Extended Stay In New Orleans - Vizio Announces Pricing For New Windows 8 Laptops, All-In-One Desktops

Source - http://www.zdnet.com
By - Sean Portnoy
Category - Extended Stay In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Extended Stay In New Orleans

With its first round of computers, Vizio tried the approach that made it wildly successful with its HDTVs: decent quality at a very affordable price. But with its latest group of desktops and laptops, Vizio is going upscale.

Introduced at this year's CES, the new Windows 8 touchscreen-enabled Vizio PC lineup has just received its pricing, and not one of the four new systems costs less than $1,000. The least expensive model is the CT14T-B0 14-inch laptop, which features an AMD APU processor and a $1,089 price tag. But adding an Intel Core i7 processor instead boosts the price to $1,419.99.

The 15.6-inch thin-and-light laptop starts at $1,189.99 with AMD inside, whereas the Core i7 flavor of the same machine runs $1,469.99. Note that while these notebooks include touchscreen capabilities, they are not convertible  models with tablet functionality that justify the high price. But they are being marketed as super-svelte competitors designed to take on the MacBook Air, with similar aluminum unibody construction and solid state storage.

Pricing for premium all-in-one desktop PCs tends to run a little higher, so the sticker price for Vizio's new desktops appears a bit more in line with the overall marketplace. The 24-inch CA24T-B0 starts at $1,279.99, and includes an AMD A10-4600M processor, 8GB of RAM, 1TB hard drive, and built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi capabilities. A version using a Core i7 CPU instead will run $1,439.99. 

There's no AMD version of the 27-inch all-in-one, with the CA27T-A5 coming with a Core i7-3630QM processor and similar components as the 24-inch model (albeit with a bigger screen). It will set you back $1,549.99.

You can order select new models from Microsoft's online store or the full lineup through Vizio's website. Are these priced too high for your PC budget, or do you think they are priced right to make Vizio as successful in the PC market as it is selling HDTVs? Let us know your thoughts in the Talkback section below.

Aquariums In New Orleans - Smartphone Users Check Facebook 14 Times a Day

Source - http://mashable.com/
By - Chris Taylor
Category - Aquariums In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Aquariums In New Orleans

Think you use your phone to look at Facebook a lot? Unless you're doing it at least 14 times a day, you're actually below average.

That's just one of the surprising revelations in a research report by IDC released Wednesday. The study tapped 7,446 iPhone and Android users in the U.S. between 18 and 44 — representative of the 50% of the population that uses smartphones — and asked them questions about their phone usage across one week in March.

Depending on your perspective, many of the results are either depressing or confirm what you knew all along. For example, it seems that 79% of smartphone users reach for their devices within 15 minutes of waking up. A clear majority — 62% — don't even wait 15 minutes, and grab their phones immediately. (Among 18-24 year olds, the numbers rise to 89% and 74%.)

Given that the survey was sponsored by Facebook, most of the questions focus on the social network. Which is, it seems, only the third most popular app on your smartphone, after email and the browser. Still, 70% of smartphone users are frequent Facebook visitors, with more than half of them checking it every day.

Peak Facebook time is during the evening, just before bed. But any time's good: on average, we visit the Facebook app or the site 13.8 times during the day, for two minutes and 22 seconds each time. Our average total daily mobile time on the site — and remember, this is just via our smartphones — is half an hour.

That's roughly a fifth of all the time we spend communicating; it's only slightly less time than we spend texting. On weekends, we check Facebook more than we text.

Any place seems to be good to check Facebook, too. Some 46% of us check it when we're shopping or running errands; 48% use it at the gym. Even preparing a meal gives 47% of us no respite from the social network. (Well, what else are you going to do while you're waiting for the microwave to ping?)

Perhaps the most unpardonable sin: 50% of smartphone users admit to checking Facebook while at a movie. We hope they mean only during the ads.

So what are we spending all that time doing? Well, for about half of that daily half-hour on the social network, we're simply browsing our News Feed. The rest of the time is divided fairly evenly between Facebook messaging and posting updates. Half of Facebook users play games via the service on their phone a few times a day.

Does the smartphone survey ring true to you? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Hotel Reservations New Orleans - 'There Is No Alternative To The Internet'

Source - http://www.smh.com.au/
By - Lia Timson
Category - Hotel Reservations New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Hotel Reservations New Orleans

Australians are yet to feel the impact of the world's largest cyber attack reverberating around the world, but the unprecedented event has highlighted the fragility of the internet.

The denial-of-service attacks first targeted Spamhaus, a Dutch firm that provides web host blacklists that help companies decide which email traffic to accept. Spamhaus blacklisted CyberBunker, a Dutch web-hosting company they accused of facilitating spam campaigns.

Denial of service attacks, or DoS, flood websites and internet addresses with millions of requests for page views, causing them to crumble. Attacks can be deployed by using botnets – networks of infected zombie computers - which distributes the origins and increases the volume of the attack, hence the term distributed denial-of-service (DDoS).

Some outlets have published interviews quoting a spokesman for CyberBunker, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, accusing Spamhaus of being a "major censorship organisation pretending to fight spam".

Clients of a blacklisted hosting company cannot send email and other traffic around the internet, effectively crippling their business. From time to time, internet service providers are wrongly blacklisted, but the issue is often corrected quickly and email flows again.

In the RT.com interview, conducted via Skype, Kamphuis claimed Spamhaus uses "mafia" tactics and blacklists anyone who does not comply with their demands. He said members of another group which he named as Stophouse.com were carrying out the attacks, not CyberBunker.

"At this moment we are not even conducting any attacks because our people from our group stopped any attack yesterday morning so if they are still under attack which I think they are because I get news feeds that they are still under attack then it's now other people attacking them," Kamphuis told RT.com. He went on to say attackers had been joined by others who also "had problems" with Spamhaus.

After an initial attack against Spamhaus last week, attackers turned their rage towards CloudFlare a company engaged by Spamhaus to mitigate the attack. CloudFlare essentially reroutes illegitimate traffic aimed at its clients, minimising the impact on them. Attackers then went upstream, attacking the networks CloudFlare connects to.

Cloudflare's chief executive Matthew Prince has detailed the attack on his blog overnight. The company advised its clients its Sydney servers had been affected overnight but were back online this morning.

Prince said the attack began last week, at first sending 85 Gbps of traffic. Since then, it has generated more than 300 Gbps of traffic – 300 gigabits of data per second. Prince suggested attackers may have a network of their own to be able to generate such a volume.

He said CloudFlare connects to a large number of networks directly and via internet exchanges.  The major networks that make up the internet – such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo - connect to these same exchanges to pass traffic between each other efficiently, he said. Hence the potential impact on other users.

"When the Spamhaus attacker realised he couldn't go after CloudFlare directly, he began targeting our upstream peers and exchanges," he wrote.

Attackers also attacked the London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Hong Kong internet exchanges," Prince said adding the company then routed traffic around them.

This is why internet users in Europe and Asia have felt some of impact, with some networks experiencing response delays. It has been mainly felt in relation to email, but could affect websites hosted in those regions.

