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Shanghai auto show: where you, too, can buy a machine-gun ready pickup
A Chinese company's trucks were a hit among Libyan rebels, and it's now seeking inroads to the lucrative insurgent market.?'The car really proved its launch strength,' wrote one Libyan rebel.
Libyan rebels riding at the back of a pickup truck retreat east towards Benghazi from Ajdabiya, Libya, in April 2011. When the Shanghai auto show opened a week ago, ZX Auto, proudly displayed on its stand a version of its trucks that were a hit among Libyan rebels.
Nasser Nasser/AP/File
EnlargeEver fancied owning your own ?technical? ? the sort of pickup truck fitted with a heavy machine gun that rebels careering around the streets from Somalia to Libya have made notorious? Come to the Shanghai Auto Show and a Chinese automaker will sell you one.
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Peter Ford is The Christian Science Monitor?s Beijing Bureau Chief. He covers news and features throughout China and also makes reporting trips to Japan and the Korean peninsula.
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When the show opened a week ago, Zhongxing Auto proudly displayed on its stand a version of its Grand Tiger pickup with an unusual accessory ? a four-legged steel frame fixed to the cargo bed, ready for the weapon of your choice.
Once upon a time, irregular forces had to do their own welding to turn Toyotas and other pickups into mobile platforms for rocket launchers or machine guns. Now the small Chinese auto company, based in the eastern province of Hebei, takes the trouble out of such transformations for you.
Zhongxing Auto, known as ZX Auto, seems a little conflicted, though, about its new model. The vehicle is clearly designed for people going to war, but the pickup on display at the opening of the auto show was emblazoned with the slogan ?Resist war, love peace!? In Arabic?
That is because the idea for the ready-made rampage wagon came from Libya. ZX had sold thousands of its Grand Tigers to Libya during Colonel Muammar Qaddafi?s rule, and as rebel forces took over government car pools during the civil war they came into possession of the Chinese-made trucks.
It didn?t take them long to fit them out with rocket launchers and machine guns, and TV news footage carried images of ZX pickups around the world.
?The car really proved its launch strength, engine strength ? and stability,? wrote one Libyan rebel, Saad Sati, in an account published on the?chinacartimes.com?website. ?It acted as a catalyst in the process of the Libyan revolution ? and gave the rebels the upper hand.?
ZX was pleased with the publicity. If World War II shot the Jeep to international prominence, and the Gulf War made the Hummer a must-have for a certain sort of driver, the Libyan civil war might do the same sort of thing for the Grand Tiger, the firm hoped.
?Models will stand out after the baptism of war that prove reliable, durable, and easy to maintain,? the company says coyly on its website. ?The Libyan civil war could really help build a name for the Zhongxing pickups.?
Heaven forbid, though, that anyone should think the appearance of the ZX technical on the company?s Shanghai Auto Show stand might suggest that the company is seeking new strife-torn markets.
?All the cars we design are for civilian use,? insisted Lin Jing, a ZX sales department employee, in a telephone interview from the auto show. ?If Libyans used them as vehicles of war that has nothing to do with us.?
Why had the company installed the machine gun stand, then? Ms. Lin?s answer was unconvincing. ?So that when people saw it they would think of the Libyan war which brought such disasters,? she said.
Eh?
There are no signs yet that Syrian rebels have done the same sort of thing as their Libyan forbears did to their Grand Tigers; ZX has sold less than 500 of the vehicles to Syria, according to Lin.
But if they want more, ready for action, they know where to come.
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Virtual Personal Assistant Sherpa Offers Up Its Help To Android Users In The UK
Sherpa, the virtual personal assistant for Android (and indirect competitor to Apple's Siri), has launched in the UK, albeit in requisite Beta. It follows the original Spanish version released in October 2012, which has since seen it claim 400,000 downloads to become the No. 1 virtual assistant on Android in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. Meanwhile, Sherpa made its U.S. debut earlier this month.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/t1vMUrfKDJ4/
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Poweramp Music Player gets a major widget update
New album art options and additional languages also make it into the latest update
Poweramp is seeing some pretty significant changes in the widget department for version 2.0.9-b528. Homescreen widgets are now fully customizable: the background, text, icons, and buttons can now be completely configured to the user's liking. For anyone that doesn't want to spend the time tweaking every aspect of a widget, up to 15 premade styles are also available to choose from. Existing widgets don't have to be trashed in favor of a fresh one when something needs to be tweaked; tapping the top right of a widget reopens the configuration screen. Phones can now resize widgets that are 4x4 and 2x2, while tablets running Android 3.1+ can change the size of any widget.
Album art gets a 24-bit RGB option, which means higher color resolution (but uses twice the memory). For older Androids, a Notification Album Art option was also added. A new Disable Route Output Button setting and support for Arabic and Vietnamese round out this update.
Follow the Play Store link up top to view and download the latest version of Poweramp Music Player.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/I7UAy133hM4/story01.htm
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Inbee Park at home with LPGA win in North Texas
IRVING, Texas (AP) ? Inbee Park felt right at home in North Texas. The top-ranked woman in the world left with another trophy.
Park played the final 35 holes of the inaugural North Texas LPGA Shootout without a bogey, closing with a 4-under 67 Sunday to finish a stroke ahead of playing partner Carlota Ciganda. It was the third victory this season for the 24-year-old South Korean, and her fifth win her last 18 starts.
"It wasn't something like I was making three, four birdies to catch her," Park said. 'All day, I was just trying to be really patient, and if the chances come, then I win. If not, maybe next chance."
Ciganda shot a 70, losing the opportunity for her first LPGA victory with problems at Nos. 14 and 15, where Park took the lead with pars.
After Ciganda drove into the right rough with a tree between her and the 14th green, her shot from about 130 yards clipped a branch and came up short. She had a chance to save par but her 6-foot putt was short, and Park's par got her within a stroke of the lead.
After stepping away from her approach at No. 15, to a green surrounded by water on three sides, Ciganda hit a shot that went to the right and then rolled down into the water. Ciganda had to go back to a drop zone, where the 22-year-old Spaniard had a decent pitch before her first putt rolled over the left edge of the green for a double bogey 6.
Park made another par and led for good.
"I'm very happy with my round and with my week. ... I had two bad holes on the back nine," Ciganda said.
Between playing and practicing, Park visited Koreatown in Dallas only a few miles from the Las Colinas Country Club. She was also followed on the course by many young Koreans.
"There (were) a lot of Korean girls cheering hard for me too. So, yeah, it felt like a little bit home. So that's good," said Park, who went to Koreatown three or four times. "I just go there to eat and go to bookstore and buy some books and just to look around. They have a bakery, and get a yogurt. All that stuff."
With the $195,000 check for first place, Inbee exceeded $6 million in career earnings and will be No. 1 for the third week in a row. It was her sixth career LPGA victory, along with four more wins in Japan.
Fifth-ranked Suzann Pettersen from Norway, the winner in Hawaii last week, had a closing 66 to get to 10 under and finish third. Hee Young Park (64) and So Yeon Ryu (68) tied for fourth at 275 on the 6,439-yard course with plenty of sloping fairways and raised greens.
Caroline Masson, the LPGA Tour rookie from Germany who led after each of the first two rounds and started Sunday tied for second with Park, shot 75 and finished eight strokes back.
Stacy Lewis, a Texas native and the No. 2 player in the world, had a closing 66 with all six of her birdies and her only bogey coming between Nos. 7-17. She tied for seventh for her sixth top-10 finish this season.
At the end of her round, Lewis signed the back brace of a 6-year-old Dallas girl who was diagnosed with scoliosis at 18 months old. Lewis wore a similar brace 18 hours a day for seven years after being diagnosed with scoliosis at age 11 and missed her first collegiate season after a spinal fusion.
Ciganda played last season on the Ladies European Tour, where she was the top rookie and the top money winner ? the first player since Laura Davies in 1985 to accomplish that feat. She won twice in Europe last year and now has her best LPGA finish.
"It's always nice to win, but I think when you finish second or even worse, I think you learn more from it," Ciganda said. "So I think it's a great experience."
At the 403-yard eighth hole, Park made a birdie before Ciganda followed with one of her own and responded with a slight fist pump when her ball dropped into the cup. They both had pars at No. 9, where Park was closer to the hole even though she missed the green to the left, and they traded birdies again at the par-5 10th.
"Carlota was playing great golf. And I was really ready to actually congratulate her if she played that solid on the back nine," Park said.
Ciganda is returning to Europe but will be back on the LPGA Tour in June.
"I was happy and playing good and having fun and enjoying the day," she said. "And then I think, let me see, the hole it bounced to the right, but I had a bogey there and then hit it to the water on 15."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/inbee-park-home-lpga-win-north-texas-072111118.html
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T-Mobile's 'No Contract' Ads Under Fire - Business Insider
) U.S. wireless carrier
.
