LONDON ? Six rowers who capsized in the Atlantic Ocean while attempting to row from Morocco to Barbados have been rescued.
Falmouth Coastguard said Tuesday that the rowers capsized 520 miles (837 kilometers) from Barbados and climbed onto a life raft tethered to their boat. Coast guards from Britain and Martinique launched a rescue mission after the rowers contacted their support team by satellite phone but the men were picked up by a cargo ship before the coast guards reached them.
Falmouth Coastguard said the cargo ship is now taking the rowers to Gibraltar.
The men were taking part in the Atlantic Odyssey Challenge to row from Morocco to Barbados in less than 30 days. Their boat capsized Monday, 27 days into their journey. The Atlantic Odyssey website said the crew were safe and well
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AngelList, the community for startups that is part social network and part communication tool, designed to connect first-time entrepreneurs with respected angel investors, got hot in 2011. Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi's startup community was oft-talked about as a service with the potential to transform dealflow and give young entrepreneurs access to hard-to-reach investors -- with value proposition being evident on both ends, for founder and investor. The across the platform were many last year, and to start off the year, AngelList is giving users a chance to review all the craziness that 2011 had to offer, as it this weekend soft-launched its "2011 Yearbook". The Yearbook offers the public an opportunity to get a more detailed look at AngelList's activity over the course of last year -- who grabbed funding, from whom, how much -- with CrunchBase offering some data to boot.
Some 15 companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, PayPal plan to jointly work on a standard for blocking phishing e-mails by verifying that they come from legitimate companies. It seems obvious that trusted, legitimate companies could come together to do this, but it's only started happening in the last 18 months. DMARC.org - or the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance - is a new white-list system will be available for use across the Internet.
BERLIN (Reuters) ? A steady slide in beer consumption in Germany was stopped cold last year thanks to warmer weather, the federal statistics office said on Monday.
German brewers sold 98.2 million hectoliters of beer last year, down by just 0.1 percent in 2011 after dropping by an average of two percent every year since 2006. Beer consumption in Germany had fallen in all but two of the last 10 years.
Despite Germany's reputation as a nation of beer lovers, young people are turning away from the national beverage in favour of other non-alcoholic beverages, brewers say.
The warmer weather last year as well as the World Cup soccer tournament in 2006 helped to put a floor beneath what is still the country's most famous beverage. Germans still drink more than 100 liters of beer per capita each year.
"Beer sales depend on the weather. In the first half of 2011 -- in April and May -- we had a lot of warm weather, and the figures were up by 1.0 percent," Juergen Hammer, an official at the Federal Statistics Agency, told Reuters.
"This is why this year's results aren't so bad. So I guess the old adage is true that when it's warm people drink beer."
Consumption of German beer, which has been subject to a purity law since 1516, has been in slow decline for decades.
The World Cup football tournament helped German beer consumption rise by 1.4 percent in 2006, the strongest increase in 12 years, the federal statistics office said on Monday.
(Reporting by Alice Baghdjian, editing by Paul Casciato)
The crisis in Syria takes a dramatic turn for the worse. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.
By Associated Press
In dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, Syrian troops stormed rebellious areas near the capital Sunday, shelling neighborhoods that have fallen under the control of army dissidents and clashing with fighters. At least 62 people were killed in violence nationwide, activists and residents said.
The widescale offensive near the capital suggested the regime is worried that military defectors could close in on Damascus, which has remained relatively quiet while most other Syrian cities descended into chaos after the uprising began in March.
The rising bloodshed added urgency to Arab and Western diplomatic efforts to end the 10-month conflict.
The violence has gradually approached the capital. In the past two weeks, army dissidents have become more visible, seizing several suburbs on the eastern edge of Damascus and setting up checkpoints where masked men wearing military attire and wielding assault rifles stop motorists and protect anti-regime protests.
Their presence so close to the capital is astonishing in tightly controlled Syria and suggests the Assad regime may either be losing control or setting up a trap for the fighters before going on the offensive.
Residents of Damascus reported hearing clashes in the nearby suburbs, particularly at night, shattering the city's calm.
"The current battles taking place in and around Damascus may not yet lead to the unraveling of the regime, but the illusion of normalcy that the Assads have sought hard to maintain in the capital since the beginning of the revolution has surely unraveled," said Ammar Abdulhamid, a U.S.-based Syrian dissident.
"Once illusions unravel, reality soon follows," he wrote in his blog Sunday.
Related: Arab League halts observer mission due to violence
Soldiers riding some 50 tanks and dozens of armored vehicles stormed a belt of suburbs and villages on the eastern outskirts of Damascus known as al-Ghouta Sunday, a predominantly Sunni Muslim agricultural area where large anti-regime protests have been held.
Some of the fighting on Sunday was less than three miles (four kilometers) from Damascus, in Ein Tarma, making it the closest yet to the capital.
"There are heavy clashes going on in all of the Damascus suburbs," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, who relies on a network of activists on the ground. "Troops were able to enter some areas but are still facing stiff resistance in others."
The fighting using mortars and machine guns sent entire families fleeing, some of them on foot carrying bags of belongings, to the capital.
"The shelling and bullets have not stopped since yesterday," said a man who left his home in Ein Tarma with his family Sunday. "It's terrifying, there's no electricity or water, it's a real war," he said by telephone on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisals.
The uprising against Assad, which began with largely peaceful demonstrations, has grown increasingly militarized recently as more frustrated protesters and army defectors have taken up arms.
In a bid to stamp out resistance in the capital's outskirts, the military has responded with a withering assault on a string of suburbs, leading to a spike in violence that has killed at least 150 people since Thursday.
The United Nations says at least 5,400 people have been killed in the 10 months of violence.
The U.N. is holding talks on a new resolution on Syria and next week will discuss an Arab League peace plan aimed at ending the crisis. But the initiatives face two major obstacles: Damascus' rejection of an Arab plan that it says impinges on its sovereignty, and Russia's willingness to use its U.N. Security Council veto to protect Syria from sanctions.
Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby told reporters Sunday in Egypt that contacts were under way with China and Russia.
