Britain makes Angelina Jolie an honorary dame

LONDON | Angelina Jolie has been made an honorary dame in Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday honors list released Friday, as Britain paid tribute to the Hollywood star for her efforts to combat warzone rape.

The American actress, who U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry described as “a fierce and fearless advocate”, leads a list of film idols, sports stars, authors and designers recognized for their services to the United Kingdom.

Daniel Day-Lewis receives a knighthood, while his fellow Oscar-winning film star Dame Maggie Smith — the star of TV period drama “Downton Abbey” and the “Harry Potter” films — is made a companion of honor.

Jolie was given the female equivalent of a knighthood for her services to British foreign policy in her campaign to end sexual violence in conflict zones.

She co-hosted a four-day global conference in London on the issue with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, during which Kerry suggested she had played her most lasting role, “the role of fierce and fearless advocate”.

The 39-year-old actress said: “To receive an honor related to foreign policy means a great deal to me, as it is what I wish to dedicate my working life to.

“Working on the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative and with survivors of rape is an honor in itself. I know that succeeding in our goals will take a lifetime, and I am dedicated to it for all of mine.”

Jolie becomes an honorary dame commander in the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, an order of chivalry for people “who render extraordinary or important non-military service in a foreign country”.

Day-Lewis, the only man to win three Oscars for best actor — “My Left Foot” (1989), “There Will Be Blood” (2007) and “Lincoln” (2012) — said he was thrilled to become a knight of the realm.

“I’m entirely amazed and utterly delighted in equal measure,” he said.

The 57-year-old is known for taking his method acting very seriously, often staying in character off set and living a quiet life in the Irish countryside to prepare for roles.

Maggie Smith, 79, who won an Oscar as best actress for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969), becomes a companion of honour, an order limited to the queen and 65 other ordinary people from across the Commonwealth.

“Homeland” actor Damian Lewis was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE).

“I was very surprised but very happy to accept,” said the 42-year-old, who made his name in World War II series “Band of Brothers”.

“I decided to do the very un-British thing of accepting the compliment.”

BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet receives an OBE for her services to British broadcast journalism.

Author Hilary Mantel, the first woman to win the Booker Prize for fiction twice, for her historical novel “Wolf Hall” and its sequel “Bring Up the Bodies”, was made a dame.

“I’m delighted to receive this honour. It’s given for ‘services to literature,’ but I see it not so much as a reward for the past, more as encouragement for the future,” the 61-year-old said.

Fashion designer Zandra Rhodes also becomes a dame.

Nineteen-year-old cancer victim Stephen Sutton, who died on May 14 after raising more than £4.2 million ($7.1 million, 5.3 million euros) for a teenage cancer charity, was given an MBE for his efforts, backdated to the date of his death.

His mother Jane said her son was asked shortly before he died whether he would accept the MBE in recognition of his fundraising services — and thought it was “awesome”.

Honours lists are produced twice a year, at New Year and to coincide with the queen’s official birthday in June. She turned 88 in April.

Most recipients are not celebrities, but people who have given their time for charity work or helping their local communities.

source: interaksyon.com

Singapore grapples with smartphone addiction

SINGAPORE — Easily distracted? Can’t be separated from your smartphone? Constantly checking your device for no real reason? Chances are you’re an addict — and you may even need professional help.

Psychiatrists in Singapore are pushing for medical authorities to formally recognise addiction to the Internet and digital devices as a disorder, joining other countries around the world in addressing a growing problem.

Singapore and Hong Kong top an Asia-Pacific region that boasts some of the world’s highest smartphone penetration rates, according to a 2013 report by media monitoring firm Nielsen.

Some 87 percent of Singapore’s 5.4 million population own smartphones — as Internet-capable phones with cameras are popularly known.

In the United States, where there are similar concerns about the impact of smartphones on society, a 65 percent penetration rate would not even make the top five in Asia Pacific.

Singaporeans also spend on average 38 minutes per session on Facebook, almost twice as long as Americans, according to a study by Experian, a global information services company.

Adrian Wang, a psychiatrist at the upmarket Gleneagles Medical Centre, said digital addiction should be classified as a psychiatric disorder.

“Patients come for stress anxiety-related problems, but their coping mechanism is to go online, go on to social media,” Wang said.

He recalled having treated an 18-year-old male student with extreme symptoms.

“When I saw him, he was unshaven, he had long hair, he was skinny, he hadn’t showered for days, he looked like a homeless man,” Wang told AFP.

The boy came to blows with his father after he tried to take away the young man’s laptop computer.

