text:
Some seasonal fun is coming to Disney Springs at Walt Disney World in the form of some festive new treats at different locations throughout the shopping and dining destination.
- Disney Springs has tweeted that some new treats and goodies will soon be arriving at Walt Disney World’s shopping and dining destination.
- In a tweet from the official Disney Springs account, they say: Attention Disney Foodies—spooktacular snacks and beverages will start to materialize at Amorette's Patisserie, The Ganachery, and AristoCrepes at #DisneySprings starting Sept. 16!
ICYMI: More Walt Disney World Halloween
- Throughout the day, special Halloween cavalcades will pop up on the parade route and head down Main Street, U.S.A. Guests can come across Mickey Mouse and his pals, all dressed up in Halloween costumes. On select days, guests may even encounter a cavalcade of Disney Villains, including Gaston and Maleficent to the Queen of Hearts and Jafar – creeping down the path, or a nightmarish procession featuring the Pumpkin King himself, Jack Skellington!
- As another special treat for the Halloween season, the iconic Dapper Dans are making their triumphant return back to Magic Kingdom Park, beginning September 20, and performing as their undead alter egos The Cadaver Dans.
- The Halloween spirit is also in the air over at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where Minnie’s Halloween Dine is set to return to Hollywood & Vine, beginning September 25. A monster feast will be served to your table, and favorite Disney friends will make special appearances in the restaurant. You can wave and snap photos of your hostess, Minnie Mouse, dressed as a happy witch. Goofy is coming as a spooky cowboy, with Mickey Mouse as a funny vampire, and his best pal, Pluto, gets into the act wearing a cute Halloween collar.


text:
The Post Office is set to begin expanding its use of digital identity services, inline with government plans to introduce more technology to make it quicker and easier for people to identify themselves.
Part of Post Office’s plans will see it rollout a free-to-use app, built in partnership with digital identity company Yoti. This app, launching in the Spring, will combine the personal data of customers with biometrics to create a reusable ID on their smartphones.
Customers will be able to choose what information they share with the app but, in general, it will mean they no longer need to carry documents such as driver’s license or passport to prove their identity. And Post Office is teaming up with businesses to ensure the app can be used for online and in-person transactions including one-click bank account applications, job applications, mortgage applications, proof of age for the purchase of restricted goods, picking up parcels, and for travel purposes.
“Access to products and services are increasingly moving online, whether it’s opening a bank account, applying for a job, accessing medical services or buying goods,” said Post Office Identity Services Director, Elinor Hull. “We’re responding to this shift with a free-to-use app that will allow customers to build their own secure digital identity on their smartphone, enabling them to easily control and prove who they are to whichever business they want to interact with. For businesses, we are providing a suite of transactional and reusable identity verification services that will enable them to serve their customers with ease, trust and at low cost.”
For customers who don’t have access to a smartphone, or who prefer to confirm their identity face-to-face, Post Office will also be introducing new in-branch digital services.
“Post Office is embracing new technologies and this partnership will enhance our reputation as the trusted go-to destination for identity solutions. Whether it’s proving your identity on a smartphone or face-to-face with a Postmaster, we will make transactions faster and simpler than ever before,” said Post Office Chief Executive, Nick Read.
“I am delighted that Post Office and Yoti are joining forces to expand our identity services. We have an ambitious strategy to deliver a unique offer to the market that integrates digital and physical identity verification at scale benefitting both individuals and businesses.”

domain: news


text:
Long queues of cars have once again been witnessed as a fast food restaurant reopens to customers after lockdown-imposed closures.
This time, fast-food fans made their way to KFC in Merthyr Tydfil, to the restaurant which has been closed since the beginning of lockdown.
The fried chicken chain reopened 100 of its branches across the country on Tuesday, and more have reopened in the days since.
Some branches are open just for delivery, some just for drive-thru, and some are doing both.
All are offering a reduced menu as part of the social distancing rules.
The restaurant at Cyfarthfa Retail Park, in Merthyr, reopened for delivery and drive-thru on Thursday (April 7), and the decision clearly proved popular as cars scores of cars queued to get their chicken fix.
The retail park is split into two areas, with a large U-shaped complex for shops including Marks & Spencer, Next, Matalan, River Island and Boots, and a smaller section including McDonald's and KFC.
A KFC spokesman said: "We’ve been working hard to responsibly reopen our restaurants and now we’re spreading our wings a little further. In line with government advice, we’ve decided to open the drive-thru lanes at 55 of our UK restaurants that are already open for delivery.
"We know it’s tempting, but please, please don’t all rush at once! Delivery remains the best way to get your fried chicken fix – we just want to offer a little more choice to those who are already on the road for essential journeys or on their way home from difficult shifts."
You can find the full list of KFC branches now open here.
Other KFC restaurants in Wales which have reopened for delivery and drive-thru include Swansea Morfa and Newport Spytty Road, while Cardiff Queen Street is open for delivery only.


text:
Like a bad situationship that keeps dragging on, US companies want to break it off with China.
What happened: GoerTek, a major Apple supplier, invested millions into a new production plant in Vietnam and is weighing an Indian expansion as it looks to leave China. According to the company’s chairman, partners like Apple are not-so-subtly nudging them to jump ship.
Why it matters: Apple is more invested in China than perhaps any other Western company, so experts previously thought it would take years to move even a fraction of its production somewhere else. GoerTek’s move is the first sign that the shift may happen much quicker.
Why it’s happening: Tensions between China and the West were running high before the spy balloon mania, and now, the potential for policy headaches has only increased. Plus, last year’s Covid lockdowns highlighted the risks of supply chains that are over-reliant on China.
- And soon, China might not even present the benefit of the world’s largest labour force, as India is set to usurp the title of the most-populous nation any day now.
- US companies are feeling pretty meh towards China. One survey found China was a top priority for near-term investment plans for 45% of firms, down from 59% in 2019.
Yes, but: Reports of China’s death as the world’s factory floor may be premature. Chinese factory activity expanded at its fastest pace in over a decade last month. Even if China is “no longer viable” as the world’s factory, as some claim, it’s still currently open for business.


text:
Vivo, the leading global technology company will continue to be the official title sponsor for the Fall Split of PUBG MOBILE Club Open (PMCO) Global Finals 2019 in December, providing smartphones to empower players’ conquest at the competition.
Vivo thrives to be at the forefront of the esports trend to best serve consumers. Partnering with PUBG MOBILE, the leading mobile games developed by Tencent Games and PUBG Corporation that has over 200 million fans per download excluding China, Korea, and Japan, is a key milestone that reinforces Vivo’s commitment to bringing an ultra-smooth gaming experience to connect with consumers through meaningful partnerships.
PUBG MOBILE Club Open 2019 showcases the best Professional & Semi-Professional players in the world. Fighting for the lion’s share of USD 1.3 million, teams from 10 regions across the globe will battle their way through the upcoming Fall Split in December.
Vivo was also the title sponsor for the Spring Splits Tournament in July in Berlin, Germany. The competition attracted countless community witnessing the largest competition ever in mobile esports. The three-day largest mobile esports competition showcased global rivalries, with China’s Top esports team winning the grand prize of USD180,000, along with limited BAPE x PUBG MOBILE champion outfits and coveted bragging rights as the best in the world.
For more information about PUBG MOBILE Club Open 2019 click here.
Vivo is a leading global technology company committed to creating trendsetting smart mobile products and services. vivo is devoted to forming a vibrant mobile internet ecosystem, and currently owns and operates an extensive network of research operations, with R&D centers in San Diego, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Beijing, Hangzhou and Taipei. These centers focus on the development of cutting-edge consumer technologies including 5G, AI, mobile photography and next-generation smartphone design.
Vivo has also set up 5 production bases around the world across China, South Asia and Southeast Asia. vivo has over two hundred million users enjoying its mobile products and services around the world. vivo features offline retail stores in over 1,000 cities worldwide.
About PUBG MOBILE
PUBG MOBILE is based on PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS, the phenomenon that took the world of interactive entertainment by storm in 2017. Up to 100 players parachute onto a remote island to battle in a winner-takes-all showdown. Players must locate and scavenge their own weapons, vehicles and supplies, and defeat every player in a visually and tactically rich battleground that forces players into a shrinking play zone.


text:
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.
Holistic health experts have long recommended intermittent fasting for healthy weight loss, and now, the first-ever study of its kind confirms these benefits. Researchers from the University of Illinois, Chicago, placed 23 obese individuals on a 16:8 diet—between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. participants could eat any type and quantity of food they desired, but for the remaining 16 hours they could only drink water or calorie-free beverages. After 12 weeks, the researchers found that those who followed the time-restricted eating diet consumed about 350 fewer calories than a matched historical control group from a previous weight-loss trial. Those on the 16:8 plan lost, on average, 3 percent of their body fat, and also saw related improvements in blood pressure.
“The results are similar to what we’ve seen in studies on alternate-day fasting,” said Krista Varady, corresponding author on the study, “but one of the benefits of the 16:8 diet may be that it is easier for people to maintain. The take-home message is that there are options for weight loss that do not include calorie counting or eliminating certain foods.”


