New computer 'will play every video game'

A computer that will be able to play all video games ever created is being developed by scientists.
The £3.5 million project aims to create a machine that can open all obsolete files, including text, websites and games.
The team behind Keeping Emulation Environments Portable (KEEP) claim it is necessary to prevent data from being lost forever as formats become redundant.
"People don't think twice about saving files digitally – from snapshots taken on a camera phone to national or regional archives," said Dr Janet Delve, a computer historian from the University of Portsmouth who has worked on the project.
"But every digital file risks being either lost by degrading or by the technology used to 'read' it disappearing altogether."
Her fellow researcher Dr David Anderson said: "We are facing a massive threat of the loss of digital information. It's a very real and worrying problem.
"Things that were created in the 1970s, 80s and 90s are vanishing fast and every year new technologies mean we face greater risk of losing material."
The National Archive has estimated that it already holds enough data in obsolete formats to fill about 580,000 encyclopedias, while the research by the British Library has suggested that Europe loses £2.7bn each year through problems maintaining and accessing old digital files

Will Social Networks On the Web Ever Make Money?

How could Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace ''monetize''?

Michael J. Wolf

In the last week or so, there have been a number of events that bring up the big question: Will Web-based social networks ever become significant businesses? Or, put another way: Do these social networks--Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace--have the ability to "monetize" their audiences?
My answer: While today, these may not look like great businesses (which hasn't stopped investors' willingness to fund them), I'm convinced that the daily interactions of their vast memberships--and their users' willingness to share their interests, tastes, relationships and intentions, and the massive amounts of data around users' behavior--will eventually lead to substantial revenues and profits. But I don't think that those revenues will come just from the Web advertising standards of banners and contextual search links.
forbes:http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/19/facebook-myspace-twitter-linkedin-opinions-contributors_zuckerberg_internet.html?partner=yahoobuzz
Last Friday, Twitter announced that it had received a third round of $35 million in funding, led by Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). Sure, Twitter is growing exponentially (over 900% in a year), but the company has had very little (if any) revenue. In an interview with Wired.com, IVP General Partner Todd Chaffee essentially says that he expects that Twitter is "turning into a very large media property." Twitter co-founder Biz Stone's announcement on Twitter's official blog admits that the next step is "to begin building revenue-generating products."
Also, the Associated Press recently carried a story that Facebook's true value fell way short of the $15 billion implied in the 2007 investment made by Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ). Facebook's own internal appraisal priced its privately held stock at about $3.7 in value. This revelation came from confidential information from a lawsuit settlement.
From the outside, it looks like most of Facebook's revenue appear to be coming from its two ad deals with Microsoft, its own local/national ads on users' pages and members paying for their virtual gifts such as Happy Birthday cakes, Champagne Bottles and Valentine's cookies. This week, controversy erupted over changes in Facebook's terms of service, which indicate that it would retain users' content and licenses after an account has been terminated. Users' concern, when the changes were pointed out by the blog Consumerist, is understandable. Each of us as Facebook members counts on the privacy of our friend lists, our personal info and our daily status updates.
Yesterday, Facebook did an about-face, and in its official blog, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social networking site will revert to its previous terms.
No matter what the outcome, Facebook is taking another step to find a way to monetize the information and communications between its 175 million members, of which Zuckerberg says in the blog: "If it were a country, it would be the sixth most populated country in the world.'

What Is GMP?

GMP refers to the Good Manufacturing Practice Regulations promulgated by the US Food and Drug Administration under the authority of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (See Chapter IV for food, and Chapter V, Subchapters A, B, C, D, and E for drugs and devices.) These regulations, which have the force of law, require that manufacturers, processors, and packagers of drugs, medical devices, some food, and blood take proactive steps to ensure that their products are safe, pure, and effective. GMP regulations require a quality approach to manufacturing, enabling companies to minimize or eliminate instances of contamination, mixups, and errors. This in turn, protects the consumer from purchasing a product which is not effective or even dangerous. Failure of firms to comply with GMP regulations can result in very serious consequences including recall, seizure, fines, and jail time.
GMP regulations address issues including recordkeeping, personnel qualifications, sanitation, cleanliness, equipment verification, process validation, and complaint handling. Most GMP requirements are very general and open-ended, allowing each manufacturer to decide individually how to best implement the necessary controls. This provides much flexibility, but also requires that the manufacturer interpret the requirements in a manner which makes sense for each individual business.
GMP is also sometimes referred to as "cGMP". The "c" stands for "current," reminding manufacturers that they must employ technologies and systems which are up-to-date in order to comply with the regulation. Systems and equipment used to prevent contamination, mixups, and errors, which may have been "top-of-the-line" 20 years ago, may be less than adequate by today's standards.

