Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone sales pass 30 mln

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? Samsung said Monday it has sold more than 30 million flagship Galaxy S III smartphones in about five months, making it one of the fastest selling smartphones in the world.

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's biggest mobile phone maker, launched the smartphone at the end of May, months before competitors began shipping the latest versions of their top phones.

When Apple Inc. unveiled the iPhone 5 in September, Samsung launched an advertising campaign poking fun at the new iPhone.

The South Korean firm said the S III is selling at a much faster rate than its predecessor announced a year ago, the Galaxy S II. The S II took 14 months to hit 30 million sales. Sales of the Galaxy Note II, which fills a market niche between smartphones and tablets, surpassed 3 million in 37 days, Samsung said last week.

The runaway demand for high-end smartphones fueled record profits at Samsung in recent quarters while other consumer electronics firms were hit by the global economic downturn that dented demand for TVs and personal computers.

Samsung, which also makes TVs, home appliances, semiconductors and display panels, got almost 70 percent of its third-quarter operating profit from the division that makes mobile devices, cameras and computers.

Nomura Financial Investment in Seoul forecasts that Samsung will sell 67 million smartphones in the October-December quarter. That would be about 10 million units more than Samsung's smartphone sales in the previous quarter.

Samsung does not disclose its quarterly smartphone sales figures, but analysts and research firms say the company sold a record 56-58 million smartphones in July-September.

Nomura, which is more optimistic about Samsung's prospects than other forecasters, says Samsung's mobile communications business will post 5 percent growth in fourth quarter profit from the third quarter, thanks to the high-end phones ? the S III and the Note II.

Research firm IDC ranks the South Korean firm as the world's top smartphone seller in the last three quarters. In the latest July-September period, Samsung sold 56.3 million smartphones versus Apple's 26.9 million, IDC said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-11-05-SKorea-Samsung-Galaxy%20S%20Sales/id-ed903e91f8294cf58e41542df9d2bf83

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Does Facebook Usage Lead To Obesity And Credit Card Debt ...

Many times, when users are checking Facebook or surfing the Internet, they?ve also got a snack handy. But does Facebook make you more likely to be an unhealthy eater? A study that will appear in the June 2013 Journal of Consumer Research shows that while Facebook can boost self-esteem, it can also lower self-control at the same time, leading to dangerous behaviors such as binge eating.

Keith Wilcox of Columbia Business School and Andrew Stephen of the University of Pittsburgh wanted to test the effects of Facebook on users? self-esteem and self-control. They studied two core groups of users: those who have strong ties to friends on their social network and those who don?t.

Wilcox and Stephen found that among users with strong ties to their Facebook friends, simply browsing the social network improved their self-esteem. However, the boost of self-esteem came with a caveat: lowered self-control.

For one study, they took a group of 84 U.S. Facebook users and split them into two groups: one browsed Facebook (but didn?t post content or interact with friends) ,and the other read CNN.com. Participants were asked to choose between two snacks: a granola bar and chocolate chip cookies. They found that users with close ties to their social network were more likely to choose cookies instead of granola bars:

The results of study three support for our theory that social network use can decrease self-control by enhancing self-esteem. Specifically, the results show that for those focused on strong ties while browsing Facebook, social network use enhanced self-esteem, making them more likely to make an unhealthy food choice compared to those who did not browse Facebook. However, the differences in self-esteem or self-control were not observed for those focused on weak ties while browsing the network.

Wilcox and Stephen dug a little further, seeing if Facebook use led to unhealthy habits such as binge eating and poor credit. They took 541 U.S. Facebook users (median age 32.06, 61 percent female) and had them take a survey about their Facebook usage, eating habits, and credit history.

The researchers threw out the outliers of those who were deemed underweight or severely overweight by Body Mass Index standards. They found that the more time the participants with strong ties to their online connections spent on Facebook, the higher their BMI was, and the more likely they were to engage in binge eating.

Next, they took 399 participants who owned credit cards to see if high amounts of Facebooking led to lower credit scores. Much like the deleterious effects of binge eating, the researchers found that those who spent more time on the social network also had more credit card debt.

In summation, the researchers found that users who spend a lot of time on Facebook, communicating with close friends, tend to also have lower levels of self-control (although, of course, that?s not always the case):

The effect of social network use on individuals? abilities to exhibit self-control is concerning given the increased time people are spending using social networks, in part due to the worldwide proliferation of access to social networks anywhere anytime (i.e., via mobile smartphones, smart TVs, tablet computers, etc.). Even a small five-minute ?dose? of social network use in our studies was enough to significantly lower self-control in subsequent choices and tasks. Heavy users likely expose themselves to multiple doses of this effect a day. Given that self-control is important for maintaining social order and personal well-being, this subtle effect could have widespread impact. This is particularly true for adolescents and young adults who are the heaviest users of social networks and have grown up using social networks as a normal part of their daily lives. Because of these factors, our findings have important policy implications. It would be worthwhile for researchers and policymakers to further explore social network use in order to better understand which consumers may be particularly vulnerable to suffering negative psychological or social consequences.

