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Six things to know about the Swiss watch industry before Apple invades - Quartz

Six things to know about the Swiss watch industry before Apple invades - Quartz : Credit Suisse published�a lengthy, in-depth report on the Swiss watch industry (pdf) in October 2013—well before Apple’s project was unveiled, but early enough that smart watches and fitness bands were�coming into the picture.�While some of the facts and figures aren’t the most recent, they’re useful as background about an age-old�industry that is about to experience an entirely new form of competition. Here are some key points to keep in mind:
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Adidos and Hotwind? In China, Brands Adopt Names to Project Foreign Flair - NYTimes.com

Adidos and Hotwind? In China, Brands Adopt Names to Project Foreign Flair - NYTimes.com : “Buy Chinese brands? Never,” said Fu Rao, 20, a university student, who was browsing the clothes at the Japanese outlet store Snidel in an upscale Beijing mall one recent evening. Ms. Fu complained that Chinese products were shoddily made and lacking in style. “Foreign stuff is so much better,” she said.
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Sony’s Amy Pascal Breaks Silence On Hacking Attack | Deadline

Sony’s Amy Pascal Breaks Silence On Hacking Attack | Deadline : EXCLUSIVE: It’s fair to imagine that Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Amy Pascal hasn’t had a peaceful moment since November 24, when a hacker’s skeleton emblem appeared on Sony Corp. computers around the world and signaled the arrival of a hack attack that has created unprecedented havoc for a media empire. The breach shut down every computer and e-mail; digital copies of unreleased films were posted; confidential data, ranging from employee information to e-mails from executives, was dispersed to media outlets and served up to embarrass and hobble the Sony regime. Pascal’s e-mail exchanges have been a focal point in the latter portion of this nightmare. Suddenly, one of Hollywood’s most accomplished female executives, a risk taker with a reputation for taste and strong talent relationships, felt like the girl who fell down the rabbit hole.
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Tor and HTTPS

Tor and HTTPS | Electronic Frontier Foundation Tor and HTTPS Click the "Tor" button to see what data is visible to eavesdroppers when you're using Tor. The button will turn green to indicate that Tor is on. Click the "HTTPS" button to see what data is visible to eavesdroppers when you're using HTTPS. The button will turn green to indicate that HTTPS is on. When both buttons are green, you see the data that is visible to eavesdroppers when you are using both tools. When both buttons are grey, you see the data that is visible to eavesdroppers when you don't use either tool. Potentially visible data includes: the site you are visiting (SITE.COM), your username and password (USER/PW), the data you are transmitting (DATA), your IP address (LOCATION), and whether or not you are using Tor (TOR).
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BBC - Capital - The worst CEOs of 2014

BBC - Capital - The worst CEOs of 2014 : Number 1: Ricardo Espirito Santo Silva Salgado, Banco Espirito Santo (BES) The worst CEO of the year goes to the head of the Salgado family of Portugal, the kingpin of an interlocking and complex set of entities that controlled the second-biggest bank in Portugal — and brought it to bankruptcy. The bank’s first half loss this year was 3.6bn euros ($4.5bn), forcing the Portuguese government to inject 4.9bn euros ($6.1bn) into the bank as part of a restructuring that leaves Salgado, and many investors that went along with him, out in the cold. BES was partially owned by Espirito Santo International (ESI), a family-controlled corporation consisting of dozens of nonfinancial businesses that relied on bank profits for start-up cash and ongoing working capital. When the financial crisis hit, the bank’s ability to generate cash slowed, forcing Salgado to institute a variety of complex lending arrangements to prop up the empire. Debt at Rioforte,...
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BSKYB annual report

£7.6bn revenue Strong demand across the board translated to a 7% increase in revenue (excluding ESPN). Combined with a continued focus on operating efficiency, this meant we ended a year of investment with earnings per share flat year on year. This is an excellent result in a period where we absorbed a one-off step up in Premier League costs and invested to accelerate take-up of new connected services, and it reflects the strength of the underlying business. In light of this performance, the Board has proposed a dividend of 32.0 pence, an increase of 7% on the prior year and the tenth consecutive year of growth. We continued to reap the benefits of our broadly-based approach to growth as more people chose to come to Sky and take more of our products. We added a total of 3.1 million new paid-for subscription products over the 12 months to take our total base of subscription products pas...
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Revolt at the New New Republic - NYTimes.com

