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�The mother�s milk of a healthy economy is jobs,� Mr. Lattanzio said, noting his family has built two other industrial parks in the city that still employ hundreds of people. |
Mayor Dean J. Mazzarella also commended Mr. Antonioni for his diligence in pursuing funding for the project. |
City Councilor Claire M. Freda said she was glad to see the dispute between Mr. Lattanzio and Mr. Lisciotti resolved, noting the other industrial parks in the area have been boons to the city. |
�I�m happy to see this,� she said. |
North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce President David L. McKeehan the city of Leominster was lucky to have forward-looking developers like Mr. Lisciotti and the Lattanzios. |
�These things don�t happen without time and effort and capital,� Mr. McKeehan said. |
Sascha Segan Nextbit Robin (Unlocked) The Nextbit Robin is a beautiful unlocked Android phone with an innovative approach to cloud storage, but you need to believe in the company's vision and be willing to pay a premium for design. |
Beautiful design. Automatically offloads little-used apps to the cloud. Loud front-facing speakers. Good voice quality. |
Software is a bit rough around the edges. Doesn't offload music or videos. A bit expensive for the specs. |
The Nextbit Robin is a beautiful unlocked Android phone with an innovative approach to cloud storage, but you need to believe in the company's vision and be willing to pay a premium for design. |
"Ooh, that's pretty." I almost never hear that about Android phones. It's not that they're bad-looking; it's that conservatism generally reigns supreme. The Nextbit Robin ($399) breaks the mold. It's the most attractive Android phone on the market, although you're paying for the standout design. It's also a high-qualit... |
Nothing is truly original. design owes a bit to Nokia's work in brightly colored polycarbonate, but it has a more rectangular body than any Lumia ever did. It comes in two designs: one is light blue with white sides and a white back, and the other is dark blue all around with a light blue power button. The dual front-f... |
At 5.9 by 2.8 by 0.3 inches (HWD) and 5.3 ounces, the Robin is not a small phone. The pretty much standard-issue 5.2-inch, 1080p IPS LCD has very little side bezel, but those front-facing speakers take up a lot of room on the top and bottom. The matte body feels smooth, and not at all slippery. |
On the back, there are four little lights below a Nextbit cloud logo that pulse when the phone is uploading or downloading data to cloud storage. |
The phone comes with a flat, tangle-free USB-A-to-USB-C cable in a gorgeous light blue. It only transfers data at USB 2.0 speeds, though port supports USB 3.0. And both the cable and the phone support Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0. Additional cables cost $15-20 based on length. The phone doesn't come with an AC adapter; yo... |
If you buy this phone, you'll have to have faith in Nextbit. That's very visible in the way Nextbit's cloud works. |
In fact, Nextbit's cloud is the flagship feature of the device: the phone automatically offloads up to 100GB of cloud storage when its 25GB of available on-device storage (32GB total) is full. You can toggle whether this happens only on Wi-Fi, and/or whether it happens only when you're connected to a charger. If you tu... |
I slugged a bunch of large apps and several gigabytes of movies and music into the phone. When I added enough to reduce the storage to about 2.2GB, the phone started shuffling apps into the cloud, alerting me that I had saved 530MB of storage. When the apps were in the cloud, their icons became gray. Tapping on a gray ... |
But right now the cloud system only works for apps and photos. It doesn't work for music or videos, and it doesn't back up your app data and game levels (which stay on the phone when the app has been offloaded). Nextbit is working on all of these things, execs say. I think offloading music would be a huge boon for thos... |
The Nextbit Robin runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, with an update to 6.0.1 in the works. It has a pretty intense launcher skin, but Nextbit is very publicly hack-friendly—the Robin has an unlocked bootloader and Nextbit encourages you to root your phone and install whatever you want. The cloud-based offloading feature wor... |
The phone's lock screen is gorgeous, with a simple, elegant clock. The launcher's custom icons are also elegant, with a bold and minimalist design. (Did I mention the phone was designed by HTC alums?) But Nextbit jumps on the Huawei bandwagon of ditching widgets and the app and making the home screen an iPhone-like, re... |
