SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –This week NASA announced its planet-hunter, the Kepler Space Telescope, just completed its primary mission. It’s far from retired--Kepler got a nice long extension back in April, so it will keep staring at distant stars for up to four more years--but it’s still a milestone for NASA and the planet-hunting community. To celebrate its next step, we’re taking a look at some of Kepler’s greatest hits so far.

Since its launch in early 2009, the space telescope has found a treasure trove of new worlds orbiting distant stars, suggesting that planets are plentiful in our galaxy and maybe the universe. It has found so many planets, they’re practically garden variety--really a shocking thing when you sit and think about it. But it should not be this way. Exoplanets are awesome!

The space telescope is orbiting the sun, trailing behind Earth. It was designed to look for other Earths, and it hasn’t found one yet--but it has come very close, as you can see in our slideshow.

“The initial discoveries of the Kepler mission indicate at least a third of the stars have planets and the number of planets in our galaxy must number in the billions,” said William Borucki, Kepler’s principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “The planets of greatest interest are other Earths, and these could already be in the data awaiting analysis. Kepler's most exciting results are yet to come.”— www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on a conference call that the social network will be focusing more on mobile opportunities and further building out its platform. On the heels of the company’s latest earnings report, Zuckerberg said that there is incredible opportunity for building out a mobile presence — something that he felt was its Achilles’ heel in a filing to the SEC prior to the disappointing IPO. Not only that, he believed that the platform has potential to generate incredible revenue for the company.

On the topic of mobile, Zuckerberg believed that it has more opportunity than the desktop. There are billions of smartphone out in the market right now and Facebook’s mobile app is widely downloaded. Mobile usage even continues to drive growth for the company, up 61% from last year and it has become the largest mobile ad platform in the past eight months. With 14% of the company’s ad revenue coming from mobile, this is something that Facebook would like to leverage. The number of people who return to Facebook is staggering when you compare the desktop to the mobile experience. Zuckerberg said that there’s a 40% chance of someone using the service compared to 70% when they’re on the mobile.

Facebook intends to make mobile advertising a strong revenue generator for the company. The advertising model one sees on the desktop isn’t going to work on the mobile ads — something Zuckerberg believes should work like it’s on a TV and be more integrated rather than something on the side. To that end, he’s directed each of the company’s product groups to be responsible for developing their own monetization strategy. And he says that Facebook is just getting started with mobile product development.

With respect to the platform, Facebook is going to spend the next 5-10 years focused on getting people to interact more with the company. There are more and more applications already tied into the social network. Zuckerberg says that 8-10 of the top iOS apps already integrate with Facebook and eventually, the best product in every category will be social — we’re already seeing it with media and games. Simply put, Zuckeberg believes that as more apps get built and industries get transformed, as Facebook provides more support for these apps, the more revenue the company will receive.

Social gaming is one area that has typically been beneficial to the social network, but it’s not entirely perfect. Zuckerberg believed that social gaming on the network isn’t as great as he had hoped it would be — right now, payments received from Zynga have decreased 20% this year compared to last, but the monthly payment revenue it saw increased 40% this year from last.

Zuckerberg is excited about the potential of its mobile app install product, custom audiences feature, and Facebook Gifts. He believes that these three services will help lead the company forward and drive revenue to build a better and successful company.— www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: TheNextweb

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — Yahoo has just released its third quarter earnings and on the conference call today, its CEO, Marissa Mayer, announced that the company needed to do a better job at bringing its content to the mobile audience. She said that as there are over 1 billion mobile devices in the world, with that expected to double over the next three years, Yahoo needs to make some adjustments to accommodate this trend.

The underlying problem that Yahoo has when it comes to mobile is that it’s a fragmented company — Mayer said that the Yahoo sites have not been ideally optimized for mobile. The different sites feel antiquated and so Mayer said that she feels that the company needs to change this in order to be relevant. Her top priority in this space is to create a more focused, coherent mobile strategy and that will start by bringing in more engineers, product managers, and designers to help move its mobile strategy forward.

Typical activity on mobile devices include checking the weather, viewing sports scores, sharing photos, viewing financials, and playing games. Mayer believes that Yahoo fits this roll perfectly and feels that the company now needs to move more into the mobile space.— www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Thenextweb

SHAFAQNA (Shia international News Association) — We, as human, wander among certain moods and desires. Despite our fluctuant life and uncertainties we face, we remain in a constant struggle to achieve calmness. However, after enduring years of suffering and difficulty in work, study, and scheduling, we realize that we are faced with an even greater problem in our way: “the routine”. This routine fashion of life slowly separates us from our daily tasks and prevents us understanding the true essence of worship, love, and wisdom. All aspects in life become a boring, regular habit; and of course, anytime habit is involved, love and wisdom retreat.

The auspicious month of Ramadan enters our life at this very point. It changes our most obvious habits of eating and sleeping. And it is from this revolution in our habits that we can rejuvenate our beliefs and perspectives, and as a result free ourselves from our ignorance towards the realities in life.

When Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) experienced Mi'raj, Allah (SWT) asked him: "O! Muhammad. Do you know what the legacy of fasting is?" The Prophet (S.A.W.) answered no, and Allah (SWT) said: "The legacy of (a proper) fast is eating little and talking less." Allah (SWT) then continued, "Silence is followed by wisdom, and wisdom will bring insight and cognition, and as a result insight will be followed by certainty. And once certainty is attained, he will not fear the way time passes. Hardships and comfort will not differ for him, and this is the state that is achieved by the owners of “satisfaction”. Three characteristics always accompany him who acts according to My will:

1. Thanks and appreciation that is not infected with ignorance

2. A remembrance that prevents forgetfulness from entering

3. An affection that never prefers another to it.

And as he loves Me, I too will love him, and make my creatures love him too." (1)—www.shafaqna.com/english