On Friday, Jim Harbaugh said it's "unlikely" quarterback Alex Smith will be released.

Did you hear that, Chiefs? Are you listening, Browns? How about you, Cardinals, Jets and Jaguars?

As expected, Harbaugh presented two scenarios for how the 49ers would proceed with Smith in the offseason, and neither involved parting ways without netting something in return.

"We think we've got the best quarterback situation in the National Football League," Harbaugh said at the NFL combine in Indianapolis. "I feel strongly about that. Again, that will be a process that plays out. Alex Smith continuing to be a 49er, or if a trade occurs in the next weeks and months. Those are the two possibilities, most likely possibilities."

Are the 49ers really prepared to keep good-soldier Smith in clipboard-holding mode and pay him $8.5 million to do so in 2013?

That seems unlikely. But why announce that to quarterback-starved teams holding out hope that Smith will be released and could be acquired without the loss of a draft pick or picks?

Two days after the Super Bowl, Harbaugh took a similar - if slightly less definitive - stance when asked if the 49ers would grant Smith his release.

"I don't think any player has those wishes granted that are under contract," he said. "And everything is different. Every scenario is unique, and certainly something that we're not going to delve into and get into specifics at this point."

Manningham update: Harbaugh said he didn't think wide receiver Mario Manningham would be ready to participate in the start of training camp, according to Comcast SportsNet Bay Area and the Sacramento Bee.

Manningham sustained torn anterior and posterior cruciate knee ligaments on Dec. 23. At the Super Bowl, where he was still on crutches, he said he underwent surgery in mid-January.

Another 49ers wide receiver, Kyle Williams, has said he'll be ready for training camp after sustaining a torn ACL on Nov. 25.

Talking about practice: Harbaugh took a 50-mile trek to Bloomington, Ind., this week to see his brother-in-law, Indiana basketball coach Tom Crean, and watch the Hoosiers practice.

Indiana is 24-3 and ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25.

"It made me want to be a better coach - it made me want to have better practices," Harbaugh said. "One of the finest practices I've seen a football or basketball team go through. ... It was a 2 1/2-hour practice and there was no grab-assing going on.

"The attention was there. Coaches coaching players and players coaching each other - holding each other accountable. It was real good. I got some good notes and want to make some of our practices better."

On Friday, Crean, via Twitter, sounded fired up about Harbaugh's visit: "Jim Harbaugh was here for practice yesterday. Every1 loved it. He had his #iubenchmob tshirt on uner the 49er sweatshirt. He is invested."

Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ebranch@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Eric_Branch

Summary: [...] why announce that to quarterback-starved teams holding out hope that Smith will be released and could be acquired without the loss of a draft pick or picks?  Two days after the Super Bowl, Harbaugh took a similar - if slightly less definitive - stance when asked if the 49ers would grant Smith his release.  Harbaugh said he didn't think wide receiver Mario Manningham would be ready to participate in the start of training camp, according to Comcast SportsNet Bay Area and the Sacramento Bee.  Manningham sustained torn anterior and posterior cruciate knee ligaments on Dec. 23.  Another 49ers wide receiver, Kyle Williams, has said he'll be ready for training camp after sustaining a torn ACL on Nov. 25.  Harbaugh took a 50-mile trek to Bloomington, Ind., this week to see his brother-in-law, Indiana basketball coach Tom Crean, and watch the Hoosiers practice.


The scariest part? Getting lectured by English majors on how Frankenstein is actually the name of the doctor.

Before everyone jumped on the zombie bandwagon, the undead stars of horror were mummies.

3. THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

She’s just like Frankenstein, but with the added stress of having a bad hair day. Permanently.

Before Americans turned vampires into sparkly vegetarians, F. W. Murnau created this hardcore version.

You’ll never see him coming.

6. THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Sure, the guy’s disﬁgured, mentally unstable, homicidal. But he can sing.

7. THE DEVIL, FROM ‘LEGEND’

Tim Curry’s portrayal of the devil is enough to make you shiver with anticipation.

In a dog-eat-dog world, sometimes it’s good to be a wolf.

Death. Destruction. Hilariously poor dubbing. It’s the trifecta.

10. THE CUBE, FROM ‘HELLRAISER’

It’s the evil twin of Rubik’s Cube, only less annoying to solve.

11. THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

Half man. Half amphibian. One hundred percent creepy.

The original undead bad boy.

Even if spiders aren’t your particular phobia, a million of them at once is enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies.

You can thank this guy for rendering the phrase “It’s only a dream” meaningless.

15. JASON, FROM ‘FRIDAY THE 13TH’

A hockey mask may not seem a logical fashion choice for a crazed killer, but hey, he still gets the job done.

16. PALE MAN, FROM ‘PAN’S LABYRINTH’

It’s like Guillermo del Toro decided he never wanted any of us to sleep again.

It’s a whole new level of cruel to be forced to listen to the killer deconstruct the cliche of how he’s going to kill you.

It’s all fun and games until the gelatinous alien eats everyone in the theater.

The truth is out there and it’s bloody.

20. ‘CABIN IN THE WOODS’

Just when you thought you’d be seen it all, Joss Whedon swoops in and turns the horror genre into the scariest thing of all: a bureaucracy.

21. THE TELEPORTER PODS FROM ‘THE FLY’

Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug.

— Aprill Brandon, Globe Correspondent

Summary: Classic movies are classic for a reason. Classic monster movies are classic for the best reason: unforgettable villains. From hostile aliens to the psycho killer next door, these monsters come in all shapes, sizes, and nightmares. Just in time for Halloween, here’s a recap of some of the best monsters the movies have to offer.


SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. has opened a how-to shop that sells expert advice on everything from cosmetics to the cosmos in live video sessions streamed on computers and smartphones.

The service, called Helpouts, began taking calls for help Tuesday and offers connections to more than 1,000 merchants, instructors, websites, and health care specialists who cleared Google Inc.’s background checks.

It represents Google’s latest attempt to play an instrumental role in helping people manage their lives.

Since establishing its search engine as the go-to place to find information online, Google has expanded into giving directions on digital maps and introduced a virtual assistant that is designed to learn about users’ interests so it can provide helpful tips without prompting.

Helpouts is meant to fill the gaps in Google’s search engine, which sometimes delivers unsatisfactory results because the answers being sought aren’t available on a website, said Udi Manber, a Google executive overseeing the new service.

‘‘Sometimes, you need someone to look over your shoulder. Sometimes you need someone to show you the way,’’ Manber said.

For starters, Helpouts is offering to connect people with experts in eight different categories: art and music; computers and electronics; cooking; education and careers; fashion and beauty; fitness and nutrition; health; and home and garden.

A Helpouts application is being offered for smartphones running on Google’s Android software. The service isn’t yet available for Apple Inc.’s iPhone or other mobile devices running on different software.

Besides opening up a source of new revenue for Google, Helpouts could give more people a reason to set up a profile on the company’s social network, Google Plus. That’s because a Google Plus account is required to seek advice on Helpouts. The company says it currently has about 540 million active Google Plus users.

Helpouts is similar to several other online services that already provide connections to experts in various fields. Pearl.com, a San Francisco start-up formerly known as JustAnswer.com, also sells one-on-one online sessions on a wide variety of subjects. HealthTap dispenses medical advice, and RocketLawyer specializes in legal matters.

Google’s new service also may end up competing with the company’s own YouTube video site, which offers a wide array of how-to clips for free.

Summary: SAN FRANCISCO — Google has opened a how-to shop that sells expert advice on everything from cosmetics to the cosmos in live video sessions streamed on computers and smartphones. The service, called Helpouts, began taking calls for help Tuesday and offers connections to more than 1,000 merchants, instructors, websites, and health care specialists who cleared Google Inc.’s background checks. It represents Google’s latest attempt to play an instrumental role in helping people manage their lives. Since establishing its search engine as the go-to place to find information online, Google has expanded into giving directions on digital maps and introduced a virtual assistant that is designed to learn about users’ interests so it can provide helpful tips without prompting.


Mary Smart Churba of Hartsdale, N.Y., daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Smart of Greenwich, Conn., was married yesterday to Sanford W. Kitrosser, son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Irving Kitrosser of New York. Rabbi Murray Grauer of the Hebrew Institute of White Plains performed the ceremony at the Miss Churba's home.

The bride, a patient-representative at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, is a graduate of Columbia University. Her father is chairman emeritus of Esquire Inc. in New York, a diversified company that formerly published Esquire magazine and is involved in music publishing, lighting and educational activities.

Mr. Kitrosser is a sales representative with Mister Tricot, a textile manufacturer in New York. He was graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and received a master's degree in business administration from New York University. His father was an insurance agent.

The bride's previous marriage ended in divorce, as did the bridegroom's.


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In “The Monolith,” a recent episode of Mad Men, Sterling Cooper & Partners is invaded by a massive mainframe IBM computer, throwing the agency into a whirl of anxiety. Like the humanoids in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the mortals of SC&P gape at an impassive slab that may transmute everything. The year is 1969, and Neil Armstrong will soon walk on the moon. But maybe, the episode suggests, this landing was the more giant leap. After all, we haven’t been back to the moon in more than 40 years; we revisit Facebook every five minutes.

Mad Men isn’t the only current TV series to acknowledge tech’s power.

This appears in the May 26, 2014 issue of TIME.

