By:Matt Krantz

Q: Why did stocks rally amid NATO‘s assault on Libya and even as the situation with Japan’s nuclear reactor worsened? Are investors really that callous?

A: The stock market is a cold-blooded market place for investors to trade securities. It’s not humanitarian, politically correct or even polite.

When news breaks, computers instantly adjust their models with any new inputs with the hope of measuring how changes in the world will affect stock prices. These calculations might be done by a person or, more likely, by computers specially designed to measure how news affects stock prices. When such calculations result in investors betting that stock prices are too low or too high relative to news, traders place their bets by buying and selling shares. It’s about money, not about feelings for the human condition.

It can sometimes be surprising to some to see just how methodical investors can be. Following the earthquake and tsunami, many insurance analysts released reports estimating how many people would be killed, and translated that into a hit to insurers’ earnings per share. Similarly, despite the human strife in the Middle East, many analysts looked at the event in terms of how it might affect the price of oil and the global economy.

But don’t confuse the market’s analytical approach to measuring the economic hit of disasters and war, with accuracy. Investors can, and often, get things wrong in the short-term in their haste to forecast the future.

For instance, when news of the earthquake and escalating nuclear emergency hit U.S. investors on March 15, the Dow Jones industrial average initially plunged nearly 300 points. But later in the day, the worry eased and the Dow closed down just 138 points at 11,855. The next day, the Dow fell again, by 242 points, to 11,613.

But then, and this gets to the root of your question, investors started buying stocks back. Despite reports that the reactor was emitting radiation at the same time of a NATO’s attack against Libya, the Dow rose despite news that day there might be a breach at one of Japan’s reactors.

Traders routinely find themselves in a difficult spot in the short term. They make big decisions on large sums of money, often, with little to no information. Traders can’t wait the weeks it’ll take before a full assessment of the news is available. They must act now and they must act without emotion.

But don’t take this the hard way. The market’s rapid reaction to little news can be an advantage if you’re a long-term investor. Investors can usually just hold on and do nothing during events like the Libya bombing and Japan situation. And oftentimes, that’s exactly the best thing to do.

via:mashable

Despite some tentatively good news surrounding Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the country is still reeling from the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit its shores just two weeks ago.

There has been a huge outpouring of support for Japan as it weathers the aftershocks and aftereffects of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Social media has been no slouch with nearly countless campaigns aimed at donating money, supplies or lending support in any way possible.

Mashable brought you seven other ways to help, and we’re back with even more ways that you can assist the on-going relief efforts. Some are as lighthearted as a T-shirt from Snoop Dogg while others support on-the-ground rescue workers. Let us know how you’re helping.

How You Can Help

#Hands4Japan on Crowdrise

Two Japanese-born venture capitalist brothers started a campaign on Crowdrise in support of the American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter. They’ve offered to match donations until the campaign reaches its total goal of $1 million. In just four days, the brothers and their family raised more than $225,000 (with matching donations), at time of writing that number is nearly $325,000. The family said most of those donations were for amounts of less than $50.

Twestival

Twesitval is an international charity event that uses social media to help organize local meet-ups around the world. This year’s Twestival had several meet-ups planned for Japan but those had to be canceled because of the need for help following the earthquake and tsunami.

Instead, Twestival opened a special channel of its site where people can donate to Save the Children’s Japan Initiative.

PayPal

The popular online payment site has offered to credit transactional fees incurred from March 11 to April 10 to any registered charity in the U.S. or Canada raising funds to aid Japan relief. (For the U.S., any 501(c)(3), and for Canada, any under the Canada Revenue Agency). PayPal members can also donate directly here (U.S.) orhere (Canada).

Clothing & Shopping

Threadless, the online clothing vendor jumped into the effort by running a short, crowdsourced contest to come up with a T-shirt design that could be sold to help Japan. The winner, based on the theme “sunrise,” is available for $20. All of the net proceeds from the sale will be donated to the American Red Cross‘ Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami fund. The shirt is part of Threadless Causes, an initiative to help non-profits and causes through its sales.

Snoop Dogg and Neff Headwear have teamed up to help Japan by creating a T-shirt in which all profits will be donated to Operation U.S.A.. The pair are hoping to raise $50,000 in funds in one week.

