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    Thursday, May 21, 2009

    Carmelo Anthony's Tattoos

    So I was watching game two of the western conference finals tonight and noticed Carmelo Anthony's body is now become riddled with tattoos. Come to think if it, So is Lebron James.

    It wasn;t that long ago when tattoos were taboo. Now a company will more likely have a 'family friendly' tattered family man like Lebron James market their product than a beleigured star like Dwayne Wade. When did this happen? How have tattoos become so common place. It was just as yesterday when stars like Dennis Rodman's tattoos were considered freaky.

    Times have changed. Tattoos are now legitimate. Mike Tyson has one on his face. Rap artist 'The Game' has many on his face. Meghan good has a prominent tatto of Marilyn Monroe on her forearm. It won't be long until we see a prominent politician as sleeved up as Lebron James or Carmelo Anthony.

    I think I'm gonna get a few myself.

    It wasn't that long ago that Carmelo was the kid from Syracuse, the college alternative to High School hype Lebron James. Now they have both evolved into tattered stars in their own right.

    Carmelo's Tattoos 







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    Reuters - Opera CEO says hopes firm stays independent

    This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
    http://mobile.reuters.com

    Opera CEO says hopes firm stays independent

    Thursday, May 21, 2009 2:51PM UTC

    By Tarmo Virki, European technology correspondent

    PARIS (Reuters) - Opera Software ASA chief executive Jon von Tetzchner hopes the Norwegian firm, known for its mobile browser, will stay independent despite major industry players increasing focus on the sector.

    "We are stronger than ever. Some of the strength that we have is the fact that we are independent. We will work with everyone," Jon von Tetzchner said at the Reuters Global Technology summit in Paris.

    Focus of the wireless industry has shifted to software development and Internet access after Apple and Google entered the industry -- leading to analysts speculating that Opera was a potential takeover target.

    When asked whether he sees Opera as an independent company in five years' time, he said: "Hopefully. If we would be bought by someone it would probably very much limit our ability to play the role that we play."

    Von Tetzchner, a co-founder of the firm, is one of the largest owners of Opera, controlling a 14.2 percent stake.

    "Do I have capability to block things if I want to? I do have a sizeable chunk of the company, but on the other hand I have the obligation toward the investors -- I would be in big trouble I would be actively blocking the acquisition of the company."

    "I have to play fair ... Any such things would be handled in a best possible way," von Tetzchner said.

    He said there were possible acquisition targets for Opera.

    "We have a position where we could do things, we are cash-flow positive, we have a fair amount of money in the bank."

    "Financial situation is such that it's maybe not the worst time to invest, but we will only do it if it's a perfect match -- meaning technology, people, everything," von Tetzchner said.

    (Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Hans Peters)

    Reuters - Yahoo eyes acquisitions, social media

    This article was sent to you from bombastic4000@yahoo.com, who uses Reuters Mobile Site to get news and information on the go. To access Reuters on your mobile phone, go to:
    http://mobile.reuters.com

    Yahoo eyes acquisitions, social media

    Thursday, May 21, 2009 2:51PM UTC

    By Alexei Oreskovic

    NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc is looking to buy companies that will allow it to become a bigger player in social networking and revamp its family of products, Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh said on Wednesday.

    "It's a good time to be buying now," he told the Reuters Global Technology Summit, pointing to valuations that have come down from levels six to nine months ago.

    While declining to give specific names, Balogh said Yahoo has had conversations with companies about partnerships and "more interesting" possibilities, such as on building out its platform and basic computing in addition to search.

    "I can guarantee you there will be some acquisitions, and we will do some stuff in-house," Balogh, who is executive vice president of products at Yahoo, said by videolink.

    Yahoo will introduce new products this fall that will give users a more unified experience across its network of websites and showcase the company's strategy to grow again, after much of 2008 was marred by the failed deal talks with Microsoft Corp.

    Yahoo is striving to revive its fortunes as sales decline because of the recession and competition from other Web heavyweights, including Google Inc and Facebook.

    While conceding that Google has "won the game" of search as we know it today, Balogh says search will be about much more than "10 blue links" in the future.

    "The thing I will tell you is that, core to great experiences for people online may not necessarily be this version of search," Balogh said. "I believe search is going to be far richer ... there's a whole other round or two to go in the search game and that's where we intend on playing.

    The future of Yahoo's Internet search business is a big question for investors. Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer have talked about partnering on search, according to a source familiar with the matter.

    Balogh said any decision about a search deal was up to Bartz and Yahoo's board. But he said that whatever happens, Yahoo will continue to invest in its own search capabilities.

    Balogh said search technology is a vital part of the consumer experience that Yahoo delivers, "and having leading edge scientists and technologists who understand search technology and where search is going is critical to Yahoo."

    MOBILE STRATEGY

    Yahoo is the No. 2 U.S. search engine, with 20.4 percent market share in April, according to comScore. Google increased its share by half a percentage point in April to 64.2 percent of the U.S. market, its highest level ever.

    Yahoo earned $118 million in the first quarter, while its sales declined 13 percent year-over-year to $1.58 billion.

    While advertising spending is down industrywide due to the weak economy, Balogh said Yahoo was seeing strong interest from advertisers for new ways to promote their brands online.

    The recent management reorganization, which combined the engineering and product development staff, is allowing the company to create better cell phone products that take advantage of Yahoo's strengths, Balogh said.

    "For how many incredible applications we could have and should have, for all the experience on Yahoo, we are terribly under-represented," Balogh said about Yahoo's smartphone applications.

    He said Yahoo would release a fantasy sports application for Apple Inc's iPhone this year.

    And he said the company would introduce features that tie together a user's personal settings and preferences for Yahoo products between a PC and a cell phone.

    The new generation of social networking products is one area where Yahoo needs to "drive harder," said Balogh. He cited new status update features that will be introduced across Yahoo sites in the coming months as an important part of Yahoo's social strategy.

    Yahoo's vast number of users give the company an extensive social networking backbone. That means Yahoo can quickly build-out its social infrastructure with "tuck-ins" of interesting products being developed by other companies, Balogh said.

    "We're getting the pulse of companies you might not know about as well as interacting much more aggressively with companies you do," Balogh said.

    (For summit blog: http://blogs.reuters.com/summits/)

    (Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic and Anupreeta Das; Editing by Tiffany Wu, John Wallace, Phil Berlowitz)

    For Reuters MediaFile blog see http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/

    Portfolio Mobile - ACBJ to relaunch Portfolio.com

    ACBJ to relaunch Portfolio.com





    Portfolio.com will migrate to a new home as part of Charlotte-based American City Business Journals Inc.'s bizjournals, effective in July.

    Portfolio and American City Business Journals made the announcement Wednesday. Bizjournals will oversee the editorial and business sides of the site. The Portfolio.com editorial team and sales staff will be based in New York.

    Condé Nast Portfolio magazine and its Web site Portfolio.com launched in April 2007; the magazine closed in April. The site provided insight into the day's top business stories, with analysis from bloggers and columnists.

    Tim Bradbury, president of new media at ACBJ, and David Carey, group president at Condé Nast, announced the move Wednesday. ACBJ and Condé Nast are units of Advance Publications.



    In addition to newly created content, Portfolio.com will share content with other Condé Nast sites such as Wired.com, GolfDigest.com, and WWD.com, as it did before. It also will be the home of the archives of content published by Portfolio's print and digital properties over the past 24 months.

    "We are excited about continuing Portfolio.com and including the site in the bizjournals network because we were impressed by Portfolio's strong Web presence, its clean and crisp design, and its voice in the business-journalism marketplace," Bradbury says. "We believe our readers will benefit as the relaunched Portfolio.com will have a stronger focus on industry news and a greater mission to offer information relevant to today's business professionals."



