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LOWER PAXTON TOWNSHIP - Several new restaurants and stores are coming soon to Linglestown Road, but just what businesses will fill the proposed buildings on 13-acre field behind Sheetz is still unknown.
The project got the green light Tuesday from the Lower Paxton Township supervisors by a vote of four to one, giving Eric Kessler of Vanguard Realty conditional approval for the project.
While some neighbors were opposed to the project, township officials say, others are wondering what new dining and shopping options will be going in the Forest Hills Commons, located near the intersection of Linglestown and Colonial roads.
"I can't disclose who we're speaking with at the moment," Kessler said, but he could give some generalizations. "Maybe three restaurants, potentially a financial institution, a couple of retailers, may be a brokerage company."
He said this will be a neighborhood retail center, which is much smaller than the big shopping centers one would find around the region. The project will include a 40,000 square-foot, multi-tenant building and three or four free-standing buildings with an entrance across the street from the Weis Markets entrance on Colonial Road.
As part of the agreement with the township, sidewalks will be installed, connecting the center to the surrounding neighborhoods.
"It will offer additional services much closer to home for a lot of people," he said.
There are roughly 2,500 homes nearby.
The project got conditional approval based upon the board accepting a forthcoming developer's agreement, said Amanda Zerbe, Lower Paxton Township's community development manager.
In addition to the sidewalk along Linglestown Road, the developer will have to conduct soil testing for potential pollutants that could impact Paxton Creek and install a traffic signal at the entrance if PennDOT deems it to be necessary.
Some neighbors spoke out against the project, Zerbe noted. They were concerned about the issues related to the soil and pollutants, as well as the additional traffic the center could bring.
At the same time, the restaurants in the area are usually packed on the weekends, and others are looking forward to additional options.
Kessler hopes to break ground by summer.


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Banknotes will proceed to comprise traces of animal merchandise regardless of objections over using tallow within the Financial institution of England’s polymer notes.
Some vegans, Hindus and Sikhs had been sad with tallow’s use within the new plastic £5 notes which entered circulation in September.
Future manufacturing of the polymer £5 notes and £10 notes, plus the £20 to be launched in 2020 will likely be unchanged.
The Financial institution stated its “has not taken this choice evenly”.
“The Financial institution totally recognises the issues raised by members of the general public, each previous to and through the session,” it stated.
Tender for manufacturing of the £20 had been placed on maintain whereas the Financial institution assessed whether or not palm oil or coconut oil needs to be used as a substitute.
Nonetheless, that announcement proved controversial with conservation teams, who warned that palm oil manufacturing can wreck rainforests and displace individuals residing in them if it was not sustainably sourced.
The Financial institution launched a public session, receiving responses from three,554 individuals. Of those that expressed a choice, 88% have been towards using animal-derived merchandise and 48% objected to using palm oil-derived components
“The Financial institution has needed to steadiness these responses towards its different public duties and priorities in addition to the opposite proof gathered over the previous months,” a spokesman stated.
“Using palm oil raises questions on environmental sustainability and the Financial institution’s suppliers have been unable to decide to sourcing the very best degree of sustainable palm oil presently.
“Worth for cash was additionally a consideration within the Financial institution’s choice.”
The extra price of switching to a brand new sort of manufacturing had risen to about £16.5m over the subsequent 10 years, in response to the Financial institution.
It stated it had consulted with the UK Treasury, as the extra price would have needed to have been taken on by the taxpayer.
HM Treasury suggested the Financial institution that it doesn’t consider switching to palm oil derivatives would obtain worth for cash for taxpayers.
Revealed at Thu, 10 Aug 2017 10:05:17 +0000

domain: news


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- PROJECT HELP
- WHITE PAPERS
A new report from IBIS World shows that the QSR market should grow at a slightly higher tick from 2014 to 2019, compared to 2009-14. The annual growth rate for the years following the recession was 1.4 percent for this segment (which excludes snack and coffee shops).
IBIS World predicts the growth rate to be about 2 percent annually for the next five years. Driving much of this trend is the segment's bigger focus on value and menu expansions.
"Since the recession, heavy competition from other segments has forced fast food operators to emphasize low prices in a continuing battle to attract cash-strapped consumers," the report said.
There are a handful of other factors driving the QSR industry's growth, including improved consumer spending, overseas expansion and innovating to meet new consumer trends.
New consumer trends
To embrace rapidly changing trends, restaurants have expanded their menus. Many now feature a barbell setup, with a value menu and a premium menu; LTO pipelines are getting bigger; and there have also been more rollouts to meet the demand for healthier food.
For example, McDonald's has rolled out fruit options for Happy Meals, snack wraps and smoothies in the past five years. KFC has revamped its kids' meal to include fewer calories, and Burger King has introduced lower-calorie "Satisfries."
The demand for healthier away-from-home food has also provided an impetus for fast casual growth. The limited-service subsegment's concepts craft their marketing messaging around "healtheir," "higher quality" and customizable offerings.
While the Five Guys and Smashburgers have taken some share away from the McDonald's and Burger Kings, some QSRs have responded with their own fast casual-esque concepts or offerings. KFC launched its KFC eleven spinoff last summer, while Taco Bell's Cantina Bell menu provides an answer to Chipotle and Qdoba.
Wendy's has even launched an initiative called "A Cut Above," promising a fast casual experience at a QSR price.
In addition to seeking healthier, more convenient meals, customers are also still shell-shocked from the recession and continue to spend conservatively. Consequently, price-based competition is on the upswing as brands introduce deeper value menus.
According to The NPD Group, value menu visits were up 6 percent in the year ending August 2013, compared to the same period the year prior. A report from Rabobank cited macroeconomic pressures as one of the main drivers of the trend, with constraints on disposable income and falling consumer confidence. David Novak, CEO of Yum! Brands, recently said offering value is now a necessity because of today's economy.
Despite the continued trend toward value seeking, consumer spending has gone up 2.2 percent since 2009. According to the report, QSRs were one bright spot during the recession, and continue to provide "convenient meals for cash-strapped consumers" through the recovery. This has given the segment an advantage over full-service brands, and is reason to provide more premium offerings opposite of the value meals (eg, the Cantina Bell menu).
The recession isn't the only factor that changed consumer spending habits. Demographic shifts are also having a big impact, and brands are scrambling to find the golden marketing ticket to fit the trends.
For example, the report says baby boomers continue to influence revenue growth and have the highest amount of disposable income across the population. There is also the increasingly influential, digital savvy millennial to butter up. These are the fast-paced consumers pushing mobile, convenience and social media trends.
In addition to navigating spend thrift and diverse consumers, QSRs also face increasingly stiff competition — from other brands in the segment, brands in other segments, and coffee shops, c-stores, bars and hotels.
The report said QSRs compete with each other mostly on price and quality. As a result, profit margins are low for most operators, which necessitates strict cost controls.
Brands that are willing to embrace higher quality ingredients "can make a difference" for consumers, who often judge a restaurant by how it compares to others, the report said. Other competitive factors include location, style, ambience and service.
"It is important that the operator understands the positioning of the restaurant in the marketplace and the clientele they are attracting or wanting to attract. The restaurant must consistently deliver on consumer expectations," the report said.
Outside of the QSR segment, competition remains heavy, from independents that offer takeout services to supermarkets and c-stores that sell fresh food.
Competition to intensify
The report predicts the intense competition to accelerate within the next five years, which will force chains to compete even more on price and will stifle revenue growth.
The restaurant companies that will benefit most are those that evolve their menu to include healthier, non processed foods.
"Product innovation will play a large part in the industry's growth over the coming years," the report said. Operators can succeed by "adapting to changing consumer preferences as the traditional concept of fast food evolves to include a wider variety of options."
The industry's "long era of growth" is far from over, the report said. By 2019, industry revenue should be about $219.3 billion.
Finally, a significant driver of growth in the QSR segment is the focus on emerging international markets. Slowed domestic growth has caused brands to shift their priorities overseas and international expansion is likely to be the largest source of revenue and profit growth for major brands within the next five years.
"The trend toward international expansion has increased throughout the past five years due to the slower growth rate of the domestic industry," the report said.
IBIS World predicts accelerated entry particularly in Asian and South American regions.
Breakdown of market share
The report broke down the major players' QSR market share, including:
Photo provided by Wikipedia.
© 2014 Networld Media Group All rights reserved.


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Pittsburgh woman talks about privacy concerns with Apple's AirTag, says her daughter was being tracked
AirTag is Apple’s newest product. It’s a small tracking device that helps people find personal items like their wallets or keys.
One Pittsburgh woman is claiming the new device is tracking her daughter’s whereabouts.
Watch the full story in the video player above.
Dr. Leslie Latterman is determined to find out who used Apple’s new tracking device to track her daughter who just came home from college.
“It was tucked away behind the license plate,” Latterman said. “My daughter noticed on Thursday that she was getting an alert on her phone that an AirTag was following her. The word ‘follow’ meant to her, a social media attachment, so she ignored it.”
The next day, her daughter got the same message and Googled it.
“It was actually using her phone to locate her for the perpetrator,” Latterman said. “She activated the alert on her phone, that caused the AirTag to beep.”
Bluetooth connects the user with the $29 tracking device through the “Find My” network on Apple.
“It is too easy. If you’re a girl at a bar and you’re not interested in somebody, he could just slip this in your pocket,” Latterman said.
Latterman said it takes three days before you hear the AirTag beep.
“I think it’s 24 hours before you even get an alert on your phone. By that point, they know where you live, they probably know your routine,” Latterman said. “Anybody is vulnerable right now.”
Apple’s website says the alerts and sounds that come “after a while” are designed to discourage unwanted tracking.
Latterman said she is concerned because how would you know if you don’t have a phone or an Apple device?
Latterman said that in order for her to find out who placed the AirTag tracker on their car, they need a police report, an email from Apple to police and then a court order.
The family is still unsure of who was trying to track their daughter’s whereabouts.