Shop for Japan is a one-day global shopping event happening Saturday, March 26. Businesses can sign up at the site to pledge a percent of their revenue from that day to go toward charity. The site also has a list and map of participating stores.

#TweetDrive

This social good community has organized #TweetDrive4Japan.

The campaign is an international series of tweets-ups from March 29 to 31 where 100% of ticket sales from each event will go to the Save the Children‘s emergency Japan relief fund.

Text-to-Donate

Ever since Haiti was hit by an earthquake, text-to-donate has been a huge trend — and a huge help — in times of need. The Japan crisis has spawned several options:

• MobileCause has shortcodes for the Salvation Army (text “JAPAN” to “80888 for a $10 donation), the International Medical Corps (text “MED” to “80888″ for a $10 donation), and ADRA Relief (text “SUPPORT” to “85944″ for a $10 donation).
• Mobile Giving Foundation promises a 100% pass-through of all funds for shortcodes to Save the Children Federation (text “JAPAN” or “TSUNAMI” to 20222 to donate $10), World Vision (text “4JAPAN” or “4TSUNAMI” to 20222 to donate $10), the Mercy Corps (text “MERCY” to 25383 to donate $10), the Canadian Red Cross (text “ASIA” or “ASIE“ to 30333 to donate $5), and Canadian Salvation Army (text “QUAKE” to 45678 to donate $10).
• Obopay lets consumers make larger donations (in the hundreds) that, according to Obopay, reach organizations faster than carrier-based text-to-donate plans. Donors can text “Japan” to “48510″ where they’re taken to a mobile payment site complete with electronic tax receipt.

JiWire

JiWire has offered it’s location-based ad network of Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile apps by running a campaign in support for the Red Cross. The ads will let users know about nearby Red Cross locations as well as options to donate through text.

It’s a nice example of an ad platform maximizing its reach and geo-location possibilities to serve a good cause.

Tumblr

Tumblr recently announced the addition of Japanese as the newest language option for the blogging network. Users will be able to change their language setting on the preferences page, opening new opportunities for outreach for native-speakers and supporters abroad. Users can also keep up with news from Japan on Tumblr’s #Japan tag page or donate to the Red Cross from the dashboard. Donating will unlock a Limited Edition Japanese Tumblr Logo and the company will match donations up to $15,000.

The last time Tumblr opened special features was its all-black background to promote awareness and raise funds following the Gulf oil leak.

Next Steps

Before donating to any sites or organizations, make sure you do a little bit of homework. It’s important to know about any transaction fees and to double check that the site will actually donate to the (registered) charity as promised. Disasters are unfortunately prime targets for scammers who try and play off the public’s genuine sympathy and desire to help. Organizations like the Red Cross are generally above-board and provide upfront information on how your money is being spent. It’s important to help in times of crisis, but it’s also important to make sure your support isn’t being misused.

There are definitely other ways to help the relief efforts outside of the options above. Please share in the comments your hashtags, newsfeeds, non-profits, campaigns or any other ways to help Japan.

via:mashable

If you run your own site — and we know lots of you do — you can use your pageviews and influence to help Japanese people struggling to recover from yesterday’s devastating natural disasters. All you need is a couple lines of code from the Hello Bar.

We showed off the Hello Bar a while ago; it’s a slender bar that floats at the top of your website, giving visitors a brief message and a link.

Best of all, you only have to insert the code snippet on your site once. From a convenient web dashboard, you can customize the bar with your colors and text. You can also tweak the behaviors of the bar and easily turn it on or off from the dashboard. All of this makes it incredibly easy to solicit donations for Japan now, then turn the bar off or change the message and link later, if you so desire.

For example, you might set your Hello Bar to read something like, “Japan has been hit by a devastating earthquake and tsunami. Click here to make a Red Cross donation.” Then later, when Japan is well on its way to recovery, you can change the bar to contain a message about your favorite charity instead, or simply switch the bar off for the time being.

You can set the bar to appear for a brief interval at the beginning of a website visit and hide itself afterward. If you run multiple websites, you can run multiple Hello Bars, again controlling them all from the same dashboard.

