Google's Niantic Labs Will Soon Launch An eBook Spin-Off Of Its Ingress AR Game

This is a bit of an odd story: according to paidContent – and as first reported by to PublishersLunch – Google’s Niantic Labs, the somewhat mysterious division of Google that is home to Field Trip, the Niantic Project and Ingress, will soon start co-publishing a series of eBooks based on Ingress, its popular augmented reality game. A Google spokesperson confirmed to us that this report is indeed correct. The series, which according to PublishersLunch will be called ALIGNMENT, will be written and co-published with the help of Thomas Greanias and the first installment (ALIGNMENT: Ingress) will be published in April. The books are supposedly designed as prequels to Greanias’ Raising Atlantis series. It looks like Greanias has long been interested in the Ingress story and the overall theme of the game seems to fit in well with his earlier books. For Google, though, this – just like Ingress and most everything else that has come out of Niantic Labs – is a bit of a departure. The company isn’t exactly known for launching games and to then turn the game into a series of books is obviously new territory for Google, though Niantic Labs does seem to operate pretty independently from the rest of the company.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/JDtVaBt_jnA/

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Fed to hold course on stimulus despite debate over risks

By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve officials will spend much of a meeting next week debating the potential risks from the central bank's stimulus plan, but Chairman Ben Bernanke has already signaled he believes the costs of inaction are even greater.

The central bank looks set to keep buying $85 billion a month in mortgage and Treasury bonds in an effort to encourage investment and bolster a weak economic recovery.

A raft of recent data, from retail sales and manufacturing to employment, has shown the economy gathering some steam. Still, the unemployment rate remains uncomfortably high at 7.7 percent, while low inflation makes policymakers comfortable that there is plenty of room to let the economy run.

"In light of the moderate pace of the recovery and the continued high level of economic slack, dialing back accommodation with the goal of deterring excessive risk-taking in some areas poses its own risks to growth, price stability, and, ultimately, financial stability," Bernanke said on March 1.

The U.S. central bank will likely nod to the improving economic backdrop when it issues a statement at 2 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Wednesday at the end of its two-day meeting. In forecasts accompanying the statement, it is expected to bump up projections for economic growth and lower predictions for unemployment.

However, it is also likely to renew its commitment to keep buying bonds until the employment outlook improves substantially. A Reuters poll published on Wednesday found economists look for the Fed to keep buying bonds for the rest of the year, taking total purchases in its third round of quantitative easing to $1 trillion.

It is a prospect that is not without opposition within the central bank. A number of Fed officials have become increasingly vocal about the program's potential side effects, including the possibility of financial instability, asset bubbles or future inflation.

The Fed cut overnight interest rates to near zero in December 2008. It has already bought more than $2.5 trillion in bonds, bloating its balance sheet to more than $3 trillion.

"I would like the (Fed) to begin to taper these purchases with an aim toward ending them before the end of the year," Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser said last week.

"We are trying to be easier and easier and easier," he said. "I think we need to just stop and have some patience."

GAUGING THE ECONOMY'S PROGRESS

Bernanke told Congress last month that the central bank is taking the concerns of Plosser and other officials seriously, and policymakers plan to review the efficacy and costs of the program next week with fresh analysis pulled together by staff.

It will fall to Bernanke, who will hold a news conference at 2:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) on Wednesday, to make sure the concerns expressed by Fed hawks do not scare investors into believing an end to bond purchases is imminent.

"I get the sense that the Fed's attempts to measure the costs are not turning up anything very large," said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed economist now at the Peterson Institute in Washington.

Right now, the U.S. stock market sees the economy as being in a sweet spot: Things are improving, but are not so hot as to lead the Fed to pare back its support. That optimism helped lift the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> for a 10th straight day on Thursday, the longest string of gains since late 1996. The Dow closed at yet another record high, while the S&P 500 <.spx> came within 2 points of its lifetime peak set in 2007.

The U.S. economy created 236,000 jobs last month. That was a positive surprise. But Fed officials are all too aware that the economy still needs another 3 million or so jobs just to get back to its pre-recession levels - and that's not accounting for population growth.

The Fed has vowed to keep official short-term interest rates near zero until the jobless rate falls to 6.5 percent, as long as inflation is not estimated to rise above 2.5 percent.

The majority of economists in the Reuters poll believe the jobless rate threshold will not be reached until at least the second half of 2015. The survey also showed economists expect a large gap, of potentially more than a year, between the end of asset purchases and the first rate rise.

"Fed officials will want to reassure market participants that tightening soon is not in the cards," said Vincent Reinhart, economist at Morgan Stanley and a former Fed staffer.

(http://www.federalreserve.gov/)

(Reporting by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Jan Paschal)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fed-hold-course-stimulus-despite-debate-over-risks-050607362--business.html

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Consequence Says Joe Budden Fight Was 'Fair Barter'

'Love & Hip-Hop' star talks about what exactly got him into not one but two fights with his co-star.
By Rob Markman

Consequence
Photo: D. Dipasupil/ FilmMagic

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1703743/consequence-joe-budden-love-and-hip-hop.jhtml

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T-Mobile, AT&amp;T publish Galaxy S 4 sign-up page, for those who want to be first in the know

Did Samsung's bizarre GS4 unveiling leave you wanting a little more? Well, as it's often the case, carriers are already preparing for the handset's eventual launch, and two US players have now officially opened the virtual doors to those potential buyers. Both T-Mobile and AT&T's sign-up pages for the Galaxy S 4 are now live, giving the interested folk a way to be kept in the loop as soon as the South Korean firm's flagship becomes available in each network. Unfortunately, although not surprisingly, pricing and precise availability details are still scarce at the moment -- but hey, at least we have some idea as to when we can expect it to hit shelves not just in the US of A but all over the world.

Filed under: Cellphones, Samsung, AT&T, T-Mobile

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Gay marriage: Senator's shift, GOP soul-searching

FILE - In this Aug. 29, 2012 file photo, Ohio Senator Rob Portman waves to the delegates during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Portman said Thursday, March 14, 2013 that he now supports gay marriage and says his reversal on the issue began when he learned one of his sons is gay. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 29, 2012 file photo, Ohio Senator Rob Portman waves to the delegates during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Portman said Thursday, March 14, 2013 that he now supports gay marriage and says his reversal on the issue began when he learned one of his sons is gay. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

This photo made Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio, shows U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, wearing the red jersey, riding in Pelotonia with his son Will Portman, right. Portman said his views on gay marriage began changing in 2011 when his son, Will, then a freshman at Yale University, told his parents he was gay and that it wasn't a choice but "part of who he was." Portman said he and his wife, Jane, were very surprised but also supportive. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)

In this Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009 photo, U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, from left, with his wife, Jane, daughter Sally, and son Will, stands after announcing that he will run for the U.S. Senate, in Lebanon, Ohio. Portman is now supporting gay marriage and says his reversal on the issue began when he learned his son Will is gay. (AP Photo/David Kohl)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A Republican senator's embrace of gay marriage is the latest sign of soul-searching in a party struggling to adapt in a society whose demographics ? and views on emotional issues ? are changing fast.

Gay marriage still divides the party, with the conservative wing strongly opposed. But an increasing number of Republicans, now including Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, are reversing course. Many others simply downplay the subject.

With the issue of immigration also shifting rapidly under Republicans' feet, they seem increasingly focused ? and united ? on one overarching goal: keeping income taxes from rising. Their solidarity on that issue is hindering President Barack Obama's efforts to make higher tax revenue part of a compromise approach to deficit spending and expensive social programs.

These trends raise the possibility that the GOP ? reeling after losing the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections -- will lessen its identity with hot-button social issues and sharpen its emphasis on tax and spending matters.

Portman announced Friday that he now supports gay marriage, linking his stand to learning that one of his sons is gay.

A former U.S. trade representative and White House budget chief, Portman is seen as one of the party's most knowledgeable and effective leaders. Mitt Romney considered him to be his running mate last year. Portman says he told Romney of his son Will's sexuality but does not believe it affected Romney's decision.

As a U.S. House member in 1996, Portman supported the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. It defines marriage as between a man and a woman and bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

Portman's reversal makes him the only Senate Republican to openly back gay marriage.

"I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn't deny them the opportunity to get married," Portman wrote in an op-ed article in The Columbus Dispatch.

He said he had talked to his pastor and others, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who opposes gay marriage, and to former Vice President Dick Cheney, who supports it.

Cheney, whose younger daughter is a lesbian, became arguably the best-known Republican to embrace gay marriage with his announcement in June 2009.

Portman said his previous views on marriage were rooted in his Methodist faith.

However, he wrote, "Ultimately, for me, it came down to the Bible's overarching themes of love and compassion and my belief that we are all children of God."

Despite his party's struggles with Americans' increasing acceptance of gay rights, many GOP leaders met Portman's news with silence or a shrug.

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, who shares Portman's Cincinnati background, said the senator "is a great friend and ally, and the speaker respects his position, but the speaker continues to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman."

In January, Boehner chastised the Obama administration for dropping its legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, which the Supreme Court is to consider this month. Boehner authorized the continued use of public funds to defend the law in courts.

Boehner's latest comments reflect the change among many mainstream Republicans, who now deal with gay marriage in largely unemotional, legalistic terms rather than emotional terms about sin and God's will.

Congress now has several openly gay members, including a senator, Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin.

At the U.S. House, which was in session Friday, several conservatives had little or nothing to say about Portman's announcement.

Gay marriage "is not the most front-burner issue," said Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla. "We still have the same legal issues we've always had with the Defense of Marriage Act," which he supports, he said.

Citing Obama's position, he said, "It's more a separation of powers issue than it is anything else." Lankford said other Republicans have supported same-sex marriage, so "this is not anything new."

In another legal matter ? California's ban on same-sex marriage ? all 21 state attorneys general who have signed legal briefs or letters urging the Supreme Court to uphold the law are Republican.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday: "What is clear is that we are witnessing a pretty significant sociological shift in this country."

"It's happening right before our eyes in a way that says a lot about our country, that we have a country where we prioritize equality and fairness," he said.

Obama said last year he personally supports gay marriage, a step some liberals called overdue.

Polls show that public opinions on gay rights, including same-sex marriage, have shifted perhaps more rapidly than on any other major issue in recent times. In Gallup polling last November, 53 percent of adult Americans said same-sex marriages should be granted the same status as traditional marriages, while 46 percent felt they should not be valid.

Those figures were nearly reversed two years earlier. In 1996, when Gallup first asked about gay marriages, 27 percent felt they should be valid.

Many social and religious conservatives still oppose gay marriage. Some spoke up at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which was under way Friday in suburban Washington.

Randy Smith, a technology entrepreneur from California, said Portman's decision violates key conservative principles.

"Conservative values are based on God's word," Smith said. "If he is professing to be a Christian, I'd have no part of him."

Arne Owens, a "pro-family movement" activist from Virginia, said Portman's shift "does make it harder to maintain support for traditional marriage. There's no question about that."

John Radell, head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition of Delaware, said Portman's personal situation was difficult, "but that doesn't mean you stray from your faith."

"I understand loving your son," he said. "But Sen. Portman represents more than his son."

Radell said that "without question" Portman's shift would make his political future ? particularly any presidential aspirations ? more difficult.

Curt Steiner, an Ohio GOP consultant who helped run Portman's first House campaign in 1993, disagreed.

"I think it's always good to be forthright with your positions," Steiner said. "Some social conservatives will disagree with Rob Portman on this issue, but they understand the life that he leads, they understand his commitment to family, and they understand his commitment to them."

