Factory data a new sign of slowing U.S. economic growth

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Factory activity expanded at its slowest pace in six months in April, the latest sign that economic growth continued to lose momentum early in the second quarter, though the recovery has not been derailed.

Even as the economic picture has dimmed in recent weeks as the effects of government austerity started to filter through, strength in the housing market has provided an anchor.

New home sales in March were at their second-highest level in three years and overall house prices rose in February, other data showed on Tuesday.

"The numbers are not suggesting that the economy is surging, but none of them are really showing that the economy is falling off the cliff," said Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York.

Financial data firm Markit said its "flash," or preliminary, factory purchasing managers' index fell to 52.0 this month from 54.6 in March as output, employment and new orders pulled back.

It was the lowest index level since October, though a reading above 50 does indicate growth.

While the Markit PMI has a shorter history and has been trending higher than an established, competing index from the Institute for Supply Management, its direction is in line with other surveys showing a cooling in manufacturing activity in April.

The Richmond Federal Reserve Bank said on Tuesday its gauge of factory activity in the central Atlantic region dropped into negative territory this month, pulled down by weak shipments and new orders.

The region covers the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and most of West Virginia. These are among states expected to be hardest hit by deep government spending cuts, known as the sequester.

SLACKENING ACTIVITY

Taken together with other weak regional manufacturing surveys released so far this month, Tuesday's factory data pointed to a slackening in activity at the start of the second quarter, economists said.

Although manufacturing accounts for only about 12 percent of the U.S. economy, it has played a pivotal role in the recovery from the 2007-09 recession.

The government is expected to report on Friday that the economy grew at a 3.0 percent annual rate in the first quarter, according to a Reuters survey, rebounding from a paltry 0.4 percent gain in the final three months of 2012.

Economists, however, are looking for an expansion of only around 1.5 percent or so in the April-June period.

Data ranging from employment to retail sales and manufacturing weakened significantly in March, when the sequester began to take effect, and the Markit and Richmond Fed reports suggested the soft patch carried into the second quarter.

"This year is setting up to be very similar as far as the first-half story of the past few years, where an early start in economic activity was not able to be maintained," said Sam Bullard, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Even so, the economy is not collapsing.

A separate report from the Commerce Department showed new home sales increased 1.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 417,000 units last month.

The increase was encouraging in the wake of data on Monday that showed home resales slipped in March and a report last week that said sentiment among homebuilders dropped in April for a third straight month.

"This is a good report that supports the view that at least one part of the economy is not being battered too greatly by Washington's attacks on growth," said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. "The housing recovery keeps on going, but don't expect further surges in activity."

The momentum in the housing market has slowed somewhat because of a lack of supply of homes for sale in some major regions. Last month, there 153,000 new homes on the market, not far from record lows.

The inventory represents sales supply for only 4.4 months, below the six months that is normally considered a healthy balance between supply and demand.

Another report, from the Federal Housing Finance Administration, showed prices for houses financed with mortgages that have been sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rose 0.7 percent in February after advancing 0.6 percent in January.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani in Washington; Additional reporing by Steven C Johnson in New York and Margaret Chadbourn in Washington; editing by Andrea Ricci and Leslie Adler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/factory-activity-six-month-low-april-markit-130145227--business.html

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Challenge Winner: Mount Your Camera Almost Anywhere With a Magnet

In this week's MacGyver Challenge, we asked you to hack something using old computer parts. We received some great entries, but the winning hack shows us a great way to mount your camera almost anywhere for that perfect shot.

Check out the description of the winning entry below and read about some of our other favorite entries.

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Winner: Mount Your Camera Almost Anywhere Using a Hard Drive Magnet

Not always able to find the perfect spot for a tripod or minipod, Alex421 had a clever idea. Using a rare-earth magnet from an old hard disk drive (the mechanical kind, not an SSD) and the top of a minipod, he created a magnetic mount that lets him place his camera almost anywhere. He discovered that there are an amazingly large number of metal things sticking out of the ground and buildings all over most cities, offering him a nearby base for his camera wherever he happens to be.

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Honorable Mentions

We got a lot of great entries and we'd be remiss if we didn't share some of our favorites. Here are some of the entries that really impressed us.

Make a Magnetic Smartphone Dock

John wanted a clean way to mount his smartphone in his car?one that didn't involve suction cups, specialized cases and mounts, or blocking his air vents. He settled on using the rare earth magnets from old hard drives, since they are super strong. First, he placed two of the magnets together (matching polarities) to make a very strong magnet. John removed the bezel from his dashboard, secured the double magnet to the back of that with superglue and duct tape, and replaced the bezel.

For the phone, he duct taped the magnet to the inside back of his phone case (a very slim model). It took a little experimenting to find the right place for the magnet on the case. John wanted it to hold the phone in the vertical position and not rotate on hard turns. Finally, he ran a power cable from the back of the head unit (in-dash stereo) under the dash.

A couple of warnings, though, if you want to try this one at home. While the magnets don't seem to interfere with his signals, they do prevent the compass from working properly. Also, if you have a phone with NFC, the magnets would likely interfere with that signal. And, you'll probably want to keep your phone away from credit cards?or any cards with a mag stripe.

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Reorient Your Toilet Paper Holder

Shaun and his wife could never agree on which way the toilet paper should go on the holder (one's an over; one's an under). Seeking a lasting peace, Shaun decided the only solution was to reorient the toilet paper holder altogether. Their's was a simple arm-style holder with a free end, so it was easy to rotate it 90 degrees to point up. The only problem was that without a proper base, the toilet paper leaned awkwardly when in place. Shaun's solution? He fixed the platter from an old hard drive onto the arm to serve as a stable base for the toilet paper. It (and presumably the marriage) has worked perfectly ever since.

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Make a Clock From an Old Hard Drive

Amitai makes clocks out of old hard drives. He pretty much fully dissembles the drive to build in the clock mechanism, but part of the charm is that he also tries to waste as little of the actual drive as possible. The results are beautiful. He's put together a step-by-step guide on imgur and he also sells his own clocks on Etsy.

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Special Mention?BioShock Diorama

While it didn't really qualify as a hack, there is no way we were going to let this challenge go by without giving a shout out to RedSuspense. He sent us this picture of a wonderful BioShock-inspired diorama titled Rapture's Playground. As you can see, it's built using some heavily modded detritus from an old PC. Nice work!

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A big thanks to everyone who took the time to send us entries! Be sure to check back every week for a new challenge.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/-WhlZcRztEI/challenge-winner-mount-your-camera-almost-anywhere-wit-478369180

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Chechen relative of Boston suspects alleges Russian plot

By Maria Golovnina

GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) - A member of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers' extended family said they were victims of a Russian plot to portray them as Chechen terrorists operating on U.S. soil.

Said Tsarnaev, who lives in Grozny, the capital of Russia's volatile Chechnya region, on Tuesday accused Moscow of sending false information to the United States to frame the suspects, ethnic Chechen brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

He said Moscow wanted to convince the West that an Islamist insurgency being waged across Russia's North Caucasus had gone global, resulting in an attack on an American target.

"It would not have happened without the involvement of the Russian side," Tsarnaev, 56, told Reuters in his home in Grozny.

"Russia needed to show the West, including the United States, that Chechens are terrorists ... They needed to blacken their reputation and present these two people and the Chechen people as a whole as terrorists. This is why it all happened."

The Kremlin and Russian law enforcement agencies were not immediately available for comment.

The United States has accused Russia of using heavy-handed tactics against the insurgency but President Vladimir Putin says the West underestimates the security challenge faced by Moscow.

Convincing foreign governments that they also face a security threat from the Islamist insurgents in the North Caucasus might be seen by Moscow as a way of gaining a free hand to act against the insurgency.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the grandchildren of Said Tsarnaev's cousin, are accused of planting two improvised explosive devices near the marathon finish line in Boston, killing three people and injuring 282.

Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police and Dzhokhar was captured after a manhunt.

DEVOUT MUSLIMS

Said Tsarnaev, a local photojournalist who has worked for various publications including Reuters, echoed views expressed by others in their close-knit family who have denied that the brothers carried out the bombings.

Tsarnaev, who has documented the Chechen conflict as a journalist, appeared intense but calm as he told his story in the large house where he and his family have lived for decades after returning from the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan.

His family belongs to a Chechen diaspora dating back to the 1940s when Soviet leader Josef Stalin deported most of Chechnya's population to Central Asia over concerns they were collaborating with the advancing Nazi army.

He said he had never met Tamerlan and denied rumors that he had once travelled to Chechnya. He added that the brothers were devout Muslims but that did not make them extremists.

"I can't see anything wrong that, with age, people change their views and turn towards religion," he said.

"They are my relatives and they are part of my people. This is not just my pain, it is the pain of the entire (Chechen) people ... We can only feel sympathy. No one is accusing them of anything here."

Harsh public criticism of Moscow is rare in Chechnya, which is run by Russian loyalists following two wars between Russian forces and Chechen rebels seeking independence.

Said Tsarnaev said he had met Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, before he spoke to Reuters late on Tuesday. He did not make clear what they had discussed.

Defending the brothers, he accused Russia's FSB security service of sending "disinformation" to the United States which portrayed them as extremists, two years ago.

He said the brothers' parents had told him that the pair had been closely watched by the FBI since then.

Tamerlan, who was once a successful amateur boxer, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had lived in the United States for more than a decade but grew up before that in Kyrgyzstan and then, for about a year, in the Dagestan region that borders Chechnya.

"A FOREIGN COUNTRY"

Said Tsarnaev's brother Zhamal, speaking alongside him, said Tamerlan had visited his family in Dagestan last year and had not wanted to return to the United States, but his family insisted he go back to try to obtain U.S. citizenship.

"He said, 'I won't go. I want to stay here'. So he (Tamerlan's father) said he had to force him to go back.

"Tamerlan would sit at home all day long or go out to practice boxing. Sometimes on Friday he went to (the mosque)," Zhamal said.

"He said to his father, 'Let me bring my family (from the United States) and move here'."

Said Tsarnaev nodded and added: "He just felt he was in a foreign country ... So they did not want to live there. They felt it wasn't their thing."

He said he believed that Western accusations of human rights violations committed on Chechen territory had prompted Moscow to come up with the alleged plan to frame the brothers.

"They (Russians) continue to portray Chechens as terrorists and bandits here. And America has continued to accuse the Russian side of violating Chechens' rights," he said.

"The plan was to show the West that Chechens are not kind and good people but that they are terrorists, even in America."

He said he would travel to Dagestan to meet the Tsarnaev brothers' father, Anzor, on Wednesday.

"I don't have any goals or missions," he said. "As a relative I want to see him to express my condolences for the death of his son. I have to be with this man."

(Writing by Maria Golovnina. Editing by Timothy Heritage and Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chechen-relative-boston-suspects-alleges-russian-plot-004618239.html

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Honor among (credit card) thieves?

Apr. 22, 2013 ? A Michigan State University criminologist dug into the seamy underbelly of online credit card theft and uncovered a surprisingly sophisticated network of crooks that is unique in the cybercrime domain.

The thieves, Thomas Holt found, run an online marketplace for stolen credit data similar to eBay or Amazon where reputations drive sales. Thieves sell data and money laundering services, advertised via web forums, and send and receive payments electronically or through an intermediary. They even provide feedback on transactions to help weed out sellers who cannot be trusted to deliver the illegal goods.

Holt's study, funded by the National Institute of Justice, is published in the research journal Global Crime.

"These aren't just 15-year-olds stealing credit card info online and using it to buy pornography," said Holt, associate professor of criminal justice. "These are thieves who come to trust one another. There's a layer of sophistication here that can't be understated, that's very different than what we think about with other forms of crime."

First, credit card information is stolen from an individual or group. Tactics can include hacking into the database of a bank, retailer or other service provider; sending emails to consumers masquerading as a bank to acquire sensitive details such as usernames and passwords (called phishing); and skimming. Examples of skimming include attaching a hard-to-spot device on an ATM machine or a crooked waiter who wears an electronic belt that can capture a card's details.

The thief then advertises his haul in an online forum, with details such as card type, country of origin and asking price. Holt said a Visa Classic card, for example, might go for $5 to $20 per card, with a price discount for buying large amounts of data.

The winning buyer finalizes the deal online and sends the money through an electronic payment service. If the seller isn't known or trusted, a middleman, called a guarantor, is used to assure the data is good before payment is sent -- minus a fee.

For the buyers, there is any number of illicit service providers to then help them make purchases in a way that doesn't raise suspicion or to pull money directly from the accounts -- minus a fee.

All of this is done in a rather democratic fashion -- unlike, say, the hierarchical structure of the mafia, said Holt, who monitored two English-language and two Russian-language forums for the study.

Some policymakers have called for flooding the online forums with bogus comments in an attempt to build mistrust and bring them down. But Holt said this strategy won't necessarily work for organized forums with managers who can monitor and remove comments as in the forums he sampled.

A better strategy, he said, might be for law enforcement authorities to infiltrate the sophisticated networks with a long-term undercover operation. It's a challenge, but one that might be more effective than other strategies called for by researchers.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Michigan State University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Thomas J. Holt. Exploring the social organisation and structure of stolen data markets. Global Crime, 2013; : 1 DOI: 10.1080/17440572.2013.787925

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/5O3UUeCXaoM/130422111244.htm

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First 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Clip Turns Up The Heat On Spock

The action-packed snippet from the J.J. Abrams sequel puts the entire crew at risk.
By Kevin P. Sullivan, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706145/star-trek-into-darkness-spock-clip.jhtml

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Foxwoods Partners With GameAccount to Offer Online Gaming in US

April 22 2013, Pamela Maldonado

On Monday, Connecticut-based Foxwoods Resort Casino announced a partnership with GameAccount Network to deliver online gaming opportunities to the United States market.

The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation (MPTN), which owns and operates Foxwoods, said it would initially focus on play-money games until legislation allows real-money wagering in the U.S. The agreement is subject to regulatory approval, but MPTN said it would release a play-for-fun gaming site at some point this year.

The agreement includes business-to-business (B2B) operations and will provide turnkey online gaming solutions for other Indian casinos and gaming operators.

According to the tribe, Foxwoods.com attracts one million unique monthly visitors.

As of yet, Connecticut legislation has not discussed the allowance of real-money online gaming within the state, nor has the state indicated whether the issue would be brought into discussion within the future.

New Jersey, Delaware, and Nevada are the only states that regulate online wagering in the U.S. New Jersey and Delaware offer casino games; Nevada only allows online poker.

Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation commented, ?The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation is thrilled to announce our proposed partnership with GameAccount. The Mashantucket Pequot Tribe has long been a leader in brick-and-mortar casino operations, and with the help of GameAccount, we aim to take the same leadership position in regulated online gaming in the US. Our shared vision unites GameAccount's technical capabilities with our Foxwoods brand and our leadership in casino management.?

GameAccount is an online gaming software supplier focusing its efforts on regulated markets. The company offers a fully-integrated online gaming platform of casino and mobile skill games, as well as the ability to convert land-based slots into online games.

?As one of the first European Internet gaming system suppliers that moved into the United States in advance of intra-State regulation in 2011, we have developed the specialist experience, expertise and technical functionality required to serve Foxwoods from a hardware platform located on-property in Connecticut," said Dermot Smurfit, GameAccount's CEO. "We're delighted that this experience and our unique capabilities will support our new strategic partner Foxwoods as they build a new Internet gaming business in one of the World's most exciting emerging regulated Internet gaming markets."

