Toddler Reviews Google Glass
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images(NEW YORK) — We’ve seen Michele Bachmann and a half-naked blogger wear Google Glass over the last couple of weeks.
But those images don’t warm your heart like a two-year-old with the connected glasses on. The toddler’s review of the hot new tech device might be one of the cutest things you’ll see on the Internet this week.
Chris Angelini, a writer and editor at tech site Tom’s Hardware, decided to put the glasses on his two-year-old son, Lucas. The result is an adorable video of Lucas telling people to “Look at my cool glasses!” Lucas only wears the glasses for 2 minutes and 42 seconds in the video, but that’s long enough for him to document the experience of getting some watered-down apple juice, show off his Lego collection and play catch with his dad.
It’s long enough for him to point out some of the bad things about Glass too. The video, shot in a low-light room, is hard to see at times, and at the end he adds, “They’re hot!” It’s true, the glasses do get fairly warm on the right side after shooting more than a minute of video or providing GPS navigation.
The video is extremely cute, but it has also inspired some thoughtful comments from its 100,000-plus viewers, many of whom point out that Lucas’s generation will grow up with this new wearable technology. Google, however, does say that the glasses shouldn’t be worn by anyone younger than 13 since it could harm developing vision. Angelini, 33, said he doesn’t plan on allowing his son to wear the glasses at length and that when they were on, he made sure the boy was looking around and not at the small display.
But Angelini himself plans to wear them a lot and take lots of footage of his son. “As a dad, you don’t have to be passive in the child-rearing process. It allows you to be so much more active,” Angelini told ABC News. “People are trying to record every minute but they aren’t in the moment, that’s the killer app for Glass — being able to participate more in what he is doing.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Facebook’s First Investor Pays Teens to Not Go to College
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images(PALO ALTO, Calif.) — 19-year-old Indian immigrant Diwank Singh Tomer has an impressive resume. The accomplished hacker and startup founder who initially enrolled in college in India quickly decided he would learn more by moving here and immersing himself in the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial scene.
And one of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs agrees with him.
For the third year running, Peter Thiel, Facebook’s first investor and the co-founder and former CEO of PayPal, is giving about 20 teenagers $100,000 each to drop out of college and launch a business.
The German immigrant’s Thiel Foundation mentors the young entrepreneurs during the two-year fellowship as they pursue new advances in everything from robotics to fashion. But there’s a catch. The recipients cannot be enrolled in school or employed during that time without special approval from the foundation. The idea is for fellows to immerse themselves entirely in the world of innovation.
There are some skeptics who point out that not every one of Thiel’s fellows succeed. Some fail miserably. But the beauty of the tech world and those who reside in it is the ability to iterate quickly. Failure and the determination to try again is a huge part of that.
And besides, Thiel would argue that many of his fellows do succeed in spectacular fashion.
In the past two years, the fellows have launched more than 30 companies and raised more than $34 million in outside funding. The new crop of fellows was selected from a pool of more than 500 applicants from nearly 50 nations.
“When we created the fellowship more than two years ago, our intention was to help a small number of creative people learn and accomplish more than they might have otherwise,” Thiel said in a statement. “To their great credit, they have exceeded our expectations, and inspired people of all ages by reminding them that qualities like intellectual curiosity, grit, and determination are more important than a degree in determining success in life.”
The idea that a college education is highly overvalued sounds controversial. Everyone from the Obama administration to high school counselors seem to push students toward a university degree. And study after study shows that college graduates make more money and advance further than people who don’t attend college.
But it’s not necessarily for everyone, the Thiel Foundation argues, particularly with many students racking up student debt to pursue degrees that may never be worth the expense.
Thiel Foundation Vice President of Grants Mike Gibson said he can see technical certificates that confirm someone knows how to code, for example, being valuable. But this idea that a college degree makes someone qualified or that someone cannot be qualified without one, is bogus.
Tomer agrees.
He had been at college in India for less than a month when he decided “he had nothing to lose” by dropping out. He’d already launched a startup to help people learn to code, and the computer science major knew he could continue to teach himself how to code.
So, he bought a ticket to San Francisco, hopped on a plane and only called home to tell his parents he’d left for the United States when he landed.
“To drop out in India means failure,” he said. But failure doesn’t scare Tomer. In fact, he thinks it’s an important part of the growing process.
The key to learning, he said, is to ask lots of questions, something he doesn’t think traditional schools promote.
“Schools force you to appear smart,” he said. “It’s bad to ask questions.”
People learn best, he said, when they have access to mentors and the ability to learn in a way that suits them. The Thiel Foundation is big on mentors – each fellow meets with them throughout the two-year fellowship.
In Tomer’s case, that approach has produced something interesting. The biking enthusiast is using his foundation funding to launch a new interactive learning environment based on his earlier coding venture.
He wants to launch a site that will allow people to learn about different topics – he’s focused on coding and applied sciences – at their own pace with the help of his program. He’s developed an algorithm that will respond to the user’s actions. If someone wants to learn about a small area of coding and then do a deep dive into it before moving on, the program will prod the user in that direction by taking cues from the ways they interact with the site. If someone wants to get a breadth of knowledge before focusing on depth – Tomer’s preferred style – that’s fine too.
He thinks he’ll need to hire a couple of engineers and a designer, but says his ability to code means he’s capable of remaining at the helm.
Although he’s only been in the Bay Area about eight months, Tomer plans to stay for good. He lives in a “hacker house” in Palo Alto with a bunch of other like-minded young people looking to strike entrepreneurial gold.
Tomer wouldn’t say so himself – but he’s an example of what a young entrepreneur with perseverance and a high tolerance for failure can accomplish by taking an unconventional path. The worst thing that can happen is that he has to go home and back to college. With that knowledge, Tomer said, coming to the hotbed of innovation was worth every bit of risk.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Google Employee Shares Easter Eggs for Hangouts Chats
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Google didn’t show off all of the fun features of Hangouts, the company’s new multiplatform text and video chat service at this week’s big I/O conference. If you’ve been thinking your chats have been a little too text-heavy, you can now decorate them with some animated animals.
In the chat window, you can now punch in codes to add some fun animations. For instance, typing “/streamponies” into the chat window in the web interface and hitting “enter” will prompt dancing ponies to appear.
“Some of you may [have] already figured out the hidden Easter Eggs in the new Hangouts … Keep in mind that those codes only work with Hangouts on Google+ and the Chrome Extension. Not in video calls or mobile,” Google employee Moritz Tolxdorff wrote on his Google+ page.
Tolxdorff posted a cheat sheet listing all the codes and commands to pull up different animations and chat window tweaks. In addition to the stampeding ponies, there’s a shy dinosaur (/shydino), an angry, charging pitchfork mob (/pitchforks), and you can even change the chat background by inputting a variation of the Konami “Contra Code” with your keyboard.