In its latest Annual Worldwide Infrastructure report, Akamai highlighted DDoS attacks as a growing threat. It said the largest attack reported in 2012 had generated 60 Gbps of traffic, similar to that experienced in 2011, and down from the peak 100Gbps in 2010.

John Ellis, enterprise security director Asia Pacific for Akamai, a company that also mitigates such attacks for customers in Australia, said this event was not only the largest, it was beyond the contingency plans of most telecommunication providers.

"By attacking the core exchanges, they are really attacking some of the fragility of the internet. The internet at the moment suffers from performance and design.

"Countries have been talking about [fixing it] for a long time; even the UN has been talking about a mandate to ensure the traffic to Tier 1 [telecommunication] providers is clean."

Accommodation In New Orleans - U.S Ties Mexico, 0-0, In World Cup Qualifier — And U.S. Is Happy

Source - http://www.latimes.com/
By - Press Release
Category - Accommodation In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Accommodation In New Orleans

Officially the game ended in a tie. But try telling that to the U.S. and Mexico, which fought to a scoreless draw in a World Cup qualifying match that left both teams heading in different directions.

For the U.S., Tuesday's result felt like a win — especially since it came at a sold-out Estadio Azteca, a place where the Americans have never won a World Cup qualifier. Plus it leaves the U.S. in third place three games into the six-nation, 10-game qualifying tournament for Brazil 2014.

For Mexico, meanwhile, the tie was as humiliating as a loss. El Tri has played two World Cup qualifiers in Azteca in the last two months and not only is it still looking for its first win, it's still looking for its first goal — this despite the fact it outshot the U.S., 17-1.

So for the second time in as many months, Mexico's fans booed their team off the field after it fell to fifth in a qualifying tournament in which only three teams are guaranteed berths in Brazil.

"It's a tie," said U.S. Coach Juergen Klinsmann, who was in a celebratory mood nonetheless. "We came here, we wanted to win this game. But obviously we're very pleased with this result.

"Mexico gave us everything they had. Put us under a lot of pressure. It was an unbelievable team effort. But this group is ready for those challenges."

And it truly was a team effort, especially on the back line where Omar Gonzalez and Matt Besler — playing in a World Cup qualifier for the first time — led a staunch defensive effort that bent several times but never broke.

The U.S. strategy was fairly simple: Make things difficult for Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, Mexico's high-scoring striker. And the Americans accomplished that in part by pushing Mexico's wingers wide and by double-teaming Hernandez in the middle, pounding him, once even knocking him down in the box — a foul that the assistant referee appeared to signal against U.S. midfielder Michael Bradley.

But after frantically waving his flag and calling for a penalty kick, the assistant referee was ignored by Guatemalan official Walter Lopez, who ordered play to continue. It was a scenario that repeated itself in the 81st minute after Javier Aquino was knocked hard to the ground deep in the box.

Despite frantic protests from the Mexicans, Lopez did not call that penalty either.

Which isn't to say Mexico — or Chicharito — didn't have their chances. Hernandez narrowly missed on a header in the 21st minute and came even closer on a diving shot at the near post eight minutes later.

And then late in the second half, a 10-yard volley from Jesus Zavala was deflected wide by one of a trio of U.S. defenders, the first shot of a wild barrage by Mexico over the final 20 minutes that tested — but never beat — U.S. keeper Brad Guzan.

The U.S., meanwhile, had just one shot all night and had just one decent scoring opportunity — in the 15th minute when Geoff Cameron missed inches wide at the far post. Not that it would have counted anyway since Lopez whistled him for a foul.

So while the U.S. goes home with a tie that feels like a win, Mexico is left to lick its wounds — and possibly begin searching for a new coach.

Although Mexico has yet to lose in World Cup qualifying, winning all six of its matches in the third round last year and tying three times this year in the fourth, Coach Jose Manuel de la Torre's job is rumored to be in jeopardy.

Budget Hotel In New Orleans - 9-Year-Old Girl Walks Mile In Dark To Get Help After Crash Kills Dad

Source - http://www.foxnews.com/
By - Press Release
Category - Budget Hotel In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Budget Hotel In New Orleans

A 9-year-old girl crawled out of a mangled SUV, climbed out of a canyon and walked about a mile in the middle of the night to find help after surviving a highway crash that killed her father in Southern California, authorities said.

The 2010 Ford Escape was launched about 200 feet down an embankment along a semi-rural stretch of the Sierra Highway in Acton about 1 a.m. Sunday, said California Highway Patrol Officer Cheyenne Quesada. The vehicle overturned several times.

The girl managed to extricate herself and walk through rugged terrain to a nearby home, but nobody answered the door, the CHP said. Then she hiked up the steep embankment and along the road to a commuter rail station where she flagged down a passing motorist at about 2:30 a.m.

"She walked quite a distance in a very, very threatening environment. It's very black out there, very dark," CHP Sgt. Tom Lackey told KABC-TV. "It's very steep and it's brushy and there's also coyotes in the background."

Responding officers found a man in his 30s had been killed, Quesada said. His name was not released but officials said he was from Los Angeles.

A helicopter transported the girl to Children's Hospital Los Angeles. She was treated for minor injuries including bumps and bruises and a cut on her face.

Television footage showed crews extricating the severely damaged black SUV from the canyon.

The CHP is investigating whether alcohol played a role in the crash.

Affordable Hotels In New Orleans - Mental Illness Not a Barrier To Weight Loss

Source - http://www.medpagetoday.com/
By - Todd Neale
Category - Affordable Hotels In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Affordable Hotels In New Orleans

Overweight and obese individuals with serious mental illness who participated in a behavioral intervention were able to significantly reduce their weight, a randomized trial showed.

Weight loss increased progressively throughout the 18-month study period, with individuals in the intervention group losing 7 pounds more than those in the control group, according to Gail Daumit, MD, MHS, of Johns Hopkins University, and colleagues.

By the end of the study, patients in the intervention group were more likely than those in the control group to have lost at least 5% of their initial weight (37.8% versus 22.7%, P=0.009), the researchers reported online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The rate of obesity is nearly doubled in patients with serious mental illness compared with the general population, stemming from physical inactivity, unhealthy diets, and the use of psychotropic medications, according Daumit and colleagues.

Yet their findings -- reported simultaneously at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism meeting in New Orleans -- "show that overweight and obese adults with serious mental illness can make substantial lifestyle changes despite the myriad challenges they face."

"Given the epidemic of obesity and weight-related disease among persons with serious mental illness, our findings support implementation of targeted behavioral weight-loss interventions in this high-risk population."

Maintaining a healthy weight among patients with serious mental illness often has been considered a lost cause because many psychotropic medications induce weight gain, according to Michael Jensen, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

But with this study, "our psychiatric care providers can no longer say we can't possibly prevent weight gain or we can't achieve weight loss," Jensen said in an interview. "It takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of input, but you can prevent weight gain and you can even achieve a modicum of weight loss."

Patients with serious mental illness are often excluded from weight-loss trials because of concerns about their ability to adhere to treatments and participate in groups.

