It just makes sense to announce pricing and ship dates as soon as they’re known.
When Apple has a new product coming out, one of the nice things they do is tell you how much it will cost and when it will go on sale. Apple’s competitors only sometimes do and that is especially true in the phone industry.
Continue reading… “Why Apple announces iPhone cost and availability when competitors don’t”
How have you changed your Netflix account?
Apparently people weren’t messing around when they were complaining about Netflix’s recent price hikes: Netflix says the company expects to lose one million customers because of the pricing change. One million!
Continue reading… “Netflix’s price hike to cost the company one million customers”
Rising food costs are a key reason behind rioting.
There’s no doubt that rising food prices in a specific area can lead to rioting. We have plenty of current and historic examples of that. But some interesting new research highlighted in Technology Review shows that once average global food prices cross a certain threshold a tipping point is reached after which “almost anything can trigger a riot, like a lighted match in a dry forest.”
Check out this graph which plots the UN Food Price Index against the dates of riots around the world…
Continue reading… “Researchers identify food price tipping point linked to rioting”
“Patients need to be asked ‘can you afford your medications?’
A significant portion of people – perhaps as many as one in five – don’t take drugs a doctor has prescribed because they can’t pay for them, according to a new survey of people visiting an emergency room.
Continue reading… “1 in 5 People Don’t Take Prescription Drugs Because of Cost”
The trigger for the bull run may have been the idea that the potent bulb can ward off H1N1 swine flu, Morgan Stanley economists said.
That chimes with some anecdotal evidence. The China Daily reported last week that a high school in Hangzhou, a prosperous city in eastern China, had bought 200 kg of garlic and forced students to eat it every day for lunch to stay healthy.
Wirtland [‘v¡rtlənd] claims to be the world’s first internet-based sovereign country. Wirtland is an experiment into legitimacy and self-sustainability of a country without its own soil. A “virtual land” that will soon offer it’s own real gold coin.
Continue reading… “A Cybercountry To Offer A Real Gold Coin”
One of the most frightening things I ever say was a teen girl driving through my neighborhood, on the wrong side of the road, sending a text message. It’s not only a problem with teens, according to a study lots of adults drive and send or read email as well.
Continue reading… “iLane: Reads Emails and Text Messages Aloud”
Lg is showing off thier new double sided LCD display at this years IMID 2008 conference held in Goyang City, Korea. The displays are 15″ and have a 14:1 contrast ratio. From a technical standpoint this is very impressive, these are not simply two screens attached to each other, but rather the same screen displaying an image on its front and back. Will the “two screens, one display” become a sensation or remain an oddity shown off at various industry shows? Only time and more importantly manufacturing costs will tell.
Continue reading… “Double Sided LCD Screen Introduced By LG”
We’ve seen executive desks that ooze style and elegance when crafted out of leather, wood or used aviation parts. And to redefine sophistication with a contemporary touch, here is a multifaceted desk sculpted out of a single sheet of steel.
Continue reading… “3Fold Executive Desk”
German researchers have developed intelligent self-service scales for supermarkets, able to recognize fruit or vegetables placed on them. The scales automatically recognize the item being weighed and ask the customer to choose between only those icons that are relevant, such as various kinds of tomatoes. The scales are equipped with a camera and an image evaluation algorithm that compares the image of the item on the scale with images stored in its database. Store managers can add items to the database. The scales are now being tested in about 300 supermarkets across Europe.
Continue reading… “Smart Self-Service Scales”