Maybe these bits of fun will appease those users who are disappointed by the current lack of SMS, or text messaging, support in the new Hangouts service. Though another Google employee recently mentioned on her Google+ page that SMS was “coming soon” to Hangouts, she later made an edit to the same post, saying, “Oops! We actually have nothing to announce at this time. My apologies.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
‘Smart Rifle’ Begins Shipping to Gun Owners This Week
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(AUSTIN, Texas) — A Texas startup has developed a “smart rifle”that barely needs to be aimed.
The maker of the gun, being shipped to stores this week, brags that “even a novice shooter can become an elite long-range marksman in minutes.”
The company, TrackingPoint, has said its “world’s first” long range Precision Guided Firearms (PGF) integrate precision hardware, digital optics, and tracking technology to deliver an unmatched shooting experience. The line of rifles starts at about $22,500, and each comes packaged with an iPad mini including the interactive TrackingPoint mobile app.
“We’re taking centuries old tech, firearms and ammunition, and introducing 21st century technology to it,” TrackingPoint CEO Jason Schauble told ABC News.
The PGF line of rifles come equipped with what the company is calling the XactSystem, which uses a network tracking scope with digital display interface, laser tagging to “paint” a moving target, and a guided trigger that only lets the shooter fire when there is a high percentage shot.
The weapon is being introduced at a time when the debate over gun control has raised tempers on both sides of the argument.
Schauble said safety is paramount, just like with any other gun or rifle. “It is a firearm. It is controlled by federal law,” he said.
He said a password can be set on the gun’s scope software. This doesn’t render the rifle useless, but it does lock any unauthorized users out of the precision technology.
Elliot Fineman, chief executive officer of National Gun Victims Action Council, said the “smart gun” is a “mixed proposition.”
“I’m very much in favor of the password protection, but [if the user opts not to utilize password protection] this product gives shooters a better accuracy than, on average, most cops,” Fineman said. He said the target accuracy of most police is three out of 10.
“To think that private citizens that are not trained could shoot better than 3 out of 10, it’s scary,” Fineman said.
David Chipman, a spokesman for Mayors Against Illegal Guns which lobbies for an expansion of background checks for people buying guns, said the PGF “is not your grandfather’s hunting rifle used for sport and recreation this is a weapon designed to kill with precision.”
“This technology potentially enables any two bit criminal to operate with the skills of a highly trained sniper,” Chipman said.
Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Education Fund to Stop Gun Violence, dismissed the significance of locking the software.
“This is an industry hell bent on making weapons more lethal and taking no measures to extend safety,” Horwitz said. “If this type of technology is transferred into semi automatic and automatic weapons, it would make it even more lethal.”
The way the gun operates sounds like a video game. The visual scope on the PGF connects via WiFi the iOS app on an iPhone or iPad by way of ShotView. The feature shows a live video of the digital Heads Up Display (HUD) and video can also be recorded and shared online. Schauble said an Android app is on the way.
TrackingPoint is in the process of developing a dedicated, online community for TrackingPoint users to share videos and information with each other.
“There’s a young, digital generation that will want to hunt and shoot, so we’re not only developing a product for people that shoot today, but also the new digital generation,” said Schauble.
He said the live streaming ShotView feature can be used to help instruct new shooters on the fly or to capture an impressive shooting range or hunting shot to show to others later.
“We’ve been surprised at how many older shooters and hunters embrace the product, too. This kind of tech helps them to still hunt for years or even take shots that may not be possible with traditional hardware,” he said.
The PGF rifles, TrackingPoint’s first product line, was introduced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in January, but this week the company began fulfilling preorder requests with the first units shipping.
With this first run of PGF rifles, the CEO said TrackingPoint is selling directly to customers.
Schauble said his company has signed a contract to provide technology to some less expensive, short range Remington firearms, and those products will be distributed through vendors, but the distribution of other runs of TrackingPoint product will be decided on a case-by-case basis.
But with TrackingPoint’s Precision Guided Firearms, Schauble said the main objectives are “trying to make existing, long-range shooters more capable.”
“Right now, we’re the most advanced tech company in outdoor shooting sports.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Powerball Pot Would Near $1 Billion If No One Wins on Saturday
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The estimated jackpot for Saturday’s Powerball drawing has swelled to a record $600 million for the popular lottery game, but one official estimated Friday that if it goes unclaimed the prize would zoom to nearly $1 billion.
The biggest lottery jackpot ever was $656 million for the Mega Millions drawing on March 30, 2012. The previous record for a Powerball jackpot was $587.5 million on Nov. 28, 2012.
The jackpot soared to $600 million after no one won Wednesday’s drawing. That would translate into a lump sum payment of $376.9 milliion.
The pot is expected to keep growing Friday night and Saturday as the bonanza attracts even more people to take a chance. Tickets for Saturday’s drawing can be purchased until 9 p.m. ET Saturday.
If no one matches all five numbers plus the Powerball on Saturday, the jackpot will continue to grow. Kelly Cripe, media director for the Texas Lottery, which is one of the states in the Powerball lottery, said the next drawing would be May 22 and estimated the pot would be at least an astonishing $925 million. The frenzy of such a massive jackpot would likely push it even higher.
Carolyn Hapeman, spokeswoman for the New York lottery said as of mid-day on Friday, the Empire State was selling over 600,000 tickets an hour.
Part of the boost in ticket sales is the addition of California in April to the list of states that participate in the Powerball game. The lottery game is now played in 43 states, Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“Now you have another 11 million people with the addition of California. You’ve got all these players, maybe some for the first time because of the extreme nature of the jackpot, the largest ever for this particular game,” Hapeman said.
This current jackpot began rolling on April 3 with a mere $40 million jackpot, but has grown as no winner has emerged in several drawings.
Hapeman also attributes the growing popularity of the game to its makeover last year in celebration of its 20th anniversary. That’s when the jackpot increased to $40 million from $20 million and the second prize, which requires just five matching numbers, jumped to $1 million from $250,000.
The odds of winning the grand prize are one in 175,223,510, according to the Powerball website. The odds of winning the second prize are one in 5,153,632.65.
With the “brisk sales,” Hapeman encouraged New Yorkers not to wait until the last minute if they choose to participate.
For the $578.5 million jackpot last November, lines formed around the block in New York City.
“Don’t be one of those last people. Or if there’s an office pool, don’t be the guy that doesn’t get in,” she said.
Because Hapeman works for the state lottery, she isn’t eligible to participate.
