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Online purchasing represents a very important part of the European economy. However, the EU fell short of its target aiming for 33 % of SMEs to be selling online by 2015, reaching only 18 % at the end of 2016. The EU-funded PAYPLUG LABS project aimed to help European SMEs sell online by developing an improved online payment system. “The project targets European SMEs who wish to offer online payments but struggle with existing payment systems that are complex and expensive to implement, and vulnerable to fraudulent transactions,” says Camille Tyan, co-founder and CEO of French SME PayPlug and PAYPLUG LABS project coordinator. Project work resulted in a next-generation payment platform that offers advanced payment features but remains simple to integrate. “We focused particularly on developing innovative fraud detection tools that can protect online merchants from fraudulent transactions and enable PayPlug to register new merchants securely and rapidly,” elaborates Tyan. Focus on security for merchants To achieve its aims, PAYPLUG LABS developed and extensively tested a core Application programming interface (API) with advanced payment features such as one-click payments, responsive payment pages, billing management and direct integration with banking streams. It then enhanced fraud detection by developing a machine-learning fraud detection model that can evaluate the risk that a transaction is fraudulent, dubbed the Smart 3D-Secure tool. “The tool enables merchants to ask for confirmation of the transaction by SMS, depending on the risk of each transaction,” explains Tyan. “The feature reduced fraudulent transactions by 50 %, while merchants saw an 8 % increase in conversion rates,” he adds. PayPlug can also rapidly detect fraudulent merchants, offering one of the fastest activation times on the market for legitimate SMEs. One of the features of 3D-Secure is that it offers merchants the opportunity to define safety rules, such as “if the purchase is worth more than 100 euros or if it is made from a country outside of the EU,” illustrates Tyan. The tool is based on evaluation of the risk associated with each transaction as well as on the personal preferences of a merchant. Based on the calculation of fraud risk, a merchant can decide to activate 3D-Secure for anywhere between 20 and 80 % of the most risky transactions. More and more SMEs benefiting from PayPlug The project’s results have already enabled PayPlug to bring innovative payment features and fraud detection to hundreds of SMEs that wish to sell online. “Since the launch of the project, the number of active PayPlug merchants has increased by 500 %,” says Tyan proudly. He highlights that the project’s development “provides European SMEs with a solution for selling online that is adapted to their needs.” Through continuing roll-out of its SME payment solution, PayPlug has already spread beyond France to Spain and Italy, with new EU markets currently being targeted. The volume of payments processed by PayPlug has more than doubled between 2016 and 2017, successfully increasing the number of European SMEs that can benefit from the digital economy and from e-commerce solutions.
PAYPLUG LABS, SMEs, online payment, fraudulent transactions, e-commerce, online purchasing, fraud risk


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branding celebrity endorsement
November 12, 2014
The new look has been developed with ad agency Deutsch, and takes in a new identity, box designs, website and staff uniforms.
The Pizza Hut identity has been redrawn and the new tagline “The Flavor of Now” has been introduced. The rebrand comes as Pizza Hut is overhaul...
Should brands use celebrity endorsement?
October 2, 2015
Can your brand make the world a better place?
October 1, 2015
Why bother investing in design?
September 8, 2015
Why do you think the vinyl record is such an enduring format?
April 27, 2015
Helping small businesses to get branding right
April 20, 2015
Endlessly Distracted? Blame Your Own Creative Genius
March 23, 2015
A Brief History Of User Experience Design
March 16, 2015
Tasty new look for Pizza Hut
Smith & Milton rebrands the Honey Monster
October 21, 2014
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Tesla is sliding after slashing prices on its Model X and Model S in China
Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press
- Tesla announced it was slashing Model X and Model S prices in China to offset some of the impact from President Donald Trump's tariffs.
- Shares fell 1.8% following the announcement.
- Watch Tesla trade live.
Tesla was sliding Friday, down 1.8% to below $332 a share, after the company announced that it was cutting prices on some vehicles in China to help offset some of the impact from President Donald Trump's trade war.
The electric-car maker on Thursday said it was slashing prices on its Model X and Model S vehicles in China by 12% to 26% to make them more "affordable," Reuters reported.
"We are absorbing a significant part of the tariff to help make our cars more affordable for customers in China," Tesla said in a statement sent to Reuters.
The announcement comes just over four months after Tesla announced a 20% price increase in China in response to Beijing's announcement that it would retaliate for Trump imposing tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods.
It has been a roller coaster ride for Tesla shareholders in the second half of 2018. The stock topped out above $387 on August 7, the day CEO Elon Musk said he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private at $420 a share. Musk didn't have funding secured, and he later settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which had accused him of misleading the public. As part of the settlement, he agreed to step down as chairman for at least three years and pay a fine of $20 million.
Tesla's stock tumbled to $250 in the wake of the "funding secured" saga, but was able to hold key support in the area. Shares managed to climb back above $350 after the company crushed third-quarter expectations and named Robyn Denholm, the CFO at Australian telecom Telestra, as its new board chair.
Tesla was up 8.6% this year through Tuesday.
Get the latest Tesla stock price here.
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In the wake of every national tragedy, from shootings to natural disasters, it happens like clockwork — celebrities and companies and everyday folk tweet their thoughts and prayers to the victims.
There’s an interesting debate over “tragedy tweeting” at Arik Hanson’s Communication Conversations blog, and I admit it amounts to somewhat of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” dilemma for brands.
On one hand, people complain when companies insensitively let their auto-tweets run amok in times of national crisis, broadcasting promotions and offers in the midst of tragedy. I know — I was one of these complainers.
But just as bad, I think, are the generic bromides that companies feel compelled to broadcast. As Hanson argues:
Who cares that brands care? Isn’t this akin to the corporate news release from the CEO with standard boilerplate language? Almost like a robot–instead of an actual human being–said it … I don’t see a compelling reason here for brands to participate in these tragedies–even if it is just to say “our sympathies.” Yeah, it shows your brand cares. But, when every other brand on the planet is doing it (as well as EVERYONE in your newsfeed), the message kinda gets lost, don’t you think?
As I commented, it reminds me of Ricky Gervais’s tweet in the aftermath of one of the Oklahoma tornados. In response to the usual “thoughts and prayers” tweets from celebrities, he said this:
Of course, Gervais is a provocateur and militant atheist, so there’s a pretty sharp edge to what he’s saying. But the point, as he made in subsequent posts, is that if people are so concerned, they should donate to the Red Cross.
For brands, again, it’s that Catch-22. Everyone tells companies they need to be more “human” in their communications. But I think the predictability and generic nature of these tweets make them the opposite of human. They’re as bland and ordinary as every over-polished, over-vetted, over-committeed corporate message.
Or, as one commenter put it:
The rote response “Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the ____ in ______” is not remotely humanizing for a brand. It’s frequent use has robbed it of all its meaning …
So what can be done instead? They could offer substantive help of money or resources to the affected communities. They could encourage their followers to do the same. At minimum, they could find something unique, truly personal and meaningful to say that’s not being said by thousands of others.
Or they could just not tweet for a while.
Of course, as pointed out by Hanson and several commenters, these companies’ tragedy tweets certainly generated a lot of comments and likes and shares. So maybe they know their followers better than we do.
Perhaps, just perhaps, this is a case of a few cranky elites out of step with the concerns and tastes of real Americans. For me, at least, it wouldn’t be the first time …


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The place to go when you want to put a lid on it
By Elizabeth Czapski | Staff Writer
Published September 4, 2018
Wherever there are sports teams, there is passion—and for the passionate, there are
hats. For New Eastside sports fans, Lids, 175 N. Michigan Ave., is the place to go.
Based in Indianapolis, Lids sells hats in more than 1,000 locations throughout the U.S. and Canada.
The clientele at this Lids location is diverse, said assistant manager Justin Gordon. “We get a lot of international shoppers, and then we have a lot of residents from the South Side and West Side of Chicago,” Gordon said. He added it’s also a favorite of locals.
Gordon said there’s often a morning rush, with a line outside a half hour before the store opens. He said the most popular items are fitted Cubs and Sox hats. “People love those. Those always are flying off the racks, and we always have to replenish them,” he said. With fall just around the corner, Gordon said customers have been looking for bucket hats and beanies.
When the Cubs won the World Series in 2016, demand for Cubs gear soared sky-high.
“This store got really good numbers off the Cubs,” Gordon said. “Any place that was selling Cubs anything was packed. It was crazy.”
Lids also offers custom embroidery with anything from Chicago stars to a favorite player’s name and number, Gordon said.
Lids can also add kingpins to the hats, with numerous design options available.
A White Sox and Bears fan himself, Gordon said he has about 300 hats from Lids. Ryan Kaul, from Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, was visiting Chicago with his family and bought a Durham Bulls hat to add to his collection. His younger brother J.T. bought a Brewers hat.
“I collect hats, and it’s an easy, good way to bring something back to Wisconsin from Chicago not Cubs-related,” Kaul said.
Yvonne Fernandes, who is from Australia and lives in the U.K., was in Chicago because her husband was attending a conference.
“I was sent by my children to go look for hats, for Cubs hats, apparently,” she said as she searched through the Lids displays for the perfect hat to take home.
When asked if the Cubs are popular in the U.K., Fernandes said, “I have no idea. I just do as I’m told.”


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A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health claims that prescription drug direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) can be harmful to a person’s health. According to the researchers, prescription drug advertisements are “not doing a good job of helping consumers to make better decisions about their health”.
The study, A decade of Controversy: Balancing Policy with Evidence in the Regulation of Prescription Drug Advertising, explained that viewers of American television see as much as 16 hours of prescription drug advertisements every year. Living in the EU where DTCA for prescription drugs is banned, I have to say I was a little shocked at the number!
So what is it that the authors of the study dislike? First of all, it’s important to point out that the authors are not completely opposed to DTCA; on the contrary, they admit that it offers benefits. However, they also believe that improvements can be made to “minimize potential harm and maximize benefits”.
The authors concluded that the majority of prescription drug advertisements “fail to provide enough information to allow consumers to clearly identify whether the advertised drug is right for them”. They also added that the “over dramatization and emotional portrayal” of a drug’s benefits in advertisements can also be misleading.
As a solution, the authors proposed several guidelines: advertisements should help consumers identify whether the treatment is right for them; advertisements should provide accurate and specific information about the potential benefits of advertised drugs, and should state how the drug compares to placebo or other available treatments including generic drugs; and specific information should be provided regarding the potential risks associated with drugs without other visual or audio distractions.
This isn’t the first time DTCA has been in the spotlight. In 2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report that called on the FDA to boost its enforcement of DTCA rules, while in 2009 voluntary Guiding Principles for DTCA laid down by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) came into effect. Several members of US Congress, including Henry Waxman, have also called for changes to the FDA’s regulation of DTCA
As I mentioned before, DTCA in the EU is banned, but there have been moves by regulatory authorities to stick a toe into the DTCA pool. Earlier this year, Pharmaceutical Technology Europe reported on a proposal by the European Commission that would allow drugmakers to disseminate certain information on prescription drugs directly to European patients. The ban on DTCA would remain in place, but drugmakers would be able to provide factual, non-promotional information about the benefits and risks of their medicines using certain media (excluding television and radio). This could offer a compromise between allowing the pharma industry to advertise its products while avoiding the problems with DTCA highlighted in the study in the American Journal of Public Health.
In a press statement, the lead author of the study, Dominick L. Frosch, pointed out that: “If the pharmaceutical industry isn’t willing to change the ads to make them more useful to consumers, Congress should consider passing legislation that will regulate the ads to improve the information provided in order to help patients make more informed choices.”


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Camelot Unchained: Extender Pack and Pet Class Announced
City State Entertainment has recently announced a new stretch goal for Camelot Unchained that would be available for long time backers called the “Extender Pack”. This new pack will include content and features that would be included post launch, and will not include any additional purchase similar to expansion packs.
CSE also mentioned details regarding a new pet class that is currently in development for the game, stating that their plans for the class will play out very differently compared to pet classes in other MMORPGs.
For more info, visit http://camelotunchained.com/v2/woot-we-leveled-up-and-so-much-more/
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“What sets Tacoma is for Lovers apart for me is the amazing community set up around this craft fair,” said Erika Rier, a visual artist based in Portland and a returning vendor at Tacoma Is for Lovers. “I’ve made many of my closest friends through doing this fair. In many ways, it has changed my life.”
Rier is one of the many vendors coming to sell beautiful and quirky crafts at the 10th annual Tacoma Is for Lovers Holiday Craft Fair at King’s Books in Tacoma’s Stadium District. On Nov. 17 and 18, visitors can peruse unique items from handmade pillows to locally harvested honey.
“What’s unique about Tacoma is for Lovers Craft Fair is it’s like going to a potluck of creativity,” said Christina Spadafore, a jewelry designer and vendor.
Andrea Mitchell, owner of In Stitches, will be attending the event for the fourth year in a row. Mitchell makes wallets, pouches, and bags with quirky designs — she fits right in with the array of funky vendors at the fair.
“(Tacoma is for Lovers) does a great job of choosing a variety of local makers that bring high-quality handmade goods and customers to the event that truly want to support their local creatives,” Mitchell said. “It is a very enthusiastic and fun event to be a part of.”
The first Tacoma is For Lovers Craft Fair at King’s Books was just supposed to be a one-time thing. It was originally started by local resident Jennifer Adams to help a close friend with her medical bills.
“A friend of mine was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and she didn’t have insurance. … The very first one was just a complete fundraiser for her,” Adams said. “That’s where it started. It was just for her.”
After that Tacoma is for Lovers just became a regular local craft fair. Now ten years in the making, King’s Books has been involved since the very beginning.
“We’ve tried a couple different formats, one year we did five in one year. That was just crazy. Now we just do the weekend before Valentine’s Day, the weekend before Mother’s Day, which is just one day, and the weekend before Thanksgiving,” said sweet pea Flaherty, owner of King’s Books.
The name Tacoma is for Lovers is inspired by Jennifer Adams’ mom, who used to sport a sweatshirt all throughout Adams’ childhood that said, “Carmel is for Lovers.” The nostalgia was too good to pass up for Adams. Now the slogan is sold on t-shirts all over Tacoma and has become somewhat of a local favorite.
Look out for the next Tacoma is for Lovers Valentine’s Day Craft Fair on Feb. 9th, and if you’re crafty, remember to submit your vendor application in December to take part in the fair.
Here is a list of vendors for day one and two of the November fair.


