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Friday Highlights:Fortune, The Register recap Apple vs. Android in 2011, Chloe Albanesius of PC Magazine rewinds 2011 looking at Apple's highs, lows, Steve Jobs' passing; customer satisfaction is why Apple's iPad leads; when it comes to online shoppers/traffic, Apple outguns giants like Walmart, the NY Times, even eBay; a Fortune slideshow highlights how Steve Jobs changed the world; iTunes Match now available in 17 countries; bring back the OS 9 sliding folder tabs in OS X with Tab Launcher; UK's Telegraph tech prediction for 2012 include a real Apple TV; beware, hackers can intercept crash reports when your iPhone sends them in; 90% of mobile purchases were made on iPhones, iPads; 500 iPads to become "official instrument of lawmaking" in Poland; back in 2010, Steve Jobs spelled out reasons for Apple to not build a TV set; how long will MAME, a new arcade emulator last on the App Store?; new stat shows Apple sells 925 iPhones every 60 seconds; MacRumors offers some PDF printouts of exactly what a 7.85" iPad would look/feel like; rumor mill a-churnin' with iPhone 5 arriving in May with iOS 6, A6 chip, and another analyst splashes cold water on 7" iPads in 2012; Macworld reviews Find My Friends iApp, says it does what it says; you can recalibrate the home button on your iDevice; PC Magazine tips for keeping your iPhone safe amidst holiday distractions; The Next Web urges Nintendo to develop games for iOS.
Today's MacUpdate Promo offers 50% off Spell Catcher X 10.4.1. "Spell Catcher X is the powerful writing tool preferred by educators, students, writers, bloggers - anyone who writes on their Macintosh. It's the all-in-one writing solution for those who need standardized custom dictionaries for use in all their applications, those that write in multiple languages, and anyone that simply wants to be a faster, more effective writer."
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"Remains of the Day: The future is hazy"?Macworld?9:15 PM
"Apple's TV spots featuring Santa Claus using his iPhone's Siri is named the No.1 holiday ad for 2011"?New York Daily News?4:11 PM
"Apple's Santa TV spot deemed best ad of holiday season"?AppleInsider?7:06 PM
"Technology predictions for 2012: The birth of Apple TV and failure of Google+ are among the technology team's predictions for 2012"?Telegraph?7:56 AM
"Hackers intercept iPhone crash Reports"?GMA News?7:50 AM
"Study: Apple's iPhone, iPad account for 90 percent of mobile purchases"?GigaOM?10:48 AM
"Apple's iPad still beating Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet in sales"?Washington Post [Free Registration Required]?11:43 AM
"Apple Flexes Bargaining Power With Carriers For Fat iPhone Margins"?Forbes?10:40 AM
"Apple iPad and ebook readers again define the year on The Mobile Gadgeteer"?ZDNet?7:51 AM
"Sejm wants to buy 500 tablets. The savings: Seimas closed the tender for the purchase of tablets for Members. Poland is one of the first countries in Europe, where the iPad will be the official instrument of lawmaking."?Google Polish-to-English: wyborcza?10:03 AM
"Video: Steve Jobs on TV's go-to-market problem/He laid out the reasons NOT to build an Apple television at All Things D in 2010"?Fortune?10:18 AM
"Peek Into Store's Wi-Fi Network Finds 335 Devices"?ifoAppleStore?8:11 AM
"Arcade emulator MAME slips under Apple radar"?The Register?8:02 AM
"Lost iPhone? iMessages might be sent to new 'owner'"?CBS?10:18 AM
"Every 60 seconds: Apple sells 925 iPhones, 2 million people watch online porn, more"?BGR?10:17 AM
"iPhone Case Gift Guide: A Case to Suit Any Personality" [Slideshow]?Techland?8:19 AM
"NORAD brings Santa -- and elf tossing -- to iPads, iPhones, Android devices"?Network World?11:06 AM
