a2z Information: 2012-05-27

Saturday, June 2, 2012

What to wear to weddings this year

Sure, you don't want to upstage the bride, but you want to look hot in front of old friends you haven't seen in years. Don't know what to wear? We've got you covered with these pretty summer dresses.

Photo: Courtesy of zara.com

Destination Duds

This strapless stunner screams "Take me with you!" to that destination wedding. The fun, floral print will definitely have everyone talking.

Zara Draped Waist Dress,
$100, zara.com.

Best deals in June

A motivated shopper armed with the right information can still find bargains in June — one of the most difficult months for bargain hunters.

So says Mark Di Vincenzo, author of New York Times bestseller "Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon." (Markdivincenzowriter.com) A former journalist known for his aggressive reporting and his ability to simplify complex issues, Di Vincenzo says there are sleeper deals in June most people don’t know about.

But be warned, Di Vincenzo says summer is the worst time of the year to look for deals and discounts. "In June, you've got high school and college graduations, weddings and Father's Day. Retailers know consumers need to buy things for these occasions, so they're not about to lower prices and have sales."

May s Jobs Report Disappoints Across the Board

Well, this is a bad employment report — across the board. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reportedthat the economy created just 69,000 jobs in May -- the fewest in a year -- and the unemployment rate crept up to 8.2 percent.

As is always the case in an election year, voters have their eyes firm on the trend of that headline unemployment number. In the accompanying video, my Daily Ticker colleagues Aaron Task and Henry Blodget talk to Politico's Morning Money columnist and Wall Street reporter Ben White about the political implications of this grim payroll number.

The Facebook crash, Is social media going the way of blogging

It’s an uncanny bummer to see that Facebook “f” perched hopefully atop an article called “Facebook's stock continues decline after rocky IPO.”

But there it is.

You can read all about the demise of Facebook—and then share that bleak news with your friends ... on Facebook!

Facebook is dead; long live Facebook.

On Facebook, Likes Become Ads

SAN FRANCISCO — On Valentine’s Day, Nick Bergus came across a link to an odd product on Amazon.com: a 55-gallon barrel of ... personal lubricant.

He found it irresistibly funny and, as one does in this age of instant sharing, he posted the link on Facebook, adding a comment: “For Valentine’s Day. And every day. For the rest of your life.”

Within days, friends of Mr. Bergus started seeing his post among the ads on Facebook pages, with his name and smiling mug shot. Facebook — or rather, one of its algorithms — had seen his post as an endorsement and transformed it into an advertisement, paid for by Amazon.

In Facebook parlance, it was a sponsored story, a potentially lucrative tool that turns a Facebook user’s affinity for something into an ad delivered to his friends.

Wondering what to major in? These five degrees are most in-demand by employers.

By Deanna Ting

Thinking about going back to school to earn your degree, but having trouble deciding on a major?

New research from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) shows that certain degrees could lead to a hiring edge come graduation.

While some related studies look at the popularity of certain degrees nationwide, NACE's "Job Outlook 2012" report polled 244 major employers directly, and asked them specifically about their future hiring plans and needs.

"Specific disciplines of targeted interest include accounting; finance; business administration; and mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering," says NACE Executive Director Marilyn Mackes.

Here's a list of the top five most in-demand bachelor's degrees for 2012.

Suggestion: Don't swim near anyone looking this relieved. (ThinkStock)If you're taking a refreshing dip in a pool with four other people, odds are one of you is urinating. This is not gross-out myth, but cold, depressing fact from a recent survey conducted by the Water Quality & Health Council, a scientific research group sponsored by the American Chemistry Council.

The survey, conducted in April, asked nearly 1,000 adults whether they urinate in pools. One in five bravely admitted their mistakes. And those are the ones who admitted it.

Building's amazing balcony pools

Miami Cannibal Attack, Horrific Dangers of Bath Salts Drug

The “cannibal” attacker who gnawed off another man’s face in Miami is suspected to have been high on a dangerous street drug called “bath salts.” Police say that during the zombie-like naked rampage that horrified the world, Rudy Eugene, 31, displayed deranged behavior similar to other horrific crimes linked to bath salts, before being shot dead by police on Saturday.

