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    Monday, June 25, 2012

    Reuter site - RIM considers splitting business in two: paper

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    RIM considers splitting business in two: paper

    Mon, Jun 25 00:13 AM EDT

    LONDON (Reuters) - BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is considering splitting its business in two, separating its struggling handset manufacturing division from its messaging network, The Sunday Times reported.

    RIM, which last month hired JP Morgan and RBC Capital to look at its strategic options, could break off its handset division into a separate listed company or sell it, the British newspaper said without citing sources.

    Potential buyers would include Amazon and Facebook, it reported, adding that RIM's messaging network could also be sold, or opened up to rivals such as Apple and Google to generate income.

    An alternative option would be to keep the company together but sell a stake to a larger technology firm such as Microsoft, the newspaper said.

    RIM said in a statement that it continued to believe the best way to drive shareholder value was to execute its turnaround plan.

    RIM virtually invented the concept of on-your-hip email with its first BlackBerry devices, but now finds itself struggling badly in the smartphone market.

    Last year, it held numerous takeover discussions with potential buyers ranging from Amazon and Microsoft Corp to private equity firms, sources have previously told Reuters. But those talks never resulted in an M&A transaction under former co-chief executives Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.

    (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Additional reporting by Alastair Sharp in Toronto; Editing by Catherine Evans and Edwina Gibbs)

    Sunday, June 24, 2012

    CNN - Why do all top sprinters come from Jamaica?

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

    Why do all top sprinters come from Jamaica?


    When the fastest men on the planet contest the Olympic 100 meters final in London on August 5, it will be a major upset if the winner does not come from the small Caribbean island of Jamaica.

    Injuries or false starts aside, Usain Bolt will take center stage as he bids to retain the title he won in Beijing in 2008, but if he slips up then young pretender Yohan Blake is waiting in the wings, not to mention veteran former world record-holder Asafa Powell.

    With such a pool of talent, 4x100m relay success is almost guaranteed, and Bolt is an even heavier favorite for 200m individual gold.

    In the women's events, Jamaican domination is also a common theme, with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce defending her 100m crown and Veronica Campbell-Brown going for a hat-trick of golds in the 200m.

    Sprinters from the United States have won the majority of gold medals in the modern Olympic era and the likes of Tyson Gay will be keen to knock Bolt off the top of the podium in London.

    But Gay represents a country with a population of over 300 million people with a massive tradition in track and field through the eras of stars such as Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis and Florence Griffith-Joyner.

    So how is it that they are now largely second best to athletes from an impoverished island inhabited by fewer than three million people?

    And it's not only athletes who don the famous gold and green trim of Jamaica who have made their mark.

    Olympic 100m champions Linford Christie (for Great Britain in 1992) and Donovan Bailey (for Canada in 1996) were born and bred in Jamaica, as was the now disgraced Ben Johnson, who also represented Canada.

    So what is the secret of this remarkable Jamaican sprinting pedigree and will it continue into the future?

    Role models

    With role models like Bolt and Campbell-Brown, the conveyor belt of talent certainly shows no signs of slowing. The 22-year-old Blake, who won last year's world championship 100m in Daegu when Bolt was disqualified in the final for false starting, is the latest to emerge.

    Bolt himself drew inspiration from a former Jamaican great -- Don Quarrie, who won the 1976 Olympic 200m title in Montreal and six Commonwealth Games gold medals.

    "For me Don Quarrie was somebody to watch and to be amazed by," Bolt told CNN's Aiming for Gold program.

    "That's why I love the 200m so much because I've seen Don Quarrie and I said, 'I can be that good.' Quarrie, (Herb) McKenley, these are the guys that I looked up to."

    McKenley and Arthur Wint were the first Jamaicans to taste Olympic success, at the 1948 London Games.

    The elegant Wint pipped McKenley for gold in the longer 400m sprint, while the latter achieved the rare feat of reaching the finals of the 100, 200 and 400m at the first post-war Olympics.

    Of Jamaica's current crop of women stars, Campbell-Brown was mentored by the great Merlene Ottey, who won a record 14 world championship medals for Jamaica in the sprint events and was still competing at international level for her adopted Slovenia past her 50th birthday. Now 52, Ottey still has hopes of qualifying for London 2012.

    "She (Ottey) is a very positive person, very strong, very hard working, very passionate and she is a friend," Campbell-Brown told CNN.

