Health & Lifestyle

Two Number Ones – China in Gold, U.S. in Total

(quote)

The Beijing Olympics have come to a close after 16 days of thrilling competition - with the home nation sat on top of the gold medal table.

China has spent seven years planning for this event. It must be relieved that these Olympics are being hailed as both a sporting and an operational success. Worries about air pollution, protesters and media freedom were eventually overshadowed by what went on in the sporting arenas.

At the closing ceremony the International Olympic Committee President, Jacques Rogge, said they had been "truly exceptional games".

Best of the best

Worldwide, 200 countries provided a staggering 5,000 hours of coverage through rights-holding broadcast partners. In China, 842 million people - more than twice the population of the United States - tuned in to watch some part of opening ceremony.

On the field of play, nearly 11,000 athletes from 204 nations created indelible memories with their performances, many of them smashing records.

The ceremony to mark the end of the games, held in the Bird's Nest stadium, borrowed some of the grand style of the opening ceremony. Hundreds of performers were deployed in dazzling sequences that took months of planning to execute to perfection. And this being China, there were more fireworks.

The Olympics is being seen as a success from the government all the way down to ordinary people on the streets. "The best of the best - ever," said one compere, referring to this particular Games a few minutes before the closing ceremony started.

Positive legacy

There was certainly an attempt at this last event to shape the way the world should think about the contro- versial decision to award China this year's summer Games.

Liu Qi, president of the Beijing organizing committee, said the Chinese people had honored the commit- ments it made when bidding for the games. Speaking at the closing ceremony, he said: "The Beijing Olympic Games is a testimony of the fact that the world has rested its trust upon China."

The Chinese spared no expense ($40 billion for infra- structure) and overlooked no detail, however minute, in the planning, preparation and execution of what Liu Qi called "this grand gala of humankind."

Beijing, the historic seat of power in China, set a standard for host cities in almost every way, from its efficient routing of traffic - no small feat in a city of 17.4 million - to its stunning and innovative competition venues such as the Bird's Nest and Water Cube. Some 100,000 well-trained volunteers kept the Olympic machine humming.

"We cannot be more pleased with the Chinese people's presentation of these Games," said Peter Ueberroth, chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee. "Whether it's the (Athletes') Village or the venues, they've done an incredible job."

The IOC President, Jacques Rogge, suggested this Olympics would have a positive legacy. "Through these games, the world learned more about China, and China learned more about the world," he said.

All-star cast

The closing ceremony is partly about handing over to the next host of the summer Games, which in 2012 will be London. That gave the British capital the chance to stage its own mini-show within the closing ceremony.

It began when the Olympic flag was handed to recently- elected London Mayor Boris Johnson, who seemed to fumble to unfurl the banner before holding it aloft. A red London bus than entered the stadium, out of which popped singer Leona Lewis and guitarist Jimmy Page, who together performed the rock classic "Whole Lotta Love". Britain's most recognizable footballer, David Beckham, then appeared from inside the double-decker - surely no other London bus can have carried such an all-star cast.

To huge cheers, Beckham kicked a football into the crowd of athletes who had also paraded into the stadium. As the bus left, pretend passengers clung to the sides holding up umbrellas. It was an attempt to poke fun at Britain's rainy weather and its people's preoccupation with it.

Gold medals

But the Chinese still stole the show, with some sequences that were vast in scale and ambition. China won 100 medals and led with 51 gold in an eye-opening performance. A successful Olympics, with 51 gold medals for the home country, is probably exactly what China's leaders had hoped would happen.

After the event, one closing ceremony performer, Ying Ying, said her team of cheerleaders had been practicing since last autumn. "I feel very lucky just to be here. I've been moved to see so many athletes - and China has done really well," said the 20-year-old Beijing university student.

The U.S. finished with 110 medals total, leading the overall medal standings for the fourth consecutive Olympics and setting a U.S. record for medal production in a full-participation Games.

