Sony has created the Cadillac of pay TV. Would you pay $600 a year for it? | Mashable

March 19, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ 1 Comment

Sony has built the Cadillac plan of Internet TV: It’s big, it’s shiny and it’s expensive.

Sony launched its new PlayStation Vue streaming TV service on Wednesday featuring a 55-channel bundle that includes shows from three major broadcast networks — although notably lacks ESPN.

Vue comes along just as the Internet TV market has begun to take off. Dish’s Sling TV, one of the first “over the top” (OTT) bundles of channels to hit the market, reportedly logged 100,000 sign-ups in its first month. Apple is also reportedly working on an Internet TV service.

Rich Greenfield, media and tech analyst for BTIG Research, said Vue represented the most recent of many steps toward breaking the dominance of cable providers.

“The bundling is coming unhinged right in front of our eyes,” he said in an email to Mashable.

Your Fitness App Is Making You Fat | TechCrunch

March 13, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Fitness apps are all the rage. A raft of new companies and products want to track your steps and count your calories with the aim of melting that excess blubber. There’s just one problem — most of these apps don’t work. In fact, there is good reason to believe they make us fatter.

One study called out “the dirty secret of wearables,” citing that “these devices fail to drive long-term sustained engagement for a majority of users.” Endeavour Partners’ research found “more than half of U.S. consumers who have owned a modern activity tracker no longer use it. A third of U.S. consumers who have owned one stopped using the device within six months of receiving it.”

While the report mentioned several reasons why people don’t stick with these tracking devices, my own theory is simple: They backfire. Here are three surprising reasons why fitness apps may be making us less happy and more flabby.

5 Tax Red Flags That Can Lead to an IRS Audit | ABC News

March 12, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Nobody wants to be audited by the IRS, but many taxpayers make simple mistakes that can lead to just that.

Many Americans will file their income tax return early before the April 15 deadline to receive their tax refund. Some IRS audits are randomly selected and based solely on a statistical formula, the IRS says, but other audits can happen when documents simply don’t add up.

Here are five common red flags that could lead to an audit:

Powdered alcohol gets Washington OK | Cnn Money

March 12, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Soon you can get your hands on some Palcohol — or powdered alcohol, for those who don’t know.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has approved Palcohol for sale. However, spokesman Tom Hogue said despite approval at the federal level, the product is still subject to state regulations.

Lipsmark, the company which makes Palcohol said it aims to get it on the market by the summer.

But clearing state hurdles could be tough. Alaska has already prohibited it, and six other states have taken regulatory action against it, including Louisiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia.

And Senator Charles Schumer from New York on Thursday introduced a bill against powdered alcohol. “I am in total disbelief that our federal government has approved such an obviously dangerous product,” said Schumer, in a statement. “Congress must take matters into its own hands and make powered alcohol illegal.”

In Japan, It Soon May Be Illegal Not To Take Vacation | Fastco.Exist

March 11, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Wake up at 7:30, commute to work, spend 13 hours in the office, run for the last train home, eat, and crash into to bed. The next day, rinse and repeat. Welcome to the insane working hours of a Japanese “salaryman” during crunch times at work. It’s a schedule that sometimes leads to what the Japanese call karoshi—death by overwork. Now, in an attempt to help, the Japanese government is considering a plan to force workers to take five vacation days a year.

Here’s an expat in Japan documenting his typical work week, with 78 hours of work and only 35 hours of sleep:

Weekly Economic Update | LAEDC

March 11, 2015March 11, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

v.19 n. 11 – Released March 10, 2015

This Week’s Headlines:

February U.S. Employment Report: Strong Hiring Continues
Consumers Back Off on Auto and Student Loans
U.S. Light Vehicle Sales Pause in February
Events of Interest
- March 11, 2015: 2014 Otis Report on the Creative Economy (Los Angeles Event)
- March 18, 2015: 2014 Otis Report on the Creative Economy (Orange County Event)
- April 21, 2015: San Gabriel Valley Economic Outlook

Banking on it: Taking your money off the high street | BBC

March 10, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Decided that retail banking is the devil? You could opt for a piggybank. Or you could try the new online only services claiming to have changed the humble bank account forever.

In Durham, Atom Bank is poised to launch shortly as a bank with no branches, living solely on the internet.

The US has Ally Bank, an internet-only bank focused on its smartphone interface.

China recently has launched an internet-only bank of its own, WeBank, led by gaming and social network group Tencent Holdings.

With British and US retail banks in low repute since the credit crunch, the field is ripe for nimble new entrants, unencumbered by physical branches, bad loans, and ageing infrastructure.

Meanwhile, many British banks continue to operate back-end systems in pounds, shillings, and pence.

And a botched 2012 attempt at an IT upgrade by the RBS group left 6.5 million people unable to make payments for up to three weeks.

Nudging open the teller’s window for new competition: banking scandals, rate-fixing and payment protection insurance, and bankers’ bonuses have played their role, too.

The bank of the internet is increasingly open.

Small Businesses Are Going on a Hiring Binge | Bloomberg Business

March 10, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

(Bloomberg) — Sterling Risk Advisors, an Atlanta-based property and casualty insurance broker with 86 employees, has added 13 workers since June and will probably hire 10 to 15 more this year.

“We are committed to growing,” said Doug Rieder, 50, president and co-founder. “We feel a lot better about business. We are pretty bullish right now.”

Small business, responsible for most American job creation, is finally gaining momentum, giving an expansion approaching its sixth anniversary some legs and leading an acceleration in job creation. Confidence is near a post-2007 peak for small companies, construction is recovering and credit conditions are easing.

A small but important reminder of why net neutrality is a big deal | Mashable

March 9, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Much of the Internet rejoiced when net neutrality rules were approved by the Federal Communications Commission last week.

The landmark vote will mean that the Internet is under the most stringent regulation yet including enhanced transparency, application to landline and wireless, and a the bedrock Open Internet principles.

But for all the hubbub, it would be hard to blame people who didn’t see why it was a big deal. The Internet worked the same on the days before and after the vote.

Critics of the move have said that the FCC is trying to fix a system that isn’t broken, and that the possible harms that the net neutrality rules seek to prevent are non-existent.

This is mostly true, but every so often there’s an example of why net neutrality advocates fought for the new rules with such fervor.