    On top of its existing strengths, Portfolio.com will leverage the collaborative skills and insights of the more than 600 ACBJ business journalists around the country, Bradbury says. The site will have access to local market intelligence and work collaboratively with ACBJ newsrooms across the country, presenting the most important local insights through a national lens and making it unique among national business media, he says.

    "We knew that Portfolio.com was a highly valuable asset, with an established digital brand, strong direct navigation by users, and a solid, long tail of traffic from content published over the past two years," Carey says. "We saw ACBJ as a perfect match due to its great editorial resources in the business arena, and view this as a win for both Portfolio.com's readers and the company."



    Portfolio.com grew to 2.8 million monthly unique visitors and won industry praise with awards such as the MIN:Best of Web Award 2008, MIN:Hottest Launch of the Year 2007, and Webby nominees in Best Business blog and Financial Services categories.

    American City metropolitan business newspapers reach 4 million readers each week with exclusive, in-depth coverage of their business communities. Bizjournals is the online media division of ACBJ, the nation's largest publisher of metropolitan business newspapers. It operates the Web sites for each of the company's 40 print business journals and operates a Web-only site with local business news and information for Los Angeles. Bizjournals provides nearly 9 million monthly online users daily and weekly local business news and information.



    Condé Nast includes 22 consumer magazines, Condé Nast Digital, the Fairchild Fashion Group, Parade, the Condé Nast Media Group and the Shared Services Centers.

    by bizjournalsRelated Links
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    (c) 2007 Portfolio. Powered by mLogic Media, Crisp Wireless, Inc.

    CNN - 4 arrested in alleged NYC synagogue bomb plot

    Sent from bombastic4000@yahoo.com's mobile device from http://www.cnn.com.

    4 arrested in alleged NYC synagogue bomb plot


    Four men arrested for an alleged plot to bomb a New York synagogue and Jewish community center are expected to appear in federal court Thursday, the U.S. attorney's office said.

    The men also wanted to use surface-to-air missiles to fire at U.S. military planes, said a criminal complaint filed this week in White Plains, New York.

    "Four individuals were arrested for planting bombs in front of two [Jewish facilities] in the area," said Raymond Kelly, New York City police commissioner.

    The charges are based on information from an FBI informant, with whom the men met as they plotted to carry out their attacks, authorities said.

    "While the weapons provided to the defendants by the cooperating witness were fake, the defendants thought they were absolutely real," acting U.S. Attorney Lev L. Dassin said in a statement.

    Added Kelly: "The bombs had been made by FBI technicians. They were totally inert; no one was ever at risk or in danger of being injured."

    James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen are accused of plotting to detonate the explosives in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, New York.

    Each man had at least one alias, according to the attorney's office. Three of them are U.S. citizens and one is a Haitian, the FBI said.

    The U.S. attorney's statement said the informant met with Cromitie in June 2008 in Newburgh, New York.

    During that meeting, Cromitie allegedly said his parents live in Afghanistan, that he was angry over the U.S. war there, and that he was interested "doing something to America."

    The four men began meeting with the informant at a home equipped with concealed video and audio equipment, plotting to bomb the synagogue and Jewish community center, the statement said.

    They also conducted surveillance, including photographs, of an Air National Guard base where they wanted to blow up planes, the statement said. The informant provided the men with a surface-to-air guided missile and C-4 plastic explosives -- none of which could actually be used.

    The charges include conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in the United States and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

    "The targeting of any house of prayer in the United States is a threat to all religious groups and all religious leaders have an obligation to speak out publicly against this planned outrage," said a statement from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group

    The group urged all Jewish institutions to tighten security at their facilities.

    New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in a written statement, congratulated the law enforcement agencies that made the arrests.

    "While the bombs these terrorists attempted to plant tonight were -- unbeknownst to them -- fake, this latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real and underscores why we must remain vigilant in our efforts to prevent terrorism," he said.

    "This case clearly illustrates that the threat of terrorism in New York is persistent," said Gov. David Paterson. "The threat of terrorism affects all of our communities, regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity."

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