China's Requirements cut for business startups

China has removed the minimum capital requirements for registering a new company, among other reforms aimed at lowering the threshold for business startups and stimulating the private economy.

The minimum registered capital requirement of 30,000 yuan ($4,900) to start a limited liability company will be removed, as will the 100,000 yuan requirement for an individual company and the 5 million yuan requirement for an incorporated company.

There will also be no more limitations on the proportion and duration of the paid-in capital, and it will be no longer a matter of business registration. Instead, the amount and duration of registered capital will depend on the founder of the company.

The reforms were announced at an executive meeting of the State Council led by Premier Li Keqiang on Friday.

"By widening the market access and establishing a transparent and efficient modern company registration system, we aim to further streamline government administration, create fair competition and support smaller businesses, especially innovative enterprises," Li said.

The measures will help expand private investment, strengthen the foundation for the economic recovery, as well as create more job opportunities, Li said.

The latest reforms also involve replacing the annual inspection of companies with a reporting system that can be viewed online to increase the transparency of business operations. Requirements for company registration address will also be simplified.

In the meantime, Li called for advancing the building of an integrity system: Enterprises with deceptive practices will be put on a "blacklist" that will be publicly available.

Ju Jinwen, an expert on private economy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, hailed the reform measures as "long-awaited breakthroughs" in company registration.

He said the minimum requirement of registered capital was meant to protect the interest of creditors, but it performed little function as in many cases the registered capital was actually borrowed.

"The reform solves the issue by lowering the threshold but strengthening midlevel supervision. It is in line with many other market-oriented reforms pushed forward by the new leaders," he said.

"Its ultimate goal is to inspire entrepreneurship among private investors," Ju said.

From 2006 to 2012, the proportion of private investment as a percentage of total volume in China has increased from 49.8 percent to 61.4 percent.

Argentine opposition leads in midterm vote-partial count

Argentina's opposition won the Buenos Aires province and other key districts in Sunday's midterm congressional election, according to partial results, Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo said on Sunday.

Source: Reuters

Gulf of Mexico set for record oil supply surge

The Gulf of Mexico, stung by the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history in 2010 and then overshadowed by the onshore fracking boom, is on the verge of its biggest supply surge ever, adding to the American oil renaissance.

Over the next three years, the Gulf is poised to deliver a slug of more than 700,000 barrels per day of new crude, reversing a decline in production and potentially rivaling shale hot spots like Texas's Eagle Ford formation in terms of growth.

The revival began this summer, when Royal Dutch Shell's  100,000 barrels per day Olympus platform was towed out to sea 130 miles (210 km) south of New Orleans - the first of seven new ultra-modern systems starting up through 2016. It weighs 120,000 tons, more than 200 Boeing 777 jumbo jets.

Rising domestic production and the start of natural gas exports may transform the economy and realign geopolitics as U.S. reliance on foreign oil declines.

"A barrel of discovered oil in the Gulf of Mexico is difficult to beat for value anywhere else, even with the increased costs of doing business," said Jez Averty, senior vice president of North American exploration at Norway's Statoil.

Even after decades of production in the Gulf, government estimates have shown that 48 billion barrels could still be recovered.

The area of the Gulf of Mexico where most of the new infrastructure will start up is in an ancient geological trend in its deepest waters 200 miles or more from shore known as the Lower Tertiary.

Appraisals in the Gulf's Lower Tertiary have shown fields that could have half a billion barrels or more of oil, like Exxon Mobil Corp's Hadrian, estimated to hold up to 700 million barrels, or Anadarko Petroleum Corp's  Shenandoah, which tests this year showed could hold up to three times more than initial estimates of 300 million barrels.

The potential bounty of massive deposits that can produce for a quarter century or more is what keeps players coming even though a single well that bores tens of thousands of feet through thick salt and rock to strike oil - or a dry hole - can cost $130 million or more.

Source: Reuters

Australian shares lead Asian rebound; yen softens

 Australian stocks scaled a five-year peak on Monday, leading a rebound in Asia after strong results from the likes of Microsoft pushed Wall Street to another record closing high, while investors gave the safe-haven yen a wide berth.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.7 percent, recovering a chunk of last week's 1.1 percent loss -- the biggest in two months -- that was driven by concerns that China may tighten policy to keep prices under control.

