Shoppers take escalators under the logo of Nintendo and Super Mario characters at an electronics store in Tokyo, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013. Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co. has returned to the black for the first nine months of the fiscal year but remains pessimistic about sales prospects. The Kyoto-based maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games reported Wednesday that April-December profit totaled 14.55 billion yen ($160 million), a reversal from the 48.35 billion yen loss reported a year earlier. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
Shoppers take escalators under the logo of Nintendo and Super Mario characters at an electronics store in Tokyo, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013. Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co. has returned to the black for the first nine months of the fiscal year but remains pessimistic about sales prospects. The Kyoto-based maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games reported Wednesday that April-December profit totaled 14.55 billion yen ($160 million), a reversal from the 48.35 billion yen loss reported a year earlier. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
Men play Nintendo video games at an electronics store in Tokyo Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013. Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co. has returned to the black for the first nine months of the fiscal year but remains pessimistic about sales prospects. The Kyoto-based maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games reported Wednesday that April-December profit totaled 14.55 billion yen ($160 million), a reversal from the 48.35 billion yen loss reported a year earlier. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
TOKYO (AP) ? Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co. returned to the black for the first nine months of its business year and more than doubled its profit forecast for the full year, getting a perk from a weaker yen, despite pessimism about sales prospects.
April-December profit for the Kyoto-based maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games totaled 14.55 billion yen ($160 million), bouncing back from the 48.35 billion yen loss reported a year earlier, it said Wednesday. Nine-month sales inched up 2.4 percent to 543 billion yen ($6 billion).
Nintendo raised its profit forecast for the business year through March 2013 to 14 billion yen ($154 million) from 6 billion yen ($66 million). The dollar has strengthened about 14 percent against the yen in the past three months on expectations a new government would relax monetary policy to boost Japan's moribund economy.
But Nintendo, which didn't break down quarterly results, isn't upbeat about its sales prospects and lowered its full year sales forecast to 670 billion yen ($7.4 billion) from 810 billion yen ($8.9 billion).
Game machines have taken a beating from the proliferation of smartphones and tablets that also offer games and other entertainment, competing for people's leisure time. Some analysts say the global market for game machines is saturated with offerings from Nintendo, Microsoft Corp., Sony Corp. and others.
Nintendo spokesman Makoto Wakae said sales had gone relatively well during the key holiday shopping season late last year, but that was quickly running out of momentum. The company expects to post an operating loss for the year ending March 2013, the second straight year of operating losses, he said.
The company forecasts it will sell 4 million Wii U consoles for the fiscal year, down from its earlier estimate of 5.5 million units. The Wii U, which went on sale late last year, was the first major new game console to arrive in stores in years.
Nintendo, also behind the Donkey Kong and Zelda games, lowered its full year sales forecast for Wii U game software units to 16 million from 24 million.
Nintendo's success was rooted in its appeal to so-called casual gamers, but they may be the kind of people for whom smartphones and iPads are proving attractive alternatives.
What's coming as a godsend for Nintendo is the weakening yen, against both the dollar and the euro, as that helps raise the value of its overseas earnings. Currency gains for the period totaled 22 billion yen ($242 million), according to Nintendo.
Nintendo has a lot riding on the Wii U, which has a touch-screen tablet controller called GamePad and a TV-watching feature called TVii. Nintendo said it sold 3 million Wii U machines so far around the world.
Nintendo sank into a loss the previous fiscal year largely because of price cuts for its hand-held 3DS game machine, which shows three-dimensional imagery without special glasses. It has sold nearly 30 million 3DS machines so far.
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Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yurikageyama
U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) launched a campaign to raise awareness about the successful project of Azerspace-1, the first Azerbaijani satellite to be launched in February 2013, AzerTac state news agencv reported.
Members of Azerbaijani-American community will send the letter prepared by USAN to U.S. legislators and media to inform them about enhancement of bilateral trade between the United States and Azerbaijan, including in non-oil sectors such as aviation, satellite, telecommunications, real estate, gold mining, financial services and equity investments and ask the lawmakers to facilitate these developments and encourage the mutually beneficial relations.
Built by the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. in the United States, the Azerspace-1 satellite has been a success story and has already been delivered to the launch site, where it will be launched on February 8 into space. Azerbaijan signed a contract with Orbital Sciences Corporation to design, build, and deliver its first communications satellite in June 2010. This contract is worth $230 million, and created 1,500 new American jobs, most of them in Virginia.
According to a January 2012 report by the Aerospace Industries Association, the U.S. share of the global satellite manufacturing market has dropped from 65 percent to as low as 30 percent since 1999. The report says U.S. companies lost $21 billion between 1999 and 2009 due to the export regime at a cost of 9,000 jobs annually. Now this is changing, and the Azerbaijani satellite is a trailblazer.
The Azerspace-1 satellite will offer telecommunication services to Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and North Africa, providing digital broadcasting, Internet access, data transmission, creation of VSAT multiservice networks and communications. Some 20% of the satellite`s resources will be used for Azerbaijan`s needs, and the remaining 80% will be available for commercial purposes, including for U.S. government and private customers, such as in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Central Asia. After launching Azerspace-1, all of the territory of Azerbaijan, including its Nakhchivan exclave and Karabakh region, will be covered with quality TV and radio broadcasting, high-speed IP services, enabling a stable and quality platform for programs such as distance education and e-health, eliminating communication problems.
Azerbaijan also intends to launch its second satellite into the orbit in 2015, followed by a third telecommunication satellite in 2016. So there are still ample opportunities for more U.S. companies and states to sign lucrative contracts on designing, building and delivering these satellites as well as other products and services.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Three months after Superstorm Sandy ravaged coastal areas in much of the Northeast, Congress on Monday sent a $50.5 billion emergency relief measure for storm victims to President Barack Obama for his signature.
"I commend Congress for giving families and businesses the help they deserve, and I will sign this bill into law as soon as it hits my desk," Obama said in a statement late Monday.
Despite opposition from conservatives concerned about adding billions of dollars more to the nation's debt, the Senate cleared the long-delayed bill, 62-36, after House Republicans had stripped it earlier this month of spending unrelated to disasters. All 36 votes against the bill were from Republican senators.
"This is a huge relief," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., noting the vote came 91 days after Sandy struck.
The House passed the bill two weeks ago. Lawmakers say the money is urgently needed to start rebuilding homes, businesses, public transportation facilities and other infrastructure damaged by the Oct. 29 storm, one of the worst to strike the Northeast.
Sandy roared up the East Coast and is blamed for more than 130 deaths and tens of billions of dollars in property damage, particularly in New York and New Jersey. The measure is aimed primarily at helping residents and businesses as well as state and local governments rebuild.
The biggest chunk of money is $16 billion for Housing and Urban Development Department community development block grants. Of that, about $12.1 billion will be shared among Sandy victims as well as those from other federally declared disasters in 2011-2013. The remaining $3.9 billion is solely for Sandy-related projects.
More than $11 billion will go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief aid fund for providing shelter, restoring power and other storm-interrupted utility services and meeting other immediate needs arising from Sandy and other disasters. Another $10 billion is devoted to repairing New York and New Jersey transit systems and making them more resistant to future storms.
Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., said Republicans weren't seeking "to undermine" help for Sandy victims but instead were trying to make sure that the money was actually being spent on emergency needs.
"We're simply trying to say we need some standards," Coats said.
Earlier in January, Congress approved and Obama signed a $9.7 billion bill to replenish the National Flood Insurance Program, which has received well over 100,000 flood insurance claims related to Sandy. Added to the new, $50.5 billion package, the total is roughly in line with the $60.4 billion that Obama requested in December.
