text:
Global lockdowns due to COVID have put an emphasis on entertainment in general this year, with gaming and esports both seeing significant boosts. The games industry is still predominantly male, but the number of women playing games and participating in esports continues to grow. In fact, Interpret’s most recent data from NMM: Global Profiles® indicates that female viewership worldwide climbed several percentage points during the pandemic and is approaching 40% of total esports viewers. Women in the UK and South Korea have shown especially strong interest in esports.
Not only is this a positive sign for diversity in the esports business, but professional teams now have an opportunity to appeal to more women in a sector that’s been catering mostly to men. Gen G, for example, is expanding its partnership with female-focused social app Bumble and will be launching an all-female squad, under Team Bumble, to compete in Valorant (Gen G previously launched Team Bumble in 2019 to compete with an all-women’s team in Fortnite). Gen G’s news came hot on the heels of Cloud9’s decision to launch its own all-women’s Valorant team, Cloud9 White (the male team is being renamed Cloud9 Blue).
These are the kinds of moves that will have a direct impact on the long-term health of the esports ecosystem. As more women play and watch esports, a variety of non-endemic brands are likely to enter the space (or return with a new approach) and help expand the sponsorship market. Cloud9 White has already gained the support of AT&T which is invested in “contributing to real, meaningful change in the industry by giving this powerhouse team and other talented women what they need to succeed.” AT&T first got into esports by partnering with ESL Mobile in 2018.
Traditional female athletes are recognizing business opportunities as well, just like their male counterparts. WNBA star Aerial Powers recently launched a “Powerz Up All 2K Female Tournament,” which enjoyed over 26K views on the first day of NBA 2K competition. Powers, who was signed to Ford Models’ Esports and Gaming division, intends to use Twitch streams and esports to promote diversity in gaming. Interpret fully expects the trend of women in esports to gain more traction, especially as key stakeholders realize that a broader audience will be vital to their business.
GPS manufacturer Garmin has introduced a new smartwatch as part of its Instinct product lineup: the Instinct Esports Edition. At $299, the new esports-focused watch is designed to appeal to aspiring and professional streamers and esports pros alike, as it actively monitors heart rate and stress levels during intense gameplay or competition. For streamers who believe that their audience would find the information entertaining, Garmin also offers a new PC streaming tool, STR3AMUP!, for the creation of overlays that let viewers know their heart rate, stress, and “body battery” level in real-time.
While biometric data might seem gimmicky to the average viewer or gamer, as with traditional sports, esports athletes must train for many hours per day and understand how to gain an edge in competition where possible. Instant feedback and long-term data trends on an esports athlete’s body response can allow that player to make necessary changes to ensure that they are competing at the highest level possible during competition.
On its official blog, Garmin pointed out over the summer that esports players can endure over 50 different stress factors during competition and that this contributes to burnout for the esports pro whose career lasts barely more than three years on average. “By tracking, analyzing and making necessary adjustments in their lifestyles based on data provided by their Instinct or fēnix smartwatches, these athletes can shape how their bodies react to the physical and mental pressures of their sports,” the company said.
Health-based technology and performance analytics is likely to be a growth area within the burgeoning esports industry. Garmin is smart to capitalize on this trend, especially if it’s able to position its brand alongside esports ahead of competitors like Apple, Fitbit, and others. Garmin recently partnered with Astralis Group for its new Instinct Esports Edition, and earlier this year sponsored Polish esports organization x-kom AGO. Interpret’s New Media Measure® shows that nearly two-thirds of the Garmin smartwatch userbase already plays games, but just 8% regularly follows esports, so there’s clear room for esports growth among Garmin’s audience.
Year-in and year-out, League of Legends dominates the esports landscape. The LCS Summer Split drew the highest viewership since 2016 with nearly 35 million hours watched, and the 2020 Worlds Championship in Shanghai has been off to a good start as well with at least five matches from the first stage surpassing 1 million viewers. It would be easy for Riot Games to stand back and watch its empire flourish, but the company is actively looking towards the future with new gaming experiences.
Tactical shooter Valorant is one such title, and it’s already on a good path, especially as teams and content creators like Shroud flock to the game while abandoning old standbys like CS:GO. Riot’s digital card game Legends of Runeterra is another contender to grow the publisher’s esports pie. Riot recently announced an official seasonal tournament model for the game and noted that it would have an update on professional play early next year.
Perhaps the most intriguing of Riot’s new games, however, is Wild Rift, a recently released mobile version of League of Legends, which could piggyback on the brand and success of the MOBA. In fact, in Korea the publisher has already aired a commercial for Wild Rift that leverages the star power of League star players (most notably Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok). Given the ubiquity of smartphones, mobile esports has the potential to be massive – across Asia, it’s already a big deal with titles like Honor of Kings, PUBG Mobile and Clash Royale.
In America, MOBA games like Vainglory tried to popularize mobile esports but it hasn’t quite taken off yet. Riot is aware of this and has wisely partnered with heavy hitters Apple and Verizon for a Wild Rift Twitch Rivals event to showcase the game – and of course, to spotlight the new iPhone 12 running on Verizon’s 5G service. According to Interpret’s NMM: Global Profiles®, MOBA is a very popular genre among mobile gamers and esports fans, especially in China, but it still sees more interest on console and PC. The gap between console/PC and mobile for MOBA play among esports fans in America, however, is quite small suggesting there’s plenty of room for MOBA growth across all platforms among esports fans in the U.S.
Chinese technology behemoth Tencent is proceeding with a previously hinted at merger that would create a games and esports streaming giant. Tencent already owns the developer (Riot Games) behind the biggest esports franchise in the world, League of Legends, and next year, it looks like it’ll control the biggest streaming platform as well. Tencent is the biggest shareholder in Huya and owns about a third of DouYu – the company is mediating a stock-for-stock merger deal that would combine these two streaming platforms and yield Tencent a 67.5% controlling stake.
The combined entity would dominate the Chinese streaming landscape with about 80% market share. This would effectively give Tencent the power to be a “gatekeeper” of any and all games or esports content that’s streamed in the country – and considering that China is home to about 1.4 billion people, the potential audience is certainly vast as esports continues to gain traction as an industry. To put the numbers in perspective, Twitch, which is the leading esports streaming platform in the West, has around 17 million daily average visitors, and is reportedly on track to reach around 40 million active viewers in the US some time next year. Huya, meanwhile already has 168.5 million monthly active users (according to its Q2 2020 fiscal report) and DouYu has about 165 million users.
A Huya-DouYu platform will dwarf Twitch when it comes purely to viewership, and that’s going to make it an extremely attractive platform for both endemic and non-endemic brands. It also provides content creators with the potential for larger audiences and the chance to grow their personal brands on a larger scale. Additionally, Tencent, which operates the START cloud gaming service, could enjoy significant synergies by integrating cloud gaming with live streaming on the platform (not unlike what Amazon seems poised to do with newly unveiled Luna and its Twitch platform).
China’s influence on the esports market cannot be overstated. Not only is the 2020 League of Legends World Championship taking place throughout October in Shanghai, but the country is continually at or near the top when it comes to game and esports streaming engagement, according to Interpret’s NMM: Global Profiles®. About 42% of the country streams either esports or game-related videos, far ahead of the US and nearby neighbor South Korea.
Vizio, one of the largest TV manufacturers in the US according to point-of-sale tracker The NPD Group (tied for 2nd with LG in smart TV ownership according to Interpret data), recently signed a deal to include Engine Media’s UMG.TV 24-hour esports channel with Vizio smart TVs that have the SmartCast operating system.
The deal gives Vizio, a brand known among gamers for offering good quality displays at lower cost, access to the growing esports audience while UMG.TV gains a promotional push and the potential for greater awareness and viewership among Vizio TV owners who hadn’t tuned into the channel before. Interpret’s New Media Measure® shows that Vizio TV owners don’t follow esports as regularly as owners of other TV brands, but this deal gives Vizio an opportunity to change that.
UMG.TV, which is also available via Google Play and Apple devices, offers both collegiate and professional esports, and it secured broadcasting rights earlier this year to the Gears 5 Esports Challenger Series and the Overwatch Collegiate Series. The upcoming season also features shows based on Madden NFL 21, NBA 2K, and indie sensation Fall Guys.
The streaming market led by Twitch – which enjoyed an estimated record 5 billion hours watched this summer – is highly competitive and the platforms are continually seeking ways to gain an advantage. Often that means signing popular content creators like CohhCarnage to multi-year deals, but Interpret expects deals of the UMG.TV sort, which leverage device integration, to become more commonplace as the esports pie grows. Streaming is one of numerous market trends Interpret is tracking in its brand-new Esports Replay® product.
Collegiate esports programs have been expanding across North America since 2014. In 2020, as the pandemic temporarily shut down traditional sports, many shifted their attention to esports, and that’s had a direct impact on numerous colleges across America. In the last few weeks alone, we’ve seen the University of Washington launch a dedicated esports program, Fairfield University open an esports lab, and the HBCU Esports Alliance (HEA) and CSL College partner to bring esports competition and academic opportunities to historically black colleges and universities this fall.
Additionally, there’s a growing opportunity for companies to help establish and service the collegiate esports community. Marketing group Playfly Sports acquired Collegiate StarLeague and WorldGaming Network last month so that it can offer esports advisory services and administrative support to schools. Playfly has explicitly said that it wants to help colleges find new revenue sources through esports since many schools have taken a huge hit during the ongoing pandemic.
Tournament organizers and technology providers can now look at colleges and universities as fertile ground to plant new seeds for their businesses. The State University of New York (SUNY), for example, recently teamed up with sports tournament engine platform LeagueSpot and broadband infrastructure company Extreme Networks to facilitate its 2020-2021 Esports League at SUNY colleges across NY. Similarly, the Unified Collegiate Esports Association (UCEA) has partnered with tournament organizer FACEIT to oversee its leagues for the 2020-2021 academic year.
Traditional sports have a vital grassroots component to fuel underlying interest. Leveraging grassroots enthusiasm for esports will not only benefit the industry, but it could become big business in the future just as it has for the NCAA with basketball and football. For students, engaging in esports activities can help foster social connections while also opening their eyes to possible career opportunities in the burgeoning field, whether in broadcasting, marketing, design, engineering, or playing professionally if their skills are strong enough.
Collegiate esports is a win-win for both schools and students, and interest is on the rise among young adults, with esports viewership approaching NCAA football levels, according to Interpret’s New Media Measure®.


text:
Check out the on-demand sessions from the Low-Code/No-Code Summit to learn how to successfully innovate and achieve efficiency by upskilling and scaling citizen developers. Watch now.
However, after making the announcement yesterday, VMWare’s stock dropped more than 1 percent. It dropped another 3.62 percent today, for a total of about 5 percent. That’s much greater than the wider market’s drop of about 2 percent over the same period.
Apparently, the market is unimpressed.
The interpretation by investors, as far as I can tell, is that VMware’s roadmap isn’t enough to counter the slow encroachment by the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, and others on VMware’s high-fee business model — especially when it comes to the cloud.
Intelligent Security Summit
Learn the critical role of AI & ML in cybersecurity and industry specific case studies on December 8. Register for your free pass today.
It’s a tough knock for VMware, because its latest products appear to cover all of the right areas, including the trendy “hybrid cloud” and “Software Defined Networking (SDN).”
What wasn’t to like?
Answering that question requires peeling back the various announcements:
Editor’s note: Our upcoming CloudBeat conference, Sept. 9-Sept. 10 in San Francisco, will be showcasing revolutionary cases of cloud adoption, including how companies are adopting cloud infrastructure to support faster, more efficient applications. Register today!
vCloud Hybrid Service: A defensive play?
First, VMware rolled out a service that offers its customers a hybrid cloud. Until now, VWmare didn’t offer a public cloud component. But on Monday it announced the vCloud Hybrid Service, a public cloud offering that competes against Amazon, Microsoft and others. The move is a big deal because Amazon and Microsoft public clouds don’t run on VMware’s products, which have so far enjoyed dominance in the enterprise. VMware needs to do something quickly to avoid customer defections.
The hybrid offering, which should be available starting in December, offers a lot of promising features. Realizing that Microsoft, Rackspace, and Amazon have built their own versions of a differentiated cloud (they all have their own flavors offering various features), VMware was forced to pour major engineering investments into its offering to make it competitive. See more about its project Zombie and VMware’s investment in Puppet labs, whose technology is behind the latest VMware offering.
The hybrid product is designed mainly to serve VMware’s existing enterprise customers and is therefore more of a defensive play; not a particularly innovative one.
Many of VMware’s large enterprise customers are looking for a way to build or run new Software-as-a-Service apps on a less expensive and faster public cloud. By offering them a public cloud option, VMware enables enterprises to tap into the advantages of that cloud without having to port to a different platform – like an Amazon or Microsoft. VMware customers can move workloads seamlessly between VMware’s private and public clouds.
Indeed, VMware has built the vCloud so that companies can to move workloads on the public back to their private cloud if they want. This makes it more than a hybrid cloud. It’s also a “reversible” cloud (Diginomic provides a good analysis here), a nod to conservative chief information officers of large companies. These CIOs will want to abandon the public cloud if they find it lacks the performance, security, or compliance standards that they expect.
Gartner analyst Chris Wolf and others are critical of VMware, saying it’s pushing technologies that mostly on top of existing enterprise-grade hardware from its partners.
This enables VMware’s customers to remain, effectively, “laggards” by falling back on their existing data center investments without having to grapple with the newer trends toward higher-load, power-efficient cloud data centers. Meanwhile, Amazon, Facebook, and others are building their cloud offerings from the ground up by optimizing layers on top of commodity servers from companies like Taiwan’s Quanta. Businesses that aren’t reliant on VMware should have an easier time embracing such newer, less expensive technology, leaving VMware dangerously dependent on a high-cost older model. Or at least, so the thinking goes.
Support of Cloud Foundry: One more way to lose customers?
Notably, VMware also included vCloud support for the open-source distribution of Cloud Foundry. This is platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that developers use to build applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. Cloud Foundry also runs on Amazon and OpenStack. Supporting CloudFoundry makes sense for VMware: The company is a major stakeholder in Pivotal, the company that operates Cloud Foundry. But what does it mean if VMware’s traditional enterprise customers get to spin up their ambitious new apps on Cloud Foundry with the security of having it all on run on top of an agnostic cloud? Well, they may be tempted later to move away from VMware’s expensive gear elsewhere in their data center. (Update: Industry consultant Ben Kepes has more on this).
This comes at a time when more people see infrastructure being commoditized. Many experts see value moving above the infrastructure layer, to the PaaS level and above, where applications run. VMware isn’t particularly strong there. VWmare’s large ownership stake in Pivotal/Cloud Foundry will help it capture value in PaaS, but only indirectly.
On the good side, the VMWare hybrid announcement featured several other buzzy announcements (there’s a good round-up of these by Ars Technica). These include a desktop-as-a-service offering, which businesses can use to deploy virtual desktops in the cloud to employees without needing any new hardware in their own data centers; and a disaster recovery-as-a-service, which enables customers to automatically replicate applications and data to vCloud Hybrid Service instead of their own data centers.
The VMware cloud offering may incur some unexpected costs. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google all have massive applications of their own that can soak up excess capacity should it occur as they build out their cloud offerings. VMware has no such place to port its excess capacity. It thus may have to eat the cost of its build-out. Building a cloud offering takes time to get it right, and requires significant scale in order to drive costs down, according to Scott Guthrie, the corporate vice president of Microsoft’s developer division. That, in turn, requires a reliable supply chain, and it’s not obvious how VMware will manage it all. Microsoft, for example, has a lot of places it can shift workloads to in order to remain efficient: It runs the upcoming Xbox One video game console, Skydrive, and parts of Bing and Windows Live on Azure. “The challenge with the cloud,” Guthrie told VentureBeat in an interview, “is that you have to get in the game before you can scale.”
(Update: The other cost is the potential fallout with its partners. VMware makes about 85 percent of its revenue through channel partners, and many of them are already serving cloud infrastructure products. VMware was supposed to be handling the virtualization part of things, but now partners may see VMware conflicting with them in the cloud sales channel. More here and here.)
VMware’s software-defined network play: As big as promised?
VMware also announced VMware NSX, the latest step in the company’s efforts to virtualize the data center in the same way that VMware created its business on virtual servers. VMware hopes to steadily remove the hardware that connect and provision servers, replacing it with it with software.
The move brings VMware in full competition with Cisco, which also aims to control the data center with its network offering. (Note that Cisco’s stock did not fall after VMware’s announcement).
The VMware NSX product, available in January, builds upon VMware’s control of the hypervisor, which enables virtual server machines to be built cheaply on top of hardware. NSX allows a company to automate its configurations of servers within the data center. VMware is also offering virtual SAN technology, which for the first time brings flash into the same storage pool as server disks. This follows after VMware’s previous announcement of vCenter Log Insight to track log data from servers. (There’s more good analysis here and here).
Here, VMware is drawing on technology from Nicira, the company it acquired for more than $1 billion more than a year ago. In VMware’s announcement yesterday, it said it is partnering with a number of vendors to help it execute on the NSX plan, including HP, Juniper, and Cumulus. These companies will tie their SDN systems in with VMware’s new network hypervisor. Pricing for this is expected to during the fourth quarter of 2013.
Yet, here again, the question is whether VMware can continue to control the innovation agenda at a time when competitors like Microsoft’s Hyper-V are undercutting it in the area of server virtualization. Reason for market skepticism? The market may be looking at the significant investments VMware has had to make to make all of these announcements, even as the jury is still out on whether it’s all enough to support VMware’s high-cost proprietary software model. Indeed, it all comes at a time when the industry is headed in a different direction: toward open source and more modular plug and play options.
VMware could yet pull all of this off. But the market’s reaction is a sign people still want proof.
(I’m looking forward to discussing some of this on stage at our CloudBeat event in a couple of weeks, where we’ll have major enteprise customers and many of the major vendors attending to debate the best way to move forward with the hybrid cloud.)
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Discover our Briefings.

domain: news


text:
Two Poundworld shoppers have been tricked by a hoax caller who made them crawl around the shop floor for the chance to win PS3,000.
Naomi Desmond, 24, and her 55-year-old mother, Pamela who is disabled were involved in the humiliating prank when a caller, claiming to be from a charity, phoned the Poundworld store in Barnstaple, Devon, and asked its staff to take two customers into the store room for a chance to win the cash.
Following the instructions of the caller, the store's manager and another employee threw water over the two women and drew on their face with pens, before being ordered to ride the women down the aisles in a human horse race.
According to the Metro newspaper, the humiliating ordeal lasted for two hours before the caller said the exercise had ended, and the women left the store.
However, minutes after leaving, Naomi received a call on her mobile from the hoaxer, ordering the pair to return. When they got back to the store to find it closed, they were made to crawl around on their hands and knees outside for half an hour.
Eventually, the staff inside the store stopped the women and phoned head office, at which point they realised the whole ordeal had been a hoax.
Pamela told the publication: "At first it was funny like a game show. It all happened on the shop floor. They were asked to get on to our backs and they rode us up and down the aisle like a horse race. But afterwards we felt embarrassed. We genuinely thought it was head office. I'm disabled so that makes it even worse and the caller knew."
Poundworld have offered Naomi and Pamela a PS200 voucher as an apology, but the women are reportedly looking to sue the discount giants.


text:
Here is this week’s news round-up for home business, micro business, sole-traders, freelancers, self-employed and any one who is interested in small business news from India:
- Intuit CEO looks to the future of small business: Mobile. Social. Global. That’s where Brad Smith sees small business heading, and he’s a guy who should know. As president and CEO of Intuit, maker of QuickBooks, the future of his company is closely aligned with the future of all small businesses.
- Search Engine Marketing Hyper Killing Small Businesses: More power to you. In actuality, unfortunately, you probably just hired a teenager from India with an internet connection in his parents’ house. Most small business start ups cannot come close to affording a major SEO firm.
- Bio 2009 to b bigger:The ninth edition of Karnataka’s flagship biotech event — Bangalore Bio — promises to be much more exciting than previous years, contrary to skeptics who predicted it would be a damp squib due to the economic downturn, CMD of biotechnology giant Biocon Kiran Mazumdar Shaw said
- Blog Setup & Design – Join a global marketing network and gain new clients, work and partners. You may even make a new friend or two.
- Indian startups keep flourishing: A little more than a year ago, Rajesh Razdan quit his cushy, well-paying job with a global cell phone company to launch a small startup that would offer a slew of new services to cell phone users. India’s recent economic boom, he said, was the perfect setting in which to become an entrepreneur.
- Indian Manufacturers Suppliers Exporters Directory, Buyers and…: Indian Manufacturers Suppliers Exporters Directory,Buyers and Sellers,B2b Business Directory India. Posted by B2B Portal India at 10:45 PM | Thursday, June 04, 2009. Sme.in opened the doors of global access for small and medium …
As always this list is not exhaustive, but I hope it will give you a little overview. — ST.


text:
Details about a sweeping probe into an alleged chocolate ``cartel" won't be released until Canada's competition watchdog finishes digesting reams of documents on the companies' pricing policies.
Search warrants issued Nov. 21 by Ontario's Superior Court to investigate a host of chocolate makers allegedly implicated in a price-fixing scheme have been ordered sealed until Canada's Competition Bureau concludes its probe.
Investigators could wrap up their search within a few weeks, said John Pecman, the bureau's assistant deputy commissioner in the criminal matters branch.
"It depends on how long that takes. It could take a week to a couple of weeks," he said. "There is no set time."
The bureau won't say how many chocolate makers it's investigating, nor would it confirm whether specific companies are under review.
"When we conduct a cartel investigation, the obligation on the legislation is that these companies have market power – i.e., the ability to control price – so it's generally the major players in an industry that would be under review," Pecman said. "But I can't specify exactly who we're investigating."
But Nestle, Cadbury, Hershey confirmed they have been contacted by the competition watchdog.
"I can tell you that we have been contacted by the Competition Bureau and we're basically fully co-operating with their requests for information," said Nestle Canada spokeswoman Catherine O'Brien.
"I really can't comment any further ... so, really, all I can tell you at this stage is that we've been asked for information and we're obviously fully complying with providing any information that they're looking for."
Hershey spokesman Kirk Saville also confirmed the bureau had contacted the company on Nov. 26, but offered no further details.
The Competition Bureau issued search warrants when there is grounds to suspect companies are engaged in price fixing, bid rigging, group boycotts or restricting output, Pecman said, adding that "the most common is price fixing."
While the probe is centred on the chocolate industry, the Competition Bureau said it could expand its investigation to other types of candy, based on the findings.
It's been estimated by the bureau that the volume of commerce affected could be in the billions of dollars a year.


text:
We are searching data for your request:
Upon completion, a link will appear to access the found materials.
3m is turning the fibers of agave plants left over from making tequila into sponges. Photo: Shutterstock
In 2011, over 41 million gallons of tequila were made in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, and all that liquor took over 700,000 tons of agave plants to make. Until recently, once the plant’s juice was extracted, the rest went to waste.
Now, global company 3M, which is responsible for making products sold under brand names like Scotch, Nexcare and Post-It, has unveiled Scotch-Brite sponges that incorporate agave fibers from plants that would otherwise be left to decay in fields.
“Cleaning supplies should make the whole world cleaner, not just the home,” 3M wrote in a release on its website. In the case of their Scotch-Brite Greener Clean sponges, that’s what actually happens. Their scientists came up with a way to turn these discarded agave fibers into a viable sponge material.
This line of non-scratch sponges and scouring pads is made from 100 percent plant-based fibers, 50 percent of which are agave fibers. The sponges also contain 23 percent recycled paper. One of the bonuses of these materials is that they can be used to clean surfaces you might struggle to clean without an abrasive sponge like non-stick pans, countertops and glass cooktops without fear of damaging them.
The Scotch-Brite Greener Clean sponges were recently included in a list of “13 Hot Sustainable Products to Follow in 2013” by Sustainable Brands, a learning, collaboration and commerce community of sustainable businesses.
Read: How Two Charities are Changing the World by Cleaning


text:
Fiji’s Adventure Capital will undergo an array of activities this year by focusing more on communicating with its tourism markets with an ongoing investment on a marketing campaign programme.
Pacific Harbour Tourism Association steering committee member, Alfred Christoffersen in a recent interview said this is part of re-establishing their brand and image as their core activities.
“Communicating with the market makes up the early stages of our plans and following on from this is a focus on infrastructure development and improvements focused in tourism,” Mr Christoffersen said.
“The association currently invested on a marketing campaign from website, to social media, monthly newsletters emailed to those in the database, and brand new roadside signage.
“Sharing valuable information amongst members is critical for us to operate as one entity in marketing and planning for the region’s tourism future as a primary goal.”
The committee said the move to revitalise Pacific Harbour’s brand is well-timed, the destination demonstrating significant growth over the last 24 months.
This is evident with ongoing developments through Papua New Guinea investment in The Pearl Resort, Spa & Championship Golf Course and American investment in the Nanuku Resort development.
Mr Christofferson said the direct benefits include the economics of a good industry which is from employment to outlets for produce and goods which are very important.
“With greater business in the area will mean better infrastructure in our region from schools, to roads, to power and water.”
Over the last three years there has been a huge growth and creation of new businesses from resorts, restaurants, shops, day tours and other activities, Mr Christoffersen said.
“Pacific Harbour provides a unique location to holiday in Fiji and this allows us to attract new types of travellers to the region, ultimately adding another great feature or purpose to visit Fiji,” he said. This ultimately benefits the entire community from residents, to businesses, and the community as a whole.”
About the association
The original Pacific Harbour Tourism Association was established in the early 1990’s with a focus on marketing our tourist numbers to the area and establish Fiji as a main tourism player.
“The steering committee is made up of six individuals who all own or operate businesses in Pacific Harbour,” he said.
“Each member brings unique skills set to the team from planning to its execution that focuses individually on various tasks, in alignment with an overall plan and strategy.”
Originally Posted January 13th
Read Article Here


text:
That happened after the US President gave some clues about the possibility for introducing new tariffs on the US $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. "Further action must be taken to encourage China to change its unfair practices, open its market to United States goods and accept a more balanced trade relationship with the United States", Trump said in a statement.
Such a step would be virtually unprecedented in USA history and would put almost all of the $505 billion in products that the US imports from China under trade restrictions.
"As China hawks, like (Robert) Lighthizer and (Peter) Navarro, appear to have gained power within the Trump administration lately, an all-out trade war now seems more inevitable", said Yasunari Ueno, chief market analyst at Mizuho Securities. The price the United States wants is not only to take advantage of China; even more so it wants to wreck China's economy.
The ministry's description of a combination of "quantitative and quality measures" under consideration indicates that the trade war will enter a new stage, experts said.
This possible trade war now is threading to create more pressure on the Chinese economy.
"China could target US firms through tax and regulatory policies", said Citigroup in a report.
The Canadian dollar weakened to a one-year low of C$ 1.3237 overnight, before paring some of its losses on Tuesday, as investors anxious about Canada's trade feud with the United States.
U.S. automakers may miss a golden chance to expand their footprint in China if the Trump administration sticks to trade protectionism and keeps destroying free trade, Wei said. Navarro explained it's just a trade conflict, . adding that President Trump has a close personal relationship with his Chinese counterpart.
President Donald Trump directed the US Trade Representative's office to draw up a list of $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to subject to an additional 10% tariff.
"No Chinese leader is going to want to appear to be pushed around by any U.S. president so they are retaliating and digging their heels in", said Mark Avallone, President and Founder of Potomac Wealth Advisors.
"I have to point out that United States remarks confused right with wrong and made irresponsible accusations against China to cover up its unilateral and protectionist moves", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said when asked to comment on Pompeo's statement.
'Unacceptable' The China trade offensive is only one side of Trump's multi-front battle with the United States' economic partners as he presses ahead with his protectionist "America First" agenda. If Intel makes a chip at its US plants in Oregon, Arizona or New Mexico, then sends it to China for low-level assembly work and then brings it back so it can be put into a device manufactured in the United States, the chip would get hit by the tariff.
European Chamber President Mats Harborn said at a briefing on the group's survey that 2018 had to be the year when Beijing delivered on its promises, and that it should make serious commitments to defuse trade tensions.
China is retaliating by raising import duties on $34 billion worth of American goods.
USA tariffs on imported steel and aluminum have already drawn a response from a range of countries including Canada, Mexico and the European Union.
That comes after the USA on Friday announced that it would impose a 25 percent tariff on up to $50 billion of Chinese products.


text:
When most people think about the relationship between Africa and China, they think of it as a "colonial" relationship where China dupes the impoverished and downtrodden Africans by presenting them with unfair economic bargains and supporting corrupt and often authoritarian governments in return for oil and natural resources for its factories at home. The sad fact is that this is a misconception based largely on bias expressed in Western media, which according to Professor Deborah Brautigam of American University in Washington DC, can be unraveled upon closer examination of the facts. Here are six myths about the Chinese-African relations.
Myth #1: China Prefers to Back Corrupt/Authoritarian Regimes in Africa
Actually, China prefers to deal with stable regimes that offer a safe environment for investment, which does include some corrupt or authoritarian regimes. The fact is that most of these regimes tend to be unstable and unsafe places to invest resources into especially given the strife that often plagues such regions. Although, China seems to be willing to take some risks by investing in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and what is now South Sudan this isn't unusual given the willingness of non-Chinese companies to invest in these areas as well.
In regards to Sudan -- where China has been most heavily criticized -- there is substantial truth behind the notion that China was a strong backer of the Sudanese government while the tragedy in Darfur was taking place. However, China has also shown that it can be politically astute in that it shifted its position in Sudan, in 2008, by prodding the government in Khartoum to accept the UN-African Union deal that created South Sudan.
It would be safe to conclude that China prefers to invest in areas of Africa that don't pose a high risk for them in politico-economic terms.
Myth #2: China Builds Substandard Infrastructure
When asked about the quality of Chinese infrastructure work, most African governments express a high degree of satisfaction. There is little evidence that the projects done through China's Africa Development Fund or any government backed project has shown signs of major substandard work.
Myth #3: The Transportation Systems Built by China Don't Help Africa's Growth
Many of China's critics allege that the transportation systems - like railroads - were built, solely, for the purpose of helping to extract the natural resources that China needs. However, there is little evidence to support this claim.
Myth #4: China Destroys Africa's Budding Industrial Capacity with its Cheap Goods
This myth is partly true as cheap China-made clothing has devastated the indigenous clothing industry in Africa. But China has also invested in factories in Africa to produce manufactures that help Africa to industrialize. In fact, China has invested millions into African factories to produce consumer goods to fuel the growth of industry in Africa.
Myth #5: China Acts Like a "Colonial" Power in its Dealings with Africa
It may surprise you to find out that China's approach to making deals with African governments is based on the Japanese approach used when China began its economic rise in the 1980s. The Japanese offered a line of credit to purchase Japanese technology and services to help China develop in exchange for the oil and coal it exported to Japan. The basic idea was that China would be able to develop its economy while making the most of the raw materials it exports regardless of its deal with Japan. In Africa, China offers similar types of deals to African states that allow Africa to develop while making the most of the natural resources it exports.
China also believes in a policy of noninterference with the internal affairs of other nations - including those of African states that it does business with. It's been at the heart of China's foreign policy since the early days of the Cold War.
Myth #6: Chinese Workers "Steal" African Jobs on Projects in Africa
A great many of China's critics state that China brings in Chinese workers to complete the infrastructure projects that it finances through deals with African governments. Upon close inspection of the facts, however, the ratio of Chinese to African workers of such projects is roughly 2:8 on average. With some exceptions -- including grant related projects -- the majority of workers on any China-related project are African. There are many countries that require a certain percentage of locals to be hired onto any such projects.
An Earnest Competition Between the West and China Benefits Africa
Based on the differences between the popular myths and the reality of China's relationship with Africa, one can reasonably conclude that China offers a challenge to the West in terms of who should be Africa's primary strategic partner during the course of their economic development process. While China's assistance is not without moral conundrums, China's interactions have had a positive effect on Africa's goal of development, infrastructure building, and boosting exports. It's true that working conditions and the impact on the environment are often not a priority for the Chinese in their dealings in Africa, but their transgression is no worse than any other power operating on the continent. China pursues its own national interests when engaging in Africa.
America should respond by trying to compete with China by using its influence with African governments to secure deals for its companies and give what economic incentives it can to companies that operate in Africa on projects being sought by the Chinese. Africa must look out for its own interests when dealing with China, the U.S., or any other state seeking to engage it with economic incentives. While there are certain obvious problems -- including labor conditions and environmental impact -- China seems to offer a competitive alternative to the West's brand of engagement. In the end, the African people and their governments must decide how to maximize the benefits from their deals with China and the West to further their aims of bettering their societies.


text:
Two landmark album are getting or have just been given the special “de luxe” treatment!
First up MARVIN GAYE’S ‘Let’s Get It On’ has just been re-issued in the “de -luxe” format. The release is to mark the 50th anniversary of the original issue and Motown/Ume tell us that initially it is a digital only release – but with 33 bonus tracks – 18 of them previously unreleased. There are also CD, vinyl and Blue Ray lined up but those iterations might not feature all the bonuses. Worth checking!
Secondly PRINCE’S ‘Diamonds And Pearls’ also wins a makeover. This October 27th, Paisley Park Enterprises, in partnership with Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Records, will reissue the album (the man’s 13th which yielded six massive hits) via all physical, digital, and streaming partners, with the classic album remastered for the very first time, and featuring 47 previously unreleased tracks, as well as a previously unreleased 2+ hours of video concert performances from Prince’s legendary vault.


text:
A classic game of words and wit, the Pyramid Game Show, known for its word-association challenges, has made its highly anticipated premiere in Nigeria, promising a simple yet engaging gameplay with universal appeal for families even as it unveiled popular Nigerian actor, Eyinna Nwigwe as its host.
This exciting launch comes with the promise of delivering not only entertainment and big wins but also quality content that fosters family togetherness.
Commenting on the launch of the Pyramid Game Show in Nigeria, Martin Gbados, CEO of Mekdoss International, expressed his enthusiasm.
Highlighting the show’s dedication to family-oriented entertainment, Gbados revealed that the show was introduced with the aim to rekindle the tradition of families gathering to enjoy a program together.
According to the Mekdoss CEO, the organization had recognized a gap in the market for family-friendly content, and the Pyramid Game Show sought to fill that void.
The game show is expected to bring Nigerian content to the forefront, with questions and challenges rooted in Nigerian culture and knowledge. The unique twist lies in the involvement of celebrities, who partner with contestants to help them win. The maximum prize on the show is 15 million Naira, and viewers at home can participate through fast SMS trivia competitions.
Furthermore, the show will feature pop-branded fans engaging with the public on the streets, offering a chance for regular people to win prizes. This dynamic approach creates numerous brand opportunities and opens doors for engagement with a diverse audience.
Another standout feature of the Pyramid Game Show is the ‘Mystery Seven’ category, offering winners a vacation trip to a Nigerian destination. This initiative aims to promote tourism within Nigeria and explore lesser-known vacation spots.
Strategic partners for the Pyramid Game Show include Airtel Nigeria, Rite Foods, Polystar Electronics, Golden Penny Foods, and HotSpot Studios. These partnerships reflect the show’s commitment to family-oriented values and its mission to bring Nigerian families together through entertainment.
The Pyramid Game Show is a landmark moment in Nigerian entertainment, ushering in a new era of family-friendly content and exciting gameplay. With its unique format, celebrity participation, and substantial cash prizes, the show promises to be a hit among audiences of all ages.
In this thrilling contest, two teams composed of one celebrity and one contestant each join forces to compete against the clock for the ultimate prize. The objective is simple: guess words or phrases that appear on the show’s pyramid-shaped game board to secure cash rewards.
Participants will also take turns describing words to their teammates without uttering the word itself. The more words they guess correctly, the higher their score climbs.
After three preliminary rounds, the team with the highest score progresses to the coveted ‘Winner’s Circle.’ Here, the stakes are raised as the pair must describe entire phrases in just 60 seconds, all without using their hands.
The Pyramid Game Show, a revival of the iconic game show, is the collective name of a series of American television game shows that has aired several versions domestically and internationally. The original series, The $10,000 Pyramid, debuted on March 26, 1973, and spawned seven subsequent Pyramid series.


text:
Sony PlayStation 5 Report: Japanese Studios Working On PS5 Game Titles
Sony’s PlayStation 5 (PS5) is definitely an upcoming gaming console device that’s highly anticipated by the gaming community and tech enthusiasts alike. This is why it comes to no surprise that a lot of people are always on the lookout for new details, leaks, rumors regarding the next-gen hardware of Sony.
So, what new scoop we have today about the PS5? Well, according to a report from Segment Next, Japanese studios are already working on games for the next-gen hardware. The “next-gen hardware” of course, is none other than the PS5 or Microsoft’s Xbox Two.
The Job Listing
Firstly, we have a “major game company” that’s based in Koto Ward, Tokyo that’s working on “a new console game” for “next-generation hardware”. The job category is “Localization / Interpretation / Planner Assistant”. With this, the assumed work content will be localization services, and assistant work of producer and director.
The other one is based at Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. The company is hiring a planner to work on a “next generation aircraft title”. The work content is related to boss battles – the person hired will be in charge of developing “boss fighting battle design” and “boss data creation”.
What Game Titles Are Rumored/Expected To Come To The PS5 Platform?
Now let’s talk about the game titles that are more or less been rumored to hit the PS5 platform despite being announced as a PS4 title or are yet to be announced.
There have been game titles announced as a PS4 game yet are also rumored to likely cross-gen with PS5. These games are:
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Death Stranding
- Ghost of Tsushima
- The Last of Us: Part II
Next are the games that haven’t been announced yet but are expected to come sometime in the future on the PS5 platform. These games are:
- God of War 2
- Zero Dawn 2
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Lastly, we have the games that have been announced but with no platform(s) specified. These games are:
- The Elder Scroll VI
Are you excited for the upcoming PS5 game titles? Tell us in the comment section below.


text:
Krones tells Food & Beverage Industry News how they are helping to digitise the food and beverage industry using an IIoT platform. Read more
Australian consumers live in a world of abundant choices, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the food and beverage industry. You need only look down a supermarket aisle to see the plethora of brands and product lines, and the variety of the product sizing. While choice increases, so are consumer expectations.
Backplane Systems Technology has released Neousys’ IGT-30 series, TI Sitara AM3352 ARM-based Industrial IoT gateway with dual LAN and pre-installed Debian.
Neousys’ IGT-30 series, equipped with the AM3352 from Texas Instrument’s Sitara AM335x family, is an ARM-based Box PC designed for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) gateways and Industry 4.0 applications. The IGT-30 series is supplied as a ready system preinstalled with Debian and in compliance with common industrial certifications such as CE/FCC, shock and vibration. It has a power input range of 10 to 25 V DC and an operating temperature from -25°C to 70°C to ensure the IGT-30 continues to function under harsh industrial conditions.
The IGT-30 series supports PoE Powered Device (PD) mode meaning it can be powered by a LAN cable from a PoE Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE), and at the same time transfer data via this cable. It has I/Os that are applicable to a range of industrial grade sensors. It features one USB2.0 port, two 10/100M LAN ports, one configurable COM port (RS-232/422/485) and an optional CAN bus port.
In addition to the ports mentioned, there are 8 built-in isolated digital input channels that accept discrete signals from various sensors or buttons/ switches. There are also two built-in isolated digital output channels to control actuators and indicators.
Communication wise, the IGT-30 series has a mini PCIe slot and a USIM holder allowing it to transmit acquired data and system status via 3G, 4G or WiFi (mini PCIe WiFi module). There is an opening on top of IGT-30 Series for users to mount the SMA connector of the wireless module. In terms of storage, the IGT-30 Series has dual microSDHC slots, one internal and one external.
This design allows users to separate the system and user data which can expedite in OS deployment for mass production. The IGT-30 Series provides six LED indicators and two function buttons that can be programmed by users. The function buttons can act as controls for the IGT-30 Series and exclude the need for external input devices, such as keyboard or mouse.
- Industrial grade ARM-based system with pre-installed Debian.
- AWS Device Qualification Program (DQP) certified.
- Field-ready isolated DI/O and RS-232/422/485.
- 10 to 25V wide-range DC input and 802.3at PoE+ PD.
- -25°C to 70°C wide temperature operation.
ICP Electronics Australia has introduced ICP DAS’ New IIoT Cloud UA series UA-5231M-4GE and UA-5231M-4GC Industrial Internet of things (IIoT) servers.
The UA-5200 is a series of IIoT communications servers, now with the latest UA-5231M-4GE and UA-5231M-4GC, which have metal cases and can support 4G LTE in a multitude of countries including Australia. The built-in OPC UA Server, MQTT Broker and Client functions meet the requirements of connecting MES, ERP, SCADA, and Cloud services. The UA series can access I/O modules and controllers in the field via communication interfaces such as Ethernet, RS-232, and RS-485, or through protocols like Modbus TCP/RTU/ASCII. UA-5200 series products support the Cloud service platform “IFTTT”, and is able to connect with over 500 web apps.
The logic control “If This Then That” allows users to receive firsthand notification messages through the most commonly used mobile apps when an event is triggered. The UA series also connects IT to OT and integrates all the devices, as well as web-based apps into the cloud, allowing managers to improve production performance and enhance their factory competitiveness for Industrial IoT. Key features are:
• Built-in OPC UA server, the new industrial communication standard: the ability to connect IT to OT for integrating devices to the cloud to achieve cross-platform monitoring.
• Built-In MQTT Service: active IIoT transmission technology that is able to accelerate data exchange and make efficient use of network resources.
• Supports Logic Control IFTTT for devices connecting to over 500 web-based apps and transmitting alarm notifications to LINE, Facebook, Twitter, Calendar, Mail, and Sina Weibo, etc.
• Provides Function Wizard Web UI for easy step-by-step setup. The “step-box” function helps users to create new projects and can upload or execute these right away.
• Supports IIoT cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, and IBM Bluemix. By real-time uploading I/O data information, it can get full analyses and reports in order to complete big data.
Expert insights on how companies can get on board the fourth industrial revolution were among the highlights of the second day of the AUSPACK 2019 conference being held in Melbourne this week.
According to John Broadbent, founder of Realise Potential, businesses which are slow to adopt Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology will risk being left behind.
Broadbent told the audience that early adopters of this technology will find themselves at a significant advantage once the rest of the industry catches up, while those who delay their uptake will struggle to keep with the pack.
“The longer you kick the can down the road, the bigger the gap becomes,” he said.
According to Broadbent, the nine main use cases for Industry 4.0 and IIoT technology are asset tracking, automation, predictive maintenance, safety and security, smart buildings, customer engagement, data intelligence, product-as-a-service, and agile design processes.
The utility of properly gathering and analysing business data is huge, says Broadbent, and can save businesses time and money,
“How would you feel about sitting in your car with no dashboard, windscreen blacked out, rear view is where you were thirty days ago, and the managing director is in the passenger seat asking are we there yet? You wouldn’t drive like that, but people run their businesses like that all the time,” he said.
Broadbent later facilitated a panel comprising Paul Barber of Lighthouse Systems, Michael Parrington of Pact Group, Richard Roberts of the Open IIoT industry group, and Alan Spreckley from ABB, to discuss practical implementation of Industry 4.0 systems.
Spreckley said one major barrier to adoption of Industry 4.0 is change-aversion in businesses.
“People in general have a resistance to change. They feel too comfortable with where they are and what they have,” said Spreckley.
Broadbent argued that there is never a “right” or “wrong” time to invest, and that businesses need to get on board and constantly update themselves.
“The right time for continuous improvement is always,” said Broadbent. “It doesn’t matter when you’re doing well or not doing well.”
According to Roberts, one crucial early step in embarking on an Industry 4.0 project is forming partnerships, either internal or external, to ensure your business has the skills needed to operate the new technology.
“If you don’t have that expertise, you can look to bring it in, or you can seek out other experts in the area,” said Roberts.
Parrington agreed, saying seeking external help is one way Pact has tried to overcome the skills gap.
“We try to understand what we don’t know, and where we’re not skilled we bring people in,” said Parrington.
According to the next speaker, Peter Hern from Universal Robots, while Industry 4.0 is connecting machines through the utilisation of data and internet connectivity, Industry 5.0 will involve humans and machines working collaboratively.
Hern pointed towards the “cobots”, or collaborative robots, which are produced by his company, as emerging examples of Industry 5.0 practices. Hern emphasised that the developments in automation and robotics shouldn’t lead to fears that human workers employed in manufacturing will be replaced. On the contrary, providing robotic helpers can make existing jobs more productive, safe and efficient.
“What we find is that the human-robot collaboration is actually 85 per cent more productive than humans or robots alone,” he said. “It’s not about replacing human employees – it’s about helping them to do their jobs and stay involved in the process.”
Cobots that are specifically designed to work alongside humans, and according to Hern, can offer benefits such as increased productivity, lower costs, improving quality, boosting innovation, competitive advantage, and reshoring of manufacturing. They also free up human workers from repetitive, dull, dangerous or mundane tasks to focus on jobs that can bring more value to the company.
“Those who are slow to respond risk losing business to others who will embrace the future of manufacturing,” warned Hern.
Let’s look at the impressive stats – 10,000 farmers, 1600 tanker drivers, around 500 milk tankers, 22,000 global staff, , 22 billion litres of milk processed every year, $17 billion in revenue. This is what it means to be the biggest dairy exporter in the world, according to Fonterra’s Infrastructure and Global IS engagement manager, Dave McPherson.
New Zealand-based Fonterra is a dairy co-operative born in 2001 when the country’s two biggest co-ops – Kiwi Co-operative Dairies and New Zealand Dairy Group – merged with the statutory body, the New Zealand Dairy Board.
It is the largest company in New Zealand in terms of economic impact, and produces about 20 per cent or the world’s dairy exports. It’s size gives it many benefits – economies of scale, employment, high turnover, and an avenue to solidify New Zealand’s place as a country that produces high-quality products for local and overseas consumption.
But being as big as it is also introduces a few issues. Not least of which are trying to find better ways to streamline production processes, save on power, and one of the biggest costs – maintenance of the company’s plant, infrastructure and tanker fleet. A mere three years ago, McPherson attended the first Industrial Internet 4.0 Summit in Sydney knowing very little about the Internet of Things (IoT) or Industry 4.0. Now, 36 months later, not only did he give a 40-minute speech on the subject at the latest summit, but the company has embraced the concept at so many different levels – it is a walking advertisement for digitising a business.
“When I attended the first conference back in 2017, I was trying to get a handle on all the hype around IIoT and Industry 4.0, smart manufacturing – all these buzz words that were relatively new to us and we were trying to get a handle on where we could drive some value from the stuff,” he said. “In particular, what we were really trying to find were people that were doing stuff in this space currently and how we can leverage their learnings to speed up our journey.”
When he came to the first summit, he knew almost straight away that Fonterra could embrace the concepts and save itself a lot of money. It was a matter of trying to find out what they could do and how they could implement processes into what they were doing. It didn’t take long.
“I have plenty of examples across our supply chain where we are using new IoT.,” he said. “What I call new IoT is gear supplied by third-party vendors, who are providing us low-cost, battery-powered solutions, which are connected by proprietary networks like SigFox or LoRa, rather than traditional wireless networks. Alternatively, we are dealing with new vendors who are traditionally not in our supply chain.”
Being a co-operative, the company’s shareholders are the dairy farmers themselves. And it hasn’t taken long for those earning their living off the land to take on board some of the technologies brought about by the IoT. It does not cost farmers an arm and leg to do so, according to McPherson.
“There is a huge increase in availability of these low-cost devices, with new vendors coming to market all the time. It has given us a lot of opportunities to grow in this area,” he said. “On the farm we are seeing a rapid growth in the adoption of IoT sensors. Most of this is to do with compliance and sustainability as well as productivity and animal health and welfare. It all starts at the farms. Farmers, like a lot of industries today, are having to be a lot more compliant from a sustainability perspective – wastewater, effluent – everything we manage or farm needs to be measured or monitored. All water usage on farms has to be measured, which is increasingly being measured by IoT sensors and sent directly to councils.”
A big issue on all farms is the treatment of the aforementioned wastewater and effluent. Cow herds produce a lot of both and New Zealand has a lot of regulations when it comes to how these by-products are monitored and treated. IoT-enabled devices offer the perfect solution on the ground.
“One of the more interesting projects we have done recently is wastewater management,” said McPherson. “We own the farms around most of our factories and that is for the purpose of getting rid of our wastewater. We’re monitored by councils about how we manage wastewater and keep it out of the waterways. We set up a project whereby we used irrigators that were pulled out manually across the field. When [the irrigators] are pulled out we have to be sure that they are not getting too close to waterways to make sure the wastewater doesn’t go where it is not supposed to go. It got to a point where one of our plants nearly got shut down because we weren’t doing a good enough job of it.
“We deployed GPS tracking on the irrigators, and, coupled with weather information, wind speed and wind direction, the pumps that control the irrigators would be automatically shut down quickly if there was a possibility the wastewater could spray into the waterways.
“We came up with a very cost-effective solution by using new IoT sensors from a company we had never dealt with before. They came up with a real robust solution, which we implemented very quickly”
Then there is the milk itself. The temperature of milk is regulated by the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries for the dairy industry. Farmers need to get the milk down to Ten degrees Celsius within four hours of starting to milk the cows and Six degrees within two hours of completion of milking. The longer the milking takes, the longer it takes to cool, which then shortens the window Fonterra has to pick it up from the farm gate. With some new sensors, it is possible to measure the temperature in real time in the farm-based vats where the milk is initially stored.
“That information along with the volume and the fact that the agitators are stirring that milk will come back to us in real time,” said McPherson. “[This is] a lot of data pinging off 10,500 vats every five minutes, but it gives us a real-time picture that may even potentially stop us picking up milk that we otherwise wouldn’t want, and provides huge efficiency gains in optimising the loading of our tankers knowing exactly how much milk is at each farm – prior to collection”
But it still needs to be kept cool when it is being transported. Fonterra put some sensors on the tankers that came back with results that they didn’t expect.
“Our tankers are not refrigerated and our storage silos at factories are not refrigerated. It is critical that we try and get that milk temperature down on the farm as soon as possible and keep it there before it gets processed. Where we measured the temperature in transit we used these little sensors which were very cheap,” he said. “We measured all different points of the tankers. The top, where we thought there would be the most impact from a heating perspective with regards to the sun. It turned out it was the heat coming up from the road – it was the bottom of the barrels that were getting the most heat between the pipework and the cab and the barrel and the truck.
“Once we found these hots spots, we worked with a couple of companies on coatings we could put on the tankers to eliminate the heat. We’ve had about six different coats sprayed onto a number of tankers and using sensors we are starting to see some great benefits, which has led to zero increases in temperatures,” said McPherson.
Some farmers are even going one step further by monitoring the cows with wearable sensors. “[Farmers] can tell when [the cows] are drinking or eating, how long they are spending standing up eating,” he said. “It also tracks their temperature, which will give warning signs of when the cows are getting sick – all of these things affect productivity for the farmers.”
One of the biggest expenses of Fonterra is running its tanker fleet. Maintenance of the fleet is a cost that affects the bottom line, but is something that can be addressed thanks to IoT devices.
“Simple telematics will tell you how to reduce your maintenance costs of your fleet – monitoring things like engine temperature, revs and brake wear,” said McPherson. “But we can also monitor the drivers and the wear and tear caused by their driving. When the system was first installed, we had 1500 drivers in the fleet and they start out with 100 per cent score at the beginning of the day. Depending on how they drive the trucks, they would lose points. Initially they were getting scores around the 92 per cent mark, but we are now at 99.7 percent. With a 500-odd fleet of tankers, you can understand there are some big savings in our fleet maintenance costs.”
And how did the drivers feel about being monitored. Doesn’t it have a tinge of Big Brother about it?
We had a few challenges in that area, but generally they got it. They got why we were doing it, and have got on board as they take a lot of pride in their job and are driving professionals.”
One thing the company has found – as is a common theme among those taking on board IoT devices – is the amount of data that is created. At the device layer in their NZ Manufacturing plants alone, the company pulls about 430,000 time series data tags into its PLCs in real time. Once that data is combined with set points and other values of the PLC, that accounts for about 40-million-time series data tags. It uses around 250,000 of them, but, going forward, it is expecting that will grow to four million data points that it will be tracking and storing.
A lot of companies are also looking at automated condition monitoring, otherwise known as predictive maintenance, as it relates to the IoT. Fonterra spends millions of dollars a year on maintenance of its manufacturing plants. Given the seasonal nature of its business it has a 100 per cent of the company’s assets running at 100 per cent of the time for a couple of months a year at peak. Then it becomes less intensive.
“Our maintenance programme is usually done in winter and we pull every pump, motor and valve and replace bearings just because we’ve done it for years,” said McPherson. “With the IoT sensors, we should be able to save a lot of money by finding out if we actually need to do it in the first place. For us, to be able to predict the failure and then allow downtime in our plants to do the maintenance means we don’t have the overhead of a huge number of people working across our manufacturing facilities in the off-season.”
Other areas where the IoT is making an impact is in the supply chain and dry storage. Again, temperatures have to be measured in the storage areas, and with New Zealand summers becoming hotter, it is increasingly becoming an issue. The company also has small magnetic devices that are fitted in the hinge of containers. When it is closed and turned on it is sending out GPS coordinates of the location of the container, temperature inside the container, humidity and whether there is light getting into the containers.
“You get real-time alerts when these containers are being opened somewhere along the supply chain,” said McPherson. “Sometimes along the customs borders. Sometimes when we don’t really want them to be by someone who has stolen a container. Sometimes, we’ll get a customer complaint when it turns up damaged. These sorts of devices are allowing us to track issues in the supply chain where these things might happen.”
The company recently did 200 trials of a random number of containers going to various places around the world. The containers were pinging out data giving locations and other information that was captured at the same time. It’s helped Fonterra identify issues that were going on that it otherwise wouldn’t have known about.
“For example, we’ve had containers sitting in Chicago in the winter time in -9 degrees and customers have complained about what that has done to the product,” said McPherson. “Other scenarios where we’ve had damage to containers or pallets where they have opened it up and bags have burst or the pallets are damaged and customer complaints have come through quite regularly. That is a great little device that gave us a head’s up when there was a problem.”
Fonterra is an example of a company that less than three years ago, had hardly heard about the IoT, or what it would mean for its business. Now, the IoT has become part of its everyday life of doing business. And what of the future?
“Increasingly the challenge for us now, and a lot of companies, will be across the supply chain where you are pulling data through these IoT sensors to these third-party cloud solutions,” said McPherson. “The real challenge will be how we integrate it back into our systems.”
And what is McPherson’s final word on the IoT and what it means for doing business?
“A lot of this is around changing business processes, taking people on the journey, getting them to understand the reason why traceability is important,” he said. “A lot of people think it is a Big Brother thing. In reality, it is just the future of what we have to do with this traceability across our food chain and that, in the long run, is a good thing.”
With new technology revolutionising manufacturing and retailing processes at every point in the supply chain, we are now looking to take a dive into the world of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). IIoT is a central technology for Industry 4.0 and is linked to other core concepts, including system integration, big data, and cloud computing. As such, it is important to see IIoT as a crucial part of an overall, larger picture.
The IIoT at its most basic level is an expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT), which connects devices via an online network – enabling devices to collaboratively work with each other to exchange data.
The IIoT takes the premise of IoT and supersizes it. IIoT is a network of networks that connects people, devices, process, and assets at all stages of the supply chain, allowing us to operate and optimise factories in innovative new ways.
However, many manufacturing plants across the globe are formed around disconnected physical systems with different ends of the production process operating in silos. This lack of interconnectivity increases the risk of production errors and, therefore, also unplanned downtime. It is now time for factories to move onwards to a more connected and synergistic system.
IIoT provides a platform for manufacturers to analyse data at every stage of production and extend automated processes to unite previously disparate systems. Greater insight into factory processes enables manufacturers to increase overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), and by reducing human intervention, minimise downtime – and thus maximise profitability.
A key example of IIoT innovation is the cloud, which is a central connection point between devices. Connecting factory equipment to the cloud gives manufacturers 24/7 access to information on production line efficiencies, printer statuses and so much more. The cloud differs from traditional wide area networks (WAN), in that computing power and storage can flex in real time to the needs of the consumer, allowing for spikes in production and resource-intensive operations to be managed effectively.
It is in the areas of IIoT and cloud computing that Domino is shaping Industry 4.0. Through new technologies such as their i-Techx platform and the Domino Cloud, operators can use coding equipment and systems as part of a singular intelligent factory operation.
Domino’s i-Techx platform collects a vast array of data on printer operation – from ink and makeup usage, to running performance, and wear and tear on components. The data is sent to the Domino Cloud where it can be accessed by customers and the insignia Helpdesk team to monitor printers remotely, diagnose faults, and flag potential issues early – before any downtime occurs.
IIoT innovations like i-Techx and Domino Cloud ensure maximum efficiency of Ax-Series CIJ coders, and combined with our SafeGuard warranty support package plans, provide the highest level of aftercare and total peace of mind for our customers. Contact the team at insignia on 1300 467 446 to find out how the Domino Cloud can increase visibility and device connectivity throughout your supply chain.


text:
Stocks rally to reverse two-day slide, surging on rosy earnings results and economic data; European markets close higher after strong U.S. data
U.S. stocks rallied Wednesday, clawing back losses from earlier in the week, as traders cheered better-than-expected economic data that helped allay recession fears.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 416.33 points, or 1.29%, to 32,812.50. The S&P 500 gained 1.56% to 4,155.17, hitting its highest level since June and wiping out losses from earlier in the week. The Nasdaq Composite increased 2.59% to 12,668.16, boosted by rising tech stocks.
A surprise rebound in July services PMI helped investors shake off worries that the U.S. has already fallen into a recession, sending traders back to beaten-down tech stocks. The index released Wednesday ended three months of declines. Data on durable goods orders and manufacturing in June were also better than expected.
Shares of the electric luxury vehicle maker Lucid Group tumbled 11.7% in extended trading after the company cut its full-year production targets for a second time to 6,000. The original forecast was 20,000. The company also reported a quarterly loss of 33 cents per share.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed 0.5% higher, paring earlier losses. Tech stocks added 3.2% to lead the gains as most sectors and major bourses entered positive territory.
At the bottom of the Stoxx 600, Novo Nordisk slumped more than 9.4% despite reporting strong first-half sales.
On the data front, euro zone retail sales dropped by more than expected in June, falling 1.2% month-on-month for a 3.7% year-on-year decline as prices continued to rise, denting consumer demand.
Source: CNBC, Investing.com


text:
Once a year, Zagreb’s humane society Prijatelji Životinja (Friends of Animals) hosts a two day educational festival of sustainable living, alternative dieting practices, animal protection and eco-friendly consumer habits called ZeGeVege.
Nine years ago, ZeGeVege was more of a one day activist intervention at a public space performed by members of the society, hoping to expose people to alternative lifestyles, mostly those that do not include the consumption of meat or animal tested products. Since then the event had slowly turned into a fully fleshed festival with more than a hundred local and international exhibitors of healthy foods, ecologically friendly products, non-animal tested cosmetics and other segments related sustainable living.
ZeGeVege will be a two day festival held on ban Jelačić square, and will take place on September 2nd (9am – 9pm) and 3rd (9am – 7pm). During the two days, different cooking workshops and lectures on different aspects of veganism, ecology and practices of sustainable living will be held throughout the day, while the entire square will become a stage for bands and dance troupes that advocate animal rights and nature preservation.
Aside from those activities, visitors will be able to try out different things: from menus of six local restaurants, plant based ice creams, raw cakes, vegan kebabs, hemp burgers, pumpkin noodles, home made energy bars, animal friendly cosmetics, nontoxic household products, solar powered appliances and other sustainable stuff.
The non profit, volunteer based festival is free to attend for everyone.


text:
New Delhi: Power Ministry on Tuesday asked states asked to utilise unallocated power of the CGS only to meet the power requirement of their own Consumers. The Ministry stated that it has been brought to their notice that some states are not supplying power to their consumers and imposing load shedding. At the same time, they are also selling power in the power exchange at high price.
As per the guidelines for allocation of power, 15% power from the Central Generating Stations (CGS) are kept under “unallocated power” which is allocated by the Central Government to the needy States to meet the requirement of power of the consumers, the Ministry said.
It further stated that the responsibility to supply power to the consumers is of the distribution companies and they should first serve their consumers who have the right to receive 24x7 power. Thus, the distribution companies should not sell the power in the power exchange and starve their own consumers.
The States have therefore been requested to use the unallocated power for supplying electricity to the consumers of the State. In case of surplus power, the States have been requested to intimate to the Government of India so that this power can be reallocated to other needy State.
In case any state is found that they are not serving their consumers and selling power in the power exchanges at higher rate, the unallocated power of such states shall be withdrawn and allocated to other needy states.
Meanwhile, keeping in view the Declared Capacity (DC) offered to the Delhi DISCOMs in last 10 days, Ministry of power has issued instructions on October 10 to NTPC and DVC so as to secure power supply to Delhi. This will ensure that distribution companies of Delhi will get as much as power as requisitioned by them as per their demand.
The Ministry said NTPC and DVC may offer the normative declared capacity (DC) to the Delhi DISCOMS as per their allocations made to them under respective PPAs, from their coal-based power stations. Both NTPC and DVC have committed to provide as much electricity to Delhi as demanded by DISCOMs of Delhi.
NTPC may offer the normative declared capacity (DC) to the Delhi DISCOMS as per their allocations (from gas based power plants) made to them under respective PPAs. The gas available from all sources including SPOT, LT-RLNG etc may be included while offering the DC to Delhi DISCOMs.


text:
Toyota FY 2015-16 sales report and updates Toyota Registered 41% de growth in March 2016
- Autobei Consulting Group
- April 4, 2016
- 0 Comments
Tags: etios sales, Reports, reports of Toyota, Sales report, Toyota analysis, toyota camry, Toyota Car sales, Toyota Detail report and analysis, Toyota export report and analysis, Toyota fortuner, Toyota india sales report, Toyota march 2016, Toyota March news, Toyota news Toyota reports, Toyota Passenger vehicle report, Toyota report, Toyota Sales, Toyota sales in 2016, Toyota sales in march 2016, Toyota sales report, Toyota statistics, Toyota updates
Toyota registered 26% de growth in March 2016. October 2015 was the best month for the company for sales....


text:
Samsung is preparing to draw a line on the Galaxy Note. In the midst of a health crisis, the South Korean firm reportedly recorded a sharp drop in demand for its high-end smartphones. From 2021, all the group’s efforts will be focused on the development of foldable smartphones.
The disappearance of the Galaxy Note is confirmed. For several months, corroborating rumors claim that the Seoul giant intends to make a cross on the phablet range, launched almost 10 years ago. Stuck between the Galaxy S, whose screen has become massive, and the Galaxy Z Fold with a foldable screen, the Note struggles to stand out.
This Tuesday, December 1, a new report from Reuters also confirms the imminent death of the range. Citing several sources close to the case, the media ensures that Samsung has not launched the development of a hypothetical Galaxy Note 21. To compensate, the brand would integrate an S-Pen stylus, the flagship accessory of Note, in the Galaxy S21 ( S30) Ultra, the most premium model of the future Galaxy S.
Samsung fears Galaxy Note will no longer sell
Reuters explains Samsung’s decision by the significant drop in demand for high-end oriented smartphones. As a direct consequence of the health and economic crisis, consumers are less interested in ultra premium devices, costing more than € 1,000, than in more affordable alternatives.
Tom Kang, analyst at Counterpoint, believes that Galaxy Note sales crashed of 8 million this year. As announced, the Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra failed to convince buyers. Same story with the Galaxy S, with a drop of 5 million in sales. “The demand for premium has decreased this year and many people are not looking for new products” details Tom Kang.
To replace the Note, Samsung would focus all of its efforts on the development of new foldable smartphones. The research and development teams allocated to the Galaxy Note will now work on the Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip. Next year, Samsung would launch a total of 5 foldable smartphones, including more affordable variants. We’ll tell you more as soon as possible. While waiting for more information, feel free to give your opinion in the comments below.


text:
AL: Toyota to Start Hiring for 450 New Jobs at Alabama Engine Plant
16 Jan, 2020
Toyota’s Alabama engine plant notched a strong performance in 2019, and it is kicking off 2020 with plans to fill 450 new jobs, the company said recently.
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama produced about 610,000 engines last year, or roughly 2,500 per day.
The plant’s output powers one-third of Toyota vehicles built in North America, which means the Huntsville workforce plays a critical role in the supply chain for the global automaker. It’s also the only Toyota plant to produce 4-cylinder, V6 and V8 engines under one roof.
In March, Toyota announced plans to spend $288 million on two new production lines that will increase annual engine capacity to 900,000 by the end of 2021.
The new 4-cylinder and V6 engine lines mean 450 new jobs and hiring starts this month.
Once the project is complete, the plant’s total investment will be $1.2 billion, with a workforce of 1,800 people.
“Toyota has had remarkable success in Alabama, and the latest expansion is just another example of the trust and confidence the company has in its Alabama workforce,” said Greg Canfield, Secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce.
“2020 is shaping up to be another impressive year for our state auto industry, and Toyota is one of the major forces behind that growth.”
Toyota officials expect 2020 to be another high-volume year for the Huntsville operation, and they credit employees’ commitment to quality and safety for the plant’s continued growth. The daily production rate of 2,500 engines is five times as many engines the plant turned out when it opened in 2003.
In April, the plant is expected to produce its 7 millionth engine.
Meanwhile, the new 4-cylinder engine line is scheduled to begin production this summer, while construction for the new V6 line is underway and scheduled to be complete this fall. Trial production for the new V6 engines will begin in summer 2021.
Toyota has also made significant contributions to the Huntsville community in ways that go beyond its plant walls.
In 2019, the company supported more than 40 local nonprofits, with investments that topped $700,000. It has also donated engines and vehicles to local technical schools to support workforce development initiatives.
In a recent move, Toyota Alabama has partnered with the minor league baseball team, the Rocket City Trash Pandas, in the naming of Toyota Field. Part of the effort includes the Toyota Outfield Experience, which will connect job seekers to openings at the Huntsville plant.
Elsewhere in Alabama’s auto industry, both Honda Manufacturing of Alabama and Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama have announced strong production reports for 2019.
Construction is progressing at the Huntsville site of Mazda Toyota Manufacturing USA, the $1.6 billion joint venture assembly plant that will create up to 4,000 jobs after production begins next year.
(c)2003-2021 Trade & Industry Development is a publication of Due North Media - a division of Due North Consulting, Inc.
Copyright 2001-2021, Due North Consulting, Inc. -- All rights reserved.
The material on this site is protected by United States copyright and other intellectual property laws and may not be reproduced, rewritten, distributed, re-disseminated, transmitted, cached, displayed, published, broadcast, directly or indirectly, in any medium without the prior written permission of Due North Consulting, Inc.


text:
The Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 1.0% in January, well above the consensus expected 0.5%. Producer prices are up 9.7% versus a year ago.
Energy prices rose 2.5% in January, while food prices increased 1.6%.
In the past year, prices for goods are up 13.1%, while prices for services have risen 7.7%.
When I suggested they went boom…prices for intermediate processed goods are up 24.1% versus a year ago while unprocessed goods are up 29.7% versus a year ago.
Implications: Today’s report on producer prices adds to already overwhelming data signaling the Federal Reserve should pursue an aggressive path of rate hikes in 2022. While concerns over rates – as well as Russia – may make the ride bumpier for market participants, the key risk today is not that the Fed acts too fast, but rather that it hesitates and falls even further behind the inflation curve, necessitating larger and faster moves in the future.
Looking at the details of the January report, producer prices rose 1.0%, the largest increase in eight months (and that’s saying something, with inflation up at a near double-digit pace over the past year). It doesn’t matter which inflation gauge you consider,, they all show inflation running well above the Fed’s target, and have the central bank trying to combat the results of excessively loose monetary policy and unprecedented (and largely unnecessary) fiscal stimulus in response to shutdowns that never should have happened. You can’t put 40% more money into the system – while incentivizing people to stay home from work – and expect there not to be consequences.
The U.S. economy will continue to grow in 2022 as businesses reopen, the labor market heals, and healthy consumer and business balance sheets promote further capacity to spend. It is now on Fed policymakers to step up to the plate. Will they do what needs to be done in the year ahead? Time will tell.
Good news? Today, the Empire State Index, a measure of New York factory sentiment, rose to 3.1 in February from -0.7 in January. Look for a continued rebound in manufacturing activity in the months ahead which will reduce some of the upward price pressure.


text:
Kimberly-Clark (K-C) is plotting to increase the cost of Andrex toilet tissue by seven per cent, in a move that will trigger price hikes across the tissue market.
Andrex’s price increase is expected to come into effect in November. Industry insiders say that the seven per cent rise has been caused by the recent rise in paper pulp prices.
Last year, K-C reduced the number of sheets in each Andrex roll from 280 to 240 and dropped the price of its twoand four-roll packs by about five per cent (MW August 9, 2001).
This year, the toilet tissue brand was caught up in a price war among retailers. Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s cut the price of Andrex in a move that hit sales of their own-label brands (MW May 16).
One industry insider says: “Andrex enjoys 60 per cent of the brand market share and has to take the lead in increasing its price, following the jump in the price of paper pulp. The others are bound to follow. This will result in pushing up the prices of both toilet and facial tissues.”
Last year, when K-C decided to cut both price and sheet count for Andrex, rival Procter & Gamble’s Charmin Ultra followed. Charmin Ultra reduced from 192 sheets to 180 a roll, becoming the toilet roll brand with the lowest number of sheets per roll in the UK market (MW December 6, 2001).
Andrex marketing manager Victor Geus says: “As a matter of course, K-C does not comment on the pricing of Andrex – or its other brands – which is agreed confidentially with its customers.”


text:
"The company (Route Mobile) has subsequently signed an amendment agreement to the BTA on October 1, 2020, and has completed the acquisition," Route Mobile said in a regulatory filing on Thursday night.
Bengaluru-based TeleDNA specialises in the development of telecom-related solutions like MMSC (Multimedia Messaging Service Center), SMSC (Short Message Service Center) platforms, SMS HUB and SMS firewall.
"The present acquisition largely constitutes acquisition of the intellectual property and its related customer contracts...no equity shares are purchased," it added.
One of the group companies of Route Mobile, 365squared Ltd (step-down wholly-owned subsidiary), is an existing customer of TeleDNA, the filing noted.
"After the success of our IPO (initial public offering), we plan to be in line with our vision of inorganic growth. We believe this strategic acquisition will augur really well for Route Mobile group and for 365squared Ltd in particular," Route Mobile CEO and MD Rajdipkumar Gupta said in a filing on Friday.
He added that the acquisition will enable the company to offer a deeper and comprehensive portfolio of products to telecom operators, and drive a strong momentum.


text:
A report from FOSDEM 2008
Besides this, there were talks about package managers such as Conary and Klik and build systems like CMake and SCons. Trends such as virtualization and state-of-the-art web development were also on the agenda.
Linux Pro Magazine/Linux Magazine hosted a live video stream throughout the event . Visit our website to watch the archive version of the stream.
Eight Years of Inspiration
Now into its eighth year, FOSDEM remains an informal, innovative, and independent event.
Entry is still free, and there are no talks by commercial enterprises. The event is organized by volunteers and financed by sponsors.
- FOSDEM: http://www.fosdem.org
- Apt-Xapian: http://enricozini.org/2007/debtags/apt-xapian-index.html
- Linux Pro Magazine/Linux Magazine International video stream: http://streaming.linux-magazin.de/en/
Buy this article as PDF
Bug database has a bug of its own that could allow an intruder to create an unauthorized account.
Report focuses federal resources on achieving universal Internet access.
Leading browser makers say “no” to porous encryption algorithm
Report from the X-Force group says attackers are using TOR to hide their crimes
Future Firefox extensions will be compatible with Chrome.
Better read this if you bought your computer before 2011
Users should upgrade to the new version as soon as possible
Xen project announces a privilege escalation problem for Qemu host systems
Attackers can compromise an Android phone just by sending a text message
PC vendor will pre-install Ubuntu on portables in India.


text:
25 Apr 2021: Canalys, a leading global technology market analyst firm revealed in its latest smartphone market report, that the global supply constraints hit the smartphone shipping in India in Q1 2022.
In the first quarter of 2022, Smartphone sales surged in India with units sold touching 38 million units in Q1 2022. There is around a 2% increase in overall sales compared to Q1 2021.
Xiaomi holds the top position shipped 8 million units same quarter which was 24% down from last year. The market share of Xiaomi fell 21% from 28% in the same period.
Whereas, Samsung’s shipments declined by only 2% to 6.8 million counting the market share at 18% down by 1% compared to last year. Vivo and Oppo shipments also fell by 15% to 5.7 million units and 13% to 4.6 million respectively.
While on the other hand Realme was the only smartphone maker that registered growth in the same period. Realme shipped 6 million units, 40% more than Q1 2021 with the market share achieved at 18% compared to 12% in the same period.
As per an analyst at Canalys, Realme and Itel managed to take on the competition with solid supply. Other makers eventually started to improve their numbers in March 2022 and are positive about Q2, expecting a strong quarter.
He also added in his statement – The biggest challenge vendors will face in 2022 will be maintaining device affordability,”. “Oil prices in India are at an all-time high and wholesale inflation touched 14.6% in March 2022. While on the other hand Volatility in foreign exchange rates and higher operational costs due to inflation put further pressure on vendors to maintain their profit margins.
Canalys also said smartphone makers will try their best to gain the market share but that would be possible only if they have a steady flow of mid-to-low-end devices for customers.


text:
Despite an accounting scandal that brought the Indian technology firm close to collapse, not one of its Middle-Eastern customers has broken ties.
Satyam eyes bigger role in region
Despite a massive accounting scandal that brought Satyam Computer Services, one of India's largest technology outsourcers, close to collapse, not one of its Middle-Eastern customers has broken ties to the company, a senior executive says. Atul Kunwar, who now leads Satyam's business development operations in the region, was formerly a manager at Tech Mahindra, another Indian outsourcer. His company acquired its former competitor to form a new group, Mahindra Satyam, which Mr Kunwar formally launched to its GCC clients in Dubai this week.
Throughout this whole period, and despite some uncertainty, Satyam did not lose a single customer in EMEA [Europe, the Middle East and Africa] for the entire period. It has been one of the regions that has really stood by us, Mr Kunwar said. Satyam, which rose to become India's fourth-largest exporter of technology outsourcing services, was devastated at the beginning of the year when its founder and chairman, Ramalinga Raju, confessed to fraudulent and deceptive accounting practices that artificially inflated the company's order books by more than US$1 billion (Dh3.67bn).
As uncertainty rose over the future of the company and its tens of thousands of workers, it was agreed that a majority stake in the company would be sold to a new business. Tech Mahindra won the tender and, after regulatory approvals in the US, EU and India, has finalised the acquisition and installed new leadership. The management team includes Mr Kunwar and the new chief executive, CP Gurnani, who previously led Mahindra's global operations.
Satyam's businesses were growing fast in the Middle East in the months preceding the scandal. Of 34 new clients signed globally in the second quarter of last year, 16 were based in the region. While the Middle East still contributes a small percentage to the company's total revenues, Mahindra Satyam is boosting its research and development capabilities for the region, and plans to significantly increase the size of its biggest Arabic-language service centre, based in Cairo.
We believe that we have the capability to double it, Mr Kunwar said. It is part of our plans, and it is on track right now. What will happen is they will get more specific in their capabilities, and will move away from the generic work. We are looking at it becoming an expertise centre for the Arabic language and other capabilities. Much of the company's interest in what remains a small market comes from the nature of the work that is in demand. Rather than maintaining and modernising established computer systems - the bread and butter for Indian outsourcers doing business in the West - the demand in the region remains for new systems built from scratch and free of what Mr Kunwar calls legacy issues.
Instead of spending our time on maintenance, here the largest component is building new things. You leapfrog a lot of the old challenges, and develop some really sophisticated solutions that can be applied all over the world, he said. email@example.com


text:
Acronis introduces free deduplication offer
As part of an effort to help businesses reduce storage costs, Acronis announced that customers who purchase the company’s backup and recovery software will receive the accompanying deduplication solution for free.
There have been more than 22,000 installations of Acronis deduplication technology and Acronis has created a free online calculator for customers wanting to calculate potential savings from deduplication.
“By integrating data deduplication into the backup process, Acronis brings deduplication benefits to organisations,” said Simon Howe, Acronis ANZ Country Manager. “Customers can benefit from storage cost savings without any additional hardware investment or management overhead.”
The offer is valid for customers purchasing Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 software and will be offered until March 31st.