113-Year-Old Man Says These 5 Foods Keep Him Alive

Meet Bernando LaPallo.  He is 113 years old as of August 17th, 2014 with the body of an 80 year old. He has never been sick a day in his life, goes for a walk every morning and eats mostly organic fruits and vegetables. He has a recipe for longevity that he learned from his father, who was a doctor who lived to be 98.

According to his website, Bernando feels better than ever. “I feel great,” he says. “I feel wonderful. It’s all about obedience and moderation. That’s the story. The key to my success has been obedience and moderation. I have been doing everything my daddy told me to do all these years. Obedience is the key. Moderation is the back up.”

On his 110th birthday, a local news station did a story on Bernando and he revealed the top five foods that have kept him alive this long:

1. Garlic

2. Honey

3. Cinnamon

4. Chocolate

5. Olive Oil

“Whenever I’m asked a question about what I do to live so long, I tell them ‘I know you’ve heard the saying, You are what you eat,’” confessed Bernando. “My dad told me not to eat ordinary red meat. He said lamb is okay. But stay away from hot dogs, french fries. Don’t eat them.”

He also keeps his mind sharp by being a voracious reader and solving crossword puzzles and playing checkers. He goes around the country doing speaking engagements and even shares some of his recipes here.

“My dad taught me to have faith in God and He’ll take care of you,” says Bernando. “And so far, it’s happened.”

http://blackdoctor.org/452589/113-year-old-man-says-these-5-foods-keep-him-alive/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Black%20Doctor%20Subscribers&utm_campaign=BDO%20-%2012-30-14&omcamp=es-bdo-nl

STUDY: Hep C Cures Effective For People With HIV/HCV Coinfection

The World Health Organization estimates that globally, 5-15% of people living with HIV are coinfected with hepatitis C. In the United States, about 25% of people living with HIV also have hepatitis C (HCV)—and HCV rates are even higher among people with HIV who inject drugs.

For both hepatitis B and hepatitis C infection, disease progresses faster and causes more liver-related health problems among people with HIV than among those who do not have HIV infection. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [PDF 328 KB], people who are coinfected with HIV and HCV are nearly three times more likely to develop liver disease, liver failure, and liver-related death from HCV than people with HCV alone.

Averting these dangerous health outcomes has been a challenge for people with HIV/HCV coinfection because many previous treatments for HCV were not recommended for people with HIV. These older treatments included interferon and other drugs with side effects that were often severe and included potential adverse interactions with HIV drugs.

AIDS 2014 Researchers Highlight Promising Treatments for People with HIV/HCV Coinfection

Last month, more than 13,000 researchers, public health leaders, clinicians, people living with HIV, and advocates from around the world gathered in Melbourne, Australia for the 20th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2014). Included among the hundreds of presentations were research findings from studies of two interferon-free treatments showing high cure rates in people with HIV/HCV coinfection. Although previous studies have shown that newer HCV treatments have fewer side effects, shorter duration of treatment, and higher cure rates, they had not been evaluated in people with HIV/HCV coinfection.

TURQUOISE-I Study Reveals 94% Cure Rate Using All Oral Therapy for People with HIV/HCV Coinfection

In the TURQUOISE-1 study, researchers found a 94% cure rate after 12 weeks on AbbVie’s oral regimen of three direct-acting antivirals plus ribavirin for people with HIV and genotype 1 HCV coinfection. The 94% cure rate was identified in part one of the study, following 63 people also taking HIV treatments including either atazanavir (Reyataz®) or raltegravir (Isentress®) with undetectable HIV viral load. Later this year, researchers will begin part two of the phase III trial, testing the oral regimen in people with HIV/HCV coinfection who take Prezista® for HIV. The study evaluated interactions with HIV drugs and is being conducted by Dr. Mark Sulkowski from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Watch Dr. Sulkowski’s AIDS 2014 presentation of TURQUIOSE-I results on YouTube.

PHOTON-1 and 2 Studies Demonstrate a Range of Outcomes for People with HIV/HCV Coinfection

In the PHOTON-1 study, individuals with HIV/HCV coinfection were given an oral, interferon-free combination of Gilead’s sofosbuvir (Sovaldi®) and ribavirin for 12 or 24 weeks. Cure rates ranged from 67 to 94% depending on HCV genotype and previous treatment response. This study was also led by Dr. Sulkowski and results are available in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The PHOTON-2 study, led by Dr. Jean-Michel Molina from University of Paris Diderot, found that a combination of sofosbuvir and ribavirin, taken for 24 weeks, resulted in 84% to 89% cure rates in HIV/HCV coinfected patients in Europe and Australia. Findings show that cure rates varied depending on HCV genotype and the presence of liver cirrhosis. Researchers found a 100% cure rate among participants with HCV genotype 1, subtype 1b, but 75% cure for those with the same genotype who had cirrhosis. Their analysis found cirrhosis to be the only significant risk factor for a poor treatment response, which indicates the importance of ensuring people have access to timely treatment, before liver damage progresses to cirrhosis.

