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Thursday, May 3, 2012
Sony's Stalls Its Streaming TV Service Because Cable Controls Data [Streaming Video]
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Trayvon Martin case: Task force wants changes in Stand Your Ground
The group of legislators, attorneys, police and legal experts stopped short of calling for an absolute repeal.
An independent task force wants major changes, but not an outright repeal, of Florida's "stand your ground" law after the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin.
Skip to next paragraphState Sen. Chris Smith, the organizer of the group, delivered the recommendations to Gov. Rick Scott and legislative leaders on Monday.
Smith said the group ? which included prosecutors, defense attorneys, police chiefs and law professors ? could not reach a consensus on whether to get rid of the seven-year-old law that allows a person to meet force with force if they reasonably believe they are in danger of being killed or seriously harmed. The law removed a duty to retreat that previously was in the state's self-defense law.
"We took an adult look at 'stand your ground," Smith said. "We had adult discussions, not political, but adult discussions on 'stand your ground.'"
Neighborhood watch volunteer George?Zimmerman?said he acted in self-defense when he killed Martin earlier this year in Sanford. A special prosecutor, however, charged?Zimmerman?with second-degree murder following weeks of outcry and protests.?Zimmerman?has posted bail and is currently in hiding as he awaits trial on the charges.
Smith, a critic of the existing law, put together his own task force to look at the law after complaining that Scott was waiting too long to respond to the Martin killing. A separate task force assembled by the governor is scheduled to hold its first meeting in Tallahassee on Tuesday.
Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, said he would a sponsor in the bill in the Florida Legislature that includes the changes recommended by his group, including one that requires that a grand jury and not a prosecutor determine whether "stand your ground" can be used to avoid arrest.
Smith's group also called for creating a system to track self-defense claims in Florida and to make it clear that the police can detain and question someone even if the person contends they were acting in self-defense. Smith said the law is now ambiguous on whether police are allowed to detain a suspect.
The 21-page report by Smith's group includes recommendations that either had unanimous support, or a supermajority. Smith noted that only a simple majority supported a repeal of the stand your ground law and that he would not "waste" the time of the GOP-controlled Legislature or public by sponsoring a bill to repeal the law.
One recommendation that received a supermajority ? but not unanimous agreement ? was that police should be allowed to charge someone if the person killed was unarmed or was in the process of running away. Martin was unarmed when?Zimmerman?shot him.
Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala and a sponsor of the 2005 'stand your ground' law, said he's not surprised that Smith's group came up with recommendations to overhaul the law.
Baxley said he wanted the governor's task force to stay on its mission to look at all of the state's self-defense laws.
"The mission is not to have a kangaroo court and say's what wrong with stand your ground," said Baxley, who is a member of the governor's task force. "The importance of the mission is to review public safety and protection."
Other task force members said they could not comment until they had a chance to read Smith's report.
But Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, said that he would be interested in anything to make "Florida a safer place" as long as it did not diminish the ability of Floridians to defend themselves or their families.
Smith on Monday repeated his push to have the Florida Legislature deal with the state's self-defense laws in a special session instead of waiting until next year's legislative session. He said the law continues to be "used and misused" throughout courtrooms and remains fearful of "copycat" crimes similar to what happened to Travyon Martin.
Smith also wanted to present his group's recommendations to the Scott-created task force at its first meeting. But Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, who is leading the Task Force on Citizen Safety and Protection, turned down his request.
Her letter to Smith says it would be unfair to let him speak since no one else from the public is scheduled to address the group. She instead offered him to make a presentation in June.
"I guess I'll attend and maybe it put it on their windshield wipers on their cars campaign style afterwards," Smith said.
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Archaeology expands beyond traditional scope into other sciences
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Public release date: 30-Apr-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Julie Newberg
julie.newberg@asu.edu
480-727-3116
Arizona State University
TEMPE (April 30, 2012) - The popular perception of archaeology is a team of dusty individuals in wide-brimmed hats unearthing treasures from a pharaoh's tomb or an ancient collection of Native American artifacts.
Archaeology is that, but it is also a social science that utilizes information from other disciplines to inform and enhance archaeological data and to provide input to other sciences. Arizona State University Anthropology Professor Michael Smith explores the broadened scope of archaeology in the paper "Archaeology as a Social Science" published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Gary M. Feinman of The Field Museum in Chicago, Robert D. Drennan of University of Pittsburgh, Timothy Earle of Northwestern University and Ian Morris of Stanford University are co-authors of the paper.
