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(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. is already in your pocket, on your desk and underneath your television. Soon, a device embossed with “Designed by Apple in California” may be on your nightstand or kitchen counter as well.
The iPhone-maker has started manufacturing a long-in-the-works Siri-controlled smart speaker, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple could debut the speaker as soon as its annual developer conference in June, but the device will not be ready to ship until later in the year, the people said.
The device will differ from Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo and Alphabet Inc.’s Google Home speakers by offering virtual surround sound technology and deep integration with Apple’s product lineup, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss products that aren’t yet public.
Introducing a speaker would serve two main purposes: providing a hub to automate appliances and lights via Apple’s HomeKit system, and establishing a bulwark inside the home to lock customers more tightly into Apple’s network of services. That would help combat the competitive threat from Google’s and Amazon’s connected speakers: the Home and Echo mostly don’t support services from Apple. Without compatible hardware, users may be more likely to opt for the Echo or Home, and therefore use streaming music offerings such as Spotify, Amazon Prime Music or Google Play rather than Apple Music.
“This will be a platform for developing Apple’s services,” says Gene Munster, a co-founder of Loup Ventures and former Apple analyst.
Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller declined to comment.
Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has emphasized Apple’s services businesses over the past 18 months as iPhone sales slowed. He expects service revenue to double by 2020 from last year’s $24 billion. A speaker may help keep customers loyal to service products such as Apple Music, a subscription music streaming offering that costs $10 per month. The speaker would likely be tucked into Apple’s “Other Products” category, which currently includes devices like the Apple Watch, Apple TV and AirPods. That set of products generated $11 billion in sales last year.
Inventec Corp., the Taipei manufacturer that already makes the AirPod wireless headphones, will add the speaker to its Apple repertoire, the people said. Apple employees have been secretly testing the device in their homes for several months, they said. The Siri speaker reached an advanced prototype stage late last year, Bloomberg News reported at the time. An Inventec representative didn’t respond to a request for comment outside normal business hours in Taiwan.
This year’s developers conference will be the first since 2013 to introduce new hardware. Apple could announce updated iPad tablets at the conference, one of the people said. Apple last updated the 9.7-inch iPad Pro in March 2016 and hasn’t refreshed the larger 12.9-inch model since its November 2015 debut. Planned Mac updates will include refreshed versions of the MacBook and MacBook Pro with faster Intel Corp. processors, Bloomberg News reported earlier this month.
Apple hopes that more advanced acoustics technology will give the speaker an edge over competitors, according to people with knowledge of the product’s development. Along with generating virtual surround sound, the speakers being tested are louder and reproduce sound more crisply than rival offerings, the people said. Apple has also considered including sensors that measure a room’s acoustics and automatically adjust audio levels during use, one of the people said.
Apple will also likely let third-party services build products for the speaker. Last year, Apple opened up Siri on the iPhone to the likes of Uber Technologies Inc. and Facebook Inc., allowing a user to order a ride or send a WhatsApp message with a voice command.
The device will be a hub for Apple’s HomeKit home automation system, letting users control devices such as lights, door locks and window blinds. At present, an Apple TV or iPad is required to control that equipment from outside the home or automatically. The Echo and Google Home both support third-party services and smart home appliances.
Ahead of Apple’s launch, the competition has upgraded their speakers with support for making voice calls, while Amazon’s gained a touchscreen. Apple’s speaker won’t include such a screen, according to people who have seen the product.
An Apple-designed speaker with high-end sound quality that fits perfectly into the Apple ecosystem is a familiar pitch. In 2006, Apple unveiled the iPod Hi-Fi, a battery powered speaker designed to cast a shadow over the thriving iPod third-party accessory market. With its bulky size and high price point, the Hi-Fi flopped and was discontinued within 18 months of launching. With Siri and a clear hole in its ecosystem, Apple is banking that its second try at a speaker product will do better.
To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net, Alex Webb in San Francisco at awebb25@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robin Ajello at rajello@bloomberg.net, Molly Schuetz
©2017 Bloomberg L.P.

