text: Apple is the major commercial horticulture crop in Himachal Pradesh and other hill states of Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand and some parts of Northeastern states of India. In order to gather data on health status and incidence of virus and virus-like pathogens in apple orchards, survey was conducted in the month of June and September, 2010 in Hatkoti, Rohru, Kuthara, Jubbal and Khadapathar areas of major apple producing Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh. A total of 250 samples were collected and analyzed by DAS-ELISA, NASH and RT-PCR. NASH results indicated that a total of 117 samples were infected with Apple chlorotic leaf spot virus (ACLSV), Apple mosaic virus (ApMV), Apple stem grooving virus (ASGV), Apple stem pitting virus (ASPV) and Apple scar skin viroid (ASSVd). Results showed that ASSVd is predominant in these areas with highest infection rate of 27.6% followed by ASPV (17.2%), ACLSV (16.8%), ApMV (15.2%) and ASGV (12%). Mixed infection of these viruses and viroid was frequently detected in apple trees in Himachal Pradesh. The trees, which were positive for viruses and viroids, showed a variety of fruit deformation and rusting symptoms besides leaf deformation, mosaic and chlorosis.


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Since the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, economic and social disruption have transformed how many industries do business, and public procurement is no exception.
Despite being essential to the continuity and functioning of government at all levels, the public procurement sector still faced many challenges over the past two years. In particular, increased global demand for goods and services and concurrent supply shortages have made the procurement process increasingly difficult.
Now, as restrictions are gradually being lifted and economic activity begins to rise, the public procurement sector still must grapple with several challenges during this period of recovery. In this article, we’ll explore some of the trends currently taking place in the procurement industry, and how buying agencies can position themselves for success in these challenging times.
A primary driver of change in the public procurement sector is the widespread adoption of digital tools to streamline and simplify the procurement process.
The number of companies expected to implement digital tools and procedures as part of their operations will likely increase dramatically over the next five years. This trend of digital transformation will undoubtedly impact the public sector ecosystem, as e-procurement tools are proven to deliver strong ROI for both suppliers and buying agencies.
In 2022, much of the existing public procurement workforce is expected to retire or move to a new industry as younger, less-experienced professionals join the public purchasing sector. These newcomers will bring fresh expectations of efficiency and digital capability, putting pressure on buying agencies to modernize their tools and operations.
As well, as local, state and federal governments pursue a net-zero economy, green procurement will continue to gain traction with buying agencies in 2022 and beyond. As a result, more government agencies will work with private companies in an effort to lower their carbon footprints.
Data-driven decision making
Real-time data and deep analytic capability are essential to improving the decision-making process in public procurement. Because many government agencies are accustomed to working autonomously, having a single, reliable source of data from digital procurement platforms can help them reduce costs, address procedural gaps, and improve overall efficiency. This also holds true for suppliers: by having access to all contract requirements and bids in the larger procurement ecosystem, which can be updated in real-time, suppliers also benefit from improved processes and efficiency.
Local sourcing and supplier diversity
Small businesses in local communities are essential contributors to economic stability and growth across North America. Governments procure billions of dollars in goods and services annually from businesses in their regions. Many government agencies have goals and objectives in place to ensure a portion of those purchases are made from small, local businesses.
However, agencies that lack tools to track diversity and inclusion goals and results are often at a disadvantage when it comes to gathering data about local and non-local vendor percentages, solicitation chances and response rates. E-procurement solutions with vendor management tools, with their built-in functionality to track communications and generate detailed reports, can help rectify this situation.
Without a doubt, 2022 will continue to see a significant number of local opportunities available for a diverse group of small and medium-sized suppliers, allowing these businesses to develop strong relations with government buying agencies. Regional supply chain needs will accelerate government agencies’ initiatives to source goods and services locally, creating new opportunities for businesses to partner with these agencies.
Alongside diversity and inclusion, access to a wider supplier ecosystem will continue to be a priority for buying agencies this in 2022. Having experienced the impact of manufacturing shutdowns and other supply chain disruptions, leaders in the procurement industry are seeking to quickly partner with large groups of suppliers in order to maintain continuity.
Finding new suppliers and growing partnership networks can be challenging and time consuming for government agencies, as they vet RFP submissions and compare vendor rates and services. Procurement solutions that give these agencies access to a high number of suppliers, allowing them to compare their offering and rates in real-time, will prove beneficial in this regard.
Government funding trends
Governments around the world introduced substantial funding packages throughout 2021, in an effort to mitigate the consequences of global supply shortages and economic slowdowns.
In the United States, billions of dollars were allocated to states and municipalities via the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. Large sums were earmarked for the construction, energy, transportation and broadband industries, and the opportunities available as a result of this bill are only starting to materialize.
In particular, the 2021 Infrastructure Bill, which aims to upgrade American seaports, waterways, electrical grids, transmission lines, public transit systems and airports, will continue to have a long-lasting economic impact on the procurement market well into the new year. Regional economies will be strengthened thanks to this bill, which will also allow local economies to resume projects that were put on hold and to start new ones.
To take advantage of the opportunities presented by this bill, companies need to familiarize themselves with every aspect of the legislation. E-procurement solutions that allow both suppliers and buyers to effectively manage resources, access and share intelligence on relevant contracts and projects, and gather important data are key to getting the most out of future procurement projects. To learn about the eprocurement solutions offered by mdf commerce, visit our website.

domain: news


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We all know that Opera is well-known for its web browser and now it has extended its range of offers to other applications. Hence, recently it added an extraordinary feature to its Opera Max app.
Opera Max Just Got A Powerful New Feature
Opera is well-known for its web browser, and now it has extended its range of offers to other applications, always turned and dedicated to the Internet.
Opera Max, a VPN that the company offers, has grown and is breaking records of use, with more and more users. To celebrate these new numbers, Opera has now given it a VIP mode and opened it for everyone.
Opera Max is a free VPN service that Opera offers on Android so that its users can reduce data consumption and save money. More than protecting users, the main focus is even saving data, ensuring much more time to use for the same data plans.
Its membership is so great that Opera has announced that the number of users has passed the 50 million barriers. This number is important because in May of this year this service had passed the mark of 10 million.
The new Opera Max VIP
To celebrate this marks, the Opera decided to improve its service further and launched the VIP Mode. This new component solves a problem that many users had, and that limited the use of this VPN. In every 12 hours users had to re-launch the service manually. But, from now on, and with VIP mode active, this limit disappears, and the VPN remain constantly on.
The counterpart of Opera Max VIP
While Opera giving this service needs some counterpart and to monetize the same. For this, Opera Max VIP will start showing advertisements to all its users at very specific times.
When the phones are connected to the mains and at rest, the advertising will be displayed, as well as another one related to the charging process. Only in these moments, and without impeding the use of the phone, this advertising will be presented.
Opera Max VIP is not obligatory and may be activated by users who are willing to receive such advertising, receiving in return an unlimited VPN.
This new feature in Opera Max will further improve this service and give you even more potential. The brand achieved shows well the membership you are having and how much users depend on it.


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software supply chain
Concepts and mandates such as cyber incident reporting, DevSecOps and zero trust only go so far.
Kessel Run, DOD's first software factory, is about to help one air combat command unit move all operations to a software environment designed via DevSecOps.
Software supply chain risk management and continuous monitoring are key strategies for maintaining a strong cyber posture in the cloud.
SolarWinds, CISA and the White House issued new information regarding the state of cyber and advised how to better secure critical infrastructure.
Eric Hysen brings his experience at USCIS to a reimagined office focused on cybersecurity and data management.
Cyber vulnerabilities in federal agencies' supply chains aren't going away any time soon, and addressing them will take a consistent, concentrated effort.
Transitioning to 5G is a key strategy for federal agencies' network modernization efforts, but the next generation of communication comes with unique supply chain hazards.
DHS cyber leaders have a laundry list of items for federal CISOs to address.
Greater supply chain transparency and information-sharing will improve federal cyber posture.
As cyber crime explodes, cyber experts and federal cyber leaders insist on systemic change.
DHS and CISA want to lead the federal register and private industry by example.
FDA is tackling security measures for the health technologies it regulates.


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SSE to expand customer service operations
Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) has announced plans to expand its customer service operations.
The company has agreed to purchase Barclaycard's site in Cumbernauld in a move which will make it the provider's first new customer service centre since it was established ten years ago.
It has also announced plans to retrain 800 members of staff already working at the location so they can take up roles with the supplier.
The chief executive of SSE, Ian Marchant, said he was "very pleased" to reach an agreement over the customer service site.
He added: "The acquisition of the site provides us with the capacity to expand our customer service operations and recruit many new skilled people at a time when our business has achieved significant growth and is continuing to expand."
The energy provider's plans to expand its customer service operations have been revealed after it also announced new carbon emission reduction targets.
SSE has stated it plans to half the amount of emissions it produces in electricity generation by 2020.
Click here to run an energy price comparison, and see if you could be paying less for your gas and electricity.


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Oh, how young and naïve you are if you smugly believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that the world had hit peak avocado fandom. Alas, it turns out that the number of people you know who have had reconstructive surgery on their utterly decimated 'avocado hands' has little to no bearing on whether society has truly reached the height of this cultural frenzy.
In fact, the true measure of whether the avocado has jumped the shark or not is this: Has hysteria over the avocado actually inspired an Ocean's Eleven-style heist? The answer to that question, we learned this week, is yes.
"They are in demand. Everybody loves avocados," said Sergeant John Franchi of the Ventura County Sheriff's Office in California. He was talking about an arrest his department made last week of three gentlemen, all charged with grand theft—of $300,000 worth of avocados. Although no one knows exactly how many pounds of the fruit so beloved by millennials was stolen in the scam, "a shitload" would be a pretty good guess.
The authorities claim Joseph Valenzuela, Rahim Leblanc, and Carlos Chavez had been stealing avocados from their employer, Mission Produce, and selling them to customers who probably didn't know that the innocent-looking avos were actually illicit goods.
According to Steve Barnard, the president of the produce company, the three employees stole partial pallets and boxes of avocados and then sold them from the back door of the company's distribution center, pocketing the cash for themselves and selling $50 boxes for a mere $20–$30. Suspicions were raised by wary customers and the company's own bookkeepers; surveillance footage exposed the scam. "They were looking to make money," Sergeant Franchi said. Mission is one of the world's biggest avocado distributors and ships the green goodies all over the world. According to CEO Barnard, demand for avocados is high—so high that his company will now be reinforcing security at the distribution center. Lesson learned: The number of urban taxidermists you know who have legally changed their name to "Avolatte" probably counts for something, but it's not the true measure of the hysteria surrounding the humble avocado. Felony fruit charges? That'll do.


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Google’s operating system for smartwatches Wear OS receives a small update. The focus is on revamped tiles, but one feature is only useful for US customers.
The Google I/O 2023 developer conference was a few weeks ago and focused primarily on new smartphone releases; Smartwatches, on the other hand, received nothing in terms of new models.
After all, new functions have been promised for the Wear OS operating system, which is the basis for many Android smartwatches.
This includes the long-awaited native Whatsapp tile for smartwatches with Wear OS, which is still in the beta phase. Another update is in the starting blocks starting today and will bring minor revisions.
Wear OS update: New tiles for Spotify
As already announced at the I/O conference, Google is bringing three new tiles for the music streaming service Spotify, which should find their way onto smartwatches with the upcoming update.
One of these tiles is aimed at the podcast listeners among you, which can be used to display new episodes of the podcasts you subscribe to. From here, users should have faster access to the current episode.
In addition, a tile with a kind of quick access for created Spotify playlists is activated; In addition, a mix of the user’s most listened to titles can be accessed here. The also closes to this idea
DJ called tile, which is intended to provide a personalized selection of music via Spotify.
The notes app Google Keep, on the other hand, also has quick access, which was already presented at the I/O conference. Individual notes or to-do lists can be easily reached without having to rummage through menus, as Google says.
The update for Wear OS concludes with a US-exclusive feature: the Google Wallet, which can also be used via smartwatches, receives specific cards for providers of ridesharing. These include SmartTrip and Clipper – the new feature is hardly relevant in this country.
The Google Wear OS update rollout begins today and is expected to be complete in the coming weeks.
Do you use the Spotify and notes function of your smartwatch? What features do you miss on your watches? Have you discovered a secret function on the smartwatch that everyone should know? Let us know your opinions in the comments!


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By Simon Sharwood
An Australian developer will be one of the first in the world to use Amazon.com's online storage-as-a-service as part of a commercial software package.
Brisbane-based Moonwalk Inc will offer users of its data-management software the ability to back up directly to Amazon's servers.
The "web services" revolution - online IT services that were once housed in a "server in the basement" - is tipped to be one of the biggest growth areas in technology in 2008.
It works on the principle that it is often cheaper to tap into someone else's massive storage or computational resources than build and maintain the capacity yourself.
Amazon.com, having built a massive IT infrastructure to maintain its online store, is now one of the pioneers of selling that raw power to anyone in the world.
On-demand storage is one of the key elements of Amazon's push into web services, through its subsidiary Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS includes the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), which lets anyone rent storage from as little as 15 US cents a gigabyte per month, well below the cost to business of operating their own storage equipment. AWS customers now include the social network Twitter, which uses S3, and memory card maker SanDisk, which last month announced a USB drive that will automatically back up to the S3 service.
Moonwalk this week announced that it has built the S3 application programming interface into an imminent new release of the company's latest software. The software helps companies with large amounts of data move it among their diverse fleet of storage devices.
The moves ensure that files that are seldom needed or accessed, but which must be preserved, are stored on older, cheaper-to-operate machines.
The technique, known as "tiering", saves space on a company's fast and expensive storage arrays.
Moonwalk's innovation is to use Amazon as one of those tiers. Users can access on-demand storage hosted by Amazon.com and free their business from the need to buy more storage equipment or adopt techniques such as data de-duplication.
"We will pitch S3 as a third tier for archival storage," says Michael Harvey, the company's vice-president for business development. Mr Harvey says Moonwalk believes that S3 is sufficiently robust to serve as enterprise data storage because Amazon provides its customers with a service level agreement (SLA). "Once Amazon added SLAs, we got interested," Mr Harvey says, adding that the sheer scale of Amazon's operations adds to Moonwalk's confidence. Amazon's use of the same tools and techniques it uses to run its online retail venture, but with physical infrastructure dedicated to AWS, increases his comfort levels and also impresses Gartner research vice-president Ben Pring.
"Amazon are taking their own core competencies and offering those up to anybody who wants to use them," Mr Pring says. "Amazon's scale is important in some sense. They have cracked the code of running huge data centres in ways that IT departments may not have done. The secret sauce of being able to do that is going to be very important for them."
AWS web services evangelist Jeff Barr welcomes Moonwalk's decision and says the company is far from alone in using S3. He says individual customers are already using up to 500 terabytes of storage, "sometimes as part of a carefully laid plan or sometimes because they need a resource. Developers of something like a Facebook application may not have the wherewithal to buy servers," and turn to on-demand resources. Others, Mr Barr says, use Amazon web services to cope with seasonal spikes in traffic.
A spin-off of privately held Queensland IT services company Dialog Information Technology, Moonwalk first developed its software in 2004. It has since won customers including Stanford University, UK tea company Twinings and a number of Australian government organisations at state and federal level. The company has won plaudits from analysts and opened presences in the US, UK, Asia and Europe.
Mr Harvey feels that S3 is not yet the answer to every storage application. "This is not for customer relationship management or business intelligence data," he says, as the rapid and frequent input/output required by such software is impractical given the relatively long time required to access Amazon's US or European data centres. "But there is definite potential as a tape replacement for long-term archiving."
AWS, meanwhile, believes that on-demand services have a very bright future and will next week send Mike Culver, another of its evangelists, to Australia for a series of meetings with local developers. Some of those meetings are open to the public and will feature explanations of AWS' ability to help developers.
"In the past, developers' imagination has been limited by the hardware they can buy," Mr Barr says. "Our customers start with applications that are not mission critical, find it works in their first experiments and because it works, word will travel."


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Amazon is a looming force in media. Amazon’s pitch to brands at Dmexco may have purposefully downplayed itself against the showmanship of Google and Facebook’s efforts, but its growing influence on the ad ecosystem reverberated across the conference.
The shadow of the duopoly loomed large over the two-day gathering of ad tech. From the exorbitant booths in the heart of the main conference hall to the high-profile names they put on stage, Google and Facebook wanted the industry to know that all is well in the walled gardens. But as packed as Google and Facebook’s events were, marketers also flocked elsewhere to hear more about a platform some industry observers believe could eventually shake up online media’s status quo.
Amazon’s booth was in one of the smaller halls, tucked away near the back. The booth, while similar in size to those for Google and Facebook, was not as flashy. There were no fluffy pillows or two-story installations, just tables and salespeople talking to attendees about how Amazon Marketing Services could help them reach over 300 million active customer accounts worldwide. Visitors were walked through the three formats they could potentially use: its sponsored products, headline search ads and product display ads running across its search, programmatic and mobile inventory, as well as on its Fire devices and other owned sites like IMDb.
Several senior executives from Amazon were also seen at the event, including Anthony Reeves, global executive creative director; Dan Wright, head of international advertising; and Colleen Aubrey, global vp of self-service performance advertising.
One agency executive, who spoke to Digiday under condition of anonymity after meeting the retailer’s sales reps, said the formats were “somewhat limited” compared to what is being offered elsewhere. No doubt this will change in time, particularly with the launch of Amazon’s shoppable feed of stories and photos in the U.S., but until then, the executive said he would invest “incrementally” rather than “divest in other media channels.”
The point was backed by Oren Stern, the gm for Kenshoo, which now lets brands and agencies manage Amazon ad campaigns via its platform. “Because there are only three ad formats with Amazon Marketing Services, I think that’s part of the reason why clients are looking at the incremental value of dollars being put into this channel and are trying to get a sense of what is that value for the traditional dollar going into Amazon,” Stern said. “In general, we’ve seen positive ROI on Amazon’s ads, and in some cases, we’ve even seen it surpass the ROI on other channels.”
That performance is driven by Amazon’s data rather than its ad tech. As one ad tech source explained, “The problem with Amazon is its data is great but its tech isn’t. The good thing for them is they have so much money that they’ll be able to sort that out very quickly once they know what the industry wants.”
Attendees familiar with Amazon’s ads believe early growth will be driven by those brands that already have a presence on the retailer. However, with the company’s expanding placement and targeting options, more brands, including those that do not retail through Amazon, will likely buy its ads. Part of the growth is predicated on how well the retailer is able to educate brands and agencies on the best ways to harness its data set, which unlike Google’s intent data and Facebook’s people-based data, is grounded in purchase data. “It’s not just about marketers asking whether ‘my ad reached my audience on Amazon,’” said the same ad tech executive. “It’s also, ‘Did my audience buy my goods?’”
Marc Pritchard, Procter & Gamble’s chief brand officer, alluded to Amazon’s potential to bridge the sales and marketing gap at Dmexco. He told delegates that P&G’s early bets on the retailer were helping it to better understand consumer behavior and serve ads in the right context, which consequently are more likely to drive sales.
“We’re also teaming up with e-commerce players like Amazon and Alibaba so we can use their unique consumer ID data and reach consumers precisely when they’re ready to buy,” said Pritchard. “This is accelerating our e-commerce strategy.”
P&G’s e-commerce business is already worth $3 billion and is growing 30 percent year over year, according to Pritchard. He revealed that sharper targeting on Amazon and other sites had also cut ad wastage by 20 percent and lifted ROI by four times as much, but even more importantly, “it’s creating a better experience for users.”
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We were all expecting LG to unveil the G3 Mini, but instead the company has gone and announced a 5-inch phone, which is actually only 0.5-inches smaller than the flagship G3. Is this the Mini that's been leaking in the past few months, or can we expect to see something truly diminutive at some point?
The KitKat-running G3 Beat's screen has a 720p resolution, with a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage. There's also a microSD card slot, which will always get a thumbs up from us, especially if you plan on snapping lots of photos with its 8MP camera.
On the battery front, it's a 2540mAh affair.
Expect to see this on sale between July and August.


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|By Business Wire||
|January 9, 2013 06:15 AM EST||
ACCESS CO., LTD., a global provider of advanced software technologies to the mobile, beyond-PC and digital TV markets, and Metrological Media Innovations, an innovative software company providing cloud based media solutions, today announced that the companies are working together to provide cloud-based TV app-store solutions.
The integration of ACCESS’ NetFront™ Browser NX with Metrological’s TV App-Store platform provides a software and hardware agnostic joint solution that enables TV operators and CE device manufacturers to offer consumers a broad range of innovative interactive applications.
This joint solution provides an easily managed cloud-based environment populated with apps that run on the robust ACCESS browser on a connected TV or other device. It will be marketed by both ACCESS and Metrological and is already live with a major cable operator.
“The acceleration in TV-app take-up is an important development for the TV industry globally,” said Albert Dahan, Chief Technology Officer of Metrological. “We’re working with ACCESS because its browser provides the advanced TV-centric development platform we need. I look forward to the collaboration with ACCESS to further drive the app revolution that has already changed the face of mobile and is about to do the same for TV.”
ACCESS’ NetFront™ solutions have already been shipped in over 1 billion devices globally. ACCESS’ NetFront Browser NX is based on the WebKit open source browser engine, and is an advanced TV-centric HTML5 browser which enables Metrological’s App-Store to swiftly and seamlessly integrate linear TV with online content.
“The pre-integration of our browser with Metrological’s powerful cloud-based App-Store enables operators and CE manufacturers to launch an App-Store at Internet speed, i.e. in weeks rather than months,” said Dr. Neale Foster, VP of Global Sales IA, ACCESS. “Our industry-leading NetFront Browser NX supports latest HTML5 features and provides a highly stable platform as well as providing comprehensive support for DTV extensions such as HbbTV, BBC iPlayer and CE-HTML.”
“Consumers love to download new apps on to their smart phones and tablets and this partnership with Metrological now enables them to do the same on the TV. We are delighted to be working with Metrological to enable operators and device manufacturers to deliver the connected TV and multi-screen experiences that consumers want and increasingly expect,” concluded Foster.
NetFront Browser NX
NetFront Browser NX is a WebKit-based, platform-independent HTML5 software solution that supports advanced features such as HTML5 Canvas and CSS 3D Transoforms. It can be used as a next-generation TV UI engine to deliver greatly enriched user experiences including 3D graphics and animations. It features efficient memory usage, high stability, high portability and comprehensive support for DTV standards including HbbTV, BBC iPlayer and CE-HTML. NetFront Browser NX enables operators, OEMs and middleware companies to launch TV-centric services quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively. The solution provides device manufacturers, content companies, operators and consumers with the ‘connected confidence’ to deploy, manage and enjoy powerful multiscreen media sharing solutions.
The App-Store is aimed at TV operators and manufacturers that are looking for a commercially ready, multiscreen, white-label App-Store that provides consumers with an exciting connected TV experience. It runs on any device with a browser, enabling operators to offer a consistent user experience across devices.
The TV App-Store is cloud based, and fully hardware and software agnostic. It can run on legacy set-top boxes and any connected device with a browser and integrates linear TV and online content through an intuitive interface, offers contextual apps running within the TV experience enabling automated recommendations. The integrated app platform enables CE device manufacturers to generate multiple revenue streams from content through multiple supporting screens. Complete with an easy-to-use SDK, it provides operators with the simplest, market-proven route to a cloud-based TV App-Store that protects the operators brand whatever the device.
The combined ACCESS and Metrological solution is primarily designed to enable operators and manufacturers to monetize their connection with the end-consumer.
Note to editors: If you would like to see the joint ACCESS and Metrological solution in action at CES 2013, please contact Ursula Herrick of Herrick Media ([email protected], 408-202-0865) or Sally Douglas of Platform PR ([email protected], +44 (0)20 7486 4900).
ACCESS CO., LTD. is a global provider of advanced software solutions and
services that enable operators, device manufacturers, content owners and
consumers to make the most of today’s multi-screen, connected world. It
provides software for mobiles, smartphones and tablets, connected TVs
and set-top boxes in the connected home, automotive, digital publishing
and networking markets. ACCESS solutions have shipped in over one
billion devices around the world. Its product portfolio includes the NetFront™
Software Series and the ZebOS® network
platform, providing customers faster time-to-market, flexibility and
customizability; the ACCESSTM Digital
Publishing Ecosystem for cloud-based, cross-platform digital
publishing and the NetAd mobile advertising platform.
Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, the company is listed on the Tokyo Stock
Exchange (Mothers’ Index, 4813) and operates subsidiaries and affiliates
in Asia, Europe and the United States.
Metrological, headquartered in Rotterdam and founded in 2005, has developed a unique and proven media solution for the connected TV experience. Metrological offers a TV App-store to TV operators and –manufacturers that is cloud based, hardware and software agnostic and runs on any device with a browser. Metrological’s technology seamlessly integrates linear TV, VOD and OTT content through an intuitive user interface. The Metrological app store offers contextual apps, running within the TV experience. Its launch customer is Liberty Global, which announced in 2011 that it was to adopt Metrological’s app store platform for the global roll out of its next generation TV platform - Horizon.
© 2013 ACCESS CO., LTD. All rights reserved.
ACCESS, the ACCESS logo, and NetFront are registered trademarks or trademarks of ACCESS CO., LTD. in the United States, Japan and/or other countries. ZebOS is either a registered trademark or trademark of IP Infusion Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks, logos and trade names mentioned in the document are the property of their respective owners.
With major technology companies and startups seriously embracing IoT strategies, now is the perfect time to attend @ThingsExpo 2016 in New York. Learn what is going on, contribute to the discussions, and ensure that your enterprise is as "IoT-Ready" as it can be! Internet of @ThingsExpo, taking place June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, is co-located with 20th Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry p...
Dec. 7, 2016 06:45 AM EST Reads: 1,982
@DevOpsSummit at Cloud taking place June 6-8, 2017, at Javits Center, New York City, is co-located with the 20th International Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. The widespread success of cloud computing is driving the DevOps revolution in enterprise IT. Now as never before, development teams must communicate and collaborate in a dynamic, 24/7/365 environment. There is no time to wait for long developm...
Dec. 7, 2016 06:30 AM EST Reads: 1,798
"We build IoT infrastructure products - when you have to integrate different devices, different systems and cloud you have to build an application to do that but we eliminate the need to build an application. Our products can integrate any device, any system, any cloud regardless of protocol," explained Peter Jung, Chief Product Officer at Pulzze Systems, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @ThingsExpo, held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Dec. 7, 2016 05:15 AM EST Reads: 1,053
"We are an all-flash array storage provider but our focus has been on VM-aware storage specifically for virtualized applications," stated Dhiraj Sehgal of Tintri in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 19th Cloud Expo, held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Dec. 7, 2016 04:00 AM EST Reads: 864
Internet of @ThingsExpo has announced today that Chris Matthieu has been named tech chair of Internet of @ThingsExpo 2017 New York The 7th Internet of @ThingsExpo will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. Chris Matthieu is the co-founder and CTO of Octoblu, a revolutionary real-time IoT platform recently acquired by Citrix. Octoblu connects things, systems, people and clouds to a global mesh network allowing users to automate and control design flo...
Dec. 7, 2016 02:00 AM EST Reads: 625
In addition to all the benefits, IoT is also bringing new kind of customer experience challenges - cars that unlock themselves, thermostats turning houses into saunas and baby video monitors broadcasting over the internet. This list can only increase because while IoT services should be intuitive and simple to use, the delivery ecosystem is a myriad of potential problems as IoT explodes complexity. So finding a performance issue is like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Dec. 7, 2016 01:45 AM EST Reads: 6,163
Between 2005 and 2020, data volumes will grow by a factor of 300 – enough data to stack CDs from the earth to the moon 162 times. This has come to be known as the ‘big data’ phenomenon. Unfortunately, traditional approaches to handling, storing and analyzing data aren’t adequate at this scale: they’re too costly, slow and physically cumbersome to keep up. Fortunately, in response a new breed of technology has emerged that is cheaper, faster and more scalable. Yet, in meeting these new needs they...
Dec. 7, 2016 01:15 AM EST Reads: 1,878
Data is the fuel that drives the machine learning algorithmic engines and ultimately provides the business value. In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, Ed Featherston, director/senior enterprise architect at Collaborative Consulting, will discuss the key considerations around quality, volume, timeliness, and pedigree that must be dealt with in order to properly fuel that engine.
Dec. 7, 2016 01:00 AM EST Reads: 1,617
When it comes to cloud computing, the ability to turn massive amounts of compute cores on and off on demand sounds attractive to IT staff, who need to manage peaks and valleys in user activity. With cloud bursting, the majority of the data can stay on premises while tapping into compute from public cloud providers, reducing risk and minimizing need to move large files. In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Scott Jeschonek, Director of Product Management at Avere Systems, discussed the IT and busin...
Dec. 7, 2016 12:45 AM EST Reads: 3,938
According to Forrester Research, every business will become either a digital predator or digital prey by 2020. To avoid demise, organizations must rapidly create new sources of value in their end-to-end customer experiences. True digital predators also must break down information and process silos and extend digital transformation initiatives to empower employees with the digital resources needed to win, serve, and retain customers.
Dec. 7, 2016 12:45 AM EST Reads: 1,244
The WebRTC Summit New York, to be held June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, announces that its Call for Papers is now open. Topics include all aspects of improving IT delivery by eliminating waste through automated business models leveraging cloud technologies. WebRTC Summit is co-located with 20th International Cloud Expo and @ThingsExpo. WebRTC is the future of browser-to-browser communications, and continues to make inroads into the traditional, difficult, plug-in web co...
Dec. 7, 2016 12:15 AM EST Reads: 1,377
Get deep visibility into the performance of your databases and expert advice for performance optimization and tuning. You can't get application performance without database performance. Give everyone on the team a comprehensive view of how every aspect of the system affects performance across SQL database operations, host server and OS, virtualization resources and storage I/O. Quickly find bottlenecks and troubleshoot complex problems.
Dec. 7, 2016 12:00 AM EST Reads: 2,127
The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to simplify and streamline our lives by automating routine tasks that distract us from our goals. This promise is based on the ubiquitous deployment of smart, connected devices that link everything from industrial control systems to automobiles to refrigerators. Unfortunately, comparatively few of the devices currently deployed have been developed with an eye toward security, and as the DDoS attacks of late October 2016 have demonstrated, this oversight can ...
Dec. 7, 2016 12:00 AM EST Reads: 1,275
What happens when the different parts of a vehicle become smarter than the vehicle itself? As we move toward the era of smart everything, hundreds of entities in a vehicle that communicate with each other, the vehicle and external systems create a need for identity orchestration so that all entities work as a conglomerate. Much like an orchestra without a conductor, without the ability to secure, control, and connect the link between a vehicle’s head unit, devices, and systems and to manage the ...
Dec. 6, 2016 11:45 PM EST Reads: 752
"Once customers get a year into their IoT deployments, they start to realize that they may have been shortsighted in the ways they built out their deployment and the key thing I see a lot of people looking at is - how can I take equipment data, pull it back in an IoT solution and show it in a dashboard," stated Dave McCarthy, Director of Products at Bsquare Corporation, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @ThingsExpo, held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Dec. 6, 2016 10:15 PM EST Reads: 1,160
"We are the public cloud providers. We are currently providing 50% of the resources they need for doing e-commerce business in China and we are hosting about 60% of mobile gaming in China," explained Yi Zheng, CPO and VP of Engineering at CDS Global Cloud, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 19th Cloud Expo, held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Dec. 6, 2016 09:15 PM EST Reads: 1,064
"We analyze the video streaming experience. We are gathering the user behavior in real time from the user devices and we analyze how users experience the video streaming," explained Eric Kim, Founder and CEO at Streamlyzer, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 19th Cloud Expo, held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Dec. 6, 2016 08:45 PM EST Reads: 420
We are always online. We access our data, our finances, work, and various services on the Internet. But we live in a congested world of information in which the roads were built two decades ago. The quest for better, faster Internet routing has been around for a decade, but nobody solved this problem. We’ve seen band-aid approaches like CDNs that attack a niche's slice of static content part of the Internet, but that’s it. It does not address the dynamic services-based Internet of today. It does...
Dec. 6, 2016 08:45 PM EST Reads: 1,085
Cloud Expo, Inc. has announced today that Andi Mann returns to 'DevOps at Cloud Expo 2017' as Conference Chair The @DevOpsSummit at Cloud Expo will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. "DevOps is set to be one of the most profound disruptions to hit IT in decades," said Andi Mann. "It is a natural extension of cloud computing, and I have seen both firsthand and in independent research the fantastic results DevOps delivers. So I am excited to help the great t...
Dec. 6, 2016 08:00 PM EST Reads: 506
In IT, we sometimes coin terms for things before we know exactly what they are and how they’ll be used. The resulting terms may capture a common set of aspirations and goals – as “cloud” did broadly for on-demand, self-service, and flexible computing. But such a term can also lump together diverse and even competing practices, technologies, and priorities to the point where important distinctions are glossed over and lost.
Dec. 6, 2016 07:30 PM EST Reads: 1,603


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US: Anheuser-Busch launches sorghum beer
Anheuser-Busch has rolled out a wheat- and gluten-free beer in the US.
The brewer said yesterday (20 December) that Redbridge, the first nationally-available sorghum beer, will be available in US stores which carry organic products and restaurants. Sorghum is a safe grain for those allergic to wheat or gluten, A-B highlighted.
"We set out to create a fine, hand-crafted speciality beer made without wheat or barley," said Angie Minges, product manager at A-B. "We've made Redbridge nationally available to make sure adults who experience wheat allergies or who choose a gluten-free or wheat-free diet can enjoy the kind of beer that fits their lifestyle."
Redbridge contains 4.8% alcohol per 12-ounce serving, and will be available in 12-ounce, six-pack bottles.
Separately, A-B said yesterday that it has introduced "a new, more aggressive leverage target to enhance shareholder value". The brewer plans to increase leverage and reduce its cash flow to total debt target from the previous range of 30%-40% to 25%-30%
A-B has linked a 100m share repurchase programme to this target, representing around 13% of outstanding common stock. The company said it expects to repurchase about US$2.5bn of shares during 2007.
Sectors: Beer & cider
This week's announcement by UK legislators of the latest plan to tackle alcohol abuse in England is the clearest sign yet that the government is ready to tackle the problem head-on, regardless of the ...
V&S Group's move into the local Chinese spirits market via a joint venture with Sichuan company JianNanChun offers the Swedish company access to the growing premium sector of a massive spirits industr...
Lower alcohol beverages (LABs) are a growing segment of the drinks market as consumer and government concern over alcohol consumption continues to mount. A new paper from the International Center for ...
A slew of drinks producers in Russia have had their licences suspended, according to local reports....
Anheuser-Busch has admitted that it has suffered "supply disruptions" to the InBev portfolio in the US....
Anheuser-Busch has claimed victory over Budejovicky Budvar in 12 European trademark decisions. The Czech-based brewer, however, has moved to play down the ruling, claiming it is "not a threat" to its ...
Anheuser-Busch has added to its spirits portfolio in the US, with a vodka distribution deal in the north-east of the country....
Cesu Alus has posted a strong rise in sales volumes for the first five months of this year....
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In today’s market of real time, legacy payments infrastructure needs a facelift.
Recently-launched capabilities like Same Day ACH have unlocked opportunity to wield modern technology and build new solutions on top of existing payment rails in favor of speed and transaction transparency, but there’s another strategy to payments innovation that continues to gain traction.
Market incumbents and industry newcomers alike are exploring ways to bypass existing rails in favor of entirely new ones. Networks like The Clearing House’s RTP and the Federal Reserve’s upcoming FedNow service have taken this approach to building new payment rails from the ground up, while other FinTechs are exploring opportunities in technologies, like blockchain, to do the same.
One of the newest market players to tackle payments friction by developing an entirely new payment rail is Transparent Systems, which emerged from stealth mode this week with the announcement of a $14 million funding round led by Pantera Capital, with Square, Future\Perfect Ventures, IDEO Colab Ventures, Digital Currency Group, and CMT Digital also participating.
In a recent conversation with PYMNTS, Transparent Systems Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Jeff Kramer remained mum on the particular details of the company’s infrastructure, although the firm described itself as an “on-demand 24/7 settlement” solution that leverages “cryptographically-secured” distributed blockchain networks.
As the company readies for early adopters later this year, Transparent Systems also acknowledged that it will initially target the B2B payments landscape.
Corporates’ Real-Time Demand
With a focus on enabling real-time settlement, Transparent Systems is tackling a market that has not necessarily been the biggest target of faster payment capabilities, particularly as corporates focus on delaying payment to suppliers as long as possible. But as Kramer explained, there are opportunities for real time in the B2B landscape.
“Our initial clients are really looking for solutions that enable them to be able to send each other money 24/7,” he said. “Our clients do regular, repeated business with each other, and they would like to be able to settle with each other faster and not hold counter-party risk.”
The ability for real-time settlement to essentially erase the risk of a bounced check or insufficient funds can be an attractive proposition for businesses. But convincing a company to use any new technology, let alone a new, disruptive, real-time payment rail, won’t be an easy task.
Indeed, Kramer pointed to the persistence of paper checks despite a surge in payments innovation as a testament to just how difficult it can be to drive change.
“Change management is incredibly difficult, especially within long-running organizations,” he said. “If you think about delivering a new real-time rail to someone, once it arrives, how do they integrate it? How does it change people’s jobs and the way they do business?”
What will be crucial for new payment solutions, like those under development by Transparent Systems, to understand is that disrupting B2B payments isn’t just about offering a better payment rail. It’s also about addressing friction within processes before and after a payment is made. Kramer highlighted the example of the paper check.
Offering an alternative payment rail doesn’t just disrupt the act of payment; it disrupts a company’s use of check-printing software pre-payment, or reconciliation practices post-payment, too. Facilitating real-time settlement will also introduce significant disruptions to corporates’ payment schedules, as well as cash flow and treasury management strategies.
“You have to be able to address the ecosystem of a payment,” he said, highlighting the importance of a new payment rail to emphasize onboarding and integration capabilities to be able to work seamlessly within organizations’ existing workflows.
Starting From Scratch
Resistance to change can be difficult with any new technology, but it can be especially intense when encouraging a corporate or its bank to adopt an entirely unfamiliar payment rail. A financial service provider that develops a new technology on an existing payment rail like ACH may find less resistance because corporates are increasingly familiar with ACH payments.
Yet, according to Kramer, there is value in starting from the ground up, and building a rail that is real time from the get-go.
“We’re starting from scratch,” he said. “Especially in the U.S., a lot of payment innovation grew on top of technology that really hasn’t changed much since the ’80s.”
That’s not to say, however, that industry collaboration won’t be important. Increasingly, financial service providers and their corporate and consumer clients demand choice in the way they pay, with no single payment rail or service likely to negate the need for all others.
As such, Kramer said that Transparent Systems will embrace ecosystem collaboration to not only ease adoption for current market participants, but to acknowledge the historical path to disruption that the payments landscape has taken thus far.
“If you look at the history of how payments have changed, nothing ever really goes away,” he said. “In the U.S., we still pay each other by check in the business space, even with all of the other opportunities to pay each other. That speaks a lot to the staying power of solutions, so we see this as a market where everyone ends up working together.”


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If you've ever been in an Uber where the driver seems to think they're on a racetrack, there will soon be a way to prove that they were driving dangerously without it being a case of your word against theirs. The ride-sharing company is going to start analysing data from a driver's smartphone to check if they were driving recklessly.
Uber said it has been running a pilot program where it checks gyroscope and GPS data in a smartphone if a driver receives a bad review from a customer. The GPS can provide the overall speed of the car while the gyroscope can measure changes such as excessive braking. It will even be possible for Uber to see if a driver was handling their smartphone excessively.
Uber said the new scheme is mainly for the benefit of its drivers; if they are the subject of a bad review but the data proves that the customer's feedback was inaccurate, the company will make sure that the driver's rating isn't affected.
Uber wants to use this technology proactively. If drivers are found to be moving their phones around all the time when they're driving, the company will offer them a mount to fix the problem. It also says that it will start comparing drivers on similar roads to find out if anyone is speeding. Any drivers found breaking the speed limits will be asked by the company to "curb their enthusiasm."
The company is also trying to help its drivers deal with passengers who may have had too much to drink and are being distracting. The solution? A Bop-It toy placed in the back of cars for drunk people to play with.
While Uber says it is introducing the feature primarily as a way of verifying reviews, it's hard to imagine that Uber drivers will appreciate this kind of monitoring.


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Last month, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin a “fraud” and said “it’s worse than tulip bulbs. It won’t end well.” On Monday, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the billionaire Saudi investor, joined the chorus of anti-cryptocurrency skeptics on CNBC’s Squawk Box, predicting that “it’s just going to implode one day. I think this is Enron in the making.”
While it comes as no surprise that multinational banking executives and authoritarian political leaders reject the very premise of a currency and payment system they cannot directly supervise, tech thinkers are growing frustrated by this critique for two reasons. The first is that this institutional skepticism often lacks a substantive factual basis—and at their worst, these critiques rely on misinformation. Dimon’s reference to the Dutch Tulipmania that roiled Europe’s first futures markets in 1637 and Prince Alwaleed’s allusion to the biggest case of accounting fraud in recent American history, tend to obscure more than they illuminate. For starters, both the tulip bulb bubble and Enron’s collapse are traceable to the same lack of transparency that cryptocurrencies were created to address.
The second reason why tech leaders bristle at the dismissive attitude toward cryptocurrencies is that criticisms like Dimon and Alwaleed’s tend to respond only to the most overheated hype around the technology rather than the more measured claims about what cryptocurrencies and blockchain will actually be useful for. It’s tempting, and easy, for bankers and princelings to ridicule wild prophecies about how Bitcoin and Ethereum will revolutionize all of our most familiar institutions… it just doesn’t advance the conversation, or the public’s understanding of the issues.
Adam Ludwin, the founder and CEO of Chain, a provider of blockchain technology to financial institutions, wrote an open letter to Jamie Dimon in response to Dimon’s “fraud” comments. Ludwin admits that cryptocurrencies and the decentralized services they enable come with inherent shortcomings and disadvantages—they’re slower, more expensive, less scalable, and sometimes have worse user experiences—but says that those drawbacks are more than offset by what cryptocurrency users are really after: uncensorable, unstoppable transactions.
As Ludwin wrote, “If Bitcoin is capitalism distilled, it’s also a kind of freedom distilled.” By listing the drawbacks of cryptocurrencies, Ludwin is able to clarify the kind of businesses and users who are actually willing to deal with the inconvenience to get the freedom and privacy they want. So, no: Bitcoin will never make sense for most people and most payments, but it has an undeniable advantage for specific applications.
The final problem with the unsophisticated dismissal of Bitcoin by figures like Dimon and Alwaleed is that it can end up conflating cryptocurrencies with the underlying blockchain technology, which has many applications that don’t require tokens like Bitcoin at all. Established industries are already developing blockchain tools to better trace food products as they move from farm to processing facility, to harden personal information against identity theft, and to streamline the creation, sharing, and use of medical records. And BiTA, the Blockchain in Trucking Alliance, is creating a forum for standards and education for blockchain tools in the freight industry—the first meeting of BiTA’s executive council will take place in November in Atlanta, GA.
Stay up-to-date with the latest commentary and insights on FreightTech and the impact to the markets by subscribing.


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Target Removes Clown Masks After Series of Creepy Clown Sightings
(CNN MONEY) Scary clowns have gotten a little too real for Target.
Two weeks before Halloween, the company is pulling some clown masks off its shelves and out of its online store after sightings of menacing clowns across the country.
Gunmen in clown masks have reportedly robbed gas stations in Ohio and Kentucky, and robbers in clown masks reportedly hit Taco Bell and Domino's restaurants in Phoenix. On Sunday, a man in Los Angeles County was reportedly arrested for shooting at a clown who brandished a knife.
"Given the current environment," Target (TGT) spokesman Joshua Thomas said, "we have made the decision to remove a variety of clown masks from our assortment, both in stores and online."
Home Depot took a similar step last month and pulled a Halloween decoration called the Scary Peeper Creeper from its stores in Canada following complaints from shoppers.
Target declined to say which masks it pulled. Some were still available at Target.com on Monday via links to Spirit Halloween.com and HalloweenCostumes.com. For example, Target was selling a "horror clown mask" for $19.99 through Spirit Halloween.
Randy Christensen, president of the World Clown Association, which was founded in 1982 and has an annual convention, took no position on Target's decision. But he drew a distinction between horror as an entertainment genre and something darker.
"We are against any usage of a clown-masked persona to terrorize the general public," he told CNNMoney.


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Domino's Pizza President & CEO, shares his excitement over the company's new iPad app, and predicts a slow decline in the price of raw materials.» Read More
Mindy Grossman, CEO of HSN, offers insight on the company's strongest Thanksgiving weekend in its 35-year history.
Scott Dorsey, CEO of ExactTarget, discusses strategies used by cyber retailers trying to target specific customers this holiday season.
Harvey Kanter, president & CEO of diamond retailer Blue Nile, offers insight on the company's "icy" hot deals this Cyber Monday.
An estimated 1,000 people waited in line at a local Best Buy in California, for the doors to open on Black Friday, reports CNBC's Jane Wells; and Matthew Shay, National Retail Federation president & CEO, forecasts how the fiscal cliff might impact holiday shopping this season.
"I think there's going to be cutbacks next year regardless whether a deal is made or not made on the "fiscal cliff," said Mark Fisher, MBF Clearing Corp. CEO, providing an outlook on the markets and economy in 2013.
Terry Lundgren, Macy's chairman & CEO, discusses the outlook on Black Friday's sales numbers and the remainder of the holiday shopping season.
"People came in with a real celebratory mood," said Gerald Storch, Chairman & CEO of Toys R US, discussing shoppers' sentiment this holiday season, and Dana Telsey, The Telsey Group, provides insight on the early retail winners and losers this year.
Bankruptcy court judge approves Hostess' wind-down plan. Greg Rayburn, the company's CEO, offers insight. "We are going to sell to whoever will put the best deal on the table," he says.
Discussing whether the market gains will go away if Washington doesn't come to a resolution on the fiscal cliff, with Anthony Chan, Chase Wealth Management, and Rich Bernstein, Richard Bernstein Advisors CEO.
Rick Caruso, Caruso Affiliated CEO, is behind some of the biggest retail and entertainment centers in the country including the Grove in Los Angeles.
Daniel Birnbaum, SodaStream CEO, weighs in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its impact on business. Meanwhile the Greek stalemate weighs on the euro, with Boris Schlossberg, author.
George Michel, CEO of Boston Market, projects how much food his company expects to sell tomorrow, and whether it will surpass last year's record-setting sales.
Mario Gabelli, GAMCO Investors CEO & CIO, takes a look at several small cap stocks with the "Squawk Box" crew.
Mario Gabelli, GAMCO Investors CEO & CIO, reveals the best way to find value investments as the "fiscal cliff" approaches.
Gerald Storch, Chairman & CEO of Toys R Us, discusses the outlook on sales this shopping season, and which toys are likely to be the best-sellers.
The average hedge fund is up 6 percent year-to-date, when the average mutual fund has more than doubled that, with the Fast Money traders; and energy drinks have grown into a multi-billion dollar industry. Chris Clarke, Pure Growth Partners CEO and co-founder, discusses the complaints against the drinks.
"This is a turnaround and turnarounds can be unpredictable," said Meg Whitman, Hewlett-Packard CEO, talking with CNBC's David Faber about fictitious accounting methods it uncovered during its Autonomy acquisition, and discussing the company's commitment to innovate new technology and bring the company back.
Michael Powell, NCTA president & CEO, talks about the impact of going over the "cliff" on the telecom industry.
Gary Loveman, Chairman & CEO of Caesars Entertainment, discusses how tax reform will impact charitable giving and estate taxes.
Gary Loveman, Chairman & CEO of Caesars Entertainment, discusses how to fix the nation's growing debt burden.


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Late last month, the first ever Pokémon Go festival was held in Chicago. Developer Niantic was no doubt hoping the game’s one-year anniversary celebrations would help rekindle media interest in the AR title. And it did – but for all the wrong reasons. Not only were the 20,000 attendees met by incredibly long queues to get in and out of the event, but most people couldn't even play the game because of server problems and overloaded cell towers. Niantic attempted to placate the angry crowds, some of whom paid hundreds of dollars for tickets from resellers, by offering $20 face value refunds, the first legendary Pokémon, $100 of in-game Pokécoins, and more. But it seems the company's efforts weren’t enough. Niantic is now facing a class-action lawsuit brought against it by a California man who traveled to Chicago for the festival. It seeks unspecific damages against the developer and alleges that the event didn't live up to what was promised. The suit also … [Read more...] about Niantic faces lawsuit over disastrous Pokémon Go festival, postpones European events
European removal companies
A year ahead of the US presidential election, the world’s biggest social media companies are still failing to tackle manipulation on their platforms, an exercise by NATO StratCom has found.To test the ability of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram to detect potentially malicious activity, researchers at the NATO Strategic Communication Centre of Excellence ran a four-month experiment starting in May.They purchased social media engagement on 105 different posts across the four social media platforms from manipulation service providers (MSPs), a type of company that allow clients to buy clicks and inflate their social media presence.At a cost of just 300 euros (about $333), NATO StratCom bought 3,530 comments, 25,750 likes, 20,000 views and 5,100 followers across the four platforms.Researchers were able to identify the accounts — 18,739 in total — that were being used to deliver the purchased interactions. This in turn allowed them to assess what other pages these … [Read more...] about NATO-Linked Researchers Bought Fake Social Media Engagements To Test How Facebook, Twitter And Google Combat Manipulation. The Companies Failed.
This combination of images shows logos for companies from left, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Social media companies are failing to stop manipulated activity, according to a report Friday, Dec. 6, 2019 by NATO-affiliated researchers who said they were easily able to buy tens of thousands of likes, comments and views on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Most of the phony accounts and the activity they engaged in remained online weeks later, even after researchers at the NATO Strategic Command Centre of Excellence flagged it up as fake. less This combination of images shows logos for companies from left, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Social media companies are failing to stop manipulated activity, according to a report Friday, Dec. 6, 2019 by ... more Photo: AP Photo: AP Image 1 of / 1 Caption … [Read more...] about NATO researchers: Social media failing to stop manipulation
Story highlights The FDA approves a 23andMe test that can detect three BRCA1/BRC2 mutations Experts warn that those with positive results need to get them confirmed (CNN)The US Food and Drug Administration gave its approval Tuesday to a 23andMe test that screens for a few breast and ovarian cancer genes, but that approval came with a number of caveats and cautions. It is described by the FDA as the first direct-to-consumer test to report on three specific BRCA1/BRCA2 mutations that are most common in people of Ashkenazi, or Eastern European, Jewish decent. Mutations on these genes increase a person's risk of breast and ovarian cancer. However, the test detects only three of more than 1,000 known mutations. "While the detection of a BRCA mutation on this test does indicate an increased risk, only a small percentage of Americans carry one of these three mutations and most BRCA mutations that increase an individual's risk are not detected by this test," said Donald St. Pierre, … [Read more...] about FDA approval of self testing for breast cancer genes comes with cautions
At a UPS operating center in midtown Manhattan, two cargo delivery bikes will soon begin rolling out of a driveway in the morning a few hours before the usual delivery trucks begin their routes. The company is part of a new six-month pilot program in New York City that will test how well cargo bikes, with electric “pedal assist” for couriers, can potentially help relieve traffic by replacing some delivery trucks. A similar system is already in use in several other cities around the world: New York can learn from what’s working elsewhere to consider how the pilot could scale up. advertisement advertisement In European cities, UPS typically brings a shipping container from a depot to a spot in the city center early in the morning, and couriers on bikes take loads of deliveries to nearby neighborhoods. Since the cargo bikes can’t carry as much as a truck, the cyclists have to make multiple trips; the system only makes economic sense in congested areas … [Read more...] about What will make cargo bike package delivery succeed in New York?


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Metals of the Future
Investors focused on the mining sector may not fully appreciate how quickly the electric vehicle (EV) is being adopted globally, in light of the world pursuing a low-carbon emissions future, says battery metals investment vehicle Cobalt 27 Capital chairperson and CEO Anthony Milewski, who warns of a potential deficit in the supply of the metals critical to achieving this future.
Global management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company says 2017 marked the first time EV sales passed the one- million mark, noting in May 2018 that, by 2020, EV producers could be moving 4.5- million units, about 5% of the overall global light-vehicle market.
Even with South Africa’s electricity supply woes, automotive company Jaguar Land Rover South Africa forecast in January that South Africa could have 145 000 EVs on its roads, expecting yearly sales of new EVs to reach 43 000 units in the next six years.
The company based its prediction on the uptake of EVs locally matching the global average, which it says will account for up to 11% of all new-car sales in 2025. “Actual EV car sales have far outpaced expectations and are going to have a tremendous impact on the demand for materials such as copper, cobalt, lithium and nickel,” says Milewski. Having recently spoken at the Investing in African Mining Indaba conference, which was held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, in South Africa’s Western Cape, from February 4 to 7, Milewski highlights that most conversations at the event were around these metals.
Also presenting at this year’s Mining Indaba was nickel-focused development vehicle Consolidated Nickel Mines (CNM) CEO Simon Purkiss, who provided an update on the restarting of the company’s Munali nickel mine, in southern Zambia.


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Forget the Alps, Scottish ski resorts have enjoyed an historic season, too.
In early April the number of visitors to the five Scottish resorts - known as skier days - surpassed 202,000. That is more than during both the 2015/16 and the 2014/15 seasons.
Scotland's five resorts are CairnGorm, Glencoe, Glenshee, The Lecht and Nevis Range. Since 2010 the country has welcomed more than two million skiers and snowboarders, generating over £182 million for the national economy.
But over the past few winters the ski resorts have struggled to open slopes due to poor conditions, and visitor numbers have fallen. This winter was a different story, and thanks to impressive snow depth all resorts were open, with skiing in Glencoe taking place until early May.
The final visitor figure has been confirmed as 247,139 for this season.
A "skier day" means one person who skis or snowboards on one day – many of these individuals are serial visitors and are counted each day they visit one of Scotland’s resorts
“Right from the start of this season we have had brilliant snow and superb support from our customers. We have had some of the best bluebird days I’ve ever experienced in Scotland with blue skies, sunshine and fresh powder,” said Andy Meldrum, chairman of Ski Scotland.
"We are expecting the final figure for skier days to be just over 249,000 which makes it a very successful season. This is a very healthy result and will have generated more than £5 million for the five ski resorts and over £20 million for the economy."
That the rise in skier days shows a rise in interest in heading to Scotland has recently been supported by research carried out by online data provider SEMrush.
A study into online searches carried out on Google found that during the month of February, the peak point of the ski season, two Scottish ski resorts were the most searched for ski destinations by UK users.
Glenshee was the most searched-for ski resort, with Glencoe a close second. UK-based Google searches for Glenshee were up 22 per cent year-on-year, from 40,500 in February 2017 to 49,500 in the same month in 2018. Searches for Glencoe rose from 21,100 in 2017 to 40,500 in 2018 – an increase of 49.5 per cent.
Throughout February, online searches for Scottish ski resorts increased by an average of 16.3 per cent.
The rise in search traffic came at a similar time as accusations that Scottish ski resorts were spending almost half their operating budget on artificial snow, a claim the resorts strongly opposed.
In another step to secure its name as a go-to ski destination, at the end of last winter Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), the Scottish government’s economic and community development agency, approved a £4 million loan to Cairngorm Mountain Limited, to build a state-of-the-art artificial ski slope and redevelop the resort's Ptarmigan building.
SEMrush believes its search engine results are a sign of things to come. “The travel sector should take note, search engine data can often identify industry trends before they happen, and with this it appears they may be searching closer to home for their next skiing trip,” said Olga Andrienko, head of global marketing.
However, the study also suggests that UK skiers are widening their search further afield when it comes to choosing the perfect ski resort. Canadian resorts Whistler and Banff have also proved popular with online searches. With 22,200 and 14,800 UK searches respectively, both resorts out ranked European destinations such as Courmayeur in Italy (8,100 searches), Saas Fee in Switzerland (4,400 searches) and Mayrhofen in Austria (9,900 searches).
So could UK skiers be losing interest in the Alps? It’s highly unlikely following the fantastic conditions so many resorts experienced this winter. But with ongoing concerns about the effect Brexit will have on the ski industry and the millions of British skiers and snowboarders who travel to resorts across Europe, in France, Austria and Italy, the news that Scotland’s ski resorts had a great season and could be on the up will be welcomed by many.


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Waitrose Appoints Burdess Director Of Food Service
UK retailer Waitrose has announced the appointment of Simon Burdess as its first director of food service. He will join the business in September 2017.
The company says that Burdess will be accountable for the development of Waitrose’s food service offer. With the newly created role, the retailer is continuing to develop its casual dining and grazing options in-store.
Prior to his appointment, Simon Burdess held the position of commercial director for Fortnum and Mason and has also held various commercial roles at Marks & Spencer, including category manager for in store hospitality. Having 20 years’ of experience in the retail industry, he currently holds the position of Vice President Restaurant and Bars at Intercontinental Hotels Group.
“We want our shops to be places where customers will feel excited and inspired by food - and evolving our food service offer is vital in achieving this,” commented Ben Stimson, Retail Director at Waitrose.
“Simon brings a wealth of experience which will be invaluable in ensuring our hospitality makes our shops dynamic and vibrant places to visit”.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Larissa Zimmer. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.


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The tax break shopping scheme or “Shop Chuay Chart” started this week in Thailand as shoppers flocked to various supermarkets and department stores to buy and get receipts for deduction on their annual personal income tax.
Today, many major retailers rolled out sales promotions to attract customers to shop and boost sales during the Shop Chuay Chart campaign which will last until Dec 3, or 23 days in total.
Under this measure, an individual income taxpayer can deduct the value of domestic purchases of goods and services from personal income tax. The goods and services bought must be for use in the country only.
However, the tax deduction will be capped at 15,000 baht.
The government expects the tax break shopping could boost sale at least 30%.
But some shoppers reportedly lodged complaints with the Internal Trade Department (ITD) that traders have deliberately removed discount price tags of goods on shelves and put new price tags higher than the earlier price tags, indicating that they intended to exploit the state-promoted campaign to stimulate economy.
Complaints from the public immediately prompted the ITD to issue stern warning that any traders found to behave unethically by deliberately raising good prices would face legal actions.
Officials were sent to several shopping places to check out the alleged unethical practices by traders.
Central Pattana or CPN, a major retailer and property development company, has spent more than 400 million baht for the promotion campaign, while Tesco-Lotus is offering 30-50% discount promotions.
Some Tesco branches will also extend their operating hours to give customers more time to shop.
Online shoppers are also advised to request for the full receipts in order to enjoy the tax privilege.
Taxpayers who will be benefitted from the tax break campaign are those earning 150,001 baht or more a year and have purchased the products with value-added tax.
The products which are exempted from the value-added tax are not applicable to the tax break such as book, textbook, gold bullion, alcohol, beer and wine.
Thailand aims to push its games and content industry
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Thailand’s H1 Investment Applications rise 158% in combined value, BOI says
Japanese firms ranked first with 87 projects worth 42.8 billion baht, followed by investments from the U.S. with 18 projects worth 24.1 billion baht, and China with 63 projects worth 18.6 billion baht.
In the first six months of 2021, Thailand’s investment applications increased 14% from the year earlier period in terms of the number of projects, and 158% in combined value, led by increasing foreign direct investment (FDI) applications, sustained growth in target industries including the electronics and medical sectors, as well as in power generation, the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) said.(more…)
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No soft landing for the Land of Leather
Just as the deputy Director General of the CBI, John Cridland, was urging the government to help ease the flow of credit from the banks, The Land of Leather, furniture retailers, flopped back onto the sofa today, having given up the fight against going into administration. The company echoed the CBI by blaming it’s demise on the lack of liquidity in the banking sector, as well as bemoaning the consumer spending downturn during a poor sales season.
Recent interest cuts in the Bank of England rates apparently led to severe cuts in rates for the banks’ savers, but weren’t mirrored in rates cuts to bank borrowers. It’s the same old story that we’ve heard for months. Until the money supply is freed up to consumers and companies, the liklihood of more Land of Leathers going pear shaped will prevail.


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The historied sportswear brand will participate in Milan Fashion Week this September, organising its debut runway show as part of the event's official calendar and hosting an exposition at La Triennale.
Dove is championing the growing no-photoshop beauty movement.The skincare giant is launching a ‘No Digital Distortion Mark' that will signal the absence of any alterations to its images from this July.
Tommy Now, the multi-media See Now Buy Now runway show developed by Tommy Hilfiger, has a new destination: Shanghai. Where the designer will present a clothes designed in part by Formula One star Lewis Hamilton.
Over 120 million Indian consumers are likely to shop online, clocking annual growth of 115 percent in 2018 as the e-commerce platforms slug it out with discounts in a wide range of items including clothes, says a study.
Swedish retail giant Ikea recently conducted a session titled ‘Living with Children’ in Hyderabad to give insights into its product range design for children and offered a preview of its India plans for kids.
London-based skate label Palace has become a little more traditional than usual and is teaming up with sports giant Adidas for tennis whites in celebration of Wimbledon fortnight. The line launches next week.


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Cape Cod’s Outermost Brewpub Opens This Summer
UPDATE, Friday, June 17: Hog Island Beer Company is now open.
With a trio of easy-drinking flagships, Hog Island Beer Company is poised to be Cape Cod’s only brewpub when it opens this summer.
The 15-barrel brewery and beer hall is currently under construction in Orleans, located behind the Jailhouse Tavern. The new venture, with the tagline “the outermost brewery on Cape Cod,” comes from Jailhouse Tavern owners Mike McNamara and Mark Powers, and it’s taking over the restaurant’s banquet facility.
“[We] have been renting out the space for community events and private parties, but it kind of wasn’t us,” McNamara says. The brewery fits in with the new energy they have breathed into the Jailhouse since they purchased the 30-year-old tavern about three years ago, he says.
Hog Island will be a separate establishment, connected to the Jailhouse through the kitchen area. It will have two bars, including one for beer samples, and beer hall-style communal seating. In total, it will seat 149 guests, and it will also have a patio overlooking the lawn, which the owners beautified last year. Wide doors will connect the indoor and outdoor spaces, McNamara says.
Hog Island is named for an uninhabited parcel in Pleasant Bay. “It looks out over South [Orleans] Beach. It’s really a special spot,” McNamara says, noting that local legend pinpoints buried treasure there, courtesy of the infamous Captain William Kidd. “Not only is the name cool, but the local tie-in is a nice fit.”
Jailhouse chef Thomas Glidden will oversee Hog Island’s menu, comprised of beer-friendly food like pizzas and Bavarian pretzels, McNamara says. In addition to the house brews, Hog Island will offer liquor and wine, as well as a handful of other Massachusetts-brewed beers.
The Hog Island team has brought on John Kanaga as head brewer. A lawyer by trade, Kanaga is an Orleans native, and has been developing beer recipes with McNamara and Powers for the past year. The team plans to launch with an IPA, a stout, and a wheat beer, McNamara says, eventually developing seasonal beers and one-offs, too.
“We ultimately want to expand, and those are three nice variations that we can work with,” he says. “We want to have beers that appeal to all beer drinkers. In a resort community, you have a lot of people who are going to be coming up who haven’t necessarily had craft beers.”
Hog Island’s brewing equipment arrived last week, after a journey of just more than 20 miles east on Route 6. The three-vessel brewhouse and three fermenters come from Cape Cod Beer in Hyannis, which is expanding its production to a 30-barrel system, the Cape Cod Times reported. Cape Cod Beer founder Todd Marcus formerly brewed at Hyport Brewing Company, which operated a brewpub before it shuttered in the mid-2000s.
“The thing we wanted to make sure we could do, which is why it made sense to do it here, was to have food and great beer,” McNamara says. “That, coupled with the fact we can also have wine and spirits as well, will be a nice well-rounded recipe [for our business].”
It also sets them apart from Cape Cod’s other two breweries. In addition to Cape Cod Beer, Hog Island joins on Cape is Devil’s Purse, which opened in a South Dennis industrial park last summer. Unlike its predecessors, which are licensed as farm breweries, Hog Island’s pub brewery license prohibits it from self-distributing to retail accounts.
When it launches just after Memorial Day, Hog Island Beer Co. will offer growler fills of their house brews. But distribution isn’t out of the question; before owning restaurants, McNamara spent his career in wine, beer, and liquor sales and distribution. “[Working with a distributor is] our plan going forward, but right now, it’s important we show people who we are, and that we don’t get too big too fast.”
Hog Island Beer Co., 28 West Rd., Orleans; Hog Island Beer Co. on Facebook.


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This Houseplant Can Charge Your Smartphone
“Energy has never been greener.”
That’s the tagline from Bioo, a company that has developed a houseplant that can charge your phone. That’s right. The plant itself generates enough power to actually recharge any smartphone.
So how does it work?
To put it simply, the Bioo Lite’s leaves act as solar panels and harness energy from photosynthesis.
According to a video from NowThis, “Microorganisms living in the pot break down compounds made by the plant into electrons.”
Bioo’s website says enough energy can be generated to provide two to three charges per day.
Each light comes with a camouflaged USB port in the pot that fits any phone. So whether you’re Team Apple or Team Samsung, you can take advantage of this cleaner, greener technology.
The company has already vastly exceeded its Indiegogo crowd funding goal and expects the first Bioo Lites to hit the market this December.
Expanding this concept to other home products could lead to new innovations in energy production, as well as new avenues to reduce our need of fossil fuels.


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Can the Brexit jokes -- U.S. retailers could learn something from their British counterparts.
UK fashion brands achieve higher email engagement and deliverability rates, according to Brits vs. Yanks: How U.S. and U.K. Fashion Brands Compare on Email Marketing, a study by Iterable.
Iterable partnered with Holistic Email Marketing to compare 20 retail fashion brands — 10 each from the U.S. brands and the UK — over a 30-day period. It also used panel data from eDataSource’s Competitor Tracker.
Here’s what it found in four different areas:
UK brands had an average read rate — the percentage of emails that are opened and read— of 22.4%, versus 20% for U.S. marketers. And the top three read rates were achieved by British retailers.
The highest read rate of 34% belonged to Topshop, followed by Burberry (31%) and Alexander McQueen (27%).
In the U.S., Cole Haan and White House Black Market were tied, with read rates of 24% apiece.
UK brands also enjoyed a higher average deliverability rate — 99% versus 98% in the U.S. Of the 20 brands studied, only one failed to score above 90%, and that firm obviously has some work to do.
Of course, there are differences in the U.S. and UK deliverability setups. Under CAN-SPAM, U.S. firm can email without consent, although all the retailers examined here ask for permission. In the UK, you have to ask.
Content and Strategy
Six in 10 UK brands use personalization in promotional emails, versus three out of 10 in the U.S.
However, nine out of 10 U.S. brands personalize lifecycle emails — i.e., welcome, cart and browse abandonment, win- back, birthday, wish-list and second purchase--compared with three out of five in the UK.
Indeed, five out of the 10 UK brads “didn’t have any life cycle programs that we could determine,” the study states.
U.S. firms are more prone to send behavior-based lifecycle emails, particularly welcome, win-back and abandonment cart. UK firms tend to focus more on price-drops an wish-list emails.
UK emails, perhaps because of Great Britain’s proximity to European countries, are more likely to be multi-lingual. For example, Boden has send emails offering 60% off—in German, “60% rabatt.”
In subject lines, UK retailers emphasize these primary emotions:
In the U.S., the main emotions are:
The study reports that UK brand Pretty Little Thing has “the most automated programs in place out of all 20 brands in our study.”
U.S. marketers have more aggressive acquisition and retention tactics — they tend to feature opt-in forms on home pages Three UK brands did not so much as mention their email programs anywhere on their home pages
Of course, these are two different countries. Among the surface differences are “color/colour, cart/basket, Main Street/ High Street, holiday/Christmas,” the study observes.
In addition “ U.S. marketers haven’t caught on to the ‘payday’ or ‘bank holiday’ promotions that are a staple of U.K. marketing, although Boxing Day (Dec. 26) is beginning to make its presence felt,” the study says.


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The media giant plans to bring traffic, brand-building expertise, and capital to the shopping search engine.
Media giant E.W. Scripps Company will broaden its online portfolio with the acquisition of comparison shopping search engine Shopzilla. Besides giving Scripps a bigger online footprint, the deal will allow the company to build relationships with the engine's pay-per-click merchant advertisers.
Scripps will pay $525 million in cash for 100 percent of Shopzilla. Scripps will also pay Shopzilla shareholders about $35 million to cover net working capital at the time of closing. The transaction, pending regulatory and other approvals, is expected to be completed early in the third quarter of this year.
"This is a very important day in the continuing evolution of the E.W. Scripps Company," said Kenneth W. Lowe, president and CEO of Scripps. "This is a market-making Internet business that brings buyers and merchants together at the point of purchase. It's hard to imagine any business that gets closer to the transaction than this."
Shopzilla, like other shopping search engines, lets advertisers list their goods for sale, and then charges them on a cost-per-click basis when shoppers are referred to their sites. Shopzilla compiles and organizes more than 30 million products from more than 55,000 stores. Shopzilla also owns and operates the BizRate consumer feedback network.
Scripps plans to operate Shopzilla as a stand-alone operating unit, keeping the company's senior management team in place. What Scripps will bring to the table is traffic, brand-building expertise, and capital, Lowe said.
"We believe in the long term, online comparison shopping will be a game of expanding market share in a growing marketplace," Lowe said.
Scripps has a significant online presence through its local newspaper and broadcast TV sites, as well as the sites for HGTV and Food Network. Scripps already is one of the top-50 drivers of Web traffic through its combination of national and local online brands. Home and garden products make up Shopzilla largest category, which will likely benefit from the traffic driven by Scripps brands.
Shopzilla is expected to generate $30 million to $33 million in profit on revenue of $130 million to $140 million for the full year 2005. Most of Shopzilla revenue comes from referral fees paid by participating online retailers for leads generated by Shopzilla. Shopzilla also powers shopping search for sites like AOL, Lycos, Time Warner's RoadRunner and others.
Kevin Newcomb joined ClickZ in August 2004, covering search marketing and other online marketing topics. He has been reporting on web-based businesses since 2000.
Before the bubble burst, Kevin was a marketing manager for an online computer reseller, handling copywriting, e-mail marketing, search marketing and running the affiliate program.
With a combination of real-world marketing experience and years of business journalism, Kevin brings to ClickZ a unique ability to deliver news and training materials that help online marketers do their jobs better.
2015 Holiday Email Guide
The holidays are just around the corner. Download this whitepaper to find out how to create successful holiday email campaigns that drive engagement and revenue.
Three Ways to Make Your Big Data More Valuable
Big data holds a lot of promise for marketers, but are marketers ready to make the most of it to drive better business decisions and improve ROI? This study looks at the hidden challenges modern marketers face when trying to put big data to use.
December 2, 2015
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Wednesday, December 9, 2015
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