The aid package was greased for passage before the last Congress adjourned and the new one came in on Jan. 3. But Speaker John Boehner refused to bring it to the floor after two-thirds of House Republicans voted against a "fiscal cliff" deficit-reduction deal raising taxes on couples making more than $450,000 a year while deferring some $24 billion in spending cuts to defense and domestic programs.
The ruckus after the Senate had passed an earlier $60.4 billion Sandy relief package by a nearly 2-to-1 margin on Dec. 28 exposed deep political divisions within Republican ranks. "There's only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims, the House majority and their speaker, John Boehner," Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fumed at the time.
Top House Republicans responded by bringing new Sandy aid legislation to the floor under ground rules designed to win over as many Republicans as possible while retaining support from Democrats eager to approve as much in disaster aid as possible.
GOP leaders cut spending in the Senate bill unrelated to disasters. One would have transferred $1 billion for training Iraqi policemen to instead be used to bolster security at U.S. diplomatic missions. The shift in money followed a Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed.
Also deleted were $188 million for an Amtrak expansion project that included new, long-planned tunnels from New Jersey to Penn Station in Manhattan, and another $150 million for fisheries disasters that states such as Alaska and Mississippi could have shared.
After all the cost-cutting, 179 House Republicans still voted against the disaster aid package with only 49 favoring it. GOP leaders had to rely on yes votes from 192 Democrats to pass it.
As with past natural disasters, the Sandy aid bill is not offset with spending cuts, meaning the aid adds to the deficit. The lone exception is an offset provision requiring that $3.4 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects to protect against future storms be covered by an equal amount of unspecified spending cuts in other programs before next October.
The Senate on Monday rejected, 35-62, an attempt by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to amend the final package Monday with a provision to cut federal programs across the board by one-half of 1 percent through 2021 as a way to prevent the disaster aid from swelling the U.S. debt.
As of Monday, FEMA said it spent $3.3 billion in disaster relief money for shelter, restoring power and other immediate needs arising from the storm.
New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia have shared that money.
Looks like the just-released Apple TV software update contains strings referencing Apple TV 3,2, an as-yet unreleased hardware variant of the Apple TV 3,1, or the 3rd generation Apple TV with 1080p support that Apple released last March. The code name, J33I, as opposed to last year's simple J33, also suggest only the most minor of differences.
MacRumors's Erik Silvka suggests the I might stand for "international", and represent a version of the current Apple TV updated for all those new countries that just got iTunes media content. That certainly sounds reasonable.
No word yet on when Apple will launch the update, but it certainly doesn't sound event-worthy all on its own.
The purpose of this first blog in a series is to propose that the present US model of a public school has hardened into a stereotype.? That model seems based on the assumptions that a K-12 school system is somehow unique, unaffected by organization theory, developments in research on human behavior irrelevant, and the only way present K-12 learning can be structured.
Paradoxically, that homogeneity of public K-12 systems contradicts the mantra of local control invoked by most public education defenders.? The specific strategic and operating environments of any organization are not usually subject to manipulation to accommodate an extant organization, though in monopolies that anti-social attempt may be made. ?Normatively, the organization is structured to deal with its environments.
This follows as well from the observation that public education in general, including its collegiate schools, has too frequently isolated itself intellectually from the basic disciplines that actually foot its practice.? Causes may be defensiveness, ignorance, fear, or just the sociology of protected, strongly associative reference group behavior augmented by the teachers? unions?? An answer would help understanding, but reality is that whatever drives present beliefs has cemented in place an over one hundred year-old model for formal organization and for envisioning critical public K-12 learning.
Subsequent posts will propose alternative K-12 models, and their implications for management of the resources powering present public primary and secondary education.
It is not absolute that the present grade, curricular structure, management arrangements, or other systems structure generally employed or present in public K-12 are wrong or automatically demand radical change.? What is assumed is that there has been far too little work executed to test the logic of present K-12 public organization.? Indeed, in the literature search for this post, fewer than 10 percent of the references viewed ? chosen from work in this century because of some reference to alternate K-12 structures ? actually explored that question.? There were five times as many references to the organization or critique of online learning.
The key suggested rule for this journey is central to creativity in any venue:? The need to temporarily suspend disbelief in options to truly scope the issues.? Detailing, critique, challenge, spotting logical holes, all come in due course to assess thinking out of the box.? But not enabling initial openness for options, simply chases any exercise back to what is already in place, creativity?s automatic disruptor.? This was illustrated this weekend by the musings of an otherwise competent, nationally recognized educator, Larry Cuban, in a post to ?The Answer Sheet,? creating a straw man to critique in the current evolution of MOOC (massive online open-source courses), versus reflecting how that innovation might in some form interact with, and nudge K-12 process.? This may be a challenge in our present US knee-jerk society, so sharpen the knives for critique, but keep them sheathed until the options are on the table.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that this journey?s topics are primarily grade span and the titles on the blocks of a school organization chart.? But conventional isn?t the melody for this song.
Organization of any human activity in both the private and public sectors in this century is either a replication of past patterns, or evolution of a past formulation, or by design, or simply occurs in an unplanned trajectory.? The latter is not as uncommon as one might believe.? Many 21st century start-ups just happen, without deliberate specification of a model for creating work, and a preconception of needed change to accommodate growth; they wind up requiring painful realignment with growth, or the lack of resilience of the start-up model drags the firm down.
Public K-12 education, not pejorative but pragmatically, has overall both ignored modern organization theory and demonstrated little awareness that, though their ?numbers? as a system have not experienced dramatic shifts, the environments for their functions and for the product they were created to nurture have dramatically changed.
For perspective, the nation?s children entering K-12 in 2013 will (at least a fraction) exit secondary education in 2025, postsecondary education and the job market by 2030.?
A data point is the sum of outputs from The World Economic Forum, meeting this past week in Davos, Switzerland.? Whether one applauds or scorns our industrial largest and most influential, their beliefs and choices will power most of our economy into the future.? Their views:? ?Climate change?will cause tremendous economic upheaval;?? ?water is the new oil;? ?one of the great concerns should be the employment effects of technology, with so many jobs being rendered obsolete by scientific or technological advances;? new technologies for analyzing the brain will change how we learn.? Pointing up the education challenge was former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown:
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??huge advances in the Internet and technology are enabling young people to connect with each other and this is opening up the world in a way that has never happened before.??Young people are beginning to see that the gap between the opportunities and rights they have been promised and the opportunities and rights that are delivered to them is wholly unacceptable. And the sense that they are being deprived of these opportunities and rights is, I think, going to be the big motivating force over the next few years.?
Our scientific, technology, and even business literature now regularly assert that the knowledge and economic world, as we presently know it, won?t be a smooth extrapolation of the present.? Should it be business as usual for K-12 public education, and how it has been organized and strategized?
