This week's round-up of time capsule news includes some freshly buried capsules stuffed with cellphones, hair products and booze; some recently unearthed capsules that are so waterlogged they probably should've just stayed in the ground; and the hunt for quite a few capsules that have gone missing.
     |
dallas tornadoes dallas weather nike nfl uniforms ben and jerrys free cone day tornado in dallas texas the island president the maldives
Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/06/playbook-dead/
Hunter Hayes Born Sinner lil wayne Lolo Jones Steve Gleason blake shelton sofia vergara
PARIS (Reuters) - A tycoon with ties to ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy was put under formal investigation on suspicion of fraud on Friday in connection with a 403 million-euro ($524 million) arbitration award he received in 2008 to settle a legal dispute.
The case against Bernard Tapie could damage Sarkozy's ability to mount a comeback for the 2017 election. Investigators are trying to determine whether close ties between members of Sarkozy's inner circle and Tapie influenced a 2007 government decision to turn to a private arbitration tribunal to settle a dispute with now-defunct bank Credit Lyonnais.
Tapie, 70, a colorful member of France's business and sporting elite, was placed under investigation on suspicion of organized fraud after being questioned by police over four days.
Earlier, the state-controlled body charged with settling the debts of Credit Lyonnais, the Consortium de Realisation (CDR), petitioned the Paris appeals court to throw out the settlement Tapie received, the agency's lawyer, Pierre-Olivier Sur, told Reuters.
Tapie, a supporter of Sarkozy in the past two presidential elections, has denied any wrongdoing in the long-running case which has embroiled members of Sarkozy's former cabinet including International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde, his former finance minister.
"I stress there is nothing in the case file to show the arbitration was the result of fraud," Tapie's lawyer, Herve Temime, told reporters after announcing the move to place his client under formal investigation.
Under French law, such a step means there is "serious or consistent evidence" pointing to likely implication of a suspect in a crime. It often, but not always, leads to a trial.
CONSERVATIVE HEADACHES
Socialist President Francois Hollande, who came to power last year vowing to do away with what he said were unfair advantages accorded the rich and well-connected, had signaled that his government planned to challenge the arbitration.
In order to nullify the settlement, judges would have to find evidence of fraud.
Tapie claimed that Credit Lyonnais defrauded him by buying his stake in sports company Adidas in 1993 for 315.5 million euros only to sell it a year later for 701 million euros.
The arbitration went in Tapie's favor with the 285-million-euro award which, with interest, amounted to 403 million euros.
Also under formal investigation is a former aide to Lagarde, Stephane Richard, now the chief executive of France Telecom, who plans to appeal the decision.
Investigating magistrates have made Lagarde a "supervised witness" in the case, a less serious step than a formal investigation that means she will answer questions as a witness in the presence of her lawyer in any future hearings.
The fraud-related investigation of Tapie and Richard increases the likelihood of a trial that could further tarnish the image of the conservative party, which lost power last year with Sarkozy's defeat to Hollande.
(Reporting by Chine Labbe; Writing By Alexandria Sage; Editing by Catherine Bremer and Ralph Boulton)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/france-challenges-arbitration-award-tapie-investigated-161924010.html
NBA Playoffs 2013 Watertown Boston npr Oblivion Hemlock Grove Boston Bomber Death Photo Fox
PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) ? Hardline opposition supporters tried but failed to stop Kosovo lawmakers from approving a key deal with Serbia on Thursday ? with hundreds clashing with police outside parliament, lawmakers scuffling with the body's speaker inside, and some protesters even attacking the U.S. ambassador as she tried to enter the building.
The developments underscored the deep passions that arise in this tiny country over any deal with a neighboring state that still refuses to recognize Kosovo's independence.
The agreement, which passed on an 84-3 vote, will see Serbia call off parallel security structures in the Serb-run north of Kosovo and encourage northern Kosovo's Serb population to work with the ethnic Albanian leadership in Pristina in exchange for more self-governance. The accord does not, however, resolve the dispute over Kosovo's 2008 secession from Serbia.
Kosovo police used pepper spray and batons to disperse a crowd of several hundred hardline opposition supporters who tried to stop lawmakers from holding the vote. Dozens of people were detained by police in riot gear outside government buildings.
U.S. Ambassador Tracey Jacobson "was physically accosted by protesters" blocking entrances to the assembly building, the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo said in a statement, adding, "We deplore the use of violent tactics in obstructing the democratic process."
"Vetevendosje tried to stop us, but we got in on our second attempt! #bruised," Jacobson tweeted, using the Albanian name for Self-Determination, an opposition group that is against talks with Serbia and has 12 seats in the 120-seat parliament.
Many lawmakers, including Self-Determination members, did not vote Thursday, but there were enough who did to meet the necessary quorum and pass the deal, which still requires the president's signature.