    A hard school

    Campbell-Brown went to the same high school in Jamaica as Ottey -- Vere Technical -- and both earned their trade in the ferociously competitive track and field schools competition on the island.

    Bolt is convinced the key to Jamaican success is the intense rivalry of grassroots athletics from an early age.

    "I feel we push our young athletes," he said. "There is this thing called the Boys and Girls Championships in Jamaica, which showcases the talent.

    "The level of competition is really high because it pushes you every day to be the best in your event, in your class."

    And even now as Bolt gets down on the blocks at a major championships, that early experience gained is invaluable.

    "I think it helped me to get past my fear of running in front of thousands and millions of people because I'm front of a home crowd and we are under a lot of pressure."

    The four-day championships play to crowds of up to 30,000 at the national stadium in Kingston, while a TV audience of over a million watch the live coverage. Many of the top stars go back to hand out medals and inspire the next generation.

    As a 16-year-old, Bolt thrived in this mini-Olympics in 2003, winning the 200/400 double in 20.23 and 45.30 seconds -- times which would have been good enough to qualify for most Olympic finals.

    Campbell-Brown was spotted at an early age while still at primary school and placed on the path to Olympic glory.

    "My coach and teacher at the time said to me, 'You are very talented, I think this is going to be a career path for you,' and he recommended Vere, which is still a sprint factory."

    Christie was unwittingly put on his course to Olympic glory by his grandmother.

    "She used to get us to to run errands to the shops and told us that she would spit on the ground and did not want it to dry before we got back. It meant we ran fast!" said the 52-year-old, who moved to Britain before he got the chance to compete in the Boys and Girls Championships.

    Coaching guru

    Despite the hot house atmosphere of the schools showpiece, it is still a big step to the international athletics arena. Even Bolt, with his supreme abilities, needed assistance to make it to the top.

    Glen Mills grew up wanting to emulate McKenley and Wint, but he turned to coaching when he realized he would fall short. In his 22-year stint in charge of the Jamaican national athletics team, he oversaw 71 world championship medals and 33 in the Olympics.

    Mills quickly recognized that Bolt was a unique talent, but one who needed persuading to work hard.

    A defeat to Gay over 200m at the world championships in Osaka in 2007 proved a turning point.

    "I ran hard, came off the bend slightly behind Tyson Gay and I could not catch him. I was running really hard and I could not catch him," recounted Bolt.

    "After that race I went over and I said, 'Coach, I was really trying, but I couldn't catch him.' "

    Mills replied: "You are weak, you are very weak because you are not going to the gym and you don't like running 200."

    The rest is history.

    "I really dedicated myself to everything because I really wanted to be a champion," said Bolt, who became a global superstar the following year as he won the 100 and 200m in Beijing in breathtaking, record-breaking style.

    Mills stepped down from fulltime involvement with Jamaica in 2009, but still coaches Bolt and Blake and some other up-and-coming athletes.

    Cultural factors

    Bolt, like many of Jamaica's sprinting sensations, comes from a rural background where hard graft is part of the daily routine.

    The son of a coffee farm laborer, he grew up in a parish called Trelawny in the north of Jamaica. His house had no running water and as a child he had to walk for miles with heavy, loaded pails, building up a natural strength.

    In many ways it mirrors the rural backgrounds of the great Kenyan and Ethiopian long distance runners. Campbell-Brown, who also grew up in Trelawny, believes it is a factor in Jamaica's success.

    "I would fetch water from the river, so I did a lot of walking. I would walk to school, there's a lot of hills," the 30-year-old said.

    "I think it's just hard work, determination and all the things that we have to do growing up as a young person that has contributed.

    "Jamaica is full of so much talent. It just so happens that a huge number of those talented people were born in Trelawny."

    Among them is Johnson, who lived in the area until emigrating to Canada in 1976 aged 15. His winning time of 9.79 seconds to win the 1988 Olympics 100m title was considered one of the greatest performances in the history of athletics.

    But a failed drugs test in Seoul for the banned steroid Stanozolol saw him stripped of the gold and gain worldwide infamy.

    Blake also had a rural upbringing, and tested his natural ability in unusual fashion.

    "We grew up in the country where your only friends are animals. I find it funny, once we were running with goats and stuff. I think the sprinting really starts from there," he told CNN.

    Living off the land may well have benefits in terms of diet, with yams the staple food.

    "My parents used to plant their own yams, it's very natural and often eaten with fish," said Campbell-Brown.