“These scientific advances represent tremendous opportunities to improve care for people living with HIV/HCV coinfection,” said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, Assistant Secretary for Health, Infectious Diseases. “The research presented at AIDS 2014 brings us closer toward achieving the goals of both the Viral Hepatitis Action Plan and the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.”

This article was originally published at BlackAids.org.

http://blackdoctor.org/446703/hepatitis-c-and-hiv-coinfection-study/

Cosby Team’s Strategy: Hush Accusers, Insult Them, Blame the Media

In 2005, when Tamara Green told the “Today” show and The Philadelphia Inquirer that Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in the early 1970s, one of Mr. Cosby’s lawyers publicly branded the allegations “absolutely false,” while his aides approached another newspaper with “damaging information” about her, according to court documents.

Five years earlier, after an actress on Mr. Cosby’s TV series “Cosby” told the police that he had tried to put her hand down his sweatpants at his New York townhouse, Mr. Cosby’s lawyers threatened The National Enquirer with a $250 million defamation suit for publishing detailed comments about the incident by the woman’s relatives.

And when Mr. Cosby acknowledged an extramarital affair in a 1997 interview with Dan Rather, his agent telephoned the president of CBS Entertainment to demand that the segment not air on “60 Minutes” as planned. It did not, although CBS News said the decision had nothing to do with the call.

As accusations of sexual assault continue to mount against Mr. Cosby — more than two dozen women have gone public, the latest last Monday — the question arises as to why these stories never sparked a widespread outcry before. While many of the women say they never filed police complaints or went public because they feared damaging their reputations or careers, the aggressive legal and media strategy mounted by Mr. Cosby and his team may also have played a significant role.

An examination of how the team has dealt with scandals over the past two decades and into this fall reveals an organized and expensive effort that involved quashing accusations as they emerged while raising questions about the accusers’ character and motives, both publicly and surreptitiously. And the team has never been shy about blasting the news media for engaging in a feeding frenzy even as the team made deals or slipped the news organizations information that would cast Mr. Cosby’s accusers in a negative light.

Playing hardball with people who make (and report on) incendiary claims is hardly a new tactic in the celebrity world. But given the volume and severity of the recent charges, with numerous women saying Mr. Cosby drugged and then sexually assaulted them, some legal and public relations practitioners question the wisdom of continuing to counterpunch.

“Sometimes in a case like this, less can be more,” said Benjamin Brafman, a criminal defense lawyer who represented Dominique Strauss-Kahn. “Attacking someone who is perceived to be a ‘victim’ can often be unproductive.”

“I would suggest,” Mr. Brafman added, “a softly spoken denial rather than an outspoken challenge to the integrity of the women now coming forward. Simply put, it may be better to say nothing than try and engage so many.”

The team behind Mr. Cosby’s longtime strategy has included John P. Schmitt, a lawyer from the New York law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler; Norman Brokaw, Mr. Cosby’s longtime agent at the William Morris Agency until late 2012; and Norman’s son David Brokaw, who has been Mr. Cosby’s publicist for 40 years. In addition, at several critical moments over the past few decades, Mr. Cosby has called on Martin D. Singer, an $850-an-hour lawyer with a reputation for playing rough on behalf of clients like Charlie Sheen and Arnold Schwarzenegger when they found themselves embroiled in controversy.

“He is a bulldog,” David R. Ginsburg, executive director of the entertainment, media and intellectual property law program at the U.C.L.A. School of Law, said of Mr. Singer.

Mr. Singer’s intensity was on full display in the first week of December after Judy Huth filed a civil suit in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging that in 1974, when she was 15, Mr. Cosby plied her with drinks and forced her to perform a sex act on him in a bedroom at the Playboy Mansion.

In court papers, Mr. Singer said Ms. Huth’s claim was “meritless” and nothing short of “a shakedown.” According to Mr. Singer, Ms. Huth and her lawyer had first demanded money to keep them from going public and Ms. Huth had tried unsuccessfully to sell the allegations to a tabloid 10 years earlier. (Ms. Huth’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.)

