Hotel Reservations In Santa Clarita - Google, YouTube, Twitter Get Into April Fools' Action

Source - http://www.usatoday.com/
By - Katharine Lackey
Category - Hotel Reservations In Santa Clarita
Posted  By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel Reservations In Santa Clarita

Tired of all those vowels clogging up your tweets?

Twitter announced a solution late Sunday night, saying it will shift to a two-tiered service, dubbing its basic, consonant-only plan "Twttr."

The April Fools' Day joke kicked off with Twitter tweeting out, "Trd th nw Twttr yt? Mr tm fr mr twts!" (Translation: Tried the new Twttr yet? More time for more tweets)

The social media service says for a mere $5 a month, you can keep your vowels by using the premium "Twitter" service.

"We're doing this because we believe that by eliminating vowels, we'll encourage a more efficient and 'dense' form of communication." the company said on its blog. "We also see an opportunity to diversify our revenue stream."

In the announcement — which the company says was partially inspired by Wheel of Fortune — Twitter said that "Y" will remain free and other languages will be unaffected by the change.

The company is also offering a single character extension, allowing the length of a tweet to extend to 141 characters. "The price of the extra character is based on a bidding system reflecting the popularity of the character you would like to add," the company's blog states.

Twitter also announced a site that automatically transforms your tweets into a Twttr friendly format.

Joan Rivers got in on the action early, tweeting "Twyttyr? Why byy vywyls whyn yyy gyt "Y" fyr fryy? Syckyrs! #nvwls" (Translation: Twitter? Why buy vowels when you get "Y" for free? Suckers!)

Feeling like digging for buried treasure? Google also got into the April Fools' Day action, releasing a "Treasure Mode" overlay on its maps site Saturday.

In a YouTube video, Google explains the mysterious paper maps its Street View Team found off the coast of Madagascar in 2012 and later digitized belonged to Captain Kidd, who hid his treasures around the globe. Google calls on watchers to help decipher the maps and find the long-lost treasure.

A variety of techniques can be used to reveal hidden symbols, including applying sunlight to the maps, piecing multiple tablet and mobile devices together or aligning the map perfectly by skydiving over a specific landmark. The heat responsive ink is likely to get the most laughs, as Google shows some symbols can only be revealed by placing your laptop over an open flame (with the disclaimer do not attempt at home!).

STORY: Bosses often aren't amused by April Fools'

To access the feature, visit Google Maps and click on the "Treasure" picture icon in the top right corner. The overlay even contains street-view, applied with a sepia-toned filter to give it that historical feel. The maps contain a number of Easter eggs including a separate URL with a live pirate ship tracking map and symbols hidden around the globe that spell out "April Fool." Treasure Island near San Francisco, Calif., has a mini-map with an X marking the spot, and New York City is marked by a pirate's skull with mysterious numbers in its eyes.

California Vacation Packages - Facebook To Reveal 'New Home On Android' At April 4 Event

Source - http://abcnews.go.com/
By - JOANNA STERN
Category - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

Facebook is calling the press back to its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., again -- and this time it's to show off a new Android-based product.

The invitations to the April 4 event, which were sent to members of the media this evening via e-mail, reveal only that the company will be showing off its "new home on Android."

Already, rumors are beginning to fly about what Facebook might announce.

TechCrunch reported that Facebook will unveil phone software based on Google's Android operating system. The software will have "extra Facebook functionality built in." According to the report, the phone software will run on hardware made by HTC.

According to 9to5Google, the two companies have been working on a marketing campaign for the phone.

HTC, a Taiwanese phone maker, released The Status in 2011, an Android phone that had Facebook branding and specialized Facebook software. The phone wasn't marketed by Facebook and received poor reviews. The company recently announced its new HTC One Android phone.

RELATED: Facebook Says New Mobile Products Coming, but No Facebook Phone

Amazon has taken a similar route, creating its own version of Android software to run on its Kindle Fire. It places Amazon's services front and center.

Facebook has been rumored to be working on a phone of its own for a number of months now. However, while Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the company is focused on mobile and is a mobile company, he has denied the existence of plans for a "Facebook phone."

"We want to support an ecosystem where other apps can build on top of Facebook," Zuckberg said on an earnings call last year. "There are a lot of things you can build in other operating systems, as well, that aren't really taking, that aren't really like building out a whole phone, which wouldn't make much sense for us to do."

In the last number of months, Facebook has released a slew of new mobile products, including its Poke app and additions to its Messenger app, which added free calling.

ABC News will have the latest on Facebook's Android announcement on April 4.

Hotels In Northern California - Range Rover Sport Revealed In New York By James Bond

Source - http://profit.ndtv.com/
By - Siddharth Vinayak Patankar
Category - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

They're calling it the fastest, most responsive model ever from Land Rover. That's the new all new second generation of the Range Rover Sport from the British car maker, a part of India's Tata Group. Since the massive turnaround of JLR under Tata, Land Rover has launched three all new products and one significant refresh. The Evoque was the first and has been a runaway success, making 2012 a very successful year for the company with 36 per cent sales increases over the previous year.

In 2012, the company also launched the new generation Range Rover flagship SUV, and now comes the third member of the Range Rover family. The new Range Rover Sport uses the same platform as its older sibling, and also uses similar all-aluminum construction. But despite this the company says nearly 75 per cent of its components are not shared with the Range Rover. The new Sport aims to be a more agile, and sporty offering, with greater dynamics, and tauter handling than before. It is too premature to speak about prices, but given the positioning and feature list, the Range Rover Sport is likely to be very premium. The aluminum construction makes it significantly lighter, and therefore a lot greener than the outgoing car too.

JLR chose New York to launch the car - symbolic of the fact that the US has been the largest market for the Range Rover Sport. In fact, the NYC area also stands for the largest single metropolitan market for this model globally too. So it was a fitting debut location. JLR also cashed in on the recent association that it had with Skyfall - the most recent film in the James Bond franchise. And although this wasn't about Bond as much as it was about Daniel Craig in his individual capacity, Mr Bond was on hand to help unveil the car, as he drove through the streets of New York - with the city's police department shutting down traffic on some roads during rush hour. Mr Craig arrived at the venue of the debut with much fanfare, as he drove on to the stage. 

The new Range Rover Sport will compete with the likes of the Audi Q7, BMW X5, and Volkswagen Touareg. It is expected to be made available in India in the second half of this calendar year, and will likely be imported for starters.

Vacations In Santa Clarita - T-Mobile Shakes Up Its Service

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/
By - BRIAN X. CHEN
Category - Vacations In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Vacations In Santa Clarita

But it may not be enough to persuade smartphone users to abandon the competition. 

Analysts said the new marketing strategy, which spreads the cost of a new phone over two years as a separate line item on the monthly bill, will still feel like a commitment to many customers, even if they can choose to pay it off early and walk away. And T-Mobile, which has a slower network than its competitors, is only just beginning to introduce major upgrades. 

The company on Tuesday said the Apple iPhone 5 would be available starting April 12 for $100 up front, with customers paying an additional $20 a month for two years. Other new smartphones, like the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and the BlackBerry Z10, will be available with similar payment plans. 

Although T-Mobile’s new phone plans require no long-term contract, customers would have to pay off the balance owed in order to end service prematurely. 

For several years, T-Mobile, the No. 4 American mobile carrier by market share, has been bleeding subscribers to Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint. In earnings calls, the company has said its main problems were consumers’ negative perception of its network and its inability to offer customers the iPhone. 

Now that T-Mobile has landed a deal with Apple and turned on its new fourth-generation network, LTE, in seven cities, the company is hoping to mount a comeback. If T-Mobile does not find a way to bounce back, it risks losing even more market share to Verizon and AT&T and becoming a small niche player like Leap or U.S. Cellular. 

The carrier, led by its eccentric new chief executive, John Legere, has been undergoing a rebranding into what it calls an “uncarrier.” 

At a news conference in New York on Tuesday, Mr. Legere, wearing a blazer, T-shirt, jeans and sneakers with hot-pink shoelaces, casually dropped curse words while mocking his competitors, saying they were deliberately confusing customers with unclear two-year contracts and punishing them with fees for surpassing data limits or ending contracts early. 

“Do you have any idea what you’re paying?” Mr. Legere said. “I’m going to explain how stupid we all are because once it becomes flat and transparent, there’s nowhere to hide. You pay so much for your phones, it’s incredible.” 

He said that T-Mobile’s contract-free plans would be more straightforward and cheaper over all for consumers, and that by moving to contract-free plans, the company was doing away with overage and early-termination fees. 

Mr. Legere said that over two years, an iPhone on T-Mobile would cost $1,000 less than it would on AT&T. That would apply to heavy data users. But when looking at the cheapest plans on both carriers, the difference is much narrower. For example, an iPhone 5 on T-Mobile’s plan with unlimited text messages, unlimited minutes and 500 megabytes of data a month is only $360 cheaper over two years than an AT&T plan with unlimited voice and text and one gigabyte of data a month. 

