Though it’s starting to feel like summer in the Great Lakes region, with temperatures soaring into the 80s Fahrenheit, icebergs are still loitering in Lake Superior — a reminder of an especially harsh winter.Last week, a marine warden with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was patrolling Lake Superior when she spotted seagulls resting on a huge chunk of ice near Madeline Island, off the northern coast of Wisconsin.
Amazon, has turned off the preorder function for DVDs of prominent Warner Bros. films as it seeks to raise pressure on the company during negotiations.”The Lego Movie,” for example, is listed as “currently unavailable” on Amazon. Set for release in the home video marketplace on June 17, there is no option to place a preorder.Warner is owned by Time Warner TWX, the parent company of CNNMoney.The missing preorder button illustrates the aggressive stance Amazon is taking in its negotiations with suppliers. Other retailers play hardball too — but Amazon’s gamesmanship is especially visible because it’s online.
Christina Mercando was a busy gal working her way through the eBay product department. Problem was friends and family could never get a hold of her.Some women have the habit of keeping their phones deep in the recesses of their purses, thus never catching that text and missing when their moms call. So one day while Mercando was looking down at the rings on her hands and thinking about her phone dilemma, lightning struck. If women with this habit were to ever know when someone was trying to get a hold of them without digging through their purse, they would simply need to put a ring on it.
Sometimes, numbers say it all.About 50 million tons of electronic waste were generated worldwide in 2012, according to a United Nations report. The same report predicted that number would grow to 65.4 million tons of e-waste by 2017. To put that in context, that’s about 200 Empire State Buildings or, for the more worldly, 11 Great Pyramids of Giza.While some of that waste—from old televisions to smartphones—is refurbished and recycled, a troubling amount of it is shipped to landfills around the world, where often it’s incinerated, leaching toxic chemicals into the environment. In Guiyu, China, a now infamous dumping ground for electronics, studies have found startlingly high levels of lead in children’s bloodstreams.
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In our technology saturated, hyper-connected sci-fi reality, handwriting often seems like a relic of the distant past. Communication happens through email, notes are taken on tablets, and schedules are marked up on smartphones — who has time to scrawl anything out by hand anymore?But perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to forsake the act of putting the pen to the page. Turns out, there are real benefits to be gleaned from the process, benefits that typing can’t replicate.
Business leaders understand the importance of data, but just because you’re checking analytics doesn’t mean you haven’t also overlooked some important metrics.The new world of data isn’t just about gathering new information; all kinds of data that your business collects effortlessly can provide enormous value if you can look at it the right way.Finding the needle in of your haystack of data sources can be a lot more difficult than it might seem. To explore the untapped wells of information that companies should be paying attention to, I recently sat down with Catherine Havasi, co-founder and CEO of Luminoso, one of the most advanced data analytics companies out there today
Every entrepreneur has a reason for starting his or her business. Most of them say it was to follow their passion, or to solve a problem they encountered in their own life. But sometimes, a startup founder’s heart just isn’t in the right place.”You can always tell what drives a business by the story it tells,” said Mark Sephton, a public speaker and personal mentor to entrepreneurs. “Does the business look to give, add value, encourage, inspire, inform and educate? Or does it purely promote and sell its products and services like a bull in a china shop? A successful and sustainable business must be built through and for people.”
Seattle’s city council on Monday unanimously approved an increase in the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, making it the nation’s highest by far.The increase was formally proposed by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, and his spokesman said he intends to sign the ordinance on Tuesday.
Google is planning to investmore than $1 billion in a new fleet of satellites that will expand Internet access to unconnected regions of the world.The company’s decision to purchase 180 small, high-capacity satellites is just the first step in a project that could cost the search giant over $3 billion, reported The Wall Street Journal. The project’s price tag will depend on whether the company decides to embark on a second phase of the project, which would double the number of satellites needed, Google insiders told the WSJ.
When you are looking for a retirement investment strategy, the options available to you can become overwhelming. An IRA will work for most small business owners read: individual contractors, but businesses owners and employees will want to start contributing the max they can to a 401k as soon as possible. The trouble is that, as this most recent financial crisis taught us, a 401k can lose its value rather quickly.Precious metals have been toted as a solution to some of this volatility. These metals are generally viewed as “liquid” and don’t bear many obvious risks. So why aren’t more financial analysts telling you to invest in precious metals?
Dispatches From The Front 