JURNAL 4 + 5 ( Marketing subject ) Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

JURNAL 4 + 5 ( Marketing subject ) - Assignment Example The new 2010 GLK is situated as a reasonable and solid SUV in the monetary circumstance that everybody faces. The socioeconomics of the city offer the best crowd for the SUV as the populations’ age, salary are the characteristics that the Mercedes-Benz 2010 GLK positions to target. The Denver Post is the most perused paper in Denver. By putting the ad in Denver Post, the organization wishes to focus on all the youthful just as grown-up females and guys who wish to drive reasonable vehicles in style. The 2010 GLK is being promoted not by the Mercedes-Benz showrooms however by a retail/utilized vehicles shipper called Murray Motor Imports. The commercial is high contrast and uses basic striking composing style giving a lot of detail of the vehicle as could be expected under the circumstances. The high contrast ad is typically seen by the perusers as dull and exhausting. The composing style of the commercial uses one textual style with various text dimensions which is plain not alluring. The notice has one 2010 GLK picture with an intense slogan. The promotion is level with no lively highlights and no situation that could best speak to the SUV. No logo of the Mercedes-Benz organization or the Murray Motor Imports has been utilized aside from the name of the last organization. The ad is fundamentally positioned to present the new SUV at the most minimal rates that the organization brings to the table in rivalry with other retail vehicle outlets in the zone. The goal of the commercial is to draw in the possible clients to the showroom with the goal that they can come and examine the new SUV. So as to grab the eye of target crowd, Murray Motor Imports is offering different special offers, for example, a free test drive. Moreover, the organization is offering an appealing lease rate to draw in clients. Another offer utilized by the organization to pull in the clients is a fortunate draw for a shopping binge. All these promoting offers are intended to the intended interest group of 2010 GLK

The Kate Moss Effect :: Beauty Media Modeling Self Esteem Essays

The Kate Moss Effect â€Å"Women, you realize that horrendous inclination you get subsequent to leafing through a style magazine crammed with models who, let’s face it, look route superior to you? A new examination, The Kate Moss Effect, recommends that it‘s not all in your head† (Jennifer Thomas, HealthScout). There have been so often in my life, and I’m sure in different women’s lives too, that I feel absolutely insufficient in correlation with, let’s state, a Victoria’s Secret Model. I simply have one inquiry: How is a lady at any point expected to like herself when the main thing being reliably advanced is flawlessness? There have been numerous examinations done, in which specialists study the impacts that the strain to have an ideal body has on the normal female. Be that as it may, I am going to focus on the Kate Greenery Effect for the straightforward explanation, that of the considerable number of studies I took a gander at, The Kate Greenery Effect appeared to be the most sensible, and straight forward. So let’s return to that old fashioned sentiment of filtering through the numerous disheartening pages of an advanced style magazine. The Kate Moss Effect is a study based around the straightforward regular action of survey a distribution packed with bent. Essentially, ladies were accumulated to see pages rising with models who were for all intents and purposes faultless and their responses to this introduction were at that point watched. To be definite, specialists partitioned 91 Caucasian ladies, ages 18 to 31into two gatherings. One gathering was demonstrated promotions for different regular items, for example, nail clean, toothpaste, and gum. Be that as it may, these promotions included rail meager females, the virtual authentic portrayal of impeccability. The subsequent gathering was demonstrated advertisements for similar sorts of stock. But the second group’s advertisements didn’t have individuals in them. â€Å"Researchers found that ladies who saw notices including characteristically meager and delightful ladies gave more indications of misery and were increasingly disappointed with their bodies after just one to three minutes of seeing the photos. Melancholy levels enrolled a slight uptick, while confidence was unchanged† (Jennifer Thomas, Health Scout). Laurie Mintz, the lead creator of the examination and the partner educator of instructive and advising brain science at University of Missouri-Columbia stated, â€Å"The ladies who enlisted the greatest drop in mental self view in the wake of review the

The Smart Home

The Smart Home Imagine, if you would, coming home from a long day’s work. You open the door, and the light’s immediately turn on a shade past dim â€" just the way you like it. It’s 7.58pm and by the time you hang up your coat, take off your shoes and sit down in the living room, it’s time for the basketball game. The television turns one. You dismiss the notification that the television had been recording the pre-game show, and start to watch, but a beep from the kitchen stops you and impels you to enter. It’s your refrigerator, reminding you that there are three perfectly chilled beers inside. You’ll grab one beer and something to eat, but a display on the outside informs you that the leftovers are probably bad by now. You tap a button on the display and your refrigerator dials the local takeout restaurant on our cellphone, which you quickly remove from your pocket. After you place your order and make your way back to the television, you see a second notification that informs you that you’ve forgotten to activate your security system, but that it has been done for you. You silently marvel at how simple life has become as you sit back to enjoy the game. © Shutterstock.com | scyther5This notion of domestic bliss may once have been purely within the realm of science fiction, but may soon be possible with the rise of intelligent home networking / home automation (smart homes). In this article, we will cover: 1) features of the smart home, 2) history of the smart home, 3) benefits of the smart home, 4) research and trends in smart homes, 5) challenges of smart homes, 6) popular smart homes, and 7) the future of smart homes.FEATURES OF THE SMART HOME © Wikimedia commons | LCNThe typical smart home automation would feature seamlessly integrated security systems, refrigerators, televisions, dishwashers, and other electronics and appliances, centrally and/or remotely controlled from a single device. As more devices become connected to wireless technologies (see the Internet of Things, below), the more