#Explosives and Pesticides Can Be detected by Using Bee venom Scientists from MIT have discovered that by coating carbon nanotubes in bee venom,
they can create ultra-sensitive detectors for explosives such as TNT, as well as at least two different types of pesticides.
This means that bees and their stingers could become important to making better environmental sensors.
MIT reports that Michael Strano and fellow chemical engineers coated one-atom-thick tubes of carbon with protein fragments found in bee venom,
and this is the first time researchers have seen the proteins react to explosives. The new sensors are hypersensitive to explosives
with the ability to detect even single molecules of the chemicals, and further, they can even detect the molecules the explosive chemicals form into as they break down.
The sensors can provide experts with a ingerprintof each explosive as well as the state of its breakdown.
But the sensors aren just useful for explosives the researchers found that the coated nanotubes can also detect two pesticides that contain nitro-aromatic compounds.
This means the sensors can be useful not only to anyone from airport security officials to military troops,
but also could be useful environmental sensors. It certainly an interesting use of venom especially after we recently saw that scorpion venom can be used to create pesticides.
Strano has filed for a patent on the sensor, and the team is still working out a compression system to ensure that any molecules in the air come into contact with the tubes
and are detected therefore. But the team is hopeful that the sensors could become a commercial product in the near future.
This is certainly a novel approach for using the proteins found in bee venom. It seems there are a number of potential uses for the poison,
even including boosting brain functions like memory and learning
#FTC Proposes Stricter Guidelines on Food Ads for Children The Federal trade commission has proposed sweeping new guidelines that could push the food industry to overhaul how it advertises cereal, soda pop, snacks, restaurant meals and other foods to children.
Citing an epidemic of childhood obesity, regulators are taking aim at a range of tactics used to market foods high in sugar,
fat or salt to children, including the use of cartoon characters like Toucan Sam, the brightly colored Froot Loops pitchman,
who appears in television commercials and online games as well as on cereal boxes. Regulators are asking food makers
and restaurant companies to make a choice: make your products healthier or stop advertising them to youngsters. oucan Sam can sell healthy food
or junk food, said Dale Kunkel, a communications professor at the University of Arizona who studies the marketing of children food. his forces Toucan Sam to be associated with healthier products.
The guidelines, released by the Federal trade commission, encompass a broad range of marketing efforts, including television and print ads, Web sites,
online games that act as camouflaged advertisements, social media, product placements in movies, the use of movie characters in cross-promotions and fast-food children meals.
The inclusion of digital media such as product-based games, represents one of the government strongest efforts so far to address the extension of children advertising into the online world,
which children health advocates say is a growing problem. The guidelines are meant to be voluntary,
a trade group that represents marketers like Kraft foods and Campbell soup. By explicitly tying advertising to childhood obesity,
Ronald Mcdonald and the movie and television characters used to promote food. It also raises the question of
food companies spent nearly $2. 3 billion to advertise to children. The food industry immediately criticized the proposal,
saying that it had taken already significant steps to improve recipes and change the way it advertises to children.
Kellogg, the company that makes Froot Loops said in a statement that it would review the proposal
Many food companies participate in an industry-led effort, the Children Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative,
The guidelines were created at the request of Congress and written by the commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture department and the Centers for Disease Control.
Jeffrey Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, a group that focuses on Internet marketing to children, said the F. T. C. proposal had broader implications. he youth obesity issue has placed all
#New Traceability Rule Represents Major Adjustment for U s. Food industry In response to a new federal food safety law and growing consumer interest,
vast amounts of new data are being generated about the complicated path that food takes from field to supermarket shelf.
who in some stores can wave a smartphone above an apple or orange and learn instantly where it was grown,
They can even contact the farmer, if they feel moved. A provision of the federal food safety law passed last year requires that all players in the country food supply chain be able to quickly trace from
whom they received a food product and to whom they sent it. Theyl have to maintain that information in digital form,
consumers could tap into through their computers or cellphones. The ne step forward, one step backtraceability requirement for processed food and produce is designed to make it easier for the Food
and Drug Administration to identify the source of an outbreak of foodborne illness, trace its path
and swiftly remove it from the food supply. The new requirement represents a major adjustment for some parts of the nation food system
as the government imposes standards and electronic record-keeping on an industry where small players still rely on handshakes and paper invoices.
The FDA has had trouble quickly pinpointing the source of national outbreaks of foodborne illness, a task complicated by a lengthy food supply chain where tomatoes might change hands five times from farm to store.
