28 Nov. 2011 | Secret Loans for Banks, Cell Phones in Flight, and Binging Justin Bieber

Kindle on plane | BCBusiness
We’ve all been trained to turn off our devices before a plane takes flight, but what is the real risk if we don’t unplug?

Secret Fed Loans Helped Banks Net $13B

The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing. Banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates.

Source: Bloomberg

 



Not Clear Why Fliers Must Turn Off Devices

Surely if electronic gadgets could bring down an airplane, you can be sure that the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration wouldn’t allow passengers to board a plane with an iPad or Kindle, for fear that they would be used by terrorists.

New technologies are often greeted with fear and that is certainly true of a disruptive technology like cellphones.

Source: The New York Times

 



The Top Global Bing Searches for 2011

Nobody else on the World Wide Web was as popular this year as Canadian pop sensation Justin Bieber, Microsoft Corp. announced Monday.

The 17 year-old Juno Award winner and Stratford, Ontario native was the most searched for name by Microsoft Bing users in 2011. The baby faced singer jumped five spots from the #6 position he held in 2010 to unseat Kim Kardashian, the sometimes-married reality TV star who fell to the #2 spot in 2011.

Source: The Financial Post

 


Unfair Pay Parking at Hospitals

Canada’s top medical journal is calling for an end to universally loathed hospital parking charges, calling parking fees a barrier to health care that should be scrapped.

Sick patients and their families have enough to deal with than have to worry about feeding the meter when they need regular dialysis, chemotherapy or other care that requires endless trips to hospital.

Source: Vancouver Sun
 



Girls Pulling Ahead of Boys in School

A new report shows that female Grade 8 students are outperforming their male counterparts in Canada on reading and science, with no discernable difference between the two genders in math skills.

Source: CBC