Federal funding in limbo, U.S. states weigh paying for programs

By Lisa Lambert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the battle in Congress over the U.S. budget grinds on, states say they may soon have to choose between putting their own dollars into federal programs for residents or letting vitally important services such as food stamps lapse.

"States have thus far managed to avoid closing or suspending most programs and services by using carry-over funds or, in some cases, by using state spending to fill in for missing federal dollars," the bipartisan National Governors Association said in a letter sent to congressional leaders on Thursday. "However, states are not in a position to be the bank for the federal government,"

The letter, which was copied to President Barack Obama, asked for reimbursements for expenses that states might incur while funding for federal programs is in limbo. This included paying for personnel whose salaries are supported, at least in part, by federal grants.

Programs such as Women Infants and Children, which provides food assistance to mothers and their offspring, have provisional funding measures until the end of the month. But states are uncertain about how much money is available.

States also do not know if they will be reimbursed should the shutdown extend past November 1 and they step in to cover the costs, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.

States administer numerous federally funded programs including food stamps, bearing part of the operational costs and dealing directly with the recipients.

Several states have already furloughed federally funded employees and others notified workers of potential layoffs. Michigan this week sent out notices it could furlough 20,000 people after October 31.

Connecticut's Democratic governor, Dannel Malloy, ventured to a Head Start center in Bridgeport on Wednesday to announce the state would spend $800,000 to keep the federally funded preschool operating. Head Start provides education and care to young children from low-income families across the country.

"Obviously, Connecticut cannot pick up the slack for the entire federal government," Malloy said at the event. "But we can try to do what's possible in the short term to make sure our most vulnerable citizens receive the services they need."

States' revenues only returned to their pre-recession peaks at the end of 2012. Almost all states were forced to slash spending, hike taxes, raid reserves and turn to the federal government for help during the 2007-2009 downturn. Now they are focused on strengthening their budgets in case another economic storm strikes.

START OF CRISIS

Republican demands to defund or delay Obama's healthcare reforms as a condition of passing a broad government spending bill led to deadlock, triggering a partial government shutdown with the start of the new fiscal year on October 1.

Negotiations intensified on Friday, with Obama, a Democrat, meeting with Senate Republicans at the White House and speaking to House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner by phone. House Republicans will meet at the Capitol on Saturday to discuss their options.

Besides arguing over ending the shutdown that is 11 days old, political leaders are focused on raising U.S. borrowing authority and possibly finding longer-term government spending cuts.

Thirty states have Republican governors.

Kansas has "$430 million in the bank," Governor Sam Brownback, a Republican, said in a statement on Friday. "This strong ending balance provides us with flexibility in cash flow management that we can use to minimize the effect of the federal government shutdown on programs critical to the citizens of Kansas."

NASBO, though, said not all states have enough cash on hand to "backfill" federal programs and some states have looked into selling short-term assets.

Pew Charitable Trusts said states may struggle with tapping reserves to backfill, as well, as 10 states require approval special legislative approval to use rainy day funds, and four others can only use reserves for a shortfall or similar problem.

Pew said after sequestration a handful of states enacted policies to stave off potential federal shortages, including Vermont, which set aside $4 million from its recent surplus.

(Additional reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/federal-funding-limbo-u-states-weigh-paying-programs-111622280.html
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Dropcam's new $199 Pro model aims to be the smart home hub

You and I might see flashy new Web-cam hardware, but the maker sees the centerpiece of the connected smart home.

The new Dropcam Pro (right) next to last year's model.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Greg Duffy is beaming.

The 27-year-old CEO of Dropcam, the maker of a video camera that streams to the Internet 24 hours a day, is holding a shrink-wrapped box containing the next major version of that device.

On it is a simple front and side shot of the all-black camera on a white background. On the back of the box are the words "Designed by Dropcam in California. Assembled in China." It's a not-so-subtle homage to Apple. In fact, from across the room, the camera could be mistaken for an Apple product.

To the untrained eye the camera looks like the one the company began shipping last year -- but black in color and a bit thicker. As if channeling Apple some more, Duffy smiles and says not to let looks deceive me. "It looks the same outside, but everything has changed on the inside," he says.

Despite the name, the $199 Dropcam Pro is not a product aimed at taking over the enterprise. Instead, it's a new, top-of-the-line camera that can view 20 percent more of its surroundings than its predecessor -- and can do it with a sharper image, thanks to an all-glass lens.

That same lens, which was developed in house, also boasts a new "enhance" feature that comes close to sharpening up video detail like you see in movies and TV shows. (Picture some geeky engineer clicking his mouse to make an unreadable license plate come into focus, which leads to the bad guys' inevitable capture.)

To show off the feature, Duffy pulls up a decidedly less crime-ridden live video feed of the couch in the company's lobby here. He pinches the screen to zoom in on a copy of Bloomberg Businessweek that's on the table and then taps a small magic wand icon on the glowing screen of an iPad running Dropcam's app. A second later it fizzles into near-perfect clarity.

A fuzzy blob turns into a bookshelf of boardgames (Click to see in native resolution.)

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

It's a wow feature, and one that Duffy hopes will get existing customers to spend another $200, and entice new buyers alike. It's also an alternative response to one of the most asked-for features by Dropcam buyers -- the option to pan and zoom around the room.

Yet, instead of adding motors and a gear system, the company made the image clearer and sharper with a mix of hardware and software. According to Duffy, adding motors and a gear system to achieve the effect just adds extra costs and can end up shortening a product's lifespan.

"You have to look beyond what people are asking for and what functionality they actually want," Duffy says. "We took from that that they want more detail from anything they have in a room."

Getting that extra clarity was not easy. The new camera takes up about 10 percent more bandwidth than its predecessor. That's a far cry to where the company was when it was in the initial stages of testing, Duffy says. Earlier, the Pro was using up three to four times more bandwidth, something that was resolved with compression. That's been a constant push at the company, where three people work solely on squeezing better video into a smaller amount of space.

"Internet providers have not innovated at all, so we had to do it without a commensurate increase in video," Duffy says.

Last year's model (left) next to this year's model and its new lens.

(Credit: Dropcam)

The hub at home
To you and me, the new Pro model might look like a jet-black paint job on last year's HD model with some better specs, but to Dropcam it's a Trojan horse that could unify and harmonize the onslaught of smart appliances. That's thanks to the addition of Bluetooth low energy (LE) and a new API that lets other companies tap into the Dropcam Pro's Wi-Fi connection and ferry information through Dropcam's existing app and notification service.

"Anything that can talk to your iPhone [or Android device] over Bluetooth LE is fair game for Dropcam Pro," Duffy says. "We want to integrate Dropcam with existing sensors."

That scenario could work out to display things like your home's temperature using a nearby smart thermostat, or allow you to flip your lights on and off in a room -- all through Dropcam's Web and mobile viewing tools. Perhaps one day it could be triggered to adjust home gadget settings when it detects motion, such as a person leaving or returning to the house.

For now, that vision is limited to a "if you build it they will come" type of scenario, and Dropcam's not alone. A similar such wireless networking specification made by the ZigBee Alliance, which has been around for nearly a decade, enables home-related devices to exchange data. Moreover, Nest, which makes a smart thermostat and now a smoke detector, also announced plans for a developer API last month, which could turn the Nest platform into more of a hub. In Dropcam's case, Duffy hopes its new platform will attract makers of connected security systems, light switches, and climate controls to tap into its 24/7 home presence and now fat bandwidth, thanks to the Pro's new dual-band Wi-Fi.

Last year's HD model (left) next to the thicker Pro.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Cloud-powered eyeballs
Paving the road for extra types of utilities is a new set of computer vision technologies that can identify behaviors and events. This allows users to adjust what kind of alerts they want to get in real time or to see their online recording history from the past week or month.

"The first 24 hours after you plug it in, it's in learning mode," Duffy says. "It's looking at patterns of activity, not just regions. It's analyzing paths of objects and then it tries to separate it out to specific categories."

That may sound wildly creepy to some, but Duffy stresses that the video is anonymous when it's processed through the company's servers. And in return, the system promises to help cut down some of the unnecessary notifications people get from the motion alerts system. One example: A camera facing an outdoor area with some trees can learn that when the trees move, it's a frequent pattern that can be ignored.

Paired with the new Bluetooth features, Dropcam's system could add granularity, turning a simple motion alert into a notification that someone has entered the home and which door the person used. That system isn't quite ready for prime time. The company has been working on it for the past two years and plans to introduce it in early 2014.

What's next
While the Pro model may open the company to new buyers and fulfill some popular user requests, it's still limited to the indoors.

That hasn't stopped some Dropcam owners from cobbling together weatherproof housing solutions, including one owner of a public Dropcam feed pointed at Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica, Calif., just 20 minutes from the company's office. The owner crafted a custom acrylic box with a hole for the camera opening. The hole is sealed shut with silicone rubber. Other fan-made contraptions have been put together using PVC pipes and moisture-absorbing packets.

