Business

More and more aspects of business are being conducted online, but according to Forbes contributor Jerry Weissman, the "personal" part of interpersonal communications is still essential -- especially in initial public offering (IPO) roadshows. Simply put, an IPO roadshow is a presentation given by a representative of a company to potential investors about an investment opportunity. Many companies in the United States start planning a roadshow in January -- about 37% of them -- and they usually take place in the months of February, March, May, June, September, November, and December. These roadshows are instrumental for generating interest in a company and getting seed investments; according to Weissman, the average public offering is about $150 million. Since investors are limited to buyi...

As the most popular and well-known fast-food chain in the world, it was no surprise when McDonald's created its McCafe brand to keep up with up-and-coming coffee competitors like Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts. Offering a variety of affordable coffee and espresso beverages in their restaurants has helped the fast food company keep up with the competition, but McDonald's will soon begin selling McCafe bagged coffee in stores to gain more of a competitive edge in the market. Both Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts have been selling bagged coffee in grocery stores across the country for years now, and both have continued to keep a loyal following of coffee-loving customers. Although they are a little late to the game, McDonald's, through a partnership with Kraft Foods Group, is launching a major m...

Dental lasers from two different companies were recently recognized in top technology lists from two major magazines. The Picasso Laser from AMD Lasers was listed in Dentistry Today's "Reader's Choice Top 50 Technology Products" for the fifth year in a row, and newcomer Convergent Dental's Solea CO2 laser was just named a “Best of What’s New” product for 2014 by Popular Science. AMD Lasers is a global leader in dental laser technology and education. The Picasso soft tissue dental lasers that the company develops and produces are used in procedures like periodontal treatment, laser whitening, and soft tissue surgery. The company has received countless industry honors over the past five years and have also been recognized by non-dental organizations for company growth, innovation de...

With online marketing and social media taking over the majority of a business's marketing and advertising campaigns, it's almost surprising that something like a TV commercial -- which is incredibly limited in terms of audience engagement and interaction, by comparison -- could grab news headlines. But when it comes to Super Bowl advertising, TV commercials reach a whole new level of dedication and creativity. It seems unlikely that any business would be able to drum up the same level of audience engagement with a TV commercial that can be found with just a few tweets, but as Variety reporter and senior TV editor Brian Steinberg notes, the web service company "GoDaddy" may have accomplished the impossible. It's no secret that Americans have a special place in their hearts for Super Bowl...

First, there was the carpet cleaner who sued anonymous Yelp reviewers over bad reviews. Then there was the hotel that withheld deposits from guests who left negative comments on the popular review site. Now a Brooklyn restaurant is offering free meals through Craigslist to customers willing to rave about its food. The now-removed ad, posted on Dec. 4, sought out Yelp reviewers with established or elite profiles to review the Littleneck seafood restaurant in exchange for meals. It doesn't specify "good" reviews, but that seems to be implied. Aaron Lefkove, one of the owners of Littleneck, told amNY that the ad didn't come from them, and that he may pursue legal action against the person who posted it. "We definitely did not post that," LefKove told amNY in an email. "I imagine it's an un...

Robotics have been a staple of the automotive industry for some time, but a new report has found that automation is moving into other sectors of the economy, as well. In countries with the highest use of robotics -- Japan, Germany and the United States -- the International Federation of Robotics reports that the density of robots in the automotive sector is seven times that in all other industrial areas. Japanese automakers use about 1,520 industrial robots for every 10,000 of their human employees, leading the way in the industry. Other industries in Japan, Germany and the U.S. use only around 214 robots per 10,000 workers -- but that number is slowly climbing. The newest industrial robots are poised to enter other, undeveloped parts of the manufacturing industry. The International Fed...

For a long time, apartment hunting was quite the ordeal, and anyone seeking a new place to live had to drive around looking for yard signs, sort through cryptic classified ads, and play phone tag with landlords and property managers.Thankfully, the times are a changin'.Mobile app startup companies, online real estate heavy hitters, and even good ol' local listing firms are preparing to streamline the fragmented business of apartment advertising and hunting, hoping to make it more reliable for landlords and property managers as well as more user-friendly for prospective tenants. The goal is to transform a thriving business -- nearly 2.3 million households rent apartments, rather than own their home, in Los Angeles and Orange Counties -- into a modern, successful marketplace, making the p...

Haptics, or touch feedback technology, has changed rapidly over the course of the past few years. Now, the Bristol Interaction and Graphics group has developed technology that can create an invisible 3D haptic shape using ultrasound, which can be both seen and felt. The research paper, which has been published in the current issue of ACM Transactions on Graphics, describes how a new device sends out complex patterns of ultrasound waves. By focusing the ultrasound waves and creating air disturbances, the device creates haptic feedback in mid-air. The system also generates an invisible 3D shape. In other words, the new device is a projector that can create floating, 3D shapes, which can also be touched. The researchers believe that this new device could change the way people use 3D shapes...

Sure, Stanford's Linear Accelerator Laboratory has produced some of the most important work on particle physics, and sure, work there has earned three Nobel Prizes in Physics, but Gizmodo recently shined some light on one of the lab's most important contributions to modern scientific achievement -- it hosted the very first web site in the United States. Despite the popular legend that Al Gore invented the Internet, it was really the product of English computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The idea for what would eventually reshape the way humans communicated and interacted with each other came to Berners-Lee while he worked at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research located in France. In 1989, he proposed the idea of the web, and two years later, he'd go on to publish the ...

The solar energy takeover might be possible sooner than we think, according to a new report out of the Environment America Research and Policy Center. Even though solar panel technology is the environmentally friendly answer to more traditional energy solutions that consume limited resources and damage the environment, Americans have been slow to adopt solar energy systems. High installation costs are often blamed, along with a lack of government support. However, the new report claims that the United States "has the potential to produce more than 100 times as much electricity from solar PV and concentrating solar power (CSP) installations as the nation consumes each year." It adds that every state could use solar power to generate more electricity than residents currently consume. The ...