Category: News and Views

Classic Brain Booster | Care2.com

~ lmehit ~ Leave a comment

In a world of Sudoku and weekend national newspaper crossword puzzles, the lowly jigsaw puzzle may seem to be mere child’s play.  If you think this, get your hands on a good 500 piecer, and you are in for a spanking!  Jigsaw puzzles can be mind-bendingly tough, providing your brain (and your patience) with an extensive workout that enhances several mental functions.

The benefits of solving jigsaw puzzles include exercising and sharpening your memory, strengthening the connections between your memory centers, improved hand-eye and spatial coordination, and observation skills.  The process of referencing the big picture and hunting for the right pieces at the right time nurture logical thought processes, including analyzing, sequencing and deducing skills.

Read More.

Ex-U.S. Ambassador Helps Companies Break Into China | Businessweek.com

~ lmehit ~ Leave a comment

Frank Lavin is a guy with lots of guanxi—which loosely translated means “connections” in Chinese. The Ohio native has served as U.S. ambassador to Singapore, led trade negotiations with China while working at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and held senior posts in the Asian offices of Bank of America (BAC), Citibank, and public-relations firm Edelman. When Lavin published a business guide on how to conquer overseas markets last year, his friend Karl Rove blogged a positive review.

Lavin is using those contacts to build an unusual type of export business. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Akron, Export Now’s 15 employees handle customs clearance, trademark registration, order fulfillment and other back-end tasks for 24 U.S. companies. Rather than negotiate for shelf space with Chinese retailers as a traditional distributor would, Export Now runs its own virtual storefront on Alibaba Group’s Tmall.com, an Amazon.com (AMZN)-like e-tailing colossus with nearly 500 million registered Chinese users. “China is the fastest-growing consumer market in the world, but it’s still viewed as largely inaccessible for all but the top-tier U.S. companies or global [multinationals],” says Lavin, whose outfit also has an office in Shanghai. “We have a department store in the shopping mall, and any U.S. company can have shelf space in the department store.”

Read More.

Babies Driving Robots and Racecars Helps Tiny Needs | LiveScience.com

~ lmehit ~ Leave a comment

At the 2012 USA Science & Engineering Festival, children swarmed a National Science Foundation exhibit booth featuring electric-powered, child-sized toy cars. Assistants carefully explained how to operate the cars, which featured unique designs and operating features. One of cars, for example, would move only if the child driver remained standing. To stop, the driver had to sit down.

Excited children and their parents wondered about the cars’ purpose; after all, these cars weren’t being exhibited at a science and engineering event for being ordinary toys.

Read More.

Third Pole Melting Down | scientificamerican.com

~ lmehit ~ Leave a comment

Image:flickr/rao.anirudh(Image:flickr/rao.anirudh)

Himalayan glaciers have been the subject of intense debate amid growing concern that melting ice could imperil a wide swath of South Asia that relies on groundwater from the “Third Pole.”

Scientists have struggled to improve their understanding of the glaciers’ fate using satellite data and limited ground measurements, bumping up against the limits of the region’s extreme topography and political barriers.

The picture that has emerged is complex, with wide variation among ice in the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Tibetan Plateau. Studies suggest glaciers are stable or accumulating in the Karakoram Range on the Pakistan-China border. But in the eastern Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, they appear to be shrinking.

Read more.

iNflation: Americans Spend Less On Food, Movies To Pay For Soaring Cell Phone Obsession | ZeroHedge

~ CBPS ~ Leave a comment

That trend is evident in the home of 40-year-old Scott Boedy, a neighborhood service representative for a cable company.

Mr. Boedy said he and his wife now pay $200 a month for cellphone service, up by about $50 from early last year, even as they have managed to cut spending on groceries by shopping at discount chain Aldi and on “fun stuff” by going out to dinner and movies less often.

Looking over the family budget on Sunday night, Mr. Boedy said, his wife marveled at how much of it was going to the phone company.

“It stinks,” Mr. Boedy said. “I guess it’s the cost of modern-day America now.”

No Scott, it isn’t. It’s the consequence of your choices. But as long as one has the ability to do what every other borderline insolvent entity in the world does, namely to “charge it”, sweep it under the rug.

Read Article.

Crowdfunding: What’s All The Noise About? | Lydia Mehit

~ CBPS ~ Leave a comment

Crowdfunding is the latest buzz to hit the entrepreneur community, but no one really knows how it is going to work.  What we do know is that it will allow people like you and me (non-accredited) investors to use our money to help small businesses to start or grow. The problem is that the funding entrepreneurs need to prove, start and grow their ideas into companies has been at a premium since 2008.  The question now is whether the excitement will translate into a meaningful solution.

The turn of the century already saw a slow down from the tech investing of the 90’s, but when the recession hit, bank funding ground almost to a stop.  Where could the entrepreneur go to seek funding for their idea or startup?

Continue reading “Crowdfunding: What’s All The Noise About? | Lydia Mehit” →