Learn the secret codes to shopping success

NEW YORK, April 16 (Reuters) - As superstore pricing mysteries go, it's not the equivalent of "The Da Vinci Code," but there's still something deliciously elusive about the so-called "Costco Code" that has set the tongues of shopping mavens wagging for the past several months.
At least the plot line is direct enough: If you can interpret what the various sequences of digits and asterisks mean on Costco Wholesale Club price signs, you're on your way to scoring serious bargains.

Here's how it works, according to Costco shoppers spreading the word online: If a price at Costco ends in .99, you're paying full price. But if it ends in, say, a .97, it represents a deal with a special price decided by the manager. And if you happen to see an asterisk in the upper right corner of the sign, then the item is on its way out of the store-and probably at the lowest price you're going to see.

"That asterisk, that's the holy grail," says Kyle James, who runs the shopping blog Rather-Be-Shopping.com (http://www.rather-be-shopping.com/). He has shopped at Costco for 20 years now, and the Redding, California resident has studied the matter of the Costco Code well. By his count, he and his wife have saved at least $300 using the Costco Code over the last seven months.

For the record, he doesn't claim to have discovered it; he says there's been Internet chatter about Costco and its pricing system going back about five years before he took up the topic on his blog.

So is the Costco Code really so much of a pricing potboiler as it seems? No one would know as well as Costco's Richard Galanti, who's the company's executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Indeed he confirms that the codes do exist, though "It's more for efficiency, for the employees," Galanti says. "It's not any sort of secret agent stuff. But you see it on a blog and people think it's a secret. It's just a way of moving some merchandise, to help the fork lift operators and the stocking clerks."

Galanti says that "when a price ends in a '7,' usually it's a buyer designated markdown." And as for those asterisks, "That's what we call a pending delete. Sometimes an item's not selling well and we want to move it out, or it could be the end of the season. Let's say we've got three TV models and the latest and greatest comes out; we might want to bring the newest one in."

But Galanti cautions against reading too much into the price codes, as Costco's margins are low enough (in the 10-11 percent range) that a shopper might have more advantage buying a newer item at the ".99" full price. "The question is, do you want something at the end of its season or at the beginning of a new season?" he asks.

Retail experts say that such pricing codes and systems are common. At his website, James lists price tag codes that he's found for retailers under the juicy heading "Retailer's Big Secret: Crack the Price Tag Code."

Paula Rosenblum, managing partner of RSR Research, a retail technology research and advisory firm says Home Depot indicator is a green tag, while at Office Depot, anything with a price other than 00, 50 or 99 is a markdown.

As for why, chalk it up to something not quite as old as the human desire to crack secret codes, though it does predate computers and the digital age.

"It all goes back to the retail method of accounting, and it's a very old story," Rosenblum says. "Before the days of price scanners, and when there was no technology in the store at all, a seven at the end of a price let associates know where they were with the item. If they couldn't move it in three weeks, it was gone."

Still, she can't help throwing in an observation for consumers who choose to make note of the code, and where asterisks are most likely to appear: "Costco's non-food items don't always move fast enough, so those might be good items to add to the treasure hunt."

Much of James' information from comes from chatting up employees (many of whom have requested anonymity). At Target , for example, he says that the discounting system on clearance items, as told to him by a sales associate, goes like this: "They mark something down every 10 to 15 days. And the upper right hand corner of the clearance tag, which is red and white, has the numbers 15, 30, 50, 75 or 90 on it. And that number indicates the percentage off the original price."

Target would not confirm it uses such a mechanism. "It is not possible to determine the final markdown or timing of the price change from the item's current price," Target spokesman Evan Lapiska said.

But Lewis says his key advice for fellow shoppers on the hunt for price tag secrets is this: "Talk to the employees on the floor. I've found they're pretty open about it."

School Apologizes for Sending the Wrong Message About Bullying

A Nebraska school is facing criticism for what many are calling an ill-intentioned effort to deal with bullying. Fifth-grade students at Zeman Elementary School in Lincoln were recently given pamphlets containing what may be considered tone-deaf advice, shaming the victim and sending the wrong message to bullies.

More on Yahoo: Bullying Injuries in Schools Dip, but
Still ProblematicThe pamphlet, which was posted to sites such as Reddit and Jezebel, features nine "rules" for students dealing with bullies.  One rule states: "Do not tell on bullies.""The number one reason bullies hate their victims, is because the victims tell on them," the flyer reasons. "Telling makes the bully want to retaliate. Tell an adult only when a real injury or crime (theft of something valuable) has occurred. Would we keep our friends if we tattled on them?"This goes against most antibullying advice, which encourages young people to get a trusted adult involved in the situation before it escalates.More on Yahoo Shine: Parents Slap Daughter's Cyberbullies With Rare Lawsuit

Other rules in the Zeman Elementary guide included "Learn to laugh at yourself," "Do not verbally defend yourself," and "Treat the person who is being mean as if they are trying to help you."

After the pamphlet was sent home with kids, numerous parents complained to the school.  Some parents claimed that the tips weren't so much advice as they were ways to keep the school from having to discipline students.

Not long after the backlash, school officials at Zeman Elementary went on Facebook to issue an apology. (The school itself does not have an official Facebook page, so the post was sent via the Lincoln Public Schools, or LPS, page.) "Our educators at Zeman Elementary School work hard to provide accurate and appropriate lessons and education for our students in how to handle bullying situations," reads the statement. "The flyer was sent home with good intentions, unfortunately, it contained advice that did not accurately reflect LPS best practices regarding response to bullying incidents. We encourage all students and parents to continue to communicate with our staff if you have any questions or concerns about bullying situations."