"I hope that their stand will be adjusted in line with the final drafting of the draft resolution," he told reporters before leaving for New York with Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim.
The two will seek U.N. support for the latest Arab plan to end Syria's crisis. The plan calls for a two-month transition to a unity government, with Assad giving his vice president full powers to work with the proposed government.
Because of the escalating violence, the Arab League on Saturday halted the work of its observer mission in Syria at least until the League's council can meet. Arab foreign ministers were to meet Sunday in Cairo to discuss the Syrian crisis in light of the suspension of the observers' work and Damascus' refusal to agree to the transition timetable, the League said.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said he was "concerned" about the League's decision to suspend its monitoring mission and called on Assad to "immediately stop the bloodshed." He spoke Sunday at an African Union summit in Addis Ababa.
While the international community scrambles to find a resolution to the crisis, the violence on the ground in Syria has continued unabated.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 27 civilians were killed Sunday in Syria, most of them in fighting in the Damascus suburbs and in the central city of Homs, a hotbed of anti-regime protests. Twenty-six soldiers and nine defectors were also killed, it said. The soldiers were killed in ambushes that targeted military vehicles near the capital and in the northern province of Idlib.
The Local Coordination Committees' activist network said 50 people were killed Sunday, including 13 who were killed in the suburbs of the capital and two defectors. That count excluded soldiers killed Sunday.
The differing counts could not be reconciled, and the reports could not be independently confirmed. Syrian authorities keep tight control on the media and have banned many foreign journalists from entering the country.
Syria's state-run news agency said "terrorists" detonated a roadside bomb by remote control near a bus carrying soldiers in the Damascus suburb of Sahnaya, killing six soldiers and wounding six others. Among those killed in the attack some 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of the capital were two first lieutenants, SANA said.
In Irbil, a Kurdish city in northern Iraq, about 200 members of Syria's Kurdish parties were holding two days of meetings to explore ways of supporting efforts to topple Assad.
Abdul-Baqi Youssef, a member of the Syrian Kurdish Union Party, said representatives of 11 Kurdish parties formed the Syrian Kurdish National Council that will coordinate anti-government activities with Syria's opposition.
Kurds make up 15 percent of Syria's 23 million people and have long complained of discrimination.
? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
LONDON ? Margaret Thatcher chose Beethoven, Michael Caine picked Frank Sinatra and boxer George Foreman selected The Beatles' "All You Need is Love."
They are among almost 3,000 guests who have appeared on the radio program "Desert Island Discs," a British broadcasting institution that turned 70 on Sunday.
The show's simple format hasn't changed since 1942: Ask an illustrious or famous figure to choose the eight pieces of music they would take with them to a deserted isle, and talk about what the tracks mean to them. At the end of each program, the guest is sent into imaginary exile, along with their choice of a book, a luxury and one of their eight records.
Almost 3 million listeners tune in each week to the show, which has stranded royalty, prime ministers and movie stars, as well as scientists, poets and philosophers.
Its success is a mark of radio's enduring popularity in the age of the Internet and high definition TV. Host Kirsty Young said its strength lies in the "unique blend of a castaway's life and the music that forms its soundtrack."
"At best it displays the frailties and strengths of the human condition ? how our creativity, grit and humanity can see us through," she said in a BBC radio documentary marking the anniversary.
Young told the Radio Times magazine that scientists made the best guests, because they often had not been interviewed before.
"Politicians are awful, especially when they have the responsibility of office, because they have to be careful," said Young, one of only four hosts the show has had in 70 years.
Still, politicians rarely refuse an invitation to soften their image. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair revealed a love of Spanish guitar music, his successor Gordon Brown enthused about Bach and current leader David Cameron selected Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue" as his desert island record.
Even a senior member of the British royal family has appeared. Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II, was a guest in 1981. Her musical choices included "Rule Britannia" and ? more surprisingly ? "Sixteen Tons" By Tennessee Ernie Ford.
The probing of the castaways is gentle ? a style pioneered by the show's creator and original host Roy Plomley, who plied guests with food and drink at his club before recordings. But the interviews are often revealing and can occasionally make headlines.
There were hundreds of complaints when Lady Diana Mosley, widow of Britain's World War II Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, was a guest in 1989 and offered the view that Hitler "was of course extraordinarily fascinating and clever."
In February 2003, a month before the invasion of Iraq, actor George Clooney accused then U.S. President George W. Bush of manipulating the country into supporting war and said it was Americans' "patriotic duty to question the actions of your government."
Few refuse an invitation, which brings no fee but considerable prestige.
"You're honored to be part of this strange national club," said U.S.-born music broadcaster Paul Gambaccini, a castaway in 2002.
"To be welcomed into something so quintessentially British as 'Desert Island Discs' means I've made it, I'm welcome, I'm home," he told the BBC.
Mick Jagger is one of the best-known holdouts. His Rolling Stones bandmate Charlie Watts said yes, as did ex-Beatle Paul McCartney ? who chose his murdered bandmate John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy" as his desert-island track ? and musicians from Bing Crosby to Alice Cooper.
The most popular musical choice over the decades has been the "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's 9th Symphony, with Mozart the most frequently selected composer. The most popular non-classical piece is Edith Piaf singing "Je Ne Regrette Rien."
The most commonly requested luxury item is a piano. Other choices have been more original.
American novelist Norman Mailer requested "a stick of the very best marijuana," while egocentric entertainment svengali Simon Cowell asked for a mirror ? "because I'd miss me."
COMMENTARY | Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich came under fire -- mostly for economic reasons -- when he proposed at the CNN Republican Presidential Debate in Jacksonville that he would like to have a permanent moon base on Earth's lone satellite by the end of his second term as president. But even if his ideas have some logistical hurdles to cross, there is ample reason to believe that an American moon base could be operational in a decade or two. Besides, the space race never really went into hiatus; the major players merely took a slower track, giving others a chance to enter the race.
A Moon Base By 2020?
There are several reasons to develop a moon base: military and strategic, scientific, economic, or simply territorial. But Gingrich's moon base ideation may have been spurred by the growing interest of other nations in reaching the moon. With a sort of Kennedy-esque vision of national direction, Gingrich revived the dream of not only reaching the moon, but obtaining a bit of it for the American people. A 2020 date might be somewhat optimistic, but he said he'd like to set up shop before China, which has plans to put a man on the moon by 2024.
