Google Has a Plan to Bring Smartphones to a Billion More Users - TIME

http://time.com/2923365/smartphone-users/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

• Victor Luckerson @VLuck
 

June 25, 2014

    

Google now has more than a billion people using its Android mobile operating system on a monthly basis, and it has a new plan to lure the next billion users. At its annual I/O developers conference, the company announced Android One, a new set of basic hardware standards that phone manufacturers will be able to use to develop smartphones on the cheap.

The new initiative is aimed at developing markets and will initially roll out with three manufacturers in India. The company demonstrated one phone with a 4.5-inch screen and SD card reader, FM radio slot and dual-SIM support that would retail for less than $100. Though India is the initial target, Google has plans to expand the program globally.

YouTube Is About to Change Drastically -TIME

http://time.com/2934093/youtube-crowdfunding/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

• Victor Luckerson @VLuck
 

June 27, 2014

    

YouTube is introducing a new way for its legion of video creators to make money on the site. The Google division announced Thursday at Vidcon that it is launching a crowdfunding system called Fan Funding that will allow viewers to donate as much as $500 to video creators. The feature, which will function more like a tip jar than the highly coordinated campaigns on sites like Kickstarter, is being tested among a select number of channels in the United States, Mexico, Japan and Australia. Creators can apply to have their channels added to the trial.

Internet users have shown a huge appetite for funding video projects in recent years. On Kickstarter, Film and Video is the second most-funded category on the site, with people pledging $224 million to such projects over the years. Patreon, a newer startup that was launched by a YouTube creator seeking more revenue, has generated $2 million for creators since it launched early in 2013. By adding a donation model of its own, YouTube may be able to keep its stars more tightly bound to its own ecosystem, rather than seeing them venture off to other sites. But YouTube says its own donation system is meant to be additive, not a direct competitor to these other sites. “Fan funding is an addition to goal-based fundraising like Kickstarter, as well as subscription-based fundraising like Patreon, and we hope creators continue to use all these tools to reach their greatest levels of success,” YouTube spokesman Matt McLernon said in an email.

YouTube will take a 5% commission on all donations, plus a flat fee of $0.21 to cover costs, McLernon said. Kickstarter and Patreon also charge a 5% commission, while crowdfunding site Indiegogo’s fees range from 4% to 9%. In addition to the donation system, YouTube announced several other new features, such as support of video shot at 60 frames per second and a new weekly radio show on Sirius XM starring YouTube star Jenna Marbles.

Why World Cup Bettors Are Smarter Than Bond Buyers - TIME

http://time.com/money/2911894/why-world-cup-bettors-are-smarter-than-bond-buyers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

• Bill Saporito @bilsap
 

June 26, 2014

    

In soccer, Argentina is a global power. Ranked 5th in the world and featuring among its host of stars the world’s best player, Lionel Messi, it is one of the teams that can threaten Brazil’s march to the World Cup title.

To Fast or Not? World Cup's Muslim Players Face Tough Choice NBC NewsWhat Happened When One Woman Had Her Picture Photoshopped In 25 Different Countries Huffington PostDad Who Left Son in Hot Car Can't Attend Funeral NBC NewsFIFA and Union Agree Luis Suarez Needs 'Treatment' NBC NewsUruguay eliminates Italy; Did Suarez bite again? Sports Illustrated

In financial circles, on the other hand, Argentina is to a functioning economy what the Faroe Islands are to football. A bit of a joke. A doormat. Indeed, last week the U.S. Supreme Court slide tackled Argentina as it tried to dribble past some American investors who are demanding to be paid, in full, the interest due on their Argentine bonds. Having convinced other creditors to go along with a deal—part of a broader effort to right the economy after years of mismanagement–the Argentinians wanted to force the American investors to eat some losses as well. The Supremes blew the whistle on that.

This raises a question, albeit one more likely to be debated in bars off Wall Street than on the beaches of Rio: Are you better off betting on a country’s bonds, or on its soccer team? With Argentina, the answer seems clear: The country’s chances of paying off its sovereign debt in full appear to be inversely proportional to the odds of its football team winning the World Cup, where it was a 4-to-1 pre-tournament favorite in Las Vegas. Argentinian debt, meanwhile, has a yield of about 13%, reflecting a risk premium that only Nigeria approaches among World Cup finalists. In short, betting on Messi may be the saner play.

With global interest rates so low in a world awash in liquidity, you’d think more global investors would reach a similar conclusion — but in many cases you’d be wrong. Investors ought to be yellow-carded: Their quest for yield is leading to crazier behavior in the market than on the pitch. Italy is a prime example. Punters pegged Italy, one of footballing’s great nations, as a 20-to-1 long-shot to win the World Cup. They got it right, too, considering Italy’s early exit after a controversial loss to Uruguay. But the Italian economy is a lot worse than the Azzurri. It’s still mired in its economic past, and where young people are stifled in finding work. Still, Italy’s bonds offer a measly 2.92%, only about 30 basis points higher than the 2.61% for U.S. Treasuries.

