On top of spaghetti, all covered with...wood? Bloomberg News recently reported that some packaged grated Parmesan cheeses contain too little cheese and too much wood-pulp, according to a test conducted by an independent laboratory.
Foodio / Shutterstock / Foodio
The "wood-pulp" mentioned is actually a powdered plant fiber called cellulose that's completely legal in the US and is an FDA approved anti-clumping ingredient for pre-grated cheese. Cellulose is widely used throughout the food industry, helping to make foods like ice cream have a creamier mouthfeel and it's used in good quality grated cheeses, as well as not-so-great quality cheeses.
Since not all cheese is created equal, we turned to Liz Thorpe, cheese expert, consultant and author of The Cheese Chronicles, to get her tips for how to make sure you get real Parmesan every time:
paulista / Shutterstock / paulista
1. Look for the words "Parmigiano-Reggiano" on the rind
"The first thing to know is that Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano and Amerian Parmesan cheese aren't the same thing," says Thorpe. "Parmigiano-Reggiano is a legally protected designation of origin that's used in Europe only for Italian cheese. It can never be sold pre-packaged in a grated form. The beauty of this cheese is that you can always know that you're getting the real thing because the name 'Parmigiano-Reggiano' is burned onto its rind in an unmistakable dotted pattern." This is the top of the line Italian cheese that you want to use in your cooking and and hope to see in restaurants.
2. Buy a wedge from a wheel of cheese rather than pre-grated cheese
Many of us buy grated cheese for its convenience, but "it's super easy to use a microplane and then you're guaranteed a pure product," says Thorpe. "Grate or crumble it yourself—it will taste so much better and you'll use less cheese because it's flavor is so much better."
3. If you're going to buy pre-grated Parmesan, look for American producers with good reputations
"Learn the names of reputable brands that offer pre-grated Parmesan like Sartori and BelGioioso which are both from Wisconsin and Arthur Schuman, Inc. from New Jersey which is the largest importer of hard Italian cheeses," says Thorpe. "Their products are widely available, their quality is really excellent and you can count on their cheeses."
4. In a supermarket, shop for Parmesan in the deli department first
"There are three different tiers of quality: the Parmesan in the deli area, the Parmesan in the dairy case and the Parmesan in the aisle are each different," says Thorpe. "Shop in the deli department first, followed by the dairy case and, as a last resort, the aisle. Cheese is a perishable product and you want your cheese to require refrigeration. If you're buying one that is not refrigerated, there's a reason. A grated product that's shelf stable—that's the lowest product that you could be buying." In other words, make the cheese in a green can your last resort.
5. Buy grated cheese at a specialty foods shop
"A small store buying whole wheels of cheese will grate it on site and there will not be any cellulose added because it doesn't need to have a four-, six- or eight-week shelf life," says Thorpe. Also, if you ask, a small retailer will likely be accommodating and grate the cheese for you.
Technology distributor Ingram Micro Inc. agreed to be acquired for about $6 billion by a unit of Chinese conglomerate HNA Group.
The deal is the latest in a string of investments by Chinese companies in U.S. tech companies, including deals involving U.S. makers of computer chips that have attracted scrutiny on national-security grounds.
Ingram, founded in 1979, is one of the largest distributors of personal computers and other technology products including printers, scanners, TVs, videogame consoles, video monitors and software. The Irvine, Calif., company recently branched into a range of higher-margin professional services.
HNA Group, which claims more than 180,000 employees, evolved from marine shipping into operations that include transportation, logistics, tourism, banking and insurance. Its logistics group includes companies such as Jinhai Heavy Industry Co.
Alain Monié , Ingram Micro's chief executive, said the deal would allow his company to accelerate investments in technology while becoming part of a larger organization with "complementary logistics capabilities and a strong presence in China."
Chinese companies have become more aggressive lately in pursuing deals amid concerns about China's weakening economic growth, investment bankers say.
In January, Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co. offered to buy U.S. crane-maker Terex Corp. for about $ 3.3 billion, an attempt to override an existing deal between Terex and Finland'sKonecranes Oyj.
In December, a group including China Resources Microelectronics Ltd. and Hua Capital Management Co. made an unsolicited bid for Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc., which already had a deal with U.S. chip maker ON Semiconductor Corp.
Fairchild on Tuesday rejected the Chinese proposal, stating a preference for the ON transaction. Fairchild cited, among other factors, risks that the deal would be rejected by U.S. authorities on national-security grounds.
Royal Philips NV in January terminated the planned $2.8 billion sale of most of its lighting components and automotive-lighting unit to a Chinese investor, after the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment blocked the deal on national-security grounds.
Many technology companies use Ingram to run their supply chains. Ingram, a longtime wholesaler of computer components and peripherals, launched a third-party logistics unit in 2000.
The U.S. company has completed many acquisitions over the years, like a deal for e-commerce fulfillment company Shipwire. It launched a cloud-computing-services portfolio in 2007.
For the nine months ended Oct. 3, Ingram posted sales of $31.7 billion. In late October, it projected fourth-quarter sales of $12 billion to $12.6 billion.
Along with the deal, Ingram Micro is suspending its quarterly dividend payment and its share-repurchase program. Ingram's management team will stay in place, including Mr. Monié , and the company will remain in Irvine, Calif.
The boards of both companies have approved the transaction, which is expected to close in the second half of the year.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) reported record revenue for the fourth quarter ended January 31, 2016, of $1.40 billion, up 12 percent from $1.25 billion a year earlier, and up 7 percent from $1.30 billion in the previous quarter.
Revenue for fiscal 2016 was a record $5.01 billion, up 7 percent from $4.68 billion a year earlier.
GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $0.35, inclusive of a restructuring charge of $0.04 per diluted share. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.52, up 21 percent from $0.43 a year earlier and up 13 percent from $0.46 in the previous quarter.
GAAP earnings per diluted share for the full year were $1.08, inclusive of restructuring charges of $0.15 per diluted share. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $1.67, up 18 percent from $1.42 a year earlier.
