United Technologies 4Q profit up nearly 11 pct (AP)

HARTFORD, Conn. ? United Technologies Corp. said Wednesday its fourth-quarter profit rose nearly 11 percent, propelled by growth in its aerospace businesses. Total revenue increased 1 percent.

The manufacturer of elevators, jet engines, heating and cooling equipment for buildings and other industrial products is banking on growth in commercial aerospace as Congress and the Obama administration plan to slash military spending.

A $16.4 billion acquisition of aircraft components maker Goodrich Corp. is on track to close by the middle of 2012, while United Technologies' jet engine division Pratt & Whitney is spending $1.5 billion to buy out Rolls Royce from a joint venture that makes engines for the Airbus A320 plane.

The two deals position United Technologies for future earnings growth, CEO Louis Chenevert said Wednesday. He has said the Goodrich deal could increase company revenue by 10 percent this year, but will not add to profit until 2013.

Much of the company's existing aerospace business is humming. In the October-December quarter, jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney's operating profit rose 12 percent, while profit at aerospace parts maker Hamilton Sundstrand jumped 21 percent.

But operating profit at helicopter maker unit Sikorsky Aircraft, a key military supplier, fell 13 percent. Sikorsky announced in September it was trimming its worldwide work force of 18,000 by about 3 percent as U.S. forces exit Iraq and draw down in Afghanistan.

Asked by an analyst to comment on potential asset sales to help fund the Goodrich deal and "some chatter" about the future of Sikorsky, Chief Financial Officer Greg Hayes said United Technologies is not considering jettisoning the helicopter maker.

United Technologies is instead weighing selling divisions it doesn't consider essential, such as installation businesses in its Fire & Security segment, he said on a conference call. The company had also planned to sell about $4 billion in equity and take on $12 billion in debt to fund the Goodrich deal. United Technologies will in mid-March announce a plan to finance the acquisition that cuts the amount of equity to be issued.

United Technologies said operating profit at the Fire & Security business, which makes fire alarms and security systems, fell nearly 45 percent to $130 million during the quarter. Sterne Agee analyst Peter Arment said selling some of the division's units could improve the segment overall.

The company's other construction-related divisions performed better. Air conditioner and heating products maker Carrier's operating profit jumped 57 percent. Profit rose 8 percent at Otis, the elevator manufacturing division.

The Hartford, Conn., company said Wednesday that total net income in the October-December period was $1.33 billion, or $1.47 per share. That's up from $1.2 billion, or $1.31 per share, in the same quarter in 2010.

Revenue grew to $14.97 billion from $14.86 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings per share of $1.46 and revenue of $15.06 billion.

United Technologies' costs and expenses were almost unchanged from the prior period.

For all of 2011, net income was $4.98 billion, or $5.49 per share. That's up 14 percent from 2010. Revenue for 2011 rose 7 percent to $58.19 billion.

The company said that it still expects 2012 profit of $5.80 to $6 per share, with revenue of $59 to $60 billion. Analysts expect earnings of $5.64 per share on revenue of $62.93 billion.

The outlook reflects caution about the European economy, as well as prospects for growth in the U.S. and the global aerospace market, Arment said.

Shares fell 13 cents to close at $77.65 Wednesday.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_united_technologies

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Weekly Mod: how to DIY repair a broken screen on an AT&T/GSM iPhone 4

Have a shattered or unresponsive screen on your GSM iPhone 4 and need to know how to DIY repair it? If you don't want to put out the extra cash for a new phone and feel pretty confident in your repair skills, we can walk you through how to fix your iPhone 4 on your own.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/CDdFZlUhqzA/story01.htm

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Citizen Scientists Study Whale Songs: Years of Work Done in Months

Pilot Whale wearing sound-recording tag. Credit: Daniel Ottmann; photo was taken taken as part of research conducted under permit 14241 issued by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service.

In November 2011, Scientific American, Zooniverse and a team of research partners launched the Web site Whale.FM, a citizen-science project devoted to cataloging the calls made by Pilot whales and Killer whales (Orcas), both of which are actually dolphin species. Different whale families have their own dialects and closely related families share calls. Underwater microphones, called hydrophones, typically attached by suction cups to the whales, record the haunting and lovely sounds. Cataloging calls is a step in learning more about the communication of these magnificent marine mammals.

So far, more than 5,000 Whale.FM visitors (including yours truly) have matched a total of more than 100,000 calls. The task is simple and fun?my daughters (ages 11 and 15) like to match calls with me. (The 11-year-old is pretty good at imitating the calls herself.) How it works: You listen to a call and see a spectrogram, a visualization of the sounds. Then you listen to several others that are displayed on the screen and see if you can select a match.

