Business

When selling your home, a hardwood floor can be the best decision you can make to appeal to potential buyers. More and more people are installing hardwood floors in their homes, not only for their own enjoyment, but to increase the resale value of their home. When a potential buyer is looking at a home, he or she will often be more interested in a home with hardwood flooring, over those with carpeting or tile. Hardwood flooring is often more resilient and timeless than other floor coverings. Carpet can be very dated and difficult to clean, while tile can show wear and tear, and grime in the grout area. A national survey by the National Wood Flooring Association showed that a whopping 99 percent of real estate agents agreed that homes with hardwood floors are easier to sell. 82 percen...

On July 18, 2014, Airbus revealed an all-electric prototype plane called the E-Fan 2.0 at the Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, England. Scheduled to go on sale in 2017, the two-seater plane is designed for short-term flights and will be used primarily for pilot training. However, this new development in aircraft design promises future developments in the company's work for alternatively-fueled aircraft.The E-Fan 2.0 is a 500-kilogram plane powered by two 30-kilowatt electric motors, which work together to power two ducted fans attached behind the cockpit. The aircraft can fly at speeds reaching 124 miles per hour, with a cruising speed of 99 miles an hour. A smaller third motor attached to the front landing gear allows the plane to reach speeds of around 37 miles per hour ...

According to 9to5Mac.com, Amazon may soon be entering the world of payment processing with its own hardware. Payment processing, or the way retailers accept credit and debit cards for their business, is used to transfer money from the customer to the merchant. Current speculation posits that Amazon is developing their own card reader in order to enter yet another portion of the retail market. The rumors arose when 9to5Mac.com got hold of internal documents from office supply giant Staples, which showed an item listed as "Amazon Card Reader." The site considers this evidence that Staples will begin stocking the product sometime in August; Staples currently stocks their own card readers, along with ones made by PayPal and Square. The documents also reveal that Amazon's card readers ...

Furnishing your home is fun, but that fun can fade somewhat as you realize how expensive it can be. Thankfully, there are ways to save money and still get beautiful furniture for your home. You can find amazing furniture online, often at a cheaper price than you'd find in the store. Some of it will be used, but others will be brand new. You can find affordable quality furniture stores in person as well. Outlet shops and vintage shops will often have affordable solid wood furniture that you can buy. In some vintage and antique shops, you might even find Amish heirloom furniture. Depending on your personal taste, this could be the showcase of your home. When you're buying furniture, it is important to know both your budget and what you want to get. However, sometimes it pays to be flexible....

In August 2013, it was suggested that just one out of 10 cases of Lyme disease were reported nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's 30,000 reported cases out of 300,000 actual cases, based on surveys, medical claims, and laboratory test results. A year later, Lyme disease, like so many other diseases that do not immediately reveal their symptoms, continues to go under-reported by people, but the focus has also centered around dogs and how they are also easily susceptible to the disease. Researchers understand that for some people, Lyme disease symptoms may not be apparent until 20 years after they've been bitten by the Western black-legged tick (which transmits Lyme disease) -- though this is not the case for our lovable canine companions. Aro...

According to a recent Bankrate.com survey released this past Monday, millennials -- the youngest American generation to make up a percentage of the workforce -- are more likely to save their money rather than invest it. About 40% of American adults between the ages of 18 and 29 favor cash investments, choosing to place their money in savings accounts or certificates of deposit. By contrast, about 25% of adults over the age of 29 favor cash investments, while 23% choose to invest in real estate, and another 19% invest in stocks. Although hesitation regarding investments is understandable, as Greg McBride, the chief financial analyst for Bankrate.com explains, "The preference for cash and aversion to the stock market among young adults is very troubling considering this age group has t...

Since its inception in 2007, Airbnb has represented itself with a lowercase "a" logo. Over the past several years, the site has experienced major growth and has transformed itself into a top option for alternative lodging, with over 500,000 listings available for interested travelers worldwide. This month, it unveiled a new logo and website design to its users, and received mixed feedback. Replacing the iconic little "a" is a shape that is similar to an A, but with a loop in the middle that resembles the "map location" pin symbol most internet sites use. It is being called the "Belo" by the company. In a Youtube video, they said it was a "symbol of belonging" that stands for people, places, love, and Airbnb. The new logo is intended to be more modern and identifiable, and hearken to the...

What if designing a website was as easy as clicking and dragging a few images and text boxes? Thanks to a new web design platform, that dream is already here. Webdyo is a free, cloud-based web design platform that automatically converts page designs into HTML code, and it just received $7 million dollars to challenge Adobe for the web design market. Even before the game-changing investments from OurCrowd, Magna Ventures and independent parties, the B2B web design solution featured one of the fastest-growing designer communities in the world, with 93,000 users including web designers, studios and agencies. During the first quarter of 2014 alone, the community grew by 100%, with thousands of new designers joining every week. With Webdyo, designers can create, manage and host customi...

Advertisers on Facebook can now take advantage of a new technique to better reach consumers on the social media site. According to a July 18 VentureBeat.com article, sequential mobile advertising, a quickly-emerging video advertising method, allows the marketer to put targeted video advertisements in front of a user after he or she clicks on an ad from a mobile device. Marketers are then able to follow up with other advertisements, which are chosen based on a user's clicking habits, on other devices. VentureBeat.com reports that this makes marketers able to create a sequence of targeted video ads for users to view, effectively building a sales pitch with this sequence of videos -- starting with the "pitch" and ending with the "sell." To target video advertisements, marketers are a...

Recent data collected by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) now shows that the U.S. is spending more on healthcare coverage than any other developed country, despite the fact that American citizens still have the highest obesity percentage worldwide (28.6%) and the 8th lowest life expectancy worldwide (78.7 years). The report states that the U.S. spent about $8,745 in healthcare costs per capita in 2012, which is approximately $2,500 more than Norway, which grabbed second place in healthcare expenditure in 2012. Although ideally a higher healthcare expenditure should mean that citizens generally experience better health, it appears that many developed nations still struggle with basic healthcare problems. Luca Lorenzoni, a health economist who is familiar ...