Pakistani child becomes youngest Microsoft certified professional | The News Tribe: "BIRMINGHAM: A Pakistani child living in Britain Ayan Qureshi has become the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP).
Ayan has passed the examination of the MCP title from Birmingham University in just age of five year.
Now Ayan, who belonged to Lahore, has now become the youngest the MCP title holder.
He has broken the record of Mehrooz Yawar, also a Pakistani who had achieved the milestone in age of six and half years.
Ayan’s love of technology was developed by his father Asim Qureshi, himself an IT consultant, who explained to him the knowledge of hardware construction and network connection.
He worked hard to get to that point, studying and practicing for around two hours every day for five months.
Ayan was born in Lahore, but the family, including his mother, a doctor moved to London in 2009.
In 2004 another Pakistani girl Arfa Karim had become youngest the MCP holder in age of 9.
She had died in 2012 in just age of 16 year."
'via Blog this'
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Sierra tribe would hit off-reservation jackpot with Prop. 48 LA TIMES GEORGE SKELTON
Capitol Journal
Sierra tribe would hit off-reservation jackpot with Prop. 48
If Proposition 48 is passed, tribes could potentially open casinos off reservations
Some tribes that already operate casinos oppose Proposition 48
Proposition 48, the Indian casino referendum, has many twists and turns. But at the end, the question for voters is very simple.
Do you favor expanding tribal casinos beyond reservations into urban areas?
If so, vote yes.
If not, vote no.
That's the crux of Prop. 48.
It's not just about an isolated tribe in the Sierra foothills trying to build a casino down in the San Joaquin Valley off California 99 near the economically stressed city of Madera. It's about the precedent of establishing off-reservation Indian gambling halls in population centers.
Prop. 48 would "open the floodgates to countless more mega-casinos in local communities across the state," contends U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), an opponent. "Enough is enough."
The floodgate-opening is "pretty speculative," contends Charles Banks-Altekruse, public affairs director for the affected tribe, the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians.
Prop. 48, he insists, is about a compact negotiated between the North Fork Indians and Gov. Jerry Brown, and approved by the Legislature. The ballot measure, financed primarily by rival tribes and interests, is an attempt to repeal the law.
Don't look for goodness and righteousness on either side of this bitter brawl. There is a small segment worried about the spreading illness of gambling addiction. But mostly, this fight is over who gets to rake in money from gambling winnings.
Let's back up.
California voters agreed in 1998, and again in 2000, to allow Indians to build Vegas-style casinos on their rural reservations. Sixty currently are open, according to the state Gambling Control Commission. They take in $7 billion annually.
The idea at the turn of the millennium was to help tribes lift themselves out of abject poverty by turning their remote, useless lands into lucrative entertainment centers chock full of one-armed bandits.
We were atoning for the long-ago sins of California pioneers, when the state paid bounties for Indian body parts. Rewards ranged from 25 cents per scalp to $5 for a whole head.
In 1851, Gov. John McDougall declared "a war of extermination … until the Indian race becomes extinct." The number of California Indians plummeted from 300,000 in 1769 to 17,000 by 1900. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that there aren't more Indians today to share in the slot and card winnings.
In some tribes, however, there are no winnings because their lands are too isolated to draw gamblers. All, however, are entitled to a small share of the total casino take.
The North Fork tribe could have built a small casino on its 80 hilly acres — which isn't even officially a reservation — but the profitability was in doubt. So, with the financial backing of a Las Vegas gambling giant — Stations Casinos Inc.— it acquired 305 acres 38 miles away on heavily traveled 99.
Stations would operate the casino and reap 30% of the profit.
The federal government approved the deal subject to state negotiation of a compact.
In brief, the compact requires the tribe to make a one-time payment of at least $16 million to local governments and roughly $10 million annually to the state and locals. A faraway tribe, Wiyot on the North Coast, would receive about $6 million annually in exchange for not building its own casino on sensitive land near a wildlife refuge.
"This is a contractual agreement between the state of California and the North Fork Indians," says Banks-Altekruse. "We don't believe agreements with Indian tribes should be broken. That goes back too much into the history of our country."
In California, however, voters are entitled to the final say over any state agreement. The referendum is a tool of our direct democracy, just like the initiative and recall. We can undo at the ballot box what the politicians do in Sacramento.
And tribes aren't entitled to a casino just anywhere.
Part of the original deal was that casinos would be kept on the reservations. In exchange, Indian tribes were given a monopoly on Nevada-style slots.
