James/Hamez Rodriguez
scored his sixth goal of the 2014 World Cup during Colombia's 2-1 loss
to Brazil, bagging a consolation from the penalty spot in the 80th
minute.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
It was a Twitter battle no one saw coming.
On one side is the always controversial, outspoken disc
jockey and TV host now waxing passionate as anti-corruption advocate. On
the other side are alleged beneficiaries of the supposed clandestine
activities of their already arraigned and jailed senator-father over his
involvement in the PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) scam.
Starting a blog is an exciting venture. Whether you’re doing it to
help promote your business or just as a personal enrichment activity,
it’s your chance to broadcast your ideas to the world. But, as excited
as you are about your posts, it will take some time before you build up a
significant reader base that is also excited about your posts.
Here are eleven easy tips you can utilize to help boost your blog readership from the beginning of your online writing adventure. Follow these tactics and you’re likely to see a boost in stats in the days and weeks that follow.
Here are eleven easy tips you can utilize to help boost your blog readership from the beginning of your online writing adventure. Follow these tactics and you’re likely to see a boost in stats in the days and weeks that follow.
Many online entrepreneurs typically blog about their niche. They
write about the industry, trends affecting their audience, make new
announcements and generally, provide informative content for their web
site visitors. Having a blog elevates the user experience, showing your
audience that you have something to offer them beyond what you’re
selling. You have advice, opinions and all kinds of information that
speaks to their needs.
However, sometimes the hard part is creating content that your
audience will want to read in the first place. Your online business
stands out, so too should your blogs, right?
From the right headline to providing them with engaging material,
here are 10 ways to keep your visitors scrolling down your entire blog
page and coming back for more.
Write Attention-Getting Headlines
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Amazon.com Inc is fighting U.S. regulators' demands that it pay a penalty over its policies on purchases made by children on smartphone applications, according to documents seen by Reuters.
Amazon, the largest U.S. online retailer, faces a potential lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission, which wants the company to enter into a settlement similar to the one reached with rival Apple Inc in January.
At issue are in-app purchases, in which apps that are downloaded for free onto a smartphone or tablet then charge users for additional services through registered credit cards. Consumers say that children are susceptible to the practice, leading to large bills.
Amazon, which has built a rapidly growing business around its Kindle mobile devices and last month unveiled its own smartphone, said in a letter to the FTC it has already met or exceeded the requirements of Apple's terms.
"The commission's unwillingness to depart from the precedent it set with Apple despite our very different facts leaves us no choice but to defend our approach in court," Andrew DeVore, an Amazon associate general counsel, said in the July 1 letter.
Purchases of digital goods -- from extra game lives to special in-game tools -- are key to the success of tech companies' app stores, which in turn drive usage and mobile device sales.
In January, Apple agreed to refund customers at least $32.5 million and change its billing practices to ensure it obtains consent from parents before charging for in-app spending.
The FTC is pushing Amazon to refund customers, give up any profits from inappropriate activity and to compensate for the FTC's costs.
Many parents who discover the charges and want a refund face "significant hurdles to doing so," the FTC said in a draft of its complaint, adding that the process remains unclear, confusing and without clear instructions for obtaining a refund.
Amazon said it was "deeply disappointing" that weeks of negotiations failed to sway regulators.
In its letter, Amazon said it refunded customers who complained that their children made purchases they did not want. The letter said Amazon's app store included "prominent notice of in-app purchasing, effective parental controls and real-time notice of every in-app purchase."
The FTC declined to comment, saying it "is focused on ensuring that companies comply with the fundamental principle that consumers should not be made to pay for something they did not authorize."
"Consumers using mobile devices have the same long-established and fundamental consumer protections as they would anywhere else," the FTC said.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news. The Journal reported that the FTC said Amazon would need to make notices of in-app purchases more prominent, require passwords for all purchases and make refunds simpler and easier.- REUTERS
(Reuters) - Facebook Inc is acquiring video advertising company LiveRail in the Internet social network's latest step to make video ads a bigger part of its business.
Facebook did not disclose a price for the San Francisco-based company, which was founded in 2007 and has offices in several countries.
LiveRail's technology automatically pairs video ads with the videos that appear on many websites, such as the sites for Major League Baseball, ABC and A&E Networks.
Facebook would not discuss plans for using the technology on its own website.
In March, Facebook began offering 15-second video ads from a limited number of companies on its website. The company has moved cautiously in introducing the video ads on its social network to prevent a backlash from users who might find the ads annoying.