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh — A tropical storm lashed southern Bangladesh on Tuesday, killing at least three people and destroying thousands of poorly built homes in some remote islands in the Bay of Bengal, officials said.
Tropical Storm Mora started crossing the country's southern coastal region early in the day. Some 300,000 people had been moved to safety or were evacuated on Monday as the delta nation braced for its first strong storm of the year, with more than 1,000 shelters set up in several districts, including Cox's Bazar and Chittagong. More than 20,000 volunteers were on hand.
Cox's Bazar's chief government administrator, Ali Hossain, said two women and a man died in three separate incidents after the storm made landfall. Two of them died after trees fell on their homes, he said. Some 20,000 homes were destroyed in the vast region, Hossain said.
"We are estimating actual losses, but we don't expect huge casualties," he said.
The storm had weakened by Tuesday afternoon and was expected to be downgraded to a tropical depression, according to the weather office.

Although many workers aim to retire during their 60s, these days a growing number of Americans are working or planning to work until 70 and beyond. In fact, in a study by human resources consulting firm Willis Towers Watson, almost 25% of Americans say they aren't planning to retire until age 70 or older. If you're thinking of extending your career into your 70s, click ahead for a few things to be aware of.

1. You'll still face required minimum distributions

Nearly $4 billion has been wiped off of the value of bitcoin (BTC=-USS) in the past four days after a correction that has seen the cryptocurrency's price fall almost 19 percent from its recent record high.
On May 24, bitcoin hit an all-time high of $2.791.69. But on Monday, the digital currency was trading at an intra-day high of $2,267.73, marking a more than $520 drop or 18.7 percent decline since the record high, according to data from CoinDesk.
"The correction was actually quite brief, the prices today are still higher than that of a week ago," Bobby Lee, CEO of BTCC, a major bitcoin exchange, told CNBC by phone.
"I think the pullback was just a profit taking, a correction from the skyrocketing prices of last week."
Bitcoin's market cap fell from $40.49 billion on Thursday to around $37.08 billion on Monday, a roughly $3.4 billion decline in value.
Last week, Nicola Duke, a technical analyst at analysis platform Forex Analytix, told CNBC that $2,800 could mark a level of resistance where bitcoin pulls back. The analysis appeared to be correct with bitcoin reaching within $9 of the price before falling to the lower levels on Monday.
Still, Lee thinks the correction is temporary and the price rise will continue because "the macro situation hasn't changed".
Some major factors have been supporting bitcoin's major rally this year including:




Longer term, proponents of the digital currency are excited about the prospect of the broader sector which could potentially rival fiat currencies.
Investors appear to currently be positioning for another price rise in bitcoin. Total active margin trading long positions have risen from 18,576.54 bitcoin on Thursday, to 21,168.90 bitcoin on Monday, according to data from CryptoCompare. Margin trading involves borrowing funds in order to buy or sell bitcoin. The rise in long positions shows that traders are expecting a rise in the cryptocurrency.
There is still a lot of bullishness in the market with some calls for the price to reach as high as $6,000 this year.
"There is a lot of fresh liquidity flowing into bitcoin, thanks to a surge in interest among investors in Asia, notably Japan and Korea, coupled with a resolution to the scaling debate. I would not be surprised to see the bitcoin price doubling again to around $6000 by the end of the year," Aurelien Menant, CEO of Gatecoin, a regulated cryptocurrency exchange, told CNBC in a recent interview.

MONDAY, May 15, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Although many people think "vaping" is safer than smoking, research suggests that both e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes are tied to an increased risk for bladder cancer.
"We've known traditional smoking raises bladder cancer risk, and given the surge in popularity of e-cigarettes, it's imperative we uncover any potential links" between e-cigarettes and bladder cancer, Dr. Sam Chang said in an American Urological Association news release.
Chang is a professor of urologic surgery at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville.
Most inhaled nicotine is excreted in the urine. For the study, the researchers compared the urine of people who use e-cigarettes with that of nonsmokers. The investigators looked for five chemicals known to cause bladder cancer and may be found in e-cigarette liquid.
Ninety-two percent of e-cigarette users tested positive for two of the five chemicals. More research is needed to investigate the link between e-cigarettes and bladder cancer, the study authors said.
In a second study, researchers examined the effect of nicotine and its chemical compounds -- including nitrosamines and formaldehyde -- on DNA repair in cells lining the bladder.

The researchers found that e-cigarettes triggered cancer-related damage to bladder tissue. The findings also showed that nicotine, nitrosamines and formaldehyde led to damage while blocking DNA repair, boosting cancer risk.
For a separate study, researchers analyzed data on more than 14,000 adults with bladder cancer over three decades. The study compared five-year survival rates of those who smoked less than a pack of cigarettes a day to those who smoked more.
Heavier smokers were at far greater risk of death during the study period than those who smoked less, according to the report. The scientists noted, however, that even a small reduction in smoking could improve survival in the bladder cancer patients.
The studies' findings were scheduled for presentation Monday at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association, in Boston. Research presented at meetings is typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

California Assemblyman Chad Mayes doesn’t lose much sleep over whether or not climate change is real.
“That debate of whether it’s a hoax or isn’t a hoax is a good mental exercise,” but serves little practical purpose, he says.
What the Republican from Yucca Valley does care about is getting conservative voices in on the discourse around the state’s climate initiatives. He’s especially concerned about the costs of extending California’s cap-and-trade program, which requires companies to purchase permits to emit greenhouse gases, which they can then sell to other companies if they don't need them. He insists that any version of the program after the current 2020 deadline must incorporate conservative principles and receive bipartisan support.
To that end, Assemblyman Mayes and his colleagues are ready to work with Democrats, who hold a supermajority in the state Legislature.
“We can either decide to not engage and let it be really bad for our economy and the people of California,” he says, “or we can engage and say we’re going to protect the environment and make sure that California is a place we can still afford to live in.”
The approach puts the assemblyman in the company of other Republican leaders who are increasingly supporting efforts, direct and otherwise, to address climate change. Like Mayes, these legislators are driven mostly by practical concerns: mitigating the effects of sea-level rise in South Florida, for instance, or ensuring Ohio competes effectively in the growing renewable energy industry.
They’re also part of a broader group of conservatives – including businesses, nonprofits, and religious groups – that have stepped up to support climate initiatives for reasons that range from the moral to the financial.
“We’re getting voices that Republicans trust that are talking about [the issue] more,” says Josh Freed, vice president for clean energy at Third Way, a centrist think tank in Washington. “And they’re trying to decide what are actions that address climate that fit their ideology.”
The focus on solutions marks a shift in the deeply partisan debate that’s surrounded climate change for nearly two decades, political analysts say. And while this shift is still in its early days, it could be a crucial first step toward disentangling climate change from identity politics – and developing a more diverse set of voices on the issue.
“It’s incumbent upon everybody who sees the need for climate action to find a way around that polarization,” says Nat Keohane, who heads the global climate program at the Environmental Defense Fund. “We’re only going to succeed if we have serious solutions coming from both sides of the political aisle.”
A 'badge of identity'
Like immigration, abortion, and gun control, climate change is among a slew of issues swept up in the hyperpartisanship of American politics in recent years, political and cultural analysts say. Many on the right have come to view climate change as a pretext for expanding government regulations, Mr. Freed says, while some progressives see the issue as a way for conservatives to attack any form of environmental action, regardless of what the science says.
The result is that “the issue becomes a referendum on who’s virtuous and who’s vicious,” says Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale University who studies how cultural values shape perceptions of risk and individual beliefs.
They become “a kind of badge of identity in their social group,” he adds. “Those kinds of connotations raise the cost of changing your mind.”
No one knows that better than Bob Inglis, former US representative for South Carolina. Once a vocal climate change doubter, Mr. Inglis came out on the side of climate action after spending time studying coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef with Australian climate scientist Scott Heron – and after his own son urged him to clean up his act on the environment.
The reversal cost Inglis his seat in the House in 2010. “It seemed that I had crossed to the other team, that I was … no longer with my tribe,” he says.
But the loss gave Inglis a new mission.
In 2013, the former congressman started republicEn, a nonprofit that strives to introduce conservative voices and solutions into the national discourse on climate change. Today the group has more than 3,000 members across the country. Inglis himself advocates an environmental tax reform that would remove government subsidies for incumbent fuels and place all the health and environmental costs of fossil fuels “at the meter and at the pump.”
Having those costs reflected in the price of gas and electricity would hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their environmental impact, the theory goes. The higher price, in turn, would incentivize innovation in renewables and encourage consumers to power their lives in climate-friendly ways – all while keeping government intervention at a minimum.
