'Threes!' Update Hits: Next Card Display Tweaks and The Ability to Skip Signing Added

<Amazon Deal Onlinep> Threes! [$1.99] has been glued to the top of its charts since release, and for good reason. It's an absolutely fantastic game, that has been ridiculously popular in our forums. Forum members have been sharing strategies, deconstructing the game, and even building bots that play it. It's been an incredibly phenomenon to watch unfold, and one I'm sure developers Greg Wohlwend and Asher Vollmer couldn't have possibly predicted when they were originally coming up with concepts for the game.

If you don't have it yet, you really should get it. If you do have it, rush on over to the App Store and download the latest update if your phone hasn't automatically grabbed it yet. It's got two major quality of life improvements for serial Threes! players. First off, you can skip signing your name at the end of every game, to get right back in to your Threes! combining action. Additionally, a "+" now appears next to the upcoming card if it's going to be more than three.

The "+" is going to be awesome, as previously when a white card was up next you hoped it was a three, but it could be a bunch of different numbers that can really mess up your board state. The new "+" display will hopefully make late game Threes! a little less frustrating as now players will know for sure if they're getting a one, a two, a three, or something more than that.

2 Threats to Amazon.com's Future Growth

When a company is expected to grow earnings by 40% plus over the next several years, any threat to this earnings growth should be carefully considered by investors. Though NASDAQ: Buy Cheap.com ( AMZN ) seems to want to be everything to everyone, there are at least two major threats that could hurt this company's potential.

A well-known issue everyone seems to ignore
There should be little doubt that one of the prime reasons many people shop online is to avoid paying sales tax at the point of sale. Though some believe that Amazon's competitive advantage is convenience, the economy of the last several years has taught many people to watch every dollar they spend.

It just makes good sense that if a consumer can buy the exact same product from Amazon and avoid paying sales tax they will do so. To combat this challenge, companies like Wal-Mart Stores ( ) are willing to continually cut prices to compete with their online counterparts. Though size clearly plays a part, Wal-Mart's U.S. sales growth came in at just 2.4% in the company's last quarter.

With over 4,000 locations domestically, Wal-Mart is probably a better proxy for the domestic marketplace than Amazon. However, there should be little doubt that the ability to avoid sales tax by purchasing on Amazon is hurting the physical retailers' sales.

Though some might believe sales tax won't be an issue, it's hard to ignore the obvious slowdown in Amazon's overall sales growth in concert with more states requiring sales tax be charged to its customers. Currently, 19 states require Amazon customers to pay sales tax. Not coincidentally, Amazon's worldwide trailing 12 month sales growth has slowed sequentially from 29% in the fourth quarter of 2012, to 24% in the fourth quarter of 2013.

As Amazon continues to expand, more states will certainly require sales tax to be collected, or a nationwide online sales tax may become law. This sales tax issue is a huge competitive difference between a company like NASDAQ: eBay ( EBAY ) and Amazon.

Most of eBay's sellers generate less than $1 million in out-of-state revenue, which would exempt them from collecting sales tax under the current version of the bill. In short, eBay could become a haven for tax avoiding customers.

With more than 60% of Amazon's revenue coming from general merchandise and electronic sales, this might be the most significant threat facing the company today.

A Prime concern
A second threat to Amazon's future actually comes from one of the company's most popular features. Amazon Prime members pay $79 per year for many benefits including free two-day shipping and streaming of thousands of instant video titles, this could change in the future.

Amazon has suggested that the Prime service may be too expensive to maintain the $79 annual price. If the company raised the price by $20 to $40 as has been suggested, Amazon could lose a significant portion of its membership.

In fact, a poll by Bizrate Insights of 200 customers found that 46% thought that the existing $79 price for Amazon Prime was too high. It's not hard to imagine these customers choosing to cancel their membership if Amazon goes through with a price hike of at least 25%.

eBay would seem to be a natural destination for jilted Prime members. The company offers a discount on seller's fees if they offer free shipping and meet certain criteria. Though eBay may not show the same type of revenue growth as Amazon, the company's Marketplaces business has consistently grown users at a double-digit rate, and its fixed price merchandise volume increased by 19% on a year-over-year basis.

In addition, if shoppers are looking for convenience, Wal-Mart's vast number of locations in everyday low prices could draw Prime members back into the stores. Wal-Mart could also one up Amazon at its own game by using its store locations as mini shipping warehouses.

Amazon claims that its Prime service has "millions of members." Imagine these customers having to choose whether to pay a higher annual price for Prime, while simultaneously having to pay sales tax on their purchases where they did not before. For a stock that still trades at a forward P/E ratio of more than 180, a continued slowdown in the company's revenue growth could mean the recent hit to the stock price is only the beginning.

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Digital discounter Coupons.com sets terms for $130 million IPO

Coupons.com, a digital network of Amazon Sales, online coupons, loyalty card promotions and mobile coupons, announced terms for its IPO on Tuesday. The Mountain View, CA-based company plans to raise $130 million by offering 10 million shares at a price range of $12 to $14. At the midpoint of the proposed range, the company would command a fully diluted market value of $1.1 billion. Coupons.com, which was founded in 1998 and booked $168 million in sales for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013, plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol COUP. Coupons.com initially filed confidentially on October 25, 2013, and plans to price the week of March 3rd. Goldman Sachs, Allen & Company, BofA Merrill Lynch and RBC Capital Markets are the joint bookrunners on the deal.

Travel advice: when is the best time to book a flight?

Research from flight Promotional Codes comparison website Skyscanner.net this week claimed that the best time to book a flight for the cheapest fare was, on average, five weeks ahead of the departure date. The website came to this conclusion by analysing over 200 million searches and the actual prices paid by customers over three years.

The best time to book for Britain's leading summer destinations ranged from three weeks before travel for those heading to Greece and 21 weeks ahead for those going to the USA. Skyscanner found that those who booked at the optimum time for the USA saved £120 compared to booking during the week of departure.

The general rule is that: the more seats there are available, the cheaper tickets will be, according to Sophie Butler, our advice columnist. Therefore it pays to book early. However, if many seats remain available near to the departure date, which can happen for flights in non-peak, non-holiday periods, the airline may hold a seat sale, meaning that last-minute bargains can be snapped up.

It is worth considering though, that if you're travelling as a group or family and leave booking flights to just five weeks before departure, there may not be enough seats left.

Nick Trend, Telegraph Travel's consumer editor, said: "The best advice for when to book flights depends both on when you want to travel, and how flexible you are able to be.

"If you are a family who wants to fly during the school summer holidays on a particular date, you should certainly book now. If you leave it later there is a very high risk you will pay a much higher fare, and may not even be able to book the flights you want at all."

Final destination is important too. If you can be flexible about where you want to travel, you may be able to pick up a very good value fare close to the departure date. But if you have your mind set on a fixed destination, particularly in peak holiday periods (which may differ according to the location - December for the Caribbean, and July for Spain or Italy, for example) then you would be wise to book as soon as possible.

A spokesperson for Skyscanner said: "There may be other times throughout the year when customers might get a cheap flight and of course many people will be more comfortable booking further in advance, especially as prices close to departure can be quite volatile."

She added that if customers wanted to get the best deal, they would be best researching prices and tracking fares by signing up for price alerts, which allow travellers to see when low fares become available.

It also pays to compare fares using several price comparison websites before booking, as Donald Strachan, Telegraph Travel's technology expert, advises here.

In addition, the Skyscanner research looked at the average per person return price for Britons' top ten August destinations. They found that the average fare for Spain, for example, was £153. But again, there are so many variables even within travel to one country that it is difficult to give overall averages. For example, in Spain, flight prices to Madrid generally plummet in August due to the heat, but increase to coastal destinations such as Malaga.

Overall, there is no one fixed answer to when it is best to book a flight. The answer depends on multiple factors, including whether you are flying short or long haul, during peak or off-peak periods, and whether you are set on a specific destination.

Follow @TelegraphTravel

How Disney's 1942 Film Bambi Came to be Influenced by the Lush Landscapes of the Sung Dynasty

<chinese lunar new year cardsp>Pamela Tom, a documentary filmmaker, says she is still thankful for the chance encounter 14 years ago that led her to the now 103-year-old Chinese American artist Tyrus Wong.

She first heard his name in a short film included with the Disney home video Bambi that Tom watched with her young daughter about the making of the 1942 classic. Wong wasn't interviewed in the film, but the other animators spoke of his work with such admiration that Tom knew she had to find and tell the artist's story. She successfully tracked him down in 1998, locating the playful Wong in Los Angeles trying to teach goldfish in his pond to eat at the sound of a bell, and building kites and flying them off the Santa Monica pier.

Tom's mission to make Wong's story as familiar as the beloved children's film that he helped to create, is at the core of her new work-in-progress, the documentary, Tyrus Wong: Brushstrokes in Hollywood.

I'll get the chance to experience some of Wong's magic, when Tom is in town to present some of the artist's story and show excerpts from her documentary at two upcoming events: a fundraiser and dance at Paradiso Restaurant, in Alexandria, Virginia, on January 25 and a "Talk Story" program at the Chinatown Community Cultural Center on H Street, NW, on January 26.

While Wong's culturally-infused art, is largely unknown to the American general public, his Hollywood career spanned more than 30 years and his illustrations appeared in such iconic American films as Rebel without a Cause, Harpers, The Wild Bunch, and PT 109.

He got the job on the Bambi project by taking a bit of a gamble. He was a young artist employed by the Disney studio, but tasked with the entry-level job of finishing off the work of the animators and crafting the "in-between" animations that completed the characters' movements. Wong had learned that studio executives were creating a film from the new novel, Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Felix Salten. Tom says the young artist read the book and without consulting his supervisor, "took the script and painted all the backgrounds to set the mood, color and the design." His sketches recalled the lush mountain and forest scenes of Sung dynasty landscape paintings. His initiative paid off. Walt Disney, who was looking for something new for the film, was captivated and personally directed that Wong be moved up to an art director position. Today, top animators and illustrators revere Wong's work. Children today are as enchanted by the misty, lyrical brushstrokes of Wong's colorful nature scenes, inspired by his training at Otis College of Art and self-study of Sung Dynasty art and the Chinese alphabet, as they were in 1942. His work has been much admired in a retrospective on view in San Francisco at the Walt Disney Family Museum (Hurry in, the show closes February 2, 2014).

"Look at his Bambi illustrations, they look like Chinese paintings," says Tom. "He wasn't trying to be clever, just himself. What I found remarkable was that he was retaining his Chinese influence." And at a time, she adds, when it was difficult for immigrants to retain their heritage and be accepted as American.

"Now you see a lot of inclusion and diversity in life. For him it could have been a hindrance but it wasn't. He worked in film and fine art. He designed Christmas cards, and painted calligraphy on ceramics that were sold in high end department stores. His work is almost like Chinese-American art that he interpreted, made his, and [made] accessible to everyone else.

"One of the people in my film says what made his (Wong's) work so successful was that it was clearly from another country, but it was accessible and appealing to everyone," she adds.

Born in 1910 Canton, today's Guangshou, China, Tyrus Wong was nine-years old when he and his father immigrated to California. Their month-long detention at Angel Island offered the father and son a glimpse of what lie ahead for them in their new homeland.

Best, Worst Pre-Arbitration Deals in Recent History

With negotiations between agents, All-Star players and MLB teams, the Best Offer and worse pre-arbitration deals occur during the offseason.

Curious as to what exactly arbitration is?

In a J anuary 2004 article by Jack McDowell of Yahoo! Sports he simplified the meaning, "Arbitration establishes a system in which salaries from top to bottom are reviewed and adjusted to mirror those of equal players."

In other words, players that sign smaller contracts and become stars get a chance to have a contract reflect what they are worth. With the case of many young, top prospects, MLB teams have a security blanket in terms of a smaller contract. But, if a player does succeed their worth then many teams do renegotiate a contract before that player enters that arbitration period.

AP sports writer Ronald Blum highlights that "Arbitration-eligible baseball players get average 119 percent Raise" in a February 2013 article on Komo News.

Players like Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum gained hefty raises before having to enter the arbitration period. And in the case of Kershaw, who was eligible for arbitration in 2014, is expected to sign a contract extension worth $215 million, via Ramona Shelburne of ESPN on Twitter. Kershaw won't have to deal with arbitration coming up.

In comparison to both sides of Kershaw's deal strictly looking at MLB All-Stars, we'll rank the best and worst deals in recent MLB history.

Discount campaign tries to attract shoppers to Downtown Biloxi

Amazon Deal campaign tries to attract shoppers to Downtown Biloxi

Posted: Saturday, January 18, 2014 6:54 PM ESTUpdated: Sunday, January 19, 2014 6:54 AM EST

BILOXI, MS (WLOX) -

There is now an added incentive for both tourists and locals to do more of their shopping in Downtown Biloxi. The new campaign is called Doubloon Deals with the funding coming from a $100,000 BP grant.

After driving past Downtown Biloxi many times Clint Caldwell says he felt it was time to explore the area and its shops.

"We're from Ocean Springs and have never stopped," said Caldwell. "So we just decided to take Saturday morning and come to Downtown Biloxi and see the shops and things."

About 20 shops and restaurants are participating in the Doubloon Deals campaign. The way it works is people go by the Biloxi visitors center to get their doubloon then take the token to the businesses and receive a discount on their purchases.

"We've got a little map that goes with it. A new Downtown guide," said Kay Carter, Biloxi Main Street Director. "We often have people say 'I didn't even know this shop was here.' So hopefully it will bring a few people in the doors that didn't know it was there and a lot of shops, mom and pop shops, have a hard time offering discounts so this is just a way to give a little discount or an added incentive to come."

Some merchants said their incentive to take part in Doubloon Deals was the flexibility the program offers.

Gail Cheney is an artist with Gallery 782. "I think one unique thing about the program is right now our incentive is 10 percent off of one item," said Cheney. "But we can change that as we roll with the program to something that might work better for tourists or locals. We're hoping to get more locals too."

This push to get more local customers and tourists in the area is being paid for with a BP grant.

Carter said, "We were able to do this and purchase the doubloons and the advertising with the Deepwater Horizon grant. Also the downtown guides. We're putting kiosks in the downtown. So really trying to promote the area."

Biloxi Main Street officials said they are not sure how long the program will last but if it's successful Doubloon Deals may continue throughout the year. @