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2020 March 10
New seaport could boost cargo turnover on the Caspian Sea
A group of Iranian companies expressed their interest in investing in the Port of Lagan, Batu Khasikov, governor of the Kalmykia Republic, Russia...
Russian ports to disinfect ships from three countries over coronavirus: document
Russia has ordered the mandatory disinfection of ships arriving at the Black Sea ports of Novorossiisk and Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka from Iran, Italy and South Korea because of the coronavirus...
Russian operator Global Ports delivers strong growth
Global Ports handled 1.44m teu across its marine container terminal portfolio last year, outperforming the Russian container market which produced a 4.5% increase...
2021 February 24
Over the recent two decades, the stevedore business has invested billions of rubles into construction of container handling facilities in Russian ports. However, their underloading in the North-West and the South of the country is estimated at 40% on the average with the Far East being short of such facilities. Modern container terminals can be used more efficiently with the assistance of the regional and federal authorities.
Filling container gaps


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This post is based on a press release from MIFMA
Though the growing season is over and snow will be falling soon, many farmers markets in Michigan are still open throughout the winter. Sixteen of these markets accept food assistance benefits, like Bridge Cards, to help get fresh food onto the tables of the families who need it most.
“In Michigan, 1.8 million residents now receives food assistance benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and farmers markets all across Michigan are rising to the challenge to meet that need with fresh, local food,” said Amanda Shreve, Manager of Programs and Partnerships at the Michigan Farmers Market Association (MIFMA).
During the summer 2012, clients could use their cards on qualifying foods, like fresh fruits and vegetables, baked goods and meats at 103 farmers markets, 34% of the more than 300 farmers markets operating in the state. Most of the farmers markets accepting SNAP benefits also participate in other food assistance programs, like Double Up Food Bucks, Market FRESH and WIC Project FRESH.
Buying locally at farmers markets helps circulate money here in Michigan, which is good for the economy and local communities. According to the Food Bank Council of Michigan, for every dollar spent through SNAP in Michigan, $1.80 of local economic activity is generated.
The following West Michigan farmers markets are open throughout the winter and accept SNAP benefits:
- Fulton Street Farmers Market in Grand Rapids
- Holland Farmers Market in Holland
- Muskegon Farmers Market in Muskegon
- Sweetwater Local Foods Market in Muskegon

domain: news


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Among the five major ports on the east coast Paradip Port topped the list with 28.65 million tonnes of cargo for the first four months, followed by Chennai Port 17.42 million tonnes, V.O.C Port 13.07 million tonnes, Krishnapatnam Port 11.57 million tonnes and Kamarajar Port close to 9 million tonnes.
The five ports have collectively handled about 80 million tonnes of cargo during the first four months of the current fiscal year, fuelled by imports of coal and petroleum, oil and lubricant (POL) products.
Paradip Port handled a record throughput of 8.06 MMT in a single month – July 2016 – surpassing the earlier highest record handling of 7.61 MMT cargo in the month of March 2016.
The major growth of cargo came in the month of July 2016 with addition of 8 lakh tonnes of POL, 6 lakh tonnes of imported coking coal and 6 lakh tonnes of other cargo like imported lime stone, Dolomite etc.
The Paradip Port Authority has taken necessary steps in recent months not only for the port customers to do “Business with Ease” as per the initiatives of the Ministry of Shipping, Govt. of India, but its efforts have taken the port in achieving many records in the history of the port.


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Both current models use the older Haswell chip from Intel and Apple's large laptop could benefit from the same Force Touch trackpad found on its smaller notebooks.
Showing results 1 to 20 of 1,727
Suffice to say, these chips are meant for massive big data sets run by large corporations and organizations relying on in-memory computing and big data to influence and shift their own global business practices.
Microsoft's Surface 3 signals the end of the Windows RT experiment. But is also notable because it is the first device to offer Intel's 14nm Atom Cherry Trail chip.
Intel has revealed new details of its second-generation Xeon Phi processor and given the first public demonstration. The chip, known as Knights Landing, is big in every way.
The Xeon processor D product family addition also means big things for Intel's Internet of Things strategy.
At ISSCC this week, Intel says it is business as usual, but rising costs have left the rest of the chip industry looking for something more than Moore.
Hewlett-Packard plans to use Intel's processors to power the next-generation HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer.
Intel held on to its chip industry leadership in 2014, but it faces a challenge from Samsung and, in the long run, perhaps from Qualcomm, as smartphones and tablets compete against traditional PCs.
Google's Glass isn't dead yet, with plans reportedly under way to relaunch the device with an Intel chip inside.
In response to an evolving market, Intel plans to combine the resources of its PC division with its struggling chip group.
Intel is buying its way into the mobile market with subsidies to vendors, but that investment — on track to lose $4 billion in 2014 — is needed if it's going to threaten the ARM ecosystem.
Now that IBM has sold its Intel-based server business to Lenovo, Big Blue is taking the gloves off and trying to take business from the chip giant by positioning its Power8 processors as a more open option.
With little success in mobile to date, Intel has decided to invest in Chinese companies that are beating them at the game.
Following up a new chip debuted for datacenters earlier this week, Intel dives deeper into its software-defined strategy.
Intel buys Axxia and to help it capture a slice of the $16bn market for wireless access chips.
Intel says that after some delays its 14nm technology is back on track and provides some new details on the technology and the first Broadwell processors due later this year.
They keep cramming more transistors on chips every year while performance gains have slowed to a crawl. Why not put DRAM on-chip to speed up CPUs?
Intel has revealed more details about the capabilities of its forthcoming Xeon Phi many-core chip, codenamed Knight's Landing, at the International Supercomputing Conference in Leipzig.
Intel's general manager for datacenters explains how the chipmaker plans to crunch boatloads of data spewing from sensors to smartwatches.
AMD announced the mobile version of its Kaveri mainstream processor and claimed it was now prepared to go 'toe-to-toe' with Intel’s Core processors. Along with the new mobile APUs, AMD announced new branding and rolled out a Pro Series to challenge Intel's vPro in the enterprise.
The best of ZDNet, delivered
- 1 ZDNet Cloud TV: Hurdles to overcome (highlights)
- 2 Perfectly legal ways you can still get Windows 7 cheap (or even free)
- 3 34 ways to improve your iPhone's battery life
- 4 How much does an iPhone 6 really cost? (Hint: It's way more than $199)
- 5 So you have an app idea and want to make a bajillion bucks


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Rob Reiner believes the big chain stores are effectively killing the mom and pop stores that give a community its personality.
Mayor Garcetti has reportedly told local business leaders that he wants to see the minimum wage increased over the next three years, and could make an official announcement by Labor Day.
Are events in the Middle East behind flyers with an anti-Jewish message that have surfaced near the UCLA campus?
Dealing with the epic drought is a challenge on many levels.
Two Southland vendors are taking the specialty grocery store chain to court over alleged manipulative business practices, breaking contracts and intentionally interfering with vendor relationships.
The Costa Mesa-based parent company of the Elephant Bar casual dining chain has filed for bankruptcy and is closing 16 restaurants nationwide, officials announced this week.
Authorities Wednesday were searching for a man who robbed a “Check Into Cash” store in Orange County.
An Orange County business owner has been arrested on suspicion of possessing stolen property.
The LAPD Pacific Division was on the scene in the 3600 block of Overland Avenue after authorities received a call around noon on Thursday about a man pointing a gun at fellow employees.
A new survey has ranked California the worst state in the country for business.
Businesses around Staples Center are bracing for a big weekend with four playoff games scheduled in as many days.
Construction work along Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica is being blamed by some local businesses for a steep drop in revenue.
CEOs of companies in Standard & Poor’s 500 index were paid an average of 354 times more than the median employee in 2012, according to the AFL-CIO.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has resumed shutting off electricity to at least some delinquent customers, according to reports Thursday.
Increasing the digital presence of your business may be easier than you think. A strong digital presence can increase revenue, even for businesses that rely on walk-in traffic.


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Secret Witness tip leads to arrest in travel company fraud case
Washoe County Sheriff's Office detectives arrested a suspect in their investigation of a fraudulent travel business that operated out of Sun Valley.
Vivian Saenz-Alvarado, 39, remains in custody on multiple charges including four counts of embezzlement, four counts of obtaining money under false pretense and four counts of using a credit card of another without consent, a news release from the Washoe County Sheriff's Office said.
In early December, detectives learned that Saenz-Alvarado was residing in the South Lake Tahoe area from a Secret Witness tip. Detectives contacted the South Lake Tahoe Police Department and gave them a possible location for her, the release said.
South Lake Tahoe police took her into custody on Dec. 7. According to the release, she waived extradition and was transferred to the Washoe County Detention Facility on Dec. 14.
According to the release, Saenz-Alvarado was the owner of Vysa Travel, a vacation travel company that closed in September 2015. The sheriff's office has received 71 complaints from victims of this business since the investigation began that allege prepaid vacations were not refunded when the business closed, the release said.
Investigators said the Washoe County business license for Vysa Travel was cancelled on Sept. 18, 2014 for non-payment of the annual business license fees. According to the release, this would have made any business activities unlawful per Washoe County code between September 2014 and August 2015.