text:
Posted: Dec 12, 2018
LOUISVILLE, Ky. WDRB – Louisville-based spirits giant Brown-Forman Corp. doesn’t plan to get into the marijuana business anytime soon, incoming CEO Lawson Whiting told investment analysts on Wednesday.
Responding to a question at the company’s Investor Day in New York, Whiting said the pot business is “very different than premium spirits,” and that Brown-Forman has no leg up compared to other companies, such as drug makers, that might be interested in it.
“We have challenged ourselves to say, ‘Where are the synergies? Why can we win in that space?’” Lawson said. “…Our competitive advantage in that space -- I’ll be honest -- is not much … I don’t think you are going to see us move too far forward.”
Analysts have been interested in whether beverage companies like Brown-Forman --- the maker of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey – could find a new market in marijuana if more states, or the U.S. as a whole, eventually legalizes its recreational use.
Constellation Brands Inc., the maker of Corona beer, earlier this year invested $4 billion in Canadian marijuana grower Canopy Growth Corp. and is looking to develop nonalcoholic, cannabis-infused beverages for Canada and other legal markets, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Brown-Forman has listed marijuana legalization as a potential “risk” to its liquor business for years in the footnotes of its regulatory reports.
Company executives spent hours Wednesday making the case that Brown-Forman has plenty of room for growth in its core businesses, primarily Jack Daniels (which executives called the “beating heart” of the company), Woodford Reserve bourbon and El Jimador and Herradura tequila.
For all the growth in bourbon over the last decade, American whiskey consumption is still less than half its 1970's peak, according to statistics Brown-Forman presented Wednesday.
Brown-Forman has a bright future ahead “if we can get anywhere near those numbers,” Whiting said.
By Chris Otts
December 12, 2018
Go-Wine's mission is to organize food and beverage information and make it universally accessible and beneficial. These are the benefits of sharing your article in Go-Wine.com


text:
Future of globalization uncertain in current political landscape, Carlos Slim says Trump presidency could be good for Mexico, IATA promotes advancement of air cargo standards, India seeks to expand air cargo infrastructure, 10 supply chain predictions for the future of manufacturing.
The logistics of trade between the United States and Mexico has changed significantly in the 20-plus years since NAFTA was enacted. There are still issues, most notably border delays and an imbalance of goods flowing north and south, but there are bright spots supported by an influx of foreign direct investment in Mexico, too.
MD Logistics leverages FTZ benefits to provide game changing benefits to its customer base.
Choosing the right shipping software is critical because it impacts your company’s bottom line. Here are eight steps to take to ensure you choose the right solution for your company’s individual needs.Details
Jungheinrich® reach trucks help LeanCor’s mission to advance the world’s supply chains.
To overcome the challenges that e-commerce presents to the supply chain, shippers need to succeed at omni-channel fulfillment. From leveraging brick-and-mortar stores to deploying an order management system, here’s how they can compete in an e-commerce world.
Today, we face the slow extinction of independent owner-operators. These self-reliant business owners are now dealing with a myriad of regulations that will soon make the owner-operator model impractical, and its survival improbable.
Business to consumer demand is set to outpace supply in the marketplace. Those who can solve that problem will be the big winners in the next phase of supply chain management.
Suppliers have to be lean, fast, and innovative to meet their clients’ needs. To ensure they’re capable of being exactly that, OEMs need to bring in expertise across the whole business to ensure they get a strategic supply chain partner.


text:
Fresh off its $2 million in Series A funding, in-app mobile payments platform ZooZ is announcing a new product today: in-ad payments. Yes, that’s right, “ad” not “app.” The big idea here is to streamline the checkout process for consumers by addressing some of the challenges with e-commerce on mobile’s small screen, and now connecting that process to mobile banner ads to increase click-to-buy conversions.
With in-ad payments, mobile users will be able checkout by tapping once on a visible banner ad within a mobile app, which then launches ZooZ’s checkout flow. As with ZooZ’s previously launched in-app payments product, the fully native checkout experience here doesn’t require the end user to re-enter their credit card or payment details after their initial sign-up.
For those unfamiliar with ZooZ, the company has been focused on rethinking e-commerce on mobile, with a checkout process that’s designed to reduce cart abandonment. As CEO Oren Levy explained to us last summer, when announcing a partnership with MobiCart, “despite the fact that there’s a lot of m-commerce going on, there’s a lack of uniformity in checkout schemes. Each app creates it own checkout, its own colors and you don’t know how secure it is.”
The first time a user checks out on mobile using ZooZ, they will have to provide their credit card or other payment details (e.g. PayPal, Dwolla, etc.) in a mobile-optimized screen. But afterwards, all subsequent checkouts become one-tap payments. At that point, instead of entering in payment information again, ZooZ simply presents you with an interface where you can flip through your saved credit cards and other payment methods, then tap “pay now” to complete the process.
Today, ZooZ’s in-app payments product has been adopted by 5,500 mobile developers. The company offers a ZooZ SDK for developers, which integrates ZooZ’s checkout into mobile (iOS, Android, or HTML5) apps, and it works with several app building platforms, including Appcelerator Titanium, Phone Gap, and Basic4Android.
Levy says the idea for in-ad payments came to him when he was stuck in an airport playing mobile games and clicking on banner ads within them.
“We were seeing a horrible experience where we were redirected to another webpage and then the whole process was so cumbersome – very long and unfriendly, to say the least,” Levy explains. Screens weren’t optimized for mobile, he says, and you would have to zoom in on the forms provided.
“Then, when we started exploring this world a little bit, we found that conversion rates from banner ads were so low, there was a need for a quicker and easier way to purchase items from banner ads – whether that’s physical goods, services, or coupons, etc.,” he adds.
So the team decided to take their core technology, and make it work with the banner ad medium, too.
The newly launching ZooZ in-ad payments solution is not being aimed at developers, but rather at ad agencies who will bundle the ZooZ in-ad SDK into their own. Two big-name ad agency brands are currently testing the in-ad payments SDK, but Levy says he’s not able to disclose those by name at this time.
He expects the SDK to exit from beta in a couple of months’ time, however, at which point there will hopefully be room to discuss who’s involved in more detail.
As with ZooZ’s in-app payments platform, the company charges a processing fee or per transaction fee to generate revenue. Fees vary depending on the type of merchant. When offering the full payment processing solution to indie app developers, the company charges 2.8% + $0.19, but when partnering with payment processors where ZooZ only operates as a technological layer on top of the payment processing, it charges different flat fees per transactions.
The company, now with $3.5 million in total funding, has seen most of its adoption to date in European markets, but is now starting to see some traction in the U.S. and parts of Asia. In Europe, ZooZ has found a niche within last-minute hotel booking apps, Levy notes (e.g. HotelTonight competitors), while in Asia, Japan is its key market. The company is now thinking about expanding further into that country by opening an office there.
ZooZ’s new in-ad payments option is not available publicly today, but can be requested by interested agencies for testing purposes by contacting the company via email or phone.Read More →
Ready for a sky full of robo-planes?
Airware, a company that’s building the brains and guts for commercial unmanned drones, is announcing this morning that they’ve raised a big ol’ $10.7M Series A.
The round is led by Andreessen Horowitz, and backed by Google Ventures (Cue the conspiracy theories about why Google’s venture arm is puttin’ money into drones in 3…2…) As part of the round, Andreessen Horowitz partner Chris Dixon will be joining Airware’s board.
To be clear, Airware doesn’t make drones — they make the brains for drones. If you were to order something from Airware, you’d get a logic board (which handles things like auto-pilot, wireless communication, etc.) and all of the actuators and sensors you’d probably want to put in a drone.
The word “drone” can be a bit spooky. The first thing most folks think of when they hear “drone” (or “unmanned aircraft”) is their crazy controversial (and, yes, pretty terrifying) use by the world’s militaries.
That’s a shame, though. Like all technology, drones are not inherently evil — nor are they all killing machines. There are a bunch of completely innocent uses for drones — none of which involve shootin’ you from the sky or getting all Big Brother-y, and all of which are only made feasible by having a robot soaring a few thousand feet above the ground.
Over in Kenya, Airware-powered drones are being built to monitor the dwindling population of Northern White Rhinos to combat poaching. Head for the slopes, and companies are working on building drones to search for lost skiers. Other teams, meanwhile, are working on drones that use high-res infrared cameras to monitor their infrastructure for damaged power or gas lines. Vaccine delivery! Air quality research!
It’s important to make that distinction, as Airware doesn’t seem all that interested in working with the military. While they don’t rule out the possibility moving forward, Airware CEO Jonathan Downey tells me that not a one of their dozens of customers are military-focused.
(Plus, the U.S. military is already spending a few billion a year on their own drone research. They’re probably pretty good to go on their own.)
Instead, Airware wants to fill the gap between the massively-funded military drone work and the nascent DIY drone (or “personal UAV” — yeah, it exists) community.
While Airware came into existence back in 2011, Downey actually found his love for drones while studying at MIT a few years prior. He and a few friends entered a drone-building competition, and were surprised at just how limited and black-boxy all of the available drone tech was. A few years and a stint at Boeing later, Jonathan dove into building drones full time, raising a small seed round to get the ball rolling.
By the end of last year, that money had run dry. Through a twist of fate and a bit of good timing, the company made it into Y Combinator’s Winter 2013 class just as the FAA was opening up U.S. airspace to commercial drones. 4 months and one big YC demo day later, the company’s $10.4M Series A is the biggest post-Demo Day round in YC history.Read More →
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Resigns As Director Of Twitter U.K. After TweetDeck Dissolves As Standalone Business
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has quit his position as a U.K. director of the company, days after Twitter subsidiary TweetDeck was dissolved as a separate U.K. business by business registrar Companies House, according to Sky News. We’ve reached out to Twitter for confirmation and comment and will update this story with any response.
Costolo stepping back from the U.K. directorship role appears related to the dissolution of TweetDeck: a U.K. startup which Twitter acquired in May 2011 for a price-tag that we reported as $40 million. Late last year TweetDeck failed to file U.K. accounts with Companies House, and continued failure to file ultimately led to the dissolution of the company as a separate entity earlier this month, on May 7.
TweetDeck’s failure to file accounts was part of a process to wind up its status as a separate corporate entity to its parent company. Earlier this month a Twitter spokesperson told the Guardian: “TweetDeck the product continues to thrive as part of Twitter, but the old company has been dormant for some time, with no outstanding liabilities; hence our agreement with the move to dissolve it.”
Once TweetDeck became a part of Twitter, with product development and other business processes moving in-house, there was no longer a need for it to exist as a standalone business in the U.K. It’s likely, therefore, that that shift also explains Costolo stepping back from his U.K. director role. His resignation took place on May 9, according to Sky News.
The news organisation reports that Costolo’s position has been replaced by a Dublin-based chartered accountant, Laurence O’Brien. That looks like a clear sign that Twitter’s main order of business in the U.K. is now minimising its tax liability, with the development that was associated with TweetDeck now rolled into its main business. The other two Twitter U.K. directors, Alex Macgillivray, Twitter’s general counsel and head of trust and policy, and chief operating officer, Ali Rowghani, remain in post.
Despite TweetDeck’s corporate dissolution and Costolo stepping back from his U.K. directorship there’s little doubt that Twitter remains committed to the product. Although it has recently shut down AIR-based versions of the Twitter client and shuttered mobile apps, it is focusing on developing TweetDeck’s web-based apps. Back in March, Twitter noted that the TweetDeck team has doubled in size over the past six months.
Sky News notes that Twitter controls its U.K. firm through an Irish subsidiary known as Twitter International Company Ltd. And while Twitter has been expanding its staff headcount in its London and Dublin offices this headcount push is to build a multinational sales team for Europe, rather than being product development related.Read More →
It’s a rare fall rainy day in Palo Alto and SAP Executive Board Member Dr. Vishal Sikka is as sick as a dog. It’s less than a week until SAP Sapphire in Madrid and the community around him are like a worrying family. I had told them that it is okay. I could make the trip another time. But they were insistent I make the trip.
Fast forward to May. It has been several months since that cold rainy week in Palo Alto. We’re on the eve of the next Sapphire conference in Orlando this week. Last week, Plattner and Sikka held a press conference, announcing the new HANA Enterprise Cloud.
HANA is an in-memory database that Sikka and Plattner developed with a team of about a dozen people around the world. SAP has built four data centers for HANA — two in Europe and two in the United States.
It would not be an overstatement to say that HANA is SAP’s future, the first technology in a long time from the German giant that is getting buzz for what it can do. It potentially puts the company into play as a key developer platform for real-time analytics in the evolving world of technology spanning both consumer and the enterprise services that are the company’s legacy (and slightly stale bread and butter). The big question is can SAP show the world that HANA is a bona fide developer platform with visionary use cases and clear customer examples.
Jon Reed is a longtime SAP Mentor and expert about the company. He is a great sounding board, someone who talked me through a lot of this story. He has a lot of respect for Sikka and Plattner. But he is skeptical, too, as am I about HANA and its direction. The potential is without question. And Sikka shows signs he has that rare combination of intellectual curiosity, technology credibility and passion that makes for a great leader. And he’s a humanist. He is impassioned about the potential for cancer research with HANA as much as he sees SAP transforming from an inward looking business software company to one that is outward facing, used for research and predictive analytics.
“It makes him a compelling figure,” Reed said. “You do get the sense that if the work is not purposeful, he won’t stick around. He really does believe HANA and interrelated innovations can change the world.”
But at the same time Sikka has to address profitability and revenues, Reed said.
Back in Palo Alto, Sikka arrives and he ushers me back to his office and sees that Hasso Plattner’s office is available. Plattner is the chairman of the SAP Supervisory Board and co-founder of the company. Sikka is the kind of guy who gets excited about those little things. Like the chance to look out across Palo Alto from his mentor’s office at the Stanford University campus where he received a master’s degree in engineering. We sit down and Sikka starts telling me about this accident that changed his life.
A Car Accident In Costa Rica
Sikka had gone to Costa Rica for a vacation with his family in 2008 over the winter break. He was CTO of the company. But he was unsettled about the direction of the enterprise giant. And then something happened on the way back to the hotel after a day by the ocean.
“On the way back I overcorrected and crashed into a pole,” Sikka said in a follow-up interview last month. “Thank God everyone was okay. At that point I realized I had to change something in my life.”
He called Plattner and said it was over — he needed to move on. The son of a railroad conductor, Sikka grew up in India, came to the United States and studied at Syracuse University. He graduated in three years. He then went to Stanford, built a startup with his brother and later sold it. He joined SAP in 2002. But by 2008, Sikka had second thoughts about the company’s technology direction. The accident pretty much sealed it. Or so he thought.
SAP is traditionally an application provider. It made its billions managing transactions but in recent years the disk I/O had become a bottleneck, slowing the application. The amount of data needed to make decisions had accelerated, pointing to the need for better, faster performance and results.
It’s a problem faced across the market. Machine-to-machine data is now more than transactional data, requiring a new approach to the application layer and the underlying database. Sikka had wanted to explore how to solve this problem. Developing a new database was that opportunity.
According to Wikipedia, Plattner, a consummate technologist, worked at IBM in the AI department, working on an enterprise-wide system based on the technology Xerox acquired from Scientific Data Systems (SDS). In 1972, after IBM decided to exit the business, Plattner, with four other German engineers, decided to leave the company and continue the project. IBM took 8% in founding stock in exchange for the engineers to use the software. Plattner and his colleagues called the company Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung (“System Analysis and Program Development”).
Plattner is a different character than many founders. The Hasso Plattner Institute gives him the opportunity to spend tine with students, which keeps him interacting with young people and open to new ideas.
Plattner is also, like Sikka, doggedly persistent. During the winter of 2008, over dinner in Aspen, as Sikka tried to explain that he wanted out of SAP, Sikka said Plattner banged his fist on the table, challenging him to intellectually renew the company. But what did that mean? It took several months to figure out. They knew it had to be something new, something galvanizing. By the summer of 2009 they settled on HANA. The product launched in November 2010 and became generally available in 2011.
As for Plattner, he needed Sikka. Plattner has never really left SAP: although he retired in 2003 he has continued to serve as SAP’s chairman of its supervisory board. With Sikka, Plattner has a technologist who can manage the development of a new ecosystem and commands respect throughout the organization. Sikka, in turn, reports to Plattner, who can provide cover from the political dynamics of this $15 billion company.
This has bred an interesting basis for the development of HANA, which sits outside of much of what the rest of SAP does. It’s not like the two have complete autonomy but it is enough for them to define HANA’s technology direction and fold in its mobile strategy, cloud initiatives and begin the hard work of creating a developer ecosystem and startup culture. To do this, they have a team that operates in a separate wing at the Palo Alto campus, an independence that gives them the flexibility to build out their projects in a way that is different from the other SAP product groups.
When I visited last fall, I met a few of the team members, all hand-picked by Sikka. They are fiercely loyal to Sikka and reverential of Plattner. It’s this that Sikka has used to form the foundation for the intellectual curiosity that Plattner has insisted is so vital to the company.
Out of this, SAP is building its own startup culture. It launched AppHaus, an office that looks like a condominium building set in a neighborhood of the quaint community of Los Altos. Inside they are building consumer mobile apps. Last year, SAP launched a second AppHaus in Dublin. More are planned around the world.
SAP Ventures is seeding startups that are using HANA as the database for their technology. SAP Ventures Managing Director Nino Marakovic says Sikka was instrumental in helping it get started.
So where does this all bring us today?
First, the competition is intense. IBM, Microsoft and impressive startups like MemSQL and SiSense are offering their own brand of analytics. Workday is growing at a clip with consistent updates to its platform.
The SAP Palo Alto campus is where the innovation is happening. But the corporate executives in Waldorf are expecting results. And that sometimes seems like it is slowing SAP’s drive to work more aggressively with startups.
SAP is developing a cloud platform and a platform-as-a-service (PaaS). It’s these efforts and its focus on startups that will create the wellspring and potentially the scale that Sikka needs for SAP HANA to be a success — both in the market and with the chiefs in Waldorf.
And that’s Sikka’s challenge. Creating a company that is compelling and can grow to something far more than was ever dreamed of when Plattner and his colleagues spun off from IBM and created SAP in 1972.Read More →
Congress is on track to passing a nationwide Internet retail sales tax, but it has serious flaws that could majorly muck up the e-commerce industry. We think citizens are often smarter than the government, and we want to give you a chance to make the bill better before it becomes law. So, we’ve teamed up with Congressman Darrell Issa’s Open Government Foundation, which designed a platform for making line-by-line suggestions to proposed laws. In TechCrunch’s version of the “Project Madison” crowdsourcing legislative platform, our readers can add, delete, and amend specific passages in the upcoming tax law.
Suggestions that are voted up by our community will get the most attention of Congressional staffers (which we know are watching our platform). It’s been claimed that the Internet is “democratizing” the world; well, here’s our chance to prove it.
Senate Bill S.743, the “Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013,” passed the Senate with overwhelming support and is on to the House of Representatives. But, it won’t be passed for at least a month, so we have some time to bubble up the best ideas from our community of readers.
As we promised when we first launched our new civics channel, Crunchgov, TechCrunch would source and promote the most insightful ideas from the technology community. A proactive approach to improving law is just the next logical step for how we can support the amazing work you all do.
Go to http://madison.techcrunch.com/ and get your citizen on. Encourage your friends, ping your local expert, and share this opportunity loudly. If we make an impact on the bill, it’ll a watershed moment in American democracy. Go forth!Read More →
Lloyd Kaufman explains why crowdfuding is an important resource for independent artists around the world! http://www.usa.gov/contact/elected http://www.occup…Read More →
A new startup launching today called Everwise is looking to help. The San Francisco and New York-based startup, which was co-founded by tech industry veteran and current Yahoo board chairman Maynard Webb and former Audium founder and Cisco executive Mike Bergelson, has built a tech-powered platform for matching “protégés” with the right mentors and shepherding them through a six-month-long advisory relationship.
In an interview this week, Bergelson, who serves as Everwise’s CEO, said the service plugs data from a participant’s LinkedIn profile as well as a personalized questionnaire into its matching algorithm (which is based on Everwise’s studies of some 60,000 mentoring partnerships) to pair him or her with a volunteer executive from another company in the same industry to serve as a mentor. The idea is that sometimes people aren’t always the best at choosing the right mentor on their own.
“Mentor marketplaces as they exist today aren’t always working, because the people with most compelling titles and sexiest businesses get all the attention, even if they aren’t the right fit,” Bergelson said. “Everwise is like the eHarmony for mentoring… Our aim is to build longer lasting relationships that span with interactions over months.”
In addition to the software, Everwise provides a human element here too. The company has contracted live “relationship managers” who help shepherd the mentoring relationships from day one, checking in with phone calls and surveys to gather feedback and provide guidance.
There’s a price to this. Everwise charges each protégé $150 per month to use the site, and mentors, which are heavily vetted by the site, participate as volunteers. That might seem expensive, but at an enterprise level it’s been received well: Over the past year in Everwise’s private beta, companies such as Hewlett Packard, Direct Energy, and Sigma Aldrich have paid for their employees to find mentors through the program. “When we talk to companies about the pricing, our monthly price costs about the same as one day of management training,” Bergelson said.
Bergelson said that Everwise is different from other services in the mentoring space such as Clarity, since it is focused more on people in the corporate world than on entrepreneurs. Looking ahead, though, the company could look to scale out its technology and service beyond the white-collar sphere. Bergelson explained the vision like this:
“If we can figure out a way to provide a service that’s really valuable for really senior, swtiched-on, engaged Silicon Valley people at the HPs and the eBays of the world, and do that in a scalable way, then the platform and the technology could be used in lots of different contexts. Nowadays people have 11 jobs on average by time they’re in mid-thirties. Careers are ending up in places in infinite numbers of ways. The role of the mentor, the role of guidance, is even more important now than it has been.”
Everwise, which has raised just under $1 million in seed funding, has a full-time staff of 14.Read More →
Are you ready for Donald Trump to (not really) give you (not real) money for your (not really) amazing project? Well, (not really his) new site, FundAnything, is ready to take your money!
The new funding site is (not really) run by Trump (it is really headed up by the Bill Zanker, founder of the Trump-infested Learning Annex) but darn it if it doesn’t look like the Donald won’t give you cash if you ask him nice!
People do not assume this but more than anything else, I like helping people. Be at Trump Tower at 11 AM today.—
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 08, 2013
The site began its life/death cycle today with typical Trump flair. This morning the Trumpster tweeted that he was about to give out loads of cash on the street because, presumably, he has nothing better to do on a Wednesday. However, he is really giving out money to pre-selected people and some folks pulled from the crowd. Arguably, his attempts at charity, though mendacious and baldly noble, are noble. From the press release:
The world’s most famous billionaire businessman, Donald Trump, will be distributing suitcases filled with cash to 3 people he has chosen to help. The 3 individuals who will be on hand to receive the money will include a family afflicted by a life-threatening medical condition, a small business owner crippled by the effects of Hurricane Sandy, and an aspiring singer-songwriter. Mr. Trump is inviting the public to attend the event where some people in the crowd will also be selected to receive additional piles of money.
The rules are sufficiently abstract but similar to Indiegogo’s — at least in spirit. FundAnything charges a 9 percent fee on the contributions you collect if your project isn’t fully funded. It takes 5 percent on projects that are funded. There’s also a processing fee of 3 percent.
Will FundAnything be successful? Well, considering they’ve overtly borrowed the site design of the two leading platforms, Indiegogo and Kickstarter, and, more importantly, have a big picture of Donald Trump on the front page, I seriously doubt success is in the cards. Startups that hire “stars” to flog their launches are usually the worst kind of startups simply because this suggests a level of self-regard and showmanship that turns off early adopters and draws all the wrong kind of customers. I could, for example, imagine FundAnything attempting a TV campaign based on the premise that Trump will fund your stuff. Those suckered into the site will slowly realize that Trump, like a dark, necrotic god, is powerless to help them.
Until they shutter this mess, stare into his eyes, mortals, and weep. He is Trump, avatar of Mammon. All hail!Read More →
The “Orphans Over Orchids” Global Challenge aims to raise $100,000 by Mother’s Day (May 12th) to quickly and successfully transform an entire struggling orphanage. This will vastly improve lifelong outcomes for 100 boys and girls with trackable results like clean water, better food, good healthcare, smart life skills training, tutoring, a cozier environment– and hugs from loving and well-trained housemothers.
“With a few clicks, people anywhere in the world can join Orphans Over Orchids, get (or request) a meaningful gift, and make a powerful difference for parentless kids,” says Leoni, whose grandmother founded UNICEF.
SOURCE:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/orphans-over-orchids-global-crowdfunding-challenge-launched-for-mothers-day-week-206396551.htmlRead More →