The U.S. team, on the other hand, went off as a 100-to-1 shot; ironically, we’re still considered a third-world nation on the soccer field, despite advancing to the knockout round of the World Cup again. With its strong (if heartbreakingly inconsistent) play so far, the U.S. team’s odds are now down to 40-to-1 to win the Cup. Still, the market is telling us to bet the bonds, not the team, and it’s probably right.

Soccer bettors seem to have longer memories than investors do. When the latter look at the histories of Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and even France, it’s as though these nations have never defaulted, devalued, or restructured over the last couple of centuries. Compare Spain and Brazil, for example. Brazil’s bonds are yielding 4.22% while Spain’s offer a relatively paltry 2.76%, even though Spain’s economy is a shambles. True, Brazil has also struggled of late, but it has oil, youth, and seemingly higher growth prospects. And unlike Spain, it has major export industries in agriculture and aerospace — not to mention soccer players.

The place where the football bettors and investors correlate more closely is Germany: The former had 5-to-1 odds early on, the latter a 1.38% yield. True, German economic history is not untroubled, but today it is Europe’s champion economy — the strength of which goes a long way toward explaining why European bond rates in general have remained so low. Germany is, in effect, propping up the rest of the European economy. After today’s shutout against the U.S., however, it looks clear that die Mannschaft won’t do anything of the sort on the soccer pitch. If the form plays out, one of the world’s best-run economies will face off with one its worst.

Meet 10 of China’s Most Powerful Women - TIME

http://time.com/2907424/makers-china-10-powerful-women/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

The critically acclaimed MAKERS series goes to China

After its critical acclaim last year with the documentary MAKERS: Women Who Make America, AOL has taken its storytelling brand to China to highlight women whose accomplishments have shattered expectations and serve as an inspiration to their peers. The selection process was overseen in part by Yang Lan, a broadcast journalist often dubbed the “Oprah of China.”

Li Yinhe

First female sexologist in China

After studying at the University of Pittsburgh, Li became fascinated by the widely available research on American sexual mores, completely absent in her native China. Her book, Their World: a Study of Homosexuality in China, proved iconoclastic for the country.

Gong Li

Actor

Known for films like Raise the Red Lantern and Memoirs of a Geisha, Gong has starred in numerous Chinese films that have won her awards from the Berlin International Film Festival to Cannes. She was named a UNESCO Artist for Peace in 2000.

Fu Ying

Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs

After a string of government jobs, Fu became China’s ambassador to the Philippines in 1998, then to Australia in 2003, then to the U.K. in 2007. She’s been praised for her expert handling of the media after western pushback against China’s successful bid to host the Olympics.

Guo Jianmei

First public interest lawyer in China

In 1995, Guo was inspired at the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women by Hillary Clinton’s now-famous maxim: “Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights.” Not long after, she founded a women’s legal aid NGO, which subsequently earned her an award from Clinton as a Woman of Courage.

Li Yan

Short-track speed skating coach

Li won a silver medal in the 1992 Winter Olympics and later went on to coach Apolo Ohno to his gold medal win in the 2006 Winter Olympics. She has coached the Chinese national team through the last two Olympic seasons.

Hu Shuli

Investigative journalist

The editor-in-chief of Caixin Media Company has made a name for herself through hard-hitting journalism—a particularly challenging accomplishment in China. She famously reported on corruption in the financial industry, and has been included on the TIME 100.

Dong Mingzhu

Chairman and president, Gree Electric

Dong rose through the ranks at Gree Electric, first selling air conditioners then overseeing the sales team. She was appointed director of the department in 1994 and increases sales by a factor of seven. This accomplishment paved the way for her to eventually take the top job at the company.

Yang Liping

Dance artist

A dancer from rural China, Yang studied the dance cultures of various Chinese minorities as a young woman. Committed to bringing these traditions to the wider public, she raised money to create and perform her first piece, “Spirit of the Peacock” in the 1980s, and went on to direct, choreograph and perform in blockbuster dance shows throughout China, Europe and the U.S.

Laura Cha Shin May-lung

Former vice-chair of the China Securities Regulatory Commission

After a successful career as a lawyer, first in California then in Hong Kong, she joined the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and eventually held the position of Deputy Chairman. She then moved on to be vice chair of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, becoming the first non-mainlander in the role.

Yan Geling

Novelist and screenwriter

Yan is known in the U.S. for books like The Banquet Bug and The Lost Daughter of Happiness. Many of her novels have been adapted for films like The Flowers of War, and her stories are highly acclaimed in China.

Why Songs Get Stuck in Your Head - Science of US

June 25, 2014 at 2:26am

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http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/06/why-songs-get-stuck-in-your-head.html

By Melissa DahlFollow @melissadahl

For the last 10 days or so, I’ve been haunted by three little notes, which I fear may be burned into my brain forever: OH AY AHHHH. It’s the little snippet of song that plays before and after commercials during World Cup coverage on TV, and my mind cannot, will not, stop playing it. (Of course, now that I’m writing this thing and actuallywant to hear it, it seems to be impossible to find online.) OH AY AHHHH, I hear as I close my eyes to go to sleep. OH AY AHHHH, I heard as I was running a 10K on Sunday. OH AY AHHHH, my boyfriend and I sing to each other across our apartment, because we’ve lost hope of ever getting this thing out of our heads.
As it turns out, research on earworms — those songs you can’t shake from your mind — suggests that this three-syllable little number may be perfectly structured to get stuck in your head. The makeup of an earworm looks something like this:
It’s short. An earworm tends to be 10 seconds or less, usually just a fragment of a song, said Elizabeth Margulis, author of the book On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind, on a recent episode of NPR’s Science Friday. Margulis also noted that the people who compose music for ads and TV are well aware of this and exploit it to their benefit.
It’s simple. Another key factor of a sticky song is its simplicity. Research suggests that a song containing longer notes but smaller differences in pitch (in other words, the song doesn’t swing from very high to very low notes) are more likely to play in your head on repeat, which is a description that fits my own current World Cup earworm perfectly. That’s because an earworm is, essentially, your brain singing along to music, and songs with longer notes but without big changes in pitch are easier to “sing.”
It’s played when you’re not really paying attention. In my particular case, the little tune is usually played when the World Cup coverage is either going to or coming back from a commercial break, which means the game is either over or it’s half-time. In other words, it’s played during times when I'm maybe not paying a ton of attention, and that,research shows, is when an earworm can burrow into your brain and grab hold.
How do you kill an earworm? One suggested method is to concentrate deeply on something that requires your full attention. So there is hope! Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), earworms tend to take hold when we hear them played over and over and over, so the song will probably be right back in my head the next time I turn on a game. In conclusion: OH AY AHHHH!

Tax-driven mergers Inverse logic - The Economist

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21604555-rush-firms-fleeing-america-tax-reasons-set-continue-inverse-logic?fsrc=scn%2Ffb%2Fwl%2Fpe%2Finverselogic

The rush of firms fleeing America for tax reasons is set to continue

Jun 21st 2014 | NEW YORK | From the print edition

AMERICA is a land of immigrants, but some of its biggest companies are keen to emigrate, driven abroad by high tax rates and America’s “worldwide” system of taxation, which grabs a share of their foreign profits. The preferred method of exit is the “tax inversion”, which uses a cross-border merger—generally one that also has some sort of industrial logic—as the pretext for reincorporating in a more tax-friendly place. Medtronic, a maker of medical devices, is the latest and largest firm to change its nationality in this way.
The combined group will be domiciled in low-tax Ireland, the official home of its merger partner, Covidien (see article). But Medtronic’s executives will stay in Minneapolis and Covidien’s will remain in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Covidien, then part of Tyco, left America for Bermuda in 1997 before moving to the Emerald Isle in 2009. The deal thus involves an inversion with a “foreign” firm that has itself already inverted: a sort of “inversion squared”.

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This will be the 15th transaction of the latest inversion wave, which began two years ago. Such deals are particularly popular with health-care and energy firms: Pfizer’s recent, abortive bid for AstraZeneca, which may yet be revived, would have been a blockbuster of the genre. According to Bloomberg, an information provider, close to 50 American companies have flown the coop since tax planners hatched the idea in the 1990s.

Medtronic’s planned inversion is less about reducing the percentage of profits that it pays in corporation tax—which will be only slightly lower after the union—than freeing up some of the $20 billion of foreign earnings that the firm is loth to bring home because Uncle Sam would grab 35% of it. Medtronic has borrowed heavily at home (rather than repatriate foreign earnings and trigger extra tax payments) to finance share buy-backs and dividends. With this deal it can use its foreign cash both to reduce its debt and to finance the acquisition itself, engaging in “hopscotch” transactions that funnel cash from non-American subsidiaries to the Irish holding company, missing out the American layers, says Edward Kleinbard of the University of Southern California.

Wall Street analysts applaud this sort of intra-group shuffling, as it makes capital deployment more “flexible”, typically boosting the share price. Another advantage is that in future the group’s American arms will be able to issue debt, use the proceeds to pay dividends and take an interest deduction that is not taxable in America under its tax treaty with Ireland.

America has tried several times to stop companies fleeing abroad through tax inversion, with limited success. Rules introduced a decade ago required the foreign partner to be worth at least 20% of the combined group. That helped stem the outflow of firms inverting with shell companies in tax-free Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. But it left American multinationals with various options for mergers with smaller firms based in places with low corporate taxes, such as Ireland, the Netherlands and Britain, as long as the target firms had some employees and offices (“substance”, in tax-speak) in those countries.

Bills introduced in Congress this year by Democrats have proposed raising the 20% threshold to 50%; in other words, the foreign partner would have to be as big as the American one for the inversion to stand. The change would be applied retroactively, from May this year.
Were the bills to pass, this latest deal would be blocked, as Covidien investors will own just 30% of the new entity. This is unlikely, since the bills will not win the Republican votes they need unless they are part of a broader tax reform. Still, inverting companies are taking no chances. Medtronic’s agreement with Covidien gives it the right to cancel the deal if Congress rewrites tax laws in a way that deems the merged group an American taxpayer.

There will be more reincorporations, regardless of what happens in Washington. A group of Walgreen shareholders is pushing the drugstore chain to redomicile in Switzerland, for instance. InterContinental Hotels of Britain is reportedly being stalked by an American bidder seeking to invert. Companies have grown more creative in getting around new rules—for instance, structuring deals as private buy-outs to dodge curbs on inversions carried out by means of a public offering.

Tax lawyers already have wheezes up their sleeves in case the Democrats’ 50% rule does pass. An American firm can keep its stake below half, even if its partner is smaller, by taking a chunk of cash in return for the reduced stake—as Mondelez International is doing in a tie-up of its coffee division with Douwe Egberts, a Dutch rival.

Lawmakers are likely to find that simply trying to prevent inversions just leads to more cat-and-mouse games with corporate tax-planners. It would be better to reduce the incentive to leave America by cutting its corporate tax rate to around 25% (partially paid for by hacking away the current thicket of corporate allowances) and moving to a “territorial” system that taxes only domestic profits, as most other countries do. Among other benefits, this would encourage American firms to bring home their foreign profits to invest them in America. Until then, inversions will remain on boards’ agendas. With so much at stake—each percentage-point cut in Medtronic’s tax bill adds $60m to its bottom line—the temptation is simply too great.

Why do so many nations want a piece of Antarctica? - BBC NEWS

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27910375

19 June 2014 Last updated at 23:54

Why do so many nations want a piece of Antarctica?

By Matthew TellerAntarctica

Seven countries have laid claim to parts of Antarctica and many more have a presence there - why do they all want a piece of this frozen wasteland?

I pick a path between rock pools and settle my bottom on a boulder. A spectacular, silent view unfolds across a mountain-fringed bay.

Then there is a flash in the shallows by my feet - an arrow of white and black.

What on earth fish is that? My slow brain ponders, as before my eyes a gentoo penguin slips out of the water, steadies itself on a rock, eyes me cheekily, squawks and patters off into the snow.

Antarctica is the hardest place I know to write about. Whenever you try to pin down the experience of being there, words dissolve under your fingers.

There are no points of reference. In the most literal sense, Antarctica is inhuman.

Other deserts, from Arabia to Arizona, are peopled: humans live in or around them, find sustenance in them, shape them with their imagination and their ingenuity. No people shape Antarctica.

It is the driest, coldest, windiest place in the world. So why, then, have Britain, France, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina drawn lines on Antarctica's map, carving up the empty ice with territorial claims?

Antarctica is not a country: it has no government and no indigenous population. Instead, the entire continent is set aside as a scientific preserve.

The Antarctic Treaty, which came into force in 1961, enshrines an ideal of intellectual exchange.

Military activity is banned, as is prospecting for minerals. Fifty states - including Russia, China and the US - have now ratified the treaty and its associated agreements.

Yet one legacy of earlier imperial expeditions, when Shackleton and the rest battled blizzards to plant their flags, is national covetousness.

Science drives human investigation in Antarctica today, yet there's a reason why geologists often take centre-stage. Governments really want to know what's under the ice.

Whisper the word: oil. Some predictions suggest the amount of oil in Antarctica could be 200 billion barrels, far more than Kuwait or Abu Dhabi.

Antarctic oil is extremely difficult and, at the moment, prohibitively expensive to extract - but it's impossible to predict what the global economy will look like in 2048, when the protocol banning Antarctic prospecting comes up for renewal. By that stage, an energy-hungry world could be desperate.

The Antarctic Treaty has put all territorial claims into abeyance, but that hasn't stopped rule-bending. The best way to get a toehold on what may lie beneath is to act as if you own the place.

One of the things nation-states do is stamp passports - so when Antarctic tourists visit the British station at Port Lockroy, they can have their passport stamped.

This is despite the fact that international law doesn't recognise the existence of the British Antarctic Territory - indeed, both Chile and Argentina claim the same piece of land, and have their own passport stamps at the ready.

Another thing states do - or used to - is operate postal services.

At Ukraine's Vernadsky base, I wrote myself a postcard, bought a decorative Ukrainian stamp with a cow on it, and dropped it into their post box. It took two months to arrive - not bad, from the ends of the earth.

But tourist fun connives at all the flag-waving. Russia has made a point of building bases all round the Antarctic continent.

The US operates a base at the South Pole, which conveniently straddles every territorial claim. This year China built its fourth base. Next year it will build a fifth.

All Antarctica's 68 bases are professedly peaceful research stations, established for scientific purposes - but the ban on militarisation is widely flouted.

Chile and Argentina, for instance, both maintain a permanent army presence on the Antarctic mainland, and the worry is that some countries are either not reporting military deployment, or may instead be recruiting civilian security contractors for essentially military missions.

Antarctic skies are unusually clear and also unusually free from radio interference - they are ideal for deep-space research and satellite tracking. But they are also ideal for establishing covert surveillance networks and remote control of offensive weapons systems.

The Australian government recently identified China's newest base as a threat, specifically because of the surveillance potential.

It said: "Antarctic bases are increasingly used for 'dual-use' scientific research that's useful for military purposes."

Many governments reject Antarctica's status quo, built on European endeavour and entrenched by Cold War geopolitics that, some say, give undue influence to the superpowers of the past.

Iran has said it intends to build in Antarctica, Turkey too. India has a long history of Antarctic involvement and Pakistan has approved Antarctic expansion - all in the name of scientific cooperation.