"A lot of people's perceptions are based on classical archaeology (such as the study of ancient Greece or Rome), or on the latest tomb discovered or the biggest palace," says Smith, of ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change. "Viewing archaeology as a social science advances how we interpret sites and how we do research."
Archaeology has greatly advanced during recent years. The discipline has expanded beyond anthropology, which studies the societies and cultures of the world, to include data and perspectives from other social sciences such as sociology.
"Looking at sociology and disciplines such as political science gives us more to draw from," Smith said.
And archaeologists are able to reach beyond the time of written records to provide data that can be utilized in other sciences. For example, data on patterns of inequality and social stratification among ancient peoples can be utilized by sociologists.
Archaeologists also offer evidence that at times contradicts commonly held views of societies, for example, that of political scientists who may believe that life is chaotic outside of a state system with rulers and laws. This belief doesn't hold up when one examines the lives of Native American societies such as the Hohokam that lived peacefully in tribal settlements, Smith says.
Archaeology provides a full range of the human experience, including societies that are unlike any that exist in modern times. It provides records from all levels of society, including peasants and slaves, who often are left out of historical accounts, the archaeologists write in the paper.
Archaeological findings also provide a long-term perspective on change, documenting the origins of agriculture, the Urban Revolution, and other transformational social changes. Indeed, archaeology is crucial to a renewed interest in what is now called "Deep History."
Practices that may be thought of as new phenomena may be traced through archaeological data. Urban farming is often thought of as an emerging trend in cities, but it was practiced by the ancient Mayan people 2,000 years ago.
"The whole notion of farming within cities is a pattern that has a lot of history," Smith says.
Likewise, urban neighborhoods can universally be traced back thousands of years, indicating that neighborhoods are crucial in the ways that cities work.
"We look at the past and see lessons for the future," he says.
This theme is the basis for a series of research projects within the School of Human Evolution and Social Change called "Late Lessons from Early History." Funded by the Intellectual Fusion Investment Fund at ASU, these projects are built around cutting-edge transdisciplinary research in anthropology. Smith is working on a project that is focused on urban neighborhoods in ancient and modern cities.
While items like broken pieces of pots and stone tools might not seem ideal for analyzing past social systems, economic processes or political dynamics, "analytical advances, including increasingly sophisticated applications of methods from chemistry and physics, now permit many past economic phenomena to be reconstructed with considerable detail," the social scientists write.
Among additional recent advances in the science are the ability to pinpoint the places of origin of many raw materials and objects, reconstructing ancient technology and manufacturing, and new computing power that allow archaeologists to find and compare patterns in small finds from sites, the social scientists write.
Archaeologists increasingly are utilizing techniques such as radiocarbon dating of charcoal and a variety of instrumental methods from physics, chemistry and biology to contribute to their studies. Smith's archaeological studies in Central Mexico take into account obsidian, used to make tools, that occurs naturally in 20 places throughout the region. Each obsidian source contains different trace elements.
"We can trace exactly where the rocks came from," Smith said.
Archaeological data from many regions are now available, allowing comparative analyses of changes and social patterns. Furthermore, archaeology can contribute a new perspective because many of the societies they reconstruct are independent of the western cultural tradition that has been the focus of analysis by most of the social sciences.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 30-Apr-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Julie Newberg
julie.newberg@asu.edu
480-727-3116
Arizona State University
TEMPE (April 30, 2012) - The popular perception of archaeology is a team of dusty individuals in wide-brimmed hats unearthing treasures from a pharaoh's tomb or an ancient collection of Native American artifacts.
Archaeology is that, but it is also a social science that utilizes information from other disciplines to inform and enhance archaeological data and to provide input to other sciences. Arizona State University Anthropology Professor Michael Smith explores the broadened scope of archaeology in the paper "Archaeology as a Social Science" published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Gary M. Feinman of The Field Museum in Chicago, Robert D. Drennan of University of Pittsburgh, Timothy Earle of Northwestern University and Ian Morris of Stanford University are co-authors of the paper.
"A lot of people's perceptions are based on classical archaeology (such as the study of ancient Greece or Rome), or on the latest tomb discovered or the biggest palace," says Smith, of ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change. "Viewing archaeology as a social science advances how we interpret sites and how we do research."
Archaeology has greatly advanced during recent years. The discipline has expanded beyond anthropology, which studies the societies and cultures of the world, to include data and perspectives from other social sciences such as sociology.