Bath salts, which have been called the new LSD, cause people “to go completely insane and become very violent,” said Armando Aguilar, president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police told CNN. Also known by street names like “Ivory Wave,” “Vanilla Sky,” “Bliss,” “Dynamite” and “Purple Rain,” bath salts made headlines last year after a torrent of ER visits, thousands of calls to poison control centers, and a number of deaths, including murders and suicides.

Alzheimer s pill could help cure shopaholics

London, May 29 (ANI): A pill designed to treat Alzheimer's could help compulsive shoppers curb their devastating habit, say psychiatrists.

In tests, shopaholics given the medication spent less time shopping and cut the cash they squandered on impulse buys.

More than four out of five sufferers are women. Their problem is not just resisting a sales sign, but buying things they don't need and can't afford.

ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, approved on Friday specifications for a SIM card even smaller than the micro SIM that Apple’s iPhone 4 first introduced in 2010. The new standard, called a nano-SIM, is the fourth form factor for the small smart cards used in GSM phones and is 40 percent smaller than the prior model. The approval was not without strife, however, as various phone makers were debating for months over the design and size.

The New iPad Buyers’ Guide published by iLounge this week included a piece that speculated Apple might be working on a standalone camera product. While the story discussed the possibility of Apple working on a point-and-shoot iSight camera, iLounge clearly labeled it as speculation and simultaneously noted it received a tip claiming Apple is working on the project.

The online mapping space is quickly heating up. What used to be a relatively straightforward competition between Google and Microsoft (with OpenStreetMap and a few other smaller players standing on the sidelines) will likely become a far more complex scenario now that Apple is likely to reveal its own solution at its WWDC later this month. Google, it seems, is trying to steal some thunder from Apple and is holding an invite-only press event in San Francisco where the company promises to unveil “the next dimension of Google Maps.”

Facebook went down for a few hours last night, causing people to turn to Twitter to complain, quip and mourn. But despite the outsized reactions from the site’s 901 million users, the web itself barely felt the shock of losing the largest social network on the planet.

Facebook’s traffic profile during yesterday’s outage.

Microsoft's Skype Internet telephone service hopes to quadruple the number of users to get to one billion, division president Tony Bates said on Thursday.

Bates, who heads the unit that was acquired byMicrosoft last year but operates autonomously, said growth will come from mobile users and from partnerships like the one Skype has with Facebook.

Interview Tips that Really Work

The only topic with more information online than interview tips is ways to deal with sexuality issues.

Sites and books and self-help courses on how to crack a job interview come cheaper than a dime a dozen, yet when their advice doesn’t work, the blame is conveniently laid on the larger number of applicants than available jobs.

"I'm not ready for a relationship." If those six words have ever snapped open your rib cage and scooped out your heart like gut hook, then you might be a woman.

It's the most popular excuse women hear when they're being dumped, according to a survey released Tuesday.

Samsung Electronics launched its flagship Galaxy S3 smartphone in India on Thursday, making an aggressive push to counter Apple's popular iPhones in a competitive market.

The 16 GB smartphone, priced at 43,180 rupees in India, runs on the Android 4.0 platform and features a 4.8 inch screen.

The Galaxy S3, powered by Samsung's quad-core microprocessor, also tracks the user's eye movements to keep the screen from dimming or turning off while in use.

If the laws of physics open up the world of scientific development, their application creates a variety of job opportunities. The list ranges from analysts, teachers to researchers, scientists in areas as diverse as space science and nuclear energy to industrial research.

"The demand for physics courses is largely because of the high level of interest and motivation of students," says professor V Ravishankar, head of physics, IIT-Kanpur.

United Steel Company (SULB), the Gulf region's first fully integrated steel sections and beams producer, has signed an agreement with IT major TCS for the implementation ofSAP software and business warehousing solutions for its integrated steel mill.

"We are pleased to be working with TCS, a global leader in software and business solutions, on the implementation of SAP solutions for SULB," CEO of SULB Mohammed Al-Jabr said.

