Weekend Roundup: One Year On, The WorldPost Has 28 Million Monthly Views

The WorldPost was launched one year ago in Davos. It was born out of a contradiction and a paradox.

The contradiction is that while the world is growing more interdependent, the media is fragmenting — re-nationalizing, re-localizing and even tribalizing. The resulting paradox is that the information age is becoming the age of non-communication across boundaries — political, cultural and ideological.

The aim of The WorldPost is to help bridge this growing chasm by becoming a platform where the whole world meets; a common zone where cross-pollination of ideas and perspectives from all corners of the planet can take place.

To achieve this aim, The WorldPost strives for a global viewpoint looking around, not a national perspective looking out. Along with intelligent curation of the global news and original reportage, what distinguishes us, above all, are the first person global voices of our contributors. Every week, they weigh in as events break from Havana to Beijing, from Moscow to Mexico City, Paris, New Delhi and Abuja among so many other places.

The WorldPost seems to have met an outstanding need. Thanks to you, one year later we have reached 28 million monthly views. We’ve shown that the message can catch up to the medium if we put our minds to it.

On Tuesday we will formally mark our one year anniversary by releasing the “WorldPost Voices” app that will allow you to directly access our blog posts. In addition, our navigation bar at the top of the page will from now on allow you to link to all Huffington Post’s 13 international editions, from Brazil to Germany to India to Japan and more.

It has often been said that the Internet is a “global thinking circuit.” It is global and it is a circuit, but it is not “thinking.” The WorldPost mission is to foster such a connected consciousness for our wired world.

As the 2015 meeting of the annual World Economic Forum convened in Davos this week, The WorldPost focused on the global economy. The governor of India’s central bank, Raghuram Rajan, says the world is poised to stagnate in the year ahead with slow growth in the U.S. and the U.K. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde also warns that 2015 is a “make-or-break year” to move from “fragility” to “stability.” Oxfam Executive Director Winnie Byanyima argues that unless measures are taken to stem inequality, the wealth of the top 1 percent will “overtake” the combined wealth of the next 99 percent. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim points out that falling oil prices have created a global opportunity to put a price on carbon without hurting economic growth.

Closer to the home, Anne-Marie Slaughter promotes the “care economy” in which family and work life can be more integrated through the new flexibility created by technology.

Moroccan journalist Ahmed Benchemsi writes that the cosmopolitan “Arab Spring” demographic is still alive despite the image of religious battles overtaking the Middle East. Yousaf Butt traces the roots of Islamist terrorism to Saudi Wahhabism. Philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo recalls the legacy of Muslim activist Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who shared Gandhi’s commitment to non-violence and religious pluralism. Abdullah Gül, who just stepped down as Turkey’s president, writes from Ankara that we shouldn’t forget the “good things” happening in the Middle East as a result of multilateral efforts, including disarming Syria’s chemical weapons.

WorldPost Senior Editor Kathleen Miles reports on Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s call for the modernization of Islam as a religion of peace and development, not violence. From Istanbul, WorldPost Middle East Correspondent Sophia Jones reports that Human Rights Watch accuses Egypt of “rampant torture and abuse in Egyptian prisons.” Writing from Jerusalem, eminent military historian Martin van Creveld says that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is playing the “Jewish-American card” for political reasons in the upcoming election, not because of the Iranian threat.

Writing from New Delhi, Vivek Wadhwa says that a new “technological boom” is underway in India. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt defends his company’s digital dominance, noting that “competition is just one click away.” Xiao Qiang and Sophie Beach of China Digital Times recount the cat and mouse game in 2014 between Chinese censors and netizens. WorldPost China Correspondent Matt Sheehan reviews a new film by Jia Zhangke titled “Smog Journeys.” He also writes about “the most sought after man at Davos”: Alibaba’s Jack Ma.

In this week’s Forgotten Fact series, The WorldPost turns to Nigeria and Boko Haram to examine how the group’s Islamist extremists have left northeast Nigeria in ruins.

Writing from Mexico City, poet and environmentalist Homero Aridjis recalls the world’s “discovery” 40 years ago of the monarch butterfly winter habitat in his home state of Michoacan and worries now about its survival. Writing from Havana, Orlando Márquez Hidalgo insists that Cuba can both tame capitalism and respect liberty. Also writing from Havana, digital dissident Miriam Celaya calls on her fellow critics to shift from a belligerent stance to one embracing Cuba’s evolving openness.

French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy writes from Paris that Michel Houellebecq is neither an Islamophobe or a hero, but a novelist who shouldn’t be confused with his characters. We also published Levy’s remarks to the U.N. General Assembly this week on the resurgence of anti-Semitism.

As election day approaches in Greece, HuffPost Greece’s editor-at-large Pavlos Tsimas writes from Athens and breaks down seven key points to understanding that country’s crucial election. The WorldPost also looks at what the Greek vote means for the rest of the world.

Finally, Fusion — a new partner of The WorldPost — offers a short video on the remarkable story of four undocumented teens from Phoenix beating MIT in a robotics competition.

WHO WE ARE

EDITORS: Nathan Gardels, Senior Advisor to the Berggruen Institute on Governance and the long-time editor of NPQ and the Global Viewpoint Network of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media, is the Editor-in-Chief of The WorldPost. Farah Mohamed is the Managing Editor of The WorldPost. Kathleen Miles is the Senior Editor of the WorldPost. Alex Gardels is the Associate Editor of The WorldPost. Katie Nelson is the National Editor at the Huffington Post, overseeing The WorldPost and HuffPost’s editorial coverage. Eline Gordts is HuffPost’s Senior World Editor. Charlotte Alfred and Nick Robins-Early are Associate World Editors.

CORRESPONDENTS: Sophia Jones in Istanbul; Matt Sheehan in Beijing.

EDITORIAL BOARD: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Arianna Huffington, Eric Schmidt (Google Inc.), Pierre Omidyar (First Look Media) Juan Luis Cebrian (El Pais/PRISA), Walter Isaacson (Aspen Institute/TIME-CNN), John Elkann (Corriere della Sera, La Stampa), Wadah Khanfar (Al Jazeera), Dileep Padgaonkar (Times of India) and Yoichi Funabashi (Asahi Shimbun).

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Moises Naim (former editor of Foreign Policy), Nayan Chanda (Yale/Global; Far Eastern Economic Review) and Katherine Keating (One-On-One). Sergio Munoz Bata and Parag Khanna are Contributing Editors-At-Large.

The Asia Society and its ChinaFile, edited by Orville Schell, is our primary partner on Asia coverage. Eric X. Li and the Chunqiu Institute/Fudan University in Shanghai and Guancha.cn also provide first person voices from China. We also draw on the content of China Digital Times. Seung-yoon Lee is The WorldPost link in South Korea.

Jared Cohen of Google Ideas provides regular commentary from young thinkers, leaders and activists around the globe. Bruce Mau provides regular columns from MassiveChangeNetwork.com on the “whole mind” way of thinking. Patrick Soon-Shiong is Contributing Editor for Health and Medicine.

ADVISORY COUNCIL: Members of the Berggruen Institute’s 21st Century Council and Council for the Future of Europe serve as the Advisory Council — as well as regular contributors — to the site. These include, Jacques Attali, Shaukat Aziz, Gordon Brown, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Juan Luis Cebrian, Jack Dorsey, Mohamed El-Erian, Francis Fukuyama, Felipe Gonzalez, John Gray, Reid Hoffman, Fred Hu, Mo Ibrahim, Alexei Kudrin, Pascal Lamy, Kishore Mahbubani, Alain Minc, Dambisa Moyo, Laura Tyson, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Raghuram Rajan, Nouriel Roubini, Nicolas Sarkozy, Eric Schmidt, Gerhard Schroeder, Peter Schwartz, Amartya Sen, Jeff Skoll, Michael Spence, Joe Stiglitz, Larry Summers, Wu Jianmin, George Yeo, Fareed Zakaria, Ernesto Zedillo, Ahmed Zewail, and Zheng Bijian.

From the Europe group, these include: Marek Belka, Tony Blair, Jacques Delors, Niall Ferguson, Anthony Giddens, Otmar Issing, Mario Monti, Robert Mundell, Peter Sutherland and Guy Verhofstadt.

MISSION STATEMENT

The WorldPost is a global media bridge that seeks to connect the world and connect the dots. Gathering together top editors and first person contributors from all corners of the planet, we aspire to be the one publication where the whole world meets.

We not only deliver breaking news from the best sources with original reportage on the ground and user-generated content; we bring the best minds and most authoritative as well as fresh and new voices together to make sense of events from a global perspective looking around, not a national perspective looking out.

Popular YouTuber Denounces Steam, Plans To Curate Own Store

Popular YouTuber Denounces Steam, Plans To Curate Own Store

Despite practically being PC gaming, Steam is by no means perfect—as we’ve discussed on numerous occasions. But is the whole enterprise busted, not so much a sinking ship as it is a ship that’s sinking a lot of great games? Popular YouTuber NerdCubed thinks so, and that’s why he’s abandoning Steam altogether.

Read more…


Daily Roundup: The future of HoloLens, VR at Sundance and more!

Can Microsoft deliver on its ambitious HoloLens project? Meanwhile, filmmaker Shari Frilot brings virtual reality to Sundance and Google starts disclosing unpatched security issues in OS X. Get caught up on today’s technology news in the Daily Roundu…

Beats, Sony, Google, And More Hit With Lawsuit Over Pre-1972 Recorded Music

beats musicThe great thing about these music services offered online these days is that it gives us access to a huge library of songs. These songs can either be the latest radio hits or they could be oldies from back in the day, but unfortunately it looks like those oldies might no longer be made available if the lawsuit against Beats, Sony, Google, Rdio, Songza, Slacker, and Grooveshark were to succeed.

A lawsuit has been filed against those companies over alleged unpaid royalties for songs recorded prior to 1972. The suit is being led by Zenbu Magazines who are the owners of several of these songs. The lawsuit also alleges that these companies had misappropriated its content and are illegally profiting by selling subscription services without paying royalties to the owners of the songs.

The reason why there has not been an issue before this is because of a copyright law amended by Congress which basically protected songs recorded after the 15th of February 1972, however a case brought to court and successfully won by The Turtles back in 2013 have set a precedent, which might explain why this lawsuit is taking place.

It is unclear how these companies will proceed with the lawsuit, but it has been speculated that should the cost of the royalties exceeds that the amount that these companies makes, then it would just be easier and cheaper for them to take it out of rotation entirely. In any case we will be keeping our eyes peeled for more information, but in the meantime would you miss any of these songs should they be taken out of rotation from these music streaming services?

Beats, Sony, Google, And More Hit With Lawsuit Over Pre-1972 Recorded Music , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

42% Of iPhone Users Run Out Of Storage At Least Once A Month [Survey]

iphone storageThe unsurprising reason as to why some iPhone customers choose the 16GB model is simply because it is cheaper. Unlike Android devices, iPhone storage can’t be expanded via a cheap microSD card, meaning that choosing the amount of storage is important when choosing your phone as you’re pretty much stuck with it.

That being said, how often do you run out of storage on your phone? A recent study conducted by cloud photography app IceCream and Ondevice Research has found that at least 42% of iPhone users find themselves out of storage once a month. The survey interviewed 1,000 iPhone users in both the US and the UK, and as you can see in the graph above, a total of 42% iPhone users find themselves running out of space within the space of a month.

In fact according to the survey, it was found that a whopping 76% of those taking part in the survey had 16GB versions of the iPhone, which might account for why they are running out of space so quick, especially since photos and apps will very quickly consume storage if not checked upon frequently.

Previously we had also heard that some iPhone users weren’t too happy with the advertised 16GB storage and have sued Apple, claiming that the Cupertino company had misrepresented the amount of storage made available to them. In any case what do you guys make of the survey? Do you find yourself running out of space regularly?