Performance-wise, the phone has a 1.8GHz Snapdragon 808 processor with 3GB of RAM and few surprises. It kills lower-end devices like the Huawei Honor 5X and the LG G Vista 2 on benchmarks, but it isn't class-leading. Gaming performance is fine, although I've seen better; there's mostly a bit of load delay in super-inte... |
For a phone that's so passionately cloud-based, I wasn't thrilled by LTE or Wi-Fi performance. I compared it with the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, which has impeccable RF performance. On LTE, I got -4 to -5dBm of better on the Note 5, which could make the difference between making a call and not. Moreover, while the Robin ha... |
That said, I'm more than pleased with broad LTE banding, which outpaces similar phones like the OnePlus 2 in carrier compatibility. The Robin has LTE bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/20/28, which covers you for AT&T, T-Mobile, Canada, Europe, and some of Asia. The only ones missing are AT&T's new bands 29 and 30, which it isn... |
The phone supports voice-over-LTE (VoLTE), but not Wi-Fi calling, and it has Bluetooth 4.1 LE and NFC for pairing. Call quality is very good. The earpiece is really powerful, and voice quality is rich, especially with voice-over-LTE. Noise is generally solid; it has some minor issues with wind noise, but most phones do... |
The phone's 2,680mAh battery lasted for 5 hours, 56 minutes of full-screen LTE video streaming, which is good but not extraordinary. It's a bit better than the OnePlus 2 (5 hours, 19 minutes), but much shorter than the Note 5 (7 hours, 35 minutes). |
dual front-facing speakers promise serious audio. They deliver, although they need to be fine-tuned. Most of the notches on the volume slider increase the volume by 2-3dB, but the very last one jumps by 7dB and makes the speakers clip. That's fixable in the firmware. |
The phone has a custom camera app with some manual controls. It sometimes didn't choose the most sensible auto-exposures (often picking a bright background to a dark foreground), but tapping for manual exposure fixed that. The main camera is super-sharp in good lighting and decent in low light, although low-light image... |
The main camera records 4K video at 30 frames per second, and the front camera records 1080p video at 30 frames per second, with both clinging desperately to those 30fps as the lights go down, making videos noisier and noisier until they black out. I actually prefer that to the other option, which is cutting the frame ... |
Otherwise, music and video playback through the Robin fine. There's no wired way to hook it up to a big screen (for now, at least), although the phone supports wireless screencasting. |
Are you comfortable with paying for design? If not, stop reading, you're done here. The $399 Nextbit Robin is out-specced by the $349 OnePlus 2, and certainly by the beastly Moto X Pure Edition, among other unlocked phones. You're paying a premium for design here. And it's definitely a work in progress; everything from... |
But the Robin stands out. Unlike the OnePlus 2, it won't be mistaken for any other phone, and unlike the Moto X Pure, the design is tasteful and refined. Unsurprisingly given Nextbit's HTC pedigree, the phone makes me think of the HTC One A9, another phone that manages to outweigh its specs because of its design. |
There are a lot of questions around Nextbit that are similar to the questions around OnePlus. Will the company deliver software updates on a regular basis? Will it be able to make enough phones? will only offer 6,000 devices to start, but told me, "We are working to bring our capacity to meet demand before this becomes... |
Bottom Line: The Nextbit Robin is a beautiful unlocked Android phone with an innovative approach to cloud storage, but you need to believe in the company's vision and be willing to pay a premium for design. |
Profitmaking will be on the agenda at a Canadian conference to discuss the future of microfinance. |
This week, thousands of development experts will gather at the Global Microcredit Summit in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to discuss the future of microfinance. For some, the conference comes at a critical juncture for the celebrated small-loan scheme as for-profit banking moves into an area dominated by nonprofit players. |
Mohammed Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize last month along with his Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank for turning millions of "the poorest of the poor" into financial clients with loans of less than $100. While Grameen may be an inspirational starting point, some development experts say, it doesn't represent a long-term mod... |
In most developing countries from Bolivia to Indonesia to Serbia, massive state owned banks ignore the little guy, leaving small-scale borrowers no choice but to borrow from exploitative loan sharks. That's why microfinance's future may be here on the edge of Belgrade, rather than in Bangladesh. |
When it opened its first Serbian branch in 2001, Frankfurt-based ProCredit was the first foreign bank to operate in the country, and the only bank providing services to private companies. ProCredit fills a niche for businesses that need more than a $100 loan. |
Today, ProCredit Serbia issues 7,000 loans each month and has a $354 million portfolio. Eighty percent of its loans are for less than $12,500 – well under the $38,500 the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development defines as microcredit. |
"Modern microfinance has been in development for the last 30 years, but the commercial aspect has just become a reality in the last decade," says Harvard Business School Prof. Michael Chu. The for-profit model gives banks like ProCredit a stable future, unlike microlending institutions that rely on donor grants, says M... |
Profit-oriented banks like Germany's ProCredit, Boston-based Accion International, and Indonesia's Bank Rakyat are redefining what microcredit means – while also keeping an eye on the bottom line, says Chu. |
"Profit is not only needed but essential," he says. "It's the only way to be sure you're attacking the center of poverty, not just nibbling at the periphery." |
ProCredit's approach in Serbia has paid off, despite increasing competition from other banks entering the market. Just 0.7 percent of its loans are nonperforming, a rate that's comparable to that of Grameen Bank and still lower than that of traditional banks. Of its loans in Serbia last year, 8.5 percent were between 1... |
For the bank's clients, the results are tangible. Hairstylist Radovinka Andric took out her first loan from the bank in 2004 to paint the walls of her men's hair salon red, yellow, and blue. Three loans later, Ms. Andric says business has continued to improve, drawing new, younger customers and holding on to regulars d... |
Today, the small storefront salon is bright and clean, with a laminated sheet above the sink listing haircuts for 200 dinar (about $3). Pride of place goes to two new $400 barber chairs and a matching high chair with a miniature steering wheel attached for squirmy little boys, the result of her latest, and largest, loa... |
"Painting and putting in new chairs made a difference," Andric says. "It's very important for customers to see the place is different. New customers, especially younger ones, are always looking at where they're going." |
Yet even as large commercial banks and investment funds announce ambitious plans to enter the microfinance market, the challenges facing banks focused on the "bottom of the pyramid" remain formidable. |
A $12,500 microloan may be peanuts to most commercial banks, but Ms. Zakanji says it takes almost as much time to analyze as a loan 10 times the size. And, despite interest rates approaching 30 percent at many microfinance banks, it's much harder to make a profit on lots of small loans than a few big ones. "That's why ... |
Since most clients are self-employed with little or no collateral to offer, the bank takes a holistic approach to credit-worthiness. They won't fund start-ups – businesses must be at least three months old, showing that clients have something invested. Loan officers are used to looking at whatever financial information... |
"We look at the cash from that day, their tools and equipment, if the building is rented or owned," says loan officer Tamara Cvijetic. "We're trying to find out how much they earn in a month, and what's the possibility they'll pay back the loan." |
Loan applications can be rejected for financial reasons, of course, but loan officers also place great stock in personal impressions. Applications can be rejected for bad personal behavior or family problems. |
"They look at the entire picture," Zakanji says. "This is not a corporation – this small company has an owner, and the owner is the main driving force and main employee of the business. We have to assess their potential to work and make payments in the long run." |
Andric just applied for another loan, her fifth, to install a new heater and replace the salon's drafty windows. She also plans to install a TV to show different haircut options, and perhaps a new shampoo area. "I'm not nervous about the loans," she says. "I just can't wait to change things." |
Paul McCartney made a surprise appearance alongside the Killers to perform the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” during the band’s performance at a private New Year’s Eve party in St. Barts. |
The Killers posted video of the rendition, which took place at the island home of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, with McCartney and Brandon Flowers trading lines on the “White Album” classic. |