Many in the food business already are using traceability technology, mostly relying on bar codes that can be affixed after harvesting to a piece of fruit or a crate.
which covers food other than meat, poultry and egg products. They are competing to develop the tracking technology
and manage the data. Some are experimenting with radio frequency identification and other sophisticated methods, including etching identification codes on produce with lasers
or micro-percussion markers that make tiny indents. hey each believe they have the holy grail product tracking solutions sitting in their laptop,
said David Acheson, former assistant commissioner for food protection at the FDA. omebody is probably going to make a bundle of money out of this.
Under the new law, the FDA must launch pilot projects by September then report results to Congress and issue more specific rules by 2013.
Paul Chang, who leads the traceability initiative at IBM, said the company is basically taking the tracking system it uses for the pharmaceutical industry
instrumented data, he said. Segments of the food industry have been required since 2005 to be able to trace ne step forward, one step back,
but not farms or restaurants. But according to a 2009 investigation by the Department of health and human services inspector general, most food facilities surveyed did not meet those requirements
The need for better traceability became clear after a national outbreak of salmonella illness in spring 2008 that sickened more than 1, 300 people across the country.
Initially, investigators at the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified tomatoes as the culprit
Shoppers can scan the sticker with a smartphone or go to the Harvestmark website and enter the number from the sticker to learn the path the food has taken
and other information the farmer chooses to share, such as the harvest date. here been a very rapid sea change in consumer behavior,
said Elliott Grant, the chief marketing officer for Harvestmark. ith very high-profile food recalls, cellphones and iphones,
people have been trained that they can access information very quickly. They want to know, here does this come from
and is it safe? How far has traveled it? What are the growing practices? Harvestmark is being used by more than 200 companies,
but it also allows the consumer to send a comment to the farmer, Grant said. ou can click a button
and tell the farmer hese are the greatest strawberries Ie ever hador whatever...It about using technology to put people back in touch with the people who grow their food.
That new for Phillip Bauman, a 42-year-old watermelon farmer in Washington state. Bauman bought the Harvestmark system for his Pasco farm about three years ago
does not own a television, use e-mail or have Internet service. Harvestmark provides him with a laptop computer
and preprinted bar code stickers for his melons. And during harvesting, he takes the laptop to a bank
or some other place with Internet service to upload the data to Harvestmark. One day he was surprised to get a letter from an unhappy customer who had tracked down his address from the Harvestmark sticker.
Using the code, Bauman traced the melon and discovered it had been picked in August but purchased by the customer in October. e called him back
and said wee really sorry, Bauman said. hen I complained to the chain and said my name is on this product that out there for two months.
This system gives the end user the customer the option to be more aware of their products
#This prototype NYPD cruiser is the smartest cop car in the world To the untrained eye,
this prototype New york Police department cruiser looks like almost any other squad car combing the streets of New york city.
But this high-tech cruiser is the smartest cop car in the world.##It is the department s prototype##smart car,##outfitted with the latest gadgets in public safety.
It has infrared two monitors mounted on the trunk that record any numbers it sees##such as license plates and addresses.
It has surveillance cameras and air sensors capable of sending real-time information to police headquarters. The NYPD says it is the cruiser of the very near future.
The smart car is one of dozens of projects included in a long-term strategic plan known as NYPD2020,
prepared in November for Police commissioner Raymond Kelly. The 13-page report describes initiatives ranging from the high-tech (500 officers have received Samsung Rugby smartphones equipped to deliver real-time crime data) to the bureaucratic (new guidelines for recruiting
and keeping qualified candidates). More than a dozen are already under way. The initiative began in 2011,
under the guidance of Mckinsey & Co. The consulting firm worked with NYPD officials over 11 months to create a road map for the department over the next decade.
Mckinsey & Co. declined to comment. The report said using a consultant would help force change in such a large organization.
Experts agreed.####Even the NYPD is limited in the things they can and can t do said
Jon Shane, a professor in the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Mr. Kelly then charged the NYPD s project-management office to decide which of the nearly 260 projects could be started immediately.
The office s seven employees, who have experience in technology, economics and terrorism analysis, is led by Deputy Inspector Brandon del Pozo, a 16-year NYPD veteran.
The smart car prototype has been on the road for about a year and is based out of the 84th Precinct in Brooklyn Heights.