“We had another record quarter, capping a record year,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer, NVIDIA. “Our strategy is to create specialized accelerated computing platforms for large growth markets that demand the 10x boost in performance we offer. Each platform leverages our focused investment in building the world’s most advanced GPU technology.
“NVIDIA is at the center of four exciting growth opportunities — PC gaming, VR, deep learning, and self-driving cars. We are especially excited about deep learning, a breakthrough in artificial intelligence algorithms that takes advantage of our GPU’s ability to process data simultaneously.
“Deep learning is a new computing model that teaches computers to find patterns and make predictions, extracting powerful insights from massive quantities of data. We are working with thousands of companies that are applying the power of deep learning in fields ranging from life sciences and financial services to the Internet of Things,” he said.
Capital Return
During the fourth quarter, NVIDIA paid $62 million in cash dividends and received 4.3 million shares in connection with an accelerated share repurchase agreement that it had entered into in the quarter. During fiscal 2016, the company returned to shareholders $800 million in quarterly cash dividends and share repurchases.
For fiscal 2017, NVIDIA intends to return approximately $1.0 billion to shareholders through ongoing quarterly cash dividends and share repurchases.
NVIDIA will pay its next quarterly cash dividend of $0.115 per share on March 23, 2016, to all shareholders of record on March 2, 2016.
Q4 FY2016 Summary
FY2016 Summary
NVIDIA’s outlook for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 is as follows:
Revenue is expected to be $1.26 billion, plus or minus two percent.
GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins are expected to be 57.2 percent and 57.5 percent, respectively, plus or minus 50 basis points.
GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $500 million. Non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $445 million.
GAAP and non-GAAP tax rates for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 are both expected to be 19 percent, plus or minus one percent.
Capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $35 million to $45 million.
Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2016 Highlights
During the fourth quarter, NVIDIA achieved progress in each of its platforms.
Gaming:
Announced the GeForce® GTX VR Ready program — in conjunction with PC companies, notebook makers and add-in card providers – to help users discover systems that will provide great virtual reality experiences.
Released NVIDIA GameWorks™ VR, a software development kit for developers of VR software and headsets for gaming.
Professional Visualization:
Datacenter:
Introduced an end-to-end hyperscale datacenter deep learning platform — consisting of two accelerators, the NVIDIA Tesla® M40 and NVIDIA Tesla M4 — that lets web-services companies accelerate deep learning workloads.
Revealed new breakthroughs from leading web-services groups using NVIDIA GPUs:
Facebook is using the NVIDIA Tesla accelerated computing platform to power Big Sur, its next-generation computing system for machine learning applications.
Alibaba’s AliCloud cloud computing business is working with NVIDIA to promote China’s first GPU-accelerated, cloud-based, high performance computing platform.
Google is open-sourcing its TensorFlow deep-learning framework, which can be accelerated on GPUs.
Microsoft’s Computational Network Toolkit was integrated with Azure GPU Lab, enabling neural nets for speech recognition that are up to 10x faster than their predecessors.
Auto:
Launched NVIDIA DRIVE™ PX 2, a powerful engine for in-vehicle artificial intelligence.
Announced that Volvo will use DRIVE PX 2 to power a fleet of 100 Volvo XC90 SUVs that will appear on the road next year in the car manufacturer’s Drive Me autonomous-car pilot program. (Original Source)
Shares of Nvidia jumped nearly 8% in after-hours trading. NVDA has a 1-year high of $33.94 and a 1-year low of $19.09. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $28.60 and its 200-day moving average is $27.34.
On the ratings front, Nvidia has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. In a report released yesterday, Jefferies Co. analyst Mark Lipacis maintained a Buy rating on NVDA, with a price target of $38, which represents a potential upside of 37.4% from where the stock is currently trading. Separately, on January 20, JMP’s Alex Gauna reiterated a Buy rating on the stock and has a price target of $38.
According to TipRanks.com, which ranks over 7,500 financial analysts and bloggers to gauge the performance of their past recommendations, Mark Lipacis and Alex Gauna have a total average return of 9.7% and -2.2% respectively. Lipacis has a success rate of 62.1% and is ranked #132 out of 3610 analysts, while Gauna has a success rate of 45.2% and is ranked #2657.
Overall, one research analyst has rated the stock with a Sell rating, one research analyst has assigned a Hold rating and 4 research analysts have given a Buy rating to the stock. When considering if perhaps the stock is under or overvalued, the average price target is $33.00 which is 19.3% above where the stock closed yesterday.
NVIDIA Corp is a visual computing company, connecting people through the powerful medium of computer graphics. The Company’s reporting segments include GPU and Tegra Processor.
Yahoo's once-iconic San Francisco billboard, pictured here in 2011.
In January of 2014, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's keynote at CES in Las Vegas featured the recently launched Yahoo Tech, the company's technology news "digital magazine." She had hired former New York Times technology columnist David Pogue in October of 2013 as the site's architect and shining star and brought in a stable of other editorial talent to create digital magazines for other "verticals" (food, cars, music, and health among them) as part of her big turnaround strategy for the company. But the turnaround never materialized, and now the sites are being shut down or scaled down.
Dan Tynan, editor-in-chief at Yahoo Tech, revealed his departure in an e-mail to staff published by Politico today. "Well, that was not entirely unexpected," Tynan wrote in the memo. "Eight Hundred and Four days after taking the purple, my career as a Yahoo is over." Politico reported that Yahoo intended to shut down Yahoo Tech along with a flight of other sites.
However, a Yahoo spokesperson told Ars that Yahoo Tech was not being shut down—but several other brands are. And Tynan's departure is part of a broader layoff being announced today. "In early February Yahoo shared a plan for the future, with this new plan came some very difficult decisions and changes to our business," the spokesperson said. "As a result of these changes some jobs have been eliminated and those employees will be notified today. We thank those employees for their outstanding service to Yahoo and will treat these employees with the respect and fairness they deserve."
