On the third floor, PayPal President David Marcus shows me a sea of high-walled beige and grey hexagonal cubicles. The kind you stared at for 16 hours a day if you worked at a Peninsula-based, late-1990s tech company. They look identical to Yahoo’s except no purple and yellow. The walls block out most of the natural light in the room and any sign of coworkers. Even “Cubicle Guy” would have to stretch to prairie dog over them. Marcus can’t hide his contempt looking at them.
On the fourth floor, you could hold a middle school prom. It’s just a huge, flat empty space. Those same cubicles are there, only they’ve been dismantled and leaning against walls. It’s so flooded with the July San Jose sun, it’s almost blinding. “The carpets are next,” Marcus says, of the ugly beige floors with darker beige squiggles on them.
On the fifth floor, though, I see David Marcus’ vision of the future, what working at PayPal could be like. It’s an open environment with modern white and chrome desks, no walls between them. Along the walls are open collaboration seating areas meant to deemphasize conference rooms. There are still a few conference rooms that you can reserve for third party payment gateway, though very few. In their place are several small “focus” rooms that don’t operate on a schedule.The message? If you can actually see your coworkers, you don’t need more meetings, because you are always working together. Marcus mutters something about PayPal’s “meeting disease,” as we walk past.
The entire company is going to look like this soon. Nearly 3,000 cubes are getting thrown out. Marcus is going to force people to work together via every means necessary, even furniture. Force the company to operate in small teams. Force them to collaborate on everything. Force them to be — groan with me, if you’ve heard every other guy at a has-been large tech company say it — more startup-like.As he’s stripped away worker comforts, many have balked at these changes and others he’s instituted over the the year and five months he’s been in charge. Those people, Marcus says, need to go.
“There are plenty of companies in Silicon Valley that have cubicles,” he says. “They are welcome to go find them. It’s harsh but you have to let people know it’s happened. This is how it is.” He stops just short of saying, If they don’t like it, they can leave. But it’s clearly the message. “You can’t change the culture nice and slow and gently,” he says. “You need a series of electric shocks. The more violent the better.”
Marcus has inherited a turnaround story unlike almost any other playing out in the tech rustbelt today. PayPal is still the market leader in its category. Not just by market cap and number of employees but by transactions, too. PayPal isn’t a fading legacy brand like Yahoo– it’s still growing. PayPal is heralded as one of the best acquisitions in Silicon Valley history. It’s one of the key things that has been pushing eBay forward: Payments have increased from 24 percent of eBay’s revenue in 2006 to 43 percent last year. Its CEOs have repeatedly said that one day PayPal will be bigger than eBay.
Silicon Valley is obsessed with network effects, or when the benefit of others being on a site makes the experience that much better for everyone – and more valuable to the company. Network effects give you an unfair advantage over newcomers; even a challenger that’s technically better will struggle to pose a threat. (Witness PayPal’s parent company eBay.) Forget building a $1 billion company. Network effects are how you get a $10 billion company.
But PayPal is the cautionary tale of what happens when a network effect works too well. It turns out that solving the many security, fraud, trust, marketing, and chicken-and-egg challenges of building a new system for buying and selling goods around the world creates a moat so wide and deep it can actually be a problem.
Simply put: PayPal got soft. It stopped innovating, because it didn’t have to. PayPal was one of the most ambitious startups of the late 1990s, co-founded by the holy trinity of intense over-performers Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk. As that talent migrated, offshore merchant account, the new team realized no one was chasing PayPal any longer. Its sprint slowed to an amble. It still grew. PayPal took a break, got a snack, and took a nap. It still grew. Pretty soon PayPal’s technical muscles started to atrophy. Pre-Marcus, PayPal was still dominant and growing but was also fat, slow, and out-of-touch.
“I’ve never seen as many things broken, and a company still being successful. It was just kinda bizarre,” says Bill Scott previous director of ecommerce UI at Netflix and one of the key new hires Marcus has brought in to transform PayPal’s user experience and make it a more lean, iterative organization.
Under PayPal’s previous regime several sources have told me that the company actively tried not to hire the best engineering talent, because great developers are a headstrong, disruptive force. They just wanted competent coders who could get the job done.
2013年8月12日星期一
2013年7月29日星期一
Merchant Warehouse Hires
Merchant Warehouse, a leading innovator of payment technologies and merchant account services, recently announced the addition of Russell Harty as Senior Vice President, Key Accounts and Partner Channel. With more than 20 years in the payments industry, Harty will focus on evaluating and adding new partners and expanding the footprint of Merchant Warehouse solutions, including the Genius Customer Engagement Platform, with partners, value-added resellers and key accounts.
“Technology presents an incredible opportunity for merchants of all sizes today, but not all know how to leverage these capabilities in the most effective way. Merchant Warehouse recognized this struggle and developed solutions that let merchants evolve with the payments space,” said Harty. “Merchant Warehouse is a great example of a company that can effectively respond to their customers’ needs and I’m really looking forward to being part of the high risk merchant account.”
“We’re thrilled to have an industry leader like Russell on board,” said Greg Cohen, chief revenue and strategy officer, Merchant Warehouse. “His sales and leadership experience will prove to be a valuable addition to our partner activities, allowing us to expand Merchant Warehouse’s footprint.”
Harty joins Merchant Warehouse from Hibu, where he served the organization as the Head of U.S. Sales Operations, Payments Division. Prior to Hibu, Harty was Senior Vice President, Retail and Retail Banking Solutions for Ingenico, where he was accountable for tier one, mid-tier, channel (developer/ISV) and banking business development and sales. He also held senior leadership roles at VeriFone and Triton, and has a BA from Lynchburg College.
She maintained that, although she was just a 15-year-old schoolgirl at the time of the killing, the chief suspect in Erroll’s murder, Sir Jock Delves Broughton (whose wife, Diana, was Erroll’s mistress and a friend of Juanita’s stepmother) had confessed his guilt to her shortly after the murder.
“By the way, Juanita, I don’t want you to be afraid, but the police are following me,” the world-weary Broughton allegedly told her. When she asked why, Broughton explained that they believed he had been responsible for murdering Erroll. “Well, actually I did,” he added. Furthermore, according to Juanita Carberry, Broughton went on to tell her how he shot Erroll and disposed of the gun.
Juanita Carberry said the police wanted her to testify at Broughton’s trial for murder, but she pretended to “act as a stupid child” because she disagreed with the way such cases were conducted. Eventually they branded her an “unreliable witness” and she was not called.
According to Juanita Carberry, Broughton had confided in her only hours after Erroll’s murder, at a lunch party he hosted at his house in Karen, a suburb of Nairobi, attended by Juanita, her stepmother, June, and her governess.
Knowing that the teenager liked horses, Broughton invited Juanita to look at his stables. As they walked out, she was surprised to see a pair of gym shoes with white rubber soles in the smouldering embers of a bonfire in the garden. This struck her as odd, because it was not usual in Kenya to burn even worn-out gym shoes: they would have been given to a servant. Marks made by white pipeclay, used in the manufacture of such shoes, were found on the back seat of the crashed Buick car in which Erroll’s body was found. He had been shot in the head.
