Jackson Hole Summit to Help Boost the Slowing US Economy

Jackson Hole Summit speech of Federal Reserve Board of Governors Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday may hint at yet another monetary push to boost the slowing U.S. economy.

However, the Wall Street Journal reported most economists think that such suggestions at the annual conference of economists in this Wyoming resort “are overly optimistic.”

“Bernanke is unlikely to fulfill the markets’ hopes that he will pave the way for a third round of asset purchases (QE3),” economists from Toronto’s Capital Economics wrote in a note Wednesday that was reported in the Wall Street Journal. “And even if he did, QE3 is unlikely to boost the economy, equity prices or commodity prices by as much as QE1 and QE2 [did].”

At last year’s conference, Bernanke unveiled plans for a $600-million round of bond buying, which the Journal said he “essentially unveiled QE2.” The action triggered positive market reaction.

This year, markets will be listening closely to Bernanke’s words for any hint at a stimulus from the United States government. The New York Times reported that speeches from the Fed are made to “cause minimal market excitement – either good or bad” and previous announcements by the Fed suggest little change in policy.

Read full article HERE.

Filed Under: News
Tagged: Get updated with the hottest entertainment news daily by email!

Follow Starmometer on Twitter and Facebook!

View the original article here

Read More

New filler uses light to boost skin's beauty

Move over Juvederm and Restalyne. Make way for a new skin filler.

Johns Hopkins researchers say they have improved the technology on popular injectable hyaluronic gels that gloriously restored skin’s volume and wiped away wrinkles -- but sagged or faded away after about a year. With the new procedure, scientists inject a liquid, mold and massage it, and lock it in place with a two-minute treatment of green LED light. The implants last much longer, and look and feel more natural.

They reported their findings in the July 27 edition of the medical journal Science Translational Medicine.

Jennifer H. Elisseeff, a biomedical engineer and study co-author, says the discovery can have far-reaching effects on cosmetic and reconstructive surgery.

“We have a project with the military for facial reconstruction for soldiers in the Army. This also can be used for surgical trauma, to remove tumors and cosmetic applications used in the same places as Juvederm and Restalyne for wrinkles, chin implants or cheek implants,” she says.

 “It seems like normal tissue, and physicians have a lot of control over the implantation process in being able to lock an implant in place. We’ve never been able to do that before.”

Drugs such as Juvederm and Restalyne are made of a hyaluronic acid. The new liquid injectable is made up of a combination of natural hyaluronic acid and a FDA-approved synthetic substance called polyethylene glycol, or PEG.

Researchers first tested the implants in rats and found that even after a year, the implants maintained their original size and shape. Researchers then tried the procedure on three human patients who were scheduled for tummy tucks, a cosmetic surgical procedure to tighten and firm the abdomen. After 12 weeks, when compared to Juvederm and Restalyne, the implants held their shape and height. In that same period, the Juvederm and Restalyne implants faded away.

Elisseeff says if her team can find partners with the money to run larger clinical trials and the trials prove effective, the procedure could be ready for the public in 12 to 18 months. If no partner is found, it could be significantly longer before the light-activated soft tissue implants are ready for market.

She calls the procedure incomparable for its lasting power and natural effect.

“If you look below your cheek bone or the areas on the side of your lips, that’s soft tissue and it’s really hard to mimic,” says Elisseeff, who is also a professor at Johns Hopkins University. “Metal implants can repair the bony part of your cheek or chin, but there’s really nothing for helping to replace the soft tissue.”

The research team also is working on a similar technology for breast reconstruction after lumpectomies and to repair congenital defects such as cleft lip.

“We’re talking about making smarter materials that doctors like to use that interact with the body in a smarter way,” Elisseeff says.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

View the original article here

Read More

Barack Obama’s Birthday Celebration to Boost Fund-Raising Drive

Today, August 4, is US President Barack Obama‘s 50th birthday.

And to celebrate this momentous occasion, his senior staff prepares a simple gathering with the President in the Blue Room of the White House.

A day before his birthday, President Obama received a warm embrace from his supporters at his 50th birthday campaign fundraiser in Chicago. The Chicago event kicked off with a concert featuring Jennifer Hudson and OkGo! Tickets range in price from $50 (for the concert) to $35,800 (for VIP seating and dinner with the president).

The president, who has seen his approval rating fall to a low of 40% last week, told supporters he had experienced a “frustrating week” in Washington.

To re-energize his embattled base, Obama will spend his weekend after celebrating his birthday with friends and family at Camp David, the Presidential retreat in Maryland.

View the original article here

Read More

Premium travellers boost BA group

29 July 2011 Last updated at 08:46 GMT International Airlines Group CEO Willie Walsh: "It's good to be back in the black"

International Airlines Group (IAG), formed by the merger of BA and Iberia, has swung to a first-half profit of 39m euros (£34m), boosted by a rise in premium travellers.

That compared with a 419m-euro loss made in the same period a year earlier.

But it said fuel costs had risen 34.8% to 2.4bn euros in the six-month period and said that fuel was still a "significant issue".

The company expects its annual fuel bill to total 5.2bn euros.

BA and Iberia completed their merger in January this year.

'Significant growth'

Revenues for the half-year rose 17.9% to 7.8bn euros.

The company also reduced its net debt by almost a half to 480m euros.

IAG said it had seen "continued strength in premium markets", adding that while its long-haul business was stable, the short-haul European market remained "highly competitive".

"We expect significant growth in operating profit this year, with improvements in both our unit revenue and unit cost performance versus 2010 and are on track to reach our synergy targets," IAG said.

But it said it expected the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the political unrest in North Africa and the Middle East to reduce its operating profit for the year by 90-100m euros.

Charles Stanley analyst Douglas McNeill said: "These are good results at the upper end of expectations but the year-ago period was depressed by the ash cloud crisis and strikes at BA."

View the original article here

Read More

Will new 3-D video service boost Nintendo 3DS sales?

 Nintendo

"Dinosaur Office" is one of the very first 3-D videos offered by Nintendo's new video service for the 3DS. Will original video offerings and Netflix streaming help sell the handheld game gadget?

The Nintendo 3DS is a sharp little gadget that lets you play video games in eye-grabbing 3-D without having to put on those goofy 3-D glasses ... and yet, this sharp little gadget isn't selling as well as Nintendo had hoped.

Perhaps it's the device's $250 price tag. Perhaps it's the lack of a signature Mario Bros. games. Perhaps people just aren't that excited about 3-D. No matter what it is, Tokyo analysts are now saying they expect Nintendo's first quarter earnings to disappoint — in part thanks to lackluster 3DS sales.

But Nintendo is soldiering on, rolling out new features for the 3DS to help increase its appeal and boost sales as we push toward the all-important holiday buying season.

This week the company launched a new video service that now allows 3DS owners watch short videos in sharp 3-D. And earlier this month, Nintendo also added the Netflix video service to the device. (Alas, the 3DS's new Netflix app — which requires an unlimited streaming subscription — does not stream movies in 3-D.)

Video to the rescue?
Starting this week, the new Nintendo Video application can be downloaded to 3DS devices for free from the online eShop, which arrived on the gadget just last month.

The video app delivers a hand-picked variety of short-form videos to your machine each week. New videos will be added and older videos will be removed on a regular basis to keep things fresh, Nintendo says. The videos themselves are two to three minutes in length and will include a mix of short films, music videos, comedy performances and movie trailers.

During this week's launch, 3DS owners can find two animated short films — one of them from famed funny site CollegeHumor.com called "Dinosaur Office" — along with a trailer for the "Captain America" movie.

While the pickings are currently pretty slim, Nintendo says that in the coming weeks the app will offer exclusive 3-D videos from music artists Jason DeRulo and Foster the People, as well as trippy performance troupe the Blue Man Group. But they'll really kick things off Wednesday with an exclusive 3-D music video from the band OK Go.

Will these 3-D video offerings from Nintendo help boost 3DS sales? Well ... maybe.

The 3-D video playback looks nice and crisp on the device's top-screen. Meanwhile having Netflix access on the 3DS definitely helps broaden its appeal. Certainly, in an age when smartphones have trained gadget owners to expect their devices to do many things at once, Netflix and Nintendo Video are the kind of feature boosts that the 3DS needs.

But what would make Nintendo Video a real boost for the 3DS is if it offered longer 3-D video fare (TV shows and movies). The 3DS is one of the few portable devices with glasses-free 3-D capabilities and having the ability to take 3-D movies on the go would make the gadget very appealing indeed. Nintendo has implied, in the past, that this was a possibility. So here's hoping that pans out in the not-too-distant future.

For the time being, however, I think it's the games that will ultimately have the real power to drag the Nintendo 3DS out of the sales doldrums. Though an alarming number of 3DS games have been canceled recently, Nintendo will be pulling out the big guns in the coming months. The company plans to launch a brand new "Super Mario" game for the 3DS along with "Mario Kart 3DS" this holiday. They will follow that up with "Luigi's Mansion 2" for the 3DS next spring.

Expecting disappointment
But before that happens, Haruka Mori, a technology analyst at Barclays Capital in Tokyo, reports that he expects Nintendo to post a $11.9 billion net loss in the April-June quarter and even miss its full-year financial targets.

Why haven't you bought a Nintendo 3DS?

Who needs the 3DS, I'm perfectly happy with my standard-issue DS.Who needs the 3DS, I've got my smartphone.The games! Where are the games?I'm saving my money for the PlayStation Vita.What the heck is 3DS? And is it contagious?VoteTotal Votes: 97

For the fiscal year ending March 2012, Nintendo is forecasting sales to rise 8.4 percent to 1.1 trillion yen ($14 billion) and net profit to climb 42 percent to 110 billion yen ($1.4 billion). The company also expects to move 16 million 3DS machines this fiscal year.

"It is not only the 3DS that is struggling at present," Mori said in his recently released report. "Sales of the legacy DS and the Wii — which has been discounted in Europe and the US — appear to be below plan."

And laying off the 3DS for a moment ... it seems some folks are having a hard time getting their heads around Nintendo's forthcoming Wii U game console and that's causing some of Nintendo's problems as well, Mori believes.

Though In-Game editor Todd Kenreck and I immediately saw the appeal of the device (due to launch next year) when we were given a sneak preview of it at the Electronic Entertainment Expo last month, Mori said the Wii U has failed to impress investors who have had difficulty judging the potential of the unusual machine with the beefy touch-screen controller.

But nobody — not even the most talented financial analysts — can see the future. And so I'd remind people who are ready to count Nintendo down and out, that much of the world mocked the Wii when it was first revealed. And that game machine went on to crush the competition and changed the face of the video gaming industry at large.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

For more game news, check out:

Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter or join her in the stream right here on Google+. You can check out the In-Game Facebook page right here.

View the original article here

Read More

New markets boost Intel revenue

  Strong demand for tablets is helping sales of Intel chips The world's largest chipmaker Intel has posted record quarterly revenues and higher profits due in part to strong emerging market demand for computing.

Revenue for the second quarter was $13bn (£8bn), up more than 20% on a year earlier, while profits rose slightly to $3bn.

The firm said it expected sales in the second half of the year to rise at a similar rate to the first.

It said demand in emerging markets was helping to drive overall sales.

"We achieved a significant new milestone in the second quarter, surpassing $13bn for the first time," said Intel's chief executive Paul Ottelini.

"Strong corporate demand for our most advanced technology, the surge of mobile devices and internet traffic fuelling data centre growth, and the rapid rise of computing in emerging markets drove record results."

However, consumer demand in more developed economies remained weak, he added.

View the original article here

Read More