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Few hours back, another original different pice of news, with its title nominated as
Chevrolet Debuts All-New 2021 Trailblazer, Grows Brandâ€™s SUV Family was posted in the press room: Chevrolet
In an attempt to explain what Chevrolet published, we can affirm that the prime poit cited was: â€œTrailblazer is a continuation of the design language for Chevyâ€™s crossover family and extends our momentum into one of the industryâ€™s fastest-growing segments.â€The Chevrolet Trailblazer will include an RS trim with standard two-tone roof that allows drivers to purchase a vehicle that reflects their lifestyle.The Trailblazerâ€™s unique individuality is paired with standard active safety features* including Front Pedestrian Braking, Automatic Emergency Braking and Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning.
As we expressed about before, trailblazer took our mind specifically because of the weight chosen inside the article aiming to drop the message. notwithstanding, we must never forget that the perception of difficulties extends reach and importance of development guidelines for the future. among the serious data presented on this announcement, trailblazer was cited and its weighed to be a pivotal thought on this topic.
Bounded by the extensive data based on this press release, features was quoted and its contemplated to be a principal view on this matter. In this sense, the constant dissemination of information forces us to analyze the normative rules of conduct. It also offers optional Adaptive Cruise Control – Camera, Rear Park Assist and a High Definition Rear Vision Camera that provides additional assistance to customers while parking.â€œThese features deliver added confidence and peace of mind behind the wheel, helping drivers monitor the vehicleâ€™s surroundings and the driving environment with an available combination of camera, short-range radars and ultrasonic sensors,â€ said Majoros.Product specifications and pricing will be shared later.. Like stated before, features draw our consideration uniquely for the density within the article planning to deliver the message.
As described before, camera captured our mind specially because of the argumentation given in the topic in order to deliver the report. The encouragement to technological advancement, as forcefull as the monitoring of consumer preferences must undergo modifications regardless of new propositions. enclosed in the vital data presented on this pice of news, camera was cited and its contemplated to be a pivotal image on this argument.


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Samsung drops lawsuit against Apple17
As we had told you, Apple had originally sued Samsung claiming that the Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets "slavishly" copies the Apple iPhone and iPad. Samsung countersued and both firms demanded to see each others products. While Apple was allowed to look at the already released Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab 10.1, the court denied the Korean manufacturers request to see the Apple iPhone 5 and iPad 3, both works in progress. Samsung wants to make sure that Apple is not infringing on any of its patents in the making of the two devices.
As we reported, just a couple of days ago Samsung filed a complaint against Apple with the U.S. ITC after the latter filed a suit against Samsung in Korean court. And while Apple remains one of Samsung's biggest customers, industry sources say that Apple is dropping the Korean firm as a manufacturer for its A6 chip and replacing the company with TSMC.
Samsung dropping the suit doesn't mean victory for Apple. Samsung says it will continue to fight for its patent rights through a counterclaim made against Apple in an earlier suit filed in San Jose.
source: Bloomberg via Reuters

domain: news


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A California lawyer who claims to have invented a method 0f online auctions wants eBay(s ebay) to stop using an automated update function on its site, and is demanding the company hand over a portion of its profits.
In a patent suit filed in San Diego, the lawyer’s shell company, Advanced Auctions, claims eBay infringed on US Patent 8,266,000, which covers:
“a new paradigm for conducting an auction on a remote information server such as the Internet .. [the] invention recognizes that the standard model of Internet auctions is actually flawed. Auctions should be carried out more like a real live auction.”
The patent, which confers a 20 year monopoly, goes on to explain how users can receive a phone message, email or “alphanumeric page” during the “end game” phase of the auction to let them know they can keep bidding. The invention includes diagrams like this one:
The patent is also larded with nonsense legalese such as, “said computer producing second information as part of said information representing a webpage, said second information having a first parameter indicative of an ending time for said electronic auction.”
The eBay lawsuit could provide more fodder for critics of America’s troubled patent system, especially as the patent owner, Scott Harris, is already notorious for once running a website called “ImAPatentTroll.com” and for allegedly helping to sue clients from his former law firm.
It’s unclear if Harris filed the suit in hopes of collecting from eBay, or if the suit is instead part of a strategic effort to intimate smaller companies that offer online auction services.
Harris’s suit comes at a time that patent trolls are drawing increased attention from mainstream media. This weekend, the New York Times ran a profile of a prominent troll who earns about $25 million a year and boasts how he likes to “go thug” and “just loves Paris.”
Here’s the eBay complaint, which was initially filed in February, but refiled last week for procedural reasons:
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We are in the early stages of second-quarter earnings announcements in the U.S., and things are looking positive. In order to grow earnings every year, there are really three levers a company can pull:
- Revenue Growth – is the company growing their sales numbers?
- Margin Expansion – is the company reducing costs and/or taxes?
- Stock Buybacks – is the company’s profit being spread across a fewer number of shareholders?
Over the past few years, the financial media has spent a lot of time claiming “companies aren’t actually growing their earnings, they’re just manipulating things by buying back shares!” This makes it seem like companies are manipulating their earnings rather than growing organically, but is this claim really true?
Source: JPMorgan Asset Management
A recent report by JPMorgan Asset Management studied each of the three components (revenue growth, margin expansion, and share buybacks) to S&P 500 Index earnings growth over the past 17 years. The chart above shows this visually – the gray bar represents margin expansion, the green bar represents revenue growth, and the blue bar represents share buybacks.
As shown in this chart, JPMorgan found revenue growth and margin expansion have historically been the primary drivers of earnings growth. In other words, a company is best able to grow earnings by selling more goods and keeping costs low, while share buybacks have not added much to this growth.
Looking at the beginning of this year, company earnings have grown about 27% between the first quarter of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018. Breaking this number down to the three components show the following:
- Revenue Growth: +9.3%. Sales grew at the highest year over year rate in over five years!
- Margin Expansion: +16.6%. Costs include taxes. A lower corporate tax rate has already started to impact company earnings.
- Share Buybacks: +0.8%. Stock buybacks contributed to earnings growth, but not as much as the first two.
Again, a large percentage of earnings growth was driven by sales growth and improving profit margins – not necessarily companies buying back stock. It seems intuitive and simple, and it is, but it may not make for an interesting news headline!


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Verfijn de Selectie Criteria...
Allround will demonstrate it's Destoner and Storage hopper at World Mithai Namkeen Convention, Chandigarh, India
december 12, 2022Allround (India) Vegetable Processing Machines Pvt. Ltd., is a Dutch-Indian engineering company will showcase their products on at World Mithai Namkeen Convention on 19-21 December in Chandigarh, India.
Vanmark Showcases Sanitary Vibratory Conveyor Developed together with PFI at ANUTEC
oktober 26, 2022Vanmark, an industrial potato and produce processing equipment manufacturer, recently debuted vibratory conveying equipment jointly developed with its sister brand PFI at the ANUTEC International FoodTec India in September
Kuldeep Sharma (TOMRA) on the Indian Potato Market: Unorganised but great Opportunities
juli 15, 2022During InterFood Tech in Mumbai, PotatoPro interviewed Kuldeep Sharma from TOMRA Food on the Indian Potato Market, how it differs differs from the European and American Market and Sustainability.
Vanmark ships the first machines from its location in India: Three potato peelers for a customer in China
juni 19, 2022Vanmark, an industrial potato and produce processing equipment manufacturer, announced that its location in Bengaluru, India, has shipped its first three peeler machines to a large customer based in China.
TOMRA Launches Customer Service Center In Bengaluru, India
juni 25, 2019TOMRA Food has opened a new customer service center in Bengaluru, India as
part of its efforts to improve the organizations’ responsiveness to all its stakeholders.
Potato Processing Equipment Manufacturer Vanmark opens production plant in India
september 12, 2018Vanmark, a potato and produce processing equipment manufacturer, has announced a new facility in Bengaluru, India, expanding its capabilities in the Southeast Asia food processing market.


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The government is considering introducing higher tax rates for hotels who overcharge customers.
A special VAT rate of 9% was introduced in 2011 to help the tourism sector to recover after the recession, but according to the Irish Examiner, a higher rate of 13.5% is being proposed for hotels that charge over €150 a night - especially three and four star hotels whose rates would normally be lower.
It comes amidst concerns that many hotels with high occupancy rates are taking advantage of tourists by hiking prices at peak times.
The tourism sector is continuing to boom as the economy grows - with the latest CSO figures showing a 6.7% rise in overseas visitors for the first half of 2018.
The latest proposals would mean a two-tier Vat system for the hotel sector, however the opposition says that scrapping the 9% special rate for hotels would be a disaster with Brexit and other economic challenges looming.


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Qatar Airways Cargo Commences Freighters to Harstad
Starting December 14th, Qatar Airways Cargo will launch three times weekly Boeing 777-300 passenger freighters to Harstad-Narvik Airport (EVE)
The three times weekly freighters will depart on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, providing over 150 tonnes of cargo capacity for exporters from Northern Norway each week. Seafood and salmon will account for the majority of exports on these flights. There will also be 50 tonnes available every week for imports from the airline’s network into Harstad-Narvik Airport.
Mr. Guillaume Halleux, Chief Officer Cargo at Qatar Airways, said: “In cooperation with NordicGSA, our dedicated GSA for Norway, we are pleased to introduce cargo capacity and support Northern Norway’s seafood and salmon exporters who will benefit from direct connection to African, Asian and Middle East markets via Doha. Our state-of-the-art Climate Control Centre has dedicated storage areas for perishables transiting the hub while the use of reefer trucks ensures a seamless cool chain for all perishable shipments.”
Mr. Stig Winther, CEO at Perishable Center Nord AS, said: “Perishable Center Nord AS are very pleased to cooperate with Qatar Airways Cargo. Operating more direct routes to and from the market will mean a lot for fresh seafood businesses from the North and quality, freshness and competitiveness will definitely improve. We are looking forward to start up, develop and together with Qatar Airways Cargo make seafood from Northern Norway more available globally.”
Mr. Martin Langaas, Director Traffic Development and Cargo at Avinor, said: “Our partnership with Qatar Airways Cargo has been a true success story for Avinor and the Norwegian seafood industry. With the opening of a second gateway for seafood exports, the connectivity for Norway will improve further.”
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Latest releases from The Avinor Group
AVINOR and SINTEF in European cooperation that will accelerate innovations for a more sustainable aviation industry13.10.2021 11:59:36 CEST | Press release
The EU has awarded 25 MEUR to an ambitious project for European airports, to increase the use of new technologies in aviation. In Norway, AVINOR and SINTEF will contribute to green aviation.
Continued increase in air traffic in September11.10.2021 10:16:53 CEST | Pressemelding
A total of 2.767.623 passengers traveled to or from Avinor's airports in September this year. This is an increase of 82 per cent compared with the same month in 2020, though 45 per cent lower than in September 2019.
Traffic at Avinor's airports continues to increase10.9.2021 16:35:08 CEST | Press release
2,460,928 passengers traveled to or from Avinor's airports in August 2021. This is a decrease of about 50 per cent compared with the normal year 2019, but at the same time an increase of about 45 per cent compared with 2020.
Interim financial report 2nd quarter 202127.8.2021 12:00:00 CEST | Pressemelding
Fewer aircraft movements and passengers result in sharp decline in traffic revenues and commercial revenues.
Preparing for a different summer at Avinor's airports22.6.2021 13:47:46 CEST | Pressemelding
This summer at Avinor's airports will be different from what passengers are used to from the time before the pandemic. Especially for those travelling to and from abroad.
Strong competition to provide tax-free retail at Avinor’s airports21.6.2021 12:00:00 CEST | Pressemelding
Norwegian firm Airport Retail Norway (ARN) and Norwegian-German firm Travel Retail Norway (TRN) are the winners of the tax-free competition for Avinor’s airports. The tendering competition saw widespread international participation with strong competition among the bidders. The winning tenders are forecast to generate NOK 18 billion in revenue for Avinor over a five-year period.
First quarter marked by the pandemic18.5.2021 13:46:45 CEST | Pressemelding
Fewer flight movements and fewer passengers have resulted in a sharp decline in revenue.
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.Visit our pressroom


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Canada is joining Mexico in an escalating dispute with the United States over how much of a car or truck must be made in North America to qualify for duty-free treatment under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
This is the second conflict in six months with the United States over automotive trade. Canada and Mexico are also fighting President Joe Biden’s efforts to bolster U.S. auto jobs by awarding tax credits to consumers who buy electric vehicles assembled in the United States.
The Canadian and Mexican governments are concerned that auto companies might switch manufacturing from their countries to the United States.
Trade experts say it’s disturbing to see disagreement over a key element of the 2018 trade pact so early in its history. Negotiated when Donald Trump was U.S. president, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) was supposed to seamlessly replace the 25-year-old North American free-trade agreement. Autos and auto parts are a vital portion of manufactured goods trade between the United States, Mexico and Canada.
“The auto industry is the heart and soul of North American integration,” said Christopher Sands, director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “If the auto industry part of Canada-U.S. free trade breaks down, the whole agreement breaks down. You cannot exaggerate the importance of these disputes.”
International Trade Minister Mary Ng on Thursday announced Ottawa is joining Mexico in a request for judicial arbitration of how the United States calculates North American content. Both countries have asked for the establishment of a legally binding dispute settlement panel to rule on Washington’s interpretation of automotive rules of origin under Chapter 31 of the USCMA.
By 2025, 75 per cent of a car or light truck and core components such as engines or transmissions must be manufactured in North America to avoid duties. It’s a significant increase from 62.5 per cent under the NAFTA. This means automakers have to reduce the use of cheaper offshore parts.
Cars have thousands of parts, and at the heart of the disagreement is whether the auto industry can round up the calculated North American value of smaller parts that go into major components when performing the math to reach overall 75 per cent. The U.S. opposes allowing this.
Ms. Ng said Canada believed the new auto content rules were settled in 2018.
“The outcome was the result of negotiations and close consultations with automotive stakeholders, which ensured that these new rules of origin would deepen regional integration and support the competitiveness of automotive producers in North America,” she said.
Mexican Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier welcomed Canada’s move on Thursday, tweeting: “Together we will defend the competitiveness of this regional industry.”
International trade lawyer Lawrence Herman said the Biden administration is under heavy pressure from U.S. autoworkers’ unions to defend a stricter interpretation of North American regional content rules.
Mark Warner, also an international trade lawyer, said it’s not unusual for signatories to a new trade agreement to “test the limits of it.” He said it’s wrong to assume “we sign an agreement and there will no disputes.”
The Americans are clearly advancing an aggressive interpretation of the content rules, but it’s the sort of case that’s appropriate for arbitration, he said. “The issue of how much Chinese and Asian parts should go into Mexican and Canadian auto parts is always going to be controversial.”
Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, accused the Americans of reneging on agreed-upon rules.
Mr. Volpe said the United States is becoming “increasingly and permanently protectionist” and Canada needs to be “permanently awake to this problem.” He said the Americans are acting without due regard for their close allies.
He predicted major U.S. auto assemblers would side with Canada and Mexico.
Mr. Herman said if the U.S. prevails it will mean higher costs to build cars.
He said the Biden administration is mindful of midterm Congressional elections in 2022 and the presidential ballot in 2024 and cannot afford to alienate a key Democratic constituency: U.S. autoworkers.
“They are heavily dependent on support from organized labour,” Mr. Herman said.
“They’re being pushed by U.S. auto workers to take this approach. It’s difficult for the Biden administration to show flexibility on this.”
If this dispute cannot be resolved, automakers could respond by ending efforts to comply with USMCA regional content rules for parts and instead pay the extra duties incurred as a result of using offshore parts. But that would be bad for North American jobs because automakers would be under no obligation to use parts made on this continent.
Mr. Sands said disputes about how much offshore content should be allowed in North American-made autos stretch back decades. “What the U.S. is trying to do as a goal – bring more production home – is shared by all three countries,” he said. “But we need to give the industry the flexibility on how to move in that direction while reconciling it with consumer demand.”
He said he believes the concerns of Canada and Mexico about the future of auto trade – including the regional content rules – are being not taken seriously enough in the United States, and he sees the request for dispute settlement as an effort to draw attention.
Mr. Sands said failure to resolve these auto-related disputes could jeopardize the future of the USMCA.
With a report from Reuters
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Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) fear that sustainable practices in the US are in jeopardy – but are still “cautiously optimistic” about the future of sustainability, according to a new study from Cox Enterprises. The optimism comes from the sustainability improvements they have made within their own organizations.
The survey of SMBs showed that there has been a significant increase in the number of SMBs that have implemented sustainable business practices. This year, the survey found that 88% of companies have implemented some type of sustainability program, compared to just 62% in 2015.
SMBs may be cautiously optimistic, but most feel worse about the state of sustainability in the US. About a third (63%) feel somewhat worse or much worse about US sustainability since Jan. 2017, while 24% feel about the same and 12% feel somewhat or much better. Additionally:
- More than half of respondents say their companies are either committed or very committed to increasing their sustainable business activities. Only 7% are not committed to this effort.
- Top sustainability initiatives with SMBs include: using supplies and materials more efficiently, using energy efficient systems and equipment, and offering recycling programs.
- 72% say the US should participate in the Paris Climate Agreement.
- 31% say other priorities – namely, price – impede their sustainability efforts to a great or very great extent.
Sustainability on Main Street
Such price concerns are the reason that SMBs should join together on programs that offer sustainable solutions, because only with scale “can we find truly profitable opportunities…,” says David Rachelson, VP of sustainability for Rubicon, a waste management and recycling solutions company.


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Apple puts a lot of effort into being opaque, especially lately. Recent software updates, such as iPhone 2.0.2, provide only “Bug fixes” as their release notes, and problems with the MobileMe launch and extended email problems were either not acknowledged or done so halfheartedly. (See “Comparing Apple’s MobileMe Contrition with Google and Netflix,” 2008-08-19.)
Perhaps that’s why it’s so surprising that a helpful back-channel of communication has emerged, one which provides straight answers that Apple’s spokespersons can’t offer: Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
A TidBITS reader shared with us that she received a personal email reply from Jobs concerning an iPhone issue that some people are facing. After updating to the iPhone 2.0 software and iTunes 7.7.1, she was unable to load any third-party applications, and iTunes showed the iPhone’s memory as being empty. Subsequent iPhone updates haven’t resolved the issue. (For more customer reaction to the problem, see this Apple Support Discussion thread.)
Jobs’s single sentence reply to her email is direct and helpful, acknowledging the problem and providing a time frame for its resolution: “This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September.” (We’ve seen email from Jobs before, and this telegraphic, direct style is his trademark. In January 2007, a reader shared a response from Jobs after the reader complained via email to the CEO about the odd $5 charge for a Draft N enabler to turn on a hidden Wi-Fi capability in many Mac models: “It’s the law.”)
Jobs clearly isn’t bound by the secrecy he has imposed upon his employees, and, frankly, it’s refreshing – not necessarily because a customer can email [email protected] and receive a reply, but because the reply is substantive. If he were to follow the current Apple modus operandi, Jobs could have replied with the type of non-reassuring fluff that comes from most companies: “Thank you for your email. Apple works hard to make its products the best they can be…” Blah blah blah.
We hope Jobs will foster a more open level of communication at Apple. We understand the need for secrecy to protect unannounced products, but the company’s recent stonewalling is counterproductive. Instead of projecting the image that no news is good news, the stubborn silence from Cupertino makes Apple’s customers and those of us who follow it start to wonder just how bad things are behind the curtain.


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LAR Process Analysers AG is strengthening its global orientation and position as a specialist in the TOC market. The company was acquired by Process Insights Holdings, which creates a global portfolio of premium brands in gas and water analytics focused on process monitoring, analytics, control and safety.
The headquarters of LAR will remain in Berlin, Germany.
LAR was founded in 1986 by Dr Werner Arts, who now wants to give his company into good hands and secure a successful further development. With the takeover by Process Insights and the convening of the new CEO Jochen Eberheim, the founder's wishes are fulfilled and LAR is led into a successful future.
“In future, LAR will continue to internationalise and bring the motto of ‘The TOC Company’ to continue to be disproportionately successful," says Jochen Eberheim, new CEO of LAR Process Analysers AG.
Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/22062018/process-insights-holdings-acquires-lar-process-analysers/


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The regional heats have drawn to a close for Namco Europe's 'first of a kind' mobile tournament, with finalists from five different countries selected for the Grand Final in London on November 18th.
The Pac-Man tournament, which spanned multiple carriers in France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and the UK, challenged gamers to submit their highest scores on retro classic Pac-Man, using the i-mode mobile internet service. The competition has been running throughout September in each of the five countries, and regional heats closed on October 31st.
The tournament, which has been organised by Namco Europe's web and mobile content division, is a unique event in that it not only spanned multiple countries but multiple service carriers too. The UK entry into the tournament was granted by mobile phone operator O2, following the launch of i-mode in the UK in August.
The five finalists will travel to London to battle it out at the Namco Station near Westminster Bridge, using authentic arcade units in front of a crowd of industry professionals, media and gamers. The ultimate champion will win a genuine limited edition 25th Anniversary Pac-Man arcade machine and the title of Pac-Man Tournament Champion 2005.
Namco Europe's head of business development for web and mobile content, Pramesh Chauhan, stated: "We're proud at Namco to have been one of the first ever to have run this type of mobile gaming tournament, starting with mobile, and going full circle back to our arcade roots."
"We've been thrilled by the response to the competition across all of the competing countries and we're looking forward to actually meeting our most ardent fans, the finalists."
The i-mode service, created by Japan's NTT DoCoMo, is a fast and intuitive alternative to the traditional WAP internet service for mobile phones. Using compact HTML coding, the creation of fluid and user-friendly mobile internet sites is both simple and cost effective for content providers and a straightforward billing procedure makes it a viable and popular service for mobile phone users.
Namco operates its Pac-Man Arcade on i-mode, offering a subscription based service for games, ringtones and personalisation products that cover a range of classic and current Namco characters from Pac-Man through to Tekken.


text: Not so long ago, a food truck was often perceived as a potential means for a fledgling restaurant concept to develop a following with the public before launching a brick-and-mortar location, or for a smaller independent restaurant to spread its brand awareness. Now, established brick-and-mortar brands are looking to food trucks as a way of modernizing to suit the constraints of the Covid era. Take Au Bon Pain. Nation’s Restaurant News reports that Tabbassum Mumtaz, the CEO of Ampax Brands, which is the new franchisor of the Au Bon Pain bakery and café brand, considers food trucks – along with ghost kitchens – to be important tools that the brand can use to modernize itself. Research from IBISWorld found that from 2016-2021, the food truck industry has grown at an annualized rate of 7.5 percent, surpassing the growth of the broader foodservice sector. To be sure, food trucks have their disadvantages – at the time of this writing, most small, independently owned food trucks weren’t eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program or Economic Injury Disaster Loans. However, they do offer a key advantage – namely flexibility – that happens to suit the current times extremely well. While the pandemic has decreased demand for food truck business in office parks, it has increased opportunities for it in residential neighborhoods, hospital and grocery store parking lots, and highway rest stops.


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Toyota recalls 3.4 million vehicles worldwide because air bags may not deploy in crashes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday it will recall 3.4 million vehicles worldwide because of an electronic glitch that can result in air bags not deploying in crashes.
The recall, which includes 2.9 million U.S. vehicles, covers 2011-2019 Corolla, 2011-2013 Matrix, 2012-2018 Avalon and 2013-2018 Avalon Hybrid vehicles.
The vehicles may have an electronic control unit that does not have adequate protection against electrical noise that can occur in crashes, which could lead to incomplete or non-deployment of the airbags.
Toyota dealers will install a noise filter between the airbag control module and its wire harness if needed.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese)


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I wonder where Hennessey's going to get tires capable of that speed.
Hennessey Special Vehicles unveiled the Venom F5 hypercar at the 2017 SEMA aftermarket trade show.
The whole goal of the Venom T5 is to be the fastest car on the planet.
Under its hood is a twin-turbocharged V8 engine that will put out an estimated 1,600 horsepower.
All that power is sent to the rear wheels by way of a seven-speed, single-clutch transmission.
Active aerodynamics will also help channel air where it's needed.
Hennessey estimates that it will only take 10 seconds to accelerate the Venom F5 from 0 to 186 mph.
Formula 1 cars don't even accelerate that quickly.
The top speed is "projected to exceed" 300 mph.
Considering the Bugatti Chiron's tires can't top 280 mph, that will be one big engineering feat for Hennessey.
Keep on scrolling to check out even more pictures of Hennessey's later hypercar.


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Hisham Ezz Al Arab
Hisham Ezz Al Arab has quarterbacked CIB since 2002, during which time he has led the bank’s transformation from a wholesale lender into the nation’s leading private sector bank. The corporate banking powerhouse’s stock has for years now been treated as a proxy for the Egyptian economy by many foreign investors. A veteran of the banking industry in London and New York, Ezz Al Arab was managing director at JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank before joining CIB in 2001 as a board member and deputy MD. In discussions over the past year, Ezz Al Arab keeps circling back to the force he sees reshaping the industry: Technology will drive innovation and financial inclusion in the sector, helping reshape the national economy in the process. Edited excerpts from our conversation:
2017 will be the year of change across all sectors of the economy as the structural reform program continues and the reforms start to take effect.
The biggest challenge for the economy will be the impact of the structural reforms and the pains that are naturally associated with it. That having been said: The measures are exactly what the economy needs and will place us on a much better footing in the medium and long term. But the interim period is going to be painful for many.
Egypt needs to find its economic mainstream. We need to set a target for what we want the economy to be and formalize that in the nation’s economic DNA. Are we an exporting nation? If so, where are our natural strengths? What are our natural markets? What do we import today that can be substituted for by domestic products? What is the role of the private sector, and where and when does the government step in to direct stimulus?
The biggest challenge for our industry will be helping our clients cope with the challenges arising from the reform program while also managing our costs. It’s not just staff costs — the cost of everything from electrical power to what it takes to open new branches will all rise given we’re in a high-inflation environment. The hope, of course, is that the inflationary hit right now is a one-off related to devaluation. But in all of this, we’re no different than any other Egyptian corporation — we need to manage costs so we can still deliver a strong bottom line for our shareholders.
Our market remains fundamentally underpenetrated, and that remains the biggest opportunity for our industry. It’s clear that the Central Bank of Egypt and the government are prioritizing financial inclusion going forward, and this will have a significant knock-on effect — not just for our industry. The more companies and individuals that enter the formal banking system, the more significant will be the economic growth. Movement in the banking sector mirrors that in the wider economy. We see significant room to widen our customer base beyond corporates to include retail and SME clients, and that sets off a virtuous cycle of deposits and loans that stimulate spending and economic growth.
I do expect to see further consolidation in the banking and finance sectors with the ongoing structural reform program. I would expect this to be particularly pronounced in the non-bank financial services sector, where we’ll see smaller players joining forces to create larger entities or being bought out by larger institutions. Smaller brokerage houses will come under pressure to merge. This will be more apparent in the non-bank financial services sector in 2017 than it will in the banking industry.
Export-driven industries will be the best performers of the year, hands down. The worst-performing sectors will be those reliant on imports. One of the keys will be how traditional exporters and those with newly competitive exports treat the domestic market. Will they continue to earmark their best product only for foreign markets? Or will we see an improvement in what’s available domestically, from furniture to food? With 90 mn citizens suddenly finding imports are rather expensive, the question is how cost-competitive manufacturers can make their goods so they make their margins, but local consumers can save what would normally be factored into a price for logistics, customs, et cetera.
If I were to start a new business today, it would be in microfinance lending. The opportunity is simply massive — demand is huge, and the sector is still very much underpenetrated. The industry is profitable, well-regulated, and very appealing.
On the regulatory and legislative front, I think we need to keep an eye on opportunities to deregulate. Our industry is very well-regulated, but we’re going to need to look at how this changes as we push for better financial inclusion and the first steps on a multi-year journey to becoming a less cash-based economy. We need to make it easier for retail clients to open accounts, to communicate with their banks electronically. Look at blockchain: In its simplest form, three people approve your application for a bank account, and that’s confirmation enough of who you are — there could be a day when you can open an account without ever stepping foot into a bank branch. From electronic approvals to a shift to electronic record keeping, we need to help banks become more creative about using technology to bring people into the banking system, manage risks, innovate on products, and save on overheads.
There is so much being done now in technology that can increase penetration and prompt more competition in the marketplace, resulting in more financial inclusion, better products and better service.
We need to be asking ourselves today, “How will we benchmark success at the end of 2017?” In any institution, at any private sector company, you have tangible goals that you need to achieve before you can say, “I was successful, I deserve a promotion, a raise, whatever.” I think we would benefit from a national discussion about what kinds of measurable targets will mean success.


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The past seven days were pretty busy for Microsoft, with not only the advent of the Inspire 2020 digital event, its Q4 FY2020 earnings, but also the Xbox Games Showcase. Be sure to catch up below.
Dev Channel preview lands with VPN status, new Taskbar search, and more
windows 11 insider preview
Inspire 2020 RSS
At Inspire, Microsoft was quick to highlight the security and compliance enhancements it's making to its services, as well as the various actions it is taking for partner enablement.
Today at its Inspire 2020 conference, Microsoft announced a bunch of new features that are coming to its Teams collaboration service. There are new Power Platform features, and more.
Today at its Inspire 2020 conference, Microsoft announced that its Universal Print service, which was announced back in March, is available in public preview for businesses to test.
Back in May at its virtual Build conference, Microsoft announced Lists, a new Microsoft 365 app. At Inspire, the firm announced that the web app is rolling out this month with mobile apps coming soon.
With regards to its Dynamics 365 platform, Microsoft has released Connected Store in preview. Fraud Protection is available with two new capabilities, while Customer Voice has been unveiled as well.
With the first anniversary of its ISV Connect program having been reached, Microsoft has commented on how the initiative has grown over the past year, and has also hinted toward upcoming improvements.
The new pre-built solution for the Power Platform focuses on helping customers prioritize health, safety, and security, in order to ensure that employees return to their workplace with confidence.
In terms of sustainability initiatives, the new steps announced at Inspire 2020 today are specifically aimed at accelerating progress towards Microsoft's goal of being carbon negative by 2030.
Back in March, Microsoft confirmed the cancellation of Inspire 2020. Today, Microsoft updated the official Inspire website, and it now includes a note confirming the dates of the digital-only event.
As a result of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, Microsoft has decided to cancel the in-person side of its partner event, Inspire. The event was planned to take place from July 20 to 24.


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World Energy Unveils “Demand Response” Auctions, Disrupting a Market Dominated by Boston’s EnerNOC
It’s so costly and complicated to build new generating plants these days that utilities would rather prepare for periods of peak demand, such as hot summer days, by buying “negawatts”—that is, by agreeing to pay big customers like factories, stores, and municipalities to dial back their electricity use when called upon. EnerNOC (NASDAQ: ENOC), a sweetheart of the Boston technology community since its 2007 IPO, has built a big business around pooling customers who want to participate in these so-called “demand response” programs and remotely managing their electricity use when the call comes in from grid operators. EnerNOC profits by keeping a percentage of the operators’ per-megawatt payments.
But while EnerNOC is the largest and most successful of the so-called “curtailment service providers” (CSPs), there is growing competition in its industry—and now the company is getting some very unwelcome news. World Energy (NASDAQ: XWES), a Worcester, MA-based company known for operating online reverse auctions in which energy suppliers compete to win contracts with big customers, announced today that it’s getting into the demand response market. This means that for the first time, customers in deregulated electricity markets who want to be paid for their curtailable load will be able to solicit bids online from competing curtailment service providers, then choose the provider offering the highest price (meaning the most attractive percentage split).
EnerNOC, in other words, is gradually losing its first-mover advantage. It may soon have to cope with a market in which it’s no longer the first and only curtailment service provider to approach new customers, but instead must compete with dozens of other providers in electronic auctions specifically designed to drive bidders’ profit margins down.
The irony is that EnerNOC, which built its business on smoothing out inefficiencies in electrical supply and demand, is now seeing that business disrupted by another young, technology-based company that sees the demand response market itself as inefficient.
From World Energy’s point of view, customers thinking about joining demand response pools have had no way, up to now, to determine the fair market value of their curtailable load. Indeed, it sees its auction service as providing both competition and transparency. It’s portraying the service, which it has already tested in the “PJM” grid region covering 13 Midwest and Middle Atlantic states, as a boon for both electricity users and curtailment service providers, since it provides a ready-made meeting ground.
“We see this as a win-win,” says Phil Adams, president and chief operating officer at World Energy. “The customer gets a good price for what they’re looking for, meaning the highest share of the fees, and on the other side the CSP gets access to a customer that is ready to contract for zero sales cost.” (In return for running its auctions, World Energy keeps a small percentage of any payouts from the curtailment agreements its users negotiate.)
The reaction to World Energy’s move from executives at EnerNOC might best be described as dismissive.
On the one hand, the company says it welcomes anything that makes the demand response market more competitive. “Competition spurs innovation,” says Gregg Dixon, EnerNOC’s senior vice president of marketing. “If we were the only ones who were successful in demand response—and I think it’s safe to say we are the only ones who have been truly successful so far, having just had our first profitable quarter—it wouldn’t be healthy for the industry.”
But at the same time, EnerNOC argues that demand response capacity isn’t a simple commodity like the other forms of energy traded on World Energy’s platform, and that auctions are therefore a poor way for customers to discover the true value of a relationship with a curtailment service provider.
“I’ve seen their auctions platform, and it’s not a stretch to say that it’s world-class,” says Dixon. “We just don’t think it has a tremendous amount of applicability for demand response, if customers are trying to get the most out of program participation.” While an online reverse auction might be a good way for customers to get the best percentage split for their curtailment commitments, Dixon says, it won’t help them discover which service providers are best at tasks like identifying curtailable load or managing load during an actual demand-response event.
For World Energy, demand response auctions are a natural extension of the company’s existing business running auctions for power and gas contracts, carbon emissions allowances, and renewable-energy credits. (For more on those sides of World Energy’s operations, see our May 2008 and July 2009 features.) “We’re sticking to our knitting, but taking our technology and migrating it across similar commodity markets,” says Adams. “With the rise of demand response, we felt like we needed an option, because our customers were looking for one-stop shopping” in energy management services.
The company briefly considered acquiring a curtailment service provider—there are 50 to 70 such providers in the PJM market alone, according to Adams. But sometime in 2009, he says, “the light bulb went off, and we said, ‘Wait, aren’t there enough CSPs out there that we could actually build a market and do the same thing as we do with our retail energy providers?’ We explored it, and we have tested the concept, and now we’re moving into full launch mode.”
World Energy tried its demand response auctions first in the PJM market, where it has many existing customers. (The name comes from Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland, but the interconnected grid region actually covers all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia as well.) One World Energy customer, Gerber’s Poultry of Kidron, OH, says that it will earn over $100,000 in demand response payments as a result of the agreement it reached through a reverse auction. “We found watching the auction unfold very exciting,” Gerber’s chief financial officer John Metger said in a press statement prepared by World Energy. “There wasn’t much bidding activity at first, but as the end point of the auction drew near, the bids were flying, driving up our overall share of revenue.”
Adams emphasizes that World Energy brings value to the demand response market by handling a lot of the spade work that curtailment service providers might otherwise have to do themselves. “It is very expensive to acquire customers in the demand response space,” he says. “There’s a lot of market education and preparing customers and helping them figure out how much they can curtail. Oftentimes that makes the transaction more cost-effective on both sides. We’re not trying to pit one side against the other—we’re here in the middle trying to make the process easy for the buyer and the seller.”
Back at EnerNOC, however, Gregg Dixon argues an auction provider like World Energy isn’t really qualified to help customers increase the return on their participation in a demand response program. “Demand response is a very nuanced service in terms of how you maximize the dollars you get,” he says. In fact, EnerNOC lists 19 “points of value” that it delivers to its customers, including site visits that help to identify all of the ways they can curtail electrical demands, and installing equipment that delivers the full amount of curtailment promised in demand response agreements.
In the absence of such measures, customers wind up leaving money on the table during demand-response events, he argues, even if they did win a higher percentage split. “We have a saying internally, ’80 percent of nothing is nothing,'” Dixon says. “If you get a provider to say they’ll give you 80 percent of the revenue stream but then they don’t communicate it to you when there is a demand response event and you miss it, you get nothing. If you have 1,000 kilowatts of load that you can reduce but you don’t have the technology supporting your program participation, on average that capacity is going to perform far below that.”
But the way Adams sees it, EnerNOC makes far too much of the “nuances” behind demand response. He says utility customers are quickly getting savvy about smart-grid technology.
“I don’t think it would have been possible for us to do what we’re doing three or four years ago, because the markets weren’t as mature,” Adams says. “The initial set-up cost was way too high. But now those costs are coming down, and there are simpler Internet-based solutions that require fewer site visits and less equipment. We didn’t have any CSP say to us, when we announced these auctions with two to three days’ notice, ‘Hey, hold on guys, we’ve got to fly out to Gerber’s Poultry and look at their buildings to see if we can bid.’ They are taking it as an article of faith that they can get the customer ready for the summer season without any big complications.”
To Dan Mees, vice president of corporate communications at World Energy, it’s not surprising that EnerNOC is unenthused about the arrival of auction-based markets in the demand response industry—but he predicts that the Boston company will change its tune eventually. “The analogy is to our experience with the retail energy market, where we have run so many auctions,” says Mees. “When we first started doing it, were all of the suppliers delighted to be put into hypercompetitive auction format and have their margins squeezed? No, they weren’t. But we now work with 400 suppliers around the country and they value us as a channel to market.”
At the moment, the idea that World Energy and EnerNOC will eventually see eye to eye seems optimistic, as a little story from one of World Energy’s early demand response auctions reveals. EnerNOC was one of the bidders in a January auction for a demand response contract with a wastewater treatment facility in the PJM region. “We still don’t know the outcome” of that auction, Gregg Dixon told me. “In fact one of the misperceptions about auctions is that they always end in a finalized agreement. I can almost guarantee that what happened in this case was that somebody was dumb enough to say, ‘We will give you 90 percent of the revenue stream,’ and then when the customer went to contract with them and saw all the fine print around the other 18 points of value, they said, ‘Wait a minute.'”
But according to Andrew Thomas, senior vice president of operations at World Energy, the auction in question led to a finalized agreement—and all participants in the auction, including EnerNOC, got e-mails announcing the outcome weeks ago. “They were definitely notified,” Thomas says. “And in general, we overlay standard terms and conditions to make sure that all of the auction participants are very comfortable. There aren’t any surprises at the end for the seller or for the CSP.”
While EnerNOC and World Energy circle one other warily, major electric consumers interested in profiting from demand response contracts have some new options to think about. With the cost and regulatory difficulties of building new power plants increasing—meaning that utilities are willing to pay more and more for “negawatts”—there’s too much money at stake for major electricity users to ignore the opportunity. Indeed, the demand response market is going to grow to $20 billion a year by 2020, according to Barclays Capital. Yet the percentage of the potential market that has been penetrated by curtailment service providers so far is still in the single digits. So while World Energy may end up forcing EnerNOC and its brethren into accepting a smaller slice of the demand response pie, the pie itself is still huge—and largely uneaten.
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Six charity shops in Suffolk will be taken over by college students in an effort to increase their takings.
Level three business and retail learners studying at West Suffolk College will occupy the shops from February 26 to March 2, using their business, visual merchandising and social media skills to encourage more people to visit.
The teams have already scoped out their stores and made plans for the shop-floor layout and window displays.
The students will be working in local branches of EACH, Suffolk Age UK, St Nicholas Hospice Care, Barnado’s, Cancer Research UK and the Salvation Army during the project, and will compete amongst themselves to see which of the six groups raises the most for their shop.
“We may be a charity shop, but we work just the same as mainstream retail to achieve targets and budgets,” said Bev Pepper, store manager of Barnardo’s in St Johns Street. “This will give the students an eye opener to how we work to raise money for our amazing children’s’ services and beyond.”


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LG G3 Photos Leak as Release Nears
As the release date approaches for the LG G3 we keep learning more and more about this highly anticipated and often leaked smartphone. Over the past month we’ve heard nearly all the details, but this weekend a few more photos leaked shedding more light on the upcoming device.
All month long reports, rumors, and leaks have continued to arrive at an alarming rate, and just when we didn’t think we could see or learn anything else, more arrived. The LG G3 is officially going to be announced later this month, but below are two brand new photos revealing some additional colors
Read: LG G3 Leaks: Here’s What You Need to Know
The LG G3 is set to be released within the next month or so, and we’ve recently confirmed it will launch with White, Black, Gold, and possibly even a Titanium option for colors. The phone has a lot of stunning specs and below are two more press photos giving us multiple angles and views of the new flagship smartphone that aims to take on the Galaxy S5 and iPhone 6. Below is everything you need to know.
While initial LG G3 release date rumors initially were all over the place, as were regular rumors, the past month has put everything into perspective for potential customers looking for a new smartphone this summer.
Late last month LG confirmed the G3 announcement and launch date will officially be May 27th, so in just a little over a week. That means all the rumors will be put to rest, and we’ll finally have the complete picture and every detail needed to decide if this is the next smartphone you’ll want.
That isn’t all however, and LG also confirmed the release date in a roundabout way. The LG G3 release date will be before the end of June. Sadly that’s the only details we’ve been given, with LG stating it will be available in the United States and around the globe before the end of June.
Read: 5 Reasons to Wait for the LG G3
At this point we know nearly everything about this smartphone, and the leaks today are simply different angles and new colors, considering the past month have revealed all the key details, specs, and information about this new smartphone.
The LG G2 in 2013 arrived in late September to battle the iPhone and Galaxy Note 3, but was beat to market by Samsung and HTC by a few months. This year the LG G3 will be bringing the latest and greatest specs to market, ahead of both HTC and Samsung, and only arriving a month or two late. As a result, we’re now hearing rumors about two new smartphones from both above mentioned companies to combat the impressive sounding LG G3.
So what can prospective buyers expect from the unannounced yet often leaked LG G3? A pretty well-rounded smartphone if rumors are accurate. Building on a successful launch and design of the original LG G2, the G3 will have redesigned rear buttons as shown above, a bigger display, thin bezels, and tons of additional features to put it over the competition.
LG G3 Specs
- 5.5-inch 2560 x 1440 Quad-HD display
- 2.5 GHz Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor with 2/3GB RAM
- 32GB storage with micro-SD slot for expansion
- 13 megapixel camera with OIS+ and Laser Auto-focus technology.
- Redesigned rear-mounted buttons
- Fingerprint scanner under aluminum rear power button
- Infrared Port for remote control
- Android 4.4.2 KitKat and new LG Interface
- 3,200 mAh removable and replaceable battery
The details mentioned above are all based on leaks from the past few months, not to mention a few have been confirmed by LG themselves. LG has already been touting the 5.5-inch Quad HD display, as it’ll be the first commercial smartphone in the United States with such a feature. They also released the video below to add to the hype.
We’ve heard a few reports of an improved Snapdragon 805 quad-core instead of the above mentioned specs, but those have yet to be confirmed. Either way, the new LG G3 will be one of the fastest and most powerful smartphones available today.
User interface leaks have revealed a new virtual assistant that will work with apps and weather widgets to make the user aware of things, ahead of them even asking. Things like weather notifications, driving directions, and other contextually-aware apps will be included. This just means the LG G3 will be fast, fluid, powerful, up to date, and extremely smart.
Read: Galaxy S5 vs LG G3: 5 Things You Should Know
At this point all signs are pointing to an early June release date across all five major US carriers, potentially at the same time. We’ll know about release and carrier plans come the 27th of May, as well as what colors and options will be available. So far all leaks suggest white, black, and gold will be available, and there have been a few hints that an aluminum-backed LG G3 “Titanium” could also be released.
With less than two weeks to go there’s a chance all the final details could leak this week, and we’ll be sure and update with any and all details as they become available.
05/20/2014 at 7:56 am
801 or 805?


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"Square format has been and always will be part of who we are," the company wrote on its official blog. "That said, the visual story you're trying to tell should always come first." Until today, it hasn't -- users who wanted to share their work in its landscape or portrait formats have had to use third party programs to add white space to the edge of their photos or videos, lowering the overall resolution of the image. Now Instagram has added a "format" button to its uploader, giving users the option to choose what kind of image they want to share without finding a work-around.
It's a simple change, but it means big things. In addition to giving Instagram users more creative freedom, it also makes the social network a better advertising platform. Want to watch the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer? Now you can -- right on Instagram. The update should be hitting Google Play and the Apple App store later today.


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LA CROSSE, Wis. (WKBT) - Ordering items online leads to shipping. Which also leads to thieves finding an opportunity to pick up those packages before they make it to the shopper.
In La Crosse alone, the U.S. Postal Service gets about 20 to 30 calls a week during the holiday season about missing packages.
That's about three times as many calls it would usually get during a typical week.
"These thieves are going around in our neighborhoods and they're just looking for these packages, it may be that they're even following some of the delivery trucks or following a mail truck," said Thomas Walsh with the La Crosse Police Department.
U.S. Postal Service officials say there are certain areas in La Crosse that are more likely to experience porch theft.
"We have a couple of areas on the north side that we seem to get an uptick, apartment areas over that way that always seems to be one of the hot spots for us is multiple dwellings they seem to be more comfortable to walk up there, they feel that there is multiple residents there no one is going to notice them coming up and taking a package," said Paul Knoll with the USPS in La Crosse.
Knoll said there are a few things shoppers can do to help protect packages that are being delivered.
"One of the things I would recommend is to never on a continuous basis allow your mail to be left sitting out on the porch for an extended period of time, so if you have a package coming I would recommend and make sure that someone is either collecting the mail or picking it up within a reasonable amount of time, not leave it sit there for a day or so," he said.
La Crosse police officers say this kind of theft is a trend during the holiday season but avoiding it can be a community effort.
"Having your neighbors look out for you, if you know you're not going to be around ask your neighbor to go over and pick up these packages," Walsh said.
The USPS in La Crosse delivers about 20,000 packages a week and that number jumps to 30,000 during the holiday season.
Postmasters also recommend shoppers use the USPS website where they can set up and manage their package delivery.
This also provides shoppers with live tracking as far as when they package would arrive to their home.
- New safety measures on the way to Norplex Drive after recent creek death
- Rep. Walz mulling Democratic bid for Minnesota governor
- Gundersen program helps mothers, parents with drug addictions
- La Crosse rally supports transgender youth
- Wisconsin attorney general appeals redistricting ruling
- Officers go 'wild' in support of Special Olympics
- Family Fest returns to La Crosse Center this weekend
- Vikings' stadium board at full strength after resignations
- Storm misses Birkie course, race canceled
- Judges express skepticism over claims in voting cases


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There's a movement afoot to keep Michael Pollan (and his sustainable food production ideas) off of college campuses, especially big ag schools.
An uplifting story from NPR about farmers in Malawai diversifying their planting, and improving their health as a result. However, a little disconcerting footnote at the end from the agricultural economist who wants instead to help the farmers grow "more corn on each acre." I suspect that his plan may include GMOs...
cultural warfare (in the Washington Post).
A federal judge ordered the destruction of GMO sugar beets after they were planted illegally. Earthjustice and the Center for Food Safety successfully argued that farmers and consumers would likely suffer harm from cross-contamination between the genetically modified and non-genetically modified crops. Hooray!
Homesteading makes the "Money" section of U.S. News & World Report! A sweet little article on "How to Become a Modern Homesteader."
Want to know if there's a factory farm near you? Check out this Factory Farm Map.


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Over the past couple of days, the Huawei Mate 20 X 5G has made headlines as Huawei prepares at least two 5G devices for this year. After seeing a photo of the 5G version’s retail packaging, a hands-on video of the device has been uploaded to YouTube on Friday by Zing Gadget.
The video has a few angles of the Mate 20 X, prominently featuring a 5G logo on its backside. The specifications in the captions mention the two spec differences initially rumored earlier this week: the smaller 4,200 mAh battery, and the quicker 40W Super Charge support.
Both the foldable Mate X and the huge Mate 20 X 5G will use Huawei’s own Balong 5000 modem, which is already compatible with the HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC and will require more physical space within the Mate 20 X, which is presumably why the battery is reduced to 4,200 mAh vs the standard 5,000 cell in the 4G version.
All other specs on the Mate 20 X 5G should remain the same. A bright and large 7.2-inch display, 8GB of RAM, and the triple camera setup identical to the one on the Mate 20 Pro. Huawei hasn’t mentioned availability of a 5G Mate 20 X but the foldable Mate X is supposed to arrive sometime in the second half of this year.
Thanks for the tip!
Hopefully they can bump it back up to 5k or more on the M30X. I think 5g is a game changer but till the states roll it out my M20X is the best phone I've ever had.
Malaysia 5G show case in Putrajaya


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Shares of WW International, or WeightWatchers, took a hit as Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical giant, unveiled its latest online service. This offering includes telehealth prescriptions and direct home delivery of its groundbreaking anti-obesity drug, Zepbound.
In afternoon trading, the stock dipped 12% to $6.77. However, it's important to note that shares have seen a notable 55% increase over the past year.
WW has been actively venturing into telehealth to capitalize on the growing market for weight-loss drugs. In a strategic move last year, the company acquired telehealth firm Sequence for a staggering $106 million.
According to analysts at DA Davidson, Lilly's telehealth platform, known as LillyDirect, will likely enjoy an advantage over its competitors due to the current scarcity of weight-loss drugs. However, as production ramps up, the analysts note that "the winners and losers in this space will be determined by who can provide the best service."
The introduction of Lilly's new service has also impacted other telehealth companies. Hims & Hers Health saw its shares trade down approximately 7%, while LifeMD experienced a significant drop of around 33%.


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Court to rule on Kia wages next week
SEOUL-- A Seoul court is set to issue a ruling on the case involving wages at Kia Motors Corp. next week, a judiciary official said Thursday, a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for South Korean industries.
The Seoul Central District Court will decide next Thursday whether to count "regular" bonuses at the carmaker as part of basic wages, the court spokesman Kim Shin-yoo said over the phone.
In a text message sent to Yonhap News Agency, Kia Motors said, "Carmakers have little room to hire new workers due to worsening business conditions. The court's decision (next week) will have a significant impact on auto parts companies and overall industries."
The country's second-biggest carmaker by sales after Hyundai Motor Co. also said it expects "a wise decision" by the court.
Unionized workers at Kia brought the case to court in late 2011, seeking higher wages and severance pay. The company has balked at the lawsuit, calling their demands "excessive" given declining sales in its major markets.
In the January-July period, Kia sold 149,672 vehicles in China, the world's largest automobile market. This represents a 54 percent plunge from 326,595 units sold in the same period a year before, the company data showed.
Companies in the related industries are closely watching the developments as they too may have to bear higher financial burden for their workers if the court rules in favor of Kia's union.
"The company will immediately have to put aside 3.1 trillion won to retroactively pay higher wages to its workers," said a Kia spokesman. "If the court upholds the union's demands, union workers at Hyundai Motor won't sit idly and they will also ask for an increase in their wages as well."
Payment for such expenditures, if applied to related industries, could exceed 30 trillion won, the spokesman said, citing local reports.
If regular bonuses are included in wages, workers will receive higher wages and more retirement benefits when they leave a company.
On Thursday, Kia shares fell 1.14 percent to 34,800 won, underperforming the broader KOSPI's 0.40 percent gain. Its affiliate Hyundai Motor Co. also shed 2.05 percent to 143,500 won.
Source: Yonhap News Agency


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There’s some good news for the TVS customers residing in Bengaluru. The company has announced their special service support initiative in the city. This will start on September 16 and go on till September 30, 2022. Under this initiative, the company will reiterate its ‘Customer First’ commitment. Thus, TVS will cater to the mobility needs and safety of valued customers and their flood-affected vehicles.
Bengaluru Severely Impacted Due To Rain
With rains flooding several localities of Bengaluru for the past couple of days, many vehicles have been left inundated. Thus, to help the customers resume everyday life and have a safe ride, TVS has come up with this initiative. Not just that, it has also taken various other initiatives as a part of the service camp. The service camp will include a detailed and comprehensive vehicle check-up. Technicians will look for flood-related damages and immediate repair.
The company is also associating with various insurance companies to ensure a hassle-free and fast clearance of insurance claims. With the sheer number of TVS vehicles in the city, the company has planned adequate availability of genuine spare parts. Moreover, TVS has also added additional manpower (technicians) in dealerships across Bengaluru to ensure a hassle-free and quick service experience.
TVS Motor Company also advised its customers not to attempt to re-start the engine of a flood-affected vehicle. This will help in avoiding engine damage. The company is doing it all to inform the customers in the region about the initiatives through bulk SMS and newspaper advertisements.
TVS India Sales Report August 2022
TVS Motor Company released its sales report for August 2022. For the given period, TVS registered a growth of 15 per cent in August 2022 with sales of 3,33,787 units. In comparison, the figure for August 2021 stood at 2,90,694 units.


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By Julian David
The question is not if a company will face a cyber attack, but when.
The UK is the most cyber-attacked country in Europe and the second-most assailed in the world, with attacks up 40 percent in 2014, according to Symantec. Despite these figures, and an increasing reliance on the internet to conduct business, security still does not get the level of attention it deserves. Whether due to the misperception of cyber-security as merely a function of the IT department, or the myth that a business is too small a target for a cyber-attack, many organisations lack a unified and coherent cyber-security strategy.
Cyber-security remains a reactive action for far too many companies, despite the high chance of being attacked. For far too long, cyber-security has been spoken about in negative terms, instantly scaring many senior executives into taking rash action without a comprehensive understanding of the different cyber-security risks and how they affect their company.
Instead, cyber-security should be seen as a business enabler. By seeing the information security of an organisation as a business problem, and not just an IT problem, senior executives can devote the same level of attention to cyber-security as they do conventional business risks. Just like other business problems, ineffective cyber-security can affect a company’s reputation, consumer confidence and, ultimately, share price and profits.
Recent research from by Equinix found that that 7 out 10 companies in the UK do not feel prepared against cyber-attacks. Businesses, especially SMEs, must accept that cyber-security precautions are an inherent part of doing business in today’s digital world and prepare themselves accordingly.
Our research shows that the most common vulnerabilities are ones we’ve known about for a long time and can be easily overcome. Things like passwords and basic security protocols that are unfortunately often neglected, making companies an easy target for attack. As all businesses across the UK become ever more reliant on web-based tools this mind-set must change.
To help businesses and citizens in Europe stay safe online, we need to have people with the right skills available to the Europe’s fast growing and innovative cyber security sector. At present, Cyber security is one of the areas that suffers most from the skills gap.
We need to make sure that children are being taught about cyber security, and that we attract a wide range of young people to study and take up careers in this area. In November, UK Chancellor George Osborne announced a bold range of measures to enhance the UK's cyber security, setting aside £1.9bn to deliver a series of initiatives to protect the economy and infrastructure, grow cyber companies, and deter adversaries.
Last month saw the launch of one of the key initiatives, a National Cyber Security Centre, which will bring together the UK's leading cyber experts to help ensure that the people, public and private sector organisations and the critical national infrastructure of the UK are safer online.


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RBI reduces debt trading hours and currency markets from April 7
MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reduced debt trading hours as well as the currency markets as of Tuesday in light of the crash following the coronavirus outbreak.
The revised market times will take effect from April 7 to 17, 2020, the central bank said in a circular on Friday.
The market will open at 10 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. Current and closing times have also been revised at 2 p.m. for all segments. The blockade has negatively impacted the functioning of financial markets, the RBI said.
Market times have been revised to minimize these risks and to ensure that market participants maintain adequate controls and supervisory controls while optimizing scarce resources and ensuring personnel safety, he said.
According to the circular, the government stock market calendar (central government securities, state development loans and treasury bills) has been revised from 10 a.m. at 2 p.m. from 9 a.m. At 5 pm.
Foreign currency (FCY)/Indian rupee (INR) trading, including the foreign exchange derivatives market as well as the rupee interest rate derivatives market have also been changed from 10 a.m. at 2 p.m. from 9 a.m. At 5 pm.
The RBI said the unprecedented situation created by the COVID-19 outbreak has required blockades, social distancing, restrictions on the movement of people and nonessential activities, work-from-home arrangements, and business continuity plans.
The resulting dislocations have negatively impacted the functioning of financial markets. IT staff and resources have been severely affected, posing operational and logistical risks.
The decline in activity is affecting market liquidity and increasing volatility in financial prices, the circular said.
However, all regular banking services for clients, including RTGS, NEFT, e-kuber and other retail payment systems will continue to be available at existing schedules, the RBI added.


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CES is getting started, companies started setting up the standards for 2017, which also includes hyping up the things.
Qualcomm On Asus Zenfone AR
Qualcomm on a blog post accidently revealed some key specifications of the upcoming Asus Zenfone AR, which is second Google Tango smartphone, set for CES 2017 unveiling. The announcement on Asus Zenfone AR is set to make on January 4 (clearly mentioned in the blog) but seems like someone triggered the publish button.
Addition to the second Google Tango Smartphone, the blog post reveals that the device will be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset. The post also makes a clear point that the handset is Daydream-ready, making it the first smartphone of its kind.
Leakster Evan Blass aka @evleaks, tweeted out the press render images of the upcoming Asus Zenfone AR smartphone, before the official announcement.
The Blog Says;
With Zenfone AR and the Daydream View headset and controller, you’ll be able to explore new worlds with apps like Google Street View and Fantastic Beasts, dive into your personal VR cinema with YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and HBO, and get your game on with Gunjack 2, LEGO BrickHeadz, Need for Speed and dozens other titles.


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Black Friday 2018 is in the rear view mirror and whatever your results are they depended largely on the state of your supply chain. So now is the time to take a look at what happened while there still may be a few days to make adjustments before the final days of the retail shopping year.
- Written by Larry Light
- Category: Retail
The business news is full of bleak outlooks or bankruptcies for a number of big retail stores, with iconic Toys ‘R’ Us one of the latest casualties. The crumbling of several brick-and-mortar giants continues during the rise of e-commerce, led by Amazon. Some of those still in business are attempting to improve their online capabilities as a way to compete better in the changing landscape. Walmart, for example, plans to open fewer stores so it can focus on e-commerce while enhancing existing stores. Target has been building out its digital offerings, with same- and next-day delivery services being tested.
The relationship between supplier and customer is critical to both parties. But it most often falls on the customer to manage that relationship because while the supplier has plenty at stake, the customer has their own customers to consider. And if the product being delivered to the end customer falls short of expectation in any way, the customer will be the first to feel the impact. Supplier relationship management (SRM) is no longer just a ‘feel good’ part of the business. It’s critical and is being treated as such, and automated to a large extent. Having fast and accurate evaluation of supplier performance and acting in positive ways to either assure stability or taking quick action to avoid problems needs to be at the top of the list for companies that want to assure the best results for their own customers Here are four areas to pay attention to when managing the SRM.
The first consumer available Amazon Go store opened and every grocery cashier is looking at their paycheck. Well that’s probably an overstatement and in fact Amazon has been testing its Go concept on its own employees since December of 2016 and in development and internal testing for about five years, so the concept is far from new. And while the general news is all about consumers being able to walk out the door without saying hi to a cashier the real story is all about inventory and supply.
- Written by Deb Gabor
- Category: Retail
The 2017 holiday season saw a significant increase in shopping, with nearly 80% of U.S. holiday shoppers buying gifts from Amazon, more than any other top retailer. Feeling the pressure to stay ahead of Amazon, many retailers began holiday promotions in early November but this approach can backfire.


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24 hours ago, Apple released the financial results for its fourth fiscal quarter of 2017 and, if someone thought that the chosen date would be a way of not attracting much attention to possible disappointing numbers (since we are talking about the eve of the most important launch of the year for Ma), it can be considered properly cheated or cheated. The period was excellent for the company.
Just yesterday, we already reported that Apple earned, in the period, a revenue of $ 52.6 billion (12% growth year-over-year), profit from $ 10.7 billion (+ 18.6%) and still had the diluted earnings in $ 2.07 (+ 24%).
Sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs all saw solid growth, with 46.7 million units (+ 3%), 10.3 million units (+ 11%) and 5.4 million units (+ 10%), respectively. In turn, the Services brought in revenues of US $ 8.5 billion (+ 34%) and the Others category, which includes Apple Watch, Apple TV, AirPods, Beats headphones and accessories, provided revenues of US $ 3.2 billion (+ 36%).
The table below shows all numbers more organized:
As usual, the CEO Tim Cook and the CFO Luca Maestri held an audio conference to announce the results and comment a little on the company's performance in the last period. Below, we check the main highlights mentioned by the executives.
- According to Tim Cook, this was the biggest year in Apple's history: the company had record sales in the United States, Western, Central and Eastern Europe, Japan, South Korea, Asia, the Middle East and Africa;
- All product categories experienced revenue growth;
- The company was able to resume growth in China, with the iPhone, iPad and Mac gaining a larger share in their respective markets;
- Emerging market revenue, excluding China, grew 40%;
- The educational and corporate markets also showed excellent results, with growth of two digits on a global scale;
- Apple ended the fourth fiscal quarter with $ 268.9 billion in cash, an increase of $ 7.4 billion over the previous quarter;
- Of this money, $ 252.3 billion (94%) is outside the United States;
- During the period, Apple returned $ 11 billion to investors, paid $ 3.3 billion in dividends and equivalents, and spent $ 4.5 billion to repurchase 29.1 million of its shares.
- The most popular model in the period was the iPhone 7, while the 7 Plus saw its sales increase significantly over the year;
- In ten years of life, Apple sold 1.2 billion (!) Of iPhones;
- The iPhones 8 and 8 Plus, in just a few weeks of life, became the company's most popular smartphones;
- The iPhone gained space in emerging markets, such as China, the Middle East, India and Mexico, but it has also advanced in several consolidated markets, such as Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Singapore;
- According to research cited by Luca Maestri, the iPhone has a 97% satisfaction rate, overall;
- Among consumers planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days, 69% of them intend to buy an iPhone more than five times the nearest competitive rate;
- The loyalty rate (that is, customers who remain with the brand even after changing handsets) of iPhone owners is 95%, against 53% for second place;
- In the corporate market, iPhone users' satisfaction reached 95%, and 80% of future smartphone buyers plan to choose a model from Ma.
- This was the second consecutive period with an increase of two digits for the Apple tablet line;
- According to Cook, the response of consumers to the new iPads was phenomenal, especially with the arrival of iOS 11, which gave a series of new possibilities to the devices;
- The iPad has grown in all geographic segments in which Apple operates, with particularly notable jumps in China (with a 25% growth year-over-year) and in India (39%);
- Ma's tablet line holds 54% of the US market, a good rise from the 47% it held in the same period last year;
- According to Maestri, the satisfaction rate of iPad owners is unmatched in the market, reaching 97%;
- The rate of intent to purchase an iPad among consumers and members of the corporate market wanting to buy a tablet in the near future is 70%.
- The Apple computer line had its best year in history, with the highest revenue ever generated for the company;
- The last fiscal quarter of 2017 was also the best sales period ever recorded for Macs;
- In China, things are also going very well, thanks: according to Cook, it was the best fiscal quarter for Apple computers over there;
- According to Maestri, citing studies from IDC, the Mac gained a considerable share of the computer market, which has shrunk 1% over the past year;
- Each of Apple's geographic segments has seen Mac revenue grow by more than 20%;
- In the year-over-year comparison, Mac educational purchases were two-digit in all geographic segments, too;
- In the corporate market, Macs also beat all sales records in fiscal year 2017.
Other products (Apple Watch, Apple TV, AirPods, Beats headphones, etc.)
- Apple Watch had sales growth of more than 50% for the third consecutive quarter, maintaining its undisputed leadership position in the smartwatch market;
- Apple's clothing business (which includes Apple Watch and AirPods) grew 75% in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2017, year-over-year, and has already generated the equivalent revenue for a listed company this year Fortune 400.
Services (App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, etc.)
- As has been happening basically in all quarters, the Services segment, once again, broke all records in terms of revenue and profit;
- Last year, Apple set a goal of doubling, by 2020, the $ 24 billion in revenue from its services in 2016. The target is already on track to be met this year;
- Only Ma's Services sector is already the size of a company on the list Fortune 100;
- The App Store, by itself, also broke all sales, revenue and profit records ever recorded by Apple;
- According to data from App Annie, Ma's app store continues to be No. 1 in the world in terms of profit, with ease it gets almost double the number obtained by Google Play;
- On Apple Music, the conversion rate (that is, users leaving other streaming for Ma's option) greater than ever;
- The number of paid subscribers to the service grew by 75% compared to the same period last year;
- ICloud saw double-digit growth in both revenue and the average number of monthly users;
- Apple Pay continues to expand at a healthy pace, with Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates only arriving in the last month;
- The number of active payment system users has doubled over the past year, and annual transactions have risen an interesting 330%;
- In the US, 70% of major grocery stores, grocery stores and supermarkets already accept Apple Pay.
- The last quarter was very strong for Ma stores, which received 418 million visitors in the period;
- Traffic was particularly high during the weeks when the company launched new products 19% higher than the same periods in the previous year;
- Stores around the world have conducted more than 200,000 program sessions ?Today at Apple?.
- In the field of machine learning, iOS 11 is already allowing developers to integrate their applications with technology through the CoreML API. Some examples already in use are Pinterest, Padmapper and Visual DX;
- The App Store already has more than 1,000 apps that take advantage of the possibilities of ARKit, and the trend that the number grows exponentially in the coming months;
- Apple is expanding the free curriculum App Development with Swift to more than 30 technical schools around the USA;
- General Electric is placing the iPhone and iPad as standard devices for its entire workforce, comprised of more than 330,000 employees around the world, and developing iOS apps for both them and the general public.
Questions and answers
When asked about the demand for the iPhone X, Cook said that the production of the device grows week by week and will try to offer the devices to all interested consumers. The executive did not, however, state a date for the pace of production to match demand for the smartphone, and said that there is no way to know for sure what the public demand will be until a little after the first weeks of the launch.
On the possibilities of augmented reality and the next applications of technology that we will see in Apple products, Cook said that the most interesting part is to see the differences in the approach with the resource according to the country. Overall, he thinks that technology will change the shopping experience, in addition to greatly affecting games and entertainment platforms, as well as productivity applications. For the executive, this is a new opportunity as was the launch of the App Store in 2008.
When asked which of the services were pulling the most considerable increase in revenue from this segment, Maestri cited three: the App Store, Apple Music and iCloud.
Cook, when asked what his expectations are regarding the distribution of sales among the three new iPhones, said he could not speak specifically about this division. The executive, however, commented:
We never had three products at the same time and today is the first day that consumers can kind of look at all three before deciding on one. Then we'll see what happens. But in terms of price elasticity, it is important to remember that a large number of people pay for the smartphone monthly. So if you are looking in the United States, which tends to be the focus of this conference, you can buy an iPhone X for $ 33 a month. If you think about it, that's a few coffees a week less than a coffee a day, you know, in these fancy places. () We are not trying to charge the highest price we can or something, we are simply putting a price on what we are delivering.
On India, a market where Apple does not yet have a large penetration, Cook said that the company is making good progress in the country building channels, market, a favorable ecosystem for developers and even making the iPhone SE from there. Despite this, there is still a long way to go, and the executive is excited to follow it.
Forecasts for the first fiscal quarter of 2018
For the next fiscal period, Apple expects revenue between $ 84-87 billion, with a gross margin between 38% and 38.5%. Operating expenses are expected to be between $ 7.65-7.75 billion, with other expenses coming in close to $ 600 million. The tax rate should remain at 25.5%.
Here is Apple's fourth fiscal quarter of 2017 in graphs:
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Ben Keene, a travel writer, wants the world to know: there’s a burgeoning brewery scene in the Northeast U.S. and it’s high time you took advantage of it.
Keene will be promoting his latest book, “The Great Northeast Brewery Tour“ (Voyageur Press, 2014) on Friday, Jan. 24 at Relic Brewing in Plainville, Conn.
The book signing takes place from 4-7 p.m. at Relic, 95 Whiting St.
Keene, who lives in Cambridge, Mass., writes about hiking and camping, and he told me last week that his dabbling in outdoor sports extended into adventuring into the world of breweries.
“I did not [always] have a refined palate or appreciation of beer,” Keene said. “When I moved to New York it was 2000 and kind of the second wave of smaller breweries was just kind of beginning to surge. So bars started popping up and breweries followed. I think the East Coast since 2000 has been evening out the balance with out West.”
He moved on to work at Oxford University Press office in Manhattan, where he said he was instrumental in convincing editors to create the “Oxford Companion to Beer,” edited by Garrett Oliver. Oliver also writes the forward to Keene’s new book.
The Northeast brewing scene is entering a new phase of its beer history, and Keene said he wanted to cover it. “I wanted to chronicle what was happening and what is happening,” he said. “I feel like in the late ’90s/early 2000s, the focus was on all the cool stuff happening out West. In the last three to five years, it’s swelled on the East Coast.”
While there are plenty of outlets for beer writing, some of it gets a little “insular,” Keene said. Beer Advocate and RateBeer and awesomely spectacular columns and blogs like mine (not his words) tend only to inform the informed.
“I was thinking of my own friends who are into food, travel, trying new things,” he said, “even people my parents’ generation, who are not necessarily into beer and don’t know where to start. They don’t know the difference between a saison and a bier de garde. I thought I’d introduce people to this, and talk to a broader audience.”
The 240-page paperback (retailing at $24.99) does not rank or rate beer or breweries, said Keene, who is 35. His entries are profiles of 62 breweries throughout Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
“I encourage people to find a beer they love,” he said. “Each [entry] opens up with a little bit of background on the founders and a bit about the brewery, and then I try to briefly describe what it’s like in the physical place. And it’s photo-heavy.”
It took about two years from conception and book proposal, then some shopping around to editors. “Two or three times a month, a photographer and I would take pictures and go to brewers and come back home and write up our notes and edit our photos and repeat,” he said.
In Connecticut, where I write, Keene profiles Relic, Two Roads Brewing in Stratford, New England Brewing in Woodbridge, and Thomas Hooker Brewery in Bloomfield.
“I wanted to show some of the larger breweries, ones familiar to people who pay attention to beer… and show some of the smaller ones,” Keene said. “I also tried to be a little bit democratic in terms in terms of geographic distribution.
“Relic was a great example of the little guy who is creative,” he continued, “and it’s just kind of the by-the-bootstraps classic story of a guy who fell in love with beer and wanted to start a brewery and is still in the early stages of it. Thomas Hooker is more of a production-style brewery that people have gotten to know and they also branched out a little bit: a brewery that is approachable but not set in its ways.”
He said he picked Two Roads because they “embody the enormous amount of change and transformation that the beer industry is going from to now.”
Keene predicts that it’s inevitable that the bursts of new brewery openings every three months will stop in the Northeast.
“I do think that we’re not there yet, and I tried to pick places for the book that are going to be around for a while. There’s something to them that has longevity.”


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Google TV Coming This Fall Says CEO
Google plans to launch its Google TV service, which will bring Web services to TVs, this autumn, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Schmidt revealed the news during his keynote speech at the IFA electronics convention in Berlin. He said it would be a free service, much like the majority of services Google offers. The launch this fall will be for the U.S. only, but Google TV will be available worldwide next year.
Schmidt emphasized that Google will only be providing the service that brings the TV and the Internet together; other companies will be responsible for what consumers can access through it.
"We will work with content providers, but it is very unlikely that we will get into actual content production," Schmidt told journalists after his speech.
Schmidt said the objective was to bring full Internet browsing to the living room TV, something other manufacturers have tried with limited success. Navigation with a TV remote has been one of the biggest hurdles, as well as integration with current TV programming. Most manufacturers have settled with including apps or "widgets" that pipe in information from popular sites such as Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and weather services.
Google's approach will be to fully meld the Internet with the TV and allow for complete interactivity.
Logitech has already released a series of commercials for its TV that will integrate with Google TV, and Sony, LG and Samsung have all voiced varying levels of commitment to releasing similar hardware in the near future.
Apple announced a similar service, Apple TV , recently, though Google's service will come built-in to TVs rather than in a separate box like the Apple TV. While Google doesn't make the TVs or the content, the company is likely focused on another source of revenue: advertisements. Google is already the king of advertising on the Internet, and expanding into the TV market would open up many new opportunities for the company.


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Nike Unveils New Special Field Air Force 1
Nike has officially unveiled its new Special Field Air Force 1 and it's certainly eye-catching.
A winter-appropriate take on their equally classic and ionic Air Force 1 silhoutte, the sneaker features full-grain leather, ripstop ballistic nylon, hidden espionage tongue storage, and most notably brand new interwoven and adjustable ankle straps.
The Special Field Air Force 1, which is set to release on Nov. 5, will be available in varying colorways for men (Faded Olive/Gum and Black/Gum) and women (Light Bone/Sail and Golden Beige/Linen).
What do you think? Will you be copping the new generation of the Air Force?


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That's no easy trick, since the cost of Rambus dynamic RAM (RDRAM) is at least twice that of synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM), the current industry standard. Rambus offers higher bandwidth than 100MHz SDRAM, but the holdup to more widespread adoption of the technology has been its price.
On Monday, Dell (dell) introduced a lower-cost PC model that uses RDRAM. Rambus memory technology had previously added several hundred dollars to the price of each PC, but company officials said the new PC, the OptiPlex GX200, starts at $1,149.
The base configuration for Dell's new PC is about $100 more than a similarly equipped system with SDRAM.
"Low cost" however is a relative term. Dell says the rock-bottom price on its new corporate computer, in a small chassis, may list at $1,149. But Dell does not include certain features in its base configuration for the GX200, such as a monitor, modem, stereo speakers or CD-ROM drive.
The new PC will start with 64MB of 800MHz error-correcting-code RDRAM. For their money, customers also get an Intel Corp. 600MHz Pentium III and Intel's 820 chip set, which supports Rambus Inc. technology. The base configuration also includes a 10GB hard drive, a built-in 4X AGP graphics card, Ethernet and the Windows 98 OS.
With the new GX200 model, Dell has managed to close the price gap between SDRAM and Rambus memory. Where the price had been several hundred more for a Rambus PC, the difference on similarly configured OptiPlex GX200 and GX110 models priced by ZDNet News ranged between $120 and $168.
An OptiPlex GX110 model, configured as closely as possible to the GX200 by ZDNet News, came to $1,029 on Dell's Web site. The base configuration includes a 600MHz Pentium III, 64MB of SDRAM, a 10GB hard drive and Ethernet.
With the addition of a 667MHz Pentium III ($125), 64MB of SDRAM for a total of 128MB ($99), a 17-inch monitor ($215), 10X CD-ROM drive ($69), modem ($79) and speakers ($39) brings the PC to $1,655, according to Dell's site.