JPMorgan Chase agreed pay $5.1 billion to settle litigation over mortgage assets sold during the housing bubble. The deal, announced late Friday afternoon, is to resolve claims the company misled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the housing market crashed. It is part of a tentative $13 billion deal the company is trying to reach with federal and state agencies over its mortgage liabilities.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Novo Nordisk is recalling 3 million insulin products used for diabetes treatment in 13 European countries due to a production problem that can affect the strength of the drug.
The Danish drug maker says Friday's recall affects certain batches of the prefilled insulin pen NovoMix30 FlexPen in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway and Slovakia.
It also affects three batches of NovoMix30 Penfill cartridges in Britain and Ireland.
Novo Nordisk says a quality control showed 0.14 percent of the products don't meet the specifications for insulin strength, which could lead to high or low blood sugar levels.
Company spokesman Mike Rulis said there had been no reports of health problems from patients using the affected products, which were first shipped in March.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-10-25-Denmark-Insulin%20Recall/id-613cfb4cd1624306b6c924b87e3e9d5cBELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia's new national carrier, Air Serbia, has named its first plane after Novak Djokovic, the Balkan country's best-ever tennis player who is second-ranked in the world.
An Airbus A319 plane bearing a double-headed eagle logo in Serbia's national, red, white and blue colors is making its first flight Saturday to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, marking the company's official launch. Djokovic's name is printed in large letters at the front part of the plane.
Air Serbia was formed in partnership with Etihad Airways, which owns 49 percent of the successor to loss-making JAT Airways. The company says its future fleet will carry names of 14 important living Serbs.
Serbian media have quoted Djokovic as saying he was happy to help the new company.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/serb-carriers-first-plane-named-djokovic-123405310--finance.htmlFILE - In this Aug. 1, 2012 file photo, Jeffrey Zients testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Barack Obama is calling Zients to help correct problems with the new federal health care website. The White House says Zients will assist a team that is said to be working around the clock on the site, www.healthcare.gov. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 1, 2012 file photo, Jeffrey Zients testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Barack Obama is calling Zients to help correct problems with the new federal health care website. The White House says Zients will assist a team that is said to be working around the clock on the site, www.healthcare.gov. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — It should be working well by the end of November. That's the Obama administration's rough timetable for completing a long list of fixes to HealthCare.gov, the new, trouble-plagued website for uninsured Americans to get coverage.
Summarizing a week's worth of intensive diagnostics, the administration acknowledged Friday the site has dozens of complex problems and tapped a private company to oversee fixes.
Jeffrey Zients, a management consultant brought in by the White House to assess the extent of problems, told reporters his review found dozens of issues across the entire system. The site is made up of layers of components that are meant to interact in real time with consumers, government agencies and insurance company computers.
It will take a lot of work, but "HealthCare.gov is fixable," Zients declared.
The vast majority of the issues will be resolved by the end of November, he asserted, and there will be many fewer screen freezes. He stopped short of saying problems will completely vanish.
The administration also said it is promoting one of the website contractors, a subsidiary of the nation's largest health insurance company, to take on the role of "general contractor" shepherding the fixes.
Quality Software Services Inc. — owned by a unit of UnitedHealth Group— was responsible for two components of the government's online insurance system. One is the data hub, a linchpin that works relatively well, and the other is an accounts registration feature that initially froze and caused many problems.
HealthCare.gov was supposed to be the online portal for uninsured Americans to get coverage under President Barack Obama's health care law. Envisioned as the equivalent of Amazon.com for health insurance, it became a huge bottleneck immediately upon launch Oct. 1. The flop turned into an embarrassment for Obama and will likely end up as a case study of how government technology programs can go awry.
The briefing from Zients came a day after executives of QSSI and the other major contractor, CGI Federal, told Congress that the government didn't fully test the system and ordered up last-minute changes that contributed to logjams. Next week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is scheduled to testify.
Visiting a community health center on Friday in Austin, Texas, Sebelius said that "in an ideal world there would have been a lot more testing" but added that her department had little flexibility to postpone the launch against the backdrop of Washington's unforgiving politics. House Republicans trying to defund the nation's health insurance program precipitated a government shutdown.
Zients gave some new details about the extent of the problems, but administration officials are still refusing to release any numbers on how many people have successfully enrolled. Although 700,000 have applied for coverage through the new online markets, it's believed only a fraction of that number actually managed to sign up. Before the website went live, an administration estimate projected nearly 500,000 people would sign up in October alone.