"Looking at sociology and disciplines such as political science gives us more to draw from," Smith said.
And archaeologists are able to reach beyond the time of written records to provide data that can be utilized in other sciences. For example, data on patterns of inequality and social stratification among ancient peoples can be utilized by sociologists.
Archaeologists also offer evidence that at times contradicts commonly held views of societies, for example, that of political scientists who may believe that life is chaotic outside of a state system with rulers and laws. This belief doesn't hold up when one examines the lives of Native American societies such as the Hohokam that lived peacefully in tribal settlements, Smith says.
Archaeology provides a full range of the human experience, including societies that are unlike any that exist in modern times. It provides records from all levels of society, including peasants and slaves, who often are left out of historical accounts, the archaeologists write in the paper.
Archaeological findings also provide a long-term perspective on change, documenting the origins of agriculture, the Urban Revolution, and other transformational social changes. Indeed, archaeology is crucial to a renewed interest in what is now called "Deep History."
Practices that may be thought of as new phenomena may be traced through archaeological data. Urban farming is often thought of as an emerging trend in cities, but it was practiced by the ancient Mayan people 2,000 years ago.
"The whole notion of farming within cities is a pattern that has a lot of history," Smith says.
Likewise, urban neighborhoods can universally be traced back thousands of years, indicating that neighborhoods are crucial in the ways that cities work.
"We look at the past and see lessons for the future," he says.
This theme is the basis for a series of research projects within the School of Human Evolution and Social Change called "Late Lessons from Early History." Funded by the Intellectual Fusion Investment Fund at ASU, these projects are built around cutting-edge transdisciplinary research in anthropology. Smith is working on a project that is focused on urban neighborhoods in ancient and modern cities.
While items like broken pieces of pots and stone tools might not seem ideal for analyzing past social systems, economic processes or political dynamics, "analytical advances, including increasingly sophisticated applications of methods from chemistry and physics, now permit many past economic phenomena to be reconstructed with considerable detail," the social scientists write.
Among additional recent advances in the science are the ability to pinpoint the places of origin of many raw materials and objects, reconstructing ancient technology and manufacturing, and new computing power that allow archaeologists to find and compare patterns in small finds from sites, the social scientists write.
Archaeologists increasingly are utilizing techniques such as radiocarbon dating of charcoal and a variety of instrumental methods from physics, chemistry and biology to contribute to their studies. Smith's archaeological studies in Central Mexico take into account obsidian, used to make tools, that occurs naturally in 20 places throughout the region. Each obsidian source contains different trace elements.
"We can trace exactly where the rocks came from," Smith said.
Archaeological data from many regions are now available, allowing comparative analyses of changes and social patterns. Furthermore, archaeology can contribute a new perspective because many of the societies they reconstruct are independent of the western cultural tradition that has been the focus of analysis by most of the social sciences.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Bin Laden in hiding plotted to assassinate Obama
Holed up in his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Osama bin Laden nevertheless hatched a plan to trigger a "crisis" in the U.S. by assassinating President Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus. Watch a preview of "Secrets of bin Laden's Lair," airing Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on the Discovery Channel.
By Jim Miklaszewski and Robert WindremNBC News
Materials found inside Osama bin Laden?s compound last May show that the al-Qaida leader regularly ordered his subordinates to plan?new attacks, including assassinations of President Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus, despite an increasingly limited cadre of operatives capable of carrying out such attacks.?
Like Adolf Hitler at the end of World War II ordering mythical German divisions to attack Russian positions, bin Laden wanted progress reports on how his plans were coming together.? And like Hitler?s generals, al-Qaida?s top commanders believed that their isolated leader didn?t get how bad things were on the ground.
That?s one of the insights U.S. officials gleaned as they went through the terabytes of data quickly scooped up during the raid one year ago on bin Laden?s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In all, Navy Seals recovered five computers, 10 hard drives and more than 100 storage devices -- DVDs, discs and thumb drives -- ?that included between 10,000 and 15,000 documents and between 15,000 to 25,000 videos, including a large number of duplicate files.
NBC News was granted a rare briefing on the materials by a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official with first-hand knowledge of what was found. ?The briefing, which occurred on condition of anonymity, took place in Washington in late April and is reflected in the Discovery Channel documentary ?Inside bin Laden?s Lair.? The broadcast, produced by NBC News, airs Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET.
