Fed to tie interest rate to job gains

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said it will continue aggressive measures to stimulate the economy and made a major policy shift to focus more directly on boosting the job market.

Fed policymakers said they would keep interest rates at historically low levels until unemployment drops below 6.5%.

It's likely to keep the Fed's short-term interest rates at historically low levels well into 2015.

The move marked the first time that Fed policymakers have tied themselves to an explicit unemployment goal. It appeared to end the long-running debate within the central bank over how aggressively to target the nation's lagging job market.

The jobless figure was 7.7% in November, and the Fed's new forecast doesn't see that dropping below 6.5% for about three years.

The decision was made easier by the slow pace of inflation, which remains below 2% on an annual basis. Critics of the Fed's policies have argued that efforts to stimulate the economy would lead to inflation, but so far, that has not happened, and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has argued that the risk is much smaller than the dangers posed by high unemployment.

"The conditions now prevailing in the job market represent an enormous waste of human and economic potential," Bernanke said Wednesday during a news conference after the central bank's last policy meeting of the year.

Under its new policy, the Fed would let its inflation outlook rise to 2.5% before taking action to curtail it — giving the nation's employers more time to create jobs.

The move to link interest rate policies directly to the jobless rate is meant to give the public and businesses greater confidence about how long interest rates will remain exceptionally low, and that by itself could act as a kind of stimulus to the economy.

The new push got a warm welcome from both economists and Wall Street.

Economist Bernard Baumohl at the Economic Outlook Group said the previous time frame for action was "self-defeating because it provided no incentive for employers to start spending any time soon to avoid higher interest rates. It just didn't create any sense of urgency to accelerate investments or increase the rate of hiring."

The Fed has kept its federal funds rate, which influences rates for credit cards, mortgages and business and other loans, near zero since December 2008. Unemployment has been near 8% or above since early 2009.

Bernanke and his colleagues also decided Wednesday to continue the controversial large-scale bond-buying programs in the new year. Specifically, the Fed will buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities and $45 billion of long-term Treasury bonds a month.

The purchases are intended to drive down long-term interest rates to spur spending, investment and lending, boosting economic activity as well as hiring.

The central bank launched the purchase of mortgage-backed securities in September to give a lift especially to the housing market, which Fed policymakers said Wednesday "has shown further signs of improvement." They said they would continue to buy bonds until the job market "improved substantially."

The Fed, which has a dual mandate to maximize employment and keep inflation in check, also forecast a somewhat stronger growth for next year.

Its policy statement Wednesday noted a slowing in U.S. business investment and "significant downside risks" in the global economy, but made no mention of the so-called fiscal cliff, the automatic federal budget cuts and tax hikes scheduled to take effect beginning Jan. 1.

In a 75-minute news conference, however, Bernanke said it was clearly evident that concerns about the fiscal impasse already had hurt the economy, weakening business investments and consumer confidence.

He said that whatever the Fed did, it was not enough to offset the full effects of a U.S. economy failing to resolve fiscal issues. But he was cautiously optimistic: "I actually believe that Congress will come up with a solution, and I certainly hope they will."

For years, the Fed didn't give any indication of its future interest-rate path and only in recent years signaled what it might do by using somewhat vague language. In June 2011, the Fed said that it would keep rates exceptionally low for an "extended period." In August 2011, policymakers said no change was likely until at least mid-2013. And that date has since been extended twice, to late 2014 and then mid-2015.

Read More..

Pentagon Warns: 'Pervasive' Industrial Spying Targets U.S. Space Tech

In 2011, two Chinese nationals were convicted in federal court on charges of conspiring to violate the Arms Control Export Act after attempting to buy thousands of radiation-hardened microchips and sell them to China. The day the pair were sentenced to two years in prison for the plot, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Neil MacBride, called it an example of how “the line between traditional espionage, export violations and economic espionage has become increasingly blurred.”

It’s also an example of the increasing number of military and space technology espionage cases being uncovered in the U.S. each year, according to a new report from the Defense Security Service, which acts as the Pentagon’s industrial security oversight agency. According to the report, first noted by InsideDefense.com, industrial espionage has grown “more persistent, pervasive and insidious” (.pdf) and that “regions with active or maturing space programs” are some of the most persistent “collectors” of sensitive radiation-hardened, or “rad-hard” microchips, an important component for satellites. And now with North Korea having successfully launched its first satellite, it’s worth taking a close look.

