How Facebook Brought the Cellphone Back Down to Earth

With the big (and promising!) Thursday reveal of Facebook Home, the haute-tech blogger set seems to have come to terms with the reality that smartphones are now a commodity of the masses, sometimes not made for their very particular tastes. Indeed, the new sub-$100 HTC First device that will be, uh, first to run the new Facebook-first version of Android's cellphone software ? well, it just isn't for the insider crowd, what with their fancy hardware and latest-and-greatest software platforms. However,?aware that over 1 billion people on Earth now own a smartphone, even technology taste makers are trying?really?hard to conceptualize the future: You ? yes, even you, and you and you ? might actually want to buy this "Facebook Phone" thing.

RELATED: Facebook Will Finally Resolve Rumors of the Fabled Facebook Phone in One Week

Despite their own privacy concerns (there will?be ads, and there will?be data mining)?and their insistence that users want more and more apps (beyond, you know, "Chat Heads"), the conventional wisdom among Silicon Valley's functional equivalent of Morning Joe?is that the?plebeians ? you know, people with normal brain power, thin wallets, and general technological savvy of our times ? will want what Facebook has to offer. Which is to say: The social network's takeover of the everyman phone is for you... not for them.

RELATED: So What's Facebook Big Reveal Today?

Despite calling it a "laughable" proposition for the "tech set," Mat Honan at Wired?says?"millions of Americans" will want the Facebook phone:

Will businesses take to it? Almost certainly not. No business, other than maybe Buzzfeed, wants its employees spending more time on Facebook. Will it be a hit with early adopters and the tech set? That?s laughable. No. Will millions of Americans just want a handset that can run Facebook? That seems like a bet I?d take.

Just who are these "millions" of real?people, you ask? Poor people, with poor taste, Honan suggests: "I suspect there is a strong correlation between people who want a 'free' smartphone with people who really dig Facebook," he writes. You people who value bargains over privacy and utility and style are already buying up all those mid-level Android phones because you people have no idea what's what, as SplatF's Dan Frommer explains. So?"the types of people who, every couple of years, go into the Verizon or AT&T shop and walk out with whatever newish thing the store rep says they should buy" will be drawn to the HTC First and its ilk. Or, in a similar vein, Frommer says, those "who have bought Android phones ? and some iPhones, probably ? who don't really care that they're Android phones, or even smartphones" also fall in the Facebook sucker category.

RELATED: All of Facebook's Phone Secrets, Divulged

Within these others, the "tech set" also suggests another, sicker subset: "Facebook addicts."?Slate's Farhad Manjoo,?who comes right out and says "I don't think Facebook Home is for me," guesses that people with an unhealthy attachment to the social network will love the new Facebook-fronted Android platform. That's like saying a nicotine addict would definitely like a pack of cigarettes.?ReadWrite's Mark Hachman?agrees with that proposition, by the way: "If you're obsessed with Facebook, Home is for you. But if you'd like to use your Android phone for something else ? like checking email, for example ? you'll probably find Home more trouble than it's worth," he writes. It's unclear how we diagnose the addicts. But if they truly have a health issue, perhaps we shouldn't prescribe a phone with the drug of choice right on its home screen.

RELATED: Facebook Has Built a New Kind of Search

In reality, none of the reality check from the "tech set" is very helpful to an actual person deciding if he or she want to buy a new Facebook phone. (Beyond the HTC First, the Home software will be available for select Android phones, both top-tier and mid-level, beginning April 12.) More likely, the tech bloggers want to cover their hides on this one. They don't like it, nor do they understand it, and they certainly won't buy it. But instead of coming right out and saying you shouldn't buy this thing, they're preparing for the moment if and when the Facebook phone sells millions of units in the U.S. (Another theory, by the way, is that Facebook made this phone for its overseas markets.) In that case, they can look back and say: We knew this would happen to you people.?