Australian shares put on 1.2 percent to reach their highest since June 2008, Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.4 percent, and South Korea's KOSPI rose 0.3 percent.

Japan's Nikkei climbed 1.0 percent, clawing back some of Friday's 2.7 percent drop.

Many traders suspect further gains in Asia may be limited as investors keep a wary eye what steps Chinese policymakers might take to cool property prices and inflation.

Several markets in Asia are closed for public holidays on Monday, including New Zealand and the Philippines.

Source:reuters

5aver combines fire evacuation alarm, lantern and breathing mask

The thought of getting caught in a building fire is terrifying. Flames raging, smoke obscuring your vision and making it difficult to breathe, infrastructure crumbling, and you're trying desperately to remain calm and get out. The 5aver won't douse the flames, but the grab-and-go combination of lantern, alarm and mask is designed to help you find your way to safety in a hurry.

The 5aver is designed to be mounted on the wall and used during fire evacuations. When it's pulled off the wall, the lantern portion automatically turns on to increase visibility and the alarm activates to alert others to your location. The mask unscrews from the lantern and attaches around the nose and mouth and uses a combination of pre-filter, hopcalite filter and HEPA filter to protect from smoke, dust, carbon monoxide and other airborne particles.

The 5aver won a "Best of the Best" Red Dot product design award earlier this year with the jury recognizing it for its highly visible, appealing and design as well as its multifunctional capabilities.

The 5aver appears to be a great safety precaution for homes, offices and any buildings where the danger of getting trapped in a fire exists. It's packaged in several wall-mountable options, including two- and four-person versions.

Source: Gizmag

India trying to boost investment in Oil

HP this week said it would give up nine oil and gas blocks in India because it can't explore them. While India's notorious red tape has tied up other natural resource investments, BHP didn't say what's stopping its exploration.

Yet New Delhi knows it needs local energy production to fix a yawning trade deficit. In February, the government relaxed rules that used to stymie oil companies from exploring areas where they had already started production.

This benefits Cairn India Ltd., the country's largest nongovernment oil explorer and producer. The rule changes let it forge ahead with expansion in a rich oil block in northern India. Cairn said this week it's drilled six new exploration wells and found one commercially viable so far. The company says regulators are streamlining approvals that could halve the time it takes to monetize a discovery.

According to the company, the north Indian fields potentially contain about four billion barrels of oil equivalent, though reserves so far are only about a billion.

The problem is valuation—investors must pay a lot now for those potential barrels down the line.

Cairn currently trades at an enterprise value, adjusted for net cash, of about $26 for every barrel of proven and probable reserves it owns. That's roughly double what Thailand's PTT Exploration & Production PCL or London-listed Premier Oil PLC command by this metric.

Cairn's rich valuation reflects expectations it will soon find and recover more oil. But since it's hard to know exactly how much, investors should stay wary until the oil flows.

China Is Back in Vogue With Investors

  According to a report from the Wall Street Journal,investors are turning their focus back to China, after months in which global markets were driven by relentless speculation about the U.S. Federal Reserve's next move.
Shares are climbing across Asia, and prices for industrial commodities such as copper and iron ore have bounced back amid signs that China's economy is revving up. The yuan regularly sets record highs against the dollar as cash floods into the country.
Emerging-market stocks and bonds shuddered and gold prices jumped last week as borrowing costs soared in China's money market, raising fears of a cash crunch for banks. Some investors worry that official efforts to avoid a debt bubble and keep a lid on inflation could stifle growth—fears that sent Shanghai's stock market and global commodity prices tumbling earlier this year.
The willingness to take another chance on Chinese stocks and on other markets tightly linked to the country's economy underscores the paucity of attractive options available. Global growth continues to be soft, while hefty central-bank support for Western economies has resulted in near record prices in many stock and bond markets. 
The benchmark Shanghai Composite index has rallied 15% off of this year's low in late June to end Friday at 2132.96, although it is still down 6% on the year. In Indonesia, which counts China as a major customer for its commodities, the Jakarta Stock Exchange Composite Index is up 12.7% this month. Prices of copper, for which China makes up 40% of global demand, are up nearly 9% since hitting a three-year low in June, ending last week at $7,180 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange.
"You began to see data that told you things weren't as bad as everyone thought," said Catherine Raw, portfolio manager at BlackRock Inc.'s Commodities Strategies Fund, which oversees $420 million. "The fears that China was going to have a hard landing…have disappeared."

Still, jitters abound, mostly centered on China's lending market. The Shanghai Composite fell 2.8% last week, and global commodities prices dropped as well after Chinese banks' funding 
costs shot up.

It also brought to the forefront lingering worries about an explosion of debt, especially of lending to local governments. These loans could reach 30 trillion yuan ($4.9 trillion), equal to 60% of gross domestic product, according to some estimates.

Premier Li Keqiang promised to upgrade the Sino-ASEAN free trade agreement

China supports the leadership role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in East Asia cooperation and regional economic integration, Premier Li Keqiang  said on Friday.

Li also promised to upgrade the Sino-Asean free trade agreement by enhancing trust and cooperation with ASEAN members, further benefiting the region. Li made a remarks after meeting with the delegation of ASEAN economic ministers.

The delegation, which included more than 120 officials from the member countries and the secretariat, is visiting China this week and organized road shows in Chengdu, Shanghai and Beijing.

The officials are promoting trade and investment opportunities to Chinese provincial executives and local businesses.

"China and the ASEAN have great potential in trade, investment and cultural cooperation, and the delegation's road show in China and promotion of trade and investment opportunities of the ASEAN will help actualize the 2+7 proposal," Li said.

Li, attending the 16th China-ASEAN Summit, proposed the 2+7 (two political consensuses and seven areas of cooperation) framework, which represents the new Chinese leadership's new vision on expanding the China-ASEAN relationship.

Li appreciated the delegation's trip to Beijing from South China with the country's high-profile high-speed train. President Xi Jinping and the premier have been actively promoting China's high-speed train during recent visits to Southeast Asia.

At a conference in the capital on diplomatic work on Friday, Xi said that China will strive for a sound neighborly environment for its own development and seek common development with neighboring countries.

Xi stressed the necessity of good diplomacy with neighboring countries to realize the "centenary goals" set by the 18th Communist Party of China National Congress in November: a moderately prosperous society by 2021; and a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and modern socialist country by 2049.

Source: Xinhua

Top advisor urges economic focus for developing mainland-Taiwan relations

China's top political advisor, Yu Zhengsheng, on Saturday called for deepening mainland-Taiwan economic cooperation in order to further improve cross-Strait ties and reinvigorate the Chinese nation.

Economic cooperation should remain a focus in the development of cross-Strait relations, said Yu, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, at the opening ceremony for the 9th Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Culture Forum, which kicked off in the south China city of Nanning.

Yu said strengthened cross-Strait economic exchange is an inevitable choice for the two sides in the face of a complicated global economic situation.

He proposed more high-level dialogues on economics across the Strait and strengthening communication in economic policymaking to boost capabilities for resisting financial risk from the outside world.

Yu urged both sides to accelerate ongoing negotiations for a "good" trade agreement and a dispute settlement agreement as well as follow-up negotiations for the milestone Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement.

He also urged enacting and implementing agreements signed by the two sides.

Yu, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said the mainland and Taiwan should enhance industrial cooperation and expand mutual investment.

"Both sides should broaden the scope of mutual investment and get rid of obstacles that stand in the way of capital flow," Yu said.

Source: Xinhua

Japan's PM warns China on use of force as jets scrambled

Japan's leader warned China on Sunday against forcibly changing the regional balance of power, as reports said Tokyo had scrambled fighter jets in response to Chinese military aircraft flying near Okinawa.

Verbal skirmishing between Asia's two biggest economies, who dispute ownership of an island chain, escalated as Beijing warned Tokyo that any hostile action in the skies against Chinese drones would be construed as an "act of war"."We will express our intention as a state not to tolerate a change in the status quo by force. We must conduct all sorts of activities such as surveillance and intelligence for that purpose," Abe said in an address to the military.
"The security environment surrounding Japan is becoming increasingly severe. This is the reality," he said. "You will have to completely rid yourselves of the conventional notion that just the existence of a defence force could act as a deterrent."
On Sunday Jiji Press and Kyodo News reported that Japan had deployed jets for two days running in response to four Chinese military aircraft flying over international waters near the Okinawa island chain.
Two Y8 early-warning aircraft and two H6 bombers flew from the East China Sea to the Pacific Ocean and back again but did not violate Japan's airspace, the reports said.

