Today and announced that the popular coffee shop will be switching to Google as Starbucks’ free WiFi provider, dropping . Over the next 18 months, Starbucks will convert more 7,000 U.S. stores to Google, which will increase speeds and enable users to surf the web up to 10 times faster. (For those in Google Fiber cities, like Kansas, users will see speeds up to 100 times faster.) …read more
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By Kristina Moore, Contributor
Today’s savvy real estate agent knows to be prepped and ready for success as the market continues to heat up across the country. Digital real estate search site, HomeFinder.com is on a mission to help both women and men agents equip themselves with the tools needed to adapt to the new normal in the industry and to stay ahead in the rapidly evolving market. Enter HomeFinder.com Agent Makeover Sweepstakes where five lucky real estate agents will win a two-night trip to Chicago on September 18 to 20th for a full fashion style and business marketing makeover. Entry deadline is August 16th. …read more
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Today, (a day after accidentally leaking it to everyone,) announced the Chromecast, a multi-media dongle that plugs into any HDTV’s HDMI port, allowing those TVs to become second screens to Google-powered devices, like Android phones and PCs and Macs running the Chrome browser. At first blush this looks like a competitor to the AppleTV and other related devices, but it’s more than that: The Chromecast – which costs $35 — is now the cheapest and easiest way for the average consumer to become a “cord cutter” and dump their cable or satellite TV provider. …read more
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By Patrick Moorhead, Contributor Today at Siggraph, the world’s largest graphics show, provided more details on their next generation mobile graphics capabilities inside of Logan, the follow-on to Tegra 4. Logan’s graphics are based on Kepler, the graphics used in Nvidia’s PC, workstation and cloud solutions, which, given its good performance per watt, has the potential to be a disruptor in the mobile space. …read more
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By Kelly Phillips Erb, Contributor
Today is quite possibly my son’s favorite day: it’s National Hot Dog Day. I know what you’re thinking: who knew hot dogs had their own day? Apparently, they have their own month, too: National Hot Dog Day is part of National Hot Dog Month (I kid you not) as designated by the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council. …read more
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Today, Detroit’s Emergency Financial Manager Kevyn Orr filed a volunteer petition for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder authorized the filing soon afterward. The city is currently faced with an insurmountable $18.5 billion debt which simply cannot be tackled under present conditions. A problem that has been several decades in the making finally reached the breaking point. …read more
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Today, both at a press conference and on the White House web site, the President touted the “success” of his health care law in part due to the law’s Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) rule. The rules specifies that insurers spend a minimum percentage of their premiums on paying medical costs, as opposed to other costs – and to pay a rebate to consumers if the medical costs turned out, at the end of the year, to be “too low” as a percentage of the premiums In the individual and small-employer markets, the minimum MLR is 80%; for large employers the minimum is 85%. (For employers, the rule applies only to fully insured health plans; the self-funded plans offered by most large employers are exempt.) …read more
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By David K. Williams, Contributor
Today, I would like to share the principles that have transformed me and our company and a growing number of people across the globe. They are simple and powerful and I promise you that if you make the time to learn and apply them new avenues of promise and possibility will open for you. I share my personal journey and I am honored to share the story of a small company that works together every day to achieve great things in my book, The 7 Non-Negotiables of Winning: Tying Soft Traits To Hard Results, due out from Wiley Publishing on July 29. …read more
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Today’s financial results from Nokia, covering Q1 2013 make for interesting reading. While their position is in a better position than it was at this time last year, they are a long way short of where they once were in the smartphone world and, perhaps more worrying, the safety net of feature phone sales is not as secure as it once was.
By Carolyn McClanahan, Contributor
Today is National Healthcare Decisions Day. After the intense pain of the events in Boston yesterday, why do we care?
By David Vinjamuri, Contributor
Today, Simon & Schuster announced a one-year pilot program today to sell eBooks to public libraries. The test will be conducted exclusively with three New York library systems: The New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Library. We are delighted to partner with these libraries, which have shown an extraordinary willingness to try innovative models with the potential to be a long-term solution for all involved. In making our full list available we think we will get a better sense of lending patterns and patron behavior, and I am particularly eager to start seeing the actual data so that we can better understand this still-new phenomenon.
