Detroit Bankruptcy a “Game-Changing Event,” Meredith Whitney Says

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7SJgJRTw7PTPRtAU6Jlvtm9IUIwGF0vQXVWz59IgQG7So6oqHGJ16L5Z2RUPIhMUE1I3BLNddT0N3sVRi8vaSkZ0Px2h0FpuHB1oLFu5iH7pBjOfKuObIwwePxJTzOrvYDzfWGwM4uU/s1600/Detroit+Bankruptcy+a+%E2%80%9CGame-Changing+Event,%E2%80%9D+Meredith+Whitney+Says.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Detroit Bankruptcy a “Game-Changing Event,” Meredith Whitney Says" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7SJgJRTw7PTPRtAU6Jlvtm9IUIwGF0vQXVWz59IgQG7So6oqHGJ16L5Z2RUPIhMUE1I3BLNddT0N3sVRi8vaSkZ0Px2h0FpuHB1oLFu5iH7pBjOfKuObIwwePxJTzOrvYDzfWGwM4uU/s400/Detroit+Bankruptcy+a+%E2%80%9CGame-Changing+Event,%E2%80%9D+Meredith+Whitney+Says.jpg" title="Detroit Bankruptcy a “Game-Changing Event,” Meredith Whitney Says" width="400" /></a></div> <h2 style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://worldofnews360.blogspot.com/2013/07/detroit-bankruptcy-game-changing-event.html">Detroit Bankruptcy a “Game-Changing Event,” Meredith Whitney Says</a></h2> <div> <div> It’s been just over a week since Detroit filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history and, so far, there are more questions than answers about how this will all shake out. On Wednesday, a U.S. Bankruptcy judge ruled Detroit’s Chapter 9 filing can proceed but local unions, pension funds and other creditors will continue to try and stop the process.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> Regardless of how the legal proceedings unfold, Meredith Whitney thinks she knows what will happen as a result of Detroit’s bankruptcy filing: “staggering aftershocks” for the muni bond market and “important precedents” for other state and local governments.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> “We know [Detroit’s bankruptcy] is a game-changing event for certain,” says Whitney, author of Fate of the States and founder of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group LLC. “It will galvanize other municipalities to either get their act together or follow Detroit’s lead.”</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> Asked what other municipalities might follow Detroit’s lead into bankruptcy, Whitney cited the five other Michigan cities currently under emergency management: Flint, Pontiac, Ecorse, Allen Park and Benton Harbor. She also reiterated her concerns about the states of New Jersey and Illinois.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> Related: Bernanke Costs Illinois $130M: ‘Blue States’ in Peril, Meredith Whitney Says</div> <div> The Wall Street Journal recently cited Oakland, Philadelphia and Chicago as other big cities with the potential to follow Detroit’s lead but Whitney declined to mention other cities.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> “I’m not sure it’s constructive to name towns [and] sound the alarm,” she said. “But there are numerous others across the country. Detroit is hardly unique.”</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> Of course, Whitney gained increased attention – and considerable criticism – when she sounded the alarm on 60 Minutes in late 2010. At that time, she predicted “a spate of municipal bond defaults. You could see 50 sizeable defaults. Fifty to 100 sizeable defaults. </div> <div> <br /></div> <div> Nothing close to that level of muni bankruptcies has occurred, to date, but ask yourself: Was Whitney 'dead wrong' on 60 Minutes, as her critics continue to claim, or just early?</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> And check the accompanying video to hear specifics on why Whitney believes Detroit’s bankruptcy is such a “game changing event” and whether she believes the city of Detroit can be 'restructured' via bankruptcy as were automakers GM and Chrysler.</div> </div> </div>

Detroit Bankruptcy a “Game-Changing Event,” Meredith Whitney Says It’s been just over a week since Detroit filed for the largest muni...

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Atlas looks like the most insane home video-gaming experience