Monday's agreement comes just a few months after Foxwoods? southeastern Connecticut rival, Mohegan Sun, signed a deal with Amaya Gaming (now owned by Bally Technologies) to provide free-play online poker. That deal, made in November last year, was the first agreement of its kind made by an East Coast casino bringing online gaming and poker to the U.S.

For news, updates, and more follow PokerNews on Twitter and Facebook.

Follow Pamela Maldonado on

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Source: http://www.pokernews.com/news/2013/04/foxwoods-partners-with-gameaccount-to-offer-online-gaming-14818.htm

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Street Art the Focus of New Documentary | Stuff.co.nz

It is easy to think of street art as something that sprawls naturally through a city. Like ivy, one rarely gets to witness the aerosol cans being sprayed by artists in hoods and overalls and filter masks scaling buildings in all weather with ropes, stepladders, scissor lifts and buckets and cans of colours.

In October 2011, film-maker Karl Sheridan and artist Cinzah Merkens began exploring the people behind New Zealand's urban murals and graffiti art, conducting 22 interviews with 26 artists over 12 months, including on artists Jon Drypnz, Mica Still and BMD in Wellington.

The resulting documentary, Dregs, premiered in Wellington in November last year. It is the first time a feature-length documentary had been made about Kiwi street art.

"It hadn't been done before," says Sheridan, who also runs a shared studio and gallery called Monster Valley in Auckland. "Dregs was about uncovering a scene that hadn't been researched much by an outsider, and I thought it was important to give some insight to people who didn't really know the street art scene."

Sheridan hopes that through the doco, viewers might gain a greater understanding of the street art community "and possibly not be as prejudice towards aerosol art".

To fund Dregs, Sheridan and Merkens ran a campaign through crowd-funding website PledgeMe, exceeding their target of just under $5500. "We were always going to do it as a self-funded film . . . it was always a project that we were going to do on our own terms," says Sheridan.

Crowd funding allowed the co-directors to complete a three-week road trip through the length of the country. "After the road trip people started to see that we were serious about the project and we got a bit more [corporate] sponsorship from there."

During the trip, Sheridan says the pair filmed and spent time with as many artists as they could, "meeting their friends and families as well as going and staying in their homes, seeing work places and hanging out around painting spots". Several of the artists interviewed also reflect the street artist penchant for using a pseudonym including Flox, Cracked Ink, Ghostie, and Merkens himself, who for street art goes under the name of Seekayem.

In Dregs, the audio from the resulting interviews runs over Sheridan's footage of these artists at work in studios and out on walls in public spaces. There are slick shots of artists working with scalpels and spray cans from studios and scaffolding to a soundtrack of Kiwi music. Through the documentary, each artist tells their story, including how they got into street art.

Many have the same starting point, doodling in exercise books while at school. There is no shortage of fast cars, "babes", ninjas and aliens drawn in the margins. The artists also reveal how they make their living, many of whom are professional illustrators, students and teachers. One artist talks about how being able to paint legally, in daylight, with "gorgeous paint" while on a community service sentence was a "game changer" for him.

Each interview also includes artists' perspectives on the New Zealand street art scene in relation to the rest of the world. Many have visited the hotspots: Berlin, Melbourne, New York and Mexico, and speak of the pros and cons of our isolation. One artist comments that having smaller and spread-out groups of street artists results in a scene that is perhaps less cohesive, but with a distinct artistic style. Another wants to see business owners more open to murals on their buildings.

Though he sees advantages and disadvantages to isolation, Sheridan shares the belief with his interviewees that "our work here stands up to anywhere else in the world".

THE DETAILS

Dregs on DVD is available from dregs.co.nz

- ? Fairfax NZ News

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Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/8580233/Art-examined-at-street-level

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