Acquisitions are a risky business. It’s often hard for a big company to make an acquisition create value, especially in the short term. But Wesfarmers has had a number of transformative acquisitions, most notably the $19 billion Coles buyout. Others that come to mind are Bunnings, Westerns Collieries and Howard Smith. Return on equity has risen after every one of them.
Coles and Bunnings in particular are regarded by many analysts to have fuelled strong growth in a tough environment.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s David Errington says, “Bunnings is a standout business for Wesfarmers in terms of expected future growth in sales and earnings.” He notes the aggressive store rollout program, which will see trading space increase by more than 40 per cent over the next four years.
Errington also says he expects Coles to have double-digit earnings growth for at least the next three years.
The use of the company’s surplus capital is likely to be directed towards further acquisition, judging by the company’s strategy day on Wednesday. Wesfarmers has set up a business development office in Hong Kong, fuelling expectations that the company may look offshore for new growth opportunities.
Goyder has taken a leaf from the growth book of the People’s Republic of China. He had a five-year plan for Coles post the 2008 acquisition. With that period now finished and successful, he has moved on to the second five-year plan, according to Commonwealth Bank of Australia analyst Andrew McLennan.
“The focus this time is more towards retailing best practice, however from our perspective, new store expansion plans and further progression on sustainable margin expansion are just as compelling as the technology, channel and efficiency focus,” McLennan says.
As part of Coles’ huge FlyBuys campaign last year, they were reported as sending a card to almost every home in Australia – with the bait of a 10 per cent discount on a customer’s top five grocery products.
It was a smart move because big data is the future of commerce. Those cards give Coles huge insight into customer information and data. Big data is a new front in the battle for market share between the big retailers, such as between Coles and its competitor Woolworths.
Coles has used big data to pick the best locations to build expensive supermarkets but also to better guide their marketing campaigns so that are more specific. According to Deloitte, about a third of companies get the market advantage of using big data, the other two-thirds either don’t know where to start or are completely unaware.
Charles Duhigg’s book “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business” explains how Target in the US is using big data.
Target’s analysts worked out 25 products, such as calcium, that give them the clue one of their shoppers is pregnant. They then send coupons and deal offers before the baby is born to try and change the shopping habits of that new mother into a customer for life.
As flagged in The Australian Financial Review’s StreetTalk column, Wesfarmers is believed to be considering the divestment of some of its property assets.
Deutsche Bank’s Michael Simotas notes: “Management highlighted that it intends to continue using innovative structures to support the sale and leaseback of property in order to focus on driving return on capital.”
All that said, Wesfarmers also faces difficulty, particularly on the mining side of the business which is a drag on the good news from the retail side of the business.
That means it is now be up to the authority for ensuring the on-street parking regulations are adhered to and the council's civil enforcement officers will issue penalty charge notices for breaches.
The authority has also used the changes to remind blue badge holders they can get an extra hour's parking for free in the town's car parks.
In the pay and display car parks, disabled drivers get the added 60 minutes on top of their ticket expiry time and can receive the same benefit in the pay on foot areas if they obtain a free smartcard by registering at the Customer Service Centre, School Drive.
Reminders of the free hour have been put on the new signs which detail the change in parking enforcement and it has been highlighted on the council's website, Facebook page, Twitter feed and in the summer edition of the authority's publication Together Bromsgrove.
“We want to make sure they are doing this to ensure there is a quick turnover of parking spaces and bays including those for taxis and people with disabilities.
“We have also taken the chance to include details about the town’s Blue Badge scheme so our residents, and visitors to the town, will know they get an hour's free parking on top of what they pay for.”
But Bromsgrove District Council has come under fire in the past for not making its car parks free to blue badge holders.
Labour leader, Coun Luke Mallett said: "The move to civil enforcement against illegal parking could improve problem parking in the town but it must be fairly and proportionately applied and will only ever be a part of solving our parking problems locally.
"A bigger issue that contributes to parking issues as well damaging our town centre economy is the cost of parking in Bromsgrove and the charging hours.Click on their website www.artsunlight.com for more information.
2013年5月30日星期四
2013年5月28日星期二
Kalixa scores global MasterCard acquirer test cards gig
The card enables live testing of MasterCard acceptance - including online and PayPass transactions - to ensure a simple, seamless and secure integration process for every new acquirer joining the MasterCard network.
The global initiative further strengthens Kalixa's six year relationship with MasterCard on a variety of services.
"The importance of testing all aspects of an acceptance infrastructure and ensuring systems are working before rollout cannot be overstated," said Kamran Hedjri, COO at Kalixa Group. "We are enormously proud that MasterCard has selected Kalixa Pay to be used by acquirers around the world to test their systems. We look forward to helping support the efficient and smooth roll-out of acquirer services in markets across the world."
"The growing strategic partnership with MasterCard is a testament to Kalixa's next generation payment technology. The issuance of our prepaid card globally is an important milestone for Kalixa," continued Hedjri.
The Kalixa prepaid card, allows testing in live-mode across any kind of payment acceptance including POS, ATM, stand alone and integrated terminals. Foreign currency transactions, and Chip and PIN authentication capabilities can also be tested using the card. Additionally, the Kalixa card will be used during MasterCard's Acquirer-End-to-End-Demonstration (AETED) service, delivered by MasterCard accredited service providers to oil painting reproduction.
HP has been peddling preconfigured VirtualSystem hardware stacks that bundle XenDesktop atop its BladeSystem blade servers for some time. The reference architecture comes in two flavors, and uses Microsoft's Hyper-V server virtualization slicer to contain the PC images.
A single BladeSystem enclosure has sixteen BL460c Gen8 servers, three of which manage the virty PCs and 13 of which hold the desktop hosts. The blades have four D2700 disk arrays linked to them by 6Gb/sec SAS links for a total of 30TB of disk; it can support 1,690 users according to HP.
A full-rack configuration doubles up all the iron to support 3,380 users. If you want to have persistent storage for PC users, HP suggests using the LeftHand P4800 SAN, and if you do so, then you can only do 2,340 users in a rack setup with two BladeCenter enclosures. HP also has reference architectures that put XenDesktop on top of VMware's ESXi hypervisor.
At the Citrix Synergy customer and partner event last week, HP was showing off the ProLiant WS460c Gen8 graphics server blade, which the company previewed back in February aimed specifically at virtualizing high-end workstations with high-end 3D graphics cards from Nvidia. The feeds and speeds of the WS460c Gen8 workstation blade were not available a few months back, but now they are.
The WS460c workstation blade has two Xeon E5 processors and has 16 memory sticks for a maximum memory capacity of 512GB on the server node. The PCI-Express 3.0 mezzanine card slots on the blade can each accept an MXM-style Nvidia GPU, specifically a Quadro 500M or 1000M.
If you need a higher-end GPU, or you want to support more users on a blade with a higher ratio of graphics cards to compute cores, then you can snap an expansion slot onto the WS460c. The expansion slot supports one Quadro 5000 or 6000 series GPU card (like the kind you would really put into a workstation), or up to six of the MXM-style graphics cards that snap into the blade.
A base WS460c workstation blade costs just under $4,000, but that is a just silly configuration with one processor and 2GB of memory. With two eight-core Xeon E5-2670 processors spinning at 2.6GHz and a respectable 256GB of main memory, this baby weighs in at $14,989. A Quadro 500M graphics card for the blade costs $350, and the Quadro 1000M costs $550. The expansion blade can be configured with two Xeon E5s and real memory; with the same processor and memory configuration as in the base blade, the expansion blade costs $13,551. A Quadro 5000 card for this expansion blade runs $2,330, and a Quadro 6000 will cost you $5,100.
If you want more discrete GPUs rather than faster ones, then a six-pack of Quadro 1000 MXM cards costs $7,498 and a six-pack of the Quadro 3000 MXM cards is priced at an $8,498. So, let's go crazy and go all in here. With the top-end MXM cards in the base and expansion blades, that adds up to $38,138. But remember, this is shared infrastructure, and you can allocate more CPUs and GPUs to workstation users who need it and dial it back for those who don't.
With the latest round of announcements, HP is also pushing its 3PAR StoreServ disk arrays, and the usual services to help customers figure out how to make their PC applications mobile while at the same time virtualizing them using XenDesktop.
HP also announced some new thin clients in a blog post. One of these is the mt40 mobile thin client using Advanced Micro Devices' "Richland" APU chip, which also made its debut last week. The t410 thin client (not the same device, but a similar name if you are dyslexic like me) supports the latest Receiver and XenDesktop enhancements aimed at thin clients, too.
The global initiative further strengthens Kalixa's six year relationship with MasterCard on a variety of services.
"The importance of testing all aspects of an acceptance infrastructure and ensuring systems are working before rollout cannot be overstated," said Kamran Hedjri, COO at Kalixa Group. "We are enormously proud that MasterCard has selected Kalixa Pay to be used by acquirers around the world to test their systems. We look forward to helping support the efficient and smooth roll-out of acquirer services in markets across the world."
"The growing strategic partnership with MasterCard is a testament to Kalixa's next generation payment technology. The issuance of our prepaid card globally is an important milestone for Kalixa," continued Hedjri.
The Kalixa prepaid card, allows testing in live-mode across any kind of payment acceptance including POS, ATM, stand alone and integrated terminals. Foreign currency transactions, and Chip and PIN authentication capabilities can also be tested using the card. Additionally, the Kalixa card will be used during MasterCard's Acquirer-End-to-End-Demonstration (AETED) service, delivered by MasterCard accredited service providers to oil painting reproduction.
HP has been peddling preconfigured VirtualSystem hardware stacks that bundle XenDesktop atop its BladeSystem blade servers for some time. The reference architecture comes in two flavors, and uses Microsoft's Hyper-V server virtualization slicer to contain the PC images.
A single BladeSystem enclosure has sixteen BL460c Gen8 servers, three of which manage the virty PCs and 13 of which hold the desktop hosts. The blades have four D2700 disk arrays linked to them by 6Gb/sec SAS links for a total of 30TB of disk; it can support 1,690 users according to HP.
A full-rack configuration doubles up all the iron to support 3,380 users. If you want to have persistent storage for PC users, HP suggests using the LeftHand P4800 SAN, and if you do so, then you can only do 2,340 users in a rack setup with two BladeCenter enclosures. HP also has reference architectures that put XenDesktop on top of VMware's ESXi hypervisor.
At the Citrix Synergy customer and partner event last week, HP was showing off the ProLiant WS460c Gen8 graphics server blade, which the company previewed back in February aimed specifically at virtualizing high-end workstations with high-end 3D graphics cards from Nvidia. The feeds and speeds of the WS460c Gen8 workstation blade were not available a few months back, but now they are.
The WS460c workstation blade has two Xeon E5 processors and has 16 memory sticks for a maximum memory capacity of 512GB on the server node. The PCI-Express 3.0 mezzanine card slots on the blade can each accept an MXM-style Nvidia GPU, specifically a Quadro 500M or 1000M.
If you need a higher-end GPU, or you want to support more users on a blade with a higher ratio of graphics cards to compute cores, then you can snap an expansion slot onto the WS460c. The expansion slot supports one Quadro 5000 or 6000 series GPU card (like the kind you would really put into a workstation), or up to six of the MXM-style graphics cards that snap into the blade.
A base WS460c workstation blade costs just under $4,000, but that is a just silly configuration with one processor and 2GB of memory. With two eight-core Xeon E5-2670 processors spinning at 2.6GHz and a respectable 256GB of main memory, this baby weighs in at $14,989. A Quadro 500M graphics card for the blade costs $350, and the Quadro 1000M costs $550. The expansion blade can be configured with two Xeon E5s and real memory; with the same processor and memory configuration as in the base blade, the expansion blade costs $13,551. A Quadro 5000 card for this expansion blade runs $2,330, and a Quadro 6000 will cost you $5,100.
If you want more discrete GPUs rather than faster ones, then a six-pack of Quadro 1000 MXM cards costs $7,498 and a six-pack of the Quadro 3000 MXM cards is priced at an $8,498. So, let's go crazy and go all in here. With the top-end MXM cards in the base and expansion blades, that adds up to $38,138. But remember, this is shared infrastructure, and you can allocate more CPUs and GPUs to workstation users who need it and dial it back for those who don't.
With the latest round of announcements, HP is also pushing its 3PAR StoreServ disk arrays, and the usual services to help customers figure out how to make their PC applications mobile while at the same time virtualizing them using XenDesktop.
HP also announced some new thin clients in a blog post. One of these is the mt40 mobile thin client using Advanced Micro Devices' "Richland" APU chip, which also made its debut last week. The t410 thin client (not the same device, but a similar name if you are dyslexic like me) supports the latest Receiver and XenDesktop enhancements aimed at thin clients, too.
In Search of the Elusive Zero-Percent Interest Rate Credit Card
Take down the information on the back of each card you have and then visit your issuers' websites. See what deals they're advertising to new members and then start dialing.
Ask reps if they'll extend to you -- a loyal customer -- the same 0 percent offers they're making available to those who aren't yet paying a monthly bill. You might be surprised by the results.
Earlier this year, my wife's work computer was suffering serious issues. I knew we'd have to spend upward of $2,500 for a newer Mac to replace her machine, which neither of us was eager to do. A quick call to an account rep at Barclays got us a 0 percent deal to purchase new equipment that night. We'll pay off the loan months before interest kicks in.
If your knives aren't quite cutting it these days, perhaps you’re thinking of getting the Edge of Glory infomercial sharpener. It claims to make your knives like new.
To check it out, a Consumer Reports tester rounded up pairs of knives: one expensive, one inexpensive, and one serrated, and then he dulled one of each pair. Then the tester used the Edge of Glory to re-sharpen the dulled knives. He then sliced and diced all kinds of food, including oranges, dried sausage, tomatoes, and oil painting reproduction.
He also checked this clai—that Edge of Glory is so precise, it can turn a plastic credit card into a precision-cutting instrument. Though that wouldn’t be recommended for the average chef, the tester was able to cut up a tomato with it.
But depending on how you slice it, Edge of Glory isn’t so glorious. It left rough edges on the knives. And though it did sharpen the inexpensive and expensive knives, it did a better job on the inexpensive one.
The Edge of Glory actually sharpened the cheaper knives better than the more expensive ones, because cheaper knives are made of softer metal, which sharpens more easily. Bottom line: Skip the Edge of Glory unless you want to wow your guests by using a credit card to slice a tomato!
Consumer Reports says a little bit of TLC can keep your more expensive knives in good condition. Always hand wash and dry them right away. And store good knives in a wooden block—never loose in a drawer, where blades can get nicked. Also use a sharpening steel frequently. If the knives do become dull, then it’s time to consider taking them to a professional.
Do you go over your credit-card statement at the end of every month, checking whether you made every single purchase on it? If the answer is no, you’re not alone. According to the Israeli startup Billguard, 90 percent of people never even look at their credit-card statements. At best, they go over the large purchases they made. But all those little impulse buys, the dollars and cents of daily life? They hardly give it a second thought.
As a result, consumers fall victim to fraud. Billguard’s officials say that the average user loses $300 per year from unwanted charges that they don’t know about.
To protect you plastic-wielding shoppers, Billguard developed a platform that allows people to keep track of their bank accounts and credit cards via a website or application. They can look at a list of recent charges and even receive automatic updates any time a suspicious charge shows up.
Billguard says that the most commonly-spotted frauds are credit-card fraud, monthly subscription fees and terms of service that change once a person has signed up for a service. Company officials believe Billguard’s platform has saved users $50 million, in tens of millions of bank and credit-card accounts, in the year since its launch.
When account owners are “stung,” they mostly fall victim to common kinds of fraud. To combat this, Billguard uses crowd-sourcing. When its system spots a suspicious charge, it alerts the account owner. All customers who find a hidden or fraudulent charge on their account report it to the service, which immediately finds and alerts all other users who have the same charge.
Among Billguard’s customers are banks and credit-card companies who use the service for their customers. Raphael Ouzan, co-founder and CTO of Billguard, says that the company gives banks a threefold value: better protection, better end-user experience and a cost savings in the number of customers who contact them to clarify charges. The service is provided for free to the end-users while the banks and the credit-card companies pay for each customer. Billguard also collects a fee from merchants who owe customers their money back.
At Google’s I/O conference earlier this month, it was announced that Billguard’s technology would be integrated into Google Wallet, Google’s virtual moneybag for in-store and online shopping, and that it will also be integrated into the new version of Gmail. Billguard’s platform will serve as an additional layer of protection for users who make online payments by spotting irregularities and “gray” charges. Google’s goal is to make it easier for users to adopt Google Wallet and use it safely. Besides the prestige in working with Google in the security field, Billguard’s larger user base will enable it to improve the quality of its service.
Billguard was established in 2010 by Yaron Samid, the CEO who manages its work in New York, and Raphael Ouzan, who manages its development work in Israel. So far, the company has raised $13 million from a series of prominent investors from Silicon Valley including Bessemer Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, the Founders Fund of Peter Thiel and Sean Parker, and Israeli angel Yaron Galai.
Ask reps if they'll extend to you -- a loyal customer -- the same 0 percent offers they're making available to those who aren't yet paying a monthly bill. You might be surprised by the results.
Earlier this year, my wife's work computer was suffering serious issues. I knew we'd have to spend upward of $2,500 for a newer Mac to replace her machine, which neither of us was eager to do. A quick call to an account rep at Barclays got us a 0 percent deal to purchase new equipment that night. We'll pay off the loan months before interest kicks in.
If your knives aren't quite cutting it these days, perhaps you’re thinking of getting the Edge of Glory infomercial sharpener. It claims to make your knives like new.
To check it out, a Consumer Reports tester rounded up pairs of knives: one expensive, one inexpensive, and one serrated, and then he dulled one of each pair. Then the tester used the Edge of Glory to re-sharpen the dulled knives. He then sliced and diced all kinds of food, including oranges, dried sausage, tomatoes, and oil painting reproduction.
He also checked this clai—that Edge of Glory is so precise, it can turn a plastic credit card into a precision-cutting instrument. Though that wouldn’t be recommended for the average chef, the tester was able to cut up a tomato with it.
But depending on how you slice it, Edge of Glory isn’t so glorious. It left rough edges on the knives. And though it did sharpen the inexpensive and expensive knives, it did a better job on the inexpensive one.
The Edge of Glory actually sharpened the cheaper knives better than the more expensive ones, because cheaper knives are made of softer metal, which sharpens more easily. Bottom line: Skip the Edge of Glory unless you want to wow your guests by using a credit card to slice a tomato!
Consumer Reports says a little bit of TLC can keep your more expensive knives in good condition. Always hand wash and dry them right away. And store good knives in a wooden block—never loose in a drawer, where blades can get nicked. Also use a sharpening steel frequently. If the knives do become dull, then it’s time to consider taking them to a professional.
Do you go over your credit-card statement at the end of every month, checking whether you made every single purchase on it? If the answer is no, you’re not alone. According to the Israeli startup Billguard, 90 percent of people never even look at their credit-card statements. At best, they go over the large purchases they made. But all those little impulse buys, the dollars and cents of daily life? They hardly give it a second thought.
As a result, consumers fall victim to fraud. Billguard’s officials say that the average user loses $300 per year from unwanted charges that they don’t know about.
To protect you plastic-wielding shoppers, Billguard developed a platform that allows people to keep track of their bank accounts and credit cards via a website or application. They can look at a list of recent charges and even receive automatic updates any time a suspicious charge shows up.
Billguard says that the most commonly-spotted frauds are credit-card fraud, monthly subscription fees and terms of service that change once a person has signed up for a service. Company officials believe Billguard’s platform has saved users $50 million, in tens of millions of bank and credit-card accounts, in the year since its launch.
When account owners are “stung,” they mostly fall victim to common kinds of fraud. To combat this, Billguard uses crowd-sourcing. When its system spots a suspicious charge, it alerts the account owner. All customers who find a hidden or fraudulent charge on their account report it to the service, which immediately finds and alerts all other users who have the same charge.
Among Billguard’s customers are banks and credit-card companies who use the service for their customers. Raphael Ouzan, co-founder and CTO of Billguard, says that the company gives banks a threefold value: better protection, better end-user experience and a cost savings in the number of customers who contact them to clarify charges. The service is provided for free to the end-users while the banks and the credit-card companies pay for each customer. Billguard also collects a fee from merchants who owe customers their money back.
At Google’s I/O conference earlier this month, it was announced that Billguard’s technology would be integrated into Google Wallet, Google’s virtual moneybag for in-store and online shopping, and that it will also be integrated into the new version of Gmail. Billguard’s platform will serve as an additional layer of protection for users who make online payments by spotting irregularities and “gray” charges. Google’s goal is to make it easier for users to adopt Google Wallet and use it safely. Besides the prestige in working with Google in the security field, Billguard’s larger user base will enable it to improve the quality of its service.
Billguard was established in 2010 by Yaron Samid, the CEO who manages its work in New York, and Raphael Ouzan, who manages its development work in Israel. So far, the company has raised $13 million from a series of prominent investors from Silicon Valley including Bessemer Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, the Founders Fund of Peter Thiel and Sean Parker, and Israeli angel Yaron Galai.
2013年5月26日星期日
Charitable contributions make bingo legal
All of the ashes he flicked off his cigarette hadn’t fallen to the ground before he dashed across the floor again. It was clamped between his ring and pinky fingers because he held a wad of cash for payouts between the middle and index.
“The bigger the crowd, the faster the pace is going to be,” said Matt West. “Everything kind of comes naturally; you treat people like people, you take their money and you pay them out.”
The 30-year-old has been a runner and caller at bingo parlors for nearly a decade. He said he has worked as an employee at Mr. Bingo, located at Old Business 98 and Tyndall Parkway, since it opened six years ago and has learned the game is “something people do in their spare time.”
West is right. Most bingo parlors are open seven days a week, mornings and evenings. Just about any “spare time” available could be spent playing at the halls — including playing instant winner pull tab games for those who have only one second to spare.
All cigarette smoke and high hopes aside, while state lawmakers have created laws to curb the expansion of gambling, there remains obvious loopholes and little oversight for Air purifier.
Florida laws prohibit a gaming establishment from operating for the sake of gaming. But for bingo, this rule calls for each game to be sponsored by a nonprofit organization that has been in existence for at least three years.
And, because state law requires all proceeds from bingo games to be allocated to sponsoring organizations — minus operating costs — local parlors have donated hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to charities.
Chief Assistant State Attorney Gregory Wilson said bingo owes its legal status to past times, when churches would host bingo games as fundraisers. He said because bingo was established before state gambling laws were created, lawmakers wanted to make sure some exceptions were made to let bingo continue. The caveat was that bingo proceeds must be donated to charity.
However, the state statute that regulates bingo, FS 849.0931, does not require parlors to submit a financial report — to the state or any oversight agency — that shows operating costs and donation amounts.
“We work from trust,” said George Hughes, sponsor’s representative at Bingo Paradise. “We do our thing and they do theirs. We take our (money) to the lodge and then give it out to the people.”
Hughes’ lodge, Ira Lindsey Masonic Lodge 365, has used bingo money to make donations to local causes since 2000.
He said sponsoring games has allowed his lodge to make “sizeable donations” to the community, from giving money to help Franklin County men hit by the oyster crisis to helping fund the late Kayte Karen Taunton Hollingsworth’s trip to India for a life-saving surgical procedure.
“There was a need for my lodge to arrive at some way to make some money, so we can put the money back out on the street,” he added.
However, the quid pro quo relationship operators have with charitable organizations has led some bingo halls to take advantage of what State Attorney Wilson dubbed the “very general guidelines.”
State law requires “no charitable, nonprofit or veterans organization serve as a sponsor of a bingo game or instant bingo conducted by another, but such organization may only be directly involved in the conduct of such a game. …”
In other words, bingo games must be run by the charitable organizations that get the proceeds. However, all five bingo halls in Bay County hire their own paid employees, while the sponsors often watch without direct involvement. This means customers pay to play games and some of the money goes toward paying employees, rather than to supporting charities.
State Attorney Wilson said he interprets the section of law as meaning “they don’t have to be the one calling out the bingo numbers, but there has to be a representative from the civic organization or charity present at the game, doing something.”
Within the general guideline concerning who conducts bingo games, volunteers play bingo and other games — Wilson plays pull tabs — but are not required to operate the games in any way.
State Attorney Wilson: “the vendor has to provide to the charity, a portion of the proceeds. … The exact amount that they have to provide is not specified. But they have to provide some proceeds …”
“They are authorized to deduct all the expenses associated with (playing the game),” he added.
Though the amount of the jackpot is displayed for all to see, how much each game has raised is undisclosed.
And, you can’t determine what the actual overhead is without doing a forensic audit, Wilson said.
“The charities will sometimes ask law enforcement to look and make sure (the law) is being complied with correctly,” he said. “It’s when you have multiple charities that are taking part in (bingo parlor games) and you’ve got one facilitator that’s rotating them out that you have to look a little more closely about how the operation is funded.”
If local law enforcement receives a complaint or perceives fraud, a forensic accountant is assigned in order to verify the parlor is complying with the law.
“The bigger the crowd, the faster the pace is going to be,” said Matt West. “Everything kind of comes naturally; you treat people like people, you take their money and you pay them out.”
The 30-year-old has been a runner and caller at bingo parlors for nearly a decade. He said he has worked as an employee at Mr. Bingo, located at Old Business 98 and Tyndall Parkway, since it opened six years ago and has learned the game is “something people do in their spare time.”
West is right. Most bingo parlors are open seven days a week, mornings and evenings. Just about any “spare time” available could be spent playing at the halls — including playing instant winner pull tab games for those who have only one second to spare.
All cigarette smoke and high hopes aside, while state lawmakers have created laws to curb the expansion of gambling, there remains obvious loopholes and little oversight for Air purifier.
Florida laws prohibit a gaming establishment from operating for the sake of gaming. But for bingo, this rule calls for each game to be sponsored by a nonprofit organization that has been in existence for at least three years.
And, because state law requires all proceeds from bingo games to be allocated to sponsoring organizations — minus operating costs — local parlors have donated hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to charities.
Chief Assistant State Attorney Gregory Wilson said bingo owes its legal status to past times, when churches would host bingo games as fundraisers. He said because bingo was established before state gambling laws were created, lawmakers wanted to make sure some exceptions were made to let bingo continue. The caveat was that bingo proceeds must be donated to charity.
However, the state statute that regulates bingo, FS 849.0931, does not require parlors to submit a financial report — to the state or any oversight agency — that shows operating costs and donation amounts.
“We work from trust,” said George Hughes, sponsor’s representative at Bingo Paradise. “We do our thing and they do theirs. We take our (money) to the lodge and then give it out to the people.”
Hughes’ lodge, Ira Lindsey Masonic Lodge 365, has used bingo money to make donations to local causes since 2000.
He said sponsoring games has allowed his lodge to make “sizeable donations” to the community, from giving money to help Franklin County men hit by the oyster crisis to helping fund the late Kayte Karen Taunton Hollingsworth’s trip to India for a life-saving surgical procedure.
“There was a need for my lodge to arrive at some way to make some money, so we can put the money back out on the street,” he added.
However, the quid pro quo relationship operators have with charitable organizations has led some bingo halls to take advantage of what State Attorney Wilson dubbed the “very general guidelines.”
State law requires “no charitable, nonprofit or veterans organization serve as a sponsor of a bingo game or instant bingo conducted by another, but such organization may only be directly involved in the conduct of such a game. …”
In other words, bingo games must be run by the charitable organizations that get the proceeds. However, all five bingo halls in Bay County hire their own paid employees, while the sponsors often watch without direct involvement. This means customers pay to play games and some of the money goes toward paying employees, rather than to supporting charities.
State Attorney Wilson said he interprets the section of law as meaning “they don’t have to be the one calling out the bingo numbers, but there has to be a representative from the civic organization or charity present at the game, doing something.”
Within the general guideline concerning who conducts bingo games, volunteers play bingo and other games — Wilson plays pull tabs — but are not required to operate the games in any way.
State Attorney Wilson: “the vendor has to provide to the charity, a portion of the proceeds. … The exact amount that they have to provide is not specified. But they have to provide some proceeds …”
“They are authorized to deduct all the expenses associated with (playing the game),” he added.
Though the amount of the jackpot is displayed for all to see, how much each game has raised is undisclosed.
And, you can’t determine what the actual overhead is without doing a forensic audit, Wilson said.
“The charities will sometimes ask law enforcement to look and make sure (the law) is being complied with correctly,” he said. “It’s when you have multiple charities that are taking part in (bingo parlor games) and you’ve got one facilitator that’s rotating them out that you have to look a little more closely about how the operation is funded.”
If local law enforcement receives a complaint or perceives fraud, a forensic accountant is assigned in order to verify the parlor is complying with the law.
2013年5月23日星期四
Risky to leave one’s MyKad unattended
It is a must for those who borrow the department’s wheelchairs to leave their identity cards in a small plastic container placed on the edge of the counter. This counter, which is sometimes unmanned, is located at the Customs checkpoint just a few steps from the main exit door of the ferry terminal.
There is no record book to jot down the particulars of the borrower or the movement of the wheelchairs meant for the disabled and elderly.
Most borrowers require the wheelchairs to send their dependents to catch the ferries and this usually takes between 30 and 45 minutes. Upon returning the wheelchair, one can proceed to the counter to retrieve his or her MyKad without any hassle.
While I appreciate very much this community service provided by the department, I worry about the safety of my MyKad as the container is placed in an open area where droves of locals, tourists and foreign workers pass by casually each day. It only takes a few seconds to grab the cards and oil painting reproduction.
Some time ago, I left my MyKad at the counter after borrowing a wheelchair for my mum. Since the last ferry arrived in Kuah after 8pm, the office had already closed by the time I returned to the office and I was unable to retrieve my identity card despite leaving the wheelchair outside the office. The next morning, I called up the office and told the officer-in-charge it was the first night I slept without having my MyKad with me. I said I would hold the office responsible if my identity card had been wrongly used. He apologised and told me to collect it. When I told him I stayed about 40 km from the complex, he suggested that I get someone to collect it for me.
A friend who subsequently collected my MyKad said he just removed it from the counter without anyone stopping him.
Once, when no one was looking, I dropped my call card instead of my MyKad and hotfooted off with the wheelchair to the berth. Half and hour later, I returned and collected my call card.
I think the department needs to review their system and come up with a better approach. My identity card means a lot to me and I am sure it is even more valuable than Lady Gaga’s designer wheelchair.
Wandering through the stalls and out of cash? Not to worry: the mobile revolution is hitting farmer’s markets this summer.
Square, a small device that plugs into a smart phone or tablet, gives small business — like those running stalls at farmers’ markets — a way to accept debit and credit card payments.
When combined with their free downloadable app, payments are deposited directly into the vendor’s bank account the next business day.
It’s a small and simple way for entrepreneurs to take plastic payments without getting bogged down with the contracts and monthly fees associated with traditional card terminals.
“Square is built of hardware people already know how to use … making training and setup simple and intuitive,” wrote spokesperson Lindsay Wiese in an email.
The hardware and software is free, she wrote, although there is a fee of 2.75 per cent per swipe.
“It’s amazing,” said Adam Mallory, co-owner of Crown Flora Studio in Parkdale and an early adopter of the technology.
“We were worried at first that people would be weirded out that we’re swiping their card on our phones or our iPad. But there’s been no issue with it at all,” he said.
Along with partner Davis Khounnoraj, Mallory started out by selling their floral arrangements and accessories at craft shows and online, and says they couldn’t commit to the contracts associated with traditional credit card payment systems.
“Not only are you paying for the terminal, you’re also paying special fees for Visa. And if it’s a special (points) Visa, you get dinged for that as well,” he said. “With Square it’s great. You pay one percentage no matter what.”
The Square register app also offers businesses advanced analytics typically only available to big-box retailers.
“They have the data that can help them make the best decisions when planning inventory, hours, staffing, or even if it makes sense to run promotions,” said Wiese.
Mallory says it keeps them a lot more organized. They now know ahead of time when they’ll be getting busy and can anticipate it. They also love being able to text or email receipts to their customers — with photos appended for those who purchase online.
There is no record book to jot down the particulars of the borrower or the movement of the wheelchairs meant for the disabled and elderly.
Most borrowers require the wheelchairs to send their dependents to catch the ferries and this usually takes between 30 and 45 minutes. Upon returning the wheelchair, one can proceed to the counter to retrieve his or her MyKad without any hassle.
While I appreciate very much this community service provided by the department, I worry about the safety of my MyKad as the container is placed in an open area where droves of locals, tourists and foreign workers pass by casually each day. It only takes a few seconds to grab the cards and oil painting reproduction.
Some time ago, I left my MyKad at the counter after borrowing a wheelchair for my mum. Since the last ferry arrived in Kuah after 8pm, the office had already closed by the time I returned to the office and I was unable to retrieve my identity card despite leaving the wheelchair outside the office. The next morning, I called up the office and told the officer-in-charge it was the first night I slept without having my MyKad with me. I said I would hold the office responsible if my identity card had been wrongly used. He apologised and told me to collect it. When I told him I stayed about 40 km from the complex, he suggested that I get someone to collect it for me.
A friend who subsequently collected my MyKad said he just removed it from the counter without anyone stopping him.
Once, when no one was looking, I dropped my call card instead of my MyKad and hotfooted off with the wheelchair to the berth. Half and hour later, I returned and collected my call card.
I think the department needs to review their system and come up with a better approach. My identity card means a lot to me and I am sure it is even more valuable than Lady Gaga’s designer wheelchair.
Wandering through the stalls and out of cash? Not to worry: the mobile revolution is hitting farmer’s markets this summer.
Square, a small device that plugs into a smart phone or tablet, gives small business — like those running stalls at farmers’ markets — a way to accept debit and credit card payments.
When combined with their free downloadable app, payments are deposited directly into the vendor’s bank account the next business day.
It’s a small and simple way for entrepreneurs to take plastic payments without getting bogged down with the contracts and monthly fees associated with traditional card terminals.
“Square is built of hardware people already know how to use … making training and setup simple and intuitive,” wrote spokesperson Lindsay Wiese in an email.
The hardware and software is free, she wrote, although there is a fee of 2.75 per cent per swipe.
“It’s amazing,” said Adam Mallory, co-owner of Crown Flora Studio in Parkdale and an early adopter of the technology.
“We were worried at first that people would be weirded out that we’re swiping their card on our phones or our iPad. But there’s been no issue with it at all,” he said.
Along with partner Davis Khounnoraj, Mallory started out by selling their floral arrangements and accessories at craft shows and online, and says they couldn’t commit to the contracts associated with traditional credit card payment systems.
“Not only are you paying for the terminal, you’re also paying special fees for Visa. And if it’s a special (points) Visa, you get dinged for that as well,” he said. “With Square it’s great. You pay one percentage no matter what.”
The Square register app also offers businesses advanced analytics typically only available to big-box retailers.
“They have the data that can help them make the best decisions when planning inventory, hours, staffing, or even if it makes sense to run promotions,” said Wiese.
Mallory says it keeps them a lot more organized. They now know ahead of time when they’ll be getting busy and can anticipate it. They also love being able to text or email receipts to their customers — with photos appended for those who purchase online.
2013年5月21日星期二
Assigning spiritual brews to 1990s card sets
Last week, as we at SB Nation gathered to spit nonsense about beer, I stumbled upon the idea that beers, as they stand today, bear lots of similarities with baseball cards of the 1990s. Throughout most of their histories, both beer and baseball cards were very very simple things. Then the craft brew revolution/baseball card boom was brought forth, and both industries exploded into a big weird diverse pastiche.
Baseball card companies got carried away by all the "collectability" and gimmickry and price-guide nonsense, and as a consequence, almost none of them make baseball cards today. The craft-brew scene breeds plenty of nonsense in its own right; thankfully, it seems to be doing well.
My point is this: when I was a kid, I collected baseball cards, pored over the stats on the back, and traded with friends. As an adult, I drink beers, pore over lists and reviews, and drink and talk about them with friends. Beers are baseball cards I can drink.
By the mid-'90s, baseball card collectors began fretting over the concept of "collectability," mostly because card companies told them to. The idea was that a baseball card was more valuable if there were only 50,000 of it in existence. The set that ushered in this mode of thinking, more than any other, was 1991 Donruss. These cards were everywhere. Donruss made 67 trillion billion trillion of them. Trading them with your friends was useless, because every person in North America owned the Lenny Dykstra/Dale Murphy "DR. DIRT AND MR. CLEAN" in quadruplicate.
Pretty much everyone who took baseball cards seriously in the 1990s was a total mark, myself included. If you want to spot the marks in the craft brew world, look for the people who roll their eyes at Sam Adams' Boston Lager. Yes, it's everywhere, and just like 1991 Donruss, you can probably find packs of them hanging from a peg at room temperature in the toy aisle of oil painting reproduction.
But it's fine! There are better and more interesting beers out there, and hopefully you are in a position to procure those beers. Boston Lager is available in virtually any gas station, though, and if a gas station is all you've got, you'll be happy it's there.
Even in the 1990s heyday of completely inflating arbitrary values for baseball cards, a complete set of 1991 Donruss was only listed at about $12, which meant every card was "worth" an average of 1.5 cents. But just as Boston Lager is not meant for snobs, 1991 Donruss was not made for anyone who gave a damn about the arbitrary space-borne pseudo-values assigned to baseball cards. Sometimes you want to open a bottle and find a perfectly drinkable beer, and sometimes you want to open a pack of cards and find a puzzle piece of Willie Stargell's groin.
Every bottle of Guinness contains a plastic widget, and at age 19, my friend and I grew so consumed with finding out what a widget looked like that we broke it by throwing it off the balcony. Years earlier I would tear apart packs of 1995 Fleer Ultra, which promised an insert card in every single pack.
I was underwhelmed in both cases, because the widget is plastic and translucent white and looks like a bottle fetus, and the Fleer inserts sort of devalued the nature of an insert card. "Insert" used to mean a special set of cards you'd find once in 2,000 packs, like Donruss' Elite Series. This cheapened them to the point at which we were left with an insert set called "On-Base Leaders." This card is worth negative money.
Nonetheless, I bought tons and tons of Fleer Ultra, just as I've drank tons and tons of Guinness. Both are kind of fake-upscale and hold a special place in my heart. Sometimes I just really wanna drink a Guinness.
At every beer festival there's one stand manned by a guy who has been brewing in his friend's garage for four months. Your cup either has no head, or is 85% head, depending on how he screwed up, because he definitely did screw up. A half-inch of residue sits at the bottom of the cup. "Heh, I'm kind of a hop-head," he says. You take a gulp. It tastes like he dissolved five bouillon cubes' worth of earwax in some Michelob Ultra.
"Yeah, me and my buddy, we're gonna start up our own brew house on Floyd Street. Just gotta wait for the serving license from the city." He has not and will never mail his application for said license, because he's not really a having-stamps kind of person.
Police-issued baseball cards were also freely distributed, and they were the very worst baseball cards. They look like they were made for prisoners, and they weren't even cut down to standard card size, so they wouldn't fit in any of your sleeves or binders.
They invariably had some sort of "don't do drugs or else you will die and the Earth will explode and kill your dog" message on the back. Back then, our eight-year-old selves would look at them and shudder at the doom that might befall us in the future. Today, we look at this cup with a mouthful of liquefied tree bark, realize we're completely hammered at three in the afternoon, and wonder how the hell we got there.
We should all thank the sports card industry for collapsing under the weight of its bullshit, because I can't imagine the tomfoolery we'd be experiencing if they kept pushing the envelope. At some point they probably would have started selling giant wooden wagon wheels with "RAUL MONDESI" burnished on the spokes. Before they crashed and burned, Pinnacle did manage to market a thing called "Cards In A Can." That's it. A pack of cards inside of a can. Your stepdad needs somewhere to ash out his GT Ones, and you need some four-buck piece of chintz that will make you feel loved. Two birds, one stone.
My only real question is, "WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY," which is the same question I would ask of Brew Dog's Tactical Nuclear Penguin. Its ABV is 32%, which is about 2.5 times as strong as wine, and not all that far off from most liquors. I've never had it, because they charge 70 damn dollars for a bottle.
If this beer were steeped in some sort of tradition, or marketed with some air of dignity, I might not be so down on it. Instead it's called Tactical Nuclear Penguin, which is the most craft-beer name. May as well call it Captain Zombie Baconpirate Ninja Stout Webbrowser.
So yes, 2010s craft beer and 1990s baseball cards both suffer from gimmickry, but at least modern beer keeps that grade of bullpucky at the margins. Cards In A Can was front and center. Oh God, and then you'd hear collectors say things like, "you shouldn't open the cans, they'll lose their value." Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God I ****ing hate the baseball card industry so much.
Baseball card companies got carried away by all the "collectability" and gimmickry and price-guide nonsense, and as a consequence, almost none of them make baseball cards today. The craft-brew scene breeds plenty of nonsense in its own right; thankfully, it seems to be doing well.
My point is this: when I was a kid, I collected baseball cards, pored over the stats on the back, and traded with friends. As an adult, I drink beers, pore over lists and reviews, and drink and talk about them with friends. Beers are baseball cards I can drink.
By the mid-'90s, baseball card collectors began fretting over the concept of "collectability," mostly because card companies told them to. The idea was that a baseball card was more valuable if there were only 50,000 of it in existence. The set that ushered in this mode of thinking, more than any other, was 1991 Donruss. These cards were everywhere. Donruss made 67 trillion billion trillion of them. Trading them with your friends was useless, because every person in North America owned the Lenny Dykstra/Dale Murphy "DR. DIRT AND MR. CLEAN" in quadruplicate.
Pretty much everyone who took baseball cards seriously in the 1990s was a total mark, myself included. If you want to spot the marks in the craft brew world, look for the people who roll their eyes at Sam Adams' Boston Lager. Yes, it's everywhere, and just like 1991 Donruss, you can probably find packs of them hanging from a peg at room temperature in the toy aisle of oil painting reproduction.
But it's fine! There are better and more interesting beers out there, and hopefully you are in a position to procure those beers. Boston Lager is available in virtually any gas station, though, and if a gas station is all you've got, you'll be happy it's there.
Even in the 1990s heyday of completely inflating arbitrary values for baseball cards, a complete set of 1991 Donruss was only listed at about $12, which meant every card was "worth" an average of 1.5 cents. But just as Boston Lager is not meant for snobs, 1991 Donruss was not made for anyone who gave a damn about the arbitrary space-borne pseudo-values assigned to baseball cards. Sometimes you want to open a bottle and find a perfectly drinkable beer, and sometimes you want to open a pack of cards and find a puzzle piece of Willie Stargell's groin.
Every bottle of Guinness contains a plastic widget, and at age 19, my friend and I grew so consumed with finding out what a widget looked like that we broke it by throwing it off the balcony. Years earlier I would tear apart packs of 1995 Fleer Ultra, which promised an insert card in every single pack.
I was underwhelmed in both cases, because the widget is plastic and translucent white and looks like a bottle fetus, and the Fleer inserts sort of devalued the nature of an insert card. "Insert" used to mean a special set of cards you'd find once in 2,000 packs, like Donruss' Elite Series. This cheapened them to the point at which we were left with an insert set called "On-Base Leaders." This card is worth negative money.
Nonetheless, I bought tons and tons of Fleer Ultra, just as I've drank tons and tons of Guinness. Both are kind of fake-upscale and hold a special place in my heart. Sometimes I just really wanna drink a Guinness.
At every beer festival there's one stand manned by a guy who has been brewing in his friend's garage for four months. Your cup either has no head, or is 85% head, depending on how he screwed up, because he definitely did screw up. A half-inch of residue sits at the bottom of the cup. "Heh, I'm kind of a hop-head," he says. You take a gulp. It tastes like he dissolved five bouillon cubes' worth of earwax in some Michelob Ultra.
"Yeah, me and my buddy, we're gonna start up our own brew house on Floyd Street. Just gotta wait for the serving license from the city." He has not and will never mail his application for said license, because he's not really a having-stamps kind of person.
Police-issued baseball cards were also freely distributed, and they were the very worst baseball cards. They look like they were made for prisoners, and they weren't even cut down to standard card size, so they wouldn't fit in any of your sleeves or binders.
They invariably had some sort of "don't do drugs or else you will die and the Earth will explode and kill your dog" message on the back. Back then, our eight-year-old selves would look at them and shudder at the doom that might befall us in the future. Today, we look at this cup with a mouthful of liquefied tree bark, realize we're completely hammered at three in the afternoon, and wonder how the hell we got there.
We should all thank the sports card industry for collapsing under the weight of its bullshit, because I can't imagine the tomfoolery we'd be experiencing if they kept pushing the envelope. At some point they probably would have started selling giant wooden wagon wheels with "RAUL MONDESI" burnished on the spokes. Before they crashed and burned, Pinnacle did manage to market a thing called "Cards In A Can." That's it. A pack of cards inside of a can. Your stepdad needs somewhere to ash out his GT Ones, and you need some four-buck piece of chintz that will make you feel loved. Two birds, one stone.
My only real question is, "WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY," which is the same question I would ask of Brew Dog's Tactical Nuclear Penguin. Its ABV is 32%, which is about 2.5 times as strong as wine, and not all that far off from most liquors. I've never had it, because they charge 70 damn dollars for a bottle.
If this beer were steeped in some sort of tradition, or marketed with some air of dignity, I might not be so down on it. Instead it's called Tactical Nuclear Penguin, which is the most craft-beer name. May as well call it Captain Zombie Baconpirate Ninja Stout Webbrowser.
So yes, 2010s craft beer and 1990s baseball cards both suffer from gimmickry, but at least modern beer keeps that grade of bullpucky at the margins. Cards In A Can was front and center. Oh God, and then you'd hear collectors say things like, "you shouldn't open the cans, they'll lose their value." Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God I ****ing hate the baseball card industry so much.
2013年5月20日星期一
Year of the small(er) business
Despite budget uncertainties, this year’s ITEC seems likely to gather most of the usual military, government and academic players. What may be more surprising is the presence from the military training and simulation industry as large businesses hold off or scale back on conferences, opening the door for smaller companies at the show.
“The large companies are retrenching in some ways, and picking their shows. This is a matter of course — they are being very selective. In many cases, they’re cutting shows out of their portfolio for the next year or two until they get more certainty at home,” said retired Rear Adm. James Robb, head of the National Training and Simulation Association, which puts on the conference along with Clarion Events.
Two major players in the industry that will not be attending are Cubic and Raytheon, who pulled out of the show but have shown considerable presence in the past.
“The big companies come in and they have great quality, great capabilities, but in some ways, those big-ticket items become less affordable in this environment,” Robb said.
Flat or shrinking budgets across much of Europe and the U.S. mean governments and militaries are reducing live training hours, cutting funding to training and maintenance, and seeking cheaper alternatives for training and oil painting reproduction when possible.
ITEC organizers have been reaching out to smaller companies that have not previously attended, hoping to counter the loss of big companies that can pull out of conferences to save money and weather the budget storm. It’s also a way to reflect the changing demands and priorities of purchasers. Smaller solutions may appeal to government and military representatives from smaller countries that have smaller budgets and are seeking smaller transactions, Robb said.
“They probably can’t afford the giant new simulator, but they’re looking for software, or are looking for things with low price points,” he said. “We have to represent that new demographic.”
Attendees at both ITEC in Rome and at the upcoming I/ITSEC in Orlando, Fla., can expect to see a push on smaller companies, though large companies are likely to return or increase their presence once the budgets are more stable.
A patent filed by Apple seems to suggest that the company is working on a type of invertible ear tip for its headphones that is part of a plan designed to improve the user's comfort.
The patent seems to suggest that a user could be given various accessories with their Apple headphones that they can chose to use to produce a pair of headphones that they find most comfortable.
The patent, available to read here, mentions suggests that: "To improve a user's comfort, a headset or headphone may include one or more elements operative to provide a pleasant interface between the audio components of the headset (e.g., the ear piece) and the user's ears."
The patent mentions various types of earpieces, including over-the-ear and in-the-ear earpiece. All these earpieces are designed to "provide a compliant fit against the user’s ear".
"To provide a comfortable fit for the user, the ear piece may include a compliant outer portion operative to adjust to the shape of the user’s ear, thus providing a firm and secure fit that remains comfortable. For example, the compliant outer portion may include a tubular structure coupled to the ear piece and forming a flexible structure surrounding the ear piece," according to the patent.
"The ear piece may be operative to be placed in the user's ear. To improve the fit of the ear piece within the user's ear, the ear piece may be substantially surrounded by a compliant element. The compliant element may include a curved portion extending away from the ear piece such that the curved portion is placed in contact with the user's ear when the ear piece is inserted. In some embodiments, the compliant element may be larger than the user's ear such that the compliant element may elastically deform, creating an interference fit between the user's ear and the ear piece," writes Apple.
Apple has already launched it's EarPod headphones, which the company claimed were designed for a better more comfortable fit, and the patent could have been filed in relation to these headphones. However, the reference to in-ear and over-ear solutions may suggest that Apple has more designs up its sleeve.
“The large companies are retrenching in some ways, and picking their shows. This is a matter of course — they are being very selective. In many cases, they’re cutting shows out of their portfolio for the next year or two until they get more certainty at home,” said retired Rear Adm. James Robb, head of the National Training and Simulation Association, which puts on the conference along with Clarion Events.
Two major players in the industry that will not be attending are Cubic and Raytheon, who pulled out of the show but have shown considerable presence in the past.
“The big companies come in and they have great quality, great capabilities, but in some ways, those big-ticket items become less affordable in this environment,” Robb said.
Flat or shrinking budgets across much of Europe and the U.S. mean governments and militaries are reducing live training hours, cutting funding to training and maintenance, and seeking cheaper alternatives for training and oil painting reproduction when possible.
ITEC organizers have been reaching out to smaller companies that have not previously attended, hoping to counter the loss of big companies that can pull out of conferences to save money and weather the budget storm. It’s also a way to reflect the changing demands and priorities of purchasers. Smaller solutions may appeal to government and military representatives from smaller countries that have smaller budgets and are seeking smaller transactions, Robb said.
“They probably can’t afford the giant new simulator, but they’re looking for software, or are looking for things with low price points,” he said. “We have to represent that new demographic.”
Attendees at both ITEC in Rome and at the upcoming I/ITSEC in Orlando, Fla., can expect to see a push on smaller companies, though large companies are likely to return or increase their presence once the budgets are more stable.
A patent filed by Apple seems to suggest that the company is working on a type of invertible ear tip for its headphones that is part of a plan designed to improve the user's comfort.
The patent seems to suggest that a user could be given various accessories with their Apple headphones that they can chose to use to produce a pair of headphones that they find most comfortable.
The patent, available to read here, mentions suggests that: "To improve a user's comfort, a headset or headphone may include one or more elements operative to provide a pleasant interface between the audio components of the headset (e.g., the ear piece) and the user's ears."
The patent mentions various types of earpieces, including over-the-ear and in-the-ear earpiece. All these earpieces are designed to "provide a compliant fit against the user’s ear".
"To provide a comfortable fit for the user, the ear piece may include a compliant outer portion operative to adjust to the shape of the user’s ear, thus providing a firm and secure fit that remains comfortable. For example, the compliant outer portion may include a tubular structure coupled to the ear piece and forming a flexible structure surrounding the ear piece," according to the patent.
"The ear piece may be operative to be placed in the user's ear. To improve the fit of the ear piece within the user's ear, the ear piece may be substantially surrounded by a compliant element. The compliant element may include a curved portion extending away from the ear piece such that the curved portion is placed in contact with the user's ear when the ear piece is inserted. In some embodiments, the compliant element may be larger than the user's ear such that the compliant element may elastically deform, creating an interference fit between the user's ear and the ear piece," writes Apple.
Apple has already launched it's EarPod headphones, which the company claimed were designed for a better more comfortable fit, and the patent could have been filed in relation to these headphones. However, the reference to in-ear and over-ear solutions may suggest that Apple has more designs up its sleeve.
2013年5月19日星期日
Diebold to showcase emerging technology
As consumers continue to demand more from financial institutions than ever before—instantaneous service, enhanced convenience and more control of their money—Diebold, Incorporated, a global leader in providing integrated self-service solutions, is meeting these demands with emerging technology that is transforming the self-service channel and the way consumers bank.
Diebold will showcase its Millennial-inspired automated teller machine (ATM) concept and two-way video technology, Concierge Video Services at the 2013 Cards & Payments Middle East, the region's largest smart card, payments and ID card event, on May 14-15 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre in Dubai, UAE.
The Millennial-inspired ATM concept integrates mobile devices, allowing consumers to complete secure, card-less transactions. The ATM features a conceptual user interface that enables touch gestures, such as flick and drag which are commonly used with smart phones and tablet devices.
Card-less withdrawals and person-to-person payments are two possible transaction scenarios via the Millennial-inspired ATM concept. To complete a card-less withdrawal, preregistered bank customer could scan the ATM's QR code using their smart phones. When the devices sync, a transaction screen would appear on the smart phone and then the user could select a withdrawal amount. A one-time code would then be sent to the smart phone, which the customer enters on the ATM screen to authenticate the transaction and receives cash. In addition, pre-staging a transaction that authorizes access to cash by a third party would be another possible transaction scenario. The customer would simply input the payment amount and recipient's contact information, which could easily be selected directly from his or her phone's contact list. Then the recipient would receive a one-time code that could be used at an ATM or branch to oil painting reproduction.
Diebold will also showcase its Concierge Video Services, which enables users to connect face-to-face with the financial institution's customer service representatives via two-way video. During transactions, consumers have the option to initiate a video call to customer service representatives to complete activities that are not traditionally conducted at the ATM, such as account maintenance, new account setup and savings product renewals. This immediate access to support enriches consumers' ATM experiences and saves them time.
"Consumers demand speed and convenience, but also a more personalized banking experience. Bringing video support and other emerging technology to the ATM offers financial institutions the ability to enhance their self-service capabilities and improve user experiences," said Dave Wetzel, Diebold vice president and managing director, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). "Diebold partners with financial institutions to deploy technology that meets consumers evolving demands and also the business priorities of the intuition."
In last week's On the Spot column, letter writer Nancy Jones said she was going to London and expressed concern about whether her credit cards would work because they are not Chip and PIN (personal identification number). She said she didn't want to carry a load of cash. What should she do? It turned out to be a more complicated answer than I expected, but I did find a card that I think will work.
The issue with many U.S. credit cards is that they use a magnetic stripe. In many parts of Europe, Asia and Latin America, the standard is a smart card or EMV, short for Europay, MasterCard and Visa. Many of those cards use a PIN.
U.S. cards are beginning to come with a smart chip, but they often are Chip and Signature cards — that is, instead of using a PIN, you sign your card slip and the signatures are compared. David Hogan, executive director with Heartland Payment Systems, one of the largest credit-card processors in the U.S., told me a prominent retailer told him, "'Dave, can't remember the last time we hired a handwriting expert.'"
Before you begin your quest for such a card, let me note that I've used my magnetic stripe card in Europe and Asia within the last year and had issues only once — at the unmanned London Tube kiosk at Paddington Station — and a request for a smart card with a PIN only once when I was making a purchase at a mobile phone store.
So before I made myself crazy, I decided to follow the advice of Seth Eisen, a vice president at MasterCard: He suggested checking your credit cards and calling to see whether they were smart cards.
The results: None of the cards I carry (American Express, Visa and MasterCard) has the chip. One card company told me it could give me a PIN but also said the card would act like a cash advance card, and I would start accruing big interest and transaction charges right away. That is not what I wanted.
Travelers who go abroad need to have alternatives — money tools, I call them — in case they get into a jam. Cash works (U.S. plus the small amount of foreign currency you'll change before you go); sometimes, traveler's checks work. Debit cards used in ATMs usually work, although you may incur foreign transaction fees. Magnetic stripe cards often work, but again, watch out for those fees. And sometimes a smart card with a PIN will work, but you can run into problems using it for online purchases.
As technology changes, this discussion may become moot. "Some places might skip the PIN-versus-Signature debate altogether," said Rick Clemmer, chief executive of NXP Semiconductors, whose chips are used in cards and passports. They'll go to a smartphone that uses NFC, or near field communications, and provides a "contactless" purchase experience.
Diebold will showcase its Millennial-inspired automated teller machine (ATM) concept and two-way video technology, Concierge Video Services at the 2013 Cards & Payments Middle East, the region's largest smart card, payments and ID card event, on May 14-15 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre in Dubai, UAE.
The Millennial-inspired ATM concept integrates mobile devices, allowing consumers to complete secure, card-less transactions. The ATM features a conceptual user interface that enables touch gestures, such as flick and drag which are commonly used with smart phones and tablet devices.
Card-less withdrawals and person-to-person payments are two possible transaction scenarios via the Millennial-inspired ATM concept. To complete a card-less withdrawal, preregistered bank customer could scan the ATM's QR code using their smart phones. When the devices sync, a transaction screen would appear on the smart phone and then the user could select a withdrawal amount. A one-time code would then be sent to the smart phone, which the customer enters on the ATM screen to authenticate the transaction and receives cash. In addition, pre-staging a transaction that authorizes access to cash by a third party would be another possible transaction scenario. The customer would simply input the payment amount and recipient's contact information, which could easily be selected directly from his or her phone's contact list. Then the recipient would receive a one-time code that could be used at an ATM or branch to oil painting reproduction.
Diebold will also showcase its Concierge Video Services, which enables users to connect face-to-face with the financial institution's customer service representatives via two-way video. During transactions, consumers have the option to initiate a video call to customer service representatives to complete activities that are not traditionally conducted at the ATM, such as account maintenance, new account setup and savings product renewals. This immediate access to support enriches consumers' ATM experiences and saves them time.
"Consumers demand speed and convenience, but also a more personalized banking experience. Bringing video support and other emerging technology to the ATM offers financial institutions the ability to enhance their self-service capabilities and improve user experiences," said Dave Wetzel, Diebold vice president and managing director, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). "Diebold partners with financial institutions to deploy technology that meets consumers evolving demands and also the business priorities of the intuition."
In last week's On the Spot column, letter writer Nancy Jones said she was going to London and expressed concern about whether her credit cards would work because they are not Chip and PIN (personal identification number). She said she didn't want to carry a load of cash. What should she do? It turned out to be a more complicated answer than I expected, but I did find a card that I think will work.
The issue with many U.S. credit cards is that they use a magnetic stripe. In many parts of Europe, Asia and Latin America, the standard is a smart card or EMV, short for Europay, MasterCard and Visa. Many of those cards use a PIN.
U.S. cards are beginning to come with a smart chip, but they often are Chip and Signature cards — that is, instead of using a PIN, you sign your card slip and the signatures are compared. David Hogan, executive director with Heartland Payment Systems, one of the largest credit-card processors in the U.S., told me a prominent retailer told him, "'Dave, can't remember the last time we hired a handwriting expert.'"
Before you begin your quest for such a card, let me note that I've used my magnetic stripe card in Europe and Asia within the last year and had issues only once — at the unmanned London Tube kiosk at Paddington Station — and a request for a smart card with a PIN only once when I was making a purchase at a mobile phone store.
So before I made myself crazy, I decided to follow the advice of Seth Eisen, a vice president at MasterCard: He suggested checking your credit cards and calling to see whether they were smart cards.
The results: None of the cards I carry (American Express, Visa and MasterCard) has the chip. One card company told me it could give me a PIN but also said the card would act like a cash advance card, and I would start accruing big interest and transaction charges right away. That is not what I wanted.
Travelers who go abroad need to have alternatives — money tools, I call them — in case they get into a jam. Cash works (U.S. plus the small amount of foreign currency you'll change before you go); sometimes, traveler's checks work. Debit cards used in ATMs usually work, although you may incur foreign transaction fees. Magnetic stripe cards often work, but again, watch out for those fees. And sometimes a smart card with a PIN will work, but you can run into problems using it for online purchases.
As technology changes, this discussion may become moot. "Some places might skip the PIN-versus-Signature debate altogether," said Rick Clemmer, chief executive of NXP Semiconductors, whose chips are used in cards and passports. They'll go to a smartphone that uses NFC, or near field communications, and provides a "contactless" purchase experience.
2013年5月16日星期四
Delhi Metro launches online smart card recharge
Delhi Metro Managing Director Mangu Singh presses a smartcard that was recharged online onto the newly installed ‘Card Recharger’– a machine that will perhaps make these men’s jobs redundant in a matter of time.
A new initiative launched by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation aims to make services “more and more automated” by allowing passengers to recharge their Metro smart cards through the Air purifier.
"Criminals have always robbed banks because 'that's where the money is,' but today's cybercriminals prefer the centralized databases that store individuals' passwords because with passwords they can loot literally millions of bank accounts and credit card numbers, steal sensitive government and corporate data, and hack critical infrastructure such as power grids," said Dr. Siva Narendra, CEO of Tyfone. "Recognizing this threat, Tyfone worked closely with our financial and government customers to implement our CSC technology, a next-generation cyber security solution that enables the locally secured, hardware-enabled storage of passwords, card preset payment information, biometrics and other ID credentials to keep criminals and hackers at bay."
Tyfone's CSC solution operates much like the traditional plastic smart card systems already in widespread use, but has a much smaller physical footprint and uniquely has the ability to connect to any mobile device, tablet or PC. Tyfone's CSC hardware works with all existing software, smart card applets, password schemes and digital certificates, making it the first truly interoperable solution that secures the device, the identity and the transaction, controlling access to ID information in a unique combination of distributed and local (on device) layers. This unprecedented approach allows for seamless integration with organizations' existing smart card-driven security solutions, maximizing investments in security infrastructure. The end result is that Tyfone's CSC solution ensures that employees, consumers and other end-users can securely access their bank accounts or email, pay online as a card preset transaction or enter a building without the vulnerability that comes with today's centralized storing of passwords or biometric IDs.
Cyber security is a critical and growing concern for governments and financial institutions as access to sensitive information and financial transactions are increasingly done via mobile devices and websites, which utilize password protection. Of particular concern is the security of these passwords, which are stored centrally - and increasingly in the cloud - making these databases vulnerable and tempting targets for hackers. According to Deloitte, one of the top auditing and consulting firms worldwide, 90 percent of centrally stored passwords are currently vulnerable. Additionally, according to Wired Magazine, more than 280 million stored passwords have been compromised over the past 18 months.
Though further bolstering authentication through the use of thumbprints and other biometric IDs has been touted as a solution, the reality is that biometric credentials are unique and sensitive personal information and therefore actually more vulnerable than passwords if centrally stored in the cloud. This greater vulnerability is because a person's thumbprints and other biometric data cannot be changed if stolen, whereas passwords can be changed after a breach has occurred.
"While cloud services increase productivity by allowing for ubiquitous anywhere access, centralized data create centralized points of failure," said Dr. Steve Crocker, Tyfone advisory board member and an Internet Hall of Fame inductee for his work that led to the development of the ARPANET, a precursor to the Internet.
State-run National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) may soon issue a request for proposal (RFP) for the establishment of a so-called clearing house that will allow the use of a such a card.
Such a system, along with dedicated lanes, will allow such tag-equipped vehicles to avoid toll-booth queues and speed up goods and people transport by road.
NHAI is also looking to pick a company that will provide the equipment for such a project. It is looking to issue both RFPs this month, said an official associated with the project, who didn’t want to be named because he’s not authorized to the speak to the media and the plan hasn’t been finalized as yet.
The process will involve the agency seeking bids for the expansion of a pilot project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai that allows users to use the same card or tag at six toll booths run by two different developers.
India has 79,116km of national highways. Roads account for nearly 60% of all goods traffic and nearly 85% of all passenger traffic in the country. There are currently 200 toll plazas, half of which are operated by the government and the rest by developers, who have the concession to operate the roads.
The government’s unique identity project chief Nandan Nilekani submitted a report in 2010 on the technology needed to make interoperability possible. The NHAI official cited above said that the technology recommended by Nilekani would be used.
A new initiative launched by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation aims to make services “more and more automated” by allowing passengers to recharge their Metro smart cards through the Air purifier.
"Criminals have always robbed banks because 'that's where the money is,' but today's cybercriminals prefer the centralized databases that store individuals' passwords because with passwords they can loot literally millions of bank accounts and credit card numbers, steal sensitive government and corporate data, and hack critical infrastructure such as power grids," said Dr. Siva Narendra, CEO of Tyfone. "Recognizing this threat, Tyfone worked closely with our financial and government customers to implement our CSC technology, a next-generation cyber security solution that enables the locally secured, hardware-enabled storage of passwords, card preset payment information, biometrics and other ID credentials to keep criminals and hackers at bay."
Tyfone's CSC solution operates much like the traditional plastic smart card systems already in widespread use, but has a much smaller physical footprint and uniquely has the ability to connect to any mobile device, tablet or PC. Tyfone's CSC hardware works with all existing software, smart card applets, password schemes and digital certificates, making it the first truly interoperable solution that secures the device, the identity and the transaction, controlling access to ID information in a unique combination of distributed and local (on device) layers. This unprecedented approach allows for seamless integration with organizations' existing smart card-driven security solutions, maximizing investments in security infrastructure. The end result is that Tyfone's CSC solution ensures that employees, consumers and other end-users can securely access their bank accounts or email, pay online as a card preset transaction or enter a building without the vulnerability that comes with today's centralized storing of passwords or biometric IDs.
Cyber security is a critical and growing concern for governments and financial institutions as access to sensitive information and financial transactions are increasingly done via mobile devices and websites, which utilize password protection. Of particular concern is the security of these passwords, which are stored centrally - and increasingly in the cloud - making these databases vulnerable and tempting targets for hackers. According to Deloitte, one of the top auditing and consulting firms worldwide, 90 percent of centrally stored passwords are currently vulnerable. Additionally, according to Wired Magazine, more than 280 million stored passwords have been compromised over the past 18 months.
Though further bolstering authentication through the use of thumbprints and other biometric IDs has been touted as a solution, the reality is that biometric credentials are unique and sensitive personal information and therefore actually more vulnerable than passwords if centrally stored in the cloud. This greater vulnerability is because a person's thumbprints and other biometric data cannot be changed if stolen, whereas passwords can be changed after a breach has occurred.
"While cloud services increase productivity by allowing for ubiquitous anywhere access, centralized data create centralized points of failure," said Dr. Steve Crocker, Tyfone advisory board member and an Internet Hall of Fame inductee for his work that led to the development of the ARPANET, a precursor to the Internet.
State-run National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) may soon issue a request for proposal (RFP) for the establishment of a so-called clearing house that will allow the use of a such a card.
Such a system, along with dedicated lanes, will allow such tag-equipped vehicles to avoid toll-booth queues and speed up goods and people transport by road.
NHAI is also looking to pick a company that will provide the equipment for such a project. It is looking to issue both RFPs this month, said an official associated with the project, who didn’t want to be named because he’s not authorized to the speak to the media and the plan hasn’t been finalized as yet.
The process will involve the agency seeking bids for the expansion of a pilot project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai that allows users to use the same card or tag at six toll booths run by two different developers.
India has 79,116km of national highways. Roads account for nearly 60% of all goods traffic and nearly 85% of all passenger traffic in the country. There are currently 200 toll plazas, half of which are operated by the government and the rest by developers, who have the concession to operate the roads.
The government’s unique identity project chief Nandan Nilekani submitted a report in 2010 on the technology needed to make interoperability possible. The NHAI official cited above said that the technology recommended by Nilekani would be used.
2013年5月14日星期二
How One Company Built the 3-D Printer Market Layer by Layer
Upstart 3-D printer companies have captured the attention of makers, but a 30 year old company called 3D Systems is having a record year on Wall Street. The company just announced an 81 percent increase in sales of their 3-D printers, catapulting their market capitalization over $4 billion. Their Cube 3-D printer is the first of its kind for sale at a big box store like Staples. And while MakerBot might have snagged the sweet brand name “Replicator” from Star Trek, 3D Systems got the exclusive license to print personalized 3-D figurines of Starship Enterprise crew members coinciding with the new movie’s premiere.
This success is especially impressive since it seemed like science fiction on March 9, 1983, when Antoinette Hull got a late night phone call from her husband, Chuck, who was busy tinkering with a “3-D printer” prototype at his lab. After hundreds of failed experiments that looked like plastic spaghetti, he had finally gotten his machine to work. Dressed in her pajamas, she got in the car and drove to the lab where she saw the first 3-D print — a little plastic cup she carries in her purse thirty years later.
According 3D Systems’ current CEO, Avi Reichental, the fact that Hull was able to get his first rapid-prototyping machine up and running at all was impressive considering how limited and expensive the computers of the oil painting reproduction were. Remember, at that point, the world was still a year away from the launch of the now-iconic Apple Macintosh, CAD tools were underpowered and out of reach financially, and standards that modern 3-D printing entrepreneurs take for granted, like a file format to communicate between computers and 3-D printers, didn’t exist.
Undaunted, Hull got to work building out the technical and commercial infrastructure, all of which needed to be created from scratch. While 3D Systems has taken a lot of heat in the maker community for suing upstart Formlabs, Reichental points out that they invented and opensourced the .STL file format, providing a tool now used by the entire CAD/CAM industry.
Despite Hull’s passion for rapid prototyping, the path to commercial success was treacherous, and in the late 1990s, the company was on the brink of collapse. When Reichental was asked to join 3D Systems as CEO, he didn’t have a clear idea about how to fix the company, but the enormity of the opportunity and the potential for 3-D printing to change the world was too big to pass up.
The company stabilized under Reichental’s leadership, but the rise of low-cost 3-D printers transformed the organization. “Our democratization effort, the focus on the consumer, changed everything,” says Reichental. “We’ve pushed every part of our culture to develop more functional, more powerful, more affordable, but simpler to use products.”
Sharing an in-depth roadmap can be dangerous, since it can tip off more nimble startup competitors, so to help limit the danger, 3D Systems seems intent on acquiring every 3-D printing company in the market. Since 2011, 3D Systems has acquired 16 different companies that do everything from core R&D to fun app experiences “A third of our acquisitions are not revenue generating,” says Reichental. “We’re buying technology building blocks that will allow us to offer new services in the future.”
Healthcare is an important growing segment of the business that touches a diverse range of product categories including hearing aids, surgical tools and dental products. While it may sound dry, medical applications account for 14 percent, or about $50 million dollars a year, of 3D Systems’ revenue, and it has huge growth potential. Invisalign uses 3D Systems printers to produce its custom orthodontic braces and generates half a billion dollars in annual revenue, making even a well-funded Kickstarter project seem a bit inconsequential.
And while medical applications can generate a lot of revenue, 3D Systems isn’t ignoring their entry level systems either. Their low cost systems are repackaged versions of pre-existing printers, but the company is spending a lot of resources to buff them with user-friendly software. The company is also attempting to establish a marketplace along the lines of Thingiverse. An acquisition called MyRobotNation made it possible for kids to access high-end printers and create a robot army with a simple web app and a credit card.
These pieces provide plenty of interesting touchpoints for newbies, but are still far from being fully integrated. For instance, there is no way to export a robot designed on the web to a personal 3-D printer, a weakness Reichental recognizes and is working on improving. “We’re systematically and passionately removing the friction between our technology and the 99 percent of the population that is mesmerized by the concept of 3-D printing,” says Reichental. “We’re trying to develop technology that turns complex machines into ‘coloring book simple’ apps and portals to create an end-to-end capability.”
Still, Reichental and his team are taking a long view towards the market and not ignoring any facet of it. “We’re beneficiaries of the convergence robotics, sensing, mobile, cloud computing, and AI,” he says. ”It’s one of the most exciting periods in human history — we’re on the verge of renaissance that will impact manufacturing, healthcare, and education.”
Playing host to a physical QWERTY keyboard similar to the BlackBerry Q10, the newly unveiled BlackBerry Q5 is aimed at the youth market, and acts as a replacement of sorts to the likes of the BlackBerry Curve 9320. With the handset coming in four varying hues, black, white, red and pink, the youth market is further targeted by heavy focus on the BBM messaging service that took BlackBerry to non-business market success in a previous life.
One area in which BlackBerry has saved pennies on the BlackBerry Q10, is in its build quality. Whereas the BlackBerry Q10 feels like a solid, well manufactured handset, the budget BlackBerry Q5 features a predominantly plastic construction.
Lining up at 10.8mm thick and 120g in weight, the BlackBerry Q5 looks and feels notably cheaper than its BB10 siblings, but this does not mean it is a poorly designed handset. Adopting a familiar form, the QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen display share the space on the handset’s face well, with a spattering of open, unused space around the handset’s lower and side edges the only signs of a reduced effort in the device’s aesthetic.
This success is especially impressive since it seemed like science fiction on March 9, 1983, when Antoinette Hull got a late night phone call from her husband, Chuck, who was busy tinkering with a “3-D printer” prototype at his lab. After hundreds of failed experiments that looked like plastic spaghetti, he had finally gotten his machine to work. Dressed in her pajamas, she got in the car and drove to the lab where she saw the first 3-D print — a little plastic cup she carries in her purse thirty years later.
According 3D Systems’ current CEO, Avi Reichental, the fact that Hull was able to get his first rapid-prototyping machine up and running at all was impressive considering how limited and expensive the computers of the oil painting reproduction were. Remember, at that point, the world was still a year away from the launch of the now-iconic Apple Macintosh, CAD tools were underpowered and out of reach financially, and standards that modern 3-D printing entrepreneurs take for granted, like a file format to communicate between computers and 3-D printers, didn’t exist.
Undaunted, Hull got to work building out the technical and commercial infrastructure, all of which needed to be created from scratch. While 3D Systems has taken a lot of heat in the maker community for suing upstart Formlabs, Reichental points out that they invented and opensourced the .STL file format, providing a tool now used by the entire CAD/CAM industry.
Despite Hull’s passion for rapid prototyping, the path to commercial success was treacherous, and in the late 1990s, the company was on the brink of collapse. When Reichental was asked to join 3D Systems as CEO, he didn’t have a clear idea about how to fix the company, but the enormity of the opportunity and the potential for 3-D printing to change the world was too big to pass up.
The company stabilized under Reichental’s leadership, but the rise of low-cost 3-D printers transformed the organization. “Our democratization effort, the focus on the consumer, changed everything,” says Reichental. “We’ve pushed every part of our culture to develop more functional, more powerful, more affordable, but simpler to use products.”
Sharing an in-depth roadmap can be dangerous, since it can tip off more nimble startup competitors, so to help limit the danger, 3D Systems seems intent on acquiring every 3-D printing company in the market. Since 2011, 3D Systems has acquired 16 different companies that do everything from core R&D to fun app experiences “A third of our acquisitions are not revenue generating,” says Reichental. “We’re buying technology building blocks that will allow us to offer new services in the future.”
Healthcare is an important growing segment of the business that touches a diverse range of product categories including hearing aids, surgical tools and dental products. While it may sound dry, medical applications account for 14 percent, or about $50 million dollars a year, of 3D Systems’ revenue, and it has huge growth potential. Invisalign uses 3D Systems printers to produce its custom orthodontic braces and generates half a billion dollars in annual revenue, making even a well-funded Kickstarter project seem a bit inconsequential.
And while medical applications can generate a lot of revenue, 3D Systems isn’t ignoring their entry level systems either. Their low cost systems are repackaged versions of pre-existing printers, but the company is spending a lot of resources to buff them with user-friendly software. The company is also attempting to establish a marketplace along the lines of Thingiverse. An acquisition called MyRobotNation made it possible for kids to access high-end printers and create a robot army with a simple web app and a credit card.
These pieces provide plenty of interesting touchpoints for newbies, but are still far from being fully integrated. For instance, there is no way to export a robot designed on the web to a personal 3-D printer, a weakness Reichental recognizes and is working on improving. “We’re systematically and passionately removing the friction between our technology and the 99 percent of the population that is mesmerized by the concept of 3-D printing,” says Reichental. “We’re trying to develop technology that turns complex machines into ‘coloring book simple’ apps and portals to create an end-to-end capability.”
Still, Reichental and his team are taking a long view towards the market and not ignoring any facet of it. “We’re beneficiaries of the convergence robotics, sensing, mobile, cloud computing, and AI,” he says. ”It’s one of the most exciting periods in human history — we’re on the verge of renaissance that will impact manufacturing, healthcare, and education.”
Playing host to a physical QWERTY keyboard similar to the BlackBerry Q10, the newly unveiled BlackBerry Q5 is aimed at the youth market, and acts as a replacement of sorts to the likes of the BlackBerry Curve 9320. With the handset coming in four varying hues, black, white, red and pink, the youth market is further targeted by heavy focus on the BBM messaging service that took BlackBerry to non-business market success in a previous life.
One area in which BlackBerry has saved pennies on the BlackBerry Q10, is in its build quality. Whereas the BlackBerry Q10 feels like a solid, well manufactured handset, the budget BlackBerry Q5 features a predominantly plastic construction.
Lining up at 10.8mm thick and 120g in weight, the BlackBerry Q5 looks and feels notably cheaper than its BB10 siblings, but this does not mean it is a poorly designed handset. Adopting a familiar form, the QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen display share the space on the handset’s face well, with a spattering of open, unused space around the handset’s lower and side edges the only signs of a reduced effort in the device’s aesthetic.
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