The leader of a conservative group that promoted passage of a 2004 amendment in Ohio to ban gay marriage said he has heard from several people upset by Portman's stance.

"They feel betrayed," said Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values. "They're not mad. They're sad and betrayed."

Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett agreed that some Republicans are unhappy, but he said he received more phone calls Friday about the governor's budget. He said Portman has "taken a great deal of time to think it through and I certainly respect his right to make up his own mind."

Richard Socarides, who was President Bill Clinton's top adviser on gay issues, said Portman's son Will "proved once again that the most powerful political act any gay person can take is coming out." He said polls show that "people who know a gay person are far less likely to support discrimination."

Other prominent Republicans who have endorsed gay marriage include: Sen. John McCain's wife, Cindy, and daughter, Meghan; former first lady Laura Bush; former national GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman and former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson.

___

Associated Press writers Ken Thomas, Steve Peoples, Donna Cassata and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington and Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report. Ann Sanner reported from Ohio.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-15-Republicans-Gay%20Marriage/id-e542d4709dbb4868a70ead54c541d502

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Rail project finds 'Black Death' pit

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Excavations for London's Crossrail project have unearthed bodies believed to date from the time of the Black Death.

A burial ground was known to be in an area outside the City of London, but its exact location remained a mystery.

Thirteen bodies have been found so far in the 5.5m-wide shaft at the edge of Charterhouse Square, alongside pottery dated to the mid-14th Century.

Analysis will shed light on the plague and the Londoners of the day.

DNA taken from the skeletons may also help chart the development and spread of the bacterium that caused the plague that became known as the Black Death.

Charterhouse Square lies in an area that was once outside the walls of London, referred to at the time as "No-man's Land".

The skeletons' arrangement in two neat rows suggests they date from the earliest era of the Black Death, before it fully developed into the pandemic that in later years saw bodies dumped haphazardly into mass graves.

Archaeologists working for Crossrail and the Museum of London will continue to dig in a bid to discover further remains, or any finds from earlier eras.

The ?14.8bn Crossrail project aims to establish a 118km-long (73-mile) high-speed rail link with 37 stations across London, and is due to open in 2018.

Because of the project's underground scope, significant research was undertaken into the archaeology likely to be found during the course of the construction.

Footage shows osteologists lowered into the pit, and some of its finds

Taken together, the project's 40 sites comprise one of the UK's largest archaeological ventures.

Teams have already discovered skeletons near Liverpool Street, a Bronze-Age transport route, and an array of other finds, including the largest piece of amber ever found in the UK.

"We've found archaeology from pretty much all periods - from the very ancient prehistoric right up to a 20th-Century industrial site, but this site is probably the most important medieval site we've got," said Jay Carver, project archaeologist for Crossrail.

"This is one of the most significant discoveries - quite small in extent but highly significant because of its data and what is represented in the shaft," he told BBC News.

The find is providing more than just a precise location for the long-lost burial ground, said Nick Elsden, project manager from the Museum of London Archaeology, which is working with Crossrail on its sites.

"We've got a snapshot of the population from the 14th Century - we'll look for signs that they'd done a lot of heavy, hard work, which will show on the bones, and general things about their health and their physique," he added.

"That tells us something about the population at the time - about them as individual people, as well as being victims of the Black Death."

In addition, the bodies may contain DNA from the bacteria responsible for the plague - from an early stage in the pandemic - helping modern epidemiologists track the development and spread of differing strains of a pathogen that still exists today.

"It's fantastic. Personally, as an archaeologist, finding good-quality archaeological data which is intact that hasn't been messed around by previous construction is always a great opportunity for new research information - that's why we do the job," said Mr Carver.

"Every hole we're digging is contributing info to London archaeologists, who are constantly piecing together and synthesising the information we've got for London as a whole - it's providing information to slot into that study of London and its history."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21784141#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Should you treat your family like a business? - Fortune Management

By Laura Vanderkam

FORTUNE -- If your workday schedule includes meeting after meeting, the last thing you want to schedule on your weekend is another get-together with an agenda, right?