At $580, buying an iPhone from T-Mobile would also be cheaper than buying a $650 unlocked phone directly from Apple. 

On Tuesday, T-Mobile formally replaced all its old phone plans with new plans that do not require signing a contract. For $50 a month, customers can get unlimited minutes, text messages and 500 megabytes of data; they can pay an extra $20 for unlimited data. 

At AT&T and Verizon, the most popular phone plans cost closer to $100 a month with a two-year contract for limited data. The iPhone 5 costs at least $200 on their networks with a two-year contract. 

Despite T-Mobile’s promise to be more straightforward than other carriers, some consumers might still find it confusing that they have to pay an extra device fee after paying $100 up front for an iPhone. 

In an interview, Mr. Legere said that the announcement of T-Mobile’s new contract-free plans was just the beginning of a conversation about greater transparency. He said T-Mobile would make every part of its plans visible to customers and break down their options for how they want to pay. 

“The dialogue has just started,” he said. “This is an ages-old industry that’s very opaque that people just gave up understanding.” 

Even though T-Mobile’s $50 plan costs less than its biggest competitors’ offerings, cheaper no-contract plans are already offered by smaller carriers, said Tero Kuittinen, an analyst at Alekstra, a mobile diagnostics firm. 

Virgin Mobile, for example, sells an iPhone for $650 and offers a plan including 300 minutes, unlimited data and unlimited text messages for $30 a month. 

Consumers still feel that T-Mobile’s network coverage is poor, Mr. Kuittinen added. And T-Mobile’s rivals are far ahead in deploying fourth-generation networks using LTE technology; Verizon is leading the race with LTE deployed in roughly 500 cities, while T-Mobile only recently started its LTE service in seven markets. 

“They can’t relaunch the operations from a clean slate because people have negative conceptions of what T-Mobile’s quality is,” Mr. Kuittinen said. 

The main difference between a traditional two-year contract and T-Mobile’s two-year device payment is what happens after that period of time. For T-Mobile customers who pay off their iPhone, their monthly bill would drop by $20. At other carriers, the monthly bill stays the same even after the two years of the contract are up.

Budget Hotels Santa Clarita - Asian Markets Rise As Cyprus Deal Eases Crisis Fears

Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/
By - Press Release
Category - Budget Hotels Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Budget Hotels Santa Clarita

Cyprus will now get a 10bn euro ($13bn; £8.5bn) cash injection to keep its banking system running and prevent it from crashing out of the eurozone.

Many investors had feared that its exit from the bloc may escalate the region's debt crisis and derail global recovery.

Shares in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Australia rose on the news.

"The news was what markets were waiting for, some kind of an agreement," said Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 1.8%, South Korea's Kospi gained 1.3%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.7% and Australia's ASX200 was up 0.7%.

Improving risk appetite

A failure to reach a deal may have seen the European Central Bank cut emergency funding to Cyprus's two biggest banks, leading to an effective bankruptcy of Cyprus's government.

The fears were that such a move may prompt the country's exit from the bloc.

Many analysts had been concerned that Cyprus's exit may cause a loss of confidence across the eurozone and prompt investors to withdraw from other troubled economies of the bloc, such as Greece.

These concerns had seen investors ditch the euro over the past few days in favour of other assets, such as the Japanese yen and US dollar, seen as comparatively safer.

However, news of the Cyprus deal boosted the euro.

The single currency gained 0.8% against the US dollar. It was trading at $1.3044 in early Asian trade.

It rose 1.3% against the Japanese yen to trade at 123.81 yen.

"This will likely limit the euro's downside, with those who shorted the euro covering their positions, and improve general risk sentiment," said Hiroshi Maeba, head of foreign exchange trading for UBS in Tokyo.

Ben le Brun, an analyst at OptionsXpress in Sydney, added that the deal was likely to have a positive impact on the oil markets as well.

"We should see some positive sentiment reverberate through energy markets overall for at least the next 24 to 48 hours," he said.

Brent Crude rose 0.3% to $108.34 per barrel in Asian trade, while US Light Crude gained 0.4% to $94.1 per barrel.

Uncertainties remain

Cyprus had agreed a bailout deal with the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week.

However, the EU and IMF had asked Cyprus to raise 5.8bn euros in order to secure the funds.

They had proposed that Cyprus impose a one-off levy on bank deposits in order to raise the cash, a move that triggered protests in Cyprus and resulted in savers rushing to ATM machines to withdraw their money - a move that brought fears of a run on the banks.

The Cyprus parliament rejected the proposal last week, delaying an agreement to secure the bailout funds.

According to the latest deal, all deposits under 100,000 euros will be "fully guaranteed".

However, Laiki (Popular) Bank, the country's second-biggest, will be wound down and holders of deposits of more than 100,000 euros will face big losses.

The levy on accounts in Laiki Bank could be as high as 40%, correspondents say.

Large deposits in the Bank of Cyprus, the country's biggest bank, will also face a levy.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, told a press conference in Brussels that the percentage to be levied on large deposits in the Bank of Cyprus will be decided in the coming weeks.

Analysts said that while the draft deal had helped ease market jitters, uncertainties surrounding its implementation were likely to hurt sentiment in the coming days.

"We might get a small relief rally if we do get one, but markets will then very quickly turn to the risk of a bank run and whether conditions for the aid will be implemented smoothly," said Greg Gibbs, senior currency strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland.

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Stocks Decline On Europe Growth Worries

Source - http://www.usatoday.com/
By - Kim Hjelmgaard
Category - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita

Stocks declined Thursday after the European Central Bank turned up the heat on Cyprus and said it will cut emergency liquidity to the nation's central bank unless Cyprus adopts a fiscal aid plan by Monday.

In the U.S., technology stocks dragged the indexes lower after Oracle reported an unexpected decline in sales in its fiscal third quarter. Oracle shares fell $3.47, or 9%, to $32.30.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 90.24 points, or 0.62%, to 14,421.49. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 12.91 points, or 0.83%, to 1,545.80. The Nasdaq composite index shed 31.59 points, or 0.97%, to 3,222.60.

The Dow's weakness today, which included a short-lived, intra-day drop of more than 100 points, could be the latest sign that the rip-roaring stock market rally, which has catapulted the Dow to fresh highs, might be running out of steam, at least in the short run, says John Praveen, chief investment strategist at Prudential International Investment Advisors.

The main stock indexes in Paris, London and Frankfurt were all lower.

The Cyprus situation as well as some weak earnings from well-known names such as Oracle and package delivery giant Federal Express, could be catalysts for a pullback.

"These increased risks are likely to cause stock markets to struggle in the near term and prompt profit taking after the strong gains thus far this year," says Praveen.

Pressure mounted on Cyprus to fix its financial system. It must raise about $7.5 billion in the next four days to avoid bankruptcy. Several plans have failed, including a proposal to tax deposits held by the nation's banks.

If the Mediterranean banking haven is unable to secure a bailout, its banks will fail and it could be forced to leave the euro currency.

In the U.S., the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.93% from 1.96% earlier as demand increased for ultra-safe investments.

Trans-Atlantic jitters and technology stocks overshadowed encouraging data about the U.S. economy.

The number of people seeking unemployment benefits barely changed last week, the Labor Department said before the market opened.

Home sales rose in February to a fresh three-year high, according to the National Association of Realtors. It is the latest signal that the housing recovery is solidifying.

Besides technology, here are other stocks that fell:

— Struggling drug company AstraZeneca jumped after saying it would cut 2,300 more jobs worldwide and overhaul its research operations. That brings to 11,000 the number of job cuts announced in the past 13 months. Shares rose $1.77, or 3%, to $47.95.

— Publisher Scholastic Corp. plunged after shrinking demand for its best-selling "The Hunger Games" books forced it to cut its guidance for the year. The company's fiscal third-quarter loss nearly doubled. Shares fell $4.32, or 14%, to $26.75.

— Movado Group dropped after the luxury watchmaker said its fiscal fourth-quarter net income fell 26%. The stock fell $4.08, or 10%, to $33.04.

And among technology stocks that fell:

— Juniper Networks dropped 42 cents, or 2%, to $18.89.

— Cisco fell 83 cents, or 3%, to $20.84.

— IBM declined $2.80, or 1%, to $212.26.

— Intel lost 14 cents, or 0.1%, at $21.04.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index surged 1.34% to 12,635.69. Benchmarks in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan also rose. South Korea's Kospi slipped 0.44% to 1,950.82. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.16% to 22,219.78.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was down $1.09 to $92.41 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said at the end of a two-day policy meeting that the Fed won't alter its aggressive monetary easing — $85 billion in monthly bond purchases to push down borrowing costs — until it is convinced the economy's gains can be sustained.

Fed officials reinforced their plan to keep short-term interest rates at rock-bottom levels at least until unemployment falls to 6.5%. The current unemployment rate is 7.7%.

