Spreadtrum gets $1.38 billion buyout offer from China's Tsinghua Holdings

(Reuters) - Chinese cellphone chip designer Spreadtrum Communications Inc said it received a $1.38 billion buyout proposal from a unit of government-owned Tsinghua Holdings Co Ltd.

The offer of $28.50 per American depository share represents a premium of 28 percent to Spreadtrum's Thursday closing price on the Nasdaq.

Spreadtrum said its board is evaluating the proposal.

The company develops chips for smartphones, feature phones and other consumer electronics products, supporting 2G, 3G and 4G wireless communications standards.

Spreadtrum, which gets most of its sales from China and Korea, counts HTC Corp and Samsung Electronics among its customers.

Lower-priced smartphones are popular in Asia and are expected to drive growth in the mobile handsets market as the United States reaches saturation.

China has more than 1 billion mobile phone subscribers, with many switching from low-end feature phones to smartphones in the past few years as prices become more affordable with some smartphones selling for less than 1,000 yuan ($160) apiece.

Research firm IDC had forecast that China's smartphone shipments are expected to rise sharply to 460 million by 2017 and will make up nearly all mobile phone sales.

Spreadtrum and other Asian rivals such as Mediatek are improving their technology and are happy to sacrifice profits in exchange for market share in Asia.

Last week, Spreadtrum raised its revenue estimates for the second quarter by $50 million to $270-$278 million citing higher demand from low-cost smartphone makers.

Spreadtrum shares rose 21 percent to $27 in premarket trading.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spreadtrum-gets-1-38-billion-buyout-offer-tsinghua-111931522.html

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Kickstarter Says It Was Wrong About ?Above The Game' Campaign, Bans Future ?Seduction Guides'

Kickstarter just published a blog post offering its take on a controversial campaign to fund a book called Above the Game: A Guide To Getting Awesome With Women. The title of the post, "We were wrong," makes the company's position pretty clear. What was so bad about the campaign? Well, comedian Casey Malone had a pretty damning blog post about it ? Malone basically quoted the parts of the guide that have already been published on Reddit, with tips like:

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/gVXPNg724no/

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You don't need a beautiful weather app to know which way the wind blows

by Rob Walker | @YahooTech

Last week, Business Insider published its picks for the ?15 companies that are dominating mobile design right now.? Perusing that list, I was struck that four of the examples involved weather apps. Weather apps! Remembering too that Apple?s recent demo of its forthcoming iOS upgrade focused pretty heavily on the new version of its weather app, I got to wondering: How can it be that more than a quarter of ?dominant? design involves such a workaday category?

Upon reflection, this storm of weather apps makes sense if you think about it from the design-world point of view. Designers love creating new things, but what they really love is trying to make a better version of something that already exists. This is why, for example, pretty much every industrial designer creates a chair. It?s not as though the core problem ? something to sit on ? has never been tackled, or changed much. But a fresh take on an iconic thing is a catnip-level challenge, and a possible ticket to immortality via object.

Perhaps, then, weather is the chair of apps.

That explains the appeal to interaction designers: It?s the opportunity to place an auteur?s stamp on a familiar category. But what about the rest of us?

The fact that weather apps are popular, and likely occupy prominent spots on untold numbers of smart phone home screens, does not mean we want to spend a lot of time with them. Quite the opposite: If you want to know how cold it is outside, you want to know now. If you?re trying to decide whether to pack an umbrella for a weekend jaunt to the coast, even drool-worthy aesthetics are a problem if they delay your access to the relevant data. In this case, truth is more important than beauty: Actual weather information is pretty close to being a commodity, so the interaction designer?s challenge is to get out of the way as beautifully as possible.

As with chairs, this is harder than it sounds: A gorgeous chair that?s uncomfortable to sit in is also known as landfill.

When I looked at the overwhelming selection on the Apple and Google Play app stores, I was suddenly thankful for that mobile-dominance list narrowing things down for me; you don?t need 27 weather apps to know which way the wind blows. Let?s examine this handful of lauded takes on the weather app see how variable the conditions really are in this category.