RELATED: This Is Very Probably the Facebook Phone

If you really want to know if the "Facebook Phone" is for you, you might consider the following questions posed by The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal:

Will it be worth opening up every part of your phone interaction to Facebook in order to access that experience? Do you want your definition of a computer to center on Facebook Friends and the limited set of actions you can take with them? I can't answer that for you, but I can say that it is a tradeoff, and the more you think about it, the better.

Maybe you don't care about any of those things. And in that case, the HTC First is pretty, pretty cheap, and Facebook sure has?built in some nice features.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-brought-cellphone-back-down-earth-142156851.html

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Splunk to add 2000 customers this year as "big data" thrives

By Sayantani Ghosh

(Reuters) - Data analytics software maker Splunk Inc expects to break even on an adjusted basis and is looking to increase its customer base by about 40 percent, or 2,000 customers, this year, its chief executive told Reuters.

The company, which had 5,200 customers and 736 employees as of January 31, 2012, has enjoyed high revenue growth rate for the last couple of years. But it is yet to record a profit as it continues to invest heavily in adding employees and new products.

It expects employee headcount to grow at least 40 percent for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2014.

"Our investors are encouraging us to continue to run at a breakeven pace so that we can capture fast moving market opportunities," CEO Godfrey Sullivan said.

"They are pretty pleased. You see that reflected in the stock price," said Sullivan who earlier headed data analytics firm Hyperion Solutions, which was bought by Oracle Corp for $4.5 billion in 2007.

Shares of the San Francisco-based company, which debuted at $17 on the Nasdaq, have more than doubled since its IPO made a splash with in April last year.

Splunk is one of the first "big data" start ups that caught the attention of investors and has now made the term a much-used, much-favored one in the data analytics industry.

The company's high growth rate has prompted speculation about takeover interest from rivals like IBM Corp or VMware Inc, but some analysts say that its rich valuations might prove a deterrent.

"Some customers are enthusiastic about us because we are an independent company," said Sullivan, who admitted that Splunk received some offers before it went public.

Splunk's return on equity has jumped more than five times in the last year, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.

The company counts Riverbed Technology Inc, Verisign Inc, Autodesk Inc and the Liverpool Football Club among its customers.

Big Data is expected to drive $54.59 billion in IT spending by 2016, compared with about $27 billion in 2011, according to data from market research firm Gartner.

Splunk's software indexes and manages machine data from computers, servers and mobile devices and uses a Google-like interface that makes it easy to search and navigate a company's database.

The company later changed its name from the mundane Transactions Engine to Splunk ? inspired by "spelunking," an American term for caving, or pot-holing ? a reference to the fact that it allows customers to mine data they can use real-time to make better decisions.

Splunk's revenue grew 64 percent last year and it has forecast a revenue growth of 31 percent to 36 percent for this fiscal year.

The company, which also competes with Hewlett-Packard Co and start-ups like Sumo Logic and Cloudera, expects to sustain a revenue growth rate above 30 percent in the long term.

Sullivan, who said Splunk is working on an app for smartphones, expects data from websites and mobile users to drive the next round of growth at Splunk and its rivals.

"Now just like we make it easy for you to look at your server traffic, we can show you your web traffic or mobile traffic and you can analyze that just as easily," he said.

"This is the next generation of business analytics."

(Editing by Joyjeet Das)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/splunk-add-2000-customers-big-data-thrives-190044979--sector.html

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Listening to the Big Bang -- in high fidelity

Apr. 4, 2013 ? A decade ago, spurred by a question for a fifth-grade science project, University of Washington physicist John Cramer devised an audio recreation of the Big Bang that started our universe nearly 14 billion years ago.

Now, armed with more sophisticated data from a satellite mission observing the cosmic microwave background -- a faint glow in the universe that acts as sort of a fossilized fingerprint of the Big Bang -- Cramer has produced new recordings that fill in higher frequencies to create a fuller and richer sound. (The sound files run from 20 seconds to a little longer than 8 minutes. See link at bottom of article.)

