5 Things for Today

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Energy companies will be forced to offer lowest tariffs, says Cameron

Energy firms will be legally obliged to offer customers their lowest tariff, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.

He said legislation would be brought before Parliament, which would be "welcome" news for households facing rising gas and electricity costs.

Downing Street said options included making companies automatically place customers on the cheapest rates.

But consumer groups have complained that this is making little difference amid rising costs.

Last week Npower and British Gas both announced that they were increasing gas and electricity prices in the UK, blaming the government's policies as well as wholesale prices.

'Overhaul'

At Prime Minister's Questions, Labour MP Chris Williamson asked: "At your energy summit last year you promised faithfully that you would take action that would help people reduce their energy bills.

"Can you tell the House and the country how that is going?"

Mr Cameron replied: "We have encouraged people to switch which is one of the best ways to get your energy bills down.

"I can announce, which I am sure you will welcome, that we will be legislating so that energy companies have to give the lowest tariff to their customers, something that Labour didn't do in 13 years, even though the leader of the Labour party could have done because he had the job."

Measures are expected to be included in the Energy Bill, which will be published in the enxt few weeks.

Downing Street indicated the government was looking at a number of options, including forcing companies to write to customers once a year ane place them on the cheapest tariff.

The prime minister's spokesman said although customers had been encouraged to move accounts in order to obtain the cheapest tariff, few did so, adding: "The energy market is not working for the benefit of consumers".

The spokesman said it was often the most vulnerable in society who ended up paying the highest bills.

Mr Cameron's announcement came before he and Chancellor George Osborne, a fellow Conservative, were due to meet Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, who are Liberal Democrats, to discuss energy policy.

Mr Osborne wants a new wave of gas-fired power stations and reductions in subsidies to renewable energy sources.

Liberal Democrats are happy to see more gas power in the short term but insist that the UK should continue to support renewables, such as wind power, to ensure that people are insulated against possible future rises in gas prices.

They argue that the UK should not waver from its legally binding climate change targets.

The chancellor says his approach would help to keep bills down.

The talks come just over a week after energy regulator Ofgem warned that the UK could face blackouts within a few years, unless steps were taken to secure future energy supply.

Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint called for "a complete overhaul of our energy market".

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

Inside the internet: Google allows first ever look at the eight vast data centres that power the online world

Data centres range from vast warehouses in Iowa to a converted paper mill in Finland.  

Buildings are so large Google even provides bicycles for engineers to get around them.

Follow this LINK - Daily Mail to gain a unique insight into behind the scenes of this globally leading company. 

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

FBI arrests man after New York bomb plot is foiled

The FBI arrests a man in connection with a plot to bomb New York's Federal Reserve bank, according to reports from the United States.

The New York Post and the local NBC television affiliate reported the target was the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is located in lower Manhattan's financial district.

Reuters is reporting the arrested person to be Bangladeshi national Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul. He was believed to be planning to detonate what he thought was a 1,000 pound bomb.

He was arrested in lower Manhattan on Wednesday morning.

The FBI said Mr Nafis travelled to the US in January 2012 for the purpose of carrying out an attack on American soil.

The plot was thwarted by an undercover sting operation, federal authorities said.

But the public was never in danger, because the explosives provided to Nafis by the undercover agent were never in working condition.

Mr Nafis faces charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaeda, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

The Federal Reserve could not immediately be reached for comment.

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

UK unemployment falls to 2.53 million

The number of people out of work in the UK has continued to decline.

Unemployment fell by 50,000 to 2.53m in the three months to August, taking the jobless rate down to 7.9% from 8.1%.

The number of people in employment rose to a record of almost 30 million, the Office for National Statistics said.

The ONS figures show that some 1.57 million people claimed Jobseeker's Allowance in September, a fall of 4,000 on the previous month.

A combination of more jobs being created and more people entering the workforce pushed the absolute number of people in employment to 29.6 million, the highest since these records began in 1971.