Non-Apple News
"GoDaddy Drops SOPA Support, But Not As Such"?TidBITS?3:23 PM
"Vietnam store makes Christmas tree from cellphones"?Associated Press?11:16 AM
"The CIO's lament: 20-something techies who quit after 1 year/Harry Fox Agency's IT chief discusses how hard it is to retain younger IT professionals, especially Java programmers"?Network World?11:04 AM
"Razer Delays Gaming Laptop -- But Sweetens Release"?PCWorld?11:02 AM
"No Ice Cream Sandwich For Galaxy S And Galaxy Tab, Says Samsung"?TechCrunch?11:25 AM
"Republic Wireless Scraps Data Restrictions"?PCWorld?11:02 AM
"RIM Counters Charge of 'Lying' About BlackBerry 10 Delay"?PC Magazine?11:00 AM
"Insurance Against Cyber Attacks Expected to Boom"?New York Times [Free/Paid Registration Required]?10:45 AM
"Facebook fails to deliver on 'social shopping' this holiday season"?Financial Times [Free Registration Required]?10:44 AM
"With Home Entertainment Sales Spiraling Downward, Movie Studios Turn to UltraViolet"?Forbes?10:39 AM
"Raspberry Pi ?16 computer project nears lift-off"?ZDNet UK?11:43 AM
"Bare bones Raspberry Pi PC gets ready to launch"?BBC?10:07 AM
"In Japan, seat sensors that can recognize you"?CNET News?9:54 AM
"AU Optronics taps display chief Peng president"?MarketWatch?9:41 AM
"Say goodbye to Google's App Inventor: Google has reminded its users that the flagship platform to allow anyone to create an Android app will permanently shut down at the end of the year."?TG Daily?11:29 AM
"Here Comes Google's Christmas (Er, Holiday) Greetings"?AllThingsD?9:41 AM
"Retailers Try to Thwart Price Apps"?WSJ.com [Paid Membership Required]?9:36 AM
"Face.com: Facial recognition for the masses"?CNNMoney?9:31 AM
Publications/Podcasts
"Gene Steinberg meets cutting-edge commentator Daniel Eran Dilger and Laptop magazine's Avram Piltch this week on The Tech Night Owl LIVE"?The Tech Night Owl LIVE?1:40 PM
"Selena Gomez talks tech with TUAW"?TUAW?10:08 AM
Deal Brothers Daily Deal: Apple Deals: Order online and Pickup in Store in Time for Christmas
"iOS, Android reach 55% penetration with US installed base of 109M"?AppleInsider?9:15 PM
"iOS dominates mobile shopping with 92% of market"?AppleInsider?9:07 PM
"Steve Jobs riffs on the Library of Congress, education and 'bicycle for our mind"?FairerPlatform?7:34 PM
"Steve Jobs Rendered on an Apple IIC (Video)"?MacTrast?4:07 PM
"Apple at the retail crossroads: Question now is about growth in the store business"?MarketWatch?4:07 PM
"Here's Why The Apple TV Might Be Awesome And Google TV Will Continue To Suck..."?Business Insider?12:40 PM
"Mozilla Firefox, Apple: Hot Trends" [Video Report]?TheStreet?10:23 AM
"Did Smartphones kill the Point-and-Shoot?"?PCWorld?10:08 AM
"The Macalope Daily: The ghost of Apple future"?Macworld [Insider Content]?10:08 AM
"How U.S. Carriers Fool You Into Thinking Your iPhone 4S Is Unlocked"?The Motley Fool?8:23 AM
Non-Apple
"Louis CK makes million, gives it away"?Tech.Blorge?7:09 PM
"Programming resources for kids 101"?ZDNet?11:42 AM
"No real surprise, Samsung not upgrading Galaxy S to Ice Cream Sandwich"?ZDNet?11:42 AM
"Dropbox 2.0: Still the best choice for students?"?ZDNet?11:41 AM
"Last Minute Geek Gift Ideas"?Wired?11:40 AM
"Top 10 tech shocks of 2011"?V3?11:35 AM
"At CES, Everyone's a Keynoter"?Techland?11:33 AM
"Make room, internet, there's another 5 million domains to fit in: .com and .de top the charts in Q3 figures"?The Register?11:31 AM
"Cheating Spreads Like Infections In Online Mulitplayer Games: If you have friends who cheat, you are more likely to become a cheater, according to computer scientists who say this can be used to label you as a potential cheater"?Technology Review?11:26 AM