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Summary: Primetime finds drama (and absurdity) in the tech world


SMART PEOPLE Lydia R. Diamond’s splendid new Cambridge-based play sifts through the implications of research that suggests racism might be hard-wired into the human brain while showcasing a quartet of complex, flawed, intriguing, and, yes, smart people who register as much more than delivery systems for polemical freight. Directed by Peter DuBois. Through July 6. Huntington Theatre Company, at Wimberly Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts. 617-266-0800, www.huntingtontheatre.org

INTO THE WOODS A captivating production of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical, adroitly directed by Spiro Veloudos, in which the disenchanted forest of the title is thick with pathos, dread, and disillusion, but also shot through with humor, life, and wayward romance. With eye-catching costumes by Elisabetta Polito and top-notch performances. Through June 29. Lyric Stage Company of Boston. 617-585-5678, www.lyricstage.com

JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS Artistic director Eric C. Engel opted to open the 35th season of Gloucester Stage with a production, helmed by him, of the beloved revue by the Belgian-born balladeer, which was a hit at Gloucester Stage back in 2003. Starring Jennifer Ellis, Daniel Robert Sullivan, Shana Dirik, and Douglas Jabara, with David McGrory as music director. Through July 6. Gloucester Stage Company, Gloucester. 978-281-4433, www.gloucesterstage.com

UNCLE VANYA Last summer Robert Kropf directed his pared-down adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,’’ resulting in a memorably dark production at Harbor Stage Company. Now he has turned his hand to Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,’’ with a cast that includes Kropf himself, the always-compelling Stacy Fischer, Amie Lytle, Jeff Zinn, and Justin Campbell in the title role. Through July 12. Harbor Stage Company, Wellfleet. 508-349-6800, www.harborstage.org

THE TEMPEST Directed by Aaron Posner and Teller, of the Penn & Teller team, this dandy production dresses up Shakespeare with stage magic, a gymnastic two-man Caliban, and an onstage band playing songs from the Tom Waits catalog. Through June 15. American Repertory Theater. Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge. 617-547-8300, www.americanrepertorytheater.org

AMALUNA Cirque du Soleil is back with its big top, this time performing a female-centered spectacle that combines razzle-dazzle with refined art. Directed by Diane Paulus of the American Repertory Theater, the production is based loosely on “The Tempest,” with a female Prospera who manipulates the natural world. This is more plot-based than previous Cirque shows, which gives it an intimacy and ties the circus acts (including clowns, pictured) together. Through July 6. Boston Marine Industrial Park. 800-450-1480, www.cirquedusoleil.com/amaluna

Summary: Globe reviewers offer their recommendations for the best in local theater, including “Smart People,


FORTUNE — Shortly after a devastating tornado ripped through Moore, Okla. on Monday afternoon, Robyn Rojas posted a photo on Facebook of a pile of rubble that was once her home. The student advisor at the University of Oklahoma then added one comment, “This is a nightmare.”

The next morning, her coworker Jacque Sexton Braun saw the post and within five minutes set up an online fundraising campaign on GoFundMe.com to raise money to help pregnant Rojaf and her husband Ivan pay for new clothes, toothbrushes, everything before their first child arrives in July. Within an hour, the campaign collected $1,000 for the couple. Within 24 hours, donors contributed more than $6,000. “Giving to the Red Cross is great, but this way you’re giving to someone whose story you know, and it’s more personal,” says Braun, a marketing specialist for the university.

Kickstarter was just the beginning. The nascent $2.7 billion crowdfunding industry has proved to be not just a powerful tool for financing startups and art and movie projects. It’s helping to transform charity too. Anyone can easily set up a campaign, tap into their social networks, and make a direct impact on giving. Thousands of campaigns are being set up to help Oklahoma victims on sites with names like Fundly, Indiegogo, YouCaring, GiveitForward, Crowdrise, and GoFundMe.

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In just 24 hours, a handful of campaigns on Fundly brought in $500,000 in donations for Oklahoma tornado victims. Last fall, Fundly campaigns raised $2.5 million for Hurricane Sandy and $250,000 for Boston bombing victims. The outpouring of support makes Fundly CEO Dave Boyce project Oklahoma donations on the site will top $3 million.

It took Braun about five minutes to set up an account for Rojas on GoFundMe, which broadcast her campaign to her Facebook friends, letting her post photos and updates, and amass likes and comments as well as money. The money is immediately available: You can withdraw it within 24 to 48 hours.

Most crowdfunding sites take a 3% to 8% cut of the total money raised, which, say executives, is far less than the average 25% overhead of most large charities. (YouCaring is an exception, since it relies only on user donations to operate.)

Despite the growing frustration over slow, bureaucratic charities with high overhead, crowdfunding alone is not the solution, says Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator, which offers advice on charitable giving. “There is a desire to move money as quickly as possible and get as much money to the victims as possible,” Berger says. “But the danger is that the faster the money moves, the greater the chance of abuse and scandal.”

MORE: 6 things you don’t know about the Xbox One

While speedy and personal, those individual crowdfunding campaigns cannot provide for the long-term needs of victims or offer the money and support needed for first responders and aid workers. Often, the person with the best marketing, not the greatest need, gets the most cash, Berger says.

Other efforts are underway to get money directly to victims faster. Recently, family members of victims and frustrated donors are now working with Congress to create the National Compassion Fund, which will funnel the vast majority of donations directly and immediately to victims. After the Boston Marathon bombing, Boston Mayor Tom Menino and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick set up the One Fund to quickly get money to victims. The fund has raised more than $31 million for victims.

When a disaster happens, fraudulent websites and charities pop up immediately within just hours, says Allan Bachman, education manager for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. He advises using caution about donating to unfamiliar people, websites, and charities, as well as providing financial information to them. “You don’t know what’s going to happen to your money and whether it’s really going to be passed on,” he says. “There are no guarantees.”

A number of crowdfunding sites now work closely with nonprofits and charities. GoFundMe and Indiegogo, for instance, allow campaign organizers to contribute the money directly to a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. Fundly, too, also works directly with large charities to help them create campaigns.

When it comes to backing individual campaign organizers, Fundly’s CEO Boyce suggests checking people out and trusting your gut. If a person’s friends aren’t giving to them, then you probably shouldn’t either. The crowdfunding campaigns typically tie to a bank account to a person’s Facebook page to offer more accountability. “It’s policed by the Internet,” he says. “The Internet is actually more effective at policing than any agency could be.”

Summary: A new outlet for one of technology's fastest-growing sectors.


NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson has a problem that any executive would love to have: The company’s business software, which is delivered via the Internet, is so hot that Nelson thinks NetSuite N could, in several years, book $1 billion a year or more in revenue, up from $236 million last year. But he needs more people knocking on doors and pitching potential customers.

Nelson is used to dealing with fervid demand. NetSuite has already more than doubled in size — from annual revenue of $108 million in 2007, the year it went public — largely because the existing team of sales reps worked harder, selling even more software (again, a good problem to have). To achieve his goal of quadrupling NetSuite’s top line within six years, Nelson is working closely with his chief human resources executive to quickly and effectively recruit an army of new employees.

For fast-growing young companies such as NetSuite, hiring and managing workers are huge challenges. Rapidly expanding the workforce can strain a company’s entrepreneurial culture. So can hiring people who have great credentials and the wrong temperament. But if a company waits too long to find the right people, it risks missing business opportunities.

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Hiring has become such an important strategic issue for growth companies that many CEOs are getting directly involved instead of ceding all responsibility to human resources. As part of the ongoing Executive Dream Team series on management collaboration, Fortune took a close look at how Nelson is teaming up with his chief people officer, Marty Réaume, to revamp the way the company hires and trains newcomers.

The pair started working more closely together several years ago. By the end of 2012 they will have hired 660 people, mainly in sales but also in marketing and product development. More than a third of the company’s 1,600 employees will be newcomers.

Réaume joined NetSuite in 2005 and was the main architect of its recruiting structure. Her initial team of six or seven recruiters had to teach prospective job candidates what NetSuite did. (It specializes in customer-management and logistics software and competes with companies like Salesforce.com CRM and Oracle ORCL .)

Problem was, too many of NetSuite’s new hires weren’t working out. In 2008, 100 of the 450 new hires left before they had been at the company a full year. At the same time, executives couldn’t understand why it was always the same 10 guys pulling in the highest sales.

Réaume, who has a master’s degree in organizational psychology, began to roll out an assessment tool called TriMetrix that is used to create a profile of the traits and behaviors of successful salespeople. Company stars consistently scored the same way; those who didn’t make it also held a common profile. NetSuite started using the test in its recruitment of sales executives, along with in-person interviews. The result? Last year just five salespeople left within a year of their start date.

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Nelson also began to review every job offer the company made. “When I was at Oracle, Larry Ellison used to approve every offer, and I thought, How could he approve all these people?” Nelson says. Then he began to see value in the practice. As the company grew, he could no longer meet everyone in person, but by signing off on the incoming résumés he was at least able to get a glimpse at the type of talent NetSuite was attracting, and it also motivated the recruiters, who, Nelson believes, put extra effort into the hire when they know the CEO will look at it. Nelson occasionally even turns someone down, though he hasn’t done so in a year.

Now that NetSuite has addressed some of its hiring issues, Nelson and Réaume — who reports directly to the CEO — have turned to retention and employee training. The big challenge? How to impart the company’s scrappy culture to increasingly far-flung employees. (It has 14 offices in 10 countries, including the Czech Republic.) Réaume is developing a set of online tools to help newcomers get onboard. A leadership conference for top management is in the works.

Training isn’t just for newbies: Nelson is also working with a coach to help him evolve his leadership style. “It’s uncomfortable,” he admits, but the coaching is helping him make the transition from being a startup CEO to running a much larger organization — another problem a lot of executives would love to have.

This story is from the October 29, 2012 issue of Fortune.

Summary: NetSuite's Zach Nelson gets serious about hiring - and keeping - the right team.


'Where vomit meets surf' ... one of the paintings on display at the Saatchi gallery in London. Photograph: Barry Reigate

Newspeak: British Art Now, the new show at Charles Saatchi's honey-stone Chelsea pile, is intended as a survey of the best that contemporary British art has to offer. But inspiring greater ire than the art is the exhibition's truly baffling catalogue. "Incomprehensible," said the Guardian's Adrian Searle, while critic Paul Morley, on BBC2's The Review Show on Friday described it as "one of the great pieces of comedy writing of the year".

On modern Britain "A nation demarcated where vomit meets surf, geographically encircled by froth."

On the artists "Articulated as doublespeak, they hand-make the virtual, cite history in fugue fervour, and find the poetic and enduring in the cacophony of pop cultural din."

On artist Barry Reigate "Choose kiddie-style porn with Barry Reigate's tittie fetish paintings, his cartoon Mickey Mouse sculptures so pervy. Get off on their ghetto-black sleaze."