The effect is similar to what seismologists describe as a magnitude 9 earthquake causing the entire planet to actually ring. In this case, however, the ringing covered the entire universe -- before it grew to such gargantuan proportions.

"Space-time itself is ringing when the universe is sufficiently small," Cramer said.

In 2001, Cramer wrote a science-based column for Analog Science Fiction & Fact magazine describing the likely sound of the Big Bang based on cosmic microwave background radiation observations taken from balloon experiments and satellites.

A couple of years later that article prompted a question from a mother in Pennsylvania whose 11-year-old son was working on a project about the Big Bang: Is the sound of the Big Bang actually recorded anywhere?

Cramer answered that it wasn't -- but then began thinking that it could be. He used data from the cosmic microwave background on temperature fluctuations in the very early universe. The data on those wavelength changes were fed into a computer program called Mathematica, which converted them to sound. A 100-second recording represents the sound from about 380,000 years after the Big Bang until until about 760,000 years after the Big Bang.

"The original sound waves were not temperature variations, though, but were real sound waves propagating around the universe," he said.

Cramer noted, however, that the 2003 data lacked high-frequency structure. More complete data were recently gathered by an international collaboration using the European Space Agency's Planck satellite mission, which has detectors so sensitive that they can distinguish temperature variations of a few millionths of a degree in the cosmic microwave background. That data were released in late March and led to the new recordings.

As the universe cooled and expanded, it stretched the wavelengths to create "more of a bass instrument," Cramer said. The sound gets lower as the wavelengths are stretched farther, and at first it gets louder but then gradually fades. The sound was, in fact, so "bass" that he had to boost the frequency 100 septillion times (that's a 100 followed by 24 more zeroes) just to get the recordings into a range where they can be heard by humans.

Cramer is a UW physics professor who has been part of a large collaboration studying what the universe might have been like moments after the Big Bang by causing collisions between heavy ions such as gold in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York.

Creating a sound profile for the Big Bang was something to do on the side, Cramer said.

"It was an interesting thing to do that I wanted to share. It's another way to look at the work these people are doing," he said.

Sound of the Big Bang are available in several lengths here: http://faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/BBSound_2013.html

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Soft US economic figures keep a lid on markets

LONDON (AP) ? Soft U.S. economic figures hit stocks and the dollar Wednesday ahead of key government jobs data at the end of the week. Japanese shares, however, outperformed all others as investors anticipated aggressive policy action from the Bank of Japan.

Investor sentiment, which was already fairly flat following a solid trading session on Tuesday, was dented by a soft private jobs report for the U.S. from payrolls processor ADP as well as a weaker-than-anticipated non-manufacturing survey from the Institute for Supply Management.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 1.03 percent at 6,423 while Germany's DAX fell 0.9 percent to 7,874. The CAC-40 in France was 1.3 percent lower at 3,754.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.43 percent at 14,598 while the broader S&P 500 index fell 0.76 percent to 1,558.

The dollar was also on the retreat following the disappointing economic news. The euro was up 0.19 percent at $1.2843 while the dollar fell 0.47 percent to 92.93 yen.

The soft tone in markets gathered pace after ADP found that private employers added 158,000 jobs in March, way down on February's gain of 237,000 and expectations for a rise of about 200,000.

The survey came ahead of Friday's official nonfarm payrolls figures for March, an indicator that often sets the market tone for a week or two. This time the payrolls figures could have an even bigger bearing as investors try and work out when the Federal Reserve will start withdrawing its economic stimulus.

"Not that this is a good measure of the actual payroll report but the ADP will keep the bulls from boosting their payroll estimates between now and Friday," said Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities.

A disappointing survey from the Institute for Supply Management fueled the prevailing caution too. Its main index of non-manufacturing activity fell to 54.4 last month from 56 in February. Though the sector continues to grow ? any reading above 50 signals expansion ? March's figure is the lowest in seven months.