The purge is part of Mayer's effort to cut costs at Yahoo as the company attempts to develop a strategy to deal with what is both the company's biggest asset and something of a strategic curse—its massive windfall from an investment in the Chinese e-commerce website Alibaba. The company’s board and major investors are keen to cut away the Alibaba holdings from the rest of the company, which has, as Ars reported recently, failed to make money on its own.
After the US government indicated it would not approve a tax-free spinoff of the Alibaba holdings as a separate company, there was talk of spinning off or selling Yahoo's Internet holdings instead. But Mayer advocated for cost-cutting measures to preserve the Internet company. In an earnings call earlier this month, Yahoo executives announced that they were moving to "simplify" Yahoo's information business to focus on the parts of the company that have been most successful: Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports (the platform for Yahoo's growing fantasy sports business), Yahoo Finance, and Yahoo Lifestyle.
The shape of that simplification became apparent today. In a Tumblr post today (Tumblr being another one of Mayer's acquisitions to revive Yahoo), Yahoo global editor in chief Martha Nelson wrote, "To that end, today we will begin phasing out the following Digital Magazines: Yahoo Food, Yahoo Health, Yahoo Parenting, Yahoo Makers, Yahoo Travel, Yahoo Autos and Yahoo Real Estate."
"As we make these changes, we acknowledge the talent and dedication of an extraordinary group of journalists who brought new and newsworthy content to Yahoo," she continued. "While these Digital Magazines will no longer be published, you will continue to find the topics they covered, as well as style, celebrity, entertainment, politics, tech and much more across our network."
Yahoo today said it is shutting down a huge swath of its digital magazines as it rethinks its digital content strategy. A Yahoo spokesperson said Yahoo Tech was not affected by the changes.
According to a memo acquired by Capital New York, Yahoo Tech editor in chief Dan Tynan is leaving the company. Capital New York also reported that Yahoo is shuttering its tech vertical and moving some of its staff to Yahoo’s news vertical. It appears that some of Yahoo’s content verticals — launched at a high-profile CES event in 2014 — were not successful enough to sustain their presence within the greater Yahoo company.
“On our recent earnings call, Yahoo outlined out a plan to simplify our business and focus our effort on our four most successful content areas – News, Sports, Finance and Lifestyle,” the company wrote in a blog post. “To that end, today we will begin phasing out the following Digital Magazines: Yahoo Food, Yahoo Health, Yahoo Parenting, Yahoo Makers, Yahoo Travel, Yahoo Autos and Yahoo Real Estate.”
“In early February Yahoo shared a plan for the future, with this new plan came some very difficult decisions and changes to our business,” a Yahoo spokesperson told TechCrunch. “As a result of these changes some jobs have been eliminated and those employees will be notified today. We thank those employees for their outstanding service to Yahoo and will treat these employees with the respect and fairness they deserve.
Taken together, this isn’t really surprising. Yahoo’s core business has been floundering for the past several years — so much so that the company has signaled that it is potentially for sale. Throughout this time, Yahoo’s stock has plummeted as the company has shown no clear signal to shareholders that it is returning to being a growth company.
Marissa Mayer, a former Googler, took over Yahoo in 2012 — when there was a lot of hope that she could turn the company around as it transitioned to a primarily mobile-driven company centered around a portfolio of brands. The final goal was to return Yahoo, a powerhouse brand in the early days of the Internet, to being a household name.
And, according to everything that’s happened in the past few weeks — including reports of a potential sale — all this is a signal that the strategy in place has not worked. Mayer and Yahoo are in the hot seat, with the company being somewhat buoyed by its big stake in Chinese commerce giant Alibaba, a company worth $163 billion.
This could be part of a larger swath of layoffs happening within the company. During the company’s last earnings report, Yahoo confirmed that it would lay off about 15% of its staff as part of a greater restructuring. Yahoo’s core business has been struggling to the point that the company has also had to downsize in operations internationally. Yahoo also shut down Yahoo Screen, its home for original content like the show “Community,” in January this year.
Update: A Yahoo representative says it is not shutting down Yahoo Tech, but the company listed a slew of magazines that will be shut down. The story, which previously said that the company’s tech vertical would be shuttered, has been updated to reflect Yahoo’s comments.
“We’re going to get this done -- and done quickly -- by any and every means necessary,” Weaver said
Simmering tensions between city and state officials over how quickly to replace lead pipes in Flint flared Wednesday after officials announced different approaches to solving the city's drinking water crisis.
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said she appreciates support from Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to move quickly to replace Flint’s lead pipes and his recent budget proposal to partially fund the project. But the mayor said she would not agree to allow the governor’s engineering firm and contractors to do the work.
The governor announced his plan in a news release Tuesday night and is expected today to offer additional details.
Weaver said she welcomed the governor’s interest in working with the city to coordinate removal of the first 30 lead service lines, but noted that much more needs to be done by Snyder and others to secure full funding for her plan.
Weaver's administration intends to begin replacing lead pipes in Flint starting next week. She called Snyder to pressure the state Legislature to move immediately to approve funding for the first phase of her $55 million Fast Start lead pipe replacement plan.
“We’re going to get this done — and done quickly — by any and every means necessary,” Weaver said in a statement. “The people of my city have simply run out of patience, and I have a moral obligation to act.”
Weaver said in a news release that she is working with water infrastructure experts from the Lansing Board of Water and Light to train local Flint workers on lead pipe removal at a vacant property in Flint owned by the Genesee County Land Bank. The training exercise is set to begin next week, she said. House-by-house lead service line removal and replacement operations targeting high-risk households across the city will begin afterward.
On Tuesday, Snyder said the state had signed an agreement with Flint-based engineering firm Rowe to update a study of the water system to identify and assess the city's water lines made from lead. The work would also instruct the firm to help test 400 sentinel sites for lead in drinking water, as well as begin to remove lead lines at 30 sites as a pilot program, according to Dave Murray, the governor's spokesman.
