Left: Vital signs can be
measured during sleep
A bed packed with sensors could keep a close watch on the health of heart failure patients, it has been claimed.
It is hoped the system, alongside similar devices built into clothing, could help reduce the need for emergency hospital treatment.
The project will be funded by the EU, and led by electronics giant Philips.
This decade’s building frenzy produced a bumper crop of new retail space. But the occupants haven’t materialized.
The carnage in retail hasn’t been this bad since an anarchist bombed Chicago’s Haymarket Square in 1886. In January, Liz Claiborne said it would shutter 54 Sigrid Olsen stores by mid-2008; Ann Taylor announced that 117 of its 921 stores would be closed over the next three years, and Talbots axed the Talbots Men’s and Talbots Kids concepts and 22 Talbots stores. (Those muffled screams you hear are Connecticut preppies trying to suppress their rage.) Even Starbucks has scaled back its yearlong saturation-bombing campaign.
Blame that exhausted marathon runner, the American consumer. Fueled by cheap credit instead of PowerGel, she looked great at Mile 16, but bonked at Mile 23 and is now crawling to the finish line. Sales fell in December, putting the cap on a miserable Christmas season. Last week the government reported that retail sales rose 3.9 percent between January 2007 and January 2008. But back out inflation and sales of gasoline, and retail sales fell in real terms in the past year. Clearly, demand is down.
Janet Whitman, Financial Post
Published: Wednesday, February 13, 2008
NEW YORK — Jeff Taylor, the Internet entrepreneur who brought job classifieds to the Web by launching Monster.com, sees obituaries as the next frontier.
Looking to capture that potential, Mr. Taylor is introducing Tributes.com, a “MySpace” for obits, tributes to loved ones and support for those grieving.
“The Internet is transforming the way people grieve,” said Mr. Taylor. “And the Obituary classifieds are the last laggard classified section that has yet to make a meaningful transition from print to online.”
These pioneers are shaping the way Americans will live, work and play later in life.
By KELLY GREENE
February 16, 2008; Page R1
Joseph Coughlin describes his work as “trying to get people to ‘age cool.’ ” More specifically, as director of AgeLab, a research program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is pushing advances in transportation, health care and housing off drawing boards and into older adults’ lives.
And he can’t do it quickly enough.
“If we don’t hurry,” he says, “the products being designed now aren’t going to be there when the [baby] boomers need them.”
The financial state of the union is a mess. That’s not a surprise. It’s in the headlines – from the mortgage crisis to the wild gyrations of the stock market. Surely the President’s State of the Union speech will touch on all of those financial issues.
But will the President tell the truth, the whole truth, about the numbers and the extent of our nation’s financial woes over the long run. Will he acknowledge the true cost of the new emergency aid package of rebates?
The Institute for Truth in Accounting is determined that the real numbers will not only be spoken and written, but considered by all the candidates running for office this year. This non-profit and non-partisan institute has created a website, www.Truthin2008.org, to bring the financial facts to the public attention.
Click on the specialty of your choice and find the best hospitals in the US.
From WashingtonPost.com
By Anthony Boadle
Reuters
Tuesday, February 19, 2008; 3:14 AM
HAVANA (Reuters) - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Tuesday that he will not return to lead the country as president, retiring as head of state 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution.
Castro, 81, said in a statement to the country that he would not seek a new presidential term when the National Assembly meets on February 24.
The National Assembly or legislature is expected to nominate his brother and designated successor Raul Castro, 76, as president in place of Castro, who has not appeared in public for almost 19 months after being stricken by an undisclosed illness.
Valentine’s Day has passed, but people are still dating online…
Online Dating Industry Divided Over Background Checks
Associated Press
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
NEW YORK — As Valentine’s Day approaches, all is not lovey-dovey in the high-stakes online dating industry.
The contentious issue of the moment — pitting one of the three biggest companies, True.com, against its major rivals — is whether online dating services can enhance their clients’ safety by conducting criminal background screenings of would-be daters.
This article was written in 2006, but I think I think it could have been written yesterday.
From RuralJournalism.org
Small-Town Newspaper Folks have Frank Discussions with Wal-Mart Executives
By Al Cross, Director, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues
Caryl Dierksen sat right up front last week, notebook at the ready, when Wal-Mart executives came to the 119th annual convention of the National Newspaper Association in Milwaukee.
“Wal-Mart is breaking ground in my town next month” for a SuperCenter, said Dierksen, a reporter for The Woodstock Independent, a weekly paper in Woodstock, Ill., 30 miles east of Rockford. “This is huge, because we’re small and very traditional,” she said of her town of 20,000.
Wal-Mart has been huge for small-town newspaper folks for years — and not, most of them say, in a good way. The company buys relatively little newspaper advertising, and local newspapers and other businesses say it puts out of business the local firms that formed the retail and advertising bases in their areas. However, some research has indicated that new businesses spring up around SuperCenters.
From STLToday.com
By Janet Cromley
LOS ANGELES TIMES
02/18/2008
Thanks to Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, men with erectile dysfunction can get on board the Food and Drug Administration-approved love train. But women who experience a different sexual problem — sagging libido — have been left at the station.
That may be changing.
From StlToday.com:
A broken community, and hope for healing
By Scott L. Stearman
02/14/08
A little less than five years ago, my wife and I moved to an idyllic community called Kirkwood. Our first real visit, the one when we first seriously contemplated moving here after several years in France, occurred in October.
Wow, what a beautiful place Kirkwood is in the fall. It reminded us of that pseudo American town we’d seen at Euro Disney outside Paris: clean streets, music coming from the storefronts, everyone smiling and car horns used only to say hello. We kept expecting to see Opie walking down the street with his fishing pole over his shoulder.
A few years later, I still haven’t met Aunt Bee, and Opie apparently grew up and moved on. Long ago, I digested a basic lesson from ancient philosophy: Things are not always what they seem. It takes a lot of money to keep Euro Disney looking perfect and pristine. Andy Griffith isn’t a folksy sheriff; he’s an actor. And Kirkwood is a lovely place filled with real human beings and a history that never would be confused with the plot of a small-town sitcom.
Three policemen killed in 2 years. Two boys held captive by a man who lived just blocks from my house. A beloved son and a well-liked local boy who grew into an embittered man who killed five people last Thursday and then was shot and killed by police. These are the horrid realities of our community.
Image above: The STS-122 and Expedition 16 crews bid one another farewell Sunday. Photo credit: NASA TV
The crew of space shuttle Atlantis spent Sunday afternoon preparing to leave the International Space Station. The preparations included checking out the tools they will use to undock from the orbital outpost Monday at 4:27 a.m. EST.
After the STS-122 and Expedition 16 crews bid one another farewell, the hatches between the two spacecraft closed at 1:03 p.m. Sunday.
