Friday, November 30, 2012

Ericsson sues Samsung for patent infringement

By Anna Ringstrom | Reuters – Tue, Nov 27, 2012
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Ericsson, the world's biggest telecom network equipment maker, said it was suing Samsung Electronics Co for patent infringement after two years of talks failed to yield a license agreement.
Sweden's Ericsson, which reckons more than 40 percent of the world's mobile traffic passes through its networks, filed a lawsuit in the United States saying Samsung had refused to sign a license to use technology on terms it referred to as fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND).
"Ericsson has tried long and hard to amicably come to an agreement with Samsung and sign a license agreement on FRAND terms. We have turned to litigation as a last resort," Kasim Alfalahi, chief intellectual property officer at Ericsson said in a statement on Tuesday.
Alfalahi noted Ericsson has over 30,000 patents and more than 100 license agreements with major players in the industry.
A surge in smartphone and tablet computer sales has driven a switch in traffic on telecoms networks from mainly voice calls to video and music, which take up more capacity.
But although data traffic is surging - smartphone subscriptions alone are expected to rise to 3.3 billion by 2018 according to Ericsson's own figures - operators are finding it hard to get customers to pay much extra, squeezing their profits.
With Ericsson suffering a big drop in sales at its network unit - down 17 percent in the third quarter - it is increasingly turning to the courts to maintain its patent income, part of a wider trend where big technology names are fiercely protecting their intellectual property as global sales of tablets and smartphones boom.
One lawsuit by Apple relating to patents resulted in a $1.05 billion jury verdict against Samsung, the world's largest cell phone and television maker, in August.
An Ericsson spokesman declined to comment on the size of its lawsuit.
Samsung said it will "take all necessary legal measures to protect against Ericsson's excessive claims."
"Samsung has faithfully committed itself to conducting fair and reasonable negotiations with Ericsson over the past two years, but Ericsson has demanded prohibitively higher royalty rates to renew the same patent portfolio," the South Korean company said.
FRAND
Samsung is also embroiled in a legal war with Apple in more than 20 disputes in 10 countries, with Apple alleging various Samsung smartphone and tablet products infringed its patents.
"Ericsson now has plenty of material from Samsung's litigations with Apple to quote in support of high FRAND royalty rates and sales bans," said Florian Mueller, blogger and patent expert who has advised Microsoft and Oracle in the past.
The Ericsson dispute concerns patented technology the Swedish firm says is essential to several telecommunications and networking standards used by Samsung's products as well as other patented inventions that are frequently implemented in wireless and consumer electronics products, the company said.
FRAND licensing terms are used for patents and technologies that have become essential, often as an industry standard. Ericsson says its FRAND licensing aims to give companies the incentive to contribute technology to open standards and still maintain royalty rates at a reasonable level. But the growth of patent suits has added complication to FRAND licensing and some tech companies have complained of inflated prices being proposed by patent owners.
According to Ericsson's statement, the company spent $5 billion in 2011 on research and development that resulted "in hundreds of patented inventions that are essential to the standards that drive global communications," such as GSM, GPRS and EDGE.
Ericsson's intellectual property right net revenues amounted to 6.2 billion Swedish crowns ($938 million) in 2011.
The complaint is filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the district where Ericsson's U.S. headquarters is located.
(Additional reporting by Tarmo Virki in Helsinki and Miyoung Kim in Seoul; Writing by Sophie Walker; Editing by Erica Billingham)
Posted by at No comments:

China leaning tower 'stable at present': report

AFP News – Thu, Nov 29, 2012
An ancient Chinese tower tilting at a perilous angle has earned comparisons with Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa and worried a school in its shadow, state media reported.
The Wanshou Temple Tower in the central city of Xi'an, which dates from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), began to lean dramatically after a heavy rainstorm in May 2011, state-run China Radio National said.
Local authorities erected a steel frame to support the tower, which looms over the school athletics field. The report said school administrators were concerned because "strong winds or heavy rains could exacerbate the problem".
School officials have asked authorities for assistance, the report said, although a local government official said the tower was stable at present and did not show any sign of further tilting.
"Everyone's heard of the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City. But who knew that China had its very own Leaning Tower?" the report said.
A member of staff at Xi'an's cultural relics bureau, who asked not to be named, told AFP her office was working on a plan to reinforce the tower, but that "we have a lot to do... and need to cooperate with other departments".
The building faces stiff competition for the title of China's leaning tower. A slanting structure in Sichuan province and a 900-year-old pagoda in Shanghai, which leans at a steeper angle than the Tower of Pisa, also claim the honour.
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Huge Mars Colony Eyed by SpaceX Founder Elon Musk

By Rob Coppinger, SPACE.com Contributor | SPACE.com – Mon, Nov 26, 2012
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 a trip.
In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, who would journey to the Red Planet aboard a huge reusable rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane.
"At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big," Musk told an audience at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Friday (Nov. 16). Musk was there to talk about his business plans, and to receive the Society’s gold medal for his contribution to the commercialization of space.

Mars pioneers
Accompanying the founders of the new Mars colony would be large amounts of equipment, including machines to produce fertilizer, methane and oxygen from Mars’ atmospheric nitrogen and carbon dioxide and the planet's subsurface water ice.
The Red Planet pioneers would also take construction materials to build transparent domes, which when pressurized with Mars’ atmospheric CO2 could grow Earth crops in Martian soil. As the Mars colony became more self sufficient, the big rocket would start to transport more people and fewer supplies and equipment. [Future Visions of Human Spaceflight]
Musk’s architecture for this human Mars exploration effort does not employ cyclers, reusable spacecraft that would travel back and forth constantly between the Red Planet and Earth — at least not at first
"Probably not a Mars cycler; the thing with the cyclers is, you need a lot of them," Musk told SPACE.com. "You have to have propellant to keep things aligned as [Mars and Earth’s] orbits aren’t [always] in the same plane. In the beginning you won’t have cyclers."
Musk also ruled out SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which the company is developing to ferry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit, as the spacecraft that would land colonists on the Red Planet. When asked by SPACE.com what vehicle would be used, he said, "I think you just land the entire thing."
Asked if the "entire thing" is the huge new reusable rocket — which is rumored to bear the acronymic name MCT, short for Mass Cargo Transport or Mars Colony Transport — Musk said, "Maybe."
Musk has been thinking about what his colonist-carrying spacecraft would need, whatever it ends up being. He reckons the oxygen concentration inside should be 30 to 40 percent, and he envisions using the spacecraft’s liquid water store as a barrier between the Mars pioneers and the sun.

A $500,000 ticket
Musk’s $500,000 ticket price for a Mars trip was derived from what he thinks is affordable.
"The ticket price needs to be low enough that most people in advanced countries, in their mid-forties or something like that, could put together enough money to make the trip," he said, comparing the purchase to buying a house in California. [Photos: The First Space Tourists]
He also estimated that of the eight billion humans that will be living on Earth by the time the colony is possible, perhaps one in 100,000 would be prepared to go. That equates to potentially 80,000 migrants.
Musk figures the colony program — which he wants to be a collaboration between government and private enterprise — would end up costing about $36 billion. He arrived at that number by estimating that a colony that costs 0.25 percent or 0.5 percent of a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) would be considered acceptable.
The United States' GDP in 2010 was $14.5 trillion; 0.25 percent of $14.5 trillion is $36 billion. If all 80,000 colonists paid $500,000 per seat for their Mars trip, $40 billion would be raised.
"Some money has to be spent on establishing a base on Mars. It’s about getting the basic fundamentals in place," Musk said. "That was true of the English colonies [in the Americas]; it took a significant expense to get things started. But once there are regular Mars flights, you can get the cost down to half a million dollars for someone to move to Mars. Then I think there are enough people who would buy that to have it be a reasonable business case."

The big reusable rocket
The fully reusable rocket that Musk wants to take colonists to Mars is an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster, which launches Dragon.
"It’s going to be much bigger [than Falcon 9], but I don’t think we’re quite ready to state the payload. We’ll speak about that next year," Musk said, emphasizing that only fully reusable rockets and spacecraft would keep the ticket price for Mars migration as low as $500,000.
SpaceX is already testing what Musk calls a next-generation, reusable Falcon 9 rocket that can take off vertically and land vertically. The prototype, called Grasshopper, is a Falcon 9 first stage with landing legs.
Grasshoper has made two short flights. The first was on Sept. 21 and reached a height of 6 feet (2 meters); the second test, on Nov. 1, was to a height of 17.7 feet (5.4 m). A planned milestone for the Grasshopper project is to reach an altitude of 100 feet (30 m). [Grasshopper Rocket's 2-Story Test Flight (Video)]
"Over the next few months, we’ll gradually increase the altitude and speed," Musk said. "I do think there probably will be some craters along the way; we’ll be very lucky if there are no craters. Vertical landing is an extremely important breakthrough — extreme, rapid reusability. It’s as close to aircraft-like dispatch capability as one can achieve."
Musk wants to have a reusable Falcon 9 first stage, which uses Grasshopper technology, come back from orbit in "the next year or two." He then wants to use this vertical-landing technology for Falcon 9’s upper stage.
Musk hopes to have a fully reusable version of Falcon 9 in five or six years, but he acknowledged that those could be "famous last words."

A rocket stepping stone
Another stepping stone toward the planned reusable Mars rocket is SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launcher. With a first flight planned for next year from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the Heavy is a Falcon 9 that has two Falcon 9 first stages bolted on either side.
Musk expects the Falcon Heavy to launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral eventually. This triple-first-stage rocket will be able to put 116,600 pounds (53,000 kilograms) into a 124-mile (200 kilometers) low-Earth orbit. But the Falcon Heavy is still much smaller than Musk’s fully reusable Mars rocket, which will also employ a new engine.
While Musk declines to state what the Mars rocket’s payload capability will be, he does say it will use a new staged combustion cycle engine called Raptor. The cycle involves two steps. Propellant — the fuel and oxidizer — is ignited in pre-burners to produce hot high-pressure gases that help pump propellant into the engine’s combustion chamber. The hot gases are then directed into the same chamber to aid in the combustion of the propellants.
Because Raptor is a staged combustion engine — like the main engines of NASA's now-retired space shuttle fleet — it is expected to be far more efficient than the open-cycle Merlin engines used by the Falcon 9.
While the Falcon 9’s engines use liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene, Raptor will use LOX and methane. Musk explained that "the energy cost of methane is the lowest, and it has a slight ISP [specific impulse] advantage over kerosene and doesn’t have any of the bad aspects of hydrogen." (Hydrogen is difficult to store at cryogenic temperatures, makes metal brittle and is very flammable.)
Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+. 
Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted by at No comments:

NASA: There’s enough ice on Mercury to encase Washington, D.C.

By | The Sideshow – 7 hrs ago
New evidence suggests Mercury's north polar region contains large deposits of ice. (NASA/Johns Hopkins Univers …NASA's Messenger spacecraft has discovered evidence that the planet Mercury has enough ice on its surface to encase Washington, D.C., in a block two and a half miles deep.
"For more than 20 years the jury has been deliberating on whether the planet closest to the Sun hosts abundant water ice in its permanently shadowed polar regions," writes Sean Solomon of the Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the principal investigator of the Messenger mission. The spacecraft "has now supplied a unanimous affirmative verdict."
"These reflectance anomalies are concentrated on poleward-facing slopes and are spatially collocated with areas of high radar backscatter postulated to be the result of near-surface water ice," Gregory Neumann of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center writes in the paper. "Correlation of observed reflectance with modeled temperatures indicates that the optically bright regions are consistent with surface water ice."
The study results were published on Wednesday in Science magazine, which explains in its summary, "The buried layer must be nearly pure water ice. The upper layer contains less than 25 wt.% water-equivalent hydrogen. The total mass of water at Mercury's poles is inferred to be 2 × 1016 to 1018 g and is consistent with delivery by comets or volatile-rich asteroids."
Radar imaging of Mercury has long suggested that there could be large deposits on the planet's surface, with reports dating to 1991. But today's report presents harder evidence supporting that theory.
Messenger has fired more than 10 million laser imaging pulses at Mercury's surface since arriving in its orbit in 2011. Feedback from those pulses have helped NASA in its quest to verify whether ice is present in Mercury's poles, which are largely shielded from exposure to the sun's rays.
Posted by at No comments:

Super-Giant Black Hole Baffles Scientists

By Ned Potter | ABC News – 9 hrs ago
You would probably not enjoy the galaxy NGC 1277. Never mind that it's far - 220 million light-years away in the constellation Perseus. The problem is that at its center is a giant, giant black hole, 17 billion times as massive as our sun, so big that scientists calculate it makes up 59 percent of the mass of the galaxy's disc.
Astrophysicists have long believed that there's a black hole at the center of our Milky Way, but it probably accounts for something like 0.1 percent of the galaxy's center. The one in NGC 1277, scientists report in today's edition of the journal Nature, is the second largest they've ever observed, and it upends what they thought about how galaxies form.
Black holes, as you'll recall, are objects in space so massive that their gravity consumes everything around them - stars, planets, matter, energy, even light. Earthly scientists can only observe their effect on the space around them, not see them directly. Be grateful we're not close to one. They're actually useful to astrophysicists in explaining the nice spiral shape of many galaxies - you need something massive in the middle for the stars to circle - but NGC 1277 is an extreme.
"This is a really oddball galaxy," said Karl Gebhardt of the University of Texas at Austin, a member of the team that made the find. "It's almost all black hole. This could be the first object in a new class of galaxy-black hole systems." Gebhardt and colleagues at the McDonald Observatory have been calculating the mass of different black holes - no small task considering their powerful gravity.
The researchers put together an animation of how stars in that distant galaxy would behave, whipping around the center to avoid falling in.
What would you see if you lived on a habitable planet in that far-away galaxy and could look toward the center? Probably nothing that makes sense to human eyes. Black holes have such powerful gravity that they distort the space around them.
Posted by at No comments:

NYPD officer photographed giving boots to barefoot homeless man melts icy hearts online

By | The Lookout – 11 hrs ago
A New York City police officer is photographed giving boots to a homeless man on Nov. 14. (NYPD/Facebook)
A photo of a New York City police officer kneeling down to give a barefoot homeless man in Times Square a pair of boots on a cold November night is melting even the iciest New Yorkers' hearts online.
On Nov. 14, NYPD officer Lawrence DePrimo, who was on counterterrorism duty in Times Square, saw the older homeless man without shoes sitting on 42nd Street. DePrimo, 25, left and then returned with a pair of $100 boots he bought at a nearby Skechers store.
"It was freezing out, and you could see the blisters on the man's feet," DePrimo, a three-year veteran of the department who lives with his parents on Long Island, told the New York Times. "I had two pairs of socks, and I was still cold."
The random act of kindness was captured by Jennifer Foster, a tourist from Florence, Ariz., who was visiting the city. Foster, communications director for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office in Arizona, emailed the photo to the NYPD with a note commending DePrimo.
"The officer said, 'I have these size 12 boots for you, they are all-weather. Let's put them on and take care of you,'" Foster wrote. "The officer squatted down on the ground and proceeded to put socks and the new boots on this man.
"I have been in law enforcement for 17 years," she continued. "I was never so impressed in my life. ... It is important, I think, for all of us to remember the real reason we are in this line of work. The reminder this officer gave to our profession in his presentation of human kindness has not been lost."
Foster's photo was posted on the NYPD's Facebook page on Tuesday, where it received more than 320,000 "likes," 77,000 "shares" and 20,000 comments—most of them praising DePrimo, who seems to have restored Facebook's faith in humanity.
"This is one hell of a police officer," Desiree Wright-Borden wrote.
"Wow," Jack Horton wrote. "It's nice to know there are still good people out there."
"Angels truly do walk on earth!!!" Charlene Hoffman-Pestell wrote.
Some commenters, though, were skeptical, saying the photo could have been staged.
"Clever stunt!" Louis Zehmke wrote. "The hobo is 'parked' at the entrance of a shoe shop."
But Foster claims DePrimo had no idea he was being photographed: "The officer expected NOTHING in return and did not know I was watching."
Posted by at No comments:

Health Routines of Top Doctors

By Trisha Calvo
Thu, Nov 29, 2012
Say you find yourself on a 5-hour flight to L.A., and in the course of conversation with your seatmate you discover that he's one of the country's leading cardiologists, or a worldfamous cancer researcher, or a nationally recognized obesity expert. Wouldn't you peek to see which parts of his in-flight meal he ate--and what he left on his plate? Wouldn't you just love to ask him--based on his extensive knowledge of disease and its causes--what he eats every day, how he exercises, what supplements he takes? Like a magician, he knows the secrets, and you'd like nothing more than to look into his hat. Well, consider your curiosity satisfied. We rounded up the country's top doctors and asked them some pretty personal questions about their daily habits and favorite foods, hoping to find some lifestyle patterns that would put us--and you--on the right path toward a longer, leaner, healthier life. (Strip off pounds with the healthy swaps you'll find in the updated 2013 edition of Eat This, Not That!)

Antiaging

Nicholas Perricone, M.D., board-certified clinical and research dermatologist and author of Forever Young.
Dr. Perricone was one of the first experts to promote an anti-inflammatory diet for healthy skin and a healthy body. He outlined the evidence in his earlier books, The Perricone Prescription and The Wrinkle Cure. In his latest publication, Forever Young, he introduces readers to the cutting-edge science of nutrigenomics.
"By manipulating different aspects of your diet and lifestyle, you can switch on protective genes and switch off genes that may have a negative effect on health," he says. "Eating anti-inflammatory foods at every meal--fruits, vegetables, nuts, fish, whole grains--is key." (Learn the health habits that help you Live 6.2 Years Longer.)

Skip sugar, avoid wrinkles

"Avoiding foods that cause blood sugar spikes--such as products with sugar and white flour--controls inflammation, which my decades of research show is the single greatest precipitator of aging. Inflammation leads to wrinkled, sagging skin, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and some cancers."

Commune with nature

"Going outside, breathing the fresh air, and seeing the magnificent planet that we're lucky to live on renews my spirits every day. Spending time in a park, at the beach, or even just on a tree-lined street is a safe and very enjoyable method for reducing the deadly, aging effects of stress. A walk outside provides benefits that your treadmill cannot."

Mix weights with yoga

"I've incorporated yoga poses into my strength-training sessions so I maintain flexibility while building muscle mass."

Stay hydrated

"Drink at least six glasses of pure springwater and a few cups of green tea each day. Fluid helps your body process nutrients, and the tea contains powerful antioxidants that fight aging and disease."

Get your vitamin D naturally

"Sunshine triggers your body to produce vitamin D, and it's the best source of this vitamin, which helps reduce the risk of osteoporosis and many cancers. I spend about 15 minutes a day in the sun, taking a brisk walk or participating in some other activity, without wearing sunscreen. Don't go overboard, though. Any longer than 15 minutes or so increases your risk of skin damage." Beware: Does Sunscreen Cause Cancer? 

of 4
Follow Yahoo! Health on and become a fan on
Posted by at No comments:

Obama, Romney Pledge to 'Stay In Touch'

By Mary Bruce | ABC OTUS News – 3 hrs ago
President Obama and former rival Mitt Romney "pledged to stay in touch" after their hour-long lunch at the White House today, their first face-to-face encounter since the election.
"The focus of their discussion was on America's leadership in the world and the importance of maintaining that leadership position in the future," according to the White House.
Romney also congratulated the president "for the success of his campaign and wished him well over the coming four years."
The former foes lunched on white turkey chili and Southwestern grilled chicken salad in the private dining room adjacent to the Oval Office.
The White House would not detail further the topics of their conversation, but made clear the president did not invite the former GOP nominee to the White House to ask him to play any specific role in the administration.
"The president's very interested in his ideas and very appreciative that Governor Romney is here to have lunch with him," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
Romney arrived at the White House with little fanfare shortly before his 12:30 pm lunch with the president. He rolled up the West Executive driveway in a lone black SUV, opened his own car door, and headed into the West Wing without an entourage.
Also Read
Posted by at No comments:

From Hooters To High Places: How Kat Cole Turned Cinnabon Into A $1 Billion Brand

Forbes – 23 hours ago
Kat Cole, 34, got an unlikely start in the food industry. While in high school in Jacksonville, Fla., she worked part-time as a Hooters girl, serving beer and chicken wings in those tiny orange shorts. At age 19, she got a once-in-lifetime opportunity to help the restaurant chain expand internationally. She hung up her plans to become an engineer and lawyer, opting instead to take the executive path in food retail. In the decade she spent at Hooters, Cole says it went from approximately 100 locations and $300 million in revenue to 500 locations in 33 countries and $1 billion in revenue.

Now Cole hopes to work her magic again. This time as president of shopping-mall cinnamon roll brand Cinnabon, an Atlanta, Ga.-based unit of the FOCUS Brands portfolio, which also includes Carvel, Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and Moe’s Southwestern Grill. Beyond its 1000 franchise locations in 50 countries, Cinnabon has expanded into grocery-store products by partnering with packaged-food kings Pillsbury and Kellogg. It’s also ramping up its presence in other restaurant chains by teaming up with fast-food leaders Burger King and Taco Bell. Cole says it’s about to hit $1 billion in retail sales and will soon be considered one of the “world’s greatest food brands.”

She sat down with me to reveal what’s in store for the company, how she ended up here and why those little shorts were the best thing that happened to her.

Jenna Goudreau: Bring me up to speed on the Cinnabon business.

Kate Cole: It’s becoming one of the world’s greatest food brands. Eventually it will end up in the bucket with brands like Oreo and Hershey.

That’s a bold statement for a shopping-mall pastry.
It’s no longer just a bakery in malls. That’s still the heart, but it’s only the nucleus of a much bigger thing. Several years ago Cinnabon started getting into consumer packaged goods. We own a proprietary ingredient, Cinnabon cinnamon, which is chemically different at the cellular level, making it gooey and aromatic. Because we’ve built credibility in the cinnamon roll space and Pillsbury is the largest seller of refrigerated dough, we joined forces and put our cinnamon in their rolls and our name on the package.

We continued to expand into waffles and pancakes, which led to a partnership with Kellogg’s cereal and other smaller branded partnerships. We now have 60 products—including syrups, sprinkles and Cinnabon International Delight creamer—in grocery and big-box stores like Costco, Wal-Mart, Target and Publix. People go to the grocery much more often than the mall or airport, so it’s a good way to be a regular part of their lives.

You’re also venturing into product licensing. How does that work?

Making products for other restaurant chains is the final frontier and the reason we’re about to hit $1 billion in retail sales, a major milestone for the brand. Licensing is the love-child of franchising and consumer packaged goods because we are now developing products for immediate consumption at other restaurant chains. We’ve got a doughnut product that we developed for Taco Bell called Cinnabon Delights, and we just launched Cinnabon Minibons in over 7,000 Burger King locations. The chains want something that will resonate with consumers, so they’ll pay a premium. The cinnamon, dough and frosting are all proprietary, so with these ingredients we can go anywhere.

How do you mitigate the risks of expanding so rapidly?

Many leaders go wrong by turning their backs on their core and chasing the next thing. My licensing deals would have limited life if the franchises went away, so it’s critical to reinvest in the core. We have about 25% of our domestic franchises remodeled. They’ve got a sexier, sleek look that doesn’t look like Grandma’s bakery. By the end of next year, 50% will be reimaged.

This is not a healthy food. The classic roll has 800 calories. How do you balance business and community responsibility?

There is a place in the market for indulgent brands. Even though there’s a big focus on health, Pres. Obama still has a greasy hamburger every once in a while. We’re not telling people to eat a classic roll every day. Everybody gives themselves discretionary calories. If you’re going to give yourself a treat, give yourself something that is so worth it. It has more pleasure per calorie than anything else that’s out there.

You’ve been running major food brands since you were in your early 20s. Do other leaders raise an eyebrow at your age?