Readers: Do you agree or disagree with the findings?

Image courtesy of?Shutterstock.

Source: http://allfacebook.com/facebook-self-control_b103877

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British lawmakers roast taxman over Starbucks tax bill

LONDON (Reuters) - UK MPs tore into the chief of the tax authority on Monday for allowing coffee chain Starbucks to pay almost no corporation tax despite selling coffee and snacks worth billions of pounds to British customers.

Members of parliament on the Public Accounts Committee, which is tasked with ensuring value in government financial affairs, said Starbucks's low tax payments had undermined public trust in the whole tax system.

The low tax payments from Starbucks have become a political issue in Britain since they were revealed in a Reuters investigation last month.

"It just smells and it doesn't smell of coffee. It smells bad," Richard Bacon, member of parliament with the governing Conservative party, told Lin Homer, Chief Executive of the tax authority, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

"It beggars belief that such a large entity with so much underlying activity here can pay so little in corporation tax," he added.

Reuters reported last month that Starbucks had paid no corporation, or income, tax in the past three years and had paid only 8.6 million pounds ($13.74 million) in total over 13 years during which it recorded sales of 3.1 billion pounds.

The company avoided UK taxes by reporting losses to HMRC, even as it told investors its UK operation was profitable.

Homer declined to comment on Starbucks, citing taxpayer confidentiality, but said the agency ensured that businesses paid the taxes they should.

Starbucks was not available for comment. The coffee giant, which has a market capitalisation of about $39 billion, has previously said it sought to pay its fair share of taxes in every country where it operates.

One of the ways that Starbucks minimises its British profits and therefore its UK tax liability, as revealed in the Reuters investigation, is by having the UK unit pay large royalties to its subsidiaries in other countries for use of its brand.

Starbucks pays a larger share of British sales as royalties to subsidiaries outside Britain than rivals such as McDonald's. Margaret Hodge, head of the committee, said that showed that the tax office's procedures were lacking.

"Either the skills of your individuals aren't good enough or you're not getting underneath it," she told Homer.

The MPs also challenged Homer's assertion that existing rules designed to stop companies shifting profits out of the countries where they originate worked well.

Hodge cited other companies including Google and Apple which have racked up billions of pounds in UK sales but paid almost no tax in the country.

By channelling sales through low tax countries such as Ireland, Google managed to reduce the tax rate on $7.6 billion of non-U.S. profits to just 3.2 percent last year. Apple's tax bill on $36.8 billion of foreign income was 1.9 percent, the company's regulatory filings show.

(Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Peter Graff)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mps-roast-taxman-over-starbucks-tax-bill-194336659--finance.html

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Today on New Scientist: 5 November 2012

Sperm stem cells restore male fertility

A study in monkeys suggests that boys left infertile after chemotherapy may one day reproduce naturally after an injection of sperm stem cells

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Parcelling up nature in One Cubic Foot

Photographer David Liittschwager used a green cage measuring 1 cubic foot to introduce random sampling into his documentation of six fragile ecosystems

Fear of hackers holds back online voting in the US

The technology is ready for elections to be held online, but until cybersecurity is strengthened they are on hold

NASA rover adds new twist to Mars methane mystery

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Health alert: lethal after-effects of hurricanes

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TV networks tell staff: watch what you tweet on Election Day

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Television networks face a new challenge in covering this year's excruciatingly close presidential election: prevent closely guarded exit poll results from leaking onto Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.

The major TV news networks agreed to shield early exit poll data suggesting who is leading in a state until the state's polls close. That means no tweeting exit polls, posting on Facebook, or re-tweeting figures reported by others.

"We will not either project or characterize a race until all the polls are scheduled to have closed in that state," said Sheldon Gawiser, director of elections for NBC News.

Election officials worry that leaks could discourage people from voting if they think the race in their state is already decided, depressing the vote count and distorting the results. In 1985, Congress extracted a promise from the major TV networks to refrain from using exit polls to project a winner in a particular state, or to characterize who is leading, while voting continues in that area.

The closeness of this year's election between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney has focused attention on key battleground states - such as Ohio, Virginia and Florida - and what their exit polls might signal about who will win the White House.

It has resurrected memories of the disputed 2000 election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore - some media outlets projected a Gore victory in Florida while polls in the western part of the state remained open. The networks later pulled back, leaving doubt about who won and leading to a month of recounts and court battles.

If early results become public, "it can be a real problem," said Jeff Berkowitz, a Republican strategist who runs Berkowitz Public Affairs. "For somebody who's got seven things on their list to do that day, and if they're already being told the election is over, are they really going to prioritize voting over the other six?"

Exit poll data is collected by New Jersey-based Edison Media Research on behalf of the National Election Pool, a consortium of Walt Disney Co's ABC, News Corp's Fox, Time Warner Inc's CNN, Comcast Corp's NBC, CBS Corp's CBS and the Associated Press. The media companies use the findings to help them call results in each state, and to inform post-election analysis.

Reuters is not a member of the consortium and collects exit data with market research firm Ipsos. The news organization will not share any exit data before polls close, a Thomson Reuters Corp spokeswoman said.

