Change EU treaty to stabilize bloc: Trichet (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) ? European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said the European Union's treaty should be changed to prevent one member state from destabilizing the rest of the bloc, and urged stronger governance of the euro zone.

"In my view it is necessary to change the treaty to prevent one member state from straying and creating problems for all the others," Trichet said in interview broadcast on French radio Europe 1 and iTele television on Sunday.

Asked whether this would mean getting rid of vetoes for member states, he said: "To do this, one even needs to be able to impose decisions."

But he added that he expected existing governance rules would be applied much more rigorously in the future, even without a change in the treaty.

"I think that the lesson of the cost of negligence, of the cost of lax management is sufficiently potent that in future the rules -- which have also just been reinforced -- will be followed much more strictly."

All advanced economies were being affected by a crisis at the moment but Europe's particular problem was that some countries had not respected treaty rules, Trichet said.

"We don't have a federal budget, we don't have a political federation so we have to fully respect the constraints and the mutual supervision rules that exist in the euro zone," he said.

"It is the case that in Europe we have a bigger problem than others and this is a problem of supervision and governance within the euro zone," he added.

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

Trichet, who steps down as ECB president at the end of this month after an eight-year term, said European governments needed to take clear steps to tackle the crisis hitting the euro zone.

"I think it is important that convincing direction is given in the three areas I have mentioned: protecting sovereign signatures in Europe; protecting banks and all financial institutions so that they can do their job of financing the economy; and the specific but important problem of Greece."

Trichet was speaking after a gathering of G20 finance chiefs in Paris at which they pressed the European Union to act decisively at a summit on October 23.

Trichet told the Financial Times on Thursday that the ECB had reached the limits of what it can do to support financial markets and that it was now up to governments to grapple with the persisting debt crisis in the euro zone.

In Sunday's interview, he said the ECB had taken exceptional measures in the past four years, notably in offering unlimited liquidity at fixed interest rates, adding that the central bank had not gone beyond its role set out in the Maastricht Treaty.

The euro remained an "extremely credible" currency and the euro zone was "not under threat," he said.

The ECB estimates that the euro zone "probably" experienced growth in each of the first three quarters of this year, he said and added that regarding the fourth quarter: "we will see."

The financial crisis had also shown the need for stronger global governance, Trichet said, saying he saw this as a message from protests that brought thousands onto the streets across the world on Saturday.

"It is our task to make the world financial system much more solid ... that is how I interpret part of the message that comes from this movement," he said.

(Editing by Sophie Walker)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111016/bs_nm/us_ecb_trichet

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Asian carp scourge, no problem: sell them to China

Nerissa Michaels / AP

This early Dec. 2009 photo provided by the Illinois River Biological Station via the Detroit Free Press shows Illinois River silver carp jumping out of the water. Many fear that the Asian carp, which can reach 4 feet long and weigh up to 100 pounds, will wreak havoc, not by attacking native fish, but starving them out by gobbling up plankton.

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News

BEIJING ?They are a feared species, threatening to invade America?s Midwest and cause the collapse of an ecosystem and a $7 billion industry.

They prompted one U.S. lawmaker to say, ?We are not in a go-slow mode. We are in a full attack, full-speed-ahead mode.?

?They? are Asian carp.

The fish were imported from Southeast Asia in the 1970s to help clean ponds at wastewater treatment facilities and fish farms in the American South.?

But they escaped into the Missouri and Illinois rivers during flooding of the Mississippi River. A twenty-pound Asian carp measuring three feet long was found just six miles south of Lake Michigan in July 2010.

Biologists worry that the invasive fish will starve native ones to death.?A hardy creature that breeds easily and with no natural predators in the U.S., the Asian carp can eat up to 40 percent of its body weight in plankton every day.

Concern is so great that Asian carp have been ?the subject of state lawsuits, EPA and Congressional hearings, and U.S. Supreme Court motions,? according to a U.S.-based environment magazine.

A task force comprising more than 20 state, regional, and federal officials monitors the fish?s every move.

There?s even a carp czar, appointed by the White House, to oversee the $80 million federal effort to keep the Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes.?

But the state of Illinois has a simpler solution.

Send them to China.



?If you can?t beat ?em, you eat ?em?