North Fork argues that it doesn't really have a reservation. But it does have land — whatever it's called — and could have built a gambling hall there.
Nearby casino tribes — Table Mountain Rancheria, 25 miles east of Madera, for example — fear the North Fork competition and are helping to bankroll the "no" side.
But distant gambling tribes also fret about potential competition if Prop. 48 passes and other urban communities hang up welcome signs for casinos.
"This isn't about Indian gaming. It's about off-reservation gaming," says Mark Macarro, chairman of the Pechanga tribe, which owns a casino in Temecula, 60 miles north of San Diego. "It goes against the promises we made [in 2000] to limit gaming to our own tribal lands.
"If this is successful, you'll see more of this happening, more leapfrogging over tribes into more populous regions. It's important to stick to the promises we made. The people trusted us."
Pechanga last week poured $1 million into the opposition campaign.
North Fork believes that even if Prop. 48 is rejected, it could still build a scaled-down Madera casino with slightly less-sophisticated slots. But then the compact would be broken and so would the side deals with various governments and the North Coast tribe.
Fine then. North Fork would still make out.
And the rest of us would have sent a message to Sacramento that allowing Vegas-style Indian casinos in cities is out of bounds.
This is Uber's playbook for sabotaging Lyft Verge burner phones
This is Uber's playbook for sabotaging Lyft
'Brand ambassadors' with burner phones and credit cards attempt to #shavethestache
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Uber is arming teams of independent contractors with burner phones and credit cards as part of its sophisticated effort to undermine Lyft and other competitors. Interviews with current and former contractors, along with internal documents obtained by The Verge, outline the company’s evolving methods. Using contractors it calls "brand ambassadors," Uber requests rides from Lyft and other competitors, recruits their drivers, and takes multiple precautions to avoid detection. The effort, which Uber appears to be rolling out nationally, has already resulted in thousands of canceled Lyft rides and made it more difficult for its rival to gain a foothold in new markets. Uber calls the program "SLOG," and it’s a previously unreported aspect of the company’s ruthless efforts to undermine its competitors.
Together, the interviews and documents show the lengths to which Uber will go to halt its rivals’ momentum. The San Francisco startup has raised $1.5 billion in venture capital, giving it an enormous war chest with which to battle Lyft and others. While the company’s cutthroat nature is well documented, emails from Uber managers offer new insight into the shifting tactics it uses to siphon drivers away from competitors without getting caught. It also demonstrates the strong interest Uber has taken in crushing Lyft, its biggest rival in ridesharing, which is in the midst of a national expansion.
After The Verge asked Uber for comment on its report, the company stalled for time until they could write this blog post introducing Operation SLOG to the world. "We never use marketing tactics that prevent a driver from making their living — and that includes never intentionally canceling rides," the company said.
‘A special ongoing project’
Earlier this month, CNN reported that Uber employees around the country ordered and then canceled 5,560 Lyft rides, according to an analysis by Lyft. (Lyft arrived at this figure by cross-referencing the phone numbers of users who tried to recruit Lyft drivers to Uber with users who had previously canceled rides.) Uber flatly denied trying to sabotage its competitor: "Lyft’s claims against Uber are baseless and simply untrue," the company said.
"UBER IS FLAT-OUT LYING TO THEIR CUSTOMERS."
But one Uber contractor The Verge spoke with said Lyft’s complaint had merit. "What’s simply untrue is that not only does Uber know about this, they’re actively encouraging these actions day-to-day and, in doing so, are flat-out lying both to their customers, the media, and their investors," the contractor said. Until now, the canceled Lyft rides have been understood as a kind of prank call designed to keep competitors’ drivers off the road. But interviews and internal documents suggest another reason: Uber’s recruitment program has vastly increased in size and sophistication, and recruiters cancel rides in part to avoid detection by Lyft.
The ground troops in Uber’s sabotage campaign are the company’s ambassadors, some of whom it hires through TargetCW, a San Diego-based employment agency. For the most part, ambassadors work at events or on college campuses, promoting Uber as a cheap and easy way of getting around town. The primary goal is to recruit riders, not drivers, and Uber calls the activity "slanging." But since at least mid-summer, some brand ambassadors in New York have been turning their talents against Lyft. Using Uber-provided iPhones and credit cards, the contractors hail rides, strike up conversations with their drivers, and attempt to sign them up before they arrive at their destination. (In other cities recruiters travel with "driver kits" that include iPhones and everything else a driver needs to get started on Uber; ambassadors were told New York State does not allow this.) Compensation varies, but contractors can earn a $750 commission for successfully recruiting a single new driver to Uber, according to a contractor.