Duffy says he loves that people are doing this, but he has concerns about the longevity of these projects -- and about the outdoor products from other companies.

"Our standard is a decade. No camera we've seen has met that standard," Duffy says. "It has to be able to handle a Northeast winter or Texas heat."

In the meantime, Duffy reiterates that the company's goal has been to expand what it can do with existing hardware, even the older models.

"We never want to be a company that makes you upgrade your stuff," he says. "Your [2010] Dropcam Echo still works. And we still have users on that, believe it or not."

Funny words from a guy with his hands on the very new thing he's hoping you'll buy.

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Debt expert advises stretching Cypriot bonds, CDs for depositors

BERLIN (Reuters) - One of the world's leading experts on debt restructurings has proposed extending the maturities of Cypriot sovereign bonds and giving uninsured depositors in its banks certificates of deposit (CDs) as a solution to the Mediterranean island's crisis.

In a paper entitled "Walking Back from Cyprus", Lee Buchheit of New York law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and his frequent collaborator, Mitu Gulati of Duke Law School, say European governments "trespassed on consecrated ground" with their plan to impose a levy on insured depositors in Cyprus.

They sketch out an alternative which would protect savers with deposits under 100,000 euros ($130,000) and grant those above that level 5-10 year interest-bearing bank CDs corresponding to the amount of their savings in excess of the insured threshold.

In addition, the maturities of all sovereign bonds would be extended by a fixed number of years, for example five.

"By our reckoning, this would reduce the total amount of the required official sector bailout funding during a three-year program period by about 6.6 billion euros," the paper says.

Euro zone finance ministers reversed course and urged the Cypriot government on Monday to exempt small savers from a planned levy on deposits agreed at a meeting in Brussels in the early hours of Saturday.

But the Cypriot parliament was still expected to reject the 10 billion euro bailout deal in a scheduled vote on Tuesday, which may be pushed back if failure looks inevitable. Cyprus risks default and a banking collapse if it is unable to find a way out of the impasse.

That is why the Buchheit and Gulati proposal, a draft of which was published on the website of the Social Science Research Network on Monday, may be relevant. Buchheit has crafted or advised on debt restructurings for the past 30 years, including those in Uruguay, Greece and Iraq.

The authors argue that the CDs would lock in funding for Cypriot banks for many years, while the bond extension would avoid the need for those maturities to be repaid out of official sector bailout funds.

They concede that their solution could raise a number of objections - among them that Cypriot banks would still need to be recapitalized and that the banks themselves own most of the country's debt.

European governments and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) might also object to a solution which may not address their concerns about debt sustainability in Cyprus.

But the authors present their proposal as the least painful and risky of a limited number of unattractive options. ($1 = 0.7717 euros)

(Writing by Noah Barkin, editing by Mike Peacock)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/debt-expert-advises-stretching-cypriot-bonds-cds-depositors-101212533.html

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Here's Tumblr's Total Revenue For 2012 ? And ... - Business Insider

Tumblr made $13 million in revenue in 2012 and hopes to book $100 million in 2013, according to Forbes.

The blogging/social media site spent $25 million on operating expenses in 2012 and expects to spend $40 million this year -- meaning it will hit operating profitability soon if CEO David Karp meets his goals. The company has taken $125 million in funding from its backers.

This is all good news for the company. Tumblr generates about 18 billion pageviews a month. The fact that it has only monetized a tiny fraction of that (through ads and sponsorships), and yet is already trending toward profitability indicates that it could be a powerful business if Karp ever decides to allow advertisers more access to his users.

The users will hate it, of course.

But so far Tumblr has been very careful. It has restricted paid media to its "radar" and "spotlight" features, which take up a tiny proportion of each user's dashboard. Most of those paid ad exposures can't be seen unless you have an account and are logged in.

Tumblr hasn't even begun to sell most of its real estate to advertisers.

Yet Karp has moved closer and closer to the ad biz all through 2012. Consider:

Given its traffic, if Tumblr were to install even the most basic web ad operations -- by selling a native ad format on a private exchange, for instance, like Facebook does -- it would instantly become fantastically profitable.

It would never do that, of course. And if these new numbers are true, then it will never need to.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-tumblrs-total-revenue-for-2012-and-how-it-will-make-a-profit-in-2013-2013-1

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Strange Food Cravings - Bizarre Food Cravings ... - Back Pain

?

Is a bowl of ice a beverage cooler for you? or a meal?

Do you have an ?addiction? to uncommon foods? Late night runs for chocolate, ice cream and pickles are legendary among pregnant women. But you don?t have to be pregnant to have a strong craving for unusual foods? or even non-foods.

