3 New Ways to Connect With Content That Interests You (Mashable)

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Each weekend, Mashable selects startups we think are building interesting, unique or niche products.

[More from Mashable: ConnectYard Connects Students and Profs Via Text, Social Media]

This week, we chose three startups that are helping to tailor content in a digital environment that has become over-saturated with information.

BetaBait connects startups with early adopters who love trying new products and apps. Subjot is a social network in which you follow topics rather than people. Movable Ink is adding dynamic graphic elements to emails, helping your message stand out in a flat inbox.

[More from Mashable: New iPhone App Connects Strangers Around the World Through Instagram Photos]

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BetaBait: Connecting Startups With Early Adopters

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Quick Pitch: BetaBait connects startups with their target group of beta users, who love to test new apps and products.

Genius Idea: Connecting eager users with exciting new products.

Mashable's Take: BetaBait's daily email service makes it easy for startups to find consumers and professional early adopters. Both the consumers and the startups get what they want, so the service is mutually beneficial.

In each daily email blast, BetaBait profiles new apps, businesses, social networking tools and educational resources that early adopters can get their hands on.

Since BetaBait's recent launch, it has amassed more than 500 beta users and 100 startup partners. The startups featured have reported dozens of new users after they've entered a partnership with BetaBait.

The startup's main source of revenue is currently startup sponsorships for its daily emails. Each email blast offers one startup sponsor the top section of the email body, ensuring their content is the first thing the community reads.

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Subjot: Follow the Topics You Care About

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Quick Pitch: Subjot is a social network that lets you follow people's topics, rather than everything they say.

Genius Idea: Fine tuning just the content you want to see.

Mashable's Take: You know when you only care about half of the tweets sent by someone you follow on Twitter? Say they have great taste in music, but you couldn't care less about their thoughts on sports. Subjot can help. On this new social network you only follow the subjects that interest you from the people you follow.

You use it just like Twitter -- post about whatever you'd like -- but your followers will only see posts about the subjects they've chosen to follow. You also don't need to follow everyone who follows you. You get a bit more space to "jot your thoughts" than you do on Twitter: 250 characters to be exact.

You can share links, photos, videos and engage in conversations on the nascent social network.

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Movable Ink: Brings Your Emails to Life

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Quick Pitch: iStockphoto, izusek

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Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20111224/tc_mashable/3_new_ways_to_connect_with_content_that_interests_you

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Electric Power - Mexico - Efficient appliance program reaches 76% of 2012 goal

Mexico's federal government has substituted 1.4mn electrical appliances in the country for new models, equal to 76% of the program's 2012 goal, energy...

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Source: http://www.bnamericas.com/news/electricpower/efficient-appliance-program-reaches-76-of-2012-goal

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Flint Emergency Manager Restores Limited Powers, Pay To Council, Mayor

Flint Emergency Manager Michael Brown has decided to restore limited responsibilities and salaries to the city's mayor and city council, the Flint Journal reports. Brown stripped the elected officials pay and suspended city council meetings after being appointed on Dec. 1.

According to Michigan Radio, Mayor Dayne Walling will now receive 60 percent of his former pay and full benefits coverage. Earlier this week, Brown also restored Walling's authority to participate in economic development, master planning, intergovernmental affairs and community engagement, and will allow the mayor to serve on an advisory board.

"Manager Brown has followed through on his commitment to make this a collaborative process that involves elected leadership and engages residents," said Walling in a written statement.

Flint City Council members will now receive about half their previous pay with no benefits, Michigan Radio reports.

"We've been meeting and we've been talking about the role and the responsibilities of the city council and talking about having a forum for the city council to be able to continue to play a role in government," City Council President Scott Kincaid told the Flint Journal. "So I'm pleased that he's looking at us playing a role."

In a written directive issued Tuesday, Brown announced that city council would be allowed one scheduled meeting per month for hearing public comment, conducting public hearings and addressing other matters to be decided by the emergency manager, the Flint Journal reports. Brown will also allow council members to attend public meetings in their respective wards, Michigan Radio reports.