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In the absence of public K-12 reinvention, a new word may be needed to describe its relevance by 2025-2030.? The calls for change in K-12 education, as perverse and ignorant as the present reform movement has been in creating the challenge, should not be a mystery.? Based on the trajectories of what today?s K-12 matriculating students will inherit by the time they are job-ready, some genuine reform is way overdue.There is a rich literature on organization theory and caveats for designing organizations.? Still, few students of the genre think in those terms, rather, using the principles and models of organization to try to explain behavior within an existing organization, or internally adjust one?s parameters to improve its outputs, or assess participant satisfaction, or its learning, or explain why one is not performing as anticipated.? But the notion of actually designing a system to do work is neither new nor does it require new tools.What it does require is a very high tolerance for inputs.? Once past the fiction that an organization is effectively described by, for example, the typical organization chart, the building material explodes.? The variables effecting an organization?s specifications are complex and layered, subject to both the internal missions of the firm and its actors, and equivalently effected by all of the exogenous factors that portray an organization?s environment, present and projectable.? The following figure tries to portray at least the chapter titles of the factors influencing an organization?s survival properties in its venue: Most of the factors are self-explanatory though subject to major contents expansion.? The figure is color coded to try to portray the different classes of factors:? The largest frame of society and national strategy; subsidiarity, a term recently employed by California?s Governor Jerry Brown to indicate the functions that can be appropriately dedicated to the Federal or states? governments; learning variables, where DOUPP refers to knowledge ? defining, organizing, updating, prescribing, and protocols for dissemination; factors potentially controllable by a system; and the local environments that face a system.
Isn?t this unnecessarily complicating the issue of K-12 mission delivery?? Unquestionably it explodes the determinants, but when digested and hardened, the factors that impact a local system could be many of the above, but are more likely selectively and variably material to the local system.? The factors sorted can be reduced for a system based on their specific materiality.
How might the actual process of organization design work?? Again, at a conceptual level, one perspective is displayed in the diagram below.? Key assumptions of the mission, and deployment and management of resources come from recognizing the school?s major environments.? More finely tuned ?goal criteria for organization design? were detailed in the last post.? ?Organizational process? considerations were also detailed in the last post.? The triangulation of the three inputs produces something not magic, but likely some alternative forms a system might take to best reflect its environment, using the practical dimensions of what the organization is and does. At the risk of repetition, isn?t this unnecessarily complicated?? Why change what more or less works?? Why chase scarce human resources, with time constraints through this complex process??
Multiple answers.? The process stimulates recognition of variables that impact learning goals and subsequent performance.? It would necessitate that those who manage the massive resources America devotes to public education, actually question their own beliefs and assumptions, a reality check.? It kicks those managing the system out of their comfort zones.? And it is a discovery path for alternative and more creative or productive ways to achieve learning goals consistent with a rapidly changing environment, and to use the scarce resources invested.
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
Readers with a conscientious distaste for theory and conceptualization may not find the above very satisfying, perhaps impractical, perhaps spacey??
In fact, as a long time consultant dealing with corporate strategic planning, teaching it at a high level, and doing it in my own firms managed, the process works.? Per force, the models that one can employ at a grass roots level need to be shaped and polished to work in the real organizational environments.? This post simply introduces the sweep of issues that might impact reformulating K-12 efforts.? The next several posts will seek to bore in on how some of the historically highest impact factors might fit retooling of public K-12 schools? organization.
Further, little reinvention of educational wisdom is necessarily involved, excepting the ramping discovery of better explanations for how learning works, from the neural biological and neural net simulation work underway.? In the course of research for the series, a powerhouse of existing principles for improving K-12 learning could be found.? The unifying attribute of much of that work; it did not originate in our schools of education, or in the material most frequently cited as the bases for present K-12 pedagogy.
Lastly, an example to set up the next post and demonstrate that the kind of probing above has merit.? It is likely that the closest things to widely attempted (but difficult because of uncontrolled variables) experiments to specify K-12 organization change have been the studies of grade span.? They are everywhere, even in the last century, and proliferated in this one until NCLB took hold and dominated priorities.? In the literature review for this post, one finally quit counting those studies typically executed at a system level.?
But the research results have been anything but consistent, though generally favoring a K-8/9-12 stratification over the various middle-school options.? The lack of some definitive answer has been almost universally attributed by study authors to the lack of sophisticated statistical tools that can account for concomitant and intervening variables in creating performance differences from alternate transitions.
Another point of view, the wrong question was emphasized.? The most robust finding from this population of studies has been that student performance is primarily impacted by the transitions introduced by grade span elections. ?Studies show transition effects appear to dissipate within roughly a year, but seemingly never asked, what specifically are the behavioral causes and effects on students from the transition(s), and precisely how do they impact current learning?? For as long as there are grades, without some functional mechanism to mitigate the losses of learning performance traceable to any transition, the child will see not just the grade span effect, but a dozen transitions. ?
One cogent explanation resides in the socialization between student and teacher that must be rebuilt at each transition;?cumulative effects of transitions might also be expected to peak for students where learning is?challenged by socioeconomic and cultural status that impedes socialization adjustments. ?Another explanation is the effect on present capacities for teacher recognition and use of prior learning, a factor that has been repeatedly empirically demonstrated to greatly influence present learning.
Viewed from the above perspectives, there may be organizational fixes for the problem; one that incorporates a longitudinal strategy will be advanced next post.
And oft-used quote, but one that never ceases to challenge how we measure accountability for K-12 by something with greater validity than a state?s school grades based on standardized tests.? By Irish poet, William Butler Yeats:? ?Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.? ?Designing public K-12 for that destination should be the mission. ?Part two will dig deeper to suggest how real world school organization can still be adjusted to improve the learning that will be needed in our futures.
It?s a relentless drumbeat: the TV industry is dead. It?s just like the music industry. 20somethings are avoiding the cord. I want HBO a la carte. YouTube will kill cable. The TV industry is dead.
And yet, if there?s a common thread to all these articles and blog posts, it?s that so many of the people writing them have a limited idea of how the television industry actually works, particularly from a business perspective.
So here?s a little primer on how the US television industry works (there are significant difference in other countries), just to clear the air.
The Players: This is step one ? knowing who is who and what their relationships are. We are going to look at the 7 key players, circa 2013: The Networks, The MVPDs, The Premium Networks, The OTT Networks, Smart TVs, Third Party devices and Social TV.
PLAYER #1: The Networks: The networks (ABC, CBS, MTV, et al) provide content and right now, they are the most powerful force in the industry. How Do They Make Money? Networks have two revenue streams: 1. Ad Sales ? networks sell national advertising on their shows; local advertising is sold by the carriers. 2. Content Deals ? networks license their content to the various cable companies, satellite providers and telcos (collectively known in the industry as MVPDs.? Multichannel Video Programming Distributors) The price is determined by the value of the network (number of viewers, potential revenue from local ad sales) multiplied by the number of subscribers the MVPD has. These deals are renegotiated every few years, which is why you sometimes see battles where say, Verizon is threatening not to show AMC programming because the post-Mad Men/Breaking Bad AMC wants more money than Verizon is prepared to give them. Here?s Where It Gets Tricky: Most of the larger networks own multiple channels. And they sell them to the MVPDs as an airtight package: You want ESPN? Well then you need to take the Badminton Channel and the Dodge Ball Channel and all 30 of ESPN/Disney?s other channels too. Right now, the MVPDs don?t have much wiggle room since they compete with each other and not being able to offer ESPN to potential subscribers would put them at a huge disadvantage. But Wait! There?s More! The networks know that you probably don?t want to watch the Badminton Channel, so they forbid the MVPDs from letting you do things like making your ?Favorite Channels? list the default view, lest you leave the Badminton Channel off of that list. Networks also pay to have a good spot in the channel line-up and so they?re not about to give that up and let you, the viewer, start creating your own order? at least not as the default view. What You Need To Know ? Comcast, Verizon, Time-Warner et al are not forcing you to take thousand-channel bundled packages. The networks are more or less forcing them to offer it. The MVPDs would love to be able to sell unbundled packages since they?d make more money by signing up more subscribers while simultaneously cutting their own content acquisition costs. When Will This Change? So here?s the current thinking: at some point, someone will launch a virtual MVPD (e.g. internet-based) with a beautiful interface and all the bells and whistles of advanced TV systems (any device, any place, any time.) This will be a premium priced system and will be very popular. Popular enough, that it will be in the best interest of an ESPN to allow this new MVPD to break up their bundle. And then the wall will crumble. This is what Apple has been trying to do (the mythical Apple TV) and they are not alone. So far, no one?s gotten any traction? there?s no compelling business reason for any of the networks to play ball with them, but at some point this will change. ?A Beautiful Interface?? The interface is the main pain point in today?s TV viewing experience. That giant, unwieldy grid was designed for about 7 channels and is now being forced to accommodate 700. A new interface would need to be free from the stranglehold of bundled content, which is why you haven?t seen one yet. But look at XBox or Roku for an idea of what?s possible.
