Reuters - Federal Reserve Chairman
Ben Bernanke tackles financial stability in a key speech on
Friday but economists doubt he will provide solid clues about
future policy action to calm the credit crunch.
Reuters - Investors' growing belief in the
likelihood of a federal bailout of home-funding giants Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac triggered a rally in the
debt prices of the two companies on Thursday while a steep fall
in their shares prices abated.
Reuters - Oil prices rose nearly 5 percent on
Thursday, the biggest percentage gain in more than two months,
driven by rising tensions between the United States and energy
behemoth Russia.
Three big banks settle with NY state over ARS
(Reuters)
Reuters - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo
on Thursday said Merrill Lynch & Co Inc , Deutsche Bank
(DBKGn.DE) and Goldman Sachs have agreed to settlements
regarding their auction rate security sales practices.
FINRA probes 40 firms on auction rate securities: source
(Reuters)
Reuters - Financial industry enforcement agents
will review the auction-rate debt operations of about 40 firms
industrywide starting next week, sources familiar with the
investigation said on Thursday.
Trends & Innovations - Wednesday
(Investor's Business Daily)
Investor's Business Daily - The proportion of working-age Americans facing medical debt rose to 72 mil or 41% last year, up from 58 mil or 34% in '05, according to a new survey by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund. About half of those facing health debt have up to $2,000 in bills, while 12% have more than $4,000 in debt and another 12% have more than $8,000. The survey also found most of those with medical debt said they had exhausted their savings, with some also tapping into credit cards, home equity or cutting back on food or heat to cover health care costs.
Power, performance and absolute ease - easily batch convert your audio files between many popular formats like MP3, WAV, WMA, AC3, OGG, MPEG. Convert your WAV files to a compact MP3 format at excellent speed and digital quality. Or quickly create quality WAV or MP3 files from MPEG files to burn on a CD or to play on your MP3 player. You can even convert WMA files to WAV, MP3 or to other formats. Or choose from many other flexible options.
Formats Supported:
WMA - Windows Media Audio. An audio codec designed by Microsofts to replace MP3.
WAV - Uncompressed audio format designed by Microsoft and IBM. This format became the standard for Windows computers.
WAV - PCM - Pulse code modulation. A method of encoding analog audio signals in digital form.
WAV - ADPCM - Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation. A compression method that describes level differences between sequential samples.
WAV - IMAADPCM
MP3 - The most popluar method for compressing music into a very small file while preserving a nearly perfect quality.
MP2 - (MPEG 1 Layer 2) MPEG Layer-2 format. The files have the .MP2 or .MPA extension.
MPEG - Moving Picture Experts Group. A standard for video and audio compression.
OGG Vorbis - Digital audio file format. Developed to compete with MP3.
VOX - Dialogic ADPCM format. An audio format used for telephony.
GSM - Global System for Mobile Communications. An audio format used for human speech.
AC3 - Dolby Digital AC3 (Multichannels). Designed to allow the use of low bit rates while preserving the original sound quality.
MPC - MPEG plus/MusePack. A file format that uses lossy compression. Good at middle to high bit rates.
G.72 - Used for computer telephony.
RAW (A-Law) - CCUIT A-LAW Compressed WAV format. Usually used in telephony.
RAW (U-Law)
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Reuters - Comedian Jerry Seinfeld will star
in a $300 million marketing campaign for Microsoft Corp aimed
at burnishing the image of its computer operating system, a
person familiar with the effort said on Thursday.
Photosynth Stitches Photos Into a 3-D Web Canvas
(NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - Microsoft's name has never been synonymous with photography, visual imaging or innovative online applications. But its release Wednesday of Photosynth -- a hybrid software/service that allows users to create 3-D environments by stitching multiple photographs together -- suggests the company has more than a few cards up its sleeve.
Apple tries to de-bug iPhone
(USATODAY.com)
USATODAY.com - Apple acknowledged that a software update for the iPhone partly fixes the connection snags that have caused a global firestorm for the new iPhone 3G.
Salesforce.com stock drops on cautious outlook
(AP)
AP - Salesforce.com Inc. kept its financial guidance within the range of analyst estimates Wednesday, disappointing investors who expected a more bullish forecast from one of the Internet's most popular software services.
Microsoft Eases Server-Virtualization Restrictions
(NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - Microsoft has elected to jettison certain licensing restrictions that previously discouraged its customers from moving the software giant's server applications within a server farm at will.
NewsFactor - In a move that could help it avoid an iPhone 3G-like software drama, Google wants bug hunters to test its Android mobile platform. On Monday, the Android Security Team posted a message to introduce itself to the security research and vulnerability communities.