Source: NewsOnJapan

WTO backs Japan, US, EU over China rare earths

The World Trade Organization has backed Japan, the United States and the European Union in a dispute over China's export duties on rare earths.

Officials say a WTO dispute settlement panel recently gave the parties an interim report expressing general support for Japan, the US and the EU and saying it will advise China to correct its export practices.The panel is expected to publish a final report probably in December, after hearing from the parties.

Source: NewsOnJapan

China relaxes company registration requirements

 China will streamline its corporate registration system to ease market access and encourage social investment, a fresh effort highlighting the government's administrative reform, according to a cabinet statement released on Sunday.

The move will foster a market environment of fairness and competition, mobilize social capital, encourage small and micro enterprises to grow and boost employment, according to a statement released after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang on Friday.

According to the statement, requirements for the minimum registered capital for limited liability companies, one-person limited liability companies, as well as joint-stock companies with limited liability, will be scrapped.

Requirements on the site registered for business operation will also be relaxed, the statement said.

To improve transparency and strengthen business credit, the current annual inspections on registered companies will be replaced by annual reports open to public inquiry, while companies that commit aberrant behaviors will also be made public.

A system of subscribed capital will also be promoted in an effort to lower the cost of founding a company, said the statement.

Source: Xinhua

Nursing Homes soothe China's aging pain.

Nursing homes which bear more resemblance to kindergartens than traditional elder care facilities, have been sprouting up in China's urban communities.

It's a new approach to relieving China's worries over taking care of its rising aging population.

When they leave for work in the morning, young, and sometimes not so young, people take their parents to the "eldergarten", a health care center inside their residential community, and collect them again after work.

"It's a great relief for the younger generation, especially those from a two-income household like us, to have help taking care of our parents," said Li Yunqin, manager of Yihe's Home, a health care center in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province.

Besides recreational facilities, medical care is readily available.

"It like a second home here, but with better medical facilities and more friends," said Li.

"Their children are free from worries about safety and wellbeing when they are not around, and no one has to be away from their family for too long," she said.

The shortage of qualified nursing care for the silver generation has become increasingly obvious as China rolls into an "aging society", 10 percent or more of people at or above the age of 60.

A census by the National Bureau of Statistics showed an aged population of 194 million in China in 2012, 14.3 percent of the entire populous, and the figure will hit 437 million, or 30 percent by 2050. There were only 3.9 million geriatric beds available in 2012, helping just a tiny fraction of the aging population, according to Ministry of Civil Affairs.

It has become difficult for China's youngsters, nowadays mostly single children, to fulfill their filial responsibilities to their aging parents, or even grandparents.

Government funded nursing homes are either non-profit or operating at a low price, and must give priority to the disabled, those with low, or no incomes, or no family. They are not a solution to the problems of ordinary families. Most nursing homes are in the suburbs, inconvenient for children's visits.

Beijing has taken the lead in building communities for seniors.

Golden Heights, a branded senior citizen's health care center under the Landgent Group Co,Ltd. in east Beijing's Chaoyang district, provides a family-style retirement life with medical care, for people living in a nearby complex.

The center is "home" to more than 60 households, with an average age of 82. The center has general practitioners, pharmacists and nutritionists.

An agreement with Beijing Municipal First Aid Center, has meant a first-aid station inside Golden Heights, convenient for nearby communities.

With its pastel wallpaper and handrails in bathrooms and on beds, Golden Heights has a warm and pleasant atmosphere. A mini-theater screens old movies everyday.

"Unlike China's traditional culture of taking care of the old by keeping making them rest, we encourage self care, " said Ni Haohua, CEO of Landgent Group Co, Ltd.

"What's more, we have tried to create a familiar atmosphere rather than a hospital," said Ni.

The center helps people hold exhibitions of paintings and photography, and even encourages them to make short films.

"Our dreams never die here," said Mrs. Lu, 76, one of the first residents of Golden Heights.

For those challenged by dementia, there is a whole floor of rooms for them, with nurses taking care of them one-on-one. Toys are everywhere.

"It helps to bring back memories,"said one nurse.

Landgent has two "elderly kindergartens" in Beijing and Haikou, capital of the southernmost province of Hainan. It plans more in Shanghai, Guangdong and Zhejiang before 2015.

The State Council, China's cabinet, issued a notice in mid-September on development of the service industry for senior citizens, saying China will have built up an home care system for the elderly by 2020.