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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack reached back to the Carter era in calling for a transformational 2023 farm bill that helps small and medium-size farmers earn more from the land rather than move to town. Secretary Bob Bergland "issued a warning to all of us about" the problem of too much consolidation in agriculture, said Vilsack.
For all their differences, the United States and the European Union share a common experience — the abrupt decline in farm numbers, said the agriculture ministers of the agricultural powerhouses. The transformation of the agriculture sector, more recent in Europe than in the United States, resulted in a relatively small number of large farms that produce the majority of the food and many small farms with little revenue from crops and livestock.
Acknowledging "we need to get inflation under control" as part of the economic recovery from the pandemic, President Biden said on Wednesday that the administration will inject competition into the highly consolidated meat industry to bring down prices at the grocery store. Meat prices soared by 14.8 percent during 2021, part of overall food inflation of 6.3 percent.
The Agriculture Department will launch a $250-million-dollar grant program this summer to support "independent, innovative and sustainable" fertilizer production at home and to reduce reliance on imports. The USDA also said it would launch a public inquiry into concentration in the seed and agricultural input, fertilizer and retail markets.
Grocery prices are climbing at their fastest pace since 2008, with beef, pork and poultry leading the way — up nearly 13 percent since last November, said the government's new inflation report. The White House pinned the blame for surging meat prices on meatpackers "taking advantage of their market power to raise prices while increasing their own profit margins."
When Sanderson Farms announced a base pay cut for its growers throughout Mississippi in early August, farmers claimed it was an effort to undercut wages in the wake of a merger between Sanderson and Wayne Farms, another major producer in the state, as Marcia Brown reports in FERN's latest story, produced with The Capitol Forum. (No paywall)
Buoyed by a Biden administration pledge to vigorously police agricultural mergers, the National Farmers Union launched the nationwide "Fairness for Farmers" campaign on Wednesday to restore competition in the marketplace. "This endeavor has clear goals: to curtail consolidation in agriculture and bust the monopolies, which negatively impact farmers, ranchers, and consumers," said NFU president Rod Larew.


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LONDON (CNNfn) - Italian fashion house Gucci attempted to shrug off the latest move by French luxury goods maker LVMH in their exhausting takeover battle by reporting a near 50 percent jump in profits Wednesday.
The earnings report came after LVMH lodged two appeals with Dutch courts against Gucci and France's Pinault-Printemps-Redoubte (PPR), the company brought in as a white knight to repel LVMH. However, it could be two years before a ruling is made.
After losing a crucial court case which approved PPR's $2.9 billion investment in Gucci last month, LVMH stated it will not pursue Gucci so long as PPR continues to hold a stake. The latest appeals aim to break the PPR tie and secure damages.
LVMH reiterated its stance that it will not take last month's court defeat lying down. It lodged an appeal in the Dutch supreme court questioning the legality of PPR's purchase of Gucci shares, the same issue on which it had been defeated in a lower court.
It also lodged a claim against Gucci for unspecified damages in a Dutch district courts resulting from the Italian firm's tactics during the heated takeover tussle.
Meanwhile, Gucci said first-quarter net profits rose 48.6 percent jump to $60.2 million on a 7.7 percent rise in sales to $270 million.
Gucci shares jumped 5 percent on the Amsterdam exchange in the wake of the results before being retreating to 62.50 euros ($65.30) in afternoon trading, a rise of 3.14 percent.
Analysts welcomed the results as evidence that Gucci management could focus on strategic issues amid the fallout from the five-month battle with LVMH. However, profits were at the lower end of expectations given a weak performance in 1998 as a result of the economic crisis in Asia, a key Gucci market.
LVMH said the supreme court could take up to two years to make a decision. The unlikelihood of LVMH making any near-term headway was confirmed when Standard & Poor's reaffirmed LVMH's credit rating and removed it from the list of companies threatened with a downgrade.
The ratings agency said its decision was based on a view that LVMH was unlikely to make a full takeover bid for Gucci following the recent court ruling.
LVMH (PMC) shares climbed 0.3 percent to 285.3 euros in afternoon trading in Paris.
-- from staff and wire reports


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In the Washington Post, I have a review of two new books that offer critical assessments of Facebook and other social networks: Siva Vaidhyanathan’s Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy and Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. It begins:
The only thing worse than being on Facebook is not being on Facebook. That’s the one clear conclusion we can draw from the recent controversies surrounding the world’s favorite social network.
Despite the privacy violations, despite the spewing of lies and insults, despite the blistering criticism from politicians and the press, Facebook continues to suck up an inordinate amount of humanity’s time and attention. The company’s latest financial report, released after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the #DeleteFacebook uprising, showed that the service attracted millions of new members during the year’s first quarter, and its ad sales soared. Facebook has become our Best Frenemy Forever.
In Antisocial Media, University of Virginia professor Siva Vaidhyanathan gives a full and rigorous accounting of Facebook’s sins. . . .


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Clothes aren’t just utilitarian, they’re a statement. And if you’re a racist/sexist, there’s clothing out there for you that will help you express yourself, at least judging by the controversy that surrounded some articles of clothing released by big clothing companies.
Not too long ago, via Facebook, Adidas released an image of a new sneaker called the JS Roundhouse Mid, a purple and gold suede high-top that would be perfect if you were cast in a Slick Rick music video circa 1989. The color scheme isn’t what sparked a controversy that led to Adidas announcing the cancellation of the shoe…
…it was the golden shackles attached to the shoe that got people doing something no one ever thought would actually happen – call out a shoe for being racist.
Under normal circumstances, looking at a shoe with disgust and screaming “racist!” at it would net you more than a couple of strange stares from the subway commuters currently occupying the space you call home. But there’s a first time for everything…or is there?
Nope! Not too long ago, Emma Barnett, a tech reporter for The Telegraph, was cleaning up her apartment when she noticed the washing instructions on a pair of her boyfriend’s pants.
The label starts off with some basic washing instructions – machine wash, warm water, flip them inside out, which itself sounds like the maker of the pants giving up and conforming to our collective laziness to un-flip our pants; pretty standard fare for words on pants. But then, for no apparent reason, we’re given an “or” that’s followed by “Give it to your woman. It’s her job.”
Who is this tag for? If the assumption made by the pants were at all true, that it’s a woman’s job to wash the pants, who do they expect is going to read the label? The pants made it abundantly clear that all men are slovenly assholes and would never read the label. The argument can be made that the designer of the pants was trying to add a bit of guy-centric humor and whimsy to the world of pants. Sadly, pants aren’t a very good joke delivery system. No one turns to pants for a quick pick-me-up when they’re feeling down. “Oh, pants! You slay me with your comfortable inseam and biting critique on traditional gender roles!”, is a sentence no one has ever said.
And then, almost inevitably, we come to that wonderful cross-section where hipster meets douchebag with the numerous clothing controversies sparked by Urban Outfitters and Abercrombie & Fitch.
In 2002, Abercrombie & Fitch released a line of T-shirts featuring Asian caricatures. Asians steering Rickshaws, Asians running laundry mats, Asians operating dojos – basically every Asian stereotype on the books was turned in to a T-shirt so hilarious that Abercrombie & Fitch had to pull them from store shelves, presumably because Asian Americans were laughing so hard they could no longer function like normal humans.
As for Urban Outfitters, the question is who hasn’t felt offended by their clothing? Jews? Check. Native Americans? Check. Black people? Check. And while it may not be clothing, Urban Outfitters once royally pissed off the black community by selling a version of the board game Monopoly called “Ghettoply,” in which “playas” received game cards that contained jokes we’re sure would be a hit at The Klan’s weekly game nights, like “You got yo whole neighborhood addicted to crack. Collect $50.”
Adidas causing a stir with some shackles that look like a pre-schooler’s My First Slave toy playset isn’t anything new, and it won’t even be the last time a clothing company releases a product they think is funny or cool but is interpreted as dumb and offensive. But there is one thing that is becoming clearer as the controversies pile up – these companies employ a lot of out-of-touch white guys.
This article was originally pitched to Cracked.com as a Quick Fix, an article for their new section that features shorter, occasionally topical articles. This one didn’t make it out of the editorial process alive, so that means it ends up here. They can’t all be winners, folks. I’ve already had two Quick Fix articles published on Cracked. You can read about how Demolition Man is prophetic, or you can read about violent urinals that burn dicks.


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Learn about the CEOs’ concerns and priorities in the Highlights of the 2017 CEO Survey: CIOs Must Scale Up Digital Business
Clients can view the full survey results in the research report 2017 CEO Survey: CIOs Must Scale Up Digital Business
2017 CIO Conferences
Gartner analysts, and industry leaders will discuss key issues facing the CIO during Gartner’s CIO conferences taking place May 8-9 in Magaliesburg, South Africa, May 18-19 in Munich, June 6-8 in Toronto and August 29 – 31 in Cancun. You can follow news and updates from the event on Twitter using #GartnerCIO.
CIO Leadership hub
Visit Gartner CIO Leadership Hub for complimentary research and webinars.


