How education apps have become a priority for AT&T
Posted: March 19, 2012 at 11:24 am
Want some heavy support for your app? It may pay to invest in the education area.
Developers with education app ideas will find a sympathetic ear at AT&T.
The company plans to spur the development of apps that will help improve the state of education, and is planning an education-centric "hackathon" contest in June to find the smartest apps. The idea is to bring the Internet, video, social media, and the concept of "gamification" to the learning process.
It's part of a broader push by AT&T to improve the quality of education, and is a big personal cause for CEO Randall Stephenson. The company said today it plans to invest $250 million over the next five years to improving education. Part of that money will go to its AT&T Foundry, which will look into tapping new ways to teach students.
That's badly needed, as one in four students in the U.S.--or 1 million in total--drop out each year, according to a report by the Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center, America's Promise Alliance, and the Alliance for Excellent Education (AT&T is the lead sponsor of the report).
While there has been a ton of focus on games, photo filters, and other different kinds of apps, there isn't as much energy put into education. AT&T is hoping to change that with its investment. The company plans to use its Foundry facilities to foster the development of education-centric apps.
In addition, the company has used hackathons to promote app development in specific areas, and could see a lot of interest in education with its contest in June.
AT&T would be following several players that have made similar pushes. Blackboard, for instance, has long worked on educational tools on the mobile platform. Its BlackBoard Mobile Learn application allows students and faculties to access their course, content, and organizations.
Tech luminaries Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt, meanwhile, have put their resources behind Sal Khan and his Khan Academy, a free online tutoring site that includes a mobile app.
For AT&T, this represents an additional level of investment in the area. The company has invested more than $100 million in education under its AT&T Aspire program since 2008.
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How education apps have become a priority for AT&T
Appointment Book
Posted: at 9:50 am
- Plasha Yoga's 10-week Spring Yoga Session runs from March 19 to May 26, Plasha Yoga and Life Coaching Center, 4508 Zuck Road. $110; payment plans and prorating available for fewer classes; discounts for couples and multiple classes. Call 864-1114 to register. For details, visit http://www.plashayoga.com. Classes include:
-- Mondays: Beyond Beginners, 10 to 11:30 a.m. and 7:15 to 8:45 p.m.; Basic and Beyond (new students), 5:30 to 7 p.m.
-- Tuesdays: Beyond Beginners, 5:30 to 7 p.m.; Restorative and Mindfulness Yoga, 7:15 to 8:30 p.m.
-- Wednesdays: Beyond Beginners, 10 to 11:30 a.m.; Multi-Level Flow, 5:30 to 7 p.m.
-- Thursdays: Beyond Beginners, 5:30 to 7 p.m.; Gentle Beginners, 7:15 to 8:30 p.m.
--- Saturdays: Beyond Beginners, 10:30 a.m. to noon
- Lifeworks Erie, 406 Peach St., formerly Erie Center on Health and Aging, is offering the following classes. To register, visit http://www.lifeworkserie.org or call 459-4132.
-- Yin Yoga, Mondays and Wednesdays, 5:30 p.m., until May 11. This method of yoga is appropriate for the aging body, although the practice is for anyone at any age. It targets bones and joints and is healing for the supportive connective tissue particularly in the hips, pelvis and lower spine.
-- The Practice of Meditation and Mindfulness Series, Monday, March 19, 6:30 p.m. Explore the various methods of meditation, representative of different religions, with focus on Christian meditation, and discussion of mindfulness.
- Movement Therapy and Rolfing, Tuesday, March 20, 6 p.m., Whole Foods Co-op, 1341 W. 26th St. Class will address how movement therapies can help with chronic pain. Free; call 456-0282 to reserve a spot. For more information, call Jeff Castle certified Rolfer, at (716) 753-6028.
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Appointment Book
My Intro Health and Fitness – Video
Posted: at 9:49 am
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My Intro Health and Fitness - Video
Working out in the early hours
Posted: at 9:49 am
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Night owls, insomniacs, shift workers and other denizens of the dark are finding less need to fit their workout time into the nine-to-five world.
