The truth behind online sales

Call them flash sales, secret sales or private sales, they all mean one thing: deals that promise heavy discounts for a limited period of time. A concept that is extremely popular abroad, online flash sales have now found their way into India.

But how is an online flash sale different from a store sale that luxury brands and designers often hold? Vehbi Sinan Tunalioglu, CEO, Brandmile.com, an Indian flash sale portal, explains the difference: "While both processes help suppliers liquidate their excess inventory, our main difference (when compared with brick and mortar stores) is the reach that we provide as our customers can buy the merchandise from any part of the country."

But are these 'super-saver deals' as great as the online sellers make them sound? Let's take a look at what lies beneath.

The lure of discounts It's hard not to reach for your wallet instantly when you come across a deal promising a 50% discount. Such heavy discounts are par for online sellers, who even claim to offer up to 70% discounts. But it's tough to determine the genuineness of these. As most sceptical buyers will tell you, sellers often hike the mark-up price and then offer a heavy discount. For instance, a flash sale portal was offering a designer handbag from Coach on 23 February at a discounted rate of Rs 16,999, claiming the original shelf price as Rs 33,525.

Evidently, the rate has been slashed by about 50%. However, when cross-checked on the US retail website for Coach, the same bag was priced at $298 (Rs 14,602). Amazon too had a similar bag which it can ship to India for a total delivery charge of $47 (Rs 2,303). Obviously, your total expenditure would be Rs 16,905. So, would you actually end up saving money if you buy from the sale?

The tag of exclusivity
Indian luxury flash sale portals claim to offer exclusive memberships. However, this is just an illusion. You don't strictly need to be 'invited-in'. Anyone can become a member by registering directly on the portal and then inviting anybody they want. In fact, some websites reward you with credit points each time one of your referrals makes their first purchase on the portal. So, if 99labels.com boasts about four lakh registered users, it would make your 'exclusive access' seem like a pin in the haystack.

Another hitch is that though you'll get trendy designer wear, it's going to be, unfortunately, last season's trends. Most of these sites, such as Fetise.com, mention clearly that they sell previous seasons' garments which have not deteriorated in quality. Other sites, such as Exclusively.in, will offer products from up-and-coming designers like Namrata Joshipura, Anaikka, and Raakesh Agarvwal, who would like to liquidate their unsold and excess inventory through these sites. Abdul Halder, a Bangalore-based fashion designer, says, "Usually, the products offered on flash sale sites are from a designer's existing collection. They often include products that haven't been showcased previously but are included to widen the product range, and, to an extent, make the deal more viable economically." So, if you are coveting a designer dress for less, be prepared to compromise a bit on the 'current season's trends.'

There is no race
Flash sales cash in on the urgency factor. They last for a day or two, or a week at the maximum. The deals are available for a limited time, but, you must ignore the ticking clock before you buy. Says Naina Singh, a 30-year-old advertising executive: "I came across a so-called exclusive deal on a sale portal, which was offering a six-piece Giordano travel combo set for about Rs 7,000, for only three days. I was still trying to make up my mind when the deal got over. After almost a month, I saw the deal again on the same website. What's more, the same set was also being offered under my credit card reward point scheme."

Though most websites feature only a handful of deals at a time, they need to constantly bring out new deals every week. There's no guarantee that their inventory will be sold, which is why the old deals get repeated after some time.

Check whether the product being sold for a limited period is also available on other sites. For instance, at a perfume sale for four days on FashionandYou.com, a 100 ml bottle of Hugo Boss No. 6 eau de toilette was available for Rs 2,975, while the online retailer Perfume2order.com is offering the same product for Rs 2,790. The more interesting part: While the former claims the original price to be Rs 3,800, the latter says it's Rs 4,900. No wonder, buyers are wary of the claims made by most online sellers.

Should you go with the crowd?
Flash sales on a group deal site, such as Crazeal.com and Mydala.com offer discounts on restaurants, trips and events only if a certain minimum number of buyers opt for the deal. So, the first thing you need to check is whether the booking amount will be refunded to you if the deal is cancelled due to a lack of buyers. Some consumer forums have complaints lodged by buyers of how the travel vouchers they had bought from deal sites were not honoured by the hotel or tour organiser, which claimed that they had no vacancies.

This led to the vouchers expiring and a loss for the buyers. However, sale portals are taking measures to resolve these issues. Says Ankur Warikoo, CEO, Crazeal.com: "We have proactively taken steps to review our customer policy which has led to a 90% drop in complaints. For travel deals, the merchant contact is always visible and we have put in place a 100% refund policy on travel deals within 14 days of purchase."

So, check the fine print carefully before opting for a travel deal from any flash sale portal. For how long is the travel voucher valid? Is it inclusive of everything or only the room rate? Will you have to pay a penalty if you cancel after booking?

Flash sales work best for discerning shoppers who can trawl the Net or those who are well aware of the retail store prices. For the newbie who wants to indulge in retail therapy online, it might be better to visit lots of similar sites and compare the prices of the deals before zeroing in on one.

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New Net Rates the Force Behind Monster Slam Dunks

The New York Knicks wonder what to do as Indiana Pacers forward Paul George takes it to the net in this photo from April 10, 2011. George is among those throwing down this weekend in the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest on Saturday. Photo: Darron Cummings/Associated Press

All you fans of monstrous dunks, rejoice: The uber-geeks at MIT Media Lab have figured out how to measure the force of a slam dunk, and the gadget makes its television debut during the NBA All-Star Weekend.

The nifty net will quantify the force with which guys like Derrick Williams and Paul George stuff a ball through the hoop during the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest on Saturday. The net is said to measure “slam force G’s.” We prefer the term “millijordans,” but no one asked us.

Media Lab developed the net in a partnership with Turner Sports. The results, displayed on the Sprite Intensity Meter on the bottom right of your TV screen, will determine, once and for all, if George throws down with more authority than Chase Budinger.

Yeah, it’s little more than marketing hype — “Sprite Intensity Meter” was a pretty big clue to that — but this has some real science behind it.

MIT Media Lab used conductive thread to generate a reading for the force of every slam thrown down. The fabric, as flexible as the nylon in conventional basketball nets, has long been valued for its ability to transmit electrical signals in products ranging from winter gloves to high-tech carpets. By spinning the thread through a regular basketball net and connecting it to a computer chip, mounted behind the backboard, that renders the force in a graphical output, MIT and Turner have at long last found a way to instantaneously transmit the force of a dunk from the rim to your television screen.

Will wonders never cease?

Peter Scott, VP of emerging media for Turner Sports Interactive, says Sprite proposed the idea to Turner in mid-November.

“They wanted to see how we could make the dunk contest even more exciting than it is now,” Scott says.

Scott’s people ran the idea by MIT Media Lab, which specializes in far-out ideas. They quickly seized on the idea of conductive thread and built a prototype using a…

Nerf basketball hoop. Seriously.

“Like any invention, you wait until you feel good enough that you can present them with a prototype,” Scott said.

It worked. Once Turner and MIT were confident they could pull it off with a real hoop, they bought a regulation net and rim to develop a full-scale prototype. They called the NBA in mid-January to give them the good news: It works.

Scott says the conductive thread produces an electrical current whenever the net is contracted, such as when a ball passes through it. Nothing about this changes how the net looks or functions, so it won’t affect how players perform their tricks.

To understand the varying levels of force a dunk could produce, the MIT scientists developed a statistical baseline. They notched a basketball-sized hole into a board, placed it above a basket, and dropped the ball through the board. The board served as a gate of sorts, ensuring the ball passed through it at the same speed and distance, every time, before hitting the net. By establishing a consistent level of output for that type of shot, the MIT crew could compare shots from the numerous angles and forces with which a dunk can be dunked.

The Media Lab worked with MIT’s own basketball team to develop the calibration system. To develop a range with which to assign a value for any particular dunk, players threw down with differing levels of power from all sorts of angles. The harder the throw-down, the higher the millijordans, er, slam force G’s. (MIT, taking these things very seriously, actually used joules as the unit of measurement during development.)

Dunks will be measured on a scale of zero to 100 slam force G’s. According to MIT’s scale, 100 slam force G’s should be about the equivalent of the muzzle energy of a .22 caliber round being fired. They can’t be sure of this until they confirm it during practice sessions in Orlando, but it sure sounds cool.

Once a player dunks, the conductive thread will communicate with a computer chip behind the ‘board. The chip will render a reading to a duet, which is a device that allows TV production crews to add graphics to the TV broadcast.

Looking ahead, Scott says there could be a place for this technology in basketball beyond the annual dunk-fest. He says we could even see the rest of us measuring the force of our dunks through Nerf hoops. And who knows — maybe one day slam force G’s will even be listed alongside stats like points, rebounds and assists.

For now, though, let’s sit back and revel in the fact we can, at long last, definitively quantify the force of a monster dunk.

The NBA has a video explaining the net and demonstrating its use. Yeah, there’s an ad at the beginning of it.

View the original article here

New Net Rates the Force Behind Monster Slam Dunks

The New York Knicks wonder what to do as Indiana Pacers forward Paul George takes it to the net in this photo from April 10, 2011. George is among those throwing down this weekend in the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest on Saturday. Photo: Darron Cummings/Associated Press

All you fans of monstrous dunks, rejoice: The uber-geeks at MIT Media Lab have figured out how to measure the force of a slam dunk, and the gadget makes its television debut during the NBA All-Star Weekend.

The nifty net will quantify the force with which guys like Derrick Williams and Paul George stuff a ball through the hoop during the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest on Saturday. The net is said to measure “slam force G’s.” We prefer the term “millijordans,” but no one asked us.

Media Lab developed the net in a partnership with Turner Sports. The results, displayed on the Sprite Intensity Meter on the bottom right of your TV screen, will determine, once and for all, if George throws down with more authority than Chase Budinger.

Yeah, it’s little more than marketing hype — “Sprite Intensity Meter” was a pretty big clue to that — but this has some real science behind it.

MIT Media Lab used conductive thread to generate a reading for the force of every slam thrown down. The fabric, as flexible as the nylon in conventional basketball nets, has long been valued for its ability to transmit electrical signals in products ranging from winter gloves to high-tech carpets. By spinning the thread through a regular basketball net and connecting it to a computer chip, mounted behind the backboard, that renders the force in a graphical output, MIT and Turner have at long last found a way to instantaneously transmit the force of a dunk from the rim to your television screen.

Will wonders never cease?

Peter Scott, VP of emerging media for Turner Sports Interactive, says Sprite proposed the idea to Turner in mid-November.

“They wanted to see how we could make the dunk contest even more exciting than it is now,” Scott says.

Scott’s people ran the idea by MIT Media Lab, which specializes in far-out ideas. They quickly seized on the idea of conductive thread and built a prototype using a…

Nerf basketball hoop. Seriously.

“Like any invention, you wait until you feel good enough that you can present them with a prototype,” Scott said.

It worked. Once Turner and MIT were confident they could pull it off with a real hoop, they bought a regulation net and rim to develop a full-scale prototype. They called the NBA in mid-January to give them the good news: It works.

Scott says the conductive thread produces an electrical current whenever the net is contracted, such as when a ball passes through it. Nothing about this changes how the net looks or functions, so it won’t affect how players perform their tricks.

To understand the varying levels of force a dunk could produce, the MIT scientists developed a statistical baseline. They notched a basketball-sized hole into a board, placed it above a basket, and dropped the ball through the board. The board served as a gate of sorts, ensuring the ball passed through it at the same speed and distance, every time, before hitting the net. By establishing a consistent level of output for that type of shot, the MIT crew could compare shots from the numerous angles and forces with which a dunk can be dunked.

The Media Lab worked with MIT’s own basketball team to develop the calibration system. To develop a range with which to assign a value for any particular dunk, players threw down with differing levels of power from all sorts of angles. The harder the throw-down, the higher the millijordans, er, slam force G’s. (MIT, taking these things very seriously, actually used joules as the unit of measurement during development.)

Dunks will be measured on a scale of zero to 100 slam force G’s. According to MIT’s scale, 100 slam force G’s should be about the equivalent of the muzzle energy of a .22 caliber round being fired. They can’t be sure of this until they confirm it during practice sessions in Orlando, but it sure sounds cool.

Once a player dunks, the conductive thread will communicate with a computer chip behind the ‘board. The chip will render a reading to a duet, which is a device that allows TV production crews to add graphics to the TV broadcast.

Looking ahead, Scott says there could be a place for this technology in basketball beyond the annual dunk-fest. He says we could even see the rest of us measuring the force of our dunks through Nerf hoops. And who knows — maybe one day slam force G’s will even be listed alongside stats like points, rebounds and assists.

For now, though, let’s sit back and revel in the fact we can, at long last, definitively quantify the force of a monster dunk.

The NBA has a video explaining the net and demonstrating its use. Yeah, there’s an ad at the beginning of it.

View the original article here

NGOs 'behind' India nuclear delay

24 February 2012 Last updated at 08:22 GMT Mr Singh says foreign groups do not appreciate India's growing energy and food needs The Indian prime minister has blamed US non-governmental organisations for the delay in commissioning the Koodankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu state.

Manmohan Singh told the prestigious Science journal that these groups did not appreciate India's growing energy requirements.

The plant has been stalled by protests from local people over safety concerns.

Mr Singh also blamed US and Scandinavian groups for opposing genetically modified crops in India.

Critics say Mr Singh's comments hark back to the pre-liberalisation days when Indian politicians blamed all of India's problems on foreign countries.

"You know what's happening in Koodankulam," Mr Singh said, referring to months of protests which have stalled the commissioning of two 1,000-MW nuclear reactors at the plant in Tirunalveli district.

"The atomic energy programme has gone into difficulties because these NGOs [non-governmental organisations], mostly I think based in the United States, don't appreciate the need for our country to increase the energy supply."

Referring to a 2010 government decision to defer the commercial cultivation of the genetically modified vegetable BT brinjal, Mr Singh said biotechnology had enormous potential and India must make use of it to increase agricultural produce.

"But there are controversies. There are NGOs, often funded from the United States and the Scandinavian countries, which are not fully appreciative of the development challenges that our country faces.

"But we are a democracy, we are not like China," he said.

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