OMGPOP Head Dan Porter Leaves Zynga A Year After $180M Acquisition, Former CityVille GM Steps In

Dan Porter, who led Draw Something-maker OMGPOP into its $180 million acquisition by Zynga, is leaving the company just a year after the deal closed. His departure comes just on the eve of Draw Something 2′s launch, which is supposed to be the big follow-up to the original and is already live in Sweden. ?Developing and launching games is a team effort, and we?re proud of the great work the Zynga New York team has done with Draw Something 2,” said Zynga COO David Ko in a statement. “Our follow up to the original hit is even more social and engaging, and we?re excited to get it into the hands of our players globally. We thank Dan Porter for his efforts in making the Draw Something franchise a success and wish him well in his future endeavors.” It’s another blow for Zynga’s buzziest and most expensive acquisition to date. Ko and Porter are pictured above smiling almost exactly one year ago, just after the acquisition closed. Basically, it sounds like it wasn’t a cultural fit on both sides and that the decision was mutual. Porter has always been very candid — maybe too candid — for Zynga’s comfort. Just a few weeks ago, Porter had to issue a public apology for implying that Zynga copies games. This is a sensitive issue for Zynga as it tries to manage its reputation so it can attract creative talent in a very competitive market and third-party developers for its publishing program. “I am sorry that my actions have reflected negatively and generated negative press for the company,” he said in a statement posted to Zynga’s company blog just under a month ago. “I?m also sorry if anyone on the game creation side felt that my comments were somehow a discredit to their work.” Two sources told us Zynga CEO Mark Pincus demanded that he apologize or that he would be fired. Again, even though Porter did apologize, his departure seems to be a mutual decision. When Zynga acquired OMGPOP, it was for $180 million in cash and $30 million in retention. Longtime Zynga general manager Sean Uberoi Kelly is stepping in for Porter. He’s the vice president of mobile, has been at the company for four years, and led the launch of CityVille, which grabbed 100 million players in less than 30 days when it came out. Draw Something 2 is designed to

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/lERikaR7kW0/

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News Lincoln County

Provided by ?Off the Page?

YACHATS, OREGON ? A collection of Oregon writers will present Off the Page, a celebration of fiction, poetry, memoir and song on Saturday, April 13 at 7pm in Yachats.

The event takes place at the Overleaf Lodge Event Center, located on Highway 101, at the north end of Yachats. Doors open and music starts at 6:30pm. The reading begins at 7pm. Admission is free and open to all ages.

Now in its seventh year, Off the Page is an encouraging celebration of creative expression. Writers ? hailing from Siletz, Newport, South Beach, Waldport and Yachats ? will share their work.

Featured writers include: Scott T. Starbuck, Khloella Brateng, Theresa Wisner, Hallie Price, Ruth Harrison, Drew Myron, with music by Richard Sharpless.

About the Writers:

Scott T. Starbuck is author of ?River Walker,? a collection of Pacific Northwest fishing poems. He was a commercial fishing and charter captain in Depoe Bay, a writer-in-residence at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on Cascade Head, and a 2013 Artsmith Fellow on Orcas Island where he finished a 24-page chapbook, Depoe Bay Poems. His new book includes poems about a girl he loved with mermaidian hair, drowned fishermen he had known, a homemade submarine rescued, words of colorful elders, a mythical salmon-beast who forgot his way home and grew so large he devoured coastal villages, and local gourmet chef Lee Gray playing his saxophone over Depoe Bay in the tune of a lost ship returning.

Khloella Brateng, of South Beach, is a writer, actress, musician and artist. She is frequently seen on stage at the Performing Arts Center in Newport, most recently in ?The Producers,? ?The Full Monty? and ?Company,? and she provides voiceover narration for Pacific Dance Ensemble?s annual spring production. Her visual art has shown at the Newport Visual Arts Center, and she plays celtic harp for weddings, receptions and gatherings throughout Lincoln County.

Theresa Wisner, of Siletz, is host of the radio program Writers on Writing, co-director of Willamette Writers ? Coast Chapter, and the founder of a Tuesday writing group in Newport. Her poetry and short stories have been published in literary journals and newspapers, and she is working on her memoir, ?Tales of a Sea Sick Galley Slave.? Her work at sea began on the decks of west coast salmon and tuna trollers, and moved to the galleys of large trawlers, merchant ships and research vessels. Her work took her from the Pribilof Islands in Alaska to Antarctica.

Hallie Price, of Newport, graduated from New England College in 2011 with a Bachelors of Art in Creative Writing. She received the Creative Arts Award for her class and won the 2011 New England College Creative Writing Award. Her short stories have been published in online literary journals, ?The Bright Light Caf?? and ?The Autumn Sound Review.?

Ruth Harrison, of Waldport, is a retired professor of medieval literature. Several of her poems appear in the newest edition of Lewis Turco?s Book of Forms, and her work is included in a new anthology of poems for children. Her latest collection of poetry is ?How Singular and Fine.?

Drew Myron, of Yachats, heads a marketing communications company and as a journalist has covered news, arts, entertainment and travel for AOL?s CityGuide, Northwest Best Places and other publications. She is author of ?Thin Skin? (a collection of photos and poems), and creator and host of Off the Page.

For more information, contact Drew Myron at 541.547.3757, dcm@drewmyron.com, www.drewmyron.com.

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Source: http://www.newslincolncounty.com/?p=78863

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Hong Kong court rejects Filipino maids' plea for residency

Domestic workers in Hong Kong have long been treated a notch below other foreign workers, and are told that admission into the country can never be for the purposes of settlement.

By Robert Marquand,?Staff writer / March 25, 2013

Sringatin, a member of a domestic workers union, cries outside the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong Monday, March 25, 2013. Hong Kong's top court ruled against two Filipino domestic helpers seeking permanent residency Monday, the final decision in a case that affects tens of thousands of other foreign maids in the southern Chinese financial hub.

Kin Cheung/AP

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Hong Kong?s top court announced that foreigners can enter the city as maids and domestic helpers, but cannot expect to settle there as permanent residents.

Skip to next paragraph Robert Marquand

Staff writer

Over the past three decades, Robert Marquand has reported on a wide variety of subjects for?The Christian Science Monitor, including American education reform,?the wars in the Balkans, the Supreme Court, South Asian politics, and the oft-cited "rise of China." In the past 15 years he has served as the Monitor's bureau chief in Paris, Beijing, and New Delhi.?

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The verdict deals a blow to a huge contingent of Filipino maids and nannies ? estimated at some 300,000 females, usually unmarried and under 35 ? who make up a diaspora in Hong Kong. The domestic workers are increasingly seen as an indispensable part of the fast-paced city's social fabric, helping keep the Chinese family working and orderly in a highly competitive environment.

Yet sadly for the maids, today?s ruling reverses a lower court verdict that would have allowed the women?to seek residency.?Had it been upheld, the ruling would have been a breakthrough for the rights of domestic workers, who often complain of overwork, second-class status, and occasionally, abuse.

The system for foreign workers in Hong Kong is stratified. As CNN notes today:

While other foreign workers can apply for permanent residency after spending seven consecutive years in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, domestic helpers are excluded from the law.

Justice Ma wrote in his ruling that foreign domestic helpers are "told from the outset that admission is not for the purposes of settlement."

The ruling was greeted with disappointment by campaigners.

"It's very unfortunate and it's sad but in a way it will make us stronger as it highlights the social exclusion that foreign domestic workers face in Hong Kong," said Cynthia Tellez, General Manager of the?United Filipinos in Hong Kong.

In recent years the ubiquitous Filipino maid has become a staple part of Hong Kong culture. They are known for hard work, dignity, and efficiency. Collectively, they have built a kind of mini-civic society: They have their own postal system, often police themselves, have a variety of support groups, and even run ballots and campaigns for elections back home.

Most middle- and upper-echelon Hong Kong families hire a maid, and apartments usually include a tiny space as the maid?s quarters or abode.

For many years on Sundays, usually their only day off, Filipino nannies peacefully and colorfully gathered in central Hong Kong, along the main boulevard, past the city hall and the old Admiralty building, putting down blankets or chairs and pulling out lunch baskets, stretching out two-or three deep on a sidewalk in a line that often is a half-mile long.

Yet the right of maids to assemble has been under attack, and their overall legal status has been shrinking, as the city contemplates the costs (said to be $3 billion or more) of offering them the kinds of equal access that would involve education and other social services.