T-Mobile is touting the ?no contract? feature of the new plans, but Ferguson, says that T-Mobile customers who purchase a smartphone under the carrier?s 24-month repayment plan must maintain a service plan with the company for the balance of the period, or pay the outstanding price of the phone if they cancel service before the repayment period expires. He says those terms make the plans little different from early termination fees charged by other carriers, the?Seattle Times?noted.
In fact, Ferguson notes that the bill for the outstanding balance of purchased equipment can be higher than the early termination fees charged by rival carriers. He called T-Mobile?s ?no contract? ads ?quite deceptive? and filed an action in King County Superior Court to force the company to alter its advertising to highlight the charges.
While the charge was detailed in T-Mobile?s terms of service, they were not explained in the company?s advertising. The?plans debuted in March.
T-Mobile released a statement indicating that it would comply with the Ferguson?s order. However it noted that it considered its advertising ?truthful and appropriate? and did not concede any wrongdoing in its settlement with the AG?s office.
Customers who purchased equipment under the plans before April 25 can receive cancel their plans without incurring the charge.
In March, T-Mobile?received clearance for its merger?with?MetroPCS?(NYSE:PCS) from the Federal Communications Commission.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/t-mobiles-no-contract-ads-under-fire-2013-4
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রবিবার, ২৮ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Liver Hormone Offers Hope for Diabetes Treatment
Betatrophin sparks the proliferation of pancreatic ? cells in mice, which are found in the islet of Langerhans (shown here). Image: ROBERT MARKUS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Biologists have found a hormone in the liver that spurs the growth of insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas, a discovery they hope will lead to new treatments for diabetes.
A team led by Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, identified the hormone, betatrophin, by inducing insulin resistance in mice using a peptide that binds to insulin receptors. That caused the animals' insulin-secreting pancreatic ? cells to proliferate. The researchers then searched for genes that showed increased activity, zeroing in on one that they were able to link to betatrophin production.?
Further experiments showed that 8-week-old mice injected with betatrophin showed an average 17-fold rise in the replication of their insulin-secreting pancreatic ? cells, the researchers report in Cell. Betatrophin is also found in the human liver, the team says.
?It?s rare that one discovers a new hormone, and this one is interesting because it?s so specific,? says Melton. ?It works only on ? cells?and it?s so robust and so potent.?
Pancreatic ? cells replicate rapidly during embryonic and neonatal stages in both mice and humans, but their growth falls off dramatically in adults. A decrease in the function of the cells late in life is the main cause of type 2 diabetes, a metabolic disorder that affects more than 300 million people worldwide. In the United States alone, the two forms of diabetes ? type 2 and type 1, which is caused by an autoimmune attack on pancreatic ? cells ? account for US$176 billion in direct medical costs each year.
Treatment hope
Melton thinks that injections of betatrophin once a month, or perhaps even once a year, could induce enough activity in pancreatic ? cells to provide the same level of blood-sugar regulation for people with type 2 diabetes as daily insulin injections do. But more importantly, he adds, they would cause fewer complications because the body would be making its own insulin. He also hopes that betatrophin will be able to help people with type 1 diabetes.
Matthias Hebrok, director of the University of California, San Francisco, Diabetes Center, says that the work ?is a great advance?. ?The findings are very interesting,? he says, although he would like to see the experiments repeated in older mice. ?Do mice that are on their way to becoming diabetic at an advanced age truly have an increase in proliferative capacity upon treatment with betatrophin?? he asks.
Henrik Semb, managing director of the Danish Stem Cell Center in Copenhagen, says that "the identification of a factor, betatrophin, that stimulates mouse ?-cell replication with remarkable efficiency is a very important discovery, because it provides the starting point for further studies to elucidate the underlying mechanism of ?-cell replication."
?-cell replication has proved difficult to control in humans.
Producing enough betatrophin for testing in human clinical trials will take about two years, according to Melton, who is also working to identify the hormone?s receptor and its mechanism of action.
