Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/274972341?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, January 6, 2013
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Like Hot Chocolate? Drink it in an Orange Cup
Before snuggling up to a warm fire with a hot cup of cocoa this winter, you may want to take a second look at the cup holding the chocolate. The warm beverage may taste more flavorful in an orange cup or cream-colored cup, a new study suggests.
The results add to past work showing how factors that have nothing to do with food preparation can affect the taste of food.
"The color of the container where food and drink are served can enhance some attributes like taste and aroma," said study co-author Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, a researcher at the Universitat Polit?cnica de Val?ncia in Spain and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, in a statement.
In general, how people perceive taste is influenced by many factors unrelated to the actual food. Past studies have shown that the color of the plate, the price on a bottle of wine, and the verbal description of food can affect people's enjoyment of dishes and drinks alike.?
To see how hot chocolate enjoyment was affected by cup color, Piqueras-Fiszman and her colleagues asked 57 participants to rate samples of the same delicious beverage in four colors of plastic cup: white, cream, orange and red. (All cups were white on the inside.)
The participants said the drink was more flavorful when served in a cream- or orange-colored cup. Interestingly, participants rated the orange- and cream-colored cups of cocoa tastier despite the fact that participants didn't say there were any significant differences in sweetness or aroma between the colored cups.
The new results may help restaurant owners and Martha Stewart types serve cocoa in a cup that maximizes the enjoyment of the hot drink.
The findings were published in the October issue of the Journal of Sensory Studies.
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Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hot-chocolate-drink-orange-cup-191105140.html
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Farm bill extension evidence of lost clout
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A patchwork extension of federal farm programs passed as part of a larger "fiscal cliff" bill keeps the price of milk from rising but doesn't include many of the goodies that farm-state lawmakers are used to getting for their rural districts.
House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders who spent more than a year working on a half-trillion-dollar, five-year farm bill that would keep subsidies flowing had to accept in the final hours a slimmed-down, nine-month extension of 2008 law with few extras for anyone.
With the new Congress opening Thursday, they'll have to start the farm bill process over again, most likely with even less money for agriculture programs this year and the recognition that farm interests have lost some of the political clout they once held.
"I think there's a lot of hurt feelings, that all of this time and energy was put into it and you've got nothing to show for it," said Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said it even more bluntly on the Senate floor just after she learned that the bare-bones extension would be part of the fiscal cliff deal.
"There is no way to explain this," she said angrily as the deal came together New Year's Eve. "None. There is absolutely no way to explain this other than agriculture is just not a priority."
After Congress failed to pass a farm bill earlier last year, the legislation became tangled in the end-of-the-year fiscal cliff talks as dairy subsidies were set to expire Jan. 1 and send the price of milk to $6 or $7 a gallon, double current prices. The White House and congressional leaders negotiating the fiscal cliff had agreed that the bill would somehow have to avert that "dairy cliff," but it was uncertain how.
Hoping to salvage some of their work, Stabenow and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., crafted a last-minute extension of 2008 farm law to add to the fiscal cliff package, including help for their own state interests: fruit and vegetable growers plentiful in Michigan, and more than $600 million in emergency money for livestock producers who were affected by drought, a priority for Lucas. In addition to averting the milk price spike, their bill also contained an overhaul of dairy programs, a priority for House Agriculture's top Democrat, Collin Peterson of Minnesota.
The extension Stabenow and Lucas crafted cost around $1 billion ? an amount too high and too risky for House and Senate leaders negotiating the broader fiscal cliff deal. According to aides familiar with the talks, the White House and congressional leaders wanted a farm bill extension with no major policy changes or new spending that could subject the entire fiscal cliff bill to opposition.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky added a bare-bones version of a farm bill extension that didn't include money for any of the agriculture leaders' top priorities and renewed other farm programs without any new funding.
The result, the aides said, was a farm bill extension that would keep major programs going but didn't spend any new money. Missing were dollars for some organic programs, environmental programs and several different energy programs for encouraging renewable fuels. Many of those programs were renewed, but without any money.