The South China Morning Post writes:

The judgment ends the right of abode saga started by a judicial review sought by Evangeline Vallejos Banao, a mother of five, who has worked in Hong Kong since 1986. She had argued that an immigration provision barring domestic workers from permanent residency was unconstitutional.

Mark Daly, a lawyer for Vallejos, said his client was ?speechless but calmly resigned and said ?no problem.?

Vallejos won a High Court ruling in 2011 granting her the right to request permanent residency status, denied to the city?s 300,000 foreign maids until then. The decision however was overturned later on a government appeal.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/AXPsqnhYOmQ/Hong-Kong-court-rejects-Filipino-maids-plea-for-residency

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Obama Says $100 Million Will Be Invested In Brain-Mapping Initiative

Adding some details to an initiative he announced during his latest State of the Union address, President Obama on Tuesday said that federal agencies plan to spend $100 million to jump start an effort to map the human brain. It's research that could lead to breakthroughs in the treatment and prevention of brain disorders.

As All Things Considered has reported:

"Much like the Human Genome Project a decade ago, scientists are hoping brain mapping will lead to new scientific advances and breakthroughs, and that perhaps it will even unlock the secrets of conditions such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease."

Mauricio Lima/AFP/Getty Images

Mauricio Lima/AFP/Getty Images

Successful government research, Obama noted during Tuesday morning's White House announcement, has "changed our lives in ways we could never imagine" ? leading to the development of computer chips, global positioning technology, the Internet and other technologies.

The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is "the next great American project," Obama said.

He predicted the knowledge gained in the project "will be transformative."

"We have the chance to improve the lives of not just millions, but billions of people," the president added.

According to the White House, the president's 2014 budget will include about $100 million of research done by the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the National Science Foundation.

All Things Considered plans to have more on the BRAIN project later today. Click here to find an NPR station that broadcasts or streams the show.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/02/176013635/obama-says-100-million-will-be-invested-in-brain-mapping-initiative?ft=1&f=1007

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SC's Sanford wins GOP primary for old House seat

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford leaves the voting booth after voting at his precinct in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Sanford is facing former Charleston County councilman Curtis Bostic in the Republican runoff for South Carolina's vacant 1st District congressional seat. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith)

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford leaves the voting booth after voting at his precinct in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Sanford is facing former Charleston County councilman Curtis Bostic in the Republican runoff for South Carolina's vacant 1st District congressional seat. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith)

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford answers questions from reporters after voting in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Sanford is facing former Charleston County councilman Curtis Bostic in the Republican runoff for South Carolina's vacant 1st District congressional seat. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith)

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford signs in before voting in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Sanford is facing former Charleston County councilman Curtis Bostic in the Republican runoff for South Carolina's vacant 1st District congressional seat. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith)

Former Charleston County Councilman Curtis Bostic greets voters at a polling place in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday, April 2, 1013. Bostic faced former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday in the Republican primary runoff for South Carolina's vacant 1st District congressional seat. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith)

Former Charleston County Councilman Curtis Bostic and his wife, Jenny, greet voters at a polling place in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday, April 2, 1013. Bostic faced former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday in the Republican primary runoff for South Carolina's vacant 1st District congressional seat. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith)

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (AP) ? Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday cleared another hurdle in his bid for a political comeback, defeating a former county council member to win the GOP nomination for a vacant U.S. House seat.

With 96 percent of precincts reporting, Sanford had about 57 percent of the vote to 43 percent for Curtis Bostic, a former Charleston County Council member. The candidates were vying Tuesday in a GOP runoff in the 1st Congressional District, which covers the south coast.

Sanford will face Elizabeth Colbert Busch and Green Party candidate Eugene Platt in a May special election. She is the sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert.

The former three-term congressman and two-term governor saw his political career sidelined four years ago when he disappeared from the state only to return and confess to an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman to whom he is now engaged.

Earlier Tuesday, Sanford said that results from the primary would give a good indication whether voters have moved past his personal indiscretions.

"I think tonight's verdict will say a lot as to where people are or are not on that," Sanford said after voting in his downtown Charleston precinct. "I suppose at some level, I will never completely move beyond that."

Tuesday's win comes two weeks after Sanford led a 16-candidate field in a GOP primary for his old congressional seat. This is Sanford's first campaign since he revealed the affair.

Bostic collected only about 13 percent of the vote in the primary voting two weeks ago, narrowly defeating state Sen. Larry Grooms for second place. Although Bostic had little time to overcome Sanford's high name recognition, Bostic said he liked his chances as he visited with voters in a suburban Charleston precinct before the polls closed.

"People dismiss us," the attorney and retired Marine said. "But we believe strongly the best way to win elections is through relationships and we have worked really hard to do that."

Bostic himself did not vote in the GOP runoff on Tuesday because he can't.

His residence near Ravenel, S.C., is in the 6th Congressional District, represented by U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, about 1,500 yards from the 1st District line. Bostic's law office, other property, church and children's schools are in the district. Under federal law, to run for the U.S. House, one only need to be a resident of the state in which the district is located, not the district itself.

Sanford said he would be out campaigning and meeting voters until the polls closed, despite his apparent lead after the primary voting.

"There's no such thing as 'well ahead' in the world of politics," he said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-02-1st%20District%20Primary%20Runoff/id-a137411d8bdb452b8820e2785f0400fc

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Maria Sibylla Merian: Why her art changed how we see nature

Maria Sibylla Merian was not just an extremely talented artist. She was also a scientific pioneer.?

By Matthew Shaer / April 2, 2013

The Google doodle today pays tribute to Maria Sibylla Merian, the German illustrator.

Google

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The Google homepage today depicts a range of natural forms ? a lizard, a moth, and a slug among them ? and a looping vine that spells out the Google name. The doodle is an homage to?Maria Sibylla Merian, the German illustrator, who was born exactly 366 years ago today.?

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So why should we care about Merian all these centuries later? Well, as the website of the?J. Paul Getty Museum puts it, Merian and her daughters (and more on them later) were not just extremely talented artists. They were also pioneers, who "raised the artistic standards of natural history illustration and helped transform the field of entomology."?

Merian was raised in Frankfurt, in a relatively well-off household. Her father was a Swiss engraver named?Matth?us Merian; after his death, in 1650, her mother remarried the still-life painter?Jacob Marrel. She began painting insects from a young age, under the tutelage first of her father and then of her stepfather. Among her earliest works were images of moths, butterflies, and caterpillars.

"I collected all the caterpillars I could find in order to study their metamorphosis," she wrote at the age of 13. "I therefore withdrew from society and devoted myself to these investigations."

In 1665, Merian married Johann Andreas Graff, an?apprentice to her stepfather, and the couple moved to Nuremberg. Their first daughter, Johanna Helena, was born in 1668; their second daughter,?Dorotha Maria, arrived a decade later, in 1678.?

Between 1675 and 1680, Merian's first book,?"Neues Blumenbuch," or the "New Book of Flowers," was published sequentially, in three volumes. According to the Getty, copies of the "New Book of Flowers" became model books "for artists, embroiderers on silk, and cabinetmakers," and many of the editions that survive today are "heavily-used and often damaged."?

In 1678, Merian returned to the subject of caterpillars, and began work on "Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare Blumennahrung" ? "Caterpillars: Their Wondrous Transformation and Peculiar Nourishment from Flowers." That book, published in 1679, represented what has been called a "major advance in entomology."?

The images in "The Caterpillar Book," as it is often called, were delicate and beautiful. They were also extremely accurate and scientifically astute.

From an online guide to a recent Getty exhibition on Merian:?

By including the caterpillars' food sources in her natural history illustrations, Merian brought a more ecological approach to the study of metamorphosis.?
Merian's work helped to disprove the common belief that insects reproduced by spontaneous generation from decaying matter such as old meat or rotten fruit, and her aesthetic sensitivity raised the standards of scientific illustration.?

Merian's life would soon change drastically. In 1681, her stepfather died, and the entire Merian family fought viciously over his estate. Four years later, in 1685, Merian left her husband, and took her two daughters to a?Labadist religious commune, in the north of the Netherlands. By 1691, the commune had collapsed, and Merian was on her way to Amsterdam, where she and her daughters set up a studio.?

In 1699, she traveled to Suriname,?then a Dutch colony, with her youngest daughter, and eventually produced a book on the insects there ? a book which brought her a good deal of fame. She died in 1717, at the age of 69.?

For?more tech news, follow us on?Twitter @venturenaut.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/G0C8rSSms24/Maria-Sibylla-Merian-Why-her-art-changed-how-we-see-nature

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New technique shows promise in restoring near vision ... - Health.am

? Eye / Vision Problems ? Apr 01, 2013

By middle age, most people have age-related declines in near vision (presbyopia) requiring bifocals or reading glasses. An emerging technique called hyperopic orthokeratology (OK) may provide a new alternative for restoring near vision without the need for glasses, according to a study, ?Refractive Changes from Hyperopic Orthokeratology Monovision in Presbyopes?, appearing in the April issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins , a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

For middle-aged patients with presbyopia, wearing OK contact lenses overnight can restore up-close vision in one eye, according to the study by Paul Gifford, PhD, FAAO, and Helen A Swarbrick, PhD, FAAO, of University of New South Wales, Sydney. ?The authors have shown the feasibility of correcting one eye for near vision through OK, in which overnight contact lens wear shapes the cornea of one eye to allow in-focus near vision for reading,? comments Anthony Adams, OD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Optometry and Vision Science.

Overnight OK Lens Wear Restores Near Vision in One Eye
The study included 16 middle-aged patients (43 to 59 years) with age-related loss of near vision, or presbyopia. Presbyopia is caused by age-related loss of flexibility in the cornea - the transparent front part that lets light into the eye.

Orthokeratology is a clinical technique to correct vision using specially designed rigid contact lenses to manipulate the shape of the cornea. Dr Adams likens OK therapy to orthodontic treatment using braces to change the alignment of the teeth.

Drs Gifford and Swarbick evaluated a ?monocular? technique, with patients wearing a custom-made OK lens in one eye overnight for one week. To preserve normal distance vision, the other eye was left untreated.

In all patients, the monocular OK technique was successful in restoring near vision in the treated eye. The improvement was apparent on the first day after overnight OK lens wear, and increased further during the treatment week. Eye examination confirmed that the OK lenses altered the shape of the cornea, as they were designed to do.

Nightly Lens Wear Needed to Retain Correction

Vision in the untreated eye was unaffected, and all patients retained normal distance vision with that eye; essentially this gives the patient the dequivalent of ?monovision? that is usually done with contact lenses or surgery. To retain the correction in near vision, patients had to continue wearing their OK lenses every night. Dr Adams likens this ongoing treatment to the ?retainer? that orthodontic patients have to wear nightly. As expected, when patients stopped wearing their OK lens after the treatment week, presbyopia rapidly returned.

By about age 45 to 50, most people need bifocals or some other form of vision correction to restore vision for reading and other up-close tasks. Alternatives for presbyopia have been introduced, including fitting a contact lens for distance vision in one eye and a lens for near vision in the other eye. This is the so called monovision, now the authors show it can be achieved without the need to wear a contact lens during the day. ?However, the chief problem with monovision for many people is that their stereoscopic 3D vision is degraded and many find that hard to tolerate,? according to Dr Adams.

Although overnight OK is not a new technique, it has been mainly used to reduce nearsightedness (myopia) in younger patients. The new study shows that OK is similarly effective in changing corneal shape, and achieving desired correction in near vision, in older patients with presbyopia.

The new study suggests that overnight OK lenses are a feasible alternative for correction of presbyopia, ?sufficient to provide functional near vision correction white retaining good distance visual acuity,? Drs Gifford and Swarbick write. The technique is safe, with the cornea returning to its previous shape about a week after the patient stops wearing the lenses.

?This study demonstrates that OK is quite viable as a nonsurgical option for monovision that does not require wearing contact lenses during the day, although it does require ?retainer? orthokeratology contact lenses to be worn overnight,? Dr Adams adds. ?This possibility will certainly appeal to many people, especially since the changes in the corneal curvature of the treated eye are fully reversible.?

###

Connie Hughes
Connie.Hughes@wolterskluwer.com
646-674-6348
Wolters Kluwer Health

Provided by ArmMed Media

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Source: http://www.health.am/ab/more/promise-in-restoring-near-vision-without-glasses/

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