The marketplaces are the gateway to obtaining health insurance under the new health care law, which requires most Americans to have coverage by Jan. 1. Middle-class people who don't have insurance on the job can purchase a private plan with new tax credits to make the premiums more affordable. Low-income people will be steered to an expanded version of Medicaid in states that agree to extend the safety net program.
The federal government is running the insurance markets or taking the lead in 36 states. The rest were set up by states themselves.
Consumers have until Dec. 15 to sign up for coverage to take effect Jan. 1. Under the law, pre-existing medical conditions will no longer be a barrier. But the markets also need lots of young, healthy customers to keep premiums affordable. Open enrollment season extends until Mar. 31.
Zients said almost daily fixes are already having an impact. For example, more than 90 percent of users can now complete one of the first steps, creating an account.
But the application process, which involves submitting and verifying personal information and income details, remains "volatile," he said. At one point, as few as one-third of users were getting through that part.
Zients said there are two big categories of problems. Performance issues involve the speed and reliability of the website. Functional issues are bugs that keep the software from working as intended. Among the high-priority issues is that insurers are getting enrollments with incomplete, incorrect or duplicative information.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-26-Health%20Overhaul-Problems/id-b31826f4860649f1bb5a11814acc3c95The Scosche RH1060 fits well into the current world of headphones, meaning that it shares some popular attributes, like Bluetooth wireless audio streaming, a detachable cable for optional wired listening, and, most notably, some powerful bass response. The $199.99 (direct) headphones are also quite comfortable, though their bulky design won't be for everyone. Bass lovers looking for a solid, powerful Bluetooth headphone pair have plenty of reason to read on—those who favor a more midrange-focused mix, or a lighter, more easily portable pair, probably don't need to.
Design
No one would call the RH1060 petite. The headphone frame is chunky, its earpads are large, and most of the surface of the outer panels and the headband is comprised of glossy black plastic. The earpads have some pivot to them at their connection point in the headband, so they can adjust to the shape of your head more easily. Ample padding on the underside of the headband and on the earpads themselves makes the fit of the RH1060 quite comfortable.
The Power button for the RH1060 is on the left earcup—it doubles as the Bluetooth pairing button. As with most Bluetooth headphones these days, the pairing process is simple and quick; our iPhone 4S found the RH1060 quickly and was soon streaming audio to it.
On the right earcup, there are three controls, for Volume Up, Volume Down (these buttons work independently of the volume controls on your mobile device or computer), and Play/Pause. They are large enough that it's fairly easy to memorize which is which, but you will be operating them blindly. Also on the right earcup: the connection ports for a USB charging cable and a 3.5mm audio cable, both of which come with the headphones.
The inclusion of an audio cable for wired, non-Bluetooth usage adds value to the RH1060—you can use it when the battery's dead, and you can even replace the cable should it falter down the road. The cable does not have an inline remote or microphone, however.
The RH1060 also ships with a sturdy zip-up hard case, which the headphones fold down into with ease (though the case is still bulky), as well as a cleaning cloth to shine the glossy plastic, and a carabiner that can fasten to a loop on the outside of the case.
It would have been nice to see a dedicated charger, and not just a USB cable, on a pair priced this high, but this is a common omission. Scosche estimates the playback time on a fully charged battery to be about 8 hours.
Performance
The RH1060 does not distort, whether in wired or Bluetooth mode, on tracks with serious sub-bass content, like the Knife's "Silent Shout"—even at top volumes on both the headphones and the sound source (in this case, again, an iPhone 4S). Not only is the bass delivered cleanly, but with substantial rumble. There is significant bass boosting here, and fans of flat response sound signatures probably will find the low-frequency response too intense. Fans of big bass, however, should enjoy the RH1060's overall sound—there's enough mid-range and high frequency presence so that things don't become ridiculously weighted to the lows, but this is clearly their show.
On Bill Callahan's "Drover", it becomes apparent that these headphones are mostly geared towards the deep bass fans. Through the RH1060, his vocals lack the treble edge and high-mid clarity that help them stay out in front of the mix. Instead, the lows take over, boosting his baritone vocals a bit too much, and boosting the lows of the drumming too much. Some people will enjoy this sound, but it's almost as if the drums are competing with his voice for your attention. On a flat response pair, they'd be well in the background of the mix—somewhere in between the two is what most people will gravitate to.
Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild" fares better with the RH1060's sound signature. The attack of the kick drum loop receives enough high-mid definition to cut through the mix, though it lacks the edge it often has on pairs with more mid-range and high frequency presence. And the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the drum loop are delivered with power, but not overwhelmingly so. Clearly, electronic music and hip-hop tracks with prominent low-end fare better on the RH1060 than more subtle singer songwriter mixes.
As for classical tracks, like John Adams' "The Chairman Dances", they sound crisper and brighter than the other genres tested, primarily because they tend to have more transparent, flat mixes to begin with. So, the high-mid presence of the higher register strings and percussion is already well intact and doesn't need much help from the RH1060 to stay out in the forefront of the mix, even when the lower register strings get some serious extra richness in the lows, as they do here. The large drum hits at the end of this piece have some extra thunder to them, but nothing is so over-the-top that it sounds unnatural.
This is nitpicking, but occasionally, we heard system noises in the headphones (when paired with the iPhone 4S)—very faint, and not really loud enough to interfere with the music. But it's notable because so many Bluetooth headphones and earphones do not suffer from any noises like these when paired. It's a very faint, brief higher pitched sound that isn't really loud enough to compete with the music and shouldn't be considered a deal-breaker for anyone still interested in this pair.
So, obviously purists seeking less bass boosting should look elsewhere, but fans of big bass and the genres that often employ it should enjoy the RH1060—and classical fans who don't mind a little added low-end presence might like these headphones as well. If you're looking for a more measured, balanced response with more high frequency definition, the Harman Kardon BT is a solid Bluetooth pair in this general price range. And if more low end is what you crave, the Beats by Dr. Dre Wireless brings it in droves. Sennheiser's MM 100 is another solid Bluetooth option, but geared more toward the exercise crowd—it has far less bass and a much more workout-friendly design. If you're looking to spend a lot less money, the Outdoor Technology DJ Slims manage to output a decent bass response and clarity despite their budget price—but don't expect fireworks. At $200, the RH1060 seems fairly priced, given that it's well-designed, can be used in wired mode as well, and delivers clean audio, but bass fans are clearly the target audience.
IN A GLOBAL FIRST FOR TELEVISION, "THE X FACTOR" LAUNCHES VOTING ON SHAZAM
Exclusive Partnership Extends Online SuperVote Features and Bonus Content Experience to Shazam's 105 Million U.S. App Users
THE X FACTOR Voting Via Online, Mobile and Tablet App, Toll-Free Phone Lines and Text Messaging
Begins Wednesday, November 6, on FOX
In a global first, FOX, FremantleMedia North America and Syco Entertainment are offering THE
X FACTOR fans the opportunity to vote for their favorite acts using Shazam, one of the most popular music and TV apps on the planet and one of the Top 10 most-downloaded apps on the App Store™.
Beginning Wednesday, Nov. 6, fans of THE X FACTOR can take advantage of FOX's patent pending SuperVote experience directly through the Shazam App, where they can also click to purchase songs performed by the acts, as well as the recording artists, featured in-show during the broadcast. In addition, THE X FACTOR fans using Shazam will now be able to vote for their favorite acts, as well as access additional show videos and content that complement the show's media-rich sync-to-broadcast experience available through the official The X Factor USA app during the live telecasts.
"THE X FACTOR is that perfect marriage of music and television that Shazam users love. We are thrilled to work with FOX, Syco and FremantleMedia North America in this first-of-its-kind chance for THE X FACTOR fans to use the Shazam App to vote for their favorite acts," said Shazam CEO Rich Riley.
Sponsored by Honda across all digital platforms, online voting for THE X FACTOR begins immediately after the first live Top 12 performance show on Wednesday, Nov. 6 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed), on FOX. Viewers will be able to SuperVote – cast multiple votes at one time – via TheXFactorUSA.com, The X Factor USA app (data and message rates may apply) and the Shazam App. Fans with valid Facebook accounts can also SuperVote at
Facebook.com/TheXFactorUSA.
To SuperVote, fans can allocate any number of votes for one contestant or multiple contestants, for a total of 50 votes (across all online voting destinations), and in a unique interactive experience, they can adjust their vote selections as performances happen during the show. When the voting window officially opens, fans can submit their final votes – all at once. [Only fans with a registered Facebook account in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will be able to cast their vote(s) online.]
In addition to online voting, fans will continue to be able to vote during the voting window via toll-free calling, as well as text messaging (standard text-messaging rates may apply). The first voting results will be revealed on the LIVE results show Thursday, Nov. 7 (8:00-9:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX. Please continue to visit www.TheXFactorUSA.com for voting information.
Welcome to Patentspin. I'll use this space to take a look at some strange or interesting patents related to the world of sports. I will then, probably, make fun of them.
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