But the ACHIEVE trial evaluated the effectiveness of a behavioral weight-loss intervention in 291 adults with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (58.1%), bipolar disorder (22%), major depression (12%), or other psychiatric disorders (7.9%) who were receiving treatment at one of 10 community psychiatric rehabilitation outpatient programs in central Maryland.

The average age of the patients was 45.3 and the average body mass index at baseline was 36.3 kg/m2. Average weight was 226 pounds. The patients were taking a mean of 3.1 psychotropic medications.

The intervention included both group and individual weight-management sessions that focused on lifestyle modification while addressing deficits in memory and executive function, as well as group exercise sessions.

Health classes not focused on weight were offered quarterly to patients in the control group.

The researchers made efforts to improve access to healthy meal options at the facilities for patients in both groups.

In the control group, average weight loss was 0.6 pounds at 6 months, and that remained relatively unchanged at the 18-month visit (0.5 pounds lost).

In contrast, weight loss increased throughout the study period in the intervention group, from an average of 4 pounds at 6 months to 7.5 pounds at 18 months. Weight loss was significantly greater in the intervention group than in the control group at each time point (P<0.05 for all).

"This extent of weight loss, albeit modest, has been shown to have beneficial effects, such as a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease among persons with an initially elevated risk," the authors noted.

At 18 months, the percentage of patients who maintained or lost weight was higher in the intervention group (63.9% versus 49.2%, P=0.02).

The findings were consistent after adjustment for the number of psychotropic medications used.

There were no differences between the groups in adverse events. Those included five deaths and 14 cardiovascular events, none of which was considered even probably related to the study.

The authors acknowledged some limitations of the study, including a decline in participation in the intervention sessions and rehabilitation programs over time. In addition, the study was not designed or powered to determine the effects of weight loss on cardiovascular risk factors or to influence medication use.

Jensen noted that the intensity and cost of the intervention could limit its application in the real world.

"Future studies will have to focus on [whether we can] achieve a comparable outcome with a less expensive, less intensive treatment," he said.

Hotels In Downtown New Orleans - YouTube Now Serving Videos to 1 Billion People

Source - http://abcnews.go.com/
By - RYAN NAKASHIMA
Category - Hotels In Downtown New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Downtown New Orleans

YouTube says more than 1 billion people are now visiting its online video site each month to watch everything from zany clips of cute kittens to sobering scenes of social unrest around the world.

The milestone was announced Wednesday at a splashy event in Santa Monica that was aimed at advertisers and featured performances from some of the website's biggest stars, such as the bands CDZA and Monsters Calling Home. It marks another step in YouTube's evolution from a quirky startup launched in 2005 to one of the most influential forces in today's media landscape.

YouTube crossed the 1 billion threshold five months after Facebook Inc. said its online social network had reached that figure for the first time. YouTube first hit 800 million monthly visitors in October 2011.

The vast audience has given YouTube's owner, Google Inc., another lucrative channel for selling online ads beyond its dominant Internet search engine.

Google bought YouTube for $1.76 billion in 2006 when the video site had an estimated 50 million users worldwide.

Since late 2011, YouTube has refocused its site to prioritize watching along distinct channels of its creators. Such channels were seen as better allowing advertisers to focus on certain genres of content like beauty or music.

In 2012, it seeded 96 channels with around $100 million in funding to help them accelerate that growth, often partnering with big-name Hollywood producers and directors that had made it big in movies or TV but not on the Internet, including "CSI" creator Anthony Zuiker. Later, YouTube vowed to spend another $200 million marketing the channels to boost viewers.

But Wednesday's event focused largely on those who had succeeded on YouTube before the channel-funding strategy was in place, such as Michelle Phan, a YouTuber who has been giving viewers makeup tips since 2006.

Robert Kyncl, vice president and global head of content partnerships, acknowledged to reporters after the event that the channel funding strategy had not worked as well as hoped.

When asked if the channel funding investment had paid off, Kyncl said, "Every year we reserve the right to get smarter."

He said that while YouTube was committed to continuing to invest in content, he said more of such investment in the future would go to those channels that had already proven they can be successful at building an audience on their own.

"What we're looking for is the acceleration of those who are figuring out how to retail their content," he said.

Trip To New Orleans - Sanford Advances To Runoff In South Carolina GOP House Race

Soucre - http://www.foxnews.com/
By - Press Release
Category - Trip To New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Trip To New Orleans

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford advanced Tuesday to a runoff in the Republican contest for an open congressional seat, taking a step toward reviving a political career that was derailed by an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman while he was governor.

With all precincts reporting, unofficial results show Sanford received about 37 percent of the vote in the predominantly Republican southern coastal district, falling short of the 50 percent-plus margin needed to avoid a runoff. It was unclear who he would face in the April 2 Republican runoff.

Former Charleston County councilman Curtis Bostic held a slim lead over state Sen. Larry Grooms for second place. But the margin is so narrow, less than one percent, that it will trigger an automatic recount. Teddy Turner, the son of media mogul Ted Turner, trailed Bostic and Grooms.

The eventual Republican candidate will square off in the May 7 general election against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of TV comedian Stephen Colbert. She won the Democratic primary for the seat, handily defeating perennial candidate Ben Frasier.

Tuesday was Sanford's first run for office since a 2009 scandal in which the governor acknowledged an affair. After disappearing and telling his staff he was out hiking the Appalachian Trail, he returned to the state to reveal that he was in Argentina with a woman he later become engaged to after divorcing his wife, Jenny. She briefly weighed a bid for the congressional seat herself but decided against it.

Mark Sanford, who vied against 15 other Republican candidates on Tuesday, said it was "a treat and a blessing" to be back on the ballot.

"Are you ready to change things in Washington?" Sanford, flanked by his four sons, asked a boisterous crowd at a restaurant in Charleston's historic district. "I'm incredibly humbled by the outpouring of support we have seen tonight."

The 1st Congressional District seat became vacant last year when Republican Gov. Nikki Haley appointed then-U.S. Rep. Tim Scott to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Republican Jim DeMint, who resigned to head The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Sanford represented the district in Congress from 1994 to 2000, before he was elected governor.

Sanford, who spent months apologizing to groups around the state after he revealed his affair, said when he announced for his old congressional seat that the apology tour was over. Known for his frugality as both a congressman and governor, he has been spending the campaign talking about getting the nation's fiscal house in order.

For Colbert Busch, the race was the fulfillment of a dream she has had since a young child. Her brother supported her and held a private fundraiser on her behalf in Charleston, stepping out of his role as a faux conservative commentator on the satirical cable TV show "The Colbert Report."

"What an incredible opportunity. God bless America that we can do this," she said earlier Tuesday, adding that if she won, she would have two weeks to concentrate on the campaign while the Republicans in the runoff battle each other. "That is a real advantage."

Hotel Near Sports Venues - Oil Plunges As Dollar Gains On Cyprus News

Source - http://stream.marketwatch.com/
By - Michael Kitchen
Category - Hotel Near Sports Venues
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Hotel Near Sports Venues

LOS ANGELES — Crude-oil futures tumbled in electronic trading Monday, slapped lower by a surge in the dollar as worries spiked over a Cyprus bank levy and its implications for Europe.

