SAN FRANCISCO ? Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd's efforts to impress an HP event hostess included showing her his checking-account balance holding over $1 million, according to a letter detailing the sexual harassment allegations that led to his ouster.
The letter was obtained late Thursday by The Associated Press after the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that disclosing it did not violate Delaware laws. In rejecting efforts by Hurd's lawyers to keep it confidential, the court concluded that the letter does not contain trade secrets, non-public financial information or third-party confidential information.
The ruling said information that is only "mildly embarrassing" is not protected from public disclosure. Some sentences concerning Hurd's family were ordered redacted from the letter, however.
Celebrity attorney Gloria Allred sent the letter last year on behalf of Jodie Fisher, who was hired as a contract employee to help with HP networking events and who later accused Hurd of sexual harassment.
Although an HP investigation did not find any evidence to support the harassment claim, it uncovered inaccurate expense reports for his outings with Fisher. Hurd was ultimately forced out in August 2010. He now works as co-president at rival Oracle Corp.
Allred alleged in the letter that, while Fisher was ostensibly hired an HP event hostess in late 2007, she was really brought on to accompany Hurd to HP events held out of town. Throughout 2008 and 2009, Hurd made it clear he expected to have a sexual relationship with Fisher, using his "status and authority as CEO of HP," Allred alleged.
Allred claimed that Hurd made several sexual advances toward Fisher, which Fisher rejected. In 2008, while walking with Fisher in Madrid, Hurd stopped at an ATM and showed her his checking-account balance "to impress her," according to the letter.
After Fisher rejected him a final time in October 2009, she was not hired for any future HP events, Allred alleged.
Allred also alleged that in March 2008, Hurd told Fisher that HP was likely to purchase technology services vendor EDS. HP announced the $13 billion acquisition in May of that year.
HP shareholder Ernesto Espinoza had sued to have the letter unsealed. Hurd's attorney, Amy Wintersheimer, said his lawyers had requested that the letter be kept confidential because "it is filled with inaccuracies."
"The truth is, there never was any sexual harassment, which HP's investigation confirmed, and there never was any sexual relationship, which Ms. Fisher has confirmed," Wintersheimer said in a statement.
Both Allred and Palo Alto-based Hewlett-Packard Co. had no comment on the letter's contents.
Brice Hirst, a 2006 graduate of Sacred Heart High School, received a Chancellors Fellowship from Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla.
He got the fellowship mainly because of his 4.0 grade point average and a recommendation from one of his professors. The fellowship covers all basic tuition and fees for any number of classes he will take related to his degree.
LOS ANGELES ? Academy Awards season is officially on. Nominations ballots for the 84th Oscar show have just gone in the mail.
Oscar organizers mailed ballots Tuesday to 5,783 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Ballots are due back Jan. 13, and Oscar nominations will be announced Jan. 24.
The Oscar ceremony is set for Feb. 26, with Billy Crystal returning as host for the first time in eight years.
Among this season's best-picture prospects are the black-and-white silent film "The Artist," the Deep South drama "The Help," George Clooney's family tale "The Descendants" and Steven Spielberg's World War I epic "War Horse."
Two planets orbiting a star 950 light-years from Earth are the smallest alien worlds known, astronomers announced Tuesday. One of the planets is actually smaller than Earth, scientists say.
These planets, while roughly the size of our planet Earth, are circling very close to their star, giving them fiery temperatures that are most likely too hot to support life, researchers said. The discovery, however, brings scientists one step closer to finding a true twin of Earth that may be habitable.
"We've crossed a threshold: For the first time, we've been able to detect planets smaller than the Earth around another star," lead researcher Fran?ois Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., told Space.com. "We proved that Earth-size planets exist around other stars like the sun, and most importantly, we proved that humanity is able to detect them. It's the beginning of an era."
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To discover the new planets, Fressin and his colleagues used NASA's Kepler space telescope, which noticed the tiny dips in the parent star's brightness when the planets passed in front of it, blocking some of its light. This is called the transit method of planet detection. The researchers then used ground-based observatories to confirm that the planets actually exist by measuring minute wobbles in the star's position caused by gravitational tugs from its planets.
"These two new planets are the first genuinely Earth-sized worlds that have been found orbiting a sunlike star," Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California at Santa Cruz ho was not involved in the new study, said in an email to Space.com. "For the past two decades, it has been clear that astronomers would eventually reach this goal, and so it's fantastic to learn that the detection has now been achieved." [Gallery: Smallest Alien Planets Ever Seen]
Chances for life
The two Earth-size planets are among five alien worlds orbiting a star called Kepler-20 that is of the same class (G-type) as our sun, and is slightly cooler.
Two of the star system's planets, Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are 0.87 times and 1.03 times the width of Earth, respectively, making them the smallest exoplanets yet known. They also appear to be rocky, and have masses less than 1.7 and 3 times Earth's mass, respectively.? Scientists think that they are composed mainly of silicates and iron, much like Earth, though they lack our planet's atmosphere.
Kepler-20e makes a circle around its star once every 6.1 days at a distance of 4.7 million miles (7.6 million kilometers) ? almost 20 times closer than Earth, which orbits the sun at around 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).
The planet's sibling, Kepler-20f, makes a full orbit every 19.6 days, at a distance of 10.3 million miles (16.6 million kilometers). Both planets circle closer to their star than Mercury does to the sun. [Infographic: Earth-Size Alien Planets Explained]
These snuggly orbits around their star give the newfound planets steamy temperatures of about 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit (760 degrees Celsius) and 800 degrees F (430 degrees C) ? way too warm to support liquid water, and probably too hot for life as we know it, researchers said.
Fressin said the chance of life on either of these planets is "negligible," though the researchers can't exclude the possibility that they used to be habitable in the past, when they might have been farther from their star. There is also a slim chance that there are habitable regions on the planets in spots between their day and night sides (the planets orbit with one half constantly facing their star and the other half always in dark). But astronomers aren't holding out hope.
"The chances of liquid water and life as we know it on Kepler-20e and f are zero," Laughlin said.
Flip-flopped planets
The planetary system around Kepler-20 is an unusual one.
For one thing, scientists say the rocky planets can't have formed in their current locations.
"There's not enough rocky material that close to the host star to form five planets," Fressin said. "They didn't form here; they probably formed farther from their star and migrated in."
Furthermore, the five planets are in an odd order, with the rocky worlds alternating with their gaseous, Neptune-size siblings. That's quite different from most solar systems, including our own, which keeps the rocky terrestrial worlds in close to the sun and the gas giants farther out.
"The architecture of that solar system is crazy," science team member David Charbonneau of Harvard University said during a Tuesday teleconference about the finding. "This is the first time that we've seen anything like this."
Scientists will likely have to revise their theories of how planets form to fully understand the Kepler-20 system.
"How did that form?" Fressin said. "I think it's a puzzle the theorists will have to try to explain."
The star's other planets are called Kepler-20b, 20c, and 20d. Their diameters are 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometers), 24,600 miles (40,000 kilometers) and 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers), respectively, and they orbit Kepler-20 once every 3.7, 10.9 and 77.6 days.
The largest of these, Kepler-20d, weighs a little less than 20 times Earth's mass, while Kepler-20c is 16.1 times as heavy as Earth, and Kepler-20b is 8.7 times our planet's mass.
Evolving effort
Scientists say finding the smallest exoplanets yet represents a significant milestone in the fast-evolving effort to learn about planets beyond the solar system.
The first alien planet was discovered in 1996, and the first planet found through the transit method came just 11 years ago. Both of those planets were roughly the size of Jupiter.
"I think we're living in special times," Fressin said. "This was unfeasible 10 years ago, and just with the quality of detectors and the quality of the treatment is it possible now."
The total tally of known alien planets is above 700. Kepler alone has discovered 28 definite alien planets, and 2,326 planet candidates, since its launch in March 2009.
Earlier this month, the Kepler team announced another landmark find, the first planet known to occupy the habitable zone around its star where liquid water, and perhaps life, could exist. That planet, called Kepler-22b, is about 2.4 times as wide as Earth.
The dream now is for astronomers to combine the two discoveries and find an Earth-size planet that's also orbiting its star in an Earthlike orbit that puts it in the habitable zone.
"The holy grail of the search for other worlds is to find an Earth analogue, a true Earth twin," Fressin said. "We just need to have these two pieces of the puzzle together."
While the newfound planets orbit with periods of 6.1 and 19.6 days, Fressin estimated the habitable zone around Kepler-20 begins at orbits that take roughly 100 days to make a circuit.
Astronomers think it's only a matter of time before they finally find one that's just right.
"These discoveries are a great technological step forward ? to detect small planets, in size like Earth ? but these planets are very hot and not in the habitable zone around their star," astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics wrote in an email. Kaltenegger, who studies the habitability of exoplanets, was not involved in the new study.
"If we can already find these small planets with radii around Earth's now, some future ones could be in the habitable zone of their stars and those future ones would be great targets to look for liquid water and signatures for life," Kaltenegger said.
A paper detailing the discovery was published online by the journal Nature on Tuesday.
You can follow Space.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow Space.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter@Spacedotcom? and on Facebook.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The other day, a book arrived here called The Tiny Book Of Tiny Stories and I thought, "Oooh, how tiny will they be?" Very short stories can get very, very short and still be good. The most famous example (supposedly written by Ernest Hemingway) draws a little sigh with only six words; it's a sales ad.
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Nobody has been able to beat that one, at least nobody I've read, so I quickly opened this new collection and found an anthology of teeny tales. They come from people all over the world, who sent them to a website created by Jared Geller and actor Joseph Gordon Levitt (who you may remember dragging bodies through a corridor in the movie "Inception").
Their book has some beauties. My favorite, which made me laugh, goes like this:
King Midas often Wondered what would happen If he touched himself.
At eleven words (and slightly R-rated at that) it's a cliffhanger. Carbon based life forms don't do well as precious metal.
But I've seen stories that are way richer, and much, much shorter, if we're counting words. They use no words at all.
You know these stories. They are photographs, made to be seen. Take, for example, this famous and glorious tale of bravery, where the hero steps into the scene from where, no one knows, intending what, we can only imagine, with consequences we will never know.
Jeff Widner/AP
Or how about this? A magical moment, where you learn something new about the universe, something small but wonderful.
But if I had to choose, this one, which has nobody in it, only a bicycle and the trace of somebody missing, is the one that surpasses Hemingway for simple eloquence. It is titled, "Sarajevo," and it was shot by the American photographer Annie Leibovitz. There's a story behind it, and I'll tell it in a footnote below, but when you look, you don't have to know the details to sense the scream that still hangs in the air.
Annie Leibovitz
Would you call this a short story? It was created in one glance, one snap. Yes, it seeps backwards (what happened?) and forwards (where is the child?) in time, but the tale, if you hold it in your hand, is very simple. All it says is... "Look at this."
Or maybe just: "This."
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has already published two Tiny Books of Tiny Stories (It Books, Harper Collins, 2011). The story of King Midas comes from Volume 1. If you want to see or send in a story, their website is here.
Here's the back story on Annie Leibovitz's photo. Annie was in Yugoslavia on her way back from photographing the just-crowned "Miss Besieged Sarajevo" in 1993 when someone fired a mortar not too far ahead of her car. "It hit a teenage boy on a bike," she wrote in her memoir At Work (Random House, 2008) "and ripped a big hole in his back. We put him in the car and rushed him to the hospital, but he died on the way."
PHILADELPHIA -- A 13-year-old boy says he spent more than nine cold, hungry and lonely hours trapped in a stairwell at a Philadelphia school.
Seventh-grader David Fields says he was looking for a new way out of Roosevelt Middle School on Thursday afternoon but ended up locked inside an emergency exit tower when a door closed behind him.
Janitorial staff apparently didn't hear his cries for help. His mother, Angela Johnson, says workers wouldn't allow family members to look for him after he didn't come home.
Relatives say they heard David's screams when they returned with school police around 12:10 a.m. Friday. David was freed about 20 minutes later.
District spokesman Fernando Gallard (gy-YARD') says the emergency exit tower is supposed to be unlocked until a final nightly inspection.
Do you have pets of your very own? Perhaps you know an individual with pets. Possibly way, pet gift baskets are turning into very popular. According to the American Pet Item Manufactures Association APPMA approximately forty five million families have canines, 38 million have cats and an additional fifteen million have other pens like, birds, fish, horses, reptiles or other small animals. The APPMA estimates that 83 million of these families have an average of two pets every single. That is a whole lot of pets!
The pet sector has been expanding consistently considering that the commence of the millennium. To a $forty billion additionally industry. Emotional connections amongst pet owners and their beloved pets have developed much better as effectively, which has triggered a need to have for a lot more pet items and providers. There has been a continual rise in pet add-ons, goods and services. Pet owners are confronted with a plethora of alternatives when it comes to pet food items and treats. You can now locate a range that ranges from natural and organic, to kosher and even connoisseur. There are greater goods for dental treatment of pets and enhanced veterinary care and medicines have elevated the common existence spans of your pets. This indicates more birthdays, Christmases or other holidays for your pets!
There are numerous suggestions that you can pull jointly for pet gift baskets. Contemplate offering a present basket crammed with natural and organic pet meals or adding spa items such as shampoos, conditioners, or dental products. You could add custom clothes or costumes alongside with fancy colors or leashes. All of these objects could be built on top of a pet bed for some thing truly exclusive and authentic.
The average pet basket can variety from $35 and up. This helps make this kind of a unique and private gift since most men and women cherish their pets. If you want to make an affect on someone regardless of whether a good friend or organization associate consider a pet gift basket. You will have to do a small homework just before supplying them a gift to make confident you know the dimensions and type of pet they have. This way you can get a perfect gift that matches their pets persona and type!
If you are looking for a thing various to give this yr for vacations, birthdays or other situations, will not overlook about peoples pets. You can be certain that they wont neglect you for supplying them one thing they can cherish with their loyal companions.
Gift Baskets For Pets Related Sites : pet gift basket
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - British artist Damien Hirst, who sold a collection of works for a record $200 million in 2008, will display his iconic Spot paintings at Gagosian galleries around the world in January, the gallery said on Tuesday.
The exhibition entitled "The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011," will be shown simultaneously in all 11 Gagosian galleries around the world, including locations in New York, London, Athens, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. It is the first time the gallery has dedicated all locations to showing one body of work by one artist at the same time.
Hirst, 46, who received the Turner prize in 1995 for an exhibit featuring a pickled cow, is a leading member of the Young British Artists movement along with Tracey Emin, a group noted for their artistic shock tactics during the 1990s.
The spot paintings are a collection of works incorporating multicolored dots on canvases and collages in a variety of contexts and sizes, and are among Hirst's most recognizable collections.
"The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011" exhibit will include about 200 works including loans from museums and collectors, with less than third up for sale, according to a report in the New York Times.
The exhibition will run between January 12 and February 18 2012, and will precede the first major museum retrospective of Hirst's work, opening at the Tate Modern gallery in London in April next year.