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TRENDING ON ONEINDIA
- 2018 Election Results Update: Kamal Nath To Be Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister
- IPL Auction 2019: 5 Indians Who Will Not Get Big Bids
- Vivo Carnival On Amazon India: Heavy Discounts On Smartphones
- New Renault Cars For 2019 — New Renault MPV, Duster & Kwid Facelift Set To Launch Soon
- How Has NPS Withdrawal Become 100% Tax Free?
- The Bachchans Arrive To Bless Isha & Anand On Their Wedding!
- 17 Benefits Of Arrowroot: For Health, Hair & Skin
- Kashmir — The Mise-en-Scène Of Bollywood
Mobile balance management app 'True Balance' plans to provide balance checking and recharging function for Reliance Jio users.
"To keep up with the trend, True Balance is planning to provide balance checking and recharging function for Reliance Jio users," the company said in a statement. Adding that Jio has introduced an unlimited data plan on the second half of last year, allowing users to use their data with less restriction. In particular, they provided the plan for free from September to March.
"After the introduction of unlimited data plan of Jio, the average number of times users connected to the Internet has declined from 3.12 to 2. On the other hand, daytime usage frequency remained the same, recording 6 times a day on average," it said.
The recent finding also said the average amount of data prepaid users recharge at one time has witnessed a 150 percent growth from 400MB in February 2016 to 1GB as of March 2017.
It also shows that the daily data usage has increased by 37percent, reaching from 40MB to 55MB. Night time usage also appeared to be higher. Users spend about 20MB at night, which is about a half of average daily usage.
The app has also recently launched its "One-click recharge" feature to enable users to recharge their data in a convenient manner. The company is also planning to add 'Post Paid feature', in a reflection of recent rising trend in India for Post Paid rate system.
Alex Suh, Director, True Balance said, "users in India were earlier limiting their data consumption needs due to data caps and pricing. But the reshuffling of tariff plans and disruptive pricing by telecom players has now brought down the average data pricing significantly thereby propelling consumer interest and data usage."


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Google is tightening the rules for how websites track people who use its Chrome web browser, an effort to assure users it wants them to be in control over who watches their moves online.
The Alphabet Inc. unit is tweaking Chrome so that developers will have to specify how far their online tracking software, generally known as cookies, can reach. That will make it easier for people to choose exactly which kinds of cookies can follow them and which ones can’t.
“We want users to have a real choice, and useful control,” Ben Galbraith, senior director of product at Chrome said in an interview. “We’re not looking to do something that’s going to confuse people or is just so buried that no one will find it.”
The change comes as regulators and consumers around the world are demanding more transparency on how their personal data are being used, and more privacy to shield themselves from online surveillance. Google’s massive advertising business depends on learning about people — like where they go, what they buy and what they read — and sending them targeted ads.
The shift could also send shockwaves through the advertising industry. About 70 percent of desktop online browsing happens on Chrome, making Google the default gatekeeper of significant amounts of information about users. A report by Adweek earlier this year that said Google might cut cross-website tracking cookies sent stocks of advertising tech companies Criteo SA and The Trade Desk Inc. plummeting, since their businesses rely in part on internet tracking.
In Google’s vision of the world, websites should be able to identify, remember and track users, as long as those people know about it and can opt out if they want. It’s practical to have a bank’s website remember your log-in information; not so much a site arrived at after accidentally clicking through an ad.
Chrome already lets people choose to block all cookies and trackers, but that kind of blanket action means users lose out on some of the positive benefits of these tools, Galbraith and Chrome Engineering Director Justin Schuh wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
“Blunt solutions that block all cookies can significantly degrade the simple web experience that you know today,’’ the two executives wrote.
Giving people more than an either-or choice is similar to other changes Google is making across its empire, like letting users set a timer to clear their location data every three or 18 months.
Both changes try to break the all-or-nothing model consumers have right now: either be tracked completely, or not at all. Google’s business and its vision of the internet demand some level of following and data collection, but the company is increasingly coming to grips with the fact that most people want to know they have control over that process, or they’ll just turn it off completely.
Google also announced a tool being released soon that will help people learn why they were presented with a specific Google-run ad, and which advertising-tech companies provided information to aid the targeting. Google will invite other advertising players to provide data of their own for consumers to scrutinize.


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Respectable job growth, improving fundamentals, favorable interest rates and limited speculative construction suggest strong investor appetite will continue in 2007, according to a commercial market update and forecast presented Thursday at the National Association of Realtors Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo in Washington, D.C.
According to NAR, investment in commercial real estate rose 11 percent in 2006 to a record $306.8 billion in investment-grade transactions, with office buildings leading the way. Institutional investors continue to pour funds into commercial real estate, commercial lending volume is up and delinquencies remain relatively low.
Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist, said fundamentals have firmed in most sectors. “Over the past year, 2 million jobs have been created, and unemployment has been hovering at or below the ‘natural rate’ of about 5 percent, supporting the office sector in particular,” he said. “The office market is the sector of choice, but growing international trade is strengthening the demand for warehouse and distribution facilities. With these positive fundamentals and strong spending so far this year, we expect the appetite for commercial investment to remain historically high in 2007,” Yun said.
U.S. exports have been rising solidly, and business spending for building construction is rising at double-digit rates, boosted by record corporate profits. Much of the new commercial construction currently is build-to-suit, or with a lead tenant.
On the downside, construction costs are rising due to global economic expansion, and pressures on core inflation are worrisome. Retail demand is decelerating, and the economy is slowing. “Residential construction has become a drag on the economy, resulting in subpar economic growth,” Yun said. “Because commercial sectors follow the economy, commercial markets are in a process of normalizing.”
The NAR forecast for major commercial sectors includes analysis of quarterly data for various tracked metro areas. The sectors include the office, industrial, retail and multifamily markets. Metro data were provided by Torto Wheaton Research and Real Capital Analytics.
A record $71 billion worth of office properties traded hands in the first quarter, with investors focusing on markets such as New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Net absorption of office space in 56 markets tracked — including the lease of new space coming on the market as well as space in existing properties — is lagging new completions and is projected at 70 million square feet between the second quarter of 2006 and the second quarter of this year, NAR reported. The total for 2007 will be in the range of 20 million to 25 million square feet. Vacancy rates in most major markets continue to fall, but the overall rate is up nationally. The second-quarter office vacancy rate should average 13.6 percent, up from 13.1 percent a year ago, and is expected to range between 13.5 percent and 14 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007. Annual rent growth in the office sector is forecast at 3 percent to 3.5 percent in 2007.
New state-of-the-art facilities are being built, increasing the availability of older structures in some markets. The West and Midwest are the most active for industrial property investment, with overall sales volume running 10 percent higher than the same time last year, according to NAR.
“The inventory-to-sales ratio in the retail sector is low, with a similar situation in wholesale inventory, so there is a need to restock — that means there also is a need for more space,” Yun said. “In addition, orders for durable goods have been rising.”
Net absorption of industrial space in 54 markets tracked is expected to be 197 million square feet between the second quarter of 2006 and the second quarter of this year. The total for 2007 is likely to be in the range of 75 million to 80 million square feet.
Markets near major ports have the lowest vacancies, including Los Angeles; West Palm Beach, Fla.; and Long Beach, Calif., with vacancy rates of 5 percent or less. Industrial vacancy rates nationally are projected to drop to 9.8 percent in the second quarter from 10.3 percent in the same period in 2006, and forecast at 10 percent to 10.5 percent by the end of 2007. Annual rent growth will be 2 percent to 2.5 percent by the end of this year.
Decelerating retail sales are lessening the demand for space, and a negative savings rate is worrisome. That is the only sector experiencing significant vacancy-rate increases and declining net rental rates. Even so, investment volume rose 22 percent last year as retail portfolios changed hands.
Net absorption of retail space in 54 tracked markets is seen at 22 million square feet between the second quarter of 2006 and the second quarter of this year, while the total for 2007 will probably be in the range of 15 million to 20 million square feet. Vacancy rates in the second quarter are estimated at 8.5 percent, up from 8.1 percent a year ago, and should be 7.5 percent to 8 percent by the fourth quarter of 2007. Rents are expected to rise an average of 1 percent to 1.5 percent by the end of the year.
The apartment rental market — multifamily housing — has benefited from the slowdown in home sales. Planned condo conversions are being returned to rentals, and conversions have essentially ended. Investor interest is waning, with multifamily transactions down 29 percent so far in 2007. Migration trends are favoring warm-weather, low-tax states, including Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina.
Multifamily net absorption is likely to total 229,000 units in 59 tracked metro areas between the second quarter of 2006 and the second quarter of this year, and total 210,000 to 215,000 in 2007. Vacancy rates are projected to rise to 5.7 percent in the second quarter from 4.6 percent a year ago, and will be in the range of 5.5 percent to 6 percent by the end of the year. Rents are forecast to rise 2.5 percent to 3 percent by the end of 2007.


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Iceland's anti-whaling campaigners confront massive demand for whale meat driven by restaurants catering to tourists.
by Egill Bjarnason
by Pearly Jacob
Thailand12 Aug 2016 20:03 GMT
Attacks kill four people across the country, just days after adoption of contentious military-backed constitution.
Business & Economy31 Jul 2016 14:00 GMT
As Paris becomes a hot spot for Chinese tourism, cultural tensions arise between tourists and locals.
Politics13 May 2016 08:38 GMT
It would not be an exaggeration to say that tourism is the lifeblood of the Egyptian economy - especially in Sinai.
China12 May 2016 11:52 GMT
Officers in Rome help Chinese tourists with anything they need, including giving directions to city's many attractions.
Middle East31 Mar 2016 09:36 GMT
The golden segment of Turkey's economy is hit hard by the biggest drop in tourist arrivals in a decade.
Latin America15 Feb 2016 04:46 GMT
U.S. officials expected to sign an agreement with Cuba, allowing up to 30 direct flights from the U.S. a day.
Thailand04 Feb 2016 08:13 GMT
Raid on card club in resort town of Pattaya leads to arrest of 32 senior-citizen foreigners.
Thailand02 Feb 2016 06:44 GMT
Father and daughter from the UK thrown off animal's back while holidaying on the island of Koh Samui.
Middle East12 Jan 2016 09:28 GMT
Critics say online accommodation service is promoting stolen Palestinian property and land.
Egypt09 Jan 2016 08:12 GMT
Hotel in Red Sea city of Hurghada hit by attackers who stabbed three European tourists before being shot dead by police.
Murder29 Dec 2015 19:34 GMT
Thai government defends guilty verdicts for Myanmar workers in grisly murders of British tourists on a pristine beach.
Asia17 Dec 2015 10:34 GMT
Japanese entrepreneurs see lucrative opportunities in attracting Muslim tourists.
Earthquake20 Oct 2015 09:38 GMT
As the Himalayan nation recovers from a devastating quake, tourism has been hit by another crisis: fuel shortages.
by Geoffrey Aronson
© 2017 Al Jazeera Media Network


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Polish pop-culture artist Gabz Grzegorz Domaradzki has been generating amazing-looking movie-inspired art for more than a decade, and his new piece inspired by director Steven Spielberg and Lucasfilm‘s first three “Indiana Jones” adventures is no different.
In an officially-licensed three-panel, horizontally-oriented poster, Gabz has depicted characters and scenes from 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” 1984’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” and 1989’s “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” What’s interesting beyond the eye-catching, intriciately-detailed graphic design is that “Temple of Doom” gets the most real-estate– the middle chapter has historically been the least admired of the three, though I personally adore it.
Screen prints with metallic inks of the above artwork (measuring 36″ by 24″) are available now from Bottleneck Gallery for $50 each. There was also a $65 Variant edition with more muted grayscale coloring limited to 250 pieces, but as of this writing that has already sold out.
Indiana Jones is currently scheduled to return to the big screen in a fifth feature adventure on July 10th, 2020.


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By Shawn Bouchard, director of marketing, Fathom Systems
2017 holds great promise for the advancement of intelligent mobile technology as location plays a greater role in delivering more personalised and relevant experiences. New and incumbent Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) device manufacturers are coming to market with second generation beacons capable of offering more accurate data and a dynamic range of responses to their environment, which all work to turn relatively dumb proximity deployments into smart networks of connected devices.
Privacy and location
If one element will come to define location technologies in the coming year it has to be privacy. Location has been threatening to disrupt marketing for several years now but is arguably on the cusp of actually doing so, and as location powered services become more ubiquitous the choices that define how we interact with those services will force companies to tackle privacy head-on.
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) directive will take effect in 2018, which means many location and mobile technology companies will allocate significant resources in the lead up year to ensure compliance. The GDPR applies broadly to companies that control or process personal data in the EU as well as businesses that capture data generated by EU persons, so the global impact on mobile service models will be significant.
Location data is most definitely personal in nature, so companies that integrate privacy-by-design as a core element in their products and services will be well positioned to earn customer trust. Expect to read a lot more about privacy impact assessments in 2017 as entrepreneurs bring new business models to market.
Looking beyond the regulatory environment to the innovations that will drive economic activity in the New Year expect developments in digital signage, new twists on asset-tracking, an extra ‘i’ being added to IoT to create the Intelligent Internet of Things (IIot) as well as the beginnings of market consolidation.
While large scale exits are still rare in the location sector there is some movement happening when it comes to market consolidation; look for a big deal in early 2017 signaling the hunt is on for established companies to carve out marketshare and leverage the sweat equity of early stage location start ups.
Capital is also being put to work for platforms that aim to close the loop on digital advertising. Beacon aggregators are developing interesting business models where physical location becomes an important signal in the broader context of programmatic ad purchasing and personalised marketing. Marketing automation platforms like Marketo and Adobe are ingesting more location-based data to provide marketers with new toolsets to better target their message.
The integration of location-aware technology in digital signage holds great promise for improving the effectiveness of a sign’s message. When combined with a mobile app and a gateway the opportunity for targeted messaging for out-of-home advertising really kicks into high gear.
Real time location systems
Similarly, because of the relatively lower cost of using BLE tags for asset tracking the market potential for BLE powered real time location systems (RTLS) broadens significantly to include use-cases where equipment costs have traditionally been a barrier to entry. Additionally, because of the flexibility in form factor for BLE beacons, asset-tracking can also adapt to support opt-in solutions that track people–a major benefit for companies looking to improve on-site worker safety.
Moving from safety to sanity let’s talk about data for a moment. We’re drowning in it. Much of the data we generate is unstructured, making it unactionable for the majority of companies that capture it. Very few organisations have the capacity and sophistication to do much with the results of their data mining operations.
However, the addition of proximity and context to unstructured data has the potential to smarten up IoT. ‘Smart’ sensors have been around for years now but it’s only when location and context are added to the mix that intelligence can emerge. Look for innovation in manufacturing, the smart home and smart cities as innovators utilise proximity and context to create more intelligent products and services.
There’s plenty to be excited about in 2017, now let’s get out there and do it!
Fathom Systems is a hardware and cloud-based software system provider, which has been designed to redefine the beacon and IoT space.


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For the first time in the show’s eight-year history The Great British Bake Off will ditch dairy, eggs and animal products for it’s first ever vegan week.
Channel 4 teased the announcement in a trailer at the end of last night's show, in which Dan was voted off, showing that the pressure is really on to create a masterpiece using animal friendly products.
The trailer teased: “With a tasty tartlet, a tricky technical, and a towering show stopper that will leave the bakers teetering on the brink of disaster.”
It certainly looks as though disaster is around the corner as towards the end of the clip Noel Fielding cracked a smile when Ruby's cake came crashing down.
One of the bakers was particularly brave by attempting to make meringue, which is traditionally made from whipped egg whites.
Vegan fans of the show speculated on Twitter at what the replacement ingredient might be.
One Bake Off fan said: "So it looks like aquafaba will be going mainstream from next week. #GBBO #VeganWeek #Meringue".
Aquafaba is the name for the water which chickpeas have been boiled in and can mimic egg whites in cooking.
Vegan bakers often use the ingredient to make meringue as well marshmallows.
Some viewers didn't seem too happy about the challenge and took to Twitter to complain.
One particularly unhappy fan said: "Vegan week!! WTF! Bake off is my excuse to eat cake on a Tuesday! I don't want an excuse to eat a bloody salad thanks!"
Another said: "Don't think I'll be too bothered about going out of my way for Vegan Week next week..."


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Kill Bill Vol. 2: According to The Hollywood Reporter, director Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill-Vol. 2 from Miramax and Buena Vista Home Entertainment battled its way to the top of the sales and rental charts this week.
The Uma Thurman starrer debuted atop Video Store magazine's list of top rental titles for the week ending Aug. 15 and also landed at first on Nielsen VideoScan's DVD First Alert sales chart for the week.
"Bill 2" quickly made nearly 24% of its boxoffice take in rentals in its first five days, raking in $15.7 million, according to Video Store. It sold a whopping 903,736 copies on DVD, nearly five times as many as its closest competitor. BVHE's Kill Bill-Vol. 1 also saw a big sales bump, shooting to No. 7 on the First Alert DVD sales chart with more than 81,000 copies sold.
Dont't forget to also check out: Kill Bill Vol. 2


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Has anyone else noticed what is usually the most colourful month of the year is… well not so colourful?
June has become synonymous with rainbow flags, parades with literal bandwagons and hashtagged campaigns. Though Pride initially emerged to commemorate the Stonewall Riots in 1969 its immersion into mainstream culture has certainly dampened its political roots somewhat. Despite this, it’s still a time for the LGBTQ+ community to make their voices heard. However, this year we’ve seen previously vocal corporations be displaced with virtual tumbleweeds.
The assimilation of pride and subsequent conversations about LGBTQ+ rights into the public consciousness has occurred in line with society’s increasingly liberal outlook. Consumers now expect brands to be vocal on social issues and are more likely to purchase from a business that is deemed to be socially conscious. In fact 70 per cent of consumers want to know what brands they support are doing to confront social and environmental problems. Small gestures like placing a flag outside their door are risk-free moves and the incentives to champion the LGBTQ+ community grow as the general support for the LGBTQ community does.
While I’m not exactly expecting parade floats with rainbow flags and thousands to line the streets in support during a global pandemic, it’s curious that brands that were keen to boast their ally-ship are now remarkably quiet, even on social media. I’ve not even received my scheduled Mailchimp email with all the branded rainbow leisurewear I can don this summer.
Usually at this time of year debates would be raging over the problematic ethics of the corporatisation of Pride. Would the profits from rainbow coated merchandise be going towards helping those in the LGBTQ+ community? Are all the various complex issues that people face being flattened into one diluted umbrella heading of ‘awareness’? What about companies draping flags that have manufacturing plants in China? (A country that has shameless anti-LGBTQ+ legislation).
There’s a whole myriad of issues stemming from the corporatization of Pride, but this year the issue seems to be not so much the problematic ethics of a brand’s presence, but how deafening their silence is.
In my eyes the silence from huge corporations suggests a few things. First of all their so-called “values” are merely an umbrella for interchangeable buzzwords to exist – largely the ones that are on people’s lips at any given time.
Before we go any further it’s important to highlight what I mean by values. Values are the things that you find inherently important, they are the principles you care about when no one is looking. It goes without saying, but there’s room to hold more than one belief and often social causes come hand in hand. But in the past month it’s become incredibly clear that brand’s values are dictated by which singular issues are commanding conversation and have the most social currency.
Right now there is a more attractive proposition that provides greater visibility and easy internet points – the Black Lives Matter movement. Just before I go any further I want to make it explicitly clear that I wholeheartedly believe that everyone should be throwing their weight behind the BLM and using their money, privilege and influence to put an end to racism at home and further afield. But these issues should not be isolated so starkly from each other and arguably the support for one issue complements efforts for another.
Brand’s non-involvement in a cause they once championed and scramble to shout loudest about another highlights the fact they don’t understand or care about the intersectionality of the issues.
Secondly it appears that for a lot of corporations their values are defined by the marketing budget, rather than something they inherently committed to. And look I’m not here to to say companies are supposed to be the arbiters of moral goodness, but they’ve shown their true colours this year, by jumping ship on a less profitable and less fashionable cause – rather than supporting both.
Discarding one cause in favour of a more profitable one is literally the antithesis of values. When the word is used so flippantly it begins to lose any sense of its original meaning.
Supporting the LGBTQ+ community and the Black Lives Matter movement is not a trend, it’s not something you co-opt once a year to get your kudos from Karen on Linkedin, it’s real people’s lives.
Shouting when it is convenient is easy and it’s become clear that the corporation’s commitment to LGBTQ+ rights is dictated by profits.
If you live in Northern Ireland and would like to donate to or find out about the support available for people in the LGBTQ+ community, you can head to The Rainbow Project’s website.
If you live in the Republic of Ireland and would like to donate to or find out the support available head to Belongto.org.
Click here for a list of LGBTQ+ charities available in Ireland.


