climax saltcellar

polakisdarius15

Image: AP

"Don't be evil."

?

Google just cut a deal to be the default search engine in Mozilla's Firefox web browser for the next three years.

The deal is a life-saver for Mozilla?84% of the company's revenue has come directly from a previous deal with Google that did the same thing.

Had Google decided not to renew its search engine deal with Mozilla, it could've effectively killed the company.

After all, Google's Chrome browser is now neck and neck with Firefox, each browser maintaining about a 25% chunk of the web browser market.

In this case, it seems that "don't be evil" still matters.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-mozilla-firefox-2011-12

mashed potato recipe cranberry sauce oregon usc la auto show powerball winning numbers powerball winning numbers uc davis pepper spray

polakisdarius15

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45689073#45689073

yolo steelers vs ravens jack dempsey lake malawi hines ward warren jeffs james harrison

polakisdarius15

FILE - This is a Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011 file photo of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as he talks during a news conference in central London. As the suspected source for the biggest leak of intelligence material in American history faces his first hearing Friday Dec. 15 ,2011, U.S. prosecutors have their eye on another prize: The man who disclosed the documents to the world. When WikiLeaks' spectacular disclosures of U.S. secrets exploded onto the scene last year, much of Washington's anger coalesced around Julian Assange, the silver-haired globe-trotting figure whose outspoken defiance of the Pentagon and the State Department riled politicians on both sides of the aisle. Pfc. Bradley Manning, long under lock and key, hasn't attracted the same level of ire. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

LONDON (AP) ? Britain's Supreme Court said Friday it had agreed to hear WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's appeal against extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations.

The court said a panel of three judges had considered a written submission and granted a two-day appeal beginning on Feb. 1, meaning there is no prospect of Assange being sent to Stockholm until at least next year.

In a statement, the court said it had "decided that seven justices will hear the appeal given the great public importance of the issue raised, which is whether a prosecutor is a judicial authority."

Assange's legal team argue that police and prosecutors ? like the Swedish prosecutor seeking to bring Assange back to the country for questioning ? are not a proper judicial authority, and shouldn't have the right to order extraditions.

Earlier this month, High Court judges John Thomas and Duncan Ouseley said Assange could apply to the Supreme Court to argue that point and seek to prove that Europe's process of carrying out extradition was flawed.

However, Thomas warned Assange that his chance of success "may be extraordinarily slim."

Assange ? who leads the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website ? was accused of rape, coercion and molestation following encounters with two Swedish women in August 2010. Swedish authorities issued a European Arrest Warrant on rape and molestation accusations, and Assange was arrested in London in December 2010.

The 40-year-old denies wrongdoing and is currently on bail on the condition that he lives under curfew at a supporter's country estate in eastern England and wears an electronic tag.

Claes Borgstrom, the lawyer in Sweden representing the two women, said the decision would cause more strain for his clients ? and predicted Assange would eventually face extradition.

"It is stressful for my clients that there is yet another extension," Borgstrom told AP by telephone.

"I assume that the Supreme Court will rule that Assange should be extradited according to the European Arrest warrant. If not, you can scrap it," he said.

In a hearing in London in February, Judge Howard Riddle had ruled that Assange can be extradited to Sweden to face questions about the allegations, rejecting his claims that he would not receive a fair trial there.

Assange appealed to the High Court, and will now take his legal battle to the country's highest legal authority, the Supreme Court. The hearing will be his last avenue in Britain to avoid extradition, though lawyers have said they could consider a further appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

___

Associated Press writer Karl Ritter in Stockholm contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-16-EU-WikiLeaks/id-fb35dd5c76e74c34a856b11e01df402e

osu football osu football christopher walken ok state ok state kurt budke regis philbin

polakisdarius15

The corporate logo for Zynga is shown on an electronic billboard at the Nasdaq MarketSite, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 in New York. Stock in the San Francisco company began trading at Nasdaq, Friday following its IPO. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

"Farmville" by Zynga is shown on an electronic billboard at the Nasdaq MarketSite, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in New York. Stock in the San Francisco company began trading at Nasdaq, Friday following its IPO. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

The corporate logo for Zynga is shown on an electronic billboard at the Nasdaq MarketSite, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, in New York. Stock in the San Francisco company began trading at Nasdaq, Friday following its IPO. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

FILE - In this Oct. 11, 2011 file photo, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus speaks at a Zynga event, in San Francisco. Founded in 2007 and named after CEO Mark Pincus? dog, Zynga Inc. follows online deals site Groupon Inc. and professional network LinkedIn Corp. in going public. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? As its workers celebrated with hot chocolate and cinnamon buns, Zynga saw its stock dinged on its first day of trading Friday ? an unexpected turn of events for a closely watched public debut seen as a precursor to Facebook's next year.

