You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/0VpCs37RDvc/Like many a pop idol, a lot of rock-star companies transcended their troubled or humble origins with the help of a new name for themselves or their wares. This quiz will ask you to guess the birth names of a host of major consumer brands—and to reflect on how some of the most brilliant business minds of the last 100 years could have come up with "Baby Gays," "Brad's Drink," or "Cadabra" for their products.
Starbucks was named after a character in Moby-Dick when which name from the same novel was rejected?
What was the original name of Google's search engine?
Which common household item used to go by the name Baby Gays?
For its first 17 years in business, Best Buy shared its name with which famous musical?
Brad's Drink was the underwhelming first moniker of which future bottled-drink juggernaut?
Which grocery-aisle mainstay was first marketed as Country Squares?
Which television channel began life as the Pinwheel Network?
Traf-O-Data, a company that interpreted data from roadway traffic counters, was the first failed startup by the founders of which future software giant?
Hugh Hefner was forced to change the name of his future media company due to a trademark challenge by a rival magazine. What was Playboy's first name?
Amazon incorporated in 1994 under the name Cadabra, as in "abracadabra." Why did Jeff Bezos' lawyer reject the name?
Which chain launched as Pronto Market?
What was the original name of Yahoo, which combined the names of founders Jerry Yang and David Filo?
Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/when_big_businesses_were_small/2013/10/quiz_match_the_great_business_with_its_terrible_original_name.htmlFulfilling his need for speed, Bradley Cooper revved up his KTM superbike in Los Angeles on Saturday (October 26).
The "Silver Linings Playbook" star was clad in black leather and a matching helmet as he sped out on the road.
Earlier this month, it was announced that the 38-year-old actor will team with Relativity Television and Georgeville Television for a scripted TV show based on the movie, "Limitless."
In the 2011 movie, a mysterious pill enables a struggling writer to use 100% of his brain. He becomes a financial wizard and attracts some dangerous forces who want to use his power.
Here at the TechCrunch Disrupt Europe Hackathon, Sam Gichuru (left) and Billy Odero spent the night working on a neat hack to help small businesses promote themselves by tapping into social network influencers. The hack, called Twpple, is designed to give smaller outlets, such as kebab shops, market stalls, hair salons and so on — basically any small businesses that hasn’t built up its own digital following — a stronger voice than they would otherwise have in the digital sphere to promote whatever it is they sell.
The hack uses Klout scores as a shortcut to identify individuals with the most social cachet that the SMEs can then tap into. The social influencers get paid for tweeting a series of messages (which they would word themselves) about the business or promotions they are running — with small payments giving them an incentive to help businesses spread the word.
“If your Klout score is 25 you can get $2.50 for sending three tweets,” said Gichuru, during his on stage pitch. “We have called this ‘pay per influence.’”
The bigger story here is not so much the hack but the fact that Gichuru and Odero came all the way from Nairobi, Kenya, to join the hackathon. The pair work for an accelerator in Nairobi called nailab – where Gichuru is CEO and co-founder, and can normally be found helping startups hone their pitches for the hackathons the incubator runs.
They told TechCrunch they made the trip to Europe to attend another tech conference in Amsterdam and meet with some investors and decided to add a two-day hack in Berlin into the mix while they were here. Their eight-hour flight from Nairobi was followed by an epic 13-hour train ride from Amsterdam to Berlin, which involved a lengthy detour after a 500-pound unexploded WWII bomb was found under a bridge(!). Add to that, Odero’s laptop broke and the pair’s Kenyan bank cards were rejected so they couldn’t buy a replacement machine — meaning they had to share one MacBook to build Twpple. Yet still they hacked.
Gichuru said Twitter is especially popular in Kenya — hence their focus on that social platform for Twpple. But while social media is a “big game” in Kenya for individuals, many small businesses still remain on the outside.
“They are always asking us, ‘hey how do you get on social media? How do we get social media influencers to tweet about us? And talk about us and write and talk about our Happy Hour?’ So we decided to build a platform where they can just log in, even from their mobile phones, create a small campaign — just based on the preferences they put up — for example their location, demographic, target market they want to reach.
“Then they’re able to get a list of the social media influencers who have signed up on our platform. And based on these guys’ Klout data they are able to say how much to pay for a certain amount of tweets.”
Payments would require influencers to send a series of tweets — in order for the small business to get enough “traction” from the micro campaign, said Gichuru, discussing the hack backstage. ”You need at least three tweets [per influencer] to get enough traction [for the business that's paying for the campaign]. But it has to be a conversation. We have to find a balance between having a real conversation and having marketing tweets from these people,” he said.
