Apple’s stock has taken a brutal beating since last year, but a report says the company’s retail stores are bringing in more money per customer than ever. … Read More
Converse in bid to ban ‘fake’ shoes in Sweden
Legendary US sneaker brand Converse has asked a Swedish court for permission to search outlets of Swedish retail chain Coop in a bid to clear near-perfect pirated copies of the iconic shoes off the shelves. … Read More
Best Of: 8 Free to Play PC Games That Are Too Good to Be True
The gaming world is making a dramatic shift towards free to play games. Of course, full price retail titles still make up for a majority of releases on the PC and most other platforms, but playing a quality game without cracking your wallet open is a completely viable option nowadays. … Read More
Adobe Creative Suite becomes subscription-only, kills Fireworks
It was Adobe; in the billiard room, with the candlestick… In a single blow, the software-maker dispatched new sales of “perpetual” Creative Suite licenses and announced the languishing demise of Fireworks. The company today said it will no longer sell Creative Suite bundles (or its individual components) as retail products. In place of… … Read More
Nuclear unclear: Radioactive materials disappear in UK over last decade
The papers revealed by the HSE, the UK government’s safety watchdog, list some big names in British industry as amongst the culprits including Rolls-Royce Marine Power Operations in Derby, which makes the reactors for Britain’s nuclear submarines, it was reported in The Guardian on Monday.Small pellets of highly radioactive Ytterbium-169 were lost from the Rolls-Royce marine division, while a 13kg ball of depleted uranium went missing from the Forgemasters steel works in Sheffield, The Royal Free hospital in London lost caesium-137 used in cancer treatment. A report into the incident found that it “had the potential to cause significant radiation injuries to anyone handling [it] directly or being in the proximity for a short period of time.”In another case, materials containing caesium-137 were lost on a North Sea oil rig by the oil services firm Schlumberger.While at the site of the former atomic energy research center at Harwell near Oxford, cobalt 60 was found under a tube store under a machine during clearance.Earlier this year a small canister of iridium-192 was stolen from a van in Lancashire, but was later found at a nearby retail park almost a month later.“The unacceptable frequency and seriousness of these losses, some with the potential for severe radiological consequences, reflect poorly on the licenses and the HSE regulator. I cannot understand why it is not considered to be in the public interest to vigorously prosecute all such offences,” John Large, an internationally consultant to the nuclear industry, told The Guardian.“Such slack security raises deep concerns about the accessibility of these substances to terrorists and others of malevolent intent,” he said.While the HSE successfully prosecuted the Royal Free Hospital, Shlumberger and the massive Sellafield nuclear plant, other organizations have got away with written warnings.In the case of Sellafield, the nuclear reprocessing facility pleaded guilty at Workington magistrates to sending mixed general waste, such as plastic, paper and metal from controlled radioactive areas to the Lillyhall landfill site in Workington when it should have been sent to the low-level waste repository [for low level nuclear waste] at Drigg, Cumbria.The science departments of York and Warwick universities were luckier; they received written advice over losing radioactive materials during science demonstrations.While the Loreto high school in Manchester is being investigated over the loss of americium-241. “Some of these radioactive sources are very persistent, for example the Royal Free hospital’s lost caesium-137 has a half-life of around 30 years, so it remains radio-toxic for at least 10 half-lives or about 300 years,” said Large, who led the nuclear assessment risk for the raising of the destroyed Russian nuclear submarine Kursk in 2001. … Read More
“Downton Abbey” inspires retail line
ITV’s surpise hit “Downton Abbey” is expanding its global empire with a “range of products,” turning itself into a brand. According to a CNBC interview with Gareth Neame, the show’s executive producer and production company Carnival Films’ managing director, you’ll soon be able to wear “Downtown Abbey”, cook like “Downtown Abbey,” smell like “Downton Abbey,” look like “Downton Abbey,” write like “Downton Abbey” and sit in rooms like “Downton Abbey”: “We’ll be working across an entire range of products coming out this year. From fashion, apparel and homeware and furniture to wallpapers, beauty products and stationary,” Neame, who is also the show’s executive producer, told CNBC. “Some of these things have been available since 2012 and we publish books and have made a music album, but the more complex products take time,” he said, adding that there would be even more scope for merchandizing in the future.Continue Reading… … Read More
Fast food walkout planned in Chicago
Demanding a hefty raise and a fair chance to form a union, workers in Chicago’s growing fast food and retail sectors plan to walk off the job Wednesday morning. The one-day walkout begins at 5:30 a.m. Central Time, and organizers expect 500 workers from a dozen chains to participate. The work stoppage follows similar strikes by New York City fast food workers and by Wal-Mart retail employees across the country, and marks the latest escalation in the struggle between an embattled labor movement and two industries that increasingly dominate and define the new economy.“At the end of the day,” Macy’s employee Krystal Maxie-Collins told Salon, “it feels like I’ve done all of this to help everyone else, to help the store, help the managers, help the customers, but it doesn’t feel like anyone is looking out for me.” Maxie-Collins, a mother of four who works part-time for the state minimum wage of $8.25 plus a commission, said she had initially been hesitant about the strike because of the risk of retaliation. But “what we are fighting for, the reason for doing it, kind of overrode the fear of doing it.” “Usually the things that are worth it,” she added, “you have to sacrifice for.”Continue Reading… … Read More