“I want to, but I can’t,” she said.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Wall Street Ends Week at Record Highs
Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Stocks finishing out another record breaking week. The Dow, S&P and NASDAQ posting four straight weeks of gains.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the Friday session up 121 points to close the week at 15,354. Year to date the Dow is now up 17 percent.
Hewlett-Packard, Boeing and Disney (the parent company of ABC), so far, are the biggest winners in 2013. As of now, there are only two stocks in the Dow 30 that are down for the year. The two laggards are Alcoa, which is down just half a percent, and Caterpillar, which is lower by a little more than two percent.
The S&P 500 also finished the week up 16 points at a fresh all-time high of 1,666. Like the Dow, the S&P is up just about 17 percent this year. The index has advanced 17 of the last 21 sessions.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, closed the week at a new high in more than 12 years, closing up 34 points at 3,499. The Nasdaq is up nearly 16 percent this year.
One of the key drivers for the move higher Friday was the report that consumers are feeling more confident about the market and the economy. The Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May climbed to its highest level in almost six years.
General Motors shares, for the first time in two years, traded on Friday above the IPO price of $33. Year to date GM is up 16 percent.
After coming out of bankruptcy in 2010, the company began trading again. But the automaker would still have to surge to $79 a share for the government to make recoup all the money it gave to GM in the bailout. The government still owns 241.7 million shares of GM.
The Treasury Department provided GM with $49.5 billion in TARP funds. So far, the government has recovered over $30 billion.
Meanwhile, stocks keep soaring, but gold keeps sagging. It’s now fallen seven straight sessions — the worst losing streak for gold since March of 2009.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Powerball Jackpot Soars to Record $600 Million
Scott Olson/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — The estimated jackpot for Saturday’s Powerball drawing has swelled to a record $600 million for the popular lottery game.
The biggest lottery jackpot ever was $656 million for the Mega Millions drawing on March 30, 2012. The previous record for a Powerball jackpot was $587.5 million on Nov. 28, 2012.
The jackpot soared to $600 million after no one won Wednesday’s drawing. That would translate into a lump sum payment of $376.9 million.
The pot is expected to keep growing as the bonanza attracts even more people to take a chance. Tickets for Saturday’s drawing can be purchased until 9 p.m. ET Saturday. If no one matches all five numbers plus the Powerball, the jackpot will continue to grow.
This current jackpot began rolling on April 3 with a mere $40 million jackpot, but has grown as no winner has emerged in several drawings.
The odds of winning the grand prize are one in 175,223,510, according to the Powerball website. The odds of winning the second prize are one in 5,153,632.65.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Unemployment: How Does Your State Rank?
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Forty states showed a drop in unemployment in April.
Louisiana, Tennessee and North Dakota showed an increase in the unemployment rate, while rates were unchanged in seven states, according to the Labor department.
The country’s unemployment rate is 7.5 percent, the lowest since December 2008.
Although companies are adding jobs, part of the reason for the decline in unemployment is because people have stopped looking for work. They are either discouraged by their prospects of getting a job or they are joining the swelling ranks of retiring baby boomers.
Texas, New York and Florida saw the most jobs added, while Wisconsin and Minnesota saw the biggest drop in unemployment.
Nevada had the highest unemployment rate at 9.6 percent, though this is down significantly from a high of 14 percent in October 2010.
North Dakota, meanwhile, had the lowest jobless rate at 3.3 percent. The state’s unemployment rate has been persistently low because of the oil and gas boom facilitated by hydraulic fracturing.
The housing recovery is playing its part in the job market, as many of the job added in Texas and Florida for instance were in construction.
Here’s the rundown of state rates:
Alabama — 6.9%
Alaska — 6.0%
Arizona — 7.9%
Arkansas — 7.1%
California — 9.0%
Colorado — 6.9%
Connecticut — 8.0%
Delaware — 7.2%
D.C. — 8.5%
Florida — 7.2%
Georgia — 8.2%
Hawaii — 4.9%
Idaho — 6.1%
Illinois — 9.3%
Indiana — 8.5%
Iowa — 4.7%
Kansas — 5.5%
Kentucky — 7.9%
Louisiana — 6.5%
Maine — 6.9%
Maryland — 6.5%
Massachusetts — 6.4%
Michigan — 8.4%
Minnesota — 5.3%
Mississippi — 9.1%
Missouri — 6.6%
Montana — 5.5%
Nebraska — 3.7%
Nevada — 9.6%
New Hampshire — 5.5%
New Jersey — 8.7%
New Mexico — 6.7%
New York — 7.8%
North Carolina — 8.9%
North Dakota — 3.3%
Ohio — 7.0%
Oklahoma — 4.9%
Oregon — 8.0%
Pennsylvania — 7.6%
Puerto Rico — 13.7%
Rhode Island — 8.8%
South Carolina — 8.0%
South Dakota — 4.1%
Tennessee — 8.0%
Texas — 6.4%
Utah — 4.7%
Vermont — 4.0%
Virginia — 5.2%
Washington — 7.0%
West Virginia — 6.6%
Wisconsin — 7.1%
Wyoming — 4.8%
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Steak n’ Shake Waitress Scores $446 Tip on $6 Check
Medioimages/Photodisc(INDIANAPOLIS) — If service with a smile results in a good tip, then Steak n’ Shake waitress CeCe Bruce is smiling from ear to ear.
Bruce, a waitress for the past two years at a Steak n’ Shake in Indianapolis, is $446 richer after a longtime customer left her a tip in that amount on a $5.97 order.
“My first reaction was, ‘Miss Jo, I’m not taking your money,’” Bruce, 31, told ABC News. “It was crazy.”
The customer, identified only as Miss Jo, eats at her local Steak n’ Shake at least once a week and was evidently feeling very generous when she came in for breakfast Wednesday morning.
“She asked me if she could leave me a ridiculously large tip, but I did not know that it was that large,” said Bruce, who described Miss Jo as a middle-aged woman — “my angel.”
“She didn’t even give me time to tell her, ‘Thank you,’ or anything,” Bruce said. “When I went back to get my manager, she took off out the door. I went outside and she said, ‘You’re going to take that money,’ and drove off.”
“I haven’t had the time to even express my gratitude to her,” she said.
What Bruce has had time to do is put the $446 tip to good use by paying her bills.
“I’ve already spent it,” said Bruce, who, in addition to her full-time waitress job, is a full-time student at Martin University studying psychology.
She is also already back at work at Steak n’ Shake, speaking to ABC News in between serving customers.
As to her secret for delivering service good enough to warrant an approximately 7,000-percent tip, Bruce was humble in her own praise.
“I’m not exactly sure,” she said. “I just try to have a nice personality. I do my job to the best of my ability every day.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Taco Bell Sued By Prisoner for ‘Stealing’ Doritos Locos Idea
ABC News(NEW YORK) — Where do wildly popular fast food ideas come from? According to Gary Cole: Prison.