“So far, so good,” the Killers said of 2017 after kicking off the New Year with a McCartney duet. It wasn’t the first time the band had performed “Helter Skelter” live: Nearly a decade ago, in November 2007, the group closed out a Sydney, Australia concert with the song. |
Following the impromptu performance, McCartney exited the stage and rejoined the crowd at the exclusive party. In addition to the Killers, Abramovich’s New Year’s Eve bash also featured mini-sets courtesy of the Rolling Stones and Guns N’ Roses, the Telegraph reports. |
A recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has shot me back nine years. Scattered images. A naked boy spinning cartwheels on the banks of a strangely named river. The rain moving in. A vast bridge. A gate slamming shut. A desperate woman attempting to wedge herself through that gate,... |
The fragments could be assembled then into an economic narrative. The Massacre River, which subsumed the corpses of Haitians slaughtered by the Dominican dictator Trujillo in 1937, is spanned by a bridge that connects Ouanaminthe in northeastern Haiti to Dajabon in the Dominican Republic. Nine years ago there was no mo... |
An “economic chasm,” in the words of the CSIS report released this month, separates the two countries that share the island of Hispaniola. Until the mid-20th century, both had roughly the same GDP. The population of the two countries today is approximately the same, at close to 11 million. Yet the DR’s economy is 10 ti... |
The bridge across the Massacre River is open to Haitians just twice a week. The scene: a crush of Haitians pulsing past, “pulling empty carts, pushing wheelbarrows, or balancing plastic crates or basins on their heads.” I am quoting now from the CSIS report. The Haitians seek eggs or Brunswick sardines or shoes. Perhap... |
There is no space to recount the tragedies of Haiti here. But the non-profit think tank has zeroed in on the border as a potential pivot point, a place through which customs revenues could be increased, corruption reined in, local development strengthened. |
The borderlands evolved decades ago, from disputes between the two countries to a commingling of Haitians and Dominicans. “Some Haitians became elite members of Dominican communities as businesspeople, professionals, and property owners,” the report notes. Until, that is, Trujillo directed the slaughter of as many as 1... |
Cross-border trade between the two countries in modern times can’t seriously be called “trade.” CSIS cites 2015 statistics, a year in which the DR exported $1 billion worth of goods to Haiti, while importing just $4 million worth. Two years later that chasm had shrunk, but only slightly. |
The lower value of official exports from the DR can be attributed to the banning of 23 goods by the Haitian government. The list includes rebar, pasta, beer, cooking oil. Yet many of these goods continue to be sold at the Dajabon market. Just what the Haitian government is trying to accomplish with this measure is uncl... |
Regardless, lost revenues to government coffers have been estimated to run in excess of $400 million annually at a time when foreign assistance has decreased dramatically and the country remains in desperate need of infrastructure improvements. The Inter-American Development Bank estimates that external donations to Ha... |
That’s CSIS speaking. Canada should be listening. |
WESTOVER AIR RESERVE BASE, Mass. -- Overcoming adversity. It is the hallmark of the Patriot Wing and it's what makes us unique in the Command. On Sunday of the A UTA, a call came from one of our Reservists in New York City. Her neighborhood was hit hard by the hurricane and there was little relief in sight. The First S... |
Hurricane Sandy impacted our Reservists and civilians both locally and in the New Jersey and New York areas during the B UTA. The Wing went into action Sunday afternoon and put the wheels in motion to evacuate seven of our C-5's, preventing damage to our nation's assets. |
We hunkered down and together prepared the base for the storm's impact. Numerous people came in on their day off to help move equipment into secure locations, prepare aircraft for launch, provide continuous weather information, and ensure emergency management preparations were completed. Within three hours, seven aircr... |
This marks the third year in a row that Westover has been used as an Incident Support Base for the entire New England area. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, Defense Logistics Agency, and the Army Corps of Engineers have nearly 75 trailers, fuel trucks and support equipment positioned in the Dogpatch area. Base ... |
You have all exemplified outstanding commitment to the Wing during these challenging times. Your efforts have received praise from our local U.S. House of Representative member as well as from Air Force leadership. Your actions - nationally and locally - make me proud to serve with you and in this Wing and epitomize yo... |
