Big California wildfires burn on as death toll reaches 7

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters battling three massive wildfires in Northern California got a break from the weather early Monday as humidity rose and there was no return of the onslaught of lightning strikes that ignited the infernos a week earlier.

The region surrounding San Francisco Bay remained under extreme fire danger until late afternoon amid the possibility of of lightning and gusty winds, but fire commanders said the weather had aided their efforts so far.

“Mother Nature’s helped us quite a bit,” said Billy See, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection incident commander for a complex of fires burning south of San Francisco.

The three big fires around the Bay Area and many others burning across the state have put nearly 250,000 people under evacuation orders and warnings and authorities renewed warnings for anxious homeowners to stay away from the evacuation zones.

Six people who returned to a restricted area south of San Francisco to check on their properties were surprised by fire and had to be rescued, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office said.

The death toll from the fires reached 7 over the weekend after authorities battling a big fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco announced the discovery of the body of a 70-year-old man in a remote area called Last Chance.

He had been reported missing and police had to use a helicopter to reach the area of about 40 off-the-grid homes at the end of a windy, steep dirt road north of the city of Santa Cruz.

The area was under an evacuation order and Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Chris Clark said the discovery of the man’s body was a reminder of how important it was for residents to evacuate from fire danger zones.

“This is one of the darkest periods we’ve been in with this fire,” he said.

California over the last week has been hit by 650 wildfires across the state, many sparked by more than 12,000 lighting strikes recorded since Aug. 15. There are 14,000 firefighters, 2,400 engines and 95 aircraft battling the fires.

The Santa Cruz fire is one of three “complexes,” or groups of fires, burning on all sides of the San Francisco Bay Area. All were started by lightning.

Fire crew made slow progress battling the blazes over the weekend, which included a break in the unseasonably warm weather and little wind.

But the National Weather Service issued a “red flag” warning through Monday afternoon for the drought-stricken area, meaning extremely dangerous fire conditions exist, including high temperatures, low humidity, lightning and wind gusts up to 65 mph (105 kph) that officials said “may result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behavior.”

A fire in wine country north of San Francisco and another southeast of the city have within a week have grown to be two of the three largest fires in state history, with both burning more than 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers).

The wine country fire has been the most deadly and destructive blaze, accounting for five deaths and 845 destroyed homes and other buildings. Three of the victims were in a home that was under an evacuation order.

Officials surveying maps at command centers are astonished by the sheer size of the fires, said Cal Fire spokesman Brice Bennett.

“You could overlay half of one of these fires and it covers the entire city of San Francisco,” Bennett said Sunday.

In Southern California, an 11-day-old blaze held steady at just under 50 square miles (106 square kilometers) near Lake Hughes in the northern Los Angeles County mountains. Rough terrain, hot weather and the potential for thunderstorms with lightning strikes challenged firefighters on Sunday.

Authorities said their firefighting effort in Santa Cruz was hindered by people who refused to evacuate and those who were using the chaos to loot. Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart said 100 officers were patrolling and anyone not authorized to be in an evacuation zone would be arrested.

“What we’re hearing from the community is that there’s a lot of looting going on,” Hart said.

He and county District Attorney Jeff Rosell expressed anger at what Rosell called the “absolutely soulless” criminals victimizing people already victimized by the fire. Among them was a fire commander who was robbed when he left his fire vehicle to help direct operations.

Someone entered the vehicle and stole personal items, including a wallet and “drained his bank account,” said Chief Mark Brunton, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“I can’t imagine a bigger lowlife,” Hart said.

Holly Hansen, who fled the wine country fire, was among evacuees from the community of Angwin allowed Sunday to return home for one hour to retrieve belongings. She and her three dogs waited five hours in her SUV for their turn. Among the items she took with her were photos of her pets.

“It’s horrible when you have to think about what to take,” she said. “I think it’s a very raw human base emotion to have fear of fire and losing everything. It’s frightening.”

Associated Press

UPS shooting leaves 4, including gunman, dead in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO — A UPS driver armed with a handgun opened fire at a United Parcel Service Inc. package-sorting center in San Francisco on Wednesday, killing three people before fatally shooting himself as officers closed in.

The victims, like the gunman, were also company drivers, said Steve Gaut, head of investor relations at UPS. The man opened fire while the workers were gathered for their daily morning meeting before they were due to head out on their delivery routes, he added.

Two other people were taken to an area hospital with gunshot wounds, San Francisco police said. Authorities did not immediately identify the gunman or the victims.

Police offered no explanation as to a possible motive for the shooting. But Assistant Police Chief Toney Chaplin told a news conference the shooting was not an act of terrorism.

Police recovered two firearms from the UPS facility, including the murder weapon, which they described as an “assault pistol.”

The UPS facility, which employs about 350 workers in the city’s Potrero Hill area, was initially placed under a security lockdown as a precaution.

The gun violence there erupted hours after another, unrelated mass shooting at a charity baseball practice in the suburbs of the nation’s capital left a congressman and several others wounded before the assailant was killed by police.

“We are always saddened by the loss of life to gun violence. Any shooting is one shooting too many,” San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said on Twitter.

Gaut said the facility’s employees were dismissed from work once the lockdown was lifted and that most had since left the building. The company is providing trauma and grief counseling.

Video footage from the scene showed a massive police presence near the facility, with workers being escorted outside and embracing one another on the sidewalk.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with all those touched by this incident,” UPS said in a statement. A similar statement of condolence was issued by James Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union that represents UPS workers.