A few years ago, Chinese-American businessman David Shu was on a trip to China, where he met some clients who had heard about attempts to poison the Asian carp in Illinois rivers and asked, ?Why are they killing the Asian carp??

Shu teamed up with Ross Harano, who had just stepped down as Illinois trade director, to find a way to persuade Chinese to buy Asian carp from the state.

The problem was one that anyone who?s ever set foot in a Chinese restaurant knows: the Chinese like their seafood fresh. That?s what the restaurant aquariums are for ? to keep fish and shellfish alive until the very last minute.

The Asian carp from Illinois were going to be sold frozen; moreover, they were too pricey for local Chinese consumers.

So Harano, who is now Director for International Marketing at Big River Fish, found himself mapping out a marketing strategy that ultimately made more economic sense than simply just trying to pit their frozen product against local varieties sold live in China.

Coining the term ?wild-caught? to market the Illinois carp, Big River Fish try to emphasize its freshness.?

?There are no pollutants,? said Harano in a conversation with NBC News.??The fish feed on algae in Illinois rivers. They have a very non-muddy taste.?

?We sell it as a high-end fish to high-end restaurants, so the cost is not an issue,? he said.?In particular, Big River Fish is ringing up sales mostly in northern China. ?There?s a better market for fish like this in northern China than down south,? he added.

In July 2010, the Beijing Zuochen Animal Husbandry Co. agreed to buy Asian carp from Big River Fish.?The aim was to ship at least 30 million pounds of fish by the end of this year.?The small start-up from Illinois could make $20 million a year exporting the carp to China.

?If you can?t beat ?em, you eat ?em,? said Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn at a much heralded signing ceremony.

The deal seems an elegant solution to a worrying ecological problem.?

But it also appears to address, in a more modest way, another issue: unemployment.?

With a state grant of $2 million, Big River Fish is in the final stages of acquiring a new 10,000-square foot plant in Pike County, to which it will add another 30,000-square feet, enabling it to reach its export target.

The new plant is not the 80,000-square foot facility Big River Fish had hoped to purchase back in March, owing to a paperwork glitch. The hiccup put the company ?behind track? on its timetable, CEO Lisa McKee acknowledged to NBC News.

Once the new plant is secured ? hopefully by Nov. 1, according to McKee and President Rick Smith ? Big River Fish will increase its plant work force from 12 to 61.? An additional 120 jobs will come from hiring more fishermen to harvest more carp.? Not insignificant, says Harano, for a county of 17,000 people that in 2010 registered more than 10 percent unemployment.

Slowly creating jobs via China
The Big River Fish deal exemplifies the kind of salesmanship Quinn wants for his state.?He continued to tout the culinary advantages of Illinois carp even last month during a rare trip to China.

?We have wonderful rivers in our state,? he told NBC News just before dashing off to attend a special carp luncheon.??Some of the freshest waters in the country, and the Asian carp we have are big and meaty.?We catch them wild, and we ship them to China.?

Quinn peddled other Illinois specialties during his eight-day trip through China ? with the aim of drumming up business, jobs creation, and investments in his home state.

In a major coup, he persuaded Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., a top wind turbine manufacturer in northwestern China, to build a $200-million wind farm in Lee County, which will provide electricity to some 25,000 homes.?

It?s the largest U.S. project to date for Goldwind, and the Illinois governor stressed that it will create a dozen permanent jobs and more than 100 construction jobs.

Another deal announced on Quinn?s trip was for Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) to sell 180,000 tons of soybeans to China by the end of next year ? a deal worth about $50 million.?China already buys a quarter of all U.S. soybeans and is Illinois? third largest exports destination.

Chinese trade & economic reforms critical
But there are skeptics about just how much Quinn and others can recoup his state?s job losses and whether these minute steps towards creating jobs by boosting exports will be enough.

There seems to be consensus among most pundits in Washington that selling more American goods to growing economies, like China, will mean more jobs.?

But getting more U.S. goods into China requires a few substantive reforms on the part of Beijing, skeptics say.?

One of those measures is currency reform, and the Chinese central government is balking at Washington?s efforts to get it to move more aggressively to strengthen the yuan against the U.S. dollar.? A weak yuan makes Chinese exports cheaper and imports from the U.S. and other countries more expensive.

More specifically, for Illinois, a survey from the Economic Policy Institute found that the Land of Lincoln lost 118,200 jobs in the past decade as a result of the U.S. trade deficit with China.?

