When Dr. Brian Froelke joined emergency responders in tornado-ravaged Joplin, Mo., in May, he brought along a Toshiba smartphone with a hairbrush-size gadget attached. The device, made by Redmond (Wash.) startup Mobisante, converts a phone into a pocket ultrasound machine. Froelke used it to examine a pregnant woman who came to a temporary hospital complaining of stomach pain. “It was helpful to reassure the mom that the baby didn’t have any obvious problems,” Froelke says.

Mobisante’s ultrasound device, which goes on sale in October, is part of a wave of new smartphone apps and attachments in the nascent mobile health market. In the past eight months, products that turn a phone into a blood pressure monitoring cuff, a CT-scan viewer, and other health-care gadgets have received Food and Drug Administration clearance. The market is tiny but expected to grow rapidly: By 2015, 30 percent of the world’s smartphone users will be using mobile health products, up from 5 percent today, estimates mobile market consultancy research2guidance. “Health care will be fundamentally different than it used to be,” says Bakul Patel, a policy adviser at the FDA.

And potentially less expensive. One of the promises of mobile health products is that, by building on existing products such as Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, they can perform the same function as high-end hospital gear for a fraction of the price. Mobisante’s ultrasound attachment, for example, costs $7,495. The images aren’t the highest quality available, but a top-of-the-line ultrasound machine costs as much as $100,000, and Mobisante’s device is “easily the best bang for your buck,” says Jason C. Wagner, an emergency department doctor in St. Louis, who reviewed it for Emergency Physicians Monthly. By reducing costs for insurers and medical providers, mobile health-focused startups hope to snag a slice of the $273 billion medical equipment and supplies market, currently dominated by conglomerates such as General Electric (GE) and Philips (PHG). “Big companies of tomorrow are the small companies of today,” says Cédric Hutchings, chief executive officer of Withings, which makes a $129 blood pressure monitoring cuff that attaches to iPhones.

Although smartphones have been on the market for years, the long process for obtaining FDA clearance means health-related apps and attachments are only now starting to appear in significant numbers. MIM Software sells an iPhone and iPad app for physicians to view CT, MRI, and PET images on their mobile devices. Mark Cain, the company’s CTO, says MIM built a prototype of the app in a week, then spent two and a half years and more than $150,000 getting FDA clearance, which came through in February. “It was new for them, it was new for us,” Cain says.

The cost and approval time may shrink in 2012, when the FDA is expected to issue detailed guidelines about which mobile health devices and apps fall under its jurisdiction, and how it will regulate them. That’ll help potential customers like hospitals and medical practices decide which devices to buy and “will probably help accelerate this area,” says the FDA’s Patel. The pioneers have already done some of the legwork: Mobisante, for instance, had to prove to the FDA that smartphones’ digital screens were comparable to the screens on existing ultrasound machines, work that future applicants may not have to replicate.

Mobile health products could get another boost next year, when AT&T (T) plans to start carrying some in their retail stores, according to Glenn Lurie, president of emerging devices at the wireless company. Mobisante says it’s in talks with several potential big purchasers, including the Army, which is interested in using the portable ultrasound device to diagnose wounded soldiers in the field. In June, Health Care Service, an insurer with 13 million customers, began testing a wireless service from startup WellDoc that helps Type II diabetics manage their disease.

Investors and potential acquirers already are eyeing the market. In September, Sandy Spring (Md.)-based venture capital firm Hickory Ridge Group launched a $50 million fund focused on new health technologies, including mobile health products. “We are looking very closely at some of these start-ups,” says Paul Coss, a director for wireless technologies at Philips Healthcare. “There’s some clever innovation happening there.”

source from: businessweek

Handmade in England, Vertu phones include screens made of factory-grown sapphire crystals Matthew

For his 27th birthday, Mohammed Al-Haj, a marketing executive in Abu Dhabi, hinted to his girlfriend that he wanted a new cell phone. He wasn’t after the latest Apple (AAPL) orAndroid (GOOG) device. He wanted a Nokia. Or rather, he wanted a Vertu, from the Finnish company’s luxury division. “It’s an accessory, part of my outfit,” Al-Haj says of his Vertu, with its keypad bordered by pavé-set diamonds. “People look at it all the time and say, ‘Wow, that’s a nice phone.’ It feels good.”

