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Sunday, April 15, 2012
Why the Titanic Sank [Video]
IRL: oStylus Dot, Sansa Clip+ and SanDisk's Extreme Pro 128GB CompactFlash Card
Welcome to IRL, an ongoing feature where we talk about the gadgets, apps and toys we're using in real life and take a second look at products that already got the formal review treatment.
This week's IRL is a quirky mix of vintage and modern, with Billy getting comfy with a new iPad stylus and Jason clinging to the Sansa Clip+ player he's owned since 2009. Rounding things out, Darren's decided to put all his digital media in one proverbial basket: a 128GB CompactFlash card.
Continue reading IRL: oStylus Dot, Sansa Clip+ and SanDisk's Extreme Pro 128GB CompactFlash Card
IRL: oStylus Dot, Sansa Clip+ and SanDisk's Extreme Pro 128GB CompactFlash Card originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Confirmed! Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt Are Engaged!
Confirmed! Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt Are Engaged!
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are planning to secretly wed, according to the jeweler that designed Jolie’s engagement ring! Jolie was spotted wearing the huge [...]
Confirmed! Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt Are Engaged! Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
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Goldfrapp: Caravan Girl [Video]
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Saturday, April 14, 2012
Analysis: Groupon accounting problems put spotlight on board
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Groupon Inc, the online coupon company that floated just months ago in the strongest IPO in years, has had recurring accounting problems that critics say show a need for more financial sophistication on its board.
Groupon revised its fourth-quarter results last month, its first results posted as a public company, trimming revenue by $14.3 million. The company also said it found a material weakness in controls over its financial statements.
Fast-growing Groupon has said the latest accounting problems stemmed from a move into higher priced coupons, which led to more customer returns and refunds than anticipated.
The company sells discounted coupons online, keeping part of the money that customers pay for the coupons, with the rest going to participating merchants.
Groupon has asked an external auditor to look into the causes of its internal control weakness and has said it will beef up its own finance staff.
But corporate governance experts questioned the financial background of the Groupon board's audit committee, which is supposed to oversee both its auditor and the company's own accountants.
Groupon spokesman Paul Taaffe said the audit committee has met regularly to address accounting issues since the company discovered in February that the refund rate had increased.
Committee members "were in contact with each other, the audit firm and management continuously," he said.
Members of the audit committee declined comment.
Groupon already had been criticized by some analysts and investors for aggressive accounting before it went public in November. Under questioning by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and accounting experts, Groupon changed its accounting practices twice before the initial public offering.
'MORE FINANCIAL EXPERTISE'
"Groupon needs a new audit committee with much more financial expertise," said James Post, a management professor at Boston University.
Some accounting experts said it would have been daunting to estimate the reserves needed for refunds.
"In a new business it's difficult to evaluate, because you don't know the behavior of your customer," said Wendy Stevens, a partner at accounting firm WeiserMazars.
Groupon's rapid growth also made it difficult to keep tabs on internal controls, accounting experts said. The company has expanded to 45 countries since it was launched in Chicago in 2008 and has increased its employees from a handful to 10,000.
With that much growth "there is little doubt that internal controls are not working somewhere," Edward Ketz, an accounting professor at Pennsylvania State University, and Anthony Catanach, an accounting professor at Villanova University, wrote in a blog post last week.
Groupon's audit committee is not lacking business experience. It includes heavy-hitters such as Howard Schultz, chief executive of Starbucks Corp.
Its audit committee chairman, Ted Leonsis, is a former AOL executive and chief executive of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, owner of several professional sports teams.
The third member, Kevin Efrusy, is an entrepreneur and founder of IronPlanet, an online market for heavy equipment.
CEOs are a plus for audit committees because they have the stature to ask tough questions of a company's management and auditors, corporate governance experts said.
But they can be overburdened in the role of audit committee chairman, one of the most demanding on a corporate board.
Heading Groupon's audit committee is not Leonsis's only board duty. He is also on the technology committee of Alcatel-Lucent SA and the boards of Clearspring Technologies, American Express Co, Rosetta Stone Inc, NutriSystem Inc, Georgetown University and two charities, according to a bio on Monumental's website.
A spokesman for Leonsis declined comment.
AUDIT PANEL ENGAGED
Groupon spokesman Taaffe said the committee has been fully involved in overseeing the company's accounting, from its IPO through the earnings revision.
The committee was also involved in a decision to bring in a team of actuaries who created a new model to better estimate future customer refunds, he said.
Meanwhile, legal headaches are mounting as investors try to recover losses. Groupon's directors, including its audit committee, have been named as defendants in multiple lawsuits filed against the company since it disclosed its control weaknesses on March 30.
Groupon's shares are down by more than a third from their IPO price of $20, closing at $13.08 on Wednesday on Nasdaq.
Shoring up audit committees was a key goal of 2002's Sarbanes-Oxley accounting reform act, passed by Congress after accounting scandals at WorldCom and Enron. To make audit committees better financial watchdogs, the act required them to be independent from management and made clear they had the authority to hire their own accounting advisers.
Nasdaq, where Groupon is listed, requires at least one audit panel member to have "financial sophistication," either from experience in finance or accounting, or comparable experience.
But Nasdaq says that requirement can be met by someone meeting the SEC's definition of "financial expert," a term broadened in final SEC rules issued in 2003.
Originally limited to people with accounting or finance experience, the SEC changed the rules to include chief executives who had supervised finance or accounting staff.
Groupon has said Leonsis meets the SEC's definition of a financial expert.