The percentage of people in work rose to 71.3%, the best rate since April 2009.

Temporary jobs

"Despite the tough economic times, the private sector continues to create jobs and our welfare reforms are encouraging people to return to work."

The government also noted that there were more job opportunities available, with the number of unfilled vacancies at 476,000, up 3,000 on the quarter and 17,000 from the same period last year.

Labour questioned the quality of the jobs, however.

"For those people who are in work, more will be on temporary contracts than for a very long time - the highest for 10 years," shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne told the BBC.

"About 60% of the jobs created since the general election are either self-employed or part-time.

"People in Britain are busting a gut and doing whatever it takes to get into work, but it just looks like the government are doing nothing to help them," he said.

Speaking in the House of Commons, the prime minister said the government had responded, but recognised long-term unemployment was still too-high and more needed to be done.

"That is why the Work Programme has helped 693,000 people already and we are prepared to spend up to £14,000 on one individual to help them get back to work," David Cameron said, referring to the government's main scheme which aims to find jobs for those who have been unemployed for more than six months.

This is often contracted out to private firms who get paid for placing people in work.

"We do have the measures in place to tackle this scourge," he said during Prime Minister's Questions.

In reply, Labour leader Ed Miliband said: "The longer young people remain out of work, the greater the damage, not just now, but to their long-term prospects and the greater the damage to our economy."

Before the figures were released, the government announced the extension of its New Enterprise Allowance scheme, which it says will help 33,000 more jobseekers benefit from advice from a mentor to draw up a business plan.

The situation also improved for women and young people - two groups that have been particularly hard hit during this recession.

"There are more women in work than at any time in our history and actually the overall level of employment is now above where it was before the crash in 2008," David Cameron told parliament.

The number of women out of work dropped by 19,000 to 1.08 million, while the number of men out of work dropped by 31,000 to 1.44 million.

The number of unemployed 16-24-year-olds fell by 62,000 in the three months to August to 957,000. Almost a third of those are in full-time education.

Average earnings increased by 1.7% in the year to July, which was a small increase from the previous month.

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

Bank split on more QE

The Bank of England appears to be “falling out of love” with quantitative easing, economists said, after it emerged that policymakers were split this month over how much growth another round of money printing might deliver.

 Minutes released yesterday of October’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting showed that all nine members voted to hold rates at 0.5pc and leave QE unchanged at £375bn, but that there was disagreement over how effective the policy could be in future.

“Some members felt that there was still considerable scope for asset purchases to provide further stimulus,” the minutes said. “Other members, while acknowledging that asset purchases had the scope to lower long-term yields further, questioned the magnitude of the impact that... would have on the broader economy.”

Most economists believed that the Bank would launch a further £50bn of QE next month and, although MPC members who have come out against QE are in the minority, the decision now appears to be more in the balance than previously thought. Philip Shaw, at Investec, said the decision now looked like “a close call”.

 Mr Clarke said the Bank’s preferred policy lever now appeared to be the Funding for Lending (FLS) scheme, which was launched in August. The minutes said there were signs that FLS had increased the supply of mortgages to borrowers with small deposits.

 They also showed the Bank believed the economy was weaker than expected in its economic assessment in August, but that inflation was also proving more sticky. “It now seemed likely that the pickup in activity would come through a little later than anticipated at the time of the August Report,” the minutes said.

 The Bank's chief economist Spencer Dale and MPC member Ben Broadbent both opposed the last expansion of asset purchases in July and last week another external member, Martin Weale, also expressed scepticism about further purchases.

The deputy Governor Paul Tucker has also said QE was losing its "bite". However, they stlll appear to be in the minority. The division is between those that believe QE will drive economic growth, as the Bank's analysis of the first £200bn round showed it did, and those that believe it is having little impact on growth but a strong effect on inflation.

