Clamber down the two ladders that lead into the Victorian ice wells of London's Canal Museum until 20 October and you'll be greeted by a shimmering mass of perspex discs suspended from the ceiling. The 380 floating discs that make up Covariance, the art installation current displayed in the wells, are studded with 28,000 glass beads and are arranged into around 20 different designs, representing the work of particle physics detectors.
Particle physicist Ben Still from Queen Mary University London and artist Lyndall Phelps have collaborated on the installation for the Superposition project through the Institute of Physics' artist in residence programme. Covariance has been nine months in the making altogether, including three months of fourteen-hour days to complete its construction.
The pair were introduced by the Institute and given the brief of creating a physics installation for public display. Rather than focusing on one particular area of agate beads, they decided instead to look at the machines that make the science happen -- particle physics detectors.
"These [are] massive machines used to see the smallest bits of nature," Still tells Wired.co.uk. The installation aims to show the way in which the detectors build up a picture of how these tiny particles interact with each other on a larger scale, as well as reflecting the way the electronic data collected by the detectors is then used to create plots on computers.
Still showed Phelps many pictures of particle detectors, which are generally huge and impressive structures, and she "fell in love" with one in particular called Super-Kamiokande, which is buried under Mount Kamioka in Japan.
"I showed her some of the plots I was making for an analysis I was developing and again she was quite struck by how we took data from this massive machine and made these colourful plots to try and extract information." The colour running through the installation, says Still represents "the way in which the data is presented finally".
Many particle physics detectors, especially the ones in neutrino physics -- the field in which Still works -- are buried deep underground to try and negate the impact of the cosmic rays and particles constantly showering down on us, which creates "quite a turbulent environment" on the Earth's surface.
"To see very rare things, you have to get rid of that first, so you have to go deep underground," says Still. "We're trying to hear a faint whisper above a rock concert, so if you go underground the rock concert is muffled so much that you can actually start hearing that whisper coming through, and that's exactly how we're trying to see these neutrinos."
Detectors aren't just buried under the ground, but also under ice and water, making the underground ice wells, which used to store ice and are below the waterline of the canal, the perfect location to host Covariance.
It depends on the severity. If you feel severe dehydration, nausea and severe blistering, you need medical help. Often the effects of Sunburn aren't felt until 5 -6 hours after exposure. Cool the skin down with a cool flannel, ideally the cool water should have a couple of drops of pure lavender in to help reduce inflation, cool skin and help with Beads factory. Calamine lotion also helps to reduce itching and the irritation that accompanies it. Pure aloe vera (not perfumed) hydrates and cools and nourishes the skin. Painkillers such as paracetamol or ibuprofen help reduce inflammation. Stay out of the sun until the blistering has healed and no other symptoms remain.
Keep covered in the sun. Wear a sun screen every day, including the winter months. If you have sun damage on the face and neck area wear at least a broad spectrum SPF 25 daily. Exfoliate gently.
Some people opt for 'chemical peels' to remove the layer of skin cells including top layer of brown spots. Glycolic acid is an active ingredient that removes several layers of dead cells. Other treatments include Botulinum toxin type A, dermabrasion, intense pulsed light therapy. Generally these would only be available privately.
A natural approach would be to use natural exfoliators such as jojoba beads and ground apricot kernel .Face oils will help as they tend to be omega rich in oils so nourish and protect the skin whilst you sleep if used at night when the skin is not exposed to UV light and environmental pollutants
Superfoods are just as important to feed your skin from the inside so Omega 3, 6 & 9 oils, lots of fruit, vegetables, lean protein all help to restore the lusture to skin. Supplements may help depending on age and overall health and eating habits.
Read the full products at http://www.bestjewelrybeads.com/!
Showing posts with label plastic card. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plastic card. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Thursday, July 25, 2013
At Vanina, one mans trash is anothers unusual
The value of jewelry is typically measured by the weight of its
metal. But for a couple of enterprising designers, discarded items like
steel coins can become treasures if theyre hanging from a chain necklace
and decorated with the right colors. Thats what childhood friends
Tatiana Fayad and Joanne Hayek discovered when they began making jewelry
as a hobby when they were both in college. Upon finishing their
studies, they joined together to create the company Vanina, after the
1970s French song whose upbeat tempo and feminine name they thought well
represented their mission.
Their first jewelry collection, which they called Coined, featured old Lebanese coins of small value that are rarely used these days. On the front of the pieces are beads, patterns and simple words or phrases. On the back can be seen the engravings of cedar trees on the old coins.
Since they started their collections seven years ago when they were 19-year-old college students, beginning with small pieces they made from home for friends, coined has continued to be the most popular. Another well-received line, Unlocked, features old keys mounted onto necklace chains and earrings. The message is an invitation to keep doors open.
The idea is to remind people to be friendly and neighborly at a time when the Lebanese capital is becoming more exclusive. Beirut is becoming more secluded and gated and less pedestrian-friendly, Hayek says, referring to the plethora of new luxury high-rise developments with daunting security gates at the entrance.Another line, using the play on words Disc-carded has taken old CDs C not long ago a modern novelty, but fast becoming obsolete, giving way to thumb-sized USB computer flash drives C and made them into a string of colorful strips of metal.
Upcycling, the practice of using waste or useless materials to create something of a higher value,Winbo ear caps is nothing new, having long been a practice in folk art and then conceptual art throughout the 20th century and with the term coined in Europe in the mid-1990s.We deliberately dont use materials of high value. The way people interact with the product is personal. We try to communicate the backstage as much as the end result, Hayek says.
The partners use of basic resources and down-to-earth approach to business has allowed them to expand gradually without having to borrow money. In fact, the first six months were spent working from home with a $100 investment. They then moved to a workshop once they began making a small profit. At their business in Zalka they have five employees in addition to working with five craftsmen throughout Lebanon. Their twice-annual shows in Paris always bring them new clients. So far, their points of sale worldwide, including online, total 72. Some of their most enthusiastic customers are from Japan, a country known for its innovative and colorful designs.
From the international exhibitions she has attended, Fayad says she has noticed that people are impressed that were exposed to Oriental and Occidental cultures.The partners also credit their success thus far to their academic backgrounds C Fayad studied marketing at St. Joseph University and Hayek studied architecture at the American University of Beirut, followed by a masters degree in the same subject at Columbia University in New York, where she was offered a job at a firm upon graduation.
Hayek says she opted to return to Lebanon, afraid that if she stayed in New York she wouldnt have the chance to pursue her passion of designing clothes and accessories in Lebanon. Here, she says shes still able to do both, still writing academic papers and attending international architecture conferences when shes not busy at the workshop.Still, her decision to focus on clothing and accessories design was by no means the easy option. The two say its not uncommon for them to spend up to a month working on a prototype for a bag with their small 3-D printer.
Recently, Hayek was on a flight from Beirut to Paris when she felt an unusual pain in her arm.Winbo photo frames It wasnt until a few days later, when she spoke with Fayad who has the exact same pain, that she realized they had injured their arms by repeatedly using a punching machine.
The UAE GCAAs report states that the fire began in the section of the cargo that included a significant number of lithium type batteries and other combustible materials and added tThis vertical Cable Organizer can be mounted to either.hat the fire escalated rapidly into a catastrophic uncontained fire.
The 322-page report into the crash, which killed both pilots, points to the presence of lithium batteries in the cargo as a possible reason for the ignition that then engulfed to other combustible material around. It is possible that a lithium type battery or batteries, for reasons which cannot be established, went into an energetic failure characterised by thermal runaway and auto ignited starting a chain reaction which spread to the available combustible material, the report concludes.
Malfunctioning lithium batteries have been more recently linked with the temporary grounding of the entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft after a fire in the battery of a parked Japan Airlines 787 aircraft was reported, followed by an emergency landing of an All Nippon Airways 787 due to smoke emerging from its lithium battery.
Lithium batteries have a history of thermal runaway and fire, are unstable when damaged and can short circuit if exposed to overcharging, the application of reverse polarity or exposure to high temperature are all potential failure scenarios which can lead to thermal runaway, the GCAAs report maintains.
Once a battery is in thermal runaway, it cannot be extinguished with the types of extinguishing agent used on board aircraft and the potential for auto ignition of adjacent combustible material exists.
Read the full products at http://www.winbogifts.com/products/pocket-mirror.html.
Their first jewelry collection, which they called Coined, featured old Lebanese coins of small value that are rarely used these days. On the front of the pieces are beads, patterns and simple words or phrases. On the back can be seen the engravings of cedar trees on the old coins.
Since they started their collections seven years ago when they were 19-year-old college students, beginning with small pieces they made from home for friends, coined has continued to be the most popular. Another well-received line, Unlocked, features old keys mounted onto necklace chains and earrings. The message is an invitation to keep doors open.
The idea is to remind people to be friendly and neighborly at a time when the Lebanese capital is becoming more exclusive. Beirut is becoming more secluded and gated and less pedestrian-friendly, Hayek says, referring to the plethora of new luxury high-rise developments with daunting security gates at the entrance.Another line, using the play on words Disc-carded has taken old CDs C not long ago a modern novelty, but fast becoming obsolete, giving way to thumb-sized USB computer flash drives C and made them into a string of colorful strips of metal.
Upcycling, the practice of using waste or useless materials to create something of a higher value,Winbo ear caps is nothing new, having long been a practice in folk art and then conceptual art throughout the 20th century and with the term coined in Europe in the mid-1990s.We deliberately dont use materials of high value. The way people interact with the product is personal. We try to communicate the backstage as much as the end result, Hayek says.
The partners use of basic resources and down-to-earth approach to business has allowed them to expand gradually without having to borrow money. In fact, the first six months were spent working from home with a $100 investment. They then moved to a workshop once they began making a small profit. At their business in Zalka they have five employees in addition to working with five craftsmen throughout Lebanon. Their twice-annual shows in Paris always bring them new clients. So far, their points of sale worldwide, including online, total 72. Some of their most enthusiastic customers are from Japan, a country known for its innovative and colorful designs.
From the international exhibitions she has attended, Fayad says she has noticed that people are impressed that were exposed to Oriental and Occidental cultures.The partners also credit their success thus far to their academic backgrounds C Fayad studied marketing at St. Joseph University and Hayek studied architecture at the American University of Beirut, followed by a masters degree in the same subject at Columbia University in New York, where she was offered a job at a firm upon graduation.
