iblog

Rushda: Many women have wondered before whether the super-long eyelashes they see in makeup adverts are really the result of the product being advertised. Well, a new Rimmel advert featuring top model Kate Moss has been found to have broken advertising rules because it featured digitally-enhanced eyelashes.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found that the advert for Magnif’Eyes did not give a realistic image of the effects of the mascara worn in the picture. Though Rimmel themselves denied that the model wore fake eyelashes, they admitted that the eyelashes were “cleaned up and enhanced” after the shoot, something which is still unacceptable according to ASA as it exaggerates the benefits of the product. Furthermore, even the text accompanying the adverts has been found to be exaggerated, with Rimmel claiming that wearers actually experience “70% more lash lift”, something which is highly contested.

Though Rimmel insist that they have done nothing wrong, David Allan from Coty, the company which owns the Rimmel brand, says:

“Coty had full approval from the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre for the Rimmel Magnif’Eyes advertising. This campaign ran in line with the original planned schedule. We recognise the ASA has become more stringent in their application and Coty will continue to be fully compliant with the ASA guidelines.”

The ASA has now banned Rimmel from continuing to display these adverts, and will only allow similar adverts in future if there was an accompanying disclaimer which pointed out the touch-ups.

Rushda: Apple has been under heavy attack recently as it is becoming more and more clear that it is doing everything it can to dominate its market, ensuring that it stays in charge at all times. The latest annoyance that has come to light is that the new Apple iPhone cannot be unlocked and any attempt to do so could result in irreparable damage if one tries to unlock it.

Though illegal unlocking of phones to install new software or allow it to operate on a different network is not right, still this seems a little extreme for Apple, who say that as soon as any updates are installed the iPhone would become “permanently inoperable.” Unfortunately, this is not just an empty threat, as thousands of users who have managed to hack their phone have been shocked to discover that their phone has been disabled. The hacks are anything from mild program additions to software and network changes.

Many Apple customers are understandably frustrated and Apple continues to send out its warnings to all those who are thinking of hacking their phone. Unfortunately, the iPhone will only be able to be used in the exact way Apple wants it.

Rushda: Facebook’s popularity has sky-rocketed over the past few years - from a small site designed for university-based social networking into a huge and indispensable tool for millions worldwide. Now that applications have been introduced, Facebook has become even more versatile than before, with many earning money from their programs. Even better is that now, in a new move to improve Facebook even more, software developers can be given up to £125,000 to develop applications for the site.

Currently, there are around 4,000 small programs of varying quality embedded onto profiles on the site, covering everything from dating to music to utilities for your profile. But Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg wants firms and individuals to create even more “innovative and disruptive programs.” At the TechCrunch40 conference in San Francisco he recently announced that grants will come out of a $10m pot and be given for great ideas to boost Facebook’s popularity further. As the founder says:

“We’re doing this at Facebook to support the ecosystem and help it grow. Any application developer can submit their application and a little business proposal to us. If we think the project is good, we will give a grant for somewhere between $25,000 to $250,000.”

The only restriction is that companies can’t have made any money from their idea previously - Facebook should be the first avenue in which their ideas “get off the ground.”

Virgil: Those of you who have tried to set up a fast, free website - whilst also providing it with a catchy domain name - will have heard of Dot TK. Fewer, however, will have heard of the island Tokelau. But revenue generated from Dot TK has been generating 10% of Tokelau’s GDP since it began offering such a service in 2001.

When people make quick and simple websites - little hompages, or sites to advertise one event - they usually want to do it for free. This means signing up with a free hosting company - which is all well and good, but means that the ultimate internet address used to get to the site will include the company’s name, making your site’s name a non-central part of the address. For instance, if you sign up with Yahoo’sGeocities, your ultimate address will be www.geocities.com/yourpage, and if you sign up with Lycos-provided service Tripod, your ultimate address will be yourpage.tripod.com. 3 clicks away from this is www.dot.tk, where you can get yourself a much catchier address like www.yourpage.tk. Although the service is free, Dot TK sites come with targeted banner adverts, and these are what generate the island’s income.

The “.tk” part of the address is called the domain. Whereas the more expensive and definitive “.com” domain refers to websites which are commercial, and the common “.org” domain is used for organisations, Dot TK is what’s known as a country-level domain, specific to Tokelau. All these domains are registered through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) - and whilst it has always been obvious that a Dot Com domain was needed for companies, it took a lot of persuasion to initially allow a domain specific to Tokelau. It was Joost Zuurbier, a Dutch entrepreneur, who presented the case for his investment:

“It was a four year process. They didn’t believe the contract or even the island were real and it was only because a member of the board had been to Tokelau in 1978 that they finally agreed it was OK.”

Since 2001, millions of mini-website makers have been drawn to the attractive address Dot TK offers, bringing in huge revenue from advertising. With every domain registered, the Dot TK Company donates an undisclosed amount to Tokelau’s miniature economy: in 2007 contributing 10%. This has in turn enabled the tiny nation to start using the internet more; back in 2001 there were 12 computers on the island, now there are over 200, including ones in internet cafés. There is broadband internet, and people make phone calls no longer with radios but with Skype. The inhabitants have even been discovering YouTube, MySpace and music downloads. Even better, Tokelau hospitals are now able to receive medical advice from experts overseas.

Rushda: A study has found that Amazon is the still the UK’s most used online retailer, after coming top on the latest IMRG-Hitwise Hot Shops List which lists the top 50 online shops. Amazon UK, which was established in the UK around ten years ago after originally starting in the US, has become a reliable portal for everything from books to holidays and is the first stop for millions of UK customers. The study also revealed incredible statistics such as the fact that online sales in the UK totalled £4bn in July alone.

The list also contains firm and perhaps unsurprising favourites such as Argos, which came second place, and Tesco.com,which came third. Play which has rivalled Amazon in its huge selection of CDs and DVDs (with free delivery) has come in 4th place. Also included in the list were travel shops such as Thomson and LastMinute and of course, the Apple Computer online store.

What is most remarkable about all these shops is that their positioning has stayed more or less constant over the years with no notable new website overtaking them. As IMRG’s chief executive James Roper says:

“The stability of retailers’ positions on the list is extraordinary, and tells me two things: these market leaders are satisfying their customers pretty well, and competitors are having little or no effect on their progress.”

It is clear that online users in England have decided on what the best websites are for certain common products and it will be difficult for any other website to establish the same kind of reliability. Amazon has become a household name and is likely to remain one of the best online shops for years to come. For those interested in the full results of the study, the new list of the top 50 e-retailers can be seen here.

Rushda: For many avid downloaders of music who are conscious of the illegality of free downloads, nothing other than the iTunes music store will do - it is reliable and offers a huge library. However, worryingly ITunes has been dominating the world of music downloads for a long time now and there are a number of niggling problems with it. All tracks downloaded, for example, are in special format called Digital Rights Management (DRM) and so they cannot be transferred outside iTunes and Ipods with ease. Because of such problems, big names such as Universal and SonyBMG have started to release their own rival software that is supposedly better than what Apple has to offer.

One of the best programs that is coming out of these initiatives is Gbox by Universal, which is becoming hugely popular. Gbox sells tracks without being formatted with the copy protection technology which is the ultimate downfall of iTunes tracks. Not only are the tracks more flexible in this way than those offered in the iTunes music store, but each track also costs less, at around 50p per track (whereas iTunes charges about 79p). As Gbox starts becoming more popular, it is also benefiting from special advertising with Google, whereby when particular songs are searched for with the search engine, adverts for Gbox will appear. As Universal Music Group chief executive Doug Morris says,

“We’re committed to exploring new ways to expand the availability of our artists’ music online, while offering consumers the most choice in how and where they purchase and enjoy our music.”

Finally downloaders can rest assured that there are other programs available that will cut the cost of their downloaded tracks and make them easier to copy. Perhaps now that iTunes is losing its monopoly over music downloads, more people will be keener to stop music piracy by buying tracks at reasonable costs elsewhere.

Virgil: Most of us will have heard of Google Earth, the neat application from search giant Google that lets you navigate around a 3D Earth, and zoom in to any point on the globe with impressive detail. Now Google have extended the same technology into the sky, providing amateur star-gazers with the best view of the heavens they’ve been able to get their hands on to date.

Google Sky is included with the latest version of Google Earth, adding a button to the interface which flips the camera up into the sky. Whilst the original Earth model looked down upon a sphere, the Sky model inverts this to look up onto the inside face of a much bigger sphere which the camera is inside. This inside face is plastered with thousands of images taken by agencies such as NASA, all compiled into a singular grand night sky. Dr John Mason, of the British Astronomical Association, praised the new application, saying:

“Light pollution and air pollution is now so bad in many areas that all you can see when you look up is a few dozen stars. If this helps people to realise just what they are missing, it is a jolly good thing.”

Whilst Google Sky isn’t the first program to offer stargazing, it appears to be all set to takeover the market. Whilst other options are also free, they do not provide the same interactive, free-moving camera that made Google Earth so popular, along with its rich integration of related data including routes and buildings. Sky offers clear views of over 300 million stars and galaxies, with various overlays to point out constellations and bring up further data relating to celestial bodies. Patrick Moore, the famed British astronomer, likewise sings the applications praises:

“This thing, Google Sky, seems to me the best way to learn your way around, and the stars become so much more interesting when you know which is which, and it’s a bloody good way to do it.”

The program goes alongside Google’s previous other forays into the heavens, Google Moon and Google Mars - I wonder how long it will be before we’re installing the seemingly inevitable Google Universe.

Virgil: Usually, if something you own has a better design, it’s more likely to be chosen as a target for theft. But new innovation and fervour from the Design and Technology Alliance, a government-backed group hoping to bring crime-prevention into the design process for products, hopes to turn this around.

