All for one and one for all

Imagine that you’re a student and you use the local transport to get to school, college, university or workplace. Then you use your ID badge to get in. At lunch you decide to go into town and get your food from a nearby sandwich bar and gain points on your loyalty card.

After a while you start to get confused with all the different badges and cards that you own. Only if there was just one card that you could use for just about anything.

This is not a dream, it has become reality in some countries. In Taiwan they have a "Easycard" and they use it for almost everything. From tracking students' attendance to pay for parking. But Taiwan isn't the only place that has this system. In Hong Kong they have a similar system called the "Octopus".

The Octopus card was first set up to use for MTR and most bus routes in Hong Kong. Once it became widely used, the Octopus card started to be used to pay for goods in shops and vending machines. Many schools started to use them to track there students and there attendance.

There have been failed attempts to have the same system set up here in the UK with the "Oyster" card. Mainly because there wasn't a large enough demand for it and no one was aware that it had happened.

The Easycard is currently in talks with smart-cards providers in other Asian countries, including Octopus in Hong Kong, Ez-link in Singapore and T-Money in South Korea but there have been concerns in Taiwan and Hong Kong that people may feel uneasy to use one card everywhere.

Husband and father of two from Taiwan said "We like our Easycard because it's very convenient," he said.

"But who knows what the other governments think - I'd feel uneasy to use one card everywhere. And how would they manage the conversion rate - if I use my Easycard with Taiwanese dollars on it in Japan, the card will be empty in seconds."

Security is more of an issue when the Easycard is also used as an ID card. Then it shows the owner's name and picture - and it could allow an intruder into your office.

"In that case, losing it would be just like losing your keys, you have to act swiftly and call Easycard to cancel it right away." says Jason Chen, from security company Sophos, in Taipei.

"The money on your card can be stolen, for example by using a dongle to make false transactions - but we can identify whether the card reader was issued by our company. We only accept transactions from our card readers."

Once somebody hacked one of the cards and loaded it with more - fake - money. As soon as the card was used, the company spotted the fraud and alerted police.

100% Beef...or is that Horse

In the recent discoveries of horse meat in the processed beef products. In some cases it was 100% horse.

This time there have been discoveries that some of the horse were not fit for human consumption. For example, the horse might be medicated with medication that will harm the human, even after the proses of cooking it. This has raised concern. The blame is on the supermarkets at the moment. It is said that they should know what is in there product and should properly label it. 

But shouldn't we be pointing the finger at the FSA (Food Standard Agency). They are the people that should be checking the food that enter the UK.

They were the ones that had discovered the horse meat but it's already in the mince and being sold in many major supermarkets. They don't know how long that the horse meat been sold in the supermarkets.

A spokesperson said that the FSA has, is that they pre-warne the company that they are going to visit.

So who is it that we point the finger at? Who do we blame for not finding out whats in the products?

Apple Fails to Keep iPhone Name in Brazil

Brazilian regulators have ruled that Apple does not have exclusive rights to use the "iPhone" trademark in the country. But the US tech giant has already lodged an appeal against the decision with the Brazilian regulators.
The ruling is the result of a local company, Gradiente Eletronica, registering the name in 2000, six years before the US firm.

Apple can continue to sell iPhone-branded handsets in Brazil. But the decision means that Gradiente has an option of suing for exclusivity in South America's biggest market.

The Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) said that its decision only applied to handsets, and that the California-based company continued to have exclusive rights to use the iPhone name elsewhere including on clothing, in software and across publications.

Apple had argued that it should have been given full rights since Gradiente had not released a product using the iPhone name until December 2012. Apple is asking the INPI to cancel Gradiente's registration through expiration - it is arguing that the Brazilian firm did not use the name within a five year limit.

Source: BBC

Horse Burger

For the past few weeks there have been a lot in the news about horse meat in products calming that it is beef, mainly in Europe. But is horse meat actually bad for you?

I don't have a problem eating horse meat but I am only 1 person out of the 63 million people that live in the UK. Yet they are emptying all of there own brand meat products in the freezer sections that have any mention of beef.

This I say is wast of good food. Ok there are concerns about health risks because we don't know where the horse has come from and the sort of the things that the horse might of been given before it was made into mince or a burger (e.g. any medication that could harm humans).

That still wouldn't stop me eating these products. There is a problem that some of the products were 100% horse and on the packet it say beef. Which means that it goes against the food labelling regulations in the UK they would face legal action against them.

Medically there is nothing wrong with eating horse it's just us Brits has a moral issue against eating them. Some physiologist's  say that, it's because we used to use them as main sources of transport and work animals and we have bonded closely with them. Other say that its because we call them pets and there is something set in our minds that tells us that it is wrong to eat pets.

If people say that it is morally wrong to eat one thing and it's fine to eat another, you have to ask yourself where do you cross the line?

Overheating Phone from Apple

There have been mentions that the most recent update from Apple for Iphone and Ipod touch (v.6.1) has been creating problems with the battery. It has only been affecting Iphone recently and Apple as saying that they realise that it is a problem and is trying to fix the problem as quickly as possible. The problem that people have with the Iphone and the battery is that it drain's the battery extremely quickly. Also that it causes overheating. Although it's only with Iphone 4S with the update with this problem. Apple is giving no comment on what the problem is and why the latest version is causing the battery draining quickly and overheating. There have been rumours that its because it's using 4G network and it is overloading the phone.

Dragon's Den Buy's Collapsing Company's

The collapsed High Street camera retailing brand Jessops has been bought by a group including entrepreneur and Dragons' Den star, Peter Jones. This dose not mean that the chain is going to reopen. The part of the deal covering "certain other assets" is understood to mean leftover stock and intellectual property.

There may think that it might be financially possible to reopen the chain but they are not forced to do so. The amount paid to take control of the brand has not been disclosed. When Jessops collapsed earlier this month it closed its 187 branches with the loss of 1,500 jobs. The firm had suffered in recent years due to competition from on line retailers.

There have also been mentions that another Dragons' Den star, Theo Paphitis was considering buying HMV. Earlier this month, Theo Paphitis had suggested that he had no interest in the ailing entertainment retailer, after he claimed on Twitter that it had "no reason to exist anymore".

But according to the Daily Mail, Theo Paphitis is now interested in buying the chain, which went into administration earlier this month. They also claim that HMV has sent out information out to 20 parties potentially interested in investing and expects to receive offers by the end of this week.
Theo Paphitis said: "My interest for HMV harks from an era that thinks, 'What a great brand. Often I have looked at things and thought 'Is there something there?".