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Published on: 25 October 2018
Superyacht UK has been announced an official partner of The Superyacht Forum sponsoring Monday Evenings Drinks Reception, offering one of a kind international brand exposure and contact building opportunities for the association and its members.
Taking place at the end of the first day, the Reception will be a prominent event in the Forum’s programme as the first opportunity to celebrate the launch of the 23rd edition of The Superyacht Forum.
As part of its partnership, Superyacht UK will be able to offer its members an exclusive 10% discount on attendance to the three-day Superyacht Forum.
Hosted from 12-14 November 2018 at the RAI Amsterdam, the event will be a powerful meeting of minds from all sectors of the superyacht market, bringing influences and inspirations from both within and outside the superyacht industry.
It will offer insight into new tech developments, pertinent business understanding and the latest innovations from a diverse range of keynote speakers, think tank talks and social interactions. To find out more click here.
To register you attendance using the 10% discount please contact firstname.lastname@example.org / +44 (0)20 7801 1013


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Home grown ISP Freeserve has announced pre-tax losses of £17.8m representing more than a two-fold increase for the first quarter of the year.
The company’s spiralling losses were revealed against a background of its continued support for unmetered access which is costing the company around £2.50 per month per subscriber.
Many ISPs have questioned the logic of providing a flat rate model while BT maintains its per-minute rate for use of its networks.
AltaVista was forced to abort its own much-hyped unmetered launch last month blaming BT for the fiasco.
Freeserve is claiming more than a quarter of a million users for its flat rate service, with more than two million subscribers overall.
"As we extend the availability of unmetered access we will drive more users to our portals, reduce our churn, increase time online and generate higher e-commerce and advertising revenues," said Freeserve chief executive John Pluthero.
The company claims it will start to make a profit on its unmetered offerings by the beginning of next year, following the introduction of BT’s wholesale pricing scheme for ISPs.


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Morgenthal Frederics is moving — exactly 279 feet. The eyewear company has shuttered the doors on its Madison Avenue store, located between 62nd and 63rd streets on the Upper East Side, and, beginning Thursday, will open the doors to its new home just two blocks south at 680 Madison Avenue.
The decision to move came when the opportunity to open a flagship in the iconic Carlton House building opened up. “It’s a perfect location,” said Glenn Reisch, president of Luxury Optical Holdings. “It’s as elevated as any shopping district in America. We want to be in a location that has the same heritage and New York roots that we do, so to be in the new Carlton House was very exciting for us.”
Jeff Press, senior vice president of merchandising and design, noted the convenience factor of the move was an added bonus. “Our staff just had to walk across the street,” he said.
In addition to the proximity to the old store, the interior will be equally similar: hardwood floors, a “bar” of glasses and the brand’s signature orange wall. “There’s a nice warmth to the store,” said Reisch, noting that at 700 square feet, the space is intended to feel welcoming for customers. “Having a huge space is not necessarily advantageous for us,” Press said. “We want it to be intimate and to have clients catered to one a one-on-one manner.”
The new store will additionally be home to the world’s largest collection of horn frames, a specialty of the brand, with more than 500 one-of-a-kind pieces in stock. Select pieces from collaboration collections, including its most recent one with Waris Ahluwalia, will also be available.
The store marks the brand’s fourth Manhattan location, but retail expansion is in the plans; next up, an outpost in Washington, D.C.’s City Center neighborhood.


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South Wales-based secured lender Picture Financial is in the frame to win a coveted business award.
The Newport-based company is among just five companies shortlisted for the Nesta-sponsored young company of the year category in the Growing Business Awards, organised by the CBI and magazine Real Business.
Picture Financial, a loans company, has catapulted sales from #4m last year to #43m for 2006.
Staff levels have gone up seven-fold and its customer base has grown to 15,000.
The Growing Business Awards, which will be held in London tomorrow, are now in their eighth year and have become a spotlight for recognising entrepreneurial talent in the UK.
The 2006 judging panel includes the Go! airline founder and London Olympics bid winner, Barbara Cassani, as well as Fru Hazlitt (Virgin Radio), Peter Linthwaite (British Venture Capital Association), and Welshman Bob Jones (Equiinet).
CBI director-general Richard Lambert said, 'There are so many fantastic companies out there, creating wealth and jobs for the country, but few ever get the public recognition they deserve.
'That is why the Growing Business Awards are so important. They celebrate the success of the best in British business and, as the success stories of today, will inevitably inspire the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.'


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One of the main issues with the cryptocurrency investment/trading world is the idea of security. No one wants to risk their hard-earned money in an attempt to trade and invest into cryptocurrencies, only to find out that the cryptocurrency exchange was hacked and compromised. The money was never recovered.
Unfortunately, one of the most high-profile hacks occurred with regards to Coincheck, a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange. The hack made international headlines because of the amount of money that was involved, which was over a half billion dollars. Many have compared it to the infamous Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange hack in 2014.
After the hack, it was clear that Coincheck was in trouble. As a result, Monex Group, a Tokyo-based financial group, saw an opportunity, considering that it has considered starting a cryptocurrency business of its own. Monex ended up purchasing Coincheck for around $33 million USD.
The idea was that Monex is much more in tune with regulation, and could help reinvent Coincheck as a more legitimate cryptocurrency exchange. Many have pointed out that Monex purchasing Coincheck means that it is much more likely to be approved to the Financial Services Agency, the Japanese regulatory agency. It certainly appears as though the move has paid off, especially considering Coincheck’s recent numbers.
Numbers Looking Good
Many have completely counted out Coincheck, considering the high-profile hack. However, it appears as though the cryptocurrency exchange might be making a solid comeback. Specifically, Coincheck, since it resumed operations in October of last year, has reported over 1.7 million downloads in that time period.
In addition, Coincheck has finally been granted an operating license by Japan’s Financial Services Agency, as well. While it will certainly take some time for the exchange to get where it was before the hack, it certainly appears to be making solid progress.


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Microsoft Joins Apple In Commercializing Multi-Touch Screens
from the coming-to-a-consumer-near-you dept
Multi-touch technology is going mainstream. Researchers have been talking about the power of multi-touch technology for quite some time. It’s often referred to as “Minority Report” technology, as a multi-touch interface was used by characters in the movie, but it’s been around for much longer. It got another burst of attention last year thanks to Jeff Han’s demo of a multi-touch screen at the TED conference. However, it’s always been in the realm of science fiction or research departments until recently. Apple famously is using a multi-touch interface on the iPhone, and tonight Microsoft announced a multi-touch interface for its new Microsoft Surface products — which are more along the lines of what Jeff Han demonstrated. Basically, it’s large screen-focused systems for interacting with content using a multi-touch interface. It’s not quite down to the consumer level yet, as it appears Microsoft’s first customers are mainly for commercial kiosks. Actually, almost all of the original customers are casinos — with the one exception being T-Mobile, who will use it as a kiosk for providing info on mobile phones. However, what’s pretty clear is that big tech companies are adopting the multi-touch interface in a big way — and that likely means that we’ll start seeing it in many more areas, especially within consumer devices. This doesn’t mean an end to the mouse and keyboard as core input devices — but multi-touch certainly opens up a whole new way of interacting with computing devices that can make them much more useful in ways that simply weren’t possible with just a mouse and keyboard.


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This week on tecBRIDGE Radio our guest is Nicole Chinnici and she is the founder of Organtick, a Monroe County company launching a new line of all-natural products this October to combat tick bites and tick-borne diseases.
Tune in to hear Nicole’s entrepreneurial journey that includes doing the work on scientific research, customer discovery, and designing a new product that is safe, reliable, and effective to compete in an established market.
We all know someone who has suffered from Lyme’s Disease.
Check. It. Out.


