Archive for February 1, 2017

Medaino H.O.M.E Launched On Indiegogo

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 1, 2017 by itnerd

Home is comfort. At the end of a long day, home is the place that gives rejuvenation. But, when a person must closely monitor their health, they often have to choose between quality medical care and the privilege of being home. Now the Medaino H.O.M.E (Hands on Monitoring Equipment) makes it possible to monitor health indicators – including ECG patterns, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen level, hemoglobin content, and body temperature – all from the comfort of home.

Medaino H.O.M.E.’s infrared spectroscopy technology makes using the device a completely painless process with no needles. During the research and development phase, the Medaino H.O.M.E.’s developers took into consideration the need for the device to be user-friendly. Beta testing results from more than 500 users reflected the device’s efficiency, reliability, and ease of use. It’s 1100 mAh rechargeable battery only requires charging every three months.

The scanned health data from the H.O.M.E. device is transferred to the user’s iOS or Android smartphone app, which analyzes the data and alerts the user when there is a medical problem. This allows not only the user, but anyone connected via the app, to monitor their own or a loved one’s health from anywhere in the world.

For more information, visit www.Medaino.com. To pre-order the device and support the crowdfunding campaign, visit www.indiegogo.com/projects/accurate-health-monitoring-with-love.

Leave a comment »

Study Reveals The Number Of Work-Hours At Minimum Wage In The Americas Needed To Buy An iPhone?​

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 1, 2017 by itnerd

Rocket Internet venture and largest online retailer for Latin America, Linio, has conducted a study on the price of an iPhone compared to the minimum salary in 15 countries in the Americas. Observing that the price for the same tech items varied significantly from country to country, and often grossly out of proportion with wages, Linio undertook the research to understand and promote transparency around global access to technology. They present their findings in the 2017 Tech Price Index.

In the case of the iPhone, Linio looked at various iPhone 6 models without the cost of phone service in all online providers for the country, as well as at least four biggest retailers in the country’s five largest cities. The same process was followed for all items in the original Price Index study.

The research took into account a federal minimum wage when available. In the case of Canada, which offers statewide but not federal minimums, the lowest of the state’s minimum wages was used for calculations. Hourly wages were calculated based on an eight-hour work day and forty-hour work week in the free-trade zone. When differences applied, minimum wages were taken for that of an unskilled worker without extra allowances.

By number weeks, the countries in which workers need the most paid hours to earn the cost an iPhone rank as follows on the table below. In Canada, the minimum-wage workforce would need just over a third of a week, whereas Venezuelan employees need over 20 weeks. All prices are in USD.

#

Country

Price of iPhone

Hourly Minimum Wage

Hours to earn an iPhone

Weeks to earn an iPhone

1

Venezuela

$97,813.82

$25.42

3,847.29

20.68

2

Dominican Republic

$965.62

$1.11

866.19

4.66

3

Guatemala

$889.56

$1.45

612.44

3.29

4

Peru

$826.39

$1.61

512.08

2.75

5

Brazil

$843.30

$1.87

449.87

2.42

6

Uruguay

$815.94

$1.77

459.94

2.47

7

Colombia

$655.11

$1.57

416.47

2.24

8

Costa Rica

$852.94

$2.16

394.49

2.12

9

Chile

$761.66

$2.55

299.10

1.61

10

Argentina

$900.43

$3.17

283.98

1.53

11

Panama

$681.11

$2.60

261.97

1.41

12

Ecudaor

$675.63

$2.67

253.16

1.36

13

Mexico

$619.98

$3.85

161.12

0.87

14

United States

$625.88

$7.25

86.33

0.46

15

Canada

$555.25

$8.14

68.21

0.37

NB: Venezuelan technology tops list as least accessible due to inflation issues within the country.

For the full results of the ranking with the interactive table of findings, visit here.

Leave a comment »

OpenTable Reveals 100 Most Romantic Restaurants in Canada

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 1, 2017 by itnerd

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, OpenTable, the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations and part of The Priceline Group (NASDAQ: PCLN), today announced the 100 Most Romantic Restaurants in Canada for 2017. These awards reflect the combined opinions of more than 480,000 restaurant reviews submitted by verified OpenTable diners for more than 1,900 restaurants in Canada.

This year’s list highlights the most romantic restaurants spanning nine provinces across the country from the intimate and artful Bishop’s in Vancouver to historic gem The Press Gang in Halifax. Including restaurants with multiple locations, Ontario boasts the greatest number of restaurants featured on the list with 46 establishments, followed by Alberta with 27, Québec with 12, British Columbia with 12, Nova Scotia with four and Manitoba with three. The list also includes restaurant destinations from New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as Saskatchewan.

In addition to announcing the 100 Most Romantic Restaurants in Canada, OpenTable today released data that reveals how Canadians make reservations and dine on Valentine’s Day. These findings are based on reservations made for February 14, 2016, in Canada through OpenTable.

OpenTable Canada Valentine’s Day Findings

  • Last year, 45 per cent of Canadian diners waited until the week before Valentine’s Day to make their reservations.
  • Mobile bookings continue to rise, as 42 per cent of Valentine’s Day reservations made last year in Canada were booked using mobile devices — an eight per cent increase from the previous year.
  • Italian cuisine proved to be the most popular when choosing a restaurant to dine at for Valentine’s Day last year, followed by Steakhouses, Canadian cuisine, Seafood and French cuisine.

The list of the 100 Most Romantic Restaurants in Canada is generated solely from more than 480,000 restaurant reviews collected from verified OpenTable diners between December 1, 2015 and November 30, 2016. All restaurants with a minimum “overall” score and number of qualifying reviews were included for consideration. Qualifying restaurants were then scored and sorted according to the percentage of reviews for which “romantic” was selected as a special feature. 

Leave a comment »

The World Theatre Map Announced

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 1, 2017 by itnerd

HowlRound, a knowledge commons by and for the theatre community, announces the launch of The World Theatre Map in collaboration with the Global Theater Initiative, a partnership between Theatre Communications Group and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. The World Theatre Map is a user-generated directory and real-time map of the global theatre community. 

The World Theatre Map aims to make the entire theatre field visible to itself by providing a collectively-owned, people-powered infrastructure to connect isolated theatremakers to vital information resources, knowledge, and each other. It’s a digital commons, free and open to all.

Users can, at no cost, create a profile for themselves and/or others which becomes part of the searchable World Theatre Map directory. Users may add information about plays, productions, artists, and the World Theatre Map will stitch together disparate events to form the production history of a play through time and space. The directory is also searchable—for users to search, discover, and connect to other theatremakers, organizations, artists, plays, events, and commons interest areas. And finally, the World Theatre Map also lists all of the directory’s events happening each day, around the world. 

The World Theatre Map is a digital tool for all theatremakers—playwrights, producers, directors, designers, performers, programmers, theatre companies large and small, service organizations, and theatre institutions around the world. From now through June 30, 2017, The World Theatre Map is in a public beta period to collect user feedback from the field to define what the second version should feature in July, 2017. The World Theatre Map builds upon the learning and contains all of the data from the previous project of HowlRound, The New Play Map. The current site is in both English at www.worldtheatremap.org and Spanish at www.mapamunditeatro.org. The hope is that version 2 will expand into even more languages.

For more information:

  • Find out more about what the World Theatre Map does, and what this six-month beta-period is about.
  • Read about this past year’s development process here.

Leave a comment »

Infographic: Where Do You Fit In

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 1, 2017 by itnerd

infographic-production-survey.jpg

Leave a comment »