PLAYER #2: The MVPDs Comcast, Verizon, DirectTV and the rest. The United States is the only country where MVPDs ? Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (e.g. the cable, satellite and telcos who bring you your pay TV) are regional rather than national. How Do They Make Money? MVPDs have two revenue streams: Local Ad Sales on the programming they run Subscription fees So here?s the thing to remember here: the vast majority of MVPDs don?t just sell pay TV packages. They sell broadband and landline services too. The old ?Triple Play.? It?s an incredibly lucrative system for them and an incredibly bulletproof one too. How Many Cords Can You Cut? It?s bulletproof because what pundits forget when they talk about ?cord cutting? is that the cord that brings you television is generally attached to the cord that brings you internet. And if you?re cutting the one, you?re still going to need the other. (To put this in perspective, over 90% of FIOS and Uverse subscribers get TV and broadband from the same provider.) So here?s where the genius of this set-up kicks in: the MVPDs will give you two options ? get the pay TV service and get unlimited bandwidth (free unlimited bandwidth, in the case of Google Fiber), or, get broadband only, but face bandwidth caps. If you?re a heavy TV watcher who plans to get content off web-based services like Netflix and iTunes, you probably won?t wind up saving any money. MVPDs Are Not Blind They see where the market is going, understand the effect of Netflix and iTunes. And so they are busy cutting deals to include them in their offering. It?s already happening in Kansas City, where Google Fiber TV has Netflix baked into the program guide with more OTT (broadband) channels to come. Other MVPDs are not far behind. What Happened To TV Everywhere? The lawyers squashed it. Not the MVPDs lawyers ? they?re the ones trying to get it off the ground. Rather, it?s been the lawyers for the networks and other content providers. They don?t want users watching shows outside the house unless they can get retrans fees from the MVPDs (retransmission fees? they are claiming that a Comcast subscriber watching a live show on her iPad on the train is watching a different transmission than the one her husband is watching at home and the MVPD should reimburse them accordingly, because there?s no way to count the iPad views for ratings (and eventually advertising purposes.) But Dish Is Bringing It Back To Life: At CES 2013, Dish unveiled a new set top box called the Sling Hopper that essentially blew TV Everywhere out of the water. The Slinghopper, which is a mash-up of the Slingbox and the Hopper, gives viewers the ability to watch shows off their home set top box anywhere there?s an internet connection.That is likely to open up the door for the other MVPDs to roll out their own TV Everywhere systems, lest they lose customers to Dish. What You Need To Know - Convenience usually trumps price and the MVPDs will soon be offering all the services viewers were cutting the cord for. Add in disincentives like bandwidth caps, and cutting the cord starts to seem like a bad idea.
PLAYER #3: THE PREMIUM NETWORKS HBO, Showtime, Red Zone and other sports networks. How Do They Make Money? Subscriptions. The subscriptions are sold via the MVPDs who collect the money for them and keep a percentage for themselves as a profit. HBO GO The success of HBO GO took the network by surprise: they did not expect it to become such a runaway hit and are still figuring out what to do with it. What they do know is that it?s a great bargaining chip with the MVPDs: give us a bigger share of the subscription fee or we?ll start selling directly to consumers. We?ve already got it up and running in Scandinavia. Why That?s Not Going To Happen Anytime Soon: Ever had to collect money for a co-worker?s birthday party? Remember how painful that was? Multiply that by 29 million and you?ll get a sense of what HBO is going to be up against if they try selling HBO GO on their own. 29 million bills each month. Call centers. Online help. Chasing down the deadbeats. Meanwhile, under the current system, the MVPDs collect the money for them and provide a steady income stream every month. They run specials like ?three free months of HBO when you join? that bring even more subscribers on board. They even handle authentication on HBO Go. So why would HBO ever want to give that up? Especially since the MVPDs would drop them like a proverbial hot potato if they ever tried? Bottom line is that HBO is not ?leaving money on the table? by not giving you an a la carte subscription. They?re just making sure the money stays on the table. So No A La Carte, Ever? Not directly through HBO. But probably through your MVPD, who?d love to sell a combo basic cable/HBO subscription to all those recent college grads. It?ll happen at around the same time the bundles get unbundled.
PLAYER #4: THE OTT SERVICES Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Vudu, iTunes and all the other streaming services. (OTT = Over The Top, a reference to how web-based video is delivered, e.g. without a set top box. Like MVPD, this is another industry term that?s good to know.) How Do They Make Money? Subscriptions (Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime) Sales and Rentals (Amazon, Vudu, iTunes) Subscription services have the edge here. They may not have the selection their counterparts have, especially in terms of new movies, but they have ease of use. Rentals are tough: rights issues limit the rental period to 48 hours and forbid renewals making it a tough sell. So is having to pay $3 or $4 every time you want to see a movie: with a monthly subscription, the viewer is less aware of the financial transaction. Where Are They Headed: Industry expectation is that the various OTT services will all cut deals with the MVPDs, where they?ll either be just another premium channel (Netflix) or a Pay Per View option. It?s just easier all around, particularly for consumers, who won?t need to add an extra device to watch OTT networks on their main TV. It?s also better for OTT networks as it expands their base of potential viewers.
PLAYER #5: SMART TVs Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and other manufacturers How Do They Make Money? Direct sales to consumers. The additional ?smart? features were used to justify higher prices than ?dumb? HDTVs, though eventually everything goes on sale Most Consumers Don?t Hook Them Up While the advantage of a smart TV is the ability to use an app-like button built into the set?s interface as an easy way to connect to Netflix or Facebook, several studies in the US and UK show that most consumers don?t bother hooking up the Smart TVs to the internet. Difficulty of set-up is the most likely reason for that, though lack of interoperability between different brands, and lack of demand for non-TV-centric apps (e.g. Facebook) also figure prominently Future Prospects Not very bright for the app-based Smart TVs, but the notion of a ?connected TV? ? a TV that connects to the internet via a second screen device is where the industry is headed. Connected TVs will enable cloud-based systems capable of serving up millions of hours worth of programming. (That?s a lot of reruns.)
PLAYER #6: 3RD PARTY OTT DEVICES Roku, Apple TV, Boxee, Google TV How Do They Make Money? Direct sales to consumers. Though Roku is moving into Pay-Per-View specials (think 1980s HBO) and they?re all looking for licensing deals with TV manufacturers and MVPDs (similar to the ones Cablevision and TimeWarner inked with Roku this month) particularly in developing countries, where TV is likely to skip the cable-to-the-house phase. Long Term Prognosis: Roku recently introduced a device the size of a thumb drive that plugs into the TV?s USB drive and draws power from the TV set. All the more reason to believe that all these third party devices and their operating systems will get snatched up by MVPDs and/or TV manufacturers who will incorporate the technology and interfaces into an all-in-one device.
