2013年3月27日星期三

Pud puts his hopes on magic route into Slipper

Cessnock trainer Pud Davies will chase the Golden Slipper dream with Madame Fly in the Magic Night Stakes at Rosehill on Saturday. "The owner has the Slipper dream and we have a filly that is worth a go at it," Davies said. "I would have loved to get a run into her before this but we just ran out of time. She has had an easy and a hard trial at Cessnock and she won't disgrace herself against these fillies. We would rather be running in a class two than a group 2 but you don't get the chance to run in the Golden Slipper every day." 

David Vandyke knows punters would be disappointed in his mare Choice Words but believe she could surprise them in Saturday's Birthday Card Stakes "provided everything goes right". Choice Words joins stable favourite Lamasery at Rosehill and both have each-way claims. "I think Choice Words has started favourite four out of her past five and not won," Vandyke said. "Punters probably hate her but she has been a good horse to her owners because she has won $58,000 in prizemoney and been stakes-placed twice in that time. She is a nice horse and you know what you will get with her, which is an honest run, but in this grade she has to get the break to win." Lamasery returns in the Ajax Stakes but his barrier trials have left Vandyke disappointed. "I think he is just taking a little more time to come to hand than usual," he said. "I think he can run a nice race but you will see his best when he steps up in trip." 

Golden Slipper contender All The Talk will run with a changed name in next week's $3.5 million feature to avoid confusion with a four-year-old from Cloncurry, near Mount Isa. The Gary Portelli flyer will be known as I'm All The Talk in the Slipper. "It doesn't matter what they called him if he wins it," Portelli said. "He trialled on Tuesday and won it as he liked, so all we need now is a good barrier." The Queensland outback horse, All The Torque, will not be challenging for any major races soon with career stats of 28 runs for a total of five wins. 

Punters will be able to access free Wi-Fi for their tablets and smart phones at the Rosehill Guineas meeting. The Australian Turf Club has installed a robust network designed to cope with thousands of mobiles at the racecourse. "This is a great step forward," said Racing NSW chief executive Peter V'landys. "The ATC has commenced utilising the $24 million grant provided through the merger agreement with this smart project.Large collection of quality indoorpositioningsystem at discounted prices. These funds were intended for projects that improve the racegoer experience and a free, high-quality Wi-Fi network certainly does that. Customer access to the internet is extremely important in our industry, so this is a very positive initiative." 

Victoria Racing Club chief executive David Courtney announced changes to the balloting conditions to this year's Melbourne Cup to provide more focus on current and staying form. Only performances that satisfy the first clause of balloting of wins in listed races of 2300 metres or further, or be placed in a group or graded race of 2300m and beyond,A solarstreetlight is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp. will be considered when the ballot is held. Previously, all prizemoney won since the sunset date was considered in the ballot but the sunset has been moved forward six months, so instead of August 1, 2011, it will be February 2012, with the exception of the placegetters from the 2011 Melbourne Cup and winner of 2011 Caulfield Cup. Some overseas races have been withdrawn as ballot-free. 

The ballpark that gave up the fewest home runs last season was AT&T Park, whose tenants, the San Francisco Giants, won the World Series. Yet building a winning team in an extreme pitchers park has been much more challenging for the teams in the 28th- and 29th-ranked parks for home runs. The San Diego Padres (Petco Park, 28th) and the Seattle Mariners (Safeco Field, 29th) have not won much lately, and they decided after the season to move in their fences. In San Diego, the power alleys will be reduced by 12 feet in left field and nine feet in right. Another part of the right field wall will come in by 11 feet. In Seattle, the left field walls will be pulled in, in various spots, from four to 17 feet, with a four-foot reduction for much of right field. We have been an outlier in terms of the difficulty hitting in our ballpark, Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik says. What we really want to be is a fair ballpark for pitchers and hitters. Thats the biggest thing. Neither the Padres nor the Mariners (whose retractable roof does not enclose the ballpark) can do much about the cool and heavy local air, which can depress the flight of a ball. But at least their hitters wont be as frustrated as before. Now,Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. of course, the teams need to find hitters talented enough to take advantage. That could be a much bigger challenge. 

Its been quite a debut for the new owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who last May paid $2.15 billion for a team emerging from bankruptcy with a payroll just over $100 million. Now the payroll is doubled, Dodger Stadium is being renovated, and the team is stuffed with TV stars. Thats no coincidence, since the Dodgers spending has everything to do with a lavish new deal for their cable rights. The Yankees showed the value of must-see players (who also win) on the wildly successful YES Network in New York. The Dodgers havent grabbed a playoff spot since 2009,Of all the equipment in the laundry the chinagembeadsfactory is one of the largest consumers of steam. so it will be fascinating to see if all their imports can come together and lead them back. Stan Kasten, the team president, promised that it would take more than dollars to win. I always say smart beats rich, he said. The Yankees got as good as they are because theyre both smart and rich. Were working on it. All of the newcomers, even Zack Greinke, must prove the Dodgers smart for believing that their best days are in front of them, not behind them. If it turns out that the Dodgers paid Greinke for his Royals success, Carl Crawford for his Rays success and Hanley Ramirez for his Marlins success (and so on), this could turn into a big-budget Hollywood flop. 

It was time for Josh Hamilton to leave the Texas Rangers. After five seasons in which he led them to their first two World Series, the fans had turned on him, and the team made a tepid offer to bring him back. Even so, the Rangers served Hamilton well in his time there, creating an environment in which he could manage his complicated life and thrive. A hefty contract (five years, $125 million), new teammates and a ballpark that is less hitter-friendly bring challenges that Hamilton, a recovering addict, must navigate now that hes with the Los Angeles Angels. I have a past history of making mistakes with drugs and alcohol, drinking twice in seven years, which is not good for me, Hamilton said after signing. Theyre going to help me with my support system to put things in place that I had with the Rangers. If Hamilton stays clean, he will add another dangerous bat to a glittering lineup that last year added Albert Pujols from St. Louis. Splashy annual signings do not guarantee success, and the Angels are starting to look like their 1980s teams, put together largely by poaching stars like Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson and Fred Lynn from other teams. But if Hamilton makes a smooth transition, the Angels could power their way to the World Series for the first time in more than a decade.He saw the bracelet at a realtimelocationsystem store while we were on a trip.

Targeting Game Developers

Gyft, the TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 finalist working to bring the plastic gift card industry to mobile, is today announcing the general availability of its APIs, which allow developers to integrate Gyft into websites, apps, or other services. However, as Gyft co-founder and CEO Vinny Lingham explains, the primary focus is on mobile app developers C a group thats interested in offering gift cards as rewards within their mobile games. 

A lot of developers out there have points, rewards, and unredeemed credits, and they want to offer a way for their users to cash out those points or credits, explains Lingham. He suggests that Gyft is a better alternative for these developers than using bill-pay systems that charge fees for transactions. 

Were focused on mobile, he adds. There are a lot of mobile games out there. Its a huge market. And the people who already have mobile phones, playing mobile games, are going to be more open to using mobile gift cards, Lingham notes.Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. 

Though the in-app API integrations could help drive new customers to Gyfts own apps on iOS and Android, customers redeeming their cards wont have to install the Gyft app on their phone. If they choose, they can just visit Gyft on the web, login and print out their gift card from the site. 

The first partner to use the Gyft APIs is Yappem, a social network for sharing customer experiences with brands and businesses. Lingham says that about 10 more integrations should go live by the end of April, and Gyft expects there to be hundreds more over the next few months. 

This is the first time Gyft has launched a feature for developers. Until now, the startup had been working on its consumer-facing mobile gift card wallet of sorts, which allows users to store digital versions of their plastic gift cards, buy gift cards, or share cards with friends for special occasions, like birthdays, for example. 

Gyft declined to provide details as to active users or downloads, but says it has hundreds of thousands of users on its service today, and has grown the stored value of its on-file gift cards to $5 million since launch six months ago. The company has also begun targeting users with free gift cards offering a small amount (e.g. $5 at Gap) to encourage users to spend with Gyfts retailer partners. In one case, 20 percent of those who opened the card went in-store to make a purchase with the brick-and-mortar retailer. And the average spend was 4 to 5 times higher than the cards value, Lingham says. 

This is early data, of course, but as the company grows, it will work with retailers to connect with their gift card-carrying customer base, offering those potential shoppers incentives to come into the store,When describing the location of the problematic howotipper. online or off, and make a purchase. But for now, the company is focused on product improvements and driving consumer adoption of the app C something spreading its service through the mobile gaming ecosystem could help to accomplish. 