?
After Osama bin Laden's death, U.S. intelligence agents poured through the trove of documents seized from his compound and discovered that the al-Qaida leader was 'in charge, and just as dangerous as ever.' Watch a preview of "Secrets of bin Laden's Lair," which airs Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on the Discovery Channel.
Among the highlights of the briefing:
-- The materials did not contain any operational plans, either for future attacks or past attacks, but included ?aspirational? plans for attacks that bin Laden wanted to carry out but didn?t have the wherewithal to do.? There was nothing to suggest any planning for attacks beyond those broad plans disclosed in the weeks after the raid:? assassinations of Obama and Petraeus, attacks on tankers and mass transit and bombings planned for anniversaries like the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
-- Bin Laden was more than the titular head of the terrorist group.? Everything ?went through him? ? including communications from field operatives -- and??he had ?a wide range of authority over al-Qaida even at the end,? the official said, declining to provide specifics.? In short, he was ?as dangerous individual on May 1st as he had been years before,? because of the intense loyalty he still engendered in the organization and the broader militant Islamist movement.
-- Bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al Zawahiri, saw the ?Arab Spring? uprisings in the Middle East and north Africa as a ?danger? for the future of al-Qaida, representing a ?fundamental shift? in the region.? Governments that bin Laden and his followers had given up on overturning were ?toppling,? but ?the demonstrators were not expressing support for al-Qaida at all, not ?using al-Qaida themes, etc.,? the official said. Moreover, by hiding in Pakistan, with limited access to media, bin Laden felt isolated from the movement.
Farooq Naeem / AFP - Getty Images
U.S. forces found and killed the al-Qaida leader in the affluent Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where he had been living in a large compound.
-- The Obama administration?s decision to abandon the ?messaging? of a Global War on Terrorism and instead pose the struggle as a war on al-Qaida had an effect on the terror group. Al-Qaida?s leaders were able to portray the Global War on Terrorism as a ?war against Islam,? the official said.? When it ?turned into a war against al-Qaida, ?it was harder for their message to get through. ? The impression you can get from reading different documents was that it allowed moderate Muslims to say we?re opposed to al Qaida.?
-- There was ?nothing in the materials to indicate the Pakistani Government knew of OBL?s location in Abbottabad,? the official said. But ?the U.S. does not believe the Pakistani intelligence services has fully shared what they seized from the compound after the SEALs departed with their bags full of materials. ?We got some stuff (from the Pakistanis).? Did we get 80 percent of what was there or 40 percent of what was there?? Beyond the raw data, the official said, ?It is not our sense that they have shared with us a lot of insights from that.?
-- The official would neither confirm nor deny that the materials recovered at the compound led to the deaths of several top al-Qaida operatives in the weeks and months after the raid. Among those killed in U.S. military operations were bin Laden?s ?general manager? or chief of staff, and his ?director of external operations,? his chief operative. ??We don?t want to talk about what we learned,? the official said. ?However, he did note that after culling the materials for any threat to the homeland, analysts' top priority was ?any potential leads to senior al-Qaida? officials, adding, ?I think we got more of a sense of their vulnerabilities.?
The official said bin Laden?s desire to attack without resources was particularly frustrating for his aforementioned top aides, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman and Ilyas Kashmiri, both of whom were killed in Predator drone attacks within four months of bin Laden?s death.
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?What you get is that bin Laden would come up with an idea but it was a very broad aspirational idea. And then he?d turn it over to somebody and there was always some sort of disconnect," said the official describing what was gleaned from the documents. ?There was more (of Attiyah and Kashmiri) trying to explain to Bin Laden how bad it was, that ?you don?t understand.'"
One such example was bin Laden?s desire to kill Obama. ?My recollection was that he said it would be a good thing.? It was up to Attiyah and Kashmiri to plot it out.
?By the end of last year in some of the communications, because they would provide him with a list of the people who had died, there was certainly a sense of loss in terms of the senior leaders that perished, a sense that the mid-level cadre had been decimated,? the official added.
Despite his isolation from the battlefield and the fact that communiques had to reach him by a secret network of trusted couriers, bin Laden continued to hold a key place in the jihad, as more and more al-Qaida ?franchises? took hold in places like Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria.? It was often his personal charisma that attracted young men to join the terrorist ranks, the official said, adding that he acted the part.
?He weighed in on a lot of issues. They tended to seek his guidance on a lot of things and clearly would wait until he got back to them,? said the official.