The idea came about as the NYPD looked for ways to connect intelligence gathered in the field with the department s new system that compiles raw data, video feeds and other information,
The car s scanner can read license plates, then check the results against a database that contains the plate numbers of cars that are stolen,
may have been involved in a crime, or have outstanding infractions. The data is stored for an indefinite period,
though that will likely change, Mr. del Pozo said.####It reads any set of numbers,
##A detector attached to the rear windshield can scan the air for increased radiation levels,
but no other car is outfitted with all of the technology, Mr. del Pozo said, adding that future smart cars might include fingerprint scanners and facial recognition sensors.
Besides getting officers to crime scenes, Mr. del Pozo said, a police cruiser should give officers information that helps them make better decisions in the field.##
##If you look in the trunk of a police car, we have a lot of things that aren t smart,
but they are necessary. We have a shield, we have a fire extinguisher##we have a very powerful flashlight,
we have a first aid kit. So, the thought is always, what can cops bring with them to the scene that can increase their effectiveness,
##he said. Other initiatives include counterterrorism awareness classes for traffic enforcement agents, allowing them to better identify suspicious activity,
is to create an online public database for accessing accident reports. In terms of personnel, the department will begin closely tracking the experience
and education levels of its officers so they can be matched up with certain assignments. Other larger projects include finishing the police academy at its new campus in College Point, Queens,
a 30-acre site that will consolidate training classes now taught at more than a dozen locations citywide.
The academy will be opened for some programs in July 2014, and will be fully open##with a firearms and driver training courses##in 2018,
the report said. NYPD2020 focuses on advances in technology, which some experts said is a savvy move.
Chuck Wexler, executive director at the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, D c.-based nonprofit that advises law-enforcement agencies,
said many departments adopt technology to increase the department s presence without having to place more officers on the street.
But police departments have to be mindful of where tech projects fit into the budget##many of the initiatives need to be updated
and maintained to work correctly, Mr. Wexler added. The next police commissioner, William Bratton, is likely the official who will decide which NYPD2020 projects move forward
which get scaled back and which are rejected, Mr. Shane said. He also will have to be careful about how it all fits into the police department s budget,
which in fiscal 2013 was $9. 6 billion. A spokesman said Mr. Bratton hadn seen t the report
A 75-year-old man has just been given the gift of life as a team of surgeons have completed successfully the transplant of the world s first true artificial heart.##
##The patient, so far unnamed, is reportedly recovering at Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris,
perhaps even allowing the person to return to work.####We ve already seen devices of this type but they had a relatively low autonomy,##Alain Carpentier,
inventor and surgeon,#told reporters,#according to#The Telegraph.####This heart will allow for more movement and less clotting.
The study that is starting is being watched very closely in the medical field.####Thousands of heart implants have been carried out,
but Carpentier says the version he developed was the first to fully replicate the self-regulated contractions of a real heart.
Inside the two-pound mechanical organ is an intricate system of sensors and microprocessors that monitors the body s internal changes and alters the flow of blood as needed.
It quickens or slows the blood flow based on the person s activity.####Most other artificial hearts, by contrast, beat at a constant unchanging rate.
Patients who receive artificial heart transplants usually take anticoagulation medication to minimize such risks. Carmat artificial heart mimics the dual chamber pumping action of a real human heart.
started taking shape after the surgeon initially tested the feasibility of developing artificial heart valves using chemically-treated animal tissues as an alternative to plastic.
The artificial heart features sensors to monitor and adjust blood flow depending on the body s demands.
A comprehensive report#in#MIT Tech Review#explains how this mechanism works:####In Carmat s design, two chambers are divided each by a membrane that holds hydraulic fluid on one side.
to make the device more biocompatible. The idea was to develop an artificial heart in which the moving parts that are in contact with blood are made of tissue that is better suited for the biological environment,
says Piet Jansen, chief medical officer of Carmat.####The device, powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries
and worn on the outside, is about three times heavier than a human heart, which will limit its compatibility to 86 percent of men and 20 percent of women.
However, Carpentier plans to develop smaller versions for women of smaller stature. The Carmat artificial heart is expected to cost about 140,000 to 180,000 Euros (or $191, 000 to $246, 000.
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#Edible batteries could power smart medicine pills A flexible biodegradable battery just may be what the doctor ordered.
What happens when you forget a dose of medication your doctor has prescribed for a condition that relies on the timed delivery of your medicine?
Enter the#smart pill, a sensor-equipped capsule that you only need to take just once.
The smart pill releases medicine on a schedule or as your body needs it. But what would power that pill?
The answer is simple: an edible#battery.####Obviously, creating smart pills with their own sensors to regulate medicine in the body is a great idea,
but the challenge in using them comes with finding a safe power source.##According to Carnegie mellon biomedical engineer Christopher Bettinger, a flexible biodegradable battery just may be what the doctor ordered.
Bettinger studied this possibility by using the melanin of a cuttlefish to create an anode for an edible battery.
This particular sea creature can create up to 10 microamperes of electricity for anywhere from five to 24 hours.
This makes the battery safe to swallow and doesn t cause any side effects in the human body.
And even better? This material is biodegradable and dissolves in the body once its mission is complete.
The uses of such a battery aren limited t just to powering smart pills, though. Imagine those uncomfortable exams that involve a tiny camera being swallowed
and later removed via surgery. What if the camera could be created from biodegradable material and powered by an edible battery?
This takes the surgery requirement out of the equation, making for a much more comfortable patient.
The edible battery could also be used in medical devices like pacemakers and#implants#that treat Alzheimers and other brain conditions.
Currently, the only way to change the batteries in these implants is through surgery. The edible battery might reduce the amount of surgeries required as its use is less invasive.
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#It s the beginning of a new era for entrepreneurs and startups There are over 20 million non-employer businesses out there today, with more starting every day.
There is a resurgence of entrepreneurial spirit ever since the recent recession, and more startup activity than ever before.
The days of the##job work##mentality are waning, with more people looking to get satisfaction by making the world a better place,
rather than just tolerating brain-numbing work to fund enjoyment elsewhere.####According to the Kaufman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity (KIEA), the entrepreneurial rate in the U s. is already well above the dot com bubble of 15 years ago,
although we have slipped a bit this year from the high point of 320 new entrepreneurs out of 100,000 adults in 2011.
It still adds up to over 20 million non-employer businesses out there today, with more starting every day.
There is additional encouraging news for aspiring entrepreneurs on many fronts, just in case you are thinking about joining the existing ranks:
Thus a record number of entrepreneurs (and employees) are getting rich. Initial public offerings (IPO) are back as an exit strategy.
Twitter was one of the most notable, with a market capitalization now up to $38 billion all by itself.
Funding for early-stage startups is more available than ever. According to David Rose, CEO of Gust, venture capital investors funded about 1500 startups last year, with Angel investors backing over 50,000 more.
Of course, with more startups, this is still a tough space, with VCS funding only one out of 400 requests they get,
and Angels limiting their focus to one out of 40. No wonder 90%of the successful startups still bootstrap.
when creating a web site for ecommerce could easily require a million dollar investment. Now you can create a web site for almost nothing
Smartphone apps can be built for less than $10k, so who needs an investor? Startup incubators and accelerators are popping up everywhere.
Business incubators were all the rage before the dot-com bubble (700 for profit, many more nonprofit. After the bubble burst and the recession, more than 80%of them disappeared.
Now they are back in every community, with the best even waving money at graduates.
The world is a now single market, both homogeneous and heterogeneous. Entrepreneurs now can think globally about the opportunity, from day one but start locally.
Social media is a boon for entrepreneurs and startups. With the key social media platforms today, an entrepreneur can tune a product
build a brand, and grow the business with very low cost and a high interactivity never before possible.
Conglomerates, which were the engines of growth and vitality in the twentieth century, have proven themselves unable to innovate,
a National Venture capital Association and Dow jones press release predicts that 2014 will bring further good news for entrepreneurs across several fronts,
including more investment, greater IPO volume for exits, greater employment opportunities at startups, and even more improvements in the economy.
They also remind us that all is not rosy, with continuing economic challenges and a gridlocked Congress that could change everything.
Step into a new entrepreneur era where the definition of##work##is something you love.
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#Scientists create robotic muscle that is 1, 000 times more powerful than human muscles A robotic muscle 1,
as researchers at the US Department of energy s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found, the Lab s website#reported.
##Wu, who is a member of both Berkeley Lab and the Berkeley University s Materials science and engineering department,
##Vanadium dioxide is not a new material to the electronics industry, already receiving praise for its ability to be both an insulator (at low temperatures)
and electronic devices are definitely in the cards. And that is not all. For when heated, vanadium dioxide s crystals begin to rapidly contract along one dimension,
while expanding along the other two, showing that a structural phase transition effected by temperature changes is also taking place.