Can Personal Care Attendants Fly Free? by ewilliams

Can your personal care attendant fly for free? Now that “One-Person One-Fare” is the law of the land in Canada, the answer to that question is a qualified yes. In fact, many wheelchair-users can now qualify for free personal care attendant airfare on Canadian domestic flights. And although there are still rules and regulations to follow; once you know the procedures, it’s easy to take advantage of this new program.

Do All Wheelchair-Users Qualify?
Under the new regulation, passengers defined as “people with severe disabilities” may qualify for free personal care attendant travel, as long as an attendant is needed for their in-flight personal care or safety, “as required by the carriers’ domestic tarrifs”. It does not apply to:

• Passengers who prefer to travel with a companion
• Passengers who only require a personal care attendant at their destination

The airlines are responsible for determining eligibility; however there isn’t a publicly available list of qualifying disabilities. Eligibility is determined on a case-by-case basis, but the documentation at least implies that it will apply to quadriplegics.

The Canadian Transportation Agency estimated the rule would only affect approximately 0.09 percent of Air Canada's annual passengers. Considering those numbers, it’s believed that some wheelchair-users won’t make the cut; however, since the exact eligibility standards aren’t a matter of public record, it doesn’t hurt to apply. The worst thing that can happen is that you will be turned down. Best case scenario – your personal care attendant will fly for free.

RealPlayer 11.0.8 Build 6.0.14.891

The RealPlayer is the first product that integrates Real's revolutionary new Harmony technology. RealPlayer enables consumers to buy and download music that plays on more than 100 portable devices, including the Apple iPod. RealPlayer is the only digital-media player you need for finding and downloading new music, playing and managing audio and video clips, and taking your digital entertainment with you. RealPlayer offers a streamlined interface that allows you to keep your media library close at hand. Keep all your digital-media clips organized in one place; save CD tracks with one click; pause and rewind live streams; transfer music to CDs and portable devices effortlessly; and enjoy clear, smooth video playback and multichannel, surround-sound support. Helix Powered RealPlayer is the all-in-one digital media player that lets you find anything and play everything. This popular streaming-media player offers improved video controls and access to 3200 radio stations. RealPlayer also includes an option during setup to install the Real Toolbar for Internet Explorer. With RealPlayer you get an improved graphic equalizer and media services, including a radio tuner and an artist and music guide.

Xenon for Associative 3D Modeling

Xenon, like Ashlar-Vellum's flagship software, Cobalt™, offers supreme design flexibility and speed, without the high-end mechanical functions, like equation-driven parametrics and mechanical parts library.

For both Macintosh and Windows, Xenon lets designers work freely without worrying about how to run their software. For those doing highly stylized concepts with a great degree of customization, Xenon offers the best of Cobalt's features at a more moderate price. In a world where highly customized, one-off products rule, Xenon reigns supreme. Save time and money as you move from concept through completion.

The Vellum® magic is addictive—ask any customer why they use Ashlar-Vellum products and you'll hear about "Vellumness." Across their product line, the uniting element is the magical feel of creative simplicity and efficient power. It anticipates your needs and quietly offers help without distraction or intrusion.

Explore design ideas—conceptualize, experiment, even play, in 2D or 3D. Not even a pencil and cocktail napkin offer more freedom (Margaritas optional). Then work interactively with clients to painlessly refine designs. Powerful associativity and Design Explorer history tracking automatically ripple changes through the model and drawing sheets.

Imagine any shape—sensual curves, organic forms, and flowing edges are easily drawn in Ashlar-Vellum software, unlike traditional CAD programs. Set your own style, without limits.

Manufacture with confidence—Xenon's precise 3D data guarantees accurate drawings, letting you export data for fabrication and send shop drawings to manufacturing.

Rise above the competition—leading design innovators share a common tool: Ashlar-Vellum products. From renowned jewelry designers in New York and Paris to athletic equipment companies in the Pacific Northwest, from Apple Computer to Scaled Composites, Argon's flexibility frees creative people to focus on design.

Transfer files seamlessly—collaborate creatively with others. Even files from high-end, enterprise-based CAD programs can be imported and exported. Work within the power and elegance of the Vellum interface, then export the file to meet the demands of less enlightened CAD users.

Show what you mean—the photo-realistic rendering in Argon goes beyond visualization to reality. 3D models promote greater understanding among designers, customers and manufacturing.