The San Francisco bloodshed came three years after a UPS employee shot and killed two of his supervisors before turning the gun on himself at a UPS distribution center in Birmingham, Alabama. That gunman had recently been fired from the facility.

The deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history occurred in June 2016 when a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State militant group killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Gun laws in the United States rank among the most permissive of any developed country, with the right to “keep and bear arms” enshrined in the Constitution’s Second Amendment. Efforts to tighten national gun control measures failed after mass shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 and the nightclub shooting in Orlando.

source: interaksyon.com

Apple sets stage for iPhone 7, many already waiting for 8

SAN FRANCISCO — The iPhone 7 is expected to make its global debut on Wednesday, but many consumers and investors are already setting their sights on Apple Inc’s 2017 version of the popular gadget, hoping for more significant advances.

At its annual product launch in San Francisco on Wednesday, the world’s most valuable publicly traded company is expected by blogs and analysts to reveal an iPhone without a headphone jack, paving the way for wireless headphones, a touch-sensitive home button that vibrates, double-lens cameras for the larger ‘Plus’ edition and other incremental improvements.

Apple typically gives its main product, which accounts for more than half of its revenue, a big makeover every other year and the last major redesign was the iPhone 6, in 2014. The modest updates suggest that this cycle will be three years.

“It looks like part of the reason they are keeping the design the same this year is there are bigger changes they are working on for next year,” said analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research.

Sales of the iPhone dropped two quarters in a row this year, the first declines in the history of the device. With many consumers who purchased the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus due for an upgrade, Apple may eke out single-digit gains in sales for the 7, Dawson said.

But some consumer technology sites are advising users to hold off on upgrading until the next year’s version, which will mark the 10-year anniversary of the iPhone.

Analysts say the iPhone 8 may feature a wider display that reaches from one edge of the device to the other and a home button integrated into the screen.

Wall Street is impatient for growth, and Apple will be hard-pressed to reverse the downward trend this year, said Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Partners.

“The iPhone 7 runs the risk of disappointing investors,” he said.

Consumers are waiting longer before replacing their phones, a shift that Apple must address in its product roadmap, said analyst Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies.

Analysts predict the Apple Watch will be the second closely watched feature of the event. Apple is expected to revamp the wearable, released last year, with a faster processor and a GPS chip, enabling users to track runs and other workouts without their phones. Most analysts believe sales of Apple’s watch – which the company has not disclosed – have not yet justified the fanfare.

Starting at $299, well above many other wearables on the market, the most meaningful change Apple can make is a price cut, Bajarin said.

“This category is very price sensitive,” he said. Apple is “not there yet.”

source: interaksyon.com

Tech, beauty intersect in Silicon Valley

SAN FRANCISCO, California — The beauty industry has long relied on creating a sense of mystery, magic even, around its creams, powders and potions. But now it has something else up its sleeve: high technology.

French cosmetics giant L’Oreal has opened a “tech incubator” employing two dozen people in San Francisco and elsewhere seeking ways to use big data and algorithms to win the hearts and minds of customers.

It may involve analyzing large data sets to find the right color for nail polish, or patches that measure absorption of ultraviolet radiation — or using technology to spot emerging beauty trends ahead of the curve.

The French group is hoping that Silicon Valley’s talents can help it improve its products and connect better with customers.

Guive Balooch, who heads the San Francisco incubator, said he sees how these kinds of analytics and other technologies can help improve beauty products.

One of the innovations from the team has resulted in the L’Oreal Lancome brand developing an individualized makeup foundation, known as “Le Teint Particulier.”

This system, now used in some retail outlets, scans a person’s skin and uses an algorithm that designs a custom-blended product based on skin tone. The system was developed by California startup Sayuki, which L’Oreal bought in 2014.

L’Oreal’s team also created the Makeup Genius application which uses virtual reality to allow people to try various makeup schemes on their smartphone. It has been downloaded some 20 million times.

The cosmetics giant also worked with California Organovo for “bioprinting,” creating three-dimensional human tissue to test its cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and with PCH Lime Lab, a San Francisco design and engineering firm on the patch that sticks to one’s skin and changes color with exposure to sun rays.

Hair tech

The L’Oreal team also hopes one day to have a Genius app on hair color, which could help another key product line, if it can overcome technical challenges.

“Hair color is very complex, because you have 100,000 fibers on average in your hair, on your head, and they’re all moving in different directions,” Balooch said.

L’Oreal wants to stay on top of trends, and the data analytics team can play an important role, says Balooch.

“We do know from anonymous data what colors people are trying all around the world, we know what products they’re trying, we know how long they’re using them before trying something else,” Balooch said.

Being aware of new trends is also critical for marketing efforts. L’Oreal is working with Google, with whom it has an online advertising deal, to help better understand fashion trends by studying search queries.

This could allow L’Oreal to place ads better based on keywords, according to its digital strategist Axel Adida.

Adida said it is important “to be on point with the latest fashion that comes up on the street.”

“The thing which is very cool when you work with Google, it’s a sort of beauty insight center,” he added.

“So the things that come up and that pop up as a novelty, the new fashion and beauty, a lot of it is being searched very early. You see little things moving in the trends — and you end up with something as big as smoky eyes.”

source: interaksyon.com

Tech world waits for iPhone news and hopes for magic

SAN FRANCISCO — The tech world on Wednesday will have its eyes on Apple, expecting new versions of the company’s coveted iPhone but hoping for magic in the form of unexpected innovation.

Apple remained mum even as rumors ran rampant about what is in store at an upcoming San Francisco media event.

