Team Sea Dubai takes a serious option on the Al Maktoum Sailing Trophy RC 44 match race

Only two flights could be completed today due to the lack of wind. Two teams conclude the day undefeated: Markus Wieser’s Team Sea Dubai - who hasn’t lost a single match in this event - and Paul Cayard’s Katusha, who recovers well after a bad day yesterday.February 23, 2010 – The wind was very light and fluky today for the second half of the match race event. Despite Peter "Luigi" Reggio’s attempts to close the contest, the last two flights will take place tomorrow, before the fleet race practice.Unbeaten after seven flights, Team Sea Dubai is almost certain to win the title. Indeed, the local team’s closest rival, Artemis, sits two points behind whilst the team from the Emirates won the direct confrontation this afternoon. All they have to do is cross the line and avoid any penalising collision.The match of the day, between Team Sea Dubai and Terry Hutchinson’s Artemis, delivered all its promises. The two boats started on split tacks at full speed and immediately engaged in a tacking dual. Just ahead of its opponent after the first cross, Hutchinson made a slight error of appreciation that allowed Team Sea Dubai to close the gap. The two teams then engaged in a dial up as they were nearing the windward mark. Markus Wieser came out of it better than Artemis and rounded the mark two boat lengths ahead. Hutchinson tried hard to come back during the rest of the race, but Wieser and his crewmembers held on tight and won the race."We focused on the basics", commented Hartwell Jordan, Team Sea Dubai’s mainsail trimmer and strategist. "Last night, we debriefed our first day and decided not to change anything and to carry on sailing for fun, without putting any unnecessary pressure on our shoulders. We felt comfortable with our course management and boat speed, so we didn’t feel the need to put a specific strategy in place. We just went for it as relaxed and focused as we could."Disappointed by his results today (two losses against TSD and No Way Back), Terry Hutchinson remained as positive as he could. "The day was good", he said. "We won our two starts and managed to keep the pressure all along. Unfortunately, we did some mistakes. In the first race, we went to the wrong side of the course and our timing was slightly wrong in the second one. I have the feeling that we bet ourselves more than anything else."Whilst Team Sea Dubai is almost certain to win the title, the rest of the podium remains open. Artemis is currently second with four points, followed by five teams on a tie in third with three points.Despite the winner being almost certainly known, the last two flights will definitely not be for the gallery!They said:Hartwell Jordan, mainsail trimmer and strategist, Team Sea Dubai: “We have changed the set up of our boat over the winter and we can feel the difference. We have also changed our mental approach: in the past, we sometimes felt intimidated by the level of our competitors. We are now more relaxed about this, and we try to manage the pressure more efficiently. We’ve also trained hard over the winter, which has allowed us to remember all the moves almost instinctively. As a consequence, we can now look out of the boat and concentrate on the regattas."Cameron Appleton, helmsman, Team Aqua: “This hasn’t been the most rewarding event for us so far and we’ve had a tough couple of days… We didn’t train like the others over the winter, but I don’t think it would have made a difference in this light wind. Our problem was mainly linked with timing; we didn’t take good starts and weren’t in the right rhythm."Rod Davis, helmsman, Ceeref: “It was good to win a race by one second against Team Aqua after having lost two matches by one second yesterday… It’s very strange, we are loosing against teams that we should beat (on the paper) and we are winning the toughest matches. It shows how tight the Class is. Any small team can challenge the best ones. The consequence is that we need to train harder in order to improve."Paul Cayard, helmsman, Katusha: “We were quite unhappy with our result yesterday, but the good thing is that the team stayed well together, and focused. We all knew that we could do a better job. We spoke about our races and decided to keep it as simple as possible and focus on getting a better result without changing anything fundamental in the way we sail. It’s just tough; the races are very close and difficult."Match-race, provisional results after seven flights:(Ranking, name of team, helmsman, No of victories / defeats, points)1) Team Sea Dubai (Markus Wieser), 6/0, 6 points2) Artemis (Terry Hutchinson), 4/2, 4 points3) CEEREF (Rod Davis), 3/3, 3 points3) BMW ORACLE Racing (Adam Minoprio), 3/3, 3 points3) Team Islas Canarias Puerto Calero (José Maria Ponce), 3/3, 3 points3) Team No Way Back (Pieter Heerema / Ray Davies), 3/3, 3 points3) Katusha (Paul Cayard), 3/3, 3 points8) Team Aqua (Cameron Appleton), 2/4, 2 points9) Team Austria (Christian Binder), 1/6, 1 point

As Economy Stumbles, Local "Currencies" Gain Traction

When Judith Lasker joined the Community Exchange program, a local currency organization in Lehigh Valley, Pa., she knew she was helping fellow members of her community. She just didn't realize how much.

Driving an older member of the Community Exchange to a physical therapy appointment one morning, Lasker was touched by her passenger's story of how the exchange had changed her life.
"She said simply that she would have been forced to give up her home if not for the program," Lasker said.
Community Exchange is just one example of local, hours-based "currencies" that are growing in popularity nationwide. Today, there are close to 100 types of local currencies operating in the United States.
While some currencies are true to their name and are backed by federal dollars, others are simply a record of hours worked by contributing “time bank” members. “Whenever you have a shortage of money, people look to invent their own medium of exchange,” said David Boyle, fellow of the New Economics Foundation and Author of "Money Matters."
The earliest local payment system on record began in the1930’s, which isn't surprising; historically, local currencies have been most popular during times of economic crisis, and the U.S. then was in the midst of the Great Depression.

Today, the Community Exchange hours system has 450 members, though similar systems work with just 50 or more members. When one member does something for another, they get credit for the amount of time spent helpng. Each member’s time is worth the same, whether they’re giving tax advice or cooking dinner.
Because there is no set standard for what a local currency should be, many times the grassroots effort to start a program doesn’t gain the momentum it needs. The average success rate for local currency is around 20%, according to a study done by Professor Ed Collom at the University of Southern Maine, which looked at 82 such currencies.
“It’s difficult to keep going, because of the scale on which they are organized,” said Boyle. “You’ve got local people organizing it, and inevitably the workload gets out of hand.” Boyle sid that in order for a local currency to thrive it must be imbedded with another type of endeavor, like a local business or the local government.

The Community Exchange is joined with the Lehigh Valley Hospital, which offers the organization a headquarters for its members database and a place to work, free of charge. Although this offers stability for the Exchange, there is still a danger of members not treating it as a formal system, Collom said. There’s always the risk of it turning into a network of “friendly favors.”
“Once you make friends, it’s like, 'Oh, don’t worry, I don’t need that hour and a half,' he said. “It’s sort of a catch-22, because once the program is successful, the relationships are formed and the program doesn’t need to exist anymore. But until the program gets off the ground, those connections can’t be made.”

Of course, even local currencies with tangible bills aren’t foolproof.
“Counterfeiting is always a possibility,” said Susan Witt, executive director of the E.F. Schumacher Foundation and co-founder of BerkShares, the local currency in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts.
Counterfeiting has never happened before, thanks to security features on the bills, and the relatively small size of the circulation area, Witt said.
“If someone showed up with several fake 50s, it wouldn’t take long to figure out who they were,” Witt said.
Since 2006, BerkShares have been traded through 13 branches of 5 local banks. The exchange rate is 95 cents to every dollar. Accepted at just under 1,000 retailers in the region, $2.5 million of BerkShares have been issued from the bank, and $140,000 are currently in circulation.
Convincing local retailers to use the BerkShare hasn’t been tough, Witt said. Although there is a 5% discount to customers, it’s seen as a way to encourage citizens to shop locally. It also means merchants aren’t paying for processing of credit card fees, bounced checks, or waiting to collect on bills.

For merchants that accept BerkShares, there’s the possibility of having too great of a ratio of Berkshares to dollars. Should a merchant find they have too many to do business properly, they can go to a local bank and trade in their BerkShares for federal dollars.
With BerkShares, as with all local currencies, there are no coins allowed. Although local currencies are legal as long as there is an exchange rate with federal dollars so transactions can be recorded for tax purposes, coins are not allowed because they involve processing precious metals.
The main stumbling blocks for local currencies are maintenance and staff, Collom said. For BerkShares, grants to pay for printing of the currency and bank account setup was provided by a donor-directed fund at the Rudolph Steiner foundation in California.
The interest in local currencies will persist, even as the economy improves, Collom said, because local forms of payment tie into the “buy local” movement that has gained so much traction in recent years. “It all goes back to the idea of neighbors helping neighbors,” Collum said. “Whether they’re changing a lightbulb or helping their local florist stay in business, it's currency that can work.”
With the broader economy stil trying to find its feet, local currencies will continue to grow and flourish, according to Boyle.

“Typically, these things tend to happen in births of innovation and then its quiet again, and I think we are at the beginning of a birth at the moment,” he said.

The Internet is the most important things in the world

Most of the respondents also said the Internet would improve reading and writing by 2020, according to the study, conducted by the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University in North Carolina and the Pew Internet and American Life project.

"Three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing and the rendering of knowledge," said study co-author Janna Anderson, director of the Imagining the Internet Center.

But 21 percent said the Internet would have the opposite effect and could even lower the IQs of some who use it a lot.

"There are still many people ... who are critics of the impact of Google, Wikipedia and other online tools," she said.

The Web-based survey gathered opinions from scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers and technology developers, along with Internet users screened by the authors. Of the 895 people surveyed, 371 were considered "experts."

It was prompted in part by an August 2008 cover story in the Atlantic Monthly by technology writer Nicholas Carr headlined: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Carr suggested in the article that heavy use of the Web was chipping away at users' capacity for concentration and deep thinking. Carr, who participated in the survey, told the authors he still agreed with the piece.

"What the 'Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence," Carr said in a release accompanying the study. "The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking."

But Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said, "People are already using Google as an adjunct to their own memory.

"For example, I have a hunch about something, need facts to support and Google comes through for me," he said in the release.

The survey also found that 42 percent of experts believed that anonymous online activity would be "sharply curtailed" by 2020, thanks to tighter security and identification systems, while 55 percent thought it would still be relatively easy to browse the Internet anonymously in 10 years

Microsoft phone system hits reset on digital music

To date, Microsoft's effort to address the digital music market has largely focused on its Zune player and Zune Pass subscription service, which have won favorable reviews but few customers. But with the recent unveiling of its Windows Phone 7 Series operating system at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, Microsoft hopes to reboot its struggling digital music strategy.

Even the well-received Zune HD device, introduced last fall, hasn't been enough to convince music fans to convert to the Zune Pass. The company says it has sold only 3.8 million players since 2006, and NPD Group estimated in November that it has a 2 percent share of the U.S. portable media player market, compared with 70 percent for Apple's iPod.

So Microsoft has made it a priority to expand the Zune service to other platforms. In November, it added the Zune's video service to its Xbox Live network, consisting of more than 20 million worldwide users of the Xbox 360 gaming console. Since then, Zune communications director Jose Pinero says the number of daily HD video downloads and streams has doubled. Now, Microsoft plans to use its Windows Phone 7 platform to bring Zune to mobile customers.

"Anybody who gets a Windows Phone 7 Series phone is going to get a Zune within that device," Pinero says.

INTERNATIONAL PUSH

The most immediate impact this has is to expand the Zune service to countries outside of the United States and Canada, which are the only markets where the Zune is sold. While Microsoft will continue to sell the original Zune player in the States, Pinero says it doesn't plan to expand it to other countries, instead relying on the mobile phone software to bring the Zune service to those markets.

For this strategy to work, Microsoft will have to turn around its equally struggling mobile phone business. According to technology research and consulting firm Gartner, Windows Mobile handsets rank fourth in worldwide smart-phone sales, at 7.9 percent, as of third-quarter 2009, down from 11 percent a year earlier and behind Nokia, BlackBerry parent Research in Motion and Apple.

But those rankings remain fluid, as analysts expect global smart-phone sales to double in the next three years.

"There's certainly opportunity for Microsoft and other players in this market to grab share in the smart-phone space," says Sue Kevorkian, an analyst at tech market research firm

IDC.

Early reviews of Windows Phone 7 have been positive, with its simple interface and clean design winning high marks. But handsets featuring the new technology aren't expected to hit the market until the 2010 holiday season. By that time, Apple is expected to release an updated iPhone.

Zune will need to do more than piggyback on an innovative new mobile phone platform to generate the kind of momentum needed to elevate itself from the status of also-ran. It must compete with rival mobile music services sure to be created for handsets using Windows Phone 7, and the company hasn't yet detailed how developers will be able to integrate Zune functionality into their applications, if at all. Answers to those questions are expected in March at Microsoft's annual Web developer conference, Mix.

Zune will also need to increase its footprint to encompass more than mobile technology. That includes adding the music service to the Xbox Live network, as well as taking a larger stake of the subscription market and expanding that lackluster model beyond its current state.

Forrester Research analyst Sonal Gandhi estimates the entire U.S. music subscription market totals just 2.5 million users, and that includes not only Zune, Rhapsody, Napster and MOG, but also eMusic and those paying for the premium tiers of such streaming services as Pandora and Live365.

While Microsoft's recent moves may lend an important boost to Zune, the company will have to look beyond the subscription model if it is to have much of an impact on overall digital music revenue.

The Fed charges banks that borrow from the central bank itself for short periods.

The Federal Reserve on Thursday raised its discount rate to 0.75% from 0.5%, an effort to return its lending facilities to more normalized levels.
The Fed said the move, along with other recent modifications to its credit programs, does not signal a change in its outlook for the economy or for monetary policy, and the more important fed funds rate remains in its range of 0% to 0.25%.
The Fed usually changes the discount rate at the same time it does the fed funds rate, but after the unprecedented steps taken to combat the financial crisis, the Fed is eager to start bringing rates back to more traditional levels, and Thursday’s move is a start.
The discount rate is the interest rate the Fed charges banks that borrow from the central bank itself for short periods. Last week, Federal chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed was mulling a “modest increase” in the discount rate “before long,” saying the bump up “should be viewed as further normalization…in light of the improving conditions in financial markets.”
Futures on stock market indexes pulled back immediately following the announcement, with Dow futures down nearly 50 points. The Dow gained better than 80 points on Thursday. Treasury prices pulled back, sending their yields higher.
Also Thursday, the Fed said that effective on March 18, the typical maximum maturity for primary credit loans will be shortened to overnight, and raised the minimum bid rate for the Term Auction Facility [TAF] by a quarter percentage point to 0.5%.
“The increase in the discount rate announced Thursday widens the spread between the primary credit rate and the top of the FOMC’s 0 to 0.25% target range for the federal funds rate to one-half percentage point,” the Fed said. “The increase in the spread and reduction in maximum maturity will encourage depository institutions to rely on private funding markets for short-term credit and to use the Federal Reserve’s primary credit facility only as a backup source of funds. The Federal Reserve will assess over time whether further increases in the spread are appropriate in view of experience with the one-half percentage point spread.”
Thursday’s move comes as the Fed continues to assess a mixed bag of economic data. The employment picture remains muddled, unable to build momentum while other signs of economic life are emerging.
At the height of the global financial crisis, one of the first moves by the U.S. central bank was to reduce the spread of the primary credit rate over the FOMC’s target for the fed funds rate to half a percentage point from one percentage point.
The Fed also lengthened the typical maximum maturity from overnight to 30 days.
A few months later, in December 2007, the Fed created the TAF to improve the access of banks to term funding. Then, in March 2008, the Fed cut the spread of the primary rate over fed funds to a quarter percentage point and extended the maximum maturity of primary credit loans out to 90 days.
As the economy started showing signs of life last year, and credit markets appeared to be unthawing, the Fed started to reduce TAF auction sizes and last month started the process of normalizing the terms on primary credit by reducing the typical maximum maturity back to 28 days.

InsFocus Systems Expands Open Connectivity in Latest Version of Leading Insurance Business Intelligence Software

InsFocus Systems has just released version 1.91 of its category-leading InsFocus BI insurance business intelligence solution, an update that broadens connectivity to third-party systems and software through REST-based open design architecture.

(PRWEB) February 17, 2010 -- InsFocus Systems has just released version 1.91 of its category-leading InsFocus BI insurance business intelligence solution, an update that broadens connectivity to third-party systems and software through REST-based open design architecture.

While InsFocus BI is already at work in insurance companies worldwide, the 1.91 update’s emphasis on RESTful services will provide its data analysis and warehousing capabilities to a larger group of insurance professionals. Apart from being even easier to use than previous versions, InsFocus BI 1.91’s new REST-enabled data connectors cement its place as a centerpiece of open connectivity, collaboration, and decision-making power in an increasingly diverse insurance industry software ecosystem.

RESTful services, in which all communication is based on simple HTTP, have become the de facto standard for Internet services in recent years, as well as having gained considerable traction in enterprise settings. Offering communication via standard protocols, including XML, JSON, and HTML, links between InsFocus BI and third-party resources can be tested from any common Web browser, dramatically cutting intranet service development time.

Speaking of InsFocus BI’s new REST-based connectors, Hanan Taiber, CTO and R&D Manager of InsFocus Systems, says that “users can now ‘link’ to a query, meaning they can combine the results of any query in a Web browser, Excel spreadsheet, or in any other third-party application that leverages simple Web services.” Hanan also notes that users can choose whether to link to an ad-hoc query or to a library of existing reports.

Also new to InsFocus BI 1.91 is a report scheduler that allows authorized users to define when a given ad-hoc query or library report should be automatically run, whether monthly, weekly, or even several times per day. In addition, report results can be formatted as rich HTML or as text-based SMS messages for anywhere, anytime review.

“With InsFocus BI’s open and flexible architecture,” Hanan says, “companies can now easily automate historically resource-intensive functions, such as combining fixed and limited reports with current InsFocus BI data to create new and powerful ways to analyze data and drive profits.”

With every release, InsFocus BI offers greater value to insurance professionals. The 1.91 version continues that tradition, delivering an open framework that goes beyond standard reporting and analysis to support a wider array of functions, such as creating regulatory reports, integrating updated information into Excel spreadsheets used by analysts and actuaries, and automatically providing reports and SMS updates to company executives and agents.

“We are very excited about this new version,” says Uri Taiber, CEO of InsFocus Systems. “The system is now so open that it can easily serve as the base for integrating a wide range of formerly closed off business processes. With InsFocus 1.91, the promise of SOA – and higher ROI – is available to a greater number of insurance professionals than ever before.”

For more information on InsFocus Systems and InsFocus BI, please visit InsFocus Systems Homepage.

Contact:
Uri Taiber, CEO
InsFocus Systems, Ltd.
+972 3 9233766

About InsFocus Systems:
InsFocus is a leading provider of insurance business intelligence software. Leveraging decades of insurance industry experience paired with BI and DW expertise, InsFocus Systems brings advanced analytics to every part of the insurance business, including marketing, underwriting, reinsurance, actuarial, and accounting domains.

Building on its proprietary data model and extensive field experience, InsFocus has developed Structured Insurance BI Methodology. Using this methodology, InsFocus creates and deploys structured BI projects with a focus on predictable and accurate results, customizability, and user-friendliness. InsFocus is a Microsoft™ Certified Gold Partner, operating globally through local implementation partners.