"Have a White Christmas With Google Maps, YouTube"?PC Magazine?11:01 AM
"Best gameplay of 2011" [Video Report]?MSNBC?10:55 AM
"10 nightmares traveling with tech -- and how to prevent them"?InfoWorld?10:46 AM
"Mozilla's 3 bold bets to keep the Web open: Google's latest agreement with Mozilla will ironically fund three new areas of competition between Google and Mozilla"?InfoWorld?10:46 AM
"Why Deus Ex: Human Revolution is My Game of the Year"?Forbes?10:40 AM
"BlackBerry Bold 9900: The swan song of a standard/The last BlackBerry using the historic OS adds touch, but otherwise is the BlackBerry you've long known and perhaps loved"?InfoWorld?10:15 AM
"Holiday Fun With Personal Collaboration: Use your free time to explore new consumer-driven products--and maybe pick up some valuable IT skills."?InformationWeek?9:57 AM
"Is Yahoo Finally Coming Back To Its Long-Lost Senses?"?Forbes?9:49 AM
"5 reasons to be optimistic about technology innovation in the year ahead"?ZDNet?10:23 AM
"Dear Google: Please, Please, Please Invest More Money In Google Apps..."?Business Insider?8:20 AM
"FAQ: So What's Up With These 'White Spaces,' Anyway?"?AllThingsD?7:57 AM
Humor/Cartoons
"If Car Companies Were Run Like Tech Companies ..."?New York Times [Free/Paid Registration Required]?10:29 AM
"Intel's Dimmer PC View Darkens Outlook For Dell, H-P"?Forbes?10:39 AM
"HP Plugs Security Hole With LaserJet Firmware Update, Says No Record Of Printers Set Ablaze By Hackers"?TechCrunch?11:26 AM
"HP firmware to 'mitigate' LaserJet vulnerability"?CNET News?2:23 PM
"Nokia, Skype, ARM: Microsoft's big year in review/Why 2011 is critical for 2012 at Redmond"?The Register?11:32 AM
"Microsoft Cleaning Up on Patent Licensing Fees"?TheStreet?11:55 AM
"Windows 8 picture security just a toy, claims RSA SecurID inventor: Photo unlock tool is not secure according to expert"?Network World?11:27 AM
"No fix yet for mass Xbox Live error"?TG Daily?11:28 AM
"Oracle, Salesforce Lead CRM Applications Market in 2011: IDC"?eWeek?10:24 AM
"Advanced Micro Devices' New Fusion Processors Are Gaining Ground"?Morningstar?9:44 AM
"Intel's smartphone guru angles for smooth landing"?Reuters?2:19 PM
"Cloud Computing Still Faces Obstacles to Adoption"?eWeek?10:24 AM
"CES 2012: What to expect"?VentureBeat [Free Registration Required]?9:42 AM
"Can you keep your IT staff in 2012? As IT hiring rises, CIOs will find it harder to replace retiring Baby Boomers and retain 20-somethings"?Network World?11:04 AM
"Ahead in 2012: Higher salaries, weaker demand/Commentary: Tech companies face rising costs for skilled workers"?MarketWatch?9:42 AM
"Big Data, analytics get even bigger, hotter in 2012"?IDG News Service?11:05 AM
"For 2012, Power-efficient Servers Could Get a Shot in the ARM"?IDG News Service?11:02 AM
"Tablets: Barclays Cuts PC Numbers on Amazon Success"?Barron's?9:45 AM
"For PCs, Will 2012 Be The Year Without Growth?"?Forbes?9:46 AM
There remains concern that Santa will put coal in a piece of the stocking, says Art Cashin, UBS director of floor operations, speaking of the market rally.
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Twitter / Greg Wrubell: Former New Mexico PG Nate ...Former New Mexico PG Nate Garth had been starting for UCSB, but goes to the bench tonight, along with smallish F Christian Peterson.Il y a environ 5 heuresvia web
Contact: Leslie Shepherd shepherdl@smh.ca 416-864-6094 St. Michael's Hospital
Research suggests some patients get unnecessary exams, others not enough
TORONTO, Ont. -- Hospitals vary greatly in the number of patients who see an internal medicine specialist before major non-cardiac surgery, with rates ranging from five per cent of patients to 90 per cent, new research has found.