A small but significant portion of our population has a strong desire to eat particular foods like chocolate and potato chips. But a strong desire to chomp large quantities of ice, eat cornstarch, or even handfuls of dirt are more common than you may think.

Known as pica, the urge to eat non-foods is named after the Latin word for magpie, a bird with a broad omnivorous diet. Often, though not all of the time, these cravings are associated with a nutritional deficiency.

Cravings can occur with actual foods as well. In both cases, cure the deficiency and chances are the cravings will quickly subside.

Here are some of the most common cravings and the nutritional deficiencies each may represent:

Ice

Enjoying a little ice at the bottom of your drink isn?t reason for concern, but if you have an irresistible urge to chomp through cupfuls, or even bagfuls, of ice on a regular basis it can be a sign of anemia.

Compulsive ice eating, or pagophagia, is one of the most commonly recognized forms of pica. While eating ice won?t resolve the iron deficiency, some speculate that it helps tongue pain and inflammation associated with anemia. Correcting the iron deficiency often results in an immediate reduction in the desire to eat ice.

Dirt or Clay (even Rocks!)

Scooping up a handful of dirt and eating it may be the last thing on most folks? minds, but if it?s on yours you?re likely deficient in iron and possibly one or more additional minerals including magnesium, zinc or copper. Called geophagia, eating clay or dirt is a form of pica more common when pregnant and among those of non-European ancestry.

Pica eating disorders may signal a psychological condition

Hair

Usually the ingestion of your own hair, or trichophagia, is associated with trichotillomania, where a person pulls his or her own hair out. This is considered a compulsive psychological disorder and may lead to indigestion, stomach pain and even a potentially fatal hairball (from intestinal blockage).

Cornstarch

Amylophagia, or compulsive eating of starch, is another common manifestation of pica. Just like eating dirt or clay, a compulsive desire to eat plain starch has been linked to iron and other mineral deficiencies.

Chocolate

Most of us like chocolate, and many have an emotional attachment to eating the confection. But strong cravings to eat more than a few ounces a day can be a sign of a magnesium deficiency.

Glass

Known as hyalophagia, this eating disorder is particularly dangerous as broken glass can cut your throat, stomach and intestines leading to potentially deadly internal bleeding. Experts believe glass eating is associated with vitamin or mineral deficiencies, mental illness and / or severe stress.

Wood

Pencils, paper, tree bark and even wooden furniture in your diet could be related to a psychological disorder. But xylophagia is often an attempt to deal with tooth pain or as a substitute for smoking. Look for healthier options.

Salty Foods

All salt is not equal. Most salt found at your local grocery store is devoid of any nutritional value other than added iodine in some brands. Too much salt can tax your kidneys. If you find yourself constantly craving more salt, it may be your body is looking not just for chloride but also magnesium and other trace minerals found in salt in its natural unrefined state, particularly Celtic sea salt.

Do You Have a Mineral Deficiency?

This artistic but lethal display of 1,446 nails, screws and other metallic items were removed from a woman who swallowed them all - then died from internal bleeding

The list of cravings above is far from complete. Even cravings as seemingly bizarre as eating paint chips, burnt matches, screws and cigarette ashes frequently point to nutritional deficiencies.

But here?s the catch: even if you don?t have cravings, you may have severe deficiencies that manifest in other ways such as pain, fatigue, and insomnia.

And if you do have unusual food (or non-food) cravings, please investigate further. Often there is a medical consequence from untreated pica. Just in the decade from 1999 to 2009, hospitalizations for pica have nearly doubled in the United States.

That?s why I recommend asking your doctor to run a full test of your vitamin and mineral levels if you have unexplained food cravings. What you discover may not only help you curb strange food cravings and mystery pains, in some cases it might literally save your life.

Whether you suffer from unusual conditions like pica, are looking to overcome various other health challenges, or simply want to transform your living into a life of vibrant health ? we have the answer for you!

Every month we publish articles just like this one for members of my Health + Fitness Inner Circle in our premium Get Healthy & Fit^? print newsletter.

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References

Garfunkel PE. Feeding and eating disorders of infancy and early childhood. Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry. 1995; 2321?2324.

Kettaneh A, et al. Pica and food craving in patients with iron-de?ciency anemia: A case-control study in France. The American Journal of Medicine. 2005; 118, 185-188.

Zhao Y, Encinosa W. An Update on Hospitalizations for Eating Disorders, 1999 to 2009. Statistical Brief #120. Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 2011 Sep.

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Source: http://www.losethebackpain.com/blog/2013/01/03/strange-food-cravings/

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