text:
Brian Armstrong has introduced he shall be releasing a set of digital music created in collaboration with DJ DAVI. He additional confirmed that this shall be launched as NFTs, his announcement comes because the trade continues to seize main consideration.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on Wednesday announced the discharge of a set of digital music NFTs. With little data about music manufacturing, he additional confirmed that he collaborated with DJ DAVI for this launch. These songs are set to be offered on Zora. co, a Coinbase Ventures portfolio firm. Proceeds from their gross sales will go to DJ DAVI.
Chatting with his motivation, the American entrepreneur acknowledged that he listened to lots of digital music when he started coding the primary variations of Coinbase. Final 12 months, because the pandemic hit the world, Armstrong regarded to study digital music composition. DJ DAVI (David Khanjian) supplied him classes. The brand new music was created whereas studying.
“I listened to lots of digital music with no vocals as I used to be coding up the early variations of Coinbase, and all the time loved David’s music. (no vocals as a result of I couldn’t focus with different phrases in my head)”
Because the music helped him when he was coding early on, Coinbase CEO famous that one of many songs has a theme of constructing know-how stuff with out giving up. Armstrong additional cleared that lots of work associated to NFTs was executed by DJ DAVI which explains his choice to offer all proceeds to the artist.
4/ We created these songs over the previous 12 months as a enjoyable approach for me to study Ableton Dwell and so forth. To be clear – 99% of the expertise comes from him, nevertheless it was enjoyable for me to work on them none the much less.
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) April 7, 2021
In the previous few months, NFTs have grown and seen a whole lot of hundreds of thousands transacted. Particularly NFTs from excessive profile people, the bidding battle has turned aggressively. Only a few months in the past, Jack Dorsey‘s first tweet was sold for almost $3 million which the Twitter CEO donated to charity.
Coinbase Q1 Earnings Swell
Brian Armstrong’s announcement comes when his firm Coinbase is abuzz. In only a few days, the trade is ready to be listed on Nasdaq with ticker COIN. Forward of this, the corporate has launched its first-quarter preliminary outcomes. This revealed a virtually nine-fold development from the identical time final 12 months.
It has acknowledged it expects revenue to hit about $1.8 billion. It solely managed $190.6 million in the identical time final 12 months. Web revenue is ready to achieve roughly $730 million to $800 million. It additional confirmed that it now has 56 million verified customers on its platform.
Kiguru is a fantastic author with a choice for innovation, finance, and the convergence of the 2. A agency adherent to the groundbreaking functionality of cryptographic types of cash and the blockchain. When not in his workplace, he’s tuned in to Nas, Eminem, and The Beatles.


text:
On Christmas day Patently Apple posted a report titled "A Report from China claims that BOE has Officially Passed Apple's Certification and is set to begin OLED shipments in early 2021." Today a Korean Tech site has reported that both BOE and Luxvisions have entered Apple’s supply chain.
The Korean report claims that Luxvisions Innovation Technology has acquired Apple’s front camera supplier Cowell E Holdings. The the acquisition will help Luxvisions become the top front camera module supplier of Apple immediately.
Recent moves by BOE and Luxvisions indicate that Chinese companies have started to chase after South Korean companies that have been dominating markets for displays with high values and relevant parts.
According to industry sources, BOE will begin supplying OLED display panels to Apple for the iPhone 12 this coming Thursday. It is understood that BOE received a final approval from Apple at the end of last month.
Now Samsung Display and LG Display will have to compete against BOE in order to obtain future orders from Apple, but they also have to compete against BOE to obtain orders from other smartphone manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics, OPPO, VIVO, and Xiaomi.
BOE is the biggest display manufacturer in China that has grown rapidly with support from the Chinese Government.

domain: news


text:
MEADVILLE — Konstantine Fekos can be reached at 724-6370 or by email at firstname.lastname@example.org.
You can help
The Make A Difference Day Food Drive is Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the following locations:
-Valesky’s in Meadville
-H&H Market Place in Saegertown
-Ray’s Market Place in Linesville
-Samuel’s Market in Conneautville
-Cochranton Market Place
Nonperishable items are requested, with specific emphasis on peanut butter, cereal and canned fruits and vegetables. Monetary donations can be made online at thecenter-nwpa.org and are greatly encouraged for those unable to donate food or get to the grocery stores. The food and money goes to Meadville-based Center for Family Services, which operates and cooperates with food pantries across Crawford County.


text:
Kaival Brands (OTCQB: KAVL) is the exclusive global distributor of products manufactured by Bidi Vapor LLC, including the BIDI (R) Stick disposable electronic nicotine delivery system (“ENDS”), which is intended exclusively for adults 21 and over. Today the company announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) has issued two additional U.S. patents to Bidi(R) Vapor: patent numbers 11,064,735 and 11,064,736. In addition, patent numbers 11,013,261 and 10,932,491, which were previously pending, have also been granted. “These newly issued patents add valuable coverage to our growing patent portfolio and in our opinion represent the future of the electronic nicotine delivery systems, or ENDS, market,” said Niraj Patel, CEO of Kaival Brands and founder and CEO of Bidi(R) Vapor. “Our products are created from a blank slate, which we believe results in a proprietary hardware and formulation system that delivers a class-leading consumer experience.”
To view the full press release, visit https://nnw.fm/anHLb
About Kaival Brands Innovations Group Inc.
Based in Grant, Florida, Kaival Brands is a company focused on growing and incubating innovative and profitable products into mature and dominant brands in their respective markets. The company’s vision is to develop internally, acquire, own, or exclusively distribute these innovative products and grow each into dominant market-share brands with superior quality and recognizable innovation. Kaival Brands is the exclusive global distributor of all products currently manufactured by Bidi Vapor LLC. For more information about the company, visit www.KaivalBrands.com.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to KAVL are available in the company’s newsroom at http://nnw.fm/KAVL
NetworkNewsWire (NNW) is an information service that provides (1) access to our news aggregation and syndication servers, (2) NetworkNewsBreaks that summarize corporate news and information, (3) enhanced press release services, (4) social media distribution and optimization services, and (5) a full array of corporate communication solutions. As a multifaceted financial news and content distribution company with an extensive team of contributing journalists and writers, NNW is uniquely positioned to best serve private and public companies that desire to reach a wide audience of investors, consumers, journalists and the general public. NNW has an ever-growing distribution network of more than 5,000 key syndication outlets across the country. By cutting through the overload of information in today’s market, NNW brings its clients unparalleled visibility, recognition and brand awareness. NNW is where news, content and information converge.
To receive SMS text alerts from NetworkNewsWire, text “STOCKS” to 77948 (U.S. Mobile Phones Only)
For more information please visit https://www.NetworkNewsWire.com
NetworkNewsWire is part of the InvestorBrandNetwork


text:
Blog: Coca-Cola, Nestle announce the inevitable
Michelle Russell | 9 January 2012
The Coca-Cola Co and Nestle's announcement on Friday (6 January) that they are to scale back their global joint-venture, Beverage Partners Worldwide (BPW), may have come as little surprise to many.
Formed in 2001, the JV has struggled to push sales of its RTD iced tea brand Nestea. According to Beverage Digest, the companies sold around 114m cases of the brand globally in 2001. By 2005, that number had dropped to around 93m cases and by 2010 the companies only managed to move around 78.1m cases.
Rival PepsiCo, however, sold around 247m cases of its Lipton iced tea brand in the US in 2010, the publication noted.
In October last year, reports suggested that BPW was reviewing its India-wide roll-out of Nestea as a result of the business "failing to push the product", prompting speculation that the joint-venture was running out of fuel.
On Friday, a spokesperson for Coca-Cola told just-drinks that BPW's focus will now be solely on Europe and Canada.
"The BPW joint venture delivers greater value to both parent companies in markets throughout Europe and Canada and as such, we will continue to operate under this agreement in those markets," the spokesperson said. "In all other markets, we will have more flexibility to accelerate our investments where we see high-growth opportunities."
The new focus for the partnership may be a sign that Nestle has bolstered the position of Nestea in key markets such as China and US, and is now able to go it alone in those countries. Coca-Cola, on the other hand, will need to renew its focus in those countries.
Over the years, Coca-Cola and Nestle have each started to handle other tea brands besides Nestea in the US. Coca-Cola's products include Gold Peak iced tea and the Honest Tea line. The company is also reportedly looking at launching an RTD tea brand under its Fuze label, Beverage Digest has reported.
This may now be a new focus for Coca-Cola in the US, but the company will need to bear in mind that it will be going head-to-head with the RTD market leader PepsiCo and Nestle's Sweet Leaf Tea Co brands.
Here in London, the second Wine Week has kicked off to coincide with UK wine trade event London Wine Fair. ...
Commuting in London is a drag. It’s overcrowded, sweaty and rarely goes to plan. In fact, it’s enough to turn a person to drink....
When it comes to market speculation, a company holds the prerogative to comment or not. Most times it is the latter, but we journalists are always grateful for any quote that we can get....
Carlsberg's Russian unit may be grinding down the gears, but its UK marketing team is proving to be no slouches. ...
- SABMiller & Meantime: Notes for the New Owner
- Analysis - Keurig Kold fails to impress
- Comment - How to Target Cognac's Mok Generation?
- Analysis - The Value of Prosecco
- The Beer Engine that is Africa
- Whyte & Mackay takes on Flor de Caña in UK
- Diageo takes Baileys, Gordon's marketing in-house
- Castel acquires stake in Belvedere
- Carlsberg cuts 180 staff
- Suntory to buy Japan Tobacco beverage unit
- Global Tequila insights - market forecasts, product innovation and consumer trends research
- Global rum insights - market forecasts, product innovation and consumer trends research
- Global Scotch whisky insights - market forecasts, product innovation and consumer trends research
- Africa: The Final Frontier for Beer
- Diageo plc (DGE) - Financial and Strategic SWOT Analysis Review