Telecoms infrastructure

Telecoms infrastructure provider Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) will build a network operations center (NOC) in Latin America following a contract just signed with Latin American digital trunking operator NII Holdings (Nasdaq: NIHD), Jackson Brenner, NSN's head of NII business in Latin America, told BNamericas.
Under the terms of the five-year contract, whose value Brenner was unable to disclose, NSN will manage all of NII's network operations throughout Latin America, where it operates under the Nextel brand.
"We have a global NOC in Portugal and two in India, and now the idea is to establish a global operations center in Latin America, because of issues with language, etc. Initially we'd work with Nextel, and we have other managed services projects with Oi and TIM in Brazil," he said. "We still haven't defined where exactly, but because of the volume we're looking at the NOC will be located in Mexico or Brazil."
Nokia Siemens Networks will combine its expertise with the experience of NII employees that will transfer to the company to plan, design, build, maintain, optimize and operate NII's networks, with the goal of enhancing NII's operational efficiency. Some 1,000 employees of NII and its operating companies are expected to become NSN employees. According to Brenner, there will be no job cuts; "in fact, we're betting on expansion because the Nextel plan is also for growth, working with new technology and new networks."
"The idea of this business is to allow Nextel to optimize costs, where our experience with managed services will be applied to Nextel's operations. We'll also migrate their networks towards third generation. Nextel plans to migrate its network in all of Latin America. It already has the [3G] licenses in Peru and Chile and will do the same in other countries like Brazil and Mexico," he added. "They'll continue with iDEN technology, but are investing in 3G to complement their portfolio of services."
NSN will assume responsibility for day-to-day services, provisioning and maintenance for NII-owned networks, including operations, network planning and optimization, consulting and OSS/BSS integration as well as multi-vendor maintenance services. Nextel will remain with full control of its assets but focus on the commercial aspects of its business.
"This is one of the most complete cases of outsourcing that we've seen on a global level," said Brenner, adding that the deal does not affect in any way any possible commercial negotiations with other external companies. NII has chosen not to comment on Mexican broadcast giant Televisa's proposing to acquire part of Nextel Mexico's operations.
NII operates in Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Chile, and ended 3Q09 with US$2bn in cash and total debt of US$2.8bn. The company will have a conference call on Q4 results on February 25.

MANY GREEKaS BACK STRIKE

ATHENS--Greece proposed an overhaul of its near-bankrupt pension system on Tuesday by raising the pension age and banning early retirement, defying pressure from unions on the eve of a 24-hour strike to protest at austerity measures.
preparing a bailout package, Greece's Socialist government announced as part of an EU-backed deficit-cutting plan that it was studying proposals to raise the average retirement age to 63 from 61 by 2015.
Labour Minister Andreas Loverdos said the pension scheme would go broke within five years unless it was reformed. A new pension law would forbid any voluntary exit from the system and establish a new fund to manage its reserves of 30 billion euros.
"These reforms are not just tinkering, they constitute a major overhaul to make the system viable in the coming decades," Loverdos told the committee in charge of drafting the reform. "We're putting an end to early retirements. We are putting an end to clientelism."
last week reforming the pension system must be a priority for Greece -- the member state where public finances are most at risk from an ageing population, largely due to widespread early retirement by civil servants.
Experts say the system would go bankrupt within 15 years without drastic reforms. Analysts welcomed the proposals but said more action was needed to meet a target of cutting the deficit below the EU ceiling of 3 percent of GDP by 2012.
Last year, Greece's deficit spiralled to 12.7% -- the worst in the euro zone.
"It is an encouraging sign the government is trying to tackle the longer-term threats to the public finances," said Ben May of Capital Economics.
Prime Minister George Papandreou's government is due to announce details of crucial tax and wage reforms this week. Unions have threatened to intensify strikes if the Socialists stand firm on public sector wage freezes and tax hikes. The 24-hour strike by the ADEDY public sector union on Wednesday will ground flights, shut schools and government offices, and leave public hospitals operating on emergency staff, piling pressure on Papandreou to back down.
Analysts say the government has support to weather the ADEDY strike and another on Feb. 24 by the GSEE private sector union, but it likely will face public anger if its measures fail to produce effects. Greece has a history of violent street protest.
While polls have suggested most Greeks back the austerity drive, people in downtown Athens voiced support for the unions.
"I will certainly participate in the protests," said Spyros Fortis, 46, a lawyer. "I voted for this government but sadly they won't tax bankers or businessmen, only the poor ... We would have accepted the measures if they were just."
In a positive sign for the government, data on Tuesday showed January inflation easing to 2.4%, above the EU average of 1.0 percent but below economists' expectations. Analysts said this may ease pressure on wages.
Markets, meanwhile, rallied on reports ECB chief Jean Claude Trichet cut short a trip to Australia to attend a special EU summit this week, triggered talk of an EU bailout for Greece.
The news lifted Greek bank shares more than 5%, recovering almost all the ground lost on Monday, and also supported the euro, which hit nine month lows last week.
However, an ECB spokesman said Trichet had always intended to attend the Brussels meeting. The European Investment Bank -- which markets had speculated could take part in an EU bailout -- also said on Tuesday it could not take part in any scheme to help member states weather budget deficits.