The Obama administration has decided to forego the moon, concentrating on research and development, cooperating in international space endeavors, planning a future mission to an asteroid, and getting to Mars by 2035. But no moon mission. In fact, President Obama told his audience, which included moonwalking astronaut Buzz Aldrin, when he laid out his Space Policy at the John F. Kennedy Space Flight Center in Florida in April 2010, "We've been there before. Buzz has been there."
A Renewed Space Race?
The United States is the only country to have ever placed moonwalkers on the lunar surface. Twelve, in fact. However, with the development of several space agencies around the planet, that could soon change to simply being the first.
As mentioned, China has designs on getting to the moon. A Hong Kong newspaper reported in 2006 (recounted by Reuters) that a top Chinese space program official stated that China planned its first moonwalk for 2024. A moon base, territory grab, and mineral extractions will then begin, according to Robert Bigelow, founder of the private space company Bigelow Aerospace, who told Discovery Newsthat the moon is the obvious next step in human exploration and development. And although there exists an international space treaty, the Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, that prohibits any one nation or organization from owning through claim, use, or other means any part or all of the moon, that will have little bearing on the situation at hand once a nation establishes an outpost of some kind on the lunar surface. History is littered with broken treaties.
JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) also revealed in 2006 in an AFP report its long-range plans for putting a man on the moon by 2030. Spokesman Satoki Kurokawa stated that Japan hoped to get a man on the moon by 2020.
India, which has sent unmanned orbiters to the moon, has also expressed an interest in a moon base.
What About Russia?
Gingrich's moon base could also see realization in renewed efforts by the Russians to reach the moon. A Cold War competitor as part of the Soviet Union, the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos announced Jan. 19 (per BDK) that they had enjoined talks with European and American space partners about a possible base or manned orbiter.
So was Gingrich's idea a lunatic's dream? Hardly. And with all the attention his moon base comments have received, they could very well spark renewed interest in America's manned space program, which ended with the touchdown of the shuttle Atlantis in July.
In Alberta, a couple we?ll call Wilt, 36, and his wife, Susan, 44, are thriving with a total take-home income of $ 8,000 a month. Both self-employed as consultants ? he in management, she in health care ? they have come to a point in their lives in which they have a good deal of unencumbered cash flow. Their net worth, about $ 229,000, is modest, but they are planning far ahead. Their goals ? educate their five-year-old daughter and plan a retirement.
Family Finance asked Lenore Davis, a registered financial planner with Dixon, Davis & Co. in Victoria, to work with Wilt and Susan. ?They are scattered in terms of where they deploy their money,? Ms. Davis says. ?They do indeed need a plan to get them to their retirement goal while looking after their daughter?s educational needs.?
Financial management
For now, Susan and Wilt need to reduce their debts and to rationalize their investments. To do that, they have to resist the urge to increase their personal spending parallel to their increased income. Their method has been to run all their income through their personal corporation and pay themselves as needed. Their $ 8,000 monthly draw leaves $ 983 a month unspent. They can use it for their child?s RESP ? $ 2,500 a year, which will attract $ 500 a year from the Canada Educational Savings Grant ? and putting $ 8,000 into lump-sum mortgage reduction on each anniversary due date.
After taking their draws from their corporation and allowing for deductions, there should be $ 60,000 in their company each year to be invested. The money can be left inside the company or flowed out to Wilt and Susan so that they can invest it personally.
Corporate income tax rates ? federal and provincial ? on active Alberta small-business income are low at 14%, compared to personal income tax rates in their bracket of 32% on salaries. But investment income from money left in a corporation is taxed at 45%. So the best thing for now is to distribute the income to the couple as dividends, Ms. Davis advises. In time, they should consider adding to salary to boost Canada Pension Plan benefits, she adds. Dividends are not salary or wage income and do not generate CPP credits.
Any payouts of surplus cash can be used for RESPs, mortgage paydowns, TFSA contributions or filling RRSP space. Wilt has $ 67,000 of unused RRSP space, Susan $ 86,000 of space.
Retirement planning
In 29 years, when they are ready to retire, if they have built up CPP benefits at the maximum rate, currently $ 11,840 a year, they can add their entitlement to full Old Age Security benefits, currently $ 6,480 a year, to build a base of public pensions of $ 36,640 a year in 2012 dollars. Their present spending net of school tuition, saving and debt repayment, about $ 4,000 a month, or $ 48,000 a year after tax, would be approximately $ 74,000 before 35% average tax.
To achieve that level of income, they would have to add $ 37,360 of annual investment income. At 65, when Wilt and Susan begin their retirement, they would need capital of $ 622,700. That would produce the required annual supplement to public pensions, assuming all their income and capital would be used up by the time Wilt is 90. To get to that level of capital, they will have to save $ 11,220 a year for the next 29 years and achieve a 3.0% real rate of return.
The couple already saves more than $ 14,000 a year in RRSPs and taxable savings, so reaching the target should be no problem. Yet Wilt and Susan have shown a knack for investing in risky undertakings with sad outcomes. For example, they have $ 100,000 in a real-estate venture that has gone into receivership. The couple needs to switch investment methods from the concept of adventure to a steady system for diversifying assets and estimating dependable returns from stocks, bonds and perhaps real-estate mutual funds or exchange-traded funds that have strong and rising payouts. Their allocation to bonds should grow to perhaps 25% of total investments within the next few years and rise to 65% by retirement age, Ms. Davis suggests.
Investing in security
The final issue in Wilt and Susan?s future is their view of the purpose of investments. When they had little money, they invested for the thrill of it. Now that they have substantial incomes and substantial assets, they must act like good managers for themselves and for their child.
To avoid the risk of buying the wrong stock or bond, commodity or parcel of real estate, the couple can use low-fee exchange-traded funds with diversified assets. Over a period of 29 years, ETF fees that would average about 0.50% a year will tend to outperform actively managed mutual funds with fees five times higher. The 2.0% annual saving will translate into a 58% value retention over 29 years. Competent managers of higher-fee mutual funds could boost returns and justify their fees, but the odds of finding mangers who can beat the market for nearly three decades are poor.