A question that has come up often about citizen-science projects is, How accurate are the data? Our friends at Zooniverse just did a spot check, using a subset of 300 of the calls. As Robert Simpson of Zooniverse put it in a note, ?We?ve compared their call categories to the (very!) preliminary results from Whale FM and it seems that the users are picking out good matches that tally with those of professionals.??? They located 28 subset-to-subset call pairings. A total of 25 of these were matched with calls from the same call category, as defined by professional scientists. Even more exciting, there were more than 350 pairings with calls outside of the 300-call subset?which is an important reason to do Whale.FM.

Whale families share dialects. Credit: Leigh Hickman, Open Ocean Consulting; photo was taken taken as part of research conducted under permit 14241 issued by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service.

One thing is also certain: Whale.FM already has produced the equivalent of years of cataloguing work by scientists in just a couple of months. Although there?s still more work to do, that?s an achievement worth singing about. For more information about other projects in which you can help scientists conduct research, please check out Scientific American?s Citizen Science page.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=7c641213830c497056a83c3455f0f198

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Shop Android Deal of the Day: Case-Mate Tough Case for Motorola Droid RAZR

The Jan. 24 Shop Android Deal of the Day is the Case-Mate Tough Case for the Motorola Droid RAZR. Built to withstand sudden drops and accidental falls, the Tough Case has a snug, form-fitting silicone wrap provides shock resistance, while the hard shell protects against impact. The lightweight, slim case adds support and shields your Motorola Droid RAZR, keeping your emotional state intact, one drop at a time. It's available today only for just $18.95 -- that's 46 percent off! Get yours while supplies last!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/3DVPdZnUOs4/story01.htm

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Tablet ownership nearly doubles in January (Digital Trends)

According to new information from the?Pew Research Center?s Internet and American Life Project, tablet ownership has jumped from about 1 out of every 10 Americans to approximately 19 percent. The previous study was conducted around the middle of December, thus the massive increase in tablet ownership can likely be attributed to the holiday shopping season. While Apple?s iPad definitely helped boost that percentage, less expensive tablets like Amazon?s Kindle Fire and?Barnes and Noble?s Nook Tablet were also partial contributors. Analysts have estimated that Apple sold approximately 13 million iPads over the holiday season while Amazon sold between four to five million Kindle Fire tablets.?In addition to tablet ownership increasing rapidly, e-book reader ownership also spiked from 18 percent in December 2011 to 29 percent in January 2012.?

With Apple making a big push into the education market with the iBooks 2 application and its partnerships with textbook publishers, it?s clear that the company is interested in expanding beyond selling the tablet to the mainstream consumer during 2012. According to a report from Global Equities Research, Apple has seen?approximately?350,000 textbook downloads?in the first three days of release. While the $15 price of a textbook on the iPad seems?detrimental?to publishers, production costs are cut by up to 80 percent and the publishers don?t have to deal with third parties in order to get the textbook into educational retailers. With over 5 million in textbook sales in the first three days, publishers are likely encouraged by the potential of more educators adopting the platform.

Apple?s efforts are also likely to be encouraged by the findings of a recent year-long study that discovered students were able to produce higher math scores by using an iPad application over a traditional textbook. ?According to a recent study conducted by PBS LearningMedia, over four out of five teachers believe that tablets enrich the classroom experience, yet only 22 percent of teachers reported that they have the right kind of technology in the classroom. The study also found that teachers working in?affluent school districts are twice as likely to have access to tablets like the iPad. ?

If?Apple has plans to become an influential force in the education system with iBooks 2, the company will have to work with school districts on providing iPad hardware for students either through the school system or encouraging parents to purchase the tablet. However, many teachers have already began an effort to obtain iPads and other tablets through sites like?DonorsChoose.Org. According to a recent Forbes article, the dollar amount for requests of Apple products rose from $50,000 over the?2009-2010 school year to?$800,000 during the following school year. While some of the requests were for Macbook laptops and the iPod Touch, the vast majority of Apple requests were related to the iPad. Officials at?DonorsChoose.org said that the company plans to distribute 40 million dollars between?80,000 classroom project requests during 2012.

At the?Menlo School in Atherton, California, the private school has been operating a?pilot program with iPads for the last year as reported by Venturebeat. According to school officials, students in the eighth and tenth grade are given an iPad to carry use during the entire school year. While the expensive tablets are still owned by the school, the student is free to take the iPad home in order to complete homework. According to Menlo School?director of technology?Eric Spross, he stated ?We choose iPads because they?re lightweight, portable, have a long battery life, and are self-service. They?re easier to support.?