Analysts and industry insiders predict that Apple will unveil updated iPhones along with an Apple TV revamp that may signal a push into the online television streaming sector, dominated by Netflix.

In trademark enigmatic style, Apple has provided little more than the time and place of the event.

An update to the iPhone lineup is considered a sure thing, since the company has a pattern of doing just that every September.

Improvements are expected to include faster processing and better cameras.

New iPhone models might also feature the “force touch” technology used in the Apple Watch, which allows a user to control a device based on how hard the screen is pressed.

The iPhone remains a hot seller, accounting for the bulk of Apple’s revenue, but upgrades are needed to keep iPhone “at the top of the heap” in the competitive smartphone market, according to Gartner analyst Van Baker.

Apple consistently entices the market with tricked-out new iPhones in time for the crucial year-end holiday shopping season.



Apple TV tuned


Another expected star at the event could be Apple TV, which may get an App Store open to outside developers and perhaps focus on game-play, in a challenge to video game consoles.

The third-generation Apple TV was introduced slightly more than three years ago. The California-based company long downplayed Apple TV as a “hobby” after the original version was released in 2007.

“They are finally revisiting their hobby, the Apple TV,” said Forrester analyst Frank Gillett.

Apple is dabbling with the idea of making online television programming, a move that would challenge established players such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, according to a recent report in show-business magazine Variety.

“Original programing is the only solution to Apple’s biggest problem in the video world — that is, that nobody wants to sell Apple content rights,” said Forrester analyst James McQuivey.

“After watching what happened to the music business when Apple was given the keys to the kingdom, video producers and programmers are more than gun shy about handing the same power to Apple in the world of TV shows.”

Apple became a power to be reckoned with in digital music sales due to the popularity of its mobile devices and iTunes online shop.

While Apple was at the forefront of the shift to digital music, the world of Internet-streamed television already has powerful players such as Netflix and Amazon.


Watching for magic


There is weaker speculation that Apple could introduce a new, bigger iPad in what would be a break from the company’s tradition of unveiling tablet news at a separate event in October.

Tablet sales have cooled overall, and Apple faces the challenge of coming up with an innovation that re-ignites interest in iPads, according to analysts.

One way could be by tying iPads to more cloud services that better anticipate what users do using Apple products.

“I think they can make more magic happen,” Gillett said of App. “That is what I am going to look for.”

source: interaksyon.com

Thousands of San Francisco commuters possibly exposed to measles on train

SAN FRANCISCO - Tens of thousands of commuters on San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit system may have been exposed to measles after an infectious Bay Area resident rode a train to and from work for three days last week, public health officials said on Wednesday.

The rider represents the first case of measles confirmed by Contra Costa County health officials during an outbreak of the disease that began in late December. The infected person also spent time at a San Francisco restaurant and bar on the evening of Feb. 4.

"Although the risk of contracting measles by being exposed on BART is low, Bay Area residents should be aware of the situation," the county public health department said in a statement.

The California Department of Public Health said on Wednesday that 110 cases of measles had been confirmed in California, many of them linked to the outbreak that authorities believe began when an infected person from out of the country visited Disneyland in late December.

More than three dozen more cases have been documented in other U.S. states and in Mexico. Most people recover from measles within a few weeks, although it can be fatal in some cases.

In the Bay Area case, the infected person was known to have traveled between the Lafayette station in the East Bay and the Montgomery station in San Francisco during the morning and evening rush-hour commutes on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week, BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said.

That ride is 35 minutes long, but health officials said the highly infectious, airborne virus could have remained in the air for up to two hours. Because BART cars circulate throughout the Bay area, tens of thousands of people could have potentially been exposed, Trost said.

The infected rider, who was not identified by name, age or gender, also spent time at the E&O Kitchen and Bar in San Francisco on Wednesday evening, potentially exposing others who were in the restaurant between 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., health officials said.

Public health officials said they were tracing the movements of the person, who is recovering and not hospitalized, and notifying others known to have had close contact.

Authorities sought to downplay the risk to commuters or diners, however, saying that most people had been inoculated for the disease, but urged anyone who had not to get vaccinated.

"We do know that measles has been circulating through the Bay Area. This person doesn't know where they were exposed," said Erika Jenssen, Contra Costa County's communicable disease programs chief.

Among the more than three dozen cases reported outside of California are 10 in Cook County, Illinois, nine of them associated with a daycare center in the city of Palatine.

The measles outbreak has renewed a debate over the so-called anti-vaccination movement, in which fears about potential side effects of vaccines, fueled by now-debunked research suggesting a link to autism, have prompted a small minority of parents to refuse inoculations for their children.

Some parents also opt not to have their children vaccinated for religious or other reasons.

Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000 after decades of intensive childhood vaccine efforts. But in 2014 the country had its highest number of measles cases in 20 years. (Additional reporting by Noel Randewich in San Francisco and Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles)

source: interaksyon.com

Apple expected to rev up iPad line as tablet market heats

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is expected to rev up its iPad line Tuesday as the tablet market heats up with competition from devices powered by software from Google and Microsoft.

Analysts agree that iPads will star at an invitation-only event being held in San Francisco on the cusp of the prime year-end holiday shopping season.

“Job One for Apple is to get something out there on the large-size iPad that gets people excited, then obviously from a specification focus, the Mini needs to catch up with what everybody else has done,” NPD analyst Stephen Baker told AFP.


“There are a lot of other things happening in that large-size tablet space and there is a huge amount of choices in smaller devices.”

Tablets face mounting competition from touch-screen notebook computers powered by Microsoft Windows software and priced between $350 and $500, according to the analyst.

