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The Minnesota-headquartered agro-giant announced that it reached an agreement with La Coop fédérée regarding several grain and crop inputs assets in Ontario. The sale also is set to include Cargill’s percent share in the feed and food grain managing South West Ag Partners.
The sale of the facilities and retail sites, however, is not expected to reduce Cargill’s presence across Canada and the company will continue to have a footprint in Ontario with animal nutrition and beef and chicken processing sites, said a company spokesperson.
“Cargill continues to maintain and operate its export terminal in Sarnia, and continues to operate as a wholesaler in the Ontario market through AgResource, its crop inputs wholesale business.
“We plan to have an increased focus on building our origination and growing our handling of grain at the Sarnia terminal, along with significant growth through our existing locations in Canada,” she told FeedNavigator. “Selling the grain and crop inputs retail assets in Ontario allows us to strengthen our value proposition by investing in the portfolio of solutions we offer to growers throughout the country, and to focus on growing Sarnia to handle even more grain to export to areas of deficit worldwide.”
“In fact, we have committed to improvements at 11 of our crop inputs facilities in Western Canada to take place over the coming year for a total investment of $7m,” she said.
Cargill also is involved with $15m improvement project at its feed and food grain facility in Oakner, Manitoba.
“This sale is an indicator of our commitment to growers in Canada where we continue to maintain the operation of 40 crop inputs retail locations, 26 elevator assets, five export terminals, and two oilseed processing facilities throughout the country,” she said.
The decision to sell the facilities and crop input assets came out of an evaluation conducted of Cargill’s components, said the spokesperson.
“After an in-depth evaluation of our grain assets and crop inputs retail assets in Ontario, we concluded that a sale of those assets was the best path forward to remain competitive and focus on our growth strategy,” she said.
The sale includes five feed and food grain facilities along with several crop inputs retail locations.
Cargill also will be relinquishing a 50% share in South West Ag Partners, the company said. That joint venture covered nine facilities for grains and crop inputs in Ontario.
However, the sale did not include Cargill’s export terminal in Sarnia, which it is expanding, the company said. The sale also excludes any other Cargill business in Ontario, and all other grain facilities outside of Ontario.
The deal is subject to the normal regulatory evaluation.


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In an ultra competitive global marketing technology space, MoEngage has managed to carve out a space for itself with a meteoric rise over the past 6 years as an AI driven omni-channel marketing platform counting over 1000 top brands from across the world as clients.
This year, the company raised $25 million in Series C funding and is aiming to expand to new geographies and scale its platform further, even as it currently has 400 million MAUs with over 33 billion messages sent every month.
What does it take to build a global B2B SaaS product from India? To find out, on the next Huddle – 5 PM on Monday, 6th April – we have Raviteja Dodda, Founder & CEO @ MoEngage.
NextBigWhat Huddle has been created to ensure that working remote does not get boring and you continue to get insights + real-world lessons from founders and product leaders on building and scaling product-led businesses.
Every weekday, 5 PM with a founder / product leader.
Online (Live video AMA).
Raviteja Dodda is the Chief Executive Officer & Founder of MoEngage. He has been an entrepreneur for more than half a decade. Ravi founded two companies before MoEngage: he co-founded Pipal Tech Ventures, which built DelightCircle, one of the largest shopping mobile apps in India at that time.
In the upcoming Huddle with Ashish Sinha (Founder & CEO, NextBigWhat),
Raviteja will be talking about the journey of building and scaling MoEngage,
the lessons learnt along the way in creating a global platform and team,
as well as the roadmap for the future.
5 PM on Monday, April 6th.
Monday (April 6th) | 5 PM | At a screen near you (i.e. online/live video).
You can also catch the AMA live on Youtube & Facebook!
The NextBigWhat Huddle is brought to you in partnership with MoEngage, an Intelligent Customer Engagement Platform trusted by enterprises in 35 countries.

domain: news


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In what feels like a bout of déjà vu, San Antonio-based barbecue purveyor Bill Miller Bar-B-Q has temporarily closed all dining rooms in the Alamo City, Austin and surrounding areas — this time due to a staffing shortage.
The chain took to social media Monday to alert sweet tea fanatics to the closures, saying the temporary effort will allow the chain to provide “the same Bill Miller service you know and love.”
Curbside, drive-thru and delivery services are still available, and the chain says it plans to reopen dining rooms on Monday, Jan 10.
The barbecue chain previously closed dining rooms back in June of 2020, citing a statewide spike in COVID-19 cases.
So many restaurants, so little time. Find out the latest San Antonio dining news with our Flavor Friday Newsletter.


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HAVANA, Feb. 9th On the facade the English word “Grocery” is printed, and the line extends to the area outside the small private market recently opened on the ground floor of the Miramar Trade Center in Havana. Among airline offices, foreign companies and bank branches, the Pelegrin store, managed by a small business, had more curious than potential customers this Monday.
“And that milk? How much is it?” a woman asked a young man who left the premises with two packages of the product that carried a seal with the colors of the French flag and the clarification “Whole.”
The answer of “500 pesos each” (over $4 USD) was enough for a murmur of indignation to run through the crowd. Despite the high price, no one moved from the line until they were able to access the market.
“I found out because I read on the internet that this store had opened,” a woman who bought some sweet vanilla cookies explained to 14ymedio. “They told me that it was only an assortment but it’s not that bad. There is more than in-state stores in Cuban pesos, but it’s not a wonder either. I think they’ve made a mistake with the zeros on the right,” she said about the prices.
Small private businesses engaged in the sale of imported food have been noticed in recent months in Cuba with goods that they bring on trips from countries in the region, such as Panama, Colombia, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Given the low productivity of national industries, beer, malt, soft drinks and sweets with foreign brands cross the path of private trade.
The phenomenon has not escaped the popular humor that has already reinterpreted the acronyms that make up micro, small and medium-sized enterprises [mipyme (or SMEs)] with the acronym manicheados for import markets at high prices allowed by the State.
So far, the new form of management, which is presented in the official discourse as the key to getting out of the crisis, seems to be more for resale than for production of goods.
Hence, no one seemed surprised this Monday in the Pelegrin shop that the 10-ounce packages of soda crackers cost 335 pesos. The price did not cause a great fuss because “the self-employed businesses are more expensive,” said a man who calculated that each one contains 15 sachets with three crackers inside, at “22 pesos per package and 7 per cracker.”
“The cafeteria on the ground floor of my apartment building in Centro Habana is better stocked but it’s true that it is a little cheaper here, but getting to this place costs the difference,” stressed a man who was “by chance” at the Miramar Trade Center looking for a plane ticket to Panama.
Among Pelegrin’s most expensive products, a 35-pound bag of dry dog food stands out, a mixture of salmon and potato, for a whopping 20,600 pesos. ($170+ USD) The product, of the Kirkland brand marketed by the international chain of Costco supermarkets, has the “Made in USA” letterhead. It has been imported to a country where government pet stores, have not sold pet food for more than a year.
This morning, the Siberian husky printed on the package seemed to look with some arrogance at the customers who let their jaws drop in front of the market counter when they heard the price, more than three times what it costs in the stores of the US chain, if calculated at the official rate of the dollar exchange in Cuba. “This is animalistic, for sure,” concluded an old woman.
“My dog doesn’t look like that, and I’m not going to spend half a year’s salary buying that food for him. Mine will keep eating leftovers and whatever else appears,” said another customer who, in the end, only bought a can of imported Coca Cola for 155 pesos. “I think they put ‘Grocery’ outside so that people won’t confuse it with a state store,” he added before leaving the premises.
The use of the word Grocery in English, instead of its Hispanic variants of “food store” or “ration store” is not accidental. Both Spanish terms are marked on the Island by the negative shadow that more than 60 years of rationed markets and centralism have projected.
The foreign term could seek to move away from the known and evoke another type of a more stocked and efficient business.
But whatever it is called and in whatever language, Pelegrin has prices that are triple that of a box of milk in Madrid or of pet food in Miami. Like other stores managed by SMEs, it seems to be oriented to a social class with enough money to spend 180 pesos on a tiny glass container of yogurt, the daily salary of an engineer.


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SYDNEY, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd said on Tuesday it is selling its pensions and investments business to IOOF Holdings in a A$975 million ($765 million) deal.
ANZ also said it would enter into a 20-year “strategic alliance” with IOOF to make IOOF’s superannuation and investment products available to ANZ customers.
The deal fell short of the total sale of ANZ’s wealth businesses, valued at around A$4 billion, expected by some in the market.
IOOF will acquire OnePath Pensions and Investments business and Aligned Dealer Groups from ANZ, and fund the transaction through a A$450 million placement, a share purchase plan and new debt facilities, IOOF said in a statement. (Reporting by Jane Wardell; Editing by James Dalgleish)


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Picasa and Blogger may soon become Google Photos and Google Blogs, according to a report from Mashable.
Google declined to comment on the report.
The rumored rebranding is expected to coincide with the public launch of Google +, which is currently in an invitation-only beta.
While the products themselves aren’t expected to go away, Mashable said, their names are expected to change to conform to the main brand in a “month to a month and a half,” according to unnamed sources.
Google + already has a photo service that looks and acts a lot like Picasa, and integrates Picasa albums, so it’s no stretch to think that Google may want to integrate the two services’ brands as well.
Blogger, which turned 11 this past year, is set to get a major redesign. In a post recapping what it had done in 2010, the company teased a new editor and dashboard, better mobile browsing and a new content discovery tools, saying, “And that’s just what we’re allowed to talk about.”
There is currently no blogging feature in Google + — apart from the News Feed-like Stream.
Many of Google’s sites and services are being redesigned, including Gmail, Google Calendar and its search pages.


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University of Michigan economists now expect a U.S. recession caused by the coronavirus, though a rapidly evolving, uncertain situation makes drawing firm conclusions difficult.
In an interim update to the U.S. and Michigan Economic Outlook for 2020-22 released March 19, the economists say COVID-19 has caused “substantial economic disruptions” since the last outlook for the U.S. and Michigan economies was released in February.
That report assumed “relatively limited disruption to the real economy,” but added that “fast-moving events the past few weeks have invalidated that assumption.”
The economists, part of U-M’s Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics, developed two updated scenarios: One, an “effective mitigation scenario,” and the other, a “prolonged fallout scenario.”
“We now expect an official recession to be declared in both of the scenarios we considered,” the economists wrote. “If events unfold in a more positive direction than we currently foresee and the economy does manage to avoid a recession, we will be delighted to be mistaken in our recession call.”
The Federal Reserve canceled publication of its March quarterly economic forecast summary, citing the evolving economic picture. U-M economists agree that such outlooks are far from certain, and acknowledge their updated outlook “doesn’t adhere to our normal integrity standards.”
The economists conclude that short-term policies that are economically disruptive but contain the pandemic are “justified” in the service of protecting people’s lives.
They also say it’s critical for federal and state governments to lessen the pandemic’s economic damage to those most affected by it.


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News Corp is a network of leading companies in the worlds of diversified media, news, education, and information services.
Spain, Portugal and Greece restrictions lifted by summer predicts Ryanair boss
Are May foreign hols over? Brits offered free date changes due to uncertainty
Arrivals into Dublin Airport rise by two per cent as top reason 'holidays'
Ryanair launches Covid 'travel wallet' for passengers this summer
Ryanair will slash flight prices over next YEAR says airline boss
Ryanair's vaccine adverts 'misled' customers and were 'irresponsible'
Ryanair to keep Cork Airport base closed until winter 2021
Karen Koster says travel snap helps when she 'gets yearning for holiday abroad’
Ryanair loses court challenge to stop airlines getting bailouts during pandemic
Ryanair's Michael O’Leary blasts web scammers using his photo in Bitcoin hoax
Ryanair staff raise concerns over handling of Covid outbreak at Dublin HQ
Ryanair ads urging people to book holidays because 'vaccines are coming' banned
Brits to flock to Spain beaches this summer thanks to vaccine, says Ryanair boss
Ryanair boss calls on NPHET stop 'daily doses of misery & mismanagement'
Blow for sunseekers as travel agent vows no trips abroad until October


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Landfolk raises €3,8M in SEED round
In a depressed investment climate, it takes something extraordinary right now to raise capital. The just two-year-old Danish startup, Landfolk, has an ambition to become Europe's preferred platform for premium holiday homes and has just raised its second round of capital of EUR 3.8M/USD 4M from SEED Capital.
In just two years, Landfolk has grown from none to more than 1000 handpicked holiday homes across Denmark, Norway and Germany. And the plan is to double that number by 2023. Despite this, only 60 percent of the holiday home owners who apply to become part of Landfolk make it through the eye of the needle.
"We handpick our holiday homes based on carefully selected criteria that attract both new holiday home guests and holiday home owners. These include owners who would never think of renting through a traditional platform or letting agency. And a new generation of second home owners who have put a huge amount of energy and resources into decorating and making their holiday home personal and attractive," says CEO Christian Schwarz Lausten.
It's really exciting to see Landfolk shake up an industry that has been stagnant for far too long. – Ulla Brockenhuus-Schack, Managing Partner at SEED Capital.
Expanding the market for holiday homes
Only one fifth of Danish holiday homes are rented out. That figure is even lower in Germany and Norway. 70 percent of the holiday homes on Landfolk's platform have either never been rented out before or are not rented out on other platforms.
"It's really exciting to see Landfolk shake up an industry that has been stagnant for far too long. They have managed to create a company in just two years with impressive turnover by, among other things, expanding the market with a segment that has never previously rented out their holiday home, and a team that manages to execute like few others," says Ulla Brockenhuus-Schack, Managing Partner at SEED Capital.
According to an analysis from the Danish Coastal and Nature Tourism Association, this corresponds to one full-time job every time three new holiday homes are added to the rental market. Expanding the rental market therefore also has positive socio-economic effects.
An investment to prove product market-fit in Norway and Germany
In Landfolk, the investment will be used to develop the product and technology even further. The ambition is to have the market's strongest digital platform that makes it easier to rent out your holiday home in an ultra modern way. At the same time, it should also be a simple and inspiring digital experience to book the perfect holiday home for your next vacation across national borders.
"Over the past three months, we have launched Landfolk in Germany and Norway, where apparently we have hit a gap in the market; it's pouring in with homeowners for whom it is extremely important to have great flexibility and control over the rental of their secondary home. It will be a big and exciting task to support them in which we will invest a lot of resources," says Christian Schwarz Lausten.
SEED Capital supports the high ambitions. "We have tremendous experience investing in Danish startups like Trustpilot, Vivino and Lunar – all of which have become unicorns. So there is plenty for Landfolk to live up to", says Ulla Brockenhuus-Schack, Managing Partner at SEED Capital.
It's pouring in with homeowners for whom it is extremely important to have great flexibility and control over the rental of their secondary home. – CEO Christian Schwarz Lausten


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Both Alphabet companies offer smart home hardware and platforms, but the two are starting to find ways to make their devices work together.
Three and a half years after being acquired by Google for $3.2 billion, Nest’s identity within its parent company–now called Alphabet–is starting to gel. The main reason for this is the Google Home smart speaker, and the emergence of Google’s speech-activated Assistant, whose AI brain has sparked more opportunities to make Google and Nest platforms work together seamlessly.
For a time after the acquisition, Nest’s product lineup of smart thermostats and cameras (and a smoke detector) didn’t change very much. Nest had been slow to release wholly new products, and slow to work with its new parent on new AI-infused products.
Things are different these days. “Google Home and the Assistant changed the story,” says Rishi Chandra, the Google VP who leads the company’s home hardware division. “We worked together very heavily on the product definition of Google Home.”
Chandra told me his group grew up with a focus on media, developing such products as the Chromecast streaming devices and the Google Wifi router. Chandra himself has product managed both Google TV and Chromecast at Google. Google Home is also a media device–it streams music and reads news–but it was also clear that the Home would come to be seen by consumers as a natural language device for controlling all kinds of smart home devices, including ones made by Nest.
Since Google acquired Nest to strengthen its hand in the burgeoning connected home space, it was natural and vital that Nest be involved in the creation of the Home speaker. So the two engineering groups built the product together, along with Scott Huffman’s Assistant team, which would provide the AI brain.
The Home speaker has been available for over a year now, but we’re just beginning to see the front edge of functions that leverage both the Google and Nest platforms. “We’ve started building product experiences that work best when you put Nest and Google together,” Nest cofounder Matt Rogers said.
Case in point: Google Home users will soon be able to say “OK Google, show me the entryway on my TV” and the view from a Nest security camera will show up on their TV via a Chromecast streaming device. And next year, when the new Nest Hello doorbell cam recognizes a person who has just rung the bell, it will tell the Assistant to announce the arrival of that person on every Google Home device in the house.
Further out, both Chandra and Rogers see AI helping Nest’s and Google’s smart-home products become better at learning about the households they serve.”Our mission is to build a home that takes care of the people inside it,” Rogers said. “To be able to say, “Hey, we know that your kids usually come home at about three, and we’ll let you know if they don’t.”
“That’s one of the things I’d love for the home to be able to figure out,” Rogers said. “That’s part of the promise of AI.”
Actually, Nest may have seen the home speaker coming even sooner: The company advertised to hire an audio engineer in March 2015, which some took to mean that the company was planning to build some kind of speaker device. When I asked Nest about it, I got a “no comment.” If such a product was real, it went nowhere after Nest became a Google company.
Perhaps most importantly, Nest’s work with Google around Google Home may have brought its own identity as an Alphabet company into sharper focus. Nest and Google began to think about what it will take to create a combined connected home platform that would make sense for both companies’ home devices, for Android, and for the Assistant. Fortune reported in August of 2016 that Nest’s entire platform team had joined Google “in order to create a unified Internet of things platform.” The team would also work on Google Home, the report said.
Also in 2016, Nest engineers began spending a lot more time with Google’s artificial intelligence people to leverage the computer-vision AI in its security cameras. A month after Google Home’s coming-out at Google I/O in May 2016, Nest announced a security camera with “person recognition,” or the ability to distinguish an approaching person from, say, a dog or a tree. The following year, Nest cameras would gain the ability to recognize specific faces of familiar people, like the postman–again, thanks to Google computer vision tech.
This all happened after the departure of Nest cofounder and CEO Tony Fadell in June 2016. Whether Fadell had placed barriers in the way of Nest’s collaboration with Google is up for speculation. From the outside, at least, it appears that Nest became far more engaged with Google after Fadell left, and that Nest’s main consumer-facing contribution to the Google-Nest offering for the connected home will be mainly home security products.


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A new brewery being proposed for the Town of Port Rexton on the Bonavista Peninsula has gotten the go ahead on their environmental assessment.
They now need to seek the town’s approval for the project, which may require an amendment in the town’s development regulations, according to the decision letter issued by the Department of Environment and Conservation.
The company plans to build a facility capable of producing 300 hectolitres of beer per year, at an existing residential/commercial mix property.
A notice released in November said that there are plans to renovate an existing building in order to accommodate the brewery equipment and production process as well as a retail area and tasting room.
Sonja Mills and Alicia MacDonald own the company, which will be called the Port Rexton Brewing Company.


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“Diamonds are forever.” Or at least they are now that non-fungible token (NFT) technology is being used to verify GIA diamond certificates and proof-of-ownership.
Unsurprisingly, the diamond industry has always been ripe with scandals and fraud. But some innovative diamond companies are attempting to change that by introducing NFT and blockchain technology to the diamond certificate process.
Mike Moldawsky, creator and founder of Diamond Dawn, said that diamond certification reports benefit immensely from being put on public blockchains. Doing so ensures that the documents aren’t manipulated — a major problem in the industry. It also provides immutability, transparency, and proof-of-ownership.
To back up his conviction, Diamond Dawn is launching an NFT art project that will mint 333 GIA-certified diamonds as ERC-721 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Users can buy a max of one diamond NFT for the price of 4.44 Ether. When the NFTs are minted, a smart contract will send the diamond’s GIA certificate to the Ethereum blockchain.
Like other NFT project that link physical and digital products, NFTs holders will have the option to burn their digital NFT to receive an actual diamond. As people burn their NFTs, the digital assets will become scarce, potentially making them more valuable.
The digital artwork for the NFT collection was created by David Ariew — a digital artist who recently sold a piece at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening for $224,000.
The main goal of the project is to demonstrate the usefulness of NFT technology for the diamond community. And Diamond Dawn isn’t the only diamond company experimenting with NFTs. The Clear Cut, a digitally native diamond engagement ring company, is also using NFTs as diamond certifications.
Linking Physical & Digital Products Through NFTs Is on the Rise
When NFT technology is used to link physical and digital products, it is called “phygital.” And Diamond Dawn isn’t the only company that’s investing in phygital NFT drops. At Rarity Sniper, we’ve covered several brands and companies launching projects that use digital NFTs to verify and sell physical products. Here are some of our top stories.
First, at the beginning of 2022, CarForCoin, a marketplace that sells exotic cars, auctioned actual cars as NFTs. A series of cars the company had for sale were transformed into animated NFTs and auctioned on the company’s website in dollars and Bitcoin. Winners of the auction received the digital asset, the real-life car, and a QR code that can be scanned to display the NFT.
Next, a house in South Carolina sold as an NFT for $175,000. The deal was conducted through the NFT marketplace Roofstock, a leading digital real estate platform. The platform believes that tokenizing real estate can help buyers and sellers save on fees. The property was purchased with USDC — a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.
Lastly, ASICS sportswear company partnered with move-to-earn app STEP to drop a Solana-inspired sneaker. Buyers of the GT-2000 11 physical shoe will be airdropped a special ASICS x STEPN NFT sneaker and receive token-gated experiences and other perks and rewards.
Given the number of brands and companies we’ve seen launch projects that link NFTs to physical products, it’s no surprise that Diamond Dawn and other diamond and precious gem companies are starting to get on board the Web3 bandwagon. We’ll have to wait and see how the Diamond Dawn NFT collection sells. But using NFT technology to combat fraud seems like it could be a win for everyone.


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Posted by Shirley Brady on June 4, 2012 12:34 PM
Microsoft takes the stage at E3 to talk up Xbox.
Marvel starts production on Iron Man 3.
Vita Coco unveils new campaign with Rihanna (right).
Aon Hewitt finds positive shift in internal brand engagement.
Black & Decker coffee machines recalled following 1,300 complaints.
BlackBerry parent RIM shares drop below $10.
Celsius mobile phone with embedded Swiss timepiece retails for $312K.
Coca-Cola and McDonald's hit back at Mike Bloomberg's NYC big soda ban.
Corning expands on Gorilla Glass with thinner Willow Glass.
Facebook shares tumble to new low on Sanford Bernstein questions.
Ford crowdsources Focus ST commercial.
Google's Project Glass codename? Wingman.
Got Milk? and California Dairy Council partner for consumer education campaign.Continue reading...
you never give me your money
Posted by Sheila Shayon on August 31, 2011 04:02 PM
One-quarter of the 100 highest-paid US CEOs' compensation last year surpassed the federal income tax paid by their companies.
Given America's staggering national debt, that statistic — from a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies — has touched off a firestorm led by Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, who called for hearings on executive compensation.
The IPS report on executive pay found the 2010 average compensation for those 25 execs was $16.7 million. Brands topping the list include:
* eBay, whose CEO John Donahoe made $12.4 million, but which reported a $131 million refund on its 2010 current U.S. taxes.
* Boeing, which paid CEO Jim McNerney $13.8 million, sent in $13 million in federal income taxes, and spent $20.8 million on lobbying and campaign spending.
* GE, where CEO Jeff Immelt earned $15.2 million in 2010, while the company got a $3.3 billion federal refund and invested $41.8 million in its own lobbying and political campaigns.
According to Reuters, Cummings has asked the committee "to examine the extent to which the problems in CEO compensation [have] led to the economic crisis,” and "why CEO pay and corporate profits are skyrocketing while worker pay stagnates and unemployment remains unacceptably high."Continue reading...
Posted by Stephanie Startz on November 4, 2009 07:09 AM
GM backs out of Opel deal with Magna International. [WSJ]
Toyota considers evolving the Prius into a family of vehiches. [MediaPost]
Renault SA revives the legendary Gordine brand. [WSJ]
Chinese environmentalist Su Wei calls Hummer a "garbage brand." [Newsweek]
Kraft defends its Cadbury bid, generates $9 billion in financing. [Times of London]
China approves Disney theme park for Shanghai. [NY Times]
Marks & Spencer to sell branded grocery products. [WSJ]
Tool manufacturers Black & Decker and Stanley Works to merge. [WaPo]
(More headlines: Twinings, Adidas, Glenfiddich in China.)Continue reading...


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At HP Reinvent Fall ’21, HP unveils new products, services and solutions to accelerate the hybrid workplace, harness the power of data and supercharge partner growth in 2022 and beyond
Featured guests include HP CEO Enrique Lores, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, Organizational Psychologist and Bestselling Author Adam Grant and more
- Introduces most robust channel intelligence platform: HP Amplify™ Data Insights
- Unveils new cloud-based print service designed for the future of work
- Highlights new PC experiences optimized for home, office and on-the-go
- Continues to lead with Sustainable Impact with environmental call to action
PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 22, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today at HP Reinvent, HP Inc.’s signature global partner event, the company unveiled a range of bold new offerings designed to support partner growth amidst evolving customer expectations, while keeping the hybrid workplace productive, connected and secure. The event theme - Innovation for the Future of Work – invites partners to join forces with HP to explore innovations driving the hybrid workforce and celebrate those reinventing how their job gets done — through collaboration, innovation, and technology.
“We see tremendous opportunity to lead with our partners across stickier, more personalized and outcome based customer engagements,” said Christoph Schell, Chief Commercial Officer at HP. “Today’s event is centered on arming our partners with the solutions and insights they need to meet rising demand for hybrid work and learning solutions, subscription services, end device security and sustainable value chains. This event also offers us a great opportunity to workshop together and gain valuable feedback.”
HP speakers include President & Chief Executive Officer Enrique Lores; Chief Commercial Officer Christoph Schell; President of Printing, Imaging and Solutions Tuan Tran; President of Personal Systems Alex Cho; Chief Information Security Officer Joanna Burkey; and Global Head of Route-to-Market Luciana Broggi. Luminary speakers include Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella and Organizational Psychologist and Bestselling Author Adam Grant.
Industry’s Most Robust Channel Intelligence Platform
Business that prioritize data at the center of their vision and strategy are 58 percent more likely to beat their revenue goals than non-data driven companies1. With worldwide data usage expected to reach a staggering 175 zettabytes by 20252, businesses are tasked with ramping up investments in data intelligence while minimizing complexity between insights and action.
Today HP unveiled HP Amplify™ Data Insights, a new partner platform designed to turn data analytics into rich insights that inspire new strategies, steer innovation, and anticipate customer needs. Now available on the HP Partner Portal, the robust platform combines proprietary, third party and partner data into one intuitive dashboard, enabling partners to benchmark performance, deepen customer relationships and solidify long-term strategies.
For more details, read the full press release here.
Accelerated PC Solutions for the Hybrid Workplace
With hybrid work continuing to be the norm, managing employee devices has never been more challenging. IT teams are constantly balancing priorities to meet the demands of changing work environments while boosting productivity and employee experience with the right technologies. To address this new reality, earlier this week HP introduced a range of enhanced PC solutions:
- New Managed Service for IT: For IT who wants to modernize and automate how they manage PCs, HP Adaptive Endpoint Management3 is a fully managed service that helps IT managers send PCs directly to employees with zero-touch deployment.
- New Manageability Solutions for IT: For IT who want to manage the BIOS using the cloud, HP Connect for Microsoft Endpoint Manager4 frees up valuable IT resources by making it easy to remotely configure, secure, and update the BIOS of HP commercial PCs. IT can now create policies for groups of devices customizing over 100 different HP BIOS settings.
- HP Cloud Endpoint Manager5: A cloud-ready solution designed for IT who want a better way to deploy and securely manage thousands of HP Thin Clients, all through a modern and intuitive interface. Accessible from any location from a web browser, the solution helps IT prioritize their day with customizable dashboards that include metrics and analytics to keep them up to date on deployments, device compliance, and server health.
For more details, read the full press release here.
Simplified Managed Print Services with New Cloud-Based Subscription Plan for Hybrid Work Environments
With the transition to hybrid work, organizations are now required to adopt a new approach not just to where and how employees work, but also to their IT and print infrastructure. As a result, we’re seeing a rapid shift to cloud services.
In response to evolving these evolving dynamics, HP today announced a simple, worry-free printing solution with automatic supplies delivery, next business day service6, and embedded security and productivity solutions. HP Managed Print Flex, a cloud-first Managed Print Service (MPS) subscription plan, helps businesses optimize costs by simplifying management, improving productivity, and delivering flexibility to scale or customize as business needs change. This light-touch managed service makes it easy for businesses to worry less about printing and focus more effort and budget towards growing the business.
HP Managed Print Flex offers channel partners an especially compelling opportunity to grow predictable print revenue and profit without complexity and risk through upfront revenues on hardware, resell and commission options, ad-on solutions and service subscriptions, shorter sales discussions and more.
Securing the growing hybrid workplace
HP recently released its HP Wolf Security Rebellions & Rejections report, a comprehensive global study of office workers and IT decision makers to assess organizational cyber risk in an era of remote work. The report reveals that 91% of IT Teams feel pressure to compromise security and nearly a third (31%) of young workers are trying to bypass corporate security policies7. HP Wolf Security is helping partners to secure the hybrid workplace by delivering a new breed of transparent and unobtrusive endpoint security.
Call to action to restore the world’s forests and combat climate change
Any company aiming to remain competitive and viable beyond this decade is redefining its business priorities around accelerated, expansive change that is also better for the planet. We must change the way we make and use products to address the climate crisis and protect nature to prevent the loss of critical ecosystems.
As part of our ambition to become the world’s most sustainable and just technology company, this week HP is proud to help bring Trees for Jane to the world as its founding partner. Announced this week, Trees for Jane is a new grass roots campaign inspired by one of the world’s most renowned environmentalists, Dr. Jane Goodall, who issued a call to action to help drive meaningful change by participating in the campaign for the protection, restoration and planting of trees to restore the world’s forests.
Aligned with the UN’s Decade on Ecosystem Restoration commitment, Trees for Jane is aimed at empowering everyone from individuals to companies to plant and care for their own tree or trees in their backyards, rooftops or with local community groups. Alternatively, they can support forest protection and restoration programs led by indigenous leaders, forest communities, and on-the-ground NGOs who have been working to stop deforestation and bring back lost forests. In partnership with Trees for Jane, HP is encouraging its global partner community to plant and grow trees of their own in support of climate action. Learn more about the Trees for Jane initiative here.
About HP Inc.
HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) creates technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere. Through our product and service portfolio of personal systems, printers, and 3D printing solutions, we engineer experiences that amaze. More information about HP Inc. is available at www.hp.com.
1 Collibra/Forrester Consulting Why data intelligent organizations succeed study, 2020
2 IDC Data Age whitepaper, 2018
3 HP Adaptive Endpoint Manager includes HP TechPulse, a telemetry and analytics platform that provides critical data around devices and applications and is not sold as a standalone service. HP TechPulse follows stringent GDPR privacy regulations and is ISO27001, ISO27701, ISO27017 and SOC2 Type2 certified for Information Security. Internet access with connection to TechPulse portal is required. For full system requirements, please visit http://www.hpdaas.com/requirements. HP services are governed by the applicable HP terms and conditions of service provided or indicated to Customer at the time of purchase. Customer may have additional statutory rights according to applicable local laws, and such rights are not in any way affected by the HP terms and conditions of service or the HP Limited Warranty provided with your HP Product.
4 HP Connect for Microsoft Endpoint Manager will be available at Admin.hp.com for HP Pro, Elite, Z and Point-of-Sale PCs managed with Microsoft Endpoint Manager. Subscription to Microsoft Endpoint Manager required and sold separately. Network connection required.
5 Requires Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2019 or later or HP ThinPro 7.2 operating system or later on endpoint and Internet access. Downloadable from www.hp.com/endpoint-manager. See data sheet for complete details, features and configuration requirements.
6 HP will dispatch an HP-authorized technician onsite only if the problem has not been resolved remotely.
7 HP Security is now HP Wolf Security. Security features vary by platform.


