It’s important to recognize that the economic damage from obstruction and extortion didn’t start when the G.O.P. shut down the government. On the contrary, it has been an ongoing process, dating back to the Republican takeover of the House in 2010. And the damage is large: Unemployment in America would be far lower than it is if the House majority hadn’t done so much to undermine recovery.
Universal Pictures
Renee Zellweger in "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason"
This story first appeared in the Oct. 25 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
Bridget Jones isn't getting any younger. But there seems to be no sense of urgency to marry her off to a Hollywood suitor.
Film rights remain available to Helen Fielding's latest adventure, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, the third literary outing for the self-deprecating heroine who counts calories and units of booze consumed with the fervor of a Nobel-winning chemist.
PHOTOS: 11 Biggest Book-to-Big Screen Adaptations of the Last 25 Years
Despite mammoth first-day sales Oct. 10 in the U.K. for the new book (46,000 copies) and two hit Bridget Jones films totaling $545 million at the worldwide box office, neither Universal Pictures nor London-based production outfit Working Title has struck a deal for the tome. It finds Bridget, now 51, a widowed mother of two after the death via land mine of Mark Darcy, played in the films by Colin Firth. Working Title produced 2001's Bridget Jones's Diary, which helped establish star Renee Zellweger at the top of the Hollywood food chain, as well as 2004's Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Universal released the latter, which did nearly as much business worldwide as the first film.
"The book's imminent publication in many territories has taken up all of Helen Fielding's time, and no consideration has yet been given to the film rights of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy," Fielding's London-based agent Imogen Pelham tells THR of the novel that went on sale in the U.S. on Oct. 15.
STORY: Darcy's Death Spikes New 'Bridget Jones' Novel Sales
In the 11 years since Edge of Reason, Zellweger's star has faded. The last film she appeared in was 2010's My Own Love Song, which was not released in the U.S. Further complicating matters, Working Title and Universal are developing Bridget Jones's Baby, based on a Fielding original screenplay. That film, which would reunite Zellweger, 44, Firth, 53, and Hugh Grant, 53, was scheduled to shoot in 2012 with director Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) but abruptly was halted. At the time, Working Title's Tim Bevan told THR, "We are still working on the script, hence the delay to the start of production, but the film is going ahead as planned." Zellweger's reps say she still is attached to Baby, though Firth told the Chicago Sun-Times in April, "You might be seeing Bridget Jones' granddaughter's story being told by the time we get there."
Working Title could choose to ditch Baby and pursue a Boy movie with Zellweger or another actress -- if it secures rights. A source says Working Title "has an unwritten rule that they would get any Bridget Jones films. The Brits are different. They work as family, and Bridget is part of the family."
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Las Vegas Sands Corp. beat Wall Street's expectations with its third-quarter results as record profits in Macau helped make up for continued weakness in Las Vegas.
The gambling giant's net income nearly doubled, driven by growth at Sands' five Macau properties. Macau is the only place in China where casino gambling is legal.
Sands' billionaire CEO Sheldon Adelson on Thursday cited the company's ability to develop "large, iconic projects" as the key to its growth. Sands was the first U.S. corporation to enter Macau, now the world's largest gambling market. The enclave issued a limited number of gambling licenses in the early 2000s, and some U.S. competitors were shut out.
"I couldn't be more confident about our continued success," Adelson told analysts during a conference call.
China Ltd., which runs Las Vegas Sands' Macau properties, now accounts for more than two-thirds of the company's revenue. Sands China's revenue rose 42.7 percent during the third quarter.
Adelson said he is watching Japan closely to see if it might become the next major market for Sands. He said the company could change major Japanese cities for the better.
"Our integrated resorts in the first 24 months increased tourism in Singapore by 41 percent. It's generally acknowledged we have changed Las Vegas with our business model and convention phase. We have changed Macau," he said. "Everybody in the government will acknowledge that. And we could easily change any other city in which we have a focused, paced business model."
Revenue remained sluggish at Sands' two Las Vegas casinos, the Venetian and Palazzo. Only restaurants and clubs showed significant growth, with food and beverage revenue rising 22 percent from last year. Casino revenue was down.
Sin City patrons are increasingly rejecting gambling in favor of high-end drinking and dining, forcing casino companies into an entertainment arms race. Sands' Las Vegas casinos host two of the 10 most profitable clubs in the U.S., according to the trade publication Nightclub & Bar.
The company reported net income of $626.7 million, or 76 cents per share, up from $349.8 million, or 42 cents per share. Revenue grew by 32 percent to $3.57 billion.
Adjusted earnings were 82 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet predicted adjusted earnings of 76 cents per share on revenue of $3.47 billion.
The company's stock rose 18 cents to $71.15 in aftermarket trading after a 2 percent rise during regular-session trading.
A clear majority of the U.S. Supreme Court sounded ready on Tuesday to uphold a Michigan referendum banning affirmative action in higher education. But the justices were less clear about whether they want to reverse a 40-year-old doctrine that bars changing the political process to disadvantage racial minorities.
The issue before the court was not whether affirmative action in higher education is permissible. So far, the justices have said it is. Indeed, one of the court's landmark cases upheld the affirmative action program at the University of Michigan Law School. But three years later, 58 percent of Michigan voters approved an initiative that amended the state constitution to ban such programs.
While the ban went into effect, it was challenged in court. Affirmative action supporters, contending that minority enrollment was plummeting, argued that the state constitutional amendment violated the federal Constitution by restructuring the political process along racial lines. Last year a federal appeals court agreed, and the state appealed to the Supreme Court.
Tuesday's arguments focused primarily on the "political process doctrine," which dates back more than 40 years. In two cases, the Supreme Court has held that the political structure cannot be altered to disadvantage minorities. In 1982, for instance, the justices ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state of Washington to amend its state constitution to prevent Seattle from using busing to voluntarily desegregate the city's public schools.
On Tuesday, Michigan Solicitor General John Bursch urged the Supreme Court to reverse the Seattle decision and others like it, if necessary. "Maybe the whole doctrine needs to be re-examined," he said, after a number of justices seemed unconvinced that there is a difference between the Seattle case and Michigan's.
Testing the state's argument, Justice Anthony Kennedy asked whether it would be permissible to pass a constitutional amendment requiring that all pro-affirmative action laws be approved by a supermajority in the state Legislature. Bursch replied that the court "might want to ... consider whether there's a discriminatory animus based on race," but that laws can't fall simply because they have a "racial focus."
The ACLU's Mark Rosenbaum defended the affirmative action programs as themselves democratically enacted by the governing boards, the regents, of the state's universities, who are elected by popular vote.
Chief Justice John Roberts asked whether there would be any problem "if the regents decided to revoke the affirmative action programs." That, answered Rosenbaum, would be "absolutely fine."
"So why is it different," Roberts inquired, when the "people of the state themselves make that decision?" The problem here, Rosenbaum said, is that the referendum changed the political process "from the ordinary" to "the extraordinary."
Justice Kennedy seemed dubious. "I just don't understand," he said, why the voters can't take away affirmative action but the regents or legislature can. Lawyer Rosenbaum responded that the people "have multiple options available to them" to change university policies. "The one option they don't have," he said, "is to treat racial matters different from all other matters."
Students seeking to enact or get rid of other preferences can lobby the regents, Rosenbaum observed. But racial minorities cannot lobby for reinstatement of consideration of race in college and university admissions decisions. Moreover, he said, to get back their preferences, minority students would have to embark on a difficult and multimillion-dollar campaign to re-amend the state constitution in a state that is more than three-quarters white.
Also arguing against the referendum was lawyer Shanta Driver. Justice Stephen Breyer posed this hypothetical to her: Most cities have "a vast number of administrators" of all kinds of programs. Suppose an administrator of one project decides to adopt a racial preference, for a good reason, but then the city council votes to abolish that preference. Would that be unlawful?
"No," replied Driver. Breyer pressed on, asking "Where's the line?" How do you avoid giving every individual administrator the power "to decide on his own whether to use racial preferences without a possibility of a higher-up veto?"
Justice Sonia Sotomayor stepped in with an answer. The line, she suggested, is "a very simple one. "The line is crossed when the political process is "changed specifically and only for race."
A decision in the case is expected by June.
Arunachalam Muruganantham installs his machine in a village in Chhattisgarh, India.
Arunachalam Muruganantham installs his machine in a village in Chhattisgarh, India.
Arunachalam Muruganantham had his light bulb moment when he was 29 years old, and holding a sanitary napkin for the first time.
Examining the cotton pads he was buying as a gift for his new wife, the Indian entrepreneur realized that the multinational company that produced them was probably spending cents on raw materials, and making a huge profit.
Women in Muruganantham's village in Tamil Nadu, including his wife, would often forego these expensive pads for rags they used repeatedly through their cycles. Even more uncomfortably, sometimes they utilized husks or leaves during menstruation.
The exorbitant cost of the foreign-made pads cut into their families' meal budget. Given a choice between fresh pads and fresh milk, they chose the latter.
A new movie, Menstrual Man, documents how, at great personal cost, Muruganantham created a cheap machine to address persistent menstrual hygiene challenges for rural women on the subcontinent. But, as director Amit Virmani points out, the product's traction may have more to do with social entrepreneurship than with health concerns.
Women whose self-help groups buy Muruganantham's machine can make more than a dollar a day — close to a global poverty line — selling the pads.
Sanitary napkins from global companies are in Indian stores for about $1.50 for an eight-pack. The ones from Murugantham's machine wholesale at about 25 cents for an eight-pack; the women's groups can sell them at whatever retail price they choose, retaining the profit. The cost of the machines ranges from about $1,200 to $6,000, depending on the features.
"The primary impulse when people are struggling to make a living is either, 'How can I make more money?,' or 'How can I save more money?'," Virmani said. "If you address those needs, your innovation stands a better chance to be adopted, to spread."
The machine, which Muruganantham began to research in 1998, has three stages of production. Inside a stainless steel container, a motor fluffs cellulose to prepare it as the core material for the napkins. Hand- and leg-operated tools are used to form the core of the napkin. A heat press is used to seal and apply the outer cover to the napkin. It's sterilized and packaged, and then ready to sell.
Muruganantham's invention was already spreading across India when Virmani found him last year, with 500 machines sold and an innovation award from India's president under the entrepreneur's belt. But getting there had been all uphill.
Once Muruganantham had prototyped the machine, he needed testers. But his wife and other family members refused, as did girls at the nearby medical college. So Muru, as Virmani calls him, decided to become a tester himself.
He filled bottles with animal blood and attached tubes that would press the blood into his drawers as he biked and walked around town. His rural village shunned him, viewing this with suspicion. And his wife's suspicions — that he was chasing medical college girls around town for something other than product testing — ended his marriage.
Still, for six years, Muruganantham pressed on (yup, pressed) — and now more than 1,000 of his machines have been sold in India. There's also been global interest in replicating the model, from Afghanistan to Rwanda.
Virmani said he attributes Muruganantham's success to the inventor's understanding of his core audience, starting with the rudimentary nature of the machine. "It's wooden, and it's got pedals where he could have had motors," Virmani said.
"He knows how to motorize the damn things, but the more complicated you make the machines, at some point they'll break down," Virmani said. "The way he's engineered it, it's pretty much something that (the rural women) can repair themselves, and they don't have to keep paying for servicing."
Muruganantham says he wants to see India become a "100 percent sanitary napkin country" in his lifetime.
As for Menstrual Man, it's on the festival circuit, and will be available on iTunes in January.
Britney Spears, who spent a couple of days in London this week doing promo for her new album Britney Jean and her upcoming Las Vegas residency Piece of Me, is already back home in the US but last night she appeared on British TV in an interview she taped with Alan Carr on his brilliant talk show Chatty Man. For the most part, Britney was cute and endearing in the interview with only a few places where she got a bit awkward … but hey, it’s been a long time since she’s made herself available for these kinds of interviews so I can forgive her for being a bit rusty. Chatty Man is such a great show, I wish we were able to watch it here in the US (and NO, I’m not interested in an American version of the show … I want Austin Powers Alan Carr or nothing at all). Click the embed above to watch part 1 of Britney‘s interview with Alan on Chatty Man then click below to watch the rest of the interview segments.
An image from a video posted by Banksy shows a man representing the artist staffing a sidewalk stall featuring signed works for $60. Banksy says he only made $420 Saturday, with one customer negotiating a 2-for-1 discount.
An image from a video posted by Banksy shows a man representing the artist staffing a sidewalk stall featuring signed works for $60. Banksy says he only made $420 Saturday, with one customer negotiating a 2-for-1 discount.
New Yorkers who love a good bargain missed a golden opportunity Saturday, when the artist and provocateur Banksy, whose sly graffiti art adorns collectors' walls, opened a sidewalk kiosk in Central Park to sell his work for $60 apiece.
With original signed art works zip-tied to the wire walls of his kiosk, Banksy set up shop next to stenciled signs reading, "Spray Art" and $60." A video of the art sale shows the stall of Banksy's work being staffed by a gray-haired man who yawns as he sits in a chair, being ignored.
His first sale came hours after opening, when a woman bought two canvases for her children. She negotiated a 50 percent discount on the pieces, according to the website of the anonymous artist who has sought to keep his appearance and identity a secret.
The offerings included small and large canvases, including a version of "Love Is in the Air." A limited edition of that work sold for $249,000 at auction this summer.
One text-based canvas took the form of a message reading, "The key to making great art is all in the compositio" — the "n" was cut off, as the final word ran off the edge of the canvas.
A man who said he simply needed something to put on the walls in his new place bought four canvases. In total, Banksy took in $420 on the day.
As Gothamist reports, "if the pieces are verified by Pest Control [Banksy's agent], they will literally be worth tens of thousands of dollars (we've contacted them to find out if they will do so)."
At least two people who bought Banksy's art were planning to take their finds back home — to Chicago in one case, and New Zealand in another. They got hugs and, in one case, a kiss on the cheek from the man representing the world-famous artist, who is in New York for a month-long visit.
A limited edition of Banksy's "Love Is in the Air" sold for $249,000 at Bonhams auction house in London this summer. The artist offeed a version of the work for $60 on the sidewalk in New York Saturday.
A limited edition of Banksy's "Love Is in the Air" sold for $249,000 at Bonhams auction house in London this summer. The artist offeed a version of the work for $60 on the sidewalk in New York Saturday.
In a recent interview with the Village Voice conducted via email, Banksy described his motivations — or lack of them:
"I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There's no gallery show or book or film. It's pointless. Which hopefully means something."
AP Photo / Warner Bros.
Kim Basinger with Jack Nicholson as the Joker in "Batman."
While we couldn't imagine anyone else but Jack Nicholson as The Joker in 1989's "Batman," apparently director Tim Burton had another person in mind for the Caped Crusader's main foe.During a panel for the 25th anniversary of horror film "Chucky" at New York Comic Con, voice actor of the famed doll Brad Dourif revealed Burton once asked him to play the iconic Clown Prince of Crime.
"Tim Burton saw me on a plane and wanted to cast me and they [the studio] said no," said Dourif.
The actor's response came as a surprise after a fan near the end of the panel asked him if he would ever voice the Joker.
When another cast member on stage mentioned it was Nicholson who ended up with the part, Dourif joked, "He takes all my roles."
That wasn't the only time Dourif was pegged to play a member of Batman's Rogue's Gallery.
When Burton was originally attached to 1995's "Batman Forever," Dourif was considered to play the Scarecrow.
Here's a photo of Dourif:
Kevin Winter / Getty Images
According to producer Michael Uslan ("Batman," "The Dark Knight"), who we heard speak last year at NYCC, it was his sketch of Nicholson as the Joker (below) which helped convince the studio the actor should play the part. Uslan made the drawing over a photo of Nicholson in "The Shining" from the The New York Post.
AP Photo/Metropolis Collectibles, Inc.
David Eulitt / Kansas City Star via AP
The Nodaway County Courthouse in downtown Maryville, Mo.
By Kevin Murphy, Reuters
The online activist group Anonymous said on Tuesday it would launch a "Twitter storm" and stage a rally in a Missouri town to protest the dropping of sex charges against two ex-high school football players in an incident involving a 14-year-old girl.
Prosecutors in Nodaway County charged the male teenagers in connection with the incident at a party in January 2012 in Maryville, Mo. They said they dropped the case because of lack of evidence.
Anonymous, a loosely associated international group of activists and hackers, said it was planning an October 22 rally outside a courthouse in Maryville to support the girl, Daisy Coleman. It also plans to use Twitter to draw attention to the case.
Coleman and her mother, Melinda Coleman, have spoken about the case publicly in interviews with the Kansas City Star and other media. Melinda Coleman could not be reached immediately for comment on Tuesday.
"We demand an immediate investigation into the handling by local authorities of Daisy's case," Anonymous said in a statement posted online. "We have seen Daisy's story all too often."
Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder on Tuesday asked that the case be reopened, urging state Attorney General Chris Koster and Nodaway County Prosecutor Bob Rice to join him in asking the circuit court to convene a grand jury in the case.
"The appalling facts in the public record shock the conscience and cry out that responsible authorities must take another look," said Kinder, a Republican. Koster, like Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, is a Democrat.
The renewed focus on the case, which has drawn comparisons to the 2012 rape of a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, followed the Star's publication on Sunday of a months-long investigation.
The newspaper reported that one of the teenagers is from a prominent local family and admitted having sex with Coleman after providing her with alcohol, but said it was consensual. He was originally charged with felony sex assault.
The other teenager was accused of videotaping part of the encounter with an iPhone and was charged with felony sexual exploitation of a minor, the Star said. Both were 17 at the time of the incident and had been Maryville High School football players, it said.
Melinda Coleman told the Star that many people in Maryville, a city of about 12,000 in northwestern Missouri, turned on her daughter and family after they pursued the case and the family moved out of town after repeated threats and harassment.
Rice said on Tuesday that the article did not include all the facts about the criminal case.
"There was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt," Rice said in a statement. "The state's witnesses refused to cooperate and invoked their 5th Amendment privilege to not testify."
Nanci Gonder, a spokeswoman for Koster, said the state attorney general would not get involved in the case.
"Charging decisions in criminal cases are placed within the discretion of elected county prosecutors in Missouri," Gonder said. "State law provides the Attorney General's Office with no authority to review or overrule a prosecutor's charging decisions."
In the Ohio case, Anonymous accused authorities of shielding the popular Steubenville High School football program after two players were accused of raping a teenage girl at a party. The players were later convicted and a grand jury recently indicted a school employee on charges of obstructing the investigation.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663306/s/32858213/sc/38/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C10A0C160C20A9875450Emaryville0Emissouri0Esex0Eassault0Ecase0Ehack0Egroup0Eanonymous0Eplans0Etwitter0Estorm0Dlite/story01.htmMatt Bevin speaks during the 133rd Annual Fancy Farm Picnic in Fancy Farm, Ky., on Aug. 3. Bevin, a Louisville businessman, is challenging Sen. Mitch McConnell in the 2014 Republican Senate primary.
Matt Bevin speaks during the 133rd Annual Fancy Farm Picnic in Fancy Farm, Ky., on Aug. 3. Bevin, a Louisville businessman, is challenging Sen. Mitch McConnell in the 2014 Republican Senate primary.
Days after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell helped negotiate a deal to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, a prominent conservative group endorsed his primary challenger.
The Senate Conservatives Fund officially backed Tea Party favorite Matt Bevin Friday in Kentucky's 2014 Senate race, arguing he is "a full-spectrum conservative with the courage to stand up to the Washington establishment" while McConnell "has a liberal record and refuses to fight for conservative principles."
SCF has had McConnell in its cross hairs for months. In mid-September, the group launched a television advertising campaign attacking McConnell for not doing enough to defund the Affordable Care Act. It also ran radio ads in August calling on McConnell to oppose funding for Obamacare.
Bevin could use the financial support from SCF, which raised more than $16 million during the 2012 elections, if he hopes to pull off the upset. He brought in just $220,000 from July to September, while contributing $600,000 of his own money to the campaign. McConnell raised nearly $2.3 million during the same period and has more than $10 million on hand.
SCF, which has ties to former South Carolina senator and current Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint, has made a name for itself supporting Tea Party challengers over Republican incumbents and establishment-backed candidates in Senate primary races.
The group appears to be revving up for the 2014 cycle with the shutdown now in the rearview mirror. On Thursday, the group backed Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel over six-term GOP incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran.
One of SCF's endorsements in 2012 went to Ted Cruz, who has become the leader of the fight to defund Obamacare in Washington, in his primary campaign against Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.
The Messages app got a complete overhaul in iOS 7 and the changes weren't limited to just visual ones. One of the best new features of the Messages app is the ability to view all images you've received and sent in a thread in one easy to access place. Here's how:
That's it. You can then tap into and view any image that you've sent or received from that person, or group of people.
As a side note, this view images screen only loads anything that's in the current loaded conversation. If you have lots of messages between you and that person, you can view even more images in that thread by performing these steps inside that message thread:
Repeat the above process until you're either at the beginning of the conversation or until you feel the images you're trying to find would be contained in the loaded conversation. Then return to the view all images screen by tapping into any image and hitting the menu button again.
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October 16, 2013
If your company isn't fully taking advantage of social media, it might be missing out on opportunities to connect with customers, gain market share, and bring needed talent into the organization.
Experts say virtually every type of business can benefit from using social media as a business tool.
"We really are seeing interest and the potential for business value across the board," says Jeffrey Mann, research vice president at Gartner. "No one is immune, although it will be easier for some than others."
The most likely to see value, Mann says, are knowledge-based and highly collaborative industries, such as media, education, consulting, and high technology; industries or organizations that aren't hamstrung by regulation; and organizations with younger employees who are accustomed to working with social media.
Happy Thursday! We're back in the studio for another episode of The Engadget Podcast. This time out, Brian will be joined by Dana, Joseph and some moody blue backlighting, probably. Join us in half an hour, after the break! ...Stephen Frears' British dramedy Philomena, starring Judi Dench, has received an R rating in the U.S. from the Classification and Ratings Administration for two non-sexual uses of the f-word.
The Weinstein Co., which is releasing the critically acclaimed film over the Thanksgiving holiday, failed in its bid to be granted an exemption and will now officially appeal the rating, insiders tell THR. TWC believes the movie will appeal to a broad spectrum of moviegoers, and says an R rating will hurt that effort.
Harvey Weinstein's company is no stranger when it comes to taking issue with the ratings board, having waged high-profile appeals for The King's Speech and Bully, both of which received an R for language.
TWC has big plans for Philomena, based on the 2009 investigative book by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith about Philomena Lee, an Irish-Catholic woman who was forced decades earlier to put up her illegitimate baby for adoption in the U.S. The story follows Philomena (Dench) and the journalist (Steve Coogan) as they travel to the U.S. to find the child. TWC believes the film will be an awards contender.
Philomena opens in New York and Los Angeles on Nov. 22 before making a moderate nationwide push on Nov. 27, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Moviegoing spikes over the long holiday weekend, and TWC believes Philomena will play to families and serve as potent counterprogramming to more commercial fare.
STORY: The Weinstein Co. Books Thanksgiving Date With 'Philomena'
Last year, the ratings board granted a language exemption to Bully, which also contained more than one use of the word "f---."
"It doesn't make sense why they didn't do it here. It's a wholesome movie that deserves to be seen by everybody," says one person close to the film. "It's not even Judi Dench's character who says the word."
In the U.K., Philomena received a 12 rating, meaning it is deemed suitable for anyone 12 and over.
Philomena made its world premiere in competition at the recent Venice International Film Festival, where Coogan and Jeff Pope won the award for best screenplay. The film next made its North American debut at the Toronto Film Festival.
REUTERS - Chinese personal computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd has signed a nondisclosure deal to examine the books of troubled Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry Ltd
BlackBerry has already accepted a tentative $4.7 billion go-private deal orchestrated by its largest shareholder, but is also assessing other options including interest from its founders.
Here are important milestones in the history of the company formerly known as Research In Motion:
February 1985 - Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin co-found Research In Motion in Waterloo, Ontario, the Canadian university city where Lazaridis studied.
1989 - RIM develops a network gateway called RIMGate, precursor to its BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
1992 - Jim Balsillie joins RIM as co-CEO, mortgaging his house and investing $250,000.
1994 - RIM launches a handheld point-of-sale card reader, which verifies debit and credit transactions directly to a bank.
1995 - RIM builds its own radio modem for wireless email.
1997 - RIM lists on the Toronto Stock Exchange, raising more than $115 million.
1999 - RIM launches BlackBerry email service, first wireless device to synch with corporate email systems. Lists on the Nasdaq.
2002 - RIM adds voice calls to the BlackBerry. 2004 - RIM's surpasses 1 million BlackBerry users.
2007 - Apple Inc launches first iPhone. RIM passes 10 million subscribers, briefly becomes most valuable company in Canada. Google Inc's
2008 - RIM launches BlackBerry Storm, its first touchscreen and keyboard-less device. The screen uses a tactile feedback technology known as haptics, allowing a user to click down to select actions. The model bombs.
2010 - RIM buys QNX Software Systems for C$200 million. It will later use its software for its BlackBerry 10 devices.
2011 - RIM launches PlayBook, which is panned for lacking core BlackBerry functions such as email and organizer capability. It later books a writedown on unsold PlayBook inventory. Company slashes financial forecasts, the first of many revisions, which it then misses. Says will slash more than 10 percent of its workforce. Resists investor pressure for co-CEOs Lazaridis and Balsillie to step down. Offers to manage rival devices including Apple's iPhone and iPad. Delays its QNX-based BlackBerry 10 phones until late 2012.
2012 - Lazaridis and Balsillie step down as co-chief executives and chairmen. Thorsten Heins appointed CEO and Barbara Stymiest named chair of the board. Heins promises overhaul, says RIM will no longer issue financial forecasts. RIM hires bankers to assist with strategic review, delays BlackBerry 10 again, until early 2013. Shares hit lowest level in nearly a decade.
January 30, 2013 - Heins unveils BlackBerry 10 devices at glitzy event in New York, with simultaneous gatherings in other cities around the world, and company changes name to BlackBerry.
June 28, 2013 - Shares fall 25 percent after company reports loss and warns of more pain, says BlackBerry 10 sales were disappointing. Days earlier the company said it can now service Apple and Android devices for enterprise customers.
August 12, 2013 - BlackBerry says it is weighing options including a sale. Fairfax Financial Holdings' Prem Watsa steps down from board to avoid conflict of interest, days after Reuters reported that the company's board was warming to the idea of going private.
September 3, 2013 - Microsoft Corp
September 20, 2013 - BlackBerry warns of a steep loss and says it will cut more than a third of its workforce as it abandons the consumer market.
September 23, 2013 - BlackBerry signs tentative $4.7 billion deal to be acquired and taken private by a consortium led by its largest investor, Watsa's Fairfax Financial.
October 10, 2013 - Co-founders Lazaridis and Fregin say in a filing that they are considering a bid to buy the company.
(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; editing by Matthew Lewis)
Billings Pro for iPhone has been updated, adding the invoicing capabilities that came with the release of the iPad app last month. Users of the Billings Pro iPhone app can now create invoices just as they can on the iPad application, choosing from a number of templates, or using their own design. Additionally, slip details and edit windows now have categories, and users can nickname their projects. This update also contains a number of fixes and refinements.
As with the iPad app, users will need a Billings Pro subscription or Billing Pro Self-Serve account in order to utilize the app, which can be downloaded for free from the App Store now.
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