English Time with Yves

  Watch :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrVmb3QBg2U A British firm has developed a new product to help us save money. The product is a wristband that gives us an electric shock if we spend too much money. The wristband is called Pavlok. It is linked to our bank account. It knows how much money we have in the bank. If we go shopping and there is not enough money in our bank account, the wristband delivers a 255-volt electric shock to our wrist. This warns us not to overspend. The company is called Intelligent Environments. It wants to work with banks to help customers with their money. So far, no banks in Britain have said they would offer the Pavlok to their customers. They could start doing this in the future. The Pavlok wristband is part of the Internet of Things. This is the idea that everything in our life will be connected to the Internet. The CEO of Intelligent Environments, David Webber, said people liked the idea of the Pavlok. Shoppers would rather get a small el...

British banks have been placed under the microscope over the fairness of charges to customers who go over their authorized overdraft limits. Tens of thousands of customer complaints about how high these charges are has led Britain’s competition watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), to launch a court case against the banks. The OFT has been investigating charges for unauthorized overdrafts since March to determine whether or not they are unfair. It believes the charges are too high relative to the costs to the banks. This is being greatly disputed by eight of Britain’s leading banks, who have agreed to a test case to settle the issue once and for all in court. They say there are many costs involved when a customer goes overdrawn without first getting permission to go in the red. Banks currently fine customers as much as $80 for a single bounced cheque. Industry analysts believe the actual cost to the bank for these bounced payments could be as little as $4 – especially as the proc...

    A new report reveals that going on summer holiday may be more stressful than  working. The study, by the UK’s Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), questioned 2,500 of its members about attitudes towards long summer breaks. It found forty per cent of managers do not come back from a holiday feeling relaxed. A worrying finding was that many workers came back from a holiday more stressed than when they left. Many in lower- and upper-management positions actually work while they are on vacation. The researchers discovered that 80 per cent of those  surveyed answer work-related e-mails, around 50 per cent make and take business -related phone calls and 10 per cent go into the office. Over 90 per cent of managers worried about returning to hundreds of e-mails. Information technology and the weakened global economy are the main causes of managers being unable to de-stress while on holiday. Penny de Valk, chief executive of the ILM, said: "Gone are the days when...

  Watch : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYabQyOCqlE Scientists have discovered that stress is one factor in turning our hair grey, white or silver - at least, in mice. Stem cell biologists from Harvard University in the USA conducted a series of tests on mice to ascertain the effects of stress on the rodents. The scientists injected the mice with an ingredient found in chili peppers that gives them their heat. The compound made the mice stressed. This caused a hair-colouring pigment in the mice to go into overdrive as a reaction to the stress and deplete colour-regenerating stem cells. This caused the mice's hair to rapidly turn white. Lead researcher, Professor Ya-Chieh Hsu, said: "The detrimental impact of stress that we discovered was beyond what I imagined." People have wondered for centuries about the link between stress and greying hair. It is believed that France's Queen Marie Antoinette's hair turned white the night before she was beheaded durin...