Source: Xinhua

Japan's poor gender gap worsening

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may have set the empowerment of women as a major pillar to spur economic growth, but Japan's already poor gender gap has gotten even worse, according to a report by the World Economic Forum released Friday.

This year's Global Gender Gap Report ranks Japan at 105th among 136 countries, its worst showing since the WEF started the survey in 2006. Japan ranked 101st last year.The drop was mainly due to a decrease in the number of female lawmakers, the report says. Of the 722 lawmakers in both chambers of the Diet, only 77 are women.
The ranking is based on numerical analyses of women's status in finances, education, politics and health. Japan scored especially poor in politics, ranked at 118th in the world.
Iceland topped the list for the fifth consecutive year, followed by Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Source: NewsOnJapan

Chinese drone training in line with international law, practice

China said that the training and flight of its military aircraft, including drones, over relevant areas of the East China Sea are in line with international law and practice.

Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng made the remarks at a press briefing Saturday in response to a question on Japan's plan to shoot down drones that infringe into its airspace.

"Chinese aircraft have never infringed on other countries' airspace, and China never allows other countries' aircraft to infringe on China's airspace," Geng said.

Geng said that if Japan took the so called moves, it would be a severe provocation to China and an act of war, and China will take resolute measures to strike back. The Japanese side shall be responsible for the consequence.

Geng also said that on Oct. 23, a Japanese fishing boat sent a distress signal from a prohibited area in the Pacific where the Chinese navy was conducting shooting training.

China provided convenience to Japanese vessels coming to the area for rescue out of humanitarian concern.

Source: Xinhua

China: Budget Carrier Spring Airlines begins flights between Shanghai and Taiwan

China's only budget carrier, Spring Airlines, has just opened a flight between Shanghai and Kaohsiong in southern Taiwan.

Before the private airline offered the route, flights between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan usually saw air fares much higher than other domestic flights and bordered on international ticket prices.

Spring Airlines is offering tickets at 30 to 40 percent lower than the market average. Budget tickets can go as low as 430 yuan. And for an added bonus, the airline is also offering a flight and high speed train ticket combination, which means if you are travelling to 15 cities around the Shanghai area, you can purchase train and air tickets together.

Definitely a convenient option for travellers in the region.

Source: XInhua

The impact of China in the History of technology

Science in China has a long history and developed quite independently of Western science.  Needham (1993) has researched widely on the development of science and technologies in China, the effect of culture, and the transference of these principles, unacknowledged, to the West.  The Chinese contribution to Western science is particularly interesting because it serves as a center of controversy about the roots of Western science.

According to traditional Western scientists, the roots of science and the scientific method is in Greece and Greek thought.  There is a tendency among scientists to claim that not only modern science, but science in general, was characteristic of European thought.  The accompanying argument in that all scientific contributions from non-European civilizations were technology-based, not science-based (Needham, 1993). 

"Development of Western science is based on two great achievements the invention of the

formal logical system(in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery

of the possibility to find out causal relationships by systematic experiment(during the

Renaissance). In my opinion,one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that these discoveries were made at all". wrote Albert Einstein Letter to J. S. Switzer, 23 Apr 1953, Einstein Archive 61-38

Needham (1993), instead, looks at the distinction and definitions about science as too narrow.  Mechanics was the pioneer among the modern sciences and the precursor to the mechanistic paradigm that all other sciences endeavor to imitate.  Needham also concedes that mechanics is based on Greek deductive geometry.

However, Needham (1993, p. 43) points out that modern science is much more than mechanics and has greatly expanded beyond the boundaries of mechanistic thinking.  He looks at the development of science as a mixture of influences from different cultures and peoples.

"Suppose we erect a classification of four pigeonholes, science vertically on the left and technology vertically on the right, and let the upper boxes represent direct historical genesis while the lower ones represent subsequent reinforcement. Then taking the upper left-hand compartment first, the contribution of the Greeks will have the greatest share, for Euclidean deductive geometry and Ptolemaic astronomy, with all they imply, were undoubtedly the largest factor in the birth of the 'new, or experimental. science'....In the upper right hand compartment the situation is entirely different, for in technology Asian influences in and before the Renaissance (especially Chinese) ere legion..."