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We normally have to wait for third-party manufacturers to launch their own accessories after a new smartphone is released, but Samsung has decided to launch a few of their own. Samsung plans to release an S View Cover which features a window for easy access to the S4's AMOLED display, a wireless charging pad, a wireless scale, an S band companion bracelet, and an unnamed gaming pad prototype.
The Bluetooth game controller features dual analog sticks, a D-pad, four face, and two shoulder buttons. The game pad runs on AAA batteries and connects wirelessly to the Galaxy 4. Samsung did not mention a price or official release date, but the game pad is expected to be available sometime this summer.


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Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) is undergoing a lot of changes with the impending A Realm Reborn update. With such a huge number of changes in the works, people undoubtedly have a lot of questions to ask and FFXIV Producer/Director Naoki Yoshida is going to give you your chance. Yoshida will be hosting his third live Letter from the Producer via YouTube on September 14th, 2012. Players that have questions that they would like to ask can tune into the broadcast on that date at 4:00am PDT and submit questions to Twitter account (@FF_XIV_EN) with the hashtag #XIVLive.
The audio for the broadcast will be available in Japanese only and the themes will focus on FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, the upcoming 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy and beyond. The URL for the event will be announced on the FFXIV Loadstone website at a later time.
Update: Square Enix has posted the link for the third live FFXIV Letter from the Producer. You can watch it live via YouTube or through the embed below on September 14th at 4:00am PDT.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Game Page.


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Microsoft‘s gaming boss Phil Spencer has claimed he doesn’t see Xbox as being engaged in a battle with rival console makers, preferring instead to focus on how the industry is growing.
Speaking in an interview in the latest issue of Edge magazine, the head of Xbox was asked if he thinks Xbox is still engaged in a traditional console war despite the likes of Game Pass and xCloud changing the landscape.
“I spend zero energy on ‘how do I make other gaming platforms smaller so that Xbox gets bigger’,” Spencer said. “I’m more interested in the growing pie of gaming than I am our slice of the pie-eating into someone else’s.
“And it’s why we focus on things like cross-play and cross-saves. I think about these scenarios of why you and I maybe can’t play a game together, and it shouldn’t be because of the console you bought versus the console I bought.”
He added: “That doesn’t help the industry grow, when we put artificial barriers up on those things. Whether that means we’re doing something different than the other guys, you’d have to ask them.
“But I’d say for us, it’s not about somebody else getting smaller so that we get bigger.”
Spencer stated last year that Microsoft now views Amazon and Google as its primary competitors in the games business.
Speaking to Protocol, Spencer claimed that Xbox’s traditional rivals Nintendo and PlayStation aren’t set up to compete in the race to take gaming truly mainstream via the cloud.
“When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a ton of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward,” Spencer said.
“That’s not to disrespect Nintendo and Sony, but the traditional gaming companies are somewhat out of position. I guess they could try to re-create Azure, but we’ve invested tens of billions of dollars in cloud over the years.
“I don’t want to be in a fight over format wars with those guys while Amazon and Google are focusing on how to get gaming to 7 billion people around the world. Ultimately, that’s the goal.”
Related Forum: Xbox Forum


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Business forum “Bashkortostan-Baltic States” to be held in Latvia
Business forum “Bashkortostan-Baltic States” will take place in Latvia in February 2013. The economic forum will take place within the frames of Bashkortostan’s delegation to Latvia with the purpose of acquaintance with experience of foreign colleagues in sphere of hotel business and tourism and cooperation with the Baltic region. Representatives of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania expected to take part in the forum. They will tell about strategy for tourism development in Baltic States till 2014.


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Korea - DS reaches two million sold
Nintendo just hit yet another milestone with the DS. While it may not seem like much compared to the DS sales in the rest of the world, Nintendo has just reached 2 million DS Lite sales in Korea. I’d say that’s a pretty sizable achievement considering Nintendo’s almost non-existence in Korea throughout past years.