It was not the first time that the word “shakedown” had been used to describe the motives of those coming forward with accusations of sexual abuse by Mr. Cosby.

Back in 2005, after Andrea Constand, a Temple University basketball manager, told the police in Pennsylvania that Mr. Cosby had drugged and sexually abused her at his home in Pennsylvania the year before, a story appeared on “Celebrity Justice,” a TV show and website created by the founder of TMZ. “Sources connected with Bill Cosby,” the show reported, said that before Ms. Constand had approached the police, her mother had asked Mr. Cosby to “make things right with money.” The show went on to say that a Cosby representative had called this “a classic shakedown.”

Mr. Singer was the Cosby representative in question, another member of Mr. Cosby’s legal team said at a court hearing in 2005, and the next year Ms. Constand sued him for defamation. (Her lawyers denied the charge at the time.) That suit and Ms. Constand’s suit against Mr. Cosby were later consolidated and settled confidentially.

Mr. Singer declined to comment for this article.

Mr. Schmitt, who has been a lawyer for Mr. Cosby for more than 30 years, has also played a significant role — both behind the scenes and publicly — perhaps most notably in beating back the accusations of Autumn Jackson, who claimed to be Mr. Cosby’s daughter. When Ms. Jackson, in 1997, threatened to sell the story to the tabloid The Globe unless Mr. Cosby paid her $40 million, Mr. Schmitt agreed to wear a recording device as part of a law enforcement operation that charged her with extortion.

And after Ms. Jackson was found guilty, Mr. Schmitt took the unusual step of appearing on Geraldo Rivera’s CNBC show, “Rivera Live,” in 1997, and saying that Mr. Cosby would take a blood test to determine paternity.

Mr. Schmitt declined to comment for this article.

The Cosby team’s media strategy over the years has been a mix of hardball and playing ball, sometimes even with the same news organization.

Though the Cosby legal team threatened The National Enquirer in 2000 with a $250 million lawsuit, relations with that tabloid were decidedly more friendly five years later. After Ms. Constand, the Temple University employee, had gone public with her accusations against Mr. Cosby, The National Enquirer was pursuing a story about another woman, Beth Ferrier, who said Mr. Cosby had drugged and sexually assaulted her in the mid-1980s. In exchange for not publishing its article about Ms. Ferrier, The Enquirer got an exclusive interview with Mr. Cosby (the headline: “Bill Cosby Ends His Silence: My Story!”), according to recently unsealed court documents.

Team Cosby would also try to apply pressure behind the scenes. In 1997, soon after Mr. Cosby’s son, Ennis, was murdered in Los Angeles, Mr. Cosby gave his first interview to Dan Rather of CBS News. For much of the two and a half hours of questioning, Mr. Rather focused on the crime and how Mr. Cosby was dealing with the grief. But he then gingerly asked about Ms. Jackson and the extortion charges, which had just become public days before. Mr. Cosby, surprisingly, acknowledged the affair with the mother and said that he could possibly be the father.

When the network aired the newsiest tidbits from Mr. Rather’s forthcoming “60 Minutes” segment on the morning and evening news programs, Norman Brokaw, Mr. Cosby’s William Morris agent and one of the most powerful people in television at the time, called Leslie Moonves, then the president of CBS Entertainment, to complain about the treatment of the network’s star.

Days later — after Mr. Rather had recorded his audio for “60 Minutes” — CBS News decided to scrap the segment. CBS executives denied any corporate interference, saying journalistic reasons had prompted the move. In the biography “Cosby,” Mark Whitaker writes that bad blood between Don Hewitt, the powerful executive producer of “60 Minutes,” and Mr. Rather also drove the decision. Mr. Hewitt, who despised Mr. Rather, was furious that the newsiest excerpts had already been broadcast.

Mr. Moonves and Mr. Rather declined to comment.

During this recent spate of accusations, the Cosby team has suggested that the proliferation of accounts is itself a reason to distrust them and has pointed to apparent inconsistencies in some of the women’s stories. It has also systematically directed its ire at the news media, which it claims is engaged in a blind rush to judgment against a man who has never been convicted or charged. Mr. Singer threatened to sue Buzzfeed last month as it prepared an article about accusations by Janice Dickinson, a onetime supermodel, that Mr. Cosby drugged and raped her in 1982 in Lake Tahoe in California. “You proceed at your peril,” Mr. Singer wrote, saying that Ms. Dickinson had told a contradictory story in her memoir more than a decade earlier.