 Last week, Governor Mervyn King said that monetary policy would ultimately reach the limit of what it could do to help growth, though he did not say this point was near.

 It's next outlook will be in the November Inflation Report, which will shape next month's decision on QE.

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

Planet with four suns discovered by volunteers

Astronomers have found a planet whose skies are illuminated by four different suns - the first known of its type.

The distant world orbits one pair of stars which have a second stellar pair revolving around them.

The discovery was made by volunteers using the Planethunters.orgwebsite along with a team from UK and US institutes; follow-up observations were made with the Keck Observatory.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Computerised attempts to find things [in the data] missed this system entirely. That tells you there are probably more of these that are slipping through our fingers”

Dr Chris LintottOxford University

The planet, located just under 5,000 light-years away, has been named PH1 after the Planet Hunters site.

It is thought to be a "gas giant" slightly larger than Neptune - more than six times the radius of the Earth.

"You don't have to go back too far before you would have got really good odds against one of these systems existing," Dr Chris Lintott, from the University of Oxford, told BBC News.

"All four stars pulling on it creates a very complicated environment. Yet there it sits in an apparently stable orbit.

"That's really confusing, which is one of the things which makes this discovery so fun. It's absolutely not what we would have expected."

Binary stars - systems with pairs of stars - are not uncommon. But only a handful of known exoplanets (planets that circle other stars) have been found to orbit such binaries. And none of these binary systems are known to have another pair of stars circling them.

"So I think what this is telling us is planets can form in the inner parts of protoplanetary discs (the torus of dense gas that gives rise to planetary systems).Asked how this planet remained in a stable orbit whilst being pulled on by the gravity of four stars, Dr Lintott said: "There are six other well-established planets around double stars, and they're all pretty close to those stars.

"The planets are forming close in and are able to cling to a stable orbit there. That probably has implications for how planets form elsewhere."

PH1 was discovered by two US volunteers using the Planethunters.org website: Kian Jek of San Francisco and Robert Gagliano from Cottonwood, Arizona.

They spotted faint dips in light caused by the planet passing in front of its parent stars. The team of professional astronomers then confirmed the discovery using the Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

UK inflation falls to 2.2% - lowest since November 2009

UK inflation fell to its lowest in almost three years in September, easing the pressure on cash-strapped consumers. But there was a sting in the tail for people on benefits, as last month's inflation numbers will be used to set payouts.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said consumer price inflation eased to 2.2% in September, the lowest since November 2009. That compares with a rate of 2.5% in August and is in line with economists' forecasts. Inflation as measured by the retail prices index (RPI), which includes some housing and tax costs, dropped from 2.9% to 2.6%.

Policymakers have been hoping that a fall in inflation will ease the pressure on consumers and encourage people to start spending again to help prop up the economy. However, the figures were skewed by sharp rises in gas and electricity in September last year and inflation is expected to pick up again when this year's round of price increases start to take effect. This month four of the big six energy suppliers announced that bills would rise by 6%-9%.

Vicky Redwood at Capital Economics said higher utility bills, rising food prices and university tuition fees would lift inflation in the coming months. But she expected the yearly rate to stay close to the Bank of England's 2% target, and even fall below it as a result of the weakness of the economy. That should pave the way for the bank to announce an extension of the quantitative easing programme later this year.

She said: "While next month's MPC [monetary policy committee] decision is shaping up to be a relatively close call, we still expect more asset purchases to be announced in the coming months."

Tuesday's data will provide George Osborne with a rare piece of good news, as next year's benefits bill could come in lower than forecast as a result. The Office for Budget Responsibility, whose forecasts are used by the Treasury, expected September's CPI [consumer prices index] to be 2.6%. Under that estimate, the benefit bill for next year stood at £183bn.

The lower rate of inflation will also offer relief to retailers and other companies, as the annual increase in business rates, due in the spring, is determined by September's RPI. However, some of Britain's leading retailers are campaigning for rates to be frozen, as the escalation of costs was preventing them from opening new stores and driving the economy.