A bike, for example, is usually sold separately to the security equipment (locks, etc.) that will keep it safe. This obviously raises revenue for the manufacturers. Indeed many companies profit from theft - mobile phone companies, for instance, simply make another sale when someone needs to replace their stolen phone. However, the Alliance hopes to encourage manufacturers to build stronger theft-prevention into their products, insisting that this will be of benefit both to customers and companies alike. David Kester, a member of the Alliance and Chief Executive of the Design Council outlines this aim, saying:

“The public want industry to be responsible, as with the environment, and they will put more trust in firms who they believe are interested in protecting them.”

With this in mind, lateral thinking going on at the Alliance-run Design Against Crime Research Centre has come up with two ideas to demonstrate how simple design features can be easily incorporated into products to help prevent theft. The first is a self-locking bike, which has a hinge down the main frame allowing it to fold in half, rendering the whole thing useless even if it is taken away. The second, and by far, I think, the more ingenious, is a chair which simply has two slots in the front. Women are able to hang their handbags from these slots, meaning that if someone tried to steal the bag, they’d be forced to put their hand between the lady’s legs. Lorraine Gamman, who works at the Centre, comments on this design, saying:

“The genital region is the most defended part of the body. If someone puts their hand down there, you notice.”

With any luck, we should soon be seeing more and more of this kind of simple innovation working to keep the things we’ve bought safe.

Jeanne: Men, beware! More women than ever are taking up high-level positions in the corporate world according to recent surveys. In the United States, almost fifty percent of private companies are currently owned by women. The UK, however, lags far behind the US when it comes to providing women with top jobs.

Women, according to leading analysts, operate in a very different way to men in high-level corporate positions. Describing the motivations behind the actions of female entrepreneurs, Margaret Heffernan, an entrepreneur herself, states:

“(The) old corporate notions of business as war, of companies as machines, and of leadership as command don’t work for women, who are more interested in orchestration, empathy and relationship management.”

Many behavioural analysts have suggested that the latter set of skills have led to the undoubted success of many female-owned establishments. Margaret Heffernan claims:

“Of course it may be that these are just business skills - skills that have nothing to do with gender and everything to do with talent. Historically, women have been low in social power in the workplace for a long time, and have learned how to read signals to ensure their survival. Lacking institutional protection, their careers depended on being attuned to shifts in mood and attitude - and what better preparation could there be for the unpredictable, irrational world of 21st-century business?”

However, according to numerous insiders, British women face an uphill struggle in the corporate world:

There is some evidence that women are willing to take bigger risks with their careers than men. These women (are) driven to look for a place where they could prove themselves on their terms. This is not because they are stupid; it is because they are desperate. So often they can see no other way to find work, and a way of working, that suits them.

Nevertheless, change appears to be on the horizon. The impact of female-owned firms should not be underestimated. There are currently 600,000 such corporations in the country. Government estimates suggest that these organisations contribute some £130 billion to the British economy. And with more and more women choosing to enter higher education, it is likely that women will continue to play an important role in the British boardroom.

Anna: Stanfords is the UK’s leading specialist retailer of maps and travel books. Founded in 1853 by Edward Stanford there is, however, nothing old-fashioned about the comapny’s approach to environmental policy. Stanfords has recently announced that it will be recycling all materials from its stores in London and Bristol. In addition, company staff are entitled to an extra day of annual leave is they are taking a trip to Europe and opt to travel in a sustainable way. The policy is designed to encourage Stanfords workers to take the train or the bus, rather than relying on air travel.

Stanfords’ flagship store in Covent Garden is a delightful place to while away an afternoon, and claims to offer the world’s largest stock of maps and travel books under one roof. Natural, then, that staff should catch the travel bug and want to indulge their Wanderlust by taking foreign trips. It’s a simple idea to reward workers who make that journey in a sustainable way by providing additional annual leave, but one which is effective.

Justin Francis, co-founder of www.responsibletravel.com, spells out the stark realities of our penchant for jet-setting:

The simple fact is that aviation is the fastest growing cause of global warming. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by air travel doubled between 1990 and 2004. That is totally incompatible with the need to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050.

Yet with falling air fares, and even recent deals which saw budget operators paying taxes on behalf of customers, it has never been easier or more tempting to jet off to Europe for a short break. Sir Michael Bishop, Chairman of airline BMI, said:

“Today, air travel is a natural part of the daily lives of millions of people,” adding that “in 1986, only 75 million people travelled through Britain’s airports. Last year, more than three times that number did so. It is a simple example of the benefits of choice and competition.

And while cost is no longer a real constraint on short-haul, instead it is time which is at a premium, which further discourages the public from taking greener, but slower forms of transport to reach their destination. This is what makes the Stanfords initiative so clever. Rather than jumping on the carbon-offsetting bandwagon, Stanfords are encouraging employees to think about their impact on the environment. The company is also, crucially, stumping up the cash to pay for the extra annual leave entitlement, thus facilitating and rewarding the eco-credentials of its staff.