Under Michigan's Public Act 4, signed into law earlier this year, Gov. Rick Snyder can send specially-appointed emergency managers to financially struggling cities or school districts and take over the powers of locally elected officials. Flint is one of four Michigan cities and school districts to have an emergency manager in place.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/flint-emergency-manager-restores-power-pay_n_1163038.html

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Wave of bombings across Iraqi capital kills 60 (AP)

BAGHDAD ? A wave of at least 14 bombings ripped across Baghdad Thursday morning, killing at least 60 people in the worst violence in Iraq for months. The apparently coordinated attacks struck days after the last American forces left the country and in the midst of a major government crisis between Shiite and Sunni politicians that has sent sectarian tensions soaring.

The bombings may be linked more to the U.S. withdrawal than the political crisis, but all together, the developments heighten fears of a new round of Shiite-Sunni sectarian bloodshed like the one a few years back that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the bombings bore all the hallmarks of al-Qaida's Sunni insurgents. Most appeared to hit Shiite neighborhoods, although some Sunni areas were also targeted. In all, 11 neighborhoods were hit by either car bombs, roadside blasts or sticky bombs attached to cars. There was at least one suicide bombing and the blasts went off over several hours.

The deadliest attack was in the Karrada neighborhood, where a suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden vehicle blew himself up outside the office of a government agency fighting corruption. Two police officers at the scene said the bomber was driving an ambulance and told guards that he needed to get to a nearby hospital. After the guards let him through, he drove to the building where he blew himself up, the officers said.

Sirens wailed as ambulances rushed to the scene and a large plume of smoke rose over the area. The blast left a crater about five yards (meters) wide in front of the five-story building, which was singed and blackened.

"I was sleeping in my bed when the explosion happened, said 12-year-old Hussain Abbas, who was standing nearby in his pajamas. "I jumped from my bed and rushed to my mom's lap. I told her I did not to go to school today. I'm terrified."

At least 25 people were killed and 62 injured in that attack, officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Figures gathered from Iraqi health and police officials across the city put the death toll at 60, and 160 injured. The spokesman for the Iraqi health ministry put the death toll at 57 and said at least 176 people were injured. But conflicting casualty figures are common in the aftermath of such widespread bombings.

For many Iraqis and the Americans who fought a nearly nine-year war in hopes of leaving behind a free and democratic country, the events of the past few days are the country's nightmare scenario. The fragile alliance of Sunnis and Shiites in the government is completely collapsing, large-scale violence with a high casualty toll has returned to the capital, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is displaying an authoritarian streak and may be moving to grab the already limited power of the Sunnis.

Al-Maliki's Shiite-led government this week accused Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the country's top Sunni political leader, of running a hit squad that targeted government officials five years ago, during the height of sectarian warfare. Authorities put out a warrant for his arrest.

Many Sunnis fear this is part of a wider campaign to go after Sunni political figures in general and shore up Shiite control across the country at a critical time when all American troops have left Iraq.

Because such a large-scale, coordinated attack likely took weeks to plan, and the political crisis erupted only few days ago, the violence was not likely a direct response to the tensions within the government. Also, al-Qaida opposed Sunni cooperation in the Shiite-dominated government in the first place and is not aligned with Sunni politicians.

The Sunni extremist group often attacks Shiites, who they believe are not true Muslims.

U.S. military officials worried about a resurgence of al-Qaida after their departure. The last American troops left Iraq at dawn Sunday.

Al-Qaida in Iraq is severely debilitated from its previous strength in the early years of the war, but it still has the capability to launch coordinated and deadly assaults from time to time.

The attacks ratchet up tensions at a time when many Iraqis are already deeply worried about security. The real test of whether sectarian warfare returns, however, will be whether Shiite militants are resurgent and return to the type of tit-for-tat attacks seen at the height of sectarian warfare in 2006-2007.

Iraqis are already used to horrific levels of violence, but many wondered when they would be able to enjoy some measure of security and stability after years of chaos.

"My baby was sleeping in her bed. Shards of glass have fallen on our heads. Her father hugged her and carried her. She is now scared in the next room," said one woman in western Baghdad who identified herself as Um Hanin. "All countries are stable. Why don't we have security and stability?"

While Baghdad and Iraq have gotten much safer over the years, explosions like Thursday's are still commonplace.

Al-Maliki's tactics are another source of concern, especially for Sunnis. He is also pushing for a vote of no-confidence against another Sunni politician, the deputy prime minister Saleh al-Mutlaq.