That is the contention of Cole, who claims that it was he who invented Taco Bell’s famous Doritos Locos tacos while doing time in maximum security federal prison in Florence, Colo. He is so adamant about it that on May 15 he filed a federal lawsuit in Dallas alleging that Taco Bell, along with Pepsi, Frito Lay and Taco Bell parent Yum Brands, stole his idea.
Cole has been incarcerated since 1997, when he was given a 25-year sentence for “delaying interstate commerce, conspiring to do so, and using and carrying a firearm in relation to a crime of violence,” according to court papers. Fellow inmates include alleged September 11 co-planner Zacarias Moussaoui, shoe bomber Richard Reid and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.
Cole claims that in 2006 he sent his lawyer a notarized document with a list of nine products he devised, the Dallas Observer reports.
The majority fall under a brand he called “Divas and Ballers,” which include hot sauce, body oil, clothing line, and shoes and accessories. But second on the list was a “Tacos [sic] shells of all flavors (made of Doritos).”
In his 35-page handwritten complaint, Cole — who is representing himself — alleges that in 2010 he had sent his original list via certified mail to Janice B. Cole and Keonia K. Cole. That letter, he maintains, was “stolen through the United States Postal Service Brand and Submitted to Frito Lays [sic], Taco Bell, Yum Brands.”
He contacted the FBI, and also sent a Freedom of Information Act request to Taco Bell, asking to be sent documents relating to the invention of Doritos Loco Tacos. Private companies are generally not subject to FOI laws, however.
He also wrote to the IRS, that “a check was made out to a person for a large amount by Taco Bell, Frito Lay, and Pepsi Co. Inc. for an idea or invention that was submitted to them by theft and fraud.”
While Cole did not specify a monetary amount in his civil action, he did ask the court to place “a lean [sic] and moratorium” on “Taco Bell, Frito Lays, Pepsi Co, Yum Brands, et al. for the fraudulent and concealment, theft, lying, and covering up, to violate patent and trademark, invention and United States Constitutional Rights, to steal the taco shells made of Doritos of all flavors.”
In an email statement to ABC News, Taco Bell spokesperson Rob Poetsch said that “Given the unprecedented success of Doritos Locos Tacos, we are not surprised others may seek to claim credit. The reality is, the suit is completely without merit as our product innovation team continuously develops and tests new menu concepts, and as a policy we do not accept unsolicited ideas, period.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Consumer Confidence Rises to 6-Year High
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — American consumers are feeling better about the economy.
Consumer confidence rose this month to 83.7 — better than expected and its highest level since July 2007, according to the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index. In April, the figure stood at 76.4.
“Overall, a number of indicators in the economy have been improving,” said Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News’ chief business and economic correspondent, “and that has positively impacted the mind and the psychology of the American consumer.”
“The Dow above 15,000 for the first time, the S&P 500 hitting new records every day — that helps when you think about the mind of the consumer,” Jarvis said. “As does housing values improving, as does the fact that gasoline prices have sunk to a large degree over the last couple of months.”
There is one place where there’s still room for improvement.
“The jobs picture,” Jarvis said. “It has improved to some degree, [but] it’s still not where we would consider normal.”
U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, taking the unemployment rate down to 7.5 percent.
“A normal jobs picture would be with unemployment more like 5 or 6 percent,” Jarvis said, “and we’re still a ways away from that. The reason we care so much about a number like this is that it looks at what the future of our economy could hold and it looks at it from the perspective of the consumer.”
“Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic growth and so when the consumer is feeling better, the consumer tends to spend more,” she added.
In a separate report, the index of leading indicators from The Conference Board — a non-profit business research group – rose 0.6 percent last month. The index aims to predict future growth and was pushed higher by the housing recovery.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Microsoft Hides Job Posting in Web Code
ABC News(NEW YORK) — Looking for work? Well, just finding out this Microsoft job exists is work.
Microsoft has posted a sort of secret job listing for a Bing software development engineer inside the code of their Bing.com search site, as found by The Register. The only way to stumble upon the link to the job posting is to visit Bing.com using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer with debug mode enabled.
Once the page is loaded, a pop-up will ask, “Do you want to debug this webpage?”
Inspecting the page with the Internet Explorer developer tools console will uncover a message – “Interested in creating Bing.com experiences? Apply today.” — and a link to the job listing on the Microsoft careers website.
Be warned: the requirements for the position are more than just employing the skills to find the hidden listing. Applicants are expected to have at least a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and experience with multithreaded programming in C# and/or C++ and other web coding languages.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Don’t Work Too Hard: Seven Secret Sins at Work
Ciaran Griffin/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — While some career killers are clear and follow common sense, the workplace can be rife with hidden dos and don’ts.
“There are lots of different ways to get fired, and sometimes you’ll never know what you did wrong,” said Cynthia Shapiro, a former human resources executive and the author of Corporate Confidential.
What’s more, these secret no-nos can be behaviors people think are good, morally and professionally.
Below is a list of potential secret sins.
Being Popular
“Being popular can erode your job security very quickly,” Shapiro said. “It leads to sharing too much personal information at work. I have sat in meetings where the CEO or the higher executives said, ‘I heard this person is going through a nasty divorce; let’s not promote them.’ … Friendships need to be very strategically crafted.”
Bringing Yummy Treats for Colleagues
“This is particularly a mistake for women,” said Dr. Lois Frankel, author of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office. To be taken seriously, she said, leave the baking to Betty Crocker.
“It’s a nice thing to do,” Frankel said. “[But] if you do it too much, you’ll just be seen as the mascot, or the department mom, and you don’t want that.”
Multitasking
Studies show that dividing your attention between tasks can decrease efficiency and accuracy, Shapiro said.
“Companies say multitasking is what they want. It’s not really what they want. What they really want you to do is focus in with laserbeam focus on one thing and then switch to another and switch to another and switch to another,” Shapiro said.
Talking to HR
Even though your company may say it’s best to take your troubles to HR, that can hurt you, Shapiro said. “They don’t work for you; they work for the company. The company cuts their paycheck,” Shapiro said.
Most people assume that what they tell HR is confidential. “All that means is, they are not gonna blab it to the other employees. But they will absolutely tell your boss,” Shapiro said.
Overdecorating
“Companies will say, ‘Here is your space’ … do whatever you want with it,” Shapiro said. “It’s kind of an unconscious test of loyalty and values, because if you fill it with troll dolls or crystals or religious things, it’s gonna make them feel really, really uncomfortable.”
And don’t go crazy with family photos. “It’s telling the employer that this person would rather be at home with their kids,” Shapiro said. “One professional shot, and that’s it.”