The report doesn’t single out any country for space-tech espionage, lumping the suspected origins of espionage plots together into regions such as East Asia and the Pacific. But according to the report, many espionage attempts arising in Asia reflect “coordinated national strategies” by governments that “perceive themselves as being surrounded by threats, including from each other.” Because of this, these governments desire to upgrade their armies and make themselves more self-sufficient. Front companies originating in Asia and involved in espionage have also attempted to sell technology to countries that are — wink — “hostile to U.S. interests.”

If it’s China the DSS is referring to as a “hostile” country, then it’s a bit unusual. As a rule, the U.S. normally takes pains not to characterize China, or most countries, like that, with exceptions such as North Korea, Iran and Syria.

Still, these are only hints, and it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where these cases are coming from. Twenty-three percent of espionage attempts from East Asia were “attributed to cyber actors and were non-specific in nature.” Attempts to acquire technology through front companies is also difficult to track. Governments and militaries in Asia use “complex and very opaque systems” to acquire American technology, and it can be hard to establish the identity of a government behind a shady front company with no specific connections.

These cases also have often little to do with classic espionage — like infiltrating spies into the Defense Department — or even smuggling. Instead, most are the seemingly more mundane ways to steal military secrets, such as seeking technology directly from the suppliers and then exporting the technology without a license.

In other words, the “spies” just ask defense, aerospace and technology companies for what they want, and hope the companies don’t ask too many questions. The spies also frequently appear to be representatives of what seem to be otherwise legitimate companies, but are actually fronts. They file Request for Information paperwork (or RFIs) to get details from the government about various technologies. There’s also a growing amount of “suspicious network activity” that can include malicious programs to infect sensitive databases.

Nowhere is this more true than for rad-hard microelectronics. These chips are frequently used in space, as they’re built with a greater number of transistors than other microchips, which helps protect them against the onslaught of extra-atmospheric radiation while in orbit. They’re super important to satellites and NASA space missions, for one. There’s also a growing number of cases targeted against other space technologies used in “processing and manufacturing” and directed-energy systems. In 2011, reports collected by the DSS on attempts to acquire sensitive rad-hard electronics increased by 17 percent, a pretty sizable jump.

It’s worth not overstating the espionage cases as a whole, though. Espionage cases against technologies that are targeted most often — information systems, lasers and optics, aeronautics and electronics — have not increased. But there is an increase in the overall number of reports. Some of that is probably just due to greater reporting of cases, and not necessarily more espionage. According to the DSS, the number of case reports increased by 65 percent from 2010 to 2011. The number of these reported cases that turned into “suspicious contact reports” increased by 75 percent, though. But that may just mean the DSS is getting better at spotting the espionage. And the only consistent data is a “relentless upward trend” in the number of cases.

The other question is how the espionage attempts break down across regions. It’s probably not surprising that the Asia-Pacific region counts for most: some 42 percent. The Defense Security Service also thinks it’s very likely the attempts to seize rad-hard chips will continue to increase, as ”the perceived need within this region for modern militaries combined with growing economies will very likely fuel the continued targeting of U.S. technologies,” the report notes. Combined with the Near East — or the Middle East and North Africa — the number jumps to 61 percent. The rest largely come from Europe and the former Soviet bloc.

It also shows just how spycraft is often rather humdrum. As opposed to the fantasy image of spies, the reality is often — like the two Chinese nationals arrested for violating an arms embargo — as simple as calling up a company for information. The result is that company’s trade secrets ending up in China or worse, North Korea, which is a nightmare for any business owner. But for the U.S. government, it’s a serious threat to national security.

Read More..

“The Voice” finale taps Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Bruno Mars and the Killers

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The season finale of “The Voice” has enlisted some high-profile talent to help send the show’s third cycle off with a bang.

Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Bruno Mars and The Killers have been tapped to perform on the two-hour extravaganza, which will culminate with the crowning of a new champion, NBC said Wednesday.

An additional special guest will be named at a later date, the network added.