“It’s very easy for people who have a lot of Klout to start a trending topic [in Kenya],” added Odero. “We have some of the craziest hashtags. And normally it’s just one guy.”
“Social media big wigs — we call them ‘big wigs’ — become celebrities in my country,” added Gichuru. “They are known, they are followed, they actually — when the government does something, they do have a voice to question it or put government to task to explain it. And you will notice that even during the recent terrorist attack in Nairobi, social media influencers were the ones who were providing more information than the government, than the mainstream.”
Gichuru also pointed out that leaning on social big wigs — who are after all going to be broadcasting marketing messages to their own followers — adds an element of “self-regulation” to the advertising process. ”If it’s bad people are going to come back at you,” he said. “And you don’t want to be the point that the community attacks.”
How did the TC Disrupt hackathon compare to hacks nailab runs? “It’s been a really global experience. We’re always developing local solutions. Being here gives us a chance to see how to develop for a bigger audience and a bigger market,” said Gichuru. “It gives you a sense of how to monetise it as you’re hacking.”
“Most people [at nailab hackathons] try to focus on social enterprise,” added Odero. “It’s easier to get donor funding, it’s easier to get sponsors if you’re actually building something that solves an existing problem where we are.”
Here’s Gichuru presenting Twpple on stage:
As Minute Earth rightly points out, we could avoid a lot of flesh wounds by having thicker armored skin like a pangolin. But the energy needed to generate and maintain that armor wasn't evolutionarily worth it for us to expend because we put so much fuel into our enormous brains. We can think of ways to escape danger or make intelligent plans to avoid dangerous situations in the first place. And we do have scales, they're just not visible to the naked eye, but they protect us from tons of microbes. A lot is going on with our skin as the layers form, live out their life rising to the surface and then die. Watch this video and then go exfoliate.
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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/3DjpFvs0wFE/a-detailed-description-of-why-human-skin-is-amazing-1453056862Miley Cyrus is hitting the road! The "We Can't Stop" singer announced she will be going on tour during a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live during Ed Norton's monologue on Oct. 26.
"I'm really great. Really quick, I'd just like to announce to all of my fans that I am about to be going on tour," the 20-year-old said to the host and the audience during her drop by.
PHOTOS: Miley's raciest outfits
She also gave the Academy Award-nominated actor some hosting tips. "Eddie, here are Miley's three rules to hosting," she boasted. "One, you've got to have fun. Two, you gotta keep your energy up and three, you gotta stick your tongue out like this." The Moonrise Kingdom star seemed hesitant, but quickly mimicked the blonde beauty by sticking out his tongue. (Cyrus previously hosted SNL earlier this month.)
Miley Cyrus announces her new tour on Saturday Night Live alongside host Ed Norton
Credit: NBC
After her appearance, the "Wrecking Ball" entertainer tweeted the news about the upcoming tour herself and celebrated at 1 Oak club in NYC. "I'm gooooing on tooooooour!! #Bangerz2014Tour," Cyrus excitedly wrote to her over 14 million followers. She added: "#Drinkinouttavasesamirightttt #celebrate #Bangerztour2014."
At the club, Cyrus was spotted wearing the same white crop t-shirt and tight black pants she donned on the SNL stage earlier in the evening. "She was non-stop dancing" for two hours, a source reveals to Us Weekly. "[The club] played two of her songs" and "she had her hands up" while dancing.
FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2013, file photo, registered nurse Salanda Bowman, left, talks with part-time Kentucky Wesleyan College student Jason Ward, of Whitesville, about job openings at the Owensboro Health Regional Hospital during a Regional Career and Job Fair in the Owensboro Sports Center in Owensboro, Ky. The U.S. economy added just 148,000 jobs in September, suggesting that employers held back on hiring before a 16-day partial government shutdown began Oct. 1. (AP Photo/The Messenger-Inquirer, Gary Emord-Netzley, File)
FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2013, file photo, registered nurse Salanda Bowman, left, talks with part-time Kentucky Wesleyan College student Jason Ward, of Whitesville, about job openings at the Owensboro Health Regional Hospital during a Regional Career and Job Fair in the Owensboro Sports Center in Owensboro, Ky. The U.S. economy added just 148,000 jobs in September, suggesting that employers held back on hiring before a 16-day partial government shutdown began Oct. 1. (AP Photo/The Messenger-Inquirer, Gary Emord-Netzley, File)
A customer enters a Chinese bakery that has a sign posted in the door, "Hiring! Sales Position Inquire within," Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in New York. The U.S. economy added just 148,000 jobs in September, suggesting that employers held back on hiring before a 16-day partial government shutdown began Oct. 1. Still, hiring last month was enough to lower the unemployment rate. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A dim view of the U.S. job market emerged Tuesday with a report that employers cut back on hiring in September just before a partial government shutdown began.