Video ads command higher prices than other forms of online advertising such as banner ads. Facebook and Internet rivals like Google Inc are increasingly trying to grab a slice of lucrative TV-marketing budgets as they try to sustain rapid growth. - REUTERS
Facebook did not disclose a price for the San Francisco-based company, which was founded in 2007 and has offices in several countries.
LiveRail's technology automatically pairs video ads with the videos that appear on many websites, such as the sites for Major League Baseball, ABC and A&E Networks.
In March, Facebook began offering 15-second video ads from a limited number of companies on its website. The company has moved cautiously in introducing the video ads on its social network to prevent a backlash from users who might find the ads annoying.
Video ads command higher prices than other forms of online advertising such as banner ads. Facebook and Internet rivals like Google Inc are increasingly trying to grab a slice of lucrative TV-marketing budgets as they try to sustain rapid growth. - REUTERS
Double-amputee
Olympic and Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius can't flee dangerous
situations and has a "heightened fight response" due to his disability, a
defense witness told his murder trial on Thursday.
Pistorius, who had his lower-legs amputated at birth, could face life in prison if he is found guilty of murdering his law graduate and model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, whom he shot and killed at his home in Pretoria on Valentine's Day last year.
His defense team have sought throughout the trial to portray Pistorius as a vulnerable individual who killed 29-year-old Steenkamp accidentally after mistaking her for an intruder hiding behind a closed toilet door.
The prosecution has argued that Pistorius is a gun-obsessed hot-head who regularly lost his temper with Steenkamp.
Sports psychology expert Professor Wayne Derman told the Pretoria High Court on Thursday that Pistorius had a life-long fear of crime and would be more likely to confront danger when standing on his stumps, as he was when he shot Steenkamp.
"He is not able to flee because of his disability, his fight response dominates his behavior ... resulting in an exaggerated fight response which culminated in this horrific tragedy," Derman said.
The trial was adjourned until Monday after state prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked for more time to consult one of the psychiatrists who participated in the evaluation of Pistorius to clarify technical aspects of Derman's testimony.
The murder trial resumed this week after a month-long break for Pistorius, known as 'Blade Runner' because of the carbon-fibre prosthetics he uses in competition, to undergo psychiatric evaluation.
The court heard on Monday that the athlete was not suffering from a mental condition when he shot Steenkamp, meaning he had the ability to distinguish between the rightful or wrongful nature of his actions.
Pistorius was once revered around the world as the ultimate example of triumph over adversity as he overcame his disability to compete alongside able-bodied athletes at the London 2012 Olympics.
Pistorius, who had his lower-legs amputated at birth, could face life in prison if he is found guilty of murdering his law graduate and model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, whom he shot and killed at his home in Pretoria on Valentine's Day last year.
His defense team have sought throughout the trial to portray Pistorius as a vulnerable individual who killed 29-year-old Steenkamp accidentally after mistaking her for an intruder hiding behind a closed toilet door.
The prosecution has argued that Pistorius is a gun-obsessed hot-head who regularly lost his temper with Steenkamp.
Sports psychology expert Professor Wayne Derman told the Pretoria High Court on Thursday that Pistorius had a life-long fear of crime and would be more likely to confront danger when standing on his stumps, as he was when he shot Steenkamp.
"He is not able to flee because of his disability, his fight response dominates his behavior ... resulting in an exaggerated fight response which culminated in this horrific tragedy," Derman said.
The trial was adjourned until Monday after state prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked for more time to consult one of the psychiatrists who participated in the evaluation of Pistorius to clarify technical aspects of Derman's testimony.
The murder trial resumed this week after a month-long break for Pistorius, known as 'Blade Runner' because of the carbon-fibre prosthetics he uses in competition, to undergo psychiatric evaluation.
The court heard on Monday that the athlete was not suffering from a mental condition when he shot Steenkamp, meaning he had the ability to distinguish between the rightful or wrongful nature of his actions.
Pistorius was once revered around the world as the ultimate example of triumph over adversity as he overcame his disability to compete alongside able-bodied athletes at the London 2012 Olympics.
Andy Murray's
defeat at Wimbledon on Wednesday should have come as no surprise,
according to a new IBM system that claims the Briton was a less
aggressive player than opponent Grigor Dimitrov.
Computer giant IBM credited Dimitrov with 50 aggressive forehands to 44 for Murray during Wednesday's men's quarter-final match, in which Bulgarian Dimitrov knocked out last year's men's champion in straight sets.
While the two players almost tied on aggressive backhands, at 18 for Murray and 17 for Dimitrov, the Bulgarian scored a net 86 aggressive shots in total during the match, beating Murray's 71, IBM said in statistics provided to Reuters on Thursday.
This year's Wimbledon marks the first time IBM has used the system.
It was developed using data from last year's Wimbledon championship and U.S. Open, as well as this year's Australian Open, to identify four factors that define an aggressive shot.
They are: speed; landing location of the ball; distance the opponent had to move to get to the shot; and the opponent's position for the return.
A team of 48 tennis experts sitting courtside during a match then determine how aggressive a player's shot is compared to that of the other player, based on the criteria.
The statistics cannot be used to predict with certainty who will win a match, but they can help to analyze why a particular match against a particular player went the way it did, and also to prepare for an opponent, IBM says.
The U.S. company has had a partnership with Wimbledon for 25 years. Its analysis on aggressive shots is just part of a massive amount of data it has collected about matches.
"What we see is a trend in all sports that data is changing the game," Bill Jinks, an IBM engineer working on the project, said.
Canada's Eugenie Bouchard, who is ranked 13th in the world but beat Germany's Angelique Kerber, ranked 7th, on Wednesday to reach the women's semi-finals, said her coach looks at the IBM data.
The system calculated 38 aggressive forehands for Bouchard during the match against 29 for Kerber, and 23 aggressive backhands versus just 15 for the 7th seed.
"My coach has used them," Bouchard said at a press conference after the match. "(He) doesn't go into every specific detail with me, but gives me kind of a general sense of some things going on either with me or maybe the opponent I'm about to play.
"So I think he actually really appreciates them and uses them."- REUTERS
Computer giant IBM credited Dimitrov with 50 aggressive forehands to 44 for Murray during Wednesday's men's quarter-final match, in which Bulgarian Dimitrov knocked out last year's men's champion in straight sets.
While the two players almost tied on aggressive backhands, at 18 for Murray and 17 for Dimitrov, the Bulgarian scored a net 86 aggressive shots in total during the match, beating Murray's 71, IBM said in statistics provided to Reuters on Thursday.
This year's Wimbledon marks the first time IBM has used the system.
It was developed using data from last year's Wimbledon championship and U.S. Open, as well as this year's Australian Open, to identify four factors that define an aggressive shot.
They are: speed; landing location of the ball; distance the opponent had to move to get to the shot; and the opponent's position for the return.
A team of 48 tennis experts sitting courtside during a match then determine how aggressive a player's shot is compared to that of the other player, based on the criteria.
The statistics cannot be used to predict with certainty who will win a match, but they can help to analyze why a particular match against a particular player went the way it did, and also to prepare for an opponent, IBM says.
The U.S. company has had a partnership with Wimbledon for 25 years. Its analysis on aggressive shots is just part of a massive amount of data it has collected about matches.
"What we see is a trend in all sports that data is changing the game," Bill Jinks, an IBM engineer working on the project, said.
Canada's Eugenie Bouchard, who is ranked 13th in the world but beat Germany's Angelique Kerber, ranked 7th, on Wednesday to reach the women's semi-finals, said her coach looks at the IBM data.
The system calculated 38 aggressive forehands for Bouchard during the match against 29 for Kerber, and 23 aggressive backhands versus just 15 for the 7th seed.
"My coach has used them," Bouchard said at a press conference after the match. "(He) doesn't go into every specific detail with me, but gives me kind of a general sense of some things going on either with me or maybe the opponent I'm about to play.
"So I think he actually really appreciates them and uses them."- REUTERS
More people in the United States tuned in to the U.S.-Belgium World Cup soccer match on Tuesday than they did for the World Series of baseball - the top championship game for the sport also known as the national pastime.
Disney-owned ESPN said it was the second highest rated men's soccer game, with about 16.5 million viewers, and that it bested its record for its streaming video app WatchESPN, with 1.1 million viewers.
Spanish-language broadcast network Univision said 5.1 million watched the U.S. play Belgium in the knockout match.
Belgium beat the U.S. 2-1 during extra time in the hard-fought contest, setting up the European team to go up against Argentina in the quarter-finals.
The number of people watching the U.S. and Belgium was likely much higher, given that scores of thousands jammed bars, restaurants and sports stadiums to view the contest. Nielsen, which provides TV ratings, measures only U.S. households.
The more than 22 million watching on Tuesday beat the number of viewers - some 19 million - who tuned in to see the Boston Red Sox win the World Series last year.
Still, soccer has a long way to go before it catches up in popularity with football. The National Football League's annual Super Bowl drew in more than 111 million U.S. viewers this year. - REUTERS
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