How the Strike Debt Movement Redefined Occupy

The answer appears so simple that even Saturday Night Live has made a gag of it. To escape the nightmare tide of rising debt, all Americans need do is control their consumption, right? Resist the pull of the flat screen TV, the closet full of brand names, the smart phone. It’s just that easy.

In May 2012, members of the Occupy Wall Street publication Tidal and its working group, Occupy Theory, called for a series of open assemblies to re-evaluate the Occupy movement’s strategies. Conversations quickly coalesced around the topics of education and debt, and the Strike Debt group was born. Taking a cue from the student protests in Quebec, the group began to hold weekly assemblies in Washington Square Park and adopted Quebec’s red square as a symbol of solidarity.

“We realized that student debt, medical debt, housing debt, credit card debt – these are all necessities of life, and people are stuck,” said Susan Meaney, a member of Strike Debt’s organizing committee and a mother of two college-age children with student loans.

With roughly 75 percent of Americans mired in some kind of debt, much of it medical or educational, Meaney said, the blame cannot rest on the debtors. When basic necessities like health care and schooling are partially or entirely debt-financed, consuming less is not the answer.

“It’s a systemic problem,” she said. “It’s not because [Americans] don’t know how to handle their money. There’s a system in place that keeps them that way. We wanted to open up a conversation and let people know that they are not alone.”

One of Strike Debt’s most publicized initiatives is the Rolling Jubilee, a donation-based fund that has already purchased and abolished more than $1 million worth of people's private medical debt in the United States. The initiative has brought attention to the “shadowy, speculative secondary debt market” where defaulted medical and credit card debt can be sold to debt collectors, who purchase it for a fraction of the price and turn a profit by pressuring debtors to pay the full amount. The group's most recent debt buy involved obtaining a portfolio worth over $1 million — for around just $21,000.

“We purchase the debt like a debt buyer, but instead of trying to collect on it we abolish it,” said Ann Larson, Rolling Jubilee’s assistant treasurer. “This is like public education, letting people know that this is happening. These are people who haven’t been able to pay their medical debt, people who got sick [or] had an accident, and now debt buyers and collectors are profiting from it. They are trafficking in misery.”

Another large Strike Debt initiative has been the 130-page Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual, a handbook that outlines various forms of debt and debt resistance. Debt resistance, the manual explains, can consist of anything from intentionally defaulting on debt to simply negotiating with creditors for more equitable interest rates. The publication is available for free online and at Strike Debt rallies. A second edition will be available in mid-September for purchase on Amazon, but will remain free online and at demonstrations.

“The problem is that people suffer from debt alone, often overwhelmed by feelings of shame,” Rolling Jubilee secretary Christopher Casuccio wrote in an e-mail. “With the DROM, we tried to tell a story to other people who feel as isolated as we do, a story about our economic system and the role that debt plays as a predatory tool for capitalists. We have received thousands of emails from debtors all over the country, [which] confirmed what we suspected: debt is a crisis and people are suffering everywhere, often with nowhere to go and nobody to talk to.”

Strike Debt affiliates have popped up around the country, in places like Oakland, San Francisco, Portland, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and Minneapolis. Many of the groups are still in their infancies, working out an organizational structure and planning initiatives. They are in conversation with the New York hub to varying degrees, but are encouraged to focus on the issues directly affecting their communities.

Strike Debt Bay Area, for example, has formed several subgroups aimed at tackling different facets of the debt problem, and has so far held two Debtors’ Assemblies, a small rally on tax day, and joined in protesting the closure of a post office in Berkeley. The movement is small but optimistic.

“We’re basically trying to establish a critical mass here in the Bay Area,” said Margaret Rossoff, a member of the organizing committee. “We have a few people who are really committed, but we need more.”

However, Strike Debt has also weathered serious upheaval in recent months. On the eve of this year’s May Day demonstrations, Amin Husain, one of Strike Debt’s original members, sent out an e-mail announcing his departure from the group, citing vicious infighting and ideological differences. The move sparked a small exodus of members who shared Husain’s views.

The Palestinian-born artist and activist, a former corporate lawyer, abandoned his profession to take up the mantle of political activism and helped plan the original occupation of Zuccotti Park on September 17, 2011. For some, Husain had become a public face for Strike Debt, and perhaps even for Occupy. His departure was seen as an unsettling comment on the movement’s future.

“I’ve come to think you can’t really build a movement around debt,” Husain said. “When you substitute capitalism with [conversations about] debt, the problem is that you don’t pick up issues like race, racism, white supremacy in society, and patriarchy. That’s not Occupy.”

In his e-mail, Husain cited legal scholar Frances Lee Ansley’s definition of “white supremacy” as a main source of conflict within the group:

“By ‘white supremacy’ […] I refer to a political, economic and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non-white subordination are daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings.”

Husain felt that Strike Debt was reproducing these dynamics, if unconsciously, in a largely homogenous movement. He said that Strike Debt was sidestepping crucial conversations about race, class and gender, and how these are used as instruments of oppression.

“Strike Debt is not addressing race and patriarchy in a way that I think is healthy, and it’s limited by not being multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural,” he said. “The main reason I left is because we couldn’t have these conversations. There were a lot of interpersonal dynamics that stopped that from happening. I don’t want to be part of something that is predominantly white that will produce the same world.”

Still, Husain has not left Occupy for good but has merely shifted his efforts elsewhere. He has continued his work with Tidal’s editorial team, as well as Occupy Theory, and continues to promote the kind of radical social shift sought by Occupy as a whole.

The remaining members of Strike Debt have acknowledged the upheaval and the issues raised by these departures, but are committed to moving forward with their current structure.

“These sorts of conflicts are inevitable in any social movement,” Larson wrote in an e-mail. “As for the future, we're tackling the same issues and questions that have animated our work since the beginning. My sense is that most active members feel that, while we must always learn from past conflicts, we're headed in the right direction.”

Casuccio added that the group has adopted a set of principles aimed at promoting “direct democracy, autonomy, accountability, and anti-oppression. We're very aware of these challenges and are committed to facing them honestly, actively, and with reflection and humility.”

Recently, Strike Debt members have been supporting Cooper Union students protesting the university’s controversial decision to charge tuition. Members say that upcoming Strike Debt initiatives may be aimed at not only combating student debt but also the shady economic underworld of check cashing and payday lending. They have been quietly gearing up for another debt buy as well as the release of a second edition of the Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual.

“We want to build a national debtors’ movement, and that takes a lot of planning,” Larson said. “It takes a lot of focus, a lot of thinking about the logistics and communicating with people in different parts of the country.”Click on their website www.tilees.com for more information.

Herding old folk

The bus pass is under threat. And it won't be long before there's a bedroom tax to herd us older folk into small flats and out of the homes we have built up through toil and sweat.

And this cull of "bedroom blockers" will be to no avail. A report by the International Longevity Centre says relocating senior citizens will only make worse the housing shortage for first-time buyers. The report says more must be done to make retirement housing "aspirational". I presume they mean upmarket abodes of a comfortable and luxurious nature. Not a single-end up a non-wally close.

Pensioners of the world unite. If we must downsize, we should also upgrade. Say no to retirement homes with connotations of commodes and antimacassar-covered armchairs. Say yes to a condominium with a hint of pandemonium. Huge flat-screen tellies, HDMI dongles with YouTube videos of all your favourite rock stars.

This is not rage against the dying of the light. This is a determination to have some fun, fun, fun while roaming in the gloaming of the polished tiles.

Life need not be dull in shelter-ville. Residents can get together to mix and match prescription drugs. Pill-popping parties where tablets to relieve and prevent stiffness may be swapped for others with the opposite effect. Tonic wine tastings where a classy aromatic Wincarnis can be compared and contrasted to a cheeky young Buckfast or a full-bodied Sanatogen.

Hell's Angel-style outings on mobility scooters with all the pillion babes in Marianne Faithfull leather gear. Don't just sit and watch as years go by. With no other occupants in your retirement flat, every night is an "empty" and an excuse for a party. Splurge all the money you're saving on gas and electricity on Marks & Spencer ready meals.

Rock'n'roll retirement is all very well but we don't want ghettos for older folk. The generations should mix. Pensionistas might consider the option of taking rooms in these ultra-smart blocks of student flats that are all over the place these days. You may have to sign up at college for a course in the philosophy of hairdressing. But you will get a student discount card.

There can be symbiosis as auld yins show there is life beyond the pot noodle and the young give valuable information as to whether the lift is going up or down. Oldies should be considerate and not play music too loud when younger residents are studying for exams.

New Bills coach Doug Marrone and the front office made a bold move in drafting Manuel, thought to have an enormously high ceiling but viewed as a raw project, in the first round. Since the draft, however, Manuel has said that the Bills offense has been easier to learn than Florida State's, and new general manager Doug Whaley said he is open to Manuel being the Day 1 starter.

Prior to the draft, the Bills had signed former Arizona Cardinals and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Kevin Kolb, who has enjoyed some encouraging moments in the NFL during the occasional times he hasn't been injured. There is little question Kolb is more polished, but will the Bills be able to resist the temptation to turn the keys over to their prized draft pick?

This one could go down to the wire. If Manuel progresses quickly, the Bills would probably like to start him. If he experiences major growing pains (the more likely scenario), he could end up being the backup for, say, half the season before eventually assuming the job.

It's tough to predict how ready Manuel will be because we're two and a half months away from his first game action. Let's say it's roughly 60-40 in Kolb's favor to start on opening day, but that figure has the potential to change in a hurry when the preseason games begin.

Weeden is not a lock to open the season behind center, but it would be a fairly big upset if he doesn't. The presence of the other two guys, however, gives Cleveland one of the best backup quarterbacks in the league and probably the finest No. 3. The new staff and front office aren't married to Weeden, so he won't keep the job for long if he doesn't perform.

One thing working against Weeden is his age. Despite entering just his second NFL season, the former New York Yankees farmhand is going to turn 30 in October. Coach Rob Chudzinski and general manager Mike Lombardi are not going to be as patient with Weeden as they would be with the typical second-year quarterback.

Still, Weeden seems to be a decent fit for Chudzinski and offensive coordinator Norv Turner's vertical attack, and that would give him a decent chance to hang onto the job for a while.

Lien-clearing plan saves Wilkinsburg historic condos

Three of the eight units were vacant and two had liens that totaled more than $100,000, with owners who wouldn't respond to requests from the condo association.

"We almost lost the building," said longtime resident Rolynda Ford, whose advocacy of one vacant condo -- along with upstairs neighbor Suzanne Nuss' advocacy of another -- got the attention of the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County.

Because so many liens were owed to the borough, the redevelopment authority's program to clear the title took some convincing, but Wilkinsburg council eventually voted to approve letting the building go through the county's Vacant Property Recovery Program.

All eight units are now owned by people who pay condo association fees. Ms. Ford was able to buy the unit she is in now and Ms. Nuss bought another of the vacant units. She intends to sell one and stay in the China ceramic tile.

Tracey Evans, executive director of the Wilkinsburg Community Development Corp., said the condo building is one of the oldest to have been built specifically for condos, early in the 20th century. Another like it across the street was demolished in the 1990s.

The condos' dining rooms are wainscoted in tiger oak, and pocket doors separate the living and dining rooms. The kitchen floors are hand-laid tile. Each bathroom has mosaic tiling and tile lines the stairwells, whose treads are made of cork.

The Brighton festival's theatre programme ended with this extraordinary import from Argentina in which five actors recalled, with the aid of photos, letters, home movies and old clothes, the lives of their parents. Conceived and directed by Lola Arias, the show offered a compelling mix of personal memories and – since the actors were all born around the time of the 1976-83 dictatorship – a mosaic of modern Argentinian history.

I suspect Arias is an admirer of the Brazilian pioneer Augusto Boal, whose "theatre of the oppressed" dramatised communal issues. Here, the big question is how the actors either live up to the radicalism of a previous generation or, in one case, live down its collusion with dictatorship. The most moving story is that of a performer who discovered that her supposed brother was actually the child of a "disappeared" family and had been illegally abducted by her policeman father: there is both sadness and a sense of relief in the way she recounts that her guilty dad is currently serving an 18-year jail sentence. But amid the stories of parents who suffered death or exile for their politics, there are lighter moments. One actor brings his eight-year-old son and the boy's pet turtle on stage; as the reptiles allegedly have prophetic powers, we watch in suspense as the turtle slowly indicates whether there will be a future Argentine revolution.

Arias's production would doubtless have an even greater impact on a society that had lived through the events described. But it gives us a vivid picture of the high price paid by a previous Argentinian generation for opposing, either openly or covertly, a dictatorship. It is also inventively staged, with descending cascades of clothes symbolising the weight of the past, and performed with great verve: you had to admire the unfazed cool of Liza Casullo as she coped with a technical hitch in the midst of a filmic re-creation of the lives of her exiled parents. But that, one would guess, is the least of the problems this resilient and blazingly honest group of performers has ever had to face.

His “Memento” line for Ceramica Vallelunga looks like it was lifted from a 500-year-old palazzo in Castelfranco, the small town in Northern Italy where he lives. Somehow Barbieri has managed to infuse these look-alikes with the patina of age — the surface of all the tiles has the rounded, irregular wear pattern produced by thousands of footsteps over hundreds of years.

Unlike Barbieri’s work, the originality of Phillip Starck’s “Flexible Architecture” line for Ceramica Sant’Agostino is not apparent at first glance or even the first five minutes. The bold colors and patterns are captivating; the fact that five barely dissimilar tiles can be rearranged in a seemingly infinite variety of distinct patterns is cleverness itself.

Then the light bulb goes off, as you realize that the generating motif for all the patterns is the humble grout line, something that most tile designers regard as distracting, ugly and something to hide.

Starck has done the opposite, celebrating it by incorporating an exaggerated textured grout line into the tile itself. When the tiles are installed you can’t miss the “fake” grout line’s three-quarter-inch width; the actual grout line is one millimeter wide and nearly invisible because it’s colored to match the tile.

Starck also shows us that it doesn’t take much to create a three-dimensional effect — the one-quarter-inch difference in the thickness of the tiles in his “Flexible Architecture” line creates a distinct shadow line in every pattern.

I want to leave my abusive husband but I'm too frightened

Leave certainly, but lay careful plans. Normally I'm not in favour of sneakiness, but your letter leaves me with few illusions and little faith in your husband's redeeming qualities. If he's physically threatening you, let alone actually harming you, then you need to be in touch with social services. It's called physical abuse and unlike large swathes of the developing world where smacking your wife is the divine right of husbands, we have laws and protection agencies charged with ensuring that the weaker and more vulnerable don't have to live in fear.

The Home Office recently published an updated plan of action for ending violence against women and children and widened the definition of domestic abuse to increase awareness of the issues among young people and include the notion of coercive control as a form of abuse. In other words you don't have to be black and blue all over in order to seek help. Instead taking control of your destiny and ensuring the safety of your children is far better achieved while emotions are not at their most heightened and the danger this man poses to you and your family at its most extreme.

Refuge is a fantastic organisation that offers advice and practical help to those who are hostage to the violence of a partner. Women's Aid is a national domestic violence charity dedicated to helping vulnerable women and children. There is also the National Domestic Violence freephone helpline on 0808 2000 247.

Too many women wait until they are crawling on their hands and knees to seek help, wrongly presuming the seriousness of their case will be judged by the regularity and extremity of the violence. You don't want your first call to be to a hospital rather than a helpline.

We pay tax so that our humanitarian values are reflected in the services we make available to all members of our society, ensuring that those in need of support, like you and Ceramic tile, have access to a system that ensures equal rights and protection for all. In this case it's definitely your right and also your duty as a mother to access such help.

I appreciate that with three young children your hands are full, but you mustn't allow this volatile situation to continue. We all make mistakes in love, but such mistakes can be rectified. Now that you've identified this man's inadequacies and his capacity for violence you need to keep the momentum going. Speak to social services, speak to Refuge, enlist the help of your sister and plot your escape.

A man who is abusive to you, aggressive to your children and good for nothing is simply not an option for a mother of three. Whether you take your own safety and security seriously is your business, but your children have a right to be protected and not to live twilight lives in the shadow of your fear. I appreciate the huge obstacles that loom in your current predicament and how far any possibility of liberation from this dysfunctional partnership must seem, but you should take heart from the example of millions of women who have suffered similarly, made their escape and gone on to lead happy and fulfilling lives free of threat.

According to figures from the Fawcett Society one in three women in this world will be the victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives. The only positive aspect is that it confirms you are far from alone.

You can change your life and you've already taken your first step. You have every chance of a new, abuse-free existence. This is no time to try and go it alone. In your present circumstances the back up of trained professionals will be indispensable, not only for practical advice but also to help dispel your justified fear. Once you're standing on your own two feet you'll be surprised how easily you find the direction you need to start walking.

I’m a 31-year-old young South African male who feels privileged to be part of the change that has been taking place in the past two decades in our country. Let me hasten to declare that my involvement in this necessary process of change is informed by my conviction that the struggle for socio-economic justice is superior to all battles confronting the working class.

I’m also the rightful beneficiary of all the liberties guaranteed under South Africa’s inviolable constitution.

I submit that South Africa is a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic society because of the ANC’s long-held policy position on these pillars as espoused in the Freedom Charter.

My first opportunity to vote in a free and fair election came in 1999 while I was a first-year student at the Vaal University of Technology. On the basis of the few years of my consciousness under the apartheid regime and frank interpretation of our country’s history, I became a natural voter for continued change that had started five years earlier when the ANC received a mandate to govern the country.

That the ANC became the natural beneficiary of my vote wasn’t an accident of history. I believed in the organisation’s manifesto of transforming our country politically and economically.

Over the years, I have witnessed the organisation I entrusted with the responsibility of emancipating its citizens from all forms of historical bondages deliver on its commitments.

New houses, roads, schools, hospitals, police stations, courts and public service facilities have been built. More families have access to clean drinking water, proper sanitation and electricity in post-apartheid South Africa.

The delay in the delivery of economic freedom is causing agitation among members of society. We are all at one that it has proved difficult for the ANC to undo, in 19 years, the legacy of colonialism and apartheid accounting for at least 350 years of of this country’s history. Despite these challenges, the ANC remains rooted in communities and ensuring that all its members become the agents of change that this country requires.

The whole thing, of course, is not a perfect affair. It continues to lead society on many issues apt for a functional society and economy.

Its invariable ideological posture has ensured that the organisation remains relevant and a political home of choice for millions of the working class in the main, but also other classes of society.

Any organisation that has no ideological DNA is bound to suffer the consequences of currency that cannot be sustained beyond the fanfare.

Take, for example, the opposition DA, which takes the Oscar for multiple identities. South Africans have been served a variety of dishes of political identities by the DA that leave the palate confused.

In the absence of any conclusive analysis that would seek to clarify the DNA of this political party and what it stands for, the nation can be pardoned for concluding that it is caught between advancing the interests of a minority section of our society and trying to appease and attract Africans or the so-called “black vote” to its ranks.

Cash beats plastic in Middle East

Cash transactions in the region accounted for 93 per cent of total consumer payments in volume terms in 2012, while transactions that involved cards represented only 5 per cent, indicating the “continued importance of cash in the region,” according to Euromonitor International.

“Cash transactions are expected to remain the leading consumer payment method, with volume growth projected at seven per cent over the next five years,” Maii Abdul Rahman, research analyst at Euromonitor International, told Gulf News.

The main driver for paper-based payments is the large unbanked population in the region that may take some time to enter the financial mainstream. There is also a limited consumer adoption of electronic payments due to security concerns and cultural reasons.

The Middle East and Africa’s consumer payments market hit a value of $1.2 billion in 2012 and is expected to expand by 32 per cent in 2017 to reach $1.5 billion. In terms of total payments, cash constitutes the largest share at 68 per cent, while cards represent only 18 per cent.

Abdul Rahman said most people use cash in transactions involving remittances, transportation, delivery services, fuel and groceries. “With a significant share of expatriate population, the GCC is the largest source of remittances to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Egypt and Lebanon, making remittances the leading driver of cash transactions in the Ceramic tile,” Abdul Rahman said.

When it comes to shopping for clothes and shoes, paying for food and beverage, as well as other discretionary expenses, most consumers prefer to pay with plastic money.

“Sectors such as food and beverage, clothing and footwear, and leisure and recreation top the list of credit card transactions, with a combined share of 50 per cent. Looking at debit cards, food and beverages remain the sector most spent on, followed by household goods and services and transport,” said Abdul Rahman.

Cash may still be king, but with the continued push from the government, card-based transactions will become widespread in the near term.

Transactions involving cards are expected to post the highest growth, increasing by 12 per cent over the next five years, according to Euromonitor International.

“Increasing government initiatives across the region to push electronic payments and drive financial inclusion are one of the key growth drivers going forward,” said Maii Abdul Rahman, research analyst at Euromonitor International.

Abdul Rahman noted that in Nigeria, the government has recently launched 13 million national ID smart cards that can be used for electronic payments. In the UAE, the Wage Protection System (WPS) is currently facilitating salary payments for around 2 million labourers.

“These initiatives, coupled with an improved financial infrastructure, a young tech-savvy population and continued innovation with the rise of mobile commerce and NFCs (near field communications) are expected to strongly push card payment transactions in the future,” said Abdul Rahman.

“With the growth of smart phones and tablets and an increasing number of suppliers offering payment through mobile, m-commerce is gaining momentum in the region. And as disposable incomes and spending rise and the youth population is more inclined to embrace new payment methods, such as via mobile phones, this region is an ideal target market for financial institutions,” said Fulya Berksoy, regional consultant at Euromonitor International.

Square, which allows anyone with a smartphone to take credit-card payments, is now doing business in Japan. It is the third country, after the United States and Canada, where the company has made its industry-disrupting payments service available, and the popularity of the iPhone there could create fertile grounds for expansion.

It’s no surprise that the company would want to get into one of the world’s biggest, most sophisticated markets. It recently hired the top US trade negotiator, who helped bring Japan into a new round of regional free-trade talks, as its international government-relations guy, and a Google executive with significant global experience as its business lead. But the question for Square is whether businesses in Japan will adopt its little plastic card-swiper with the enthusiasm they have in the US, where the firm is on track to process $15 billion in payments this year.

There is already plenty of competition for mobile payments in Japan. PayPal is getting into the market, alongside a robust domestic sector dominated by mobile providers like NTT Docomo. But the bigger problem, or perhaps opportunity, might be in Japan’s way of doing business.

“They’re telling you that if they lost on all of them—which, by the way, no one ever does—it would have no effect on their tax expense,” Bobek Schmitt says. “But if they won on any of them, it would lower their tax rate.”

Like most companies, Apple doesn’t say which tax benefits it expects to flame out. Chances are good that many of them involve transfer pricing, Bobek Schmitt says—essentially, the fees that one Apple subsidiary charges another for services or the use of patents and other intellectual property, which is a common point of contention with tax authorities. (Bloomberg News has a more detailed look at various ways of measuring Apple’s tax bill.)

Apple is far from the only big company booking these unrecognized tax benefits. Google reported $2.07 billion of them as of the end of March, including $1.89 billion that could alter the company’s effective tax rate, which was 7.9%. General Electric reported $5.58 billion, of which $4.19 billion could alter its effective tax rate (12.4% as of March 31).

RTO runs out of smart cards

Owners of new vehicles have to wait for over two months to get them registered because the regional transport office (RTO) has run out of smart cards given as registration certificates.

Similar is the fate of all those who have applied for transfer of ownership - either because of vehicles changing hands or getting the hypothecation tags off the registration documents.

"The situation is same across the state. As far as the queue of individuals seeking new registration certificate books is concerned, there are at least 11,000 people in waiting for over three months," deputy regional transport officer Jayant Patil said.

He said the problem rose because the vendor who has been given the contract to prepare, print and supply the cards was importing those from a manufacturer in China. "It takes some time for the card to reach. Besides, it's a state-wide problem and the shortage is being felt everywhere. Senior officials in the department are aware of the problem," he added.

Patil, however, said the RTO, Nashik had received a consignment of 1,000 cards, which would be processed and posted to the respective customers.

"We are in receipt of some cards - about 1,000 in numbers. Those are being signed and posted. We will get another batch of nearly 3,000 cards. These cards would be ready to be delivered in a matter of three-to-four days. We hope that our office will be in a position to clear the outstanding rush within two weeks," the officer said.

Kishor Rahane, a resident of Nashik Road, said, "I had taken a bank loan to buy my car. I have cleared the loan and applied to get hypothecation mark off in February. But I am yet to receive any communication from the Ceramic tile."

The department had outsourced the job of computerizing records of registration documents and driving licences and issuing fresh registration documents and driving licences to a consortium as part of a public-private partnership.

The private vendor has set up the necessary infrastructure and the manpower to do the job and gets a share of the revenue. For every new driving licence and a registration certificate, a fee of Rs 200 and Rs 350 is collected, respectively. The vendor gets a share of Rs 83 in each driving licence issued. There is no vendor's share in the issuance of the registration certificate, the official said.

Price optimization strategies and adaptable technology are vital to ensuring retailers’ competitive advantage, success and growth. By using electronic shelf labels (ESL) with E Ink’s technology, retailers have the ability to change pricing strategies as needed in real time, allowing them to stay one step ahead of competitors while attracting consumers based on changing market conditions. Spectra allows retailers to elevate the impact of their ESLs, by adding color to logos and quickly directing consumers’ attention to important information, such as product sales and promotions.

“The three pigment system is a major achievement for E Ink, and a technological accomplishment in our industry,” explained Giovanni Mancini, director of product management, E Ink. “As the first product line to feature this advanced ink, Spectra provides retailers with the same visual and power savings attributes of our black and white ESL products, with the option of adding a third color to highlight promotions or other relevant information.”

“We are excited to see the addition of color, something requested by many of our customers,” said Niclas Qvist, Head of Marketing and Global Partner Management at Pricer, the leading Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) solution provider. “Pricer use E Ink’s e-paper in all our graphic products today. E Ink and Pricer are leading the way by giving shoppers the best in-store experience with clear and easy to read price tags. Product development is guided by market feedback and the first products will be developed in close cooperation with both E Ink and selected customers.”

“Pervasive Displays is committed to delivering innovative electronic paper enhancements and solutions that enable revolutionary commercial industrial electronic paper display applications,” said Scott Soong, CEO of Pervasive Displays. “Adding color to electronic paper is an effective advancement to this technology. Color adds the benefit of being able to quickly draw attention to specific messages – in retail, red is prevalent for promotions; in other industries red is used for exception management. The ability to quickly discern the importance of a message is critical in any environment.”

Spectra will support both active matrix and segmented format ESLs, making it the ideal product for a range of retail applications. The three pigment EPD is also appropriate for industrial, smart card and medical market applications, where Spectra can be used to display information on electronic identification badges.

Providing low power usage and cost optimization through a 5-volt driving capability, Aurora supports applications in conditions as cold as -25 C. Additionally; Aurora has been tuned for non-eReader applications, and is ideal for electronic shelf labels (ESLs) and smart cards in the retail, medical and logistics markets. Aurora will be available to partners and customers starting in July 2013.

The release of Aurora is an indication of E Ink’s product diversification strategy and commitment to providing the ESL market with an extremely durable, low power display technology. While eReaders continue to be an important market for E Ink, and the company is unequivocally committed to the eReader product line, E Ink believes that its unique technology addresses retailers’ and business owners’ needs to install displays in previously impossible or impractical locations across markets.

“Opticon is excited to work with E Ink to expand our portfolio of e-paper based electronic shelf labeling (ESL) products. With the integration of a low temp film, we can finally install our ESL solution into all departments in a grocery or convenience store,” said Mike Waters, Opticon, Inc. “To date, we’ve lacked the technical capability to operate our wireless shelf tags inside a freezer, limiting the opportunities to completely eliminate manual paper price changes. Opticon will now be able to offer a line of IP rated freezer tags in 2″, 2.7″, 4.41″, and 7.4″ form factors.”

“Pervasive Displays is committed to advancing the use of electronic paper in industrial applications,” said Scott Soong, CEO of Pervasive Displays. “The new Aurora product from E Ink extends the reach of electronic paper to cold chain applications, signage, automotive and a myriad of additional industries, unlocking new ROI potential for e-paper applications.”

“Inaccurate prices are one of consumers’ major gripes when shopping at supermarkets,” said Giovanni Mancini, director of product management, E Ink. “With an average of close to 40,000 items carried in supermarkets, effective price management can become a herculean task. At E Ink we believe that ESLs not only cut down on the instances of mislabelled information, but also can ultimately help retail stores maximize profits.”

Iron Boy works magic and throws a stellar boxing card in Phoenix

The night kicked off with some crowd pleasing amateur bouts. Lupita Navarez, defeated a tough Rosa Orozco, in an exciting match that had both fighters trading some hard blows. Although Orozco lost, she has nothing to be ashamed about, she fought with heart and grit, representing Tucson proudly. Luis Espinoza won his bout with Alejandro Dominguez, in an entertaining bout that had the crowd worked up. The hard hitting Espinoza needs to be be on your radar, he has speed and power. Ariel Arismendez, of Phoenix made her second appearance on an Iron Boy card, and defeated a crafty Alejandra Cardoza. Both fighters wasted little time trading punches, it was a battle to the end. A short night for soon to be pro, David Benavidez, as he would take a first round win over Gustavo Esparza. A patient Benavidez, displayed great defensive skill and amazing power, he hardly broke a sweat. Simply said, Benavidez is a stud in the ring and will be a world champion at the pro level. Valley favorite Sulem Urbina-Soto was scheduled to fight, but the match was cancelled due to her opponent dropping out. Sadly, this has been the case for Sulem as of late, by no fault of her own she remains fight ready. Sulem's husband and coach, Andy Soto said her opponent dropped out at the last minute after missing the plane to Phoenix. Andy Soto made arrangements on another flight and again they did not board the plane. It was a tough break for Sulem, but it was quite apparent they had no intention coming to Phoenix, leaving the hard hitting Sulem empty handed.

For months the young emperor to the north has been threatening to turn this thriving metropolis into a "sea of fire." But it's not easy to ruffle the jaunty vibe of 75-year-old Kim Chong-shik as he strolls among young couples and shoppers along the boutiques of the Ceramic tile.

Living well, it's said, is the best revenge. "I never imagined it would be like this," he says, grinning, not far from a playfully misplaced sign on a coffeehouse: Beverly Hills City Limits.

The retired civil servant, who remembers the Korean War and its miserable aftermath, cuts a dapper figure against a springtime cold snap, a green silk scarf peeking out from his handsome wool overcoat.

Ten million people live in Seoul, the heart of a huge sprawl that is home to half of the Republic of Korea's 49 million people. It is a hard-charging, high-pressure, high-tech hub of the 21st-century global economy – and sits in the cross hairs of an enemy who seems unaware the cold war ended a generation ago. North Korean missile installations are just 30 miles away – and now the threats are nuclear.

Yet not long ago, the dream of a single Korea – reconciled in peace like Germany, not through war like Vietnam – seemed like a destiny within reach. As recently as two months ago, Koreans from the south were still crossing the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to go to work alongside 50,000 northerners at the Kaesong industrial park, a legacy of the South's old "Sunshine Policy" of reconciliation. The Kaesong facility opened four years after athletes from both Koreas marched into the 2000 Sydney Olympics under a flag depicting a united peninsula. That same year South Korea's president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And Koreans have long embraced the idea that they are of "one blood." A January 2011 survey by the Korean Broadcasting System found that 71.6 percent of South Koreans favored reunification, and nearly as many said they would be willing to pay taxes to support it.

But the ardor for reunification has cooled with a new round of tensions this year. Pyongyang's threats appear to have decimated the southerners' goodwill: In just six months there was a precipitous drop in the number of South Koreans who consider northerners a "neighbor" or "one of us," from 64.2 percent as late as November 2012 to 37.3 percent in late April, and a spike to 46 percent considering northerners as strangers at best, if not enemies.

As "the American century" fades, and the 21st century is said to "belong to China," it may make more sense to speak of "the Asian century" – and now is South Korea's moment. And in that moment, it shines in such stark contrast to the sad state of North Korea – so impoverished its people literally stand a few inches shorter than their southern cousins. The peninsula's bipolar condition is reflected most aptly in its leading personalities. The stocky K-pop party rocker Psy spreads "Gangnam Style" to the world while the North's pudgy supreme leader, like his father and grandfather before him, spreads menace, Pyongyang style.

The nuclear saber-rattling may have prompted the United States in March to add B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers to its annual military exercises with South Korea, but there are few outward signs of distress among South Koreans themselves. Seoul's stock market took it all in stride, and 50,000 Psy fans jammed a Seoul stadium for a mid-April concert that premièred his new song and video "Gentleman," in which Psy does not seem gentlemanly at all. Nobody expects him or any act, anywhere, to soon top the 1.5 billion-plus YouTube viewings of "Gangnam Style."

Psy's global success has made him a national hero. He is, in a sense, a flamboyant, fun-loving, globe-trotting version of the "industrial warriors" hailed by South Korean politicians for transforming this small nation into an economic powerhouse. While the Korean Wave exports K-pop and TV and film dramas far and wide, the rest of South Korea Inc. keeps cranking out computer chips, smart phones, TVs, autos, oil tankers, and container ships, while also building skyscrapers, highways, and shopping malls at home and abroad. In the first quarter of 2013, as Pyongyang started to act up, South Korea's gross domestic product jumped markedly over recent quarters. Samsung Electronics recorded a 42 percent spike in profits in its sixth straight quarter of growth as it pulls away from Apple in the smart-phone market.

Shortage of smart cards hits vehicle owners hard

Buying a new vehicle or getting your personal details changed on the registration certificate of your existing vehicle? Keep all the receipts and documents intact till you get the optical card-based registration certificate. And chances are that you will have to wait for not less than a month before you get the registration certificate.

And if you are found driving your vehicle without a valid registration certificate or documents that prove your ownership of your vehicle, the traffic police can even impound it.

According to officials, more than 1,400 new vehicles are registered at 14 zonal offices in the Capital. Almost an equal number of duplicate registration certificates for older vehicles - due to change in ownership, change in residential address, removal of bank hypothecation, due to lost card and endorsement of CNG - are also made at these offices every day.

While the demand is almost 3,000, transport department officials said the supply of cards is not even half of it. Result: The vehicle owners are forced to make rounds of the zonal offices again and polished tiles.

“I recently paid off the bank’s loan on my car and applied for the deletion of hypothecation from the registration certificate. It has been more than a month but I have yet to get the card. Every time I come the transport officials give me a new date,” said Rajeev Gupta, a Vikaspuri resident.

Transport department officials, however, express their helplessness. “We have outsourced this job. It is the company’s responsibility to buy the smart cards and prepare registration certificates. But there is no supply of the cards. We have reported the matter to our seniors,” said the motor licensing officer of a zonal office requesting anonymity.

Delhi transport minister Ramakant Goswami said the company which has been given the contract has been served a notice. “We have served a notice to the company. We will take a strict action if the situation does not improve in the next few days,” Goswami said.

Next year, every Carnegie Mellon student, faculty member, and staff member will receive a new SMART ID card. Those who currently have a sponsored or affiliated ID will not receive a new SMART card, as the technology on the new cards is being used for public transportation access. Currently, such access is marked by a bus icon on the ID card.

The transition to SMART cards comes as a result of a new agreement between the university and Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT). According to the HUB’s website, “SMART cards contain a computer chip allowing a cardholder to simply “tap” his or her card on the PAT bus (or incline or T) reader in order to gain transportation access.”

The change in Carnegie Mellon’s agreement with Port Authority also resulted in an increase in the transportation fee that students pay — from $110 to $120, according to the HUB’s website.

Other than the change in transportation access, the SMART cards will be used in the same ways that current ID cards are used, including access to a student’s Plaid Ca$h, print quota, and on-campus residence.

The University of Pittsburgh already employs SMART-card technology, and according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it recently extended its agreement with PAT for another five years.

Carnegie Mellon, Chatham University, and the University of Pittsburgh — the three local universities that pay the PAT for unlimited rides — generate about 600,000 rides per month, about 11 percent of PAT’s total riders, according to the Post-Gazette.

Students received emails asking for submissions for designs for the new ID cards. There has been some controversy among students about the three designs being offered as voting options.

“[The new designs] are not great. There is one that’s okay, but other than that the designs could’ve been better,” said Nathan Oh, a first-year information systems major.

Camilo Estrada, a first-year vocal performance major, agreed. “I feel like we could come up with something better.”

The controversy over the submitted designs offered even led to an online petition on change.org, written by Jordan Wu, an undeclared first-year CFA student.

In the petition, Wu wrote that “after viewing the submissions, I believe that the designs are not the best that CMU has to offer us. It is implausible to me that CMU, with our amazing arts and design schools, could produce designs such as these. Frankly, I would be embarrassed showing any of these designs to anyone as a representation of our school.”

How long will you live?

Tomiko Kadonaga, who turned 100 on Jan. 8, will tell you she’s had an easy life. Others would say differently. Kadonaga, who was born in B.C. to Japanese-Canadian parents, was placed in an internment camp during the Second World War, housed with her husband, Saul, in buildings intended for livestock. “The stall where I was had a little blue card outside that said, ‘First Prize Cow,’ ” she says with a wry smile. “I thought, ‘At least I’m first prize.’ ” Her godmother offered Saul a job on a farm in Port Hope, Ont., and a way out; leaving all their possessions behind, they moved to the area in 1942, and had a daughter. Saul died of esophageal cancer in 1989.

Today, Kadonaga, who lives alone in a neatly kept townhouse in Toronto’s north end, is the picture of contentment. Her legs bother her a bit, she says (she gets around with a flowery purple cane), but otherwise she’s in good health. In Canada, average life expectancy is 81, yet more people than ever are living to be 100. In 2011, we had 5,825 centenarians, according to Statistics Canada, up from 3,795 10 years before. As life expectancy continues to rise, it could hit over 17,000 by 2031. Why some people outlive almost everyone else—and remain in good health, even into very old age—remains one of the grand questions of science. Researchers have credited everything from diet and exercise to genetics. A clue to the secret of Kadonaga’s longevity, one we’re only starting to understand, lies buried deep within her cells: the tiny bits of DNA that cap the ends of her chromosomes, called telomeres.

Telomeres shorten as we age, but the telomeres of centenarians are remarkably long, according to Gil Atzmon at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York—more like those of people three decades younger, or even younger than that. Often compared to the plastic ends that keep shoelaces from fraying, telomeres prevent chromosomes from unravelling and fusing to each other. Each time a cell divides, some of the telomere is lost; when it becomes too short, the cell dies. Telomeres are protected by a powerful anti-aging enzyme, one produced by our own cells: it’s called telomerase, which rebuilds telomeres and protects them from wearing down, a discovery that won scientists Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak the Nobel prize in 2009. Healthy people with longer telomeres seem to be at lower risk of age-related illness, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer—the main diseases that stop us in our polished tiles.

A growing number of researchers say telomere length is a critically important indicator of how old we really are, and of how many healthy years we may have in front of us. A new industry is sprouting up around the science of longevity, offering telomere testing to the public—and Nobel laureate Blackburn is a notable part of it. Her company, Telome Health , is set to launch a telomere test later this year, joining a handful of others that already do. On May 15, Blackburn will be in Toronto to give a lecture sponsored by Executive Health Centre, a private clinic that offers telomere testing in Canada. Like a cholesterol or blood-pressure test, telomere testing could one day become standard in doctors’ offices.

And maybe in the future, we’ll be able to slow or reverse the effects of aging—the vision of researchers searching for ways to boost telomerase, a goal already achieved in lab mice. Some are already marketing so-called “telomerase activators” to a public hungry for ways to stop the clock, although no such drugs have been approved. With so many companies rushing to come on board, “there’s a lot of weird stuff going on out there,” cautions Jerry W. Shay of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, an expert on cell biology and telomere length.

Even telomere testing isn’t without controversy. Greider, Blackburn’s former graduate student, insists that public testing is premature. Dr. Peter Lansdorp, another prominent expert on telomere biology, agrees. “It’s too early, and it’s not supported by scientific data,” he contends. But in an unpublished study presented in late 2012, Blackburn and her colleagues tracked 100,000 people (their average age was 63), and found that those with shorter-than-average telomeres had a 25 per cent greater risk of dying, from any cause, over three years. Telomere shortening is a dynamic process, and length can go up and down through life; there’s still a lot to learn, but “what happens to telomeres really does predict what happens to you later on,” says Blackburn, who’s based at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

For those who’d like a glimpse into their longevity—a hint at true biological age—scientists say they can peer at the tiny caps on their chromosomes and, for better or worse, tell them what they see.

To scientists who study aging, a person’s birth date is increasingly irrelevant. “There’s an idea that we can do nothing about age,” says Felipe Sierra, director of the U.S. National Institute on Aging’s division of aging biology, which funds research into everything from stem cells to telomeres. “While that is true of your chronological age—you have a birth certificate, and that’s it—you can affect the rate of aging.” Ultimately, he says, “chronological age is not so important.” He calls telomere length a “good biomarker of aging,” but won’t comment on whether the public should be seeking out tests.

Scientists are still figuring out what speeds up telomere shortening. Chronic stress seems important. With UCSF psychologist Elissa Epel, Blackburn studied the telomeres of mothers of children with long-term illnesses. Compared to moms of healthy kids, they had shorter telomeres and less telomerase. “We repeated this with spouses who were caretakers of Alzheimer’s patients; it showed the same result.” Other studies have revealed that victims of domestic abuse, or those who suffer from untreated depression, also have shortened telomeres, putting them at greater risk of age-related disease. Shorter telomeres have been associated with cardiovascular disease, some types of cancer, diabetes, osteoperosis, dementia and other conditions.

Blackburn decided to transfer her technology out of the university, to cope with demand. “All sorts of people were wanting to find out about telomere length,” says Blackburn. “We had in our minds it would be interesting for people to know about their health status.”

Still, the “million-dollar question,” as Telome Health president Calvin Harley calls it, remains what can be done about short telomeres. Studies suggest lifestyle interventions—diet, exercise, meditation—could help slow down telomere shortening or boost telomerase activity, but it’s still early days. Harley insists that telomere testing is valuable. He compares it to a “check-engine light, evidence your cellular aging may be accelerated.” A Canadian, he first got his telomeres tested in the late 1980s, when he was a professor of biochemistry at McMaster University. He’s been charting them on and off since. At times when he was under stress, “not exercising or eating as well as I should have been,” he saw a slight dip in his telomere length, which motivated him to make changes.

Telome Health will be launching in many countries, including Canada, later this year; a few others are already offering telomere testing, such as Life Length, based in Madrid, and SpectraCell Laboratories, in Houston. (Testing is typically done with a blood sample; Telome Health will use blood and saliva.)

Telomere tests are generally ordered by a doctor or health care professional on behalf of the patient. While Telome Health hasn’t announced how much it will cost, Life Length charges about $590 to physicians, although patients could be asked to pay more. Executive Health Centre in Toronto offers a “telomere performance program” that tests a patient’s telomere length, then prescribes interventions (from lifestyle changes to nutritional supplements or hormone replacement) based on results. “For years, I’ve been explaining to people that lifestyle affects aging, longevity and healthspan,” says chief medical officer Dr. Elaine Chin. “Now I have a marker to say, ‘Here you are on a continuum of telomere length.’ ”

If the shoe fits

But he was a cool customer, according to Robert Michael Jennings, a retired special agent with Illinois State Police who interrogated Harris on Sept. 30, 2009, nine days after Raymond “Rick” Gee, his wife Ruth and three of their children were found beaten to death with a tire iron in their home in the tiny town of Beason.

When Jennings found Harris for a chat, he was at OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria, visiting Tabitha Gee with Nicole Gee, his ex-wife, the mother of his newborn son and the adult daughter of Rick Gee, the special agent testified Friday in Harris’ murder trial. Tabitha, the sole survivor of the attack and just three years old, had somehow survived a tire iron blow to her forehead and another to the side of her head.

No big deal, Jennings told Harris – your fingerprints were in the house, which isn’t surprising given your closeness to the family. We just need to ask you a few questions. Then Jennings asked to see the bottom of one of Harris’ K-Swiss tennis shoes in a hospital elevator. The tread matched bloody shoe prints found in the Ceramic tile, Jennings testified. What kind of vehicle do you drive? Pickup, painted primer grey, Harris answered.

Before hearing from Jennings, jurors on Friday listened to testimony from Michael Oyer, a retired Illinois State Police crime scene investigator who described the discovery of shoes that Harris had been wearing the night of the killings. They were easy to spot from a span over Sugar Creek between the Gee house and the Armington home where the defendant was staying with his brother Jason Harris, about 25 miles north of Beason.

Jason Harris may have led investigators to the shoes, which were found not far from a tire iron and a computer air card, used to access the Internet, that came from the Gees’ laptop computer. The discovery came on Oct. 6, 2009, the same day that police served a search warrant at Jason Harris’ home and found the laptop, covered in dirt and grass, in his pickup truck. It’s not clear what led police to Jason Harris, but prosecutors say that he accompanied his brother the night of the killings. The state has agreed to dismiss first-degree murder charges in exchange for his testimony. Under the deal, Jason Harris, who was facing a life in prison, will get a 20-year sentence for concealing a homicide, obstruction of justice and unlawful delivery of a controlled substance. With time off for good behavior, he will be free in six years.

Roads between the Gee household and Armington are bordered by farmland and vacant tracts. In the dark, the brothers could have thrown the shoes and tire iron most anywhere, forcing investigators with crossed fingers to comb many miles of rural roadside. Instead, they chose a bridge marked with yellow-and-black hazard signs. And they didn’t even hit the water. The shoes made it further than the tire iron into a field alongside the creek beneath the bridge, Oyer testified.

In at least one respect, the K-Swiss shoes found in the field didn’t match the ones that investigators took from the defendant the night that Jennings questioned Christopher Harris. The shoes that cops took from the defendant were size 12. The ones found in the field a week later were not. It is a difference that prosecutors have surrounded with neon.

Under their bed, Ruth and Rick kept a large tub filled with DVD’s and brightly colored sex toys clearly visible from outside the clear plastic tub. During pretrial motions, the defense had said that Dillen acted out against inanimate objects, and jurors heard Oyer say that numerous dents, gouges and scratches on doors and walls “were consistent with having been kicked and punched over a period of time.” The home, he said, was messy.

The only window in Dillen’s bedroom was covered up with a sheet of fiber board, supporting what defense counsel Peter Naylor had told the jury in opening statements: Dillen, who had a history of disciplinary problems at school, had once snuck out of the house, and so windows had been nailed shut.

Dillen’s bedroom was the only one that had no blood in it or other evidence of an attacker. It did contain a Sony PlayStation 2 video game system and three Mortal Kombat games in which the player is tasked with killing characters that meet bloody ends. The defense claims that Dillen’s love for violent video games is evidence that he killed his own family.

This was going to be such an easy answer. I'd just direct Jones to Travelex, which had a Chip and PIN (personal identification number) card, and that would be the end of it. The Travelex card would be a backup, because many places overseas can accept U.S. cards that have a magnetic stripe.

But the answer wasn't easy. Besides the fact that there isn't a convenient Travelex near Jones' home, Travelex has discontinued its C&P card, which worked well for me on a London trip last year. It was easy to get and use.

You may not even need a Chip and PIN card when you travel — but, then again, you may. You may need it when you try to buy a transportation pass at an unmanned kiosk in a London Tube station, which probably won't accept your U.S.-issued magnetic-stripe card. You may need it when you try to buy a mobile phone outside the heart of London, and the shop owner gives you a withering look and says, "Don't you have a smart card?"

That's when that Travelex card came in handy for me a year ago. But no more, the company says. At least, not for now. "We are working on a new and enhanced version of the card, which should be available later this year," Travelex rep Maria Brusilovsky told me in an email. "Unfortunately, we don't have a substitute at the moment."

Will there be an inevitable union between out-of-home and mobile?

Taking the world's oldest type of media and utilising the deep technological and behavioural changes brought about by smart, mobile devices, a new era in consumer engagement is - we're assured - underway.

"Mobiles have become an extension of our bodies in many ways," says Mungo Knott, Primesight Outdoor's marketing and insight director, as he addressed an audience of senior media executives at London's Haymarket Hotel. "Some research," he says, "even suggests that we even think of smartphones as 4% of our natural selves."

It feels like we could be discussing an episode of Black Mirror, but it's a fair point; our smartphones have completely changed our behaviours; they also allow us to do more and connect with each other and the world around us in new and unique ways. There are even those among us who speak of feeling utterly lost without them - and it now has a name: China ceramic tile.

And, as time moves on, we are doing more and more with our mobiles. Unsurprisingly, social media makes up the largest proportion of time spent on smartphone apps according to Nielsen (58%), but two more interesting pursuits are creeping up the same list: banking and shopping, at 28% and 26%, respectively.

It has taken its time to grow and consumers have had to develop a level of trust, largely linked to security and effectiveness, but, with those barriers fading away, the opportunities for brands and advertisers feels almost limitless.

We are not browsing on just our desktops any longer; we are in the high street, at gigs and live events. We are sharing personal, trackable information; we are, unquestionably, connected consumers.

For the humble outdoor poster, this can mean pretty big things. We already know that outdoor advertising is highly effective and hugely well established. Yet mobile technology can allow the medium to evolve and offer new customer experiences.

Some of the emerging technologies that can link out-of-home with our connected devices are startling. Near field communications will mean social spaces will be transformed into new, interactive zones, geo-fencing - virtual perimeters for real-world locations - will create a new layer to the world around us and lead to new types of augmented reality and consumer engagement. It seems QR codes were a very simplistic tip of a much more complex iceberg.

After hundreds of years of fairly straightforward outdoor media we're now installing interactive posters, near field communications, QR codes and geofencing - new technologies connecting us outside of the home to the digital world around us. This is a fabulous evolution says Forrester: "a poster will open the door to consumer engagement - but we can now use research tools to help us to understand what a consumer does with their mobile after viewing it."

"Advertisers that think they must add a mobile element to an existing outdoor creative campaign are destined for disappointment," says Grimmer. "Advertisers and their agencies that are creating work that harnesses the strength of both media are the ones that will be rewarded."

No room for laziness, it seems, but campaigns must remain simple and easy to engage with too. "Complexity in outdoor creativity is a sure-fire way to ensure confusion with consumers... but compelling messages for screens, whatever their size and functionality, still remains the end game for brands."

“The physical demeanor of this man, the way he describes life in the great outdoors, led me to understand that here was someone who had never boxed, been mountain climbing, played rugby, been involved in any of these classically masculine activities,” Assange said. “Now, for the first time, he feels like a man. He has gone to battle. It was one of many examples of the failure by the embedded reporters to report the truth. They were part of the team.”

Assange is correct. The press of a nation at war, in every conflict I covered, is an enthusiastic part of the machine, cheerleaders for slaughter and tireless mythmakers for war and the military. The few renegades within the press who refuse to wave the flag and slavishly lionize the troops, who will not endow them with a host of virtues including heroism, patriotism and courage, find themselves pariahs in newsrooms and viciously attacked—like Assange and Manning—by the state.

As a reporter at The New York Times, I was among those expected to prod sources inside the organs of power to provide information, including top-secret information. The Pentagon Papers, released to the Times in 1971, and the Times’s Pulitzer-winning 2005 exposure of the warrantless wiretapping of US citizens by the National Security Council used “top secret” documents—a classification more restricted than the lower-level “secret” designation of the documents released by WikiLeaks. But as the traditional press atrophies with dizzying speed—effectively emasculated by Barack Obama’s use of the Espionage Act half a dozen times since 2009 to target whistleblowers like Thomas Drake—it is left to the renegades, people like Assange and Manning, to break down walls and inform the public.

AnywhereCommerce forms alliance with Paytoo and Mobilepaid

Available for download on all common smartphones and tablets, the new app relies on AnywhereCommerce's patented audio-jack technology to transform any smartphone or tablet into a highly secure mPOS (mobile point-of-sale) terminal. Through this technology, merchants worldwide can accept payments made through traditional magnetic stripe, EMV chip, and NFC platforms.

The unique partnership between AnywhereCommerce, PayToo, and Mobilepaid forms the foundation for servicing over 25 million small retailers and more than three billion unbanked consumers worldwide. AnywhereCommerce brings its patented suite of secure mobile card-present payment accepting appliances to the relationship, while PayToo adds its Global Mobile Wallet acceptance solution, and Mobilepaid provides proprietary software technology that transforms any smartphone or tablet into a secure and efficient mPOS device.

"We are delighted to enter into this groundbreaking alliance with PayToo and Mobilepaid," said Mitchell Cobrin, founder and chief executive officer of AnywhereCommerce. "The combination of our respective solutions results in a viable and completely accessible mobile payment application that will directly benefit merchants and consumers worldwide."

The Bosnian, whose double at The Hawthorns in October included a last-gasp winner, guided home a volley after 35 minutes of a Barclays Premier League clash lacking in intensity but not incident.

Both sides spurned numerous chances with City hitting the woodwork twice through Carlos Tevez and James Milner in the first half and Marcus Rosenborg doing likewise for West Brom after the break.

City, although not mathematically certain of second place, made clear Saturday's date at Wembley was their priority as they fielded a team showing eight changes.

Captain Vincent Kompany and influential players Yaya Toure, Pablo Zabaleta and Gael Clichy were rested completely while Sergio Aguero and David Silva were among those on the bench. Joe Hart, Milner and Samir Nasri were the only three men to survive from the stalemate at Swansea, meaning a whole new Ceramic tile.

West Brom made four changes themselves, giving a chance to goalkeeper Boaz Myhill and also bringing in James Morrison, Craig Dawson and Gabriel Tamas.

Aleksandar Kolarov was perhaps lucky to stay on the field when he caught Tamas on the side of the head with a high boot. The Romanian left the field for treatment, later to return bandaged up, while Kolarov escaped with a yellow card from referee Phil Dowd.

City then enjoyed a good spell as Tevez shot narrowly over from the edge of the box and Milner slammed a good chance from a dangerous Nasri cross. Jack Rodwell was then inches away from turning a Kolarov corner towards goal and Tevez rattled the crossbar with a powerful drive from the edge of the box.

The opening goal came moments later as Tevez broke away down the right and clipped back a delicate cross for Dzeko. The Bosnian, guilty of a glaring miss at Swansea, watched carefully and guided a well-weighted volley past Myhill.

The break came at a good time for West Brom and they began the second period with renewed vigour. Rosenborg smashed a free-kick against the bar after being tripped by Javi Garcia on the edge of the area and Hart then saved well from Billy Jones' follow-up header. West Brom applied pressure for a spell but were unable to break through.

A motorist's nightmare is what Pune-Mumbai Expressway has turned into in the last couple of years, with frequent accidents getting reported, most of them fatal.

To ensure lane and speed discipline, the State Highway Police is banking on a new tracking system based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

The RFID system that monitors lane driving and speeding on the 96-km Expressway has in-principle approval of the Highway Police, which said cutting lanes and crossing speed limit had caused numerous accidents in the past few years.

Mumbai-based non-government organisation Fulora Foundation has developed the RFID-based system and submitted the proposal to the Highway Police and the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), which maintains the expressway.

Dilip Bhujbal, superintendent of police, Pune division of SHP, said, "Statistics show that lane-cutting or speeding or both are behind increasing accidents on the Expressway. The Fulora Foundation had approached us with the RFID system. We have given it an in-principle approval."

Explaining the system, Arun Sabnis of Fulora Foundation said, "There are eight toll booths on the Expressway. RFID sensors map the vehicle's location and measure its speed. There are RFID tags at these toll booths and at regular intervals. Every time a vehicle arrives at a booth, along with the receipt of payment, it gets an RFID tag, similar to goods sold at shopping malls."

When the vehicle reaches the next booth, Sabnis said, staff there would have all the data on speeding and lane-cutting. Fines will be levied accordingly. The tag will be taken back at each booth and a new one issued. If all goes well, we plan to launch the system initially for state-run buses and other heavy vehicles in the fist week of June."

Patriots’ Aaron Dobson has skills to open up offense

“The Catch,” as it still is called in Huntington, W.Va., and Greenville, N.C., and points between, seemed an orthopedic and optical impossibility. Aaron Dobson, with an East Carolina defender all but welded to him, reaches back and around and plucks the ball one-handed in the corner of the end zone in what ESPN ranked second among its Top Plays of 2011. Slow it down, view it from three different angles, and it’s still a wonder of pigskin prestidigitation.

“It was fun,” says the Marshall wide receiver whom the Patriots grabbed with their second pick in last month’s draft. “But I’m just kind of leaving that there.” The Catch is old-school now and all that matters is what Dobson can do when Tom Brady is throwing projectiles in his direction.

“Oh, man, that right there, you can’t beat that,” mused Dobson, whose most recent tosser was sophomore Rakeem Cato. “The best quarterback in the league. It’s amazing because I’ve been watching him for so long and now that I get the chance to play with him, it’s a blessing,”

Brady has worked with a couple of the rookie’s Thundering Herd predecessors in Troy Brown and Randy Moss, whom Dobson has chatted with but doesn’t know well. “They were two great players that played at Marshall,” he says, “but I’m just here to make my own mark, make my own Ceramic tile.”

That’s what the Patriot brain trust was hoping for when it selected Dobson 59th overall, the earliest they’ve taken a receiver since they tapped Chad Jackson with the 36th in 2006. What New England wanted was an X-receiver who could work outside the numbers and up in the air.

“He’ll be a different piece than they’ve had, that vertical presence,” says NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah, who’d predicted that Dobson would go before the third round. “Leave the intricate route running to [Danny] Amendola and the tight ends. Put him outside and let him stretch the field a little bit. They haven’t had anyone like that since Moss.”

Dobson may be no Moss but he’s what New England was looking for — a receiver with hands, speed, lift, smarts, focus, toughness, and character. He’s a modest, yes-sir-no-sir guy who’s both affable and polite. “He’s a genuine young man,” says John Rhodes, who recruited Dobson for basketball when he was a Northeastern assistant. “He’s the kind that if your daughter brought him home, you wouldn’t be mad.”

What the Patriots liked was Dobson’s sticky fingers. Last season he was targeted 92 times with zero drops. “That’s what we do,” shrugged Dobson, who wasn’t aware of that distinction until someone told him. “That’s how we make our money, catching the ball.”

Dobson is particularly adept at catching it in traffic, which will be a plus in Foxborough. “The thing about Brady is, he can put a football in a mailbox,” says Jeremiah, who has scouted for the Eagles, Browns, and Ravens. “This kid has the strength and concentration to make that catch.”

His basketball background helps there and Dobson, who made first team all-state twice, was a coveted hoops prospect. “He had a motor that was always in high gear,” recalls Rhodes, who is a Duquesne assistant now but was recruiting for Ohio University then and spotted Dobson when he was playing for an Ohio AAU team. “When the AAU season ended if you hadn’t done your homework you would have lost track of him.”

That’s a common tale for West Virginia athletes, who often are overlooked by recruiters who don’t want to bother scaling mountains to find diamonds among the coal mines. “We’re in this black hole of space between Ohio and Virginia and Pennsylvania,” observes John Messinger, who coached Dobson in football at South Charleston. “There are all these constellations and universes around us and nobody seems interested in looking down and seeing what’s inside. If someone can shine a light and see what’s there . . .”

Dobson grew up in Dunbar, a 3-mile-square town on the Kanawha River whose populace of under 8,000 could fit into the Gillette Stadium end zone seats and that didn’t have its own high school. “He had a following,” recalls Rhodes, who watched him play football. “He was almost a rock star in a sense. He was really their Friday Night Lights.”

The Catch against ECU was merely a sequel to what South Charleston fans were accustomed to. “You can put together a whole highlight film of those plays,” says Messinger. When Dobson was a senior in 2008 the Black Eagles went unbeaten and won the AAA state title in a rout against crosstown rival George Washington. “Aaron pretty much singlehandedly won that game with receptions and returns,” his coach says. “They didn’t have anyone who could contain him.”

Yet not even West Virginia wanted him, opting instead for Tavon Austin, a Baltimore running back whom the Mountaineers converted into a receiver and who was drafted eighth overall by the Rams last month. So Dobson settled on Marshall, which was only 50 miles down the road and had a solid tradition. “I didn’t really have a choice,” he says. “Marshall was my biggest offer for football. It was definitely the best fit for me.”

Dobson started as a sophomore and dropped a calling card with a 96-yard touchdown play against WVU. But it was The Catch just before halftime in the 2011 regular-season finale against East Carolina that made him a YouTube sensation. “It was crazy,” Dobson said at the time. “The ball was in the air and I knew I had to make a play on it. He [defender Derek Blacknall] was kind of in front of me. The ball was kind of over there and I tried to go behind his back with two hands and he grabbed my left arm. And it just stuck to my hand and I brought it in.”

The Herd, which had taken the lead on Dobson’s 77-yard catch in the first quarter, went on to win, 34-27, in overtime to become eligible for the postseason and ended up beating Florida International in the Beef ‘O’Brady’s Bowl with Dobson scoring touchdowns in the final 30 seconds of each half of a 20-10 victory.

Nobody left Dobson unaccompanied last season, when he was smothered whenever Marshall ventured into the red zone and managed only three touchdowns all year. “Everybody knew about Aaron,” says offensive coordinator Bill Legg. “He got a lot of help coverage — corner presses, safeties over the top. But he continued to work hard and ran his routes and opened up things for other people.”

Though the Herd ended up 5-7, losing the finale to ECU, 65-59, in double overtime, Dobson was on everyone’s draft list, helped by a superb pro day during which he caught everything in his vicinity on a cold and blustery day. “I feel like I performed well,” he says. “There was definitely some buzz about that.”

The NFL Draft Report listed Dobson, who couldn’t run at the scouting combine because of a sore hamstring, on its Super Sleeper team. And while he sensed that the Patriots were interested, he didn’t count on anything until the phone rang at his home on draft day. “I had no idea where I was going to end up,” he says, “so when I got the call it was an exciting time for me.”

It wasn’t until Thursday, when Dobson was fitted for his Flying Elvis plastic hat, that reality arrived. “That’s when I got real excited,” he said. “I’m putting on the Patriots helmet.” This weekend was a whirlwind with Dobson and his newbie confreres undergoing their star-spangled indoctrination. “You’ve definitely got to stay on your toes out here,” he acknowledged. “You’ve got to know your playbook. You’re only here for a couple of days so you’ve got to learn quick and pick up on it fast.”

Volvo comes to grips with its wild side

The V40 range has stepped out from the comfort zone and is arguably one of the best-designed and most stylish machines out of Sweden in many years - with the new T5 R-design version packing parts that defy the brand's sensible vehicles. A huge front airdam, skirts, a rear diffuser and an add-on roof spoiler with deep channels, big alloys and, in the version tested, an alarmingly vivid blue paint job.

This isn't to say that the wild little T5 isn't dripping with Volvo's latest and greatest to keep driver and passenger as safe as possible. In fact, it's even taking pedestrian safety to the next level, with the industry-first pedestrian airbag. If, in the unfortunate event that you bowl over a pedestrian, the car is not only applying auto-braking to avoid hitting anything, or anyone else, it pops out its rear bonnet hinges and lifts the back of the bonnet while triggering an airbag that covers the wiper recess, the bottom part of the windscreen and the A-pillars to minimise injury.

Volvo's safety suite is comprehensive, from passive features like its ability to read road signs and add them to the readout on its TFT dash display, through to the aforementioned auto-braking, which is active up until 50km/h and offers the sort of collision avoidance ability that is extremely useful in stop-start urban traffic.

A large combination of sensors, cameras and radar do everything from "see" pedestrians, auto steer you back into your lane, warn of impending doom and give visual and audio guidance to help you back into a parking space without scratching that stunning blue paint.

The 360Nm torque peak is impressive in a small-ish car, and gives the car the power to pull out 0-100km/h times in the 6.1 second region. It does suffer a bit from torque-steer when attempting these quick-shifting, foot-flat sprints, and wheel-mounted paddles would probably be quite useful to allow drivers to keep their hands on the tiller when coping with this front-drive side China ceramic tile.

The transmission software gives a fairly aggressive response when burying the boot, and first gear is allowed a bit of wheelspin off the line and a bit of chirp as second is selected. The bold instrument layout keeps everything where you need it - the rev counter is front and centre, backlit brightly without searing retinas, and your road speed appears in the centre of that in large, easy to read numbers.

Navigation, multimedia and Bluetooth phone functions are all set up through the centre-dash screen, clear and easy to read, although those who aren't used to navigating through menu structures might find a quick flick through the manual helpful. The language used is fairly plain English, so the bluffers' approach of trial and error will furnish the same result after some cursory explanation.

The well-designed interior has a black-on-black vibe, which I quite like, but some find a bit dark, but it's all very comfortable and well-appointed, and the deep sports seats are extremely supportive, which is always useful when exploring the outer limits of grip.

And grip the V40 T5 does - on smooth surfaces particularly, the lower suspension and 18-inch Pilot Sport-shod rims and some clever front-end set-up means the car sticks to the ground and exhibits very positive turn-in. It's probably not capable of the same edgy sharpness as the likes of the ST, but still well-settled enough for a bit of adrenalin to finds its way into the system.

Harsher road surfaces can be a bit of a trial, particularly when pushing hard when there's dips and hollows exiting a corner - but with traction control, electronic brake force distribution and other tech tricks aplenty, it's more than able to hold its own when having a bit of back road fun.

Most apartments will never come with the same perks as hotels. No room service. No wake-up calls. No daily housekeeping. No fancy soap in the bathroom or mint on your pillow. But while your typical apartment lacks these instant-gratification niceties, many come with at least one or two alluring perks of their own. A yard, rooftop deck or other outdoor space for hanging out. A pool or fitness room. On-site laundry (or even that elusive, magnificent find: free on-site laundry). Most of these amenities are well-advertised as part of the landlord's sales pitch. Other perks, for various reasons, aren't offered, and you have to ask for them. There's no guarantee your landlord will say yes to any of these extras, but it's worth making the inquiry.

 In all buildings, particularly in big cities, space is at a premium. Income-generating use (that is, rentable space) typically gets priority over everything else -- hence the tiny studio apartment wedged into the basement corner, just past the mechanical room. Even in these buildings, though, there may well be a parking spot or two in back, or a storage room down a dank hallway. If they exist, however, there's probably not enough space for everyone in the building. So how can you grab one of the spots? It may be as simple as just asking. You may have to settle for putting your name on a waiting list, or you may have to pay a nominal additional monthly fee, but at least you'll end up with more options than you had otherwise.