Hilary Sympathizes with Banks Behind Closed Doors

EXCERPTS OF HILLARY CLINTON’S previously secret speeches to big banks and trade groups in 2013 and 2014 show her exalting the work of her hosts, hardly a surprise when these groups paid her up to $225,000 an hour to chat them up.

Far from chiding Goldman Sachs for obstructing Democratic proposals for financial reform, Clinton appeared to sympathize with the giant investment bank. At a Goldman Sachs Alternative Investments Symposium in October 2013, Clinton almost apologized for the Dodd-Frank reform bill, explaining that it had to pass “for political reasons,” because “if you were an elected member of Congress and people in your constituency were losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press is saying it’s all the fault of Wall Street, you can’t sit idly by and do nothing.”

Clinton added, “And I think the jury is still out on that because it was very difficult to sort of sort through it all.”

Clinton praised Deutsche Bank in a 2014 speech for “the work that the Bank has done in New York City on affordable housing.”

While Deutsche Bank has given to anti-homelessness campaigns in the past, it was also cited in a New York State Senate report in January for refusing to maintain foreclosed properties in New York City neighborhoods and costing those communities millions in unpaid fines. Deutsche is also about to face a multi-billion-dollar penalty from the Justice Department for defrauding investors with low-quality mortgage securities, leading to the housing meltdown.

Those excerpts were among many listed in an 80-page document prepared by the Clinton campaign, listing potentially damaging quotes from the Democratic nominee’s paid but at that point still secret speeches. The report landed in campaign chairman John Podesta’s email, which was hacked, and then posted by WikiLeaks last week.

In a November 2013 speech to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Clinton pronounced herself proud to work with the trade group as a U.S. senator to “look for ways to help families facing foreclosure with concrete steps.”

NAR represents real estate agents, who had no authority to assist distressed homeowners. An April 2007 document lists NAR’s priorities in foreclosure mitigation, and they were able to get an amendment exempting mortgage debt forgiveness from being treated as earned income. But the rest amount to “urging” and “supporting” efforts to help homeowners that never happened.

Clinton has historically been far less critical of the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington than many other Democrats, and as secretary of state allowed two of her top aides — Tom Nides and Robert Hormats — to receive big payouts from their big-bank employers before entering public service.

“Thank you for lending me Tom Nides for the past two years,” Clinton said to a crowd at Morgan Stanley on April 18, 2013. As The Intercept reported in July 2015, Nides moved from chief operating officer at Morgan Stanley into Clinton’s State Department, and when Clinton left Foggy Bottom, Nides went right back to Morgan Stanley as a vice chairman.

Clinton joked about the “culture shock” for Nides, working a government job. “You should have seen his face when he learned there were no stock options at the State Department. But he soon not only settled in very nicely, he became positively enthusiastic when I told him we did have our own plane.” Clinton also gushed about Hormats, who joined her at State after a career at Goldman Sachs, in a 2014 speech at JPMorgan Chase.

In excerpts that got some attention last week, Clinton told bankers that financial reform “really has to come from the industry itself,” that “the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry,” and that blaming banks for the crisis was “an oversimplification.”

Her former Democratic presidential rival, Bernie Sanders responded in a statement, “Whatever Secretary Clinton may or may not have said behind closed doors on Wall Street, I am determined to implement the agenda of the Democratic Party platform which was agreed upon by her campaign,” and which “calls for breaking up the largest financial institutions in this country, re-establishing Glass-Steagall and prosecuting those many Wall Street CEOs who engaged in illegal behavior.”

The excerpts reveal that Clinton, when speaking to the financial industry, adopted their mindset and privileged their arguments. The question that arises is whether members of a possible Clinton administration will reflect this worldview, or whether the long primary with Sanders has made that untenable. Some aggressive advocates for progressive appointments believe the latter.

“At State and on the speaking circuit, Clinton was in an environment that encouraged her to view Wall Street bankers as fonts of economic wisdom,” said Jeff Hauser, Director of the Revolving Door Project. “But after 15 months running against a progressive populist like Sanders, Clinton knows that government conducted a by rotating stream of bankers is politically unacceptable.”

Government of Canada sounds alarm for rising house prices in Vancouver

Canada’s national housing agency rang more alarm bells about Vancouver’s real estate sector after it released a report Wednesday saying there is now strong evidence of problematic conditions in the city.