42% Of iPhone Users Run Out Of Storage At Least Once A Month [Survey] , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

iPhones Account For 50% Of US Smartphone Activations Last Quarter

215210-1280Apple’s iPhone is truly a handset that is high in demand. We’ve seen that in markets such as South Korea where Apple currently commands a 33% market share, but what about back home? How is Apple handling the competition back in the US? As it turns out, pretty good. According to the latest numbers offered by CIRP, 50% of Q4 2014’s activated phones belong to Apple.

According to Josh Lowitz, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP, “The strength of the September 2014 launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus fueled Apple’s dominance in US mobile phone sales this quarter. Apple had virtually double the sales of Samsung, and five times that of LG. No other brand accounted for as much as 5% of US sales.”

Lowitz added, “The Amazon Fire and Blackberry smartphones registered slight share, which we attribute to random sample fluctuation as much as actual sales.” In terms of loyalty, CIRP found the greatest loyalty belonging to that of iPhone users, where 86% of whom upgraded from an older model.

The same could not be said about Samsung or LG where 25% of Samsung owners and 18% of LG owners actually switched to an iPhone. We should note that these numbers are thanks to the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus so it will be interesting to see if Apple will be able to maintain that momentum in the quarters to come.

iPhones Account For 50% Of US Smartphone Activations Last Quarter , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Apple Hires Another Burberry Exec For “Special Projects”

screenshot-2015-01-23-10-50-16Many had speculated that with the Apple Watch, Apple would try to approach the marketing of the device as one might expect from a luxury watch maker. This is why Apple’s recent hires have been executives from the fashion and luxury industry. That being said it looks like Apple’s efforts have not slowed down as their latest hire is that of Chester Chipperfield.

Chipperfield is/was the Vice President of Digital and Interactive Design at Burberry. According to previous job position, Chipperfield was “responsible for User Experience and Digital Design for all channels.” According to his LinkedIn profile, Chipperfield’s position at Apple will be for “Special Projects”, whatever that means, although some are speculating that he would have something to do with the launch of the Apple Watch.

Previously we have seen Apple hire the likes of Angela Ahrendts who was the former CEO of Burberry (and possibly Chipperfield’s former boss); Burberry’s social media executive Musa Tariq; Paul Deneve formerly of fashion house Yves St. Laurent; Jacob Jordan from Louis Vuitton; and Patrick Pruniaux who was TAG Heuer’s former VP of global sales.

All these hirings seems to suggest that Apple could be interested in repositioning themselves in the market not so much as a tech company, but a company known for luxurious lifestyle products. The Apple Watch is currently pegged for a release in March, so do check back with us at a later date for more details.

Apple Hires Another Burberry Exec For “Special Projects” , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Google Disclosed OS X Vulnerabilities Patched In OS X 10.10.2

os-x-yosemiteEarlier this week, Google’s security team Project Zero released a report which highlighted some vulnerabilities found in Apple’s OS X. The good news is that if you’re an OS X user and worried about the potential security risk you are facing, you can rest assured in knowing that Apple has already patched one of the three vulnerabilities, and the other two are in the works.

According to the folks at iMore, Apple is already working on patching the remaining two vulnerabilities in OS X 10.10.2 which is currently in developer testing. It is unclear as to when the latest build of OS X will be released, but at the very least we can rest assured knowing that the next OS X update will address these problems.

However if you’re still paranoid, iMore has stated that these exploits cannot be used remotely, meaning that the hacker would actually need physical access to your machines in order to cause damage. “None of these exploits can be used remotely, which means they’d need to be combined with remote exploits or with physical access to the hardware to be put to any practical use.”

Either way we will be keeping our eyes and ears peeled for more information regarding the release of OS X 10.10.2, so do check back with us at a later date for the details.

Google Disclosed OS X Vulnerabilities Patched In OS X 10.10.2 , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Alleged 12-inch MacBook Air Photos Surface

mba-leaked-1Rumors that Apple is working on a 12-inch MacBook AIr have been floating about for quite a while now. Last we heard, the laptop was pegged for a possible release in Q1 2015 with production reportedly already taking place. Now we’re sure many of you guys are wondering what this laptop could look like, and now thanks to a series of leaked images obtained by ifanr (via Electronista), we could have a rough idea.