features the smart home will include. Some of the most common, centrally-controlled, technologies in today’s smart home automation include:Automated door locks and security systems: these can be controlled with a smartphone to other electronic device;Temperature and ventilation controls;Energy consumption monitoring devices;Entertainment systems;Smart lighting systems;Smart appliances;Vehicle detection systems; andPlant and pet monitoring systems.Other typical features of the smart home automation include room-to-room video and audio communication; and notifications sent by the home to a user’s smartphone or other device in case o f a particular occurrence (a break-in for example).HISTORY OF SMART HOMESSmart homes had their origins, as most innovations, in theory long before they become a reality. While science fiction writers, such as Ray Bradbury, depicted these homes throughout much of the 20th century, their genesis lies in the development of the systems that comprise them. The first 20 years of the 20th century saw the invention of the vacuum cleaner, dryer, washing machine, iron, and toaster. The first smart device was created approximately 45 years later. Known as the ECHO IV, it could turn home appliances on and off and control home temperatures; unfortunately, it did not sell well. Home automation technologies began to be built into luxury dwellings decades ago. Disney’s 1999 film, Smart House, provided mainstream audiences with a sense of the possibilities, but the first smart home models and devices began to hit the consumer market in the early 2000s, with the proliferation of the Internet and re lated technologies a decade earlier.BENEFITS OF SMART HOMESThe benefits of the smart home are by no means limited to convenience, although this is a compelling feature. The automation of simple tasks saves us time â€" time that could be spent on our families, our careers, or other passions, which is a strong selling proposition. Smart homes also have the potential to be greener and cheaper: water and energy-monitoring tools, and programs to optimize energy consumption, could impel us to lower our water and energy usage, which could, in turn, lower our bills and reduce our carbon footprint.Automation and centralized control have serious benefits for family caregivers. By integrating home healthcare equipment, such as monitoring and diagnostic tools, smart homes could simplify the caregiving process for the hundreds of millions of adults worldwide who care for an elderly, ailing, or infirm parent or relative. For example, a smart home might allow you to monitor the movements of a rela tive suffering from dementia.RESEARCH AND TRENDS IN SMART HOMESA number of trends are driving the growth of smart homes. These include:Internet of Things (IoT) © Wikimedia commons | WilgengebroedThe Internet of Things (or IOT) is an emerging trend of which smart homes is a subset. IoT involves the integration of digital and wireless technologies in physical objects and systems, especially those historically unconnected. IoT has significant ramifications for the future of smart homes: the more devices that are connected to the Internet, the more can potentially integrated into the smart home system. Examples of IoT as relates to smart homes are the Nest Learning Thermostat, the Chop-Syc digital chopping board, the Toncelli Kitchens digital kitchen countertop, the air monitor Birdi, and the Wattio SmartHome 360 energy monitor.Security systemsSecurity is a major focus of smart home systems. Advanced smart security systems can notify you remotely if there has been an intrusion, detect vehicles approaching your home, automatically lock your doors, provide room-by-room surveillance, and so much more.Growing marketCurrently, less than 1% of homes employ full smart home technology. But by 2018, HIS Technology, a research firm, predicts that 45 million smart home devices will have been installed, and the annual business volume will have grown to $12 billion dollars. ABI Research predicts growth to $14.1 billion by 2018. The market research firm Allied Market Research projects that the global smart homes and buildings market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 29.5% through 2020, at which point the market will be worth $35.3 billion. Another even more optimistic report from Juniper Research, predicts that the market will grow to $71 billion by 2018.No matter what is the final number, the market, experts agree, is growing, and rapidly. This growth is driven, in part, by the rising tablet market. Smart home DIYers have increasingly found the tablet as an effective remote control to manage all of the systems commonly found in a smart home. Additional drivers include the decreasing costs of smart technologies; increased government regulation regarding energy consumption; increased energy costs; increased consumer awareness of, and concern about, the environment; and consumer security concerns.Other trendsOther notable smart home trends include cloud-managed smart home systems; smart technologies designed to blend in with a consumer’s décor; wireless on/off controls; automated door locking systems; and more advanced security systems.CHALLENGES OF SMART HOMESA recent study by Microsoft researchers determined that the top four barriers to wider adoption of smart homes are the issues associated with linking disparate systems, poor manageability, high cost of ownership, and difficulty of integrating security systems.Linking disparate systemsThe smart home market is fragmented, at present. Many competing manufacturers are developing disparate smart home systems and technologies, as can be seen in a cursory glance at Amazon’s new home automation storefront. It’s easy to integrate devices made by th e same vendor, but that requires, in many cases, consumers to buy replacement devices.Limited functionalityIntegrating devices from disparate vendors often results in limited functionality and unreliable service. Further, many systems on the market have complex interfaces that limit the functionality of smart homes. Finally, app-based smart home systems, while cheaper than fully custom integrated systems, have more limited functionality than full systems. For example, systems like Lowes’ Iris and Revolv are not compatible with home entertainment products.CostsFully integrated custom systems are expensive and often require a consultant to install them, and structural changes to the home, both costs of course tacked on to the price of the system itself. Systems range from $10,000 to $100,000+, well outside the range of the average consumer. A typical package from VIA International, with a home entertainment emphasis, runs about $35,000. This of course, does not include the costs of maintenance and repair.AwarenessDue to the market fragmentation and limited existing consumer adoption, there is little mainstream awareness of what is currently available. The market is almost entirely comprised of the wealthy who are offered the features as part of either new construction or relatively new high-end homes on the market; and do-it-yourselfers (DIYers). Some consumers may not be aware that smart home technologies can be purchased for as little as $150.OtherThe overall demand for housing has a significant impact on the overall demand for smart homes, as many smart home technologies are purchased by construction companies, and integrated into new residential construction. A weak housing market may influence existing homeowners to attempt to increase the value of their homes through home improvement projects, which may include smart home technology integration.Another serious concern is the potential for criminals to hack into a smart home system. This has serious impli cations as smart home systems generally integrate home security systems in addition to others. A recent study by Hewlett-Packard revealed that 250 different security flaws existed in 10 popular smart home devices. Further:“Eight of the 10 devices tested raised privacy concerns regarding the collection of consumer data such as name, email address, home address, date of birth, credit card credentials and health information.80 percent of devices tested failed password security with most devices allowing passwords such as 1234.70 percent of IoT devices examined failed to encrypt communications to the Internet and local network and half allowed unencrypted communications.The user interfaces of six of the 10 devices tested had issues such as persistent XSS, poor session management, weak default credentials and credentials transmitted in clear text.60 percent of devices didn’t deploy encryption with software downloads.”Lastly, consumers in the Microsoft study noted that home automati on did not always suit them. Some consumers quickly grew tired of the automation because they chafed under the imposed structure.POPULAR SMART HOMESMany smart homes are custom-built by construction and architectural firms for wealthy clients. Firms selling smart home technologies in this space include VIA International, Vivint, Creston, Control4, Savant and AMX Home automation. © Flickr | David BerkowitzBeyond this market are less expensive smart home devices and systems, largely manufacturer by security, software and electronics firms. Rival software firms Apple and Google are two major players in this marketspace. Google recently acquired the aforementioned Nest Learning Thermostat for $3.2 billion, and has designs on the home security market. Apple is designing a software platform to control smart home devices, and is in talks with a group of retailers to incorporate it into their devices. Another large player in this market is ATT, whose Digital Life service, consisting of one app and a wireless adapter device, aggregates all services and devices and the consumer pays a monthly fee for this service. Samsung, GE, Comcast, Time Warner, Staples, Best Buy, ADT, Tyco, and other firms are also in the mix.Other players include SmartThings, Piper, Revolv,  Nest, Hue, Kwikset, Sonos, Korus, Dropcam, Honeywell, Yale, Iris, Insteon, and Belkin. Their products ran ge from systems consisting of a starter kit that can be controlled by a remote and access to an app-based ecosphere, to an ecosystem of integrated products. SmartThings and Revolv, for example, consists of an app that supports multiple wireless adapters.FUTURE OF SMART HOMESWhile the smart home market of the present is fragmented and small, and faces many challenges to widespread adoption, the smart home market is growing, in functionality, sales, and expectations. Its future looks bright, at least in part due to the following trends:IOT in Smart Homes Increasing connectivity may one day connect everything in your home, from your placemats to your plant vases. The more connected objects, the more functionality the smart home will possess. IT firm Gartner projects that IoT devices and objects will grow to $300 billion dollars by 2020. And the more connected devices exist, many smart home players hope, the greater the mainstream consumer’s desire to connect them.Robotics in Smart Ho mes © Wikimedia commons | Aldebaran RoboticsMany experts and futurists predict that in the next several decades, robots will be in every household. Whether these are humanoid robots or those more functional in form, their integration into the smart home of the future is a near-certainty. Robots will likely either be fully integrated with the smart home operating system and help manage it, along with providing assistance doing manual tasks. Further robotics technologies of sensing, learning, and adapting, will be crucial to enhancing the underlying functions of the smart home.OtherTo harness the full potential of the smart home automation, disparate manufacturers will have to develop technologies based on common open standards. Very few, if any, firms produce every device found in a household, and it is unlikely that consumers would be brand loyal enough to buy every household device, or even a majority of them, from a single manufacturer. So if manufacturers want to ensure that their de vices talk to others, they will have be developed under common standards â€" standards also shared between software companies. This level of collaboration may take some time â€" many of these firms are direct competitors after all, but it is necessary.The integration of health monitoring equipment could have a tremendous beneficial impact on average families, especially those in rural areas. For example, a home could monitor the heart rates of its occupants and automatically alert others and/or 911 in case a resident is having a heart attack or other health emergency.Futurists have posited that the home of the future will incorporate learning technologies. Recalling the consumers who chafed under the structure imposed under automation, the future iteration of the smart home would learn a consumer’s moods, patterns, and behavior and adjust its “behavior” accordingly. As Tony Fadell, the CEO of Nest, whose products incorporate learning technologies, pointed out in a recent Time Magazine article, devices should adapt to our needs so that we don’t have to think about them.CastleOS Home Automation on Discoverys Epic Image credit:  Flickr | David Berkowitz and Wikimedia commons | Wilgengebroed under Attribution 2.0 Generic,  Wikimedia commons | LCN under public domain, Wikimedia commons | Aldebaran Robotics under  Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

The Smart Home

