Ice cream makers: Making Money Uk

Fox News
reporter, Maxim Lott, takes a delightful little stroll down memory
lane to see how well eight selected environmentalist predictions of
various sorts of imminent doom have fared. A few are shared
below:

1. Within a few years "children just aren't going to
know what snow is." Snowfall will be "a very rare and exciting
event." Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at
the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,
interviewed by
the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.

Ten years later, in December 2009, London was hit by the
heaviest snowfall seen in 20 years. And just last week, a snowstorm
forced Heathrow airport to shut down, stranding thousands of
Christmas travelers.

A spokesman for the government-funded British Council, where
Viner now works as the lead
climate change expert, told FoxNews.com that climate science
had improved since the prediction was made.

2. "[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating
the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought,
causing crop failures and food riots…[By 1996] The Platte River of
Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of
prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from
houses and shut down computers." Michael Oppenheimer,
published in
"Dead Heat," St. Martin's Press, 1990.

Oppenheimer told FoxNews.com that he was trying to illustrate
one possible outcome of failing to curb
emissions, not making a specific prediction. He added that the
gist of his story had in fact come true, even if the events had not
occurred in the U.S.

"On the whole I would stand by these predictions -- not
predictions, sorry, scenarios -- as having at least in a general
way actually come true," he said. "There's been extensive drought,
devastating drought, in significant parts of the world. The
fraction of the world that's in drought has increased over that
period."

That may be in doubt, however. Data from NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center shows that precipitation -- rain
and snow -- has increased slightly over the century.

As a special treat, Lott talks with the irrepressible doomster
Paul Ehrlich who, as far as I can tell, has never been right in any
of his forecasts of imminent catastrophe.

7. "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a
small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million
hungry people ... If I were a gambler, I would take even money that
England will not exist in the year 2000." Ehrlich,

Speech at British Institute For Biology, September
1971.

Ehrlich's prediction was taken seriously when he made it, and
New Scientist magazine underscored his speech in an editorial
titled "In Praise of Prophets."

"When you predict the future, you get things wrong," Ehrlich
admitted, but "how wrong is another question. I would have lost if
I had had taken the bet. However, if you look closely at England,
what can I tell you? They're having all kinds of problems, just
like everybody else."

8. "In ten years all important animal life in the sea
will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated
because of the stench of dead fish." Ehrlich, speech
during Earth
Day, 1970

"Certainly the first part of that was very largely true -- only
off in time," Ehrlich told FoxNews.com. "The second part is, well
-- the fish haven't washed up, but there are very large dead zones
around the world, and they frequently produce considerable
stench."

"Again, not totally accurate, but I never claimed to predict the
future with full accuracy," he said

I have had the pleasure of covering this beat for two decades
now. For examples, see my 2000 article on Earth
Day, Then and Now and my testimony
at an oversight hearing before the House Subcommittee on Energy and
Mineral Resources.

I did make one prediction back in 2000 that I still stand firmly
behind:

One final prediction, of which I'm most absolutely certain:
There will be a disproportionately influential group of doomsters
predicting that the future--and the present--never looked so
bleak.

Lott's
whole article is well worth reading.

Hat tip to Manny Klausner.

First, Skype and Nimbuzz reported how well they are doing. Then there was the spectacular launch of Viber. And now fring is telling us that they are seeing their quarterly revenues grow at a rapid clip, thanks to the growing popularity of its Android app which is boosting demand for its fringOut service. It seems mobile VoIP is finally seeing its day under the sun.

“We have been bringing in $10,000 in daily revenues from Android phones,” says Jake Levant, vice president of marketing at London/Tel-Aviv-based fring, which makes a multi-platform app for video and voice calling over Wi-Fi and 3G networks. The company has seen a big burst in growth thanks to the expanding Android ecosystem. “We are on track to doubling our revenues in the first quarter of 2011,” Levant added. The company makes money by offering cheap calling plans, called fringOut, for folks who want to reach contacts outside of the fring network.

What’s helped: more incorporation of front facing cameras in new smartphones, which makes fring’s cross-platform video calling service possible. In addition to the iPhone, the HTC EVO and Samsung’s popular Galaxy phones and tablets have front facing cameras, for example. The availability of video calling makes folks install fring and later use it for outbound phone calls.

Even though fring started life on Nokia’s Symbian platform, its recent growth has come thanks to Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android-based smartphones. At present, Android accounts for a third of its total installed base and is growing at a rapid clip, especially in countries like South Korea. North America accounts for 40 percent of fring’s new downloads, making it one of the fastest growing regions for the company. The company says it has more than ten million users who have activated the service and the majority of its calls are destined for Canada, India, the UK and Australia.

The company is still waiting clearance from Apple to launch its fringOut service on the iPhone, however, so the majority of the fringOut revenues coming from North America are from Android phones. But the Android ecosystem has its own headaches with wild variances in device capabilities, different versions of Android available and customized user interfaces. As a result, fring has to modify its app for different handsets and different manufacturers. Nevertheless, that’s fine with Levant because Android is what is turbo-charging its business.

Ice cream makers

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Making Money Uk

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