New book examines the changing landscape of marketing

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Contact: Ken McGuffin
mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
416-946-3818
University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management

Toronto The past decade has seen a number of developments that threaten the very fabric of how marketing activities have traditionally been conducted. On one hand, consumers are increasingly socially networked and value-conscious, with heightened expectations of how companies will react to their demands. Along with the challenges, however, come new opportunities: the growth of behavioural economics and the emergence of new data collection techniques, for instance, give marketers unprecedented access to previously hidden aspects of consumer behavior. Clearly, 'business as usual' is not an option for marketing managers who want their firms to stay in the game.

A new book, Flux: What Marketing Managers Need to Navigate the New Environment, helps managers adapt to the rapidly changing business environment. The book, published by Rotman-UTP Publishing, an imprint of University of Toronto Press in partnership with the Rotman School of Management, offers a collection of the very best thinking on key areas of marketing activity and decision-making.

Each chapter is written by a leading expert from Rotman School's award-winning marketing faculty in a specific 'new' marketing subject area, from managing brands to dealing with new media, and addresses substantive challenges in that area while providing steps for taking action.

"The landscape on which firms interact with customers is in a state of flux. In the last few years, we have seen dramatic changes in the manner in which this interaction takes place," says co-editor Prof. David Soberman, who holds the Canadian National Chair in Strategic Marketing at the Rotman School. "From the consumer's perspective, easy access to information has drastically changed the very nature of the purchasing behaviour. The traditional "store choice followed by brand choice" model has now given way to an "I know what I want and will seek it out" mentality, and in some cases even an "I know what I want and I'd like a seller who can help me customize it" mentality."

"As an academic institution, we value rigorous academic research that stands to the highest quality of the peer-reviewed journal publishing process. As a business school, we value research that is applicable research that informs the marketing manager in developing both short term tactics as well as longer-term strategies for keeping the consumer engaged," says co-editor Rotman Prof. Dilip Soman, who holds the Corus Chair in Communications Strategy. "Our colleagues at the Rotman School are leading experts in marketing academia and have been building a portfolio of research that addresses precisely this changing environment which is represented in this book."

Flux has already been critically acclaimed by leaders in the field of marketing.

Prof. Dan Ariely of the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University says that "Flux takes us on an eye opening journey through the changing and expanding world of marketing. Berkeley's Ganesh Iyer, a professor at the Haas School of Business, adds, "This is a brilliantly put together book and a deep analysis of the transformation of marketing from a traditional brand-building model to one of comprehensive consumer engagement."

"Flux is an excellent compendium that comprehensively covers the theory and practice of branding and marketing, drawing on the lessons of the past as well as analyzing how these functions should operate in the new world created by unprecedented global connectivity and access to information," says K.V. Kamath, Chairman of Infosys Ltd., and former Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank.

"If you respect the discipline of marketing, this is a book for you. If you have been at it for years, like me (cigarettes, beverages, cereals, soups & sauces and now media), you will appreciate why Soberman and Soman chose the title, "Flux". Marketing is like baseball. It's still the same...it's just evolved," says John Cassaday, President and CEO, Corus Entertainment. "If you are new to the marketing game, Flux will serve as a useful reference manual. All great marketers are insatiably curious. Flux stimulates your curiosity across a wide range of relevant marketing subject areas."

###

Further information on Flux is available at www.utppublishing.com/Flux-What-Marketing-Managers-Need-to-Navigate-the-New-Environment.html. It is now available from most leading book retailers.

Founded in 1901, the University of Toronto Press is Canada's oldest scholarly press and one of the largest university presses in North America, releasing over 150 new scholarly, reference, and general-interest books each year, as well as maintaining a backlist of over 1500 titles in print. For more information, visit www.utppublishing.com.

The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is redesigning business education for the 21st century with a curriculum based on Integrative Thinking. Located in the world's most diverse city, the Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables the design of creative business solutions. The School is currently raising $200 million to ensure Canada has the world-class business school it deserves. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

For more information:

Ken McGuffin
Manager, Media Relations
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
Voice 416.946.3818
E-mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Follow Rotman on Twitter @rotmanschool
Watch Rotman on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool


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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.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 9-Jan-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Ken McGuffin
mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
416-946-3818
University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management

Toronto The past decade has seen a number of developments that threaten the very fabric of how marketing activities have traditionally been conducted. On one hand, consumers are increasingly socially networked and value-conscious, with heightened expectations of how companies will react to their demands. Along with the challenges, however, come new opportunities: the growth of behavioural economics and the emergence of new data collection techniques, for instance, give marketers unprecedented access to previously hidden aspects of consumer behavior. Clearly, 'business as usual' is not an option for marketing managers who want their firms to stay in the game.

A new book, Flux: What Marketing Managers Need to Navigate the New Environment, helps managers adapt to the rapidly changing business environment. The book, published by Rotman-UTP Publishing, an imprint of University of Toronto Press in partnership with the Rotman School of Management, offers a collection of the very best thinking on key areas of marketing activity and decision-making.

Each chapter is written by a leading expert from Rotman School's award-winning marketing faculty in a specific 'new' marketing subject area, from managing brands to dealing with new media, and addresses substantive challenges in that area while providing steps for taking action.

"The landscape on which firms interact with customers is in a state of flux. In the last few years, we have seen dramatic changes in the manner in which this interaction takes place," says co-editor Prof. David Soberman, who holds the Canadian National Chair in Strategic Marketing at the Rotman School. "From the consumer's perspective, easy access to information has drastically changed the very nature of the purchasing behaviour. The traditional "store choice followed by brand choice" model has now given way to an "I know what I want and will seek it out" mentality, and in some cases even an "I know what I want and I'd like a seller who can help me customize it" mentality."

"As an academic institution, we value rigorous academic research that stands to the highest quality of the peer-reviewed journal publishing process. As a business school, we value research that is applicable research that informs the marketing manager in developing both short term tactics as well as longer-term strategies for keeping the consumer engaged," says co-editor Rotman Prof. Dilip Soman, who holds the Corus Chair in Communications Strategy. "Our colleagues at the Rotman School are leading experts in marketing academia and have been building a portfolio of research that addresses precisely this changing environment which is represented in this book."

Flux has already been critically acclaimed by leaders in the field of marketing.

Prof. Dan Ariely of the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University says that "Flux takes us on an eye opening journey through the changing and expanding world of marketing. Berkeley's Ganesh Iyer, a professor at the Haas School of Business, adds, "This is a brilliantly put together book and a deep analysis of the transformation of marketing from a traditional brand-building model to one of comprehensive consumer engagement."

"Flux is an excellent compendium that comprehensively covers the theory and practice of branding and marketing, drawing on the lessons of the past as well as analyzing how these functions should operate in the new world created by unprecedented global connectivity and access to information," says K.V. Kamath, Chairman of Infosys Ltd., and former Managing Director and CEO of ICICI Bank.

"If you respect the discipline of marketing, this is a book for you. If you have been at it for years, like me (cigarettes, beverages, cereals, soups & sauces and now media), you will appreciate why Soberman and Soman chose the title, "Flux". Marketing is like baseball. It's still the same...it's just evolved," says John Cassaday, President and CEO, Corus Entertainment. "If you are new to the marketing game, Flux will serve as a useful reference manual. All great marketers are insatiably curious. Flux stimulates your curiosity across a wide range of relevant marketing subject areas."

###

Further information on Flux is available at www.utppublishing.com/Flux-What-Marketing-Managers-Need-to-Navigate-the-New-Environment.html. It is now available from most leading book retailers.

Founded in 1901, the University of Toronto Press is Canada's oldest scholarly press and one of the largest university presses in North America, releasing over 150 new scholarly, reference, and general-interest books each year, as well as maintaining a backlist of over 1500 titles in print. For more information, visit www.utppublishing.com.

The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is redesigning business education for the 21st century with a curriculum based on Integrative Thinking. Located in the world's most diverse city, the Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables the design of creative business solutions. The School is currently raising $200 million to ensure Canada has the world-class business school it deserves. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

For more information:

Ken McGuffin
Manager, Media Relations
Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
Voice 416.946.3818
E-mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Follow Rotman on Twitter @rotmanschool
Watch Rotman on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

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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.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/uotr-nbe010913.php

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Fox: Passion, disagreements with new 'Idol' team

Keith Urban and Nicki Minaj from "American Idol" attend the Fox Winter TCA Tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel on Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision/AP)

Keith Urban and Nicki Minaj from "American Idol" attend the Fox Winter TCA Tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel on Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision/AP)

(AP) ? Five minutes into their season-opening news conference and the new team at "American Idol" were having their first disagreement ? about their disagreements. Then Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj kept it going.

"We're professionals. Have you ever had an argument with someone you've worked with?" Minaj said after repeated questions Tuesday about her reported feud with new fellow judge Carey.

"This was sort of one-sided," interjected Carey, wearing a queenly smile.

"No, it wasn't," snapped back Minaj.

Fox network executive Mike Darnell was asked by reporters with the Television Critics Association if the clash was authentic. He said there was a lot of musical passion within the group, which also includes country star Keith Urban and returning judge Randy Jackson, and that triggered disagreements.

"The fighting is what it is," Carey said at one point. "This is 'American Idol.' It's bigger than all that. It's bigger than some stupid trumped-up thing."

Reports that the two divas were at odds surfaced last fall. On "The View," Barbara Walters recounted a phone conversation with Carey in which the pop star said that Minaj threatened to shoot her after a taping. The rapper quickly responded with dismissive tweets.

Trumped up or not, she and Minaj appeared on the panel with Urban carefully placed between them and indulged in their briefly testy "one-sided" exchange. But they also responded to a request to say something nice about each other.

Minaj called Carey one of her favorite all-time artists who has shaped a generation of singers. In return, Carey fondly recalled working with Minaj on a single titled ? "ironically," as Carey noted ? "Up Out My Face."

"I knew she was going to go far, and still is," Carey said.

"American Idol" begins its 12th season Wednesday facing questions once again about its ability to endure as a top-rated show, especially given the increasingly crowded talent show landscape that includes NBC's hit "The Voice." All the shows are down in the ratings, Darnell noted.

Veteran executive producer Nigel Lythgoe is used to hearing the query. Famous judges have the pre-debut spotlight and media attention but the contestants ultimately are what keep viewers watching, he said after the panel.

That's not to say the panel isn't key, said Trish Kinane, another executive producer.

"We wanted judges who were experts and had a right to be here, and we also wanted honesty," she said. "We very much took that into consideration. I think we've got it. They're not shrinking violets, they say what they think, and we encourage that."

Minaj displayed that Tuesday, saying firmly that "Idol" is not the show for rap, her own genre.