“Apple will… be number one in large-size tablets probably for a long time, but the definition of competition will change,” Baker said.

Apple is also under pressure to adapt to the popularity of premium tablets with high-quality screens in the seven- to eight-inch (18- to 20-centimeter) range where the Mini competes.

Online retail titan Amazon.com on Friday began shipping new seven-inch Kindle Fire HDX tablets with boosted display quality and computing power at the starting price of $229.

“We can’t wait to get this tablet into our customers’ hands,” said Amazon Kindle vice president Peter Larsen.

Google’s latest Nexus 7 tablet powered by its Android software has been a hot seller at a similarly tempting price.

Emailed invitations to the Apple event revealed little other than the time and place, and bore the message: “We still have a lot to cover.”

A graphic in the shape of an iPad showed Apple’s iconic logo under a shower of colorful leaves.

Unconfirmed reports are that Apple will show off a new version of its full-size iPad that will be thinner than its predecessor and boast improved camera capabilities.

Scrutiny of Apple’s supply chain has industry trackers thinking the new iPad will get “narrower, thinner, and lighter” and possibly be built with processors at least as powerful as those used in the freshly-launched iPhone 5S, according to Gartner analyst Van Baker.

An upgraded version of the iPad mini with an improved screen is also expected.

Gartner’s Baker will be watching whether new iPad models have 64-bit processors as engines in a significant boost that would enable tablets to handle more heavy weight programs and games.

“It has the potential to make tablets much more compelling devices in terms of content creation; making devices more sophisticated with more horsepower-hungry applications,” the analyst said.

“It will increase the likelihood that tablets will displace PCs (personal computers).”

Analysts agreed that top-end, full-size iPads may get a fingerprint recognition security feature that has been a hit in the iPhone 5S.

Such upgrades would promise to entice buyers to pay a bit more for full-size tablets from Apple instead of choosing lower-priced Mini models, boding well for the company’s bottom line.

The iPad remains the largest-selling tablet, according to surveys, but its market share is being eroded by rivals using the Google Android operating system.

“Mobile connectivity continues to grow and its impact is much broader than business stories about which computer makers are selling the most units,” said Kristen Purcell, associate director for research at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

“We see mobile connectivity affecting everything from the way people get news and learn to the way they take care of their health and the way they share their lives through social media.”

Apple was also expected to discuss its computer operating system and its MacBook laptop line at the event.

The company is coming off a wildly successful launch of two new iPhone models last month. It estimates selling a record nine million iPhones in the three days after launching two new versions of the smartphone.

source: interaksyon.com

Google launches streaming music service ahead of Apple

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc launched a music service on Wednesday that allows users to listen to unlimited songs for $9.99 a month, challenging smaller companies like Pandora and Spotify in the market for streaming music.

With its new service, announced at its annual developers’ conference in San Francisco, Google has adopted the streaming music business model ahead of rival Apple Inc, which pioneered online music purchases with iTunes.

Google’s “All Access” service lets users customize song selections from 22 genres, ranging from Jazz to Indie music, stream individual playlists, or listen to a curated, radio-like stream that can be tweaked. It will be launched for U.S. users first, before being rolled out to several other countries.

Google unveiled a string of improvements to other services, including new mapping features and a voice-activated search, at the conference. The focus was on giving more options to users of mobile devices using its Android software, the operating system that now runs three out of every four smartphones sold.

Shares of Google, the world’s largest Internet search company, jumped more than 3 percent while Pandora Media Inc shares were down more than 1 percent on Wednesday afternoon.

Google’s new music service amps up the competition in the nascent market for subscription-based, streaming music. Amazon.com Inc and Apple are among the Silicon Valley powerhouses sounding out top recording industry executives, according to sources with knowledge of talks.

Pandora is spending freely and racking up losses to expand globally. Even social media stalwarts Facebook and Twitter are jumping onto the streaming-music bandwagon.

All these companies see a viable music streaming and subscription service as crucial to growing their presence in an exploding mobile environment. For Google and Apple, it is critical in ensuring users remain loyal to their mobile products.

With a music service, Google further “locks” consumers into its sphere of products and services, said Chris Silva, an analyst with Altimeter Group.

“They’re trying to sell an ecosystem,” he said. “The more things I’m doing, the more things that tie me to Google services.”

At $9.99 a month, Google’s service is costlier than the $3.99 required for Pandora, but on par with Spotify.

The music service features millions of tracks from Universal Music, Sony Entertainment Group and Warner Music Group, as well as from thousands of independent labels, according to a Google spokeswoman.

Some analysts said the new service allowed Google to catch-up to offerings from the likes of Spotify, but did not offer anything unique. Forrester analyst James McQuivey said combining the service with video or game content might have made it stand out.

“You don’t dismiss Apple, you don’t dismiss anyone. But that is not the point,” said Rich Tullo, an analyst at Albert Fried & Co. “Pandora is the market share leader in the space and their platform is so disruptive — it’s very hard to disrupt them. When you have 70 million people use it – they are the disruptors.”

CEO appearance

A procession of Google executives described and showed off a litany of new features and software updates at the annual “I/O” developers’ conference, from picture touch-ups on Google+ and re-designed Maps that spot when a user is walking or driving, to Star Trek-like voice-activated search that understands a users’ sentences and figures out what he or she is looking for.

“We haven’t seen this rate of change in computing for a long time — probably not since the birth of personal computing,” said CEO Larry Page, who began his address reflecting upon a significant moment in his life, when his father got him into a robotic science fair.

