Evernote note-sharing service says hackers stole some user data

(Reuters) - Evernote, a Web-based note-sharing service, said it was resetting the passwords of its 50 million users because hackers managed to breach its computer network and access some usernames, email addresses and encrypted passwords.

Evernote spokeswoman Ronda Scott said via email on Saturday that the attack "follows a similar pattern" to other cyber attacks on Internet-based companies in recent weeks, but she did not elaborate.

"In our security investigation, we have found no evidence that any of the content you store in Evernote was accessed, changed or lost," the company said on its website. "We also have no evidence that any payment information for Evernote Premium or Evernote Business customers was accessed."

Scott declined to say how many accounts had been exposed or whether it might be possible for the hackers to unscramble encrypted passwords.

A series of technology companies including Facebook Inc, Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp and Twitter have recently disclosed cyber attacks. In the majority of those cases, the companies said the unknown hackers exploited a bug in Java software and that no user information was compromised.

Twitter is the only major Internet company that has recently reported that its user information was exposed to hackers. On February 1, Twitter reset passwords for some 250,000 accounts whose encrypted passwords may have been accessed.

Scott said Evernote believed that the hackers did not exploit a bug in Java when they broke into the company's system.

Evernote is a privately held company whose major investors include Meritech Capital, CBC Capital, Sequoia Capital, Morgenthaler Ventures, and DOCOMO Capital.

(Editing by Tiffany Wu and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/evernote-note-sharing-says-hackers-stole-user-data-022649176--sector.html

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Iterations: Much Ado About Yahoo!

Over the past few weeks, I've been genuinely surprised by the depth and reach of the reaction to any moves made by Yahoo! As someone who hasn't been around the this place for too long, my sense is Yahoo!, despite its recent history of countless missteps, is still vitally important to the cultural memory of Silicon Valley. And, as a result, the moves its new CEO makes becomes the subject of ridiculously intense, global scrutiny, armchair speculation and analysis, and a deafening level of peanut gallery twitter blabber devoid of any reason or context.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/upuSsuiWjFg/

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Sequester storm gathers over D.C. economy

John W. Schoen , NBC News ? ? ? 5 hrs.

If the gathering economic storm known as the sequester begins forcing layoffs of federal workers, the nation's capitol and nearby Virginia and Maryland will feel the worst of the impact.

Unless Congress acts to modify the long-simmering budget cuts that officially kicked in Friday, states heavily-reliant on federal spending - as far away as New Mexico - are also in for some rough weather.

With half of the roughly $85 billion in cuts targeting the Pentagon, the impact will be heavily concentrated in D.C., Virginia and Maryland, where defense spending accounted for about 10 percent of the three states? combined economies in 2010, according to a report last month from Wells Fargo economists Mark Vitner and Michael Brown.

?Cuts in nondefense outlays would likely trigger significant furloughs, layoffs at civilian contractors and generally less business for supporting services, including law firms, caterers, airlines and hotels,? the report said.

Related story: As meeting yields no breakthrough, Obama blames 'dumb' cuts on GOP

The law mandating spending cuts gives federal agencies until the end of the fiscal year to complete them, but the Defense Department has already notified its 800,000 civilian employees of possible furloughs, and private defense contractors have already begun cutting back.

Virginia, where many defense contractors have set up shop near the federal money spigot, is squarely in the cross-hairs of the impending budget cuts. The state is home to 174,000 federal workers, 19 military facilities (including both the Pentagon and the country?s largest naval base in Norfolk), 90 federal offices, 550 federal government-leased or -owned properties, and 25,000 federal government contractors.

Last month, Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell wrote a letter to President Barack Obama warning that his state stands to lose $4.2 billion in economic output over five years - or 0.6 percent of total state gross domestic product - if the cuts take full effect.

?In the event that you and the Congress take no action and allow sequestration to proceed, we are estimated to lose approximately 82,000 direct jobs at federal agencies and contractors, and an additional 82,000 indirect jobs supported by business and personal spending that will be impacted by the cuts,? McDonnell wrote.

The federal cuts, in turn, have forced the Old Dominion to tighten its own belt; McDonnell?s proposed budget for next year includes $2.3 billion spending cuts, including deep cuts to K-12 education and health and human services

Maryland is also bracing for the coming storm. Democratic Gov. Martin O?Malley unveiled a budget in January that boosts the state?s Rainy Day Fund from 5 percent to 6 percent of the state?s $16 billion general fund. Though Maryland's economy relies about as heavily as Virginia's on federal spending, the state has done a better job battening down the budget hatches with more than $1 billion in reserves to blunt the impact of further federal cutbacks.

