Home-grown gadget turns weeds into profits
The News Review:
- Home-grown gadget turns weeds into profits
- St Patrick’s Day: The legend of the shamrock
- MS in $677m IBM challenge
- Chick lit translates into global zeitgeist
- PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
Home-grown gadget turns weeds into profits
news24.com – Mar 17, 2006
But the Weed Wipe Applicator – a lightweight moulded plastic device that resembles an ice-hockey stick – and its smaller relative, the Weed Wipe Dabbler, are only part of the Weed Wipe range. It was the devising of a chemical herbicide by the Strand-based company – with a little help from Bayer, the international chemical company with headquarters in Germany – that got business owners Norman and Melville Landsberg thinking. Explains Landsberg senior: “The Weed Wipe 6AS herbicide is unique in that it is safe and works fast and permanently. Its action is systemic and non-selective, which means it will destroy only unwanted plants, i.
St Patrick’s Day: The legend of the shamrock
The Independent – Independent – Mar 17, 2006
“The argument of the shamrock sellers is not helped by another little-known aspect of the Irish clover trade. Much of the seed used to grow commercial shamrock originates from New Zealand and Canada rather than the meadows of Leinster. The situation has led to demands that the Irish government should preserve the national plant by ensuring it is home-grown. But any effort is unlikely to get very far. The Irish Seed Saver Association, which protects varieties of plants and trees, including apples and potatoes, that are unique to Ireland, remains unconvinced. Jill Newton, co-ordinator of the bank, said: “It’s a nice notion to believe in mythic plants. But most of the clovers we have here are similar to much of Europe’s.
MS in $677m IBM challenge
Australian IT – Mar 17, 2006
The company said that new software systems like the Vista operating system and the Sharepoint web site scheduling system, as well as the updated Office suite of applications including word processing and email programs, were the result of $US20 billion ($27 billion) in research and development spending over three years. These kinds of software and software-based services are tools to help employees be more successful, added Jeff Raikes, President of Microsoft’s Business Division, in an interview with Reuters. “Innovation is home-grown, it’s not outsourced,” he said. “IBM has an army of relatively expensive consultants. They enable their people to run your business. We enable your people to run your business, not take our people to run your business. ”
In a statement, IBM responded: “Microsoft’s marketing campaign – you can’t really call it a strategy – is Window dressing for a pitch to keep a one-size-fits-all, proprietary Windows world.
Chick lit translates into global zeitgeist
International Herald Tribune – Mar 17, 2006
Niina Hakalahti's "Breathless" is about a writing teacher who lives near Lapland and whose boyfriend has gone to New Guinea to seek enlightenment; its Finnish title can also mean "feeling out of sorts spiritually," said Terhi Isomaki, who handles foreign rights for the book's Finnish publisher. In Pauliina Susi's "Rush Year," a 30-year-old student contends with having a baby, building a house and finishing her master's thesis in one frantic year. The Italian market is saturated with chick lit imports, though a few home-grown titles have emerged, most notably "Something's Hot in the City," by Camilla Vittorini, published by Red Dress Ink, a chick lit imprint Harlequin Mondadori established in 2002. Set in Milan, it follows Sabrina, a feisty and fashionable ad copy writer in her early 30s with a boyfriend who won't commit. The novel is lively and believable, with one exception: It takes all the way to Page 24 for Sabrina's mother to call her. It's sold about 9,000 copies, quite respectable in Italy, where the readership in fiction is much smaller than elsewhere in Europe and a significant percentage of books are sold at newsstands, not bookstores. While "Le Journal de Bridget Jones" has been popular in France, the country hasn't produced many of its own chick lit authors.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
Taipei Times – Mar 17, 2006
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES In case you haven’t noticed dance music has been losing its footing and sliding down the pop charts, while hip hop has returned bolder and bigger than ever. Even the Brits are turning to homegrown hip hop (they call it grime, sublow or dubstep), from the likes of Dizzee Rascal and Wiley. In Taipei, you only have to take a walk down the avenues of fashion on Zhongxiao East Road and in Ximending to see that baggy pants, hip-hop hats and heavy chains are the order of the day. Hip hop DJ Marcus Aurelius, however, likes to draw a distinction between the US style of music and how it gets translated over here. “I asked a guy what he thought hip hop was and he said it was fashion… Dance clubs in Kaohsiung were not allowed to operate until recently, whereas hip hop clubs were allowed to stay open,” Aurelius said. Check out the la-meis and Japan’s DJ Alamaki tonight at Plush, which has become one of the top venues in town, with DJs Kid, Afro, E-Dragon and the recommended Chicano. MC Hot Dog’s album Wake Up will give you a taste of some home-grown sounds, while the action’s at Cor and Party Room most weekends, and at Club TU on Wednesday for a dirty grind. Luxy, however, has the biggest stick and in addition to running the wildly popular ladies’ night events with Liquid Lifestyle, has been behind most of the big artists who have flown into town, including last Saturday’s three-hour extravaganza with DJ Premier from Gang Starr, along with Big Shug on MC duty. And don’t worry dance fans, the wheels keep turning. Tonight there is a St. Patrick’s day party at new venue War! (behind Sogo in Taichung), with draft green beer and free Bailey’s popsicles.