Maya Reports

Icon

Our way of keeping you in the loop. You can thank us later.

Leaf vehicles go vroom


Electric vehicles don’t really make noises…and while some car makers advocate that their cars are quiet on the road, there’s quiet and then there’s noiseless.

Nissan has decided to add sound to their new line of electric vehicles – Leaf (would multiple cars be called Leaves?), which I definitely think is important.

What a cool job, huh? To be the one that decides what the car will sound like in motion?  Well, this is what the person with the cool job decided on.  Can’t say that I’m totally enjoying the space-age-y sounds…

Advertisement

Filed under: Business, Tech, World, , , , , ,

Scratch & sniff billboards..?


Marketers at Bloom, a division of Food Lion, are taking their advertising gimmick to a whole new level.

Imagine driving down Highway 150 in Mooresville, NC (it’s north of Charlotte, yes, I just looked), and thinking you’re smelling steak?  Well, fortunately, it wouldn’t just be your imagination.

Apparently the scent was being emitted by a fan blowing air over cartridges filled with a BBQ fragrance oil, at the bottom of a huge billboard advertising Bloom’s steaks.

I’d be interested to know if  Bloom (the grocery store) was actually selling more steak because of this…

Filed under: Business, Marketing, Random, , , , , ,

Good thing I haven’t purchased an online WSJ subscription yet..


Not sure why this mass web attack hasn’t hit the airwaves yet…but apparently it’s BIG.  Between 7,000 to 114,000 (right, that’s a huge range..) websites have been compromised, among them – the Jerusalem Post and WSJ.   Andre DeMino, a co-founder of the Shadowserver malware-tracking group believes that “this incident appears to be the worst since a large number of WordPress-based sites were hacked in April”.

Security researchers are still trying to figure out how hackers posted malicious HTML code on the web sites, that then redirects victims to a malicious web server which tries to install software on the victims’ computer.  If this virus is successful, it allows the criminals a way to remotely control their PCs.  Awesome.

Yet another reason why we shouldn’t completely do away with printed materials.  If I were reading a paper copy of the WSJ,  the only way the paper would be compromised…is if it got wet, which wouldn’t compromise my personal information, just the page itself by smearing the ink, and making it unreadable.

Filed under: Business, Tech, , , , , , , , , ,

Looks like you CAN wash animals with Dawn dish soap


I stand corrected…

Filed under: Business, Marketing, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cleaning cute animals covered in oil, Hollywood-style


This has been on my mind ever since the Dawn dish soap commercial (see below) has begun to re-air.  I get it, cute animals are being affected by oil spills, and we need to save them.  But, if you’ll notice, on the bottom of the screen, it says “simulated demonstration”.  I mean obviously they didn’t helicopter-in animals who were affected by an oil spill, to a sound stage that was pre-set with dawn liquid soap bottles and tubs of water, with people dressed in smock-like attire and gloves standing-by.  Oh sorry, didn’t mean to burst your bubble.

So, my point is this.  Procter & Gamble had this great story line in mind (and yes, it really makes its point) – oil spills are bad for the environment, just look at these animals – but they took these perfectly clean animals and covered them in some black liquidy substance, for the sake of the commercial?! How is that right?  And they’re cleaning them with dish soap?

Filed under: Marketing, , , , , , , , , ,

Bernanke vs Geithner, which version do you like better?


I was reading about the state of the economy yesterday, and came across two conflicting news articles.

The first article I read had Ben Bernanke (Fed Reserve Chairman) saying that things are not all well yet – “including the high rate of unemployment…” and then in another article Timothy Geithner (US Secretary of Treasury) says that the economy “is showing signs that companies are starting to hire more workers as the recovery strengthens.”

I should note that Bernie’s article was posted at 11:15am EST and Timmy’s at 5:01pm EST…maybe in the span of 6 or so hours, the economy starting showing positive signs?

Filed under: Business, Finance, Politics, , , , , ,

Looks like Google is trying to pull a Walmart


Walmart is the world’s largest retailer, as Google is the world’s largest Internet company. When Walmart decides to refuse to do business with a specific brand, it has major repercussions for that brand.  As of early this year, Google has decided that it will phase out Microsoft Windows as its operating system, and focus on Linux or Macs.  Apparently employees (any of the 10,000) who want to stay on Windows, need approval from the CIO (Chief Information Officer).  Pretty intense.

Clearly a mixture of the new Chrome platform and the hackers in China, have provoked Google to react in this way.

It’s incorrect to assume that Mac operating systems are any safer than Windows.

“…the reality is that the primary reason Macs aren’t attacked and compromised more often is that the platform with 92 percent market share promises malware developers a significantly higher return on investment than the platform with 5 percent market share.”

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/192419/security_lessons_learned_from_pwn2own_contest.html

As of last week, Apple surpassed Microsoft in market value…Google is phasing out Windows…looks like everyone is bullying Microsoft.  Where’s the love?

Filed under: Business, Tech, , , , , , , , , ,

About MayaReports

Blog Stats

  • 7,441 hits
%d bloggers like this: