Are you sitting down? Kate Middleton is not the most stylish royal around.
According to a poll conducted by Myvouchercodes.co.uk, shoppers look to Denmark's Princess Mary more often than the Duchess of Cambridge when it comes to fashion inspiration. The 2,318 British women surveyed voted Mary the most stylish royal at 68 percent, while Kate Middleton came in at a close second with 67 percent of the votes.
The study also explored how this admiration translates to dollars, finding that 62 percent of respondents are willing to purchase a fashion item simply because a royal has worn it. Not surprised? Neither are we. The Duchess Effect has long sent hoards of women into stores and online to pick up the latest garment Kate's sported. (She's even crashed websites!)
But to see Princess Mary slide in to take the fashion lead is certainly a pleasant surprise. While we can't choose between the two royals, we have no problem with giving another stylish noble a chance in the spotlight once in a while. See the top 10 list below and tell us what you think!
1. Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark - 68 percent
2. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge - 67 percent
3. Queen Rania of Jordan - 61 percent
4. Letizia, Princess of Asturias - 59 percent
5. Madeleine, Princess of Sweden - 56 percent
6. Charlene, Princess of Monaco - 52 percent
7. Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden - 47 percent
8. Zara Philips - 45 percent
9. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands - 38 percent
10. Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway - 33 percent
Ready, set, DISCUSS!
Royals sure love fashion:
Princess Camilla of Bourbon Two Sicilies
Sitting front row for the Giorgio Armani Couture runway show during Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week, fall 2011.
Princess Astrid of Belgium
At the Giorgio Armani spring 2011 runway show during Milan Fashion Week.
Princess Tatiana
At the Giorgio Armani fall 2011 runway show during Milan Fashion Week.
Princess Beatrice of York
At the Elie Saab spring 2012 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
Pippa Middleton
Sitting front row for the Temperley spring 2012 runway during London Fashion Week.
Princess Charlene
At the Akris spring 2013 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
Princess Charlene
At the Christian Dior Haute Couture fall 2012 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
Princess Siriwanwaree Nareerat of Thailand
At the Christian Dior fall 2013 runway show during Paris Fashion.
Princess Siriwanwaree Nareerat of Thailand
At the Lanvin spring 2012 show during Paris Fashion Week.
Princess Siriwannwaree Nareerat of Thailand
Presenting her own collection during Elle Fashion Week in Bangkok, October 2008.
Princess Siriwanwaree Nareerat of Thailand
At the Chanel spring 2012 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
Princess Siriwanwaree Nareerat of Thailand
With Geoffroy de la Bourdonnaye at the Chloe spring 2013 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
Princess Siriwanwaree Nareerat of Thailand
At the Louis Vuitton spring 2012 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
Princess Keisha Omilana of Nigeria
At the Code Purple fall 2012 runway show during New York Fashion Week.
Princess Mette-Marit of Norway
Sitting front row with Jada Pinkett-Smith for Emilio Pucci's spring 2011 runway show during Milan Fashion Week.
Princess Michael of Kent
At the Luisa Beccaria spring 2012 runway show during Milan Fashion Week.
Princess Tatiana of Greece and Denmark
At the Giorgio Armani Prive Haute Couture fall 2012 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden
At the Fadi El Khoury spring 2013 runway show during Stockholm Fashion Week.
Princess Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis
With Mary Charteris and Alexandra Richards at the Giambattista Valli spring 2013 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
Princess Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis
At the Ohne Titel spring 2013 runway show during New York Fashion Week.
Princess Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis
At the Rodarte spring 2013 runway show during New York Fashion Week.
Princess Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis
At the Reed Krakoff spring 2013 runway show during New York Fashion Week.
Princess Basmaa Bint Saud
At the J.Mendel spring 2013 runway show during New York Fashion Week.
Princess Ebaa Alawaji
At the Elie Saab spring 2013 runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
Princess Deena Al-Juhani Abdulaziz
At the Suno fall 2013 runway show during New York Fashion Week.
