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The U.S. patent, granted June 9, is for an “electronic input device such as an electronic pen” that can be used to point at paper documents and locate the corresponding digital version. Patty Smith, a spokeswoman for the Seattle online retail giant (NASDAQ: AMZN) declined to comment. Amazon launched two new Kindle electronic readers this year, most recently the Kindle DX.
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The Trunk Club gives men their own personal shopper via Skype video sessions who try to figure out what kind of clothes they wear, what is lacking in their wardrobe, and what kind of clothes they might be willing to try. (These are real people, not virtual personal shoppers like Covet). Then they put together about nine different pieces of apparel and send it to the customer in a FedEx box. Once a man (the service is only for men) gets his “trunk” of clothes, he tries them on via another Skype session (he is supposed to change off camera, but I am sure some perv customers will “forget”), gives his feedback to his personal shopper, and then decide which ones to keep. He can return any or all of the clothes at no expense to him. He only pays for what he keeps.

The business model is the same as a retail store. The Trunk Club buys clothing at wholesale and sells it at a normal retail markup. Except that the company has deals with clothing manufacturers which doesn’t require it to buy any minimum inventory. In fact, there is no inventory. Clothes only gets shipped when there is a customer who needs a particular item. It is not a discount service. But the personal shoppers come for free (thanks to Skype and the Internet). Customers don’t pay anything extra for them as they would in a fancy department store. The personal shoppers get a commission based on how much clothes they sell. And the men who are its customers never have to step foot in a store again.

I went through a mock session with one personal shopper from the Trunk Club, Lisa Bruckner. She was very personable and it was fun talking to her. I told her what kind of clothes I wear (jeans or suits, depending on where I am going), what is missing in my closet (polo shirts for summer), my measurements, and other details. Normally, she would then have a box of clothes sent to me and then we would have more back and forth on Skype to fine tune the selection process. But since I was on deadline, I asked her just to send me pictures of what she would have sent (see below). Of the nine items she sent, maybe three of them are things I would actually buy. I’m not really a $48 T-Shirt kind of guy. The Hugo Boss dress shirt looks decent, as do the Penguin Polo, and the pants. But that orange Polo just wouldn’t fly in New York (maybe Palm Springs). I was hoping for better results, but then I am really picky. I am sure that with a little back and forth Lisa would soon be able to hone into my quirky style. However, my wife (who has final say in what I am allowed to wear out the door) was not a fan of the selection, and didn’t like the idea of another woman picking out clothes for me. But she likes shopping, so she doesn’t see the appeal of the service.

The part I don’t like about the service is that you don’t get to see what your personal shopper picked for you until it arrives in the mail. I guess there is an element of surprise akin to opening up a present, but you really have to trust your personal shopper to know what you want. At least initially, it would make more sense for there to be some back and forth digitally between the customer and the personal shopper (with the personal shopper presenting a few ideas and then narrowing them down quickly).

The other problem the Trunk Club is going to have to deal with is men who sign up not because they want to spend $572 for a box of clothes, but just because they are lonely and want to talk to a woman over video Skype. (All the personal shoppers are attractive women). There is a whole perv element that these personal shoppers are going to have to learn to deal with, but all they need to do is hang up and block those men from Skype.

The Trunk Club was started by Joanna Van Vleck, a personal stylist who opened up a showroom for her clients in Bend, Oregon. She was planning to open up retail outlets across the country where men could come in for their personal shopping sessions, but her angel investor backed out after the economy tanked. By necessity, she turned to the Skype model and only needed $50,000 in angel capital to get going. She has been in private beta with about 600 customers for the past six months. She now has 21 shopping experts working on commission, and is adding 5 to 6 every month. The Trunk Club’s hybrid approach is both high touch and scalable at the same time. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more retail concepts like this spring up in different categories, with real people helping you make a buying decision over Web video.

Sharp growth in online spending predicted. Internet shopping is set to defy the economic downturn, with higher numbers of people using their credit cards to buy goods online.

A report from Verdict Research shows that total online spending is set to grow from £2.4bn this year to £30bn in 2013 – with branded items such as electronic goods helping to drive up sales.

If the forecast proves correct, it would mean that roughly £1 of every £10 spent on retail goods is transacted via the internet in four years’ time.

Verdict Research also identified credit card driven online sales as a potential recession-buster for vendors.

The total retail sector is predicted to contract by 0.6% in 2009, but the online market is on course to grow by 13% over the same period.
Malcolm Pinkerton, senior retail analyst at Verdict Research, commented: “The more affluent groups, who do still have money to spend, continue to appreciate the internet for its convenience, making the channel doubly resilient to the downturn.”

He added: “The key for individual retailers is to formulate two clear strategies: one for succeeding through the recession and one targeting growth beyond this, as the online channel begins to approach maturity.”

Customers using credit cards, rather than debit cards, to purchase goods online enjoy greater legal protection from fraud.

Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act allows cardholders to claim against their card issuer, as well as their supplier, if they suffer breach of contract or misrepresentation for items costing over £100.
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Svendsen, who is co-director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center at UW-Madison, will start his new position on Dec. 1.

“It was nothing lacking from Wisconsin,” Svendsen said of his decision to leave UW-Madison. “This was a remarkable opportunity. Really, there wasn’t much they could do to keep me — it was a very spectacular offer.”

Svendsen, who arrived in Madison in January of 2000, said he also had strong personal reasons for wanting to head out west. The native of Sidmouth, England, noted that his wife, who is pregnant, is from Los Angeles and has family in California.

“So even if (the UW) had been able to match the offer, which they couldn’t, I had already decided to move for family reasons anyway,” said Svendsen, who refused to talk about the financial details surrounding his new position. “I want to make it clear that it wasn’t because of a lack of anything here in Madison. Ten years is a good amount of time to be in one place and I’m ready for change and a new challenge, and it really is a big challenge.”

Tim Kamp, also co-director of UW-Madison’s Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center, said he was happy for Svendsen.

“We owe Clive a great deal of gratitude for all the contributions he has made here, both administratively with the stem cell center and with the scientific progress he’s made and the many researchers he has helped train,” said Kamp. “I think this is just another indication that Wisconsin is a highly regarded university for stem cell research. Clive won’t be the only one who moves on.”

Svendsen, a UW-Madison professor of neurology and anatomy, has performed ground breaking research focused on modeling and treating neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) using a combination of stem cells and powerful growth factors.

“I’ll still keep the research going and my focus will still be ALS and Parkinson’s disease,” said Svendsen. “So I keep my research lab and will keep my grants going. And then I’ll have many more responsibilities because I’ll be running the new institute.”

It is not yet clear how many people from Svendsen’s lab will leave UW-Madison to join the researcher in Los Angeles. He said he and 14 co-workers will head to California on Thursday to check out the massive Cedars-Sinai medical complex. Svendsen said about 10 of the 18 workers in his lab are seriously considering making the move.

“Keeping as many of those people with me is very important for consistency reasons,” said Svendsen.

By moving his lab across the country, Svendsen said he will take roughly $500,000 per year in federal research money with him. Other research dollars Svendsen helped bring in will stay at UW-Madison due to collaborative studies with others on campus.

Svendsen’s colleagues were sad to see him go, but said they understand the realities of the business.

“This is indicative of the quality of our programs here,” said Paul DeLuca, vice dean for research and graduate studies at the School of Medicine and Public Health. “The fact that we’re able to have our faculty rise to the absolute top nationally is a measure of the effort and quality that we have here. It was just an opportunity that was so spectacular, he had to go. So it’s a bittersweet conclusion, but we’re parting on more than friendly terms with Clive.”

Added Kamp: “Clive is a valued colleague and we’re all disappointed to see him move. But it’s the reality of academic medicine. People move and he had a pretty remarkable offer. It was a disappointment, but he’s leaving on good terms and I expect long-term collaboration.”

According to Cedars-Sinai officials, the new Regenerative Medicine Institute will unite scientists from a range of fields with specialist clinicians, physician scientists and translational scientists across multiple medical specialties to translate fundamental stem cell studies to therapeutic regenerative medicine.

Svendsen said he was attracted to Cedars-Sinai because of the medical center’s strong commitment to translational medicine and its ability to move research from the lab to the patient as quickly as possible.

“Cedars-Sinai has always been known more for its clinical side, and now it’s investing very heavily in the science side,” said Svendsen, who wouldn’t divulge the estimated yearly operating budget for the new institute. “That’s very exciting.”

Svendsen said he will focus most of his energy on his work at UW-Madison until he starts his new post in December. In fact, he plans to move his lab from the Waisman Center to the new Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research facility next month. And even after he moves to California, Svendsen plans to keep in touch with the many scientists at UW-Madison who he is currently collaborating with in shared research projects.

Svendsen said deans at the medical school also have offered him a non-paying appointment within UW-Madison.

“I may even keep a very small lab with some people working here,” said Svendsen.

DeLuca said he plans to start a search for another co-director of UW-Madison’s Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center.

“The reason I appointed both Tim and Clive is that running a center like that takes a lot of effort and there’s a real advantage of having a partnership,” said DeLuca. “So we’ll be enthusiastic about trying to either appoint or recruit a new co-director.”

Svendsen has worked with renowned UW-Madison stem cell biologist Jamie Thomson on several projects over the past decade.

UW-Madison has been viewed as a global leader in stem cell science since Thomson first isolated human embryonic stem cells here in 1998. The discovery was significant because these stem cells are capable of transforming into cells from any tissue in the body. Scientists say these so-called pluripotent cells hold the key to discovering the causes and cures for many human ailments, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, juvenile diabetes, blindness and spinal cord injuries.

Anti-abortion groups and social conservatives are strongly opposed to this type of research, however, as days-old embryos — most of which come from fertility clinics that are set to be thrown away — are destroyed to create the stem cell lines.

In 2007, UW-Madison’s Thomson and Junying Yu, and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka discovered induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, which are skin cells reprogrammed back to an embryonic-like state. Some believed this discovery meant the days of stem cell research being synonymous with controversy were over.

While that might some day be true, the world’s top researchers say more study of these skin cells is needed to ensure they don’t differ from embryonic stem cells in unexpected ways.

It was a milestone, experts said, that should make it easier to produce animals with versions of human disease for medical research.

Animals that get added genetic material are called transgenic. While researchers have long created transgenic mice and other animals by giving them extra genetic material, monkeys offer a promising avenue for medical studies because of their similarity to humans.

Researchers have added genes to rhesus macaques before by injecting embryos, but the new work is the first documentation that such genes can be passed along to future generations of monkeys. That’s important because it opens the door to creating colonies of transgenic monkeys by breeding, which would be far simpler than the cumbersome process of making each animal from scratch by injecting a gene into an embryo.

The work is reported in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature by scientists at the Central Institute for Experimental Animals in Kawasaki, Japan, and elsewhere in that country.

The researchers plan to use transgenic marmosets to study such conditions as Parkinson’s disease and Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS.
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Anthony Chan of the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta said the result boosts his confidence that his transgenic macaques will also pass along their added genes to offspring, once they become old enough to reproduce.

For the study, the researchers used a gene that makes tissues glow under ultraviolet light, as an easy way to see where the gene is present. They put the gene in a virus that would insert it into the DNA of cells, and then injected the virus into marmoset embryos. From these embryos, five healthy marmosets were born. All showed evidence of having inherited the gene.

Later, one of those animals fathered a male by test-tube fertilization. The gene was shown to be active in the offspring’s skin.

“The birth of this transgenic marmoset baby is undoubtedly a milestone,” Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a colleague wrote in a Nature commentary.

Transgenic marmosets could be useful for studying infectious diseases, immunology and neurological disorders as well as some genetic disorders like muscular dystrophy, they wrote. But marmoset biology differs enough from humans to prevent study of other disorders like AIDS and tuberculosis, which can be approached instead through other monkeys that are more closely related to humans, they wrote.

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos told shareholders at a recent meeting the entire digital-books industry is still growing and therefore the Kindle reader should not be considered an income generator for the company, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

There has been speculation in the publishing industry that Amazon.com will likely post losses related to Kindle, an electronic tablet that allows users to download and read books in a computerized format.

The Journal said those predicted losses could be due to the fact Amazon.com offers more than 290,000 e-books for $9.99 or less. Those prices are considered less than what Amazon.com is likely paying publishers for the right to sell the literary works.

Amazon has also confirmed the Kindle has proven to be significantly higher to make than initially projected, the Journal said.

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