Attractions In New Orleans - 73% of Teachers Use Cellphones for Classroom Activities

Source - http://mashable.com/

By - Camille Bautista

Category - Attractions In New Orleans

Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Attractions In New Orleans

More middle- and secondary-school teachers are using digital tools in their classrooms and professional lives, a new report says. A study by Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project released Thursday delves into teachers' increasing technology use, but also expresses educators' concerns about the digital divide.

The study surveyed Advance Placement and National Writing Project teachers across the United States, and 92% say the Internet has a "major impact" on their ability to access content, resources and materials for teaching. Teachers are becoming advanced tech users, according to Kristen Purcell, Pew's associate director for research.

"The findings bode well for people who really want to see these tools become a part of the educational sphere," Purcell tells Mashable.

Use of mobile technology dominates the learning process, the study finds. Seventy-three percent of teachers say that they or their students use cellphones in the classroom or to complete assignments. Nearly half of respondents use e-readers and tablets for teaching.

Not only are educators using devices in the classroom, but they outpace typical online adults when it comes to personal tech use. Fifty-eight percent of teachers surveyed have a smartphone, compared to 48% of all American adults, and they're more likely to use social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. There are differences, however, across subjects. English teachers will use these networks more than their math-teaching colleagues.

Teachers as professionals are always in the position of sharing, which accounts for their higher use of new technology, according to Linda Burch, co-founder at Common Sense Media.

"Teachers are really active sharers and connectors from time immemorial," Burch says.

"They're people who like to gain knowledge from others and in digital literacy, teachers are the best evangelists. They want to understand how to improve their practice."

They're also in a position to keep up with their students, and work to bring familiar tools into their classroom in creative and engaging ways. Sixty-four percent of teachers under 35 describe themselves as "very confident" with new technologies, compared to 44% who are 55 and older. Still, 42% say their students know more than they do when it comes to digital tools.

Extended Stay In New Orleans - India Outlines Challenges To Growth

Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/
By - Press Release
Category - Extended Stay In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Extended Stay In New Orleans

India's finance minister has begun unveiling the annual budget amid slowing economic growth and increasing pressure to reduce the fiscal deficit.

P Chidambaram said India faced a number of challenges to return to its potential growth rate of 8%.

He said the high fiscal and current account deficits and inflation were areas of concern. India had to embrace growth "unhesitatingly", he said.

India has suffered a sharp slowdown in its manufacturing and services sectors.

Mr Chidambaram said restoring India's potential growth remained a challenge "but there is no room for gloom and pessimism".

He said only China and Indonesia were growing faster than India, and achieving high growth was "not beyond India's capacity."

"We have done it and we will do it again," he said.

'Major worry'

Mr Chidambaram said the high current account deficit fuelled by high oil, coal and gold imports was a "major worry".

He said India needed to "find" $75bn (£49bn) to finance the deficit and it could be done through foreign investment and external commercial borrowings.

"India at the present juncture does not have the choice of welcoming and spurning foreign investment. We need to welcome foreign investment," Mr Chidambaram said.

Correspondents say Mr Chidambaram is likely to announce steps to tighten spending to restore confidence in public finances.

"We expect the government to announce some populist schemes - but all within the limits of fiscal prudence," economist Sonal Varma told the AFP news agency.

Mr Chidambaram's budget comes at a time when the economy is projected to grow by 5% this fiscal year, far below the 7.6% growth projected in last year's budget.

A finance ministry forecast on Wednesday, however, said India's growth rate in 2013-14 would be between 6.1% to 6.7%.

However, the survey calls for more action on job creation and widening the tax base.

"The slowdown is a wake-up call for increasing the pace of actions and reforms," finance ministry chief economic advisor Raghuram Rajan said on Wednesday.

"These are difficult times but India has navigated such times before and with good policies it will come through stronger."

However, recent government reforms to open retail, insurance and aviation sectors to foreign investment as a way of stimulating growth have sparked opposition.

Last week, all India's major unions held a two-day strike, in part prompted by the reform plans.

Aquariums In New Orleans - US Sees Enormous Business Opportunity In India's Growth

Source - http://www.deccanherald.com/
By - PressRelease
Category - Aquariums In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Aquariums In New Orleans

Describing India as one of America's "most trusted and valuable partners" in the Asia-Pacific region, a senior US official has said it would serve as the foundation for greater regional economic cooperation and expansion.

"Our relationship from our burgeoning trade, to defence sales and exercises, to our growing education and clean energy partnerships has never been stronger," Robert Blake, Assistant Secretary of State, told a House panel Tuesday during a hearing on "The Rebalance to Asia: Why South Asia Matters."