The reaction from farm-state lawmakers was swift. Stabenow went to the Senate floor called the new bill "absolutely outrageous." Peterson said farm-state leaders had been "disrespected." Stabenow, as well as Lucas, ended up voting for it, Peterson against.
The National Farmers Union issued a statement saying it was "left out in the cold." The long-powerful National Corn Growers Association's statement said the group is "tired of the endless excuses and lack of accountability."
Direct payments, a subsidy that costs $5 billion annually and is paid to farmers whether they farm or not, were retained in the agreement. Both a Senate bill passed in June and a House Agriculture Committee bill passed in July had cut those payments after a consensus in the farm community that those subsidies would be eliminated and redirected.
"That is amazing to me, I have to say. That is absolutely amazing to me. I want to hear someone justify that on the Senate floor," Stabenow said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/farm-bill-extension-evidence-lost-clout-231712929--politics.html
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ashushukla810: Shopping and Product Reviews ? Jewelry ...
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Source: http://safety-technology-blog.blogspot.com/2013/01/shopping-and-product-reviews-jewelry.html
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Oil slips on stimulus concerns, ample supplies
NEW YORK (AP) ? The price of oil fell Friday as investors weighed the possibility that the Federal Reserve might end its extraordinary economic stimulus measures later this year and the nation's crude supplies remained more than ample.
Benchmark crude for February delivery fell 39 cents to $92.53 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The Labor Department reported U.S. employers added 155,000 jobs in December, a steady gain that shows hiring held up during the tense negotiations to resolve the fiscal cliff. The solid job growth wasn't enough to push down the unemployment rate, however, which remained at 7.8 percent last month.
Also, the Institute for Supply Management said U.S. service firms' activity expanded in December by the most in nearly a year, driven by a jump in new orders and hiring. The index measures growth in industries that cover 90 percent of the workforce, including retail, construction, health care and financial services.
The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration on Friday reported a much bigger drop in the nation's crude supplies than analysts expected. Supplies fell by 11.1 million barrels or 3 percent. Analysts expected a drop of just a million barrels.
Oil supplies shrank as crude imports fell off by almost a million barrels a day last week. At the same time, supplies at the crucial hub for domestic crude at Cushing, Okla., stayed at near-record levels. Overall U.S. crude inventories are about 9 percent above year-ago levels.
Brent crude, used to price international varieties of oil, was down $1.22 to $110.92 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
In other energy futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange:
? Wholesale gasoline lost 5 cents to $2.75 a gallon.
? Heating oil fell 2 cents to $3 a gallon.
? Natural gas rose 5 cents to $3.27 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-slips-stimulus-concerns-ample-supplies-173411869--finance.html
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Friday, January 4, 2013
5 things you need to know today: January 3, 2012 ... - Know Your Cell
1. New BlackBerry for T-Mobile!
Sorry to get you excited, but it's just a BlackBerry Curve 9315, and it's also running BlackBerry OS 7. But perhaps the vestiges of die-hard BlackBerry fans will appreciate it, though I doubt hardly anyone would consider buying it with BlackBerry 10 on the horizon. Still, it's noteworthy to mention that by some miracle, new BlackBerry devices are still being released. It will be available Jan. 16, according to BGR.
2. Starbucks sells Square mobile card reader now
The Starbucks/Square partnership moves forward as the purveyor of fine coffees is now selling the Square mobile card reader for just $10, according to The Next Web. New Square users get a $10 rebate, so the card reader is basically free. With Square, you can make and accept payments with your credit or debit card via a smartphone, tablet or iPod Touch and the card reader. You'll probably be able to find it next to the CDs, overpriced bottles of water and mints.
3. Google has sold less than 400,000 Nexus 4 units
According to the Guardian, LG has only produced about 370,000 Nexus 4 units, most of which were sold as soon as Google could push them through its Play Store. The IMEI numbers on every device gave the clever folks at XDA Developers a way to determine how many Nexus 4 units were produced each month. So now we know why it's so damn hard to find a Nexus 4 -- there aren't very many floating around out there!
4. New BlackBerry phones for AT&T and Verizon leaked
BusinessInsider was sent some photos of the BlackBerry Z10, a new smartphone from RIM that will be available on Verizon's and AT&T's networks. The Z10 looks pretty much like the prototype BlackBerry 10 handsets we've already seen, so nothing terribly exciting here. Unless you're a fanatical BlackBerry lover.
5. Use your smartphone or tablet as a remote control for YouTube
How sweet it is to be lazy. You'll soon be able to use your smartphone or tablet as a remote control for YouTube, which is perfect when you have it playing through your television set. YouTube is showing off this new trick at CES with partners like Bang & Olufson, Panasonic and Sony.
?
Source: http://www.knowyourcell.com/news/1750022/5_things_you_need_to_know_today_january_3_2012.html
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Insight: "Fiscal cliff" fracas: From smiles to distrust to rancor
(Note: includes graphic language)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It began so optimistically.
On November 16, after their first "fiscal cliff" session with President Barack Obama, the four leaders of Congress had stood in the driveway of the White House shoulder-to-shoulder for what is a rare photo these days, Republicans and Democrats together, smiling.
There they were at the microphone, talking about a "framework" for tax reform and deficit reduction.
In hindsight, the shot of House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell - the Republicans - with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi - the Democrats - seems like an old family photo, before things went bad.
From that day on the driveway, things went downhill, rather quickly.
There was a feeling on both sides that the other was not acting seriously to avert the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts that were set to occur at the beginning of this month. That was inflamed by public comments from ranking Republicans and Democrats, poisoning the atmosphere.
Many lawmakers and their aides fear that things may get more toxic through a series of bitter struggles expected in the next few months over the nation's debt and deficit burdens - fights not just between the parties but within them, and between the White House, the Senate and the House.
At stake is not only the U.S. government's ability to get its finances under control but whether it might default on its debts, and suffer further downgrades in the nation's credit rating.
While Obama is perceived the victor in the fiscal deal passed by Congress earlier this week, he did not come close to getting the one thing he demanded that could have headed off the next potential crisis: Freedom from a fight over the federal government's debt ceiling, which is likely to occur in February when the Treasury Department must ask Congress to increase the government's borrowing limit beyond the current $16.4 trillion.
Any positive vibes started fading a few days after the photo. On November 20, at a meeting between Republican staffers and Rob Nabors, the White House director of legislative affairs. Nabors announced that he had a White House offer in hand but "didn't want to be laughed out of the room and implied he would skip it because it was a waste of time," according to one Republican source. The White House declined to comment.
What the White House was offering was Obama's budget proposal from earlier in the year, long ago rejected by Republicans.
A Democratic source familiar with the negotiations said it was merely an opening bid that should have come as no surprise, but Republicans saw it as a red flag, particularly after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner touted it again nine days later.
Things didn't get better in the final weeks of the year.
At a December 13 meeting between Obama, Boehner and their aides at the White House, Obama spoke for almost the entire 50-minute session, according to Republican sources. They said he warned that if he did not get an agreement to his liking, he would spend the next four years "campaigning against House Republicans," starting with his second-term inauguration speech on January 21.
As far as the Republicans were concerned, Obama had effectively remained in campaign mode after his November 6 re-election, going on the attack in his "fiscal cliff" speeches.
One of the clearest examples of this, occurred at a delicate point in negotiations on Monday, with a looming deadline and the risk growing that the Republican-controlled House would blow up any deal pulled together by the Senate. At a campaign-style event with "middle class" Americans in the background, Obama accused Republicans of trying to "shove spending cuts at us that will hurt seniors, or hurt students or hurt middle-class families."
The move angered House Republicans who were already divided on how to proceed, leading to more bad blood. Republican Senator John McCain responded in the Senate, wondering "whether the president really wants this issue resolved." The people Obama was talking to, McCain said, "were laughing and cheering and applauding as we are on the brink of this collapse."
By that time, Boehner had ceased to be a force in the negotiations, thanks to his own miscalculation on December 20. That's when he brought his own "Plan B" to the House - a bill to avoid the "fiscal cliff" with minimal tax hikes on the wealthy - and then had to pull the bill when he couldn't get enough Republicans to support it.
The defeat humiliated Boehner and, by depriving him of the ability to deliver on any commitments he might make, sidelined him in the final stages of the negotiations.
ACCUSATIONS FLY
In the final days of the year, Republicans routinely accused the president of bad faith, saying he preferred to go over the 'cliff,' triggering the tax hikes and rattling the markets, because it would increase his ability to pressure them.
The same was said of Boehner by Democrats, including Reid.
"He's waiting until January 3 to get re-elected as speaker before he gets serious with negotiations because he has so many people over there that won't follow what he wants. That's obvious from the debacle that took place last week," Reid said in the Senate, referring to Boehner's failed effort to get his own caucus in line on December 20.
He was operating the House as a "dictatorship," Reid added in his December 27 speech, by refusing to allow a vote on a Senate bill to avoid the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts. Boehner was reelected as speaker on Thursday.
After that goading, Boehner let loose the next time he saw Reid.
The occasion was the final White House meeting of the standoff, on Friday, December 28, as Obama and the congressional leaders were trying to figure out how to proceed.
Reid said Boehner was just mouthing "talking points," according to a senior Democratic aide.
"The other folks at the table were engaged in a meaningful discussion. Every time the conversation got back to Boehner, he'd say 'The House has acted; the Senate needs to act.' It was like he arrived with a very short leash," the aide said.
"They were walking out of the meeting," the aide said, when Boehner turned to Reid and said, "'Go fuck yourself.'"
"'What?'" Reid asked, according to the aide, who said Boehner then uttered the profanity again.
'DISHEARTENING' FOR SOME DEMOCRATS
Obama used the December 28 meeting to ask McConnell and Reid to work up a bipartisan bill in the Senate that might win approval in the House, and they agreed. McConnell made an offer to Reid, but grew impatient waiting for a response, according to a Republican aide.
The Senate Republican left a message at 1:20 p.m. EST (1820 GMT) on Sunday, December 30 for Vice President Joe Biden: "Please call."
"Does anybody down there know how to do a deal?," McConnell told Biden, a former colleague of McConnell's in the Senate.
"There doesn't appear to be the level of understanding that you have about these negotiations" elsewhere in the administration, McConnell told Biden.
"It's a lack of experience. Smart people but they don't have a good sense of the trip wires," he added.
Despite Reid's 25 years in the Senate, he was out of the picture.
After the November 6 election, Reid had wondered whether Obama would cave or use his re-election as a hammer.
"We thought that it was a unique moment in time where we had enormous leverage over Republicans," a senior Democratic Senate aide said, "and we were ready to play hardball."
"This was our best opportunity to get something that's acceptable at your point of maximum leverage in probably the eight years of his administration," this official said.
The aide added that Wall Street experts were making a "strong case" that even if January 1 came and went without a deal, as long as negotiations were continuing, the stock market would hold fairly steady for a week or so into 2013.
The week after the election, Reid had traveled to the White House to try to determine whether Obama had the "spine" to stick to his guns in the negotiations, according to the aide. Reid then assured his fellow Democrats that the president, buoyed by his election win, would stand firm.
But by late December, Senate Democrats watched in amazement as Obama offered a higher, $400,000 income threshold for those who would see their taxes rise under his proposal compared to his original $250,000 figure, a willingness to cut cost-of-living benefits for retirees and a temporary instead of permanent increase in the debt limit.