Today on Magic: The Gathering’s DailyMTG the first official previews from the upcoming Dragon’s Maze set were revealed, including planeswalker Ral Zarek. Ral Zarek’s Izzet incarnation has previously been seen as a persona on the digital Magic: The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers and in other lore, but never in card form. We have our own special Dragon’s Maze preview to share with you on April 16, but for now let’s take a peek at the previews and the new set mechanic. We’ll start with Ral Zarek. Ral Zarek has all the makings of a four mana competitive planeswalker. Ral Zarek has not one but two abilities that can be used to protect him from harm. While the +1 tap and untap is more situational, it does give Zarek the ability to gain loyalty and can be used for a wide variety of applications, from untapping lands to moving defenses out of the way. …read more
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By Tim Worstall, Contributor Today we’ve a piece from George Shultz and Gary Becker in the WSJ on the desirability of a carbon tax. How nice to see that such serious heavyweights are catching up with what this blog has been suggesting: At the same time, we should seek out the many forms of subsidy that run through the entire energy enterprise and eliminate them. In their place we propose a measure that could go a long way toward leveling the playing field: a revenue-neutral tax on carbon, a major pollutant. A carbon tax would encourage producers and consumers to shift toward energy sources that emit less carbon—such as toward gas-fired power plants and away from coal-fired plants—and generate greater demand for electric and flex-fuel cars and lesser demand for conventional gasoline-powered cars. …read more
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By Marissa Feinberg, Contributor
Today, at the largest FinTech Hackathon in the world with leaders such as Sallie Krawcheck, former head of Merril Lynch, Smith Barney and Matt Turck, FirstMark Capital judging the teams. Project Freedom is a movement that started at the FinTech Hackathon to save freelancers from a painful tax season. Project Freedom started because the FinTech Hackathon is looking for real solutions to financial problems. Freelancers and business owners alike are suffering because 1099s are painfully complicated and the tax audits that result from them are terrifying. Project Freedom keeps track of freelancer W9s to securely send their employers. The IRS delivered more than $5 billion in refund checks to fraudulent tax returns for 2011 because of identity fraud. Project Freedom prevents freelancers from falling into the same fate by securing their W9 tax information. Other benefits that the project is providing for free to Freelancers are: …read more
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By Gordon G. Chang, Contributor Today, Kim Jang-soo, South Korea’s new national security director, said North Korea may fire off a missile as soon as Wednesday. The launch will undoubtedly be a test of an intermediate-range missile, not an attack. …read more
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By David Shaywitz, Contributor Today, Pharmacyclics is a $5.3B company, a value attributable largely to its promising lead compound, ibrutinib, currently in late clinical development for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and mantle cell lymphoma, and under investigation for a range of other B-cell malignancies. A joint development and marketing deal with J&J was announced in late 2011, valued at nearly $1B, including $150M upfront plus significant milestone payments. Analysts are already pegging future sales in the billions. …read more
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Today the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) announced its 2013 Growing Green award winners. These four people are working to change the food system – in ways you might have not thought possible. …read more
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By Shawn O’Connor, Contributor Today, I am asking you to join me on a journey to a new vision of economic progress. A vision not dependent on subsidies from Washington or reliant on big business, but one that recognizes that you and I and every American are this nation’s greatest engine of economic growth. Let’s stop complaining about the excruciatingly frustrated politics we witness daily and take actionable steps to create our own economic future. This is the introduction to a 10-week series on The Launching Pad at Forbes.com about how you can be a successful entrepreneur no matter where you live or how much education you have. For my part, as a veteran entrepreneur, I am launching a new non-partisan, non-profit venture, The Startup Stand, today to support each American who seeks to take control of his or her economic future through entrepreneurship. …read more
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Today is April Fools’, the infamous day in history when honorable St. Fool turned all of the gullible people of Ancient Earth into heroes. I see it as a time to start afresh—the equinox has passed, Lent is over, and spring-cleaning has been put off for another few months. Today, as you know, is also the beginning of Q2, and depending on the stage of your business, that information is enough to make anyone take time to reflect upon how they’re going about their work. And so, in this time of rebirth and blooming in a fresh season, I urge entrepreneurs everywhere to retire the following words and phrases. Think of it as much-needed spring cleaning for your mouth. Well, you know what I mean. …read more
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