text:
No matter what your political beliefs, if you’re an American, the last two weeks since the inauguration have been, well, interesting. In fact, there is such a stream of breaking, urgent news that there doesn’t seem to be any calm downtime any more. As someone who usually writes about mobile and web consumer products, it’s hard to get excited about the new on demand app (this month: luxury car!) that a young, new startup released in the Silicon Valley bubble I call home.
Yet it’s impossible to ignore tech’s role in recent events. Twitter itself is a contradiction. On one hand Twitter brings all the news that’s happening now to your phone, 24/7. On a well-curated timeline there is always an interesting take on the news that you haven’t heard. On a good day, it’s a way to meet new people, gain new perspective, and learn something. Unfortunately, on a bad day, Twitter is a minefield of trolls, links to fake stories, and links to stories that are completely true but disconcerting. I’ve found that Nuzzel is a good filter for the more important news, while the number of notifications per day is customizable and makes the volume of news articles palatable. I have also found many sites, some new and some that have been around for years but are now focused on organizing marches and meetings, creating support communities, driving calls to Congress, getting signatures for petitions, and, maybe most important, donating money to causes and organizations.
Going back to Twitter. When history tells the story of this period, Twitter will be front and center. On one hand, the unfiltered Tweets of the president can cause a stock to tumble or an ally to question their relationship with the US. This has created calls for suspension, which Twitter so far has ignored. Yet Twitter has also created an outlet for the so-called rogue accounts for various Federal agencies and the Parks. It has also started accounts to fact-check the president’s tweets, and shows the tweet and context as one image. There have also been a slew of interesting products launched on Product Hunt, from Celebrating Immigrants to lists of who is matching donations to the ACLU.
It’s these uses of existing platforms and the creation of new sites and services that give me hope that the tech community is changing. It’s no longer just about creating platforms that “replace their moms” but, perhaps, really is about changing the world. It’s why I continue writing about this industry. Sure, there is the built-for-urban-dwellers-with-high-incomes apps, but there’s also new and interesting takes on how to make a difference.


text:
A surprise boost from M&S’ Christmas clothing sales sets the stage for its upcoming revamped marketing strategy to prove it is the start of a recovery rather than a fortuitous outcome of a stretched reporting period.
The retailer’s clothing sales have disappointed in past years despite constant attempts to turn it around. It’s why the uplift, which saw its clothing sales rise 2.3% in the 13 weeks to 31 December, surprised analysts with the business already deep into the latest attempt to recalibrate the brand and its products for younger shoppers. Combined with the performance happening within the best Christmas for the retailer in six years and its clear why investors might be excited at the prospect of the beleaguered retailer finally turning a corner.
However, there is a caveat; as M&S pointed out in its trading statement, total clothing and home sales were up 3.1% in the period, a 1.5% of which was due to the inclusion of five additional days of December sales. Rather than get carried away with the results, retail analysts have used the slightly skewed results to point out that there is still a long way to go for M&S if it is to really prove it has a sustainable turnaround strategy under chief executive Seve Rowe.
"Yes, the performance of Clothing and Home needs to be caveated by extra sales days and the cold weather following 2015's mild winter. But what matters is the numbers are up,” said John Ibbotson, a consultant at Retail Vision.
"M&S has struggled with clothing for many years now and this resurgence will be celebrated. But it cannot yet be called a victory. 2017 will tell us whether it's a festive flash-in-the-pan or the beginning of a genuine fightback. Steve Rowe's plan may be working but there is a long way to go yet. M&S has too many High Street stores in the wrong locations and huge competition on fashion and food, both online and in-store. To make matters worse, today's younger shoppers no longer have an emotional bond with M&S clothing, while older people are losing it. Talk of a new dawn for M&S clothing would be ridiculously premature, but this performance is without doubt a mini victory."
Little wonder then why all eyes will be on M&S latest attempt to market its clothes, which is being developed in partnership with Grey following the WPP shop’s appointment last year. Details of what to expect are vague but Rowe has talked up the importance of an emotional core to whatever it does as seen by the final work it produced with RKCR/Y&R over Christmas, which undoubtedly played a role in its festive boost. Beyond emotion, there M&S is likely to try and better compete on online, of which sales were up 13.9% over Christmas and could see it pull on the expertise of Grey Response, the revamped direct marketing and CRM arm of its ad agency.
Elsewhere, food sales, which has delivered strong results for the retailer, rose by 0.6%, which trailed the 1.3% rise at Tesco, while Sainsbury’s food sales dipped slightly.
Rowe, who replaced Mark Bolland as the retailer’s boss last year, has moved swiftly to stem losses, including slashing prices for a nearly a third of the ranges as well as increasing staff numbers on shop floors to lift customer service.


text:
It seems like the best smart dog collar has finally been developed helping pet owners understand what their dog is feeling.
According to the story by Reuters, a particular South Korean startup has finally developed a certain AI-powered dog collar capable of detecting five different emotions in canines by simply monitoring their barks through the use of a certain voice recognition technology. The smart dog collar could be a really strong sell to dog owners as they would finally be able to understand their pets even more.
Petpuls smart dog collar
The newly developed Petpuls collar helps the pet owners tell through a certain smartphone application whether or not their dogs are either happy, relaxed, angry, anxious, or sad. The smart dog collar will also track the dog’s very own physical activities and their rest.
The director of global marketing at the Petpuls Lab, Andrew Gil, recently told Reuters that the device will be able to give a dog a voice in order to help humans better understand them. The company has now begun gathering certain types of barks in order to analyze the dogs’ emotions back in 2017.
Creating the smart dog collar
Just three years later, they then developed a certain proprietary algorithm that was based on a database of over 10,000 samples coming from 50 different breeds of dogs. According to Moon Sae-Mi, who reportedly had a six-year-old Border Collie, they first thought that she was just happy whenever she would play and even felt sad and anxious whenever the owner was not home. Actually, it was found that she actually felt angry whenever she had lost a certain game that she had played with the owner, like how humans feel.
The collar reportedly has a 90% average accuracy rate when it comes to emotional recognition. This is according to the Seoul National University, which had tested the certain device that the company now says is the very first of its own kind to first be powered by AI voice recognition technology.
The Petpuls Lab had started marketing the smart dog collar online over in October of last year at just $99. The entire global pet care market was reportedly worth a whopping $138 billion back in 2020 and up by 34% according to the data by Euromonitor. This was reportedly due to people spending even more time at home along with their own pets or had started adopting new pets during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The particular global dog population has reportedly grown by 18% of the exact same year to a whopping 489 million. According to Gil, more and more people started to adopt dogs. However, some of them ended up abandoning those dogs due to miscommunication. Petpuls is said to have an important role in the current pandemic helping owners understand their dogs much better to increase their bonding.


text:
In California, Mango Materials, which we covered when they were first starting out, is taking advantage of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Small Business Vouchers pilot program and its access to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to test out its different processes for creating bioplastics. The program gives Mango access to the 15,000 square-foot lab where they can use bacterial fermentation and methane gas to create a polymer similar to existing petroleum-based polyethylene and polypropylene plastics. Instead of genetically modifying the bacteria, Mango uses methane as a feedstock.
Mango’s biodegradable plastic can replace plastics that are causing problems for aquatic life, drinking water, and landfills. Mango Materials CEO Molly Morse told Packaging Materials, 笛ust imagine a polymer that can be digested by sea life⑿nstead of tast technology, we can ultimately drop the price of polymers at commercial scale to be competitive with traditional plastics.


text:
Article preview: The number of mortgage and consumer credit payment deferrals is starting to fall, according to new data. According to industry body UK Finance, more borrowers are returning to making repayments or approach their lenders for alternative forms of tailored support. With the short-term future of the economy remaining uncertain, lenders are continuing to provide financial support to those borrowers facing difficulties due to the pandemic.
Lenders continue to offer support to borrowers in financial difficulty
This 501-word blog post looks at the latest statistics from UK Finance, reporting a falling number of borrowers taking advantage of the mortgage payment holiday due to the coronavirus. Written on 6th December 2020.
Your purchase gives you rights to publish this blog post on your IFA, financial planner or wealth manager website blog, news or insights page, along with access to the text of the blog post to copy and paste into your blog. You can publish this blog as written or edit it before publishing, and you can post it under your name.


text:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans are in a sour mood about the economy for one main reason: Prices feel too high.
Maybe they’re not rising as fast as they had been, but average prices are still painfully above where they were three years ago. And they’re mostly heading higher still.
Consider a 2-liter bottle of soda: In February 2021, before inflation began heating up, it cost an average of $1.67 in supermarkets across America. Three years later? That bottle is going for $2.25 — a 35% increase.
Or egg prices. They soared in 2022, then fell back down. Yet they’re still 43% higher than they were three years ago.
Likewise, the average used-car price: It rocketed from roughly $23,000 in February 2021 to $31,000 in April 2022. By last month, the average was down to $26,752. But that’s still up 16% from February 2021.
Wouldn’t it be great if prices actually fell — what economists call deflation? Who wouldn’t want to fire up a time machine and return to the days before the economy rocketed out of the pandemic recession and sent prices soaring?
At least prices are now rising more slowly — what’s called disinflation. On Friday, for example, the government said a key price gauge rose 0.3% in February, down from a 0.4% gain in January. And compared with a year earlier, prices were up 2.5%, way down from a peak of 7.1% in mid-2022.
But those incremental improvements are hardly enough to please the public, whose discontent over prices poses a risk to President Joe Biden’s re-election bid.
“Most Americans are not just looking for disinflation,’’ Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, said last year. “They’re looking for deflation. They want these prices to be back where they were before the pandemic.’’
Many economists caution, though, that consumers should be careful what they wish for. Falling prices across the economy would actually be an unhealthy sign.
“There are,’’ the Bank of England warns, “more consequences from falling prices than meets the eye.’’
What could be so bad about lower prices?
WHAT IS DEFLATION?
Deflation is a widespread and sustained drop in prices across the economy. Occasional month-to-month drops in consumer prices don’t count. The United States hasn’t seen genuine deflation since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Japan has experienced a much more recent bout of deflation. It is only now emerging from decades of falling prices that began with the collapse of its property and financial markets in the early 1990s.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH DEFLATION?
“Although lower prices may seem like a good thing,’’ Banco de España, the Spanish central bank, says on its website, “deflation can in fact be highly damaging to the economy.’’
How so? Mainly because falling prices tend to discourage consumers from spending. Why buy now, after all, if you can purchase what you want — cars, furniture, appliances, vacations — at a lower price later?
The reality is that the economy’s health depends on steady consumer purchases. In the United States, household spending accounts for around 70% of the entire economy. If consumers were to pull back, en masse, to await lower prices, businesses would face intense pressure to cut prices even more to try to jump-start sales.
In the meantime, employers might have to lay off waves of employees or cut pay — or both. Unemployed people, of course, are even less likely to spend, so prices would likely keep falling. All of which risks triggering a “deflationary spiral’’ of price cuts, layoffs, more price cuts, more layoffs. And on and on. Another recession could follow.
It was to prevent that very kind of economic nastiness that explains why the Bank of Japan resorted to negative interest rates in 2016 and why the Fed kept U.S. rates near zero for seven straight years during and after the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
Deflation exerts another painful effect, too: It hurts borrowers by making their inflation-adjusted loans more expensive.
ARE THERE ANY BENEFITS OF DEFLATION?
It’s certainly true that Americans can make their paychecks go further when prices are falling. If food or gasoline prices were to tumble, households would surely find it less painful to afford groceries or their commutes to work — as long as they remained employed.
Some economists even question the notion that deflation poses a serious economic threat. In 2015, researchers at the Bank for International Settlements, a forum for the world’s central banks, reviewed 140 years of deflationary episodes in 38 economies and reached this conclusion: The correlation between falling prices and economic growth “is weak and derives mostly from the Great Depression.’’
But the exception was a doozy: From 1929-1933, U.S. economic output plummeted by a third, prices sank by a quarter and the unemployment rate shot up from 3% to a crushing 25%.
The bank’s researchers said the biggest economic risk came not from falling prices for goods and services but rather from a freefall in the price of assets — stocks, bonds and real estate. Those collapsing assets, in turn, can topple banks that hold crumbling investments or that made loans to struggling real estate developers and homebuyers.
The damaged banks may then cut off credit — the lifeblood of the broader economy.
The likely result? A painful recession.
AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.


text:
On Monday night, the National Football League announced that they were teaming up with EA Sports to give one lucky fan the opportunity to become an Madden Ratings Adjuster, as well as be digitized to appear in the upcoming Madden NFL 20:
Want to win a day as a Madden Ratings Adjustor?— NFL (@NFL) July 21, 2019
Post a pic or video telling us which player deserves a 99 rating & why. 📸🎥
Tag @NFL & use #NFL100Contest by 8/4 for a chance to win!
FULL DETAILS ➡ https://t.co/hHXuXPApuQ pic.twitter.com/BKG6Dkjpe0
The NFL released this joint statement with EA Sports on the contest:
“The winner will have the opportunity to take to an NFL sideline and live a day in the life of a real Madden Ratings Adjustor, spending one-on-one time with the host team during meetings, meals and walkthroughs.
All good things come to an end, but being an EA Ratings Adjustor isn’t one of them. After your day on the sideline, your likeness will appear in a future game of Madden. And that lasts forever.
There’s more where that came from. You’ll also take home a swag bag of NFL 100 merch like a golden football, player jersey, Madden ‘20 and much more.”
To enter, fans just need to follow the NFL’s Instagram or Twitter, upload a photo or video to show which player deserves a 99 overall rating in Madden NFL 20.


text:
Today, a new entry in Apple’s Machine Learning Journal was published, where face detection and related Vision frameworks were discussed for the developers to use for apps in macOS, iOS, and tvOS.
The entry is titled “An On-device Deep Neural Network for Face Detection,” and it explores the barriers against Vision to work. It also covers privacy maintenance ‘by running detection’ locally and not via cloud servers.
An excerpt from the paper by the Computer Vision Machine Learning Team of Apple reads, “The deep-learning models need to be shipped as part of the operating system, taking up valuable NAND storage space. They also need to be loaded into RAM and require significant computational time on the GPU and/or CPU.”
The team further supports on-device computation over cloud-based services during the process of system resource share, while other apps are running. At the same time, the team writes about a high-level efficiency requirement for the computation for processing a huge Photos library in – a short time, low thermal increase, and low power usage.
To break the barriers, Apple optimized the framework to ‘fully leverage’ CPUs and GPUs with the help of BNNS (Basic Neural Network Subroutines) and Metal graphics of the brand. It also optimized memory usage for image loading, caching, and network inference.
It has been recently noted that Apple is heavily investing in machine learning. They came up with executing a ‘Neural Engine,’ dedicated to the A11 Bionic processor in iPhone X and 8. Furthermore, CEO Tim Cook said earlier this year that machine learning is an indispensable asset for Apple’s self-driving car platform, which is presently in testing on the roads of California.
How do you like the new developments in Apple’s contributions toward machine learning? Do you think you could have anything to add to the paper? State your opinions in the comments, and stay with us for more tech updates.


text:
NTL 'dumps tie-up with Telewest'
STRUGGLING cable company NTL has reportedly ruled out a merger with rival Telewest, claiming it can survive on its own.
The City has expected the debt-burdened duo to merge once they had completed their respective debt-for-equity swaps with creditors. Telewest is keen to merge, to create a competitor to BT or BskyB. But NTL has cooled on the idea, at least for now.
'There has been a firm decision taken within NTL on this,' the Sunday Telegraph quoted one unnamed City source saying. 'A merger with Telewest is not on the agenda.'
Both companies were driven close to collapse after failing to lure enough customers and sales to justify their heavy spending before the tech bubble burst.
Most watched Money videos
- Age UK explains what is Pension Credit and how it can help you
- Mini release a 60th anniversary edition of the iconic car
- Analyst explains why Fiat Panda received zero stars on NCAP test
- The NHS explains how their pension scheme work
- Snoop Dogg features in a 'buy now pay later' shopping app advert
- Toyota launches promo of new fifty thousand GR Supra on Instagram
- Fiat Panda spectacularly fails Euro NCAP test with zero stars
- A close look at the Audi A8 'intelligent drive' in new promo video
- What does 2019 have in store for your investments?
- Monks manager: We bought a Japanese housebuilder for growth
- Listen to the new snarling 700bhp Ford Mustang GT500
- Would a Brexit deal bring a stock market bounce?


text:
With Samsung likely to announce the Galaxy S5 at an event on February 24, now seems like a fine time to see what the rumor mill is saying.
Here’s the problem, though: With a highly-anticipated smartphone like the Galaxy S5, the rumors are so plentiful it’s hard to tell fantasy from reality. The best we can do is take stock of everything and make educated guesses based on the source material.
Let’s see if we can paint a convincing picture of Samsung’s Galaxy S5:
Screen Size and Resolution
Samsung will go with a screen size of roughly 5.2-inches in the Galaxy S5, according to at least three sources (Eldar Murtazin, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and KDB Daewoo Securities). That’s a 0.2-inch increase over last year’s Galaxy S4, and it makes a lot of sense if Samsung uses on-screen buttons, as a report by iTechAddict suggests. With on-screen buttons, the workable area is about the same as the 5-inch Galaxy S4, except for certain applications such as video, where those buttons slide out of the way. At the same time, Samsung can market its new phone as having a bigger screen. Win-win, right?
As for screen resolution, the three sources mentioned above, along with SamMobile, believe Samsung will go with 2560-by-1440 pixels. However, the New York Times is reporting that the so-called “QHD” screen is not going to happen. There is a theory floating around that Samsung is working on two versions of the Galaxy S5, one with the higher-resolution screen, which might explain the discrepancy. But 565 ppi is an absurdly high pixel density for a smartphone, beyond noticeable to the naked eye, so let’s treat this claim with skepticism for now.
Best Guess: 5.2-inch, 1080p display
Again, the unholy trinity of Eldar Murtazin, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and SamMobile agree that Samsung’s Galaxy S5 will have a 16-megapixel rear camera, up from 13 megapixels on last year’s model. Improvements in low-light photography could also be possible with Samsung’s ISOCELL technology, which the company has been talking about since last fall. You can bet on it given that Apple focused on improving low-light photos in the iPhone 5s.
There isn’t much consensus, however, on the front-facing camera, with Murtazin claiming 3.2 megapixels and Kuo claiming 2 megapixels. But let’s give the nod to Murtazin on this one, assuming that Samsung will at least improve the quality over last year’s model.
Best Guess: 16-megapixel rear camera with improved low-light photos, 3.2-megapixel front camera.
In the past, Samsung has used a mix of its own Exynos processor and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, depending on market. That could happen again with Galaxy S5, and Samsung may push the performance envelope on all fronts with new Exynos 6 and Snapdragon 805 processors, according to SamMobile, Murtazin and KDB Daewoo. The Exynos 6 could even be Samsung’s first 64-bit processor, if earlier claims by the Korea Herald prove accurate, though KSI’s Ming-Chi Kuo doesn’t think it’ll happen.
These are always tough predictions to make, but Samsung’s tendency to tie new processors to its flagship phone make me think the rumors are accurate. The good news is it’s going to be a fast phone no matter what, and there’s a strong consensus around 3 GB of RAM.
Best Guess: Exynos 6 (64-bit) and Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 (32-bit), 3 GB of RAM
It looks like Samsung has caught the flat-design bug, and will dial back the cutesy level of its TouchWiz Android skin. Leaked home screen images from evleaks show thinner fonts and the absence of drop shadows. Screenshots from SamMobile show the same modern look carrying over to various Samsung apps. More screenshots from evleaks show a bunch of new home screen widgets, including fitness notes, recent purchases, friend locations and sports scores.
Best Guess: Samsung keeps piling on software features, but with a more modern feel.
It wouldn’t be a Samsung phone without some gimmickry, and while earlier reports of eye tracking in the Galaxy S5 have been debunked, numerous sources are talking about a fingerprint scanner (including evleaks, Ming-Chi Kuo and Korea Herald). A particularly intriguing report by iTechAddict claims that the scanner will be built into the screen, which makes sense if the Galaxy S5 uses on-screen buttons. In any case, the big question is whether Samsung can make the technology work well. That’s easier said than done.
Meanwhile, a pair of reports from ETNews claim that Samsung will improve the “hover” feature in the Galaxy S5, which lets you perform certain actions by floating your hand or finger above the screen. Makes sense.
Best Guess: No eye tracking, but an on-screen fingerprint sensor and improved touchless controls.
Metal or Plastic?
We’ve been hearing since last year that Samsung wants to bring some aluminum into its phone designs instead of just relying on plastic. But there’s no clear answer on whether that’s going to happen with the Galaxy S5. KDB Daewoo and EMSOne say yes. Ming-Chi Kuo and GalaxyS5Info say no. SamMobile says yes for some models, no for others. Hand it to Samsung for keeping everyone in the dark.
Here’s where things get weird: Reports by ETNews and Eldar Murtazin claim that Samsung is building an aluminum phone internally known as the Galaxy F. Murtazin says it’ll have the guts of a Galaxy S4, and that the “F” stands for “Fashion.” So even if you believe the theory that there are two versions of the Galaxy S5, with different processors and screen resolutions, they could both have plastic enclosures, while the metallic Samsung phone is something completely different.
Best Guess: Even if there’s a metal Samsung phone floating around, most folks will end up with a plastic Galaxy S5.
This one’s pretty straightforward. Eldar Murtazin and Bloomberg are both claiming an April release date for the Galaxy S5, falling roughly one year after the launch of the Galaxy S4. U.S. variants would likely show up a month or so later, and we’ve be stunned if it wasn’t available on all major carriers.
Best Guess: April internationally, May in the U.S., same $200-and-up on-contract pricing as always.


text:
2K has signed a new exclusive agreement with wrestling company WWE to keep developing and publishing the WWE video games franchise.
This multi-year partnership grants 2K worldwide rights to publish WWE titles on all major platforms and distribution channels.
2K’sWWE games have been developed by the publisher’sVisual Concepts studio and Yuke’s for the past three years, following THQ’s bankruptcy filing in late 2012. The first release resulting from this partnership was WWE 2K14. WWE went as far as to reduce its royalty payments in order to convince 2K to make that wrestling title.
This extended agreement with WWE will also allow 2K to continue to work on mobile game WWE SuperCard, which launched in August 2014. It has been downloaded over 9m times since then.
"2K’s partnership with WWE over the past three years has resulted in a successful and important addition to the company’s portfolio of profitable franchises," commented David Ismailer, COO for 2K.
"We are thrilled with the positive momentum of the WWE 2Kseries, including generating year-over-year growth, as well as the success of WWE SuperCard. We are very pleased to extend our partnership with WWE and look forward to many more years of collaboration."


text:
TOKYO: Japan's exports sped up in November, as supply constraints eased slightly for the country's big automakers, although imports hit a record on soaring materials costs, which could hurt household consumption.
The trade data came days after the Bank of Japan's quarterly tankan survey showed an improvement in service-sector sentiment, suggesting robust consumption will support the recovery, although the new Omicron variant and rising costs remain downside risks.
Exports climbed 20.5 per cent in November from a year earlier, government data showed on Thursday (Dec 16), the ninth straight month of increase, slightly missing forecasts for a 21.2 per cent gain but well up on a 9.4 per cent rise in the previous month.
Shipments of cars - Japan's no.1 export item - rose 4.1 per cent from a year earlier, marking the first increase in three months, although auto exports to the United States and China decreased year-on-year.
"The jump in exports in November suggests that most supply chain constraints in the automobile sector had already eased last month," said Tom Learmouth, Japan economist at Capital Economics.
"Exports will remain strong over the coming months as motor vehicle exports recover further and external demand for capital goods continues to rise."
Other than cars, growing shipments of steel, semiconductor equipment and chips contributed the most to the increase, a government official said.
Shipments to China, Japan's biggest trade partner, increased 16.0 per cent year-on-year, the data showed.
Imports rose 43.8 per cent year-on-year in November to ¥8.32 trillion (US$72.87 billion), the largest yen amount since comparable data became available in January 1979 and jacked up by a 144.1 per cent rise in fuels such as oil, LNG and coal.
Imports growth accelerated from 26.7 per cent in October and was bigger than economists' forecast of 40.0 per cent.
That brought a trade deficit of ¥954.8 billion, the biggest shortfall since January 2020 and exceeding the median estimate for a ¥675.0 billion deficit.
"While the weak yen has certain benefits such as boosting exporters' competitiveness and inbound tourists' spending, more Japanese manufacturers have shifted production bases offshore and COVID-19 border controls shut out tourists now," said Masato Koike, senior economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
"Rising costs are weighing on Japan when a weak yen has less impact on increasing sales of goods and services."
The BOJ's latest tankan survey on Monday showed rising raw material costs clouding the corporate and economic outlook. BOJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Wednesday inflation may approach its elusive 2 per cent target.
However, the central bank is unlikely to change its easy monetary policy at its next rate review on Friday.
The world's third-largest economy is expected to post strong growth in October-December after a contraction in the third quarter, as household spending improved on low COVID-19 infections.


text:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup said on Monday that Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle electronic book reader appears to be selling much better than expected and could double a previous estimate for units sold this year, sending shares in the online retailer up 9 percent.
With few cool new gadgets expected on the market, the Kindle could be one of the top electronics gifts of the upcoming holiday season, along with Apple Inc’s newest iPhone, Citigroup said.
“Turns out the Kindle is becoming the iPod of the book world,” Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a note to clients. He kept a “buy” rating on the share.
Mahaney estimates Amazon will sell up to 380,000 Kindles in 2008, up from a previous forecast of 190,000, noting that adoption rate would be similar to the first year of sales for Apple’s media-playing iPod. He sees Amazon selling up to 150,000 Kindles in the fourth quarter alone.
Mahaney also expects Kindle and related revenue of more than $1 billion by 2010, compared with a previous view of $400 million to $750 million.
Amazon shares were up $7.51 at $88 in midday trading.
Reporting by Michele Gershberg, editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Gunna Dickson
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.


text:
Guess what? Men and women are different. While that is obvious in many cases, it may be a little surprising to find that men and women seem to have different preferences and habits when it comes to e-books and e-book readers. Forrester Research has been keeping watch on the digital book market, and our first link below is an article about Forrester’s predictions for that market from 18 months ago. Their most recently released report seems to indicate that they got at least one thing right: women are important to the future of the e-reader business. The fourth article linked below may provide some insight into a problem women may have with the current e-book business model.
- E-reader growth hinges on women, $99 price tag, says Forrester (eWeek/Michelle Maisto) “Finally, later adopters—the group with the biggest potential of all—are likely to be women who currently [Aug. 2009] buy or borrow approximately 2.7 books per month. They’re less concerned with having the latest device, they’ll wait for a $149 or $99 price point, and they buy their books from multiple sources. ‘Whereas Amazon was perfectly positioned to sell to the first wave of e-reader adopters, this group may be more likely to buy from a retailer like Wal-mart or Target,’ writes [Forrester Research author Sarah] Rotman.”
- Female magazine fans flock to Nook Color (New York Times/Jeremy W. Peters) “On the surface, the reason for the strong performance of female-oriented publications on the Nook is relatively straightforward. Generically speaking, the iPad and other tablets are men’s toys, while the Nook Color and other e-readers are more popular with women. According to data from Forrester Research, 56 percent of tablet owners are male, while 55 percent of e-reader owners are female. Women also buy more books than men do—by a ratio of about 3 to 1, according to a survey last year by Bowker, a research firm for publishers—and are therefore more likely to buy devices that are made primarily for reading books.”
- Meredith takes an analytical approach to tablets and e-readers (eMedia Vitals/Rob O’Regan) “What has [women’s publisher Meredith Corp.’s Liz] Schimel’s team learned so far about the user experience? For one, there are distinct differences between users of tablets like the iPad and users of e-readers such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook. Users of tablets, she said, are looking for interactivity in the form of videos or hotspots—basically, more sophistication from a technology point of view. E-reader users, on the other hand, seem happy just to have content that’s portable. ‘The delight factor there is the fact they can get great magazine content on their e-reader device,’ she said.”
- E-books drive older women to digital piracy (The Telegraph/Christopher Williams) “One in eight women over 35 who own such devices admit to having downloaded an unlicensed e-book. That compares to just one in 20 women over 35 who admit to having engaged in digital music piracy. News that a group formerly unwilling to infringe copyright are changing their behaviour as e-books take off will worry publishing executives, who fear they could suffer a similar fate to the record labels that have struggled to replace lost physical sales.”
Barnes and Noble has specifically targeted women in their marketing of the Nook readers, and that strategy seems to have brought them one of their biggest successes. They now claim more than 25% of the digital book market.


text:
The Media Rating Council’s guidelines on viewability are just four months old, so you’ll forgive publishers if they’re still figuring it out. At the Digiday Programmatic Summit today, a roomful of programmatic types are circling around trying to figure out just what viewability is and what it means for the industry.
Publishers, for one, have to consider a short term and long term strategy. “The short term strategy is getting solid viewability measurements to establish a base line and figuring out which of our ad slots will work for our advertisers,” said Jen Witt, director of yield management at Match Media Group. “In the long term, its reworking the design of the page for all ad slots.”
Business Insider factored viewability into their redesign, and is already seeing a boost in their ratings among advertisers, said CRO Pete Spande. “We’ve seen a huge lift in yield as SSPs are starting to rank our site more favorably,” Spande said. “Advertisers will bid more because there’s performance.”
But it’s not an easy win.
Have a look at the short videos below to find out what nagging pains publishers deal with while the industry comes together on this new metric.
“Viewability” varies from user to user (1:02 minutes)
Measurement is inconsistent (2:14 minutes)
The pricing is unclear (56 seconds)
When do you start the clock? (1:15 minutes)
More from Digiday
TikTok has officially launched its new e-commerce platform, TikTok Shop, earlier this month on August 1. Using the new e-commerce platform, brands and creators can sell products directly on the platform, potentially creating new revenue streams, and tap into the short-form video platform’s growing popularity.
‘The influencer industry can be really vile’: Confessions of an influencer marketer on the industry’s unfair hiring practices
While the influencer industry might sound exciting and like it’s full of opportunities, one marketer can vouch for the horrific scenarios that still take place behind the scenes.
After a tumultuous 12 months, marketers are getting a clear picture of how they really did during a time of true uncertainty. And, as it turns out, it wasn’t all that bad.
Ad position: web_bfu


text:
Tag Archive: U.S.
While U.S. wines could face headwinds in China’s rising imported wine market looking ahead due to increased tariffs, the trade tensions between China and the U.S. haven’t deterred E.&J. Gallo from continuing to invest in the region. Continue reading →Posted in News on August 21, 2018
If current trends continue, the U.S. will surpass France in 2012 to become the world’s largest wine consuming nation by volume. Continue reading →Posted in News on June 22, 2011
When it opens its doors in Bordeaux this June 19th through the 23rd, the Vinexpo international wine and spirits exhibition will be celebrating its 30th anniversary. When the show last convened in 2009, the consensus among attendees was that the global economic sluggishness would be short-lived. The past two years proved otherwise, says Vinexpo ceo Robert Beynat, but he cites optimism that the market is poised to resume widespread growth. Shanken News Daily recently spoke with the Vinexpo head about the upcoming show and about his view of the wine world in general. Continue reading →Posted in News on June 1, 2011


text:
What is it about joint ventures in China? They’re hard to set up, difficult to manage, and almost impossible to unwind if things go wrong. Just ask Emmanuel Faber, the former CFO of French yogurt and water company Danone, which has been running dozens of JVs with China’s largest beverage company, Wahaha, in recent years. At the moment, as Danone’s president of Asia-Pacific operations, Faber is in Shanghai sorting out a very public JV bust-up that erupted earlier this year.
As Danone and Wahaha accuse one another of breaching agreements, the tit-for-tat spat is playing out in courts in China, the US and Sweden, providing CFOs of other companies with yet more cautionary tales about the perils of running JVs in China. Ever since the Chinese government began letting foreign companies invest in the country through JVs in the late 1970s, these alliances have faced all kinds of problems, from lax governance and protracted decision-making to wrangles over intellectual property and excessive government interference. “The whole life of a JV [in China] can be blighted by a continuous negotiation of its terms,” says James Burdett, a partner at law firm Baker & McKenzie.
There is growing evidence that the more experience foreign companies gather in China, the more they are eschewing JVs in favour of other structures, such as wholly foreign-owned enterprises (WFOEs). More than half (53%) of the respondents to an annual members survey run by the American Chamber of Commerce said that they have WFOEs in China today compared with 33% in 1999, while 27% said they have JVs compared with nearly 80% eight years ago. (See “Wish You Were Here” at the end of this article.)
For sure, more and more CFOs of companies will be reassessing their JVs and other business relationships in China in the months ahead. One reason is the heightened risk issues following the recent spate of made-in-China product recalls. (See “Chinese Checking,” CFO Europe, September 2007.) Another is the new anti-monopoly legislation passed in China this summer, which could restrict M&A of local industries. It’s clear that for any company that decides to continue down the JV route in China, more hard work lies ahead.
Amid all this, it might be easy to forget that JVs do indeed have a lot going for them. In sectors that exclude non-Chinese ownership, such as car manufacturing, JVs are the only way a foreign company can tap China’s vast, growing economy. And particularly since China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation in 2001, JVs allow companies in other sectors to build market share and brand awareness, and manage red tape, far faster than if they were going it alone. For Chinese companies, JVs promise access to new industry know-how, technology and more international networks.
The myriad problems that JVs in China encounter are largely “self-inflicted,” asserts Patrick Powers, currently China vice president of a Canadian mining firm and a former vice president of the non-profit US-China Business Council in Beijing . “Many people come to China thinking they have to do things differently and that they can take short cuts. That’s wrong,” he says.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Like any new business partnership, extensive due diligence is required, including onsite visits, background checks into the other business relationships that a potential partner has, and a mapping out of the partner’s current governance and decision-making structures. Introducing air-tight processes once a JV gets the green light is also critical, Powers says.
Indeed, keeping day-to-day management sharp is the area that foreign companies new to JVs in China often underestimate. According to Dane Chamorro, regional general manager of China and North Asia of consultancy Control Risks, “JVs require hands-on management, something not always easy in a country the size of China. If you think you can manage a JV by just sitting in Beijing, I can guarantee you that somewhere, somehow, someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. That would also happen in Nigeria; that would happen in the US.”
This might seem obvious today, but it certainly wasn’t back in the 1990s when China felt like the Wild West to many foreign companies. For the pioneering JV partners that are still around today, it’s been a slow, steady learning process.
SABMiller, the Anglo-South African brewer, first entered China in 1994, with a 49% stake in a JV — the maximum shareholding allowed to foreign brewers at the time — with China Resources Enterprise. Although the result, China Resources Snow Breweries (CR Snow), is now the largest brewer in China, there have been plenty of setbacks along the way. Over the years, SABMiller and CRE’s relationship, has, fortunately, “evolved” for the better, reckons Wayne Hall, SABMiller’s China finance director, who is a senior consultant to the JV’s CFO, with a dotted line to SABMiller’s CFO for Africa and Asia. “What we have managed to achieve is a business model that delivers autonomy and accountability for operational management and an independent ‘share holder’ structure,” he says. “This is an area of interaction that has left many JVs in China lacking in terms of delivering on…business goals.”
Good governance has been pivotal, says Hall. For example, CR Snow’s board consists of ten members, five each from SABMiller and CRE, with the chairman rotating between the partners every two years. Equally important are the crystal-clear processes and procedures in place — some of which come directly from SABMiller’s London headquarters (such as budgeting and planning), while others are adjusted to take local practices into account (such as productivity and performance management). And there are clear reporting structures that prevent either parent from excessive meddling in the JV’s day-to-day management, something that’s been the downfall of many other JVs. “This is important because accountability is then clear,” Hall says.
Yet even as other companies hone their JV strategies over time, some finance chiefs reckon their companies will increasingly want to focus more on WFOEs while unwinding their JVs. “From a strategic point of view, we’re constantly evaluating the efficiency of our JVs,” says a Shanghai-based CFO of a large European electronics company with a number of both WFOEs and JVs. And because of that, “there’s now a tendency to go out and buy back shares from JV partners, especially if the value-added role is not there because the joint venture has changed over time. By streamlining your legal entities, and by even dissolving them, and moving across into a holding structure, you’re basically unlocking a lot of the equity that’s been tied up in the JV.”
But often “streamlining” JV arrangements is easier said than done, especially if either or both of the parent companies are unhappy. As Baker & McKenzie’s Burdett notes, “When it comes to unravelling a JV, you can’t necessarily go back to the terms set out in the original agreement, which may be largely superseded by subsequent discussions and arrangements between the JV partners [over time]. It could mean big, if not bigger, negotiations than when it was set up, and could quite easily involve lawsuits.”
This problem nearly ensnared Jim Xue Jianmin of Shanghai Tire & Rubber. The year after he joined as CFO in 2000, the firm took a 30% stake in a JV to produce passenger-car tyres with French tyre company Michelin, which very quickly began stumbling over one hurdle after another. Rather than the co-operation that Xue expected at the JV known as Shanghai Michelin Warrior Tyre Company, he sensed rivalry between the partners and growing suspicion among his colleagues that Michelin wanted to dilute his firm’s shares in the JV. Disagreements, including about how much capital the partners should inject in the JV and whether it needed to undergo an independent audit, were frequent.
He grew more concerned when financial information was not forthcoming, fuelling his unease as sales at the new venture dipped to levels lower than when Shanghai Tire ran the unit on its own. So exasperated and wary had Shanghai Tire’s management team become that Fan Xian, the company’s chairman and the JV’s vice chairman, fired off a letter voicing his concerns to Michelin chairman and CEO Edouard Michelin, just months before Michelin died in a boating accident.
Since hitting that low point a few years ago, the JV has turned the corner. “Both sides are upbeat about China’s tyre market prospects and expressed wishes to expand co-operation to create a win-win situation,” says Xue. Communication, for example, between parents and the JV has been vastly improved — largely because of new investments in training and the appointment of a new CEO at the JV, says Xue. Recently, he adds, the relationship was given a big boost when Jean-Dominique Senard, Michelin’s CFO and managing partner, made a point of meeting with senior executives of Shanghai Tire, including Xue, when he was in China in early July.
But Xue is not entirely happy. The JV has yet to turn a profit, losing 75m renminbi (€7m) last year alone. and Xue doesn’t see that changing any time soon. As an aside, Xue also points out that Michelin’s own wholly owned tire maker in China, Michelin Shenyang Tire, is making money. What’s more, while rival tyre makers in China have been scaling up capacity, the JV has been standing still — its annual capacity is still the same at 5m tyres, as seven years ago.
There are some promising plans on the drawing board, however. Discussions are under way for the JV to produce Michelin tyres exclusively — at the moment, only 30% of its capacity is used to produce tyres under the Michelin brand. The rest of the capacity has been producing tyres for the local Warrior label, which Xue hopes will be outsourced back to Shanghai Tire. Xue says Shanghai Tire is waiting to hear what Michelin thinks of that proposal.
Whether that will be enough to rescue the JV remains to be seen. Certainly, there are some CFOs in China who would argue that it’s not worth the effort.
Janet Kersnar is editor-in-chief at CFO Europe. With additional reporting by Yang Jian.
The Telltale Signs
If they only knew then what they know now, companies with failed joint ventures in China must be saying to themselves. But China experts say there are a number of telltale signs that should have alerted them that their JVs were about to go off the rails before too much damage was done, says Jürgen Kracht, head of Hong Kong-based Fiducia Management Consultants. Here are his top three warning signs:
1. Management standards: If your JV partner cannot tell a balance sheet from an income statement, alarm bells should ring. Accounting principles can vary immensely within China and are not up to par with western standards. Further, key performance indicators are often not established concepts in Chinese companies.
2. Nepotism: If Chinese employees are hired by a Chinese manager, be alert to nepotism. This can have a huge impact on both the formal structure of your JV (who reports to whom) and the informal information flow (who informs and will be informed by whom).
3. Hidden agendas: Competition created by a JV’s own staff is not uncommon in China. Be alert if your JV partner has access to core product technologies that can be used to create a little “side business” (which is what Danone is accusing Chinese JV partner, Wahaha, of doing).
Explore, Expand, Explode
It’s not only veterans of Chinese joint ventures and wholly owned enterprises, such as those run by SABMiller and Michelin, which can offer important lessons about doing business in China. After running a number of franchising agreements there, Mitchell Presnick, chairman and CEO of Super 8 Hotels (China), has plenty of advice to offer.
The way Presnick refers to Super 8’s strategy of introducing China to the budget-hotel concept seems straightforward enough: explore, expand, explode. Since opening its first hotel in June 2004, Super 8 (China) — under a master licensee agreement with US-based Wyndham Worldwide — now operates a chain of 53 hotels. About 70 to 80 properties will be opened by the end of this year, 20 more than initial projections set in 2004.
“We’re relying on local partners and, like any relationship, it takes work,” Presnick says. Turning a local property into a Super 8 hotel can take up to nine months, much of this spent performing due diligence. Presnick explains that Super 8 uses this initial stage to learn as much as possible about its partner, and vice versa. “Obviously there’s an investment involved on the part of the local partner, and even more than that, there’s a lot of co-ordination that takes place between them and us,” he says. “We then see who is prepared to work with us and who’s really just looking to use our brand to develop their own business.”
Working with Super 8 means that partners will be under “continuous review.” For example, the business development team works on finding ways to maximise the revenue potential of each property by, say, introducing a different pricing structure or special deals, while the quality specialist teams undertake a quarterly inspection of every property, collating, analysing and comparing data back at headquarters. “Usually there’s a positive correlation between the positive trends in our performance indicators and the relationship itself,” says Presnick.
To keep the performance indicators on track, there’s also an advisory board made up of 12 franchisees who meet with Presnick several times a year so that he “can get a sense of where relationship and brand as a whole is heading.” His work with the board is supplemented by regular phone calls between him and each franchisee.
Along with all these checks, Presnick says he has a less conventional way of monitoring Super 8’s partners: “If there were no contract, no piece of paper, would there still be a desire on both sides that there should be a relationship? If the answer on both sides is ‘yes,’ then the chances are you will be among the most successful business partners in China.”
Despite its enthusiasm for the idea, Super 8 isn’t relying exclusively on franchising. The company announced earlier this year that it will begin investing directly in its own hotels, with franchises making up between 60% and 70% of its portfolio within the next few years. “That takes some of the pressure off of those partner relationships,” says Presnick.


text:
By Thomas Sellers Jr.
The old Payless ShoeSource in Millington located at 8043 Highway 51 North in front of Kroger is getting a makeover.
Gone are the old brown, yellow and orange signage and welcome in the Metro by T Mobile purple and pink. Last week, crews continued the transformation of the structure with a new sign high above Highway 51.
Back in 2017, Payless ShoeSource announced it was going out of business. In 2019, the company closed 665 stores across the nation including the one in Flag City. The Topeka, Kansas-based discount shoe retailer shut down approximately 2,300-plus U.S. and Canada stores by the summer of 2019. Meanwhile the former MetroPCS is gaining locations across the United States. Metro was established in 1994 as General Wireless, Inc., by Roger D. Linquist and Malcolm Lorang. Its service launched in 2002. About 10 years later, the company, known then as MetroPCS, reached an agreement to merge with T-Mobile USA.
On September 24, 2018, T-Mobile announced that it would relaunch the brand as Metro by T-Mobile, introducing new unlimited plans offering bundled features such as Amazon Prime subscriptions and Google One storage, and announcing that the brand aims to be the first prepaid mobile carrier to offer 5G in 2019.
At the time of the name change, T-Mobile’s subscriber number had increased to around 75 million and Metro’s had doubled to around 18 million users and had increased their nationwide market reach from around 12 to 100 markets.


text:
KARACHI: The Japanese and Chinese bike assemblers have increased prices again, unofficially the rupee’s fall against the dollar is the reason given as it pushed up cost of imported parts.
Effective from May 1, Pak Suzuki Motor Company Ltd (PSMCL) has notified second price hike in its various models, Honda did it for the third time while the Yamaha assembler too has followed suit, but for the only time this year so far.
The new prices of Suzuki SD110 ECO, GD110S, GS150 and GS150SE are Rs114,900, Rs139,500, Rs147,000 and Rs167,000 as compared to Rs111,400, Rs136,000, Rs143,500 and Rs163,500. The company had also raised the price in February.
Consistent with past practice the Japanese assembler did not mention reasons for the price hike in its letter to authorised dealers.
PSMCL sold 15,971 units in July-March 2017-18 as compared to 13,599 units in the same period last year.
Yamaha Motor Pakistan pushed up the price of YB125Z, YBR125G and YBR125 to Rs117,900, Rs137,900 and Rs133,900 from Rs115,900, Rs134,500 and Rs130,500 effective from May 14. Yamaha sales in July-March 2017-18 climbed to 15,083 units as against 8,648 in same period last year.
Atlas Honda Ltd (AHL) had already increased the prices twice – first in January by Rs500-1,000 and secondly in April by Rs500-3,000.
The AHL board of directors has approved a two-year phase-wise expansion plan to increase the installed capacity up to 1.5 million units per annum, at a projected cost of $15m. The company sold 838,395 units in July-March 2017-18 versus 711,395 units in corresponding of period last year.
In Chinese category, Razi Motors, maker of Hi Speed bike, notified the price jump of Rs1,000 effective from May 5.
Pak Star Automotive Ltd has raised price of Tez Raftar Auto Rickshaw/loader and 150cc bike cargo load by Rs4,000 from May 10.
Ohad Motor also increased Metro 150cc loader price by Rs4,000.
Association of Pakistan Motorcycle Assemblers Chairman Mohammad Sabir Sheikh said bike prices would remain under pressure if the rupee continues to lose its value against the greenback.
The rupee has weakened by over nine per cent against the US dollar in the last four months
The rising bike prices, he said, may not affect sales as the lack of public transport system and rising petrol prices force the consumers to purchase two-wheelers for commuting.


text:
Croatia's Atlantic will sell Mirna plant in Slovenia to Gittis
Croatian distributor of fast-moving consumer goods Atlantic Grupa has singed a deal to sell the Mirna plant in Slovenia to the Poll family, the owner of Austrian company Gittis Naturprodukte. The plant in Mirna is the production site for baby food products Bebi.
“Our new strategic partner plans full activation of the Mirna production plant in the long term, as well as investments in its further technological development and its employees,” declared Atlantic company.
The value of the transaction was not disclosed.


text:
Victoria Beckham has reversed her decision to furlough about 30 staff at her fashion label.
The designer, 46, placed some of her employees on the government’s business scheme to help firms navigate choppy waters during the coronavirus pandemic.
She faced criticism from the public for her application to the scheme, as her combined net worth with husband David is estimated to be £335m, according to The Sunday Times 2019 Rich List.
A spokeswoman for the business has confirmed to Sky News that the decision had been reversed.
In a statement, she said: “Victoria Beckham Ltd has been working hard to protect its people and, while adjusting to the impact of COVID-19 and the government lockdown, our decision to furlough a small number of our staff seemed the most appropriate option in keeping with many other businesses.
“The situation is dynamic, and, with the support of our shareholders, we now believe we can navigate through this crisis without drawing from the government furlough scheme. Our application was made in the best interests of trying to protect our staff, and that is still our absolute focus.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure we can achieve that without using government assistance.”
The employees will return to work on 11 May.
The luxury clothing brand, which launched in 2008, has faced financial difficulty in recent years.
In November, accounts revealed Victoria Beckham Ltd suffered losses of £12.3m in the year to December 2018 after facing a fall in sales.
Ralph Toledano, chairman of the business, said sales of its clothing and accessories stagnated during 2018 after years of growth.
But the performance was in line with shareholder expectations after “cutting costs, focusing on its digital channels and refining the product to more closely reflect Victoria Beckham’s aesthetics and values”, the business said.
Source: Read Full Article


text:
SHANGHAI, March 27 (Xinhua) — Japan’s Nikon Corporation has promised to replace its error-prone D600 cameras providing they have had two or more repairs, said the Shanghai Consumer Council on Thursday.
The D600 model came in for heavy criticism in a CCTV exposure earlier this month, and Nikon has now admitted that it is abnormal for these cameras to have black specks on their lens. It has promised to replace the defective cameras with unspecified better models, according to the council, which held multiple consultations with Nikon.
After state broadcaster CCTV’s program criticized Nikon for selling defective products and poor customer service, the firm now plans to replace defective D600 cameras within three months, said the council.
Consumers can call Nikon’s after-sales centers for further consultation.
“As a multinational company, Nikon should take the initiative to recall the defective products and fulfil its corporate and social responsibilities,” said Shen Weimin, deputy head of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision.
More then 48,000 D600 cameras have been sold on the Chinese mainland so far. Since October 2013, 300 to 400 repairs have been ordered by their owners every month, according to the Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce, which ordered Nikon to take the D600 off shelves across the country after the CCTV report.


text:
Edinburgh-based on demand drinks delivery business Drinkly has recruited two new executives as it steps up its growth plans.
The tech business has recruited a director of business operations and a brand partnerships manager, taking its executive team to five.
The tech business which started up in 2016 has been running its services in the capital since then and in Glasgow since December 2018 and is planning an imminent move to west London as the first of eight city launches planned this year.
Founded in November 2016, Drinkly is a technology platform that allows customers to shop for more than 650 products across beers, wines and spirits from local off-licence partners and have them delivered to homes, offices or friends in one hour.
In two years the business has created partnerships with Heineken and other independent craft brands, accrued over 3,000 regular customers in Edinburgh and expanded its services into Glasgow, accruing over 500 customers in the first three months
Glen Stocco who was appointed as director of business operations, has been an advisor for Scottish companies exploring international markets and an assessor for Scottish Edge.
He was previously president of a growing craft cider business in Canada, having earlier worked as director of development for a a property company and as an ambassador for a Canadian economic development agency.
He will focus on structuring the company for growth, overseeing legal and tech developments, as well as leading on strategy, financial planning and forecasting.
Jill Davidson joins as brand partnerships manager from Edinburgh Rugby where in three years, she helped enhance the sponsorship revenue by 60 per cent on the back of a commercial strategy she developed to improve acquisition and retention.
Prior to joining Edinburgh Rugby she was head of events at Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce.


text:
When a Banksy original art piece goes to auction or is sold, the world hears about it. From news headlines to documentaries and televised reports, the unveiling of a new Banksy art piece is big news – and the sale of it is often even bigger due to the large sums of money that exchange hands.
For Banksy sellers, the value of an original piece by Banksy will come as no great shock – after all, there is a reason why you have invested your hard-earned money in a piece by the renowned and mysterious street artist. But what are the largest sales of Banksy artwork that have occurred on the global art market?
The Rise in Value of Banksy’s Work
Banksy has hosted a number of exhibitions showcasing his own work, beginning back in the early 2000s when he was relatively unheard of compared to the artist he is today. As an example, in 2004 Banksy created a selection of spoof banknotes that had a different figurehead (Princess Diana rather than the Queen) and which read ‘Banksy of England’ rather than ‘Bank of England’. At the time, a run of posters containing 10 uncut notes was sold for £100 per piece – just three years later in October 2007, the same item sold for £24,000.
And it’s not just notoriety that has seen the value of Banksy’s work see such an increase. The interest of celebrities over the years has added to the coveting of Banksy original pieces – something which supposedly helped the street art industry as a whole in what has since been called ‘the Banksy effect’.
Banksy’s Charitable Sales and Art Pieces
Aside from the huge value and profit that lies in the sale of Banksy pieces, the artist has also done his bit for various charities over the years – with one famous instance being his donated piece ‘Game Changer’ which was gifted to the University Hospital of Southampton during the Covid-19 pandemic. In March 2021 the painting was sold for £16.7million which went directly to the hospital and other NHS-related charities and organisations.
Another charitable piece is ‘Mediterranean Sea View’, which was painted in 2017 and sold at auction in 2020 for £2.2million. The proceeds from the sale were donated to the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation – in fitting support of the piece which highlights the migrant crisis.
Now for the big numbers – what are the biggest figures ever fetched for a Banksy piece?
The Biggest Individual Sales Ever
One particularly famous piece which fetched a huge sum at auction was the ‘Girl with Balloon’ piece – but it didn’t end there. In a move to self-vandalise his own work, Banksy had created a shredder inside the frame of the piece which, when the hammer dropped on the final bid, proceeded to start shredding the piece. The piece was half-saved and – given the immense news and notoriety that this stunt created – the piece doubled in value almost overnight.
Originally sold for just over £1million, the piece sold again in 2021 for a staggering $25.4million (£19.3million approx.)
Some other highly valuable Banksy pieces which have fetched huge sums include:
- ‘Devolved Parliament’ – first shown in 2009, this piece is the ultimate example of Banksy and his political commentary, showing MPs as chimpanzees in the houses of parliament. In 2019 this piece sold at auction for £9.9million – which at the time was a record high for Banksy, with the artist famously chiding himself for not selling it of his own accord.
- ‘Show me the Monet’ – this piece did, in fact, generate quite a bit of money, as it fetched £7.5million at auction in 2020. The piece was painted in 2005 and continues to be apt today amid the climate crisis, as it highlights a landscape similar to that created by Monet but with trolleys, traffic cones, and other waste destroying the peaceful environment presented in the painting.
Nobody knows how much each original Banksy will fetch when it goes to auction or comes up for sale, but with the guidance of a team of expert Banksy sellers and valuers, you can ensure that you get the very best price when selling your investment piece.


text:
Despite the surge in mobile gaming, millions of gamers still choose console games to add an edge to their gaming experience. According to data gathered by GoldenCasinoNews, the three all-time best-selling console games reached 158.8 million units sold as of April. With 52% of that amount, Wii Sports ranked as the best-selling console game of all time.
Nintendo Grasps the Top of All-time Best-Selling Games
In April, Nintendo Wii Sports reached 82.65 million units in all-time sales, according to the data gathered by Statista and VGChartz. Considering the game was predominantly sold together with the Wii console, it doesn’t surprise the title dominates the console game field.
Super Mario Bros. ranked as the second best-selling console game of all time, with 40.24 million units sold as of April. As one of the oldest, most-influential and most-loved games worldwide, the title was launched in the market in 1985. Played initially on the NES 8-bit video game console, Super Mario Bros. games have been developed for almost all of Nintendo’s later gaming consoles.
The Success of the Mario Kart Franchise
The Mario Kart franchise has remained Nintendo’s jewel in the crown since it first released the original “Super Mario Kart” for the Super Nintendo console back in 1992. The go-kart racing game’s success has continued ever since, with new titles for Nintendo’s recent consoles Wii and the Switch.
The VGChartz data revealed the Mario Kart Wii ranked as the third best-selling console game of all times, with 35.98 million units sold worldwide as of April. The title equally represents the best-selling game of the Mario Kart series, and the second best-selling Nintendo Wii title.
The statistics indicate almost two-thirds of the all-time best-selling games are linked with Nintendo, which explains the company’s $10.9B worth revenue in 2019.
The full story can read here.


text:
DISCLOSURE: Most of our content uses affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a commission when you buy through the links. Each of your purchases via our affiliation links helps us to support the cost and maintenance of this site.
In a somewhat welcomed yet controversial move, the Pokemon Company and Game Freak have announced upcoming downloadable content for Pokemon Sword and Shield, the latest entry in the long-running video game and media franchise. Players will soon get to explore the Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra, new additions to the expansive Galar Region.
The Isle of Armor DLC is set to be released in June this year, and will include new content such as new costumes, wild areas, additional story content, as well as more Pokemon species, which somewhat serves as an answer to early criticisms that the game had too few Pokemon. Meanwhile, the Crown Tundra content is slated to come at a later date in Fall 2020.
This should be an interesting move on Game Freaks’ part as Pokemon Producer Junichi Masuda has previously stated that there were no plans to bring missing Pokemon species. However, with the announcement of the new LDC, we feel that this is the right move on Game Freak’s part in order to win back some love from disgruntled players. However, it’s still too soon to say which specific Pokemon are being brought over via DLC.
If you haven’t gotten them yet, Pokemon Sword and Shield are available now on Amazon for around $54 each.
Playing video games has always been a part of me, growing up until adulthood I have always been a video game freak. From super Mario to super bricks and Nintendo soccer to Mortal Kombat, it’s just amazing how I can not out grow playing video games even now as an adult. Pokemon is one unique game I have enjoyed with my siblings over the years, and they always come up with second affordable new releases. I can’t wait to get my hands on these new Pokemon sword and shield on the market. Thanks guys for the info.
Many thanks to you for sharing such an excellent article with us .Pokémon Company and Game Freak have announced the latest downloadable content for Pokémon Sword and Shield, the latest entry in the video game and media franchise. This will allow players to explore the Isle of Armor and The Crown Tundra soon and is a new addition to the wider Gala territory.The DLC will be released in June this year and will include new wild costumes, wild areas, additional story content, as well as more Pokémon species. Interesting move on the part of the game freaks because Pokemon producer Junichi Masuda says there are no plans to bring the missing Pokemon species .I think part of the game freak is the right move to get love back . It is very interesting to know which Pokémon is being brought through DLC .
Lastly, I hope your article will help everyone to know a lot and share their new experiences with you soon.


text:
Thatcham Research, Bosch, Continental and ZF TRW are joining forces at the London Motor Show as part of the Global NCAP #StopTheCrash partnership. Their goal? To ensure consumers considering buying a new car ask three questions, the group believe are life-saving, namely:
Tyre maker and automotive systems supplier Continental is to serve as a key partner to a four-year global campaign being rolled out to promote awareness of leading vehicle crash avoidance technologies in major emerging markets. The firm’s Tire and Chassis & Safety divisions are supporting the ‘Stop the Crash’ initiative organised by Global NCAP (Global New Car Assessment Programme), the London-based umbrella body of the NCAP organisations that carry out vehicle safety tests around the world. The company also states it will more closely position its Continental tyre brand to the campaign’s long-term goals.


text:
Focus Home Interactive has announced that The Surge has gone gold ahead of its official release date of May 16th. If hardcore action-RPG’s with brutal melee combat is your thing, and if you haven’t already done so, you can preorder it here.
For the uninitiated, The Surge is an action RPG with heavy sci-fi leanings. It’s set in a world ravaged by war and global warming, although despite the damning evidence, it is unclear if Trump is still in charge. The developers at Deck13 state that it offers gamers a hardcore experience, with a focus on challenging, visceral melee combat. On top of that, they promise fresh fighting, looting and crafting, alongside a unique character progression system.
As you can see in the gameplay footage above, The Surge already looks amazing, but Focus Home Interactive just announced that a PS4 Pro update will be available on launch that will allow players to play in Dynamic 4k at 30fps or in 1080p at 60fps. Additionally, a second update will be available shortly after release, allowing players to activate the HDR option.
Well, sexy PlayStation gamers, is this the hardcore sci-fi RPG you’ve been waiting for? Tell us what you think in comments below.
Focus Home Interactive Press Release


text:
Calling it a "clear and serious violation" of the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency said today that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) installed emissions control devices on certain Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs and Ram 1500 trucks that allowed them to skirt federal emissions standards.
Nissan didn't really surprise anyone when it took the wraps off of its latest crossover at the 2017 Detroit auto show earlier this week. After all, the 2017 Nissan Rogue Sport is the same thing as the Nissan Qashqai that has been sold globally for a while.
It's been a very busy week in the auto world--and it's not over yet.
2018 Mercedes-Benz E-Class coupe, 2017 Detroit auto show
From Motor Authority:
The past 12 months have been very good for Mercedes-Benz. The automaker recorded worldwide sales of 2,083,888 million cars in 2016, the first time it’s cracked the 2.0 million mark and the first time since 2005 that it’s outsold arch rival BMW. The figure represents a substantial 11.3 percent increase on sales in 2015.
Toyota unveiled its all-new 2018 Camry at this year's Detroit auto show. It rides on a new platform, offers up a trio of powertrains, and wears some much sharper bodywork than versions that have come before it. It's also already set to go racing. That's because Toyota has a NASCAR Camry that rips around the ovals (and occasional road course), and now the 2018 version is ready for duty.
To coincide with its return to the World Rally Championship in 2017, Toyota will launch a high-performance version of its Yaris subcompact hatchback inspired by the new Yaris rally car.
2016 Tesla Model S P100D in ‘Ludicrous Plus’ mode
From Green Car Reports:
As well as software updates to add back Autopilot functionality in its latest cars, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has hinted on Twitter at an update to improve performance even further.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles may have used illegal software for emission controls to get more than 100,000 trucks and SUVs through emissions testing, the EPA said Thursday.
China is now the world's largest new-car market, but no native Chinese manufacturers sell passenger cars in the U.S.


text:
Real estate presents business owners with a lucrative investment opportunity. It is a safe bet because the land value will only go up. But the new trend is to invest in metaverse real estate.
The general public is taking an interest in the metaverse. That interest is helping soar the value of land in the metaverse. Metaverse land is virtual land with real-world value. People can buy and trade this land through cryptocurrencies, usually specific to the metaverse where that plot of land is. However, there are some metaverses where more common cryptocurrencies like Ethereum are used to purchase land.
A Sudden Increase in Metaverse Real Estate Investments
People have started to understand that metaverse will be the future. It will encompass everything from entertainment to education. In fact, we’re moving towards a virtual world where most of our activities, including work, will be in virtual worlds. So it is not a question of if but when the general population will accept metaverse, and digital life in general, as the new norm.
According to metaverse real estate investors, very soon.
They’re investing in metaverse land because of the associated clout and the perceived value. These investments are almost the same as we witness in the real world.
Land in the metaverse has a unique identity. It cannot be duplicated, no matter what. This property invites trust and helps businesses gain confidence in their investments. But unlike real-world land, where fraudulent records can trick people out of their land.
If someone buys a parcel of land in the metaverse, that plot of land will be available in the metaverse, even if they don’t visit it for months. Others can visit the land. If some property is built on top of it, there’s a possibility to make revenue from that land. For example, one can rent out the land to builders and generate passive income in the process.
Past Metaverse Real Estate Investments
Many investors, brands, and celebrities have invested in the metaverse. These investments have only added to the credibility of virtual land and helped increase its value.
Our first example is Atari, a gaming giant. Atari recently made headlines for selling virtual land worth more than $4.3 million. This is one of the biggest metaverse land purchases to date. Another investment was made by the Metaverse Group, which spent $2.43 million to buy a piece of metaverse land.
Coming to celebrities, we have Snoop Dogg. He has bought a virtual home in the metaverse that attracts new visitors daily. Paris Hilton has also bought land in the metaverse. And not just any land but an island.
Adidas and other brands have also propped up their virtual stores in the metaverse to showcase their NFTs. These stores attract people to the metaverse and instigate a rise in the value of metaverse real estate.
Should You be Interested in Metaverse Real Estate?
Real estate in the metaverse provides an opportunity to even novices who want to invest. The market is not saturated, so one should make a move right now to take the first mover’s advantage.
Many investors are sharing their numbers and profits to hammer home the point that metaverse real estate is the future of investments.
Virtual land offers unlimited growth potential, both monetarily and creatively. People have made homes, virtual cafes, and even malls on plots of virtual land.
This is the initial phase of web3 and investments in the metaverse. Being skeptical is not abnormal in this case. But the metaverse is thought to be the future of how we live. It is a real possibility that the real estate value of the metaverse will only grow.
Just keep in mind that blind investment isn’t recommended. Do your own research and see which metaverse is growing with a stable foundation. Otherwise, you may be subject to losses.
With that said, XANA is a quite stable decentralized metaverse with its foundation on EVM. It is a world full of potential, from NFTs to avatars and LAND.
As an investment opportunity, XANA LAND is a good candidate because it is getting populated by big brands. These brands will attract more people to XANA and make its LAND value go up exponentially. One can buy LAND in XANA and build a World for themselves without any physical restraints.
XANA metaverse has a lot more to offer than its LAND. You can visit various places, get acquainted with new people, and join the XANA community.


text:
- CNBC’s Jim Cramer said he knows August has been a difficult month for the market, but on Thursday listed five stocks that he thinks investors can catch during “any bout of weakness.”
- Cramer has named American Airlines, Bank of America, Electronic Arts, Ballcorp, and Cummins.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer said he knows it’s been a “rough month” for the market, but on Thursday listed five stocks he thinks investors could consider buying during “any bout of weakness.”
“Whenever the market takes a hit, there are almost always buying opportunities,” Cramer said.
“Even if you think we’re looking at more downside once we hear from Fed Chair Jay Powell tomorrow in Jackson Hole, you can use that to buy the best stocks that are falling at lower levels.” He continued, referring to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday where he is expected to indicate whether interest rates will remain high.
Here are the five stocks Cramer is considering:
- American Airlines: Cramer said the carrier, which is now down 13% year-to-date, according to FactSet, had performed well earlier during the spring and early summer. But he said it has since eased off those highs, adding that many airlines are feeling the pinch of recent consumer weakness. Acknowledging these industry-wide concerns, Cramer suggested that investors put money into airlines with “the best international exposure,” including American Airlines, United and Delta.
- Bank of America: Bank of America is down more than 10% since Aug. 1, according to FactSet, in part due to concerns about slowing loan growth and new banking regulations, according to Cramer. He added that when the Fed tightens monetary policy, Bank of America gets higher net interest margins, which makes it more profitable. Cramer said he may be concerned about the smaller regional banks, but he is not worried about the big players in the industry such as Bank of America.
- Electronic Arts: The video game publisher fell nearly 12% during the August time frame, according to FactSet. Cramer pointed to Electronic Arts’ “scarcity value” since Microsoft made a new takeover bid for Activision Blizzard, another major video game publisher.
- Ball Corp: Shares of Ball Corp., a maker of metal packaging for food, beverages and household products, fell just over 10%, according to FactSet. Cramer highlights this company because its competition is limited, and it just announced the sale of its non-core aviation division for $5 billion. He also said that he believes this sale will allow the company to become more focused and streamlined.
- Cummins: Engine maker Cummins stock is down more than 11% from Aug. 1, according to FactSet. Cramer said he was recommending the company despite its weak recent quarter because they’ve made “great strides” in hydrogen-powered engines, which he said he believes could be very successful in the future. He also noted that there is a lot of federal money going toward clean energy sources like hydrogen.
“Beer aficionado. Gamer. Alcohol fanatic. Evil food trailblazer. Avid bacon maven.”


text:
Daily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inbox
Social game developer CrowdStar (Top Girl, Happy Aquarium) and incubator YouWeb are offering $10 million in funding for innovative social mobile game development, offering up to $250K per project.
Frank Cifaldi, Contributor
July 15, 2011
1 Min Read
Social game developer CrowdStar (It Girl, Happy Aquarium) and incubator YouWeb are offering $10 million in funding for mobile game development. The fund, called StarFund, will be used "to help spur the next generation of mobile social gaming innovation," according to the company. "What we know is that great teams and products can still get to the top in mobile social gaming," said CrowdStar mobile head Blair Hamilton. "With StarFund, we are looking to fund the next stars in mobile social games." Developers may apply to receive up to $250,000 in funding through CrowdStar's online application. Traditionally social-only developer CrowdStar raised $23 million in funding earlier this year to expand its portfolio to other platforms. Its first mobile-only release, Top Girl, debuted just last month.
Read more about:2011
About the Author(s)
Frank Cifaldi is a freelance writer and contributing news editor at Gamasutra. His past credentials include being senior editor at 1UP.com, editorial director and community manager for Turner Broadcasting's GameTap games-on-demand service, and a contributing author to publications that include Edge, Wired, Nintendo Official Magazine UK and GamesIndustry.biz, among others. He can be reached at [email protected].
You May Also Like
Get daily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inbox
Subscribe to Game Developer Newsletters to stay caught up with the latest news, design insights, marketing tips, and more


text:
There had been speculations about a favourable decision to unlock hotels in the city after August 15, and the DDMA meeting, which was scheduled for Aug 18, happened today and resulted in favour of the hoteliers, who welcomed the decision of the government.
In a statement, Jyotsna Suri, MD, Bharat Hotels Limited and Executive Committee Member of the HAI, said, “We welcome the move of the government for reopening of hotels in Delhi. We are thankful to the LG, the Chief Minister of Delhi, and the Union Tourism Minister for this initiative. This decision will enable the revival of the industry and help sustain the livelihood of many employees affected by the lockdown. We look forward to resuming operations as per new norms and with strict hygiene and sanitation protocols.”
“We feel relieved to a great extent by this decision and are grateful to both the LG of Delhi as well as the Union Tourism Minister who pursued it with the Delhi government. We can at least start moving now,” said KB Kachru, Vice President of Hotel Association of India (HAI).
Reacting to the decision, Rattan Keswani, Deputy Managing Director at Lemon Tree Hotels said, “It’s a good thing that the government has done and I am hoping that everybody’s safety and security practices will give guests the confidence to travel and stay in hotels again.”
Delhi Hotel & Restaurant Owners Association (DHROA) also welcomed the government’s decision to unlock the hotel sector in the national capital. “This decision will give life to over 3,000 hotels and 4 lakh people who are directly and indirectly attached to the business,” said Sandeep Khandelwal, President, DHROA.