After the father cut off Internet access in the house, desperation drove the boy to hang around neighbours’ homes trying to get a wireless connection.

He was eventually hospitalised, put on anti-depressants and received “a lot” of counselling, Wang said.

“We just needed to break the cycle. He got better, he was discharged from the hospital and I saw him a few more times and he was okay.”

Social media fixation

Tan Hwee Sim, a consultant psychiatrist at The Resilienz Mind clinic in Singapore, noted that the symptoms exhibited by her young adult patients have changed over the years.

Obsession with online gaming was the main manifestation in the past, but addiction to social media and video downloading are now on the uptrend.

“Internet addiction as a disorder is not even listed in our latest psychiatric manual, it’s only listed in the appendix as a disorder that requires further study,” she said.

In terms of physical symptoms, more people are reporting “text neck” or “iNeck” pain, according to Tan Kian Hian, a consultant at the anaesthesiology department of Singapore General Hospital.

“It is a commonly observed phenomenon that many people have their heads lowered and are now using their mobile devices constantly on the go, while queuing or even crossing the roads,” Tan told AFP.

Singapore’s problem is not unique, with a number of countries setting up treatment centres for young Internet addicts, particularly in Asia where South Korea, China and Taiwan have moved to tackle the issue.

In South Korea, a government survey in 2013 estimated that nearly 20 percent of teenagers were addicted to smartphones.

China already has an estimated 300 Internet addiction centres, according to a report on state broadcaster CCTV’s website in February. It also cited a survey showing there may be more than 24 million young Chinese addicted to the Internet.

Craving and anxiety

In Singapore, there are two counselling centres — National Addictions Management Services and Touch Community Services — with programmes for digital addiction.

Trisha Lin, an assistant professor in communications at the Nanyang Technological University, said younger people face a higher risk because they adopt new technology earlier — but can’t set limits.

Lin defined digital addiction by a number of symptoms: the inability to control craving, anxiety when separated from a smartphone, loss in productivity in studies or at work, and the need to constantly check one’s phone.

Lin warned that parents should avoid giving their children a smartphone or tablet computer to keep them quiet.

“It’s like the TV in the past with the babysitters and now it’s even worse because now you have the screen with you everywhere,” she said, citing the case of a Taiwanese high-schooler who could only sleep clutching her smartphone in case someone tried to call her.

A group of undergraduates from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University launched a campaign late last year encouraging the public to put their smartphones in a face-down position when they are with loved ones.

The “Put it on Friend Mode” campaign drew strong support from students, said Chan Jing Hao, one of the organisers, and there are plans to expand the campaign to schools.

Addiction is so pervasive in Singapore that a “cyber wellness” education programme for pre-school children — and their parents — is set to be launched in the second half of 2014.

Chong Ee Jay, an assistant manager at Touch Community Services, which is launching the drive, said: “We want to give (the parents) a warning to not give these gadgets so early — and learn to withhold them.”

source: interaksyon.com

Amazon launches streaming ‘Prime Music’ service

NEW YORK — Amazon began offering a streaming music service Thursday, in a move aimed at keeping customers in its orbit amid the rise in services like Pandora and Spotify.

The US online giant announced “Prime Music” will be offered free and without advertising for customers of Amazon Prime — a subscription service that includes free delivery, access to online movies and books and other advantages.

The Amazon music catalog of one million songs is far smaller than rival offerings from services such as Spotify, which has 20 million, but appears to aim at a niche of customers as a new benefit to the Amazon Prime service.

“With Prime Music, Prime members have unlimited, ad-free access to over a million songs at no additional cost to their membership,” Amazon said in a statement.

“Prime Music includes tens of thousands of albums from top artists like Daft Punk, Pink, Bruno Mars, Blake Shelton, The Lumineers, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. And we’re just getting started — more music is being added all the time.”

Customers will also be able to download songs and playlists and listen when they are offline to avoid data charges.

The service, available for US customers as of Thursday, is unlikely to directly challenge rival music services but could bolster Amazon’s customer base and notably its “Prime” subscription service, which recently raised its annual fee for US customers to $99 from $79.

- Driving customers -

“Amazon’s future business will depend on how many times a day the company can get its customers to interact with Amazon,” said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey.

“If you’re Pandora or even Apple, getting people to use you several times a day doesn’t really drive revenue up, but in the case of Amazon, getting the customer to interact with you several times a day leads to more frequent purchases, and that’s what Amazon has in mind with the music service.”