Making Marketing Work in Challenging Times

The current economic climate presents many challenges for marketers. You need to compete harder for what business is available. You need to justify every marketing expenditure by providing measurable results. And there’s a good chance you need to work within new budget constraints.

Despite these challenges, you can be an effective marketer in a down economy. Spending is still taking place; there is still business to be won. Below are three important strategies to help you market more effectively during the economic downturn and win your share of business.

For a more in-depth look at marketing strategies, read the GlobalSpec white paper: “Nine Ways to Make Marketing Work in Challenging Times.”

Re-Define Your Target Market
Companies often take one of two approaches to define their target market during challenging times. First, they broaden their definition of their target market in terms of industry, customer needs or other criteria. This way, they might be able to close deals that otherwise might not have come their way.

The second approach is to narrow the definition of a target market, putting all sales and marketing resources on those prospects most likely to become customers, perhaps in a specific vertical where the company has strong brand recognition and market share.

Before deciding on either approach, you should first understand which sectors are the hardest hit by the economy. Suppliers should evaluate whether their products and services are a good fit for markets they might not be selling into today, but where spending is taking place. If you find opportunity, you will need re-allocate marketing dollars, re-invent your marketing messages to be relevant to prospects in new markets, and choose marketing programs such as industry-specific e-newsletters that reach a targeted audience.

Also, remember that your customers are working under tight budgets as well. In your messaging, try to emphasize value or cost savings you can provide in terms of additional customer support, just-in-time delivery, complimentary design services or other value-added services that make your company attractive to prospects.

Align with Your Customer’s Behavior
There’s an old adage in marketing that you must “fish where the fish are.” In other words, place your marketing investments and increase your visibility in those specific, targeted media vehicles where you know your customers and prospects will be exposed to your message.

Online is the most effective media today for reaching the engineering and technical audience. Forty-two percent of GlobalSpec’s survey respondents spend six or more hours per week on the Internet for work-related purposes, such as finding components, equipment, services and suppliers, and obtaining product and technical specifications. Sixty-two percent of respondents visit six or more work-related Web sites every week.

These results indicate that you need a strong online presence, and while having a company Web site is a requirement, it is not enough. Respondents reported that four of the top five sources for searching for products, services and suppliers are online sources—with supplier Web sites making the top five but also general search engines, online catalogs and GlobalSpec.com. It’s time to “right-size” your marketing spend and diversify your online presence. You’ll find greater opportunity to capture qualified leads and potential sales.

Focus on Quality and Quantity
Given the state of the economy, it’s more important than ever to focus on the quality of leads as well as quantity. Any organization that’s strained in terms of resources or budget cannot afford to waste valuable marketing dollars on programs that generate volumes of unqualified leads or spend precious time chasing down leads that are unlikely to become customers.

For example, instead of focusing solely on driving anonymous clicks to your Web site or paying for print ads that are difficult to measure, also choose programs that deliver interested prospects, provide prospect contact information, and offer reports of program performance. When it comes to making decisions about where to allocate your budget, ask your media partners to demonstrate how they provide quality leads and measurable performance. Make sure they understand the target customer you are trying to reach, offer a variety of integrated marketing solutions aligned with your goals, and provide quality leads with full contact information.

These are just a few ideas on how to be more successful marketing in a down economy. For a more comprehensive evaluation of which strategies are right for your business

Five Tips for Maintaining Better Customer Relationships

Five Tips for Maintaining Better Customer Relationships

You work hard and invest valuable resources to earn new customers. You should also invest to keep them loyal over the long term. Repeat customers tend to be highly profitable because it costs much less to keep a customer than to get a new one.

Repeat customers are your best source for new referrals. Bottom line: keep your customers coming back to you. Here are five tips on how.

1. Segment Your Customer Base
If you have different types of customers, segmenting your customer base serves as the foundation for targeted marketing, selling and relationship activities. Your goal should be to segment customers into groups that share common characteristics, so that you can communicate with them in relevant, targeted ways that keep their interest.

Segment customers by the type of products or services they purchase from you. Industry or market sector is another segmentation that makes sense. Another useful, yet less apparent way to segment customers is by how long they have been your customer, so you can tailor different styles of communication to each.

Customer segmentation can also be used to create a profile of your customers. You will discover which types of customers buy which products, and can plan marketing programs to best reach that type of customer.

2. Stay in Touch
An easy and inexpensive way to stay in touch with customers — and make them feel important and remembered — is through e-mail. Your e-mail communications can be sent in a variety of formats: a regular e-newsletter, a simple thank you e-mail when a customer orders a product, or a follow-up e-mail after they have asked for support.