Although Vertu, started by Nokia’s then-chief designer Frank Nuovo in 1998, doesn’t release detailed sales figures, the unit has sold more than 300,000 phones in the past decade and seen “high double-digit sales growth” since the beginning of 2010, President Perry Oosting says. As Nokia sheds 7,000 employees as part of Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop’s cost-cutting drive, Vertu’s staff of 840 has increased by more than 50 percent since 2009 and has outgrown its space in Church Crookham, England, where an expansion is under way. The division’s success is due largely to surging demand in the Persian Gulf, Russia, China, and other status-conscious emerging markets. The phones sell for an average of more than €5,000 ($6,800), but top-end models, such as those in Vertu’s Signature line, cost as much as €12,500.

Vertu has become the dominant player in the luxury smartphone world—with about 60 percent of the Western European market last year, according to researcher IDC—despite remaining decidedly low-tech. Phones in the Signature line lack a camera, and Vertu’s first touchscreen device will be released in October. Vertu smartphones run Symbian, the old Nokia smartphone operating system being phased out in favor of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone 7.

As a result, Vertus aren’t always practical. “A lot of Vertu owners have another device for everyday use,” says Armando Branchini, the founder of Milan-based luxury consultancy InterCorporate. The phones are assembled by hand out of materials such as titanium and steel and with screens covered by slices of sapphire crystal. Keys pivot on ruby bearings. Customers “are not buying a phone. They’re buying a piece of jewelry,” says Francisco Jeronimo of IDC.

Oosting, a former goldsmith who worked at Bulgari, bristles at that idea. During a recent visit, he steered reporters away from a diamond-studded handset with a gold casing being polished for shipment. Such blinged-out baubles represent “the lowest single-digit proportion of our sales,” he says. He is quick to concede that Vertu needs to catch up technologically. He says the company is shifting its focus to smartphones, starting with a Qwerty-keyboard phone introduced last year that runs customized Symbian applications such as exclusive city guides.

A big draw for old and new Vertu customers is the company’s “concierge” function, which is free for the first year and about $3,000 annually thereafter. The 24-hour hotline’s staff—who speak nine languages including Chinese, Russian, and Arabic—handle requests such as restaurant reservations and travel planning, as well as more exotic whims like sending a box of live butterflies as an anniversary gift. It’ll help Vertu stand out from the competition: Luxury brands Giorgio Armani, TAG Heuer, Versace, and Porsche all released handsets recently.

To keep its upscale image, Vertu has to maintain some distance from Nokia. References to the Finnish manufacturer are hard to find on Vertu’s website and in its more than 80 retail stores, which occupy space on streets such as Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. At Vertu’s boutique in one of Paris’s toniest districts, a security guard mans the door and staff wear black gloves while handling the merchandise. Even the ringtones are different from the standard Nokia fare. “They’ve been quite clever and successful in keeping Vertu separate from the Nokia brand,” says professor Omar Merlo, who studies marketing at Imperial College London. “They obviously want to avoid customers applying the same mass-market associations.”

source from: businessweek

The country is one of the Most attractive Emerging Markets in Asia, with an average rate from 2005-2010 Annual Growth Reaching 7.2 per cent. This Impressive Growth, Tuy nhiên, also brought to light the inadequacy of Vietnam’s urban infrastructure.

Theo a report conducted by Siemens, cities will nhận the success of the shift to sustainability of a country and the design of a Sustainable City will need to take into account “environment impact, minimisation of energy consumption, optimization of waste output and control of air-, CO2 and Water Pollution. ” A Sustainable City “can feed chính nó with minimal reliance on the surrounding countryside and can power with renewable sources of energy chính nó is overall and Energy Efficient.”

The report underscored đó cũng Sustainable urban infrastructure can help to create the Smallest Possible “ecological footprint” thanks to its promotion of “greater use of alternative energy sources and more energy-Efficient buildings and transport, congestion and Measures đó Reduce CO2 emissions, recycling of water and waste and the use of vegetation to filter and capture carbon dioxide Pollution. ”

For a city to be Sustainable, nên action taken at both macro and micro levels. This is not only the Responsibility of the Decision-maker circle in urban planning, nhưng cũng it is in the hands of every citizen, the basic units Composing a city and a country. Everyone’s daily production and consumption leave an impact on the environment. Let’s take Electricity consumption for example. Theo a Nationwide survey conducted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in 2008, a 30 per cent saving in Electricity could be implemented by Citizens just by using simple and available solutions.