Wilt and Susan could increase their financial security by purchasing disability insurance. Disability coverage prices vary widely. For payments of $ 5,000 a person a month that begin 90 days after a reported injury or illness, Wilt would pay $ 125 a month to age 65 and Susan would pay $ 243 a month to age 65. The premiums could be paid by their company as a taxable benefit to the employees.
?This couple is in a great place to make their financial situation secure,? Ms. Davis says. ?By taking concrete money-management measures, they can stop worrying about past losses and focus on a comfortable future lifestyle and a solid retirement plan. A relatively small amount of planning and a move to a sound investment style with reasonable costs should get them to a comfortable retirement.?
? Need help getting out of a financial fix? E-mail andrewallentuck@mts.net for a free Family Finance analysis.
Seriously, we can't caveat this one enough -- there is no way of knowing if this is in fact the Galaxy S III or, if it is, when it might come to market -- but, it looks like Samsungs "next big smartphone" just made a cameo on the company's support pages. Listed as the GT-i9300, the mystery device reared its head over at the Global Download Center of the United Arab Emerites site. If Sammy is to keep with its naming scheme i93XX would be a flagship device -- the i90XX line was the Galaxy S, i91XX represents the S2 series, while the i9250 and i9220 are the Nexus and Note respectively. As we warned before though, this could be some mid-range device and Samsung could be changing its naming conventions. Or, perhaps, its yet another variation of an existing model. Still, we'll take this as a good sign that Seoul squad has something interesting brewing.
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BEIRUT?? Updated at 3:15 a.m. ET: Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, describes the killings of at least 35 people in the city of Homs as a "terrifying massacre."
Videos posted online from activists showed the bodies of children wrapped in plastic bags lined up next to each other. Another video shows women and children with bloodied faces and clothes and in a house, with the narrator saying an entire family with its children had been "slaughtered."
The videos could not be independently verified.
The U.N. Security Council meets on Friday to discuss the next move on Syria and council envoys said members will be given a new Western-Arab draft resolution that supports the Arab League's call for President Bashar Assad to transfer his powers to his deputy.
The resolution calls for Assad's deputy to set up a unity government and prepare for elections after a ten-month crackdown.
The Security Council could vote as early as next week on the resolution, which diplomats from Britain and France are crafting in consultation with Qatar, Morocco, the United States, Germany and Portugal, envoys said. It replaces a Russian text that Western diplomats say is too weak.
The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists, both said the death toll in Homs was at least 35, but the reports could not be confirmed. The groups cited a network of activists on the ground in Syria.
The Observatory said 29 people were killed in the religiously mixed Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood of Homs on Thursday, including eight children, most of them when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gunfire.
Residents spoke of another massacre that took place when shabiha ? armed regime loyalists ? stormed the district, slaughtering residents in an apartment, including children.
"It's racial cleansing," said one resident of Karm el-Zaytoun, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. "They are killing people because of their sect," he said.
Published at 4:30 a.m. ET: Dozens of people were killed in a day of relentless violence in the restive Syrian city of Homs, two activist groups said on Friday.
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Two activist groups said the death toll in Homs on Thursday was at least 35, but the reports could not be confirmed. Details about the bloodshed were only emerging Friday.
Witnesses on the ground told The Associated Press they were still gathering information but that the city was rocked by sectarian killings, gunfire and explosions for much of Thursday.
Many of the reported victims were inside a building in the Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood, the AP reported. Activists say at least 22 civilians were killed in the building, including children.
Outside Syria's capital, suburbs look like war zone
The Local Coordination Committees said in an email sent to news media that a total of 65 people were killed in Syria Thursday.
Interactive: Young and restless: Demographics fuel Mideast protests (on this page)
"Among them were 10 children, 4 women and 8 defected military soldier, they were martyred on Thursday by the bullets of security forces and the heavy weaponry of the military," the email said.
Family: US-born student held in Syria set free
The Syrian uprising against the Bashar Assad regime began last March with largely peaceful anti-government protests, but it has grown increasingly militarized in recent months.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2012) ? Psychologists have found that buying life experiences makes people happier than buying possessions, but who spends more of their spare cash on experiences? New findings published this week in the Journal of Positive Psychology reveal extraverts and people who are open to new experiences tend to spend more of their disposable income on experiences, such as concert tickets or a weekend away, rather than hitting the mall for material items.
These habitual "experiential shoppers" reaped long-term benefits from their spending: They reported greater life satisfaction, according to the study led by San Francisco State University Assistant Professor of Psychology Ryan Howell.
To further investigate how purchasing decisions impact well-being, Howell and colleagues have launched a website where members of the public can take free surveys to find out what kind of shopper they are and how their spending choices affect them. Data collected through the "Beyond the Purchase" website will be used by Howell and other social psychologists.
Graduate students in Howell's Personality and Well-being Lab will use the site to study the link between spending motivations and well-being, and how money management influences our financial and purchasing choices.
For his latest study, Howell and colleagues surveyed nearly10,000 participants, who completed online questionnaires about their shopping habits, personality traits, values and life satisfaction.
"We know that being an 'experience shopper' is linked to greater wellbeing," said Howell, whose 2009 paper on purchasing experiences, published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, challenged the adage that money can't buy happiness. "But we wanted to find out why some people gravitate toward buying experiences."
Participants' personality was measured using the "Big Five" personality traits model, a scale psychologists use to describe how extraverted, neurotic, open, conscientious and agreeable a person is. People who spent most of their disposable income on experiences scored highly on the "extravert" and "openness to new experience" scales.
"This personality profile makes sense since life experiences are inherently more social, and they also contain an element of risk," Howell said. "If you try a new experience that you don't like, you can't return it to the store for a refund."
The authors suggest that it could be easier to change your spending habits than your personality traits. "Even for people who naturally find themselves drawn to material purchases, our results suggest that getting more of a balance between traditional purchases and those that provide you with an experience could lead to greater life satisfaction and wellbeing."