Rihanna will perform her song “Diamonds,” while “American Idol” alum Clarkson – who has served as a guest mentor on the show, as well as hosting the rival singing competition “Duets” – is set to sing “Catch My Breath.”

The Killers, meanwhile, will play their single “Runaways,” and Mars will debut the song “When I Was Your Man” from his sophomore album “Unorthodox Jukebox,” which was released Tuesday.

The season finale of “The Voice” will air live on December 18 at 8 p.m.

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Another Look at a Drink Ingredient, Brominated Vegetable Oil

James Edward Bates for The New York Times

Sarah Kavanagh, 15, of Hattiesburg, Miss., started an online petition asking PepsiCo to change Gatorade’s formula.

Sarah Kavanagh and her little brother were looking forward to the bottles of Gatorade they had put in the refrigerator after playing outdoors one hot, humid afternoon last month in Hattiesburg, Miss.

But before she took a sip, Sarah, a dedicated vegetarian, did what she often does and checked the label to make sure no animal products were in the drink. One ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, caught her eye.

“I knew it probably wasn’t from an animal because it had vegetable in the name, but I still wanted to know what it was, so I Googled it,” Ms. Kavanagh said. “A page popped up with a long list of possible side effects, including neurological disorders and altered thyroid hormones. I didn’t expect that.”

She threw the product away and started a petition on Change.org, a nonprofit Web site, that has almost 200,000 signatures. Ms. Kavanagh, 15, hopes her campaign will persuade PepsiCo, Gatorade’s maker, to consider changing the drink’s formulation.

Jeff Dahncke, a spokesman for PepsiCo, noted that brominated vegetable oil had been deemed safe for consumption by federal regulators. “As standard practice, we constantly evaluate our formulas and ingredients to ensure they comply with federal regulations and meet the high quality standards our consumers and athletes expect — from functionality to great taste,” he said in an e-mail.

In fact, about 10 percent of drinks sold in the United States contain brominated vegetable oil, including Mountain Dew, also made by PepsiCo; Powerade, Fanta Orange and Fresca from Coca-Cola; and Squirt and Sunkist Peach Soda, made by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

The ingredient is added often to citrus drinks to help keep the fruit flavoring evenly distributed; without it, the flavoring would separate.

Use of the substance in the United States has been debated for more than three decades, so Ms. Kavanagh’s campaign most likely is quixotic. But the European Union has long banned the substance from foods, requiring use of other ingredients. Japan recently moved to do the same.

“B.V.O. is banned other places in the world, so these companies already have a replacement for it,” Ms. Kavanagh said. “I don’t see why they don’t just make the switch.” To that, companies say the switch would be too costly.

The renewed debate, which has brought attention to the arcane world of additive regulation, comes as consumers show increasing interest in food ingredients and have new tools to learn about them. Walmart’s app, for instance, allows access to lists of ingredients in foods in its stores.

Brominated vegetable oil contains bromine, the element found in brominated flame retardants, used in things like upholstered furniture and children’s products. Research has found brominate flame retardants building up in the body and breast milk, and animal and some human studies have linked them to neurological impairment, reduced fertility, changes in thyroid hormones and puberty at an earlier age.

Limited studies of the effects of brominated vegetable oil in animals and in humans found buildups of bromine in fatty tissues. Rats that ingested large quantities of the substance in their diets developed heart lesions.

Its use in foods dates to the 1930s, well before Congress amended the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to add regulation of new food additives to the responsibilities of the Food and Drug Administration. But Congress exempted two groups of additives, those already sanctioned by the F.D.A. or the Department of Agriculture, or those experts deemed “generally recognized as safe.”

The second exemption created what Tom Neltner, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ food additives project, a three-year investigation into how food additives are regulated, calls “the loophole that swallowed the law.” A company can create a new additive, publish safety data about it on its Web site and pay a law firm or consulting firm to vet it to establish it as “generally recognized as safe” — without ever notifying the F.D.A., Mr. Neltner said.

About 10,000 chemicals are allowed to be added to foods, about 3,000 of which have never been reviewed for safety by the F.D.A., according to Pew’s research. Of those, about 1,000 never come before the F.D.A. unless someone has a problem with them; they are declared safe by a company and its handpicked advisers.

