Wednesday, 09 July 2014 10:59

BANGKOK: Thai rice prices were unchanged at high levels due to tight supply as the military was still in the midst of a nationwide rice stocks inspection, traders said on Wednesday.

The offer price of common grade Thai 5 percent white rice was unchanged at $420 per tonne, the highest since March 7. "Prices stayed at relatively high levels although demand was not very strong," said a Bangkok-based trader. "But it was because domestic supply remained tight as the army still controlled the warehouses for the stocks inspection."

Thailand's military government launched an inspection of rice warehouses around the country last week to work out how much grain was stockpiled by the government it ousted in May and to check on the rice quality.

Panadda Diskul, head of the government's rice inspection committee, said the check-up would finish by the end of July, when traders expected more rice supply could be release from the government stocks and prices should ease. Rice export prices in Vietnam, however, dropped this week as demand from major buyer China subsided, traders said.

Vietnam's 5-percent broken rice dropped to $415-$420 a tonne, free-on-board Saigon Port, from $420-$430 a week ago.

Vietnamese 25-percent broken rice dipped to $365-$370 a tonne, from $370-$375 last Wednesday.

"Sales to China are slowing, with more vessels left idle instead of loading as in the past at My Thoi port," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said, referring to a port in the Mekong Delta food basket.

Sales to China, Vietnam's top buyer this year, could halve in the second half of the year from the 1.38 million tonnes exported in January-June, according to industry forecasts, the Vietnam Economic Times newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The drop in sales stemmed from concerns over the continuing dispute over the South China Sea, and Chinese customs officials tightening quality control of rice imported via land borders, traders said.

View original post here:
Asia Rice: Thai stock check holds prices at high levels despite thin demand

If hybrid laptops in 2014 have a theme so far, it's the rise of the Yoga-like, a term we use to describe a system with a hinge similar to the one found on the popular line of Yoga laptops from Lenovo, as well as me-too models from Dell and others. One of the newest and least expensive of these is the 11-inch HP Pavilion x360.

This version starts at $399, which means it runs Intel Pentium chips, rather than the more mainstream Core i-series CPUs (although that's mostly fine for an 11-inch laptop). (Pricing outside the US is not available as of this writing.) HP says the x360 is aimed at millennials looking for a single device for work and play, and one goal for this system was to produce an affordable convertible that's accessible to anyone. Since we first heard about the x360, we've seen budget versions of similar 11-inch hybrid designs from Dell and Lenovo, which means the fold-back hinge may soon be as commonplace among budget laptop shoppers as netbooks were several years ago.

Sarah Tew/CNET There are, of course, trade-offs with taking designs that started in $1,000-plus laptops and bringing them down below $500. The look, while muted and modern, is bigger, thicker, and heavier than you may be used to from an 11-inch ultraportable. The screen in particular has a budget feel, with poor off-axis viewing -- especially troublesome for a tablet meant to be viewed from many angles.

But it's also less expensive than the otherwise similar 11-inch Yoga 2 from Lenovo. Our configuration of the normally $399 x360 doubled the RAM from 4GB to 8GB, resulting in a final price of $474. The Yoga 2, while slimmer and with a better screen, is $479 in a Best Buy configuration with only 4GB of RAM (other configurations are available on the sometimes-confusing Lenovo website).

That's the trade-off between these two models. For roughly the same price, you can get more RAM in the HP x360, or a smaller, lighter design and better screen in the Yoga 2. I'm inclined to lean toward the Yoga, thinking the easier-to-see display outweighs the small performance boost the extra RAM in the HP x360 gives you. That said, the entry-level x360 is only $399, and that's a price Lenovo can't currently touch.

The idea of the 360-degree fold-back hinge is that you can use the system as a traditional laptop, then bend the lid backward, stopping at a kiosk or table-tent form in the middle or folding it all the way back into a tablet orientation.

It's an appealing concept, and one we've supported since the original Lenovo Yoga model launched alongside Windows 8, paving the way for a burst of creativity in inventive hybrid designs that melded laptop and tablet. In the end, this design seems to have won out, thanks to two reasons: it does the least to interfere with the traditional clamshell laptop design, and it's relatively inexpensive to engineer, compared to pull-apart or slider-style hybrid hinges.