Bringing Kids to Work
“It’s really not a good idea unless you can guarantee that your kids will be absolute angels,” Shapiro said. “If your kid decides to have a temper tantrum, it will reflect on you. ‘If he can’t control a child, how’s he going to manage the company?’ That kind of thing.”
Working Too Hard
Believe it or not, burning the midnight oil can backfire. Research shows over-working can decrease performance because it deprives you of sleep. Most bosses don’t care how long you work — just how much you get done.
“Working 24/7, where you’re always accessible, where you just kind of seem harried because there’s always so much to do — you’re not seen as someone who manages their time well,” Frankel said.
Watch the full story on 20/20: Work War: How to Win It, How to Wage It Friday night at 10 ET.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Bill Gates Is World’s Richest Person Once More
Sean Gallup/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — It’s good to be number one, especially when you’re topping the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
That honor belongs once more to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose worth is valued at $72.7 billion, up 15 percent from this time last year.
Gates hasn’t been number one on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index since 2007. He replaces Mexican cellphone mogul Carlos Slim, who slipped to second place because shares of his America Movil dropped 14 percent. That means Slim has to make do with just $72.1 billion.
Meanwhile, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett winds up being the world’s third richest person worth $59.7 billion, while Amancio Ortega Gaona, the head of the Spanish fashion apparel company Inditex group, is fourth with a personal fortune of $56 billion.
Wealthy folks also high on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index include Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Powerball, Mega Millions: Odds of Winning Both Jackpots?
Photodisc/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The Powerball jackpot has swelled to $550 million after no tickets matched all the winning numbers during Wednesday night’s drawing. And the top prize is continuing to grow ahead of the next drawing on Saturday night.
The Mega Millions jackpot, meanwhile, is up to $190 million ahead of its Friday night drawing.
While the chances of scoring either jackpot are 1 in more than 175,000,000, what are your chances of raking in the combined $740 million?
“If you buy one ticket for each game your odds are about 1 in 30 quadrillion,” says Jeff Bergen, a math professor at DePaul University. “That’s a one followed by 13 zeros.”
And, he notes, that’s much better than in March, when your odds of guessing a perfect NCAA basketball tournament bracket were 1 in 9 quintillion.
“That’s 300 times harder than winning both of these jackpots at the same time,” Bergen says.
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Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Google Glass Gets Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr Apps
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images(SAN FRANCISCO) — Google might have been mum on its much-buzzed-about glasses on day one of its big Google I/O Developer’s Conference, but on Thursday the company has announced a series of new Glass-based applications.
Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Elle magazine all unveiled new applications for the connected glasses, which overlay digital information in the physical world. The Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr options all allow Glass wearers to share their photos on the respective social networks straight from the glasses.
While the Facebook app is restricted at the moment to just sharing photos taken with the glasses, Twitter allows for that feature and some other notification options. The app will also allow you to see Twitter notifications and respond to messages.
“In addition to sharing photos, you can also keep up with the people you follow on Twitter through notifications — for mentions, DMs and Tweets from users for whom you’ve turned on notifications. As always, you can reply to, retweet or favorite these Tweets,” Twitter engineering manager Shiv Ramamurthi said in a Twitter blog post Thursday.
ABC News tried out the Facebook and Twitter apps and can report that they did work as promised. We snapped a photo on the glasses, tapped it once to share and then we were able to select the social network to share it with. However, installing the sharing-based apps are a bit clunky at the moment. You must install the apps from the Glass app on the phone and then enable sharing in the Web-based Glass control panel.
The other new media apps like CNN and Elle are easier to get working. Similar to The New York Times app, both CNN and Elle show snippets of information from the respective publications. For instance, with the Elle app, users will receive text and photo-based updates throughout the day about fashion news.
Google Glass is not yet available for purchase; instead, Google has begun selling an Explorer Edition for $1,500 to early adopters and software developers. At this week’s Google conference the company is holding sessions teaching software makers how to make Glass applications, instructing developers about the software tools and suggesting the apps that aren’t too distracting.
Google told ABC News Wednesday it plans to bring its new Hangouts app and more social functionality from its Google Plus network to Glass sometime soon. Google Plus is already deeply integrated into Glass — you can share and see notifications from friends.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
More than 200 Million Travelers Expected to Fly This Summer
Hemera/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — Get ready for a busy summer in the air. Airlines for America (A4A), the trade group representing most domestic airlines, says 209 million passengers will take to the skies this summer. That one-percent increase from last year is narrowing the gap to the peak summer of 2007 when more than 217 million travelers flew, according to the group’s annual report.
International travel on domestic carriers is expected to be at an all-time high, with 27.4 million passengers flying to overseas destinations.
“As we enter the peak summer travel season, Airlines for America expects U.S. airlines to see modest year-over-year growth in both domestic and international travel, including an all-time high for passengers traveling internationally,” said A4A Vice President and Chief Economist John Heimlich. “It’s a great time to fly as airfares remain a bargain and airlines are delivering strong on-time performance.”
What does this all mean for you? A4A projects 2.27 million people will fly each day. The days expected to be the busiest — which you might want to avoid — are Thursdays and Fridays, mid-June through the first week of August. Load factors, the industry measures for how many seats are taken in a plane, are expected to be between 86 percent and 87 percent.
A4A attributes the robust summer travel projection to an improving economy and “relief” in energy prices.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Markets Snap Winning Streaks; Dow’s Worst Day in Weeks
Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished Thursday trading down 42 points at 15,233.22 , the first loss for the blue chips index in three days and its worst session in weeks.
The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 also closed lower Thursday, with both indices snapping four-day winning streaks. Just like the Dow, this was the worst day for both averages in over two weeks.
The Nasdaq closed six points in negative territory at 3,465.24 after touching a 12-year high earlier Thursday. The S&P gave up eight points for the session, closing at 1,650.47.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans seeking unemployment aid rose 32,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 360,000, the most since late March. The jump comes after applications fell to a five-year low.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Cigarette Smuggling Ring Busted, May Have Helped Fund Terrorism
ABC News(NEW YORK) — Authorities in New York say they have broken up a cigarette trafficking ring that may have helped fund terrorism.
What authorities dubbed Operation Tobacco Road involved cigarettes bought in the South, where they’re less expensive, and sold tax-free in New York.
“Criminal rings like this have been used in the past to support terrorist groups and others in other parts of the world,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.
Two brothers from Maryland allegedly ran the Virginia-to-New York operation that moved 20,000 cartons per week.
One of the 16 men charged for selling $55 million worth of tax-free cigarettes smuggled up Interstate 95 is a known supporter of the blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in a 1993 terror plot.