Princess Deena Abdulaziz
At the Ohne Titel fall 2013 runway show during New York Fashion.
Princess Marie of Denmark
Sitting front row for the Odd Molly spring 2009 runway show.
Buckingham Palace To Hold A Royal Fashion Show
Since Kate Middleton became a part of the Royal Family, fashion has become more influential in the Palace since Princess Diana and now the Royal Family will take part in a fashion show.
Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram at @HuffPostStyle.
The Seagate Slim for Mac ($99.99 list) is a compact portable hard drive that comes pre-formatted for Macs and comes with Mac-oriented software. It has a speedy USB 3.0, so it will work well with your recently purchased Mac. If you're using a Mac with small (64GB-128GB) Flash storage, then the Slim for Mac can be used as the storage for your iTunes and iPhoto libraries. Otherwise, the drive is a good backup drive for just about any Mac with a 500GB or smaller internal storage.
Design and Features
The Seagate Slim for Mac is a compact external hard drive, measuring only 0.38 by 4.5 by 3 inches (HWD). This means that the drive will fit in most pockets, including the ones in your jeans. Instead of the more common black, the top of the Slim for Mac is matte finish silver. The bottom of the drive is flat black, giving the drive a two-tone appearance that compliments today's metal Macs. The drive activity LED is on the top, opposite corner from the Seagate logo. The side has a micro-b USB 3.0 port, to connect the included USB cable. The drive only comes with the USB port, it doesn't have the USM connector found on the Seagate GoFlex Slim (320GB) ($99.99), which has the interchangeable USM connector. This means that the Slim for Mac can't be connected to a faster Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter ($99.99). In the grand scheme of things, that's OK, since the Slim for Mac's drive mechanism won't be able to fully utilize the Thunderbolt interface anyway.
The Slim for Mac drive comes pre-formatted for HFS+, so it will work with Macs straight out of the box. Notably, you can download a HFS+ driver for Windows from Seagate's site, so you can transfer files to the drive on your PC as well. Like the Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive for Mac (1TB) ($129.99), the Slim for Mac comes with Seagate's Dashboard utility, which lets you backup or upload photos to Flickr and Facebook. Dashboard also lets you upload videos to YouTube. This is a prime differentiator compared to competing drives like the G-Technology G-Drive Slim ($109.99), which doesn't come with extra software. You can of course use the Seagate Slim for Mac as a Time Machine backup drive, which doesn't use the extra software. The Seagate Slim for Mac comes with a two-year warranty, one year short of the G-Drive Slim's three years.
Performance
The Seagate Slim for Mac runs as quickly as you'd expect for a slim portable drive. It took only 12 seconds to transfer our standard test folder. This is quicker than the 20 seconds it took for the G-Drive Slim, and a second slower than the Seagate Backup Plus for Mac. The Seagate Slim for Mac's throughput numbers on the AJA System test (107.9 MBps read, 100.9 MBps write) were comparable to the G-Drive Slim (108MBps read, 107MBps write) and the Backup Plus (107MBps read, 90MBps write). Bascially, if you're using a modern (less than two years old) Mac with USB 3.0, these pocket drives are similarly speedy.
The Seagate Slim for Mac makes a good external bucket for your data, whether you're using it as a Time Machine backup for your flash-storage-equipped MacBook, or you're using it as an external drive for your iTunes and media library. The Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive for Mac (1TB) is still a better choice on a GB per dollar basis and because of its compatibility with USM adapters, but the Seagate Slim for Mac is a good choice if you want a more compact drive to carry in your commute bag.
COMPARISON TABLE Compare the Buffalo MiniStation Cobalt USB 3.0 with several other hard drive side by side.
