30-04-2012 06:46 Stories: 1)Insurance scheme for children 2)Coir board eyeing 1000 crore profit from exporting 3)Sony with 34 new digital cameras 4)Record sale for gold on Akshaya Thritheeya day 5)Mango season sales
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Money Time 29,April 2012 Part 1 - Video
30-04-2012 12:43 Troubled couples often try to hide money from each other. But electronic discovery is making it a lot easier to uncover all that covert activity, as Veronica Dagher explains on Lunch Break. Illustration: Jason Schneider.
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Hiding Money From Your Spouse Gets a Lot Harder - Video
Your iTunes collection really is a matter of life and death, according to a new report on estate planning by BMO Retirement Institute.
Digital assets, alongside caretaking provisions for parents and pets, are named among the top "new frontiers" often overlooked by Canadians when formalizing their final wishes. The report, published Monday, cites the migration of our personal, professional and financial affairs online, the elevated place of pets in families, and longer life expectancy as reasons for the growing importance of these areas.
"Estate planning is evolving way beyond traditional things like completing your will and power of attorney," says Tina Di Vito, head of the BMO Retirement Institute. "Over the last six months, I've come across all three of these topics in our business here."
In a survey of 1,006 Canadians age 45 and older, 36 per cent of people included at least one digital asset in their estate plan. Of those looking after an elderly parent, 34 per cent had designated arrangements for their care only marginally higher than the 31 per cent of pet owners whose companion animals were accounted for in their final plans.
Di Vito says each of these is critical in its own way, though digital assets likely will affect the greatest number of Canadians going forward. These might include electronic banking information (86 per cent of those 45 and older use at least one online financial tool), e-commerce accounts, social media profiles on sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn, loyalty programs, iTunes collections, digital photos and virtual money (think PayPal credits).
"Upon your death, the rules around this type of thing haven't really been established," says Di Vito. "It becomes more complicated for an executor to step in when they're not aware of assets like frequent-flyer miles and grocery points. Those things have value."
When it comes to pets, kept by half of Canadians 45-plus, three-quarters of owners believe it's important to make arrangements for their care but only one-third have actually done so. Di Vito recommends not only designating a caregiver but also including a monetary legacy for that care; Oprah's dogs, for example, are reportedly looking at a $30 million bequest.
More complex are arrangements for a parent. Di Vito notes that even Canadians who don't act as formal caregivers, or pay for caregiving services, need to make provisions for routine tasks that require help say, shovelling residential snow.
"Should something happen to you, who's going to step in?" says Di Vito. "If there's no mention of it in the estate, there's no legal obligation to the beneficiaries to provide that care."
In Canada, 65 per cent of boomers provide some kind of aid to an aging parent, 22 per cent to a relative, 10 per cent to a friend and eight per cent to a step-parent. Fifty-five per cent of that group, however, have not made provisions for that person in their estate plans, with the most common reason cited by two in five being the assumption of outliving them.
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Digital assets, pet care among 'new frontier' of estate planning
DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b885p9/australia_digita) has announced the addition of the "Australia - Digital Media - Gaming and Gambling" report to their offering.
With the convergence of telecoms, media and IT we saw the arrival of digital media. Digital media has seen some industries diminish while it also has spawned the growth of new industries and seen others expand. In this report we focus on one of the key applications. New video applications are emerging as the internet media companies seek to exploit the added speed and capacity that the National Broadband Network (NBN) broadband infrastructure will provide. As speed and capacity increase and takeup by consumers and businesses we will see a whole new range of applications be entering the market over the next decade.
In one of the applications - gaming, we have seen console games change dramatically, with games, music and movies merging, integrating and moving online. Growing penetration of broadband and mobile broadband networks will also promote further growth in online gaming.
A record growth year for video game sales in Australia was in 2008/09 but by 2012 video games sales have now reduced as there are now many alternative and cheaper outlets for gaming downloads. By early 2012, with the Australia currency still at high levels, the gaming development industry is folding as the cost of producing and delivering games is now becoming cheaper from overseas markets.
Electronic gambling is taking a major share of the player money market and in this report we show some trends in this market area. The Interactive Gambling Act is still under review in 2012 and there may be some guidelines released later in the year. In this report we provide information and analysis and an overview of digital media developments in online gaming and gambling along with survey results with some statistics provided throughout the text and in tabular and easy-to-read chart formats.
Companies mentioned in this report include
Optus, Tabcorp, Sportingbet, FOXTEL, Sky Racing, Australasian Gaming Council, IEAA, Betfair smf and IGEA.
Hot topics mentions in this report include - Electronic gaming machines, interactive gaming, video games, online gambling.
Companies Mentioned
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Research and Markets: Australia - Digital Media - Gaming and Gambling - The Interactive Gambling Act Remains Under ...
Nintendo posted an annual loss of about $534 million on Thursday, the companys first year in the red ever since its financials became a matter of public record. In an attempt to take some of the attention away from the loss while illustrating that it is making changes for the future, Nintendo said in a briefing the next day that it would take more decisive steps toward selling its games through its digital eShop rather than as packaged goods.
Up until now, Nintendo has been the last videogame platform maker to draw a bright-line distinction between physical games and digital ones: A game for one of its platforms may be developed on disc or as a download, but never both. Starting with New Super Mario Bros. 2 for 3DS in August, it will erase that distinction, allowing publishers to offer downloadable versions of their packaged games. The Wii U console will have the same feature.
Its always big news when Nintendo boldly decides to leap feet-first into the present, but the most interesting part of these announcements was Nintendo doing its best song-and-dance to sell the virtues of digital distribution to brick-and-mortar retailers.
It has to, of course. Nintendo may well understand that digital game sales are the inevitable future, but for now it still makes the vast majority of its money selling games through traditional means. So like Microsoft and Sony, it wants to attempt to transition its business from packaged goods to ones and zeroes in a manner that doesnt alienate the GameStops and Wal-Marts of the world.
So it attempted on Thursday to thread the needle, delicately keeping retailers happy while moving toward digital.
This approach can be beneficial for retailers by creating a new business opportunity for them, said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata at the briefing.
Hows that, exactly? Nintendo says that while it will continue to sell downloadable games at the manufacturers suggested retail price (meaning the same price as the physical copy) on its eShop, it will sell bundles of game download codes at a wholesale price to traditional retailers. Thus, retailers will be able to make money on digital sales by selling the download codes to customers who come into their stores, and can reduce the price of these as it sees fit.
By taking this approach, there will not be a situation like, There is no markdown for the digital products while markdowns are the norm for the packaged software, Iwata said.
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Analysis: Nintendo Attempts to Thread the Digital Needle