And in the past 10 days, he has sent angry letters to CNN and The Daily News, accusing them of abandoning any journalistic rigor in their coverage. “The media has consistently refused to look into or publish information about various women whose stories are contradicted by their own conduct or statement,” he wrote in his letter to The Daily News.

Mr. Singer isn’t the only one following the blame-the-media handbook. On Dec. 15, Mr. Cosby’s wife, Camille, finally broke her silence and joined the defense of her husband. In a statement released by David Brokaw, she said, “There appears to be no vetting of my husband’s accusers before stories are published or aired.”

She concluded: “None of us will ever want to be in the position of attacking the victim. But the question should be asked — who is the victim?”

But casting doubt on or aiming vitriol at the accusers can have consequences.

In 2005, when Mr. Cosby’s team denied Tamara Green’s accusations that he had drugged and sexually assaulted her in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, she did not pursue legal action. But this month she was ready to fight back. Mr. Cosby’s team had greeted her renewed claim of sexual assault by saying it was “a 10-year discredited accusation that proved to be nothing at the time, and is still nothing.” On Dec. 10, Ms. Green filed a defamation suit against Mr. Cosby, saying the denials basically branded her a liar.

“I want it put to a jury,” Ms. Green said earlier this month. “I want it ended, finally. I want my name restored.”

Why black America hates VH1’s ‘Sorority Sisters’

VH1′s new reality drama “Sorority Sisters” seems like an unremarkable extension of the network’s existing, and successful lineup of shows. If you’ve seen one, you’ve probably seen them all — the “Love & Hip Hop” franchise, “Basketball Wives” and “Mob Wives,” to name a few. They all feature the same general formula: occasionally violent — predominantly female-driven — drama and petty feuds played up for the camera.

But this time, VH1 has awakened a sleeping giant – namely black Americans who are livid that the network’s newest show has dragged black Greek letter organizations into the miry world of reality TV.

That decision has poured vinegar into deep historical wounds in the black community and has prompted protests online and calls for advertisers to abandon the show.

After years of quiet disapproval about reality television’s depiction of black people — and black women in particular– “Sorority Sisters” has managed to bring a simmering anger to a full boil.

“We’ve always been angry,” said Robin Caldwell, who has helped organize the effort to boycott the show’s advertisers. “This is just like the straw the broke the camel’s back.”

The show follows the lives of nine women who are members of the four sororities that comprise the “Divine Nine” black Greek organizations: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Zeta Phi Beta and Sigma Gamma Rho.

Most of them were founded by black college students at the turn of the 20th century, when they were an elite minority among minorities. For that reason, history of black Greek life is intrinsically tied to the fight for civil and human rights. As any member of those organizations will eagerly tell you, Martin Luther King Jr. was a member of the fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, and Ruby Dee was a member of Delta Sigma Theta, and Zora Neale Hurston was a member of Zeta Phi Beta. The list goes on and on.

So when VH1 decided to apply its tried-and-true formula to take viewers inside the world of black sororities, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative.

Critics of the show say “Sorority Sisters” couldn’t come at a worse time, with black Americans fighting to draw attention to racial biases and inequities through the “black lives matter” protests sparked by the deaths of several black men in confrontations with white police officers.

Even the breakout star of “Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta” – a VH1 show that perfected the art of raunchy reality television — panned network’s decision to air black America’s dirty laundry.

“I am a Delta, I have acted a fool on TV; but at the same time, I didn’t do it with a Delta Sigma Theta tatted on my back in front of people,” singer K. Michelle said during a radio appearance last week. “You don’t get on TV in the name of women that came before us and do what you are doing.

“Especially at a time when our black community is struggling so much with things, the sororities and fraternities are the one thing we look to in college that uplift the community.”

K. Michelle is probably the last person critics of “Sorority Sisters” thought they could count on as an ally in this fight, but her comments highlight the biggest grievance against the show, which began airing last week and returns for a second episode on Monday night.

“Sorority Sisters” follows the women years after their stints in school and appears to use their organizational affiliations as a means of separating them into warring social groups. There has been little mention so far of the sororities’ significance and place in the history of the American civil rights movement.

“I think it’s really bothering people because in 2014 nobody knows limits anymore,” said Reynoir Lewis, a Alpha Phi Alpha member who started a petition calling on VH1 to drop the show when the first promotional footage appeared online over the summer. “We don’t have a feeling to say, ‘Hey we can’t go past this level of debauchery.’