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#3d printed eye cells could one day cure blindness Researchers have printed actually viable retina cells using an inkjet printer.
The ability to print up new, living versions of the damaged parts of your body is becoming more viable as a medical procedure,
and cuts and scrapes aren t the only maladies that medical 3d printing can help cure.
Living, 3d printed retina cells could someday aid in curing many#kinds of blindness.####At the University of Cambridge, researchers have pulled off something of a 3d printing coup.
Using lab rats, they ve printed living central nervous system cells for the very first time. Led by professor Keith Martin,
the team actually printed viable retina cells, using an inkjet printer, of all things. The printer was able to first print a layer of retinal ganglion cells and then a layer of glial cells on top of them,
all while keeping the tiny structures vital. In doing so, the Cambridge research team was able to prove that eyes
and their internal structures can someday be 3d printed for#surgical purposes. According to Martin even a rapid printing process didn t hamper the research team s results:##
##Effectively you can fire these cells at about 30 miles per hour and they survive that perfectly well,
which was a real surprise to us because we didn t expect the cells to be able to survive being fired out of a cannon.##
##Human trials are still a while off, but eventually professor Martin and his team believe that their process will be capable of 3d printing#retinal#grafts tailored for individual patients.
Cells used in this sort of medical 3d printing will be grown to perfectly match those of the patient prior to surgery.
The process could also lead to other neural repair surgeries, possibly even including damaged nerve cells and spinal chord injuries.
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#The cyborg future of telemarketing While a human is picking up the phone, and a human is dialing the phone,
it may not be a conversation between two humans. In the future humans will interact with each other, and machines,
and systems that can only properly be called cyborg.##People are fielding millions of calls from bright, energetic telemarketers,
but what they don t know is that they re talking to machines##Sort of. Video)# The story,
His phone rings. It s a telemarketer for a home security service.####This is Richard, how are you today?##
My company, the Home security Company, is giving away a free wireless home security system and in-home installation.##
but this ll just take a few minutes,##then soldiers on. They go back and forth for several minutes before the telemarketer successfully pushes him down the sales funnel to a specialist who will set up an in-home visit.
#Because while a human is picking up the phone, and a human is dialing the phone,
this is not,#strictly speaking, a conversation between two humans. Instead, a call-center worker in Utah or the Philippines is pressing buttons on a computer, playing through a marketing pitch without actually speaking.
Some people who market these services sometimes call this##voice conversion##technology. Another company says it s##agent-assisted automation technology.##
Semi-autonomous telemarketing connects nicely with the developments it parallels in the drone world.#####Ventriloquistic telemarketing##has a nice, multisyllabic ring, too.
The agents work as ears and hands of the system.####At its best, computer system and operator merge like a character from the movie#Avatar#and his or her steed.
How does this work, in practice? Let s look at one company that provides this product, Avatar Technologies,
which advertises itself as##Outsourcing Without the Accent.####They created the video above. The Avatar interface looks like this:
While the man on the couch might was just sitting there talking, the Avatar agent would have been sitting in the Filipino city of#Jaro Iloilo, staring at an interface.
The keyboard has hotkeys that can play different sound clips that were recorded by a perfect English speaker.
Here are two samples Avatar provides on its website,##Dale Harris##from the US and##Samantha##from Australia:
Avatar is not alone in selling these services, though they are the newest company in the field,
having been founded in the summer of 2012. I found three other companies that sell cyborg call-center software or services like this,
all of which are based in Utah.##Callassistant#is headquartered in Logan, Utah, but has several call centers including a small one in the Philippines;#
#Perfect pitch#Technologies has offices in Lehi, Utah and Albay in the Philippines;##Kombea#is based also in Lehi.
what a call receiver says. In some cases, a single call-center worker will run two or even three calls at the same time.
The audio breaks down into two categories. The first contains the more scripted bits of salesmanship,
##More sophisticated systems have multiple responses for each type of question that might be asked by a call receiver.
using workers who speak perfect, barely accented English. This reduces the difference between voices if one of the humans has to step in with his or her own voice.
On the Internet, no one may know you re a dog, but on the phone? It just#seems#wrong.
What good could spring from a bunch of conversations in which one member is ventriloquizing through a machine?
Let s imagine that cyborg telemarketing makes call-center workers happier, call receivers more satisfied, and the sales companies more successful.