The findings are important because they suggest there are no commonly agreed upon standards for which patients should have such consultations, said Dr. Duminda Wijeysundera, a scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).
As a result, some patients may be getting expensive tests and exams they don't need, while others who do need them are not getting them, said Dr. Wijeysundera, who is also an anesthesiologist at Toronto General Hospital-University Health Network.
Dr. Wijeysundera studied the records of 205,000 patients who underwent major elective non-cardiac surgery in 79 hospitals in Ontario from 2004 to 2009. His results were published today in the journal Anesthesiology.
All patients scheduled for elective surgery in Ontario must undergo a preoperative medical history and physical, which are typically done by the patient's family physician or surgeon. Referrals to an internal medicine specialist are usually made at the discretion of the surgeon or anesthesiologist.
One-third of the patients studied underwent a pre-operative medical consultation. Not surprisingly, most were older, were patients at teaching hospitals or hospitals with high volumes of surgery, or had other, pre-existing medical conditions such as diabetes or heart disease.
However, the rates varied widely from hospital to hospital, and could not be explained based on the surgical procedure, the volume of surgeries conducted at the hospital or whether it was a teaching hospital.
"That suggests the forces driving this have little to do with how sick the patient is," Dr. Wijeysundera said. "Further research is needed to better understand the basis for this inter-hospital variation and to determine which patients benefit most from pre-operative consultation."
More research is also needed to determine whether the difference may be explained by individual surgeon's preferences, he said.
Dr. Wijeysundera said pre-operative consultations may be helpful for patients with other medical issues, because it's an opportunity to document and/or treat those pre-existing conditions and take steps to lower their risks for surgery, or even cancel the procedure.
But previous studies have found no clear evidence that these consultations improve patient outcomes. In fact, the studies have suggested the tests and examinations may be associated with longer hospital stays, more post-operative complications and even a slightly higher death rate.
"When performed in patients who are unlikely to benefit from them, these consultations can increase healthcare costs, while exposing some individuals to unnecessary and potentially harmful tests or interventions," he said.
###
About St. Michael's Hospital
St. Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in more than 23 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, and care of the homeless are among the Hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Center, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael's Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.
About ICES
ICES is an independent, non-profit organization that uses population-based health information to produce knowledge on a broad range of health care issues. Our unbiased evidence provides measures of health system performance, a clearer understanding of the shifting health care needs of Ontarians, and a stimulus for discussion of practical solutions to optimize scarce resources. ICES knowledge is highly regarded in Canada and abroad, and is widely used by government, hospitals, planners, and practitioners to make decisions about care delivery and to develop policy.
For more information, please contact:
Leslie Shepherd
Manager, Media Strategy
Phone: 416-864-6094 or 647-300-1753
shepherdl@smh.ca
St. Michael's Hospital
Inspired Care. Inspiring Science.
http://www.stmichaelshospital.com
Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stmikeshospital
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Leslie Shepherd shepherdl@smh.ca 416-864-6094 St. Michael's Hospital
Research suggests some patients get unnecessary exams, others not enough
TORONTO, Ont. -- Hospitals vary greatly in the number of patients who see an internal medicine specialist before major non-cardiac surgery, with rates ranging from five per cent of patients to 90 per cent, new research has found.
The findings are important because they suggest there are no commonly agreed upon standards for which patients should have such consultations, said Dr. Duminda Wijeysundera, a scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).
As a result, some patients may be getting expensive tests and exams they don't need, while others who do need them are not getting them, said Dr. Wijeysundera, who is also an anesthesiologist at Toronto General Hospital-University Health Network.
Dr. Wijeysundera studied the records of 205,000 patients who underwent major elective non-cardiac surgery in 79 hospitals in Ontario from 2004 to 2009. His results were published today in the journal Anesthesiology.
All patients scheduled for elective surgery in Ontario must undergo a preoperative medical history and physical, which are typically done by the patient's family physician or surgeon. Referrals to an internal medicine specialist are usually made at the discretion of the surgeon or anesthesiologist.
One-third of the patients studied underwent a pre-operative medical consultation. Not surprisingly, most were older, were patients at teaching hospitals or hospitals with high volumes of surgery, or had other, pre-existing medical conditions such as diabetes or heart disease.
However, the rates varied widely from hospital to hospital, and could not be explained based on the surgical procedure, the volume of surgeries conducted at the hospital or whether it was a teaching hospital.
"That suggests the forces driving this have little to do with how sick the patient is," Dr. Wijeysundera said. "Further research is needed to better understand the basis for this inter-hospital variation and to determine which patients benefit most from pre-operative consultation."
More research is also needed to determine whether the difference may be explained by individual surgeon's preferences, he said.
Dr. Wijeysundera said pre-operative consultations may be helpful for patients with other medical issues, because it's an opportunity to document and/or treat those pre-existing conditions and take steps to lower their risks for surgery, or even cancel the procedure.
But previous studies have found no clear evidence that these consultations improve patient outcomes. In fact, the studies have suggested the tests and examinations may be associated with longer hospital stays, more post-operative complications and even a slightly higher death rate.
"When performed in patients who are unlikely to benefit from them, these consultations can increase healthcare costs, while exposing some individuals to unnecessary and potentially harmful tests or interventions," he said.
###
About St. Michael's Hospital
St. Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in more than 23 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, and care of the homeless are among the Hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Center, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael's Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.
About ICES
ICES is an independent, non-profit organization that uses population-based health information to produce knowledge on a broad range of health care issues. Our unbiased evidence provides measures of health system performance, a clearer understanding of the shifting health care needs of Ontarians, and a stimulus for discussion of practical solutions to optimize scarce resources. ICES knowledge is highly regarded in Canada and abroad, and is widely used by government, hospitals, planners, and practitioners to make decisions about care delivery and to develop policy.
For more information, please contact:
Leslie Shepherd
Manager, Media Strategy
Phone: 416-864-6094 or 647-300-1753
shepherdl@smh.ca
St. Michael's Hospital
Inspired Care. Inspiring Science.
http://www.stmichaelshospital.com
Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stmikeshospital
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2011) ? Most people remember listening to the official UK top 40 singles chart and watching the countdown on Top of the Pops, but can science work out which songs are more likely to 'make it' in the chart?
New research has looked at whether a song can be predicted to be a 'hit'.
The paper, to be presented at an international workshop this week, argues that predicting the popularity of a song may well be feasible by using state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms. The research team, led by Dr Tijl de Bie, is based in the University of Bristol's Intelligent Systems Laboratory in the Faculty of Engineering.
The team looked at the official UK top 40 singles chart over the past 50 years. Their aim was to distinguish the most popular (peak position top five) songs from less popular singles (peak position 30 to 40). A website, ScoreAHit, about the research is available at scoreahit.com/
The researchers used musical features such as, tempo, time signature, song duration and loudness. They also computed more detailed summaries of the songs such as harmonic simplicity, how simple the chord sequence is, and non-harmonicity, how 'noisy' the song is.
A 'hit potential equation' that scores a song according to its audio features was devised. The equation works by looking at all the UK hits for a certain time and measuring their audio features. From this the researchers had a list of weights, telling then how important each of the 23 features was and allowing them to compute a score for a song.
The team found they could classify a song into a 'hit' or 'not hit' based on its score, with an accuracy rate of 60 per cent as to whether a song will make it to top five, or if it will never reach above position 30 on the UK top 40 singles chart.
Dr Tijl De Bie, Senior Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence, said: "Musical tastes evolve, which means our 'hit potential equation' needs to evolve as well. Indeed, we have found the hit potential of a song depends on the era. This may be due to the varying dominant music style, culture and environment."
The study found some interesting trends, such as:
Before the eighties, the danceability of a song was not very relevant to its hit potential. From then on, danceable songs were more likely to become a hit. Also the average danceability of all songs on the charts suddenly increased in the late seventies.
In the eighties slower musical styles (tempo 70-89 beats per minute), such as ballads, were more likely to become a hit.
The prediction accuracy of the researchers' hit potential equation varies over time. It was particularly difficult to predict hits around 1980. The equation performed best in the first half of the nineties and from the year 2000. This suggests that the late seventies and early eighties were particularly creative and innovative periods of pop music.
Up until the early nineties, hits were typically harmonically simpler than other songs of the era. On the other hand, from the nineties onward hits more commonly have simpler, binary, rhythms such as 4/4 time.
On average all songs on the chart are becoming louder. Additionally, the hits are relatively louder than the songs that dangle at the bottom of the charts, reflected by a strong weight for the loudness feature.
The results of the study differ from previous research, which has so far not been shown to predict hit potential. A possibly important qualitative difference with previous studies is the use of the time-shifting perceptron to account for evolving musical taste.
The MML 2011 4th International Workshop on Machine Learning and Music: Learning from Musical Structure held in conjunction with the 25th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems will be held in Sierra Nevada, Spain on Saturday December 17.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Bristol.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
OMAHA, Neb. ? The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.
He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.
"She told him, `No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."
At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents.
Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.
"She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it," Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to "remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband.
Deppe, who said she's worked in retail for 40 years, had never seen anything like it.
"It was like an angel fell out of the sky and appeared in our store," she said.
Most of the donors have done their giving secretly.
Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.
"I was speechless," Bremser said. "It made me believe in Christmas again."
Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana.
The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store's system.
The phenomenon seems to have begun in Michigan before spreading, Kmart executives said.
"It is honestly being driven by people wanting to do a good deed at this time of the year," said Salima Yala, Kmart's division vice president for layaway.
The good Samaritans seem to be visiting mainly Kmart stores, though a Wal-Mart spokesman said a few of his stores in Joplin, Mo., and Chicago have also seen some layaway accounts paid off.
Kmart representatives say they did nothing to instigate the secret Santas or spread word of the generosity. But it's happening as the company struggles to compete with chains such as Wal-Mart and Target.
Kmart may be the focus of layaway generosity, Yala said, because it is one of the few large discount stores that has offered layaway year-round for about four decades. Under the program, customers can make purchases but let the store hold onto their merchandise as they pay it off slowly over several weeks.
The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store's assistant manager.
"She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn't have the money for it," Graff said.
He called a woman who had been helped, "and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren't going to have anything for Christmas."
"You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people," Graff said.
Graff's store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last 10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.
"To be honest, in retail, it's easy to get cynical about the holidays, because you're kind of grinding it out when everybody else is having family time," Graff said. "It's really encouraging to see this side of Christmas again."
Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but $58 of her $250 layaway bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren.
Stearnes said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else's layaway.
In Missoula, Mont., a man spent more than $1,200 to pay down the balances of six customers whose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store's inventory because of late payments.
Store employees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children's Hospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness.
"She was yelling at the nurses, `We're going to have Christmas after all!'" store manager Josine Murrin said.
A Kmart in Plainfield Township, Mich., called Roberta Carter last week to let her know a man had paid all but 40 cents of her $60 layaway.
Carter, a mother of eight from Grand Rapids, Mich., said she cried upon hearing the news. She and her family have been struggling as she seeks a full-time job.
"My kids will have clothes for Christmas," she said.
Angie Torres, a stay-at-home mother of four children under the age of 8, was in the Indianapolis Kmart on Tuesday to make a payment on her layaway bill when she learned the woman next to her was paying off her account.
"I started to cry. I couldn't believe it," said Torres, who doubted she would have been able to pay off the balance. "I was in disbelief. I hugged her and gave her a kiss."
___
Associated Press writers Michael J. Crumb in Des Moines, Iowa; Matt Volz, in Helena, Mont.; and Jeff Karoub in Detroit contributed to this report.
What happens when you take one of the funniest accounts on Twitter and reproduce it in video form? A glorious, dragtastic rundown of the shit girls say. If any of this sounds familiar, well, it should. More »
Mac RAM Upgrades: MacBook Pro 16GB kits $475, 8GB Kits for $119.99! iMac 16GB RAM Kits (4x 4GB) for $229.99! Mac Pro Memory 32GB Kit for $399.99, 64GB Kit for $889.99! Mac Hard Drives 2TB Seagate SATA II for $249.99! Click Here!
TypeStyler 11 is now in the Mac App Store!! -- Special Holiday Price of
$59.95!! -- To Buy From The Mac App Store Click Here Now!!
Did you know that you can download an online Mac poker game? Start winning right now and play Poker for Mac Now.
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Public release date: 21-Dec-2011
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