ICRA Report on Downstream Natural Gas, Oct 20, 2011 [2 Attachments]
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Ballooning Natural Gas Supply-Demand Deficit to Fuel LNG Imports: ICRA
The Way Forward: Measuring the Impact of Short-Term and Structural Growth Drivers on Emerging Market Investing
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" The prospect of a potential recession in both...
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Nokia, The world's largest cellphone maker will unveil its first phones using Microsoft software on Wednesday, hoping they will kick-start a rescue of its ailing smartphone business.
Nokia is widely expected to launch two to three new models using the software, including the Searay which was first shown in a leaked video months ago and looks very similar to its current N9 handset.
The Finnish company, left in the dust by Apple and Google in the booming smartphone market, decided to ditch its aging Symbian platform in favor of Microsoft's software in a risky deal in February that spooked investors.
Nokia has not rushed with the new phones.
Nimbler rivals HTC, Fujitsu and Samsung Electronics have beaten it with models using the latest Windows software, Mango.
Nokia and Microsoft have said they would focus on close co-operation with operators to support the platform.
"Operators really want to have another company on the scene: they don't want Google and Apple to rule the mobile universe," said Magnus Jern, chief executive of Barcelona-based mobile app development firm Golden Gekko.
Analyst Carolina Milanesi from research firm Gartner said Nokia should price its first models below those of Samsung and HTC, and then market them heavily.
"Price is going to be the key — you need to give a bit of the carrot to consumers and developers," she said.
Nokia's market value has halved since February as investors are unsure whether it can ever regain the market share it has lost.
Its third-quarter results beat low expectations, sparking hopes that the company can survive a painful revamp, but smartphone sales still dropped 38 percent from a year ago.
Nokia said last week that its first Windows phone would reach selected markets this year, but declined to say whether more than one model would be launched this week.
With Microsoft software, Nokia hopes to gain the kind of attention Apple and Google have attracted from software developers that enrich their devices.
There are some initial positive signs.
"We are seeing Windows being acknowledged as platform No 3," said Golden Gekko's Jern, adding that Microsoft and Nokia, are subsidizing app development to kick-start the new platform.
"We are working on 10 applications of which five are paid by Nokia," Jern said.
Research firm Strategy Analytics expects Microsoft to double its share of the Western European smartphone market during 2012 to 12.3 percent, helped by the Nokia partnership.
The 12.3 percent forecast for Microsoft's software refers to its use across several mobile phone makers and compares with the much higher market share Nokia's Symbian platform alone previously enjoyed — it controlled 41 percent of the West European market as recently as the first half of 2010.
The annual Nokia World media and industry event in London on Wednesday includes speakers from the world's largest carriers: China Mobile, Vodafone, Orange and MTN.
Heineken reaffirms outlook as Q3 beer volumes rise !
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Bringing intellectual property protectionism to a new level of absurdity, someone has applied to trademark 'Occupy Wall Street.'
From The Smoking Gun: Citing the potential of “Occupy Wall Street” to become a “global brand,” a Long Island couple has filed to trademark the name of the amorphous organization responsible for the protests and encampments in lower Manhattan and other U.S. cities, The Smoking Gun has learned. In a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) application, Robert and Diane Maresca are seeking to trademark the phrase “Occupy Wall St.” so that they can place it on a wide variety of goods, including bumper stickers, shirts, beach bags, footwear, umbrellas, and hobo bags.
From The Smoking Gun: Citing the potential of “Occupy Wall Street” to become a “global brand,” a Long Island couple has filed to trademark the name of the amorphous organization responsible for the protests and encampments in lower Manhattan and other U.S. cities, The Smoking Gun has learned. In a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) application, Robert and Diane Maresca are seeking to trademark the phrase “Occupy Wall St.” so that they can place it on a wide variety of goods, including bumper stickers, shirts, beach bags, footwear, umbrellas, and hobo bags.
MF Global Holdings Inc ( NYSE : MF ), Top loser of Tuesday's trading session.
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MF Global Holdings Inc ( NYSE : MF )...
Read moreAfter Hours Loser AMAZON Inc ( NASDAQ: AMZN ), Down 14 % as Q3 results disappoints.
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Amazon Inc ( NASDAQ: AMZN ) was down more...
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The next time you get your phone bill, check the total amount due. If it’s a little higher than usual, you may have fallen prey to an identity theft scam known as “cramming,” in which unauthorized fees are charged to a customer’s land line or cell phone account. The crammer gets away with it because the fees are usually too small to notice.
Those small charges can add up: Cramming costs Americans as much as $2 million a year, according to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Crammers ply their trade through third-party billing. Carriers, including AT&T and Verizon Communications, allow users to charge third-party services to their phone bills, and they receive more than $1 billion a year to do so by third-party providers.
Scammers steal a telephone customer’s personal information, and then tell the carrier that they’ve provided a billable service to the victim. After giving the carrier the victim’s information, the charge is authorized. While the service may be nonexistent, the fraudulent charges are very real.
It’s not just individuals who need to be wary. Businesses are also popular targets for crammers, because their monthly bills are so complicated and the average office is too hectic an environment for every bill to receive close scrutiny.
“With today’s economy, where employees are often doing the job of two or more people, bills are not audited as closely as they may have been in the past,” according to Michael Bremmer, CEO of Telecomquotes.com. He notes that crammers often add fraudulent charges to a single business under multiple names and in varying amounts, thereby obscuring their identities and making it harder for auditors to detect.
Businesses and individuals alike can take actions to protect themselves from cramming. Susan Grant, director of consumer protection for the watchdog group Consumer Federation of America, recommends avoiding free trial offers, whose buy-now-pay-later structure is not always disclosed.
“The way that these offers are structured is that after the trial period is over, the charges begin,” she says. Grant also recommends that consumers simply take the time to closely examine their bills every month in order to detect third-party charges that they don’t recognize.
Of course, the most effective way to guard against cramming is to make sure it doesn’t happen in the first place. Customers can instruct their carriers to block all third-party charges on both cell phone and land line accounts, but even those who have found unauthorized charges on their bills can still take action.
“Contact both the third party company — as they provide their customer-service number on the invoice — and the local phone company which allowed the charges to be applied,” says Steve Reifel, president of business consulting firm Cost Containment Solutions. “Issue a formal complaint with the carrier, as they will remove from the invoice and block that company from issuing any further charges.”
Telephone customers who want to go further than their own carriers can also contact their elected representatives and tell them to pass legislation to end the practice of third-party billing. Contact information for all 540 members of the 112th Congress can be found at the "Contact Elected Officials" page of the USA.gov website.