    Christie agrees: "It's often said you are what you eat, and the Jamaican diet is a really natural one, full of fruit and vegetables and protein."

    Sprinting showoffs

    Whether it's through their tough backgrounds and lifestyles, their healthy diet and then the rigors of early competition and training, Jamaica's sprinters have found the magic ingredient for success.

    But those factors alone are not unique in the world, so maybe there's another factor that gives them that extra edge?

    "Sprinting is a Jamaican attitude," said Christie.

    "To be a sprinter you need to be a little bit of showoff. Because like the heavyweight boxing champions of the world, this is what sprinting is all about and, you know, Jamaicans just love to show off!"

    The supreme "showoff" of his time, perhaps of all time, just has to be Bolt -- and it comes naturally to him.

    "I'm a person who always liked to express himself, even in my younger days, it comes naturally to me," he said.

    "Even when I was younger I would do stuff and notice that the crowd really clicked to that.

    "I've really just continued doing it. It's fun for me and people come out also to see me run fast but also to see 'What new thing is Usain going to do today, what is he going to come up with to make us laugh?' "

    Bolt's bow and arrow victory salute is his trademark, and if the form book is anything to go by he will be dusting off the routine a few more times in London -- and a host of his teammates are set to join him on the medal podiums.

    Friday, June 22, 2012

    Reuter site - Insight: Look, no hands! Augmented reality gets a grip

    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:
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    Insight: Look, no hands! Augmented reality gets a grip

    Fri, Jun 22 11:59 AM EDT

    By Harro Ten Wolde and Tarmo Virki

    FRANKFURT/HELSINKI (Reuters) - One day in March 2000, just days before the dot-com bubble began its journey back to earth, German engineer Thomas Alt first glimpsed the future of technology.

    "Do you know augmented reality?" his boss at Volkswagen asked.

    He did not.

    "Neither do I, but you are about to, because this will be your project," he said, dropping a stack of papers on his desk.

    For the next three years, Alt developed a technology that overlays text or graphics on real-life images and objects. The resulting hybrid can be viewed on a smartphone, tablet or PC screen, and soon - the tech geek's fantasy - through dedicated specs.

    Today, 37-year-old Alt partly owns Munich-based Metaio, one of the leading companies in the rapidly growing augmented reality (AR) industry. Along with dozens of other products, Alt has created an AR manual for Audi cars.

    No more leafing through a crumpled manual to find out why the aircon's blowing hot in August. Point your phone at the offending gadget, and instructions pop up on the screen.

    Augmented reality has been called the eighth mass medium, after print, recordings, cinema, radio, television, Internet and mobile phones.

    By reaching out to media companies, the industry, which was a collection of smartphone apps generating less than $2 million in 2010, is on the verge of becoming a real business worth perhaps $1.5 billion in 2015.

    "In the early days, we were talking about visionary ideas for the future. Today we come up with business models and products," said Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, co-founder and general manager at Layar, a Dutch start-up.

    Layar, whose software has been downloaded more than 20 million times, hooking 3 million active users, has the world's most used consumer AR application, a reality browser that helps find services nearby, acquiring info on anything from favorite restaurants to networking opportunities via a mobile camera.

    "We are actually making money and are becoming a little boring. But that is what the industry needs right now," said Lens-FitzGerald. "We actually try to hold back on visionary ideas. We are getting out of the gimmicky stuff."

    Layar's demonstration video went viral in 2009. It showed period houses as seen from a boat on Amsterdam's canals. By pointing a camera at the houses, information about which were for sale and their prices is layered on the camera image.

    Not for the faint-hearted, but another eye-opener for the house hunter, SpotCrime, by Popvox, will people the scene with the stylized muggers, murderers and burglars that have graced the neighborhood, too.

    CHIPS WITH VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING

    Sector executives speaking at the Reuters Media and Technology summit said most interest for their products came from the publishing industry and e-commerce.

    Sweden's Ikea, famed for its low-price flat-pack furniture, has an app that lets you point a camera at a spot in your room and overlays an image of the furniture you are thinking of buying. Assembly is still down to you.

    Heavy hitters are now throwing their weight behind the concept. Qualcomm, the top wireless chip maker, has bought up AR assets and opened its platform for software developers in 2010. ARM is also adding AR features to the chips it designs.

    Chipmaker Intel has invested $14 million in Layar through its venture arm and is looking to add AR features to its chips.