On "naming the new realities" "By naming them, the world that is constantly hurtling in some unknown direction can be understood, and the straitjacket – which has for so long been known as culture – can be re-tailored and fitted to it anew."

On artist duo Littlewhitehead "Littlewhitehead's yoot spectacle boasts like a national emblem: hoodie-pack in a corner, both menacing and humorously punitive, elevating happyslapping to the level of white cube sublime."

Summary: The catalogue for the British Art Now exhibition is a bewildering creation all of its own


This post is in partnership with Entrepreneur. The article below was originally published at Entrepreneur.com.

After a year-long sales slump, McDonald’s MCD franchisees aren’t loving it.

Franchisees report that their same-store sales fell by 3.6 percent in September, according to a survey of McDonald’s franchisees by Janney Capital Markets analyst Mark Kalinowski. The franchisees, who operate a total of 256 U.S. restaurants, aren’t feeling great about the next month either. Looking ahead to October, they estimated on average that same-store sales would decline 0.7 percent.

Other franchisee concerns include having to increase menu prices due to minimum wage boosts, an “idiotic” corporate marketing plan and a lack of leadership. Additionally, all the franchisees who responded except one said that McDonald’s has failed at its promise to streamline and simplify the menu.

A sour relationship between franchisees and franchisor also isn’t helping the fast-food chain. On average, franchisees ranked their relationship with the corporation as a 1.72 on a five-point scale: somewhere between poor (1) and fair (2), and lower than the average result of 2.1-2.2 over the history of the survey.

One bright point for franchisees is McDonald’s Monopoly promotion, which a number of franchisees said they believed would help sales this fall. Others hoped that the return of the McRib would help prevent declines, despite the fact that the popular pork sandwich is only a local option this year, instead of a national rollout.

Janney Capital lowered its September domestic same-stores sales projection to a decline of 3.6 percent following the report, significantly lower than the consensus forecast of a decline of 2.7 percent. McDonald’s is set to report its third quarter sales tomorrow. The company is expected to report earnings of $1.34 a share, down from $1.52 per share a year ago, according to Thomas-Reuters.

August marked the fourth straight month of declines in McDonald’s U.S. same store sales. Internationally, the company is still dealing with the aftermath of the Chinese expired meat scandal, as well as investigations in half of its nearly 450 Russian restaurants, likely due to anti-U.S. political pushback.

Why August Was a Terrible Month for McDonald’s

McDonald’s Hires Ex-‘MythBusters’ Host to Address Pink Slime, Other Food Rumors

35 Restaurants Where the Customer Isn’t Right

Summary: McDonald's franchisees reported that their same-store sales fell by 3.6 percent in September, according to a recent survey.


FORTUNE — Earlier this week, the file-sharing service Box announced that Cisco Systems CSCO CTO Padmasree Warrior will join its board of directors. The Los Altos, Calif.-based company, which recently raised $100 million in new funding at around a $2 billion valuation, is expected to make its public market debut in the coming months.

Snagging Warrior is a good step along the path to legitimacy with large enterprises, which are Box’s target customers — unlike competitor Dropbox, which has traditionally catered more to the consumer demographic. In a blog post, Box CEO Aaron Levie said Warrior will help the startup transform from a file sharing and storage service to a “far more strategic partner for our customers, and a much more powerful platform for the next wave of enterprise applications.”

Fortune caught up with Warrior — currently at the TED conference in Vancouver — to find out why she’s throwing her weight behind Box and what she thinks she can bring to the boardroom table.

Fortune: Why did you join Box’s board?

Warrior: I believe information technology in the next decade will be shaped by three major transformations — cloud, mobile, and the Internet of Things. Box is innovating at the intersection of two out of these three trends. It is one of a handful of companies that has the potential to become the next generation enterprise leader. With my years of experience in mobile, cloud, collaboration, I can contribute to their trajectory going forward.

How long have you known [Box CEO] Aaron Levie, and how would you describe your relationship?

I have known Aaron for more than two years. We first met at a small dinner and debated the future of business. I have to say, it was a fun and robust debate. On the surface, we each represented the proverbial conflict in ideologies — disruption vs. consistency; ideation vs. scale, chaos vs. discipline. At a deeper level, we both share a passion to change business and enterprise software as we know it today. Since that time we have become friends, and I watched Box mature as a business. I enjoy Aaron’s intelligence, passion, bold vision, and, of course, his sense of humor. I would characterize my relationship with Aaron and Box thus far as that of an informal adviser.

What do you think you can contribute to Box as a member of the board?

I have over two decades of experience in the tech industry with expertise in a broad range of domains from semiconductors to mobile to cloud — covering consumer and enterprise. For businesses to grow profitably there are challenges to be tackled across multiple fronts — building highly scalable technology operations, establishing new routes to market, driving new business models, attracting and developing talent, and so on. As Box continues to grow, I hope to contribute my expertise in technology, strategy, talent development, and global scale.

What do you see as the company’s trajectory and potential?

I see Box redefining enterprise solutions for the next generation of IT. Their key strength is uniquely combining technological disruptions with a delivery model from the cloud and on mobile. They have the potential to become the platform for the future enterprise.

Summary: The Cisco CTO explains why she's backing Aaron Levie's soon-to-IPO enterprise content management company.


FORTUNE — It’s still a sluggish job market out there, but apparently not for supercomputers. IBM’s question-answering machine Watson, best known for beating lowly humans on Jeopardy!, just got a new job. According to the tech giant, Watson will now be employed in customer service centers, used as a tool for both representatives and consumers to get fast, data-driven responses.

It’s been two years since Watson made its debut on Jeopardy!. Since then, IBM IBM and a handful of beta customers have tested the supercomputer’s chops in the medical field, where Watson can assist physicians in diagnosing different kinds of cancers and evaluate the best course of treatment, taking into account mountains of medical journals, electronic health records, and other data sets. IBM has always had big plans for Watson and has talked about its potential in all sorts of verticals, not just health care (and game shows). And now we know Watson’s next career move: trying to improve the far-from-glamorous call center industry.

MORE: The only company that’s grown faster than Apple

“We believe that Watson is going to create a whole new class of applications that have the capability for questions and answers and that learns over time,” says Manoj Saxena, general manager of Watson Solutions. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty has also hinted at Watson’s future, recently telling Fortune that ” … we are also now about to come out with Watson in what we consider as an advisor, and it will be in volume around research-oriented industries. Think of things like pharma; or as a client advisor in industries that have huge numbers of end retail clients. And so, think of financial services, think of a telco.”

The newest flavor of Watson will be called the “Watson Engagement Advisor” and will help customer service agents and end customers find the answers to their questions via an “Ask Watson” feature available through mobile devices, online chat sessions, email, and other means. IBM says the Watson Engagement Advisor will be able to “quickly address customers’ questions, offer advice to guide their purchase decisions, and troubleshoot their problems.” In other words, if you thought it was hard getting to a live customer service representative before, it could soon get much, much harder (on the plus side, you’ll get to interact with a computer with more computer power and memory than the human brain).

Brands like Nielsen NLSN , Celcom, and Royal Bank of Canada RY are exploring ways they can use Watson to improve their customer service process. IBM’s Saxena says an insurance company could use its supercomputer to quickly suggest personalized products. “That kind of interaction today requires the customer service person to have a lot of knowledge about the products that are available and how to match them to customers using their age and other data.”

MORE: All Yahoo’s spending can’t make it cool again

Consumer research firm Nielsen plans to experiment with using Watson to assist media planners and advertisers. “They’re swimming in oceans and oceans of data but it’s still hard to answer simple questions like how much to spend next year and how to optimize spending in real time to improve impact,” says Randall Beard, global head of advertiser solutions for Nielsen.

Regardless of how Watson fares in its call center job, its future could be very bright. IBM says the supercomputer has gotten faster, smarter, and smaller, all attributes that will help increase its chances of becoming more mainstream (the original Watson was the size of a large bedroom; the current product is the size of four pizza boxes). And the company is banking on embedding Watson into all sorts of its own apps and services. More importantly, IBM wants to open up its super-smart machine so that other companies can write applications on top of Watson — that’s slated for later this year. So where will Watson go next? Everywhere, if IBM has its way.

Summary: IBM's supercomputer is getting a job in customer service.


Brook Shields on the cover of PEOPLE

11/15/2014 AT 03:00 PM EST

They were close from the moment they met. When

at the age of 13, she says, "We were like two little kids."

"From the day we met, we saw something of ourselves in each other," says the star, 49, who opens up about her history of celeb romances in her new memoir about her mom,

. "We felt really safe. Together, we felt impervious to the craziness that swirled around us. We joked about how silly people were and watched movies and ate candy."

"Of course we loved each other, but nothing happened romantically," Shields explains. "I would be like, 'Oh please, knock it off.' He was like this kid who would ask you [about dating and romance]. Nobody was telling him and nurturing this stuff and I think he was terrified. He was terrified and sort of juvenile. I think there was an arrested development."

Still, she notes, "He wanted us to never not be with each other. It wasn't something that people were going to understand. It was so much easier to marginalize it and diminish it." He even gave her a ring to mark their friendship. "It sparkles and you sparkle," she says he told her.

In the end, she says, "We understood that the other person had no agenda. I wasn't trying to get anything from him. We'd go to obscure restaurants and could just sort of commiserate and say 'Aren't people crazy?' "

Jackson took her as his date to

, and they also shared private jokes on the red carpet.

"I would have this running commentary under my breath that only he heard: 'Five, four, three, two, one and yes, I'd love to sign our autograph!' " she recalls. "I think it made both of us feel like we weren't going through the isolation of being that famous alone."

"His mom asked me to speak," she says. "The magnitude of that is unbelievable to me. She just said, 'You knew him.' My one concern was her. She was sort of my main focus, and Janet and the kids."

Summary: Their relationship wasn't romantic, she says, and he was "sort of juvenile"


A young man who drove onto a racetrack in England while a high-speed rally was underway will have the next eight months to reflect on his actions after being jailed over the incident.

On June 14, Jack Cottle took his girlfriend's Volkswagen Polo for a joyride on the famous Brands Hatch circuit, interrupting the annual Fun Cup.

