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Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Hackers Are Exploiting Baby Monitors, But We Know How to Stop Them
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18-Foot Oarfish Livens Up A 'Leisurely Snorkel' In California
People hoist the body of an 18-foot oarfish that was discovered in Toyon Bay at Catalina Island off the California coast.
Courtesty of Catalina Island Marine Institute
People hoist the body of an 18-foot oarfish that was discovered in Toyon Bay at Catalina Island off the California coast.
Courtesty of Catalina Island Marine Institute
A snorkeler off the coast of California found more than she bargained for on the ocean floor Sunday, when she saw the large eyes of an 18-foot fish staring back at her. It turned out to be a dead oarfish, a mysterious creature known to live in waters thousands of feet deep.
The discovery at the bottom of Toyon Bay at Catalina Island came as a shock to Jasmine Santana, an instructor at the Catalina Island Marine Institute, who approached the ribbon-like animal with care before realizing it was dead. Its body was "almost perfectly intact," the institute says. It may have died of natural causes.
As Santana tried to pull the sea creature through the shallows and up to a beach, other instructors spotted her and pitched in. It took at least 15 of them to hoist the oarfish, which brought a surprise ending to what had been a "leisurely" afternoon snorkel.
The institute, which runs a camp and activities for children, has contacted ocean wildlife experts about the find. The oarfish is the longest bony fish in the world; a specimen was reported as being 36 feet in length, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.
The animal is also called a ribbon fish, or sometimes merely the king of herrings. In 2011, a large oarfish was filmed swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, in striking images that show its single dorsal fin rippling along the length of its body.
"It is believed that oarfish dive over 3,000 feet deep, which leaves them largely unstudied," the Catalina Institute says, "and little is known about their behavior or population. They are likely responsible for sea serpent legends throughout history."
The oarfish graced the pages of NPR.org this summer, when The Two-Way noted the discovery of a "mysterious sea monster" that had washed ashore.
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Roche to spend $880 million on manufacturing, create 500 jobs
By Caroline Copley
ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche is to invest 800 million Swiss francs ($880 million) in its global manufacturing facilities over the next five years, creating 500 jobs, as it prepares for growing demand for its biologic medicines.
The world's largest maker of cancer drugs, which employs around 80,000 people in over 100 countries, said on Monday the investment would increase its production capacity in Penzberg in Germany, Basel in Switzerland and Vacaville and Oceanside in the United States.
The expansion shows Roche's confidence in its development pipeline of new cancer drugs and bucks a trend of cost-cutting by some big drugmakers in recent weeks in response to slowing sales growth.
Last week Israel-based Teva, the world's largest maker of generic drugs by sales, said it would cut 5,000 jobs, while Merck & Co plans to slash annual operating costs by $2.5 billion and eliminate more than 10 percent of its workforce.
Shares in Roche were down 0.2 percent at 238 francs by 0437 EDT, when the Stoxx Europe 600 healthcare sector index was down 0.1 pct.
Vontobel analyst Andrew Weiss said he was not surprised by the investment as manufacturing is a core competency of Roche and the company is at present the leanest drug company with only 15 manufacturing sites worldwide.
Many of Roche's most promising medicines, such as rheumatoid arthritis treatment RoActemra and new breast cancer drugs Kadcyla and Perjeta are biologics, which unlike chemical drugs are proteins or cells derived from living organisms that are hard to replicate.
The Basel-based firm has also mostly been spared the pain so far of patent expiries ravaging rivals as many of its top-sellers are biologics which have not faced generic competition.
"As the world's largest supplier of biologics, Roche is committed to making the necessary investments to ensure ongoing supply of these medicines at the highest quality standards," said Daniel O'Day, chief operating officer of Roche's Pharmaceuticals Division.
Roche said it would invest approximately 260 million Swiss francs ($286 million) at its Vacaville and Oceanside sites creating around 250 new jobs. In Penzberg, it will invest around 350 million francs ($385 million), creating roughly 200 jobs.
It will also build a production facility in Basel to manufacture antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) - also known as "armed antibodies" which can take drugs directly to cancer cells.
The company won U.S. approval in February for Kadcyla, its first such antibody-drug conjugate, which treats breast cancer with fewer side effects such as hair loss.
Roche has a further eight ADCs in clinical development and 16 in pre-clinical development.
Swiss drugs industry supplier and life sciences group has also upped its bet on growing demand for biologics and in January said it would expand its ADC manufacturing capacity in Visp, Switzerland.
Lonza manufactures the chemical linker that connects the antibody to cytotoxic drugs.
($1=0.9099 Swiss francs)
(Editing by Greg Mahlich)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/roche-spend-880-million-manufacturing-create-500-jobs-084635845--finance.html
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'Walking Dead' chews up huge premiere ratings
TV
Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/walking-dead-returns-chews-competition-huge-ratings-8C11391270
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5 hours ago
Frank Ockenfels 3 / AMC
Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes on "The Walking Dead."
"The Walking Dead" kicked off its fourth season on Sunday night — continuing the AMC series' record-setting trend with more highs and blowing all non-sports competition out of the water.
PHOTOS: Inside 'The Walking Dead's' spooky season 4 premiere
Averaging 16.1 million viewers during its inaugural 9 p.m. broadcast, the series was up more than 5 million from last October's 10.9 million opener. Among adults 18-49, "The Walking Dead" averaged 10.4 million viewers. That's an 8.3 rating in the key demo, making it bigger than any broadcast series this fall and even stronger than last night's competition from "Sunday Night Football." With adults 25-54, "The Walking Dead" saw another high with 8.8 million viewers.
Compared to previous records set by the season-three finale, "The Walking Dead" was up 3.7 million viewers and 2.3 million adults 18-49.
This is the second huge ratings victory for AMC in just two weeks. The recent series finale of "Breaking Bad" smashed previous series records by jumping to 10.3 million viewers.
The return of the zombie drama, TV's top scripted performer for a year now, was already evident in Fast National ratings from Sunday's broadcast outings. Scripted competition in "The Good Wife" and "The Mentalist" hit their lowest ratings to date, while "Once Upon a Time" and "Revenge" sank to fall lows.
PHOTOS: 'The Walking Dead's' Most Shocking Deaths
"The Walking Dead" has been even more of a force after time-shifting is taken into account. Though the series remains formidable in its Live+Same Day returns, seven days of DVR gave the last season an average 7.2 rating among adults 18-49 and 13.8 million viewers.
Companion series "The Talking Dead" also saw records. An average 5.1 million viewers tuned in, 3.3 million of them adults 18-49 and 3 million of them adults 25-54.
The Walking Dead ratings timeline:
- Season 3 finale, March 31: 12.4 million total viewers*, 8.1 million in 18-49*, 7 million in 25-54*
- Season 3 midseason premiere, Feb. 10: 12.3 million total viewers*, 6.8 million in 18-49, 6.7 million in 25-54*
- Season 3 midseason finale, Dec. 2: 10.5 million total viewers, 6.9 million in 18-49, 6 million in 25-54
- Season 3 premiere, Oct. 14: 10.9 million total viewers, 7.3 million in 18-49, 6.1 million in 25-54*
- Season 2 finale, March 18, 2012: 9 million total viewers, 6 million in 18-49, 5.3 million in 25-54*
- Season 2 midseason premiere, Feb. 12, 2012: 8.1 million total, 5.4 million* in 18-49, 4.4 million* in 25-54
- Season 2 premiere, Oct. 16, 2011: 7.3 million total, 4.8 million* in 18-49, 4.2 million* in 25-54
- Season 2 midseason finale, Nov. 27, 2011: 6.6 million total, 4.5 million in 18-49, 3.9 million in 25-54
- Season 1 finale, Dec. 5, 2010: 6 million total, 4 million in 18-49, 3.5 million in 25-54
- Season 1 premiere, Oct. 31, 2010: 5.4 million total viewers, 2.7 million in 18-49
* Record at the time
Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/walking-dead-returns-chews-competition-huge-ratings-8C11391270
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Strong Quake Shakes Central Philippines, Kills 10
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A 7.2-magnitude earthquake collapsed buildings and roofs and cracked roads Tuesday morning in the central Philippines, killing at least 10 people.
The quake was felt across the central region, and people rushed out of buildings and homes, including hospitals, as aftershocks continued. Offices and schools were closed for a national holiday, which may lower casualties.
The temblor struck about 56 kilometers (35 miles) deep below Carmen town on Bohol Island and did not cause a tsunami in the seas around the archipelago.
At least four were killed on Bohol, said the island's Gov. Edgardo Chatto.
Four others died when part of a fish port collapsed in Cebu city, across the strait from Bohol, officials said. Two more people died and 19 were injured when the roof of a market in Mandaue in Cebu province collapsed.
Photos from Cebu broadcast on TV stations showed a fallen concrete 2-story building, and reports said an 8-month-old baby and a second person were pulled out alive.
Vilma Yorong, a Bohol provincial government employee, said she was in a village hall in Maribojoc town when "the lights suddenly went out and we felt the earthquake."
"We ran out of the building, and outside, we hugged trees because the tremors were so strong," she told The Associated Press by phone. "When the shaking stopped, I ran to the street and there I saw several injured people. Some were saying their church has collapsed."
She said that she and the others ran up a mountain fearing a tsunami would follow the quake. "Minutes after the earthquake, people were pushing each other to go up the hill," she said.
Chatto, the Bohol governor, said that a church was reported damaged in the provincial capital of Tagbilaran and a part of the city hall collapsed, injuring one person.
A 17th-century stone church in Loboc town, southwest of Carmen, crumbled to pieces, with nearly half of it reduced to rubble. Other old churches dating from the Spanish colonial period, which are common in the central region, also reported damage.
Tuesday is a national holiday for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, and that may have reduced casualties because schools and offices are closed. The earthquake also was deep below the surface, unlike the 6.9-magnitude temblor last year in waters near Negros Island, also in the central Philippines, that killed nearly 100 people.
Regional military commander Lt. Gen. Roy Deveraturda said that he recalled soldiers from the holiday furlough to respond to the quake. He said it damaged the pier in Tagbilaran and caused some cracks at Cebu's international airport but that navy ships and air force planes could use alternative ports to help out.
Passenger flights were put on hold until officials check runways and buildings for damage.
Earthquakes are common in the Philippines, which lies along the Pacific "Ring of Fire."
Cebu province, about 570 kilometers (350 miles) south of Manila, has a population of more than 2.6 million people. Nearby Bohol has 1.2 million people and is popular among foreigners because of its beach and island resorts.
___
Associated Press writers Hrvoje Hranjski, Teresa Cerojano and Jim Gomez contributed to this report.
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Sunday, October 13, 2013
PC shipments crater and tablets are the bogeymen
The third-quarter numbers are in, and both of the major PC shipment bean-counting organizations agree that worldwide PC shipments are down year-on-year (IDC says down 7.6 percent, Gartner says 8.6 percent), but US shipments held relatively stable (IDC says down 0.2 percent, Gartner says up 3.5 percent). In short, it was the worst back-to-school quarter in five years.
Worldwide, Lenovo and HP are running neck and neck, both eking out a bit of growth; Dell's shipments are up slightly, but Acer and Asus have hit the skids, down 20 to 30 percent from last year. In the US, the big stories are Lenovo, with an increase of 25 percent or so; Toshiba, up about 14 percent in the US; and Apple, with a decline of 11.2 percent (IDC) or 2.3 percent (Gartner), depending on whom you believe.
IDC's numbers don't include iPads or "Android-based tablets with detachable keyboards." Gartner's numbers don't include "media tablets such as the iPad." Neither company breaks out Surface sales, which are presumably too small to make any difference.
Tablets are the bogeymen, of course -- blamed by one and all for sapping PC sales.
I tend to look at the numbers with a Windows 7 vs Windows 8 eye. Consumer PC shipments in the US invariably come with Windows 8 pre-installed, and corporate shipments commonly end up with Windows 7. Outside the US, PC shipments aren't always tied to an operating system -- any operating sytem. The fact that Lenovo dominates worldwide shipments, with 14 million PCs that may or may not have Windows pre-installed, yet only hits fourth place in the US, with 1.7 million PCs, speaks volumes: The US accounts for about 20 percent of all PCs sold worldwide, yet Lenovo only sells about 12 percent of its PCs in the US. Could the difference be at least partially attributable to flexibility in shipping Windows 8 pre-installed?
IDC says that Windows 8.1, due next week, led to an uptick in PC shipments late in the quarter:
While shipments remained weak during the early part of the quarter, the market was somewhat buoyed by business purchases, as well as channel intake of Windows 8.1-based systems during September.
To my jaundiced eye, that's a danger sign. If the general acceptance of Windows 8.1 mirrors that of Windows 8, we're going to see a whole lot of Q3 PC shipments sitting on the shelves this Christmas. Granted, enterprise customers will be moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 as fast as they can, and that will drive some PC shipments. But it doesn't seem likely that this one-time shift will turn the PC market around even temporarily, much less permanently.