In particular, traditional manufacturing industries took the brunt of the job losses: auto parts production, fabricated metal products, electronics, and specialty steel ? areas in which the Chinese have sought to compete.

?Increases in the bilateral trade deficit with China will lead to growing trade-related job displacement in Illinois for some time to come,? said Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute survey, unless Beijing reforms its trade and economic policies ? particularly on the Chinese currency.?

?Until those policies are reformed,? he wrote in an email to NBC News.? ?The growth of imports and job displacement will vastly exceed the growth of export-supporting jobs for Illinois, and all other U.S. states.?

Source: http://behindthewall.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/14/8322341-asian-carp-scourge-no-problem-sell-them-to-china

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NYC protesters take park cleanup on themselves (AP)

NEW YORK ? Light rain did not dampen the spirits of the Wall Street protesters as they worked into the night to clean up their park camp before police arrive Friday morning to see them out for a scheduled cleaning by park owners.

Protesters see the scheduled cleanup by Brookfield Properties as an excuse to evict them and shut down their encampment, where they have staged a nearly monthlong protest against corporate greed. Some say they do not plan to evacuate for the cleanup while others say they will practice civil disobedience if they aren't allowed back in.

Dozens of brooms were handed out about midnight and people put on yellow or white ponchos and started to sweep water from the plaza. About 300 to 400 protesters were in Zuccotti Park overnight.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111014/ap_on_re_us/us_wall_street_protest_cleanup

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Flood barriers will determine Thai capital's fate (AP)

RANGSIT, Thailand ? Somjai Tapientong lives on one side of a wall of white sandbags, her apartment perched precariously on the front line of an epic battle to stop the deadliest floods in decades from engulfing Bangkok.

On the other side, a foaming brown river gushes through a canal diverting water around the Thai capital, just to the south. Whether floodwaters breach fortified barriers like these this weekend will determine whether Bangkok will be swamped or spared.

On Saturday, the giant metropolis of glass-walled condominiums and gilded Buddhist temples was anxiously bracing for an answer to that question. Despite the panic that has engulfed the city of 9 million people for days, though, many believe its defenses just might hold.

"I'm not afraid," said Somjai, a 60-year-old hair dresser in Rangsit, whose canal is crucial to protecting the capital. "A lot of people are paranoid, but I don't feel that panic."

Adisak Kantee, deputy director of Bangkok's drainage department, reported encouraging signs Saturday. Runoff from the north had decreased slightly and high tides that could have impeded critical water flows to the Gulf of Thailand have not been severe as first thought, he told The Associated Press.

Water levels along the main Chao Phraya River and key canals to the north were still manageable, he said, though he warned "there could be trouble" if any critical barriers break.

On a bridge above a flooded canal in Rangsit, Army Col. Wirat Nakjoo echoed the need to be vigilant.

"The worst is not over," he said. "The dams are at near full capacity and there's still a lot of water that needs to be released."

Government workers there were taking no chances, stacking new sandbags atop a 5-foot-high (1.5-meter-high), 2.5-mile-long (4-kilometer-long) wall.

Incessant monsoon rains have killed nearly 300 people in Thailand since July, part of a wave of extreme weather including several typhoons and tropical storms that has plagued Asia this year. In neighboring Cambodia, floods over roughly the same period have killed another 247 people.

Thailand's lucrative tourist destinations ? beaches and islands like Koh Samui, Krabi and Phuket ? have not been hit. But the floods have affected 8 million people and swept two-thirds of the country, drowning rice fields and swallowing low-lying villages along the way.

More than 200 major highways and roads are impassable, and the main rail lines to the north have been shut down. Authorities say property damage and losses could reach $3 billion.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Walter M. Braunohler said a 10-man team of U.S. Marines was due in Bangkok on Saturday to begin a survey mission to determine how Washington could help. The Marines were traveling aboard an American Hercules cargo jet full of sandbags needed to reinforce flood barriers.

Government assurances the capital would not flood have not stopped Bangkokians from raiding supermarket shelves to stock up on bottled water, dried noodles, flashlight batteries and candles if things go bad. Worried car owners are cramming vehicles into high-rise parking spaces at city's malls and airports. International hotels and street-side shops have barricaded their entranceways with sandbags.