“If you’ve never seen a sorority in action and you’ve never seen a fraternity in action and ‘Sorority Sisters’ is the first time you’re looking into the world of black sororities, it’s just a complete misrepresentation.”

Of course, no conversation about “Sorority Sisters” can take place without mentioning its antecedent (and VH1 lead-in) “Love & Hip Hop,” which follows the lives of hip-hop entertainers and their partners.

Similarly, no one can seem to talk about “Sorority Sisters” without also mentioning controversial Haitian American television executive Mona Scott-Young, who created “Love & Hip Hop” and, according to VH1, was a consultant on “Sorority Sisters.”

Scott-Young has become one of very few black women in the top echelons of television production. But her name has become synonymous with a particularly sordid strain of reality TV.

While she isn’t billed as a top producer on “Sorority Sisters,” everyone seems to hold Scott-Young responsible for how the show depicts black women.

“Mona, I’m not holding you independently responsible for the muck that is America at present,” one blogger wrote recently. “I am holding you responsible for the subpar depictions of young black women on television.”

Scott-Young hasn’t spoken out publicly about “Sorority Sisters.” But in the past, she has been a vocal defender of what her critics call “ratchet” reality television.

“I’m fine with it,” Scott said in 2013 when asked about the depictions of black women on her shows. “I sleep good at night.”

Scott-Young made a name for herself by managing the images of hip-hop stars such as Missy Elliot and Busta Rhymes. Her shows seem to be an extension of that expertise: They feature fame-hungry characters who give the reality audience the drama it craves in exchange airtime on a prominent television platform.

“Do I try to provide [cast members] with a platform to help, you know, promote, leverage, take them to where they’re trying to go? Absolutely,” Scott-Young said in that same 2013 radio interview. “Do I always agree or subscribe to the way they choose to get here? No. But again, I’m not here to pass judgment.”

That hasn’t stopped her critics from doing just that.

“I think that this outrage should be towards all the shows on VH1 that are portraying black women in a negative light,” Tierra Clemmons, a 2012 college graduate and member of Zeta Phi Beta, told The Post in an interview. “We see this so much that it’s become normal.”

In the past, Clemmons said, some black Americans quietly expressed disappointment with VH1′s lineup, but it never led to organized opposition.

This time, VH1 hit closer to home.

“I’m just happy that people are getting mad in general,” she said. “If this is what it takes for people to see that we don’t need anything like this on TV, that’s fine.”

In a statement to The Post, VH1 said it stands by the show.

“There are currently no plans to change the series and it seems to be connecting with its audience,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. “During its premiere – the episode was seen by 1.3 million and was the #1 non-sports cable program in the time period among Women 18-49.”

“Love & Hip Hop,” which comes on before it, was the top-rated non-sports cable program last Monday.

With the second episode of “Sorority Sisters” airing  Monday, activists have turned their attention to discouraging rubber-necking, which could inadvertently result in higher ratings. And they have continued to put the full force of “black Twitter” behind the effort to pressure advertisers to pull out.

 “Any time I see black women using their voices to degrade or demean other black women — the worst case scenario is the physical violence — to me that’s an extension of ‘black lives matter,’” said Caldwell, a member of Sigma Gamma Rho. “I don’t want us to be depicted that way. I don’t want to sanitize our image but I want it to be full bodied and multidimensional. There’s a historical context that’s been overlooked here.”

Abby Phillip is a general assignment national reporter for the Washington Post. She can be reached at abby.phillip@washpost.com. On Twitter: @abbydphillip

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/12/22/why-black-america-hates-vh1s-sorority-sisters/

New House Purchase Is Master Plan to Keep Kanye at Home

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West spend a lot of time apart, but TMZ has learned their recent home purchase could put an end to the long distance part of their relationship.

According to our sources, Kimye purchased the house next door to their Hidden Hills dream home so they can expand their property … to nearly five acres.

We’re told the plan is to build a giant park for kids, a basketball court and a full music studio for Kanye … so he doesn’t have to venture off to Paris or Mexico to record his albums.

Our sources say a full movie theater, game room and a spa for Kim are also in the works, as well as a detached guest house.

Now Rob will never be homeless.

http://www.tmz.com/2014/12/30/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-buy-new-home-relationship-long-distance/

Chris – “I was just tired of being married.”

Chris Rock filed for divorce from his wife of 19 years for one simple reason … he wasn’t happy in the marriage, sources directly connected to the couple tell TMZ.

One source says this will be a “simple divorce” and that there is no third party involved — Chris just did not want to continue in a marriage that was not fulfilling.