The budget pain for the region began two years ago, after the flow of federal dollars to the greater DC economy began drying up. Federal spending in the area - including the northern Virginia and Maryland suburbs - fell by 8.4 percent in the two fiscal years ending last October, according to the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis.

Since peaking in July 2010, federal employment has declined by 2.3 percent. Despite the cuts, the unemployment rate in D.C. stood at 8.4 percent in December, down from a peak of 10.4 percent at the end of the recession. Virginia's jobless rate was 5.6 percent, down from a post-recession peak of 7.4 percent; Maryland?s was 6.7 percent in December, down from 8.0 percent. The national rate was 7.8 percent in December.

While the regional Washington economy is ground zero for the sequester budget shock, the pain of spending cuts will be felt as far away as Alaska.

The biggest losers of defense dollars, for example, would be California, Texas and Virginia, which each took in more than $30 billion last year, according to the Pew Center on the States.

Some smaller states are also big spending targets. While defense accounted for more than 8 percent of Virginia?s economy in 2011, Pentagon spending made up 6 percent of Mississippi?s economy and 5.5 percent of Connecticut?s, according to the Pew Center.

Hawaii, home to the U.S. Navy?s Pacific Fleet, also could see layoffs and reduced income growth, according to the Wells Fargo economists.

?In addition, Alaska with its Air Force, Army and Naval operations would also be disproportionately impacted from defense cuts,? they said.

The effect would also be concentrated in cities that benefit from heavy defense spending, including Huntsville, Ala., San Diego and St. Louis

The pain could be blunted if Congress eventually breaks the stalemate that produced the painful package with the explicit purpose of forcing compromise on a more rational alternative. Analysts say that ? at about half per cent of U.S. GDP - the depth of the cuts need not be so painful. But because Congress mandated that agencies wield the budget axe blindly across all spending, they have no discretion in deciding where to make the cuts.

Once the furloughs begin, Congress can expect the phones to start ringing. Some of the loudest complaints will likely come from large defense companies and other large contractors with operations spread across many states. Those calls from voters are often more effective than conventional lobbying efforts, Neal Dihora, a defense industry analyst at Morningstar, said.

?The whole job loss angle is a whole lot stronger from a company?s perspective,? he said. ?It?s a lot better to rally the employee base than to throw a lot of money in a handful of Congressmen?s pockets.?

State governors have haven?t had much luck lately lobbying for more aid from Washington, which currently provides about one-quarter of state and local revenues, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Since the 2009 federal stimulus package dried up two years ago, states have scrambled to stabilize their budgets which ? unlike the federal government ? have to be balanced every year. The sequester will inflict even more pain.

The 2011 Budget Control Act ? which created the sequester time bomb when enacted in August 2011 - has cut federal funding for a wide range of state and local services, including education, water treatment, law enforcement, and others, to the lowest level in four decades as a share of the economy. If the full impact of the sequester cuts take effect, states will lose another $6 billion in federal funding, according to the CBPP.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/sequester-storm-gathers-over-d-c-economy-1C8641474

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Odd molecular hoops dispel 'junk DNA' myth

Nicolle Rager Fuller / NSF

An artist's conception shows an RNA molecule, which may have served as an early form of life on Earth.

By Charles Choi
LiveScience

The human genome can generate molecular hoops similar in makeup to DNA that could potently interfere with genetic activity, researchers say.

These findings reveal there are secrets within the genomes of humans and other animals that scientists are still uncovering, and the old belief that life has useless junk DNA is more false than ever, scientists added.

Discovering more about circular versions of RNA (a molecule similar to DNA that can carry genetic information) could also lead to new ways of fighting diseases such as diabetes, brain tumors and Parkinson's disease, investigators added.

The human genome ? the blueprint for human life ? is made of DNA. From the genome, intermediate molecules known as RNA are created that help manufacture key biomolecules such as proteins, which then carry out cellular processes.