    Intel anticipated that ways of controlling a phone without touching it, such as by voice or by gesture, would be the next big developments.

    The challenge is to make money out of those features.

    "We would certainly anticipate a sharp rise in service adoption, although we would suggest that, given the continued uncertainty surrounding optimal monetization models, 2015 revenues are unlikely to exceed the $1.5 billion," said Juniper Research director Windsor Holden.

    Laurence Tetrel Poupart, chief operating officer at Total Immersion, one of AR's front runners, agrees.

    The company has been around since 1999 and expects to double sales next year to 20 million euros, but Tetrel Poupart said the technology has a little further to go to become a reliable moneyspinner.

    "We would definitely like to go for the virtual trying on of clothes, but some technical issues need to be resolved," she said, adding that the company needed faster chips to make the 'virtual dressing room' take off.

    "We don't want you to see whether the clothing suits you but that it actually fits. We don't want it to be a gimmick, we want to have true usage, to reduce the return rate for the e-commerce merchants."

    TRY BEFORE YOU BUY

    Simpler applications have found their way to consumers, and businesses are very keen to use them.

    Thomas Alt's Audi manual is one example. Another is a Layar application that helps publishers more easily link print and digital content. By pointing their smartphones at a magazine, readers can get information about products featured in articles, and go on to buy them.

    "At the same time, companies get loads of feedback about consumer behavior, which they can use for marketing purposes," said Alt, who has also developed a similar product for German magazine Stern, owned by Bertelsmann's Gruner + Jahr publishers.

    Currently more than 10 million German magazines with AR features hit the shelves every month, including titles from publisher Axel Springer.

    Companies are lining up to use the technology, said Tetrel Poupart. "But we are now in a phase that we need to discourage companies from going for another gimmick."

    Total Immersion has seen strong interest in its software, which allows consumers to try on glasses without physically touching them.

    There is still a long way to go before augmented reality catches up with the movies, however; it is nearly three decades since Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator viewed mission-critical data and images projected on the inside of his aviator shades.

    Google has launched what it has dubbed "Project Glass" to develop such features, but it is viewed as a long shot.

    "Since I started, this has been the ultimate dream in the industry. I don't buy it so much," Tetrel Poupart said.

    "It makes you dizzy. I think we should use augmented reality in a more simple way and use the tablet. The tablet is a key device. It is here."

    Eventually she expects traditional television screens - connected to the Internet with a built-in camera - to be a significant driver for both AR and the e-commerce industry.

    "You use your television set as a mirror, trying on and ordering your clothes from your home."

    Buyer beware - if the trend continues, you'll have nowhere to go to wear them.

    (Editing by Will Waterman)

    (This story corrects the 23rd paragraph to show that the sales target is for the next year, not 2012)

    Tuesday, June 19, 2012

    Reuter site - Verizon raises FiOS bills, adds higher Web speeds

    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:
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    Verizon raises FiOS bills, adds higher Web speeds

    Mon, Jun 18 18:48 PM EDT

    NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Communications <VZ.N> is raising prices for some FiOS customers as it offers higher speeds, a move that one analyst says will potentially lead to higher prices from cable rivals such as Cablevision Systems Corp <CVC.N>.

    The telephone company said it expects the majority of its FiOS Internet customers to have to pay $10 to $15 more per month to avail of new offerings, but it noted that they could change their television package to keep their monthly fee unchanged.

    Verizon competes with cable operators for television and telephone customers as well as Internet users with various bundle service options.

    ISI Group analyst Vijay Jayant described the new pricing structure as aggressive especially for consumers who have instead seen price freezes or even promotions from rivals like Cablevision. He said it may lead cable companies to charge more.

    "The glass half full ... is that Verizon's pricing posture is a sign of increased price rationality," said Jayant adding that this "could perhaps foreshadow renewed price increases for the incumbent, Cablevision."

    Verizon will stop selling its 25 megabits per second (mbps) and 35 mbps service plans and will instead offer 50 mbps and 75 mbps plans to new customers or existing customers at the end of their contracts.

    It will keep its entry level 15 mbps service available but Arturo Picicci, Verizon's director of product management, said he expects most customers to move away from this service as they are craving more bandwidth to connect more devices, tablets and smartphones on top of traditional computers inside their homes.

    "We're expecting that 80 percent of customers will want more than 15 megabits per second," said Picicci referring to Verizon's slowest FiOS service speed.

