Compass Bank Robbery

Compass Bank Robbery

FBI Says Woman Who Robbed Compass Bank Still At Large

The F.B.I is hunting searching for a woman who is thought to be behind Tuesday’s robbery at Compass Bank on Center Point Parkway around lunch Tuesday. Investigators handling the case also revealed that Banks in Birmingham, Albertville and Madison were also targeted with robbery.

Investigators say a woman armed with a handgun entered Compass Bank at 2337 Center Point Road at 11:58 a.m.She then handed the teller a note saying she was there to rob the Bank. She later drew an automatic teller gun at the teller.

The woman whom the F.B.I say was accompanied by a male gateway is said to have looted and run away with an unspecified amount of cash. According to sources close to the investigation, the woman fled in either a dark-colored Ford or Chevrolet sedan.

Police in Albertville have said two males and a female were arrested following an armed robbery of Southern Bank at around 1:30 p.m.It appears the suspects were apprehended after a reportedly crashing their getaway near the bank.

Compass Bank is a Sunbelt-based financial institution which operates 420 full-service banking centers including 166 in Texas, 90 in Alabama, 76 in Arizona, 44 in Florida, 33 in Colorado and 11 in New Mexico. Compass Bank is also a subsidiary of Compass Bancshares, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of BBVA (NYSE: BBV) (MAD: BBVA).

When combined with BBVA's three other U.S. banking companies, Compass will rank as the largest regional bank in the Sunbelt region and among the top 25 banks in the U.S. by total deposits.

If you have any information regarding the Compass Bank robbery, call the Birmingham F.B.I. office at (205) 326-6166.

Original Source : http://www.huliq.com/64780/fbi-says-woman-who-robbed-compass-bank-still-large

Google Cache Back On Track

Google's Cache Database Back On Track?

A WebmasterWorld thread had reports that Google had all old cache dates for most sites on the web. By old, I mean, the last time Google said they "retrieved" the site was on the 15th or 16th and it was already the 22nd before Google showed new cache dates.

Here is a screen capture of what the cache date looked like on many sites:

Google is known for having fairly frequent cache dates and crawling patterns on most sites, even sites that do not update all that frequently.

Last night, senior member Atomic noticed Google started to update the cache dates with fresher dates. But until then, Webmasters were really worried. One even joked, "maybe they've ran out of room."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Original Source : http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/017764.html

Edwin Hall Pleads Guilty To Kelsey Smith Murder

In a surprising twist to a Johnson County murder that gained nationwide attention, Edwin Hall pleaded guilty this afternoon to killing Kelsey Smith.

Hall stood before Judge Peter Ruddick as he entered guilty pleas to charges of capital murder, aggravated kidnapping, rape and aggravated criminal sodomy.

For the murder charge, he faces life in prison with no chance of parole. For each of the other three counts, the range of punishment is 147 to 653 months.

Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline told the court about DNA gathered in the case. The best match was found inside the zipper flap of the shorts that Hall wore the night that Kelsey disappared. There’s less than one chance in 280 billion that the material came from anyone other than Kelsey, Kline said.

Investigators also found Hall’s DNA on the steering wheel of Kelsey’s car. Kline said there was only a chance of 1 in 5.3 million that the DNA was from someone other than Hall.

More than 100 people crammed into the small courtroom including 17 youths in blue T-shirts that said, “Kelsey’s Army” on the front and “We’re still here.”

That’s a reference to the many friends of the victim who organized searches after her disappearance last year, and they continue to follow her case.

Members of Kelsey’s family wept as Hall admitted to the crimes.

Today’s 1:30 p.m. hearing had been expected to be routine. Attorneys planned to argue on whether the mid-September trial should be delayed.

But this morning, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department said it was planning extra security for the hearing.

Hall was arrested June 6, four days after Smith was kidnapped from an Overland Park Target store where she went on an errand. She had graduated from Shawnee Mission West High School 10 days earlier.

Authorities located Smith’s body near Longview Lake in southern Jackson County on June 6 after tracking cell phone pings from Smith’s phone.

For more than three days, her family and friends had no clue what had happened to the girl who was never afraid to give her opinion, who loved to sing and perform and play clarinet. In the hot sun, they walked neighborhoods within a five-mile radius of the Target store, determined to find Kelsey.

Hall, 27, will be sentenced on Sept. 16, the day he had been scheduled for trial.

Original Source : http://www.kansascity.com/637/story/717067.html

Google Knol

Google opens doors to Knol

Wikipedia-like site will identify expert content providers who will own their pages

Seven months after Google Inc. announced plans to launch its own Wikipedia-type project, authors on Wednesday were invited to submit content to the new site, called Knol (which means a unit of knowledge).

Though the concept is quite similar to that used by Wikipedia, Google said it is not looking to compete harshly with the established site. The company said it is focusing on highlighting the authors who submit articles to the site. Each knol will have a single author or group of authors whose name or names will appear with their contributions, Google noted in a blog post.

"The Web contains vast amounts of information, but not everything worth knowing is on the Web," Google said. "An enormous amount of information resides in people's heads: Millions of people know useful things, and billions more could benefit from that knowledge. Knol will encourage these people to contribute their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone."

Knol will include a new concept that Google is calling "moderated collaboration," where any reader can make suggested edits to a knol, which the author can choose to accept, reject or modify for inclusion on the site, Google said.

Knol also includes various community tools to allow users to submit comments, ratings or write reviews. Mashable blogger Adam Ostrow wrote that because Knol allows authors to insert AdSense ads on their knols and earn money based on clicks, "this sounds a lot less like the community collaborating on authoritative articles (Wikipedia) and a lot more like a potential land grab to create content for keywords."