“Right now we’re seeing moderate evidence of overheating and price acceleration in Vancouver because supply is not keeping pace with demand,” Robyn Adamache, a principal market analyst for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., said in a statement.

“We’re also continuing to see strong evidence of overvaluation mainly because single detached home prices are higher than those supported by economic fundamentals.”

CMHC’s quarterly assessment comes as the B.C. government plans to implement several measures, including a 15-per-cent tax for foreigners purchasing property, in an effort to cool down house prices that are among the highest in North America.

Earlier this month, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver reported that the benchmark price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver was $917,800 in June, a 32-per-cent jump from the same month last year.

CMHC’s report Wednesday also said that evidence of problematic conditions in Canada’s housing market as a whole has risen from weak to moderate, adding that there was strong evidence of such conditions in Toronto, Calgary, Saskatoon and Regina.

Real estate markets in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Montreal and Quebec have exhibited moderate evidence of imbalances, the report said.

The housing agency says imbalances occur when overbuilding, overvaluation, overheating and/or price acceleration depart significantly from historical averages.

Overall evidence of problematic conditions has decreased in Ottawa since the previous CMHC housing market assessment in April.

The assessment is intended to be an early warning system to alert Canadians about problematic conditions developing in the country’s real estate markets. It covers 15 regional markets and the national housing market as a whole.

Funny video

Watch this funny video at the link below:
https://youtu.be/5mLboUC-Pqo

Funny video

Watch this funny video at the link below:
https://youtu.be/5mLboUC-Pqo

Positives of Brexit on the Stock Markets

As people feel greater uncertainty in the global economy, triggered by the Britain exit (Brexit), the global stock markets have been more volatile than usual. The market's initial reaction is to sell first.
However, the Canadian stock market held up better than the U.S. market because the former has greater exposure to precious metal-related stocks.
Specifically, the iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index Fund(TSX:XIU), which is representative of the Canadian market, declined 1.9%, and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) declined 3.7%.
1. Gold- and silver-related stocks climbed
Gold and silver prices rose because precious metals are seen as safe havens as uncertainty rises. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSEARCA:GLD) and the iShares Silver Trust ETF (NYSEARCA:SLV) rose 5% and 2.4%, respectively.
Because precious metal prices climbed, precious metal-related stocks also rose. Precious metals mining stocks such as Goldcorp Inc.(TSX:G)(NYSE:GG) and Barrick GoldCorp.(TSX:ABX)(NYSE:ABX) showed greater strength over precious metals streaming companies such as Silver Wheaton Corp. (TSX:SLW)(NYSE:SLW).
Goldcorp, Barrick Gold, and Silver Wheaton rose 6.4%, 7.9%, and 4.2%, respectively.
2. Utilities held up
A flight to safety occurred in the utilities sector. Utilities are viewed as being safe stocks with safe dividends. So, utilities generally held up better than the market. Top utilities such as Fortis Inc.(TSX:FTS), Canadian Utilities Limited(TSX:CU), and Emera Inc.(TSX:EMA) actually rose 1.6%, 1%, and 2%, respectively.
3. REITs held up
Real estate investment trusts (REITs) generally held up well because, like utilities, REITs are viewed as stable investments that offer high yields. Their cash flows from rental revenue are pretty stable.
Most notably, residential REITs with assets in stable regions rose as investors chose safety and quality. Namely, Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (TSX:CAR.UN) and Milestone Apartments Real Estate Invt Tr(TSX:MST.UN) both rose about 1.2%. However, investors should be careful with valuation and aim to not overpay for any company, no matter how high quality they are.
On the other hand, REITs with European exposure declined slightly. For example, Dream Global REIT (TSX:DRG.UN) fell 1.2%.
4. Better valuations
With the general market declining, investors should review their watch lists to update the buy price ranges for the companies they want to own.
For instance, the Big Five Canadian banks are quality businesses with long-term track records of profitability and dividend payments. They all declined 2-3% in a day, making them more attractive.
5. Higher dividends
Dividend investors should celebrate. Lower stock prices lead to higher starting yields. Of the Big Five banks, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (TSX:CM)(NYSE:CM) pays the highest yield of 4.8% after its decline.
However, cash is precious. Investors should see if they can get at least a 5.2% yield on the Canadian bank as more volatility is likely to come.

Scots prepare for independence vote

He looks just like many would imagine the typical Scot. Kilt, knee-high socks, bagpipes and a solid build. People stand and clap when John Patterson plays Highland melodies near Edinburgh Castle. In the emotional question of Scottish independence, Patterson has answered questions for one local TV station after another. "There is a lot of tension in the air," he said. "People want to see emotions."
He added that he doesn't have a firm view on Scottish independence. But - as a New Zealander - he's not allowed to vote anyway, and instead chuckles with amusement when people regard him as a typical Scot. After all, he said, there are only two types of people: "Scots and the people who wish they were Scots."
Audry Painsarnault came to Scotland with her husband and four children to hang up "no" posters and stickers around the city and to try and convince people to keep Scotland in the United Kingdom. Like Patterson, she won't be able to vote in Thursday's referendum. "My husband has Scottish ancestry so we decided if we could do some small part in all this then we would," she said. "We came with our four children to help. We want to convince people to vote - no matter what their opinions are." She added that in Canada there is a similar movement for independence among French-speaking Canadians in Quebec.
Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister and head of the Scottish National Party, laid out a clear definition. Anyone who lives in Scotland is a Scot and can vote on the question of whether to leave the United Kingdom after more than 300 years and become an independent nation. The three latest polls show the "yes" and "no" camps nearly neck-and-neck with those opposed to independence leading with 52 percent to 48 percent, though the polls do not take the eight percent of undecided voters into account.
Ben Walker is a businessman from London who said he sees himself as a Scot and wants his home to stay in the UK with England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He regrets that he, like 800,000 other Scots living outside of Scotland, does not have a vote. "All Scots who live in England are not, under the terms of the referendum, allowed to vote." Walker said. "I would become a foreigner without having a say on it."
Campaigning in the final days leading up to the referendum has heated up, with Scottish nationalists saying they wanted to free themselves from oppression and dismissing offers of more regional autonomy as untrustworthy. Unionists then accused the nationalists of lying. Pro-British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband was even attacked during a campaign event in Edinburgh. The British tabloid press managed to dig out a few final scandals. The Scottish Daily Mail accused Salmond of megalomania for proposing that a new position be created after independence.
Claims that Scots were about to take their fate in their hands at the ballot box were made by both sides on the final day of campaigning.
"I think the emotional side is nice - I'm a Scot, I was educated here," he said. "I care quite passionately about my country. But I think from the rational side it is something we cannot afford. We are wandering into an abyss and I think we are going to be much worse off."
The economic effects would be disastrous, he said, adding: "Why would you break up one of the most successful states? The UK is not perfect, and it has the same problems as Germany or France or America or any Western democracy and independence and rampant nationalism isn't the way to solve that."
A few blocks further down the streets at the "Yes" campaign office, Rachel Blair has a different take. She said Scotland's oil reserves would bolster the country's economy.
"At the moment we have a government in London that people in Scotland feel quite disconnected from," she said. "We need a government that is closer to home and more accountable to the Scottish people. I think we have got a lot of problems here. We have one in five children in poverty, families queuing up at food banks. We need to be in control of our own resources to address these issues."
Those for and against independence disagree on whether Scotland would remain in the European Union and keep the pound as its currency. But charges that Scotland would be left on its own are just fear-mongering, Blair said.
A number of trade and industry groups have warned against independence. Unions are split on the issue. The British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, spends her summers in Scotland but has not taken a clear position on the referendum, saying only that the voters should consider the consequences of their choice. Regardless of the poll's outcome, most nationalists say they want the queen to remain their head of state.
Polls will close at 10 pm local time and results from the vote are expected in the early hours of Friday. Some pubs in Edinburgh have had closing times lifted so people can congregate and hear the results. Some nationalists have even already setup a border checkpoint between Scotland and England - one that looked so real some drivers actually stopped and handed over their papers.
"I'm not for or against independence, " Jon Parker Lee of Manchester said after passing the faux-checkpoint. "I just want everyone to have a good laugh."

