Business & Technology

Cleveland chef Rocco Whalen is planning to expand his popular Fahrenheit restaurant and will be opening up a second location in early October. However, Fahrenheit 2 will be opening out of state, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Whalen says that the new Fahrenheit restaurant will be the first open-air rooftop restaurant in Charlotte, located "20 floors above the city skyline." The restaurant will be located on top of The Skye Condominiums, a luxury mixed-use building at the corner of Third and Caldwell streets in Center City, Charlotte. This building also includes a seven-story Hyatt Hotel, a tower of luxury condo living, and six floors of parking.

The 9,000-square-foot restaurant will seat 200 and will feature a pair of linear pits. About 80 percent of the new location's menu will replicate that of the original Tremont location. The restaurant will provide room service to the Hyatt's guests, as well as meals-to-order for tenants in the building, in addition to being open to the public.

A group of former Nokia employees who quit over the Finland-based company's decision to scrap the planned MeeGo operating system in favor of teaming up with Windows has unveiled their own smartphone on Monday, and are hoping to rival the smartphone sector giants.

The smartphone, which is so far just called Jolla, is entirely intuitive and features absolutely no physical buttons. It also has a 4.5-inch touchscreen and features two different colored halves that together form the phone. It is due to go on sale to the public in the fourth quarter, and will retail for 399 euros ($513 USD).

The Jolla smartphone runs on its own operating system called Sailfish OS, which is a successor to MeeGo and is compatible with some Android applications. They are offering Sailfish products to retailer and operator partners for the medium price range.

Jolla is hoping to compete in markets in China, Europe and North Africa, but has no plans to enter the United States' market. Jolla has already signed two distribution deals, one with the largest smartphone retailer in China, D.Phone, and another with the Finnish operator DNA.

The commercial spaceflight company Virgin Galactic announced this week that it is hiring two veteran pilots to bring space tourists to new heights above Earth.

The new hires include retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Massuci and former NASA space shuttle commander Frederick Sturckow, who will work out of the company's Mojave, Calif., location to conduct flight training and testing with the suborbital SpaceShipTwo and its mothership, WhiteKnightTwo.

Adobe has made the decision to not offer the next version of its professional authoring applications on CD-ROMs in shrink-wrapped boxes, instead shifting focus to delivering the software as a service for its Creative Cloud customers. Adobe announced the change at its Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles on Monday.

David Wadhwani, Adobe SVP and general manager of Digital Media, said in a statement:

"We launched Creative Cloud a year ago and it has been a runaway success. By focusing our energy -- and our talented engineers -- on Creative Cloud, we're able to put innovation in our members' hands at a much faster pace."

Adobe will continue to sell boxed versions of Creative Suite 6 and its consumer software such as Photoshop Elements and Lightroom, but will not release a Creative Suite 7. Instead, the software will be offered under the CC brand, to reflect their association with the company's Creative Cloud service.

Nokia has officially confirmed the existence of the Nokia Lumia 928, launching a teaser site for the new smartphone.

The phone is shown taking a picture of a low-light backlit setting, showing off one of the camera features of the new model. The page is on Nokia's U.S. website, which leads many to believe that the 928 is going to be a Verizon exclusive. The Nokia Catwalk and Nokia EOS will likely fill the international demand for a new Nokia handset.

The original, first generation Apple iPhone that was released in the summer of 2007 will officially be categorized as "obsolete" by the tech giant beginning on June 11.

Most consumers have likely discarded these now ancient iPhones in favor of updated versions or completely different smartphones, so the move likely affects very few people. After all, unless hardly used, most of those first gen devices likely already exhausted their batteries, which were designed only to have a lifespan of about two years.

So what does "obsolete" status actually mean? It means that once June 11th comes around, consumers with the device will not be able to have their device serviced at an Apple store. However, AppleCare and third-party authorized service centers will still help out users with the so-called vintage devices.

I'll always remember fondly my first trip to Las Vegas on my 21st birthday in 1997. The remnants of old Vegas were still intact and I remember traveling down Las Vegas Boulevard to see the historic Las Vegas Sands before it met its end to the wrecking ball. Vegas then, and still today, has a way of making people feeling special by throwing free or deeply discounted things at their patrons in return for a nice chunk of your disposable income. Free drinks flow freely and, on my first visit to Sin City, cigarette girls would gladly give you a free pack of smokes or a nicely rolled cigar if you flagged them down and asked for one.