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on April 25, 2012.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=4cda9205b5c09098b68b1c9a99977a43
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Saturday Night At The Disrupt NY Hackathon Includes Pizza, Beer, And Dodgeball
It's after 1am on a Saturday night in Manhattan, and there are still hundreds of people at our Disrupt NY Hackathon. The dedication of the attendees trying to build a cool product in less than 24 hours is both impressive and slightly disturbing. To capture some of the energy, Drew Olanoff and I took a walk around the venue at around 11pm, as the pizza and beer arrived to give the teams a late-night boost. We watched quick demos of a few cool projects, assessed the quality of the inescapable caffeine, and capped things off with an impromptu game of basement dodgeball.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9ESZTjI2vvU/
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শুক্রবার, ২৬ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Happy Anniversary, William & Kate! A Look at Their Best Pics
As the royal couple celebrates two years of marriage, look back at their cutest moments since their fairy-tale wedding.
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Ancient DNA reveals Europe's dynamic genetic history
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Ancient DNA recovered from a series of skeletons in central Germany up to 7500 years old has been used to reconstruct the first detailed genetic history of modern Europe.
The study, published today in Nature Communications, reveals a dramatic series of events including major migrations from both Western Europe and Eurasia, and signs of an unexplained genetic turnover about 4000-5000 years ago.
The research was performed at the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD). Researchers used DNA extracted from bone and teeth samples from prehistoric human skeletons to sequence a group of maternal genetic lineages that are now carried by up to 45% of Europeans.
The international team also included the University of Mainz in Germany and the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project.
"This is the first high-resolution genetic record of these lineages through time, and it is fascinating that we can directly observe both human DNA evolving in 'real-time', and the dramatic population changes that have taken place in Europe," says joint lead author Dr Wolfgang Haak of ACAD.
"We can follow over 4000 years of prehistory, from the earliest farmers through the early Bronze Age to modern times."
"The record of this maternally inherited genetic group, called Haplogroup H, shows that the first farmers in Central Europe resulted from a wholesale cultural and genetic input via migration, beginning in Turkey and the Near East where farming originated and arriving in Germany around 7500 years ago," says joint lead author Dr Paul Brotherton, formerly at ACAD and now at the University of Huddersfield, UK.
ACAD Director Professor Alan Cooper says: "What is intriguing is that the genetic markers of this first pan-European culture, which was clearly very successful, were then suddenly replaced around 4500 years ago, and we don't know why. Something major happened, and the hunt is now on to find out what that was."
The team developed new advances in molecular biology to sequence entire mitochondrial genomes from the ancient skeletons. This is the first ancient population study using a large number of mitochondrial genomes.
"We have established that the genetic foundations for modern Europe were only established in the Mid-Neolithic, after this major genetic transition around 4000 years ago," says Dr Haak. "This genetic diversity was then modified further by a series of incoming and expanding cultures from Iberia and Eastern Europe through the Late Neolithic."
"The expansion of the Bell Beaker culture (named after their pots) appears to have been a key event, emerging in Iberia around 2800 BC and arriving in Germany several centuries later," says Dr Brotherton. "This is a very interesting group as they have been linked to the expansion of Celtic languages along the Atlantic coast and into central Europe."
"These well-dated ancient genetic sequences provide a unique opportunity to investigate the demographic history of Europe," says Professor Cooper.
"We can not only estimate population sizes but also accurately determine the evolutionary rate of the sequences, providing a far more accurate timescale of significant events in recent human evolution."
The team has been working closely on the genetic prehistory of Europeans for the past 7-8 years.
Professor Kurt Alt (University of Mainz) says: "This work shows the power of archaeology and ancient DNA working together to reconstruct human evolutionary history through time. We are currently expanding this approach to other transects across Europe."
Genographic Project director Spencer Wells says: "Studies such as this on ancient remains serve as a valuable adjunct to the work we are doing with modern populations in the Genographic Project. While the DNA of people alive today can reveal the end result of their ancestors' ancient movements, to really understand the dynamics of how modern genetic patterns were created we need to study ancient material as well."
###
University of Adelaide: http://www.adelaide.edu.au
Thanks to University of Adelaide for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127875/Ancient_DNA_reveals_Europe_s_dynamic_genetic_history
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After brain injury, new astrocytes play unexpected role in healing
Apr. 24, 2013 ? The production of a certain kind of brain cell that had been considered an impediment to healing may actually be needed to staunch bleeding and promote repair after a stroke or head trauma, researchers at Duke Medicine report.
These cells, known as astrocytes, can be produced from stem cells in the brain after injury. They migrate to the site of damage where they are much more effective in promoting recovery than previously thought. This insight from studies in mice, reported online April 24, 2013, in the journal Nature, may help researchers develop treatments that foster brain repair.