    Today a Verizon customer paying for a $109.99 plan would get unlimited phone calls, 15 mbps download speeds and 290 channels. An upgrade to 50 mbps would cost $124.99 a month unless the customer opted to receive a package with fewer TV channels.

    Verizon also said on Monday that it is cutting the price of what was previously its fastest Internet service as it introduces a new service that has double the speed, amping up technology competition with rivals Comcast Corp <CMCSA.O>, Time Warner Cable <TWC.N> and Cablevision.

    Excluding other fees, Verizon said it has cut the price of its 150 megabits-per-second service to $99.99 a month from $209.99, bringing it in line with pricing against its rivals' fastest speeds.

    Verizon also said on Monday it will charge $209.99 a month for a new 300 megabits per second (mbps) service, or $204.99 for users with a two-year contract, starting today.

    This compares with No. 1 rival Comcast's fastest service, which costs $200 a month for speeds of 105 mbps, and rival Cablevision's speediest offering which is $104.95 for 101 mbps.

    "We're bringing 150 mbps more to the mainstream," Picicci told Reuters. "Cable cannot touch us here."

    However, Verizon customers who do not opt for two-year contracts for either of the two fastest services would have to pay an upgrade fee of $100 to have those services installed.

    According to Verizon, it would take 2.2 minutes to download a two-hour high-definition video file over a 300 mbps connection compared with a download time of 44.4 minutes for a 15 mbps service.

    Verizon had 5 million FiOS Internet customers at the end of the first quarter and 4.4 million FiOS TV customers, making it the seventh-biggest U.S. pay TV service.

    Verizon shares closed up 27 cents or 0.62 percent at $43.82 on the New York Stock Exchange.

    (Reporting By Sinead Carew and Yinka Adegoke in New York; editing by M.D. Golan, Bernard Orr)

    Monday, June 18, 2012

    Reuter site - Celestica to stop making products for RIM

    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:
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    Celestica to stop making products for RIM

    Mon, Jun 18 13:46 PM EDT

    TORONTO (Reuters) - Contract electronics maker Celestica Inc will stop making products for its biggest customer, Research In Motion Ltd, by the end of the year as the BlackBerry maker seeks to cut costs by shrinking its global supply base.

    Toronto-based Celestica has mainly built BlackBerry Bold and Curve models in Mexico for the North American market. RIM's sales in the United States have been hit particularly hard as it struggles to compete with Apple Inc's iPhone and devices using Google Inc's Android software.

    RIM's decision to trim the number of companies that build its smartphones illustrates the falling fortunes of the once-dominant smartphone maker as it looks to cut $1 billion from its operating costs this year. Major layoffs are planned.

    Celestica will likely take a near-term hit due to RIM's move but it is expected to bounce back as it diversifies into higher-value and higher-margin markets.

    "On some level this is a positive for Celestica," said CIBC World Markets analyst Todd Coupland. "RIM has been losing market share and they've been facing the brunt of that, both in terms of their business and their valuation," he said.

    RIM's three main remaining suppliers are Flextronics International Ltd, Jabil Circuit Inc, and Quanta Computer Inc, which makes RIM's poor-selling PlayBook tablet.

    Coupland said that, excluding cash, Celestica trades at half the multiple of Jabil. He expects either Flextronics or Jabil, which both have operations in Mexico, to win the contract to build RIM products for North America.

    RIM accounted for 19 percent of Celestica's first-quarter revenue, but that was down from a year earlier due to weak demand and program transitions at the smartphone company.

    Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM declined to comment on Monday on specific supplier relationships but pointed to its fourth-quarter earnings call in late March, when it said it would make changes to its supply chain in a bid to lower costs.

    Celestica had also seen the writing on the wall, telling investors in April that the volume of business and the locations at which it manufactures products for RIM would likely change.

    Struggling RIM has hired bankers from J.P. Morgan and RBC Capital to help evaluate its strategic optionsž.

    Celestica, which also produces servers and other products for branded manufacturers such as IBM Corp and Cisco Systems Inc, said it expects restructuring charges of up to $35 million. It did not provide a timetable for taking the charges but said it will wind down the operations over the next three to six months.

    The company said it continues to expect an adjusted second-quarter profit of 20 cents to 26 cents a share on revenue of $1.65 billion to $1.75 billion.