Beyond the specific details in the seized documents, said the official, the U.S. was able to better gauge al-Qaida?s vulnerabilities. ?
?They worry about how we think about targeting,? the official said, discussing Predator attacks. ?? Through the course of all the letters it was clear (what) things ? mattered to them.? It allowed U.S. intelligence to ?hone our approach ? put more resources on this or that,? the official said.?
The job of analyzing the wealth of materials seized from bin Laden?s compound was enormous, the official said.
The intelligence community pulled in 200 analysts and 100 linguists to mine the trove as quickly as possible.
Despite the daunting numbers of documents and videos, most had no intelligence value and were set aside in the ?triage? of intelligence analysis. ?Some were duplicates. ?Of the 15,000 to 25,000 videos, for example, not one contained images of possible targets. Not one was an instructional video.? A lot of them, said the official, depicted ?life around the compound ? chickens and cows, rabbits and dogs,? in effect home videos to alleviate the drudgery of the more than a dozen bin Laden family members who were cooped up in the walled complex.
Most of the documents were likewise of little value, but each had to be catalogued, he said. ?A lot of people would give them thumb drives and disks etc. They would send articles and the like. It was something off of Time magazine or something translated, so it wasn?t really an al-Qaida document,? the official said.
Adding to the job of separating the wheat from the chaff was that some of the thumb drives -- al-Qaida?s preferred means of communicating -- held dozens of videos or documents not meant for bin Laden. That did not discourage the analysts, the official said.
?Part of it is this, for analysts and people have been following al-Qaida for years, trying to understand how it works and how it functions etc., ? this was great,? he said. ?They loved coming in day after day reading, piecing together the data.?
Despite the massive amount of material grabbed by the Navy SEALs in the brief time they had in the compound, the official acknowledged ?we didn?t get everything? and that there may have been other ?baskets? of data outside the compound.
And the job is not over, he noted.? ?
The work is ongoing, going back and looking, because there?s always bits in the document that don?t make sense now that we keep going back looking at as we get new intelligence from other individuals to see if we could put some of this into perspective.?
Jim Miklaszewski is chief pentagon correspondent for NBC News; Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for the network.
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Tech billionaires bankroll gold rush to mine asteroids
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida |
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Google Inc executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt are among those bankrolling a venture to survey and eventually extract precious metals and rare minerals from asteroids that orbit near Earth, the company said on Tuesday.
Planetary Resources, based in Bellevue, Washington, initially will focus on developing and selling extremely low-cost robotic spacecraft for surveying missions.
A demonstration mission in orbit around Earth is expected to be launched within two years, said company co-founders Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson.
Planetary Resources' aim is to open deep-space exploration to private industry, much like the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition, which Diamandis created.
The prize, which galvanized the emerging commercial human spaceflight industry, was awarded in 2004 to Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne for the first flights beyond Earth's atmosphere by a privately developed, manned spaceship. Commercial suborbital spaceflights are expected to begin next year.
Planetary Resources' first customers are likely to be science agencies, such as NASA, as well as private research institutes.
Within five to 10 years, however, the company expects to progress from selling observation platforms in orbit around Earth to prospecting services. It plans to tap some of the thousands of asteroids that pass relatively close to Earth and extract their raw materials.
Not all missions would return precious metals and minerals to Earth. In addition to mining for platinum and other precious metals, the company plans to tap asteroids' water to supply orbiting fuel depots, which could be used by NASA and others for robotic and human space missions.
"We have a long view. We're not expecting this company to be an overnight financial home run. This is going to take time," Anderson said in an interview with Reuters.
The real payoff, which is decades away, will come from mining asteroids for platinum group metals and rare minerals.
"If you look back historically at what has caused humanity to make its largest investments in exploration and in transportation, it has been going after resources, whether it's the Europeans going after the spice routes or the American settlers looking toward the west for gold, oil, timber or land," Diamandis said.
"Those precious resources caused people to make huge investments in ships and railroads and pipelines. Looking to space, everything we hold of value on Earth - metals, minerals, energy, real estate, water - is in near-infinite quantities in space. The opportunity exists to create a company whose mission is to be able to go and basically identify and access some of those resources and ultimately figure out how to make them available where they are needed," he said.
Diamandis and Anderson declined to discuss how much money has been raised for their venture so far. In addition to Google billionaires Page and Schmidt, Planetary Resources investors include former Microsoft chief software architect Charles Simonyi, a two-time visitor to the International Space Station, Google founding director K. Ram Shriram and Ross Perot Jr.
