desk or living room. Cool stuff!

But why is this beyond cute and actually important? Because while it’s admittedly cool / cute / awesome the significance is a bit trickier to spot.

Why this development is important is because charities, like Utah Humane Society, do vital and important work. They do this work on a shoestring budget, often relying on volunteers or personal contributions from workers to close the gaps between the problem and the solution.

In the case of the Humane Society of Utah this is American innovation in action. This is volunteers coming up with a highly creative solution to raise awareness about an important cause. These folks are getting the job done with extremely limited resources and having some fun while doing it.

The group’s website doesn’t just allow random internet people to play with pets. It also accepts donations, features pets available for adoption and provides much needed entertainment for the shelter’s animals. In short, it genius viral marketing that didn’t cost the center much. The technology also gives people a chance to play with cats if they can’t own one — because of an allergy or for financial reasons.

These remarkable staff and volunteers definitely dispel the myth that a shelter is “a sad, depressing place”.

To celebrate the new addition to the shelter, the Humane Society is waiving adoption fees for cats who are at least 7 months old. The waiver lasts through the end of the month. All cats adopted until April 30 will also receive a free microchip.

McDonald’s To Stop Working With Suppliers Who Clearcut Forests

Culture

American and increasingly global fast food chain McDonald’s Corp is taking steps to end deforestation caused by its supply chain, focusing on beef, coffee, palm oil, poultry and packaging. The company promised on Tuesday not to buy from suppliers that clear primary forest and other areas with high conservation value, as well as peat marshes.

The food giant also said human rights must be observed and conflicts over land use resolved through a fair and transparent process.

Scientific advocacy groups welcomed the pledge, saying it was the first by a global fast food chain covering its whole supply chain and would push the industry to set tough new environmental standards.

The multinational company said it would begin the development of specific time-bound targets for the raw materials it sources this year and would help suppliers comply with the program.

“Making this pledge is the right thing to do for our company, the planet and the communities in which our supply chain operates,” said Francesca DeBiase, senior vice president of McDonald’s worldwide supply chain and sustainability.

Like many other international food, cosmetics and commodity giants, the company has come under pressure from activists to make its business greener and more socially sustainable.

“The sheer scale of McDonald’s commitment includes significant potential for change, pushing the industry to implement new environmental standards across the board and ultimately reducing climate emissions,” said analyst Lael Goodman. “However, the commitment is still a work in progress.”

David McLaughlin, the World Wildlife Fund’s vice president of sustainable food, said success would require the expansion of monitoring and compliance efforts by McDonald’s and its suppliers.

“We hope that this commitment will inspire other companies to take action,” he added.

McDonald’s said it had been addressing deforestation since 1989 when it stopped sourcing beef from the Amazon rainforest.

The company could use some good PR lately as sales of their signature fast food are down across the board. Consumers are increasingly preferring healthier options and McDonald’s has made some strategic errors lately by offering too many menu items that confuse customers.

Aaron’s Law Looks To Curb Overzealous Prosecution Of Hackers

News

Named for Aaron Swartz — the programmer and digital activist who took his life while facing data theft charges — the proposed legislation would ease punishments stemming from an antiquated law under which Swartz was charged, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) is backing the House version; Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) are supporting the Senate’s companion bill to the CFAA that would ensure more reasonable punishments.

Carmen Ortiz, prosecutor in the Swartz case, was widely criticized for requesting Swartz spend 35 years in prison and pay $1 million in fines for gaining unauthorized access to JSTOR, a subscription-based digital repository for academic journals and papers.

The penalties were above what most rapists, bank robbers and even some terrorists would receive despite Swartz hurting nobody and having the support of his University in the matter.

The new legislation would look to specifically address unreasonable and aggressive prosecutors like Ms. Ortiz who despite their years of legal training cannot separate youthful experimentation from dangerous criminal behavior.

“At its very core, CFAA is an anti-hacking law,” said Lofgren in a statement. “Unfortunately, over time we have seen prosecutors broadening the intent of the act, handing out inordinately severe criminal penalties for less-than-serious violations.”

“Violating a smartphone app’s terms of service or sharing academic articles should not be punished more harshly than a government agency hacking into Senate files,” said Wyden in a statement, referring to a CIA report acknowledging it infiltrated Senate computers and likely subverted the course of democracy.

Aaron’s Law would change the definition of “access without authorization” in the CFAA so it more directly applies to malicious hacks such as sending fraudulent emails, injecting malware, installing viruses or overwhelming a website with traffic.

“The CFAA is so inconsistently and capriciously applied it results in misguided, heavy-handed prosecution,” Wyden said. “Aaron’s Law would curb this abuse while still preserving the tools needed to prosecute malicious attacks.”

The new bill would also remove provisions in the current law allowing prosecutors to add up extensive prison sentences for individuals charged with multiple CFAA violations. This is exactly the tactic Carmen Ortiz used which resulted in the death of a bright young engineer. With the number of unreasonable prosecutors like Ms Ortiz, who focus solely on their own careers and have little respect for the rule and spirit of law, the lawmakers hope to prevent tragedies from happening in the future.

“It’s time we reformed this law to better focus on truly malicious hackers and bad actors, and away from common computer and Internet activities,” Lofgren said.

This is lawmakers’ second attempt at the bill, which didn’t move in the last Congress.

Americans Using Performance Enhancing Drugs At Work

Health & Wellness

Americans are turning to drugs like Adderall, that were once only prescribed to help highly distractable children, in an effort to improve their personal productivity at work.