1. Yahoo! Weather. Screamingly obvious disclosure: You are reading a Yahoo News page right now. Factor that in as you wish.

This happens to be the weather app I use, and no, that?s not out of some sort of weird corporate loyalty. The typography is clean and engaging, it offers three screens of data for every city I choose, and I have a weakness for the app?s most prominent gimmick: rotating geographic-and-weather-specific background imagery crowdsourced from a dedicated Flickr pool. (Yahoo! owns Flickr.) This actually makes it mildly fun to check the app even when I already know that it is pouring rain.

Also: This is the only app in this roundup available for Android and iOS devices. And it?s free.

2. Sun. Go from Yahoo! Weather to this and there?s no denying that approaches to solving the weather-app challenge can vary wildly. If you?re into the super-flat, ultra-minimal tiles-and-icon aesthetic, this one is for you.

Looks aside, Sun has two features I like a lot. One: You can see current-condition summaries, elegantly simplified, on a single page. If (like me) you?re a multi-city weather-tracker, this is cool. Two: The home screen icon shows the current temperature wherever you are, so you don?t have to open the app. (Why don?t all weather apps do this?)

Downsides? It?s a little light on data, and a weird wavy-line forecast tool is slightly neat to play with, but it?s not exactly intuitive, and actually adds to user effort.

This is a Web-based app for iOS devices; it?s free.

3. Haze. This app is for those who like a little more razzmatazz in the graphic representation of basic weather data. The home screen shows the current temperature, and then alludes to the forecast by way of animated, colored bars pulsing either upward or downward in the background. Tap once to get a similar presentation of precipitation chances.

Pleasurable to interact with, Haze also skimps (for my taste) on data, or at least didn?t make it easy to find what I wanted: Forecast high temperatures are plainly visible, but sometimes you want to know what the low might be two or three days from now, and I don?t see how to do that. It also makes sounds (these can be disabled), which doesn?t do anything for me.

This iOS app costs $2.99.

4. Dark Sky. The disconcertingly threatening name of this app is echoed by its look. It opens to a black-and-blue map with spooky radar-like depictions of cloud cover that you can manipulate with a slider along the bottom. When the skies over New York proved to be clear, the app suggested I check out its visualization of storms over some place called Solon Springs, WI.

Okay. Indeed, that?s pretty entertaining for a moment or two ? make the apocalyptic-looking clouds move with your finger! Cool! But you can?t get a real forecast from Dark Sky ? this is definitely a supplemental app, for true weather freaks who enjoy ?minute-to-minute predictions,? depicted in a way that makes you feel like you?re sitting in some Mission Control bunker.

Also an iOS app, this one goes for $3.99

In short: Yes, this does turn out to be an impressive array of design responses to a single notion. But I wouldn?t mind seeing some of this interaction creativity finding its way to newer categories. And after spending the day manipulating these clever bits of mobile design, I can say with confidence I?d rather have another chair than another weather app.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/best-weather-apps-design-143845000.html

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8 Cool Gadgets To Help You Survive the Summer Heat

Summer is rearing its sweaty head, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. We can fight back though, and our very own Giz readers have offered up some stellar ideas on how to beat the heat until it slinks off into a corner and leaves us all alone. Time to start building your arsenal.

1. Shaved Ice Machine

Suggested by: strich

My wife bought a sno-cone maker last week. Shaved ice with suggary syrup poured over the top eaten with a little plastic spoon is a pretty nice way to take your mind off the heat and have fun. It works here in Dallas where it's been known to get a little warm in the summer.

Price: $40

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2. Beer Shorts

Suggested by: Carl Winans

Price: $37

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3. Popsicle Molds with Built-In Straws

Suggested by: Eric Limer

Price: $14

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4. Gold Bond Body Powder

Suggested by: Inspectah_Patio and acidraindrops

Extra cooling to keep your balls extra dry during the summer. Or, em, anything else :D

Price: $15 for 24oz.

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5. Ludicrously Over-Engineered Underwear

Suggested by: anytakers

Price: $100 (!)

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6. Frigidaire Dehumidifier

Suggested by: godnorazi

I can leave my thermostat at 80 and it still feels great in the humid summer with this baby.

Price: $250

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7. Waterproof MP3 Player

Suggested by: laurelnev

Price: $28

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8. Wool and Synthetic Fabrics

Suggested by: twelvehappymen

Clothing is key. I'm a sweaty dude that walks everywhere in a hot/humid part of the world. I try to banish as much cotton from my wardrobe as possible.

If you can afford it, the modern smartwool/icebreaker/ibex merino stuff is amazing. Much better than any of the high-tech synthetics in my experience. Cotton undershirts get soaked and feel clammy all day if you wear them under a dress shirt. Synthetics that are good at wicking and dry quickly when exposed to air flow, but suck when worn under another layer. And they get stinky. Wool is kinda miraculous, being able to wick, dry quickly when exposed to air and (critically) remain comfortable when completely waterlogged.

My icebreaker wool hoodie is my go-to garment for clammy summer nights when a t-shirt is too light but a sweatshirt is too sweaty. I've got some wool underwear that's pretty nice, too, but even a wool zealot has trouble spending $30 for something that you fart in.

Also, a broad brimmed hat. I call it my Hat of Pragmatism. My son calls it the Explorer Hat. My wife calls it "that thing". Whatever you call it, it makes wandering around in the sun a lot more enjoyable.

Price: ~$30-100

Source: http://gizmodo.com/8-cool-gadgets-to-help-you-survive-the-summer-heat-511028124

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James Gandolfini Was Fat

James Gandolfini in 2007

Photo by Tom Briglia/FilmMagic/Getty Images

Actor James Gandolfini died Wednesday of an apparent heart attack. A Gawker requiem praised him for changing the way fat characters are portrayed in pop culture. But it added, ?Let?s be honest, even if tomorrow an official report comes out of the hospital in Rome saying it wasn?t a heart attack, James Gandolfini died of obesity.? ABC News also used his death to highlight heart attack risks. However, Gandolfini was also a cigar smoker. As Daniel Engber pointed out in 2012, and as research since then has emphasized, the health risk from smoking is much, much greater than the risk from obesity. Engber?s original article is below.

Which is a more serious problem for America, smoking or overeating? According to a Gallup poll released this week, 67 percent of the nation's adults think of cigarettes as an "extremely serious" or "very serious" social problem, compared with 81 percent who say the same for obesity. Gallup first started asking this question in 2003, and now, for the first time, respondents have shown that they're more worried about jiggly thighs than blackened lungs.

The idea seems to have made its way to Wall Street and Washington, too. Just this week, a group of equity strategists from Bank of America and Merrill Lynch proclaimed that "global obesity is a mega-investment theme for the next 25 years and beyond," and the Food and Drug Administration approved a weight-loss drug for the second time in two months?having finally calmed its nerves after the deadly fen-phen scandal of the late 1990s.

The shift in public opinion suggests a dangerous and unintended consequence of the war on obesity. Years of epidemiological work have shown that smoking is far worse for your health than being fat. So much worse, in fact, that any suggestion to the contrary should be taken as a sign that our priorities are getting all mixed up.

Fat is correlated with ill health, of course, and the one-third of the U.S. population who qualify as obese may be subject to some very real and severe consequences. An obese person is up to twice as likely to die of any given cause than someone whose body mass index is in the normal range, controlling for other factors. In medical terms, we would say that his or her relative risk of all-cause mortality is between 1 and 2. What about smoking? The analogous number for those who consume at least one pack of cigarettes per day is 3.7, meaning that heavy smokers are almost four times more likely to perish than nonsmokers, about double the risk associated with obesity. Estimates of avoidable deaths reflect this difference in the odds: According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking accounts for an excess mortality of more than 400,000 Americans every year, compared to just 112,000 for obesity. That's despite the fact that there are many more fat Americans?obesity rates are now 50 percent higher than smoking rates.

These numbers are just for the extremes. Even at the shallow end of the pool, smokers are at greater risk. If we limit the analysis to light tobacco users?those who consume a handful of cigarettes per day?then the relative risk of mortality turns up at 1.5, roughly the same as it would be for people with full-blown obesity. What about the folks who aren't huge but merely overweight? CDC research suggests they have a relative risk of less than 1, in which case carrying a bit of extra weight could even provide some kind of protective effect on your health.