Filmmaker James Cameron is an adviser to the company.
Planetary Resources also declined to discuss specifics about how and when asteroid mining would begin. A 30-meter long (98-foot) asteroid can hold as much as $25 billion to $50 billion worth of platinum at today's prices, Diamandis said.
The company's first step is to develop technologies to cut the cost of deep-space robotic probes to one-tenth to one-hundredth the cost of current space missions, which run hundreds of millions of dollars, Diamandis said.
Among the targeted technologies is optical laser communications, which would eliminate the need for large radio antennas aboard spacecraft.
"We're taking new approaches at design," Diamandis said. "Part of the philosophy we're taking is building very low cost, very small spacecraft. You put up six or 10 or dozens and you get reliability."
Planetary Resources, which currently employs about 20 people, is overseen by former NASA Mars mission manager Chris Lewicki. It was founded about three years ago, but has been operating quietly behind the scenes until now.
(The story has been corrected to delete erroneous reference to James Cameron in first paragraph and conforms throughout)
(Editing by Tom Brown and Xavier Briand)
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Four More Referral Sources to Tap into for Business Growth ...
A week ago today, I outlined a brief description of each of the first four of the eight referral sources.? I encouraged blog readers to spend the past week taking action in developing at least two of those referral sources and promised that this week I would explain the last four referral sources.?
* Remember, the more you learn about each referral source, the more referral sources you will develop; the more referral sources you develop, the more referrals you will get and the more your business will grow!
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The Eight Referral Sources: Sources #5 ? #8
- Staff Members
Except for customers, no one understands better than staff members how your products or services perform.? Not just sales and marketing staff?generating sales is what they were hired to do?but part-time or full-time staff members in administration, production, and other functions give your business a boost when they talk with friends, neighbors, associates, and people they meet in their daily lives.? Keep them happy; a disgruntled employee can do your business a lot of harm.Don?t overlook former staff members, either.? Working for your company will always be a part of their history, and often part of their conversation with prospects as well. - People to Whom You?ve Given Referrals
You?re more likely to get a referral from someone to whom you?ve given a referral.? The more you give, the more you?ll get. - Anyone Who Has Given You Referrals
People who give you referrals for business or direct others to you for networking or advice are demonstrating that they think highly of you and what you do.? If they didn?t, they would refer people elsewhere.? Strengthen and nurture these prospective referral sources; don?t take them for granted.? Show your appreciation with personal gestures and by referring prospects to them.? Call on them for further referrals, but don?t abuse their generosity.? Maintain the business standards that earned you their respect. - Other Members of Business Referral Groups
Referral groups are set up by their members mainly to exchange leads and referrals.? A typical weekly meeting of such a group includes time devoted exclusively to networking and referring business.? If you?re a member, this is what you signed up for: ready access to potential new clients.? To encourage communication and limit possible competitive conflicts, business referral groups often restrict membership to one person per profession or specialty.
Between last Monday?s blog and today?s blog, you should now have a good understanding of the eight referral sources and there is no better time than right now to start developing them for more referrals!?
If you accepted last week?s challenge of developing at least two of the first four referral sources, I?d love to hear about which sources you chose to focus on and what your experience was.? Now the question is, which of these next four sources are you going to work on developing next?? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.
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Navy awards Aerovel Flexrotor contract to develop marine surveillance tech
The high seas and UAVs go together like -- well, they go together really well. The Navy's cooking up 3D laser imaging technology for spotting pirates and the like, but it will need some aircraft for the task. Right on cue, a helicopter / airplane hybrid for maritime surveillance is inching toward reality. Aerovel's Flexrotor, an ultra-compact craft with a wing span of three meters (9.8 feet) and a weight of just 19.2 kg (42.3 lb), has already been demonstrated to switch between horizontal and vertical flight, but the next step is enhancing its propulsion system to improve its performance for longer distances and in windier conditions. Today the Office of Naval Research (ONR) awarded the company a contract for developing that tech. For now, you can check out a video of the Flexrotor's first test flight, which demoes the UAV transitioning from vertical and horizontal orientation and back again.
Continue reading Navy awards Aerovel Flexrotor contract to develop marine surveillance tech
Navy awards Aerovel Flexrotor contract to develop marine surveillance tech originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 May 2012 05:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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