Sarah Tew/CNET The x360 is bigger and heavier than other 11-inch systems, hybrid or otherwise. The rounded corners and playful design gives it an accessible, consumer-gadget feel, but holding it in one hand in tablet mode is awkward. The x360 weighs 3.3 pounds, while the 11-inch Yoga 2 is only 2.8 pounds. By way of comparison, the 11-inch MacBook Air is 2.4 pounds.

But as a budget ultraportable laptop, the x360 works well, with a full-size keyboard and a large, wide, touchpad. Like many HP laptops, the top row of function keys are reversed, which means you can adjust the screen brightness, volume, and other features without holding down the Fn key. The island-style keys have a tiny bit of texture to them, which helps grip the fingers, but the keys are also shallow and wiggle a good bit, even under light typing. Still, it's better than decent for a budget laptop keyboard.

The wide touchpad, another HP staple, also translates well in the budget version presented here. It's a clickpad-style pad, giving you a larger touch surface without separate left and right mouse buttons, but the plastic surface doesn't feel as natural as more-expensive glass versions. Multitouch gestures, such as two-finger scrolling, work surprisingly well, although on a system such as this, you're likely to do a lot of your on-screen nav from the touchscreen.

More here:
HP Pavilion x360 offers Yoga-like flexibility for less

A parish priest in Co Donegal has described yoga and other disciplines such as tai chi and Reiki as contemptible. Photograph: Getty Images.

A parish priest in Co Donegal has described yoga and other disciplines such as tai chi and Reiki as contemptible.

Fr Padraig OBaoill made his comments in the latest issue of the Gaoth Dobhair parish newsletter.

As followers of Jesus Christ we should not partake in deeds that go against our religion, he wrote.

Accordingly, you should do not take part in yoga, thai chai or Reiki...Do not put your soul in jeopardy for the sake of these contemptible things.

A local yoga teacher said Fr OBaoills stance and advice to his parishioners was ignorant.

Sean OTuathalain, who runs the Yoga Centre in Letterkenny, said he would love to meet Fr OBaoill to try to understand why he was urging people not to take part in yoga.

I have to say that this advice appears to me to be coming from a position of ignorance, he said.

However, I think priests in general are skeptical of yoga and Reiki. I can understand where they are coming from but I think they need to find out more about these subjects.

Mr OTuathalain suggested that many people in Ireland turned to yoga after the scandal of clerical sexual abuse emerged.

More here:
Yoga putting souls in jeopardy, Donegal priest warns

A parish priest in Co Donegal has described yoga and other disciplines such as tai chi and Reiki as contemptible. Photograph: Getty Images.

A parish priest in Co Donegal has described yoga and other disciplines such as tai chi and Reiki as contemptible.

Fr Padraig OBaoill made his comments in the latest issue of the Gaoth Dobhair parish newsletter.

As followers of Jesus Christ we should not partake in deeds that go against our religion, he wrote.

Accordingly, you should do not take part in yoga, thai chai or Reiki...Do not put your soul in jeopardy for the sake of these contemptible things.

A local yoga teacher said Fr OBaoills stance and advice to his parishioners was ignorant.

Sean OTuathalain, who runs the Yoga Centre in Letterkenny, said he would love to meet Fr OBaoill to try to understand why he was urging people not to take part in yoga.

I have to say that this advice appears to me to be coming from a position of ignorance, he said.

However, I think priests in general are skeptical of yoga and Reiki. I can understand where they are coming from but I think they need to find out more about these subjects.

Mr OTuathalain suggested that many people in Ireland turned to yoga after the scandal of clerical sexual abuse emerged.

View post:
Yoga putting souls in jeopardy, priest warns

Last year Lenovo extended its Yoga line to cover not just the company's rather clever folding hybrid Windows laptops, but Android tablets too. The designs weren't quite as ingenious as the IdeaPad Yoga, with its keyboard that flipped nearly 360 degrees to sit flat against the back of the display, but it still had a unique selling point (USP): A brilliant flip-out stand which could hold the tablet either tilted or upright.