Yet this disparity in outcomes has become ever harder for the public to grasp. The intensifying rhetoric about obesity?from the White House, from HBO, from Michael Bloomberg?has obscured some truisms of the war on smoking. The Gallup poll tells us that Americans are 20 percent more likely to label obesity as a grave social problem, a national misconception that's only made more dispiriting by recent news on the tendency of those who quit smoking to gain weight. For a paper published last week, researchers in France and England reviewed the data from more than 60 studies of this effect. It's long been known that tobacco keeps you thin: Nicotine increases metabolism while suppressing appetite. But these factors have a greater effect than was previously thought. In the year after people quit smoking cigarettes, they gain about 10 pounds on average.

How might this affect smoking rates? Earlier work has shown that concerns over weight gain do indeed hamper efforts to quit. A study of women who stopped smoking cigarettes when they became pregnant found that two-thirds relapsed within six months of giving birth, with the ones who were most worried about getting fat being the most at risk. Another survey showed that women who quit smoking ended up feeling worse about their bodies, on average, than they did before?an effect that almost certainly increases their odds of falling off the wagon. (Poor body image is itself a major risk factor for smoking.)

It's telling that the prospect of gaining a few pounds can lead to the resumption of such a deadly behavior. The marginal health risk of this shift on the BMI scales is slight or nonexistent, but the social stigma is more severe. That's why spurious weight concerns are among the most common reasons why women quit using birth-control pills and put themselves at risk for unwanted pregnancies and all the complications (including weight gain) that come with it. Discrimination against fat people has real effects, too, in terms of income, quality of health care, relationship status, and even rates of heart disease and diabetes.

Some of the respondents in the Gallup poll may be well aware that smoking is the deadlier problem. It's possible they're more concerned about obesity than smoking because they know that smoking rates have dropped in recent decades, while obesity rates are increasing or at best leveling off. But if we could reduce the number of smokers by another five or 10 percentage points, it might yield the same net improvement for public health as the invention of a magic pill that could turn every fat person thin.

It's remarkable, when you think about it, that the war on smoking has been as successful as it has been, considering all the superficial excuses there are to maintain the habit. Nicotine is addictive in a way that food, as a category, isn't. Smoking is less shameful for most people than overeating, and it keeps you thin. There's evidence that it prevents teenagers from getting acne?one recent study found a dose-dependent, inverse relationship with cigarette consumption among a sample of 27,000 soldiers in the Israeli army?and that men who quit smoking experience rapid drops in testosterone. In other words (as we all suspected) tobacco use can improve your social status.

The fact that we've managed to cut smoking rates in spite of these factors doesn't make tobacco any less of a scourge, or obesity any more dangerous in comparison. If anything, the paradox suggests that stigma is not in itself a solution to social ills. If Americans are more worried about obesity than smoking, it's because they've let the shame of being fat cloud their judgment with second-hand smoke.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=9eadc2f623562bfeb6fbf6fb3fbe2b04

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Lots Of Americans Hate Work So Much That They're Sabotaging Their Employers

Salon:

If you thought that Americans who kept their jobs during the Great Recession were glad to be working, you would be dead wrong. According to a Gallup.com report, 70 percent of American workers are "emotionally disconnected" at work, with nearly one in five employees "actively disengaged."

Read the whole story at Salon

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/20/lots-of-americans-hate-wo_n_3471401.html

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Matt Striker's contract not renewed by WWE

All WWE programming, talent names, images, likenesses, slogans, wrestling moves, trademarks, logos and copyrights are the exclusive property of WWE, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. ? 2013 WWE, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This website is based in the United States. By submitting personal information to this website you consent to your information being maintained in the U.S., subject to applicable U.S. laws. U.S. law may be different than the law of your home country. WrestleMania XXIX (NY/NJ) logo TM & ? 2013 WWE. All Rights Reserved. The Empire State Building design is a registered trademark and used with permission by ESBC.

Source: http://www.wwe.com/inside/matt-striker-contract-not-renewed

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