After international teams of researchers completely sequenced the human genome, they found about 95 percent of it unexpectedly did not code for proteins. Since this noncoding DNA initially seemed to have no known biological function, some scientists referred to it as junk DNA. [Unraveling the Human Genome: 6 Molecular Milestones]

However, over time, researchers have discovered this noncoding DNA can serve a wide variety of vital purposes. For instance, noncoding DNA can give rise to snippets of RNA known as micro-RNA that can suppress the so-called messenger RNA that normally helps manufacture proteins. This micro-RNA serves a key role in controlling genetic activity, and scientists are developing therapies based on micro-RNA to dampen harmful, malfunctioning genes.

Now researchers find the genomes of humans and other animals can generate circular RNA, highly stable rings that can sponge up micro-RNA, apparently keeping them from interfering with genetic activity if necessary.

"There seems to be a whole new layer of gene regulation," researcher J?rgen Kjems, a molecular biologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, told LiveScience.

For instance, Kjems and his colleagues found high levels of a circular RNA they dubbed ciRS-7 in the human and mouse brain. This molecule potently suppresses a micro-RNA named miR-7, which is found in everything from worms to humans. They also found a circular RNA known as Sry that is specific to testicles and targets a micro-RNA known as miR-138, suggesting that circular RNA might play a role in sex development.

In addition, when Nikolaus Rajewsky at the Max Delbr?ck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin and his colleagues analyzed human, mouse and nematode worm RNA, they detected thousands of circular RNAs. These were often linked with specific tissues or developmental stages.

The micro-RNA miR-7 regulates a number of disease genes, including Parkinson's disease, brain tumors and diabetes. As such, learning more about circular RNAs "may provide a new treatment strategy for these diseases," Kjems said. Regulating the activity of miR-7 could reduce the activity of the genes causing these diseases, he explained.

Altogether, these findings suggest that circular RNAs form a large class of genetic regulators. It remains uncertain whether these molecules work alone or whether they act by combining with other compounds, such as RNA-binding proteins.

The researchers next plan to introduce these circular molecules in animals "to see their effect on disease development, and from there, design drugs towards the diseases," Kjems said.

The scientists detailed their findings in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook?and Google+.?

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/01/17147699-weird-molecular-hoops-dispell-junk-dna-myth?lite

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Groupon fires CEO, still faces underlying problems

FILE - In this Oct. 14, 2009 file photo, Andrew Mason, the CEO of Groupon, poses for a photo in Chicago. The struggling online deals company said Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, after the market closed that it ousted Mason as CEO and will look for a new chief. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Greenm, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 14, 2009 file photo, Andrew Mason, the CEO of Groupon, poses for a photo in Chicago. The struggling online deals company said Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, after the market closed that it ousted Mason as CEO and will look for a new chief. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Greenm, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Now that Groupon has gotten rid of its quirky founder and CEO, the chief question is whether the company's underlying online deals business is promising enough to reverse its falling stock price, declining revenue growth and waning consumer interest.

Groupon Inc. fired Andrew Mason on Thursday, one day after the company reported another disappointing quarter amid worries that people are tiring of the restaurant, spa and Botox deals that Groupon built its business on.

In a refreshingly candid memo to staff, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason admitted he "failed at this part of the journey" and said the company's employees "deserve the outside world to give you a second chance. I'm getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns you that chance."

Mason's firing has been "fairly widely expected" given the company's performance, and the surprise was how long it took, Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg said.

But a new CEO may not be enough to tackle all of Groupon's problems.

"The question is whether this as a business model can last," Gartenberg said. "It's easy to replicate and under a lot of pressure. The question is where the company goes from here.... Clearly something wasn't working, isn't working."

Benchmark Capital analyst Daniel Kurnos also questioned whether a change in leadership will be enough, but he said a successor might succeed in getting Groupon more focused and steering it toward more traditional businesses. For example, Groupon Goods, which sells products rather than restaurant or spa deals, has been performing well. With its deals, Groupon's challenge is to balance pleasing merchants who sell the deals with pleasing the customers who buy them, he added.

"There was always a sense that Groupon had a lot of good ideas but no real focus," he said.

The company appointed Executive Chairman Eric Lefkofsky and Vice Chairman Ted Leonsis to the Office of the Chief Executive while a replacement for Mason is found. Lefkofsky is a co-founder of Groupon. The 43-year-old entrepreneur, a veteran of the Internet boom and bust in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is also the company's largest shareholder and pre-IPO investor. Leonsis is a former executive at AOL, where he helped steer the company's transition from a dying business, selling dial-up access, to one revolved around ad-supported content and services.

Groupon Inc.'s stock increased 8 percent Friday morning. The announcement had come Thursday after the market closed.

Mason, a Northwestern University graduate and former punk band keyboardist, founded Groupon in 2008, pioneering the daily deals business. Groupon started as a side project to another website, The Point, which helped raise funds for various causes. The idea behind daily deals is that if enough people sign up for a discount ? for restaurant meals, manicures or weekend getaways ? offering the deals will be worthwhile for businesses, especially if customers bring friends or come back. Groupon makes money by taking a cut from those deals. By 2010, Groupon was available in 25 countries, and some people saw online deals as the next big thing in retailing.

But analysts have been questioning the long-term viability of such a business, not just at Groupon but also at the long list of copycats, which include LivingSocial, Google Offers and Amazon Local.

While the business is easy to set up, it is difficult to sustain and to stand out. Companies must make both their customers and the businesses that offer the deals happy. Many merchants have become reluctant to offer deals because of how little they were getting in payments and repeat business once the promotions ended. And to keep growing, companies need to make more from each subscriber, rather than simply add more addresses to email deals lists. Investors had been worried that instead of buying more, people were suffering from fatigue over the frequent emails.

LivingSocial, Groupon's closest competitor, laid off 9 percent of its workforce late last year. To diversify its business, Groupon has expanded into product sales, payments services and other areas, but there have been worries that those efforts haven't been paying off.

Mason, known for an eccentric character that didn't fit the mold of a buttoned-down CEO, made no qualms about what had happened.

"I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding ? I was fired today," wrote Mason, 32. "If you're wondering why... you haven't been paying attention."

He referred to controversy over its accounting practices, "two quarters of missing our own expectations and a stock price that's hovering around one quarter of our listing price." The stock fell another 24 percent Thursday before the announcement and closed at $4.53, 77 percent below the $20 it started trading at when Groupon went public in November 2011.

"The events of the last year and a half speak for themselves," he wrote. "As CEO, I am accountable."

Groupon, which is based in Chicago, has faced scrutiny about its high marketing expenses and enormous employee base. Its staff has ballooned to more than 11,000, more than that of other Internet darlings such as Twitter, Facebook or Zynga Inc., the other fallen star of the latest swath of Internet IPOs.

Groupon's IPO was one of the most highly anticipated ? and controversial ? among the social media and Internet companies that began publicly trading in the past year and a half. It faced regulatory scrutiny for reporting as revenue the total amount its customers spent on deals, not just the money it got to keep. After federal regulators questioned the practice, Groupon submitted new documents that showed that net revenue in the first half of 2011 was about half of what it originally reported.

Though it made a profit in the second quarter of last year ? its only profitable quarter as a public company ? investors have been more focused on its slowing revenue growth. In 2012, its first full year as a public company, Groupon's revenue increased 45 percent to $2.33 billion. But that's much slower than the five-fold growth in 2011 and 22-fold increase in 2010, compared with the previous years.

Thursday's announcement came one day after more disappointing news on revenue. The company said revenue in the current quarter would be in the range of $560 million to $610 million, below analyst expectations of $647 million.

Groupon said Mason was not available for interviews.

The company did not disclose details about any severance package he might have received, though it will be required to do so by next week. In a regulatory filing last year, Groupon said Mason is potentially entitled to $4,344.36 in total compensation if he is fired "without cause or for good reason." The bulk of that amount is for health coverage, as Mason voluntarily reduced his base salary to $756.72 in 2011, from $180,000.

Much of Mason's wealth comes from Groupon's stock. He owns 7 percent, or about 46 million shares, according to FactSet. Based on Thursday's closing price of $4.53, that's worth more than $208 million.

Groupon's stock hasn't traded above $10 since last July and hit its lowest point, $2.60, in November. Until Wednesday's earnings report, the stock had been crawling back up, but the results disappointed investors who sent it tumbling once again.

On Friday, the stock added 36 cents to $4.89 in morning trading. The 8 percent gain was modest compared with the 24 percent drop Thursday, before the announcement. It's a sign that investors will need more than the CEO's firing to start believing in Groupon again.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-03-01-Groupon-CEO/id-2c016ee0acd14c7fb37f15ef0fcbb3a8

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IOC panel sets off on visits to 2020 bid cities

LONDON (AP) ? Seven months before the vote, the International Olympic Committee is sending a panel of experts on a series of site-inspection visits that could prove influential in the race to host the 2020 Summer Games.