The 22-year-old completed an entire lap of the course with his girlfriend and another male friend as passengers.

The dangerous "prank" was filmed on a mobile phone and uploaded to YouTube where it has been viewed more than 2 million times.

The two men are shown laughing and joking, as Mr Cotter's hysterical girlfriend pleads for them to stop.

She suffered a panic attack and had to be treated by the on-site medical team when Mr Cotter finally pulled over.

In sentencing, Judge Martin Joy condemned Mr Cotter's actions as "premeditated" and "inexcusable" adding he had "endangered many lives".

Jonathan Palmer, the chief executive of the company that owns Brands Hatch, welcomed the prison sentence saying "it will serve to reinforce the message that this kind of antisocial behaviour is not only stupid, but will lead to prosecution".

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Summary: A man has been sentenced to eight months behind bars for driving onto a race track during a high-speed rally.


This article is published in partnership with Time.com. The original version can be found here.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired two of his most prominent ministers on Tuesday evening and called for new elections, underscoring his interest in establishing a right-wing government more loyal to his agenda.

The three-term premier announced at a press conference Tuesday that he was ousting Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Finance Minister Yair Lapid, accusing them of openly rebelling against him and preventing him from governing the country. Livni joined Netanyahu’s government on the condition that he allow her to renew peace talks with the Palestinians, and Lapid had promised to take on socioeconomic reforms and Israel’s housing crisis.

“You can call it a putsch, and like this you can’t govern and can’t run a country,” Netanyahu said in a prime-time press conference. “I will not agree to a situation in which ministers attack the government from within.” Speaking as if he was simultaneously launching a new campaign, he urged voters to give him a “bigger ruling party” – the right-wing Likud – adding, “if you want a government of the center-right and right, then I ask to give you your vote to us.”

Over the past week, Israeli media had begun to predict that the bad blood inside Netanyahu’s coalition government had reached toxic new levels, and that it has pushed the hawkish leader to opt for new elections. The most recent bone of contention was a plan on the part of Lapid and his Yesh Atid party to cancel a tax on apartment purchases for first-time home buyers as a way to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis that Lapid had pledged to solve.

But Netanyahu decided to block that with little explanation, as well as a health-care reform plan, which in turn led Lapid to threaten to bolt the coalition. In his speech, Netanyahu condemned Livni for daring to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when she had been told not to, highlighting their differences over the failure of the peace talks in April.

The most severe division, however, was over the question of Israel’s status – or not—as a Jewish nation. Together, Lapid and Livni were among the foremost opponents to the passage by Netanyahu’s cabinet of an initial draft of a controversial bill declaring Israel a nation state. Netanyahu says he is dedicated to passing some version of this legislation so as to cement Israel’s status as a Jewish state by law, which he argues is necessary for the country’s survival. Critics say this would create an undemocratic two-tier system which makes Israeli Arabs and other non-Jewish minorities inferior citizens.

“You could say that it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Gadi Wolfsfeld, a political scientist at the IDC Herzliya, a university near Tel Aviv, tells TIME. “I take him at his word. He can’t really govern, he can’t really get legislation passed. He is not a leader right now, in that he can’t run the country as he would like to. Netanyahu didn’t want this government in the first place, and he prefers what he calls, his ‘natural allies.’”

Summary: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accuses cabinet members of a "putsch"


FORTUNE — The next time you upload a photo to Facebook, consider this: All those pictures have to be processed and stored somewhere, presumably forever. Some 3 million data centers occupy more than 600 million square feet of space in the U.S. alone to help do so. Trouble is, a single location can slurp as much power as a medium-size town, or about 10.5 million watts, according to Jonathan Koomey, a researcher at Stanford University. Data centers already account for 2.2% of America’s total electricity consumption. That is making for hefty utility bills at firms that rely on them — especially data-heavy web services such as Amazon AMZN and Google GOOG .

The culprit for this surge? Smartphones. High-end devices like the iPhone have already outnumbered traditional cellphones in the U.S. this year, according to Nielsen. Users have flocked to data-intensive activities like sharing high-resolution photos and video, surfing the web, and downloading apps. Hence the boom in power-hungry data centers.

MORE: The best of everything in tech this year

In an unexpected twist, smartphones may be the answer to the problems their very popularity helped create. Chips once found exclusively in cellphones are making their way into the building blocks of traditional data centers, like servers. It turns out that such chips may be particularly well-suited for today’s high-frequency, in-the-cloud computations — the billions of Internet searches processed each day, for example. They also consume less energy than traditional server chips — one-tenth as much, in fact.

Chipmakers, meanwhile, are positioning themselves to find new, lucrative lines of business as PC sales decline and mobile devices increasingly dictate trends. The traditional server market reached $52.8 billion worldwide last year, according to research firm Gartner. In November, longtime Intel boss Paul Otellini announced he would step down in early 2013, making way for a new chief executive to deal with the dicey transition to lower-power chips.

U.K.-based ARM Holdings ARMH , which licenses its popular processor architecture to mobile-chip manufacturers like Qualcomm QCOM , has ramped up efforts to get its designs into data centers dominated by Intel INTC . ARM’s microprocessors are currently found in more than 90% of all smartphones. But the company recently announced a so-called 64-bit version, a signal to engineering types that its devices can handle large amounts of memory — key for use in data centers.

Major companies like Advanced Micro Devices AMD and Hewlett-Packard HPQ are turning to such designs as well. AMD is expected to ship its first ARM-based products in 2014. Smaller players are joining in too: Austin-based startup Calxeda is focused on selling to financial services and cloud-computing providers like Rackspace as well as social media companies — large companies with large data centers. “Their power bill is excruciating,” says Karl Freund, Calxeda’s vice president of marketing. (Calxeda has over $100 million in backing from the likes of Highland Capital Partners and Battery Ventures.)

Even Facebook FB — known for assiduously custom-designing its data centers from the ground up — has tested the use of alternative chips in servers. “As more and more of what we do shifts to the cloud, more and more companies are seeing the future value in this technology,” notes Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure engineering.

Still, data centers aren’t likely to change overnight. Server software providers, for one, will have to be goaded into rewriting their code so that it is compatible with ARM’s technology. That may prove costly and time consuming until chips designed by the company are widely used.

MORE: Why you’re right to be obsessed with Apple stock

The biggest difficulties may come from chipmakers themselves. Already, Intel and rival ARM are squabbling. Intel claims ARM licensees are targeting just 10% of the overall server market — a segment known as “microservers.” ARM says that’s not so. It counters it will own 20% of the total server market by 2020. Of course, Intel has its own road map for lower-power chips, for both mobile and server markets. “Intel is huge and very powerful, and they own 95% of the [current server] market,” concedes Calxeda’s Freund. He believes customers want more choices.

Whichever camp wins — ARM or Intel — lower-power processors will make their way into data centers during the next few years. Another thing is for sure: The number of smartphones will continue to explode. That makes it unlikely anybody will stop uploading photos to Facebook — and driving even more traffic to server farms — anytime soon.

This story is from the December 24, 2012 issue of Fortune.

Summary: Diminutive smartphone chips will help power-hungry data centers cut down on costs.


French tourist Herve Gourdel. (Supplied)

Algerian soldiers have discovered a cache of explosive vests and ammunition in the east of the country near where jihadists beheaded a French hostage in September.

"In the framework of the anti-terrorist fight and a search operation near Iboudrarene (150 kilometres east of Algiers), the army... on Friday uncovered and destroyed on site five explosive vests, six homemade bombs" and ammunition, the defence ministry said on Saturday.

Algerian troops on Thursday found the body of French tourist Herve Gourdel, who was beheaded by jihadists demanding that France halt air strikes in Iraq against the Islamic State (IS) group.

French tourist Herve Gourdel. (Supplied)

The body was found buried without its head in Akbil, where Gourdel was abducted by the Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of the Caliphate) group, security sources said.

The defence ministry said on Saturday that tests carried out by police forensic experts had confirmed his identity and DNA tests would also be carried out.

The army mobilised 3000 troops to find the 55-year-old mountain guide's body and launched a new search operation on Wednesday.

Excavations were carried out in Akbil and the neighbouring town of Abu Youssef following a tip-off by an Islamist detainee, a security source told AFP.

The search was headed by an elite army unit and aided by sniffer dogs.

The military had to bring in munitions experts to sweep the area for booby-traps, the source said.

Gourdel was abducted by Jund al-Khilafa on September 21, while hiking in a national park.

He was beheaded days later in a video posted online after France rejected the jihadists' demand to halt air strikes against IS.

Jund al-Khilafa had earlier pledged allegiance to the jihadist group.

In December, the army said it had killed the leader of the militants who beheaded Gourdel.

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Summary: Five explosive vests, six homemade bombs and ammunition have been found near the site where French hostage Herve Gourdel was killed.


Walt Disney Co DIS is to put off the opening of its Disneyland Shanghai theme park to next year, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing people close to the project.

The WSJ said chief executive Bob Iger is likely to give new guidance about the timetable for opening the park during a conference call Tuesday to discuss the group’s fourth-quarter earnings.

The delay is the latest in a long line of complications that have dogged the project over the last decade. Iger had said 10 months ago that the park would open in 2015, but the WSJ said an opening in the winter months at the end of the year would have less impact than one in the spring.

The WSJ said that the local authorities had become cautious about events likely to draw large crowds in the aftermath of a fatal stampede that killed 36 revellers on New Year’s Eve.

Disney is only a minority shareholder in the project with 43%. The remaining 57% is held by Shanghai Shendi, a consortium of businesses owned by the Shanghai government. As a result, Shanghai Shendi has a large degree of control.

The extension of Iger’s contract by two years in October–after a tripling of Disney’s share price in the previous three years–means that Iger is still likely to be in charge of the company when the park opens.

Overseas theme parks have been one of the few disappointments of Iger’s reign. Euro Disney, the operator of Disneyland Paris, had to be rescued from insolvency in October with a €492 million ($555 million) capital injection.

Watch more coverage about Disney from Fortune’s video team:

Summary: CEO Iger expected to explain why in the company's fourth-quarter earnings call later Tuesday.


Springfield-based insurer MassMutual is giving Smith College and Mt. Holyoke College $2 million to add faculty in data sciences and prepare more students for the high-demand field.

MassMutual said Thursday that it would fund five visiting faculty positions for four years for what it calls the Women in Data Science Program. The company’s donation comes less than a year after it started recruiting recent grads from colleges in the Amherst area for data science jobs at its local office. Four of the seven students it recruited came from Smith and Mt. Holyoke.

“A lot of the recruits we brought into the program ... have come from these two institutions, and they’ve done a phenomenal job,” said Gareth Ross, an executive at MassMutual who oversees the data science initiatives. He said women are “very underrepresented” in data science jobs, and it was the job of companies to increase their presence.

Data science is a growing field that mixes elements of computer science, math, and the natural or social sciences to help businesses and governments learn from the firehose of data those institutions are now able to collect. It can also be a lucrative career, with an average salary of over $118,000, according to the website GlassDoor.com.

Both colleges said they’d already been looking at expanding their offerings in the interdisciplinary field. This year, Smith introduced a data science minor that has 11 students enrolled, according to Katherine Rowe, the college’s provost. Sonya Stephens, the top academic official at Mt. Holyoke, said her college had hired several new professors in departments, including computer science and ecology, whose research and classes involve lots of work with data.

“We have a track record of integrating quantitative thinking into a liberal arts curriculum,” said Rowe. “I think it’s also terrific for the Pioneer Valley.”

Although Stephens and Rowe said neither college had used corporate gifts to hire professors before, MassMutual said it wouldn’t play a role in the hiring process for the visiting professors or the design of their course curriculums. Instead, the three professors hired for Mt. Holyoke and two brought on at Smith will teach a graduate-level course for the Amherst-based data scientists that MassMutual has recruited from the area’s colleges. The other three classes each professor teaches will be meant for undergraduates.

For the next several years, MassMutual said it hopes to hire five to 10 recent grads every year from the five Amherst-area colleges, along with a similar number of data scientists who are further along in their careers. Even though it hasn’t heavily advertised the trainee program, Ross said students from as far away as California have asked if they could take part.

Summary: The Springfield-based insurance company is expanding its efforts to recruit and train quantitative analysts from the Pioneer Valley colleges.


Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran's transfer from Bali's Kerobokan jail has been delayed while Indonesian authorities build more cells to hold them on their island of execution.

The cells where Chan, Sukumaran and others will await their execution on Nusakambangan island are at capacity as five other prisoners are already there waiting to face the firing squad.

One day after Bali authorities declared they would this week take the Australian drug smugglers to Nusakambangan for their execution, the situation changed again.

Tony Spontana, spokesman for Attorney-General HM Prasetyo, says a team inspected the island's isolation cells and realised there wasn't enough space.

Mr Spontana insists there's no alteration or delay in the plan to execute the drug felons.

But he couldn't say how long it would take to make the required renovations to the cells.

"This week, I think we can't do the transfers because the isolation cells and other things are not ready," he told reporters.

"And at the same time, we can facilitate the Australian government and convicts' families' request to give more time for them together before they have to go to Nusakambangan."

Lawyers for the Sydney men will hope it means their clients will still be alive next Tuesday, when they have a day in court.

In a rare move, they are challenging in the administrative court President Joko Widodo's blanket ban on clemency for Chan, Sukumaran and all death row drug offenders.

They argue it fails to judge individual cases on their merits. Lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis on Monday appealed for Mr Prasetyo to halt plans to move the men and to wait for the legal challenge, for the sake of fairness.

But Mr Spontana said plans to execute them have not changed.

"All that's changed is the transfer plan, which was scheduled to be finished this week."

At Kerobokan prison on Tuesday, Sukumaran's sister Brintha and other relatives removed several large bags of books, some of them on art and painting.

Prison governor Sudjonggo said the district police chief met him on Tuesday to check on security arrangements for the transfer and found all was ready.

The prisoners will get 72 hours notice of their execution.

Mr Prasetyo plans to announce the execution date once Chan, Sukumaran and other prisoners to face the firing squad are secured on the island known as Indonesia's Alcatraz.

He had wanted them all to be executed at the same time.

Mr Spontana says the delay will also allow time for a Brazilian prisoner, Rodrigo Gularte, to have a second medical examination.

Lawyers for Gularte say he suffers a mental illness, but Mr Spontana said the examination was at the request of Nusakambangan prison authorities, not the drug smuggler's representatives.

President Joko insists the Bali Nine duo and other drug offenders sentenced to death should be executed to shock the nation out of a "drugs emergency".

Barrister Julian McMahon said the delay meant the legal proceedings for Chan and Sukumaran could go on without unnecessary haste.

"That's a welcome relief, it takes away the sense of urgency," he told reporters in Bali.

"It enables my clients to get back to doing what they've been doing for years now which is their work in rehabilitation and helping other prisoners.

"If there is any delay, however slight, that's welcome news."

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Summary: Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran's lawyers want a halt on plans to move them from their Bali jail for execution, saying the legal fight continues.


Adding his voice to the drumbeat of speculation about Apple’s AAPL future iPhone plans, Kaufman Bros.’ Shaw Wu weighed in early Wednesday with a new report from his supply chain and industry sources.

Although Wu maintains a “buy” rating on Apple with a $120 price target, he pulled it off Kaufman’s special “focus list” last month as its share price began to close in on his target. The risk-reward is “less compelling” now, he writes, “than when the stock was in the $80-$90 range.”

Summary: Adding his voice to the drumbeat of speculation about Apple's future iPhone plans, Kaufman Bros.' Shaw Wu weighed in early Wednesday with a new report from his supply chain and industry sources. Among his findings: Two out of three. Wu had heard that there are three new iPhones in the works, but based on clues…


Just when you thought that “TV” couldn’t get more complicated, a new player enters the streaming stream. This new series, which is available exclusively to PlayStation Network subscribers, revolves around the “Powers” division of a police department, which investigates crimes related to the superhero/villain world. When it came to casting, the game console folks did not skimp on the budget for their first original scripted series. The 10-episode, live-action adaptation of the comic book series of the same name stars Sharlto Copley (“District 9”), Michelle Forbes (“The Killing”), Eddie Izzard, and Susan Heyward (“The Following”). The first three episodes will be available for streaming Tuesday and the following seven installments will arrive on successive Tuesdays.

Meghan Trainor performed onstage during 93.3 FLZ's Jingle Ball 2014.

The Voice 8 p.m., NBC

The competition continues. The quartet of pop-star mentors who have shown up this season to lend a hand to the coaches are British chanteuse Ellie Goulding (Adam Levine), Motown legend Lionel Richie (Pharrell), “Bass”-loving Bay State native Meghan Trainor, above (Blake Shelton), and former Bro Nick Jonas (Christina Aguilera).

Schitt’s Creek 8 p.m., Pop

The Mindy Project 9:30 p.m., Fox

Cougar Town 10:30 p.m., TBS

Summary: A look at what’s on TV Tuesday, including “The Voice” on NBC, “Schitt’s Creek” on Pop and “Cougar Town” on TBS.


Don Chiofaro couldn’t stop eating. His excuse?

“I have a long history with doughnuts,” said the larger-than-life Boston developer between bites of a cream-filled concoction.

Turns out Chiofaro’s father, Sam, was a cop in Belmont, and when his shift ended, he would pop into the neighborhood bakery, Anita’s, to scoop up dozens of unsold doughnuts. He would pack them in his trunk and then drop them off at senior homes, playgrounds, and finally the Chiofaro household.

The story goes a long way to explain why the younger Chiofaro on Monday acted like he never met a doughnut he didn’t like. Honey dip, Boston cream pie, chocolate, sea salt caramel, for starters. He must have sampled 20 different varieties.

Developer Don Chiofaro digs in.

To mark Wednesday’s opening of Kane’s Handcrafted Donuts at International Place, the tower Chiofaro built and manages, I needed to find out for myself why these doughnuts are such a big deal. It’s just a fried piece of dough, after all. You can get those everywhere.

Besides, didn’t the boom-and-bust of Krispy Kreme and Crumbs cupcakes teach us anything about getting frothy over a food fad?

What was in order was a doughnut throwdown worthy of celebrity chef Bobby Flay. Kane’s, which does its frying and baking out of its Saugus store, brought in a batch of its finest. The Somerville upstart, Union Square Donuts, is closed Mondays but fired up its fryers just for us. And the doughnut king itself, Dunkin’ Donuts, dispatched a dozen straight from the test kitchen at Canton headquarters.

Of course, Chiofaro took part in the taste test. Former Senate president Bob Travaglini, now a lobbyist with an office at International Place, joined us, as did Boston Harbor Association president Vivien Li and two Boston firefighters, Lieutenant Mike Walsh and Steve MacDonald.

There was one rule: Pace yourself.

Former Senate President Robert Travaligni samples the doughnuts.

Chiofaro and Li broke ranks almost immediately, unable to resist the temptation of more than four dozen pastries spread across a table in the granite courtyard of International Place.

“I’m going to the gym afterwards,” explained Li.

Soon, Travaglini was caught two-fisted, with a Kane’s bacon-crumble in one hand and a maple-bacon doughnut from Union Square in the other.

“This is a little lighter,” Travaglini declared of Kane’s version, but he preferred the Union Square doughnut because, “I like the bigger pieces of bacon. I shouldn’t admit to that.”

Kane’s has been around since 1955, but it is opening just its second store Wednesday in a tiny 700-square-foot location at street level of Chiofaro’s building. Co-owners Paul and Maria Delios, whose parents bought Kane’s in the late 1980s, are riding what feels like a fancy doughnut trend, feeding a craving for handmade sinkers using fresh and local ingredients.

Kane’s doughnuts run $2.50 to $3.50 each; Union Square’s, from $2.75 to $3.50.

Even Dunkin’ is getting into the act, with upscale offerings such as a $1.49 cheesecake square doughnut that will debut at the end of March and a $2.49 croissant doughnut with 24 buttery layers that just joined the permanent menu. A regular Dunkin’ costs 99 cents.

At the chain’s Canton headquarters, a culinary team of 24 bakers and chefs are busy developing the next big craving. Two words: bacon strips. Dunkin’ may be late to the game, but Twitter lit up Friday after I tweeted a photo of its bacon-glazed yeast doughnut that is being tested in Providence.

The Boston Harbor Association’s Vivien Li samples a doughnut.

“People like mashups and hybrids,” said Dunkin’ executive chef Jeff Miller. Think cronut (croissant + doughnut) and turducken (turkey + duck + chicken).

At our taste test in Boston, none of the participants gave the world’s biggest doughnut maker high marks. But Dunkin’ sells about 2.5 billion a year, so it must be doing something right. Just to be clear, no doughnut was left behind in our test; the tenants of International Place swooped in like seagulls to finish them off.

Paul Delios of Kane’s said the family wanted to expand after all these years to remind people what a real doughnut tastes like. He calls what you find at the mass chains “junk” and blames them for putting many mom-and-pop doughnut shops out of business.

So call the International Place store his sweet revenge.

“Doughnuts are love,” said Delios, referring to Kane’s motto. “When you eat one of ours, you know exactly what true love is all about.”

With Kane’s entrance into Boston comes another innovation: the dowich. Delios is introducing a line of sandwiches using Kane’s brioche-based dough as bread. Choices include braised beef, Mediterranean chicken, and lobster salad.

Peter Delios, former owner of Kane's Donuts, in 1980.

The dowich has won over one fan already: Boston’s Fire Department’s Lieutenant Walsh.

“What is more New England than a lobster doughnut?” said Walsh.

Union Square owner Josh Danoff got into the doughnut business two years ago, hoping to feed our need for classic treats.

“You see someone take a bite of a doughnut. You don’t need to ask the question. You see the answer in their face. Their eyes close a little bit, the head nods,” said Danoff. “It all kind of brings you back.”

That’s what Danoff saw in Chiofaro’s face, and many others that day at International Place.

And that’s what we learned from the taste-off: The memories in every bite are what make the doughnuts.

Taste testers line up to try the doughnuts at International Place.

Juliette Lynch for The Boston Globe

Doughnuts of several varieties lined the shelves of Kane's Donuts in Saugus on Tuesday morning.

A line formed at the store on Wednesday.

Kane’s sold out of doughnuts just after noon on Wednesday.

Summary: To mark this week’s opening of Kane’s Handcrafted Doughnuts in Chiofaro’s International Place, I needed to find out for myself why anyone would line up for doughnuts or ask them to be shipped across country.


According to a survey of museum attendance in 2014, the most popular artist in the world is a woman – Japan’s Yayoi Kusama.

Yet a survey of solo exhibitions in American galleries over the past six years has revealed that 73% were by male artists.

A report in the Art Newspaper found that Andy Warhol, Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Johns each had seven exhibitions over the period. The female artist with the most exhibitions was Kara Walker, who had four.

However, as Kusama’s success indicates, audiences are not biased against women artists. The second-most popular solo show in the six-year period was Marina Abramovic’s retrospective at MoMA in New York. An average of 7,120 visitors a day came to see, among other works, Abramovic sitting motionless in the gallery.

She was only beaten by the sculptor Richard Serra, whose momumental sculptures drew 8,585 visitors a day to MoMA in 2007.

Defying the conventional wisdom that only big names draw crowds, the Swiss (and female) artist Pipilotti Rist had the fourth-most popular solo show in the period. Her installation at MoMA, which hosted 17 of the 20 most popular exhibitions in the six-year period, drew 6,186 visitors per day.

The Art Newspaper found that male artists represented by the world’s major art dealers were over seven times more likely to be given a solo exhibition than female artists signed to the same top gallerists, including Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth and David Zwirner.

Against this background, Kusama’s success in 2014 looks even more remarkable. The artist, who is 86 and has lived voluntarily in a mental health institution in Tokyo since 1977, drew over 2 million people throughout South and Central America to a retrospective including her famous polka-dot and mirror installations.

A second retrospective is currently showing in Taiwan, en route to New Delhi. As well as a pivotal figure in pop art and the avant garde, whose work encompassed sexually charged happenings and 18 novels, Kusama is now, suggests the Art Newspaper, “the poster girl for the globalisation of contemporary art”.

Summary: The Japanese artist drew over 2 million viewers to her work – but a survey shows female artists are still less likely to be chosen for solo shows by American galleries


Christopher M. Coburn sits in a roomy office atop one of Boston’s most prestigious addresses, the Prudential Center. But it’s the last place he wants to be.

He would rather be at a biotech in Kendall Square, a research lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, or a dinner with a venture capitalist who is looking to invest in a promising technology. And whenever he can get to those places, he does.

Coburn is vice president of innovation at Partners HealthCare, leading the charge by the state’s biggest health system to commercialize more of the technology that comes out of its prestigious teaching hospitals. His goal is to push Partners’ nearly $1.5 billion research operation to work more closely with biopharmaceutical and medical device companies, get drugs and treatments to patients more quickly, and double the $80 million that Partners earns from licensing agreements and spinoff companies.

“Revenue matters,” said Coburn, who joined Partners in 2013. “We need to have the ability to reinvest in research.”

Partners is among the many hospitals, universities, and other institutions trying to expand partnerships with industry as federal funding for medical research wanes. Funding from the National Institutes of Health has fallen by about $1 billion since its peak of $31 billion in 2010. The agency provides nearly half of the research budget for Partners, which includes Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals.

To further raise its profile and pave the way for new deals with companies, Partners on Monday kicked off the World Medical Innovation Forum, an event featuring big names like General Electric Co.’s chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, and Ann Romney, wife of the former governor.

But the increasing reliance on industry also raises concerns about the independence of scientific investigators and their ability to work on projects and share findings that companies may not like. Officials at Partners and other research hospitals concede they must walk a fine line when they enter into industry partnerships and remain vigilant in avoiding conflicts of interest.

“You have to be careful that industry isn’t directing the research, that they’re allowing investigators to have academic freedom,” said Mark Chalek, chief of business ventures at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “One of the things we’re most concerned about is investigators having the right to publish their data, regardless of who the funder is.”

With an eye on declining federal funding, Partners executives started honing their focus on commercializing research about two years ago. They went looking for the best in the business; a headhunter came back with Chris Coburn’s name.

Coburn, 58, founded the innovations office at Cleveland Clinic and led it for 13 years, helping to launch dozens of startups and sign deals that brought new revenue to that hospital. Before Coburn, Cleveland Clinic had never spun off its technology into a company.

In Boston, Coburn leads an innovation office for an organization with five times the research budget of Cleveland Clinic. He has reorganized the Partners innovation office and its staff of about 80, creating teams that focus on commercializing treatments for orthopedics, surgery, radiology, and other fields.

Chris Coburn, vice president of innovation at Partners HealthCare, walks to a meeting at Massachusetts General Hospital from his home on Beacon Hill.

He has hired deputies with strong business backgrounds who know how to get deals done on time. “If you can’t do those on time, your level of trust in the industry is eroded,” Coburn said.

He starts his days firing off e-mails before dawn, then moves around the city to meet with industry executives, Partners executives, potential investors, doctors, and scientists. He often does business over breakfast at the Paramount in Beacon Hill, around the corner from his home. Then he walks down the hill to Mass. General, or takes a cab to the Brigham, or Cambridge, or his office on Huntington Avenue.

If he gets his way, though, he will leave the Back Bay and move his operation to Kendall Square, the hub for biotech and pharmaceutical companies. “We need to be in the middle of that,” he said.

As much as he is trying to persuade the industry to do deals with Partners, he also is trying to persuade Partners researchers to work with industry. That requires a different way of thinking about research that does not come easily to scientists with little interest in the corporate world.

“Changing any culture is incredibly hard,” said Dr. Anne Klibanski, the chief academic officer at Partners.

The culture change is happening slowly, Klibanski said, through initiatives such as a speaking series in which successful researchers tell their peers how they advanced their projects by collaborating with industry. Partners also launched a $1 million grant program for promising research projects, to get staff excited about innovations that have commercial applications.

Deals with industry take many forms but often start with agreements to license technology. Sometimes the ideas are strong enough to attract investors and turn into startup companies. Most new ideas for drugs and devices never make it to market, but when they are successful, the rewards can add up.

An experimental drug developed by an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital is one example. The drug, designed to put patients to sleep for surgery, was licensed to a startup called Annovation Biopharma.

In February, Annovation was acquired by Medicines Co. of Parsippany, N.J. The sale earned $28 million for shareholders — including Partners — and includes up to $26 million in additional payments if the product reaches certain milestones.

“It was very exciting, because a lot of times we do things in a lab, and we publish them in research journals, and it’s unclear how that new knowledge is going to help patients,” said Dr. Douglas Raines, whose lab developed the anesthesia drug.

“We want to improve patient care. We can’t do that by ourselves. We need industry partners.”

Raines acknowledged that as researchers work more closely with corporations, they must be careful about avoiding conflicts of interest. For example, Raines, as a full-time Mass. General researcher, could not have a managing role in the company he helped found.

Despite such challenges, Partners is pushing ahead to forge closer relationships with companies. Ultimately, Partners executives said, the goal is not just to generate revenue, but to advance health care.

“Success for us is it gets to the patient,” Coburn said. “It gets to patients as a product.”

Summary: Partners is among many hospitals trying to expand partnerships with industry as the federal funding for medical research wanes.


AS if to make up for the lazy look of the city in August, New Yorkers in droves will take to the streets in celebration this weekend and so will a lot of their suburban neighbors. No one cause is prompting the merriment. Everything from autumn to Grandparents' Day will be hailed in a cornucopia of fairs and festivals ranging in size from a block to a mile.

The best known of them all is the Feast of San Gennaro down on Mulberry Street, a grand indulgence that got under way last night and continues through next weekend.

Along a half-mile stretch of the narrow street, with spillovers in many directions, you can sample sausages, peppers, clams, zeppole and all other manner of Italian delicacies. And you can try your hand at games of chance or skill, with a huge stuffed animal as a prize for success.

All this is accomplished elbow to elbow with fellow visitors. Three million are expected to attend this 55th annual feast, which will include serenading by the San Gennaro Band and performances by Neapolitan singing stars. This weekend's highlight will be a parade with colorful floats and bands at 2 P.M. on Sunday.

A festival with a much shorter tradition that has nevertheless acquired a reputation for quality takes place tomorrow and Sunday, starting at noon, at St. Vartan Cathedral and in the park adjacent to it on 35th Street and Second Avenue. It is the ninth annual One World Festival, an ethnic salute that includes musicians, crafts, Armenian art and foods from around the world - everything from lahmajeune (Armenian meat pizza) to Pennsylvania Dutch funnel cakes and soul food from the Bronx; also free children's entertainment, including clowns who will make up the faces of willing spectators.

Sponsored by the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America and the Mayor's Office of Special Events, the festival will include free concerts in the cathedral with choirs and musicians, as well as hourly tours of the golden-domed cathedral. St. Vartan was built in 1968 but its design is based on fifth- and seventh-century Armenian churches.

Continuous entertainment on a stage in the park will be provided by more than 30 ethnic groups - Hungarian and Swedish folk dancers, Irish step dancers, Armenian martial arts experts and a Polynesian revue, to mention a few. Special events are planned after the close of each day's activities at 6:30 P.M. Tomorow night there will be Armenian music in the park, with everyone invited to dance until 11. On Sunday night there will be an ecumenical service with choral groups, presided over by Archbishop Torkom Manoogian, Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America.

An extravaganza with a rural sound -but no livestock - the TAMA County Fair - will cover a mile of Third Avenue from 11 A.M. to dusk Sunday. TAMA stands for Third Avenue Merchants' Association and its ''county'' is the 20 blocks from 14th to 34th Streets.

Big bands, comics, singers and dancers will entertain nonstop, and every imaginable item, from antique furniture to handwoven baskets, will be offered by local merchants who set up shop outdoors, as well as by visiting vendors. Crafts will be demons trated by artisans including a potter, a woodcarver and jewelry engravers. Since there is no such thing as a fair without at least s ome nibbling, international morsels will be offered in boot hs lining the midway. In addition, Consolidated Edison will keep op en its Energy Museum on 14th Street at Third Avenue.

What's the cause for this year's celebrating? Partly that Sunday is Grandparents Day. Basically, though, the sponsors want to raise money for two community projects. One is for Renwick Gardens, a housing project for the handicapped and elderly on 29th Street between First and Second Avenues. A grant would enable the project to raise outdoor plots to a level at which peo ple in wheelchairs could garden in the m. The second project involves the installation and maintenance o f four waste receptacles on every block of TAMA county.

Just behind the American Museum of Natural History, an event is planned that not only heralds fall but also reminds us at this early hour about the number of shopping days before Christmas. Crafts will be on view along Columbus Avenue from West 77th to 81st Street from 10 A.M. to 6:30 P.M. today and tomorrow and also next Friday and Saturday. Autumn on Columbus Avenue

With 130 exhibits to choose from at this Autumn Crafts Festival, you could pick up a hand-painted silk here, a piece of jewelry there and get a jump on the angst of holiday gift-hunting. Hand-made sheepskin clothing, blown glass, hand-dipped candles, rosewood pens, metal sculpture, leather goods and stuffed elephants are a sampling of the wares.

Classical and popular music played by a brass quartet will soothe you while you browse at this show, which is sponsored by the American Arts and Crafts Alliance.

Downtown, the La Mama Experimental Theater Club and three other groups are collaborating on a do that starts at noon tomorrow and continues until ''whenever.'' It will include kites, street performers, a beer garden, puppets, music, ethnic foods, paintings, poets and clowns. The site is First Street between Second Avenue and the Bowery.


Herman Gollob, vice president and editorial director of the Doubleday book clubs as well as editor in chief of the Literary Guild, will join Simon & Schuster next month as a vice president, senior editor and member of the editorial board.

''I feel like I'm getting back into combat,'' Mr. Gollob said with a laugh yesterday. He is leaving Doubleday, he said, ''with a great sense of melancholy.'' But, he added, ''I really did want to get back into the swim of acquiring and editing books. Everybody writes off publishing or deplores what's going on in publishing, but there are still strong, exciting books being written.''

Mr. Gollob, who is 50 years old, joined Little, Brown in 1959. He has a reputation as an editor who can, when the occasion calls for it, wield a broad but deft blue pencil. When the bulky first draft of ''King Rat,'' James Clavell's first novel, showed up at Little, Brown, it sat there until Mr. Gollob persuaded his superiors to let him work on it.

''Herman showed me how to write a novel,'' Mr. Clavell acknowledges. ''We spent two and a half months rewriting. When I first saw the manuscript he had edited, it had only one line left on the first page.'' Later, while Mr. Gollob was editor in chief at Atheneum, he excised some 400 pages from Mr. Clavell's 2,300-page manuscript of ''Shogun.''

''Working with a man like Clavell is always easy,'' Mr. Gollob said yesterday. ''Truly professional writers are always open to suggestions.'' Mr. Clavell is published by Delacorte, and Mr. Gollob would not comment on whether he hoped or expected to entice him to Simon & Schuster. 'Strong Books' Will Prevail

Yesterday's announcement confirmed a rumor that had been making the rounds of the book-publishing industry for several weeks. Simon & Schuster was known to be looking for another editor ever since two left last spring. One, Nan Talese, a senior editor and vice president, became executive editor and vice president of Houghton Mifflin. She was replaced by Thomas C. Wallace, who joined Simon & Schuster as a senior editor in May, after 17 years at Holt, Rinehart & Winston, the last 13 years as editor in chief.

''We've been trying to hire Herman for six or seven years, and what attracted us is his talent and experience, expecially in the area of fiction,'' said Richard Snyder, chairman of Simon & Schuster.

Mr. Gollob, who entered publishing in the late 1950's, as a literary agent with MCA in Beverly Hills, said that one of the great dangers that publishing faced was an attitude ''that literature is something the elite likes and commercial fiction is garbage.'' ''It's a wrong notion,'' he continued. ''Dr. Samuel Johnson had great respect for the common reader. I believe that what's going to prevail are the strong books - books of great quality, or which have the common touch, or both.''

Mr. Gollob was also editor in chief of the Harper's Magazine Press, which he helped found. He has edited such authors as Donald Barthelme, Robert K. Massie and Willie Morris.


What do the rich and the powerful, the movers and the shakers and the chic do in New York in the summertime? Why, they work, of course. If they work at City Hall, they work a very long time. That's what Carol Bellamy, the New York City Council President, does. She gets into her office no later than 6:30 in the morning, and stays, because it's summer, only until 10:30. ''In the winter, I'm there usually until midnight,'' she said. ''It may be summer, but this is an election year, so any free time I have is spent campaigning in the parks.''

She has managed to get away only once, on the Fourth of July. And once in a while, she finds a free minute to sit in the garden of her garden apartment. But more often than not she is working, and looking after her staff. ''A good portion of them,'' she said, ''work with no air-conditioning. But this summer, because of the health problems posed by the pigeon droppings, we've had to keep the windows closed.''

On Seventh Avenue, the old tradition of seasonal surges followed by extended detumescence has all but disappeared. It's become a continuum of one collection following another and another, what the Buddhists might call ''pushing upwards into an empty city'', which means continued activity with no goal, hence ''empty city''. But New York is never empty, and designers never sleep. No sooner do they complete resort, than it's time for spring, then summer, then fall I, fall II and back to resort again.

Many of them, of course, do get away and have houses to get away to. Calvin Klein has one on Fire Island, one in Key West. Bill Blass goes to Connecticut. Perry Ellis to Water Island. But even in those lull periods after a collection is shown, some find it hard to get away and stay there. Blass, for example, rented a house in Nantucket in June, but after a week there, he couldn't take it. He had to come back to to work. ''I read everything I brought in three days, and then I got bored,'' he said. ''You might try reading the 'White Hotel'. That'll keep you going for a few hours.''

Joanne Barwick, the editor of House Beautiful, however, had an explanation for why those in the media just can't stop working. ''Naturally, we're all dying to get away,'' she said, ''but we just can't. Summer is our busiest time, because we do the bulk of our photography then. Exteriors. Picnics. If you look at our covers, you'll always see greenery outside the windows. We try to stay away from snow. I spend a lot of time looking out the window at summer, instead of building my new house at Sagaponack.''

Indeed, summer, long known as a slack period in business, has, according to many, picked up. Even at the 20 leading advertizing companies in the city, 16 of which get out early on Friday, there is a lot to take care of.

''It used to be,'' said Peter Mills, head of the New York Office for J. Walter Thompson, which does not close early on Friday, ''that summer was just, well, dead. Well, it's not. If anything, it's become more pressurized. Summer has crept up to winter levels of business. People here keep agitating for closing on Friday afternoons. But I've resisted doing it. Clients call everyday, including Friday.''

''The reality of summer in New York,'' said Geraldine Stutz, president of Henri Bendel, ''is that lots of people go away and everything eases up. There's usually time to catch up. But this summer, I'm getting no vacation. My entire time is taken up with the renovation at the store. Never mind, I'm loving it.''

Even in the Hamptons, everyone seems to be working. Shana Alexander, the journalist, is writing at her home in Wainscott, Long Island, where she lives all year, and is only occasionally tempted, she says, ''to cavort'' with her friends - the ''peril'' she adds, of living in a resort. Nora Ephron is working on screenplays, tending her two children, and wondering what happens to those ''millions of items of summer clothes that never get sold''. Peter Matthiessen, the novelist, wanted to spend a quiet summer. Instead, says his wife, he has a ''desperate book deadline to meet.'' Lucas Foss, the composer, spends his summer days composing.

And Larry Rivers, the artist, has a deadline of his own - an October 16 show in Paris. ''Most artists have a very neurotic relationship to their work,'' he said. ''And the seasons have very little to do with changing those neuroses. I may change the locale, and jump in the pool now and then, but if I work less, I feel anxiety about it.''

But why are people working so hard? Jane Freilicher, the artist, gave her answer. She's been out at Water Mill painting landscapes all summer and watching something called the Four Dunes Development go up around her, the fields becoming quickly covered with asphalt. ''The social life out here,'' she explains, ''just isn't as fascinating as it once was. I'd rather paint, and explore the concommitant joys of home owning, like the plumbing breaking down.''

But finally, it was Michael Korda, the editor of Simon & Schuster, who put it all in perspective. He doesn't feel this summer is any different from any other and he, for one, doesn't feel trapped. By work. Or the city. Or anything. ''But no, but of course not,'' he avered. ''I don't suffer from beach fantasy. In the summer, I go to my farm in Duchess County, a gentleman's farm, built in 1740 when, I don't mind saying, when there were still gentlemen, and I do a lot of work up there, including all my reading and most of my editing. But I don't feel trapped. I get up at 6 in the morning, go riding for a couple of hours, put the horses away and have breakfast by 9:30. Then the day is mine. It's not like being in the Hamptons where your neighbors come by with jugs of Bloody Mary's.

''If you're one of those people who leave work on Friday at one,'' he concluded, ''I say why bother coming in at all? President Reagan had the right idea. After passing two legislative packages last week, he said, that's it, I'm going on vacation for a month.''

Illustrations: Photo montage of Geraldine Stutz, Carol Bellamy, Michael Korda, Perry

Summary: By John Duka   What do the rich and the powerful, the movers and the shakers and the chic do in New York in the summertime? Why, they work, of course.  If they work at City Hall, they work a very long time. That's what Carol Bellamy, the New York City Council President, does. She gets into her office no later than 6:30 in the morning, and stays, because it's summer, only until 10:30. ''In the winter, I'm there usually until midnight,'' she said. ''It may be summer, but this is an election year, so any free time I have is spent campaigning in the parks.''   She has managed to get away only once, on the Fourth of July. And once in a while, she finds a free minute to sit in the garden of her garden apartment. But more often than not she is working, and looking after her staff. ''A good portion of them,'' she said, ''work with no air-conditioning. But this summer, because of the health problems posed by the pigeon droppings, we've had to keep the windows closed.''


The recent decision by New York State's Public Service Commission to give the Consolidated Edison Company the full 15 1/2 percent rate increase it had requested was shaped in large part by a growing mood among regulators that they must help bolster flagging investor confidence in the public utility industry.

''For the public regulators, it's a whole new ball game,'' said Commissioner Anne F. Mead, who has served on the commission since 1975. ''Given the state of the economy and the competition for capital in today's markets, we have to send some signals to the investment community.''

Consumer advocates and critics of the rate increase - the largest on record in New York State - argued that the decision was proof that the rate-making process was biased in favor of utilities.

The five P.S.C. commissioners, who voted unanimously to approve the rate increase, disagree. In separate interviews, they argued that evidence in the case, which took up more than 10,000 pages in legal briefs, exhibits and hearing testimony, left them no choice but to give Con Edison the full $449.5 million in new revenue it requested.

''If public utilities are regarded as a poor risk for investors, and the companies cannot raise the necessary money,'' Commissioner Mead said, ''it's the consumer who gets it in the end as a result of deteriorating service.'' Regulators Concerned

Regulators are becoming more and more apprehensive about the troubled state of the public utility industry, which is faced with rising fuel costs, an overdependence on costly oil-burning generators and the public's uncertainty about nuclear power generation. And because interest rates have risen sharply, public utility stocks are selling cheaply to give investors a yield that can compete with the guaranteed yields they can make on Treasury notes or certificates of deposit.

Unless utilities can provide investors a good return on their money, state P.S.C. commissioners said, companies such as Con Edison will be unable to issue new stock at a high enough price to let them raise the capital necessary to meet future demands on service.

In fact, some commissioners said that given the cost of capital in current money markets, Con Edison could have justified an even larger rate increase. But the commission cannot, by law, give the company more than it requested when it filed in April 1980.

Critics of the commission's decision agree that the public utility industry has problems, but they argue that in the recent Con Edison case, the P.S.C. overreacted.

''The commission panicked when it agreed to give Con Ed everything it wanted,'' said Alfred Levine, a lawyer who represented the New York State Consumer Protection Board in testimony against the rate increase. ''Con Ed is not in desperate financial shape, and many of its problems are its own doing. Why should the ratepayers, who can least afford it, be forced to subsidize the investors?''

Among other things, Mr. Levine says Con Edison - which has experienced a decline in demand for electricity and has an excess generating capacity - is not involved in any major construction projects that would require the company to go to the markets for cash. In addition, he charges that Con Edison has deliberately followed management policies that have depressed the payout, or dividend, on company stock, thereby driving investors from the market.

Though Con Edison is financially more secure than most electric utilities, its common stock is selling at only 59 percent of its book value and the company has still not fully recovered from a disastrous decline following the 1974 Arab oil embargo, when its stock - which has sold for as much as $49.50 a share in the last 20 years - plummeted to $6 a share. When the New York Stock Exchange closed Thursday afternoon, Con Edison stock was selling at 28 1/8. Improved Rate of Return

In its decision, the state commission agreed to allow Con Edison shareholders a return on common equity of 14 1/2 percent, which was the largest component -more than $100 million - of the total $449.5 million request. In its last rate increase, in 1979, Con Edison was allowed a rate of return on equity stock of 12.1 percent, although as a result of inflation the actual payout, according to the commission, was only about 10 1/2 percent. The industry average, the commission said, is about 11 percent, which is less than it costs the company to borrow money.

A return on equity is the money the company is allowed to earn on the value of its assets owned by stockholders. This revenue is usually returned to stockholders in the form of higher dividends and appreciated stock.

The commission's decision reflects a larger debate over whether it is the ratepayer or investor who should absorb the enormous costs involved in turning around the troubled utility industry. Ironically, highers costs have led consumers to use less electricity, which has forced utilities to seek even higher rates to meet their rising costs.

Commission and utility officials say this means that electric utilities are even more dependent on capital markets to raise the money that will allow the industry to meet growing demands for cheaper and more efficient energy sources. While Con Edison, in particular, is facing no short-term capital needs for construction, the commission's decision reflects a conviction that the company will need to raise capital for the high costs of converting some of its generating capacity to coal. Con Edison is still awaiting environmental approval of a plan to convert three of its generating plants to coal, at a projected cost of more than $250 million. Con Ed Considered Bellwether

''We have to provide utilities with the capital base that will encourage them to convert to cheaper forms of energy,'' said Commissioner Harold A. Jerry Jr.


JERUSALEM, Nov. 21— Arab schoolchildren in Israel lag behind their Jewish peers in arithmetic and reading, according to a report recently published by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in conjunction with the Education Ministry.

The study, said to be the first offical investigation into Arab education in Israel, showed that the dropout rate in the separate Arab school system was 32 percent, as against 4.5 percent in Jewish schools. There are 158,078 Arab pupils in Israel, or 20 percent of the school population.

The study, headed by Dr. Yosef Bashi, a lecturer in education at Hebrew University and a former Government adviser, was conducted in the mid-1970's. Dr. Bashi and Education Ministry officials expressed the belief that, although the report took several years to complete, the differences between Arab and Jewish pupils had remained about the same.

Dr. Bashi said the report showed that 52 percent of Arab teachers lacked certification but that very few Jewish instructors were unqualified. 'Developed From Scratch'

Immanuel Kopilewitz, chairman of the Government's Arab Education Department, said Arab pupils tended to lag behind their Jewish counterparts because the Arab educational system ''had to be developed from scratch'' in 1948 when Israel was founded. By contrast, he said, the Zionist movement had begun developing Jewish schools here during the British mandate period in the 1920's and 1930's.

Dr. Bashi said he tested a representative sample - 4,559 Moslem, Druse and Christian Arab pupils in about 70 schools - and found that after completing the fourth grade one-third of the Arabs could not add four consecutive numbers. About half as many Jewish school children exhibited the same deficiency, he added. Dr. Bashi blamed poor teaching methods and equipment for the Arabs' weakness. 8% at Unsatisfactory Level

The study found that 8 percent of the Arab pupils tested could not read at what it described as a satisfactory level after the fourth grade. While there were no parallel figures for Jewish pupils, Dr. Bashi said he was sure that their reading level was better.

The report also said that the study of Hebrew as a second language took up a significant amount of Arab classroom time, at the expense of English and art classes.

A total of 354 Arab schools are administered from Mr. Kopilewitz's East Jerusalem office, which determines both Jewish and Arab school curriculums. Teachers receive their paychecks from Jerusalem, Mr. Kopilewitz said, but buildings and equipment are the responsiblity of local Government authorities.

''We are separate but not equal,'' said Dr. Sami Mari, an educational psychologist at Haifa University. System 'Imposed on Us'

Dr. Mari said that there was insufficient Arab participation in developing the curriculums. ''The system is imposed on us,'' he said. ''We do not shape it.''

The 70 local Arab councils, plagued by financial and administrative difficulities, often cannot purchase modern textbooks and supplies. Unlike their Jewish neighbors with similar budgetary problems, Israel's Arabs receive no assistance from the United Jewish Appeal.

Mr. Kopilewitz said that, primarily for political reasons, there was no parallel financial aid available to Arab schools. Contributions that were offered in the past by groups associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization were refused by the Israeli Government, he said.

Education Ministry officals said they had no figures on how much money was spent on Arab education. Uri Maron, the ministry's budget director, said that allocations were proportional to the number of pupils per classroom in both Jewish and Arab schools.

The report showed that there were 1.13 full-time teachers per average Arab class of 31.2 children. The comparable figures for Jewish schools were 1.35 teachers to a class of 26.6 pupils.

Dr. Mari said that the high number of dropouts from Arab schools was largely a result of a failure to enforce the compulsory education law, particularly as it deals with Arab girls. Mr. Kopilewitz said the law was not strictly enforced in many villages, where it is a sensitive matter for teen-age girls to leave home.

Dr. Mari also criticized the allocation of 40 percent of Arab classroom time to Jewish topics, saying that only 20 percent was devoted to the Arab world. He said this created serious identity problems among Arab youths in Israel, alienating them from the schools.

Mr. Kopilewitz said that the Government was in the process of altering the Arab school curriculums to include more of what were considered relevant Arab topics. But he said that putting such plans into effect would take time.