Young violinist gets standing ovation in Virac

Catanduanes – a Bicol island just two hours and a half away from Tabaco, Albay – had its taste of live violin music after 12 years with a well-received concert of violinist Christian Tan and pianist Mary Anne Espina who opened the 2013 Catanduanes Summer Music Festival last March 16 at the Kemji Resort in the capital town of Virac.

Tan, a prizewinner of the National Music Competition for Young Artists and the youngest to join the Asian Youth Orchestra, captivated an audience led by Congressman Cesar V. Sarmiento who noted that music unites people from even from opposing political factions.

Tan and Espina received a rousing standing ovation after the rendition of Velez’s “Sa Kabukiran” and gave the artists another round of ovation after “Sarung Banggi.”

From 1984 to 2011, Tresvalles -- who became a modern Sisa in the island after a case of family betrayal compounded by unrequited love -- roamed the streets of Virac and Bato towns, lived in church belfries, town squares, by the lake and found short-lived menial jobs in parish convents in smart card for food and accommodation.

In the 1992 Summer Music Festival, Tresvalles -- in her summer rag-tag attire and with some wild flowers on her hair – attended the Bato town concert of soprano Luz Morete with pianist Najib Ismail on the piano. She entered the hall just in time when the soprano was singing Sisa’s aria (from Felipe Padilla de Leon’s Noli Me Tangere. In the post-concert reception in the church convent, the visiting artists noticed Tresvalles spoke perfect British English. From the way her life unraveled now, her story is the stuff of prime time telenovelas. Congressman Sarmiento – in his welcome remarks –acknowledged the presence of Tresvalles.

Thus far, the violinists hard in the island were Gilopez Kabayao in the 60s, Joseph Esmilla and Donnie Fernandez in the 90s and Romanian violin superstar Alexandru Tomescu who performed in the provincial capitol in April 2000.

An independent province since October 24, 1945, Catanduanes has heard only five violin recitals in its 68 years of existence. Alexander Comoda, a Manila-based piano technician, flew to the island to repair and tune a Yamaha upright piano which has seen better years.

The next festival concert is on April 27 in also at Kemji Resort featuring baritone Noel Azcona, flutist John Raymund Sarreal and pianist Najib Ismail.

With the successful festival opening, a suggestion has cropped that classical music be made a regular attraction in the island to lure more tourists. The island musicians think that classical music will bring in grade A tourists to the island which can be reached by bus in 12 hours.

From the air if you take the Cebu Pacific plane that reach the island in an hour, the entire island is still green but the forest cover is thin, almost totally bald in most chip card.

The jeepney accommodates passengers huddled against each other cheek-by-jowl but more humans are on the roof along with the assorted luggage. They are asked to get down before the vehicle reach the police-manned check-point and go back to the mini-roof deck under the high bright sun.

The capital town of Virac has a land area of 18,778.4 hectares with some 49 per cent of it still forestland. It was lush and forested when Bornean datus settled in it in the thirteenth century. With its new landmarks (Jollibee food chain, Center Mall, Mercury Drug) and with the new hotels and resorts sprouting all over the towns, you can see that big commerce has invaded the island with sari-sari stores slowly fading out.

Whether music can contribute to the island’s growing per capita income is debatable but it sure can do something about the quality of life among islanders. In the 60s, the islanders had piano and violin lessons enough to make a living for a violin-maker named Fructuoso Borja whose old violin collections are now housed in Museu de Catanduanes.

By and large, the music festival is probably the beginning of what islander Ariston “Titong” Sarmiento calls the auspicious beginning of people appreciating “the finer things in life.”

The original Mini, designed by Sir Alec Issigonis in the late 1950s, was a cleverly packaged, mass-market people’s car that pioneered many of the innovations we now take for granted. It became Britain’s most successful car, with some 5.3-million cars sold.

The modern-day Mini is an altogether different machine. It’s now a much bigger, highly sophisticated, upmarket compact, with a price tag to match. Right now, the most advanced, and most exclusive Mini of all is the limited-edition Mini John Cooper Works GP. Would Sir Alec have approved?

I think not. The focus of Sir Alec’s ground-breaking design was simplicity and innovation. The focus of the Mini JCW GP is on pure-bred, adrenalin-rush performance. Issigonis created the Mini to make motoring affordable and accessible. The GP is hardly cheap – and since it’s a limited-edition model, it’s also in extremely short supply.

But the late John Cooper would almost certainly have approved. A close friend of Issigonis, Cooper is considered the father of the modern single seater racing car, after his rear-engined Cooper racing cars revolutionised race car design on both sides of the Atlantic.

John Cooper’s work wasn’t limited to racing cars only, though: his performance-tuned versions of the Mini were renowned in rally circles, and in fact won the Monte Carlo Rally three times during the mid1960s.

The Cooper connection was recognised by BMW when it bought the brand, and almost all modern-era Minis produced under the German automaker’s stewardship incorporate the Cooper moniker.

But it’s the John Cooper Works badge that is of particular note here: the JCW badge is reserved for Mini’s hard-core performance machinery only. The GP takes the uncompromising performance approach of the JCW models another step further.

Using the Mini Cooper JCW Hatch as a starting point, the GP is the result of much fettling under the bonnet, together with a more aggressive exterior persona, and a cabin adapted to express its spirited intentions.

Pud puts his hopes on magic route into Slipper

Cessnock trainer Pud Davies will chase the Golden Slipper dream with Madame Fly in the Magic Night Stakes at Rosehill on Saturday. "The owner has the Slipper dream and we have a filly that is worth a go at it," Davies said. "I would have loved to get a run into her before this but we just ran out of RFID tag. She has had an easy and a hard trial at Cessnock and she won't disgrace herself against these fillies. We would rather be running in a class two than a group 2 but you don't get the chance to run in the Golden Slipper every day."

David Vandyke knows punters would be disappointed in his mare Choice Words but believe she could surprise them in Saturday's Birthday Card Stakes "provided everything goes right". Choice Words joins stable favourite Lamasery at Rosehill and both have each-way claims. "I think Choice Words has started favourite four out of her past five and not won," Vandyke said. "Punters probably hate her but she has been a good horse to her owners because she has won $58,000 in prizemoney and been stakes-placed twice in that time. She is a nice horse and you know what you will get with her, which is an honest run, but in this grade she has to get the break to win." Lamasery returns in the Ajax Stakes but his barrier trials have left Vandyke disappointed. "I think he is just taking a little more time to come to hand than usual," he said. "I think he can run a nice race but you will see his best when he steps up in trip."

Golden Slipper contender All The Talk will run with a changed name in next week's $3.5 million feature to avoid confusion with a four-year-old from Cloncurry, near Mount Isa. The Gary Portelli flyer will be known as I'm All The Talk in the Slipper. "It doesn't matter what they called him if he wins it," Portelli said. "He trialled on Tuesday and won it as he liked, so all we need now is a good barrier." The Queensland outback horse, All The Torque, will not be challenging for any major races soon with career stats of 28 runs for a total of five wins.

Punters will be able to access free Wi-Fi for their tablets and smart phones at the Rosehill Guineas meeting. The Australian Turf Club has installed a robust network designed to cope with thousands of mobiles at the racecourse. "This is a great step forward," said Racing NSW chief executive Peter V'landys. "The ATC has commenced utilising the $24 million grant provided through the merger agreement with this smart project. These funds were intended for projects that improve the racegoer experience and a free, high-quality Wi-Fi network certainly does that. Customer access to the internet is extremely important in our chip card, so this is a very positive initiative."

Victoria Racing Club chief executive David Courtney announced changes to the balloting conditions to this year's Melbourne Cup to provide more focus on current and staying form. Only performances that satisfy the first clause of balloting of wins in listed races of 2300 metres or further, or be placed in a group or graded race of 2300m and beyond, will be considered when the ballot is held. Previously, all prizemoney won since the sunset date was considered in the ballot but the sunset has been moved forward six months, so instead of August 1, 2011, it will be February 2012, with the exception of the placegetters from the 2011 Melbourne Cup and winner of 2011 Caulfield Cup. Some overseas races have been withdrawn as ballot-free.

The ballpark that gave up the fewest home runs last season was AT&T Park, whose tenants, the San Francisco Giants, won the World Series. Yet building a winning team in an extreme pitcher’s park has been much more challenging for the teams in the 28th- and 29th-ranked parks for home runs. The San Diego Padres (Petco Park, 28th) and the Seattle Mariners (Safeco Field, 29th) have not won much lately, and they decided after the season to move in their fences. In San Diego, the power alleys will be reduced by 12 feet in left field and nine feet in right. Another part of the right field wall will come in by 11 feet. In Seattle, the left field walls will be pulled in, in various spots, from four to 17 feet, with a four-foot reduction for much of right field. “We have been an outlier in terms of the difficulty hitting in our ballpark,” Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik says. “What we really want to be is a fair ballpark for pitchers and hitters. That’s the biggest thing.” Neither the Padres nor the Mariners (whose retractable roof does not enclose the ballpark) can do much about the cool and heavy local air, which can depress the flight of a ball. But at least their hitters won’t be as frustrated as before. Now, of course, the teams need to find hitters talented enough to take advantage. That could be a much bigger challenge.

It’s been quite a debut for the new owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who last May paid $2.15 billion for a team emerging from bankruptcy with a payroll just over $100 million. Now the payroll is doubled, Dodger Stadium is being renovated, and the team is stuffed with TV stars. That’s no coincidence, since the Dodgers’ spending has everything to do with a lavish new deal for their cable rights. The Yankees showed the value of must-see players (who also win) on the wildly successful YES Network in New York. The Dodgers haven’t grabbed a playoff spot since 2009, so it will be fascinating to see if all their imports can come together and lead them back. Stan Kasten, the team president, promised that it would take more than dollars to win. “I always say smart beats rich,” he said. “The Yankees got as good as they are because they’re both smart and rich. We’re working on it.” All of the newcomers, even Zack Greinke, must prove the Dodgers smart for believing that their best days are in front of them, not behind them. If it turns out that the Dodgers paid Greinke for his Royals success, Carl Crawford for his Rays success and Hanley Ramirez for his Marlins success (and so on), this could turn into a big-budget Hollywood flop.

It was time for Josh Hamilton to leave the Texas Rangers. After five seasons in which he led them to their first two World Series, the fans had turned on him, and the team made a tepid offer to bring him back. Even so, the Rangers served Hamilton well in his time there, creating an environment in which he could manage his complicated life and thrive. A hefty contract (five years, $125 million), new teammates and a ballpark that is less hitter-friendly bring challenges that Hamilton, a recovering addict, must navigate now that he’s with the Los Angeles Angels. “I have a past history of making mistakes with drugs and alcohol, drinking twice in seven years, which is not good for me,” Hamilton said after signing. “They’re going to help me with my support system to put things in place that I had with the Rangers.” If Hamilton stays clean, he will add another dangerous bat to a glittering lineup that last year added Albert Pujols from St. Louis. Splashy annual signings do not guarantee success, and the Angels are starting to look like their 1980s teams, put together largely by poaching stars like Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson and Fred Lynn from other teams. But if Hamilton makes a smooth transition, the Angels could power their way to the World Series for the first time in more than a decade.

The future of the identity credential

From the beginning of time, humans have employed an array of methods for identifying people and deciding how to rank them in terms of what we in the identification industry now call “privilege management.”

Early man relied on simple, direct visual or voice identification of others to grant a privilege such as sharing a meal or shelter. Larger human settlements added markings, colours, code words or sounds to help with identification and the management of a limited number of important, often vital, privileges.

As settlements expanded into villages, towns and cities, the need to deal with total strangers and finding methods for granting them specific privileges became more complicated and relied more on proving one’s relationship with a known and trusted person or group.

In the twenty-first century, with unprecedented levels of migration, travel and international commerce, a true global village environment has emerged that nevertheless still relies on proving our relationships – with governments, employers, schools, financial institutions, companies with which we do business – as a way of gaining access to certain privileges.

We use our drivers licenses for general ID purposes such as banking or checking into a hotel; passports to travel internationally; health insurance cards for access to medical treatment; frequent-flier cards, bus passes, library cards, bank debit and credit cards – even ski passes and loyalty cards. We carry badges to access office buildings, college dorms, parking, company cafeterias or gyms. For access to online information or digital transactions, we use cards or tokens and a multitude of passwords that must be memorized. The need for identification and privilege management has exploded in volume and complexity.

By the year 2023, it is likely that most people will be required to carry government-issued credentials. However, the increasing drive for efficiency by both governments and technologists will likely result in a reduced number of physical credentials and a subsequent rise in secure electronic IDs.

We could see an Italian citizen use her Italian government-issued national ID card to enroll into the British National Health Service or apply for a temporary residence in Singapore, each enrolling authority having full control of its procedures and policies.

As we move on to the world of enterprise, the wider adoption of cyber security measures will result in more secure, multi-function electronics credentials. The reliance on passwords is likely to disappear for most enterprises with more than 50 employees in advanced economies. They will be replaced by a single, secure electronic identity for physical and logical access that is centrally issued and managed.

For consumers, we are likely to see mobile phones play a much larger role as both a credential and secure transaction device. There is growing confusion and irritation as people juggle ever more ID cards, tokens and passwords in order to prove that they are entitled to the privileges they are trying to access: money, the office, the ski slope, their bank accounts, social or company networks, etc.

This mounting dissatisfaction with the status quo is accelerating a conversion between employee ID and consumer ID. We see this now with the Bring Your Own Device trend, as companies begin to cater for individuals using their own preferred mobile devices. The next step is for companies to enable their employees to add access privileges to their mobile devices.

Ultimately the convergence of physical IDs into fewer, more secure and convenient electronic credentials will offer people more efficient and secure solutions for privilege management.

The technology is here today, but more is needed to make this vision a reality. Policies and practices must be developed that allow diverse organizations to use a secure credential issued by a third party, and this requires some changes in culture and mind-set. Also important is the wide adoption of NFC-enabled smart phones to empower people with secure credentials and transaction devices, right in their hands.

If the customer in front of you at the local department store was purchasing Styrofoam cups, cough syrup, Sprite, Jolly Ranchers and Gummi Bears, would you give him even a questioning glance?

Most likely not, yet that customer just purchased all the makings of a drug that has gained popularity among young people.

That was just one of many facts shared Tuesday at the East Liverpool Motor Lodge during Operation Street Smart, an award-winning, nationally renowned program presented by undercover officers to a roomful of parents, concerned officials, social service agency staff members, educators and law enforcement officers.

Lt Shawn Bain and retired Sgt. Michael Powell of the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, gave a sobering four-hour presentation aimed at enlightening the community on current drug trends, how young people get the drugs they're taking, how they hide them and refer to them and the effects on their bodies and lives.

A display of devices used to ingest drugs showed such surprisingly normal items as a large hollowed-out bolt, while a power strip lying on the floor turned out to be deceptive: Although its light was on, it wasn't plugged in, and the officers showed that it was actually battery operated and had a compartment in which drugs could be concealed.

The aforementioned cough syrup and accoutrements were included in a startling video of a young man who showed, step-by-step how the Jolly Ranchers candies and Sprite are used to dull the taste of cough syrup in a mixture often referred to as "drank" or even "deuce," "tre" or "fo" that indicates how many ounces of cough medicine was used in its making.

5 things you need in a secure credit card

The number of credit card holders who have become victims of cyber frauds has risen exponentially. In the recent past, electronic payment systems have become vulnerable to new types of misuse. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in February asked banks to put in place certain security and risk measures. The apex bank released new guidelines to make payment through credit or debit card more secure. According to RBI data, the number of credit card frauds rose to 1,590 in the quarter ended 31 December amounting to Rs.9.49 crore compared with 1,327 cases amounting to Rs.4.93 crore in the preceding three months.

Considering these fraudulent activities, it has become even more important to pick a secure credit card. “Like you choose your toothpaste or your shampoo, you should also choose your credit card. People just buy a credit card become his/her bank is selling it. You should exercise your right to choose a financial product,” says Uttam Nayak, group country manager (India and South Asia), Visa.

Banks and other financial institutions sell hundreds of credit cards. It is impossible for a person to select the best card in the market. However, you can choose a secure card. How? Just ask your banker few questions before buying a credit card. Here are the five things that you need to ask your banker before accepting the card that they offer.

Most banks offer zero-liability policy on credit cards. However, the cover will vary from bank to bank. “We’ve zero liability for credit cards. Any fraudulent transaction after reporting loss of card will be covered. Customers need to inform immediately on the loss of card,” says Rajesh Kumar, senior executive vice-president, retail credit and risk, HDFC Bank Ltd.

Once you know that you will get zero-liability, ask if it is covered for stolen card or any kind of fraudulent activity. “In the US and most of the markets, zero-liability is mandated by the regulator. In India, though zero-liability is provided but still all facilities are not available as nobody is ready to pay a fee,” says Nayak.

Ascertain the number and amount of fraudulent transactions covered. Some banks cover transactions within five days prior to reporting whereas some do for three days. Some banks cover unlimited amount of transaction while others have a cap of Rs.10,000. A few banks ask you to pay the first Rs.5,000 lost and the rest is covered by them. So, there are multiple schemes available. The process of claim also varies from bank to bank. In case of any loss or fraud, your bank may ask you to give it in writing that you haven’t done it. Some may record your phone call.

RBI has asked all banks to provide chip-based cards if the card is used in a foreign land at least once. “Chip-based card is more secure as it is difficult to copy data from it compared with a magnetic-strip card,” says A.P. Hota, managing director and chief executive officer, National Payments Corp. of India.

This is true only for swipe purchase and not when you purchase online. However, there have been reports that chip-based cards also have been compromised. “This happens when the terminal set at a merchant outlet can read only magnetic-stripe cards (chip-based cards do have magnetic strip as of now). The terminal will use the magnetic strip to read the card. Now in case a fraudulent activity happens, the liability will fall on the bank through whose terminal the activity happened. So customer or the chip-based issuing bank is protected,” says Nayak.

As you have taken protection by opting for a chip-based card, the liability of fraudulent activity will not fall on you.

RBI has stated that banks should move towards a system that facilitates implementation of additional factor of authentication for cards. Two-factor authentication is considered to be safer as the bank will send a one-time password to your mobile phone and you can transact only if you key in the code that has been sent to you. However, some banks still don’t have this. For instance, HDFC Bank Ltd does not offer two-factor authentication on all cards. Citibank gives you an option of two-factor authentication or do a direct transaction. Axis Bank Ltd has put in place two-factor authentication.

In case of loss of card or fraudulent activity, the first thing that you should do is to block the card. All banks that offer credit cards provide the facility to block the card by calling the customer care helpline. But what happens if you are abroad or unable to contact the customer care? “HDFC credit card can be blocked through Internet banking. You can anyway call the customer care too,” says Kumar. RBI has stated that banks should provide easier methods such as text message to the customer for blocking card and get a confirmation to that effect after blocking the card.

RBI has also asked banks to frame rules based on the transaction pattern of the usage of cards by the customers in coordination with the authorized card payment networks for preventing fraud. Simply put, in case a bank sees a transaction happening in a geographical region which is unusual for the customer, they call the customer to validate whether he/she wants to do the transaction. American Express, based on the customer behaviour, calls the card user if they find any suspicious behaviour and also for big-ticket purchases.

US debit networks back Discover application for common chip spec

Discover beat out competition from MasterCard and Visa to win the mandate following an evaluation from a working group convened under the auspices of the Secure Remote Payment Council (SRPC).

Diane Offereins, president of payment services at Discover, says: "Discover has deployed D-PAS for the past four years and already has millions of cards in market among international issuers. We are confident it is the right path forward for US debit networks."

The SRPC - a cross-industry trade association formed in 2010 - says the decision is the culmination of months of evaluation of different proposals. It has called on Visa, MasterCard and outlying debit networks to get behind the initiative and take steps to commercialise it.

The group says it will also evaluate the use of one-time card number technology developed by First Data/Star as a further protection layer against skimming and data breach frauds.

Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance, welcomed the move as a significant breakthrough in the debit routing issue: "The limits that put the Visa and MasterCard option at a disadvantage for the regional debit networks, namely support for contactless, limits over cardholder verification choices, and switching concerns have been addressed by using DPAS. Discover is offering up its significant investment and intellectual property to the regional debit networks in exchange for having a chance at having its Pulse debit card being one of two application choices on a chip card. That puts them in a stronger position with issuers choosing to use them as their second debit option under Durbin."

US regulations passed last year on debit card interchange fees and routing require that issuers support at least two unaffiliated brands on debit cards in order to provide merchant routing choice - a requirement that will need to be accommodated within chip technology in the future.

"Deployment of a single interoperable chip and PIN solution for PIN debit should put in place one of the biggest remaining puzzle pieces to spur the US payment industry toward adoption of chip technology."

Forgive John Calipari if he wants to put this whole mess behind him and talk about next season. To say this season, which started with his Kentucky basketball team ranked No. 3 in the nation, did not go according to plan would be quite an understatement.

Calipari lost 12 this season, his fourth with Kentucky. He lost 14 games combined in his first three seasons coaching the Wildcats. He lost 14 combined in his final four seasons at Memphis.

Calipari had been to the Sweet 16 or beyond in each of the previous seven seasons – the Elite Eight six times, the Final Four three. He won a national title last year.

Tuesday night, Kentucky ended its season with a stunning loss at Robert Morris in a first-round National Invitation Tournament game played in a 3,000-seat gym with roll-away wooden bleachers. It marked the first time a Calipari team hadn't either made the NCAA Tournament or won three-plus games in the NIT since his Massachusetts squad did so in 1990 – his second season as a head coach.

"Nobody thought the season would be like this," UK freshman forward Alex Poythress said. "This is very surprising. Last year's team was just so good, they made it look so easy. In reality, it's not."

Calipari called it humbling. He said he learned some valuable lessons. But then he basically said: Look out, world.

"They'll say, 'Well, maybe you can't do it with young guys.' And I come back to: We did it last year, won a national title with young players. But that'll be out there. So we'll have something to prove," Calipari said. "If there's any doubters, have at it. You can doubt all you want. This program's in great shape."

Calipari is bringing in the nation's No. 1 recruiting class. Yawn. That's his fifth in a row. But this one is different. With an unprecedented six McDonald's All-Americans in the group, including Julius Randle, the nation's No. 2 prospect who picked the Wildcats on Wednesday, many recruiting gurus are calling it the best class ever assembled.

Add to that the big news out of Kentucky's somber postgame locker room Tuesday night. Freshmen Archie Goodwin, Willie Cauley-Stein and Poythress all said they're unprepared for the NBA and don't plan on being one-and-dones like so many Calipari players before them. Goodwin and Poythress sounded certain about coming back – "I don't think I'm ready," Poythress said – while Cauley-Stein hedged a bit.

There was no word from star Nerlens Noel, who missed the final nine games because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament. He is still considered a top-five NBA pick and is expected to leave. But if the others come back, along Kyle Wiltjer and Ryan Harrow as juniors, Kentucky could have a super team on its hands.

"It's no reason why I think any of our guys should really leave," Goodwin said. "We should come back next year … and just try to do better than what we did this year. Because the expectations we had for ourselves this year, we didn't meet them at all. We didn't come close."

Goodwin said Kentucky will have a hungry group of returning players to drive the newcomers – as it did last season when Doron Lamb, Terrence Jones and Darius Miller formed a veteran core that helped guide the Wildcats to the program's eighth NCAA title.

Low-tech schemes drive up banking, card fraud losses

Criminals devise various tricks to get a hold of customers’ banking, credit or prepaid card details — some very modern, others pretty basic. As financial institutions are investing heavily on sophisticated, high-tech fraud prevention tools, crooks are going back to basics to steal money from consumers.

Industry analysts confirmed that low-tech frauds, such as distraction thefts and cardholders being tricked into giving their plastic money and personal identification numbers to scammers, have driven up the numbers of online banking and card fraud losses.

“It is very likely that the UAE will follow this trend, given that the banking and payments sector uses very similar technology,” Mike Braatz, senior vice president, payments fraud, at ACI Worldwide told Gulf News.

Experts said many criminals have switched to simpler tactics to get cash, because banks and other financial institutions have employed more sophisticated fraud prevention layers that are difficult to penetrate.

“In recent years, banks have placed considerable focus on tackling online banking fraud. There are a lot of prevention and detection software tools now used by banks to cut theft. Fraudsters will always find the lowest common point of infiltration, so older, less technical schemes will always continue to make cyclical appearance,” added Braatz.

Nicolai Solling, director of technology services at Help AG said the problem lies with customers who tend to place convenience over security.

“Something as simple as opting for PIN-based authentication for transactions is often disregarded in favour of authorisation by signature which is much less secure,” Solling said.

However, he said, the tougher competition brought on by the entry of new payment services such as near-field communication (NFC) and e-wallets will likely encourage financial institutions to “ramp up their offerings, while taking into consideration both convenience and security of their customers.”

“Our business in Europe has been growing really well,” Ann Cairns, president of international markets at the company, said in an interview in Dubai. “The sovereign debt issue isn’t affecting consumer confidence in the way that it might.”

The Purchase, New York-based company said it’s benefiting from strong consumer spending in the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Germany and Eastern Europe. At the same time, consumers are also turning away from cash in favor of plastic.

Mastercard is expanding even as Europe’s crisis enters unprecedented territory after the region’s finance ministers agreed March 16 to a tax on Cypriot bank deposits. Officials unveiled a 10 billion-euro ($13 billion) rescue plan for the country, the fifth since the debt crisis broke out in 2009.

Gross dollar volume in Europe, or the value of transactions processed by MasterCard, climbed 9.3 percent to $1.1 trillion on a local currency basis last year, according to the company’s annual statement. Mastercard expects an 11 percent to 14 percent net revenue compound annual growth rate this year, Cairns said, without giving more detail on its expectations for Europe.

The 17-nation economy will follow last year’s 0.6 percent contraction by shrinking 0.3 percent in 2013, the first back-to- back decline since the euro’s debut in 1999, according to forecasts from the European Commission.

“Our business isn’t just credit cards,” said Cairns, who manages all markets and customer-related activities outside the U.S. “We’re consumer payments and despite sovereign debt, consumer payments continue to grow in the economy.”

Global consumer expenditure is increasing 5 percent to 6 percent, “so there is a natural growth curve,” she said. “Only 15 percent of the world’s consumer payments are electronic, 85 percent are still cash and paper so there’s a big circle which is growing outwards.”

Mastercard net income beat analyst expectations in the fourth quarter, rising 18 percent to $605 million. The company is fending off competitors Visa Inc. (V) and Shanghai-based China UnionPay as it seeks a larger share of the electronic payments processing market. It is targeting developing countries such as Myanmar, Ghana, Nigeria and Angola for growth amid the global consumer shift from cash to plastic.

A recent decision by RBA means that from today card companies are supposed to be able to "limit surcharges to the reasonable cost of acceptance".

Some card companies argue the reasonable cost is less than one per cent of the transaction. Yet based on current pricing, Jetstar's fee can be as much as 14 per cent of the transaction.

The fee is being scutinised not only due to its magnitude, but because it is fixed across multiple card types that have different costs of acceptance. For instance, the expenses associated with paying by American Express are about twice the size as those for using Visa or Mastercard.

But Klaus Bartosch, the Gold Coast man who started the Change.org petition late last week, said: "They claim the $8.50 is a `service fee', but it's plain and simple a credit card surcharge - and it's not right. So I thought I would see what would happen if I started a petition on Change.org to let Jetstar hear from their customers directly."

Still, Mastercard fears airlines - and the taxi industry - are likely to "get away" with their big fees for payment by plastic despite new limits.

Mastercard said that it believed too many associated costs had been included in the definition - for instance, fraud losses and communications expenses.

Card companies didn't have any way of finding out what these expenses were, making it impossible to assess whether a surcharge was reasonable.

The solution was beefed up powers for the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission so that card companies could find out what those extra expenses were, said Mastercard's vice president of strategy and corporate affairs, David Masters.

German Startup Brings Finance Industry's Fast-Cash Option to Galleries

Imagine that a young gallerist shells out $13,000 for a booth at an indie art fair like Volta or Independent. Tack on another few grand for food, flights, shipping, and hotels. If all goes well, he or she sells enough art to recoup the expenses — maybe even turn a profit — before going home, unpacking, writing up the invoices, and then waiting for the checks to come in.

But, as any cash-gutted dealer in this situation knows, that can take weeks or months. In the meantime, rent still has to be paid, as do day-to-day operating costs and any fabrication expenses. The artists must wait even longer.

It's a gamble that can easily topple a business, and the art trade is unique for operating without a net. For almost any other company that issues invoices, the financial sector already offers a solution. It’s known as “factoring,” and is common practice in many professions, but largely unheard of in the gallery world.

The way it works is that a third-party company advances payment to a seller while directly invoicing the other — a little like PayPal, but with higher stakes. In recent years, the art market has increasingly come to embrace finance industry models, creating its own art investment banks and lenders, such as ArtAssure and PlatinumArts. Now, a German startup called Foundation wants to be the first to bring the traditional factoring framework long used by mainstream companies like Rosenthal & Rosenthal to the primary art market.

“It’s an incubator for a certain kind of gallery,” said Foundation co-founder Ulrich Voges, who also launched Volta in 2005 with Amanda Coulson. Established galleries don’t need extra capital, and private lenders already exist to serve the blue-chip secondary market. But, to date, no entrepreneur has risked advancing cash to the lower-end galleries on the primary market.

“What’s important to these galleries is cash flow, the liquidity,” Voges said. “What you really need on your daily basis is always something you have to fight for."

So far, Foundation, which Voges founded alongside Coulson, Karl Rheinberger, Tobias Kirchhofer, and Philipp von Ilberg, has raised €800,000, and plans to be operational with that budget in time for Art Cologne in April. At that point, any of its 100 member galleries can approach Foundation on a deal-by-deal basis and, if it approves the sale, the gallery will receive a 90-percent advance within 48 hours. Foundation keeps 3.8 percent for itself — slightly more than what a credit card company typically charges merchants.

"The introduction of factoring to the art trade is such a no-brainer that one wonders why no one has done it before," said Joost Bosland, a director at Cape Town's Stevenson gallery, which has signed up for the service. Once, Stevenson sold a sculpture at the Armory Show to a collector who picked up the work at the end of the fair, but never paid for it. "Eventually we physically went to their premises to collect the work more than a year later."

“I would have used it when I began,” said Patricia Asbaek, who opened her Copenhagen gallery in 1975. “We more or less all started from scratch with a lot of good ideas and great artists and young collectors. It was a hard job to survive and I would really have appreciated a special art bank to support me.”

If all goes according to plan, Voges expects to work with upwards of 1,000 international galleries in the next few years. For now, however, its business is restricted largely to the euro zone since it does not yet meet U.S. trade regulations. American galleries have signed up, but can only use the service for deals with foreign collectors.

“I do think there’s a need for it,” said art financier and ArtAssure president Asher Edelman. “This is not a very good cash-flow business.” But, he added, Foundation’s 3.8-percent cut seemed steep to him, and he doubted that most of galleries' transactions really take longer than a month.

Then again, backing untested artists brings sizeable risk. Unlike art that has already gone to auction, work on the primary market cannot be objectively valued, which is why factors have typically stuck to commodities: tradable products that they know they can repossess and sell if a client defaults on payment.

If a buyer doesn’t pay Foundation after three months, which Voges thinks is unlikely in this industry, it too will repossess the artwork.  But whereas traditional factors wouldn't want to touch such an asset, Foundation thinks its backers have experience in the art world that renders them uniquely suited to handling work of more indeterminate value.

“There’s probably no alternative” for factors in this price range, added Edelman, “so maybe it is fair. If it’s only dealing in $20,000 pictures, then maybe it’s not too expensive.”

A potentially more controversial aspect of the business is its aim to create a primary market price database. Over the next three years, Foundation plans to compile sales information collected from members, which its marketing materials say will ultimately be “desirable for many groups and other providers in the field in terms of screening this high-potential market.”

But Voges was quick to downplay the database: “It’s almost a derivative of what we are doing here,” he said, and the information will be analyzed only “in an abstract way.” He knows that dealers get squeamish when it comes to talking about money, and few want to see private sales information go public, so he stressed that, overall, the business “is actually something quite beautiful because it extracts a crucial part of the relationship between gallery and collector, and that is the money, and that is when it can become uncomfortable.”

TELUS selects Gemalto's SIM cards for NFC services

Canadian telecommunications carrier TELUS has said that it will be using Gemalto's UpTeq NFC SIM cards to enable consumers to securely store data and payment credentials on their mobile devices. TELUS subscribers will  be able to use their mobile devices for secure payments, loyalty programs and transit passes.

"Gemalto's UpTeq NFC SIM technologies comply with the most stringent global security requirements and they have a vast track record in the successful rollout of NFC projects across the world," said Drazen Lalovic, vice president of market planning at TELUS. "TELUS will be bringing mobile payment technology to customers very soon and we have teamed up with Gemalto to offer a secure and seamless experience to enable the storage of payment and non-payment credentials on TELUS SIM cards."

Fully compliant with requirements from American Express, MasterCard and Visa, the UpTeq NFC SIM stores credit and other payment card credentials just as securely as a chip does, Gemalto said.

"Having migrated to EMV chip years ago, the Canadian market is naturally well positioned to offer NFC enabled credential solutions within its well-developed contactless ecosystem which boasts one of the greatest contractless-ready retail point-of-sale penetration rates globally," said Sébastien Cano, senior vice president of telecommunications at Gemalto North America. "TELUS' 7.7 million wireless customers will be among the first to enjoy the convenience of NFC services."

Although the fact that where there is cash there is temptation puts cash machines right in the front line, it is not the public’s responsibility to check the nuts and bolts of such a machine. Obviously if something is loose or suspiciously stuck on go elsewhere for the transaction and report any oddities to the bank.

Some commonsense precautionary measures are needed though. For a start shield the keypad as you tap in the pin and make sure no one is watching or able to distract you. A common ploy is the concoction of some diversion such as pretending the cardholder has dropped something. In this scenario the felon is likely to snatch what they can.

Any such scam may involve someone approaching the victim with a deceptively friendly air when, say, the card is jammed in the machine. They are likely to allege that the same thing has just happened to them. They may advise the victim to go into the bank, in which case they will take their spoils and disappear before the cardholder comes back. Or they may suggest the cardholder puts in the PIN again while, of course, they assist and watch. Then once the victim leaves minus the card and having given away the pin their bank account is raided.

Or a machine may be fitted with a skimmer that acts as a card reader to harvest the material on the magnetic stripe. This will be used in conjunction with a pinhole camera or via shoulder surfing with someone radioing or communicating in some other way details to the gang and which will then form the ingredients for a counterfeit card.

Most fraudulent devices such as tiny pinhole cameras overlooking the key pad and the other contraptions mentioned are craftily disguised and not visible to the naked eye.

 I understand that continued investment is being made by cash machine owners in such technical defences to help prevent such fraud including those making it more difficult to harvest viable details from chip and pin terminals. Such measures seem to be paying off with cash machine fraud down from ￡15.2 million in the six months from January to June 2011 to ￡14.6 million in the same period in 2012.

The Payments Council attributes this partly to a number of initiatives and customer vigilance. Also to the fact that success in countering fraud is sending criminal gangs overseas to places such as the US where there are easier pickings because they have not introduced chip and pin there.

NFC is one technology with real benefits as well as challenges. The opportunities for NFC include m-commerce, electronic funds transfer, and electronic ticketing, as is seen in Citi Hoppa’s Beba card. The technology is also useful in non-payment-related uses in industries.

In the smartphone mode of payment, the phone is equipped with an NFC chip and radio-wave transmitter in its hardware. When activated by a software application, the device transmits information via radio waves, which are received by sensors on an NFC reader module. The phone becomes a contactless “credit card” able to initiate payment for a transaction. Depending on the end user needs, a number of mobile money transactions can be initiated with a simple waving of the phone in front of the NFC receiver module or reader.

The advantages of NFC are clear. In terms of security, it deploys better measures compared to the credit card. Credit cards can be stolen, cloned, and swiped at card readers by any imposter. The NFC has unique end-user encryption protocols and authentication levels that appear superior compared to credit cards. Moreover, for a stolen phone, the NFC chip is automatically disabled remotely by the merchant or service provider once an alert is raised by the subscriber.

Although NFC involves waving the phone in front of a reader, the chances of criminals capitalising on-air-transmission snooping are slim. The phone is placed at a distance of less than four centimetres from the reader in order for the sensor to work, hence, making any interceptions of the monetary data impossible from nearby spy devices.

The NFC technology in mobile payments is just an alternative to SIM card-based payments. NFC is highly dependent on big industry players, merchants, and operators working together. As a matter of fact, the NFC technology at retail level requires supermarkets and payment points to adopt NFC sensors or readers and that boils down to additional costs. Besides, the mobile subscribers can only access the services using an NFC-enabled smartphone.

Everson Post Office hours stay same for now

The fate of the Everson post office has still not been decided, but until that decision is made, the hours of operation will remain the same.

Everson Borough Councilman Mike Banaszak told the other members of council recently he had been in contact with a representative from the postal service.

“I was told that one of two things are going to happen,” he said. “Either the interior of the post office will be remodeled so that everyone has a box and there will be no general delivery, or they will have home delivery for everyone and the post office boxes will not be used.”

He added that until a decision is made and everything comes together, the current hours of operation will not change.

Mayor Ruth Shannon along with Councilman George Sherbondy prepared a letter to send to Senator Pat Toomey and Congressman Bill Shuster expressing the borough's concerns about the status of their post office.

“For awhile there was total upheaval at the post office,” Banaszak said. “People were getting the wrong mail and there was mail that was just sitting around and not getting delivered, but they seem to have a system going now and things are starting to settle down.”

In other borough business, Banaszak said the expansion of the police department offices is nearly complete.

“They're laying the tile in the front room and once that's done (Chief) Kevin (Grippo) can arrange everything the way he wants it,” he said.

Banaszak said the project began after Grippo asked to expand the small offices.

The entire police office was stuffed into one 12 by 15-foot room and things were overly crowded.

“The second room contained jail cells that were illegal for about two years, so they were just being used for storage of evidence,” Banaszak said. “The space was underused and when (Grippo) took over he asked for permission to expand.”

The jail cells have since been removed, the walls were painted and a new floor was laid in that room.

Chuck Leighty, councilman and chief of the Everson Volunteer Fire Department, announced that they purchased and received the portable air packs and a generator that was purchased with part of a $162,000 federal grant the department received.

 Akash Singh , PhD, performs his scientific research in the area of computer-assisted surgery. He designed the system to improve visualization in brain surgery by offering real-time instrument tracking in relation to 3D anatomical models built from pre-operative MRI and CT scans. Furthermore, his research provides electromagnetic navigation modality, which enables more precise tracking of the tip of a non-rigid surgical instrument, such as an ablation needle, and allows real-time, 3D visualization of a surgical instrument's location in the context of intra-operative MRI imaging, the standard imaging modality used in brain surgery today.

Dr. Singh's research capabilities help physicians with the most detailed and accurate anatomical information possible at the point of therapeutic delivery.

"Dr. Singh's continued research hope is to eventually be able to perform this analysis during surgery to help guide brain surgeons so that the borders of tumors can be identified and the cancer status of a site can be established before any tissue is removed." A paper detailing the results is published in International Journal of Engineering Research and Applications.

Prof. Ajjai Alva of University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center said the findings showed the analysis method's potential and achieved an important step in the path to assessing its value in improving patient care.

"This approach lead into real-time, image-guided surgery without interference with surgical care and without the administration of labeling agents," said Prof. Atique U of University of Chicago, Neuro-Oncology Research Labs. "Such extensive and detailed information about the tissue was previously unavailable to surgeons and could lead to more precise tumor removal. In addition, it helps the oncologist more efficiently design the course of adjuvant therapy."

The startup, for those unfamiliar, is aimed at helping users find nearby businesses and events – somewhat similar in spirit to Foursquare’s Radar, Google Places, or Yelp, perhaps, but entirely different in terms of execution. The company has built up its own database of places, focused primarily on popular categories like food & drink, nightlife, shopping, and deals & recommendations. That database is created on top of Twitter and Facebook – to be included, businesses just have to make posts on these social platforms.

The way Spindle recommends businesses to users is different, as well. The app considers signals which other local discovery applications may not, including things like time of day, and most importantly, terms and phrases businesses are using in their tweets and Facebook updates. Spindle’s emphasis on social is its standout feature, in fact, and the key way it differentiates itself from the competition. Instead of relying on check-in data (as Foursquare does – and still needs, apparently), Spindle uses these social updates to figure out what’s trending right now.

With today’s update, Spindle introduces a more traditional tool for finding businesses with keyword-based search, but the more interesting new feature is the introduction of “Search Alerts.” This allows you to specify custom topics you want to track, like for example, “kids eat free,” “live music,” or “open position.” Once configured, Spindle will track your location via GPS and when you’re near a business sharing updates that match your terms, you’ll get the pop-up notification. It’s an almost Google Now-ish-like way to discover things around you, as the alerts pop up proactively and automatically. These alerts are based on your pre-configured interests, so there’s a bit of initial data input involved, but they’re something which would have required much more manual efforts on an end user’s part to surface before.

Stalin's influence lingers in Putin's Russia

The church was heavily persecuted by the Soviet dictator, who died 60 years ago on Tuesday after a three-decade rule in which he is widely held responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people, many in the Gulag network of labor camps.

But there is still a place for Stalin in President Vladimir Putin's Russia, and there was plenty of praise for him at a discussion under paintings of cherubs at a church hotel adorned with icons and a portrait of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill.

One speaker said Stalin restored national pride, another said he laid the groundwork for a great Russian future, and a third said the nation must be grateful to Stalin for the "sacred victory" over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

"Stalin was no saint, but he was not a monster," said Russian Orthodox priest Alexander Shumsky, accusing Stalin's critics of exaggerating the scale of his crimes.

He described assertions that Stalin had been in complete control a myth created by liberals and said the former leader had wanted to stop the process of repression.

Six decades on, Stalin's legacy remains the subject of bitter debate and broad interpretation in Russia, where many still believe he did some good for the country.

"Putin ... has deliberately manipulated the dictator's image to reinforce his effort to build a 'power vertical' in Russia," the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank said in a report, referring to Putin's domination of Russia under a system that concentrates power in the hands of the president.

Support for Stalin has risen in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 gutted the social safety net, damaged national pride and left many Russians longing for the perceived order and stability of the Communist era.

But Lev Gudkov, director of independent Levada Center polling group, said the biggest shift occurred after Putin came to power in 2000 and "launched a comprehensive program to ideologically reeducate society".

"Putin's spin doctors did not deny that Stalin's regime had conducted mass arrests and executions but tried to minimize these events ... while emphasizing as far as possible the merits of Stalin as a military commander and statesman who had modernized the country and turned it into one of the world's two superpowers," Gudkov wrote.

But he has made a comeback of sorts under Putin, who has centralized control in the Kremlin and drawn from the paternalistic playbook of tsars and Soviet leaders, including Stalin, during his 13 years in power.

In the same poll, 47 percent of respondents said Stalin was "a wise leader who brought the Soviet Union to might and prosperity". And in a Levada poll last month, 49 percent said Stalin played a positive role, while 32 percent said it was negative - roughly the opposite of a 1994 Survey.

As the Soviet Union unraveled in the late 1980s when Mikhail Gorbachev loosened the government's grip and oil money dried up, Russians rode the subways reading revelations about Stalin's crimes in newspapers and journals.

Nowadays, efforts to debunk the criticism and clean up Stalin's image are a fixture of bookshop shelves, and school notebooks decorated with Stalin's photo went on sale last year - something unthinkable at that time.

In Volgograd, the city where Putin celebrated the 70th anniversary of the 1943 Battle of Stalingrad last month, local authorities now allow the city to be referred to by its old name at annual anniversary events and on five other days every year.

Calls to change Volgograd's name back to Stalingrad seem unlikely to succeed, and a campaign to return a giant statue of Stalin to a Moscow metro station fell flat in 2010 - though former Soviet anthem lyrics praising him were put up.

Putin does not go around praising Stalin. He would never, for instance, join the ranks of Communists and other nostalgic Russians who lined up on Tuesday to place flowers at Stalin's grave by the Kremlin wall on Red Square.

But while he paid tribute to victims of Stalin at the site of a mass grave in 2007 and said the tragedy must never be repeated, he said earlier the same year that Russia should not be made to feel guilty about the Great Terror of 1937, the height of Stalin's purges.

In a 2009 speech, Medvedev said the millions of deaths and "maimed destinies" caused by the Soviet government could not be justified, and in 2010 he said Stalin "committed many crimes against his people".

For Putin, such words could undermine the power structure built by a longtime Soviet KGB officer who has brought many former colleagues from security and intelligence into prominent positions and used their successor agencies to quash dissent.

Historians and activists who seek to document the Soviet government's crimes against its own people are dismayed by Stalin's staying power. They say Russia will not thrive until it comes to terms with Stalin's crimes, but Putin's critics say he has resisted efforts to make that happen.

While a big new Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center opened last year in the Russian capital, with Putin's support, there is still no national memorial to the victims of Stalin's rule.

Washed away

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is in the process of revising flood maps and construction recommendations for the Jersey City-Hoboken region – and city planners and local officials don’t like what they see.

According to a FEMA spokesman, these flood maps and building advisories were already in the works prior to Hurricane Sandy, which devastated Hudson County and parts of New York last fall, but were released in draft form early so that cities in the area can begin to protect themselves from similar storms in the future.

These maps and guidelines have yet to be finalized and adopted by the agency. If approved in their current draft, city planners and local officials say they will radically change the urban landscape in a way that could hurt commerce and alienate customers.

“There’s a real problem that we’re going to be confronted with [regarding] these new maps,” said Director of Jersey City Planning Robert Cotter.

“Depending on the area, the new regs are now saying you have to build…seven or eight feet up in the air,” said Cotter. “What it does is, it really challenges the retail space, because there’s a lack of communication with pedestrians down below [on the sidewalk]. In SoHo, where there’re the old warehouses, every one of those buildings that has a loading dock on the ground level and commercial space three or four feet above the sidewalk, you’ll see that none of those spaces is retail.”

For retail-oriented businesses to be successful, he said, they need to be on the ground level. In recent years, a number of Jersey City developments have been built with retail space planned for the ground floor, and residential units situated above the retail.

Forcing architects and developers to elevate the lowest floors, Cotter said, means retail space would be lifted off the ground, out of reach for pedestrians and customers.

“If you’re selling a sweater or a pair of shoes, you have to be at [ground] level. The customer has to be able to see the store, look at the merchandise through a glass window, and walk in. Psychologically, customers won’t take the trip up a flight of stairs.”

The new recommendations – which FEMA spokesman Darrel Habisch emphasized are not requirements – wouldn’t affect any development that has already been completed, any development that has already broken ground, or any project that has already received its building permits. But the recommendations will likely impact projects that are currently in their planning stages.

Habisch pointed out, however, that new buildings that don’t comply with the new FEMA standards won’t be eligible for federal flood insurance in the wake of a damaging weather event.

Zimmer has recommended a controversial plan to build a system of federally-funded flood walls around Hoboken to protect the Mile Square City from another devastating storm like Sandy. Since she first made this recommendation several weeks ago in her State of the City address, Zimmer’s proposal has been criticized.

“Floodgates do their job, up to a point. But there’s no way of predicting what the next storm is going to bring,” said Hackensack Riverkeeper Bill Sheehan. “Let’s say you build a 12-foot wall around Staten Island. That can potentially keep the water out – unless the surge is higher than 12 feet. Then the water would pour over the wall and it wouldn’t be able to get out. Then they’d have to bring in pumps to pump it all out.”

“One of the solutions we’re suggesting is you have sort of ‘sacrificial space’ that would be at sidewalk level, but might require customers to go up a flight of stairs [inside] to get to the retail and merchandise,” Cotter said. “Another option is you make your retail or restaurant space very water resistant. You could build it out [of something other than] sheet rock, and you put up concrete, or stucco, or tiles.”

At least two businesses in Jersey City on Grand Street are built in this way, said Cotter, and even though they were hit during Hurricane Sandy, they were able to reopen faster than many other businesses that do not have similarly waterproofed floors and walls.

Cotter, Zimmer, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy, and Brandy Forbes, director of Planning and Community Development in Hoboken, recently met in Trenton with officials from FEMA, the Department of Environmental Protection, and the state Department of Community Affairs to see if the new guidelines can be modified and adapted to fit urban communities.

EVE Online has the odd distinction of being one of the only MMOs in which the developers have almost no control over the active storyline. There have been plenty of fiction articles written about the game's backstory, and the NPC factions occasionally butt heads in short news pieces, but none of it feels very real. It's only when these events actually occur inside the game world that they become real, and when that happens, the outcome is at the mercy of players.

2010's spectacular Sansha abduction live event was the perfect example of this, with thousands of players becoming immersed in a very real emerging storyline. The story was fluid and evolved based on what players did, and so it made the NPC factions come alive in a way that fiction never could. While the scripted NPC portions of these storylines certainly constitute part of EVE's history, the most interesting tales follow the unexpected actions of players and alliances.

The fascinating thing is that the audience for these stories extends far beyond the playerbase itself, with news of high-profile events occasionally taking the global gaming media by storm. But for every 3,000-man battle and 200 billion ISK scam that's reported, there are hundreds of smaller events that would be just as interesting to read about or watch a video on. Most of these events have been lost to the mists of time, kept secret or talked about only among those directly involved ... until now.

The Sansha storyline showed that it doesn't take much to get players involved in the NPC plot. The idea of taking part in a unique in-game event that will never be repeated is a pretty strong motivator, and the possibility of causing havoc at such an event is an even stronger one. The most surprising thing about the Sansha story is that players didn't just participate in scripted events; they steered them and collectively decided the outcome. New organisations and intelligence networks emerged to rapidly respond to the Sansha attacks, players debated the plot on the forums, and some players were even allowed to switch sides and become Sansha slaves.

The recent NPC storylines haven't been played out in-game, so they've passed largely under the radar so far. The Amarr empire has discovered a unique implant in a sleeper stronghold that can transfer consciousness at the moment of death, giving ground troops the same immortality as capsuleers. This storyline will tie DUST 514 into EVE, following the wars between the empires following the introduction of this new technology. CCP has promised to run these stories as actual live events inside EVE and DUST, and I personally can't wait to see how it all turns out.