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of Jeff Gross/Getty Images, Shaun Botterill/Getty Images, Stu Forster/Getty Images, Phil Walter/Getty Images, Clive Rose/Getty Images

Original Source: BBC News and Kansas City Star

Image Gallery: Pictures of 2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony

Related Articles: Beijing Wrap-Up: The 25 Most Marketable Olympians and Top 50 moments of Beijing 2008

(quote)

Facts -

Our planet is choking on plastic and plastic bags are a huge part of the problem. Shoppers worldwide are using 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags per year. This translates to about a million bags every minute across the globe, or 150 bags a year for every person on earth. You can make a difference by pledging to be plastic bag free. Sign this pledge at Leonardo Dicaprio : Eco-Site and learn about how plastic is affecting our planet and how you can make a difference.

Plastic Bags

Shoppers worldwide are using 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags per year. This translates to about a million bags every minute across the globe, or 150 bags a year for every person on earth. And the number is rising.

Plastic bags are made of polyethylene - more commonly known as polythene - they are hazardous to manufacture and are said to take up to 1,000 years to decompose.

Every year, Americans throw away some 100 billion plastic bags.

The energy needed to manufacture and transport disposable bags eats up more resources and creates global warming emissions.

The production of plastic bags requires petroleum and often natural gas, both non-renewable resources that increase our dependency on foreign suppliers. Additionally, prospecting and drilling for these resources contributes to the destruction of fragile habitats and ecosystems around the world.

Plastic Beverage Bottles

In 2006, Americans drank about 167 bottles of water each, but only recycled an average of 38 bottles per person, which equals about 50 billion plastic bottles consumed, with only 23% being recycled. That leaves 38 billion water bottles in landfills, each year.

Manufacturing bottled water uses over 1.5 million barrels of oil per year. In one year, thats enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars.

When plastic bottles end up in landfills they take 700 years before they start to decompose.

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of whyfiles.org, leonardodicaprio.org, and thecinemasource.com

Original Source: Leonardo Dicaprio : Eco-Site

(quote)

Ice sculptures constructed from the spare core samples by the scientists working on the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling project.

The ice samples, which the researchers analyze for clues to the temperature and concentration of greenhouse gases of the ancient atmosphere, are collected using this drill.

The visiting group of scientists, journalists and Danish environmental officials land at NEEM, the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling project. NEEM had arranged for the visitors to examine their research, which focuses on the climatic conditions which shaped the warm geologic period before the earth's last Ice Age, an important clue in understanding global warming. The camp is located approximately 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

The scientists are drilling deep into the ice, which is 1.5 miles thick, the accumulation of 130,000 years of snow. These researchers are taking ice near the surface, which can help them analyze the last few hundred years of climatic history.

The main drill, which will excavate the deepest ice cores, is being built in this underground site.

The tour also included a visit to the coastal town of Ilulissat, home to one of the most productive glaciers in the world. A tour of Disko Bay, outside the town, revealed massive icebergs floating in the water, the product of accelerated melting.

The main graveyard in Ilulissat, just outside the town, overlooks the icebergs of Disko Bay.

Pools of melted water slice through the Ilulissat icefjord, which is fed by the melting Sermeq Kujalleq glacier.

Greenland has lost an average of 150 billion tons of ice a year over the past four summers.

In 2004, UNESCO declared the Ilulissat icefjord a World Heritage site.

Every year, the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier surrenders around 20 billion tons of icebergs into the ocean. Most of them end up in the northern Atlantic.

(unquote)

Original Source and Photos courtesy of: Time

(quote)

White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2042, according to new government projections. That's eight years sooner than previous estimates, made in 2004. The nation has been growing more diverse for decades, but the process has sped up through immigration and higher birth rates among minority residents, especially Hispanics.

The Census Bureau Thursday released population projections through 2050, based on rates for births, deaths and immigration. They are subject to big revisions, depending on immigration policy, cultural changes and natural or manmade disasters. By 2042, minorities, collectively, are projected to make up more than 50 percent of the U.S. population, the Census Bureau said August 14.

The U.S. has nearly 305 million people today. The population is projected to hit 400 million in 2039 and 439 million in 2050. That's like adding all the people from France and Britain, said Steve A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Non-Hispanic whites are currently 66 percent of the U.S. population and are projected to be 46 percent in 2050. By 2050, minorities - those who identify themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander or mixed race - will account for 54 percent of the U.S. population, which is projected to total 439 million that year. (The nation's population is currently around 305 million, and about 34 percent identify themselves as a member of a racial or ethnic minority.)

