One of many peoples favourite snacks maker Hostess is planning on going out of business. With having around 18,500 workers it announced friday, that is it going to shut its doors and fire most of its workers.

While in Canada, a totally different company owns the right to wonder bread and Hostess, but twinkies is not one of them. “Everything is business as usual in Canada.” according to Geoff Wilson, senior vice-president at George Weston.  I think even though the company is closing in the USA, the Canadian hostess brand wont be affected. Their could even go potentially go up with americans crossing the border to buy Hostess products. But twinkies one of their main products cannot be produced by Hostess canada.

Twinkie enthusiasts are spending $50 just to buy a box of twinkies on ebay. I checked earlier today and their was 28 bids on a box of twinkies for 48 dollars. For me getting in 10 more twinkies for $50 is not worth it, but for some snatching that last twinkle may just bring back their childhood memories. 

http://www.theprovince.com/business/Twinkies+maker+Hostess+going+business+putting+almost+work/7561754/story.html#axzz2CT95ReZx

Over the last few months the products that Google has been releasing have  brought them to become a major player in the electronics market. As Omar El Akkad said in his article “Almost overnight, a company best known for its Web-search algorithms has made a big move into the hardware market” . This being said, Google has released 4 new products in the last few months alone. The nexus 7 a 7 inch tablet for only $199, the nexus 10 a 10 inch tablet that I think could possibly out perform the ipad for $399, a chromebook googles own interpretation of a ultrabook for $199, and finally their new and improved galaxy phone that has a price of $309.

I personally think that their prices and product are unbeatable for the product. The nexus 4, their new galaxy phone, is almost better or on par than the samsung galaxy s3 in every way. It has a better interal specs, a more crisp screen and almost half the value. With their price confirmed and is fully unlocked allowing it to be used with any carrier around the world.

With these new products and price point I think companies may have to question their current pricing, because consumers may start to wonder why google products are so much cheaper than theirs.  What do you think?

Some information on googles prices:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9678525/Google-Nexus-range-battles-Apple-with-low-prices-and-Project-Butter.html

In response to “Its all about the Money” by Devan Dass. 

With Urthecast being opened during 2014, it It is a true project of the future. Being the worlds first online stream of earth from space, it gives a whole new aspect of earth from convectional applications like google earth, and bing maps.

In his post “Its all about the money” Devan Dass talked about how Wade Larson, the Co-Founder and Executive VP was talking about the difficulties of finding financing, and how it is hard to believe a company with so many opportunities have such a hard time finding angel investors. I think because the company has a lack of actual progress, and has a short time contract of only 10 years has a huge impact on why investors are not investing. Urthecast is truly a product that stands out, but investors are unsure if it can compete with big named companies such as google and microsoft.

But because the fact Urthecast is using two cameras mounted on the international space system, it allows footage of going around the world 16 times a day, while google maps has some parts that have not been updated in a few years. This extra data makes you be able to see video streams only with a few hour delay which is unbelievable, and would make anyone want to use their program and site, which in my opinion catch any investors eye.

The new smart meter has been legistated in BC to be on every house by the end of 2012, as that is nearing new products such as the Power Tab by Energy-Aware are coming this way. But is the new smart meter really a good idea. With people have many problems, such a privacy controls and health issues are these new ways of saving energy worth it?

Janice Cheam the founder and CEO of energy-aware came in and talked about the Power Tab. The device itself sounded like a great idea,  being able to see how much electricity you use at any given point is great. It motivates you to  reduce your consumption and save the total energy use. But the concept of the smart meter is concerning. Their have been many reports of individuals hacking into smart meters, stealing and even changing the size of your bill. There are also many accounts of people showing how a Smart Meter is like a wiretap, allowing power companies able to see when you are home, away, or even watching tv. If a device from inside your house could talk to your meter, just imagine what one individual could do to the smart grid.

With over “98 per cent of businesses in B.C. fall under the government’s definition of a small business (having 50 or fewer employees)” trying to make British Columbia the most small business friendly province could affect the turnout of future businesses. With having 50% of the provinces GDP coming from small busienesses I think it is great that Naomi Yamamoto, the minister of state of small business is trying to help bring down the taxes that small businesses pay. In current days high property tax, and other costs are affecting many companies around the province. These taxes make it hard for individuals to open their business or maintain it. By helping out these businesses, BC in not only allowing individuals to have jobs, but also benefiting the province itself, by increasing the provinces GDP. With this new program, individuals now have better incentives to start their own business, and potentially move their small business into British Columbia, if the business environments are right.

reference:

http://www.theprovince.com/business/smallbusiness/Minister+aims+make+small+business+friendly+Delta/7432519/story.html#axzz2CNFwRgC3

Since the release of the windows new windows 8 and windows 8 rt operating systems, a all new type of computers and tablets have been released.  Jonathan Bickford currently in his blog has noted that the new windows 8 operating system is more for competing with apple tablets and the mobile industry. But with the new tile base system an all new type of computers are being released called ultra book convertibles, a super sleek laptop with touch screen capabilities.

With no start menu and having live tiles, the new windows 8 smart meters allows you to use  touch gestures to easily navigate without the use of a traditional mouse. Windows 8 also allows newer desktops come with touch screen screens, reducing the use the mouse and making it more easy for users to navigate.

Jon mentioned that ” previous Windows phones either under-utilized or didn’t use”  single-touch to open apps, but the old windows phone 7 operating system, still had live tiles, and one-touch app opening.  The new windows 8 software brings this type of user interface to laptops and home computers.

The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline a pipeline that is supposed to run from Alberta to Kitimat, BC. With the proposal been out for years, getting it approved has been a hassle.  A blog post on “Pipe Up Against Enbridge” compares the different geography around Kitimat that the one pipelines built in Europe by talking about a post that Enbridge made about the Kitimat port, saying that it is similar to various European Ports.  One of the biggest problems was that the Kitimat port is five times longer than any other of the ports. The author of the blog, Dave Shannon says “The chance of an accident is higher in inside waters than on the open ocean. The longer the approach, the greater the risk of an accident.”

I think that the Enbridge Northern Pipeline is something that has a positive affect to British Columbia and even Canada’s economy. It would make jobs for thousands of people . But if something goes wrong it can cause a lot of environmental damage. If the Enbridge pipeline sets up safety closures, and has a proper plan to protect the environment the pipeline should be made. The blog shows a good point on having a long opening than other  locations, but if Enbridge can safely manage though pipelines they can possibly have port their.

The Canadian dollar has recently reached a two-week high, as businesses have added five times more employees than expected. In August 34,300 employees were hired, and just in September these businesses have added 52,100 jobs, which was more than 40,000 jobs than the forecast. The increase in number of jobs dropped the unemployment rate to 7.3%, lower than the American’s 7.8% unemployment rate.

With this news, the Canadian dollar went up 0.5% this week, making $1 loonie buy $1,0219 American dollars, making it reach the highest level in the past few weeks.  Because of these new numbers the Bank of Canada wants to take out stimulus out of the Canadian Market sooner, and may target to increase the interest rate.

Even though the employment in the oil industry increased, the price of oil expects a drop of 2% to $89.90 a barrel, because of a greater  supply than demand. In my option the drop in price of oil will cause less people getting hired in October because  companies may want to slow down production of oil causing  the prices of oil to rise.

References: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-05/canada-dollar-rallies-as-u-s-canada-jobs-gains-fuel-demand.html

After a few days of the release of iOS 6, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc, posted an apology letter on their site about their glichy new maps. In 2010 Apple denied Antenna issues on their new iPhone 4 which lead them to spend millions on iphone cases, this time Apple take an different approach to their situation. In the letter he stated that  “We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.” Taki ng an approach that Steve Jobs would try to avoid, but in my opinion it is an approach that shows that apple is for once take the blame.

But If I was Tim Cook, I would have done it differently. In his letter it included different Maps that were available on the app store, making it seem like the company is trying avoid the problem. If I was the CEO, I would allow consumers to be able to go back to Ios 5, the previous version of apple’s operating system.  This would allow uses that could not stand the maps, still have the option to use google maps.

The maps application now uses tomtom’s  data, which lacks features that Google Maps had. Google’s executive chairman Mike Schmidt  thought “it would have been better if they had kept [theirs]. But what do I know?” but because of Google’s Android operating system there are many strains between the two companies.

resources:http://www.apple.com/letter-from-tim-cook-on-maps/
http://www.theprovince.com/business/Apple+culpa+over+Maps+muckup+break+from+past/7316735/story.html

Environmental Damage is constantly being done, and little is being done about it.

Chevron, the second-largest oil company in U.S is the third most unethical company, according to a Swiss research company.  Chevron like many other unethical companies have tried to cover their tracks, have hired lawyers, and try to sneak pass the law.

Over the years of 1964 to 1990 Chevron has dumped over 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon Rainforest. The toxic waste has contaminated areas in Ecuador, caused many health problems to numerous locals and has killed over 1400 individuals.

Back in 2011 the Ecuador court ordered Chevron to pay 8.6 billion dollars to clean up the damage caused by the toxic waste, but the company simply ignored the request. There was no enforcement done to make them pay, and take the responsibility for these damages, but just recently Chevron has been ordered to pay 19 billion dollars for environmental damages.  One major contribution to this payout was a petition of 60, 000 people wanting  to make a difference. Companies like Chevron wreck ecosystems, and peoples holmes and simply get away without any consequence, but for once action was taken.

Dumping toxic waste, and wrecking the environment, is in my opinion, unethical, and should not be tolerated. It does not only effect the place we live, but it destroys ecosystems and environments of living things . Even though Chevron has to pay 8.6 billion dollars, I think something like this should not be tolerated and be considered a federal crime.

Resources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/the-least-ethical-compani_n_440073.html

Chevron’s Dirty Laundry

http://www.care2.com/causes/success-chevron-ordered-to-pay-19-billion-for-environmental-damage.html
http://digitaljournal.com/article/317330