Crude oil for April delivery  plunged $1.04, or 1.1%, to $92.41 a barrel during East Asian trading hours, more than erasing its 42-cent gain Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Similarly, London-traded rival benchmark Brent crude saw its May contract  retreat $1.27, or 1.2%, to $108.55 a barrel, burying its 86-cent advance on Friday.

The moves followed a surprise announcement Saturday by the government of Cyprus that a levy will be imposed on private bank deposits at the nation’s lenders as part of the country’s bailout program.

The move — and its possible implications for other financially strapped euro-zone nations — sent global financial markets into a frenzy, with Asian stocks and U.S. index futures dropping sharply while the dollar surged.

By midday in East Asia, the ICE dollar index  — a measure of the greenback against six rival units — had risen to 82.791, up significantly from 82.277 in North American trade on Friday.

A rising dollar tends to depress crude-oil prices, which are denominated in the U.S. currency, as it makes the commodity more expensive for holders of euros, yen and other units.

While some analysts had tied oil’s moves earlier in the year to the performance of equity markets, particularly in the U.S., Citi Futures analysts said in note late Friday that action for the dollar had now become a bigger factor for crude.

“In terms of the oil market’s habitual correlations, the recent price action — both on the way down and in Friday’s recovery — was the inverse relationship with the U.S. dollar rather than the leadership of the S&P 500.” they wrote.

Other energy futures mostly tracked the selloff in crude, as April gasoline  gave up 4 cents for a 1.2% drop to $3.13 a gallon, while April heating oil  saw a 3-cent retreat, about 1%, to $2.91 a gallon.

April natural gas  went the other way, however, rallying 5 cents, or 1.2%, to $3.92 per million British thermal units. The gain extended a 6.7% advance the previous week, helped by a larger-than-expected drop in U.S. natural-gas inventories for the week ended March 8.

Citi Futures analysts said the nat-gas contract was picking up support from current North American weather patterns, particularly “what has proven to be a stable pattern of cooler-than-normal temperatures.”

“Based on the cold, our model now suggests that storage [of natural gas] could fall below the five-year average benchmark for the first time since September 2011 by the end of March,” Citi Futures said, though adding that the comparison levels were skewed by high storage levels in recent years.

Attractions In New Orleans - Rafael Nadal's Win Over Roger Federer Leaves a Strange Taste

Source - http://www.latimes.com/
By - BILL DWYRE
Category - Attractions In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Attractions In New Orleans

A typically spicy battle turns into an unsatisfying 6-4, 6-2 victory for Nadal in less than 90 minutes in a BNP Paribas Open quarterfinal match.
Tennis did its best to serve up a classic dish Thursday night in the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells. But a dash of this and a pinch of that were missing.

We expect plenty of spice every time Roger Federer plays Rafael Nadal. It is a legacy built on their previous 28 matches, most of them thrillers, over nearly a decade.

But minus the usual paprika, Nadal still managed to slap out a 6-4, 6-2 victory. It was somewhat convincing. Also somewhat unsettling.

When these two play, we expect some 7's in the score line. Also, some numbers in parentheses after tiebreaker sets. A line that reads 6-4, 6-2 in 1 hour 24 minutes, with the ending feeling like a monotone, rather than a crescendo, is surprising.

There was a crowd of 16,100 —maybe more if they all squeezed over a seat or two — in the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. When the match began shortly after 7 p.m., there were perhaps 100 empty seats scattered about. By the first player changeover at 2-1, the stragglers had arrived and this, a Thursday night quarterfinal at a non-Grand Slam tennis tournament in the middle of a desert, had the feel of Indianapolis and gentlemen starting their engines.

There were 28 Grand Slam tournament titles represented on the court, 17 for Federer and 11 for Nadal.

It was the first time they'd ever met in a quarterfinal, and only the third time they'd ever met earlier than a semifinal. That was because, while Federer had maintained a high ranking at No. 2, Nadal had taken seven months off to heal a knee injury and had slipped to No. 5. And the form of the draw puts No. 2 against No. 5 in the quarters.

It was also only the fifth time they had played each other in the United States, three times at the Miami tournament that always immediately follows this one, and last year in the semifinals here, where Federer prevailed and went on to win the title.

So the scene, and the hype, was not only predictable, but justified. Federer is 31 now, Nadal 26, but the public, with non-erasable memories of classic five-set battles at Wimbledon and elsewhere, still sees them as two gunfighters, facing off at high noon, hands poised over pistols.

Even their personality contrasts feed the fire. Federer appears to be a worldly sort, ever poised, a diplomat who emotes mostly with smiles and shrugs. Nadal is a 10-year-old who can't wait to come outside and play, whose favorite gesture is a fist pump.

And so the stage of great expectations was set. To the lucky ticket-holders, and to those eagerly tuned in to watch on TV, this was nothing less than the final, four days early.

But what followed was an hour and a half of under-delivery.

At the 30-minute mark of the match, after the usual feeling-out process had been completed, Nadal broke serve by sending a passing shot past an approaching Federer. That made it 4-3, and was revealing in itself.

In this day and age of slower courts and rackets that might as well be called rocket-launchers, few players even attempt to get to the net much. That's because the ball just flies past them on one side or the other.

Thursday night, Federer approached often and in key spots that represented all-or-nothing moments.

He even said afterward

that he discovered early in the match that he would have to adjust the way he played.

When the greatest player in the history of the game, if you use major titles as a measuring stick, changes the way he plays, tries to force a quicker ending to points, the likely reason is an injury.

He has admitted recently to having a back problem, and has announced he will not play again for seven weeks,

until the May 6 tournament in Madrid. But that schedule announcement came before any word of a bad back.

Asked directly about it, Federer said, "I could play. I was happy to be out there and able to compete. It's obviously a small issue, but one that doesn't work against guys like Rafa."

Then there was Nadal, whose seven-month absence created speculation that his bad knee would never allow him to be the same player.

Nadal, still powerful off both sides and as fierce a competitor as the game has ever seen, moved and hit and thought well throughout. But the knee appears to have stolen a tad of his mobility and he seems at times to favor it.

His match analysis: "I played a great first set. But the second set was strange. Roger didn't seem to fight as much as usual. Maybe it was back problems."

Straight stuff. Not much salt and pepper there. Kind of like the match itself.

Extended Stay In New Orleans - Samsung Galaxy S4 Launch: Final Transformation For Company That Stole Apple's Crown

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

Extended Stay In New Orleans

In New York this evening, Samsung aims – with the launch of the Galaxy S4 smartphone – to complete its transformation into the company that stole Apple’s crown.
 With the iPhone manufacturer’s share price is at its lowest level in more than a year and markets worrying that its best days are behind it, Samsung will launch the S4, its latest smartphone.

This is a phone that is likely to track how your eyes move and use a screen of unprecedented resolution – the Korean company believes it will cement its position as the world’s leading technology brand. And in the words of one analyst, “there won’t be a person on the planet who hasn’t heard of the S4”.

That’s thanks to Samsung’s most potent weapon, its marketing budget. Coupled with unprecedented momentum, Samsung has powered its way to becoming the biggest phone manufacturer in the world, taking over from Nokia, and it has been able to promote itself as a brand uniquely positioned to sell consumers everything from refrigerators to televisions and from mobile phones to laptops. At the company’s recent European showcase it even renewed its push into robotic vacuum cleaners.
Leaked images from China suggest the Galaxy S4 will look very similar to the Galaxy S3, only slightly larger

This week, however, is all about the global flagship device: the S4 is likely to have a large, 5” screen, built-in payment technology from Visa and 4G speeds. It will also develop the technology in its predecessor, the S3, that kept the screen on when it detected that a user was looking at it. And the fact that the device launches in America, too, is crucial: while Samsung has dominated in Europe in particular, in America it has not gathered quite the same following.

And it’s worth remembering that even in Europe, according to one network in the UK, while the S3’s sales have been remarkable, they still add up to less than half those of the iPhone. Apple’s device continues to dominate, regardless of suggestions that its latest incarnation is simply a thinner, lighter version of its predecessors. Its strength is built on its library of apps that make its products gaming, social networking and entertainment powerhouses, plus a range of accessories that turns them into everything from baby monitors to breathalysers. Samsung’s dominance is built on a wide range of phones and an array of other products.

Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight, says that the market used to look toward the next Apple product to set the weather. Now, he says, the industry has settled on a thin touchscreen device for all mobile phones and Apple’s timetable is fairly predictable. “That’s allowed Samsung to get the timing really perfectly right. With the S4 it will have a free run at the market because it’ll be out before the next iPhone and it will be able to capitalise on the perceived weakness of the current one”.

Wood’s quick to point out, too, that Samsung has built on the S2, which his own company observed was the product Apple should watch out for. Released in February 2011, it is still on sale today and selling well. It gave Samusng the credibility to overtake brands such as HTC and to ensure the continued decline of Nokia and BlackBerry.

“Arguably HTC’s One X was a better phone than the S3 was last year,” says Wood, “but Samsung has been able to outgun its rivals on every front because its strategy has been able to spend enormous amounts of money.”

Off the record, Samsung sources concede that it risks damaging its brand if it continues to spend so widely and without a clear focus. “The brand is the most important weapon, not one individual product”, says Wood.

With that in mind, however, the S4 must feature surprising new ideas if it is to preserve Samsung’s position. Analysts expect Samsung to emphasise that it will integrate seamlessly with both its other products and those made by Samsung’s rivals, and to focus on the fact that it is increasingly software rather than hardware that makes phones impressive. These devices act as the gateway to users’ music collections, newspaper, film libraries and more, so it’s what’s on the screen rather than what’s around it.

Nonetheless, even gadget fans complain increasingly of ‘smartphone fatigue’. One senior marketing executive conceded that most users continue to wait until their contract is up and simply upgrade to something that costs roughly what they spent last time.

And as, inevitably, each manufacturer’s users start to look for the next big thing, Samsung too will be looking over its shoulder. With major corporations including Sony pegging their entire future to the success of their mobile phone and tablet operation, then the two Asian titans expect that they will go head-to-head in the near future. Taking on Apple is no longer the only game in town. Sony’s new Xperia tablet was briefly the single most-searched for device online in the few days surrounding its launch.

Wood says now he detects “pent-up demand for the S4” as phone fans look for the next big thing. But as Samsung themselves well understand, the device is not one whose success will allow them to rest on their laurels. Coming hardly a year after the launch of the S3, it signals that the importance of the mobile phone, and the pace of new releases, is only going to get faster.

Aquariums In New Orleans - US Tops Puerto Rico In Gio's Dominant Homecoming

Source - http://mlb.mlb.com/
By - Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com
Category - Aquariums In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Aquariums In New Orleans

MIAMI -- Gio Gonzalez came home and pitched precisely as advertised for Team USA on Tuesday night in the second round of the World Baseball Classic.

The Nationals left-hander tossed five innings of shutout, three-hit ball and David Wright drove in five runs as the Americans defeated Puerto Rico, 7-1, at Marlins Park in front of a highly partisan U.S. crowd of 32,872. The new home of the Marlins is about 10 miles southeast of Hialeah, Fla., where Gonzalez was born and raised.


The win for the Americans in this double-elimination bracket sets up a Classic match against the undefeated Dominican Republic here on Thursday night at 7 p.m. ET, a game that can be seen on MLB Network and ESPN Deportes. The winner of that one earns a spot in the semifinals at San Francisco's AT&T Park on Sunday or Monday.

The Japanese play the second seed from Pool 2 on Sunday and the Kingdom of the Netherlands faces the top seed on Monday. The final game is next Tuesday. All three games are at 9 p.m. ET and will be broadcast nationally by MLB Network and ESPN Deportes. Japan won the first two Classics in 2006 and '09.

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico plays an elimination game here against Italy on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. ET., also on MLB Network and ESPN Deportes. The Italians lost to the D.R., 5-4, on Tuesday after squandering a 4-0 lead. The winner of that one remains alive and the loser is out of the tournament.

Gonzalez remained with the Nationals last weekend as the U.S. struggled to make it out of the first round in Phoenix. This was his fourth start of the spring and he looked exceedingly sharp, striking out five, walking none and tossing 69 pitches, 11 under the second-round limit of 80 for a starter.

The U.S. threatened offensively all game against a bevy of unheralded pitchers, stranding nine runners in the first six innings.

The Americans scored single runs in the first, third and fifth and seventh. Joe Mauer doubled home Ryan Braun in the first. Wright drove in the second run with a third-inning grounder and followed that with a bases-loaded, RBI single two innings later. Adam Jones singled home Eric Hosmer in the seventh.

Wright put an exclamation point on the win with a bases-clearing double in the eighth, giving him 10 RBIs in four U.S. games, including a game-winning grand slam against Italy.

A pair of Marlins made appearances in their club's park, but neither played a consequential role in the game. Giancarlo Stanton was back in right field after sitting out the Canada game on Sunday and was on base three times by virtue of a pair of singles and an intentional walk. Miami closer Steve Cishek faced one batter -- Jesus Feliciano -- and hit him. He ultimately scored on an infield grounder.

Hotel Reservations New Orleans - Astronomers Conduct 'Reconnaissance' Of Another Solar System

Source - http://www.forbes.com/
By - Alex Knapp
Category - Hotel Reservations New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Hotel Reservations New Orleans

There are four planets circling the HR8799, a star 128 light years away from our own planet. Now, for the first time, astronomers working in a group called Project 1640 have unveiled a new method of  ”remote reconaissance” that enables them to understand more about what those planets are like, marking a first for any other solar system. The astronomers’ findings have been published in Astrophysical Review.

One of the main tools that astronomers have for understanding objects in the universe is spectroscopy. This is based around the principle that different types of chemicals will scatter light in different ways. By observing that scatter, astronomers can figure out the chemical composition of the objects that the light’s bouncing off of.

“An image is worth a thousand words, but a spectrum is worth a million,” said lead author Ben R. Oppenheimer in a statement.

However, when it comes to planets outside of our solar system, there’s a big problem – the stars those planets orbit. The light coming from them is so bright that it has, until now, overwhelmed the attempts of astronomers to find the chemical signatures of planets.

To work around this problem, Project 1640 uses a suite of hardware and software that basically cuts out the light from the nearby star. The suppression of that light makes it easier for astronomers to then uncover the images of the planets. They are then able to observe the chemical spectra and observe the composition of the planets themselves. What’s more, it looks like this process will be easy to replicate for other systems. The authors noted in their paper that the techniques here “represent a new capability to observe and rapidly characterize exoplanetary systems in a routine manner over a broad range of planet masses and separations.”

As regards the planets around HR8799, the astronomers made some fascinating observations. First of all, they found that the spectra for each planet was vastly different. In the paper, they noted that this might mean that the “diversity of planets is greater than previously thought.”

Although the authors note that the findings in the paper still require further study, they noted some interesting characteristics of each planet, labeled b, c, d and e in the image to the right. They found that planet “b contains ammonia and/or acetylene as well as CO2 but little methane. c: contains ammonia, perhaps some acetylene but neither CO2 nor substantial methane. d: contains acetylene, methane and CO2 but ammonia is not definitively detected. e: contains methane and acetylene but no ammonia or CO2.”

This is particularly interesting, because as is noted in a blog post by the American Museum of Natural History, one of Project 1640′s partners, “One of the most striking abnormalities is an apparent chemical imbalance. Basic chemistry predicts that ammonia and methane should naturally coexist in varying quantities unless they are in extremely cold or hot environments.”

Why is there a chemical imbalance? Why are the planets in the HR8799 system so diverse? These are questions that still remain to be answered. But I’m excited to find out. And I’m equally excited to see what happens when Project 1640 sets their sights on other solar systems.

Hotel Reservations New Orleans - Payrolls Rise as U.S. Jobless Rate Reaches Four-Year Low

Source - http://www.bloomberg.com/
By - Alex Kowalski
Category - Hotel Reservations New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Hotel Reservations New Orleans

Job growth surged last month as automakers, builders and retailers pushed the unemployment rate to a four-year low, defying concerns that budget battles in Washington would harm the economic expansion.

Employment rose 236,000 last month after a revised 119,000 gain in January that was smaller than first estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 90 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected an advance of 165,000. The jobless rate dropped to 7.7 percent, the lowest since December 2008, from 7.9 percent.

“It really should cause people to rethink their weak first-half growth estimates,” said Drew Matus, deputy U.S. chief economist at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, who correctly forecast the unemployment rate. “People counted out the U.S. consumer a little too easily on the payroll-tax increases.”

Stocks, the dollar and Treasury yields all rose on signs the world’s largest economy is gaining strength in the face of federal budget cuts and higher payroll taxes. The report may fuel debate among Federal Reserve policy makers considering how long to maintain record stimulus to boost growth and employment.

Matus said the report is likely to convince Fed policy makers “that they’re doing exactly the right thing by stimulating the economy.”

Stocks, Treasuries
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.5 percent to 1,551.18 at the close in New York. Treasuries declined, pushing up the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 2.04 percent from 2 percent late yesterday. The dollar extended gains versus the yen to the highest level since 2009.
Hiring in construction jumped by the most in almost six years. Payrolls also climbed at retailers and professional and business services such as temporary-help firms.
An improving labor market has enhanced the job prospects of college seniors, who are now searching for post-graduation employment. Most of those on track to graduate from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have job offers two months before May, when they leave, said Jasmine Lawrence, 21, a computer science major who has been hired by Microsoft Corp., where she had an internship last summer.

“It is a great time for engineers right now,” said Lawrence, who said she had four offers, including one from Google Inc. and Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. “Lots of companies want to hire tech students.”

Private Payrolls
Private payrolls, which don’t include jobs at government agencies, rose by 246,000 in February after a revised gain of 140,000 the previous month. Economists forecast they would grow 170,000 following an initially reported 166,000 gain in January.

As the U.S. economy gains momentum, Europe’s is contending with a debt crisis that is weighing on company spending and investment. Germany industrial production unexpectedly stagnated in January, a report today showed.

In China, exports exceeded forecasts in February, an indication that improving global demand may help to sustain the rebound in the world’s second-biggest economy.

Projections for U.S. payrolls ranged from gains of 121,000 to 260,000 following an initially reported 157,000 increase in January, according to the Bloomberg survey. Revisions subtracted a total of 15,000 jobs to the employment count in December and January.

The unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey of households, was forecast to hold at 7.9 percent, according to the Bloomberg survey median. The decline reflected both a gain in employment and an increase in people leaving the labor force.

Fed Stance
Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, said the increase in employment won’t prompt the Fed to alter its stimulus measures.

“They are going to look at the participation rate, they are going to look at work rate, they are going to look at productivity -- those things in combination,” Gross, the founder of Pacific Investment Management Co., said in a radio interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene. 

Accomodation In New Orleans - Facebook Shows Off New Home Page Design, Including Bigger Pictures

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/
By - SOMINI SENGUPTA
Category - Accomodation In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Accomodation In New Orleans

Hoping to tame the blizzard of information that has turned off many users and discouraged some advertisers, Facebook on Thursday unveiled a major makeover of the home page that greets users when they log into the site.
 The new design of the Facebook News Feed presents bigger photos and links, including for advertisements, and lets users see specialized streams focused on topics like music and posts by close friends.

The changes are designed to address the company’s two most vital challenges: how to hold on to users at a time of competing, specialized social networks and how to draw more advertising dollars to please Wall Street.

Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, said at a news conference that he wanted Facebook to be “the best personalized newspaper in the world.” And like a newspaper editor, he wants the “front page” of Facebook to be more engaging — in particular on the smaller screens of mobile devices.

The topic-specific News Feeds could well persuade users to spend more time scrolling through various streams of content. And the redesign will offer bigger real estate for advertisers, including more opportunities for brands to feature bigger pictures, which marketers say are more persuasive than words.

Facebook’s proprietary algorithms, which try to guess what every user will want to see, will continue to filter the items that show up on each person’s main News Feed. And users will be able to drill down into specific topics they are interested in, akin to the sections of a newspaper.

For instance, they can switch over to specialized feeds that are focused on just the music they are interested in, or they can scroll through a feed that consists of posts from the pages of products and people they follow — a bit like Twitter. If they want to see everything that their friends have posted, they can choose to do that, too; those posts will rush down in chronological order, without any filtering by Facebook’s robots.

Facebook introduced the new design to some users of the Web version of its service on Thursday, and will extend it to all Web users and to mobile apps in coming weeks.

It’s unclear how users will react to the changes; in the past, major design changes have often been greeted by complaints, at least initially.

Investors seemed to welcome the new look. Shares of Facebook rose 4.1 percent on Tuesday, to $28.58. But the company’s stock price remains substantially lower than its $38 initial public offering price last May.

Facebook is clearly hoping the new format will encourage users to stay longer on the site. At the news conference to announce the changes, officials offered examples of content they hoped would be compelling: photos of a cousin’s babies on one area of the page, Justin Timberlake concert news on another, a list of stories your friends liked on National Public Radio on still another.

“The best personalized newspaper should have a broad diversity of content,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “The most important stuff is going to be on the front page,” he went on. “Then people have a chance to dig in.”

The announcement met with swift praise from the advertising industry. In addition to bigger ad formats, the redesign’s specialized content streams could keep users glued to the site longer, marketers said.

“This will result in more time spent over all on the Facebook News Feed — and of course, increase engagement with content and ads,” said Hussein Fazal, chief executive of AdParlor, which buys advertisements on Facebook on behalf of several brands.

Facebook executives suggested that there would be no immediate changes to the number of advertisements that appear on the News Feed.

Julie Zhou, the company’s design chief, said only that ads would be more visual. “Everything across the board is going to get this richer, more immersive design,” Ms. Zhou said.

Budget Hotel In New Orleans - How Facebook Uses Numbers To Show People, Places And Things With Graph Search

Source - http://gigaom.com/
By - Jordan Novet
Category - Budget Hotel In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Budget Hotel In New Orleans

Facebook engineers posted more details Wednesday on the back end of its Graph Search function, showing how the social network assigns numbers to users, places and other reference points and then lets users form queries and find answers using those numbers.

Unicorn, the software and search engine that makes Graph Search possible for at least hundreds of thousands of users, starts by giving every user a number. In the example cited by Facebook Engineering in a blog post, a fictitious person named David has a number, or fbid, of 10003. His home, New York, is 111. And “Downton Abbey,” a television show David has liked on Facebook, is 222. Friends of David get called up with the search term “friend:10003.” People who live in New York are at “lives-in:111,” and people who like “Downton Abbey” live at “like:222.” Put those three strings together, and you’ll get other friends of David who live in New York and like “Downton Abbey.”

In each search string, sequence is important. The post states that Unicorn serves up quick results by quantifying the importance of each element of a search string and then sequencing those elements in order of importance. But at a whiteboard session last month at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Facebook engineers said they want to automate the process of flipping around users’ search strings to trigger better search results. It’s one of a handful of things the engineers are looking to do to further improve Graph Search in order to live up to the company’s lofty goals for it, as I reported after attending the whiteboard session.

New likes per day alone number more than 2.7 billion, according to Wednesday’s blog post. At that rate, the number of possible fbids clearly will continue to grow, and the search strings will get longer, too. Turning out good search results in a couple of seconds could become more of a challenge.

It’s a good thing Facebook is innovating on the hardware side through the Open Compute Project. That work could become a higher priority if Facebook grows at a faster clip, although at least a few users are quitting for a slew of reasons.

Wednesday’s post does not mention advancements on Graph Search since the whiteboard session, even though the engineers said they would improve Graph Search in the months ahead.

Facebook engineers work with big data sets in several other ways, often with Hadoop. Facebook’s engineering manager of analytics infrastructure, Ravi Murthy, will moderate a panel on the future of Hadoop and business intelligence at GigaOM’s Structure:Data conference in New York in two weeks.

Affordable Hotels In New Orleans - Exercises For Shoulder Pain

Source - http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/
By - GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
Category - Affordable Hotels In New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Affordable Hotels In New Orleans

You are certainly right that sore shoulders are common, especially as a person ages. About half of all middle-aged tennis players suffer from shoulder pain, according to a 2012 study in The British Journal of Sports Medicine, and youngsters aren’t immune either. The same study reported that about a quarter of competitive tennis players under 20 hurt their shoulders every year.

Many of these injuries involve the rotator cuff, the group of muscles and tendons at the back of the shoulder that stabilize the joint. Studies show that forces equivalent to at least 120 percent of a person’s body weight slam through the rotator cuff during a typical tennis serve or baseball pitch. To withstand that pounding, the rotator cuff needs to be strong.

But many of us, including tennis players, have relatively weak rotator cuff muscles. “Playing tennis builds up the muscles in the front of the shoulder, but it doesn’t build up those in the back very much,” says Todd Ellenbecker, the clinic director at Physiotherapy Associates Scottsdale Sports Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., and senior director of medical services for the ATP World Tour, the men’s professional tennis circuit.

To isolate and strengthen the rotator cuff, Mr. Ellenbecker recommends simple exercises that you can do at home and that require only a stretchy exercise band or length of elastic tubing and a rolled-up towel. You can find step-by-step instructions for a number of these exercises, which Mr. Ellenbecker prescribes for professional tennis players, at “How to Fix a Bad Tennis Shoulder.”

Don’t wait to start the program, by the way, until your shoulders ache. “These exercises are excellent for preventing shoulder injuries,” Mr. Ellenbecker said, “in addition to rehabilitating injured shoulders.”

But of course, don’t start the program without first consulting a doctor, especially if you have shoulder pain. “See an orthopedic surgeon,” Mr. Ellenbecker said, “to have the shoulder carefully evaluated and maybe X-rayed to rule out injuries” more severe than a strained rotator cuff, he said.

Hotels In Downtown New Orleans - The 5 Most Unique Culinary Experiences In America

Source - http://www.foxnews.com/
By - Quinn Myers
Category - Hotels In Downtown New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites Miami

Dans Le Noir, New York, NY

Dans Le Noir is the New York installment of the growing trend that is "dark" or "blind dining." Blind dining is exactly what it sounds like - eating in complete darkness. Dans Le Noir and its contemporaries claim that by blocking out sight, other senses will intensify - mainly smelling and tasting (on the downside, it’s probably not a great first date idea). Diners are limited to choosing a meat, fish, or veggie dish, and the chefs choose the rest of the wine/appetizer pairings. If being granted super taste and smell isn't enough, the wait staff is usually comprised of the blind or visually impaired and ten percent of the restaurant's overall profit funds research on visual disabilities. Don't worry, the staff is super helpful if you start to feel anxious, want to "see some light for Pete's sake," or your heightened 6th sense starts to pick up on all the dead people in the room.

Bors Hede Inne, Carnation, WA

Located in Carnation, Washington, Bors Hede Inne is part of the Camlann Medieval Village - a year round recreation of England in 1376. But this is no modernized (read: Americanized, i.e. Medieval Times) medieval restaurant. You are required to do a "genteel lavering" before the meal, and will be served authentic late medieval fare such as fenberrie pye (pork, fowl, fen-berries), sanc dragon (roast chicken in dragon's blood sauce), and of course an earthen pitcher of ale or mead to wash it all down. Instead of parading around on fire-breathing horses and wearing bosom-bolstering bodices, the wait staff strictly adheres to both authentic dress and narrative -- speaking their own personal "histories," like how the mead was brewed by the village ale wife or how "Edward the Black Prince was a bit of a blow hard anyway."

Moto, Chicago, IL

Tucked away in the Fulton River District of Chicago, Moto is one of the leading "molecular gastronomy" restaurants in the nation. Executive Chef Homaro Cantu produces "high-tech" dishes, which enlist lasers and liquid nitrogen to freeze food and produce things like carbonated fruit and edible paper. But the food isn't the only part of Moto that questions pragmatic restaurant culture -- the menu substitutes boring old "words" for bite-sized portions of the meal itself. That's right, the entire menu is brought to you in miniature form first, with the desert portioned into savory bits so you spoiled little brats out there don't stuff your face with the sweets first. Moto's sister restaurant resides right next door, and also hails from the same "eccentric" family, serving "flavor tripping cuisine" based on the miracle berry, which makes sour foods taste sweet.

Ghetto Gourmet, Your Place

Perhaps the most unique dining experience is the one you have in your home -- it's extremely exclusive, you're surrounded by all your favorite things, and you can even bring your favorite still-living pet! That's why Ghetto Gourmet made our list, as this "restaurant" doesn't have a physical location, but will instead enlist local acclaimed gourmet chefs to come cook a high end meal right in your kitchen. The company, started by Jeremy Townsend and his brother in Oakland, travel the nation to cook in houses, apartments, courtyards, or wherever else people offer up a stove and supplies. If you're cool enough to know they're coming to town, simply sign up online, bring some booze, something to sit on, and an open mind to new experiences, friends, and otherwise ostentatious gourmet food in a relaxed, literally "at home" environment.

Fritz's Railroad Restaurant, Kansas City, KS

Unlike people, who require things like money and feelings, trains will be your friends and/or servers for free, which is why the Fritz Railroad Restaurant in Kansas City employs the latter. Instead of blundering, babbling humans to take your order and bring your food, you simply call the kitchen (we can only assume the person taking the orders calls him/herself the Conductor) and place your order on an old-timey telephone. Then, without any interruption from nosey humans, a happy little obedient train will scoot along the intricate rail system to deliver your food, then leave without telling you how to experience your food with the ever-intrusive, "Enjoy!" The novelty of the train might somehow wear off for some (most likely those who don't appreciate the spectacle that is a SP4449 GS-4 northern class steam locomotive), but the food is just as delicious. Featuring eleven different burgers, handmade milkshakes and other classic drive-in fair, you’ll surely choo choo choo-se to… okay, that’s enough.

Trip To New Orleans - Why Game Creators Prefer iPhone To Android

Source - http://www.wired.com/
By - Ryan Rigney
Category - Trip To New Orleans
Posted By - Homewood Suites New Orleans

Trip To New Orleans

There is no great game on Android that is not also on the iPhone.

This has been true since the inception of the Android marketplace: Nearly every best-selling Android game, from Where’s My Water? to Bridge Constructor, showed up first on Apple’s devices. And the scene’s top developers say this won’t change anytime soon.

Android “is stuck as a repository for iOS ports,” says Kepa Auwae, whose company Rocketcat Games has created some of the iPhone’s most critically acclaimed titles. He has ported his games to Android, but only after first finding success on Apple’s devices. His newest game, Punch Quest, will get an Android port later this year.

Even as the Android operating system expands its market share over Apple’s iOS devices — one report on the third quarter of 2012 showed that Android had captured over 70 percent of the market to Apple’s 13 percent — developers are sticking with iOS first. The games come out on iOS, and if they do well financially, they might show up on Android marketplaces a year or so later. The extraterrestrial exploration game Waking Mars came to iPhone and iPad in February of 2012, but didn’t show up on Android until nine months later. It took nearly two years for the pixel-art iPad favorite Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP to make its way to Android. And on and on.

According to Waking Mars co-creator David Kalina, his game has sold over 140,000 units on iOS, but fewer than 5,000 on Android.

Many other developers blame Android’s piracy problem. Android has always struggled with hackers and pirates, with some developers reporting piracy rates as high as 83 percent. But it’s not just piracy that’s the problem.

For established mobile publishers like Rovio, it’s a no-brainer to develop an Android port alongside the iOS version. Its games will almost certainly sell in both markets, so it makes sense for a surefire hit like Bad Piggies to show up on all mobile devices simultaneously. An outfit like Rovio also has the manpower to make this happen. For independent developers with limited marketing budgets, it’s not so easy.

“For us, it’s a matter of having limited time,” says Auwae. “So we have to choose one platform as our main focus. iOS wins out because games on there still make more money, while also having less support issues due to device fragmentation.”

Apple has released fewer than 20 different iterations of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. In comparison, the maker of the Android app Open Signal found last year that its app was being run on 3,997 different devices.

“From a testing and quality assurance perspective,” says Supergiant Games creative director Greg Kasavin, “the scope is narrower if you’re making a game for, say, just the iPad 2 and newer, as opposed to many different Android tablets you’d have to purchase and test on.” The iPad version of his game Bastion, is one of the platform’s highest-rated games ever, but plans for an Android port are not in the cards.

Kevin Pazirandeh, CEO of Zombie Highway creator Auxbrain, says it’s a good idea to consider an Android port. “It’s too much money to leave on the table if you have the resources,” he said. “That said, there are a lot of developers who at least want to see their game make enough money on iOS to buy an Android Unity license and a device to test on. I think you would find that filters out about 95 percent of games that launch on iOS.”

Things may improve for Android down the line. Technologies like Unity that make porting games easier than ever are bringing more and more iOS games to Android, Pazirandeh said.

“Android’s popularity as a platform is undeniable,” says Greg Kasavin, “so I think independent developers are wise to be paying attention to it.”

Acer has big plans for 2013. Really big plans. I ain’t kidding you, especially when the Taiwanese company has stepped forward to say that they intend to increase their tablet shipments by a whopping 400% this year, with a total of 10 million throughout the year, where out of this 10 million, 7 million of them will run on the Android operating system, with the remainder being powered by Windows-based models.
Right now, Acer is said to be shipping approximately 200,000 to 300,000 Iconia B1-A71 tablets monthly, with the B1 that you see above being an entry-level device which is powered by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean as the operating system of choice, in addition to a 7-inch display at 1024 x 600 pixels, a dual-core 1.2GHz MTK 8317T processor, 512MB RAM, a choice between 8GB and 16GB of internal memory, a VGA camera and a microSD memory card slot. We do hope to see more affordable Android-powered tablets from Acer down the road, with whispers of a 10-inch and 8-inch models in the pipeline.
- See more at: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/02/acer-wants-to-ship-7-million-android-tablets-and-3-million-windows-tablets-in-2013/#sthash.nf8o1jsL.dpuf

Acer has big plans for 2013. Really big plans. I ain’t kidding you, especially when the Taiwanese company has stepped forward to say that they intend to increase their tablet shipments by a whopping 400% this year, with a total of 10 million throughout the year, where out of this 10 million, 7 million of them will run on the Android operating system, with the remainder being powered by Windows-based models.
Right now, Acer is said to be shipping approximately 200,000 to 300,000 Iconia B1-A71 tablets monthly, with the B1 that you see above being an entry-level device which is powered by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean as the operating system of choice, in addition to a 7-inch display at 1024 x 600 pixels, a dual-core 1.2GHz MTK 8317T processor, 512MB RAM, a choice between 8GB and 16GB of internal memory, a VGA camera and a microSD memory card slot. We do hope to see more affordable Android-powered tablets from Acer down the road, with whispers of a 10-inch and 8-inch models in the pipeline.
- See more at: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/02/acer-wants-to-ship-7-million-android-tablets-and-3-million-windows-tablets-in-2013/#sthash.nf8o1jsL.dpuf