“I worked on the industrial and consumer products side of things in the past, and if you take a new chemical and put it into, say, a tennis racket, you have to notify the E.P.A. before you put it in,” Mr. Neltner said, referring to the Environmental Protection Agency. “But if you put it into food and can document it as recognized as safe by someone expert, you don’t have to tell the F.D.A.”

Read More..

Talks on Telecommunications Treaty Falter

DUBAI — Once-in-a-generation talks on a global telecommunications treaty were perched on the verge of collapse Thursday, with delegates seemingly unable to break an impasse over the most sensitive issue: whether to include the Internet in the document.

The United States was poised to withdraw support for the negotiations, being carried out under the auspices of a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunications Union, according to two people briefed on the situation who insisted on anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks. Several countries in Europe and elsewhere were expected to join the United States. A spokesman for the U.S. delegation declined to comment.

The United States insists that the Internet should not be included in the treaty, which deals with technical matters like connecting international telephone calls, because that could lead to curbs on free speech. A bloc of other countries, led by Russia, China and the host nation, the United Arab Emirates, has argued that the Internet should be mentioned in the treaty because Internet traffic travels through telecommunications networks.

The goal of the talks was to revise a document that was last updated in 1988, when the Internet was in its early stages. With more than 190 nations represented, agreement was never going to be easy, but the telecommunications union had insisted that it would operate by consensus when possible.

The U.S. delegation was apparently angered by developments in the wee hours Wednesday, when Russia and its allies succeeded in winning approval, by a mere show of hands, for a resolution that the United States and its supporters had interpreted as calling for the telecommunications union to gain important regulatory powers over the Internet.

Currently, the Internet is governed by a loose grouping of mostly private-sector organizations, rather than by governments. But at least one of these organizations, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, operates under a contract from the U.S. government.

A resolution is not officially part of the treaty wording, and Russia and its allies had previously attempted to include a similar clause in the draft of the treaty. But under a compromise, it agreed this week to withdraw that proposal and settle for a resolution instead. Even that, however, does not appear to have been satisfactory to the United States and its supporters.

Delegations have also been divided over issues like cybersecurity and proposals that telecommunications companies should receive payment for carrying Internet traffic.

Read More..

Ravi Shankar, sitar master, dies at 92

Ravi Shankar was already revered as a master of the sitar in 1966 when he met George Harrison, the Beatle who became his most famous disciple and gave the Indian musician-composer unexpected pop-culture cachet.

Suddenly the classically trained Shankar was a darling of the hippie movement, gaining widespread attention through memorable performances at the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock and the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh.

Harrison called him "the godfather of world music," and the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin once compared the sitarist's genius to Mozart's. Shankar continued to give virtuoso performances into his 90s, including one in 2011 at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

PHOTOS: Ravi Shankar | 1920 - 2010

Shankar, 92, who introduced Indian music to much of the Western world, died Tuesday at a hospital near his home in Encinitas. Stuart Wolferman, a publicist for his record label Unfinished Side Productions, said Shankar had undergone heart valve replacement surgery last week.

Well-established in the classical music of his native India since the 1940s, he remained a vital figure on the global music stage for six decades. Shankar is the father of pop music star Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar, his protege and a sitar star in her own right.

Before the 1950s, Indian classical music — with its improvised melodic excursions and complex percussion rhythms — was virtually unknown in America. If Shankar had done nothing more than compose the movie scores for Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray's "Apu" trilogy in the 1950s, he "would be remembered and revered," Times music critic Mark Swed wrote last fall.

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012

Shankar was on a path to international stardom during the 1950s, playing the sitar in the Soviet Union and debuting as a soloist in Western Europe and the United States. Two early albums also had considerable impact, "Three Classical Ragas" and "India's Master Musician."

During his musical emergence in the West, his first important association was with violinist Menuhin, whose passion for Indian music was ignited by Shankar in 1952. Their creative partnership peaked with their "West Meets East" release, which earned a Grammy Award in 1967. The recording also showed Shankar's versatility — and the capacity of Indian music to inspire artists from different creative disciplines.

He presented a new form of classical music to Western audiences that was based on improvisation instead of written compositions. Shankar typically played in the Hindustani classical style, in which he was accompanied by a player of two tablas, or small hand drums. Concerts in India that often lasted through the night were generally shortened to a few hours for American venues as Shankar played the sitar, a long-necked lute-like stringed instrument.

At first, he especially appealed to fans of jazz music drawn to improvisation. He recorded "Improvisations" (1962) with saxophonist Bud Shank and "Portrait of a Genius" (1964) with flutist Paul Horn, gave lessons to saxophonist John Coltrane (who named his saxophone-playing son Ravi), and wrote a percussion piece for drummer Buddy Rich and Alla Rakha.

On the Beatles' 1965 recording "Norwegian Wood," Harrison had played the sitar and met Shankar the next year in London.

Shankar was "the first person to impress me," among the impressive people the Beatles met, "because he didn't try to impress me," Harrison later said. The pair became close and their friendship lasted until Harrison's death in 2001.

Harrison was instrumental in getting Shankar booked at the now legendary Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. They partnered in organizing the Concert for Bangladesh and were among the producers who won a Grammy in 1972 for the subsequent album. They toured together in 1974, and Harrison produced Shankar's career-spanning mid-1990s boxed set, "In Celebration."

But Shankar came away from his festival appearances with mixed feelings about his rock generation followers. He expressed hope that his performances might help young people better understand Indian music and philosophy but later said "they weren't ready for it."

"All the young people got interested … but it was so mixed up with superficiality and the fad and the drugs," Shankar told The Times in 1996. "I had to go through several years to make them understand that this is a disciplined music, needing a fresh mind."

When Shankar was criticized in India as a sellout for spreading his music in the West, he responded in the early 1970s by lowering his profile and reaffirming his classical roots. He followed his first concerto for sitar and orchestra in 1971 with another a decade later.

"Our music has gone through so much development," Shankar told The Times in 1997. "But its roots — which have something to do with its feelings, the depth from where you bring out the music when you perform — touch the listeners even without their knowing it."

In the 1980s and '90s, Shankar maintained a busy performing schedule despite heart problems. He recorded "Tana Mana," an unusual synthesis of Indian music, electronics and jazz; oversaw the American premiere of his ballet, "Ghyanshyam: The Broken Branch"; and collaborated with composer Philip Glass on the album "Passages."

Read More..

A Eulogy for #Occupy

[Editor's Note: In the fall of 2011, Wired hired writer Quinn Norton to embed with the activists in the Occupy Wall Street movement and report back on what she witnessed. Throughout the past year, Norton filed a number of stories about the people behind the movement, the cops sent out to police them, and the clashes that ensued as a result. Now, Norton looks back on the year of Occupy.]

“Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?” — The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

Shit’s fucked up and bullshit. It’s a phrase I learned at Occupy. “Shit’s fucked up!” they would chant in the streets, “Shit’s fucked up and buuuuuullshit!” … drawing out the full and round and musical U in bullshit. It seems, whatever you think of their protest, this is a point that is impossible to deny. Shit, in America and beyond, is indeed fucked up and bullshit.

My first day covering Occupy was also my first eviction. I went down to see the protest’s midday march on October 5, 2011 in San Francisco. It was huge — the biggest thing I’d seen since the 2003 antiwar protests I’d participated in. It dwarfed anything from the BART protests I’d covered. But what was most remarkable was the response. We didn’t know yet what Occupy would be; there was no hint in the air of what was to come. But something was different from the start. There were honks of support, smiles on the faces of drivers blocked on Market Street. There was an inconvenienced bus driver, pumping his fist in support.

No more articulation than that — but it was enough to make people I was talking to on the net skeptical. We were so unused to the idea that people could want something like this.

By this point we were trapped in the amber of immutable America.

We were trapped in endless war and financial crisis, in debt and downward spiral that our leaders bickered about, but did nothing to stop. It wore away at people with the implacability of geological erosion. The American empire we never wanted in the first place was crumbling slowly, and nothing we did in our lives seemed to matter. We had learned in the past 10 years that we couldn’t change our fates, not with hard work, taking on debt, education, or even trying to live healthy. Even when we wanted to, we could not stop wars, rein in banks, repair our crumbling infrastructure or take care of each other. We couldn’t control medical costs or the price of an education. Gas was going up, temperatures were going up.

Americans themselves lived quiet lives of untold loneliness, socially isolated. But, as we’d come to learn, we’re always watched by our infrastructure’s silent machines. Lonely, but never alone. It had become an authoritarian failing state, but without the authority, or even the sense of change that comes with total failure. We were dying by bits and pieces, going numb and fading away.

It was as if so many of us, myself included, were looking at the protestors and saying, “Please, let something matter again.”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 View All

Read More..

Anthony Jeselnik, Amy Schumer, Nick Kroll Shows get Comedy Central premiere dates

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Comedy Central has set premiere dates for new series starring comedians Anthony Jeselnik, Amy Schumer, Nick Kroll, Ben Hoffman and Nathan Fielder.

The biting Jeselnik and Schumer are familiar to fans of Comedy Centrals celebrity roasts: They reliably deliver some of the most scathing and best-assembled insults. Nick Kroll stars on FX’s “The League.” And Hoffman and Fielder will both lure unassuming, regular people into their shows, airing together on Thursdays.

Comedy Central made the announcements as it released its midseason schedule Tuesday.

The sketch series “Kroll Show” premieres Wednesday, January 16 at 10:30 p.m. “The Jeselnik Offensive” debuts Tuesday, February 19 at 10:30 p.m., and will take on the week’s train wrecks in the news.

The sketch/man on the street series “The Ben Show,” starring Hoffman, premieres Thursday, February 28 at 10 p.m. It will be followed at 10:30 by Fielder’s “Nathan For You,” which “draws real people into an experience far beyond what they signed up for, according to Comedy Central.

Schumer looks at “sex, relationships, and the general clusterf— that is life” in “Inside Amy Schumer,” beginning Tuesday, April 30 at 10:30 p.m.

The network also announced standup specials for Jeselnik on Sunday, January 13, Kristen Schaal on Friday, January 18, and Katt Williams on Saturday, February 23. (Williams has popped up lately for a string of run-ins with the law, but he’s also famous for telling jokes.)

Comedy Central also set several return dates. Roastmaster Jeff Ross is back for season 2 of “The Burn With Jeff Ross” on Tuesday, January 8 at 10:30 p.m. “Workaholics” clocks in again on Wednesday, January 16 at 10 p.m., and the fifth season of “Tosh.0″ premieres Tuesday, February 5 at 10 p.m.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

The New Old Age Blog: The Gift of Reading

This is the year of the tablet, David Pogue of The Times has told us, and that may be good news for seniors who open holiday wrappings to find one tucked inside. They see better with tablets’ adjustable type size, new research shows. Reading becomes easier again.

This may seem obvious — find me someone over 40 who doesn’t see better when fonts are larger — but it’s the business of science to test our assumptions.

Dr. Daniel Roth, an eye specialist and clinical associate professor at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., offered new evidence of tablets’ potential benefits last month at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

His findings, based on tests conducted with 66 adults age 50 and over: older people read faster (a mean reading speed of 128 words per minute) when using an iPad, compared to a newspaper with the same 10-point font size (114 words per minute).

When the font was increased to 18 points — easy to do on an iPad — reading speed increased to 137 words per minute.

“If you read more slowly, it’s tedious,” Dr. Roth said, explaining why reading speed is important. “If you can read more fluidly, it’s more comfortable.”

What makes the real difference, Dr. Roth theorizes, is tablets’ illuminated screen, which heightens contrast between words and the background on which they sit.

Contrast sensitivity — the visual ability to differentiate between foreground and background information — becomes poorer as we age, as does the ability to discriminate fine visual detail, notes Dr. Kevin Paterson, a psychologist at the University of Leicester, who recently published a separate study on why older people struggle to read fine print.

“There are several explanations for the loss of sensitivity to fine detail that occurs with older age,” Dr. Paterson explained in an e-mail. “This may be due to greater opacity of the fluid in the eye, which will scatter incoming light and reduce the quality of the projection of light onto the retina. It’s also hypothesized that changes in neural transmission affect the processing of fine visual detail.”

Combine these changes with a greater prevalence of eye conditions like macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy in older adults, and you get millions of people who cannot easily do what they have done all their lives — read and stay connected to the world of ideas, imagination and human experience.