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Republic of Moldova and Russian Federation identify new solutions for economic development01 Octombrie, 2020
Republic of Moldova and Russian Federation identify new solutions for economic development
The bilateral cooperation perspectives and the creation of favorable conditions for the development of bilateral business and trade were the main topics at the Moldovan-Russian Forum for Economic Cooperation, which took place on October 1, 2020 in Chisinau.
The event presented investment opportunities aimed at increasing export capacity,, benefits of the activity in economic areas and industrial parks, attracting technologies, agricultural hubs, etc. The forum took place in conference mode simultaneously in the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation studios. The forum was attended by officials from the two states, representatives of regional administrations, associations, business unions, but also businessmen interested in cooperation between the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation.
The event evaluated the results of the main cooperation agreements signed by the two countries, and the need to identify common solutions for developing cooperation in strategic sectors, such as economic, agro-industrial, tourism, energy, given that the Russian Federation is among the top ten countries in which our country exports products. The Government of the Republic of Moldova has reiterated its support for the implementation of a number of intergovernmental projects, which aim to ensure social and economic stability balance.
Ion Chicu, Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova: “The Russian Federation is a very important partner for our country. With joint efforts, taking into account the collaboration potential in agriculture, tourism, industry, both countries have very good prospects to develop cooperation and to restore economic and trade relations. Due to exports to the Russian Federation, by developing special projects to expand infrastructure and innovation, the Republic of Moldova improves business climate. Free economic zones and industrial parks are very attractive for both countries and allow further development of the economy. "
During the forum, the director of the Investment Agency, Rodica Verbeniuc, spoke about the investment climate of the Republic of Moldova, about the experience of interaction and support provided by the Agency in facilitating and developing Moldovan-Russian trade cooperation, given that our country has a set of strengths to arouse the interest of foreign entrepreneurs.
Rodica Verbeniuc, director, Investment Agency: “We turned the restrictions of the pandemic into opportunities, taking over the online platforms as promotion tools with a higher visibility than our physical format allowed. One of the long-term effects of the pandemic is the general economic restructuring, and the crisis is driving the business to reconsider production markets, to seek alternative exports opportunities and to diversify products and services. Moldova has all it takes to be attractive to investors and the Agency contributes to the repositioning of the country on the global economic map as an unexplored opportunities destination. The results of our activity resulted in the launch of 3 new investment projects - from Germany in the automotive sector, from Great Britain in the electronics sector, and from the Russian Federation in the production of thermal insulation materials for constructions. The cumulative value of announced investments rises to 30 million euros. In fact, the Moldovan-Russian Economic Cooperation Forum, organized today, will certainly strengthen bilateral relations between the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation and will facilitate investment and export opportunities between these two countries. "
An increased interest was given to the AgroHub Moldova project, the first agro-industrial hub in the Republic of Moldova, designed to become the largest center for the development of trade relations in Moldova and the Russian Federation. Among the basic project objectives are the creation of an infrastructure with all the necessary services to offer farmers the opportunity to export products abroad, ensuring high quality, information support, and also facilitating phytosanitary control procedures.
Dmitry Patrushev, Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation: “For many years, close relations between economic development, science, culture, agriculture, tourism have emerged between the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation. We aim to reform these bilateral relations, offering business representatives the opportunity to sign collaboration and partnership contracts, and also the development of the business climate, the initiation of scientific investment projects. The Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation supports farmers in the Republic of Moldova and will continue to offer them a market to increase the volume of exported products. "
Another topic was the Eurasian Economic Union development perspective and the creation of favorable conditions for the trade expansion between the Member States of the Union, given that the Republic of Moldova has observer status within the organization, direct access to databases with information on integration opportunities.
Sergei Glaziev, Member of the College of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC): “The collaboration with the Republic of Moldova began in 2017, when we signed a Memorandum of Cooperation. The crisis caused by the global pandemic has reduced the amount of traded goods and the development of economic cooperation between CIS member countries, but we are working to maintain and develop this strategic partnership. At this time, we should think and implement long-term collaborative projects, set priorities to drive economic growth, taking into account information technology, bioengineering - which is at the top of developing industries. In order to work well together, we aim to reduce certain barriers, remove various restrictions and regulate mutual partnership principles. "
On October 2, 2020, the Moldovan-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Trade and Economic Cooperation will meet in a new meeting, which will evaluate the results of the Forum and analyze the next steps to develop economic cooperation between the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation.


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Beck Antiques and Jewellery in southeast Edmonton is hoping a unique addition to its security measures will turn robbers away by blinding them with smoke.
“We’ve had attempted robberies almost every year for the last 30 years,” owner Clinton Beck explained on Friday.
“In this business, we have millions of dollars of diamonds and gold and treasures, things like that. You need to be proactive in protecting that.”
Beck has always used the more typical defence mechanisms: security film on the glass, bars on the windows and doors and magnetic locks preventing customers from entering or leaving the store without a staff member’s OK.
The store also has an alarm system.
“But they really are just a minor deterrent nowadays because most criminals do not care about the alarm,” Beck said. “Because there’s so many alarms going off all the time that the police cannot respond in time.”
Even the store’s numerous surveillance cameras don’t appear to help.
“Thieves know to come with their faces covered,” said Samantha Vandenbrink, who works at the store. “We have two cameras literally staring you in the face when you enter the door. It’s not a deterrent. It’s like, OK, you can watch it once it’s happened.”
So Beck decided to invest in a smoke machine from Dragon’s Breath Security. He likes it so much he bought into the company.
“The second they smash your door, the place fills up with smoke,” he said.
“They can no longer see anything inside the business. You can’t stumble around inside looking for something to steal. So basically, it ends the robbery at that point in time.”
In June, Beck Antiques and Jewellery was broken into. Thieves used a makeshift battering ram in the back of a minivan to smash through the film, glass and bars all at once.
“The smoke machine then deployed and then made it impossible for them to see, so they had to leave immediately. So it really limits the amount of loss and damage,” Beck said.
While the break-in was still destructive, only a few hundred dollars worth of product was successfully taken.
“The fluid is created out of food-based glycol and demineralized water — no different from a nightclub fog machine.”
The unit Beck purchased cost about $7,000 and can fill a space of 400 cubic metres in about 30 seconds and leaving no residue.
“Having the smoke machine just provides a sense of relief. I don’t have to worry,” Vandenbrink said.
“Even if somebody were to approach me in the store in an armed robbery situation, I know that as long as I’m cool, all I have to do is reach up, push the button and the situation has come to an end… it’s a huge comfort.”
Gaboury said using smoke to thwart robberies is common in Europe, but the technology is just starting to be noticed in Canada.
Ten companies in Alberta are currently using the smoke cloak.
“We’ve had pharmacies that are interested, jewelry stores, we’ve even had engineering firms looking to protect sensitive data on their computers,” Gaboury said.
Beck thinks it would be useful for any business that’s open late at night.
“If you’re working behind the counter at a convenience store at two in the morning and you see someone get out of their vehicle with a baseball bat or a gun, you can deploy the system instantly and then eliminate the threat.”


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Citing continued support from a dedicated fanbase, Activision
has announced that additional DLC will be coming to both DJ Hero 2
and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
While the details of the new content were not outlined, the Twitter feeds for both products (DJ Hero
/ Guitar Hero
) were updated recently with statements that new content would be released as a thank you to fans for the continued support. Activision had recently announced
that it was shelving many of its franchises due to the decline in sales, including the Guitar and DJ Hero games. It is unknown if this is only a short-term appeasement of fans or if Activision and the games’ developers will continue to support the game(s) beyond this newly announced, parting gift.
I guess that time will tell...


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Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN) was one of the big movers before the weekend, with shares rising significantly after the company reporting its much-anticipated Q4 results. While the company already has done reasonably well for itself, Groupon is in the middle of a big business model transition, which is why shareholders were more eager than normal to find out how this most recent quarter fared.
Fourth-quarter revenue came in at $343.1 million, significantly higher than the $304.1 million consensus among Wall Street analysts. Better yet, Groupon reported a nice net profit of $15.1 million, or $0.51 per share, which was almost double the $0.27 expected for the company. At the moment, Groupon has a healthy $851 million in cash sitting on its balance sheet, which is another good sign for the company going forward.
“Looking ahead, we believe we will benefit from both COVID-19 recovery and strong execution of our growth strategy focused on expanding our inventory and modernizing our marketplace,” said Groupon interim CEO Aaron Cooper. “These drivers, coupled with a substantially lower fixed cost base should position Groupon for sustainable, long-term profitable growth.”
Groupon first rose to prominence due to offering daily deals to subscribers, becoming one of the fastest grouping companies between 2008 and 2011. However, after a point, businesses found that Groupon listings weren’t resulting in as many repeat customers as originally expected. Since then, Groupon’s stock has steadily crashed from its lofty $500 per share price back around 2010 or so, with the story of Groupon’s rise and fall being repeated across business schools all around the world.
While Groupon management made the decision to change its business model and hopefully turn things around, things remain highly uncertain for the company’s long-term future, despite what was a promising fourth quarter for the business.
Shares of Groupon jumped around 17.5% in response to the pretty good piece of news. Over the past year, like many other stocks on the Nasdaq, Groupon managed to stage a pretty strong comeback over the past 12 months after dipping a bit earlier in the year. Since then, shares are up around 430% from their record lows back in March.
However, the general consensus about Groupon isn’t that clear. Out of the six or so Wall Street analysts covering the stock, three of them have a bullish target, two are neutral, and one is outright bearish.
Other online companies that also reported their Q4 results recently, such as Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY), have exceeded Wall Street expectations as well, with Etsy rising around 12.4%. While not the best performers on Friday, both companies were in the top movers of the day.
Groupon Company Profile
Groupon acts as the middleman between consumers and merchants, offering a variety of products and services at discounts via its online store. It offers consumers daily deals (in the form of online vouchers) from local merchants. Groupon also sells products directly to consumers. It generates revenue from the take rate on the purchase and/or usage of the vouchers (40% of total revenue) and from direct sales (60% of total revenue). More than 65% of Groupon’s revenue comes from North America. – Warrior Trading News