The Smart Home Imagine, if you would, coming home from a long day’s work. You open the door, and the light’s immediately turn on a shade past dim â€" just the way you like it. It’s 7.58pm and by the time you hang up your coat, take off your shoes and sit down in the living room, it’s time for the basketball game. The television turns one. You dismiss the notification that the television had been recording the pre-game show, and start to watch, but a beep from the kitchen stops you and impels you to enter. It’s your refrigerator, reminding you that there are three perfectly chilled beers inside. You’ll grab one beer and something to eat, but a display on the outside informs you that the leftovers are probably bad by now. You tap a button on the display and your refrigerator dials the local takeout restaurant on our cellphone, which you quickly remove from your pocket. After you place your order and make your way back to the television, you see a second notification that informs you that you’ve forgotten to activate your security system, but that it has been done for you. You silently marvel at how simple life has become as you sit back to enjoy the game. © Shutterstock.com | scyther5This notion of domestic bliss may once have been purely within the realm of science fiction, but may soon be possible with the rise of intelligent home networking / home automation (smart homes). In this article, we will cover: 1) features of the smart home, 2) history of the smart home, 3) benefits of the smart home, 4) research and trends in smart homes, 5) challenges of smart homes, 6) popular smart homes, and 7) the future of smart homes.FEATURES OF THE SMART HOME © Wikimedia commons | LCNThe typical smart home automation would feature seamlessly integrated security systems, refrigerators, televisions, dishwashers, and other electronics and appliances, centrally and/or remotely controlled from a single device. As more devices become connected to wireless technologies (see the Internet of Things, below), the more features the smart home will include. Some of the most common, centrally-controlled, technologies in today’s smart home automation include:Automated door locks and security systems: these can be controlled with a smartphone to other electronic device;Temperature and ventilation controls;Energy consumption monitoring devices;Entertainment systems;Smart lighting systems;Smart appliances;Vehicle detection systems; andPlant and pet monitoring systems.Other typical features of the smart home automation include room-to-room video and audio communication; and notifications sent by the home to a user’s smartphone or other device in case o f a particular occurrence (a break-in for example).HISTORY OF SMART HOMESSmart homes had their origins, as most innovations, in theory long before they become a reality. While science fiction writers, such as Ray Bradbury, depicted these homes throughout much of the 20th century, their genesis lies in the development of the systems that comprise them. The first 20 years of the 20th century saw the invention of the vacuum cleaner, dryer, washing machine, iron, and toaster. The first smart device was created approximately 45 years later. Known as the ECHO IV, it could turn home appliances on and off and control home temperatures; unfortunately, it did not sell well. Home automation technologies began to be built into luxury dwellings decades ago. Disney’s 1999 film, Smart House, provided mainstream audiences with a sense of the possibilities, but the first smart home models and devices began to hit the consumer market in the early 2000s, with the proliferation of the Internet and re lated technologies a decade earlier.BENEFITS OF SMART HOMESThe benefits of the smart home are by no means limited to convenience, although this is a compelling feature. The automation of simple tasks saves us time â€" time that could be spent on our families, our careers, or other passions, which is a strong selling proposition. Smart homes also have the potential to be greener and cheaper: water and energy-monitoring tools, and programs to optimize energy consumption, could impel us to lower our water and energy usage, which could, in turn, lower our bills and reduce our carbon footprint.Automation and centralized control have serious benefits for family caregivers. By integrating home healthcare equipment, such as monitoring and diagnostic tools, smart homes could simplify the caregiving process for the hundreds of millions of adults worldwide who care for an elderly, ailing, or infirm parent or relative. For example, a smart home might allow you to monitor the movements of a rela tive suffering from dementia.RESEARCH AND TRENDS IN SMART HOMESA number of trends are driving the growth of smart homes. These include:Internet of Things (IoT) © Wikimedia commons | WilgengebroedThe Internet of Things (or IOT) is an emerging trend of which smart homes is a subset. IoT involves the integration of digital and wireless technologies in physical objects and systems, especially those historically unconnected. IoT has significant ramifications for the future of smart homes: the more devices that are connected to the Internet, the more can potentially integrated into the smart home system. Examples of IoT as relates to smart homes are the Nest Learning Thermostat, the Chop-Syc digital chopping board, the Toncelli Kitchens digital kitchen countertop, the air monitor Birdi, and the Wattio SmartHome 360 energy monitor.Security systemsSecurity is a major focus of smart home systems. Advanced smart security systems can notify you remotely if there has been an intrusion, detect vehicles approaching your home, automatically lock your doors, provide room-by-room surveillance, and so much more.Growing marketCurrently, less than 1% of homes employ full smart home technology. But by 2018, HIS Technology, a research firm, predicts that 45 million smart home devices will have been installed, and the annual business volume will have grown to $12 billion dollars. ABI Research predicts growth to $14.1 billion by 2018. The market research firm Allied Market Research projects that the global smart homes and buildings market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 29.5% through 2020, at which point the market will be worth $35.3 billion. Another even more optimistic report from Juniper Research, predicts that the market will grow to $71 billion by 2018.No matter what is the final number, the market, experts agree, is growing, and rapidly. This growth is driven, in part, by the rising tablet market. Smart home DIYers have increasingly found the tablet as an effective remote control to manage all of the systems commonly found in a smart home. Additional drivers include the decreasing costs of smart technologies; increased government regulation regarding energy consumption; increased energy costs; increased consumer awareness of, and concern about, the