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• Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ARNA) Obesity Pills Wins Over FDA Panel More...

Since last few months, if we follow the technology news  headlines, one will find that there was a daily or weekly announcements about new technology, smart phones, tablets, electronic gadgets, computers, softwares, social networks. The Question is Do people can have enough time to catch up and get used to the technology that has just announced? May be not..

If we see the Apple's igadgets ( iPhone, iPad, Macbook, iPad, iOS ), users need to learn a new kind of technology to maximize its utilization. Then it has started different versions of all gadgets. Users don't get enough time to just learn the basic version and they were hammered with new versions. There are thousands of webs, that are providing information about them. These courses are so tough and without credits that can count towards your graduate studies, but one has to learn it to use it. It means human learning power increased in multiple times and continued the trend till the end of human life.

Examples of social media like Renren, Facebook, Google Plus, Linkedin, pinterest and others, There are so many announcements about them and users have to follow them to use them. It may be holding a public interest to some extent for now, as they are not tired of following new changes, but the question is will it last forever? Will users continue to be enthusiastic forever? or may be it is the hype that is creating a tech bubble. We don't know the answer as of yet. When people will find other important things to take care of in life or may be tired of following everything, they might stick to one technology and will started hating the change. It will lead to a tech bubble bursting. Social media are just a medium of sharing life, it won't help to fulfill the responsibility of one's own life and family life. For example if you haven't any job and you are in economic crisis, you can't just follow social networks. You need to put aside the things and seriously looking for any activity.

Also Read Facebook IPO should get Sell rating for long term 

Announcements of Blackberry phones,Windows Phones, iPhones, Androids, Baidu Phones, Facebook Smart Phones catching eyes of users for now, but it is like each and every different university course, that one should learn in his life. Do human lives can sustain their interest on a daily or let's say weekly basis? Technology is making life easier but on the contrary side making life complicated by providing updates and innovation without giving enough time to adopt it. As a psychological level, I think it won't sustain and might get stagnant as people realize the way it is complicating your life.

Same case with tablets from iPad to Samsung's touch pads and now in a cheaper range of Ubislate and other companies. There is a daily announcement about a tablet or an app for tablet. People don't understand that why they have to keep following, as whatever they will learn today might be updated or changed tomorrow.

All of above arguments might not portray any picture of future of technology, but certainly raise a valid arguments to be answered by users in a coming years.

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India Inc has released IIP numbers on friday that are disappointing and many experts think that Economy may required stimulus to boost the growth that is already cooling off due to policies and Global uncertainties. If we see the comparison of IIP numbers MoM basis, Then since last year, we will see the trend is fluctuating not deteriorating. See the chart here ( Source : CSO ). One should notice that growth is not picking up and doesn't conclude that it started declining as general index is still at 186.4 which is just close to 11 month high.

As many news headlines has shown the picture in a different ( negative ) way and put it as a big question mark about Indian Growth story. The figures are maintaining little below of 11 month high. Although it is less than March 2011 but the trend is not negative. Stocks should not get punished based on IIP numbers data, but global factors like Europe and US will decide next course of the markets.

See below Table for comparison.

	General	Mining	Mfg	Electricity
Mar-12	186.4	149.3	197.1	158.6
Feb-12	174.9	134.8	186.5	145.1
Jan-12	187.9	137.2	202.4	151.1
Dec-11	178.8	136.2	190.7	149.8
Nov-11	167.4	127.6	177.8	145.6
Oct-11	158.1	120.9	165.9	152.1
Sep-11	163.2	111	175.7	144.1
Aug-11	162.4	117.6	172.6	149.4
Jul-11	166.6	126.7	176	152.1
Jun-11	170.3	126	182.1	144.3
May-11	165.3	130.4	173.4	153.3
Apr-11	167.8	129.1	178	146

Qualcomm's prototype tablet houses Snapdragon S4 mobile processor which is capable of full 1080p HD 3D playback, recording and even offers real-time 2D to 3D conversion.

Qualcomm has displayed world's first auto stereoscopic 3D tablet at the on-going CTIA-Wireless 2012 convention which has started on May 9. At the convention, Qualcomm has demonstrated the prowess of the Snapdragon S4 MSM8690 mobile processor that runs the 3D tablet. Phandroid managed to capture a video showcasing the auto stereoscopic 3D tablet.

Qualcomm stall at the CTIA Wireless 2012 in New Orleans, USA had put a tablet for demonstration. This tablet was running the new Snapdragon S4 mobile processor and its intention was to show the 3D capabilities of the chip. As per Phandroid, it was world's first auto stereoscopic 3D tablet but it was just a prototype.

At this moment, the Nintendo 3DS offers the auto stereoscopic 3D experience using parallax barrier. A parallax barrier is a device placed in front of an image source, such as a liquid crystal display, to allow it to show a stereoscopic image without the need for the viewer to wear 3D glasses.

The technology used in the Qualcomm tablet is different from the LG Optimus Pad 3D. The difference lies in the usage of optical gear and the special glasses layer to show the real 3D depths on the display.

The Qualcomm's prototype tablet did not require any 3D glasses to be used for enjoying the 3D content. Also it was able to convert the 2D content to 3D. This prototype glasses free 3D promising tablet supported 1920x1200 pixel resolution natively.

The tablet could also capture stereoscopic 3D and playback the same on the display in high definition. Even 2D videos can recording and used to playback in 3D with real-time conversion on the chipset. Apart from video, the tablet even does real-time 3D game conversion.

Qualcomm certainly has surprised several by showing the true potential of the Snapdragon S4 processor and also hint what consumers can expect in near future.

TGO Green Energy Gym Technology harnesses people power with cardio outdoor gym equipment and then converts it into useable electricity.

At the Hull Green Heart, the human-generated electricity is used for lighting the zone at night time, to extend the usage of the facility into the evenings. But there are many more potential uses for the electricity – it can be fed into local buildings or even into the National Grid.

Georgie Delaney, Creative Director of The Great Outdoor Gym Company: “Hull City Council was a natural first choice for the pilot of our Green Energy Gym Technology, having successfully worked with us on eight adiZones and outdoor gyms across Hull. The Green Heart in Hull will be showcased all over the world. We aim to have Green Energy Gyms right across the UK, where people can keep fit and recycle the energy they burn off into electricity.”

TGO Green Energy Technology includes: Energy cross trainers; Energy hand bikes; Energy fitness bikes; Energy recumbent bikes; People Power Display Wall (measuring the power and energy generated by TGO outdoor gym equipment);

A health commitment...


The Green Heart in Hull also features Chief Medical Officer guidelines, scales, height measure, BMI index measure to encourage the local community to take those first steps towards healthy living – it’s all about wellness and forms part of TGO’s Responsibility Deal work with the Department of Health.

Mitch Upfold, Economic Regeneration Manager at Hull City Council, said: “We are pleased to be piloting TGO’s Green Heart scheme which is a great example of how local authorities can promote public health.”

It’s green, it’s shiny and it lights up at night.

It’s great for your health and it generates electricity.

It encourages kids and adults alike to learn about their health, energy generation and energy consumption.

It’s the Green Heart at Shaw Park, Hull.

Today, the FBI is doing something it rarely does — talking, in public, about spies.

In a nationwide advertising campaign launching today that includes bus shelters, billboards and a website, the FBI is targeting corporate espionage — and encouraging employees of American corporations to be wary of spies in their midst.

“We’re doing something we’ve never done before, and it’s almost counterintuitive in the espionage business,” FBI Counterintelligence Assistant director Frank Figliuzzi told CNBC Thursday. “We’re talking to the general public about the threat from economic espionage.”

The FBI says the sheer scale of economic espionage against the nation’s top companies threatens America’s economic and technical dominance of the global economy.

According to Figliuzzi, the current FBI caseload shows that secrets worth more than $13 billion have been stolen from American companies — often by insiders or former insiders at the companies that have been victimized. The FBI says its arrests for economic espionage have doubled in the last four years, and that it has already surpassed last year’s arrest total halfway through this fiscal year.

Figliuzzi said espionage has changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War. “The target has changed to unclassified or what I like to call pre-classified technology, data research, the things that we all have at our place of employment, and we need to make the general public aware that the threat is to them and where they work,” Figliuzzi said. “They want what America has.”

The billboards and bus shelters will be visible in cities and regions that the FBI chose for their high concentrations of government contractors, including Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and North Carolina.

In recent months, US law enforcement agencies have wrestled with a large variety of corporate espionage cases that affected companies as diverse asBridgestone, DuPont, and Motorola.

In February, a federal grand jury in San Francisco charged five people and five companies with economic espionage and theft of trade secrets for trying to obtain secrets surrounding the development of chloride-route titanium dioxide (TiO2), a white pigment with various industrial uses. Among those charged were two former DuPont employees. In that case, the U.S. government said that the government of the People’s Republic of China had specifically targeted the TiO2 production capabilities for exploitation.

Also that month, a former software engineer for Motorola was found guilty of stealing trade secrets from that company. The Defendant, Hanjuan Jin, possessed more than 1,000 proprietary documents when she was stopped by U.S. customs officials while attempting to travel on a one-way ticket to China in 2007, the government said.

In April, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio charged Dr. Xiaorong Wang with theft of trade secrets from Bridgestone. Wang was a former research scientist at the Bridgestone Center for Research and Technology in Akron, Ohio from May 1995 until he was terminated on April 14, 2010, the government said.

And in one of the most high-profile cases to date, satellite scientist Stewart David Nozette was sentenced in March to 13 years in prison for attempted espionage and other charges. Nozette was caught on camera in an FBI sting at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, attempting to sell U.S. satellite secrets to a man he believed to be an agent of the Israeli Mossad intelligence service.

“They’re looking for everything from price lists to the latest pharmaceutical research, marketing strategies, new product information — typically whatever you view as your crown jewels at your company is likely the target of foreign economic espionage,” Figliuzzi said.

Although many of the recent cases to surface publicly involve people stealing corporate secrets on behalf of the Chinese, Figliuzzi said the FBI’s latest publicity effort is not specifically targeting any one country.

“What we’re seeing across our caseload is even some of our allies, when it's in their economic interest, will commit economic espionage. They know it’s cheaper to steal our technology than to research and develop it,” Figliuzzi said. “There’s an over-emphasis, I think, on pointing to one or two countries, when we’ve seen a panoply of countries.”

The FBI says foreign spies are interested in a wide range of secret corporate information, including, information and communications technology, sources of scarce natural resources, military technologies, particularly marine systems and unmanned aerial vehicles, and dual-use technologies from the clean energy, pharmaceutical and agriculture sectors.

In its prepared materials, the FBI highlights some of the elements that make up the profile of a potential spy, telling companies to watch out for people exhibiting a range of behaviors, including:

Stock of the biotech company Arena Pharmaceutical Inc ( NASDAQ: ARNA ) soared on friday as its anti obesity drug. Stock Jumped more than 75 % to $6.39.

Arena Pharmaceuticals

See below the News Release:

Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ARNA) (ARNA)’s weight- loss pill gained the backing of an advisory panel, putting two obesity drugs in line for U.S. approval almost two years after regulators rejected them as too risky.

Food and Drug Administration advisers voted 18-4 yesterday that the benefits of Arena’s pill, known as lorcaserin, outweigh the risks. The FDA is scheduled to decide by June 27 on lorcaserin, and doesn’t have to follow the panel’s advice.

Arena, based in San Diego, is competing with Mountain View, California-based Vivus Inc. (VVUS) (VVUS) and Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. (OREX) (OREX), based in La Jolla, California, to introduce the first weight- loss drug since Roche Holding AG’s (ROG) Xenical in 1999. The FDA previously turned down all three drugs. Panel members raised concerns that lorcaserin provides a modest benefit while potentially raising heart risks.

“It’s time to approve this drug,” said Peter Gross, a panel member and chairman of the Hackensack Physician-Hospital Alliance in New Jersey. “We do not put our head in the sand.”

Arena more than doubled in early trading to $7.70 as of 7:28 a.m. New York time. Trading had been halted during the panel’s meeting. The company gained 7 percent May 9 to close at $3.66 in New York.

Panel members suggested that if lorcaserin gains approval, Arena should do follow-up studies on how it affects the heart. The FDA advisers made the same suggestion for a post-market study of Vivus’s pill Qnexa after backing it 20-2 in February. The agency is scheduled to decide on Qnexa by July 17.
Obesity Epidemic

More than 78 million U.S. adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Obesity raises the risks of diabetes, heart attacks and stroke, and costs the U.S. economy an estimated $147 billion a year in medical expenses and lost productivity, according to the CDC.

“The advisory committee’s positive vote supports our belief in lorcaserin as a potential new treatment option,” Jack Lief, Arena’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement. Arena has licensed lorcaserin to Tokyo-based Eisai Co. (4523) to sell in the U.S.

In failing to approve lorcaserin in October 2010, the agency said people didn’t lose enough weight on the medicine to justify the risk of developing cancer associated with the drug. The company resubmitted its application to the FDA for review in January with new data.

New analysis allayed cancer concerns, Abraham Thomas, chairman of the panel and head of the endocrinology and diabetes division at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, said after voting in support of the pill.

Cancer Risks
An FDA staff report May 8 determined the risks of cancer may be smaller than thought. An agency review of the potential for humans developing brain tumors seen in rats tested with lorcaserin found the risk is negligible, agency staff said in the report. They also determined benign breast tumors in rats were more common than malignant ones at all dose levels.

Lorcaserin affects an area of the brain that controls appetite and metabolism, according to Arena. It works in a similar way to fenfluramine, part of the fen-phen appetite- suppression drug combination pulled from pharmacies 15 years ago when it was linked to heart-valve abnormalities.

Some panel members suggested the FDA require lorcaserin to include a risk management plan that possibly screens patients for abnormalities before starting treatments and warns patients about the potential of developing a valve abnormality.
Study Results

Patients who tested Arena’s treatment in three studies lost about 3 percent more of their body weight than those who took a placebo, according to FDA staff. People who took part in trials on Vivus’s Qnexa lost 6.7 percent and 8.9 percent more of their body weight on mid and high doses compared to those who used a placebo, FDA staff said in a Feb. 20 report on the drug.

Panel members who voted against lorcaserin questioned whether the weight loss was enough.

“Weight loss is clinically discernible with lorcaserin but I’m not sure it’s clinically meaningful,” said Sanjay Kaul, a panel member and professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Like Arena’s lorcaserin, the FDA declined to approve Vivus’s Qnexa in October 2010. Orexigen won a panel’s backing in December 2010 before the agency declined to approve the company’s drug, Contrave. Orexigen, developing Contrave with Osaka, Japan-based Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. (4502), agreed in September to conduct a two-year study of the medicine’s heart risks.

With the country's economy in bad shape and the rest of Europe just managing to stay out of recession, a Spanish company in Valencia has courted controversy by offering professional course in prostitution which it says 'guarantees a job offer on graduation'.

"For just €100, students will be taught the history of the world's oldest profession, how to use erotic toys and the most popular positions contained within the Kama Sutra," the Daily Mail reported.

Promotional flyers of the programme flooded the university campus in the coastal city of Valencia.



Though Valencia falls in Catalonia, the part of Spain which is more liberal than the Castillan and Basque regions, The venture has still attracted much criticism. Many in the predominantly Catholic country feel that it is the wrong way to tempt cash-strapped and out-of-work Spaniards.

But the firm said that it will make the trade safer and ensure that 'qualified' sex workers do not have run-ins with the law.

The propreitor of the business said that 95 people, from the age of 19 to 45 years, had signed up for the one-week course, which takes up two hours each day.