 There have been many Western innovations that have their basis in China, particularly those in printing (paper, block printing, and moveable-type printing), agricultural technology (irrigation systems), mechanical engineering (clockwork, iron, and lead manufacturing, efficient harnesses), and martial (gunpowder, the precursors to the barrel gun, and cannons) technology.  

We will discuss the contributions of China to the history of technology by focusing on a few key innovations.  

We don't know exactly when paper was first used in China but evidence from archaeological records indicate that it was prior to the first century AD.  In China, the most common source for paper was the bark of the paper mulberry tree (Gies & Gies 1994 p 182). Paper is made by tearing up rags, or the bark of trees or certain grasses and putting them into a large pot with water. The mixture is boiled and the pulplike mass that lies at the bottom is removed, strained and spread out to dry.

Paper was first used by the Chinese for wrapping and it was not until the 3rd century that paper replaced bamboo, silk, and wood as a writing medium.

But writing was not the only use for paper. The Chinese began using paper, made from rice straw, for toilet purposes in the sixth century, AD. Also, the Chinese began to have a paper currency in the early 9th century.

A second technology developed in China was printing. The Chinese began to use wood block printing in the 7th century where the text is carved into the wood blocks which are then inked. A blank sheet of paper is placed over the inked block so that the image can be transferred to the paper. 

"T'ang culture. Buddhist influence in art, especially in sculpture, was strong during the T'ang period. Fine examples of Buddhist sculpture are preserved in rock temples, such as those at Yongang and Longmen in northwest China. The invention of printing and improvements in papermaking led to the printing of a whole set of Buddhist sutras (discourses of the Buddha) by 868. By the beginning of the 11th century all of the Confucian classics and the Taoist canon had been printed" 

 There is not doubt that the Chinese invented gunpowder. The ways in which they used it and how their use of gunpowder differed from the West has been debated.  The first known recipe for saltpetre, teh principal ingredient of gunpowder, can be found in a Chinese military manual written by Wu Ching Tsung Yao from 1044 (Burke, 1978).  This military manual also gave directions for making a bomb using gunpowder so most historians believe that bombs or grenades were used by Chinese troops from before the 11th century. 

Source: The impact of China on the history of technology
            enngr.sjsu.edu

Marc Faber: Maybe Gold is signalling a Collapse of all asset prices.

Here’s what Marc Faber, editor of Gloom Boom Doom report told MarketWatch in an email.

“Maybe gold is signaling a deflationary collapse of all asset prices. If this were indeed the case I suppose I would rather own gold than government bonds, high yield bonds and equities. If this scenario were to pass it would lead to even more money printing around the world,” says Faber, who was talking about asset price deflation and gold back in march.

Peter Hug, global trading director at Kitco, agrees with this possible scenario. He believes the dangers to the global recovery are on the deflationary, rather than the inflationary side. He doesn’t expect the Fed will move on rates until 2014, but says the central bank is likely to jaw-bone those potentially policy changes to prepare investors.

Source: Marketwatch

Tracking Technology Shakes Up the Workplace

According to an article published today in the Wall Street Journal, blue-collar workers have always been kept on a tight leash, but there is a new level of surveillance available to bosses these days. Thanks to mobile devices and inexpensive monitoring software, managers can now know where workers are, eavesdrop on their phone calls, tell if a truck driver is wearing his seat belt and intervene if he is tailgating.
Blue-collar workers have always been kept on a tight leash, but there is a new level of surveillance available to bosses these days. Thanks to mobile devices and inexpensive monitoring software, managers can now know where workers are, eavesdrop on their phone calls, tell if a truck driver is wearing his seat belt and intervene if he is tailgating.

Office workers have come to expect that their every keystroke is tracked on a server somewhere, but monitoring for hourly and wage workers has long been limited to video cameras in the break room and GPS on delivery trucks. Companies are now watching a wider swath of blue-collar workers more closely to ensure work is getting done.

A 2012 report from research firm Aberdeen Group found that 37% of companies that send employees out on service calls track the real-time location of workers via their hand-held devices or vehicles.

High-tech monitoring feels like a violation of privacy to some workers, but employers say such measures improve workplace safety and productivity while also helping to reduce theft, protect secrets and investigate harassment or discrimination claims, among other things.

Older Generation Top Priority for building Tomorrow's Cities

Three years ago,Mrs Farsund was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

As the condition deteriorated, Mr Farsund began looking for a system that could help both of them live as normal a life as possible.