EX-CFOs OR AUDITORS FAVORED
Even so, Groupon would benefit from having at least one person on the audit committee with deeper finance experience, such as an accountant or chief financial officer, corporate governance experts said.
"It is best practice to have at least one such director on the audit committee, as not having such expertise has been shown to lead to the very problems experienced by Groupon," said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at GMI Ratings, a corporate governance ratings agency.
The rules for audit committee qualifications need to be tightened, said Dennis Beresford, an accounting professor at the University of Georgia.
"It would be better for companies to have someone who can speak accounting and auditing, speak GAAP and GAAS," he said, referring to generally accepted accounting principles and generally accepted auditing standards.
Many companies follow the original intent of Sarbanes-Oxley and have at least one person with accounting or financial experience, said Charles Elson, director of the center for corporate governance at the University of Delaware.
"That's why you see so many retired auditors on audit committees these days, or retired chief financial officers," he said.
But that is no guarantee that the committee will ferret out problems.
"Just because you have a financial expert on the committee doesn't mean problems don't occur," Elson added.
(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Andre Grenon)
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Friday, April 13, 2012
Fear and looting new way of life in Malian city Gao
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Klipsun ? Blog Archive ? Stopping the clock
- ONLINE EXCLUSIVE -
Story by Dan Langager
The Angel Of The Winds Casino in Arlington, Wash. can?t stop you from knowing the time, but they?re going to try. A lack of clocks on the walls, piped-in fresh air and the chance of winning entice those coming in the front doors. Settling down for an afternoon of slot machines and table games, patrons become unaware of the passage of the sun.
People can kill a lot of time at Angel Of The Winds, John Cronin, the casino?s marketing manager, says. Although the average patron spends two to four hours in the casino, he says he?s seen some stay for up to 12.
?Gambling is a form of entertainment,? Cronin says. ?Time moves a lot faster in the casino because customers aren?t worried about it.?
Entertainment businesses such as casinos and art studios employ many specific strategies to maintain their primary goal: keep customers longer and keep them coming back. From a lack of clocks and windows, to ambient lighting and sounds, to alcohol and giveaways, patrons lose track of time?s passage and life?s stresses. The competition amongst these businesses demands new and innovative strategies to satiate people?s desire for entertainment.
Cronin believes the casino industry is constantly reworking its strategies to keep customers settled in. During the 1950s, casinos were built without windows, lit in low light and contained no clocks on the walls, he says. ?Back in the old days, customers were unaware of the passage of time,? Cronin says. ?But the trends are starting to change.?
Unlike the casinos built a half-century ago, Angel Of The Winds sports large windows and several skylights. Cronin says customers see more of the outdoors and more of the sunshine. Since patrons are allowed to smoke tobacco inside, the casino also has high ceilings and an air filtration system, which refreshes the air indoors about every four minutes, Cronin says.
In addition to large windows and fresh air, the emergence of cellphones has greatly affected the industry. Cronin says most of the people coming in have cellphones or smart phones that they check several times a day. This makes the lack of clocks in the facility superfluous. Yet, Cronin thinks that people check the time on their phones less often when inside the casino.
?For about the length of a movie,? he says, ?people come here because they want to escape.?
Aaron Thomas, marketing director for the Silver Reef Casino in Ferndale, Wash., points to the industry standards put out by the largest Las Vegas casinos. Thomas says the standard has always been to not post clocks, primarily because patrons don?t want to know the time while at the casino.
?Typically people come to casinos to get away from it all,? Thomas says. ?They want to get away from the hustle and bustle.?
Painting also allows people to lose track of time. Creativitea, a pottery painting studio in Fairhaven, Wash., allows customers to pick out pieces of unfired pottery such as mugs, bowls, plates, coin banks, butter dishes, coasters and many other ceramic pieces. Although it varies from person to person, painting a piece takes about an hour and a half, but customers can spend as much time as they need.
Chinook Graham, 33, opened Creativitea 14 years ago to create a space where people could come and paint their own pottery. Contemporary ceramic studios have only been around for about 20 years, she says, and though it was once the norm to charge by the hour, that is not longer the case. When Graham moved to Bellingham, she wanted her studio be all-inclusive.
?I didn?t want that consciousness of the time to be there for the customers,? she says. The price of the pottery at Creativitea includes studio time, design tools, paints, glazing, firing and staff assistance. Pottery pieces range from $6 to $60.
Like Angel of the Winds, Creativitea sports large windows and no clocks. The windows and natural light allow people to feel connected to the outside even when sitting inside. She says the average length a customer will stay is three to four hours, usually during a single afternoon.
?If you?re looking at the clock, you?re not concentrating on the pottery,? she says. ?You?re less present in what you?re working on.?
Having tea and food contributes to the shop?s atmosphere, Graham says. With more than 40 kinds of tea, scones and sandwiches, she thinks people?s basic needs are met, allowing them to settle in. Graham says Creativitea?s goals are the opposite of casinos and restaurants.
?I?ve never tried to push people in and out or have a fast turn-around of tables,? she says. ?You can?t rush people in this process. It?s about creating a space where people feel comfortable.?
The techniques and strategies to settle patrons in may change over the years, but the goal remains the same: they should lose their sense of time. Storeowners can?t keep the passage of time unknown, but by creating an inviting atmosphere and leisurely entertainment, they suspend time for all who walk through the door.
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CIA's Secret Fear: High-Tech Border Checks Will Blow Spies' Cover [Video]
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