It's not a trivial problem, according to his study of stress levels in 100 smartphone users, including university students, retail workers and public-sector employees. Some users in the study were so hooked that they reported feeling "phantom vibrations" from non-existent text messages.
—Adriana Barton, "Smartphone stress: Can you say irony?," The Globe and Mail, January 22, 2012

The key difference between the two dimensional QR code and the single dimensional barcode is the amount of data they contain. Quick Response codes are also known as hardlinks or physical world hyperlinks. QR Codes store up to 4,296 alphanumeric characters of arbitrary text. This text can be anything, for example, a URL, contact information, a telephone number, even a blog post!
—Bob Leah, "Create a Quick Response Code (QR Code) image using Google Chart," IBM developerWorks, March 14, 2011

The FSB list of 29 banks, known as "SIFIs," includes those judged to be the most globally important to the financial system by their size and complexity. The measures were agreed on by regulators to prevent any "systemically important financial institution" from failing and roiling the global economy.
—"Global regulators to subject 29 banks to stricter regulations," The Washington Post, November 4, 2011

A "physible" is a digital plan for an object that can either be designed on a computer or uploaded with a 3D scanner. Those plans can be downloaded and used to assemble real, tangible objects using a 3D printer. Printers are getting more affordable, but they're still limited by the kinds of materials they can use.
—Jon Mitchell, "Forget MP3s: Soon You'll Download Your Sneakers From The Pirate Bay," ReadWriteWeb, January 24, 2012

Craig Estep...says that the root of the CitationJet problem was "engineering would design the airplane and throw it over the wall to manufacturing who would take what they got" and move on to production—a classic failure.
—Philip Siekman, "Cessna Tackles Lean Manufacturing," Fortune, May 1, 2000

Here's a cautionary tale for the corporate social media consultants of the world. Last week, McDonald's launched a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #McDStories; it was hoping that the hashtag would inspire heart-warming stories about Happy Meals. Instead, it attracted snarky tweeps and McDonald's detractors who turned it into a #bashtag to share their #McDHorrorStories.
—Kashmir Hill, "#McDStories: When A Hashtag Becomes A Bashtag," Forbes, January 24, 2012

Steve Inch, chair of the Scotcash board, said the collaboration — which sees a loan advisor based full time in the offices of North Glasgow Housing Association, also helped avoid the phenomenon of "zombie" loan accounts.

"There's a new term being coined for payday borrowers who are able only to pay the interest on their loans — zombie debtors — so that the principal debt just rolls on, and while there's talk of those institutions having a code of conduct introduced, that's only in the pipeline at present and we want people to know that there is an alternative in the shape of Scotcash," he said.
—Joan McFadden, "Loan service launches attack on the zombies," Herald Scotland, December 30, 2011

Nobody wants to speak too soon, but the horrors of the past 12 months seem far away. Nothing has changed, of course. All the old nasties are still there, including looming Eurogeddon, but we're told that every possible hazard has been "priced in".
—Jeremy Thomas, "US investors busy making other plans," Business LIVE, January 21, 2012

Now everybody with a cardigan and crocheted beanie has to have their own special food-limited diet. Not content with mere veganism, we have freeganism (people who only eat free stuff), flexitarianism (a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat) and pollotarians (those who eat chicken or other poultry but not red meat).
—Tim Elliott, "Eating their words," The Sydney Morning Herald, December 17, 2011

The patrons — 30 per seating, two seatings per night — enjoy cuisine from a rotating roster of local star chefs. The buzz about the venture has been almost rabid, with passionate bloggers speculating on the identity of each surprise chef (the first was Marc Cassel from Park), leading to sellouts. It's all for a good cause, as each seating is expected to raise about $500 for a group of local charities.

48 Nights' organizers clearly have the followers, which draws the coveted chatter. Add in an expiration date and the potential FOMO — fear of missing out — only escalates the notion of exclusivity.
—Jason Sheeler, "Temporary shops, galleries, eateries popping up in Dallas," The Dallas Morning News, March 2, 2010

Did you go into the office this past Labor Day weekend? Did you work this past Labor Day weekend? If your answer to the first question is "no" but you answered "yes" to the second," you and your business are part of the growing trend toward workshifting.
—Rieva Lesonsky, "How Workshifting Is Changing the Way We Work," Small Business Trends, September 7, 2011

Around the same time, I noticed that those who part with $2,285 a night to stay in a cliff-top room at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur pay partly for the privilege of not having a TV in their rooms; the future of travel, I'm reliably told, lies in "black-hole resorts," which charge high prices precisely because you can't get online in their rooms.
—Pico Iyer, "The Joy of Quiet," The New York Times, December 29, 2011