Noting that 80 percent of the infrastructure required to sustain and support India in 2025 by when India is projected to become the world's third-largest economy, has yet to be built, he saw an enormous business opportunity for the US.

"So we see an enormous opportunity in this growth to deepen our commercial partnership with India, working together with American companies to build the airports, power plants, water and sanitation systems, and fibre optic networks of India's future," Blake said.

The US, he said, was "bullish on the future of this region, but we are also clear-eyed about the challenges that we face-terrorism such as we saw last week in Hyderabad; regional rivalries; nuclear proliferation; refugees; human trafficking and the potentially catastrophic effects of global climate change.

Ami Bera, the only Indian-American member of US Congress, said the US-Indian relationship is critical and vital to the US both economically and strategically particularly at a time when Washington was going to be drawing down its troops in Afghanistan.

"India has a critical role in holding onto and maintaining some of the gains that we've made. India has a critical role in helping anchor stability in that region," he said. And "Economically, you know, trade with India is vital."

Democratic member Eni Faleomavaega suggested that the US begin a dialogue with Gujarat chief minister Lalit Modi "who may well be the next prime minister for India."

Modi, he said "has led to a decade of unprecedented growth and development in Gujarat, a key state which has contributed considerably to India's economy and development."

"Companies like Ford and General Motors are setting up factories in Gujarat, and in a move that promises to strengthen US-India relations now and in the years to come," Faleomavaega said.

Hotel Reservations New Orleans - Shark Kills Man In New Zealand

Source - http://www.guardian.co.uk/
By - Press Release
Category - Hotel Reservations New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Hotel Reservations New Orleans

A New Zealand man has been attacked and killed by a great white shark in a rare fatal shark incident in the country.

Police said they fired shots at the shark after a swimmer was fatally bitten on Wednesday at Muriwai beach, about 25 miles north-west of Auckland, one of many beaches dotted along the North Island's west coast popular for its surfing.

Rescue crews were quoted by local media as saying the shark was a "white pointer", commonly known as a great white, measuring roughly four metres (13ft) long. Witnesses said a rescue helicopter also fired shots at the shark.

"We saw the shark fin, and the next minute, boom, the attack came. There was blood everywhere on the water," witness Pio Mosie was quoted by local news website Stuff.co.nz as saying.

"They fired six or seven shots to the shark, three from the police helicopter and a few shots from the lifeguard. I don't know if they killed the shark or not," he added.

The head of the local volunteer lifeguard service was quoted as saying they had confirmed that "one or two" sharks were spotted, but none had been seen since the man's body was removed from the water.

Shark attacks are rare in New Zealand, where water sports and beach holidays are a rite of summer. More than 60 shark species are known to swim in the country's waters.

Fourteen fatal attacks have been reported since records began around 1837, according to the country's department of conservation, which added that non-fatal shark attacks average roughly two each year.

The last attack linked with a death was in 2009, when a kayaker was mauled by a great white in the nearby Coromandel Peninsula, although whether the victim drowned before the attack has been disputed.

According to the International Shark Attack File, 11 shark fatalities were reported last year, including three in Australia and South Africa, nearly three times the number in 2001.

Accomodation In New Orleans - AT&T Plans European Expansion With Technology Licensing

Source - http://www.bloomberg.com/
By - Amy Thomson
Category - Accomodation In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Accomodation In New Orleans

The largest U.S. phone company, will expand into the European market through mobile licenses for its home-watchdog products as the company looks for new growth outside of its wireless service.

More than 30 companies worldwide have asked to license AT&T’s Digital Life product, which lets customers watch over their homes for leaks and break-ins from a mobile device, said Glenn Lurie, president of emerging devices, in an interview from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

“We hoped two or three would be interested and actually a lot more than that were; it was unbelievable,” Lurie said yesterday. “We’re back this year signing deals, talking to carriers. We’re going to announce a full international business for Digital Life.”

AT&T is becoming more of a technology company as it develops new lines of business such as wireless home-monitoring systems and mobile-wallet applications to supplement slowing growth in wireless service revenue. Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said that the company was considering international partnerships last month as the company reported its lowest annual growth rate since 2010.

Lurie has lead the connected-devices division, which oversees everything from mobile payments to connected power grids and tablets, since 2008. Lurie, who negotiated AT&T’s exclusive deal to carry the first iPhone with Apple Inc. (AAPL), said he realized quickly that his unit’s customers wanted a simplified solution that would work globally.

GM OnStar

The Dallas-based company released a global platform in the last year that lets devices work with roaming partners worldwide. The tools can be loaded with a customer’s information and updated remotely. Yesterday General Motors Co. (GM) announced such a plan for its vehicles with AT&T-powered OnStar.

“We’re allowing them to have one carrier in the whole world to go to, and let us manage the rest of the world for them,” Lurie said. “That’s allowed us to go out and bid on global business in Europe and Asia and obviously the U.S.”

While AT&T looks at expansion opportunities internationally, the company won’t comment on press reports that it might make an acquisition in Europe, wireless head Ralph de la Vega said in an interview.

“We still have room to grow in terms of getting our customers to upgrade to smartphones” in the U.S., he said. “Digital Life, connected cars all have huge amounts of revenue growth opportunities.”

AT&T fell 1.4 percent to $35.19 at the close in New York yesterday. The stock has gained 16 percent in the past 12 months.

Budget Hotel In New Orleans - Doing Nothing To Solve Latest Fiscal Crisis

Source - http://www.denverpost.com/
By - The Denver Post Editorial Board
Category - Budget Hotel In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Budget Hotel In New Orleans

Once again the country finds itself in the position of watching as our governing-by-crisis Congress confronts a looming deadline. 

But this time it appears as though lawmakers are intent on doing nothing to address sequestration cuts set to kick in Friday. 

Americans could soon find out for themselves that the across-the-board cuts intended to trim $1.3 trillion from the budget over the next 10 years are crude fiscal policy that will be more painful than if the two sides had been able to give a little on core issues. 

The Denver Post's Allison SherryreportedMonday that if sequestration takes place, Colorado this year stands to lose $85 million in federal money and would suffer an $810 million economic hit as a result of defense-related cutbacks. 

Nationally, the deal calls for $42.5 billion to be cut from the defense budget and an equal amount from discretionary spending this year. 

The sequester may be the only thing that forces spending cuts on a polarized Congress — but it's not ideal and it's not enough. 

In releasing their latest blueprint for a compromise, former Sen. Alan Simpson, the Wyoming Republican, and former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles called the looming cuts "mindless." 

While acknowledging there is no perfect solution, the pair said that "we believe strongly and sincerely that an agreement on a comprehensive plan to bring our debt under control is possible if both sides are able to put their sacred cows on the table." 

As we've said before, sequestration doesn't touch the big drivers of future debt: health care and Social Security. A thoughtful approach to our fiscal situation would consider those programs as well. 

In order to do more than simply settle for the sequester, Democrats must move off of their opposition to entitlement reforms and Republicans must agree to additional revenues. 

For the moment, it seems both sides are content to stand pat. 

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert blamed the stalemate on "a lack of leadership" from both sides. "The president needs to step up with his proposals. Speaker [John] Boehner needs to come to the table with his proposals. And what's happening with [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid? I mean, they haven't done a budget there for four years," Herbert told Politico on Sunday. 

Sequestration was designed to be so unappealing as to force both sides to come together to put our fiscal house in order. It's a sad testament to the state of affairs in our nation's capital that we may be forced to live with such a poorly conceived plan. 

Affordable Hotels In New Orleans - Twitter Hackings Put Focus On Security For Brands

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/
By - TANZINA VEGA and NICOLE PERLROTH
Category - Affordable Hotels In New Orleans 
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Affordable Hotels In New Orleans

Burger King’s Twitter account had just been hacked. The company’s logo had been replaced by a McDonald’s logo, and rogue announcements began to appear. One was that Burger King had been sold to a competitor; other posts were unprintable.

“Every time this happens, our sales phone lines light up,” said Ryan Holmes, the chief executive of HootSuite, which provides management and security tools for Twitter accounts, including the ability to prevent someone from gaining access to an account. “For big brands, this is a huge liability,” he said, referring to the potential for being hacked.

What happened to Burger King — and, a day later, to Jeep — is every brand manager’s nightmare. While many social media platforms began as a way for ordinary users to share vacation photos and status updates, they have now evolved into major advertising vehicles for brands, which can set up accounts free but have to pay for more sophisticated advertising products.

Burger King and Jeep, owned by Chrysler, are not alone. Other prominent accounts have fallen victim to hacking, including those for NBC News, USA Today, Donald J. Trump, the Westboro Baptist Church and even the “hacktivist” group Anonymous.

Those episodes raised questions about the security of social media passwords and the ease of gaining access to brand-name accounts. Logging on to Twitter is the same process for a company as for a consumer, requiring just a user name and one password.

Twitter, like Facebook, has steadily introduced a number of paid advertising options, raising the stakes for advertisers. Brands that pay to advertise on Twitter are assigned a sales representative to help them manage their accounts, but they are not given any more layers of security than those for a typical user.

Ian Schafer, the founder and chief executive of Deep Focus, a digital advertising company that also fielded a few phone calls from clients concerned about the Burger King attack, argued that Twitter bore some responsibility.

“I think Twitter needs to step up its game in providing better security,” Mr. Schafer said. In a memo to his staff about such attacks, he called on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest “and anyone else serious about having brands on their platform” to “invest time in better understanding how brands operate day to day.”

“It’s also time for these platforms to use their influence to shape security standards on the Web,” he wrote.

The risk for Twitter is in offending potential business partners as the company tries to build its advertising dollars, which make up the bulk of its revenue. In 2012, the company grew more than 100 percent, earning $288.3 million in global advertising revenue, according to eMarketer.

On Wednesday, it introduced a product that would allow advertisers to create and manage ads through third parties like HootSuite, Adobe and Salesforce.com. Advertising is estimated to account for more than 90 percent of the company’s revenue.

“This is not something we take lightly,” said Jim Prosser, a Twitter spokesman, in an interview last month. (The company declined to comment on the Burger King hacking, saying it did not discuss specific accounts.) Mr. Prosser said Twitter had manual and automatic controls in place to identify malicious content and fake accounts, but acknowledged that the practice was more art than science.

Mr. Prosser said Twitter had taken an active role in combating the biggest sources of malicious content.

Last year, the company sued those responsible for five of the most-used spamming tools on the site. “With this suit, we’re going straight to the source,” it said in a statement. “We hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter.”

But security experts say, and the recent hacks of Burger King, Jeep and other brands have demonstrated, that Twitter could do more.

Hotels In Downtown New Orleans - Dramatic Helicopter Escape From Greek Prison Foiled

Source - http://www.usatoday.com/
By - Press Release
Category - Hotels In Downtown New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Hotels In Downtown New Orleans

A helicopter swooped down on a prison courtyard Sunday as armed men on board fired on guards and lowered a rope to help a convicted killer make his fourth attempt to escape from a Greek prison.

But the plot was foiled after the prisoner was shot and the chopper forced to land in the prison's parking lot.

The dramatic escape attempt was one of a handful involving helicopters in Greece, and the first time such plans have failed.

Authorities said the chartered helicopter — carrying two armed passengers, a pilot and a technician — first tried to rip off the chicken-wire fence surrounding Trikala prison with a hook dangling from a rope. But that didn't work, so a rope was lowered down to whisk away Panagiotis Vlastos. Another prisoner, an unnamed Albanian national also in the courtyard at the time, may also have been part of the escape plan.

At the same time, the armed passengers used AK-47 assault rifles to fire on the prison guards. One guard, who was inside a post, was slightly injured by shards of flying glass. He and others returned fire, injuring Vlastos, who had managed to climb into the helicopter, as well as the helicopter's technician. Vlastos fell from a height of about 10 feet into the courtyard, and the helicopter was eventually grounded in the parking lot.

Vlastos, 43, is a convicted murderer and racketeer serving a life term who had tried and failed three times before to escape from prison.

Prison officials told TV stations Mega and NET that they recovered well over 500 bullets fired from the helicopter. The Ministry of Justice, in statements describing the escape attempt, added that the helicopter passengers also carried, but did not use, "improvised explosive devices."

Authorities said Vlastos was wounded in the legs but is being treated in the prison hospital because his injuries were not deemed serious enough for a transfer elsewhere. The technician's hand was slightly wounded.

It was not immediately clear if the pilot and flight technician had willingly participated in the escape attempt or had been forced to fly to the prison, which is located 205 miles northwest of Athens. Also unclear was whether the second would-be escapee was in on the scheme or just happened to be in the courtyard and tried to take advantage of the situation.

The helicopter was hired from a western Athens suburb and was supposed to fly to Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. But it deviated from is flight path to head to the prison.

This is the third time a helicopter has been used in an attempted prison escape in Greece. Convicted criminals Vassilis Paleokostas and Alket Rizaj were whisked by helicopter from the high-security Korydallos prison in Athens in June 2006. They were caught, but escaped for a second time — again using a helicopter — in February 2009. Paleokostas is still at large.

Vlastos was first arrested in 1994 in the murder of two members of a rival criminal gang. He was convicted last year as the behind-the-bars mastermind of the kidnapping of shipping tycoon Pericles Panagopoulos. Panagopoulos was kidnapped in January 2009 and released after eight days, when a ransom of 30 million euros was paid.

While awaiting trial for the kidnapping, Vlastos tried to escape in December 2011 from Korydallos prison along with three members of the armed anarchist group Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire. The four used a pistol and knives to take hostage three prison guards and 25 visiting relatives of other prisoners. The four surrendered to authorities after a five-hour standoff.