Hayek says she opted to return to Lebanon, afraid that if she stayed in New York she wouldnt have the chance to pursue her passion of designing clothes and accessories in Lebanon. Here, she says shes still able to do both, still writing academic papers and attending international architecture conferences when shes not busy at the workshop.Still, her decision to focus on clothing and accessories design was by no means the easy option. The two say its not uncommon for them to spend up to a month working on a prototype for a bag with their small 3-D printer.
Recently, Hayek was on a flight from Beirut to Paris when she felt an unusual pain in her arm.Winbo photo frames It wasnt until a few days later, when she spoke with Fayad who has the exact same pain, that she realized they had injured their arms by repeatedly using a punching machine.
The UAE GCAAs report states that the fire began in the section of the cargo that included a significant number of lithium type batteries and other combustible materials and added tThis vertical Cable Organizer can be mounted to either.hat the fire escalated rapidly into a catastrophic uncontained fire.
The 322-page report into the crash, which killed both pilots, points to the presence of lithium batteries in the cargo as a possible reason for the ignition that then engulfed to other combustible material around. It is possible that a lithium type battery or batteries, for reasons which cannot be established, went into an energetic failure characterised by thermal runaway and auto ignited starting a chain reaction which spread to the available combustible material, the report concludes.
Malfunctioning lithium batteries have been more recently linked with the temporary grounding of the entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft after a fire in the battery of a parked Japan Airlines 787 aircraft was reported, followed by an emergency landing of an All Nippon Airways 787 due to smoke emerging from its lithium battery.
Lithium batteries have a history of thermal runaway and fire, are unstable when damaged and can short circuit if exposed to overcharging, the application of reverse polarity or exposure to high temperature are all potential failure scenarios which can lead to thermal runaway, the GCAAs report maintains.
Once a battery is in thermal runaway, it cannot be extinguished with the types of extinguishing agent used on board aircraft and the potential for auto ignition of adjacent combustible material exists.
Read the full products at http://www.winbogifts.com/products/pocket-mirror.html.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Sweet Wine at CINQ
I had something of an epiphany while sipping from my wife's glass of
2005 Meulenhof Erdener Treppchen Riesling Beerenauslese. She'd asked for
something to go with dessert, and this is what our waiter, Sebastien,
had brought her. At once clean and bright, concentrated and intense, it
was eye-opening. Most of my sweet wine experiences had been limited to
Madeira (a bit of a fetish in my house, due to my wife's Portuguese
ancestry), and the occasional gently sweet Riesling. This was something
different.
To cap a previous dinner at CINQ, the subject of this week's review, Sebastien had brought a glass of oxidized sweet Juran?on (trying to hit that Madeira obsession), and it was well received. We talked about the production process, how that year had been one of the hottest the region had seen, and the effect of stress on the grapes. With a relatively empty house - it was a Tuesday - Sebastien was free and eager to stand there and discuss wine.
By the time we'd finished that small glass of Beerenauslese, though, talking through the various methods used to concentrate the flavor of a sweet wine, I knew I'd have to have more.Soft Winbo Key Cover decorates your key in fashionable ways. It was light on the palate, despite an intensely saturated flavor. Not mildly sweet, it made its presence known and its intentions clear. Pear, raisins, a bit of solvent. It was honeyed but never cloying, with a gentle acidity that made all of the flavors fairly dance.
I can feel an obsession coming on; I'm already scouring the Internet, searching for a reasonably priced bottle or two to put away for special occasions. I asked a wine-savvy friend about it,Winbo Iphone Headset and he warned me that I might find it difficult to locate another bottle of this weapons-grade wine, but could certainly find similar, younger bottles that would be similar, and less powerful, versions of the same.
As happy as the wine made me,Winbo custom keychain it also made me a little bit sad. It reminded me of my feelings about the Minutemen, a band whose opus I heard first, and whose other efforts have always paled for me, as a result. I'm afraid I'll get the same experience out of my next bottle of Botrytized Riesling.
Fortunately,Online shopping for Business Work Card holder from a great selection of Office Products. Sebastien is aware of the longings that rare wines can inspire, and takes some pity on his customers. From time to time, he reaches into CINQ's cellars, arranging vintage wine tastings. As he so well put it to us, not everyone can or wants to shell out the cash required to splash out on a single bottle of rare wine; his programs afford the possibility to taste a range of special bottles for one price, along with a few bites of food best suited to highlight them. A more varied bang for your buck.
Go to CINQ for a special occasion, celebrate it with a glass of dessert wine. The Meulenhof probably won't be there. My apologies. I'm sure Sebastien can recommend something suitably delicious and, if it's a slow night, talk your ear off about soil drainage, temperature gradients, and noble rot. If you're interested. He might mention his vintage wine tasting series, or offer to help you track down a bottle you particularly enjoyed (he told us he'd keep an eye out for that Riesling). He'll probably wax slightly rhapsodic about Tokaji, his favorite dessert wine. Let him. You'll understand.
Take one forked branch of plum, one stem of kale, four artichokes and three stems of blackberries. It may sound like chutney-making, but this is a different kind of recipe C a flower recipe. Add parrot tulips, anemones, ornamental grasses and flowering oregano and you have a show-stopping display that puts your chrysanths in a pint glass to shame.
In truth, Ive never had much time for flower-arranging. I buy flowers and put them in a vase. In summer, I cut a few blooms from the garden, add to water and leave until the petals have dropped. I have always associated the art with finishing-school girls and stiff, formal arrangements in churches and village fairs, judged by faintly intimidating women.
The Flower Recipe Book blasts the stuffiness out of traditional flower arranging. It is the work of best friends Alethea Harampolis and Jill Rizzo, owners of the Studio Choo floral studio in San Francisco. For a year, they ran the business out of Jills kitchen, Aletheas Honda and a garage in the city before setting up the shop, beloved of the stylish set in Californias coolest city.
San Francisco is the birthplace of the flower child and the pair share a philosophy to keep everything looking as natural as possible. We take our inspiration from nature, they say, and make sure not to manipulate the flowers too much.Winbo Luggage Tags
The recipe format is a genius way of guiding you through the complexities. It is a formula any cook can understand. There is a list of ingredients to use as a guide, with plenty of room for experimentation, and clear step-by-step instructions. Common flower names are used throughout and a guide to choosing the right vessel will have you trawling flea markets for vintage jars and tins.
Sweetpeas, which are flowering extravagantly in my garden right now, are divided into bunches from dark to light colours in nine small jars (think fish-paste jars), and arranged in a square to create a block of loveliness. For a minimalist look, try nine stems of chocolate cosmos in a flat-sided plain-glass vase. Two stems of white or purple clematis are allowed to bend and arch their leaves and tendrils in a vintage bottle. Clematis is among Alethea and Jills favourites, along with lily of the valley, daphne and honeysuckle C they place a couple of stems in vases on their bedside tables.
Tall, leggy beauties such as delphiniums are trimmed short for maximum colour intensity. A single delphinium stem in a canning jar, backed by two jars bearing double stems, gives a shot of electric blue to a room.
But it is the little bit of this, little bit of that arrangements that will suit the ordinary gardener. Visit the herb beds, vegetable patch, hedges and fruit trees for inspiration. I never considered using sprigs of mint in a glass before, unless doused in Pimms. Similarly rosemary, instead of going on a leg of lamb, can nestle up to viburnum berries, twigs and red-and-white amaryllis in a vintage metal flour tin. Purple sage marries beautifully with different types of lavender.
The end result is often a snapshot of the season. A prickly arm of not-quite-ripe blackberries or dark-pink plums announce late summer. The branches of apricot and oranges, which line the roads in California, will be hard to come by, but its an idea. Try rosy-red crab apple in August instead.
Read the full products at http://www.winbogifts.com/products/bottle-opener.html
To cap a previous dinner at CINQ, the subject of this week's review, Sebastien had brought a glass of oxidized sweet Juran?on (trying to hit that Madeira obsession), and it was well received. We talked about the production process, how that year had been one of the hottest the region had seen, and the effect of stress on the grapes. With a relatively empty house - it was a Tuesday - Sebastien was free and eager to stand there and discuss wine.
By the time we'd finished that small glass of Beerenauslese, though, talking through the various methods used to concentrate the flavor of a sweet wine, I knew I'd have to have more.Soft Winbo Key Cover decorates your key in fashionable ways. It was light on the palate, despite an intensely saturated flavor. Not mildly sweet, it made its presence known and its intentions clear. Pear, raisins, a bit of solvent. It was honeyed but never cloying, with a gentle acidity that made all of the flavors fairly dance.
I can feel an obsession coming on; I'm already scouring the Internet, searching for a reasonably priced bottle or two to put away for special occasions. I asked a wine-savvy friend about it,Winbo Iphone Headset and he warned me that I might find it difficult to locate another bottle of this weapons-grade wine, but could certainly find similar, younger bottles that would be similar, and less powerful, versions of the same.
As happy as the wine made me,Winbo custom keychain it also made me a little bit sad. It reminded me of my feelings about the Minutemen, a band whose opus I heard first, and whose other efforts have always paled for me, as a result. I'm afraid I'll get the same experience out of my next bottle of Botrytized Riesling.
Fortunately,Online shopping for Business Work Card holder from a great selection of Office Products. Sebastien is aware of the longings that rare wines can inspire, and takes some pity on his customers. From time to time, he reaches into CINQ's cellars, arranging vintage wine tastings. As he so well put it to us, not everyone can or wants to shell out the cash required to splash out on a single bottle of rare wine; his programs afford the possibility to taste a range of special bottles for one price, along with a few bites of food best suited to highlight them. A more varied bang for your buck.
Go to CINQ for a special occasion, celebrate it with a glass of dessert wine. The Meulenhof probably won't be there. My apologies. I'm sure Sebastien can recommend something suitably delicious and, if it's a slow night, talk your ear off about soil drainage, temperature gradients, and noble rot. If you're interested. He might mention his vintage wine tasting series, or offer to help you track down a bottle you particularly enjoyed (he told us he'd keep an eye out for that Riesling). He'll probably wax slightly rhapsodic about Tokaji, his favorite dessert wine. Let him. You'll understand.
Take one forked branch of plum, one stem of kale, four artichokes and three stems of blackberries. It may sound like chutney-making, but this is a different kind of recipe C a flower recipe. Add parrot tulips, anemones, ornamental grasses and flowering oregano and you have a show-stopping display that puts your chrysanths in a pint glass to shame.
In truth, Ive never had much time for flower-arranging. I buy flowers and put them in a vase. In summer, I cut a few blooms from the garden, add to water and leave until the petals have dropped. I have always associated the art with finishing-school girls and stiff, formal arrangements in churches and village fairs, judged by faintly intimidating women.