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A container with approximately 3 tons of recycled styrene has left Montreal for the Michelin plant in France. Following years of testing, Michelin will be in a position to manufacture batches of industrial styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) products with Pyrowave recycled styrene, which would represents over 1,000 passenger car tires.
“The industry has forever been dreaming of a circular economy with recycled, traceable and segregated content. Pyrowave now demonstrates that it is possible through its technology. This achievement confirms once and for all that we can implement a 100% traceable and controlled supply chain in polystyrene recycling. We can now provide recycled content to meet consumer expectations: products can now be made entirely from recycled material, without dilution or degradation. Pyrowave is defining a new standard in plastic recycling and is leading the way toward reaching environmental goals”, stated Jocelyn Doucet, CEO of Pyrowave.
A Major Partnership
Pyrowave takes great pride in this achievement in collaboration with its major partner, Michelin, who has been present at all testing stages at the Pyrowave plant. This new accomplishment will contribute to Michelin’s environmental goals.
“The Pyrowave approach is designed to electrify processes using microwaves, making it possible to keep resources in the production loop of new goods while also reducing the carbon footprint. This unique technology will contribute to our goal of an all-sustainable tire in 2050, which will incorporate 100% recycled or renewable bio-sourced materials while contributing to our carbon neutrality roadmap”, said Christophe Durand, Sustainable Materials Development Manager at Michelin. “Pyrowave technology is ahead of its time. We are not simply catching up with tomorrow, we are aiming for the day after”, he added.
With governments around the world setting ambitious environmental goals, Pyrowave delivers an end-of-life solution for existing plastic products and maximizes opportunities for the polystyrene circular economy.


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Samsung Galaxy A9: 'Fantastic Four' becomes your true companion
DJ Koh, President and CEO of IT and Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics, decided to change his strategy for the Indian market this year.
DJ Koh, President and CEO of IT and Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics, decided to change his strategy for the Indian market this year. After seeing Chinese players getting the upper hand on innovations in the camera department, Koh geared up to alter course.
First came the Samsung Galaxy A7 with a three-rear camera system and now, Galaxy A9 with a monster four-rear camera system - the world`s first -- has created ripples in the Indian market.
Galaxy A9 with dual tone, reflective gradient design, vibrant colours, scratch-resistant durable glass back and flagship infinity display has upped the ante in the fast-growing camera smartphone segment.
The 6GB/128GB and 8GB/128GB variants of Galaxy A9 cost Rs 36,990 and Rs 39,990, respectively.
Let us see why this device is a game changer when it comes to the future of mobile camera hardware - especially in the super-hot Rs 30,000-Rs 40,000 segment where OnePlus is a current leader.
Since camera is the focus, Galaxy A9`s vertically-stacked rear camera system comes with a telephoto lens capable of 2x optical zoom that allows to take crisp, detailed shots -- even from a distance.
Try it for macro-photography, wildlife photography and situations where you need to get up-close to the action.
With Galaxy A9`s 24MP main lens, you can capture clear and bright images in both bright and low-light conditions.
In low-light conditions, the A9 allowed more light and we could see good results (on certain days, in a clear weather sans smog).
The Depth Lens gives the freedom to manually manage the photos` depth of field and focus on the subject for stunning, professional looking images.
Galaxy A9`s "Ultra-Wide Angle" camera allowed us to capture not only the subject but the whole scene.
The company says that at present, most smartphones capture 77 degrees in their field of view.
On the other hand, Galaxy A9 is able to capture 120 degrees -- helping capture more expansive photos, just like what our eyes see.
This comes in handy when you need to capture landscapes, group shoots or situations where you need to fit a lot into a single frame.
The front camera houses a 24MP sensor for selfie lovers.
The device comes with a larger and wider 6.3 Super AMOLED infinity display for immersive viewing experience which is further enhanced by Dolby Atmos surround sound, making it a delightful entertainment device.
The smartphone is powered by Octa-Core Snapdragon 660 processor and a large 3800mAh battery with fast charging capability that gave it high-speed performance for almost a day.
Galaxy A9 automatically recognises 19 kinds of scenes and optimises colour settings to suit the content - whether it is a nightscape, a field of flowers, or a plate of food.
The device can also intelligently detect when there is a flaw in an image and immediately notifies the user.
Galaxy A9 features virtual assistant Bixby, Samsung Pay and Samsung Health.
For multi-tasking, App Pair allows users to launch two apps at once on a split screen.
The device with 3D Glass-curved back runs Android 8.0 (Oreo) and is available in three colours -- Caviar Black, Lemonade Blue and Bubblegum Pink (the last one was reviewed).
It also has a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and face recognition support.
What doesn`t work?
The only big department where it lags behind the high-selling OnePlus 6T is the processor.
Although Snapdragon 660 is famous to power mid-range devices but at its price point, OnePlus houses Snapdragon 845 processor which is better for high-density usage like 4K video streaming and gaming for a longer duration.
Conclusion: The best camera device in the Rs 30,000-Rs 40,000 price segment that comes with the trust Samsung has earned in the Indian market. Putting your money on the world`s first four-camera smartphone in Galaxy A9 won`t disappoint you.
06:21 PM IST


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India's exports vault nearly 50 per cent in February
10 Mar 2011
Exports from the country grew at a record 49.8 per cent year-on-year in February 2011 at $23.6 billion, even as its April-February exports crossed the annual 2010-11 target at $208.2 billion, growing at a pace of 31.4 per cent.
India's imports during February 2011, however, stood higher at 31.7 billion, commerce secretary Rahul Khullar said, adding that the country's balance of trade for February stood at $8.1 billion.
Imports during the April-February period, although grew at a slower pace of 18 per cent, stood at $305.3 billion, raising the country's trade deficit so far during the financial year to $97.1 billion.
The figures are only rough estimates and the final figure is subject to change, Khuller said.
With a general revival in exports and a better than expected performance by units in the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), Khuller expects the country's exports to reach $235 billion during the current fiscal.
"We have crossed $200 billion (exports) during February and our forecast for this fiscal would be around $235 billion," Khuller said.


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Digital Revenue Technology
Digital Revenue Technology: Lazzaro has created a SaaS (software as a service) that allows small NGOs to generate a web platform (including all existing fundraising tools) in less than 15 minutes in a simple way through BlockChain technology that increases transparency.
Digital Revenue Technology
We wanted to create an all-in-one. In other words, all the features that exist on the market to generate digital income can be realized on your platform within 15 minutes
- online store.
- event tickets.
Carlota Corzo, who is part of the team along with Tonatiuh Owen, Ivan Saiz, Jaime Inchaurraga, and Jose María Navarro, told Emprendedores, "All of this is traceable through blockchain All of this is traceable through blockchain technology, which guarantees the transparency of transactions," she told Emprendedores.
Thanks to Lazzaro's tool, 12 impact projects have been able to receive funding, including "Art for good," a home treatment project for people with rare diseases, and "Dojo Social," a venture that aims to socially integrate people with noncompetitive sports and functional diversity. now available.
Support for Small Producers
El Super de los Pastores" is a supermarket that sells only products from small producers in the country, many of which are organic. The project has two goals: to bring artisanal organic products into the hands of citizens to improve their health and restore authentic flavors.
To serve as a sales and dissemination platform for more than 500 small artisans, helping them keep their dreams alive, continue the lifestyle they have chosen, and fix the rural population.
In short, to fill that empty Spain. In addition to a physical store, the company has an online store for the entire Spanish mainland, as well as sales channels for professionals and collectives in the hotel and catering industry.
The initiative was born in Cantabria in 2020 and already boasts numbers such as working with 520 local producers and selling 1,300 local artisanal and organic products.
Making Children Less Afraid
Nixui for Children has developed a virtual reality solution with the goal of eliminating the fear of hospitalization and surgery. In 2019, an estimated 90,000 children underwent surgery in Catalonia alone. Of these, 50% have preoperative anxiety.
Tomás Lóves defines the project as "a virtual reality experience that helps children who have to undergo surgery to prepare themselves before the operation, and a tool to help treat preoperative anxiety," and is the driving force behind it.
We will design a kit that children can take home and share with their families. The kit includes a book with activities that complement the virtual reality experience.
Nixie is the name of the 3D character they have created to familiarize them with the protocol on the day of surgery. Brothers Lucía and Carlos Zamora Gorbeña were the initiators of the project, having previously participated in the Deluz y Compañía project.
Si quieres conocer otros artículos parecidos a Digital Revenue Technology puedes visitar la categoría Technology.