Visit the Beyond the Purchase website at http://www.beyondthepurchase.org
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by San Francisco State University.
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Journal Reference:
Ryan T. Howell, Paulina Pchelin, Ravi Iyer. The preference for experiences over possessions: Measurement and construct validation of the Experiential Buying Tendency Scale. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2012; 7 (1): 57 DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2011.626791
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
It?s been a bumpy week for RIM. On Sunday, the Canadian smartphone maker?s co-CEOs tried their best to quietly resign and hand over the CEO position to their former Chief Operating Officer, Thorsten Heins. For months, investors and journalists have been calling for Research in Motion?s co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis ? who have each taken turns running the company since it was founded in 1991 ? to step down. Until Sunday, they showed no signs of doing so.
Worse, though RIM?s smartphone market share has been steadily dropping in the months since the company?s BlackBerry 7 device lineup launched (Sept. 2011), new CEO Thorsten Heins repeatedly asserted in multiple interviews that RIM has no real structural problems, and that he doesn?t plan to shake the company up much aside from hiring a new marketing officer. Tech journalists, analysts, and bloggers have been chattering like crazy, and no one seems fond of the new CEO. From a distance, he appears to be a Yes man, planted at the top to carry out already established plans.?
So what?s going on here? Is Thorsten Heins actually in charge of RIM? More importantly, does the company need a huge structural and strategic overhaul, or is it mainly an image problem? Has RIM already made the changes and laid out the plan that it needs to succeed, or is it too little, too late??
Giving up the two-seated throne
Mike Lazaridis founded RIM in 1984 and Jim Balsillie a self-described jock, joined him as co-CEO in 1991. The unique dual-power arrangement had Balsillie tackling the business side of RIM and Lazaridis focusing mostly on the products and technology. For many years, it worked, but since the debut of the iPhone, two CEOs seem to be proving worse than one.
RIM has had a rough few years. The company has gone from being the biggest smartphone maker in the United States (with a massive 80 percent market share on Verizon) to a niche player that seems unable to win over new customers as the market shifts toward touch-based operating systems thanks to the massive success of the iPhone, which debuted in 2007. In 2008, RIM attempted to counter the iPhone with the Storm, its first touch-based BlackBerry, but the device was a failure. After that, the company retreated back to its comfortable, keyboarded lineup of BlackBerry Curves and Pearls. The co-CEOs many times stated that RIM?s focus on QWERTY keyboards was one of its best differentiating features. They?ve introduced more touch-based BlackBerry phones, but none have succeeded in redefining the brand. And so, a couple years ago the CEOs brushed the U.S. under the rug and focused on the international market.?
?The dilemma is that the U.S. went down the high-end smartphone market and the international market grew greatly,? Balsillie said in an interview. ?So the question is where you put your resources? We couldn?t do both. We were explosive growth internationally. Do we leverage core franchise and go international, or do we move higher end for the U.S. market??
The company made the wrong choice. By focusing on the international market, it succeeded in boosting short-term profits, but the United States turned out to be a trend setter for the rest of the world, which has now begun following in its footsteps, leaving Nokia-like feature phones and BlackBerry devices for touchscreen phones running Android and iOS. They have become so popular that users began demanding to use them at work, carving into RIM???s strongest asset: businesses.
The year of hell
2011 proved to be a fascinating year for RIM. The company continued to churn out record revenues from overseas, but its position in the US market began fading fast. From October to December alone, RIM?s market share dropped from 7.7 percent to 4.5 percent due to explosive sales of competing devices. The company?s share of the world smartphone market isn?t better, having dropped to 11 percent in the third quarter of 2011 from 19 percent in mid 2010.?The Canadian company?s stock has followed the same downward arrow. Between June 2008 (when the iPhone 3G came out) and June 2011, RIM?s shareholders lost nearly $70 billion, or 82 percent of the smartphone maker?s value. That same month, RIM also?laid off more than 2,000 employees.?
2011 was also home to two failed product launches: BlackBerry 7 and the PlayBook.
PlayBook: In April, the co-CEOs entered the blossoming tablet market with the BlackBerry PlayBook, a 7-inch tablet running a completely new operating system based on QNX, an OS that RIM purchased a couple years earlier. In an interview in Dec. 2010, Lazaridis spilled that the PlayBook was a sign of things to come from RIM and that future phones would be dual-core and run QNX as well. (These new phones later came to be known as BBX, but due to legal issues it will now be called BlackBerry 10.) This sounds grand and good, except that the launch of the PlayBook was a bit of a disaster.
When the PlayBook launched, it was clearly a nice-looking piece of hardware released before it was complete. The PlayBook software had huge bugs that required a number of bi-weekly updates to fix. Both businesses and mainstream consumers were confused about what it brought to the table. Did we mention that it lacking common apps like integrated email and calendar support? It also had next to no viable apps in its app store, and RIM?s included apps for things like podcasting were woefully broken or incomplete. We were very optimistic in our review of the PlayBook, but RIM also beat down our expectations throughout 2011, promising email, calendar, and Android app support by summer and not delivering it until?well?never. At least, not yet. These updates are supposedly coming next month (Feb. 2012).?
RIM expected the PlayBook to be such a success that it manufactured 2 million of the tablets. Due to lack of demand, it has still only sold about half of its inventory, even after several price cuts, and had to write off $500 million due to the unsold tablets.?Now RIM is distributing PlayBooks to developers who wish to work on the upcoming BlackBerry 10 platform.
BlackBerry 7: The second big failure of 2011 was the launch of the BlackBerry 7 platform and devices. While these devices did not have the problems of the PlayBook, they did not help RIM to recapture any momentum. Following the launch of several new BlackBerry Bold, Curve, and Torch phones, RIM?s market share began to dwindle faster than ever. Several BB 7 devices featured touchscreens, but the phones featured no marked improvement in user interface, features, or processing power. They looked a bit slicker, but RIM seemed to be mostly churning out established designs with little innovation. As a result, the company?s smartphone market share fell dramatically over the holidays as?the iPhone and Android both posted record sales in late 2011. RIM became almost a complete non-player in the market, with a market share so low that Windows Phone now has a good shot at becoming the number three smartphone OS in 2012 (though Microsoft definitely has its work cut out).
Time for a ?new? CEO!
Photo by Geoff Robins, Reuters, Financial Post
So, that?s where RIM is at today. For the last year, shareholders and analysts have been calling for the resignation of Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, but neither of the co-CEOs showed any signs of stepping down. In fact, the duo wanted to retain their positions so badly that in December they offered to accept a cash salary of only $1 per year until they are able to turn the company around.
?We are more committed than ever to addressing the issues at hand,? Balsillie told analysts on a Dec. 15 conference call.
However, at that same earnings call, the duo was forced to announce the delay of BlackBerry 10, its supposed revolutionary new platform that will take its smartphones to a new level. BlackBerry 10 phones won?t hit the market until late 2012 now. Previously, it was slated for early 2012 (and that wasn?t the first delay).?
Either by design or a decision by the board, Lazaridis and Balsillie stepped down on Jan. 22, handing the reins over to a single CEO named Thorsten Heins. Heins joined RIM in 2007 working as the VP of its handheld business unit, and was promoted to chief operating officer in mid 2011 in a management shakeup.?
?There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now,? said Lazaridis. ?With?BlackBerry?7 now out, PlayBook 2.0 shipping in February and BlackBerry 10 expected to ship later this year, the company is entering a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond.? Jim, the Board and I all agreed that leader should be Thorsten Heins.?
Both Lazaridis and Balsillie will retain positions inside the company and on the board.
Thorsten Heins: The great RIM Defender
The startling thing about newly minted CEO Thorsten Heins was just how unprepared he was to deal with the battering of interviews he got on Monday, Jan. 23. He came across as qualified and knowledgeable, but with an attitude quite similar to his predecessors, arguing that RIM is doing quite well, for the most part, and he won?t be making any major changes.?
The interview below, which was published on the official BlackBerry YouTube page, Heins introduces himself and seems overly excited about his job (as Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic also?notes), saying that RIM was more like a startup company when he joined in 2007 (more than 22 years after the company was founded), but has always remained ahead of the curve.?
??At the very core of RIM, at its DNA how I always describe it, is the innovation,? said Heins. ?We always think ahead. We always think forward. We sometimes think the unthinkable. And that is fantastic. That is the core of every high-technology company.?
In a teleconference call on the same day and throughout numerous interviews, he maintained that RIM is not in need of any major restructuring changes:??I don?t think there is some drastic change needed,? Heins said. ?We are evolving. We?re evolving our strategy, we?re evolving our tactics, our processes.??
Though journalists have harped on the comment, Heins actually seems to be arguing a different point. He isn?t saying that RIM needs no change. He?s actually arguing that all of the appropriate changes have already been set into place. In effect, he?s arguing that Balsillie and Lazaridis have done most of the hard work for him. The BlackBerry 2.0 software (impressions) and BlackBerry 10 are on track to come out this year. In a sense, Heins has merely been placed at the front door to greet the guests who no longer wish to hang out with Balsillie and Lazaridis. His video interview with CNBC affirms this viewpoint.?
?Mike and Jim took a bold step 18 months ago when RIM purchased?QNX?to shepherd the transformation of the BlackBerry platform for the next decade,? said Heins. ?We are more confident than ever that was the right path. It is Mike and Jim?s continued unwillingness to sacrifice long-term value for short-term gain which has made RIM the great company that it is today. I share that philosophy and am very excited about the company?s future.?
In multiple interviews, he also defended RIM, saying how great the company?s BlackBerry 7 devices are and how well off RIM is financially: ?We have a strong balance sheet with approximately $1.5 billion in cash at the end of the last quarter and negligible debt. We reported revenue of $5.2 billion in our last quarter, up 24 percent from the prior quarter, and a 35 percent year-to-year increase in the BlackBerry subscriber base, which is now over 75 million.?
Heins also says that much of RIM?s problem in the US isn?t its devices, but how it markets them. His big plan: to hire a new head of marketing.
BlackBerry 10 and PlayBook 2.0, RIM?s last big chance?
According to his own interviews, Thorsten Heins has no big plans to shake up RIM or reset its course. This is a marked difference from Nokia, which found itself in a similar position last year. Nokia chose to hire an outsider as its CEO, going with Stephen Elop, who quickly made huge structural changes?to the Finnish manufacturer.?Heins is from RIM and seems to share the same exact vision as his predecessors, Balsillie and Lazaridis. He has repeatedly said that all of the necessary changes have been already made, nearly admitting that his appointment was done almost exclusively to put a new face on RIM.
If RIM has already overhauled its business, it has not been nearly as vocal about the process as Nokia was when it restructured and chose to align itself with the Windows Phone platform. There have been layoffs and the BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 shown at CES was impressive, but it may be too little, too late for the Canadian company. Or perhaps, maybe not.?
The real question is whether RIM can deliver a unique ?must-have? phone experience with BlackBerry 10. After using the PlayBook 2.0, I have to say that the operating system is perhaps the smoothest tablet OS on the market and RIM?s software design seems not only more complete than it was a year ago, but far better looking as well. RIM executives at CES credited the improved look of the PlayBook software to its?acquisition of Tat, an interface and design company. It?s hard to imagine the PlayBook gaining much traction without a new hardware model, but RIM seems determined to revive it using software alone. Somehow, it needs to actually accomplish this. Giving the PlayBook momentum seems key to building developer and consumer interest in BlackBerry 10 (learn more about the upcoming OS here).?
But for the new platform to succeed, RIM is going to have to translate its webOS-like OS to smartphones in a far better way than HP or Palm ever did. The PlayBook has a large screen, but if RIM is to succeed in smartphones, it has to take that OS and shrink it down to a multitude of screen sizes. It will also likely have to better standardize its screen resolutions and greatly improve the power of its phones by using dual-core or quad-core processors. They will all have to be touch-based, and if RIM decides to keep pushing keyboards on a majority of handsets, its image will suffer. As great as the keyboard is, it is also a symbol of RIM?s lack of innovation in recent years. These new phones need to look and feel much different from BlackBerry 7 devices. They also need to be compatible with the PlayBook?s growing app library of more than 50,000 apps (according to representatives at CES).?
