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These changes have largely been welcomed by the vendors and retailers, but many say they were alarmed when they noticed two huge changes in Ashkenazy’s plans: the new plans do not include a place for pushcarts or food counters, and a number of businesses have reportedly received eviction notices.

In a public hearing at City Hall on Monday, December 19, Ashkenazy said four food stalls will be evicted to make room for two sets of elevators and staircases near Quincy Market’s rotunda. Two of this number, Boston Chowda Co. and Monkey Bar, have been offered new leases in different locations. Others, they said, owe a total of $750,000 in unpaid rent.

Despite their statements, however, many retailers are upset with the way the company has treated the evictees. One of the businesses, an Italian fast food stand called Al Mercatino, has been operated by the Bistany family for 30 years. The current owner, Johnny Bistany, reports that they had never been late on rent or had problems with management until they received an eviction notice from a constable in November. Ashkenazy has reportedly suggested that the family merge Al Mercatino with another food stall they own, called West End Strollers, which specializes in Middle Eastern fare. The Bistanys have testified that this is not enough space for the family to continue their operations.

Previously, the property management company had not provided many details on how the changes would affect their tenants until pressed. In response to the displaced push carts, Ashkenazy said that they would be reducing the number of existing pushcarts to 56, instead of 59. However, they said that there were no immediate plans to evict other food vendors. While seemingly less drastic and severe, this announcement has impressed few, especially given the profits Ashkenazy stands to make from the renovations: as previously mentioned, the company collects 75% of Faneuil Hall Marketplace’s tenant rent payments, whereas most property management companies collect only 8-10% of a property’s monthly rent.

If allowed to continue, the renovations will begin in early 2015.

With so many consumers tethered to their mobile devices, it’s only natural that many would turn to mobile technology to innovate their holiday shopping experiences. Several apps out there have not only been streamlining the holiday shopping experience, but also helping users earn money back.

“It’s a way to make life easier,” said Bryan Leach, the CEO and founder of mobile shopping app Ibotta. “In recent years you’ve really seen the rise of mobile influence in store sales. Look how often people check their phones. It’s a virtual daily habit. It’s addictive.”

The idea behind Ibotta is to attract mobile users back into physical stores, as opposed to relying exclusively on online deals. It offers consumers a cash-back deal when they make a purchase from the 200 different retail brands working with Ibotta, like Best Buy.

Ibotta is simple. Users unlock rebates on products by searching through various categories. Once all is said and done and the user has purchased the goods, he or she takes a picture of the receipt, and within 48 hours, Ibotta will deposit cash back into the user’s account.

In just two years, the app has helped its users earn more than $15 million back on rebates.

Of course, some consumers aren’t entirely sure what they want. They have no specific product in mind. Some of our loved ones can be pretty hard to shop for, after all. For these users, there’s Shopkick, which has already been downloaded six million times.

Shopick offers a feed of deals and products available in the user’s geographic region, providing info on certain goods that are trending and customizing finds based on the user’s past purchases. Essentially, it’s an in-the-know shopping companion. What’s more, Shopkick users accrue points called “kicks” that they then use to get free gift cards.

“It’s really changed the way I shop,” Scherri Umensetter, a Shopkick user of three years. So far, the app has earned Umensetter three $300 Coach gift cards. Now, she exclusively shops at stores that provide her with kicks.

Once the shopping is done, though, users still need a way to get their gifts to the intended recipients, who might be hundreds of miles away. This is where Slice comes in.

According to its website, “Slice works seamlessly with your email inbox to find and store the e-receipts from the stuff you buy. We’ll track your package from shipment to delivery… and then go further. Are you eligible for a price adjustment on that shirt? Did the toy you bought last year just get recalled for safety issues? We keep an eye out for important information that you need to know about the things you buy and then make it incredibly easy to do something about it.”

The selling point behind Slice isn’t that it organizes the tracking and shipping of goods, but that it also guides users through a post-purchasing experience. For example, say that a product dropped in price after a user purchased it. Slice would then walk the user through the process of requesting a refund to get that better deal.

Holiday shopping can be a stressful experience, but mobile device users have been having an easier time of it thanks to apps like Ibotta, Shopkick, and Slice. If you still have some shopping to do during this crunch time, consider utilizing your smartphone. You might even get a gift card out of it.

While previous studies around the world have found that people who choose this career have elevated incidences of a variety of cancers, the report found that firefighters in Australia have an increased risk of developing both melanoma and prostate cancer. Moreover, firefighters who had worked in the field for over 20 years were especially prone to this higher risk level. Due to smaller population sizes, the researchers are awaiting further data on female firefighters and volunteers who have been exposed to multiple fires.

In response to their findings, the research team has recommended that people involved in this profession take advantage of early detection measures for both prostate and skin cancers, as well as limit their sun exposure to reduce their chances of developing melanoma. The researchers also pointed out that as a population, firefighters seem to be healthier than most Australians.

However, even those who may be susceptible to an increased risk of melanoma may soon have reason to celebrate: an Australian oncologist recently predicted that a cure for melanoma may be “in our sights.”

At a meeting of the Society for Melanoma Research International Congress in Zurich, Dr. Grant McArthur closed the conference by reporting that the research that had been presented had left him feeling “upbeat” about the chances of discovering a cure for a condition that is usually considered incurable.

McArthur, a consultant medical oncologist at the University of Melbourne and director of skin and melanoma services at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, defended his claim by recapping the developments that have occurred in melanoma treatments since 1975. Beginning with chemotherapeutic dacarbazine and ending with interleukin-2, he explained that one year survival rates had increased from 33% to 46% as new treatments had been discovered. According to McArthur, 2014 had been an especially prodigious year for melanoma treatments due to a number of MEK and immune checkpoint inhibitors, which have increased one year survival rates to 80% in some cases. Because of this, he recommended that doctors begin focusing on long-term survival to further assist and potentially cure the disease.

