posted by admin on Jun 20

Food shopping in the UK has just got more dedicated to the food!

Not only can you order your shopping on the internet and have it all turn up on your door step in one piece – you can now be guaranteed to have a long shelf life on your produce!

The Problems With Online Shopping:
As we all know, when you buy something that you haven’t seen with your own eyes or checked over yourself – you can’t be 100% sure that it is exactly what you would have picked yourself.

For example, when shopping you would always check that the product you are about to buy wasn’t damaged in any way – or a punnet of fruit had only the ripest and juciest looking fruit in it if you were eating them today – but would look for the under ripe fruit if you weren’t planning to eat them until the weekend.

But you can’t do that online – you just have to click ‘buy 1 punnet’ and hope for the best.

photo credit: kkalyan

Same goes for the ‘best before’ dates – surely the store will be giving you the produce with the shortest dates as that is how stores rotate their stock. They don’t want to sell all the fresh stuff first, do they?

The New Way:
Well now you can see the shelf life of your food before you order it! That way you know how long your produce will keep after delivery.

Obviously this is based on the actual dates on the packaging – but it guarantees that your key ingredient for that dinner party won’t go out of date before you have had a chance to cook it!

And to help out even more – the actual ‘Use By’ dates are shown on the printed receipt that you get with your order!

That way you can pin it to your fridge and be able to plan your weeks food menu without having to check all the dates by hand and writing them down somewhere else!

The Result:
Not only can you now almost guarantee that the shopping your order online would have been the very same as you would have picked yourself in the store – you can also guarantee that you won’t ever have to waste food again!

By making sure that you have ample shelf life on your foods when you receive them – this store is letting you know that they aren’t out to fool you.

They are also making sure that you always enjoy their products, can rely on their service and that you will continue to order from them as they help you to be that little bit greener without even trying!

Now that is great marketing!

posted by admin on May 24

Nobody wants to be tracked while they are driving – but now young people are begging to!

The Co-Operative Society have come up with a great way to find out how safe their new drivers are – and charge them accordingly; by using what they are calling ‘Smartbox’.

Now normally we don’t want to give too much information away about ourselves if we can help it – but when we can be rewarded for our behaviour (and there is money to be saved) we don’t mind!

For example, many people changed to metered water in the UK recently so that they only paid for the water they used – showing that they were using less than the average person. However, water-wasters stil aren’t being penalised as they are only paying the ‘set rate’ still.

But with car insurance it is different! You pay more money for insurance if the insurance companies know that you are more likely to cause them trouble. The equivalent of charging people a huge amount for their water if they don’t commit to a meter to show their exact usage.

How It Works:
Well, young drivers are much more likely to have an accident in their car if they drive too fast, drive irresponsibly and drive in the dark – so their premiums are set high to cover the costs of repairing cars if they drive irresponsibly fast at night!

photo credit: thienzieyung

However, many young drivers don’t drive like that – but are statiscally within the same group – and you can’t take their word that they will behave behind the wheel. So in comes the Smartbox.

Basically, this device is fitted discretely in the vehicle and wired up to the cars electrics – like a black box of sorts – and records various details about driving speed, acceleration as well as having GPS facilities and a slock to record time of day.

Add all of this collected information together and they can tell when, where and how the car is being driven – and reward of penalise as necessary.

The machine can’t lie – so it can easily sort the wheat from the chaff so to speak!

Why Would You Do It?
If you have ever tried to get a car insurance quote when you are young and a new driver – you will know why you would be willing to be ‘recorded’ by the Smartbox: car insurance can be – and regularly is – over £1000 per annum. Way too expensive for most youngsters.

So, why not show that you can be a responsible driver in exchange for massive savings over the year?

All the data collected can be viewed online with the Co-Op, detailing which areas of driving you are very good at and letting you know the areas where you could improve your driving. It isn’t just about the money – it is about creating safer roads for the driver and all other road users.

Literally as you drive safely to and from work or college every day you are saving money – and it can be many hundreds of pounds over the year and into your next years premium too.

And, due to the tracking set up for the driving skills – your car is also tracked if it ever gets stolen!

If I was faced with the choice (and I know I am a good driver) – I would fit one!

posted by admin on May 7

Just a really quick post here to let you know that the world has gone mad!

I was in a local book store today, and happened to be standing next to a Gift Card display rack – and noticed that 1 of the cards was for Farmville.

I looked again – and yes, it was a £10 Gift Card for a make believe game on the Internet! A whole actual real £10 to be used buying pretend farm machinery and silver ponies.

Now I know that we spend far too much money on unnecessary clothes, electronics, music and apps – but to spend money on virtual ‘farm’ shopping seems a step to far!

A book gift card can educate, a clothing gift card can make the perfect night – but a Farmville gift card can only buy imaginary equipment to farm your imaginary crops to feed to your imaginary animals……

That is all I have to say on the matter!

posted by admin on Feb 22

How about something unusual to give as a gift – 60,000 years of their history!

