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Saturday, October 26, 2013

Reversed Call Gives Sox Opening To Win World Series Game One

In last night's game one of the World Series, umpires changed an out call at second base. Instead of a possible inning-ending double play, the Boston Red Sox went on to score three runs and eventually beat the St. Louis Cardinals.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

The St. Louis Cardinals hope to come back against the Boston Red Sox in game two of the World Series tonight. In game one, well, just about nothing went right with the Cardinals. NPR's Mike Pesca joins us. He's covering these games from Boston. Hey there, Mike.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hi.

CORNISH: So, in the first inning, there was this big mistaken call by the umpire at second base and then a reversal of that call. What happened?

PESCA: David Ortiz grounds to second, second baseman flips it to the shortstop. So that should have started a double play. In fact, the shortstop, Pete Kozma, just drops the ball. So what that means is that there should be the bases loaded. Unfortunately, Dana Demuth, the umpire, was not looking at the glove and the ball. He was looking at the feet, which is technically what umpires are supposed to do. They listen for the ball hitting the glove. And it did it hit the glove, but it trickled out.

So, Dana Demuth was the only person in the whole stadium who thought that there was an out on the play. Red Sox manager intervenes. There's a big conference. And every other umpire - and Fox Broadcasting aired this audio of John Hirschbeck, the chief of the crew, saying, the five of us saw it and we're a hundred percent certain that he should be safe.

And so the runner was ruled safe. This allowed the bases to be loaded. Next up, Mike Napoli hit a double. It totally changed the game. And it is kind of unprecedented to have umpires confer like that, eventually get the call right. But the process is not what we're used to in Major League Baseball.

CORNISH: Would replay have solved that?

PESCA: You know, it's interesting. I've heard people - because replay is coming next year. And there's kind of a convoluted system. It's - there will be an official in New York City looking at these replays, and then coaches or managers will have a certain amount of challenges. So I've seen everyone argue that this means that replay will be slow, this means that replay is unnecessary. This means that if this happened later in the game and the manager was out of challenges, maybe he wouldn't be even able to ask for a reversal.

I don't think it means any of that. I think next year, Major League Baseball is going to try a replay system and that's going to try to get more calls right. I think, at the same time, umpires are making an effort to get the calls right among themselves. The presence of replay does not preclude umpires from occasionally reversing when one of their brethren totally blows a call.

CORNISH: So this is a rough start for St. Louis. Do you think the Cardinals will be able to put this behind them?

PESCA: You know, it's interesting. I think that they're certainly a resilient team and it has nothing to do with their mental makeup. Yes. As far as that goes, yes. But physically, there was a moment in the game where perhaps if Mike Matheny, the Cardinals' manager, had intervened, he could have pulled his starter, his ace, Adam Wainwright, out after, say, the second inning, save his arm. You could possibly have gotten Adam Wainwright three more starts in this World Series.

I asked Matheny about that after the game and he says, well, he still had very few pitches. In fact, Wainwright had 95 pitches, which is not a tremendous amount, but it's a real start. So I think maybe an early intervention would have helped them more. But Matheny also said, we're not ruling anything out as far as Wainwright pitching on a little bit of rest.

CORNISH: OK. Mike, looking ahead, though, let's preview tonight's pitchers.

PESCA: Tonight's pitchers, John Lackey is pitching for the Red Sox. He hasn't been good for a while, but this year, he was really great. I can't quite explain why. And no one could explain Michael Wacha. Well, he's the 22-year-old phenom. He's had three starts in the post-season for St. Louis. He's won them all. He's only allowed one earned run in the post-season. He only came up on May 30, but he's been so phenomenal. So the Red Sox are now the ones who are going to have their hands full, I think.

CORNISH: NPR's Mike Pesca joined us from member station WBUR in Boston. He's covering the series there. Mike, thanks.

PESCA: You're welcome.

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Saudi women drive in protest with little problem

In this image made from video provided by theOct26thDriving campaign, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a Saudi woman drives a vehicle in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013. A Saudi woman said she got behind the wheel Saturday and drove to the grocery store without being stopped or harassed by police, kicking off a campaign protesting the ban on women driving in the ultraconservative kingdom. (AP Photo)

FILE - In this Friday, June 17, 2011 file image made from video released by Change.org, a Saudi Arabian woman drives a car as part of a campaign to defy Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It’s been a little more than two years since the last time women in Saudi Arabia campaigned for the right to drive. Since then, the monarchy has made incremental but key reforms, and activists hope that has readied the nation for greater change as they call for women to get behind the wheel in a new campaign Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013. Ultraconservatives are pushing back with protests, threats and even a cleric’s warning that driving a car damages a woman’s ovaries.(AP Photo/Change.org, File)

FILE - In thos Friday, Nov. 7, 2008 file photo, a Saudi woman walks in the desert, in Thumama, Saudi Arabia. It’s been a little more than two years since the last time women in Saudi Arabia campaigned for the right to drive. Since then, the monarchy has made incremental but key reforms, and activists hope that has readied the nation for greater change as they call for women to get behind the wheel in a new campaign Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013. Ultraconservatives are pushing back with protests, threats and even a cleric’s warning that driving a car damages a woman’s ovaries. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — More than 60 women across Saudi Arabia claimed they drove cars Saturday in defiance of a ban keeping them from getting behind the wheel, facing little protest by police in their push for easing restrictions on women in the kingdom.

The campaign's message is that driving should be a woman's choice. The struggle is rooted in the kingdom's hard-line interpretation of Islam known as Wahabbism, with critics warning that women driving could unravel the very fabric of Saudi society.

Though no laws ban women from driving in Saudi Arabia, authorities do not issue them licenses. Women who drove on Saturday had driver's licenses from abroad, activists said.

Activist Aziza Youssef, a professor at King Saudi University, and another activist said protest organizers received 13 videos and about 50 phone messages from women showing or claiming they had driven. She said they have no way to verify the messages.

May Al Sawyan, a 32-year-old mother of two and an economic researcher, told The Associated Press that she drove from her home in Riyadh to the grocery store and back. Activists uploaded a four-minute video of her driving to the campaign's YouTube account.

Al Sawyan said she was prepared to be jailed if caught by authorities. She said she was far enough from a police car that she was not spotted.

"I just took a small loop," she said. "I didn't drive for a long way, but it was fine."

Al Sawyan's husband and family waited at home and called her nervously when she arrived at the store to check on her, she said. She drove with a local female television reporter in the car. They were both without male relatives in the vehicle, which in itself defies the country's strict norms requiring women to have a male relative in public.

"I am very happy and proud that there was no reaction against me," Al Sawyan said.

It is not clear if police turned a blind eye to women driving or simply did not see the scattered, quick spins around towns. An AP journalist in Riyadh said there were no roadblocks or checkpoints set up to watch for female drivers. He saw only a few law enforcement vehicles on the road.

A security official said authorities did not arrest or fine any female drivers on Saturday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Ahead of the protest, authorities offered mixed messages, perhaps cautious not to push too hard against the kingdom's religious establishment. Hard-line clerics say women driving will lead to "licentiousness." A prominent cleric also caused a stir when he said that medical studies show driving a car harms a woman's ovaries.

The ministry that oversees the police warned that violators who "disturb public peace" would be dealt with forcefully. The statement catered to conservatives who saw this as directed at women drivers, but was also interpreted by reformers to be directed at anyone who harasses women drivers.

"This is part of the politics," said Youssef, the activist and professor. "My analysis is that government is doing all this to protect ladies from the harassers."

Saturday's campaign is in stark contrast the kingdom's first major driving protest in 1990, which saw 50 women arrested. They ultimately had their passports confiscated and lost their jobs.

In June 2011, about 40 women got behind the wheel in several cities in a protest sparked when a woman was arrested after posting a video of herself driving. Later another woman driver was arrested and sentenced to 10 lashes, but the king overturned the sentence.

King Abdullah gradually has introduced reforms since then. The reforms, which include allowing women to sit on the national advisory council and permitting women to vote and run in municipal elections, may have readied the deeply conservative nation for change.

But the stringent male guardian system has been left untouched. It requires women to obtain permission from a male relative to travel, get married, enroll in higher education or undergo surgery in some cases.

Women who complain about not having male relatives to drive them places or money to spend on a driver are told by many Saudi clerics to call for better public transportation systems, not a driver's license.

Karen Elliott House, the author of "On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines," has interviewed many key members of the kingdom's very private royal family and says the monarchy is trying to slowly embrace more openness.

"They try to constantly, like a tight rope walker, to balance by tilting first toward the most rigid clerics and then toward modernizers to keep a balance in the kingdom," House said.

In the days leading up to the campaign, some hard-liners called for women drivers to be harassed. Ultraconservative clerics and top religious scholars, angry that the government is not cracking down harder, protested earlier in the week.