Today, Google begins an experiment to change the way you shop online. When you search for a product, Google will deliver paid listings for shopping options right next to the search results. By searching for a product, you've demonstrated a possible intent to buy it, so Google has extended its search results with a department store where merchants can sell it to you.

Google is not selling products the way Amazon does. Rather, it's giving merchants who use its commercial ad model the opportunity to sell to you from the Google search results page. The ads aren't simply text. They include images and descriptions and current prices, and they only show items that are in stock. Google's shopping ads come with an API that lets merchants keep their listings accurate.

We have already laid out a lot about the next iPhone. Its 1,136-by-640 display. Its totally redesigned back plate and unibody construction. But what will it have under the hood? 9to5Mac delved deep into a beta version of iOS 6 to find out…

The iPhone running iOS 6 boasts Darwin Kernel Version 13.0.0. We can also see that the processor is an ARM S5L8950X.Interestingly, that is a full release above the most current developer version of MAC OS 10.8 Mountain Lion. The XNU build is also higher (21XX vs 2050.5.8):

The worst phase has been continuing for the investors in the domestic equity markets as well as across the globe. Even mutual fund investors have not been spared from the downfall that has been an impact of developments in both domestic as well as global markets. Well over the next 3 to 5 minutes, you can know how you can make this a better time for your mutual fund investments, and how you can strengthen your mutual funds portfolio in 8 easy steps.

Many investors have seen their portfolio value eroding more as compared to the benchmark indices over the past 1 year and some sitting on huge loses over the past 3 years. But yet they are unable to make out why they incurred a huge loss in their portfolio. Was it a wrong selection of funds or their exposure to wrong asset class?
We have always seen that to gain from equity markets, you have to participate into it. Staying on the sidelines can only help you with wealth preservation and may not help you achieve your dreams of wealth creation. We have always advised our investors to continue with their saving habits. And for the new investors, they should start investing via SIP mode.

11 Easy Ways to Slash Travel Costs

Traveling on a budget doesn't mean you have to compromise on comfortable accommodations and decent flight times. In fact, savvy travelers already know how to maximize their travel budget and take advantage of low prices on travel packages, airline tickets, and other travel-related expenses. Planning ahead will usually give you the upper hand when it comes to playing the vacation-booking game, and there are several tricks and tactics you can use to slash those costs even further. Whether you're dreaming of a trip to the Bahamas or looking to book an overseas adventure, make sure you're aware of all of the different deals, discounts, and specials available to your destination of choice.

Here are 11 tips to help you slash travel costs with ease:

Women advised to steer clear of hormone replacement therapy

Washington, May 29 (ANI): Women who are past menopause and healthy should not use hormone replacement therapy in hopes of warding off dementia, bone fractures or heart disease, says a new analysis that weighs the risks and benefits of screening and other therapies aimed at preventing illness.

But the recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force does not necessarily apply to women who use hormone replacement therapy to reduce menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness, the LA Times reported.

Drink Coffee, Live Longer

You already know that coffee can help you live through a long morning meeting, but it also might help you live -- period! We have the scoop on why coffee might extend your life -- and some delicious new ways to drink it up.

The National Cancer Institute (NIH) study, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, tracked over 400,000 older adults for almost 14 years and found that those who drank the most coffee were the least likely to die during the study. Men and women who drank four to five cups a day were, in fact, the least likely to die.

The IPL final, as Ravi Shastri saw it.

It’s 7:30PM on a steaming Sunday evening in Chennai and Ravi Shastri, standing in the middle of the Chidambaram Stadium, is all set to attend a wedding. Bedecked in a green sherwani and a white dupatta, whose lose ends kiss the Chepauk pitch, Shastri, microphone in hand, is about to empty his lungs and flex his larynx. Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball commentary describes what follows: “He [Shastri] hollers, for one last time this IPL season.”

General Bikram Singh takes charge Chief of Army Staff

New Delhi, May 31 (ANI): General Bikram Singh took charge of theIndian Army on Thursday (May 31), succeeding General V.K. Singh who proceeded on superannuation after 42 years of distinguished service in the army.

The change of command was solemnised at a ceremony in the Army Chief's office. General Bikram Singh will formally assume charge as the 25th Chief of Army Staff on June 1, 2012.