The Flower Recipe Book blasts the stuffiness out of traditional flower arranging. It is the work of best friends Alethea Harampolis and Jill Rizzo, owners of the Studio Choo floral studio in San Francisco. For a year, they ran the business out of Jills kitchen, Aletheas Honda and a garage in the city before setting up the shop, beloved of the stylish set in Californias coolest city.
San Francisco is the birthplace of the flower child and the pair share a philosophy to keep everything looking as natural as possible. We take our inspiration from nature, they say, and make sure not to manipulate the flowers too much.Winbo Luggage Tags
The recipe format is a genius way of guiding you through the complexities. It is a formula any cook can understand. There is a list of ingredients to use as a guide, with plenty of room for experimentation, and clear step-by-step instructions. Common flower names are used throughout and a guide to choosing the right vessel will have you trawling flea markets for vintage jars and tins.
Sweetpeas, which are flowering extravagantly in my garden right now, are divided into bunches from dark to light colours in nine small jars (think fish-paste jars), and arranged in a square to create a block of loveliness. For a minimalist look, try nine stems of chocolate cosmos in a flat-sided plain-glass vase. Two stems of white or purple clematis are allowed to bend and arch their leaves and tendrils in a vintage bottle. Clematis is among Alethea and Jills favourites, along with lily of the valley, daphne and honeysuckle C they place a couple of stems in vases on their bedside tables.
Tall, leggy beauties such as delphiniums are trimmed short for maximum colour intensity. A single delphinium stem in a canning jar, backed by two jars bearing double stems, gives a shot of electric blue to a room.
But it is the little bit of this, little bit of that arrangements that will suit the ordinary gardener. Visit the herb beds, vegetable patch, hedges and fruit trees for inspiration. I never considered using sprigs of mint in a glass before, unless doused in Pimms. Similarly rosemary, instead of going on a leg of lamb, can nestle up to viburnum berries, twigs and red-and-white amaryllis in a vintage metal flour tin. Purple sage marries beautifully with different types of lavender.
The end result is often a snapshot of the season. A prickly arm of not-quite-ripe blackberries or dark-pink plums announce late summer. The branches of apricot and oranges, which line the roads in California, will be hard to come by, but its an idea. Try rosy-red crab apple in August instead.
Read the full products at http://www.winbogifts.com/products/bottle-opener.html
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Weaving loyalty cards into phones
Why? Because the loyalty card is broken, according to CEO David Sear. ‘We think there’s a problem with loyalty,’ he says. ‘One; nobody is loyal. Two; even if they are, there’s a high potential for them to have left their card at home. Three; people really don’t use rewards. Maybe that’s good for retailers as they never have to redeem them but it doesn’t create the kind of loyalty that they are striving for. Four; the technology for doing retail is different at every retailer, so how can it work?’
The solution is in a smartphone. While stressing the tests are at an early stage, Sear says the plan is to place all of a customer’s loyalty cards into one app. ‘How much better would it be if you had one simple container and not a dumb piece of plastic?’ he says. One app would mean you could still get Tesco points when you inevitably forget your Clubcard, for example. Points would be earned and redeemed by using NFC and by placing all of the loyalty schemes into one place, it would remove the need to sift through pages of apps at the tillpoint.
But wouldn’t retailers object to having their rivals’ loyalty cards in the same place? ‘We need to put loyalty through a common interface. That’s the big sell of it. The very best loyalty programmes can only hit around 40% penetration. A lot of them do a lot less.’
Sear argues greater convenience will make loyalty RFID tag an easier sell, with retailers still having access to the same data they historically did. ‘It wouldn’t change the way you shop. They keep their data and it runs on their rails. The data is protected between competitors and it replicates the way consumers operate.’
As things stand, it is only mobile marketing that is happening in earnest at Weve. The company is on the verge of launching its 350th campaign. Referring to it as ‘narrowcasting’, Sear says mobile has an advantage over television because you are guaranteed what market you are advertising to – while data is anonymised, the more information a consumer allows its operator to access, the better the advertising they will get.
Sear says fast moving consumer goods from companies such as Unilever and Proctor and Gamble have used mobile marketing for consumer awareness purposes. Handset manufacturers have also got into the game and Tesco has geofenced certain stores, targeting people outside those areas with vouchers if they spend a minimum amount. Sear claims out of the top 250 brands, Weve is working with 175 of them. He says: ‘It’s companies who are coming to us and surprising with ideas that is piquing our interest. They are thinking about this capability and the kind of data that we hold that is relevant to their business. The companies that will make the biggest impact are the ones who figure out how it will work with their business model.’
Weve’s CEO is an enthusiastic cheerleader for the possibilities of mobile to change the retail experience. After years of being decimated by internet competition, it could be devices connected to the web that could bring people back to shops. He says: ‘We want to streamline the customer experience to make them much happier to be in shops. This could be the saviour of the high street. If retailers want people to do more physical browsing, what better way than to use the messages they have got and send them to mobiles?’
Major General Jihad al-Jabiri, head of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior’s bomb squad, held a press conference at the ministry officer’s club in Baghdad. Car bomb attacks in the city had killed 127 people and wounded at least 400 more the previous day, and al-Jabiri had come to answer criticism of the explosives-detection devices deployed at the city’s 1,400 checkpoints. To prove the effectiveness of the equipment, known as the ADE 651, al-Jabiri had arranged a live demonstration before the world’s TV cameras. Standing with him at a lectern bristling with microphones was Pierre Georgiou, the retired Lebanese general who had helped bring the device to Iraq. Alongside stood the manufacturer, a portly Englishman. His name was James McCormick.
Arranged on a table nearby were examples of household items Iraqi citizens often complained had set off the bomb detectors: bottles of shampoo and hot sauce; a plastic jar of pickles; two tubs of cream; and a box of tissues. A uniformed member of al-Jabiri’s bomb squad walked slowly forward, holding in his hand an ADE 651—a swiveling telescopic antenna mounted on a black plastic pistol grip and connected by a cable to a pouch on his belt. As he passed the table once, the antenna continued to point straight ahead. But after two hand grenades had been placed on the table, the bomb technician made a second pass, and the antenna slowly turned left and pointed directly at the explosives. Afterward, al-Jabiri assured the press that the ADE 651 had similarly located “hundreds of roadside bombs and car bombs.” McCormick dismissed U.S. military assertions that the detectors were worthless. “We’ve created a product that fits a demand here in Iraq,” he explained. “Just not necessarily in all countries.”
What McCormick failed to mention was that the device was not, strictly speaking, his own invention, or that he knew very well it wouldn’t detect explosives. The ADE 651 was modeled on a novelty trinket conceived decades before by a former used-car salesman from South Carolina, which was purported to detect golf balls. It wasn’t even good at that.
The ADE 651, and similar devices sold by McCormick over the decade or so he spent in the explosives-detection business, owe their existence to Wade Quattlebaum, president of Quadro in Harleyville, S.C. At the beginning of the 1990s, Quattlebaum—a sometime car dealer, commercial diver, and treasure hunter whose formal education ended in high school—began promoting a new detection technology he called the Quadro Tracker Positive Molecular Locator, which he claimed could help law enforcement agencies find everything from contraband to missing persons. Quattlebaum said he originally invented the device to find lost balls on the golf course but had since refined it to locate marijuana, cocaine, heroin, gunpowder, and dynamite by detecting the individual “molecular frequency” of each substance.
The Tracker consisted of a handheld unit, with an antenna mounted on a plastic handgrip, and a belt-mounted box slightly smaller than a VHS cassette, built to contain “carbo-crystallized” software cards programmed, Quattlebaum said, with the specific frequency of whatever the user wished to find. No batteries were necessary. The Tracker was powered by the static electricity created by the operator’s own body; when it found what it was looking for, the antenna automatically turned to point at its quarry. Prices for the device varied from $395 for a basic model to $8,000 for one capable of locating individual human beings, which required a Polaroid photograph of the person to be loaded into the programming box.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com.
The solution is in a smartphone. While stressing the tests are at an early stage, Sear says the plan is to place all of a customer’s loyalty cards into one app. ‘How much better would it be if you had one simple container and not a dumb piece of plastic?’ he says. One app would mean you could still get Tesco points when you inevitably forget your Clubcard, for example. Points would be earned and redeemed by using NFC and by placing all of the loyalty schemes into one place, it would remove the need to sift through pages of apps at the tillpoint.
But wouldn’t retailers object to having their rivals’ loyalty cards in the same place? ‘We need to put loyalty through a common interface. That’s the big sell of it. The very best loyalty programmes can only hit around 40% penetration. A lot of them do a lot less.’
Sear argues greater convenience will make loyalty RFID tag an easier sell, with retailers still having access to the same data they historically did. ‘It wouldn’t change the way you shop. They keep their data and it runs on their rails. The data is protected between competitors and it replicates the way consumers operate.’
As things stand, it is only mobile marketing that is happening in earnest at Weve. The company is on the verge of launching its 350th campaign. Referring to it as ‘narrowcasting’, Sear says mobile has an advantage over television because you are guaranteed what market you are advertising to – while data is anonymised, the more information a consumer allows its operator to access, the better the advertising they will get.
Sear says fast moving consumer goods from companies such as Unilever and Proctor and Gamble have used mobile marketing for consumer awareness purposes. Handset manufacturers have also got into the game and Tesco has geofenced certain stores, targeting people outside those areas with vouchers if they spend a minimum amount. Sear claims out of the top 250 brands, Weve is working with 175 of them. He says: ‘It’s companies who are coming to us and surprising with ideas that is piquing our interest. They are thinking about this capability and the kind of data that we hold that is relevant to their business. The companies that will make the biggest impact are the ones who figure out how it will work with their business model.’
Weve’s CEO is an enthusiastic cheerleader for the possibilities of mobile to change the retail experience. After years of being decimated by internet competition, it could be devices connected to the web that could bring people back to shops. He says: ‘We want to streamline the customer experience to make them much happier to be in shops. This could be the saviour of the high street. If retailers want people to do more physical browsing, what better way than to use the messages they have got and send them to mobiles?’
Major General Jihad al-Jabiri, head of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior’s bomb squad, held a press conference at the ministry officer’s club in Baghdad. Car bomb attacks in the city had killed 127 people and wounded at least 400 more the previous day, and al-Jabiri had come to answer criticism of the explosives-detection devices deployed at the city’s 1,400 checkpoints. To prove the effectiveness of the equipment, known as the ADE 651, al-Jabiri had arranged a live demonstration before the world’s TV cameras. Standing with him at a lectern bristling with microphones was Pierre Georgiou, the retired Lebanese general who had helped bring the device to Iraq. Alongside stood the manufacturer, a portly Englishman. His name was James McCormick.
Arranged on a table nearby were examples of household items Iraqi citizens often complained had set off the bomb detectors: bottles of shampoo and hot sauce; a plastic jar of pickles; two tubs of cream; and a box of tissues. A uniformed member of al-Jabiri’s bomb squad walked slowly forward, holding in his hand an ADE 651—a swiveling telescopic antenna mounted on a black plastic pistol grip and connected by a cable to a pouch on his belt. As he passed the table once, the antenna continued to point straight ahead. But after two hand grenades had been placed on the table, the bomb technician made a second pass, and the antenna slowly turned left and pointed directly at the explosives. Afterward, al-Jabiri assured the press that the ADE 651 had similarly located “hundreds of roadside bombs and car bombs.” McCormick dismissed U.S. military assertions that the detectors were worthless. “We’ve created a product that fits a demand here in Iraq,” he explained. “Just not necessarily in all countries.”
What McCormick failed to mention was that the device was not, strictly speaking, his own invention, or that he knew very well it wouldn’t detect explosives. The ADE 651 was modeled on a novelty trinket conceived decades before by a former used-car salesman from South Carolina, which was purported to detect golf balls. It wasn’t even good at that.
The ADE 651, and similar devices sold by McCormick over the decade or so he spent in the explosives-detection business, owe their existence to Wade Quattlebaum, president of Quadro in Harleyville, S.C. At the beginning of the 1990s, Quattlebaum—a sometime car dealer, commercial diver, and treasure hunter whose formal education ended in high school—began promoting a new detection technology he called the Quadro Tracker Positive Molecular Locator, which he claimed could help law enforcement agencies find everything from contraband to missing persons. Quattlebaum said he originally invented the device to find lost balls on the golf course but had since refined it to locate marijuana, cocaine, heroin, gunpowder, and dynamite by detecting the individual “molecular frequency” of each substance.
The Tracker consisted of a handheld unit, with an antenna mounted on a plastic handgrip, and a belt-mounted box slightly smaller than a VHS cassette, built to contain “carbo-crystallized” software cards programmed, Quattlebaum said, with the specific frequency of whatever the user wished to find. No batteries were necessary. The Tracker was powered by the static electricity created by the operator’s own body; when it found what it was looking for, the antenna automatically turned to point at its quarry. Prices for the device varied from $395 for a basic model to $8,000 for one capable of locating individual human beings, which required a Polaroid photograph of the person to be loaded into the programming box.
Click on their website www.smartcardfactory.com.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Credit check
There's been a lot of weirdness around credit cards as of late. I've found that out purely by coincidence, both personally and professionally. Take my TD Bank debit card (Go ahead! There's not much in the account anyway). Not only do I never leave home without it,some foreign customers think China plastic card quality is very poor. but I often find myself returning home without it as well. Rivaled only by my cellphone in the, "stuff that gets left behind no matter where I go" category, my name embossed plastic has taken its rightful place in several stacks of missing cards, well secured by rubber bands in safes, behind the bar, and in the offices of restaurants all over town.
That is typically discovered while reaching for it the next day when my car is well below the empty mark at the automated gas station with no attendant taking cash (think BJ's or Sam's Club), or after I've shopped for two hours at Shaw's.Luckily, the latter still takes paper checks and I still write them, but on a side note, Shaw's is on to the pain and agony of the whole plastic card thing. They have recently done away with the Rewards Card program and my snazzy wallet looks drab without their bright orange card peeking out from behind the place where my debit card is supposed to be.
Additionally, I am suspicious as to how certain items can still cost less than anywhere else. Like other Shaw's faithful, I am trained and conditioned to religiously utilize the formerly well-promoted and seemingly necessary money saving tool. What's next? My CVS key chaincard? Intellectually, I always knew it was a marketing ploy, but I still feel a little deceived and cheated. It will take a while for them to regain my trust.
Shaw's and CVS aside,High quality plastic card printing for business cards, if the night my debit card was "misplaced" was a straight line from point A to point B, retrieving it is nothing more than a mildly embarrassing moment where a quick phone call is in order. If the evening consisted of hopping about with another person or two and we took turns buying, it requires a bit more sleuthing to locate it. There have even been moments when thinking the card was lost forever, I replaced it at my local branch, only to have a server say, "Hey! I think we have your card from the last time you were here in the register drawer." The initial reaction is, "Why didn't you guys call me, or email me or something and let me know it was here?" But let's face it, leaving it behind was my oversight and restaurants have enough to do without managing the "Land of the Lost."
Professionally, credit card stuff can turn ugly when mistakes (by both the guest and the server/bartender) are made. Here's a list of some of the more common, yet serious offenses that occur in the hospitality industry:Servers changing the charge tip that was written in because the sale amount, the tip and the bottom line addition doesn't add up favorably. The bottom line is the bottom line, and that's what the customer signed off on. One of my favorite servers was recently fired from his full time job for this very thing.Guests changing the charge tip that was written in when an automatic gratuity for a large party was previously acknowledged and agreed upon.Servers collecting two or more checks at once and processing the wrong credit card for the wrong check. Not only is that time consuming to correct, but banks don't rush making those adjustments. It ends up holding up the customer's cash and looks as if the establishment has erred again.Clubs and bars charging a "Closing Out Fee" when a card is left behind by mistake. Because tabs must be closed out to process (batch) the credit card sales for the day, college towns have been known to charge a fee of 10 to 20 percent to do so. That is obviously in lieu of the tip, and I doubt it's legal without a signature.
Servers who lift credit card numbers and actually steal from guests via loosely secured Internet purchases. That happened a few years back at a great little place in Falmouth and while they bounced back from that nightmare, it's the first thing that crosses my mind when I go there. That is indeed a rare event, and could have happened in any industry.Equally as unthinkable is the person who writes, "cash" in the tip line but doesn't really leave any cash on the table. Yes, that really happens and while it may not be a credit card offense per se, it is an intentional act of seriously bad karma.
Credit and debit cards are a way of life, especially in the hospitality industry and fortunately, I am more careful with other people's plastic than my own. Like my cellphone, which now has an iPhone tracking app, I am considering putting velcro on my debit card and stashing a $20 bill in a secret place for those rare moment when I pull into the full service Big Apple.
The Down Low: In our crazy business, despite front-and-back-of-the-house employee squabbles and seniority/newbie backstabbing, we usually have a great deal of respect for each other. Many places wisely show the love by offering special late night (post shift) happy hour prices and food discounts for fellow hospitality workers. In addition to pumping up revenue for the house during slow periods, the staff is ecstatic because no one, and I mean no one, tips in cash more lavishly than a kindred spirit with sore feet.
Every place that holds a hospitality night it is swell in my book, but few top Otto's Pizza who has rack cards saying, "Please join us in good faith for a bona fide "Industry Night" for food and beverage service workers." They host that to-do the Monday after each first Friday and not much makes me feel better about making $3.75 an hour than a free slice of Otto's Pizza.
On an incremental basis, nearly 25% of HDFC Bank's credit cards are now sourced from rural and semi-urban markets even as 40% of Indian population is believed to be in want of a bank account.About IC card in China used for paying transportation fares and for shopping. The bank has started setting up point-of-sale (POS) terminals across merchant establishments in these geographies to encourage customers in using credit cards.
"The potential for growth is significantly high in smaller markets since the penetration of credit cards in these areas is relatively low. In the last couple of years, we have increased our investments on the acquisition side and expanding the number of POS terminals in rural and semi-urban locations," Parag Rao, senior executive vice president and business head for credit cards and merchant acquiring services at HDFC Bank, told Business Standard.
He added that HDFC Bank is now offering credit cards along with other retail banking products across most of its branches in rural and semi-urban centres. "We aim to cover all the locations where we have branches. All our rural and semi-urban branches, barring a few that have started functioning recently, are offering credit cards to the bank's customers," Rao said.
The bank currently has more than half of its 3,062 branches in rural and semi-urban markets. The private lender opened 518 branches in 2012-13 of which 459 were in these markets. HDFC Bank is currently the largest issuer of credit cards in the country with a portfolio of 6.53 million cards. On an average, it issues around 70,000 cards every month.
That is typically discovered while reaching for it the next day when my car is well below the empty mark at the automated gas station with no attendant taking cash (think BJ's or Sam's Club), or after I've shopped for two hours at Shaw's.Luckily, the latter still takes paper checks and I still write them, but on a side note, Shaw's is on to the pain and agony of the whole plastic card thing. They have recently done away with the Rewards Card program and my snazzy wallet looks drab without their bright orange card peeking out from behind the place where my debit card is supposed to be.
Additionally, I am suspicious as to how certain items can still cost less than anywhere else. Like other Shaw's faithful, I am trained and conditioned to religiously utilize the formerly well-promoted and seemingly necessary money saving tool. What's next? My CVS key chaincard? Intellectually, I always knew it was a marketing ploy, but I still feel a little deceived and cheated. It will take a while for them to regain my trust.
Shaw's and CVS aside,High quality plastic card printing for business cards, if the night my debit card was "misplaced" was a straight line from point A to point B, retrieving it is nothing more than a mildly embarrassing moment where a quick phone call is in order. If the evening consisted of hopping about with another person or two and we took turns buying, it requires a bit more sleuthing to locate it. There have even been moments when thinking the card was lost forever, I replaced it at my local branch, only to have a server say, "Hey! I think we have your card from the last time you were here in the register drawer." The initial reaction is, "Why didn't you guys call me, or email me or something and let me know it was here?" But let's face it, leaving it behind was my oversight and restaurants have enough to do without managing the "Land of the Lost."
Professionally, credit card stuff can turn ugly when mistakes (by both the guest and the server/bartender) are made. Here's a list of some of the more common, yet serious offenses that occur in the hospitality industry:Servers changing the charge tip that was written in because the sale amount, the tip and the bottom line addition doesn't add up favorably. The bottom line is the bottom line, and that's what the customer signed off on. One of my favorite servers was recently fired from his full time job for this very thing.Guests changing the charge tip that was written in when an automatic gratuity for a large party was previously acknowledged and agreed upon.Servers collecting two or more checks at once and processing the wrong credit card for the wrong check. Not only is that time consuming to correct, but banks don't rush making those adjustments. It ends up holding up the customer's cash and looks as if the establishment has erred again.Clubs and bars charging a "Closing Out Fee" when a card is left behind by mistake. Because tabs must be closed out to process (batch) the credit card sales for the day, college towns have been known to charge a fee of 10 to 20 percent to do so. That is obviously in lieu of the tip, and I doubt it's legal without a signature.