Amazon, which has been adding digital content to its vast retail offerings, has been rumored for months to have been working on a music service but reports said talks had been bogged down over royalties and licensing fees.

Amazon includes songs from major music labels Sony and Warner Music but talks are still ongoing with the other major publisher, Universal Music Group, according to sources familiar with the service.

But there may be gaps for some music lovers: The online news site TechCrunch said nine of the top 10 songs on the Billboard 100 were not available for streaming on Amazon.

The move comes after Apple agreed to pay $3 billion for Beats Music to boost its streaming service and compete with the likes of Spotify and Pandora.

Owners of Amazon Kindle tablets can get Prime Music in an automatic, over-the-air update and it will also be available as an app for users of Apple and Android mobile devices.

The move comes with Amazon having scheduled a media event next week, widely expected to be the unveiling of a smartphone that integrates in the Kindle family of devices.

Amazon said some of the artists available on the music service include Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Elvis Presley, Eric Clapton, Green Day, Whitney Houston and Willie Nelson.

source: interaksyon.com

California mayor under fire for leaving dog poo on neighbor's lawn

The mayor of the wealthy Southern California city of San Marino was under fire on Tuesday after police said he was caught on camera apparently leaving a bag of dog feces in his neighbor’s walkway.

Surveillance tape monitoring the exterior of the residence captured Mayor Dennis Kneier leaving what was said to be a bag of dog feces on a private walkway leading to his neighbor’s home on Saturday evening, San Marino Police said in a statement.

The owner of the home, who claimed to identify Kneier and his wife in the footage, called the police but does not intend to press any littering charges, police said. The department is still considering the incident open for investigation. 

Kneier and his representatives did not immediately respond to calls and emails seeking comment on the matter. But the Whittier Daily News said the mayor later sent a letter to his neighbor apologizing for the incident.

“Late in the day this past Saturday, June 7, Liz and I were returning from a walk in Lacy Park when we noticed a bag of dog waste in your west parkway near the lamp post,” the letter states.

“Rather than leave it or dispose of it properly, I placed it on your side walkway. This was a mistake, for which I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

source: interaksyon.com

PH’s obsession with ‘Fault in our Stars’ extends to box office

After Time magazine recently reported that the Philippines is the country that is most obsessed with John Green’s bestselling novel, “The Fault in our Stars”, expectations ran high that the film adaptation will do just as well in the box office here.

Based on gross receipts of its four-day opening weekend, the romantic comedy-drama about two cancer-stricken teenagers did very well, earning P52 million to add to its current worldwide take of over $65 million according to Box Office Mojo. It was made for only $12 million.

Considering that the film is targeted specifically for young adult audiences and is showing in only 137 cinemas, which is a fraction of the 400 screens that showed “X-Men: Days of Future Past”, this makes the early returns of “Fault” all the more remarkable.

Because of its strong Filipino fan base which trounces the following of both the book and the film in the U.S., Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Spain, a good number of local fans have reportedly watched the film not just twice but as many as four times.

Word-of-mouth and positive critical acclaim also didn’t hurt. “Fault” currently has an 83 percent approval rating at review aggregator site, Rotten Tomatoes; CinemaScore gave it an A rating on an A+ to F scale while it scored a 69 out of 100 score on Metacritic indicating “generally favorable reviews”.

With sold out tickets on its first day in the Philippines, it was Ayala Malls Cinemas’ Trinoma that landed the top spot among theaters with a P2.3 million gross followed by SM North Edsa/The Block (P2.13M), Glorietta4 (P1.9M); SM Mall of Asia (P1.8M) and SM Megamall (P1.6M).

The film also recorded highs in the following cinemas that are within the film’s top 20 list – Ayala Cebu (P1.6M); Eastwood (P1.5M); Greenbelt (P 1.4M); Powerplant (P 1.35M); Shang Cineplex (P1.31M); SM Cebu (P1.29M); Greenhills TheatreMall (P1.28M); Gateway Cineplex/Ali Mall (P1.22M); Alabang Town Center (P1.1M); Robinson’s Magnolia (P.916M); Robinson’s Ermita (P.888M); SM Southmall (P.842M); Bonifacio High Street (P.788M); Newport (P.776M); Festival (P.726M) and Market!Market! (P.723M).

Starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as the two teenagers who meet at a cancer support group and immediately form a powerful bond, “The Fault in our Stars” also boasts of a strong supporting cast that include Laura Dern, Nat Wolff, Sam Trammell and Willem Dafoe.