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All week long
Now through Tuesday, October 2, Central Market, 3815 Westheimer, will host its Passport event, with this year’s theme being ‘Passport United Kingdom.’ Stop by the market to find traditional products and dishes along with hundreds of new items from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; and look out for fun events from cooking classes to tastings.
Tuesday, September 25
Register to vote at Eight Row Flint
Eight Row Flint, 1039 Yale, is partnering with news source The Skimm and local realtor Rachel Thompson to encourage Houstonians to vote, no matter their preference or party. At No Excuses Vote 2018, locals can register to vote (6 to 8 p.m.) while grabbing treats from tacos to frozen gin and tonics.
Wednesday, September 26
Ramen Tatsu-Ya and Truth BBQ Collaboration at Ramen Tatsu-Ya
Ramen Tatsu-Ya, 1722 California, will collaborate with TRUTH BBQ’s Leonard Botello IV on a special bowl of ramen, available from 5 p.m. until sold out at the ramen shop (show up early for your best chance at getting a taste). The Smoked Shoyu Tonkotsu Ramen is composed of pit-smoked
“Know Your Fisher” dinner at Monica Pope’s Cookshop
The Gulf Restoration Network will host a “Know Your Fisher” dinner at Monica Pope’s Cookshop, 4009 Roseland, at 6:30 p.m. With food from chef Pope, the focus of the night will be the conversation about fisheries, with Galveston-based fisherman Buddy Guindon providing all of the fish for the event and telling the story about how the fish was caught. Tickets are $60, which include dinner and wine, and reservations will be capped at 25 to keep the atmosphere intimate.
Brooklyn Brewery Beer Pairing Dinner at Piggy’s Kitchen and Bar
Head to Piggy’s Kitchen and Bar, 3412 West Lamar, for a four-course meal and Brooklyn Brewery beer pairing, offered from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Enjoy dishes such as shrimp ceviche with blood orange ginger sauce, oven-roasted chicken skins with Gruyere and sautéed chanterelles, and chocolate-drizzled candied bacon (full menu TBA). Tickets are $50 and seats are limited (all tickets must be purchased in advance online).
Fall Wine Dinner at Rainbow Lodge
Rainbow Lodge, 2011 Ella, will host a seated, coursed Fall Wine Dinner beginning at 6:30 p.m. The dinner will feature the wines of Revana Family Vineyards and cost is $149 plus tax and gratuity.
Voter Registration and Industry Night at The Hay Merchant
Every Thursday night, Hay Merchant hosts Industry Night (10 to 11:30 p.m.) for members of the food and beverage community, offering free food, drink specials and camaraderie with industry friends at the end of a busy shift. As many industry professionals aren’t registered, personnel will be onsite to register people to vote. A second event will be held on Thursday, October 4.
Caesar Salad Competition at Hilton University of Houston
The 34th Annual Caesar Salad Competition will take place on Thursday, September 27 at the Hilton University of Houston, 4450 University, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. The event will feature 20 of the area’s top chefs offering twists on the classic dish alongside wine and beers and a silent auction. Tickets can be purchased through PayPal for $40 per person.
Pizza Making Class at Coppa Osteria
Coppa Osteria, 5210 Morningside, is hosting Pizza Making Classes every Thursday in September. Each class will be limited to 10 guests, offering an intimate and interactive “pizza making” experience in Coppa’s Dough Room and paired with a three-course pizza dinner. Cost is $40 person and the class will begin at 6:30 p.m. Reservations are required and space is limited. Call 713-522-3535.
French Spirits Discovery Dinner at Bar Boheme
Bar Boheme, 307 Fairview, will host chefs David and Michael Cordúa for the launch of their YUM DMC pop-up dinner series, with a five-course French Spirits Discovery dinner at 7 p.m. Hosted in Boheme's private dining space, the event will feature doughnut holes made with chicken liver mousse and smoked paprika, baklava lamb ribs, Sugar-cane filled shrimp, petite filet and Vietnamese coffee creme brûlée. Each course will be paired with a cocktail made with French spirits such as Grey Goose, Gabriel Boudier gin, Trois Rivieres rum and Bache Gabrielsen cognac. Tickets are $78 and include dinner, drinks and a cocktail reception that starts at 6:30 p.m.
Smith Story Wine Dinner at Brennan’s of Houston
Brennan’s of Houston, 3300 Smith, is hosting a Smith Story Wine Dinner from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Guests can enjoy dishes such as razor clam boil, tasso belly
Thursday through Sunday
Karbachtoberfest at Karbach Brewery
Karbach Brewing Co., 2032 Karbach, continues its annual German festival, Karbachtoberfest, open to the public on Thursdays through Sundays through October 7. Guests can expect live music, stein hoisting competitions, keg tappings, Karbachtoberfest on tap, German-style eats, and plenty of fun. Admission to the music tent is $10 on Thursdays and Fridays and $20 on Saturdays. Sundays are family days, offering kid-friendly activities like face-painting (Sundays are also Kar-bark-
Friday, September 28
Pinot Noir Tasting at Pappas Bros. Steakhouse Downtown
Guests are invited to join Pappas Bros. Steakhouse Downtown, 1200 McKinney, as its sommeliers highlight some of the best Pinot Noirs around today alongside bites like pheasant rollatini, Texas Wagyu osso buco and wild mushroom tart. Selections include wines from the classic Pinot Noir regions of Burgundy and Sonoma, plus a few under-the-radar producers. Cost is $75 per guest and the tasting will begin at 5:30 p.m. Call 713-658-1995 or book online.
Saturday, September 29
The Morning After Brunch Event at Bayou City Event Center
Our annual bottomless brunch event, The Morning After, will be held at the Bayou City Event Center, 9401 Knight, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The epic afternoon will feature endless brunch bites from over 25 Houston-area restaurants, including brunch favorites from Max’s Wine Dive and Bosscat Kitchen & Libations to Snooze and Peña’s Donuts & Diner, plus cocktail and beer sampling and boozy juice and bubbly bars. Tickets are $40 in advance ($50 day of) for general admission and $65 in advance ($75 day of) for VIP.
TacoWorld at Guadalupe Plaza Park
The team behind the Tamale Festival Houston have announced TacoWorld, a family-friendly taco festival held at Guadalupe Plaza Park, 2311 Runnels, from noon to 10 p.m. Guests can expect DJs, pop-up shows, cooking demos,
A Taste of Cy-Fair at Lakeland Village Center
The second annual Taste of Cy-Fair will take place at Lakeland Village Center, 10615 Fry, from 5 to 8 p.m. (4 p.m. for VIP). Organized to help Cy-Fair families and friends affected by the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, last year’s event nearly 50 restaurants, over 100 different wines and around 30 different participating breweries, and this year’s event is expected to be even bigger. Guests can enjoy all-you-can-indulge-in eats, wines
Sunday, September 30
Southern Smoke outside Blacksmith and The Hay Merchant
The annual Southern Smoke Festival and MS Society fundraiser will be held outside of Blacksmith and The Hay Merchant at 1018 Westheimer, 1100 Westheimer and 1415 California from 4 to 8 p.m. (3 p.m. for VIP). Ten visiting chefs hailing from all over the country will join to represent some of the best restaurants and barbecue in the nation, including Aaron Franklin, Daniela Soto-Innes, and local stars like Chris Shepherd and the HOUBBQ Collective. Launched in 2015 to support the MS Society in honor of Shepherd’s friend and former sommelier Antonio Gianola, the Southern Smoke Foundation has expanded to include a year-round emergency assistance fund for people in the food and beverage industry, inspired by the success of last year’s Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. Tickets are $200 for general admission, $350 VIP (includes early entrance and VIP lounges), and $1,000 Super VIP (only 20 tickets sold, includes a culinary tour with the chefs on Friday night, September 28).


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2015, 2014 subaru pueblo serving colorado springs, Search new 2015 & 2014 subaru models. subaru of pueblo. is a top choice amongst new car and suv shoppers in pueblo, colorado springs and southern colorado.. New york 2014: 2015 subaru outback revealed | truth, The 2015 subaru outback made a stop at the 2014 new york auto show as the fifth-generation wagon makes its way to the showroom floor this. Subaru debuts generation 2015 subaru outback , Autos | 4/18/2014 @ 11:01am | 44,338 views subaru debuts next generation 2015 subaru outback at the new york auto show.
2015 subaru outback offers room econ, While front fascia biggest obvious impact, subaru entire 2015 outback package roomier, powerful, . http://www.autoblog.com/2014/04/17/2015-subaru-outback-official-photos-new-york/ 2015 subaru outback video: york auto show, For 20 years, subaru outback wagon fans choice—' frumpy conventional station wagon, tall imposing . http://www.thecarconnection.com/news/1091595_2015-subaru-outback-video-new-york-auto-show Subaru outback news, photos reviews - autoblog, Get subaru outback news, press releases expert reviews detailed photos, spy shots, videos road tests subaru outback vehicles.. http://www.autoblog.com/subaru/outback/


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FDH Aero (FDH), provider of supply chain solutions for the aerospace and defense industry, has established the new FDH Aero Electronic Products Group (FDH EPG) division to create a one-stop-shop for all mil-aero electronic components and franchised lines for OEM and aftermarket customers.
The new division was established by combining and integrating three of its existing brands, and highlights FDH Aero’s breadth of global solutions and strength as a supply chain partner.
Scott Tucker, president and chief executive of FDH Aero, said: “By combining the strengths of our Electro Enterprises, BTC Electronics and BJG Electronics brands into one unified Electronic Products Group, we are further enhancing our ability to serve the aerospace, aviation and defense industries.”
“FDH Aero is already an established and growing leader in the global aerospace and defense supply chain. The formation of FDH EPG makes us even stronger, by creating a one-stop-shop for all mil-aero electronic components and providing significant and essential franchised lines to our customers.”
Mitch Enright, president of the FDH EPG division, said: “The establishment of the FDH Aero Electronic Products Group is a clear indication to our suppliers and customers that FDH Aero will continue growing its focus on service, quality, and supply chain excellence.”
“This will allow us to better serve our customers and supplier partners while continuing to act as an integral piece of the complete FDH Aero solution.”


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“Our mission is to normalise the industry"
Outside Lands has become the first major US festival to make weed available to purchase on-site legally.
- Read more: The 20 best songs about smoking weed
Taking place this weekend (August 9-11) at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, the festival received the green light to sell marijuana on-site from the San Francisco Office of Cannabis on Wednesday (August 7), according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Located in the aptly titled ‘Grass Lands’ area of the festival, attendees over 21 are able to purchase weed from a selection of vendors. Grass Lands launched last year, but it only functioned as a “curated cannabis experience,” offering festival-goers the opportunity to smell botanical terpenes and try edibles free from marijuana.
A post on the Outside Lands website described last year’s launch as “a meeting of the most innovative minds in the Bay Area cannabis community, it’s the perfect place to celebrate statewide marijuana legalization and educate people on how it can be a part of their daily lives.”
“Our mission is to normalise the industry, so having an activation at a major US festival, and the first of its kind to allow cannabis sales and consumption — is an enormous breakthrough,” Jason Guillory, marketing director of NUG, one of the companies at Grass Lands, told Rolling Stone.
Kiva Confections, another Grass Lands vendor, sees the move as a historic moment. “Allowing public consumption at Outside Lands brings the plant and its users out of the shadows and shows that cannabis can be elevated, sophisticated, and normalised,” said co-founder Kristi Knoblich Palmer. “So many people we met last year were new to both Kiva and cannabis, so we’re excited that they get to actually experience the products this year.”
Festival-goers and vendors have been busy sharing photos from Grass Lands on social media – take a look below.
Outside Lands is the first major US festival to offer legal weed on-site, but there are other smaller festivals in California, such as Northern Nights in Mendocino County, that introduced legal cannabis sales earlier this year.
Specialist doctors in the UK will be able to legally prescribe cannabis-dervived medical products by the autumn. Other forms of cannabis still remain illegal.


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Online advertising - how publishers can survive a tsunami of change
Online advertising used to support investigative journalism at digital-native brands such as Buzzfeed News and Vice. In the space of just a few years everything has changed, and thousands of journalists have lost their jobs as a result.
Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford talks to former Business Insider editor-in-chief Jim Edwards about what is going on and how publishers should adapt to an online publishing ecosystem which is being rocked by a tsunami of disruptive change.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.


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Venezuela used to have oil literally coming out of the ground. Then the Socialists took over and under Hugo Chavez made it a model for the world... to run away from. Here's what's going on in Venezuela now.
Universal Health Care - Venezuela's widely praised government health care system is doing great. Doctors are being paid $15 a month
Oncologists said that people who were diagnosed with breast cancer sometimes had to wait more than 18 months for treatment, while surgeons said that other patients often die while waiting for operations.
It's not just a lack of medicines that is making life difficult. Spiralling inflation, which topped 600 percent in July 2015, has meant that doctors' salaries are now worth less than £10 per month.
That's about $15 a month. But even that may be optimistic because Venezuelan currency is monopoly money. Obama had to bail out Cuba because Venezuela couldn't keep carrying Castro.
It’s taken what, no more than a couple of decades, to turn an oil rich middle income country into something worse than most sub-Saharan economic wastelands (the minimum manufacturing wage in Ethiopia is currently $21 a month or so).
Minimum wage in Venezuela is now about $11 a month. But that's okay because there's no food to buy so the government is just confiscating it from farmers, Bolshevik style.
A food industry group said Monday that Venezuela's government has ordered companies to distribute food staples to a network of state-run supermarkets amid chronic shortages of basic goods.
Federal authorities ordered producers of milk, pasta, oil, rice, sugar and flour to supply between 30 percent and 100 percent of their products to the state stores, he Food Industry Chamber said.
Also there's no beer.
In an attempt to subdue out-of-control inflation, the Venezuelan government now forces companies doing international business to use U.S. dollars instead of the Venezuelan bolivar. There’s just one problem: falling oil prices now mean that U.S. dollars have become few and far between. That’s creating a real crunch for Venezuelan companies like breweries, who must buy U.S. dollars in order to do business with foreign markets or import goods into the country.
The Venezuelan government has failed to give enough U.S. dollars to companies even to import many basic goods, such as chicken, beef and toilet paper, Rueda writes. And in just a few weeks, beer might join that list as well.
Local brewers are already struggling to make ends meet. The industry owes about $200 million to foreign suppliers, Rueda writes, and industry leaders are warning of a crisis that could cost the country over 400,000 jobs.
Even the black market won’t help solve the beer shortage, where the going rate for a dollar is more than 600 Venezuelan bolivares. That’s almost three times the highest rate that companies can buy dollars from the government, Rueda writes.
Maybe they can start paying for those beers in Zimbabwean money.
Under Mugabe, the price of an egg rose to 50 billion Zimbabwean dollars and a beer hit 150 billion dollars because Mugabe had the same idea of economics as Obama and Paul Krugman; just print more money.
But don't crack any jokes about it.
Standup comics here say they have no shortage of material: the president claims to have talked to a bird, one political candidate said Tylenol grows on trees and, amid shortages of a key bathroom staple, the National Guard occupied a toilet paper factory.
But using such absurdities in comedy sketches is getting harder amid a government clampdown on political satirists.
Some humorists have been blacklisted by state-run theaters and hotels, and local governments in several towns won’t even allow them to perform. Comedy programs that poke fun at the government have disappeared from Venezuelan TV. A few humorists have given up and moved abroad.
Laureano Márquez, for example, focuses on the strangeness of daily life in an oil-rich country where people often can’t find milk or diapers. During a recent stand-up routine before a sold-out auditorium in his hometown of Maracay, he said the shortages have gotten so bad that instead of staring at pretty girls on the street he now longingly ogles their shopping bags.
But officials aren't amused. When Mssrs. Márquez and Lovera were scheduled for joint performances in February in the cities of Barquisimeto, Valencia and San Antonio de Los Altos, all three private venues that had booked them were temporarily closed after being accused by the central government of tax evasion. The shows were canceled, the two comedians said.
How very Obama-esque.
No jokes, no beer, no money, no food. That's the left-wing utopia.
Read more at FrontpageMag.com.


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Western Union has recently came with a statement that the financial institution is seriously thinking about implementing Ripple within its systems. The experiment will start for basic money transactions and eventually evolve to capital optimization help. According to press, Ripple is becoming the front runner of most used digital currencies in the banking sector, which can give it a significant boost in market value later on.
According to the CEO of Western Union, Hikmet Ersek, Ripple is the latest technology the financial institution is considering for adding to its “portfolio” of digital solutions offered to customers.
According to Futurism, Ersek informed analysts of the Ripple tests during a conference call on February 13, noting that the company is considering ways to use Ripple to settle transactions and for capital optimization. A Western Union spokesperson told Fortune the company is also experimenting with XRP, Ripple’s native cryptocurrency.
On the other hand, Ripple has also confirmed their partnership with Western Union and seem excited to see what the negotiations and mutual efforts bring. Ripple stated in Bloomberg News:
“We’re excited about our work towards a pilot implementation of xRapid, which uses XRP in payment flows.”
It seems that the popularity of XRP is increasing with a lightning speed. Just recently, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) — the central bank for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — signed an agreement to bring Ripple’s blockchain software, XCurrent, to banks in the country.
Ripple, as a company, has been working extremely hard to implement the product into multiple financial channels and optimize transactions, both in terms of costs and time. Ripple is rumoured to become more valuable even than Bitcoin, given the minor costs involved in using XRP and of course, the speed and efficiency of transactions.
With the cryptocurrency bloodbath recently that has “flooded” the markets around the world, Ripple’s position as a solid performer continues, as more and more financial institutions turn to the digital currency for solving the most pressuring and current issues that need to be resolved.


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Here’s the million-dollar question from this year’s earnings season: Was Coca-Cola’s recent decision to stop supplying earnings-per-share forecasts a flight to quality reporting — or a flight from its shareholders?
The answer won’t likely to be discernable for at least 11 months. By revealing its EPS growth target for 2003 (11 percent to 12 percent), Coke made sure that the outcome of its controversial move won’t be clear for some time.
Nevertheless, Coke’s announcement that it is getting out of the guidance game (and similar edicts by fellow large-caps McDonald’s and AT&T) is sparking a broader debate about earnings forecasts.
Critics — and in particular, governance-rights activists — contend that companies should be providing as much information to shareholders as possible, not less. They argue that it’s up to investors to decide what to make of a company’s earnings forecast.
But defenders of Coke’s action say leaving predicting to analysts and market prognosticators could help restore investor confidence in corporate accounting.
What’s more, suggests David Nish, finance director of Scottish Power, a U.S.-listed company that doesn’t routinely provide earnings guidance, executives who supply frequent EPS outlooks but little context are providing shareholders with a “blinkered” view of their companies. “If there’s too much reliance on one figure,” he says, “there’s a risk that poorer decisions can be made [by investors]. Earnings can keep going up, but so can debt.”
When We Get Behind Closed Doors
Certainly, when a company’s management team offers only detailed results — not sketchy predictions — it removes itself from the turf staked out by Kreskin and Joan Dixon. By not offering forecasts, a company can move to a more conservative accounting regime and thus avoid nasty surprises down the road. Further, dumping earnings predictions can help erase much of the temptation to rejigger the books to hit the target.
Moreover, playing footsie with analysts can be hazardous to a company’s credibility. Management at Ford Motor ran into a problem when it predicted in December that the company would generate a 70 cent EPS figure in 2003. That projection topped analyst forecasts by as much as 30 cents. Reportedly, a number of research analysts slammed Ford’s sunny forecast as purely a marketing ploy. Some went as far as to claim Ford issued the upbeat prediction to help yank up a sagging credit rating.
A move like Coke’s, however, frees a company from that sort of second-guessing. Indeed, advocates of the beverage maker’s action say the company’s priorities are right on the money: delivering real, rather than apparent, shareholder value over the long haul.
In a response to questions from CFO.com, Coke CFO Gary Fayard noted that the company’s finance team was heavily involved in the decision. “We believe that establishing short-term guidance prevents a more meaningful focus on the strategic initiatives the company is taking to build its business and succeed over the long term,” asserted Fayard.
Some observers aren’t convinced. When it comes to providing a true picture of corporate performance, many governance activists insist that less is not more. If a company abandons earnings guidance, they say, its managers are implicitly asking investors to trust them to build the company’s value behind closed doors. And in this post-Enron, post-dotcom era, trust is a rare commodity.


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From new social media profiles to an app for your mobile device, the digital presence of Town of Holly Springs continues to grow, allowing residents greater connectivity to Town government and the ability to interact in new ways.
The Holly Springs Police launched @HSpoliceNC on Twitter August 4 and within a few days gained more than 100 followers.
“The Holly Spring Police Department has recognized the ability to disseminate information quickly through the use of social media,” said Lt. Steve Brewington. “We are now using Twitter in addition to the department's Facebook page to inform citizens and followers about special events, critical incidents and other rapidly evolving situations.”
This market season, the Town farmers market began tweeting @HSFarmersMarket as a way of sharing news. The Town also opened an Instagram account @ToHollySprings to share some of the more creative photographs that Town staff gather.
“Instagram is more than just pretty pictures,” said Tamara Ward, communications specialist. “It’s a platform that shares visually who we are and what we do. While the photographs may be eye-catching, they’re accompanied by informative captions that give insight into our community and government.”
The new social media profiles join an established base. Click here for a complete list of official Holly Springs social media accounts, from the Town’s main Facebook and Twitter profiles to Bass Lake Park’s Pinterest boards.
The Town of Holly Springs also is expanding ways people interact with the government on mobile devices including cell phones. Take for instance the Holly Springs app. Town Information Technology staff developed the app to allow residents and businesses to scan Town news and events, make a utility payment, watch Town videos, see what’s under development, and more from their mobile devices. The app is free and available for both Apple and Android devices. To find the app, visit the Apple or Google Play app store and search for “Holly Springs.”
Also, an online interactive map of Town greenways allows people to walk trails using a map that shows the user’s exact location from their mobile device. Using a mobile device or a desktop computer, the map can be navigated by zooming in and out, grabbing and dragging, and by clicking flags on the map and photographs on a bar beneath the map.
As always, the best way to get instant electronic news from the Town of Holly Springs is to sign up for “Notify Me,” a feature on the Town website that sends alerts and news via email or text message directly to subscribers. Users must sign up to receive the alerts and can choose news categories that interest them. Click here to visit the “Notify Me” page on the Town website.
In the near future, the Town plans to launch an online help desk. Users will be able to submit questions and report concerns and suggestions to the Town through an online form. The Town also plans to launch a YouTube channel next month. Online streaming video feeds of Town athletic fields also will be available soon.