In a letter to the Financial Times, Ian Cheshire, chief executive of Kingfisher, Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, and Andy Clarke, chief executive of Asda, called for the moratorium.

Separately, the ONS said factory gate inflation rose to 2.5% – higher than analyst forecasts of 2.2% – while input prices dropped 1.2%, as the price of oil and imported metals came down. The ONS said house prices rose 1.8% on the year in August, down from a 2% increase in July.

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

Blackberry - How the phone went from status symbol to object of shame...

It’s so hard to stay hip. Just ask the BlackBerry. It wasn’t so long ago that the smart device was also a savvy accessory – a sign that you were big in business, or at least important enough to your company that you needed one. Not so any more, according to The New York Times.

In the latest blow to maker Research In Motion, the Times is describing the BlackBerry as an object of shame, something upon which you text furtively in the bathroom at cocktail parties to avoid the scorn of the iPhone users around you.

It gets worse: Another BlackBerry user describes getting the snooty once-over when she asked the concierge at an upscale resort for a charger: “First he said, ‘Sure.’ Then he saw my phone and – in this disgusted tone – said, ‘Oh no, no, not for that.’ ”

Now, BlackBerry fans could argue – and they do toward the end of the story – that the device makes it much easier to send texts and to type e-mails than on the iPhone’s touch screen. But, speaking from experience, it’s fair to say that if you want to check the weather or find the nearest movie theatre, you are probably going to beg to borrow your partner’s iPhone.

“I feel absolutely helpless,” bemoans Victoria Gossage, the one who was snubbed at the resort. “You’re constantly watching people do all these things on their phones.”

Yes, a tragedy to be sure. Because, as one BlackBerry advocate points out in the Times piece, you can hardly live without an app “to map your ski runs.” And imagine going on without the light-sabre app for those Sith encounters. (Okay, admittedly, that one is kind of fun.)

Still, you don’t need the Magic Eight Ball app to tell you that the iPhone, as well as Android devices, are just higher on the cool quotient than the BlackBerry.

“The BlackBerry was once proudly carried by the high-powered and the elite,” The New York Times states, but it was now become “a magnet for mockery and derision” from those carrying iPhones. (Although it can be argued that Apple fans, are by nature, prone to putting on airs.)

But mockers beware: There’s always something hipper on the horizon.

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

Only 1-in-6 speed cameras digital in England and Wales

Only about one in six speed cameras in England and Wales is digital, according to new figures.

Campaigners say increasing digital camera numbers will help reduce crashes as they are more reliable than those using standard film.

Currently, almost 3,000 cameras use photographic film with just 453 digital, which operate for longer.

Road safety charity Brake has called for greater investment in digital technology, which is currently expected to lead to the installation of nearly 200 new cameras over the next 12 months - bringing the total to 647.

However according to the figures, which were commissioned by the Association of Chief Police Officers, 18 partnerships currently have no digital cameras, with Avon and Somerset, Cleveland, Derbyshire, Essex, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire and North Yorkshire, not planning to implement any fixed-camera digitisation programme.

Staffordshire has 262 standard, or so-called wet film, cameras and only one digital model. Lancashire has 168 devices, none of which are currently digital cameras.

Across Derbyshire, there are also no digital, but 113 wet film operated units.

Cumbria is the only road safety partnership that is fully-digital, with 15 cameras.

Sussex has 30 digital devices and authorities expect to have 18 more in the next year. It currently has 62 non-digital units.

Wales has 144 wet film cameras and 27 digital. The partnership has no plans to increase this number in the next 12 months.

Transport for London said it has recently started replacing all its older wet film safety cameras with modern and more efficient digital safety cameras.

Neil Greig, Director of Policy and Research at the Institute of Advanced Motoring, said digital speed cameras were more efficient than those that use wet film.