A simple and painless swab on the inside of a mouth is all it takes to find out where you ancesters came from soon after they started on the journey of a lifetime!

So instead of buying the lastest DS game for your nephew, or the newest version of the iPad for your godson – why not let them see something far more interesting and unusual: their family’s past!

Genographic Studies.
It is currently believed that all humans alive today were originally from the exact same place in Africa.

It is also believed that around 60,000 years ago, these early humans decided to move to new pastures, and set off on what turned out to be the journey of mankind.

They may have originally been just looking for better food or water supplies not far from their family, but the journey didn’t stop, and humans spread across virtually the whole globe – changing as they went.

Some set up permanent homes in river mouths or forests and others kept travelling, until we get to today – with many thousands of different cultures, languages and individual traits and preferences alive on almost every continent.

So which path did your family take?

Take The Test!
It is now very easy and relatively cheap to get a detailed history of your past. Where your ancesters have been – or still are – and which branches of your family gave you most of your personal genes today.

Whether you think you know your past – you are from an isolated community – or you have absolutely no idea what your past will hold – you can all take part in this unique not-for-profit and internationally shared research project.

Your initial test is totally separate from the International Study and so you can receive your results and keep them to yourself forever – you are not obliged to share anything about yourself.

However, if you do want to be a part of the larger project – any data you give will be treated anonymously and securely as with any other personal details.

Obviously, offering your results to the wider science community may well have benefits to us all in terms of understanding human evolution, migration, settlement and cultural distinctions.

And it could also give you a chance to learn about other cultures and communities around the world – for example, if you find out your ancestors came through Turkey or Asia etc, you may be inclined to read more about those areas – maybe even inspiring you to travel……. and to learn!

More information about the project can be found on the National Geographic Site in many different languages and answering a myriad of related questions – go to their link: Genome Study to find out more……

photo credit: Alex E. Proimos

posted by admin on Feb 4

Forget coins and notes – there is a new way to pay…….

It has long been known that you can pay for things – like the London underground – with swipe cards (Oyster Cards) and that you can use your cell phone to pay for car parks if you are caught short in the city – but using your cell phone as a swipe card to pay for a McDonalds!

It really is something new – and expanding.

In the same way that Augmented Reality (AR) was pitched to offer you all sorts of information regarding where you are and what you are looking at – this new technology – known as NFC (near-field communication) is paving a new path in the wireless technology field.

What Is NFC?
Well, to sum it up you could say that NFC is a way for your cell to be told about everything that is close to you – basically your cell becomes one of your senses.

Technology inside your phone can identify who you are – and so ‘charge’ you directly for services like transport and fast food – or entry to museums etc.

But also, this technology inside other things can tell you what they want you to hear. By this I mean that a poster advertising a vacation could register that your cell just ‘walked’ past their poster and send you text with a discount code if you wanted to book through them – or a retail outlet could text you as you pass their store telling you of a great sale or promotion that you might have otherwise missed.

They could also be used by businesses as an identity card – or ‘clocking in’ device for their workers. Rather than cards, machines and guards, they might just make you enter the building through a certain door and the receivers identify you and show you as inside.

Convenient Or Conniving?
I can see both sides of this technology. Firstly, the convenience of not having to worry about having enough money on you all the time is great, and so is the potential for identifying you at work rather than having to complete forms or log in and out.

However, the intrusion of promotions, adverts and other such information would be most annoying. Imagine a stroll around town on your lunch break – it’s bad enough seeing all the adverts and posters all over the place, let alone having them all send messages to your cell! It would almost make you want to leave your cell in the office rendering your ‘identity wherabouts’ gadget useless for that purpose.

Regardless of what you think about it, it has already been implemented in many stores and transport systems across the globe, with many large technology and cell phone companies already pledging to install ‘this and that’ by ‘so and so’.

Japanese commuters have been using a similar technology (but a more basic version) for over 5 years for trains, taxis and fast food!

However, so far it only works by very close contact, but technology could allow these electrical messages to travel further – like the store promotion example.

The Future:
It looks like you won’t have to buy a new cell either as many models will be able to be upgraded – and it may well be available in cheaper models as it becomes more popular.

However, as with all identity cards, credit cards and of course cash – we can leave them at work, lose them or have them stolen. So is making a cell phone even more valuable a good idea?

Cell swipe technology only works with a debit system – so the funds have to be prepaid or instantly charged. Needless to say they could be used as ‘cash’ when stolen at a nearby store or restaurant without the cashier being any the wiser.

And, if these chips were to contain personal information as well, then they may well become a victim of their own success. It would be as disasterous as losing your laptop.

People may even start to carry 2 cells: 1 for paying and one for all other uses – so if it was stolen or lost, they wouldn’t loose all their data and contacts too!

Maybe they will invent a ‘cell buddy’ that cleared all data off the phone if it was taken further than 5 meters from the cell (as would only happen if the owner no longer had their cell with them). Or a way to de-activate the chip in some way when it was next used after being stolen or lost.

Anyway – I’m sure these little niggles will be smoothed out……..