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
Giant super-earths made of diamond are possiblePublic release date: 5-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Wendy Panero Panero.1@osu.edu 614-292-6290 Ohio State University
SAN FRANCISCO A planet made of diamonds may sound lovely, but you wouldn't want to live there.
A new study suggests that some stars in the Milky Way could harbor "carbon super-Earths" giant terrestrial planets that contain up to 50 percent diamond.
But if they exist, those planets are likely devoid of life as we know it.
The finding comes from a laboratory experiment at Ohio State University, where researchers recreated the temperatures and pressures of Earth's lower mantle to study how diamonds form there.
The larger goal was to understand what happens to carbon inside planets in other solar systems, and whether solar systems that are rich in carbon could produce planets that are mostly made of diamond.
Wendy Panero, associate professor in the School of Earth Sciences at Ohio State, and doctoral student Cayman Unterborn used what they learned from the experiments to construct computer models of the minerals that form in planets composed with more carbon than Earth.
The result: "It's possible for planets that are as big as fifteen times the mass of the Earth to be half made of diamond," Unterborn said. He presented the study Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
"Our results are striking, in that they suggest carbon-rich planets can form with a core and a mantle, just as Earth did," Panero added. "However, the cores would likely be very carbon-rich much like steel and the mantle would also be dominated by carbon, much in the form of diamond."
Earth's core is mostly iron, she explained, and the mantle mostly silica-based minerals, a result of the elements that were present in the dust cloud that formed into our solar system. Planets that form in carbon-rich solar systems would have to follow a different chemical recipe with direct consequences for the potential for life.
Earth's hot interior results in geothermal energy, making our planet hospitable.
Diamonds transfer heat so readily, however, that a carbon super-Earth's interior would quickly freeze. That means no geothermal energy, no plate tectonics, and ultimately no magnetic field or atmosphere.
"We think a diamond planet must be a very cold, dark place," Panero said.
She and former graduate student Jason Kabbes subjected a tiny sample of iron, carbon, and oxygen to pressures of 65 gigapascals and temperatures of 2,400 Kelvin (close to 9.5 million pounds per square inch and 3,800 degrees Fahrenheit conditions similar to the Earth's deep interior).
As they watched under the microscope, the oxygen bonded with the iron, creating iron oxide a type of rust and left behind pockets of pure carbon, which became diamond.
Based on the data from that test, the researchers made computer models of Earth's interior, and verified what geologists have long suspected that a diamond-rich layer likely exists in Earth's lower mantle, just above the core.
That result wasn't surprising. But when they modeled what would happen when these results were applied to the composition of a carbon super-Earth, they found that the planet could become very large, with iron and carbon merged to form a kind of carbon steel in the core, and vast quantities of pure carbon in the mantle in the form of diamond.
The researchers discussed the implications for planetary science.
"To date, more than five hundred planets have been discovered outside of our solar system, yet we know very little about their internal compositions," said Unterborn, who is an astronomer by training.
"We're looking at how volatile elements like hydrogen and carbon interact inside the Earth, because when they bond with oxygen, you get atmospheres, you get oceans you get life," Panero said. "The ultimate goal is to compile a suite of conditions that are necessary for an ocean to form on a planet."
This work contrasts with the recent discovery by an unrelated team of researchers who found a so-called "diamond planet" which is actually the remnant of a dead star in a binary system.
The Ohio State research suggests that true terrestrial diamond planets can form in our galaxy. Exactly how many such planets might be out there and their possible internal composition is an open question one that Unterborn is pursuing with Ohio State astronomer Jennifer Johnson.
###
This research was funded by Panero's CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.
Contact: Wendy Panero, 614-292-6290; Panero.1@osu.edu
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, 614-292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Giant super-earths made of diamond are possiblePublic release date: 5-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Wendy Panero Panero.1@osu.edu 614-292-6290 Ohio State University
SAN FRANCISCO A planet made of diamonds may sound lovely, but you wouldn't want to live there.
A new study suggests that some stars in the Milky Way could harbor "carbon super-Earths" giant terrestrial planets that contain up to 50 percent diamond.
But if they exist, those planets are likely devoid of life as we know it.
The finding comes from a laboratory experiment at Ohio State University, where researchers recreated the temperatures and pressures of Earth's lower mantle to study how diamonds form there.
The larger goal was to understand what happens to carbon inside planets in other solar systems, and whether solar systems that are rich in carbon could produce planets that are mostly made of diamond.
Wendy Panero, associate professor in the School of Earth Sciences at Ohio State, and doctoral student Cayman Unterborn used what they learned from the experiments to construct computer models of the minerals that form in planets composed with more carbon than Earth.
The result: "It's possible for planets that are as big as fifteen times the mass of the Earth to be half made of diamond," Unterborn said. He presented the study Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
"Our results are striking, in that they suggest carbon-rich planets can form with a core and a mantle, just as Earth did," Panero added. "However, the cores would likely be very carbon-rich much like steel and the mantle would also be dominated by carbon, much in the form of diamond."
Earth's core is mostly iron, she explained, and the mantle mostly silica-based minerals, a result of the elements that were present in the dust cloud that formed into our solar system. Planets that form in carbon-rich solar systems would have to follow a different chemical recipe with direct consequences for the potential for life.
Earth's hot interior results in geothermal energy, making our planet hospitable.
Diamonds transfer heat so readily, however, that a carbon super-Earth's interior would quickly freeze. That means no geothermal energy, no plate tectonics, and ultimately no magnetic field or atmosphere.
"We think a diamond planet must be a very cold, dark place," Panero said.
She and former graduate student Jason Kabbes subjected a tiny sample of iron, carbon, and oxygen to pressures of 65 gigapascals and temperatures of 2,400 Kelvin (close to 9.5 million pounds per square inch and 3,800 degrees Fahrenheit conditions similar to the Earth's deep interior).
As they watched under the microscope, the oxygen bonded with the iron, creating iron oxide a type of rust and left behind pockets of pure carbon, which became diamond.
Based on the data from that test, the researchers made computer models of Earth's interior, and verified what geologists have long suspected that a diamond-rich layer likely exists in Earth's lower mantle, just above the core.
That result wasn't surprising. But when they modeled what would happen when these results were applied to the composition of a carbon super-Earth, they found that the planet could become very large, with iron and carbon merged to form a kind of carbon steel in the core, and vast quantities of pure carbon in the mantle in the form of diamond.
The researchers discussed the implications for planetary science.
"To date, more than five hundred planets have been discovered outside of our solar system, yet we know very little about their internal compositions," said Unterborn, who is an astronomer by training.
"We're looking at how volatile elements like hydrogen and carbon interact inside the Earth, because when they bond with oxygen, you get atmospheres, you get oceans you get life," Panero said. "The ultimate goal is to compile a suite of conditions that are necessary for an ocean to form on a planet."
This work contrasts with the recent discovery by an unrelated team of researchers who found a so-called "diamond planet" which is actually the remnant of a dead star in a binary system.
The Ohio State research suggests that true terrestrial diamond planets can form in our galaxy. Exactly how many such planets might be out there and their possible internal composition is an open question one that Unterborn is pursuing with Ohio State astronomer Jennifer Johnson.
###
This research was funded by Panero's CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.
Contact: Wendy Panero, 614-292-6290; Panero.1@osu.edu
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, 614-292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Susan Lyne, chairman of Gilt Groupe, Inc. and former president of ABC Entertainment, talked about learning from failure and adjusting to digital realities during TheWrap's third-annual Power Women breakfast Monday morning at the Hotel Bel-Air.
The head of the fast-growing online shopping site also spoke about juggling career and family during the conversation moderated by TheWrap's Editor-in-Chief Sharon Waxman and Cathy Schulman, president of Women In Film and Mandalay Pictures.
She said her husband's death from cancer six years ago taught her to live in the moment at home and at work.
"The last gift he gave me was to just be present," Lyne said, choking up and causing the room of powerful women to grow silent. "I have this moment, and that's it. I've tried to carry that into work and life."
This year's event drew 115 attendees -- "easily twice as big" as the past two Power Women breakfasts, Waxman said.
American Film Institute Vice Chair Jean Picker Firstenberg; Dick Clark Productions President Orly Adelson; Nancy Tellem, senior advisor to CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves; Teri Schwartz, dean for UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television and Sundance Institute Executive Director Keri Putnam were among those in the crowd; actresses Sharon Lawrence, Olga Fonda and Brie Larson were also on hand.
Lyne said she grew up in an "old-media world" where "I saw a lot of people with their blinders of, who didn't want to acknowledge that the world was changing more profoundly than we understood or didn't want to take the risk to change their business models."
When Lyne told her friends she was joining Gilt in 2008, she said, "My friends all thought I was out of my mind. They'd say, 'Oh, that's so nice,' or 'What are you thinking? Why are you doing this?'"
Lyne told the audience that the site will likely go public within the next 18 months. The online-shopping company raked in $500 million in revenue during the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
Prior to joining Gilt as CEO, Lyne was the founder/editor-in-chief of Premiere magazine, CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and president of ABC Entertainment.
She said her firing at ABC -- which had fallen to the No. 4 spot among networks -- was a first in her career. She noted that it was "a really public firing. ... It was on the front page of the business section of every paper I cared about."
But while she was devastated after the firing, Lyne said she also found it to be "incredibly liberating. I realized I had never decided what I had wanted to do before, except my first job, in magazines. It was the first time I could remember feeling in control of my destiny."
Added Lyne, who cited Arianna Huffington as one of her inspirations, "anyone who has never been fired from a job is probably someone who has not taken enough risks."
Schulman agreed with Lyne that "a lot of people in this room need to reinvent themselves."
"We have a failing industry that can't make money and hasn't tapped into digital marketing," she said of the entertainment business.
Lyne pointed out that it's easier for the TV businesses to become more digital in their outreach, given the ongoing connection viewers can build with shows. Lyne said the reason ABC program "Lost" succeeded was because, following the first season, creator J.J. Abrams engaged online in conversations about the show.
"When the show came back, it came back so much bigger and stronger," she said.
TheWrap's third-annual Power Women breakfast also included a charity auction that raised money for Girl Up, a campaign supporting United Nations programs that promote education for girls in developing countries and in disadvantaged locations in the United States.
The event was sponsored by Women in Film, the newly renovated Hotel Bel-Air and Screen Shop.
Plus, the Wolf Pack is back, a Mossad film is Certified Fresh, and this mission just got a hell of a lot more impossibler.
This week on home video, we've got a handful of big releases that came out earlier this year; while a couple of them did surprisingly well, a couple of them fell far below expectations, and another one pretty much turned out the way we all thought it would. First up is the Emma Stone and Viola Davis-powered drama about race relations, followed by a sci-fi genre mash-up that should have been better than it was. Then, we've got a children's film starring Jim Carrey, a smart retro spy thriller, and the sequel to a wildly popular comedy from a couple years back. In the reissue department, we've got a new Criterion Blu-ray for a Hitchcock classic, a popular franchise box set, and a Blu-ray for an historical WWII epic. See below for the full list!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The United States voiced "serious concerns" about Russia's parliamentary elections on Monday and called for a full investigation of what it said were credible reports of fraud.
"We have serious concerns about the conduct of those ... elections," White House spokesman Jay Carney said at a news briefing.
Several thousand people protested in Moscow against the election, which has been condemned by European monitors.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's party lost some of its dominance in the 450-seat Duma, where it was set to see its majority decline to 238 seats from 315 in the parliament, according to early forecasts.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has sought to consolidate improvements in sometimes strained U.S. ties with Moscow after a "reset" early in the Obama administration, said the United States was concerned by reports of stuffed ballot boxes, manipulated voter lists and other "troubling practices."
"Russian voters deserve a full investigation of all credible reports of electoral fraud and manipulation," Clinton said in Bonn, where she was attending an international conference on Afghanistan.
"The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted. And that means they deserve free, fair, transparent elections and leaders who are accountable to them. And we believe that that's in the best interests of Russia and we're going to continue to speak out about it."
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Moscow should fully investigate charges laid by monitors sent by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe electoral watchdog branch.
"The OSCE obviously has a follow-up mechanism in place to look at these as we go forward to see how they are addressed. That's the proper venue for that process," Toner told a news briefing.
"We believe that questions were raised by credible independent observers, and should be answered by an investigation."
He said the United States had spent more than $9 million on financial support and technical training for civil society groups before the election and would keep supporting those working to ensure free, fair and transparent electoral processes.
The Obama administration has repeatedly praised the results of the so-called reset in Russia ties, saying it had won progress on issues ranging from cutting nuclear arms to pressuring Tehran on its nuclear program.
But plans by Putin, known for his anti-U.S. rhetoric, to return to the presidency have raised concerns and the two sides are at odds over U.S. plans to set up an anti-ballistic missile shield to defend Europe against potential threats from Iran.
(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Arshad Mohammed and Andrew Quinn; editing by Christopher Wilson)
If a fat tax is coming, here's how to make it efficient, effective: ISU economistsPublic release date: 2-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dan Kuester kuester@iastate.edu 515-294-0704 Iowa State University
AMES, Iowa A 'sin tax' applied to sweetened goods on store shelves is not the most efficient, effective method of lowering caloric intake from sweet food and would be more disruptive to consumers than necessary, according to Iowa State University research.
With a national debate taking shape about the possibility of a national tax on foods with high sweetener content, ISU economists have examined how such a tax would best be applied.
Rather than assessing a tax on these sugary goods as they are taken through the grocery store checkout lines, the research shows that a better way is to tax the food processers on the amount of caloric sweeteners, such as corn syrup and sugar added in processing before the product hits the shelves.
The economists, John Beghin and Helen Jensen, both professors in the Department of Economics, are quick to point out that they are not advocating for or against any tax, but simply researching how and where a possible sweetener tax would be most effective.
"We are not saying. 'To resolve obesity, here is what you should do,'" said Beghin. "In that sense, we are not advocating anything. We are saying, 'Given that you are considering a panoply of tax instruments, and there is a possibility of a soda tax, is there a better way to use that idea?'"
"This is motivated," added Jensen, "by a lot of ideas out there that say we could tax sweetened products. We wanted to see what the effect of such a tax would be and, alternatively, if you imposed a tax on ingredients, what would be the effect of that."
The research, published in the journal Contemporary Economic Policy, shows that if the goal of a sin tax on sweeteners is to reduce calories consumed, lawmakers should consider taxing the inputs instead of the final product.
Assessing the tax at the processing stage allows food processors to reduce the amount of sweeteners they put into their products. Processors will also have incentives to use more of the lesser-taxed artificial sweeteners, and less of the higher-taxed sweeteners that are heavy in sugary products.
These solutions would also raise the price at the store less than a direct tax on the end product, while reducing the calories attributable to the sweetener, according to the study.
"Taxing the processing ingredients makes more sense when compared with taxing the end product," said Beghin. "You can abate the same number of calories without having consumers face such high prices."