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Company leader pivots from agriculture in South America to food industry in Europe, Middle East and Africa
VERONELLA, Italy, May 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Kemin Industries, a global ingredient manufacturer that strives to sustainably transform the quality of life every day for 80 percent of the world with its products and services, recently appointed João Marcelo Gomes as President of Kemin Food Technologies – EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
Gomes joined Kemin in 2019 as President of Kemin Animal Nutrition and Health – South America. Under his leadership, the business unit doubled its growth in net sales and achieved record growth in net income. Gomes also made an impact in people management, with the Kemin Animal Nutrition and Health – South America team reaching some of its highest scores in employee engagement.
A business developer at heart, Gomes has held various executive positions throughout his career, focusing on sales; marketing; and business and people development in animal nutrition and health companies, including Bayer, Fort Dodge, Pfizer, Ceva and Novus International.
"I am very excited to take on this new role in Kemin's food technologies business and am looking forward to expanding my knowledge across the industries Kemin serves," said Gomes. "Kemin Food Technologies – EMEA has balanced consumers' growing interest in more natural products and ingredients with the economic crisis that has challenged food manufacturers to meet budget expectations while providing clearer labels. I'm eager to join the team and work together to continue their success, execute our growth strategy and take the business unit to the next level."
Kemin established its food technologies business unit in EMEA nearly two decades ago with a focus on keeping products safe, maintaining high quality and appealing to consumers. Kemin Food Technologies – EMEA offers customers a wide range of plant-based extracts, antioxidants, antimicrobials and functional proteins. Kemin specializes in solutions that address shelf-life, flavor, color, food safety and yield enhancement.
"Kemin continues to see great potential to expand our business in EMEA, and I'm thrilled to have João leading the charge to grow our presence in the region's food and beverage industry," said Giuseppe Abrate, Global Group President – Food and Human, Kemin Industries. "With his experience in business development and general management, I trust João will elevate Kemin in EMEA's food technologies segment and achieve our strategic ambitions in the market."
Gomes was born in Cachoeira Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil, and earned his veterinary degree from Universidade Federal Rural of Rio De Janeiro. He, along with his spouse, have relocated to Italy, where Kemin Food Technologies – EMEA is headquartered. Marsha Bro, Gomes's predecessor, now serves as Worldwide Acquisition and Licensing Director for Kemin Industries, and is based at the company's global headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.
About Kemin Industries
Kemin Industries (www.kemin.com) is a global ingredient manufacturer that strives to sustainably transform the quality of life every day for 80 percent of the world with its products and services. The company supplies over 500 specialty ingredients for human and animal health and nutrition, pet food, aquaculture, nutraceutical, food technologies, crop technologies, textile, biofuel and animal vaccine industries.
For over half a century, Kemin has been dedicated to using applied science to address industry challenges and offer product solutions to customers in more than 120 countries. Kemin provides ingredients to feed a growing population with its commitment to the quality, safety and efficacy of food, feed and health-related products.
Established in 1961, Kemin is a privately held, family-owned-and-operated company with more than 3,000 global employees and operations in 90 countries, including manufacturing facilities in Belgium, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Italy, San Marino, Singapore, South Africa and the United States.
Caroline Ecoffard, Product Platform Manager | firstname.lastname@example.org, +33 631 35 86 27
© Kemin Industries, Inc. and its group of companies 2023. All rights reserved. ® TM Trademarks of Kemin Industries, Inc., U.S.A. Certain statements, product labeling and claims may differ by geography or as required by government requirements.
SOURCE Kemin Industries


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Airbnb is in talks with Microsoft Corp., which owns Skype, to develop a cloud-to, cloud-enabled platform for hosting and hosting services.
The deal, which could be finalized as early as the second half of the year, would be a boon for the San Francisco-based company, which has been struggling to retain and retain guests and maintain a loyal online audience.
Airbnb is seeking to move beyond a single site to enable multiple platforms.
It has been unable to get a platform off the ground because it lacks the scale to support the kind of growth it needs to thrive in a market where there are no barriers to entry.
It’s unclear whether the Airbnb deal would require Microsoft to relinquish its existing ownership of Skype.
Microsoft acquired Skype in 2012 for $5.9 billion and has been building a platform that will let users share videos and photos on the platform, as well as a virtual assistant, Cortana, to make reservations.
Microsoft has also partnered with some of the world’s biggest hospitality and travel brands to provide cloud hosting services, including Hilton Worldwide, which is launching a new service this week.


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Dubai has been the bustling center of e-commerce related development for some time now. And since China’s ban on cryptocurrencies as a whole, Dubai has been vying to be the next crypto capital for some time now.
While many will say that Dubai as a whole is very welcoming to all forms of digital currency and trading as a whole, there are some boundaries that it has managed to set. One of the most important ones happens to be the ban on privacy coins.
According to the new laws that the UAE has put forward following its crypto regulations, cryptocurrencies, with anonymity being their core selling point, do not have a place in the future capital of crypto.
Unveiling the New Regulations
The UAE has kept many of its crypto enthusiast citizens waiting for its long-awaited crypto regulations, which are quick to set authorization and licensing requirements for all companies looking to operate there.
Of course, these rules would apply to both virtual asset issuers and companies that want to operate from Dubai. And these regulations have a specific definition for assets like Monero that call themselves privacy cryptocurrencies, which are made to be untraceable.
According to the official definition by the new laws, it is a virtual asset that prevents all forms of tracking or tracing records of ownership. Records of ownership can often be found on public ledgers, which is what makes them so much easier to track and trace.
Therefore, any cryptocurrencies that make it more difficult for individuals to trace them or do not register themselves to the public ledgers, they will not be allowed in Dubai.
Not the Only country to implement these Rules
While these may seem too harsh for most individuals who are fans of cryptocurrencies, the truth of the matter is that it is not the only country to implement these rules.
Japan is another option that comes to mind that has a very mean streak when it comes to regulating cryptocurrencies. It has also taken steps to ensure that privacy tokens, or cryptocurrencies that block traceability, are prohibited.
Therefore, it will be able to control possible illicit activities that could happen as a result of people taking advantage of privacy tokens.
The EU joins Dubai and Japan
Along with Dubai and Japan both banning these types of cryptocurrencies, the EU is also looking into regulating them. While there is no concrete evidence that they will possibly outright ban these types of tokens, they will try to regulate them.
Of course, much like Dubai itself, the EU is also looking to attract crypto investors and firms to become hubs in their own right.