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Latest Liquid nitrogen Stories
In the UK last week, an 18 year old woman's birthday celebration ended in emergency surgery to remove her perforated stomach. The cause: a cocktail prepared using liquid nitrogen.
Liquid Health, Inc., manufacturer of the Liquid Health brand of liquid vitamin supplements launches an all new calming product developed to target a wide variety of animals for health-conscious
LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Air Products (NYSE: APD) will showcase its portfolio of simple-to-operate food processing solutions designed to help meat processors maximize throughput at the upcoming AMI International Expo in Chicago, Ill., from April 13-16.
- Stoppage; cessation (of labor).
- A standing still or idling (of mills, factories, etc.).


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Leading Canadian technology partners’ commitment to infinite possibilities celebrated at annual Awards
REGINA, Nov. 18 /CNW/ – Adxstudio Inc. announced today that it has been selected as the winner of the ISV/Software Solution of the Year award at the 2010 Microsoft Partner Network IMPACT Awards. The eighth annual IMPACT awards recognize excellence across the large and diverse community of Microsoft’s Canadian technology partners. The winners were announced at an award ceremony in Toronto on November 9, 2010.
“Our annual IMPACT Awards celebrate the infinite possibilities innovative technology partners bring to customers on a regular basis,” said Corinne Sharp, National Director, Canadian Partner Network, Microsoft Canada Inc. “Technology partners like Adxstudio Inc. are always finding new and exciting ways to raise the bar making them true leaders in their respective fields.”
Adxstudio Inc. was chosen as the winner in ISV/Software Solution of the Year category for xRM Portals, a packaged suite of software accelerators and web development toolkit for Microsoft Dynamics(R) CRM. xRM Portals extends Dynamics CRM with integrated website and portal features including content management, events and conference management, customer e-service, discussion forums, surveys and shopping carts.
“We’re delighted to receive this recognition from Microsoft,” said Adxstudio Inc. President Doug Schneider. “Our xRM Portals development team has worked enthusiastically to ensure that Microsoft Dynamics customers can quickly and securely extend their CRM implementations to the web with high-value, web portal features. xRM Portals customers are now using their CRM to deliver web-based e-services, integrate web marketing efforts, capture customer intelligence, and streamline website content management activities.”
xRM Portals software is designed for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and CRM 2011 and can be deployed on-premise, partner-hosted, and CRM Online.
About Adxstudio Inc.
Adxstudio Inc. designs and develops web-integrated software solutions for Microsoft Dynamics(R) CRM that empower organizations to create, manage and extend websites, administer customer and stakeholder portals, and deliver web-facing, CRM-integrated line-of-business applications. Adxstudio xRM Portals and related software products are available at www.adxstudio.com/xrm and through a global network of authorized Microsoft Certified Partners.
About the Microsoft Partner Network IMPACT Awards
In 2003, Microsoft Canada replaced all of its previous technology partner awards with a unified program that also recognizes customer service, marketing, and contribution to the community. Microsoft Canada has outlined 30 categories to highlight the Partner Network competencies to honour the achievements of top technology partners.
The Microsoft Partner Network IMPACT Awards were open to Systems Integrators, Large Account Resellers, Direct Market Resellers, Value Added Resellers, Distributors, Systems Builders, Authorized Education Resellers, Certified Partners for Learning Solutions, Microsoft Certified Partners, Independent Software Vendors, Channel Suppliers, Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) Partners and Original Equipment Manufacturers.
For a list of all 2010 finalists, and more information on the Microsoft Partner Network IMPACT Awards, please visit http://www.microsoft.ca/awards.


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- To prevent retailers from losing sales due to poor search results, Google introduces a retailer finder to provide customers with more accurate search results when shopping online, Srikanth Belwadi, chief product officer of Google Cloud Group, said in a blog post on Wednesday.
- According to the announcement, the tool is equipped with advanced query understanding to give shoppers better search results and semantic search to match product features with website content for discovery. The search tool optimizes results by leveraging user interaction and ranking patterns and also includes privacy practices that protect retailer data with access controls.
- Among the brands that have tested Retail Search are Lowe’s, Fnac Darty and Casas Pernambucanas. So far, businesses that have tried the feature have seen increased sales conversions, larger cart sizes, and better customer engagement. Belwadi noted.
Overview of the dive:
Google created the Retail Search feature to address inadequate searches that lead to cart abandonment on e-commerce sites. The tech giant conducted a survey with the Harris Poll indicating that 94% of US consumers abandon a shopping session due to inaccurate search results. The company also said retailers are losing $300 billion in sales annually due to search abandonment in the United States.
“Today, people expect search engines to better understand their intent, return relevant results faster, and help them easily discover new products through personalized recommendations,” Belwadi written in the ad. “Now, thanks to the power of Retail Search, when a shopper searches for ‘long black dress with short sleeves and a comfortable fit’ on an e-commerce site, they should immediately get results for precisely that, rather than narrowing down its research several times. , or worse, give up on their shopping journey.”
Neelima Sharma, senior vice president of technology. e-commerce, marketing and merchandising at Lowe’s, said in a statement that since partnering with Google, the home improvement retailer has seen an increase in search conversion, a drop in its no-results rate, a increased click-through rate and improved search results for long-tail searches.
In addition to Retail Search, Google has released other tools to help retailers with their e-commerce technology and facilitate the shopping experience for customers. Last May, the company expanded its partnership with Shopify, allowing sellers to easily showcase their products to customers on its mobile browsing tools. It also released a Shopping Graph tool, which tracks products, merchants, brands, reviews, and inventory information using artificial intelligence. In September, the company introduces Google Lenswhich allows shoppers to search and make purchases using images and videos on a given web page.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated e-commerce spending, but research suggests consumers are still turning to stores for the majority of their purchases. A Forrester 2021 Report predicts that 72% of retail will occur in physical stores in 2024. Yet e-commerce grew 30% in 2020, the strongest growth since 2002, according to Forrester.


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Early on Tuesday, images of a new Barbie playset sans its male counterpart, Ken, started making waves on the internet.
The blonde-haired fashion doll manufactured by the American toy manufacturer, Mattel Inc, started trending on Twitter after photos showing a "lesbian" Barbie accompanied with a female companion started circulating on the platform.
Barbie and Her Girlfriend
The images show blonde-haired Barbie alongside her "girlfriend," who can be seen sporting a bob hairstyle. The "couple" is seen in different settings, wearing bright-colored tees that read, "LOVE WINS."
"Barbie and her girlfriend," one Twitter user captioned the photos, while another wrote, "how barbie get a girlfriend before me? this is so .. i'm so jealous but happy for my girl,"
The social media posts led to speculation that Ken was no longer in the picture and had been replaced by "Jen" instead. Here are some of the reactions:
Blogger-Inspired Doll Used to Promote LGBTQ+ Rights
Over the last several years, Mattel has made an effort to make Barbie more inclusive with a range of not only different body types, but also ethnicities and races. In keeping with those efforts, the toymaker has also extended its support to the LGBTQ+ community.
Turns out, the "lesbian" Barbie photos that are being widely circulated on Twitter are from a 2017 collaboration between Mattel and fashion blogger Aimee Song to to raise awareness of non-profit organisations that lend support to LGBTQ+ youth.
The photos were taken from an Instagram post shared by Barbie's official account and the "girlfriend" is, in fact, a doll dedicated to Song, whose company produces human-sized versions of the 'Love Wins' tees with some of the proceeds going to The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization focused on preventing suicide among LGBTQ youth.
"Proud to wear this "Love Wins" shirt with @songofstyle! Did you know that her exclusive t-shirts benefit different causes and non-profits? Such an inspiring initiative and fabulous few days I have spent with Aimee, she's a doll! ," the Instagram post read.
Mattel released its first lesbian Barbie in 2016 to celebrate the achievements of soccer player and Olympic gold medallist Abby Wambach.