Television stations broadcasting images of swamped towns just north of the capital ? showing waterlogged residents in canoes and braving chest-high water ? have also inadvertently fueled fears of imminent doom downstream.

But Chusit Apirumanekul, a hydrologist at Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, said "that will not happen in ... the inner part of Bangkok."

There is always the possibility of flooding, he said, "but it will be very low."

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's government says most of Bangkok, which lies about six feet (two meters) above sea level, sits safely behind an elaborate system of flood walls, canals, dikes and seven underground drainage tunnels which were completed over the last year.

The latest floods are posing the biggest test those defenses have ever faced.

Just beyond Bangkok's northwestern border, in the town of Samkhok, floodwaters breached a wall of white sandbags several dozen miles (kilometers) long, submerging temples and homes up to the top of their wooden gates.

"The problem is, the water keeps rising, and nobody knows how bad it's going to get," said Wasan Leekmeg, a local politician in Samkhok who spent the last few days ferrying supplies to desperate businesses and families on a wooden canoe ? now the only way to get around some parts of the town.

___

Associated Press writers Grant Peck and Chris Blake contributed to this report from Bangkok.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111015/ap_on_re_as/as_thailand_floods

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U.S. rejects plan to strengthen IMF in euro zone crisis (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) ? Proposals to double the size of the IMF as part of a broader international response to Europe's debt crisis ran into resistance from the United States and others, burying the idea for now and putting the onus firmly back on Europe.

The outlines of the plan, that had the backing of several developing economies, emerged as G20 finance ministers and central bankers met in Paris to discuss a world economy under threat from European nations mired in debt.

A second day of talks on Saturday may produce more robust language on the urgency of tackling the euro zone debt crisis but little of substance is likely to be inked in with an EU summit in nine day's time the make-or-break moment.

A communique and round of closing news conferences are expected around 11 a.m. EDT with other decisions set up for a G20 leaders' summit in Cannes on November 3/4.

One G20 source said emerging market policymakers backed injecting some $350 billion into the International Monetary Fund.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his Canadian and Australian counterparts poured cold water on the idea. The IMF's dominant shareholders, including the United States, Japan, Germany and China, are content that the fund's $380 billion worth of resources is enough.

"They (the IMF) have very substantial resources that are uncommitted," Geithner said.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble agreed the euro zone debt crisis was for Europe to solve, and expressed confidence that EU leaders would produce a plan at the October 23 summit that would be convincing for financial markets.

The United States is among countries keen to keep pressure on the Europeans to act more decisively to end the two-year-old debt crisis that began in Greece but has since spread to Ireland and Portugal and is lapping at Spain and Italy.

"The first priority here is for Europeans to put their own house in order," Australian Finance Minister Wayne Swan said.

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty also said the G20 should keep up pressure on the euro zone on its "arduous" journey toward a solution and not focus on IMF resources.

If minds needed concentrating further, Standard and Poor's cut Spain's long-term credit rating, citing the country's high unemployment, tightening credit and high private sector debt, highlighting the risk of a much larger economy than Greece coming under threat.

French and German officials are trying to put flesh on the bones of a crisis resolution plan in time for the European Union summit.

Fears about the damage a default by Greece -- and possibly others -- could inflict on the financial system have driven a confidence-sapping bout of market volatility since late July, with global stocks falling 17 percent from their 2011 high in May.

DIVISION

Unlike in 2009 when the G20 launched coordinated stimulus to pull the world out of crisis, the rest of the world is chafing at Europe's slow response while Washington and Beijing are sparring over the yuan currency.

The Franco-German crisis plan is likely to ask banks to accept bigger losses on their Greek debt than the 21 percent spelled out in a July plan for a second bailout of Athens, which now looks insufficient.

"It will be more, that's more or less certain," French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said.

It should also lay out a system for recapitalizing banks and plans to leverage the euro zone's 440 billion euros European Financial Stability Facility to give it more punch.

Schaeuble said European banks should be helped, if necessary, with state means to strengthen their capital.

Whilst the EFSF has the resources to cope with bailouts for Greece, Portugal and Ireland, it would be overwhelmed by the need to rescue a bigger economy such as Italy or Spain.

The most effective method would be to turn the EFSF into a bank so it could draw on European Central Bank resources. Both Germany and the ECB are opposed to that. Attention has turned to the idea of making the fund more like an insurer.

