Posted on March - 31 - 2012

Temporary outage of Visa card network Sunday

WASHINGTON (AP) — A technical problem affecting the Visa network barred some people around the United States from using their credit and debit cards for about 45 minutes on Sunday, the company said.

The outage was caused by a recent update Visa has made to its system, said Visa Inc. spokeswoman Sandra Chu. She said Visa had trouble processing some transactions as a result, but the system is operating normally now.

Chu said the problem Sunday was unrelated to the security breach potentially affecting Visa and MasterCard customers that was reported Friday by credit card processor Global Payments Inc.

The outage occurred from around 2:40 p.m. to 3:20 p.m. EDT, a person from a major bank said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because bank employees were not authorized to speak publicly.

Read full post…

Posted on March - 23 - 2012

TicketKick® Moves Into Creative Office Space In San Diego

In March, TicketKick announced the move of their corporate office in San Diego, California, into a creative corporate office space from their smaller Mission Valley location.

TicketKick is an innovative legal service that helps drivers contest speeding tickets, red light tickets, and other common traffic infractions through the mail. TicketKick’s team currently consists of eight employees, and they anticipate growing to about 25 employees by 2017 to fill their new office space.

“We strive to provide not only a great service to our customers, but also a great place to work for our employees, and we wanted to provide a really great office environment for our employees to come to work to every day,” said Greg Muender, TicketKick’s founder and president.

Muender founded the company after receiving three traffic tickets in three weeks himself back in college. After doing some research, he discovered that the California court system allows drivers to contest traffic tickets through the mail.

Read full post…

Posted on March - 16 - 2012

Oakland-based BrightSource Energy seeks to raise up to $182.5 million in IPO

Solar thermal technology startup BrightSource Energy hopes to raise $182.5 million in a long-awaited initial public stock offering, according to an amended S-1 filed with the SEC Wednesday.

The Oakland-based company plans to issue 6.9 million shares, plus up to 1.35 million shares to its underwriters, at a price between $21 to $23 per share. It hopes to trade on the Nasdaq using the symbol BRSE.

BrightSource uses mirrors to concentrate the sun and turn turbines that generate electricity. It’s most advanced project is the massive Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System currently under construction on federal land in California’s Mojave Desert. When completed next year, Ivanpah will be the largest solar thermal power plant in the world, generating enough electricity for about 140,000 homes.

NRG Solar invested $300 million in the Ivanpah project, and Google invested $168 million. Utilities PG&E and Southern California Edison have signed long-term contracts to purchase the electricity. BrightSource was also awarded a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the U.S.

Read full post…

Posted on March - 12 - 2012

AT&T seeks to settle—quietly—with iPhone user

NEW YORK—AT&T is offering to discuss a settlement to an iPhone user who won a small-claims case that alleged the company was slowing down his “unlimited” data service.

A law firm retained by AT&T Inc. also threatened in a letter dated Friday to shut off Matthew Spaccarelli’s phone service if he doesn’t sit down to talk.

The phone company doesn’t say if the settlement would involve money beyond the $850 award the Simi Valley, Calif., resident won from the company in small claims court on Feb. 24.

AT&T has about 17 million smartphone customers on “unlimited” plans, and has started slowing down service for users who hit certain traffic thresholds. Spaccarelli maintained at his Feb. 24 small-claims hearing that AT&T broke its promise to provide “unlimited” service, and the judge agreed.

Spaccarelli has posted online the documents he used to argue his case and encourages other AT&T customers copy his suit. Legal settlements usually include non-disclosure agreements that would force Spaccarelli to take down the documents. <

Read full post…

Posted on March - 05 - 2012

Apple unveils ‘new iPad’ with sharper screen

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple gave the new iPad a bunch of new features but no new name.

When it goes on sale next week in the U.S. and several other countries, it will be “the iPad” or perhaps “the new iPad” – not “iPad 3″ or “iPad HD,” as some had speculated.

The lack of a new name could cause confusion for buyers, particularly since the older model, the “iPad 2,” will still be sold. But the naming practice is consistent with Apple’s practices for the iPod. New models were simply called “iPod,” and consumers were left to figure out which generation of the product they were looking for.

The new iPad revealed Wednesday has, as expected, a sharper screen, driven by a faster processing chip that acts as the “brains” of the device. What was more surprising was that the new features mean the tablet computer will be slightly thicker and heavier than the iPad 2, because it needs a larger battery to power the high-resolution screen.

The battery life remains the same: about 10 hours of use.

Prices aren’t changing from the previous models.

Read full post…

Posted on February - 28 - 2012

Nebraska Hospital Moves Forward with MedRover™ Mobile Dispensing…

Swisslog, a leading provider of automated materials transport and medication management solutions for hospitals, today announced that Webster County Community Hospital in Red Cloud, Neb., has purchased MedRover™ mobile dispensing cabinets. The order is the first for Swisslog’s innovative new medication management solution in the critical-access healthcare market.

MedRover is a mobile dispensing cabinet that offers stationary cabinet-level security with the mobility of a cart, enabling nurses to securely store and administer medications, including narcotics, at the patient bedside. MedRover is the only mobile medication dispensing solution of its kind.

Bedside verification initiatives prompted the hospital to look for an affordable and safe solution that would let nurses verify patient identification and medication prior to administration at the bedside. The MedRovers will interface with the hospital’s information system to provide complete electronic records of all medication administration events.

Read full post…