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Shares of Chinese consumer credit products provider Qudian (QD 5.80%) jumped on Friday after the company announced a share repurchase agreement with a major shareholder. The stock was up about 12.5% at 11:15 a.m. EDT.
Qudian has agreed to purchase approximately 18.2 million Class A ordinary shares from Kunlun Group Limited. This represents all of Kunlun's Class A shares in the company. At the end of 2018, the weighted diluted average number of Class A and Class B ordinary shares stood at about 304 million.
Qudian has also been buying back its American depositary shares. The company adopted a $300 million share repurchase program in 2017, and it had used $272.8 million of that amount as of March 18 of this year. It announced an additional $300 million buyback program in December of last year.
Qudian believes that there's a "disconnection between strong fundamentals and low stock price," a view that prompted the ADS buyback programs.
Shares of Qudian have tumbled more than 80% from their all-time high, despite strong revenue and earnings growth. The company is trying to take advantage of a beaten-down stock price with its two ADS buyback programs and its Class A repurchase agreement.
The market approves of the buyback plan, but it's still valuing the company at a single-digit multiple of earnings, even after Friday's surge.


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$1m fine for vendors, gas station operators who short-change customers
Vendors, gas station operators, shop owners and traders are among those who will be liable for fines of up to $1 million if they short-change customers who purchase goods or commodities.
This is to be made possible through amendments to the Weights and Measures Act, which was passed in the House of Representatives this afternoon.
In piloting the Bill, Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Anthony Hylton, said the legislation was being amended to regulate the use of weighing and measuring equipment.
Hylton said the government wants to protect consumers from unscrupulous providers of goods and commodities.
He also said the amendments establish mechanisms for the standardisation of weighing and measuring equipment and impose penalties.
The Industry Minister noted that the penalties under the Act are not sufficiently punitive.
Currently, breaches of the Act carries fines ranging from $100 to $2,000.
Hylton said the increased fines are expected to act as a deterrent to goods providers who want to short-change customers.
The amended Act will now go to the Senate for debate.

domain: news


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Small Business Optimism Remains Low, Inflation Concerns Highest Since 1980
Small business sentiment did not improve in April, with inflation continuing to be a major problem. Indeed, 32% of small business owners reported it’s their single most important problem in operating their business, the highest reading since the fourth quarter of 1980, according to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Optimism Index.
2022 Stimulus Checks: Is Your State Giving Out Money This Year?
See: 8 Items Around Your Home That May Be Worth More Than You Think
“Small business owners are struggling to deal with inflation pressures,” NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg, said in a May 10 press release. “The labor supply is not responding strongly to small businesses’ high wage offers and the impact of inflation has significantly disrupted business operations.”
An additional issue for small business owners remains staffing. They continue to struggle to find workers to fill open positions with 47% of all owners reporting job openings they could not fill in the current period. Of those hiring or trying to hire, 93% of owners reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill, the NFIB added.
The ADP National Employment Report, released May 3, also showed that small businesses were struggling for wages.
“In April, the labor market recovery showed signs of slowing as the economy approaches full employment,” Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP, said in the report. “While hiring demand remains strong, labor supply shortages caused job gains to soften for both goods producers and services providers. As the labor market tightens, small companies, with fewer than 50 employees, struggle with competition for wages amid increased costs.”
Small businesses lost 120,000 jobs in the month, according to ADP data.
Supply chain disruptions are also continuing to have an impact on small businesses, with 36% of owners saying it is a “significant” impact, 34% reporting a moderate impact and 20% reporting a mild impact. Only 8% of owners reported no impact from recent supply chain disruptions, according to the NFIB.
More From GOBankingRates


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Kim, Kourtney and Khloe have been stamping their unique ‘K-ness’ everywhere in the last couple of years, trying their hand at television, books, handbags and fragrances, just to name a few. So it was only a matter of time before they dabbled in make-up as well! Khroma Beauty will debut late this year with a special Christmas holiday collection, and a full line will be released early next year. All the Kardashian staples will be featured, including eyelashes, mascaras, and the aptly named Kardazzle Compacts.
And don’t worry, you can Kardazzle yourself without breaking the bank. Robin Coe-Hutshing, the creative director of Khroma Beauty, said that “Kourtney, Kim and Khloe wanted to share their access to luxury formulas with their fans and our goal was to provide a prestige product range at very accessible prices.”
So if you’re a fan of the Kardashian look of strong eyes, a bold lip and smooth complexion, be on the lookout for Khroma Beauty come summertime!


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Calling All Backers!
by nobby on 26/09/2013
Stainless is Listening!
ALL KICKSTARTER/PAYPAL BACKERS WHO PAID TO RECEIVE THE GAME WILL GET THE FULL GAME PLUS ALL DLC!
Thursday, 26th September 2013. Isle of Wight, UK. Earlier today, Stainless Games Ltd. announced its Early Access plans for the release of Carmageddon: Reincarnation on Steam in Q1, 2014. Stainless also talked about how the final game would be followed by DLC packages to signal the company’s continued commitment to the game beyond the “final release”.
However, the announcement had the unforeseen consequence of causing confusion and some disquiet among the community who have backed the game’s development. Some commentators in the Kickstarter community made the point that it seemed unfair that the Backers weren’t now going to get the “whole” game – including all future DLC.
Jason Garber, Publishing Director at Stainless, said, “As the day went on, we kept discussing the feedback from the community, and it became clear that they had a valid point. And so we’ve decided to act on that point. We’ve concluded that the fair thing to do would be to make this announcement – that EVERY Kickstarter and Paypal Backer who pledged the $15 and above for a copy of the game will be eligible to get The Full Package. They’ll get the full, final version of Carmageddon: Reincarnation and ALL DLC, for the REST OF TIME.”
Neil Barnden, Brand Director for Carmageddon, said, “We have always listened to the community, and felt that in this instance we’d clearly got it wrong the first time round. So it was imperative to make it clear how important the Backers remain to us, and deal with this as swiftly and positively as possible.”


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Aptera says it has enough money to push ahead with production. Mercedes’ eSprinter previews passenger vans and more. Tesla tops the sales charts in California by a long shot. And is 90 minutes enough to school dealerships on EVs? This and more, here at Green Car Reports.
In a first drive of the 2024 Mercedes-Benz eSprinter electric van, we saw how businesses and fleet managers are going to run out of excuses, as diesel’s living on borrowed time. And this quiet, super-efficient van leads the way to passenger vans, RVs, and the electric vanlife arriving in just a few more years.
The efficiency-focused California startup Aptera claims it’s crowdfunded enough money to build its three-wheel solar EV. But is it enough to escape Elio’s long shadow, and a pattern of pushed-back timelines?
As a sales roundup released this past week by dealers in California pointed out, EV sales from franchised dealerships were way up 94% from 2022 to 2023. But the direct-sales champ Tesla still reigned in California, with the Model 3 and Model Y adding up to nearly one in eight vehicles sold in the state, electric or not. To mix it another way, nearly one in eight Teslas sold globally were delivered in California.
And the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) thinks it can turn car dealers into EV experts in 90 minutes. Could such a program be all dealers need to get pull out of the slow lane and belief that the Biden administration is moving too fast on EVs?