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It was Winston Churchill, of all people, who predicted the ultimate culinary revolution. Way back in 1932, he stated that: “Fifty years hence, we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order eat the breast or the wing, by growing these parts separately in a suitable medium.”
It has taken a few decades longer than Churchill imagined, but his prediction might just be coming true – and not before time. Humans now kill about 1,600 birds and mammals every second for food, and that number will grow hugely as the global population – currently 7.1 billion – rises to more than nine billion by mid-century.
It is not just the cruelty that grates, but the huge environmental cost: the space needed to keep and feed all those cows and sheep, pigs and chickens is more than seven times the land we use to grow crops. And with climate change set to make drought and heatwaves more common, added pressure will be put on pastoral farmers, making feeding a growing population ever harder. Indeed, this week the president of the National Farmers’ Union said extreme weather was the greatest threat to British food security.
Of course, the synthetic meat revolution is one of those things, like flying cars, nuclear fusion or holidays on the Moon, that has always been just around the corner, but never quite arrived. People have tried, but the results have been both disgusting and expensive: think of those fungus-based concoctions, veggie burgers and fake sausages.
But now something new and very interesting is in the air. Prof Mark Post, a doctor and scientist at the University of Maastricht, will next week unveil what he claims is the first truly convincing synthesised meat product – a hamburger created in the lab from cultured tissue. It will be brought to London on Monday, cooked – possibly – by a celebrity chef (Heston Blumenthal was once mooted), and then eaten by a mysterious special guest.
When I met Prof Post at his laboratory last year, he talked me through his procedure, which involves taking skeletal-muscle stem cells from a cow, sheep or chicken and growing them in vitro into thin sheets of muscle. They put on bulk partly through stimulation by electricity – a nice Mary Shelley touch. Take these little strips of meat, weave them together and you have a lump of beef.
The world’s first test-tube burger will not come cheap – the figure of £250,000 has been mooted. But, as Prof Post tells me, next week’s publicity stunt “is just a proof of concept”. Certainly, he seems much more confident now about his project; whereas last year he confessed that his family thought him mad, they have now come around to his vision. As for the event itself, he has been ordered by his publicists to stay shtum: he won’t say who the celebrity chef will be, nor who his backer is, nor if they will be the same person tasting the meat – although I am told they are both famous and not British. My best guess would be the flamboyant techno-pioneer Elon Musk, of PayPal, the Tesla electric sports car and the SpaceX private rocket programme, although we shall just have to wait and see.
The real question is, will this work? After all, real meat is both cheap and widely available. Why would anyone choose to buy something that costs vastly more?
The answer boils down to that growing population. Twenty years ago, the Chinese ate less than a 10th of the amount of meat per head that Americans did. Now, as living standards rise, they are catching up fast. If 9.5 billion people (the UN’s mid-range estimate for “peak humanity”, to be reached between 2060 and 2080) want to eat meat in the same quantities as we do now, then just about every acre of land will have to be turned over to keeping animals and growing their food. The net result will be that meat will double in price, then double again.
Such an agricultural expansion would serve to degrade the environment, increase carbon emissions and raise the cost of living (especially food prices) for billions. Then there is the growing disquiet in America and, especially, Europe about the iniquities and cruelties involved in meat production. The fact that products sold in mainstream supermarkets were found to contain flesh from animals of a different species to that on the label – most notoriously in horse lasagne – hardly builds confidence. The market for “ethical meat” might be small, but it is growing.
As for how to make the fake meat, there are two diametrically opposed philosophies. One, as espoused by Dr Post, involves taking real animal tissue and using it to grow meat in a vat, much as Churchill envisaged. In theory, cells taken from a single bullock could provide the seed for decades’ worth of meat production, and several teams in Europe (of which Post’s is the most advanced) are working on this approach.
The alternative is to make meat out of plants. This has been the traditional approach taken by the big meat-substitute concerns: to create a facsimile using vegetable or fungal protein that will satisfy the “meat hunger” of vegetarian converts. The problem is that I have never tried any commercially produced pretend-meat product that I would happily eat again, which will be the case for most committed carnivores.
In Silicon Valley, California, a brilliant geneticist called Pat Brown is approaching the fake meat project from another angle. His ambition is nothing less than to “change the way the Earth looks from space”, by creating so much cheap, healthy fake meat of such high quality that millions of burger-hungry Americans will happily buy it – causing the world’s livestock industry to collapse, and pastures to be either abandoned or given over to crops.
Brown, an intense, vegan, marathon-running genius, is secretive about his work – and perhaps fearful about what the meat industry, which can be a hard-bitten concern, will do to his enterprise if he is successful. But his approach is clear: to take plant tissue and re-engineer it to look, smell and taste like real meat. He has, he says, “no interest in making products for vegans”.
The problem – which goes for the in vitro approach as well – is that what we call “meat” is not a single substance, but more like a piece of biological architecture. Meat is mostly muscle, made up of fibres of protein held together with connective tissue and fats and infused with blood vessels, nerves and gristle. The flavour comes not from the blood, as is commonly supposed, but something called the Maillard reaction, which partially converts proteins into caramelised sugars.
A steak, therefore, is a complex piece of machinery – and duplicating it is not easy. That is why fake-meat pioneers are starting with what is effectively mince. Get that right, at a decent cost, and the money will start to flow in. That could enable more sophisticated techniques that would allow, say, the growing of plausible “fillets” on some sort of scaffold, complete with bioengineered fats.
It may sound far-fetched, but we shouldn’t bet against it. Talk about fake meat, and most people say “yuck”. They, like almost everyone, have never set foot in an abattoir. There is a “yuck factor” in real meat that we simply choose to ignore, just as we will choose to ignore the baths of serum and pulsating, disembodied fillets in a fake-meat vat if the stuff is tasty, cheap and healthy enough. Those who disdain the fake-meat revolution assume that consumers will reject bioengineered plant matter, or something grown in a vat like a headless chicken. But if it’s cheap enough and tasty enough, why give it a go? It can hardly be worse than horses from the knacker’s yard.


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A Statistics Canada report is expected to show that price inflation accelerated in July by almost the fastest rate in two decades
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can expect mostly good news from economic data during Canada’s five-week election campaign. But there’s one potential trouble spot for him: consumer prices.
A Statistics Canada report due Wednesday is expected to show that price inflation accelerated in July by almost the fastest rate in two decades. Economists estimate that consumer prices jumped 3.4 per cent last month on an annual basis, from 3.1 per cent in June.
Such numbers are sure to provoke attacks from rival parties over higher living costs — potentially Trudeau’s biggest economic vulnerability, with polls showing it’s a top election issue for Canadians. Inflation in the country has risen above 3.4 per cent only twice since 2003.
Other economic releases between now and the Sept. 20 vote are expected to be mostly favorable, with the data expected to show rising employment in August and economic activity returning to near pre-pandemic levels.
Indeed, high vaccination rates have allowed federal and provincial governments to ease restrictions and businesses to reopen at greater capacity in the past few months.
“On the real economy side, the news will be positive. The one risk is we’re going to get inflation reports that will show it perking up a bit in July and August,” Doug Porter, chief economist at Bank of Montreal, said by phone.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole, whose party is running second to Trudeau’s Liberals, released a lengthy campaign platform on Monday that includes a one-month sales-tax holiday and proposals to boost housing supply and mobile phone competition. The Liberals are targeting younger voters with promises of subsidized child care at $10 a day.


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Embassy of India
Road Show on Source India 2019 : A Mega Event on Entire Range of ‘Fibre to Fashion’
The Synthetic & Rayon Textile Export Promotion Council (SRTEPC) organized a Road Show in Jakarta on 11th July, 2019 to promote Source India 2019, a mega event tipped as India’s largest sourcing show for Manmade Fibre Textile Products, displaying the entire range of “Fibre to Fashion”, being organized in Mumbai from 21 to 23 August, 2019.
Ibu Shinta W. Kamdani, Vice Chairwoman of Indonesian Employers Association (APINDO) in her welcome speech said that the Road Show would provide an overview of prospects of the Indian Textile Industry in the Indonesian Market and encouraged the Indonesian companies to participate in Source India with a view to build mutually beneficial partnerships. Ambassador Pradeep Kumar Rawat in his keynote address said that the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two emerging economies of the world, India and Indonesia, is growing from strength to strength. He said that Source India 2019 would provide immense opportunities for Indonesia in the entire range of Man-made Fibre Textile Products and hoped that the Road Show would pave way for participation of Indonesian Textile Industry in good numbers. Mr Narain Aggarwal and Shri Dinesh Modi of SRTEPC gave a presentation on the takeaways for the Indonesian Textile Industry from Source India and later answered to queries of the participants in a Q&A Session. The Road Show was attended by members of Indonesian Textile Industry and Senior functionaries of APINDO from Textiles Sector.