Among the nation's children, the trend is even more pronounced: by 2023, more than half will belong to a minority racial or ethnic group, the Census Bureau said. By 2050, this will jump to 62 percent (compared to 44 percent today).

Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority group, the Census Bureau said. The Hispanic population is projected to nearly triple, from almost 47 million to 133 million, during the 2008-2050 period, and will jump from 15 percent to 30 percent of the population. Asians are the third largest minority group - and the second fastest-growing group - in the United States, according to the August 14 Census Bureau report, which predicts that Asians will increase from 5 percent of the U.S. population in 2008 to 9 percent by 2050. The black population is projected to rise from 14 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2050, while American Indians and Alaska Natives are projected to increase from 1.6 percent to 2 percent.

The 2000 census was the first in which people could identify themselves as belonging to two or more races. By 2050, the number of people classified as mixed race is projected to more than triple, from 5.2 million to 16.2 million.

(unquote)

Images courtesy of U.S. Census Bureau, MinnPost, AFP

Original Source: ABC News and News Blaze

Related Article: Census Bureau report press release

She has brought her precious pooch back from death, more than one but five – via cloning at the price of $50,000. Not the one unique dog Booger, but a bunch - FIVE!
Woken up at midnight by dear memory of the dead dog? Or thrilled by five identical dogs resembling the dead one? It is not a bad idea to hear from the very first commercial cloning client, or to imagine, the true sentiment before jumping to clone yours.

(quote)

(SEOUL, South Korea) — Booger is back. An American woman received five puppies Tuesday that were cloned from her beloved late pitbull, becoming the inaugural customer of a South Korean company that says it is the world's first successful commercial canine cloning service. Seoul-based RNL Bio said the clones of Bernann McKinney's dog Booger were born last week after being cloned in cooperation with a team of Seoul National University scientists who created the world's first cloned dog in 2005.

The team of scientists working for RNL Bio is headed by Lee Byeong-chun, a former colleague of disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who scandalized the international scientific community when his purported breakthroughs in cloned stem cells were revealed as fake in 2005. Independent tests confirmed the 2005 dog cloning was genuine, and Lee's team has since cloned more than 20 canines. But RNL Bio said that its cloning was the first successful commercial cloning of a canine. "RNL Bio is commencing its worldwide services with Booger as its first successful clone," the company said in a statement.

RNL Bio charges up to $150,000 for dog cloning but will receive just a third of that sum from McKinney because she is the first customer and helped with publicity, said company head Ra Jeong-chan. Ra said his firm eventually aims to clone about 300 dogs per year and is also interested in duplicating camels for customers in the Middle East.

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of Ahn Young-joon/AP

Original Source: Time

Related Article: The Rise and Fall of the Cloning King

(quote)

When Royal Caribbean launches its $1.2 billion 'Oasis of the Sea' in 2009, it will carry up to 5,400 passengers and will be as tall as a 12-story building, as long as four football fields, and wider than the Panama Canal.

Formidably awesome – a floating city.

The question is - at sea, the bigger, the better?

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of Robert Polidori

Original Source: CNN

(quote)

China launched the 29th summer Olympics on Friday with a glittering opening ceremony combining 5,000 years of its history with a modern firecracker of a show.

The 91,000-strong crowd in the National Stadium, and more than a billion television viewers, earlier saw the hoisting of the Chinese flag which was carried into the stadium by children from China's 56 ethnic groups after 2,008 drummers had started the show.

Around 11,000 athletes from a record 204 nations will compete in 28 sports for 302 gold medals at the first Olympics in China and third in Asia, following Tokyo in 1964 and Seoul in 1988.

The Opening Ceremony is a cavalcade of athletes that could include everyone from 41-year-old swimmin' women to bone-thin young men from underfed lands. It will be an Olympics of table-tennis players and Wimbledon winners, of Israeli sailors and Iraqi rowers, of the Queen of Britain's granddaughter (who rides a horse) to "King" LeBron James (who shoots hoops).

You could catch a glimpse of American superjocks ranging from aquaman Michael Phelps to the flash Tyson Gay, from basketball's Sue Bird to softball's Jennie Finch (both aptly named to be in a Bird's Nest), from king of the court Kobe Bryant to queens Venus and Serena Williams.

