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10 24
The Greening Of Barcodes
Anyone who does a lot of travel between Asia and North America knows that countries like Japan and South Korea offer consumer technologies years ahead of those available here. It is not surprising then to discover that barcodes (and their graphical derivatives like QR codes) are saturating the consumer marketplace in Asia in ways that are yet to be adopted here.
A QR Code is a matrix code (see the above image) allows its contents to be decoded at high speed. In Japan, camera phones with QR Code reading software are increasingly changing the way consumers access product information. Wireless Watch Japan ran a story last year about the use of QR Codes in supermarkets.
Using their cell phones, Japanese consumers can get detailed product information about the food they consume. For example, they can determine the
Magazine ads and articles frequently contain the codes. They are also an essential part of business cards in Japan. The benefits are obvious. Consumers can obtain large amounts of information without the need to enter the data. A local company, Semacode, is offering solutions for the market. Here is one of their codes in action in a non-traditional way:
10 23
Hollywood’s Social Conscience - From Claudia Stoicescu’s Report
Corporate Knights Magazine contributor, Claudia Stoicescu, reviewed the recent generation of Hollywood films and rated their social consciousness. Here are some of Claudia’s bottom-line comments:
The Constant Gardener
Syriana
North Country
Crash
Capote
Good Night, Good Luck
Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
10 20
How Did We Arrive At Brian Mulroney Being Canada’s Greenest Prime Minister?
There is no secret to this selection. We asked Canada’s foremost environmentalists: Which PM accomplished the most on the environment front? It turns out Mulroney’s government got things done on acid rain and the Montreal Protocol. All Canadians benefit from those achievements. Here is the link to our extended article on the topic. “I decided to assemble a jury of prominent Canadian environmentalists that represent the national organizations, and asked them which prime minister did the most for the environment,” Corporate Knight’s Editor Toby Heaps said in an interview. “The replies started rolling in and I almost fell off my chair, because I started seeing Brian Mulroney’s name coming up again and again.”
10 19
The Coffee Footprint
Coffee is, in dollar terms, the world's leading agricultural product. Coffee requires a lot of water. Coffee's "water footprint" is roughly described as the amount of water needed to create those pots of java we all seem to love so much. In a study done in the Netherlands, it was found that for drinking one standard cup of coffee meant about 140 litres of water was required. That's not only to brew a cup but to water the coffee beans. Total coffee consumption in the Netherlands alone requires a total of 2.6 billion cubic metres of water (or almost 700,000,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools). The Dutch people account for 2.4 per cent of the world coffee consumption. For more information look at http://www.waterfootprint.org/WaterFootprintCalculator.htm
10 18
Top Ten Ways To Keep Water Clean
Our readers wanted to know the top ten ways to keep our fresh water just that—fresh. Here they are beginning from number ten to the number one best way to keep our water clean:
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