General Bikram Singh, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, SM, VSM, ADC is an alumnus of the Punjab Public School, Nabha. He was commissioned into The Sikh Light Infantry in March 1972.

High speed photography captures moment of impact

Photographer Alan Sailer created these dramatic images by blasting food and household objects with a rifle or firecracker, and capturing the moment of impact on a homemade camera in his garage.

A tub of yogurt. (Alan Sailer/Caters News Agency)

Ice cream. (Alan Sailer/Caters News Agency)

A water balloon. (Alan Sailer/Caters News Agency)

Crayons. (Alan Sailer/Caters News Agency)

Walkman. (Alan Sailer/Caters News Agency)

Strawberry. (Alan Sailer/Caters News Agency)

A sand filled ornament. (Alan Sailer/Caters News Agency)

Cucumber. (Alan Sailer/Caters News Agency)

Rubber bands. (Alan Sailer/Caters News Agency)

A stack of cards. (Alan Sailer/Caters News Agency)

Foods to keep your body cool in the scorching summer heat!

Everyone loves good food and a sumptuous meal can positively alter your mood instantly. But come summer and your appetite goes down the drain.

Lately a lot of consumers have been asking whether they really need to carry a credit card. It seems just as easy to get by on cash, and all the identity theft and shady lender practices making headlines aren't reassuring. Also, the outcry against big banks and practices like debit card fees and swipe fees put off consumers who felt taken advantage of. By Jill Krasny | Business Insider

10 unexplained medical conditions

“What we know is to what we do not know, as a grain of sand is to the beach.” IVAN PANIN

The world is a strange place, indeed. And the little we do understand of it is dwarfed by the magnanimity of what we cannot comprehend. We tend to forget this in our awe of the quantum leaps that technology is making, and the ease of life that it has created. But a quick reality check can be found with your family doctor.

We all suffer from bad skin days from time to time, but there are many tips and tricks you can use to get perfect skin naturally. To make spots and blemishes a thing of the past, check out these seven tips for clear skin.

Clear skin tip 1: Ditch the chemicals

It can be tempting to reach for chemical peels and ingredients such as salicylic acid to help clear up problem skin. However, many chemical-based skin products not only contain potentially harmful ingredients, they can also excessively dry out skin and exacerbate skin problems. For a gentler approach to fighting acne, opt for natural spot-fighting ingredients such as tea tree oil or manuka honey. Manuka honey not only has antimicrobial and antiseptic properties to fight spots, it also has the benefit of being able to reduce the scarring and marks left by spots.

10 Salary Negotiating Mistakes to Avoid

Not much makes job-seekers more anxious than negotiating--or even discussing--salary. After all, you might ask for too much, ask for too little, or otherwise sabotage your own chances of getting the best possible salary. Negotiation will go more smoothly if you know what landmines to avoid.

When it comes time to negotiate salary for a new job, make sure that you don't make these 10 key errors:

1. Being unprepared. At some point, employers are likely to ask what salary range you're looking for, possibly as soon as their first contact with you. If you're caught off-guard, you risk low-balling yourself or otherwise saying something that will harm you in salary negotiations later. It's crucial to do your homework ahead of time so that you're ready when the question comes up.

No roaming charges in new telecom policy

New Delhi, May 31 (IANS) The cabinet Thursday approved a new telecom policy that seeks to do away with roaming charges throughout the country and simplifies the licencing policy, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said Thursday.

"Affordability of the consumers is the core of our policy," Sibal told reporters after a cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Sibal said the new policy aims at free roaming facility throughout the country.

Macho is SO last season,WHY BAD BOYS ARE RUBBISH

The first giveaway was when clompy Nike Air trainers disappeared from our streets, and Converse classics appeared. The second clue was simply Becks in a sarong. The next sign came in the form of photo captions; namely the words ‘hot’ and ‘swoon’ printed underneath pictures of Jack Whitehall and Russell Brand. And before long, it was official: metrosexual was in, macho was out.

A new American study has found that women would rather have a man with a good heart and the ability to provide, than a man with a Platinum gym membership and a default ‘fight’ setting.