PLAYER #7: SOCIAL TV Zeebox, Viggle, NextGuide, Fanhattan, Twitter, Facebook, et al. ?Second Screen apps? is the industry term for what?s also known as Social TV How Do They Make Money? They don?t. Not yet anyway. They don?t even make the networks and MVPDs any kind of demonstrable money beyond a possible viewership boost on a handful of shows and specials. (True Blood, The Grammys, Pretty Little Liars) Changing The Channel Is The Killer App Time shifting (watching a show via catch-up, DVR or On-Demand) makes chat less relevant and discovery more relevant. The problem with discovery-based apps is that you still need to find the remote in order to change the channel. That?s not a very good user experience and it?s why we?re starting to see apps adding that functionality (Zeebox and Sky in the UK.) 2nd Screen Apps Will Likely Come From The MVPDs The most likely evolution of the second screen app is as a combination remote control-program guide with an overlay of social functionality that lives on a 7 or 8 inch tablet (iPad Mini or Nexus) and is provided by the MVPD. (Full Disclosure: KIT makes such a product, the white-label SPG.) The apps will be able to accommodate a range of second screen content, programming and discovery features,as well as an ?ad locker? ? a screen where users can do deeper dives into ads they?ve seen on TV at their own convenience. Google Fiber is giving voice-enabled Nexus tablets to users of its Google Fiber TV to use as remote controls and the rest of the industry is expected to follow suit over the next year or two. As current thinking has tablet-based apps replacing set top boxes (tablets are cheaper to provide and apps are easier to update) this is going to happen pretty quickly. Making Money Off The Second Screen: The second screen is likely to become a major revenue source for the MVPDs. With more content than ever before, discovery will become critical. Unable to rely on on-air promotions to drive interest in new shows, networks will pay to have their properties featured in second screen recommendation engines. That opens the door to brand tie-ins and related ad vehicles. Look for the second screen ad market to eventually rival the first screen one.
SUMMARY Change Happens Gradually And Then All At Once. The TV industry is in the same place the cell phone industry was just before the introduction of the iPhone: all the pieces are there, it?s just no one?s bothered to put them together. There?s no pressure on anyone to innovate because no one?s disrupting the market and so there?s no business reason to be an innovator: it?s risky and most companies are risk-averse. Eventually, someone will toss that bomb into the crowd and blow things up, the way the iPhone blew up the cell phone market. It may be Google or Apple or Intel or someone you?ve never heard of. Whoever it is, it has to be someone who feels their current market position is tenuous enough to make a risky move worth it. And what?s important to remember is that right now there?s no one in the TV industry who fits that description: profits are up, not down. But it will happen, and once it happens, change will come quickly. And everything you?ve just read will be completely and hopelessly out-of-date.
Wassily Kandinsky's "Study for Improvisation 8" - $23 million
ARTIST: Russian abstract painter, Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) ARTWORK: Oil painting of religious pilgrims in Kiev painted in 1909. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/wassily-kandinsky-studie-fur-improvisation-8-5615597-details.aspx">Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art Sale</a> (November 2012) PRICE: $23,042,500 For more on the Kandinsky painting, check out our <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/oil-painting-by-russian-a_n_1840215.html">original article here</a>.
Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Untitled" - $26.4 million
ARTIST: New York-bred graffiti-turned-gallery painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988). ARTWORK: A large, colorful acrylic and oil stick on canvas work depicting a skeletal fisherman yielding his loot, created in 1981. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5621952">Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Sale</a> (November 2012) PRICE: $26,402,500 for more on Basquiat's painting, check out our <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/19/jean-michel-basquiat-pois_n_1896428.html">original article here</a>.
Francis Bacon's "Untitled (Pope)" - $29.8 million
ARTIST: British figurative painter, Francis Bacon (1909-1992). ARTWORK: One of Bacon's "Pope" paintings, which depict the Bishop of Rome sitting atop his papal throne with his mouth agape, seemingly writhing in a fit of terror. Created circa 1954. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/contemporary-art-evening-auction-n08900/lot.26.html">Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale</a> (November 2012) PRICE: $29,762,500 For more on Bacon's "Pope" check out our <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/28/francis-bacons-acclaimed-_n_1923279.html">original article here</a>.
Henry Moore's "Reclining Figure: Festival" - $30.1 million
ARTIST: British sculptor, Henry Moore (1898-1986). ARTWORK: A 6-foot-long bronze sculpture depicting a laid-back female figure resting on one elbow, created in 1951. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.christies.com/in-the-saleroom-henry-moore-reclining-figure-festi-2114-3.aspx">Christie's Impressionist / Modern Art Evening Sale</a> (February 2012) PRICE: ?19,081,250 (approximately $30.1 million) IMAGE: A gallery assistant at Christie's auction house admires a sculpture by Henry Moore entitled 'Reclining Figure: Festival' on February 2, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
Jeff Koons' "Tulips" - $33.7 million
ARTIST: American neo-pop artist and "Balloon Dog" extraordinaire, Jeff Koons (1955-present). ARTWORK: A large-scale, mirror-polished stainless steel sculpture with transparent color coating created between 1995 and 2004. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/sculptures-statues-figures/jeff-koons-tulips-5621948-details.aspx?intObjectID=5621948">Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Sale</a> (November 2012) PRICE: $33,682,500
Gerhard Richter's "Abstraktes Bild" - $34.2 million
ARTIST: Abstract and photorealist painter Gerhard Richter (1932-present). ARTWORK: A squeegee painting created in 1994 and owned by famous British musician, Eric Clapton. It was bought by Clapton for ?2million ($3.2 million) in 2001 and sold for 10 times the price tag 11 years later. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/contemporary-art-evening-auction-l12024/lot.15.lotnum.html">Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale</a> (October 2012) PRICE: ?21,321,250 (approximately $34.2 million) For more on Eric Clapton's big sale, check out our <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/eric-clapton-sells-gerhar_n_1966518.html">original article here</a>. IMAGE: A Sotheby's employee stands in front of Gerhard Richter's 'Abstraktes Bild (809-)' painting on October 8, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
John Constable's "The Lock" - $35.2 million
ARTIST: British Romantic artist, John Constable (1776-1837). ARTWORK: The fifth in a celebrated series of six large-scale paintings of the Stour Valley in Suffolk. AUCTION: Old Master and British Paintings Evening Sale PRICE: $35,210,321 IMAGE: Employees pose with a painting by British Romantic artist John Constable entitled "The Lock" at Christie's auction house in central London on June 12, 2012. (CARL COURT/AFP/GettyImages)
Jackson Pollock's "Number 4, 1951" - $36 million
ARTIST: Abstract expressionist painter, Jackson Pollock (1912-1956). ARTWORK: A rare drip painting on canvas created in 1951. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2012/contemporary-art-evening-auction-n08900/overview.html">Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale </a>(November 2012) PRICE: $40,402,500 Image: Sotheby's employees hold Jackson Pollock's 'Number 4, 1951' on October 8, 2012 in London, England. Estimated at $25-35 million the work forms part of Sotheby's Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Art sale on November 5, 2012 in New York. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
Yves Klein's "The Pink of Blue" - $36.8 million
ARTIST: French post-war artist, Yves Klein, who is well-known for his devotion to the color blue (1928-1962). ARTWORK: Natural sponges and pebbles soaked in pigment and scattered on a board. Named "The Pink of Blue", the sponge-relief is similar to Klein's other works created in International Klein Blue. It was finished in 1960. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/yves-klein-le-rose-du-bleu-5584448-details.aspx">Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale </a>(June 2012) PRICE: $36,779,111
Joan Miro's "Peinture (Etolie Bleue), 1927" - $36.9 million
ARTIST: Spanish Cattelan artist, Joan Miro (1893-1993). ARTWORK: Oil on cavas work depicting Miro's typical Surrealist imagery created in 1927. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/catalogues/ecatalogue.html/2012/impressionist-modern-art-evening-sale-l12006#/r=/en/ecat.fhtml.L12006.html+r.m=/en/ecat.lot.L12006.html/10/">Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale</a> (June 2012) PRICE: $36,946,396 IMAGE: Gallery assistants pose with Spanish Catalan artist Joan Miro's 'Peinture (Etolie Bleue), 1927' at Sotheby's acution house in central London on June 14, 2012. (LEON NEAL/AFP/GettyImages)
Andy Warhol's "Double Elvis" - $37 million
ARTIST: Pop art king, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) ARTWORK: A silver silkscreen image of Elvis Presley depicted as a cowboy. The work, created in 1963, is named for the duplicate screening of Elvis that appears to the left of the central figure. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/catalogues/ecatalogue.html/2012/contemporary-art-evening-n08853#/r=/en/ecat.fhtml.N08853.html+r.m=/en/ecat.lot.N08853.html/27/">Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale</a> (May 2012) PRICE: $37,042,500 For more on Warhol's "Double Elvis," check out the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/10/warhol-elvis-fetches-37m-_n_1506141.html">original AP story here</a>. IMAGE: This undated file image provided by Sotheby's Auction House shows Andy Warhol's portrait of Elvis Presley depicted as a cowboy. The painting, with a silver background, ?Double Elvis [Ferus Type]? sold at auction by Sotheby?s in New York for $37 million on May 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Sotheby's Auction House, File)
Franz Kline's "Untitled" - $40.4 million
ARTIST: Abstract expressionist and contemporary of Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline (1910-1962). ARTWORK: The untitled piece belongs to the series of black and white abstractions for which Kline is known, combining aggressive brushstrokes with simple forms reminiscent of Japanese calligraphy. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/franz-kline-untitled-5621927-details.aspx">Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale</a> (November 2012) PRICE: $40,402,500 For more on Kline's calligraphic work, check out our <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/26/franz-klines-untitled-abs_n_2023830.html">original article here</a>.
Andy Warhol's "Statue of Liberty" - $43.7 million
ARTIST: Andy Warhol, again. ARTWORK: This time it's a screen print of the State of Liberty, created in 1962. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/andy-warhol-statue-of-liberty-5621945-details.aspx?intObjectID=5621945">Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Sale</a> (November 2012) PRICE: $43,762,500
Claude Monet's "Water Lillies" - $43.8 million
ARTIST: French Impressionist painter, Claude Monet (1840-1926). ARTWORK: A work from Monet's "Water Lilies" series, depicting a pond in Giverny, France. Created in 1905. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/claude-monet-nympheas-5615591-details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=5615591&sid=4fab7ff1-5ea5-4100-830c-27f4c613b81a">Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale</a> (November 2012) PRICE: $43,762,500 To read more about Monet's "Water Lilies", check out the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/09/work-from-monets-water-li_n_2101182.html#slide=1741505">original AP article here</a>.
Francis Bacon's "Figure Reflected in a Mirror" - $44.9 million
ARTIST: Francis Bacon, again. ARTWORK: Oil on canvas work created in 1976. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/catalogues/ecatalogue.html/2012/contemporary-art-evening-n08853#/r=/en/ecat.fhtml.N08853.html+r.m=/en/ecat.lot.N08853.html/19/">Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale</a> (May 2012) PRICE: $44,882,500
Roy Lichtenstein "Sleeping Girl" - $44.9 million
ARTIST: Famous American pop artist and major Ben-Day dot fan, (1923-1997) ARTWORK: Part of a series of sexy comic book-inspired images Lichtenstein created in 1964. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/contemporary-art-evening-n08853/lot.16.lotnum.html">Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale</a> (May 2012) PRICE: $44,882,500 IMAGE: This undated file photo provided by Sotheby's Auction House in New York shows "Sleeping Girl" by artist Roy Lichtenstein. The painting sold for $44.8 million by Sotheby's on Wednesday May 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Sotheby's, File)
Raphael's "Head of a Young Apostle" - $47.8 million
ARTIST: Renaissance painter, Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (1483-1520). ARTWORK: A drawing titled "Head of a Young Apostle" that depicts one of the primary figures from Raphael's "Transfigurations." Created circa 1519-1520. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/old-master-british-paintings-evening-l12036/lot.52.lotnum.html">Sotheby's Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale</a> (December 2012) PRICE: Approximately $47,690,717
Mark Rothko's "No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue)" - $75.1 million
ARTIST: Russian-American abstract painter, and lover of all things color-blocked, Mark Rothko. ARTWORK: A multi-form oil painting reminiscent of most of Rothko's later work. Created in 1954. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/contemporary-art-evening-auction-n08900/lot.19.lotnum.html">Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale</a> (November 2012) PRICE: $75,122,500
Mark Rothko's "Orange, Red, Yellow" - $87 million
ARTIST: Marky Mark, again. ARTWORK: Another multi-form, of course. This one was created in 1961. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/mark-rothko-orange-red-yellow-5559196-details.aspx">Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale</a> (May 2012) PRICE: $86,882,500 IMAGE: In this undated file photo provided by Christie's Auction House, "Orange, Red, Yellow," a 1956 painting by Mark Rothko is shown. The painting was sold by Christie's in New York for $388.5 million on Tuesday, May 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Sotheby's Auction Housse, File)
The Scream - $119.9 million
ARTIST: Edvard Munch, the Norwegian painter and printmaker known for his treatment of dark, psychological motifs (1863-1944). ARTWORK: This version of the iconic piece, "The Scream," is not a painting but is pastel on board. It was created in 1895. AUCTION: <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/sales-series/2012/impressionist-modern-art-evening-sale/overview.html">Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale</a> (May 2012) PRICE: $119,922,500, making this version of "The Scream" <em>the</em> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/the-scream-mystery-buyer_n_1668170.html"><em>most expensive</em> piece of art ever sold at auction</a>. IMAGE: In this undated photo provided by Sotheby?s Auction House in New York, ?The Scream,? by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch is shown. The 1895 pastel on board, arguably one of the art world's most recognizable images, will go on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York beginning Oct. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Sotheby?s Auction House)
With all the BlackBerry 10 leaks as of late, it seems inevitable that pricing info would get ousted in the lead up to January 30th. Thanks to an anonymous tipster, it appears that the SIM-free version of RIM's Z10 will cost UKers a cool £480 at Carphone Warehouse (for perspective, a 16GB iPhone 5 would run you just roughly £30 more). The leak comes from what's said to be a snapshot of the company's internal database, listing the white variant. The attached BLAZ10WHI model number also syncs up nicely with the previous slip from the retailer. At this rate, not much is going to be left to the imagination when RIM officially unveils its devices come Wednesday -- who likes surprises anyway, right?
Update: We've updated the post to reflect that the phone was touted to us as "SIM-free," specifically.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Automatic spending cuts postponed at the start of the year will go into effect as scheduled in March but "no one" is talking about allowing a U.S. government shutdown, the Republican House of Representatives Budget Committee chairman said on Sunday.
The automatic spending cuts had been delayed by two months as part of the deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and deep spending reductions - known as sequestration - that had loomed at the beginning of this month.