GreenBiz 2011, “European Green Business Solutions for Vietnam”, will take place on September 15-16, 2011 in Ho Chi Minh City and will touch upon issues through interactive này Discussions and Comprehensive in its conference and exhibition display respectively. With the focus on Sustainable cities, green manufacturing and energy supply-climate change, the event is Considered the prime platform gathering Relevant stakeholders from public and private sectors to Analyse Vietnam’s Sustainable development challenges in its path.

The event has so far drawn from well-known European Attention corporations active in the “green” field – Companies like Siemens, Shell, AkzoNobel, Jardines, Philips, Schneider Electric, Alstom, Ariston, Dragon Capital, Vietnam Gyproc, Holcim and Rhodia.

Thus, in order to facilitate the Vietnamese Participation in the event, special offers are available to Vietnamese Companies Interested in joining GreenBiz 2011 for both the conference and exhibition.

GreenBiz 2011 is Organised by the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, in partnership with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and Investment and Trade Promotion Centre (ITPC).

Vietnam’s Top Comprehensive event on green solutions, the second edition of GreenBiz will have a larger scope and scale and is expected to Attract around 100 exhibitors and more than 4.000 specialised visitors.

Source: vir

New-home sales, tabulated when contracts are signed, climbed 12 percent to a 280,000 annual pace last month, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 64 economists. Purchases slumped 17 percent in February to a 250,000 rate, the weakest in data going back to 1963.

“A housing recovery is going to be slow,” said Michael Gapen, a senior U.S. economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York. “I see light at the end of the tunnel, but I see a lot more tunnel. We still have tight credit conditions, and we need plain, outright job growth to spur demand.”

The market for new homes faces competition from a glut of foreclosed properties that may keep prices depressed through the year, discouraging new construction. Housing’s struggles help explain why the Federal Reserve may announce at the conclusion of this week’s policy meeting that it plans to complete the purchase of $600 billion of Treasuries by June.

The Commerce Department report is due at 10 a.m. in Washington. Economists’ forecasts ranged from 247,000 to 300,000.

Purchases of previously owned homes climbed 3.7 percent to a 5.1 million annual rate in March as properties in or near foreclosure lured investors, a National Association of Realtors report showed April 20. All-cash deals accounted for 35 percent of the transactions, the most on record, while distressed properties including foreclosures and short sales made up 40 percent of all deals, the group said.

More Timely

New-home sales are considered a more timely barometer than purchases of previously owned homes, which are calculated when a contract closes. Resales account for about 95 percent of the housing market so far this year.

Housing demand gyrated in 2010 as a boost from a homebuyer tax incentive of as much as $8,000 gave way to a mid-year plunge after the credit ended.

The lack of demand is keeping builders pessimistic. The National Association of Home Builders’ confidence index fell to 16 this month from 17 in March. A reading under 50 means a majority of builders view conditions as poor.

The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilder Index, which includes Toll Brothers Inc. and Lennar Corp., has climbed 1.3 percent this year, trailing a 6.3 percent gain in the broader S&P 500 Index. (SPX)

Orders Slump

KB Home (KBH), the Los Angeles-based homebuilder that targets first-time buyers, reported a bigger-than-expected loss for the quarter ended Feb. 28 as orders plunged.

“A sustained, broad-based housing recovery will not occur until we start to experience material job creation,” Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Mezger said during a conference call with analysts on April 5.

An unemployment rate projected to average 8.7 percent in 2011, according to a Bloomberg survey earlier this month, may force more owners into distress. Foreclosure filings will climb about 20 percent in 2011, reaching a peak for the housing crisis, according to a forecast in January from RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based data seller.

The housing market was either “little changed from low levels” or weaker across the country, the Fed said in its Beige Book report on April 13. The lack of a sustained housing rebound is among reasons policy makers will complete their $600 billion asset purchase plan and hold borrowing costs near zero.

Central bankers conclude a two-day policy meeting on April 27. At their March 15 meeting, officials said in their statement that the “housing sector continues to be depressed.”

