Saturday 15 November 2008

Loading up Amazon.com this Christmas

Amazon's conveyor belt at its Swansea warehouse

Ten years ago, Amazon started selling books. Today, in the UK alone, it is receiving nearly 1m orders a day, having transformed itself into a giant online shopping mall. It is now challenging all the major high street chains for the title of Britain's biggest retailer, shipping millions of items at rock-bottom prices.

Earlier this year it opened one of Europe's largest warehouses in Swansea, 60% bigger than its existing monster-sized distribution centre in Milton Keynes. But already the firm is seeking a site for another huge warehouse as it anticipates sales growth of at least 15%. Other retailers are mired in gloom as consumer spending is hit by the credit crunch. But not Amazon - it is already tooling up for its next big move, with the launch early next year of a low-cost, music download service that could rival Apple iTunes

Loading up Amazon.com this Christmas Money The Guardian

The climate system

image

INTERACTIVE animation of CLIMATE

Good Global Circulation Model

The climate system

Atlas of hidden water

The atlas showing the aquifers of the world may help to provide a legal framework for nations to manage water resources (Image: UNESCO)

What the UNESCO map reveals is just how many aquifers cross international borders. So far, the organisation has identified 273 trans-boundary aquifers: 68 in the Americas, 38 in Africa, 155 in Eastern and Western Europe and 12 in Asia.

Each trans-boundary aquifer holds the potential for international conflict - if two countries share an aquifer, pumping in one country will affect its neighbour's water supply.

Atlas of hidden water may avert future conflict - environment - 24 October 2008 - New Scientist

GLOBALISATION is good