Earlier, Japan was in focus as the country's central bank started its first policy meeting under a new governor committed to aggressive monetary action to end years of economic malaise. There are expectations that the bank will announce a big monetary stimulus at the end of its meeting on Thursday.

Bank of Japan chief Haruhiko Kuroda has vowed to do whatever it takes to get Japan out of its debilitating deflation. Kuroda, who assumed his post March 19, has pledged to cooperate with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's program of big government spending, monetary easing and economic reforms aimed at improving Japan's competitiveness.

Optimism about the meeting's outcome sent the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo soaring 3 percent to close at 12,362.20.

"The Nikkei is the standout, jumping 3 percent as the Bank of Japan's two-day monetary policy meeting kicked off, and the market is anticipating some bold stimulative action under new governor Kuroda," said Robert Kavcic, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets.

The Bank of Japan is not the only central bank announcing policy decisions Thursday. However, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England are not expected to alter policy.

Elsewhere in Asia, stock markets struggled despite the Nikkei's surge. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.1 percent to 22,337.49 while South Korea's Kospi shed 0.2 percent to 1,983.22.

Oil prices tracked most equity markets lower, with the benchmark New York rate down $1.88 at $95.32 a barrel.

___

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/soft-us-economic-figures-keep-lid-markets-143829994--finance.html

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NASA team investigates complex chemistry at Saturn's moon Titan

Apr. 3, 2013 ? A laboratory experiment at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., simulating the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan suggests complex organic chemistry that could eventually lead to the building blocks of life extends lower in the atmosphere than previously thought. The results now point out another region on the moon that could brew up prebiotic materials.

The paper was published in Nature Communications this week.

"Scientists previously thought that as we got closer to the surface of Titan, the moon's atmospheric chemistry was basically inert and dull," said Murthy Gudipati, the paper's lead author at JPL. "Our experiment shows that's not true. The same kind of light that drives biological chemistry on Earth's surface could also drive chemistry on Titan, even though Titan receives far less light from the sun and is much colder. Titan is not a sleeping giant in the lower atmosphere, but at least half awake in its chemical activity."

Scientists have known since NASA's Voyager mission flew by the Saturn system in the early 1980s that Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has a thick, hazy atmosphere with hydrocarbons, including methane and ethane. These simple organic molecules can develop into smog-like, airborne molecules with carbon-nitrogen-hydrogen bonds, which astronomer Carl Sagan called "tholins."

"We've known that Titan's upper atmosphere is hospitable to the formation of complex organic molecules," said co-author Mark Allen, principal investigator of the JPL Titan team that is a part of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, headquartered at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "Now we know that sunlight in the Titan lower atmosphere can kick-start more complex organic chemistry in liquids and solids rather than just in gases."

The team examined an ice form of dicyanoacetylene -- a molecule detected on Titan that is related to a compound that turned brown after being exposed to ambient light in Allen's lab 40 years ago.

In this latest experiment, dicyanoacetylene was exposed to laser light at wavelengths as long as 355 nanometers. Light of that wavelength can filter down to Titan's lower atmosphere at a modest intensity, somewhat like the amount of light that comes through protective glasses when Earthlings view a solar eclipse, Gudipati said. The result was the formation of a brownish haze between the two panes of glass containing the experiment, confirming that organic-ice photochemistry at conditions like Titan's lower atmosphere could produce tholins.

The complex organics could coat the "rocks" of water ice at Titan's surface and they could possibly seep through the crust, to a liquid water layer under Titan's surface. In previous laboratory experiments, tholins like these were exposed to liquid water over time and developed into biologically significant molecules, such as amino acids and the nucleotide bases that form RNA.

"These results suggest that the volume of Titan's atmosphere involved in the production of more complex organic chemicals is much larger than previously believed," said Edward Goolish, acting director of NASA's Astrobiology Institute. "This new information makes Titan an even more interesting environment for astrobiological study."

The team included Isabelle Couturier of the University of Provence, Marseille, France; Ronen Jacovi, a NASA postdoctoral fellow from Israel; and Antti Lignell, a Finnish Academy of Science postdoctoral fellow from Helsinki at JPL.

Founded in 1998, the NASA Astrobiology Institute is a partnership between NASA, 15 U.S. teams and 13 international consortia. It is based at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. The Institute's goals are to promote, conduct and lead interdisciplinary astrobiology research, train a new generation of astrobiology researchers, and share the excitement of astrobiology with learners of all ages. The NAI is part of NASA's Astrobiology program, which supports research into the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life on Earth and the potential for life elsewhere. For more information, visit http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/.

JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

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Letter from governor promotes insurance

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - A letter has gone out to Indiana residents from the governor?s office. And while it may surprise some people, it?s perfectly legitimate.

The letter has the official seal of the governor on the outer envelope. Inside, the letter has the governor's signature. But the big surprise is that the letter talks about an insurance policy.

The Indiana Department of Insurance said the letter is legit. But the governor isn't selling insurance. Instead, he's calling attention to a long-term care insurance program that's been around since 1993.?

Hoosiers still buy the insurance from an insurance company. But because it's part of the state's partnership program, there are two special benefits: Personal control over heath care decisions and protection for certain financial assets that might not otherwise be protected.??

There is of course, more to it than that. Insurance policies should be well researched. For more details on the program, click here.?

Source: http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/indiana/letter-from-governor-promotes-insurance

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Obamacare credits could trigger surprise tax bills

President Barack Obama speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Millions of people who take advantage of government subsidies to help buy health insurance next year could get stung by surprise tax bills if they don?t accurately project their income. Starting next year, President Barack Obama?s new health care law will offer generous subsidies to help millions of people buy private health insurance on state-based exchanges, if they don?t already get coverage through their employer. The subsidies are based on income. The lower your income, the bigger the subsidy. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Barack Obama speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Millions of people who take advantage of government subsidies to help buy health insurance next year could get stung by surprise tax bills if they don?t accurately project their income. Starting next year, President Barack Obama?s new health care law will offer generous subsidies to help millions of people buy private health insurance on state-based exchanges, if they don?t already get coverage through their employer. The subsidies are based on income. The lower your income, the bigger the subsidy. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

FILE - In this March 23, 2010 file photo, President Barack Obama signs the health care bill in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Millions of people who take advantage of government subsidies to help buy health insurance next year could get stung by surprise tax bills if they don?t accurately project their income. Starting next year, President Barack Obama?s new health care law will offer generous subsidies to help millions of people buy private health insurance on state-based exchanges, if they don?t already get coverage through their employer. The subsidies are based on income. The lower your income, the bigger the subsidy. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Flow chart shows simplified process for applying for health insurance through exchanges

FILE - In this July 21, 2011 file photo, Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Millions of people who take advantage of government subsidies to help buy health insurance next year could get stung by surprise tax bills if they don?t accurately project their income. Starting next year, President Barack Obama?s new health care law will offer generous subsidies to help millions of people buy private health insurance on state-based exchanges, if they don?t already get coverage through their employer. The subsidies are based on income. The lower your income, the bigger the subsidy. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Millions of people who take advantage of government subsidies to help buy health insurance next year could get stung by surprise tax bills if they don't accurately project their income.

President Barack Obama's new health care law will offer subsidies to help people buy private health insurance on state-based exchanges, if they don't already get coverage through their employers. The subsidies are based on income. The lower your income, the bigger the subsidy.

But the government doesn't know how much money you're going to make next year. And when you apply for the subsidy, this fall, it won't even know how much you're making this year. So, unless you tell the government otherwise, it will rely on the best information it has: your 2012 tax return, filed this spring.

What happens if you or your spouse gets a raise and your family income goes up in 2014? You could end up with a bigger subsidy than you are entitled to. If that happens, the law says you have to pay back at least part of the money when you file your tax return in the spring of 2015.

