Cameron to shoot 3 'Avatar' sequels in New Zealand

<pandora loginp>Posted: Sunday, December 15, 2013 8:54 pm |

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Posted in Movies on Sunday, December 15, 2013 8:54 pm. Updated: 1:05 am.

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S-C artwork chosen to adorn DESE Christmas cards

Smith-Cotton High School box of christmas cards teacher Michael Shukers was notified recently that work by two of his students were selected to be used for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's holiday cards.

"I was chosen to have students design the holiday cards this year by Robin Barbour, executive assistant, State Board of Education/Deputy Commissioner's in Jefferson City. I was notified a few months ago to have students design cards for the competition.

"I offered the project as extra-curricular assignment, and several students accepted the challenge. I submitted artwork to Robin Barbour last week and the selections were made on Dec. 15," commented Shukers.

The following artwork was selected for the holiday greeting cards for Commissioner of Education Chris L. Nicastro and State Board President Peter Herschend:

1. Alejandra Magana (snowflake and snowman/woman) Grade 11 (State Board President) 2. Diana Tkachuk Grade 12 (Snowman/trees) (Commissioner of Education) Submitted by Sedalia School District 200.

Ultimate Software Delivers Expanded Global HCM, Significant User Experience Enhancements in Latest Release; Announces UltiPro Managed Services

WESTON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--December 11, 2013--

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq: ULTI), a leading cloud provider of people management solutions, today announced that it has delivered numerous enhancements to its xo so mien bac solution in the UltiPro Fall 2013 release, with expanded capabilities in the areas of global human capital management (HCM), global payroll integration, and configurability as well as a modern new UltiPro user experience. Ultimate also announced the addition of UltiPro Managed Services, a new set of service offerings that allows customers to have UltiPro Managed Services handle select components of HR, payroll, and benefits management for their organizations instead of the customers' in-house staff.

"Our latest version of UltiPro and our new UltiPro Managed Services address our primary objective: simplifying people's work lives," said Adam Rogers, chief technology officer at Ultimate Software. "With enhancements like a redesigned, more intuitive user experience and the ability for non-technical users to easily tailor UltiPro to meet their business objectives, the Fall 2013 release of UltiPro focuses on making work less complex for every person in the organization."

Global HCM Enhancements

In line with Ultimate's strategy to provide multinational businesses with one global HCM platform to support all employees worldwide, the Fall 2013 release of UltiPro delivers several global HCM enhancements, including:

-- Global Payroll Integration. With the Fall 2013 release, UltiPro now gives customers a global payroll connector between UltiPro and leading global payroll provider Celergo. With the Celergo integration, businesses can quickly and easily exchange employee HR, pay, and compensation details from UltiPro to Celergo's global payroll service in more than 30 countries. -- Additional Language Support. UltiPro's latest release delivers Brazilian Portuguese in addition to U.S., Canadian, and UK English variants as well as Canadian-French and Spanish. -- Global-Ready Business Process Support. The Fall 2013 release adds several new business processes to better support the needs of multinational organizations, including global job and salary changes, global location management, and new global attributes, such as additional employment contract fields and additional job fields, that allow for more comprehensive global workforce insight and management. -- European Operations. To further assist our customers with employees located around the world, Ultimate Software is expanding its operations to include a new office in London, England, focused on supporting our customers with UltiPro consulting and support services. This expansion of our customer services team outside of North America is a critical component of Ultimate's global strategy. The office is scheduled to open in January 2014.

Enhanced Solution Configurability

With the Fall 2013 release, Ultimate introduced a visual platform configuration interface that helps customers make frequently needed system changes and achieve a highly tailored HCM solution without requiring technical resources. Customers can independently create and manage new fields and capabilities within UltiPro to address specific business needs and then reconfigure UltiPro over time without having to rely on any consulting intervention.

Capabilities include the ability to:

-- Add or move customer-created data fields in any language, including those with double-byte characters, such Chinese, Japanese, and Korean -- Use drag-drop functionality for the placement of new data elements -- Automatically have newly created fields available for use in workflow and reporting via UltiPro's robust business intelligence solution -- 'Test-drive' configurations before applying them

New User Experience

With a significant visual update to UltiPro, including completely new dashboards for managers and employees designed with simplicity and effectiveness in mind, a refreshed look and feel, and improved navigation throughout UltiPro, the newest version of UltiPro incorporates feedback from end users designed to make completing work within UltiPro quicker and simpler.

"Too often user experience is mistaken for how visually appealing a solution looks," said Rogers. "User experience is not just about aesthetics--it's about how the solution truly performs and makes work simpler for users. Ultimate is transforming UltiPro by leveraging a research-driven design process based on how end users work on a daily basis. Our goal is to provide a modern, consumer-like HCM technology experience to employees at every level of the organization."

UltiPro Managed Services

As the complexities of managing and paying employees have evolved, HCM technology customers are expressing growing interest in specialized assistance managing parts of these functions without sacrificing the control of or access to their employee data that they enjoy with a cloud solution. To enhance the end-to-end HCM service options Ultimate already provides to its customers, the company today announced a new service offering called UltiPro Managed Services. Through Ultimate's November 2013 acquisition of the assets of Accel HR, customers can now have UltiPro Managed Services handle selected components of HR, payroll, benefits, and HCM technology management functions, designed for companies that prefer not to use internal resources for these business processes.

Based in Alpharetta, Georgia, Accel HR has provided HR, payroll, benefits, technology administration, and consulting services to large and middle-market corporate customers throughout North America for more than nine years. Since 2007, Accel HR has partnered exclusively with Ultimate to provide managed HR, payroll, and benefits services to UltiPro customers in diverse industries. Ultimate's acquisition of the assets of Accel HR increases the range of services that Ultimate offers to its customers and streamlines the delivery of these services to Accel HR's current customer base.

Unlike typical outsourced payroll or HRIS services that take a one-size-fits-all approach, UltiPro Managed Services will allow customers to define the specific service solution that best meets their organizations' unique needs by choosing from a combination of payroll management, HRIS, and/or benefits management services to ensure optimal business results.

About Ultimate Software

Ultimate is a leading cloud provider of people management solutions, with more than 10 million people records in the cloud. Built on the belief that people are the most important ingredient of any business, Ultimate's award-winning UltiPro delivers HR, payroll, and talent management solutions that seamlessly connect people with the information and resources they need to work more effectively. Founded in 1990, the company is headquartered in Weston, Florida, and has more than 1,800 professionals focused on developing the highest quality solutions and services. In 2013, Ultimate was ranked #9 on FORTUNE's list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For; recognized as a 'Leader' in Nucleus Research's HCM Technology Value Matrix; and awarded the highest rating by Constellation Research in its Cloud Buyer's Bill of Rights Certification. Ultimate has more than 2,500 customers with employees in 144 countries, including Adobe Systems Incorporated, Bloomin' Brands, Culligan International, Major League Baseball, Pep Boys, Texas Rangers Baseball, and Texas Roadhouse. More information on Ultimate's products and services for people management can be found at www.ultimatesoftware.com.

UltiPro is a registered trademark of The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. All other trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.

Follow Ultimate Software on Twitter: www.twitter.com/UltimateHCM

Follow Ultimate Software on LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/UltimateHCM

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20131211005177/en/

CONTACT: Ultimate Software, Weston

Public Relations Contact: Darlene Marcroft, 954-331-7444

darlene_marcroft@ultimatesoftware.com

or

For Sales Information:

Ultimate Software, 800-432-1729

Website: www.ultimatesoftware.com

SOURCE: Ultimate Software Copyright Business Wire 2013

Order free Annual Report for The Ultimate Software Group, Inc.

Visit http://djnweurope.ar.wilink.com/?ticker=US90385D1072 or call +44 (0)208 391 6028

On the Books: Amazon finds indie booksellers make up a quarter of top Kindle Direct Publishing ebook sales

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Good news for indie booksellers: They're making a dent in Amazon's Top 100 ebooks sold on the Amazon Kindle. Meanwhile, Norway is making steps toward digitizing all books in the 20th century. More on those stories and other top headlines below:

Amazon revealed a quarter of the top 100 Kindle ebook sales - through Kindle Direct Publishing - in the U.S. were by self-publishing indie authors and publishers. [The Guardian]

The National Library of Norway has been digitizing every book published in Norwegian since 2006 and will finish doing so in the next two to three decades. Anyone in Norway will eventually have access to all 20th century works, including those under copyright, writes The Atlantic's Alexis C. Madrigal. [The Atlantic]

Writer José Esteban Muñoz, known for his studies on queer theory, gender, and sexuality, has died at age 46. [ The University of Minnesota Press]

Baltimore has become "The City That Reads," with about 160,000 children's books being distributed free to the city's schoolteachers this week. [Baltimore Sun]

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named sci-fi author Samuel R. Delany the grandmaster for 2013. Delany will be presented with the award at the Nebula Awards in 2014. []

Collections of artful accidents in Google Books scans have cropped up online. Kenneth Goldsmith examines their appearances. [The New Yorker]

This year's National Book Award winner for fiction James McBride talked how he writes, where he writes, and what he does when he's rewriting. [The Daily Beast]

Looking for a gift for a young reader? Check out this list of holiday-friendly children's books. []

Fayette County: Typhoon Haiyan benefit Friday; Glacier Girl talk Saturday

Bob Cardin, project director for the recovery and restoration of Glacier Girl, a World War II fighter plane recovered from the ice in Greenland and reconstructed to flying condition in Middlesboro, will speak at 7 p.m. Saturday at the bulk christmas cards Museum of Kentucky.

The Glacier Girl story began in July 1942, when six new Lockheed P-38 fighter planes and two B-17 Boeing bombers on their flight to the war in Europe became lost. All aircraft made emergency landings on an icecap in Greenland. Never recovered, the new planes were buried by snow and ice over the years. Pursued for historical and restoration value, one fighter plane was located in 1983. In 1992, this P-38 was brought up in pieces through a 268-foot-deep shaft cut through the ice. One piece of the aircraft weighed 7,000 pounds.

The recovered P-38 was shipped via Denmark to Middlesboro in southeastern Kentucky, the home of the late Roy Shoffner, who funded the project. Glacier Girl returned to the skies in 2002.

The event includes a buffet dinner served at 6 p.m., followed by Cardin's presentation. The charge is $15 for museum members and $20 for non-members. The Aviation Museum of Kentucky is located at 4029 Airport Road at Blue Grass Airport.The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government will conduct two public hearings regarding the cable television franchise of Time Warner Cable to identify future cable-related community needs and interests and review the performance of Time Warner Cable under its franchise. All interested parties will be given an opportunity to speak at the hearings. Meeting dates are as follows: 6 p.m. Monday at the 2nd Floor Council Chambers, Urban County Government Center, 200 East Main Street; 6 p.m. Dec. 12 at the Beaumont YMCA, 3251 Beaumont Centre Circle.

Hearings set on cable TV

Residents of Fayette County who have a cable-related complaint that is not resolved by dealing directly with Time Warner Cable, (859) 514-1400, or who wish to comment on future cable-related community needs and interests and/or the performance of Time Warner Cable, may call LexCall at 3-1-1 or send an email to commentoncablelexington@lexingtonky.gov.

Benefit to aid typhoon victims in Philippines

A benefit for the people of the Philippines currently suffering from the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan will be Friday at McCarthy's Irish Bar, 117 South Upper Street. At the benefit, the Bluegrass Filipino-American Society will collect donations and offer international food sponsored by local restaurants.

To make a donation, make checks payable to BFAAI/Red Cross c/o Ellis Purwanto, treasurer, (memo: Typhoon Haiyan). The BFAAI mailing address is: P.O. Box 23461, Lexington, Ky. 40524. All donations will be channeled through the American Red Cross to the typhoon victims and will be tax deductible. The Red Cross will send donors a receipt.

Union seeks donations for military personnel

Commonwealth Credit Union is accepting donations for Military Missions through Saturday.

Military Missions is a Lexington-based nonprofit organization that supports members of the military and their families, as well as veterans, by mailing care packages to service men and women on a year-round basis. Efforts for Christmas increase tenfold.

Commonwealth branches are acting as drop-off locations for the following items: puzzle books, travel games, paperback books, coffee, hot chocolate mix, tea bags, hard candy, Chex Mix, chewing gum, cookies, crackers, trail mix, beef jerky, socks, boot insoles, eye drops, Vaseline, lens cleansing wipes, sandwich bags, clear mailing tape and cards containing a personal note.

Training for Alzheimer's caregivers available

Alzheimer's Family Caregiver Training will be from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday at 1140 Red Mile Place.

This program is for those who have a friend or family member who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia. Local experts, including a neurologist who specializes on memory disorders, a social worker and dementia educator, will present on the basics of dementia, caring for the person with dementia and self-care for caregivers.

Registration is $10 and includes lunch. Registration is required. To register, email infoky-in@alz.org or call 1-800-272-3900.

Bourbon Barrel Project raises nearly $65,000

LexArts raised more than $64,850 through its Bourbon Barrel Project on Town Branch, which concluded with an auction on Nov. 16. Proceeds from the event will support LexArts' Endowment Fund, its Public Art Fund, youth arts programs of several partner organizations, and the recent street art initiatives of PRHBTN.

Fifty percent of the proceeds from 10 barrels, totaling $7,000, will benefit the following organizations' arts education and outreach programs: Lexington Philharmonic's Music Builds Program, Lexington Art League's Education and Community Outreach, Living Arts and Science Center's Scholarship Program, Lexington Children's Theatre's Scholarship Program, Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra's North Limestone MusicWorks, The Give Into The Groove Foundation's Virtual Quilt, and The Nest - Center for Women, Children and Families.

Thirty-six artists created 41 barrels for the project. In addition to a $1,200 honorarium per barrel, artists were paid an additional 10 percent of the auction price of their barrels.

LexArts will also make a $2,000 donation to PRHBTN to cover costs associated with the group's recent commission of international muralist Eduardo Kobra, creator of the Lincoln mural on Vine Street.