"The injury recovery process is complex," said senior author Chay T. Kuo, M.D., PhD, George W. Brumley Assistant Professor of Cell Biology, Pediatrics and Neurobiology at Duke University. "There is a lot of interest in how new neurons can stimulate functional recovery, but if you make neurons without stopping the bleeding, the neurons don't even get a chance. The brain somehow knows this, so we believe that's why it produces these unique astrocytes in response to injury."
Each year, more than 1.7 million people in the United States suffer a traumatic brain injury, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 795,000 people a year suffer a stroke. Few therapies are available to treat the damage that often results from such injuries.
Kuo and colleagues at Duke are interested in replacing lost neurons after a brain injury as a way to restore function. Once damaged, mature neurons cannot multiply, so most research efforts have focused on inducing brain stem cells to produce more immature neurons to replace them.
This strategy has proved difficult, because in addition to making neurons, neural stem cells also produce astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, known as glial cells. Although glial cells are important for maintaining the normal function of neurons in the brain, the increased production of astrocytes from neural stem cell has been considered an unwanted byproduct, causing more harm than good. Proliferating astrocytes secrete proteins that can induce tissue inflammation and undergo gene mutations that can lead to aggressive brain tumors.
In their study of mice, the Duke team found an unexpected insight about the astrocytes produced from stem cells after injury. Stem cells live in a special area or "niche" in the postnatal/adult brain called the subventricular zone, and churn out neurons and glia in the right proportions based on cues from the surrounding tissue.
After an injury, however, the subventricular niche pumps out more astrocytes. Significantly, the Duke team found they are different from astrocytes produced in most other regions of the brain. These cells make their way to the injured area to help make an organized scar, which stops the bleeding and allows tissue recovery.
When the generation of these astrocytes in the subventricular niche was experimentally blocked after a brain injury, hemorrhaging occurred around the injured areas and the region did not heal. Kuo said the finding was made possible by insights about astrocytes from Cagla Eroglu, PhD, whose laboratory next door to Kuo's conducts research on astrocyte interactions with neurons.
"Cagla and I started at Duke together and have known each other since our postdoctoral days," Kuo said. "To have these stem cell-made astrocytes express a unique protein that Cagla understands more than anyone else, it's just a wonderful example of scientific serendipity and collaboration."
Additionally, Kuo said first author Eric J. Benner, M.D., PhD, a former postdoctoral fellow who now has his own laboratory at Duke, provided key clinical correlations on brain injury as a physician-scientist and practicing neonatologist in the Jean and George Brumley Jr. Neonatal-Perinatal Research Institute.
"We are very excited about this innate flexibility in neural stem cell behavior to know just what to do to help the brain after injury," Kuo said. "Since bleeding in the brain after injury is a common and serious problem for patients, further research into this area may lead to effective therapies for accelerated brain recovery after injury."
In addition to Kuo, Eroglu and Benner, authors include Dominic Luciano, Rebecca Jo, Khadar Abdi, Patricia Paez-Gonzalez, Huaxin Sheng, David Warner and Chunlei Liu.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Duke University Medical Center.
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Journal Reference:
- Eric J. Benner, Dominic Luciano, Rebecca Jo, Khadar Abdi, Patricia Paez-Gonzalez, Huaxin Sheng, David S. Warner, Chunlei Liu, Cagla Eroglu, Chay T. Kuo. Protective astrogenesis from the SVZ niche after injury is controlled by Notch modulator Thbs4. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature12069
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/zIrBOIqCR0I/130424132707.htm
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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৫ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Insight: What ever happened to France's voice in Europe?
By Luke Baker and Mark John
BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - A few hours after midnight one Sunday last month, as negotiations over a rescue for Cyprus dragged into a second day, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici fell asleep.
Most euro zone ministers in Brussels that night failed to notice, continuing to pore over the details of the multi-billion-euro deal. It fell to Christine Lagarde, French director of the International Monetary Fund, to approach Moscovici and nudge him awake, according to witnesses at the March 24 talks.
The sight of the IMF head waking up France's top finance official in a crisis meeting neatly illustrates a question that is troubling European diplomats: what has happened to France's voice in Europe?
For decades France has been central to the European project that was born out of World War Two and now reaches from Europe's Atlantic coast to beyond the former Iron Curtain.
Straddling north and south, France has a unique perspective on Europe. It is the European Union's largest economy after Germany. One of six founders of the original European coal and steel community in 1951, it has shaped and often led, the institutions that make the EU tick.