Finally, RIM needs to figure out what kind of company it wants to be. The company has been straddling a thin line between being a business-only brand and a consumer brand in recent years. If it wants to win customers on either side, it needs to demonstrate clear advantages for end users over Android or iOS. It needs to be more fun to use a BlackBerry, easier, a more seamless experience, and different. That last bit remains key. It needs to be different from what it is today, and different from the competition. With the collapse of webOS and the continued struggle of Windows Phone, there is still a chance for RIM, but if it doesn?t deliver in 2012, things are going to plummet , and fast.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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When Mitt Romney released his 2010 tax returns on Tuesday, the one number that probably stood out to many Americans wasn't his 14% effective tax rate or his $20 million-plus annual income. It was the $7 million he gave to charity over the last two years, including some $4.1 million to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Where does that money go? In addition to donating to his family's Tyler Foundation, Romney does his duty as an active LDS member. The Mormon Church requires its members to tithe 10% of their income, and Romney's contributions match that responsibility. (PHOTOS: The Rich History of Mitt Romney)
Designed to follow the Biblical mandate to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, the Mormon tithing system supports a giant welfare infrastructure. In addition to financing temple construction and missionary programs, tithing supports more than 300 employment resource centers and 80 family services offices around the world. The church employs some 8,500 missionaries who teach English, give agricultural aid, provide medical practices and distribute clothing. It even stores a 3-6 month food supply so its members won't go hungry in the event of a disaster, and most families forgo two consecutive meals a month to give money as a "fast offering" for the poor. Local bishops -- a position Romney once held -- work with members of their local church wards to overcome economic hardships, and are even empowered to pay a family's mortgage in the hardest of times.
Structured or not, these donations set Romney apart from his political colleagues. In 2010, Romney gave away 16% of his income while Newt Gingrich's returns show he gave only 2.6%. The portion Gingrich donated to his Washington D.C. home church, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, was even smaller -- 0.3%, or $9,540. Because the Gingrichs' also reported an earned income of $5,918 from the National Shrine -- Callista sings as an alto in the church's professional choir, which pays $80 per mass and rehearsal -- so the net balance of their contributions sinks below $4,000. The rest of Gingrich's charitable donations went to unspecified cash contributions through the Gingrichs' businesses, some $68,500, and to miscellaneous donations, near $3,100. The Obamas, meanwhile, gave 14% of their income to a total of 36 different charities in 2010. Much of that went to the Fisher House Foundation, a charity that works with veterans, and smaller amounts went to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and the Boys and Girls Club of America. A religious body was not listed on their returns, but the Obamas have not become members of a church while living in Washington. (VIDEO: Explaining Mitt Romney's 14% Federal Tax Rate)
In Monday's debate, Romney said he is "proud of the fact that I pay a lot of taxes." Though he's at times reluctant to speak publicly about his Mormon faith, his charitable giving, half of which goes to the socially-active LDS church, is something to be proud of as well.
Read?more: Syracuse, Mayor Stephanie Miner, State of the City, Taxes, Fiscal Crisis, School Renovations
Mayor Stephanie Miner of Syracuse.
The freshly renovated and expanded stage of the last remaining grand old movie house in downtown Syracuse was just the right ticket for Mayor Stephanie Miner's State of the City message tonight.? The Landmark Theatre was a jewel that was suffering from a declining center city. A multi-million dollar renovation has now modernized the stage space to attract major shows and concerts that had by passed the Salina Street corridor for years.? The investment into the community's future is symbolic of the opportunity that comes with lifting up and looking forward.
Mayor Miner recapped several stalled projects that have found new life under her two year old administration.?? The reconstruction of several Syracuse city schools,? the Inner Harbor build out and the Salina Street 300 block project are all moving ahead after being talked about, debated and delayed.? We had become a city and community more accustomed to what was not getting done than what should be getting done.
The two sided speech given by the way talked about those projects on the rise and added the advent of a Syracuse airport authority as promise for the next few years to come.? She also warned of extraordinarily difficult economic choices for the city and other governments in the next couple of years.?? Costs are climbing.? Assistance from the federal and state level is diminishing.? It is not easy being a mayor these days.
It must have been remarkable to lead a city like Syracuse during the headier times.? Reaching back to the post-war years in the 1950's and 60's when today's older structures were in their prime.? The population core still lived within a couple of miles of Salina and Fayette. When jobs were plentiful. When New York State was a clear national leader and Central New York was much further up the list of the nation's largest cities.
It's nice to look back for nostalgia, but impractical to presume those times will return. It's time to carve out new ones. Create a new future.? Mayor Miner carries a sense of that despite the fiscal, social and population challenges.
Any questions or comment please forward them to?mattsmemo@CNYcentral.com. I may even use some of your thoughts on NBC 3 News at 5:00, the 10:00 News on CW6 or on CNYcentral.com.
The opinions expressed in this blog are the sole responsibility of the author and are not reflective of the views or opinions of Barrington Broadcasting, WSTM-NBC3, its management or employees.
WASHINGTON ? Global warming is hitting not just home, but garden. The color-coded map of planting zones often seen on the back of seed packets is being updated by the government, illustrating a hotter 21st century.
It's the first time since 1990 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has revised the official guide for the nation's 80 million gardeners, and much has changed. Nearly entire states, such as Ohio, Nebraska and Texas, are in warmer zones.
The new guide, unveiled Wednesday at the National Arboretum, arrives just as many home gardeners are receiving their seed catalogs and dreaming of lush flower beds in the spring.
It reflects a new reality: The coldest day of the year isn't as cold as it used to be, so some plants and trees can now survive farther north.
"People who grow plants are well aware of the fact that temperatures have gotten more mild throughout the year, particularly in the wintertime," said Boston University biology professor Richard Primack. "There's a lot of things you can grow now that you couldn't grow before."
He stand the giant fig tree in his suburban Boston yard stands as an example: "People don't think of figs as a crop you can grow in the Boston area. You can do it now."
The new guide also uses better weather data and offers more interactive technology. For example, gardeners using the online version can enter their ZIP code and get the exact average coldest temperature.