The Hello Bar comes from UK design shop digital-telepathy. If you haven’t used Hello Bar before, you’ll need a new account; just sign up with the invite code “helpjapan.”

And if you don’t feel like signing up for a new app, you can just use this code anywhere in the <body> tag of your site to display a standard donation request:

That code can be used on a Tumblr, WordPress or Blogger blog, too; here are some detailed instructions.

As for which links to use, that’s largely up to you. Here are a few reputable organizations that are collecting funds and working with organizations in Japan to meet the needs of Japanese people:

• The American Red Cross
• Americares
• Global Giving
• Doctors Without Borders
• Mercy Corps

Hurricane Earl is expected to wreak some havoc on the East Coast this Labor Day weekend. According to the the National Hurricane Center, Earl is expected “pass near the North Carolina outer banks tonight [Thursday]… and approach southeastern New England Friday night.”

President Obama has declared a state of emergency for North Carolina, and FEMA has deployed teams to North Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine.

Whether you live near the National Hurricane Center’s official “Forecast Cone” or you’re one of the 34.4 million people who planned a trip for this weekend, you’ll want to keep an eye on Earl. Here are some resources to kickstart your tracking:

Government Resources

The National Weather Service

Get your weather warnings and advisories right from the source on top of a color-coded map. You can also use the site to check in on where Earl is likely to hit and whether or not hurricane force winds are probable in your area.

NOAA’s nowCOAST

Make a customized, real-time map using NOAA data. Decide what location, information, and time you’d like to view and what data layers you’d like to activate, and nowCOAST will make a map for your request. This is a great tool for people who actually know something about weather, but it can leave the beginner hurricane tracker a bit confused.

NASA Earth Science Office

See what the hurricane looks like from outer space by taking a look at the latest satellite pictures direct from NASA’s Earth Science Office. The site offers a number of different satellite views, include infrared and water vapor readings.

Weather Media Resources

MyFoxHurricane.com

Very helpful for connecting with other hurricane tracking nerds, this dedicated hurricane website from MyFoxTampaBay and the FOX Network hosts a live chat in addition to its other hurricane resources. Interesting maps include the hurricane’s predicted path map, the wave height near the storm and a radar map that zooms in on the Outer Banks.

The Weather Channel

The Weather Channel’s Hurricane Central allows you to view where Hurricane Earl has been and where it’s projected to go. There are also separate maps for hurricane advisories, tropical storm advisories, wind speeds and wave heights; the site also has satellite maps for specific regions. The maps aren’t as flashy as some of the other sites on this list, but they are very easy to read and understand.

AccuWeather.com

If you want to see what Hurricane Earl looks like – and we’re not talking radar – watch this footage taken from directly above the eye of the storm. These brave NASA pilots apparently let an AccuWeather videographer on board. Hopefully this is as close to Earl as you will get.

The site’s frequent video coverage of Hurricane Earl is also a great resource.

Google Maps Mashups

Ibiseye

Ibiseye puts the storm’s history, projected path and at-risk areas on one Google () map. It’s especially useful for finding at what time and with what intensity the storm is expected to reach a specific point. A graphical synopsis of the storm’s winds, pressure and wind field is also available.

StormAdvisory

Another Google Maps-based resource, StormAdvisory plots Hurricane Earl’s actual path and wind speeds as well as its projected path and wind speeds.

Weather Underground

The tropical weather section of Weather Underground includes radar, satellite, wind and forecast maps. The stand-out feature, however, is the site’s trademarked “Wundermap,” on which you can choose layers of information to display.

Stormpulse: A Hurricane Tracking Dashboard

Stormpulse is all you need to track Hurricane Earl’s vital stats. The dashboard displays every the essential detail, including current category, wind speed and movement, on one screen. You can switch the map to radar or satellite and select a point on the map to calculate its distance from the hurricane.

Mobile Resources

• The Weather Channel App for iPhone or BlackBerry

  The free version of the Weather Channel’s app for both iPhone and BlackBerry will alert you to weather advisories in your area and check in on the current forecast. The iPhone version comes with an updated local video forecast as well. If you want more from your weather source, a $3.99 iPhone version of the app comes with access to an entire video center and a database of beach condition reports. The Weather Channel also claims this is the only weather app with animated future radar.