environment; and consumer security concerns.Other trendsOther notable smart home trends include cloud-managed smart home systems; smart technologies designed to blend in with a consumer’s décor; wireless on/off controls; automated door locking systems; and more advanced security systems.CHALLENGES OF SMART HOMESA recent study by Microsoft researchers determined that the top four barriers to wider adoption of smart homes are the issues associated with linking disparate systems, poor manageability, high cost of ownership, and difficulty of integrating security systems.Linking disparate systemsThe smart home market is fragmented, at present. Many competing manufacturers are developing disparate smart home systems and technologies, as can be seen in a cursory glance at Amazon’s new home automation storefront. It’s easy to integrate devices made by th e same vendor, but that requires, in many cases, consumers to buy replacement devices.Limited functionalityIntegrating devices from disparate vendors often results in limited functionality and unreliable service. Further, many systems on the market have complex interfaces that limit the functionality of smart homes. Finally, app-based smart home systems, while cheaper than fully custom integrated systems, have more limited functionality than full systems. For example, systems like Lowes’ Iris and Revolv are not compatible with home entertainment products.CostsFully integrated custom systems are expensive and often require a consultant to install them, and structural changes to the home, both costs of course tacked on to the price of the system itself. Systems range from $10,000 to $100,000+, well outside the range of the average consumer. A typical package from VIA International, with a home entertainment emphasis, runs about $35,000. This of course, does not include the costs of maintenance and repair.AwarenessDue to the market fragmentation and limited existing consumer adoption, there is little mainstream awareness of what is currently available. The market is almost entirely comprised of the wealthy who are offered the features as part of either new construction or relatively new high-end homes on the market; and do-it-yourselfers (DIYers). Some consumers may not be aware that smart home technologies can be purchased for as little as $150.OtherThe overall demand for housing has a significant impact on the overall demand for smart homes, as many smart home technologies are purchased by construction companies, and integrated into new residential construction. A weak housing market may influence existing homeowners to attempt to increase the value of their homes through home improvement projects, which may include smart home technology integration.Another serious concern is the potential for criminals to hack into a smart home system. This has serious impli cations as smart home systems generally integrate home security systems in addition to others. A recent study by Hewlett-Packard revealed that 250 different security flaws existed in 10 popular smart home devices. Further:“Eight of the 10 devices tested raised privacy concerns regarding the collection of consumer data such as name, email address, home address, date of birth, credit card credentials and health information.80 percent of devices tested failed password security with most devices allowing passwords such as 1234.70 percent of IoT devices examined failed to encrypt communications to the Internet and local network and half allowed unencrypted communications.The user interfaces of six of the 10 devices tested had issues such as persistent XSS, poor session management, weak default credentials and credentials transmitted in clear text.60 percent of devices didn’t deploy encryption with software downloads.”Lastly, consumers in the Microsoft study noted that home automati on did not always suit them. Some consumers quickly grew tired of the automation because they chafed under the imposed structure.POPULAR SMART HOMESMany smart homes are custom-built by construction and architectural firms for wealthy clients. Firms selling smart home technologies in this space include VIA International, Vivint, Creston, Control4, Savant and AMX Home automation. © Flickr | David BerkowitzBeyond this market are less expensive smart home devices and systems, largely manufacturer by security, software and electronics firms. Rival software firms Apple and Google are two major players in this marketspace. Google recently acquired the aforementioned Nest Learning Thermostat for $3.2 billion, and has designs on the home security market. Apple is designing a software platform to control smart home devices, and is in talks with a group of retailers to incorporate it into their devices. Another large player in this market is ATT, whose Digital Life service, consisting of one app and a wireless adapter device, aggregates all services and devices and the consumer pays a monthly fee for this service. Samsung, GE, Comcast, Time Warner, Staples, Best Buy, ADT, Tyco, and other firms are also in the mix.Other players include SmartThings, Piper, Revolv,  Nest, Hue, Kwikset, Sonos, Korus, Dropcam, Honeywell, Yale, Iris, Insteon, and Belkin. Their products ran ge from systems consisting of a starter kit that can be controlled by a remote and access to an app-based ecosphere, to an ecosystem of integrated products. SmartThings and Revolv, for example, consists of an app that supports multiple wireless adapters.FUTURE OF SMART HOMESWhile the smart home market of the present is fragmented and small, and faces many challenges to widespread adoption, the smart home market is growing, in functionality, sales, and expectations. Its future looks bright, at least in part due to the following trends:IOT in Smart Homes Increasing connectivity may one day connect everything in your home, from your placemats to your plant vases. The more connected objects, the more functionality the smart home will possess. IT firm Gartner projects that IoT devices and objects will grow to $300 billion dollars by 2020. And the more connected devices exist, many smart home players hope, the greater the mainstream consumer’s desire to connect them.Robotics in Smart Ho mes © Wikimedia commons | Aldebaran RoboticsMany experts and futurists predict that in the next several decades, robots will be in every household. Whether these are humanoid robots or those more functional in form, their integration into the smart home of the future is a near-certainty. Robots will likely either be fully integrated with the smart home operating system and help manage it, along with providing assistance doing manual tasks. Further robotics technologies of sensing, learning, and adapting, will be crucial to enhancing the underlying functions of the smart home.OtherTo harness the full