Zynga Inc., the online game developer behind "FarmVille," ''Mafia Wars" and other popular time killers on Facebook, raised at least $1 billion in its initial public offering of stock, the largest for a U.S. Internet company since Google's $1.4 billion IPO in 2004.

But by Friday afternoon, Zynga's stock fell 50 cents, or 5 percent, to close at $9.50. The stock priced at $10 on Thursday, at the high end of its expected range. It traded as high as $11.50 on Friday before heading into a downward spiral on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

It was far from the eye-popping jump that has been the trend this year for freshly public Internet darlings such as LinkedIn Corp., which saw its stock double on its first trading day.

Zynga's opening ? with a ticker symbol of "ZNGA" ? was supposed to be big. After all, unlike many others with IPOs, the company is profitable, with more than 220 million people playing its games on Facebook each month.

What this all means for Facebook's IPO, expected sometime after April, is hard to say. One thing is clear, though.

"A hot IPO is not guaranteed," said Kathleen Smith, principal of IPO investment advisory firm Renaissance Capital.

Despite the big-name public offerings this year, the IPO market is not in good health. Buyers are skittish and concerned about the high volatility of freshly public stocks, Smith said. Big name or not, investors don't want to pay sky-high prices for stocks, especially not before a company has proven itself with good earnings reports and analyst ratings.

Seventy percent of the 125 companies that went public this year are now trading below their IPO price, according to Renaissance Capital.

While Friday's drop doesn't look good, it's not devastating for Zynga. Its CEO, Mark Pincus, said the company's focus is on "delivering great products" that expand audience for social games over the next few years ? and not on the next trading day.

"We didn't have any expectations coming into this whole process," he said in an interview. "We decided to go public a long time ago."

Pincus rang the Nasdaq's opening bell in San Francisco, a first in the city for a freshly public company. The company's roughly 1,700 San Francisco employees woke up at the crack of down to celebrate with cinnamon buns and hot cocoa. Zynga also delivered video of the opening ceremony over the Internet to its offices around the world.

Thursday's pricing gives Zynga a market value of about $7 billion. That's roughly half of the value of online deals site Groupon, which began trading in early November. Zynga, though, sold a much bigger chunk of its available shares, 14.3 percent compared with Groupon's 5.5 percent. It's an issue of supply and demand ? selling more shares means investors don't have to scramble to get their hands on them.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said stocks trade based on supply and demand on the first day.

In Zynga's case, he believes the IPO's underwriters placed more shares with investors who were going to "flip" the stock ? that is, buy a hot stock and quickly sell it to make a profit instead of holding on to it for the long run. All that selling tempered the stock's price, and other nervous investors started selling, too.

Sterne Agee's Arvind Bhatia said the issue came down to valuation ? what people are willing to pay.

"You might like a company but not its valuation," said Bhatia, who took the unusual step of starting coverage of Zynga's stock before it went public, giving it an "Underperform" rating and a price target of $7.

With its huge player base and a few loyal spenders, Zynga had net income of $90.6 million in 2010, an unusual pre-IPO money-maker in the sector.

Cowen & Co. analyst Doug Creutz, however, initiated coverage Friday with a "Neutral" rating on the stock. Although Zynga is the leader in Facebook gaming, he's concerned that it won't be able to grow fast enough to justify its stock price. Growth in Facebook gaming has slowed, and Zynga's market share has declined from 50 percent to 38 percent of daily active users, he wrote.

He's also concerned that Zynga's famously aggressive and hard-charging culture may not be the best field to grow good games in. Others have raised concerns that the focus on deadlines and profits might be squeezing out creativity and talent.

In November, Groupon raised $700 million in its IPO. The granddaddy of all Internet IPOs might happen next year, as Facebook Inc. is expected to raise as much as $10 billion.

Bhatia declined to speculate about what Zynga's first-day drop might mean for Facebook. But he pointed out that what was a bad year for Zynga was a good year for Facebook. That's because Facebook stated charging application developers a 30 percent cut of the money they make through its site. That means for every dollar a player spends on "FarmVille" crops, 30 cents goes to Facebook.

"They are in the driver's seat," Bhatia said of Facebook. The company, he added, is "in class of its own."

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, who sits on Zynga's board, said Zynga and Facebook have both benefited by working together.

"As important as Facebook is to Zynga, Zynga is to Facebook," he said in an interview. "I have seen very good rapport with the two Marks and I would expect that relationship to continue to grow."

___

AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2011-12-16-Zynga-IPO/id-d00bd39a4f104a4daf988be579f4e571

darrell hammond tcu boise state boxer rebellion boxer rebellion stanford football lsu football schedule

polakisdarius15

Today?s LogicBUY Deal is the 2011 model LG 55LV4400 55? LED HDTV for $999.99.? Features: 120Hz refresh rate, 1920 x 1080 at 1080p, 3 HDMI inputs, and more. $1199.99 – $200 coupon = $999.99 with location-based shipping charges.? This is the current lowest price found by LogicBUY and is $100 cheaper than their last mention. [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/12/14/deal-of-the-day-lg-55-1080p-120hz-led-hdtv-2011-model/

kara dioguardi thomas kinkade the shining stanford stanford when does daylight savings time end world series mvp

polakisdarius15

TOKYO (Reuters) ? Shares in Japan's scandal-ridden Olympus Corp slumped almost 20 percent on Thursday after it corrected its accounts to reveal a dramatically weakened balance sheet, stoking talk that it might need to merge, sell assets or raise fresh capital.

The maker of cameras and medical equipment ironed out its accounts on Wednesday, unwinding a 13-year book-keeping fraud that came to light in October, and showing that its net assets were $1.1 billion less than it had previously disclosed.

For a graphic, click on http://link.reuters.com/pyt55s

"The stock has been overpriced but after the company came out with their numbers yesterday, it was time for shareholders to decide whether to hold on, or dump the shares," said Masayoshi Okamoto, head of dealing at Jujiya Securities, adding that a recent rally was largely due to short-term speculation.

"A lot of people are disposing of their shares while the price is still inflated," he added.

Olympus avoided an automatic delisting from the Tokyo Stock Exchange by meeting Wednesday's deadline for producing its overdue second-quarter accounts, giving some initial relief to investors who had feared it might miss the deadline.

But the focus has since turned to the true financial state of the 92-year-old firm and whether the large misstatements it had made in its previous accounts might be sufficiently large to still leave its listing status in doubt. The exchange can decide to delist if it believes the deceit was grave enough.

Investors want to know how the firm will recapitalize and whether there are plans to sell its struggling camera business, and not least of all who will actually run Olympus in future, given its existing board has committed to resign soon.

Ousted Olympus CEO Michael Woodford, who blew the whistle on a $1.7 billion scheme to hide investment losses and is now lobbying shareholders to get his old job back, said on Wednesday he was thinking about options for recapitalizing the company.

He did not give a direct estimate of the sum he felt would be needed but gave an example of how Olympus' strong underlying business would ensure a return on any fresh investment.

"For example, if you put $2 billion into the company, the value of the company would probably go up more than $2 billion," he said in an Internet broadcast.

Olympus shares finished were down about 17 percent at 1,090 yen, after hitting a low of 1,056 yen. The stock has lost more than half its value since the scandal erupted in mid-October, when Olympus sacked Woodford who then blew the whistle on the company's dubious book-keeping.

Since then, two top Olympus executives were found to have masterminded the scheme to cook the books. These executives have since resigned.

CAPITAL BASE

Woodford, who is assembling his own team of candidates for a new board, said he favored private equity or a rights issue over a strategic alliance, which would rob Olympus of its independence.

But rights issues, where existing shareholders are entitled to buy additional shares on a pro-rata basis, are rare in Japan.

Olympus President Shuichi Takayama has said he may sell assets or accept a capital tie-up to bolster the capital base.

Olympus has been dogged by rumors of bid interest from rivals, such as fellow endoscope makers Fujifilm and Hoya, or from private equity since the scandal broke.

The Tokyo exchange said after the announcements that it was keeping Olympus on its watchlist for possible delisting.

Some of the restated accounts also came with qualified opinions from auditors, with KPMG AZSA LLC noting it had been unable to confirm all the money flows involved in the fraud.

In addition to the immediate financing concerns over Olympus, the company also faces a possible proxy battle. The existing board wants to choose its own successors before quitting, potentially rivaling Woodford's comeback campaign.

On Thursday, Olympus said it aimed to hold an extraordinary meeting of shareholders in March or April to vote in new directors, though Woodford wants one by February. Neither he nor the existing board has announced its slate of candidates yet.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111215/bs_nm/us_olympus

veteran aircraft carrier apocalypse now happy veterans day happy veterans day brian eno tomb of the unknown soldier