Nasdaq likes Facebook's surge, but earnings curb Dow, S&P

By Alison Griswold

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Nasdaq climbed on Thursday, led by a rally in Facebook a day after its earnings, but the broader market's advance was modest after another round of mixed earnings reports.

Facebook Inc shares scored their biggest daily percentage gain ever - soaring 31.6 percent to a session high of $34.88 a day after the online social network company reported a huge jump in mobile advertising revenue. The stock closed at $34.36, up 29.6 percent, and topped the Nasdaq's list of most actively traded names.

Disappointing earnings in the cyclical sector limited the gains in both the Dow and the S&P 500.

Caterpillar Inc was the biggest drag on the Dow, falling 1.6 percent to $82.14. The stock slid for the second day, extending a selloff that began on Wednesday after the world's largest maker of mining and construction equipment cut its 2013 earnings forecast.

General Motors and Dow Chemical reported profits that exceeded expectations, but that was not enough to help the S&P 500 make a big push into positive territory. GM's stock fell 0.2 percent to $37.08, after touching a two-year high of $37.70. Dow Chemical rose 1.8 percent to $34.99.

Still, the market managed to advance slightly, with nine of the 10 S&P 500 industry sector indexes ending the day higher. Material and utility shares were the best performers, after being among the weakest in Wednesday's session.

"The trend in the market is upward unless there's some active piece of bad news. No news is good news, in that sense," said Brian Gendreau, market strategist with Cetera Financial Group in Gainesville, Florida.

"The earnings aren't really surprising anybody. The corporate sector is strong, and the earnings sector is still pretty strong."

Shortly after the bell, Starbucks released its third-quarter results and its stock jumped 6.8 percent in extended-hours trading. Starbucks ended the regular session at $68.17, up 2.3 percent.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc dropped 2.3 percent in extended-hours trading after the world's largest Internet retailer reported second-quarter earnings and gave a cautious forecast for the third quarter. During regular trading, Amazon's stock rose 1.5 percent to close at $303.40.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.dji> rose 13.37 points, or 0.09 percent, to end at 15,555.61. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> added 4.31 points, or 0.26 percent, to 1,690.25. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 25.59 points, or 0.71 percent, to close at 3,605.19.

The major U.S. stock indexes have advanced steadily this year. The S&P 500 has climbed 18.5 percent in 2013 after hitting a number of record closing highs along the way. For July, the benchmark index has added 5.2 percent.

With 47 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported earnings so far, about 68 percent have topped profit forecasts, above the historical average of 63 percent. About 56 percent have reported better-than-expected revenue, a rate that is below the historical average.

TripAdvisor Inc shares vaulted 16.3 percent to $71.10 a day after the company reported a jump in quarterly profit and revenue from its travel website. The stock was the S&P 500's second-biggest percentage gainer.

Natural gas processor Oneok Inc leaped 25.5 percent to $53.77. The stock was the S&P 500's best performer on the day after the company said it would separate its gas distribution business into a standalone publicly traded company called ONE Gas Inc.

On the flip side, homebuilders' shares tumbled and weighed on the S&P 500 after Pulte Group and D.R. Horton reported earnings. Shares of Pulte Group sank 10.3 percent to $16.55, while D.R. Horton's dropped 8.6 percent to $19.38. An index of housing stocks <.hgx> fell 2.5 percent.

In the latest economic snapshot, initial claims for U.S. jobless benefits rose to 343,000 in the latest week from 334,000 in the previous week, the Labor Department said. Economists were looking for a read of 340,000.

New orders for durable goods rose 4.2 percent in June, far stronger than the forecast for a growth rate of 1.3 percent.

About 6.4 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, on par with the daily average.

Advancers outnumbered decliners on the New York Stock Exchange by a ratio of 17 to 13. On the Nasdaq, about two stocks rose for every one that fell.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stock-futures-down-earnings-worries-profit-taking-114142765.html

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Hollywood Stars Under 30 Banking Millions!

Hollywood Stars Under 30 Banking Millions!

Celebrities love the attention and honor of landing on top lists, whether it be for their good looks or album/movie sales. But we’re certain most would love to make the Forbes Magazine “Highest Paid Stars Under 30″ list! Let’s see who’s bringing in the big bucks! Lady Gaga (age 27) $80 million Lady Gaga topped ...

Hollywood Stars Under 30 Banking Millions! Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/07/hollywood-stars-under-30-making-bank/

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Textbook publishers revamp ebooks to fight used market

Your gadgets

Stephanie Simon and Madeline Will Reuters

9 hours ago

Max Rossi / Reuters

A booming market in recent years for selling and renting used college textbooks has saved students across the United States a ton of cash.