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More than halfway into the current dairy season, Australian milk production is firing on all cylinders, Rabobank says, with widespread growth in milk supply across all dairying regions due to favourable seasonal conditions and good farmgate margins.
In its recently-released Q1 Global Dairy Quarterly report, the agribusiness banking specialist said Australian milk production reached 5.35 billion litres from the period July 2023 to January 2024, 2.5 per cent year-on-year higher.
The bank said summer rainfall had far exceeded expectations across much of Australia's east coast, providing a good platform for livestock producers.
Report co-author, Rabobank senior dairy analyst Michael Harvey said Australian dairy farmers were expected to enjoy a strong 2024. “With milk prices remaining elevated, expectations are that new season pricing from July 1 will be margin-supportive,” Mr Harvey said. “And there is plenty of homegrown feed in storage, and purchased feed is affordable.”
Rabobank forecasts the Australian milk supply to finish the 2023/24 season (ending June 30) 2.6 per cent higher, with growth to continue into the new season in the range of three to four per cent for 2024/25.
Mr Harvey said the domestic Australian dairy market performance is stuttering, but is expected to improve in 2024.
“Australian household budgets remain strained, driving discretionary spending lower, which is flowing into the food basket,” he said. “The financial health of Australian consumers is anticipated to improve as the year progresses, wages increase, tax cuts kick in and inflation normalises. And there are also potential interest rate cuts on the horizon.
“However, it is not all smooth sailing for consumers, with domestic economic growth for 2024 revised downward and unemployment revised upwards.”
Mr Harvey said disinflation is visible across Australian dairy grocery aisles. “Still, consumer prices are 20 per cent higher than before the inflation cycle, resulting in trading down across the main categories,” he said.
Rabobank said Australian dairy exports had been under pressure in the first six months of the season.
“Volumes were 8.5 per cent lower than last year, with significant declines for milk, whole milk powder and butteroil,” Mr Harvey said. “As milk supply grows into the new season, additional milk will be directed to manufacturing and potentially exports.
“Export competitiveness remains, but the gap between local and offshore farmgate milk prices has narrowed as milk prices in competitors’ regions increase on the back of improving commodity markets.”
Rabobank said global dairy prices have improved amid ongoing supply and demand challenges.
The quarterly report said despite the positive trend, dairy farmers worldwide continue to face margin challenges.
“Against a backdrop of buyers with adequate inventories and macroeconomic concerns, global dairy demand has shown sluggishness in recent months, and milk supply growth continues to struggle” the report said.
“Key exporting regions experienced weaker year-on-year production in the second half of 2023, and we forecast lower output for the first two quarters of 2024 before a positive turn in the latter half of the year,” Mr Harvey said.
“After two consecutive quarters of weaker supply, a firmly bullish price response would typically have materialised. However, with global buyers’ current stock levels and broader economic worries offsetting lower milk volumes, the supply and demand balance is different this time,” he said.
The bank expects the recent equilibrium between weaker supply and weaker demand will slowly shift throughout 2024, with prices moving to the upside as milk production continues to struggle but demand subtly improves.
“Slow, but steady, price increases among most dairy commodities will materialise in the coming months. A return to 2022 price levels is unlikely, but gains versus 2023’s lows are probable. Coupled with lower expected feed costs, an improved margin outlook will eventually drive milk production growth in the ‘Big 7’ (the EU, US, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay) by the second half of 2024,” the report said.
“It will likely not be a record price year by any measure, but farmers around the globe will welcome the return to profitability,” Mr Harvey said.
“Looking ahead, we see increasing evidence that demand is on the upswing, with recessionary fears abating in some countries and a modestly-improved economic outlook.”
The bank noted the Global Dairy Trade auction has seen positive price movement, signalling a potential uptick in demand. Yet, given the low level of global dairy product stocks, any supply shock or demand event presents an upside price risk for dairy product end users.
“Moreover,” the Rabobank report said, “geopolitical conflict persists in various regions worldwide, including in Ukraine and the Middle East. Further conflict escalation carries risks for global dairy demand, while shipping challenges remain in the Red Sea, increasing the time and cost of items in transit.
“Additionally, it is an election year in many key dairy regions, with the European Parliament elections approaching in June, while the US will elect a president and many members of Congress in November. New Zealand’s new government, elected in October 2023, is implementing new policies.”
“Any potential leadership shifts could also mean new approaches to policy, including free trade agreements, sustainability policies, or nutrition priorities that trickle back to impact dairy prices.”
Denise Shaw Will Banks
Media Relations Media Relations
Rabobank Australia & New Zealand Rabobank Australia
Phone: 02 8115 2744 or 0439 603 525 Phone: 0418 216 103
Rabobank Australia & New Zealand Group is a part of the international Rabobank Group, the world’s leading specialist in food and agribusiness banking. Rabobank has more than 120 years’ experience providing customised banking and finance solutions to businesses involved in all aspects of food and agribusiness. Rabobank is structured as a cooperative and operates in 38 countries, servicing the needs of more than nine million clients worldwide through a network of more than 1000 offices and branches. Rabobank Australia & New Zealand Group is one of Australasia’s leading agricultural lenders and a significant provider of business and corporate banking and financial services to the region’s food and agribusiness sector. The bank has 90 branches throughout Australia and New Zealand.


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Facebook scrambles to add safeguards against misuse of user data as it reels from since over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Now Facebook will launch a certification tool. That claims that marketers surety email addresses used for ad targeting were performed. This new Custom Audiences certification tool narrate by a Facebook surrogate to their marketing clients, according to two sources. Facebook will also obstruct the sharing of Custom Audience data across Business accounts.
This bibelot of a message sent by a Facebook renown to a client notes that for any tradition Audiences data imported among Facebook, Advertisers will necessary to describe and warrant that accurate user satisfied obtained. Once shown the message, Facebook spokesperson Elisabeth Diana told TechCrunch I can assure there is a permissions tool that we are building. It will necessary that advertisers and the organization representing them promise that I certify that I have consent to use this data.
We have always had a position in place to assure that advertisers have an agreement for data they use but we are going to make that much greater and educate advertisers on the pathway they can use the data. The change is not in reaction to an appointed incident. But Facebook does plan to re-investigate the pathway it works with third-party data assessment firms to assure everything is responsibly use.
This is a pathway to protection data Diana terminated.The company declined to specify whether it is ever blocked the use of a Custom Audience because of it suspected the owner did not have user consent.
Now Facebook must get pathways to thwart abuse of its targeting tools and survey anyone. It mistrust may have already violated its policies. Otherwise, it may receive the ire of privacy-sentient users and critics. A strengthen the case for substantial regulation of its ads although regulation could end up protecting. Facebook since opponents who cannot afford consent. Still, the question bone why it took such a voluminous data privacy scandal.
Facebook to take a tougher stance on requiring user compliance for ad targeting. And given that written promises did not stop Kogan or Cambridge Analytica from misuse data. Why would they stop advertisers subdued on boosting profits?


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Alphabet has announced that Eric Schmidt, one of the company’s long-time officers, is stepping down as executive chairman and become a technical advisor on science and technology.
Alphabet is Google’s parent company.
In a press release, Alphabet said: “As of its next regular board meeting in January 2018, Eric Schmidt will be transitioning from his position as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, becoming a technical advisor to the company while continuing to serve on its board.”
Non-executive chairman to be named
The board is expected to appoint a non-executive chairman, the release also said.
Schmidt joined Google in 2001 as the chief executive officer and chairman and became executive chairman of the company’s board of director in 2010.
He retained the position after the company restructured in 2015 to become what is now known as Alphabet.
Science and tech advisor
Alphabet CEO Larry Page lauded Schmidt for providing the company “with business and engineering expertise and a clear vision about the future of technology” since joining Google in 2001.
“Continuing his 17 years of service to the company, he’ll now be helping us as a technical advisor on science and technology issues.”
It was Page and Google co-founder Sergey Brin who recruited Schmidt, who previously was chief executive of software firm Novell.
Schmidt, for his part, said: “Larry, Sergey, (Google CEO) Sundar (Pichai) and I all believe that the time is right in Alphabet’s evolution for this transition. The Alphabet structure is working well, and Google and the Other Bets are thriving.”
He also said he has been spending a lot of time on science and technology matters and philanthropy, and that he plans to expand that work.
CNBC said Schmidt later said on Twitter “adult supervision no longer needed,” in reference to Brin’s remark on the Charlie Rose show after Schmidt joined Google.
DISCLAIMER: This article expresses my own ideas and opinions. Any information I have shared are from sources that I believe to be reliable and accurate. I did not receive any financial compensation in writing this post, nor do I own any shares in any company I’ve mentioned. I encourage any reader to do their own diligent research first before making any investment decisions.
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San Francisco-based mobile merchant platform, CardFree has launched Checkout, a payment processing service for restaurants that supports multiple payment wallets.
Checkout was designed to be independent of CardFree’s core set of payment solutions and can be incorporated into any third-party app or website regardless of the payment processing system, digital ordering provider or POS that a restaurant is using. The new all-in-one platform for restaurants can support payments from a variety of digital wallets including Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo and more.
“Oftentimes restaurant operators feel that they are locked into the payment interface provided by their ordering platform provider or POS vendor, so, like all CardFree products, Checkout is another weapon in our arsenal that gives restaurants freedom and flexibility,” said Jon Squire founder and CEO of CardFree. “Our fundamental belief is that our partners’ success is our success and this is another tool to help drive transactions and ease consumer adoption with almost no incremental technological lift.”
The new payment feature can also leverage CardFree’s Universal Payment Layer, a system providing a single API to optimize delivery, order-ahead, in-store ordering, text-to-pay, or tableside payments while giving restaurants views into analytics on customer behaviors across channels.
Checkout also offers built-in protection such as pre-transaction fraud identification and 3D-Secure authentication to shift chargeback liability to the issuing bank.
CardFree Checkout is a comprehensive suite of payment options that cut across credit, debit, digital wallets, and gift cards. In recent years, CardFree debuted a series of payment solutions such as the Text-to-Pay, Pay@Table and Order@Table, which allows users to add items to their tabs and pay via their mobile devices.


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Crytek is releasing (in August) CryEngine 3 in a similar fashion to Unreal Development Kit... except that apparently they're also allowing C++ code access. I'm really liking the Crytek/Epic war that's going on. Only makes it better for Indie developers for the PC.
Recent Article Comments Widget
It looks like you discovered my virus hacker software to steal bitcoin wallets


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QE’s English Literature students are on brandDate Posted: 25/10/2021 | Posted In: Latest news
A group of A Level English Literature students from QE have been given the fantastic opportunity to enter a branding competition courtesy of a local PR agency. Sharon and Jenni from Resolution, a marketing and design company based in Stockton-on-Tees, visited the College and spoke to students about how their studies can prepare them for a career in advertising before launching their exciting competition. The brief revolves around redesigning a book jacket for George Orwell’s seminal text ‘1984’ and the winner will spend a day working in Resolution’s office, watching their brand come to life and running the organisation’s social media accounts.
Looking back on her visit to the College, Sharon comments: ‘It was great to meet the students and discuss possible careers within marketing. We always enjoy getting to know creative young people and it’s fantastic to be working with QE on this competition’. Julie Ashmore, Course Leader for English Literature, adds: ‘We welcome all opportunities to show English Literature students where their chosen A Level courses can take them in the future. It’s also wonderful to have this link with Sharon, Jenni and a thriving local business. We look forward to seeing our students’ competition entries’.
The winner of the competition will be announced later this year.


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posted 12/6/2012 by Closed Loop Recycling Co. in the UK
BORIS JOHNSON BACKS NEW CAMPAIGN AHEAD OF NATIONAL RECYCLE WEEK (18-24 JUNE)
The UK is sitting on top of 1.4 million tonnes of untapped resource in the form of post consumer plastic that could drive the UK recycling industry to the next level. That’s according to pioneering plastic bottle recycler, Closed Loop Recycling which is launching a brand new campaign, backed by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson in support of the British recycling industry, aimed at encouraging all aspects of the supply loop to collect and recycle more plastic bottles here in the UK.
1.8 million tonnes of post-consumer plastics are generated every year in the UK, nearly a third (580,000 tonnes) being plastic bottles – that’s 23.2 billion bottles. However 300,000 tonnes of good quality plastic is still sent to landfill each year and a large percentage of what is collected - 70 per cent in the case of bottles - is shipped abroad, stifling the UK recycling industry which relies upon this valuable resource.
Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, said: “Taking time to chuck your unwanted plastic bottles into the recycling bin, rather than your rubbish bin, is not only good for the environment, but great for our wallets too. Recycling saves Londoners money, with the added bonus of creating jobs in London.”
Unveiling a specially designed logo, Closed Loop Recycling is launching its campaign with a hard-hitting ‘We Need Your Bottles’ message to coincide with National Recycle Week (18-24 June 2012), which is focusing specifically on plastic bottle recycling.
At a time when there is a huge national focus on all things ‘British’ thanks to last weekend’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations and the upcoming London 2012 Olympics, Closed Loop Recycling is urging the British public to remember to place their used plastic bottles in available recycling bins – whether at home or out in public places – in order that they can be collected for recycling into new food and drink packaging.
An example of this is in the London borough of Westminster, which was at the heart of nationwide Diamond Jubilee celebrations last week, Closed Loop Recycling took receipt of all plastic bottles that were collected by waste company Veolia from streets and recycling bins, carefully sorting, washing and super-cleaning them into material for companies such as Marks & Spencer, Britvic and Solo Cup. Plus throughout the busy Olympics period Closed Loop Recycling will be receiving plastic bottles collected on the London Tube network thanks to its contract with Bywaters.
Closed Loop Recycling CEO Chris Dow explains: “’We Need Your Bottles’ is all about educating people about the importance of mining Britain’s urban forest. Used plastic bottles are a valuable resource to the UK recycling industry, which has the knowledge and technology to recycle them for the future.
“By encouraging consumers to recycle more than they are doing already, asking waste firms to support UK recyclers rather than shipping overseas and incentivising UK brands to use UK-sourced recyclate in their packaging, companies like ours will be able to grow further, create more green jobs and boost Britain’s low carbon economy.
“Recycling plastic bottles in the UK is best for the environment, for British businesses and for British jobs.”
As part of its campaign, Closed Loop Recycling is urging the government to review the current PRN/PERN system so that it no longer favours overseas waste shipments versus domestic recycling.
The company is asking for a more level playing field.