                        Bloomberg Survey

======================================
4/22/2011         New Home New Home
                     Sales    Sales
                    ,000’s     MOM%
======================================

Date of Release      04/25    04/25
Observation          March    March
--------------------------------------
Median                 280    12.0%
Average                280    12.2%
High Forecast          300    20.0%
Low Forecast           247    -1.2%
# of replies            64       64
Previous               250   -16.9%
--------------------------------------
======================================
4/22/2011         New Home New Home
                     Sales    Sales
                    ,000’s     MOM%
======================================
4CAST Ltd.             288    15.2%
ABN Amro Inc.          275    10.0%
Action Economics       280    12.0%
Aletti Gestielle       280    12.0%
Ameriprise Financ      275    10.0%
Bank of Tokyo- Mi      270     8.0%
Bantleon Bank AG       290    16.0%
Barclays Capital       270     8.0%
BBVA                   262     4.8%
BMO Capital Marke      280    12.0%
BNP Paribas            290    16.0%
BofA Merrill Lync      285    14.0%
Briefing.com           265     6.0%
Capital Economics      275    10.0%
CIBC World Market      275    10.0%
Citi                   290    16.0%
======================================
4/22/2011         New Home New Home
                     Sales    Sales
                    ,000’s     MOM%
======================================
ClearView Economi      280    12.0%
Commerzbank AG         275    10.0%
Credit Agricole C      275    10.0%
Credit Suisse          270     8.0%
Daiwa Securities       280    12.0%
DekaBank               290    16.0%
Desjardins Group       290    16.0%
Deutsche Bank Sec      275    10.0%
DZ Bank                260     4.0%
First Trust Advis      275    10.0%
FTN Financial          290    16.0%
Goldman, Sachs &       275    10.0%
HSBC Markets           290    16.0%
Hugh Johnson Advi      280    12.0%
IDEAglobal             275    10.0%
IHS Global Insigh      299    19.6%
======================================
4/22/2011         New Home New Home
                     Sales    Sales
                    ,000’s     MOM%
======================================
Informa Global Ma      285    14.0%
ING Financial Mar      290    16.0%
Insight Economics      300    20.0%
Intesa-SanPaulo        280    12.0%
J.P. Morgan Chase      270     8.0%
Janney Montgomery      275    10.0%
Jefferies & Co.        290    16.0%
Manulife Asset Ma      265     6.0%
MET Capital Advis      247    -1.2%
MF Global              295    18.0%
Moody’s Analytics      290    16.0%
Morgan Keegan & C      259     3.6%
Morgan Stanley &       280    12.0%
Natixis                285    14.0%
Nomura Securities      290    16.0%
OSK Group/DMG          290    16.0%
======================================
4/22/2011         New Home New Home
                     Sales    Sales
                    ,000’s     MOM%
======================================
Parthenon Group        280    12.0%
Pierpont Securiti      300    20.0%
PineBridge Invest      273     9.0%
PNC Bank               250     0.0%
RBC Capital Marke      290    16.0%
RBS Securities In      300    20.0%
Scotia Capital         275    10.0%
Societe Generale       288    15.2%
State Street Glob      294    17.6%
Stone & McCarthy       290    16.0%
TD Securities          283    13.0%
UBS                    290    16.0%
University of Mar      280    12.0%
Wells Fargo & Co.      287    14.8%
Westpac Banking C      268     7.0%
Wrightson ICAP         280    12.0%
======================================

source from: bloomberg

AMERICA’S jobs machine is still broken. As the economy slowly recovers, the labour market is struggling to follow suit. Unemployment remains stubbornly high, at 9.9% nationally, and full employment is years away.

To understand the labour market’s slow response to the recovery, The Economist went to Rhode Island, which entered the recession six months before the rest of the country. Its unemployment rate, one of the nation’s worst, peaked at a seasonally-adjusted 12.7% in December 2009 and remained there until February of this year. In Rhode Island, as in many states, cyclical problems including low consumer spending and tight credit markets only added to long-ignored structural issues, like dwindling manufacturing industries, an abyssal budget deficit, a poorly trained workforce, and a graying population. What we found is that unemployment cannot be resolved through national policies alone. State and local governments must also help themselves.

IF YOU’RE like most people you’ve not saved enough for retirement. There’s a good chance your savings and state pension (such as Social Security) will not provide enough income to live in the manner in which you’ve become accustomed for up to thirty years. But don’t feel too bad, many of us have been sold an unrealistic vision of retirement. The idea, for obvious reasons, has taken hold that after forty years of work we are entitled to spend a few decades of our life in leisure. And why not; who wouldn’t want to spend their golden years in a warm climate, playing golf, surrounded by peers who also have ample free time? It’s like being on spring break until you die.

But this is not realistic financial goal for most people. No matter how keen a saver you may be, raising children and maintaining even a modest lifestyle often does not leave enough money to spend a third of your life on holiday. Also, many people are simply not saving enough, forget the endless vacation—they will probably face a large cut in their standard of living after they retire.