The photos leaked revealed some alleged components that are said to belong to the upcoming laptop. They are also compared to other Apple products to give an idea of its size, thickness, and its design. One interesting feature is that the Apple logo on the 12-inch MacBook Air appears to be black, similar to that found on iOS device versus the translucent logo that lights up on other Apple laptops.

There is a chance that Apple has decided to omit that feature in an effort to keep the laptop as thin as possible, which is what we had heard in earlier rumors where Apple is also said to have ditched the usual ports and connectivity options for thinner and slimmer alternatives. Interestingly enough the display of the alleged laptop features a black bezel which isn’t typical of MacBook Air designs.

This is led to the speculation that perhaps the device we are looking at could be the alleged 12-inch iPad Pro which is another rumored device Apple is expected to launch. In any case given that we can’t verify these images, do take it with a grain of salt for now, but what do you guys think? 12-inch MacBook Air? iPad Pro? Or just a bunch of fakes?

Alleged 12-inch MacBook Air Photos Surface , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

CIA Torture Report Sinks A Little More, As Agencies Don't Bother To Read It

WASHINGTON — When the new Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Richard Burr (R-N.C.), announced that, allegedly unbeknownst to him, the former chairwoman had widely distributed the panel’s study of CIA torture, he said he was perturbed. A sensitive document — one whose validity he has vehemently challenged — now being spread within the executive branch? Concerning, Burr said, to say the least.

Except most of the recipients that Burr is concerned about never even opened their copy.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request for the full, still-classified 6,900-page torture report, government lawyers wrote that most of the executive agencies that had been copied on the transmission of the full report to the White House from then-Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) hadn’t opened their sealed copy — and in one case, never even picked it up.

“None of the defendant agencies have freely used the Full Report; they have kept it stored in a [sensitive compartmented information facility], with limited access,” the government’s declaration reads. “Neither [the Department of Justice] nor [the Department of State], moreover, has even opened the package with the disc containing the full Report. And CIA and [the Department of Defense] have carefully limited access to and made only very limited use of the Report.”

The FBI’s copy remains sealed in the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs, according to the FOIA response. The bureau has yet to collect it.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

“It is appalling that the State Department and the Justice Department would just stick this report in a locked safe, without opening or reading it,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Intelligence Committee and a vigorous advocate of the report. “That shows a shocking disregard for their professional responsibilities, and appears to be an organized effort to cover up the truth about torture.”

It’s also the sobering reality of an administration that, for years, has publicly condemned the Bush-era torture program while doing little to support Feinstein’s efforts to force the nation’s spies to acknowledge their sins.

Since 2009, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee have sought the Obama administration’s help in conducting their yearslong torture probe, particularly when it appeared that the CIA was interfering or attempting to manipulate their investigation. Their calls nearly always fell on deaf ears.

In many instances, the White House quietly aligned itself more with the spies than their overseers.

Despite repeated requests from Feinstein and her investigators, the Oval Office refused to turn over more than 9,000 documents pertaining to the torture program. When concerns arose that the CIA was trying to stall public release of the report’s executive summary, lawmakers asked the White House to push forward the declassification process. It refused and, by some accounts, went on to assist the spies in delaying the summary’s release.

And as a constitutional tussle has played out between the CIA and Intelligence Committee Democrats over one contested document — which lawmakers and the CIA’s own inspector general say culminated in the agency spying on Senate investigators — the White House has been largely mute, leaving the two groups to duke it out on their own.

The executive branch’s apparent failure thus far to delve into the behemoth study as Feinstein wished — in the hope that its gruesome accounts would deter the nation from ever torturing again — underscores the study’s uncertain future. The committee’s new Republican leaders have made no secret of their disdain for the document. In a clear change from Feinstein’s tenure, Burr is campaigning to snatch back copies of the report and has signaled his intention to return to the CIA the particular contested document.

Certain Democratic lawmakers, including Wyden, and human rights groups have called for the public release of the full study.

But if officials in some of the most relevant, appropriately cleared agencies haven’t laid eyes on it, does the public even have a chance?