More hard drive reviews: ??? Seagate Slim for Mac ??? Buffalo Drivestation DDR 2TB (HD-GD2.0U3) ??? Toshiba Canvio Connect (750GB) ??? Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB ??? Samsung 840 Series 250GB ?? more
5 years of stereo imaging for NASA's TWINSPublic release date: 21-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karen C. Fox karen.c.fox@nasa.gov 301-286-6284 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Surrounding Earth is a dynamic region called the magnetosphere. The region is governed by magnetic and electric forces, incoming energy and material from the sun, and a vast zoo of waves and processes unlike what is normally experienced in Earth-bound physics. Nestled inside this constantly changing magnetic bubble lies a donut of charged particles generally aligned with Earth's equator. Known as the ring current, its waxing and waning is a crucial part of the space weather surrounding our planet, able to induce magnetic fluctuations on the ground as well as to transmit disruptive surface charges onto spacecraft.
On June 15, 2008, a new set of instruments began stereoscopic imaging of this mysterious region. Called Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers or TWINS, these satellites orbit in widely separated planes to provide the first and only stereo view of the ring current. TWINS maps the energetic neutral atoms that shoot away from the ring current when created by ion collisions.
In five years of operation, the TWINS maps have provided three-dimensional images and global characterization of this region. The observatories track how the magnetosphere responds to space weather storms, characterize global information such as temperature and shape of various structures within the magnetosphere, and improve models of the magnetosphere that can be used to simulate a vast array of events.
"With two satellites, with two sets of simultaneous images we can see things that are entirely new," said Mei-Ching Fok, the project scientist for TWINS at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This is the first ever stereoscopic energetic neutral atom mission, and it's changed the way we understand the ring current."
Each spacecraft is in a highly elliptical orbit called a Molniya orbit, during which the spacecraft spend most of their time around 20,000 miles above Earth, where they get a great view of the magnetosphere. Initially launched for a two-year mission, TWINS was formally extended in 2010 for three more years, with another multi-year extension pending. Over that time, TWINS has worked hand in hand with other NASA missions that provide information about Earth's magnetosphere.
"We've done some fantastic new research in the last five years," said David McComas, the principal investigator for TWINS at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "As a mission of opportunity, it is a very inexpensive mission and it continues to return incredible science."
TWINS science is based on two instruments that can track neutral atoms. The first is a neutral atom imager that records the atoms that naturally stream away when a neutral atom collides with an ion. This allows the instrument to map the original ions from far away as if it could see atoms the way we see light instead of only collecting data from the areas of space it passes through.
"Over the course of the last 20 years a completely new technique evolved so we can observe charged particles, such as those in the ring current, remotely," said McComas. "The charged particles sometimes collide with a slow-moving neutral particle, in this case from a population of neutrals from Earth's highly extended atmosphere, the geocorona."
When this happens, an electron hops from the slow neutral atom to the fast ion, so now the former becomes charged, and the latter neutral. That new neutral speeds off in a straight direction, unfazed by the magnetic field lines around Earth that guide and control the motion of charged particles. TWINS collects such fast neutral particles and from that data scientists can work backward to map out the location and movement of the original ions.
The other instrument on TWINS is a Lyman alpha detector, which can measure the density of hydrogen from afar, and in this case observes the hydrogen cloud around Earth, the geocorona.
Most importantly, these instruments exist on both of the TWINS spacecraft. Much of the successful research in the last five years relies on the ability to watch these neutrals from two viewpoints, allowing scientists to analyze not only speed and number of particles, but also to determine the angles at which the particles left their original collisions. The stereo vision contributed to the detailed perspectives on how the magnetosphere reacts to space weather storms: both those due to the impact of a coronal mass ejection that traveled from the sun toward Earth and due to an incoming twist in the solar wind known as a co-rotating interaction region. TWINS has also revealed that the pitch angle at which the ions travel around Earth is different on each side of the planet. Such information helps scientists determine whether the ions are more likely to escape from the ring current out into space or to ultimately funnel down toward Earth.