“We’re already paying the full cost of coal-fire electricity,” Inglis says. “It’s in the healthcare system. It’s in the climate damages [they cause]. So go ahead and put that on your meter and let’s see how wind and solar do then.”
More than pushing a particular solution, however, Inglis aims to mobilize conservatives into joining the discourse instead of just going on the defensive against what he calls the environmental left – thus helping to sever the ties between climate action and political identity.
“People assume the solution is bigger government that’s going to tax or regulate more and reduce liberty and that’s completely unacceptable to conservatives,” Inglis says. “We’re trying to build the confidence of conservatives so they can engage in the competition of ideas.”
Working towards a consensus
Back in Sacramento, Mayes, the Republican assemblyman, has less lofty – if similar – objectives in working with Democrats on climate policy. In August he and his colleagues voted against Senate Bill 32, which set tougher goals for cutting the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The bill passed anyway, and Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law in September.
Now Mayes and other Republicans in the Legislature are involving themselves in the discourse, hoping to ensure conservative principles are preserved as the state maps out how to reduce emissions by 40 percent.
“It’s a matter of settled law. So for us the focus is how do we best protect the environment and make sure we’re not putting incredible burdens on Californians who are struggling to make ends meet,” Mayes says.
Across the country, Republican leaders are making similar statements on climate action, at times aligning themselves with Democrats in the process.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) of Tennessee in December collaborated with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) of Rhode Island on a New York Times op-ed making the case that nuclear power is indispensable in the fight against global warming.
In 2015, New York Republican Rep. Chris Gibson – supported by 14 other GOP legislators – introduced a resolution in the House that says Congress must take “economically viable” steps to mitigate the effects human-induced climate change on the economy and the environment.
Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo and Democrat Rep. Ted Deutch, both of Florida followed the resolution by co-founding the House Climate Solutions Caucus in 2016. In its mandate, the caucus – which as of March had 34 members – echoes the Gibson resolution’s language, seeking “to educate members on economically-viable options to reduce climate risk and protect our nation’s economy, security, infrastructure, agriculture, water supply and public safety.”
“[W]e know that parts of our country, like South Florida, are already experiencing some of the effects of climate change,” Rep. Curbelo said in a March interview with CBS explaining his position. “Republicans and Democrats should work together toward some consensus solutions.”
“When it stops being an abstract issue and becomes a nuts and bolts issue and people's lives are affected – that’s a powerful driver of change,” says Keohane at the Environmental Defense Fund.
In places like Iowa and Texas, the economic potential offered by renewable industries like wind and solar serve as a compelling argument for gaining conservative support.
“There’s a strong business case for fighting climate change,” says Ethan Elkind, an attorney who directs the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at the University of California, Berkeley. “This isn’t an economic loser.”
'A nascent movement'
Despite these efforts, it’s a long road to bipartisan solutions to climate change. On the right, supporting climate action can still come with political costs, Freed says, while on the left anything less than full support for environmental justice policies can still be viewed as weakness.
“It’s a nascent movement,” Inglis acknowledges. “It’s a heart issue right now. It’s saying that climate change is real says something about you and your membership in a tribe.”
But he adds, “At some point, we're going to figure out that we’re all in this together, that we’re doing an experiment on our common home.”
And for lawmakers like Mayes, it’s less about picking sides than it is about getting things done – and having their say on a crucial issue.
“We’re not the Dodgers and the Giants, where if you’re a Dodgers fan you have to hate the Giants and if you’re Giants fan you gotta hate the Dodgers,” he says. “It’s not about the game. It’s about trying to make sure people’s lives are better.”
This article was written by Jessica Mendoza from Christian Science Monitor and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

1. Make Money Off Your Clutter

Take a look at your house or apartment: It's time to re-evaluate what you actually use and what's just taking up valuable space. Sell belongings you no longer need on eBay or Craigslist, or go the old-fashioned route and hold a garage sale. It's a practical way to free up some space and fill up your wallet.

2. Get Paid to Carpool

3. Use Your Free Credit Card Rewards

4. Pick Up Your Unclaimed Cash

5. Get Into DIY

6. Sell Your Blood

7. Become an Online Survey Taker

8. Return Unnecessary Purchases

9. Rent Out Your Parking Spot

12. Sell Your Old Cellphone

13. Recycle Stuff for Cash

14. Take a Part-Time Job

15. Tutor or Teach

16. Sell Homemade Crafts

17. Sell Your Baked Goods

18. Get Paid for Your Photography

19. Be a Living Advertisement

20. Become a Mystery Shopper

21. Scan Groceries for Cash

22. Be a Tour Guide

23. Get Into the Movies

24. Raise Funds

25. Turn Your Spare Room Into a Cash Flow

Best play moment of Cristiano Ronaldo

Frame Illusion - Photoshop Tutorial - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHxsaqGqUjo