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UK: Diageo hangs fire on Guinness Red roll-out
The company, which extended its trial of Guinness Red across the central regions of England in September 2007, is waiting on a stronger indication of "trial and repeat" for the brand from UK consumers, Syl Saller, Diageo's global innovations director, told just-drinks late last week.
"(Guinness Red) is doing good," Saller said, "but it's a slow build. That's one where we are staying in test.
"The rate of sale has been entirely satisfactory," she continued. "As we continue to roll out to different pubs, we want to make sure that it works in the big pubs, where you get the through-put to sustain an attractive rate of sale, and in smaller pubs. I want to see longevity and the trial and repeat.
"We're asking the publican to put in an additional Guinness font, and if I'm going to ask for that kind of bar space, I want to know that we're going to have that kind of support."
When asked if the company was looking beyond the UK for markets in which the Guinness brand extension would be successful, Saller said: "We don't see another market that it's as right for. Ireland, maybe, but North America? I'd say no.
"We're really going after people who'd only drink Guinness on St Patrick's Day, who find the taste too challenging. Guinness Red is that little bit sweeter."
In October last year, Diageo launched an advertising campaign for Guinness red in the trial areas. That campaign will continue throughout 2009, Diageo confirmed last month.
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Diageo is to close its Dorval bottling plant in Quebec in what it describes as a "careful review" of the company's supply chain....
United Spirits, the India-based spirits giant, is looking to raise US$350m via a share issue to help pay down debt accrued by its acquisition of Whyte & Mackay....
Pernod Ricard's head of distribution has said that signs of economic improvement in some markets give the industry a reason to be optimistic going forward....
Viña Concha y Toro has posted a healthy lift in sales for its third quarter and year so far....
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Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace, launched a film “MSMEs - Taking India Forward” on the occasion of World MSME Day celebrated on June 27th worldwide to celebrate and showcase the journey of all the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises who are integral growth drivers of the country’s economy.
New Delhi: the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has granted 630 licenses to MSME toy manufacturers as of 28.03.2022, Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Ashwini Kumar Choubey told Lok Sabha on Tuesday in a written reply.
New Delhi: The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved a USD 808 million or Rs 6,062.45 crore, World Bank assisted programme on “Raising and Accelerating MSME Performance” (RAMP).
Kolkata/IBNS: The grand launch of a new team of MSME (Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises) Development Forum, West Bengal and felicitation of Dr. Mamta Binani as the president of MSME Development Forum took place last week.
New Delhi/IBNS: The workers in the stainless steel industry's medium, small, and micro enterprises (MSME) await the imposition of countervailing tax (CVD) on China and Indonesia, as it would fuel the Indian businessmen to proliferate manufacturing.
New Delhi/UNI: Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Friday called upon the Information Technology enabled Service (ITES ) industry to aim for raising 75 unicorns in the 75 weeks to the 75th anniversary of India’s Independence next year.
New Delhi/IBNS: There is tremendous potential for Indian engineering MSMEs to be integrated into the Global Value Chain due to their manufacturing cost advantage, said B. B. Swain, Secretary, Ministry of MSME.
Kolkata/IBNS: The low-rate regime is the need of the hour to boost recovery and the Reserve Bank of India has done a good job by keeping the repo rates unchanged at four percent besides keeping the stance accommodative, said the Chairman of EEPC (Engineering Export Promotion Council) Mahesh Desai.
Mumbai: HDFC Bank has said it aims to expand its reach to two lakh villages in the next 18-24 months.
Kolkata/IBNS: TechSci, a research-based global management consulting firm, in its report on “Global Three-Wheeler Market” estimated the three-wheeler industry to boom to a total of US 11.68 billion by 2026.
New Delhi/UNI: Union Minister for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said that now only PAN card and the Aadhaar card will be required for the registration of MSMEs, while he addressed a webinar of SMEStreet GameChangers Forum.
Mumbai/UNI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a monetary penalty of Rupees One Crore only on City Union Bank Limited for contravention of/non-compliance with certain provisions of the directions contained in the Reserve Bank of India (Lending to Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) Sector) Directions, 2017 and the circulars on educational loan scheme and credit flow to agriculture – agricultural loans – waiver of margin/security requirements.
Kolkata/IBNS: Efficient & timely insurance services to policy holders are the need of the hour, said Suresh Mathur, Executive Director, Health Insurance, Surveyors, IMF & Reinsurance, Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India (IRDAI).
Kolkata/IBNS: Speaking at an ASSOCHAM conference here on Friday, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, said that the government fully understands the importance and contribution of MSMEs for the nation and is fully committed to support the MSME sector grow and reach its full potential.
Kolkata/IBNS: Indian Chamber of Commerce recently announced the launch of a state-of-the-art Web Store to showcase exquisite collections of Indian textile, handloom, apparel, garments, khadi, jute etc. by the MSMEs.

domain: news


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Gamers banned from groping VR women at gaming exhibit (PHOTOS)
As was expected, virtual reality - complete with virtual girls - is one of the main attractions of Tokyo Game Show 2016, but what was not expected was some male visitors being unable to resist the temptation to grope these virtual women.
The exhibition, which got underway on Thursday, has seen game developers trying to persuade gamers about the exciting possibilities that virtual reality (VR) offers them, but for Japanese developers M2 Co, some people have become a little too excited.
Their 3D modeling and animation software, E-mote, allows users to create 3D characters and then interact with them. Sounds impressive.
For the Tokyo Game Show exhibit, the company decided to bring along a life size mannequin to demonstrate how it could be animated in real-time once a user wore a set of VR goggles.
The hands-on display got a little too hands-on, however, with numerous enthusiastic men almost immediately starting to fondle the dummy’s breasts, which in the VR world also stirred a reaction from the animated character, although seemingly not an overly enthusiastic response.
E-mote体験！TGSでおっぱいが揉めるぞ！ pic.twitter.com/K30RquNiCx— yunayuna64 SKB03 (@yunayuna64) September 15, 2016
"I feel as though I have seen the future,"said Hiroyasu Ando, one of the men who tried the VR set. "It's going to be possible to fall in love with a virtual girl."
Organisers were forced to ask the software developer to stop users from touching the mannequin in such a manner, as it was seen to go against the show’s intended family-friendly theme.


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Fresh competition from the likes of Apple, Amazon and PayPal hasn't fazed Square investors, who have injected another $150 million into the mobile payments company, giving it a valuation of around $6 billion, according to a report.
The latest round was led by a new investor, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, according to The New York Times. The latest round brings the total investment in Square to $590 million.
The investment puts Square's valuation in line with other eye-popping estimates of late, including a $17 billion valuation for Uber, $5 billion for Pinterest and $6 billion for Spotify.
Reps from Square could not be reached for comment on the report.
Started in 2009 by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and partner Jim McKelvey, Square lost about $100 million last year, according to an April report in The Wall Street Journal. Despite its accelerated burn rate, the company rebuffed Google's offer to buy the company, the report claims.
The company's precarious financial condition is now being tested with the introduction of Apple Pay, a rival mobile payment system from Apple, while Amazon is marketing its own credit card reader and eBay just announced it was spinning off PayPal.


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"Partnering with online players to etch out a strategy is something that we've seen work, and we recommend that partnering with an online player is a good move," said Michael Boland, senior analyst with the Kelsey Group and one of the authors of the white paper.
Boland suggested that newspapers' Web sites incorporate features aimed at consumers who research products online, but complete the purchase at a brick-and-mortar store. For instance, he said, newspapers could offer online coupons, redeemable at offline venues.
Also, he said, newspapers can leverage the Web to better serve their existing print advertisers. "While newspaper advertising and classifieds have been traditionally based on leading offline conversions, new technologies are being developed to enable them to better reach new and existing customers online," the paper stated. "This is a unique opportunity to bring traditional strengths in circular, classified, and display advertising to new online channels."
Another partnership online newspapers should look into is with search, the report stated. "One type of partnership that's very necessary is bringing in search technology," said Boland. "Right now, a lot of content and classified advertising is kind of buried. There are a lot of interesting search technologies that can be used to bring search functionalities to a newspaper's Web site."


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With roughly 80 percent of homes in Puerto Rico still without power, Manheim Caribbean employees stepped up to cook and deliver meals and water to the devastated Puerto Rican community of Ingenio.
Why would a regional car dealer outsource reconditioning services it already offers? Because it helps the Southeastern operation manage greater capacity, meet growing marketplace and customer.
When it comes to core business values, it’s challenging to connect lofty corporate goals with day-to-day operations, but not so for Cox Automotive. The privately held company has long espoused.
As the school year gets underway, Manheim California is gearing up for the third year of it’s “Flip this Car” project, which enables Valley High School students in Santa Ana, California to recondition cars and auction them off.
To offer dealers more ways to meet their buying and selling needs on their terms, Manheim launched a new OVE “Dealer Direct Event” sales channel. With this offering, dealers can host digital.
ATLANTA – To support its efforts to drive future region growth, Manheim announced the selections of Noel Kitsch as general manager of Manheim Georgia and Joey Satfield as general manager of.
With sustainability and community service acting as driving forces behind how it operates its businesses, Cox Automotive presented the third annual Leader in Sustainability Award to Motorcars Honda at the 2017 Automotive News Best Dealerships to Work For celebration this week.
EXTON, Penn., October 10, 2017 – Rapid Retail, a newly launched addition to HomeNet’s Inventory Online (IOL) platform, was named one of 2017’s most innovative automotive retail products by.


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Too scared to shop?
From the LA Times:
Auto sales fell 12% last month compared with a year earlier, according to AutoData Corp., which compiles industry statistics. More than 2,100 retail stores have been shuttered since January and more than 6,500 are likely to be by the end of the year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.
A string of mid-size chains, including furniture sellers Levitz, Bombay and Domain, catalog retailer Lillian Vernon and electronics firm Sharper Image, have gone bust. And home goods giant Linens 'n Things is tottering on the edge, having missed making recent interest payments.
Construction of retail space, which ratcheted up from about 200 million square feet a year in the 1970s and 1980s to more than 300 million square feet in each of the last three years, is expected to plunge nearly 20% this year, according to Robert Murray, economics vice president with McGraw-Hill Construction in suburban Boston.
"The stores that are doing well are the Wal-Marts and Costcos that sell you things you have to have. The stores that aren't doing well are the Targets, the Dillard's, the Kohl's that sell you things you don't have to have," said Howard Davidowitz, a veteran retail analyst in New York.
"People have a mental balance sheet and know where they stand," he said. "It makes them scared, and when they're scared, they don't buy."


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Alvogen today announced the launch of the first generic equivalent of Revlimid™ (lenalidomide) in several CEE markets including Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria and the Baltic states. The product will be marketed as 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 15, 20, 25mg hard capsules and is a fully generic and bioequivalent product to Revlimid™. Following the launch into multiple CEE countries, Alvogen’s Lenalidomide will also be launched in selected Asian countries in 2019.
Alvogen’s Lenalidomide has been developed fully in-house at Alvogen‘s subsidiary, Lotus Pharmaceuticals and is part of a comprehensive oncology pipeline.
Hacho Hathcikian, Executive Vice President at Alvogen in the CEE regions, said: “The Lenalidomide launch is a major landmark for Alvogen in the CEE region as we are the first generic pharmaceutical company to launch the generic of Revlimid™ in our major markets. Patients now finally have access to an affordable and high-quality generic alternative of this leading oncology drug. Adding Lenalidomide to our portfolio also enhances our commitment to be one of the key oncology players in the CEE region.”
Revlimid™ is indicated for several hematological malignancies including multiple myeloma and is the biggest-selling oncology drug with approximately $9.8 billion sales globally.
Revlimid™ is a trademark of Celgene Corporation


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Maine Elks collect cell phones for kids? cancer
130 mil. phones expected to be discarded annually in U.S.
There is something lurking in people's homes, and there could be more than one of them. They huddle in dark, forgotten spaces, void of any recent acknowledgment or utilization, just waiting for an opportunity to roam free once again.
They mean no harm, but could potentially be dangerous. There is no clear evidence of why they are there, what relentless subconscious force drove them to the depths of the drawer, the loneliness of the shelf, the agony of the toy box. But they remain there nonetheless ... motionless, forgotten. Their owners compelled to shove them away in a possible fit of confusion or greed or procrastination.
They could have been your best friend or your worst enemy. What are they? They are an item that at one time was considered a sign of the times. Yes, it's your old cell phone, and it's time to set it free.
It is quickly emerging as a 21st century phenomenon. Cellular phones and numerous other electronic items are piling up at a dramatic rate, yet those same cell phones once thought of as useless just happen to be one of many electronic items that's been worth keeping around instead of tossing in the trash.
Please donate your used cell phones to help raise much needed funds for the Maine Children's Cancer Program. The Maine Elks Association, MCCP Private Sector Committee, is collecting used cell phones statewide for the purpose of raising money for MCCP as well as preserving our environment. They are calling it their Phones to Fight Kid's Cancer project and they will receive a monetary donation for each working cell phone that they collect through their fund-raising program. They have adopted this fund-raiser as their committee's primary project and will be collecting phones until there is some other means to handle this dilemma.
According to a new study by environmental research group Inform, people in the United States will soon be getting rid of about 130 million cell phones each year. While cell phones contain toxic materials such as arsenic, lead and zinc, which pollute our landfills, phones donated through this fundraising program are given new life by being rebuilt and either designated as 911 phones to those in need, such as victims of domestic violence, or sold to developing nations. Those phones that cannot be reused are recycled for their component parts according to EPA standards.
With rapidly changing technology and demand for newer, flashier phones, as well as the competitive nature of service providers, used cell phones are piling up by the truck load. The average life of a cell phone has dwindled from three years to now being replaced approximately every 18 months and shrinking. Adding up the past few years of retired cell phones, it is estimated that by the end of 2005 an astonishing 500 million cell phones will be doing nothing but gathering dust.
Refurbishing and recycling these phones is a step in the right direction in preventing any damaging effects to the environment, but so far the number of phones being recycled is minimal (less than — percent of the phones retired and discarded each year are recycled).
"We're very excited about this program", says Bob Godin, MCCP Private Sector Committee chairman for the Maine Elks Association. "We are getting tremendous support throughout our state and have received phones from Kittery to Presque Isle. This cell phone recycling program not only benefits the children at Maine Children's Cancer Program but also assists in preserving our environment and bringing communications to people who could not otherwise afford it."
Working cell phones (must include battery; however, chargers and adapters are not necessary) can be dropped off at your local Maine Elks Lodge or you can mail them directly to Bob Godin, PO Box 652, Skowhegan, ME, 04976. Godin can be reached at or 399-0092 for information and/or questions.


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[caption id="attachment_38989" align="alignleft" width="1000"]Mac Nagaswami and Greg Star. Photo by Ron Dubick.[/caption]
By MICHAEL BRADLEY Special to Delaware Business Times
Mac Nagaswami last spring took a trip to Miami with friends. It was his first real vacation in three years, and he had plenty of reasons to celebrate. Carvertise, his startup, had grown from an idea hatched by a couple of college students to a national enterprise with 16 full-time and 200,000 contract employees and a presence in 35 states. Sales doubled in size last year, and 2018 revenues had surpassed the entire 2017 stream by mid-May.
Things are moving so quickly that Nagaswami is having trouble keeping his cash flowing, because old clients can take 90-120 days to pay their invoices, while the abundance of new campaigns require instant resources.
"I see our growth trend continuing," Nagaswami said.
The company is doing so well that advertising legend Charlie Bird took notice. The industry icon - whose Beetleboards of America firm pioneered using automobiles as advertising vehicles in California during the 1970s - reached out to Nagaswami and his partner, Greg Star, and invited them to Florida for a daylong meeting about how to maximize Carvertise's future.
"That was nuts," Nagaswami said of Bird's interest. "It was mind-blowing." Now Bird consults for the company on sales and marketing ideas and has made himself readily available. "We call him when we need him," he said.
The Carvertise platform is a simple one: the company wraps ordinary folks' cars in advertisements for clients and uses them as mobile billboards throughout an area. It targets consumers' eyes according to market but also by where the drivers work. For instance, a pharmacy would like to have its messages on vehicles owned by people who park at hospitals and doctors' offices. A consumer product wouldn't be as concerned with the specifics of where the cars land, rather how many of them cover as much ground as possible.
Nagaswami and Star met while studying at University of Delaware. They came up with the idea while considering other advertising outlets for companies that didn't have gigantic budgets for TV campaigns. At a charge of $300-to-$1,400 per month per car, the company offers a reasonable alternative to other media, especially if the "wrapped" cars are on the road with high frequency.
"I thought it was absurd that companies were advertising on buses and billboards," Nagaswami said. "There are 350 million moving billboards in this country, and people were missing large opportunities."
Nagaswami reports that more than 200,000 drivers across the country have signed up on the company's website asking to take part in campaigns, a number that grows by "300 a day." Last year at this time, the tally was increasing by 50 a day.
A recent agreement with Empire Today, the carpet and flooring retailer and installer, brought Carvertise into 25 different markets across the U.S., including West Palm Beach, Houston, Chicago and Seattle. Nagaswami marveled that a company wanted a campaign in Bismarck, North Dakota, where he figures there are "more buffalo than people."
Since there are fewer people there and more ground to cover, it costs a little more for the client. Nonetheless, the company is getting more eyes on its logo than it would by putting a billboard in a semi-remote North Dakota location. That kind of thinking is what has made Carvertise successful.
"Mac's brain works on a grand scope," said Jay Patel, owner of Greenhill Pharmacy and a Carvertise client.
"It's always fun to sit across from him and hear him talk, hear the ideas he always has. He has visions of grandeur. He has big ideas, but he is able to act on them."
The first campaign for Greenhill involved just four cars in two Wilmington ZIP codes. Now the pharmacy uses 25 cars throughout the state, and Patel is considering expanding to Philly when a new store opens up there next year.
Other Carvertise clients are reaching a broader audiences, thanks to the wrapping of cars driven by folks working for Uber or Lyft. Since people in just about every crevice of an area use those services, Carvertise can extend a campaign's reach to residential areas that have not been served traditionally by other advertising formats.
Wilmington University Assistant Vice President Bill Swain has spent four years at the school working on university relations, marketing, advertising and PR, and has partnered with Carvertise for three of those years. Swain reports that about 87 percent of the school's students are working adults, with median ages of 30 for bachelor's candidates and 36 for those pursuing master's degrees.
By using wrapped cars of working professionals who park them in lots at hospitals, office buildings and other high-traffic areas, Wilmington can reach a large audience. Since the university offers a program for RNs to receive their bachelor's degrees, a requirement hospitals will need to meet for their nursing staffs by 2020, it uses drivers who work in the health-care field.
"We did a campaign about how we care for our nurses and used 25 cars," Swain said. "We could select where the drivers worked."
While Nagaswami works to support his customers, he is delighted to receive counsel from Bird. In the 1970s, Bird started Beetleboards of America, which put advertisements on VW Bugs for 13 years and did $500 million in sales. Because he introduced the concept, Bird had been tracking Carvertise - and a few California firms who had dabbled in the concept earlier this century - and invited Star and Nagaswami to Florida to present his story, review his successes and missteps and provide any advice he could.
"This guy is an advertising legend," Nagaswami said.
In the '70s, Bird established an advertising foothold in southern California that served as a counterbalance to the Madison Avenue scene. He consulted with major U.S. corporations about their promotional efforts and began to notice something about the habits of college students: many of them drove VW Beetles. He conceived the idea of covering the cars with decals of clients' ad messages and letting the kids serve as mobile billboards. Before he closed his shop in the mid-1980s, Bird had expanded across the country and even across the Atlantic, to London.
"He's an advisor of ours," Nagaswami said. "We call him when we need him. He knows how to sell this concept and can even make sense of the digital era. Selling to humans is still selling to humans. He reached out to us because he thinks we're going to be successful and said. "˜I'm going to put my effort behind you.'"
"I think this is going to change the world," Nagaswami said. "It's a new media format that can reach any population anywhere in the world. We can create global success and a sustainable business using just kids who drive."


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D-Vine, which is a machine developed by French Wine startup 10-Vins, is aiming to be the Nespresso and Keurig for wines. While Nespresso and Keurig managed to revolutionize the food industry with premium coffee, D-Vine, as the title suggest comes up with the perfect glass of wine.
The machine is able to chill or warm the wines and also aerates the drink which is taken in a 100ml test tube.
The temperature and aeration is done according to the recommended quantity from wine makers and a lot of work was put into the cooling system so as to avoid any flaws. The device went on sale in Europe by Christmas 2015 and is expected to be available around the world in the near future.


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Search Results for 'Ballina Beverages'
2 results found.
Ballina Chamber of Commerce is a key resource for local companies seeking to trade internationally or expand their operations overseas. The chamber is licensed to authorise official international trade documentation for foreign destinations that include Iran, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Botswana, and Ukraine.
Mayo has been allocated €11.7 million under the National Roads Programme 2009 but there has been anger expressed at what was dubbed “the crumbs off the table”.


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FDA Calls Out More Than a Half Dozen C-store Chains for Illegally Selling Tobacco Products to Minors
SILVER SPRING, Md. — The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cited several convenience stores and other retailers for selling tobacco products to underage consumers.
In letters sent on April 5, the agency called out high rates of violations at several c-store chains, including 7-Eleven Inc., BP plc, Casey's General Stores Inc., Chevron Corp., CITGO, Exxon, Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC), Shell and Sunoco, according to CNBC.
The FDA also sent similar letters to Walmart, Kroger and Family Dollar.
The agency gave the retailers 30 days to submit a detailed plan describing how they will mitigate illegal tobacco sales to minors.
"Retailers in particular are on the front lines of these efforts to reduce the health consequences of tobacco use and nicotine dependence," the agency said. "Because tobacco use is almost always initiated and established during adolescence, early intervention — including making sure tobacco products aren't being sold to minors — is critical."
The FDA began inspections to root out youth tobacco sales in 2010. According to the news report, it found violations at as few as 15 percent of the Casey's General Store locations that were inspected to as many as 41 percent of the MPC gas stations that were checked during inspections.
In addition, Walmart had a violation rate of about 17 percent, 7-Eleven had a rate of about 25 percent, and BP and CITGO both had violation rates of 35 percent.
"This violative history is disturbing and cannot possibly come as a surprise to corporate leadership," the FDA told each company.
In February, the agency filed complaints seeking No-Tobacco-Sale Orders (NTSO) against select locations of Circle K Stores Inc. and Walgreens for repeated violations on the sale and distribution of tobacco products, including cigars and menthol cigarettes to minors, as Convenience Store News previously reported.
The NTSO action against a Miami Walgreens outlet follows the issuance of more than 1,550 warning letters and 240 civil money penalty actions against Walgreens stores nationwide for unlawful tobacco product sales to minors. However, it was the first NTSO action taken against a Walgreens store.
While the NTSO action against Circle K was not its first, it marks the first time the agency initiated an NTSO complaint for the sale of deemed products — cigars — to minors. Since 2010, the FDA has issued more than 1,045 warning letters and 205 civil money penalty actions to retailers doing business as Circle K for sales to minors.


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GEORGE TOWN, Sept 3 ― Developer Aspen Vision Land, IKEA franchisee Ikano Pte Ltd and the Penang Development Corporation (PDC) have entered an agreement for a RM8 billion integrated development in Batu Kawan that will be built around the Swedish furniture icon.
The massive project will be headlined by a regional integrated shopping haven anchored by IKEA, and include a mixed development of residences, offices, medical facilities, a 20-acre park, an international school, standalone retail outlets and an integrated central transportation hub for Seberang Perai.
With the signing of the agreement this morning, Aspen and Ikano can immediately start preliminary measures such as conducting impact studies and market surveys before commencement of the project.
“We are opening up a full-sized IKEA store here so we will need an elaborate study to be completed first before works can begin,” Ikano managing director Christian Rojkjaer said at a press conference after the signing ceremony at the Royale Bintang Hotel here.
The first phase of the project will consist of the integrated shopping mall anchored by IKEA and is expected to start by the end of next year, with completion scheduled for 2018.
The second phase will include other components such as mixed development, high rise commercial buildings, school, office complex, healthcare facilities and a hotel. The entire project will take up to 10 years to complete.
The project is one of several planned in Batu Kawan, including a RM1 billion project consisting of an upmarket outlet shopping mall, a 300-room international-class hotel and a branch campus of Britain’s University of Hull.
The rising demand for land and projects based in Batu Kawan is due to the opening of the Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah bridge, which connects the small township to Batu Maung on the island.
Aspen and Ikano jointly bought 245 acres of land from PDC for RM483.95 million for the project.
The IKEA store and the first phase of the shopping mall will take up 30 acres while another 45 acres will be set aside for phase two of the shopping mall; the remaining 170 acres will be for mixed development.
Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, who witnessed the signing, said the whole development is in line with the state’s efforts to attract catalyst projects for Batu Kawan and the state.
The state, through PDC, also plans to build 11,800 units of public and affordable housing in the area.


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Xiaomi's Mi Mix 2s, which is scheduled to make its debut on March 27, has made an unofficial appearance on a Chinese social media site. A Weibo user has leaked the Android flagship's photo with its predecessor, revealing key changes in the camera design.
In the photo, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2s is shown to have a capsule-like dual-camera module with an LED flash in the middle, strikingly similar to Apple iPhone X's design. Having said that, the dual-camera is sure to come with the Bokeh blur effect mode, which was sorely missed in the Mi Mix 2.
The 2017-series Xiaomi phone was one of the more gorgeous devices, with powerful internal hardware, but its camera wasn't on a par with the rival brands. This year, it looks like Xiaomi, having listened to the critics, has managed to improve the camera, which is a crucial feature in the highly-competitive flagship segment.
Another good news is that Xiaomi, unlike Apple, has kept the fingerprint sensor on the back, offering users more options to open the phone's screen-lock.
Xiaomi Mi Mix 2: What we know so far
As per recent reports, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2s will sport a 6.01-inch FullView display having full HD+ (2160x1080p) resolution and a front-camera in the top-right corner.
Under-the-hood, it is expected to come packed with a Snapdragon 845 octa-core CPU, Qualcomm's latest and the most powerful processor to date. It will be backed by an Adreno 630 graphics engine, sumptuous 256GB storage, a very big 4,400mAh battery, 8GB RAM and the latest MIUI 18.104.22.168 OS.
In a related development, Xiaomi is planning to bring the Mi and Redmi series phones to the US. If things go as planned, they will enter the market by 2018-end or early 2019. The company might begin with the launch of the Mi Mix 2s.
But, it won't be smooth sailing for Xiaomi, as US lawmakers and agencies have security concerns over cyber espionage by the Chinese government using the company's user-information storage in local data centers.


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PR pros need to think ahead and anticipate the future—so figuring out the top trends in the industry for the coming year always will be important. Will there be something totally new coming to light in 2017? Perhaps. Here are seven trends for PR pros and communicators to consider.
Instagram might be the best social platform for reaching people who actually like to engage with brands on social media. But there’s only so much a brand itself can do to win followers and inspire engagement. Third-party endorsement from Instagram influencers can make a real difference.
At the 2016 PRSA International Conference, Keith Green, vice president of marketing and commercial sales at Guinness World Records, and Doug Simon, president and CEO, D S Simon Media, spoke on the nature and evolution of brands as sources of video entertainment. PR News sat down with them after their session to learn how communicators can benefit from taking an entertainment-style approach with their channels and pitches.
Like you, perhaps, Stephanie Elsea of the American Heart Association doesn’t have an unlimited budget for videos. What she does have is firsthand experience in keeping AHA’s video strategy under budget and an arsenal of time-tested, go-to tools. Here are six of Elsea’s tried-and-true resources, as well as recommendations for when and where to use them.
Google on Tuesday unveiled its new Pixel smartphone (and the slightly larger Pixel XL) at the #MadeByGoogle keynote. Capitalizing on the timing of the iPhone 7 announcement a month ago—and the controversy over its lack of a headphone jack—Google positioned its new offering as a favorable alternative for those who aren’t willing to follow Apple’s path.
Video is growing as a viewing habit with consumers in the U.S. and abroad. Similarly, video has become more and more important in ESPN’s PR effort.
Every brand has a story to tell, says Doug Busk of Coca-Cola. While the mechanism may not be the size and scope of Journey, Coca-Cola’s digital magazine, brand-building for any organization type is a matter of leveraging the awesome opportunity of digital storytelling.
In our weekly feature about PR trends, C. Mondavi & Family VP Marketing Paul Englert tells us he’s seeing a blurring of the lines between PR, brand communications and social media. As we reach out to a younger audience, and as society continues to evolve the way it communicates, we need to evolve our communication strategies. Much of what we once shared via press release, direct email and phone now is sent via myriad social media platforms and text. Our consumer-facing print and web messages are evolving in acknowledgement of the immediacy and brevity with which people demand information from us.
Mars Inc., owner of the Skittles brand of candy, waited five hours to release a statement in response to a tweet from Donald Trump Jr. that used an image of a bowl of Skittles and the brand name in a political message posted to Twitter. Those five hours were put to good use.
Do hiring practices change when building a digital team? We asked ESPN’s Paul Melvin, senior director, communications, what he seeks in a digital hire. Here’s what he said: “I think people make a mistake if they hire for a ‘digital’ or ‘social’ communications role based on the idea that criteria are fundamentally different than what you look for in any communicator. I always look for the ability to write, passion, a combination of self-confidence and self-awareness, and emotional intelligence.


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DARTMOUTH, NS – Sapporo International, the parent company of Sleeman Breweries, has announced plans to put its Dartmouth, N.S. brewing facility up for sale as part of a strategy to optimize its North American operations.
Known as Maritime Brewing before being bought by Sleeman in 2000 – and subsequently taken over by Sapporo as part of the Japanese company’s purchase of Sleeman in 2006 – the facility has 32 employees and currently produces less than 2 percent of Sapporo’s annual volume in North America.
Sleeman is in discussions with several interested buyers who intend to keep the facility operational as a brewery, retaining some or all of the current employees. However, if a deal is not confirmed by July, the brewery will be closed.
Production volume from the Dartmouth plant will be shifted to the main Sleeman facility in Guelph, which will be gaining more capacity due to another move that will see the production of the majority of Sapporo being brewed for the American market shifted to a third party brewer in the U.S..


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Software Delivery Management Is the Key to CI CD and DevOps Success
Friday, October 16, 2020 by Freeman Lightner
Continuous integration (CI), continuous delivery (CD) and DevOps have the power to drive digital transformation, changing the way we work and innovate with faster delivery speeds, greater feature responsiveness and increased team productivity. But how do you measure the success of CI/CD and DevOps?
You need the data on your software delivery processes — q...
Opsera launches continuous orchestration approach to devops
Thursday, October 15, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Opsera launched a new approach for software delivery that combines choice of any CI/CD tools with no-code automation across the DevOps lifecycle. By orchestrating tools, pipelines and insights through a single platform, Opsera speeds time to deployment, helps optimize resources and provides a holistic cross-functional perspective with KPIs that better correlate technica...
Kong Inc unveils private beta of Kong Konnect
Friday, October 9, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Kong Inc. unveiled the private beta release of Kong Konnect, a full-stack platform for cloud native applications delivered as a service. Running on any cloud or platform, Kong Konnect provides end users with instant access to a comprehensive suite of tools that enable reliable and secure service connectivity across their APIs and microservices. It helps developers, arch...
4 Things Enterprise Developers Need From Their Tools
Friday, October 9, 2020 by Freeman Lightner
Successful software development and delivery often comes down to the tools you use. With all the complexity of enterprise DevOps, there’s an allure to getting started with a simplified all-in-one tool that supposedly does everything. But what do enterprise development teams really need?
1. Development teams need best-in-class tools to meet enterprise requ...
Assessing DevOps Maturity Using a Quadrant Model
Thursday, October 1, 2020 by Freeman Lightner
Businesses that rely on software to deliver new products and services must provide customers with the latest technology enhancements and an engaging user experience. To meet this need, many companies are aggressively investigating and implementing modern software development and delivery methods such as:
- Agile: Promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, ...
Beta support for Kubernetes announced by Druva Inc.
Wednesday, September 23, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Druva, Inc. announced beta support for Kubernetes workloads which delivers complete application protection that is accessible by all teams, including the central IT team and DevOps. Offered through Druva Cloud Platform, users can quickly recover, migrate, or clone Kubernetes workloads, alongside existing data center, and cloud workloads from a unified interface. Combini...
Silicon Labs collides with Amazon to create Amazon Sidewalk
Monday, September 21, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Silicon Labs announces a collaboration with Amazon to support Amazon Sidewalk, a shared network created by neighbors who share a small portion of Wi-Fi bandwidth to help their devices work better at home and beyond the front door.
Silicon Labs’ wireless solutions for Amazon Sidewalk will enable developers to create IoT products with encrypted cloud communicatio...
HackNotice announces threat intelligence platform
Friday, September 18, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
HackNotice announced the launch of HackNotice Teams, a cybersecurity management platform powered by actionable threat intelligence and an industry solution to foster a company-wide culture of security. Built on HackNotice Premium’s technology, HackNotice Teams scours the dark web to alert employees of vulnerabilities, compromised information, and data breaches in ...
CircleCI hits 1 millionth user
Thursday, September 17, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
CircleCI celebrates nine years and the addition of their 1 millionth user to the platform.
“When CircleCI started, CI/CD was a kind of niche, bleeding-edge practice. Now, we’re seeing the market accelerate like never before as companies prioritize automation and continuous delivery systems,” said Jim Rose, CircleCI CEO. “No matter what market ...
Photogrammetry set-up in a bid to deliver detailed replicas of people
Thursday, September 10, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Overly has launched a portable photogrammetry set-up in a bid to deliver detailed new age replicas of people, animals, clothing, and 3D objects for heritage conservation, archaeology, museums, educators, artists, marketers and game devs.
Headquartered in Latvia, Overly's team is equipped to deliver photogrammetry services across Europe. Its portable 3D capture ri...
MemSQL scalable database now available through red hat marketplace
Thursday, September 10, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
MemSQL announced that the MemSQL scalable SQL database is now available through Red Hat Marketplace. Red Hat Marketplace is an open cloud marketplace for enterprise customers to discover, try, purchase, deploy, and manage certified container-based software across environments – public and private, cloud and on premises. Through the marketplace, customers can take ...
Infragistics adds new features to its angular data grid
Wednesday, September 9, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Infragistics has announced Ignite UI for Angular v 10.1.0, which includes new features and enhancements to its Angular data grid, new theming capabilities and a set of new Material-inspired industry icons to improve productivity for developers creating applications in the Angular framework.
Ignite UI for Angular v 10.1.0 was released just one month after Google relea...
ArangoDB add new features to their scalable multi-model graph database
Thursday, August 27, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
ArangoDB announced the GA release of ArangoDB 3.7. ArangoDB 3.7 introduces new graph and search features that improve the database's capability to work with highly-connected data at any scale -- furthering the company’s goal of providing the most flexible database on the market.
Key features in ArangoDB 3.7 include improvements for distributed scale-out gra...
PumaPay's latest advancements
Thursday, August 13, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
With their new hybrid solution, PumaPay differentiates itself from other payment service providers. Combining crypto with traditional finance, their service now enables payments to be made and received in any currency, with the PMA token acting as a means of value transfer, by virtually anyone from merchants of all varieties to end-users. With measures in place to ensur...
CI services from CircleCI expand to Salesforce developers
Wednesday, August 12, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
CircleCI unveiled new and updated Salesforce integrations that make it easier for developers to build, test, and deploy Salesforce apps.
These new and updated CircleCI orbs will modernize the workflow for Salesforce developers to utilize high performing development patterns such as CI/CD. Reports have shown that just by implementing CI, teams are 80 percent faster an...
What you are missing about DevOps
Friday, July 24, 2020 by Richard Harris
DevOps and Kubernetes has challenges but most of them are centered around common misunderstandings or rushing into things too quickly. Kevin Crawley is a Developer Advocate at Containous and offers his thoughts with ADM about how you can overcome many of the challenges, along with some sharing some best practices, and even the solution to the prisoner’s dilemma.
Advanced cloud engineer bootcamp available from The Linux Foundation
Thursday, July 23, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Building on the popularity of its beginner Cloud Engineer Bootcamp launched last month, The Linux Foundation announced the availability of an Advanced Cloud Engineer Bootcamp program, designed to help experienced IT professionals move into cloud engineering roles in as little as six months. Additionally, the foundation has announced a new training course, LFS243 - Servi...
4 barriers to AI Adoption
Tuesday, July 21, 2020 by Richard Harris
Some of the largest companies in the world are either already implementing, or are strategically planning for AI. And a recent study from Tractica found that global AI software revenue is expected to grow from $10.1 billion in 2018 to $126 billion by 2025.
But even with adoption by large companies, many businesses seem to be weary of jumping into AI - even when they ...
Amazon Interactive Video service announced
Thursday, July 16, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Amazon Web Services, Inc. announced the general availability of Amazon Interactive Video Service (Amazon IVS). Amazon IVS uses the same technology that powers Twitch, one of the most popular live streaming services in the world with nearly 10 billion hours of video watched in 2019, giving customers live content with latency (the time video takes to go from the camera to...
Datagran launches no-code platform
Tuesday, July 14, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Datagran introduced its flagship platform. Designed to empower developers and growth hackers within data intensive companies, the Datagran platform allows companies to accelerate time-to-market for existing and new products and reduce the total number of tools needed to meet their business goals - without the need to write code and build APIs.
Many companies today ar...
Visual AI from Applitools reaches one billion images analyzed
Tuesday, June 23, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Applitools announced its Visual AI technology has surpassed one billion images analyzed since launching commercially and is projected to double year over year. Each of the one billion images analyzed includes AI enhancing data from over 130 different browser and version combinations, viewport information, and direct user feedback on defects, dynamic content, and more. T...
Businesses and end users experiencing app fatigue
Thursday, June 18, 2020 by Glenn Gruber
When I began drafting this article, it was before COVID-19 really took hold and spurred the “2 years of digital transformation in 2 months”, as Microsoft’s Satya Nadella has said. With that context, everything that I believed was amplified 100x. The lasting effects of the pandemic are going to change the way that many businesses operate, where we work ...
Why you should pace yourself with application modernization
Wednesday, June 17, 2020 by Snjezana Cvoro-Begovic
In business and in life, it’s natural to set goals. Like many of us, you probably establish goals based on what you can accomplish in the short term, while gauging what it will take in terms of resources, assets and time.
But you may also embrace the idea of stretch goals, which help with motivation and permission to be ambitious, sometimes enabling us to...
Ekata releases global identity verification dataset
Tuesday, June 16, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Ekata announced the release of the latest innovation to its global identity verification dataset, Network Score. Network Score is a machine learning prediction that enables businesses to better identify good and bad customers based on a series of insights. The new dataset flags potentially risky digital transactions and fraudulent customers by analyzing the activity pat...
GitLab acquires Peach Tech and Fuzzit
Friday, June 12, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
GitLab announced it has acquired Peach Tech and Fuzzit. These acquisitions will add fully-mature testing solutions including protocol fuzzing, API fuzzing, DAST API testing, and coverage-guided fuzz testing. This makes GitLab’s DevSecOps offering the first security solution to offer both coverage-guided and behavioral fuzz testing techniques as well as the fi...
Epic Games partners with Fortumo to launch carrier billing
Tuesday, June 9, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
The video game and software developer and publisher Epic Games and the mobile technology company Fortumo are announcing the launch of a carrier billing partnership. Epic Games has integrated Fortumo’s carrier billing platform to collect payments for Fortnite Battle Passes, game purchases in the Epic Games Store and other Epic Games content.
The first country wh...
Zappar computer vision libraries now available as SDKs
Wednesday, May 27, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
"The release of Universal AR is...
CircleCI updates platform to enhance speed and efficiency
Wednesday, May 27, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
CircleCI announced updates to its continuous integration and continuous delivery platform that will help developers build, test and deploy code faster and with ease. The updates include an enhanced web user interface, new insights capabilities, and upgrades to convenience images, CircleCI’s fleet of pre-packaged Docker images.
These additions come on the heels ...
Developer Hub announced by Fastly
Tuesday, May 19, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Fastly, Inc announced the launch of its new Developer Hub, a central place for developers to easily access all the tools they need to build fast, scalable and secure modern applications on the Fastly edge cloud platform. Housed within the Developer Hub is a testing sandbox, ready-to-deploy code snippets, and a growing repository of structured tutorials, reference materi...
Fourth annual DevSecOps survey from Gitlab
Monday, May 18, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
GitLab released the results of its fourth annual DevSecOps survey uncovering how roles across software development teams have changed as more teams adopt DevOps. The survey of over 3,650 respondents from 21 countries worldwide found that rising rates of DevOps adoption and implementation of new tools has led to sweeping changes in job functions, tool choices and or...
Developer kit with cloud-native support announced by NVIDIA
Thursday, May 14, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
NVIDIA announced availability of the NVIDIA® Jetson Xavier™ NX developer kit with cloud-native support — and the extension of this support to the entire NVIDIA Jetson™ edge computing lineup for autonomous machines.
The Jetson Xavier NX module is the ideal platform to accelerate AI applications, delivering greater than 10x higher performanc...
The true potential of blockchain as seen from Ethan Beard
Wednesday, May 13, 2020 by Richard Harris
Ripple offers the most advanced blockchain technology for global payments that reaches a trusted, growing network of 300+ financial institutions across 40+ countries and
six continents. Ripple’s open-source developer platform for money, Xpring, allows both crypto and non-crypto developers to integrate payments into any mobile application—with a wallet, new ...
Anvil extends web app development
Wednesday, May 6, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Software startup Anvil announced a major extension of its powerful web app development environment, which makes it simple for Python developers to quickly design, build and ship web apps in minutes.
By making its runtime engine open source, any of the 8 million developers worldwide who know the Python language can now choose to deploy their apps on their own machines...
Postal.io redefines offline B2B marketing
Tuesday, May 5, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
Offline sales and marketing engagement is being redefined by Postal.io, particularly in today’s era of social distancing and remote work brought about by the global coronavirus pandemic. Ushering in a new era of capability and control, Postal’s sales and marketing automation platform enables enterprise B2B companies to effectively manage offline marketing pr...
One Identity Safeguard now supports Microsoft SQL Server
Friday, May 1, 2020 by Brittany Hainzinger
One Identity announced that its One Identity Safeguard solution now supports Microsoft SQL Server 2017 and SQL Server 2019 database environments. Microsoft was positioned as a Leader in the 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems*. With One Identity Safeguard, organizations can for the first time securely manage, monitor, record and audit...