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NEW ORLEANS – Most workers at a large New York area hospital said they suffered from severe skin reactions from the personal protective equipment (PPE) they had to wear at the time as the COVID-19 pandemic was setting in, according to an investigation reported here.
Of the 148 workers who responded, ranging from respiratory therapists to doctors, 105 reported having had rashes, rashes and / or pressure sores which they attributed to PPE, said David Frankel, MD, of the New York University (NYU) Long Island campus in Mineola, New York.
The worst offender: N95 respirators. More than 85% of those polled identified them as causing skin reactions, Frankel reported in a poster presentation at the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology annual meeting.
Across all equipment categories, which also included gloves, gowns, goggles, face shields and surgical masks, redness was the most frequently reported problem. But each type of PPE worn directly on the skin was also responsible for a significant number of complaints about eczema and hives.
Perhaps most concerning, 26% of all respondents said they should stop wearing PPE except during direct patient care due to skin issues.
Frankel noted that few studies of PPE-related skin reactions have been conducted in the United States during the COVID-19 era. Almost all of the existing literature predates the pandemic (for example, following the SARS outbreak of the previous decade) or comes from China’s first experience with COVID.
The NYU study may not have had the power to examine some questions, such as whether the duration of PPE use or a history of atopy or contact dermatitis were related to the incidence of skin effects. One would expect, but Frankel said there was no significant association with either of these, as survey participants reported. He said MedPage today, however, that the categories of workers with the highest incidence of PPE-related skin problems – nurses and respiratory therapists – were also those whose PPE use increased the most as the pandemic unfolded.
While N95s sparked the most complaints, surgical masks were not far behind, with 60% of workers saying they caused skin problems. In third place, gloves (around 32%), followed by face shields (30%).
Acneiform breakouts were a particular problem for N95s and surgical masks, each reported by over 40% of respondents. Frankel noted that women and workers under the age of 30 seemed most susceptible to this problem.
Gowns and goggles were the least problematic, and none of them elicited complaints from even 5% of respondents.
The investigation could not directly determine how PPE caused the skin problems, but Frankel speculated that the allergic reactions were probably less important than the physical friction of synthetic materials against the skin – the dermatitis of contact. At the same time, however, he said polypropylene is often used in medical masks and is a known allergen.
As for what hospitals and workers can do to minimize the risk – given that PPE in patient care is a fact of life for the indefinite future – he said emollients on the hands can make gloves more tolerable and the use of tissue paper and petroleum jelly on the face can do the same for respirators and masks.
Frankel did not disclose any relationship with the industry.


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MOORESVILLE – BestCo LLC will invest $177 million in a facility expansion project in Mooresville, due to a need to add incremental production capacity as demand for the company’s products has increased.
The expansion, once complete, is expected to create 394 jobs, according to the terms of an agreement the company reached with the state’s Economic Investment Committee, which met earlier this morning and approved a Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) valued at more than $2 million. The company already employs more than 700 workers, according to the firm’s website.
According to the company’s website, it is a developer and manufacturer of pharmaceutical dosage forms for the over-the-counter drug, vitamin, and supplement markets. The company provides private label and contract manufacturing services to serve clients in these markets.
Its current facilities include eight automated processing lines and 18 sorting and packaging lines, according to the company’s website. The company maintains and operates a distribution center in close proximity to its manufacturing operations, as well.
Wages and investment
The minimum annual wage for the firm’s new workers will be above $51,000 and the expansion is projected to increase the state’s gross domestic product by $2.8 billion, according to a summary of the project read by a staff member of the North Carolina Department of Commerce on a conference call.
The company plans to invest some $177 million before the end of 2025, to adhere to the requirements in the approved grant package.
There are currently more than 80 open jobs listed on the company’s careers webpage.
BestCo also planned an expansion in 2019, announcing it would invest $47.5 million and create 141 jobs in Mooresville.
Earlier this month, Sherwin Williams announced it would make an investment in Iredell County, as well. The company also cited increasing demand as rationale for a planned expansion in Statesville. The paint company plans to invest $324 million in the new facility, which could employ more than 180 workers.


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Portland Man Attempted a Chainsaw Robbery
Most people try to rob stores with guns, or at least toy guns. But not Jonathon Lee Lathrop. He was found in the Woodstock neighborhood in Portland attempting to rob a Plaid Pantry convenience store with a chainsaw. Lathrop, 34, was found with a knife and a chainsaw at the Plaid Pantry in Woodstock.
No exact details about the chain of events have been released yet, but police did find a car near the store that may have been a getaway vehicle. Lathrop was arrested, and thank goodness, no one was injured. My advice to Lathrop, Funyons and Mt. Dew aren't worth going to jail man.


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The t-shirts, which sell for $25, depicted caricatures of Asian Americans, such as a partly clad geisha-like woman.
One t-shirt shows two smiling, slanty-eyed men in conical hats and the words "Wong Brothers Laundry Service -- Two Wongs Can Make It Right." Another t-shirt bears the slogan "Wok-N-Bowl -- Let the Good Times Roll -- Chinese Food & Bowling."
"These graphic T-shirts were designed with the sole purpose of adding humor and levity to our fashion line," said Hampton Carney, an Abercrombie & Fitch spokesman, in a company statement. "Since some customers have been offended by their content, we are pulling these shirts from our stores."
Factor, an Asian-American
"We're talking with the [Asian American Advertising Federation] and looking for funding from Asian organizations," said Wendy Chan, Factor's president. "We hope the ad runs in a couple weeks."
She said Factor, based in New York, has started the creative work.
"They're ignorant in the assumption that this is tongue-in-cheek [humor] when it's really insensitivity," Ms. Chan said. "This could have been prevented if corporate America understood the demographics."


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Apple will livestream what is presumed to be the reveal of the iPad Mini today. It all kicks off at 1.00pm EDT/6.00pm UK and you can watch it live through here. We’ll update you with any nifty announcements on the tablet.
The Pokémon Go Fest in Chicago’s Grant Park was a mess.
Mirage: Arcane Warfare has the best first-person melee in any game today - so why is no one playing it?
Mirage: Arcane Warfare is the follow-up to Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, but you probably guessed the association from the name.
Destiny 2 open beta testers had a lovely time on The Farm this weekend.
iPad Mini and a fourth generation iPad was announced by Apple SVP of global marketing Phil Schiller today during the firm’s event. The mini tablet is finally a “real thing” after all the rumor mongering these last few months.
Invites to Apple’s rumored iPad Mini event were supposed to roll out on October 10, and according to a source speaking with All Things D, the event will take place on Tuesday, October 23.


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We’re excited to bring Transform 2022 back in person on July 19 and pretty much July 20-28. Join AI and data leaders for insightful conversations and exciting networking opportunities. Register today!
Over the past two years, the capital markets ecosystem has undergone a period of accelerated digital transformation, largely as a result of COVID-19. But the technology landscape is constantly changing, often testing the efficiency of traditional practices.
After being a leading participant in the execution of financial transactions and payments between more than 11,000 banks and financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories, the Global Interbank Financial Telecommunications Association (SWIFT) is a steadfast and secure financial messaging service that conducts international transactions between banks.
SWIFT has made it much easier to send cross-border payments and has established itself as a dominant player in global financial transactions. But it only recently gained widespread attention, when the United States and the European Union removed key Russian banks from the cooperative, including Bank Otkritie, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank and more, to impose further economic sanctions beginning in February 2022.
As the financial sector capitalizes on SWIFT, it begs the question of whether there is a better one? and faster way to make cross-border payments? Many now see blockchain technologies becoming the mechanism for powering the next generation of global financial solutions.
The Old Guard: A Brief History of SWIFT
SWIFT is headquartered in Belgium and SWIFT’s vision has always been to create a common language for international financial messaging and a service to make it possible. It is now the mechanism for most international money and security transfers, but maintaining an outdated payment system can be difficult and reveals the need for innovation.
The kinds of transformations needed across the payments ecosystem need to address the slow processing speeds associated with high fees and a history of cyber breaches due to high volumes and massive data transfers.
The power of blockchain and the arrival of new players
The introduction of blockchain has changed the path of technology and the industries surrounding it. Blockchain technology is a universal and immutable ledger for recording transactions and tracking assets with complete transparency, and companies around the world are benefiting and adopting the technology. The application of blockchain in the financial sector can provide new players with the opportunity to provide speed, cost-efficiency and more secure solutions for the movement of value, while allowing transactions to be instantly and simultaneously approved by validators.
The growing conversation about blockchain technology and its benefits in the financial sector is sparking a much-needed discussion about SWIFT’s viability.
Enter the new players
As blockchain technology continues to advance, it has sparked new conversations about the future of finance, monetary transactions and payment usage scenarios. Seeing the success of blockchain within the crypto industry is no doubt sparking interest in its potential use cases for other applications. An obvious use case is for cross-border transactions, making blockchain a major competitor against SWIFT. While some may scoff at this idea, the potential for blockchain to disrupt this space is gaining traction and becoming a more serious discussion to be had.
By eliminating reliance on intermediaries, blockchain allows international banks to connect directly to each other on the same network, saving time and resulting in minimal costs. While current cross-border transactions are costly and can take several days, blockchain technology allows them to happen in seconds. These transactions can also be tracked better, as the blockchain keeps track of all data transfers, which are stored and time-stamped in the main book.
Banks investing in decentralized systems and adopting blockchain technology will soon see its many benefits. Now that there are regulations for commercial banks, standards and guidelines must first be established. Once these standards are established, financial institutions will have an opportunity to redefine the entire industry and prove blockchain’s transformative use cases for global finance.
Looking to the future
With the financial industry recently taking on SWIFT, it’s time to step back and re-evaluate the way global transactions are completed. Blockchain-powered alternatives have arrived, offering users within banks and financial institutions the ability to perform the same tasks at a lower rate, with higher security and speeds. Completely immersing blockchain in the global financial industry creates greater trust in a user’s shared system that is available globally.
Yamini Sagar is a senior vice president at Roxe†
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Australia & New Zealand are the ONLY two countries in the entire world that don’t allow it’s citizens to legally consume hemp as a food product.
By General Maddox.
The benefits of the cannabis plant are numerous in quantity and it’s been used by civilisations around the world for centuries. Fast forward to modern times and we see that cannabis is gaining momentum as being recognised as the miracle plant it is.
It appears the prohibition of cannabis could come to an end in the near future. State after State in the USA have begun legalising cannabis or decriminalising it. Hemp seeds however have always been available as a food product.
As mentioned above the only two countries in the entire world that have a current ban on hemp seed as a food is Australia & New Zealand. Both of whom fall under the control of FSANZ – Food Standards Australia & New Zealand. There have been two previous applications to FSANZ seeking approval to permit the sale of hemp seeds. These were both rejected. The reason?
Ministers were concerned that the availability of hemp seed foods may send a confused message to consumers about the acceptability and safety of illicit cannabis and pose problems for drug enforcement agencies.
That’s straight from the Food Standard website. Seems like a paltry excuse doesn’t it? We’re basically missing out on the best source of food available that can help stamp out the biggest killer of all – Heart Disease, all because of a board of a few bureaucrats and their inane excuses.
Well that looks to be coming to an end. Thankfully. FSANZ has approved the most recent proposal to allow hemp seeds to be sold as a food. However there’s one more hurdle left.
See below also from the Food Standards website.
FSANZ has approved Proposal P1042 and this will now be considered by the Forum in late April 2017, when the results of the study on the effects on roadside drug testing will also be available. Within 60 days of being notified Ministers can inform FSANZ they do not intend to ask FSANZ to review its decision or ask FSANZ to review its decision.
So unless the forum has their arm twisted by some other bureaucrat who thinks it’s a bad idea because it could play around with roadside drug testing by the police, it should get approved.
Let’s hope it does so we can be on par with the rest of the world and stop this insanity and start getting healthy!


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Discord is a perfect vehicle for these pumps, as a semi-public forum that allows users to advertise servers broadly, ping users about coordinated buy-ins, and discuss strategy. I’m a longtime Discord user, and anecdotally I’ve seen an enormous uptick in activity. Between early April and May, I received 47 invitations to join crypto pump groups over Discord. Eight of the groups have more than 20,000 members; the largest has over 80,000. Several of these servers’ moderators say they pay people—whom they call “advertisers”—to spam Discord users with invitations, sometimes including crypto giveaways.
New members are greeted with FAQs describing 2,000 percent pumps and the potential for hundreds or thousands in gains. That’s not necessarily the reality. “The Discord server is a casino. As the saying goes, ‘The house always wins,’ and they’re the house,” says Thomas Hurley, 21, a member of several crypto pump Discord servers. After crypto evangelists began joining his gaming servers to advertise pump groups, he tried his hand at a couple coordinated price pushes. He never made much profit, but other people did. When Hurley began looking closer at some of these coins’ market trading pages on sites like Binance, he noticed some interesting patterns.
“A few seconds before they announced which coin to pump, there would be a huge spike,” he says. It looked like someone in the know bought up a lot of the coin beforehand, hugely boosting their potential to earn big by selling early. Hurley never had a chance.
He isn’t alone. A 2018 study of Telegram-based pump groups found that five minutes before the pump signal (before the coin is even revealed), a designated coin’s price shot up about 5 percent. Back then, on average, only investors who bought in within the first 20 seconds after a pump could make a profit. Today, sources say, crypto pumps move so quickly that enthusiasts commission bots to buy and sell coins based on Discord announcements. The owner of one server, Pump It Up, says he lost several hundred dollars because he wasn’t using a bot, which can buy and sell within milliseconds. The experience prompted him to make his own group back in February.
“Crypto pumps prey on less-informed people in the space,” says Josh Kamps, a PhD candidate at University College London studying crypto fraud. People who found out about GameStop late want to jump on the next big thing. Kamps noticed, anecdotally, that a bunch of low-utility alt-coins cropped up right around then, which he says are “pretty much designed to be pumped.” For example, he says, pump groups are flocking to Shiba Inu Coin (or SHIB). One knock-off WallStreetBets pump group advertises that they pumped SHIB for more than 4 times profit. In the last 24 hours, the meme coin saw over $6.1 billion in trading volume.
“Discord welcomes a broad variety of personal finance discussions, including cryptocurrency, investment clubs, and day traders and encourages…


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Along with more than five partnering brands, the firm is now at the final stage of the ‘blue-hat’ application, and results will be out “very soon”, EVP of human health and nutrition, Tim de Haas told NutraIngredients-Asia during an interview at the HI/FI China exhibition.
‘Blue hat’ allows brands to sell its supplement products in China’s brick-and-mortar stores. In other words, it would allow firms to sell products in more channels, instead of just online platforms.
“Together with the partners, we have invested in applying for the certification many years ago. The process takes a long time and we are now in the very final stage to get this certificate.
“Getting the certification will further boosts the awareness and popularity of krill oil in the Chinese market,” De Haas said.
Besides getting the certification, the firm is also partnering brands with presence in different sales and communication channels to promote its Superba krill oil to the Chinese consumers.
“We are basically working with the top brands in the Chinese market and we are collaborating with these companies on both scientific and marketing fronts.
“This means that we are investing in joint studies to evaluate the further health benefits of krill oil in the Chinese population,” he said.
Beyond health foods
Other than health foods, the firm is also promoting the use of krill oil in general food items in the Chinese market.
“We have the krill powder which allows us to use krill oil in much broader range of applications, such as food,” De Haas said.
He added that there would be new launches containing krill oil over the next few months, examples include gummy applications.
Besides high nutritional content, the firm’s krill oil can also be traced to its origin.
De Haas believes that this is another selling point that the firm enjoys.
“One very important thing for the Chinese population is food safety. With our krill oil, they can have the only omega-3 that could be 100% traced to the origin.
“Consumers can know exactly where we harvested the krill in the Antarctic Ocean. For example, consumers can enter the batch number on our website and see where we have bought the krill…This is giving trust to the Chinese consumers that no one else can offer,” he said.


text: Yoav Eilat and Yahav Biran talked about the Multiplayer video games are among the most lucrative online services. The overall games industry worldwide generated an estimated $174B in 2019, according to IDC. With this popularity, cheating becomes a common trend. Cheating in multiplayer games negatively impacts the game experience for players who play by the rules, and it becomes a revenue issue for game developers and publishers. According to Irdeto, 60% of online games were negatively impacted by cheaters, and 77% of players said they would stop playing a multiplayer game if they think opponents are cheating. Current methods for detecting and addressing cheating become difficult and expensive to operate as cheaters respond to the evolution of anti-cheating techniques. This session will show an effective method for game developers to continuously and dynamically improve their cheat-detection mechanisms. It uses Amazon Aurora and Amazon SageMaker for cheating detection but can be adapted to other databases with similar capabilities. We’ll utilize the recently-launched Aurora machine learning functionality, which allows game developers to add ML-based predictions using the familiar SQL programming language without building custom integrations or learning separate tools. We’ll show which ML algorithms are useful for cheat detection and how an anti-cheat developer can write a single SQL query that handles the inputs and outputs for the algorithm.


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Receive $80 Grab vouchers valid for use on all Grab services except GrabHitch and GrabShuttle when you subscribe to BT All-Digital at only $0.99*/month.
Find out more at btsub.sg/promo
HIT by a sharp rise in the cost of goods sold, Trek 2000 International on Tuesday reported a net loss of US$6.72 million for FY2015 compared to a net profit of US$1.15 million a year ago.
Revenue rose 34.5 per cent year on year to US$149.14 million, driven by higher revenue from its main interactive consumer solutions business.
Loss per share worked out to 2.18 US cents, versus earnings per share of 0.39 US cent a year ago.
For the year under review, cost of goods sold surged nearly 47 per cent to US$145.16 million, which caused gross profit to slump 66.5 per cent to US$3.98 million.
The group said: "Trek continues to drive developments within three main areas of consumer wearable, medical and cloud technologies. The group's key focus going forward lies in the medical technology industry, where an ageing population brings about a need for new and innovative solutions within healthcare to tackle the upcoming challenges."


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Facebook 1.5 For Android Comes On Par With Its iPhone Counterpart ! Brings Chat, Push Notifications
This is probably the first version of Facebook for Android that can be regarded as completely on par with the iPhone version. This is the update which most of us have been waiting for! After bringing Facebook Groups and Places feature to Android only just last month, the new Facebook version 1.5 for Android brings the much awaited Facebook Chat feature, along with Push Notifications to Android devices.
Here is the official change log of Facebook 1.5.0 for Android:
Added Chat – now you can chat with your Facebook friends right from your Android device
Various bug fixes
The app is out now on Android Market ! Alternatively, you can point your Android phone to the link given below in order to download it right on your device.


