President Barack Obama held a press conference on Friday and he was asked his "reaction to the news that Mitt Romney is thinking about running for president again."
The question, which came from ABC News' Jonathan Karl, drew laughs from the audience. So did the president's reaction.
"I have no comment," Obama said while smiling broadly.
Though he didn't say anything about his thoughts on Romney considering another presidential campaign, Obama's expression seemed to speak volumes:
Footage has emerged from Henan Province, China of a restaurant using a robotic waitress to serve food and greet customers.
The video shows the human-sized robot is automatically carrying dishes around the dining area of the restaurant. The owner of the restaurant spent $13,053 to buy the robot.
Produced by Jason Gaines. Video courtesy of Associated Press.
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An advanced party of Chinese peacekeepers is in South Sudan and the rest of the 700-strong contingent is due to arrive by early April, a UN official told Reuters on Friday, part of a surge in a UN mission to protect civilians in a nation mired in conflict.
Fighting in the oil-producing nation, which is one of the world's poorest, has killed more than 10,000 people, driven more than a million from their homes and left many without enough food. Fighting erupted in December 2013 in South Sudan, which won independence from Sudan in 2011, after months of political tension between President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy and political rival, Riek Machar.
The conflict has reopened deep tensions among ethnic groups, pitting Kiir's Dinka against Machar's Nuer. Now, a Chinese battalion will join in the UN's efforts to protect civilians amid the fledgling nation's ongoing conflict.
"We had an advanced party of 18 members of the incoming battalion arrive on Jan. 9 to begin preparations for delivery of contingent-owned equipment," Brian Kelly, an spokesman for the UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), told Reuters.
He said some of the equipment had already landed in Entebbe, in neighboring Uganda.
"Overall deployment of the 700-strong Chinese infantry battalion and its equipment will take more than two months to complete," he said, adding 180 troops would be in the South Sudanese capital Juba by the end of February with 520 more arriving by late March or early April.
China is a major investor in South Sudan's oil industry. This will mark the first deployment of Chinese infantry battallion as part of a UN peacekeeping mission, highlighting China's deepening interests in Africa — and its particular stake in South Sudan.
In 2011 5% of China's oil imports came from the united Sudan, which split with South Sudan's secession in 2011. Chinese companies own a 40% stake of a joint partnership to explore South Sudan's oil resources, and had a similar 40% share in Sudan's pre-breakup state oil company.
Oil is China's major interest in its relationship with the Sudans and the south's current civil war jeopardizes extractive industries in both countries. The war has impacted oil flows to the point where the pipeline connecting the south to northern ports and terminals is barely operable, a problem that could limit production on both sides of the border. Meanwhile, the end of the rainy season means that fighting in the civil war will likely resume, further threatening the country's oil resources.
Even if the Chinese battallion is only deployed to Juba for the time being, it could free up additional peacekeepers for the oil-producing parts of the country where combat has been at its most intense. The deployment allows China with the rare opportunity to act like a constructive global citizen while also protecting its national interests.
Some of the worst fighting in the nation of 11 million people has been in Jonglei state and the two oil producing states of Unity and Upper Nile.
Linda Etim, USAID deputy assistant administrator for affairs, said on Friday nearly half of the population in those three areas was projected to face a food security emergency, according to Reuters.
"The malnutrition situation is classified as critical or very critical in more than half of the country," she said.
Although the warring parties have agreed to ceasefires — the first deal reached in January 2014, a month after fighting erupted — the deals have been regularly flouted. Fighting has picked up after a lull during rains that ended late last year.
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the peacekeepers were "in the process of gradually being deployed," without giving more detail, Reuters reported.
(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Nairobi and Michael Martina in Beijing; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Next weekend George Lucas will be releasing a new film, but it won't be to a galaxy far, far away.
Instead, "Strange Magic," a fairytale musical about fairies, goblins, and elves, will be the "Star Wars" creator's first full-length animated feature.
The film seemed to come out of nowhere when Disney announced its January release in November 2014; however, it's a project Lucas has been working on for at least 15 years.
At a press conference for the film Friday afternoon, Business Insider asked Lucas why he would turn down working on more "Star Wars" movies to focus on an animated feature about fairies.
Lucas shared that the movie is really about his three daughters, Amanda, Katie, and newborn Everest, whereas "Star Wars" was about his sons.
He also explained that when he began working on the film, he hadn't sold his company Lucasfilm yet to Disney. After purchasing the company from Lucas in Oct. 2012 for $4 billion, Disney put up the rest of the money to finish Lucas's passion project while Disney took over the reigns on "Star Wars."
Here's Lucas's explanation in full to us. It has been slightly edited for clarity.
Well, originally I had two daughters, and eventually, another daughter. ‘Star Wars’ was for 12-year-old boys. I figured I’d make one for 12-year-old girls. You know, the 12-year-old boy one worked for everybody from eight months to 88 and boys, girls, dogs, whatever. It really worked. So, I said, well, maybe I can do one like this, but it’s slightly more female-centric. [In ‘Strange Magic,’] we still have sword fighting, we still have things, but truly a story that hopefully will work for everybody. But, what’s really something, I said, well, maybe I’ll do this.
And, I just wanted to have fun. I was directing 'Star Wars' while I was doing these. I’d go out and shoot and this movie we’d put it on the shelf for awhile, and the guys would kind of work. I had a little group of guys and girls that were working on this thing.
It’s a project that I’ve been doing for a long time, and then, when it came to sell the company I realized that it wasn’t completely finished, but I said, well, I still want to retire. I’m not going to wait this out. I want to retire now. Time is more important to me than money. And, so, I just did it and hoped that Kathy [Kennedy] and everybody who has been working on the film and everything would follow through and Disney would put up the money to finish it. I mean, it was mostly done, so it wasn’t like they had to put up a whole bunch of money to finish it. It turned out extremely well. It’s what I envisioned, but, I know it’s been … maybe two years since I sold the company, but time moves very slow in animation.
"Strange Magic" is in theaters Jan. 23.
You can watch the trailer below.
SEE ALSO: George Lucas originally wanted to direct "Star Wars: Episode VII"
The running joke in news is that companies dump news when people aren't looking, like before holidays or on Friday nights before long weekends.
AT&T met the latter criteria this week.
On Friday night, AT&T disclosed that in the fourth quarter, it will take a $7.9 billion noncash, pretax loss related to an adjustment in assumptions made for its pension plan.
The company announced that on Dec. 31, it adjusted its assumed discount rate for its pension obligation to 4.3%. Previously, the company had used a 5% discount rate, according to its most recent 10-K filed with the SEC.
The discount rate used to measure a pension obligation is what the company assumes the pension fund will return over time in order to meet its obligations. Cutting this rate means that, basically, AT&T's pension fund is expected to yield less now than it was previously, and so as a result the company will have to put additional capital into the fund to meet its future obligations.
The company also said that contributing to the loss were "updated mortality assumptions," which means that people covered under AT&T's pension plan are now living longer.
And in addition to the pension adjustment, AT&T disclosed that its Q4 results will include a $2.1 billion charge due to the abandonment of network assets after the company determined that some copper assets won't be needed to support its network in the future.
Shares of AT&T were little changed in after-hours trade on Friday, as these kinds of impairments and hiccups can't be totally unexpected for a company that employed more than 240,000 at the end of 2013 and has a market cap of more than $170 billion.
On Twitter, Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal noted that in January 2013, the company also took a $10 billion pension charge.
But still, this isn't the best news, and burying news on a Friday night can give the impression that a company is hoping not everyone notices. Or something like that.
You can read AT&T's filing with the SEC here »
(via @TheStalwart)
SEE ALSO: Jeff Gundlach's Presentation Outlining His View For 2015
It's not easy to know exactly where each Supreme Court justice stands on the issue of same-sex marriage.
But it's important to find out what we can, now that we know the Supreme Court is going to rule on the issue this term.
Our best way may just be an examination of how each has weighed in on other elements of the marriage equality issue.
In June 2013, the court ruled 5-to-4 in the case of United States v. Windsor, striking down a portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
That's a 1996 law that effectively denied same-sex couples federal marriage benefits – even in states where same-sex marriage is legal – because DOMA defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. In it, he said DOMA denying gay couples those rights amounts to federal law viewing same-sex unions as less meaningful under the law.
He punctuated his opinion with this statement: "The federal statute is invalid...the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity."
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagen joined the majority.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote the dissenting opinion, rejecting the notion that DOMA has anything to do with personhood and dignity. Roberts also suggested the question of marriage equality has too many nuances for the Supreme Court to issue any blanket rulings. 
Justice Samuel A. Alito added to Justice Robert's opinion, saying "I hope that the Court will ultimately permit the people of each State to decide this question for themselves."
Alito appears to be firm in his view that states should be the ones to decide these issues. In July last year, Alito denied a request from a county clerk in Pennsylvania who wanted the Supreme Court to stop same-sex marriages there.
Justice Antonin Scalia also added to Roberts' dissenting opinion, scolding the Court for even taking the DOMA case, and questioning its authority to strike down "democratically-adopted legislation."
Justice Clarence Thomas cosigned the dissenting opinion.
In the court order announcing the new case Friday, the Court made clear it will be answering the larger constitutional questions surrounding gay marriage. Specifically, the justices will rule on two questions; whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires "a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex" and whether it requires states to "recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state."
SEE ALSO: The Supreme Court Announces It Will Rule On Gay Marriage This Term
Linus Torvalds, the internationally famous creator of the Linux operating system (which powers your Android phone and most of the internet), does not in way, shape or form suffer from Imposter's Syndrome.
But he regularly inflicts it on others.
Imposter Syndrome is the nagging fear that everyone is really better than you, and it drives many a programmer crazy.
The combination of his offbeat sense of humor, his confrontational style, and his major potty mouth has made a lot of people angry at him.
He'll tell you he doesn't care. In fact, an "I don't care about you" statement actually started the latest brouhaha.
On Thursday, Torvalds was speaking at a Linux conference in New Zealand when people asked him about his infamous rants on the Linux mailing list, and about diversity in the Linux world (where women and minorities are appallingly scarce).
His answers were flip, as reported by Ars Technica's Sam Machkovech:
"Some people think I'm nice and are shocked when they find out different," Torvalds said in response (quoted via multiple Twitter accounts of the event). "I'm not a nice person, and I don't care about you. I care about the technology and the kernel—that's what's important to me."
... and on diversity, he said:
"the most important part of open source is that people are allowed to do what they are good at" and "all that [diversity] stuff is just details and not really important."
So rants against Torvalds burst out on Twitter, like this one from coder Bodil Stokke:
I've been hacking on the Linux kernel for more than 20 years. Why did I never get involved in the project? This guy. http://t.co/ysg3kSZuGr
— Bodil Stokke (@bodil) January 15, 2015Torvald's conniption fits on the Linux mailing list are so epic, and so filled with f-bombs and other salty words, they've become a Linux meme. He even did a video last year that made fun of the whole situation, reading and responding to some of the mean tweets he gets (see the end of this post).
But there is a serious side. His trash-talking style has permeated the whole open source world, even at for-profit companies like Red Hat.
In 2013, Intel coder Sarah Sharp launched a public campaign to get Torvalds to stop what she called "verbal abuse." It obviously didn't work, but she did elevate the conversation and the Linux Foundation, Torvalds' employer, responded by stepping up its efforts to encourage more people to become Linux coders.
As for not caring, that's probably not completely true.
People who know Torvalds say he's a decent guy, not a total jerk. He just doesn't suffer fools gladly.
After the Ars story got hot, he even wrote a letter to the publication explaining his comments.
What I wanted to say [at the keynote]—and clearly must have done very badly—is that one of the great things about open source is exactly the fact that different people are so different ...
I think we can have some developers who are used to—and prefer—a more confrontational style, and still also have people who don't ...
I'd rather be really confrontational, and bad ideas should be [taken] down aggressively. Even good ideas need to be vigorously defended. ...
Maybe it's just because I like arguing.
Torvalds is never going to completely stop his four-letter-word rants. But he's willing and ready to be challenged over it.
"I also understand that other people are driven away by cursing and crass language when it all gets a bit too carried away," he told Ars.
Bordeaux (AFP) - Nice eased their relegation concerns with a shock 2-1 win at high-flying Bordeaux on Friday.
The hosts, who could have moved up a place to fifth with victory, made light of their missing Africans on Cup of Nations duty when Diego Rolan opened the scoring from the penalty spot on 33 minutes, after goalkeeper Mouez Hassan was adjudged to have brought down Nicolas Maurice-Belay in the box.
Jordan Amavi equalised midway through the second period with a deflected header from Valentin Eysseric's free-kick.
And Alassane Pleas notched the winner in the final minute from Eric Bautheac's pass to snatch the three points.
The victory propelled Nice into the top half and now eight points above the relegation zone following their second success in a row.
Leaders Lyon are away to Lens on Saturday while champions Paris Saint-Germain host Evian on Sunday.
If Lyon slip up, second-placed Marseille could return to the top, where they have spent most of the season, with a home win over Guingamp on Sunday.
At $600 billion a year in sales, food and beverage is by far the largest retail category in the U.S. by a wide margin. However, it's also the category that has been the least disrupted by e-commerce; less than 1% of food and beverage sales currently occur online, according to BI Intelligence's estimates.
But shopping habits are changing, and niche online grocery services that compete on convenience and selection are gaining traction. Meanwhile tech giants like Amazon are fronting the cost of expensive delivery infrastructure that has so far held back grocery e-commerce.
In a new in-depth report, BI Intelligence looks at why the grocery business has proved so challenging to e-commerce companies — from consumer reluctance to complicated and expensive logistics — and what new strategies e-commerce startups and big-name tech companies are pursuing to push more grocery sales online. Between 2013 and 2018, online grocery sales will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.1%, reaching nearly $18 billion by the end of the forecast period. For comparison, offline grocery sales will rise by 3.1% annually during the same period.
Access The Full Report And Downloadable Charts By Signing Up For A Free Trial>>
Here are some of the key findings explored in the report:
A careful observer might note the chunky double glazing on the elegant windows and the heat pump whirring outside the basement entrance. From the outside the five-storey house in London's posh Notting Hill district looks like any other. Inside, though, it is full of new technologies that aim to make it a net exporter of power. They exemplify many of the shifts now under way that are making energy cleaner, more plentiful, cheaper to store, easier to distribute and capable of being used more intelligently. The house in Notting Hill is a one-off, paid for by its green multimillionaire owner. But the benefits of recent innovations can be reaped by everybody.
That makes a welcome change from the two issues that have dominated the debate about energy in the past few decades: scarcity and concerns about the environment. Modern life is based on the ubiquitous use of fossil fuels, all of which have big disadvantages. Coal, the cheapest and most abundant, has been the dirtiest, contributing to rising emissions. Oil supplies have been vulnerable to geopolitical shocks and price collusion by producers. Natural gas has mostly come by pipeline--and often with serious political baggage, as in the case of Europe's dependence on Russia. Nuclear power is beset by political troubles, heightened by public alarm after the accident at Japan's Fukushima power station in 2011. Renewables such as wind and solar--beneficiaries of lavish subsidies--have so far played a marginal role. The main worries were whether enough energy would be available for power generation, transport, heating, cooling and industry; and if so, whether it would cook the planet.
Now new factors are in play. Technological change has broken the power of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to keep the oil price high. Hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") and horizontal drilling have turned America into a big oil producer, with 4m barrels a day coming from sources which used to be deemed "unconventional". The boom in producing oil and gas from shale has yet to spread to other countries. America enjoys some big advantages, such as open spaces, accommodating laws, a well-developed supply chain and abundant finance for risky projects. So far it has refrained from exporting its crude oil or natural gas, but exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) will start this year. Increased trade in LNG will create a more global gas market and greater resilience of supply, undermining Russia's pipeline monopoly in Europe. America is already exporting lightly refined oil.
An increase in supply, a surprising resilience in production in troubled places such as Iraq and Libya, and the determination of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies not to sacrifice market share in the face of falling demand have led to a spectacular plunge in the oil price, which has fallen by half from its 2014 high. This has dealt a final blow to the notion of "peak oil". There is no shortage of hydrocarbons in the Earth's crust, and no sign that mankind is about to reach "peak technology" for extracting them. But the fall has created turmoil in financial markets as energy companies lay off workers and cut or delay investment projects.
The implications are more complicated than the headlines suggest. For a start, low prices do not instantly cause supply curbs or make investment dry up. Even costly projects do not stop pumping when the oil price falls. Fracking is a small-scale business. New projects can be halted quickly and restarted when the price picks up. American frackers are now the world's swing producers, reacting to price fluctuations in a way that was once the prerogative of the Saudis. On a 15- to 25-year time horizon, today's slide in the oil price needs to be set against the likely long-term trend. Futures markets are betting that the oil price will be back to $90 per barrel in the early 2020s.
For now, though, low oil prices put money in consumers' pockets and give a bit of breathing space to governments, making it easier to cut fossil-fuel subsidies (and perhaps even tax carbon emissions). In 2013 some $550 billion was spent on subsidising fossil fuels, a policy of extraordinary wrongheadedness that favours the rich, distorts economies and aggravates pollution.
A bigger question on many minds is the effect of rock-bottom oil prices on the shift towards low-carbon energy. Solar, wind and other renewables have recently benefited from unprecedented investments: an average of $260 billion a year worldwide over the past five years. Long, and wrongly, decried as mere boondoggles, they have begun to show real commercial promise in places as diverse as India, Hawaii, and parts of Africa where the climate is favourable, costs are low and other sources of power are expensive. Renewables capacity is rising even as subsidies are falling. China, for example, has already installed nearly half the 200 gigawatts (GW) of wind power it had been planning for 2020, so it is sharply cutting back the subsidies it introduced in 2009.
But the relationship is not always straightforward. Renewable electricity mainly competes with gas- and coal-fired power stations, not with oil. In North America, low oil prices may, paradoxically, lead to higher natural gas prices. Less fracking means there will be less of the associated gas that is produced along with shale oil. More broadly, much of the support for renewables has been political, and there is little sign that this is changing. Worries about climate change continue to ensure that clean energy enjoys strong political support in many developed countries. Whereas shares in oil companies have in recent months fallen along with the price, the S&P Global Clean Energy Index, which covers the industry's 30 biggest listed companies, has barely budged.
The economics--and particularly the whopping subsidies of the past decade paid out in countries such as Germany and Britain--remain contested. Solar and wind are intermittent, so they are truly useful only if the power they produce can be stored; otherwise they need back-up capacity, typically from fossil-fuel sources. Dieter Helm, an energy expert at Oxford University, says that subsidies for primitive green technology, such as the current generation of solar panels, have been a "colossal mistake". It would have been much better, he argues, to invest in proven technologies such as electrical interconnectors (linking Britain and Norway, for example) and support research into new kinds of solar power, such as films that can be applied to any outside surface and technologies that use a wider chunk of the spectrum.
Bits of the green-energy world are wilting under the impact of low oil prices. Some biofuels have become less attractive. The same is true for electric cars, which currently make up less than 1% of America's light-vehicle fleet. Bloomberg New Energy Finance reckons that with petrol at $3.34 a gallon ($0.87 per litre), that share could rise to 9% by 2020. With petrol at $2.09, it would go up to just 6%. At the same time countries and companies thinking of switching from oil-fired power generation to renewables may reconsider. Saudi Arabia, for example, was planning to invest $110 billion in 41 GW of solar capacity by 2032, but may now want to think again.
Yet the long-term trend is clear. In particular solar electricity, and ways of storing it, are getting ever cheaper and better, as this special report will show. Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm, sees "global energy deflation" ahead. Most of the investment decisions in the fossil-fuel industry are taken a decade or two ahead. The International Energy Agency (IEA), an intergovernmental organisation often criticised for its focus on fossil fuels, says the world will need to stump up about $23 trillion over the next 20 years to finance continued fossil-fuel extraction, but the prospect of much cheaper solar power and storage capabiliy may put investors off. The story may be not so much what falling oil prices mean for clean energy than what the prospect of clean energy will mean for the oil price.
Old energy industries are changing too. Gas will become more abundant and easier to trade. Even coal, the most widely used and so far most polluting fossil fuel, is not inherently dirty. It does not need to be burned but can be cooked instead to produce methane, which can then be used as a fuel or in petrochemicals. Modern coal-fired plants, though pricey, are far cleaner than the belching monsters of the past. The heat they produce is used, not wasted as in many traditional power plants. The emissions are scrubbed of the oxides (of nitrogen and sulphur) that eat away at bodies and buildings. In some projects--albeit for now on a tiny scale--the CO{-2} is also captured for storage or use. Such improvements could make coal as relatively clean as other fossil fuels, though they make commercial sense only if the rules are tilted in their favour. But if the price of such techniques comes down and the cost of pollution goes up, clean coal could be competitive.
Nuclear power, in theory, is a source of cheap, dependable, constant electricity. In practice it is too costly for private investors to back without government guarantees, and its perceived danger makes it unpopular in some European countries and in Japan. One of several flaws in Germany's Energiewende--supposedly a big shift to green technology--was the hurried abandonment of the country's nuclear capacity. Besides, many of the world's existing nuclear power stations will have to close in the coming two decades. Barring a political shift or a technological breakthrough--perhaps in small, mass-produced nuclear plants--it is hard to see the fortunes of nuclear energy reviving.
Demand for energy is likely to hold up for some time yet, mainly thanks to rapid economic growth in emerging economies. The IEA predicts that over the next 25 years it will rise by 37%. Yet increasing efficiency in energy use and changes in behaviour have meant that the hitherto well-established link between economic growth and energy use is weakening.
America's economy, for example, has grown by around 9% since 2007, whereas demand for finished petroleum products has dropped by nearly 11%. In Germany household consumption of electricity is now lower than it was in 1990. Global demand used to rise by 2% a year, but the rate is slowing. Even emissions in China, the world's largest and dirtiest energy consumer, may peak by 2030, thanks to huge investments in new clean-coal power generation, nuclear and renewable energy and long-distance transmission lines. Simon Daniel, an energy expert, sees two conflicting trends: on one hand greater efficiency, local production and storage, on the other increased consumption from the billions of new devices that will be hooked up to the "internet of things".
On current form the emissions from oil, gas and coal would, on most models, make it impossible to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2¢ªC by the year 2100; the most likely outcome would be a 4¢ªC rise, which has prompted calls for most of the world's remaining hydrocarbons to be left in the ground. The IEA estimates the investment needed for "decarbonising" future electricity production alone at an astounding $44 trillion. The best hope of avoiding that much warming is a huge increase in energy efficiency.
One big component of that task will be to adapt the existing stock of buildings. Amory Lovins, one of the foremost prophets of energy efficiency and founder of Rocky Mountain Institute, a think-tank and consultancy based in Colorado, believes that the scope for improvement remains huge. He has long preached that proper building design and energy storage can eliminate the need for air-conditioning and space heating in most climates, and illustrates this by growing bananas in his own house, on a windswept mountainside in Colorado where winter temperatures can drop to -44¢ªC. Eliminating the heating system for his house, he says, saved more money than he spent on insulation and fancy windows. His optimism is slowly winning converts.
Despite all the obstacles, pretty much all the technology the world needs for a clean, green future is already available. As A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, notes in a recent report for the World Energy Council, a think-tank: "Energy-efficiency potentials combined with renewable-energy sources and shale-gas potentials provide an abundance of energy that can be made accessible with currently available technologies."
Transmission costs for electricity are plunging, thanks to solid-state technology, which makes efficient direct-current circuitry safer and more flexible. Power grids which were previously isolated can now be connected: one audacious plan involves a 700-mile, £4 billion ($6 billion) link between Britain and Iceland. Such projects are costly up front, but offer big long-term savings from cheaper power, better storage and increased resilience.
More effective management of supply and demand also offers scope for big savings, as this special report will show. Sensors can now collect vast amounts of data about energy use, and computer power and algorithms can crunch that information to offer incentives to customers to curb consumption at peak times and increase it when demand is low. At the same time business models which can turn a profit from thrifty energy use are developing, and capital markets are waking up to their potential.
That splendidly energy-efficient house in Notting Hill demonstrates just how much can be done right now, even if it does not yet come cheap. Its owner, Michael Liebreich, founded a business called New Energy Finance, which he sold to Bloomberg, a financial-information company, in 2009. He has spent tens of thousands of pounds on making his home thrifty, resilient and productive.
The house is no stranger to energy revolutions. In 1865 its original builders installed a state-of-the-art delivery and storage system: a coal hole in the pavement, sealed by a handsome cast-iron hatch. Gas and then electric lighting, central heating and hot water came later. But the revolution under its current owner is the biggest yet. Despite the airtight insulation the rooms feel airy. Specially designed chimney cowls suck stale, moist air from the house while a heat exchanger keeps the thermal energy indoors.
The house now requires remarkably little input of energy. Gas and electricity bills for a dwelling of this size would normally run to at least £3,500 ($5,500) a year, but once everything is in place the owner expects not only to spend nothing but to receive a net payment for the electricity he produces. On the roof is a large array of solar panels which deliver two kilowatts (kW) of electricity on sunny days. Another source of power is a 1.5kW fuel cell in the former coal bunker. It runs on gas, with over 80% efficiency--far more than a conventional power station or boiler. The electricity from these two sources powers the household's (ultra-frugal) domestic appliances and its low-energy lighting, as well as a heat pump (a refrigerator in reverse) that provides underfloor heating. A water tank stores surplus heat. Spare electricity is fed back into the grid.
Mr Liebreich does not claim that his house is easily copied, but he insists that through "thinning mist" the future is visible. "The only things that are inherently costly are the thermodynamic process and resource depletion--for everything else costs have come down, are coming down and will come down in future," he says. In short, most of the forces changing the energy market are pushing in the right direction.
We think about cost of living all the time, especially when we're looking to move from one location to another. Our perspective is, therefore, generally rather narrow.
The folks at Movehub.com have compiled some awesome data that forces us to take a look at the entire world.
This is an infographic of the cost of living all over the world and when you look at the data, presented in this way, the results are a bit staggering.
For example, the top three countries for cost of living are Switzerland, Norway, and Venezuela. While the lowest are India, Nepal, and Pakistan.
Take a look at the whole eye-opening infographic here:
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SEE ALSO: The Happiness Level Of Every Part Of The World In One Incredible Infographic
Tacloban (Philippines) (AFP) - Pope Francis on Saturday arrived at a central Philippine city that was one of the worst hit by Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, the strongest storm ever recorded on land that claimed thousands of lives.
Francis flew in from the national capital of Manila to Tacloban city to be greeted by tens of thousands of people, but also wet and windy weather.
Tacloban (Philippines) (AFP) - Pope Francis arrived on Saturday in the central Philippines for what is expected to be an emotional day with survivors of a catastrophic super typhoon that claimed thousands of lives 14 months ago.
Francis flew in from the national capital of Manila to Tacloban, one of the worst-hit cities, to be greeted by tens of thousands of people, but also wet and windy weather.
A giant crowd had gathered overnight to welcome the pontiff and hear him deliver mass at the airport, and the sea of people in thin yellow raincoats handed out by organisers chanted: "Long live the pope" as he arrived.
It echoed the rapturous reception that millions of Filipinos gave the pontiff during the first two days of his trip to the country, reinforcing its status as the Catholic Church's bastion in Asia.
Francis's five-day visit is partly aimed at helping the Church expand its influence throughout the region, but he made clear that visiting survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan was also a top priority.
"In a particular way, this visit is meant to express my closeness to our brothers and sisters who endured the suffering, loss and devastation caused by Typhoon Yolanda," Francis said in the nation's capital on Friday, referring to Haiyan by its local name.
Haiyan, the strongest storm ever recorded on land, left 7,350 people dead or missing in November 2013 as it devastated fishing and farming towns on central islands that were already among the Philippines' poorest.
Fourteen months later, many of those communities are still struggling to recover, with the rubble of destroyed buildings laying in piles and millions of felled coconut trees strewn across idle farmland.
Tsunami-like waves washed away entire villages within a few kilometres from the Tacloban airport, where the pope was to deliver mass, and people are still living nearby in temporary shelters.
- Comfort -
"Seeing the pope would be like being face-to-face with Jesus Christ," Teresita Raza, 65, who camped overnight to get a good spot to see him during the mass, told AFP.
"His presence will be of great comfort to those affected by calamities. He will help ease their burden."
The pope was due to spend the day in the typhoon-hit areas in and around Tacloban.
However intense rain was forecast to fall across the region throughout Saturday.
Local organisers told the crowd that the event at the airport would be cut short because of the weather, with the pope to say a mass but not give communion personally.
There was no immediate news on whether the rest of his day, in which he was scheduled to have lunch with 30 survivors, and visit one of the area's big churches, would continue as planned.
The Philippines endures an average of about 20 major storms a year, many of them deadly.
But the unprecedented strength of Haiyan, with winds of 315 kilometres an hour, was an extreme weather event consistent with man-made climate change, the United Nations' weather agency and scientists have said.
As he flew from Sri Lanka to the Philippines on Thursday, the pope again raised his concern about climate change, as he called on world leaders to be more "courageous" in trying to uniting to fight it.
- 'Scandalous inequality' -
On Friday, the pope weighed into controversial political waters, using his first major speech of the trip to demand Philippine leaders resist corruption and end the nation's "scandalous social inequalities".
"It is now, more than ever, necessary that political leaders be outstanding for honesty, integrity and commitment to the common good," the pope said in the speech at the presidential palace.
He challenged "everyone, at all levels of society, to reject every form of corruption, which diverts resources from the poor".
Philippine President Benigno Aquino has waged a high-profile campaign against corruption since coming to power in 2010 that has seen his predecessor and three senators detained.
But critics of Aquino have accused him of focusing his anti-graft campaign only on opponents and not allies, and point out poverty has barely improved in recent years despite strong economic growth.
About 25 million Filipinos, or one quarter of the population, live on the equivalent of 60 cents a day or less, according to government data.
- Huge crowds -
The Philippines has long been the Church's stronghold in the region, with Catholics accounting for 80 percent of the former Spanish colony's population.
Massive crowds gathered along the pontiff's motorcade routes during his first two days in the country.
Pope-mania will reach a peak on Sunday, with organisers expecting him to attract as many as six million people for mass at a Manila park.
If as big as expected, the crowd will surpass the previous record for a papal gathering of five million during a mass by John Paul II at the same venue in 1995.
Los Angeles (AFP) - US experts are scratching their heads after finding a more than 130-year-old Wild West rifle leaning against a Juniper tree in a remote area of a national park.
The Winchester Model 1873 firearm was found in Great Basin National Park in Nevada by a park employee, Eva Jensen, who happened to be working in the area with an archaeology team.
Exposed for years to the elements, the rifle's cracked wood stock was "weathered to gray," while the brown rusted barrel "blended into the colors of the old Juniper tree," officials said.
Tucked into a remote rocky outcrop, the rifle appeared to have remained "hidden for many years," they added in a statement.
The gun's serial number indicates that it was made and shipped in 1882. But beyond that it remains a mystery.
"Who left the rifle? When and why was it leaned against the tree? And why was it never retrieved?" the statement said, adding that experts were poring over old newspapers and family histories to search for where it may have come from.
The Winchester Model 1873 rifle holds a prominent place in local history -- referred to as "the gun that won the West."
Some 720,610 were manufactured between 1873 and 1916 when production ended.
The gun was not loaded when it was found, but would have held .44-40 caliber ammunition when in use.
Los Angeles (AFP) - Too white and too male. That is the charge facing the prestigious Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after it unveiled its nominations this week for the 2015 Oscars race.
The phrase #OscarsSoWhite soared up the Twitter trending topics within minutes of Thursday's nominations for the Oscars, the climax of Hollywood's annual awards season.
Not a single non-white actor or actress was shortlisted in any of the four main acting categories, although the Martin Luther King Jr movie "Selma" did make it into the best picture race.
The drama, starring Oprah Winfrey and Britain's David Oyelowo as the Nobel Peace Prize-winning black civil rights leader, has been judged best film of the year by the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregator website.
The movie, released just as huge protest rallies were held across the United States over the shooting of unarmed black teenagers by white police officers, had an exceptional 99 percent positive rating on the website.
That is better even than the 98 percent for coming-of-age drama "Boyhood," which topped wins at the Golden Globes last weekend and earned six Oscar nominations.
"To nominate it only for best movie and best song, that is disgraceful," said Tom O'Neil, founder of the Goldderby.com website, which keeps close tabs on all the main movie industry prizes.
It is only the second time since 1998 that not a single African-American actor was nominated.
"It's due to the lack of diversity of (Oscar) voters themselves, 93 percent of whom are white, 77 percent male and with an average age of 63. This is not representative of the real world," O'Neil told AFP.
- Stuck in the past -
Sasha Stone of Awardsdaily.com said the Academy was way behind the rest of the industry.
"It's very frustrating to work in a business that seems so stuck in the past," she said.
Among those left out were acclaimed screenwriters and authors Gillian Flynn and Cheryl Strayed, whose book was adapted into the film "Wild" starring Reese Witherspoon, both seen as favorites before Thursday.
"It is a shame to see the Academy pass up the opportunity to honor the first black woman director," Stone said, referring to "Selma" director Ava DuVernay.
"They also passed up the chance to honor the female writer for 'Gone Girl,'" she added, referring to Flynn.
"'Selma' was an excellent movie that acted and directed itself beautifully," joked actor Joshua Malina.
Tom Nunan of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television noted that last year the Academy gave its best picture prize to "12 Years a Slave," along with best supporting actress for Lupita Nyong'o -- who is black -- and best screenplay.
Stone added: "There is the sense that they paid their dues last year when '12 Years a Slave' won this. They now feel ok about choosing the subject matter that suits them, usually period pieces featuring white British men."
This year the top-tipped films include "Boyhood," made over 12 years following a child's growth; the dark comedy "Birdman"; stylish caper "The Grand Budapest Hotel"; and Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper."
They also include "The Theory of Everything," about British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, and "The Imitation Game," about code-breaking mathematics genius Alan Turing, a fellow Briton.
Some have nonetheless defended the Academy, stressing that it elected an African American, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, to head its Board of Governors, and that actors like Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, Octavia Spencer and Mo'Nique -- all black -- have won Oscars in recent years.
"I have not seen the evidence of closed doors based on people's color," said Nunan, noting that "Friends" star Jennifer Aniston failed to score a nomination for her "role of a lifetime," in "Cake," while animated favorite "The Lego Movie" was also left out.
"I certainly do not believe there is any kind of racism in approaching who gets attention and who doesn't at the Academy," he added.
But he said: "There should be more work done to involve more diversity."
African-American lobbyist and leader Al Sharpton meanwhile commented: "The movie industry is like the Rocky Mountains: the higher you get, the whiter it gets."
Dubai has been one of the most exciting and volatile economic stories of the 21st century.
It's global, glitzy, and growing like crazy.
It also has a red-hot property market that has experts warning of a collapsing bubble. Related concerns have been tied to recent crashes in Dubai's stock market.
Still, the tiny economy has developed into a world city that is a business and cultural focal point in the Middle East, and it has the attention of the world.
Tourism and real estate drive the economy, and there seems to be a never-ending development of innovative and over-the-top projects.
Dubai's real estate is growing so fast, that 24% of the the cranes on Earth are located in Dubai.
Source: Gulf News
The construction of Dubai's Palm Islands required 94 million cubic meters of sand.
The Empire State Building is 37 million cubic meters.
Source: Palm Islands Impact
The interior of the Burj Al Arab is decorated with approximately 1,790 square meters of 24-carat gold leaf. The surface area of the Mona Lisa is 0.3869 square meters.
Source: Burj Al Arab, Jemeirah
Washington (AFP) - The United States condemned as "tragic irony" the International Criminal Court's decision to open a preliminary probe into possible war crimes committed by Israeli forces against Palestinians.
"We strongly disagree with the ICC prosecutor's action today," State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said in a statement.
"It is a tragic irony that Israel, which has withstood thousands of terrorist rockets fired at its civilians and its neighborhoods, is now being scrutinized by the ICC," he added.
The ICC's prosecutor on Friday opened the probe into the alleged war crimes, including during last year's offensive in Gaza.
Nearly 2,200 Palestinians and 73 Israelis were killed during that conflict.
The Palestinians formally joined the ICC earlier this month, allowing them to lodge war crimes and crimes against humanity complaints against Israel as of April.
The United States has repeatedly said it does not believe that Palestine is a state and so should not be allowed to join the ICC.
Israel immediately blasted the ICC decision as "scandalous."
Moscow (AFP) - Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev's sombre social drama "Leviathan" may have been nominated for an Oscar, but at home the film has sparked heated debate, with the arts minister claiming it blackens Russia's image.
The film will not even be released in Russia until next month, but that hasn't proved an impediment to criticism, reminding observers of the Soviet joke about the hate campaign against Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago": "I haven't read it but I condemn it."
"Those who have seen the film and those who haven't seen it are heatedly arguing about it today," wrote Gazeta.ru news website.
"Probably because those who are arguing don't really have opposing views on cinema -- they have opposing views on the country."
The film, which scooped a Golden Globe on Sunday and best screenplay award at Cannes, is a bleak portrayal of one man's struggle against the stifling omnipotence of the Russian state.
It depicts a car mechanic in a small northern city who struggles against a corrupt mayor's plans to take away his property.
Culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, a divisive and outspoken figure, gave an interview on the day of the Oscar nominations to Izvestia daily in which he personally attacked the director and his vision.
The movie has a mood of "existential hopelessness" and "there is not a single positive hero," he said.
At the same time the characters, however much vodka they knock back on screen, are not "real Russians," he claimed.
The minister accused the director of cynically exploiting anti-Russian tropes to win festival plaudits.
"What does he love? Golden statuettes and red carpets, that's pretty clear," Medinsky said sneeringly, adding the film "in its rush for international success, is opportunistic beyond belief."
The minister denigrated the film despite the fact that it was partly funded by the state.
Due to legislation brought in by Medinsky, "Leviathan" -- which was already released in France and Britain late last year -- can only be shown in Russia with swear words beeped out, even to adult audiences. It will be released on February 5.
- 'Anti-Putin cinema manifesto' -
Acclaimed abroad, Zvyagintsev has struggled with accusations of lack of patriotism since his astonishing 2003 debut "The Return," which swept the board at the Venice Film Festival. His success in the West is held against him by some.
In an editorial, state news agency TASS wrote the film featured "typical cliches that are successfully 'sold' by our directors in the West."
It said the film confirmed Westerners' worst fears about Russia so they could say to themselves: "Look how bad everything is there, they admit it themselves.'"
A senior Orthodox Church spokesman backed Medinsky's accusations.
"It's obvious that it's made to cater to a Western audience, or rather to the Western elite, since it consciously repeats popular myths about Russia," spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin told Izvestia daily, while admitting he had not seen the film.
Some Orthodox fundamentalist activists even called for a ban on the film, which depicts clerics as involved in corruption.
"'Leviathan' is evil, and there is no place for evil on cinema release," Kirill Frolov, the head of a group called the "Association of Orthodox experts", told Izvestia.
A pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov tweeted that the film is an "anti-Putin cinema manifesto".
But many critics and arts figures praised the film saying the accusations against it simply did not stand up.
"There's no point in arguing with naive, unprofessional theories that Zvyagintsev makes his characters soak up vodka and criticise the authorities just to get into Western film festivals," wrote Komsomolskaya Pravda critic Stas Tyrkin, calling "Leviathan" a film about "the here and now."
"Artists don't exist to beautifully depict Russian birches, Russian meadows and Russian lakes. That's absurd," said popular theatre director Konstantin Bogomolov, speaking to Ura.ru news agency.
"The task of a Russian artist is to create great works."
Swansea (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Chelsea star Cesc Fabregas believes the Premier League leaders have put their stumbling form over the festive period behind them as they bid to strengthen their title challenge at Swansea on Saturday.
Tottenham Hotspur produced one of the shocks of the season when they beat London rivals Chelsea 5-3 at White Hart Lane on New Year's Day after Jose Mourinho's side had dropped points previously in a 1-1 draw with high-flyers Southampton.
However, Chelsea returned to winning ways by knocking second-tier Watford out of the FA Cup and winning 2-0 at home to Newcastle in the league.
"There is never complacency at Chelsea, we just want to win every game," Spain international Fabregas told the London Evening Standard ahead of the Blues' trip to south Wales.
"Of course that's not possible through the season, there are many, many games.
"Losing to Tottenham like we did was a shock, but when you watch the game again you see that every chance they had, they scored," the playmaker added.
"Things didn't go our way, but credit to Tottenham, they played a good game. But that's it, we are just looking to move forward now."
Chelsea goalkeeper Thibault Courtois could be forced to miss a third straight game after suffering a thumb injury against Spurs.
Courtois is back in training and could play for Chelsea with some sort of brace, but the injury is still not fully healed.
Mourinho, however, has no reason to take any risks over the 22-year-old’s fitness, with veteran reserve keeper Petr Cech keeping two clean sheets against Watford and Newcastle in the Belgian's absence.
As was the case against Newcastle, Courtois could be named on the substitutes' bench.
- Life without Bony -
Meanwhile Swansea manager Garry Monk has backed striker Bafetimbi Gomis to fill the void left by Manchester City new boy Wilfried Bony.
The Swans reluctantly sold Bony to the Premier League champions in a reported £28 million ($42 million, 36 million euros) deal on Monday.
“It’s bittersweet," said Monk, whose side are ninth in the table after last week's 1-1 draw with West Ham.
"Of course it is disappointing to lose a big player and a big personality, but I kind of feel proud of it that the team-mates and club played a good part in his development and improved him and gave him a platform to do what he's done to go from a reasonable amount to the profit we have.
"I’m versed in the history of the club and these sums of money now makes me proud," the former Swansea defender added. "We wish him all the best, he deserves his chance. All players want to play at the highest level so he goes with our blessing.
"But I’d already prepared for this period. We brought in Bafetimbi Gomis and Nelson Oliveira but Bafe is my No.1 striker and going forward we’re looking for both of them to contribute.
"Bafe is a different player, a different striker, but a top quality one in his own right, he’s proven that through all his career and to myself.
"Even if he has not had the game-time he would have liked, he’ll show in coming games the qualities he has."
And Monk was equally bullish in his belief that Swansea could cause Chelsea problems in Bony's absence.
“You have chances in every game to score goals," he said. "We create numerous chances in every game, they warrant more goals but as long as we’re gathering the points that's the main thing."
New York City is home to some of the world's most celebrated restaurants, with the most celebrated dishes — and that can get a little overwhelming. That's why we have tasting menus.
The Infatuation helped us compile a list of the best tasting menus in NYC, spread throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Dig in and enjoy.