Nearly a year later, after a jury in Nairobi had acquitted Broughton, he committed suicide at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool.Juanita Carberry believed that Broughton probably also told her stepmother about the murder because the gun — having been recovered by her stepmother’s servants — was found many years later in a shoebox at Malindi, on the coast north of Mombasa, in a workshop owned by her father.
Juanita Carberry revealed none of this until 1971, when she gave an interview to the journalist Cyril Connolly, who had been at Eton with Lord Erroll, and who, with a young reporter, James Fox, had written an article about the case for The Sunday Times . But she withheld Broughton’s confession from Connolly, telling him that she did not want anything she said to be used against him. Only when James Fox interviewed her in 1980, after Connolly’s death, did she blurt out: “There is no mystery. He [Broughton] did it. I can tell you that now. He told me himself the following day.
“We walked down to the stables,” she recalled. “He told me then that he had shot Erroll... He told me not to be frightened when the police came, and he told me about the gun, which he said he had thrown into the Thika falls. He thought the police had followed him and had seen him stop there.”
She told Fox that Broughton had been provoked into murdering Erroll because of his affair with Diana. Although Broughton knew that his wife was planning to divorce him, something finally snapped after she and Erroll had dined and danced together on the night of the murder. “They had gone too far,” Juanita told Fox. “That last dinner was too much and brought home to him that he had really lost. And the fact is that he was in love with Diana.”
The Erroll murder was a gripping and glamorous scandal that shook the decadent Happy Valley coterie and marked the beginning of the end for Kenya’s hedonistic colonial elite, with its heavy drinking and cocaine-fuelled adulterous liaisons.
In his bestselling book about the Erroll affair, White Mischief (1982), Fox ascribed Juanita Carberry’s four decades of reticence to her protective feelings for Broughton, “the only adult who had taken her side in the midst of a host of hard-drinking grown-ups, who were constantly pushing her aside and sending her away”.
The daughter of the 10th Lord Carbery of Castle Freke, a renegade Irish peer, and his second wife (Ma?a), a noted beauty, Juanita Virginia Sistare Carberry was born on May 7 1925 at Nyeri, about 100 miles from Nairobi, and grew up on her father’s coffee farm. When she was three, her mother, a pioneering aviatrix, was killed when her plane crashed at Nairobi airfield, and Juanita was brought up by her promiscuous stepmother, June, and a series of nannies; she was sent to eight boarding schools, attending — from the age of 11 — various Swiss finishing schools, and finally Roedean, a sister school to the one in Sussex, in the Parktown area of Johannesburg.
Her childhood was harsh; her sadistic father, who had dropped his title out of a violent hatred of Britain and had embraced pro-Nazi views, disliked children, especially girls. Juanita recalled: “I was an unwanted brat .” She was dressed and treated as a boy , and confined to a separate wing of the house. Her governess, Isabel Rutt (whom she called “the Rutt”), was often ordered by Juanita’s father to strip her naked and beat her; aged 15, and after one particularly frenzied beating, Juanita left home to live with an uncle, saying she had no wish to grow up “like the rest of that Happy Valley lot”.
In the early 1950s she discovered that her father had been impotent and that her biological parent was probably Maxwell Trench, a white Jamaican who managed her father’s coffee estate, although DNA tests proved inconclusive.
Click on their website http://austpay.com/.
“Technology presents an incredible opportunity for merchants of all sizes today, but not all know how to leverage these capabilities in the most effective way. Merchant Warehouse recognized this struggle and developed solutions that let merchants evolve with the payments space,” said Harty. “Merchant Warehouse is a great example of a company that can effectively respond to their customers’ needs and I’m really looking forward to being part of the high risk merchant account.”
“We’re thrilled to have an industry leader like Russell on board,” said Greg Cohen, chief revenue and strategy officer, Merchant Warehouse. “His sales and leadership experience will prove to be a valuable addition to our partner activities, allowing us to expand Merchant Warehouse’s footprint.”
Harty joins Merchant Warehouse from Hibu, where he served the organization as the Head of U.S. Sales Operations, Payments Division. Prior to Hibu, Harty was Senior Vice President, Retail and Retail Banking Solutions for Ingenico, where he was accountable for tier one, mid-tier, channel (developer/ISV) and banking business development and sales. He also held senior leadership roles at VeriFone and Triton, and has a BA from Lynchburg College.
She maintained that, although she was just a 15-year-old schoolgirl at the time of the killing, the chief suspect in Erroll’s murder, Sir Jock Delves Broughton (whose wife, Diana, was Erroll’s mistress and a friend of Juanita’s stepmother) had confessed his guilt to her shortly after the murder.
“By the way, Juanita, I don’t want you to be afraid, but the police are following me,” the world-weary Broughton allegedly told her. When she asked why, Broughton explained that they believed he had been responsible for murdering Erroll. “Well, actually I did,” he added. Furthermore, according to Juanita Carberry, Broughton went on to tell her how he shot Erroll and disposed of the gun.
Juanita Carberry said the police wanted her to testify at Broughton’s trial for murder, but she pretended to “act as a stupid child” because she disagreed with the way such cases were conducted. Eventually they branded her an “unreliable witness” and she was not called.
According to Juanita Carberry, Broughton had confided in her only hours after Erroll’s murder, at a lunch party he hosted at his house in Karen, a suburb of Nairobi, attended by Juanita, her stepmother, June, and her governess.
Knowing that the teenager liked horses, Broughton invited Juanita to look at his stables. As they walked out, she was surprised to see a pair of gym shoes with white rubber soles in the smouldering embers of a bonfire in the garden. This struck her as odd, because it was not usual in Kenya to burn even worn-out gym shoes: they would have been given to a servant. Marks made by white pipeclay, used in the manufacture of such shoes, were found on the back seat of the crashed Buick car in which Erroll’s body was found. He had been shot in the head.
Nearly a year later, after a jury in Nairobi had acquitted Broughton, he committed suicide at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool.Juanita Carberry believed that Broughton probably also told her stepmother about the murder because the gun — having been recovered by her stepmother’s servants — was found many years later in a shoebox at Malindi, on the coast north of Mombasa, in a workshop owned by her father.
Juanita Carberry revealed none of this until 1971, when she gave an interview to the journalist Cyril Connolly, who had been at Eton with Lord Erroll, and who, with a young reporter, James Fox, had written an article about the case for The Sunday Times . But she withheld Broughton’s confession from Connolly, telling him that she did not want anything she said to be used against him. Only when James Fox interviewed her in 1980, after Connolly’s death, did she blurt out: “There is no mystery. He [Broughton] did it. I can tell you that now. He told me himself the following day.
“We walked down to the stables,” she recalled. “He told me then that he had shot Erroll... He told me not to be frightened when the police came, and he told me about the gun, which he said he had thrown into the Thika falls. He thought the police had followed him and had seen him stop there.”
She told Fox that Broughton had been provoked into murdering Erroll because of his affair with Diana. Although Broughton knew that his wife was planning to divorce him, something finally snapped after she and Erroll had dined and danced together on the night of the murder. “They had gone too far,” Juanita told Fox. “That last dinner was too much and brought home to him that he had really lost. And the fact is that he was in love with Diana.”
The Erroll murder was a gripping and glamorous scandal that shook the decadent Happy Valley coterie and marked the beginning of the end for Kenya’s hedonistic colonial elite, with its heavy drinking and cocaine-fuelled adulterous liaisons.