"TWINS is a stereo mission, providing the first observations of the neutral atoms from two vantage points, but two spacecraft give us another advantage," said Natalia Buzulukova, a magnetospheric scientist at Goddard who works with TWINS data. "Two spacecraft provide continuous coverage of the ring current, as one set of instruments always has a view."
Because the spacecraft orbits are not in sync they provide stereoscopic imaging for a few hours each day, but there is always at least one spacecraft keeping tabs on how events are unfolding. Prior to TWINS, a spacecraft might see a tantalizing process taking place in the ring current for only a short while before its orbit took it out of view. The event might well have finished before the spacecraft came back around for its second look.
Such continuity has proved useful to determine what governs whether particles in the ring current will precipitate downward toward Earth as well as to provide a global temperature map of the magnetic tail trailing behind Earth, the magnetotail. Such a map had only ever previously been inferred from models and statistical analysis, never from a comprehensive data set of what was actually observed.
The Lyman-alpha instrument has been used in two ways. For one thing, it quantifies the geocorona in order to better understand how it affects the collisions in the ring current. It also has taught us more about the geocorona itself. Previously, researchers believed it to be a fairly simple sphere around Earth. The two TWINS instruments have shown how asymmetric it is, changing with the solar cycle, seasons, and even the hours of the day.
A final important feature of this fire hose of TWINS data is how much it helps improve computer simulations of the ring current and the rest of the magnetosphere. With accurate computer models, scientists can better predict how the magnetosphere will react to any given space weather event.
"We get two really unique things with two spacecraft: stereo imaging and continuous coverage. Together the observations we get are fantastic," said McComas. "It's an incredibly powerful combination of tools."
###
TWINS is an Explorer Mission of Opportunity. Southwest Research Institute leads TWINS with teams of national and international partners. Goddard manages the Explorers Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.
For more information about TWINS science and mission, visit:
http://science.nasa.gov/missions/twins/
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
5 years of stereo imaging for NASA's TWINSPublic release date: 21-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Karen C. Fox karen.c.fox@nasa.gov 301-286-6284 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Surrounding Earth is a dynamic region called the magnetosphere. The region is governed by magnetic and electric forces, incoming energy and material from the sun, and a vast zoo of waves and processes unlike what is normally experienced in Earth-bound physics. Nestled inside this constantly changing magnetic bubble lies a donut of charged particles generally aligned with Earth's equator. Known as the ring current, its waxing and waning is a crucial part of the space weather surrounding our planet, able to induce magnetic fluctuations on the ground as well as to transmit disruptive surface charges onto spacecraft.
On June 15, 2008, a new set of instruments began stereoscopic imaging of this mysterious region. Called Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers or TWINS, these satellites orbit in widely separated planes to provide the first and only stereo view of the ring current. TWINS maps the energetic neutral atoms that shoot away from the ring current when created by ion collisions.
In five years of operation, the TWINS maps have provided three-dimensional images and global characterization of this region. The observatories track how the magnetosphere responds to space weather storms, characterize global information such as temperature and shape of various structures within the magnetosphere, and improve models of the magnetosphere that can be used to simulate a vast array of events.
"With two satellites, with two sets of simultaneous images we can see things that are entirely new," said Mei-Ching Fok, the project scientist for TWINS at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This is the first ever stereoscopic energetic neutral atom mission, and it's changed the way we understand the ring current."
Each spacecraft is in a highly elliptical orbit called a Molniya orbit, during which the spacecraft spend most of their time around 20,000 miles above Earth, where they get a great view of the magnetosphere. Initially launched for a two-year mission, TWINS was formally extended in 2010 for three more years, with another multi-year extension pending. Over that time, TWINS has worked hand in hand with other NASA missions that provide information about Earth's magnetosphere.
"We've done some fantastic new research in the last five years," said David McComas, the principal investigator for TWINS at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "As a mission of opportunity, it is a very inexpensive mission and it continues to return incredible science."