"It was disheartening to supporters. He just telegraphed to Republicans a willingness to move higher at the drop of a hat," the aide said. "We got nickeled and dimed on everything," he said.
'OLD BULLS' GET DEAL DONE
Once Biden and McConnell cut their deal in the waning hours of 2012 - the one that kept lower taxes for everyone but those with high incomes - the White House leaked to reporters that Reid had signed off on the pact.
According to the senior Senate Democratic aide, Reid had not given his backing yet. He simply told the White House that Biden was welcome to come to the Senate, meet with Democratic senators "and try and sell the deal."
Reid promised that if the caucus was convinced by Biden, Reid would do everything he could to deliver a strong vote. But now he was out of the loop too.
Why could McConnell and Biden bring off the deal when others couldn't?
"They're experienced hands," said Trent Lott, a former Republican senator from Mississippi who was majority leader from June 1996 to January 2001.
"They have respect for each others' abilities and truthfulness," he said in an interview with Reuters. ".... They're old bulls. They know how to get the deal done."
Lott, who was a member of Congress for more than three decades, said it was "revisionist history" to see his era as some golden age of comity in Washington.
But "clearly the atmosphere has changed over the years. I don't know when it started drifting to the point where it is," he said.
Lott said he was struck by the fact that an agreement of such magnitude was ultimately the work not of the president or the House speaker, but of the Senate minority leader and the vice president.
"A lot of people in Washington ought to be embarrassed," Lott said.
(Additional reporting by Fred Barbash; Editing by Fred Barbash; Martin Howell and Paul Simao)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insight-fiscal-cliff-fracas-smiles-distrust-rancor-061050190--business.html
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Hiring seen edging up, recovery grinds on
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers likely stepped up hiring a touch in December as retailers and other businesses took on more staff for the holidays, but the gain will probably not be enough to make inroads in the country's still high unemployment rate.
Payrolls outside the farming sector are expected to have grown by 150,000 last month, a modest increase from November's 146,000 job gain, according to a Reuters poll of analysts.
The employment reading, due to be released by the Labor Department on Friday at 8:30 a.m. EST (1330 GMT), is likely to point to modest economic growth despite uncertainty in late 2012 over a fiscal crisis that continues to threaten the economy.
The forecast increase in payrolls would be the most in five months, but would probably not make the U.S. Federal Reserve rethink its easy-money policies that have been propping up the economic recovery.
The jobless rate is seen holding steady at 7.7 percent in December, down nearly a percentage point from a year earlier but still well above the average rate over the last 60 years of about 6 percent.
"It's not a booming economy, but it is growing," said Jim O'Sullivan, an economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York.
December's likely pace of hiring suggests the jobless rate will come down at a painfully slow rate in 2013, dropping to around 7.4 percent in the last few months of the year, he said.
Most economists expect the U.S. economy will only grow about 2 percent this year, held back by tax hikes as well as weak spending by households and businesses that are still trying to reduce their debt burdens.
A mammoth storm that hit the East Coast in late October will once again make it difficult to use the employment report as a gauge of the underlying strength of the economy.
The storm led to a spike in new jobless claims, but the government said in its employment report last month that the storm had no substantial impact on hiring in November.
Some economists found that conclusion hard to believe because a separate survey of households, which is used to calculate the jobless rate, showed a jump in the number of workers not reporting to work because of bad weather in November.
That suggests December's payroll figures could get a one-off boost, said Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics in London. He expects 175,000 new jobs were created last month.
At the same time, consumer spending has shown signs of accelerating in recent months, and retailers added 140,000 jobs in the three months through November.
"There is some evidence that underlying jobs growth has improved," Dales said.
Also pointing to strength in hiring, payrolls processor ADP said on Thursday the private sector added 215,000 jobs in December. ADP has a mixed track record for predicting the government's more comprehensive jobs report, but the data helped prompt Goldman Sachs to raise its forecast for jobs growth in December to 200,000.
Average hourly earnings are expected to rise 0.2 percent in December, while the length of the average work week is seen holding steady at 34.4 hours, the Reuters poll showed.