In his bestselling book about the Erroll affair, White Mischief (1982), Fox ascribed Juanita Carberry’s four decades of reticence to her protective feelings for Broughton, “the only adult who had taken her side in the midst of a host of hard-drinking grown-ups, who were constantly pushing her aside and sending her away”.
The daughter of the 10th Lord Carbery of Castle Freke, a renegade Irish peer, and his second wife (Ma?a), a noted beauty, Juanita Virginia Sistare Carberry was born on May 7 1925 at Nyeri, about 100 miles from Nairobi, and grew up on her father’s coffee farm. When she was three, her mother, a pioneering aviatrix, was killed when her plane crashed at Nairobi airfield, and Juanita was brought up by her promiscuous stepmother, June, and a series of nannies; she was sent to eight boarding schools, attending — from the age of 11 — various Swiss finishing schools, and finally Roedean, a sister school to the one in Sussex, in the Parktown area of Johannesburg.
Her childhood was harsh; her sadistic father, who had dropped his title out of a violent hatred of Britain and had embraced pro-Nazi views, disliked children, especially girls. Juanita recalled: “I was an unwanted brat .” She was dressed and treated as a boy , and confined to a separate wing of the house. Her governess, Isabel Rutt (whom she called “the Rutt”), was often ordered by Juanita’s father to strip her naked and beat her; aged 15, and after one particularly frenzied beating, Juanita left home to live with an uncle, saying she had no wish to grow up “like the rest of that Happy Valley lot”.
In the early 1950s she discovered that her father had been impotent and that her biological parent was probably Maxwell Trench, a white Jamaican who managed her father’s coffee estate, although DNA tests proved inconclusive.
Click on their website http://austpay.com/.
2013年6月23日星期日
An open letter to John Kerry
Comprehensive immigration reform is important and necessary for the United States, but it must be done wisely. There are serious concerns about the current immigration Bill. The legislation, in its present form, would impact the business execution model for US corporations.
It will also prove damaging to the US economy, costing a tremendous number of high quality jobs and doing significant damage to international diplomatic and business relationships. We don't believe that most policymakers want these unintended consequences.
India's IT industry has serious concerns about the provisions in the proposed Senate Immigration Bill that arbitrarily singles out a group of multinational info-tech companies. These proposals amount to discriminatory and punitive treatment of the Indian IT industry and will necessarily restrict thousands of US companies from continuing to use their services.
This will obviously be to the detriment of the US companies. Top companies across all sectors rely on global talent to help them run and improve their busines-ses. They depend on the world-class minds that IT service providers bring to the table as well as efficiencies that enable them to invest in the future. The Senate Bill could undermine some of this.
The contributions of Indian industry in particular are through IT services, business process management, product development, engineering research and design and global in-house centres. These services help US businesses to be more competitive, build innovative products and solutions for global markets, and enter emerging markets globally. By contributing to the innovation, agility and growth, global IT services companies are unsung heroes of the US economic recovery.
There will also be a loss of flexibility and cost efficiency for the US companies as they may be forced to hire additional employees on their payroll adding to increased costs and losing the aspect variability to their cost structure.
In fact, the companies will likely need to divert focus from their core business to the associated IT activities to the extent that they are forced to source their IT work internally. This will not allow the US companies to access best-of-breed techno-logy and expertise, which they could otherwise get from global third party service providers.
All this has a spiralling effect. The lack of US companies' ability to bring in global talent will result in increased offshoring of work. Additionally, the limitations and fees in the new visa regime will inhibit their ability to select IT partners, which in turn will lead to the services being concentrated in the hands of a few service providers, leading to increased costs and loss of flexibility.
Global IT service providers have invested billions of dollars in the US and have been increasing these investments rapidly. They support employment of over 2,00,000 American citizens and pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes through their corporations and their employees. They also contribute significantly to academic institutions and their communities.
Concerns around unemployment in the technology sector are also distant from reality. Various studies have shown that computer science is the highest paid college degree and compu-ter programming jobs are growing at twice the national average, but fewer than 2.4% of US college students graduate with a degree in computer science - a trend that is actually declining.
Additionally, by 2020, there will be one million more jobs in the US related to computer science than there are students graduating with a computer science degree and the vacancy rate for jobs in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) is three to four times the rate of other sectors. Put simply, the US education system is not producing enough STEM-capable students to keep up with demand, both in traditional STEM occupations and in other sectors across that demand similar competencies.
Finally, we are concerned that the Senate Bill could strain the US-India strategic partnership and trade, with potentially harmful consequences for both economies. The IT industry is one of the many strong and mutually beneficial areas of commerce between India and the US.
American exports of non-military commercial services to India grew 12% from 2010 to 2011 and 351% since 2000. Ten of the top 15 technology companies operating in India are American. US exports to India have grown significantly, increasing 12.4% in 2011 and 491% since 2000.
Discriminatory policies that differentiate between and among companies bias the free marketplace and unfairly confer competitive advantage on some companies at the expense of others. Policies enacted should not pick winners or losers but should apply to all companies in a fair and equitable manner.
We understand that immigration reform is important and fortunately a much better approach is under consideration in the House of Representatives. The HR 2131 Issa-Goodlatte SKILLS Visa Act more effectively balances the need to increase jobs for Americans while giving US businesses favourable conditions to compete and grow; encouraging investments that benefit the US economy, and protecting strategic international relationships.
We hope that you will express your support for the House of Representatives' approach, rather than the Senate Bill on the matter of H-1B and L-1 visas, so that the India-US bilateral relationship will continue to flourish and benefit both of our countries and economies.
Just as President Obama has described the US-India relationship as "one of the defining partnerships of the 21st Century", trade and collaboration between our nations in advanced IT solutions and services are one of the defining catalysts of US-India business and economic success.
Click on their website austpay.com for more information.
It will also prove damaging to the US economy, costing a tremendous number of high quality jobs and doing significant damage to international diplomatic and business relationships. We don't believe that most policymakers want these unintended consequences.
India's IT industry has serious concerns about the provisions in the proposed Senate Immigration Bill that arbitrarily singles out a group of multinational info-tech companies. These proposals amount to discriminatory and punitive treatment of the Indian IT industry and will necessarily restrict thousands of US companies from continuing to use their services.
This will obviously be to the detriment of the US companies. Top companies across all sectors rely on global talent to help them run and improve their busines-ses. They depend on the world-class minds that IT service providers bring to the table as well as efficiencies that enable them to invest in the future. The Senate Bill could undermine some of this.
The contributions of Indian industry in particular are through IT services, business process management, product development, engineering research and design and global in-house centres. These services help US businesses to be more competitive, build innovative products and solutions for global markets, and enter emerging markets globally. By contributing to the innovation, agility and growth, global IT services companies are unsung heroes of the US economic recovery.
There will also be a loss of flexibility and cost efficiency for the US companies as they may be forced to hire additional employees on their payroll adding to increased costs and losing the aspect variability to their cost structure.
In fact, the companies will likely need to divert focus from their core business to the associated IT activities to the extent that they are forced to source their IT work internally. This will not allow the US companies to access best-of-breed techno-logy and expertise, which they could otherwise get from global third party service providers.
All this has a spiralling effect. The lack of US companies' ability to bring in global talent will result in increased offshoring of work. Additionally, the limitations and fees in the new visa regime will inhibit their ability to select IT partners, which in turn will lead to the services being concentrated in the hands of a few service providers, leading to increased costs and loss of flexibility.
Global IT service providers have invested billions of dollars in the US and have been increasing these investments rapidly. They support employment of over 2,00,000 American citizens and pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes through their corporations and their employees. They also contribute significantly to academic institutions and their communities.
Concerns around unemployment in the technology sector are also distant from reality. Various studies have shown that computer science is the highest paid college degree and compu-ter programming jobs are growing at twice the national average, but fewer than 2.4% of US college students graduate with a degree in computer science - a trend that is actually declining.
Additionally, by 2020, there will be one million more jobs in the US related to computer science than there are students graduating with a computer science degree and the vacancy rate for jobs in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) is three to four times the rate of other sectors. Put simply, the US education system is not producing enough STEM-capable students to keep up with demand, both in traditional STEM occupations and in other sectors across that demand similar competencies.
Finally, we are concerned that the Senate Bill could strain the US-India strategic partnership and trade, with potentially harmful consequences for both economies. The IT industry is one of the many strong and mutually beneficial areas of commerce between India and the US.
American exports of non-military commercial services to India grew 12% from 2010 to 2011 and 351% since 2000. Ten of the top 15 technology companies operating in India are American. US exports to India have grown significantly, increasing 12.4% in 2011 and 491% since 2000.
Discriminatory policies that differentiate between and among companies bias the free marketplace and unfairly confer competitive advantage on some companies at the expense of others. Policies enacted should not pick winners or losers but should apply to all companies in a fair and equitable manner.
We understand that immigration reform is important and fortunately a much better approach is under consideration in the House of Representatives. The HR 2131 Issa-Goodlatte SKILLS Visa Act more effectively balances the need to increase jobs for Americans while giving US businesses favourable conditions to compete and grow; encouraging investments that benefit the US economy, and protecting strategic international relationships.
We hope that you will express your support for the House of Representatives' approach, rather than the Senate Bill on the matter of H-1B and L-1 visas, so that the India-US bilateral relationship will continue to flourish and benefit both of our countries and economies.
Just as President Obama has described the US-India relationship as "one of the defining partnerships of the 21st Century", trade and collaboration between our nations in advanced IT solutions and services are one of the defining catalysts of US-India business and economic success.
Click on their website austpay.com for more information.
2013年6月5日星期三
Starbucks Finds Success in Simplicity
When we hear of using smartphones to pay for goods, we often think about Google Wallet, ISIS, PayPal‘s new initiatives, or Square, but Starbucks is the rising star and one that has found success in this emerging, yet volatile, market. The retail coffee chain’s app, which is used to pay for beverage and food purchases at many of Starbucks locations, is now driving the bulk of the $500 million worth of transactions in North America.
“The vast majority of these payments were made using Starbucks’ phenomenally successful smartphone app,” a recently published report from Berg Insights reads, “whereas mobile wallets that can be used at multiple merchants have yet to gain traction.”
Part of the reason for Starbucks’ success could be attributed to the app’s simplicity. The app, which works much like a gift card, allows users to show their Android or iPhone at Starbucks, where the phone will display a bar code that can be scanned at the point of purchase. The transaction amount is immediately deducted, and users can re-load the virtual card through their phone or at a retail location at any time. In addition, Starbucks offers a loyalty program that rewards frequent visitors with free drinks, refills, and food.
“Value-added services that enable new shopping experiences before, during and after payments will be what truly distinguish mobile wallets from the traditional payment instruments”, said Lars Kurkinen, telecom analyst, Berg Insight.
Whereas Google Wallet and ISIS requires both an NFC radio on the consumer’s phone and an NFC-equipped reader on the merchant side, an app that has either a scannable barcode or QR code doesn’t require additional hardware. Starbucks could roll out incentives too as part of its app experience in real time with push notifications and free iTunes music and app downloads through the iPhone version of the experience. PayPal’s credit card scanners as well as the Square card readers have been enabling small businesses to do more, but lack the loyalty and rewards program that Starbucks delivers as part of its app experience. On the other hard, Square and PayPal Here allows users the use of a single credit card that could be used practically anywhere whereas the Starbucks digital experience is limited to Starbucks locations.
And part of the Starbucks simplicity is perhaps why Apple is still not yet adopting NFC on its phones. By using iCloud and its Passbook service, which is in many ways like the Starbucks app, Appletickets allows users to be able to use their phones without additional hardware and merchants could readily accept loyalty cards, boarding passes, , and third party payment gateway as they already have barcode scanners so no new, expensive hardware is required.
Any as no additional hardware is required, Starbucks and Apple do not have to go through carriers for approval, Most carriers in the U.S. block Google Wallet from accessing the NFC chip on the phone as they want a cut of the profits for handling these transactions, much like how credit card companies get a processing fee from the merchant. Perhaps, if Google initially sold a reloadable Google prepaid debit card, like a Starbucks gift card, that is then tied into the Google Wallet app, and the Internet giant relied on a QR code for scanning rather than an NFC tag, then adoption may be simpler. The risk here is that a QR code isn”t as secure as an NFC tag and may not bode well for more expensive transactions.
Fresh off the production line, the Bolton outfit has sent in the 3XS Z87 Performance GTX for evaluation. Priced at ￡1,200 in its default configuration, the high-performance rig is a direct replacement for the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge variants of years gone by.
As was the case with previous models, Scan's attempt to strike an optimum balance between price and performance has led the company to skip right past the top-of-the-line Core i7 chips and settle on the best of the Core i5 bunch, the four-core, four-thread 4670K.
It seems this 3.4GHz part is going to be the chip of choice for system integrators putting together gaming-orientated builds, but how much of an overclock we're likely to see remains something of a question mark. Our own Haswell frequency shenanigans delivered mixed results, making us wonder how far the likes of Scan would be willing to push their warranty-covered machines.
We've seen one SI play it safe and ship the Core i5-4670K at 4.2GHz, but Scan's engineers are feeling more adventurous and have the 3XS Z87 Performance GTX ramped up higher to 4.4GHz. The fact that a 44x multiplier almost feels like dangerous territory tells you everything you need to know about our faith in Haswell's overclockability, and Scan's recent history provides an interesting metric in itself.
The Performance GTX system shipped with a Core i5-2500K overclocked to 4.7GHz during the Sandy Bridge era, and a Core i5-3570K was bumped up to 4.6GHz for last year's Ivy Bridge. And both those machines used air cooling. This time around, Scan has employed a Corsair Hydro H60 liquid cooler to help keep the fourth-gen Intel chip running as comfortable as possible.
Making the most of recent product launches, graphics are provided by Nvidia's GeForce GTX 770 - which, as you know, is ultimately a faster variant of last year's GTX 680 - and it all sits atop of an LGA1150-supporting Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3 motherboard.
Scan, as always, has a wide range of configuration options available, though we suspect most consumers will find little need to stray from the default specification. This includes 8GB of Corsair Vengeance LP memory, a 250GB Samsung 840 Series SSD, a 2TB Seagate Barracuda hard disk, a Samsung DVD Writer, a dedicated Asus Xonar DGX sound card and a 600W Corsair GS-Series power supply all wrapped inside a Corsair Carbide Series 300R Windowed chassis.
When we hear of using smartphones to pay for goods, we often think about Google Wallet, ISIS, PayPal‘s new initiatives, or Square, but Starbucks is the rising star and one that has found success in this emerging, yet volatile, market. The retail coffee chain’s app, which is used to pay for beverage and food purchases at many of Starbucks locations, is now driving the bulk of the $500 million worth of transactions in North America.
“The vast majority of these payments were made using Starbucks’ phenomenally successful smartphone app,” a recently published report from Berg Insights reads, “whereas mobile wallets that can be used at multiple merchants have yet to gain traction.”
Part of the reason for Starbucks’ success could be attributed to the app’s simplicity. The app, which works much like a gift card, allows users to show their Android or iPhone at Starbucks, where the phone will display a bar code that can be scanned at the point of purchase. The transaction amount is immediately deducted, and users can re-load the virtual card through their phone or at a retail location at any time. In addition, Starbucks offers a loyalty program that rewards frequent visitors with free drinks, refills, and food.
“Value-added services that enable new shopping experiences before, during and after payments will be what truly distinguish mobile wallets from the traditional payment instruments”, said Lars Kurkinen, telecom analyst, Berg Insight.
Whereas Google Wallet and ISIS requires both an NFC radio on the consumer’s phone and an NFC-equipped reader on the merchant side, an app that has either a scannable barcode or QR code doesn’t require additional hardware. Starbucks could roll out incentives too as part of its app experience in real time with push notifications and free iTunes music and app downloads through the iPhone version of the experience. PayPal’s credit card scanners as well as the Square card readers have been enabling small businesses to do more, but lack the loyalty and rewards program that Starbucks delivers as part of its app experience. On the other hard, Square and PayPal Here allows users the use of a single credit card that could be used practically anywhere whereas the Starbucks digital experience is limited to Starbucks locations.
And part of the Starbucks simplicity is perhaps why Apple is still not yet adopting NFC on its phones. By using iCloud and its Passbook service, which is in many ways like the Starbucks app, Appletickets allows users to be able to use their phones without additional hardware and merchants could readily accept loyalty cards, boarding passes, , and third party payment gateway as they already have barcode scanners so no new, expensive hardware is required.
Any as no additional hardware is required, Starbucks and Apple do not have to go through carriers for approval, Most carriers in the U.S. block Google Wallet from accessing the NFC chip on the phone as they want a cut of the profits for handling these transactions, much like how credit card companies get a processing fee from the merchant. Perhaps, if Google initially sold a reloadable Google prepaid debit card, like a Starbucks gift card, that is then tied into the Google Wallet app, and the Internet giant relied on a QR code for scanning rather than an NFC tag, then adoption may be simpler. The risk here is that a QR code isn”t as secure as an NFC tag and may not bode well for more expensive transactions.
Fresh off the production line, the Bolton outfit has sent in the 3XS Z87 Performance GTX for evaluation. Priced at ￡1,200 in its default configuration, the high-performance rig is a direct replacement for the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge variants of years gone by.
As was the case with previous models, Scan's attempt to strike an optimum balance between price and performance has led the company to skip right past the top-of-the-line Core i7 chips and settle on the best of the Core i5 bunch, the four-core, four-thread 4670K.
It seems this 3.4GHz part is going to be the chip of choice for system integrators putting together gaming-orientated builds, but how much of an overclock we're likely to see remains something of a question mark. Our own Haswell frequency shenanigans delivered mixed results, making us wonder how far the likes of Scan would be willing to push their warranty-covered machines.
We've seen one SI play it safe and ship the Core i5-4670K at 4.2GHz, but Scan's engineers are feeling more adventurous and have the 3XS Z87 Performance GTX ramped up higher to 4.4GHz. The fact that a 44x multiplier almost feels like dangerous territory tells you everything you need to know about our faith in Haswell's overclockability, and Scan's recent history provides an interesting metric in itself.
The Performance GTX system shipped with a Core i5-2500K overclocked to 4.7GHz during the Sandy Bridge era, and a Core i5-3570K was bumped up to 4.6GHz for last year's Ivy Bridge. And both those machines used air cooling. This time around, Scan has employed a Corsair Hydro H60 liquid cooler to help keep the fourth-gen Intel chip running as comfortable as possible.
Making the most of recent product launches, graphics are provided by Nvidia's GeForce GTX 770 - which, as you know, is ultimately a faster variant of last year's GTX 680 - and it all sits atop of an LGA1150-supporting Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3 motherboard.
Scan, as always, has a wide range of configuration options available, though we suspect most consumers will find little need to stray from the default specification. This includes 8GB of Corsair Vengeance LP memory, a 250GB Samsung 840 Series SSD, a 2TB Seagate Barracuda hard disk, a Samsung DVD Writer, a dedicated Asus Xonar DGX sound card and a 600W Corsair GS-Series power supply all wrapped inside a Corsair Carbide Series 300R Windowed chassis.
2013年5月26日星期日
Man admits to using deceased's credit card
When police arrested Stephen Arsenault earlier this week, he admitted to using a credit/debit card that was in the name of a dead man.
Arsenault, 24, told police he recently found the card when his girlfriend was getting ready to move into a River Street apartment that last summer was the scene of a shootout that ended in the death of 19-year-old Billy Melchionda of Haverhill and 20-year-old Anddy Guzman of Lawrence.
Arsenault said that after finding Melchionda’s card in the apartment, he used it to buy $42 worth of gas for his girlfriend’s car and $50 worth of lottery scratch tickets at a local gas station/convenience store. Arsenault said he signed the name “WM” and scribbled on the store receipt. He told police he knew he was trying to sign Melchionda’s name to the receipt and knew that Melchionda was dead. He said he tried to use the card the next day to get gas but that it wouldn’t work. He told police he knew that he did wrong by using Melchionda’s bank card.
Arsenault was arraigned Thursday in Haverhill District Court on two counts of larceny under $250, receiving a stolen credit card, identity fraud and forgery of a document. He was also charged with possession of Class A heroin. Arsenault was ordered held on $10,000 cash bail and must appear in court June 23. Arsenault was previously charged on May 15 with 17 counts of oil painting reproduction by check and had been released on personal recognizance.
Melchionda and Guzman were shot to death the night of July 23 during a home invasion at Melchionda’s apartment at 629 River St.
Police said three masked men entered the apartment sometime between 10 and 10:30 p.m. Police reports showed the invaders’ motive was their belief illegal drugs and a large amount of cash were being kept in the home. Police said Guzman was one of the men who invaded the home and was accidentally shot during a violent struggle.
An Essex County Grand Jury eventually indicted three people on murder and other charges. Juan Carlos Sanchez, 20, of Lawrence and Joshua Cloutman, 20, and Angela Walsh, 21, both of 631 River St., were each indicted on two counts of murder, home invasion, armed robbery and armed burglary. Cloutman and Walsh, who police said lived in an upstairs apartment with their child and Cloutman’s mother, were charged with helping plan the home invasion in exchange for some of the marijuana the home invaders planned to steal from Melchionda’s apartment, police said.
In the days following the shootings, Melchionda’s mother, Jennifer Bodenraider and Billy’s father, William S. Melchionda reported to police that when they went to retrieve their son’s belongings from the apartment, most of their son’s valuables were missing. Bodenraider said many of those items were gifts from her and other family members, including a 42-inch plasma TV, a 50-inch LCD TV, an XBox 360 video game console and 60-70 XBox video games, a Movado wristwatch and gold Seiko diving wristwatch — gifts from her son’s grandfather; and two air conditioning units, a collection of baseball caps and a collection of baseball cards that his father gave him.
According to a police report, in the days following the shooting, the building’s landlord, Ronald Parolisi Jr., was questioned by investigators about the missing items. Parolisi said that after police turned the apartment over to him, he found a door had been kicked in so he secured it. He told police he hired his daughter and her boyfriend, Stephen Arsenault to remove blood from the apartment so that he could rent it out again, and that the apartment was left unsecured for a few days and that a window was left open, according to the police report.
Police said that on Monday (May 20 of this year) Melchionda’s mother came to the police station to say she’d been notified by Sovereign Bank that someone was using her son’s debit card. She told police the account was overdrawn and that her son, Billy Melchionda, had never activated the card when he received it. She said the card was in a wooden memory box inside his bedroom in his apartment, along with his social security card.
Police said Arsenault used the card twice on May 7 within a two-minute period at the Circle K Irving Gas Station in Haverhill. Police obtained store video surveillance showing Arsenault pulling into the station, putting gas into his girlfriend’s car and then entering the store to purchase scratch tickets, the police report said.
On Wednesday, Arsenault was the target of an arrest and search warrant. Police set up surveillance at his home, where they saw him drive off in a truck driven by a man who was subsequently identified as Christopher Doucette, 24, of 36 Keeley St.
Haverhill police with the assistance of state police stopped the vehicle for a stop sign violation. A search of Arsenault turned up several hypodermic needles, a shoelace and two plastic cups with lids. One cup contained a brown substance believed to be heroin while the other contained cotton balls saturated with what was believed to be heroin. He also had on him a single amphetamine pill.
Arsenault admitted to using Melchionda’s credit card, and told police it was in a bin in his bedroom, along with ammunition.
Police searched his bedroom and found 12 rounds of .40 caliber ammunition in a plastic bin, and found Melchionda’s debit card in another bin, the report said. Police also found bags of marijuana seeds in one of the bins.
Police searched Doucette and found a needle and a cup containing what appeared to be used heroin-saturated balls of cotton, along with two small bags of a brown substance believed to be heroin. Doucette was charged with possession of a Class A substance and a stop sign violation.
Arsenault told police he has drug problem that he’s been dealing with since February. He said he lives in his parent’s home along with his girlfriend and their child, the report said.
Police said that earlier this year, Arsenault opened an account at Haverhill Bank and subsequently wrote 13 checks to himself for $100 each, but the account had just 23 cents in it. Police said he also wrote his girlfriend two checks for $90 and two more for $100 from the same account, and those were cashed as well. After the bank notified police on March 1, investigators questioned Arsenault’s girlfriend, who said she did not know the checks were bad. Police said she reimbursed the bank $200 and promised to pay the balance of $177. Police questioned Arsenault, who said his friends all told him not to speak with police. Arsenault was arraigned May 15 on the larceny charges.
Arsenault, 24, told police he recently found the card when his girlfriend was getting ready to move into a River Street apartment that last summer was the scene of a shootout that ended in the death of 19-year-old Billy Melchionda of Haverhill and 20-year-old Anddy Guzman of Lawrence.
Arsenault said that after finding Melchionda’s card in the apartment, he used it to buy $42 worth of gas for his girlfriend’s car and $50 worth of lottery scratch tickets at a local gas station/convenience store. Arsenault said he signed the name “WM” and scribbled on the store receipt. He told police he knew he was trying to sign Melchionda’s name to the receipt and knew that Melchionda was dead. He said he tried to use the card the next day to get gas but that it wouldn’t work. He told police he knew that he did wrong by using Melchionda’s bank card.
Arsenault was arraigned Thursday in Haverhill District Court on two counts of larceny under $250, receiving a stolen credit card, identity fraud and forgery of a document. He was also charged with possession of Class A heroin. Arsenault was ordered held on $10,000 cash bail and must appear in court June 23. Arsenault was previously charged on May 15 with 17 counts of oil painting reproduction by check and had been released on personal recognizance.
Melchionda and Guzman were shot to death the night of July 23 during a home invasion at Melchionda’s apartment at 629 River St.
Police said three masked men entered the apartment sometime between 10 and 10:30 p.m. Police reports showed the invaders’ motive was their belief illegal drugs and a large amount of cash were being kept in the home. Police said Guzman was one of the men who invaded the home and was accidentally shot during a violent struggle.
An Essex County Grand Jury eventually indicted three people on murder and other charges. Juan Carlos Sanchez, 20, of Lawrence and Joshua Cloutman, 20, and Angela Walsh, 21, both of 631 River St., were each indicted on two counts of murder, home invasion, armed robbery and armed burglary. Cloutman and Walsh, who police said lived in an upstairs apartment with their child and Cloutman’s mother, were charged with helping plan the home invasion in exchange for some of the marijuana the home invaders planned to steal from Melchionda’s apartment, police said.
In the days following the shootings, Melchionda’s mother, Jennifer Bodenraider and Billy’s father, William S. Melchionda reported to police that when they went to retrieve their son’s belongings from the apartment, most of their son’s valuables were missing. Bodenraider said many of those items were gifts from her and other family members, including a 42-inch plasma TV, a 50-inch LCD TV, an XBox 360 video game console and 60-70 XBox video games, a Movado wristwatch and gold Seiko diving wristwatch — gifts from her son’s grandfather; and two air conditioning units, a collection of baseball caps and a collection of baseball cards that his father gave him.
According to a police report, in the days following the shooting, the building’s landlord, Ronald Parolisi Jr., was questioned by investigators about the missing items. Parolisi said that after police turned the apartment over to him, he found a door had been kicked in so he secured it. He told police he hired his daughter and her boyfriend, Stephen Arsenault to remove blood from the apartment so that he could rent it out again, and that the apartment was left unsecured for a few days and that a window was left open, according to the police report.
Police said that on Monday (May 20 of this year) Melchionda’s mother came to the police station to say she’d been notified by Sovereign Bank that someone was using her son’s debit card. She told police the account was overdrawn and that her son, Billy Melchionda, had never activated the card when he received it. She said the card was in a wooden memory box inside his bedroom in his apartment, along with his social security card.
Police said Arsenault used the card twice on May 7 within a two-minute period at the Circle K Irving Gas Station in Haverhill. Police obtained store video surveillance showing Arsenault pulling into the station, putting gas into his girlfriend’s car and then entering the store to purchase scratch tickets, the police report said.
On Wednesday, Arsenault was the target of an arrest and search warrant. Police set up surveillance at his home, where they saw him drive off in a truck driven by a man who was subsequently identified as Christopher Doucette, 24, of 36 Keeley St.
Haverhill police with the assistance of state police stopped the vehicle for a stop sign violation. A search of Arsenault turned up several hypodermic needles, a shoelace and two plastic cups with lids. One cup contained a brown substance believed to be heroin while the other contained cotton balls saturated with what was believed to be heroin. He also had on him a single amphetamine pill.
Arsenault admitted to using Melchionda’s credit card, and told police it was in a bin in his bedroom, along with ammunition.
Police searched his bedroom and found 12 rounds of .40 caliber ammunition in a plastic bin, and found Melchionda’s debit card in another bin, the report said. Police also found bags of marijuana seeds in one of the bins.
Police searched Doucette and found a needle and a cup containing what appeared to be used heroin-saturated balls of cotton, along with two small bags of a brown substance believed to be heroin. Doucette was charged with possession of a Class A substance and a stop sign violation.
Arsenault told police he has drug problem that he’s been dealing with since February. He said he lives in his parent’s home along with his girlfriend and their child, the report said.
Police said that earlier this year, Arsenault opened an account at Haverhill Bank and subsequently wrote 13 checks to himself for $100 each, but the account had just 23 cents in it. Police said he also wrote his girlfriend two checks for $90 and two more for $100 from the same account, and those were cashed as well. After the bank notified police on March 1, investigators questioned Arsenault’s girlfriend, who said she did not know the checks were bad. Police said she reimbursed the bank $200 and promised to pay the balance of $177. Police questioned Arsenault, who said his friends all told him not to speak with police. Arsenault was arraigned May 15 on the larceny charges.
2011年6月22日星期三
Is your air cleaner hazardous to your health?
If you're shopping for an air cleaner, you'll find two main types. The best kind simply filter bad stuff (pet dander, dust, pollen, smoke, etc.) out of the air you breathe. But other air purifiers try to "clean" the air by pumping out ozone -- a chemical that's actually helpful as long as it lingers in Earth's stratosphere, screening out the sun's damaging ultraviolet (UV) rays, and that turns dangerous when it descends into the air we breathe. ("Good up high, bad nearby," as the U.S Environmental Protection Agency says.) These so-called "air purifiers" can actually pollute your home's air and trigger breathing problems, experts warn in our latest report on air purifiers.
Ozone irritates the lungs and throat and can worsen asthma, weaken your body's ability to fight infections, and cause other health problems -- even in healthy people, the EPA warns. In fact, long-term exposure to even low levels of ozone can kill you, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The EPA cautions against using air cleaners that produce ozone. So does Good Housekeeping magazine. "Don't buy them," is Good Housekeeping's advice on ozone-generating air purifiers. Adding: "We feel so strongly that these products are hazardous to your health that we will not allow them to apply for use of the Good Housekeeping Seal or advertise in Good Housekeeping." If you already have one, "stop using it and cut the cord before you discard it so no one else can use it either." ConsumerReports.org refuses to recommend or even test them. And as of October 2010, the state of California has banned the sale of home-use air cleaners that produce more than 50 parts per billion of ozone.
So, how can you tell whether your air purifier is safe? Unfortunately, it can be tricky. If you see the word "ionic" or "electrostatic" on your air cleaner, it's probably dribbling out small amounts of ozone as a by-product. Also look for code words like "pure air," "energized oxygen," "saturated oxygen" or "trivalent oxygen" -- all of which can really mean ozone. You can also test for ozone with a free kit from the not-for-profit International Association of Air Cleaner Manufacturers (IAACM). To be on the safe side, avoid such electrostatic air cleaners, ConsumerReports.org advises: "We now believe that air purifiers that emit even small amounts of ozone (less than 50 parts per billion) are not your best choice."
To avoid the whole ozone problem, simply choose an air cleaner that uses filters only (usually HEPA and/or carbon filters). Experts say these do the best job of cleaning the air, anyway, and without any potentially dangerous side effects. All of the Best Reviewed air cleaners in our latest report produce zero ozone, from the elite IQAir HealthPro Plus (*Est. $900) to the more affordable Austin Air HealthMate (*Est. $490) and Honeywell Enviracaire 50250-N (*Est. $195) to the inexpensive 3M Filtrete 2200 Elite Allergen Reduction Filter (*Est. $23), a disposable filter that slips into your forced-air heating or cooling system.
Ozone irritates the lungs and throat and can worsen asthma, weaken your body's ability to fight infections, and cause other health problems -- even in healthy people, the EPA warns. In fact, long-term exposure to even low levels of ozone can kill you, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The EPA cautions against using air cleaners that produce ozone. So does Good Housekeeping magazine. "Don't buy them," is Good Housekeeping's advice on ozone-generating air purifiers. Adding: "We feel so strongly that these products are hazardous to your health that we will not allow them to apply for use of the Good Housekeeping Seal or advertise in Good Housekeeping." If you already have one, "stop using it and cut the cord before you discard it so no one else can use it either." ConsumerReports.org refuses to recommend or even test them. And as of October 2010, the state of California has banned the sale of home-use air cleaners that produce more than 50 parts per billion of ozone.
So, how can you tell whether your air purifier is safe? Unfortunately, it can be tricky. If you see the word "ionic" or "electrostatic" on your air cleaner, it's probably dribbling out small amounts of ozone as a by-product. Also look for code words like "pure air," "energized oxygen," "saturated oxygen" or "trivalent oxygen" -- all of which can really mean ozone. You can also test for ozone with a free kit from the not-for-profit International Association of Air Cleaner Manufacturers (IAACM). To be on the safe side, avoid such electrostatic air cleaners, ConsumerReports.org advises: "We now believe that air purifiers that emit even small amounts of ozone (less than 50 parts per billion) are not your best choice."
To avoid the whole ozone problem, simply choose an air cleaner that uses filters only (usually HEPA and/or carbon filters). Experts say these do the best job of cleaning the air, anyway, and without any potentially dangerous side effects. All of the Best Reviewed air cleaners in our latest report produce zero ozone, from the elite IQAir HealthPro Plus (*Est. $900) to the more affordable Austin Air HealthMate (*Est. $490) and Honeywell Enviracaire 50250-N (*Est. $195) to the inexpensive 3M Filtrete 2200 Elite Allergen Reduction Filter (*Est. $23), a disposable filter that slips into your forced-air heating or cooling system.
2011年5月5日星期四
Wheeze it out
Sedentary lifestyles and sugary, fast food diets have resulted in major health problems that have rocketed in the UAE and the wider Middle East. Apart from heart disease and diabetes, it’s allergies and asthma that are on the rise especially amongst schoolchildren in the country.
According to Dr Ruby Pawankar, President of the World Allergy Organisation, “Scientific studies reveal that the varying situations and the behavioural patterns linked with the so called ‘Westernised’ lifestyle are responsible for the increase in the frequency of asthma attacks amongst the general population. For example, due to stepping up our hygiene and management of infectious diseases, it is hypothesised that even the smallest exposure to contagious agents during infancy can possibly lead to the development of asthma and allergies.”
Following up on a similar train of thought, some studies have shown that exposure to markers linked with contagious and infectious agents like endotoxins, farm animals and pets can lessen the possibility of such ailments. Dietary changes among people across the board, including in pregnant women and children, over the years, as an offshoot of surplus food, have also resulted in allergies to different substances.
“Even two decades ago, we did not have such an enormous number of allergies and health problems. Today’s youngsters, especially children, are allergic to something or the other, if in one household you hear about an allergy to peanuts, elsewhere you are told the child is allergic to milk and can only have soya milk, I remember as kids we never used to have a care in the world about allergies of any sort, and simply ate and drank what we liked,” says Jwala Krishnan, a sales manager in her late thirties.
The UAE National Strategy & Action Plan for Environmental Health 2010 which was developed by the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi, has recommended that the country must aim to reduce pollutant levels and human exposure to pollutants, improve data quantity and availability, improve scientific understanding of environmental risks, build sustainable human and institutional capacity, support urban development that promotes environmental health and improve environmental awareness.
Dr Bassam Mahboub, Assistant Professor at Sharjah University and Head of Allergy & Respiratory Medicine at Dubai Hospital, avers that “While we don’t as yet have airborne allergies studies done in the right way, the prevalence (of asthma and allergic rhinitis) is high. People who sniff and sneeze daily usually ‘live with it’ and don’t think it’s a disease until they get sinusitis or asthma.”
Health and environment studies have found that indoor air pollutants, basically indoor allergens, like mould spores, dust-mite allergens, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds, indoor generated particles and carbon monoxide can influence the respiratory system and can cause or aggravate the symptoms of asthma.
Similarly, long-term exposure to combustion related fine particulate air pollution is another significant environmental risk factor for respiratory diseases like asthma. Apart from adopting a healithier lifestyle Dr Mahboub also suggests that regular cleaning of A/C ducts and filters need to be undertaken, before the pollen season which is summer. Besides cleaning ducts and filters, he also recommends removing allergens from the air, as cleaning alone does not effectively kill germs and microbes.
Mihir Patel, CEO of Amancorp, regional distributors for Airfree, a European air purifier brand, points out that, “Air purifiers are a dime a dozen in the market, but when you choose one, make sure that it helps to remove dust-mite allergens, pet dander, pollen, mould and mildew spores. An air purifier is a household essential just like having an air conditioner or a washing machine.”
According to Joel Mayor, general manager of Saniservice, a Swiss disinfection and cleaning service company, which was also the first to be accredited by the Dubai Municipality, two things motivated Saniservice to launch its unique concept of disinfection — the lack of maintenance and service in Dubai and the awareness of the very poor indoor air quality keeping people in continuous discomfort. “We chose a medical grade bio-sanitiser with similar strength as an existing disinfectant product, but without its harmful side-effects. Not only is it eco-friendly, but ‘human-friendly’ as well,” says Mayor.
“People do recognise that they cannot live anymore in such badly maintained properties. The ducts and filters are often the tip of the iceberg, albeit being a major part of the problem; we have though, a much greater concern for the Fan Coil Unit (FCU) which is the heart of the system, where the fungi and bacteria breed freely and invade the bedrooms and living spaces.” He adds that once AC filters and ducts had been thoroughly cleaned, they need to be re-serviced only in 18 to 24 months.
Stressing the need to keep interiors well-ventilated as a matter of course, Mayor points out that insulated space are a veritable breeding ground for allergies, and lead to a complete deterioration of the indoor air quality. “Remember you are what you breathe, so choose to be responsible about your A/C units and living spaces,” he says.
According to Dr Ruby Pawankar, President of the World Allergy Organisation, “Scientific studies reveal that the varying situations and the behavioural patterns linked with the so called ‘Westernised’ lifestyle are responsible for the increase in the frequency of asthma attacks amongst the general population. For example, due to stepping up our hygiene and management of infectious diseases, it is hypothesised that even the smallest exposure to contagious agents during infancy can possibly lead to the development of asthma and allergies.”
Following up on a similar train of thought, some studies have shown that exposure to markers linked with contagious and infectious agents like endotoxins, farm animals and pets can lessen the possibility of such ailments. Dietary changes among people across the board, including in pregnant women and children, over the years, as an offshoot of surplus food, have also resulted in allergies to different substances.
“Even two decades ago, we did not have such an enormous number of allergies and health problems. Today’s youngsters, especially children, are allergic to something or the other, if in one household you hear about an allergy to peanuts, elsewhere you are told the child is allergic to milk and can only have soya milk, I remember as kids we never used to have a care in the world about allergies of any sort, and simply ate and drank what we liked,” says Jwala Krishnan, a sales manager in her late thirties.
The UAE National Strategy & Action Plan for Environmental Health 2010 which was developed by the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi, has recommended that the country must aim to reduce pollutant levels and human exposure to pollutants, improve data quantity and availability, improve scientific understanding of environmental risks, build sustainable human and institutional capacity, support urban development that promotes environmental health and improve environmental awareness.
Dr Bassam Mahboub, Assistant Professor at Sharjah University and Head of Allergy & Respiratory Medicine at Dubai Hospital, avers that “While we don’t as yet have airborne allergies studies done in the right way, the prevalence (of asthma and allergic rhinitis) is high. People who sniff and sneeze daily usually ‘live with it’ and don’t think it’s a disease until they get sinusitis or asthma.”
Health and environment studies have found that indoor air pollutants, basically indoor allergens, like mould spores, dust-mite allergens, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds, indoor generated particles and carbon monoxide can influence the respiratory system and can cause or aggravate the symptoms of asthma.
Similarly, long-term exposure to combustion related fine particulate air pollution is another significant environmental risk factor for respiratory diseases like asthma. Apart from adopting a healithier lifestyle Dr Mahboub also suggests that regular cleaning of A/C ducts and filters need to be undertaken, before the pollen season which is summer. Besides cleaning ducts and filters, he also recommends removing allergens from the air, as cleaning alone does not effectively kill germs and microbes.
Mihir Patel, CEO of Amancorp, regional distributors for Airfree, a European air purifier brand, points out that, “Air purifiers are a dime a dozen in the market, but when you choose one, make sure that it helps to remove dust-mite allergens, pet dander, pollen, mould and mildew spores. An air purifier is a household essential just like having an air conditioner or a washing machine.”
According to Joel Mayor, general manager of Saniservice, a Swiss disinfection and cleaning service company, which was also the first to be accredited by the Dubai Municipality, two things motivated Saniservice to launch its unique concept of disinfection — the lack of maintenance and service in Dubai and the awareness of the very poor indoor air quality keeping people in continuous discomfort. “We chose a medical grade bio-sanitiser with similar strength as an existing disinfectant product, but without its harmful side-effects. Not only is it eco-friendly, but ‘human-friendly’ as well,” says Mayor.
“People do recognise that they cannot live anymore in such badly maintained properties. The ducts and filters are often the tip of the iceberg, albeit being a major part of the problem; we have though, a much greater concern for the Fan Coil Unit (FCU) which is the heart of the system, where the fungi and bacteria breed freely and invade the bedrooms and living spaces.” He adds that once AC filters and ducts had been thoroughly cleaned, they need to be re-serviced only in 18 to 24 months.
Stressing the need to keep interiors well-ventilated as a matter of course, Mayor points out that insulated space are a veritable breeding ground for allergies, and lead to a complete deterioration of the indoor air quality. “Remember you are what you breathe, so choose to be responsible about your A/C units and living spaces,” he says.
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