WHY BAD BOYS ARE RUBBISH

Kingfisher Airlines posts worst ever quarter; no funding in sight

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Kingfisher Airlines'(NSI:KFA.NS - News) posted its worst-ever quarterly loss on Thursday, as huge cuts in the number of flights compounded the woes of a cash-strapped carrier facing high fuel prices and intense competition for low fares, sending its shares down to record lows.

Kingfisher, which was India's No. 2 airline until a year ago, has been the biggest victim of turbulence in India's aviation industry, where six main carriers face a total debt load of $20 billion and $2 billion in annual losses.

Don not mess with your shoulder joint

If you're someone who thinks heavy behind-the-neck lat pull-downs and behind-the-neck barbell shoulder presses make you a badass lifter, you couldn't be fooling anyone but yourself. More than anything, it's just poor form!

Both these exercises are detrimental for your shoulder joint, for the very reason that this joint is not supposed to rotate enough to take the arms that far behind the head. They put the joint in a position we call the closed-packed-a position where the joint stability is at its lowest.

March qtr GDP growth at 5.3 pct, weakest in 9 years

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's annual economic growth slumped in the January-March quarter to a nine-year low of 5.3 percent as the manufacturing sector shrank and a fall in the rupee to a record low suggests the economy remains under pressure in the current quarter.

Thursday's figures mark a dramatic slide in fortunes for a country that was growing in the years before the global financial crisis at more than 9 percent, with ambitions to challenge China as the world's top emerging economy.

Bill Gates meets UP CM Akhilesh to discuss healthcare projects

Lucknow, May 30 (ANI): Microsoft founder Bill Gates met Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav here on Wednesday to discuss the healthcare programmes in the state, which his charitable foundation intends to sponsor.

Gates met Yadav at his official residence here along with members of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a charitable organisation that he runs along with his wife.

MLA Anupriya Patel after the meeting said that some districts had been identified by the foundation to flourish under its programme.

Tool wielding snake robots to crawl in bodies and assist docs in surgery

Washington, May 30 (ANI): Scientists and doctors, including one of Indian origin, are now using tiny snake robots to perform surgery on hearts, prostate cancer, and other diseased organs.

The snakebots carry tiny cameras, scissors and forceps, and even more advanced sensors are in the works. For now, they're powered by tethers that humans control. But experts say the day is coming when some robots will roam the body on their own.

Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand retained the World Chess Championships title after he beat Boris Gelfand in a tense tie-breaker.

MOSCOW: Viswanathan Anand has been crowned the World Chess Champion after he beat Israel's Boris Gelfand 2.5-1.5 in a tense tie-breaker at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

This is Viswanathan Anand's fifth crown and fourth in a row and he a prize money of approximately $1.4 million as prize money. He has been the world champion since 2007.

The boom in the number of mobileInternet devices and tablet computers in use will help quadruple Web traffic in the coming years, a study said Wednesday.

The Cisco Visual Networking Index said global Internet traffic by 2016 will be 1.3 zettabytes. A zettabyte is one trillion gigabytes, or one sextillion bytes.

That will be four times the level of traffic generated in 2011, according to Cisco, and comes from a proliferation of tablets, smartphones and other devices that use the Internet.

Britain’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that theWikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, should be deported to Sweden to face allegations of sexual abuse there, but Mr. Assange’s lawyers won an immediate stay of at least two weeks before British officials can initiate the final steps to hand him over to Stockholm.

In what had been billed as the culmination of an 18-month legal battle, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-2 vote to reject Mr. Assange’s argument against extradition. The decision was delivered in a court hearing lasting barely 10 minutes by Nicholas Phillips, the 74-year-old president of the court, in one of his last major decisions before retirement this fall.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) Chief Executive Tim Cook said technology for televisions was of "intense interest" but stressed the company's efforts would unfold gradually amid speculation the iPad and iPhone maker was on the brink of unveiling a revolutionary iTV.

In one of his more revealing interviews since assuming the helm of the world's most valuable company, Cook also said he hoped someday to see Apple products manufactured in the United States and outlined his approach to managing an organization long-associated with its late founder Steve Jobs.

It’s the moment every startup founder dreams about. You’ve spent countless days and nights, sacrificed your personal life and most likely tossed in your life savings - just for the chance to make this presentation. Whether it’s to a bank, potential investors or possible partners, it has to be pitch-perfect.

You may not get a second chance, so you better make sure you don’t screw it up. We asked Peter Arvai, CEO of Prezi, a maker of cloud-based presentation software, for tips on how to avoid the most common - and most devastating - mistakes.

With Facebook’s acquisition of Face.com reportedly a done deal, all of the focus is on what the merger will do for Facebook’s mobile efforts. But there may be more to the deal than just mobile.“Give us 14 images of you,” Google’s Eric Schmidt famously told the Technology Conference in 2010, “and we can find other images of you with 95% accuracy.”

That was impressive at the time, and that 95% is probably much higher now. But what was more impressive is that the feature, which isn’t available on Google Image Search, is expected to be offered first by Face.com. As the Web becomes increasingly visual, image search is going to become increasingly important, and an acquisition of Face.com may be the strongest signal yet thatFacebook is positioning itself to go toe-to-toe with Google in search.

A top Russian anti-virus software firm said it had uncovered a new computer virus with unprecedented destructive potential which is being used as a "cyberweapon" against several countries.

Kaspersky Lab, one of the world's biggest producers of anti-virus software, said its experts discovered the virus -- known as Flame -- during an investigation prompted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Gurgaon, with 20.9% household internet penetration, scored better than IT hubs like Bangalore and Hyderabad in Census 2011. But high internet use is leading to increase in the number of internet addicts in the city. Addictions have always been associated with substance abuse that alters the chemical balance of the brain.

Recent research shows that one can even experience a high, from excessive use of the internet. Internet addicts experience a rush even when they boot their computers. Pradeep Rai (name changed to protect privacy) was studying for his post-graduate entrance examinations two years ago, when he developed an interest in medical technology. He'd browse the web for hours at a time, reading about the subject.

Want to stay away from Facebook, so as to safeguard your privacy? That may not work according to a study first published in April by a group of German researchers and reported in the science journal IEEE Spectrum.

According to the study, called 'One Plus One Makes Three' published by researchers at the University of Heidelberg, it is possible for a social network site to study the information available to them from members on the site, and use that information to predict the links between any two people, both of whom may not be on the site at all. The researchers used membership of Facebook among students at five universities from 2005.

A massive data-slurping cyberweapon is circulating in the Middle East, a Russian Internet security firm reported Monday, saying that computers in Iran appear to have been particularly affected.

The virus, dubbed ``Flame,'' is unprecedented both in terms of its size and complexity, Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab ZAO reported, saying it possesses the ability to turn infected computers into listening devices and even suck information out from nearby cell phones.

``The complexity and functionality of the newly discovered malicious program exceed those of all other cyber menaces known to date,'' the company said in a blog post announcing the discovery.

Admissions to all centrally-fundedengineering institutions, including the Indian Institutes of Technology, National Institutes of Technology, will have to take place through a two-step common entrance examination from 2013. For the first time Class XII board results will be taken into consideration for admissions.

This decision was taken at a joint meeting the IIT Council, NIT Council and IIIT Council on Monday. Human resource development minister Kapil Sibalwas able to forge this consensus only after conceding to the demand by the IITs that they would have a different formulation for selecting students.

Microsoft is finally killing off the confusing "Windows Live" brand. It's being replaced with a renewed focus on Microsoft's biggest piece of software - the Windows OS - together with a new and all-encompassing identity system named "Microsoft account."

Windows Live has been Microsoft's online branding since it was unveiled back in November 2005. But Windows Live never worked, mainly because the brand was applied to Microsoft products inconsistently and seemingly at random.

At this point, the fact that Facebook is struggling with its mobile strategy is not really news. The company itself flagged the issue in its pre-IPO documents, saying advertising revenue is not keeping up with expectations, and its $1-billion Instagram purchase was widely seen as an admission that it needs a lot of help in the mobile department. But does it make any sense for the company to build its own phone? Some argue that this would be a natural extension of the social network’s strategy — but others say it would be a monumentally stupid move to make, and is almost inevitably doomed.

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