For example, if the EFSF covered the first 20 percent of losses a bank could suffer in case of a default -- it could multiply its firepower fivefold to over 2 trillion euros.

ROLE OF IMF

G20 sources said most BRICS economies were in favor of bolstering the IMF's capital as a crisis-fighting tool.

"We have said this before and have conveyed this again, that if emerging economies and the BRICS are called upon to contribute, we can do it via the International Monetary Fund," one of the sources said. "India is open to it, China and Brazil are also okay with the idea."

Another G20 source said the IMF would present a plan which had broad support to its executive board to make short-term credit lines available to fundamentally healthy countries hit by liquidity crises. It could aid euro zone countries hit by the current crisis of confidence in the bloc's sovereign debt.

Any real progress on bigger goals such as setting parameters to measure global imbalances and reining in speculative capital flows is unlikely to come before a November 3-4 summit in Cannes, where France passes the G20 baton to Mexico.

A French finance ministry source said that for Cannes, France hoped to have two or three measures agreed for countries showing imbalances: consolidation measures for those with high deficits and stimulus measures for those with surpluses.

"We are going to try to make some progress and obtain, perhaps not tomorrow or Saturday but by Cannes, a list of measures country by country," he said. "These must be measures which will have an impact on the real economy."

A separate G20 source said after preparatory talks late on Thursday that China would commit to boost its consumption through a five-year plan, via households and companies as well as infrastructure.

The G20 countries make up 85 percent of global output.

An April G20 meeting placed seven large economies under review -- the debt-burdened United States, export driven China and the economies of France, Britain, Germany, Japan and India. Officials have said privately the aim was to get Beijing to discuss the yuan, and China's cooperation is essential to the success of the process.

A G20 official said China would not commit to a quick liberalization of its yuan currency to help rebalance global growth, but would offer to use expansionary fiscal policy to fuel domestic demand.

"No, they were pretty firm on that -- there will be no progress," the official said.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Flynn, Francesca Landini, Randall Palmer, David Milliken, Kevin Yao; Writing by Mike Peacock/Janet McBride)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111014/bs_nm/us_g20

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Box Office: 80s throwback with "Footloose," "The Thing" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? The box office is set to party like it's the early-1980s this weekend, with two titles based on three-decade-old properties going wide.

Paramount's "the kids gotta dance" flick "Footloose" is set to lead the market, with outside-studio estimates coming in as high as $24 million, while Universal's killer space-alien thriller "The Thing" trailing closely behind.

Also opening wide: Fox's "The Big Year," a David Frankel-directed comedy starring Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Steve Martin.

Pedro Almodovar's "The Skin I Live In" will be the highlight of a slate of smaller releases. The film stars Antonio Banderas and is distributed by Sony Classics. It will launch in six L.A. and NYC arthouse locations.

"Footloose," Craig Brewer's PG-13 remake of Paramount's 1984 dance classic starring Kevin Bacon and Sarah Jessica Parker, opens in 3,549 North American locations.

Paramount expects the movie, which has a budget of $24 million, to open in the mid-teens, in line with other youth-oriented dance films like "Step Up 3D," which opened to $15.8 million in August 2010.

In lieu of Bacon and Parker, we get the defiant chemistry of youngsters Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough, which critics have collectively liked enough in pre-release screenings to generate a solid 71 percent fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Old fogies Dennis Quaid and Andie MacDowell will attempt to chaperone.

While they weren't even born yet when the first "Footloose" hit theaters, women and girls under the age of 25 represent the film's strongest audience group, with 90 percent of the demo reporting awareness of some kind with the movie, according to research firm NRG.

Among that quadrant, 48 percent report "definite interest" in seeing the film, and a fancy 22 percent say it's their "first choice" to see next time they're in a theater.

Some box office watchers outside the studio peg "Footloose's" opening at over $20 million, but the studio's more conservative guidance is in the mid-teens.

Meanwhile, "The Thing," Universal's prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 sci-fi classic, will open in 2,997 domestic locations.

Co-financed with Morgan Creek at a cost of around $38 million, the latest "Thing" was directed by Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr., son of the Dutch producer. His cultural upbringing was no doubt helpful in informing a story about a doomed Norwegian scientific camp in the Antarctic -- the same one that Carpenter's '82 film paid reference to in its beginning.