AUSTERITY'S BITE
Despite the signs of some momentum in hiring, a wave of government spending cuts due to begin around March loom over the economy.
Many economic forecasts assume the cuts - which would hit the military, education and other areas - will ultimately be pushed into next year as part of a deal sought by lawmakers to reduce gradually the government's debt burden.
Initially, the cuts were planned to have begun this month as part of a $600 billion austerity package that also included tax hikes. Hiring in December may have been slowed by uncertainty over the timing of the austerity, economists say.
Congress this week passed legislation to avoid most of the tax hikes and postpone the spending cuts.
Even with the last-minute deal to avoid much of the "fiscal cliff," most workers will see their take-home pay reduced this month as a two-year cut in payroll taxes expires.
That leaves the Fed's efforts to lower borrowing costs as the main program for stimulating the economy.
The Fed has kept interest rates near zero since 2008, and in September promised open-ended bond purchases to support lending further. On Thursday, however, minutes from the Fed's December policy review pointed to rising concerns over how the asset purchases will affect financial markets.
Analysts think some of the expected strength in job creation in December was due to the Fed's policies.
"Despite the end-of-year angst over the 'fiscal cliff,' financial conditions remained supportive of job growth in December," economists at Nomura said in a note to clients.
(Reporting by Jason Lange)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hiring-seen-edging-recovery-grinds-050157547--business.html
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Polar tech uncovers how frozen regions are changing
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Thursday, January 3, 2013
Euro zone factory slump deepens, U.S., Asia perk up
WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - Manufacturing in the United States and China grew in December, suggesting the global economy was on course for moderate growth this year, even as the euro zone looked set to sink deeper into recession.
U.S. factory activity rebounded last month after stumbling to a 40-month low in November, with new export orders growing for the first time since May. That mirrored growth in Chinese manufacturing reported earlier this week.
The Institute for Supply Management said its index of U.S. manufacturing activity rose to 50.7 from 49.5 in November.
The improvement came despite concerns over a wave of sharp government spending cuts and high taxes, the so-called fiscal cliff, that would have sucked $600 billion from the U.S. economy and push it into recession.
In much of Europe, the mood was downbeat. Purchasing managers' surveys in the 17-nation euro zone showed economic decline among some of its biggest member countries.
Markit's Eurozone Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) edged down to 46.1 in December from November's 46.2, below a preliminary reading of 46.3.
It has been below the 50 mark that divides growth from contraction since August 2011.
"The reports are consistent with an expanding global economy, but one which is doing so, at least on the manufacturing side, at a relatively slower pace," said Jay Bryson, global economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In China, a manufacturing survey by HSBC, which focuses more on smaller and mid-sized firms, suggested activity was at its strongest since May 2011. China's official manufacturing PMI, released on Tuesday held steady in December at 50.6, matching November's seven-month high.
The surveys add to signs economic activity in China picked up between October and December after growth slowed for seven consecutive quarters to 7.4 percent in the third quarter. That helped offset persistent weakness in Europe and Japan.
In the United States, the rebound in export orders last month offered hope that trade would soften some of the blow on the economy from tighter fiscal policy.
While Congress and the Obama administration managed to steer the economy away from the worst of the so-called fiscal cliff, Americans face a higher tax burden this year and government spending cuts. Analysts estimate that could cut as much as one percentage point from gross domestic product this year.
"The rise in export orders is an indication that global economic momentum may also have improved this month," said Millan Mulraine, a senior economist at TD Securities in New York.
DEEPENING SLUMP IN EUROPE
Germany, Europe's largest economy, saw its crucial manufacturing sector shrink for the 10th straight month and at a faster pace, while French data showed a decline in all but one of the past 17 months.
The slump in Spain deepened and Italy's index, although improved, remained below 50 for the 17th month.
Ireland was the only member of the currency union to show manufacturing growth in December.
