The Economist took a look at the economics of lifts:

• Four firms make the majority of lifts in the world, and they’ve been doing incredibly well as businesses.
• This is in part due to the rise of China and an increasing demand for high-rise buildings. 70 million people a year – more than the population of Britain – moves to a city every year.
• But this isn’t the whole story. The real reason why lift manufacturers have done so well is because people hate getting stuck in lifts, and the lift firms are able to sell maintenance contracts.
• They can charge up to $5,000 a year to keep the elevators running smoothly. A fat sum for very little effort.
• Maintenance contracts are also lucrative because this demand is much more stable than the demand for lifts – which changes depending on the state of the economy.

Read more about why it’s so difficult for competitors to enter the market, why they might soon anyway, and expanded financials of the industry over here.

Source: The Economist

Komo news writes:

A police survey says panhandlers outside Wal-Mart in Coos Bay can make $300 a day. Inside, it takes a clerk a week to make that much

Source: Komo News

It’s hard to imagine anything more awesome than the TARDIS: it can space travel, time travel, and it’s bigger on the inside. Which may make it quite difficult to estimate the real estate value, but that didn’t stop Nick Johnson from trying:

• The value of the TARDIS real estate is the combination of exterior footprint, plus interior floor area
• The exterior footprint is just the size of a 1960’s London Police Box. Which, multiplied by the price of London property per square foot, gives us an exterior value
• In a 1978 Doctor Who episode, the TARDIS interior is reported to be ‘about the size of the Empire State Building’. So again, Nick multiplied by average London prices per square foot
• Which gives the TARDIS two values: $50,497 for the outside, or $2,580,324,616 for the inside

(Which, incidentally, is around 100 times what Centives thinks the one-year lease on the TARDIS should be.) Read the full article by Movoto Real Estate over here, and we also recommend checking out their price for Bag End

Source: Movoto Real Estate

Few dispute that what Google is trying to create in Google Glass is the future of computing. It’s going to fail writes Andrew Chen:

• Google Glass will be expensive. Yet there are few things that it can do that our smartphones can’t already do.
• Voice is the primary method of input. Yet voice recognition is still weak. Try navigating your phone with voice only and you’ll see how frustrating it quickly becomes.
• Google is giving us a peek into the future…but it’s coming too soon. The technology isn’t ready yet.

Read more about how Google Glass is like Apple Newton, what its supposed capabilities are, and some of its other limitations over here.

Source: Quartz

Kyle Wagner writes that soon your comic book on a tablet might come with a soundtrack:

• Marvel is experimenting with dynamic soundtracks as you turn the page.
• These tracks don’t loop. Rather they’re dependent on the context and what you’re doing. They adapt to you, rather than you being forced to adapt to them.
• The idea is to add more emotional resonance to comics. Just as in movies where the music becomes triumphant as the enemy is vanquished, so too in comic books a little background score would enhance the experience.
• Right now comic book writers suggest a colour palette when they write their script. Soon they might start recommending musical cues.

Read more about this future of comics, the two track approach that Marvel is using, some of the weaknesses of the idea, and how it will evolve over here.

Source: Gizmodo

In cities across the United States neighbourhoods have figured out an ingenious way to keep sex offenders away. Yet by doing so they’re jeopardizing their own safety writes Ian Lovett:

• In certain cities laws prohibit registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or public park.
• Those who want to keep sex offenders away then lobby to have small “parks” built – some which are barely large enough to hold a swing set – to keep sex offenders away from the community.
• One playground installation company even advertises its service as a way to keep sex offenders out.
• Yet the increasing use of this practice is leaving sex offenders with nowhere to live. And studies indicate that homeless sex offenders are more likely to commit crimes since they’re difficult to track and have nothing to lose.

Read more about what neighbourhood groups have to say, the politicians who have built their career in part due to these ‘parks’, and why it’s against homeowners interest to do this over here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

Netflix’s House of Cards has been a hit. This wasn’t a surprise to Netflix executives writes David Carr:

• Netflix has access to a lot of data. It monitors when people play, pause, rewind, and forward media. They also track the time of day that people do this and the device they do it on.
• The online streaming company noted that films directed by Mr. Fincher were popular; that Kevin Spacey’s films did well, and that people were fond of a British 90s TV show called House of Cards. These elements then went on to make Netflix’s own hit series.
• But the use of data didn’t stop there. Netflix altered its advertising strategy based on the audience. Kevin Spacey fans saw Kevin Spacey centric ads. Those fond of female characters saw trailers focused on them.

Read more about the ethics of Netflix’s practice, why this might be a threat to creative freedom, and other bits of analytics about House of Cards over here.

Source: The New York Times

We’ve previously covered some of the shaky foundations of Apple’s recent success. Now that the stock has dived by 40% in under a year analysts are trying to figure out what happened. One man believes he has the answer writes Jay Yarow:

• Apple’s success was driven by a few key engineers who helped develop its products.
• Now those individuals are considering leaving to pursue their own interests and find fame and fortune outside of the company. Their talents are wasted in developing the next incremental release of iPhone 7.
• This means that the next great invention will happen outside of Apple’s walls, forcing the company to play catch up.

Read more about Apple’s troublesome internal culture, why this is the inverse of the conventional wisdom about Apple and more over here.

Source: Business Insider

On this Tuesday, the 12^th of March 2013, 115 cardinals will gather to select the next Pope. Rome’s struggling economy is hoping that the event will boost business writes Stephan Faris:

• The last big Vatican event was the beatification of John Paul II in 2011 which is estimated to have brought in €235 million in revenue for Rome.
• Yet this year’s conclave hasn’t brought the crowds that many were hoping for. While Expedia saw the number of trips to Rome double, overall few people seem to be planning to attend.
• The surrounding shopkeepers will move quickly once the new Pope is announced. One says that they’ll have small posters of the new Pope within an hour of his announcement. Key chains and framed photographs will soon follow.

Read more about the economics of the conclave, the 5,000 journalists who will be covering the event, and the price of managing any crowds that show up over here

Source: Businessweek