If you have segmented your customer base, you can send each segment e-mails that contain information relevant to that segment. It could be a white paper, links to articles, or product announcements.

E-mail isn’t the only way to stay in contact with customers. A personal touch such as a phone call from the customer’s dedicated account or customer service rep simply to ask how things are going will establish and maintain goodwill and personal attention — and may uncover customer needs that could lead to sales. Or consider writing a “thank you for being our customer” letter from your company president. You can combine that type of letter with an important company announcement.

3. Provide Valuable Resources
Your most valuable resource to customers is probably your Web site. Make it a destination for customers to be able to search for and find product information, articles, white papers and other information that will help them do their job better.

4. Solicit Customer Feedback
Letting customers know that you are listening will help earn their loyalty. Create a customer advisory panel that provides input and helps shape product direction for your company. This will help ensure future products are designed around customer needs.

Use surveys and polls to broadly solicit customer feedback. They give customers the opportunity to express their views, and let you collect valuable data you can use to make business and marketing decisions. A number of free or low cost survey and poll services can be found on the Internet. Here’s a few to check out:

• www.surveymonkey.com
• www.zoomerang.com
• www.polldaddy.com
• www.questionpro.com

5. Let Customers Be the First to Know
Make customers “insiders” — part of your team. If you are adding new products or services to your offerings or have other important announcements, make sure customers are the first to know. Send sneak preview e-mails. Schedule a “Customer Only” Webinar for a special announcement or new product launch. Set a specific date and time and send customers invitations via e-mail. You can also record and archive the Webinar for customers who can’t attend to access the information at a later date — yet another touch to show you are in tune to their needs.

How To Lose Belly Fat With A 10 Minute Workout By Steve Chaballa

Are you looking to change the shape of your body or trying to lose belly fat without joining a high priced gym? If so, try this high energized cardiovascular fitness routine that that was developed by Keli Roberts.

With this 10 minute exercise routine you can burn up to 150 calories every single day.

The first two minutes of this fat burning routine is: Jump Rope - Begin by performing two jumps for each turn of the rope. Safety: Use the correct size jump rope and always land softly on the balls of your feet (that is the upper part of the bottom of your foot). Keep thinking I am losing weight.

Minutes two to three: Squat Thrust into a Push Up. The proper technique for this exercise is to stand with your feet shoulder width apart and your arms strait down next to your sides. Slowly squat down with your head forward and bring your hands to the floor just outside of your feet. Your hands should be pointing forward as well. Then in one movement, push your legs back and out behind you (into a pushup position). Perform one strict pushup and then jump back into your squat position and then stand back up. Keep thinking, the fat is vanishing.

Minutes three to four: Jump Rope with only one jump per turn. Keep thinking, The fat is melting away.

Minutes four to five: Back to the Squat Thrust and Push Up only this time you are going to add the Side Plank. After completing your squat thrust and push up, you are going to lift and rotate your left arm off of the ground and over your head. Your left foot will rotate and rest on top of you right foot. And you will rotate your neck so you are looking up at your ceiling. Rotate back to the center and repeat on the other side. When finished, hop back into your squat position, stand up and start again. Keep thinking, no more belly.

Minutes five and six: Jump Rope. Same as minutes three and four. keep thinking, I am losing body fat.

Minutes six and seven: Back to the Squat Thrust and Push Up only this time you are going to add the Leg Lift. This is the same as minutes two and three only this time you will lift the toes of one foot about twelve inches off of the ground only after you have performed your push up. Lower your foot and repeat on the other side. Hop back up to your squat position, stand up, and start again. Keep thinking, goodbye belly.

Minutes seven and eight: Jump Rope. Same as minutes three and four. Keep thinking, my belly is getting smaller.

Minutes eight and nine: Back to the Squat Thrust and Push Up only this time you are going to add Mountain Climbers. Repeat everything as in minutes two and three only this time after your push up, you will quickly jog in place from your push up position. Make sure you bring your knees up to your chest on each rotation. Perform 5 jogs and repeat this entire process. Keep thinking, I am going to lose weight.

Minutes nine and ten: Jump Rope. Same as you first two minutes. Keep thinking. If I do this everyday, I will lose belly fat. Good luck to everyone.

We recommend using a soft padding such as a yoga mat when performing this exercise. This will cut down on any injury and save some of those knee joints for you. If you need more information on gym mats and yoga mats, please visit Ultimate Fitness Equipment - for all of your fitness needs.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Chaballa

The Fast & Easy Way to Start an Internet Home Business

Many people think that starting an Internet home business is hard. In fact, there is no business in the world that is faster or easier to launch. If you have 15 minutes and a connection to the Internet, I'll show you how to launch your own Internet business right away.

Before you launch your first Internet home business, you need to understand the basics. The first step of having a business on the Internet is having your own website. This is the major stumbling block for most people. They think getting a website is expensive or difficult. It's neither of those things. Actually, it's free and it's easy. In fact, let's go ahead and get your first website setup right now.

To do this I recommend using a free tool called Blogger. Blogger is used for creating blogs on the fly, but a blog is nothing more than a fancy name for a website. To set up your blog website now visit: http://www.Blogger.com

Once you arrive, click the "Create Your Blog Now" button on the page. On the next page enter a user name, password, display name and email address. Then click "Continue". On the next page enter a blog title and blog address. These can be anything you want. Then enter the word verification code and click "Continue". On the next page choose a template for your blog (this is what your website will look like) and click "Continue". Voila... Your blog/website has been created!

Next, click the "Start Posting" button. A new page will appear giving you the option to add content to your new website. Write a title for your page in the "Title" field and then write whatever you want that page of your website to be about in the larger data entry field below the "Title" field on that page. You can use the tools on that page to change your fonts, make links, format your text, add pictures, etc. When you're happy with what you've entered into the page, click the "Publish Post" button. You just created a new page on your website! On the next page displayed, you'll see a link that says: "View Blog". Click that link and you'll see your website live on the Internet. Pretty easy, right?! ;-) Now you can wash, rinse, repeat and create as many new pages on your website as you want.

But let's turn your website into a business first. After all, websites are a lot more fun once they are making money for you.

Here's how:

Get back into your Blogger account and click the "Template" tab. Then click the "AdSense" link near the top of the page. AdSense is a simple but powerful program that allows you to earn advertising revenue from your website. Follow the easy instructions on that page to launch your AdSense account instantly. On the next page click the "Save" button to save AdSense into your website. Then on the next page click the "Republish" button. Your website will instantly be rebuilt now showing a Google AdSense ad at the top of each page on your website. Every time someone visits your website and clicks one of those ads, you earn money from AdSense. You now have a moneymaking business setup on the Internet. How long did that take? 15 minutes! ;-)

The only thing you need to do now to start the cash flowing in is get people to visit your new website. One way to do this would be to tell your friends and family about your site. Here are two more easy things you can do to drive an unstoppable flow of traffic to your new website:

Traffic Strategy 1: Tell all the major blog directories about your new blog/website. To do this, visit http://www.PingoMatic.com and enter your blog name, blog URL (that's the link to your website generated by Blogger), check all the boxes on that page and click the "Send Pings" button. This will tell all the blog directories about your new blog/website and you'll start getting some traffic from interested visitors to those directories. Do this each time you add a new page to your blog.

Traffic Strategy 2: Go back to your blog URL/home page and click the "Next Blog" button at the top of the page. This will take you to another blog of another Blogger user. Read through a post or two on that person's blog and look for a link that says "Comments" and click it. On the next page you'll be able to type your comments and a link back to your blog inside a form. Once you've added your comments, click the "Login and Publish" button; and a link to your site along with your comments will be added to that blog. Repeat this process as many times as you want with other blog websites. This will "link you in" to a network of sites all over the Internet helping you drive a steady stream of traffic to your blog.

Blogger is a great tool to launch your Internet home business, but it's not the only tool you should be using. To build a solid Internet home business that you can rely on, you need to register your own domain name and website hosting account. A domain name is your unique home on the web that you own and control. Example: domain names are yahoo.com, ebay.com, google.com, etc.

You could either register your own name as a domain or a keyword of something related to the topic of your business. Either way, if you are going to have a legitimate long-term home business on the Internet, a domain name and website hosting account are required. When choosing a domain name and hosting account, it's important to select a company that has a track record for success.

This top-rated website hosting company also provides several turn-key Internet home businesses called "Plug-In Profit Sites" http://www.HomeBusiness.us. The Plug-In Profit Site is a very popular and easy way to start earning multiple streams of income on the Internet. In fact, in addition to the blog you launched a few moments ago, you can get a Plug-In Profit Site setup in the next 24 hours and add another 6 easy streams of income to your Internet home business.

Alternatively, there are other turn-key Internet home business systems such as the one described at: http://www.HomeBusiness.org which provides a proven formula to start making money online within minutes of signing up.

As you can see, starting an Internet home business is actually a very fast and easy thing to do. Now that you know this, there should be nothing stopping you from earning a little extra income from home on the Internet. Persevere and you can make it your living just others have done.