But the status quo depends on self-regulation. The Antarctic Treaty has no teeth. Faced with intensifying competition over abundant natural resources and unforeseen intelligence-gathering opportunities, all it can do - like my penguin - is squawk, and patter off into the snow.

17 Things Extremely Happy People Say Every Day - TIME

http://time.com/69058/17-things-extremely-happy-people-say-every-day/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

• Bill Murphy Jr
 

April 19, 2014

    

Are you as happy as you wish you were? If not, try saying a few of these simple, inspiring things to other people

There’s an easy-to-articulate, hard-to-implement best practice when it comes to how to teach yourself to be happy. It stems from the recognition that the positive things you do for other people often reverberate back to create positivity in your own life. In effect, doing little things to make other people happy can greatly improve your happiness.

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Make sense? There are two theories at work. The first is that focusing on others creates joy of its own accord. The second is that as you succeed in improving others’ happiness, you’ll wind up with happier, more grateful people around you. They’ll find you likable and charismatic, which in turn can lead them to treat you in a manner that produces even more happiness.

It’s easier said than done, but fortunately, there’s a compelling shortcut. Your words are among your greatest tools, so you can have an outsize effect on others simply by thinking about what you say every day and making an effort to be both positive and sincere. There are certain inspiring things that truly happy people find themselves saying to others all the time. Try making an effort to say a few of these every day for a week. You’ll be amazed at how the positivity you create improves your happiness.

1. “I’m happy to see you.”

This is the most basic and attractive sentiment you can express to another human being–that simply being in the person’s presence creates a positive feeling. Whether you’re telling an employee that you need his skills, that you value his opinions, or just that you think he’s good company, you’ve begun an interaction on a very high note. How can that not produce some level of happiness in the other person?

2. “I’m always happy to see you.”

Take the previous remark a step further. This is the opposite of most relationship advice–that you should never take a specific negative action and suggest that it’s indicative of someone’s entire way of acting. Well, turn that on its head, by expressing that it’s not just this interaction that has produced positive feelings but basically all interactions with this person. It’s an amazingly gratifying thing to hear.

3. “Remember when you…”

Surprise someone by bringing up a positive thing that she did in the past, and you’re almost guaranteed to induce a positive response. Maybe it’s a joke the person told that you’re still laughing about; maybe it’s a small act of heroism she performed. Regardless, if it’s something she thought was long forgotten, learning that something she did made a positive, lasting impression on someone else is an amazing experience.

4. “You might not realize this, but…”

This an even more potent version of the previous suggestion, provided you finish the sentence with a description of how the person’s actions led to a positive outcome. It’s one thing to learn that other people recognize the favorable things you’ve done; it’s another thing entirely to learn that you’re having a positive effect on other people without even realizing it.

5. “You really impress me.”

This is similar to “I’m happy to see you” and “I’m always happy to see you,” except that it focuses on things that the person does, rather than his or her existential being. Other variations include “You are really great at…” or “People love that you…” Simply be sincere and specific. “You’re really great at calming stressful situations” or “People love that you always have the best music.” It can be anything, as long as it’s authentic and truly positive, and it’s guaranteed to elicit positive reactions.

6. “You really impressed me when…”

Focusing on specific actions or events can be even more powerful. It means that you’re not only thinking abstractly but offering proof that things the other person does provoke positive reactions. It’s the difference between saying that a comedian was really funny and quoting one of his or her best jokes. (Other versions: “You handled that well when you turned that client’s objection into an opportunity” or “It was really cool to see how you parallel-parked that car into that tiny spot.”)

7. “I believe in you.”

People have self-doubts. You do, I do, we all do. (Heck, every time I write a column here–and this is number 167, by the way–I wonder how people will react.) When others simply say they believe in you, however, it becomes easier to believe in yourself.

Here’s an analogy. Have you ever gotten into lifting weights, or simply watched people do it? It’s amazing how the slightest bit of assistance from a spotter–with force equal to the weight of a pencil–can help someone lift far more weight than he could on his own. It’s the same concept here–just that small expression of confidence can push people to achieve more–and then to be thankful for the help.

8. “Look how far you’ve come!”

It is so important to celebrate achievements. This doesn’t mean you have to throw a party, but even acknowledging that someone’s efforts have achieved results can be extremely gratifying for the person.

Of course, heck, if you want to take things to the extreme, throw a party. Just be sure that you’re the one buying the first round and singing the loudest.

9. “I know you’re capable of more.”

Everyone needs to be pushed at times, especially when we fall short. If you care about people, you’re going to be called on sometimes to be a bit of a coach, or maybe to employ a bit of tough love. Even the most steadfast and confident among us sometimes need a friend to guide them to a better way of acting.

The late, great NFL coach Vince Lombardi put this best: “Leadership is getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.” Nobody does anything great alone, so be the one standing by to help, and you’ll inspire positivity and gratitude.

10. “I’d like to hear your thoughts about…”

Everyone likes to think that his or her opinions matter, and of course they do–sometimes. However, this kind of invitation to share what someone thinks can’t help making the person feel just a tiny bit more self-worth, which in turns creates both happiness and positive feelings toward you. Just be sure to be sincere; don’t just say this for the sake of saying it. Make sure that you are truly interested in whatever subject you’re asking about and listen actively.