Members of Self-Determination unfolded banners during the process suggesting the deal gives Kosovo territory to Serbia. And some in the group scuffled with the speaker of Parliament to try to prevent the vote from taking place, but security intervened and removed them.
Belgrade does not recognize Kosovo's statehood and still officially claims the territory as part of Serbia. But both sides hope they will eventually qualify for membership in the European Union and see the agreement as a token of goodwill to overcome their differences.
Serbia's brutal crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo was halted after NATO's 78-day air war in 1999, which forced Belgrade to give up control of the territory.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-envoy-accosted-amid-kosovo-vote-serbia-deal-185941309.html
Black Forest fire PS4 vs Xbox One ABC Family The Division the Pirate Bay chicago weather weather chicago
June 27, 2013 at 2:24 PM ET
OUYA
After a runaway Kickstarter campaign and a year of development, the Android-powered OUYA video game console finally launches this week. But do gamers actually want another home entertainment device?
Ever since it first rocketed past its initial $950,000 Kickstarter goal in just eight hours to become one of the most successful projects in the crowdfunding platform's history, the OUYA has been turning heads. A small, cheap and sleekly designed console that promises to wed the disparate worlds of mobile and console gaming and disrupt a deeply entrenched industry dominated by heavyweights like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, the OUYA's potentially quixotic ambitions have also raised many a gamer's eyebrows.
The $99 price tag seemed too low for a full-fledged gaming console. And judging by some of the early press, the OUYA hasn't yet managed to convince gamers otherwise. But whether the OUYA lives up to all of its hype and speculation, do gamers really want another television-based console experience as more of the industry shifts toward mobile and more futuristic alternatives like virtual reality?
With the OUYA's launch finally under way this week, NBC News talked to the console's creator, Julie Uhrman, about the device's present and future possibilities.
I'm curious about the timing of the OUYA's launch. Was it important to you to get this device out and get it out a couple of months before the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 come out?
The one thing that's unique about the OUYA ? unlike any other really consumer electronic product I've ever seen, let alone a next-generation console ? is that OUYA is neverfinal. We feel incredibly good about the product that's going on the market, but it's going to get better. The (user interface) is going to continue to evolve, we're gonna add additional features and functionality, social features, parental controls. We're gonna localize OUYA so we can distribute it further than just English-speaking territories. And it's going to continue to evolve while also taking the feedback and support of our gamers and developers. So this is just the end of the end of the first chapter of OUYA, and then we move into the next one. It's not about the time of year; it's just the right time for the product.
In February, you told another interviewer that you would like to see the OUYA adopt a manufacturing or business model similar to the one for mobile devices?putting out a new OUYA model once a year. Is that still the case?
We're gonna have a much more frequent refresh rate than the traditional console market. We leverage readily available chips ? the Nvidia Tegra chip, to be specific. We're going to continually push the processing power and make better chips and put them on the marketplace so OUYA developers can take advantage of them.
We will be thoughtful, however, about when we create a new product and when we launch it to market because, first and foremost, we want to make sure that there are enough developers and enough games that are optimizing the content for these chips. At some point, we will start moving towards: Is there a way to improve the hardware to give a better experience for gamers? And if yes, when is the right time to do that? With hardware, unlike software, you can't turn on a dime. You can't make a decision today and have it impact your audience a month later, three months later, even six months later.
OUYA
OUYA founder Julie Uhrman.
Will each successive OUYA model cost the same amount? I wonder if the OUYA would necessarily remain the more frugal alternative to, say, the PlayStation or Xbox consoles. Fivehundred dollars might seem like a lot for a new console, but itlasted almost a decade for the last generation of consoles. At $99 a year over the course of seven or eight years, the OUYA could potentially outpace next-generation hardware.
We will always have a $99 shoe in the marketplace. But my goal ? and I've always said this ? is to provide the hardware as inexpensively as we can. We want gamers to have a low barrier to entry to get into the console so they can try out new developers and new types of games and play things that they never thought they might be interested in, because everything is free to try! So even with the new hardware, if I can find a way to sell it at less than $99, I will. We want to try to make the entry point as low as possible.
When we speak about disruptions in the modern console industry, a lot of the other new products or proposals have focused more on changing things like the basic interface of gaming?say, the Oculus Rift, which uses a headset rather than a television screen?rather than its business model. Have you thought at all about different types of controllers or interfaces that could be added to the OUYA eventually?