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Sales of alcohol, food, and weed skyrocketed on election night: report
In red states, sales of alcohol and food rose by 33% and 75% in blue states on election night
This week a report confirmed what most of us could have already guessed: Americans were so stressed out during this week’s election that sales of alcohol, weed, and takeout food skyrocketed on Big Tuesday.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Tuesday and Wednesday, establishments selling food, liquor, and marijuana reported a surge in sales as the country continues to wait on the final results of the presidential election.
For example, Boston-based alcohol delivery service Drizly told the L.A. Times that their sales went up by 68 percent from the average of the previous four Tuesdays. What’s notable is that in the red states in which Drizly operates, sales rose by 33 percent from the last month of Tuesdays, while sales were up 75 percent in blue states.
In Washington, D.C., the sales rose by a whopping 133 percent and 110 percent in New York City.
In Los Angeles alcohol sales rose by 35 percent and marijuana delivery service Eaze also reported seeing an 18 percent increase on Tuesday. Company spokeswoman Elizabeth Ashford reported that most customers were purchasing pre-rolled joints and vape devices, noting that this trend suggests “consumers were looking for products that would provide faster onset effects.”
“We attribute that to an especially stressful election day,” she concluded.
Tuesday evening Google Trends also posted a tweet announcing that “food near me” searches were on the rise as the polling results started to come in. Not surprisingly, pizza was the biggest winner, although stressed Americans were also searching for liquor stores and Chinese food.
“People were very open about being stressed and needing comfort food,” said Kevin Caravelli, managing partner of Italian restaurant Antico, where they saw three times greater than usual customers loading up on pizza and ice cream.
“It was nuts. It got us by surprise because we usually staff more people when we plan for a big day,” he recalled. “We basically ran out of half of the menu.”
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Netflix may not have any advertising on its streaming service, but it is no stranger to marketing.
The company has quietly become one of the biggest advertising buyers in the entertainment industry — and that spend continues to grow as the company ramps up its original programming efforts.
According to Netflix’s latest 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company spent just over $1.8 billion on advertising in 2018. That is more than twice as much as the company spent in 2016, at $842 million on advertising, and a significant jump of 65% from 2017, with $1.09 billion on advertising.
The company’s marketing spend is actually accelerating at a faster pace than its content spend. The company spent $8.9 billion on content in 2017 and $12 billion on content in 2018, a 35% increase.
As Netflix spends more on original TV shows and movies like ”Bird Box,” the company realizes it needs to do more to help promote and differentiate those offerings. Given its worldwide presence, it has scaled its advertising efforts globally to highlight local offerings and propel global IP.
“We have definitely leaned more into marketing ... As we create more and more of these titles that no one has heard of, we're going to need to lean a little bit more on promotion, and the website can't do it all,” Netflix’s then-CFO David Wells said last year on an earnings call.
Netflix executives paint a streaming landscape with a variety of competitors. Some like YouTube are free and ad-supported. The company maintains that by remaining ad-free, it maintains goodwill among its subscribers.


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One of the Internet's very first beauty tutorial vloggers, Michelle Phan is reportedly taking home $5 million in earnings this year, largely due to endorsement partnerships. (Accordingly, Phan has over five million subscribers on YouTube.) Lancome's official video makeup artist since 2011, this year Phan launched her own product line with the global cosmetics giant.
[Want to Make $5 Million a Year? Become a Beauty Vlogger — Cosmopolitan]


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According to The Hollywood Reporter, the sci-fi showdown actioner Alien vs. Predator sold about 1.85 million combined DVD and VHS units Tuesday, its first day on store shelves, according to executives at 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. While that figure doesn't set any home video industry records, it does mean that AVP, starring Sanaa Lathan and Lance Henriksen, nearly matched its opening-weekend domestic boxoffice take of $38.3 million during its first 24 hours on retail shelves, according to industry sources.
Meanwhile, Friday Night Lights, starring Billy Bob Thornton, was the nation's best-selling DVD for the week ending Jan. 23rd, according to Nielsen VideoScan's weekly First Alert DVD sales chart.
Dont't forget to also check out: Alien vs. Predator


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MARKET OVERVIEW: CINEMA IN THE EXPERIENTIAL ECONOMY
There have been many occasions in cinema history when the medium was supposedly on its way out. The growth of television viewing in the 1950s and the home video boom of the 1980s did pose a threat to film’s dominance, but the industry has always reinvented itself and survived. Today it is dealing with another perceived threat in the form of streaming, a hot topic that dominated the ISE 2020 Digital Cinema Summit (DCS).
Opening the conference with the keynote A Market Overview: Cinema in the Experiential Economy, David Hancock, Director of Research for Cinema and Home Entertainment at Informa Tech and President of the European Digital Cinema Forum, commented that, periodically, the film exhibition market has had to justify its existence. “This is one of those periods,” he said. “There is a need to reposition again and reconnect with the audience.”
According to figures from IHS Markit (now part of Informa Tech), online video has triggered an overall increase in the video subscription market. But, at the same time, cinema has seen increased attendance, although that does vary from territory to territory. The number of cinema sites in the UK has gone up to just under 800 in 2018, a vast improvement on the dip to around 745 in 2014. Hancock explained that this was not just the ‘Big Three’ (Vue, Odeon, Cineworld) but also Everyman, Picturehouse and The Light, plus smaller operators. “The number of multiplexes in the UK has gone down but there are more screens,” he said. “This includes boutique and art house cinemas.”
In the US the studios have managed to reverse the decline in their market share. Part of this, Hancock observed, was due to the popularity of movie franchises, although this trend has dropped slightly since its 2017 peak. Technology and improved cinema design have also played a part in the overall health of the market. This includes Premium Large Format (PLF) presentation, better seats and service and experiential experiences such as 4D and IMS (immersive motion seating).
Hancock also downplayed “the cinema is threatened/dying headlines” by sharing figures that show subscribers to Netflix and Amazon Prime are also keen cinemagoers. “The real enemies of cinema are those that don’t watch either Netflix or Amazon,” he said. “The people who do have streaming services like watching content and probably do go to the cinema. And the global cinema industry is resilient and strong. It is here to stay.”


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Get ready to have your tastebuds well and truly tickled in Newcastle this weekend when a huge food festival arrives in the area.
Hidden Gems Secrets and Delicacies, which will showcase tasty food not currently available on Tyneside, is coming to the Quorum Business Park in Benton this Friday and Saturday, September 20 and 21.
Get ready to feast on Caribbean food, Venezuelan, Italian and Sicilian, Greek, Thai and Indonesian, Spanish, Gourmet Burgers, Indian and much more as traders tempt you with the aromas of their many dishes.
The event, which brings together new flavours and popular dishes from across the globe is being organised by Fabio D'Agostino, a Sicilian who lives in Newcastle with his Greek wife.
Fabio said: "We are a multicultural family of foodies and we are always fascinated by discovering new flavours from around the world.
"The North East food scene is ever expanding with new food and drink gems. My vision for this event was to unite amazing food vendors from across the North East whose culinary talent might not have been discovered yet with popular vendors from London, Sheffield and Manchester, whose products have never before been available in the North East.
"Nothing unites people from different backgrounds and walks of life more than good drinks and food and shared fun."
The event is a two-day celebration of food and diversity, which includes dance and fun for people of all ages and cultures.
One of the event's highlights will be the Sicilian Corner where guests will have the opportunity to taste authentic Sicilian dishes, such as arancini, cannoli, paste di mandorla, cipollina as well as purchase typical Sicilian products.
There will also be an ideal opportunity to burn off any calories with salsa and bachata dance taster sessions held by the famous Coco Vega.
*Advance tickets are priced £3.50 and available online from Eventbrite.
Kids under 10 years old enter for free and there will be also a kids entertainment area as well as free parking both days.


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In recent years, states have tried to legalize online lotteries. However, most failed to get the approval they needed due to legal issues. First, some states had concerns over online lottery sales and were concerned that togel they could be breaking the law. These concerns led them to seek opinion from the Department of Justice. In 2011, the Justice Department clarified the Wire Act and ruled that online lottery sales were legal, but only for certain states.
While most lottery games are similar to traditional ones, online lotteries are operated by private companies, who act as middlemen. In this way, you can participate in a variety of different games. Some online lotteries allow you to purchase multiple tickets, which can significantly increase your odds of winning. Lastly, most online lottery sites will provide you with instructions on how to play.
Despite this, you should also be wary of lottery scams. These scams promise big prizes and then fail to pay you. Some of these schemes also use blackmail to threaten legal action if the prize is not paid. To avoid these scams, always purchase your tickets from a legitimate provider.
Some states have also approved online lottery sales. In New York, Republican Assemblyman Clifford Crouch has introduced legislation that would allow online lottery sales, which he hopes will increase the lottery’s market. eLottery CEO Edwin McGuinn says the online lottery could increase revenue by 15% in five years. This would also open the lottery to a new demographic. This could be good news for many states that are struggling with budget deficits.


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A Palo Alto company that’s speeding credit card swipes and dips for restaurants and other retailers is now planning to expand to more countries with its recent funding.
Poynt recently raised $100 million in a round of funding led by Elavon and National Australia Bank, bringing its total backing to $133 million.
The new round will help Poynt expand to several countries in Europe and Asia. It will also help the company bring Poynt’s software to other makers of card-reading devices.
Retailer customers buy Poynt devices through banks, which also handle the card transactions, and then set up an account with the company to give them access to data and software, said CEO Osama Bedier, who worked on payments at PayPal and Google before starting Poynt in 2013. The company partners with Chase and a U.S. Bank subsidiary, among others.
Poynt, which has about 120 employees, offers two devices, the Poynt Smart Terminal and the Poynt 5, along with software that can run on any smart payment terminal. The hardware is wireless and portable, which means that at a restaurant, waiters can present a bill to diners on the device and leave it with them to swipe or dip their card, rather than have to take the card to the back to ring them up.
While there are lots of options for ringing up purchases on credit and debit cards, they are fragmented, Bedier said. Poynt wants retailers to choose their own banks, software and hardware.
“Even though Google has its own phones and tablets, their apps still work on the iPhone,” Bedier said. “In the merchant world, you’re locked in.
“Square only makes a few things available to you and if you want something else, tough luck. We want to change that.”
Bedier contrasts Square’s success with smaller merchants with Poynt’s customers, who are typically larger. The typical Poynt retailer does more than $50,000 a year in sales. The company has about 100,000 customers for its hardware and software.
New money: Simple Habit
What it does: Simple Habit offers meditation and audio therapy sessions.
What happened: It received $10 million in a funding round led by Foundation Capital.
Why it matters: Simple Habit joins the field of meditation apps, which are becoming increasingly popular. As CEO Yunha Kim put it, there are plenty of apps for the high points of life, but people also need apps for the low points.
Headquarters: San Francisco
To hear more
To listen or subscribe: www.sfchronicle.com/startups
Or search for “Startups of the Week” in your favorite podcast app.
Funding: $12.8 million
Deal of the week: Sapho
What it does: Sapho pulls work-related tasks from different systems, like filing for paid time off and expense reports, into one online feed.
What happened: It was bought by Citrix for about $200 million.
Why it matters: Citrix is popular and used by major companies, which gives Sapho access to a large customer base, according to Sapho co-founder Fouad ElNaggar.
Headquarters: Formerly San Bruno; Sapho employees have moved to Citrix’s Santa Clara office
Funding: $27.9 million
Employees: About 90
Sophia Kunthara is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: email@example.com Twitter: @SophiaKunthara