The film's largely no-name cast does include Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton.

Horror movies have underperformed at the box office this year, but Universal is betting that "The Thing" -- the first thriller-horror of the Halloween season -- will end that trend.

Although reviews have been soft -- 33 percent on Rotten Tomatoes -- the R-rated horror film's strongest tracking comes from men older than 25.

According to NRG, awareness of "The Thing" is 72 percent among that group, with 36 percent reporting definite interest and 9 percent calling it their first choice.

Trackers outside the studio predict an opening in the mid- to high-teens for "The Thing," while inside the studio, the call is more in the $11 million - $14 million range.

Fox's PG-rated "The Big Year" has big potential ... to bomb.

Co-financed by Fox and Dune Entertainment at a cost of around $41 million and debuting in 2,149 locations, the ensemble comedy about competitive bird watchers isn't expected to break double figures this weekend.

Reviews have been middling, with Rotten Tomatoes scoring the movie at 50 percent.

Finally, among holdovers, there's Hugh Jackman near-futuristic action film "Real Steel."

The DreamWorks picture about boxing robots -- actually a family film about a father and his son -- took in $27.3 million last weekend.

The film's midweek numbers, however, have been strong, and box-office watchers predict a weekend-to-weekend decline of well below the usual 50 percent.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111014/media_nm/us_boxoffice

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PHOTO - Hell No We Won't Go! - Protesters Confront Mayor Bloomberg At Manhattan Restaurant

From: The Daily Bail

10:20am - October 14, 2011

Source Chanting 'Hell no! We won't go!' hundreds of demonstrators stormed Wall Street last night to confront New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, vowing to defend their encampment in Zuccotti Park for a 28th day. As he dined at downtown's posh Cipriani restaurant, having endorsed a 7am clean-up of the 'unsanitary' Occupy Wall Street encampment, protesters attempted to deliver the mayor a petition with 310,000 signatures supporting the their right to remain in the park. But the mayor refused to come out of the restaurant, instead making his exit out of a back door. New York City officials earlier ordered Wall Street protesters to clear their sleeping bags and tarps from the park where they started a movement that has spread around the globe and forced CEOs and presidential candidates to take notice. --- It obviously worked... 'Occupy Wall Street' won't have to vacate - Zucotti park cle...

Continue reading this article ?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ewallstreeter/~3/dRIYYqcRD3A/

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Teamlab's hangers use RFID to take shopping into the 21st century (video)

Ever heard of an UltraTechnologist before? Yeah, neither have we, but a group of those imaginatively monikered folks have banded their engineering and design skills together to update the shopping experience. Issued from their Teamlab art collective, a batch of RFID-embedded hangers were put to the interactive test at Vanquish, a men's store in Japan's uber fashionable Shibuya district. So, how do these newfangled clothes hangers work? Garments lifted off the rack by a curious customer send a signal to a nearby screen that'll display a front and back preview of the selected outfit -- fitted to an impossibly chiseled model's body, of course. The Teamlab hangers can also be used to manipulate a shop's booming soundtrack and lighting, although we imagine that could get quite messy. So, if you count yourself amongst the claustrophobes that can't handle those encroaching dressing room walls or if you simply take your style cues from photoshopped images of perfection then, hey -- this tech's for you.

Continue reading Teamlab's hangers use RFID to take shopping into the 21st century (video)

Teamlab's hangers use RFID to take shopping into the 21st century (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One 'Dancing' contestant just couldn't hold on

Adam Taylor / ABC

Despite displaying a lot of ballroom potential, singer Chynna Phillips and pro partner Tony Dovolani were eliminated after she forgot the steps to her tango on Monday night.

By Anna Chan

In the ballroom, all it takes is one off night to crush all hope of attaining the coveted mirror ball trophy.?

It was a lesson that Chynna Phillips learned the hard way after being eliminated on Tuesday night during week four of the competition.? The?singer?from the popular '90s group Wilson Phillips had been riding high near the top of the leaderboard since season 13 kicked off, but after forgetting her routine on Monday?s performance show, it was lights out for her chances at ballroom glory.

?I blanked. I knew that routine. I just blanked,? Chynna said of her disastrous tango to the ?Mission: Impossible? theme. And after she learned her fate, the singer kept her composure, just as she did after her flubbed performance.