If it's a meeting with your family, you might be surprised by the results, says Bruce Feiler, author of the new book The Secrets of Happy Families, which advocates using research-based best practices from the business world for running another complicated organization of diverse people (who just happen to share your last name).

"I think that the two big changes in the family in the last generation are, first, that women have gone into the workplace, and that has been discussed endlessly," says Feiler in a telephone interview from -- appropriately enough -- his childhood bedroom, where he was staying while speaking in his hometown of Savannah, Ga. "But the other change is just as significant and is almost never discussed: Men have been flooding into the home space. They're much more involved in parenting by every measure than their fathers were."

MORE:?Why the 'most innovative companies' aren't

Such modern parents, well-versed in business, "are fed up with the same tired advice from the family improvement industry," he says. Instead, "they are trying to negotiate their own roles as working parents, and they're much more interested in results." When it comes to managing people, they say, "Tell me what works."

That's a question organizations have been studying -- with much bigger budgets than family counselors have -- for decades. Ironically, some of the best ideas, Feiler suggests, are the ones that inspire the most eye-rolling at work.

1. Start a staff meeting

Can your children suggest new ideas for family life in a context where they'll be heard? Can they tell you what's working and what isn't? "Nothing is top-down anymore. Business is not top-down anymore, government is not top-down anymore," notes Feiler. "You have to let the best ideas win. You have to take ideas from parents, from children, and then discuss it." The goal? "To be able to change in real time."

A short, regular meeting is a perfect occasion for such debates. Yes, many corporate warriors suffer from meeting fatigue, but "in the workplace, you might have 10 meetings in a day, whereas in a family you have absolutely no meetings. One 20-minute meeting can make a massive difference."

Louisa Rogers, owner of Louisa Rogers Communications, instituted a weekly meeting on Wednesday mornings from 7-8 a.m. with her husband so they'd have a designated time for discussing those marital issues that often lead to complaints and nagging: finances, house stuff, calendar, vacations, to-do items, etc. "If any issue got emotionally sticky, we'd put it aside" -- like the "parking lot" flip chart page during a business meeting -- "knowing we'd need to have a separate conversation first about the emotions before we could deal with the 'business' part. Then we would revisit the original issue at the following week's business meeting. Knowing we'd have this weekly business meeting took a lot of stress out of our lives, and we learned how to separate tactical issues from emotional ones."

2. Write a mission statement

When asked the question "Can your kids say what values are most important to their parents?" Feiler realized that "I'd like to think they could. But the truth is I've never told them." Meanwhile, the nonprofit where his wife worked was going through a mission statement writing process, and "she would come home almost in tears, it was very meaningful to her."

So Feiler, his wife, and twin girls "did the family equivalent of a corporate retreat. We held a pajama party and piled into mom and dad's bed and had this conversation: What is most important to us?"

MORE:?The rare female designer in adult toys

When he first heard of the idea of writing a family mission statement, "I thought it was cold, it was corny, it was humorless." But the resulting statement, incorporating such ideas as "We love to learn" and "We know it's okay to make mistakes," gave the Feiler family a good idea of what they stood for. "Here's the thing, and research backs this up -- you need to identify your best possible self if you want to achieve it," says Feiler. The mission statement revealed their best possible family.

3. Aim to get better

No, you don't need to do an official performance review for your children or -- more perilously -- your spouse, and you don't need to sit through an official review they give you. But approaching family life with goals in mind, like becoming closer year after year, can transfer some of the same focus people bring to business life to home life. "This is kind of my bumper sticker," says Feiler. "We have our jobs, we work on those. We have our hobbies we work on those. We have our bodies, we work on those. We have our families -- and we spend almost no time working on them. They just are." But if you put in a little bit of effort, "and apply smart ideas for thinking about a family like a group, like a team, you can make it better," he says. "A little bit goes a long way."

Source: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/03/14/should-you-treat-your-family-like-a-business/

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