Servers who lift credit card numbers and actually steal from guests via loosely secured Internet purchases. That happened a few years back at a great little place in Falmouth and while they bounced back from that nightmare, it's the first thing that crosses my mind when I go there. That is indeed a rare event, and could have happened in any industry.Equally as unthinkable is the person who writes, "cash" in the tip line but doesn't really leave any cash on the table. Yes, that really happens and while it may not be a credit card offense per se, it is an intentional act of seriously bad karma.
Credit and debit cards are a way of life, especially in the hospitality industry and fortunately, I am more careful with other people's plastic than my own. Like my cellphone, which now has an iPhone tracking app, I am considering putting velcro on my debit card and stashing a $20 bill in a secret place for those rare moment when I pull into the full service Big Apple.
The Down Low: In our crazy business, despite front-and-back-of-the-house employee squabbles and seniority/newbie backstabbing, we usually have a great deal of respect for each other. Many places wisely show the love by offering special late night (post shift) happy hour prices and food discounts for fellow hospitality workers. In addition to pumping up revenue for the house during slow periods, the staff is ecstatic because no one, and I mean no one, tips in cash more lavishly than a kindred spirit with sore feet.
Every place that holds a hospitality night it is swell in my book, but few top Otto's Pizza who has rack cards saying, "Please join us in good faith for a bona fide "Industry Night" for food and beverage service workers." They host that to-do the Monday after each first Friday and not much makes me feel better about making $3.75 an hour than a free slice of Otto's Pizza.
On an incremental basis, nearly 25% of HDFC Bank's credit cards are now sourced from rural and semi-urban markets even as 40% of Indian population is believed to be in want of a bank account.About IC card in China used for paying transportation fares and for shopping. The bank has started setting up point-of-sale (POS) terminals across merchant establishments in these geographies to encourage customers in using credit cards.
"The potential for growth is significantly high in smaller markets since the penetration of credit cards in these areas is relatively low. In the last couple of years, we have increased our investments on the acquisition side and expanding the number of POS terminals in rural and semi-urban locations," Parag Rao, senior executive vice president and business head for credit cards and merchant acquiring services at HDFC Bank, told Business Standard.
He added that HDFC Bank is now offering credit cards along with other retail banking products across most of its branches in rural and semi-urban centres. "We aim to cover all the locations where we have branches. All our rural and semi-urban branches, barring a few that have started functioning recently, are offering credit cards to the bank's customers," Rao said.
The bank currently has more than half of its 3,062 branches in rural and semi-urban markets. The private lender opened 518 branches in 2012-13 of which 459 were in these markets. HDFC Bank is currently the largest issuer of credit cards in the country with a portfolio of 6.53 million cards. On an average, it issues around 70,000 cards every month.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Global digital wallet in Australia
Australians love online shopping. But with more users connecting to the internet to buy their goods and services, it could mean having to sign up or register with a number of websites, and entering or storing your credit card information with multiple vendors.While PayPal has provided an extra layer of security for online purchases, the truth is that digital wallet choices for Aussies are actually few and far between.
Today, however, Visa announced that its e-wallet solution V.me will head to Australia "just in time for Christmas".V.me, as described by Visa, will work just like a digitised version of your wallet, securely storing all personal details and major payment IC card information – which not only includes Visa debit and credit cards, but MasterCard and American Express cards as well.
Storey said that at least 33 per cent of smartphone users have shopped online using their phone, and Vipin Kalra, Visa's country manager for Australia said that research showed that 72 per cent of all Australians had shopped online at least once in the past 12 months.
But while these numbers have shown to be increasing, Kalra went on to add that research in the US showed that customers were most likely to abandon their purchase at the time of payment because the process required a lengthy form to be filled out."It addresses some consumer desires, which is for ease, convenience and simplicity when purchasing online," Storey said.
Similar to PayPal's solution, after storing all your cards and personal information in V.me, users will be able to make purchases by simply putting in a username and password, which will then let users choose a preselected "default" card or any other card.Visa has a number of merchants already on board, including JB Hi-Fi, Cotton On, City Beach and Lorna Jane, and is in talks with other merchants, including e-commerce and bricks and mortar stores, as well as for travel and bill payments.
Like PayPal, merchants will not be able to see all your details, nor will Visa be able to track your transactions. But unlike PayPal, users will not be able to store funds with V.me, just link credit and debit cards to the service.Payments will be made through the financial institutions involved with the transaction, with V.me acting simply as a gateway to your stored information.
Visa believes that consumers will feel confident of V.me as it has backing from over 40 financial institutions locally, with three of the four "big banks" named as partners. Though Commonwealth Bank was not named, it may be included by launch later this year.As only a username and password will be needed for most transactions, when asked further about the security of the service, Kalra said that Visa's many layers of encryption, "strong authentication" and device identification will be used to prevent fraud, as well as the ability to set transaction alerts for Visa cards.
Visa had a small launch for V.me in the US last year and began trialing the new service in Europe late last year. Currently, users in the US, UK, Canada, Spain and France can sign up for the service.Visa is hoping that as it rolls V.me to other regions, online shopping across countries will be made easier and secure as well."Our vision is to make it a global service… if the [US-based] merchant ships to Australia and if they're accepting V.me on their website, then there is no reason why an Australian consumer can't use their V.me wallet. Our goal is to create that experience for every other country," Kalra said.
"Any debit card that is accepted online, could be used in the V.me wallet… Merchants at the end have to decide which cards they accept," he added.From its launch date in Australia, Greg Storey said that users will be able to use V.me essentially straight away with any online stores that utilises Visa's service and ships to Australia.
Storey went on to say that with the emergence of e-commerce, V.me will be a platform that evolves with new technologies and consumer trends.One such trend, Kalra said, was that more and more Australians are moving away from cash. Visa sees a future where everyone instead uses NFC-enabled mobile devices for in-store payments through PayWave in conjunction with V.me.
"PayWave will move from a piece of plastic to your mobile device, and that's starting to happen already in Australia. At the same time, V.me will come from a PC world to a more mobile world," Kalra said.Storey said that one of the perks of V.me will be that users will still get the visual experience of using their card in this kind of setting, though it will just be in digital form on your mobile device. Loyalty cards and rewards will also be implemented in the future.
The suspect was first seen traveling 64 mph in a 50 mph zone and later crossed into an intersection at a red light before making a turn without signal as a trooper followed, authorities said.Mr. Brummell eventually stopped his Toyota Sedan on Rising Sun Road after police turned on patrol car lights and a siren, the arresting trooper said.After a second request to roll down his dark tinted driver side window, Mr. Brummell complied. He was identified by a Delaware identification card and could not provide a valid insurance card, records said.
Upon exiting the car, police said, Mr. Brummell had trouble keeping his balance and moved slowly while being told multiple times to do things. He failed the alphabet, counting, finger count, and Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test.Mr. Brummell told police he was taking pain medication beforehand, papers said, and a trooper then took him into custody without incident for suspicion of DUI.
During a pat down search, Mr. Brummell was found in possession with a combined four grams of cocaine (which police said tested positive with a narco kit) in two plastic bags, along with three pills each of Clonazepam and Alprazolam pills.
The W3 has an HD 300-nit brightness 1280 x 800 resolution LCD with multi-touch. The colors on the display are not great, in fact they are not even good. Most are very washed out, and blacks seem dark gray/brown while normally bright colors like green and yellow stay muted.
My biggest issue with the display was not even the colors, but the fact that the screen looks like it was sprayed with something that makes it appear smudged at all times. I don't know what it is but having a tablet that seems grainy and smudged at all times is not a good thing.
Brightness was good, as was touch response in my trials. Gestures worked as they should, although many will take some getting used to. While the touch screen was very responsive, I did have ongoing issues with what may have been glitches within the OS itself. There were more than a few times where there was a place to input text, but the keyboard did not automatically show up as you would expect it to. Instead, I had to hit the keyboard app in the taskbar to bring it up. There is zero reason that should be happening. Additionally, sometimes hitting the X to close out Chrome or other desktop apps was sometimes met with the need to hit it multiple times to confirm. Also, never should happen.
Read the full story at http://www.smartcardfactory.com/!
Today, however, Visa announced that its e-wallet solution V.me will head to Australia "just in time for Christmas".V.me, as described by Visa, will work just like a digitised version of your wallet, securely storing all personal details and major payment IC card information – which not only includes Visa debit and credit cards, but MasterCard and American Express cards as well.
Storey said that at least 33 per cent of smartphone users have shopped online using their phone, and Vipin Kalra, Visa's country manager for Australia said that research showed that 72 per cent of all Australians had shopped online at least once in the past 12 months.
But while these numbers have shown to be increasing, Kalra went on to add that research in the US showed that customers were most likely to abandon their purchase at the time of payment because the process required a lengthy form to be filled out."It addresses some consumer desires, which is for ease, convenience and simplicity when purchasing online," Storey said.
Similar to PayPal's solution, after storing all your cards and personal information in V.me, users will be able to make purchases by simply putting in a username and password, which will then let users choose a preselected "default" card or any other card.Visa has a number of merchants already on board, including JB Hi-Fi, Cotton On, City Beach and Lorna Jane, and is in talks with other merchants, including e-commerce and bricks and mortar stores, as well as for travel and bill payments.
Like PayPal, merchants will not be able to see all your details, nor will Visa be able to track your transactions. But unlike PayPal, users will not be able to store funds with V.me, just link credit and debit cards to the service.Payments will be made through the financial institutions involved with the transaction, with V.me acting simply as a gateway to your stored information.
Visa believes that consumers will feel confident of V.me as it has backing from over 40 financial institutions locally, with three of the four "big banks" named as partners. Though Commonwealth Bank was not named, it may be included by launch later this year.As only a username and password will be needed for most transactions, when asked further about the security of the service, Kalra said that Visa's many layers of encryption, "strong authentication" and device identification will be used to prevent fraud, as well as the ability to set transaction alerts for Visa cards.
Visa had a small launch for V.me in the US last year and began trialing the new service in Europe late last year. Currently, users in the US, UK, Canada, Spain and France can sign up for the service.Visa is hoping that as it rolls V.me to other regions, online shopping across countries will be made easier and secure as well."Our vision is to make it a global service… if the [US-based] merchant ships to Australia and if they're accepting V.me on their website, then there is no reason why an Australian consumer can't use their V.me wallet. Our goal is to create that experience for every other country," Kalra said.
"Any debit card that is accepted online, could be used in the V.me wallet… Merchants at the end have to decide which cards they accept," he added.From its launch date in Australia, Greg Storey said that users will be able to use V.me essentially straight away with any online stores that utilises Visa's service and ships to Australia.
Storey went on to say that with the emergence of e-commerce, V.me will be a platform that evolves with new technologies and consumer trends.One such trend, Kalra said, was that more and more Australians are moving away from cash. Visa sees a future where everyone instead uses NFC-enabled mobile devices for in-store payments through PayWave in conjunction with V.me.
"PayWave will move from a piece of plastic to your mobile device, and that's starting to happen already in Australia. At the same time, V.me will come from a PC world to a more mobile world," Kalra said.Storey said that one of the perks of V.me will be that users will still get the visual experience of using their card in this kind of setting, though it will just be in digital form on your mobile device. Loyalty cards and rewards will also be implemented in the future.
The suspect was first seen traveling 64 mph in a 50 mph zone and later crossed into an intersection at a red light before making a turn without signal as a trooper followed, authorities said.Mr. Brummell eventually stopped his Toyota Sedan on Rising Sun Road after police turned on patrol car lights and a siren, the arresting trooper said.After a second request to roll down his dark tinted driver side window, Mr. Brummell complied. He was identified by a Delaware identification card and could not provide a valid insurance card, records said.
Upon exiting the car, police said, Mr. Brummell had trouble keeping his balance and moved slowly while being told multiple times to do things. He failed the alphabet, counting, finger count, and Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test.Mr. Brummell told police he was taking pain medication beforehand, papers said, and a trooper then took him into custody without incident for suspicion of DUI.
During a pat down search, Mr. Brummell was found in possession with a combined four grams of cocaine (which police said tested positive with a narco kit) in two plastic bags, along with three pills each of Clonazepam and Alprazolam pills.
The W3 has an HD 300-nit brightness 1280 x 800 resolution LCD with multi-touch. The colors on the display are not great, in fact they are not even good. Most are very washed out, and blacks seem dark gray/brown while normally bright colors like green and yellow stay muted.
My biggest issue with the display was not even the colors, but the fact that the screen looks like it was sprayed with something that makes it appear smudged at all times. I don't know what it is but having a tablet that seems grainy and smudged at all times is not a good thing.
Brightness was good, as was touch response in my trials. Gestures worked as they should, although many will take some getting used to. While the touch screen was very responsive, I did have ongoing issues with what may have been glitches within the OS itself. There were more than a few times where there was a place to input text, but the keyboard did not automatically show up as you would expect it to. Instead, I had to hit the keyboard app in the taskbar to bring it up. There is zero reason that should be happening. Additionally, sometimes hitting the X to close out Chrome or other desktop apps was sometimes met with the need to hit it multiple times to confirm. Also, never should happen.
Read the full story at http://www.smartcardfactory.com/!
Monday, July 8, 2013
The Real Story
The website WhatIs has a great definition: Content marketing is the publication of material designed to promote a brand, usually through a more oblique and subtle approach than that of traditional push advertising.About IC card in China used for paying transportation fares and for shopping. The essence of good content marketing is that it offers something the viewer wants, such as information or entertainment. Content marketing can take a lot of different forms, including YouTube videos, blog posts and articles. It shouldnt really seem like marketing in some cases, in fact, it should only be identifiable as marketing because the advertiser is identified as the content provider.
Advertisers and public relations pros have been peddling the soft sell for years. The Honus Wagner baseball card, famous for being the most valuable sports card in history with values approaching $3 million today, was a giveaway from the American Tobacco Company back in 1910.
Social marketing expert Andreas Ramos, author of the new tome, The Big Book of Content Marketing, votes for a fresh concept.
Its new, Ramos says. Two years ago, content marketing didnt exist. Some claim that it has been around since the 1920s. Yes, companies did indeed hand out comic books and magazines, etc., but the intention was to entertain, be a public service, etc. The fact that produced the move to content marketing is the collapse of advertising. Traditional media relied on a near-monopoly control of a market by controlling the expensive reproduction process and chain of distribution. But digitization and the web have undermined that. Anyone can create a document or video now and share it with (in theory) over a billion people at zero cost. Advertisement placement in traditional media is expensive. By using digital media, you cut your reproduction and distribution costs to zero. Ive sold over 2,000 copies of my book at zero distribution cost. Literally zero. Not even a single postage stamp.
Ramos included a short chapter about public relations in his book written by me (for which I was not paid). A quick example of content marketing using public relations would be mailing, posting or emailing a story about yourself or your brand that appeared in Forbes or the New York Times to broaden the reach of the article. Ramos claims the inter-connectedness of the web turbocharges the new content marketing.
People also discovered with search engines and social networks that they can ask each other. They trust each other more than they trust vendors. People shifted their attention away from radio, TV, and magazines and the authorities (journalists, editors, etc.) They now prefer the anarchy of home-made video on Youtube and the anything-goes situation at blogs, Facebook FB +1.4% and Twitter. This conjunction of forces digitization, social, search engines never existed before.
Eric Schwartzman, CEO of social media training provider Comply Socially, says content marketing changes the fundamental nature of public relations. Conventional PR is an interruption tactic, Schwartzman says. PR people are experts at breaking and making news. Content marketers, on the other hand, fulfill existing demand for information by staking out specific keyword queries, and creating content thats most likely to get found when people search those terms. If you compare the skills it takes to write and pitch a press release versus a search engine optimized product demo, theyre completely different skill sets. Just because you can write up and present impartial information to journalists to try and get them to write a story, doesnt mean you have the ability to actually write the story yourself. PR and content marketing are totally different. PR is an outbound, interruption tactic. Content marketing is an inbound tactic designed to get you found by people with a much higher purchase intent than those perusing a Twitter feed.
The goals of Content Marketing are to: Build relationships with existing clients, attract new customers, demonstrate benefits, tell interesting stories about your brand and to appear in search engines and increase web traffic.
Of course, content marketing, like a good Hollywood comedy, doesnt work without good writing. The secret? Tell a good story. Fellow Forbes Contributor Brandon Gutman referenced five companies that create unique content from how to guides to music videos to apps. They publish this unique content on their websites, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms to engage the consumer. Some brands, like American Express AXP +0.96%, live stream concerts to their clientele.
A crude barricade across the wide avenue leading to Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque forces cars, buses, and lorries to turn sharply and either park or take a detour round this vast encampment where tens of thousands of supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi have assembled over the past 10 days.
In front of the barricade are several young men wearing hard hats and carrying staves to fend off any attacks. The guard at the opening where men are filing through directs me to the right where a head scarfed woman looks into my bag and another pats me down in a search for weapons.
She peers at my Cypriot press card, unable to read English or Greek. From where are you? Cyprus. Welcome, welcome, she smiles.
As in Tahrir Square, the cradle of the 2011 uprising appropriated by the secular camp, vendors have popped up everywhere, offering coffee and tea, chilled water, food, flags and second-hand clothes. The area is swept. Garbage is collected in blue plastic bags.
In tents and canvas shelters people lounge on mattresses and mats, watch passersby stroll toward the gleaming white mosque where on a stage,The smart card has a memory chip embedded in it that, draped in green, the favourite colour of the prophet Muhammad, a preacher is exhorting the crowd. Shoeless men are assembled in tidy lines, prayer carpets before them,You'll find a number of top quality China smart card suppliers. in preparation for the noon prayer.
His voice rises and falls, sobs and shouts, detailing the Muslim Brotherhoods version of clashes that killed 51 people at the nearby presidential guard headquarters at 4am.
Our innocent women and children were killed as they prayed, he proclaims. A boy in a green T- shirt covers his face with his hands and weeps as a girl in a white headscarf, bright blue shirt and tight jeans, lifts her pink mobile and snaps photographs.
The speakers voice sharpens as he calls for martyrdom, jihad an intifada an uprising, to oust the army blamed for the killings, the godless opponents of Morsi, whose bearded portrait hangs from tent polls, a slight smile on his lips. There are few smiles among the men as they wait for the formal noon communal service to begin, their hands cupped in the attitude prayer, heads slightly bowed. My driver, Said, from Aswan and I walk between the lines of the devout without remark or incident. The faithful bow and bend to their knees, touch foreheads to their carpets. Allahu Akhbar! God is Great! Here there is no separation between mosque and state.
A 20-minute drive but a world away through nearly empty streets, Tamarod (Rebel), the youth movement that launched the latest round of anti-Morsi demonstrations, is holding a press conference at a luxury Nile-side hotel. The air is chilled, the carpets are deep, filtered coffee is on offer. Half a dozen young men sit behind a bank of microphones on a long table, draped with a colourful cloth.
Advertisers and public relations pros have been peddling the soft sell for years. The Honus Wagner baseball card, famous for being the most valuable sports card in history with values approaching $3 million today, was a giveaway from the American Tobacco Company back in 1910.
Social marketing expert Andreas Ramos, author of the new tome, The Big Book of Content Marketing, votes for a fresh concept.
Its new, Ramos says. Two years ago, content marketing didnt exist. Some claim that it has been around since the 1920s. Yes, companies did indeed hand out comic books and magazines, etc., but the intention was to entertain, be a public service, etc. The fact that produced the move to content marketing is the collapse of advertising. Traditional media relied on a near-monopoly control of a market by controlling the expensive reproduction process and chain of distribution. But digitization and the web have undermined that. Anyone can create a document or video now and share it with (in theory) over a billion people at zero cost. Advertisement placement in traditional media is expensive. By using digital media, you cut your reproduction and distribution costs to zero. Ive sold over 2,000 copies of my book at zero distribution cost. Literally zero. Not even a single postage stamp.
Ramos included a short chapter about public relations in his book written by me (for which I was not paid). A quick example of content marketing using public relations would be mailing, posting or emailing a story about yourself or your brand that appeared in Forbes or the New York Times to broaden the reach of the article. Ramos claims the inter-connectedness of the web turbocharges the new content marketing.
People also discovered with search engines and social networks that they can ask each other. They trust each other more than they trust vendors. People shifted their attention away from radio, TV, and magazines and the authorities (journalists, editors, etc.) They now prefer the anarchy of home-made video on Youtube and the anything-goes situation at blogs, Facebook FB +1.4% and Twitter. This conjunction of forces digitization, social, search engines never existed before.
Eric Schwartzman, CEO of social media training provider Comply Socially, says content marketing changes the fundamental nature of public relations. Conventional PR is an interruption tactic, Schwartzman says. PR people are experts at breaking and making news. Content marketers, on the other hand, fulfill existing demand for information by staking out specific keyword queries, and creating content thats most likely to get found when people search those terms. If you compare the skills it takes to write and pitch a press release versus a search engine optimized product demo, theyre completely different skill sets. Just because you can write up and present impartial information to journalists to try and get them to write a story, doesnt mean you have the ability to actually write the story yourself. PR and content marketing are totally different. PR is an outbound, interruption tactic. Content marketing is an inbound tactic designed to get you found by people with a much higher purchase intent than those perusing a Twitter feed.
The goals of Content Marketing are to: Build relationships with existing clients, attract new customers, demonstrate benefits, tell interesting stories about your brand and to appear in search engines and increase web traffic.
Of course, content marketing, like a good Hollywood comedy, doesnt work without good writing. The secret? Tell a good story. Fellow Forbes Contributor Brandon Gutman referenced five companies that create unique content from how to guides to music videos to apps. They publish this unique content on their websites, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms to engage the consumer. Some brands, like American Express AXP +0.96%, live stream concerts to their clientele.
A crude barricade across the wide avenue leading to Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque forces cars, buses, and lorries to turn sharply and either park or take a detour round this vast encampment where tens of thousands of supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi have assembled over the past 10 days.
In front of the barricade are several young men wearing hard hats and carrying staves to fend off any attacks. The guard at the opening where men are filing through directs me to the right where a head scarfed woman looks into my bag and another pats me down in a search for weapons.
She peers at my Cypriot press card, unable to read English or Greek. From where are you? Cyprus. Welcome, welcome, she smiles.
As in Tahrir Square, the cradle of the 2011 uprising appropriated by the secular camp, vendors have popped up everywhere, offering coffee and tea, chilled water, food, flags and second-hand clothes. The area is swept. Garbage is collected in blue plastic bags.
In tents and canvas shelters people lounge on mattresses and mats, watch passersby stroll toward the gleaming white mosque where on a stage,The smart card has a memory chip embedded in it that, draped in green, the favourite colour of the prophet Muhammad, a preacher is exhorting the crowd. Shoeless men are assembled in tidy lines, prayer carpets before them,You'll find a number of top quality China smart card suppliers. in preparation for the noon prayer.
His voice rises and falls, sobs and shouts, detailing the Muslim Brotherhoods version of clashes that killed 51 people at the nearby presidential guard headquarters at 4am.
Our innocent women and children were killed as they prayed, he proclaims. A boy in a green T- shirt covers his face with his hands and weeps as a girl in a white headscarf, bright blue shirt and tight jeans, lifts her pink mobile and snaps photographs.
The speakers voice sharpens as he calls for martyrdom, jihad an intifada an uprising, to oust the army blamed for the killings, the godless opponents of Morsi, whose bearded portrait hangs from tent polls, a slight smile on his lips. There are few smiles among the men as they wait for the formal noon communal service to begin, their hands cupped in the attitude prayer, heads slightly bowed. My driver, Said, from Aswan and I walk between the lines of the devout without remark or incident. The faithful bow and bend to their knees, touch foreheads to their carpets. Allahu Akhbar! God is Great! Here there is no separation between mosque and state.
A 20-minute drive but a world away through nearly empty streets, Tamarod (Rebel), the youth movement that launched the latest round of anti-Morsi demonstrations, is holding a press conference at a luxury Nile-side hotel. The air is chilled, the carpets are deep, filtered coffee is on offer. Half a dozen young men sit behind a bank of microphones on a long table, draped with a colourful cloth.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
How to Turn on Two-Factor Authentication
Think about how much information about yourself you have saved in your email account. We sign up for bank accounts, buy things online, and communicate with others using our email addresses.
Is your password is strong enough to keep the bad guys out from grabbing all this sensitive information? I like to think mine is, but I also know that if someone really wants to, that person can use cracking tools and other tricks to break in.
With two-factor authentication, at least, the attackers need more than just my password to get in. Username and passwords are "what you know." Two-factor authentication requires something else, such as a mobile device, hardware token, or a smart card for "something you have." Biometric data, such as fingerprints, for "something you are," is also an option.
Basically, if the attacker tries to log in to your account with your password from an unknown device or browser, that person would also need your mobile device or your fingerprints to succeed.Google and Yahoo offer two-factor authentication for their web-based email services. If you use Yahoo Mail or Gmail, here is how to turn on this security feature.
If you have a Google account, then login to your account and click on your name in the upper right corner of the screen. In the resulting menu dropdown, you can click on Account to access the account settings page. Under Security, there is an option for two-step verification. Click on Edit to start the sign-up process.
You follow the step-by-step process to associate a mobile number to your account. Whenever someone logs into your account from an unknown browser or device, Google sends a challenge code via SMS message to your mobile device. Without that code, Google will block the login attempt. If you have an Android or iOS device, you can generate your own codes using the Google Authenticator app instead of waiting for the SMS message.
Speaking to The Associated Press ahead of the Global Intelligence Forum starting Monday in Ireland, Freeh said hackers seeking to take control of, or take down, key pieces of U.S. infrastructure could do more damage than the attackers of 9/11. He said computer systems controlling power plants, the navigation of aircraft and ships, and even the switching of street lights could be hijacked to gridlock societies and kill large groups of people.
"People traditionally think of this threat as somebody stealing their identity or their credit card number, or making it inconvenient to go to the ATM (cash machine). That's a very benign view of the potential for what cyber terrorism really is," Freeh said.
"You could manipulate transportation systems, aviation guidance systems, highway safety systems, maritime operations systems. You could shut down an energy system in the northeast U.S. in the middle of winter. The potential for mass destruction in terms of life and property is really only limited by (the attackers') access and success in penetrating and hijacking these networks," he said.
Freeh said people shouldn't be lulled into complacency just because hackers' attacks on government and business targets to date hadn't directly killed anybody.
"There's a lot of technology and a lot of ability out there, particularly with state actors," he said, referring to other governments' cyber-spying operations including in China, which U.S. authorities previously have blamed for stealing American corporate trade secrets. "We went through the Cold War without anybody using a nuclear bomb, but that didn't mean the capability and threat weren't there."
Freeh, 63, directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1993 to 2001, leaving just before the al-Qaida attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. In the years since he's become a top private investigator, most recently publishing the report into the cover-up of child abuse in the Penn State University football program. Last week he was appointed to oversee a probe into alleged corruption and malpractice in the payouts of billions in compensation from BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of smart card.
He said his keynote speech Monday to an annual seminar organized by Mercyhurst University's Institute for Intelligence Studies would focus on how intelligence and law-enforcement agencies need to use the internet to identify threats — and keep their own secrets secure. The four-day conference brings together intelligence officials worldwide, with a focus this year on combating internet-based crime.
It takes place against the backdrop of continuing revelations from former U.S. National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden, who is believed still to be holed up in Moscow's airport three weeks after the U.S. Justice Department charged him with espionage and theft of government property.
Freeh questioned Snowden's description as a whistleblower — and why the NSA ever gave Snowden such access to its secrets without effective supervision.
He said Snowden should "come to a forum or an arena where he can raise his whistleblower defense." He said the NSA, like other U.S. government agencies, has an internal reporting process for whistleblowers alleging wrongdoing but Snowden appears not to have used this.
"He's said publicly that he was witnessing and participating at least indirectly in what he thought was a mass violation of U.S. rights, constitutional rights, human rights, and so was forced to publicly disclose this. It's just not accurate. It's Hollywood-esque and may be romantic for somebody to think: My God, this guy had no choice. But the reality is he had plenty of options and choices," Freeh said.
Read the full story at http://www.smartcardfactory.com/!
Is your password is strong enough to keep the bad guys out from grabbing all this sensitive information? I like to think mine is, but I also know that if someone really wants to, that person can use cracking tools and other tricks to break in.
With two-factor authentication, at least, the attackers need more than just my password to get in. Username and passwords are "what you know." Two-factor authentication requires something else, such as a mobile device, hardware token, or a smart card for "something you have." Biometric data, such as fingerprints, for "something you are," is also an option.
Basically, if the attacker tries to log in to your account with your password from an unknown device or browser, that person would also need your mobile device or your fingerprints to succeed.Google and Yahoo offer two-factor authentication for their web-based email services. If you use Yahoo Mail or Gmail, here is how to turn on this security feature.
If you have a Google account, then login to your account and click on your name in the upper right corner of the screen. In the resulting menu dropdown, you can click on Account to access the account settings page. Under Security, there is an option for two-step verification. Click on Edit to start the sign-up process.
You follow the step-by-step process to associate a mobile number to your account. Whenever someone logs into your account from an unknown browser or device, Google sends a challenge code via SMS message to your mobile device. Without that code, Google will block the login attempt. If you have an Android or iOS device, you can generate your own codes using the Google Authenticator app instead of waiting for the SMS message.
Speaking to The Associated Press ahead of the Global Intelligence Forum starting Monday in Ireland, Freeh said hackers seeking to take control of, or take down, key pieces of U.S. infrastructure could do more damage than the attackers of 9/11. He said computer systems controlling power plants, the navigation of aircraft and ships, and even the switching of street lights could be hijacked to gridlock societies and kill large groups of people.
"People traditionally think of this threat as somebody stealing their identity or their credit card number, or making it inconvenient to go to the ATM (cash machine). That's a very benign view of the potential for what cyber terrorism really is," Freeh said.
"You could manipulate transportation systems, aviation guidance systems, highway safety systems, maritime operations systems. You could shut down an energy system in the northeast U.S. in the middle of winter. The potential for mass destruction in terms of life and property is really only limited by (the attackers') access and success in penetrating and hijacking these networks," he said.
Freeh said people shouldn't be lulled into complacency just because hackers' attacks on government and business targets to date hadn't directly killed anybody.
"There's a lot of technology and a lot of ability out there, particularly with state actors," he said, referring to other governments' cyber-spying operations including in China, which U.S. authorities previously have blamed for stealing American corporate trade secrets. "We went through the Cold War without anybody using a nuclear bomb, but that didn't mean the capability and threat weren't there."
Freeh, 63, directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1993 to 2001, leaving just before the al-Qaida attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. In the years since he's become a top private investigator, most recently publishing the report into the cover-up of child abuse in the Penn State University football program. Last week he was appointed to oversee a probe into alleged corruption and malpractice in the payouts of billions in compensation from BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of smart card.
He said his keynote speech Monday to an annual seminar organized by Mercyhurst University's Institute for Intelligence Studies would focus on how intelligence and law-enforcement agencies need to use the internet to identify threats — and keep their own secrets secure. The four-day conference brings together intelligence officials worldwide, with a focus this year on combating internet-based crime.
It takes place against the backdrop of continuing revelations from former U.S. National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden, who is believed still to be holed up in Moscow's airport three weeks after the U.S. Justice Department charged him with espionage and theft of government property.
Freeh questioned Snowden's description as a whistleblower — and why the NSA ever gave Snowden such access to its secrets without effective supervision.
He said Snowden should "come to a forum or an arena where he can raise his whistleblower defense." He said the NSA, like other U.S. government agencies, has an internal reporting process for whistleblowers alleging wrongdoing but Snowden appears not to have used this.
"He's said publicly that he was witnessing and participating at least indirectly in what he thought was a mass violation of U.S. rights, constitutional rights, human rights, and so was forced to publicly disclose this. It's just not accurate. It's Hollywood-esque and may be romantic for somebody to think: My God, this guy had no choice. But the reality is he had plenty of options and choices," Freeh said.
Read the full story at http://www.smartcardfactory.com/!
Thursday, July 4, 2013
‘Cooking Matters’ in shopping
Are you prone to impulse buys at the grocery store? Want to stretch your grocery budget?Cooking Matters is here to help. They offer advice for low-income families in Montezuma and La Plata counties on how to shop, prepare and eat healthy, affordable foods.
“We teach how to get the best out your dollar, and show people a lot of tricks on smart shopping and meal preparation,” explained organizer Katie Dittelberger.The educational program offers grocery tours and classes for low-income families led by expert culinary and nutrition volunteers. Since 1993, Cooking Matters has grown to serve 10,000 families each year across the country, helping learn to eat better on a budget.
“A lot of people don’t realize how much money they can save by cooking whole foods at home, and it’s healthier,” Dittelberger said.At the Cortez Wal-Mart store employee. Cas Osantowski gave shopper Meggie Curtis an informative tour through the maze of grocery opportunities.
“It seemed interesting, and I got a $10 gift card,” Curtis said. “I’ve learned a lot about chip card.”For example, many products are the same, but one costs more because it’s a more well known brand.
“Learning to look at labels; you realize you’er just paying more for packaging,” Curtis said.Another tip: Try and shop along the perimeter of the store. That is usually where the whole foods, meats and fresh produce are displayed.
“Once you dive into the middle aisles, there is a lot more processed foods, chips, and sugary-type snack stuff,” Osantowski said.Shopping in season is another good tip. With food now shipped from all over the world to local stores, it is easy to forget that different foods grow in different seasons.
While shoppers may see strawberries in January or winter squash in July, they will pay a higher price because of the transportation costs. Food grown locally and bought in season is fresher and tastes better, too.“Understanding the unit price is also a key to getting the best deal,” Dittelberger explains. “It takes some practice.”
Unit prices are found on the small tag on the shelf under the grocery item. The tag shows the cost of an ounce, a pint, a pound, or other amount. Check to see whether the bulk size costs less per unit than smaller sizes.Beware of fancy-sounding names as well, she said. Breads labeled multi-grain, seven grain, stone-ground, or bran are often not whole grains. If a whole grain os listed after the first ingredient, it could mean it is a small part of the food.
Participants in Cooking Matter programs learn how to read food labels and stretch ingredients, receive tips on stocking the pantry and learn healthy recipes.
I used to carry an organ donation card in my wallet. In the event of my death, I would be overjoyed at the thought of my organs giving someone else a chance of life. That is a choice for me to make; it is my decision and my gift. It is my liberty, and the liberty of my loved ones, to decide what happens to my body. The idea that the government should presume to harvest my organs - without my express permission - is a dangerous one. It crosses a big red line. The government doesn't own you, your spouse, or your child - whether living or dead.
The Welsh Assembly has just voted in favour of presumed consent for organ donation. Yes, you can opt out if you wish (although if the opt out systems for email lists are anything to go by...). Yes, if your wishes are unclear, your relatives can have a say (but not the final say). Yes, I believe it will increase the number of organs available for transplant. Yes, organ transplantation does save lives and I have no objection to the principle of transplanting an organ (I have some big worries about the practice, but I'll come back to that in a moment). Nevertheless, despite these concessions, a great deal of power has just been given to the government in Wales to do as they wish with the bodies of its citizens.
If you live in Wales, the government has just nationalised your body. Unless you opt out, your organs belong to them now. How long before the state imposes quality control on your lifestyle? After all, a poor diet and not enough exercise could damage your organs; that won't help the nationalised organ transplant programme. I'm tempted to list some of the ways that the state could coerce you to live a healthier lifestyle - but they're already very familiar to us all.
Aside from the principles of individual liberty, I have a much more practical concern. It is this: organs are being harvested from patients who are not dead yet. Let me explain. To ensure the best chance of a successful organ transplant, it is important that organs are harvested while they're fresh. Doctors are keen to take organs from a body with a beating heart because the removal of the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas and kidneys must be done before they begin to deteriorate due to the cessation of blood circulation. In Britain two doctors must agree that a patient is 'brain dead', though their heart continues to beat, before organs can be removed.
Some 'brain dead' organ donors are given a general anaesthetic before their organs are removed to suppress the body reacting to the physical distress of being cut into. Ever heard of a dead body being given anaesthetic? Secular ethicist Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University has said of these patients: "Defining such people as dead was a convenient way around the problems of making their organs available for transplantation, and withdrawing treatment from them." Medical ethicist, Michael Potts, has said: "Since the patient is not truly dead until his or her organs are removed, it is the process of organ donation itself that causes the donor's death."
There have been several cases of patients reviving just as the surgeon is about to plunge in with a scalpel to harvest organs. In November 2007, Zach Dunlap was pronounced brain dead by doctors at a hospital in Texas. He was scheduled to have his organs harvested when he began showing signs of life by moving his hand and foot. He then reacted to a pocket knife scraped across his foot and pressure being applied under his fingernail. After 48 days recovering in hospital he was allowed home.
Click on their website http://www.smartcardfactory.com/ for more information.
“We teach how to get the best out your dollar, and show people a lot of tricks on smart shopping and meal preparation,” explained organizer Katie Dittelberger.The educational program offers grocery tours and classes for low-income families led by expert culinary and nutrition volunteers. Since 1993, Cooking Matters has grown to serve 10,000 families each year across the country, helping learn to eat better on a budget.
“A lot of people don’t realize how much money they can save by cooking whole foods at home, and it’s healthier,” Dittelberger said.At the Cortez Wal-Mart store employee. Cas Osantowski gave shopper Meggie Curtis an informative tour through the maze of grocery opportunities.
“It seemed interesting, and I got a $10 gift card,” Curtis said. “I’ve learned a lot about chip card.”For example, many products are the same, but one costs more because it’s a more well known brand.
“Learning to look at labels; you realize you’er just paying more for packaging,” Curtis said.Another tip: Try and shop along the perimeter of the store. That is usually where the whole foods, meats and fresh produce are displayed.
“Once you dive into the middle aisles, there is a lot more processed foods, chips, and sugary-type snack stuff,” Osantowski said.Shopping in season is another good tip. With food now shipped from all over the world to local stores, it is easy to forget that different foods grow in different seasons.
While shoppers may see strawberries in January or winter squash in July, they will pay a higher price because of the transportation costs. Food grown locally and bought in season is fresher and tastes better, too.“Understanding the unit price is also a key to getting the best deal,” Dittelberger explains. “It takes some practice.”
Unit prices are found on the small tag on the shelf under the grocery item. The tag shows the cost of an ounce, a pint, a pound, or other amount. Check to see whether the bulk size costs less per unit than smaller sizes.Beware of fancy-sounding names as well, she said. Breads labeled multi-grain, seven grain, stone-ground, or bran are often not whole grains. If a whole grain os listed after the first ingredient, it could mean it is a small part of the food.
Participants in Cooking Matter programs learn how to read food labels and stretch ingredients, receive tips on stocking the pantry and learn healthy recipes.
I used to carry an organ donation card in my wallet. In the event of my death, I would be overjoyed at the thought of my organs giving someone else a chance of life. That is a choice for me to make; it is my decision and my gift. It is my liberty, and the liberty of my loved ones, to decide what happens to my body. The idea that the government should presume to harvest my organs - without my express permission - is a dangerous one. It crosses a big red line. The government doesn't own you, your spouse, or your child - whether living or dead.
The Welsh Assembly has just voted in favour of presumed consent for organ donation. Yes, you can opt out if you wish (although if the opt out systems for email lists are anything to go by...). Yes, if your wishes are unclear, your relatives can have a say (but not the final say). Yes, I believe it will increase the number of organs available for transplant. Yes, organ transplantation does save lives and I have no objection to the principle of transplanting an organ (I have some big worries about the practice, but I'll come back to that in a moment). Nevertheless, despite these concessions, a great deal of power has just been given to the government in Wales to do as they wish with the bodies of its citizens.
If you live in Wales, the government has just nationalised your body. Unless you opt out, your organs belong to them now. How long before the state imposes quality control on your lifestyle? After all, a poor diet and not enough exercise could damage your organs; that won't help the nationalised organ transplant programme. I'm tempted to list some of the ways that the state could coerce you to live a healthier lifestyle - but they're already very familiar to us all.
Aside from the principles of individual liberty, I have a much more practical concern. It is this: organs are being harvested from patients who are not dead yet. Let me explain. To ensure the best chance of a successful organ transplant, it is important that organs are harvested while they're fresh. Doctors are keen to take organs from a body with a beating heart because the removal of the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas and kidneys must be done before they begin to deteriorate due to the cessation of blood circulation. In Britain two doctors must agree that a patient is 'brain dead', though their heart continues to beat, before organs can be removed.
Some 'brain dead' organ donors are given a general anaesthetic before their organs are removed to suppress the body reacting to the physical distress of being cut into. Ever heard of a dead body being given anaesthetic? Secular ethicist Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University has said of these patients: "Defining such people as dead was a convenient way around the problems of making their organs available for transplantation, and withdrawing treatment from them." Medical ethicist, Michael Potts, has said: "Since the patient is not truly dead until his or her organs are removed, it is the process of organ donation itself that causes the donor's death."
There have been several cases of patients reviving just as the surgeon is about to plunge in with a scalpel to harvest organs. In November 2007, Zach Dunlap was pronounced brain dead by doctors at a hospital in Texas. He was scheduled to have his organs harvested when he began showing signs of life by moving his hand and foot. He then reacted to a pocket knife scraped across his foot and pressure being applied under his fingernail. After 48 days recovering in hospital he was allowed home.
Click on their website http://www.smartcardfactory.com/ for more information.
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