However, he acknowledged that offering the ability for anyone to comment or review an article raises or lowers the authority of that article and should keep "would-be opportunists" at bay.

"In giving a single author control over each knol and its edits, it's hard to imagine the service will be as authoritative as Wikipedia, which many would argue has its own biases," Ostrow added. "Meanwhile, Knol could still be a huge traffic generator for Google and steal visitors from Wikipedia if it's integrated in search results -- something Google has not been shy about doing with other properties like YouTube."

Danny Sullivan, a blogger at Search Engine Land, noted that the best way to describe Knol is Wikipedia with moderation. "The collaborative advantage to Wikipedia is also its disadvantage," Sullivan noted. "Since anyone can contribute, some introduce factual errors or overtly vandalize articles. It's one reason that Wikipedia is considering moderation."

However, Sullivan added that he is concerned that hosting Knol content will set up inherent conflicts that will start to erode the trust users have in Google.

"By hosting this content, it plays too much in the content-owner space when its core business is supposed to be driving traffic outbound to others," Sullivan noted. "I can see the value in Knol's tool set and the potential it might offer to help collect further knowledge. So I'll give Knol the benefit of the doubt -- that it will perhaps occupy a space not being filled, rather than push others aside."

Original Source : http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9110552&intsrc=hm_list

AMZN Amazon Stocks Soar

Online-retail giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) reported brisk second-quarter earnings today, posting profits of 37 cents per share, a $158 million windfall that more than doubled from the same time last year.

With sales of $4.06 billion, up 41 percent from the year-earlier period, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) came in at the high end of its own guidance and beat the Wall Street consensus of $3.96 billion, according to analyst polling by Thomson Reuters.

Amazon's robust numbers buck the trend of a weakening economic climate that has hurt retailers across the board. Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, continues to expand, announcing plans to open two new fulfillment centers during the quarter.

In announcing the numbers, CEO Jeff Bezos suggested that his company was better positioned to weather the economic storm than its brick-and-mortar counterparts.

"Customers continue to take advantage of our low prices, free shipping and Amazon Prime," Bezos said in a statement. "Amazon Prime membership costs less than a tank of gas -- more and more customers are joining the program and enjoying its benefits."

Amazon continued to aggressively promote its Kindle e-book reader in the second quarter. The company does not provide sales figures for the device, but it boasted that it has now made more than 140,000 titles available for the Kindle.

During the second quarter, Amazon mounted a legal challenge to a controversial law that took effect in New York Overstock.com has joined Amazon's suit against New York State.

But Amazon's tax troubles might not end there. Through nominal subsidiaries, Amazon runs fulfillment centers and call centers in about a dozen states, but only collects sales taxes in four. One of those states -- Texas -- is undertaking a review of Amazon's tax responsibilities, and Arizona is considering a change to its tax laws that could impose a collection requirement on the online retailer.

Also during the quarter, Amazon continued to build its cloud computing business. The company said that more than 30,000 developers signed up for Amazon Web Services, bringing the total number to more than 400,000.

Amazon offered Q3 guidance of between $4.2 billion and $4.425 billion, an increase of between 29 percent and 36 percent over the third quarter of 2007.

Amazon raised slightly its full-year guidance to between $19.35 billion and $20.1 billion.

Original Source : http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3760851/Amazon+Profits+Jump+102+Percent.htm

Cybertecture Egg

Holistic Reality: Mumbai’s Cybertecture Egg

India has been on world architecture news for a while now. Antilla has hardly left the headlines, while Cybertecture Egg has already taken a place on top.

Talk of intelligent design- this building will surpass all that fall in this category. You will see it built by 2010.

The concept. The concept was inspired by considering the world as an ecosystem allowing life to evolve. Elements of the design and intelligence systems will work together to give the building’s inhabitants the ‘best space to work in’.

The design. The 32,000 sq m egg-shaped building will accommodate 13 floors of offices bringing together “iconic architecture, environmental design, intelligent systems, and new engineering to create an awe-inspiring landmark in the city.”

Within the building, there will be a series of innovative systems such as ‘cybertecture health’ which is designed to keep track of the inhabitant’s health including blood pressure and weight. The data collected may be retrieved and sent to a doctor if deemed necessary.

You do not like the view from your window? Well, in this building you can customize your favorite view and have real time scenery from all around the world instead of the view the user currently has. Technology and the working environment are united in the use of ‘cybertecture reality’ which allows you to do this.

It is green. The egg itself is orientated and skewed at an angle to create both a strong visual language and to alleviate the solar gain of the building, also there is a sky garden on the top of building which performs thermolysis (the dissipation of heat from the surface). PV panels will be installed on top of the building and a wind turbine on the sky gardens will generate electricity. A water filtration system will also be incorporated into the building to recycle grey water for flushing and irrigation purpose.

James Law Cybertecture International, commissioned by Vijay Associate (Wadhwa Developers) to create an office unlike any other in India, comments, “In the 21st Century, buildings will be different from 20th Century. They are no longer about concrete, steel and glass, but also the new intangible materials of technology, multimedia, intelligence and interactivity. Only recognizing this will bring a new form of architecture to light, namely a Cybertecture.”

Why an egg? By using this “Egg” shape, compared to a conventional building, the structure has approximately 10-20% less surface area. Within the building, an innovative structure derived from the skin of the egg creates up to 30m spans of column less floors. The architecture is sleek and computer designed, with engineering that creates a building of high quality and geometric sophistication.

Cybertecture egg is indeed a futuristic building where technology and life embrace each other to help live a quality life. It IS the next big thing.

Original Source : http://vanibahl.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/holistic-reality-mumbais-cybertecture-egg/