Although our sources say the divorce won’t be contentious … obviously there is some bad blood. As TMZ previously reported … Rock complained Malaak has been preventing him from seeing their 2 daughters — and he is asking for shared legal and physical custody.

Malaak issued a statement making it seem like they jointly came to the decision to split — but Chris’ people fired back … making it clear HE was the one who filed for divorce.

Read more: http://www.tmz.com#ixzz3NP02I0AU

It’s more like the disconnected home – “connected home” may be more dream than reality in 2015

 

FOSTER CITY, Calif. — With the end of the year nearly upon us and the Consumer Electronics Show set to launch in early January, many tech pundits are busy making predictions for 2015.

A large number of them are focusing on the range of products for the “connected home” they expect to see unveiled at CES.

Connected homes, sometimes called “smart homes,” have caught the fancy of the tech industry because they offer the futuristic promise of Jetsons-like convenience, and help tie together many of the individual tech products the industry has been building over the last few years.

Despite the enthusiasm, however, there are a number of obvious — and more subtle — challenges that are likely to make 2015 the year of the disconnected home instead of the connected one.

First and foremost, there is a serious standards battle brewing in the world of connected homes (and the Internet of Things, or IOT). The battle is about the most basic of principles: how to connect and communicate among all the “connected” things.

Given the ubiquity of WiFi, Bluetooth and the TCP/IP Internet standards, it’s easy to take for granted that any “smart” thing will be able to talk to another one. The reality, though, is the world of mechanical systems around a home — from heating and air conditioning to lighting, security, entertainment systems, and more — has unique requirements and needs agreed-upon standards to work as a seamless whole.

As a result, we often see a number of interesting individual products that can add some capabilities to our homes, like connected security cameras, thermostats, garage door openers, multi-room sound systems and more. Many of them offer genuinely useful and compelling individual experiences, but few of them work together.

Instead, we’re often forced to open one app on our smartphones to do one thing and then another app to do something else. Yes, you can do it, but the lack of integration definitely decreases the overall value of each individual device or system. Plus, before you know it, you end up with a very complicated mess of different systems that starts to get unwieldy to most consumers.

The promise of a home that does things like recognize when you get home and automatically unlock the door, turn on your lights, set your thermostat, and turn on some music is undeniably appealing to many.

Yet the costs and complexities of making it all work may keep those kinds of systems limited to only the homes of the wealthiest for some time to come.

Bob O’Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology and market research firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2014/12/30/the-disconnected-home-ces-jetsons-smart-home/20639919/

Report: Microsoft working on new Web browser

Is Microsoft preparing for life after Internet Explorer?

ZDNet reports Microsoft is working on a brand new Web browser, codenamed Spartan, which will not serve as an upgrade to the company’s long running software.

Citing unnamed sources, the report says the browser will bear a similar experience to rival browsers Firefox and Google Chrome. The last version of IE launched by Microsoft was Internet Explorer 11 last year.

As many PC owners know, Internet Explorer is bundled with Microsoft’s Windows operating system, but the rise of alternative browsers including Chrome, Firefox and Apple’s Safari have pulled users away. According to research from Adobe, Chrome surpassed IE as the most popular web browser in the U.S., reports The Wall Street Journal.

Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/

Kobe Bryant is feelin’ all his years

Sitting out Christmas date with Bulls shows how weary the Lakers great must be

CHICAGO — This is one battle Kobe Bryant isn’t going to win, and he knows it. Maybe Father Time will let him finish the season in relative health, maybe some part or all of next season. But not Christmas night in Chicago.

We met in the tunnel of the United Center, where the visiting team enters and exits, and the exchange went like this.

“Merry Christmas … ”

Merry Christmas to you, too. How are you feeling?

“Old … I’m feeling old.”

Kobe was smiling but not kidding. A few minutes later, it was official. Kobe Bryant, a man who at times seemed nearly indestructible as basketball players go, was a no-go for the prime-time Christmas night date his Lakers had with the Bulls. The only player in professional basketball the past 20 years who has owned the big stage more brilliantly than Kobe Bryant is Michael Jordan. So to not play in the arena Jordan built, in Jordan’s town, on Christmas night, with the whole basketball world watching … imagine how bad Kobe had to feel, head to toe.