It was a fabulous concept, but spoilt by a dated specification. The screen was a bog standard 1280 x 800 resolution effort, and the processor a lowly Mediatek quad-core CPU. Now, however, Lenovo has come back with the Yoga Tablet 10 HD+, enhancing the previous model with a full HD 1080p screen and a Snapdragon S400 SoC. Is this enough to make a great tablet from a great idea?

Design

The Yoga's design might be odd, but it's more practical than you might think. The actual tablet is fairly thin, with a cylindrical bulge at the bottom to accommodate the stand, then it slowly tapers off towards the upper edge. With the stand folded in the bulge makes a comfortable grip, particularly if you're holding the tablet in portrait mode which the position of the webcam encourages you to do. It's relatively light at just 626g, and it feels a bit like you're holding an A4 notebook or magazine. I could gripe about the unfashionably wide bezel or the cheap-feeling silver plastic back, but generally this is a solid, slim and well-designed tablet with an interesting USP.

That USP remains the stand. Grab the bulge, twist it and fold the stand all the way out and your Yoga sits up at a near-vertical angle, ideal for watching or -- with a Bluetooth keyboard -- doing some work. The hinge also allows for less vertical angles, though there comes a point where the tablet becomes unstable on the desk. You can also turn the tablet the other way around, and use the stand to prop it up at a roughly 30 degree angle. It's great for situations where you're looking down at the tablet, like when you use a seat-back table on a plane or train, and it's also good for typing with the onscreen keyboard.

I've regularly used an Android tablet with a Motorola Bluetooth keyboard as a makeshift laptop while away at conferences or events. In the past this has meant carrying a separate folding stand or using a folio case with one built-in. With the Yoga, all you need is the tablet and the keyboard, and that's it; you can work. True, it's not as neat a solution as Microsoft's Surface, but it's close.

The one drawback of the design is connectivity. You get a microUSB port for charging on the left-hand side and a headset socket on the right-hand side, but there's no HDMI output or anything else obvious. Look inside the recess where the stand is normally concealed, however, and there's a flap covering a microSD card slot. With just 16GB on the base model, you'll probably need it. And there is, of course, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and A-GPS built-in.

Screen and sound

See the rest here:
Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10 HD+: Not your average Android tablet [Review]

A beautiful yoga coach's alluring yoga routine at the opening of a Taiwanese baseball game on July 6 has left both players and fans flustered.

The 3-minute-long video posted on Youtube starts with Fang Yan greeting the audience at the bustling stadium.

According to a report on Shanghaiist, the attractive lady, dressed provocatively in the Lamigo Monkey team's colours with a short skirt, had been invited to do the first pitch at the baseball game.

Her appearance at the baseball field brought big grins to the baseball players' faces. One baseball player even covered his teammate's eyes in jest.

Fang Yan proceeded to perform a short yoga routine on a mat placed atop the pitcher's mound, before picking up the baseball lying on the ground, and throwing it towards the catcher's box.

After the first pitch, she leaped into the arms of the catcher who later dipped her backwards for a backbend as the last display of her yoga moves.

The jubilant lady then ran along the player's rest area where she shook hands and did high-fives with the rest of the baseball team before making her exit.

minlee@sph.com.sg

Photo Gallery:

Yoga babe's first pitch at baseball game sends hearts fluttering

Read more here:
Yoga babe's first pitch at baseball game sends hearts fluttering

EASTON, Pa. -

A brand new event is bringing together yoga fans from all over the Lehigh Valley.

It's the first ever Lehigh Valley Yoga Festival.

It's on July 26th at the Nurture Nature Center, located at 518 Northampton Street in Easton.

Teachers and students, as well as musicians and vendors from all over the area will gather for the 12 hours festival.

There will be classes for everyone ranging from kids, to experts, to people who have never tried yoga before.

"It's a great way to tap into a healthy community, to a community that's looking to be expanding very accepting, very happy people," said Alicia Rambo Wozniak, board member for the fest and owner of Easton Yoga.

Some of the proceeds will go to the Pratyush Sinha Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to help at-risk youth through practicing toga.

Click for hours and ticket information for the Lehigh Valley Yoga Festival.

More here:
Yoga Festival coming to the Lehigh Valley