Which countries are emerging superpowers? Which countries are in decline? This excellent infographic of population change, country by country, explains pretty much everything you need to know about what's going to happen geopolitically in the next few decades.
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The Federal Aviation Administration this morning at a news conference announced that (as expected) it has determined that portable electronic devices can be used not just above 10,000 feet, but during "all phases of flight." That means no more turning off your iPhones, iPads, e-books, e-readers, Game Boys, Kindles, BlackBerry, blueberry, strawberry — anything with an on/off switch that must be in the off position before the aircraft can push back from the gate.
You will, however, have to wait on the airlines to implement the FAA's guidance, which it expects to see happen by the end of the year.
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A majority of Oracle shareholders have once again voted against the company’s executive pay practices, including for CEO Larry Ellison (shown above).
Thursday’s vote at Oracle’s annual shareholder meeting is nonbinding, and follows complaints from some large shareholders and their representatives who say Ellison is overpaid compared to his peers.
Ellison is paid $1 in salary, receiving the rest of his pay in stock options. In Oracle’s past fiscal year, that totaled $76.9 million. Ellison declined to receive a bonus. Other top Oracle executives such as co-President Mark Hurd also receive a lot of stock options.
Ellison, who is one of the world’s richest people, controls about one-fourth of Oracle’s shares.
Shareholders voted against Oracle’s executive pay practices at last year’s meeting as well.
Oracle has defended its policy on the grounds that the stock options aren’t worth anything unless Oracle’s share price rises, which is good for both executives such as Ellison and every other Oracle shareholder.
Earlier this month, Oracle secretary and general counsel Dorian Daley described Ellison as the company’s “most critical strategic visionary” and characterized his pay as a bargain compared to the benefits Oracle receives.
Ellison took questions from shareholders in attendance after the meeting’s formal agenda concluded and the topics didn’t always center on enterprise technology.
One referred to a near “disaster” the city of New York would have experienced had Eliot Spitzer been elected comptroller, and asked Ellison whether Oracle could “intervene financially” in New York elections.
“We live in a democracy and the people pick their leaders, and we do that all the time,” Ellison said. “If we’re not happy with that we can pick someone else. I don’t think Oracle should engage in political activity specifically trying to influence the New York City and New York state elections. We should focus on things like building fast computers and better software.”
Another shareholder questioned why Oracle has two presidents in Hurd and Safra Catz.
“I just figured two’s better than one,” Ellison said to laughter. “Seriously, it’s a large company. We have a separation of responsibilities.” Hurd focuses on sales and support while Catz handles operational matters, he said. “I think they’ve both done outstanding jobs in their respective areas of expertise,” Ellison added. “Either one of them could go out and get a CEO’s job tomorrow.”
A third questioner complained that she had to call Oracle’s investor relations office three times to find out when the shareholder meeting was supposed to occur.
“We love people to come to our annual meeting,” Ellison said by way of apology. “We even have cookies.” Oracle will make sure information about the meeting is posted to its website, he added.
Ellison steered clear of saying anything controversial when asked about Oracle’s involvement with the troubled Healthcare.gov website.
“As an information technology company we are doing everything we can to make it a highly performant, highly reliable [system],” he said. “I will refrain from editorial comments about what has happened there. I think most of us want our government to operate efficiently.”
But Ellison revealed which rivals Oracle watches most closely. IBM, EMC, SAP, and Salesforce.com “are four competitors we spend a lot of time thinking about,” he said.
Keeping it low key on Halloween, Anna Paquin and her twins, Poppy and Charlie, ran a few errands in New York City on Thursday (October 31).
The "True Blood" beauty enjoyed some time with her adorable kiddos as they made their way around the busy city streets.
As previous reported by GossipCenter, Anna's anticipated superhero flick "X-Men: Day of Future Past" unleashed a full-length trailer for the all the fans to enjoy.
Starring alongside Miss Paquin are familiar X-Men favorites including Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman, Mihael Fassbender, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.
"X-Men: Days of Future Past" is slated to hit theaters May 23rd, 2014!
WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials say Israeli warplanes attacked a military target inside Syria.
An Obama administration official confirmed the attack happened overnight Thursday but provided no details.
Another security official said that the attack occurred in the Syrian port city of Latakia and that the target was Russian-made SA-125 missiles.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the attack.
At least twice earlier this year Israel launched airstrikes on shipments of missiles inside Syria.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-31-Israel-Syria/id-5a6cc20020384bbf9b70b6a3ee8e60ddWASHINGTON (AP) — More than 47 million Americans who receive food stamps will see their benefits go down starting Friday, just as Congress has begun negotiations on further cuts to the program.
Beginning in November, a temporary benefit from the 2009 economic stimulus that boosts food stamp dollars will no longer be available. According to the Agriculture Department, that means a family of four receiving food stamps will start receiving $36 less a month.
The benefits, which go to 1 in 7 Americans, fluctuate based on factors that include food prices, inflation and income. The rolls have swelled as the economy has struggled in recent years, with the stimulus providing higher benefits and many people signing up for the first time.
As a result, the program has more than doubled in cost since 2008, now costing almost $80 billion a year. That large increase in spending has turned the program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, into a target for House Republicans looking to reduce spending.
Negotiations on a wide-ranging farm bill, including cuts to the SNAP program, began Wednesday. Five-year farm bills passed by both the House and the Senate would cut food stamps, reductions that would come on top of the cut that will go into effect Friday. But the two chambers are far apart on the amounts.
Legislation passed by the GOP-controlled House would cut food stamps by an additional $4 billion annually and tighten eligibility requirements. The House bill would also end government waivers that have allowed able-bodied adults without dependents to receive food stamps indefinitely and allow states to put broad new work requirements in place.
The Senate farm bill would cut a tenth of the House amount, with Democrats and President Barack Obama opposing major cuts.
Farm-state lawmakers have been pushing the farm bill for more than two years, and Wednesday's conference negotiations represented the opening round in final talks. If the bill is not passed by the end of the year and current farm law is not extended, certain dairy supports would expire that could raise the price of milk. Farmers would start to feel more effects next spring.
"It took us years to get here but we are here," House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., said. "Let's not take years to get it done."
The biggest obstacle to a final bill is how far apart the two parties are on food stamps. Lucas said at the conference meeting that he was hoping to find common ground on the issue, but House GOP leaders such as Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., have insisted on higher cuts, saying the program should be targeted to the neediest people.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sent out a statement as the meeting opened that said food stamp recipients "deserve swift action from Congress to pass a bill that provides the much-needed nutritional support for our children, our seniors, our veterans and our communities."
As Congress debates the cuts to the program, charities say they are preparing for the farm bill reductions as well as the scheduled cuts taking place Friday.
"Charities cannot fill the gap for the cuts being proposed to SNAP," said Maura Daly of Feeding America, a network of the nation's food banks. "We are very concerned about the impact on the charitable system."
Daly says food banks may have to as much as double their current levels of distribution if the House cuts were enacted. The Congressional Budget Office says as many as 3.8 million people could lose their benefits in 2014 if the House bill became law.
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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-31-Farm%20Bill-Food%20Stamps/id-14cd667a5a8442fc8300240b75998935Every day is like Halloween for Lady Gaga, and this morning (October 31) she presented yet another extravagant getup in London, England.
The “Bad Romance” hitmaker wore a custom-made dress and carried a shell umbrella as she stepped out of her hotel and greeted her fans.
Coming up next month, Gaga will be featured on a 90-minute Thanksgiving special with the Muppets on the ABC Network.
Of the “Lady Gaga and the Muppets’ Holiday Spectacular” she told press, "I was so excited when ABC called me about doing a holiday special this year. I knew it just wouldn't be a complete night of laughter and memories without the Muppets! Can't wait to see the gang again and I hope Miss Piggy's still not mad about Kermit. We're just friends!"
October 31, 2013
If you've been having trouble upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, and are encountering Blue Screens marked 0xc1900101 - 0x40017 or 0xC1900101-0x20017, 0xC1900101-0x40019 or 0xc1900101 - 0x30018, there may be a fix for your problems. But if none of the remedies offered here get you upgraded, please head to the Microsoft Answers forum and post details about your configuration. Because after two weeks of trying, Microsoft still hasn't figured out what's causing the problem, and your input may help.
On Oct. 18 I wrote about the show-stopper bug for many people upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1. Martin Dixon posted the original description on the Microsoft Answers forum, shortly after the Windows 8.1 upgrade rolled out:
I have downloaded the Windows 8.1 update from the store but cannot get it to install. Each time I try, I get to the point where it is "getting my devices ready", then the PC restarts to a blue screen with error message. It then tries to recover the installation, fails, then restores Windows 8. When the system boots up after this, I get a message saying:
"Couldn't update to Windows 8.1
Sorry, we couldn't complete the update to Windows 8.1. We've restored your previous version of Windows to this PC.
0xC1900101 - 0x40017"
There is no explanation as to why the update couldn't be completed. Any ideas how to resolve this?