"It's pretty grim really," said Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics. "These surveys are pointing to a pretty deep recession. If the German industrial sector is contracting quite sharply, it is pretty hard to see where growth across the euro zone as a whole is going to come from."
Economists are cautiously optimistic the euro zone economy will start growing at least by the second quarter of this year.
British factory activity jumped unexpectedly to its fastest pace since September 2011, raising the chance that the economy eked out some growth at the end of 2012.
Manufacturing activity expanded in Asia as a whole, driven by revival in China's economy, but export demand was uneven, pointing to further sluggish growth for the region.
For Asia, much hinges on the pace and quality of the recovery in China as a new generation of leaders prepares to take charge.
In India, Asia's third-largest economy, the HSBC Markit Manufacturing PMI, which gauges the business activity of the country's factories, but not its utilities, jumped to 54.7 in December from 53.7 in November, its biggest monthly rise since January 2012.
Activity in Southeast Asia's largest economy, Indonesia, expanded but at a slower rate, as growth of new export orders eased from a month earlier.
A lot may depend on elsewhere, however.
"Asia is gradually improving, but the region, including China, remains largely exposed to exports and without signs of improvement in the U.S. and Europe it will be hard for activity to take off," said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics at HSBC.
(Additional reporting by David Milliken in LONDON, Se Young Lee in SEOUL; Lucy Hornby in BEIJING, Steven C. Johnson in NEW YORK)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asias-factories-show-signs-revival-exports-sluggish-103605605--finance.html
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Wednesday, January 2, 2013
LG's latest Smart TVs to include NFC and Miracast compatibility
Not content with waiting until next week to unveil CES bound products, LG has pulled the wraps off some of their latest Smart TV's. We already know that LG is taking some new Google TV hardware to Las Vegas, but these TV sets aren't those. But, despite lacking a direct Android connection, they still give us cause for interest.
The new LG Cinema 3D range includes this rather handsome looking edge-to-edge display, but there's a couple of standout features included. The new TVs will come with NFC compatibility, and Miracast. The sets will come with an NFC sticker that makes it easy to pair with an NFC capable smartphone, allowing for hassle free pairing and streaming of content from your mobile devices.
And that streaming will include the use of Miracast technology. While still in its infancy, it's still great to see LG including the technology in their new TV sets. After all, they did make the Nexus 4.
via Pocket-Lint
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/QphqKHAvVjM/story01.htm
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Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Yoani Sanchez: In 2013: Reasons to Stay
Someone has to be at the foot of the aircraft steps, to say goodbye, holding the handkerchief and wiping their eyes. Someone has to receives the letters, the brightly colored postcards, the long distance phone calls. Someone has to stay and look after the house that once was full of children and relatives, watering the plants they left and feeding the old dog that was so faithful to them. Someone has to keep the family memories, grandmother's mahogany dresser, the wide mirror with the quicksilver coming loose in the corners. Someone has to preserve the jokes that no longer spark laughter, the negatives of the photographs never printed. Someone has to stay to stay.
This 2013, when so many await the implementation of Immigration and Travel Reform, could become a year where we say "goodby" many time. While I respect the decision of each person to settle here or there, it doesn't fail to sadden me to see the constant bleeding of creativity and talent suffered by my country. It's frightening to know the number of Cubans who no longer want to leave here, or raise their children on this Island, or realize their professional careers in the country. A tendency that in recent months has had me saying goodbye to colleagues and friends who leave for exile, neighbors who sell their homes to pay for a flight to some other place; acquaintances who I haven't seen for some weeks whom I later learn are now living in Singapore or Argentina. People who are tired of waiting, of postponing their dreams.
But someone has to stay to close the door, turn the lights off and on again. Many have to stay because this country has to be reborn with fresh ideas, with young people and future proposals. At least the illusion has to stay, the regenerative capacity must remain here; the enthusiasm clings to this earth. In 2013, among the many who remain, one must definitely be hopeful.
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Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanifromcuba
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