?I?m disappointed. I?m sad. But I have to take responsibility,? said the singer. ?I messed up.? She also praised pro partner Tony Dovolani for being there for her ?100 percent ? the entire way.?

Live Poll

How much longer will Chaz continue?

  • 163144

    He's going to the finals!

    6%

  • 163145

    Another week or two -- tops.

    21%

  • 163146

    Maybe to around midseason.

    9%

  • 163147

    He should've been gone already.

    63%

VoteTotal Votes: 6602

Though her forgotten footwork was too much for many viewers to forgive, it seemed the judges wanted her to stick around. The trio on Monday gave her a set of 7s, a highly generous score considering just how flawed the performance was. But it was an understandable move. Phillips performed some seriously graceful and gorgeous ? if incredibly slow ? techniques during her time on ?Dancing With the Stars.? She also showed incredible promise, which some of her fellow dancers are still lacking. (You know who I?m talking about.) Much like Kristin Cavallari?s exit last week, Chynna?s came a bit too soon, a sentiment that readers shared on Facebook.

?On Chynna Phillips? worst day, she is 100% better than Chaz Bono, David Arquette, Nancy and Kardashian,? wrote reader Melody Jeffries Jones. ?The good dancers (are) being eliminated. That is crazy.?

?Very, VERY wrong!!? agreed Arlene Jay. ?The judges and America threw away the best dancer!! Nobody would have known that she forgot her routine if the judges had kept their mouths shut. ? This is an injustice and a DISGRACE!!?

But it wasn?t all tears and sad faces (and there were plenty of them among the cast after the singer?s elimination) on results night. Fan favorite and former ?Dancing? pro Julianne Hough returned to the ballroom to promote her new film, ?Footloose.?

The blonde beauty first performed with co-star Kenny Wormald. She later brought the ballroom to its feet by doing an energetic dance with brother and ?DWTS? pro, Derek. ?? I am so grateful to be here,? she told host Tom Bergeron after her performance. ?This is my family, this is my home. Thank you so much for having me back on the show!?

And another bonus? The host (the best one on reality TV; take note, Emmys!) had her throw to commercial. Sure, Julianne read from the prompter, but she did it with pizzazz, spunk and ease. And she didn?t make any mistakes or trip over her words. (Unlike someone else.)

Were you surprised that one bad night meant the end of Chynna?s chances? What did you think of Julianne?s return? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page!

Also, don't forget to join me and my fellow "Dancing" expert Ree Hines (and Maks admirer) on Tuesdays at 3:30 p.m. ET to chat about Monday performance shows! Sign up for a reminder.

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Source: http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2011/10/11/8278370-one-dancing-contestant-just-couldnt-hold-on

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Sources All Over The Ad Tech Industry Think ... - Business Insider

What's the next big move for Google?

We're not sure, but multiple ad tech industry sources think Google is about to buy Akamai.

We've been chasing a rumor that Google is about to make a big ad tech acquisition. The one name that kept coming back at us was Akamai.

At this point, it's mostly just a rumor, but almost a dozen sources inside and outside of Google are telling us that they've at least heard about a looming Google-Akamai deal.

Then again, Akamai is one of those companies that's always mentioned as a take over target.

Also: a high-level source at Akamai that we talked to shot down Google speculation.

Still, all of our sources think Akamai would be a good fit for Google.

There are two reasons.

REASON ONE: Akamai is sitting on a trove of valuable data that Google could use to vastly improve its business. Akamai delivers video and knows what people are watching, when they're watching it, and how they're watching it.??

Google could use that information to improve search, video, display, everything. There's a huge risk in "sniffing" the data from Akamai to influence other parts of Google as one source put it. Google would have too much information, and it would have even more government regulation.

REASON TWO: Akamai's stock has been crushed in the last year. It's off by 50%, so the company could be had for a decent price. A recent Bloomberg article speculated Akamai would sell for $7.4 billion or more.

UPDATE: BONUS REASON THREE: If Google wants to turn YouTube into a cable alternative, Akamai's technology would be very useful. It would be a fast, efficient way to deliver video.

Update: Google is knocking down this rumor.

If you know what Google is interested in buying, email us at jyarow@businessinsider.com or call Jay Yarow at 646.376.6037.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-move-2011-10

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