To date, almost 400 posts on that thread -- plus hundreds more on several additional, similar threads -- have led to a small handful of customer-discovered solutions, but no definitive workaround that everyone can apply.
Here are the approaches that seem to work for some people:
If you’ve got questions about the PlayStation 4, Sony has answers. The electronics giant recently published an extensive FAQ to the PlayStation blog attempting to answer any final questions before the $400 next-gen console launches on November 15.
Interesting tidbits placed front-and-center for PlayStation fans include information about swapping the PS4’s hard drive, game caching, media playback, and PS3 peripheral compatibility.
Those are just a few of the finer points we’ll cover in more detail here, but anyone on the fence about whether to buy a PS4 or the Xbox One should give Sony’s FAQ an in-depth reading.
PlayStation fans already knew they could replace their console’s hard drive, but now Sony has laid out a few requirements the hard drive needs to reach. First of all, the PS4 itself comes with a 500GB 5400-rpm SATA II hard drive. Sony says replacement hard drives must “comply with these standards.”
The replacement drive also has to offer more than 160GB storage (I knew that 161GB HDD would come in handy), and must be no thicker than 9.5mm.
It’s nice that the PS4 has a relatively low minimum storage size, but swapping a 500GB hard drive for a 250GB unit would be madness for several reasons. When using a disc-based game, the PS4 requires you to cache gaming data on your hard drive before playing. And the size of some of these games is huge. Sony’s Killzone: Shadow Fall, for instance, will require 50GB of storage, according to Gaming Blend.
More importantly, the PS4 will not support external hard drives. Investing in a 1TB drive might not be such a bad idea for prolific gamers who don’t want to spend a lot of time swapping gaming data back and forth.
Microsoft is hoping to make the Xbox platform—including both its 360 and One consoles—the pre-eminent living room entertainment platform. Not so with the PS4, apparently. Sony’s new console won’t support a few niceties such as DLNA streaming from your PC. Playback of CDs and MP3s is also out.
The lack of media playback options led to some blowback on Twitter, as Engadget first reported, from disgruntled media streaming users. “Thanks for the feedback to the lack of MP3 and DLNA support at the launch of PS4,” Sony Computer Entertainment chief Shuhei Yoshida said on Twitter. “I’ll share with the PS4 Dev team for future consideration.”
As with the PS3, the PS4 will support Blu-ray and DVD movie playback, but to use the feature you’ll have to go through a one-time online activation process.
There will be a few PlayStation 3 accessories you’ll be able to bring with you into the next generation including PlayStation Move, some USB controllers, USB headsets, and USB and Bluetooth keyboards.
Sony’s list of general PS3 peripheral categories that will be compatible with the PS4 (click to enlarge).
USB headsets won’t be compatible out of the box, however. You’ll have to download and install the day one update before they’ll work.
Like we said, there’s a ton of content on the PlayStation FAQ, but here are a few other things to note. The PS4 won’t be supporting 4K resolution right now, but Sony says it is thinking about adding support later. Short of a PS5 roll out, it’s a pretty good bet that the PS4 will end up supporting 4K in the future as the new super resolution goes mainstream.
Charge time for the new DualShock controller is two hours.
A PlayStation Plus membership is required for most online multiplayer gaming. But even non-PS Plus members can use the feature on a member’s console as long as the PS4 is designated as the member’s primary gaming box.
The PS4 will support up to 16 local accounts at one time in addition to temporary guest accounts.
If you’ve read through the PS4 FAQ and still can’t get enough PlayStation information, you should also check out Sony’s recent update about what the console’s day one update will include.
Even Google's notification mascot is getting in the Halloween spirit. Clear your Google+ notifications on the web or in the latest version of the app and you'll see Mr. Jingles is all dressed up and ready for today's celebrations!
If you've got a particularly awesome costume ready for tonight, there's still time to enter our #LloydOWeen contest, which closes noon PDT tomorrow.
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The Oct. 31 Deal of the Day is the Qmadix S Series Cover for Motorola Droid MAXX. This hard case features a hard polycarbonate outer shell and a shock absorbent TPU underneath for double the protection against impacts. The back of the S Series Case has a glossy finish while the sides provide softer edging for a comfortable grip. Comes in black, red and white.
The Qmadix S Series Cover is available for just $14.49, 42% off today only. Backed by our 60-day return policy and fast shipping.
Check out our entire selection of Motorola Droid MAXX cases at ShopAndroid.com!
Canada Deal of the Day
Today Only: $7.95 + Buy One Get One Free!
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