However, the situation for public schools is vastly different from the Menlo School.?Beyond monetary deficits for technology like tablets, public schools also have to deal with regulations from?state and federal entities in regards to what technology the school is allowed to purchase. These same regulations dictate which textbooks have to be purchased, thus a textbook on the iPad platform may not be authorized. ?

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

More from Digital Trends

Survey: Consumers hoping for a tablet, not a laptop, this holiday season

Analyst puts Kindle Fire holiday sales at 5.5 million

Google tablet could be out in the next six months, says Schmidt

Is Microsoft Office coming to the iPad?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20120123/tc_digitaltrends/tabletownershipnearlydoublesinjanuary

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What puts Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt at odds?

LOS ANGELES?? They're arguably Hollywood's highest-profile couple, so it's only natural that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie would privately discuss the art and business of filmmaking. According to Pitt, they don't always agree.

Speaking with Reuters at Saturday's Producers Guild Awards in Beverly Hills, Pitt said that he and Jolie, who are each busy on both sides of the camera as well as raising six children together, will talk shop at the end of a long day.

Story: Jon Voight: Hollywood should fear Jolie-Pitt kids

"Usually we argue shop every now and then," Pitt said, noting that they tend to differ in their approach. "She's much more decisive, she's much more quick. I've got to see everything. I've got to shop the entire eBay to know exactly what I want and what I need."

When he's stumped, Pitt said, "I'll always go to her and talk it out."

Story: Five biggest jaw-droppers of the Globes

Jolie, who received the guild's Stanley Kramer Award for her directorial debut, "In the Land of Blood and Honey," said Pitt's role as a producer calls for different skills. He produced and starred in "Moneyball," one of the 10 films nominated for the Producers Guild's top prize.

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"I had to direct, I think it's different. I think he'd execute properly if he was the director," Jolie said. "But I do like to think of myself as decisive, so I'll take that."

Slideshow: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (on this page)

Regarding her first work in the director's chair, a love story set amid the harrowing destruction of the Bosnian War, Jolie said her intention "wasn't to make a political statement against anybody. It was simply to say, 'We must talk about what happened, we must try to learn from what happened, we must try to see humanity on all sides,' and if we can, then we can start to move forward."

On the other hand, Jolie admitted that she was "fascinated" by a political matter somewhat closer to home: the Republican presidential race.

Story: Jolie: Brad found me sobbing in the shower

"There's that part of us that's wanting to learn about what's going on, and wanting to see who could possibly be the next president, and taking that very seriously, which it is. And then there's that other part of it that is this strange television ... these characters that we're watching. So you try to kind of separate that," Jolie said, adding that "it goes into the bizarre sometimes."

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46098304/ns/today-entertainment/

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Newt Gingrich: Let's Go To The Moon Permanently, Get To Mars ASAP (VIDEO)

Space travel is an issue that will likely come in few states besides Florida this primary season, but both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were quick to recognize the importance of the Space Coast is to this state and agreed that the issue is important for the country.

"It should certainly be a priority," said Romney when asked whether, during a time of reduced federal spending, space exploration should be a focus.

"What we have now is a president who does not have a vision or a mission for NASA. As a result of that, there are people on the space coast that are suffering. Florida itself is suffering as a result," he said.

Gingrich added that he would like to go back to the moon "permanently" and get to Mars "as rapidly as possible, building a series of space stations and developing commercial space."

Romney and Gingrich both said that space exploration should be a collaborative effort between the federal government and the private sector.

"From NASA, from the Air Force space program, from our leading universities and from commercial enterprises -- bring them together, discuss a wide range of options for NASA and then have NASA not just funded by the federal government but by commercial enterprises," Romney added. "Have research done in our universities. Let's have a collaborative effort with business, with government, with military and with our educational institutions. Have a mission."

Gingrich was then asked whether he would "put more tax dollars into the space race and commit to putting an American on mars instead of relying on the private sector."

"Well, the two are not incompatible," he replied. "For example, most of the great breakthroughs in aviation were as a result of prizes. [Charles] Lindbergh flew to Paris for a $25,000 prize. I would like to see vastly more of the money spent encouraging the private sector into a very aggressive experimentation. I would like a leaner NASA. I don't think building a bigger bureaucracy and having a greater number of people sit in rooms and talk gets you there. But if we had a series of goals that we were prepared to offer prizes for, there is every reason to believe you have folks in this country and around the world who would put up an amazing amount of money and would make the space coast literally hum with activity because they'd be drawn to achieve prizes."

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/23/newt-gingrich_n_1225895.html

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