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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Xperia Z Ultra makes its way through the FCC

Sony's new mondo handset, the Xperia Z Ultra, was just revealed to the world today, and so it should come as no surprise that the new phone has just received Uncle Sam's seal of approval. That's right, folks, a version of the 6.4 inch device sporting 1,700MHz HSPA and GSM 850/1900MHz radios has passed the FCC's battery of tests. Alas, despite its cellular and dual-band WiFi radios being put through the wringer, there's a dearth of LTE info in the docs, so we're still in the dark as to the bands that the handset's working with. Still, should you wish to know more of the Z Ultras secrets, all the charts and RF readings you can handle can be found in the source below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Sony

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Source: FCC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/25/xperia-z-ultra-fcc/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Can MMA help veterans with PTSD? (Video)

Veterans like Brian Stann and Tim Kennedy have found a home in MMA, and it turns out they're not the only ones. HBO's "Real Sports" took a look at how wounded veterans use MMA to deal with their traumatic injuries. For one veteran, the camaraderie of the gym does more to help him deal with his PTSD than "sitting around talking about his feelings."

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/mma-help-veterans-ptsd-video-135932622.html

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Two dead in Egypt clashes as Mursi readies speech

By Alastair Macdonald and Yasmine Saleh

CAIRO (Reuters) - Two people were killed and dozens injured in street fighting on Wednesday north of Cairo between supporters and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president, hours before Mohamed Mursi was to address the nation.

With Egypt gripped by fears of a showdown between Islamists and their opponents, security sources said 90 people wounded in the city of Mansoura after hundreds of men were involved in rock-throwing street skirmishes. Witnesses heard gunfire and state television showed a man in hospital with birdshot wounds.

Similar outbursts of violence, often prompted by one side or the other staging rallies, have hit towns across the country in recent days. At least two men died last weekend. The opposition plans mass protests this weekend, calling for Mursi to resign.

He shows no sign of doing that and is expected to blame the deadlock that has aggravated an economic crisis on resistance from those loyal to his ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

The army has warned politicians it could effectively take charge again if they fail to reconcile. Some in the anti-Mursi camp might welcome that, but Islamists say they would fight any "coup" against Egypt's first freely elected leader.

Fears of a violent stand-off in the streets between Mursi's Islamist supporters and a broad coalition of the disaffected have led people to stock up on food. Long lines of cars outside fuel stations have snarled roads in Cairo and other cities.

Mursi, who marks his first year in office on Sunday, has given little hint of the contents of a speech due to start after 9:30 p.m. (1930 GMT) at a Cairo hall before an invited audience. Aides have indicated he will defend familiar positions, though there has been speculation he might also reshuffle his cabinet.

Some observers fear Egypt may be about to erupt again, two years after the revolution that toppled Mubarak. Politics are polarized between Mursi's disciplined Muslim Brotherhood and disparate opponents who have lost a series of elections.

The deadlock has contributed to a deepening economic crisis and the government is running out of cash.

Liberal critics worry about Islamist rule - a coalition of local human rights groups accused Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday of crimes rivaling Mubarak's and of setting up a "religious, totalitarian state". But many Egyptians are simply frustrated by falling living standards and fear chaos.

After the violence in Mansoura, state television put the number of injured at 160 and said rival factions were on the streets of other nearby towns in the Nile Delta as night fell. Crowds were also gathering in Cairo, in separate locations.

Lining up at a bank machine in downtown Cairo, IT trainer Amgad al-Fishawi, 40, said he feared cash could be hard to find in the coming days and echoed the resignation felt by many at the deadlock: "Mursi won't promise too much," he said. "Nobody's paying attention. The people don't expect anything from him."

ARMY ALERT

The army is held in high regard by Egyptians, especially since it pushed aside Mubarak following the 2011 uprising. Its chief issued a warning on Sunday, urging compromise while also defending the legitimacy of Mursi's election.

One senior Western diplomat in Cairo said the army might try to impose a solution, especially if the political deadlock turns violent: "The margin for a political solution is definitely very narrow," he said. "If (violence) crosses a certain threshold, the role of the army might become by default more proactive."

Islamists, oppressed for decades, fear a return of military rule and hardliners warn of a fight if the generals intervene. They accuse Mubarak-era institutions, including courts, state media, police and civil service, of working to undermine Mursi.

An officer in one of Egypt's internal security agencies told Reuters this week that the country needed to be "cleansed" of the Islamists who he described as terrorists.

The army, still heavily funded by Washington as it was under Mubarak, and Western governments have been urging Mursi to bridge differences with his non-Islamist opponents. He says he has tried. They say he and his Muslim Brotherhood, along with harder line allies, are trying to monopolies the state.

