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Pedestrian traffic in the Downtown Yonge neighbourhood in Toronto continues to be on the upswing with some impressive numbers from the holiday shopping season.
“I’ve spoken to a number of our retailers, shopping centres and commercial spaces and I think the general feeling is that recovery has been pretty solid over the holiday period,” said Pauline Larsen, Executive Director of the Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area.
“Economic recovery is not a linear thing but we’re definitely getting positive feedback.”
She said from December 23 to January 2 foot traffic was up 11 per cent versus pre-pandemic in 2019.
“We were very pleased to see that,” said Larsen, adding there was a snowstorm on December 23.
“We were wondering if that would have a big impact but it looks like we were overall up even on pre-pandemic levels.”
She said that on Boxing Day the neighbourhood experienced a 19 per cent increase in foot traffic compared to 2019. There was more than 160,000 people on that day that were counted on the BIA’s stretch of Yonge Street.
And on December 31, there was a 23 per cent increase in foot traffic compared to 2019.
“Overall, pretty pleased with that. Strong foot traffic. Pre-pandemic levels. We’ve seen a strong showing for food services, we’ve seen a strong showing for retail, and services have definitely been the third category in what we’ve seen with the numbers,” said Larsen.
“I think this is the first holiday season that we’ve had for several years where people have been able to get out, walk around the neighbourhood, do their shopping in person and I think there’s an enormous appetite for that – to be out and about, if I can put it that way.
“One of the most successful things we did over the late November, December period is we do a holiday map of all the holiday lights in the neighbourhood. That was well used and downloaded and well supported. We saw an appetite for people to be out in the neighbourhood doing interesting things.
“The CF Toronto Eaton Centre had snowfalls in the mall. They actually had snow falling in the mall over the holiday shopping season and it seems that was very, very well received and popular.
“I guess the way I would put it is that people were just happy to be part of hustle and bustle again.”
Also, theatre was strong during the holiday period.
Larsen said the BIA’s latest audit of retail space in the neighbourhood saw vacancy drop to about 12 per cent, which is a 1.5 per cent decrease from the previous quarter.
“That for us is very positive and strong as well,” she said.
The Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area is a catalyst for creating vibrant urban experiences and events in the heart of downtown Toronto. Representing more than 2,000 businesses and their employees, as well as the broader community of residents, students and visitors, the DYBIA champions attractive public spaces, popular events, safety and cleanliness. It plays an active role both at street level and in boardrooms, advocating for a thriving and diverse community of retailers, restaurants and services.
The Downtown Yonge BIA’s Q4 2022 Economic Newsletter, indicated that neighbourhood spend steadily increased over the first eight months of 2022, signaling a positive return of visitors, shoppers, employees and students.
“The three largest sectors in Downtown Yonge (Retail, Services & Foodservice) all saw significant gains when compared to the beginning of the year. Downtown Yonge also saw pedestrian volumes surpass 2019 levels for the first time since 2020, a strong indicator of where recovery is headed. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and into early recovery, commercial retail has stayed relatively stable in Downtown Yonge, with a slight improvement in the overall vacancy rate observed in the Fall. The return to work for many offices is in full swing, with occupancy in some downtown Toronto office towers peaking at 60 per cent during the mid-week. However, overall, the office occupancy remains 36 per cent as of November 2022,” said the report.
“The Downtown Yonge BIA saw nearly $200 million in transactions using debit and credit through Moneris payment portals between January and August 2022 across all sectors. The Foodservice industry saw a 160 per cent increase in number of transactions in August compared to January 2022, while Retail saw a 300 per cent increase in number of transactions for the same comparison periods.
“Pedestrian traffic has been steadily improving in 2022, with pedestrian flows surpassing 2019 levels for the first time since the pandemic began. September 2022 saw many encouraging changes, including the full return of in-person classes at Toronto Metropolitan University, which lead to the 32 per cent increase in pedestrian flows in September 2022 compared to August 2022. October 2022 saw the first time the pedestrian flows surpassed 2019 levels since March 2020, reaching just below five million people.”


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Much like the computer operating system battles of years ago, the race for public cloud market supremacy is garnering media attention. Many are saying the race may already be over. Randy Bias, who is the CTO of Cloudscaling, and a founding member of OpenStack, recently blogged, “It is clear that AWS (and quite likely GCE) will utterly dominate the public cloud race.” Bias contends that Amazon, with AWS, and Google, with the Google Compute Engine (GCE) are the players to beat, but, as he continues, “who cares”. Bias argues that OpenStack should work to make it’s own API compatible with Amazon Web services if it wants to compete.
Tech blogger Robert Scoble disagreed. He comments, “If you believe that innovation is slowing down, you should listen to Randy Bias because there is huge value in providing an API alternative….(BUT) if you believe, like I do, that we are going to see more change in cloud infrastructure in the next five years than in the past 10, then keep in investing in real innovation.”
What is clear that Amazon Web services is the dominant player in the cloud market. According to Synergy Research Group, the market for Infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service was 2.25 billion in the second quarter of 2013. Amazon accounted for over 600 million of that revenue with a 28% market share. The top three remaining players were Microsoft, Google, and IBM (with the acquisition of SoftLayer). Their combined revenue was 400 million. The cloud market includes public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud. The private cloud market supremacy is a much more hotly contested market right now.
A majority of technology vendors are betting on OpenStack to compete with Amazon. HP, IBM, Cisco, Dell, and Red Hat are all members of OpenStack Foundation Board. In fact there are over 800 different organizations involved. Even without market dominance, the revenue opportunity is staggering. Market Monitor, a service of 451 Research puts the cloud computing market at roughly 20 billing by 2016. in is interesting to note that only a dozen vendors generated over $75 million is this market in 2013 (out of 309 cloud-service providers tracked).

domain: news


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Making things upgradeable is something that has become a trend in the overall tech industry, as we have been being with smartphones but now, that same sort of upgradeability is coming to desktop computers.
Razer, which usually specializes in PC gaming accessories, has unveiled Project Christine which lays the foundation for a PC that can be easily upgraded as specific components become outdated or no longer work correct.
The concept photos and early images of Project Christine show the PC as something that is quite different from what a usual gaming computer looks like. Instead of all of the components being tangled and hooked together inside of a chassis (computer case), all of the components slide into a vertical case. By sliding the components in and separating them from each other, an upgrade can easily take place later on down the line.
Project Christine is a new concept design that will revolutionize the way users view the traditional PC. This is the first gaming system that is able to keep pace with technology and could allow consumers to never buy another PC, or gaming system, again…We have a history of bringing incredibly innovative concept systems to market and it’s fair to say that Project Christine is a very exciting new prospect for future development. – Min-Liang Tan, Razer CEO
Of course, current custom PC builds are upgradeable but doing so with at least some of the components can be difficult. Also, because certain pieces of a computer such as the CPU and motherboard are made to work with each other, it is sometimes impossible to upgrade just one of them without changing the other as well.
All of the components will plug into a central PCI-E system meaning that no matter what you are trying to upgrade, doing so can happen without a hassle.
The one obvious downside of Project Christine is that it appears as though Razer will have to land partnerships with manufacturers so that there are components made specifically for the build.
Summary: Razer has unveiled Project Christine which is meant to modularize the gaming PC. The project will allow people to easily upgrade components as all of the PC parts will slide into a PCI-E setup.
Image Credit: razerzone


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World first: Shopping shake-up will revolutionise healthy eating as consumers switch to ‘Calorie Currency’
In a major shake-up to the way we shop for our food, a leading UK supermarket chain has cut a deal with the UK’s top selling diet App, Nutracheck, to bring a brand new concept to healthy eating: pay by the calorie.
By asking shoppers to pay for their food in ‘calorie currency’, they will pay the equivalent of the calorific cost of food items, instead of the usual market price.
Specially produced point of sale pricing, including shelf edge tickets, will clearly show the pricing in the new calorie currency – and customers will be charged accordingly.
A pack of chocolate chip cookies – a lunchbox favourite – will now cost £8.27 (827 calories), a 150g bag of hand cooked luxury chips will retail at £7.53 (753 calories) and a large bag of fruit and cola flavour gummy sweets will cost you £5.60 (560 calories).
In stark contrast, a 200g punnet of strawberries will set you back just 60p, 200g of green beans will be 48p, and a 330ml can of diet cola will sell for just 1p.
And incredibly, under the shake-up, bottled water will be free as it has zero calories.
This revolutionary approach to healthy eating is launched as a pilot in Nottinghamtomorrow, and is expected to create national - and world – interest.
Nutracheck’s managing director, leading tech entrepreneur Tim Vryenhoef, explains more: “This is a revolution for shoppers in the UK: a world first as it shows them the true cost in terms of their waistlines. Calories cost money – real money – so from tomorrow, one calorie is equal to one penny and shoppers will be charged accordingly.
“This will revolutionise food purchasing and help people to understand just how much popular food items cost in terms of their impact on weight. Calorie data for 160,000 UK food items is already available via the Nutracheck App, so customers can have calorie information at their fingertips.
“Yes, it’s early days but we’ve done our research and believe this is the way forward because it gives shoppers clear and transparent choices about how to spend their hard-earned cash. It’s a concept we have been working on for some time and we are delighted to have secured major supermarket backing to bring this to households up and down the country.
“We anticipate a roll-out across 500+ stores by the end of 2015 and expect to break into Europe and America early next year. I am confident shoppers will see that calorie currency is the way forward and we anticipate this will be the biggest food revolution to hit the UK in decades.”
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About Nutracheck: www.nutracheck.co.uk
Nutracheck.co.uk is an innovative, multi-award winning calorie counter and food diary website and App for weight loss. It was the UK’s first combined mobile and online diet. It’s super-fast and easy to use. Add foods to the diary in just 2 clicks using the barcode scanner. The unique search with product photos helps you easily spot what you ate from the 160,000 foods in the food database.
The Nutracheck App is the top selling diet App in the UK Apple store.
For more information, please call Karen Veness on 07968 049528


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INOAC official online shop "Color Foam" has reopened.
INOAC official online shop "Color Foam" was reopened after renewal on August 7th. we will further enhance the contents as a bedding website to send out product/event/store information, etc.
INOAC official online shop "Color Foam" (Japanese text only)
We have also started an official Instagram for the bedding brand Color Foam. We will post a variety of information such as good deal campaign and tips for sleeping. Please follow us!
Color Foam Official Instagram


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Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. And although the Beatles famously sang that “money can’t buy me love,” money most definitely can buy chocolates and flowers, which is essentially the same thing. The National Retail Federation estimates that in the US alone Valentine’s Day related purchases will amount to $20 billion.
Ecommerce merchants can expect to benefit from the holiday sales, as 59% of holiday shoppers prefer to make their Valentine’s Day purchases online. In this post, I discuss some key trends merchants should be aware in order to maximize their sales and avoid fraud this holiday.
Valentine’s Day Boosts Sales Across Verticals
Businesses selling “traditional” Valentine’s Day gifts can definitely expect a spike in order volume. Search engine data from the holiday in 2015 shows big increases in searches for jewelry, gift cards, and flowers. Our own data also shows that last year there was a 1.5x increase in the amount digital gift cards purchased on February 13th, and a 28% increase in the average gift card value.
Yet Valentine’s Day gifts are not limited to cosmetics, gift cards and jewelry. Last year, it’s estimated that US consumers used the holiday as an excuse to spend around $703 million on their pets in 2015. A survey from 2015 also showed that 40% of respondents said they hoped to receive a gadget or electronic device from the significant others.
In other words, even merchants in verticals not traditionally considered to be romantic may enjoy a boost in sales.
Valentine’s Day Orders Require Fast Turnaround Times
Valentine’s Day is notorious for producing many last minute, often panicked, shoppers. This leads to an increase in orders with overnight or next-day shipping and boosts sales of items that do not require shipping, such as digital gift cards. Millennials are the consumers who spend the most on Valentine’s Day gifts and these young shoppers will be out in force for last-second purchases. A whopping 36.5% of this key demographic said they would shop online for the holiday in 2015, spending an average $213.04 on purchases on Valentine’s Day itself.
To benefit from these late shoppers, merchants must be able to provide fast turnaround times and an accurate fraud review process that does not require reaching out to the customer for additional information. A recent report by the Javelin Strategy Group showed that 75% of millennials who had an order falsely declined due to suspected fraud limited their patronage of the merchant, while 42% stopped shopping with the merchant entirely. In other words, inadvertently rejecting a good customer on Valentine’s Day could cost you not only the sales revenue but could also potentially cost you their entire lifetime value. Digital goods merchants especially should make an effort to avoid rejecting good customers.
Valentine’s Day Is Not Just an American Holiday
Valentine’s Day is usually considered to be a US holiday, but it has actually been adopted by consumers is the UK and EU as well. Merchants can prepare themselves to take advantage of international and cross-border customers by taking the time to understand the patterns that characterize their legitimate orders.
For example, many merchants believe the use of reshippers is a “red-flag” indicating fraud, when the reality is in fact much more complex (hint: there are many legitimate reasons to rely on reshipping services). Another tip that might help identify and approve more legitimate Valentine’s Day orders is checking whether the customer used a promotional code. Since fraudsters are using stolen credit card details, they are not price sensitive, making usage of discount codes a positive indicator.
Riskified Helps Merchants Accept More Orders
Riskified uses powerful machine-learning and behavioral analytics technologies to allow merchants to accept more orders every day, including Valentine’s Day.
Click here to learn more about how our solution provides instant decisions and a 100% chargeback guarantee on all approved orders. You can also contact us directly at firstname.lastname@example.org with any questions.


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Ford to cut one in five jobs in the UK
Ford has announced plans to cut 1,300 jobs in the UK over the next two years, a fifth of its total workforce in the country.
It is part of a major restructuring programme that will see the carmaker cut 3,800 jobs overall across Europe.
Ford is cutting back on development staff as it faces an uncertain economic future and prepares for the transition to electric vehicles.
Most of the UK cuts will be at its research site at Dunton in Essex.
Several hundred back-office posts are also expected to be closed at sites across the country. But production sites at Halewood, Dagenham and Daventry will not be affected.
The Unite union said it would be working with Ford to protect “as many jobs as possible”.
Conservative MP John Baron, whose Basildon and Billericay constituency includes the Dunton site, called the news “disappointing”.
“Whilst I understand that Ford are looking to make these cuts via voluntary separation programmes, I know it will be a worrying time for my constituents who are employed at the Dunton site.”
However, Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said it was not “just a UK phenomenon”.
He said he was working on a “rapid response service” that will be put into action “very shortly” to help those made redundant get back into work.
The announcement comes less than two years after Ford closed its engine plant in Bridgend.
“Here in Europe we’ve got a pretty difficult economic situation, and the outlook is uncertain,” explained Tim Slatter, chairman of Ford of Britain.
“High inflation, higher interest rates, the ongoing war in Ukraine, cost of energy and so on.”
- Ford Fiesta set to be discontinued as car scrapped
- Nissan warns costs must fall to make new cars in UK
But he insisted that was not the only factor. Ford of Europe is preparing for a major transformation of its business.
By 2030, it expects all the cars it builds in the region to be fully electric.
Two out of three commercial vehicles will be either electric or plug-in hybrids by the same date.
“We are completely reinventing the Ford brand in Europe. Unapologetically American, outstanding design and connected services that will differentiate Ford and delight our customers in Europe,” said Martin Sander, head of Ford’s electric vehicles division in Europe.
“Unapologetically American” – that’s how the boss of Ford Europe described the company today. It’s a phrase that the US president could well have applied to economic policies that make no secret of an intention to lure as much manufacturing to the US as possible – and it has got Europe worried.
The Inflation Reduction Act is a piece of US legislation which will dangle a total of $370bn worth of subsidies in front of companies that set up new, greener production and supply chains in the US.
The EU is considering responding by allowing national governments more freedom to subsidise their own industries – the kind of state aid the UK thought was constrained by EU membership.
Government ministers insist the UK is a leader in green technology but in the auto industry is widely seen to be falling behind both the EU and US in battery production with only one plant in operation.
The car-making map of the world is being redrawn right now and the UK will need to act fast if it wants to be on it.
The Unite union said there needed to be “concrete plans” to transform the UK’s vehicle production and transport network and keep “high quality” jobs in the country.
“Ford’s announcement is another stark reminder that the shift to electrification needs a just transition that requires long-term investment and planning from automakers and a proper industrial strategy from government,” said Unite national officer Des Quinn.
Ford will also be attempting to move away from being seen as a mass-market supplier of relatively cheap, everyday transport.
Instead, it wants to develop a slimmer line-up of more exotic vehicles, which exploit evocative brand names – something it has already done with the Mustang Mach-E and the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck.
It also wants to focus on its portfolio of commercial vehicles, notably the Transit.
It has already ceased production of the Mondeo. In June, the final Fiesta will roll off the production line in Cologne.
The one-time best-selling runabout is no longer considered viable to make, and there will be no direct successor. The Fiesta name is expected to be consigned to history.
But developing new electric cars is an expensive process – and there have been hiccups.
On Tuesday, Ford said it had temporarily stopped production and shipments for the F-150 after discovering a potential battery issue. It did not say when manufacturing would restart.
Ford has said it plans to invest some $50bn (£41bn) over the next few years in developing electric cars.
As part of this scheme, it has committed £380m to transform its gearbox factory at Halewood on Merseyside into a facility capable of producing hundreds of thousands of electric motors every year.
Ford believes that as development of traditional petrol and diesel vehicles tails off, it will require fewer product development staff – because although they require sophisticated software, electric cars are mechanically pretty simple.
So this is an area in which it thinks it can make savings. A total of 2,800 engineering jobs are to be cut across Europe, most of them in the UK and Germany.
“These are difficult decisions, not taken lightly,” said Ford’s Martin Sander.
“We recognise the uncertainty it creates for our team, and I assure them we will be offering them our full support in the months ahead.”
- Car industry
Ford Fiesta set to be discontinued as car scrapped
25 October 2022
Ford chooses Valencia for new electric car plant
22 June 2022
Nissan warns costs must fall to make new cars in UK


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Advertising can warp your memory
Advertising is everywhere people look. It's along the highway, in storefronts, and online. It can be funny or poignant; it can be annoying. New research shows it can also encourage people to recall things that never happened to them.
Nicole Votolato Montgomery, an assistant professor of marketing at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and Priyali Rajagopal, an assistant professor of marketing at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, Texas, developed an experiment to test the effects of advertisements on memory.
They asked people to read a very descriptive print advertisement detailing the taste of a fictional popcorn product made by a familiar brand name, then asked a portion of the subjects to taste popcorn labeled with the fictional name. A week later, those who merely read the detailed advertisement were just as likely to report eating this popcorn as people who actually ate it.
People who read an advertisement with less vivid imagery were far less likely to report eating the popcorn.
"What we found is that if consumers falsely believe they have experienced this advertised brand, their evaluations of that product are similar to evaluations of products that they actually experienced. That is a fairly unique finding," said Montgomery.
"Humans are a lot more inaccurate than we think we are," said Michael Nash, a professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. He said that the phenomenon of false memories is well-known in psychology, and that he found it interesting that the research extends the concept to marketing.
Anyone who watches the Super Bowl or "Mad Men" probably suspects that advertisers put plenty of effort into the style and substance of their pitches, in addition to researching the effectiveness of their efforts.
"I think that advertisers have known that there are benefits to using these very vivid ads," said Montgomery. "I don't know to what extent advertisers are aware of the fact that these ads can impact memory."
Nash said it might be a stretch to connect a false memory of a popcorn brand to the decision to purchase it. "It's another thing to tie an effect to an actual behavior, that is, buying the popcorn," he said.
The researchers also found that when they replaced the well-known brand name with something they invented but kept the same product name and vivid advertisement there was a much lesser effect.
"Our intent was really just to educate consumers that they need to be vigilant when they're processing high imagery ads, because these vivid ads can create these false memories of product experience," said Montgomery.
The research is scheduled to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Provided by Inside Science News Service


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Twitter Ban in Nigeria
Nigeria’s government announced on Friday that it was suspending Twitter “indefinitely” after the deletion of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Tweet, which violated Twitter’s “abusive behaviour” policy.
The article is not to put blame on anyone for the action; whether the government for banning Twitter or Twitter for deleting the tweet of the President of Nigeria.
As a digital marketer and a media buying professional, I write to express some of my observations since this announcement and how it has effective paid advertising and campaign.
The quick solution from the ban (VPN)
Since the ban, users have been on the lookout for ways to access the social media platform through the use of a VPN. The volume of online search conducted on the word “VPN” showed its popularity during the week according to the search tracking site, Trends Map.
Users who express their views on Twitter and other social platforms opted for VPNs to conceal their IP addresses, keeping internet service providers (ISPs) in the dark about their online activities and locations.
What is VPN?
VPNs are foremost, security tools that help to protect users from being hacked, tracked, monitored, or otherwise compromised.
According to Kapersky, VPN stands for “Virtual Private Network” and describes the opportunity to establish a protected network connection when using public networks. VPNs encrypt your internet traffic and disguise your online identity. This makes it more difficult for third parties to track your activities online and steal data.
Nigerian’s switched to using VPN to access Twitter despite the ban in Nigeria
The effect of using VPN on paid advertising.
It’s important to know that when VPN is used, it disguises not only your online identity for Twitter but also for every other app on your phone.
So when you install a VPN, choose a preferred country, every app you access on your phone is seen as coming from that country. For example, if you choose Singapore as your preferred country, when you tweet or perform any other action online, it is seen as coming from that country. Which is why you could access Twitter for example in Nigeria even though it is ban.
The effect of this is massive on campaign.
In paid advertising one of the things that is done when targeting is location targeting which is crucial to achieving any results on any paid advertising.
Let me break it for you. If you advertise and target Nigeria, the effect is that anyone who uses VPN, and has chosen another country won’t served your ad even though they are in Nigeria. For those that use VPN, have you observed that many ads you see when scrolling through social media are not from Nigeria? Let me know your experience in the comment section below.
This therefore will affect most Twitter users who uses VPN to be reached on paid ads.
What’s the solution?
Let me have you thought in the comment section


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ASUS is reportedly rethinking its mobile strategy around gaming phones, spurred perhaps by the popularity (not actual sales) of its ROG Phone. Razer has definitely been convinced it’s the way to go, enough to create a Razer Phone 2. Xiaomi’s Black Shark and ZTE/nubia’s Red Magic all seem to believe there’s a future in gaming smartphones. They might be right, at least for another year. Two at most. Then gaming smartphones will suddenly vanish not because they’ve become passé. It’s because practically every smartphone will be a gaming smartphone.
Like modular smartphone or blockchain smartphones or even smartphones with styluses, gaming smartphones are a niche category that really serves just one purpose. Strip away all the fancy accents and LEDs, they are pretty much smartphones who exude power to the point you’ll need extra cooling to prevent them becoming the next Galaxy Note 7. Those properties, however, are also becoming more common in high-end smartphones.
What makes a smartphone a gaming smartphone anyway? Raw power? That may be especially true for something like the ASUS ROG Phone and its “overclocked” Snapdragon 845. But it has already been beaten in benchmarks by regular Huawei Mate 20s on the latest Kirin 980. It’s going to be a back and forth game for smartphone and silicon makers but one thing is clear: performance isn’t going to be the sole territory of gaming smartphones for very long.
Is it the cooling system them? After all, these gaming smartphones boast of advanced thermal management systems. But power and thermal management are two sides of the same performance coin. The higher the power, the higher the heat, the greater the need for more advanced cooling methods. Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi have been marketing their fancy new cooling systems to high heavens. The only advantage gaming smartphones have are really extra vents and, maybe, an external cooling fan.
Is it the branding then? Actually, that may be the one thing that immediately separates these gaming smartphones. And not always in a good way. While OEMs are trying to be more subtle with their branding, gaming smartphones are totally being obnoxious. It is, after all, what gamers usually want. But mobile gamers aren’t gamers 24/7 and their gaming smartphones aren’t single-purpose devices. The multi-color LED notifications might be a point of pride during a MOBA or Battle Royale match but could be an embarrassment in a board meeting.
Razer, Xiaomi, and especially ASUS are banking on gaming accessories to supplement their gaming smartphone sales. Such accessories are nothing new and they won’t be going away any time soon. But they’re also not exclusive to gaming smartphones at least those not specifically designed to work only on a specific model. In fact, with the right accessories, any smartphone becomes a gaming smartphone. But as long as mobile games are designed primarily and sometimes exclusively with touch input in mind, those accessories will remain inconsistent add-ons that just take up extra space in bags and on desks.
Mobile gaming has become a billion dollar industry that everyone, including governments and regulators, are suddenly taking very seriously. That doesn’t mean, however, that there’s a gaming smartphone market that’s ripe for the picking. On the contrary, it’s exactly because of that lucrative mobile gaming market that all smartphone makers will want to put out a phone that can serve gamers just as well. And with every smartphone becoming a gaming smartphone, there will be no gaming smartphones.


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Salman Vs Selmon Bhoi
Selmon Bhoi is a name you may be familiar with. Yes, it's a widespread slang term for Salman Khan memes popularised by troll pages and social media users. In an odd turn of events, it turns out that there is an online mobile game with the same name, and a Mumbai civil court has temporarily blocked access to the game since it is reportedly based on Khan's hit-and-run incident. "Join Selmon Bhoi and his driver on the quest to: Kill." according to the game's description, which is still available on the Play Store.
The order was issued by civil court judge K M Jaiswal on Monday, and a copy was made accessible on Tuesday. The court ordered Parody Studios Pvt Ltd and its directors to refrain from disseminating, launching, re-launching, or replicating the game or any other content connected to the actor.
The court also ordered the game's creators to remove the game from Google Play Store and all other platforms immediately. The court stated, "Upon watching the game and its images, it prima facie matches with the identity of the plaintiff (Khan) and to the hit-and-run case connected to the plaintiff." Khan had never granted his permission for the game, according to the report.
“When the plaintiff has not given his consent for developing of the game, which is very similar to his identity and the case against him, certainly his right to privacy is being deprived and his image is also being tarnished," the order said.
The game makers also utilised Khan's name and notoriety for commercial advantage, according to the court.
Khan had filed a court complaint against the game's producers last month, claiming that the name and photographs presented in the game appeared to be his caricature version.
According to the programme, the game "Selmon Bhoi" is phonetically similar to Khan's popular name among his followers, "Salman Bhai."
The actor's application, filed through law firm DSK Legal, stated, "The game developers intentionally gained commercial advantage by exploiting the personality rights of our client without seeking our client’s consent."
The court ordered the developers to produce an affidavit in response to Khan's plea and set a hearing date for September 20.
Khan was acquitted of all counts in the 2002 hit-and-run case by the Bombay High Court in 2015.
NCB regional director Sameer Wankhede is not targeting Bollywood, his wife Kranti Redkar told India Today on Monday. He also responded to the allegati...
Union Home Secretary Amit Shah, who is on a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir, on Sunday inaugurated a new campus at the Indian Institute of Techno...


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The Blackberry Priv has been making a lot of rounds on the news way before its initial release and even more so, after the release of this device. Blackberry not creating a launch event for this device didn’t deter it from still making headlines elsewhere which makes sure the Priv stays relevant and that a lot of people want this Android from Blackberry which also happens to have a nice keyboard attached under the slide.
The BB Priv had initially been listed for sale under the official Blackberry Store itself and also from carriers such as AT&T as well as Verizon (which is still in the works by the way), all United States carriers. Even while available from these places, many were waiting for the Amazon sales of this device and they got it, but it only lasted a while after the Priv was declared “currently unavailable” by the online retailing giant.
The device showed up unlocked from Amazon and at a price of $699 which is also the original price at which Blackberry themselves are selling and this “currently unavailable” status could just mean that a lot of people were on ground to pounce on the device, meaning a stable market for BB this year. But then and again, couldn’t it mean that there just wasn’t enough to go round?


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Update: Sierra Wireless confirmed that the AirCard 754S, also known as the Elevate 4G hotspot runs at HSPA+ 21 speeds when it can't find an LTE network.
Original story: AT&T today announced two new 4G LTE devices, the AT&T Mobile Hotspot Elevate 4G and the AT&T USBConnect Momentum 4G, a USB modem for Windows and Mac OS computers.
The two devices aren't the first LTE modems AT&T announcedthat honor belongs to the clunky AT&T USBConnect Adrenaline, which came out in March. But they're timed for the run-up to AT&T's summer launch of LTE in Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, and San Antonio.
LTE is a particularly fast form of mobile Internet that is considered the world standard for next-generation, speedy wireless connections. Here in the U.S., Verizon and MetroPCS run LTE networks. Cricket and U.S. Cellular plan to launch them next year, and Sprint's partner Clearwire is widely rumored to be mulling over building one. T-Mobile's lack of an LTE plan is one of AT&T's stated rationales for buying its smaller rival.
Just as Verizon did in December, AT&T is starting with PC modems, not phones. That's a traditional strategy with a new network, as modems sell in smaller quantities than smartphones and are less likely to stress a network in its first months.
The Elevate appears to be an AT&T-branded version of the Sierra Wireless AirCard 754S. It's a black rectangle with rubbery edges and a 1.77-inch, 160-by-128-pixel LCD screen on the front. It looks a lot like Sprint's Overdrive Pro hotspot, with rubber bumpers tacked onto the sides. It's about the size of a deck of cards.
The Elevate's LCD screen offers more information than your average hotspot. For instance, there's a progress bar that shows how much of your monthly data cap you've eaten up so far, as well as battery and signal indicators, and a number showing how many Wi-Fi devices are connected.
The Momentum, which appears to be an AT&T version of the Sierra Wireless AirCard 313U/320U, is a large, flat, rectangular modem with a swiveling USB port. The modem supports both Windows and Mac PCs, and has a built-in MicroSD card reader.
Both devices fall back to HSPA+ speeds when they're out of LTE coverage, which will be across most of AT&T's network to start. AT&T says it plans to cover 70 million Americans in 15 cities with LTE by the end of 2011. As part of its arguments for merging with T-Mobile, AT&T has said that it will eventually roll out LTE to 80 percent of the country without the merger, or 97 percent with the merger.
It's unclear how fast the devices' HSPA+ modems are. The acronym "HSPA+" has been used to describe a wide range of speeds. AT&T is currently building an HSPA+ 21 network. Sierra Wireless's Web page for the 313/320U says it supports HSPA+ 42, which is even faster than AT&T's network, so it'll work up to AT&T's maximum speed. But there's no word on the HSPA+ speed of the Elevate hotspot.
The Elevate hotspot will cost $119.99 with a two-year contract, before a $50 mail-in rebate; the Momentum modem will cost $99.99 on the same terms.
In our recent Fastest Mobile Networks tests, we found that Verizon Wireless's LTE network had average speeds of 9.46Mbps, while T-Mobile's HSPA+ 21 system came in second with average speeds of 3.7Mbps; other networks were slower.
The two devices join the AT&T USBConnect Adrenaline, which has been on sale since March. Now $49.99, the bulky Adrenaline is part of the first generation of LTE devices; while it runs on AT&T's 3G network for now, it will get a firmware upgrade to enable LTE when that network becomes available. We gave it a weak review, saying that its slow 3G speeds make it tough to recommend. Both of AT&T's new LTE devices support faster 3G speeds than the Adrenaline does.


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Watching commercials now that date from the early days of television is more entertaining than looking at just about anything currently on the tube. The static presentations, the didactic peddling, the stentorian announcers, the simplistic jingles and the rudimentary production techniques today elicit the kind of good-natured chuckles usually heard when adults watch children playing dress-up.
But just as children grow up, so too have television commercials. Whether you love them or hate them, they have evolved into the largest, most successful and most effective form of advertising.
That long view may be consolation to the executives involved in developing and producing advertising on the World Wide Web. Not so long ago, they believed that the Web would immediately become a prominent and important advertising medium, big enough and powerful enough to rank with -- or perhaps even challenge -- television.
Not so fast, Web breath.
To be sure, the Web has quickly become a major ad medium in terms of dollars spent there, ''taking its place in the menu of consumer communication channels,'' said John Perriss, chairman and chief executive at Zenith Media in London, a worldwide media services agency owned by the Cordiant Communications Group and the Publicis Groupe.
Spending on internet advertising is expected to be $3.2 billion this year, up 65 percent from 1999, according to Robert J. Coen, senior vice president and forecasting director at McCann Universal in New York, the media services unit of McCann-Erickson Worldwide Advertising unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies. For 2001, Mr. Coen is predicting a further 60 percent gain, to $5.1 billion.
But it now appears that advertising on the Web is in its early days. Make that very early days. The TV calendar equivalent might be 1950, even 1948, when actors in gas-station attendant costumes introduced Milton Berle every Tuesday night on NBC by singing ''We are the men of Texaco.''
Why isn't Web advertising ready yet for prime time? There is widespread dissatisfaction with the primary form of pitching on the Web, banner ads, those pixel-laden and pixilated equivalents of billboards that litter the Web landscape like, well, billboards litter the real landscape.
Any initial interest in banner ads among computer users has worn off quickly as measured by click-through rates, which have declined precipitously: from about 2 percent in 1998 to about 0.5 percent in the last year. That is attributed to a lack of distinction among them as well as a lack of interactivity, the very quality that presumably brings people to the Web in the first place.
Worse yet, banner ads are considered more expensive than their nonvirtual counterparts. In an article in the November-December issue of the Harvard Business Review, ''Contextual Marketing: The Real Business of the Internet,'' the authors, David Kenny and John F. Marshall, concluded that the costs of acquiring customers through means like banner ads ''are greater than those in the physical world -- often 1.5 to 2.5 times greater.''
There are many alternatives to banner ads being tried on the Web, using technologies like streaming audio and streaming video to generate attention among computer users. So far, though, they are too advanced for the connections most people have, meaning that for the time being advertisers will for the most part have to continue relying on banner ads.
So by what means will advertising on the Web achieve the level of effectiveness that TV advertising has? Click here in the future.


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It’s craft beer time in downtown Penticton. It’s also biking time, beach, shopping, dining and paddle time.
A collection of banners with six different themes and messages are being installed along the 100 to 300 block of Main Street as well as Westminster Avenue this year.
Milena Marshall, the city’s marketing and communication specialist, led the banners creation, with helpful input from the Downtown Penticton Association and Tourism Penticton.
The city of Penticton has created several different promotions of things to do for fun, as a way to get into summer.
With the amount of new picnic tables soon to be installed in the city, Penticton might as well start calling itself “Picnicton.”
On National Takeout Day, April 15, the city announced a new “Picnic Penticton” program beginning this month that will see 36 additional picnic tables added to local parks in an effort to support local restaurants.
The program is being launched by the city’s economic development department to encourage folks to enjoy food and drinks from local businesses outdoors as part of the city’s ongoing Love Local campaign to support economic recovery during the pandemic.
The city also just launched its booze on the beach and designated parks program now until October.
The city has turned sidewalks into patios for restaurants hoping to bring in more business during the ban of indoor dining.
To report a typo, email: firstname.lastname@example.org.


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Jon Moulton will spend £40m stitching Jaeger together
Venture capitalist Jon Moulton will spend around £40million patching up loss-making fashion label Jaeger, after buying it from fashion tycoon Harold Tillman.
Moulton’s Better Capital investment firm snapped up 90 per cent of Jaeger for £19.5million after weeks of speculation that a sale was on the cards.
It was the second investment for Better’s Becap12 fund, which paid £25million for double glazing firm Everest earlier this year.
The Jaegermeister: Venture capitalist Jon Moulton is looking to patch up Jaeger
Moulton said Jaeger would be no exception to Better Capital’s reputation for making quick changes after an investment ‘To get it perfect may take a few years, but to get it in working order could take a few months,’ he said.
The investment firm will spend around £40million to revive the company.
Moulton said his to-do list included looking at Jaeger’s product range, design, IT systems, the management structure and a review of the company’s store portfolio.
He added that job cuts were ‘a possibility but there are no plans to do so’.
‘What is clear is that the ex-management is not entirely useless or entirely complete.’
Better’s head of portfolio Nick Sanders will take temporary charge of the business until the company can find a successor to Belinda Earl, who stepped down earlier this year due to ill health.
Earl was recruited by British Fashion Council chair Tillman, after he rescued Jaeger from the brink of collapse in 2003, but had presided over falling profits amid dwindling consumer confidence.
Profits fell from £2.2million to £772,000 in the year to the end of February 2011, despite a 10 per cent rise in revenue to £94million.
Moulton said Jaeger could turn its fortunes around by building up market share among relatively wealthy customers who have not stopped spending on fashion despite the lacklustre economy.
The financier still has plenty of scope for acquisitions before reaching the £166million that the Becap12 fund has for investments this year.
He said he had no particular industry in mind for acquisitions, but would focus on struggling companies which could benefit from Better Capital’s intervention.
Moulton set up the investment firm after a rancorous split in 2009 from Alchemy Partners, the private equity group he founded and with which he tried unsuccessfully to buy MG Rover from BMW in 2002.
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A lot can happen in a week when it comes to tech. The constant onslaught of news makes it nigh impossible for mere mortals with real lives to keep track of everything. That’s why we’ve compiled a quick and dirty list of this week’s top tech stories, from the best Cyber Week deals — it’s all here.
The deals didn’t end with the passing of the weekend nor Cyber Monday, and your excitement for them doesn’t have to either. Cyber Week is filled with great savings and sales, sans the lines and negative social implications that come with Black Friday. If you’re looking to do your shopping online rather than in store this year, make sure to check here for the latest offers all week. We will be scouring the depths of the web to bring you the best Cyber Week tech deals as they go live all the way through Green Monday.
If you tend to do most of your shopping online and with Amazon Prime, you may want to check out our Amazon Cyber Week deals for great discounts on just about everything.
BioLite has always been on a mission to provide affordable and efficient sources of power for use anywhere. Case in point: The company’s very first product was a camping stove that could generate energy from the heat created from burning sticks and leaves while cooking a meal. That energy was stored in an onboard battery pack and could then be used to recharge a cell phone, headlamp, or other small electronic devices.
Subsequent products, including portable solar panels and USB battery packs, continued this trend, allowing outdoor enthusiasts and travelers to live off the grid for extended periods of time. Recently, the company even introduced its new SolarHome 620 kit, which brings an affordable solar power solution to remote cabins and those living the #vanlife too.
Google said HDR+ will soon be available to third-party photography app developers via a preview of Android Oreo 8.1. Now that the operating system is in the final developer preview, those capabilities will be launching to consumers in December. The update means that non-native apps can utilize the enhanced image quality from the Google Pixel 2 HDR+ mode.
Google’s HDR+ mode has been part of Google Camera for a few years, but the Google Pixel 2 refines that program by expanding processing power. HDR is a photo technique that blends multiple images together to keep the detail in both the bright and dark areas of the image. Since HDR involves multiple images, faster hardware is necessary in order to keep HDR from slowing down the performance of the smartphone.
Today, Chevrolet officially pulled the sheet off of the 2019 Corvette ZR1, the most powerful ‘Vette ever produced.
Confirming what was revealed in the latest issue of Car and Driver this week, the monster machine advances Corvette’s supercharging legacy with a 6.2-liter V8 that produces 755 horsepower and 715 pound-feet of torque. This is thanks to a more efficient intercooled supercharger system, which also has 52 percent more displacement than the one found in the Z06. Until today, the now-dethroned Z06 was the most race-ready ‘Vette on offer. This power plant is also the first one from GM to feature a dual fuel injection system.
All of this is hiding beneath the prominent carbon fiber cover, which the car’s hood cannot contain. Corvette also ups the heat exchanger count to 13 by adding four new radiators.
Hopefully it won’t happen very often, but when Amazon and others finally get fully fledged drone delivery services off the ground, there’ll be occasions when the flying machines suddenly drop out of the sky.
Whether it’s inclement weather, a software malfunction, or some ne’er-do-well with a catapult and a rock, we have to accept that those multi-copter contraptions will sometimes get into difficulties and fall all the way back to the ground.
It’s one of several challenges that gives the Federal Aviation Administration folks sleepless nights as they consider the safest way to let companies and organizations use the popular technology as part of their operations. But Amazon may have the answer.
Anyone using MacOS High Sierra should be on high alert. A Twitter user revealed a massive security vulnerability which allows anyone to log into your system as an administrator without valid login credentials. All a malicious user has to do is attempt to log in as “root” from the login screen, leave the password field blank, and press enter over and over until the system allows access.
Assuming you’re running MacOS High Sierra, we’ll teach you below how to fix the problem.
Who says you have to own a vineyard to make your own wine? Certainly not the makers of SodaStream. The machine known for turning water into soda is now taking things a step further, and turning water into wine. This, my friends, is a true holiday miracle. With the launch of the company’s new limited-edition line, “Sparking Gold,” you can add a “fine alcoholic concentrate” to sparkling water. The result is said to resemble a “fruity Riesling wine,” and contain 10 percent alcohol by volume if you prepare the beverage according to the recommended mixing ratio (one part Sparkling Gold concentrate to five parts sparkling water). But before you get too excited, we should let you know that for now, the Sparkling Gold is available exclusively on SodaStream’s German website, and that the price is still to be confirmed.
Earlier this month, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai confirmed plans to pursue a repeal of net neutrality legislation. It’s now being reported that when the commission made its intentions public earlier this year, Comcast removed a pledge to uphold net neutrality from its website.
Since 2014, the company’s website had featured the statement, “Comcast doesn’t prioritize Internet traffic or create paid fast lanes” on a page dedicated to net neutrality, according to a report from Ars Technica. It remained there until April 26, but it hasn’t been present since.
If you watched Ridley Scott’s 2015 movie The Martian, or read the novel by Andy Weir it was based on, you’ll be familiar with the concept that gardening on Mars isn’t exactly easy. There’s possibly a bit of good news for future Martian farmers, however, with scientists from the Netherlands concluding that the red planet’s soil may be close enough to the stuff found back on Earth that earthworms can live in it (would that make marsworms?).
The researchers from Wageningen University & Research Centre used simulated Martian soil developed by NASA for their experiment. They then added rocket or arugula plants, manure fertilizer, and, of course, everyone’s favorite plant-friendly invertebrates. To their surprise, the worms got on well enough that they went on to produce offspring. That turns out to be pretty darn important.


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On the 11 October, the EU and UK published a joint letter sent from the EU and the UK Permanent Representatives to the WTO.
In preparation for the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, the UK government and the European Commission have set out a number of proposals for future global trading arrangements.
The proposals include apportioning the EU’s existing commitments on the amount of imported goods on which a lower duty is charged. These tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) apply to a range of everyday items such as dairy products and meat.
International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox said
“As an international economic department, we’ve been working closely with the European Commission to prepare for our withdrawal from the EU in order to minimise any disruption to global trade.”
“Our agreed collaborative approach shows real progress on how UK government intends to take forward our future trading arrangements with the world. This is the start of our open and constructive engagement with the WTO membership and sets out our intentions regarding EU quotas to forge ahead and establish the UK as an independent WTO member.”
To ensure a smooth transition which minimises disruption to our trading relationships with other WTO members the UK intends to replicate as far as possible its obligations under the current commitments of the EU.
This agreed approach between the UK and EU will now form the first part of our cooperative, inclusive and open engagement we will have with WTO members, in accordance with WTO rules and procedures.
The letter is available from
and was signed by
On behalf of the UK by
H.E. Julian Braithwaite, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the International Organizations in Geneva
On behalf of the EU by
H.E. Marc Vanheukelen, Permanent Representative of the European Union to the WTO
However, it may not be as straightforward as it seems according to a report from the BBC,
and another report by Politico EU
A number of countries Argentina, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Thailand, Uruguay and the USA have objected to the proposals because dividing quotas for goods imported at reduced tariffs for crucial agricultural goods such as meat, sugar and grains will leave them worse off. The letter was sent to Julian Braithwaite and Marc Vanheukelen on September 27. I noticed a copy of this letter at
I found a useful article about Tariff-rate Quotas on the Trade Beta Blog at


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Reducing costs, increasing profits and beating competitors are the main drivers in changing supply chain requirements, but despite this only 43% of organisations are using the internet to achieve these goals. This is according to the third annual Softworld Supply Chain market research survey.
Security fears (57%) and lack of take up from customers (45%) are seen as the main barriers to using the web for supply chain management, according to the research, despite the fact that 78% perceive the benefits to include improved service, greater responsiveness, shorter timescales and smoother transactions.
The survey was conducted at the end of last month via email on past attendees to the Softworld Supply Chain events. Softworld has been researching the market through its visitors for the past three years and comparing the statistics year on year. When compared to previous surveys, the web-usage figure has not changed for the past three years. However, the barriers to adoption have changed significantly from last year's results with internal constraints cited last year as the biggest obstacle.
"Many organisations are remodelling their supply chain to cut costs and improve efficiency, but it is clear that the majority do not see web technology as part of this" comments Liz Wood, Portfolio Director for Softworld Supply Chain. "The major issues facing businesses are improving communications and collaboration within the supply chain, and utilising new technology is the only way to achieve this."
Other results showed:
The largest majority (33%) re-visit their supply chain strategy every 12 - 18 months, 17% examine it every 6 - 12 months.
Only 29% of organisations are using RFID technology, although 40% aim to implement it within the next 12 months.
Only 14% view getting products to market faster as a priority when looking at supply chain requirements.
The main issues faced on a daily basis within the supply chain include: stock control; service levels; supplier cost pressure and changes in legislation such as the Road Transport Directive.
Softworld Supply Chain is Europe's leading event for the supply chain profession and takes place from 16 - 17 March 2005 at the NEC, Birmingham. The event comprises an exhibition of around 60 leading software solution providers, and an educational programme formed of breakfast briefing, masterclass, vendor and vertical seminar sessions.
For more information, or to pre-register, please visit: www.softworld.co.uk/sc or Tel: 07000 763 896.


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August 29, 2023 /SemiMedia/ -- AMD announced the acquisition of artificial intelligence software company Mipsology on August 24.
Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Palaiseau, France, Mipsology is a long-term partner of AMD and has been developing AI reasoning and optimization solutions and tools for AMD.
AMD said Mipsology is a leader in AI software, and Mipsology's skilled software team will join the AMD AI Group to help further accelerate customer engagement and expand AI software development capabilities. Specifically, the team will help develop AMD's complete AI software stack, expanding its open ecosystem of software tools, libraries and models, paving the way for simplified deployment of AI models running on AMD hardware.
In terms of AI layout, AMD said that AI is the company's primary strategic focus and an important driving force for the increase in silicon demand in the next decade. AMD will continue to enhance its software capabilities with the addition of the Mipsology team.


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Safaricom has today re-opened its newly refurbished Moi Avenue retail shop after four months of renovation as part of its journey towards being a purpose-led customer-obsessed technology company.
This first-of-a-kind digitized flagship shop has a video tunnel at the entrance, digital interactive screens and device display screens for a wide variety of phones and accessories on sale.
The largest retail outlet, at 10, 000sq feet, in Nairobi CBD is expected to have a higher footfall from the current 1,000 customers its serves per day.
“Our promise to customers is to offer them personalized services and offer on- stop shop solution for all their needs. The growing demand for our services is driven by the need for customers to adopt a digital lifestyle. Our plan is to offer integrated solutions as part of our strategy to drive digital inclusion” said Peter Ndegwa, CEO, Safaricom.
The store will also have a training section to provide information on a variety of products and services such as Home Fibre, Enterprise and Digifarm. There will also be a Tech Zone that will offer same day after sales service for devices, down from the previous 7 days.
“This store is 14 years old and had never been renovated. The renovations, therefore, will improve our customer experience as they engage and interact with our brand at this location,” Mr Ndegwa added.
Other new facilities in the shop include: Jitambulishe booths to offer silent voice biometrics enrolment environment, and a bulk M-Pesa transacting booth, the first in all our stores, for our customers who may need the service.
Safaricom has 51 retail outlets across the country with 138 care desks spread across various towns which play a crucial role in addressing customer related issues.


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Domino’s Go Natural with Nex Gen Soft Drink Range
A few months ago, Domino’s trialed a sugar free soft drink range in New South Wales and have since launched their range nationally.
Written by Open House Magazine.
With consumers thirsty for change, Domino’s and Australian start-up Nexba have launched the largest range of all natural soft drinks available from an Australian fast food company.
The launch of the Next Gen sugar-free range is the largest by an Australian QSR and follows a number of steps that Domino’s has taken in creating a menu that’s better for customers; and is free from preservatives, artificial colours and artificial flavours.
The companies launched Next Gen last month, a delicious sugar free soft drink range for consumers, which was initially trialled in New South Wales.
The Next Gen sugar-free range is free from preservatives, artificial colours and artificial flavours.
“We know our customers want choice; they want to consume items that are better for them, which is why we launched the Next Gen range because they contain zero sugar and nothing artificial,” said Australia/New Zealand CEO Nick Knight.
“There is an appetite for product choice like this; in testing, Next Gen sold on par with our existing soft drink range, so we are very excited to launch this in our New South Wales market.
“It has been our dream for the past two years to make our entire menu preservative free and we are so close to completing this as 96 per cent of our menu now has no artificial colours, flavours and preservatives and the launch of Next Gen is the next step in this process.”


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Matthew Panzarino, once again, with the scoop. AirPower, the long awaited wireless charging pad that Apple announced back in 2017, has been officially canceled:
“After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward,” said Dan Riccio, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering in an emailed statement today.
As Panzarino says (and I too had heard), the challenges appear to be ones of physics, rather than pure engineering. Heat was a real issue in the product, and one that the company wasn’t able to overcome.
What is most fascinating is that this comes amidst a lot of suggestions that AirPower would be shipping imminently, including support in the recently released iOS 12.2, images appearing on Apple’s websites, and even a picture on the back of the box for the new AirPods’ wireless charging cases. Which just goes to show you that sometimes where there’s smoke, there’s fire…and sometimes there’s just, you know, fire.
—Linked by Jason Snell


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Today’s newsroom leaders are often pulled in endless directions: Should we use Snapchat or Facebook Live for this press conference? How do we apply 360-degree video to that story? When should we livetweet and engage with our audiences? Their to do lists are endlessly growing.
The challenges can seem daunting, but these leaders aren’t afraid of the seismic shift the digital age has brought on. Their objective is to experiment and build strategies for some of the industry’s latest digital offerings. While some digital leaders admit they didn’t expect to be working in the position they are today (virtual reality editor?), that’s the nature of the industry’s evolving landscape.
E&P spoke with some of these digital leaders who are embracing these changes. The women in these roles come from traditional and non-traditional backgrounds, but they all have a common goal: they want to see this industry succeed, and to do that, they must see digital succeed.
Mic’s Digital Content Strategy
At Mic, the digital news outlet based in New York City and known for its millennial-focused content, it’s all about strategy. After spending five years at The Washington Post, Cory Haik joined Mic as its chief strategy officer, where she is responsible for the newsroom, the analytics groups, and the product and engineering groups. They utilize data for everything, from user engagement and reader behavior to delivering insights to their most effective brands, which helps them decipher where to focus their energies. Right now, Haik said, it’s “video, video, video.”
“People have been talking about video for a long time…Video is not new in any respect, but it wasn’t until mobile took over that video became so important,” she said.
Additionally, they’re looking at social media and how video works on those platforms, especially on Instagram.
“If you go to your Discover tab on Instagram all you see is video, so that’s coming. So, we’re doing a couple videos a day on Instagram, whereas six months ago, we were not doing any,” Haik said. “So we’re thinking very strategically about how we deploy the right resourcing around storytelling that we know will resonate by platform.”
While Haik said her experience at the Post was different in a lot of ways from working at Mic, she admits their responsibilities are the same.
“What I was doing at the Post is not entirely dissimilar to what I’m doing here, which is digital journalism,” she said. “On the Post side, it was orienting a very historical brand who had great residence and great audience and had done a lot of profound work and does it on a daily basis and orient that group to the digital appetite and a digital model; and then at Mic, on the flip side, it’s taking a digital only entity, a tech enabled media company, to do very premium work on the video side and on the written side and thinking about how it builds out for its audience and how it has a significant impact on that group.”
The biggest difference between legacy newspaper brands and digital native companies is the anchor of the newspaper’s printed product.
“It has a heartbeat that’s a little bit different,” Haik said. “In the digital landscape, you’re untethered from an anchor that way and that’s part of the opportunity and part of the challenge, figuring out what your base is, what’s the most important platform for you to produce to, how you reach your audiences every day, and in doing that in a way that develops the right rhythms and what success looks like.”
While legacy companies have done a good job trying to develop their products onto distributed platforms, Haik said one benefit of digital native brands, such as Mic, is their ability to live where their audiences are spending most of their times—in their phones and on social. Legacy newspapers can take that approach and apply it to their own products.
“I think taking the long view is important, and by long view, I mean a year or so,” Haik said. “I think we get caught up in the likes in a lot of ways and we think very short term about the gains on various platforms and what people are interested in, what our consumers are interested in. If you think about building a lasting media brand and a sustainable business, you have to think about the user and you have to aggressively focus on the user, and for journalism that means the stories. So, don’t lose sight of what kind of media company you want to build and what stories you want to tell your users.”
New York Times Magazine Experiments with Virtual Reality
When The New York Times Magazine decided in November 2015 to make “The Displaced,” a virtual reality film that follows three children affected by the global refugee crisis, it went all in, distributing 1 million Google Cardboards to subscribers. Jenna Pirog, who at the time was a contributing photography editor for the magazine, produced the film. They worked with the VR company Vrse and sent a Times reporter to each location in the film.
“As the producer, I was doing a lot of research. I was figuring out where we could go and working with various groups and reporters on the ground in these regions to figure out which families and children would be interested in being interviewed and filmed,” she said.
Since then, Pirog has become the magazine’s virtual reality editor and the publication has released two other VR films, “10 Shots Across The Border” and “Smile More.”
The journey to her new editorial position included working two years in the tech industry in San Francisco and working as the photography editor for the New York Times Magazine, where she produced a photography festival and worked on international stories.
“I didn’t know how all of those past jobs were intersecting until coming to the New York Times and trying out virtual reality,” Pirog said.
She said the technology and equipment in VR are constantly evolving, and in order to succeed in the VR space, publishers just need to “dive in.”
“If you stall and if you try to study the market for too long and you just see it changing and changing, you won’t ever start anything,” she said.
According to Pirog, for publishers looking to try VR, there is affordable equipment out there including a number of consumer level cameras with stitching solutions to cut down on post production costs.
To stay up-to-date on market trends, Pirog watches a lot of VR films, as many as she can from other media organizations and production companies to learn how they’re doing it. She looks for things like, “Is there a new way to transition a scene in that piece, or an interesting way to use the point of view in that piece? There’s a lot to keep up with right now and a lot be inspired by and to stay creative ourselves as well.”
She continued, “You have to assess at all times is this worth investing in and moving forward? You kind of have to choose your paths and go right down them and not be afraid of new equipment and technology, and embrace the fact that this is a really experimental medium and an experimental time.”
McClatchy’s New View on Digital Video
At the McClatchy Co., Meghan Sims is building a video department poised to take the newspaper company into a digital future. Sims, who serves as director of video products and operations, and her team are working with everything, from 360-degree video to virtual and augmented reality.
Although McClatchy has been around for more than a century, Sims said they have a startup mentality when it comes to digital video. In addition to running the video operations for 29 publications nationwide, Sims is spearheading a video team called Sandbox, which looks at and experiments with emerging video platforms.
“They’re constantly experimenting, but experimenting with purpose on the latest technology and how we can develop, essentially, the future of video journalism,” she said.
This is exactly the type of challenge Sims wanted when she came to McClatchy. Sims previously worked at The Washington Post, where she helped develop Post TV, now WashPost Video.
“The Post probably triggered two passions for me. One was a desire for start up, specifically building video operations from the ground up, and two—which was kind of unexpected and lead me to my job here at McClatchy—(that is) I helped build the video and live streaming infrastructure there,” Sims said.
While the Sandbox team experiments with the future of digital video, most of the McClatchy newsrooms use the Ricoh Theta camera (which is similar to a hand-held device) for user engagement.
“I think McClatchy’s taking the risks in the right places and they’re being very smart about it,” Sims said. “In regards to video, we need to continue to bolster our video efforts centrally, here in D.C., but also bolster the skills in our newsrooms to help them locally.”
She added, “I feel like (video is) starting to become the centerpiece of a lot of what we do. We’re in video because we can’t afford to not do video. So in terms of the future, I think you’re going to see these experiments in virtual reality and augmented reality will really have a huge impact on the industry.”
Digital Advertising at the Southern California News Group
At the Southern California News Group (formerly Digital First Media’s Los Angeles News Group), Kyla Rodriguez described the changeover from a legacy print company to a digital first media brand as something that excites her. Rodriguez is the vice president of digital advertising for the company’s 11 daily newspapers and multiple weeklies, and oversees digital sales and operations strategy. To build an effective digital advertising team, Rodriguez said they’ve focused on educating the sales staff and bringing in the most effective people for the team.
Rodriguez and her team have created successful digital campaigns for clients utilizing digital solutions and website analytics. According to Rodriguez, for a client in the electronics space, they utilized the company’s AdTaxi Programmatic solution to improve the client’s site conversion and budget performance to a 12 times return on advertising spending.
In order to find success like that, staff must be able to understand the digital solutions they’re selling, she urged.
“We’ve made a tremendous amount of investment to make sure they understand just the basics, understanding the analytics, how to read the data,” Rodriguez said. “We’re also training them on products (and) articulating the benefits of the data to their clients.”
To build a digital advertising team for today’s market, Rodriguez said she’s raised the bar on recruitment, finding individuals with valuable skills in particular disciplines.
“We had a gentleman who joined us from eBay,” she said. “He had a very specific discipline and understanding around e-commerce. (He had knowledge) that he was able to share with his peers on what the landscape looked like and how to articulate our solutions in correlation to how other pure-play companies are selling it.”
For Rodriguez, building a team and an environment in which the sales staff can grow and learn with the company has been her greatest accomplishment.
When Rodriguez started working at DFM in 2012, she said they didn’t have a structured operations team for their digital advertising department, but now they have a full-fledged client service operation.
Rodriguez said publishers need to understand the value of their product in order to capture the attention of the best and brightest.
“I think publishers are going to be the winners, to be honest,” she said. “The way that it works right now, I think a lot of publishers are—especially on the newspaper side—they’re kind of pigeon-holed in this idea of a newspaper. When in reality, content has always been king and the fact that, like us with DFM, the fact that we own inventory is going to give us significant leverage above other providers out there that just resell inventory.”
Social Media and the Palm Beach Post
At the Palm Beach Post in Florida, Samantha Ragland is serious about social media. As the newspaper’s digital content strategist, it’s her job to effectively promote the reporters’ stories on social platforms. It’s about more than paying attention to social media analytics, Ragland said instead, she’s focused on the storytelling, and making sure the staff is familiar with the various platforms and channels, including social media, email newsletters and push alerts.
As social media usage rises, Ragland said they conduct a lot of training on platforms like Snapchat or Facebook Live as well as with content group strategies.
For example, when the Post’s investigative team recently worked on a big project about the local heroin epidemic, Ragland sat down with the team to decide where the stories would be seen by the most people, how they should present the stories on social media and what they should look like.
“Unlike once upon a time when there was this one platform—the physical newspaper—now we have to think carefully about where the content is going to go and make sure the audience is getting the content and really focus on a more immersive storytelling strategy for each piece,” Ragland said.
To do that, Ragland meets with the story’s reporter, the editor and videographer to pull out information to understand how to best present it online.
“This story is going to be super photo heavy and (the reporters have) been given all access to various sober homes in our area, so we’re thinking about a video testimonial play on Instagram to kind of introduce the story and plug the story maybe four or five days before it’s actually published,” she said. “We want the story to live in multiple places, in multiple ways and because these investigative pieces are so large, so much is left on the cutting room floor, So we’re going into it now saying ‘Okay, this is where the narrative is going and you have to cut that out. Okay, what can I do with that?’”
For Ragland, her ability to teach staff members these strategies comes from her past experience working in education. After graduating in 2008 with a master’s degree in journalism, Ragland found it difficult to find a job in her field, so she became an adjunct professor at a university.
Teaching the students helped Ragland understand how to communicate with reporters who might not be as savvy on social media.
“There are things that I know that (the reporters) don’t and there are many things that they know that I don’t. So I need them as much as they need me,” Ragland said. “Digital and social is not the enemy and so a lot of these strategy jobs are about building and creating a greater understand and letting people know this is here for you and for the benefit of your story.”


text:
The life and soul of the party! Kendall Jenner turns a boring bash into a fun-filled rave as she stars in new campaign video for Estee Lauder
- Kendall, 19, stars in a new commercial for the beauty brand's Double Wear Makeup To Go Liquid Compact
Kendall Jenner proves she really can liven up any party in her latest campaign for Estee Lauder, which introduces the iconic beauty brand's new eight-hour-wear make-up for the 'woman on the go'.
The 19-year-old, who was named as the new face of the cosmetics company last November, takes center stage in the clip, which debuted on Monday and sees her attending a dull event at which everyone is more focused on their smartphones than on the people around them.
Each time a new person arrives at the bash, the model leaps up to greet them, before returning once again to her iPhone, sitting alongside several other model-esque guests who are all doing the same thing.
Beauty icon: Kendall Jenner stars in a new video ad for Estee Lauder's s Double Wear Makeup To Go Liquid Compact
The model looks stunning in a $1,870 Nour Hammour 'Erin' leather jacket, black shorts and sky-high stilettos in her latest campaign video for the beauty brand.
Kendall's raven hair is parted in the middle, and she dons a nude lip and kohl-rimmed eyes, which highlight her flawless skin.
Disaster strikes when the ladies' phone batteries die all at once however, and they all look around in horror at the prospect of having to actually talk to one another, as the lights all go out.
Not one to be deterred by a few technical glitches however, Kendall whips out her Estee Lauder compact to touch-up her face, at the same time bringing the lights back to life and getting the party back in swing.
Enthusiastic greeting: The 30-second clip begins with the 19-year-old arriving at a friend's house for a party rocking a $1,870 Nour Hammour 'Erin' leather jacket
Technology addiction: At the party, everyone, including Kendall, is on too busy looking at their phones to interact with anyone else
Gorgeous glow: In the beauty brand's latest commercial, Kendall's raven hair is parted in the middle, and she dons a nude lip and kohl-rimmed eyes, which highlight her flawless skin
Completely distracted: Some fans of the commercial commented that it was an accurate depiction of society today
Estee Lauder's Double Wear Makeup To Go Liquid Compact, which retails for $45, is housed in a spill-proof case that allows wearers to choose their amount of coverage with the lick of the button.
'Find out what makes @kendalljenner's party come to life,' the brand captioned the footage on its Instagram page.
The abbreviated video received 4,500 likes within a half hour of it being posted, with some praising the ad for commenting on today's social norms.
Party saver: After her cell phone dies, Kendall brings out her Estee Lauder compact, which literally lights up the room
Great design: Estee Lauder's Double Wear Makeup To Go Liquid Compact (right), which retails for $45, is houses in a spill-proof case that allows wearers to choose their amount of coverage with the lick of the button
Out and about: After she touches up her make-up, Kendall is ready to go mingle with the crowd
'This is so true and really we all rather be on our phone than interact with others,' one person wrote. 'Very sad. Glad to see such an inspiring ad. Turn those devices off guys. Is not the end of the world.'
In the nine months since she was named as one of Estee Lauder's newest brand ambassadors, Kendall has worked on a number of different campaigns for the beauty giant, including several video ads for its Modern Muse cosmetics and fragrance collection.
Earlier this month, the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star debuted another video for the line of beauty products, once again donning a collection of bold red fashion items, and her now-signature red lip, while walking through the streets of Manhattan before leaping onto a yellow cab.
Sweet smell of success: Kendall attended an event to promote Estee Lauder's Modern Muse le Rouge perfume at Macys in New York City earlier this month
Runway star: Kendall can be seen walking at the Diane von Furstenberg show during New York Fashion Week earlier this month (left) and running to Fred Segal in a denim jumpsuit (right)
Do it in a denim jumpsuit like Kendall's
FRAME DENIM Le Flare de Francoise stretch-denim jumpsuit
Keep up with Kendall by clicking here to Net-a-Porter
Celebrities are beginning to transition into Fall! And Kendall is killing us in this flared leg denim jumpsuit by Frame Denim.
We've told you till you're probably blue (denim) in the face but listem, we gonna say it again -- the groovy '70s are in, baby!
And take this ensemble here with it's classic indigo dye, bell bottom cut pants paired with some tan accessories -- wooo Kendall is just ticking all our sartorial boxes.
The good news is that you can buy this all-in-one from Net-a-Porter.com and it's not terribly expensive when you consider that it's an easy does it ready made outfit that is both cute and stylish.
But if the end of summer has you pinching pennies then fear not because we've lined up some great alternatives in the edit below.
Have a look!
Beautiful friendship: Kendall is close pals with fellow supermodel 2--year-old Gigi Hadid (pictured) and is often photographed with her on - and off - the runway
Kendall recently revealed to Daily Mail Online that this latest campaign video was shot at the end of last year, just after her birthday celebrations in Los Angeles, which took place in November.
'It was shot right after my birthday in LA so I was in great spirits!' she said.
The brand have no doubt been thrilled with the overwhelmingly positive response Kendall's campaigns have been attracting on social media; when the brand announced that she had been chosen as the newest face of its popular beauty products, a spokesperson confessed that Kendall's dedicated Instagram following had been a huge part of her appeal.
And thus far the strategy has been paying off; in the week after Kendall's new role was announced, the brand's Instagram account gained 50,000 new followers, while a recent clip from one of the new campaign videos earned over 9,000 likes just a few hours after being shared on the brand's account.
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text:
Beenz is the name of a new, on-line currency. An innovative concept
in the world of e-commerce, Beenz are electronic credits which can be
earned by shopping on-line or even by simply visiting a web site.
Like other currencies, Beenz can be saved and spent. There are personal
Beenz bank accounts for saving: should you wish to spend your
hard-earned virtual currency, participating web sites will give you
discounts on purchases or access to information in exchange for
The Beenz Company, a brand new firm backed by personal investment from
the UK and US, hired Band and Brown Communications to launch Beenz in
the UK and Europe.
To generate a high level of awareness of the Beenz brand among consumers
and to educate businesses and web site owners about the commercial
potential of Beenz.
The creative strategy behind the launch of Beenz was to contrast the
hi-tech, up-beat nature of the Beenz brand against the formality of
Two distinct elements were devised: a guerrilla marketing teaser
campaign and an educational media relations campaign.
To create pre-launch excitement, the agency mailed key technology and
business writers a personalised spoof bank statement where all the
transactions were recorded in Beenz rather than sterling. The only clue
to the sender was the web address, www.beenz.com, which invited visitors
to e-mail the agency for further information. This generated a hit list
of dozens of journalists anxious to hear the Beenz story.
At the same time, Band and Brown hired a security truck which was
branded with the Beenz logo and web site address.
The truck toured London and Manchester, visiting media headquarters
throughout both cities. Cash machines in London were fly-posted with the
Press briefings were arranged to follow up the launch activity. All the
UK national newspapers attended an interview, along with the key
pan-European titles, the newswires and foreign press agencies. In total,
more than 35 one-to-one interviews took place.
At the same time, Middleberg and Associates, Band and Brown’s New York
affiliate, executed a similar PR strategy in the US.
In terms of raising awareness of the Beenz brand, there have been
numerous opportunities to see the story. So far it has been covered by
Bloomberg TV in Spanish, Italian and English; on radio on Radio 5, Radio
1, Virgin Radio, Classic FM, BBC World Service, BBC Radio Scotland, BBC
Radio Solent and GLR; in 12 national newspapers and four pan-European
titles; along with 40 regional papers and 15 marketing and IT titles. A
total of 37 on-line web cuttings were also generated.
The educational campaign seems to have been a success too - more than 25
electronic traders have signed up to offer Beenz and a further 100
applications are being processed. Beenz reports that 10,000 people have
Yet another internet start-up company launching into the crowded
e-commerce market is not a dream ticket for a PR agency, but by fusing
guerrilla tactics with a massive media relations push, Band and Brown
caught the attention of internet-weary journalists and handed them all
the tools to build a story.
One newspaper business journalist, who wished to remain anonymous, said:
’Band and Brown had everything you needed to make the story work - the
people behind Beenz, customers who had signed up and background
information. All the pieces were in place.’
Client: The Beenz Company
PR Team: Band and Brown Communications
Campaign: Launch of Beenz
Timescale: March 1999


text:
Wait. We thought “dumping” was just something that countries like China and Vietnam did to offload cheap goods and undermine our domestic industries. Is it possible that we dump goods at below-market prices (whatever that means), too?
Well, dumping laws in either direction are silly. But now that we’ve slapped an import duty on Chinese tires, China is eager to return the favour. Not good.
Bloomberg: Chinese industries have complained that they’re being hurt by “unfair trade practices,” the nation’s Ministry of Commerce said on its Web site yesterday. The Beijing-based ministry is also looking into subsidies for the products, it said. It didn’t specify the imports’ value.
Yesterday’s three-paragraph statement from the Chinese commerce ministry didn’t refer to the tire dispute.
“China has always steadfastly opposed trade protectionism,” the ministry said, adding that the nation was “willing to continue acting in concert with other nations to promote a global economic recovery as soon as possible.”
The dumping and subsidy probes involve “some” auto and chicken imports from the U.S., it said, without specifying which ones.
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text:
A paranoid and parched consumer of beverages got a terrifying shock when they their mug fell apart and revealed what appears to be a listening device.
The unidentified but superbly moustachioed gent posted a photo on Reddit in the hope the internet could help.
Instead he was exposed as somewhat of a buffoon.
As one commenter pointed out, it is in fact the audio device of what once was a musical mug.
'Star-Bangled Banner' since you ask...