Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Their new Arizona plant is a test case for every conceivable kind of sustainable upgrade to manufacturing.

While cities like San Francisco are awash in boutique bread shops and dirt-cheap farmer's markets, others (like Detroit) don't even have supermarkets. These so-called food deserts typically offer mostly standard corner-store fare like Jell-O, Ritz Bitz, or Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. So it's strange that Triscuit, another--albeit slightly healthier-tasting Kraft product--is now making a play to be associated with anti-food desert urban gardening projects

Some of SXSW's hottest startups say they're here to help small businesses compete, but eBay execs say those merchants want something else entirely. You'd think that wave-and-pay smartphone technology would be top priority for PayPal, one of the biggest competitors in the mobile payments space. But while big retailers love NFC for its hyper-targeted marketing potential , small businesses that run on payment services like PayPal may actually be interested in mobile payments for something far humbler: customer loyalty

It's time to break out the manuscripts for Avon Impulse, a new digital romance imprint from Avon Books. The imprint launches next week with "A Lady's Wish," an e-novella from popular author Katherine Ashe--but amateurs also have a chance to get in on the action. The Avon Impulse website provides a simple form for aspiring authors to upload their manuscripts, along with general descriptions and answers to questions like, "What's your best line of dialogue?" and "Post the best scene or the first 1,000 words." The site helpfully suggests popular subgenres, such as steampunk, vampire, ghost, and shifter (who knew werewolves and their ilk so titillated the masses...?).