We made OUYA to be open because the creativity of many is significantly greater than the creativity of a few. We only have a team of over 30 people; we want the world to make OUYA better. By making it compatible with mobile devices ? and we're already starting to see that since we have it Bluetooth enabled for games like "You Don't Know Jack" that can pair iOS devices to it. By making it hackable ... you can open it with four standard hex screws on the top. People can sync their PlayStation and Xbox controllers to the OUYA, which creates a multiplayer experience in their living room once they've bought the standard unit. We even have people in GitHub giving us examples of leaderboards and skins and backgrounds to be utilized for OUYA.
I'm looking forward to the cool new peripheral or accessory that's made. If our audience can make something better and faster than we can, we will absolutely use it.
Yannick LeJacq is a contributing writer for NBC News who has also covered technology and games for Kill Screen, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. You can follow him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq and reach him by email at: ylejacq@gmail.com.
kenny powers carl hagelin triple play james neal virginia tech emancipation proclamation april 16
2 hours ago
Keith Srakocic / AP
In this Wednesday, May 8, 2013 photo, a row of new 2013 Ford Fusions is seen at an automobile dealership in Zelienople, Pa.
It seems like the recent stock market tumble, and the perception that interest rates are rising, are, at most, background noise to American car buyers.
Sales of new cars and trucks continue to move along at a steady clip during June, according to new estimates from J.D. Power & Associates and LMC Automotive. A monthly sales forecast based on direct dealer data indicates new-vehicle retail sales are showing no signs of letting up at the start of the summer selling season.
New-vehicle retail sales in June are projected to come in at 1,118,800 vehicles, which represent a Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate of 13.2 million units, a healthy increase of 500,000 from the May SAAR. Retail transactions are the most accurate measure of true underlying consumer demand for new vehicles.
Total light-vehicle sales in June 2013 are expected to grow by 12 percent from June 2012 to 1,380,800 units. Fleet sales in June are just 19 percent of total sales. Fleet volume for the month is projected at 262,000 units.
Adding together retail and fleet business and the overall SAAR is expected to reach 15.7 million units this month. That?s a big jump from the 14.5 million vehicles sold in 2012 ? a five-year high ? and nudges by even the most optimistic forecasts for 2013, which general had set a high of around 15.5 million sales this year.
The strong selling pace continues to be matched by strong transaction prices. Thus far in June, the average transaction price of new vehicles ? what customers actually spend when both incentives and options are included ?is $28,900, the highest figure ever for June.
While sales overall are strong, not all segments are selling at the same pace. Sales of premium vehicles account for just 11.7 percent of new-vehicle retail sales thus far in June, down from 12.9 percent in June 2012.
?Although the premium segment growth has lagged non-premium, there is some good news for the industry in that the average price of premium vehicles in June is $47,000, up almost 4 percent from June 2012,? said John Humphrey, J.D. Power senior vice president of the global automotive practice. ?New premium vehicles entering the market late this year will also help bolster sales through the second quarter of 2014.?
Among other new models due for launch are the all-new Mercedes-Benz S-Class and a trio of luxury diesels from Audi.
The underperformance of premium light-vehicle sales is largely due to the age of the models in these segments. J.D. Power calculates that the average age ? the number of months the vehicle has been in the market since it was introduced or redesigned ? of premium models sold in the second quarter of 2013 was 43 months. In comparison, the average age of non-premium models, excluding pickup trucks is only 34.5 months.
Hyundai America chief executive officer John Krafcik noted last week that competition in the auto industry is very fierce and forces manufacturers to intensify efforts to win over customers. Even the threat of higher interest rates hasn?t undermined the market?s momentum, he said.
Competition in the mid-sized segment has been particularly fierce in recent months with Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Kia all introducing new or substantially updated models. The compact and subcompact segment also have seen a flood of new entries.
J.D. Power expects that by the second quarter of 2014, the average age of premium products will fall to just 33 months, as new and redesigned products enter the marketplace.
LMC Automotive continues to hold the outlook for total light-vehicle sales in 2013 at 15.4 million units, but has increased its forecast for retail light-vehicle sales to 12.6 million units from 12.5 million units, as retail sales growth expands.
More from The Detroit Bureau:
'Lola' tops 200 mph, sets EV world speed record
Terrorists may be targeting our high-tech cars
Would you buy a Chinese-made Ford
Copyright ? 2009-2013, The Detroit Bureau
420 Meteor Showers 2013 Darrelle Revis david ortiz record store day cnn News
Microsoft wants developers to make Bing a central part of their apps, and it's powering that with a new developer platform unveiled today at Build. The Bing kit will let programmers tap the search engine's wealth of knowledge, providing direct information and translations when they're relevant. It should also grant access to natural interfaces, such as gestures, as well as real-world map data. Microsoft showed the platform at work in both Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8, so it's clear that developers who want Bing's resources won't be locked into any one device type.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Microsoft
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/erefJAr5qJk/
National Donut Day Richard Ramirez pittsburgh penguins nba finals serena williams Tamar Braxton Prism