Ayad Allawi, who heads a Sunni-backed party called Iraqiya, laid the blame for Thursday's violence with the government. The Iraqiya coalition also includes al-Hashemi and al-Mutlaq, and Allawi has been one of al-Maliki's strongest critics. Allawi warned that violence would continue as long as people are left out of the political process.

"We have warned long ago that terrorism will continue ... against the Iraqi people unless the political landscape is corrected and the political process is corrected, and it becomes an inclusive political process and full blown non-sectarian institutions will be built in Iraq," Allawi told The Associated Press, speaking from neighboring Beirut. __

Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111222/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

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House GOP rejects 2-month payroll tax cut (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The House Tuesday rejected a plan backed by President Barack Obama to extend a 2 percentage point payroll tax cut for two months to buy time for talks on a full-year renewal.

Republicans controlling the chamber are instead demanding immediate talks with the Senate on a year-long plan.

If Congress doesn't pass a bill by the end of the year, payroll taxes will go up for 160 million workers on Jan. 1. Almost 2 million people could lose unemployment benefits in January as well.

The House vote, 229-193, kicks the measure back to the Senate, where the bipartisan two-month measure passed on Saturday by a sweeping 89-10 vote. The Senate then promptly left Washington for the holidays. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says he won't allow bargaining until the House approves the Senate's short-term measure.

The vote caps a partisan debate on Obama's jobs agenda, which has featured numerous campaign-style appearances but little real bipartisan negotiation, other than Senate talks last week that produced the two-month extension.

The Senate's short-term, lowest-common-denominator approach would renew a 2 percentage point cut in the Social Security payroll tax, plus jobless benefits averaging about $300 a week for the long-term unemployed, and would prevent a 27 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors.

The House passed a full-year extension last week, containing many spending cuts opposed by Democrats.

House Republicans, however, have erupted in frustration at the Senate measure, which drops changes to the unemployment insurance system pressed by conservatives, along with cuts to President Barack Obama's health care law.

Also driving their frustration was that the Senate, as it so often does, appeared intent on leaving the House holding the bag ? pressuring House lawmakers to go along with its plan.

Both sides were eager to position themselves as the strongest advocates of the payroll tax cut, with House Republicans accusing the Senate of lollygagging on vacation and Senate Democrats countering that the House was seeking a partisan battle rather than taking the obvious route of approving the stopgap bill to buy more time for negotiations.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111220/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_payroll_tax

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ABC under fire for cross-dressing comedy "Work It" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? The ABC comedy "Work It" doesn't even premiere until Jan, 3, and already it's invoking ire from rights groups.

The series has sparked anger from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Human Rights Campaign, who argue that the series could prove harmful to transgendered individuals.

The series stars Ben Koldyke ("How I Met Your Mother") and Amaury Nolasco ("Prison Break") as two friends and former coworkers who, unemployed and desperate, take to cross-dressing in order to get hired by a pharmaceutical company that's looking for female sales reps.

The concept spurred an angry message from GLAAD, which argued that, while the show "does not explicitly address transgender people, many home viewers unfamiliar with the realities of being transgender will still make the connection. 'Work It' invites the audience to laugh at images of men trying to adopt a feminine appearance, thereby also making it easier to mock people whose gender identity and expression are different than the one they were assigned at birth."

GLAAD took particular offense to a print ad for the series, in which the two main characters stand side-by-side at a pair of urinals, while dressed as women.

"Not only does it inadvertently further notions that transgender identities are humorous or artificial, but imagery like this are one of the first things anti-LGBT activists resort to when trying to deny transgender people protections against discrimination," GLAAD argues.

The organization asks that the network not circulate the urinal ad, and to "consider whether airing this show is worth the damage it has the potential to do."

Human Rights Campaign is going one step further, and urging the public to boycott the series.

The HRC has set up a write-in campaign which urges supporters to send a message to ABC reading, "It is never appropriate to belittle or mock those who do not adhere to society's gender norms or the struggles they face ... As an ABC viewer, I urge you not to air a show that reinforces negative and damaging stereotypes about transgender people."

Shouldn't they be more offended that the series sounds like an almost complete ripoff of "Bosom Buddies"?

ABC did not immediately respond to TheWrap's request for comment.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111217/tv_nm/us_crossdressing

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