Mursi says a petition demanding he quit - which liberal organizers say has 15 million signatures - is undemocratic. In that, he has support from Islamists, who have staged shows of strength in recent days and plan a major Cairo rally on Friday.

Nationwide opposition rallies are due to start on Sunday but could begin earlier.

LOW EXPECTATIONS

"This demonstration is spontaneous and comes from the Egyptian people. We hope that it will bring the government ultimately to a place where the reforms are effected and choices that need to be made about the economy are implemented," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia.

"We will obviously hope that it will not produce violence and be a moment of catalyzing positive change for Egypt itself."

The opposition has low expectations of the speech which Mursi appears to be planning to make before a partisan crowd.

After dark, thousands gathered on Cairo's Tahrir Square, cradle of the 2011 uprising, and in the centre of the second city Alexandria to listen to what the president says.

Liberal coalition spokesman Khaled Dawoud likened Mursi's address to increasingly desperate speeches made by Mubarak during the revolt. He added: "It's too late for any possible measures, short of early elections, to stop the demonstrations."

At the International Crisis Group, Egypt analyst Yasser El-Shimy said he still doubted the army wanted, or would try, to take control and was more likely to push parties to compromise.

"What is going to be a game changer," he said, "is whether the violence is so massive or out of control that the government is unable to function - which might be a scenario that some are hoping for in order to prompt the military to intervene."

(Reporting by Shaimaa Fayed, Patrick Werr, Asmaa Alsharif, Tom Perry, Maggie Fick, Yasmine Saleh, Omar Fahmy, Alastair Macdonald, Alexander Dziadosz and Shadia Nasralla in Cairo; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Peter Graff)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mursi-move-egypt-protests-loom-104238636.html

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

8 Designs That Rethink the Way We're Buried

The way we bury our dead hasn?t changed much over the past two thousand years. But it needs to change soon, according to a group of designers, philanthropic foundations, and funeral directors who sponsored a recent design competition to rethink burial traditions in the face of emerging problems with the status quo. It's a less less macabre concept than it sounds.

6 Questions to Ask Yourself When Creating a Small Business ...

?A goal without a plan is simply a wish.?

This is a quote from French author and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry. I nearly went with Benjamin Franklin?s ?If you fail to plan, plan to fail? quote, but thought it just a bit too glass-half-empty. The message from both should be clear, though ? proper planning is absolutely, 100% essential in order for any aspect of your small business to succeed, and promotional campaigns are definitely no different.

How Thorough Planning Will Help Your Small Business Marketing, Public Relations, and Promotional Campaigns Succeed

For the purposes of this blog entry, we?ll define a promotional campaign as any sort of sustained, concentrated public relations, marketing, or advertising effort that you and your small business will be executing. The best plans will incorporate elements from all three disciplines, but the specifics will vary depending on your business type, its size, its area of reach, how long it?s been in operation, and what you?re trying to accomplish for the business itself. Which is a good segue into our first question that you should ask yourself before starting your promotional campaign?

1. ? What Are Your Goals?

A crucial step before you actually DO anything is to think critically about what you want to accomplish with your soon-to-be executed activities. Try to be as specific as possible ? something like ?increasing awareness? is obviously a good goal to have, but that is pretty broad and ultimately what all PR, marketing, and advertising hopes to accomplish at the end of the day.

Getting as targeted as ?Bringing in $X over the next Y months? or ?Signing up Z customers to our customer loyalty reward program? will not only help hone your voice and message, but will also be easily traceable to judge your campaign?s success. Also, be realistic with your goals ? nothing will help your program and your skills as a small business owner feel less successful than not meeting your goals. Don?t make them ridiculously easy to achieve, but be honest with yourself and set reachable milestones that will make a tangible impact to your business.

2. ? What Are The Details?

Think of everything you can when creating your small business marketing plan. What are your plans for promoting major holidays? How is your new campaign going to dovetail into any current in-business promotions you may be already running (loyalty rewards program, email marketing, etc.)? Is there anything in your campaign that will require you to travel or be away from your business for a length of time, and if so, will it conflict with any major beats in your promotional calendar? What will be your focus ? earned media and PR-generated buzz such as interviews, guest-blogging, and the like, or advertising via Facebook and Google Ad Words?

A goal with no plan When first starting your plan, throw everything you can think of into the ?maybe? column and then weed through it from there to find what truly makes sense. Once you have a pared-down, super concentrated list of details, you?re ready to move on to making the calendar?

3. ? What Is Your Timeline?

