Samsung’s new phone is the first to use Barclaycard and Orange’s ‘Quick Tap’ payment technology.
Orange and Samsung have teamed-up with Barclaycard to provide mobile phone payments with the new “Quick Tap” payment technology.
Bathtubs Disappearing From U.S. Hotels
Business travelers don’t have time for a long soak.
Many hotels across the United States are doing away with the bathtub. These hotel chains use the freed-up space to install ever more luxurious showers.
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Amazon Selling More Electronic Books Than Printed Books
Kindle e-books outselling printed books.
Amazon.com announced this week that it’s now selling more electronic books through its Kindle e-readers than it is selling printed books.
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Gas Prices Widening Gap Between Wealthy and Everyone Else
The rich are back to pre-recession-style splurging.
A wider wedge is being driven between the wealthy and everybody else due to high gas prices. The rich are back to pre-recession-style splurging: Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom customers are treating themselves to luxury items like $5,000 Hermes handbags and $700 Jimmy Choo shoes, and they’re paying full price.
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Walmart Struggles with Financially Squeezed Customers to Shop Beyond Necessity
The world’s largest retailer reported the eighth consecutive quarterly decline at its US stores.
Wal-Mart admits it has been struggling to persuade shoppers to buy much beyond the necessities, as rising food and gas bills hit the spending power of US consumers.
1 in 3 University Students in Berlin Consider Sex Work
Thirty percent of students working in the sex industry were in debt.
One third of university students in the German capital of Berlin would consider sex work as a means to finance their education, a study from the Berlin Studies Center said on Wednesday.
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Almost Half Of All Online Orders Now Include Free Shipping
Online retail spending reached $38 billion this quarter, up 12 percent from a $33.8 billion a year ago according to Comscore. This growth is due to an increase in the number of buyers (7%), transactions per buy (9%) and tempered by a decline in spending per transaction (4%).
According to a ComScore report released today, nearly half of those orders included free shipping, at 47% versus 53% for Q’1 ’11, 49% versus 51% in Q’4 10 (the holiday season) and 41% versus 59% in Q3 ’10.
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Privatizing Libraries
Expanding our thinking about the notion of
corporate-run community libraries
Futurist Thomas Frey: Consider the following scenario. Two years from now in November, you find yourself walking into a voting booth to decide on the fate of your local library. The issue you will be deciding affects you directly because it has to do with the management of your local library. You will be voting on one of four choices for the operational management of your library. The choices you have to pick from include Microsoft, Google, Apple, or your current city-run operation.
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What Effect Will the Cut in Debit Card Fees Have on Consumers?
The Fed rule on debit card fees could have far-reaching effects on how consumers spend and save.
The debit card battle between retailers and banks has reached epic proportions. The plan by lawmakers is to slash the fees retailers pay banks every time a shopper uses a debit card. Both sides are spending millions of dollars to convince lawmakers that they’re looking out for average Americans.
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Are We One Step Closer to Pricing Nature?
The tragedy of the commons in action.
One of the most perverse tenets of the economic model that most of the globe adheres to is that extracting natural resources or doing damage to ecosystems is “free”. Bottled water companies don’t pay for the water they extract, lumber outfits don’t pay for the trees they chop down, automakers don’t pay for the air pollution they generate, Big Oil doesn’t pay for the oil it extracts, and so on and so forth. This problem, known as the tragedy of the commons, is one that’s been an ugly thorn in capitalism’s side from the get-go. For the most part, we deal with it by imposing restrictions on how much companies can pollute, creating environmental protection agencies to enforce such restrictions, and by designating nature preserves to shield nature from corporate claws. But it’s not working…
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Woman Makes Mummies for Bereaved Pet Owners
Exactly how long do you want your pet to stay around?
Grieving pet owners are turning to a US woman to give their lost loved ones eternal life by making them into mummies. PD Cagliastro is one of few in the US offering animal mummification services based on the ancient Egyptian art It took her 20 years to perfect her formula by studying embalming, consulting with chemistry students and reading the few scraps of ancient Egyptian texts available on the subject.
“It was a sick fascination,” said Ms Cagliastro, who works and lives in her “house of death” with her teenage daughter and her husband, an exterminator…
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Reinventing Sales Tax
Sales tax is a a system that is now on the verge of collapse
Futurist Thomas Frey: As a general rule, extreme levels of complexity take a significant toll on society. The price we pay for complexity is far greater than the money involved. With upwards of 90,000 separate taxing districts in the U.S. sales tax has become an overly complicated system deeply entrenched in the fabric of society, but woefully out of touch with the times.
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