Work From Home Week 2015 – 19th to 25th January

working from home, work, home workingAs someone who works from home I can vouch for its good points and its bad ones. Mostly it is great, offering flexibility and the chance to work to the best of your potential. No nasty commute needed so it is good for your bank account and the environment too. In fact, this is Work From Home Week and in June 2014, new rights to flexible working laws were introduced in the UK, declaring that all employees – who have worked for the same employer for at least 26 weeks – are eligible to request flexible working, including the option of working from home. In fact, most recent figures now show that around 14% of people in employment are working from home, highlighting the idea that it’s increasingly becoming a viable and attractive alternative for businesses.

Launched in 2003, Work From Home Week, running from the 19th to 25th of January, puts a spotlight on this rising figure, raising awareness of working from home for both employers and employees alike.

In a time of constantly evolving technology, it’s never been easier to access information away from the office, so we’re calling on employers to embrace the opportunity as a way to boost happiness and productivity among their employees.

Graham Long, Vice President of the Enterprise Business Team at Samsung UK supports working from home.

‘’At Samsung, we believe it’s vital for people to be given the option and the tools to work flexibly, which is why we view Work from Home Week as an important and worthwhile initiative.

“Our own research reveals over a quarter of workers would opt for flexible working over a pay rise, and more than four in 10 (42%) employees strongly agree with the idea of being able to access work emails and apps outside of official working hours. Despite this, many businesses still don’t trust their employees to do so, highlighting the need to educate enterprises on the benefits of working from home. The option to work more flexibly can have a huge impact on productivity and wellbeing and with advancements in mobile technology, it is now possible for employees to work beyond the confines of the office, making working from home a choice that should be open to all rather than a select few.’’

Of course, for many across the UK, working from home isn’t just for a week. For the hundreds of single parents, carers, injured veterans and those living with disabilities, working from home is a necessity.

To celebrate working from home, the team behind the campaign have compiled the top 5 reasons to consider it!

Money – Not only would you save money on travel costs – train tickets, petrol, parking, etc. – but not eating out for lunch on a regular basis is bound to save you some pennies too. For parents, it gives the opportunity to radically reduce the costs of childcare.

Commute – Forget about delayed trains or road traffic dampening your spirits.

Comfort – Rather than donning a power suit or being restricted to a desk all day, choose your own dress code and working environment.

Green Living – Working from home can help reduce your carbon footprint, conserve office space for your employer, and perhaps most importantly, allow you to be the master of your own environment!

Freedom/Flexibility – Having the freedom to choose your hours and coffee breaks, while not being dragged in and out of corporate meetings all day is something that could potentially boost your overall moral and work ethic. Not to mention it allows you to create that ideal work/life balance.

Work From Home Week runs from the 19th – 25th January 2015. Twitter @WorkFromHomeWK  #WFHW

 

Samsung Gear VR

Samsung VR

This is the Samsung Gear VR, a wireless virtual reality headset that marks the company’s first steps into the wearable future tech arena previously pioneered by Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus.

What makes this baby different? Well the headset houses the Galaxy Note 4 and uses that as the screen to create the 360 visuals. Samsung says with Gear VR people can ‘fully immerse themselves in a cinematic virtual reality environment’. Samsung says the Note 4’s quad HD screen provides ‘stunning and engaging visuals’. First testers likened the experience to sitting in the best seat of a theatre or being ‘on-stage at a performance with full 360 3D video’.

First impressions are that it looks state of the art and very cool, but what is it for? Playing virtual reality games and watching 360-degree videos of course. Questions also arise when you think of the technology, Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus have been years in the making and both products have individual screens; one for each eye. Project Morpheus uses the PlayStation Camera to maintain calibration. I don’t know about you but when using maps on my mobile phone it annoyingly repeatedly needs recalibrating so quite how it will work without this issue remains to be seen. However by turning the phone into a functioning VR kit one thing is clear and that is Samsung seems intent on making 360 experiences accessible as possible. It’s interesting too that given the Google Glass they have chosen to go in a completely different direction.

So how much does it cost? Well first views are that the headset may cost around the £250 – that is separate from the phone itself. However given the likelihood of different deals by various companies this may change.

Keep it tuned to Frost for more details.

 

Christmas Gift Guide For Your Favourite Person

Fattoria La Vialla Hamper

Our love for Fattoria La Vialla is widely known. They do the best organic Italian food which is grown and made on their family-owned farm, it is then sent to you straight from Tuscany. Give a hamper to your favourite person, but make sure they are your most favourite person in the entire world.

Fattoria La Vialla HamperThe iPad Mini

Our editor bought  Apple’s iPad Mini for her fiance. Mostly because he proposed this year. It is the ultimate ‘you are amazing’ gift.

iPad-Mini

Kindle Paperwhite, 6″ High Resolution Display with Next-Gen Built-in Light, Wi-Fi
Kindle paper white christmas gift

Great for the book lover in your life.

If you favourite person it not an Apple lover then you get them the 7″ Samsung GALAXY Tab when you buy a Samsung camera. Win win.

samsunggalaxyfreecamera_

Free 7″ Samsung GALAXY Tab 3 7.0 with Selected Samsung SMART NX Cameras
Purchase a qualifying Samsung SMART NX Camera from Amazon.co.uk between November 1, 2013 and January 6, 2014 and claim a free 7″ Samsung GALAXY Tab 3 7.0 tablet PC from Samsung.

Their Favourite Movies on DVD or Blu-Ray

christmas, ghristmas gift guide, what to buy for christmas

 What will you buy your favourite person this Christmas?

Funniest Viral Video Ever? Bear Interrupts Samsung Crew

Just what you need when you are trying to set up a shoot, a bear joining in on the fun. This video is the funniest video we have seen in a long time.

We all need clean clothes but doing a lot of washes at high temperatures is not good for the environment. Maybe one of the reasons the bear was so interested was that the Ecobubble from Samsung allows washing at 15degrees so uses 70% less energy than a 40degree wash cycle. Not only that but it mixes air and water to create bubbles allowing the detergent to quickly penetrate clothing. This means less energy, a smaller wash cycle and less wear-and-tear to clothing – result. It is advertising at it’s best, so well done Samsung for being entertaining.

http://www.samsung.com/uk/ecobubble/

Sponsored Post.

Money Shot: The Beginning Of The End For Cash?

According to the comics of the last 50 years, the future would be one long time of leisure. By now, we’d have moonbases, flying cars and robots to attend to our every need.

Instead, the moon is a forgotten, lifeless dusty shell, cars clog up our roads and if you can find a robot capable of more than a few token gestures before it falls flat on its face, you’re doing pretty well. But as we face up to our brave same old, same old world, there is one prediction that is, if not knocking on the door, is at least approaching from the bus stop down the street.

The cashless society.

Umpteen pulp stories, or sci-fi novels boast about how money has long been discarded by the gentle, enlightened society. But, cynic that I am, I was still less then impressed by the mailshot I received from Barclays today.

The bank has joined forces with Orange to launch the Samsung Tocco Quick Tap Phone.

In short, according to the blurb: “It lets you pay for things £15 and under – like coffee, sandwiches and magazines – quickly and easily. So no more fumbling for change at the till. Just tap to pay, and go.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to get frustrated at having to dip into my pocket for a handful of change. And I’m willing to bet it scores fairly low on anyone’s scale of irritants, certainly behind screaming children in restaurants, queue-jumpers in pubs and, oh, pretty much everyone on reality TV.

Considering mobile phone theft is now scaling new heights, what an added bonus it may be to pinch someone’s phone that also carries a little spending power.  In fairness, Barclays and Orange have anticipated this and the user has the option to set up the phone with a PIN number, while Barclays also insist the phone will carry the same fraud protection as a card.

However, how the snappily-named Tocco Quick Tap compares to the iPhone in terms of other functions remains to be seen, but somehow I can’t quite see Apple shaking in their boots. It may just be the phone really is as safe as houses because it’ll be considered too uncool to steal.

It’s difficult to say if we’re standing on the edge of a brand new world. Personally, in this format, I can’t see it catching on in any big way, but I’m sure someone said that about the internet. Or it may be that someone else will pick up the ball and run with it using bigger, better technology. If that’s the case, pick up your Tocco Quick Tap soon, before it goes the way of Betamax and the Sinclair C5.

www.orange.co.uk/newmovement

Picture courtesy of Petr Kratochvil – http://www.publicdomainpictures.net