Creating a calendar that has all the major and minor ?beats? (i.e. ? action items) scheduled out down to the day is a huge step to stay on track and achieve success. This calendar is going to be your best friend throughout the entire duration of your campaign. You will learn to love waking up and checking it first thing to see what?s on the docket for today. It should have everything from major items and to-dos (?Interview with local newspaper at 3:00 p.m.?, ?Send printer final text copy for postcard mailers?) to minor check-up or maintenance tasks (?Check progress of Facebook ads?, ?Bi-weekly Twitter update?). Sync your calendar to your smartphone so you don?t have to be in front of your laptop or desktop to have access to it. Now that we?ve established how essential the calendar itself is, the question of how long it should be will depend on your campaign.

Depending on your goals, business, and budget, a year-long campaign is a good starting point. Not only will this allow you to incorporate promotional ideas for all major and applicable holidays, but it?s a nice, tidy unit of time that will allow you to have a large enough sample pool to determine the success of your campaign. This is not to say that you?re required to have action items on 365 days for the calendar ? determine what makes sense for you and add it to the calendar.

4. ? Who?s Going To Do It?

While some aspects of a promotional campaign can very easily be undertaken by yourself, the more variables and beats you have in your timeline, the more time you will be forced to spend away from the day-to-day running of your business. Depending on your situation, this may not be a dealbreaker in the slightest. But if you?re already running ragged and operating your outfit on a skeleton crew, you probably won?t be doing yourself or your promotional campaign any favors by trying to do it all yourself.

Public Relations agencies are available for hire in nearly every neck of the woods, and are comprised of professionals who handle media relations, crisis management, brand awareness, and image improvement for a living. They are typically hired on a retainer basis, and that retainer can be flexible depending on the size of your business and your budget. They will handle all press releases you?ll put out, will secure interviews and guest-blogging opportunities, and outreach local and non-local media outlets to secure your business in trend stories, among other tasks.

A marketing agency will carry out any marketing related activities for you as well ? the line between marketing and PR can sometimes be confusing, but a good, generalized guideline is that PR opportunities are generally free, while marketing opportunities are generally paid for. Most marketing agencies will handle your SEO, B2B partnerships, as well as placing your advertisements for you. You?ll still need to foot the bill for the ad itself, they?ll just handle the maintenance of it. And while it won?t be applicable to most small businesses, there are lots of ad agencies out there as well that will handle the creative aspects of any advertising campaign you would wish to run. They tend to be pricey however, and are probably out of budget for most small business owners (think Mad Men).

Think before you do Many marketing agencies can assist in the creative aspect of the ads for your campaign, and will collaborate with you to come up with an agreeable solution. Handing your promotional efforts off to a professional agency can be a huge load off for a small business owner, but it comes with a cost ? which brings us to our next question?

5. ? What Is Your Budget?

An absolutely critical element to a well-thought out promotional campaign is how much you are willing and able to spend on it. Most small business owners already have a marketing/advertising budget for the year (and if you don?t, you should) ? this figure will serve as a good starting point, but to have a bigger splash, you?ll most likely have to fork over a bit more cash for some of the beats in the promotional campaign. After all, this isn?t simply going to be the same marketing tasks as you?ve done in years prior ? this promotional campaign exists for you to shake things up and try new things to get your business noticed.

6. ? What Happens When Things Need To Change?

?The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray? is a paraphrasing (or more accurately, de-18th Century Scott-ified) version of a Robert Burns quote ? not only does this keep with our quote theme for today, it also tells us that even if you?ve planned for everything and your calendar is synced up to the most minute detail?things can and will change. You could lose an employee (or several). You could become ill or have to take an extended absence from the business. You could see a new competitor open up shop just down the road that will require a different strategy. The point is that while it should still be viewed as undoubtedly essential to create a detailed plan and calendar, don?t stick to it so rigidly that it cannot be changed, especially when reason dictates that it should.

Your plan and calendar should be seen as living, breathing documents that can and most likely will be updated through the duration of the campaign. Stick to it as closely as possible, but don?t be afraid to call an audible or two at the line of scrimmage.

Though time consuming, proper planning is essential

If you?re serious about running a successful small business marketing campaign, take the time (however much that may be) to create a solid plan and calendar. Create realistic yet admirable goals for success. Create a budget that will allow you to carry out some innovative and new marketing spends without taking you out of the black. Consider outside help with your promotions if you have the money and don?t have the time (or expertise) to do it yourself. Proper planning is essential, and may very well take longer than carrying out the plan itself. After all, as Abraham Lincoln once said, ?Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening my axe.?

Source: http://blog.fivestars.com/a-goal-plan-simply-wish/

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