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ADELANTO, Calif. (AP) — Drive by the High Desert Truck Stop, turn down a rutted road by the bail bond signs, slip behind a steel fence edged with barbed wire, and you can glimpse the future of California's emerging legal pot industry.
In a boxy warehouse marked only by a street number, an $8 million marijuana production plant — a farm, laboratory and factory all in one — is rising inside cavernous rooms crisscrossed by electrical cables.
Not far off, a retail shop is planned to sell edible, thin strips infused with cannabis extract and powerful concentrates known as resins that also will be shipped to stores around the state.
California has long been known for its boutique pot market, producing world-famous buds on small plots in the so-called Emerald Triangle, north of San Francisco.
Broad legalization starts Jan. 1, and this will be a test of whether bigger is better.
"It's not going to be a cottage industry. We're not doing it at a craft beer level," says Brad Eckenweiler, chief executive of Lifestyle Delivery Systems, the Canada-based company behind the venture on a dusty industrial strip 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Los Angeles.
In the new marketplace, Lifestyle is what's known as a "vertically integrated company," with a hand in virtually every aspect of the business, from producing organic seeds to over-the-counter sales.
The company's ambition also points to an unfolding rivalry: a battle of size.
Some fear corporate-level businesses will eventually doom mom-and-pop growers and sellers, much as Big Tobacco dominated its market.
"As we have a lot of the Wall Street and the other big money bearing down on the No. 1 marketplace in the world right here, I think the only way the small operators are really going to have a chance is if we really do kind of band together," said Erik Hultstrom, a Los Angeles cultivator.
For now, the shape of California's new market remains largely unknown.
An illegal industry that operated in the shadows and the loosely regulated medical one are facing rapid change now that the legalization of recreational pot is arriving, with new government rules and taxes and a flood of investment dollars. Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. is a publicly traded company in Canada, valued at about $45 million.
Two years ago, a state commission recognized that small operators could be vulnerable once the doorway opened to legal sales. But temporary state rules issued last month placed no limit on most cultivator licenses, potentially opening the way for vast cannabis farms. State regulators say local governments are free to impose restrictions, however.
Last week, California issued its first commercial licenses, and they show others intend to get a foothold in various sectors of the market, picking off multiple permits for transportation, manufacturing and retailing.
Helena Yli-Renko, director of the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Southern California, said size might be an advantage but she sees opportunity for specialists, such as companies that develop new extraction technologies or provide monthly subscriptions, like wine clubs.
But Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, an industry group, said corporate-scale companies with a lock on the supply chain have the potential to tilt the market in their favor.
"The more steps in the supply chain you control, you can control pricing," he said. "It's artificial."
To Eckenweiler, size is strength.
While manufacturers buying pot on the open market will have to contend with inevitable price swings, growing in-house will buffer the company from those ups and downs, he said.
The same is true for transportation — doing it yourself saves money. And having a stake in a dispensary, to be run through a contractual relationship, would provide access to shelf space.
On a tour of the partially completed site, he points to rooms that will one day house multi-tier platforms of pot plants, and pulls open a freezer where stacks of packaged pot buds are ready for production.
"I'm not saying you couldn't have a good business model as a cultivator, as a manufacturer, as a transport distributor or a dispensary. But we're going to have the benefit of being all of those," Eckenweiler said.
A freeway ride and a world away in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, in a small, gated warehouse amid scrapyards and garages, Hultstrom tends his crop.
Organic plants at different stages are arranged in regimental rows in several rooms, fed by water circulated through plastic piping. Powerful lights warm the seedlings, and a ventilation system keeps the pungent aroma from wafting into nearby lots.
At Lifestyle Delivery Systems, Eckenweiler said his machine can produce 50,000 edible strips an hour. Hultstrom's nursery, Legacy Strains, moves at a slower pace.
An employee sits at a desk, patiently snipping leaves from plant buds, one at a time, while an adopted stray dog collapses into a weathered couch.
Lifestyle has plans for a 202,000-square-foot (18,770-square-meter) cultivation facility. Hultstrom watches over a fraction of that — 2,100 square feet (195 square meters) of pot plants.
He's confident in his ability to produce top-shelf cannabis, and he knows his market: He's been in the business in various jobs since 2005.
But Hultstrom wonders if licensing and compliance costs that experts say will run $100,000 or more, as well as taxes, distribution and other markups, will slant the market toward big producers with more financial muscle.
Increasing costs could present a barrier to entering the legal market, Hultstrom said, or force smaller growers to take on new investors. At risk, as well, is the communal spirit of a business that has seen years of shifting laws and enforcement, he said.
As legal sales approach, many questions remain.
It's unclear if the black market will persist or fade away. Few major banks want to do business with pot shops or growers, since cannabis remains illegal in the federal government's eyes.
As a small grower, Hultstrom knows he can't compete toe-to-toe against large operators, an acknowledgement that recalls how big-box stores emptied local shopping strips.
The strategy is to find an angle they can't cover.
"Usually, the smaller the operation, the better quality you tend to have," he said. "It's just finding that niche."


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4 May 2016
The Coalition Government recognises that tourism is one of five super-growth sectors that will create new jobs and growth in the economy over the next decade. Tourism now accounts for 3 per cent of our GDP, supports one million Australian jobs and drives $30.7 billion in exports.
With the landmark achievement of one million Chinese arrivals in a year and a 43 per cent increase last year in spend from China, there is much to celebrate. Record spend has been achieved from nine key markets including China but also the US, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, Taiwan and France.
For the first time since 2009 we are on track to reach the Tourism 2020 target of doubling overnight visitor expenditure to between $115 and $140 billion annually.
However, we cannot be complacent and need to ensure our policy settings facilitate further tourism growth.
That is why the 2016-17 Budget supports tourism through key measures including:
Australia welcomed a record 7.5 million international visitors in the year ending February 2016 and this suite of measures will grow that number further.
In particular, the announcements of a premium clearance service and extension of countries eligible to access fast-track processing will increase Australia's tourism competitiveness, increase tourism spending and attract more high-yielding visitors.
These announcements complement the three-year, multiple-entry visitor visa announced for Indonesia in November last year, and a 10-year visitor visa for China that will be available online in Simplified Chinese this year. This will be the first time Australia has trialled visa application lodgement in a language other than English.
With the tourism industry projected to grow at 4.1 per cent per year over the next decade - well above the national average - the opportunities for the sector are immense.
The 2016-17 Federal Budget ensures the industry is well placed to take advantage of the opportunities available for future growth, including in regional areas where 44 cents in every tourism dollar is spent.