The readiness of successive French and German leaders to work together has for decades created a consensus among two former enemies that has steered Europe through crisis and change - from the end of the Cold War and Germany's reunification, to the expansion of the EU to the east and the introduction of the single European currency in 1999.
For much of the past four years, during which the euro zone was nearly torn apart by a debt crisis, the Franco-German axis has held true. But in the past six months, questions have arisen about what France is offering in terms of fresh ideas, and how it is dealing with the rest of Europe.
"You can see a shrinking presence, a progressive disappearance of France on most issues that concern the economic agenda," said Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels think tank.
European diplomats from a range of member states, speaking on condition of anonymity, are more blunt.
"You don't hear France's voice at all. They are nowhere, just nowhere," said a senior European diplomat who is in frequent contact with other member states.
"This is a critical country and yet it seems absent," he said, mentioning as an example a lack of sustained French input to the debate on how to strengthen economic and monetary union.
"It's not just strange, it's worrying," he said. "Everyone is aware of the problem. There's concern at multiple levels."
LOSING INFLUENCE
Even France accepts something is wrong. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told parliament this month it was time the country reasserted itself so that "what it says counts in Europe, and that it can rediscover the leadership role it has lost".
Diplomats, officials and analysts interviewed by Reuters offered a range of theories for the ebbing French influence - from the style-change since the consensual Francois Hollande took over from the more combative Nicolas Sarkozy, to the fact that English is displacing French as Brussels' lingua franca.
There is broad agreement that one root of the problem lies in France's inability so far to follow Germany's lead in reforming its economy. A lack of economic competitiveness has undermined France's ability to project influence in Brussels.
Hollande insists early reforms such as a deal with trade unions to loosen labor law should be given time to work, and points to the fact that he has already managed to reduce France's public deficit from its Sarkozy-era levels.
Yet critics say the pace of reform is not fast enough, especially when it comes to pensions reform and overhauling a centralized economy.
In February, France finally conceded what its EU partners had guessed for months: that it would not be able to keep a promise to bring the deficit down to 3 percent of output this year. At the same time growth is weak and debt and unemployment are rising.
Away from the economy, France remains vocal. On foreign and defense policy, its intervention to help combat Islamist rebels in Mali and its diplomatic efforts to end the Syrian conflict show the veto-holding U.N. Security Council member remains a powerful voice, and one able to make an impact. In such matters, France is as confident as it was a decade ago when it galvanized European resistance to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
But on Europe's most pressing economic issue - how it sees off the debt crisis and puts itself on a footing to compete with the United States and Asia - the weakness of France's economy and public finances means its voice is muffled.
"If you don't have your house in order, it's very difficult to influence others," said Erixon of the ECIPE think tank. "This is not the sort of France we've grown used to having in the European Union."
SOUTHERN SYMPATHY?
When Hollande came to power last May as France's first Socialist president since Francois Mitterand was elected in 1981, many in France and southern Europe expected him to act as a buffer to the German-led push for budget austerity.
Such hopes looked set to be borne out when, to the delight of Spain and Italy, he used his maiden EU summit last June to demand that the EU create a "growth pact" to alleviate the pain of deficit-cutting. Yet the growth pact is failing to prevent much of Europe sliding into recession and Hollande has stopped short of rallying a southern bloc against Merkel.
"We understand there is disappointment in the south about that," said a French source closely involved in EU policy. "But there was no way we were going to risk dividing Europe in two."
Finance Minister Moscovici says renewed debate about growth and austerity is proof that France is being heard.
Another factor in Hollande's choice not to align France with the south might well have been the financial markets.
In 2012, whenever Hollande spoke out in sympathy with Spain, Italy or Greece and looked ready to go toe-to-toe with Germany and other northern European states over austerity, the yields on France's benchmark 10-year bonds would rise.
When rating agency Moody's last November stripped French debt of its triple-A rating, some suggested France risked being re-categorized as a southern European economy such as Spain and Italy - with the higher borrowing costs that come with that.
So while Hollande maintains a stream of verbal attacks on austerity, he continues to chip away at France's deficit, albeit at a slower pace than Berlin or Brussels would like.
It adds up to a half-way house that, for now, the markets accept: France's 10-year bond yield has fallen to all-time lows around 1.80 percent, occupying a niche between even lower-yielding German Bunds and riskier southern bonds.