• Hurricane iPhone App

  Anything a storm tracker could want: animated satellite and radar, computer models, NHC bulletins, forecasts, your distance from each forecast point and all the vital stats (including wind speed, direction and pressure). You can keep this $1.99 app on your phone after Earl has passed for the latest updates from government hurricane centers.

• Hurricane Wallpaper Android App

  Download this $0.99 Android app, and you’ll never be without your weather map. You can keep the current National Hurricane Center’s Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Activity image up on your phone as your wallpaper.

• MyFoxHurricane iPhone App

  The resources of MyFoxHurricane.com (as discussed earlier in this post) in a $3.99 iPhone app. Get access to breaking news and videocasts from the site as well as radar and satellite images. You can also look at past hurricanes in your area to see how Earl compares.

• Hurricane Hound Android App

  This Android app shows the storm’s current position, projected storm track and storm warnings on a Google map. It also lets you know how far away you are from the storm at any given moment. And it’s free, which we like.

• AccuWeather.com iPhone App

  Not fancy but still free, AccuWeather.com’s iPhone app will alert you to weather advisories in your zip code. Aside from accessing the usual web forecast, you can also access video forecasts for your area.

• Hurricane Central Web App

  Tired of downloading apps? Hurricane Central is a bare-bones mobile site for hurricane information. It pulls maps, advisories and other hurricane announcements from the National Hurricane Center.

Twitter Resources

• @VisitNC: The official tourism site for North Carolina, the state which is predicted to take the brunt of the blow, is tweeting travel conditions and beach closings as well as posing some interesting questions, such as, “What message in the sand would you write for Hurricane #Earl?” It’s good to see them keeping a sense of humor.
• @CNNweather: Breaking news from CNN, including new weather warnings and forecasts.
• @breakingweather: AccuWeather.com’s Twitter feed for breaking news (including hurricanes).
• @TWCBreaking: If you prefer the Weather Channel to AccuWeather, this is its very similar breaking news Twitter feed.
• @MyFoxHurricane: Twitter resource from Fox’s dedicated hurricane website (mentioned above).
• @hurricanes: The Science News Blog’s hurricane coverage, which focuses on the Atlantic region.
• @wunderground: Severe weather warnings and updates from Weather Underground.
• @stormpulse: Frequent storm updates and advisories on tropical storms and hurricanes.
• @NASAHurricane: NASA is equipped like no other organization to cover hurricanes (e.g., they’re able to fly directly into the eye of a hurricane). Follow this feed so you don’t miss their updates.
• @hurricanetrack: Let someone else track the hurricane in person. Get live video streams from HurricaneTrack.com.

Coca-Cola is in the process of launching three fruit-based drinks this summer. The company is expected to launch two products under the Minute Maid brand, and a mango shake in the dairy segment under the Maaza brand by June this year.

“Coca-Cola India is currently test marketing Minute Maid Apple Juice and Minute Maid Mixed Fruit juice in Kolkata. Based on the response, we will take a call to roll it out in other parts of the country,” confirmed a Coca-Cola India spokesperson in response to an email. The spokesperson, however, declined to comment on the company’s entry in the dairy segment with a mango shake under the Maaza brand.

Coca-Cola is not present in the dairy segment elsewhere in the world. India would be its first test-ground for the segment when it launches the mango shake. Coke is the beverage sponsor of the upcoming Commonwealth Games. Analysts say it would leverage these launches during the Games to capture consumers’ mindshare.

“Getting into allied products (mango shake) is a well-thought move since it will require only re-constituting the existing product (the pulp left from Maaza formation can be re-processed into shake). There is more synergy into it,” said an analyst. The only challenge would be a better chilled supply chain to reduce spoilage, as dairy products are more temperature-sensitive than soft drinks and have shorter shelf life.

Cola companies, note analysts, are launching fruit-based drinks as people have become more health conscious. Even FMCG companies are entering the juice segment. In the past, Pepsi had launched Tropicana and Nimbooz. Dabur is bullish on its Real range. Parle Agro also launched LMN (lemon drink). Wipro Consumer recently launched few fruit variants of Glucovita (glucose concentrate) and it wouldn’t be surprising if Wipro moves from juice concentrate to ready-to-drink juice soon.

Anand Ramanathan, sector analyst from KPMG, reasons: “Margins are better in juice-based drinks than carbonated drinks, as juice is a premium segment while carbonated drinks is a mass segment. Juice will be the future growth driver for cola companies.”

Carbonated drinks is a Rs 14,720-crore market in India, while juice is a Rs 2,670-crore market. But the juice segment is growing faster than carbonated, according to analysts.

Coca-Cola, according to a source close to the development, is also considering a Guava variant and has a plan to expand Minute Maid into a full juice range in the coming two years.

Imagine if any Pakistani could send an anonymous text message to the authorities suggesting where to look. Each location could be plotted on a map. The dots would be scattered widely, perhaps, with promising leads indistinguishable from rubbish. But on a given day, a surge of dots might point to the same village, in what could not be coincidence. Troops could be ordered in.

This kind of everyone-as-informant mapping is shaking up the world, bringing the Wikipedia revolution to the work of humanitarians and soldiers who parachute into places with little good information. And an important force behind this upheaval is a small Kenyan-born organization called Ushahidi, which has become a hero of the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes and which may have something larger to tell us about the future of humanitarianism, innovation and the nature of what we label as truth.

After Kenya’s disputed election in 2007, violence erupted. A prominent Kenyan lawyer and blogger, Ory Okolloh, who was based in South Africa but had gone back to Kenya to vote and observe the election, received threats about her work and returned to South Africa. She posted online the idea of an Internet mapping tool to allow people anonymously to report violence and other misdeeds. Technology whizzes saw her post and built the Ushahidi Web platform over a long weekend.

The site collected user-generated cellphone reports of riots, stranded refugees, rapes and deaths and plotted them on a map, using the locations given by informants. It collected more testimony — which is what ushahidi means in Swahili — with greater rapidity than any reporter or election monitor.

When the Haitian earthquake struck, Ushahidi went again into action. An emergency texting number was advertised via radio. Ushahidi received thousands of messages reporting trapped victims. They were translated by a diffuse army of Haitian-Americans in the United States and plotted on a “crisis map.” From a situation room at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, outside Boston, Ushahidi volunteers instant-messaged with the United States Coast Guard in Haiti, telling them where to search. When the Chilean earthquake struck, Ushahidi deployed again.

A lot of things could go wrong with this model. People could lie, get the address wrong, exaggerate their situation. But as data collects, crisis maps can reveal underlying patterns of reality: How many miles inland did the hurricane kill? Are the rapes broadly dispersed or concentrated near military barracks?

Ushahidi suggests a new paradigm in humanitarian work. The old paradigm was one-to-many: foreign journalists and aid workers jet in, report on a calamity and dispense aid with whatever data they have. The new paradigm is many-to-many-to-many: victims supply on-the-ground data; a self-organizing mob of global volunteers translates text messages and helps to orchestrate relief; journalists and aid workers use the data to target the response.

Ushahidi also represents a new frontier of innovation. Silicon Valley has been the reigning paradigm of innovation, with its universities, financiers, mentors, immigrants and robust patents. Ushahidi comes from another world, in which entrepreneurship is born of hardship and innovators focus on doing more with less, rather than on selling you new and improved stuff.

Because Ushahidi originated in crisis, no one tried to patent and monopolize it. Because Kenya is poor, with computers out of reach for many, Ushahidi made its system work on cellphones. Because Ushahidi had no venture-capital backing, it used open-source software and was thus free to let others remix its tool for new projects.

Ushahidi remixes have been used in India to monitor elections; in Africa to report medicine shortages; in the Middle East to collect reports of wartime violence; and in Washington, D.C., where The Washington Post partnered to build a site to map road blockages and the location of available snowplows and blowers.

Think about that. The capital of the sole superpower is deluged with snow, and to whom does its local newspaper turn to help dig out? Kenya.

With every new application, Ushahidi is quietly transforming the notion of bearing witness in tragedy. For a very long time, this was done first by journalists in real time, next by victim/writers like Anne Frank and, finally, by historians. But in this instantaneous age, this kind of testimony confronts a more immediate kind: one of aggregate, average, good-enough truths.

“We’re moving beyond the idea that information is completely true or completely false,” said Patrick Meier, a student at Fletcher who directs Ushahidi’s crisis-mapping operation.

So what will it mean to bear witness in the future? They say that history is written by the victors. But now, before the victors win, there is a chance to scream out with a text message that will not vanish. What would we know about what passed between Turks and Armenians, between Germans and Jews, if every one of them had had the chance, before the darkness, to declare for all time: “I was here, and this is what happened to me”?

If you’re looking to pitch in to the relief effort for Chile after this morning’s massive earthquake, we’ve gathered some of the web’s best channels for humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts.

Text Your Support

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The Mobile Giving Foundation has launched a text messaging campaign for micro donations, and the four major U.S. mobile carriers, Verizon, At&T, Sprint, and T-mobile, have waived text messaging fees for donations.

To text your support:

1. Text the word “CHILE” to 25383 to donate $10 on behalf of the Habitat for Humanity

2. Text the word “CHILE” to 20222 to donate $10 on behalf of World Vision

3. Text the word “CHILE” to 52000 to donate $10 on behalf of the Salvation Army

4. Text the word “CHILE” to 90999 to donate $10 on behalf of the American Red Cross

Direct Donations Online

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If you want to donate a larger amount directly to a non-profit of choice, consider these organizations that have active relief efforts underway.

1. American Red Cross – the American Red Cross International Response Fund helps victims of crises such as the Chile and Haiti earthquakes. If you wish to designate your funds to a specific crisis, you’ll need to mail in your donation.

2. Americares – funds go exclusively to the Chilean earthquake (and tsunami relief, should further tragedies occur)

3. Google Crisis Response, with channels benefiting UNICEF and DirectRelief International
– use your Google Checkout account to donate instantly to these charities

4. World Vision Disaster Response Fund - your money goes towards relief efforts for global disasters worldwide (not Chile specifically)

5.ReliefWeb is another great resource with lots of ways to help disaster sticken countries.

Via:Mashable

For those without access to the relevant channels, video streaming site Ustream is currently live streaming coverage of both the Chile earthquake aftermath and tsunami warnings for Hawaii and Pacific regions.

Coverage comes courtesy of local news channels.

We’ve embedded the channels below, and welcome your tips for following the earthquake and tsunami news elsewhere on the web. 

Tsunami Warning for Hawaii Live Coverage

Hawaii Tsunami Warnings – CBS Live

Live earthquake coverage from Chile

A major earthquake of magnitude-8.8 struck Chile early Saturday, causing extensive damage.

As a result, a tsunami warning has been issued for Hawaii, Polynesia and Tonga, with waves expected to reach Hawaii at 11:19 a.m. local time (4:19 p.m. EST). A tsunami advisory has been issued for California, while tsunami warnings have been issued for 53 countries in total, including Australia   and New Zealand.

Currently tracking the coverage online with a combination of live streams from local TV stations, official information from the NOAA and updates from Twitter and real-time search.

1. Live streaming video (Ustream) – Ustream is helpfully providing TV coverage from local channels in Chile and Hawaii.

2. Twitter hashtag #tsunami – Twitter users are tagging updates with #tsunami, and Twitter search is proving extremely useful for news tracking. Remember that Twitter’s advanced search lets you find updates posted from specific places – Chile or Hawaii, for instance.

3. Google Real-time search “Tsunami warning” – Google’s real-time search combines news results with postings from Twitter, blogs and other real-time sources. “Tsunami warning” delivers relevant results, but obviously tweak your search terms if you’re looking for something more specific.

4. NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center – The PTWC provides a collection of resources for those tracking the tsunami, including maps of those areas where tsunami warnings and advisories have been issued.

5. NOAA’s Tsunami.gov – Tsunami.gov is the NOAA’s official tsunami site, providing links to their local warning centers. However, we’re getting limited uptime today, presumably due to heavy traffic. Using the other sources above may keep this site available to those who most need it.