“We’re really only at 1 percent of what’s possible,” said Page, whose on-stage appearance came a day after he acknowledged suffering from a rare nerve problem affecting his vocal cords. The problem, which affects his breathing and makes it difficult for him to speak at length, sidelined Page from public speaking engagements last summer, though Page spoke for 45 minutes on stage on Wednesday.

Decrying a “negativity” in the technology industry which he said impedes progress, Page singled out competitors Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp, criticizing the companies for not being sufficiently collaborative with Google and other companies. Google was sued by Oracle last year, and companies affiliated with Microsoft have complained about Google’s practices to European antitrust regulators.

“Most important things are not zero sum,” Page said.

Lack of Glass
The conference comes as Google’s Android software has become the most popular operating system in both smartphones and tablet PCs. Executives said Wednesday that some 900 million smartphones and tablets running Google Android software had been activated since the platform’s inception in 2010

Google’s popular mapping service, a mainstay of Android devices, features tighter integration with reviews off Zagat, the popular dining-reviews brand that Google bought last year. It also sports more pictures from inside important buildings, sourced from user-uploaded photos. It can now even display the earth realistically as viewed from outer space, something Page said he personally requested.

Shares in Yelp Inc, which like Zagat is built off users’ personal reviews, slid 3.8 percent to $29.80 in the afternoon.

Conspicuously absent from the more than three-hour opening keynote session was any mention of Google Glass, the wearable computing device that the company began distributing to a limited set of early users and developers last month.

The futuristic-looking device has elicited admiration from many technology-lovers, but some have questioned whether the stamp-sized electronic screen mounted on eyeglass frames will appeal to mainstream consumers.

While many enthusiastic attendees and Google staffers strolled about the conference center sporting the Glass devices, executives spent little time discussing it on stage.

Google missed an opportunity to “show that they think they’re onto something big,” said Forrester’s McQuivey.

source: interaksyon.com

Heart Evangelista and Senator Escudero in tender, ‘chizzy’ moment

Now we know why Senator Chiz Escudero’s Twitter account is called @saychiz.

An Instagram photo posted by Heart Evangelista with the accompanying post, “I miss you busybee @saychiz” is giving their fans goose bumps with its rather cheesy pose showing the couple alone in a private resort with the actress reaching up to kiss the re-electionist senator on the cheek.

Both are barefoot in the photo, with the senator wearing only a white T-shirt and shorts and Heart wearing her sleepwear. The photo also looks like it was taken early in the morning while the sun was about to rise.

In any case, it shows how very much in love the two are and if the reactions of the fans are any indication, it does not look like anyone’s disapproving.

Heart and Senator Chiz recently spent a vacation together in San Francisco, California where the picture was probably taken. As earlier reported, they have already talked about tying the knot. If the Senator has his way, the wedding will probably take place “within five years”.

For now, it seems like the couple is just happy spending quality private moments, especially now the “busybee” senator is once again back on the campaign trail.

source: interaksyon.com

Tory Burch mixes good design with good fortune

MANILA, Philippines - Tory Burch is launching a special capsule collection in bright red, the traditional color of the holiday, symbolizing good fortune. It includes handbags, wallets, cosmetic cases and iPhone covers. These limited edition designs are now available at Tory Burch freestanding stores in Beijing, Tianjin, Hong Kong–IFC, Hong Kong–Harbour City, Hong Kong–Times Square, Makati City and Singapore. They will also be offered at 14 select locations in North America, including New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Honolulu and Toronto boutiques.

The Tory Blog will highlight Chinese New Year as well with a special feature. Visit blog.toryburch.com for more information.

This is the brand’s second year designing custom product for Chinese New Year, marking the important role of China in the company’s global expansion plan — it opened its Hong Kong office when the brand launched in 2004 and there are now eight stores in Greater China.

In the Philippines, Tory Burch is exclusively distributed by Stores Specialists, Inc. (SSI) and is located at Greenbelt 5 and Rustan’s Makati.

source: philstar.com

Yahoo! buys scrapbook website Snip.it

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo! confirmed Tuesday that it bought Snip.it, a young San Francisco startup that lets people create scrapbooks with pictures, articles, videos and other content found online.

“The Snip.it team created an innovative technology that lets people share content in a social and fun way,” Yahoo! vice president of product Mike Kerns said in a statement emailed to AFP.






“Reading and sharing content is a core daily habit for most of the world, and we can’t wait to work with the Snip.it team to make that experience even more entertaining for our users.”

A message posted at Snip.it told users it was “joining forces” with Yahoo! and that the service was no longer available. A link was provided to a hall of fame honoring top Snip.it contributors.

“For the past year and a half, we’ve worked tirelessly as a team to build the best social news platform on the Web,” Snip.it said in the message.

“We are thrilled at the opportunity to bring Snip.it’s vision to a larger scale at Yahoo!”

Snip.it launched in late 2011 as a place where people could share digital “scrapbooks” based on topics or themes of their choosing.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but unconfirmed online reports estimated the figure to be in the vicinity of $15 million.

source: interaksyon.com

Apple redesigns the iPod touch

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple on Wednesday gave an overhaul to its iPod portable music players. At a media event in San Francisco, Apple debuted the new iPod touch featuring a larger 4-inch Retina display with a 16:9 aspect ratio, the same display used in the latest iPhone 5 smartphone.

The new iPod touch is 6.1 mm thick and weighs 88 grams. With Apple's dual-core A5 chip, the device can deliver up to twice the processing power and up to seven times faster graphics than the previous generation of Pod touch.

Apple's intelligent assistant Siri also comes to the new music player.