From 20th Century Fox and distributed by Warner Bros, the film is still showing in more than 100 screens nationwide.

source: interaksyon.com

SingTel acquires mobile advertisers to boost digital business

SINGAPORE — Singapore Telecom, Southeast Asia’s biggest telecom firm by revenue, said Wednesday it will buy two mobile advertising companies for a total of $385 million to further boost its digital business.

Amobee, a digital advertising firm fully owned by SingTel, said in a statement it had signed agreements to buy Adconion, a cross-channel digital advertising company as well as Kontera Technologies, a digital content intelligence and marketing technology firm.

Adconion Direct North America and Adconion Australia will be acquired for $235 million including debt, while US-based Kontera will cost $150 million.

Amobee said the deals are subject to certain conditions being met.

Allen Lew, chief executive of Group Digital Life at SingTel, said the purchases would enhance Amobee’s ability to create digital marketing campaigns that can reach SingTel’s global network of more than 500 million subscribers.

Adconion has top brands including Toyota, Disney and AT&T among its clients, while Kontera, which has a research and development centre in Israel, analyses consumer behaviour on social media.

SingTel bought Amobee in 2012 for $321 million and the firm holds a market share of about 10 percent of global ad spend in the mobile display advertisements sector, it said.

Lew, who is also Amobee’s chairman, said SingTel has so far spent about a quarter of the Sg$2.0 billion allocated by its board for digital investments until the 2016 financial year.

SingTel’s revenue from mobile advertising in the year to March 2013 stood at Sg$113 million ($90 million). Its net profit came in at Sg$3.65 billion, a 4.1 percent increase from the previous year.

The telco owns partial stakes in India’s Bharti Airtel, Indonesia’s Telkomsel, Thailand’s Advanced Info Service, the Philippines’ Globe Telecom and Pacific Bangladesh Telecom. It fully owns SingTel Optus in Australia.

source: interaksyon.com

Google to buy satellite company Skybox Imaging for $500 million

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc said on Tuesday it is acquiring satellite company Skybox Imaging for $500 million in cash, the Internet company’s second high-profile acquisition of an aerospace company this year.

Google said that Skybox’s satellites will provide images for Google’s online mapping service. Google, the world’s No.1 Internet search engine, said that Skybox’s technology could also eventually be used to provide Internet access and help with disaster relief.

The acquisition of the five-year old company comes as Google and rival Facebook Inc are racing to snap up satellite and drone companies in an expensive effort to expand the reach of their businesses.

In April Google acquired Titan Aerospace, a New Mexico-based maker of solar-powered drones, for an undisclosed sum. Google has also launched a small network of balloons designed to deliver Internet access over the Southern Hemisphere.

Facebook, the world’s No.1 Internet social network, announced in March that it had created a special “Connectivity lab” project tasked with developing satellites, drones and other technology that could be used to beam Internet connectivity to people in underdeveloped parts of the world.

Skybox has built satellites packed with sensors and camera electronics that take high-resolution images and video of the earth but which it says are smaller and lighter than traditional satellites. The company, which like Google is based in Mountain View, Calif, has launched one satellite and had planned to launch a constellation of 24 satellites, according to the company’s website.

“The time is right to join a company who can challenge us to think even bigger and bolder, and who can support us in accelerating our ambitious vision,” Skybox said on in its Website on Tuesday in a message announcing the deal with Google.

Google said the deal’s closing is subject to regulatory approvals in the United States.

Shares of Google were down less than 0.5 percent at $568.07 in midday trading on Tuesday.

source: interaksyon.com

Epson releases direct-to-garment printer

MANILA, Philippines — Japanese company Epson has released a direct-to-garment printer in hopes of mining the growing textile industry.

In a press release, Epson said that the SC-F2000 the large format printer was wholly designed and developed using their proprietary printing technology.

The company is hoping that the new product will be used by small to medium businesses in the textile business.

“As the Asia Pacific region represents the largest and fastest growing market for textile printing, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4 percent, there is no doubt that small to medium businesses can benefit from the Epson SureColor SC-F2000’s revenue-generating features,” Epson said “Combined with high performance, low maintenance, and low running costs, the F2000 is an ideal investment for SMEs.”

Epson said that online t-shirt shops, production t-shirt printers, and even corporate users will benefit from the SC-F2000 due to “its crack-resistant ink that is soft against the skin.” Users can also configure the system to suit their needs by choosing from two sets of CMYK ink for white garments or up to four white inks for color garments.