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MENDOCINO Co., 3/13/20 — Coronavirus preparations are sweeping the nation, with state and local governments calling for events to be cancelled, businesses send workers are temporarily home, and others are being asked to self-quarantine or to stay home when sick. As these measures escalate, many people may face challenges in paying their bills. PG&E announced March 12 that the company will be halting any service disconnections due to non payment until further notice, due to COVID-19, and will offer “flexible pay plans” for customers who are impacted by the pandemic.
Here’s the PG&E news release from March 12:
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Today, Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has voluntarily implemented a moratorium on service disconnections for non-payment, effective immediately. This suspension will apply to both residential and commercial customers and will remain in effect until further notice. To further support customers who may be impacted by the pandemic, PG&E will offer its most flexible pay plans to customers who indicate either an impact or hardship as a result of COVID-19. PG&E will continue to monitor current events and identify opportunities to support our customers and communities.
In addition to the moratorium on service shut-offs, PG&E’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is focused on efforts to protect the health and safety of its customers, employees, contractors and the communities it serves. Actions the company has taken include providing guidance for employees who have direct customer contact to take social distancing precautionary measures, such as avoiding handshakes and wearing disposable nitrile gloves while in customers’ homes.
“We recognize that this is a rapidly changing situation and an uncertain time for many of our customers. Our most important responsibility is the health and safety of our customers and employees. We also want to provide some relief from the stress and financial challenges many are facing during this worldwide, public health crisis. We understand that many of our customers may experience a personal financial strain due to the slowdown in the economy related to the pandemic,” said Chief Customer Officer and Senior Vice President Laurie Giammona.
Internally, the company is taking advanced cleaning measures, communicating best practices frequently with employees, and is asking its leaders to let employees work remotely if their job allows, while avoiding critical business disruption. PG&E has activated an enterprise-wide incident response team and is vigilantly monitoring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization for updates related to the virus. The company is committed to continue addressing customer service needs and does not expect any disruption in gas or electric service due to the public health crisis.March 12, 2020


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The iPhone 13 series will be upgraded by Apple to 25W fast charging instead of 20W like the iPhone 12 series, but still lower than other Android models.
According to a report from MyDrivers, the new charging speed on the iPhone 13 series is not too groundbreaking but will meet the new battery capacity.
Previous rumors showed that the iPhone 13 mini will have a 2,406 mAh battery, up from 2,227 mAh on the iPhone 12 mini; iPhone 13 and 13 Pro both have 3,095 mAh batteries, an increase of 200 mAh more than the 2,815 mAh of the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro; iPhone 13 Pro Max will have the most increase with 4,352 mAh battery compared to 3,687 mAh of 12 Pro Max.
The addition of new fast charging helps the iPhone 13 catch up with Samsung's flagship smartphones in terms of charging speed. Currently, the Galaxy S21 series is supporting this charging capacity. So does the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 3.
However, the fast charging ability of the iPhone 13 will still be far behind products from Xiaomi, Huawei, and OnePlus. Recently, OnePlus announced the mid-range Nord 2 5G with 65W fast charging, while Huawei and Xiaomi offer 66W and 67W charging technology on a lot of high-end devices.
Previously, it was reported that iPhone 13 will have a MagSafe charger with larger and stronger magnets. The device will also have wireless reverse charging, allowing charging other Apple devices, such as AirPods, Apple Watch.
The iPhone 13 series will have small design changes compared to the iPhone 12, such as a smaller notch, a large camera cluster, and a diagonal camera layout in the iPhone 13 and 13 mini.
The Pro series duo will be equipped with LTPO screens with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. The two regular versions still use 60 Hz refresh rate OLED screens.
According to reports, the iPhone 13 will not include a charger and headphones in the box similar to the iPhone 12 series. The new smartphone will be announced in September according to the previous iPhone launch schedule instead of October like the iPhone 12 last year.


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Denver cheese maker Leprino Foods Co. said Thursday that a New York dairy accused by an animal-rights group of abusing its cows no longer supplies one of its cheese plants with milk.
Chicago-based Mercy for Animals, which works to expose animal cruelty and promotes vegan diets on its website, on Thursday released a video it said was covertly shot by a farm worker at Willet Dairy in Locke, N.Y. The video shows sick animals, cows being dragged, workers kicking and hitting animals, tails being cut off and horns being burned off.
The video aired on the ABC television network news earlier this week and are featured on the network's website.
Until Wednesday, milk from the Willet Dairy went to Leprino’s Wavery, N.Y., plant through a dairy cooperative, Dairy Marketing Services, said Mike Reidy, a senior vice president of Leprino, a private company.
“We are no longer served by that dairy,” Reidy said Thursday.
The dairy cooperative on Wednesday told Leprino the Willet Dairy’s milk no longer was going to the plant, Reidy said.
The dairy cooperative handles direct relationships with local farms, he said, adding that Willet Dairy is one of more than 1,500 dairies supplying the Waverly plant.
Leprino would have other responses to the video, but Reidy said the company hadn’t decided what they would be yet.
“We take these issues very, very seriously and we will respond,” Reidy said. “We continue to view animal health and welfare as a matter of critical importance. We’ll continue to work with our milk suppliers on these matters.”
Reidy said the dairy cooperative continues to provide milk to Leprino’s Waverly plant.
ABC’s report quoted Willet Dairy’s CEO, Lyndon Odell, as saying the operation produces high-quality milk and does not tolerate the abuse of animals. Odell said the Mercy for Animals video shows “a few isolated incidents.”


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Europcar Reconverted To A Transport Hub Thanks To Digital
The French giant of car rental accelerates on the new mobilities since the acquisition of the start-up Ubeeqo two years ago.
2 000. This is the number of cars put into car-sharing by Europcar via its subsidiary Ubeeqo. A drop in the ocean of the 300,000 vehicles in circulation rented by the multinational. But according to Sheila Struyck, marketing director of the group and Lab Europcar, we must see the beginnings of a new wave in the business model of the brand: “Before we used the rental only when his own vehicle does not. was not available, for a breakdown or for a weekend, for example. We want to change this reflex and become a company that can offer a complete alternative to car ownership, that is to say, a multimodal application that brings together car-sharing, VTC, and traditional rental services to meet all needs. ”
“The goal is that the entire user journey is done on our app via a single account”
Acquired at the end of 2014 by Europcar, Ubeeqo has developed a technology that makes it possible to open the shared vehicle thanks to a digital key contained in its mobile application or to a pass, in case it is parked in an area not covered by the cellular network. Originally, the company was dedicated to the BtoB: “Our car-sharing service can also be privatized for an industrialist who needs vehicles to go from one site to another. offer a complete mobility service, “says Benoît Chatelier, co-founder of Ubeeqo. 70 key account customers in France, Belgium, and Germany such as Airbus, Bosch, Danone, and L’Oréal put their trust in him. “We are also able to create a business account that allows us to get rid of expense claims, which is in great demand by SMEs, especially in the Paris region,” he adds.
Under the leadership of Europcar, the company present in 8 European countries opens to the BtoC. After launching its first service dedicated to the general public in 2015, it is now focusing on its multimodal app: “In large cities, more than half of the population no longer owns an individual vehicle and owners want to abandon it because it is often too expensive, but there are so many alternative offers that it becomes difficult to find and register for them, which is why we want to become a single point of entry and a multimodal platform of reference for these new mobilities “, Benoît Chatelier. Available for nearly a year in Paris and six months in Berlin, Brussels, and Hamburg, it allows for the moment to register, book and pays car sharing, rental and VTC services from a single application.
The GoMore offer allows you to rent a car between 4 and 12 months and share it on the Drive & Share platform to help pay your rent.
To extend its services and develop them on a large scale, Europcar multiplies the acquisitions in the car-sharing public with the Ubeeqo purchases of the Spanish Bluemove in June 2016 and the Italian GuidaMi at the end of January. The Europcar Lab, the entity dedicated to innovation, also launched last September a pilot project in France with the Danish specialist in private car rental and free carpool GoMore. The solution, called Drive & Share, allows customers to rent a Europcar car between 4 and 12 months and can share it on the GoMore platform when they do not use it, allowing them to finance all or part of its rents. Depending on the brand, a subset of ten days per month would be enough to fully repay the monthly payment.
To expand its offer, Ubeeqo also links affiliate partnerships. It is for example possible to book a VTC via Allocab or LeCab or a taxi G7 directly on the app thanks to the APIs of these booking platforms. “The goal is that the entire user journey is done on our app via a single account,” Benoît Chatelier advance. The whole group is therefore working to offer chauffeur-driven cars in as many countries as possible: “We will soon be offering VTC services in our 10 corporate countries, ie where we work live, in Europe and then in countries where we are represented by franchises, “says Sheila Struyck. Europcar has already started its market in this sector by acquiring London specialist VTC Brunel.
“We will soon be offering VTC services in our 10 corporate countries”
The company does not want to stop and is also preparing to offer on its app alternatives to the car: “We could integrate cycling, scooter and public transport in the future according to the cities. with potential partners, “says Ubeeqo co-founder. But before that, a priority site takes its developers: “We are working on the interoperability of our app, which will be implemented in the first quarter of this year. It will allow a customer who has registered in Berlin to rent a car or book a VTC, from the same account, when traveling to Barcelona, for example. ”
The six employees of Lab Europcar do not stop prospecting, according to its director. “We are looking to acquire specialists in these sectors to diversify us, it is important to work with companies that already have a user base and well-established methods that can be inspected.” According to her, deploying alternative means of transport is not contrary to the core business of the group. “These new services will allow for a better rotation in our fleet, we can imagine renting them out the week and putting them into carsharing at the weekend, when they are less requested by BtoB customers, for example.”
“The marketing challenge of these services is to make them adopt”
Partnerships and acquisitions, Sheila Struyck will need to shape the future of Europcar. “All the companies that can help us manage all the data of all vehicles in a single platform and work on the customer experience are interesting.” But the group will have to face a challenge. “The marketing challenge of these services is to get them adopted.”Tags: VTC


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Shatta Wale just dropped some big news from the camp of Medikal.
According to Shatta Wale in a Snapchat post, the AMG Business signed musician has in this coronavirus period gifted himself a brand new Range Rover posh.
The “Ayoo” hitmaker wrote as the caption of the photo of the new car he shared “MDK new whip”
Already, Medikal already owns a fleet of cars which include a Benz, Chevrolet Camaro, another Range Rover, and others.
See the photo below