The IOC's evaluation commission is heading to Japan this week on the first leg of its three-city tour to examine the bids from Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul ? a key phase in assessing the pros and cons of the multi-billion dollar projects.

Chaired by IOC Vice President Craig Reedie of Britain, the 14-member panel will meet in each city with bid leaders, visit proposed venues and hone in on issues such as finances, accommodations, transportation, security and public support.

The commission will later compile a detailed technical report that will be submitted to the 100-plus IOC members who will select the host city by secret ballot Sept. 7 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

"The interesting thing about this one is that all three have been candidates before on a number of occasions," Reedie said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press before flying to Tokyo on Thursday.

Istanbul is bidding again after four unsuccessful attempts, Madrid is back for a third time in a row and Tokyo for a second consecutive try. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Olympics, and Spain held the games in Barcelona in 1992. Istanbul is seeking to bring the games to a new region and to a predominantly Muslim nation for the first time.

The IOC visits come with all three countries facing serious political or economic challenges.

"The whole evaluation process .... is in some ways a risk assessment," Reedie said.

Spain is still in a deep recession with 25 percent unemployment, and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has been fending off allegations that he received money from a slush fund. Japan is trying to revive a stagnant economy and is engaged in a potentially volatile territorial dispute with China over uninhabited islands. Turkey is dealing with the spillover of the civil war in neighboring Syria, and the U.S. Embassy in Ankara was hit by a suicide bombing Feb. 1 that killed the attacker and a Turkish security guard.

At a time of continuing economic hardship around the world, financial issues will be examined closely by the IOC panel.

Istanbul, with the most to build, has a budget of $19.2 billion for infrastructure, compared to $4.9 billion for Tokyo and $1.9 billion for Madrid.

The commission's working meetings in Tokyo run from next Monday through Thursday. The panel will then visit Madrid from March 18-21 and Istanbul from March 24-27.

The panel's report will be written by the end of April and submitted to IOC members before a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, in early July, where the bid cities will make technical presentations and take questions. As in the past, the report will not rank the cities, providing mainly factual information and data to let the voting members make up their own minds in Buenos Aires.

"There is a narrow line between technical fact and personal opinion," Reedie said. "As individual members, we would want to resist personal opinions. We want to make sure this is the whole view."

How much difference the technical report will make in the end is uncertain. IOC votes are invariably swung by other factors, including politics, sentiment, geography, personal friendships and other intangibles.

Missing from the evaluation panel will be IOC sports director Christophe Dubi. Reedie said Dubi was asked to remain at IOC headquarters in Lausanne to work on the Olympic sports program, a decision made in the wake of the IOC executive board's decision to cut wrestling from the list for 2020.

Wrestling has a high profile in Japan and Turkey, and both countries would want the sport on the program if they get the games.

Reedie said his panel would be willing to meet with opposition groups during the visits if time permits and the requests are made through the bid committees. The Tokyo bid has been targeted by animal rights activists opposed to dolphin hunting and critics of the government's decision to scrap a tuition-waiver program for 10 pro-North Korea high schools.

Reedie said the IOC visit to London in 2005 was key in the British capital's winning bid for the 2012 Olympics.

"It was a seminal moment in terms of encouraging a slightly skeptical British media that this was serious and this was good," he said. "If we can do that in Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul, we serve the Olympic movement and the ambitions of these cities."

___

Follow Stephen Wilson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevewilsonap

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ioc-panel-sets-off-visits-2020-bid-cities-143453218--oly.html

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Judge throws out part of Apple patent award against Samsung

(Reuters) - Apple Inc lost a major ruling in its ongoing patent battle with Samsung Electronics on Friday, as a federal judge threw out part of a jury's $1.05 billion damages award against Samsung over a variety of phone products.

Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court Northern District of California in San Jose struck $450.5 million from the jury's award and ordered a new trial on damages for a number of products at issue.

Apple won a $1.05 billion verdict last year against Samsung in a California court. Apple followed up by seeking a permanent ban on several older Samsung phones, but Koh rejected Apple's request.

The fight between Apple and Samsung has been widely viewed as a proxy war between Apple and Google Inc as the Korean electronics company's flagship Galaxy smartphones and tablets run on Google's Android operating system.

(Reporting By Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Gary Hill)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/judge-throws-part-apple-patent-award-against-samsung-205435764--finance.html

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