If they do, they’re doing it on the inside. Youth is in my favor. Anytime you’ve got someone young, they’re curious. I’m humble enough to know there’s a whole lot of [stuff] I don’t know. I ask for a lot of help and people are generous when you ask.

Your career path began in an unusual place: A Hooters restaurant in Jacksonville, Fla.

I had a single parent—a mother who worked three jobs and fed us on $10 a week—so I started working as early as the law would permit. I sold clothes at The Avenues mall after school before I was recruited to be a Hooters hostess. By 18, I was a Hooters girl and loved it. When the cook quit, I learned how to run the kitchen, and when the manager quit, I learned how to run a shift.

I went to college at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, planning to get an engineering degree and then go to law school. When I was 19, I got the opportunity to go open the first Hooters restaurant in Australia. I’d never been on a plane. I didn’t even have a passport. I realized that in Miami you could get a passport in one day, so I flew to Miami, got a passport and flew to Australia the next day.

I was in Sydney for 40 days, came back and within 10 days was asked to open the first restaurant in Central America. Then ones in South America, Asia, Africa and Canada. By the time I was 20, I’d opened up the first Hooters on most continents outside the US and was failing school. So I quit to become the head of Hooters corporate training. I’m a college dropout.

I read that you have an MBA. How did you swing that?

It’s very rare. I moved up quickly at Hooters, becoming vice president of the company, and was urged by mentors to go back to school. I was 29 and thinking: Gosh, I’m already a VP of a $1 billion company. Do I really need to go back and finish my Bachelor’s? I took the GMAT, went through double the interviews at the university and got letters from every CEO I knew, including a recommendation from Ted Turner. I was accepted to Georgia State’s MBA program and did nights and weekends from 2008 to 2010. I graduated two months after I started at Cinnabon.

What attracted you to Cinnabon?

I met the current CEO, Russ Umphenour, and developed a major business crush on him. It felt right. It’s a multi-brand portfolio, and I knew I’d get to learn from the other brands. I was interviewing there, still in school, running the Georgia Restaurant Association and handling a huge, complicated Hooters transaction. The CEO had died, and I was asked to lead the company’s liquidation, dealing with analysts, brokers, investors and the internal team. The whole time I was thinking: Thank God I went to class yesterday or I wouldn’t have known what that meant! I started at Cinnabon after Hooters signed the purchase agreement.

Do you have some supernatural ability of multitasking?

I don’t have kids. The work is incredibly fulfilling and I’ve had fun, so it’s easy to do it. Layering in the education was the most difficult.

What advice would you give other young women hoping to succeed in business?

Get diversity in where your experience comes from. Volunteer. Be a part of some industry organization. I started out as the nametag lady, handing out nametags at the Women’s Foodservice Forum events. They took me in when I was 24 and made critical introductions and gave me volunteer opportunities that allowed me to develop other areas of my career like finance and marketing that I wasn’t getting the technical opportunity to do in my company. It was a safe place to run committees and work on projects in different areas.
At one of their events, this woman was lost and I helped her find her way. It turns out she was the founder of Pink magazine, on a ton of tech startup boards and doing big things. I was just helping her find her way, and we ended up being friends. When you do the right things for the right reasons, it always pays you back.
More from Forbes
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, November 23, 2012

The world's top 10 bridges

Bridges have conquered civilizations, connected races and brought cultures into contact and conflict.

At their simplest, however, they have enabled human beings (and animals) to explore and discover land masses separated by great, intractable bodies of water. Consider for heft London's iconic Tower Bridge and the imposing Sydney Harbour Bridge, or for tasteful architecture the exquisitely beautiful Pont Alexandre III in Paris and Ponte Vecchio Bridge in Florence.

Take a look at the top 10 (our list is based on this Reuters story) and feel free to argue.

Posted by at No comments:

The Ten Greatest Disease-fighting Foods

From arthritis to motion sickness, food remedies are hiding all over your kitchen. Keep these 10 handy for whatever life throws at you.
Why You Should Not Consume Too Much Fruit

Go to sleep and lose weight
Oral care and nutritional role of sugar
How To Stop or Reduce Your Boredom Eating

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)