"I think the sequester is going to happen," Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House budget panel and the party's 2012 vice presidential nominee, told the NBC program "Meet The Press."
House Republicans, most of whom had strongly opposed any tax rate increases in the "fiscal cliff" debate, have now started to shift their focus away the issue of tax increases and toward the spending cuts.
"We think these sequesters will happen because the Democrats have opposed our efforts to replace those cuts with others and they've offered no alternative," Ryan said.
In the debate over how to get America's fiscal house in order, Democrats have argued for a combination of tax increases and public spending cuts. Republicans have favored spending cuts without higher taxes.
Some Republicans have called for delaying the planned spending cuts in defense while increasing cuts in other areas of the federal government. The Pentagon said on Friday it had begun laying off most of its 46,000 temporary and term employees and cutting maintenance on ships and aircraft in an effort to slow spending before nearly $50 billion in new cuts are due to go into effect on March 1.
Following a showdown over raising the U.S. debt ceiling in 2011, President Barack Obama and Congress agreed that $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts in domestic and military spending over 10 years would begin at the start of this year unless lawmakers took action to rein in spending. That was postponed until the beginning of March in the "fiscal cliff" deal.
Ryan said the automatic cuts would take place as scheduled because Democrats have not offered alternatives to Republican proposals for spending cuts.
STOP-GAP SPENDING
March 27 is the expiration date for a stop-gap government funding measure. If Congress does not authorize a new spending bill by that date, government agencies and programs would have to start shutting down. In such a scenario, military activities could be curtailed and federal employees put on unpaid leave.
While Republicans in the past have threatened similar shutdowns to press for spending cuts, the tactic could backfire. Republican-led government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 met with strong public disapproval.
Ryan played down a potential fight with Democrats over the stop-gap spending measure.
"No one is talking about shutting the government down," Ryan said.
The House last Wednesday passed a Republican plan to allow the government to keep borrowing money through mid-May, clearing it for quick enactment after the top Senate Democrat and White House endorsed it.
The measure includes a measure requiring the House and Senate to pass a formal budget resolution by April 15. Under the provision, if either chamber fails to meet this deadline, lawmakers' pay would be suspended until they pass a budget.
The Democratic-controlled Senate is expected to pass it unchanged before sending it to the president.
Ryan also signaled little appetite for a renewed debate with Democrats on further tax increases after the "fiscal cliff" deal that included higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.
"We already offered that back in the 'fiscal cliff' negotiations," he said. "The president got his additional revenues. So that's behind us."
He said if Democrats keep raising taxes, it would weaken the likelihood Congress could accomplish "decent tax reform."
(Reporting by Margaret Chadbourn; Editing by Will Dunham)
DALLAS (AP) ? Tony Parker writhed in pain alone under the basket, his hand covering the same left eye that was seriously injured last summer when the San Antonio guard was a bystander in a bottle-throwing melee at a nightclub.
He stayed down the entire 20 seconds of a Dallas possession on the other end because no foul was called, and he had to be pulled away from the referees as he was led to the bench.
It turned out to be a cut above the eye that required three stitches, and Parker came back after missing a quarter to lead seven Spurs in double figures with 23 points in a 113-107 victory against the Mavericks on Friday night, San Antonio's seventh straight win.
"I was a little bit mad, obviously, but I just told the doc to hurry up and get the stitches in and get back on the court," Parker said.
The Spurs star said he didn't flash back to the June incident at a New York club, when tiny shards of glass embedded in his cornea and doctors told him he was millimeters away from losing the eye.
"Because it wasn't my eye," he said.
San Antonio didn't need Tim Duncan, who stayed home with a sore right knee, because DeJuan Blair had a season-high 22 points, including 17 on 8-of-9 shooting in the first half. Tiago Splitter, normally paired with Duncan in the starting lineup, had 13 points and 12 rebounds.
"I think this group has shown that ability to if somebody is down then somebody else is going to step up," said Spurs assistant Mike Budenholzer, filling in ? and winning ? a second time for the ill Gregg Popovich. "They all have a lot of confidence, and they know we have confidence in them."
The Mavericks, who trailed by double digits for large portions of the game after two blowout losses to San Antonio, made it interesting only after Parker left with 1:02 remaining. Dallas cut a 15-point deficit to four with mostly reserves on the floor in the final minute, but Nando De Colo hit two free throws with 2.2 seconds left to end the threat.
Rodrigue Beaubois led the Mavericks with a season-high 19 points.
Parker's head collided with Elton Brand's arm on a drive early in the first quarter, and he angrily complained about drawing blood without getting the call.
The Spurs, who also played most of the game with Manu Ginobili on the bench, went up by 11 early without Parker. Blair, Boris Diaw and Gary Neal had eight points apiece, and Neal had a four-point play when he hit a 3-pointer from the wing as he was getting bumped by Darren Collison.
"When the big dogs go out, you've got to step up," Blair said. "You can't put your head down and worry about what could have happened."
Blair repeatedly got uncontested shots at the rim off pick-and-rolls and hit a couple of nifty running bank shots, including one when Neal jumped and couldn't find anywhere to throw the ball before sliding a bounce pass to Blair just before coming back down.
"It's hard to overcome layup after layup, and that's what happened," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said.
When he returned early in the second quarter, Parker hit three straight shots and finished the half with 10 points. For the game, he added 10 assists and four rebounds.
The Spurs took control with a 21-6 run in the third quarter, capped by a Dallas turnover when a pass from Collison went through O.J. Mayo's legs and led to a fast break that ended with Diaw throwing a behind-the-back bounce pass to Splitter for a layup and a 74-49 San Antonio lead.
"They execute so well on offense and they make you pay and they do a good job of exploiting however your defense plays," said Vince Carter, who had 17 points for Dallas. "We just didn't adjust well enough tonight."
Dirk Nowitzki, who debuted a month ago in a 38-point loss at San Antonio after a 27-game absence following right knee surgery, had 15 points on 6-of-14 shooting. Mayo, the team's biggest 3-point threat, finished with 14 but missed all four from long range.
The Mavericks got within 10 with 4 minutes left during a strange sequence that resulted in a technical foul against Carlisle even though officials reversed the call that caused him to complain.
Vince Carter tipped in a miss, but Courtney Kirkland called goaltending. Carlisle argued and was given the technical by Eli Roe. The Spurs still got the free throw even after Carter was awarded the basket when Kirkland consulted with the crew. The Dallas deficit was briefly 10 before Neal hit the free throw and Parker drove for the back-to-back layups and a 105-90 lead.
NOTES: Budenholzer said there weren't any health problems with Ginobili, who didn't play in the second half and was scoreless on 0-of-2 shooting in just 8 minutes. "We just decided to keep him out and keep him healthy," Budenholzer said. ... Brand played in his 899th game and made his 14th start for Dallas. His last start was Dec. 6 at Phoenix.
New tool for mining bacterial genome for novel drugsPublic release date: 25-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Salisbury david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu 615-343-6803 Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt biochemists have discovered that the process bacteria undergo when they become drug resistant can act as a powerful tool for drug discovery.
Their findings reported this week in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences should give a major boost to natural products drug discovery the process of finding new drugs from compounds isolated from living organisms by substantially increasing the number of novel compounds that scientists can extract from individual microorganisms.
Bacteria have traditionally been the source of important drugs such as antibiotics and anticancer agents. Researchers looking for new bacterially synthesized drugs have long known that bacterial genomes contain a large number of "silent genes" that contain the instructions for making drug-like compounds. But, until now, scientists have found it is very difficult to find ways to turn on the production of these compounds, known as secondary metabolites.