potential of the smart home automation, disparate manufacturers will have to develop technologies based on common open standards. Very few, if any, firms produce every device found in a household, and it is unlikely that consumers would be brand loyal enough to buy every household device, or even a majority of them, from a single manufacturer. So if manufacturers want to ensure that their de vices talk to others, they will have be developed under common standards â€" standards also shared between software companies. This level of collaboration may take some time â€" many of these firms are direct competitors after all, but it is necessary.The integration of health monitoring equipment could have a tremendous beneficial impact on average families, especially those in rural areas. For example, a home could monitor the heart rates of its occupants and automatically alert others and/or 911 in case a resident is having a heart attack or other health emergency.Futurists have posited that the home of the future will incorporate learning technologies. Recalling the consumers who chafed under the structure imposed under automation, the future iteration of the smart home would learn a consumer’s moods, patterns, and behavior and adjust its “behavior” accordingly. As Tony Fadell, the CEO of Nest, whose products incorporate learning technologies, pointed out in a recent Time Magazine article, devices should adapt to our needs so that we don’t have to think about them.CastleOS Home Automation on Discoverys Epic Image credit:  Flickr | David Berkowitz and Wikimedia commons | Wilgengebroed under Attribution 2.0 Generic,  Wikimedia commons | LCN under public domain, Wikimedia commons | Aldebaran Robotics under  Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

The Relationship between Leverage and Investment - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 2181 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? For many years, the relationship between leverage and investment opportunities has been a topic of interest among finance scholars. Recent empirical studies, for instance, Lang et al., (1996) and Aivazian et al., (2005) show that leverage and investment opportunities are negatively related. There are good reasons to believe that at low to moderate debt ratios, further increases in debt ratio lower the required rate of return for initiating investment projects and therefore, more highly leveraged firms should invest more when considering the impact of leverage on the cost of capital. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Relationship between Leverage and Investment" essay for you Create order Under the original Modigliani-Miller propositions, leverage and investment were unrelated. If a firm had profitable investment opportunities, it could obtain funding for these opportunities regardless of the nature of its current balance sheet. However, the capital structure literature has argued that leverage and investment opportunities are strongly related. It is essential to distinguish between over investment and underinvestment when talking about investment. In a seminar work performed by Myers (1977), it was stated that high leverage overhang decreases the incentives of the shareholder-management coalition in control of the firm to invest in positive net present value of investment opportunities, since the benefits are accumulated to the bondholders rather than to the shareholders. Therefore, firms with low levels of leverage are more likely to exploit valuable growth opportunities as compared to highly levered firms. A related underinvestment theory centers on a liquidity effect such that there is low investment no matter a firms growth opportunities if the firm has large debt commitment. Literature has argued that underinvestment incentives are likely to occur especially when firms are highly indebted. Over-investment theory is another possible agency problem where the problem is between managers and shareholders. Managers perceive an opportunity to expand the business even if that means undertaking poor projects and reducing shareholder welfare. Managements ability to carry out this policy is limited by the availability of cash flow and further tightened by the financing of debt. Leverage is hence, a way for overcoming the overinvestment problem showing a negative relationship between debt and investment for firms with low growth opportunities. Whether debt financing induce firms to make over-investment or under-investment is debatable. Taking loans commits a firm to pay cash as interest and principal and managers are forced to serve such commit ments. However, too much debt is considered to be bad as it may lead to financial distress and agency problems. According to Jensen (1986) when firms have more internally generated funds than positive NPV investment opportunities, the presence of debt in the firms capital structure may force managers to utilize the funds in servicing the debt which could have been utilized in investing in negative NPV projects at the detriment of the shareholders interest. Such situation can be coined as the over investment problem. Therefore, debt financing can be utilized as an instrument to curtail the over-investment problem by forcing managers to pay out excess funds to service debt. Hence, for these types of firms, debt financing has a positive impact on the value of the firm. Whited (1992) demonstrated how investment is more sensitive to cash flow in firms with high leverage as compared to firms with low leverage. Furthermore, Cantor (1990) showed that investment is more sensitive to earnings for highly levered firms. Kopcke and Howry (1994) used balance sheet variables as separate regressors in the investment equation and argue that these effects are not important. The Modigliani Miller Theorem (Modigliani and Miller, 1958, 1961) demonstrates that the value of a firm and the investment decisions should be independent from its capital structure. In other words, leverage should have no effect on investment decisions. However, the Modigliani Miller Theorem assumes a world with no taxes, information asymmetries or agency costs. Later theories argue that leverage clearly can matter due to the effect of taxes, information and agency costs (Myers, 2001). Many empirical literatures have challenged the leverage irrelevancy theorem of Modigliani and Miller. T he irrelevancy proposition of Modigliani and Miller will be suitable only if the perfect market assumptions underlying their analysis are satisfied. The interactions between management, shareholders, and debt holders will generate frictions due to agency problems and that may result to underinvestment or over investment incentives. Modigliani et al (1963) argued that we should not waste our time worrying capacity on second-order and largely self correcting problems like financial leverage. It means that firms should not be worried about growth if they are having good projects in hand since they will be able to find means of financing those projects. The tradeoff theory states that firms look for debt levels that balance the tax advantages of additional debt against the costs of possible financial distress. The pecking order theory says that the firm will borrow, rather than issue equity, when internal cash flow is not sufficient to fund capital expenditure. Firms prefer debt to equi ty because of the information investors infer from the decision to issue equity (Myers and Majluf, 1984, and Myers, 1984). An equity issue might signal to investors that the shares are overvalued, causing borrowing to become the better choice. Theory also supports that leverage matters due to the effect on agency costs. Leverage is predicted to reduce the agency costs from the manager-shareholder conflict, thereby mitigating the investment inefficiency resulting from this conflict. Increased leverage has this effect by reducing the free cash flows for self-serving managers to waste in negative NPV projects Jensen (1986). Furthermore, Jensen argues that debt also imposes strong control effects on managers. Debt holders can exert a stronger control of the firm than shareholders. A promise to shareholders to payout a certain amount in dividends is considered weak since it is not binding (dividends can be reduced in the future). Debt creation, however, forces managers to effectively bond their promise to pay out future cash flows. The debt holders have the right to take the firm to bankruptcy court if the firm cannot make its debt service payments. The threat caused by failure to make debt service payments serves as an effecti ve motivation force for managers to make their firms more efficient. Thus, through the reduction of free cash flows and control effects, leverage is presumed to mitigate the manager-shareholder conflict and overinvestment. As explained above, leverage worsens the shareholder-debt holder conflict. Leverage exacerbates overinvestment through asset substitution or underinvestment through debt overhang by increasing the default risk. Hence, the analyses of Myers (1977), Jensen (1986) and Stulz (1990) predict that leverage has an important impact on investment policy. In the model of Myers (1977), debt can create an overhang effect in which the firm can find it difficult to fund new projects because of the payoff from these projects would go to old claimants. If the firm has sufficiently valuable (i.e, positive Net Present Value) projects, this debt overhang effect can reduce value. Jensen (1986) emphasizes on the fact that if the firm has a few profitable growth opportunities, debt can serve a valuable bonding role, by limiting the ability of managers to invest in negative NPV projects. Stulz (1990) provides a formal model of debt choice in which debt limits managerial discretion over the firms undistributed cash flows. In his model, the optimal debt ratio reflects a tradeoff of the underinvestment and overinvestment possibilities as stated in Myers (1977) and Jensen (1986) respectively. Empirical evidence From the above literature, it has been found that leverage constraints investment, firms with valuable growth opportunities should choose lower leverage in order to avoid the risk of being forced to evade some of the opportunities, and debt increases value in firms with poor growth opportunities, but decreases value in firms with profitable growth opportunities. The below existing empirical literature mostly support these propositions. There is support for the overinvestment and the underinvestment theories in the extant empirical literature. McConnell and Servaes (1995) examined a large sample of non-financial firms in US for the years 1976, 1986, and 1988. For each year, they separate their samples into two groups, namely those with strong growth opportunities and those with weak growth opportunities. They found that there is a negative relation between the corporate value and the leverage of firms with strong growth opportunities usually indicated by high Tobins Q, and positively correlated with leverage for firms having weak growth opportunities or low Tobins Q. Furthermore, the allocation of equity ownership between corporate insiders and other types of investors is more important in low growth firms rather than high growth firms. Lang, Ofek and Stulz (1996) found a negative relation between leverage and future growth in a broad sample of firms. This finding is robust to alternative measures of growth and leverage and is not driven by an endogenous relation between leverage and growth opportunities. Lang, Ofek and Stulz (1996) report that the negative relation between leverage and investment exists only for low q firms. This implies that leverage does not constrain investment in those firms in which the market recognizes profitable growth opportunities. Lang et al., (1996) demonstrated that there was a negative relationship between leverage and future growth at the firm level and for diversified firms. They analyze a large sample of US industrial firms over the period 1970-1989 and found that for only firms with weak growth opportunities, that is Tobins q less than one, there is a strong relationship between leverage and investment. Ahn, Denis and Denis (2004) tested the relationship between leverage and investment in diversified firms, defined as those firms reporting at least two segments operating in different 3-digit SIC codes. comprising 8674 firm-years and 24 400 segment-years over the period 1982 through 1997 and their findings suggest that higher leverage appears to impose a greater constraint on investment in the high q segments of diversified firms than in the low q segments. Moreover, Aivazian et al., (2005) analysed the impact of leverage on investment on 1035 Canadian companies over 1982 to 1999. They establishe d a negative relationship between investment and leverage and that the relationship is higher for low growth firms rather than high growth firms. The paper tested the robustness o f these results using alternative empirical models and also employed the instrumental variable approach to deal with the endogeneity problem inherent in the relationship between leverage and investment. The results provide a support to agency theories of corporate leverage. Dang Viet Anh (2007) studied the interactions between the firms financing and investment decisions in the presence of underinvestment and overinvestment incentives. The finding shows that high-growth firms control underinvestment incentives by reducing leverage but not by shortening debt maturity ex ante. The paper also documented a negative effect of leverage upon investment ex post, supporting the hypothesis that leverage has a disciplining role for firms with limited growth opportunities. The paper uses an unbalanced panel of UK f irms that was collected from Datastream which is a database that maintains both cross-sectional and time-series company accounting and financial data. The sample included 1,683 firms. Data on the interest and all the data are collected from 1995 to 2003. Odit and Chittoo (2008) attempted to explore the relationship between financial leverage and investment decisions of Mauritian firms using firm level panel data which comprises of 27 firms all listed on the SEM, sampled over a 15 year period from 1990 to 2004. The results revealed a significant negative relationship between leverage and investment for low growth firm. Furthermore, Frank and Huyghebaert (2008) exploited some of the specific characteristics of private firms to investigate the non linear and multi period aspects of theoretical asymmetric information and agency models explaining the leverage and investment relation. They used the fixed-effects regression based on a sample of 64,246 private firm-years between 1996 and 2005 which support both multi-period and non-linear implications of credit constraints as they reveal a negative impact of leverage on investment expenditures, which reduces in the debt level but never turns positive. Overall, they find no support for the agency model of underinvestment in their sample of private enterprises. Singania and Seth (2010) examined the effect of financial leverage and investment opportunities in India. The sample they used consists of 963 companies that are listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) for the period 2004-2008. The findings of this paper suggest that there is an inverse relation between the debt ratio of the companies and their growth when tested by the pooling method of the panel data. Moreover, Gustafsson and Sunqvist (2010) assessed the effects of leverage on investment efficiency in 216 Swedish non financial listed firms and 1480 observations were collected over the period 1997-2005 and the effects are studied separately for ove r- and underinvesting firms. To measure investment efficiency, they employed three different measures: marginal q, absolute investments Tobins Q. The investment efficiency of overinvesting firms was hypothesized to be improved by higher leverage. The results based on marginal q accepted this hypothesis. The absolute investments and Tobins Q results could not accept nor reject the hypothesis, but indicated an improvement of investment efficiency for overinvesting firms as a result of increased leverage. For underinvesting firms, investment efficiency was hypothesized to decrease with leverage. The marginal q and Tobins Q results rejected this hypothesis. The absolute investments results could only accept this hypothesis on the 10% significance level. Thus, the results of this thesis indicate that investment efficiency increases with leverage for both groups of firms. Thus, the results suggest that leverage improves investment efficiency for over- and underinvesting Swedish firms.

Analysis of the Issues with the Merger or Acquisition of the Two Companies Free Essay Example, 2000 words

The production capacity of the merged company followed by a workforce reduction, decrease in the excess capacities and gaining market share through the competitive advantages as well as a reduction in cost by sharing administrative structure with the help of horizontal mergers (Bischoff, Sallstom Danylow, 2011). Vertical mergers occur in the companies which are operating at different stage leading to the combination of the production and value chains. There can be upstream mergers as well as downstream mergers in the vertical merger activity. Downstream mergers are more common than upstream mergers because companies need to be in a strong bargaining position. There is another factor if the suppliers are specialized in certain products or services where there is a requirement of superior expertise gaining dominance in the negotiation process. The main intention of vertical mergers is to reduce costs with the interlinked processes where more than one party is involved to gain better control over the market happenings. It also helps to cut back on transaction costs to have immediate access to resources avoiding uncertainty and minimizing contractile costs (Bischoff, Sallstom Danylow, 2011; Pikula, 1999). We will write a custom essay sample on Analysis of the Issues with the Merger or Acquisition of the Two Companies or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page There are many reasons for the acquisition, some of them being financial reasons as the purchaser company expects the value of the asset will do better than the price paid for the acquisition. When a company acquires other company through stock purchase then the acquired company can continue to exist as a legal subsidiary of the acquirer.

Art Is a Lie That Brings Us Closer to the Truth - 1227 Words

â€Å"Art is a lie that brings us closer to the truth†- Pablo Picasso Yes, I have tricks in my pocket; I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion. Art is exactly the same: it portrays the truth in the form of a camouflage of words, colour, and speech. People say that art is an imitation of reality; however, it is in fact the total opposite. Reality is restricted by the laws of nature, but art isn’t. It is boundary-less; it can be an exaggeration of reality, it can be the total opposite of reality, it can even be something that is incomprehensible to everybody but the artist. Art is a manifestation of our†¦show more content†¦A famous example in literature is the play Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. A Doll’s House was one of the first in the feminist movement. It was set in a time when women were oppressed into little holes- they had no role in the Norwegian male dominant society. By the e nd of the play, Nora, the protagonist, leaves her husband to become independent. This is symbolical for the necessary change in the women’s role in society, at the time. Through this, Ibsen was able to use art to portray a message to society, so, can art also be considered as a language? It is in fact a language. It is the language of emotion, and at times, it can â€Å"speak louder than words† to bring about a greater sense of moral awareness. At times people may say that art helps us understand the experiences of others, it helps us understand the suffering other people may have gone through. This, however, isn’t true. The only way for someone to experience something is to be right there, in the moment. It cannot be through another source. 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