"The fundamental difference is that digital cameras will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year," he said.

"Traditional cameras would stop when the film ran out so even if you were caught by the flash, you might not get fined and there was even a feeling you were 'unlucky' to actually get fined."

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

Google privacy policy slammed by EU data protection chiefs

Google's changes to its privacy policies have been criticised by 30 European data protection commissioners for resulting in 'uncontrolled' use of personal data without individual's clear consent, relating to their use of YouTube and Gmail.

The commissioners told Google on Tuesday to give people more detailed control over personal data, and said the changes the search giant introduced in March amounted to breaking European data protection law, because the company was storing without consent cookies and data about sites people visited for between 18 months and two years.

CNIL's demand stops short of demanding a wholesale rollback of the changes introduced in March, when Google unified its privacy policies – and data – from about 60 services into a single data store.

Google said it would consider its next steps, but said it had not broken the law. Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel said in a statement: "We have received the report and are reviewing it now. Our new privacy policy demonstrates our long-standing commitment to protecting our users' information and creating great products. We are confident that our privacy notices respect European law."

Google's latest privacy policy means that users get a simpler experience when signing up for a new Google-owned service. But it also means that Google can build up a more comprehensive picture of the user for advertising – for example, monitoring a person's use of YouTube to help better target adverts within Gmail.

However, the CNIL's press release is highly critical of Google, noting that it "provides insufficient information to its users on its personal data processing operations", doesn't tell people how long data will be held, and allows "uncontrolled" combination of data across its service.

The CNIL notes that for Google users, merely visiting a site which displays one of its "+1" buttons is recorded and kept for at least 18 months and can be associated with other data from other Google services. Data collected via a DoubleClick ad cookie – which is then associated with a unique identifying number – is stored by Google for two years, and can be renewed without consultation.

CNIL also criticised the company for being unco-operative in its responses to queries from the commissioners. "Google did not provide satisfactory answers on key issues such as the description of its personal data processing operations, or the precise list of the 60+ product-specific privacy policies that have been merged in the new policy," the CNIL said.

The CNIL report was applauded by privacy groups, though the US search company remained unruffled. Sources close to Google indicated that the CNIL report mostly outlined actions that the search giant "should" carry out rather than that it "must" carry out, which is being interpreted as light-touch regulation rather than full-on confrontation.

But the CNIL may be biding its time. The UK Information Commissioner's Office said that it would wait for Google's response to the report before deciding what to do next. Bradley Shears, a US lawyer who has watched the process unfold, said: "It appears that the CNIL is providing Google one last opportunity to take the appropriate actions necessary to properly address its concerns before going down the litigation route."

Marc Dautlich, a partner specialising in data protection law at Pinsent Masons in London, said: "If Google's get-out is that it's only being told 'should' rather than 'must', then it becomes a question of trust. How does a company purport to be transparent and trusted if they're put to the test and use a legal nicety to avoid it?"

There is no set timetable for a response from Google.

The CNIL wants Google to give users the chance to decide when their data is combined into services, to give better control over the combination of data. The regulators also want to centralise the change to opt out of use, decide which services their data goes into, and change its tools so that data is only used for the intended purpose – separate those used, say, for security from advertising.

The CNIL led the group of 30 data protection commissioners from across the EU, who began examining Google's proposed changes to its privacy policies in February. The company had said in January that it would alter them from the start of March, and went ahead with the changes despite requests from the CNIL to delay them, and warnings from senior European Commission officials that they could be illegal.

The CNIL has now called on Google to adhere to the EU's data protection principles. "European Data Protection legislation provides a precise framework for personal data processing operations," the CNIL said. "Google must have a legal basis to perform the combination of data of each of these purposes and data collection must also remain proportionate to the purposes pursued. However, for some of these purposes including advertising, the processing does not rely on consent, on Google's legitimate interests, nor on the performance of a contract."

Nick Pickles, director of privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: "Consumers have been kept in the dark about how much data Google collects and what happens to that data, and Google's new privacy policy only further disguised what really happens when you use their services.

Pickles added: "It's absolutely right that European regulators focus on ensuring people know what data is being collected and how it is being used. Unless people are aware just how much of their behaviour is being monitored and recorded it is impossible to make an informed choice about using services. This ruling is an important step to putting consumers in control of their personal information and ensuring that companies like Google are not able to easily disregard people's privacy in pursuit of more information and greater profits."

Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said: "It's good to see European data protection authorities take action so that users gain control of their data. This must be backed by strong new data protection powers, for fines based on turnover, and rights to retrieve and to delete your data."

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said: "We await Google's response which will be considered by the CNIL, on behalf of the ICO and the other European data protection regulators. A decision will then be made on whether further action is required."

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

UK economy to 'return to growth' in second half of year

The UK's economy will rebound in the second half of the year, the Ernst and Young Item Club's latest report says.

However, its quarterly forecast, which is produced using the same model as the UK Treasury, still predicts that the economy will contract by 0.2% over the year as a whole.

This has offset the positive effects of lower inflation and rising employment.

The Item Club says economic growth will be 1.2% next year and 2.4% in 2014 and 2015, fuelled by higher consumer spending as a result of falling inflation and a better jobs market.

It says these improvements will be boosted by a recovery in the mortgage and housing markets next spring.

However, it warns that a move back to balanced growth over the medium term is highly dependent on economic developments outside the UK, including in the US where taxes are set to rise and government spending cut - the so-called "fiscal cliff" - unless a political deal is struck soon.

In addition, the Item Club reports says: "Even if the US negotiates the fiscal cliff and euro policymakers do what it takes to save the single currency, these markets will be held back by fiscal retrenchment.

"Prospects for the rapid growth markets are less bright than they seemed last year."

Article from BBC NEWS

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

House prices rise to eight-month high

House sellers raised their asking prices by more than £8,000 in October in the biggest jump seen in eight months, Rightmove said on Monday.

The typical property asking price rose by 3.5pc month-on-month to £243,168, as all regions across England and Wales saw prices increase.

The property search website said the autumn rebound showed "evidence of some life in the market", although it suggested the upturn is most likely to be due to a lack of properties for sale, meaning would-be buyers have less choice.

London, which has had strong overseas buyer interest and continues to perform relatively strongly, saw the biggest monthly increase in asking prices, with a 4.8pc jump taking average prices to £478,071.

The South East and the West Midlands both saw 3.9pc increases, while prices rose by 3.8pc in the North West and by 3.4pc in Wales, while East Anglia saw the smallest increase, with a 0.4pc rise.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said last week that mortgage lending to home buyers hit a two-year high in August, although it cautioned that it is too early to say what long-term effect recently-launched Government schemes to kickstart lending are having.

Mortgage availability has been increasing since an £80bn funding for lending scheme was launched at the start of August, although much of this has so far been concentrated around people with larger deposits of at least 20pc.

Lenders have also toughened their borrowing criteria in recent months and Rightmove said estate agents are still reporting that mortgages are no easier to obtain, with lenders "nit-picking" through every detail of applications.

Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, said increase in asking prices "is most likely attributable to the continued shortage of new property supply".

But he cautioned: "Sellers need to be mindful that the window of opportunity to sell before the traditional winter slowdown is a narrow one, and they risk being left out in the cold for months until the spring market thaw.

"In addition, estate agents are reporting that mortgages are still no easier to obtain, with risk-averse lenders nit-picking every detail of the mortgage application paperwork, even from buyers who seem squeaky clean."

Rightmove said that its own research has found that fewer than two in five would-be buyers say they will arrange to visit a property they believe is over-priced, even if it matches their criteria. Article Source : The Telegraph

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iPad Mini expected at Apple event

Apple will host an event on October 23 where it is expected to unveil a smaller iPad that will take on the less expensive devices offered by Amazon.com and Google.