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Unfortunately Saturday was a farewell day with special promotions for the market’s customers as it plans to close for good on Feb. 8 at 6 p.m. Discounts will continue to the end.
Run by Liberty ARC, the store has functioned for more than four and a half years as a real-world retail-training facility for the people Liberty serves and for high school student interns seeking job experience.
Despite a steady stream of devoted customers and regular advertising, the income has not been enough for the market to be “financially self-sustaining,” said Erin Abele, director of employment services and industrial operation.
“We’re closing our doors forever,” she said, adding that workers will have other jobs with Liberty. Sales were improving, but not enough. “At some point you have to make a difficult decision.”
On the flipside, Liberty is planning to open a limited-menu cafe at its main facility at 43 Liberty Drive off Route 5S to serve its employees, clientele and the public starting by the middle to the end of March, Abele said.
Carrie Ann Schmidt of Glenville is a regional director with Liberty and takes advantage of the market’s in-house bistro, bakery and deli. “I love the sandwiches,” she said. “They have the best sandwiches. I come here for lunch.”
Breauna Theobald, who is served by Liberty, was working as cashier Saturday. She has been with the store since it began. Theobold said she loves involvement with people. “My favorite is cashing out and seeing new people,” she said.
Running the bistro, deli and bakery was Bridget Brownell of Johnstown, who has worked with people with disabilities. When the market job became available, she applied because “it seemed like a neat program that empowers people with the skills they need to be successful,” she said.
Skills and responsibilities learned in a grocery store that Abele ticked off are almost too numerous to mention, but the experiences — “skills they never would have had” — have enabled former market workers to gain mainline retail positions, she said.
Abele said the closing is a sad event for both employees and customers. “This is certainly an intimate place,” she said. “We know our customers by name, and they know us by name.”


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The current pandemic has challenged us all in ways that seemed unimaginable just a couple of months ago. At Carbon Relay, we’re aware of how fortunate we are to be able to do our jobs remotely, continue advancing our technology and remain connected with our communities. As our company grows, we have a responsibility to use our resources — including the company’s time, energy, funding and influence — to affect positive change when and where we can. This has been part of our collective mission since we founded the company and it’s more important than ever today.
Many of our employees are based in Boston and Washington, DC, but we’ve all watched with great concern as residents of New York have suffered shockingly high levels of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths. In the face of this catastrophe, we asked ourselves what we might do to try to support New York in a way that has immediate impact and that may bring some small measure of relief to the individuals who are risking their own health to assist others.
Carbon Relay is supporting One Million Masks, a grassroots non-profit organization working with the New York startup community to get one million masks from trusted factories to emergency rooms and intensive care units. The organization initially focused on NYU Langone Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian, but has since expanded its work to include all New York City area hospitals, as well as nursing homes, jail complexes and other correctional facilities. It is also offering limited shipping to verified healthcare workers across the U.S.
1M Masks arose to take on an issue that is, at its core, a monumental supply chain failure. Each of these two large New York hospitals goes through well over 10,000 masks per day, and with traditional supply chains for personal protective equipment bottle-necked, getting masks to the people who urgently need them proved too difficult a task for overwhelmed hospital administers. The goal of 1M Masks is to put supply chain technology experts up against the immediate problem of securing masks, and then accelerating their delivery directly to medical centers — and to cover all associated expenses.
Some of the organizations behind 1M Masks have focused on working through supply chain and logistics issues, but donations of cash are also needed. 100% of the funds raised go to the purchase and distribution of PPE for healthcare workers.
We’ve been able to provide financial support for 1M Masks and invite others to learn more about the organization and consider supporting it as well. To date, the group has shipped over 280,000 masks, of which 140,000 have already been delivered into the hands of front line healthcare workers. If you’re in a position to help or would like to learn more, please visit One Million Masks NYC.


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KETCHUM, ID (BRAIN) — Clothing brand Club Ride said Tuesday that it registered record sales of $1.4 million through the first nine months of 2013. That is a 140 percent increase over the same period in 2012.
“We came out of the trade show season with positive momentum and recognition from Leisure Trends and Bicycling magazine as one of the leaders in the quickly emerging casual-technical apparel segment of the cycling industry," said Scott Montgomery, Club Ride's CEO.
Club Ride also announced that it has created an advisory board that includes Andrew Herrick, the former co-owner of Crankbrothers; Chuck Rumpf, business manager with Boulder Financial and previously audit specialist with Moss Adams; Troy Ballard, the CEO of Pact Apparel; and Ed Drosdick, a CPA.
The company introduced its first-ever fall-winter collection this year, which began shipping in September. Club Ride also expanded its 2014 spring-summer line. That line includes redesigns to the majority of its carry-over styles, more shorts offerings and more competitive pricing of men's shirts. Club Ride also added socks, gloves and T-shirts to the line. And Club Ride launched a road-oriented line called Open Road.
Club Ride said it opened its 700th North American retailer during the third quarter. Meanwhile, consumer-direct sales via the Club Ride website increased 119 percent year-to-date.


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The ongoing world pandemic is affecting online game firms in numerous techniques, however one notable shift highlighted in numerous fresh quarterly monetary stories is an larger pastime in virtual sport gross sales.
Embracer Group, the guardian corporate of THQ Nordic, Coffee Stain, and others, is not any exception. The Group closed out the quarter finishing March 31, 2020 of its 2019-20 monetary 12 months with 78 p.c of its sport gross sales coming from virtual assets, a report prime share for the corporate.
CEO Lars Wingefors suspects the cut up, and a fresh “general larger intake of video games” is in large part because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s one thing he says is made extra obvious via the truth that Embracer had no main releases all the way through March and that its already seeing a “spice up in client task” along sport launches within the present quarter.
For This fall, internet gross sales within the Group’s Games department reduced to SEK 903.Five million (~$94.2 million) from ultimate 12 months’s SEK 1.03 billion (~$107.eight million), although Embracer notes the lower is exacerbated via ultimate quarter’s prime gross sales from the release of Metro Exodus.
Its Partner Publishing/Film industry noticed internet gross sales fall to SEK 435.6 million (~$45.four million) from ultimate years 595.6 million (~$62.1 million), a drop pushed via the pandemic-driven closures of many bodily shops.
Despite the ones decreases, Wingefors calls This fall a solid quarter and says general profitability used to be proper in step with its expectancies, noting as neatly that This fall made for the video games department’s second-best quarter ever relating to internet gross sales.
For the whole 12 months finishing March 31, 2020, Embracer noticed internet gross sales in its video games industry building up 31 p.c to SEK 3,196.Five billion (~$333.Three million) whilst internet gross sales for the corporate as a complete larger Three p.c to SEK 5.249 billion (~$547.Five million).


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US President Donald Trump’s move to press ahead with an import tariff plan on steel and aluminium will have repercussions. Trading partners affected by the protectionist and politically-motivated policy will not remain silent. Perhaps, Trump is stirring things up to trigger a debate to improve the economic strengths of declining industrialised nations, who tend to slide back to bilateralism due to the stagnating multilateralism.
Although a backlash against US goods is being considered, Trump could well be doing nothing wrong. The businessman-turned-politician has constructed buildings and towers around the globe for several decades. That means he knows about the manufacturing and purchase prices of construction materials in US and foreign markets.
The fast-approaching mid-term US elections could have spurred Trump into action. The US president is perceptive enough to know that it is time to deliver on one of his key election promises — Make America Great Again. Short of options, he could be ramping up the pressure to strike better trade deals through a little-known loophole. The language of the provision under mutually agreed rules is so broad, self-judging and ambiguous that it is open to interpretation and thus can easily be abused. It can, for example, be argued that garment-producing industries would qualify for the exception on the ground that an army must have summer and winter uniforms. Not willing to bank on subsidies or price dumping, Trump is nevertheless determined to revitalise US industries that lost jobs due to evolving trade patterns and global competitiveness. Trump, the US Trade Representative and their advisers opted to play with trade policies in an unorthodox way. Though it’s rare, it has been done in the past. The US had invoked national security when it adopted a politically-motivated embargo on trade with Cuba in 1962, and Nicaragua in 1982. The World Trade Organisation (WTO), which promotes free trade, sets out how countries and trading blocs should frame and implement their foreign trade policies. Cross-border trade exchanges are thus subject to binding and enforceable rules. Exceptions, however, include emergency action on imports of particular products, and security-related items.
By choosing an action considered necessary for the protection of security interests, the Trump administration opted for the easiest way for imposing a legally defensible catch-all trade policy measure. The question is whether the unilaterally imposed military hardware-related measure can be justified?
Military allies and main trading partners of the US feel offended since they are now perceived as a threat to US national security. Neighbouring Canada and the European Union (EU) are also anxious. What is overlooked is the fact that it is the US consumers who will pay for the tariff hike when they decide to purchase a listed foreign or US product made of, or containing imported steel or aluminium. If enforceable rules and proportional punishment were absent, the resulting anarchy would inevitably lead to conflict. The WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism is the platform to resolve issues if a member breaches contractual obligations. So the EU took the matter to the WTO. But that was last week.
At the Quebec G7 meeting last week, which included the EU, Trump indicated he might be ready for dialogue on trade barriers, but it would come with a price since “the United States has been taken advantage of for decades and decades”. The G7 government leaders are yet to respond. If the US and EU fail to find common ground, as WTO litigation history shows, it can take several years before the case is settled.
Johann Weick is an expert in international trade policy, European integration and specialist in GCC-EU relations.


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CES 2022 Acer just announced new Chromebooks targeting students, families, and hybrid workers, including a Spin Chromebook powered by MediaTek's new Kompanio 1380 SoC.
A new sky map reveals 25,000 supermassive black holes in the night sky using 256 hours of radio data.
Christmas 2021 Cryptomining is a popular use for idle computer time, but here are some more responsible alternatives to turning math into carbon emissions in pursuit of a speculative internet asset.
CES 2022 The Consumer Technology Association announced that it will be shortening CES 2022 by one day as an additional Covid safety protocol.
Christmas 2021 From SpaceX to black holes behaving badly to cannibal cane toads, 2021 was a heck of a year for scientific discovery and innovation.
Christmas 2021 If you just bought or received a new computer for the holidays, here are a few things to do right now as soon as you set things up.
Christmas 2021 Chromebooks are lightweight, portable, and affordable devices. Here are some tricks to make them powerful productivity heavyweights
Relive the successful Christmas day launch of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope from French Guiana as it happened.
The SETI Institute and University of Hawai'i have just installed new equipment on a mountain in East Maui, Hawai'i, that will help scan the night sky for alien communication via lasers.
A new project plans to act as "Earth's black box" by collecting climate data and news and social media coverage of the ongoing climate crisis to spur climate action.
The Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 Chromebook is here, and it's hands down one of the best Chromebooks ever made – except for those who lean more on the tablet side of the 2-in-1 divide.
Taking screenshots through Steam can be a great way to capture your favorite gaming moments as well as troubleshoot problems. Here’s how to find the Stream screenshot folder.
GeekBench database entries reveal details on nearly the entire Intel Alder Lake mobile processor series ahead of its anticipated announcement at CES.
Researchers just captured a rare fish on film, showing off its transparent head and bizarre, upward-looking green eyes in incredible detail.
AMD is preparing to drop two new graphics cards in the next few weeks and its first cryptomining card just recently went on sale.
Leaked benchmarks for Intel's Alder Lake Core i3-12300 and Core i3-12100 show an impressive level of performance for the budget processors.
Buying Guide Whether you’re a YouTuber, a Twitch streamer or just working from home, these are the best USB microphones on the market right now.
Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said this week that the company expects graphics card supply to improve in the second half of 2022.
The Chinese Yutu-2 lander just spotted a cube-shaped spot on the horizon as it traverses the far side of the moon and is driving over to investigate it.
Microsoft is currently testing a PC game Performance Check for its Xbox Windows App to let you know how well a game will run on your system.
The International Space Station just swerved out of the way of space junk in Low Earth Orbit, demonstrating the increasing danger of the growing debris field around the planet.
Valery Vermeulen weaves data from black hole mergers and simulations to sonically explore the interior of the universe's most intense and exotic objects.
Apple next-next-generation processor, the M3, will likely use TSMC's 3nm node, with shipments to start in early 2023.


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Pepsi-Cola Puerto Rico Distributing recently announced that its supply chain is undergoing a series of improvements, including a $7 million modernization of its fleet of vehicles. As part of the initiative, the distributor bought 48 ...
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NIMB: News is my Business
News is my Business was born in November 2010 out of a desire to provide no-nonsense, straightforward, English-language news relevant to Puerto Rico’s business community, in an all-digital format.


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Fields are so 20th century – the farms of the future are going indoors.
Cypher silences unwanted noise using a new, software-only approach. It eliminates over 99% of background noise, significantly boost clarity and improve speech recognition performance. The software is small, fast and ready to integrate into a wide range of applications.
Bradley Shende talks with Scott Houston from Sennheiser at the CES 2015 about the new Momentum headphones.
Bradley Shende talks with Xavier De Le Rue, Pro Snowboarder at the CES 2015 about flying drones.
Bradley Shende talks with Jerome Vassallo from Elio at the CES 2015 about the three- wheeled Elio, a $6800 commuter car.
Withings Home is a smart camera with environmental sensors
Visijax is an early world leader in wearable electronic products and clothing


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Posts Tagged ‘ Shashank ND ’
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Dearton Thomas Hector
Online healthcare platform Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd has bagged the News Corp VCCircle consumer internet company of the year award for a disruptive business model that has gone beyond its consumer play into the enterprise space. The winner was decided by an eminent jury chaired by Arun Duggal, ch...
The fresh fund infusion of $55 million led by Tencent has reaffirmed investor confidence in healthcare firm Practo. According to estimates, the latest round of funding puts the company’s valuation well past $600 million. The Series D funding round announced on Tuesday also saw the participatio...
18 January, 2017 |
Digital healthcare platform Practo has raised $55 million in Series D funding led by existing investor China’s Tencent. Practo Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs a doctor-appointment site and offers an ad platform to clinics, hospitals and diagnostic centres, also saw participation from three ne...
17 January, 2017 |
Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a web-based clinic management software developer, has acquired US-based data analytics firm Enlightiks Inc. and its Indian operations in a cash-and-stock deal. The deal, which includes the acquisition of Bengaluru-based Enlightiks Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd, is valued ...
16 December, 2016 |
The Union Budget 2016 remained faithful to the Startup India Action Plan announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month. From the three-year tax holiday to easing up on capital gain tax, the Budget document merely lent a touch of official sanction to the key proposals to the Startup India Acti...
29 February, 2016 |
I am hopeful that the Union Budget will keep up the good work set in motion by the ‘Start Up India, Stand Up India’ initiative. 2015 was an exciting year for startups. There has been phenomenal growth, and incredible excitement and investments in ideas, ideas that could potentially solve some of...
26 February, 2016 |
Techcircle SaaS Forum 2015 to be held on September 23 in Bengaluru will host industry leaders like Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder & CEO of Capillary Technologies; Bhanu Chopra, Founder & CEO of RateGain and Shashank ND, Founder & CEO of Practo Technologies who will address the audience. The fo...
21 September, 2015 |
Practo Technologies Pvt Ltd, a web-based clinic management software developer which derives a major portion of its business from primary clinics, has raised $30 million (Rs 187 crore) in its second institutional round of funding led by Sequoia Capital with participation of Matrix Partners as a new i...
12 February, 2015 |
About four years ago, a young IT student was literally struggling to cope with a medical crisis that had befallen his family. His father had to undergo a knee-replacement surgery at a short notice and he was left with the arduous task of finding the best doctor, getting an appointment and finally, s...
17 September, 2012 |


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Apple’s iPad announcement on Tuesday had an underlying, unmistakable message: the iPad has lost its way.
The tech giant on Tuesday announced a new iPad featuring a 9.7-inch Retina display, improved components, and a $329 price tag. The company also announced that it boosted the iPad Mini 4’s storage to 128GB. In a statement, Apple put on a brave face, saying that the iPad has a “stunning” screen and will deliver “incredible performance.” But it did little to mask the iPad’s ever-present and concerning decline.
There was a time not long ago that Apple (AAPL) would have held a special press event focused solely on new iPad models. The company would have shared staggering statistics showcasing its tablet’s success, and would have happily stood on the stage holding its latest invention for the world to see.
Now, though, Apple’s iPad announcement has been relegated to a press release and a quiet update to its online store. And all this for what Apple said on Tuesday is its most popular iPad version and “the world’s most popular tablet.”
But popularity is a relative term.
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In Apple’s 2014 first fiscal quarter, a three-month period ended Dec. 28, 2013, the company sold more than 26 million iPads and generated $11.5 billion in sales. Apple’s iPad business was about one-third the size of its iPhone unit, but nearly twice the size of its Mac division and nearly three times the size of its Services business.
During Apple’s last-reported fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 31, 2016, the company sold 13.1 million iPads and generated $5.5 billion in revenue. The iPhone division is now 10 times bigger than Apple’s iPad unit, and Mac and Services business lines are now generating more revenue each quarter than its tablet business.
In just three years, Apple’s iPad business has been halved—and there is no end in sight to the bloodletting.
Meanwhile, the broader tablet market appears to be in free fall. During the fourth quarter of 2016, 52.9 million tablet units shipped worldwide, a figure that was down 20.1% compared to the same period in 2015, according to research firm IDC. Apple was the tablet market’s leader, but its shipments were down by 18.8%—more than any other company in the top five.
It gets worse.
In a statement in February,Ryan Reith, an analyst and program vice president for IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers unit, said that “the tablet market continues to grow stale,” and “typical tablets” that don’t come with a dedicated keyboard like the iPad “are continuing to lose relevancy.” An increasing number of customers, Reith continued, are seeking two-in-one hybrid devices that can be used as notebooks or tablets and come with a touchscreen.
Given Apple’s iPad performance and broader market challenges, it becomes clearer why Apple didn’t decide to hold a big iPad event like it would have several years ago. The company simply had no good news to share.
Of course, iPad troubles are nothing new, and Apple CEO Tim Cook has been fielding questions from concerned analysts for years. In 2015, Cook was pressed on his company’s troubling iPad sales. Cook told analysts that he’s “still bullish on iPad” and believes there’s “a lot of runway” for the product.
Two years later, that runway seems shorter. The iPad hasn’t reversed its fortunes and Apple has largely ignored it, focusing instead on its iPhone and other divisions. Even the new iPad announced on Tuesday delivers only minor internal changes; the design hasn’t changed.
Some Apple supporters might say that the iPad announcement on Tuesday is just the beginning. They might point to recent rumors, suggesting Apple is planning a more notable update to its iPad Pro line that could include a new 10.5-inch iPad. Apple could showcase those devices at a press event in April, according to reports.
While that certainly could happen—the notoriously secretive Apple isn’t saying anything about its future plans—why would it break apart its iPad announcements? Is Apple trying to get these minor updates out of the way to make room for something bigger down the road?
It’s impossible to say. Like anything else in Apple’s universe, questions abound. But if anything is certain, it’s that the iPad business is in a dangerous state of decline. And all signs right now point to Apple needing to do something big to reverse its course.
The problem, though, is it might already be too late.
Apple did not respond to a Fortune request for comment.


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Reviewing Fiat Chrysler’s October 2017 US Sales by Segment
Fiat Chrysler’s brand-wise US sales
In October 2017, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCAU) sold about 1,205 units of its luxury brand, Alfa Romeo, compared with just 23 units in October 2016. This increase could be attributed to high US demand for the company’s recently launched Alfa Romeo Giulia and Alfa Romeo Stelvio SUV (sports utility vehicle).
According to Autodata, Fiat Chrysler’s US car and truck sales fell 16.9% and 12.6% YoY (year-over-year), respectively, in October. Let’s explore how these lower truck sales could affect the company’s 4Q17 profitability.
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Jeep and Ram sales also fall
In October 2017, Fiat Chrysler’s Jeep brand sales were weak for a ninth consecutive month, while Ram brand sales fell for a second consecutive month. The company sold about 67,074 Jeep brand units during the month, a 3% YoY fall, and 47,831 Ram brand units, also a 3% YoY fall.
In September, FCAU’s Jeep and Ram brand vehicle sales stood at 73,409 and 51,686 units, respectively. Ram and Jeep are two of the main brands in Fiat Chrysler’s US product lineup. These brands help the company maintain a strong position in the pickup truck market.
Could the fall hurt 4Q17 profit margins?
Pickup trucks and Fiat Chrysler’s luxury brand vehicles such as Alfa Romeo typically generate high profitability. Whereas an increase in the company’s Alfa Romeo sales in October could have positive effects, ongoing weakness in its truck sales could negatively affect its 4Q17 profitability.
Note that FCAU’s weak car sales in the first ten months of 2017 could be a result of lower demand for cars than heavyweight vehicles. Fiat Chrysler’s profit margins are already smaller than those of competitors (IYK) such as Toyota Motor (TM), General Motors (GM), and Ford Motor (F). In the next part, we’ll learn about Toyota’s US auto sales in October 2017.


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Michigan Marine Propulsion (MMP), a US manufacturer of propellers and shaft systems, has chosen UK-based Global Marine Associates (GMA) to serve as its exclusive European sales representative for its Michigan Wheel outboard sterndrive (OBSD) propellers.
“We have been exploring ways to expand our European distribution network for our growing OBSD series, and are confident GMA will be an invaluable asset to furtherance our strategies,” says MMP marketing coordinator Kate Munro.
“This is an exciting partnership and a yet another step forward for the development of MMP in Europe.”
Martin Harding, managing director of GMA, says the company sees huge opportunities to expand sales of MMP's existing product range and to work with them on the development of new products specifically suited to the needs of the European market.
MMP is part of the Michigan Wheel Marine Group, whose other OBSD brands include Ballistic, Apollo, Vortex and Michigan Match.
GMA is a UK-based manufacturers’ representative headquartered in Fareham, Hampshire.


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Last updated on June 6th, 2018 at 11:06 pm
California lawmakers have been fighting to get e-cigarettes regulated by the Federal and Dug Administration (FDA). There have been nicotine poisonings that have sparked conversations on how to regulate the manufacturing of e-liquids and e-cigarettes. Lawmakers, including front man Mark Leno, are also very concerned with children using e-cigarettes as a gateway to smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes. Many vaping shops and e-cig manufacturers are worried about the new regulations that may pass due to these community fears.
There are an estimated 800 to 1200 vape companies in California alone and the new regulations in 2016 could really impact their ability to operate. With the electronic cigarette regulations in California regulating e-cigarettes like tobacco, all marketing products must be approved by the FDA before sale. This would cost anywhere from $2 million to $10 million in order to receive a FDA approval and continue operating. Those costs would shut a lot of vape businesses down, leading to a bit of a monopoly within the industry.
FDA E-Cigarette Approval Regulations
In the industry today there are two types of electronic cigarettes prominently sold. Big tobacco produces a small, cigarette shaped e-cig mostly sold in gas stations and grocery stores. The more popular e-cigarette is usually called a personal vaporizer. A personal vaporizer is your average starter kit vape pen that is the simplest form of e-Cigs. Then comes your mods. Mods are larger, more customizable and are mostly sold at small business vapor shops. Statistics show that 99% of vapor shops and manufacturers will need to shut down. This would cut out almost all mods and customized vaporizers and leave only the less popular, big tobacco manufactured version.
The last approval round up from the FDA was in 2007, therefore all e-cigarettes manufactured after 2007 must be sent in for approval. Technology in the industry started progressing at a rapid rate, and now the mods and e-cigs are very different from the ones that were manufactured in 2007. The FDA has proposed different compliance dates to be easier on small businesses, which will hopefully keep the small business model in the industry for now.
State by State E-Cig Regulations
A lot of laws generally seen with tobacco are already in place in many states. Maine, Pennsylvania and Michigan already have age restrictions on the sale of e-cigarettes and liquids. Within the scope of state law with e-cigarettes and manufacturing 40 states have filed 200 bills in attempt to regulate the industry. Among these bills are regulations to prohibit vaporizing wherever smoking is banned, following all labelling laws, creating child resistant packaging and ban all flavoring and advertising that appeals to minors.
Consumer advocates have begun to pay attention to the vapor industry because of the rise in emergency room reports of nicotine poisoning. Testing done on certain e-cigarette liquids have shown to have formaldehyde and other toxic inhalants. These factors have led to this crackdown on the FDA to regulate the industry. Some e-juice manufacturers are taking their own precautions to ensure that they won’t get taken down by regulations. Nicvape operates out a pharmaceutical grade cleaned room in South Carolina. Let’s hope that these regulations can solve all of the problems with vaporizers and still keep the small businesses running.