“The No. 1 complaint I get from older patients is that they love to read but can’t, and this really bothers them,” Dr. Roth said. The main option has been magnifying glasses, which many people find cumbersome and inconvenient.

Some words of caution are in order. First, Dr. Roth’s study has not been published yet; it was presented as a poster at the scientific meeting and publicized by the academy, but it has not yet gone through comprehensive, rigorous peer review.

Second, Dr. Roth’s study was completed before the newest wave of tablets from Microsoft, Google, Samsung and others became available. The doctor made no attempt to compare different products, with one exception. In the second part of his study, he compared results for the iPad with those for a Kindle. But it was not an apples to apples comparison, because the Kindle did not have a back-lit screen.

This section of his study involved 100 adults age 50 and older who read materials in a book, on an iPad and on the Kindle. Book readers recorded a mean reading speed of 187 words per minute when the font size was set at 12; Kindle readers clocked in at 196 words per minute and iPad readers at 224 words per minute at the same type size. Reading speed improved even more drastically for a subset of adults with the poorest vision.

Again, Apple’s product came out on top, but that should not be taken as evidence that it is superior to other tablets with back-lit screens and adjustable font sizes. Both the eye academy and Dr. Roth assert that they have no financial relationship with Apple. My attempts to get in touch with the company were not successful.

A final cautionary note should be sounded. Some older adults find digital technology baffling and simply do not feel comfortable using it. For them, a tablet may sit on a shelf and get little if any use.

Others, however, find the technology fascinating. If you want to see an example that went viral on YouTube, watch this video from 2010 of Virginia Campbell, then 99 years old, and today still going strong at the Mary’s Woods Retirement Community in Lake Oswego, Ore.

Ms. Campbell’s glaucoma made it difficult for her to read, and for her the iPad was a blessing, as she wrote in this tribute quoted in an article in The Oregonian newspaper:

To this technology-ninny it’s clear
In my compromised 100th year,
That to read and to write
Are again within sight
Of this Apple iPad pioneer

Caregivers might be delighted — as Ms. Campbell’s daughter was — by older relatives’ response to this new technology, a potential source of entertainment and engagement for those who can negotiate its demands. Or, they might find that old habits die hard and that their relatives continue to prefer a book or newspaper they can hold in their hands to one that appears on a screen.

Which reading enhancement products have you used, and what experiences have you had?

Read More..

Deal Professor: In Netflix Case, a Chance to Re-examine Old Rules

Netflix is in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s sights over a post on Facebook by Reed Hastings, its chief executive, saying that the video streaming company’s monthly viewing had reached a billion hours. Yet, the case is more convincing as an illustration of how the regulator clings to outdated notions of how markets work.

In July, Mr. Hastings posted three lines stating that “Netflix monthly viewing exceeded 1 billion hours for the first time ever in June.”

While his comments may have seemed as innocuous as yet another Facebook post about cats, for the S.E.C., it was something more sinister, a violation of Regulation FD.

Regulation FD was the brainchild of Arthur Levitt, a former chairman of the commission. During Mr. Levitt’s time, companies would often disclose earnings estimates and other important information not to the markets but to select analysts. Companies did so to preserve confidentiality and drip out earnings information gently to the markets, and in that way avoid the volatility associated with a single announcement.

For Mr. Levitt, this was heresy. He believed not only in disclosure, but in the principle that all investors should have equal access to company information. Regulation FD was the answer.

In general, Regulation FD says that when a public company gives material nonpublic information to anyone, the company must also publicly disclose that information to all investors. Regulation FD in that way prevents selective leaks and, according to the S.E.C., promotes “full and fair disclosure.”

It seems so simple. How can more disclosure be bad? But both public companies and investment banks argued that the rule would actually reduce the flow information, as companies, now forbidden from disclosing only to analysts, would simply choose not to release the information. And because analysts would no longer have that advantage in knowledge, their value would be harder to justify, resulting in fewer analysts. Stockholders would be worse off as less information was in the market.

The S.E.C. disputed these arguments, and Regulation FD went into effect over a decade ago.

Subsequent studies of Regulation FD’s effects have shown that the critics may have been right. One of the most-cited studies found that analyst coverage of smaller companies dropped. And since there was now less information in the market about these smaller companies, investors subsequently demanded a bigger premium to invest, increasing financing costs. Another study found that the introduction of Regulation FD increased market volatility because information was no longer informally spread. In fairness, some studies found different results, but the bulk of findings are that Regulation FD is at best unhelpful.

Despite these studies and companies’ complaints about the costs of compliance, the S.E.C. has stuck to the rule. Until the Netflix case, however, the agency appeared to try to keep the peace by seeking redress in only the most egregious cases.

In all, there have been only about a dozen Regulation FD cases since its adoption, including one against Office Depot in 2010, for which it was fined $1 million for hinting its earnings estimates to analysts. But while enforcement actions have been rare, it has required that companies fundamentally change the way they disclose information.

Then Netflix came along.

The S.E.C.’s case appears to be rest on much weaker grounds than previous ones involving Regulation FD. To make a Regulation FD claim, the agency must show the information was released privately and that it was material. But neither element seems certain here.

Mr. Hastings’s announcement that the milestone of one billion hours was achieved seems more like a public relations stunt than a disclosure of material information. And Netflix had previously said that it was close to this milestone, so followers knew it was coming.

But while it seems like this information was a nonevent, this post occurred as Netflix’s stock was beginning to rise, and by two trading days later, it had jumped almost 20 percent. While some may view this as proof of the post’s materiality, it is hard to read too much; Netflix shares can be volatile, and a Citigroup analysts’ report released during that time could have also moved the stock.

Then there is the issue of whether this was privately disclosed information.

Some have seized on this requirement to claim that the S.E.C. is in essence saying that Facebook is not a “public” Web site. This is laughable; after all, Mr. Hastings is popular — he has more than 200,000 subscribers to his Facebook account. It is certain that more people read this comment on Facebook than if it had been in an S.E.C. filing.

But the S.E.C.’s argument is likely to be more technical than saying Facebook is private. In a 2008 release on Web site disclosure, the S.E.C. asserted that a Web site or a blog could be public for Regulation FD purposes but only if it was a “recognized channel of distribution of information. ”

In other words, a public disclosure is not about being public but about being made where investors knew the company regularly released investor information.

So the S.E.C. is likely to sidestep the issue of Facebook’s “public” nature and simply argue that Netflix never alerted investors that Facebook was the place to find Netflix’s investor information. Mr. Hastings appeared to concede this, and in a Facebook post last week, he argued that while Facebook was “very public,” it was not where the company regularly released information. If this dispute goes forward, expect the parties to spend thousands of hours arguing about whether the post contained material information rather than whether Facebook is public.

But it all seems so silly and technical and shows the S.E.C.’s fetish of trying to control company disclosure to the nth degree. It’s easy to criticize the agency for not understanding social media, but I would argue that in trying to bring a rare Regulation FD enforcement action, it truly missed an opportunity. Rather than focus on technicalities that few people understand, it could have used this case to examine what it means to be public and how social media results in more, not less, disclosure.

If the idea behind Regulation FD is to encourage disclosure, then allowing executives to comment freely on Facebook and Twitter, recognizing them as a public space akin to a news release, is almost certain to result in more disclosure, not less, and reach many more people than an S.E.C. filing would. The agency’s position will only force executives to check with lawyers and avoid social media, chilling disclosure.

And this leads to the bigger issue. Regulation FD was always about principles of fairness that belied the economics of the rule. If the S.E.C. really wanted to encourage disclosure, then it might want to take a step back and consider whether after a decade, Regulation FD is worth all the costs. Perhaps shareholders would even prefer more disclosure on Facebook and fewer regulatory filings. I suspect they might, if it meant more information and generally higher share prices.

In any event, this case still has a way to go. Netflix disclosed only the receipt of a Wells notice, which meant the S.E.C. staff was recommending to the commissioners that an enforcement action be brought. It is now up to the commissioners to decide. Given the issues with this case, they may decide it isn’t worth it. It would still leave Netflix with substantial legal fees, but perhaps save the agency from another embarrassing defeat.

But while that may end the matter, it shouldn’t. The regulator could use the Netflix case to rethink its disclosure policies in light of not only the rise of social media but how the market actually works. After all, even the S.E.C. has a Twitter account these days.

---

Read More..