Popular in colleges for years, amphetamine-like stimulants are now making their way into the workforce where millennial workers who are familiar with their boost in productivity now look to get ahead at the office. In the competition for promotions and rewards no advantage can be overlooked.

Anjan Chatterjee, chairman of neurology at Pennsylvania Hospital and the Elliott professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that an increase in workplace competition is leading to a winner take all workplace environment where there are no rewards for second place. Such an incentive system and culture is driving the uptake of drugs, further aided by demographic factors. Children who grew up either being medicated or around kids that were are more likely to resort to drugs in order to gain competitive advantage.

While the drugs are prescription there are obvious negative effects of this trend. Professor Martha Farah, a cognitive neuroscientist and a director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Neuroscience & Society says that “productivity pills” like Adderall carry substantial addiction risks.

While the military has given such pills to pilots on specific missions the daily use of these drugs to compete at work is the perfect recipe for addiction. Dr. Farah is not against the use of drugs in the workplace however, saying that “if there were a safe and effective drug that could help us in our work on a regular basis, I think that would be great! But Adderall is not that drug.”

What will happen as these drugs are more widely used in the workplace? One notable effect is how co-workers handle drug users. The intensity of a drug fuelled manager may not be well received by his subordinates and peers may feel uncomfortable engaging with someone so chemically dependant.

There has been little research into this phenomenon but that should change in the near future. In the meantime we’re in uncharted territory and a very modern world.

Stunning Photos Of Britain’s Hatton Garden Robbery Released

Entertainment News

London’s metropolitan police released step by step images today showing how the brazen robbers pulled off the largest jewel heist in history.

A gang of up to seven thieves may have been involved and are alleged to have made off with £200 million ($300 million) in gold, jewels, and diamonds.

Once the group got in, its members disabled a lift, climbed down the shaft, drilled through the wall, and accessed 72 safe-deposit boxes.

In a series of images the police detail how the gang cased the premise and drilled through a 2 foot concrete wall before ripping the steel vault bars to get inside the safe. From there they ransacked the safety deposit boxes before making their escape – only to return the next morning for a bit more loot.

Here are the images they released today:

Canadians Look Set To File Antitrust Litigation Against Google

Finance

Clearly Google has a major problem when friendly Canadians announce they are looking to litigate against the company. That looks set to happen as a letter obtained by the Financial Post showed Canada’s Competition Bureau is seeking experts in the areas of online search to bolster one of its major investigations.

“Potential experts should have extensive experience in digital and web-enabled marketing, advertising campaigns that employ search engines and publisher sites across multiple devices, and a thorough understanding of the Canadian market,” says the letter the paper obtained. The letters were sent to experts in search advertising across the country.

Based on the content of the rest of the letter it appears that the investigation is looking for help with the one it launched into Google in 2013. Court documents the bureau filed at the time said that it believed Google may have been engaged in several acts that were in violation of Canada’s competition laws. The call for experts indicates that the investigations is no only ongoing but is ramping up.

According to David Fewer, the director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, the Canadian Bureau may have been motivated to escalate its investigation into Google after seeing the European Union escalating its own anti-trust investigation against the Mountain View based company.

The job posting probably means the investigation has entered a new phase, and that it may be preparing to announce how it intends to proceed.

Experts that received the letter must provide an answer by Monday, though we’ll likely need to wait longer to find out if the Competition Bureau will take Google to court.

No Charges Filed Against Contractor Paid By Chinese To Spy

News

Bizarre revelations emerged Wednesday morning that a state department contractor leaked data on Americans to Chinese agents and yet was not prosecuted by the department of justice.

Unsealed court documents show State Department translator Xiaoming Gao was paid “thousands of dollars to provide information on U.S. persons and a U.S. government employee.” according to an FBI investigation started in the summer of 2014.

According to the documents, she admitted that these meetings took place in hotel rooms in China for years, where she reported on her “social contacts” in the U.S. to an agent who went by the name of “Teacher Zhao.”

The detailed FBI affidavit goes on to say the translator briefly lived, “for free,” with a State Department employee who held a top-secret clearance and designed high-security embassies, including the U.S. compound in Islamabad, Pakistan.

The State Department employee, who is not named, first told the FBI he didn’t discuss his job with Gao, then later changed his statement.

According to the newly unsealed documents, Gao also told the FBI – during interviews in 2013 – that she once told “Teacher Zhao” about the travel plans of an American and ethnic Tibetan. This resulted in that person being interrogated by Chinese intelligence officers during a trip to Tibet, and a member of his family were subsequently imprisoned.

Yet, for some strange reason, the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., which oversaw the case, recently declined to prosecute and allowed the documents to be unsealed. The office offered no further comment. The FBI is also not commenting beyond the court documents that were filed to search a storage unit in suburban Washington, D.C.

On its face, a former senior Justice Department official said the decision not to prosecute is troubling, because the case was unlikely to reveal investigative sources and methods, the usual reason for not conducting such prosecutions.

“It’s not clear to me, based on the court files that were unsealed, how a prosecution of this person could possibly have compromised U.S. intelligence gathering,” Thomas Dupree, former deputy assistant attorney general said. “If it jeopardizes or threatens to disrupt relations with another country, so be it. That you have to draw the line somewhere, and that we need to send a message that this sort of conduct and activity simply will not be tolerated.”

It’s possible given the low level of the intelligence and cooperation with U.S. authorities that it simply wasn’t worth the political trouble it would have caused.