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Chevy Citation, Renault Alliance, Plymouth Volare: All destined for the scrap heap and every one of them a critics pick. What were they thinking?
Every now and again, automakers like to try odd door-combinations - and they rarely catch on with customers.
The quirky Swedish auto manufacturer may yet avoid extinction like its one-time siblings Pontiac and Saturn - but that looks more unlikely than ever.
The awards don't come for another few months, but let's just indulge in a little speculation over who's in the running for top honors.
A spy virus stole millions of passwords. Here's how to keep your password secure.
A time-tested group of elite fund managers offer their best stock ideas for 2014.
For an exclusive CNNMoney list, research firm Universum surveyed engineering and IT students in Europe to see where they most want to work.
The 2015 Ford Mustang will offer a few things you might not expect but engineers promise it will be the best ever.
With his retirement on the horizon, we take a look back at some of the iconic auto designer's greatest hits (and misses).
The BMW i3 is arty and hi-tech while the Mercedes B-class Electric Drive takes a simpler approach.
The results of WPP and Millward Brown's annual ranking of the top brands in China highlights a shift in power away from state-owned enterprises.
In the near-future, drones could be delivering your packages, pizza and even your tea bag to the kitchen.
From building a better portfolio and locking in retirement income to finding a better job, here's how to be more prosperous in the new year.
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Istanbul on special boxes of Godiva
ISTANBULTurkish Yıldız Holding’s Godiva has added Turkey to the list of countries that are featured on the chocolatier’s special gift boxes. Special Godiva boxes, designed by the world famous La Chambre art school, are decorated with the symbols of the Maiden’s Tower, the Bosphorus Bridge, a Bosphorus ferry and seagulls.
The number of countries that have been the subject of the famous chocolate brand is now 29, with the addition Turkey, Germany and Brazil.
The company said it sold 35 percent more boxes in the first half of 2013 compared to the same period of 2012.
The special gift boxes are mostly sold in Paris, London, Hawaii, Brussels and Taiwan among 80 countries, where Godiva operates in 450 points of sale.
Godiva Chocolatier, the manufacturer of premium chocolates and related products, was founded in Belgium in 1926, and Yıldız Holding acquired Godiva in 2007.


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After spending the early part of the summer weathering an onslaught of anger from the Lewis Road Creamery army (along with the wider dairy industry getting a smackdown after unsuccessfully complaining about a provocative Greenpeace campaign), Fonterra is trying its best to get past the white noise and get back to the facts. Not ‘alternative facts’, to borrow a Kellyanne Conway-ism, but the cold, hard, scientific ones.
“It’s extremely important to me that we’re honest about the claims that we make for dairy products,” says Angela Rowan, general manager of nutrition at Fonterra in a new series of clips online. “So when we use the science behind dairy for health and nutrition, we have to be honest, we have to be using facts and evidence to support the stories, the claims, the benefits that we promote.”
In another video, Rowan touts milk as the ‘original sports drink’, going on to say that “most sports drinks are carbohydrate and electrolytes, but what you’re using up when you exercise are your muscles. So if you don’t provide protein, then you’re not providing the building blocks that help to replenish the muscle that you’ve turned over.”
The rest of the series follows a similar path, using the age-old ‘figure of scientific authority’ technique to trumpet milk as the ultimate source of nutritional protein.
The protein theme also carries through to its other ‘talking head’ videos. This time, soliciting the help of a bit more star power with A-list spokesman/newlywed Richie McCaw and Olympian pole vaulter Eliza McCartney.
McCartney, who was one of the athletes featured in Anchor’s Olympics campaign, is also currently the subject of some social coercion from Fonterra as it attempts to solicit votes for the pole vaulter’s bronze medal win to take out sporting moment of the year.
Along with slogans like ‘Cool Again’ and ‘Butter is Back’ being used in its latest poster campaign, Fonterra’s strategy makes sense as an attempt to push back against creeping anti-dairy sentiments. Veganism, lactose-free, gluten-free, and paleo are all diet trends that haven’t exactly been the most friendly to dairy. And with increasing population numbers year-over-year, organisations like the UN have released reports urging people to move away from a meat and dairy diet in order to promote global sustainability.
Conversely, the demand for natural foods is growing (butter sales have made a massive comeback globally after years of being deemed unhealthy) and provenance is increasingly important, something New Zealand has benefitted from because of our moderately mythical clean, green reputation.
Fonterra chief operating officer in global consumer and foodservice Jacqueline Chow said earlier in the year that dairy was a part of the solution to malnutrition, but its image in New Zealand was being affected by “dietary fads and special interest groups”.
“Globally, six billion people rely on dairy products as one of their most important sources of protein and energy. Yet 800 million still do not get enough food to live a healthy active life.”
Touting the pure, unadulterated ‘goodness of dairy’, the campaign’s visually-striking images were plastered across city walls and national newspapers, drawing both praise and ire. Because while designers and creatives fawned over its sleek lines and muted palettes, environmentalists bemoaned what they saw as willful ignorance from a burgeoning dairy industry.
One theory on the scathing anger around these nostalgic posters and romanticised TVCs (some of which feature a mumbling McCaw) is that exaggerated aestheticism and exaggerated emotionalism will often elicit an exaggerated response, particularly when you’re a company with a mountain of opinion accusing you of precisely the opposite thing.
Nevertheless, nostalgia, emotionalism, and ‘natural goodness’ aren’t just a Fonterra-exclusive marketing ploy. Meadow Fresh, for example, insists its milk is now “less processed” with “more goodness” by no longer adding permeate, an ingredient milk suppliers once called “sludge” and dairy-makers defended as neccessary.


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Bitcoin in Australia explained by professional forex trading experts the “ForexSQ” FX trading team.
What happened to Bitcoin in Australia
One of the more interesting aspects of bitcoin is the global appeal and usage of the virtual currency. Often times, when you’re located in the United States, you encounter people who think that bitcoin is no longer active or that it’s only a resource for ISIS or drug dealers. People will warn me that the United States government will just regulate it and American businesses will control it, so why should I be interested in it?
This type of thinking is laughable as the reality is that bitcoin has no national boundaries and its entire structure makes it something that can’t be controlled or owned by one country or one company. This “America focused” thinking will distort one’s understanding of the virtual currency’s impact and promise.
This becomes clear when you begin to look beyond American shores and see how other countries are using and addressing bitcoin.
Bitcoin in Australia
Some of the more interesting news and trends about bitcoin have been coming from Australia. Like other countries, the history of bitcoin in Australia has had its ups and downs.
In October of 2013, an Australian based bitcoin wallet provider lost over $1 million AUD worth of bitcoins. The company, Input.io was hacked with a loss of 4100 bitcoins. This unfortunate incident impacted Australia in much the same way as other countries – government and regulators felt the need to step in and understand how to protect people from these bitcoin related incidents.
Australian government agencies have been some of the more active global monitors of bitcoin. Concerns about links between bitcoin and criminal activity have led the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac), to track each conversion transaction conducted regarding bitcoin, into or out of the country.
“Australia is very fortunate among its international counterparts, in that we are one of the few countries which currently collects all international funds transfers, into or out of Australia,” John Schmidt, CEO of Austrac, said.
Australian banks have also been active in monitoring and regulating bitcoin as evidenced by their recent shutdowns of bitcoin companies. Whether their reasons focus on their concern about competition or potential criminal intent, there have been at least 17 Australian bitcoin companies receiving shutdown letters from banks, with 13 already having their accounts closed.
However, the Australian government, to its credit, has not fallen in lockstep with the banks on this matter. In fact, some in the government see this as a blow to competition. Nationals Senator Matthew Canavan is seeking an investigation into the matter as he has concerns that these moves are competing with emerging businesses and impacting their potential economic growth.
Subsequently, The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is investigating why Australian banks are closing the accounts of Bitcoin businesses
The Australian markets have been supportive of bitcoin and in 2014, Australian multi-service bitcoin company digitalBTC made history as the first cryptocurrency-focused company to trade on a major mainstream stock exchange.
Besides the many recent political and governmental actions related to bitcoin in the country, it also has an active and knowledgeable user base as seen by activity on message boards, Facebook, and the Bitcoin Association of Australia.
Australia is an example that beyond American shores, the world is recognizing the impact that bitcoin can have on business and economic growth. They’re not the only one as we’ll also follow what other countries are doing regarding bitcoin.
Bitcoin in Australia Conclusion
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