Also, for the first time, calculations include more detailed factors such as prevailing winds, the presence of nearby bodies of water, the slope of the land, and the way cities are hotter than suburbs and rural areas.
The map carves up the U.S. into 26 zones based on five-degree temperature increments. The old 1990 map mentions 34 U.S. cities in its key. On the 2012 map, 18 of those, including Honolulu, St. Louis, Des Moines, Iowa, St. Paul, Minn., and even Fairbanks, Alaska, are in newer, warmer zones.
Those differences matter in deciding what to plant.
For example, Des Moines used to be in zone 5a, meaning the lowest temperature on average was between minus 15 and minus 20 degrees. Now it's 5b, which has a lowest temperature of 10 to 15 degrees below zero. Jerry Holub, manager of a Des Moines plant nursery, said folks there might now be able to safely grow passion flowers.
Griffin, Ga., used to be in zone 7b, where the coldest day would average between 5 and 10 degrees. But the city is now in zone 8a, averaging a coldest day of 10 to 15 degrees. So growing bay laurel becomes possible. It wasn't recommended on the old map.
"It is great that the federal government is catching up with what the plants themselves have known for years now: The globe is warming and it is greatly influencing plants (and animals)," Stanford University biology professor Terry Root wrote in an email.
The changes come too late to make this year's seed packets, but they will be in next year's, said George Ball, chairman and CEO of the seed company W. Atlee Burpee, which puts the maps on packages of perennials, not annuals. But Bell said many of his customers already know what can grow in their own climate and how it has warmed.
"Climate change, which has been in the air for a long time, is not big news to gardeners," he said.
Mark Kaplan, a New York meteorologist who helped create the 1990 map, said the latest version clearly shows warmer zones migrating north. Other experts agreed.
The 1990 map was based on temperatures from 1974 to 1986, the new map from 1976 to 2005. The nation's average temperature from 1976 to 2005 was two-thirds of a degree higher than it was during the old time period, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
USDA spokeswoman Kim Kaplan, who was part of the map team, repeatedly tried to distance the new zones on the map from global warming. She said that while much of the country is in warmer zones, the map "is simply not a good instrument" to demonstrate climate change because it is based on just the coldest days of the year.
David W. Wolfe, a professor of plant and soil ecology at Cornell University, said that the USDA is being too cautious and that the map plainly reflects warming.
The revised map "gives us a clear picture of the `new normal' and will be an essential tool for gardeners, farmers and natural resource managers as they begin to cope with rapid climate change," Wolfe said in an email.
The Arbor Day Foundation issued its own hardiness guide six years ago, and the new government map is very similar, said Woodrow Nelson, a vice president at the plant-loving organization.
"We got a lot of comments that the 1990 map wasn't accurate anymore," Nelson said. "I look forward to (the new map). It's been a long time coming."
Nelson lives in Lincoln, Neb., where the zone warmed to a 5b. Nelson said he used to be in a "solid 4," but now he has Japanese maples and Fraser firs in his yard ? trees that shouldn't survive in a zone 4.
Vaughn Speer, an 87-year-old master gardener in Ames, Iowa, said he has seen redbud trees, one of the earliest blooming trees, a little farther north in recent years.
"They always said redbuds don't go beyond U.S. Highway 30," he said, "but I'm seeing them near Roland," 10 miles to the north.
___
AP Writer Michael J. Crumb contributed to this report from Des Moines.
Some 15 companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, PayPal plan to jointly work on a standard for blocking phishing e-mails by verifying that they come from legitimate companies. It seems obvious that trusted, legitimate companies could come together to do this, but it's only started happening in the last 18 months. 
Corporate income tax rates ? federal and provincial ? on active Alberta small-business income are low at 14%, compared to personal income tax rates in their bracket of 32% on salaries. But investment income from money left in a corporation is taxed at 45%. So the best thing for now is to distribute the income to the couple as dividends, Ms. Davis advises. In time, they should consider adding to salary to boost Canada Pension Plan benefits, she adds. Dividends are not salary or wage income and do not generate CPP credits.
bielik_tim 
PlayBook: In April, the co-CEOs entered the blossoming tablet market with the BlackBerry PlayBook, a 7-inch tablet running a completely new operating system based on QNX, an OS that RIM purchased a couple years earlier. In an interview in Dec. 2010, Lazaridis spilled that the PlayBook was a sign of things to come from RIM and that future phones would be dual-core and run QNX as well. (These new phones later came to be known as BBX, but due to legal issues it will now be called BlackBerry 10.) This sounds grand and good, except that the launch of the PlayBook was a bit of a disaster.
BlackBerry 7: The second big failure of 2011 was the launch of the BlackBerry 7 platform and devices. While these devices did not have the problems of the PlayBook, they did not help RIM to recapture any momentum. Following the launch of several new BlackBerry Bold, Curve, and Torch phones, RIM?s market share began to dwindle faster than ever. Several BB 7 devices featured touchscreens, but the phones featured no marked improvement in user interface, features, or processing power. They looked a bit slicker, but RIM seemed to be mostly churning out established designs with little innovation. As a result, the company?s smartphone market share fell dramatically over the holidays as?the iPhone and Android both posted record sales in late 2011. RIM became almost a complete non-player in the market, with a market share so low that Windows Phone now has a good shot at becoming the number three smartphone OS in 2012 (though Microsoft definitely has its work cut out).
But for the new platform to succeed, RIM is going to have to translate its webOS-like OS to smartphones in a far better way than HP or Palm ever did. The PlayBook has a large screen, but if RIM is to succeed in smartphones, it has to take that OS and shrink it down to a multitude of screen sizes. It will also likely have to better standardize its screen resolutions and greatly improve the power of its phones by using dual-core or quad-core processors. They will all have to be touch-based, and if RIM decides to keep pushing keyboards on a majority of handsets, its image will suffer. As great as the keyboard is, it is also a symbol of RIM?s lack of innovation in recent years. These new phones need to look and feel much different from BlackBerry 7 devices. They also need to be compatible with the PlayBook?s growing app library of more than 50,000 apps (according to representatives at CES).?