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Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Aviate: An Android App Launcher That Changes to Fit Your Day
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Social Shopping Startup Shopcade Bags $4M To Fuel Mobile Growth & A Big Data Play
Social shopping and deals-focused startup Shopcade, which launched out of the U.K. in November 2011, has raised £2.5 million (circa $4 million) to accelerate its growth on mobile. Investors in the funding round include Pascal Cagni, formerly head of Apple’s European business from 2000 to 2012, and Michel Combes, CEO of telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent and ex-CEO of Vodafone Europe.
First order of business for Shopcade’s mobile push: expanding its app portfolio. Shopcade doesn’t currently have an Android app — but will be launching one next month, along with a refreshed-for-iOS-7 iOS app.
Shopcade’s ecommerce platform hosts products from more than 16,000 retailers and over 150,000 brands — with a focus on fashion, clothes and accessories but also incorporating other product categories such as books, media and electronics.
Its primary target is young females but it isn’t excluding men either…
The current Shopcade app lets users keep tabs on items they want to buy, informing them when something on their list goes on sale. It also pushes out personalised recommendations, and lets users follow each other to style stalk trendsetters (aka other users whose style they dig). Users can add items to their Shopcade list from any website, not just the items Shopcade hosts.
Last year the startup was focused on adding more game mechanics to its offering to ramp up user engagement — by, for instance, generating the Trendsetter score for each user to rank themselves against their peers. It also introduced a system of perks to reward its most influential shoppers.
This year it’s been focused on expanding its deals segment, introducing deals that are specifically tied to items users have added to their wish lists. Another focus has been on outreach: in June it launched a widget targeting fashion bloggers and publishers, allowing them to embed a showcase of product picks — or auto-populated products related to page contents — in a grid or carousel.
It’s also pushed into celebrity tie-ups, by allowing its users to have the chance to style a celebrity look under its ‘Stylist for a Day’ campaign.
Going forward, Shopcade evidently sees big data as its bread and butter, based on the intel it’s continually gathering about fashion-focused shoppers’ likes (and by implication dislikes) — and then selling that ‘trend spotting’ business intelligence back to large retailers so they can decide what to stock on their shelves.
Shopcade’s expansion into widgets helps with that, allowing it to cosy up to other fashion-focused communities. Mobile is another key data point to this big data play, furnishing Shopcade with more up-to-the-minute data on what its users are after.
As an example of the kind of trends it’s apparently able to call, Evan Adelman, Shopcade CTO, said funny pet costumes started to trend on the platform ahead of Halloween — and crucially ahead of marketing spending for Halloween — adding that the category is now highlighted on Amazon.com.
Commenting on the funding round in a statement, Pascal Cagni added: ”By identifying the game-changing opportunities in mobile commerce, Shopcade is set to become the leading mobile shopping platform targeting fashionable young females audience.”
Prior angel investors in Shopcade include Daniel Bernard, former CEO of European retailer Carrefour; Ian Livingston, co-founder of Eidos Games; and Lord John Birt, former director general of the BBC.
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Asian shares fall, yen firms as U.S. debt deadline nears
By Ian Chua and Dominic Lau
TOKYO/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares and U.S. stock index futures fell and the safe-haven yen rose on Monday as a possible U.S. debt default edged closer after the failure of weekend talks in Washington, though expectations are that a last-minute compromise will be reached.
Adding to the gloom, data showed China's export growth unexpectedly fizzled in September, underscoring worries about flagging global demand, and annual consumer inflation quickened to a seven-month high.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus>, which had hit a three-week high on Friday on hopes a U.S. deal was imminent, dropped 0.3 percent and China's CSI300 index <.csi300> slipped 0.2 percent.
Markets in Japan and Hong Kong are closed on Monday for public holidays.
U.S. stocks <.spx> had risen strongly ahead of the weekend on hopes a deal to raise the $16.7 trillion federal borrowing limit was near. However, politicians remain at loggerheads as the October 17 deadline approaches and U.S. stock index futures fell 0.7 percent in Asian trade.
U.S. equity markets will trade on Monday, although some markets, such as the Treasury market, will be shut for the Columbus Day holiday. In Asia, U.S. Treasury futures edged up 4 ticks.
Failure to break the stalemate before Thursday's deadline would leave the world's biggest economy unable to pay its bills in the coming weeks, an outcome that is unthinkable for the global economy and financial markets. IMF chief Christine Lagarde warned of "massive disruption."
Still, trading has remained relatively calm as many analysts expect Republicans and Democrats to strike a last-minute deal, believing U.S. politicians would want to avoid the dire consequences of a default.
"Most likely, a solution will be found before, or be in the making, by October 17," analysts at Nomura wrote in a client note.
"The tail risk comes into play if there is no clear framework for a solution by October 17. Entering this tail would see risk jump in terms of funding market stress and risk assets more broadly."
Some financial institutions have reduced the use of Treasury bills as collateral for trades as the deadline gets closer. Hong Kong's securities exchange is applying a bigger discount on U.S. Treasuries used as margin collateral.
UNCERTAINTY AHEAD
The failure of the weekend talks in Washington saw investors react by seeking safety in the yen.
The dollar fell 0.3 percent to 98.285 yen and the euro dipped 0.1 percent to 133.30 yen. The Australian dollar eased 0.1 percent to 92.81 yen.
The dollar index <.dxy>, which tracks the greenback against a basket of major currencies, was a touch softer.
In commodity markets, gold fell 0.2 percent to just below $1,270 an ounce, adding to last week's 2.9 percent decline.
Brent crude dipped 0.2 percent to around $111 a barrel on concerns that the U.S. debt standoff and slower growth in China would crimp demand.
"China still faces significant external headwinds while a recovery in domestic demand is lifting import growth," HSBC said in a note on the weak export data.
"Beijing should keep its accommodative policy and steer structural reforms to sustain a recovery driven by domestic demand," it added.
(Editing by John Mair)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-shares-fall-yen-firms-u-debt-deadline-051628181--finance.html
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James Franco Reads A HOT Sex Scene From His New Novel! Watch HERE!
James Franco may like to play around with the press, but this time he's totes serious!
The This Is The End star did a brief reading from his new novel Actors Anonymous to an exclusive crowd at an NYC bookstore on Sunday night.
Freaks and geeks and literary critics alike were thrilled when the chosen excerpt turned out to be a very steamy sex scene! One fan even filmed a bit of the reading- a very small bit!
Darn! Just when we were getting to the good stuff! Why do Instagram vids have to be so short?!
Guess we'll just have to run out and buy a copy of the book for ourselves! Until then, we'll just have to watch over and over again! Hear the hotness for yourself …AFTER THE JUMP!!!
[Video via Instagram.]
Tags: actors anonymous, book, bookz, excerpt, gifs, james franco, novel, reading, sex, sex scene, video
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Monday, October 14, 2013
Breast Cancer Awareness in Pets | KTXL FOX40
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Source: http://fox40.com/2013/10/14/breast-cancer-awareness-in-pets/Related Topics: abigail breslin pharrell
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Exhibit: Blumenfeld was pioneer of modern photo
PARIS (AP) — A new exhibit on fashion photographer Erwin Blumenfeld, which showcases his dark and experimental side, positions him as one of the greatest and most undervalued photographers of the 20th century.
Blumenfeld made his name with snaps that graced the covers of fashion magazines such as "Vogue" and "Harper's Bazaar" from the 1930s to the 1950s.
But the exhibit at Paris' Jeu de Paume, which opens Oct. 15, shows this to be only one of the many faces of the German Jew who fled Nazi Europe and whose most acclaimed pieces sought to dehumanize Adolf Hitler.
The exhibit of some 300 works also puts together black and white photos that used influential experimental techniques with infra-red and frames in the negative, as well as several sections of abstract female nudes.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exhibit-blumenfeld-pioneer-modern-photo-140533275.html
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Thursday, October 10, 2013
Oliver Stone slams 'Breaking Bad' - Inside TV - Entertainment Weekly
Oliver Stone still knows how to get people rankled. The Platoon, Savages and Natural Born Killers director reportedly slammed the finale of AMC’s Breaking Bad while promoting his documentary series The Untold History of the United States.
Stone took issue with Breaking Bad as part of a larger critique of cinema violence having become less realistic and more cartoonish over the years. “There’s too much violence in our movies – and it’s all unreal to me,” he said. “I don’t know if you saw the denouement [of Breaking Bad], I happen to not watch the series very much, but I happened to tune in and I saw the most ridiculous 15 minutes of a movie – it would be laughed off the screen.”
In the climactic scene — spoilers, obviously — Walter White parks his car right in front of the clubhouse of a gang of white supremacists. He goes inside, uses a key-chain remote to pop his trunk and drops to the ground. Hiding inside the trunk is a remote-activated machine gun that starts firing away, sweeping back and forth, killing the bad guys inside.
“Nobody could park his car right then and there and could have a machine gun that could go off perfectly and kill all of the bad guys!” Stone said. “It would be a joke. It’s only in the movies that you find this kind of fantasy violence. And that’s infected the American culture; you young people believe all of this s–t. Batman and Superman, you’ve lost your minds, and you don‘t even know it! At least respect violence. I’m not saying don’t show violence, but show it with authenticity. … If people think that bringing a machine gun to your last meeting is a solution to a television series that’s very popular, I think they’re insane. Something’s wrong. It’s not the world we know.”
My take: Stone’s kind of got a point with that scene in terms of realism. It’s not the show’s finest moment. Yet the characters in Breaking Bad are typically so emotionally honest that the show tends tended to get away with occasional indulgences like that one. And the violence in Breaking Bad very often felt “authentic,” especially compared to nearly every show on TV. Just one example: Hank had a grueling and rare-for-TV arc after his hitmen encounter in season three, showing every step of his painful and arduous recovery process (even in the final season he still had a limp).
Also, Stone perhaps shouldn’t be casting, er, stones at Breaking Bad when his last series — that Untold History project — averaged only 193,000 viewers for first-run episodes when it debuted on Showtime last winter. The Breaking Bad finale peaked with more than 10 million viewers. Clearly, the AMC show was doing something right.
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