ORGANIZING A STREET TEAM
As Lyft has gotten better at sniffing out recruiters and banning them from the service, Uber has been forced to alter its tactics. In the run-up toLyft’s high-profile launch last month in New York City, Uber organized a "street team" to analyze Lyft’s expansion strategy. On July 9th, a marketing manager emailed a subset of the company’s contractors in New York city with a new opportunity. "We have a special ongoing project that we’re going to be rolling out next week and I wanted to get about 8–10 of you to help out," he wrote. "This is going to be completely based on your own personal hustle, as it’s not a typical onsite event. We are going to have you working on your own time helping us sign up Uber drivers, and there is HUGE commission opportunity for everyone you signup."
Operation SLOG
The special ongoing project had a different codename: SLOG. Contractors in New York who responded to the "special ongoing project" message were invited to individual hour-long meetings with Uber marketing managers, who had traveled from Los Angeles and Washington, DC, to New York to oversee the team’s creation.
It was there that the company laid out its plan, according to a contractor. With Lyft’s arrival in New York imminent, Uber said it was creating a "street team" charged with gathering intelligence about Lyft’s launch plans and recruiting their drivers to Uber. Contractors were then handed two Uber-branded iPhones and a series of valid credit card numbers to be used for creating dummy Lyft accounts. Uber assumed every contractor would be caught by Lyft eventually; the second phone, according to a contractor interviewed by The Verge, was issued so "you would have a backup phone if and when that happened so you wouldn’t have to go back."
BACKUP PHONES FOR DAYS
A follow-up email outlined the process for recruiting Lyft drivers in detail. It emphasizes the importance of requesting rides from different physical locations so as not to arouse Lyft’s suspicions, suggests methods of recruiting, and outlines the process for signing up drivers on Uber’s platform.
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The message linked to an online form, which was still active as this story went to press, where Uber could collect information about the Lyft drivers.
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As their plans evolved, Uber realized the likelihood that Lyft drivers would be recruited multiple times by its team members and alert Lyft about the street team’s existence. The solution: a private group on the messaging app GroupMe where members of the street team could post Lyft driver profiles. That way, Uber contractors could make sure their Lyft driver had not already been pitched. "You guys will run into drivers you have already got in cars with," a Los Angeles-based marketing manager emailed the team. "Post the driver profiles in groupme when you request so people are aware."
In messages to the contractors, Uber’s marketing managers are full of good cheer. "Hello my lovely Sloggers!" begins one note, which gives instructions for filling out some paperwork. Once that’s out of the way, she writes, "then it’s all the little Lyfts your hearts desire." She ends her sentence with the hashtag #shavethestache, a reference to the big pink mustaches Lyft drivers affix to their vehicles’ grilles.
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Uber appears to be replicating its program across the country. One email obtained by The Verge links to an online form for requesting burner phones, credit cards, and driver kits — everything an Uber driver needs to get started, which recruiters often carry with them. The form lists 10 cities, including LA, Seattle, Boston, Miami, and Washington, DC. "We are growing and growing so with that said this will put some organization to your madness," says the form, which was still live at the time of publication. "I need BA phones to make a lyft account," reads one line, referring to brand ambassadors; "Great how many do you need," reads the line below.
"THIS WILL PUT SOME ORGANIZATION TO YOUR MADNESS!"
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Uber’s aggressive tactics reflect the fact that ridesharing is largely a zero-sum game: a driver picking up an Uber customer can’t simultaneously pick up a Lyft customer. (Drivers are allowed to drive for both services, though the companies discourage the practice.) Having more active drivers on the road creates a virtuous circle that improves geographical coverage, increases demand, and allows services to lower prices by taking a smaller cut from a growing number of rides. Uber and Lyft are competing to become the first app you think of when you need a taxi, and the service with the most drivers likely stands the best chance of winning.
That helps to explain why competition between the two has become so vicious, with Uber and Lyft both offering hefty bonuses and other perks to drivers who switch services. For a time, Uber lost money on every ride to help spur demand. And Lyft has itself aggressively recruited Uber drivers, offering cash bonuses for joining, and hosting free taco lunches at its driver center. The Spy-vs.-Spy nature of their competition was revealed again earlier this month, when Uber caught wind of Lyft’s multi-passenger ridesharing offering and preemptively announced a nearly identical offering the night before Lyft made its announcement.