“While it hasn’t been established yet where the illicit proceeds ended up, we’re concerned because similar schemes have been used in the past to help fund terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah,” said New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
Each of the defendants faces up to 25 years behind bars.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Google Plus Tackles Photos in Social Network Fight
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images(SAN FRANCISCO) — Google isn’t done trying to take on the behemoth social networks. That was the message from Google’s Senior Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundorta at the Google I/O conference this week as he announced a new look for the company’s Google Plus social network.
But Google is honing in on one major area in the competition: photo sharing. In addition to the new design, Gundorta announced some new photo features, which he says set the company’s social offerings apart from Facebook, Twitter and even Instagram. One set of features allows users to adjust photo effects. Another feature set called Auto-Awesome automatically adjusts images or groups them together. For instance, “Auto Awesome Motion” takes multiple images and turns them into an animated image.
“Our goals are to make people happy and get technology out of the way,” Gundorta told ABC News. “You know what makes people happy? Great photos of the people they care about. Today the steps involved to get people happy is very complicated. Take a photo, remember to get it off the device, get it on to the machine, edit it, back it up, share it.”
On an Android phone, Google has an auto-upload and back-up feature. As soon as the photo is taken, the full resolution photo is uploaded to their Google account, which includes 15GB of free storage space. Google points out that Facebook, Twitter and Instagram don’t allow you to share the full high-resolution images taken on smartphones or with digital cameras.
In addition to that easy upload process, Google is now trying to ease the photo editing process too, and that’s what Gundorta thinks makes Plus superior.
“We are a better photo service. You look better on Google Plus. You look more beautiful,” he said. “It’s more enjoyable to share photos in higher resolution with more beauty, across all your devices on Google Plus than in any other service. Other services are still beginning to catch up with us on automatic back-up.”
Analysts and industry watchers are impressed by Google’s additions, though they point out that they aren’t putting social first.
“Its image tools help everyone look like an amazing photography without any effort,” Brian Solis, a principal analyst at Altimeter Group, told ABC News. “It’s a different play though than that of Instagram. For example, you upload them to Google to give experiences and memories a home. With Instagram, you share experiences mostly to share with friends, engage and interact with your photos as well as theirs.”
Gundorta points out, however, that with Google Plus you can decide specifically who you share your photos with. You can share one photo with all your friends, your circle of work friends or just one or two of your closest friends. Still, while the service might serve a different purpose than Instagram, Gundorta is clear that he wants Google Plus to be the place people think of when they upload their photos from their phones. “All of this is coming to mobile. It is days away from coming to mobile,” he said.
While Google Plus has 190 million active monthly users, Instagram has 100 million monthly active users and 40 million photo uploads per day. Facebook has over a billion users and in 2012 said that 300 million photos are uploaded a day on the site.
But Google doesn’t have to be the only mobile photo service out there to really compete, says Solis.
“Many people will use multiple networks because people play out their digital lives across multiple platforms,” he said. “No one place will reach everyone, but Google is doing its part to stay relevant and pervasive among the fray.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Ohio Man Receives $10K for Downloading Apple’s 50 Billionth App
Apple(NEW YORK) — Brandon Ashmore from Mentor, Ohio, hit the app jackpot Tuesday afternoon when he pressed the download button on a word game app called Say the Same Thing and sent Apple over the 50 billion app download mark, winning the $10,000 prize.
Earlier this month, Apple announced that it was nearing the milestone, and that it would award the person who downloaded the 50 billionth app with a $10,000 gift card for the App Store.
According to Apple, the 50 billion download number does not include redownloads of apps or updates.
Steve Jobs announced the launch of the App Store in the summer of 2008 with 500 apps. It now has more than 850,000 iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch apps, with more than 350,00 iPad-specific apps.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
College Class of 2013 Racks Up Debt of $35,200
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The brutal rise in college costs over the past decade is leading students to take on an unprecedented amount of debt. Indeed, the class of 2013 is graduating with debt that averages $35,200, according to a new study by Fidelity.
That figure, which includes federal, state and private loans, as well as debt owed to family and accumulated through credit cards, applied to the 70 percent of graduates who left school with college-related debt.
Even though the rise in college costs, which have outpaced inflation by 5 percentage points annually over the past decade, is well known, it caught many students by surprise.
Fidelity said half of the students they polled with student loans were surprised by how much debt they had accumulated. And 39 percent said they would have made different choices about college had they realized the extent of their debt burden.
“The number of graduates reporting surprise by the level of student debt they have accumulated is a big concern and shows that there is a considerable need for families to better understand the total cost of college,” Keith Bernhardt, vice president of college planning at Fidelity Investments, said in a statement.
“It is critically important for families to have thorough discussions related to college planning a lot earlier than they do now, and to understand their options and create a college savings and funding plan to help avoid significant post-graduation debt,” he continued.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
More than Half of Mobile Device Owners Use Them to Play Games
Goodshoot RF/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Mobile devices obviously help people keep in touch, but they are more and more becoming a popular source of entertainment.
A new survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of CouponCabin.com finds more than half of mobile device owners — 51 percent — play games on their devices.
When the survey asked mobile device owners how often they play games on their devices, the respondents replied:
- Play games at least once a week – 41 percent
- Play games at least once a day – 21 percent
- Play games more than once a day – 11 percent
- Once a month or less – 10 percent
Other statistics include:
- Broken down by gender, men are more likely to play games on their mobile devices than women, 54 percent to 48 percent, respectively.
- Forty-five percent of mobile game-playing U.S. adults have downloaded a paid game app on their mobile device.
- In the past 12 months, of the U.S. adults who have paid to download a game on their mobile device, 61 percent have spent between $1 and $10 on game apps. Fifteen percent have paid between $11 and $20, while nine percent have shelled out between $21 and $50. Eleven percent of respondents have spent more than 50 bucks.
- Of U.S. adults who have children under the age of 18, 12 percent say their kids have purchased a game app by mistake. Ten percent say their kids downloaded an app intentionally without their permission.
The Harris Interactive survey involved 2,058 adults and was conducted between May 2 and May 6, 2013.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Weekly Jobless Claims Jump to 360,000
Spencer Platt/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — After falling to a five-year low in the beginning of the month, jobless claims have shot back up, the Labor Department reported Thursday morning.
For the week ending May 11, the number of people filing for benefits increased by 32,000 to 360,000. The previous week, claims stood at 328,000.
The four-week average also went up, climbing by 1,250 to 339,250.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Subaru Forester Scores Top Rating in New Crash Test
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety(NEW YORK) — For the first time, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has conducted crash tests on small SUVs measuring front corner impact, which accounts for about 24 percent of injuries and death from frontal crashes. And only two out of the 13 vehicles tested received passing grades.