“I think that we have cure in our sights for this disease, which has long been considered incurable,” he said.

For the sake of the millions of people around the world who have skin cancer, including a number of Australian firefighters, let’s hope he’s right.

Spectre, the title of the new Bond film that was recently announced, is the 24th film in the James Bond series, and marks a 50-year relationship with the British car manufacturer. It is the 12th time an Aston Martin has been featured in a James Bond film.

“To be partnering once again with EON Productions is great news for this company and for everyone around the world that loves to see Bond at the wheel of an Aston Martin,” said CEO of Aston Martin Dr. Andy Palmer, according to CNBC.

Only 10 models of the DB10 were created, all of which will be used for the filming of the movie. That means not even the highest bidders and biggest Bond enthusiasts will be able to get their hands on 007’s newest ride.

In the past, the sporty cars featured in the film series have been put up for sale. The DB5, which Bond was seen driving around in “Thunderball,” “Casino Royale,” and “Sky Fall,” can currently be purchased for just over $700,000. The DBS featured in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” sold for $16,850 when the film came out. Today, it’s worth a whopping $115,000.

As a car company with a small marketing budget and low vehicle sales, Aston Martin’s long-standing relationship with the Bond film series has been a huge influence on the company’s success. Many Bond enthusiasts jumped at the opportunity of being able to purchase the same vehicles 007 drove in past films. While they won’t be able to do so this time around, Aston Martin is using the opportunity to showcase the direction they are headed in in the future.

Fans may not be able to buy the newest 007 car, but they can get a sneak peak of the new look of Aston Martin whenSpectre hits theaters on November 6, 2015.

The holiday season is usually a break for optimizers. After Google’s “Florida” update went live in Nov. 2003, the company generally refrained from updating ranking algorithms during the holidays.

But marketers who thought they could snooze through November and December this year are in for a rude awakening. Despite the fact that Google has claimed several times that it avoids holiday updates, search engine experts are reporting a flood of new updates to the Penguin algorithm.

Google Penguin disrupted SEO practices dramatically when it first hit the web in 2012. Until Google Penguin, techniques that were considered “black hat” in the SEO community, like spamming and link schemes, worked just as well as white hat techniques. Penguin was built to detect and penalize sites using techniques that don’t meet Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

When sites are penalized by Google Penguin, they have to wait until the filter runs again to have those penalties lifted, even if they clean up their spam problems overnight. Publishers who were penalized by Penguin 2 had to wait a year for their penalties to be lifted.

Now, Penguin is pushing through several more updates in the wake of Penguin 3.0, which went live in October. According to Search Engine Land, there have been at least three updates since 3.0, just in time for the Thanksgiving shopping weekend.

According to Google, these updates are part of the ongoing Penguin 3.0 rollout, but they still have experts concerned. Updates usually don’t take this long to launch, and they rarely cause such dramatic changes so late in the process. These signs usually indicate a new update, not the tail end of an old one.

So far, Google has confirmed Penguin 3.0, which impacts about 1% of queries, and Penguin 3.1, which Google considers part of 3.0. Publishers are still waiting for confirmation on what they’re calling Penguin 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4, which seem to have rolled out on Dec. 2, 5 and 6 respectively.

The study’s author, Julia Day, was a graduate student in interior design when she first encountered issues with building sustainability. Her interest in the subject began when she walked into an office designed for energy-saving daylighting techniques only to see the blinds closed and numerous lights turned on.

Worse, Day discovered that the controls for the blinds and lights were hidden high up on walls or down underneath desks, and not many of the workers knew how to properly use these devices.

From there, Day embarked on her study of effective training in using the features in high-performance buildings, which consist of over one-third of new commercial building constructions in the U.S.

Perhaps most encouraging is that Day discovered that those who had proper training in their building’s energy-saving features reported being the most satisfied with their work environments.

Day, who is now an assistant professor at Kansas State University, worked with WSU School of Design and Construction professor David Gunderson to examine more than 50 high-performance buildings across the United States. Day gathered data on the buildings’ architectural and engineering plans, and interviewed and surveyed the occupants of those buildings.

In many cases, Day found that workers in office buildings received an email or a quick overview of energy features in their buildings during a meeting, but they didn’t actually understand the best practices for those features.

Windows, for example, are often upgraded to provide daylight, ventilation and heat in the winter, but they can also account for at least 10% to 25% of a heating bill if they are outdated. As a result, many commercial and residential property owners upgrade their single pane windows to energy efficient models, especially as utility costs increase all around the country.

Day looked at energy efficiency for the windows of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified buildings in her study. These spaces, certified as high-performance in energy efficiency by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program and/or the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED initiative, have increased from 5.6% in 2005 to 39.3% by the end of 2013, according to CBRE Research.

One building certified LEED gold by the Green Building Certification Institute had lights throughout to indicate the best times of day to open and close windows for natural ventilation. But out of the 15 people Day interviewed, all thought that the lights were part of the fire alarm system.

“There’s a gap,” she said of green building occupants’ knowledge, “and people do not really understand these buildings.”

Day found that the most successful of these green buildings had workers who were involved in the act of conservation by receiving adequate training on their buildings’ features.

After concluding her study, Day said she has plans to develop an energy lab to develop occupant training programs for these high-performance buildings.

“With stricter energy codes, the expectations are that buildings will be more energy efficient and sustainable,” Day commented. “But we have to get out of the mindset where we are not actively engaged in our environments.”