Category: Business
Connection to the net is a necessity for many people. Thanks to wifi technology, one is no longer stuck at home or in the office in order to be able to surf. Most people look for a great cafe that is also a wifi zone.
The company Autonet Mobile is taking it a step further. They’ve found a way to turn your car into a mobile hotspot. All you need is one of their portable wireless internet service units which is about the size of a notebook. Once you plug it to your car’s lighter, you’ll be able to surf, chat, email, blog and do pretty much anything you normally would online as you would at home or at the office. This is perfect for people who spend a lot of time on the road.
Don’t expect to get miracles at this point though. The bandwidth that you will have is limited. It will depend on local conditions though they guarantee that users will have access to the net in 95% of the US.
The unit price is set at US$399 with a monthly service fee of US$49 to be paid for the connection.
Readers Digest has been around for as long as I can remember, its small book-like pages bright and beckoning in places like the washroom. Not that I don’t like it, but I somewhow always think of my Grandmother, who always had a subscription, bought their books and joined their sweepstakes on a regular basis.
Because of her, I have in fact begun to buy it as I stand in line at the supermarket, but yes, it does always end up somewhere in the bathroom. After all, it is the perfect size.
But back on topic, good old Readers Digest, which is also a giant publishing and direct marketing operation has made a deal to be purchased by Ripplewood Holdings LLC, a private equity firm, for $1.6 billion.
For 16-years Reader’s Digest was a publicly traded company handled by a charitable foundation until 2002. The company had however been in deep debt for some time to the tune of a whopping $776.3 million, with the circulation of its magazine declining from 12.6 million in 2000 to about 10 million.
Eric Schrier, RD’s CEO wrote a letter to his employees with these words:
“Much has been written about going private, and of the advantages for some organizations when time-consuming public disclosure and shorter-term, quarter-to-quarter pressures are alleviated”
Readers Digest was founded by DeWitt and Lila Wallace in 1922 in an apartment underneath a speakeasy in New York City‘s Greenwich Village. Circulation of the magazine grew rapidly and peaked at about 17 million in the 1970s.
If you are not from the US, one thing you’ll notice when dining out in America is that you HAVE to tip at least 20%. Unlike the UK, Spain, or even Asia, many tourists travelling to the US have found that their hometown practices are often greeted with a less-than grateful remarks, or worse, insults, simply because they don’t understand the tipping culture of America.
So its not a surprise that restaurant workers in the US have taken this a step further, and are not hoping for a new law to be passed, making their 20% gratuity a requirement.
In May of this year, website Fair Tip, as been gathering petitions for the 20% tip to be automatically added to all bills in US restaurants. Fair Tip‘s founder, Yakup Ulutas, who was originally from Turkey (where he was a waiter – and no, they don’t tip in Turkey) and now manages a restaurant in Georgia, sees this new measure as a way to lift up the status of servers, and make it into a more respectable profession.
Making several media appearances on radio and television to promote his cause, Mr. Ulutap felt that tipping was at a standstill in the US and it was needed to protect servers from small tippers.
Ulutap explained:
”They work overtime, they work holidays, they work anytime you’re not working.. It’s time for the country to treat the servers with the quality they deserve as a professional. The system is not fair to servers.”
Its not exactly the most appealing of ideas, but by next March, Smintair or Smokers International Airways is planned to take to the skies.
The novel idea of smoker’s airline is the brainchild of former stockbroker Alexander Schoppmann (obviously a pack-a-dayer himself), who plans to offer flights from his hometown of Dusseldorf to Tokyo, another smoke-friendly destination.
Its all about service and the luxury of the old days, he says, and smokers will now be able to travel in comfort and style. Cramped economy seats will be non-existent and every smoke-friendly seat will be either business or first class quality. Havana cigars will be at hand, as will modern frills like internet, phones, DVD and flight attendants decked out in couture.
The German entrepreneur explains:
“I’ve been an airline passenger for 50 years….It made me very angry that the gap between service and price became so big with regular airlines. Especially in the first class and business class, service is at its lowest point ever.”
And how much is this new level of comfort going to cost smokers?
“We are on the same price level with Lufthansa, British Airways and other airlines that operate on similar routes…..Frankfurt-Tokyo and back costs $12,500 with Lufthansa for the first class and $8,125 for business class both ways. And those are exactly our prices.”
[tags]Smoking,Travel,Airlines,Germany,Tokyo,Dusseldorf,Luxury Travel,Air Travel[/tags]
With Christmas edging closer and closer, the dreaded task of finding that perfect present for the person in your life who “has it all” could now be solved (if you have an astronomic budget, that is).
Luxury retailers Neiman Marcus are now offering some pretty “ultra presents” in their 2006 holiday catalogue – one being a personal space tour where your loved ones can enjoy the feeling of zero-gravity and take in amazing views of earth from the Virgin Galactic Space Ship.
For a cool $1.6 M, this space trip will accomodate 6 people and includes a slew of perks like medical assessments, training, and to cap off the unforgettable experience, an after-flight party at Richard Branson’s privale isle.
If a trip to outer space is out of your league, there are still some stylish options like $25 crystal bells, $350 cashmere sweaters and a $100,000 water park for your garden (the kids will make you a god for that one). And for Fido? How about a $7,000 hancrafted luxury Italian pet home complete with leather armchair?
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