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Web 2.0 is all about the money
The Web 2.0 crowd totally cracks me up -- all this prattle about reinventing the wheel, as if networking and community building haven't been core aspects of the Internet since day one.
You want to know what Web 2.0 is really about? It's about who makes the most money off the largest captive audience since the invention of television. And nothing underlines the stakes of this contest like Google's planned $3.1 billion takeover of online ad agency DoubleClick.
The deal would marry two of the largest databases of Internet users' behavior, creating a virtual one-stop-shop for any business trying to sell anything to anyone.
MBA BY THE BAY: See how an MBA could change your life with SFGATE's interactive directory of Bay Area programs.
It could also pose new threats to people's privacy as technological advances outpace existing rules and regulations.
"The new landscape of online advertising hasn't gotten enough attention," said Chris Hoofnagle, a fellow at the UC Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. "We do not know if people are being tracked in an identifiable manner, how this information is used or how it will be used in the future."
It's telling that the most prominent opponents of the Google-DoubleClick deal are Microsoft, the world's largest maker of computer operating systems, and AT&T, one of the world's largest telecom companies. Both have powerful interests in profiting from online ad dollars.
"This proposed acquisition raises serious competition and privacy concerns in that it gives the Google-DoubleClick combination unprecedented control in the delivery of online advertising and access to a huge amount of consumer information by tracking what customers do online," Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said in a statement.
"This merger has implications for any company, large or small, that does business on the Internet because it will allow Google to pick winners and losers in the Internet ad space," said Jim Cicconi, AT&T's senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs.
How might a merged Google-DoubleClick impact Net users? Mark Welch, an Internet marketing consultant in Hayward, offers this scenario:
"Let's say your wife is unhappy and has been going online to look for divorce attorneys. Then you go online later and visit the New York Times site, and a banner ad comes up for a divorce attorney."
Clearly this represents a unique opportunity for that lawyer, who has gotten his name into a household that may desire his services. But has the wife's privacy been violated? Has her otherwise private search resulted in an unintended revelation for her husband?
And what if the Association of Divorce Attorneys (which I just invented) decides it wants to purchase a list of prospective clients, just as mortgage brokers purchase lists of real estate leads? Does Google-DoubleClick recognize this and similar requests as a potential revenue bonanza?
"From a business standpoint, it's really nice to work with just one company for your Internet advertising needs," said Pamela Swingley, president of Savvy Internet Marketing in Orinda. "I'm sure Google will be able to segment this all sorts of ways."
But she added: "Underneath this all is something very scary -- the power that Google's going to have."
David Ewing, president of San Francisco Consulting Group, a marketing firm, agreed that a merger of Google and DoubleClick would have enormous benefits for advertisers, not least providing a better sense of who's being reached online.
"For example, you can see them using this to see how effective a YouTube ad is," he said.
But what about privacy issues?
"Consumers are moving toward a trend where they don't care so much about privacy," Ewing replied. "The case for privacy on the Internet is eroding rapidly."
At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco on Tuesday, Google's chief exec, Eric Schmidt, made light of the fact that the DoubleClick deal was being criticized by Microsoft and AT&T -- two companies that aren't exactly strangers to antitrust concerns.
"They're wrong," he said.
That may or may not be the case. But it's the real question Web 2.0 enthusiasts should be asking.
More data lost: Speaking of privacy issues, yet another data-filled corporate laptop has gone astray.
This time it's Bank of America, which sent a letter dated April 10 to an undisclosed number of people informing them that "an associate was the victim of a recent break-in" and a laptop containing info on current and former employees was stolen.
"Regrettably, some of your personal information was on the computer," recipients were told. "This information included name, address, date of birth and Social Security number."
There's no evidence that any of the info has been misused.
"The associate to whom the laptop belonged was performing assigned work on compensation plans and required access to this information for data analysis," said Scott Silvestri, a BofA spokesman.
He declined to say where or when the theft occurred (except that it happened "recently") or why the bank employee had been permitted to store such sensitive data on his or her laptop.
Silvestri also declined to say whether the data had been encrypted or whether, as I'd been told by a bank insider, BofA's own rules require that such info be kept secure at all times.
In its notification letter, the bank says that "steps are already being taken to strengthen practices for the handling and storage of associate data to help avoid future occurrences."


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Nike recently launched a children’s shoes subscription. This may sound odd for a sportswear company, or any textile and shoe company for that matter, to start a subscription service. However, other businesses such as newspapers and milk have had this subscription system going on for ages, and it has worked out well for them. Nike is hoping that along with the buyout system, the subscription system would bring in more profits eventually over time.
This is also the reason why many mobile internet products are looking forward to implementing the subscription system. For a retail service to open a subscription system many problems may present itself before it making it difficult to materialize even, but the only the success of the new subscription system opened by Nike in the US will eventually be the yardstick for implementing this new system.
The new subscription service opened by Nike for its children’s shoes is called “Nike Adventure Club.” The subscription comes in three different standards with different service packages.
The three standard subscriptions are four pairs of children’s shoes, six pairs each year, and one pair each month and these subscriptions are priced at 20 US dollars/month, 30 USD/month, and $50/month respectively.
Subscribers would have the option to choose from more than 100 Nike or Converse brand children’s shoes. Nike also revealed that the subscribers would be subjected to some exclusive designs, and for different subscribers, the option of getting personalized items such as the name on the surface of the shoe box, interesting stickers and interesting readings in the shoebox from Nike would also be available.
The subscription would cover children’s shoes from 2 to 10 years old, and the sizes available generally would be between 4C and 7Y. The Nike Adventure Clue would also use a fixed date recycling system twice a year. Nike will recycle the damaged shoes sent to them.

domain: news


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Labege, France and Sao Paulo, Brazil
SIGFOX, the world’s leading provider of dedicated communications service for the Internet of Things (IoT), and WND, the company launched to extend SIGFOX’s network across Latin America, today announced they have begun deploying SIGFOX’s dedicated IoT network throughout Brazil, starting with Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. This new deployment marks the addition of the 18th country where SIGFOX is present and SIGFOX’s footprint on all continents.
Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, announces the launch of its LinqUs IoT Quality of Service (QoS) offer, a comprehensive solution that enables mobile operators to monitor the cellular QoS of smart objects in real time. This ensures the most reliable connectivity, which is essential for any successful Internet of Things and M2M application. LinqUs IoT Quality of Service provides instant network status and analysis, and immediately highlights any issue by ensuring a rich array of data is readily available and accessible.
Annapolis, Md. and Paris, France
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Mobileye NV wants automakers to join its project to create crowd-sourced maps to share data, producing a constantly updated, global digital map to guide self-driving cars, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Amnon Shashua said.
"We'll encourage them to cross-license maps and cooperate with each other," Shashua said Wednesday on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show.
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HARMAN (NYSE:HAR), the premier connected technologies company for automotive, consumer and enterprise markets, today announced it is acquiring TowerSec, a global automotive cyber security company specializing in network protection for connected vehicles. TowerSec’s technology will be integrated into HARMAN’s 5+1 security architecture aimed at protecting the critical points of vulnerability in the connected and autonomous car, including hardware, network and Over The Air (OTA) updates.
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ford and AT&T are bringing high-speed connectivity and an even better owner experience to customers this year – with plans to connect more than 10 million customers to Ford SYNC® Connect within the next five years.
SYNC Connect, Ford’s new high-speed connectivity technology, adds levels of convenience to SYNC, the industry-leading in-car entertainment and communications system. Ford is introducing SYNC Connect in the United States and Canada this spring in the new Escape.
LAS VEGAS – January 4, 2016 – Aspenta, a U.S. based fully-integrated mobile operator and IoT solutions provider, will showcase a suite of new products, including its innovative vehicle tracking products, at CES in Las Vegas. The company will feature live product demonstrations at booth #80953 at the Sands Convention Centre, from January 6-9, 2016.
The company’s Vectu line of GPS tracking devices allows consumers and businesses to keep track of people, possessions and vehicles in real time through a web or mobile app. At CES, Aspenta will showcase:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force plans to revise its contract with Raytheon Co for a new ground control network for GPS satellites after officials decided last week to delay completion of the program until July 2022, a senior official said Thursday.
Major General Roger Teague, director of space programs for the Air Force's acquisition chief, told Reuters in an interview it was not clear how much the delay would add to the program, which was previously expected to cost $3.6 billion.
AMSTERDAM/BARCELONA (Reuters) - Dutch navigation company TomTom announced on Thursday a multi-year contract to provide Uber with digital maps and traffic data for the software used by its drivers.
It is the latest in a series of deals for the Dutch company, which also signed agreements this year to provide maps for Volkswagen and renew a contract to supply maps for Apple's built-in iPhone navigation app.
TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn said Uber had chosen the Dutch company because the ride-hailing app company wanted to have "total control" over its own products.
With 5G developments well underway, definitions of spectrum, latency and bandwidth usage are continuously evolving. Meanwhile, IoT will only be fully realized when data and information are free flowing between different systems, geographies, vendors and industries. >> Read more
An in-depth assessment of both technical issues (enabling technologies, 5G standardization and research initiatives, spectrum bands, etc.) and business areas (market drivers, challenges, use cases, vertical market applications, regulatory issues, trial commitments, introduction strategies, and impact to CSPs).
Click here to learn more about this exclusive report
Single user licence - $495


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Apple’s stock had one of its worst days in four years on Wednesday, despite no news coming from Apple (s AAPL) about the company’s financial situation or products. Apple lost $35 billion from its market cap — its largest decline since December 2008 — when its stock dropped 6.43 percent to close at $538.79. Granted, most companies would be pretty happy with a stock price that high. And Apple’s stock is still up more than 40 percent over the last year. But there has been a troubling, three-month long dip in Apple share prices, from its peak of over $700 in mid-September.
There are a variety of factors that have caused the stock to dip and rise since September, but Wednesday was particularly odd because there wasn’t any obvious thing that should be spooking Wall Street. Here are some financial analysts’ best guesses as to what’s afoot:
- Oracle Investment Research tells Barron’s it’s possibly related to firms imposing higher margin requirements on clients.
- Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray wonders if perhaps there’s some misinterpretation regarding expectations for the iPad going into 2013.
- There’s also speculation that Nokia(s NOK) landing a distribution deal with China Mobile could be a setback to the iPhone.
- Another theory: Investors may be unhappy that it’s looking less likely that Apple will be issuing a “special dividend” payout before the end of the year.
Apple has set itself up to have a monster sales quarter thanks to the way the company has timed its new product releases this fall. Will investors be assuaged come January earnings time? Maybe, maybe not. It seems like one of the biggest questions investors have isn’t about the current quarter, but what comes after: whether Apple has another “next big thing” in it, and what that will be.


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Sept 9 (Reuters) - Joint administrators of Britain’s Intu Properties said on Wednesday Cale Street Investments (CSI) has taken full ownership of the company’s Derby shopping centre, the first in Intu’s portfolio to change hands after it went into administration.
CSI paid 186.3 million pounds last year for a 50% stake in the shopping centre, located on the East Midlands. (Reporting by Samantha Machado in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
Reuters Breakingviews is the world's leading source of agenda-setting financial insight. As the Reuters brand for financial commentary, we dissect the big business and economic stories as they break around the world every day. A global team of about 30 correspondents in New York, London, Hong Kong and other major cities provides expert analysis in real time.
Sign up for a free trial of our full service at https://www.breakingviews.com/trial and follow us on Twitter @Breakingviews and at www.breakingviews.com. All opinions expressed are those of the authors.


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; Marchandise Mart, Chicago, IL June 10-12, 2019
; More than 50,000 design professionals head to NeoCon
at The Mart in Chicago every year to experience new
designs from top brands, network and take advantage of
timely educational opportunities. The 51st edition of the
show is here June 10-12.
; AHFA Furniture Logistics Conference
; Wilmington, N.C. June 17-19, 2019
; The American Home Furnishings Alliance will hold a logistics
conference for manufacturers, retailers, furniture carriers,
and logistics companies June 17-19 in Wilmington, N.C. The
“Charting a New Course” conference will address key issues
facing logistics professionals in the residential furniture industry.
; AWFS 2019
; Las Vegas Convention Center
; The bi-annual AWFS, the “go to” event for thousands of
woodworking professionals, returns this July at the Las
Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas. The Woodworking
Network team has assembled a group of industry experts
with real world experience in four areas: Finishing, Closets,
CNC Technology and Leadership on Tuesday, July 16 from
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. - the day prior to the Expo opening.
NeoCon, held each year at Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, is the
world’s leading platform for commercial design. More than 500
companies are set to exhibit.


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Facebook ads running Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Washington Post slam Apple over its privacy change, claiming it will hurt small businesses that rely on ad targeting.
The company also published a new website with the headline "Small businesses deserve to be heard," explaining the change to iOS14, Apple’s operating system, which will affect opt-in procedures for its identifier for advertisers (IDFA).
The ads lead readers to a link for the website that highlights interview videos from business owners who talk about the change. Small business owners say it will kill their business. They are already dealing with the backlash from shutdowns and restrictions as a result of COVID-19, and now they will need to find other ways to personalize their ads to consumers.
Conor Ryan, co-founder and CIO at StitcherAds, believes Facebook’s interests are alighted with advertisers. Facebook, however, is far more concerned with small advertisers because that’s where the vast majority of revenue growth will come from.
“Think about it, it’s much easier to get 10 million small advertisers to spend $10 a week to add $5 billion in annual ad revenue than it is to get the top 50 advertisers to spend an extra $100 million a year,” he said. “That’s just not possible.”
StitcherAds, which sits between Facebook and advertisers, believes this move by Apple will increase the price of products for the end consumer as the cost of advertising those products will rise. It’s a double “whammy,” considering this will happen in tandem with reverting to highly interruptive and annoying advertising experiences for those consumers.
“Brands and consumers both lose to Apple,” he said. “If you put this into non-advertising terms it’s like Instagram not knowing who you are every time you open the app and trying to guess what content you might be interested in?”
He liken it to removing the ability for big brands to advertise on TV.
“FB represents the TV screen for SMBs,” he said. “The cost of products will rise as ads will become more expensive and less relevant it’s like reverting back to spray and pray advertising of the 1980s. Not only hurting the small business advertiser but also the small business app makers by requiring them to comply or being booted from the app store”
There are grave consequences, he said, calling it a step back from personalized identity based on based advertising to geo or context based advertising which we know to be much less effective and, hence, far most costly.
Apple -- which has already delayed the rollout once, pushing it out until next year -- plans to make the change on its setting for iPhone users that require consumers to opt in to ads rather than opt out. The change is expected to impact advertisers’ ability to target ads.
The small business community on Facebook is asking others to speak up to let Apple know that this update is not okay.
When Monique Wilsondebriano, founder of Charleston Gourmet Burger Company, started the business with her husband, she didn’t have the budget to advertise. Personalized ads give small companies the ability to level the “playing field,” she said, to reach consumers. “There is no possible way that our company could have reached the level of success that it has today without personalized ads.”
Facebook in the ad asks small businesses to speak up and be heard. Tell Apple they will lose even more business if the company insists on implementing this change.
In the ad, Facebook writes: “Forty-four percent of small to medium businesses started or increased their usage of personalized ads on social media during the pandemic, according to a new Deloitte study. Without personalized ads, Facebook data shows that the average small business advertises standards to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend.


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Barclays reaffirmed their overweight rating on shares of Dunkin Brands Group (NASDAQ:DNKN) in a report published on Tuesday, Marketbeat.com reports. They currently have a $70.00 price target on the restaurant operator’s stock, up from their previous price target of $63.00.
A number of other research firms have also recently commented on DNKN. Maxim Group reissued a buy rating and set a $64.00 price target on shares of Dunkin Brands Group in a report on Tuesday, October 17th. Zacks Investment Research raised Dunkin Brands Group from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Monday, October 16th. Jefferies Group raised Dunkin Brands Group from an underperform rating to a hold rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $48.00 to $56.00 in a report on Saturday, December 30th. Robert W. Baird set a $66.00 price target on Dunkin Brands Group and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Monday, October 30th. Finally, Wedbush reissued a hold rating and set a $56.00 price target on shares of Dunkin Brands Group in a report on Friday, October 27th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Dunkin Brands Group currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $61.05.
Dunkin Brands Group (NASDAQ DNKN) traded down $0.53 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $64.56. The stock had a trading volume of 875,141 shares, compared to its average volume of 561,596. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of -13.82, a current ratio of 1.43 and a quick ratio of 1.43. Dunkin Brands Group has a 12 month low of $50.54 and a 12 month high of $66.44. The firm has a market cap of $5,879.12, a PE ratio of 26.79, a P/E/G ratio of 1.61 and a beta of 0.30.
Dunkin Brands Group announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program on Thursday, October 26th that permits the company to buyback $650.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the restaurant operator to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.
A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of DNKN. Janus Henderson Group PLC bought a new stake in Dunkin Brands Group during the 2nd quarter worth $474,315,000. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. bought a new stake in Dunkin Brands Group during the 3rd quarter worth $43,085,000. HS Management Partners LLC bought a new stake in Dunkin Brands Group during the 3rd quarter worth $17,590,000. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D grew its position in shares of Dunkin Brands Group by 60.0% in the 3rd quarter. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D now owns 640,000 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $33,971,000 after buying an additional 240,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Balyasny Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Dunkin Brands Group by 377.1% in the 2nd quarter. Balyasny Asset Management LLC now owns 294,753 shares of the restaurant operator’s stock valued at $16,247,000 after buying an additional 232,968 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.68% of the company’s stock.
About Dunkin Brands Group
Dunkin’ Brands Group, Inc is a franchisor of quick service restaurants (QSRs) serving hot and cold coffee and baked goods, as well as hard serve ice cream. The Company franchises restaurants under its Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins brands. The Company operates through four segments: Dunkin’ Donuts-U.S., Dunkin’ Donuts International, Baskin-Robbins International and Baskin-Robbins-U.S.
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Your shopping sprees just got a little more caffeinated, as Starbucks now offers delivery at their Marketplace location in Disney Springs. [Read more…]
By Nick Russo
In this installment of Photo Finds, join us as we speculate on the details of the newly announced Africa Marketplace expansion at Animal Kingdom. Plus, we bid farewell to the iconic Sorcerer’s Hat at Hollywood Studios. [Read more…]
There is a lot going on at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. From Avatar to Rivers of Light, the park is undergoing its largest expansion in history. Another new element of is coming to Africa this spring. [Read more…]
The community is invited to attend the grand opening of Artegon Marketplace Orlando, a 1.1 million-square-foot shopping attraction and artisan marketplace on International Drive.
This past weekend the newest shopping experience at Downtown Disney, Marketplace Co-Op, opened its doors as a location for guests to find new Disney retail concepts, shops and products. [Read more…]
After years of speculation and old talk about an “Internet Cafe” coming to Downtown Disney, you can now relax and surf the web with a cup of java. Two new Starbucks locations have opened at the soon to be Disney Springs. But that’s not all that’s new at the ever-changing shopping center. [Read more…]


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Consumers in Asia Pacific are increasingly using mobile commerce services.
According to SAP’s latest study, about half (46 percent) of the mobile users in Asia Pacific have used their devices to purchase products or services. Top purchases via mobile include apparel and footwear (49 percent), and books or e-books (47 percent). Consumers are also paying their bills (66 percent) and making bank transfers (63 percent) through their devices.
With 84 percent of consumers in the region indicating their interest in buying goods and services through their mobile device in future, organisations should look at ways to leverage mobile commerce. For instance, organisations can offer services in which mobile devices can be used to make payments, or as a loyalty card, said Anthony McMahon, senior vice president, Platform Solutions at SAP Asia Pacific Japan.
Mobile security is a major concern for Asia Pacific consumers. To further drive the adoption of mobile transactions in the region, organisations will thus need to have in place measures that will assure consumers about personal data security (57 percent).
Conducted online in March and April this year, the SAP study surveyed 3,288 adults in the Asia Pacific region who own a mobile phone on their thoughts and use of mobile services.
Sign up for MIS Asia eNewsletters.


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What? “(Per the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s classification system, food labeled organic is non-GMO, so the researchers included products with either of those designations.)” Big difference here. Organic is non-GMO,however non-GMO is not necessarily Organic, big price point difference!
Dr. Brian Moench said >No mention of the significantly increased exposure to pesticides used with GMO crops–red flag number three. The article mentions that, “the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science released a statement opposing mandatory labeling,” and no mention of the AAAS being under the extremely bias wing of the extremely self serving biotech industry–red flag number four.”YOU ARE WHAT YOUR GRANDPARENTS INHALED. YOUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL BE WHAT YOU INHALE.<
Are you suggesting they should stop buying meat, dairy, breads, flours and meals, and cooking oils? All of those are equally affected in price by going non-gmo. Also affected are squash, apples, and, soon, bananas.
This is only a surprise to anyone who was getting their information from ill-informed label activists funded by the organic industry. We saw this happening in real time in Vermont when their label law was about to drop. But in their mind that’s a feature, not a bug.
We told you this was going to happen. And the loathsome “let them eat kale” crowd was particularly tone deaf to the real consequences for the poor. And they are still doing it.
If you have philosophical problems with food, it should be treated like Kosher and the 3rd party labels should handle it. We cannot burden the poor and senior citizens with your food fetishes. If you have unfounded aversions to some kind of food or food prep, you can pay for that. Stop forcing it on everyone else.
Let’s see, the study was funded by Big Ag–red flag number one. This article claims,”No strong evidence to date has shown that GM foods are any less safe than non-GM foods.”–red flag number two. No mention of the significantly increased exposure to pesticides used with GMO crops–red flag number three. The article mentions that, “the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science released a statement opposing mandatory labeling,” and no mention of the AAAS being under the extremely bias wing of the extremely self serving biotech industry–red flag number four. It all adds up to complete BS.
“Compared with conventional versions . . . consumers paid a non-GM price premium . . . ”
Since when is GMO food conventional? I would say that there is nothing normal about adding shrimp genes to papayas, cloning cows, or altering genes in a lab.
Correct labeling is the only fair thing to do. If food companies being required to tell the whole truth results with them changing ingredients, a great outcome. It is not difficult to eat a good and proper non GMO organic food. Lose the chips and ice cream diet. The four food groups to some are syrup, candy, soda and fatty foods. The market will continue to serve even them, while the rest of us pay for the resulting obesity and illness caused by inorganic garbage.
As far as the sustain ability of our environment goes, along with our vital pollinators is concerned, we are losing fast. The real problem is Monsanto, Bayer and the rest of their like.
This is little more than illogical PR firm propaganda thinly veiled in a wisp of gossamer smoke which might be described as science.
The “finding is based on a statistical analysis” “tracing the incremental costs for each ingredient in each product in order to pin down the factors causing the price changes in goods” out of the thousands of other factors that better explain such changes.
In other words, it’s a rumor that means nothing concrete or actionable in reality. Just a hail mary hoping to catch people who are not paying attention.
This funded by people who have a return on their investment as their main goal of existence rather than any concern at all for poor people beyond how they can manipulate them toward fulfilling their promises to those who pay them who must themselves fulfil promises they made to their shareholders. I don’t think the concerns of poor people are talked about in shareholder meetings.
If you don’t have enough money for food, stop buying ice cream, breakfast cereal, tortilla chips, and oils. All of that is junk food that’s going to cost you much more money down the line in health care costs.


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In the past few weeks we have seen what the voice of the American people can do. Though the following instances have nothing whatsoever to do with food, they do show how strong FREEDOM OF SPEECH can be.
“The strong public outcry in response to the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood last week — which they later reversed — shows how powerful we can be when we come together,” Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Susan G. Komen Foundation backed down on defunding breast cancer screenings for Planned Parenthood.
“in response to customer feedback about the plan, which was designed to improve the efficiency of those transactions,” Verizon said in the statement. Verizon’s statement in dropping the $2 fee for online payments.
“We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee,” Bank of America Co-Chief Operating Officer David Darnell said in a statement. “It’s a sign of consumer power in action,” said Norma Garcia, manager of the financial services program for Consumers Union. “This is a sign of the marketplace working.” Bank of America’s suspension of a $5 fee to it’s customers for debit card use.
“By December 31, 2007, all of our fluid milk, half and half, whipping cream and eggnog used in U.S. company-operated stores will be produced without the use of rBGH.” (Letter to Food & Water Watch, August 2007) Starbucks began phaseout of milk containing (rBGH) bovine growth hormone in 2007
These are just a few examples of what happens when consumers get angry and demand change. There are many more; I’m sure you can come up with some of your own.
It is what we, as American citizens can do for ourselves and the people of this world. Our tsunami of voices is far larger than any institution. We have at our disposal the technology of instant communication. Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, You Tube and other social media is ours to use. In seconds we can communicate with people the world over.
This is the power of freedom of speech at work.


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The phone-free, PC-free headset launched in China but is arriving worldwide to compete with Google's Daydream View and Facebook's Oculus Go.
The world’s biggest software maker is hoping to succeed where Facebook, HTC and Sony haven’t yet.
I’ve spent years hoping HTC would bounce back. Its deal with Google makes me nervous.
Here's what you can and can't do with the voice assistant on the HTC U11.
So says Gabe Newell, Valve co-founder and head honcho.
You can arrange your own presidential meet and greet -- in the Oval Office no less -- with this HTC Vive app.
Two phones. Four colors. Lots of ooh la la.


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The recreational vehicle industry has been in decline for over a year, but there's little evidence of that headwind in Winnebago's (WGO 0.96%) latest earnings results. In fact, the RV giant recently reported surprisingly strong revenue to kick off its fiscal 2020.
The results weren't uniformly positive, since they included a rare profitability decline and weak backorder trends for both towable and motorized RV products. Yet Winnebago appears set to materially outperform rivals like Thor Industries in the year ahead.
Let's take a closer look.
The company's 19% revenue increase was helped by its recent acquisition of the Newmar brand. Yet sales beat most investors' expectations and were robust even after excluding that extra business. Towable RV sales jumped 17% in the first quarter and the motor home business was up 5%. That last result was especially good news for shareholders, given that Thor Industries said in early December that both its towable and motorized sales declined last quarter.
"These businesses are driving significant market share gains in the RV industry," CEO Michael Happe said in a press release. Management added context to those claims by stating that Winnebago's market share rose by nearly 2 full percentage points to reach 10.8% of the industry. Three years ago, executives had established a goal of reaching 10% by 2020, and it appears they will easily achieve that target.
Profits and backlog
The consumer stock's profit picture was mixed. Winnebago's towable segment held steady and continued to generate healthy gross margin. The motor home division, on the other hand, saw a sharp drop in segment margin that management attributed to the financial impact of the Newmar purchase. That acquisition pushed expenses higher and led to a rare decline in operating margin, down to 4% of sales from 7% a year ago. This slump trickled down to the bottom line, where net income fell to $14 million, or 2.4% of sales, from $22 million, or 4.5% of sales, a year earlier.
The Newmar acquisition also clouded up the short-term outlook since Winnebago's backlog was boosted by having the new business under its umbrella. Yet all indications point to continued weak ordering trends. The towable segment, which isn't impacted by Newmar, saw a 22% backlog decrease.
Winnebago said some of that decline can be pinned on changing ordering patterns at dealerships, which are now making smaller, more frequent purchases since RV demand is declining overall. Investors will want to watch unit volume trends over the next few quarters for confirmation of this bullish market share reading.
The good news for shareholders is that Winnebago is outpacing that broader industry result in its core market and, thanks to the recent additions of Grand Designs, Chris Craft, and now Newmar, the company has a wide portfolio that it can lean on to keep expanding its sales footprint in 2020. That happy result seems likely, even as some parts of the outdoor recreation vehicle industry contract this year.


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luxury london store hostem is moving to a new space
The luxury boutique is relocating for one season only.
Listen up, HOSTEM fans! The iconic store will be relocating from 41-43 Redchurch Street for spring/summer 16. Situated at 28 Old Nichol Street, in Shoreditch, the new store keeps to tradition by using HOSTEM'S own wood-shop and in house carpenters to create a "monolithic site specific sculpture" to celebrate the coming season.
The move comes after five successful years, which have seen HOSTEM expand from a single ground floor space, selling menswear, to a 6,000 square foot building, dedicated to womenwear, furniture, Farmaceutica Santa Maria Novella, as well as being a project and exhibition space. If you love the Redchurch Street store, fear not - HOSTEMwill be returning to its original set up this autumn.
Tying in with next month's move, the brand have unveiled their spanking new spring/summer 16 campaign, featuring Melissa Thompson and her young daughter, Roma. Shot by Rory Van Milingen, the campaign previews some archival Meadham Kirchhoff, which HOSTEM has been collecting over the past three years.


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2017 Could Be The Best Year Ever For Crawfish In Louisiana
Experts are saying this past year was perfect for crawfish and that we could be seeing the best crawfish season ever! For Crawfish to thrive they need lots of rain and mild/warm weather. As you can remember last summer the SBC saw a record amount of rain fall during a time that usually we don't see much at all. Combine that with the warm fall and start to 2017 this years crop should be the best in years.
So good news for consumers is that an increase in Crawfish crop means a decrease in prices and as long as temps stay warm you can almost expect the prices to continue to drop!
Now I'm Hungry!


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Hit Like A Girl, the global online contest for female drummers that drew competitors from 45 countries in 2014, kicks off the 2015 competition today. Now in its fourth year, the 2015 event is shaping up to be the biggest yet.
The 2015 Hit Like A Girl Contest features several returning sponsors as well as some new ones. This year's presenting sponsors are Zildjian, Evans, and DW. Additional sponsors include Sabian, Mapex, Yamaha, Innovative Percussion, Vater, Promark, Puresound, SKB, TRX, Vic Firth, Audix, and Cympad.
Judges Joining 2015 event spokesperson Nellyris "Didi" Negron (Cirque du Soleil) as celebrity judges are Sheila E, Hannah Ford-Welton (Prince), Venzella "Joy" Williams (Beyoncé), Debbie Knox-Hewson (Charli XCX), Kate Schellenbach (Luscious Jackson), Jess Bowen (The Summer Set), Alicia Warrington (Kate Nash), Cherisse Ofusu-Osei (Bryan Ferry) and Nia Lovelis (Cherri Bomb).
The judging panel also includes leading YouTube artists Meytal Cohen, Anika Nilles, Motown legend Bobbye Hall, and Lux Drummerette, as well as 2014 Hit Like A Girl champions Riesha Fayson and Kanade Sato.
Schedule of events 2015 Hit Like A Girl Contest opens for online video entries at 12:01 AM PST on March 1, 2015. Two pair of Weekly Winners will be chosen by celebrity/industry judging teams and announced March 12, 19, 26, April 2, 9 with the entry period closing on April 8.
Fan Voting opens April 10 and closes April 22. The Top Twenty Weekly and fan-selected finalists in both the over and under 18 age divisions will be announced on April 23 followed by celebrity judging from April 24 and May 4. The final winners will be chosen during an online event on May 7.
Prizes Complete acoustic, electronic or hybrid drum kits and accessories will be given away to the first, second, and third finishers in both Under 18 and Over 18 categories. The value of all prizes exceeds $15,000.
Free play-along tracks A selection of more than a dozen free, downloadable play-along tracks for this year's contest are being provided courtesy of Hudson Music, Drum Fun, and Gregg Bissonette. Entrants may use the royalty-free tracks to avoid copyright issues with their entry.


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Two engineering students in the U.S., hailing from China, scammed Apple for nearly a million dollars, but now face criminal charges. Here's how they did it.
Apr 6, 2019
- UK, France, Israel issue travel advisory for tourists visiting India: Should exercise caution
- Citizenship Act protests: West Bengal burns over CAB, Jamia students clash with police, curfew in Assam
- Man orders iPhone 11 Pro for Rs 93,900 from Flipkart, gets fake phone instead
- PM Modi calls review meeting, cabinet reshuffle expected
- Pakistan changes name of PoK from 'Azad Kashmir' to J&K Administrative Services


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Prior to Samsung's official announcement, images of the foldable display that could possibly be fitted into the highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy X has hit the Internet, giving a glimpse of what it looks like.
Not so long ago, another rumor spread like wildfire, suggesting that the Galaxy X would be equipped with a 4K display that can be folded. It appears, however, that we won't likely be seeing a foldable 4K screen soon.
The Korea Herald reports that Samsung is poised to unveil a bevy of new products, which include the OLED display that can be folded or rolled, at the Display Week 2016 organized by the Society for Information Display, an entity that promotes the display industry. This event will be held this week in San Francisco.
"Some of the products to be unveiled at the event ... will serve as an indicator for what kind of technology Samsung will choose for the next Galaxy smartphones and other digital devices down the road," says the report.
The company is reportedly set to showcase a 5.7-inch AMOLED screen that boasts a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution. This AMOLED screen weights 5 grams (0.18 ounces) and features a depth of 0.3 millimeter (0.01 inch), plus a radius curvature of 10. What this means is that this new display technology from the company can be rolled into a circle with a radius of 10 millimeters (0.39 inch).
This screen from Samsung is deemed the “future display technology,” according to the report, as this can also be used for tablet PCs and TVs.
That’s not all the firm will exhibit during the event. The South Korea-based firm is likewise geared to launch its AMOLED display panels that measure 13.3 inches and 14 inches designed for laptops. While these displays will not be flexible, these are said to be extra thin, which help big in reducing the weight and size of laptops in the near future.
Samsung is also cooking up a hologram technology that is believed to project three-dimensional images, a transparent screen plus a reflective display that works akin to a mirror. The company's hologram technology is anticipated to be used in an array of purposes, such as in viewing pop-up books and in playing 3D games.


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IKEA, a company renowned for its affordable and innovative home furnishings, is set to enhance the smart home experience with its latest lineup of smart home sensors. This move marks a significant step in the company’s ongoing commitment to providing affordable and user-friendly smart home solutions. The new products include the Parasoll door and window sensor, the Vallhorn wireless motion sensor, and the Barding water leakage sensor, all designed to offer enhanced security and convenience in the modern home.
Introducing the New Smart Home Sensors
- Parasoll Door and Window Sensor: The first in the lineup, Parasoll, is a discreetly mountable sensor for doors and windows. It notifies users of unexpected openings or closings and can be paired directly with an IKEA smart bulb.
- Vallhorn Wireless Motion Sensor: The Vallhorn sensor activates lights upon detecting movement, offering both indoor and outdoor utility. It features IP44 splash protection, making it suitable for all weather conditions. This sensor can control up to 10 IKEA smart bulbs and offers customizable light settings.
- Barding Water Leakage Sensor: The Barding sensor is designed to alert homeowners of water leaks before significant damage occurs. It can trigger a mobile notification or an in-built alarm, providing an early warning system against potential water damage.
Design and Compatibility
All three sensors boast a sleek, white design, allowing them to blend seamlessly into various home settings. They are compatible with IKEA’s Dirigera Hub, with the Vallhorn also working with the older Tradfri gateway. This compatibility ensures that the sensors can be integrated into existing smart home setups, enhancing their functionality and user-friendliness.
User Experience and Safety at the Forefront
Stjepan Begic, Product Design Developer at IKEA of Sweden, emphasized the company’s focus on creating products that enhance the feeling of safety and comfort at home. The introduction of these sensors aligns with IKEA’s vision of providing affordable and accessible smart home technology to a broad consumer base.
Advanced Features and Easy Integration
The Vallhorn sensor’s ability to control up to 10 smart bulbs directly and its enhanced room coverage make it a significant improvement over IKEA’s existing motion sensors. The Barding water sensor’s built-in siren and mobile notification capability offer an added layer of security against water damage.
Price and Availability
- Pricing: The Parasoll is priced at €9.99, while Vallhorn and Barding are priced at €7.99 and €9.99, respectively, in Europe. US pricing is yet to be announced, but these products are expected to be priced under $10.
- Availability: The Vallhorn sensor will be available in select countries, including the US, starting in January 2024. Parasoll will launch internationally in the same month but will roll out in the US in April. Barding will be available from April in some countries and in the US from July.
Future Developments and Matter Support
IKEA has also announced its plans to integrate Matter support into its smart home ecosystem. By activating the Thread radio inside the Dirigera hub, IKEA aims to bridge its Zigbee-based devices with the new smart home standard. This development is eagerly anticipated as it will further enhance the interoperability of IKEA’s smart home products with other Matter-compatible devices, making the integration and operation of smart home systems more seamless for users.
The Importance of User-Friendly Technology
IKEA’s strategy with smart home tech is all about keeping it simple and easy for everyone. They provide hassle-free setups and interfaces that are a piece of cake to use. The goal is to let more people, even beginners to home automation, get their hands on smart tech.
IKEA’s latest foray into smart home technology underscores its commitment to making advanced home automation accessible and affordable. With these new sensors, IKEA continues to democratize the smart home experience, offering customers innovative solutions to enhance their home’s security and convenience. For more information on IKEA’s smart home products, visit IKEA’s Smart Home section.


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HATLEY, Miss. (WTVA) - A Christmas tree farm in Monroe County has sold out of trees for the season.
Reporter Chelsea Brown spoke Monday with Lowell Worthey, the co-owner of Worthey Tree Farm in Hatley.
Worthey Christmas Tree Farm is located in Hatley. Photo Date: Dec. 7, 2020.
"Around 1,300 prepared to sell this year; we still haven't got the final count," he said.
Most of the trees available are pre-tagged trees meaning people have already purchased the trees and are waiting to take the trees home.
Shoppers come from all around to pick out their Christmas trees.
Worthey said picking a tree is a family experience and he saw many new faces this year.
Workers have already started preparations for next year's trees.
"For every tree we cut, we plant one back in its place," he added.
The Christmas tree farm sells more than just Christmas trees; they also have a gift shop.


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Mavizon Technologies, maker of the AutoBot car system, was founded on a Hail Mary. What were the chances that the president of Samtec would listen to the business advice one of his company’s interns, let alone financially and technically support a new spin-off corporation?
"Looking back, it seems pretty stupid, doesn't it? I remember thinking 'at the very least, he can't criticize me too much,'" Madison Hamman recalled. Hamman was an intern at Samtec at the time but is now a parnter and marketing developer at Mavizon Technologies, the company he helped start with Autobot inventor Marc Ingram.
In 2009, Ingram, a born inventor who started collecting venture capital interest while still in high school, and Hamman, his business-savvy shield from predatory venture capital contracts, only knew two things about the product at this point: the AutoBot successfully allowed people to warm up their cars using their cell phones, and that investors were willing to pay for it.
A year later, AutoBot is a social networking insurgent ready to challenge the General Motors-backed automotive computing service OnStar. Mavizon Technologies, the company founded by Ingram and Hamman with Samtec's money, recently won the Consumer Electronics Association’s iStage competition, nabbing the company $40,000 and a featured spot at the world’s largest gadget trade event, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
"[AutoBot] is OnStar in a box. There are no monthly fees, and it’s leveraging the Twitter integration, the Facebook integration, that our generation already asks for," Ingram told TechNewsDaily. "This is the first time you get to see this kind of technology in a consumer electronics device. You've seen Google do it, and Facebook do it, but this is unique."
Heating dad’s car
Today, AutoBot is a small box that attaches to a car's diagnostic port. Once installed, it allows users to track the car's location, receive discounts from local mechanics and decode the mystery of the "check engine" light, all through the user's phone. Additionally, if an accident occurs, AutoBot automatically texts, tweets at and Facebook messages a pre-set contact list of friends, family and emergency services for help, detailing the type and severity of the event.
In 2002, when a 15-year-old Ingram built the first prototype of what would become AutoBot, the device was nothing more than a jumble of cell phone guts that let Ingram’s father warm his car up from afar. After all, the Ingrams had just moved from Texas to Kentucky, and the family had not yet adjusted to the relative chill of their new home.
Despite its rough form factor, the "Wireless Auto-Attendant" was enough to get Ingram noticed by media outlets such as CNN and Fox Business News, as well as by numerous venture capital firms. Ingram didn’t take any money from VC firms, despite offers of up to $2 million, but did work out of a VC company's office while attending the University of Louisville.
While other students hung out with friends, engaged in sports and laughed about the previous night’s episode of "The Office," Ingram holed up in the VC firm's office, refining his invention.
"I only went to three parties my whole college career. That's embarrassing, but when I was watching all my friends go to parties on Friday nights, I was at the office until 3 a.m.," said Ingram. "I worked through the weekends when I wasn't in school. That's all I did. I lived and breathed this venture."
The inside man
One time, while attending class at the University of Louisville, Ingram brought in the latest version of his invention as a class project. Those late nights at the office had greatly enhanced the device's functionality, but had done little for its looks. Hamman approached Ingram and offered to replace the device's scavenged cell phone parts with professional wires and connectors from Samtec, the company Hamman interned at.
As Ingram graduated from school early and started fielding more and more venture capital offers, Hamman became his business adviser. Despite having no real-world investment experience, Hamman could tell that the venture capital offers didn’t treat Ingram fairly.
“I remember getting calls from Marc at pretty ridiculous hours. I’d be at a frat party, and I’d get calls from Marc about VC deals,” said Hamman. “We were young kids, but all the deals sounded pretty bad to me. Maybe that’s normal in VC, but they sounded terrible to me.”
Many of the deals included clauses that said Ingram could be fired from his own project without reason, while others drastically underestimated the value of the AutoBot.
Last November, Hamman took advantage of Samtec’s open door policy, pitched AutoBot to the president of the company and convinced him to support Mavizon as a daughter company.
“It was basically a gentleman’s agreement. A handshake,” said Hamman. “They told us to spend money where we thought we needed it, and they’d scream uncle when we spent too much.”
One year later
In less than a year, Mavizon has produced a functional product that not only won first prize in the iStage competition, but also nabbed them the fan favorite award as well. Mavizon did this with only eight employees and no venture capital money (although they did have financial and technical support from Samtec).
Winning iStage garnered Mavizon not only cash, but also something even more valuable — notoriety.
“We look at where we were a year ago, when we thought we had something pretty cool. In fact, walking the CES show floor last year we thought ‘imagine when we’ll have a booth here.’ Ten months later, one is given to us,” Hamman said. “We thought we were moving fast before iStage. But we didn’t even know what fast was.”
Now, with a featured spot at CES and award-winning product, Ingram and Hamman only have one thing left to do before their company is a certified success: they need to actually start selling AutoBots.


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Google Maps for iPhone is already here. Google claimed for a while that it had no intention of making a maps app for iOS. But most experts knew that it was not entirely true. The new Google Maps not only performs well but is fast and quite clean. It offers accurate results, voice navigation, public transportation information, and 3D views. It has its own SDK, giving developers the chance to use maps content within their apps.
Google Maps has many advantages in comparison to Apple Maps. But does Google think the iOS version is better than the one available for Android devices? That’s what New York Times reviewer David Pogue has stated. Let’s make no mistake about it. Maps for Android users do get deeper integration with other Google services. But it is nice to see Google develop a high quality product for a competing platform. An iPad version of this app is also in the works.
Speaking of new iPhone applications, Amazon has announced that its Amazon Instant Video service will now be available on iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The app will let Amazon Prime members have unlimited access to over 30k Prime Instant Videos on their phone. Users get their video purchases and rentals. Both streaming and downloading of Instant Video movies and TV episodes are supported.
The reaction to the new Amazon Instant Video app has been mixed though. Many users are now complaining about AirPlay being disabled in this new version. While it works well on WiFi, many users are asking for Amazon to offer cellular streaming. At this point. Amazon Instant Video remains a work in progress.


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Since the beginning of March, unattended folding tables have begun popping up at intersections and the end of people’s driveways, offering everyday goods like rice, a jar of jam or bread. Take what you need and leave what you can, the signs say.
Barter, the trade system prevalent in the Middle Ages, is back in the time of coronavirus pandemic, with a modern twist.
Social networks Facebook and Nextdoor are flooded with posts from neighbors and friends seeking to swap eggs for toilet paper. Small and midsized businesses, whose cash trade has dried up from the economic fallout of shelter-in-place orders, are turning to online barter exchanges.
“When cash is extra tight, it behooves us to buy as much as possible on trade,” said David Yusen, director of business development for Seattle-based Heavy Restaurant Group, which recently bought 56 cases of Malbec wine for $15,000 worth of barter credits. The company’s 10 restaurants have closed, but some locations will start offering pick-up and delivery this week. “It saves us money, it helps cash flow.”
In normal times, the roughly 200 barter exchanges in the U.S. let roofers fix leaks and get paid in restaurant takeouts or accounting services. With tens of millions of Americans under lockdowns, those cash-free trade systems are seeing an influx in participants.
The International Reciprocal Trade Association represents 100 barter exchanges, each catering to thousands of businesses. Some exchanges reported a 20% to 35% increase in member signups in March, said Ron Whitney, president and chief executive officer of the group, known as IRTA.
“These are challenging times for us, but it also represents an opportunity for us,” Whitney said. An estimated $12 billion to $14 billion barter trades take place a year, according to IRTA.
Roger Becker owns home building and remodeling companies in Puyallup, Washington, the state that saw the first outbreak of the epidemic in the U.S. He expects business to drop by at least 30% this year, and signed up to the barter exchange BizX in February.
“A couple of months ago, I never would have thought of it,” Becker said. “It’s going be a game changer, because we are all starting to get pretty fearful about people tightening up their pocketbooks.”
Here’s how it works: Becker recently poured in $260,000 to remodel a 4,000-square-foot home in Leavenworth that was listed for $1.2 million. He is willing to accept a portion of the home’s price in so-called BizX dollars from the barter exchange, and will use these credits to buy services of other exchange members — plumbers, electricians or nurseries — so he can build and remodel other homes.
BizX, based in Bellevue, Washington, said its website traffic is up 30% just in the last few days. At International Monetary Systems in the Milwaukee area, traffic has doubled in the last two weeks compared with a typical full month. In Pittsburgh, exchange Green Apple Barter has seen a 20% rise in its membership in March, said President Justin Krane.
“A supply yard who has inventory sitting on the lot,” Krane said. “They asked, ‘Could you move inventory?’ A hotel property just got involved — their occupancy rate is really getting hurt right now. Joining a network is going to give them another way to fill hotel rooms.”
Bartering between consumers is ramping up as well after people cleared grocery-store shelves and hoarded supplies at home. For now, it’s still being treated as a joke. A Twitter poll asked how many cans of beer a single roll of paper is worth (two or three cans was the most popular answer).
Laughter aside, barter of household items and food could more than double this year in the U.S., from $4 million to over $10 million, according to Richard Crone, CEO of payments expert Crone Consulting LLC.
Bartering has become especially popular with people who are most at risk to have severe forms of the highly contagious coronavirus and want to avoid stores.
Chell Garvin of Springfield, Missouri, 50, saw a post from a friend on Facebook who said she scored an 18-roll pack of toilet paper. Garvin contacted her, and exchanged an 18-count carton of eggs for two double rolls. She “cooks a lot, and she said she can’t find eggs anywhere,” Garvin said.
Allie Walker-Lavette, a 55-year-old living in Jacksonville, Florida, recently got a delivery of eggs — an item her daughter had been looking for in vain. Walker-Lavette swapped a carton for an order of margaritas-to-go from a local restaurant.
If supply-chain shortages continue, “I do have a couple neighbors close by, I know I can come to them and say, ‘What do you have in your fridge?’” she said.
Grocery stores have said that shortages of supplies like toilet paper are only temporary. Still, Crone expects that the shortages could potentially give rise to new swapping consumer apps and marketplaces.
“There’s demand for products that aren’t on store shelves but are in people’s pantry or garage or second freezer,” Crone said. “What Uber did to enable a bunch of idle capacity with cars, this does this for the packaged goods supply chain. It’s a whole new supply chain.”
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Richmond, Virginia — Stone Brewing Co., one of the nation's top 10 craft breweries, is tapping Virginia for its East Coast operations, according to an official briefed on the deal.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe is expected to announce on Thursday afternoon that the Escondido, California-based brewery plans to build a facility in Richmond, according to the official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to talk to the press ahead of that announcement.
The facility southeast of downtown Richmond near the James River will include a bistro, gardens and a company store similar to its California facility and its recently announced brewery in Berlin. Richmond beat out Norfolk and Columbus, Ohio for Stone's East Coast operations.
In its request for proposals, Stone said it expects to invest $60 million in the project over five years and employ nearly 375 people when at full production capacity of nearly 500,000 barrels annually. The company is slated to receive at least $5 million in public funding for the project, but the full breakdown of the state and city incentives were unclear.
The brewery and the governor's office declined to comment on the deal.
With a wide variety of beers including Levitation Ale, Arrogant Bastard Ale and its "Enjoy By" IPA series, Stone produced 213,000 barrels of beer last year and employs nearly 900 people. The brewery founded in 1996 distributes in 40 states and seven countries and exceeded $135 million in revenue in 2013. More than 600,000 people visited its main California location in 2012.
Stone will join a growing list of more than 80 craft breweries in Virginia. Fellow California brewery Green Flash Brewing Co. plans to break ground in Virginia Beach next week on a facility that is expected to be able to produce 100,000 barrels annually.
The move comes as the demand for craft beer continues to grow both domestically and abroad.
Sales of craft beer rose about 17 percent last year, making up about 14 percent of the retail market share in the U.S., according to the Brewers Association.
There are more than 2,700 breweries in the U.S. and an additional 1,700 breweries in planning. And 75 percent of legal-drinking-age Americans living within 10 miles of a local craft brewery, according to the trade group.
Additionally, U.S. craft beer exports grew six-fold during the past five years, jumping from about 46,000 barrels in 2009 to more than 282,500 barrels in 2013, worth an estimated $73 million.
In July, Stone announced plans to spend about $25 million to renovate a historic gas works building in Berlin for a brewery, packaging and distribution center, restaurant and garden. The facility, set to open late next year or early 2016, will make beer for its bistro and distribution throughout Germany and Europe.


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The bi-annual gathering of marketers, online publishers, agencies, interactive technology providers and other industry players drew 2,000 attendees, three times as many as the May 2002 gathering in Los Angeles. The mood was decidedly upbeat, but in the city most closely identified with the dot-com boom and bust, industry players aren't about to gloat. Still, there was a renewed sense of mission and vigor among those in attendance.
Fueling this momentum, industry players said, is the adoption of broadband, offering consumers high-speed access to the Internet. Broadband usage, as research from the Online Publishers Association and several of its member publishers has shown, lures affluent people to spend more time researching, browsing and ultimately purchasing goods and services on the Web.
Nielsen/NetRatings on June 17 reported that in the U.S., 39 million people, or 13% of the population, are accessing the Internet by broadband connections. At-home broadband usage grew 49% year-over-year while dial-up Internet users decreased 12% in May 2003. Consumers over the age of 65 are the fastest-growing age group using broadband, up 64% to 1.7 million users. Students represent the largest group of broadband consumers, 7.8 million, up 51% from last year, though more than 12.3 million students still access the Net using dial-up connections, Nielsen/NetRatings reports.
"[Ad] sellers and buyers have been held hostage by dial-up [Internet] usage," he added. Once broadband penetration hits a critical mass of 30 million households, similar to how the cable TV industry grew in the 1980s, marketers are more likely to embrace the Web, said Peter Petrusky, a principal at Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
Even as some top ad spenders, such as McDonald's Corp., Unilever and Coca-Cola Co., are dipping their toes into the digital stream, many others continue to sit on the sidelines. "Traditional marketers have waited because they still don't understand the medium and how it fits into the overall [media] mix, though that is starting to change," Mr. Petrusky said. He cited cross-media studies by the Interactive Advertising Bureau that point to efficiencies gained by integrating digital media into a traditional media plan.
Interactive advertising revenues in 2002 reached $6 billion, according to Pricewaterhouse and the IAB, down from $7.1 billion in 2001. However, revenues rose 9% in the fourth quarter of 2002 over the third quarter, representing the first quarterly increase in two years. For 2003, Mr. Petrusky projected a 5% to 10% growth rate for Internet advertising, while Marc Ryan, director of analysis, Nielsen/NetRatings, forecast a 5% rate.
"We're on the education curve," said Mr. Ryan, who described the mindset of marketers skittish about online media as "offline media protectionism." To allay concerns about return on investment, publishers and other industry players need to offer marketers clear and uniform ad standards; provide dynamic rich-media advertising; make interactive ad buys easier; speak in the same language as offline media; and provide measurable results using accepted methodologies.
"Rich media will drive brand marketers online," Mr. Ryan said.
Advice to marketers
Marketers should take new forms of media and emerging technologies seriously or risk being left behind, said Bob DeSena, director of relationship marketing for Masterfoods USA, a Mars Co. Mr. DeSena, who helped lead a global online contest to choose the next M&M candy color (purple received the most votes), said the process taught him that marketers need to make consumers part of the marketing process.
"The consumer is the boss," he said, adding that the Internet facilitates communication and, ideally, an ongoing dialogue with consumers.


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A U.S. federal judge on Friday approved a $5.7 billion class action settlement between retailers and Visa and MasterCard over fees merchants are charged each time a customer swipes a credit or debit card. Thousands of retailers are objecting to the decision, which they claim does not prevent the credit card giants from imposing higher fees with impunity.
Swipe, or interchange, fees are set by Visa and MasterCard and paid by retailers when consumers use credit or debit cards. Credit card swipe fees cost merchants and their customers an estimated $30 billion a year and have tripled over the past decade.
A group of 19 merchants and trade groups sued Visa and MasterCard in 2005, alleging they conspired to fix fees charged to stores for handling credit card payments. A settlement was reached last year but some retailers, including Target (NYSE:TGT) and Macy's (NYSE: M), rejected it, in part because of a provision that barred future lawsuits. The value of the settlement reached last year decreased to $5.7 billion from roughly $7.2 billion after thousands of merchants opted out of the deal. U.S. District Judge John Gleeson dismissed objections made by the remaining merchants by approving the settlement on Friday.
The National Retail Federation issued a statement noting its disappointment with the settlement, which it is considering appealing with the support of several retail organizations.
"We are very disappointed that this deeply flawed settlement has been approved," Mallory Duncan, general counsel at the National Retail Federation, said in a statement. "It is not supported by the retail industry and would do nothing to reduce swipe fees or keep them from rising in the future.
"The settlement permanently ties the hands of thousands of businesses who wanted nothing to do with this misguided case, and a decision to approve it violates established law and common sense. We are reviewing the ruling and will take whatever steps are necessary to protect the rights of merchants and safeguard the pocketbooks of their customers."
Ringleader Arrested In $200 Million Online-Retailer Card Breach
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Can The FTC Enforce Credit Card Data Protection? Federal Judge Will Have To Decide
Will Visa's New mPOS Deals Make A Difference?
Visa To Court: Tell Walmart We're Not Anti-Competitive


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RETAIL sales in Tasmania rose by a surprisingly strong 2.5 per cent in the September quarter and similar growth is forecast for the rest of the financial year.
The Deloitte Access Economics quarterly Retail Forecast Report, released today, says the September quarter lift helped restore the drop in shopping activity in the previous quarter.
``[It] also lifted Tasmania's retail performance over the past year to close to the national average,'' the report stated.
Retail trade figures for October, released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, show that Tasmanian turnover was up again, the second biggest gain nationally at 1.3 per cent.
In 2012 - 2013 the state's retail turnover dropped by 3.1 per cent but the Deloitte Access Economics report forecasts a 2.4 per cent rise in the current financial year.
The report says the performance of the retail sector is at odds with Tasmania's broader economic performance.
``Manufacturing and tourism remain hamstrung by the $A (although recent falls will help), housing construction is in the doldrums and business isn't investing.
``Job losses are continuing and population gains are the lowest of all states.''
The report gives a modest outlook for Tasmanian retail growth in the next four years.
A rise of 0.6 per cent is forecast for 2014-2015, 1.4 per cent for 2015-2016, 2.6 per cent for 2016-2017, and 2.9 per cent for 2017-2018.
The Northern Territory and Queensland, where major resources projects are continuing to bolster their economies, are expected to have the strongest retail growth this year.
Tasmania's predicted improvement is better than New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT and WA.
The Deloitte Access Economics report noted that 2013 had been a patchy year for retail sales as the Australian economy felt the effects of the decline in the resources boom.
It says consumer confidence has been buoyed in recent months by low interest rates and a post-election bounce.
Online sales have slowed with clothing, footwear and personal accessory sales predicted to rebound with steady growth in the next five years.
It says sales of household goods will remain solid.


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WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF
The dye in your jeans, and most of your clothes, comes from countries whose dead rivers run red and blue, but now there’s a way to put an end to it, for good.
Throughout the fall of 2012, Marie-Sarah Adenis and Thomas Landrain toiled in the La Paillasse biohacker space and their apartment on the outskirts Paris, France, trying to coax bacteria to bleed blue. They scoured more than 200 research papers and spent days growing colonies in their home incubator. Shortly before Christmas, they settled on a Streptomyces soil bacteria originally discovered in 1908 on a potato plug that has become famous for its antibiotic properties. The bacteria also produces a beautiful, deep blue, and before long, Adenis, a designer, and Landrain, a biologist, had siphoned off their first drop of “bacterial ink,” one that could revolutionise the fashion industry.
The ink, they hope, will one day replace chemical inks and dyes, which are notoriously toxic and release by products like heavy metals and volatile organic compounds into the environment.
Most of us don’t realize the environmental cost of our blue jeans, but students in the Bangladeshi town of Savar do. From their school just downstream from the textile district, they say they can see what colors are in fashion by looking at the canal.
The gallery was not found!
Source: Khaled Hassan for NYT
The textile industry is a major consumer of fossil derived chemicals, especially for dyeing operations. These chemicals often run from clothing factories, filling nearby rice paddies with wastewater and poisoning the local fish population, and those are the best things they do for the environment.
“We realized that almost all of the colors [in dyes], around 99 percent, come from petrochemicals,” Adenis says. “They’re polluting and difficult to recycle.”
Each year, the dye and ink industries produce 52 million tons of carbon dioxide, according to the European Chemical Industry Council. Adenis estimates that her bacteria would emit none of the toxins and 10 times less carbon dioxide.
Six months ago, Adenis, Landrain and friend Jérémie Blache, founded a startup to bring their ink to market. They called the company Pili after the hair-like appendages that bacteria use to move and connect with each other, and since their first discovery, they’ve added four new colours including violet, red, orange, and yellow.
The Pili team is not alone in looking for microbial alternatives to today’s chemical inks and dyes. Scientists at University of California, Berkeley have bioengineered Escherichia coli to make more sustainable indigo for jeans, and Berlin based design firm Blond & Bieber created algae dyes that freakily change colour as they’re worn.
Meanwhile, recently Scott Fulbright and Steve Albers of Living Ink Technologies raised $60,000 on Kickstarter to make pens with time-lapse algal ink. The origin of the company is saccharine sweet. On a summer day in 2013, Fulbright was working in his Ph.D. lab at Colorado State University, studying algae as a source of biofuels, when he remembered he needed to buy his Grandma Elle a birthday card. After searching, he bought a $12 card that didn’t satisfy him.
“With $12, I thought, I could make a better card on my own,” he says.
Fulbright teamed up with Albers, another biologist, to make a marker that writes with living algae. Their invention takes advantage of the fact that algae cells replicate quickly. Any message written with the pen appears invisible at first because it contains only a few algae cells. However, as the algae grows over the following days, the message comes to life. The result creates a neat time-lapse effect. Now, the duo is developing ink with non-living algae cells that appears immediately instead of needing time to develop.
The teams at Living Ink and Pili all share a common goal: “It would be really cool if we could beat the petrochemical industry. At the same time, I think we should explore what nature gives us,” says Adenis.


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Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, drinking from communal cups at traditional tea stalls and the like is considered as a potential risk of infection. However, a one-time use cup made of clay has opened the door to new possibilities.
Tapan Pal, a 45-year-old potter from Shimuleshwar village under Jhalakati Sadar of Jhalakati district, has developed an eco-friendly cup made of clay that costs only Tk 1 a piece.
These clay cups will be delivered to select tea stalls located in Barishal city on an experimental basis and if the response is good, all other tea shops in the area will be introduced to the use of such earthen wares, Pal said.
"Sales decreased significantly over the past six months due to the Covid-19 outbreak. So, I am trying to survive through this innovation," he added.
Pal mainly retails various self-made pottery items such as bird nests and toys.
He usually makes a number of toys for the Mansaghat fair, which commemorates Manasha Puja for the Hindus at Srabon Sankranti, but he only managed to sell off half of his stock this time around as most people stayed at home due to the coronavirus.
There are two other potters in the village aside from Pal. However, they are not habituated to go with the market trend and therefore only make traditional items.
Sumon, who owns a tea stall at the Hospital Road area in Barishal city, said although one-time use paper cups cost just Tk 1 per piece, he would prefer using earthen cups if it costs the same.
Bisweshwar Pal, a veteran potter from the Baufal pottery hub and an adviser to the Mritshilpi Sammelon o Sammanana, a welfare organisation for traditional potters, said that the country's potters were in dire straits during the outbreak's peak between March-June.
Other than continuing their traditional work, they have come forward with new types of products, he added.
According to Bisweshwar, over 2,000 families are involved in numerous ways with the pottery business, such as idol making for Hindu families in Barishal division.
In Barishal, there are a number of pottery intensive villages but Baga and Baufal in Patuakhali district are the main hubs for earthen ware products.
Many clay ware items made in Baufal are exported each year, making the upazila a brand name for pottery products.
Chinmoyi Sikder, associate professor of the department of ceramics and faculty of fine arts at Dhaka University, said raw materials for pottery are readily available and they will be able to earn their livelihood through the trade if they receive proper modern training.
Jalilur Rahman, deputy general manager of the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC), said they are thinking of giving better training to the potters.
"If earthen cups are introduced in every tea stall, the pottery industry would be greatly benefitted," said Nisar Hossain, a researcher of the clay artisan community and dean of the Institute of Fine Arts at Dhaka University.


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Disney World price hike
ORLANDO- Forget Disney on a dime since just in time for spring break, Walt Disney World just got pricier.
A single-day ticket to the Magic Kingdom is four dollars more, meaning tickets for kids 3-to-9 are $93 a day.
Visitors 10 and up will pay $99.
Disney says the price reflects the "high quality and breadth of experiences" offered.
One-day tickets to EPCOT, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios also increased by four dollars.


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On the face of it, payday loans are simple. And toxic.
Desperate borrowers, often those that live from paycheck to paycheck or those that can only go from a paycheck to a few days before the next paycheck borrow money from payday lenders for smallish-sounding convenience fees (backed by serious default penalties of course).
But on an annualized basis, these “convenience fees” are anything but:
The fees for payday loans are extremely high: up to $17.50 for every $100 borrowed , up to a maximum of $300. The interest rates for such transactions are staggering: 911% for a one-week loan; 456% for a two-week loan, 212% for a one-month loan.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the borrowers are caught up in an endless cycle of borrowing (and repaying). The payday loan industry of course believes that it is offering “choices” to otherwise choice-less consumers and fights tooth and nail to preserve these “choices“:
We believe consumers deserve choices with simple, understandable loan terms and to be treated fairly throughout the process. Whether on Capitol Hill or at the state houses, CFSA has led the way in working with legislators and regulators to pass strong consumer protection laws.
A new breed of lenders that target these same consumers is now rising up, backed by algorithms – those all powerful mathemagic-backed thingies that are promising to change a lot of consumer activities these days. One such lender is ZestFinance:
Using data-crunching skills polished at Google, (Douglass) Merrill says ZestFinance (Merill started it) analyzes 70,000 variables to create a finely tuned risk profile of every borrower that goes far beyond the bounds of traditional credit scoring. The more accurately a lender can assess a borrower’s risk of default, the more accurately a lender can price a loan. Just going by a person’s income minus expenses, the calculus most often used to determine credit-worthiness, is hardly enough to predict whether a person will pay back a loan, he says.
So these companies use everything from a borrower’s Facebook profile to their owning a cell phone, among other things, to assess risk and make loans.
Admittedly, while these new breed of loans are cheaper, they are still much more expensive compared to traditional securitized or non-securitized credit card debt. What they do have going for them is transparency about interest rates, a much better user experience (translation: no bullet proof glass in their loan centers), borrowers’ ability to get discounts on future loans, potentially improving their credit scores by repaying payday loans (not an option today), etc. (The article in Wired from which I excerpted above is well worth a read.)
That, is certainly a great step forward and qualifies as social-entrepreneurship in my world.


text:
Quick Note: AMD To Trim Workforce by 10%, Expects $200M Operational Savings
November 3, 2011 9:35 PM
comment(s) - last by
"Good luck with your layoffs, all right? I hope your firings go really well."
In August, AMD announced that it was getting making former Lenovo President and COO Rory Read its
new President and CEO
. At the end of October, AMD announced that its net income of $97 million was
constrained by yield issues with its 32nm manufacturing process
Now the company has announced that it will axe 10 percent of its global workforce as a part of a new restructuring plan that will eventually save $200 million in operational expenses for calendar year 2012. AMD also plans to sever some of its contractual obligations to save money.
"Reducing our cost structure and focusing our global workforce on key growth opportunities will strengthen AMD's competitiveness and allow us to aggressively pursue a balanced set of strategic activities designed to accelerate future growth," said Read.
The restructuring plan will also allow AMD to focus more on cloud computing, emerging markets, and low-power systems. The focus on lower power consumption is a key as companies like HP are
now looking to low-power ARM architecture
for upcoming server products, which could spell trouble for traditional x86 processor manufacturers like AMD and Intel.
This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RE: AMD needs to get their ducks in order
11/4/2011 5:00:51 AM
You would think AMD would be hiring more people after ... bulldozer [sorry, words fail me at what a boondoggle it is -- I was hoping for better, but at the very least, not quite-poor].
I'm not so sure I'd fire the engineers responsible for BD, although it does border on incompetence to let the design get that bad, that far. But it is also an expensive lesson for them. I think, now, Meyer saw the writing on the wall and ultimately took responsibility. Though without strong leadership AMD now simply concedes the Halo to Intel as far as performance CPU's. There's a business case to be made for dogging the heals of your competition -- even though it's common knowledge Intel's process technology is unparalleled.
And like you said, complaining about windows is dum, with a "b". Write a software work-around. Hard, but not infeasible. Unless your firing engineers and keeping lawyers. [Which appears to be Apple and MSFT's stragedy].
Perhaps it is a corporate culture of accepting half-ass solutions? or CYA? Although Llano has merit, so that's not really it.
AMD needs what we used to call a come-to-Jesus meeting and get their situation figured out. Fast. [Of course, this whole country does, but that's another story].
Hire some engineers away from Intel, if nothing else.
"I mean, if you wanna break down someone's door, why don't you start with AT&T, for God sakes? They make your amazing phone unusable as a phone!" -- Jon Stewart on Apple and the iPhone
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October 5, 2014, 4:31 PM
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text:
At BlackBerry Jam Americas, developers who filled out a survey about their experience at the conference have been given Arduino electrical circuit boards for open source prototyping. The Arduino boards are do-it-yourself boards for build any type of electronic device, from robots to light shows. With a USB input and a power connection, you can connect it to the computer and program it to control electronics for pretty much any purpose you can dream of.
The device may enable third-party developers to develop coupled hardware and software solutions potentially with BlackBerry 10 or other platforms.
Giving out free stuff to developers is not new to the BlackBerry marker, who is focused on its new BlackBerry 10 operating system.
BlackBerry Jam Americas is RIM’s effort draw in mobile developers from around North America to create the best applications for the upcoming BlackBerry 10 platform.
Check out technical details of the Arduino Uno microcontroller here.


text:
A major security loophole in AT&T's systems has resulted in the breach of confidential information of over 114,000 iPad 3G owners.
According to Ryan Tate from Gawker, the list of users who have been compromised includes thousands of prominent people in the politics, media and finance space.
Goatse Security, a France-based hacking group discovered this security loophole. The hackers were apparently able to get access to the email addresses of iPad 3G users using a simple script on AT&T's website that returned the email address of users when supplied with the owners' ICC-ID. ICC-ID is a unique identification number that is prominently displayed on SIM cards that associates every mobile phone device to a particular number. A large part of the database is known to have been obtained by guessing the ICC-ID of potential iPad 3G users.
AT&T has acknowledged the security breach and apologized for the incident. The carrier has also confirmed that the loophole has been plugged now.
"This issue was escalated to the highest levels of the company and was corrected by Tuesday; and we have essentially turned off the feature that provided the e-mail addresses…We are continuing to investigate and will inform all customers whose e-mail addresses and ICC IDS may have been obtained. At this point, there is no evidence that any other customer information was shared.
The person or group who discovered this gap did not contact AT&T.
We are continuing to investigate and will inform all customers whose e-mail addresses and ICC IDS may have been obtained.
We take customer privacy very seriously and while we have fixed this problem, we apologize to our customers who were impacted."
It will be interesting to see how Apple reacts to the latest breach. Cupertino is yet to issue an official statement in this regard.
Like this post? Share it!


text:
At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019 earlier this year Qualcomm, US chipmaker, made exciting announcements regarding its 5G compatible chipsets.
Now at IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung), which is Europe’s biggest tech show in Berlin, Germany, Qualcomm announced that it will include 5G connectivity in its chipset series 6, 7 and 8 in the coming future.
Qualcomm announced earlier this year that it will build 5G functionality into its more integrated chipsets without having to have a separate built-in 5G modem an now it is bringing this 5G connectivity to all three of its chipset series. This means that mid-tier devices which are oriented to perform more specific tasks will have 5G connectivity sooner than later.
Good news is that Qualcomm has accelerated its commercial readiness of its Snapdragon 7 series to the fourth quarter of 2019 which means that new devices will have them when they come out in the first half of 2020.
Currently there are twelve manufacturers and brands who are planning to use the Snapdragon 7 series 5G compatible chipsets. These original equipment manufactures (OEMs) include Motorola, Realme, Oppo, Vivo, Redmi for some and also HMD Global, a Finish mobile phone company marketing under the Nokia brand.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 series chipsets built into devices will be commercially available in the second half of 2020. As far as their 8 series chipsets, details won’t be forthcoming until later in the year.
While Qualcomm is accelerating its commercial readiness it is also processing in its expansion of its 5G deliverability which has been rather limited until now. The company plans to us its latest mmWave antenna module (QTM527) to change that.
This new antenna module will allow 5G capabilities to rural, suburban and dense urban areas to receive high-speed internet access. Rural and suburban ares will be able to receive connectivity within a one mile radius of a base station and densely populated ares will receive connectivity within a half mile radius. The base station will be a box that can be installed on a light pole.
This development in technology will increase the reliability of 5G overall and that it is a reliable competitor to fiber optics for business and home Wi-Fi networks. When you combine Qualcomm’s new module technology with its chipsets which are more widely available generally, you can expect to see 5G becoming more accessible to mobile devices globally within a year.


text:
Nov 5, 2019
What Are Teens Doing When They’re On Their Phones? We Asked Them
Teens spend, on average, more than seven hours a day using screens and 60 percent of teens themselves say spending too much time online is a “major” problem. Read the article here.


text:
Zeller Realty Corp., which already owns 401 N. Michigan Ave., is set to buy another Magnificent Mile office building about two blocks away for close to $50 million.
Zeller to buy second Mag Mile office building
Chicago-based Zeller has a contract to buy 500 N. Michigan Ave. from FosterLane Management Corp., the Atlanta-based arm of the Kuwait Investment Office, according to sources familiar with the deal.
Robert Six, senior vice-president with Zeller, declines to comment. Executives with FosterLane and its real estate adviser, CB Richard Ellis Inc., could not be reached for comment.
The price surprised some observers, because FosterLane dictates a sales process similar to a sealed-bid auction that is intended to speed up deals but can limit the prices.
Zeller emerged from a field of potential buyers that included New York real estate investor Jeffrey Feil, who already owns 645 N. Michigan Ave., sources say. Other bidders were Atlanta-based VEF Advisors LLC and Chicago-based Transwestern Investment Co., sources say.
Built in 1968, the 322,400-square-foot building is about 80% leased, according to real estate research firm CoStar Group Inc. But the 24-story structure has two key first-floor retail tenants, Verizon Wireless and Bank of America. And some observers expect that a change in ownership could spark a renewal in long-running plans to create a deck over Illinois Street between the building and 444 N. Michigan Ave., which was purchased this year by Munich, Germany-based GLL Real Estate Partners.
With retail rents along Michigan Avenue easily exceeding $200 a square foot, the deck would increase the attractiveness of the retail space in the back of both buildings. The deck proposal was seriously considered in 2001, but the deal collapsed partly because of concerns that the added rental income wouldn't sufficiently exceed the cost.
The deal comes a few months after Zeller's sale on May 10 of 211 E. Ontario St., a 172,000-square-foot office building, for $25 million, according to CoStar.
Zeller was founded in 1981 by developer Paul Zeller, a former top executive with Chicago-based John Buck Co. Since buying 401 N. Michigan in 2001, the company boosted the building's revenues with a redevelopment of former lobby space, including a broadcast studio for WMAQ-TV/Channel 5.


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The fruit is fragrant in September. On September 9th, the “12th Asian Brand Festival” co-sponsored by Asia Brand Network, Hong Kong Dagong Wenhui Media Group, the China Asian Economic Development Association of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the International Business Daily of the Ministry of Commerce was held in Hong Kong. Mytime Technology Holdings Co., Ltd. was invited as the winner to attend the ceremony.
In the past 12 years, as the annual feast of Asian brands, the Asian brand festival has already had an important impact in Asia and the world, attracting well-known brand companies and brand leaders from all countries and regions in Asia to participate, and is known as the Asian brand year. Oscar”. The Asian brand festival has become a flag to highlight Asian brands!
The “Top 500 Asian Brands” list has been published every year since 2006. After more than ten years of efforts, more and more Asian companies have recognized the predictive and guiding value of the list, as well as its influence, authority and credibility. The “Asian Top 500 Brands” list released every year has become an important reference for Asian brand companies to understand their own business development, brand value and industry-to-region comparisons, which has attracted widespread attention from global business leaders, brand experts and research institutions. The “Top 500 Brands” list has earned the reputation of “Asian Brand Value First List”.
In the same period, the festival held a selection of 7 major awards for brands and characters, and commended outstanding companies and representatives from various industries. With its high-quality brand image, excellent product performance and high-level management team, MYTIME Technology stands out from the field of innovation and technology through the selection and assessment of the organizers and expert judges, and finally becomes a strong finalist in the Top 500 Asian brands. At the same time, the Asian brand magazine published the company introduction of MYTIME. At the same time, MYTIME won the “Top Ten Leading Brands in Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau and Dawan District” and the “Top 100 Brands in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau”, and Chairman Katie Tse Won the individual award of “20 New Brand Leaders in Dawan District of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao”, and even more congratulated with many well-known listed companies such as Tencent, Country Garden and Zhongxing.
Previously, Mytime Technology has won a number of authoritative awards such as “2017 Hong Kong Most Popular Brand Award” and “2016 China Innovation and Technology Award”. With its innovative and safe finger vein recognition technology, fast and stable business response mechanism, strong professional technical team, effective implementation and quality control system, Mytime Technology has won unanimous recognition from the industry and won the trust of customers. And widely praised. The acquisition of the three authoritative awards is a reaffirmation and recognition of the leadership, service quality and professional competence of the company. It is also a high recognition of the leading position of the company in the field of innovation and technology. To the name!
The company’s achievements today are the result of the correct guidance and wise decision-making by the founder of the company, Katie Tse. It is also the result of the hard work and cooperation of all staff of the company. Honor is not only the recognition of Timai Technology, but also the spur of MYTIME. It makes the staff of MYTIME not forget the original intention in the future, and always insists on “trying to create a high security benefiting all the innovative products of vein certification. The brand concept of the era. The future lies in grasping. We firmly believe that the pursuit of quality products and safe living is not only a desire, but also a process of hard work and perfection. All the colleagues of MYTIME will be more full of enthusiasm and more high-spirited fighting spirit. Dedicated to serving the majority of users, to make the greatest contribution to the goal of “one finger to safely travel the world”!