But according to the LPS communications director, Mary Kay Roth, the flyers weren't supposed to be sent home with kids at all.  In a statement to the Lincoln Journal-Star, Roth referred to the flyer being distributed as a "staff issue" and added that "we're taking care of the staffing error."

Still, not everyone is buying the apology. "Whoever wrote this or was in charge of passing it out should step down or be fired immediately. You're pretty much saying you don't care about bullying and you're not going to deal with it unless the child incurs serious bodily harm," one outraged parent wrote on Facebook.

Another commenter wondered how the fallout would affect the students. "What have the students who were given bad information been told? Have they all been instructed that this was bad information and been given good information? Or is that being left to the parents?"

According to the student services director, Russ Uhing, who spoke with the Journal-Star, the school's fifth-graders are learning about bullying prevention in class, and the advice they're getting is "very different" from the "rules" they were initially given. Meanwhile, the school's Facebook apology included some more reasonable tools for dealing with bullying via a PDF link to a different flyer. Those updated tips, aimed at parents and kids alike, included “Do not minimize or make excuses for bullying behaviors,” “Promote a strong sense of self and confidence in your child,” and “Teach your child to take action when they see others being bullied.” Those tips are bound to be more helpful to kids than rules such as “Do not verbally defend yourself.”

When ‘Liking’ a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue

Might downloading a 50-cent coupon for Cheerios cost you legal rights?

General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, “join” it in online communities like Facebook, enter a company-sponsored sweepstakes or contest or interact with it in a variety of other ways.Instead,
anyone who has received anything that could be construed as a benefit and who then has a dispute with the company over its products will have to use informal negotiation via email or go through arbitration to seek relief, according to the new terms posted on its site.In language added on Tuesday after The New York Times contacted it about the changes, General Mills seemed to go even further, suggesting that buying its products would bind consumers to those terms.“We’ve updated our Privacy Policy,” the company wrote in a thin, gray bar across the top of its home page. “Please note we also have new Legal Terms which require all disputes related to the purchase or use of any General Mills product or service to be resolved through binding arbitration.”

The change in legal terms, which occurred shortly after a judge refused to dismiss a case brought against the company by consumers in California, made General Mills one of the first, if not the first, major food companies to seek to impose what legal experts call “forced arbitration” on consumers.

“Although this is the first case I’ve seen of a food company moving in this direction, others will follow — why wouldn’t you?” said Julia Duncan, director of federal programs and an arbitration expert at the American Association for Justice, a trade group representing plaintiff trial lawyers. “It’s essentially trying to protect the company from all accountability, even when it lies, or say, an employee deliberately adds broken glass to a product.”

General Mills declined to make anyone available for an interview about the changes. “While it rarely happens, arbitration is an efficient way to resolve disputes — and many companies take a similar approach,” the company said in a statement. “We even cover the cost of arbitration in most cases. So this is just a policy update, and we’ve tried to communicate it in a clear and visible way.”

A growing number of companies have adopted similar policies over the years, especially after a 2011 Supreme Court decision, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, that paved the way for businesses to bar consumers claiming fraud from joining together in a single arbitration. The decision allowed companies to forbid class-action lawsuits with the use of a standard-form contract requiring that disputes be resolved through the informal mechanism of one-on-one arbitration.

Credit card and mobile phone companies have included such limitations on consumers in their contracts, and in 2008, the magazine Mother Jones published an article about a Whataburger fast-food restaurant that hung a sign on its door warning customers that simply by entering the premises, they agreed to settle disputes through arbitration.

Companies have continued to push for expanded protection against litigation, but legal experts said that a food company trying to limit its customers’ ability to litigate against it raised the stakes in a new way.

What if a child allergic to peanuts ate a product that contained trace amounts of nuts but mistakenly did not include that information on its packaging? Food recalls for mislabeling, including failures to identify nuts in products, are not uncommon.

“When you’re talking about food, you’re also talking about things that can kill people,” said Scott L. Nelson, a lawyer at Public Citizen, a nonprofit advocacy group. “There is a huge difference in the stakes, between the benefit you’re getting from this supposed contract you’re entering into by, say, using the company’s website to download a coupon, and the rights they’re saying you’re giving up. That makes this agreement a lot broader than others out there.”

Big food companies are concerned about the growing number of consumers filing class-action lawsuits against them over labeling, ingredients and claims of health threats. Almost every major gathering of industry executives has at least one session on fighting litigation.

Last year, General Mills paid $8.5 million to settle lawsuits over positive health claims made on the packaging of its Yoplait Yoplus yogurt, saying it did not agree with the plaintiff’s accusations but wanted to end the litigation. In December 2012, it agreed to settle another suit by taking the word “strawberry” off the packaging label for Strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups, which did not contain strawberries.

General Mills amended its legal terms after a judge in California on March 26 ruled against its motion to dismiss a case brought by two mothers who contended that the company deceptively marketed its Nature Valley products as “natural” when they contained processed and genetically engineered ingredients.

“The front of the Nature Valley products’ packaging prominently displays the term ‘100% Natural’ that could lead a reasonable consumer to believe the products contain only natural ingredients,” wrote the district judge, William H. Orrick.

He wrote that the packaging claim “appears to be false” because the products contain processed ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup and maltodextrin.

Arbitration experts said courts would probably require General Mills to prove that a customer was aware of its new policy before issuing decisions denying legal action against the company.

The policy is so broadly written, lawyers say, that it is likely to raise interesting legal questions.

For instance, on Tuesday an order was placed through the company’s online store for a Cheerios bowl, before General Mills posted the notice about the change to its legal terms on its home page.

At no point did the order system suggest changes had been made to the legal terms governing the buyer. It offered a link to the company’s privacy policy, and two opt-out boxes for receiving promotional materials through email.

Whether a court would rule that, under the new policy, the buyer of the bowl could not sue General Mills was unclear, since the General Mills home page now included a message about the changes it had made to its legal terms.

“A transaction has taken place that, according to General Mills, includes an agreement to submit to informal negotiation or arbitration in the event of a dispute,” Mr. Nelson said.

He said he did not think a court would agree to enforce the policy if a consumer merely visited a General Mills website, “but we really don’t know.”

“You can bet,” he said, “there will be some subpoenas for computer hard drives in the future.”

Giant 3-D Printer to Make An Entire House in 20 Hours

3-D Printing Concrete Houses Contour Crafting
3-D printers can make airplanes and their parts, food and more why not entire buildings? A professor at the University of Southern California aims to print out whole houses using layers of concrete and adding
plumbing, electrical wiring and other guts as it moves upward.Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis at USC created a layered fabrication method he calls Contour Crafting, which he says can be used to build a single house or a colony of houses.It could be used with concrete or adobe he says. Khoshnevis has been developing the system for several years and hosted a presentation about it at a recent TEDx even It would use a movable gantry taller than the house you want to build. Concrete pours out and is set down layer by layer, like a typical 3-D printer would sinter plastic together. It could be ideal for emergency housing, commercial or low-income structures, but it could also be used to print out customized luxury homes, according to Khoshnevis. Or, he adds, it might be ideal for the moon or Mars. “Contour Crafting technology has the potential to build safe, reliable, and affordable lunar and Martian structures, habitats, laboratories, and other facilities before the arrival of human beings his website reads. Khoshnevis is hardly the only 3-D printing expert advocating this Enrico Dini the Italian inventor of the D-Shape 3-D printer, wants to 3-D print moon buildings out of lunar regolith.On Earth, the automated system could prevent delays, injuries and other labor issues related to human workers. With this system, maybe a 3-D printer could beat the Chinese attempt to construct the world’s tallest building in three months.

New Technology Could Make It Possible To Fly Anywhere In The World In 4 Hours

British aerospace firm Reaction Engines is working on an aircraft it believes would be able to take passengers anywhere in the world in just four hours.
The vehicle would also be able to fly in outer space.
Reaction Engines says there's only one truly new technology in the aircraft that makes those things possible: the precooler.
In a new video, chief engineer Alan Bond explains that air entering the new Sabre engine system could be cooled by more than 1,000 degrees
Celsius in .01 seconds. That ability would allow a jet engine to run at higher power than what is possible today.
More power = more speed. Enough to fly at Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, pretty easily Bond says.The Telegraph explained the technology in an article in late 2012:
The breakthrough technology is a cooling system which uses an array of thin pipes, arranged in a swirl pattern and filled with condensed helium, to extract heat from air and cool it to minus 150C before it enters the engine.
In normal circumstances, this would cause moisture in the air to freeze, coating the engine with frost, but the company has also developed a method which prevents this from happening.
The company eventually hopes to use its cooling technology to build a plane that transports 300 passengers and flies like a rocket. It will "transform high-speed aviation," Bond says, adding, "we have no competitors. We are unique.
The aircraft itself will measure 276 feet long, and be called the Skylon. It would take off and land horizontally (like a plane), which would make it easier to reuse than a standard rocket. But in addition to the $1.1 billion price tag for each one, there's another big downside: The Skylon has no windows, a major bummer for those excited to fly in space.
The company is currently in the process of testing the system. Test flights of the Skylon are planned for 2019.

[Interview] Sir Ridley Scott On Technology, Prequels And How 'Alien: Paradise' Became 'Prometheus'

Obama -xI’ve seen Ridley Scott’s Prometheus twice now and I like it quite a bit. It’s not without its issues, but I think it’s an interesting, inquisitive and intense movie that’s full of questions (if not so many answers).


Myself and a few other journalists sat down with Scott a few days ago in London to talk about the journey of Prometheus to the screen. We also touch on a question a lot of people are asking, “why does the technology in this film look different than in ‘Alien’?” Scott also discussed his original plans for the film (back when it was titled Alien: Paradise).

“With ‘Prometheus,’ Scott creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.”

In theaters June 8, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Sean Harris, Guy Pearce, Kate Dickie, Rafe Spall, Logan Marshall-Green, Benedict Wong, Emun Elliott and Patrick Wilson all star.

Head inside to check out the interview.

Redesigning Education: Building Schools for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

Not since the Soviets launched Sputnik into Earth's orbit in the 1960s has there been such urgency for America to redesign science and math education programs. Now, in the third millennium, the initiative takes the form of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. Research demonstrates that interest among American students in STEM subjects has greatly declined, a major issue given that the STEM labor force is an indicator of a nation's ability to sustain itself. The new STEM initiative will launch with a bold mission: to reengage students in the joys of learning science and mathematics at all levels of education.