TWINS science is based on two instruments that can track neutral atoms. The first is a neutral atom imager that records the atoms that naturally stream away when a neutral atom collides with an ion. This allows the instrument to map the original ions from far away as if it could see atoms the way we see light instead of only collecting data from the areas of space it passes through.
"Over the course of the last 20 years a completely new technique evolved so we can observe charged particles, such as those in the ring current, remotely," said McComas. "The charged particles sometimes collide with a slow-moving neutral particle, in this case from a population of neutrals from Earth's highly extended atmosphere, the geocorona."
When this happens, an electron hops from the slow neutral atom to the fast ion, so now the former becomes charged, and the latter neutral. That new neutral speeds off in a straight direction, unfazed by the magnetic field lines around Earth that guide and control the motion of charged particles. TWINS collects such fast neutral particles and from that data scientists can work backward to map out the location and movement of the original ions.
The other instrument on TWINS is a Lyman alpha detector, which can measure the density of hydrogen from afar, and in this case observes the hydrogen cloud around Earth, the geocorona.
Most importantly, these instruments exist on both of the TWINS spacecraft. Much of the successful research in the last five years relies on the ability to watch these neutrals from two viewpoints, allowing scientists to analyze not only speed and number of particles, but also to determine the angles at which the particles left their original collisions. The stereo vision contributed to the detailed perspectives on how the magnetosphere reacts to space weather storms: both those due to the impact of a coronal mass ejection that traveled from the sun toward Earth and due to an incoming twist in the solar wind known as a co-rotating interaction region. TWINS has also revealed that the pitch angle at which the ions travel around Earth is different on each side of the planet. Such information helps scientists determine whether the ions are more likely to escape from the ring current out into space or to ultimately funnel down toward Earth.
"TWINS is a stereo mission, providing the first observations of the neutral atoms from two vantage points, but two spacecraft give us another advantage," said Natalia Buzulukova, a magnetospheric scientist at Goddard who works with TWINS data. "Two spacecraft provide continuous coverage of the ring current, as one set of instruments always has a view."
Because the spacecraft orbits are not in sync they provide stereoscopic imaging for a few hours each day, but there is always at least one spacecraft keeping tabs on how events are unfolding. Prior to TWINS, a spacecraft might see a tantalizing process taking place in the ring current for only a short while before its orbit took it out of view. The event might well have finished before the spacecraft came back around for its second look.
Such continuity has proved useful to determine what governs whether particles in the ring current will precipitate downward toward Earth as well as to provide a global temperature map of the magnetic tail trailing behind Earth, the magnetotail. Such a map had only ever previously been inferred from models and statistical analysis, never from a comprehensive data set of what was actually observed.
The Lyman-alpha instrument has been used in two ways. For one thing, it quantifies the geocorona in order to better understand how it affects the collisions in the ring current. It also has taught us more about the geocorona itself. Previously, researchers believed it to be a fairly simple sphere around Earth. The two TWINS instruments have shown how asymmetric it is, changing with the solar cycle, seasons, and even the hours of the day.
A final important feature of this fire hose of TWINS data is how much it helps improve computer simulations of the ring current and the rest of the magnetosphere. With accurate computer models, scientists can better predict how the magnetosphere will react to any given space weather event.
"We get two really unique things with two spacecraft: stereo imaging and continuous coverage. Together the observations we get are fantastic," said McComas. "It's an incredibly powerful combination of tools."
###
TWINS is an Explorer Mission of Opportunity. Southwest Research Institute leads TWINS with teams of national and international partners. Goddard manages the Explorers Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.