There is a U.S. taekwondo team with practically everybody on it from Sugar Land, Texas, with the name of Lopez. There is a Ping-Pong team for the United States made up almost exclusively of Asians. There is a U.S. woman named Becky Hammon playing basketball for the Russians even though she has about as many Russian genes as Tom Sawyer.

There is a Japanese baseball pitcher named Yu Darvish whose name you might try to remember because a number of big-league scouts believe Yu someday could become a name in the American game every bit as popular as Ichiro or Fukudome or Dice-K.

There is a synchronized diver, a springboard diver, a backstroker and a butterflyer from that hotbed of swimming, Illinois.

There are 173 athletes on the U.S. team from California, 44 from Texas, 25 from New York and 10 from Indiana, including an very independent young Indy woman named Amber who throws a hammer.

There is a 23-year-old man named Lopez Lomong, born in Sudan on a New Year's Day, who now lives in Flagstaff, Ariz., and will carry the U.S. flag and staff into the arena as the honorary leader of the team.

There is a middle-aged swimmer, Dara Torres, who has made a name for herself in a swimming pool while others in their 40s go soak their tired limbs in hydrotherapy.

There is a swimmer, Amanda Beard, who has made a name for herself in and out of bathing suits.

There is a diver, Christina Loukas, whose dad runs the Cubby Bear lounge on the corner opposite Wrigley Field, and a 250-pound wrestler, Larry Langowski, who runs an ice-cream parlor in Logan Square but is in Beijing to wrestle for Mexico.

There is a 39-year-old Michigan woman who weighs all of 117 pounds, Sheila Taormina, who might be the best athlete you never heard of.

Taormina has come to these Olympics—her fourth Olympics, by the way—to compete in modern pentathlon—her third Olympic sport, by the way, having competed previously in swimming and triathlon.

"The pool's awesome!" Torres raved. "I've never seen such a great facility!"

"The Olympic Village is phenomenal!" U.S. gymnast Rav Bhavsar said. "Even the cafeteria."

There is excitement in the air.

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of NBC

Original Source: Chicago Tribune and Deutsche Welle

Image Galleries at: nbcolympics.com

(quote)

The only people who didn't enjoy the awe-inspiring Opening Ceremony of the XXIX Olympic Summer Games had to be the folks with the London Olympic organizing committee. They host the 2012 Summer Games, meaning they have to follow the greatest show on Earth -- and, for my yuan, the greatest show in Opening Ceremony history.

If I were the Brits, I'd punt and go with Monty Python reruns. Unless they can top a gold medalist elevating and running on air around the entire circumference of National Stadium to light the torch. "I was very excited," torchbearer Li Ning said. "I could feel the strength rising from the depth of my heart. This was the result of one month's training. That moment means China is standing side by side with the rest of the world."

Seminal as it was, that moment was merely the last gasp-inducing scene in a show full of fireworks, flying and gravity-defying. For four sweaty hours, the Olympics literally levitated in the thick Beijing air. The 14,000 performers staged a tour de force of choreography, technology and can-do-ology for a country intent on using the Games as a springboard to new world prominence.

The one thing the host nation didn't do was cram it all into one day, the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008. Eight is a lucky number in China, but by the time this extravaganza had run its course, it was the early minutes of Aug. 9. But a run-on production can happen when you're staging the biggest coming-out party in the history of the world. The long-cloistered Chinese had 5,000 years worth of culture and 1.3 billion citizens to show off to the world. They had a lot to say.

"It will be shocking," predicted Marwin Joe of the Beijing newspaper Liberation Army Daily, who sat next to me for the ceremony. He'd seen the rehearsal twice. And he was right. But the thing more shocking to Joe -- and, assuredly, many of his countrymen -- is how far China has come as an Olympic power, and how fast. In 1984, the Chinese won 32 total medals in an Olympics boycotted by the Eastern Bloc powers.

"In 1984, when Olympics were held in Los Angeles, most of the Chinese people did not know what is Olympic Games," Joe said. Six four-year plans later, they know. With the entire world here, their aim is to outdo the United States and win the overall medal count. Their goals are as big as their flag bearer, 7-foot-6 Yao Ming, who led the sprawling Chinese delegation into the Bird's Nest.

They were the final team to march, coming in three hours after the ceremony started and two hours after the other countries began the procession. Despite the dazzling show that began and ended the night, the athlete march truly is the highlight of every Opening Ceremony -- for all of them, this is their gold-medal moment. They made it here, to the world's biggest party. They are Olympians, and this is the payoff before only the best of the best make the medal podiums.

Hopefully TV did the whole thing justice. These productions are hard to describe, always better visually than in the written word. It's why sportswriters tend to fall back on phrases like "moving spectacle." But this was a moving spectacle.

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of Guang Niu/Getty Images, Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US Presswire, and NBC

Original Source: ESPN

Image Galleries at: nbcolympics.com

Among those featured in Time special issue "100 Olympic Athletes To Watch":

(quote)

Dara Torres (United States) - 41, nine-time Olympic medallist in swimming and mother of a two-year old who has qualified for her fifth Olympic Games, something no other swimmer has ever done. The time in the 100m freestyle that got her a ticket to Beijing was 2.47 seconds faster than her Olympic effort in 1988, at age 21 - a lifetime in such a short race.

Liu Xiang (China) – 25. When Liu Xiang claimed victory in the 110-m hurdles in Athens, delivering China its first ever sprint gold, you could almost sense the alarm in the announcers' voices. Few had heard of this mystery athlete, much less knew how to pronounce his given name. What a difference four years make. In Beijing, Liu, 25, along with basketball star Yao Ming, will be the poster boy for China's mighty Olympic squad. His name (pronounced Sheeahng) means "to soar" in Chinese.

Usain Bolt (Jamaica) – 21, the world's fastest man, nicknamed "The Lightning Bolt." This tall (6ft. 5in.), precocious Jamaican sprinter is a ray of hope for a sport whose unrelenting doping scandals have won it the same derision heaped on baseball and cycling. On May 31, at a meet in New York City, Bolt barreled to a100m world record of 9.72 seconds. Bolt is untainted by doping suspicion and has even sworn off legal partying (he loves to dance at his Aunt Lilly's reggae bar near his hometown, Trelawny) to prepare for Beijing.

Sheila Taormina (United States) – 39, the first woman to qualify for the Olympics in three sports, has struggled with depression as she wondered why she was still chasing the Olympics in her late 30s. She's had to fend off a stalker, who went to prison for five years but was released earlier this year (he has steered clear). And she fought, and won, a spot on the modern pentathlon team, even though she had never fired a gun, picked up an épee, or ridden more horse than a kiddie-ride pony before starting the sport three years ago (modern pentathlon combines swimming, running, fencing, shooting, and equestrian).

Yao Ming (China) – 27. When the NBA's Houston Rockets first sought permission from China's sports authorities to sign Yao Ming, 7-ft. 6-in, to play in the NBA, there was one term that was nonnegotiable: Yao would play for China's Olympic team, no matter what. He would lead the national team in Beijing in 2008. On Aug. 10, Yao will lead Team China in its first game — against the U.S.

Marta Vieira da Silva (Brazil) – 22, or just Marta, a single moniker being the mark of Brazil's great footballers. She is also known as Pelé in a skirt. The daughter of a poor family from the scrublands of Brazil's northeast, Marta had to force her brothers and his friends to even let her play the game. Once she made their team, the quick-footed striker was never off it. She signed with Swedish club Umea IK in 2004 and was soon helping Brazil challenge the U.S. and Germany's dominance in women's soccer. FIFA Player of the Year in 2006 and 2007, Marta has a lot to prove in Beijing.

Nader al Masri (Palestine) – 28. Nader al Masri learned the hard way how to pour on the speed: living in the embattled Palestinian enclave of Gaza, he's used to sprinting away from whizzing bullets and Israeli missiles. For 10 years, al Masri has trained for the 5,000m race in the Olympics. Every morning, he would lace up his tattered running shoes and lope off along bomb-cratered roads as kids shouted "Run, Nader, Run!"

Ryoko Tani (Japan) – 27, won consecutive Olympic golds in Sydney and in Athens, a first for a judo wrestler, and she's looking to take her third as a new mom. Nicknamed "Yawara-chan" after the character in a well-known judo manga. A judoka with seven world titles, Tani nearly missed qualifying for the Beijing team having given birth just a few months before national qualifiers.

Marianne Vos (Netherlands) – 21, has won virtually all the Dutch, European and world prizes available to road, cross and track cyclists — except an Olympic medal. A prodigy who started racing at five years old, she would later cycle 24km each way to school as her daily warm-up before training. In her first season as a senior racer, at age 18, Vos became the youngest ever world cyclo-cross champion, adding the world road title shortly after. Effectively self-coached, the unassuming 21-year-old is still studying biomedical science and says she sees cycling as "a big hobby."

Mark, Diana, and Steven Lopez (United States) - 26, 24, 29. Three siblings from suburban Houston who tried out taekwondo because their father was a fan of kung-fu movies, the second set of three sibling to make the Summer Games in the same sport — and the first since 1904, when three American brothers competed in gymnastics. Steven, already a gold medalist in the last two Olympics, is the straight arrow; middle child Mark, surprise, is the hyperactive one who likes attention. "I feel like a superstar," he recently said. Kid sis Diana is relatively shy. Their coach is older brother Jean. Just three years ago, they each won world titles.

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of Justin Stephens, Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty, Adrees Latif/AFP/Getty, Roger Celestin/AFP/Getty, Shaun Boterill/Getty, Paulo Fridman/Corbis, Mohammed Salem/Reuters/Landov, Dirk Waem/AFP/Getty, Matthew Stockman/Getty, Joel Saget/AFP/Getty

Original Source: Time

(quote)

The rising cost of food is a growing concern for many people across the world. There have been protests, and even riots, in countries including Mexico, India and Egypt, clear evidence of the struggle that many people are now facing. However, if Italians feel that their local food retailer is charging unreasonable prices, they can now call on a new service to help them haggle or walk away. Thanks to a short message service (SMS) text system set up jointly by the Italian agriculture ministry and consumer associations, shoppers can check the average price of different foods in northern, central and southern Italy.

Italy’s Department of Agriculture, Food & Forestry, along with consumer organisations, have come up with the SMS Consumatori service www.smsconsumatori.it, which tracks prices for over 80 types of fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy products and so on. To use the service, shoppers send a text message to 47947 for free, typing the name of the product they want a price for. They get a reply straightaway listing both a wholesale price and average retail prices in the north, centre and south. If a product comes in varieties, the service sends separate messages for each of the most popular ones.

SMS Consumatori sources information from 2,200 different stores, such as butchers, market stalls and discount stores, and covers the whole country. Prices are updated from Tuesday to Saturday. A very good feature is that people can fill a virtual shopping cart and see what its average cost would be. According to Jote Bassi, vice-president global sales and marketing at messaging services provider Anam, which is headquartered in Dublin, SMS Consumatori is a great use of SMS technology and yet more evidence of the importance to both consumers and operators of SMS services in general.

With prices spiraling out of control in some parts of the world, some people feel that it is high time consumers could check just how much traders are profiting. BBC reporter Emma Wallis from BBC World Service's Culture Shock programme decided to find out how much 2kg of tomatoes cost in a market in Rome. She found that the wholesale price of a kilo of cherry tomatoes is 69 euro cents (54p). Whereas the retail price in the north is 2.9 euros, in central Italy it is 2.8 euros, while in the south its 1.85 euros. By contrast, for bigger tomatoes the wholesale price is 62 cents compared with 2.15 euros in the north, 1.85 euros in central and 1.50 euros in the south. However, the tomatoes are bought by the wholesalers for only 22 cents a kilo from the farmers.

According to Tom Standage, business editor at The Economist magazine, markets are more efficient when you have more information. "If you are in a supermarket and there's a price for tomatoes and that's the only piece of information you have, you've got no idea whether you should be protesting by not buying it," he says. He explains that for supply and demand to work at its best, consumers need to be able to compare different prices from suppliers on the spot, something the texting service and others like it should help make easier. "There are even services where you can scan a barcode in with your mobile phone and it tells you how much the internet retailers are selling a particular product for," he says.

With many analysts warning that high food costs are here to stay, Italian consumer are unlikely to be the only ones hoping to find the High Street's best prices.

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of AFP, SiliconRepublic.com, and CTV.ca

Original Source: BBC News and SiliconRepublic.com