Flint Water Crisis
But the mayor appears to be charting her own course. Late last week, she ousted her police chief, fire chief and city administrator.
Elected last year and recently granted additional powers by a financial control board set up by the state, Weaver said Wednesday that she is pleased that her Fast Start plan has been endorsed by Virginia Tech water expert Dr. Marc Edwards, who is hailed for his role in uncovering the lead levels in Flint’s water supply and has testified before Congress on lead contamination in municipal water systems.
“I will not accept anything less than full removal of all lead pipes from our water system,” Weaver said in a statement. “I continue to hear from Lansing that the people of Flint should wait to see if pipes can be ‘coated.’ I call on Gov. Snyder to end that discussion, and to commit fully to getting the lead out of Flint.”
During the training exercise next week, the Lansing public works department will demonstrate its technology for removing and replacing lead pipes with new copper pipes in half the time and at half the cost of traditional methods, according to the mayor. The Lansing public water and electric utility has refined its technique by removing more than 13,500 lead pipes in Michigan’s capital city over the last 12 years, according to city officials.
Weaver said she is also working closely with the White House and Flint’s representatives in the Michigan Legislature and U.S. Congress to secure full funding for her lead pipe removal project, as well as long-term funding to fully repair the city’s devastated water-distribution system. She called on state and federal lawmakers to move quickly to approve emergency funding for her project while long-term repairs to Flint’s water-distribution system are evaluated.
“Lansing and Washington need to understand that the first and most critical priority is an emergency public health intervention to start getting rid of these pipes immediately,” Weaver said. “Then we can figure out exactly what it will cost over the long term to fix our broken water-distribution system. If we have to replace major components or even the whole system, it will cost an enormous amount of money. Everyone needs to be prepared for that possibility. Let’s start a serious conversation about where that money is going to come from while we get to work removing the pipes.”
If funding to ramp up her Fast Start project is not secured quickly from the state or federal government, Weaver said she may have to take her case directly to the national and international audience.
“If the state and federal governments won’t pay to restore safe drinking water and dignity to the people of my city, I may have to go on national TV and crowdsource the funding on the Internet,” Weaver said.
Flint's switch to using the Flint River as its water supply in April 2014 was followed almost immediately by complaints from residents about discolored, pungent water that had caused a number of ailments. Local and state officials insisted for months the water was safe to drink but reversed course after independent testing discovered unsafe lead levels throughout the system believed to be caused by leaching from lead piping.
Flint is now under a state of emergency because of elevated lead levels that continue to be found in drinking water supplied to city residents. Officials in the Snyder Administration have said that they hope to restore drinking water to the city in stages, with a full assessment of the system completed by mid-April.
Of the city's 56,000 land parcels, about 5,200 have lead service lines, officials have said. But roughly 25,000 parcels have piping of an unknown origin. Determining how much of that piping is lead is a crucial step for any remediation.
The governor's team has advocated a more deliberate approach to assess the condition of the entire water system in Flint first, in order to make sure any pipe removal does not increase the chances of additional lead leaching into the drinking water.
Snyder sent a supplemental budget request to the Legislature, including $25 million to be used for water infrastructure, like pipe replacement in Flint. The governor said Tuesday that other resources could be tapped for additional funds to replace pipes.
A key member of that team is retired National Guard Brig. Gen. Michael McDaniel, who has said he thinks replacing all of the city's lead pipes could be done within a year by 32 crews. McDaniel — who is assisting in coordinating activities between the city, the Lansing Board of Water and Light, state and federal agencies, and other stakeholders — said the project could begin within the next month. But McDaniel reiterated the plan is still in its early phases and much of it is based on "assumptions."
“Flint Mayor Karen Weaver wants this work to be completed as quickly as possible to protect Flint residents,” McDaniel said in a statement Tuesday. “We’ve been working in partnership to identify the areas that need to be addressed immediately and remove lead pipes, bringing peace of mind to Flint families and make sure this never happens again.”
The Flint firm hired by the state is no stranger to the city's water system.
In July 2011, the engineering firm Rowe completed a report titled "Analysis of the Flint River as a Permanent Water Supply for the City of Flint," for then-Mayor Dayne Walling. The report noted that treating river water on a daily basis was going to be challenging and more expensive than treating lake water, but concluded it could be done if improvements to Flint's water treatment plant were made.
Contact Matthew Dolan: 313-223-4743, msdolan@freepress.com or on Twitter @matthewsdolan
Doctors could soon start prescribing an unusual solution to help stroke victims in the US: virtual reality goggles.
That's the hope of Switzerland-based MindMaze, which on Wednesday got a $100 million investment to bring its blend of virtual reality hardware and neuroscience to market. The four-year-old startup's technology has already won approval from regulators in Europe, where its applications for brain injury victims showcase what could soon be possible in the United States.
MindMaze's 34-year-old founder and CEO Tej Tadi explains how: Imagine a stroke victim who's lost control of her left hand but can still move her right hand. After putting on MindMaze goggles, the patient sees a 3-D image, or avatar, of her left hand that moves as she moves her right hand.
"That triggers areas in the brain to say, 'Wait, let's regain control of this hand'," says Tadi. "The hand that was not working now works." And that process of tricking the brain into seeing something that's actually not there in the real world accelerates recovery, he says.
Already in use in Europe, startup MindMaze wants to begin treating American stroke victims using virtual reality this year. Now, it's got $100 million to do it.
Garo/Phanie Sarl/Corbis
This is the year that VR is set to take off. Almost every major tech company -- from Samsung and HTC to Facebook's Oculus and Sony -- has either released a VR headset or plans to do so. Their investments, as well as those made by smaller but well-funded startups like Jaunt, NextVR and Magic Leap, are expected to change the way we play video games and how we watch sports, presidential debates, porn or a Hollywood movie.