Microsoft's new operating system still lags behind Windows XP. |
Windows 10 uptake is falling back to earth after an explosive first month. |
According to StatCounter, Windows 10 accounted for 7.64 percent of desktop Internet usage in September, compared to 5.38 percent the month prior. Rival metrics firm NetApplications pegs Windows 10 usage at 6.63 percent, compared to 5.21 percent in August. |
Three months of desktop operating system usage from StatCounter. |
September's desktop operating system usage from NetApplications. |
Windows 10 got off to a strong start in large part because Microsoft is giving away upgrades to consumers running Windows 7 and higher. The company boasted of 75 million installs for Windows 10 in its first four weeks, while StatCounter observed faster first month adoption than both Windows 7 and Windows 8 during their... |
But as we get farther from launch, those numbers seem likely to fall as early adopters get their upgrades out of the way. The challenge now is for Microsoft to get other users on board without pushing too aggressively and scaring people away. |
Why this matters: If August’s usage data was a sign that Microsoft’s free upgrade plan was working, September’s data is the inevitable reality check. Microsoft is still dealing with a huge base of aging PCs and deeply-entrenched usage patterns, not to mention enterprise users that must still pay to upgrade. Making upgr... |
Back in early autumn, who would have thought that spring would find the Wolves having to catch Kansas City to finish second in the Midwest Division of the International Hockey League? |
While the Wolves were winning eight of their first 11 games, Kansas City was losing nine of its first 11. |
Now, Sunday's 4-2 victory over the Blades in the Horizon has to be considered a major accomplishment. |
It ended Kansas City's winning streak at six games and moved the Wolves into a second-place tie with Kansas City and Milwaukee. All have 80 points, but Kansas City has played two fewer games. However, Sunday's victory gave the Wolves a 5-1-1 advantage over the Blades in the season series. |
"We started very well," said Wolves coach Alpo Suhonen. "For the first time in the last nine games, we scored the first goal. After the first 10 minutes, we played a bad game--no intensity, no emotion." |
The Wolves took a three-goal lead on scoring thrusts by Mike Taylor, Steve Maltais and Paul Koch. Then the letdown took its toll and by midway through the final period, power-play goals by Gary Emmons and Dean Sylvester had cut the Blades' deficit to 3-2. |
Brad Purdie's breakaway goal with seven minutes to play provided the insurance policy for goaltender Wendell Young, whose 26-save performance brought new coach Suhonen's team its fourth triumph in the last five games. |
Hector Aguilar atop "Traveler," the University of Southern California mascot rides during the Fiesta Days parade on Memorial Day, Monday, May 27, 2013 in La Canada, Calif. |
The crowd erupts in cheers as a Trojan warrior parades a white horse down Foothill Boulevard. |
“It's Traveler!” shouts a woman, who dashes into the street for a photo with the University of Southern California mascot. |
Sounds of excitement ripple like a wave down the boulevard during the city's annual Fiesta Days celebration in May, a showing of community pride in which the horse and its rider are the biggest stars. |
Although La Cañada lies more than 15 miles north of the downtown Los Angeles campus, symbols of USC are everywhere — decorating private homes, the local high school and even City Hall. |
Many residents in the city, including a strong contingency of alumni of the university, are die-hard fans of USC. |
“There's definitely a deep, long connection among La Cañadans,” said Steve Orr, a lawyer who lives in the city with his family. |
Orr's family is one of several in the foothills with multiple generations of USC alumni. |
The family tradition started in the 1950s, when Orr's mother, Thelma, obtained a physical therapy certificate from the university. His father, John B. Orr, later became a professor of religion at USC. |
Orr and his brother, John, both graduated from USC. Now he has two sons; Will, 19, and Matt, 21, both enrolled at the campus. Attending USC football games and picnicking with other La Cañada families also became part of the tradition. |
Will Orr said he had offers at other schools but couldn't imagine going anywhere but USC after graduating from La Cañada High School in 2012. |
Orr, a sophomore studying history, lives in an apartment near campus with two other La Cañada High graduates. At his freshman orientation, he said, he could count about a dozen other classmates from his hometown. |
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