October 2006 Edition
BILLS
The Bank of Canada has withdrawn a proposal to introduce a $200 banknote after a survey of retailers revealed strong opposition. 59 per cent of those surveyed said they were opposed, with 40 per cent "strongly opposed." The central bank had been looking for a higher-denomination replacement for the $1000 banknote after it ceased to be printed in May, 2000, to help thwart money launderers and drug dealers who prefer large bills.
VACATIONS
Even before the recent security scares, the Conference Board in the U.S. found at the start of the summer that 40 per cent of consumers had no plans to take a vacation over the next six months, the lowest percentage recorded by the group in 28 years. About 25 per cent of American workers in the private sector do not get paid vacation time. Another 33 per cent will take only a seven-day vacation. Some companies are shutting down completely twice a year to ensure people stop working.
WATCHES
Last year, the U.S. watch market saw a 4.9 per cent dip in sales. Rival electronic devices such as personal digital assistants and cellphones are the reason. Even sales of watches under US$50.00, rarely affected by overall market trends, are down.
SECURITY
Rich people can beef up their home security with the automatically activated SmartWater spray system. The technology, mounted on the walls or the ceiling, squirts the intrudes with a solution containing a unique forensic code that remains detectable on the skin and hair for weeks and on clothing indefinitely.
BRAKES
Nineteen auto makers have reached a deal with the U.S. government to have brake interlock systems in all new vehicles by 2010 to prevent children from accidentally disengaging the parking brake. The interlock system, already standard on many vehicles, allows a shift out of park only if the brake pedal is depressed. About three million vehicles sold in the U.S. each year lack a brake-shift interlock.
DIGITAL
Films arrive in projection rooms as 10,000 feet of film printed as a copy of the original. Now, digital projection systems are the latest thing. The release copy of the movie is delivered on a hard drive, sporting 100 gigabytes of the latest Hollywood blockbuster, a digitally scanned copy of the master film print. Once put into place, the movie is simply unloaded to a server and is one button-push away from being digitally projected. The biggest advantage of digital projection is picture quality.
CIRCULARS
New research in the U.S. confirms that grocery circulars announcing the latest grocery specials are an effective means of connecting with consumers. Grocers spend some US$8-billion on feature ads each year, which amounts to two per cent of their sales. The research shows that at least 10 per cent of shoppers chose their store based on the week's ads and that shoppers were most influential when the ads promoted discounts on cereal, snack chips, pizza, cookies and hot dogs.
REMUNERATION
The Economist reports that senior managers in Mumbai and San Paulo are better paid than their counterparts in New York or London, once the cost of living is taken into account.The calculations include the cost of rent which is punishingly high in some financial centres. Sweden's heavy taxes leave top managers in Stockholm worse off, in real terms, than their peers in Shanghai or Budapest.
GENES
Scientists have identified a gene that will allow rice plants to survive being completely submerged in water for up to two weeks. Most rice plants die within a week of being underwater but researchers hope the new gene will offer greater protection to the world's rice harvest. Farmers in south-east Asia lose an estimated US$1--billion each year from rice crops being destroyed by flooding.
PIGMENTS
An unpopular pigment used by 18th century artists could lead to more energy efficient, faster computers. Cobalt green, as it is known, has been tested by a US team who believe that, because of its magnetic properties, could be used in "spintronic" devices. Spintronics involves manipulating the magnetic properties of electron to do useful computational work. Cobalt green is a mixture of zinc oxide and cobalt and artists of the 18th century found it expensive and that it created relatively weak colours.
ANNIVERSARY
This past August saw the 25th anniversary of the personal computer with the introduction of the IBM 5150. Costing $1,565, the 5150 had just 16K of memory, about enough for three or so e-mails nowadays. This machine which was developed by a team of 12 IBM engineers, altered the way business was done forever and sparked a revolution in home computing.
BARBIE
The Christie's auction house is about to sell off a collection of 4,000 Barbie dolls collected over four decades by a fashion designer in Holland. Christie's say the dolls give a fascinating insight into 20th century fashion and expects designers to be among those who attend the auction. Some of the Barbie clothes include designs by Christian Dior, Givenchy and Versace. It is estimated that the value of the dolls could reach $250,000.
GOLF
The world's 25,000 golf courses in 100 countries, a tenth of them in Britain, cover an area the size of Belgium. The 250-year-old Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews which governs golf outside the U.S. and Mexico, is telling golf courses to become more environmentally friendly. It urges the use of drought-tolerant grasses and much less watering, as well as cutting out pesticides and putting recycled glass instead of sand in bunkers. Some 2,000 courses around the world have signed up for the campaign to improve the sport's environmental image.
PROTECTION
Half the European Union's annual budget, almost US$64-billion, is consumed in agricultural subsidies. In the United States, where fewer than one per cent of gross domestic product is produced by agriculture, the federal government has paid farmers US$170-billion in subsidies of one kind or another in the past decade, $25-billion in 2005 alone.
POISONING
Cantaloupe melons have been identified as a common source of food poisoning. Researchers who studied records in Canada and the U.S. identified almost one large outbreak caused by cantaloupes every year over a 30-year period. It is believed that the problem lies in the rough skin of the cantaloupe being hard to clean meaning that bacteria on the outside can contaminate the flesh when it is cut open.
CONSTRUCTION
Shanghai has constructed a massive underground bunker complex capable of sheltering 200,000 people from a nuclear attack. The million-square-foot complex connects to shopping centres, office buildings, apartment buildings and the subway system via miles of tunnels. The complex has water, hydro, lighting, ventilation and protective doors and can support life for as long as two weeks.
CONTAINERS
Industry experts estimate that anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 containers fall off ships each year, less than one per cent of the number of containers sent by sea annually, but representing a huge cost to those who lose cargo to the ocean. The loss of even one shipment which may contain millions of small parts, could shut down a manufacturing line.
MOBILES
About 70 per cent of 12- to 13-year-old Europeans own a mobile phone. Now, the EU is examining the risks children face when using mobile phones such as access to harmful or illegal content, and the risks of strangers meeting children after making telephone contact.
CHECKOUT
A recent study shows that shoppers purchase impulse items such as snacks, candy, beverages and magazines 45.5 per cent less often when they use self-checkout than when they use a staffed checkout lane. The impact is greater for women, 50 per cent, versus a drop of 27.9 per cent for men. In 2005, consumers spent over US$111-billion on self-checkout transactions at retailers, up 35 per cent over the previous year. The average number of items in a self-checkout transaction is 6.7 with a value of $32.85.
INDIA
The U.S. is warning India that bans on soft drinks like Coca Cola and Pepsi could blight its hopes of attracting American investment. Six Indian states have now announced partial or complete bans on soft drink sales in schools, colleges and hospitals after claims that the drinks contain harmful pesticides. Coke and Pepsi account for nearly 80 per cent of India's more than US$2-billion soft drink market
SHOPPING
The Polo Lauren Group is taking impulse shopping one step further with technology that allows passersby to purchase clothing they see in the windows of one of its New York stores by using a touch screen on the glass. Projected on the window of the store is a 67-inch image of items. Customers can purchase them by using a credit card swiper on the window.
DOGS
After a year of field testing, the first CD ever approved for dogs by dogs has just been produced in California. Canine focus groups, selected from more than 200 dogs across the U.S., were "questioned" about their preferences in music. The responses, a bark or a wag, were used by an animal communicator to guide the creation of the 12 songs.
GIVEAWAYS
British newspapers are now giving away as many free DVDs as are being purchased in stores. The cover-mounted DVD giveaways, which include recent movies, are devaluing the format in the eyes of many consumers, one quarter of whom said they would have bought the same titles if they had seen it in a store at a reasonable price. In the first quarter of 2006, about 54-million DVDs were given away to consumers who bought newspapers and magazines. That compares with 130 million DVDs given away in 2005, valued at an estimated C$1.04-billion.
TECHNOLOGY
British university students are being monitored by a unique electronic tagging system designed to ensure that they attend lectures. About 1,000 undergraduates at the University of Glamorgan have been issued with key rings containing microchips that store each individual's name and other enrolment data. Every time he or she attends a lecture, the students press the key ring against a sensor that acts as an electronic receiver which records attendance.
EGGS
Revolutionary "self-timing' eggs designed to overcome the perennial problem of how to avoid runny whites or overcooked yolks will appear on UK supermarkets shelves before too long. The eggs are marked with logos in "thermochromic" invisible ink, which turns dark when it reaches a certain temperature. Inks have been created to appear after three minutes to indicate a soft-boiled egg, after four minutes for medium and seven minutes for a hard-boiled egg.
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