While investigating how bacteria develop drug resistance, Vanderbilt biochemists Brian Bachmann and John McLean discovered that strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria express hundreds of compounds not produced by their progenitors, many of which are potential secondary metabolites.
"It's as if the bacteria respond to the assault by the antibiotic with a 'save-all-ships' strategy of turning on hundreds of silent genes," said Bachmann, associate professor chemistry at Vanderbilt.
"This technique is something like fracking in the natural gas industry. We've known for a long time that there were large amounts of underground natural gas that we couldn't extract using conventional methods but now we can, using hydraulic fracturing technology. In a similar fashion we think we can use bacteria's antibiotic resistance to intensively mine the bacterial genome for new drug leads," he said.
The original purpose of the study was to take the most detailed look yet at what happens when microbes develop drug resistance. Bachmann is an expert in natural products drug discovery and McLean, an assistant professor of chemistry, is a pioneer in the development of analytical instrumentation and chemical techniques that can identify thousands of different biological compounds simultaneously, such as ion mobility-mass spectrometry.
"One of the daunting challenges is to rapidly inventory the tens to hundreds of thousands of molecules the bacteria construct to live, and then to read this inventory to understand how the bacteria compensate for their changing circumstances. To complicate matters further, we are looking for new drug-like molecules, so by definition we are looking for something that has not been seen before," said McLean.
Working with Research Assistant Dagmara Derewacz and graduate students Cody Goodwin and Ruth McNees, Bachmann and McLean started with the well-characterized soil bacterium Nocardiopsis. They exposed the bacterium to two different antibiotics streptomycin and rifampicin and observed the results.
"The first thing that happens is almost all of the bacteria die. Less than one cell in a million survives," said Bachmann.
The chemists then cultured the survivors (six streptomycin-resistant strains and five rifampicin-resistant strains) without the antibiotic and used McLean's instrumental methods to profile the drug-like compounds that they produced.
They discovered that the differences were much greater than they expected. The survivors had undergone extensive mutations, not only in the genes that produce secondary metabolites but also in the housekeeping genes that alter the way they make RNA and proteins. As a result, they determined that the resistant strains produced more than 300 compounds that were not expressed by the original organism.
"The cells appear to be 'de-repressing' as many of their silent genes as possible. This seems like a very drastic way to become drug resistant," Bachmann said.
McLean's team has developed strategies that allow them to automatically identify and compare the relative uniqueness and the relative abundance of tens of thousands of molecules from which the hundreds of novel compounds were found.
"What we are looking for are new species of molecules in the mutants that are the most unique and the most abundant," said Bachmann.
In the antibiotic-resistant Nocardiopsis strains the researchers found a total of five compounds that were both unique enough and abundant enough to isolate, determine their molecular structures and test for biological activity.
"Normally, we only find one compound per organism, so this is a significant improvement in yield, allowing us to get many new compounds from previously mined microorganisms," Bachmann said.
###
The research was supported by National Institutes of Health grants 1R01GM09221B and RC2DA028981 and theDefense Threat Reduction Agency grant HDTRA-09-1-0013.
Visit Research News @ Vanderbilt for more research news from Vanderbilt. [Media Note: Vanderbilt has a 24/7 TV and radio studio with a dedicated fiber optic line and ISDN line. Use of the TV studio with Vanderbilt experts is free, except for reserving fiber time.]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New tool for mining bacterial genome for novel drugsPublic release date: 25-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Salisbury david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu 615-343-6803 Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt biochemists have discovered that the process bacteria undergo when they become drug resistant can act as a powerful tool for drug discovery.
Their findings reported this week in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences should give a major boost to natural products drug discovery the process of finding new drugs from compounds isolated from living organisms by substantially increasing the number of novel compounds that scientists can extract from individual microorganisms.
Bacteria have traditionally been the source of important drugs such as antibiotics and anticancer agents. Researchers looking for new bacterially synthesized drugs have long known that bacterial genomes contain a large number of "silent genes" that contain the instructions for making drug-like compounds. But, until now, scientists have found it is very difficult to find ways to turn on the production of these compounds, known as secondary metabolites.
While investigating how bacteria develop drug resistance, Vanderbilt biochemists Brian Bachmann and John McLean discovered that strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria express hundreds of compounds not produced by their progenitors, many of which are potential secondary metabolites.
"It's as if the bacteria respond to the assault by the antibiotic with a 'save-all-ships' strategy of turning on hundreds of silent genes," said Bachmann, associate professor chemistry at Vanderbilt.
"This technique is something like fracking in the natural gas industry. We've known for a long time that there were large amounts of underground natural gas that we couldn't extract using conventional methods but now we can, using hydraulic fracturing technology. In a similar fashion we think we can use bacteria's antibiotic resistance to intensively mine the bacterial genome for new drug leads," he said.
The original purpose of the study was to take the most detailed look yet at what happens when microbes develop drug resistance. Bachmann is an expert in natural products drug discovery and McLean, an assistant professor of chemistry, is a pioneer in the development of analytical instrumentation and chemical techniques that can identify thousands of different biological compounds simultaneously, such as ion mobility-mass spectrometry.
"One of the daunting challenges is to rapidly inventory the tens to hundreds of thousands of molecules the bacteria construct to live, and then to read this inventory to understand how the bacteria compensate for their changing circumstances. To complicate matters further, we are looking for new drug-like molecules, so by definition we are looking for something that has not been seen before," said McLean.
Working with Research Assistant Dagmara Derewacz and graduate students Cody Goodwin and Ruth McNees, Bachmann and McLean started with the well-characterized soil bacterium Nocardiopsis. They exposed the bacterium to two different antibiotics streptomycin and rifampicin and observed the results.
"The first thing that happens is almost all of the bacteria die. Less than one cell in a million survives," said Bachmann.
The chemists then cultured the survivors (six streptomycin-resistant strains and five rifampicin-resistant strains) without the antibiotic and used McLean's instrumental methods to profile the drug-like compounds that they produced.
They discovered that the differences were much greater than they expected. The survivors had undergone extensive mutations, not only in the genes that produce secondary metabolites but also in the housekeeping genes that alter the way they make RNA and proteins. As a result, they determined that the resistant strains produced more than 300 compounds that were not expressed by the original organism.
"The cells appear to be 'de-repressing' as many of their silent genes as possible. This seems like a very drastic way to become drug resistant," Bachmann said.
McLean's team has developed strategies that allow them to automatically identify and compare the relative uniqueness and the relative abundance of tens of thousands of molecules from which the hundreds of novel compounds were found.
"What we are looking for are new species of molecules in the mutants that are the most unique and the most abundant," said Bachmann.
In the antibiotic-resistant Nocardiopsis strains the researchers found a total of five compounds that were both unique enough and abundant enough to isolate, determine their molecular structures and test for biological activity.
"Normally, we only find one compound per organism, so this is a significant improvement in yield, allowing us to get many new compounds from previously mined microorganisms," Bachmann said.
###
The research was supported by National Institutes of Health grants 1R01GM09221B and RC2DA028981 and theDefense Threat Reduction Agency grant HDTRA-09-1-0013.
Visit Research News @ Vanderbilt for more research news from Vanderbilt. [Media Note: Vanderbilt has a 24/7 TV and radio studio with a dedicated fiber optic line and ISDN line. Use of the TV studio with Vanderbilt experts is free, except for reserving fiber time.]
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 25-Jan-2013
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