Wall Street analysts have predicted for months that Apple was planning a smaller, less costly version of its popular iPad to take on cheaper competing devices, a move that analysts say might hurt its margins, but prevent its rivals from dominating an increasingly important computing segment.

A smaller iPad will directly compete with e-commerce company Amazon's Kindle Fire HD tablet and Google's Nexus 7. Both devices have 7-inch screens and sell for $199 (about R1600). The first Kindle Fire, launched last year, grabbed about a fifth of the US tablet market.

The consumer device company is gearing up to unveil a new product at a major Oct. 23 event, said the source, who declined to be named, only days before Microsoft unveils Windows 8 and its new Surface tablet on Oct. 26.

The Nexus 7, manufactured by Asustek Computer, has also seen a successful start, with the tablet selling out soon after launch.

One Wall Street analyst said he had seen the smaller tablet, dubbed iPad mini by the media, while visiting component suppliers in Asia.

“We actually had the opportunity to play with a pilot iPad Mini used by one of the vendors,” Topeka Capital analyst Brian White said. “This 7.85-inch iPad Mini fit our hands like a glove and we were easily able to tuck the device in our sport coat, offering consumers a more mobile iPad experience for certain use cases.”

Apple events are typically among the most-watched items on the industry calendar, monitored by consumers and technology investors alike. The event in two weeks, however, comes at a time of volatility for the popular technology stock.

While the stock is up 55 percent this year, it is currently down 10 percent from its record high. Wall Street analysts have cited concerns about disruptions of iPhone supplies after a riot in September at one of the plants operated by its main contract manufacturer, Foxconn Technology, and sharp criticism from consumers about errors in its Maps service.

Apple's fiscal fourth quarter financial results are scheduled to be released on Oct. 25, two days after the event, offering analysts a rare opportunity to grill executives about a new product just after details are made public.

A smaller iPad could be a risk to Apple's industry-leading margins, given that neither Amazon nor Google has been known to make much money from the smaller tablets.

Amazon's first Kindle Fire just about breaks even, according to IHS iSupply estimates. But the internet retailer sells a lot of content - music, books - through the Kindle line.

Google has said that its $199 Nexus 7 is being sold at cost and has no profit margin.

If the tablet is priced below $299, Apple could still maintain a decent margin if it offers 8 GB of storage instead of the minimum 16 GB storage it has in the current iPad, Wu added.

A mini version of the iPad marks a departure for the company that now has just one 9.7-inch iPad, although it does come with various storage options and starts at $499.

Late Apple founder Steve Jobs famously derided the 7-inch screen as unwieldy for tablet applications, saying the devices should come with sandpaper so that users can file down their fingers to use them.

But an internal email revealed during the patent trial showed that Internet chief Eddy Cue argued there was a market for a 7-inch tablet and that Apple should have one. The email, sent in early 2011 to top Apple executives, said Jobs had warmed up to the idea.

Source Article : Independent Online Image Source : Getty via Mirror

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Virgin to West Coast Mainline while government fixes bidding fiasco

The government faced fresh humiliation over a botched competition to run the country's west coast rail service on Monday, when it asked Virgin to continue operating the line on an interim basis, only weeks after choosing a rival company.

A 13-year franchise deal, due to commence in December, had originally been granted to FirstGroup ahead of the incumbent Virgin Trains, but the government was forced to pull the award earlier this month when it discovered serious flaws in the way it had run the process.

The Department of Transport is now asking Virgin to continue operating the service, which runs from London to Scotland, for a further nine to 13 months from December, while it runs a competition for an interim agreement, it said on Monday.

"My priority now is to fix the problem and the first step is to take urgent action to ensure that on the 9 December services continue to run to the same standard and passengers are not affected."

FirstGroup, which had made a 5.5 billion pounds bid to run the franchise, has seen its shares slide over 20 percent since the deal was scrapped.

Virgin Trains - a venture between billionaire businessman Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Stagecoach - had offered 4.8 billion pounds to continue with the franchise, and had mounted a legal challenge when it lost, claiming the winning bid was "ridiculous".

In the process of preparing for the legal challenge, the government uncovered mistakes related to the way it had calculated risk, leading to an embarrassing u-turn on the award of the franchise, the suspension of three employees, and the freezing of other ongoing franchise competitions.

Following the debacle, the government has ordered two independent reviews. One will look into what happened with the west coast competition and is expected to report by the end of this month, while the other will look at the wider issue of rail franchising and report in December.

Virgin welcomed the government move on Monday. A spokesman said: "Customers have made it clear that they want Virgin to continue. We are delighted to have the chance to continue delivering our excellent service."

The affair is humiliating for the ruling Conservative Party, which began its programme of rail privatisations in the 1990s, a project that has been dogged by fatal accidents, financial crises and political infighting.

In 2009, the government was forced to re-nationalise the east coast line after contracts with GNER and National Express collapsed.

"RMT will continue to fight for public ownership of the railways, a position supported by the vast majority of the British people," transport union the RMT said on Monday.

"This short term political fix will not detract from the call for rail to be run as a public service free from the chaos and greed of privatisation."

Source Article : Reuters  Image Source : Pendolino.jpg

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

Teenager Wins $60K For Hacking Into Google

A teenager who goes by the name Pinkie Pie has made $60,000 (£37,446) for hacking into Google for a second time.

Google offers the "bug bounty" to hackers who can find security problems with its products.

The youngster found holes in the Chrome web browser that were described by Google as "critical" and called the finding "another beautiful piece of work", according to VentureBeat.

The competition took place on Tuesday at a conference called Hack in the Box in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The reverse engineering enthusiast had applied for a job at Google in 2011 but did not hear back from the company.

Google unveiled its Chromium Security Rewards Programme in 2010.

It opened the latest "Pwnium" contest in August offering a total of $2m (£1.2m) in prizes. "Full exploits" were offered up to $60,000 (£37,446), with "partial exploits" getting up to $10,000 (£6241).

The teenager also won $60,000 (£37,446) in the first Pwnium competition in February.

Google is not the only company offering rewards for highlighting system vulnerabilities. Facebook has a programme which pays users at least $500 (£312) to spot holes in its systems.

Source Article : Sky News

[5thingsfortoday-blog]

Skydiver Makes Record Jump From Edge Of Space

A skydiver has made history by smashing the world record for the highest skydive after leaping safely from a height of 128,097 ft.

Daredevil Felix Baumgartner ascended to the edge of space in a pressurised capsule suspended beneath a giant helium balloon before jumping out and free-falling for four minutes and 19 seconds back to earth.

He also achieved the fastest ever freefall after reaching a top speed at 706 miles per hour (1,137 kilometers per hour), according to mission spokeswoman Sarah Anderson.

The biggest risk Baumgartner faced was spinning out of control, which could exert G forces which could make him lose consciousness.

At one point he appeared to have become unstable, but he managed to get himself into a flat, controlled position for the rest of the skydive.

Links:

Article Adapted from Sky News - Full Story  Video - YouTube  Other Sources: Daily Mail (Good Article & Images); Newsday; BBC NEWS

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FTSE 250 : better bet than its blue-chip big brother

Big isn’t always beautiful. Last Friday was the 20th anniversary of the FTSE 250 and, looking back over the two decades since the index was created, it is worth noting that it has proven a better bet than its blue-chip big brother.

Since the mid-cap index’s creation it has grown five times its starting level, compared to the FTSE 100 which over the same period has not much more than doubled.

Please follow the article source link for a summary of last week’s FTSE 250 Market Report

Also of interest: Telegraph - “Build your profits with mid-cap shares”

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