Lyft declined to comment for this story. After Uber became aware that The Verge was asking questions, Target CW sent out multiple emails warning contractors that talking to the press violated a non-disclosure agreement they signed when they joined.
Lyft Director of Product Leaves Amid Spate of Departures By Serena Saitto Bloomberg
Lyft Director of Product Leaves Amid Spate of Departures
By Serena Saitto
October 28, 2014 12:01 AM EDT
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October 28, 2014 12:01 AM EDT
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Lyft Inc. is losing more executives.
Ryan Fujiu, director of product at Lyft, recently left the San Francisco-based ride-sharing company, the startup confirmed. He had joined Lyft in January from self-marketing startup about.me, where he was head of growth, according to his LinkedIn profile. Erin Simpson, a Lyft spokeswoman, declined to comment on the reasons for the departure.
The exit follows that of Chief Operating Officer Travis VanderZanden, who left Lyft in August. His departure was accompanied by those of Steve Schnell, Lyft’s vice president of operations, and Art Henry, vice president of data engineering. VanderZanden joined rival car-booking application Uber Technologies Inc. this month as vice president of international growth.
VanderZanden, Schnell and Henry all joined Lyft last year after the company bought their startup Cherry.com, an on-demand car-wash service provider. They left after disagreements with Lyft’s co-founders, Logan Green and John Zimmer, over how the company was being run, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be identified because the details are private.
Simpson confirmed the departures and declined to comment on the reasons.
The exits contrast with the hiring that rival Uber is doing. Apart from bringing on VanderZanden, Uber hired David Plouffe, a former top political adviser to President Barack Obama, in August to be senior vice president of policy and strategy. In March, Uber hired former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker Cameron Poetzscher as head of corporate development. The San Francisco-based startup landed a $17 billion valuation in a $1.2 billion financing in June.
Lyft’s Recruiting
Lyft said it is also hiring. New recruits include Brian Roberts, previously senior vice president of business development for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s e-commerce business, as senior vice president of partnerships and corporate development. The startup also hired Pradeep Elankumaran and Brendan Lim, the co-founders of photo-sharing app Kicksend Inc., who have both taken senior product roles at Lyft.
“Lyft has made more than 30 recent hires on the product and engineering teams, as well as an SVP of partnerships and corporate development and the senior leadership team from Kicksend,” Simpson wrote in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Green and Zimmer co-founded Zimride, a ride-sharing company, in 2006. In 2012, the company morphed into Lyft. The startup has raised more than $330 million, including $250 million in April. Its investors include Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Andreessen Horowitz. Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz.
To win customers and users, Lyft waived commissions for months, while giving away rides for at least two weeks as it began services in new markets. Lyft operates in 65 cities in the U.S., while Uber is in 220 cities in 44 countries worldwide.
To contact the reporter on this story: Serena Saitto in New York at ssaitto@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pui-Wing Tam at ptam13@bloomberg.net John Lear
Lyft pulling up stakes unless paid ride rules change Houston TX 10/29/14
Lyft pulling up stakes unless paid ride rules change
By Dug Begley | October 29, 2014 | Updated: October 29, 2014 3:40pm
Less than a week before new regulations regarding paid rides in Houston take effect, one of two companies that launched in the city is preparing to stop providing rides rather than use a city-required procedure to conduct background checks.
“We’ve made the very difficult decision that if Houston doesn’t amend its process, we’ve decided we have no choice but to pause operations,” said David Estrada, vice-president of government operations for Lyft.
The California company and its competitor Uber charged into Houston in February, hoping to persuade Houston officials to modify paid ride rules to accommodate them. The City Council revised the rules in August, setting up a process by which the companies could continue to operate.
Lyft and Uber connect riders with drivers using their personal vehicles via smartphone app.
The rules set to go into effect Tuesday include requirements that drivers present their vehicle for inspection, submit a warrant check and personal information to the city and undergo drug screening.
Many of the rules duplicate what the companies already do, but the procedures are not exactly the same. While the companies use online background checks, Houston requires applicants to use the state’s fingerprint-based background check company.
"We have found a more efficient way to do these things,” said David Mack, Lyft’s director of public affairs. “We’re not suggesting the barriers to enter the market should be lower, we’re saying it adds a lot of friction for the drivers to not make the system the best way moving forward.”
Estrada said the company will ask the city to delay implementing the rules. If it does not do so, he said, Lyft will cease operations in Houston until the process can be streamlined.
City officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
“Houston is one market, but our goal is ride-sharing across America,” Estrada said. “We want to be in every market, but we have come to the decision we want to take a stand.”
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