While I have great hopes that Windows 9 will show a significant turnaround in the evolution of Windows -- primarily growing the phone system "up" into tablets, rather than forcing the desktop version "down" -- it's hard to be optimistic about Windows 8.1's prospects. A significant non-BandAid update to the PC version of Windows could well be a few years away, and the market's changing on Internet time.
A year ago Steve Ballmer predicted that 400 million Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices would be in use by now. No matter how you count the chips, Win8 reality hasn't quite met up with Ballmer's expectations.
This story, "PC shipments crater and tablets are the bogeymen," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.
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Friday, October 11, 2013
Church of England sees momentum for ethical investment
By Belinda Goldsmith and Chris Vellacott
LONDON (Reuters) - The global financial crisis has strengthened the Church of England's drive for more ethical business practices by making companies and shareholders more receptive to change, according to the man who manages its investment fund.
With about 5.5 billion pounds ($8.8 billion) of financial and property assets, the Church has greater clout than many hedge funds. But it has often struggled to make its voice heard.
That is starting to change, according to First Church Estates Commissioner Andreas Whittam Smith.
"It's on both sides," he told Reuters in his wood-paneled office in the shadows of London's Westminster Abbey. "It's not only companies considering whether they are behaving as they should as good citizens," it's also investors preparing to line up alongside the Church to promote better behavior, he said.
"Our typical holdings in companies are half percents, so in itself it doesn't make a lot of difference, but if you can represent with others 15 percent of the capital you can achieve something."
Ethical investment comes at a cost, estimated at about 0.7 percent a year of growth lost from "opportunities foregone".
But the Church's fund still made a return of 9.7 percent last year and stands firmly by its decision to sell out of News Corp
Taking a moral high ground to investment has meant some public relations hiccups along the way.
Scrutiny of the Church's portfolio intensified this year after it was found to indirectly invest in short-term lender Wonga which Church leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, said he wanted "to compete out of business".
But Whittam Smith, a former financial journalist who founded the Independent newspaper in 1985, said ethical investment was not just about avoiding shares in firms involved in pornography, gambling, alcohol and tobacco, or the like.
"With ethical investment there are two aspects. One is to disinvest, the second is to stay and see whether you can change things," he said.
"CHANGE IN MORAL CLIMATE"
About 2.5 billion pounds of the Church's portfolio is invested in shares listed in Britain or overseas, including in drug companies GlaxoSmithKline
Whittam Smith said the Church had discussed its role in the banking sector after a string of scandals over mis-selling and huge compensation payouts, but decided it had more influence as an activist shareholder within to change the moral compass.
"Active ethical investment is not visible from the outside but I see from the inside it changes things," he said.
Whittam Smith added he believed the City of London's financial industry had undergone a "change in moral climate", reining in the bloated bonuses and unscrupulous behavior of recent years. Much still needed to be done, however.
"We still have concerns about the banks as you would imagine. I think there is a change in sentiment in retail banking. I'm not sure there's a change of sentiment in investment banking," he said.
His confidence in bringing change in the banking sector was reflected two weeks ago when it emerged the Church had joined U.S. investors to back a new "ethical" British bank from branches sold by Royal Bank of Scotland
Whittam Smith said the Church's investment in 314 branches of the dormant Williams & Glyn's brand was worth about 60 million pounds and the Church would appoint one board director.
This move indicated the Church was taking an increasingly hands-on role in its investment, for example managing its own property assets worth over 1.1 billion pounds, he said.
Other recent changes in the portfolio include a greater investment in timber, mostly in the United States, and taking a more rigorous path in choosing managers to run fund assets.
Whittam Smith was confident the portfolio was faring well this year and would again beat its annual growth target of five percentage points over the rate of inflation, with much of the income used to pay clergy pensions and support Church work.
"I believe we will exceed that this year," he said.
He said the Church fund was looking to invest in infrastructure projects either in Britain or overseas, increase investment in private equity, and had considered investing in Brazil but had veered off that idea for now.
Asked what kept him awake at night, Whittam Smith expressed deep concerns about the fiscal impasse in the United States.
"If it all went terribly wrong and there was a default it would unpick things very quickly, much more quickly than people think, because so many things depend on it," he said.
(Editing by Mark Potter)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/church-england-sees-momentum-ethical-investment-012326984--finance.html
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