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CYBERJAYA - Finance minister Lim Guan Eng told a group of entrepreneurs that it is time that Malaysia gave some healthy economic competition to Singapore.
“We must have the can do spirit. For example why is it is we must lose to Singapore every time? Beat them at their own game, you can do it. Penang has beaten them many times,” he told a group of entrepreneurs here at the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre’s (MaGIC) Global Accelerator Programme (GAP).
“I’m not being anti-Singapore here but I’m just trying to motivate you that you can do it! After all if you look at Singapore, they use many of our people (talents),” Lim added


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HANNOVER, GERMANY. Once skeptical about the practicality of electric-powered commercial vehicles, Daimler Trucks is now planning to bring the Fuso eCanter to the U.S. market next year and to follow with production of electric light trucks from its van group by 2018.
“Ten years ago I saw no market for e-trucks,” said Daimler Truck head Wolfgang Bernhard during a press conference at the IAA 2016 commercial vehicle show. “What happened? Battery technology has change drastically driven by the cellphone industry. There’s been a 2½-fold increase in performance and 2½-fold decrease in cost.”
Still unconvinced that there are long-haul e-trucks in the near future, Bernhard now believes the technology has reached the tipping point for urban delivery applications. And while longer average route differences and less urban density in the U.S. are challenging for EVs, he said significant customer demand exists, so the company will begin limited sales of its eCanter here next year with broader availability in 2018 and even possible local production.
The electric truck will have the same horsepower and torque as the diesel Cantor, as well as the same 7,500-lb. GVW. Payload will be around 4.6 tons depending on the number of batteries installed. Both mechanical and electric PTS’s will be available for refrigeration units and other powered accessories.
Daimler also used IAA to showcase two all-electric concept vehicles – a heavy-duty Urban eTruck and a package delivery Vision Van – as well as announced a commitment from the Daimler Van group to begin series production of an electric commercial van by 2018.
American fleet interest in buying e-trucks is “very high, even higher than in Japan,” according to Marc Llistosella, head of Daimler Trucks Asia and the Fuso brand. The traditional barriers to adoption have been limited range and fast-charging infrastructure as well as initial cost, he said at a press conference during IAA. He believes the eCanter and some new support programs address those issues.
Battery advances give this new generation electric Canter a range of 100 km when it’s equipped with five modular battery packs, and work is ongoing to extend that to 150 km, Llistella said. And customers can choose to fit the truck with as few as three battery packs or as many as six depending on their range and payload needs.
As for pricing, Fuso says there will be a two- to three-year ROI on the price premium over a diesel powered Canter. The company also plans to address residual value concerns by leasing the battery packs separately and replacing them with new, presumably more advance batteries every two or three years.
While every eCanter will come with an AC charging system, the 12 hours required to fully recharge the vehicle won’t suit fleets that don’t park trucks overnight. Faster DC “superchargers” reduce that time to around an hour, but cost considerably more to install. So Fuso expects to help subsidize the building of that infrastructure with other willing partners in a few markets where there is enough density to warrant it, according to Llistosella. He indicated that California would be a logical location for a supercharging network.
The eCanter will be introduced next year simultaneously in the U.S., Japan and Germany with a soft launch and “small-scale production,” Llistosella said.


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Today at High Gear Media, we drove both the 2012 Dodge Charger SXT and a 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth. Chevrolet is halting production of the Volt, and Volkswagen revealed the Cross Coupe TDI Plug-In Hybrid Concept. All this and more in today's car news, right here on The Car Connection.
Murilee Martin's guilty pleasure this week is the Sterling 825.
Did the 2013 SRT Viper leak out yet again?
Volkswagen revealed the Cross Coupe TDI Plug-In Hybrid Concept before its Geneva Motor Show debut.
We drove the 2012 Dodge Charger SXT and found it may be a benchmark.
Chevrolet has halted production of the Volt for five weeks due to oversupply.
GM announced natural gas bi-fuel version of the 2013 Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks.
We drove the 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth and found it very rewarding.
Here's why one of our fans bought a Prius Plug-In instead of a Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf.
Demand for the Prius is rising with gas prices.
Nissan is recalling the 2011-2012 Quest and the 2003-2005 Infiniti Q45.


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There were two aspects of the company’s announcement today. First off, Avid is selling its consumer audio and video product lines: The audio portion will go to Rhode Island-based inMusic, which is the parent company of Akai Professional, Alesis and Numark, among other music production, performance, and DJ brands. The formerly-owned Avid products involved in this transaction include M-Audio and its multiple lines of keyboards, controllers, interfaces, speakers and digital DJ equipment and other product lines.
Meanwhile, Avid – based in Burlington, MA — made sure to say it will continue to develop and sell its audio products on the pro side: Pro Tools software and hardware, and PT’s associated I/O devices including Mbox and Fast Track.
The new owner of Avid’s consumer video editing line will be Corel Corporation, headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. The products covered there include Avid Studio, Pinnacle Studio, and the Avid Studio App for the Apple iPad, plus a number of other legacy video capture products.
The second aspect of the company’s announcement today was a by-now predictable wave of layoffs. The human toll here is sobering – 20% of the workforce – or approximately 350 people. Some Avid employees will transfer to the acquiring companies in each case, but a lot of talented audio and video development people now have to figure out what their next move will be.
Clear and Present Danger
As we posited at Avid’s last such announcement, when they restructured and shed 10% of the workforce last October, a future without Avid — and therefore, Pro Tools — is pulling even a little more clearly into focus.
True, the sale only affects consumer divisions, which as Peter Kirn points out in CreateDigitalMusic accounts for only US$91 million of the US$677 million in sales Avid cleared in 2011. But still, Avid’s size has been going steadily in the same direction as its stock price for a long time now — down.
This does not seem like a company motivated from the top to pull itself out of its tailspin. While Avid CEO Gary Greenfield presented a positive picture of the moves — “The changes we are announcing today make Avid a more focused and agile company,” he said – this corporation as a whole must be feeling bleak about its prospects.
It would be great to be wrong, but a turnaround at Avid does not seem in the offing. Instead, it’s much more sensible to ask how much longer this company has got. Its intensely dedicated pro audio team has been relentlessly updating the world’s industry standard music and sound production platform, but they must do so balanced on an ever-shakier foundation.
What’s Your Backup Plan?
At this rate, how much more support do Pro Tools users have in front of them? How long will their systems last past that? And as we asked back in October, what company would really want to step up and conquer this apparently profitless – and often thankless – sector when Avid’s leadership ultimately inverts into a void?
Music production will surely change again when that happens.
For all who currently owns a Pro Tools system, there’s little else to with today’s announcement than put it on the “Wait-and-see” pile.
For everyone in music production and post with a potential system changeover in their future, however, the red flags are flying stronger than ever: A future without Pro Tools is a real possibility. How will you prepare?
— David Weiss


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This year, Banned Books Week is October 1 – 7. Usually held during the last week of September, this annual event began in 1982. The book community had noticed a significant uptick in the number of books being banned from schools, libraries, and bookstores and rallied together to launch this observance.
This year’s theme is “Let Freedom Read!” According to the website, “By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.”
President of the American Library Association (ALA) Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada said the 2023 theme “captures what’s at stake for our democracy: that the safety of our right to speak and think freely is directly in proportion to our right to read.”
“ALA encourages libraries in every context to mark Banned Books Week by inviting other groups within their communities to celebrate and take action to protect our freedom to read all year long,” continued Pelayo-Lozada.
Both educators and advocates of free-speech say that “books often simply acknowledge the existence of different identities.” It is in fact “crucial…to help young children develop empathy and an understanding of themselves — especially for children whose families include people of color or LGBTQ+ relatives.”
Given that books are so important and especially for young readers, ESSENCE is featuring one that you can read to your little one in the cradle.
Baby’s First Book of Banned Books is a new book from Mudpuppy, a company that creates innovative children’s toys, puzzles, games, and books.
As Mudpuppy’s Publisher Bill Miller told ESSENCE, “Mudpuppy is proud to publish Baby’s First Book of Banned Books. With the increasing number of books being removed from school library shelves, this book offers parents the opportunity to make children aware of these important titles and the idea behind each. We believe every parent and child together should have the right to choose for themselves what they can read.”
This board book introduces young ones to Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, The Diary of Anne Frank, and To Kill A Mockingbird and other commonly banned books. Alongside the illustrations are short messages inspired by the plot of the books. In addition, the book also has a glossary at the end, which includes a summary of each of the books depicted.
Per the publisher, this book is aimed at providing “young children with a captivating and engaging way to learn key lessons from infamous classic banned books.”


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I don't know about you but we, here at PC Mag have been polishing the edge of our seats in anticipation ever since Moonlighter was announced almost a year ago with that gorgeous trailer. The game immediately caught our attention with its vibrant pixel-art and intriguing narrative about a store-owner in a fantasy village who spends his nights delving into dangerous dungeons to gather loot to sell at his store.
Moonlighter will be released digitally as well as a physical retail release that will come in a Standard Edition as well as a limited Signature Edition, the latter of which will include a glossy poster, a squishy jelly monster, and a double-sided medallion. The game will launch on May 29th on PC, PS4, and Xbox One for $19.99 for the digital version. Pricing details on the retail versions will be announced soon along with pre-order listings.
For more on Moonlighter and all things gaming, you're already in the right place.


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Maybe L.L. Cool J is actually as great as he says he is.
The rap pioneer will bump hip-hop newcomer Nelly from the top of the album chart next week as L.L.'s "G.O.A.T." ("Greatest Of All Time" for those not down with the acronym) was the best-selling album in the land last week. According to sales figures released by SoundScan on Wednesday, L.L.'s latest sold more than 208,000 copies in its first week in stores to debut at number one on next week's "Billboard" album chart.
The big sales numbers seem to back the bold statement L.L. made in selecting the title of his latest record, which had raised a few eyebrows.
Being great is not about me being a greater human being than anybody else because everybody's life is valuable and worth something," L.L. explained to MTV News regarding the now chart-topping album's title. "Obviously, there's always going to be a small percentage of people who resent you saying something like that or are shocked.... But it's a lot
more fun than naming my album 'L.L. The Pretty Good Rapper.' I think that might be a little boring." (For more from L.L., check out our feature, "L.L. Cool J: Past, Present, Future.")
L.L.'s big debut ends Nelly's chart-topping run, which stretched back to mid-August. The St. Louis rapper doesn't drop far, though, as his "Country Grammar" album hangs tough at number two on next week's chart. Eminem rounds out rap's strangehold on the top of the album chart, sliding into the number three slot with "The Marshall Mathers LP.
R&B mainstays Boyz II Men return to the chart in grand fashion, with the group's first album in three years scoring the next highest debut on the chart. Boyz II Men's "Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya" sold more than 132,000 copies to debut at number four.
The great white north also launched an offensive
on the charts, as good-time guys Barenaked Ladies score a top five debut with their latest. The Canadian export managed to sell more than 127,000 copies of "Maroon" to land at number five on the album chart.
While not quite reaching the lofty heights of L.L.'s debut, a couple of other hip-hop releases score top 20 debuts next week. Too Short's "You Nasty" sold more than 82,000 copies in its first week to debut at number 12, while the Cash Money family's soundtrack to "Baller Blockin'" sold more than 80,000 copies to debut at number 13.
Irish family act The Corrs also boast an impressive debut; the group's "In Blue" sold more than 46,000 copies to land at number 21.
Meanwhile, dipping into the Latin market paid some dividends for Christina Aguilera. The singer's first Spanish-language album, "Mi Reflejo," sold more than 42,000 copies in its first week in stores to debut at 27.
Other Latin artists saw a surge in sales, likely sparked by last week's Latin Grammy
Awards. Riding a wave of exposure thanks to two Latin Grammys and a performance at the awards show, Shakira lands two albums on the charts, as her "MTV Unplugged" hits number 156 and her "Dónde Están Los Ladrones" lands at 167. Meanwhile, a compilation collecting tracks from many of the Latin Grammy nominees debuted at number 125.
The week's other notable debuts include Emmylou Harris' "Red Dirt Girl" at 54; B-Legit's "Hempin" at 64; Joan Osborne's "Righteous Love" at 90; the soundtrack to "Duets" at 112; the soundtrack to "Almost Famous" at 136; Vast's "Music For People" at 142; Rickie Lee Jones' "It's Like This" at 148; At The Drive In's "Relationship Of Command" at 151; DJ Skribble's "2000-Essential Dance" at 158; and Cold's "13 Ways To Bleed On Stage" at 174.


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The Boom... According to Greenspan
"Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday that Americans' consumption could taper off somewhat now that the U.S. housing market's "extraordinary boom" has ended."
"Greenspan, in his first public U.S. speech since retiring in January from a storied tenure leading the Fed, predicted there is no danger of a total collapse of the housing market."
'"This has been quite an extraordinary boom," Greenspan said in remarks at the Bond Market Association's 30th anniversary dinner in New York. "Home sales are off, applications are off, everything is going in the same direction. The boom is over, and you can say that with a fairly strong degree of confidence."'
"His comments come on speculation the Fed could pause its cycle of rate hikes as a housing slowdown feeds a cooling of the U.S. economy."
"Federal Reserve officials — including current Chairman Ben Bernanke — came out swinging Thursday in a series of speeches to assuage inflation fears. The Fed, which boosted rates last week for the 16th straight time to 5 percent, has left its options open in terms of future rate decisions."
"Greenspan cautioned that it was too early to determine how skyrocketing energy prices will affect consumer spending or lead to inflation. He pointed out that non-financial and non-energy company profit margins were not being suppressed by higher energy costs, and that higher prices at the pump weren't dramatically curtailing driving habits."
'"One out of 7 barrels of world oil consumption is consumed on American highways," he said. "People apparently don't change the amount of mileage they drive, they change the vehicles they drive. That of course creates lower consumption ... it eats into purchasing power of other things."'
"His comments come as Wall Street was spooked by inflation worries after a jump in energy costs pushed U.S. consumer prices up sharply last month, according to a government report. Concerns that rising inflation would send rates higher sent the stock market sharply lower Wednesday."


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The latest talk of the tinsel town is can Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) incidentally save T-Mobile US Inc (NYSE:TMUS) from accruing losses? Last Wednesday, the CEO of TMUS telecom carrier revealed that all and sundry who purchase Samsung phones from TMUS would get a year-long subscription to NFLX absolutely free of cost. However, the company is yet to come out with the nitty gritty of this offer.
TMUS Competing With Large Carriers
In Q4 2014, TMUS added humongous number (2.1 million) of new subscribers to its list. It has around 55.9 million connections on its pan-US network. In the realm of adding subscribers it is on the same foothold as its competitors – Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) who added approximately 2.1 million subscribers and AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) who fell short in this race and added only 1.9 million subscribers. Sprint Corp. (NYSE:S) fell back by quite a few notches; it added only 1 million new subscribers in its Q4 2014.
How Long Would TMUS’ Incentive Policy Work?
In February, TMUS had offered trade-in package to a plethora of business owners and thus got a wide number of subscribers. However, off late the company is desperate enough and hence going forward with promotional spending to add to its consumer base. The question that lingers is how long can TMUS cut down its profits and offer incentives to attract new subscribers.
Pay Less For Poor Quality Service?
Though the company is enticing all and sundry with its offerings, people are shying away and are not switching to Mobile US Inc (NYSE:TMUS). This is largely because the quality of service is indeed among the poorest lot in comparison to the largest carriers.
Though TMUS topped Sprint in quite a few categories, however a recent RootMetrics report reveals TMUS’ flaws and improprieties that need to be addressed. Paying less and obtaining some low quality service may not be a solution altogether that people would love to enjoy.


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NEW YORK, NY — Prices in the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island area, as measured by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), rose for the sixth consecutive month, up 0.3 percent in June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Chief Regional Economist Martin Kohli attributed the increase primarily to higher prices for energy. (Data in this report are not seasonally adjusted.
Accordingly, month-to-month changes may reflect the impact of seasonal influences.)
Over the year, the CPI-U was up 1.0 percent. (See table A.) The index for all items less food and energy increased 2.0 percent. (See chart 1.) Higher prices for shelter drove the 12-month change in both indexes.
The food index ticked up 0.1 percent, following a 0.5-percent decrease in May. Prices for food at home were unchanged. Price increases for fresh fish and seafood, apples, and baby food were offset by price declines for other groceries, including lettuce and cheese. Prices for food away from home edged up 0.2 percent.
Over the year, the food index rose 0.4 percent, reflecting a 3.2-percent increase for away-from-home food prices which was largely offset by a 1.6-percent decline in at-home food prices.
The energy index recorded its fourth consecutive increase, a rise of 4.2 percent. The June advance was primarily driven by a 5.5-percent increase in household energy prices. Electricity prices jumped 8.8 percent with seasonal surcharges. Higher prices were also recorded for natural gas (0.2 percent) and for fuel oil. Gasoline prices also rose (2.2 percent), but at a slower rate than each of the two prior months.
From June 2015 to June 2016, energy prices dropped 10.2 percent. Gasoline prices fell 16.0 percent. Household energy prices were down 6.0 percent, with lower charges for electricity (-4.9 percent) and for natural gas (-1.1 percent).
AllitemslessfoodandenergyThe index for all items less food and energy was unchanged in June. A 4.4-percent decline in prices for apparel, not uncommon at this time of year, along with lower prices for household furnishings and for new and used motor vehicles, were offset by price increases for shelter (0.3 percent) and for medical care (1.2 percent). Within shelter, prices rose 0.4 percent for owners’ equivalent rent and 0.1 percent for residential rent.
For the year ended in June 2016, the index for all items less food and energy increased 2.0 percent. Shelter prices rose 3.1 percent, reflecting a 3.6-percent increase in residential rent and a 2.9-percent rise in owners’ equivalent rent. Medical care prices advanced 5.1 percent, and prices for other goods and services increased 2.7 percent. No other category recorded an increase exceeding 2.0 percent.


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February 5/12, 2018: Volume 33, Issue 17
By Ken Ryan
Grapevine, Texas—Fresh off a year in which it achieved its highest purchase volume in 11 years, Carpet One Floor & Home convened its winter convention here with a strong tailwind that portends an even stronger 2018.
“You translate purchase volume into sales,” Eric Demaree, president of Carpet One, told FCNews. “We have strong economic indicators. Our overall performance was two times higher than the industry average, and a lot of that is coming from LVT and ceramic.”
In 2017, CCA members generated $250 million in LVT sales (including WPC and rigid core products), and the category continues to grow at unprecedented rates, according to Charlie Dilks, chief product officer for the co-op. Ceramic and wood are healthy as well while laminate now represents less than 3% of the business.
Overall, carpet shrank in 2017 although the rate of decline slowed to 45% compared to 55% hard surface. Residential carpet volume improved in the fourth quarter for members, Dilks said, and will likely get a boost now that Engineered Floors and its DreamWeaver brand is part of the group. EF’s acquisition of Beaulieu’s assets served as an entree for Bob Shaw’s company to join the co-op.
Demaree referred to EF as “the bright new shiny penny.” However, Carpet One dealers see dollar signs. “The color, style, design and price of the DreamWeaver brand is excellent—there is perceived value there,” said Heather Gollihur, owner, Carpet Master Carpet One, Champaign, Ill., who noted that EF’s emergence “will make all the other mills sharpen their pencils.”
Craig Dunn, manager at Miller’s Carpet One, Seaside, Calif., said he is “thrilled to death” that EF has been added as a vendor. “There is a niche they are in that we weren’t getting anywhere else. They’ll fit in well with this group. They always have plenty of stock—as a lot of their product is stocked on the West Coast, which is a big deal for us because of our location and for the fact people want product now.”
Palmer Johnson, manager at Johnson Carpet One Floor & Home, Tulsa, Okla., added, “with Beaulieu out [EF] is filling a void. You have a vertically integrated company that is very competitive.”
EF’s DreamWeaver brand is a strong player in PET, which is now over 50% of the residential replacement market, according to industry observers. What’s more, EF is a leader in cost efficiencies, another reason for their desirability among retailers. To no one’s surprise, the EF booth was the busiest during the two-day trade show portion of Carpet One, and executives appreciated the retail love. “We are incredibly excited to be here,” said Mike Sanderson, vice president of product marketing. Told that many Carpet One members urged the CCA executive team to bring on EF, Will Young, director of national accounts, said, “grassroots efforts usually work. It just takes time. We have a product line that can be sold to just about anyone who walks into a flooring store.”
DreamWeaver introduced its Resista line to Carpet One dealers. Available in 30 styles, Resista makes up half of the group’s polyester offerings.
Online leads and follow-up
The question was asked during the convention: Why does CCA continue to focus on digital marketing even though store traffic is trending down? As executives pointed out, people don’t shop like they used to, and they certainly don’t browse flooring stores. To attract consumers, Carpet One has invested significantly in digital media—including paid search, SEO and SEM. “Our website presence is amazing,” Demaree said. “Our members, when they get the opportunity to engage with a customer, are pretty good at getting the business.”
The fact is, however, few companies (across all industries) are good at following up on online leads, and studies show these lapses are costly. Harvard Business Review audited 2,241 U.S. companies to measure how long each took to respond to a web-generated lead. The results: 37% responded to their lead within one hour; 16% responded between one and 24 hours; 24% took more than 24 hours, and 23% of the companies never responded at all.
These results are especially shocking given how quickly online leads go cold—a phenomenon it explored in a separate study that involved 1.25 million sales leads received by 29 B2C and 13 B2B companies in the U.S. Companies that tried to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving a query were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead (defined as having a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker) as those that tried to contact the customer even an hour later—and more than 60 times as likely as companies that waited 24 hours or longer.
Similarly, a paper written and published by MIT professor James Oldroyd found that the chance of qualifying a lead drops to 10% after the first hour, and that no leads were qualified past the 10-hour mark.
To increase its conversion rate Carpet One emphasizes training and encourages owners to certify their sales professionals. Certification entails an annual knowledge assessment that RSAs must pass to earn professional development hours leading to certification. “I highly encourage every one of our flooring dealers to take the exam and to put the accreditation on their business card,” Demaree said. “I don’t give my taxes to someone whose card doesn’t say ‘CPA,’ so why would consumers buy from a sales associate who doesn’t have the proper credentials.”
Beyond flooring initiative
Carpet One announced a partnership with Serta Simmons Bedding. The “Sleep Boutique” program is being tested with eight members. The upside: higher profit margins, no inventory in member stores and no installation worries. The downside: it takes up showroom space. Chris Taylor, owner of CarpetMaster, Latham, N.Y., has mattresses in two locations and has enjoyed success. “Be fully committed before you begin,” he told members.


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Thirty U.S. data brokers and data management firms, including Adobe Systems, AOL and Salesforce.com, are violating privacy promises they've made regarding their handling of the personal information of EU residents, a privacy group said in a complaint...
Neustar is acquiring privately owned Targusinfo for approximately US$650 million in cash in a bid to expand its real-time information and analytics services, it said on Tuesday.
NeuStar has developed a proprietary system for thwarting Web traffic hijacking attacks that the company plans to market until standard DNS Security (DNSSEC) mechanisms are deployed widely across the Internet.
Visa and NeuStar have joined forces and formed an alliance that it hopes will help accelerate the adoption of mobile financial services globally, they said on Tuesday.
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First impression on unpacking the Q702 test unit was the solid feel and clean, minimalist styling.


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Posted Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 12:01 PM PDT by
An update to the Blu-ray Disc Association's consumer high-def website has revealed over a half-dozen as-yet-unannounced Disney Blu-ray titles.
As part of a newly launched redesign of its consumer portal (www.bluraydisc.com), the BDA has added some snazzy new animated graphics, a series of enhanced FAQs and a scrolling news ticker. But most tantalizing for high-def disc fans is a newly-expanded "Coming Soon" list, which includes the first-ever semi-official mention of Blu-ray releases for a number of Disney favorites.
Included in the list are three catalog favorites, 'Nixon,' 'Coyote Ugly' and 'Hidalgo,' plus four newer titles hitting theaters this quarter: 'The Game Plan,' 'Dan in Real Life,' 'Gone Baby Gone' and 'Enchanted.'
We should emphasize that none of these titles have been officially confirmed by Disney, and the BDA site offers no street date info, specs or cover art. Still, considering the source, it's certainly encouraging news for Blu-ray fans.
Needless to say, we'll let you know if/when the studio officially announces any of these titles for next-gen release. In the meantime, we've added each of these seven titles to the "Release Dates Pending" section of our comprehensive Blu-ray Release Schedule. Stay tuned!
The latest news on all things 4K Ultra HD, blu-ray and Gear.
Neon Conceives The U.S. Blu-ray Release of 'Immaculate' Starring Sydney Sweeney June 11 German 4K Mediabook July 18


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British Steel has entered the insolvency process, jeopardizing 5,000 U.K. jobs and endangering a further 20,000 in the supply chain.
EY has reportedly been appointed as special manager by the British government's Official Receiver, after a breakdown in rescue talks between the government and the company's owner, Greybull Capital.
"The company in liquidation is continuing to trade and supply its customers while I consider options for the business. Staff have been paid and will continue to be employed," an official spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday.
Greybull, which specializes in trying to turn around distressed businesses, paid former British Steel owners Tata Steel a nominal £1 in 2016 for the U.K.'s second largest steel producer.
British Steel had requested a £75 million government loan but has since cut the figure to £30 million after Greybull agreed to inject more money, according to Reuters.
The company's troubles have been linked to declining orders from European customers due to uncertainty over the U.K.'s departure from the European Union, along with the weakness of sterling and the escalating U.S.-China trade war. Cheap Chinese steel has long weighed on demand for the company's product.
About 3,000 of the firm's employees are based in Scunthorpe, northern England, with its flagship plan supplying 95% of rails to Network Rail, which manages most of Britain's railway network.
Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Business, said this will be a "deeply worrying time for the thousands of dedicated British Steel workers, those in the supply chain and local communities."
"In the days and weeks ahead, I will be working with the Official Receiver and a British Steel support group of management, trade unions, companies in the supply chain and local communities, to pursue remorselessly every possible step to secure the future of the valuable operations in sites at Scunthorpe, Skinningrove and on Teesside," he added.
Tim Roache, general secretary of steelworkers' union GMB, said the news was "devastating" for the thousands of workers in Scunthorpe and beyond and criticized the government's handling of the crisis.
"Ministers should have been ready to make use of all the options – including nationalisation – in order to save British Steel but they either don't care or wouldn't take off their ideological blinkers to save hard working people and communities," said Roache.
He demanded urgent reassurances on what the future holds for British steelworkers and their families.


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Indian online furniture marketplace Pepperfry has raised a $31 million Series E round from a group of investors including Norwest Venture Partners, Bertelsmann India Investments, Zodius Technology Fund and Goldman Sachs.
Pepperfry will use the new capital to expand Pepperfry Studios, its showrooms where customers can consult with interior design experts for advice on decorating their homes, into additional mid-size Indian...
Boss Zhipin, a Chinese recruitment app, has raised a $28 million Series C round across two tranches of funding.
Direct Capital will exit the bulk of its holding in New Zealand King Salmon as the seafood company seeks to raise up to NZ$77.5 million ($56.4 million) through a domestic and Australian IPO.
CVC Capital Partners has agreed to buy Logen, South Korea’s leading courier company focused on small to mid-volume customers, from Baring Private Equity Asia.
US-based venture capital fund Unitus Impact has joined a Series B round for Indian produce logistics firm Lawrencedale Agro Processing, operator of the fruit and vegetable brand Leaf.


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The little D badge on the back of Volvo models will very soon be a relic of the past.
With Volvo having rather quietly removed its diesel offerings from most of its lineup worldwide, it was already prophesied that the Swedish automaker will be ceasing the production of its oil-burners in the not too distant future. And lo and behold, it was recently announced by the Scandinavian car company that its last diesel-powered car will be built in just a few short months from now.
Announced during the Climate Week NYC, Volvo cites for its decision to axe the diesel engine stems from the tightening emissions regulations, changing customer demand and its own continued green initiative. On the emissions front, while diesels emit less CO2 than petrol engines, their greater emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx) nevertheless an adverse effect on air quality, especially in built-up areas.
On the customer demand front meanwhile, the company has stated that while the oil-burning power plant was the automaker’s bread and butter in Europe just four short years ago, these days diesel-engined Volvos only account for not even 9% of its global sales worldwide. Instead, it is now its electrified lineup (be it fully electric or with a plug-in hybrid powertrain) that has taken the share of its sales once held by the diesel engine.
And it is really on the electrification front which Volvo wishes to focus on from now, with the Swedish automaker planning to sell only fully electric cars by 2030 and aims to be fully climate neutral by 2040. Volvo has after all sold its stake in Aurobay, the joint venture company that harboured all of its remaining combustion engine assets, late last year, and has also announced that it was no longer to be spending ‘single krona of [its] R&D budget on developing new internal combustion engines’. So it was therefore really only a matter of time before the Swedish automaker canning its diesel engine anyway, and there may even be a not-insignificant chance too that the purely petrol-powered Volvo will not be long for this world too.
Volvo currently proudly touts to be the one of the first legacy automakers to begin its transition to full electrification, with this bold new step of ditching diesel a new and significant milestone to this cause. But the question worth asking here though is with Volvo having already recognised that the changing consumer trends can upend its model lineup in just a few short years, what will the automaker actually do if its plan to go fully electric doesn’t pan out as intended?
PRESS RELEASE: By 2030 we plan to sell only fully electric cars and by 2040 we aim to be a climate neutral company. That clear roadmap towards all-out electrification represents one of the most ambitious transformation plans of any legacy car maker.
To underline our commitment to those ambitions, today at Climate Week NYC we announce the end of production of all diesel-powered Volvo Car models by early 2024. In a few months from now, the last diesel-powered Volvo car will have been built, making Volvo Cars one of the first legacy car makers to take this step.
This milestone follows our decision last year to exit the development of new combustion engines. In November of 2022 we sold our stake in Aurobay, the joint venture company that harboured all of our remaining combustion engine assets. We’re no longer spending a single krona of our R&D budget on developing new internal combustion engines.
“Electric powertrains are our future, and superior to combustion engines: they generate less noise, less vibration, less servicing costs for our customers and zero tailpipe emissions,” says Jim Rowan, Chief Executive at Volvo Cars. “We’re fully focused on creating a broad portfolio of premium, fully electric cars that deliver on everything our customers expect from a Volvo – and are a key part of our response to climate change.”
An urgent need for action
We’re all-in on electrification because it’s the right thing to do. The recent Global Climate Stocktake report issued by the United Nations underlined the urgency of the climate emergency faced by humanity, as well as the need for action.
“What the world needs now, at this critical time for our planet and humanity, is leadership,” says Jim Rowan. “It is high time for industry and political leaders to be strong and decisive, and deliver meaningful policies and actions to fight climate change. We’re committed to doing our part and encourage our peers as well as political leaders around the globe to do theirs.”
To further emphasise this point, our chief sustainability officer Anders Kärrberg will attend an event organised by the Accelerating to Zero (A2Z) Coalition at this year’s Climate Week NYC. Launched at the COP27 climate summit, the A2Z Coalition provides a multi-stakeholder platform for signatories of the Glasgow Declaration on Zero Emission Vehicles, of which we are one.
The A2Z platform allows us to collaborate and coordinate actions with others towards the coalition’s collective target of ‘making 100 per cent of global new car and van sales free of tailpipe emissions by 2040, and no later than 2035 in leading markets’.
While our own electrification target is more ambitious than that, we hope to inspire other companies to be bolder in taking action against climate change through today’s announcement on diesels and by taking part in the A2Z discussions and other gatherings at Climate Week NYC.
A changing outlook
Our decision to completely phase out diesels by early 2024 illustrates how rapidly both the car industry and customer demand are changing in the face of the climate crisis.
Only four years ago, the diesel engine was our bread and butter in Europe, as was the case for most other car makers. The majority of cars we sold on the continent in 2019 were powered by a diesel engine, while electrified models were only just beginning to make their mark.
That trend has largely inverted itself since then, driven by changing market demand, tighter emission regulations as well as our focus on electrification. The majority of our sales in Europe now consists of electrified cars, with either a fully electric or plug-in hybrid powertrain.
Less diesel cars on the streets also has a positive effect on urban air quality; while diesels emit less CO2 than petrol engines, they emit more gases such as nitrogen oxide (NOx) that have an adverse effect on air quality especially in built-up areas.


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The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon that is reshaping information technology (IT) in business offices now is spreading to the manufacturing sector, with employee-owned smartphones and media tablets playing an increasingly important role in manufacturing settings this year and beyond.
By simply shifting focus away from short-term goals and financial gain toward more effectively serving the people on their teams, leaders can create conditions for superior long-term results.
July 1, 2014
A recent Gallup poll shows that only 30% of Americans are actively engaged at work. That doesn’t come as a big surprise to Matt Tenney, author of Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom.
3D printers will increasingly be used to manufacture direct production parts and finished goods in a variety of applications.
June 2, 2014
3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, allows solid objects to be built from a series of layers using plastic, metal, or other materials. This technology can thereby produce sophisticated structures with greater flexibility and efficiency and less waste compared to traditional manufacturing techniques, which require longer setup times and higher material and labor costs.
"The preissuance submission provision in the America Invents Act aims to bring the most relevant prior art to the examiner’s attention as early as possible during prosecution to enhance examination effectiveness and efficiency,” says Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) David Kappos.


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Collaboration Promotes Entrepreneurship among Individuals Aged 50 and Older
Topeka –AARP Kansas and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) are teaming up to hold an Encore Entrepreneur mentoring event on April 16 at the Topeka Shawnee County Public Library in Topeka from 9 am to noon.
The event, which is free and open to AARP members and non-members, is designed to provide counseling, mentoring and training for those aged 50 and older who would like to start or grow a business.
Last year, nationally, AARP and SBA matched “encore entrepreneurs” with successful business owners and community leaders for advice and assistance. With Mentor Month and other collaborative programs during 2012 and 2013, AARP and SBA already have totaled nearly 120,000 engagements involving counseling, mentoring and training of encore entrepreneurs.
“AARP knows that many older Americans pursue entrepreneurship as a way to generate income and strengthen financial security,” said Glenda DuBoise, AARP’s Volunteer State President. “And for many of these workers, it is also a way to turn a hobby or passion into a paycheck. AARP creates real possibilities by connecting experienced workers with the resources and guidance they need to help start or grow a small business,” DuBoise added.
Mentor Month in April is part of a larger effort by AARP and SBA to provide a range of resources this year to thousands of entrepreneurs and small business owners over the age of 50. The events will help connect encore entrepreneurs with mentors such as those from SBA’s network of Small Business Development Centers, Women’s Business Centers, and SCORE chapters who can help throughout the life of an entrepreneur’s business.
According to a recent AARP survey, “Staying Ahead of the Curve 2013: AARP Multicultural Work and Career Study,” 15 percent of workers 45-74 are self-employed. Additionally, 13 percent of those who are current wage and salary workers say they plan to start a business once they retire. Small business ownership is a good option for many baby boomers. Small business owners who get long-term counseling may see bigger sales, hire more workers, and their businesses have more longevity.
Seating for the seminar is limited. To register, please call Barbara Caldwell at 816-426-4902 or e-mail Barbara.Caldwell@sba.gov.
AARP and SBA are also producing 10 webinars this year as part of an encore webinar series, with two of them being held in April. For more information, and to register, visit www.aarp.org/startabusiness.


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MORNING FOAM FOR MONDAY, MAY 22 2017: A seven-taster flight of craft beer news, from the fluffy head all the way to the Moon beer. …
Sierra Nevada Brewing returns in 2017 with a new take on its successful Beer Camp Across America collaboration 12 pack with a slight twist. New for this year is Beer Camp Across the World collaboration 12 pack. This year Sierra Nevada Brewing invited six American breweries and six international breweries to participate in this series of beers. The collaborative breweries include Boneyard Beer, Avery, The Bruery, Surly, Saint Arnold, and Tree House from the United States. International collaborators are Kiuchi Brewery, Garage Project, Ayinger, Duvel, Mikkeller and Fuller’s.
Tuesday, May 23, Elliott Bay Brewing Co. celebrates the grand opening of its fourth location. Located on Lake City Way, right next to the Elliott Bay Public House and Brewery, Brother Barrel will focus on barrel-aged and sour beers. Washington Beer Blog has the scoop.
Pelican Brewing Company snapped up 10 international awards including its third time as Champion Medium International Brewery at the 2017 Australian International Beer Awards, the largest annual competition of its kind in the world judging both draught and packaged beer.
While the wait for each new season of Game of Thrones® can seem longer than the wait for winter in Westeros, fans can now quench their thirst for all-things-Thrones with the newest beer in the Game of Thrones series from Brewery Ommegang and HBO Global Licensing: Bend the Knee Golden Ale.
Placentia, California based The Bruery announced they are partnering with Newton, Massachusetts based Castanea Partners, a private equity firm. Going forward Patrick Rue will remain CEO and his father, Mike Rue, will still own a significant portion of The Bruery, Bruery Terreux and Offshoot Beer Co.
Impress your friends with this fact: France has more than 1,000 microbreweries.
A team of UC San Diego students have created an experiment to test if beer can be brewed on the Moon.


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Wyndham Destinations opens its first resort in Portland Oregon
Wyndham Destinations has opened its doors to its newest resort based in Oregon U.S. The Urban WorldMark by Wyndham Resorts is the company’s eighth Oregon based property and the first ever timeshare resort in the city.
CEO of Wyndham Destinations, Michael Brown attended the opening, which was attended by owners and guests. Portland marks another Urban location for the Wyndham portfolio, which also includes San Francisco, New Orleans and New York.
Michael Brown said: “With a vibrant dining scene, eclectic shopping and proximity to outdoor activities, it’s no surprise our owners … Read more


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The ever-innovative folks at Ernie Ball have teased a new pedal, the VP JR Tuner, which is set to be unveiled at the upcoming NAMM Show. You can watch the video above.
"Yep. We did it…we reengineered and reimagined our iconic volume pedal with an integrated high resolution tuner, graphic volume display, ultra durable Kevlar coated cord, and more," the company said on social media.
Other than that, Ernie Ball is mum on any further details. A full announcement is expected at the NAMM Show on January 24.
For more on Ernie Ball, head over to ernieball.com.


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Soon, we hope: EA and Respawn remain tight-lipped about a firm release date for now, but closed betas are continuing in select regions.
It's anybody's guess
After being initially annouced in 2019 with a projected release date of 2020, Apex Legends Mobile continues to be MIA, although closed betas are being conducted in select regions for just a few thousand players. Given the complications that all of 2020 likely caused, it's not surprising that the game would be delayed, but we're halfway through 2021 now and still no sign of a firm release date or even an open beta.
Closed regional beta rollout continues
Much like a release date itself, it is unclear when the West may finally get its hands on a coveted closed beta for Apex Legends Mobile. In April and May of this year, India and the Phillipines got the first round of closed betas. Then in June, Respawn announced on Twitter that closed betas would be coming "in a few weeks" for Egypt, Lebanon, Peru, and Colombia, but whether or not these actually happened remains foggy, as there were no official updates about them.
On top of that, Respawn announced via Twitter on July 16, that there would soon be more closed betas in the Phillipines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, which do appear to be active as of July 21, 2021.
Betas or no betas, release date or or no release date, you can still go ahead and pre-register for Apex Legends Mobile on the Google Play Store to keep your hand on the game's pulse. By pre-registering, you may even score an invite to test the game out in a closed beta once it comes to your region. That is, if it comes to your region. Keep in mind, your data from a closed beta will not carry over to the final product.
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