For more information about TWINS science and mission, visit:
http://science.nasa.gov/missions/twins/
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Apple surely loves its third-party app developers, but it doesn't love them equally. The company reserves special affection for those who optimize their apps for the latest version of iOS and its integrated services (Passbook, Game Center, Maps etc.), and we guess that's why the official iOS Dev Center has published the chart above. Based on two weeks' worth of recent data, it shows that 93 percent of iOS users who visited the App Store were on iOS 6, while just one in a hundred were on something lower than iOS 5, implying that fragmentation isn't something for devs to fret over. Of course, as Appleinsider points out, Cupertino may have had other reasons for choosing this specific style of presentation, since it begs to be compared against Android's fortnightly pie chart (shown below).
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) ? Darden's fiscal fourth-quarter net income fell 12 percent on rising costs and expenses, the restaurant operator said Friday.
Comparable sales at its Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants rose 2.2 percent, however, thanks to improving traffic.
That sent shares higher in premarket trading, even though the company fell short of Wall Street profit expectations.
Darden has ramped up its efforts to get more people through the door after struggling with customer traffic for several years, and that is starting to pay off. Revenue edged out most analyst projections, according to poll by FactSet.
Darden ditched its long-running marketing campaign for Olive Garden that was intended to evoke old world charm. Olive Garden restaurants are now shown as livelier and more modern spots. The company also added dishes that are less calorically intense to its menu.
The company added more non-seafood items at Red Lobster in hopes of eliminating the possibility that a family or group of friends wouldn't go to the restaurant just because one person didn't like seafood. It also began testing a lunch service where diners pay at the counter rather than having a wait person take their order at a table.
The changes were put into place after Darden saw customer traffic begin to fall in the final fiscal quarter of 2012, then carry over into the first two quarters of this year, said Chairman and CEO Clarence Otis
"Growing same-restaurant traffic is our top priority," said Otis. "So, with same-restaurant traffic growth this quarter that was well above industry average, we had an encouraging end to a difficult year."
For the period ended May 26, Darden Restaurants Inc. earned $133.2 million, or $1.01 per share. That compares with $151.2 million, or $1.15 per share, a year ago.
Total costs and expenses increased to $2.14 billion from $1.86 billion.
Removing costs and purchase accounting adjustments tied to its acquisition of Yard House USA Inc., earnings were $1.02 per share, two cents shy of Wall Street estimates.
Revenue climbed 11 percent to $2.3 billion from $2.07 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet were looking for $2.27 billion in revenue.
Sales at LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants open at least a year rose 3.5 percent in the quarter and were up 3.2 percent at Red Lobster locations. At Olive Garden, the figure increased 1.1 percent.
Sales at The Capital Grille locations open at least a year rose 4.5 percent. The metric climbed 4.3 percent at Eddie V's and 1 percent at Seasons 52. These restaurants are part of Darden's specialty restaurant group which reported a 65 percent jump in fourth-quarter revenue, helped by new restaurant openings and the Yard House acquisition.
For the year, Darden earned $411.9 million or $3.13 per share. In the previous year, the Orlando, Fla. company earned $475.5 million, or $3.57 per share.
Adjusted earnings were $3.22 per share.
Annual revenue increased 7 percent to $8.55 billion from $8 billion.
Darden said that it expects fiscal 2014 adjusted earnings per share to be up between 4 percent and 6 percent. Revenue is anticipated to climb 6 percent to 8 percent, including an additional quarter of sales from Yard House. Based on fiscal 2013's adjusted earnings of $3.22 per share and $8.55 billion in revenue, this implies earnings of $3.35 to $3.41 per share on revenue of $9.06 billion to $9.23 billion.
Wall Street had been looking for earnings of $3.19 per share on revenue of $8.52 billion, and shares rose 77 cents to $52 before the opening bell.
The company also raised its quarterly dividend 10 percent, to 55 cents per share from 50 cents per share. The dividend will be paid on Aug. 1 to shareholders of record on July 10.
Darden, which owns and runs more than 2,100 restaurants, will hold its annual shareholders meeting on Sept. 18.
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Public release date: 21-Jun-2013
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