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The microblogging leader beat Wall Street forecasts for the second quarter by a mile, saying it earned $14.6 million, or 2 cents a share, on revenue of $312.2 million. That topped forecasts for a loss of 1 cent a share and sales of around $280 million. Twitter's already-expensive stock zoomed by more than 28% in after-hours trading.
As well it should. The numbers were almost hard to wrap your mind around -- and a reminder of why Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and the Fed's staff were on such dicey ground making even a mild warning about the "substantially stretched" valuations of social-networking stocks earlier this month.
-- It's impressive enough that Twitter's sales grew 121% in the first half of this year, compared with 2013. The really off-the-hook number is that Twitter's second-half forecast says the company will grow more than 34% in the second half -- from the first six months of this year. It's a rate of compounding that makes even Twitter's multiple -- at Tuesday's closing price, it was 17 times this year's expected sales -- look increasingly sane.
-- The amount of revenue Twitter gets for each user is growing far, far faster than the number of users themselves. It has room to grow much more. The monthly average user base grew by about 24% in the second quarter (from last year) while ad sales jumped 129%, with 81% coming from mobile ads. Twitter is getting more advertisers to buy in, and finding more ad formats and strategies for them to use.
Revenue per user is now up to $4.60 a year. Ad sales per thousand timeline views, a related metric, doubled in the quarter. And yet, Facebook's (FB) - Get Meta Platforms Inc. Class A Reportrecent report that its revenue per user is up to $8.92 a year suggests that Twitter is nowhere near its ceiling.
Facebook has a lot more to offer -- more sites like Instagram and WhatsApp, and more types of ad inventory it can promote -- so Twitter won't catch up any time soon. But the example of the older company, like the sustained near-hypergrowth of LinkedIn (LNKD) , reinforces the message that the ceiling is a long way from at hand for any of the three. It's out there somewhere, but not visible yet.
-- Capital spending at Twitter is extremely heavy and rising -- and that's good. In Corporate America generally, it's weak enough to be dragging down the economy. But Twitter is reinvesting about a quarter of its revenue this year -- as much as $390 million. That's where the new products and ad units to keep boosting revenue per user will come from, along with acquisitions
As it stands, Twitter is already beginning to throw off cash. (Accounting profit, after non-cash charges for depreciation of that capital investment, is another story. On that basis, Twitter lost a hefty $144.6 million, or 24 cents a share, in the quarter). But operating cash-flow was 26% of sales in the second quarter, or $81.7 million, making clear that Twitter will be a pretty hefty financial machine -- and soon.
Yellen's problem is that her testimony to Congress reflected what companies like Twitter -- and even the very richly valued real estate listing site Zillow (Z) - Get Zillow Group, Inc. Class C Report,which has some social-networking features -- were last quarter, or are today. But when growth companies are working, there are game changers like this earnings report or Zillow's $3.5 billion merger with rival Trulia (TRLA) that are announced nearly every day.
And they change the numbers. The idea that Twitter can make $500 million before non-cash expenses next year suddenly looks pretty reasonable, and that makes a $22 billion valuation look normal at these growth rates, and the $30 billion valuation that's likely tomorrow morning. That means that all of a sudden complaints that Twitter was the new poster child for irrational exuberance look like yesterday's news. Even if the complainers had included yours truly.
At the time of publication, the author held no positions in any of the stocks mentioned, although positions may change at any time.
This article represents the opinion of a contributor and not necessarily that of TheStreet or its editorial staff.
Tim Mullaney writes on the economy, health care and technology. Contact him at email@example.com or follow him on Twitter @timmullaney.


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Windows Vista Deployment -- Playing the Waiting Game
- By Stuart J. Johnston
- February 13, 2006
When Microsoft releases Windows Vista sometime in the second half of this year, two huge stars will be lining up.
The first full release of a new Microsoft operating system in five years will be arriving to at least a couple of years worth of pent up demand among users. At the same time, new PCs running with dual-core processors running under the hood will be plentiful, though still a bit pricey.
Windows Vista will feature an updated user interface called Aero Glass; much more effective and integrated desktop search; fundamentally new ways of organizing files and folders; another security overhaul; and deep changes to the way developers interact with the operating system.
That leaves a big question: What should you do?
The answer to that the consensus seems to be to test and plan and budget, but most of all -- wait.
“Windows 2000 users should plan to begin migrations beginning in early 2008 and most Windows XP users should pursue a strategy of managed diversity, bringing in Windows Vista on new machines starting in 2008,” advises a recent Gartner research note.
Why? Because, say users, analysts and industry observers, many or most corporate customers plan to do their own evaluations, planning, and budgeting -- after Vista is released commercially.
“It will take many organizations about 18 months from the time Windows Vista ships to test applications, get independent software vendors (ISVs) to support applications, build images and run pilots,” the Gartner research note continues.
“It looks like the upgrade cycle is going to start, at the earliest, in late 2007 or early 2008,” says Rob Enderle, principal analyst at The Enderle Group.
Other observers agree.
“I’m sure [corporate deployment of Vista] will be just like Windows 2000,” says Bruce Handley, president of the Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group as well as president of consultancy Handley Computer Corp. in Boulder, Colorado. “People will sit on it . . . [except for] some of the bigger customers that absolutely have to have it due to the new features,” Handley says adding, “Here we don’t put anything up until the first service pack is released.”
That sentiment is echoed by other customers and user representatives.
“The impression we get [from our members] is that . . . they will probably adopt it but not very quickly after its release, [similar to] the adoption of Active Directory,” says Jim Michael, board secretary for SHARE, the enterprise IBM user group, which has more than 2,200 member companies.
Michael adds: “I think the issues are such that it will be easy [for enterprise customers] to wait for the first service pack. Why not let others get the experience first?”
Indeed, many analysts agree that while, some early adopter companies will hop on the bandwagon soon after Vista ships, most of the early uptake of the new OS will be among consumers. That, of course, is likely to spur some end users to want the same system at work as at home – especially with so many U.S. firms that now expect their employees to at least work part-time from home. One way or the other, that is bound to generate support needs that may be unanticipated, say some users and analysts.
Additionally, over the years, the typical buying patterns following a new release have evolved. Today, the number of upgrade copies that corporate customers purchase to retrofit existing PCs has fallen off dramatically. One major cause is that the hardware requirements to run each new release always rise. Vista is no exception.
As with past releases, Microsoft is still being somewhat cagey about how much horsepower and memory Vista will require. The company says that the beta will run on a minimum of a 400-Mhz Pentium II with 512 Mbytes of memory.
If the past is any guide, however, few knowledgeable observers would try. Much better to go with Microsoft’s “recommended” configuration of a 1-Ghz CPU and at least 1 GB of RAM.
“Some folks who have experience with it [the Vista Community Technology Preview] say that, with a 1.6-Ghz [single-core] processor and a gigabyte of RAM, it wasn’t a stellar performance [but] on the other hand, if you run it on a dual-core processor in the 2-Ghz range and 2 GB of memory, it seems to run fine,” says SHARE’s Michael.
He adds though, that there may still be extra test code in current builds that push the system’s requirements above what it may be when the so-called “debug” code is removed and the operating system is released to manufacturing. “If the requirements are as they are right now [with the CTP], a lot of companies don’t have that hardware today. That means a longer replacement cycle.”
Part of the hardware equation will be whether corporate customers decide that they have to have top-of-the line Vista graphics, called Aero Glass, or whether their employees will be just as productive using the less capable standard Aero graphics technology. The standard Aero interface misses many of the advanced niceties that Aero Glass has, such as the translucent windows.
According to statements Microsoft makes on its TechNet developers’ site: “To run Aero Glass, your graphics card must have a Longhorn Display Driver Model (LDDM). To get the full Vista experience, the graphics card needs a lot of memory (64MB minimum, 128MB recommended) and must support the complete DirectX 9 API.”
There are other hardware issues as well. By the time Vista ships, multi-core CPUs will be common, which will provide more of an early impetus to migrate.
“The big wave won’t happen until the second half of 2007. [By then], I think we’ll see the majority of hardware systems in the midrange of the market with multi-core processors [and] corporate customers tend to buy in the midrange. Any currently shipping processor – from now going forwards – will be fine,” Enderle says.
But don’t feel sorry for Microsoft just yet. The company is bound to be wringing its hands, worrying about Vista uptake rates – all the way to the bank.
Indeed, as many as 500 million new PCs will ship in the first 24 months after the OS is release, although not all of them will come with Vista preloaded, G. Michael Sievert, Microsoft corporate vice president of Windows product management and marketing told attendees at the Merrill Lynch IT Services & Software Conference in early February.
Of course, if a new PC doesn’t ship with Vista, however, a version of Windows (XP SP2) will still be delivered on most of those other PCs sold. And all of this is happening as the OEM channel becomes an increasingly important link in Microsoft’s value chain.
In fact, company executives told financial analysts on its third fiscal quarter earnings call in January that currently 85 percent of Windows revenue comes from OEM sales of new PCs. They expect that figure will remain around 80 percent even after Vista ships.
“That 85 percent is potential gold for Microsoft partners and competitors. More than ever, Windows is a potentially powerful platform for distributing software and services through OEM channels,” said JupiterResearch senior analyst Joe Wilcox on his blog. “It's not exactly a new phenomenon that lots of customers buy Windows on new PCs.”
One conundrum for IT staff still exists. What to do with Windows XP machines that they acquired while waiting for Vista. Gartner recommends that those PCs be rotated out last – that is, as part of most companies’ regular three-year lifecycle – planned obsolescence.