The investment in MindMaze, led by multinational conglomerate Hinduja Group, underscores just how VR could shake up medicine. In fact, Hinduja's nine-figure bet places MindMaze, a 55-person company, among the top three best-funded virtual reality startups in the world, according to PitchBook, a venture capital research firm.
"If there's a short list of areas where virtual reality will be really helpful or usable, health care is on that list," says Brian Blau, vice president of research at information technology research firm Gartner.
For Blau, who's been studying virtual reality since the 1990s, the potential impact on health care makes sense. VR works by tricking the brain into believing what it's seeing is three-dimensional and, often, lifelike. More than most other professions or markets, health care demands realism.
"There's so much that needs to be immersive," says Blau.
Since the 1990s, virtual reality has been used to help patients suffering from phobias overcome their fears. One early study showed how VR was a useful tool to help overcome fears of spiders.
Now, the increasingly powerful displays in VR goggles are helping emergency room doctors prepare for situations that are dangerous, costly or simply impossible to replicate in real life.
For example, instead of using actual cadavers, medical students can "work through mock surgeries" in VR, according to PitchBook, whose 2015 report concluded "the use of VR to provide zero-risk environments to conduct training can be invaluable."
To be sure, health care will still play a smaller role in VR than gaming or entertainment, according to Gartner. Only 8 percent of the 121 venture capital investments in virtual reality startups in 2014 and 2015 went to health care projects, according to Pitchbook.
But for millions of Americans suffering from brain injuries and looking to regain control over their limbs, 2016 could be more than just the year that playing Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto got a lot cooler.
MindMaze won't say how much its device and software will cost in the US. (In Europe, the company's service costs upwards of $30 per month for individuals). But CEO Tadi is confident his solution will soon be in the hands, or on the heads, of patients.
"In 2016, they'll have an FDA-approved medical-grade virtual reality device in clinics," says Tadi.
AkzoNobel announced it has made an offer to acquire BASF’s Industrial Coatings business for €475 million ($528 million USD).
The transaction would include technologies, patents and trademarks, as well as securing supply to customers worldwide. Two manufacturing plants – one in the U.K. and one in South Africa – also will be transferred to AkzoNobel. The business generated revenue of about €300 million ($334 million) in 2015 and supplies products for a number of end uses, including coil, furniture foil and panel coatings, wind energy and general industry and commercial transport.
“This proposed acquisition will strengthen our position in the important coil coatings market and fits well with our existing business, allowing us to offer essential solutions to our customers,” said AkzoNobel CEO Ton Büchner. “We are continuing to deliver on our strategy to achieve our vision of leading market positions delivering leading performance.”
The planned transaction is expected to be complete in the second half of 2016, subject to regular consultation with employee representatives and satisfaction of certain closing conditions, including receipt of required regulatory approval.
Fresh loans since the start of the year prompted analysts to caution against the risks reckless borrowing may pose to China’s financial system. Recent reports warn that China’s debt piles up fast, and there may be hard-to-manage consequences.
Standard & Poor recently noted that the country’s debt, which has seen a big increase relative to its GDP in recent months, may put a strain on its credit ranking. Experts believe that a boost in credit could spell big trouble for the Chinese economy, the currency, and stocks.
Other experts believe that the country’s central bank may have lost regulatory control on credit. As of January, China’s debt mounted to a staggering 3.42 trillion yuan, or 525 billion U.S. dollars.
Analysts believe that the recent loans were only conjectural, but they warned that, if the situation continues, the country may experience a surge in bad debts as businesses would no longer find profitable projects to engage in. Plus, China currently struggles with the slowest economic growth in the past 25 years.
George Magnus of the UBS Group believes that while credit expansion may help the Chinese economy maintain momentum on the short run, it may cause ‘big problems’ later on. Magnus, a chief economic adviser for the USB Group, has accurately forecast the July slump on the Chinese stock market.
Nevertheless, Magnus did not tout the idea of a meltdown. He only counseled cautiousness until the end of the year. China’s debt versus GDP jumped 209 percent in the last quarter. Bloomberg experts noted that it is the highest jump since they started to gather the data in 2003. Bad debt spiked 7 percent at the end of last year to 1.27 trillion yuan.
Currently, China’s S&P credit rating is AA, but according to a report released last fall, the country could be downgraded if the government attempted to boost economic expansion by pumping more credit into investment spending.
Experts, however, do not believe that Beijing may repeat the 2008 and 2009 moves when it urged lenders to lend as much as they could. Yet, analysts are concerned that the country’s leadership is not willing to curb leverage, despite the official rhetoric that they are working to fix the country’s rampant debt.
The People’s Bank of China and several state agencies pledged Tuesday that they would take measures to fight off overcapacity and prevent loans from being granted to ‘zombie’ businesses.
Magnus noted that most of these promises are empty talk since there aren’t any concrete measures set in place to rein in the tidal wave of new credit impacting the economy.
A former U.S. treasury secretary has taken a public stand against high denomination bil
Larry Summers argues in a piece for the Washington Post that large notes like the 500-euro or $100 bill should no longer be issued.
His commentary was inspired by a recently published paper from the Harvard Kennedy School titled, "Making it Harder for the Bad Guys: The Case for Eliminating High Denomination Notes."
In the paper, researchers discuss the flow of money from illegal activities and write that "By eliminating high denomination, high value notes we would make life harder for those pursuing tax evasion, financial crime, terrorist finance and corruption."
Summers largely agrees, recalling similar concerns he expressed about the 500-euro note, which is worth more than $550, when the currency was being planned out.
In fact, he points to the note's nickname as the "Bin Laden"—a point mentioned in the paper—as proof of its link to illegal activities.
The famed economist ultimately states that placing "a moratorium on printing new high denomination notes would make the world a better place."
SAN MATEO, Calif. — The ID passcode to the iPhone the FBI wants Apple to hack for information about one of the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorists was changed less than a day after the government gained possession of it, Apple executives said in a phone briefing with reporters Friday afternoon.