Like the new iPhone 5, the camera of the new iPod touch also supports panorama feature that enables users to capture panoramic images by simply moving the camera across a scene.

Its battery is up to 40 hours of music playback and up to eight hours of video playback. Unlike the previous generation, the new iPod touch comes with five colors and a color-matched wrist strap that make it more convenient for users to take photos and play games.

Meanwhile, Apple introduced a new earphone called "EarPods" for its mobile products, which the company said it spent three years to design. The new earphone features sound ports built into the stem and the sides. According to the company, users can hear deep and richer bass tones through

EarPods and they rival high-end headphones that cost hundreds of dollars. EarPods will ship with iPod touch and iPhone 5, and is 29 U.S. dollars for retail price.

The iPod nano, Apple's cheaper line of portable music players, also got a hardware update. It features a 2.5 inch multi-touch display, the largest display ever built into an iPod nano, and is the thinnest iPod ever at 5mm thick. Bluetooth for wireless listening is also brought to the new iPod nano. Both iPod touch and iPod nano come with the new Lightning connector like iPhone 5.

Pre-orders for the new iPod touch starts on Friday with the price starting at 299 dollars for the 32 GB model. It will be shipped in October. The iPod nano will be available in October with 169 dollars for the 16 GB model.

Apple on Wednesday also introduced a new version of iTunes software used for organizing digital music and video content on computers, featuring a completely redesigned player, a new look for Apple's on-line music, apps and movie stores and seamless integration with Apple iCloud cloud storage service. The new iTunes will come next month. (Xinhua)

article source: mb.com.ph

Zuckerberg eyes mobile focus after Facebook IPO flop

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday he was steering the social network giant to focus more on mobile, saying it would help ease concerns after a “disappointing” stock market debut.

“The performance of the stock has obviously been disappointing,” Zuckerberg said during an on-stage interview at a TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco.

Facebook has made a priority of following its more than 900 million members onto smartphones and tablet computers, tailoring services and money-making ads for mobile devices.

“It is really clear from the stats and my own personal intuition that a lot of energy in the ecosystem is going to mobile, not desktop (computers),” Zuckerberg said.

“That is the future,” he continued. “We are going to be doing killer stuff there.”

Zuckerberg was adamant that the company was being underestimated and was on track to make “more money on mobile than we make on desktop.”

Zuckerberg’s appearance at the conference was his first public interview since the massive public offering on May 18 that was hotly anticipated—but ended up being a flop.

Facebook shares have lost around half their value since the IPO at $38 a share.

The shares gained 3.30% on Wall Street on Tuesday to close at $19.43. In after-hours trading following Zuckerberg’s remarks, the stock gained 3.14% to $20.06.

Zuckerberg said that despite the early stock market disappointment, “we’re going to execute this mission about making the world more connected.”

Zuckerberg also rejected criticism that the company is ill-prepared for a shift to mobile devices, where Facebook has only begun to get ad revenues. “Now, we are a mobile company,” he said.

He said the company would pursue its “mission” while seeking to make money for shareholders.

“We are a mission driven company,” Zuckerberg said. “Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. From the beginning we’ve had this understanding we’ve had to do both.”

Zuckerberg has stated repeatedly, even in pre-IPO paperwork with US regulators, that Facebook did not build great services to make money but made money to build great services.

When pressed on the point, in the context of the California-based company losing more than $50 billion in value based on the stock price drop, Zuckerberg was quick to add that making money was a component of its broader mission.

“People who want to work on a great mission also want to make a bunch of money,” he contended.

Zuckerberg conceded that the stock price plummet has taken a toll on the morale of workers compensated with shares but that Facebook staff are accustomed to criticism and “have a pretty good compass” pointing to better days.

Stock compensation for Facebook employees is made based on cash value of shares, meaning that workers are awarded more shares at lower prices, according to the chief executive.

“I actually think it is a great time for people to join and a great time for people to stay and double-down,” Zuckerberg said of the Facebook team. “I think we are seeing that.”

Zuckerberg rejected suggestions that Facebook would make its own smartphone, adamant that the company had no intention of stepping into the fiercely competitive handset hardware arena.

“Apple, Google, everyone builds phones; we are going in the opposite direction,” Zuckerberg said. “We want to build a system deeply integrated in every device people want to use.”

Zuckerberg’s strategy to have Facebook on every smartphone instead of making a “Facebook phone” makes sense, according to technology analyst Jeff Kagan.

Zuckerberg said Facebook did not plan to go head-to-head with Google in the online search market but that the social network already handles one billion queries a day from people looking for friends, apps, brand pages and more.

“Facebook is uniquely positioned to answer a lot of questions people have,” Zuckerberg said, giving examples such as finding out restaurants friends have eaten at or who has connections at particular companies for jobs.

“At some point we will do it,” he continued. “We have a team working on search.”

Kagan said the Zuckerberg talk at the conference rekindled some of Facebook’s pre-IPO excitement but did not make up for the fact that the company’s stock has been a loser and it remained unclear how profitable it would become.

“Bottom line, Zuckerberg sounded good,” Kagan said. “However this does not solve the investment problem the company still faces every day.”

source: japantoday.com

Yap.TV tunes Internet age viewing for the world

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco startup Yap.TV went international with a hit service that helps people mine gems from junk in the growing mountain of shows, films and videos.

Versions of Yap.TV software released in the United States early last year for Apple iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch devices have been customized for 19 more countries and in four languages other than English.

Applications for smartphones or tablets powered by Android software were in the works and expected to be ready in a matter of months.