Revolt at the New New Republic - NYTimes.com : The staff who joined, or rejoined, felt as if they were part of a romantic endeavor, as much a restoration as a relaunch. Writers were offered generous salaries and assured that they would be given time and space. The website was redesigned, not to drive more traffic and thus lure advertisers but to look cleaner. The print magazine, Mr. Hughes said, would remain the primary product.
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Viewability: Nearly Half of Online Ads Aren't Seen | Digital - Advertising Age

Viewability: Nearly Half of Online Ads Aren't Seen | Digital - Advertising Age The latest data comes after more than a year of additional tracking by the company's Validated Campaign Essentials service, said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni in a presentation at the Advertising Research Foundation Audience Measurement 8.0 conference in New York on Monday. ComScore counts 22 of the top 25 U.S. advertisers as VCE clients, including  Procter & Gamble Co.  and  Kellogg Co.  But the new data, suggesting that fewer people see online ads than previously thought, likely owe to the fact the service has branched out beyond premium publishers and blue-chip advertisers in the past year, Mr. Fulgoni said. At many "lower tier" sites, in-view rates are well under 50%, he said. Experience at Kellogg shows viewability matters a lot: a 40% improvement in ad viewability produced a 75% increase in sales life from digital advertising, said Aaron Fetters, director of Kellogg's Insig...
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Memorandum on Leaked TISA Financial Services Text

Professor Jane Kelsey, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland, New Zealand This memorandum provides a preliminary analysis of the leaked financial services chapter of the Trade in Services Agreement dated 14 April 2014. It makes the following points: The secrecy of negotiating documents exceeds even the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and runs counter to moves in the WTO towards greater openness. The TISA is being promoted by the same governments that installed the failed model of financial (de)regulation in the WTO and which has been blamed for helping to fuel the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The same states shut down moves by other WTO Members to critically debate these rules following the GFC with a view to reform. They want to expand and deepen the existing regime through TISA, bypassing the stalled Doha round at the WTO and creating a new te...
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Survivor Library | How to Survive When the Technology Doesn't

Survivor Library | How to Survive When the Technology Doesn't Accounting (A) Engraving and Woodcuts Livestock-Swine Shipbuilding Aeroplanes (A) Engineering-Electrical Machine Tools Shoemaking Archery (A) Farming Mechanical Drawing Sewing Bee Journal (A) Firearms Manuals Medical-Anesthesia  (NEW) Shorthand Beekeeping (A) First Aid Medical-Diagnostics  (NEW) Silk Culture Berries (A) Fish Culture Medical-Medicine 1900-1922 Sliderules and Abacus Boilermaker (A) Fishing Medical-Microscopy  (NEW) Smithing Bookbinding (A) Food Medical-Nursing 1900-1921 Steam Engines Botany (A) Forestry Medical-Obstetrics 1900-1922 Stone and Masonry Boy Scout Manuals (A) Formulas Medical-Surgery 1900-1922 Surveying Brewing (A) Forging and Casting (A)  (NEW) Medical-Surgery 2 (A)  (NEW) Survival-Individual Bridges and Dams (A) Glassmaking Medical-X-Rays (NEW) Teaching Canning (A) Gunpowder and Explosives Meteorology (A) (NEW) Teaching-Arithmetic Cheese and Butter Making ...
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THE SECRET GOVERNMENT RULEBOOK FOR LABELING YOU A TERRORIST

The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a  166-page document  issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place entire “categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to “nominate” people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.” It also allows for dead people to be watchlisted
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First Look Media sounds like a gigantic mess

First Look Media sounds like a gigantic mess : Now, Taibbi is gone, plans for a flagship site have been scrapped and journalists are scrambling to figure out what is happening within a company that still sits on a massive library of leaked NSA documents.
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7 problems with Politico Magazine’s hit piece on Glenn Greenwald - The Washington Post

7 problems with Politico Magazine’s hit piece on Glenn Greenwald - The Washington Post : Will there be many more Snowdens to come, based on Greenwald’s “model”? Perhaps. But it’s more likely that Greenwald Inc. has already peaked. The NSA, duly chastened by Snowden’s leaks, is changing under presidential directives that will rein in its mass collection of telephone “metadata” — its most controversial program — while most of the rest of us have moved on. “I think there’s a bit of Snowden fatigue out there right now,” said former NSA director Michael Hayden, who points to the public’s less-than-inflamed response to Greenwald’s recent revelation that the NSA under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) monitored five prominent Muslim-Americans whose names appeared among 7,485 email addresses examined between 2002 and 2008. Greenwald “thought that FISA thing was going to be a grand finale for the fireworks display, but frankly it didn’t bounce very much,” said Hayden.
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