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Bitcoin And Others
Bitcoin and other currencies are based on the cryptographic algorithms or mathematics that are encrypted, with which the user becomes the owner of the currency. The average investor does not want to mess with encrypted passwords, cold storage wallets, and other difficulties to hold Bitcoin in btc global trades their portfolio Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies took another leap towards the financial mainstream Thursday when Wall Street player BNY Mellon announced plans to accept digital currencies £3.5 billion Bitcoin stolen; recoverable. In 2013, the. It’s common, for instance, for bitcoin and others analysts to. The cryptocurrency has demolished the stock market, the housing market, precious metals and other. Legal proceedings have begun against a number of Bitcoin developers. Several Founder Institute alumni have. This was an all-time high As there are many unknowns surrounding Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, they tend to exhibit extremely volatile, rising or falling in value by thousands of dollars in a single day. Of course, the rise of non-government, decentralized, encrypted electronic currencies like bitcoin has been going on for years.
But in recent months it has surged to the forefront of the national conversation as major figures like Elon Musk have bought in and bitcoin has hit record valuation levels Another problem with Bitcoin is the volatility of its value which exceeds the volatility of other currencies and gold, resulting in huge fluctuations in comparison to the US dollar. Bitcoin is the one way of making transactions daily as other currencies. Below, we’ve listed out five best crypto exchanges you can use to buy, store and sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in India. Data from Bitcoin Treasuries, a website tracking the corporate adoption of bitcoin, shows several cryptocurrency companies, – and some non-crypto firms – holding bitcoin on their balance sheets, including Block.one, the Tezos Foundation, Bitfarms, Argo Blockchain, Riot Blockchain, Marathon, and others The value of Bitcoin is higher compared to other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Ethereum 2.0, Ripple, Litecoin, Bitcoin cash, XRP and others. The introduction of a Bitcoin ETF would go a long way toward legitimizing it as an asset and would force regulators to work out some of the hurdles to mainstream adoption. Bitcoin currencies are easily available at Bitcoin ATM and online exchange.. Exciting, 0.2 btc to euro mysterious and highly volatile, Bitcoin is hard to ignore after the decade it just had. Adeo Ressi is a witness to the growing intersect between cryptocurrency and space, with two communities that share the affinity of risk and innovation. Bitcoin is a competitor bitcoin and others of fiat currencies such as the dollar and the euro.
The main feature of the bitcoin, which makes it superior is that bitcoin and others it is the safest option for digital. 3. The action will, for the first time, examine the. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are all the rage right now. There is a genuine risk that governments would want to regulate. Bitcoin currencies are easily available at Bitcoin ATM and online exchange.
Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC-USD) As you can see on the above chart, Bitcoin recently hit resistance around the $40,500 level in early January. Users can also access the platform. 1. Bitcoin and the crypto economy has steadily surpassed the $1 trillion valuation mark and on Friday, bitcoin and others February 12, 2021, the crypto market capitalization of all the coins in existence is worth $1.41.
1. Bitcoin and other cyber coins are units that, after creation based on solved algorithms, are tracked using blockchain accounting that is effectively a distributed and shared ledger Another problem with Bitcoin is the volatility of its value which exceeds the volatility of other currencies and gold, resulting in huge fluctuations in comparison to bitcoin and others the US dollar Bitcoin and other currencies are based on the cryptographic algorithms or mathematics that are encrypted, with which the user becomes the owner of the currency. Bitcoin was recently down 11% at $48,207, paring some losses after Jack Dorsey’s Square Inc said it bought around 3,318 bitcoins for $170 million. The rise in value of Bitcoin has also helped the rise. Hope for thousands of others. Regulatory Risk.


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For those Americans who don’t play online poker, the phrase ‘Black Friday’ refers not to a government crackdown on gambling but to the day after Thanksgiving that unofficially kicks off the holiday shopping season. Retailers traditionally offer all sorts of deals to compete for increasingly scarce consumer dollars on what is considered the year’s busiest shopping day. There’s even a Cyber Monday that follows this Black Friday, in which online retailers try to capitalize on the shopping frenzy.
Many of you were likely unaware that a similar online promotion took place on Nov. 9. Bitcoin Friday involved 70-odd online retailers that accept the digital currency offering special deals and discounts to customers for making purchases with Bitcoins. The promotion was the brainchild of Jon Holmquist, co-founder of Bitcoin exchange Coinabul, who claimed to have been alarmed by reports that 78% of Bitcoin users weren’t doing anything with their Bitcoin bankrolls but sitting on them. Holmquist told The Register that the response to the inaugural Bitcoin Friday had been “fantastic” and he expects the momentum to grow as word spreads. “In the next couple year, digital will be the new plastic, and Bitcoin Friday will be the new poster child of consumerism.”
Well, maybe. For the moment, Bitcoin remains a niche product, although last month the European Central Bank released a Virtual Currency Schemes report (read it here) that was largely focused on Bitcoin’s growing popularity. Among the report’s conclusions was that virtual currencies don’t represent a threat to ‘real world’ financial systems, at least, given current levels of adoption, but Bitcoin is definitely on central bankers’ radar. The report also spotlighted one of the main bugaboos surrounding Bitcoin, namely, its association with sites like SilkRoad, the ‘black market eBay’ accused of facilitating illegal drug trafficking and other frowned upon transactions. On the plus side, the ECB generously noted that criminals also routinely use traditional fiat currencies to conduct drug sales and launder money, so the ECB doesn’t advise throwing out the Bitcoin baby with the bathwater just yet.
BITCOIN GAMBLING PROS AND CONS (BUT MOSTLY PROS)
Among the merchants participating in Bitcoin Friday were online gambling sites like StrikeSapphire, Satoshi Dice and BC-Casino. Bitcoin seems an ideal payment solution for online gambling sites, yet adoption has been confined to the sector’s smaller operators. None of the major gambling sites we spoke to would even cop to having had internal discussions regarding offering a Bitcoin option to their players. So we asked Conor McCarthy of SwitchPoker – which began offering Bitcoin as a payment option a year ago – why adoption was progressing at such a snail’s pace.
McCarthy told CalvinAyre.com that SwitchPoker’s use of Bitcoin was not without its challenges, such as the fact that “all payments are final.” Bitcoin’s ability to forego the use of banks and online e-wallets by sending payments directly to the consumer eliminates the ability to reverse a transaction. “This means that fraud issues need to be handled differently. Extra checks are performed before sending Bitcoin payments out.” Security is another area of concern, in that “with Bitcoin you have the option to store the funds yourself” rather than with a third-party financial institution “and this comes with risks. Precautions must be taken to ensure your Bitcoin wallet is kept safe, as a security breach could spell disaster.” McCarthy says SwitchPoker’s use of the Bitcoin 24/7 exchange’s secure wallet service “insulates us from all the intricacies of the Bitcoin network and provides a simple interface just like any other payment system.”
McCarthy is quick to note that Bitcoin’s potential pitfalls are vastly outweighed by its strengths. “Unlike almost every payment method, if we receive a Bitcoin payment we are certain that the funds are deposited legitimately. Overall, Bitcoin has reduced our fraud-related costs significantly.” Given the recent spate of online poker site shutdowns in which player funds vanished into the Twilight Zone, McCarthy says Bitcoin provides players with added insurance against chicanery. “With traditional payment methods who invariably charge significant fees to perform payments, it is not viable to allow players to move their bankroll on and off the site on a daily basis. Bitcoin changes all this. Players can have full control of their bankroll and can move their funds about at will.”
Despite Bitcoin’s advantages, McCarthy says it “remains less popular” than credit cards or traditional e-wallets, especially with SwitchPoker’s “social type players.” However, McCarthy says once users give Bitcoin a try, “they tend to stick with it, whereas customers who do not use Bitcoin would often switch from one payment method to another.” McCarthy expects Bitcoin will eventually be adopted by the major gambling sites “due to the reduced cost and the increased security” offered by the crytpo-currency. But McCarthy warns that as Bitcoin’s popularity increases, traditional bankers will likely pressure governments to “legislate against it.”
PREACHING TO THE BITCOIN CHOIR
McCarthy’s observations about casual poker players being slow to adopt Bitcoin as their currency of choice were echoed by poker player Bryan Micon (pictured right), who reps Bitcoin-only online poker site SealsWithClubs.eu. Micon told CalvinAyre.com that it was currently easier to convince Bitcoin devotees to play online poker than it was to convince poker players to use Bitcoin. “We are still only to the early adopter stage of this technology. The table chat at SealsWithClubs reads like a Bitcoiners hangout.” As a result, Micon admits that “games on Seals right now are soft.” Micon estimates the largest number of tables in action at any one time on Seals “was maybe nine games, most of them two- and three-handed, a few six-handed and two or three full games.”
To boost business beyond the Bitcoin crowd, Seals recently announced the launch of the site’s first affiliate program, the response to which Micon says has been “very encouraging” and “has us poised for growth in the coming months.” Dismissing suggestions that this is a glorified refer-a-friend program, Micon says “high-traffic websites, poker- or Bitcoin-facing, and newsletter/email direct marketers are welcome, so long as they play fair.” Micon doesn’t want Seals’ name sullied by having it “marketed in a way detrimental to the brand, such as spam.”
As for Bitcoin’s future with US-facing gambling sites, Micon says Seals is helping lead the way for “a totally different model that I think will exist alongside regulated USA gaming sites.” Seals “does no banking whatsoever” with US institutions, “only Bitcoin in and Bitcoin out, all for a max rake of 0.1 Bitcoins [currently about $1]. And we give a significant percentage of that rake back in promotions for our top players.” And unlike traditional sites, Seals’ users remain completely anonymous, except for the fact that, at present, they all seem to know each other.

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It stems from one of the biggest consultation exercises ever conducted by the A$4.4bn (US$3bn) industry, which took the opinions of more than 1,500 people at 25 workshops across Australia earlier this year.
The plan follows a series of market failures in recent years that has led to deep distrust among dairy farmers towards the processors they supply, some of which unexpectedly cut farmgate prices and financially crippled many dairymen.
In 2016, following a glut in the global market, milk processing cooperative Murray Goulburn slashed the price farmers were expecting to receive and began a A$200m (US$136m) clawback on the milk it had already acquired.
Since then drought and resulting high feed costs, and irrigation water prices have led many dairy farmers to reduce their herds or get out of the industry altogether.
This reversal has led to a shortage of milk and some of the highest farmgate prices ever seen as processors scrabble to compete for the dwindling supply, down from around 10bn liters a year a few years ago to an expected 8.2bn-8.5bn liters this season.
The draft Australian Dairy Plan, published last week, sets out a range of industry-wide initiatives that its authors hope will restore the lost confidence, lift profitability for struggling dairymen and stimulate growth.
On the back of modest growth projections, the plan will support around 1bn liters of additional national milk production annually by 2025, worth more than A$600m (US$409m) per year to dairy farmers. This additional growth aims to stimulate the creation of at least 1,000 direct new jobs, mostly in rural and regional areas.
A final version of the plan will be published in March, and will include recommendations on reform of industry structures and advocacy arrangements. Feedback will be sought for this next month.
Speaking at the launch of the draft dairy plan at a farm in the Victorian dairy region of Gippsland, its chair and former premier of the state, John Brumby, said, “It sets out a series of commitments, priorities and specific initiatives which we believe will help rebuild the profitability, confidence and unity of Australia’s dairy industry.
“The draft plan also focuses on helping farmers better manage the increased cost of key inputs like feed, water and energy to support the profitability of their dairy businesses,” he added, while being flanked by officials of dairy organizations including Dairy Australia and Australian Dairy Farmers.
The dairy industry, he said, had been weathering a “perfect storm of challenges in recent years” amid a climate of volatility.
The plan’s development had allowed the whole supply chain to regroup around a common set of priorities and objectives, while facing up to areas for improvement.
An extensive nationwide consultation exercise allowed common themes to be identified, leading the plan to feature several “commitments for transformational change.”
The first aims to “reset” how farmers and processors work together, to provide more transparency about milk prices, as well as the establishment of a “milk price monitor.”
Another sets out to ensure that all dairy farms will have completed business plans by 2025. There will be more promotion to consumers in a move that would double expenditure on marketing to improve the image of the industry and counter incursions from alternatives such as soy and almond products.
There is a commitment towards better ways to collaborate with the government on initiatives to stimulate growth, reduce costs and remove barriers.
Another measure, to be announced next month, will be a proposal to rationalize the large number of dairy industry organizations.
The milk price monitor, essentially a national price watchdog, has received the most press after it was announced. In practice, it could create a fully competitive market for the country’s dairy farmers.
The plan was by and large received warmly by dairy organizations and experts, though some retained the sense of ennui that many have been carrying instinctively during the latest droughts and farm closures.
Queensland Dairyfarmers’ Organisation president Brian Tessmann, in an editorial in the North Queensland Register, said the plan was “likely to be a far cry from what the industry wants” and hit out at a perceived opaqueness in how it had been put together.
The criticism centered on recommendations by a joint transitional team that had been tasked with evaluating various options to restructure and reform the way that dairy is run in Australia.
“These recommendations are without doubt the most fundamentally important part of the dairy plan,” Tessmann wrote.
“Is it any wonder that dairy farmers have lost faith in the dairy plan? Is it any wonder that they had lost faith in our industry's organizations and their ability to do their jobs and protect, support and assist the Australian dairy industry?
“One thing that is abundantly clear is that some industry organizations have driven the dairy plan to suit their own needs and agendas rather than the needs of the farmers,” he speculated.
By contrast, other dairy groups, some of which had been involved in the process, appeared cockahoop with the plan.
“The big investment we made in industry engagement and listening has enabled us to identify common themes and agree on priority issues to help reset the future direction of dairy,” said Jeff Odgers, chair of Dairy Australia.
“The draft Dairy Plan contains initiatives we believe can make a significant impact, including a whole-of-supply-chain approach to a new national marketing and promotion campaign that can double the size and scope of our current marketing activities.”
Australian Dairy Farmers president Terry Richardson added, “The future health of this industry is something we all have a stake in. We need to get value back into the market, so that dairy products yield a decent return for all parts of the supply chain.”


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Along with the arrival of Android 12, Copperhead is pleased to announce support for more Pixel devices, as we welcome Pixel 5a (Barbet), Pixel 5 (Redfin) and Pixel 4a 5G (Bramble) to the CopperheadOS family.
Pixel 4a 5G (Bramble) joins Pixel 4a (Sunfish) as a more economical alternative 5G enabled CopperheadOS secure Android. The 5G Pixel 4a also features a larger screen as well as the latest generation of mobile broadband.
With a sleek, pocket sized profile CopperheadOS Pixel 5 (Redfin) offers the latest Pixel features and excellent performance.
CopperheadOS Pixel 5a (barbet) brings longer battery life, modern performance with a comfortable screen size. An excellent choice for users looking for a secure smart phone which does it all.
COPPERHEADOS PIXEL 6 AVAILABLE NOW
The much anticipated Pixel 6 (Oriole) now also joins the CopperheadOS family. Built on Google’s very own Tensor system-on-a-chip (SoC), Pixel 6 is a near revolutionary Pixel device. Featuring all new security hardware including the Titan M2 hardware security module and Tensor Security Processor.
Pixel 6 is also the first Google Android smart phone released using a Generic Kernel Image, which we discussed in part in a previous blog post.
All of these contribute to the most compelling feature behind Pixel 6, a 4 year security support window from Google which will last until October of 2026!
Adapting CopperheadOS to work with and enhance these incredible new features is an opportunity that our team has been excited to pursue, and 2022 promises to be a critical year in mobile security as CopperheadOS comes to 5 new Pixel devices, including the Pixel 6 Pro.


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The new year will start the following week. Additionally, companies have announced that they would introduce new cellphones. Follow For More Updates at satiknews.com
In the upcoming days, handset debuts are anticipated from four businesses. New phones will be unveiled by two of them. The remaining two, though, will reveal already-available gadgets for India. The smartphone releases from Tecno, Poco, OnePlus, and Redmi are anticipated. Let’s examine each of these phones individually.
Next Week’s Upcoming Smartphones
Early in December, the Tecno Phantom X2 series was launched. The company has now stated that the vanilla X2 will arrive in India on January 2, with pre-orders opening that day and sales beginning on January 9.
The Phantom X2 has a distinctive appearance. It has a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 chipset and a 6.8-inch 10-bit FHD+ 120Hz curved AMOLED display. For the latest news, follow us on Google News
The smartphone includes a 5,160mAh battery, a 32MP selfie camera, a 13MP ultra-wide camera with macro capability, and a 64MP Samsung GWB primary camera. Not to mention that it supports 45W fast wired charging.


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ARMONK, N.Y. and CAMARILLO, Calif., April 15 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and California contract manufacturer Golden State Medical Supply (GSMS) today announced GSMS will be ready to comply with California's landmark prescription drug pedigree regulations this year. GSMS is using IBM technology to manage serialized drug pedigree information and offer new services to their customers.
The California Board of Pharmacy recently gave the pharmaceutical industry a two-year extension to January 1, 2011 to comply with its regulations, which are the first of their kind. The GSMS-IBM collaboration will be ready to begin this summer, well in advance of the state's original effective date.
The issue of the safety of the world's prescription drug supply is continuing to gain attention. The Center for Medicines in the Public Interest projects that global revenues lost due to counterfeit drug sales will reach $75 billion by 2010, a 92 percent increase from 2005.
"We applaud the efforts of any company that continues to work toward meeting the original 2009 deadline for compliance with California's electronic pedigree system," said Virginia Herold, executive director of the California State Board of Pharmacy. "We believe the California law for electronic pedigree is the most effective means to add security to the pharmaceutical supply chain."
In addition to enabling GSMS to act in accordance with new and emerging ePedigree regulations, IBM's Solution for Pharmaceutical Track & Trace will give GSMS the technology infrastructure to offer new services for the pharmaceutical industry. For example, the company could provide ePedigree compliance services to manufacturers that have not yet determined how they will comply with the California regulations.
"We chose to team with IBM because GSMS is committed to protecting the pharmaceutical drug supply. The issue of counterfeit drug sales is an important one for our industry and our work with IBM reflects our desire to be part of the solution," said Jim Stroud, president and CEO, GSMS Medical Supply Inc.
"Golden State Medical Supply's selection of IBM for this project shows that our Pharmaceutical Track & Trace Solution is as viable for small and mid-sized operations as it is for the titans of the pharmaceutical industry," said Christian Clauss, director of sensor network solutions, IBM.
IBM is providing GSMS software, hardware, and services. The ePedigree capability will be provided by the IBM WebSphere RFID Information Center, a high performance data repository that allows companies to manage and share information with trading partners to authenticate pharmaceuticals. The product is compliant with both GS1 EPCglobal's Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard, and its Drug Pedigree Standard. In addition to using the software for ePedigrees, GSMS will be able to use it to address business needs such as chargeback resolution and expiration management.
Serialized drug pedigree information will be provided to the WebSphere RFID Information Center by the IBM WebSphere Premises Server. The Premises Server will enhance key business processes in GSMS' packaging facility and distribution center using 2D barcodes, RFID and other types of sensors.
The software will be run on IBM System x servers, which will be provided by IBM Business Partner Direct Systems Support.
About Golden State Medical Supply, Inc.
In business since 1986, Golden State Medical Supply, Inc. is a contract manufacturer licensed by the California State Board of Pharmacy to sell pharmaceuticals to our valued partners in the medical industry. For more information, visit http://www.gsms.us
For more information on IBM's Solution for Pharmaceutical Track & Trace, visit http://www- 03.ibm.com/solutions/businesssolutions/sensors/doc/content/solution/1624269129 .html
SOURCE Golden State Medical Supply, Inc.


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A second bitcoin exchange, Bitstamp, halts withdrawals
REUTERS - Bitstamp, one of the largest exchanges for trading the digital bitcoin currency, on Tuesday said it had halted withdrawals on its platform after discovering "inconsistent results reported" by its bitcoin wallet, which it attributed to a denial-of-service attack.
Slovenia-based Bitstamp is now the second major bitcoin exchange to halt customer withdrawals in the past several days, rattling participants in the nascent market. Last Friday, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox halted withdrawals and has yet to restart them, a development that sent bitcoin prices spiraling lower.
In a statement posted Tuesday on its website, Bitstamp said withdrawals that failed on Monday and Tuesday would be canceled, and "the amounts added back to the customer account balances."
On Bitstamp's exchange, the bitcoin price was quoted at about $645, down about 6 percent on the day
(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by James Dalgleish)
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At China online coming-out party, Beijing spells out Internet control ambition Full Article
EU digital tsar warns monopolists; Google foes play down call for break-up Full Article


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November has arrived, which means it’s officially time to get ready for Christmas. To get everyone into the spirit, Marks & Spencer has released their star-studded Christmas advert on Wednesday 1 November, featuring Hannah Waddingham, Tan France, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and Zawe Ashton.
The advert aims to “celebrate the honest truth” of the festive season and acknowledge the parts of Christmas that we might not enjoy, but feel obliged to do anyway. It shows the stars facing a series of small dilemmas, such as struggling with decorating and playing family games they don’t particularly enjoy. But, some Brits are not too happy, and are claiming that the ad could ruin Christmas for their children.
According to M&S, each star makes a decision on “which Christmas traditions they’re going to embrace this year (and which ones they’re going to skip)”. In one scene, Ashton uses a baseball bat to take a swing at a toy Elf, sending it over neighbourhoods to Waddingham’s home, just after the latter uses a wood chipper to shred gold and silver paper hats into a burst of glittery confetti.
At the end of the advert, the Elf lands at Waddingham’s feet. She picks it up and initially appears confused about why it’s there, before glancing at her wood chipper and looking towards the camera with a raised eyebrow, suggesting the elf might be in trouble at Waddingham’s household too.
The Elf’s messy conclusion has struck a nerve among some people, who have complained that the advert could potentially “ruin [elf on a shelf] for thousands of families”. Commenting on the advert on M&S’s Instagram account, one person wrote: “I can imagine lots of children from Elf homes will have lots of awkward questions after seeing this.”
Another said: “Is the M&S message ‘Let’s be selfish and destructive this Christmas?’ Sorry, Not for me.”
On X, formerly known as Twitter, one person wrote: “Er… is it just me or is that a really mean-spirited ad? The hinted Fargo ending for the Elf on the shelf.”
What is 'Elf on a shelf'?
Elf on a shelf is a tradition for some families which involves parents placing an Elf toy in different places around the house for children to enjoy. It stems from a 2005 children’s story book titled Elf on the Shelf by American author Carol Aebersold and her daughter Chanda Bell. The book explains in rhymes how Santa Claus knows which children are naughty and nice through the Elf on the shelf, who visits children from Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve and watches them, before reporting back to Santa Claus in the North Pole.
The tradition reached the UK in 2013, when official Elf on the Shelf toys arrived on British shores. Since then, it has become a popular Christmas pastime, with parents choosing new places to put the Elf once their children have gone to bed, so that when they wake up, it appears the Elf has magically moved to a different spot from which to watch them.
In reply to customer complaints, M&S said: “Our campaign is targeted at adults and we’re confident that they will take it in the way it is intended - fun, festive, and a cheeky take on those things we love - and don’t love - to do at Christmas time. For any concerned children, the elf in the ad is a prop and not a real, official Elf on the Shelf.”
Responding to another complaint, the retailer added: “We want to empower customers to embrace the traditions they love while recognising that this will be different for everyone - that’s what makes Christmas, Christmas.”


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Over the course of just a few months, the coronavirus has changed how consumers in China digest media, according to eMarketer.
Intel announced new investments totaling $132 million in 11 technology startups.
The global market for smartphone memory chips reached a combined value of $39.3 billion in 2019, according to the Strategy Analytics.
Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Chinese Huawei, lost a bid to have US extradition proceedings dismissed.
Bosch Sensortec announced the BMP390, a barometric pressure sensor that delivers high accuracy for altitude tracking in smartphones as well as wearable and hearable devices.
Global shipments of wearable devices grew 29.7% year over year during the first quarter of 2020 as total device volume reached 72.6 million units, according to IDC.
Facebook rebranded its Calibra digital wallet, changing the name to Novi.
Samsung introduced a standalone turnkey security solution comprised of a Secure Element chip and enhanced security software.
The Libra Association chose an experienced financial expert as its first CEO.
Igor Vukasović assumed the position of the Director of the Corporate Communications Department of Hrvatski Telekom as of April 1.
Nokia’s Board of Directors has appointed Pekka Lundmark as President and CEO.
Swedish communications service provider Telia has launched commercial 5G in Stockholm.
The Agence National des Fréquences, published a detailed report on the exposure values measured during several 5G pilot deployments conducted in France.
Nokia achieved the world’s fastest 5G speeds in its Over-the-Air network in Dallas, Texas.
Yamaha conducted a field test of its Remote Cheerer powered by SoundUD system at Shizuoka Stadium.
Lenovo introduced Virtual Rounding, a solution that should enhance virtual patient care.
Atos and Siemens are working together with the pharmaceutical industry to improve production with an innovative solution based on a digital replica of the pharma production process.
CIMON-2, the latest version of the AI-powered astronaut assistant developed, has demonstrated its capabilities on board the ISS in initial tests.
© 2016 ictbusiness.biz
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Twitter raised the value of its initial public offering Thursday to as much as $1.61 billion as the popular messaging service moved a step closer to Wall Street.
The IPO suggests a market value for the social network of between $9.3 billion and $11.1 billion—a conservative amount compared to estimates by some analysts in recent weeks.
In a regulatory filing, Twitter boosted the IPO amount from an earlier estimate of $1 billion, saying it would sell 70 million shares in a price range between $17 and $20 a share.
Michael Pachter at Wedbush Securities said the pricing range is “well below the recent sales of private shares, which were at $27 to $28.”
He said this appears intended to avoid the mistake of Facebook in its 2012 IPO of flooding the market with shares.
“I think the company intends to create a lot of demand, and they are intentionally keeping the size small to make sure that demand exceeds supply. That should happen at this pricing,” Pachter told AFP in an email.
Lou Kerner, of the Social Internet Fund, said the market was likely to value the shares “markedly higher” than $17-20.
“So this initial range leaves the opportunity to up the eventual IPO price, which would comfort the market that there’s strong demand, and still leave room for a nice pop on the first day of trading,” he said.
Read more at: Phys.org


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Your two-minute digest
1 The government’s taxes on buying a home have become a significant earner for the Treasury, according to figures from Revenue and Customs, which show that stamp duty receipts reached a record high of more than £9.5 billion in 2017.
2 Apple is being investigated over whether it misled investors about slowing the performance of older iPhones. The growing scandal could result in the technology company being forced to pay tens of millions of pounds in compensation.
3 Facebook has cut the time that its users spend on its network by 50 million hours a day as it attempts to stamp out hate speech, violent videos and Russian propaganda. Shares in the technology company and publisher fell after Mark Zuckerberg, its founder and chief executive,


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Ford and Chrysler have found a way to do well by seeming to do good.
The auto makers plan to build hundreds of thousands of vehicles that can burn ethanol, gasoline or a blend of both. Ethanol, a type of alcohol often made from corn, is predictably popular with farmers, who promote its use as reducing oil imports.
But making dual-fuel vehicles also helps auto makers reap huge credits toward Federal fuel-economy standards, allowing them to sell more gas-guzzling but profitable sport utility vehicles.
Credits count even if car buyers never purchase ethanol. The United States has 40 ethanol filling stations and 190,000 gas stations. Ford insists that more ethanol stations may open if there are more cars and pickup trucks that burn the fuel. But ethanol costs 15 percent more per mile than gas. KEITH BRADSHERContinue reading the main story


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ITIDA, three U.S. entities promoting Egypt as hub for IT services, lure more investments
Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), part of the Egyptian Ministry of Communications, is collaborating with three U.S. entities to promote Egypt as a hub for IT services and eventually allure more American investments.
ITIDA has participated in the “Egypt: Your Hub for IT Services” webinar, organised by the U.S.-Egypt Business Council, the Embassy of Egypt in Washington, in collaboration with the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt (AmCham).
The webinar aimed at encouraging and supporting foreign and U.S. investors seeking to enhance their global presence and leverage Egypt as a global hub for IT/ITES and technology innovation.
Ambassador of Egypt to the U.S. Motaz Zahran, along with Steve Lutes, executive director of the U.S.-Egypt Business Council; Amr Mahfouz, ITIDA’s CEO; Hisham Fahmy, CEO of the AmCham Egypt, and representatives of several major Multinational companies have attended the webinar.
Egypt’s ICT sector has recently witnessed remarkable economic indicators. The sector is expected to achieve a growth rate amounting to 16 percent during the current financial year. The value of the sector’s domestic product increased from 93.5 billion Egyptian pounds to 107.7 billion pounds ($5.9 billion to $6.8 billion), during the last financial year, with a contribution of 4.4 percent to the GDP.
Furthermore, the value of digital exports improved from $3.6 billion to $4.1 billion.
“Egypt is undergoing major digital transformation, much of which could be attributed to its regional leadership, connectivity and digital literacy.” Ambassador Motaz Zahran said.
“Egypt’s commitment to building the ICT sector is part of the broader Digital Egypt Initiative, which adheres to three key pillars, namely, digital transformation, digital skills and jobs, and digital innovation.”
On the legislative and regulatory side, he noted that the Egyptian government has made legal reforms to in consumer protection, intellectual property, personal data protection, and digital signature.
The Egyptian ambassador highlighted that the government has strategically and heavily invested in developing its ICT infrastructure and expanding the fibre optics across the country, resulting in tangible outcomes, as Egypt came 2nd in Africa in internet speed, with an average speed of 33Mbps.
ITIDA’s CEO Amr Mahfouz said Egypt’s ICT sector is witnessing great development, where a large number of national-scale initiatives and projects are being implemented to enhance Egypt’s position on the global ICT industry map.
Mahfouz emphasised Egypt’s resilience during the global pandemic due to the government’s strategic infrastructure investments, contrary to other ICT markets.
ITIDA is extending unprecedented support in areas of human capacity building and developing digital skills, by offering training programs on a national scale in high technology and IT tracks, in addition to providing scientific degrees in partnerships with prestigious universities and global tech players, he added.
“Egypt’s ICT sector is steadily growing in terms of its aggregate contribution to the GDP”, Mahfouz noted.
“To take full advantage of the innovation and technologies, we believe that it is vital to maximise the potential for our partnerships, explore new collaborations, both with longstanding businesses that have been doing business in Egypt and newly created startups, to tap into that entrepreneurial community,”
Steve Lutes, Executive Director of the U.S.-Egypt Business Council, said: “Egypt’s digital economy has seen accelerated adoption of technologies and innovation in magnitudes of growth during the pandemic.”
Moreover, Hisham Fahmy, CEO of AmCham Egypt, said: “Egypt’s ICT sector is a main contributor to the country’s GDP which supports attracting more investments to Egypt.” Fahmy asserted on the necessity to the continued development to keep pace with disruptive technological, especially artificial intelligence and cyber security.
During the webinar, Amani Rabie, ITIDA’s VP for Markets Development, reviewed the investment opportunities available in the Egyptian ICT sector and showcased the value proposition of Egypt as a favourite destination for IT and business services.
Rabie referred that more than 40 U.S. Tech and non-tech companies are already working in Egypt where they are leveraging the country’s capabilities in the offshoring industry and where they have opted to outsource their IT services and shared services centers to Egypt.
The webinar also discussed enhancing bilateral trade between Egypt and the U.S., and the existing investment opportunities in the sector.
In this regard, Mahfouz stated: “We look forward to further cooperation opportunities and to attract more direct investments from the United States, as we encourage US companies to expand their business operations in Egypt.”
“Such opportunities always instill exchange of experience, latest technologies, and know-how, in addition to deepening the strategic relationship between both countries.” he added.
Egypt has been ranked 15th globally in the latest Kearney report; “Global Services Location Index 2021.
The North African country has recorded 5.62 percent in the index, retaining its top spot in the Middle East and Africa region.


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The Greater Victoria Development Agency and Chemistry Consulting present Victoria Economic Outlook 2013, Feb. 26 at the Victoria Conference Centre. Speaking about the prospects for this year are Dallas Gislason, the agency’s economic development officer; Dan Gunn, executive director of the Victoria Advanced Technology Council (VIATeC), Tourism Victoria board chair Dave Cowen and Starfish Medical CEO Scott Phillips. The event runs from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Tickets are $25 each, available at chemistryconsulting.ca or by calling 250-382-3303.
Finance minister at luncheon
Hot on the heels of the 2013 provincial budget announcement, B.C. Finance Minister Mike DeJong is speaking at the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce luncheon Feb. 20. Attendees of the event can learn more about how the budget may impact their businesses. The lunch runs from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Victoria Marriott Inner Harbour, 728 Humboldt St. Cost is $50 for members, $75 for non-members plus HST. To register, visit victoriachamber.ca or call 250-383-7191.
Downsizing Diva comes to town
Seniors looking to scale back their living arrangements are the focus of Cathy Haynes, the first franchisee in Greater Victoria for Toronto-based Downsizing Diva. The company, in business for nearly 12 years, co-ordinates moves from start to finish for elderly clients moving from family homes to smaller spaces. Find more information at www.downsizingdiva.com or by calling 250-634-3207.
Marketing green business strategy
Putting green business practices into a company’s marketing plan is the topic of an upcoming luncheon hosted Feb. 28 at the Union Club by Sales and Marketing Executives Victoria. Guest speakers are Deirdre Campbell of Tartan PR and Jill Doucette of Synergy. The luncheon happens at 11:45 a.m. and is open to anyone. Tickets are $49 for non-members of the group and are available at smevictoria.com.
Who’s making news in Victoria
Esquimalt’s Robin Dirks, whose blog dirtyrottenparenting.com is a lighthearted reflection on parenting challenges, placed second in the humour category recently in the Canadian Weblog Awards … Tracy Lowe has a new sewing and consignment clothing business, Coastal Design Clothing, at 3198 Quadra St. Lowe, who has sewn professionally for 20 years, offers walk-in service plus in-house fitting for people with mobility issues.
Send your business news items to firstname.lastname@example.org.


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Viacom loads up Joost for Web
EmptyViacom Inc. on Tuesday announced a partnership with Web television service Joost that will make its content available for free on the Internet.
The announcement comes just two weeks after Viacom demanded that Google-owned YouTube remove 100,000 clips from its site because of copyright violations.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Joost, now in beta mode, boasts that its technology is "piracy-proof" and guarantees copyright protection for content owners.
Under the agreement, programming from Viacom's MTV Networks, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures will be available on Joost.com. The company will provide new and old tele-vision programing on the site, with such shows as "Real World," "Flavor of Love" and "Beavis & Butt-head" and full-length feature films from Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage and Paramount Classics.
"We're extremely pleased to be working with Joost," said Philippe Dauman, Viacom president and CEO. "We're determined to keep pushing and growing our digital presence and bring our programming to audiences on every platform and device that they want."
Joost was founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, who also started Internet telephone company Skype Ltd. and the Kazaa file-sharing network. The company prides itself on broadcast-quality resolution.
"We built this platform from the ground up with companies like Viacom in mind," Friis said. "Our platform provides scalable distribution in a completely safe environment that protects the interest of content owners and advertisers while delighting viewers."
In addition to the programming, the service also will provide links to related Web sites, instant messaging, message boards and news tickers.


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PHILADELPHIA - Stan Lee, whose career writing comic books has run from the golden age to contemporary times, is going digital.
Boom! Studios said Monday that the man who helped create modern marvels like the Fantastic Four and X-Men will see his current crop of comic series available online and on mobile devices through his own app by way of the Los Angeles-based comic and graphic novel publisher.
Dubbed the "Stan Lee Boom! Comics App," the program is being offered through Apple's iTunes app store. Lee's superhero comic series "Soldier Zero," "The Traveler" and "Starborn" are also being made available through it and through Boom!'s own app.
The comics come with a free preview of the first issues but cost $1.99 for subsequent issues. The iVerse Media-developed app will also be linked to Lee's Twitter musings.
The titles will also be available for download on desktops, including Windows and Mac, through ComiXology, Graphic.ly, iVerse and MyDigitalComics.
The three new series, penned by Lee, made their debut last year in association with his company, Pow! Entertainment.
Lee said that given the proliferation of comic books into the digital sphere, it made sense to bring his own titles to market that way, too.
"What's great about releasing this app is that it enables us to bring the joy and wonder of comics to the mobile fan and a whole new generation of readers," Lee said. "Comics are a medium that transcends age, appealing not only to today's young readers, but older ones as well. And by giving them an unprecedented level of access, we're ensuring that the fantastic stories, characters and worlds found only in comics will endure for many years to come."
Digital comics have gained popularity and acceptance in recent months with most, if not all, major publishers - DC, Marvel, IDW, Dark Horse, Zenescope Entertainment, among others - embracing the platform. It lets comic readers carry their favorite titles on their phone or access them on their laptop without having to cart around numerous issues.
Boom!, whose roster of titles include "Irredeemable," "Dracula: The Company of Monsters" and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," has put its lineup in its own app, too.
"With the easy accessibility of digital comics, we're excited to be able to turn everyone with a computer, iOS or an Android device into a lifelong comics fan," said Chip Mosher, marketing director of Boom! Studios. "Anyone who's ever been curious to try comics now has the power to read them instantly with just a click of a button."


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Samsung hasn't yet announced any standalone VR headset. Its HMDs so far have relied upon its powerful flagship smartphones for the processing power and screens, making them accessibly priced routes to VR experiences for many folk. However, in a partner press release, it has been announced that Visual Camp's VR eye-tracking technology will work with Samsung's upcoming Exynos VR III all-in-one HMD.
Visual Camp says its eye-tracking for mobile HMD tech caused a stir at last week's MWC Shanghai event. The tech is incorporated in Samsung's next-generation all-in-one Exynos VR III HMD. Such technology improves VR and AR experiences thanks to its natural response. Visual Camp help improve the experience by smartly improving the resolution on the areas of screen being viewed - that makes the best use of the GPU processor, as peripheral areas don't need to be so sharp or detailed. The rendering technique is known as 'foveated rendering'.
In internal testing Visual Camp eye-tracking added a mere 3 per cent to the processing burden. That's important because there are several other real-time technologies that could be in play, beyond the visual rendering, such as hand tracking, voice recognition, and facial expression recognition.
UploadVR has published a product shot from MWC Shanghai revealing some further tech details of Samsung's unannounced HMD. In the image above you can see that the Exynos VR III is an advancement on the also unreleased Exynos VR II. Key tech specs include; a 10nm LPE FinFet SoC which contains an ARM Mali G71 MP20 GPU, an M2 Dual 2.5GHz plus Cortex-A53 quad 1.7GHz processor. The HMD appears to offer a choice of displays; either dual WQHD+ panels at 90Hz, or a single 4K panel at 75Hz. Looking at the hardware photo provides evidence of various components such as front facing cameras and sensors.
Whether this prototype, or reference design, is on its way to market as a finished product remains to be seen. Remember, Samsung hasn't announced this - a partner company just announced that its eye tracking technology is incorporated.


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Following public introductions of exciting 2014 motorcycles such as the all-new Suzuki V-Strom 1000 ABS and the new Burgman 200 ABS, plus enticing promotional offers, Suzuki gives consumers several strong reasons to visit a Suzuki dealer this month. While the latest 2014 products aren’t yet in dealerships, consumers will find class-leading motorcycles, scooter and ATVs, as well as easy ways to buy, including the new GSX-R Loyalty Trade-in Event.
“We met thousands of customers at the AIMExpo in Florida and the first International Motorcycle Show stop in northern California, and most are eager to try something new,” said Larry Vandiver, vice president for Suzuki Motor of America, Inc. “We are excited to show these enthusiasts a range of new products, and to offer them a variety of ways to purchase a new Suzuki vehicle.”
SMAI created the GSX-R Loyalty Trade-In Event to help existing GSX-R owners trade up to a new sport bike. Owners can trade up to a Suzuki GSX-R750, GSX-R1000 or Hayabusa sport bike and receive a $1,000 Loyalty Trade-In Allowance, plus the advantages of Suzuki’s other promotional offerings. This trade-in event, available to owners of GSX-R600, GSX-R750, or GSX-R1000 sport bikes, runs through Dec. 31.
Through a combination of similarly attractive promotions and enticing products, SMAI has helped deliver another quarter of strong financial results to Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC), its parent company. SMC reported a strong second quarter (July through September) for its motorcycle business, with net sales up 22.9 percent over the same period last year, due mainly to an increase of sales in Europe and North America. It marks the company’s second consecutive period of increased sales.
Suzuki dealers also have inviting ways to put riders on Suzuki RM-Z motorcycles. For a limited time, Suzuki dealers have RM-Z250 and RM-Z450 motocross bikes in a demo program, allowing them to let racers and interested riders experience the performance of the award-winning Suzuki RM-Z motorcycles. Following the Monster Energy Cup-winning performance of Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing’s James Stewart, plus stellar reviews in the motocross press, the Suzuki RM-Zs are increasingly popular. This program runs through Nov. 15.
To give all motorcycle, scooter and ATV enthusiasts attractive options to buy, SMAI recently announced its Holiday Sales Event. Running through Dec. 31, this event gives consumers the option of financing as low as 0 percent for five years, or 1 percent for seven years, on nearly every Suzuki vehicle.
“We have delivered a variety of great motorcycles, scooters and ATVs this year, and Suzuki dealers are committed to helping consumers buy the Suzuki they want,” said Rod Lopusnak, general manager-national sales for SMAI. “Suzuki dealers make financing simple and affordable, whether consumers are looking for a high-performance GSX-R, an entry-level GW250, a class-leading KingQuad ATV, or any Suzuki vehicle.”
Suzuki dealers are currently carrying several 2014 vehicles, including the updated KingQuad ATVs and Suzuki Boulevard B.O.S.S. cruisers. Motorcycles just introduced, like the V-Strom 1000 ABS and the Burgman 200 ABS, will be in dealerships in early 2014.


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The falling rental rates provide a silver lining for online retailers amid the current retail slump.These retailers have a chance to venture offline and into shopping malls. Last month, for example, online furniture retailer HipVan opened its permanent 11,000 sq ft flagship store at The Cathay in Dhoby Ghaut.
Lifestyle retailer Naiise similarly opened its 8,500 sq ft flagship store in that mall last June. Other online retailers, such as Reebonz, Love Bonito and Ohvola, have opened short-term stores in Suntec City and Orchard Gateway, to catch shoppers who want to see, touch or try on a product before buying.
The islandwide vacancy rate for retail space was 7.5 per cent at the end of last year, up from 4.5 per cent at the end of 2013, Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) data showed.
The Median rental rate per sq ft per month for the Orchard Road area is $9.82, the first time it fell below $10. The median rental rate for retail space in the third quarter of last year was the lowest on record.
The median rental rate for retail space in the third quarter of last year was the lowest on record, falling to $9.82 per sq ft per month for the Orchard Road area – the first time it fell below $10, according to URA data.
Naiise has five other stores in malls such as Westgate and 112 Katong, which offer self-collection services for online orders. Its online plus offline strategy has paid off, with its six retail stores combined now generating more revenue than its online store.
HipVan co-founder Danny Tan, 33, said the retail slump has benefited his business, which now occupies the space formerly rented by sportswear brand Adidas. The store is seven times larger than HipVan’s previous pop-up space in Millenia Walk and Suntec City. It features more than 1,000 of HipVan’s bestsellers, including beds, dining tables and rugs. Its website attracts 200,000 to 300,000 views a month, while revenue has been growing by 12 per cent on average every month.
Meanwhile, high-end fashion retailer Reebonz, whose lease for its pop-up boutique in Suntec ends next year, is moving into its own eight-storey building in Tampines this month. The building will house a permanent showroom.


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JASPER, Ind. (Dec. 16, 2011) - Stens, LLC, a global supplier of replacement parts for the outdoor power equipment industry, announced today that it will expand its headquarters here, creating up to 98 new jobs by 2015.
Stens, a division of Ariens Company, will invest $2.28 million to purchase, renovate and equip a 208,400 square-foot building at 1220 Power Dr. on the city's south side. Renovations on the facility, which will house the company's headquarters and distribution center, will begin next month. Operations will transfer to the new site in August when facility upgrades are expected to be complete.
"Stens is a true Hoosier success story and their continued expansion and global presence further establish Indiana as an international leader for business," said Governor Mitch Daniels. "Our low-tax policies and skilled workforce continue to attract jobs to all corners of our state and give global leaders like Stens the opportunity to succeed."
Stens launched in 1970 out of a one-room garage in Jasper as a seller and repairer of outdoor power equipment. The company has since expanded to more than 300 associates globally with distribution centers in six states and five countries. Stens, which currently has 180 employees in Indiana, will begin hiring new headquarter and distribution associates in Jasper within the next three months.
"Stens continues to expand our global market share with highly skilled associates and a leveraged infrastructure to grow in a very competitive global marketplace," said Peter Ariens, global aftermarket president of Stens. "We believe the state of Indiana is investing wisely in a strong business environment. Stens has thrived in Indiana over the past 40 years and we want to continue to be a part of that local, regional and state momentum."
Stens is an international supplier of replacement parts for the outdoor power equipment, landscape, rental, golf and construction industries. With 50,000 customers worldwide, the company exports goods to more than 50 countries, including Australia, Brazil, New Zealand and Ireland.
The Indiana Economic Development Corporation offered Stens, LLC up to $750,000 in conditional tax credits based on the company's job creation plans. These tax credits are performance-based, meaning until Hoosiers are hired, the company is not eligible to claim incentives. The city of Jasper has approved additional tax abatement at the request of the Dubois County Area Development Corporation.
"I am delighted that Stens is staying in Jasper and that they are growing," said Jasper Mayor Bill Schmitt. "I think that the excellent workforce in southwest Indiana helped play a large part in the company's decision to expand here. I would encourage other businesses looking to expand or to relocate to consider Jasper and Dubois County."
Stens' announcement to expand its Dubois County headquarters comes just over a month after AFCO Racing Products, a division of Speedway Motors, announced plans to expand in nearby Warrick County. The company will invest $3.7 million to purchase and equip a new retail facility in Boonville, adding up to 61 new jobs by 2014.
Stens is an international supplier of original and replacement parts for most major brands of outdoor power equipment. Stens is a respected member of the Outdoor Power Equipment Aftermarket Association, the American Rental Association, Golf Course Superintendents Association, STAFTDA, and other local and regional associations. Through its international businesses, Bynorm, Sovde, and Countax, Stens continues to build a global replacement parts brand. Stens, LLC is a subsidiary of Ariens Company, a manufacturer of premier lawn and garden equipment. For more about Stens and its products, visit www.stens.com.
Created by Governor Mitch Daniels in 2005 to replace the former Department of Commerce, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation is governed by a 12-member board chaired by Governor Daniels. Dan Hasler serves as the chief executive officer of the IEDC.
The IEDC oversees programs enacted by the General Assembly including tax credits, workforce training grants and public infrastructure assistance. All tax credits are performance-based. Therefore, companies must first invest in Indiana through job creation or capital investment before incentives are paid. A company who does not meet its full projections only receives a percentage of the incentives proportional to its actual investment. For more information about IEDC, visit www.iedc.in.gov.
Mitzi Keifer (Stens) - 812.482.2526 or firstname.lastname@example.org
Katelyn Hancock (IEDC) - 317.234.2294 or email@example.com
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Google has just announced their latest Android phone, the Galaxy Nexus, with some impressive specifications... but how does it stack up to other smartphones on the market?
Microsoft sold just 1.2 million Lumia Windows phones last quarter
JESBOD QY13 sports Bluetooth earphones
Expanding mobile photography with Aukey's wide-angle lenses
Have you upgraded your PC to Windows 10?
The Vimtag P1: A great home monitoring cam with a few kinks
Samsung Galaxy S7 edge Lens Cover
In a move that will surely have Android modders revving their engines, HTC has announced that they will begin rolling out updates to unlock the bootloaders this Fall. HTC is currently testing updates with support...
A few months ago, T-Mobile customers were furious when the company drastically reduced its fair usage policy on handset data packages, from 1GB or 3GB, down to a feeble 500MB (although existing customers were later...
The HTC Sensation is HTC’s first venture into the dual-core smartphone market, and despite other market offerings delivering some Tegra 2 power inside, HTC decided to stick with their trusted Qualcomm processors this time. Combine...


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PERSONAL NOTE: Many many rural people and those now returning home from working for years in cities are now engaging in e-commerce. We are seeing more and more both young and old people are learning some computer knowledge and skills to sell their products to consumers across China. And the government is actively involved in building the necessary infrastructure to encourage such individual enterprises. It is growing at a fast speed in many rural areas. steve, march 14, 2019 email@example.com https://getting2knowyou-china.com
E-commerce driving development in nation’s rural areas
Updated: Mar 14, 2019 China Daily
The Chinese government’s investment in roads, water projects, logistics, and internet facilities in rural areas has enabled the rise of e-commerce entrepreneurs seizing new opportunities throughout the country. Many former migrants who once worked in factories or as deliverymen in cities in eastern China are now returning to their hometowns and establishing businesses.
The central government recently called for increased efforts promoting supply-side structural reform in the agricultural sector, to achieve food security while building a modern and efficient industry.
By the end of 2017 rural e-commerce had created more than 1.3 million new jobs, with total transactions for the year hitting 120 billion yuan ($17.88 billion), according to Alibaba.
“Many young people return from urban areas to open e-shops. They collect the products; they packagethem; they even create the brand name. E-commerce provides opportunities for these people to earn their income,” said Li Xiaoyun, professor of development studies at China Agricultural University.
“There are lots of opportunities in non-agricultural activities, such as rural tourism or selling local products. For example, Yunnan farmers sell raw brown sugar from sugar cane and honey from bees raised on tea plantations,” he said.
“E-commerce provides access so that both the consumer and the producer can meet in a timely way. This provides a very efficient way to link the producer and the consumer. Many of these small e-commerce companies and small traders use e-commerce to link the market and producers. That is something new and it has solved many problems,” Li said.
Selling through large platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, or Pinduoduo allows rural people to connect with urban consumers, but government infrastructure and organizational support is needed to make the system work.
The government of Gansu province in northwestern China for example is working with the Asian Development Bank to encourage rural e-commerce opportunities throughout the province.
“The government realizes that in Gansu, which is less developed, you need a lot of services to organize the farmers, to standardize production, then to market that through e-commerce. Rural e-commerce is everywhere, but less so in the less-developed provinces. So you really need to catalyze it a little bit more,” said Jan Hinrichs, a natural resources economist at the ADB, who works directly on the Gansu project.
He said that intermediary companies providing agricultural services are needed to make e-commerce work. “It’s not just the individual farmer who puts a product on Taobao. That is a niche, but you can’t do much with that. You need to have quality-assurance labels, sampling, packaging, marketing and sorting,” he said.
He says the ADB is working with seven enterprises – some public, some private – to build a platform that connects with major e-commerce players like Alibaba and JD. “It is really a contract-farming relationship. The farmers have their own land, but access a stable market through these e-commerce platforms, which also provide logistics plus fertilizers and pesticides.”
“People use this opportunity to build their own service shop. Some of these agro-enterprises are buying drones to provide a service, screening farms for where fertilizers or pesticides are to be applied. They can spray fertilizers and pesticides with these drones in a very targeted way.
“All of that will become available, so if you need to grow potatoes according to certain standards to make potato chips, you need to comply with standards. It makes the contract-farming relationship much easier by reducing transactions costs with the integrator and the individual farmer,” Hinrichs said.
Hinrichs estimated that the project in Gansu is creating 1,700 full-time jobs. “If you give a market to farmers where they can sell their products, reliably they can increase their income.”
Li had praise for the government, saying that its “investment in physical infrastructure in western China has made a big difference in living standards. Many remote and mountainous areas can produce a lot of local products, but transportation was a problem. You could not access these areas.
“There were no paved roads and transportation costs were very high. The logistics services companies were not able to really reach these people. During the last seven years, paved road access and Wi-Fi coverage has enormously improved.”
Li has worked with Hebian, a village in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province. “Traveling 10 kilometers on a local road took more than an hour. The costs for any trucks and transportation were very high. It was not only time consuming, but really ate up a lot of energy. There were no 4G or mobile connections. Now the whole village is covered by Wi-Fi.”
“By 2020 in terms of income targets and related targets in education and health, according to the latest data, China will achieve its objectives by 2020. However rural poverty will not disappear. It will continueto exist in different terms.
“Therefore there must be a rural revitalization strategy that will continuously reduce poverty in the future,” Li said.


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Research students at ETHZ designed and built a pretty cool nautical robot based on the tuna.
Archive for June, 2010
A German design firm has created a modular humanoid robot.
The DLR’s robot Justin may one day fix satellites in space!
Hitachi has finally shown some progress on their EMIEW 2 helper robot.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 adds some fresh ideas to the mix while retaining the magic and fun of the original. You just have to play it!
TOSY, a Vietnamese robotics firm, unveiled a new humanoid service robot in Germany.
An army of NAOs perform Tai Chi at the Shanghai World Expo 2010.
Jaemi HUBO’s unfortunate accident in early May 2010 is now just a bad memory.


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17 April 2015
At SparkOptimus, we try to highlight the most important news and background stories in digital, e-commerce and retail. Here is our selection of last week’s news:
Another strong year for U.S. e-commerce, with web sales of top 500 merchants outgrowing total retail in 2014. The total e-commerce growth for the number one in the Global Retail E-Commerce Index was 15,4%, comparable to 14,8% in Canada. Once again, Amazon.com is the top-ranked retailer, although other companies are making their way to the top. Last Tuesday, e-commerce software firm Shopify filed for IPO. Peer-to-peer shop Etsy went public on Thursday and doubled its opening price on the first day of trading. More e-commerce IPOs can be expected, as the focus on Internet of Everywhere (IoE) is increasing: “E-tailers will benefit from having everyone online, as it will allow them to reach consumers from further around the world.” Zuckerberg is hinting on expanding the Internet.org project beyond developing countries in India, Zambia and Colombia to Europe. Google’s Project Loon, bringing internet through hot air balloons, is also progressing with trials exceeding expectations so far. Next to Loon, Google invested in Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which aims to spread internet connectivity worldwide by sending hundreds of tiny satellites into space. The scope of Musk’s plan is however bigger than the Earth: he wants to fund an entire Mars colonization mission, while building a transmission system between the two planets in the next 12-15 years. That should give him more than enough time to optimize the landing of the SpaceX rockets.


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Copycat chic? Beyonce accused of stealing design for her studded leggings from little-known Icelandic label
With her short blonde hair and inked back, Beyonce looks like the ultimate rock chick in the new campaign for her fashion label, Dereon.
But the singer's studded leggings became the subject of controversy today, after an Icelandic label accused her of copying their design.
E-label claim that Beyonce purchased an almost identical pair from their concession in London's Topshop in November last year.
Rock chick: Beyonce wears House of Dereon's studded leggings in the new campaign - but Icelandic brand E-label say the singer has copied their design
Helba Hallgrimsdottir, who co-owns the brand, said: 'I didn’t twig straight away that this was her own label: I just thought she was wearing our leggings.
'It is practically just copy-paste.'
E-label has not yet decided whether there is a case for legal action. Ms Hallgrimsdottir said: 'No decision has yet been taken.
'We need to inspect her brand’s trousers closer because, according to law, it is not copied if a certain number of things have been changed from the original design.'
Similarities: E-label's Heavy Metal Leggings, which they claim Beyonce purchased from their Topshop concession in November last year
She added that though E-label's design was not copyrighted, the media coverage of the singer's shopping trip was likely to be adequate evidence to prove the design had been plagiarised.
Shopping trip: Beyonce in London in November, when E-label claim she purchased a pair of their leggings
The Dereon label, which is designed by Beyonce and her mother, Tina Knowles, was launched in 2006.
It is a lower-priced sister line for House of Dereon, the original collection created by the pair in 2004. Both labels take their name from the singer's maternal grandmother, Agnez Dereon.
Speaking about the new season campaigns earlier this month, Mrs Knowles said: 'Beyonce and I love the process of developing the direction for the campaigns and working on the shoots.
'I truly believe this is some of our most memorable work to date, and I am so excited for the public to see and react to them.'
Earlier this month a new bill was introduced in the U.S. to protect designers from having their designs copied.
The Schumer bill will require designs to pass the 'squint test', according to the Wall Street Journal.
This means that changing small details, such as moving a button on an imitated garment, will not be an adequate change to prevent it from being a copy.
'If you need to squint to see the difference between two designs, then one is an infringing copy of the other,' the article explained.
'It's an important moment for American designers that this bill is one step closer to becoming law,' said fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez.
'This protection has been necessary for so long and I am happy to see how the fashion industry's efforts have made a difference.'
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Armed cops and a police chopper were scrambled to sleepy Valley Park in the early hours of Thursday morning (June 21) following a burglary at the Tesco Express in Pilgrims Close when three suspects made off with the shop’s tills.
It’s alleged that three men had ram-raided the shuttered store and were pursued in a high speed car-chase. They were captured after they abandoned their vehicle and tried to run off.
Today, Tesco shop staff were unable to use the manual tills without the drawers but the self-service tills were still operating and the store was open for business
Hampshire Constabulary have stated that three men from Southampton have been arrested on suspicion of burglary.
In 2007 two armed robbers were shot dead by police at Chandler’s Ford shopping precinct and in 2012 Waitrose was ram-raided by Motor-Cyclists.


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“Germany is the country that has diversified the most over the last eight years – it’s now a melting pot of styles and production methods.” That’s how Christina Rasmussen, co-founder of Little Wine, describes what is now widely seen as the new wave German wine scene that is helping to re-invent the German wine category, particularly at the premium end of the market, driven by organic, biodynamic, and low intervention, independent winemakers. To help explore what actually is happening across Germany, The Buyer hosted a debate, in partnership with Wines of Germany, with two of the producers hoping to make a difference and with buyers looking to introduce the new style of German wines to potential customers and consumers in the UK.
For too long diners have been missing out on the pleasures of mature Bordeaux, a situation that Bibendum’s revolutionary Bordeaux Collection is fast rectifying. Almost three years since inception the scheme now has 110 accounts and is welcoming Lafite, Barons de Rothschild, Cantenac-Brown, Smith Haut Lafitte, Troplong-Mondot, Lynch-Bages and Figeac into the fold. Anne Krebiehl MW talks to the team behind Bordeaux Collection and argues that its approach could be seen as a total reset for the on-trade’s fine wine offering.
For the first time in the UK a new vintage of Brunello di Montalcino was released en primeur. Benvenuto Brunello was the name given to Hunt & Speller’s exclusive London preview of the Brunello di Montalcino 2018 vintage and the 2017 Riservas, some two months before the Consorzio’s official January 1 2023 release date. Justin Keay was there for The Buyer, giving his views on the vintages as well as picking a dozen standout wines from the 115 on show.
It’s not just the products and brands that enter the 2023 London Spirits Competition that are stars of the show, but the panel of judges that have been lined up to assess them and hand out the medals. Only drinks professionals with direct bar, restaurant, retail or spirits background are invited to take part with a line-up of talent that includes some of the most influential names in the world of spirits. Here’s who is taking part.
If you are looking forward to getting a new tasting diary in your Christmas stocking here’s a new date and event to look forward to, which also won’t take up too much space as it is only three letters long: VIN. A new tasting event being organised by Business France on February 2 that promises to be a one stop shop opportunity to explore and discover gems from all regions of France from producers already in the UK and many who are looking to sell their wines here for the first time. Here’s what to expect.
Over the last few weeks panels of every day wine drinkers and wine trade professionals have been analysing, checking, tasting and scoring flights of wines and spirits as part of the judging for both what is the sixth People’s’ Choice Wine Awards and the third People’s Choice Spirits Awards. Judging sessions were held in both Manchester and London to get a more diverse set of judges from different backgrounds. Here Janet Harrison, founder of both competitions, explains how the judging went, announces the shortlists and picks out some highlights for how the 2023 awards are going to be run.
Over the last 18 month Distill Ventures has extended its investment programme to support new start-up drinks brands, by starting a Pre Accelerator programme aimed at identifying and then backing new brand launches from entrepreneurs from marginalised communities. To date it has been able to invest $5 million in a wide range of brands and is now starting its investment programme for 2023. Here we talk to Ara Carvallo, portfolio and I&D Director at Distill Ventures about how it works.
You’ve tasted the wine, now visit the region, says Linda Galloway after a visit to Tokaj, Hungary’s oldest wine region. There are miles of wine caves to explore, new state-of-the-art tasting rooms, historic estates plus a range of gastronomy and hospitality to indulge yourself in. Galloway points out some of the key wineries, plus gives a range of contacts for when you visit Tokaj.
“We look to Burgundy as the global benchmark of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, we are not trying to replicate their wines.” Instead Brendan Hawker says he is looking to pin point which blocks and parcels of vines are going to make the right styles of wine that truly reflect the terroir of Australia’s Yarra Valley in his role as head winemaker at Yering Station. He also looks at how its winemaking has evolved to become focused on the fruit and bringing together complex blends of its key varieties.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Balfour Winery, and the launch of its new Archive Collection, owner and founder Richard Balfour-Lynn held a remarkable vertical tasting of its English sparkling wine, Balfour Brut Rosé, in London this month. Launching the new range is a late-disgorged Brut Rosé from 2008, which is the first wine of its type in the UK, and which gets two thumbs up from our expert at the tasting, Master of Wine and fizz aficionado Anne Krebiehl MW.


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The recently released Inc42 DataLabs Funding Report 2017 quoted the last year as the ‘era of SoftBank India invasion’. With empires like Flipkart, Ola, OYO, Swiggy, Paytm under its control, SoftBank is now eyeing to invade Alibaba’s ecommerce fort, Paytm Mall. Reportedly, Paytm Mall is in talks with SoftBank to raise $600 Mn at a valuation of $2 Bn.
Primavera Capital Group, a China-based investment firm focusing on private equity and special situations opportunities, as well as Singapore state investment arm Temasek Holdings are also expected to participate in this funding round.
As per the media report, the earlier fund infusion in Paytm Mall came internally from SAIF Partners, Alibaba, and Ant Financial. “Because of this, the valuation of the company was never clear. The latest funding from SoftBank and others will clearly put Paytm Mall in the unicorn bracket,” added a Business standard source.
An email sent to Paytm Mall did not elicit any response till the time of publication.
SoftBank: Major Bets In India
The Japanese conglomerate started its India invasion in 2011, betting $200 Mn on the tech company InMobi. Fast forward to 2014, SoftBank shifted its focus to India’s rising consumer internet segment for the next few years, placing its eyes on sectors such as ecommerce, budget hotel providers as well as online grocery, thereby raking in significant stakes in startups such as Snapdeal, OYO and Ola respectively.
However, as 2016-17 called for market correction, prompting even the established players like Snapdeal, Flipkart, Grofers, Zomato to look for a substantial base to survive, the majority of SoftBank’s investments in India got tangled in the web of losses.
It was the end of 2016 when Masayoshi Son led SoftBank started taking command and pitched in for consolidating losses in its Indian investments. While the Snapdeal-Flipkart merger fiasco hit the Japanese conglomerate hard, it did not stop Son from making further bets in the Indian ecosystem through its $100 Bn Vision Fund.
Between April-December 2017 alone, SoftBank has already invested over $5 Bn (almost equivalent to Amazon’s five-year investment target in India) to acquire significant stakes in a few of the major companies in the Indian consumer internet segment. This includes
- May 2017: $1.4 Bn in One97 Communication Ltd. (Paytm)
- August 2017: $2.5 Bn in Flipkart
- September 2017: $250 Mn In OYO
- October 2017: $1.1 Bn in Ola
Further, as reported earlier by Inc42, SoftBank is also said to be in talks with new/existing portfolio companies for the follow-on funding as well as stake buyout rounds. This includes Grofers ($65 Mn funding at a 40% lower valuation), Swiggy ($250 Mn funding), PolicyBazaar (major stake acquisition at a valuation of $800 Mn), Flipkart (buyout of shares at $10 Bn valuation) amongst other speculations.
The results of this aggressive spending are evident too. Just last month, SoftBank posted gains of $74 Mn (JPY 8,069 Mn) on account of the gain on investments made in companies in Southeast Asia and India in the nine-month period ending in December 2017. The gain is in contrast to the loss of $360 Mn (JPY 39,281 Mn) that it incurred during the corresponding period ending December 2016.
The bet on Paytm Mall might help SoftBank reap more profits, as the company is gearing to take on Amazon with its e-grocery division. As per recent reports, Paytm also plans to invest up to $2.5 Bn to grow its nascent online shopping portal business within three to five years as it eyes the top spot currently being fought over by Flipkart and Amazon.
With SoftBank trying to acquire stakes in the Indian unicorns at an aggressive pace, it’s time for the Indian startup ecosystem to fasten its seat belt and get ready for some serious action. As far as the funding in Paytm Mall is concerned, if the deal goes through, the ambitions of Vijay Shekhar Sharma will certainly get wings to fly high in the sky.
[The development was reported by Business Standard.]


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SPARTANBURG, S.C. (August 5, 2019) –For more than 60 years, Denny's has been offering guests a variety of delicious and affordable menu items for breakfast, lunch, dinner and any time in between. And now, Denny's is dishing up even more value than ever before with its new Sirloin Steak & Eggs available starting today for only $8.99 ($10.99 in some markets), offering guests the perfect combination of breakfast and dinner for less.
For a limited time, guests can enjoy Denny's new Sirloin Steak & Eggs, featuring an expertly seasoned USDA choice sirloin steak, crispy hash browns and two fresh eggs. This winning combination is just one of many new and exciting menu items that has been added to the Denny's menu recently. 78 percent of Denny's menu has been updated to reflect new recipes, higher-quality ingredients and more outstanding variety for guests. As a substantial dinner or a hearty breakfast, the new Sirloin Steak & Eggs is yet another reason to come see what's new at Denny's.
“At Denny's, we are devoted to bringing our guests a memorable dining experience each time they enter the doors at any of our restaurants, “said John Dillon, chief brand officer for Denny's. “Our new Sirloin Steak & Eggs at an unbeatable $8.99 price offers our guests even more high-quality options for a great price no matter what time of day and that's a pretty big deal. We've made a lot of these kind of changes recently on our menu, and we look forward to introducing even more craveable and well-priced menu items in the coming months.”
The Sirloin Steak & Eggs entrée is available all day, every day for a limited time. For more information please visit www.dennys.com
About Denny’s Corp.
Denny's Corporation is the franchisor and operator of one of America's largest full-service family restaurant chains, based on the number of restaurants. Denny's has approximately 1,700 franchised, licensed, and company restaurants around the world including 147 restaurants in Canada, Puerto Rico, Mexico, the Philippines, New Zealand, Honduras, the United Arab Emirates, Costa Rica, Guam, Guatemala, the United Kingdom, El Salvador, Indonesia, and Aruba. For further information on Denny's, including news releases, please visit the Denny's website at www.dennys.com or the brand’s social channels via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn or YouTube.


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Flyers alert! Taking smartphone on plane? Beware! Don't do this
Have you ever worried why you are required to put your smartphone on Airplane (flight) mode while flying? Of course, there is a safety aspect to it but it also saves you from burning a hole in your pocket!
The service provided confirmed to the daily that the charges have been levied as the phone got connected to antennas installed on the plane that operate outside an unlimited international roaming plan. Reuters


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As if newspapers and magazine publishers didn’t have enough problems already, what with declining advertising revenue and the difficulty of getting readers to pay via iPad (s aapl) apps and paywalls, the number of competitors they face is expanding almost daily — and it’s not just aggregators like The Huffington Post. High-end group shopping service Gilt Groupe has just launched its own cooking magazine, and the New York Public Library has launched an interesting iPad app that also has a very magazine-like feel. As the tools to publish become cheaper and cheaper, brands are effectively becoming publishers in their own right.
The Gilt Groupe offering, which is called Gilt Taste, is interesting in part because it is targeted at a very specific market: namely, the high-end food afficionado. It looks and reads like a high-quality food or recipe-based magazine that might come from a regular publisher, but it is obviously designed to help promote offers from the Gilt Groupe (which recently closed a $138-million financing that values the company at $1 billion). It’s more than just a catalog, however — Gilt hired the former editor of Gourmet magazine to run it, and it clearly wants to be the equal of any traditional food magazine.
It’s not unusual to have specialty retailers or marketing groups put together a magazine to target a mailing list — American Express and other similar entities publish their own controlled-circulation publications, for example. But while Gilt Groupe has a massive mailing list of its own, filled with people who have expressed interest in buying its high-end discount items, it theoretically has even broader reach via the web, and through apps if it chooses to do that — and it doesn’t charge for them, the way some traditional publications do, because the whole thing is an ad. And it can produce as many similar publications devoted to specific niches (travel, etc.) as it wants with little increase in cost.
Even the New York Public Library has created its own digital magazine, although this happens to be a magazine filled with content about the World Fair in 1939 (other issues will be released in the future, the library said). The iPad app — which is called Biblion — was produced as a way of promoting interest in the library in an age when digital formats are taking over from print (Amazon (s amzn) said it is now selling more Kindle books than hardcover or paperback books combined). And as Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic notes, it is a stunning looking magazine, one that traditional publishes might want to imitate.
Evidence of the ease with which magazine-like experiences can be created by just about anyone are all around us: Flipboard is effectively a new kind of iPad magazine created from Twitter and Facebook and RSS feeds, and it is starting to include traditional media content as well, such as content from Oprah Winfrey’s network and other publishers. Paper.li, which generates a kind of personalized newspaper website from your Twitter feeds, just announced some new features — including the ability to blend multiple accounts or feeds from Twitter — and the addition of Huffington Post publisher Eric Hippeau to its board.
What’s the next step in the blurring of the lines between brands and marketing and media and publishing? Mitch Joel, a social-media consultant and author, says that it could be brands hiring their own journalists and putting out their own publications — filled not with canned marketing messages but actual content. Already, Forbes magazine and other media outlets are running brand-produced content alongside their traditional editorial, and companies like SAY Media are effectively devoted to producing that kind of content or helping brands do it themselves.
So when everyone is a publisher, how do we know what to believe and what not to believe? How do we know when something is a marketing message and when it isn’t? The short answer is that we don’t. For better or worse, everything is media now.
Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Ed Yourdon


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NBA Champion James Worthy asks Quran Clayton, 3, of Rancho Cucamonga what he wants for Christmas Saturday during the 4th Annual Colonies Holiday Miracles event at the Colonies Crossroads shopping center in Upland. (James Carbone/Correspondent)
Mike Cruz, Staff Writer
Created: 12/17/2011 04:54:29 PM PST
UPLAND – More than 100 children from low-income families were treated to a $200 shopping spree and much more as part of the 4th Annual Colonies Holiday Miracles event at the Colonies Crossroads Shopping Center.
Hundreds of volunteers and community members braved blustery winds and chilly early-morning temperatures Saturday to brighten the Christmas holiday for the children and their families.
Each child was given the $200 shopping spree at Kohl’s and Dicks Sporting Goods – which really amounted to between $240-250 thanks to discounts offered by the retailers. They also received breakfast, took pictures with Santa Claus, and were given a full holiday dinner from Albertsons.
An additional 100 families also received a holiday meals that were sponsored by Upland-based developer Colonies Partners.
Rancho Cucamonga resident Debbie Amaya brought her daughter Desiree, 10, and 9-year-old son, Daniel, to the event and enjoyed seeing the community come together for families during the holidays.
“I think it’s a priviledge and a blessing that the kids were able to come out here,” Amaya said.
Santa arrived on an Upland Fire truck to a round cheers. Firefighters and police officers from several local departments accompanied the children and volunteers as they shopped.
With big shopping bags in hand, the children and their adult volunteers left the stores with wide smiles. Seventeen-year-old Sarina Garcia, of Alta Loma, said she enjoyed shopping for clothes with Upland firefighter John Hurt.
The children who participated in the event are from the non-profit Hope Through Housing Foundation, which was created by non-profit affordable housing developer National Community Renaissance (National CORE) to provide services to children and senior citizens.
Each child was chosen based on family need and income.
To read entire story, click here.


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Chinese consumers can now preorder Microsoft's Xbox One.
Sold through mobile carrier China Telecom, the units are available for preorder starting July 28 through JD.com, China's second-largest e-commerce company based on market share, according to Reuters. The preorders will run to July 30 and will also be taken through the mobile social networks Mobile QQ and WeChat. Both of those networks are owned by Tencent Holdings, which has a 17.6 percent stake in JD.com.
The Xbox One itself is scheduled to, a deal that opens the door to millions of potential new customers for Microsoft. China had previously banned sales of foreign-made game consoles, claiming that the devices caused mental harm to children. With the , Microsoft and other manufacturers can now tap into a country where some of their products instead have a nasty habit of reaching customers via the black market. The deal with China Telecom gives Microsoft access to 104 million broadband subscribers.
The specific launch date and price of the console have yet to be determined, a spokesman for China Telecom told Reuters. In the US, the Xbox One with Kinect retails for $500. But a picture leaked last week by Chinese website WPDang shows the price of the console in China at 3,499 Chinese Yuan or RMB ($565). That price includes the tax, according to WPCentral, and throws in three games and a couple of coupons.
The Xbox One will be the first gaming console to sell in China since the lifting of the ban. Microsoft has teamed up with Chinese Internet TV set-top box maker BesTV New Media to build the consoles in Shanghai's Free Trade Zone.


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Back in October, Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Huawei launched its slimmest handset in India. Now the rumors are that the company is planning to release the Android 4.4 KitKat update to the device in January 2014.
Initially when the device was announced and released back in June this year, it came packed with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean OS. The handset received an accolade as well for being one of the slimmest device in the world measuring just 6.18mm. However, the only problem in the handset was the over-heating.
It was speculated that the problem was due to its slim factor and older generation quad-core processor. But the company has not spoken about the complaints so far.
Perhaps the owners with the complaints about the handset, could be satisfied with the latest version of Android update. Moreover, along with the Android KitKat Update, the company is also said to bring about the new version of their proprietary Emotion UI to the device.
Talking about the features of the Android KitKat, it brings Project Svelte UI optimizations, bigger UI icons, removes the widgets from the app drawer, new Hangouts SMS/MMS/Gtalks unified hub, new Email app, new Phone app with nearby search and more. It even lowers the hardware requirements for the Android OS.
Thus we could be looking at the Ascend P6 with all these new features. Sadly, there is no information about whether the update will roll out globally at a time or it will be released phase-wise.


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In some ways, Matrix Fitness and Spa is a gym like any other — there’s exercise equipment and yoga rooms. But new owners Philippe Goix and Regina Brugh have big plans for the 14,000-square-foot …
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In some ways, Matrix Fitness and Spa is a gym like any other — there’s exercise equipment and yoga rooms. But new owners Philippe Goix and Regina Brugh have big plans for the 14,000-square-foot space, and it includes using technology to help people take better control of their health.
The couple took over the gym in August and held a reopening party last month. Once they came in, Goix said, they began adding new types of equipment that help measure fat and muscle levels and bone density. Both Goix and Brugh have backgrounds in health care and were “handpicking the best technology we could find,” Goix said.
Brugh said that no two people’s bodies are alike and by giving people personalized data, they can then take the right steps toward losing weight or eating better. Taking those steps is key to preventing major health issues down the road.
“You can’t rely on one methodology,” she said. “Tuning is easier than fixing.”
The data can be sent directly to an app that people can look at on their phones. It helps give Brugh an idea of what nutrition and exercises to recommend to clients as well. As a 20-year clinician, Brugh said she enjoys having the data on hand.
“I don’t believe in guessing,” she said.
Goix, who is originally from France, moved to the United States in the late 1980s to do a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California in Berkeley. From there, he began working in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley for different healthcare companies. On a visit to Austin, Texas, he met Brugh, who was a clinician working with nutrition.
After the couple got married, they wanted to get out of the healthcare space and move more into preventive care. They found the Matrix space in Denver, and closed on the property quickly, Brugh said.
Insurance is like any other business, Goix said, it’s there to make money. This can mean there’s not as much of an incentive for preventive care, he added.
Oftentimes, when people are at the gym, Goix said, they do the same workout repeatedly and are surprised when they don’t see results. Using technology and data more specific to a person’s body can help them change that.
“People come in, they want to get fit, they want to get better,” Goix said. “I think people need to invest in their own health.”
Besides the equipment that measures specific data in someone’s body, Matrix also has equipment that uses infrared technology. The infrared lasers penetrate directly into cells, kickstarting chemical production that your body does naturally, but slows as it ages, Goix said.
When Goix and Brugh bought the Matrix gym, they also got the workout equipment inside, and kept Hayne Ellis on staff as the director of operations. Ellis said that many of the gym’s 750 members are excited about the changes the couple is making to the gym.
“It’s an infusion of new energy,” he said. “They could have gone anywhere.”
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