"If you're looking for people to believe you and feed you as a rapper, I wouldn't do it," said Minaj, adding that viewers love "American Idol" as an "honest singing competition, and I'm not here to change that."

___

Online:

http://www.fox.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-01-08-TV-American%20Idol/id-cbfc9dcec89d4cddad948de8d71fd416

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How board games sum up the meaning of life through colorful cards ...

Nerd Curious is an occasional series in which Todd VanDerWerff tries the nerdy things he missed as a kid, either due to lack of access, time, or ability. He has a rough schedule planned out, but feel free to use the comments to suggest more nerd experiences he needs to have.

No matter how many times my nephew tries, he can?t save the world.

One by one, cities fall to the dreaded blue plague sweeping across North America and Europe. Paris. Essen. Toronto. Chicago. Atlanta, his home base. He moves personnel in and out of these cities, cleaning up disease, but also hemmed in by it.

And then South America explodes, as does Africa?with a completely different disease. And he?s out of time, out of chances to develop a vaccine, and out of cards. So he reverses time. Puts the cards back in the deck, lets the disease take over Europe again. He tries his best to stop the second disease before it pops up, but this time, the blue one starts to bubble up before an entirely different plague seizes hold of Asia. Again, he reverses, to give the world another chance.

He?s playing a board game called Pandemic. My wife and I introduced him to it, and the three of us have yet to win a game. He?s set up four different places around the board for himself and three imaginary players he controls, in that way of young boys who can?t get anybody else to join them for a game. The rest of us are busy watching a baseball game, but he goes back and forth in time, trying to stop the world from getting gobbled up by one of four different diseases. Every time, something new gets him. He runs out of cards, or there are too many outbreaks, and the situation spirals out of control.

Many of the so-called ?European-style? board games that have gained in popularity in the United States in the last two decades aim to simulate some complicated facet of life, be it train service, a power grid, or the settling of a new continent. But Pandemic does as good a job as anything I?ve ever seen of depicting how the world ends, how a small, isolated incident spirals outward until there?s nothing anyone can do to stop it?not even an 11-year-old boy with three imaginary cohorts. Winning Pandemic requires a lot of great strategizing, but it also requires a huge dose of luck. In its own way, it suggests that if, say, Ebola ever breaks out in the midst of civilization, we might as well just give up and hope for the best.

This time, the cities fall in the Middle East, where it?s very easy for the game to get out of hand quickly. (By comparison, if a plague spreads through South America, it?s relatively easy to contain because of the continent?s geographic isolation.) Baghdad and Tehran and Delhi all fall, and he just has the one piece there, trying to mop up. It fails. The world ends.

Back to start. Do not pass go.


The question I aim to answer with every Nerd Curious column is twofold: Why didn?t I get into a given nerd obsession before, and was it rewarding to get into it as an adult? But where the topics of Dungeons & Dragons and Superman offered plenty of opportunity to wax philosophical on the former question, European-style board games don?t. The reason I never got into them is simple: They?re ridiculously expensive. When I was a kid, Monopoly was between $10 and $20, and most American families already had a copy moldering somewhere. Games like Ticket To Ride are around $50. That isn?t awful?it?s roughly the same as a videogame, or taking a family of four to a movie-theater matinee, and it?s only a small fraction of my monthly cable bill. But the sticker shock is still there. Board games aren?t supposed to cost this much, right?

In addition, Euro-style games first started making serious inroads into the U.S. in the ?90s, which would have been precisely when I was paying the least attention to board games, what with going to high school and college. The European movement is so named because most of the designers and companies putting out the games are based in Europe, but that isn?t a prerequisite for the label. The main thing setting these games apart is the general aesthetic, and the sticker shock is a deliberate part of that. The games aim to occupy the void left between the extremely complicated war simulations and tabletop-miniatures games that only a handful of specialists play, and the kinds of board games everybody plays, the ones dragged out to entertain kids or drunk dinner-party guests. They?re lovingly crafted, often gifted with elaborate rules that take a while to explain (but become second nature as soon as players know them), and meant to feel of higher quality than, say, Clue.

Now that Euro-style games have been around for more than a decade, they?re making larger and larger inroads into American culture. Many of the most popular ones are readily available at department stores or bookstores, and Settlers Of Catan, especially, has become something of a crossover sensation. These sorts of games are still just outside the mainstream enough to be played by the nerds on The Big Bang Theory??but they?re popping up on TV shows like The Big Bang Theory. In a real way, they?re not just avoiding the ghettoization that plagues tabletop RPGs and comic books. They?re breaking free of that trap and heading into the aisles of Target, using the specialty game shops they used to exclusively occupy as a sort of farm system that weeds out too-complicated or poorly designed efforts, and lets the most accessible rise to the level of being considered by bored suburban soccer moms at Walmart, at least until they see that price tag.

My journey into the world of European-style board games began with two iPad apps. Board-game companies are increasingly flooding the iPad market because it?s a reliable form of promotion, and they can make a little money at it at the same time. Tablet players likely won?t just buy the initial app. If they get well and truly hooked, they?ll buy expansions and add-ons and new items. The trick is releasing a full enough game with the initial purchase that it invigorates players, while not making it so full that they feel bad about spending more for a new board to play on, or new complications to add into the mix.

One of these two apps is the best gateway drug for European-style board games I?ve seen: Ticket To Ride. An accurate representation of the game?s original U.S. map, the app boasts solid AI and plenty of expansions, including new challenges and additional maps to play on. At its heart, Ticket To Ride is a grand simulation of a race across the country (or Europe, or some other place), a game meant to boil down the 19th-century railroad craze into something enthralling and oddly beautiful. Players take cards that feature a route that must be completed with tiny train pieces, of which they have limited numbers. They trade in cards to use those pieces to link cities. Once any two cities are linked, the players receive points, and they?ll receive points for all completed routes in the endgame as well. Of all of the most popular European-style board games, it?s likely the simplest to pick up (though it takes a handful of games before players understand its intricacies), and when a game has the maximum of five players (particularly in real life), the boards become unexpectedly beautiful, with kaleidoscopes of colors running every which way and trains rushing to reach some hub city in competition with each other.

Designed by Alan R. Moon and originally published in Germany, Ticket To Ride is, on its best maps (particularly the European map), perhaps the best-executed Euro-game I?ve played. There?s a nearly perfect balance between strategy and luck, and the game finds ways of rewarding and punishing just about any strategy you over-rely on. Cutthroat players are forced to choose the exact moment they want to stab another player in the back. Built-in mechanisms ensure that point-chasers can eventually screw themselves over. The best board games offer unexpected thrills, a moment when the simulation becomes real and the player achieves an impressive kind of clarity, and there?s nothing like a Ticket To Ride game where a player realizes that, hey, even with only five trains left, they can hook Seattle to New York for a huge number of points. It?s simple enough for casual play and deep enough for someone who?s really into the robber-baron era being depicted.

The other app that rapidly sucked me into this world was Carcassonne, another German game from designer Klaus-J?rgen Wrede, yet one that tips more toward the abstract side of the board-game spectrum. In some ways, the iPad version of Carcassonne is better than the board-game version for newbies, if only because it features soothing music and takes care of all of the scoring. (This can be a very complicated game to score.) Yet there?s something exciting about the board-game version all the same, in that it?s the very definition of taking a formless space (a blank tabletop) and putting something there (in this case, a medieval city, built tile-by-tile by competing players). The more add-ons a given player purchases, the larger the joint creation becomes, allowing for additional points or different strategies.

It can take a while to pick up Carcassonne, but what it loses in instant accessibility, it makes up for in handsomeness. This might be the most beautiful of the games I?ve tried, on iPad or in reality, and the feeling of constructing something together with others is palpable, particularly as the game reaches its end, and there are fewer and fewer places to put that long, straight road tile. Some games sprawl all over the place, but the best, most competitive games tend to cluster, until it really does seem like players are building a city that?s stepped out of the past, and making it come to life would be as easy as simply stooping down to hear the church bells and squabbles in the market square.

Pull back far enough, and you can see the whole. Zoom out all the way, and it will all make sense. If you could just see everything that was happening, you could put things in a row and watch all of the dominos fall. To see everything that has ever happened, to understand every decision someone has ever made, that?s the way to perhaps understand yourself, why you do all the things that don?t make any sense, why you?re stuck in a relationship you hate or why you can?t break that bad habit or why you?re not happy anymore, for God?s sake.


The earliest known board game is senet, which was played by the ancient Egyptians. We have copies of boards and pieces dating back to 3500 B.C., and though nobody really knows how it was played, we have some guesses. Fittingly, the popularity of the game was tied into the Egyptian religion. Like all board games, it relied on a healthy amount of luck, and those players who were particularly successful were said to be blessed by the gods, as the Egyptian religion was heavily into determinism, the idea that everything you do is dictated by some god somewhere, flailing away at a papyrus scroll or a tapestry. Just as the pieces in a board game don?t control their actions, you don?t either, goes the thought. Whether it?s a god somewhere, or we?re all characters in a novel, or we?re just a collection of psychological tics we?ve been powerless to escape since we were toddlers, determinism says, ?Hey, you don?t really have control.? (Just another way around the one rule.) Successful senet players?and even those who weren?t, but wanted some sort of path through the afterlife?were buried with elaborately beautiful sets, the better to find the way forward through the mists after death.

We also have plenty of games that existed centuries ago, but are still played today. Forms of chess date back to at least the sixth century, and backgammon is almost as old as senet. Checkers and Parcheesi have similarly long histories, and Go, the Chinese game that?s found increased popularity in online settings, stretches back centuries as well. For the most part, these games seem to be increasingly abstract simulations of battleground tactics. It?s obvious how this relates to chess, but it?s a bit more unclear the further out you go. What battle, for instance, would have any relation to backgammon? Yet there is the idea of getting pieces to a safe space and making that space less safe for your opponent, warfare boiled down into colorful squares and tiny pieces.

The evolution of the board game, grossly oversimplified, follows these two tracks as well. Some games are rough simulations of some larger, more complicated thing. Other games are deliberate abstractions that bear no real relation to reality. Think about it in terms of the two most famous games the United States has produced, Monopoly and Scrabble. Monopoly, which emerged out of the weird snap that was the Roaring Twenties becoming the Great Depression, is a simplified simulation of the Atlantic City real-estate market, particularly if you play by the actual rules. (Monopoly has a reputation as this long, unwinnable game that eventually bores everybody playing it to tears, but if you play by the rules that come with the game, it?s relatively fast-paced. The house rules so many players use are what drag the thing out.) Scrabble, on the other hand, is just letters forming words in a formless void, with occasional squares granting extra points. It?s possible to argue this as a sort of crossword-puzzle simulation, but even that?s far more abstract than what Monopoly is trying to do.

All of these games are abstractions and simplifications, and there are many types of simulations and abstractions, sub-categories like war games (like Risk) or story games (like Clue) in the simulation category, or word games (like Boggle) or party games (like Apples To Apples) in the abstraction category. If I were forced to bring a definition to all of this, it would be this: Simulation board games attempt to bring chaos to order, while abstract board games attempt to bring order to chaos. Monopoly is a rigid space that becomes different every time through play. Scrabble is a formless void, and even if every game is different, the very act of playing installs a sort of order to its emptiness. Simulations start with certain fixed variables. Abstractions are often all variables.

In their own way, each form of board game is seeking the meaning of life.


Source: http://www.avclub.com/articles/how-board-games-sum-up-the-meaning-of-life-through,90583/

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Project Shield won't be sold at a loss, says NVIDIA

Project Shield won't sell at a loss, says NVIDIA

NVIDIA's Tegra 4 powered handheld looks a lot like a typical game console, but it isn't. You could say that its operating system sets it apart, or its knack for streaming PC games, but that's not it -- it's that Shield won't be sold at a loss. Although many consumer game devices eventually turn a profit, they often hit the market as a loss leader, herding gamers into a closed ecosystem and securing a revenue stream for the manufacturer -- every Nintendo, Xbox or PlayStation game made funnels a small licensing fee to the owner of the platform. NVIDIA, on the other hand, isn't a game company, it's a hardware manufacturer. "We'll make our money by selling the device to gamers," NVIDIA stated on the company blog, explaining how Sony and Nintendo do business. "This time-honored approach isn't one we're taking with Project Shield... ...our goal with it is to design and sell a truly great piece of hardware, one that fits comfortably in your hand, delights your eyes and blows out your ears." NVIDIA's still dancing around the subject of price, of course, but the message is clear: Shield is probably going to hit your pocketbook more like a tablet than a portable games console.

Filed under:

Comments

Source: NVIDIA

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/08/project-shield-wont-sell-at-a-loss/

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More than One Way to Skin a Cat: Real Estate Investing Strategy ...

There are as many strategies to make money in Real Estate as there are fish in the sea. From this ocean of possibility, I have found success concentrating on a small handful of tried-and-true methods. These Real Estate investing strategies offer countless avenues to generate revenue and build wealth.

MarketingReal Estate Investing Marketing Strategy

The first battle any investor faces is finding discounted properties. Marketing for motivated seller leads is the foundation of every successful investment blueprint.

This is the step where many new investors fail. Generating leads for discounted properties can be as simple as working with a good Realtor or as complex as a multifaceted marketing plan that saturates a targeted area. Regardless of your strategy, the key to success is consistency.

Eliminate ?Small Pipeline Syndrome.? Get more leads. More leads equals more options. More options equals better deals.

Processing Leads

Once the marketing machine is humming, the next step in the process is separating the wheat from the chaff. This begins when the leads start coming in.

If you are taking calls directly from a seller, get to the point as quickly as possible. Gather information about the seller?s situation (why are they selling?) and the property data you need to evaluate the property. You won?t have time to chit-chat about the weather if your marketing is working properly.

At this point it?s time to evaluate the properties themselves. Leads from Realtors and other lead sources are then added to the screened seller calls. Property evaluation includes pulling comparable sales, estimating construction costs and determining an exit strategy. Each piece of the evaluation is vital to determine the offer price.

Negotiating the DealReal Estate Investing

?If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.?
? Tom Watson, Professional Golfer

Make offers. Make a lot of offers, and make them low.

After you?ve determined your offer price, meet with the seller to make the offer. Remember that most offers will be declined. If you want more deals, make more offers. Do your best to meet the needs of the seller while still keeping to your numbers. You make money when you buy, not when you sell.

Exit Strategy

An exit strategy is a group of predetermined steps and processes prepared to generate a desired outcome. In the context of Real Estate investing, our desired outcome is income generation. When I am looking at a lead, my exit strategies include bird dogging, wholesaling, retailing and renting. It is very important to plan an exit strategy prior to moving into an investment. Each strategy carries different benefits and detriments.

Income Generation

Bird dogging is the process of finding a property and then handing the lead off to another investor. This strategy is used by a lot of new investors who have little or no money to invest. The benefits are a short compensation period (the time between finding the deal and getting paid) and low upfront expense. But the pay-off for bird dogging a deal will be much lower than other strategies. Typically the compensation will range from a few hundred to a thousand dollars.

Wholesaling is probably the most famous and attractive exit strategy for people getting started in Real Estate. To Real Estate Investing Rentalswholesale a property is to sign a contract to purchase with a seller at a negotiated price, and then to sell that contract to another investor. The process is an exchange of paper, not property. Wholesalers often never take ownership of the houses they contract, and they frequently do not have any money in the deal. The benefits of wholesaling are a fairly short compensation period of between 2-10 weeks. The wholesale fee for each transaction varies from a few to several thousand dollars (My first wholesale fee was over $30,000). The majority of the profits are forfeit in exchange for the shorter compensation period and lower risk.

Retailing deals yields the largest upfront profits. When retailing a property, a Real Estate investor will buy a property at a discount. They will often (but not always) make repairs and improvements to the house and then sell it to an end buyer planning to move into the property. While the rewards are larger when retailing, so are the risks. Incompetent contractors, soft markets or unforeseen costs can eat through profits. This strategy is for experienced investors.

I love rentals! They are great for long-term stability and building real wealth. I believe rentals should be part of every Real Estate investor?s portfolio. The benefits are many. First there?s the instant equity. If you buy right, your net worth will jump with every purchase. Second, there?s monthly cash flow. Even after paying the mortgage, budgeting for repairs and management, every month there?s money to put in your pocket. Third, there?s appreciation. The value of your asset will increase over time. As it does, there?s a tenant paying off the mortgage. Last, there are the tax advantages. From depreciation to write-off?s, rental properties offer the opportunity to decrease your tax rate.

Real Estate investing is a great way to generate income and build wealth. Like everything else in life, there?s more than one way to skin a cat. These tried-and-true strategies have stood the test of time. They?ve worked for me, and I?m sure they?ll work for you.

I?ve put together a series of video trainings detailing each section highlighted in this article for Insider Cash Club members. If you are interested in viewing these trainings, click here to get a 30-day Free Trial and get access to a ton of other great Real Estate investing training, information and tools.

Tags: featured, real estate investing, real estate investment strategy

Category: Economy and Markets, Investment Strategies, Lifestyle, Marketing and Advertising, Rehabbing, Wholesaling

Source: http://hardmoneybankers.com/real-estate/more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat-real-estate-investing-strategy/

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Beats, Pono, Mot?rheadph?nes: Is Celebrity the ... - O Music Awards

For years, pointy-headed freaks with golden ears have told everyone within earshot that MP3s, CDs, and just about every other popular format sounds like garbage. Instead, they say, we should all buy expensive headphones or speakers (which are the biggest factor in sound quality), and then seek out the hardest-to-use, best-sounding audio format we can find for a particular piece of music, be that SuperAudio CD, DVD Audio, any of several lossless formats, or even that rarest bird of all, the better-than-CD quality digital file.

Nobody heeds their pointy-headed advice, which is why A) most of us listen on poor-sounding headphones and speakers B) so much music sounds so dynamically compressed, and C) some producers are actually mixing their music to sound good on a little cellphone speaker.

However, maybe celebrities can change our minds about sound quality. Here?s how some of them are trying.

1. Beats by Dre, MOG

beats_by_dre

Say what you will about their bass-heaviness and their price, but Beats by Dre made it as cool to wear good-sounding headphones as the white headphone cord in Apple?s iconic advertisements. Beats is everywhere, and its headphones are big business ? so much that it was able to buy MOG, a music services that prides itself on streaming everything at 320 Kbps, which is the highest bit rate of compressed audio.

Just when it seemed like nobody cared about sound quality anymore, Beats By Dre stunned the world by selling above-$100 headphones to seemingly half the music fans on the New York subway system, and people all over the world for that matter. After HTC bought 51 percent Beats last year, Dre earned a cool $100 million in pre-tax earnings, making him Forbes? ?cash king? of hip hop. Beats acquired MOG in part because it just had too much money not to, and in part, we think, to build out a music-service-t0-headphones music ecosystem with an emphasis on sound quality.

Who said great sound is just for vinyl dorks? Beats by Dre, whose motto is ?leading the revolt against inferior sound,? begs to differ.

2. Neil Young and Pono

neil young pono

We?ve been all over Neil Young?s 21st Digital Pono initiative, with no fewer than nine articles on the topic, even though it hasn?t come out yet. We know it?s a hardware player, a high-resolution audio format (probably 24-bit, 192 kHz), most likely with some sort of Pono music store or other distribution mechanism, and that the team behind it is approaching clubs in the hope that they?ll use it to upgrade their sound systems.

At the core of Pono is Neil Young?s feeling that the kids of today ? originally, one young woman that Neil saw walking down the street ? are suffering due to listening to compressed music coming through shoddy headphones. Nevermind the music itself, although doubtless Neil has opinions about that too; the music ecosystem is under-delivering that music, in terms of sound quality, and Young wants Pono to fix that.

3. Mot?rheadph?nes? Yes, They Really Are Called That

motorheadphones

Following Dr. Dre?s lead, none other than Mot?rhead plans to show off its own headphones, the aptly-titled Mot?rheadph?nes, at CES this week ? ?from the loudest band in the world to your ears.? Made by the Swedish manufacturer Krusell, Mot?rheadph?nes (and earph?nes) look quite durable indeed. But their main selling point is sound quality. Designed to be ?for rockers by rockers,? Mot?rhead?s Krusell headphones could do for rock what Beats purports to do for hip-hop and electronic music.


4. MP4SLS?s Orastream: CSN, Creedence, Jackson Browne, etc.

orastream

It only makes sense to send high-resolution (i.e. better-than-CD-quality sound) to devices that can handle it, which today?s tablets, smartphones, and most computers cannot. However, it is possible to adapt the bit rate of digital audio to extract every iota of audio quality out of an internet connection and whatever hardware is attached to it, which is the strategy employed by the Singapore-based Orastream.

So far, the company says, Crosby Stills and Nash, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Jackson Browne have committed to releasing music apps that run on the platform (CSN?s is already out), which could surely benefit from some big name endorsements. It?s also working on a white-label music service, so we might see Orastream surface in a subscription format at some point, too.


It?s a Trend

By the official rules of journalism, celebrity-backed sound quality is now a trend. Technically, you only need three examples to call something a trend.

So, will celebrities convince people that it?s worth jumping through extra hoops and maybe even spending more money in return for high-end sound quality, where the pointy-headed, golden-eared audiophiles have failed? If Justin Bieber ordered his ?beliebers? to buy nice headphones, top-notch speakers, and high-resolution downloads in the name of his music, would it change the world?

We can always hope.

If it works, and we all start buying hardware that puts an emphasis on sound quality, perhaps that will convince more people that music itself is worth paying for too.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr/TonyFelgueiras)

Source: http://blog.omusicawards.com/2013/01/beats-pono-motorheadphones-is-celebrity-the-key-to-high-end-digital-audio/

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NASA's Kepler discovers 461 new planet candidates

Jan. 7, 2013 ? NASA's Kepler mission Monday announced the discovery of 461 new planet candidates. Four of the potential new planets are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their sun's "habitable zone," the region in the planetary system where liquid water might exist on the surface of a planet.

Based on observations conducted from May 2009 to March 2011, the findings show a steady increase in the number of smaller-size planet candidates and the number of stars with more than one candidate.

"There is no better way to kick off the start of the Kepler extended mission than to discover more possible outposts on the frontier of potentially life-bearing worlds," said Christopher Burke, Kepler scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who is leading the analysis.

Since the last Kepler catalog was released in February 2012, the number of candidates discovered in the Kepler data has increased by 20 percent and now totals 2,740 potential planets orbiting 2,036 stars. The most dramatic increases are seen in the number of Earth-size and super Earth-size candidates discovered, which grew by 43 and 21 percent respectively.

The new data increase the number of stars discovered to have more than one planet candidate from 365 to 467. Today, 43 percent of Kepler's planet candidates are observed to have neighbor planets.

"The large number of multi-candidate systems being found by Kepler implies that a substantial fraction of exoplanets reside in flat multi-planet systems," said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "This is consistent with what we know about our own planetary neighborhood."

The Kepler space telescope identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change in brightness of more than 150,000 stars in search of planets that pass in front of, or "transit," their host star. At least three transits are required to verify a signal as a potential planet.

Scientists analyzed more than 13,000 transit-like signals to eliminate known spacecraft instrumentation and astrophysical false positives, phenomena that masquerade as planetary candidates, to identify the potential new planets.

Candidates require additional follow-up observations and analyses to be confirmed as planets. At the beginning of 2012, 33 candidates in the Kepler data had been confirmed as planets. Today, there are 105.

"The analysis of increasingly longer time periods of Kepler data uncovers smaller planets in longer period orbits-- orbital periods similar to Earth's," said Steve Howell, Kepler mission project scientist at Ames. "It is no longer a question of will we find a true Earth analogue, but a question of when."

The complete list of Kepler planet candidates is available in an interactive table at the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The archive is funded by NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program to collect and make public data to support the search for and characterization of exoplanets and their host stars.

Ames manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with JPL at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes the Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

JPL manages NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program. The NASA Exoplanet Archive is hosted at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology.

For information about the NASA Exoplanet Archive, visit: http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/index.html .

For information about the Kepler mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler .

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/astronomy/~3/q42s5tOunsw/130107143111.htm

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BestThinking / Thinkers / Arts & Entertainment / Literature / Fiction ...

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Source: http://dismissible-used.blogspot.com/2013/01/bestthinking-thinkers-arts.html

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Egypt shakes up Cabinet, appoints 10 new ministers

CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt swore in 10 new ministers on Sunday in a Cabinet shake-up aimed at improving the government's handling of the country's ailing economy ahead of talks this week with the International Monetary Fund over a badly needed $4.8 billion loan.

The reshuffle, which President Mohammed Morsi had promised in response to public anger over Egypt's economic malaise, affected two key ministries, the interior and finance. It also solidified Islamist control of the government, putting three portfolios in the hands of members of the president's Muslim Brotherhood.

The dire state of Egypt's economy was punctuated Sunday by new central bank figures that put December's foreign currency reserves at $15.01 billion, down $26 million from a month earlier. The reserves have dropped by more than half since the uprising that ousted longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

The central bank said last month that current reserve levels represent a "critical minimum."

Morsi met with the new ministers after their swearing-in ceremony at the presidential palace in Cairo where they discussed ways to revive tourism and attract foreign investors, a presidential official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Prime Minister Hesham Kandil, meanwhile, said he stressed in his first meeting with the new ministers the need for immediate action to stabilize the economy.

At the heart of those efforts lies the $4.8 billion loan that Egypt has requested from the IMF. Cairo says the funds are needed to bolster confidence in the country's economy and attract foreign investors.

Egypt asked the IMF for a delay in the talks on the loan after a wave of political turmoil erupted in December over a contentious new constitution. Mass protests and street violence tied to the constitution dealt yet another blow to major foreign currency earners, including tourism and foreign investment.

The unrest also sparked a rush on U.S. dollars by worried residents and led to a drop in the Egyptian pound, which shed nearly four percent of its value against the dollar over the past two weeks.

The opposition, a coalition of liberal, secular-leaning, and leftist groups, was not offered any seats in the new Cabinet and has said that any government shake-up that doesn't replace Kandil falls short of what is needed.

The two most important changes affect the finance and interior ministries.

El-Morsi Hegazy, a professor of public finance at Alexandria University, takes over the Finance Ministry, replacing Mumtaz el-Said, who was appointed by the country's transitional military rulers and widely viewed as being at odds with the Brotherhood.

Mohammed Ibrahim, meanwhile, will lead the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for the police force. He previously was in charge of prisons and prior to that was director of security in the province of Assiut, which has a large Coptic Christian population and has also been home to a number of Islamic militant groups.

Ibrahim said his priorities will be to fight a rising wave of crime and restore stability to Egypt.

"We will strike with an iron fist against anyone that threatens the security of the nation and Egyptians," Ibrahim told the state news agency, pledging to clamp down on cross-border weapons smuggling. Egypt has been flush with weapons smuggled from Libya and Sudan.

Three of the new ministers are from the Brotherhood, according to the spokesman for the group's Freedom and Justice Party, Ahmed Subaie. They take over the ministries of transportation, local development and supply and interior trade, giving the Brotherhood a total of eight Cabinet posts.

Also included in the reshuffle were the ministries of civil aviation, environment, electricity, communication and parliamentary affairs.

Karim Ennarah, a researcher on police and security reforms at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the previous interior minister, Ahmed Gamal Eddin, was likely replaced because Brotherhood leaders were upset with the police's handling of attacks against the group's offices and supporters during clashes with the opposition last month over the constitution.

"It seems like it is a clash of egos. It's obviously not a reform of any kind," Ennarah said.

With the new Cabinet set, Kandil told reporters he will meet with IMF officials Monday "to reassure them about Egypt's situation and economic recovery in the coming period."

An IMF statement said the purpose of the visit is "to discuss with the authorities the most recent economic developments, their policy plans for addressing Egypt's economic and financial challenges, and possible IMF support for Egypt in facing these challenges."

Egyptian officials have said that the country's budget deficit is likely to reach 200 billion Egyptian pounds ($31.5 billion) by mid-2013.

The implementation of austerity measures, many of which are believed to be linked to conditions attached to the IMF loan, was also delayed last month due to the political situation.

Kandil's government is expected to announce tax hikes and cuts in subsidies soon. Talk of restructuring the current system is sensitive in a nation where nearly half of its 85 million people live just at or below the poverty line of $2 per person a day.

___

Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-shakes-cabinet-appoints-10-ministers-162819275--finance.html

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'Downton Abbey' recap: A wedding and changing times ( video)

'Downton Abbey' returned for its third season, and things were ? of course ? not all well in the world of the aristocrats and the servants. The new season of 'Downton Abbey' kicked off with a super-sized two-hour episode.

By Molly Driscoll,?Staff Writer / January 7, 2013

'Downton Abbey' stars Maggie Smith (l.) and Shirley MacLaine (r.).

Nick Briggs/PBS/AP

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Did you remember that ?Downton Abbey? is now taking place in the 1920s? Because if not, the characters saw fit to mention it at least half a dozen times. It?s the 1920s and women?s hairstyles have changed (middle Crawley sister Edith fixed her hair a different way to try to catch the attention of neighbor Sir Anthony Strallan), etiquette is loosened (Mary?s fianc? ? now husband ? Matthew pointed out that it didn?t matter as much as it did before the war if he didn?t go down to dinner in the right shirt), and morals are looser (one American maid used the new decade as an excuse to kiss the valet she had a crush on).

Skip to next paragraph Molly Driscoll

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Molly Driscoll is a Books and the Culture staff writer.

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'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // --> Behind the scenes at Downton Abbey

?Downton Abbey? returned for a third season with a super-sized two-hour episode, which opened with will-they-or-won?t-they couple Matthew and Mary, who became engaged in the season two finale, standing in a church. Don?t get too excited yet ? this was just a rehearsal. It was the spring after the Christmas celebration at which we?d left the ?Downton? masters and servants, and the wedding was coming soon, but Mary was disappointed because her sister Sybil, living in Ireland and married to their former chauffeur Tom, had written to say she couldn?t afford to come for the wedding. Mary and Sybil?s father Robert, the Earl of Grantham, was still getting used to the idea of a chauffeur as a son-in-law and didn?t seem to entirely mind that the newly married couple would have to stay away for the festivities.

Matthew?s mother Isobel felt that the entire thing was silly and seemed to be on the verge of sending Sybil the money herself. ?I suppose you agree with Robert,? she commented to Robert?s mother Violet. ?Then not for the first time, you suppose wrongly,? Violet snapped. Yay for Maggie Smith being back as the sharp-tongued Dowager Countess!

But soon, pregnant Sybil and her husband Tom arrived. "Please tell me you sent the money," Sybil says to her father, Robert, but he was nonplussed; he?d done no such thing. (In a truly touching later development, it was revealed that Violet had sent the money to enable them to make the trip.)

But not everyone was happy Tom was there, and during one dinner, a snobby neighbor named Larry Grey slipped something into Tom?s drink that made the Irishman act drunk and start loudly spouting his politics. When caught, Larry couldn?t see what the fuss was all about. ?He?s only a grubby little chauffeur,? he remarked. Robert, Larry?s father, Lord Merton, and Matthew all stood simultaneously, ready to defend Tom, but it was Matthew who went over to Tom and announced that his future brother-in-law would be his best man as well.

And even more drama was brewing before the actual wedding between Matthew and Mary could take place. Robert went up to London to look into financial matters and discovered that railway investments he?d made before the war had gone badly and wiped out most of his wife Cora?s fortune. If something didn?t happen to save them, the Crawley family would have to give up Downton Abbey.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/FvCgFtW94Y0/Downton-Abbey-recap-A-wedding-and-changing-times-video

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