Any new tax on sweeteners, even the tax on food inputs proposed by the study, will cause prices to go up. One drawback of any tax on sweetened goods is the regressive nature of that tax.
In economic terms, regressive taxes are those that impact poorer economic groups more than higher ones.
"Since much of these (sweeter) goods are consumed by poorer economic groups," said Beghin, "you may be increasing the cost of calories for poor people."
The study looks only at calories in food. The research does not make any claims about lowering obesity.
The United States' obesity rate has many factors, and the amount of calories consumed is only one, say the economists.
"We are not looking at health aspects," said Jensen. "Just the consumption of calories from sweetened goods and the disruption to the consumer."
The findings of the study fit generally accepted economic principles that say if you want to change a given behavior or economic decision, you should try to find a policy instrument that is closest to the behavior or decision, according to Beghin.
As part of the study, the two collected data from both government and private sources on industrial food inputs.
"We spent quite a bit of time assembling a data set based on published data on what inputs the food industry uses," said Jensen. "So we know that for all the different food sectors, how much sugar and corn syrup go into that industry group's food processing. You'd be amazed to see how much sweetener goes into food processing."
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
If a fat tax is coming, here's how to make it efficient, effective: ISU economistsPublic release date: 2-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dan Kuester kuester@iastate.edu 515-294-0704 Iowa State University
AMES, Iowa A 'sin tax' applied to sweetened goods on store shelves is not the most efficient, effective method of lowering caloric intake from sweet food and would be more disruptive to consumers than necessary, according to Iowa State University research.
With a national debate taking shape about the possibility of a national tax on foods with high sweetener content, ISU economists have examined how such a tax would best be applied.
Rather than assessing a tax on these sugary goods as they are taken through the grocery store checkout lines, the research shows that a better way is to tax the food processers on the amount of caloric sweeteners, such as corn syrup and sugar added in processing before the product hits the shelves.
The economists, John Beghin and Helen Jensen, both professors in the Department of Economics, are quick to point out that they are not advocating for or against any tax, but simply researching how and where a possible sweetener tax would be most effective.
"We are not saying. 'To resolve obesity, here is what you should do,'" said Beghin. "In that sense, we are not advocating anything. We are saying, 'Given that you are considering a panoply of tax instruments, and there is a possibility of a soda tax, is there a better way to use that idea?'"
"This is motivated," added Jensen, "by a lot of ideas out there that say we could tax sweetened products. We wanted to see what the effect of such a tax would be and, alternatively, if you imposed a tax on ingredients, what would be the effect of that."
The research, published in the journal Contemporary Economic Policy, shows that if the goal of a sin tax on sweeteners is to reduce calories consumed, lawmakers should consider taxing the inputs instead of the final product.
Assessing the tax at the processing stage allows food processors to reduce the amount of sweeteners they put into their products. Processors will also have incentives to use more of the lesser-taxed artificial sweeteners, and less of the higher-taxed sweeteners that are heavy in sugary products.
These solutions would also raise the price at the store less than a direct tax on the end product, while reducing the calories attributable to the sweetener, according to the study.
"Taxing the processing ingredients makes more sense when compared with taxing the end product," said Beghin. "You can abate the same number of calories without having consumers face such high prices."
Any new tax on sweeteners, even the tax on food inputs proposed by the study, will cause prices to go up. One drawback of any tax on sweetened goods is the regressive nature of that tax.
In economic terms, regressive taxes are those that impact poorer economic groups more than higher ones.
"Since much of these (sweeter) goods are consumed by poorer economic groups," said Beghin, "you may be increasing the cost of calories for poor people."
The study looks only at calories in food. The research does not make any claims about lowering obesity.
The United States' obesity rate has many factors, and the amount of calories consumed is only one, say the economists.
"We are not looking at health aspects," said Jensen. "Just the consumption of calories from sweetened goods and the disruption to the consumer."
The findings of the study fit generally accepted economic principles that say if you want to change a given behavior or economic decision, you should try to find a policy instrument that is closest to the behavior or decision, according to Beghin.
As part of the study, the two collected data from both government and private sources on industrial food inputs.
"We spent quite a bit of time assembling a data set based on published data on what inputs the food industry uses," said Jensen. "So we know that for all the different food sectors, how much sugar and corn syrup go into that industry group's food processing. You'd be amazed to see how much sweetener goes into food processing."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Government research says piracy not as harmful as industry claims.
Shaylin Clark via webpromews
The government of Switzerland has issued a statement declaring that it will not take action to alter current copyright laws allowing the downloading of music and movies for personal use. The statement is the result of a lengthy study conducted by the Swiss government into the impact of so-called ?piracy? on the entertainment industry.
The entertainment industry has been complaining in Switzerland ? as in the US and elsewhere ? that the unauthorized downloading of music and movies has harmed their business. The situation in Switzerland is somewhat unique, in that current copyright law considers the downloading of content for personal use as acceptable and legal. The entertainment industry has been lobbying the Swiss government to change the law. This study is the government?s response.
Despite the industry?s claims that downloading undermines their business, this study shows that the effect of unauthorized downloading on the industry?s bottom line is negligible. One key finding of the study is that downloaders spend as much if not more to acquire content legally as those who do not download. Researchers found no change in amount of disposable income spent on music and movies, despite the fact that roughly one third of Swiss people engage in some form of downloading. The government concluded, then, that no change to the current legal structure was necessary, and urged the entertainment industry to grow and adapt with the changes in technology and in consumer habits, rather than trying to suppress progress.
Switzerland?s findings are just the latest in a series of reports showing that the downloading of music and movies is far less harmful than the entertainment industry would have us believe. In July Douglas C. Merrill, formerly of Google and then EMI, one of the three main record labels, said in a keynote address that his research while at EMI showed that users of torrenting service LimeWire were among the best customers in the iTunes music store. Around the same time, Telepolis published a report (Google Translation) stating that users of the recently raided kino.to website tended to pay more at the box office than the average moviegoer. Meanwhile, another study conducted by Northwestern University (PDF) showed that users of peer-to-peer client software ? i.e., BitTorrent users ? bring in a substantial amount of money for the large ISPs.
A Google Translation of the Swiss press release may be found here. A PDF of the government study, which is in German, may be found here.
What do you think? Does downloading really harm the music and movie industries? Let us know in the comments.
AAA??Dec. 1, 2011?12:29 PM ET Queen Elizabeth II meets Yoko Ono in Liverpool AP
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, left, with Yoko Ono, right, during her visit to the Museum of Liverpool in Liverpool, England, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. With 8,000 meters of public space, the recently opened museum looks at Britain and the world through the eyes of Liverpool, with 6,000 objects showcasing the city's unique contribution to the world. Woman at center is unidentified. (AP Photo/Tim Hales-Pool)
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, left, with Yoko Ono, right, during her visit to the Museum of Liverpool in Liverpool, England, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. With 8,000 meters of public space, the recently opened museum looks at Britain and the world through the eyes of Liverpool, with 6,000 objects showcasing the city's unique contribution to the world. Woman at center is unidentified. (AP Photo/Tim Hales-Pool)
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, left, meets Yoko Ono, right, during their visit to the Museum of Liverpool in Liverpool, England, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. With 8,000 meters of public space, the recently opened museum looks at Britain and the world through the eyes of Liverpool, with 6,000 objects showcasing the city's unique contribution to the world. (AP Photo/Tim Hales-Pool)
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, second left, meets Yoko Ono, right, during their visit to the Museum of Liverpool in Liverpool, England, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. With 8,000 meters of public space, the recently opened museum looks at Britain and the world through the eyes of Liverpool, with 6,000 objects showcasing the city's unique contribution to the world. (AP Photo/Tim Hales-Pool)
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, left, meets Yoko Ono, right, during her visit to the Museum of Liverpool in Liverpool, England, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. With 8,000 meters of public space, the recently opened museum looks at Britain and the world through the eyes of Liverpool, with 6,000 objects showcasing the city's unique contribution to the world. (AP Photo/Tim Hales-Pool)
Yoko Ono waits to meet Britain's Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to the Museum of Liverpool in Liverpool, England, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. With 8,000 meters of public space, the recently opened museum looks at Britain and the world through the eyes of Liverpool, with 6,000 objects showcasing the city's unique contribution to the world. (AP Photo/Tim Hales-Pool)
LONDON (AP) ? Queen Elizabeth II has met Yoko Ono on a visit to the birthplace of The Beatles.
The British monarch chatted with Ono, widow of John Lennon, on a visit to the Museum of Liverpool in the northwest England port city where the Fab Four formed.
Ono said she was impressed by the queen's burgundy coat, dress and matching hat, saying it "made her look so young, so elegant. She is always elegant. It's always nice to meet her."
In honor of the queen's trip to Liverpool on Thursday, the band of the Coldstream Guards played a medley of Beatles songs during the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace in London.
It's the beginning of the month, so that means that the new numbers for just how many phones are running each version of Android have come out. Following the past trends, Gingerbread has seen even more growth, running over 50 percent of all Android devices that visit the Android Market. The legacy versions keep dropping as well, with Cupcake and Donut (Android 1.5 and 1.6 respectively) dropping to 2.1 percent of the total. We still don't see a very big uptick in Honeycomb, which has historically been a slower grower. With Ice Cream Sandwich now among us, this chart will be interesting to watch as we see which carriers and OEM's send out those timely updates.
NEW YORK ? Online music provider Spotify is adding free apps to its service to broaden its reach and expand what people can do with its vast trove of digital tunes.
Spotify Inc. said Wednesday that it is adding apps from Rolling Stone and Billboard magazines, Internet radio service Last.fm, and a slew of others. The Swedish company, which launched its service in the U.S. in July, is also letting developers build new Spotify apps, though it will vet each one.
At a launch event in New York City, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner called Spotify the "ultimate jukebox." With the apps, Spotify might be betting that it'll be more than that. That is, a music platform that people keep coming back to so they can share with friends, read reviews or find nearby concerts.
Spotify has 10 million active users, 2.5 million of whom pay for its service.
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Public release date: 5-Dec-2011
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