Overnight trading was light in the US as the Easter long weekend sees more and more market participants leaving their desks early for extended holidays. The light volumes meant the S&P 500 moved around more than it probably should have, and dropped 0.8% on the open,Shop wholesale solarlight controller from cheap. before paring back all the losses bar one point C to close at 1563. 

The opening move in the US was again due to euro fears, as more investors start to see the Cypriot deal as a monster in the shadows for banks in Portugal, Spain and Italy. The Cypriot banking deal is the first time the ECB has turned political. The bank has basically said to lenders if you are going to bloat yourself with positions you cannot handle yourself, were going to make your depositors take the pain, not the public purse. 

It is hard not to see how this wont make risk premiums jump, nor will it alleviate bank run-on fears, even with some fairly draconian measures to stop this. The controls on Cyprus include: cheques cannot be cashed, non-cash transactions are banned outside of Cyprus, plastic card transactions will be capped at 5000 per month, per person and can only be used inside Cyprus. It basically means Cyprus has been frozen out of Europe. 

Next week the ECB will meet for the first time since the finalisation of the Cyprus saga. There are rumours flying around that Mr Mario Draghi may change his language to dovish and even look to cut rates to regain some stability in the eurozone, and counter the comments made by Eurogroup head Mr Jeroen Dijsselbloem. 

EUR/USD continued to trade below its 200-day moving average, and is now under $1.28 for the first time in four months at $1.2777, as the Cypriot deal sees investors leaving the currency. Italy was the other major factor in the EURs woes as Mr Pier Luigi Bersani s attempts to form a government fell flat as a vote of no confidence materialised. The political deadlock coincided with a poor Italian bond auction, with ten-year yields coming in at 4.66%, and only managed to get 1.331 billion away; it expected two billion and in turn heaped more pain on the region. 

Moving away from the woes of Europe C today is the last trading day of the month and the final trading day for the quarter, which could make today slightly interesting.The world with high-performance solar roadway and solarlamp solutions. Most fund managers and hedge funds will have to assess their weightings today, to make sure they are aligned with their respective charters. This may see inflows and outflows from certain asset classes, so watch for bulk moves in or out of equities, due to fund managers reweighting portfolios. 

This is also a good time to reflect on what we have seen this month and this quarter. For March the ASX 200 is off 2.13%; this fall has been driven mainly by the materials space as investors leave the sector in droves. However,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. for the quarter, the ASX 200 is up 7.44% and is one of the strongest starts to a year, in a decade. The fact that non-mining sectors have led this gain is also unheard of, and now sees the index weighing on the resource sector drop to levels not seen since the middle of 2007, and now makes up 22% of the index, versus the financial sector that makes up 30% of the ASX 200 C its highest weighing for a decade.

Will The Next iPhone Keep Ahead of Android?

If Apples regular release schedule is to be trusted, we should expect a new iPhone this summer. Will it be called the iPhone 5S with small improvements over the iPhone 5? Or will the pressure from rival Android phones force Apple to go big and make a complete overhaul? 

So far, the rumor mills point to an incremental upgrade C no revolutionary changes. So lets read the tealeaves and try to predict what will be changed.Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. And remember, this is all conjecture with no official information forthcoming from Apple. 

I like to start with the fun stuff, like the camera.Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. Certainly, the next iPhone could get a megapixel upgrade. There are some Android phones that brag 13 Megapixels, and while its possible Apple could increase the resolution of their camera, I think a more interesting upgrade would be the inclusion of a new, smart flash that incorporates Phillips multi-color LED. To match ambient light, the camera could elect to use a white flash (in fluorescent or colder lighting) or a yellow flash to match warmer room tones (candlelight, camp-fires, or accent lighting). 

There have been tons of rumors about Apple increasing the screen size from 4 inches to 4.8 inches to compete with some of the Android Phablets like the Note. But this rumor seems a little thin with CEO Tim Cook stating publically on Apples Q1 2013 Earnings Call that he thinks Apple made the right decision to stick with a smaller screen. 