Everyone wins. If that were the case, wouldn t it make sense to support soundboard-assisted calls,
who was working on behalf of an insurance company, was not human. What really got to people was that this##robot##kept denying that it was a robot,
they expressed skepticism that the system found in the#Time#recordings could be a computer.
##This week,#Time#confirmed with the insurance company#that they were using a soundboard-assisted telemarketing firm.
I strongly suspect that Avatar created West, but I can t prove it. Multiple attempts to contact people at different levels within the company have gone unheeded.
but because I got in a fight with my wife or I hate this call center job or
Callassistant s Bills pointed out#that a nationwide debt-settlement company is being sued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau#for deceptive telemarketing calls made by an old-school telemarketing company.##
For example, the data that they can capture with these systems is far less noisy than
I wondered how workers responded to the system. Did they feel that they were actually connecting with people,
Then I checked my Twitter account and favorited several tweets. I retweeted a couple, too.
##The company got to thinking about building their own system, which eventually became Echo, the product Callassistant sells.##
We didn t have any biologists on staff, so we couldn t clone anybody, ##he said.##
##In outbound sales, it knocked our turnover from 400 percent a year to 135 to 140 percent.
140 percent turnover is about on par with#the fast-food industry. The paragons of employee retention keep their numbers in the single digits.
These are still hard jobs. But maybe this technology makes it a little bit easier.####It creates detachment,
##What we see is that our employees, when they have a successful outcome of the call,
When it doesn t work, they say, Ahhh that wasn t me. It doesn t beat people up in the same way.##
Americans xenophobia. We want to hear from people who sound just like us. In the course of reporting this story,
I was contacted by an experienced Filipino call-center employee and manager who has worked with one of the companies mentioned in this story.
In an email, Ugarte ticked off the reasons for using voice technology. 1. Accent##some of our agents though can speak English really well have problems with their accents
and maintains several other prominent social media presences. He likes to post photos from his childhood on Facebook,
along with portraits of himself in drag. I asked him, over email, to tell me what the experience of working at a soundboard call center is like.
How do people feel about it?####Based on feedbacks and observations, working on a Non-Voice company such as Perfect pitch is fun not to mention that there is less stress on the part of the reps,
a college-degreed, up-and-coming Filipino youth, were annoying because of your accent. Now imagine being told that hundreds of times a day.
What kind of anxiety might you start to feel each time you opened your mouth? No wonder people like hitting the button that says,##Hello, I m Richard!##
if my reps are saying the right things##The onboarding process is also faster by 100 percent (works well
if you want to start making money), ##Ugarte wrote to me.####In a normal voice campaign, it takes two weeks up to four weeks to train reps.
the training takes up to one to two weeks.####Working at a place like this might feel like playing a very strange massively multiplayer online game.
Avatar recruits people by having#resume parties#at clubs(##Applicants get to party at Flow Super club after submitting their resume onsite with our Human Resource department.##
###and#supporting a#local beauty queen contest linked to an indigenous ritual#(#Avatar Technologies, a proud sponsor of Miss Iloilo Dinagyang 2014##.
##Their Youtube channel shows them#holding an#American Idol-style competition to celebrate their one-year anniversary.
It opens with these words flashing on the screen:####Level Up. Step up. Stand out. Work with the pros
About 15 seconds in, behind singing employees, a sign is taped on the wall. It reads,##English Only Policy!##
##My first job was as a telemarketer. I wanted to buy a car, so when I was worked 15,
I for a summer doing business-to-business outbound sales. We sold software to manage the paperwork about chemicals used at factories,
which are known as#material-safety data sheets. Our script ran on a series of linked Word documents,
and we were told to stick to reading what was on the screen. My manager, whose name was asked Jim
that we call him Jimbo, and required that we all attend##Wiener Wagon Fridays##at a local hot dog stand.
and the southern paper-mill plant managers that I managed to get on the phone were swayed not by my lispy, northwestern English.#
#At lunch, eating teriyaki chicken out of a styrofoam container from the deli by the bus station felt like heaven compared with the slog of the day.
A world in which mass telemarketing exists, driven by the dictates of the global economic system,
when they hear a voice on the phone, it matches up exactly with a person in the world,
if it meant a better experience for them and a better work life for the people making phone calls?##
##The software can improve the experience people are already having.####Often, when we look around our world at the technologies we have,
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