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-hKMqjpVzur-ACqrsl0kMGsCU380r6k_lHXsbtorq9KWUnhxPETJoBn5jQXtw-0bCzaqQswl_d-36eD-xgWwdy1895j18uXqclVD7_RJt9JWCnY4kn3PAZLbgYKZIm1TnSQ70gCAe-Wk/s1600/Atlas+looks+like+the+most+insane+home+video-gaming+experience.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-hKMqjpVzur-ACqrsl0kMGsCU380r6k_lHXsbtorq9KWUnhxPETJoBn5jQXtw-0bCzaqQswl_d-36eD-xgWwdy1895j18uXqclVD7_RJt9JWCnY4kn3PAZLbgYKZIm1TnSQ70gCAe-Wk/s400/Atlas+looks+like+the+most+insane+home+video-gaming+experience.png" width="400" /></a></div> <h2 style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://worldofnews360.blogspot.com/2013/07/atlas-looks-like-most-insane-home-video.html">Atlas looks like the most insane home video-gaming experience</a></h2> <div> <br /></div> <div> As video games have become more and more realistic over the past few decades, we are quickly approaching the dream of the movie Tron: to be able to actually physically exist within our games, to bring a new level of immediacy to the act of playing.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <div> Improvements in graphics have made this partly possible; innovative systems like the Oculus Rift gaming headset, which you wear over your eyes to plunge yourself into those graphics, have inched us even closer. But with the Oculus Rift, you still have to be sitting down as your character moves, so you don't get the full out-of-body experience you might want with virtual reality.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> A wild new concept from developer Aaron Rasmussen appears to take this idea to the next level. It's called Atlas, and it uses Oculus Rift, an iPhone and motion tracking sensors to allow you to insert yourself into the game you are playing, mapping the environment of a video game into the physical space you are inhabiting.</div> <div> <br /></div> <div> So, for example, you can turn a basketball court into a war zone, or your living room into Super Mario World. Wherever you walk in the real world, your character walks in the game; and looking through the lens of Rift, you sense that you really are the character moving about in the level.</div> </div> <div> <h3 style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://worldofnews360.blogspot.com/2013/07/atlas-looks-like-most-insane-home-video.html">Atlas looks like the most insane home video-gaming experience</a></h3> </div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <div> The potential shortcomings are fairly obvious: Not everyone has a large enough open space to lay down 20 markers, nor access to a private basketball or tennis court on which to run around freely within a video game. And, too, it would take a pretty intense gamer to lay these markers down in public, slap a headset on their face and run around with a toy gun for all to see. You already look pretty goofy just sitting down while operating an Oculus Rift; imagine traipsing around a public park wearing one. </div> <div> <br /></div> <div> And if you're not comfortable with the outdoors experience, and you happen to own a home with a large indoor space, there is another obstacle: walls. But Rasmussen rejects that concern. First, he says, game developers will be able to warn players when they are getting close to the walls within the game itself; the room mapping allows for that. And second, "What we found amazing when letting friends try the system is they are very resistant to the idea of walking through even virtual walls. Your brain has spent many years learning that walking through walls is a bad idea, which is why this sort of system can be so much fun."</div> </div> <div> <br /></div> <div> <br /></div> </div>

Atlas looks like the most insane home video-gaming experience As video games have become more and more realistic over the past few d...

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Could South Africa's horn sale end rhino slaughter?

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0PSqckqVCTw6-no94liIa3bMAkXfj2pfuUK2YMaaug12VpqXPZRw2LLijQNIoAZZ9TC1huvbNJ8pTh5d1ETuZPE7Zc2-VfGxdP3ufjUER3r0y5u9Kc_UQMrfM9Uxx1nRGzdFqti1kQO8/s1600/Could+South+Africa's+horn+sale+end+rhino+slaughter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0PSqckqVCTw6-no94liIa3bMAkXfj2pfuUK2YMaaug12VpqXPZRw2LLijQNIoAZZ9TC1huvbNJ8pTh5d1ETuZPE7Zc2-VfGxdP3ufjUER3r0y5u9Kc_UQMrfM9Uxx1nRGzdFqti1kQO8/s400/Could+South+Africa's+horn+sale+end+rhino+slaughter.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <h2 style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://worldofnews360.blogspot.com/2013/07/could-south-africas-horn-sale-end-rhino.html">Could South Africa's horn sale end rhino slaughter?</a></h2> <br /> Decimated by illegal poaching, the endangered rhino has increasingly come under attack in recent years. In South Africa alone, some 480 rhinos have been killed since January, while last year there were 668 slaughters, a nearly 50% jump compared to 2011.<br /> <br /> The alarming surge in rhino killings has been fueled by unsubstantiated beliefs in southeast Asia that their horns can treat all kinds of conditions, from hangovers to cancers. Buyers in countries such as Vietnam and China are willing to pay big sums for traditional cures and this has helped create a lucrative poaching market, which is often run by sophisticated criminal syndicates.<br /> <br /></div>

Could South Africa's horn sale end rhino slaughter? Decimated by illegal poaching, the endangered rhino has increasingly come und...

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