Groupon Moving Mobile

Groupon Moving Mobile
Photo by TechCrunch

Groupon Moving Mobile

Groupon has already changed the way many people shop, eat and buy stuff, now they are trying to do it again. Likely this latest move is in response to the abundance of competition popping up from everywhere, most notably from Microsoft which recently launched Bing Deals. Bing Deals is like an online coupon aggregator. It will search the web for the best daily deals being offered by any coupon service, which definitely gives it a leg up on the services which handle only their own daily deal.

The new Groupon Now mobile app will make finding coupons much easier. Users will be presented with two options: “I’m hungry” or “I’m bored.”

Pick one, click it and a list of location-based daily deals will be presented to you. Coupons will still look the same way, but will be more than one-time only deals. Businesses who use Groupon will be able to set a deal, say a $20 meal for just $10, then set the time they want the coupon offer to run. This is fantastic news for businesses hoping to make the most of immediate offers. The service is very adaptable to their needs. If the local Mexican restaurant has a special tonight because they ordered too many taco shells, they can send that out immediately on Groupon Now.

Mashable.com says that Groupon is the fastest growing company in history. This is due in no small part to the fact their service is just what the savvy buying public wants. It seems everyone is online looking for a good deal. Groupon was the first to start giving it to them. LivingSocial is their biggest competitor so far. It already has a mobile app with a similar on-demand slant than the forthcoming Groupon Now.

Microsoft’s Bing Deals is also mobile, so it will likely drive at least some of the traffic the two major players will be receiving.

The idea of Groupon Now hardly seems ground breaking. Giving people what they want when they are looking for it has always been good business. In today’s digital world, with on demand technology and portable devices in every pocket, handbag and backpack, it would seem like an easy enough thing to do. Groupon is getting redding for its IPOn which they say is valued at $25 billion. No doubt Groupon Now will make them even more valuable.

Sheeja Mathew has been an avid social networking and helps rate lifestyle based websites that can help people make their lives easier. She’s published many articles on various lifestyle tools and also runs a website on how to hire a Virtual Assistant. If you’re interested in many of the services such as a Virtual Assistant, please feel free to visit her website.

Is your cell phone killing you?

For decades now scientists have been debating whether the radiation emitted from cell phones is causing permanent damage to the brains of people who use them. A new government funded study by the National Institutes of Health seems to suggest it is doing something, but scientists are not quite certain what that is.

Let’s be clear: according to researchers the electromagnetic radiation produced by a cell phones affects glucose metabolism. When glucose metabolism inside your brain goes up, cells get activated. The complete study was published in the Journal of American Medical Association and includes the caveat that while they know something is happening inside the brain, they don’t know what. The researchers said the cell phone need to be bombarding the brain for at least 50 minutes before any increase in brain activity was noted.

radiation emitted from cell phones
Photo by SOMBILON PHOTOGRAPHY | GALLERY | VIDEOGRAPHY (radiation emitted from cell phones)

Maybe it is activating extra sensory perception, maybe it is burning calories, maybe it is doing nothing at all. They have no idea.

Like all scientific research which determines something is going on but does not reveal what exactly that is (like, say, global warming) they recommend more research be conducted.

In May 2010 the Interphone project by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the largest study of cell phone use and brain tumors ever conducted found that “no increase in risk was observed with the use of mobile phones.” The agency studied the effects of cell phone use of dozens of subjects over a ten year period. That is a substantial test group.

The latest research also tested dozens of subjects, 47 otherwise healthy adults to be precise. They tested brain levels when the cell phone was turned off and compared these with results when the phone was turned on. The study showed “significantly higher” brain activity in the area closest to where the antenna was located on the phone.

The brain is a sensitive electromagnetic instrument all by itself. It probably doesn’t need to be further stimulated by an outside device. But researchers can not say with any degree of certainty that the effects of 50 minutes of cell phone use will harm the brain of a healthy adult. They cannot say the same for adults with brains that have suffered some sort of previous damage or the brains of children, with thinner skull structures than their adult counterparts.

This is not the first time research has shown cell phone use could pose a hazard. Again and again some researchers have claimed that the electromagnetic emissions of cells phone could cause bran cancer or strokes or something, though no one has yet produced one shred of evidence to prove these claims.

Today, there are more than 300 million cell phones in use in the United States alone and almost 1 billion in use around the world. With that type of wide spread use it would seem if there was any type of negative effect it would hardly take a team of researchers and a group of 47 healthy adults talking on their phones for 50 minutes to prove it.

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