text:
Unsurprisingly, the fourth quarter is usually the best sales period for the Kindle (and most retail products), but it looks like this year will be especially strong as more consumers flock to e-books. After announcing a new e-book loan feature last week, Amazon is revealing a number of new Kindle stats today in time for the holiday shopping rush.
According to the company, sales of the new generation Kindle devices have already surpassed total Kindle device sales from the holiday season of last year (October through December 2009).
Sales of individual Kindle titles are flying off the digital bookshelves. Amazon sold more than three times as many Kindle books in the first nine months of 2010 as in the first nine months of 2009. Amazon also said that Kindle book sales continue to overtake print on Amazon.com. This data is consistent with Q2 and Q1 Kindle numbers Amazon revealed during its earnings call in July. And in the past 30 days, Amazon.com customers purchased more Kindle books than print books, which includes both hardcover and paperback combined, for the top 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 bestselling books on Amazon.com.
In the three months since Amazon debuted the new Kindle, Kindle devices or Kindle-related items such as Kindle books and covers represented 15 of the top 15 bestselling items on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined. Of course, this dramatic growth is buoyed by the fact that e-book sales are rapidly growing (Amazon says sales are up 193 percent between January and August 2010). Kindle book sales growth during the same period exceeded this rate.
All of this growth sounds pretty great, but it’s really hard to accept these stats and data without the actual numbers of Kindles sold or e-books sold. Clearly, Kindles are big-sellers for the e-commerce giant (perhaps because the company slashed prices of the device to $139 for WiFi-only and $189 for the full-featured model). Amazon is notorious for sending out releases or news touting Kindle sales while never releasing the actual numbers (data which Apple reveals all the time).
For now, Kindle sales will continue to be one of the best-kept secrets in device land.
Also related: B&N will be releasing a color version of its Kindle competitor, the Nook, this week.


text:
The letters to these stores were sent out two weeks after orders went out to operators and landlords of 141 pot shops to close down. The letters carry warnings that violators could be sued, and that the city could seek financial penalties and “padlock the property.”
City employees checked each of the stores that were notified recently to ensure that these businesses were indeed open, according to Asha Greenberg, the assistant city attorney overseeing the enforcement efforts. She shared further that the office was unclear about these locations, and that it has not yet found out if all the stores are selling marijuana.
The letters that were sent out asked for a response, and so far, the city attorney’s office has received information on two dozen locations, according to Greenberg. Eleven dispensaries are already closed. Six stores were going to be closed by their owners, while six were still open. One store has denied that it was a medical marijuana dispensary.
If the suspected dispensaries that received notification letters do not close, the city attorney’s office will work with the police department in the gathering of evidence for use in court proceedings, so that these stores could be shut down.
The dispensaries that received notifications were those that did not register for a lottery that would choose 100 dispensaries that will be allowed to operate. Los Angeles received 228 such applications.


text:
Sherif Moawad will soon find out exactly how Edmontonians roll when it comes to customized sushi. The 37-year-old has signed a deal with a Texas-based franchise — How Do You Roll? — to open 30 locations in Western Canada in the next decade. As the master franchisor, he plans to open at least two corporate stores in Edmonton in 2014, and hopes to sign up franchisees as well. Expansion to Calgary and Vancouver will follow.
The Lebanese designer's imaginative show in 52 diverse looks saw references that spanned from the furs of the 30s, the satins of the 40s, the full skirts of the 50s — right up to the inflated sleeves and shoulders of cutting-edge trends.


text:
Cash flow finance
Gener8 provides £400k in invoice finance to firm manufacturing PPE for frontline NHS staff
Gener8 Finance, a provider of invoice finance to SMEs across the UK, has supported a fashion and textile manufacturer with £400,000 in cash flow financing to manufacture essential personal protective equipment (PPE) for the NHS.
In a bid to support frontline staff as they battle against the Covid-19 health crisis while they face a PPE shortage, the team at LS Manufacturing UK, a West Midlands-based company, has temporarily switched its operations to focus on helping Britain’s healthcare sector.
In a warehouse that normally designs and produces luxury clothing for high-street retailers, the firm has transformed its operations to solely manufacturing textiles for the NHS; from non-surgical gowns and protective headwear for frontline staff to cubicle curtains for local NHS trusts.
Daljit Mehat, director at LS Manufacturing, said: “Our funding facility with Gener8 has been fundamental in supporting the ongoing cash flow requirements to produce these garments.
“As we continue to stay open for business and work through these challenging times, their support and flexibility has ensured we can deliver this project.”
Tansy Cunningham, head of business at Gener8 Finance, added: “It’s a pleasure to support LS Manufacturing as they use their skills and expertise to support our national healthcare service through these extremely challenging times.
"The work they are completing is a fantastic example of how British businesses can pivot in the face of adversity and come together.
"We look forward to building a long business relationship with the team and continuing to support them past the Covid-19 crisis.”
We look forward to building a long business relationship with the team and continuing to support them past the Covid-19 crisis.
Gener8 Finance, which is part of the 1pm Plc Group, offers cash flow funding ranging from £50,000 to £1m.


text:
The Times website has about 20 million unique visitors a month, according to Nielsen Online. If we take Langeveld’s assumptions and charge $10 a month and run off 90 percent of the traffic, that leaves the Times’s website two million subscribers paying $240 million in revenue a year. That’s more than $40 million more than the $200 million the paper spends annually on its entire newsroom.
NYT Co. doesn’t break out nytimes.com revenue, making it somewhat difficult to do this little game. But let’s try:
The whole company had $309 million of Internet ads last year. Toss out About.com ($115 million) and its other papers’ sites like The Boston Globe’s boston.com, and I’ll make a very rough estimate that the Times website brought in somewhere between $130 million and $170 million in ads last year. Let’s split the middle and say $150 million.
Using Langeveld’s rules, New York Times would keep $15 million in ad revenue, lose $135 million in ad revenue and gain $240 million a year in subscription revenue. That’s a $105 million a year gain for the Times, or a 70 percent increase over ad-only revenue.
Now, these remaining customers, who will spend much more time on the site and would be a more desirable (richer) demographic are worth much more than the nonpaying reader who pops in for twenty seconds from a link emailed from her brother. So the retained ad revenue would be higher, making this an even better proposition.
Now, I don’t believe the Times could get two million subscribers to pay $120 a year—at least not right away. I’m just using Langeveld’s own rules for his experiment to illustrate how it would work.
But the bigger problem with Langeveld’s analysis is it posits an all-or-nothing content wall. Nobody’s proposing that. Even The Wall Street Journal, the most successful (and one of the only) newspaper to charge, gives most of its content away for free. And he makes a mistake here:
Or consider that the Wall Street Journal has about a million paying subscribers at $8.66 a month, versus 14 million monthly UVs at the free New York Times site. Print circulation for the two are roughly equivalent, but the Journal’s fee cuts its online audience to just 7 percent of the Times’s.
The Journal’s fee does not cut its traffic to seven percent of the NYT’s. The Journal Online gets about 7 million unique users a month, compared to the Times’s 20 million, according to Nielsen Online. (The Journal itself maintains that Nielsen grossly underestimates its traffic, which it says brings in 23 million unique visitors a month.) That’s 35 percent of the Times’s traffic, not 7 percent.
The Journal has done that by a pretty clever system that lets nonsubscribers read stories that are linked to by others like Google News and Digg, while making it difficult to be a heavy reader without subscribing.
In that way, it has kept its 1.1 million online subscribers (which I’ve estimated pay $50 million or $60 million a year), while benefiting from the spike in traffic from nonsubscribers than can come to a popular story.
Also important: It seems to me that charging online would help newspapers slow their print circulation declines, and perhaps even give them a bit of pricing power on rates. Remember a print reader is still worth about nine times the revenue a (non-paying) online one is. I’ve said this till I’m blue in the face, but I‘ll repeat it:
Newspapers make fools of all their paying subscribers by giving their product away free on the Web. Why pay $400 a year for The New York Times when the same thing is free online? I sure could use that extra $35 a month, and it’s mighty tempting to kill my subscription—I don’t like the actual print product that much. If that happens, the NYT loses 90 percent of my value to it in the form of lost revenue.
At the very least, this might give papers some breathing room to survive this economic crash.


text:
Production Underway at New Nouryon Facility in China
Nouryon has started production at a new manufacturing facility located at its site in Ningbo, China. According to the company, the facility is designed to meet increasing demand in the Asia region for polymers used in the Packaging, Paints and Coatings and Construction end-markets.
The facility, which began development in 2020, has an annual capacity of 35,000 tons and will produce two key intermediates: tert-Butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) and tert-Butyl alcohol (TBA) – essential ingredients in the production of polymers and composites.
The Nouryon Ningbo site is comprised of six manufacturing facilities that produce chelating agents, organic peroxides, ethylene amines, cellulose ethers, and surfactants.
Nouryon has a long history in the development of organic peroxide solutions, dating to the early 1920s. In Asia, Nouryon produces organic peroxides in Ningbo and Tianjin, China; Asa, Japan; and Mahad, India.
“Nouryon is pleased to further support our customers across Asia now that operations are up and running at our new China facility,” said Alain Rynwalt, vice president of Polymer Specialties at Nouryon. “This investment supports Nouryon’s commitment to meet the growing needs of our customers in the region for products such as safe and hygienic food packaging, paint resins and PVC pipes.”


text:
Scientists say that the release of large amounts of methane from thawing permafrost in the Arctic could have huge economic impacts for the world. Researchers estimate that the climate effects of the release of this gas could cost US$60-trillion, roughly the size of the global economy in 2012. The impacts are most likely to be felt in developing countries and would include flooding, sea level rise and damage to agriculture and human health. However, it is also estimated that 30 per cent of the world's undiscovered gas and 13 per cent of undiscovered oil lie in Arctic waters.
The Saudi government has announced it will spend US$22-billion on a metro system for the capital Riyadh. The project is said to be the largest public transport initiative in the world. It will have six lines with over 180km of track and will help to boost the economy. Construction will begin next year, with trains running by 2019. Saudi has a lot of spare cash and needs to spend it.
China has not paid Hollywood its share of the profits from some of this year's big box office films because of a dispute over a new two per cent tax on foreign films. China's box office revenues increased by 36 per cent to US$2.7-billion in 2012, making it the second-biggest movie market in the world, underscoring its importance as a key market for Hollywood's moviemakers.
Driven by 77-million consumers of sports drinks and 28-million consumers of nutrition bars in the US, the sports nutrition market has experienced significant growth in recent years. Women dominate the market for nutrition bars, as only 45 per cent of those eating at least one bar in the last 30 days are men, while 55 per cent are women. In contrast, men account for 64 per cent of high-volume users of sports drinks.
One of the biggest drawbacks of concrete is that it is not as weatherproof as the stone it often substitutes for. Salt and ice routinely turn microscopic fractures in its fabric into gaping holes which let in water. Scientists have now shown that it is possible to mix special bacteria, which releases crack-sealing chemicals into concrete before it is poured, in effect creating self-healing concrete. Another approach is using a protective waterproof polymer that sticks readily to the concrete and forms a seal.
Despite the vast array of ice cream flavour varieties available in the US, it turns out that vanilla has staked its claim as the most popular among consumers, followed by chocolate and butter pecan in second and third place with Neapolitan and Rocky Road tied for fourth. However, there is an increasing trend towards frozen yogurt.
The US Food and Drug Administration has now set a standard for gluten-free claims on food labels, a step that will help the three million Americans with celiac disease and bring uniformity to the US$4-billion market for gluten-free products. Gluten is a composite of starch and proteins found in certain grassy grains like wheat, barley and rye which, when eaten by people, can trigger the production of antibodies that damage the lining of the small intestine.
The world's largest tunnelling machine has started drilling under the city of Seattle. The machine is 326 feet long, weighs 7,000 tons and will leave a tunnel nearly 58 feet in diameter. It will take about 14 months to complete the two-mile tunnel which will drill beneath 200 downtown Seattle buildings. The machine was built in Japan, arrived in 41 pieces and is worth US$80-million.
Spending on research and development (R&D) in Canada's higher education sector increased over the past year to C$11.6-billion. This sector comprises universities and affiliated research hospitals, experimental stations and clinics. Provincially, R&D spending by higher education institutions increased in every province except Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan. Ontario and Quebec continue to report about two-thirds of R&D spending.
America's housing market is in recovery but home-ownership rates, at 65.1 per cent, are at their lowest since 1995. In the second quarter of this year America's total inventory was 132.8-million units of which over 30 per cent are now renter-occupied. The rental vacancy rate has fallen from 11.1 per cent in 2009 to 8.2 per cent now. This has pushed rents up which could make home-ownership more attractive.
Britain has now overtaken Germany to become Ferrari's biggest market in Europe. The manufacturer delivered 415 cars in the first half of the year, a rise of six per cent, overtaking Germany where 388 cars were sold in the same period. A total of 3,767 vehicles were delivered to dealerships in this period, a rise of 2.8 per cent. Sales in US and Canada were 1,048, a growth of 9 per cent.
Non-alcoholic beer is growing in popularity around the world. Last year, 2.2-billion litres was downed, 80 per cent more than five years ago. In the rich world it is mainly consumed by a health-conscious minority, but in the Middle East it now accounts for almost a third of worldwide sales. In 2012, Iranians drank nearly four times as much as in 2007 and consumers in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have a growing taste for it.
Georgia is famous as a major producer of the peach whose image appears on state license plates. But now the state actually makes more money from the sale of blueberries. The value of blueberry production in Georgia beat the peach crop in 2005 and the gap has grown bigger since then. Blueberries generated an estimated US$94-million for Georgia growers in 2012 making it more than three times as valuable as the $30-million peach crop.
Sweden has run out of trash. The country of more than 9.5-million is so big on recycling that only four per cent of all waste generated in the country goes to landfill, an amazing figure when compared to the US where half the garbage goes into landfill. However, this creates a dilemma as the country relies on waste to heat and provide electricity to a quarter of a million homes. Sweden is now importing trash from neighbouring countries including Norway and has considered importing it from the US.
Competition to build the country's skyline higher is continuing even as China's economy has slowed and the government reins in credit. The Shanghai Tower will be China's tallest building when completed in 2015 at 632-meters. China completed 22 buildings higher than 200 metres last year, accounting for 33 per cent of the global number, more than any other country. However, the 660-meter Ping An Finance Centre will become China's tallest building when completed in 2016. The tallest building currently is the 492-meter Shanghai Financial Centre.
Surveys indicate that the restaurant supper occasion (as they are called in the trade) lost over 650-million consumer visits since 2006 but will gain 795-million visits over the next decade. Restaurant supper visits have steadily declined since 2006, while supper meals eaten in-home have increased. Per capita annual supper meals eaten in-home increased from 235 in 2006 to 250 in 2012. Conversely, per capita supper meals eaten away from home fell from 67 in 2006 to 61 in 2012.
Europeans have long pitied Americans for the quality of their passenger trains, but when it comes to moving goods, the US has a well-kept freight network that is the most cost effective in the world. In 2011, the seven largest freight railways had revenues of US$67-billion (up from $47.8-billion in 2009). Net income was $11-billion. By 2035 the demand for rail freight is expected to double with new business coming from moving consumer goods. Truckers are battling high fuel and labour costs, shortages of drivers and congestion.
Falling TVs sent nearly 200,000 US children to the emergency room over 20 years and the injury rate has climbed substantially for these sometimes deadly accidents. Safety experts say better awareness is needed about the dangers, especially the risks of putting heavier, older model TVs on top of dressers and other furniture young children may try to climb on. Most injuries are in children under 5; head and neck injuries, including concussions are the most common.
Air pollution in Los Angeles has declined due to California's strict vehicle emission controls according to scientists. Despite a three-fold increase in the number of vehicles on southern California roads since 1960, pollution there has declined. In addition, ozone levels have improved though ozone pollution in Los Angeles remains the worst of any American city.
In some parts of the US, bales of hay have become the focus of a crime spree. Long periods of severe drought and grass fires across much of the western US have forced the price of hay and other livestock feeds to record highs. Some US auctions have reported 800lb-hay bales, enough to feed the average cow for about 20 days, fetching close to US$350 each. Many thieves are stealing one bale at a time hoping farmers won't notice but the more brazen are stealing truckloads.
Britain is on course to become one of the most diverse countries in the world. Within half a century half the people in the UK will be foreign or from an ethnic minority. This would mean the UK could overtake the US as the world's melting pot with fewer people describing themselves as British or white. One in three babies in England now has a parent who was born abroad. By 2050, non-whites and foreigners could account for 38 per cent of people in the UK.
South Florida is battling a growing infestation of the giant African land snail. The snail is considered one of the most destructive invasive species, feeding voraciously on more than 500 plant species. They can also eat through plaster walls which provides the calcium content they need for their shells. More than 1,000 are being caught each week in Dade County and 117,000 in total since the first one was spotted in 2011.
In the early days, residents in the Massachusetts Bay Colony found them to be so abundant that they washed up on the beach in two-foot-high piles and people thought of them as trash food, fit only for the poor or to be served to servants or prisoners. Lobster shells around a house were considered to be a sign of poverty and degradation. In the 19th century consumers could buy Boston baked beans for 53 cents a pound, canned lobster sold for 11 cents a pound and it was fed to cats.
A retired pig consultant in the UK has logged every mind-numbing detail in the world's biggest personal diary. It spans 66 years, contains four million words on 21,000 pages in 51 volumes and includes 33,000 photos and weighs half a ton.


text:
Hosting Companies Sport Unconventional Marketing Techniques - An Attempt to Explain It
(Page 3 of 4 )
So you have to ask yourself, "What would drive a company to these kinds of lengths just for a little exposure?" The answers are actually relatively simple.
Take the market, for instance. There has been a dramatic market shift over the past few years. Rachel Ringler, a writer for Ezine Articles, reported, "With the evolution of web hosting and website builder tools, as well as the ongoing education of the common person, the average web hosting customer is no longer a Webmaster."
Traditional advertising may not be enough. Online banner ads and trade magazine ads would limit a company's exposure. With so much of the market being non-technical customers, there is a huge gap in the traditional advertising methods. The latest forms of "buzz advertising" are a way to counter that effect. Advertising is only effective if you put it where your potential market can see it.
Then take into consideration that web hosting is not exactly a household industry.
"The Web hosting market is extremely crowded and highly competitive, and let's face it, Web hosting isn't the most exciting thing around," Globat President and CEO Ben Neumann said. "We wanted to stick out a bit more... we wanted people to look at a product such as web hosting in a little more of an exciting light, and get people talking about us."
Recent reports show as many as 1600 web hosting companies are actively fighting for their piece of the market share. In a market that competitive, it stands to reason that any mention at all would be considered positive publicity to provide even the slightest edge over the competition. It would seem that any amount of public exposure would be desirable just to keep their name in the minds of consumers.
You also have to consider than people aren't afraid to switch hosting providers either. They're perfectly comfortable jumping around for the lowest prices and best services. In the past, this was not the case. Hosting customers were less likely to switch for fear of downtime and lost data.
With that changing, hosting companies are not only concentrating on gaining new customers, but also on keeping their existing ones. That means being the first name on someone's mind when the time comes to choose a provider.
More Web Hosting News Articles
More By Nilpo/Developer Shed Staff Writer


text:
Last week we got the good news that NVIDIA's SHIELD gaming handheld was receiving a price cut to $299 and was slated to launch on June 27, but today we've gotten a bit of bad news to balance that out. NVIDIA just announced that shipments of the SHIELD have been delayed into July so that the company can address a "mechanical issue" that was discovered during the final testing of the device. The Tegra-maker hasn't provided much information about exactly what the problem is, but it does say that it relates to a third-party component and that it's working with that supplier to get that part improved.
As for a new ship date, NVIDIA has only said that the SHIELD is now expected to ship out in July, but it promises to share a precise date next month. The news is definitely a bummer for anyone that's been eagerly awaiting the arrival of their Android 4.2-powered SHIELD, especially because it comes less than a week after the handheld's price cut and just a day before the SHIELD's former launch date. It's not clear exactly how far into July this delay will take the SHIELD's launch, but with July just a few days away at this point, at least the delay shouldn't take more than a month. Have any of you pre-ordered an NVIDIA SHIELD?


text:
‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’ no longer on TV for first time in half a century
The Peanuts animated classics, including “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” will no longer air on broadcast television. It was first broadcast on television back in 1966, but for the first time in more than 50 years, it has been pulled. Apple TV+ announced that it has secured the exclusive right for all things “Peanuts.”As part of the new partnership, the classic Charlie Brown holiday specials won’t air on ABC or any other network this year. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” Thanksgiving and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” will stream for free for a couple days on the streaming platform. The Halloween special will from Oct. 30 through Nov. 1.
Nothing new to watch on Netflix? Think again
At this point in 2020, you’re probably thinking that you’ve watched every movie, TV show and documentary on Netflix. (And with several streaming services -- Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, to name a few -- there was SO much to see). ‘The Last Dance’This ESPN documentary series about Michael Jordan’s time with the Chicago Bulls captivated America when it premiered at the beginning of the pandemic. In case you missed it, didn’t have access (or now you just want to relive all the magic again) you can finally watch it on Netflix. ‘The Umbrella Academy’The second season of “The Umbrella Academy” dropped on Netflix last month, and fans of the show can’t get enough.
What you need to know before streaming ‘Hamilton’ on Disney+ over the weekend
Since there’s likely to be a good chunk of people who will watch “Hamilton” over the weekend who’ve probably never seen it before, here is a quick rundown of what you need to know before experiencing the phenomenon. The “Hamilton” on Disney+ is a filmed version of the show, not a movie. It’s easy to call the version of “Hamilton” coming out on Disney+ a movie, but technically, it’s the stage version, filmed. An actual movie version of “Hamilton” will probably happen eventually, but this is a great way to really capture the magic of the stage version of the show. And because the people at Disney are incredibly smart, free trials of the streaming service have ended, so if you want to watch, you’re going to have to sign up.
Padma Lakshmi’s ‘Taste the Nation’ on Hulu is the perfect TV show for a food getaway
Truly, Padma Lakshmi’s new show on Hulu, “Taste the Nation,” is the perfect thing to watch if you’re missing life on the road. The first episode of “Taste the Nation” illustrates just how Lakshmi will get to the bottom of her questions. “Taste the Nation” is also just a great showcase for Lakshmi. After being a cookbook author and reality TV show host, getting to take the lead on “Taste the Nation” is the cherry on top for this gifted woman. All episodes of “Taste the Nation” are currently streaming on Hulu.
Netflix is slowing down in Europe to keep the internet from breaking
(CNN) – Netflix will reduce streaming quality in Europe for at least the next month to prevent the internet collapsing under the strain of unprecedented usage due to the coronavirus pandemic. "We estimate that this will reduce Netflix traffic on European networks by around 25% while also ensuring a good quality service for our members," a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement. The announcement followed appeals from EU officials for Netflix and individual users to ditch high definition video to prevent the internet from breaking. The Commission said that while there has been a sharp increase in internet usage, no outages or adverse affects have so far been reported. It's not just extra video streaming that is straining internet infrastructure, said Kin K. Leung, professor of internet technology at Imperial College London.
How do Netflix, Hulu stack up lately? What are the most popular shows by state for 2019?
(High Speed Internet)Now let’s get to the most popular Netflix show for each state this year. If you’re wondering how the website got the data, the team said it compiled a list of the most popular shows on Netflix in 2019. (High Speed Internet)“The Umbrella Academy,” by the way, was America’s overall most popular Netflix show in 2019. “Black Mirror” and “The Haunting of Hill House” were the most popular Netflix shows in eight and six states, respectively. Hulu also keeps shows around longer than Netflix.”Hulu also has a live streaming service called Hulu + Live TV.


text:
A NEW campaign to expose the hidden nasties in everyday foods is launched today, after a survey highlighted widespread ignorance in the North-East about the food people eat.
The new campaign - launched today (Monday, January 7) by Public Health Minister Anna Soubry - is aimed at helping people to be 'food smart'.
A recent survey undertaken in the North-East revealed that more than half (58 per cent) of people in the region do not know that there are 11 lumps of sugar in a can of cola.
Loading article content
And more than half - 55 per cent - of people in the North-East are not aware that a large takeaway pepperoni pizza has twice the recommended maximum daily intake of saturated fat.
Graphic new advertising from Change4Life reveals a shocking 17 sugar cubes in a bottle of cola and more than a wine glass of fat in a large pizza.
The Change4Life adverts, which are made by Aardman, the creators of Wallace and Gromit, are launched in conjunction with a range of food manufacturers and ITV which will host the first ever health-focussed ad break.
Ms Soubry said: "Making healthier, balanced meals on a budget can be a challenge for families. This new Change4Life campaign offers families free healthy recipes and money off those much needed cupboard essentials to encourage everyone to try healthy alternatives.
"England has one of the highest rates of obesity in Europe with over 60 per cent of adults and a third of ten and 11-year-olds overweight or obese.
"We want to make it easy for everyone to keep track of what they eat and make healthier choices. That is why we are also developing a simple and clear system for front of pack labelling that everyone can use."
The 'ad takeover', which will air during prime-time in Coronation Street, marks the launch of a new year healthy eating drive and will feature ads from Asda, Quorn, Uncle Ben's, the Co-Operative Food and Cravendale.
There will also be hundreds of offers on healthier products at more than 1,000 Asda, Aldi and the Co-Operative Food stores across the country to give a helping hand with the cost of kitchen cupboard basics.
Everyone that signs up to the campaign will get a free 'Food Smart Meal Mixer' with lots of quick, easy, healthier recipes. To sign up to get healthy tips search Change4life.


text:
The Pros and Cons of Smart Homes
The world is more connected than ever before, and the rise of the smart home is just one…
May 23, 2023
Are Smart Home Devices Invading Your Privacy?
Smart home devices are becoming more and more popular in recent years, promising convenience and automation to enhance…
April 17, 2023
Cybercriminals Exploit CAN Injection Hack to Steal Cars
If it is connected, it is vulnerable; in this case, a Toyota RAV4 model was stolen within two minutes.
April 9, 2023
Tesla Employees Allegedly Shared Customers’ Private Videos and Photos
The use of cameras on Tesla vehicles has come under scrutiny after reports revealed that some employees have…
April 8, 2023
How New Cybersecurity Regulations Are Shaping the Medical Device Industry
Here’s a rundown of the impact of new cybersecurity regulations as they are applied to the medical device industry.
February 27, 2023
Mirai Variant V3G4 Exploiting IoT Devices for DDoS Attacks
The V3G4 malware was caught leveraging several vulnerabilities in IoT devices to spread its infection from July to December of 2022.
February 16, 2023
Controller-level flaws can let hackers physically damage moving bridges
Sophisticated hackers can now breach vulnerable networks and devices at the controller level of critical infrastructure, causing physical damage to crucial assets.
February 15, 2023
Cloudflare thwarts largest reported HTTP DDoS attack
A new record has been set for the largest reported HTTP DDoS attack, exceeding the previous record of 46 million requests per second (rps) in June 2022.
February 14, 2023
EV Charging Stations at Risk of DoS Attacks
Although a fix is available to patch vulnerabilities, the EV industry is slow in applying the updates.
February 3, 2023
What is an OSINT Tool – Best OSINT Tools 2023
An OSINT tool is a must for every researcher - In this article, we will explore the 15 best OSINT tools that you can use for your investigations.
February 2, 2023


text:
This is one baby suit that Danielle Mather won't be tempted to put aside as a keepsake of her son's early days.
For while six-month-old Charlie can now peer out contentedly from his all-encompassing bandages, his mother won't be looking back on the last few weeks with anything other than tears.
Painful: Little Charlie Mather suffered horrific burns which his mother claims are because of an allergic reaction to a sofa
Her son's skin needs all the protection it can get after he suffered burns, rashes, welts and blistering in a suspected allergic reaction to anti mould agents on a new leather sofa.
That was four months ago, and Charlie still needs eight different creams to apply to his body each day.
Charlie was taken to hospital on February 12 after his skin began to react within an hour of being laid fully clothed on the cream leather settee. He spent a week on a drip in an isolation unit and even now his skin remains mottled with the raw sores.
Upset: Danielle Mather with Charlie. The sofa is to undergo independent testing
Miss Mather, 21, from Leeds, said: 'Without being able to use his hands he can't play or learn how to pick things up. It is heartbreaking to watch him struggle.'
She is now planning to sue Homebase, where she bought the sofa. It is one of more than 1,000 similar cases across the country, involving many major retail brands thought to have imported problem sofas from a now defunct manufacturer in China.
But Homebase said the sofa in this case was made in Britain and has no connection with the Chinese furniture factory.
The retailer has agreed to return the settee to Miss Mather so she can arrange for her own independent tests.
Bandaged: Charlie Mather has suffered a suspected allergic reaction to a sofa


text:
China Welcomes Trade Talks with US
(VOA): China said Sunday it welcomes the news that the U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is considering a trip to Beijing to talk about trade.
China's commerce ministry said in a statement, “The Chinese side has received information that the U.S. side hopes to come to Beijing to discuss economic and trade issues.China welcomes this.”
Mnuchin said Saturday he is contemplating a visit to China for discussions on issues that have global leaders concerned about a potentially damaging trade war that could undercut a global economic recovery.
“I am not going to make any comment on timing, nor do I have anything confirmed, but a trip is under consideration,” Mnuchin said at a Washington news conference during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings.
Mnuchin said he discussed the possible trip and potential trade opportunities with the new head of China's central bank.
Tensions have escalated between the U.S. and China over Beijing's attempts to challenge America's technological prowess, raising the prospects of a trade war that could hinder global economic growth.
Mnuchin said he had spoken with a number of his counterparts that have been forced to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump's “America First” trade policies, including U.S. tariffs on foreign aluminum and steel and on up to $150 billion in Chinese goods. Some of the leaders, he said, were focused on exemptions from the tariffs.
He said he emphasized the U.S. is not trying to construct protectionist trade barriers with the tariffs. Instead, he said, “We are looking for reciprocal treatment.”
Mnuchin also said he wants the IMF to do more to address what the Trump administration believes are unfair trade practices. He also called on the World Bank to redirect low interest loans from China to more impoverished countries.
(This story has not been edited by N24 staff and is Voice Of America auto-generated from a RSS feed)
Published Date: Monday, April 23rd, 2018 | 12:45 PM


text:
The 69th and 70th annual Sheboygan Kennel Club Dog Shows will be held at the Sheboygan County Fairgrounds, 229 Fairview Drive, Plymouth, with judging from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, and Sunday, Sept. 22.
All seven AKC groups will be represented. Group winners will advance to the Best in Show judging. Spectators can "meet the breeds" and ask Sheboygan Kennel Club members questions from 1-2 p.m. Saturday.
Gate entry for both days will be $4 per carload. A concession stand will sell baked goods, brats and hamburgers. Other items for sale include jewelry, collectibles, clothing, equipment and dog food in the show booths. A raffle drawing will take place at noon Sunday.


text:
As the gradual reopening of Quebec continues, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has announced it is reopening its doors starting Saturday, June 6.
Museums were part of the services that were deemed non-essential by the Quebec government in March and various health measures have now been put in place ahead of its reopening.
According to the MMFA, the museum has taken precautionary and safety measures in order to get the green light to reopen.
- See also:
The museum’s reopening, which is exclusively for the Egyptian Mummies: Exploring Ancient Lives exhibition, includes having to purchase tickets online, a limited number of people in the museum at a time, and new hand sanitizer installations.
A one-way pathway and direction indicators on the floor will help visitors adhere to the physical distancing measures in effect, the museum said.
The MMFA is also “strongly recommending” the use of face masks for all of its visitors.
“The MMFA has put every measure in place to ensure visits are highly enjoyable, exclusive yet intimate, and, above all, safe,” states the museum’s website. “All of the recommendations of the Government of Quebec and the Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CNESST) have been implemented so that the MMFA’s public feels at ease and entertained during their Museum outing.”
MMFA visitors and members can book a time slot for their visit as of Tuesday, June 2. Members can enter for no additional costs.
Along with reopening, the Egyptian Mummies: Exploring Ancient Lives exhibition has been extended until June 28.


text:
Sameer Singh, an analyst who covers smartphones and tablets on his Tech-Thoughts website, recently ran numbers to try to come up with an ASP, or average selling price, of the Surface line based on Microsoft's disclosure that it had earned $853 million
in revenue from its tablets since October 2012.
Singh based his ASP guesstimate on Surface shipment estimates from researcher IDC.
His conclusion: The low ASP -- between $370 and $430 -- hints that Microsoft had sold very few of the more expensive Surface Pro models. "This suggests that Surface Pro sales have been extremely poor, and both Surface variants may have suffered from high returns, which would certainly explain the inventory pattern in the latest quarter," Singh wrote on Thursday
"If this continues, Microsoft may be forced into further inventory write-downs for the Surface Pro," Singh said.


text:
EU blocks low-duty online booze and fags
Booze cruising set to continue
The European Court of Justice has ruled that boozers and smokers looking to get cut-price deals from countries with lower rates of duty will will not be able to buy the stuff online, the BBC reports.
Rather, snout and alcohol-hungry punters will have to continue the time-honoured "booze cruise" tradition and "accompany the goods back themselves". The judges declared that "only products acquired and transported personally by private individuals are exempt from excise duty in the member state of importation".
Specifically, the court had been asked to interpret an EU directive which states: "As regards products acquired by private individuals for their own use and transported by them...excise duty shall be charged in the member state in which they are acquired."
The request came from a Dutch court "after a Dutch wine club objected to being charged duty on a lorry-load of wine delivered from France". The entire matter hinged on the interpretation of the phrase "transported by them".
The court's ruling "will come as a relief to the Treasury and ferry firms", the BBC notes. The former already loses more than £1bn a year because of UK citizens availing themselves of the right to shop abroad for low-duty drink and cigarettes, while the latter feared the opportunity to buy 600 Benson and Hedges and 20 crates of fine continental lager from the comfort of your PC might hit the booze cruise trade. ®


text:
- Dr. Gerald Imber went viral on TikTok for saying long-distance running causes premature aging.
- Some worry that "runner's face" is caused by repeated movement reducing skin elasticity.
- Dr. Ivy Lee, a dermatologist, said skin changes from running are more likely caused by sun exposure.
"Runner's face" — the idea that running frequently can give you saggy cheeks and a gaunt visage due to skin losing elasticity — has been a controversial topic of concern among athletes online for years. There are even purported facial exercises out there that promise to keep your cheeks plump, no matter how much you jog every week.
Now, a new viral TikTok video from a plastic surgeon has riled people up once again, by claiming that long-distance running apparently makes you age faster.
"I have a pet peeve," Dr. Gerald Imber, a plastic surgeon practicing in New York, started off. "Half my patients love me for it, and half my patients hate me for it." Apparently, the doctor dislikes the effects of running on the skin.
While Imber said running a few miles a few times a week is fine (without really specifying what he means by "a few"), his main gripe with consistent running is that it supposedly accelerates aging and is guaranteed to give you a "gaunt, old face."
TikTokers were predictably split: Many commenters joked about this newfound reason not to exercise, while others (usually runners) found the advice insulting.
But while Dr. Ivy Lee, a dermatologist practicing in Los Angeles, said she's had patients complain about runner's face, "there is no scientific evidence to support or refute this claim," she told Insider.
Though runners can experience some changes to their faces, she said the explanations are a lot more obvious — and potentially fixable — than quitting your favorite workout.
Running can cause natural weight loss in our face
Lee's first theory of why faces can look more hollowed out from running is that overall weight loss may look more drastic on our faces.
According to Lee, people who exercise lose weight all over their bodies, including a reduction of fat in their facial pads. Like "Ozempic face," where semaglutide users can quickly lose cheek fat, dramatic weight loss can change our face shape — but it doesn't mean our skin is losing elasticity.
Prolonged sun exposure can speed up signs of aging
More than anything else, Lee said "chronic sun exposure" from any intense outdoor exercise can cause premature aging such as wrinkles and dark spots.
Additionally, she said prolonged exercise usually results in sweating, meaning you should reapply sunscreen, "which is hard to do when you are running long distances."
To mitigate sun damage, some runners wear hats or long sleeves in addition to sunscreen.
While running can pose risks to some people, such as stress fractures or other injuries, the benefits include improved cardiovascular health, sleep, and mental health, all of which can lengthen your life.
Maybe lifelong outdoor running can lead to a few more fine lines or sun spots. But for all the positive perks it adds to your life, most runners would need a more pressing reason to stop.


text:
WASHINGTON -- Democrats enter the 2008 election campaign with powerful political advantages but face a tough and unpredictable battle because of the vulnerabilities of front-runner Hillary Clinton and the Democratic-controlled Congress.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that Americans have turned sharply away from President Bush and toward domestic issues favoring his partisan adversaries. Majorities believe the Iraq war can't be won and want most U.S. troops withdrawn by the dawn of a new president's term in 2009.
Continue reading your article with
a WSJ subscription
Already a subscriber? Sign In
30% off using this SHEIN coupon code
50% off + free delivery on $20 orders with DoorDash promo code
Wayfair Coupon - 20% Off
60% off running shoes and apparel at Nike without a promo code
Hotel Promo: Up to 40% off + Extra 10% off with Barcelo coupon code
Get up to 60% off best selling video game titles - GameStop coupon code


text:
Scientists have used genetically engineered bacteria to recreate a masterpiece at a microscopic scale. By engineering E. coli bacteria to respond to light, they’ve guided the bacteria like tiny drones toward patterns that depict Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. It’s not artistic recognition they’re after. Rather, the researchers want to show that these engineered organisms may someday be used as “microbricks” and living propellors.
Two weeks ago, in an industrial shed in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, a team of engineers installed a large, orange robot arm. It was a standard industrial robot arm, but it was not going to be used for standard purposes. The robot’s job would be to carve moulds for the casting of large-scale, metal sculptures. It is being installed by Urban Art Projects, a company that specializes in the manufacture of sculpture and custom architectural facades.
Stringless Art and Technology are divergent innovations for musical study that optimize learning and enhance creativity in the brain.
Stringless Art and Technology is one of the featured exhibitors at the DaVinci Inventor Showcase. The Inventor Showcase will take place October 10-11, 2015 at the NoCo Maker Faire. You will have a chance to take a look at Stringless Art and Technology and many other amazing inventions.
A group of MIT scientists have recently 3D printed some spectacular glass creations.The glass sculptures were created by a group called Mediated Matter, led by Neri Oxman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The color and transparency of the glass can be altered, as well as other properties such as how the glass reflects and refracts light.
Elisabeth Buecher a textile-based installation artist and educator has invented a clever way to conserve water. Continue Reading »


text:
TPG Telecom has declared itself the “highest seller” of NBN organization ethernet solutions, based on current market posture facts provided by NBN Co to retail provider companies each and every thirty day period.
Group govt for organization and government Elizabeth Aris explained in a assertion that the company’s robust general performance came from its abilities and “customer-centric” approach.
Aris came into TPG late previous 12 months following previously major TasmaNet.
She explained the business enterprise circumstance for NBN organization ethernet “is particularly persuasive when ninety percent of all organizations in the NBN preset line footprint across Australia can now get a zero-price fibre make on a three-12 months phrase.”
“In quite a few instances we’re also replacing a customer’s a number of fibre connections with just one particular fibre provider needed to operate a number of business enterprise capabilities,” she explained.
iTnews understands the resource of TPG’s “highest vendor claim” is a month to month revenue report despatched out to retail provider companies (RSPs).
The report is understood to show an RSP where they rated for wholesale business enterprise NBN solutions revenue, but not where other RSPs rank.
That enables TPG to monitor its have ranking relative to revenue but not that of rivals.
It is even more understood that the rankings do not improve a wonderful offer thirty day period-to-thirty day period, although other business enterprise-concentrated RSPs have previously topped the checklist.
NBN Co famous in its 50 %-12 months benefits previous 7 days that organization ethernet orders had enhanced since the firm unveiled a $700 million system to build business enterprise fibre zones across the country.


text:
Source: Global Times
File photo: Xinhua
While there is undeniably a certain amount of tension in China-Australia trade, it is still unfortunate to see bilateral trade sink into an atmosphere of paranoia that could escalate any normal trade issue into a political one.
According to some Australian media outlets, several tons of live Australian lobsters were stranded at a Chinese airport over the weekend due to clearance delays by Chinese customs, in what they called a “fresh blow” to Australian exports to China amid escalating bilateral trade tensions.
Some Australian media and politicians seem to have gotten used to taking every trade problem with China as a sign of the so-called “China economic retaliation” theory. It has happened so often over the past few months that it seems that any economic woes or trade setbacks Australia faces could be traced back to “economic retaliation” by China.
Nevertheless, in many cases, such accusations or complaints reflect the arrogance of the Australian side in disrespecting Chinese laws and regulations. To some extent, the hype about China’s “economic sanctions” against Australia could be seen as efforts to pressure China into addressing Australia’s export difficulties and granting its companies special treatment.
The lobster issue is a typical example. It is still unclear what exactly caused the clearance delay or how long it would last, but the Australian media outlets have been in a rush to make it sound like another case of economic retaliation following products like cotton, wine, beef and barley, which were once in the public spotlight.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, more than 94 percent of $752 million in rock lobster exports from Australia went to China in 2018-19. In trade of this scale, a delay in customs clearance of individual batches of goods is totally understandable, and there are many factors that may contribute to such a delay. So far, there is no evidence of China’s targeted intervention against imports of Australian lobsters.
Looking at the big picture, the timing of the lobster clearance issue occurred just days before the opening of the third China International Import Expo. Of nearly 200 Australian companies that will take part in the event, many are seafood exporters that are looking forward to export and cooperation opportunities for high-end seafood products such as lobster, cod and abalone in China. Anyone with the basic knowledge of this situation would know that the possibility of lobsters being the victim of bilateral trade tensions is very low.
Further, amid a global pandemic, it is legitimate and reasonable for customs authorities to strengthen the inspection and quarantine of imported products and sometimes raise standards to better safeguard the health of the Chinese people. The same standards and measures adopted by customs officials are applied to all importers from various countries with no discrimination.
Through groundless hype about economic retaliation, the Australian side is actually asking for special clearance treatment for its goods. But if Chinese customs really granted it fast-track treatment, it would only constitute unfair treatment against aquatic imports from other countries.


text:
NEW YORK. All right here’s the question everyone wants to know – What’s better – Apple iPhone or Google Android?
According to Andrea Gazzaniga, software development manager at mobile open source vendor Funambol the answer is not entirely clear. In a rambling overflow presentation at AjaxWorld’s iPhone Sumitt, Gazzaniga attempted to outline the differences and similiaraties between iPhone and Android.
“iPhone is cool and that’s what’s bringing us all here,” Gazzaniga said. “With Android the claim is that it will be open and we’re hoping it will overcome the closed nature of current mobile development.
Gazzaniga had a few other (not so startling) points such as Android is based on Linux while the iPhone is based on Mac OS. For the most part Gazzaniga implied that Android from an app developers point of view behaves much the same as iPhone, though he did point out a few serious limiations to the iPhone (from what he could tell from the iPhone SDK).
According to Gazzaniga iPhone does not allow in its SDK for background processes. That is an app must close when the users leaves it. The obvious question resulting from that issue then is – how does an application listen for a network event after a user leaver it ? (for instant messaging or sync operations).
There is not official email integration in the iPhone SDK which begs the question – is it possible to deliver email other than with Apple’s client and built-in protocols? Gazzaniga also noted that developers of iPhone native applications will need Apple to distribute their applications. As an example Gazzaniga commented that you can’t get Skype for the iPhone today.
Overall though in my view, Gazzaniga’s presentation left the audience with more questions than answers. It will be interesting to see as the iPhone and Android SDKs mature and gain adoption, precisely what the differences between the two are from a practical point of view.