Just 148,000 jobs were added last month, a steep drop from August's gain, though they were enough to lower unemployment to 7.2 percent from 7.3 percent in August. The report bolsters expectations that the Federal Reserve will maintain its pace of bond purchases for the rest of 2013 to try to keep long-term loan rates low.
The government's release of the September jobs report had been delayed 2½ weeks by the shutdown. Temporary layoffs during the 16-day shutdown will probably depress October's job gain. That means a clear picture of the job market won't emerge before November jobs figures are issued in December.
"The economy is too fragile for the Federal Reserve to touch," Sung Won Sohn, an economist at California State University, said. "The shenanigans in Congress have hurt confidence and increased uncertainties, most likely hurting both consumer and business spending as well as hiring."
Average U.S. job growth has fallen sharply in the past three months after a promising start this year. The economy added an average of 143,000 jobs a month from July through September. That was down from the 182,000 average gain during from April through June and well below the 207,000-a-month pace from January through March.
The report "reinforces the impression that the labor market was losing a little momentum heading in to the shutdown," said Josh Feinman, global chief economist at Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management. "The labor market is continuing to create jobs. ...It's just frustratingly slow."
Stocks rose after the report was released, in part because slower job gains mean the Fed will continue its stimulus efforts. The Dow Jones industrial average was up about 50 points in midday trading.
Economists at Barclays now predict the Fed won't trim its bond purchases until March, much later than its previous forecast of December.
A tight job market has discouraged many Americans from looking for work. The percentage of Americans working or looking for work remained at a 35-year low last month.
The government doesn't count people as unemployed unless they are actively looking for work. Most of the drop in the unemployment rate this year has occurred because many people have either given up looking or have postponed their job searches by remaining in school.
The September jobs report showed that some higher-paying industries added jobs at a healthy pace. Construction companies, for example, added 20,000.
Transportation and warehousing gained 23,400 jobs, governments 22,000. Manufacturers added 2,000 jobs.
Lower-paying industries were mixed. Hotels and restaurants cut about 11,000 jobs, after strong hiring earlier this year. Retailers added 21,000 positions.
The budget impasse didn't stop Accumold, which makes components for medical devices, smartphones and other electronic goods, from boosting its workforce. CEO Roger Hargens said the Ankeny, Iowa-based company filled jobs in September and plans to add up to 65 to its 185-worker staff in the next few months.
Hargens says he is seeing more orders from customers who are shifting from Chinese manufacturers to U.S. suppliers.
"There's a big trend to move manufacturing back to the United States," he said. "It's really speeding up now for us."
Last month, average hourly U.S. pay ticked up 3 cents to $24.09. In the past year, pay has risen 2.1 percent, ahead of the 1.5 percent inflation rate.
The government revised its estimates of job growth in July and August to show a slight net gain of 9,000. It said employers added 193,000 jobs in August, more than the 169,000 previously estimated. But it said just 89,000 were added in July, the fewest in more than a year and below the earlier estimated 104,000.
The deceleration in job growth was a key reason the Fed decided in September to hold off on slowing its $85-billion-a-month in bond purchases. Many economists think the lack of clean data will lead the Fed to put off any decision on the bond purchases until 2014.
"It reinforces their hesitancy," Feinman said of the September jobs report. "It's more validation for their hesitancy to taper in September."
Many economists say the shutdown cut $25 billion out of the economy and slowed growth to about a 2 percent annual rate in the October-December quarter. That's down from estimates before the shutdown that the economy would expand at a 2.5 percent annual rate.
Robert Mellman, senior U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase, forecasts that October's job gains will be lower by about 35,000 because of cutbacks at government contractors and other companies affected by the shutdown. Many of those jobs will be regained in November.
Growth is expected to rise slightly in the first three months of next year, as consumers and businesses make purchases and investments that were delayed during the shutdown.
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Follow Chris Rugaber on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/ChrisRugaber
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-22-Economy/id-c37b1ac1fd324e3980ffe807eecb583f