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The $2.4bn acquisition of Irish software player Fleetmatics shows that Ireland, its people and its Government need to wake up to the potential of the software industry, writes John Kennedy.
Walk down any high street of any Irish town or city and you’ll notice windows above shops like newsagents or butchers with signs denoting it as an accountant’s office, or a solicitor firm, an auditor or a dentist. Some of these could also be web design firms, some of them software firms.
In 2004, if you glanced above a shop in Templeogue on Dublin’s southside you might have seen a sign for a business called Fleetmatics. If you were to enquire what it did, they might have said telematics and fleet management, GPS, 3G, that kind of thing. Buzz terms like cloud and internet of things (IoT) hadn’t entered the popular lexicon and wouldn’t for a few years.
2004 was a strange time to be in tech. The dot-com downturn of 2000 was a recent memory, as was 9/11, no one believed the tech industry would ever again rise from the ashes and most media ran from covering tech like scalded cats.
You certainly wouldn’t have believed that, 12 years later, Fleetmatics would be the biggest exit so far in Irish tech industry history. Yesterday (1 August) it was revealed that US telecoms giant Verizon is to buy Fleetmatics for $2.4bn in cash.
Tallaght-headquartered Fleetmatics, which has grown to employ 1,200 people and recorded annual revenues of $284.8m last year, was professional from the get-go.
If you dealt with the company in its early years, everything was professional and carefully thought out. These were focused and determined individuals who quietly and carefully navigated the complex, highly-regulated worlds of telecoms, cloud and fleet management to the point where the company now has 37,000 customers and approximately 737,000 subscribers.
If each subscriber is a vehicle, the reality is Fleetmatics’ technology is the glue holding together the world’s currently largest connected vehicle fleet.
In recent months, for example, it emerged that not only was the company creating 75 new R&D jobs in Dublin, but it had been selected by An Post to digitise its fleet of 900 vehicles.
Judging by an interview I did with CEO and chairman Jim Travers in 2013, product development has been at the heart of Fleetmatics’ journey. The company quickly harnessed the evolving capabilities of mobile and GPS and wove an intricate web using software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud as a calling card. If anything, it displayed an intuitive understanding of what customers wanted.
“A physical vehicle is a highly capital-intensive asset,” said Travers at the time. “You can’t run a vehicle without fuel. So it is all about the efficiency of managing a physical item and that depends on the efficiency and performance of the driver. Most of our customers deliver services on a billable basis, so this information is critical.”
On that basis, you could rightly argue Fleetmatics is Ireland’s original IoT company, connecting things like vans and trucks in real-time.
There are lots of others like Fleetmatics in Ireland
The Fleetmatics story shows you what is possible through focus, determination, solid R&D and a globalised mindset.
The good news is that there are lots of other companies like Fleetmatics that occupy the indigenous software space and target various global industry verticals, from medicine to insurance and fintech,; solving problems with solutions.
The dream is that one day Ireland will field global brands that stand as tall as Google or Facebook, IBM or Microsoft.
The issue is that Ireland, despite its abundance of tech multinationals, is a hard place to be a local software company.
Firms operating in this space are crippled from the get-go by a range of geographic, educational, financial and bureaucratic setbacks. The fact that globally recognisable names like Fleetmatics and Openet started here is almost a miracle and it certainly occurs in spite of the conditions.
It is no irony that some of the best tech companies in the world started by Irish people that are already globally recognisable brands were started elsewhere. The Collison brothers’ Stripe, recently valued at $5bn, was started and is headquartered in San Francisco. High-flying Intercom was founded in San Francisco by four Irishmen – Des Traynor, Ciaran Lee, Eoghan McCabe and David Barrett – but most of the company’s technology is made in Dublin where the company currently employs 140 people at its offices on St Stephen’s Green and where it recently announced 100 new jobs.
Skin in the game
The reality is that, after a hard slog, many indigenous companies opt for an exit in the form of a trade sale, which is actually no bad thing because, increasingly, it leads to employment growth back in Ireland. Cork cloud company Qumas was acquired by Accelrys for around $50m, Waterford-based FeedHenry was bought by Red Hat for €63.5m and Cumas was bought by IBM for an undisclosed sum. Workday, which acquired Iona co-founder Annrai O’Toole’s Cape Clear in 2008, last year announced 200 new jobs for Dublin’s Smithfield area on top of the 600 staff it already employs in Dublin. And let’s not forget the €115m sale of Realex Payments to Global Payments and the $40m acquisition of Payzone by Carlyle Cardinal.
The problem is that, traditionally, there has been no local market for these players. Sure, some could scrub an income in the early days catering to the needs of local SMEs by tapping into some service they can provide, but inevitably the tiny local market would mean looking abroad quite early in their development.
Another problem was the Government in Ireland rarely bought from indigenous companies, which presented reputational problems overseas. An example would be when a start-up selling medical software to a hospital in America, for example, would be asked: “If your own government isn’t buying from you, why should we?” True story.
Perseverance, professionalism, and quality products inevitably won the day.
Another problem is tax. Failure to address Ireland’s capital gains tax structure to make it possible to reward share options may have already cost the indigenous software sector in Ireland thousands of jobs in the last 10 years alone.
A deep-rooted conservatism around entrepreneurs in general and the tech industry in particular among civil service watchdogs may be at fault.
But the good news is that the next Budget may see capital gains tax finally reduced to 10pc, albeit with a five-year window before any gains from an exit can be accrued and a €10m cap on gains. This is a step in the right direction, but not far enough as entrepreneurs in the UK are taxed 10pc with no time limits or limits on gains.
The reality is that exits inevitably result in individuals having the funds available to start or invest in more companies. It’s that simple.
More companies mean more jobs and more taxpayers.
Taxing people severely after they have sacrificed more than a decade to make something happen will blight this potential. It needs to stop and it needs to change.
A change of attitude across society
If anything, the $2.4bn acquisition of Fleetmatics by Verizon should concentrate minds across all of Irish society about the potential of the software sector as a very real industry.
It should awaken brilliant young minds to the prospect of careers that could take them to the four corners of the Earth, where their creativity can be harnessed to solve very real problems.
The evidence is already there – Ireland is home to nine out of 10 of the world’s “born-on-the-internet” companies and the ICT sector employs more than 105,000 people.
The indigenous portion of this employs 12,000 people and accounts for exports of €2bn per annum.
To grow this we need talent and we need schools, particularly at second level, to introduce coding to the curriculum.
We need to ensure that gains in maths performance in the Leaving Cert are bolstered and opportunities in computer science are explained ahead of vital CAO choices.
And, vitally, long-rooted gender issues and stereotypes that prevent young women from taking up science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects at second and third level need to be urgently addressed.
They say software is eating the world. Well, Irish companies like Fleetmatics’ technology is keeping the world on the road, and there are many more like Fleetmatics doing incredible things in areas from telecoms and payments to health and education.
If the industry is to scale, we need to scale our attitudes and ambitions too.
Juggernaut image via Shutterstock


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They are still yet to confirm swirling rumours about whether they are an item.
But Cara Delevingne, 25, and Paris Jackson, 20, set tongues wagging once again as they partied the night away at a New York City club on Thursday.
The pair headed for a quick outfit change after attending the Longchamp Fifth Avenue store opening separately earlier in the evening.
Their outing in New York comes after Paris shared an affectionate selfie with Cara in order to unveil her new tattoo, inked in tribute to her British pals.
The ladies both attended the Longchamp Fifth Avenue store opening earlier in the evening before their night out on the town


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International luxury brands Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Moncler, Burberry, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors to open stores at Westfield Newmarket… and we can’t wait to browse the shelves with absolutely no intent to purchase.
Scentre Group, an ASX-listed company which owns 51 percent of the shopping centre, said that these international retailers will soon be opening stores in the property it calls a ‘lifestyle centre.’ New Zealand-owned family business Partridge Jewellers will also join the lineup of luxury businesses.
Of the nine new retailers, six have never had outlets in this country before – great, more places to spend money we don’t have!
Paul Gardner, Scentre’s regional manager for New Zealand, said that the new retailers would trade from the grand ground-level floor area “They’ll all be open by Christmas but they’ll open gradually between August and the festive season. They don’t all open at once,” he added.
"For six of these nine new retailers announced and coming here, this will be the first time they have traded in New Zealand," he said, naming Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Moncler, Burberry and Jimmy Choo.
Not that we can afford it, but we sure are excited to do some window shopping!


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I have tried many different types of tomatoes: green, heirloom, cherry, plum. I have eaten them plain, salted, and drizzled with balsamic. But I had never heard of a nosey tomato—until I encountered Imperfect Produce, that is.
Reilly Brock, who is the content manager at this California-based startup, assures me that what I am calling “nosey tomatoes”—tomatoes with a long, nose-like appendage growing off their side (with what, on some, looks possibly like two nostrils flared angrily)—taste exactly the same as their better-looking counterparts.
But what is different about these tomatoes, as well as the other fruits and vegetables with strange protuberances, small statures, and misshapen bodies that comprise Imperfect Produce’s weekly deliveries to subscribers, is that most grocery stores and other retail channels won’t take them.
“One in five fruits and veggies aren’t making it off of farms, because of superficial quirks—a carrot that’s a little crooked, an eggplant that’s asymmetrical, an apple that’s a bit too small or too large,” says Brock. “Imperfect Produce was founded with the goal of finding these items a home.”
Photography courtesy of Imperfect Produce.
Imperfect Produce was founded in 2015 to fight food waste through a subscription produce box delivery, sourced directly from local farmers. Co-founders Ben Chesler, Ron Clark, and Ben Simon joined forces to deliver “ugly” produce—which would otherwise go to waste—to consumers in California.
“Historically, farmers have had to make peace with bad outcomes because of increasingly narrow standards for grocery stores,” says Brock.
In California alone, 3 billion pounds of produce go to waste each year, says Brock. Imperfect delivers more than 100,000 pounds of cosmetically challenged crops each week to its customers in Los Angeles, Orange County, and the greater Bay Area. To date, the company has rescued more than 4.5 million pounds from farms.
A typical box delivery can have anything from flowering basil, to below-regulation-size avocados, to strawberries with “white shoulders”—patches of the fruit lacking the signature red coloring. Boxes will also contain items like broccoli leaves that are traditionally left to go to waste in the field.
“A broccoli plant at maturity is two feet tall and two feet across,” says Brock. “In the field, farmers lop that one broccoli head off, and leave everything else behind—including the leaves, which are edible and delicious, kind of like kale. Growing a huge heavy plant and only using the one part is like raising a cow and only selling the filet mignon.”
Imperfect’s boxes come in four sizes: small (seven to nine pounds), medium (11-13 pounds), large (17-19 pounds), and extra-large (23-25 pounds).
“The boxes are all customizable,” says Brock. “We want it to work for your lifestyle—we want your box to be approachable, affordable, and accessible, not just one size fits all.” Users can suspend their service (for an upcoming period of travel, for example) as well as opt to remove or add specific items.
Each box comes with a recipe card containing ideas for how to use more unique items.
“There are very few recipes where how the produce looked when it arrived matters for the final product. You are always going to end up peeling, or chopping. If you’re going to thinly shred, for example, it doesn’t matter that your carrot was crooked to start,” says Brock.
N.B.: Looking for recipes for your imperfect (or perfect) produce? Some of our favorites are:
- Easy Pickles from a Cook’s Garden.
- Stone Fruit Season: 11 Best Recipes for Summer Cherries.
- DIY: Spa Popsicles.


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COVID-19 Impact: India Smartphone Market To Lose Over Rs 15,000 Crores Due To Coronavirus
COVID-19 lockdown has been affecting a lot of businesses -- especially the ones out of the ‘essential services’ category. This has resulted in many people to even lose their jobs and put their financial security at risk. One field that also has gotten drastically affected is the Indian mobile phone sector.
Experts have revealed that the sector is looking at losses of around Rs 1,500 crores. According to India Cellular and Electronics Association chairman Pankaj Mohindroo, “The industry is likely to face a loss of around Rs 15,000 crore due to lockdown. This is based on the present situation. We are speaking to our members and approaching the government to mitigate the impact.”
In case you didn’t know, the Indian smartphone market is huge. In 2018-2019 it was valued at Rs 1.7 lakh crores. Moreover, whatever phones are being made in India are being consumed by the domestic demand of smartphones.
He mentioned that even though the government has been nothing but supportive to the industry, it had no other option but to enforce a lockdown to stop COVID-19 from spreading and all companies have been complying.
Xiaomi -- the biggest smartphone player in India has announced all of its workforce of 30,000 people to work from home, even before the lockdown’s announcement.
Another executive of from a mobile phone company in India has revealed that its not just the big players losing money but also small companies that help in bridging the gap between certain parts and services, losing as much as 5-6 crores every day.
“The Indian mobile sector has been hit by the impact of coronavirus since December. Earlier, the business suffered due to supply of components from China... and now we are facing issues in shipments of ready products.”
He further added, “There has been no revenue collection since March 23 for companies that sell through retail stores. There are fixed costs that all the companies have to bear without any revenue inflow. Small firms are facing a loss of Rs 5-6 crore per day.”


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The iPhone 11 is “the strongest iPhone lineup we’ve ever had.” Apple still struggled with AirPods high demand.
The event takes place on February 11, and is expected to be packed - with new smartphones.
This lets you indirectly use any card in Europe with Apple Pay.
Shot up to four 1080p streams simultaneously from all four cameras.
iOS 13.3.1 largely features bug fixes and performance improvements and location toggle for the U1 chip.
The latest Redmi Note member leaves a lot to be desired according to DxOMark.
The virus is spreading closer to major Apple manufacturing plants.
But it won't be involved in the core equipment.
These renders show a punch hole for the selfie camera, this will be a first for the G8-series.
The price cut may have something to do with the lack of Google Mobile Services.
The update is currently live in Germany, the Netherlands and the US. One UI 2.0 beta users will have to wait some more though.
If you are a fan of the Poco launcher, you will like the new MIUI update.
That's at least the third extension of the delivery date.
The event is kicking off a day before MWC.
It's believed to be a re-branded Redmi K30.
Both devices will sport a Snapdragon 665 chipset and will stay modest in the screen department.


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Ace director and writer, Vikram Bhatt announced his venture into the digital space with the launch of his OTT platform called VBontheweb last evening, which brings forth a theatre on the web, a concept where one pays only for the premium show one wishes to binge watch day and night. Joining him was family friend Mahesh Bhatt, who came in his support to encourage Vikram’s new foray.
This is India’s first OTT platform to promote the concept of bringing cinema to the mobile phone with its unique subscription model. It allows users to buy a pass to watch a show/entire series for a fee as nominal as INR 18. This is the first time in India that the viewers would get to pay for particular shows only which they desire to watch and not the entire application.
Check out a few images from the grand launch gala right here:
With this, Vikram wishes to bring about a substantial change in the digital space and give a choice to the viewers.
Also, what makes this platform unique is the opportunity it will be giving to other filmmakers, the power to find a platform to put up their content on the app as a synergy to give them access to a platform where their content can be displayed. The app launched with original series ‘Untouchables’ directed by Vikram’s daughter, Krishna Bhatt.
Untouchables is a courtroom drama inspired by real life events. The shows available on the app include Maya, Twisted, Rain, Tantra, Hadh, these shows can be viewed free of cost.
Vikram Bhatt commented, “We are not leaving any stone unturned to making it big for VBontheweb app. Our digital venture premiered Untouchables which is special to me because it my daughter Krishna’s directorial debut, and it makes me feel extremely proud. Digital is the future and it has arrived, we are ready to seize the day.”
Speaking about the app launch, Krishna Bhatt said, “Launching VBontheweb app is a big step we’re taking to capture the OTT platform. The series of programming also includes Untouchables which is my directorial debut and has already received appreciation from the audiences. I’m hoping this platform will become a digital sensation, and I am excited to see the progress.”
VBontheweb is currently available to download on Android and iOS platforms.
Stick to this space for the latest in Bollywood!


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The semiconductor company Qualcomm is now taking another big step for future flagship smartphones with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC. The chipset is entered into the mass production from this June month with TSMC’s 7nm FinFET process. After a few years of competition, the Qualcomm stands out the first preference to the smartphone manufacturers and mobile device users. Not only the flagship grade processors but also the low and mid-range chipsets are also standing out great in terms of performance and efficiency.
Snapdragon 855 chip (7nm Node) entered into mass production
Currently, the Snapdragon 845 SoC is running as the flagship mobile platform SoC with advanced performance and Artificial Intelligence (AI) features. The last year’s Snapdragon 835 SoC was also powerful in terms of the price tag on that time. Now the upcoming Snapdragon 855 chip will replace all the flagship grade mobile processors like Exynos, Kirin, MediaTek etc. According to Roland Quandt, the next-generation Snapdragon 855 SoC allegedly entered into mass production since June month with TSMC. It will be based on a 7nm FinFET process.
In 2019, the Snapdragon X50 modem will release with 5G connectivity option and it seems that the Qualcomm could be the first one company to launch the first 5G enabled chip with a 7nm FinFET node. Samsung and Huawei are also on the list of making powerful 5G enabled modem. The Samsung Galaxy S10 also could feature the SDM855 processor reportedly. However, Qualcomm already announced the Snapdragon X24 LTE modem which is the world’s first commercially announced 7nm FinFET processed chipset up to 2Gbps in early 2018. This was demonstrated live with the Ericsson, NETGEAR, and Telstra at MWC 2018.
Sony Xperia Device Spotted on Geekbench with SDM855 SoC
It is expected that the Snapdragon X50 modem will be launched officially for the flagship devices within the first half of 2019. Some of the mobile manufacturers are already prepared the devices with that chipset. A Sony phone was already spotted on Geekbench with Snapdragon 855 SoC earlier this month with a model name of H8526. This device could be the next-generation Sony Xperia XZ3 lineup. That Xperia device scored a massive 3033 points on Single-Core and 10992 on Multi-Core benchmark.
The device will have 8GB of RAM and will run on Android 9.0 as well. So, it is expected that the upcoming Snapdragon 855 chip will be 30% more powerful than the SDM845. As the IFA 2018 on its way, we can expect that Sony could unveil something very surprising.
Xiaomi Device Appeared on Geekbench with Snapdragon 855
Now one of the Xiaomi devices has entered into the competition with that chipset and spotted on Geekbench again with 6GB of RAM and Android 8.1 Oreo operation system. The base frequency of the processor is 1.90GHz which is quite similar to the last generation SDM835 chipset. That unknown Xiaomi device scored 1784 points on Single-Core and 6359 points on Multi-Core. This score is the lower than the current SDM845 SoC.
Now the thing is that the next-generation flagship processor scores similar to previous generation chip. There is no other information available about the specifications and features yet. However, this device could be the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3, but the device will launch at the end of this year. Till then we have to wait for more leaks.
Expected Availability of SDM855 Powered Smartphones and 5G Connectivity
The latest upcoming flagship smartphones will come very soon in India with SDM855 SoC. However, there is no confirmation yet as the mass production of handsets and chipsets are in the works. There is another issue regarding 5G connectivity in India. Because in India 4G LTE is currently growing rapidly with so much recharge plans and offers in the market.
There are a few mobile network communication companies survived. Within a year, it could be quite difficult to streamline the 5G networks all over India by some carrier companies. However, the Reliance Jio is expected to launch their first ever 5G networks all over in India and the process is in the works. So, before the half of 2019, it could trouble Indian consumers to buy SDM855 chip powered devices with higher price rates.


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Rosie Huntington-Whiteley takes inspiration from a myriad of women — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Eve Ensler, Rihanna, Stevie Nicks, her sister, her “mum,” and her yoga teacher, among many others.
Lucky for Huntington-Whiteley, her latest project as the first celebrity face of Moroccanoil is all about celebrating strength in women. The argan-oil-infused hair and body brand will also launch its debut multimedia advertising campaign with Huntington-Whiteley on Sept. 17.
“A lot of the women I surround myself with tend to be older than me,” said Huntington-Whiteley. “I always love to be around women I can learn something from.”
While the women she is surrounding herself with may not be older, they are, in fact, motivating. In the video content series — which is directed by Bryce Dallas Howard — Huntington-Whiteley and five other influential women (from an array of backgrounds ranging from education to textiles) explain how they carved their own distinct paths. The digital series, featuring six short videos, will live online on a microsite and will be leveraged across other online outlets such as Refinery 29 and New York Magazine/The Cut. All assets — including behind-the-scenes videos, photos and interviews with Huntington-Whiteley regarding her beauty inspiration — will be available across Moroccanoil’s social media platforms using the hashtag #Inspiredbywomen.
“The campaign is an expression of three things: our view of women, our view of beauty and our view of what’s our purpose in life,” said David Krzypow, vice president of marketing at Moroccanoil.
The print campaign will break globally in October issues of fashion, beauty and lifestyle magazines, including Elle, InStyle and Harper’s Bazaar. “Inspiration is a priceless commodity,” said Dallas Howard. “My hope is that, by learning about the stories of these remarkable women, others will feel inspired and moved to action.”
But the news doesn’t end there for Moroccanoil; the brand launched a range of hair products called the Smooth Collection in mid-August.
“As with all of our products, the Smooth Collection was inspired by women,” said Carmen Tal, Moroccanoil’s cofounder. “The body is a very similar journey. The idea is to create products that are result-driven and are easy to use.”
The Smooth Collection is made up of four stockkeeping units ranging from $28 for a shampoo to $43 for a mask and will be sold in Moroccanoil network salons. The line is said to help with styling, manageability and lasting smoothness.
Tal wouldn’t discuss sales, but industry sources believe Moroccanoil’s Smooth Collection could generate $10 million to $12 million in its first year globally.
On the distribution front, Moroccanoil is making a bigger push into traditional retail as well as travel retail. At the end of August, eight travel-size hair products and 14 full-size body items will launch in 117 Nordstrom doors. Nordstrom previously carried Moroccanoil hair and body in its 13 salon and spa locations and on nordstrom.com, but now it will be sold on the beauty floor.
Tal added, “Barneys is already in business with us and hopefully we’ll expand with them. [Plus,] we have a few other vendors on the calendar.”
Executives wouldn’t discuss financials, but industry sources estimate that Moroccanoil’s distribution in Nordstrom could generate $2 million to $3 million in its first year.
In terms of travel retail, the company is hoping to satisfy that convenience and the travel requirements of the consumer. “[Travel retail] is going to be limited to the premium luxury locations,” said Krzypow, who added that Moroccanoil will launch with Heinemann in the fall with select airports and cruise ships. “[Travel retail] is almost like a teaser [for consumers]. The teaser is for them to try [the products] and go back home so that they can find which salons carry the hair line and which retailers carry the body line.”
Tal added, “It’s mostly about adapting to the new expectations because the salon business is kind of limited to those who are visiting salons regularly. But there are a good number of people who are not salon visitors. Even though we want to drive them to the salon and with the body line to [department stores], it should be available as much as possible.”
With about 30 hair-care sku’s, the full Moroccanoil lineup is priced between $9 for a travel-size shampoo and $74.50 for a restorative hair mask. The body collection, which is made up of 14 items, ranges from $20 for a hand cream to $52 for a body cream.
Supermodel @helenachristensen teamed up with longtime friend and designer @camillastaerk on a joint @paredeyewear collaboration. The lineup features three styles and 11 offerings, all of which embody a vintage feel. Get all the details on how they celebrated the collab on WWD.com. #wwdaccessories #wwdeye (📷: @slovekinpics)
“It’s a hard industry to keep motivated, as well, so finding different subjects and people is what makes it worth it – when you’re like, oh, I’ve met great people, I feel like I’ve done something good, and I feel proud of having done this,” said French actress Stacy Martin on being grateful for the variety of roles she’s take on. Read @ktauer’s full interview with Martin on her her latest film “Godard Mon Amour.” #wwdeye (📷: @danieldorsa)
After showing in front of the Eiffel Tower for his last two women’s ready-to-wear collection, it looks like @anthonyvaccarello may be heading to the Big Apple. Sources say the designer will stage his next @ysl show in NYC on June 6. Get all the details on WWD.com. #wwdnews #wwdfashion (📷: @aitorrosasphoto)
EXCLUSIVE: Two and half months after John Targon, cofounder and codesigner of Baja East, was hired as creative director of the contemporary division at Marc Jacobs, he has left the company, WWD has learned. Marc Jacobs International, which is owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, confirmed Targon’s departure in a statement: “John Targon is a talented designer and we appreciate the work he has done here. Ultimately working together did not make sense for the brand and we wish him the best.” Read the story by @jessiredale, link in bio. #wwdnews
@theluxurycollection is officially launching a collection, tapping Sofia Sanchez de Betak for the capsule. Over 30 styles will be featured in the Chufy x The Luxury Collection, debuting next month at Bergdorf Goodman, The Webster, FiveStory and more. De Betak, known as “@chufy,” drew inspiration for the collection from her trips to Japan in the past year #wwdfashion
@lhd, founder and CEO of @thewebster, has teamed up with @lebonmarcherivegauche for the European launch of her ready-to-wear line, LHD. The launch will come with an exclusive pop-up opening today that’s set to run through May 20. Located on the second floor, it carries her debut Miami-themed resort collection, launched in November as see-now-buy-now. #wwdfashion


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U.S. production of major plastic resins were 6.6 billion pounds in July 2011, up 2.0% compared to July 2010, according to statistics released by the American Chemistry Council (ACC). Year-to-date production was 44.4 billion pounds, a 1.0% increase compared to the same period in 2010.
Sales and captive (internal) use of major plastic resins totaled 6.4 billion pounds in July 2011, down 3.4% from July 2010. Year-to-date sales and captive use was 43.6 billion pounds, a 0.6% increase compared to the same period in 2010.
Back to Breaking News


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This year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed 2015 has already seen a rare and expensive Mazda 767B significantly damaged after the endurance prototype crashed during a timed lap up the famous hill climb.
When taking a right hander, the 767B understeered off the road and into the hay bales. While the hay inevitably absorbed some of the impact, the damage sustained to the Japanese racer is still quite extensive.
The brunt of the impact was taken by the right front corner of the 767B with the expensive front end being wrecked. Additionally, the right front quarter panel has been destroyed with damage also suffered to the side skirts. Due to the force of the impact, even the large rear wing fell off.
The 767B made its racing debut at the 1991 430km of Suzuka. It is believed that there are just three in existence with a further two ‘standard’ 767 models upgraded to 767B specification.


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TSMC is gearing up expansion of its capacity in response to strong demand from diverse sectors. According to the foundry's CEO, TSMC will invest a total of US$100 billion in capacity expansion through 2023. In the car industry, Foxconn has made yet another move to expand its reach in the electric vehicle sector. Foxconn and Thailand's PTT have just signed an MoU for forming a JV for the production of EV in Thailand. The importance of Southeast Asia for the global supply chain is growing fast. Austria-based AT&S has just disclosed a plan to set up an ABF substrate production base in Southeast Asia.
Malaysia is where a number of Japan- and Taiwan-based passive component vendors operate their regional factory sites, and their production may be disrupted by an ongoing two-week nationwide lockdown there, posing a further impact to the already-tight supply of certain components, particularly aluminum capacitors, according to industry sources.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, investors in Thailand have turned their investment targets to enterprises in the stage of growth, resulting in a reduction in number of loans to startups in 2020 to 30 from 2019's 41, but the overall investment amount still went up from US$109 million in 2019 to US$364 million in 2020, according to a report by Techsauce.
Combined sales of Vietnam-based telecom operators experienced a decline of 13.6% to VND315.2 billion (US$13.55 million) in 2020, thanks to a saturation of the telecommunication market and pandemic-induced impacts, according to local reports in Vietnam.
Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology (JCET), the largest China-based provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT), has announced its takeover of Analog Devices' test facility in Singapore. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Delta Electronics (Thailand) is developing robots for precision assembly and hazardous environments, and for safety reasons, the company's automation development is mainly heading toward the directions of reducing malfunctioning and waste of materials, and improving production efficiency, according to company president Jackie Chang.
Revenues generated from Vietnam's mobile e-commerce industry are expected to reach US$7 billion in 2021 revenues and will surpass those of the desktop e-commerce sector in 2022, according to data from Vietnam-based mobile platform provider Appota.
Japan's major automotive PCB maker CMK has decided to suspend production at its plant in Thailand for one week after 10 employees were infected with COVID-19 virus, but Taiwan-based peers with manufacturing operations there do not expect transfer of orders from its clients, according to industry sources.
With COVID-19 resurging in northern Vietnam, the country's Bac Giang Province has announced to lock down four of its six industrial zones to prevent the spread of the disease, according to a report by Vietnamnet.
Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) saw the number of applications for investing in the country increase to 401 in the first quarter of 2021, up from 351 in the same quarter a year ago, while the investment amount will total THB123.4 billion (US$3.97 billion), up 80% on year, according to a report from Business News of Thailand.
Vietnam-based conglomerate Vingroup has reported net profits of VND2.1 trillion (US$90.84 million) for the first quarter of 2021, up 5-fold on year thanks to strong sales from its real estate, Vinfast automobile and Vsmart smartphone businesses.


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HOW BRIGHT IS
by Tim Foster, Managing Director Asia Pacific, Chainalytics
It is no wonder India’s optimism is at an all-time high: Strong domestic growth and consumption have insulated it from and largely helped to avoid the other BRIC countries’ (Brazil, Russia, India, China) globalised economic woes. With its stock market roaring through much of 2014 and into 2015, and its young, skilled workforce comprised of a quickly growing pool of taxpayers and spenders, India has just jumped to first place in Nielsen’s global consumer confidence index.
Meanwhile, IHS economists project that India’s economy will grow more rapidly than China’s over two to three decades and account for a rising share of global GDP, making India a much more important global growth engine for trade and investment flows than in the past.
However, from a supply chain perspective, we think there is a quantum leap between India’s present and its future potential outlook in five to 10 years, when current reforms—designed to increase intra-country cross-border trade and transportation and manufacturing efficiency—are actually successfully implemented. Right now, uncertainty and changing global logistics dynamics complicate India’s long-term viability as a dominant manufacturing base or global export hub.
Putting the “I” in India
India’s current manufacturing activity (about 17 per cent of its GDP) is focused primarily on serving domestic needs— easy to do when you have one-sixth of the world’s population within your borders. India does not export as much manufactured goods to the global market in comparison to other BRICs, resulting in a more diversified export base with its service sector accounting for nearly 50 per cent of its total exports.
India is ripe for attracting logistics and supply chain investments with companies, like Harley-Davidson and Vodafone, for high-value-added manufacturing and e-tailers like Amazon and Flipkart, capitalising on increasing consumption and a rapidly emerging middle class. These companies are investing in and building robust, efficient logistics networks and infrastructure to capitalise on India’s massive long-term potential which is much needed considering India’s e-commerce startups currently spend as much as 30 per cent of their net income on logistic costs alone.
If you are already doing business in India or thinking about it, you will want to consider these factors, which affect India’s long-term promise as a global and regional supply chain player and ultimately your long-term success:
• Policy and incentives around taxes, land and infrastructure. Without some permutations of the proposed (but currently stalled) Goods and Service Tax (GST ) and land reform, India will continue to struggle with large-scale supply chain inefficiency and global competitiveness. With its nine major ports and 187 minor and intermediate ports—administered by a mix of central and state governments and public–private partnerships—it will take several years to get all hubs up to speed and at a level of efficiency seen elsewhere. As written, transporting freight across state borders in India is often just as complex, or more so, than crossing international borders, adding a staggering 30 per cent to the costs of goods sold in the country.
Some of India’s proactive state governments are taking matters into their own hands, attracting multinational businesses with infrastructure and economic incentives and competing with one another to make their own hubs the most efficient. Companies have to carefully evaluate states that offer better land deals for siting plants and warehouses holistically (a single warehouse can take up to six months, with uncertainty around availability, negotiations and legal processing) before making the leap. It is also important to be aware of the availability of water, electricity, labour law reforms, and connectivity to major highways, railways, and waterways and how these elements can impact your modal options and optimal supply chain network design over the longer term.
In Chainalytics’ preliminary modelling of the effect a post-GST environment will have on distribution centre networks (complete report to be released in 2016), it is found that the financial benefit for supply chains will not be completely realised until the maturity of india’s infrastructure improves dramatically.
• The importance of meeting domestic demand. For the foreseeable future, doing business in India is all about finding the best supply chain solutions to meet shorter-term domestic demand—whether that means reviewing or automating your supply chain operations, addressing transportation infrastructure and network inefficiencies, implementing effective processes and information systems to enable fact-based strategic decisions, or partnering with third parties to augment or complement current capabilities. If you are already doing business in India, it is time to address any and all supply chain inefficiencies, because global competition is coming, thanks to the attractive growth of India’s domestic consumption.
• The pluses and minuses of local supply. Due to dampened global competitiveness, India has largely protected and insulated its local manufacturing industries rather successfully. New entrants into this emerging market often find it difficult to import products into India, obliging them to look towards local sourcing as an alternative supply solution. But entering short-term partnerships or setting up small manufacturing plants to take advantage of growth and demand is only the beginning. Many forced into setting up flexible (and potentially sub-optimal) local supply arrangements, should eventually build scalable capacity themselves or utilise a third parties. A proper strategy is one equipped with a long-term goal to build manufacturing and distribution capacity domestically, over time.
• India’s evolving regional and international role. Unlike India, China’s centrally controlled economy can drive relatively rapid manufacturing and logistics change. India will succeed when it gets itself sorted out internally and increases its ease of doing business domestically and internationally. As India’s prosperity and labour costs continue to grow, rather than competing with low-cost manufacturing providers, it will likely do well to target industries and manufacturing sectors that will provide it with a competitive advantage, utilising its educated workforce for more advanced higher value-added manufacturing. This will put it on a collision course with China.
It is one thing to be optimistic; it is another to be realistic. India is not an easy place for multinationals to do business. India needs to get strategic and realistic—about building out its inland infrastructure, rail, grid and ports and evolving into a global factory for more-advanced industries. Companies already doing business in India have global competition nipping at their heels. But once India gets itself sorted out internally, the rest of the world will share its optimism.


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Karma has some of the longest plug-in range, among plug-in hybrids. GM’s Lordstown plant may soon really be building an electric truck. Hyundai is going for green-car variety in the U.S. And Toyota and BYD are new partners for electric vehicles in China. This and more, today at Green Car Reports.
Toyota and BYD have joined forces for electric vehicle development in China. With Toyota’s recently formed venture with Panasonic, it’s shaping for electric-vehicle growth in the world’s largest vehicle market.
Hyundai is expanding its variety of electrified powertrains in the U.S., with more than 13 “alternatively fueled vehicles” arriving by 2022. Now we’re curious about how many it actually intends to sell.
With the final workings of a deal cemented Thursday, the Ohio plant that used to build the Chevy Cruze sedan is no longer property of GM—and if all goes according to plan it will soon build a range-extended electric pickup.
Outside of the BMW i3 REx, the 2020 Karma Revero GT is at the top of the scales for electric driving range in the plug-in hybrid. Credit a bigger battery, but the Revero GT also has a new engine from, of all places, BMW.
And, Karma’s SC2 coupe concept is heading to the Los Angeles auto show.


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Home » World News » Crime, panhandling hurting local businesses, Nashville area store manager says: 'We're losing customers'
Crime, panhandling hurting local businesses, Nashville area store manager says: 'We're losing customers'
Democrats are ‘gaslighting’ voters by downplaying crime wave: Batya Ungar-Sargon
Newsweek deputy opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon discusses how a nationwide crime surge could impact voters’ decisions ahead of the midterm elections.
A business manager in Madison, Tennessee, said he was tired of the theft, harassment and aggressive panhandling in his area of the Nashville suburb.
Mena Girgis, who manages Carlos Wireless off Gallatin Pike Road in Madison, said crime has been a major problem for months and was negatively impacting the local economy, according to local Fox affiliate WZTV.
"They’ve been out there harassing people that are coming in the store, or they’re going on the plaza," Girgis said of the panhandlers.
"They are asking people for money, harassing them for money, sometimes they’re stealing," the store manager continued. He said he still feels unsafe even after cameras have been installed and metal placed over the glass.
BYSTANDER RECORDS ‘BRAWL’ OUTSIDE NASHVILLE BAR: ‘THIS IS VERY TAME FOR US’


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OnePlus 3 is 35 per cent faster than its predecessor and runs Android Marshmallow
Less than a year since it unveiled the OnePlus 2, China-based OnePlus has launched its third-generation model - the OnePlus 3.
The handset runs Android Marshmallow with an OxygenOS skin. It has a 16MP camera and is powered by a staggering 6GB of RAM. It also features Dash Charge technology and is claimed to be 35 per cent faster than its predecessor.
The dual-sim handset was announced during an event at Shenzhen Universiade Centre and the launch was live streamed via OnePlus' Loop VR app and headset.
"We know that the best smartphone is the one that works exactly how you want it to," said OnePlus Founder and CEO Pete Lau. "The OnePlus 3 delivers that experience. It combines what our customers already love about our products with what they want and expect next. It's a flagship smartphone inspired by – and made for – our fans."
The body of the OnePlus 3 is made from a single sheet of aluminium alloy. It is 7.3 mm thick, significantly thinner than the 9.9mm OnePlus 2, and its 5.5-inch 1080p Optic Amoled display has "one of the world's thinnest bezels". This display also works in bright sunlight thanks to a dual-polarising layer.
On the rear of the phone is a 16MP camera, while the front-facing camera has an 8MP sensor. OnePlus has a host of imaging technologies to make taking photos easier including Smart Capture, which uses HD mode, Auto HDR and Dynamic De-noise to reduce noise. It does this by comparing several frames of the same photo and blending them together. Customers can now also take a selfie using the front-facing camera simply by smiling at the screen.
Other photography tools include Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) and Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) to reduce blur as well as a manual mode that offers the benefits of a DSLR, including support of RAW image files.
Inside the phone is a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, up to 2.2 GHz, which is said to give the phone a 40 per cent boost in graphical power without impacting on the battery. There's also 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM to make the handset feel even faster. In particular, the power boosts have made it possible to increase the speed at which the new ceramic fingerprint sensor recognises a user.
To accompany the power boosts, the OnePlus 3 uses Dash Charge technology that the company describes as a "faster, cooler and safer way to charge a smartphone". Dash Charge replenishes more than 60 per cent of the 3,000mAh battery in 30 minutes. It can also lower the temperature of the phone while charging by shifting the power management process from the phone itself to the Dash Charge adapter.
Unlocked, invite-free OnePlus 3 handsets are available – in either graphite or soft gold colours – on oneplus.net for £309 in the UK, $399 in the US and €399 in Europe. Additionally, OnePlus 3 will be running pop-up stores in New York, London, Paris and Berlin on June 15 to give customers a chance to see the phone for themselves.
Victoria Woollaston-Webber is a freelance journalist, editor and founder of science-led health, beauty and grooming sites, mamabella and MBman. She has more than a decades' experience in both online and print journalism, having written about tech and gadgets since day one for national papers, magazines and global brands. Victoria specialises in... Read more


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Our company conducted a live video broadcast on Alibaba international station platform from 19:00 to 20:00 p.m. Sunday, U.S. time, for an hour. The anchors are James Jin and Laura Li, our account managers. They introduced the testing process of down, the production process of down quilt and down sleeping bag, the overall situation of the company, and the company’s most popular products at present.
Today, the live link will be specially released. You are welcome to watch and consult the store.
Live broadcast website: https://watch.alibaba.com/v/424ab1b9-013a-4f42-9c9e-540931b4b0bb?referrer=SellerCopy
Company Tel: + 86 312 5335176
Company website: https://xueruishajt.com
Post time: Jul-24-2021


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uSTADIUM mobile app is available today for iPhone in the iTunes App Store.
New York, NY (PRWEB) May 21, 2014
uSTADIUM mobile app is available today for iPhone in the iTunes App Store. uSTADIUM is a mobile app connecting football fans around the world. uSTADIUM is the place where fans voice opinions, share experiences, and win prizes.
Today, with the mainstream of social media, football fans lack an appropriate platform to voice opinions or promote content. uSTADIUM allows fans to simply grab a phone, open up the camera, record a video of themselves arguing their point on why Geno Smith should start over Mike Vick, or snap a picture of friends and family at the local tailgate. Oh, and who doesn’t love winning contests for free gear or tickets?
So record that sideline video of Johnny Football throwing at Browns mini camp for the first time; argue with a rival fan why team A has the better defense, and enter any contest, like “best draft pick” to win a signed football. The best part is, there is no third-party app for posting a video, nor is there a 10 second limit.
uSTADIUM is available for free in the iTunes App store. Perfect timing for football fans with camps right around the corner and the season within reach. uSTADIUM is excited for the upcoming launch of the new 'huddles' feature that allows users to customize topics, and audience even further. #HuddleUp.
Direct Link for Download: http://bit.ly/1hvpkHW
Email: nspano (at) ustadium (dot) com


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Chipotle posted an easy earnings beat after the bell. The burrito chain saw a 25 percent increase in profit after traffic surged during the quarter, that’s despite a menu price increase. It also lifted its sales outlook for the year. Shares initially jumped after hours to a new record. During the regular session the stock was slightly lower to $589.93.
Texas Instrument also reported results after the close. The company’s second quarter earnings beat estimates because of higher demand for its chips. But its third quarter guidance was slightly below expectations. Shares fell slightly right after that report. During the regular session the stock was up slightly to $49.17.
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson’s board announced a buyback. The Dow component will repurchase up to $5 billion worth of stock. The buyback was announced after the market close and shares initially popped on the news, finishing the regular session lower by half a percent to $101.27.
Halliburton posted earnings that matched estimates, but revenue was well above what analysts expected. The oilfield services provider said increased drilling activity in the U.S. and in the Gulf of Mexico helped up its quarterly profits by 20 percent. It also raised its share repurchase program. The stock edged up slightly to $71.
Hasbro’s profit slipped last quarter as its sales declined in its gaming unit. The toy maker did see sales for its Transformer toys and other products increase, but not enough to offset those soft game results. The company said it is well positioned for the holiday shopping season. But investors were disappointed, sending shares down more than 2.5 percent to $51.78.
Weak attendance at Six Flags weighed on that company’s earnings. The company blamed the shrinking crowds on the bad winter weather, which extended school calendars and shortened spring breaks. Shares fell four percent to $39.91.
A Florida jury returns one of the largest verdicts ever against a tobacco company, awarding $24 billion to the widow of a man who died of lung cancer. RJ Reynolds says it will appeal the verdict and calls the damages grossly excessive. RJ Reynolds is a subsidiary of Reynolds American, which closed one percent lower to $57.98.
According to reports EMC is being pushed to spin-off its VMWare unit by activist investor Elliot Management. The firm has taken a $1 billion stake in the data storage equipment maker and is reportedly attempting to convince the company that a sale of the unit would help the lagging stock. That sent shares up five percent to $28.33.


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This Week's SponsorKolide ensures only secure devices can access your cloud apps. It's Device Trust for Okta. Watch the demo today!
By Jason Snell for Macworld
The iPad Pro has frequently been an incubator for technology that Apple ultimately plans on rolling out to the rest of its product line. Last year, the iPad Pro got a LiDAR scanner months before it appeared in the iPhone 12. This year’s 12.9-inch model introduced the mini-LED screen technology that will probably be showing up very soon in a new line of MacBook Pro laptops. And this fall’s iPhone Pro models are rumored to come with high- refresh-rate displays, pioneered years ago on the iPad as ProMotion.
But there’s another core Apple technology of the future that’s currently available only on the 2021 iPad Pro. And I’m confident that, in the next couple of years, you’ll see it spread across most (but not all) of Apple’s products: Center Stage.
Center Stage uses machine-learning technology to pan and zoom in a camera’s field of view to get the perfect shot during a FaceTime call or other videoconference. It will zoom in on a single subject, or zoom out to find every person in the frame. If you haven’t tried Center Stage, you’ll need to trust me: It’s great. And having experienced it for months on my iPad Pro, I now want it everywhere. It’s too good a feature not to be, and as soon as possible.


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Go Ape adventure parks look abroad as profits leap
The company behind the fast-growing Go Ape chain of adventure parks is considering moving into Brazil, Russia and China after the success of its expansion into the US.
Adventure Forest Group now has three of its treetop high-wire courses in the US as part of a joint venture.
It is planning at least 20 more to add to its 28 centres in Britain.
Founder Tristram Mayhew, 44, said: ‘It is a concern expanding in this current climate, but we’ve come a long way by being bold and we’re creating 100 jobs a year. We’ve got to go with our instinct.’
Riding high: Tristram and Rebecca Mayhew, who run Go Ape activity centres
The company, which is wholly owned by its five directors, also has seven Forest Segway sites, two junior Go Ape parks and one mountain-biking centre.
In the year to the end of December AFG increased profits from £1.2million to £2million on a turnover of £11.4million.
Mayhew said the terrible summer weather has affected trading less than expected.
‘We had our best ever year last year and we are still strongly profitable,’ he said. ‘Every month we turn down offers from private equity investors, but we’ve never taken outside money and that’s the way we like it.’
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Social media filters can sometimes be a big hit or a big miss. But, for this one new filter, it surely makes all pet owners happy!
Snapchat recently made “Disneyfies,” a new filter for your companion animals that makes them look like a Disney character.
A dog owner first posted a picture of her dog in the Dogspotting Society Facebook group, writing: “For those that don’t know… Snapchat has a new filter and it basically Disneyfies your dog. YOU ARE WELCOME. Plz post your Disney dawgs here.”
Check out the adorable pictures pet owners shared here!
Have you tried this filter? Let us know what you think!
You might want to read:
– LOOK: Therapy dogs for Parkland shooting survivors got their own pictures taken for yearbook
– Fur parents take more pictures of their dogs than their spouse, study says
– Frisky Pawtraits hosts picture-perfect afternoons


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It’s startling that the declining U.S. cattle herd and consequent record-high cattle prices are causing more concern than celebration. Perhaps it reflects fears that such prices can’t last or that they’ll inflict damage on the industry in terms of people eating less beef. Such fears are understandable, but unfounded.
The industry has a long history of dealing with contraction and expansion, as well as record-high and low prices. Yet the industry is still large in terms of global cattle numbers, while the U.S. is the world’s largest beef producer and produces the highest-quality beef. Plus, global demand for this beef is growing, so the future looks bright to me.
The fact is, people are eating less beef because there is less available. It has nothing to do with preference. Only when U.S. production increases, and/or exports lessen and imports increase, will per-capita consumption increase. Getting people to eat more beef is irrelevant until per-capita supply increases.
How does the industry do this? The most obvious way is to encourage cow-calf producers to expand. Of course, they wanted to in 2010 and 2011, but Mother Nature got in the way. It’s not overly simplistic to say that the best way to stimulate herd rebuilding is to pray for rain, because green grass and more cows go hand in hand.
However, the industry can consider several ways to help producers retain heifers, such as cattle feeders offering long-term contracts for calves to be born in three years’ time. The industry might consider offering free clinics to help producers manage their risk. And, it might try to persuade bankers to offer reduced lending rates for cow-calf producers to carry those heifers to calf.
Meanwhile, suppliers to the industry can encourage producers to use all available technologies to improve productivity and reduce costs and death loss. Beyond this, it’s imperative to let the market take care of the herd size and prices. Producers will expand their herds if it rains and if calf and feeder prices remain record-high.
I’m not as concerned as some about the impact on industry structure. The cow-calf sector has been shrinking in terms of operators for 25 years, mainly because the smallest and least efficient producers have exited. This will continue because that’s how the laws of economics work in every sector of the economy.
The industry has had significant over-capacity in the cattle feeding sector for years. But it didn’t stop the largest operators from expanding over the past decade. It’s now time for the largest operations to mothball some feedlots, which some are already doing.
It’s much more difficult to mothball a packing plant, however, so I don’t expect any plants to close in the next year or so. Tyson Fresh Meats will likely close its Denison, IA, plant sometime next year, but it won’t reduce its overall slaughter capacity. It plans to increase capacity at its flagship Dakota City, NE, plant to absorb Denison’s 2,150/head/day capacity.
Packers will stop operating on Saturdays and perhaps operate only one daily shift rather than two at some other plants on occasions, depending on cattle supplies and overall market conditions. The declining numbers, though, will make it virtually impossible for any new or reopened plants to get established, as I noted in my January column, “Packer pipe dreams.”
As for record-high retail beef prices, consumers will continue to buy beef because they crave its taste and there’s no substitute. It’s important to remember that personal incomes are increasing, unemployment levels are falling, and people are feeling better about the economy.
Americans will also spend more on beef because they will be consuming less. The industry’s primary focus must be on continuing to improve beef’s quality and consistency, to make beef’s value equation (quality vs. price) even more compelling for consumers. ❚❚
Steve Kay is editor and publisher of Cattle Buyers Weekly. Catch his weekly market roundup at beefmagazine.com every Friday afternoon.


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Both were revealed several months ago, but we now know final pricing — and you can subscribe today.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the much-desired bundle for Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass, combining them for a single $14.99 monthly subscription.
Subscribing to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will save you five dollars over subscribing to each individually if you pay monthly.
Microsoft has sweetened the deal with an alluring practice it has previously offered for other Xbox Live and Game Pass services.
If you have three months of Xbox Game Pass, and three months of Xbox Live, you’ll be credited six months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate when you upgrade to it.
While Xbox Game Pass Ultimate targets gamers with an Xbox console, Microsoft has recently broadened its ambitions to PC games.


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Every day, in every way, cannabis legalization in Canada is getting closer. But despite all the hype, noise, and publicity, there seem to be recurring cannabis myths flying around that just won’t quit.
With eight days to go until federal legalization, Grow’s daily Cannabusters series tackles common myths by cutting through the stigma and sensationalism to bring you the facts about cannabis.
Myth: Cannabis use causes schizophrenia.
Fact: There might be a correlation between cannabis consumption and the expression of psychoses in predisposed populations.
Cannabis use is not entirely without risk, but it is incorrect to draw a causal relationship between consumption and mental illness.
As with some other Cannabusters, breaking down this myth starts with semantics.
Correlation does not mean causation. A mutual connection can exist between two things whereby when one increases so does the other, but you can’t infer that one caused the other to increase (same for one thing going up while another goes down).
When it comes to schizophrenia and other psychoses, there is some evidence to suggest that cannabis consumption can affect individuals who are predisposed to these conditions, whether it be through personal or family history.
“There are certainly vulnerable populations when it comes to the medical or recreational use of cannabis,” Philippe Lucas, VP of Patient Research and Access at Tilray, told Daily Hive over the phone.
“Those with pre-existing conditions like psychoses or schizophrenia may have to be more cautious if they are considering cannabis as medication.”
As with any other medication, cannabis is not for everyone and there are potential dangers when consumed by at-risk populations.
“What seems to be the case it that people with a predisposition for these conditions may see an earlier expression of these conditions or may see symptoms appear in relation to their cannabis use,” said Lucas.
According to a 2017 study, “neurological biochemical analysis and behavioural tests carried out on the animals showed that only the genetically susceptible mice developed schizophrenia-related changes after being exposed to cannabis.”
“What’s clear from the literature,” said Lucas, “is that over the past 10-15 years cannabis use itself does not seem to be causal when it comes to the development of schizophrenia or psychoses.”
Furthermore, Lucas said that there has been an increased use of medical and recreational cannabis use over the past 30 years but “we have not seen a subsequent increase in the rate of psychoses or schizophrenia.”
If you have a history of psychoses, it is important to exercise caution with cannabis use. Speak to your doctor or mental health practitioner, and stick with low-THC strains if you choose to consume.
- Cannabusters myth #18: Cannabis does not interact with other medications
- Cannabusters myth #21: Cannabis is harmless
- Cannabusters myth #23: There's no such thing as cannabis withdrawal


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Giant multinational companies heavily invested in China are facing mounting stakeholder pressure to rethink their supply chains, reports Bloomberg Law.
Organisations including General Electric, Boeing, Nike, Walt Disney and Starbucks are “wading through a mounting pile of concerns” relating to China, writes Bloomberg reporter Clara Hudson.
She adds that pressure from the US government and investors for businesses with deep China ties to revisit manufacturing and supply chain strategies, amid mounting concern about China’s sabre-rattling military exercises near Taiwan, which it calls ‘Chinese Taipei’.
Yet extricating operations from China is easier said than done, as Apple has discovered.
There is little doubt Apple would love to unwind its relationship with China, whose economy over the past three years has been battered by extreme weather and an epic property slump. Then there are the self-inflicted wounds relating to Covid.
For two years, China was subject to zero-tolerance policies on Covid, that saw manufacturing and port activity paralysed by lockdowns.
The endless lockdowns began to foment civil unrest, and Apple found itself at the centre of this storm when Beijing imposed a seven-day lockdown in Zhengzhou, which is home to the massive iPhone assembly facility run by Foxconn, the Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer.
And as Hudson writes, there is also the issue of tariffs on Chinese imports, sanctions on Chinese businesses, and a new US human rights law targeting forced labour in China. This relates to China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority, with internment camps and forced labour among the accusations.
Hudson observes that this raft of concerns is happening against a hawkish US political backdrop regarding China, which President Biden sees as an economic and national security threat. The US is also legislating in the hope of incentivising manufacturing to reshore back to the US.
The Bloomberg story details how GE, Boeing, and auto giants General Motors and Ford, are among the companies disclosing in financial filings how US-China frictions pose business risks.
'Mountain of risk' for companies involved with China
“There’s a mountain of risk that continues to get larger,” Lisa Anderson, a supply chain expert at LMA Consulting, told Bloomberg.
There are no quick fixes for the China supply chain issue.
“It’s very challenging because, first of all, supply chains are created over many years,” Carl Valenstein, a partner at global law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius told Bloomberg. “People think you can easily change your supply chain. You can’t. It doesn’t happen overnight.”
Hudson reports how companies with significant business tied to China are putting investors on notice about the continued or increasing risks.
She says the US automotive industry, especially, is on alert, writing that Ford’s February filing detailed how “China presents unique risks to US automakers due to the strain in US-China relations, China’s unique regulatory landscape, and the level of integration with key components in our global supply chain.”
GM, she adds, also said in its January annual report that “continued US-China trade tensions” among other factors could impact its business.
Hudson also details how concern from the US intelligence community is another factor in businesses feeling pressured to revisit their China strategies.
She writes that February’s annual threat assessment declared that China’s dominance in the tech, semiconductor, battery, solar panel and pharmaceutical sectors “pose a significant risk to US and Western manufacturing and consumer sectors if the government of China was able to adeptly leverage its dominance for political or economic gain”.


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At the 18th OSCE Summit in Kathmandu in November 2014, India proposed an agreement on SAARC motor vehicles. Pakistan`s objections failed to reach an agreement. Instead, India followed a similar agreement with BBIN. The BBIN Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA) was signed on 15 June 2015 at the BBIN Transport Ministers` Meeting in Thimpu, Bhutan.   The agreement will allow Member States to transport their vehicles on the territory of the other cargo and passenger provider, including transport and passenger vehicles from third countries. Any vehicle would require electronic authorization to enter another country`s territory and border security agreements between the borders of nations are maintained.  Freight vehicles can enter each of the four nations without the need to transfer goods from one country to another at the border. Under the system, cargo vehicles are electronically tracked, authorizations are issued online and sent electronically to all land ports. Vehicles are equipped with an electronic seal that alerts regulators every time the container door is opened.  DHL Global Forwarding has been commissioned by the Indian government to conduct a pilot race under the agreement. The first truck to benefit from the vehicle agreement was lodged from Calcutta on 1 November 2015. The truck travelled 640 km to Reach Agartala via Dhaka.
Before the BBIN motor vehicle agreement was signed, the truck would have had to travel 1550 km through Indian territory to reach Agartala. In August 2016, Bangladesh sent a truck carrying clothes from Dhaka to New Delhi as part of a trial of the agreement.  The truck obtained an electronic authorization to enter India via a web-based online system. Instead of submitting to customs clearance and formalities as before the agreement, the truck was equipped with an electronic seal with a GPS tracking device. The truck was then inspected in New Delhi and not at the border for customs clearance.  In 2015, India proposed a smooth transport of unplanned freight, buses and passenger cars between Moreh in Manipur and Mae Sot in Thailand. The importance of this agreement can be established from different angles. First, since Pakistan was not involved; It took only 6 months for the first truck to travel between the India-Bangladesh-India route. It was the second major multilateral agreement between South Asian countries and marked the idea of SAARC-minus-Pakistan “First thing to consider BIMSTEC, which was launched at the launch of New Delhi”. The sequence of events further reinforced this idea. Second, it is the first step in the $8 billion road link project between these four countries and Myanmar and Thailand.


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Two digital economy enterprises in the Nanning area of the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) recently received financial support for their digital transformation as national small and medium-sized enterprises, as part of a pilot program.
Recently, Youyiguan Border Gate provided a smart logistics control platform to help accelerate customs clearance procedures for imported durians.
In the first half of the year, the total import and export value of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor through Qinzhou Port was nearly 60 billion yuan ($8 billion), an increase of 19.6 percent year-on-year.
Since was established, the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) has adhered to institutional innovation as its core principle.
On July 20, the administrative examination and approval bureau of the Qinzhou Port area of the Guangxi FTZ issued the first comprehensive license for the human resources service industry to Guangxi Qianfeng Human Resources.
The Beibu Gulf Port is making great progress in writing new cross-border transactions through Chinese currency settlements.
In the first half of this year, the total value of Guangxi's foreign trade imports and exports hit 339 billion yuan ($47 billion), surging 43.2 percent year-on-year.
A more robust mechanism is needed to facilitate the smooth exchange of technology and expertise between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a high-level forum heard on July 13.


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News - Mazda
Mazda outsells Holden for the first time
Importer Mazda set to claim second place in April sales figures as Holden slips
2 May 2012
AUSTRALIA’S biggest full-line importer, Mazda Australia, outsold local manufacturer GM Holden for the first time last month, according to unofficial early retail sales figures circulated by car companies.
With about 7680 sales in April, Mazda appears to have grabbed second place behind long-time leader Toyota, moving ahead of Holden, whose sales slumped almost 17 per cent to about 7590 units, mainly due to depressed Commodore sales and a lack of Colorado ute stock ahead of a new model next month.
Toyota sales slipped from 18,466 last April to about 16,400 last month, but it achieved a market share of about 20 per cent – up on its 18.9 per cent for the first three months of 2012.
Although official VFACTS figures will not be released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries until tomorrow, the overall market appears to have taken an eight per cent hit, with sales falling from about 81,000 in April last year to 74,000 last month.
Apart from Holden, losers last month appear to have been Ford – down about 2.5 per cent to about 6300 sales – and Mitsubishi, which has dropped a whopping 29 per cent.
From top: Ford Falcon EcoBoost, Holden Cruze hatch and Toyota Aurion.
Big winners appear to be Mazda (up 20 per cent), Kia (up 25 per cent) and Subaru (up 22 per cent).
Mazda’s new CX-5 compact SUV was a success for the second month running, again achieving about 1400 units to help drive Mazda into second place on the sales ladder.
Hyundai appears to have come fourth again behind Toyota, Mazda and Holden, with Ford again trailing in fifth place.
Ford’s four-cylinder EcoBoost Falcon came too late in the month to help much with sales of the locally made large car, with Ford reporting only 1008 Falcon sedan sales – its second-worst month this year after January, when the Australian fleet industry is traditionally on holiday.
Holden’s rival Commodore appears to have recorded its lowest non-January result with only about 2200 sales and was outsold by stablemate Cruze, which achieved about 2300 sales.
Holden sold only about 200 Colorados last month, compared with more than 700 in the same month last year.
The Road to Recovery podcast series
4th of April 2012
VFACTS: Imports soar in record March
Local ‘big six’ sales shrink again as SUVs put pedal to the metal
3rd of April 2012
Nissan outsells Ford for the first time
Ford slips down the rankings as importers set hot sales pace in a monster March
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Motor industry news


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Jul 04, 2023Ravie LakshmananPrivacy / Online Security
The Swedish data protection watchdog has warned companies against using Google Analytics due to risks posed by U.S. government surveillance, following similar moves by Austria, France, and Italy last year.
The development comes in the aftermath of an audit initiated by the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (IMY) against four companies CDON, Coop, Dagens Industri, and Tele2.
"In its audits, IMY considers that the data transferred to the U.S. via Google's statistics tool is personal data because the data can be linked with other unique data that is transferred," IMY said.
"The authority also concludes that the technical security measures that the companies have taken are not sufficient to ensure a level of protection that essentially corresponds to that guaranteed within the EU/EEA."
The data protection authority also fined $1.1 million for Swedish telecom service provider Tele2 and less than $30,000 for local online marketplace CDON failing to implement adequate security measures to anonymize the data prior to the transfer.
Furthermore, CDON, Coop, and Dagens Industri have been ordered to cease using Google Analytics. Tele2 is said to have voluntarily stopped using the service.
The investigation, the IMY added, was based on a complaint filed by the privacy non-profit None of Your Business (noyb) alleging violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws.
The decision is rooted in the fact that such E.U.-U.S. data transfers have been found illegal in light of potential surveillance worries that data stored in U.S. servers could be subject to access by intelligence agencies in the country.
Similar concerns have led to Meta being levied a record $1.3 billion fine by European Union data protection agencies. That said, the E.U. and U.S. are in the process of finalizing a new data transfer arrangement, called the E.U.-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, that replaces the now-invalid Privacy Shield.
from The Hacker News https://bit.ly/3pCbkbC


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Yahoo said today that it will acquire Dapper, a technology platform company in the display ad creation and optimization business and a Yahoo partner. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The company said the acquisition will accelerate the adoption of Yahoo Smart Ads and will help Yahoo "to more efficiently deliver dynamic and personalized ads for customers across more of our network." In a statement, Dev Patel, vice president of Advertiser and Publisher Solutions at Yahoo, said:
Yahoo!’s product strategy is focused on creating engaging and meaningful experiences that keep users entertained and informed. Utilization of consumer insights to deliver relevant consumer and advertiser experiences are built into our technology from inception and Dapper’s capabilities will further enhance the experiences we deliver.
Yahoo said it expects to complete the deal by the end of the year.


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Target (TGT -0.07%) calmed shareholders' worries in this week's earnings report, with mostly positive answers to concerns about sluggish growth or an approaching end to its incredible market-share run.
Rather than a reversal of that happy trend, the retailer posted another record period of demand as it won more business in booming niches like home furnishings and consumer electronics. Management is now feeling more bullish about 2021, too -- especially on the earnings front.
Market share is still rising
It can be hard to evaluate retailers' growth rates in these boom times. Companies from Walmart (WMT -1.70%) to Home Depot are notching fresh records as consumers spend aggressively on staples and discretionary products.
Target's 23% year-over-year sales spike puts it near the top of the heap, though, compared to Walmart's 6% Q1 increase. CEO Brian Cornell and his team estimate that a full $1 billion of the chain's $4.5 billion in additional sales this quarter came from new market share rather than simply holding the same portion of a growing industry niche. Counting the $9 billion in new share the company won in fiscal 2020, Target has claimed $10 billion of new volume since the start of the pandemic.
Executives say the credit all goes to Target's ability to satisfy customers' demands for conveniently delivered, high-quality merchandise. "From our unique mix of categories to our unmatched fulfillment options," Cornell said in a conference call, "our business is delivering what consumers want and need."
Cashing in on growth
The even better news for the business is that demand is spiking in the most profit-friendly product and service categories such as home furnishings, apparel, and same-day services. That helped push gross profit margin up to 30% from 25% a year ago. Operating income soared to 9.8% of revenue, up from 2.4% a year ago and powering a 200% increase in adjusted earnings.
That's another way in which Target stands out from peers like Walmart, who are predicting flat or slightly lower profitability in 2021. The retailer's outsize growth in high-margin areas means it can spend aggressively on its infrastructure while still raising its operating margin.
Full-year operating margin is expected to again outpace the 7.2% rate Target notched in 2019 before the pandemic. It won't be as high as last year's record 10% rate, management warned, but it should hit at least 8%. Walmart's and Costco's comparable figures are near 4%, for context.
And unlike these rivals, Target feels confident predicting robust sales growth both for the second quarter and for the full 2021 fiscal year. Comps should rise by as much as 9%, management said, following last year's 19% spike.
That's a recipe for soaring long-term earnings and booming cash returns to investors. A result like that isn't common in an industry known for tiny profit margins and cutthroat competition. And it's likely that an economic slowdown would end that impressive run. But Target today is still putting up the type of growth and earnings numbers that investors just aren't used to seeing in the retailing world.


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This week was full of announcements from various eCommerce players! In France, the government announced a new law banning free postage offers and discounts higher than 5% on all online book orders which brought out a risky reaction from Amazon. SEO marketing on Google becomes more difficult as they continue to change their algorithms to display the relevant search results rather than the site that just has a strong SEO strategy. Shopify announces a partnership with Pinterest which gives all Shopify merchants automatic access to Rich Pins. Visa launches a new digital payment service called ‘Visa Checkout’ which makes checking out on mobile devices much quicker and easier. Facebook tests a new feature allowing merchants to directly sell products on the Facebook News Feed. Check out our Weekly Wrap Up summaries below to see what has been happening in eCommerce this week!
Amazon Fights Back Against New French Law
Article: Amazon Responds to French Free Delivery Ban by Charging 1 Cent
After the French government introduced the law banning free delivery offers on online book orders, Amazon responded by charging 1 cent! The law came into effect this week in an effort to protect small, traditional bookstores from online retailers such as Amazon. The new law also prevents online stores from applying discounts of more than 5% to a book cover’s price. Some are worried that once Amazon dominates the market and eliminates other retailers, they will raise the prices back up. What do you think of Amazon’s risky move? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
If You Want to Rank High on Google, Just Have a Great Site!
Article: Are We Coming to the End of SEO?
When customers search for something in Google, they’re not looking for the site that has the best SEO strategy, they’re looking for a site that is really relevant to their search. And Google wants what their users want, which means SEO marketing on Google is continue to get harder to win with. If you want to rank high on Google, your best bet is to simply have a great site and market it effectively. This should be a standard for every website anyways, but especially with SEO becoming harder to use.
Shopify Brings Rich Pins to All Merchants
Article: Pinterest Rich Pins Now Automatically Enabled for Shopify Merchants
This week, Shopify announced a new partnership with Pinterest! This new partnership now allows Shopify merchants to automatically enable Rich Pins on their site. This is going to make their images on Pinterest more shoppable, with additional information within the pin such as real-time pricing and stock availability. Although this feature was previously available, it required adding meta data to your site’s code and validating the Rich Pins on Pinterest. Now, all Shopify merchants get access to this feature automatically!
‘Visa Checkout’ Makes Online Shopping Quick and Simple
Article: Visa Launches ‘Checkout’ for Quick and Easy Payments From Any Device
Earlier this week, Visa announced a new payment service called ‘Visa Checkout’. This new service is a simplified digital payment service designed to allow customers to quickly pay for goods online on any connected device. With the new service, customers can simply enter a username and password which will bring up all of their necessary information. This might just be what merchants need to improve their check out abandonment on mobile devices, since checking out will be so quick and easy!
Facebook’s Latest Feature
Article: Testing a New Way for People to Discover and Buy Products on Facebook
Just yesterday, Facebook announced a new feature that they are testing out to help businesses drive sales on their sites. This new feature will somewhat transform Facebook into a marketplace itself as merchants will be able to include “Buy” call-to-action buttons on their ads and page posts, allowing viewers to purchase products directly from a business without even leaving their Facebook News Feed. They assure that this feature was built with privacy in mind and will not store any debit or credit card information. What do you think of this new feature?


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Ranchi (RP Service): Greenlam Industries Ltd, leading manufacturers of surfacing products with its flagship brand Greenlam Laminates has introduced retro styles for home interiors taking back to the era of 60s and 70S. Parul Mittal Director of the Greenlam
Industries said that when it comes to applying different styles in interiors it is best to mix and match.
Fusion of dark colour, patterns and different textures will give a classy and vintage look. She said that trends which use to be famous decades ago are coming back in colours such as Red Dynasty, Tindal Sand etc adding that laminates come with huge size of texture finishes and colors.


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Slashing accounts not savings
Bristol & West is planning a major shake up of its savings range as it abolishes a huge number of obsolete accounts.
The bank's one million customers have their savings in an astounding 250 different sorts of account, most of which are no longer marketed or open to new customers. But on 16 January it will realign most of its savers into just four main accounts.
Bristol & West said that nine out of 10 customers are going to either benefit or see no change after that date. And two out of 10 will get a better deal, either in terms of higher rates of interest or improved conditions on their accounts.
One in ten customers will get worse terms but the bank will be warning these customers in writing that they could sign up to a better deal. Customers whose accounts are going to change should receive letters over the next few weeks.
By paying more competitive rates to existing customers Bristol & West hopes to guarantee their loyalty. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, where financially astute customers are much more willing to shop around for the best deal, retaining customers has become as essential as winning new ones.
Its will also ensure that it does not fall foul of the Banking Code again. This states that banks and building societies should pay at least the same rates of interest on accounts that are no longer being marketed as on similar accounts open to new customers.
In August Bristol & West was forced to improve rates for savers on a number of its obsolete accounts after the Banking Code Standards Board ruled that interest rates were not being kept at the same level as current alternatives with similar features.
Tidying up its savings range is expected to cost Bristol & West £500,000 in increased interest payments.
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