“This printer is unique to this industry, in the sense that this is the first system where the entire printer has been designed and manufactured by a single brand. The hardware and ink are designed to work together,” Jino Carlo Alvarez, head of Epson Philippines’ Commercial & Industrial Department, said in a press statement.

source: interaksyon.com

U.S. recoups jobs lost in recession as economy picks up

WASHINGTON - U.S. employment returned to its pre-recession peak in May with a solid pace of hiring that offered confirmation the economy has snapped back from a winter slump.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 217,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, in line with market expectations. Data for March and April was revised to show 6,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported.

"This was a very solid report with no obvious warts to detract from the underlying message of sustained improvement in economic activity," said Millan Mulraine, deputy chief economist at TD Securities in New York.

May marked a fourth straight month of job gains above 200,000, a stretch last witnessed in January 2000, even though it also was a slowdown from the 282,000 jobs created in April, when hiring was still bouncing back from a winter lull.

The nation finally recouped the 8.7 million jobs lost during the recession, with 8.8 million more people working now than at the trough in February 2010. But the working age population has since increased 10.6 million while 12.8 million Americans have dropped out of the labor force.

The upbeat jobs report hoisted U.S. stocks to record highs. U.S. Treasury debt prices slipped, while the dollar was little changed against a basket of currencies.

Economy gaining traction 

The pace of hiring adds to data from automobile sales to services and factory sector activity that have suggested the economy will grow at a pace of more than 3.0 percent this quarter after shrinking at a 1.0 percent rate in the first three months of the year.

Other data on Friday showed consumer credit in April recorded its largest advance since November 2001, a sign households were feeling more secure in taking on debt.

Last month, the unemployment rate held steady at a 5-1/2 year low of 6.3 percent as some Americans who had given up the search for work resumed the hunt.

A measure of underemployment fell to its lowest level since October 2008. The gauge, which includes people who want a job but have given up searching and those working part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs, fell to 12.2 percent.

Economists expect more previously discouraged workers to re-enter the labor force over the course of the year. While that would be a sign of confidence in the labor market, it could slow the decline in the jobless rate.

The long-term unemployed accounted for 34.6 percent of the 9.8 million jobless Americans, down from 35.3 percent in April. The median duration of unemployment fell to 14.6 weeks, the shortest stretch in five years and a sharp drop from April.

"We are making progress, but we still have a very long way to go," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

The return of discouraged job seekers and drop in long-term unemployment will be welcomed by the Federal Reserve, which has cited low labor force participation as one of the reasons for maintaining an extraordinarily easy monetary policy.

The workforce, which had declined sharply in April, increased by 192,000 people last month. That left the labor force participation rate, or the share of working-age Americans who are employed or at least looking for a job, at 62.8 percent.

Average hourly earnings, which are being closely watched for signs of wage pressures that could signal dwindling slack in the labor market, rose five cents, or 0.2 percent. On a year-over-year basis, earnings were up a tepid 2.1 percent, suggesting little build-up in wage inflation.

But earnings in some sectors, such as mining and information services, are rising at a much faster clip.

"It's a difficult time for Fed policymakers," said Peter Molloy, president at Edison Investment Research in New York. He said the central bank normally would be raising interest rates by now given the level of the jobless rate but wanted to go slowly because the recovery has been weak by historic norms.

The Fed has kept benchmark overnight rates pegged near zero since late 2008 and is not expected to begin nudging them up until well into next year.

Employment gains in May were broad-based.

Manufacturing payrolls increased by 10,000, expanding for the 10th straight month. Further increases are expected as auto sales outpace inventories.

Construction payrolls rose by 6,000. It was the fifth consecutive month of gains, but the pace is slowing as the housing sector struggles to regain momentum.

There were sturdy job gains in leisure and hospitality, and professional and businesses services. Healthcare added 33,600 workers, likely boosted by the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Government payrolls increased 1,000, a fourth straight monthly increase. Retail employment also rose.

The length of the workweek held steady at 34.5 hours, with a measure of total work effort rising by 0.2 percent.

source: interaksyon.com

Taylor Swift arrives in Manila for concert, leaving midnight

MANILA, Philippines – Grammy-winning singer-composer Taylor Swift arrived Friday afternoon at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on a private chartered CL60 Challenger jet (flight VJ317) from Singapore for a seven-hour trip that includes a concert.

Swift is to perform tonight (Friday) at the Mall of Asia Arena for her RED Tour concert series and will leave again for Singapore at midnight on the same private jet parked at the general aviation area of the airport.

Her arrival was marked by extra-tight security; and private security personnel hired by the organizers prevented local media from approaching and taking a clear photo of the celebrity singer’s arrival at the tarmac.

source: interaksyon.com