From a historical perspective the entire retirement concept it is relatively new. For most of civilisation the average person worked until they became too sick or feeble, or died. According to Dora Costa’s book on the history of retirement, in 1880′s America more than three-quarters of men over 64 and half of 85-year olds still worked. When people did retire they had little wealth and often were dependent on relatives. The growth of retirement was driven by changes in the labour force (a move away from family farms and toward production and services), new social norms (which made retirement the expectation and created a critical mass of retirees), and financial incentives (income from state pensions and private pensions from employers). The introduction of state pensions was significant because it provided retirement income for everyone (including those too poor to save). This allowed elderly people to cease work and not be dependent on their families. To this day, many people rely on state benefits as their primary source of retirement income.

In late 19th-century Germany, Otto von Bismarck first introduced the concept of receipt of a state income after a pre-specified age. But keep in mind—he set the retirement age to 70, well beyond the average life expectancy then. Twenty-seven years later that age was lowered to 65. It’s extraordinary that the 65 retirement age seems to have stuck, or even been lowered, while life-expectancy has steadily increased. This means each generation gets successively longer retirement. Retirement, like other post-industrial inventions like electricity or television, has become a luxury we’ve come to expect and rely upon. Like consumption of other goods, as technology advances and we become wealthier, we expect more and better retirement. This is not entirely unreasonable. Western countries have more wealth than before and better technology to save, invest, and redistribute income. There is no need to go back to the work-until-you-die model. But this does not mean current retirement expectations are reasonable either, especially when so many depend on the government to provide their retirement income.

Demographic pressures on state pensions further complicate retirement planning. Individuals are more responsible than ever for saving and investing for their own retirement. Most people have individual accounts instead of defined-benefit pensions. Saving enough and investing to provide for a long retirement is a complex financial decision with many uncertain variables, like life expectancy and asset returns. State pensions are supposed to provide an income floor, keep you out of poverty, and provide some certainty. But there exists a great deal of uncertainty about how state pensions will continue to be financed. At least if you invest your pension assets in the stock market you have history of price movements to gauge and an ability to adjust your portfolio to your risk tolerance. But if a large chunk of your retirement income comes from the state, which is the case for many Americans and Europeans, it remains unclear how, if and for whom benefits will be cut.

Which is why governments must address their demographic time bombs sooner rather than later. Not only to get their fiscal houses in order, but to re-adjust retirement expectations. A later retirement age, indexed to life-expectancy, should be part of any plan. This will give individuals more certainty about one significant part of their retirement income and the appropriate retirement age. These facts are necessary to make a good decision about how much you need to save. For most people working longer and saving more is their only shot at a comfortable retirement.

HERE’S the European crisis in a nutshell:

Got it?

AT VOX, Mirco Tonin and Michael Vlassopoulos describe two kinds of altruism:

• A worker may enjoy contributing to a cause he or she cares about. This joy that arises from the act of contributing is referred to as “warm glow”…For example, a nurse may enjoy to be actively involved improving the lives of sick people.
• A worker may be directly concerned about the well-being of others. Such individuals are referred to as “pure altruists”. For example, a nurse may be interested in the fact that patients’ health improves, regardless of whether he or she has a personal role in this.

And they discuss their research:

We find that women’s effort is positively affected by an environment that induces warm-glow altruism, while there is no additional impact due to pure altruism. In particular, in the treatment condition eliciting warm-glow altruism, women increase their productivity between the two sessions by an additional 10% compared to women in the control group.

On the other hand, we find no statistically significant differences in productivity changes between the control and any of the treatment groups for male subjects. This unresponsiveness suggests that pro-social preferences are less relevant for men than for female workers in our sample. This finding is consistent with other research on gender differences in social preferences…

The finding of a gender difference in pro-social behaviour in a workplace setting may have important implications for understanding women’s economic outcomes. If women are indeed motivated by a concern for the social cause pursued by the organisation they work for, then they will be more likely to enter occupations and sectors with characteristics that engender pro-social behaviour (such as health, education and social care) and will require less monetary compensation. Gender differences in pro-social motivation might therefore help explain the observed occupational segregation by gender that accounts for a substantial portion of the overall gender earnings gap.

It’s an interesting result, but one should be very careful in drawing conclusions about occupational segregation. In particular, it’s worth pointing out that gender segregation is self-reinforcing. Fields with a large share of female workers will feature less on-the-job discrimination and harrassment, benefits packages will better incorporate female priorities, and so on.

Click on grapic to enlarge.  Source: Scott Hodge from Tax Policy Center estimates.