Financing FAQ

Posted on Wednesday, 13th July 2011 by Emily Smith

Smartphone usage slows down, figures show The proportion of Brits using smartphones has increased by just 2% in the last six months, as the handsets fail to appeal to everyone, research says.

According to a YouGov poll, smartphones are less popular with people over the age of 55, with just 14% of those in this age group using a handset.It also found that men account for almost 60% of the smartphone market – especially, YouGov said, when it comes to Nokia and HTC handsets, which “appeal significantly more to men than women”.”The challenge for the industry is to better explain the benefits of smartphone ownership to current rejecters, notably older age groups and women,” said Russell Feldman from YouGov.However, the survey did show that one-third of people without a smartphone plan to get one when they next upgrade their mobile phone.Whether you have a smartphone or a regular mobile phone handset, make sure you observe ‘mobile manners’ and don’t shout on your mobile phone in public, as recent research from Intel showed that almost 70% of people find this rude. Read more…

Tags: Figures Show, Show, Smartphone Usage Slows, Usage Slows
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Posted on Wednesday, 13th July 2011 by Emily Smith

DES PLAINS, IL – Nine emergency department health providers have created a consensus statement that lays out metrics to help reduce ED crowding.

“Emergency department crowding is a serious healthcare problem that is only getting worse,” said Emergency Nurses Association president AnnMarie Papa, RN, in a statement. “Addressing it is one of ENA’s top clinical priorities, but we can’t solve a problem if we can’t agree on how to quantify it. This consensus statement is a first and important step in reducing crowding and boarding in emergency rooms and helping us provide better and faster care to our patients.”

Led by the ENA, organizations such as the American Academy of Emergency Medicine, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Emergency Department Practice Management Association have agreed on standardized ED metrics that will create benchmarks to be used to form strategies reducing ED crowding and boarding.

The consensus statement defines

• what an ED is • ED arrival time • ED offload time • ED transfer of care from pre-hospital providers time • ED triage time • ED treatment space time

“By working together, the EMS, nursing and physician communities have achieved an important consensus on these metrics,” added Papa. “Now we can begin the process o

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Tags: Ed Metrics, Metrics
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Posted on Tuesday, 12th July 2011 by Emily Smith

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has today revised its growth forecast for the economy following the earthquake and tsunami which struck in March.

The twin disasters forced the country back into a recession after industrial output suffered a record drop and spending dived as consumer and business confidence took a battering.

The Japanese economy, which is the world’s third largest, contracted by 0.9% in the first quarter after contracting in the final quarter of 2010, pushing it back into a recession.

As a result, the central bank is now forecasting growth to be 0.4% for the fiscal year, down from the 0.6% it estimated in April.

The revised forecast came after a two-day policy meeting which started Monday. This also resulted in the bank electing to keep interest rates at the record low in the range of zero to 0.1%.

Tags: Growth, Growth Forecasts
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Posted on Monday, 11th July 2011 by Emily Smith

Weakness in technology stocks caused PowerShares QQQ to lag the broader market Thursday with a 1% decline in the final hour of U.S. trading.

Netflix shares were down nearly 4% as investors questioned the company’s recent price increase. The leading tech stock is a component of the Nasdaq-100.

Another PowerShares QQQ holding, Google , will report second quarter earnings after Thursday’s closing bell. The quarterly results are the first to reflect how Google is performing with co-founder Larry Page as CEO.

“We expect strong revenue growth due to market share gains in search, display and mobile. While expenses remain a wild card, we believe this is largely reflected in the stock,” said Benchmark Capital analyst Clayton Moran.

Wall Street analysts are expecting earnings of $7.86 a share on revenue of $6.5 billion, reports Joan E. Solsman

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Tags: Etf, Etf Looks
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Posted on Monday, 11th July 2011 by Emily Smith

AFTER yesterday’s European market gyrations, matters have settled down today, but just a bit. Buttonwood comments:

The sense of crisis in the euro area is building. Toby Nangle of Baring Asset Management pointed out that the 60 basis point widening in spreads between Italian and German bonds yesterday was a phenomenal move for the world’s third largest bond market. After a very shaky start today, some stability has appeared on talk that the European Central Bank (or the bank of Italy acting as its proxy) has been in the market to buy Italian bonds.

But this is exactly where the European authorities didn’t want to be. The rescues of Greece, Ireland and Portugal were all designed to buy time and prevent contagion spreading to Italy and Spain. That strategy has clearly failed.

An Italian bond auction went better than might have been expected, helping to cool market panic. But traders are reporting little market interest in periphery debt, leading to speculation that the European Central Bank has stepped in to buy debt and halt, for the moment, soaring spreads.

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Tags: Bit, Bit Breathing
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Posted on Monday, 11th July 2011 by Emily Smith

Ofcom suggests unused radio waves to provide rural broadband Ofcom is looking into the possibility of using radio waves left unused when radio turns digital to provide broadband to rural areas.

The free waves, called white space, are a cheaper alternative to other ways of providing rural broadband as they are not licensed for any other use.White space devices are becoming a popular way of transferring frequencies, compared to other wireless methods such as Bluetooth and Wi-FI, and the space freed up by the digital TV switchover are currently being used in a trial.Taking place in Cambridge, the trial is being conducted by Microsoft, the BBC, BSkyB and BT, among others, and is looking at unused TV frequencies between 470 MHz and 790 Mhz.Ofcom’s Chief Executive Ed Richards said: “Spectrum is a resource that is in huge demand, fuelled by the recent explosion in smart phones and other wireless technologies.”However, there is only a limited amount of it to go around, which means we need to start thinking more creatively about how it is used.

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Tags: Broadband, Provide Rural, Provide Rural Broadband, Rural Broadband
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