The launch is well underway. In January of this year President Obama announced that $250 million would be invested in training and recruiting 100,000 new science and math teachers. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made STEM a prerequisite for states applying for Race to the Top funding.In lockstep with the White House announcement, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in conjunction with the American Architectural Foundation, conducted workshops as part of a national summit on how design thinking and the design process can help to foster creative new models for STEM school development and create a framework for scaling up the STEM knowledge network. Using design thinking, workshop participants also investigated what a STEM educational environment would look like. America is investing in STEM education with money and with human capital.

Now is the time to reflect on the reasons for students' disengagement from science and technology subjects. We need to treat STEM as a pedagogical approach and design an environment to support this new way of teaching. Brian Greene, a best-selling author and theoretical physicist best known for his work in string theory, talks passionately about how we have educated the curiosity out of the math and sciences. Greene says that we have paralyzed our children with the fear of being wrong. Risk-taking and making mistakes are critical to the scientific process. This fear of being wrong has resulted in disengagement from science and mathematics: learning science and math is a drag! He makes a convincing assessment of the problems with our current science education system and stops just short of demanding a new pedagogy to bring excitement and relevance back to the learning of science and math.

CDC: Rise in Imported Measles Cases Threatens US

Although a highly effective vaccine against measles was approved 50 years ago, the virus remains a serious threat to Americans, with a spike in new cases this year that ranks among the worst in the past decade, Centers for Disease Control Director Tom Friedan, MD, MPH reported today.

“Measles is the single most infectious of all diseases,” says Dr. Friedan, adding that nearly 200 US cases have been reported so far this year. Of
these cases, almost all have been traced to “imported” infections from people who brought the virus to the US after foreign travel, triggering at least 9 American outbreaks in 2013.

To date, this year, about 20 Americans have been hospitalized with measles, with no deaths so far, the CDC reported. Fewer than 2 percent of the total measles cases reported in the US this year occurred in people who were fully vaccinated against the disease, Dr. Friedan says.
Measles No Longer “Native” to the United States

The announcement coincides with publication of a new study in JAMA Pediatrics stating that endemic measles, rubella (German measles), and congenital rubella syndrome have been “eliminated” from the Western hemisphere.

The study found that since 2001, 84 percent of US measles cases and 54 percent of rubella cases were linked to importation. In other words, the virus was brought to the US by Americans or foreigners who became infected in other countries, and then spread the disease here.

Measles is still prevalent in other countries—including more than 25,000 cases in Western Europe in each of the past 3 years, said Dr. Friedan. Globally, an average of 430 kids die every day from measles, with an estimated 158,000 deaths from the disease occurring in 2011.

Infected travelers from countries where the disease is still prevalent, including France, Spain, and the UK, as well as developing countries, continue to trigger small outbreaks in the US (defined by the CDC as 3 or more related cases occurring).

10 Worst Disease Outbreaks in U.S. History
Next Outbreak Just a Plane Ride Away

Essentially, the next measles outbreak is just a plane ride away, since the highly contagious virus is spread through airborne droplets released when an infected person sneezes, coughs, or speaks.

The doctor who played a major role in developing the vaccine, Samuel L. Katz, M.D., emeritus professor of medicine at Duke University, emphasized that even though the number of measles cases in the US is small, it’s crucial for kids to be fully vaccinated.

The CDC reports that the vaccine Dr. Katz developed has prevented the deaths of at least 10 million children in the past decade—representing 20 percent of all deaths that have been prevented by modern medicine.

The Truth About The MMR Vaccine
A World Without Measles on the Horizon

“The challenge is not whether we shall see a world without measles, but when,” Dr. Katz said.  However, in a way, the vaccine has been a victim of its own success, since many parents don’t realize what a dangerous threat the disease used to be.

It’s becoming increasingly common, particularly in Western Europe, for parents not to vaccinate their kids, leading to the large outbreaks seen in those nations—and the much smaller rise in the US.
Protecting Kids from a Deadly Childhood Disease

Measles ranks as the most deadly of all childhood rash/fever-related diseases, the CDC reports. To be fully protected, kids should get their first dose of the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine at ages 12 to 15 months, followed by a second dose before they start kindergarten at 4 to 6 years of age.

Dr. Friedan recommends that babies traveling to countries with high rates of measles get the first dose at 6 months of age. In addition, adults born after 1957 should be vaccinated if they haven’t already received 2 doses of the vaccine, or had measles, he added.

It’s not necessary for people born before 1957 to be vaccinated, since measles was so rampant prior to that year that everybody born before then is already immune, stated Dr. Friedan.

Companies Say Goodbye to the 'Burbs

When Motorola Mobility lined up a Silicon Valley candidate a few months ago for a VP-level role, the phone maker was hopeful he'd accept. After all, the company offered the chance to develop products at a subsidiary of Google Inc.

The engineer declined. His reason: the prospect of relocating to Libertyville, Ill., about 35 miles from downtown Chicago, said Scott Sullivan, Motorola's head of human resources.

Mr. Sullivan expects recruiting to get a lot easier next
February when the company moves into a new space in the storied Merchandise Mart building in downtown Chicago.

Motorola will join United Continental Holdings Inc., Hillshire Brands Co.—the successor to Sara Lee Corp.— and other corporate giants abandoning vast suburban campuses for urban offices nearer to the young, educated and hyper-connected workers who will lead their businesses into the digital age. Archer Daniels Midland Co. recently said it would move its headquarters from Decatur, Ill., and in the Bay Area, startups like Pinterest Inc. are departing Silicon Valley for San Francisco.

After decades of big businesses leaving the city for the suburbs, U.S. firms have begun a new era of corporate urbanism. Nearly 200 Fortune 500 companies are currently headquartered in the top 50 cities. Many others are staying put in the suburbs but opening high-profile satellite offices in nearby cities, sometimes aided by tax breaks and a recession that tempered downtown rents. And upstart companies are following suit, according to urban planners. The bottom line: companies are under pressure to establish an urban presence that projects an image of dynamism and innovation.

"The showcase headquarters of the past, the beautiful suburban campuses—that's a very obsolete model now," said Patrick Phillips, CEO of the Urban Land Institute, a land-use think tank.

Nationwide, commercial vacancy rates in central business districts have gone down faster than those in suburbs since the real-estate market began to recover in 2011, with 13.9% of urban space empty in the third quarter of 2013 versus 18.5% in the suburbs, according to research firm Reis Inc. At the end of 2010, the figures were 14.8% and 19.1%, respectively.

"There's increasing evidence that this represents a broad trend among large and middle-size companies," said Enrico Moretti, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of "The New Geography of Jobs."

Cheap real estate, tax incentives, and easy automobile access once lured companies to the suburbs, but companies now want urban amenities, proximity to public transit and sense of community—the same qualities young workers prize when deciding where to live and work, said Robert Lang, an urban planning expert and director of Brookings Mountain West.

And highly educated workers are clustering in a small number of cities. In 2010, more than 43% of Americans with bachelor's degrees chose to live in 20 metropolitan areas, primarily tech hubs such as Seattle, San Francisco and Raleigh, N.C., according to research from the Brookings Institution. And as younger graduates marry and start families later than previous generations—often with both spouses pursuing careers—they're delaying moves to the suburbs, sometimes indefinitely.

For longtime employees, however, corporate moves to the city mean longer commutes and disrupted schedules and family life. And the corporate quest for youth and innovation can leave some workers feeling slightly unwelcome.

"We joked about the older suburbanites being excluded from the new [business] model," said Jon Scherf, age 42, a marketing professional who left Hillshire shortly before its December 2012 move to downtown Chicago. "They would've been happy to have me but they're also happy to bring in new blood."Companies say some attrition is normal. Motorola is offering full relocation packages for employees who choose to sell their suburban homes and move closer to the new office. Still, management expects 2% of its staff to depart and about 75% to stay after the relocation. The remainder, said Mr. Sullivan, will likely be "on the fence."

The shift to urban headquarters favors cities such as Chicago, San Francisco and Boston, destinations of choice for recent college graduates, while aging cities like Cleveland and Detroit struggle with corporate flight and economic decline.

Even when headquarters stay put, more companies are opening or expanding urban satellite offices, especially for technology and research staff working on product development and innovation, according to Mr. Moretti.

Silicon Valley giant Yahoo Inc. signed a big lease this year to expand its San Francisco offices so it can recruit top engineers unwilling to make the long commute on Highway 101. And Coca-Cola Co. in June said it would open a 2,000-person information-technology office near its headquarters in downtown Atlanta, relocating some tech staff that had been based in the suburbs.

Overall demand for commercial real estate in the suburbs is strong in metro areas like Sacramento and Dallas, and in regions rebounding from the worst of the housing collapse, said Walter Page, director of research at real-estate data firm CoStar. However, almost no large firms have left cities for the suburbs recently, CoStar has found.

As United Airlines planned its 2010 merger with Continental Airlines, the company chose a neutral space for the two cultures to meld. That meant leaving the "bubble" of its immense campus in Elk Grove Village, a suburb about 20 miles from Chicago, said Kate Gebo, vice president of corporate real estate.

The carrier shifted a small group of employees to Chicago in 2007 and in 2009 announced that it would move all corporate operations downtown. It was an opportune moment; the real-estate market was sagging and landlords were slashing rents, and the city offered the company incentives worth up to $35 million over 10 years. About 4,600 United employees now work in 16 floors of the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower.

The new downtown offices—decorated with murals and lights that mimic the shape of an airplanewing—have proved a magnet for M.B.A.s from top-tier schools as well as new staffers in digital advertising and social media. In the last two years, more than a third of all hires have been under the age of 30, said a spokeswoman. Before that, the figure was closer to 25%.

United has also revived its college internship program, which had been largely dormant for years because the commute from area colleges to Elk Grove Village was too arduous for those without a car.

The airline declined to detail the cost of its relocation or its current real-estate expenses, but Ms. Gebo said the alternative was an extensive upgrade of its old facility.

For Hillshire, which changed its name from Sara Lee after spinning off its European coffee and tea business in 2012, the move downtown was part of a total reorganization that included emulating the culture of a startup, and hiring a workforce to match.

The maker of Jimmy Dean sausage and Ball Park franks now calls itself an "innovative meat-centric company" and a "$4 billion startup." The slimmed-down Hillshire—which now employs around 550 people at headquarters, down from 1,100 before the split—vacated its suburban campus in December 2012 for Chicago's West Loop.

In the city, Hillshire is finding "the type of employees we wanted—externally focused and agile" with a " 'refuse to lose' attitude," said Mary Oleksiuk, Hillshire's head of HR.

One of them, Ryan Rouse, age 33, directs the company's innovation group. He owns a home in the West Loop and joined Hillshire in June from a marketing role at Newell Rubbermaid in Oak Brook, Ill. Now, instead of a car commute that could stretch to almost two hours, he's got a 15-minute walk or a five-minute bike ride to the office. Dining options near the office have been a plus, he said, adding that "access to really wonderful food experiences" helps him think more creatively about possible Hillshire products.

For longtime employees, it has been a more complicated switch. Melissa Napier, treasurer and senior VP of investor relations at Hillshire, bought a house in Downers Grove in 2007 and lives there with her husband and two sons. While she now attends more social and networking events downtown, her commute, once a 10-minute drive, now gets her home at 7:30, an hour later than before.

The kids' dinner-and-homework routine now falls to her husband, a consultant.

Mr. Scherf, who was a manager of shopper insights at Hillshire and now works at Pfizer Inc.'s Itasca, Ill. office, said the company's move was "the tipping point" in his decision to leave, largely because he didn't want to be beholden to train schedules. He also felt unnerved by layoffs and an accelerating "cycle of change."

As young workers start families, they may care more about soccer fields and good schools than sushi restaurants and bike paths, priorities that may send them out of the urban core.

But the employers that sought them out in the city are unlikely to follow them back to the suburbs, said Mr. Phillips of the Urban Land Institute.

"Given energy prices and traffic conditions, it'll be a long time before we see another wave of suburbanization."

Touch ID on Apple’s iPhone 5s is losing accuracy over time for some users

The shine is already wearing off of Apple’s new Touch ID technology for some iPhone 5s owners. Apple unveiled its latest flagship iPhone this past September and along with it, a new embedded fingerprint scanner brought about by the company’s 2012 acquisition of mobile security firm AuthenTec for $356 million. Dubbed Touch ID, the new technology places a sapphire glass-covered fingerprint scanner in the home button of Apple’s iPhone 5s and allows users to unlock the device or authenticate App Store purchases with just the touch of a finger. The new tech is among a few main selling points for the iPhone 5s, but a new report suggests some users are already having trouble with it after less than three months on the market.

“Dr. Drang,” who is described by 5by5 as “a consulting engineer well known amongst nerds on the Internet,” recently wrote on his blog And now it’s all this that he’s having some issues with Touch ID on his iPhone.

“I’ve been using Touch ID since I got an iPhone 5s in mid-October,” Drang wrote. “Generally speaking, I like it, and I find it faster than the old swipe-and-passcode method, but I’ve felt compelled to reteach it my fingerprints twice already. I know this sounds impossible, but its recognition of my prints seems to decay with time.”

The good doctor continued, “I rescanned my fingers this weekend, and Touch ID has been amazingly fast and accurate since then. Just as it was when I first got the 5s, and just as it was a few weeks later when I rescanned my fingers for the first time. Just before each rescan, though, I was so frustrated with Touch ID I felt like throwing the phone across the room.”

Curious indeed, but one isolated issue doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a problem. According to John Gruber of Daring Fireball, however, the issue isn’t exactly isolated.

“Drang is not alone — I’ve had a handful of readers ask me about this recently,” Gruber noted. “Makes me think there’s something to it. Me, personally, though, I haven’t noticed any drop-off in accuracy.”

Like Gruber, we haven’t experienced any issues with the print reader on our devices. We also haven’t seen any reports of this issue outside of the ones noted above. The iPhone 5s is still less than three months old, however, so this may be something to watch for as time progresses.

Komodo Dragon

Komodo dragons have thrived in the harsh climate of Indonesia's Lesser Sunda Islands for millions of years, although amazingly, their existence was unknown to humans until about 100 years ago.
Reaching 10 feet (3 meters) in length and more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms), Komodo dragons are the heaviest lizards on Earth. They have long, flat heads with rounded snouts, scaly skin, bowed legs, and huge, muscular tails.
As the dominant predators on the handful of islands they inhabit, they will eat almost anything, including carrion, deer, pigs, smaller dragons, and even large water buffalo and humans. When hunting, Komodo dragons rely on camouflage and patience, lying in wait for passing prey. When a victim ambles by, the dragon springs, using its powerful legs, sharp claws and serrated, shark-like teeth to eviscerate its prey.
Animals that escape the jaws of a Komodo will only feel lucky briefly. Dragon saliva teems with over 50 strains of bacteria, and within 24 hours, the stricken creature usually dies of blood poisoning. Dragons calmly follow an escapee for miles as the bacteria takes effect, using their keen sense of smell to hone in on the corpse. A dragon can eat a whopping 80 percent of its body weight in a single feeding.
There is a stable population of about 3,000 to 5,000 Komodo dragons on the islands of Komodo, Gila Motang, Rinca, and Flores. However, a dearth of egg-laying females, poaching, human encroachment, and natural disasters has driven the species to endangered status.

Technology-Where will you go next?

Depending on when you were born, technology could be your friend, your enemy or just an acquaintance.  Years ago, when computer screens weren’t the size of the average smartphone and one had to have an advanced degree to figure out how to turn 0′s and 1′s into actual functions, most of us would have leave technology to the experts.  But now, we have incredible access to enormous amounts of information and we have powerful machines that sit in the palm of our hands ready to do
very complex tasks. Technology is a part of our lives – it is in our cars, it is at our doctor’s office, it is in our schools, it is in our televisions, our phones, our credit cards, and on and on. Achievers are committed to continual improvement. If you aren’t keeping up, you are falling behind because everyone else is moving forward but you.So how do those of us who are inept and still have VHS VCRs blinking under our tubed TVs embrace that which scares us, frustrates us, and forces us to ask our five year old neighbor how to make a phone call?
Easy! Take a deep breath.  Put down the hammer that you were about to use to smash the remote and realize that it is time to let go of 1955 and embrace the information era.  The Internet has every answer that ever was and ever will be at the touch of a few keystrokes.  Gone are the days of non-intuitive websites and browsers.  Welcome the age of being able to browse the world’s best libraries and viewing long lost footage of your favorite documentaries!
Improvement and change are best in small increments. When you start with small, easy steps, its less overwhelming and you can build momentum as you go. Technology doesn’t mean you have to buy the latest gadget or take a masters level course on programming your microwave.  Just like riding a bike, we all had to start with one foot on the pedal and one foot on the ground with the trust that we will overcome our fear of falling and will perfect balancing on two wheels.  Practice in the privacy of your own home – surf the net and see what the latest craze is on YouTube and Google a quote to see who really said it…

Study Abroad

Do you want to study abroad?if yes then this is very good opportunity for you.Here you will find all information about study abroad.As you know about competition in education that's why you have to select better education for you.

Today’s competitive job market requires applicants to distinguish themselves,and if you want to distinguish yourself then you must obtain excellent knowledge about studying.


Achieving all these things can be done while earning credit towards your current degree.GSE programs allow you to earn up to a year of language credit in only one semester or quarter.

By living in a foreign country you will constantly challenge yourself in many new and exciting ways and gain a level of independence you never knew you had. If you want to study abroad then you must have experience about that and if you have not then don't worry we will help you out.Studying abroad will expose you to diverse people and viewpoints, and you will get to experience a different way of life apart from yours .Studying abroad for a summer, quarter, trimester, semester, or year will give you a fresh perspective on yourself, the United States, and the world United States. You will be immersed in the language, culture, and people of your host country and will get to experience life as a resident, not as a mere tourist.

Not only can you work towards fulfilling your language requirement while abroad, but you may also fulfill several general requirements by taking electives. When you return from abroad you may actually be ahead of your classmates who stayed behind.Obtaining foreign language skills can make you eligible for all sorts of jobs that you may have otherwise been unqualified for.

Having international education experience is an incredible resume booster, as it shows prospective employers you are motivated, independent, and generally more qualified.

Education Technology Latest News

Research confirms that consumers view aluminum as more of a premium perception product than plastic. Aluminium is also recyclable product then plastic and has a much lower overall environmental impact than
plastic so customer want to see more aluminum then plastic. Manufacturers also know that using aluminum creates premium positioning for their product and brand.

Now the strategy is to partner with OEM customers and their global supply chains to bring new and exciting aluminum solutions to the market. Alcoa’s offerings to the consumer electronics market include aluminum sheet available in a number of finishes, textures and colors.
To learn more about the Alcoa Consumer Electronic market then you can visit

Information Technology News

Ever you Liston about blue ray technology?if not then we will tell you what is blue ray technology.Blue ray technology is introduced very recently and you know many of us are not aware of the blue ray technology.Now lets see what is blue ray technology.The new era of DVD technology is called the blue ray technology .The blue ray technology is considered as future data storage device. The blue ray technology is treated as a blessing among the reputed companies like Sony, Apple, Panasonic, HP etc.

The single layer blue ray disc can store about 25GB
of data while a double layered blue ray disc can store up to 50GB of data. In the future the storage capacity of blue ray discs can reach unbelievable peaks.

The laser that is used to read and store data onto this blue ray disc is in blue color instead of the traditional red laser used in the standard DVDs. The blue ray disc is commonly known for its high definition video and audio storage. It has a capacity of very high data storage.

The blue ray technology may become a great threat to the traditional cinema theaters and enjoy the movies at home instead of going to the cinema. The blue ray technology provides the buyers a novel experience while watching a video or listening to their favorite music. The discs that undergo blue ray technology produce high definition video and audio.

Thanks To Apple And Google, Wearable Technology Is On Track To Become A $50 Billion Market

The main takeaway: wearable tech is already a $3- to $5 billion market today. In the next two to three years, it could skyrocket to $30- to $50 billion.That means more smartwatches, fitness monitors, shoes, and headsets.Smartphones are one of the key driving forces behind the expected growth in wearable tech, acting as a hub that keeps all of our devices connected. Over time, wireless devices will become even more popular as hardware improves, and sensors and batteries get better.With Apple and Google dominating the install base of smartphone operating
systems  iOS and Android respectively  they are in two of the best positions to leverage the wearable tech market.Here are some key stats and info from the report: here are more than 250 million installed mobile operating systems that can support wearable technology.
An iWatch could generate $10 billion a year in revenue with an EPS of $3.30.There are currently only nine smartwatches available today.Watches are a $56 billion market.Regarding retail impact, Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour have best leveraged wearables to enhance the fitness experience and efficacy of their products.
The health and fitness market is about $2- to $3 billion.
By 2020, batteries are expected to be 2.2x more powerful.

Truck Carrying 'Extremely Dangerous' Radioactive Material Stolen in Mexico

A truck carrying extremely dangerous material used in medical treatment has been stolen in Mexico officials said.The truck was transporting cobalt-60 from a hospital in the northern city of Tijuana to a radioactive
waste storage facility when it was stolen in Tepojaco near Mexico City Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement. Cobalt-60 is a radioactive isotope and was being used in radiotherapy.
Mexican authorities are conducting a search for the material and have issued a statement to alert the public, the IAEA said.The truck is a white Volkswagen Worker with license plate 726-DT-8, Mexico's National Commission for Nuclear Security and Safeguards said.At the time the truck was stolen, the source was properly shielded. However, the source could be extremely dangerous to a person if removed from the shielding, or if it was damaged the IAEA said in the statement.There was no indication from officials that the truck was headed for the U.S.U.S. law enforcement and Department of Homeland Security officials are aware of the theft and working closely with Mexican authorities, a U.S. official briefed on the situation told ABC News.Border officials armed with radiation detection devices have been alerted. It is unclear who stole the material and if they know what they have, the official said.

Researchers study link between diesel fumes and destruction of bee colonies

Scientists are investigating the possible link between pollution found in diesel fumes and the global collapse of honey bee colonies. Researchers from the University of Southampton believe nanoparticles emitted from diesel engines could be affecting bees brains and damaging their in-built navigation skills. They believe this may stop worker bees finding their way back to the hive.There is also a theory that diesel fumes mop up flower smells in the atmosphere, making it difficult for the insects to find
food. Ecologist professor Guy Poppy and neuroscientist Dr Tracey Newman think nanoparticles are one of a number of stress factors
which could lead to a tipping point in bee health, which in turn could contribute to bee-colony collapse.They will now take part in a three-year, �156,000 study to find out more.Diesel road traffic is increasing in the UK and research from the US has shown that nanoparticles found in its fumes can be detrimental to the brains of animals when they are exposed to large doses explained Mr Poppy
We want to find out if bees are affected in the same way, and answer the question of why bees aren't finding their way back to the hive when they leave to find food." Bees are estimated to contribute billions to the world's economy, �430 million a year to the UK alone, by pollinating crops, producing honey and supporting employment, the researchers said.Yet winter losses of bees have led to a drop of tens of thousands of beehives year on year since 2007. The US has seen a 35% unexplained drop in the number of hives in 2007, 2008 and 2009, they added. A recent United Nations report and other studies have not identified the cause of bee declines.The team includes biologists, Nanotechnology researchers and ecologists, who will now test the behavioural and neurological changes in honey bees, after exposure to diesel nanoparticles. Chemical ecologist Dr Robbie Girling said: "The diesel fumes may have a dual affect in that they may be mopping up flower smells in the air, making it harder for the bees to find their food sources.
Recent research has revealed more about the effects of nanoparticles, enabling scientists to investigate this possible link to bee-colony.

Creating a transistor with a single atom

There was a time when science was the pre-occupation of lone scientists trying to unravel the mysteries of nature. Their purpose possibly had been to derive ethereal sense of pleasure by contributing in some messure towards the intellectual growth of mankind. Recent pass has brought about revolutionary change in the scientific outlook of the people, specially after realising that nature is a great source of power, and it is Science alone that can assist in placing that Power in the hands of man for promoting the human progress, prosperity and well being.

Science, and inventions are now rightly regarded as the most important means for improving the material welfare of the
people. The agency of Science as a major force of social reconstruction nowstands universally accepted. It is no wonder, therefore. that the scientific development of a country becomes the yard-stick of its progress and greatness In technology, there is a strong desire to shrink things. Consider the sheer amount of news these days surrounding nanotechnology: it is arguably one of the fastest growing sectors in technology. Recent news out of two universities on potentially groundbreaking work on single-atom transistors should not be that surprising, then. Scientists have created a transistor the size of a single atom, opening the way for the next generation of nanotechnology: a quantum computer that might one day function in a nanoscale world and would be significantly smaller and quicker than today's silicon-based machines. Until now, single-atom transistors were created on a hit-or-miss basis

SpaceX’s latest rocket launch a success after recent setbacks

SpaceX added another historic mission to its resume with the successful launch of its Falcon 9 rocket with a $100 million SES-8 satellite in tow.This was the seventh official launch in the Falcon 9 series and takes SpaceX, run by founder Elon Musk, one step closer to its ultimate goal of transporting humans into space by 2017.The successful launch came from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday afternoon came after two previous
attempts were cancelled in recent weeks.
The entry of SpaceX into the commercial market is a game-changer SES chief technology officer Martin Halliwell said in a recent teleconference.It's going to really shake the industry to its roots.SpaceX has said the goal of the launch is to take a payload to a predetermined geostationary location 50,000 miles above the Earth’s surface. The 224.4 foot tall rocket can be used to carry cargo payloads or SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft into orbit .Meeting this national priority for an American human space transportation capability is paramount for SpaceX and we are very focused on this for our NASA customer reads an explanation on the company’s site.And having NASA as a paying customer surely is one of SpaceX's most public accomplishments.So how much does it cost to launch your own private payload into space? About $56.5 million, according to SpaceX’s price index listed on its site.And that's part of SpaceX's commercial appeal beating comparable offers from Russia ($100 million) and European ventures ($200 million) according to the Houston Chronicle.Although heavier payloads can run the cost up to $135 million.