Six Flags Magic Mountain - Voyager 1 Has Left The Solar System — Almost

Source - http://www.latimes.com/
By - Monte Morin and Amina Khan
Category - Six Flags Magic Mountain
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Six Flags Magic Mountain

It was welcome news to Earthlings: The Voyager 1 spacecraft had seemingly crossed a momentous threshold and become the first man-made object to enter interstellar space.

"Voyager 1 has left the solar system," the American Geophysical Union declared Wednesday in a news release. An accompanying study published online in the organization's journal, Geophysical Research Letters, also contained an unusually sentimental end note declaring that "we did it. Bon Voyage!"

Alas, the elation that spread through news and social media was short-lived. Voyager 1 was still in the neighborhood, NASA said, even after traveling for more than 35 years. Then the American Geophysical Union press office issued a correction of its headline, omitting any reference to the spacecraft having departed "the solar system."

"The Voyager team is aware of reports today that NASA's Voyager 1 has left the solar system," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at Caltech and former chief of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where Voyager was built. "It is the consensus of the Voyager science team that Voyager 1 has not yet left the solar system or reached interstellar space."

Though there is little doubt that the lonely probe will one day exit the solar system, scientists are discovering that the border is not as clearly defined as they expected it to be.

In the paper released Wednesday, lead author Bill Webber suggested that the probe had exited the heliosphere — that region of space dominated by solar winds and long considered to be the edge of the solar system — on Aug. 25, 2012.

It was on that day that Voyager's sensors registered drastic changes in radiation levels. There was a sharp drop in so-called anomalous cosmic rays — high-energy particles trapped within the "bubble" of the outer heliosphere — and a sudden surge in galactic cosmic rays from outside the solar system.

Together, those events seemed to indicate that Voyager had "crossed a well-defined boundary" and possibly entered interstellar space 11.3 billion miles from the sun, according to the paper.

"It appears that V1 has exited the main solar modulation region, revealing hydrogen and helium spectra characteristic of those to be expected in the local interstellar medium," wrote Webber, a professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University who is involved with cosmic ray experiments on Voyager.

But scientists at NASA and elsewhere said Webber's report did not address one of the most unexpected elements of the boundary between the solar system and interstellar space — a mysterious region that Stone and others have labeled a "magnetic highway."

In December, the Voyager science team reported that the spacecraft had reached a place where particles from the solar wind dropped off dramatically and cosmic rays from interstellar space increased. But they did not detect an anticipated change in the direction of the magnetic field emanating from the sun.

"If we had looked at particle data alone, we would have said, 'We're out! Goodbye, solar system!'" Stamatios Krimigis, a solar physicist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., said at the time.

Instead, the scientists surmised that Voyager had reached the magnetic highway, where interstellar particles can ride in and solar system particles can ride out. Only when the craft senses that the magnetic field has changed direction will they declare that it has reached interstellar space.

"And that change of direction has not yet been observed," Stone said Wednesday.

So the new report from Webber left his fellow Voyager scientists scratching their heads.

"We did not leave the solar system," said Merav Opher, an astrophysicist at Boston University and member of the Voyager team. "We are simply in a new region that is completely different than what we thought."

Webber did not return calls or email seeking comment Wednesday.

A good deal of the confusion can be traced to the American Geophysical Union's news release. A press representative said it was a challenge to convey the significance of the study. He said he realized soon after the release was issued that it may not have been fully accurate.

"We were trying to create a headline that was meaningful to reporters and to general audiences, and I guess we overstated the conclusions a little bit," said Peter Weiss, a public information manager for the American Geophysical Union in Washington.

The Voyager study was unusual for other reasons as well.

It was published by just two scientists and not the larger Voyager team. And one of those scientists, astrophysicist Frank McDonald of the University of Maryland, died in August — just days after he and Webber determined that Voyager had crossed a boundary of great significance.

McDonald, who helped design instruments for many NASA space probes, collapsed from a brain aneurysm while speaking at a symposium, said Gary Zank, a space physicist who witnessed the event. He died the next day.

Webber went on to write up the pair's findings. The end of the paper published in Geophysical Research Letters contained a rare sentimental note to his former colleague:

"Frank, we have been working together for over 55 years to reach the goal of actually observing the interstellar spectra of cosmic rays, possibly now achieved almost on the day of your passing," he wrote. "You wanted so badly to be able to finish this article that you had already started. Together we did it. Bon Voyage!"

McDonald's widow, Irene "Rene" McDonald, said her late husband was indeed looking forward to the day when Voyager exited the solar system.

"I know that when they do confirm that they actually have gone beyond the solar system with Voyager, he'd be pleased as punch," she said. "I know also as a scientist, he'd be extremely cautious about saying that it truly has happened."