Yap.TV lets show watchers engage in real time on Twitter, Facebook or the firm’s own social network, essentially tapping into friends or others with similar interests to find programs or films likely to please.

Yap.TV blended input from friends and show fans with programming data to enable users to not only have conversations around shows they like but to be directed to new options by viewers with similar interests.

“It starts with discovery, which is why a guide became such a big part of this,” Yap.TV co-founder Shawn Patrick told AFP.

“No one has ever created a worldwide social television guide,” he continued. “We are the new front-end to TV.”

Yap.TV mated the television program guide with the Twitter stream, Facebook and other social networks to let people see what shows people are talking about and join in the conversation along with the viewing.

Yap.TV backers include Javelin Venture Partners and Blumberg Capital, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is an advisor to the startup.

Patrick, 44, spoke of being enthralled by the Kwai Chang Caine character in the US television series “Kung Fu” as a young boy and imagining as a child that he would grow up to become “Batman”.

“Media content is escapism; these stories are powerful talismans,” Patrick said. “We bring people together around the content they love.”

“We want people to get shows they want without having to dumbly navigate through 900 channels,” he continued. “It is a nightmare menu with no way to know what is garbage without insight—that is where social media comes in.”

More than 600,000 people have taken to using Yap.TV since it launched early last year and the website has gotten visits from every country except two in Africa.

“Nearly everybody on this rock invests time in consumer television content,” Patrick said. “This creates a better way.”

The list of countries where free Yap.TV applications are available includes Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy.

source: japantoday.com

Nora, Derek Ruffa, ‘Bigtime’ girls meet TV5 fans in San Francisco

Although tired and sleep-deprived, TV5 heavy-hitters Nora Aunor, Derek Ramsay, Ruffa Gutierrez, and the “Wil Time Bigtime” girls gamely met with Filipino fans at a supermarket and a shopping mall in San Francisco on Friday, the eve of TV5 International’s The Big Launch in the city.

Filipino-Americans in Vallejo braved the sweltering heat for a meet-and-greet session with Nora, Derek, and the “Bigtime” girls near the entrance of the Island Paradise Supermarket.

Ruffa caught up with the group and gamely posed for pictures and gave autographs to grateful fans.

The Kapatid delegation’s next stop was the Seafood City Mall in Concord where a long queue of eager Filipinos were waiting to welcome them.

Virginia de los Santos was thrilled by the chance to kiss Derek and pose for pictures with the TV5 hunk.

“Aba’s siyempre masarap, parang anak ko lang siya. Aba’y siyempre pogi!” she enthused.

“Wil Time Bigtime” host Willie Revillame arrived in San Francisco past 11pm. He had cancelled his flight earlier in the day to get some rest.

Although he was feeling under the weather, he said there was no way he would miss this stop of the “Homecoming Tour” of “Wil Time” in California.

“Kahit na naka-wheelchair ako. O naka-kama ako may dextrose, darating ako diyan. Hindi puwedeng hindi,” Willie said.

“Wil Time” will lead the festivities for the second leg of TV5 International’s launch of Kapatid TV5 and Aksyon International in North America in a special show at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Saturday night.

TV5 and Aksyon International programs can now be viewed across North America through Dish Network.

The first leg was held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on May 26.

source: interaksyon.com

Golden Gate Bridge marks 75th anniversary

The Golden Gate Bridge was a larger than life engineering project undertaken against dangerous odds and it opened 75 years ago yesterday against vehement protest, at the cost of 11 lives.
One of the most astonishing and admired man-made wonders of the world, gracing millions of postcards, featured in countless films, the bridge was not at first welcomed with open arms.
Ferry operators and environmentalists opposed it, and many engineers doubted such a daring leap over a treacherous Pacific Ocean strait could be built. The military worried a collapsed Golden Gate span could block access to the Bay in war time.

Some San Franciscans even fought against it because they thought a bridge might ruin the view, according to historians.

Kevin Starr, author of Golden Gate: The Life and Times of America’s Greatest Bridge, said 2,000 related court cases were filed over nearly a decade.

But Starr said litigation and regulatory scrutiny largely concluded in the 1920s allowed builders to move quickly once bank funding was nailed down in 1932, in an early form of public-private cooperation.

“President Obama talks about shovel-ready projects,” Starr said in a phone interview. “This was shovel ready.”

The less than two decades between conception and completion means the Golden Gate compares well with the new quake-proof second span of the Bay Bridge a few miles away, he said. That $6.2bn project is due to be done in 2013, 24 years after a deadly earthquake literally jolted the authorities into action.

Yet building the Golden Gate, at an estimated cost of $1.2bn in current dollars, was a Herculean task. While the idea took hold in the prosperous 1920s, by the time ground was broken the Depression had left many people desperate for jobs.

“Launched midst a thousand hopes and fears; Damned by a thousand hostile sneers,” was how the head engineer for the bridge, Joseph Strauss, described the bridge in a poem he wrote to mark its completion in 1937. He died less than a year later.


Even the bridge’s arresting dark orange colour was an accident, first used as a primer while designers decided what to paint it. The Navy had argued for black with yellow stripes, to ensure it could be seen in a strait hostile to mariners, with dense fog, heavy winds and strong ocean swells.

In the end, bridge authorities decided they liked the color - known as International Orange - and stuck with it.

Starr speculated that some early opposition from locals may have been due to the original styling, which was likened to an “upside-down rat trap”, before it was altered to the sweeping suspension bridge design.

“Its elegance is derived from its structural efficiency,” Paul Giroux, from the American Society of Civil Engineers, said at a panel discussion hosted by San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club. “It’s a perfect blend of form and function.”

Construction began in 1933, 14 years after Strauss was first approached. Bank of America archivist David Mendoza said it took a personal appeal from Strauss to Amadeo Giannini, founder of the then-San Francisco-based bank, to secure funding.

“Strauss was worried it might not get built,” Mendoza said of that fateful meeting, now commemorated on a plaque.

After opening on May 27, 1937, thousands of people walked, roller-skated and stilt-walked across. Cars came the next day.

Celebrations for the 50th anniversary became infamous for the frightful swaying of the bridge under the weight of 300,000 people. This time round, the bridge was be closed to cars and pedestrians during a fireworks show that will cap a day of festivities along the bay waterfront yesterday.

Beyond the revelry and Tributes, the bridge’s dark side will lurk in the background: An estimated 1,400 people have jumped off the bridge to end their own lives, a grim reality brought to the attention of many people with a 2006 documentary film, The Bridge, by Eric Steel. The film-maker secretly captured more than 20 suicides from the bridge.

“Four seconds drop and you’re done,” Starr said. “A few people have survived, but not many.”
The Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District is now studying the costs and feasibility of draping nets along it to catch any jumpers, a twist on the nets deployed during construction, which saved the lives of 22 workers.

Of the 11 men killed from falls during construction, ten were killed after a net failed under stress from a fallen scaffold when the bridge was near completion.

Safety was a serious concern during construction, with hard hats widely used for the first time and workers forced to drink sauerkraut juice if they arrived at work hung over, Starr said.
Living memory is limited. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the last two known surviving builders, Jack Balestreri and Edward Ashoff, died in April, within a week of each other.

source: gulf-times.com

TV5 gears up for international launch

Wil Time Bigtime is now on full-time preparation for its upcoming international tour in the United States. The tour coincides with the big launch of "KapatidTV5" Network and AksyonTV International this May 26 in Los Angeles and June 2 in San Francisco.

Even Willie Revillame himself can't help but feel the excitement too. He has prepared a special production number for fellow Filipinos abroad.

Besides Wil Time Bigtime, other Kapatid stars like Derek Ramsay, Aga Muhlach and Sharon Cuneta will also join the international launch of TV5.

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon tests mobile in-app purchases: report

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon is testing a service that allows tablet users to make purchases through mobile applications, trying to take on Apple and Google in the mobile business, U.S. media reported on Tuesday.

The service being tested allows both subscriptions and purchases within mobile applications, Bloomberg said in a report, citing an app developer in Amazon’s trial.

The world’s largest online retailer has declined to comment.

According to the report, Amazon plans to charge a 30 percent commission to clients for its in-app purchase service, same rate the company charges developers for app sales.

The move will put Amazon more directly at odds with Google and Apple which have been selling items from within downloadable software through their online stores App Store and Google Play.

A lot of apps are free for beginning users to download but in- app purchases are needed to get more advanced use, such as virtual goods and extra features.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is the most popular non-iPad product in the tablet market, but Amazon only has about 1,400 apps in its store. Both Apple and Google now have more than 450,000 apps available in their stores.

According to business information service IHS, the in-app purchases will generate 5.6 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2015, up from 970 million dollars in 2011.

source: interaksyon.com

Key Factors behind the Success of Bay Area Web Designers

Bay Area of San Francisco is a hub of talent and creativity. The inhabitants of this area have played vital role in the development and advancement of any emerging technology. The literate masses of this area also understand the usage and conveniences provided by the new technologies and, adopt them as soon as they come into the market. Same is true about Bay Area Web Design market. Bay Area has been very active contributor throughout the history of wed development and design. That’s why; Bay Area Web Designers are among the top and expert designers of the globe. No doubt, they have worked really hard to join this community of experts. But, the surroundings also played very vital role. They had access to every type of technology and education. They had the great faculty and, above all, they had the talent and passion of conquering the world that made them win their goals and set examples for others. However, they have some tricks also to reach this level. Huge and traceable Web Design Portfolio, giving Demo Website Design and offering Free Demo Website are a few of them.


The most important factor behind the global success of Bay Area Web Designers is their tremendous, traceable, Web Design Portfolio. During the learning and the training period, portfolio is on the hit list. They are posed new challenges everyday and they come up with innovatively amazing solutions of simple to complex problems. This approach gives very good impression to the regular employers. Their experience counting starts from the very first semester they completed in any course. Another attractive thing in their Web Design Portfolio is their own creative creations. Their minds are built in way that can give them solutions of complex problems and ideas for the new creations :while walking on the road, having conversation over a cup of tea, or even finding some alone time in the bathroom. The other considerable factor in the success of Bay Area Web Design industry is their Demo Website Design offer.


Demo Website Design gives boost to the customer satisfaction and interactivity. Many of the customers are themselves unclear about their goals and needs. In this case, the web design companies take the ideas from the customers and convert them into presentable rough outcome of the ideas. Bay Area Web Designers were among the first very few web designers across the globe who dared to offer Demo Website Design service to their customers. Most of the times, they charge their customers for this service although, charges are very nominal. With the passage of time, they have evolved ways to make it more effective and controlled practice. Offering Free Demo Website is advancement in this regard.


Free Demo Website offer goes two steps ahead. First is the free offering and the second is the demo of almost of the whole website. This is risky in many ways but, surprisingly, this technique has helped a lot in increasing the number of customers. Again, Bay Area Web Design industry is among the pioneers of this trick.

Jessica recommends you to see Web Design Portfolio for Demo Website Design. You can also call at Toll Free Number: 888.668.0822

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com