But Hollande's need to keep a safe distance between France and the countries of the south has not led to a greater meeting of minds with Berlin, his most important relationship.
Whereas Merkel and Sarkozy enjoyed warm relations, no matter how different their personal styles, Hollande and the German chancellor have struggled to find a comfortable pitch, a lack of ease most prominently on show at the EU's frequent summits.
"FRIENDLY TENSION"
Ahead of EU gatherings, Sarkozy, a man of nervous energy and constant activity, would criss-cross Europe in bursts of shuttle diplomacy and then meet Merkel in Paris or Berlin the day before to agree a common position, much to other leaders' chagrin.
The ritual meant France and Germany were always center-stage and gave the impression of driving decision-making, not least as the EU has held no fewer than 25 summits in the past 3-1/2 years rather than the usual four a year.
Moreover, the body language of what famously became known as "Merkozy" was choreographed to show Franco-German togetherness. When the two arrived at summits, they would make a show of bonhomie, kissing each other on each cheek and smiling broadly.
While Merkel and Hollande have recently started pecking each other on the cheek, flashes of empathy have been few. "As you know, Mrs Merkel and I do not see things the same way, but we have the same duty - to push Europe forward," Hollande said last month, calling the relationship one of "friendly tension".
Hollande's aides say his reluctance to hatch deals with Berlin is a deliberate policy to include the other 25 members of the EU in decision-making. But one consequence is that Berlin is now doing more of its deal-making with others.
"France has found it hard to define itself, either to pretend that there is a Franco-German agreement, or that it can be a driving force behind a Franco-German agreement," said Jean Pisani-Ferry, the director of Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank that frequently provides policy advice to the EU.
NOT OUR PROBLEM?
Hollande's task of making France's voice heard is all the harder given the internal differences on European policy among ministers and allies. Finance Minister Moscovici is a supporter of deeper EU integration while Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is seen as wary of further moves to shed sovereignty.
"Hollande has not come down forcefully on either side of the debate so far," noted Thomas Klau, director of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).
Opponents of Hollande are making hay out of the disarray. Bruno Le Maire, Sarkozy's former Europe minister, said France's voice in Europe was now at its weakest since 1957, the year before Charles de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic.
Whoever is to blame, the fact remains that one of Europe's main motors is not functioning as it should.
"France is tied up with internal problems and is not the strong interlocutor we would like," said Michael Grosse-Broemer, parliamentary whip for Merkel's Christian Democrats. "But that's not Berlin's problem, or the chancellor's."
Others argue it is very much Germany's problem.
Cypriot public anger at an EU rescue package that for the first time imposed losses on bank depositors was directed at Germany - a pattern already observed on the streets of Athens, Madrid and Rome. From Berlin's point of view, not having a partner standing alongside it makes life difficult.
"It's not in the interests of Germany," said Bruegel's Pisani-Ferry. "It doesn't want to be seen as the country running the show. That's not very comfortable for it, obviously."
Just how the European Union will evolve if French influence is durably muted and Germany is pushed against its will into a lone leadership role is hard to predict.
But it did not go unnoticed in Paris that it was the prime minister of Britain and his family who were recently invited to spend the weekend with Merkel at a country estate.
"These days it is with David Cameron that Angela Merkel tries to build a common position," wrote Le Point weekly with a hint of pique. "And not with Francois Hollande."
(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Paris; Noah Barkin and Andreas Rinke in Berlin; Julien Toyer in Madrid; editing by Janet McBride)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-ever-happened-frances-voice-europe-070427864.html
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India's SMEs: missing an online trick | beyondbrics
But of the 40m small- and medium-sized businesses in India, only 500,000 are present on the web, according to Karim Temsamani, president of Google Asia Pacific.
Small and medium sized enterprises contributed 25 per cent of India?s GDP in the 2009-11 period. They were responsible for 40 per cent of the country?s exports and 75 per cent of total employment, according to McKinsey.
But only 81 per cent of India?s SMEs have access to high speed internet ? compared with 86 per cent in Malaysia and 96 per cent in China, and behind Vietnam and Taiwan. Just 36 per cent of SMEs in India have what McKinsey calls ?online enterprise solutions?, such as online customer relationship and supply chain management.
However, McKinsey calculate that 43 per cent of SMEs have online sales ? higher than Google?s number as it includes companies that sell some of their products through online marketplaces, whereas Google count companies that have their own website or other listing.
These companies are missing a big opportunity. Take Bharat Plaza, a Jodphur-based apparel producer with a staff of 80. The company first used the internet to find local artists whose designs they could add to their line. To reach Indians abroad Bharat Plaza began marketing online, spending Rs150 ($2.77) per day on AdWorks, Google?s pay-per-click advertising product. In the last year, online ad spending has grown six-fold and the company now sees 25 per cent of sales come from the US, with 14 per cent from both the UK and Australia.
On average Indian companies say using the internet raised revenues by 9.1 per cent, reduced the cost of goods sold by 6.3 per cent, and cut the cost of operations and administration by 8.4 per cent.
The hope is that the introduction of faster 4G services will increase internet adoption by reducing the cost of access and increasing speed. Airtel is piloting 4G services in four cities and Reliance has spent a lot of money acquiring licences to launch 4G in some 40 cities.
Until then, Google is trying to drive Indian companies to set up websites or get a listing online.
?This figure needs to rise if these companies want to reach their consumers at lowest cost and raise their profits,? Temsamani said at a press conference in Singapore on the proportion of India?s SMEs with an online presence. ?We need all the businesses to help drive the ecosystem and we can also do all the work ourselves. It is good that Microsoft, Facebook and other companies are participating in developing the ecosystem, and I can only see this as a benefit.?
Google sees SMEs as the future growth engine for the internet. ?India get your business online?, an initiative by Google, has developed websites for 200,000 businesses ? and hopes to hit the 500,000 mark by the end of 2015. In just 15 minutes and at no cost at all, it lets you create a website with a ?.in? domain name using a professional template.
The internet may be a standard part of life in many parts of the world. But these numbers show just how far the web in India still has to go.
Related reading:
India, elections and Facebook kids, beyondbrics
Africa?s digital divide: still gaping, beyondbrics
Source: http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/04/24/indias-smes-missing-an-online-trick/
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Do people actually read Out of The Office messages?
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Amiga Forever Essentials for Android promises to expand your emulation options
There's already a number of Amiga emulators for Android, but using them has so far required you to provide your own Amiga system files to actually get that emulation started. Cloanto's set out to change that today, though, releasing its Amiga Forever Essentials app for Android that comes complete with officially licensed ROM and OS files for the reasonable cost of one dollar. As the company explains, it worked with the makers of Amiga emulators like UAE4Droid, AnUAE4All, UAE4All2 to ensure the system files are auto-detected (you'll still need to use at least one of those other emulators in conjunction with Forever Essentials), and it's thrown in a few bonuses like Workbench 1.3 and the First Demos disk images to get you started. It also says that this is just the first of a planned series of "Essentials" packages for other platforms, but it has few specifics to share about those at the moment, saying only that it's hopeful it can "help make retrocomputing more accepted on other app stores."
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Amiga Forever, Google Play
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Eyes on with the Loewe AirSpeaker, premium Airplay speaker with a premium price to match
The Loewe AirSpeaker has been on the market for a little while now, but at the recent IFA Global Press Conference in Sardinia, the German manufacturer was on hand to show it off. Airplay compatible speakers aren't uncommon, but Loewe is a premium brand in the world of home electronics, and the AirSpeaker is no exception.
As you might expect from a premium product, good design is at the forefront. The AirSpeaker is supposed to look good in the home, as well as provide killer sound. There's no docking solution either, as the name implies, the AirSpeaker relies solely on Airplay. There's actually very little in the way of anything at all on the exterior. The rear of the unit houses the only 4 buttons along side the power cable which sits at the bottom, slightly recessed. Otherwise, it's all speaker.
Sadly, it wasn't possible on the show floor to get a good demonstration of the sound quality, so it remains an eyes on only. As a premium product, it also comes with a premium price. In the UK one of these will set you back a pretty hefty ?499.99. That's a lot, whichever way you look at it, but then the AirSpeaker is a high end product.
The AirSpeaker wasn't the only thing at the event of note from Loewe, though. During their press briefing they teased a forthcoming portable speaker system -- the Loewe Speaker 2go -- that will have Airplay as one of its streaming options. A release timeframe wasn't provided, but since the event was linked to the annual IFA show in Berlin, it's not unreasonable to think we might see it there in September.
It's a lot of money to spend on a speaker, but these sit nicely at the high end of the market alongside the offerings from Bowers & Wilkins. So, anyone interested by either of these? Be sure to share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/ahYZ2cesS_Y/story01.htm
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