Youssef said she and four other prominent women activists received phone calls from a top official with close links to Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, urging them not to drive on Saturday. She also said that "two suspicious cars" were following her all day.

Despite the obstacles, Youssef said only one woman reported being pulled over by police Saturday. The woman was asked to sign a statement promising not to drive again and her husband took over the steering wheel, she said.

"We will continue driving and posting videos," Youssef said. "The whole thing is raising awareness and making people get used to us driving as normal."

___

Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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Eight states team up to push electric cars, target 3.3 million sold by 2025

It's clear by now that putting a million EVs on the road by 2015 is but a pipe dream, but a joint project by eight states aim to make a total of 3.3 million EV sales by 2025 a more viable goal. California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont have forged a ...

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Meet Nexmo, The Telecom API Firm On Track For $40M In 2013 Revenue

Given the massive global popularity of messaging, the market in play is enormous. Nexmo is a quickly growing company that provides carrier-direct SMS and Voice APIs that developers can use to reach phones around the world. Vying for traction in the space with competitors like Twilio, Nexmo has raised raised $3 million earlier this year, and unlike so many other young technology companies, is profitable. However, it is a somewhat quiet company.

I recently sat down with Nexmo’s CEO Tony Jamous to dig into just how quickly his company is growing, how it managed to break into the black and what its next plans are. Jamous is affable, and provided TechCrunch with far more hard numbers than most firms are willing to share. Then again, most companies don’t share, because showing off how much money you lose isn’t too flattering. Nexmo doesn’t have that problem.

I won’t be focusing on the technical aspects of Nexmo and its industry in this post. That’s a discussion for another day.

Growth

Nexmo’s revenue grew at a stable 20 percent monthly for the first half of 2013. That income directly corresponds to the firm’s 20 percent average monthly growth rate of its through-traffic during the same period.

Chronologically, Nexmo began to accelerate around the time of its most recent round of funding – the company has raised a total of $3.83 million. Jamous referred to the cash injection as a “shot in the arm.” Ask any CEO what he intends to do with a new round of funding, and her response every time is the same: Acceleration. Nexmo is no different.

Using its most recent $3 million, Nexmo grew its sales team and signed several new and large clients. But in its favor, existing customers grew in scale, directly boosting traffic through its APIs and, thus, increasing revenue.

Nexmo has been caught in a contented updraft: It counts among its customers, by its estimation, about 80 percent of the “Over-The-Top Content” message market (OTT). Line, Viber and KaKaoTalk are among the larger OTT messaging services, and they use Nexmo. The company also works with other OTT players, but asked me not publish their names, citing private contracts.

To supplement the growth in its SMS business, Nexmo began to support voice calls in June. In July, 4 million calls were sent through the new service. Jamous stated that the voice part of Nexmo grew quickly at launch because existing clients had requested it, putting demand in place from its first day in operation. Twilio, which has been in the call game far longer, recently announced that it is handling about 4 million calls daily. I don’t have Nexmo’s comparable figure. Jamous did tell me that Nexmo has handled more than 1.4 billion voice and SMS API transactions.

Voice currently comprises 7 percent of Nexmo revenue, and the company expects it to rise to 15 percent of its fourth quarter revenue.

Revenue

Nexmo had revenues of $4 million in August. That figure is more than the company has raised, to date, it’s worth noting. That revenue rate puts Nexmo at around a $50 million yearly run rate. The company will exceed that rate in 2013, provided that it continues to grow.

According to Jamous, Nexmo expects total revenue of around $40 million for calendar 2013. Twilio was tipped earlier in 2013 to be on track for about $50 million in revenue for the year, putting the companies on rough top-line parity.

Extrapolating from the August revenue figure, assuming that Nexmo grows at 5 percent monthly – a reduced pace, but one that I think is a reasonable projection – Nexmo would generate just under $9 million in top line next December. That would put it on a nine-figure yearly run rate.

Money

Nexmo is looking to raise another tranche of cash. Why raise when you are profitable? Jamous wants to accelerate the growth of his product and support team. He still handles the bulk of support work himself, something that probably worked when the company was smaller than it is now.

Jamous indicated that he wants to raise more than $20 million, and the company is talking to new investors. Previously, Nexmo raised cash from foreign investors in China and Korea, helping it to build relationships in those markets where it didn’t have local clout. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nexmo raised its next round at least partially from investors of several continents.