Barack Obama Insists 'We're Going To Defeat Islamic State'

Barack Obama has insisted "we're going to defeat" Islamic State (IS) and said he will sketch out a plan to do in a speech later this week.
Without revealing details of any planned US action, he said America would engaged in something "similar to the kinds of counter-terrorism campaigns that we've been engaging in consistently over the last five, six, seven years".
He will give his speech on Wednesday, the day before the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Speaking to NBC's Meet The Press today, Obama, who was elected president on a platform of getting US soldiers out of Iraq, said: "This is not going to be an announcement about U.S. ground troops. This is not the equivalent of the Iraq war.
"The good news is is that because of American leadership, we have I believe, a broad-based coalition internationally and regionally to be able to deal with the problem."
Obama has been accused of being indecisive over IS as it has torn through Syria and Iraq. He told reporters last month "we don't have a strategy yet".
The strategy he will announce on Wednesday will have political and military elements, he said today, which would "systematically degrade" the terror group.
He said: "We are going to be as part of an international coalition, carrying out air strikes in support of work on the ground by Iraqi troops, Kurdish troops.
"We are going to be helping to put together a plan for them, so that they can start retaking territory that ISIL (former name of IS) had taken over."
He said the West would "have to work hard" to attract back Sunni tribes in Iraq which were shunned by the Malaki government, which favoured Shia muslims with government appointments and alienated the Sunnis - who enjoyed more power under Saddam Hussein.
He continued: "So there's going to be an economic element to this. There's going to be a political element to it. There's going to be a military element to it.
"And what I want people to understand, though, is that over the course of months, we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of ISIL.
"We are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control. And ultimately we're going to defeat them."
Obama was speaking after attending the Nato summit in Newport, Wales with other leaders of Nato countries.
Last week, former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw gave a withering critique of the president's foreign policy, saying: "Much though I respect him, I think, if you like, he is very long on analysis and not quite as fleet as foot at being decisive, and you need a balance if you are the president of the United States."

Inmarsat confident on MH370 'hotspot'

The UK satellite company Inmarsat has told the BBC that the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet has yet to go to the area its scientists think is the plane's most likely crash site. Inmarsat's communications with the aircraft are seen as the best clues to the whereabouts of Flight MH370.  The hunt for the lost jet is currently taking a short break while ships map the Indian Ocean floor. 
When the search resumes, the Inmarsat "hotspot" will be a key focus. But so too will a number of areas being fed into the investigation by other groups.
Australian authorities are expected to announce where these are shortly. The BBC's Horizon TV programme has been given significant access to the telecommunications experts at Inmarsat. It was the brief, hourly electronic connections between the jet and one of company's spacecraft that are currently driving the search.  Inmarsat's scientists could tell from the timings and frequencies of the connection signals that the plane had to have come down in the southern Indian Ocean. An Australian naval vessel was sent to investigate the region west of Perth, and followed up leads as they emerged. But as Horizon reports, the Ocean Shield ship never got to the Inmarsat hotspot because it picked up signals some distance away that it thought were coming from the jet's flight recorders. The priority was to investigate these "pings", and two months were spent searching 850 sq km of sea bed. Ultimately, it turned out to be a dead end. "It was by no means an unrealistic location but it was further to the north east than our area of highest probability," Chris Ashton at Inmarsat tells Horizon. The company's experts used their data to plot a series of arcs across the Indian Ocean where its systems made contact with the jet. By modelling a flight with a constant speed and a constant heading consistent with the plane being flown by autopilot - the team found one flight path that lined up with all its data.  "We can identify a path that matches exactly with all those frequency measurements and with the timing measurements and lands on the final arc at a particular location, which then gives us a sort of a hotspot area on the final arc where we believe the most likely area is," said Mr Ashton. The Australian authorities leading the hunt have now recognised the need to make a high-resolution bathymetric (depth) survey of the wider search zone - some 60,000 sq km in area. This is likely to take several months, but once they know precisely the shape of the sea bed and the height of the water column, they can then better choose the most appropriate vehicles to continue the underwater sweep. MH370 was lost on 8 March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. A total of 239 passengers and crew were on board. 

Italy's Super Mario sinks England

Mario Balotelli scored the winner as Italy beat England 2-1 in their World Cup duel in the Amazon on Saturday as Costa Rica provided a major shock with an upset win over Uruguay.
AC Milan striker Balotelli nodded past former Manchester City team-mate Joe Hart on 50 minutes to decide the tense Group D encounter at Manaus's sweltering Amazonia Arena.
Italy's Juventus midfielder Claudio Marchisio had fired the Azzurri into a deserved lead on 35 minutes, rifling home a low shot from outside the area after a well-worked corner routine wrong-footed the English defence.
England struck back with a fine goal on the counter-attack. Raheem Sterling released Wayne Rooney down the left and the Manchester United star's cross was buried by Daniel Sturridge.
The Italian victory leaves Cesare Prandelli's side in pole qualifying position from Group D.
The only blot on a satisfying day for Italy was the absence of goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who was ruled out of the England match hours before kick-off with a twisted ankle.
England now face Uruguay in Sao Paulo next Thursday with the loser of that contest facing almost certain elimination.
"It's disappointing, we put so much effort into it," said England captain Steven Gerrard after.
"Italy were a very good team tonight and we fell a bit short. But we're still very much alive in this group," he added.

The Telephone

Early Telephone Development 

In 1729 English chemist Stephen Gray transmitted electricity over a wire. He sent charges nearly 300 feet over brass wire and moistened thread. An electrostatic generator powered his experiments, one charge at a time. A few years later, Dutchman Pieter van Musschenbroek and German Ewald Georg von Kleist in 1746 independently developed the Leyden jar, a sort of battery or condenser for storing static electricity. Named for its Holland city of invention, the jar was a glass bottle lined inside and out with tin or lead. The glass sandwiched between the metal sheets stored electricity; a strong charge could be kept for a few days and transported. Over the years these jars were used in countless experiments, lectures, and demonstrations.
In 1753 an anonymous writer, possibly physician Charles Morrison, suggested in The Scot's Magazine that electricity might transmit messages. He thought up a scheme using separate wires to represent each letter. An electrostatic generator, he posited, could electrify each line in turn, attracting a bit of paper by static charge on the other end. By noting which paper letters were attracted one might spell out a message. Needing wires by the dozen, signals got transmitted a mile or two. People labored with telegraphs like this for many decades. Experiments continued slowly until 1800. Many inventors worked alone, misunderstood earlier discoveries, or spent time producing results already achieved. Poor equipment didn't help either.
Balky electrostatic generators produced static electricity by friction, often by spinning leather against glass. And while static electricity could make hair stand on end or throw sparks, it couldn't provide the energy to do truly useful things. Inventors and industry needed a reliable and continuous current.
In 1800 Alessandro Volta produced the first battery. A major development, Volta's battery provided sustained low powered electric current at high cost. Chemically based, as all batteries are, the battery improved quickly and became the electrical source for further experimenting. But while batteries got more reliable, they still couldn't produce the power needed to work machinery, light cities, or provide heat. And although batteries would work telegraph and telephone systems, and still do, transmitting speech required understanding two related elements, namely, electricity and magnetism.
In 1820 Danish physicist Christian Oersted discovered electromagnetism, the critical idea needed to develop electrical power and to communicate. In a famous experiment at his University of Copenhagen classroom, Oersted pushed a compass under a live electric wire. This caused its needle to turn from pointing north, as if acted on by a larger magnet. Oersted discovered that an electric current creates a magnetic field. But could a magnetic field create electricity? If so, a new source of power beckoned. And the principle of electromagnetism, if fully understood and applied, promised a new era of communication
In 1821 Michael Faraday reversed Oersted's experiment and in so doing discovered induction. He got a weak current to flow in a wire revolving around a permanent magnet. In other words, a magnetic field caused or induced an electric current to flow in a nearby wire. In so doing, Faraday had built the world's first electric generator. Mechanical energy could now be converted to electrical energy. Is that clear? This is a very important point.
The simple act of moving ones' hand caused current to move. Mechanical energy into electrical energy. Although many years away, a turbine powered dynamo would let the power of flowing water or burning coal produce electricity. Got a river or a dam? The water spins the turbines which turns the generators which produce electricity. The more water you have the more generators you can add and the more electricity you can produce. Mechanical energy into electrical energy.
Faraday worked through different electrical problems in the next ten years, eventually publishing his results on induction in 1831. By that year many people were producing electrical dynamos. But electromagnetism still needed understanding. Someone had to show how to use it for communicating.
In 1830 the great American scientist Professor Joseph Henry transmitted the first practical electrical signal. A short time before Henry had invented the first efficient electromagnet. He also concluded similar thoughts about induction before Faraday but he didn't publish them first. Henry's place in electrical history however, has always been secure, in particular for showing that electromagnetism could do more than create current or pick up heavy weights -- it could communicate.In a stunning demonstration in his Albany Academy classroom, Henry created the forerunner of the telegraph. In the demonstration, Henry first built an electromagnet by winding an iron bar with several feet of wire. A pivot mounted steel bar sat next to the magnet. A bell, in turn, stood next to the bar. From the electromagnet Henry strung a mile of wire around the inside of the classroom. He completed the circuit by connecting the ends of the wires at a battery. Guess what happened? The steel bar swung toward the magnet, of course, striking the bell at the same time. Breaking the connection released the bar and it was free to strike again. And while Henry did not pursue electrical signaling, he did help someone who did. And that man was Samuel Finley Breese Morse.
From the December, 1963 American Heritage magazine, "a sketch of Henry's primitive telegraph, a dozen years before Morse, reveals the essential components: an electromagnet activated by a distant battery, and a pivoted iron bar that moves to ring a bell." See the two books listed to the left for more information.
In 1837 Samuel Morse invented the first workable telegraph, applied for its patent in 1838, and was finally granted it in 1848. Joseph Henry helped Morse build a telegraph relay or repeater that allowed long distance operation. The telegraph later helped unite the country and eventually the world. Not a professional inventor, Morse was nevertheless captivated by electrical experiments. In 1832 he heard of Faraday's recently published work on inductance, and was given an electromagnet at the same time to ponder over. An idea came to him and Morse quickly worked out details for his telegraph.

Don Meyer, among coaches with most wins, has died

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Don Meyer, one of the winningest coaches in college men’s basketball, has died in South Dakota.
Family spokeswoman Brenda Dreyer says the former Northern State coach died of cancer at 6:52 a.m. Sunday. He was 69.
Meyer led his teams to the playoffs 19 times and compiled a 923-324 record. He retired in 2010, after a decade at Northern State in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and 24 seasons at Lispcomb in Tennessee.
Four months after a near-fatal car accident in 2008 and a cancer diagnosis, Meyer was coaching from a wheelchair when he passed Bobby Knight as the NCAA’s winningest coach in men’s basketball history. Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski took the title in 2012.
Meyer was a standout athlete at Northern Colorado. He began his head coaching career at Hamline in Minnesota.

Robots, hands-free wizardry wow at high-tech fair

A "toddler" robot that sees red, a digital master chef and a suitcase that never gets lost -- new technology at the world's biggest high-tech fair has the potential to change lives.
The gadgetry ranged from time-saving to life-saving in the buzzing CeBIT halls in the northern German city of Hanover.
Robots never fail to pull in the crowds, and they set the scene at the official opening of the five-day showcase of what's new and ueber-hot in the IT and high-tech world.
RoboThespian, a life-sized humanoid robot, delivered an articulate welcome address to guests, among them Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Both leaders went on to shake the bionic i-limb hand that has 24 different grips, produced by prosthetics company Touch Bionics, on a joint tour of the stands from CeBIT's 2014 partner country, Britain.
While pole-dancing robots "Lexy" and "Tess" were on hand for pure entertainment, two others, including one-year-old "Roboy", which has bones and muscles, pave the way for possible future developments in medicine or even Moon exploration.
"I can be happy," says Roboy, pulling the appropriate facial expression. "I can be angry," it says, its face turning red.
Resembling a small child, Roboy can move its limbs thanks to its 48 muscles, which are being further developed by the Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence of the University of Zurich and the EU research project Myorobotics.
"It was built in nine months like a human baby," project manager Rafael Hostettler said.
The goal is to simply better understand how we work and use the lesson to improve industrial production, he said.
"There might be applications in prosthetics," Hostettler said, saying simulating illnesses could help to bring down the cost of teaching doctors.
- 'Back in 10' -
Meanwhile "Charlie", an ape-like robot with an flexible spine and feet that "feel", can crawl and balance on a tilting surface.
Developed by the German Center for Artificial Intelligence with Bremen University, it raises hopes that Charlie's descendants will one day explore craters on the Moon.
Back down to earth and "Kochbot" (German for "cook-bot") not only selects a recipe from among its library of 30,000 to suit whatever ingredients the cook has at home, but also reads it aloud and monitors the cooking time.
The Kochbot app means that sticky fingerprints on the pages of recipe books are a thing of the past and it will even repeat quantities or detailed prepping notes.
Further hands-free gadgetry at CeBIT gave new hope for frequent travellers.
At a mock-up of an Airbus cabin, there was a close-up look at "Bag2Go", a suitcase that is equipped with a SIM card, transmission module and display, to ensure it never gets lost.
"You always know where the bag is because you have an app, you can control it by GPS," said Torsten Chudobba, account executive for Airbus group, which together with T-Systems and luggage company Rimowa, is behind "Bag2Go".
Good news perhaps for skiers comes in the form of "Airwriting", developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, which will mean not having to take off your gloves to write a short message via a mobile phone.
"Home in 10 minutes" for example can simply be spelled out on the palm of the user's hand and a sensor attached to the wrist records the hand movements for a computer to write out the message.
And with the soccer World Cup on the horizon, software giant SAP has the ultimate in analysing the beautiful game.
It has teamed up with the German national football squad to produce a touchscreen tool with a panoramic view of past matches that digitally analyses team and individual performances, such as distances between players, passing frequency or possession of the ball.
"Here you can see the tactic, whether it works, how the opponent reacts," explained project manager Christoph Jungkind.
"So this is the basis for a good performance evaluation."

Wikipedia to add audio to preserve history

The crowd-sourced encyclopedia plans to add audio clips to its biography pages to preserve famous voices for future generations.
The project seeks to capture short clips, roughly 10 seconds, of notable people, whether famous historians, activists, scientists or celebrities, and add them, along with a text transcript, to their pages on the digital encyclopedia.
The first donator to the Wikipedia Voice Intro Project, or WikiVIP, is UK writer, actor, director and broadcaster Stephen Fry, and the result can be heard at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_fry.
And while members of the project are approaching more people, the project has already received a major boost thanks to a donation from the BBC.
It is allowing Wikipedia to extract 300 voice clips from certain programs. As a result, Tim Berners-Lee, Aung San Suu Kyi and 150 other notable individuals also have audio files attached to their profiles.
But of course Wikipedia, being Wikipedia, is also looking to its millions of users to lend a hand and would like people who may know feted individuals to approach them for a sound bite.

Captian 'Refused Chance' to Return to Sinking Concordia

An official coordinating the rescue from Italy's stricken cruise ship told a court Monday that the captain, accused of abandoning ship, refused twice to be taken back on board after making it safely to dry land.
Captain Francesco Schettino, who is on trial for multiple manslaughter, insists that he slipped off the Costa Concordia as it rolled over after hitting rocks off the island of Giglio, and fell onto a lifeboat which carried him ashore.
In a widely-quoted phone call a coast guard official is heard upbraiding Schettino and ordering him to "get back on board, for fuck's sake" -- an order the former captain refused point blank to follow.
"When I got to the rock where Schettino was, I told him I would take him back to Giglio port so he could get on a dinghy and be taken back to the Concordia, and get back on board if need be," Carlo Galli, the head of the traffic police coordinating the rescue, told the court.
Thirty-two people were killed in the nighttime disaster, which happened when passengers were sitting down to dinner.
Some drowned after throwing themselves into the icy sea, others were trapped in the lifts as the huge liner sank.
Helicopters desperately ferrying survivors to safety flew over Schettino as he sat huddled on an outcrop near the shore, Galli said.
"He told me he had to stay, to supervise his ship. When I repeated the invitation to take him back, another officer from the ship said it was a good idea to try and get back on board. Schettino said no again," he said.
Captain 'was dry' after leaving ship
Schettino has claimed he begged the lifeboat he found himself on to turn around and take him back to the ship, but his request was refused.
He has also said the ship's owner Costa Crociere, Europe's biggest cruise operator, told him by telephone not to return to the stricken liner.
"Schettino was dry, unlike the rest of the passengers with him. He asked to use my mobile phone, but I needed it to coordinate the rescue. We took the passengers to shore, he remained behind with one or two other officials," Galli said.
The Concordia hit rocks off the island of Giglio on the night of January 14, 2012, with 4,229 people from 70 countries on board.
Schettino has admitted to performing a risky "salute" manoeuvre near Giglio island and is accused of delaying the evacuation process after the impact.
The court heard from Andrea Bongiovanni, an official who says he tried to persuade Schettino to sound the alarm long before he eventually gave the order to do so.
"The ship's safety manager and I loudly insisted, along with the second in command Roberto Blosio, that the general alarm should be sounded. But captain Schettino gestured that we should wait, he didn't give the order," he said.
"We only managed to later," and once the extent of the damage to the ship became clear, "the captain looked me in the eyes and said: 'My career is over'," he added.
The trial, which began in July last year, is expected to last for months as hundreds of witnesses testify.