Today at lunch in the UBC SUB my friend bought bottled water with lunch. When we finished lunch and were leaving, she poured the remaining water into her own personal water bottle. Keeping in mind that there was a free filtered water station just a few steps away, I wondered why she bought the bottled water. In fact, why are bottled water industries still making money in Vancouver? In Vancouver we claim to have the purest tap water in the world and is also available most anywhere. The need for clean water is gone, the convenience of bottled water is debatably more convenient then walking to a tap, it’s “more expensive per volume than gasoline” and plastic bottles aren’t environmentally friendly. According to BC Living the success of bottled water derives from the five marketing myths bottled water companies use.

With that being said the purchase of a plastic bottle for the bottle itself is logical, and bottled water has its benefits convenience wise in situations such as large events, where access to free water is more difficult. However I still believe that the success of bottled water in Vancouver is a phenomenon.

The world of technology is rapidly moving forward, leaving old software behind. Steve Jobs says it best in this video.

However, the proposition of an idea for a new kind of smart phone has had a lot of attention and solves this problem of technology becoming obsolete in a short span of time. Phonebloks is a customizable lego-style phone with attachable and detachable parts like a camera, storage, ect. It is what people would call a billion dollar idea. While I have no idea how difficult the technical implications would be to make this phone a reality, I do believe that if it is possible this will be the next generation of smart phones. Referring to Steve Jobs sediment layer analogy, this would be like the creation of a central pillar in which people would build around adding assets to make it better, stronger, and more lucrative.

While there is a base of 600,000 people supporting the concept through social media, supporting through social media can only do so much. Social media raises awareness, but not much more. A leader who organizes the right team is essential

In conclusion, I look forward to seeing the future of this idea.

In a mine located on the Xingu River in the Amazon, “Belo Sun’s assessment mentioned mineral resources of 37.8 million tonnes at the mine. The company’s website now reports 88.1 million tonnes,” which results to double the size of the project and very good news to shareholders. However expansion could lead to environmentally unfriendly consequences; larger waste dumps as well as larger quantities of dangerous minerals such as arsenic, lead, and cyanide would be a result of the mining. Two Indian communities along the Xingu River are in probability of danger, however more research is needed. If they were an ethically just business, they should post pone the expansion of the gold mine to find definite results as to what the probable effect of expansion would have on the locals, and loose time and money to most likely find less than wanted results. Unfortunately, I believe that the only aspect of the scenario in which would make them now choose the ethical route would be the publicity that now surrounds it. Sad, but logical. If they truly cared about the locals they would have done the proper research before planning for the expansion in the first place.