Will the company struggle to raise cash? Probably not. Twilio recently raised $70 million. But the companies aren’t complete analogues, so we should avoid over-comparison, but in this context they are relatable. If Twilio can land $70 million (bringing its total raised cash to over $100 million) Nexmo shouldn’t struggle to pick up $22 million or $23 million.

The company also wants to put together a proper marketing strategy. You likely hadn’t heard of Nexmo before today. I only recently became acquainted with the firm. It could use a higher profile.

What’s Next

Nexmo was founded in June of 2010, and the first message went through its systems in January of 2011. So, in a little over three years, it has grown to a company on a $50 million yearly run rate. That’s an impressive tear. Still, the growth of OTT applications that were its clients did contribute greatly to its success, and growth.

To say right place, right time is lazy. Nexmo built a product and scaled as some of its larger firms did the same. Still, growth could slow if OTT app partners slow, and if those applications themselves lose relevance in the notoriously fickle mobile world, Nexmo could suffer from flat or declining incomes.

Also, Twilio is ludicrously well funded, and could begin to hem in on Nexmo’s key customers. Competition is a standard business risk, however, and not one that is unique to Nexmo. Still, for a company that wants to raise money on the strength of its growth, Nexmo has to keep a closer eye on its acceleration than comparable firms.

Provided that Nexmo secures the funds that it is looking for, it can begin marketing with a decent ROI, and can continue to develop its voice business. I don’t see why the company can’t continue steady growth. The days of 20 percent monthly revenue growth are likely past, but that doesn’t mean that the firm can’t keep putting points on the board.

It will be interesting to see how heavily Nexmo invests after it raises, and whether it will be willing to dip into the red for a few quarters to accelerate its top line. Once profitable, there is a certain momentum to making money. It can be uncomfortable to become cashflow negative (we’re speaking loosely here, of course) after being acquainted with profitability.

After digging through the numbers, Jamous and I discussed culture for a few minutes. The operating philosophy of Nexmo is to not hire until the need is painful, and even then to try and solve the need with technology. The company currently has 33 employees, spread throughout the United States, Hong Kong, London, and other locations. I don’t think that we’ll see Nexmo hire half of San Francisco once it secures its new funds.

–

The core challenge for Nexmo is proving that it can continue revenue growth. It doesn’t have to prove that it can generate profits. But to command the valuation it likely wants, it will have to detail how it can grow outside of the OTT as quickly as it grew with it.

I’ll be checking back in with the company towards the end of the year to see how its internal metrics are looking. For now, Nexmo has built a track record that it has to continue to live up to.

Top Image Credit: Clemson

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Natalie Portman Debuts A New Look At The ‘Thor: The Dark World’ Paris Premiere

Miss Dior Nails It

Posted by: Shannon on October 24, 2013|

Nobody rocks a Christian Dior gown quite like Natalie Portman, and the actress continues to be a red carpet fave for many of us. Portman has been attending the premieres for her new movie Thor: The Dark World, and she’s been looking absolutely fabulous. Her most recent look was this gorgeous little Dior frock, which she wore to her Paris premiere. I think this new haircut– along with those blonde highlights– really suits her. What do you guys think? Are we loving this or what?

[Source] [Photo Credit: Getty/Splash]

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Short Stories Episode 4: Backcountry Adrenaline With Dave Short

Posted by: Evan Litsios / added: 10.24.2013 / Back to What Up

Dave Short ripped the Whistler Backcountry last spring, as shown in this episode of Short Stories. Dave goes right for the spines, steeps and hairy situations, managing the dangers with a smart head and pure boarding ability. Dave isn't working on sticking his double corks. He's got big lines in his eyes, and as you can see he has every intention of ripping them.

Short Stories Episode 4 - Adrenaline from 33MAG on Vimeo.

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Custom Moto X now $99.99 from Moto Maker site

Moto X

$100 price cut for customized AT&T Moto X on contract

Motorola has halved the cost of getting hold of a customized 16GB Moto X from its MotoMaker.com site. The customization tools are still exclusive to AT&T's Moto X, which incidentally still costs $199 on-contract from the carrier. If you're after the 32GB model, that'll set you back $149.99, down from $249.99.

So there's really no reason not to pick up a customized model if you're in the market for an AT&T Moto X. Moto's customization site lets you change the back color, accents and texture of your Moto X, before adding accessories and custom greetings, giving you a more personalized device.

There's been no official word on when Moto Maker will be coming to other carriers, but Verizon is rumored to get it Nov. 11.

More: MotoMaker.com; via: Android Central forums

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