But it has put textbook publishers in a bind. They don't make a cent unless students buy their books new.

So increasingly, publishers like Pearson and McGraw-Hill Education are turning to a new model: Creating online versions of their texts, often loaded with interactive features, and selling students access codes that expire at semester's end.

Publishers save on printing, shipping and process returns. The ebooks are good for learning and good for their bottom line. There's just one catch: Persuading students to go digital isn't easy.

Online products accounted for 27 percent of the $12.4 billion spent on textbooks for secondary schools and colleges in the United States last year, according to research firm Outsell.

But the publishers expect that percentage to grow, and are retooling their businesses to compete in what they see as the future of the industry.

Half of Pearson's total revenue last year came from digital products and services (not all of which are digital), and executives expect that to increase. The company recently announced a restructuring to emphasize online content.

Cengage Learning, which creates customized courses, has pledged to emerge from a recent bankruptcy filing more focused on digital. McGraw-Hill Education, which was recently acquired by private equity firm Apollo Global Management, has taken an equity stake in one software company focused on digital learning and purchased another outright.

Still, the transition will not be immediate, executives said. Students have to learn to adapt to a textbook that can almost read their minds.

"How do we get from the Old World to the New World as quickly as possible?" said Andrew Kvaal, a senior vice president for Cengage. "An awful lot of people still resonate with having a physical book in front of them."

Some 77 percent of college students said they preferred print to e-books in a survey conducted last year by the National Association of College Stores. Another survey, by the research firm Student Monitor, found only 14 percent of students enrolled in college this past spring had classes that required online texts and just 2 percent bought most of their books in digital format.

And most students said they did not see much use for the touted special features of digital textbooks, such as embedded quizzes, electronic flash cards, or the ability to share notes online.

Michael Hardison, who is studying political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is among the skeptics. He likes straight-forward e-books, but said textbook software with built-in tutorials made him feel that he was being spoon-fed the information instead of letting him wrestle with the material on his own.

Cost is another concern for many students.

Consider the widely used textbook, "Biology", by Sylvia Mader and Michael Windelspecht, published by McGraw-Hill. The ebook costs $120, a steep discount from the $229 cost for a new print textbook.

But savvy shoppers do better. The same book in printed form can be rented for $36. It can also be bought used for $102, and later resold on the secondhand market for up to $95, according to the website CheapestTextbooks.com.

These alternative markets have transformed the industry. Average student spending on new textbooks per semester dropped from $192 in the fall of 2008 to $138 this spring, according to Student Monitor. That is despite the prices of new textbooks rising about 6 percent a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Digital textbooks could hurt the secondhand market, analysts said. But they will have to contend with open-source sites ? free or almost-free compilations of resources that are only a small threat now ? and students sharing files rather than buying their own.

With online books, publishing companies "get a steady stream of revenue," said Will Ethridge, the outgoing chief executive of Pearson's North America division. "It's a better model for students, a better model for the business and a better model for the environment."

The transition "obviously doesn't happen overnight," he said, "but we do think the direction is very clear."

Executives say students might be wary at first, but once they try the new software, they are hooked.

McGraw-Hill's LearnSmart software ? which serves almost as a personal tutor, guiding students through e-books ? debuted in 2010 with just 150,000 student users. Two years later, more than a million students were paying $25 to $35 per course to access the online tutor, which they purchase separately from the online textbook itself. Executives say sales are expected to rise again this year.

Some digital texts embed links to videos, articles and clips from a professor's lectures, while others will monitor a student's progress and draw up personalized study plans to keep them on track.

"We can even predict what you're most likely to forget ... and when you're most likely to forget it," said Jeff Livingston, a senior vice president at McGraw-Hill Education.

Manju Bhat, an assistant professor of physiology at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, monitors how much time his students spend reading the digital texts he assigns, how they do on embedded quizzes, and which concepts stump them. Bhat, a paid consultant to McGraw-Hill, uses that data to shape the next day's lesson.

The students' grades improved so much that "My department chairwoman called me into her office and asked me, 'What did you do?'" Bhat said.

There is another advantage of online texts: They can be edited and updated quickly, with new material pushed out to all users around the world.

"Ten years from now, almost 75 percent of students believe that e-textbooks will be used more than print textbooks," said Cindy Clarke, a senior vice president for CourseSmart, an online joint venture of five textbook publishers. "It's happening, and I believe it will start to happen more and more exponentially."