“The best performing vehicles were the Subaru Forester and the Mitsubishi Outlander Sport,” Russ Rader with the IIHS tells ABC News Radio.
The Forester was the first vehicle to ace every aspect of the new crash test, earning it a rating of “good.” The Outlander Sport scored the next best rating, “acceptable.” Both SUVs were named “Top Safety Pick+,” the institute’s recently inaugurated top honor.
The remaining 11 SUVs received “marginal” or “poor” ratings, with the worst offender being the Ford Escape.
“It had poor structural performance. There was a lot of intrusion into the occupant compartment,” explains Rader.
Joining the Escape in the “poor” category was the Buick Encore, Hyundai Tucson, Jeep Patriot and Kia Sportage.
The BMW X1, Honda CR-V, two-door Jeep Wrangler, Mazda CX-5, Nissan Rogue and Volkswagen Tiguan were placed in the “marginal” category.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Boxing and Floyd Mayweather: Perfect Storm for Highest-Paid Athlete
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/GettyImages(NEW YORK) — The highest-paid U.S. athlete is not endorsed by Nike, nor does he own a clothing line.
Boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, Jr. was named the highest-paid U.S. athlete for the second year in a row, but it shouldn’t be a huge surprise, said Stephen Greyser, professor emeritus at the Harvard Business School and an expert in the business of sports.
Mayweather, 36, was paid $90 million in the last year, none of it coming from endorsements, according to Sports Illustrated.
“I earn a lot of money but the money is not what motivates me,” Mayweather said in a statement. “I work very hard at my craft and appreciate all the fans that support my efforts by buying my fights. Being at the top of my sport for over a decade validates my willingness to train hard, fight hard and give everyone something to enjoy. It is a honor to be the highest paid athlete again this year but it is just a part of my love for the sport of boxing and what it has done for myself and my family.”
Coming in second in Sports Illustrated’s list is LeBron James, who is competing in the NBA playoffs with the Miami Heat. He earned $56.5 million in total, $17.5 million of which was his salary and $39 million of which came from endorsements. James has a few basketball shoes named after him included in his deal with Nike, plus endorsements from Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Samsung.
So how is it that Mayweather surpassed James by $33.5 million?
First, Greyser pointed out, compensation for boxers is not particularly high.
“Only the absolute top tier of boxers are able to cash in significantly,” he said.
Mayweather clearly fits that bill. He received the highest guaranteed purse in the history of boxing with his last fight at $32 million. He also is his own fight promoter through his own company, Mayweather Promotions, and has fought successfully in not just one but three weight classes.
Second, Greyser said, there are so few elite boxers in “such a distinctive sport, and the championship bouts are relatively infrequent.”
There is a reason why the Olympics are also lucrative, as they take place every two or four years.
It helps that boxing competitions are also often hosted in large arenas that charge high prices for tickets. The same could be said for other sports, like football, but boxing events are also pay-per-view spectacles.
“All of these things represent revenue streams,” he said. “The consequence is top tier boxers are able to generate very big revenue for their work.”
That’s a good thing, because, with many exceptions, boxers haven’t historically had the highest endorsement value.
Mike Tyson, former world heavyweight champion, now has made a name for himself in films and speaking engagements. But in his heyday, he did time for a rape conviction. And who could forget the infamous ear-biting incident.
Greyser said boxers “don’t fit with the images most companies are looking for in endorsed athletes.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Coffee Date with Tim Cook Goes for $610K in Charity Auction
Joanna Stern/ABC News(NEW YORK) — A 30-minute- to- one-hour coffee date with Apple CEO Tim Cook was auctioned for $610,000 on Charitybuzz, tying the record for the highest winning bid on that website, which previously went to a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador Roadster sold in March.
The date with Cook and 146 other experiences benefit the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The auction closed on Tuesday and raised a total of $1.1 million.
The buyer wishes to remain anonymous and will spend anywhere from 30 minutes to one hour with Cook, according to Charitybuzz. That means the buyer spent $10,167 to $20,333 a minute for charity and to spend time with the tech company’s chief executive.
Other high-priced items for the fundraiser included a tour of SpaceX Center in Los Angeles with founder Elon Musk, which sold for $42,500. A day at training camp with NFL football player Peyton Manning sold for $25,000.
Charitybuzz, which launched in 2005, has raised more than $75 million for charities.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Google Plans to Bring Hangouts App and More Social Features to Glass
Google Glass (ABC News)(SAN FRANCISCO) — During a three-hour keynote at its Google I/O conference, Google didn’t talk at all about Glass, its glasses that overlay digital information in the physical world.
However, the company did talk about some features that we have now learned will be coming to the digital glasses.
At the event, Google announced a number of changes coming to its Google Plus social network and a new messaging app called Hangouts. When asked how Google was planning to integrate more social functionality into Glass, Google’s senior vice president of engineering, Vic Gundotra, told ABC News, “Hangouts is the answer. Our focus is on face-to-face to face communications. The Hangout app we just showed is going to be available for Glass.”
Gundotra and Vice President of Engineering for Google Plus David Besbris said their team was working on the Glass app now. When asked by ABC News if there will be deeper social tools – for instance, the ability to look at a friend and see some more information about them – Gundotra and Besbris said, “Stay tuned.”
While they didn’t detail how the app would work, Google has said that Glass apps shouldn’t be distracting.
“Glass is a new category; it is quite different than existing computing devices,” Google CEO Larry Page said at the end of the Google I/O keynote Wednesday. “Our main goal is to get happy users using Glass. We want to make sure we are building experiences that make users happy.”
Earlier this month, Google began shipping the $1,500 Explorer Edition version of Glass to early adopters and software developers. Currently, you can see notifications from your Google Plus account on the small display on the glasses and share photos to your account. You can also host a video hangout or a video chat with friends. Using the camera, you can share what you see with friends and you can see them in the screen.
The Hangout app, which was announced Wednesday and is different from the video hangout feature, is available for Chrome, iOS and Android.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Powerball: Seven States That Won’t Cash In on the $360M Drawing
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — With Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing set at a staggering $360 million, jackpot junkies eagerly await the announcement for the winning numbers to see if they beat the odds.
Forty-three states across the country participate in the multi-state lottery, with California being the most recent addition to the Powerball game in November.
But residents of Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming will have to head out of state to buy a ticket for the chance to cash in on the winning numbers of the third-largest Powerball jackpot of all-time. Not only do these seven states not participate in the lottery game, they don’t even have state lotteries of their own.
While states like Utah and Hawaii outlaw all gambling of all kinds — be it charitable, commercial, at a racetrack, or on an Indian reservation casino — others just require residents to cross state lines to get their drawings fixes or play at state-approved casinos such as those in Nevada and Mississippi.