Smaller news outlets and Internet blogs are not bound by the commitment made by members of the National Election Pool, and could post any exit poll numbers they get their hands on.

In 2004, for example, The Drudge Report posted early results that favored John Kerry. U.S. stocks dipped, and Kerry eventually lost the race, highlighting that early and incomplete results can prove wrong. A representative for The Drudge Report could not immediately be reached by e-mail.

There is no evidence that exit poll results influence voters, but the rise of social media means any leaked data could spread like wildfire.

After leaks in past elections, the big TV networks have taken steps to keep a tighter lid on information. While some findings previously were available as early as 1 p.m. Eastern time, news staff are not to be given an initial look until 5 p.m. - still two hours before the earliest poll closings.

Following a template used in the last three elections, six analysts - one from each news organization in the National Election Pool - will be locked in a "quarantine room" from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday with no phone or e-mail access, Gawiser said. They will conduct preliminary analysis of the data before it is released to staff at the news outlets.

"They cannot talk to us. We don't know anything about it. We can't see any of these data until five o'clock," Gawiser said.

These kinds of restrictions helped keep exit data under wraps in 2008, when Obama defeated John McCain. The race also was not as close as in the two previous elections, or indeed this year's vote, reducing demand for early information.

This year, the tight race and prevalence of social media increases the risk that data will spread quickly if it leaks, said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

"If that were to happen today, with Internet penetration and the speed of social media, that (data) would be known pretty widely," he said.

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine; Editing by Ronald Grover and Steve Orlofsky)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tv-networks-tell-staff-watch-tweet-election-day-232641919--finance.html

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French President Backs Lebanon Over Syria Crisis

Posted GMT 11-4-2012 16:54:2

BEIRUT (AFP) -- French President Francois Hollande on a brief visit to Beirut Sunday pledged to "protect" Lebanon against threats of destabilisation caused by the deadly conflict in neighbouring Syria.

"France will spare no effort to guarantee Lebanon's independence, unity and security," Hollande said at a joint news conference with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman.

France is determined "to oppose with all its strength any bid to destabilise," Lebanon, he added.

"Lebanon must be protected," he said, against any fallout from the conflict in Syria where more than 36,000 people have been killed since an uprising against the regime erupted in mid-March 2011, according to monitors.

Sleiman said at the news conference that he reaffirmed to Hollande "Lebanon's commitment to avoid the negative repercussions of the (Syrian) crisis".

After his lightening visit to Beirut, the French leader flew to Saudi Arabia for talks with King Abdullah on Syria and Iran, before attending an Asia-Europe summit in Laos to talk trade at a time of economic crisis.

But security issues and politics topped the agenda of his talks with Sleiman in Beirut, at a time when Lebanon has been reeling from the effects of the deadly conflict that has shaken Syria since mid-March 2011.

The visit comes two weeks after Lebanon's opposition called on Prime Minister Najib Mikati, whose cabinet is dominated by powerful Syrian ally Hezbollah, to resign.

The opposition accuses the government of complicity with the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a former powerbroker in Lebanon which has also been accused of carrying out the 2005 assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri -- charges denied by Damascus.

Calls for Mikati to quit were spurred by a massive car bombing in central Beirut last month that killed top security official Wissam al-Hassan, in an attack the opposition blamed on Syria and its allies in Lebanon.

Hollande said France was ready to help Lebanon probe the murder of Hassan, and said "there can be no impunity" for the assassination of Hariri and the security official.

The Beirut stop was a last minute decision taken by Hollande to express France's solidarity with Lebanon after the October 19 assassination of Hassan, the Internal Security Forces (ISF) intelligence chief.

The car bombing exacerbated tensions in Lebanon which has seen political and security spillovers from the 19-month conflict in neighbouring Syria.

There has been frequent shelling into Lebanese territory by the Syrian army as well as deadly clashes between supporters and opponents of the Damascus regime.

In August ex-information minister Michel Samaha, who has close ties to the Assad regime, was arrested over suspicion he was planning bomb attacks to provoke sectarian strife at Syria's behest.

Hassan and the ISF played a key role in the investigation that led to Samaha's arrest.

Western powers, echoing Sleiman's concerns, have warned that Mikati's departure could create a political vacuum in a country already rife with Syria-linked tensions.

Hours after the bombing Mikati said he was ready to quit but had accepted Sleiman's request to stay on for the time being in the "national interest."

And since the attack Sleiman has pressed for all-party talks on forming a new government "that can pull Lebanon out of its impasse" saying only then can Mikati resign.

France is willing to host a meeting of Lebanese political figures if all parties were represented and if Beirut made an official request for such a gathering, a government source said in Paris.

Hollande was to meet briefly later Sunday in the Red Sea city of Jeddah with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to discuss the implications of the Syria conflict on Lebanon and the region as well as Iran's contested nuclear drive.

Iran is a backer of Hezbollah, whose militia is the most powerful force in Lebanon and has never disarmed after the 1975-1990 civil war.

By Sabine Wibaux

Source: http://www.aina.org/news/20121104105402.htm

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