Seeking More Daily Deal Traction, Groupon Updates Its iPad App With ?Nearby? Feature And Support For 6 More Countries

Groupon — the daily deals site with ambitions to become the go-to platform for all local commerce — is continuing to expand its mobile offerings to meet that goal. The company today is launching a new version of its iPad app. Bringing it up to par with its existing iPhone app, updated this summer, the app now lets users add in gift codes, and has better social integration with Facebook. But perhaps the key new feature is a “nearby” service, letting people search for and hopefully redeem deals close to them. All three are part of a bigger strategy for Groupon to add more functionality into its overall service that will likely see integration of mobile commerce and other features into the app down the line. The app also now works in six new countries:?Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Singapore and Sweden. In addition to existing support for the U.S., Canada, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy and the UK, Groupon now covers 13 countries with its iPad app, still a far cry from the 42 countries it supports on iPhone. Both moves are a sign of how Groupon is continuing to try to improve traction on its core business of daily deals, which have had a big drop in usage since the company went public. In the company’s last quarterly results, it reported results below expectations with earnings per share of $0.00. Other strategies at the company have included working on offering more services, such as point-of-sale commercial offerings, restaurant reservations, and a B2B service powering daily deals for other brands like Major League Baseball. In an interview earlier, David Katz, Groupon’s VP of mobile, said that although it might seem more obvious to offer location-based services on a smartphone rather than a tablet app, he also noted that people were using the iPad app already in different locations. “The Nearby service is more than just being out and about,” he said. “It’s about taking advantage of deals wherever you are, and so if you’re using the app close to home or at work it makes just as much sense as the service on the phone.” Although Katz wouldn’t say how many downloads Groupon has had of its iPad (or Android or iPhone apps) he did note that iPads specifically were one of the more popular ways of accessing Groupon on the go. “Coming out of 2012 and into 2013, you

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/DU_SOfMCWHQ/

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Discovery of tiny fossil new to science

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

'It is exciting to discover that a common group of fossils that we thought we knew a lot about may well have been hood-winking us as to their true identity, which we now realise because we have their beautifully fossilised soft-parts. A case of a 'wolf in sheep's clothing''- Professor David Siveter, University of Leicester

An international team of researchers have made an extremely rare discovery of a species of animal - related to crabs, lobsters and shrimps ? that is new to science.

Scientists from the universities of Leicester, Oxford, Imperial and Yale have announced their discovery of a new and scientifically important fossil species of ostracod in the journal, Proceedings of The Royal Society B. The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.

The discovered species, which is up to 10 millimetres long, is special because it is exceptionally well preserved, complete with not only the shell but also the soft parts ? its body, limbs, eyes, gills and alimentary system. Such discoveries are extremely rare in the fossil record.

The discovery of the tiny shelled arthropod was made in 425 million year old rocks in Herefordshire, Welsh Borderland. The rocks at the site date to the Silurian period of geological time, when southern Britain was a sea area on a small continent situated in warm, southerly subtropical latitudes. The ostracods and associated marine animals living there were covered by a fall of volcanic ash that preserved them frozen in time.

Professor David Siveter, of the University of Leicester Department of Geology, said: "The two ostracod specimens discovered represent a genus and species new to science, named Pauline avibella. The genus is named in honour of a special person and avibella means 'beautiful bird', so-named because of the fancied resemblance of a prominent feature of the shell to the wing of a bird."

"Ostracods are the most abundant fossil arthropods, occurring ubiquitously as bivalved shells in rocks of the last 490 million years, and are common in most water environments today. The find is important because it is one of only a handful preserving the fossilised soft-tissues of ostracods. Its assignment to a particular group of ostracods based on knowledge of its biology is at odds with its shell form, thus urging caution in interpreting the classification of fossil ostracods based on shell characters alone."

"The preservation of soft-parts of animals is a very rare occurrence in the fossil record and allows unparalleled insight into the ancient biology, community structure and evolution of animals - key facts that that would otherwise be lost to science. The fossils known from the Herefordshire site show soft-part preservation and are of global importance."

The fossils were reconstructed 'virtually', by using a technique that involves grinding each specimen down, layer by layer, and photographing it at each stage. Ten millimetres is relatively tiny, but at an incremental level of 20 ?m (micrometres) that yields 500 slices, which can then be pieced together in a computer to provide a full, three-dimensional image of each fossil, outside and in.

Professor Siveter added: "Fossil discoveries in general help elucidate our own place in the tree of life. This discovery adds another piece of knowledge in the jigsaw of understanding the diversity and evolution of animals."

"It is exciting to discover that a common group of fossils that we thought we knew a lot about may well have been hood-winking us as to their true identity, which we now realise because we have their beautifully fossilised soft-parts. A case of a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'."

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University of Leicester: http://www.leicester.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Leicester for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/125884/Discovery_of_tiny_fossil_new_to_science

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Video: Did the Market Get What It Wants From the Fed?

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/50177731/

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Report: Top Russian diplomat says Assad increasingly losing control, opposition may win

MOSCOW - ITAR-Tass news agency is quoting Russia's deputy foreign minister as saying that Syrian President Bashar Assad is increasingly losing control and the opposition may win.

Thursday's remarks by Mikhail Bogdanov are the first acknowledgement by a Russian official that the Syrian strongman could lose a bloody civil war.

Russia has shielded Assad from international sanctions and continued to provide it with weapons.