Had the passcode not been changed, Apple said, a backup of the information the government is seeking could have been viewed. It is unclear who changed the Apple ID passcode while it was in the government’s possession, the executive said.
The disclosure was made with a small group of reporters during a 30-minute briefing, including USA TODAY. Apple asked that its executive not be identified because of the sensitive nature of the legal matter.
The call with the reporters marked the latest twist in a now-public dispute between the U.S. government and the world's most valuable company over whether Apple should be forced to break into a phone used by one of the killers in the San Bernardino, Calif. shootings that left 14 dead in December.
On Friday, the Justice Department swung back, filing a motion seeking to force Apple to comply with the court order and saying its refusal was "based on concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy."
DOJ concurs: password was rest
In the government’s Friday filing, the Justice Department acknowledged that the password was re-set in the hours after the attack by authorities with San Bernardino County. The county owned the phone and provided it to Syed Farook, one of the attackers.
The county action, the government contends, had the effect of eliminating the possibility of a back-up of the device’s contents. The documents also reflect that the government discussed this dilemma with Apple representatives.
Apple had been in regular talks with the government since early January, Apple executives said in an earlier call covered by other news outlets. It proposed four ways to recover the information, including connecting the phone to a known Wi-Fi network.
Apple sent engineers to try that method, but was unsuccessful, Apple said. That was when it was discovered the Apple ID passcode of shooter Syed Rizwan Farook's iPhone 5c had been changed under government custody.
If the FBI is successful in its request, it will open a floodgate of requests from prosecutors nationwide, the executive said, and district attorneys have lined up with hundreds of requests to unlock iPhones to solve criminal cases, the executive said.
The executive said no such request has been made from China or any other country outside the U.S.
The U.S. government has refuted Apple's assertion, an argument echoed by other tech companies including Google and Yahoo, that creating software to unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone would lead to wave of government requests in other criminal cases and make consumer devices more vulnerable to hackers.
In court documents Friday, lawyers for the Department of Justice said the order "does not provide hackers and criminals access to iPhones."
"It does not require Apple to hack its own users or de-crypt its own phones; it does not give the government the power to reach into anyone's device without a warrant or court authorization,'' Justice Department lawyers said.
Data gathered by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. in New York City illustrate the legal stakes facing Apple and U.S. law enforcement: Investigators were unable to execute search warrants for suspects' smartphones in approximately 155 cases to date because the devices run on Apple's iOS8 operating system, Vance told USA TODAY.
Thomson ReutersA view shows the Federal Reserve building in WashingtonBy Aaradhana Ramesh
BENGALURU (Reuters) - Growing concerns about weak global growth and inflation are unlikely to deter the U.S. Federal Reserve from tightening policy, according to a Reuters poll that suggested two interest rate hikes are likely this year.
The Fed's December decision to raise rates for the first time in nearly a decade has been under scrutiny recently, with some market players suggesting it was a mistake and that Chair Janet Yellen may have to backtrack.
But most economists disagree.
The poll of over 80 analysts predicted another hike would come in the second quarter and penciled in one more towards the end of the year, which would leave rates between 0.75 and 1.00 percent.
That would be one less rate hike than they forecast in a survey taken last month but still more than financial markets expect, further underscoring the growing divide between the two groups.
"Unless the economy rolls over, there is still a very high likelihood of at least one rate hike this year," said Sam Bullard, senior economist at Wells Fargo.
Analysts who answered an additional question assigned a 75 percent chance of at least one hike this year, in contrast with markets pricing in just a 1-in-3 chance.
Markets predict no move until mid-2017, by which time economists expect the Fed to have raised rates four times to 1.25-1.50 percent.
In her testimony before U.S. Congressional panels last week, Yellen also indicated the Fed is likely to stick to its plan of gradually raising rates this year, despite persistent worries over slowing growth in China and volatile financial markets.
At the December policy meeting the Fed's dot plot, a colloquial name for a chart in the central bank's quarterly "Summary of Economic Projections", suggested four rate rises in 2016. That, however, looked too aggressive for economists who assigned a less than 10 percent probability to that path.
"The Fed dots are very likely to come down again in March. The question is whether the Fed dots remain relevant at all," said Thomas Costerg, senior U.S. economist at Standard Chartered.
Costerg is the only forecaster in the survey who expects the Fed to cut rates by the end of the year and said the risk of a recession is high.
According to the poll median there is a 20 percent chance of a U.S. recession over the next 12 months, up from last month's 15 percent and December's 10 percent.
Annual growth and inflation forecasts for 2016 were also downgraded from last month with growth expected to average 2.2 percent and CPI inflation 1.3 percent, down from January's 2.5 and 1.6 percent respectively.
Core PCE prices - the main inflation gauge monitored by the Fed - will average only 1.5 percent this year and 1.8 percent next, largely unchanged from January's predictions.
"This is as good as it gets and if the Fed wants to have a buffer in the form of higher interest rates ahead of the next recession, now is the time to act," said Handelsbanken's U.S. economist Petter Lundvik.
Futures are going down in a channel which is also a bull flag
MACD's on this 2 hour chart suggest further downside, but very controlled
From the looks of the market right now it says to me that they are just going to drop it slowly today with some small rally attempts that fail. Depending on how long it takes to work off the overbought short term it may stay inside the falling channel. Or they might break it briefly and recapture it by the close. Bottom line is that we should have a slow pullback today with support in the 1880-1890 area, where it should end. This might not happen until Monday and all we see today is a small A wave down with a possible B wave up into the close. That would leave the C down for Monday.
Of course if we get the whole ABC move down today to the 1880-1890 support zone then they could work off the remaining overbought conditions on the futures over the weekend and turn back up Monday. I don't see much to trade today as I'd like to see the ABC move down complete first before even thinking about a long, and that might not happen until Monday. And since this is nothing but a bear market bounce you don't know for sure that there will be another strong move up after today's suggested ABC move down. If that wave count is wrong then we might have already topped? I think one should remain bearish and possibly average into shorts with the mindset that we could still have another wave up next week with 1960-1970 as the likely target zone. Personally I'll take my chances on that move up happening and just wait to short then hoping for a better entry.
Futures are coming up to horizontal resistance between 1930 and the 1938 peak high while riding a rising trendline.
MACD's on this 60 minute chart have created a negative divergence and the 6 hour chart looks peaked and ready to rollover soon.
Considering that we didn't have some nice big gap up to short at, nor a gap down to get long at for a quick move back up, I just don't see any trade here at the open. I would lead toward them just holding the rising trendline all day without breaking through the overhead horizontal peak at 1938, basically a sideways day to frustrate both bulls and bears.
Looking at the daily chart on the SPX it clearly has more room up to go, which means the odds of the horizontal resistance being broken-through next week is pretty good. Of course it's very strong resistance currently, especially with the short term charts so overbought. So a pullback is due I think before it breaks through, but that might not happen until Friday as today looks like early chop with increasing odds later in the day and Friday that the rising trendline will be broken and allow some pullback.
But shorting here for that pullback is risky as they clearly want this market to go up higher. So just thinking that it's overbought and ready to breakdown isn't a safe enough trade in my opinion as I've seen the bulls just trade sideways for a day or two to work off that overbought condition and then turn back up. Therefore I don't see an safe short trade today, nor would I go long up here at the likely end of the first big squeeze up as odds clearly say a pullback is coming and it could happen as early as Friday.
Futures are coming to the APEX of the rising wedge (a triangle pointing up) and should breakout today.
Common tricks by SkyNet with wedges is to do a false breakout to the upside and then fall back down.
This MACD on the 60 minute chart is making a negative divergence with it's lower high in the +5 area while the market makes a higher high.
The 6 hour and daily MACD's still have some room to go up a little more but they are getting quite extended now.
Since today we have another FOMC event where they release the last meetings minutes again and Aunt Janet Yells some more, I have to think that we'll stay in that rising wedge until she speaks. Then as usual we'll see some large swings in the both directions. In the past several meetings the market sells off the days after Yellen speaks. So I'm expecting the bears to pile on short again this time as well, expecting the same thing to happen.
However, patterns like this only work for so long before they stop and do something different. Considering how oversold we are on the medium term (the daily) and the recent rally up from the lows last Thursday I have to think that this time will be different and while we could (should) have a pullback the next few days following this meeting the market turn back up and continue this rally.
In the past (during the bull market from the 2009 lows) the Fed days had strong positive closes on them after Bernanke spoke. Sometimes the market topped a few days later and other times it continued higher for awhile. I'm leaning toward the market topping several days later, as in next week sometime at a higher level after a pullback today/tomorrow or Friday.
On the downside I don't think we'll fill the gap but we could drop back to the 1870 area on the futures within a day or so, and then I think it will turn back up and take out the 1920-1930 zone. However, that might not happen this week? There is strong resistance in that area, so if they don't hit it until next week then they might not get through it and therefore that would be the top and likely end of this rally as they run out of time.
But if they push up to it this week and bang on the area I'd expect them to take it out next week and go higher. We have another big move down coming later this month and into March but they don't want any bears short when it happens. If there's one thing I've learned it's to expect them to extend things longer and further then what is logical. I'm not calling for 2000 or some double top but I do expect them to wipe-out the bears before they drop it. So if the bears get an ABC down to that 1870 support area that might be all they see for awhile.
Victoria’s Secret’s CEO has resigned, the lingerie store’s parent company announced Friday.
Sharen Jester Turney, who had been CEO of Victoria’s Secret since 2006, attributed her departure to wanting to prioritize her family.
“After 16 years and a record fourth quarter at Victoria’s Secret, I have decided to prioritize my family and my personal life and consider what’s next for me professionally,'' she said in a statement.
Leslie Wexner, chairman and CEO of parent company L. Brands, will take the helm of Victoria’s Secret, while Turney remains as an adviser.
“We are very grateful to Sharen for her leadership and all that she has accomplished,’’ Wexner said in a statement. “Victoria’s Secret sales have increased more than 70% to $7.7 billion and profit has increased substantially during her nine years as CEO. ... We have strong confidence in the strength of the brand and our growth opportunities, and I look forward to taking on a more active role and working with the talented leadership team at Victoria’s Secret.”
L Brands has more than 3,000 company-owned specialty stores around the world, and owns such brands as Bath & Body Works, Henri Bendel along with Victoria’s Secret.
The minutes of the January meeting should reveal more concern among Fed officials about the global backdrop and the tightening of financial conditions, but stop well short of suggesting the Fed will postpone rate hikes in March or later.
At the January meeting the FOMC indicated it would be “closely monitoring” these risks. In recent speeches, Yellen, Fischer and Dudley each said that deteriorating financial conditions need to be “persistent” to prove a risk to the outlook; the January minutes should contain a similar assessment and may give additional information about what conditions would change the Fed’s outlook. The minutes may also suggest that Fed officials could be collecting data right up to the March meeting before deciding what action to take. That said, given the FOMC effectively dropped its discussion of the balance of risks and cited greater uncertainty to the outlook in the statement, we expect a modestly dovish tone to the minutes overall.
We have been struck by how much some Fed officials (most notably Yellen) have cited the need to start gradual rate hikes to preclude having to tighten more aggressively later. This gradual approach, it has been argued, should actually help reduce the risk of a recession. However, we expect this view to have been challenged by more dovish participants at the January meeting. There is likely to be some debate over how much slack remains and how much that would put up wages and prices. Meanwhile, we expect greater uncertainty around the inflation outlook, particularly as the US dollar has appreciated further while oil and other commodity prices have continued to fall. Notable would be any discussion of how much inflation expectations would need to drift lower before the Committee became more concerned. (Some clarification of the dissent on the updated “Statement of Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy” by St. Louis Fed President Bullard might be useful as well.)
The combination of near-term uncertainty in the inflation outlook and greater downside risks from the global financial market selloff might well be enough to postpone a rate hike in March. But the January minutes are only likely to hint at that possibility, in our view. Nonetheless, we continue to expect the Fed to hold policy steady in March and then hike again in June, under the assumption that markets calm down and the labor market continues to improve.
FX: What Minutes?
In normal times, FOMC Minutes usually aren’t a key market focus. The sharp risk-off tone to markets in recent weeks further reduces their importance. The market’s response to Chair Yellen’s testimony this week is telling. Chair Yellen failed to capitulate on the FOMC’s base case view for gradual pace of rate hikes based on labor market strength, despite the rates market now pricing more than 30% chance of cuts this year. While Chair Yellen did recognize the downside US growth risks from China-induced volatility, the global slowdown, and the USD, her tone doesn’t sound like someone ready to drop the prospects for hikes altogether. The market response however continues to suggest it is uncomfortable with Fed hikes when ex-employment growth momentum is so slow, suggesting it will continue to question the Fed’s ability to hike. Indeed, the Critical Stress Signal (CSS) within BOFAML’s Global Financial Stress Index (GFSI) flipped to “risk off” for the first time since August.
Historically, a “risk off” signal has seen at least a 5% decline in the S&P in 11 0f 18 occurrences since 2000. What’s different this time is that the Fed is no longer there to soothe the market with additional easing as it has during periods of stress since 2009 (Chart 1). With risk likely to remain under pressure in the near-term, we see continued risk of USD weakness as USD long positions are unwound as rate differentials continue to suggest the USD is overvalued at current levels.
In this Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016, photo, a man installs a roof on a new home under construction in Atlanta. On Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo releases its February index of builder sentiment. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
U.S. homebuilders are feeling slightly less confident about their sales prospects ahead of the spring home-selling season, though they remain positive overall that the housing market will continue to improve this year.
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index released Tuesday slipped to 58 this month, down three points from a revised reading of 61 in January.
A massive, 404-carat diamond was recovered in the southern African country of Angola, the Lucapa Diamond Company announced Monday.
The 404.2-carat diamond is the biggest diamond ever found in Angola and the 27th biggest recorded diamond in the world. Angola is one of the world's top four diamond producing nations, the company said.
Lucapa Diamond Company
Lucapa Diamond Company says this 404 carat Lulo gem, pictured in an undated handout photo, is the biggest recorded diamond ever found in Angola.
The diamond was recovered from a Lulo Diamond Project mine in Angola's Lunda Norte province, the Australian company said in a statement. The Lulo mine accounts for nearly 75 percent of Angola’s annual diamond production, Lucapa said.
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) stands with his wife Heidi. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s plan to impose a flat 10 percent tax on all personal income and greatly lower the corporate tax rate would cost the federal government at least $8.6 trillion over a decade, according to a new analysis.
Republican presidential candidates have been quick to campaign on promises to cut taxes, but because most have yet to detail how they would slash spending to offset this lost revenue, analysts have projected their proposals would be deficit busters.
Cruz’s plan also falls short of fulfilling the Texas senator’s promise that his flat tax system would be so simple that taxpayers would file their returns on a postcard.
Cruz would eliminate nearly every tax deduction except those for charitable contributions and mortgage interest and would increase the standard deduction to make doing your taxes easier. He would also eliminate all credits except the earned income tax credit for low income workers and the child tax credit.
The streamlined system is the simplest plan released by any presidential candidate, but analysts said Cruz’ proposals would still require most people to fill out more than a postcard.
“I would think the form would have to look not that different than what you do now,” said Tax Policy Center Co-Director Eric Toder.
The Cruz campaign declined to respond to questions Tax Policy Center staff sent about the plan, which meant it had to make some assumptions about Cruz’s proposal in areas where there was a lack of detail.
The proposal also falls short of Cruz’s promise that under his plan every income-level would see double-digit increases in after-tax income.
Analysts found that while most workers would receive a tax cut, the lowest income workers would see their after-tax income decline by 0.6 percent.
There would be a 16 percent flat business tax under Cruz’s proposal, which functions like an across-the-board consumption tax that would increase the amount workers are taxed by their employers. Those low-income workers who don’t make enough to file taxes wouldn’t benefit from the expanded standard deduction that is meant to offset the payroll-side increases.
“Somebody below the standard deduction amount, they cannot benefit much,” said Tax Policy Center Director Leonard Burman, who served in the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration. “They would benefit very little from repealing the corporate income tax so on net they would end up paying higher taxes under the Cruz plan.”
Cruz’s business tax has also been criticized by fellow presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who compared it to a European-style value added tax. Burman said Rubio is correct and Cruz’s system would impose a version of the consumption tax system popular in much of Western Europe. The center estimates Rubio’s tax proposal would cost the government at least $6.8 billion in lost revenue over the next decade.
The biggest beneficiaries under Cruz’s plan would be the top 0.1 percent of earners. People earning over $3.7 million per year would see an average tax break of more than $2 million in the first year, according to the analysis.
The plan would add $10.2 trillion to the national debt in the first decade, according to the center, when you include interest payments on the additional government borrowing that would occur.
Cruz isn’t alone in crafting a tax plan that would cost the federal government trillions while delivering big benefits for the wealthy, all of the Republicans running for president are doing it.
“All of the plans benefit high income people more than low income people,” Burman said. “They are enormous tax cuts compared to the current system and they are enormously regressive.”
Analysts said the lost revenues could be reduced through spending cuts, including Cruz’s plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but Cruz and most other Republican candidates have yet to provide detailed lists of the cuts that should be made.
Burman said the plan would make it easier and more beneficial for businesses and individuals to invest. Lower tax rates and benefits for businesses would likely encourage major investments in the early years of the plan, but analysts said they expect interest rates would increase and the economy would decline as a result of the ballooning debt.
“The plan by itself, not including the unspecified spending cuts, would surely depress the economy,” Burman said.
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