More gyms are remaining open round the clock, experts say, spurred by advances in surveillance and security technology, clients' ever more fluid work habits and a generation of multi-tasking consumers.
"A lot of people work untraditional times and they take advantage of clubs open at all hours," said Carl Liebert, CEO of 24 Hour Fitness, an international chain of health clubs, most of them open around the clock.
Liebert said his 30-year-old chain has seen an increase in after-hours traffic, with five to 15 percent of clients, depending on location, working out between midnight and 5:00 a.m.
"I think people have changed," he said. "They're online; they're connected day and night. When I grew up I went to bed at night and got up in the morning. Between those times I wasn't multitasking."
Liebert said common night visitors include people who work out to relieve stress, insomniacs, and hard-core fitness fanatics who wouldn't miss a workout and prefer a gym less crowded.
The number of health clubs open 24 hours has soared from just couple hundred five years ago to more than 2,000 today, according to IHRSA, the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, a trade association of fitness facilities.
Spokesperson Meredith Poppler said while most club goers still work out during regular hours, technology has enabled small, often rural, clubs to operate overnight, and sometimes unstaffed.
"Cameras on the doors, cameras in the clubs, safety buttons each member carries set them apart," said Poppler. "Many of the operators are in the clubs at certain times of days, but other times the clubs are truly unstaffed."
Access is granted via a swipe card or key fob.
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Working out in the early hours
How health care law affects lives of 7 Americans
Posted: at 9:49 am
CHICAGO (AP) A father lost his job at a medical device company that is facing a new tax. A young woman got back on her parents' insurance and was able to get surgery for an injury that could have hobbled her. A part-time sales woman stopped putting off a colonoscopy and cancer screenings and saved nearly $3,000 because health plans now must pay for preventive care without co-pays. A business owner received a tax rebate for providing health coverage to her employees.
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, The Associated Press spoke with a variety of people to hear their experiences so far with the landmark legislation, whose major provisions don't take effect until 2014. Reporters asked: How has the health care law affected your life?
Here are snapshots of seven Americans:
___
Name: Michael Esch
Home: Warwick, N.Y.
Age: 48
Occupation: Former middle manager for medical device company, now working as a hospital purchasing agent.
Insurance coverage: Paying out of his own pocket for COBRA insurance through his former company.
Esch, a father of three, lost his job in November in a layoff his employer said resulted from President Barack Obama's health care law. Medical device maker Stryker Corp. announced in November it intended to lay off 1,000 workers worldwide to save money ahead of a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices that starts in 2013.
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Retirement Reactions – Video
Posted: at 9:49 am
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Retirement Reactions - Video
Retirement Planner: Staying the course can pay dividends
Posted: at 9:49 am
What you see isn't always what you get.
I designed the "Mother of All Thumbwheels" that calculates Social Security benefits and the degree to which we will under- or overshoot our retirement income need. It also illustrates how much we will have in our retirement plans in 10, 20 and 30 years given different monthly contribution levels. It shows, for instance, that $500 a month for 10 years will accumulate to $91,000 if it earns 8 percent over that period. At 12 percent, the same $500 grows to $114,000. In 20 years, the comparable numbers are $294,000 and $494,000 respectively.
But, you may ask, who has been earning 12 percent when the total stock market, over the past five years, has had a compound average return of 2.11 percent per year? The answer would be anyone who just started investing exactly five years ago. Someone who started contributing in April 2007 has had an internal rate of return equal to 20 percent per year.
No way? Yes way. The share price of Vanguard's total market index today is exactly what it was in April 2007 -- $35 per share. Over the five-year span, however, the price has ranged from a low of $22 to a high of $38.
Anyone contributing $100 per month into a total stock market index fund was often buying shares in the mid-$20 range. A share bought for $22 could be sold today for $35, and that is a 59 percent profit. Believe me, a lot of shares over the past five years were bought at prices each month
Calculating the percentage profit we made on each monthly $100 investment and adding them all up brings us to a total account value of $10,272. Over the 60 months of investing, we contributed a total of $6,000. In simple terms, we can say that we had a five-year gain of $4,262 over what we put in, which is a 71 percent return. Divided by five years, it works out to be 14 percent per year.
But that's too simplistic. Remember that not all of the $6,000 was invested for five years. It built up gradually. Only the first $100 deposit was invested for all six years. The last deposit never got invested at all.
On average, then, we had $3,000 invested for the five-year period. Calculating on a napkin, we can see that our so-called "internal rate of return" or the return based on when the dollars were invested looks more like a $4,262 profit on a $3,000 five-year investment. That's a total gain of 141 percent which, when divided by five years works out to 28 percent per year.
When I do the same math on a calculator that takes compound interest into effect for each of the five years, the number works out to be 20 percent per year, but even this doesn't include the reinvested dividends of the total stock market that, during the same period, added almost 2 full percentage points to the gain, bringing the official number to 22 percent per year.
By now, I hope you are getting the point. If we stay the course during major crashes, our new inbound money will have enjoyed a huge rate of return by the time the market "snapback" has run its course.
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Retirement Planner: Staying the course can pay dividends
Retirement planning: Stocks rebound, not confidence
Posted: at 9:49 am
Retirement planning looks as daunting as ever, according to a new survey. Although the stock market has rebounded, only 14 percent of Americans, a historic low, are very confident their savings and retirement planning will be adequate.
A ruthless job market, suffocating household debt and a shocking decline in the stock market have left millions of Americans feeling fragile and with little confidence they will ever have the money toretire.
Retirementconfidence is at a historic low: Only 14 percent of Americans are very confident that they will be able toretirewith adequate money, according to research released Tuesday by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. About 60 percent of workers say their household savings and investments total less than $25,000.
EBRI has been surveyingretirementconfidence for 22 years, and the number hasn't improved since 2009. That's when about 17 percent of workers were unemployed or underemployed, and when a 57 percent decline in the stock market left workplace 401(k)retirementsavings accounts in ruins. Confidence hasn't snapped back despite improving employment numbers and a 110 percent climb in the stock market since the devastation of the 2008-2009 crash.
"We were quite shocked," said EBRI research director Jack VanDerhei. He had assumed people would be more optimistic after "a fairly decent rebound" in the stock market and economy in 2010.
On the other hand, behavioral research shows that sharp losses can leave people feeling vulnerable for years. Even teens who watch families struggle through recessions doubt their control over their careers, said Antonio Spilimbergo and Paola Giuliano in a National Bureau of Economic Research paper.
EBRI also found that many people don't trust their jobs or investments to provide the money they will need for retirement. Fewer than 3 in 10 are very confident that they will have paid employment for as long as they need it. And 42 percent identify job uncertainty as an immediate concern. Only 16 percent are very confident that their investments will grow, and a mere 8 percent of workers are very confident the economy will grow at least 3 percent a year for the next 10 years.
Debt continues its stranglehold on households. Almost two-thirds of workers consider their current level of debt to be a problem.
Under the pressures of the past few years, many have used up savings, and fewer people are stashing anything away. In the recent EBRI survey, 58 percent said either they or a spouse was saving money for retirement. That's significantly less than 2009, when 65 percent were saving.
"Workers are falling further behind, and they know it," said Mathew Greenwald of Mathew Greenwald & Associates, who worked on the study with EBRI. About 67 percent say they are "behind schedule" with saving.
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Retirement planning: Stocks rebound, not confidence
Dangerus Diva Sings Rihanna-‘You Da One’ (Live Performance Cover) Music Video – Video
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Dangerus Diva Sings Rihanna-'You Da One' (Live Performance Cover) Music Video - Video
Is 40 Hours a Week Enough to Truly be Successful? – Video
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Is 40 Hours a Week Enough to Truly be Successful? - Video