He stumbled across healthcare technology company Abilia, which has come up with just such a network.

At the centre of the system is a wall-mounted iPad-like device. The screen has Skype, which allows allows carers to regularly check in with patients.

It also has a planner for patients or carers to record up-coming events and provides spoken reminders about daily tasks, such as when they need to take medicine.

Some 1,000 people now have the system installed in their homes, and 25 of them, including the Farsunds, are testing the latest version, which combines the screen with wirelessly connected sensors.

The motion sensors know if you are in the room or open a door, and send out alarms, for instance if the stove is left on for more than 15 minutes or a person opens a door in the middle of the night.

The second is a particular issue in Oslo, where sub-zero winters mean some Alzheimer's patients are freezing to death.

With this kind of system, it allows people to take care of themselves, which is the most important thing," says vice president Oystein Johnsen.

"It also saves the government money. In Norway it cost one million Norwegian krone per year [£100,000] to have someone in a home, this system costs 15,000 a year. That is a lot of money to save."

For him, any move to improve city life needs to begin with people.

"Smart cities are coming and they need to start with individuals in their own home," he says.

As governments begin to use technology to improve city life, the older generation should be top priority, says Intel futurist Steve Brown.

"We have an ageing population and a lot of old people are now living in our cities, so we need to start building technology that makes it easier for them," he says.

"We cannot build enough hospitals to deal with the ageing wave of people, so there has to be a rethink about how do you help them to live at home.

"It is possible now, just from people's movements and habits to detect, for example, the early signs of Alzheimer's."

Source: Reuters

Why Has 99% of the Technological Progress by Modern Humans Come in the Last 10,000 Years?

The modern humans are believed to have evolved about 200,000 years ago.For the first 100,000 years, we remained there until some unexplained sequence of events started forcing them outward. Then humans started walking, and it took multiple generations for them to survive the deserts Africa to reach Europe and Asia, and later the Americas.
Only when we started settling did we have the time and resources to build something that could be passed on to the future generations.Without that settlement, great ideas would have died with the person or the tribe. Our first major settling down happened around 12,000 B.C.
Until about 10,000 BC, the world population never exceeded 15 million and mostly was around 1 million.
 The present population of the world is 7 billion.Even if we assume that early human being could be as productive as us, their civilization could produce less than 1/1000 of what our society could do.
  Life Expectancy: From that point until 20th century, we had a very low life expectancy (about 30 years). Imagine if we all died by the time we reached 30, how much could we learn from our parents and how much could we teach our kids?  
Early humans didn't find a way to use the fire in a controlled way. This means we often lived in a dark  cold, and scary place .It was about 125,000 years ago that we started using fire in a controlled way.
Early humans used primarily stone tools, and until about 50,000 years ago, these were quite crude. They helped a little bit in hunting, but didn't take us far. We had to wait until 6000 B.C. to get our first metal: gold .
 We didn't have any animals to help us out. We first started domesticating dogs and later sheep, pigs, horses, etc. Each of the domestication waves took thousands of years of trial and error .
By 12,000 B.C., many groups of humans found habitable regions to grow their tribe. They had found ways ways to domesticate a few plants and animals and had made superior tools.
It was about 3000 B.C. when we actually started putting our ideas into a pictorial form. Until that point, most of the ideas that humans generated would have evaporated. Imagine if we had no science books. Each generation would have to discover Newton's laws and all other scientific theories by themselves. With writing, we could stand on the sholders of others.

Then, we discovered the wheel about 4,000 years ago. This allowed us to travel fast and transfer products and humans between regions. The rest is history. In short, we spent a lot of time in a trial-and-error mode to find the right places to live and the right things to eat. Given the short life spans and absence of settlements, ideas could not get transmitted. As we discovered ways to keep us warm and bright at night, got spare time due to agriculture we started putting our brains to a good use.
Innovation/Invention requires a lot of trial and error and the ability to build on previous results. Until a few thousand years ago, these experiments were local, and there was little we could learn from others' experiments. Thus, a guy in Ethiopia might have been trying to master fire control even 5,000 years after a guy in Sweden has already mastered it. There was no easy way to transfer ideas given the lack of wheel (to enable quick movement), writing systems, broadcast communication, etc. The population was also too low to improve the odds of experimentation. Lastly, we were too focused on survival to afford us the time to innovate. Agriculture liberated us from the focus on the daily search for food.

Source: Quora

Researchers at Rice University create by computer simulation Carbyne ,3 times as stiffer than diamond

Researchers at Rice University have used a computer simulation to calculate that carbyne, a monodimensional chain of carbon atoms, is twice as strong as carbon nanotubes and three times stiffer than diamond. If their findings are correct and the challenges posed by manufacturing it can be overcome, then carbyne could prove an incredibly useful material for a wide range of applications.

 Carbyne, or linear acetylenic carbon, is yet another allotrope of carbon that grows in a single chain with alternating single and triple atomic bonds. As it is a single atom-thick chain and not a sheet (like graphene) or a hollow tube (like carbon nanotubes), it is considered a truly one-dimensional material. Scientists have long believed that this single dimension might give carbyne unparalleled mechanical and electrical properties.

Rice University theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and his team set out to describe the properties of carbyne by using the information available from previous research and combining it within a computer simulation to shed a lot more light on the properties of this elusive material.

Source: Gizmag

France: PEA, PEL : la taxation des produits d'épargne

Les députés se sont prononcés, jeudi 24 octobre, en faveur de l'uniformisation des taux de prélèvements sociaux sur les produits d'épargne, dans le cadre du projet de loi de financement de la sécurité sociale. Les intérêts des Plans épargnelogement (PEL), Plans épargne en actions (PEA) et de certaines assurances-vie seront soumis à 15,5 % de prélèvement sociaux, si le texte est voté en l'état. Auparavant, le taux qui leur était appliqué dépendait du moment où cesplacements avaient été souscrits.

Certains produits d'épargne sont soumis à l'impôt sur le revenu. Dans ce cas, il sont également soumis aux prélèvements sociaux en vigueur au moment où la personne qui les possède touche effectivement les intérêts de son placement. Et ce quelle que soit l'ancienneté du placement en question. C'est le cas, notamment, des assurances-vie versées après 1997 et des dividendes perçus en général.

D'autres produits d'epargne ne sont soumis ni à l'impôt sur le revenu, ni aux prélèvements sociaux. C'est le cas des intêrets de l'épargne dite "réglementée" : Livret A, Livret jeune, Livret d'épargne populaire, Livret de développemenent durable ou encore Livret d'épargne-entreprise. Pour ces produits, rien ne change.

Enfin, d'autres ne sont pas soumis à l'impôt sur le revenu, mais sont soumis aux prélèvements sociaux. Ce sont les taux applicables à ces produits – PEA, PEL, assurances-vie versées avant 1997, etc. – que les députés se proposent demodifier.

Pour ces produits qui ne sont pas soumis à l'impôt sur le revenu, le taux de prélèvements sociaux dépend de la manière dont sont perçus les gains de cette épargne.

Soit ils sont perçus régulièrement – "au fil de l'eau" – et sont apparentés à des revenus ; auquel cas ils sont soumis au taux de prélèvements sociaux en vigueur, soit 15,5 % aujourd'hui.

Soit ils sont perçus au moment du retrait ou du "dénouement" et le taux de prélèvements sociaux dépend du moment où le capital a grossi. C'est ce que l'on appelle le régime des "taux historiques" et c'est ce que le Projet de loi de financement de la sécurité sociale pour 2014 compte supprimer.

  Le principe des taux historiques est que les prélèvements sociaux appliqués aux revenus de l'épargne ne sont pas uniformes, mais dépendent du moment où les gains ont été constitués. Au moment du dénouement, on décompose année après année les revenus générés par l'épargne et on y applique les taux qui étaient en vigueur à l'époque.

Ainsi, un épargnant qui aurait soldé un PEA ouvert en 1990 ne payerait aucun prélèvement sur les intérêts accumulés jusqu'à 1996, puis 0,5 % pour ceux perçus entre 1996 et 1997, 3,9 % entre 1997 et 1998, ainsi de suite jusqu'aux 15,5 % en vigueur depuis la loi de finances rectificative pour l'année 2011.

Dorénavant, les produits d'épargne sont soumis aux taux de prélèvements sociaux en vigueur au moment du dénouement, quelle que soit la date à laquelle un tel placement a été effectué. Soit 15,5 % aujourd'hui.

Le Monde