Cleveland's Horseshoe Casino, of course, now has been in operation for a year on the shores of Lake Erie. I, along with three of my siblings, are big players at the establishment, earning the recognition of as Diamond players which basically means we gamble more than our fair share downtown and at the newly refurbished Thistledown where my father worked for over four decades. I know the gambling industry well as I was born into it.

That is why I was shocked, saddened, and disappointed by the policy of Rock Ohio Gaming regarding their table games comps and left appalled by their response when I questioned them about their actions.

I had played a wide array of games and slots earlier this week and asked the pit boss for a comp for a meal. I dropped a substantial amount of money on the night, and I figured a nice meal "on the house" after a good nights play. The pit boss gladly said yes and wrote out a $20 comp for a meal. I was a satisfied customer despite my misfortune on my gambling adventure.

My satisfaction turned to disgust when I logged on to my Total Rewards account the following day. Instead of being comped, the money had been taking out of my Rewards Credits balance, which is a completely separate entity. What is worse, this exact same scenario had happened to me last year and I had already aired my grievances as it is disingenuous to tell someone they had been rewarded for their play when they had not. I immediately fired off an email to customer support that read.

This is the second time this has happened to me and I am beyond annoyed. After playing at your casino for about 3 hours, I asked a blackjack casino pit boss if I could have a comp for a meal. He said, "of course". I was a pleased customer despite losing a good sum of money that night. Upon logging into my account today, I noticed that instead of this being comped, it was taken out of my rewards credits. I play a lot. I hardly ask for anything but when I lose as much as I did that night (some not even on my card as some pitbosses hadn't swiped me in throughout the day) I want a little something back from your establishment. That this has happened again to me, it seems that you are tricking your guests and that really rubs me the wrong way. To say I am upset is an understatement. This policy has to change. You have to be more forthcoming with your patrons. I feel I deserve an apology and to be compensated on my Rewards Credits balance.

Their customer relations person obviously doesn't live by the adage that the customer is always right, which I was, and wrote back this curt email response and didn't offer the apology that I was thought I was due, saying:

Hello Eugene,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be of service to you.

We checked your play from that day and spoke with the Pit Boss that issued you the comp and based on your play you only had Reward Credits available. Meaning you didn't game enough to earn a complimentary buffet or comp meal. So therefore the comp issued was taken from your Reward Credits. As a one time courtesy I will add the 2000 Reward Credits back to your account. In the future when asking for a comp make sure you specify to the Pit Boss if you don't want to use your Reward Credits. They will be able to advise if you qualify for a comped meal at that time or if you will only have Reward Credits available. We certainly apologize for any confusion you had on the comping process.

Respectfully,

(Name Redacted)
Total Service Specialist
Horseshoe Cleveland

Microsoft is rumored to be making some announcements about its Surface tablets in June, including a new 7-inch model and tweaks to the existing models (Surface RT and Surface Pro).

Microsoft is holding its Build developer conference at the end of the month, so it would make sense for the announcements to be made then.

A report from DigiTimes also reveals that Microsoft is being a little less aggressive in terms of quantity of tablets built, because they only sold 1.5 million first generation tablets. So, Microsoft will start with that many of the second generation models to see how they sell, and then go from there. According to DigiTime's supply chain sources, Microsoft has ordered components for 1 to 1.5 million units of the new tablets.

The latest rumors suggest that the second generation Surface tablets will be available in sizes ranging from 7 to 9 inches. The first generation featured larger 10.6-inch devices.

On Wednesday, T-Mobile announced that it had completed its merger with MetroPCS and will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday using the ticker symbol "TMUS."

John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile USA, said in a press release:

"The combination of T-Mobile and MetroPCS creates an even stronger disruptive force in the U.S. wireless market. Together, as America's Un-carrier, we'll continue our legacy of marketplace innovation by tearing up the old playbook and rewriting the rules of wireless to benefit consumers."

MetroHealth System is jumping on the bandwagon of refusing to hire smokers, and will become the third major hospital system in northeast Ohio to do so when the new hiring policy goes into effect on June 1.

MetroHealth's decision reflects a national trend to encourage healthier lifestyles, lower healthcare costs, and increase worker productivity.

Current employees, which number at around 6,100 presently, are not affected by the new policy. However, they will be encouraged to take advantage of various programs to quit smoking and get healthier.