Unlike current wireless charging where you have to put a device onto a pad thats plugged into a power source, Apple has applied for a patent to use something called Near Field Magnetic Resonance (NFMR). With this technology, a home base (a computer or larger device) serves as a hub that can charge the phone anywhere within a meters proximity. This could also be a boon for selling more Mac laptops if they become the primary vehicle for wireless NFMR charging. 

For the first time ever, I am including an IOS update in the Fun Rumors category. While the iPhone operating system (currently IOS 6) is not usually an opportunity for big innovation, this portion of the company has recently been taken over by Jonathon Ive, Apples superstar design guru. He is no doubt feeling pressure to bring his genius to bear on software (good luck with that) and may surprise us with a few cool new tricks. I expect a Siri upgrade at the very least, and a determination to show that Apples maps have recovered from the debacle of the IOS 6 roll out. 

Where Android phones pose the greatest clear and present danger to the iPhone is on price. Many models are free with a 2-year contract. So the $199 price tag of the iPhone with a 2-year contract is just too steep for many. The biggest price pressure is coming from emerging markets like China and Brazil, where Apple has to lower the price of their only phone in the initial land grab for new smartphone users. 

If Apple introduces a free-on-2-year-contract phone, this lower cost version will almost certainly still be able to access faster LTE data networks. It will possibly have a slower Snapdragon System on a Chip (SOC) processor from Qualcomm. It might include a bigger battery,The need for proper bestsmartcard inside your home is very important. which could increase the phones thickness from the current 7.6 mm to a rumored 8.2 mm. It could have a lower resolution camera. And the most interesting possibility: its case could be from a cheaper plastic or fiberglass, which could allow for a multitude of colors. 

The inclusion of a cheaper iPhone could be a huge boon to consumers. If youve been holding out until Apples flagship device became more affordable, dont let the slightly diminished technical specs deter you. The beauty of the iPhone is that its intuitive and fun to use C but thats a function of the operating system, not the hardware. If it were me, Id wait to buy until the consumer testers run the cheaper iPhone through its paces and make sure theres nothing glaringly wrong, and then Id get it. That is, if Apple actually releases two versions as part of its traditional June release cycle. 

Credit unions and other debit card issuers moved significantly closer to being able to issue smart chip embedded debit cards last week when a key industry council announced its members reached agreement on a key software approach.A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. 

The Secure Remote Payment Council announced that the 10 debit network members of its Chip and PIN Workgroup have agreed to adopt a common software approach and work with Discover Financial Services to license it for use by all debit card issuers. 

The new approach will help solve the problem of how to have debit cards that both have smart chips embedded in them and which allow merchants to easily route debit transactions on any one of the 18 possible different competing debit processing networks. 

Under regulations flowing from the Durbin amendment to the most recent financial reform laws, credit unions and other debit issuers are supposed to provide the ability for their debit cards to process debit transactions on at least two unaffiliated networks, but the current smart chip standard used in the rest of the world only allows for one. 

The inability to provide that faculty on debit cards had held up the issuing of smart chip-enabled debit cards and CO-OP Financial Services, one of the key organizations working to resolve the problem, this week advised credit unions to still hold off issuing smart chip enabled debit cards a while longer. 

Adoption of this common U.S. debit AID [application identification] and application is extremely important to credit unions because it preserves their routing and network choices in connection with the emerging EMV standard,A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. said Stan Hollen, CEO of CO-OP Financial Services in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

2013年3月25日星期一

Defeating useless rich people

In two previous columns,We offer over 600 moldmaker at wholesale prices of 75% off retail. I argued that left and right alike are confused by a failure to distinguish productive businesses that sell innovative goods and services from rentier interests landlords, lenders, copyright holders and others which use their natural or artificial monopoly power to extract excessive tolls, fees and other recurrent payments from the rest of society, including productive businesses. The fees or rents extracted by these interests constitute a kind of private taxation which rather than public taxation is the greatest threat facing Americas productive economy. 

Today Americas powerful rentier interests, particularly those in the FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate) sector, are mobilizing campaign contributions and paid propaganda to promote what I called the Rentier Agenda: low taxes on those whose income is derived from capital gains; the privatization of public infrastructure and the deregulation of regulated private utilities,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. to generate windfall profits for investors in privatized or deregulated agencies; and a macroeconomic policy that serves the interests of creditors, at the expense of slow growth and mass unemployment, rather than productive businesses and workers. Similar observations have been made by many on the left and some mavericks on the right. 

To counter the domination of Americas rentier oligarchs, we need an Anti-Rentier campaign that would unite unlikely groups: owners of productive businesses as well as workers, populist conservatives and liberal reformers. An Anti-Rentier movement would distinguish businesses that make profits by providing worthwhile goods or services in innovative ways from rentier interests that passively extract exorbitant tolls and fees from the economy without adding any value. 

An Anti-Rentier movement would oppose unproductive, ill-begotten wealth, not the rich in general. Wealthy individuals who get richer by investing in start-up companies or funding long-lived, creative blue-chip firms provide a valuable benefit to society, even as they risk losing their own money. Such risk-taking investors are the opposites of financial sector rentiers who seek to bribe policymakers into letting them privatize their gains while socializing their losses. 

But government can and should minimize passive rent extraction and unproductive speculation or gambling. The methods for minimizing excessive rents are as various as kinds of rentier interests. Windfall real estate profits should be taxed away by property taxes or land value taxes. Severance taxes or superprofits taxes should be levied on energy and other resource windfalls determined by geography rather than human effort. Banks should be low-profit, publicly-regulated utilities and laws against usurious interest rates, struck down in the U.S. in the late twentieth century, should be restored. Infrastructure assetswater systems, electricity, roads, airports and airlines, rail, inland waterwaysmay be privately-owned utilities, but their prices need to be regulated in the public interest.Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. While there are legitimate roles for both professional associations and labor unions, they should not be allowed to act as predatory labor cartels at the expensive of the economy.The need for proper bestsmartcard inside your home is very important. 

The Anti-Rentier tax agenda would seek to raise capital gains taxes on rentiers while lowering the tax burden on American workers and the profits of productive businesses. The Anti-Rentier policy reform agenda would involve increasing public ownership or utility regulation of infrastructure. Instead of cutting Social Security and Medicare to force the elderly to buy more products from parasitic private-sector monopolies and oligopolies, the Anti-Rentier coalition would favor expanding Social Security and other public social insurance, while phasing out tax subsidies for private health insurance and private retirement products. When it comes to economic management, an Anti-Rentier movement would tolerate a modest amount of inflation, in the interest of productive business and solvent government, at the expense if necessary of the creditor elite. An Anti-Rentier movement would consider using methods used by other governments, such as postal savings banks, public investment banks, and financial repression (which isnt as scary as it sounds) to raise adequate money for government while minimizing blackmail, in the form of high interest rates, imposed by domestic creditors and foreign creditors. 

If these Anti-Rentier reforms were undertaken, then genuinely productive American businesses would be freed from many costs imposed on them by the private parasites who are far greater threat to its future than Americas public sector. Cutting off excess rents would not only shrink the rentier elites share of the U.S. economy, it would also alter the membership of the exclusive club of rich Americans,The largest manufacturer of textile indoorlite for use with perchloroethylene. which would have a much greater percentage of makers who got rich by selling new goods and services and a much smaller proportion of takers from finance and real estate. The typical rich American should be an innovative industrialist or technologist, not a Wall Street financier or a guy with a parking-meter monopoly. Super-rich bankers would be as rare as super-rich public utility executives. 

Americans have tamed rentier industries before. In the early twentieth century, exploitative private power companies were domesticated as regulated public utilities. The Enron scandal, associated with late-twentieth century deregulation, proved the wisdom of the utility regime. And even conservative states like Texas have always levied severance taxes on natural resource monopolies. The challenge of our time is to extend utility-style regulation or public ownership to todays out-of-control, predatory rentiers in higher education, health care, and most of all finance. 

The higher fees would bring in a total of a little more than $2 million a year at a time when the city is struggling to balance its general fund budget and trying to avoid raising property taxes. 

Council will also consider a staff proposal to establish incentives for city employees to take early retirement. Its designed to help the city meet a goal of freezing or eliminating 10-15 positions during the fiscal year that begins July 1 as a cost-saving measure. 

The fee increases would include a 1 percent rise in the typical household water bill, a 25-cents-per hour jump in the cost of parking at a metered space or most city parking garages and a new $7-per-month fee to defray the cost of garbage pickup. It would replace a $3.50 monthly recycling fee that would be eliminated.