That could result in smaller tax refunds or surprise tax bills for millions of middle-income families.

"That's scary," says Joan Baird of Springfield, Va. "I had no idea, and I work in health care."

Baird, a health care information management worker, is far from alone. Health care providers, advocates and tax experts say the vast majority of Americans know very little about the new health care law, let alone the kind of detailed information many will need to navigate its system of subsidies and penalties.

"They know it's out there," said Mark Cummings, who manages the H&R Block office where Baird was getting her own taxes done. "But in general, they don't know anything about it."

A draft of the application for insurance asks people to project their 2014 income if their current income is not steady or if they expect it to change. The application runs 15 pages for a three-person family, but nowhere does it warn people that they may have to repay part of the subsidy if their income increases.

"I think this will be the hardest thing for members of the public to understand because it is a novel aspect of this tax credit," said Catherine Livingston, who recently served as health care counsel for the Internal Revenue Service. "I can't think of what else they do in the tax system currently that works that way." Livingston is now a partner in the Washington office of the law firm Jones Day.

There's another wrinkle: The vast majority of taxpayers won't actually receive the subsidies. Instead, the money will be paid directly to insurance companies and consumers will get the benefit in reduced premiums.

Health care providers and advocates for people who don't have insurance are planning public awareness campaigns to teach people about the health care law and its benefits.

Enroll America, a coalition of health care providers and advocates, is planning a multimillion-dollar campaign using social media, paid advertising and grass-roots organizing to encourage people who don't have insurance to sign up for it, said Anne Filipic, a former Obama White House official who is now president of the organization.

The Obama administration says it, too, is working to educate consumers.

"On Oct. 1, each state will have a marketplace up and running where consumers can choose a private health insurance plan that fits their health needs and budget," said Treasury spokeswoman Sabrina Siddiqui. "The premium tax credits will give middle-class Americans unprecedented tax benefits to make the purchase of health insurance affordable for everyone, and we will continue to work with consumers, community health organizations and other stakeholders to raise awareness and understanding of these tax benefits."

The subsidies, which are technically tax credits because they are administered through the tax code, will help low- and middle-income families buy health insurance through the state-based exchanges. Under the new law, nearly every American will be required to have health insurance starting in 2014, or face penalties.

The enrollment season starts Oct. 1.

The subsidies are available to families with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level. This year, four times the poverty level is about $62,000 for a two-person family. For a family of four, it's $94,200.

About 18 million people will be eligible for subsidies, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

If families get bigger subsidies than they are entitled to under the law, the amount they have to repay is capped, based on income and family size. If they get less than they qualify for under the law, the government will pay them the difference in the form of a tax refund.

There are also special rules that protect people who marry or divorce from being required to pay back subsidies just because their marital status changes.

There are four thresholds for repaying the subsidies:

?A family of four making less than $47,000 would have to repay a maximum of $600.

?If the same family makes between $47,000 and $70,000, the amount they have to repay is capped at $1,500.

?If the same family makes between $70,000 and $94,200, the amount is capped at $2,500.

?Families making more than four times the poverty level have to repay the entire subsidy.

"It's potentially going to come as a shock to individuals who meet that criteria where their income hits a point where they owe money back," said Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee. "The fact is, with variations in income, people could end up owing money back and that will create consternation and problems for them."

The total amount of money that taxpayers will have to repay is unclear, but congressional estimates offer some clues.

Twice since the health care law was passed Congress has increased the caps for how much people will have to repay. Combined, the two measures are expected to raise more than $40 billion over the next decade, according to Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation.

"I think people will get there," said Livingston, the former IRS official. "They will develop instincts about it the way we all do about any process we go through multiple times. But when it's new, in the early years, this will be a real learning curve."

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-02-Health%20Care-Tax%20Surprise/id-3e89424da5e1445d93a71e7c1568e958

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