While Bogdanov didn't signal Moscow's readiness to edge closer to the West and approve sanctions against Assad's regime, the statement appears to reflect that Moscow has begun positioning itself for his imminent defeat.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/report-top-russian-diplomat-says-assad-increasingly-losing-094557549.html

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Childhood obesity declines in several cities - Mother Nature Network

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Although the rapidly skyrocketing rate has slowed its ascent in recent years, the numbers are still staggering, and public health experts (and anyone with common sense) expect for long-term health risks to ensue.

Childhood diabetes type-2 is on the rise. And obese children are more likely to grow into obese adults, carrying a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer.

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But amidst the troubling conundrum, some very good news has been revealed. A number of states are reporting actual declines in childhood obesity rates. Big cities like New York and Los Angeles, and smaller spots like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb, have noted the change. And although the dips are small, mostly single-digit percentages, they provide the first sign that one the country?s most stubborn health problems may be relenting

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?It?s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,? said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City.

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Obesity is more widely reported for low-income children than those from affluent families ? 20 percent of low-income children are obese as compared to 12 percent from affluent families ? and the current declines appear to be focused in high-income, mostly white areas.

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But Philadelphia, which has the highest big-city poverty rate in the country, reported that its obesity drop occurred mostly among minorities. According to The New York Times, obesity among 120,000 students in Philadelphia measured between 2006 and 2010 declined by 8 percent among black boys and by 7 percent among Hispanic girls, compared with a 0.8 percent decline for white girls and a 6.8 percent decline for white boys.

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Philadelphia has taken assertive action in controlling sugar and junk food in the public schools, and administrations have shifted the whole paradigm there ? comprehensive moves like offering erasers instead of candy for rewards and swapping healthy foods for sugar-heavy bake sale treats.

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Although experts say that is too early to tell whether the trend will remain, the First Lady should be proud.

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Source: http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/childhood-obesity-declines-in-several-cities

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Galaxy may be most distant ever seen

Astronomers have spotted seven galaxies that existed just a few hundred million years after the universe's birth, including one that may be the oldest found to date.

The potential record-holding galaxy, known as UDFj-39546284, likely existed when the universe was just 380 million years old, researchers said, and may be the farthest galaxy ever seen. The other six distant galaxies all formed within 600 million years of the Big Bang, which created our universe 13.7 billion years ago.

UDFj-39546284 was detected previously, and researchers had thought it formed just 500 million years or so after the Big Bang. The new observations, made using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, push its probable formation time back even further.

The seven galaxies constitute the first reliable census of the epoch from 400 million to 600 million years after the universe's birth, researchers said. This census detects a steady increase in galaxies over this period, suggesting that the formation of the first stars and galaxies ? the so-called "cosmic dawn" ? happened gradually rather than suddenly.

1. Space news from NBCNews.com

   1. Cosmonaut looks down on Everest

      Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: A couple of well-placed tweets have heightened interest in a Russian cosmonaut's picture of Mount Everest as seen from the International Space Station.

   2. Year's best meteor shower set to peak
   3. Curiosity drill issue could threaten mission
   4. Private spaceship builders split $30M from NASA

"The cosmic dawn was probably not a single, dramatic event," study lead author Richard Ellis, of Caltech in Pasadena, told reporters Wednesday. [ Gallery: Spectacular Hubble Photos ]

Ellis and his team pointed Hubble at a small patch of sky known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which the telescope observed for many hours to build up enough light to spot extremely faint, distant objects. The researchers used Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 to study the deep field in near-infrared wavelengths during August and September 2012.

The astronomers used special filters to measure the galaxies' redshifts ? how much their light has been stretched by the expansion of space. From the redshifts, the researchers were able to calculate the distance to each galaxy, revealing their ages.

The results "represent our cosmic roots," said Harvard astronomer Abraham Loeb, who was not involved in the study. The new Hubble data "comes from the biggest archeological dig that we have of the universe."

The team pushed Hubble to its limits, and the telescope probably won't be able to see back in time any further, Ellis said. But NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which is slated to launch in 2018, will dig even deeper into the universe's past.

"Hubble has, in a sense, set the stage for Webb," team member Anton Koekemoer, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said in a statement. "Our work indicates there is a rich field of even earlier galaxies that Webb will be able to study."

The new study has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Follow Space.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

? 2012 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50179504/ns/technology_and_science-space/

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Kitchen Contractors Beverly Hills - Tims New Construction

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We make finding a qualified, expert Kitchen remodeling specialists easy! Let us help you with any project. Our experts in Beverly Hills can design, renovate, and make a Kitchen for your residence! CA Kitchen Remodeling makes remodeling projects easy! Simply request a free of charge estimate and make your home you have always wanted!

Remodeling your kitchen is really a great solution to update the inside look of your house and make your kitchen area a better match for the lifestyle and personal needs. Since there are numerous actions to many kitchen?s remodeling undertaking that could become difficult, it is crucial you choose to make detailed decisions before you start. With regards to home kitchen remodeling, cautious and detailed preparing should be a must.

We?ll allow you to sort from the endless possibilities of layouts, styles, lighting, fixtures, accessories and even more ? transforming your kitchen into a masterpiece that you just as well as your household will appreciate for life. A kitchen renovation is truly a complex job that is hinged on many distinct variables, involving everything from workspace preparing and color scheme choice to time and budget considerations.

There are lots of key elements to be considered before beginning to transform a Kitchen, including proper planning, budgeting, and execution during the whole process. Beverly Hills Kitchen remodeling can be as simple as painting walls and replacing a faucet, or it may well involve tougher tasks such as taking out the walls and installing new and improved facilities for instance a heated floor.

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2012 at 7:00 PM and is filed under General Contractors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Source: http://timsnewconstruction.com/Blog/2012/12/10/kitchen-contractors-beverly-hills-4/

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