Actually, we didn’t have to imagine because Kobe told us before the game. When asked whether he could pinpoint one thing that was keeping him out of the lineup on Christmas night, he said with stunning candor, “Old age. My knees are sore.  My Achilles are sore — both of them. My metatarsals are tight. My back is tight. I just need to kind of hit the reset button. … It’s extremely difficult, especially playing here, playing on Christmas Day and playing in this city. I love playing here. The fans have always been great. There’s always a lot of energy in the building. At the same time, I’ve just got to try to be smart. It’s really going against my nature, but I’ve got to be smart about this.”

Smart might not matter, not at this point, not after playing basketball at the most competitive and most physically exacting level in the world for half of his 36 years on Earth. As of this minute, Kobe has played in 240 more games, regular and postseason, than Jordan did his entire career. That’s three additional seasons of games. The reset button might tell Kobe he’s out of resets. He said with utter confidence that he believes he can get back to some reasonable state of health that will allow him back on the court. But how reasonable is that at this point?

He tried about everything to play these past two games: ice baths, stretching, massage, harder workouts. Didn’t matter. “At shootaround [Christmas morning],” he said, “I had about an hour and a half of work with [Lakers physical therapist] Judy Seto taking care of every part of my body.”

He couldn’t go, and the Lakers played reasonably well without him but couldn’t duplicate the result from 48 hours earlier, when they somehow beat the Warriors, the team with the best record in the league, without him. This time the Bulls got 23 points from Kobe’s old teammate, Pau Gasol, 21 from Jimmy Butler and 20 from Derrick Rose to pull away and win by 20.

And that means we can stop hearing about how the Lakers might be better without Kobe than with him, which some clown advanced analytics man can push all he wants, about how the Lakers are more efficient per 100 possessions with Kobe not on the floor. As coach Byron Scott said on the topic, “I just say those people are idiots. He is one of the best to ever have played the game. When you take him off the team, you are going to have nights where you struggle. We are a much better team when Kobe is on the basketball floor.”

So Kobe Bryant, who, for my money, will retire as one of the 10 greatest basketball players ever, is going through the exact same thing all the great athletes experience. His body won’t allow him to be the god he has been since, in Kobe’s case, he was 15, 16 years old. Just like Derek Jeter, just to pick a contemporary. And it’s killing him because, like Jordan, Kobe treats a basketball game like a stage play. People don’t come to see the understudy; they come to see the star. Chicagoans turned out Christmas night, yes, to see their Bulls — a serious contender — but also to appreciate Kobe, because they know they might not have that chance again to serenade one of the all-timers.

So not playing seemed to be hurting Kobe as much as his sore knees and back and Achilles. When somebody asked before the game whether he felt an obligation to play on a day like this that the league sets aside annually — with no opposition from the NFL or NCAA — to showcase the product, it was clear he’d already anguished over it. “I feel an obligation to play if I’m at the YMCA, honestly,” he said.

“I think it’s important just from a fan’s perspective. You want to be able to see the top players play.”

No, the notion of retirement didn’t come up, not in this conversation. The people assembled before Kobe, most of them, know him reasonably well. He’s come back from an Achilles tear better than 90 percent of players who’ve suffered them. Missing the Christmas night game hurt him, but it didn’t kill him. A few years ago, as the mileage began to pile up, Kobe, with the help of trainers, came up with his own grueling routine. He still does it on game days just to get himself ready to play at the level at which he’s accustomed.

The thing now is, nobody who plays out on the wing — shooting guard or small forward — has ever played this many seasons. Not 18. Big men, sure. The Kareems and Karl Malones function in much less space. They’re not chasing (or running from) the best young athletes on the planet. That’s Kobe’s job. Still.

“There’s really no blueprint,” he said, “for playing this long, at this position at least, in the NBA. We’re really trying to figure new things out and see what’s out there and see what works and what doesn’t work. It’s constantly experimenting.”

So, the real skeptic can ask if Kobe should have seen this coming, before he signed the big contract with the Lakers (that has one more season after this one), if he should have kept a closer eye on his minutes in November/December and not played 35 here and 37 there. “I felt pretty good,” he said, “when I was doing individual workouts, lifting weights and running. My body was feeling really good. It was just a matter of how it would feel over time. Now, the challenge for me is getting my sea legs a little bit and finding out the spots on the floor I should operate from more consistently where it’s habit for me to move around and be active offensively all over the floor. I don’t think my body can hold up to that.”

You hear that on Christmas night in Chicago and you wonder if Kobe Bryant is going to keep finding his road blocked by Father Time, whether he’ll want to put himself through this anymore to play in this kind of discomfort for a team going nowhere. You can’t help but wonder if there’s going to come a point, even this season, at which the reset button doesn’t work and there is no point to it for a player who has been so fabulous and won so many championships.

You wonder if, like Jeter just a few months ago, Kobe will be making his rounds for the final time. Kobe knows Father Time is going to remain undefeated, but perhaps he can stick and move and take the old man longer than anybody else.

And wouldn’t that be just like the Kobe Bryant we’ve all grown old seeing?

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/12079865/kobe-bryant-battle-father

Retirement: How women can generate income for life

Many women have a “quiet fear” that they won’t have enough money for retirement, but they can take several steps to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“The key is to continue earning throughout retirement and to find ways to create income for life,” says Donna Phelan, 62, who has worked with thousands of women nationwide during her 18 years with several large Wall Street investment firms. She has an MBA in finance and is the author of a new book, Women, Money & Prosperity: A Sister’s Perspective on How to Retire Well.

Research shows that women often have far less saved for retirement than men, Phelan says. They frequently earn less than men and often take time out of their careers to rear children. They also spend more time with elder care. Some women don’t start thinking about their retirement savings until late in life, and by then it’s hard to save enough, she says.

So it’s important for them to think outside the box and find alternative income strategies so they thrive during their golden years, Phelan says.

She encourages women to come up with what she has nicknamed SISTERS — Stackable Income Streams to Empower Retirement Security. The most important retirement-planning objective is to accumulate and “stack” as many diverse sources of retirement income as they possibly can, Phelan says. For example, if you have five different sources of income in retirement that each paid you $12,000 per year, it would add up to $60,000 annual income, she says.

Possible sources of income include pensions, Social Security, investments and savings, retirement plans such as 401(k) plans and IRAs, part-time jobs, inheritance, annuities, home-based or small business, rental property, life insurance and home equity.

She also encourages women to form SISTERS clubs and get together to talk with other women about financial issues and possibly pool their talents, ideas and resources to create small businesses. “My passion is to start a nationwide conversation about women and retirement.”

Phelan says women should:

• Research their own retirement. Think about how much you’ll need, what kind of lifestyle you want to have, where you want to live, what you want to do and where the money for this is going to come from.

• Delay their retirement start date. Make sure you have enough money to retire before you do. Talk to a financial adviser about the prospects of running out of money in retirement, given today’s longevity predictions. Many women need to understand the necessity of earning an income at age 65 and beyond, she says. “Retirement can be like a camping adventure during an unexpected snowstorm. It can last much longer than you expect, and you must ensure that you have enough supplies.”

• Work part time. “It keeps people vital and lively. It gives them a social network and gives them spending money,” Phelan says. “It eases them into retirement because a lot of people don’t prepare psychologically for retirement.”

• Pool their assets with like-minded women to create business opportunities. “What do a marketer, artist and accountant have in common? They have the makings of an instant start-up if they were to pool their talents,” she says.

• Create a home-based business. “I see so many women doing crafts and making jewelry, and they do it as a hobby or for charity, but they could easily monetize it,” says Phelan, who had her own jewelry-design business with customers such as Tiffany & Co. and Cartier.

• Use non-traditional living tactics, such as renting out rooms of your home. Phelan says she knows one woman began renting empty bedrooms in her own home to local art students, and she used the income to make other financial investments that produced income.

• Get a roommate or downsize your home to a less expensive abode. “A house is often one of the largest expenses in retirement, but it can be a non-producing asset that is more than what women can afford to carry,” she says.

Phelan says she has a roommate, and the arrangement has “allowed both of us to cut our living costs so we can save a little more in our 401(k)s.”

• Become financially literate. Some women are intimidated by going to a financial adviser, but these professionals usually give a complimentary session to prospective clients to see if it’s a good fit, she says. You also can learn about finances from books and websites.

• Look into optimizing your Social Security benefits. Make sure you’ve learned about all the options for taking Social Security, such as spousal benefits (ssa.gov), before you make a decision about your benefits. Unless you are in ill health or in dire need of money, delay taking Social Security for as long as possible. Every year you wait increases your Social Security benefit by 8% up to age 70, she says.

• Pay off unproductive debt, such as credit card debt, as quickly as possible. If possible, pay your credit card bills in full every month. If you cannot, then always pay more than the minimum.

• Rework your budget and spending plan; eliminate non-essential spending.

The sooner women get started doing all of this, the better off they are going to be, Phelan says. “Women need to recognize the role they play in their own retirement-planning process and take responsibility now for their retirement prosperity.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/12/29/retirement-women-fear-going-broke/20537329/