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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Small jobs online platform TaskRabbit, which was bought last year by the word’s biggest furniture retailer IKEA Group, said on Tuesday it was expanding into Canada, its third market after the United States and Britain.
TaskRabbit, whose platform connects people with freelance handymen and other workers for tasks such as minor home repairs, deliveries and IKEA furniture assembly, said it was launching in Toronto on Tuesday and would roll out in Vancouver in October, then in Montreal in 2019.
IKEA Group, known for its flat-packed self-assembly furniture and its large out-of-town warehouse stores across around 30 markets, bought TaskRabbit as part of a strategy to boost its service offering to keep up with changing shopper habits and expectations.
“Beginning in October, TaskRabbit will also roll out in select IKEA Canada stores and online,” TaskRabbit said in a statement.
TaskRabbit is currently present in around 45 cities across the United States and Britain.
Privately held IKEA Group, the owner of most IKEA stores worldwide, is the biggest franchise taker to brand owner Inter IKEA.
Reporting by Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Chris Reese
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.


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The new line is capable of producing 2,000 cans every minute and was developed as part of a wider £28m investment in the Sidcup facility, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2021.
The canning line will support the production of packaging for CCEP distributed soft drinks such as original Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta, Dr Pepper, Sprite and Schweppes.
The opening, which took place on 16 October 2023, was attended by Old Bexley and Sidcup MP Louie French, CCEP general manager Stephen Moorhouse and VP for customer service and supply chain Javier Gandarias Sanchez. They were met by site operations director Karl Probert and employees working on the factory floor.
£120m invested in Sidcup factory since 2017
Speaking at the event, Moorhouse said that Coca-Cola has been “at the heart” of the community in Sidcup since the factory opened and was proud of the efforts made to embrace the “latest innovations in manufacturing”.
“We’ve invested almost £120million into the factory since 2017, helping us to support the local economy and accelerate our path to net zero,” Moorhouse added.
Meanwhile, French described the opportunity to visit the facility and see the operation in person as a “real pleasure”.
French continued: “The latest investment into a new canning line demonstrates CCEP’s commitment to the local community, both in terms of its investment into the site and its ongoing efforts to reduce plastic and use more sustainable packaging."
Everyone is Welcome
The Sidcup facility has committed to creating a more diverse workforce that embodies CCEP’s ‘Everyone is Welcome’ mantra. To encourage more people that traditionally have not seen manufacturing as a viable career path, its recruitment process is more focused on looking at skills and aptitude rather than qualifications, while it offers more flexible working hour arrangements.
It has also expanded its apprenticeship programme, with the Sidcup site taking on 21 young apprentices since the scheme was introduced.
“Our dedicated workforce of almost 400 play such an important role in continually evolving our manufacturing operations,” said site manager Probert.
“We’re proud to officially open our new high speed canning line today. It uses the latest manufacturing innovations to produce many of our brands that consumers know and love, from right here in Sidcup.”

domain: news


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Voice-controlled features are having their moment. Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, and Apple’s Siri are dominating the space. Amazon’s Echo for example now commands more than 70% of the US market for voice-controlled speakers.
“Google and Amazon can influence consumers in such a way, they’re making people realise that voice technology can actually be really good now,” said Peter Cahill, CEO and founder of Dublin-based Voysis, which offers an AI-powered voice recognition and control platform.
Voysis has developed an API that allows companies to integrate voice recognition features into their own apps and services. Cahill founded the company, which raised $8 million earlier this year led


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Kodiak’s only video rental store, Blockbuster, will be closing its doors in the near future, but not before selling everything in stock. Today kicked off the franchise’s closing sale, sending viewers home with videos, TV shows and video games for $15 or less.
Lyle Phillips manages Kodiak’s Blockbuster and said the closing is nobody’s fault, it’s simply a changing of the times and how people view their films. He said the internet has made watching movies or television immediate and easy, and Kodiak’s Blockbuster franchise is no longer profitable.
“We did the best we could to stay alive as long as we could,” he said.
Safeway and AC Express in Bells Flats will now be the only places available to Kodiak community members for video rentals, though on a much smaller scale. Phillips said some folks have expressed an interest in starting a new video rental store, but he’s not sure how well they would do. Blockbuster buys hundreds of thousands of movies for its franchises around the country, meaning it gets a substantial discount on those films.
“Basically they buy in bulk and still couldn’t make it work (in Kodiak),” Phillips said.
Sunday was the last day for people to rent videos at the store, and Phillips said anything not returned by Friday will be late. He said people need to be sure to get rented videos back to the store and pay late fees as soon as possible.
As for the sale, folks can stop by the store between noon and 8 p.m. in the next few days to score what Phillips calls “movies priced to sell.”
GCI is expected to move into the building that Blockbuster currently resides in, though it’s not clear when that move will occur.
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New Delhi: In the next three years, India will not need physical banks as more people will own smartphones and the consumption of mobile data will grow, NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant said on Thursday.
"Days of the physical bank will be over. India will throw a huge amount of data", Kant said while speaking at the India Digital Summit organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) held in New Delhi.
Stating that data analytics would boost financial inclusion in the country, Kant said, "India is the only country with over a billion biometrics. In the next three-four years, India will have a billion plus smartphones."
The NITI Aayog CEO also pointed out that mobile data consumption in India is more than the US and China put together.
Stating that this is a period of huge technology disruption in the country, Kant said, “85% of the devices today are still unconnected. Therefore, there is a huge opportunity in the Internet of Things (IoT) space. The opportunity would be in the range of $70 billion by 2025."
Participating in the panel discussion, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the new banking model in this world will come out of India and Paytm will be an early example of that India model.
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A short-lived ban on the sale of CBD flower in France has been reversed for now by the country’s highest administrative court.
In a decision released Monday, the Conseil d’État (Council of State) has temporarily suspended the government’s controversial decree from Dec. 30 that banned the sale of CBD flower in all forms.
“The judge in chambers of the Conseil d’État considers that there is a serious doubt about the legality of this general and absolute prohibition measure because of its disproportionate nature,” reads the decision.
The ban on CBD flower was included as part of regulations on hemp cultivation, which the government said were justified on the grounds of public health.
In response, industry organizations filed a liberty injunction to suspend the decree, citing that flower sales represented the majority of sales for more than 1,800 specialty shops impacted by the ban.
The Conseil d’État decision continues, “Indeed, it does not appear, at the end of the contradictory investigation and the exchanges which took place during the public hearing, that the flowers and leaves of cannabis sativa L. whose THC content is less than 0.3 per cent would present a degree of harmfulness to health justifying a total and absolute prohibition measure: this threshold is precisely that retained by the contested decree itself to characterize the cannabis plants authorized for cultivation, importation, export and industrial use.”
The temporary suspension on the ban is in place until the Conseil d’État reaches a definitive decision.
🍾Un grand soulagement pour toute la filière ! L’interdiction de la vente de feuilles et de fleurs est suspendue !!!
Un grand merci à nos avocats Gilles Boin et Maître Uzan SARANO.
Désormais l’on sait : la pomme 🍎, comme le jus de pomme, n’est pas un stupéfiant.
— Syndicat du Chanvre (@SChanvre) January 24, 2022
Le Syndicat professionnel du Chanvre (The Professional Hemp Union) celebrated the suspension for confirming that the public health argument didn’t hold.
“Much remains to be done to supervise, secure and make this sector competitive. The cards are reshuffled and hope that the government will take this into account,” the group adds.
Earlier this month, a bill that proposed a state-controlled cannabis market was introduced but wasn’t adopted by the lower house of parliament.


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Apple is reportedly providing backing to AirPods assembly partner Luxshare’s attempt to get into iPhone manufacturing ahead of schedule. The move is aimed at relieving Apple’s reliance on Taiwanese rival Foxconn in the iPhone supply chain.
Luxshare was expected to get into the iPhone assembly end of things by producing older iPhone models, as well as Apple Watch devices. However, a Nikkei report today cites multiple sources that tell them that Luxshare is already looking at setting up iPhone 12 mini production at a Chinese plant the firm is purchasing from Wistron.
The plant is in charge of roughly 20% of total orders for the iPhone 12 mini, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
“Luxshare is working with Wistron in making the latest iPhone 12 mini in Kunshan. [But] its pace for reaching a satisfactory production performance is slow. There’s still a lot of room for Luxshare to learn,” an executive-level source familiar with the situation said.
This move is somewhat unusual, as the purchase of the factory is not yet final, and Apple is violating a long-standing policy of not allowing outside employees to visit manufacturing sites.
Luxshare purchased Wistron’s Phone assembly plant in Kunshan, China, for $499 million in July. Wistron has made iPhones for Apple since 2015 and has plants in China and India. Apple reportedly asked Wistron to share some of its iPhone manufacturing expertise with Luxshare.
The move is likely connected to a report from earlier this week, saying Apple had suspended its partnership with China-based Pegatron after it was discovered that the iPhone supplier was committing labor violations. While the move isn’t expected to affect Pegatron’s current iPhone production, they could lose iPhone 12 orders to other companies, like Luxshare, in 2021.


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Ride hailing company Uber on Friday opened its largest driver onboarding and training centre in the country in Bengaluru as it grapples with attrition due to a massive cut in incentives paid out to drivers.
Bengaluru is among the largest markets for ride hailing in India and has an estimated 120,000 cabs on streets. A cut in incentives paid by the two largest ride hailing firms Uber and Ola last year has led thousands of drivers quitting from their respective platforms across the country, including Bengaluru
"Through the Greenlight Centre, we are offering in-person assistance to more than 4,000 driver partners a week. We are continuing to invest in our in-person locations and have launched three other facilities at Devanahalli, Yelahanka and HBR," said Christian Freese, General Manager for South India at Uber.
The centre dubbed "Uber Bazaar" houses dealers representing all major car manufacturers in the country. It would also accommodate Uber's own leasing arm and service providers to help drivers file income tax returns. Apart from helping drivers in signing up on its platform and getting a car to drive, the centre will also house a team of Uber employees that will train and answer all queries of drivers.
As drivers find it harder to pay monthly instalments for loans on their cars, several of them have resorted to selling them and exiting the business. Several new drivers are opting to lease cars from Uber and Ola, instead of owning them.
Redseer Consulting, an analyst firm tracking the ride-hailing market in India, had estimated that the market for app-based taxis in India shrunk by 5 per cent in the first quarter of the year. Shortage in supply of cabs was identified as the key factor impacting the business in India.
Other estimates show that out of the total base of drivers operating under Uber, the share of active Uber drivers does not exceed beyond 40 per cent.
Several cabs belong to fleet operators who offer outstation rides and deploy their cabs on Uber and Ola only when they fail to get business.
To counter this trend of drivers quitting from their platforms, both Uber and Ola had started stepping up their driver onboarding exercise across the country. Further, they have also begun pushing shared rides at flat rates of Rs 29 and Rs 49 in order to get more customers into the same cab. Ola is also on a massive drive to recruit auto rickshaws on its platform in order to meet some of its supply gap.


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Updated - Internode and iiNet: Further Telstra price cuts will make things worse
- 11 October, 2010 11:51
Further reduction to Telstra's retail broadband price will compound woes for the telco's wholesale customers, according to Internode and iiNet.
Telstra CEO, David Thodey, has flagged price cuts for several mobile phone and broadband products, according to The Advertiser newspaper. The telco is moving to create value to customers through bundle deals as well.
The news may disturb some of Telstra’s wholesale customers that are still reeling from the telco’s last round of price cuts to its broadband plans.
Internode, iiNet and iPrimus have publicly condemned Telstra’s price cuts to several ADSL2+ BigPond broadband plans without making appropriate price reductions for its wholesale customers, leading to unfair competition.
Internode and iiNet have both lodged complaints to the Australian Competition and Consumers Commission (ACCC).
Internode carrier affairs manager, John Lindsay, is wary of Telstra’s planned price cuts and said the telco giant will have a lot of explaining to do.
“How low is too low? I can’t really say, but if Telstra were to sell at cost price to provide services, then that is a misuse of market power,” he said. “It feels like a bit of a race to the bottom and at the end of the day it will be hard for Telstra to explain to their shareholders if their revenue falls and but customer base increases.”
Internode is currently in discussions with Telstra over wholesale prices but Lindsay could not comment on the progress. “It is not feasible or sensible for us to match Telstra’s retail prices when wholesale costs are more than Telstra’s retail prices,” he said.
iiNet said further reduction will exacerbate pressure on Telstra’s wholesale customers.
“We still haven’t seen any reduction in wholesale pricing so we continue to work with the ACCC on that complain in respect of the price squeeze,” iiNet chief regulatory officer, Steve Dalby, said. “It’s not going to change the situation at all; it’s just making it worse.”
Clarification: A Telstra's spokesperson said The Advertiser may have misinterpreted Thodey's statements made at Investor Day recently in reference to what Telstra has been doing rather than being any specific price cuts about to be announced. But Telstra has not ruled out further price cuts to its retail plans.


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Great Black Swamp serves straight from the tapWritten by Joel Sensenig | Managing Editor | email@example.com
Paul Traver and Bob Morris believe in beer.
Specifically, they believe in their beer. Last fall, the two Toledo homebrewers took their passion for making flavorful suds to the masses, selling their first kegs of Great Black Swamp Brewing to local bars the week after Thanksgiving.
Since then, they’ve been working out of a nondescript building on Monroe Street near Downtown to ferment, brew, carbonate, promote and distribute their five brews: Sand Piper Golden Ale, Mosquito Red, Bull Frog Stout, Bay Front Pale Ale and Wild Duck India Pale Ale.
Five months later, Great Black Swamp Brewing tap handles can be found at 15 establishments in Toledo and Northwest Ohio, as well as by the keg at the Beer and Wine Cave on Heatherdowns.
Traver said that while the beer itself has been very well received, the task of getting it sold in bars is not so easy.
“We’ve had different sets of issues actually getting beers on tap,” he said. “We have to convince bars to take something out of their lineup and pick us up. There’s a lot of risk of taking something you know sells well and replacing it with something you hope sells well and brings people in.”
Oftentimes, the Great Black Swamp beer on tap is worlds apart from the beer flowing next to it behind the bar. At the Crazy Lady Saloon in the village of Curtice, for example, the tap offerings are typical favorites Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller Lite — and Bull Frog Stout. Despite the brand-name competition, the bar’s customers aren’t afraid of the newcomer — the tavern runs through a keg of the local offering each week.
Standing out from the big names seems to be a source of pride for the local homebrewers, who have more than 40 years experience between them in making their own fermented beverages. Members of the Salacious Homebrewers in Toledo, a group of like-minded homebrewers that has been in existence since 1989, Paul and Bob decided to take things a step further and make a go of launching their own brewery in November 2009.
“It took lots of licensing paperwork, hunting down equipment, finding a building, etc. to start up,” Morris said. The men searched the country for equipment — mostly from breweries which either went out of business or moved onto newer equipment.
While bigger brewers may depend on cold temperature gimmicks or catchy slogans to sell their beer, it’s all about freshness for Paul and Bob.
“We’re not a huge brewery so we don’t have a huge supply on hand,” Morris said. “We try not to let it sit around too long.”
For now, the DIY brewers are content to serve their beers straight from the tap at area bars — bottling is not in the cards any time soon.
“This way we know where the beer is, that it’s cold and it’s being taken care of,” Morris said.
However, thirsty customers can buy all of Great Black Swamp’s beers in kegs at the Beer and Wine Cave.
For now, getting customers to get out to their local establishments and enjoy a pint is part of Great Black Swamp’s master plan, in a way.
“A lot of what we’ve wanted to be from the very beginning is a local brewery,” Traver said, emphasizing the adjective. “The best way for us to do that is to get people to go out to bars and restaurants.”
The two practice what they preach. Morris said he goes out at least once a week to sample his brews at one of the bars serving Great Black Swamp suds. Further, they are delivering beer every day.
“The big boys do it once a week,” Morris said.
The two work five or six days a week at the brewery and the bars, making sure the customers are happy with the product.
Traver and Morris realize Toledo isn’t a microbeer mecca like Portland or Denver – the flavorful beer world is still a niche market around here. However, the two are optimistic about the potential to change Northwest Ohioans’ beer palate, citing recent expansions and increased interest in the craft beer sections at the Beer and Wine Cave, The Andersons and Joseph’s Beverage Center.
Educating bars and drinkers on what craft beer is — and isn’t — remains a part of their job.
“A lot of bars and restaurants are new to this as well,” Traver said. “They’re learning how to adapt to this kind of crowd.”
And some people just have a hard time getting beyond the dreaded “dark” label.
“I walked into a bar and there was a guy sitting at the bar who said, ‘Oh no, I don’t drink dark beer,’” Traver recalled, laughing to himself while downing a pint of the pale ale at the Monroe Street brewery. “There’s nothing about this that’s ‘dark,’” he said, holding up a glass of the golden beverage.
He shrugged, still smiling. Then he took another sip.
For more information and a complete list of establishments serving Great Black Swamp Brewing beers, visit the website www.greatblack swampbrewing.com or email firstname.lastname@example.org.


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Express Scripts Coverage, FDA Label Update Boost Rybelsus
With Chart: Current Market Access to GLP-1 Medications
January 23, 2020
Access to Novo Nordisk’s Rybelsus (semaglutide) — the first oral glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1) to treat adults with type 2 diabetes — got a major boost Jan. 17 when Novo said Express Scripts, part of Cigna Corp., will cover the agent. Rybelsus was approved in September 2019 and is available as a once-daily tablet version of the drugmaker’s Ozempic (semaglutide), a weekly injection launched in 2018.


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Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance is easily one of the biggest third party titles coming to the Nintendo 3DS. Thus far, Square has been relatively quiet about the title, outside of a few acknowledgments that development was underway. That will change next month, when the title makes its playable debut alongside a new trailer at the 2011 Tokyo Game Show.
Kingdom Hearts 3D director Tetsuya Nomura claims his new game is as good as a full console entry in the series. According to a report on Andriasang, Nomura said that KH: 3D will have "the flashiest motion of the series" and is set to be released "as soon as possible" in 2012. Nomura did acknowledge that at this point, it could be tough for gamers to enter the world of Kingdom Hearts. With the 10th anniversary of the franchise approaching, Nomura hopes to address this problem.
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, another title Nomura is working on, will also make its playable debut at TGS. Apparently the game is being considered "the first Final Fantasy 25th anniversary title," perhaps hinting that Square has more ambitious plans for the iconic franchise's milestone. Theatrhythm is due out in early 2012 as well.


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For its all-new XC90 large crossover, Volvo designs a radical new infotainment interface using a tiled interface to show different vehicle functions.
Tame your room's harsh acoustics with Baux sound-absorbing tiles.
The latest rage at both the iTunes and Google Play app stores is a simple, but incredibly addicting, game.
In Asia, Microsoft researchers are experimenting with new ways to interact with the Live Tiles that are core to the Windows 8.X, Windows Phone, and Xbox user interfaces.
A pair of scientists say the KL-VS gene seems to not only prolong life but also to boost cognitive faculties.
Because of its size, the 2014 Scion iQ makes for an exceptional city car, and its cabin electronics will satisfy most, but put it at the bottom of the list as a long-distance road trip car.
The police department in Ceres, Calif., warns of the latest, and certainly not greatest, iPad scam. There are also reports of televisions that are mere blocks of wood.
How does the new Scion iQ compare to other small cars like the Fiat 500 or the Smart Fortwo? CNET's Brian Cooley takes out the tiny car for a test drive and checks the tech.
At a little over 10 feet long, the iQ is one of the most parkable cars around, and even offers a rear seat, but a short wheelbase makes for a quirky ride.
Two recent studies focus on the apparent drawbacks of being vertically challenged, but Crave's Leslie Katz, a lifelong short person herself, can't help looking down on the research.


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Android Auto in the dash gets a much-needed refresh. During a session at its developer conference, Google introduced a lapOptimized interface for Android based car software. It includes a new split-screen mode that’s more scalable across different display types, plus some other little things that will hopefully reduce the number of taps it takes to find what you need while driving.
If you’ve recently purchased a car, you may have noticed that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to buy a model without a giant screen housed between the driver and passenger seats. Large screens in the car seem to become the default with each new model. Following the trends, Google has reworked Android Auto so that it is easier to scale on any car screen, regardless of manufacturer and screen orientation.
Split-screen mode will become the standard mode for using Android Auto. It provides immediate access to all necessary features on the same screen, so you don’t have to tap and switch apps while looking at the road. The new Android Auto will display Google Maps and your media controls in a side-by-side array of windows, like you might split windows down the middle on a computer interface. The split-screen mode will adapt to different screen sizes and take into account the orientation of the display, such as landscape or portrait mode.
Google has also infused deeper integration with Assistant into Android Auto. You’ll see more pop-up alerts and suggestions. The assistant will also make it easier to communicate with frequent contacts and offer smart responses if you need to respond quickly and can’t touch your phone.
If your car has Google built-in, you get an extra feature that might prove controversial depending on what you think of in-car screens. Earlier this year, Google announced that it was allowing people to watch YouTube on the built-in screen once the vehicle was parked. It adds two new apps to the lineup, Tubi and Epix Now. Both offer a ton of free video content to help pass the time while waiting in the car.
Coming soon to a car near you
The new interface will work on a variety of screen sizes. But how the windows are oriented will depend entirely on the car manufacturer and its layout. For example, I have a Subaru with an 11 inch screen. However, only half the screen is available to Android Auto, as the other half responds to Subaru-exclusive controls, such as the HVAC inside the car. Google said it’s up to the OEM to define how much space Android Auto can occupy.
Android Auto’s refresh isn’t a total surprise. Rumors about the new UI started last fall, and we had a real tease new look at the beginning of the year. The new interface seems to be less distracting than the current interface, where apps can often take over the entire screen, requiring you to reach out and press the back button hard to get back to browsing.
The new Android Auto interface will start rolling out to cars this summer. I can’t wait to try out the new look. Hope this is good enough that I can finally get over the fact that Google has deprecated my bookmark Android Auto app for phone.
#Android #Auto #makeover


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Peach recall expands, seven sickened with Salmonella in New Jersey
By Lindy Washburn
Seven people in New Jersey have been sickened in an outbreak of salmonella tied to contaminated peaches.
Loose peaches and peach salsa made from peaches distributed by a Fresno, California company have been recalled as the outbreak has expanded to affect 78 people in 12 states.
“Do not eat, serve, or sell recalled peaches packed or supplied by Prima Wawona or Wawona Packing Company LLC, or food made with these peaches,” the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. “If you have loose peaches and can’t tell where they’re from, throw them out.”
Three people in New Jersey were hospitalized as the result of the salmonella contamination, the state Department of Health said Thursday. Those affected ranged in age from 2 to 78, with a median age of 63. Two were residents of Cumberland County. Burlington, Camden, Essex, Morris and Union counties each reported one case.
Prima Wawona expanded its recall this week to include all loose peaches sold through Aug. 3 and all bagged Wawona and Wawona Organic peaches sold through Aug. 19.
Target, Walmart and Wegmans are among the retailers that have recalled the Wawona peaches or food made with them, the CDC said.
No deaths have been reported, but 23 people have been hospitalized in 12 states, according to the CDC.
Symptoms of salmonella generally develop six hours to six days after eating contaminated food, and include diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps. The illness can be more serious for very young children, frail elderly or those with weakened immune systems. It usually lasts four to seven days and most people recover without treatment.
Lindy Washburn is a senior healthcare reporter.
Email: firstname.lastname@example.org Twitter: @lindywa


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Sprint puts ATIV S Neo on sale Friday for $149.99 with contract and rebate
Windows Phone platform gaining wider acceptance from makers, carriers and customers
Computerworld - Windows Phone smartphones are slowly gaining customer acceptance, with sales of 7.4 million globally in the second quarter, up from 4 million for the same quarter last year, according to Gartner in numbers released Wednesday.
That Windows Phone increase from a scant 2.3% market share last year to 3.3% in the second quarter is partly due to acceptance of its mobile operating system by more wireless carriers and manufacturers. Gartner said Windows Phone, which ranks third behind Android and iOS, took that position for the first time from BlackBerry, now in fourth place with a 2.7% market share.
One prime example of carrier and maker adoption of Windows Phone 8 is the new ATIV S Neo. Built by Samsung and running Windows Phone 8, the Neo will go on sale at Sprint starting Friday for $149.99 with a two-year contract and rebate. It is the second Windows Phone 8 Sprint has sold, after the HTC 8XT, which went on sale in July for $99.99 with a rebate and two-year agreement.
Nokia makes 80% of the world's Windows Phone 8 devices, and AT&T exclusively recently put the Nokia Lumia 1020 with a 41-megapixel camera on sale for $299.99 and a two-year agreement.
While carriers don't promote phones that won't sell, they also want more choices in operating systems to offer customers so they can bargain more easily with Apple and Android makers for lower smartphone subsidy prices, analysts said.
Sprint has tied the marketing of its two Windows Phone 8 smartphone launches to its unlimited service plans and growing LTE wireless network, which had reached 151 cities as of July 30.
Meanwhile, AT&T on Wednesday said its LTE network had reached 365 cities with the recent addition of six more cities. Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile also have LTE networks but Verizon got the earliest start and has the broadest LTE service, reporting 500 cities by the end of June.
Analysts also said it is hard to say what feature is the best selling point for a smartphone since many smartphones offer similar features. All the major carriers have rolled out LTE service to some extent that complements LTE in phones, including the ATIV S Neo.
At Sprint, executives have focused on Windows Phone 8 as a selling point even though the Windows Phone Store has been criticized for providing far fewer apps at 160,000 than either Android or iOS. "Without a doubt, [ the HTC 8XT and ATIV S Neo] will rival any smartphone on the market today," said Fared Adib, senior vice president of product development at Sprint in a June 26 statement.
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The US to cut off its trade deal with Mexico and Canada.
Powell’s positive outlook on US Economy lifted the greenback.
CREA reported that the Canadian home re-sales recovered however, this was below the average.
The victory of France in the World Cup may lift the country’s morale.
A survey revealed that most of US businesses in China opposed tariffs.
Heatwave and recent world cup helps the UK economy to recover.
Fed worries on letting US economy to run ‘too strong’
Telegram is banned in Iran. This decision later on affected the Iran economy.
Saudi economy bounces back from its loss and it is likely to accelerate on the increase of its oil output.
Jamaica takes steps in transforming into a digital economy.
Most Americans are optimistic about Trump’s handling of the economy.
The escalating US-China trade war will likely hurt Chinese economy.
The Confederation of British Industry warned that the UK economy will have land its fall this year as Brexit hangs risks.
Russia Economy will gain a momentary boost during the FIFA World Cup.
Fed is expected to conclude its two-day meeting on Wednesday with its second hike on interest rates this year.
Brexit's damages to the British economy are happening, according to foreign investment flows report.
Australia's economy has beaten expectations with a 3.1 % recorded increase in its annual GDP.
Trump economic adviser warned that the trade disputes could put risk the US economy.
Bloomberg Economics showed indicators that China's economy is resisting slowdown without a fight.
President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he will withdraw the United States from the Iran deal, upsetting its European allies on the process.


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Quantcast Corp. has developed technology that helps broker target advertising on the Internet.
The San Francisco startup provides data to companies such as Time Inc., NBC Universal and Bloomberg that helps them sell ads for specific audiences.
Its approach goes beyond popular Web analytics services, telling not only what visitors are doing, but who they are, said Quantcast’s co-founder and CEO, Konrad Feldman.
The data lets companies sell ads in real time based on targeted demographics such as age, gender and household income.
Quantcast raised $25.7 million in 2007 and 2008 in two funding rounds from The Founder´s Fund, Revolution Ventures and Polaris Venture Partners.
The company started in 2006 offering companies free analytics that use software code to track Web site visitors. Soon, major media companies signed on, including Time, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, SI.com and others.
The technology allows Quantcast to collect data on visitors and then associate it with data collected from millions of sites, to estimate specific information on an audience. As more companies signed on, those data set became huge assets; the company now boasts data from some 10 million Web assets.
The approach is different from the more-traditional method of using panels of Web surfers, as offered by companies such as comScore and Nielsen. And while its initial selling point — it’s free — is big, the approach is clearly appealing to publishers and advertisers.
“The data is going to be very specific down to the page level,” said Matthew Booth, an analyst with the research firm Kelsey Group. “People are going to be more apt to start using businesses like this. We are very bullish on the entire analytic measurement space.”
This summer the company launched its first revenue-generating product, a media-buying service called the Quantcast Media Program, which helps partition and sell audiences real time. Quantcast takes a share of the revenue generated from ads sold on the sites.
It has built a sort of ecosystem between publishers and marketers, Feldman said, allowing publishers to sell and marketers to buy segments of audiences.
Time Inc. deployed Quantcast technology across all of its Web sites early last year, including Time.com, People.com, and SI.com, the Sports Illustrated Web site. The company uses Quantcast data to help sell targeted advertising on those sites.
That allowed the company to show advertisers the composition of its audiences, said Jason Kelly, vice president of digital strategy and revenue management for Time Inc. For example, media buyers can see a high composition of men on Time.com and buy ads accordingly.
Time also uses Quantcast’s new Media Program. It allows Time to not only measure the composition of an audience, but also to target specifically to an audience, Kelly said.
“It’s all about addressable media,”he noted.
A quick look at Time.com’s readership on the Quantcast Web site shows surprising detail: 63 percent men, 45 percent over age 50, 84 percent with no kids age 1 to 17, 30 percent with a household income of more than $100,000.
Looking forward, Quantcast’s Feldman says the company is just getting started. As the user experience becomes more individualized, companies will have to rethink how advertising is done.
Funding: $25.7 million in venture funding
Number of employees: 65
Web site: www.quantcast.com


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What Up Dough hosted a pop up donut shop at the Stockdale Affairs Event Center Saturday morning.
There were options for just about everyone, including home made custom donuts that were baked instead of fried.
There we also vegan and gluten free options available for people. Other donuts featured cereal, crushed cookies, and frosting toppings.
Donuts were only $2 and sold out in 45 minutes.
What Up Dough hopes to eventually open up a donut truck and they will likely host another pop up shop.


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And this fall the supply of cereal grains and oilseeds certainly appears destined to tighten significantly.
We are of course aware of the impact of the long hot, dry summer has had on crops on the Canadian Prairies. We have seen the stunted crops in the fields and experience told us yields were going to be down.
Now, as harvest is beginning, that is being confirmed by how much crop is coming off the fields.
The United States Department of Agriculture, (USDA), recently chopped its Canadian wheat and canola production estimates.
And in this country we’ve already seen government acknowledge the drought situation with programming dollars already announced to help producers deal with the financial impact of lower than anticipated production.
If it were just Canada impacted this year it would cause a ripple in terms of supply and demand since this country is a major exporter of cereals and oilseeds.
But the impact of weather is hitting more than Canada.
The USDA has recently cut its crop production estimates for two of the key American crops. The government department has stated corn and soybean production will be smaller than previously anticipated because of dry soils in key western growing areas.
Drought has also hit Kazakhstan lowering that country’s wheat production estimate for 2021.
Reports also point to weather-related harvest issues in the European Union which has producers there facing reduced prospects for wheat and barley harvests.
Interestingly, in a related sense, coffee prices may be going skyward too because of frost hitting that crop in Brazil, another weather impact on supply, and since Canadians love their coffee we can well-understand the demand side.
When you look at major production areas which include Canada, the US, the EU and Kazakhstan, all facing production lower than anticipated, the message to the market has to be tightening supplies, and that generally means prices heading upwards.
The more data that comes out as harvests continue, the tighter supplies may be, and the greater the surge in prices.
It will be a situation that will certainly mean some good returns for those producers who were lucky to get a rain or two to help yields.
But, what higher prices do much for the general farm sector is less easy to anticipate.


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Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
Building for Digital Equity End of Year Encore
Capping off a banner year in broadband, ILSR and NDIA’s final Building for Digital Equity livestream of 2023 this week had its largest audience to date since the online quarterly series started in 2022.
Digital Equity Unwrapped: End of Year Reflections/The New Year Ahead, sponsored by UTOPIA Fiber, featured timely topics and practical insights from an array of frontline digital inclusion practitioners, teeing up Net Inclusion 2024 – the biggest in-person gathering of digital equity advocates in the nation.
That event will be hosted by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) in Philadelphia, February 13-15, 2024.
If you missed the #B4DE 2023 finale or would like to see it again, you can watch it in its entirety below.
It includes lightning round presentations from the Administrator for Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC) Nubia Estrada and OCA Asian Pacific American Advocates Policy & Organizing Manager Eric Kim; a preview of this year’s Trailblazer Awards with a special guest appearance by Rebecca Kauma, LA County’s Director of Digital Equity; and an update on the work being done by Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR) Digital Navigator Ashley Smith.
Putting a bow on the holiday season event was keynote speaker Patrick Messac, Director of the Bay Area-based digital equity nonprofit #OaklandUndivided. Messac connected the dots on the importance of equitable infrastructure investments, mapping, and ways local communities might leverage the FCC’s new rules to address digital discrimination.
As always viewers and participants are encouraged to contact Jordan Pittman – Digital Equity Coordinator for ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative – at firstname.lastname@example.org with suggestions or ideas for how to make next year’s #B4DE even more useful for digital inclusion practitioners.


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Logistics Company Fined for Dangerous Goods Breaches
Posted February 17, 2015 05:17 PM
Logistics firm Mainfreight has been hit with an AU$88,500 fine by the New South Wales Land and Environment Court for dangerous goods compliances breaches.
The breaches were detected during the course of an enforcement operation carried out near Lithgow in November 2011, conducted jointly by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA), Roads and Maritime Services and NSW Police.
EPA officers inspected a truck carrying 3,900kg of various dangerous goods and found numerous contraventions of dangerous goods regulations. These included incompatible dangerous goods, unrestrained dangerous goods including eighteen 200-litre drums of flammable liquids, a failure to placard the load and a failure to have the necessary personal protection equipment.
EPA’s Chief Environmental Regulator, Mr Mark Gifford, stressed the importance of dangerous goods compliance for all parties involved in transport. “Everybody from the driver, through to the vehicle owner and the transporter have a responsibility to ensure that dangerous goods are loaded, stored and transported safely and legally” noted Gifford. “”This is not only a legal requirement but also a social responsibility when flammable and dangerous goods are being transported on public roads.”
Mainfreight noted their commitment to improving safety practices since the incident, citing the appointment of dangerous goods coordinators in their branches, annual dangerous goods audits, computer system enhancements and employee training programmes.


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Disney+ and Hulu to be unified in one app later this year
Disney+ and Hulu will remain standalone services.Donovan Erskine
May 10, 2023 2:30 PM3
During Disney’s (DIS) Q2 2023 earnings call, we got a better idea of how business has been going at the entertainment empire over the past few months. This included some talk about its efforts in the streaming business, as Disney operates Disney+, ESPN+, and is the majority stakeholder in Hulu. During the call, it was announced that Disney+ and Hulu content will be combined into one app by the end of 2023.
Disney CEO Bob Iger was the one that announced the new platform-combining app during the latest Disney shareholders meeting. The app will be released by the end of 2023. While it combines the libraries of the two streaming services, the two services will still be offered as standalone options. Disney currently owns two-thirds of Hulu, but has come to an agreement with Comcast in order to take total control of the platform and execute the merger.
“While we continue to offer Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ as standalone options, this is a logical progression of our DTC offerings that will provide greater opportunities for advertisers, while giving bundle subscribers access to more robust and streamlined content, resulting in greater audience engagement and ultimately leading to a more unified streaming experience,” he said.
It doesn’t appear that there are any plans to fold ESPN+ into this new app. This announcement came alongside the news that Disney+ lost 4 million subscribers in its latest quarter.
Disney currently offers a bundle for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. There seems to be some confusion about how those subscriptions will transfer over once the new app is released later this year. If you’re interested in hearing us discuss the results of Disney’s latest earnings results, as well as other news in the film and TV industry, be sure to tune into Pop! Goes the Culture! on Thursdays.


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In a landmark step towards controlling the spread of the coronavirus, a small number of people have managed to put a piece of cloth or paper in front of their face without fucking this up in some way.
While these numbers represent a significant improvement, the government is still considering rolling out anatomy lessons to help other mask users and to correct the seemingly common misconception that droplets containing the virus are breathed out from a person’s chin rather than their nose and mouth.
Infection scientist and/or mask fashion guru John Smith has been tracking the public’s compliance with mask advice.
“Many people seem to have favoured pulling the mask down, often turning it into some weird beard swaddling cloth. Whereas others have gone for the risqué option of slightly under the nose, as if they wanted their hairy mucus caves to be exposed. That’s not great scientifically or aesthetically!”
The latest successful mask-wearer was spotted making an entire train journey with the mask correctly placed on her face, although she did proceed to shake hands with a colleague as soon as she left the station.


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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled in favor of Samsung Electronics and its backers in the industry in a design patent dispute with Apple, when in a 8-0 decision it said that “the term ‘article of manufacture’ is broad enough to embrace both a product sold to a consumer and a component of that product, whether sold separately or not.”
But the top court has left a lot unsaid, including by not providing guidance to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on how the damages Samsung has to pay Apple for the infringement of smartphone design patents will have to be calculated. That could also delay for a long time the resolution of the patent dispute between Apple and Samsung, which has already dragged on for a number of years.
As a result of the Supreme Court decision, Apple’s damage award does not have to be based on sales of the entire phone but could instead be focused on the value of the particular components claimed in the design patent, said Mark P. McKenna, law professor at University of Notre Dame.
“Unfortunately, the Court did not give lower courts any guidance as to how to determine whether the ‘article of manufacture’ in any given case is the product sold to consumers or a component. Presumably it has something to do with the nature of the design patent claim, but the Court did not make that clear,” McKenna, who had co-filed a ‘friend-of-the-court’ brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the Apple v. Samsung case, said in an emailed statement.
On that point of guidance, the Supreme Court has said that “absent adequate briefing by the parties, this Court declines to resolve whether the relevant article of manufacture for each design patent at issue here is the smartphone or a particular smartphone component.” Doing so is not necessary to resolve the question presented, and the Federal Circuit may address any remaining issues on remand by the Supreme Court, it added.
The Supreme Court refused to give any opinion “as to (1) how a judge or jury might go about deciding whether the profits apply to the product as a whole or instead to an individual component or (2) whether – in this case – the profits should be applied to the entire Samsung Galaxy smartphones or only to the individual components,” wrote Dennis Crouch, law professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, in a post on patent blog Patently-O.
“Although the case offers hope for Samsung and others adjudged of infringing design patents, it offers no clarity as to the rule of law,” Crouch added.
Samsung had questioned before the top court a decision that required it to pay damages of US$399 million for infringement of three design patents, which protect the way an article looks, while utility patents address the way an article is used and works. The company claimed that the infringed patents, relating to the face and rounded bezel design of the iPhone, and the icon layout on the home screen, are only minor features of the product.
But Apple had in its favor an old statute that makes an infringer liable to a patent holder to the extent of his total profit, but not less than $250, if he unlawfully makes, sells or exposes for sale any “article of manufacture” after applying the patented design or any colorable imitation thereof without license of the owner.
The Supreme Court’s decision is a victory for the company “and for all those who promote creativity, innovation and fair competition in the marketplace,” Samsung said in a statement Tuesday. A number of tech companies, trade groups and legal experts have supported Samsung on this issue, as they hold that an adverse outcome could have implications on innovation.
“The lower court’s interpretation of design patents, which allowed someone to sue based on an ornamental feature and reap the entire profits of someone else’s product, would have had a chilling effect on investment and the development of products – especially in the tech sector,” said Ed Black, president and CEO of technology industry group Computer & Communications Industry Association, in a statement.


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Singer Bangladesh Ltd has been posting continuous year-on-year growth since it registered a drastic decline both in sales and profits in the April-June quarter of 2020 due to a prolonged shutdown.
Defying the pandemic, the listed electronics and home appliances multinational company generated 24% growth in sales and 51% growth in profits between January and March, compared to the same period a year ago ahead of the onset of the pandemic.
On the company's beating the pre-pandemic performance in the first quarter of 2021, Singer Bangladesh's Senior Manager for Marketing and Communication Raziur Rahman said, ''Since the outbreak of Covid-19, Singer has remained very relevant to consumers."
"Singer has focused on the changing needs of consumers in the new-normal scenario," he added.
The company suffered 42% drop in sales and 80% slump in profits over the April-June quarter of 2020 due to the 66-day long nationwide shutdown.
With the virus transmission contained for the time being and the shutdown lifted, the company gained over 16% year-on-year sales growth in the July-September period. The figure was 27% in the October-December quarter of 2020, while the quarters respectively observed 4% and 68% profit growth.
The booming business was still not enough to make up for the loss endured during the shutdown, as the company posted a 2.68% drop in annual revenue and 24% fall in net profit for the year.
The first quarter of this year raised hopes for a better year.
"With the improvement of Covid-19 situation in the first quarter, before it again deteriorated from the later part of last March, the company could return with business growth and better financial results," the company said in the first quarterly statement.
Despite the fact that Singer Bangladesh has had a better collection over the quarter, its net operating cash flow decreased due to higher payments against higher and early imports of raw materials counting on the higher demand in the upcoming peak season for cooling products.
The industry observes a higher demand for refrigerators during the Eid-Ul-Azha season, which fell in the third quarter in recent years.
The company cashed in on the peak season in 2020 as its sales grew to over Tk625 crore in the third quarter, which came down to Tk269 crore in the following quarter amid a fallen demand for refrigerators and air conditioners before the winter.
What may happen this year?
With the shops closed again since 13 April, whether Singer can reach its sales target in the summer this year appears to be a big question now.
Of course, it is too early to predict since no one knows when the situation might improve for the reopening of the electronics and home appliances' outlets across Bangladesh.
One new trend gives rise to optimism and that is online sales.
Talking about the business scenario during the ongoing lockdown, Raziur Rahman said, ''We are meeting the needs of consumers by selling online through our e-commerce site www.singerbd.com."
Besides, Singer has launched a special campaign titled, ''One Call, That's All''; a customer just has to make one call at 16482 to purchase the product of their emergency need.
"We are delivering the product to the customer's residence within 24 hours,'' Raziur added.


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U.S. Consumer Confidence Bounces Back, House Prices Rise
Consumer confidence bounced back in May, but households were a bit pessimistic regarding their short-term income prospects even as they expected strong job growth to persist, which could restrain consumer spending.
The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index increased 2.4 points to a reading of 128.0 this month from a downwardly revised 125.6 in April. The index was previously posted at 128.7 in April.
U.S. financial markets were little moved by the data amid a deepening political crisis in Italy. The dollar climbed to a 10-month high versus the euro, while U.S. Treasury yields dropped. Stocks on Wall Street fell, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting near three-week lows.
The Conference Board's so-called labor market differential, derived from data on respondents' views on whether jobs are plentiful or difficult to get, rose to 26.6 in May, the best reading since May 2001, from 22.7 in April.
That measure, which closely correlates to the unemployment rate in the Labor Department's employment report, suggests that labor market slack continues to shrink.
However, consumers were less upbeat about their short-term income prospects. The share of consumers expecting an improvement in their income dropped to 21.3 percent in May from 21.8 percent in April. The proportion expecting a decline rose to 8.2 percent in May from 7.9 percent in the previous month.
A separate report showed the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller composite index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas rose 0.5 percent in March after climbing 0.8 percent in February. House prices were up 6.8 percent in the 12 months to March after rising by the same margin in February.
The strong gains are at odds with recent data which had suggested a cooling in house prices. The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported last week that house prices were slightly higher by 0.1 percent in March from February.


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Gartner, Inc. has predicted that, by 2026, 20% of organisations are going to turn their attention to reducing the carbon footprint of their packaging over eliminating plastics and facilitating recycling.
A previous statement from the company suggested that 90% of organisations with a pledge to transition into 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging by 2025 will not meet their targets; this is expected to motivate a widespread shift in approach. Although this is also thought to result in greenwashing allegations, Gartner suggests that companies pushing for stakeholders, customers, and investors to embrace life cycle assessment (LCA) as a sustainability metric will have the relevant data to support their contributions to reducing emissions and climate change.
John Blake, senior director analyst with the Gartner Supply Chain practice, maintains that previous attempts to popularise LCAs for packaging fell short due to the complexity of the data analysis and a lack of relevancy to general attitudes at the time. However, newer developments in data analysis tools are increasing the accessibility of such testing.
Therefore, it is anticipated that future sustainable packaging initiatives will take the form of material reduction or adopting materials that are produced, transported, and processed efficiently – all of which are said to be financially viable ways for companies to lower their carbon footprints.
“The packaging ecosystem has not advanced at the pace that organizations setting targets back in 2017 and 2018 had hoped for,” said Blake. “Organisations face operational and financial challenges that were discovered only through the attempt to deliver their goals, but meaningful progress on sustainability can still be made with more realistic frameworks in place.
“While missing targets will have repercussions in the public eye, organisations that come to terms with the unfeasibility of their previous brand-driven targets and embrace a more realistic, affordable and effective approach will have more progress to show on their sustainability goals than those who remain in denial.”
Blake previously spoke with Packaging Europe about the difficulties of companies committing to sustainable packaging commitments; progress in the area can vary between sectors, he explained, resulting in an uneven playing field across the packaging industry. Other roadblocks reportedly include a lack of appropriate infrastructure for collection, sorting, and processing, and a lack of fundamental packaging specification data.
Particular organisations and services have been pursuing the reduction of carbon emissions in the meantime. This time last year, Smurfit Kappa announced that its emissions reduction targets had been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative; and the Spring 2022 releases for Avery Dennison’s atma.io connected product cloud featured a tool dedicated to measuring the carbon footprints of products across the value chain.


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Wiser! CatchUp #2: the top stories, news, analysis, insights and information from across the Wiser! Newsletter in October 2021.
w/In Partnership With...
Twitter: The month ended with the story that Jack Dorsey has quit as the CEO of Twitter.
I'll be covering this story in Friday's issue of Wiser! but thought you'd like to see the post I wrote on Linkedin when the news broke. Or this piece at the end of October about Twitter's own research that shows how the platform is biased towards amplifying right-wing content.
The Metaverse: The Metaverse continues to be the centre of attention ever since Mark Zuckerberg shone a giant spotlight on it with the renaming of Facebook to meta.
This is such an important subject that EVERY subscriber to Wiser! received the 2 part essay on the Metaverse in their Inbox. In Part 1 I wrote about what this means for Facebook and answered the question "what is it?". In Part 2 I took a more practical journey into what the Metaverse means in reality.
Microsoft followed suit and threw their hat into the Metaverse ring with their virtual reality solution for home workers. Shortly followed by a partnership announcement between Microsoft and MetaFacebook to combine Teams and Workplace.
Getting back to Facebook, they showcased their new haptic gloves (a key wearable in the meta armoury as they turn us all into Ironman).
But the big questions for Facebook are, will the Metaverse landgrab work? And will the renaming hold or will the social media giant forever be known as Facebook? Here's what some of my Linkedin followers thought about that...
The Metaverse morphs into the Attention Economy with this next story. In the November 19th issue I wrote about the use of deepfake technology in e-commerce. It seems that influencers are not actually wearing the clothes they are wearing in the ads. They're digitally enhanced...as if the influencers were not fake enough!
Attention Economy: The trend for live shopping is growing across social media as they look for new ways to grab and keep hold of your attention.
If you don't believe me, listen to this. A chap called 'the lipstick king' sold $1.7 billion of makeup ina 12 hour Livestream on social media.
I've written before about TikTok's move in this space in previous issues. The latest platform to join in is Pinterest. The launch of the unimaginatively named Pinterest TV will give influencers access to the platform’s 454 million regular users.
Clubhouse rolled out new features just as reports surfaced that it's user numbers have fallen off a cliff!
In CryptoCorner: Bitcoin showed its price volatility as it approached $70,000 mid month before falling to $54,000 2 weeks later.
At the start of the month I reported on Bitcoin and Eth demand outstripping supply, pushing the price to new highs. Investors then took advantage with some cashing in on the record high prices whilst others bought the dip (notably, El Salvador's President Bukele and MicrosStrategy's Micheal Saylor).
OpenAI's Sam Altman launched WorldCoin, a token for the people of the world that is signed and secured by biometric eye scans stored on a blockchain.
Meanwhile, in the world of digital currencies, a consortium of around 70 of Japan's largest banks plan to launch the DCJPY, a digital Yen. And, Nigeria became the latest nation, and the first in Africa, to launch a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency).
Predictions 2022: Do you want to know what's happening next in the Tech Economy? What are the top trends going into 2022? Who are the ones to watch and why? And how it might impact you?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions then you need the Predictions 2022 Package. And if you buy before December 5th, you can take advantage of the 50% Early Bird discount.
Predictions 2022 includes;
- the 'Predictions, Trends and Strategies 2022' downloadable eBook,
- invitation to a zoom call on the 22nd December where I will take you through my top predictions for what's next in the metaverse, crypto, big tech and more,
- plus 3 months Premium Membership for unlimited access to all content in Wiser!
To take advantage of the Early Bird Discount and get 50% off, go here.
w/Snippets of Insight and Information
Top Headlines of the Month
'NFT' is the Collins' Word of the Year (even though it is technically a 3-letter acronym)
w/Sharing is Caring
Don't keep it all it yourself, forward this email to a friend or colleague. Call it an early Christmas present!
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Ecuador's Manta port authority APM is looking for a strategic partner to carry out a US$73mn improvement plan, APM communications official Fernando Olguin told BNamericas.
The project, to be backed by the national government, will be carried out in two stages from 2011-2014, and aims to boost the port's capacity to handle large ships by increasing its depth to 16-18m from 12m.
First-stage works, budgeted at US$13mn, will consist of remodeling of the port building, improving docks and dredging the bay.
The US$60mn second stage will involve building a deepwater dock and expanding the port area, Olguin said.
In 2005, Manta port handled 38,749 TEUs; however, activity has dropped dramatically, with the port handling just 3,924 TEUs in 2009, according to figures from APM.
Manta port was concessioned in 2006 to Terminales Internacionales de Ecuador (TIDE), controlled by Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH), for a 30-year period.
HPH was the only company to submit an offer for the port, offering to invest US$523mn to build a deepwater port capable of handling 2.2mn containers a year.
In February last year, however, TIDE said it was withdrawing from the concession, accusing authorities of making unilateral changes to the contract.
APM and TIDE have yet to reach an agreement over control of the port.


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Growers market taters by times
11/30/2012 12:15:24 PMMarketing potatoes can be looked at from a calendar standpoint, says Chris Wada, director of marketing... Read more.
Business updates: Potatoes Marketing
11/30/2012 11:43:21 AMAssociated Potato Growers names pair of staffers Grand Forks, N.D.-based Associated Potato Grower, Inc., recently added... Read more.
Retailers seek new items among spud offerings
03/02/2012 9:51:40 AMEvery year, Don Ladhoff meets with many of the nation’s largest retailers to talk about potatoes.... Read more.
Potato outlook brighter for foodservice
03/02/2012 9:41:10 AMAfter back-to-back years of declining sales in 2008 and 2009, the National Restaurant Association predicts... Read more.


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Events & Conferences
AVSystem announces participation in MWC20 BarcelonaEvents & Conferences 09 January 2020
Event: MWC Barcelona 2020
Dates: 24 February 2020 - 27 February 2020
Location: Fira Gran Via, Barcelona, Spain
AVSystem proudly joins MWC20 in Barcelona, the largest mobile event in the world, to present the newest accomplishments of its IoT portfolio.This special exhibition brings together key decision-makers and influencers to rethink their vision for the future ...
AVSystem will join AfricaCom 2019 in Cape Town, South AfricaEvents & Conferences 29 October 2019
Event: AfricaCom 2019
Dates: 12 November 2019 - 14 November 2019
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
AVSystem announced today that the company is participating in AfricaCom 2019, the largest ICT exhibition on the continent. This year’s show is expected to bring together 15,000 attendees, 500 exhibitors and 450 speakers. The conference will deliver ...
AVSystem to sponsor IoT Tech Expo North America 2019Events & Conferences 25 October 2019
Event: IoT Tech Expo North America 2019
Dates: 13 November 2019 - 14 November 2019
Location: Santa Clara, California, USA
AVSystem will be joining IoT Tech Expo NA as a Silver Sponsor in Santa Clara, 13-14 November 2019. 4th edition of IoT Tech Expo North America will bring together 12,000 attendees, 500 speakers and 350 exhibitors to discuss about the state-of-the-art techn...
AVSystem and MachNation will host a webinar on LwM2MEvents & Conferences 24 October 2019
AVSystem, the leading company creating software for IoT, device management, WiFi VAS and indoor location, will host a webinar with MachNation, the leading benchmarking and testing firm for Internet of Things (IoT) platforms and middleware. The webinar ti...
AVSystem joining Futurecom 2019 exhibition in BrazilEvents & Conferences 11 October 2019
Event: Futurecom 2019
Dates: 28 October 2019 - 31 October 2019
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
AVSystem is going to be a part of Futurecom 2019 held in Sao Paulo, Brazil during the last days of October. Futurecom 2019 is an excellent event that answers all the technology needs in the telecommunications ecosystem. Being the biggest digital transform...
AVSystem Announces Participation at IoT SWC 2019Events & Conferences 08 October 2019
Event: IoT Solutions World Congress 2019
Dates: 29 October 2019 - 31 October 2019
Location: Barcelona, Spain
AVSystem is going to take part in IoT Solutions World Congress 2019 at the end of October. IoT SWC is a unique exhibition dedicated to bringing together IoT entrepreneurs to share their ideas and present use cases on key topics in the IoT world. Each yea...
AVSystem is Ready for MWC Los Angeles 2019Events & Conferences 01 October 2019
Event: MWC Los Angeles 2019
Dates: 22 October 2019 - 24 October 2019
Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
AVSystem is happy to announce its participation in the upcoming MWC Los Angeles 2019 event that will take place in Los Angeles, USA, 22-24 October 2019. This year's edition will feature new technologies such as AI, 5G, data analytics or blockchain that hav...
AVSystem Joins Broadband World Forum 2019 to Present its Product PortfolioEvents & Conferences 19 September 2019
Event: Broadband World Forum 2019
Dates: 15 October 2019 - 17 October 2019
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
AVSystem will take part in the upcoming BBWF 2019 event in Amsterdam to connect with broadband leaders from all over the world. The Broadband World Forum event has been tracking the broadband industry since 2001 and year after year it’s been brimmi...
AVSystem will join Cable-Tec Expo 2019 in New Orleans, LouisianaEvents & Conferences 11 September 2019
Event: Cable-Tec Expo® 2019
Dates: 30 September 2019 - 03 October 2019
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
AVSystem is going to showcase its portfolio at Cable-Tec Expo 2019 -- the biggest event in the cable and telecommunications industry. Cable-Tec Expo 2019 is a very well-known cable telecom event in the Americas. For almost 40 years, the event has been gat...
AVSystem at IoT World 2019Events & Conferences 16 April 2019
Event: Internet of Things World 2019
Dates: 13 May 2019 - 16 April 2019
Location: Santa Clara Convention Center, CA, USA
AVSystem is excited to announce its participation in IoT World 2019 in Santa Clara, CA – the heart of Silicon Valley. This year’s edition will welcome over 12,500 attendees, 400+ speakers, 300+ sponsors, exhibitors and startups for a global conference ded...


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"gillette's new campaign is rooted in the #metoo and the male role has aroused strong reactions among the people – some are positive, while others want to boycott the company. "
"For 30 years ago, the company launched Gillette, who is known for their razors, the commercial ”The best a man can get”. The campaign, with its slogan and pictures on men who do sports and who wears a suit, quickly became iconic. "
"on Monday, the company released a new campaign, which has a completely different focus. In the commercial takes its starting point in the metoo, the movement opens with the question ”Is this the best a man can get?”. During the 90 seconds problematizes Gillette male role and what they consider to be destructive with it, such as sexism. With the new slogan, ”We believe: The best you can be” urge the men to take responsibility for their behaviour and to be role models for the next generation. "
"In a few days, the campaign has to spark strong reactions. On Youtube it has over eleven million views and over 177 000 comments."
"Several have gone out and said that they will boycott Gillette, but also other products from Procter & Gamble, which owns the brand, during hashtagen #Boycottgillette. Many believe that the commercial paints men and that it is offensive. "
"I will never apologize for that, I'm a man, and is good at it. This is not about manhood, it's about being a good human being. Most men are law-abiding citizens and care about others,” wrote one person on his Twitter."
"But the commercial will meet not only of rice, there are also several that pay tribute to the initiative and who believe that the negative reactions shows that the campaign needed. "
"We all want to believe the best about men and there are men in the world that are already there. But there are also a lot of work remains to be done. The adverse reactions of your commercial shows just that,” writes one person on gillette's Facebook page. "


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2020 was a transformative year for online services, commerce and payments. On the back of the pandemic, the digital commerce ecosystem has experienced a radical growth spurt. The widespread disruption across all walks of life led to a tectonic shift in e-commerce, speeding up the adoption of digital wallets, peer-to-peer transfers, and mobile banking — and to a parallel decline of cash payments at point of sale. Covid forced banks and fin-techs to implement innovations in financial services that were expected to require a decade to complete – within just a year.
A breeding ground for sophisticated fraud
The downside of the proliferation of new digital payment channels and technologies has created a breeding ground for sophisticated fraud opportunities and bad actors, posing new challenges for fraud detection, prevention and prediction. According to the IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center), financial losses caused by fraud in 2020 were at its highest ever, exceeding $4.1Bn – a 17% increase from 2019. The number of complaints reported to IC3 during last year – nearly 800,000 – also set a new record.
A combination of factors make the fight against payment fraud so challenging:
- Large volume of transactions. The growing volume of digital transactions and payments are putting pressure on fraud detection and prevention technologies that need to process, analyze and authorize a larger volume, variety and velocity of payment traffic.
- Bad actors are becoming increasingly sophisticated. In the constant arms race between fraudsters and financial organizations, criminals are adopting sophisticated tools and cutting-edge cyber tactics to overcome legacy security systems.
- Difficulties in identity verification. Identity theft is a critical form of cybercrime, putting both individuals and enterprises at risk. The most common types of identity theft are real name theft, synthetic theft, and account takeover – where the stolen information is used to register fraudulent new accounts, whether banking checking accounts, credit card account, or mobile phone accounts.
Legacy security systems struggle to keep up with a new breed of financial crime
Banks and other financial institutions are fighting back against financial fraud in all its manifestations. In fact, according to AI research group Emerj, approximately 26% of the venture funding raised for AI in the banking industry is for fraud and cybersecurity applications, more than any other use-case category. That’s because current solutions cannot effectively deal with the new digital payments reality, for a variety of reasons:
- Dynamic data challenges. The current payment ecosystem is too complex and fragmented for manual management and a siloed data approach. Rule-based legacy systems with fixed outcomes struggle to keep pace with the challenges of dynamic data, and cannot be efficiently scaled-up to adapt to the new reality.
- False positives. Facing a surge in digital transactions, threshold-based systems that cannot autonomously adapt to changing data scenarios send out a high number of false positives and unsubstantiated alerts, leading to alert storms, errors, and increased pressure on manual remediation of each of these alerts.
- False negatives. For the same reason, traditional systems struggle in identifying false negatives, or “unknown unknowns”, often missing instances of fraud.
- Manual investigation. Organizations lose ample time and resources through lengthy investigations that are conducted with partial data and are also prone to errors and biases.
AI is a game-changer in combating financial fraud
The new generation of AI solutions for risk management and fraud detection, prevention and prediction use sophisticated AI risk-scoring systems for flagging fraudulent payments. These technologies are fundamentally different to rule-based solutions in that they learn from historical fraud patterns and recognize them in future transactions. Machine Learning algorithms are also significantly more effective than humans in spotting suspicious transactions and fraudulent traits within huge volumes of structured and unstructured data.
The benefits of implementing an AI solution in mitigating payment fraud:
- Complete monitoring of dynamic and changing data. AI is very effective at working with large, complex time series and tabular data sets using anomaly detection, and is cut out for present day fraud. By monitoring all data sources and correlating across domains and metrics, AI algorithms for fraud detection can more effectively identify suspicious activities and evolving fraud patterns.
- Reduced false positives, false negatives and alert storms. Supervised machine learning employs alert reduction mechanisms that dramatically cut false positive alerts and alert storms, enabling teams to focus their resources on the alerts that count. In addition, users see a decline in the number of legitimate transactions that are wrongfully declined. On the flip side, AI systems effectively capture false negatives and reduce the number of fraud instances, even when bad players use new methodologies and schemes
- Identification of fraud patterns with human in-the-loop feedback. Feedback from users working on the AI system is fed back to the algorithms, enhancing their ability to identify new fraud patterns, features and dimensions of fraud.
- Lowering costs of fraud prevention. Risk scoring and fraud prevention solutions for financial institutions bring significant ROI through several channels. While reduced fraud-related monetary damages is the main advantage, these technologies also contribute to the bottom line by reducing costs associated with manual fraud investigations, increasing customer satisfaction, and reducing customer churn.
BeyondMinds brings scale, speed, and explainability to risk scoring
With more and more retail activities and services delegated online, businesses and organizations will need to continue to improve at fighting payment fraud to prevent monetary damages, comply with legislation, and deliver customers the secure payment performance they expect. BeyondMinds provides financial institutions with advanced payment fraud detection capabilities that leverage advanced analytics and machine learning to:
- Analyze daily transactions, sending alerts once significant changes in payment patterns are detected
- Reduce false positives dramatically
- Discover new fraud patterns
- Explain why certain payments were flagged as suspicious
BeyondMinds’ AI solutions are hyper-customized around each financial institution’s data, business needs and use cases. The solutions delivered by BeyondMinds are enterprise-grade, with features including auditability, explainability, and compliance. The production-ready solution enables organizations to scale their AI transformation and rapidly create ROI from AI. While many other AI solutions can take months or years to successfully reach production, the BeyondMinds platform enables companies to achieve a production-grade AI risk scoring and fraud detection solution within just 10 weeks


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For a mere smart phone, the iPhone 4 is starting to make the iPad look a little outdated. Not only does it have the same A4 processor and more pixels per inch of display, according to Mac Rumors, the new handset also has twice as much RAM.
Word is that the iPhone 4 packs a cool half-gigabyte of system memory, up from 256MB in both the iPad and iPhone 3GS. You won't find that information on the device's official spec sheet, but Mac Rumors says Apple confirmed the figure during a session at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference. (No, the conference isn't just a highly mediatized platform for Steve Jobs keynotes.)
To add insult to injury, iPad users will have to wait until the fall to enjoy multitasking via the upcoming iOS 4. Meanwhile, the iPhone 4 will run iOS 4 from the get-go, and even iPhone 3GS users should be able to upgrade next week. Too bad competitors are still scrambling to get rival slate devices ready for production, because the first-gen iPad isn't looking like such a great buy right now.
|HP offers Leap Motion-infused keyboard with desktop, all-in-one PCs||11|
|Dell's Venue 8 Pro will be $99 at select Microsoft Stores on Monday||9|
|Brawling my way through Batman: Arkham Origins||19|
|Heavyweight rematch: Gigabyte X79-UP4 vs. MSI X79A-GD45 Plus||5|
|Thursday Night Shortbread||32|
|Acer's Iconia W4 tablet offers Bay Trail, 8'' display for $330||26|
|AMD issues statement on R9 290X speed variability, press samples||126|
|MSI's new gaming notebook has a 2880x1620 screen||29|
|Next-gen Intel SSDs could have 2TB capacities, integrated heatsinks||33|
|They had a 40M mail-in-rebate.||+30|


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In a long-running and highly contentious data security enforcement action against LabMD, a small medical testing laboratory, the Federal Trade Commission was handed a stunning defeat late Friday. In a 92-page ruling, Chief Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell dismissed the FTC’s case against LabMD – after a full administrative trial – based on the Commission’s failure to prove it was “likely” that consumers had been substantially injured in two alleged data security incidents dating back nearly seven years. The opinion can be found here.
This ruling is significant for all organizations that collect and store consumer data – and of particular interest to the 53 companies that, in the face of the FTC’s previous inquiries of their data security practices, chose to enter into consent decrees rather than challenge the Commission.
In issuing his ruling, Chief ALJ Chappell wrote that the “preponderance of the evidence in this case fails to show that Respondent’s alleged unreasonable data security caused, or is likely to cause, substantial consumer injury. Accordingly, the Complaint must be dismissed, and it need not, and will not, be further determined whether or not Respondent’s data security was, in fact, unreasonable.”
The legal question in the case was whether LabMD’s “unreasonable data security,” as alleged by the FTC, was an unfair trade practice in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. The Act imposes a three-part test for finding unfair acts or practices to those that: (1) cause or are likely to cause substantial injury to consumers, (2) which is not reasonably avoidable by consumers themselves and (3) not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or competition.”
The LabMD ruling has potentially broad implications for companies faced with data security actions brought by the FTC. It makes clear that the bar for enforcement actions under Section 5’s unfairness prong will generally require “proof of actual consumer harm and that “[s]ubjective feelings of harm, such as embarrassment, upset or stigma, standing alone, without accompanying, clearly demonstrated tangible injury, do not constitute ‘substantial injury’” within the meaning of Section 5.
And the LabMD case was far from typical, containing far more intrigue than the stuff of a routine administrative proceeding including a witness who invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination until he was granted prosecutorial immunity and key evidence that ALJ Chappell concluded was “manipulated,” which ultimately undermined the FTC’s action.
I spoke with LabMD CEO Michael Daugherty over the weekend about the ruling and its implications. He told me that he fought the FTC because he was faced with “death by a consent decree or death by damage” and that the headline risk of a data security breach in the health care industry would have “terrified” his clients and meant an end to his business. “I had no choice but to fight. LabMD is dead. I had nothing to lose.”
LabMD is also only one of two companies that have fought with the FTC over its jurisdiction in cybersecurity. Wyndham Worldwide Corporation has also taken on the FTC over a series of data breaches at the resort’s hotel chain. But in August, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Wyndham and held that the FTC had broad authority to take action against private sector companies which fail to take adequate steps to protect customer data.
The vast majority of companies faced with an FTC enforcement action have entered into consent decrees or settlements involving the implementation of comprehensive data security programs and monitoring for up to 20 years.
In the LabMD case, the ALJ also did not rule on whether the FTC has jurisdiction to enforce data security standards under the unfairness prong of Section 5. “Believing the Commission’s determination of its jurisdiction to be erroneous, Respondent reserves its jurisdictional challenge for its anticipated appeal to the federal court.”
The LabMD saga began in 2010 when the medical testing lab was notified that it was under investigation by the FTC for lax data security standards. LabMD, founded 20 years ago by Daugherty, served physicians and analyzed tissue samples for prostate and bladder cancer. It maintained personal information on approximately 750,000 patients.
Two years earlier, however, the ALJ had found that Tiversa, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based cybersecurity firm, Tiversa, Inc., approached LabMD claiming it had suffered a data breach. Tiversa told LabMD that an insurance report had been compromised and downloaded from a peer-to-peer file-sharing program, according to the ruling. The insurance report contained patient names, social security numbers, current procedure codes (identifies the medical procedure performed on a particular patient) and health care insurance information for more than 9,000 patients. Upon investigation, LabMD discovered that an employee had downloaded a peer-to-peer sharing program onto a company workstation to listen to music but found no evidence that any of its insurance reports had been compromised or were available on any peer-to-peer networks.
The ALJ found that Tiversa then attempted to sell its data breach remediation services to LabMD and that its representations that the medical testing lab’s insurance reports had been compromised and “spread across peer-to-peer networks” were “not true.” A former Tiversa sales manager, who refused to testify at trial until he was granted immunity from prosecution, called Tiversa’s assertions the “usual sales pitch” to encourage clients to purchase its data breach remediation services. The same witness testified at the administrative trial that there was no evidence that the LabMD insurance report was ever compromised or downloaded other than by Tiversa.
The second alleged data compromise took place in 2012 when LabMD documents containing sensitive personal information belonging to approximately 500 consumers were found by Sacramento police in connection with an identity theft investigation.
In 2013, the FTC filed a formal complaint against LabMD alleging that the medical testing lab failed to adequately protect patient health data and demanded that it institute a comprehensive data security program and submits to third-party security audits for the next 20 years.
But LabMD pushed back and refused to settle with the FTC. The ensuing three years were filled with numerous discovery and sanctions motions and multiple motions to dismiss, all of which were denied.
After wading through a voluminous record including more than 200 docket entries and conducting a full evidentiary hearing – including more than 1,000 exhibits, 39 witnesses, and more than 2,000 pages of trial and post-trial briefing – Judge Chappell concluded that the FTC failed to show any proof whatsoever of actual consumer injury. In fact, he outright rejected the FTC’s theory that a statistical or hypothetical risk of future harm was enough to find LabMD liable for unfair conduct under Section 5 of the FTC Act.
He held: “[T]he evidence fails to assess the degree of the alleged risk, or otherwise demonstrate that probability that a data breach will occur. To impose liability for unfair conduct under Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, where there is no proof of actual injury to any consumer, based only on an unspecified and theoretical ‘risk’ of a future data breach and identity theft, would require unacceptable speculation and would vitiate the statutory requirements of ‘likely’ substantial consumer injury.”
Judge Chappell scolded the FTC for relying on the work of Tiversa which he found “unreliable, not credible” accorded it “no weight.”


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Apart from keeping empty seats next to you on a crowded subway train, there's really no upside to garlic breath. And since we all want to enjoy garlic's taste and health benefits, we're constantly on the lookout for breath-freshening tricks after a garlicky meal.
Fennels seeds are offered at Indians restaurants to cut the garlic smell, and some people swear by chewing a coffee bean or eating parsley or lemon peel. Tic Tacs help in a pinch.
Now, however, researchers at Ohio State University have determined that the most effective way to neutralize the sulfur-causing compunds released by garlic is to drink a glass of full-fat milk with your meal.
In the study published in the Journal of Food Science and reported by the BBC, the scientists say that mixing the garlic in your mouth with milk works better than drinking the milk after the meal. Milk attacks allyl methyl sulphide, an element of garlic that can't be broken down by the digestive system and is eliminated from the body in breath and sweat.
"Plain water, and some foods, such as mushrooms and basil, may also help neutralize garlic smells," reports the BBC.
Do you have any garlic-breath-banishing tips to share?


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The National Pork Board released its latest findings from the comprehensive Insight to Action research, this time examining trends in consumer behavior related to dining out. With a shifting dining out landscape and multicultural cuisine trends on the rise in the U.S., the Pork Board set out to understand the needs, considerations and motivations that impact out-of-home dining decisions.
The Pork Board’s All About Dining Out: What’s on Trend report uncovers why consumers decide to eat the proteins they do and explores tactics so that foodservice operators can meet those needs, such as exploring new flavors, dishes and menu formats. Similar to the Pork Board’s findings from the previous report, Dinner at Home in America, there is an overarching high level of consumer satisfaction with dishes that feature pork, pointing to opportunity for incorporating pork in new ways on menus.
“With rapidly changing innovations, technology and competition, foodservice providers who truly understand what diners want — and deliver on it — will stand the test of time,” said Steve Rommereim, president of the National Pork Board’s board of directors.… Continue reading


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President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on Chinese goods could impact a “wide range” of Apple products, the tech giant said in a filing with the U.S. Trade Representative.
Cupertino, California-based Apple said products including its Watch, AirPods headphones, HomePod smart speakers and Mac mini computers likely would be hit by the tariffs. Apple didn’t mention the iPhone, which is by far the largest contributor to Apple’s revenue.
The tariffs may hurt Apple’s competitiveness and lead to higher prices for consumers, the company said.
“Tariffs increase the cost of our U.S. operations, divert our resources and disadvantage Apple foreign competitors,” Apple wrote.
The Trump administration is evaluating a plan to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on $200 billion in Chinese imports. Apple’s filing was submitted as part of a public comment period.


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(Las Vegas, 29 October 2018) - The CargoX platform was presented at the JOC Logistics Technology conference in Las Vegas by Patrick Vlačič, CargoX’s maritime legal expert, on stage with Andrew McLoone, director of operations at BDP International.
The Journal of Commerce held the conference with the purpose of disclosing to logistics companies the latest market forecasts and trend analyses, to enable them to stay on top of the market as transportation rates and shipping demands are changing constantly. The event also gave them a chance to meet with potential customers and nurture relationships. More than 250 attendees enjoyed the information-filled event.
Chris Brooks, the executive editor of JOC, opened the conference, and explained how the logistics industry will be impacted by the same technologies that have already transformed the commercial, financial, advertising, insurance, and manufacturing industries, and he pointed out how blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the internet of things will be reshaping the logistics business. He added the caveat that these technologies would be transformative if and only if they do not raise costs, and if they manage to capture the business imagination of the executives.
Peter Tirschwell, senior director of content, maritime and trade at IHS Markit, the leading source of information and insight in critical areas that shape today’s business landscape, has opened the discussion about blockchain’s impact on shipment documentation, where the CargoX open platform for shipping was presented. He emphasized that a host of purported use cases for blockchain technology exist in logistics, but they are mostly in testing phases.
Patrick Vlačič, CargoX’s legal advisor, and Andrew McLoone, director of operations at BDP International, showcased and discussed the finalized and deployed CargoX platform, based on the Blockchain Document Transaction System technology (BDTS), and its first solution - the Smart B/L™.
Vlačič demonstrated the CargoX platform, which, as the first open platform for the shipping industry, was recently fully developed, tested, and deployed into the production environment. He showcased how easy it is to use the public blockchain technology to move paper-based bills of lading to an electronic environment through a blockchain solution, where the targeted advantages of such an approach are reduced costs of physically moving paper documentation around the world while increasing data accuracy, security, and privacy.
“It is not a question whether blockchain is going to become a mainstream technology for information and document exchange and ownership transfer in shipping, logistics, and other industries - it is just a question of how soon this is going to happen,” said Patrick Vlačič, Ph.D., a legal advisor, an expert on maritime, transport and insurance law, a professor at two faculties and the former Minister of Transportation of the Republic of Slovenia.
Andrew McLoone, the director of operations at the global freight forwarder and non-vessel-operating common carrier BDP International, which has 5000+ employees in 133 countries, talked extensively about what the CargoX platform solution means to their business and their shipper customers and why they are looking forward to blockchain’s future.
Other sessions covered the global TMS and the visibility and fate of the forwarder in the digital world, global trade management, the benefits of real-time visibility and predictive analytics, customer engagement in the software age, blockchain adoption timing, logistics startup scaling, AI and machine learning buyer segmentation and analysis, and how VCs view the field.
The Journal of Commerce, the event’s organizer, is published by the IHS Markit group, which has 50,000+ customers in over 140 countries, among them 80+% of the Fortune Global 500 companies, and 94 of the 100 largest US corporations.


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Upcoming T-Cross eyed to ramp up Volkswagen PH sales
During an online roundtable meeting with reporters, Volkswagen Philippines President Felipe Estrella III said he is banking on it to “revive the brand” locally.
Volkswagen Philippines quietly left the country’s SUV scene, discontinuing the sales of the Tiguan and Touareg which among its the initial offerings to the market following the AC Motors’ acquisition of distributorship.
Now bringing a subcompact SUV (and its latest global model at that), Estrella said that that they are considering the vehicle to be one of their major sales drivers.
“The T-Cross is a vehicle that we hope will be ushering in a revival for the Volkswagen brand in Philippines,” Estrella said. “It will be a product offering that will fall in the subcompact SUV class and it will be the first we hope of several other SUVs that we are working to bring into the market,” he added.
Citing growth in sales in the SUV market, Estrella said that they are eyeing to take a share and become a relevant segment shareholder that will eventually make the model a volume driver for the local distributor.
Asked for its targeted figures for the first 12 months, Estrella firmly answered, "a lot."
The Volkswagen T-Cross will be officially introduced on May 26. This model is said to boast the longest wheelbase in the local subcompact SUV market. Estralla added that the Philippine-spec model will be longer than the European version.
The said model will be offered in two variants: the MPI AT S and the MPI AT SE. These two options will be powered by a Euro 6-rated, 1.5-liter, four-cylinder, naturally aspirated engine matched to a six-speed tiptronic transmission. This power mill is able to dish out 113hp and 145Nm torque.
Pricing for the upcoming Volkswagen T-Cross starts at ₱1.098 million for the MPI AT S, while the 1.5 MP AT SE variety will be retailed at ₱1.198 million
Photos from Volkswagen Philippines, Volkswagen