Nevada State Gaming Control Board chairman A.G. Burnett told ABC News that Nevada doesn’t have a lottery because of a decision in the state legislature made over 50 years ago.
“There was a decision in the state of Nevada as to whether we’d be just a casino-style gaming state or a state that allowed lotteries,” he said. “The legislature put that language in years ago that said, we’re just going to be a casino gaming state without a lottery.”
As a result, the state bans lotteries with the exception of charitable drawings held by schools, local elks’ clubs or boy scouts. Even then, these raffles need to be approved by the gaming control board, said Burnett, who signs off on five to 10 of those requests a month.
Burnett said every few years, there’s a proposal to instate a commercial lottery in Nevada, but the rumblings usually die down.
“I think it’s the gaming industry that doesn’t want to have a lottery,” he said. “That’s pretty much the prevailing view even today.”
In Alabama, the last time a state lottery was put to a vote was in 1999, when it was defeated despite entreaties that its revenues would help to improve the state’s schools, according to The New York Times.
While the economic benefits states without lotteries fail to reap has not been documented, Wyoming’s governor signed a bill into law to bring lottery games to the state in March, with revenues from ticket sales to benefit the state.
“We’re hopeful it’s going to be a profitable venture,” said Wyoming state representative David Zwonitzer, who sponsored the bill, which takes effect July 1.
Zwonitzer said up to $6 million in proceeds from the Wyoming lottery will go to the cities and counties, and anything over that would be allocated to schools.
The concept of introducing a lottery to Wyoming has been toyed with for at least 10 years, Zwonitzer said. In the meantime, residents can flock to Colorado, Idaho and South Dakota to try their luck in winning some of the multistate lottery pots or gamble on the Internet.
Renny MacKay, spokesman for Wyoming Governor Matt Mead, said that the governor will appoint a board to oversee the lottery corporation in July, which will either decide to establish a state lottery or move to make Wyoming the newest state to join in the Powerball or Mega Millions games.
Meanwhile, in Mississippi, where the gaming industries in cities like Gulfport and Biloxi have grown sizably, instating a lottery is off the table.
“Every year we do have lottery bills that are filed, but typically it doesn’t even make it out of the gaming committee,” said Rob Vickery, staff officer at the executive division of the Mississippi Gaming Commission. “I think that casino operators like the current situation because they’re the only game in town and the more conservative legislators don’t really want to go on the record as voting for gaming.”
“You have this kind of unholy alliance that the gaming industry and the anti-gaming people would come together and be against the expansion of gaming, which would include lotteries,” he said.
Despite the lack of lotto, Mississippi also offers charitable gaming to its residents, boasting 80 bingo parlors throughout the state, Vickery said.
Jon Griffin, a policy associate at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said that while there’s ample funding for casino studies, there hasn’t been much empirical research on the economic impact on states that did not participate in lotteries.
“I’ve never conducted any research as to why these states aren’t participating in lotteries,” he said. “With so many states having lotteries compared to states that have casino gaming, most people don’t think much about state lotteries.”
Alaska residents can only try their luck in similar charitable gaming options, including bingo, pull tabs, dog mushers’ contests and raffles. But in terms of getting involved with the lottery, there’s no draw for locals.
Jeff Prather, gaming group supervisor for Alaska’s Department of Revenue, said that while he wasn’t sure that the state had made a decision to have a state lottery, a recent economic report indicated that it would not be a profitable activity in the state, “mainly because of the population.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Walmart Fires Supplier After Bangladesh Revelation
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — For the second time in a year, Walmart has announced it would be firing a clothing supplier after a deadly incident revealed garments bound for their stores were being produced under substandard conditions in Bangladesh.
Walmart announced Wednesday it would be terminating its contract with Canadian-based blue jeans supplier Fame Jeans a few hours after documents surfaced showing the company had at one point ordered pants from a factory inside Rana Plaza. The eight-story building in the Bangladesh capital collapsed earlier this month, killing more than 1,100 garment workers.
The documents were from May 2012, and Walmart said it did not have any products in the factory when the collapse occurred.
“The production described in these documents was from a year ago, and based upon our policy on unauthorized subcontracting we are terminating this supplier,” the Walmart statement said. “This supplier, Fame Jeans, had told us there was no previous production at Rana Plaza, but our suppliers have a binding obligation to disclose all factories producing Walmart merchandise.”
Fame Jeans did not respond to messages seeking comment, but an executive from the company told The New York Times a “rogue employee” had placed the order, and had decided to use the factory without senior company managers knowing. The document, which the Times first reported on Wednesday morning, shows a request for 5,322 pairs of skinny fit girls jeans and identifies Walmart as the customer.
Initially, Walmart said its investigation after the building collapse had confirmed that the retailer “had no authorized production in this facility.”
“If we learn of any unauthorized production, we will take appropriate action based upon our zero-tolerance policy on unauthorized subcontracting,” the statement said.
The chain of events following the deadly building collapse in some respects echoes the aftermath of a garment factory fire six months earlier that killed 112 workers. Three days after that fire, when documents surfaced indicating a Walmart supplier had sourced clothing to that factory, Walmart announced it had terminated its relationship with the contractor.
“A supplier subcontracted work to this factory without authorization and in direct violation of our policies,” the company’s statement said then.
Advocates for better safety conditions in Bangladesh said they were surprised that a company so well-known for keeping firm command of its supply chain had now twice found its clothes being made in factories it didn’t know about.
Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, said he would like to see the retailer take responsibility for its production process and address the conditions in Bangladesh that have been leading to the deadly disasters there.
“One disaster after another at factories producing Walmart goods, but it’s never Walmart’s fault,” Nova said. “They always have some story about a rogue supplier or sneaky subcontractor.”
Walmart spokesman Kevin Gardner said Walmart is taking dramatic steps to address the epidemic of unsafe conditions in Bangladesh, where the company produces more than $1 billion of clothing and goods each year.
“The need for companies, non-governmental agencies, workers, and government to take action when hazardous conditions exist is essential to improving factory conditions, and Walmart is committed to providing even greater transparency into its supply chain in order to help drive change,” Gardner said.
He said the company has posted a list of every Bangladesh factory that its inspectors have flagged as potentially dangerous and committed to publicly release the inspection results from all authorized factories in Bangladesh. “Transparency in our supply chain is critical in order for us to be able to identify worker safety issues like those found in Rana Plaza,” he said.
While Walmart has not signed the workplace safety agreement reached between labor groups, worker advocates and a number of large European retailers, the company has also announced its own plans to tackle the conditions in Bangladesh. Those plans include enhanced safety inspections that aim to prevent deadly fires and collapses.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio