Bill Gates believes in good past 2014

Ebola, Ukraine, Gaza, Malaysian Airlines MH370 & MH17, Terrorism, Mass Protests, Robin Williams' suicide and plenty other things were beamed into our skulls in 2014, but Bill Gates is ever the optimist.
Being exposed to the media, you can be forgiven for thinking that things are constantly getting worse and worse. Simply put, fear sells. If it bleeds, it leads. It is very easy to be cynical and have a negative outlook on the future, but Bill Gates is far more optimistic as he looks back on 2014 and toward the future... and not just because he's insanely rich.

No, instead Gates has reminded us that a lot of good things happened in 2014 too, even if it doesn't make the headlines. Just as he did at the end of 2013, Gates is drawing attention to some of the highlights from 2014, and some of it is pretty great.

In 2014, for the 42nd year in a row (at least), the child mortality rate has fallen. "More kids are living to see their fifth birthday than ever before," Gates asserts, as he highlights the drop in the number of children dying globally from preventable causes. In fact, the child mortality rate is falling faster than ever anticipated, and Gates highlights an article in The Economist showing that over 13.6 million children's lives have been saved since 2001.

HIV is another area where the news is getting better. In 2013, the number of people receiving treatment for HIV infection was greater than the number of people becoming infected and 2014 appears to have continued the trend. Those receiving treatment for the retrovirus are far less likely to ever pass it on, so just catching up and surpassing the number of newly infected persons, with the numbers receiving treatment, is a major milestone in the battle to eventually relegate HIV/AIDS to history.

Gates also notes how Nigeria was equipped to fight and contain Ebola due to its ongoing efforts to fight Polio. In fact, Nigeria quickly got Ebola under control while many of its neighbors struggled with it, and in the case of Polio, a total of only six cases were reported in Nigeria in 2014 so far, down from 53 in 2013, which brings Polio ever-closer to complete eradication.

Gates also highlights a breakthrough in the treatment of the deadly drug-resistant Tuberculosis disease that is costing poor countries billions of dollars to contain, and how the response to rotavirus - which kills hundreds of thousands of children per year - is growing in countries like India
sources:
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2014/12/17/bill-gates-good-news-2014

Facebook New Changes

If you are one of the many people confused by Facebook and its ever-changing algorithms, you’ll be pleased to know they've recently made some favorable changes to their operating system.

Bloggers desperately trying to reach their Facebook audience, and being blocked at every turn. Facebook has been experimenting a lot this year with delivering the best, most tailored news feed to its users, but at the cost of the readers seeing posts.

With the recent changes to targeting and tools, it is easier than ever to only show your posts to those who are interested, and to save different types of posts for different kinds of audiences.

New Facebook Tools Changes

Facebook has introduced very selective targeting options for you to really drill down and capture the right readership for your blog (or even specific posts or pages on your blog) every time you post.

Available to those who have enabled the Targeting and Privacy setting, you can now use it to provide posts to a subset of your audience.

Have a recipe post? You can now choose to show it to the part of your readership who have indicated to Facebook they like food or cooking. People who aren't interested in that won’t see the post. But they will see a post they are interested in, based on their likes and dislikes.

Post End Date

Have a time-sensitive post? You can choose a particular date it will stop showing up in news feeds… but it will still be visible on your page. Again, only available to those who have enabled Targeting and Privacy, and it’s only available on desktop at the moment.

Smart Publishing

Take the guesswork out of what your audience will resonate with. Can be hard to predict, so Facebook have rolled out to a select few media organizations (for now) the ability to identify and publish stories that are already popular with the folk on Facebook.

Frequently-shared links to your website will appear in the news feed of people who like your page. They won’t appear on your page, but you’ll get a whole new dashboard of insights and ability to moderate comments.

Page admins can opt in from the Publisher Tools section within Page Settings.

Insights

While reasonably in-depth, your current insights will now be even more descriptive. With a better overview, you can even more effectively understand and optimize your content for success.

It’s even easier now to see where your content is going with the addition of information about people and pages that share your links.

There are also changes made to the type of insights you have access to, and how your page and plugins drive traffic to sites.

You can find out more information, and keep up with further Facebook announcements here.

sources:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2014/12/13/new-facebook-changes-target-your-audience-effectively/

Finally,Sony cancels release of 'The Interview'

Major U.S. theater chains said they would not screen the film following terrorists threats, Sony has canceled the release of 'The Interview,' a comedy in which Seth Rogen and James Franco are sent to North Korea to assassinate Kim Jong Un.
The movie had been scheduled for release on December 25th.

Famous movie theaters including Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, Carmike Cinemas, and Cineplex Entertainment all blocked showings of the new film, which would have accounted for 23,000 screens in North America.

Reads Sony's statement: "In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film The Interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release. We respect and understand our partners' decision and, of course, completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theater-goers.

Sony Pictures has been the victim of an unprecedented criminal assault against our employees, our customers, and our business. Those who attacked us stole our intellectual property, private emails, and sensitive and proprietary material, and sought to destroy our spirit and our morale – all apparently to thwart the release of a movie they did not like. We are deeply saddened at this brazen effort to suppress the distribution of a movie, and in the process do damage to our company, our employees, and the American public. We stand by our filmmakers and their right to free expression and are extremely disappointed by this outcome."

The hackers behind the cyberattack that has paralyzed Sony Pictures posted a threat telling any viewer of the film to "remember the 11th of September 2001" and that movie theaters would be the targets.

'The Interview' is not the first victim of the North Korean-led attack on Sony Pictures. Over 100 terabytes of data was stolen including social security numbers, contracts, pre-release films, and hundreds of thousands of emails.

sources-http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2014/12/18/the-hackers-win-sony-cancels-release-of-the-interview-as-movie-theaters-bail

Huddle extendes Cloud-based Enterprise Startups

The clouds appear to be clearing for cloud-based enterprise startups. Huddle, the enterprise cloud collaboration company co-headquartered in London and San Francisco, is today announcing that it has raised another $51 million in funding.It decides to double down on growing its business in the U.S. and Europe. Specifically, co-founder Andy McLoughlin tells me that Huddle plans to hone in on sectors like government that have been some of the most successful for the company, building more features that cater to them.

This latest round which brings the total raised by Huddle to date to just over $83 million was made at a valuation of between $250 million and $300 million,this is what techcrunch reports.

That valuation and the funding event both speak to the how the clouds appear to be clearing for cloud-based enterprise startups. Earlier this year, Box  a competitor to Huddle filed for and then stalled on an IPO; but just yesterday it updated its S-1 with improving revenue figures. Another cloud company, New Relic, is expected to go public soon, too.

This latest round was led by Zouk Capital, with participation from the Hermes GPE Environmental Innovation Fund; and it also included Huddle’s previous: Matrix Partners, Jafco Ventures, DAG Ventures, and Eden Ventures. As part of this round, Nathan Medlock, Partner at Zouk Capital, led the deal and will join the Huddle board.
sources:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/11/enterprise-cloud-collaboration-service-huddle-raises-a-51m-growth-round-at-250m-300m-valuation/?ncid=rss