11. “Tell me more.”

This is the best follow-up to the last item. It tells the other person that you’re listening, and that you find value in what he or she is saying. The actor and writer Peter Ustinov once said that the greatest compliment he ever received took place when he was afraid he had gone on too long in a conversation with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, only to have her tell him, “Please continue.”

12. “I took your suggestion.”

OK, it’s almost too easy at this point. Combine asking someone’s opinion and demonstrating that the person has had impact on your life and you’ve provided him with two of the most gratifying, basic experiences of the human condition.

It doesn’t matter really whether you tried a new restaurant on the other person’s advice, followed his suggestion on how to begin an important conversation, or started getting up 15 minutes earlier for a week because he said it was a good idea. Simply being listened to and having impact makes people feel better. Bonus points if his suggestion created a positive result, but you’ll get credit regardless. (Related: “You were right.”)

13. “I’m sorry.”

Say this when you mean it–when you’ve done something worth expressing regret for or the other person deserves sympathy. However, don’t water it down by using it when you don’t mean it. In fact, one writer made a compelling argument recently that the phrase is so overused that it ought to be retired. That would be a shame, but it underscores how people appreciate this phrase when it’s sincere, and how it annoys them when it isn’t.

14. “I’d like to be more like you.”

Now you’ve got it–you’re expressing positivity toward other people almost naturally, pointing out not only things that they do well but maybe even things they do better than you do.

If you want to see a sentiment similar to this work very effectively, watch the 1997 movie As Good As It Gets. Or else, just read this short bit of dialogue in which Jack Nicholson’s character offers Helen Hunt’s character the ultimate compliment: “You make me want to be a better man.“

15. “Thank you.”

It’s not that much of a stretch to suggest that every other item on this list is in fact a form of “thank you.” This is truly one of the most powerful, underrated phrases in the English language. It packs a heck of a punch, encompassing positivity and impact in two little syllables. (By the way, thanks for reading this far into this column. Maybe if you share it with others, they’ll thank you, too.)

16. “You’re welcome.”

Not “yep.” Not “no problem” or “no worries.” Say “You’re welcome.”

Instead of deflecting another person’s thanks, as some of these other phrases do, saying “you’re welcome” dignifies the person’s gratitude. It acknowledges that yes, you did do something worthy, or nice, or positive for someone–because you believe that she’s worth it.

17. “No.”

There’s one small risk in this entire mode of expression, and this word is your fail-safe. The danger is that sometimes people who make other people’s happiness their priority can wind up doing so at the cost of their own happiness. We all know some people who take advantage, or who simply aren’t going to be happy no matter what your efforts amount to.

Two little letters, and yet they can be so powerful. Most important, they demonstrate that you care for yourself, which is a key prerequisite to caring truly for other people. Carry this one in your back pocket; use it when necessary. You’ll find that the most positive and happy people you interact with respect you for doing so–and that can make you happy, too.

This Company May Hold the Secret to the Future of Education - TIME

http://time.com/2902109/duolingo-online-education-moocs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

• Victor Luckerson @VLuck
 

June 20, 2014

    

Guatemalan Luis von Ahn, Co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, and inventor of CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, speaks about 'The Beginning of New TIME: Key 2, Capture' during the opening ceremony of the Seoul Digital Forum in Seoul, South Korea on May 21, 2014.Jeon Heon Kyun—EPA

It was just 18 months ago that we were living in the “Year of the MOOC.” Massive open online courses—MOOC for short—were supposed to revolutionize the way people learned and deliver high-quality education to the masses. But the idea faced a tough 2013. The co-founder of Udacity, an early pioneer in free online education, admitted that his company initially had a “lousy product,” while studies showed that hardly any students were actually completing the courses offered by such services at all.

Luis von Ahn, the co-founder and CEO of language learning service Duolingo, says MOOCs make little sense for the digital world. von Ahn runs what is arguably the hottest educational tool online at the moment, but he’s also a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Even he admits that lectures, especially delivered via webcast, can be pretty boring. “You take a lecture that’s not all that great and put it on video, it’s actually going to be worse,” he says. “Typically, the things that succeed the most online are the things that are better online than offline. Think about email versus mail.”

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von Ahn believes he has developed a platform that can indeed be better online—and on smartphones. Duolingo, which turns two years old this week, offers bite-sized lessons in French, Spanish, English and several other languages for beginners and intermediate-level speakers. Users learn vocabulary words, grammatical structures and even proper pronunciation by speaking into their device’s microphone. The service guides students through a battery of challenges, awarding points and badges for correct answers. Users can compete with friends who are learning the same languages.

The concept of learning a new language through software is hardly revolutionary, but it’s Duolingo’s mobile app that sets it apart. Six months into the company’s existence, Duolingo had 300,000 active users, all on its website. In the year and a half since it launched a mobile app for iOS, that number has leapt to 13 million, more than MOOC platforms Udacity, edX and Coursera combined, according to usage figures released by those firms. 85% of these users are learning with the mobile app, which Apple named the App of the Year in 2013. “One of the main ways to deliver education over the next 10 to 20 years is going to be through smartphones,” von Ahn says. “It’s the only way that this actually can scale. This is why we put so much effort into our apps as opposed to our website.”

The mobile approach has advantages both in the developed world—it’s easier to commit to a quick language lesson during lunch than block off an hour after work to sit at a desktop computer—and in emerging markets, where many people use smartphones as their primary computing device. “About 1 to 2 billion people do not have access to very good education,” von Ahn says, “but hundreds of millions of these people are very soon or already have access to smartphones.”

The son of two medical doctors, von Ahn grew up in Guatemala, a country with one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. He says Duolingo, which is free and doesn’t have advertising, is primarily aimed at those people who can’t afford to take a college course or buy expensive software like Rosetta Stone. “We’ve become zealots about providing free education,” he says. “We develop for the poor people.”

And yet, Duolingo is a for-profit business. To make money, the company gets its users to translate real news articles from sites like CNN and Buzzfeed into their native languages as a way to practice their English. Duolingo then charges these sites between two and three cents per word for the translations. von Ahn says the venture generates hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue per year, but Duolingo is not profitable. The company just began offering an English language proficiency test for $20 aimed at job seekers, but it’s not yet clear how many employers will accept a Duolingo certification as an alternative to more established (and expensive) programs. The company has raised $38 million in venture funding.

Whether people are actually learning new languages effectively with Duolingo is still an open question. von Ahn is careful not to oversell the capabilities of the service. The idea that a piece of software could make a person fluent in a foreign language in mere hours is, in his words, “bull—t.” “If you really want to become perfectly fluent, probably what you need to do is move to that country,” he says. “Learning a language is something that takes years.” Still, he says completing all the lessons in a language course in Duolingo is about the equivalent of taking an intermediate-level language course in college. A study commissioned by the company found that people learned as much taking Duolingo lessons in Spanish for 34 hours as they would in a semester of an introductory college class.

That doesn’t mean that apps are going to replace classrooms anytime soon. Though there’s great potential in educational tools built for the Web and for mobile, their usefulness varies greatly by subject, says Matthew Chingos, a fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. “If I want to learn about the history of the Ottoman Empire, it’s harder to imagine the really engaging version of that where you’re doing one-sentence interactions around a topic like that,” he says. “Is this going to replace the way things are done now? I don’t think it is. But can these tools be important supplements? I think they can.”

Duolingo, along with other web-native learning tools like the computer programming site Codecademy, have carved out an online learning experience that feels both simpler and more engaging than the typical MOOC, which essentially replicates the college lecture hall. von Ahn plans to focus on improving Duolingo’s adaptive learning capabilities, so that no two users will have the exact same lesson plan. The goal, he says, is for the app to perform more like a well-trained personal tutor than a pedantic professor.

Eventually, he sees Duolingo’s interactive learning experiences spreading to many other subjects. “A really good one-on-one tutor can teach a 10-year-old kid algebra in six months,” he says. “I think an app should be able to do that.”

Snowden Leaks Have Hurt American Companies, Tech Executive Says - TIME

http://time.com/2849760/edward-snowden-nsa-leaks-symantec/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29\\

• Becca Stanek
 

June 9, 2014

    

“Every time a new Snowden revelation trickles out, it’s another chip away at U.S. business,” said Cheri McGuire, vice president of Symantec Corp

The revelations of mass surveillance activities by the National Security Agency has made it harder for American companies to conduct business overseas, a tech executive said Monday.

Cheri F. McGuire, a Symantec Corporation vice president, made the comments during a panel discussion marking one year since disclosures from former NSA contractor turned leaker Edward Snowden first rocked the global debate about surveillance and personal privacy. The fight to regain secrecy and privacy since then has plagued many American software companies, including Symantec, McGuire said.

“Every time a new Snowden revelation trickles out, it’s another chip away at U.S. business,” McGuire said during the panel hosted by the Atlantic Council and held at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security in Washington, D.C.

Almost every day, McGuire said, the company faces questions about backdoors within its products that might be available to intelligence agencies, along with requests for specific contractual guarantees of privacy. Companies now face a new environment, McGuire said, one that is filled with “sticky contractual and corporate citizenship issues that were not there before.”

But people in both the U.S. and elsewhere are holding American companies to a higher standard than those in the rest of the world, McGuire said, noting the lack of intelligence oversight around the world. McGuire said the leaks have actually harmed cybersecurity by making companies less willing to share information with other companies and technological innovators.

“We need to get through—I hate to say it—this hyperbole we hear today of privacy outweighing everything else,” McGuire said. “A balance needs to be struck because the situation would be much worse if there was no security equation.”

The Government Wants to Regulate How You Use Google Maps - TIME

http://time.com/2883558/google-maps-regulation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

• Victor Luckerson @VLuck
 

June 16, 2014

    

In your car at least

The U.S. Department of Transportation is taking aim at the way drivers use navigation tools such as Google Maps. A proposed bill would grant the National Highway Safety Administration the right to issue guidelines on the functionality of navigation apps that could potentially be a threat to driver safety and force changes to apps that don’t comply with the guidelines, the New York Times reports.

The Department of Transportation has been grappling with the increased use of technology in the car for the last several years. In 2013 the agency issued guidelines on the use of in-car navigation systems, advising that no task on the devices should require more than a two-second glance and 12 seconds total to accomplish. The newly proposed bill, though, would also apply to smartphone apps, like the popular maps software Google and Apple develop. Such apps currently reside in a murky area when it comes to laws that ban calling and texting while driving. A California man faced a $165 fine for using his phone as a navigation aid because other uses of a phone, such as talking while driving, are banned in the state. An appeals court later overturned the decision, according to the Times.

Critics of the proposed measure say it would be impractical for the government to monitor the vast number of navigation apps and whether people are using them while driving or not. But with injuries from car accidents involving a distracted driver on the rise, it’s likely the National Highway Safety Administration will continue to seek ways to regulate the ways people use electronics while behind the wheel. The bill, a wide-ranging piece of legislation regarding transportation, is expected to pass in Congress in some form by the end of the year.

Carbon Rules Show Bad Arithmetic - TIME

http://time.com/2899506/obama-carbon-regulations/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

• Michael Grunwald @MikeGrunwald
 

6:57 AM ET

    

Why the numbers in the President's Clean Power Plan don't add up

President Obama’s Clean Power Plan–his Administration’s historic proposal to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, hyped by supporters and detractors alike as a revolution in climate-change action–just doesn’t add up.

I say this with some hesitation, even some embarrassment. During Obama’s first term, while environmentalists kept complaining that he wasn’t talking enough about global warming, I kept writing that he was doing more about global warming than anyone who ever lived. His stimulus bill was launching a clean-energy boom, his fuel-efficiency rules were ratcheting down greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and trucks, and his new regulations on soot, mercury and other stuff coming out of power plants were accelerating a shift away from carbon. Coal produces three-fourths of our emissions from electricity, though it generates just over a third of our electricity, and I recently predicted that Obama’s carbon rules would take his well-justified (though often denied) war on coal to the next level.

But while the enviros who spent years trashing Obama’s “climate silence” are now hailing his Clean Power Plan as his crowning climate legacy, I’m underwhelmed. The EPA says that by 2030, it will reduce emissions from power plants 30% from their 2005 levels, but that’s just a forecast–and U.S. power plants are already nearly halfway to that goal. Some of the other forecasts in the 645-page draft are even less ambitious. For example, coal-generated electricity is also expected to drop about 30% from 2005 levels by 2030; it’s already down 20%, and another 10% of the coal fleet is already scheduled for retirement. The plan predicts an absurdly low 21 gigawatts of new renewable-power capacity by 2030, about as much as the U.S. has added in the past two years.

In general, the forecasts in the plan would, if anything, undershoot the current pace of decarbonization in electricity. And to the extent that they do have teeth, they won’t bite anytime soon. States will have until 2018 to submit compliance plans and until 2030 to complete them. So if climate hawks don’t win the next several presidential elections, the rules probably won’t matter much.

I discussed my doubts with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, a certified climate hawk, who offered several explanations for her plan’s apparent squishiness. The goal, she suggested, was to fashion a plan that could withstand legal and political challenges and to require “what’s doable, reasonable and practical,” not what’s ideal. The EPA was sensitive to the degree of difficulty: the emission cuts required for coal-heavy Kentucky, West Virginia and Wyoming will be less than 20%. The plan also gives states the flexibility to meet their targets by reducing electricity demand, extending the life of zero-carbon nuclear plants and even improving efficiency at coal plants as well as switching to natural gas and renewables. And overall, despite predictably apocalyptic rhetoric from coal interests, opposition has been surprisingly muted.

“I don’t want to scare any state away. I don’t want to spend years negotiating about what’s achievable,” McCarthy told me. “I want to get this off the ground.”

This helps explain the green movement’s enthusiasm. Enacting carbon rules, any carbon rules, will send a powerful signal to the market about dirty power, especially as the Administration cracks down on coal ash, ozone and other pollutants. It will add uncertainty to the electricity industry’s investment decisions, making utilities increasingly reluctant to pour billions of dollars into the pollution controls required to keep their coal plants online. And it will encourage the rest of the world to follow the U.S.’s lead in international climate negotiations. “This will set expectations, and things will just take off,” McCarthy said.

My question was: If this plan is so disruptive, why does it predict that in 2030, we’ll still get over 30% of our power from coal? Why does it suggest that wind-rich Iowa could get even less of its power from renewables than it does today? McCarthy’s answer was, in effect: It’s wrong. I offered to bet her that the U.S. would add more than 21 gigawatts of renewables by 2030; she said she’d take the over too. “Our model might predict one thing, but my understanding of the world tells me something else,” she said. “These numbers represent the minimum. I think we’ll end up with a much more aggressive impact.”

If we’re still getting over 30% of our power from coal in 2030, the EPA’s plan will be a huge disappointment. It will represent defeat in the Obama Administration’s crucial (though undeclared) war on coal. So it’s encouraging that the plan’s architect doesn’t seem to think it adds up either.