    Shares of Celestica, which has a market value of C$1.47 billion, slipped 0.5 percent to $7.43 on Nasdaq on Monday morning. They are down 17 percent this year.

    RIM's Nasdaq-listed shares fell 1.7 percent to $10.70. They are down 70 percent this year.

    (Reporting by Alastair Sharp in Toronto and Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon; and Peter Galloway)

    Reuter site - Italian notebook maker Moleskine plans Milan float

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    Italian notebook maker Moleskine plans Milan float

    Mon, Jun 18 09:53 AM EDT

    By Kylie MacLellan

    LONDON (Reuters) - Italian notebook maker Moleskine plans to list in Milan this year and has hired investment banks to run the sale of stock in the company, whose thread-bound jotters are based on originals favored by the likes of Vincent Van Gogh and Ernest Hemingway.

    Goldman Sachs, Mediobanca and UBS will run the offering for majority-owner Syntegra Capital, aiming to add to the list of upmarket brands which have lured investors in defiance of generally tough stock market conditions.

    Private equity firm Syntegra plans to file listing documents for Moleskine, in which it owns a 68 percent stake, in early September and is aiming for a market debut in the fourth quarter, said Marco Ariello, a partner at Syntegra.

    "An IPO is the right thing for the future of the company," Ariello told Reuters on Monday.

    While a string of flotations worldwide have been blown off course by choppy markets, with German chemical company Evonik the latest casualty, high-end brands have fared better with investor demand boosted by the industry performing well despite global economic uncertainty.

    In April, Italian cashmere house Brunello Cucinelli and high-end luggage maker Tumi Holdings both saw their stock surge on their debuts in Milan and New York respectively, while shares in luxury brand Michael Kors Holdings are more than a third above their December 15 trading debut price.

    PREMIUM BRAND

    "We need the market conditions to be better, but Moleskine is a premium brand in (terms of) pricing power and positioning. Valuations and market appetite for premium brands is stronger than for average brands even at difficult times," said Ariello.

    But getting the valuation right will still be a balance. Luxury London jeweler Graff Diamonds was forced to pull its $1 billion Hong Kong offering last month as analysts and fund managers questioned its valuation.

    Moleskine, a company which was created in 1997 to revive the style of notebook favored by artists and writers in the 19th and 20th Centuries, has seen growth of around 25 percent a year since Syntegra bought a 75 percent stake for around 60 million euros ($75.8 million) in 2006.

    The company takes its name from a nickname given to the notebooks by writer Bruce Chatwin, another customer of the originals made by Paris bookbinders. They are actually bound in oil-cloth covered cardboard.

    In early 2011, when venture capital firm Index Ventures bought a 15 percent stake, the company said its turnover had grown from 80 million euros in 2006 to more than 200 million in 2010.

    The offering is likely to be made up mostly of existing shares, Ariello said. He declined to comment on potential valuations for the company, or how big a stake would be sold, but said Syntegra intended to retain some of its holding following the listing to benefit from its expected future value.

    The rest of the company's shares are owned by founder Francesco Franceschi and company management.

    Moleskine, whose products also include journals, diaries and city guides, has grown from 15 employees in 2006 to well over 100 and has offices in Milan, New York and Hong Kong.

    (Editing by David Holmes)

    Saturday, June 16, 2012

    From the GQ iPad: Recipe for The Expat

    The Expat

    1 bar spoon raw sugar or simple syrup
    1 (scant) dash Angostura bitters
    1 oz. dry amontillado sherry
    Dry Spanish cava

    Directions
    Place sugar, bitters, and sherry into a flute. Top off with cold cava and serve.



    Sent from my iPad

    From the GQ iPad: Recipe for Maple-Spiced Nuts

    Maple-Spiced Nuts

    1 lb. mixed unsalted nuts
    ¼ cup maple syrup
    3 Tbsp. olive oil
    1½ tsp. kosher salt
    1 tsp. crushed red-pepper flakes
    ½ tsp. smoked paprika
    ½ tsp. ground cumin

    Directions
    Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl, combine nuts, maple syrup, and olive oil; toss to coat. Place in a large cast-iron skillet or rimmed baking tray. Roast in oven until nuts are evenly toasted, about 20 minutes. Remove nuts from oven and place in a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients and toss to coat evenly.



    Sent from my iPad

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    If you know me then you know my name. I am The Black Rider and the world is my Flame. The rider writes, observes, creates, produces, and learns the world around him. Ride on. Ride on!

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