(Reporting by Stephanie Simon in Boston and Madeline Will in New York; Editing by Jilian Mincer and Leslie Gevirtz)

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663301/s/2f0da52b/sc/2/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Ctextbook0Epublishers0Erevamp0Eebooks0Efight0Eused0Emarket0E6C10A713831/story01.htm

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What do you think of this?? Very long........ - Step Talk

I haven't been on here in quite a while now, SD33 has not made contact with me since she and DH had a falling out over 2 years ago. Just a tiny bit of history...she was living with us when my mother died and she never showed for the funeral, we came home and found her sleeping in my house,her excuse was that I ignored her the night my mom died(not true, but I was not the best hostess!!) she tried everything she could think of to stop the wedding,was mean to my kids 11 and 12 at the time, we had issues but I always forgave..she got pregnant 11 years ago and her mother threw her out, I(not her dad)took her in, she is now married and had another child. We were cordial to each other up until the issue with her father. Somehow, what transpired between them became MY fault. It's on a previous blog entry.

Anyway, fast forward and I have still sent the grandchildren birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, talk on the phone when DH calls them, etc. THere was a birthday party for the younger one this past winter, SD made a facebook event and made it a point to invite everyone she knew, except me and my grown children. We had a snowstorm on that day and the party was cancelled anyway.I still made sure he got his gift though.

My Dad was very sick and was in the hospital dying. I was medical power of attorney and had to make all decisions. I was there night and day, even slept there. My Dad died a horrible, painful death that I will never forget. I see it every time I close my eyes. During this time SD had another baby. On one of my trios home to take a shower, I stopped quickly in the store and bought baby gifts...she will have no contact with me but readily accepts my gifts, they are for the children so I continue to do it.

DH goes up to see the baby and tells her that my Dad is dying. No response. Her selfishness is what started the problem with them in the first place. Anyway, again, they are a no show for Dad's funeral, I didn't expect them anyway, she had a small baby...but, and here is where maybe I am stupid or whatever, but I did expect maybe a card, email, facebook message, something...even for her Dad's sake as he was very close to my father.

What he did get on his facebook page was this, 2 days after I buried my Dad:

Jada Pinkett Smith?s open letter to a friend is very powerful! If you?re in a blended family or considering it, this is a must read.

A letter to a friend:

Blended families are NEVER easy, but here?s why I don?t have a lot of sympathy for your situation because? we CHOOSE them. When I married Will, I knew Trey was part of the package?Period! If I didn?t want that?I needed to marry someone else. Then I learned if I am going to love Trey?I had to learn to love the most important person in the world to him?his mother. And the two of us may not have always LIKED each other? but we have learned to LOVE each other.

I can?t support any actions that keep a man from his children of a previous marriage. These are the situations that separate the women from the girls. Your behavior is that of an insecure child who needs to recognize her own weaknesses that MUST be strengthened to take on the task at hand. We can?t say we love our man and then come in between him and his children. THAT?S selfishness?NOT love. WOMAN UP? I?ve been there?I know. My blended family made me a giant? Taught me so much about love, commitment and it has been the biggest ego death to date. It?s time you let your blended family make you the giant you truly are.

J

First of all, I have NEVER kept him from his family...not even when it meant leaving me home to go to her kid's parties and spend the day with his Ex and her family!!!!! He is an adult who makes his own decisions. Then I guess since he didn't respond, a few days later a package shows up in the mail, pics of her kids, still not a peep about my Dad...more fb nonsense...

I still have no intention of contacting her, it's been a peaceful 2 and a half years...but what do you think of all this that seems to have started only since my Dad passed??? In all this time, she has never mailed pics or anything and never posted anything on his fb page.

Source: http://www.steptalk.org/node/161922

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Xbox One Records Your Last 30 Seconds &#39;Highlight ... - Games Thirst

At an Xbox One Comic-Con panel, Microsoft revealed that the console will be able to directly record your last 5 minutes of gameplay compared to PS4?s 15 minutes.

There?s also a 30 seconds highlights feature that is enabled when the player yells: ?Xbox Record.? Microsoft also confirmed that gamers would have to switch?to a separate system screen to edit the video.

?The idea is you?re always recording,? Microsoft Studios creative director Ken Lobb?said concerning the Xbox One?s game DVR feature, dubbed ?Project Upload?. ?The last five minutes of any game you?re playing are always being stored on your hard drive.?

He added: ?Say you?re playing online and you just did the best thing ever ? you can?t pause as you?re playing online. You can say ?Xbox, record that? and it?ll grab the last 30 seconds of gameplay for you to play around with later.?

Kinect can also track up to 20 points of the human body, and can track finger movements within the range of 3 meters and works within a minimum range of 1 meter.

The peripheral can also create a 3D facial visual of your face and use it as your avatar, but the more interesting news there (weird?) is the ability for Kinect to record your face and replace it with the game you?re playing main protagonist?s ? with emotion and all ? using its emotion recognition technology.

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Source: http://www.gamesthirst.com/2013/07/22/xbox-one-records-your-last-30-seconds-highlight-gameplay-with-kinect-and-more/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=xbox-one-records-your-last-30-seconds-highlight-gameplay-with-kinect-and-more

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Despite injury, Devon Walker to be a part of Tulane football program

by wwltv.com

wwltv.com

Posted on July 23, 2013 at 6:21 AM

Updated today at 6:51 AM

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Devon Walker, the Tulane safety paralyzed when his spine was fractured in a game last September, will be part of Tulane's season this year.

The Times-Picayune reports that Tulane coach Curtis Johnson is still working out Walker's role for the coming season.

One possibility mentioned by Johnson: Walker may be put to work helping break down recruiting film.

Johnson says he is discussing the plans with Tulane players and working on plans to use Walker in a way that will fit in with his extensive therapy and rehab work.

Johnson said Walker's drive and dedication to football were assets to his teammates well before the Sept. 8, 2012 game at Tulsa in which he was injured.

"He's always been an inspiration even before the injury," Johnson said. "He's inspiring to us and we just love being a part of his life. He's just one of us."

"It's great for the program," senior running back Orleans Darkwa said. "He is someone we really care about, especially me. We let all the new players know what happened and how they can help this team and how they can help this program with him."

Ryan Grant, a senior receiver, said Walker's injury deeply affected the team.

"I was on the sideline, it was going into halftime. I see a guy running with the ball, Julius (Warmsley) tackled him and then Devon jumped on made contact and I just remember Devon's body flopping over like he couldn't feel his arms and legs," Grant said. "Everyone was praying as they were walking into the locker room and the ambulance truck came onto the field. It was sad, but you just have to take the positives out of everything. He's still alive."

Darkwa said working with Walker would be good for the team.

"He's a big part of this program and he always will be," Darkwa said. "When I'm gone, he's still going to be a big part of my life and to the other teams that are here. We expect him to be a big part of the program."

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Source: http://www.wwltv.com/news/Devon-Walker--216564061.html

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China earthquake reportedly kills 54, collapses many homes

China Daily via Reuters

A man gives water to an injured woman after an earthquake hit Minxian county in China's Gansu province on Monday.

By M. Alex Johnson, Staff Writer, NBC News

A 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck central China on Monday, reportedly killing at least 54 people and collapsing many homes.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit in Gansu province about 8 miles east of Chabu at 7:45 a.m. Beijing time (7:45 p.m. ET Sunday). The USGS recorded it at 6 miles deep and said it caused shaking in a rural region where the infrastructure isn't seismically resistant.

State news agency Xinhua said the death toll had risen to 54, citing municipal officials. It put the number of people seriously injured at 296. Earlier official statements put the death toll at 22.?

Photos posted on Chinese social media showed roads on the sides of riverbanks that had subsided and farmhouses reduced to piles of red bricks, Reuters reported.

The official China Meteorological Administration warned that heavy rain was possible in southeastern Gansu province Monday night and into Tuesday. It said the rain could hamper rescue efforts and urged residents to be alert to flash flooding in areas damaged by the earthquake.

Bing Maps

About 5,600 residential buildings were damaged, the Beijing-based China Daily newspaper reported Monday afternoon. Some train service was suspended, and hundreds of armed police were mobilized to repair a damaged part of the main highway linking Lanzhou, the provincial capital, to Minxian county, it reported.

Xinhua said the quake was felt in the neighboring cities of Dingxi, Longnan and Tianshui, as well as Lanzhou, more than 100 miles away. About 19,000 people live in the area that was subject to the strongest shaking, it said.

The quake was followed an hour and a half later by a 5.6-magnitude quake at about the same depth,?the USGS reported.

Based on the history of earthquakes of this size in rural China, there could be "significant casualties," the USGS said.

Gansu abuts Sichuan province, where a 6.6 quake in April killed 164 people and injured more than 6,700, China's worst quake in three years.

NBC News' Li Le, Sarah Burke and Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Mon Jul 22, 2013 4:02 AM EDT

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663309/s/2efc1f83/l/0Lworldnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A70C220C1960A25120Echina0Eearthquake0Ereportedly0Ekills0E540Ecollapses0Emany0Ehomes0Dlite/story01.htm

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