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AMSTERDAM (Reuters – Just Eat Takeaway.com chief executive stated on Thursday that Grubhub, which he acquired from Grubhub, will be part of a consolidation in U.S. deliveries market. But he said he wasn’t currently interested in selling the business.
Jitse Groen, a livestreamed presenter told investors that consolidation will occur in the U.S. On-Demand Delivery Market over time as different players work together to optimize the last mile.
The company management expects Grubhub’s participation in the consolidation, and plans to do it from a position that is strong.
Groen declined to answer a question about whether or not he might sell Grubhub, the business Takeaway purchased for $7.3billion in June.
He said that Grubhub was “fresh”, but also added that “anything which makes Grubhub stronger – we will look at it.”
Takeaway’s share price is down 25% in this year so far. This may be due in part to the loss of market share within the U.S. suburbs, and New York City being its strongest and largest market.
Investors called for the company’s attention to its US competitive situation. Grubhub (NYSE:) Eats, DoorDash and Uber are among the most prominent competitors. The company may also consider selling certain parts of its business. Takeaway should also clarify its strategy for grocery delivery in America, which is where it faces strong competition from Amazon’s Deliveroo.
Takeaway said in a presentation that it will target gross transaction value growth, a commonly used measure in ecommerce, in the “mid teens.” for 2022.
For a total transaction value between 28 and 30 billion euros (32 billion to $35 billion), the company reiterated its 2021 full-year forecast of an Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA), margin of -1%-1.5%. It means that EBITDA will be between 280-380 millions euros.
Investors were told by the company that they can expect the negative margin of -0.6%–0.8% to rise in 2022 and that they expect a positive margin “long-term” because GTV is expected to double over the next five-years.
Bernstein analysts who rate Takeaway shares as “Outperform” stated in a note, “We remain positive about Takeaway’s position in its core markets.”
After Groen’s comments, shares recovered some early losses and traded down 0.6% to 71.36 euro at 1253GMT.
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Souk, a global spice shop and bakery on Barracks Row, is launching a series of weekly pastry boxes inspired by color. Each collection of four pastries and two bonus items, such as a jar of preserves, will be built around ingredients of a single color or several complementary colors.
The items will be made with a combination of fresh seasonal produce sourced from Eastern Market vendors and local urban farms Little Wild Things and Cultivate the City, as well as elements from owner Winnette McIntosh Ambrose’s pantry.
The black box, for example, might utilize ingredients such as late season blackberries and blueberries, nigella seeds, black rice, and Hawaiian black lava salt, while the brown box might feature pastries made with portobello mushrooms, fresh coconut, milk chocolate, brown rice, and whole wheat flour.
This series is an evolution of a pastry box series Souk offered this summer based on peak-season produce. Though each selection was created with an array of colorful produce, “the pastries would look similar week after week,” McIntosh Ambrose says. “There was not as much distinction between the boxes as we wanted to have.”
Her husband suggested she use color as an organizing principle to create differentiation between the boxes, since her social media posts revealing the produce she was using for the pastries were much more eye-catching than the photos of the finished products. McIntosh Ambrose hadn’t seen this kaleidoscopic approach elsewhere, and she liked the idea of a new challenge. “I like to think that I know what looks good,” she says. “Putting together colors, flavors, and textures is its own art form.”
The single-color boxes will test McIntosh Ambrose’s creativity in newfound ways, since she doesn’t have any formal artistic training. The Trinidad native originally trained to be a chemical engineer and did medical device design before opening The Sweet Lobby in 2011. The bakery is known for French pastries and creative cupcakes that helped McIntosh Ambrose win Food Network’s Cupcake Wars. She opened Souk down the street four years later.
The pandemic forced Souk to pivot away from in-store sales, catering, and commercial baking for other establishments, which accounted for much of its revenue, so McIntosh Ambrose sought to create new items that would pop when she marketed them online through her businesses’ mailing lists and social media channels.
She vows not to repeat pastries or ingredients, though there will be a tart included in every box. Constant innovation will be required, which contrasts to how she normally works. Commercial bakers typically test a recipe repeatedly before rolling it out. “This is a very different situation,” she says. “We are doing things that are brand new every single week.”
The first box will be available for pre-order on Sept. 21. Customers can then sign up for pick-up or delivery on Sept. 26. Each one costs $35. There’s an option to buy a subscription to get eight weeks worth of boxes for $270.


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The great and the good of British and international fashion gathered in London on Monday evening to honour fashion's biggest influencers who have shaken up the business, driven design and helped to change society.
The key to winning a loyal following in the new generation of Millennials – the key target market for all fashion houses - is emotion, insists François Henri Pinault, CEO of French luxury conglomerate Kering Group.
Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga all turned in powerful performances in Q3 for Kering but Bottega Veneta has some way to go. Gucci remains the conglomerate's star brand with both retail and wholesale soaring.
The Instagram account, followed by more than 57,000 people, has made finding designer copies or 'copycats' its speciality. An account that annoys some, but whose popularity is proving interesting to brands.
The British Fashion Council has announced the names of 45 finalists for The Fashion Awards 2017; with five finalists in each category, and few major surprises – with many creators nominated for a second time.


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Smallholder farmers in Africa often have a cashflow problem. They have money at the end of the growing season when they sell their crops, but they’re short of money at the beginning of the year when they need to buy seeds and fertilizer.
Recognizing this, Anushka Ratnayake came up with a new type of financial product: a system whereby farmers could layaway some money throughout the year against a large purchase in the spring. That way, farmers can spread out their income, invest in inputs that let them increase yields, and put their families on a firmer financial footing, she says.
Today her social enterprise, MyAgro, was named as one of six winners of this year’s Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. She plans to spend the $1.25 million in prize money toward growing the business further in rural Mali and Senegal. In 2012, just 240 farmers had signed up. This year, MyAgro is on track to enroll up to 50,000. By 2020, she hopes to reach 200,000.
The concept is like layaway where you put down a deposit on an expensive item, such as a piece of furniture, then pay off the balance as you can afford it. Farmers using MyAgro sign up for packages of seeds and fertilizer nine months before they need them, then pay off the balance by buying scratch cards at a local store. They register their payments with the company by revealing codes on the back of the cards and sending in the numbers via an SMS message.
Ratnayake had worked for years for micro-finance organizations like Kiva and the One Acre Fund. But she says farmers didn’t necessarily need loans. They need a savings product to level out their income.
“I was trying to adapt a repayment process to match their cashflows. What I started to hear from farmers was really they wanted a savings program. They just didn’t call it layaway or credit. They would say things like “Can I have a loan, but I will pay you a year before I get the loan?’ or ‘Can I overpay my loan for next year’s loan?’” she tells Fast Company.
Farmers typically borrow about $35 a year to buy material that will increase their income by $150 over the season. “They just need to invest $50 or $100 in their farm, and that can make the difference between not having enough to eat and having enough to eat and having something to sell in the market as well,” Ratnayake says.
“They’re so disconnected from banks–they can spend a whole day just traveling to the nearest branch. So this is a cost-effective way for farmers to pay in advance for seed and fertilizer.”
The other five winners of this year’s awards (each of which receives the same $1.25 million) include Angaza, which turns products like solar panels into pay-as-you-go propositions. Customers can thus buy equipment without paying the full amount up front, much like they were paying for phone credit. The San Francisco-based for-profit company embeds hardware, like GSM receivers, into equipment so manufacturers and distributors can track its usage and ensure they get repaid. CEO Lesley Marincola says it now retrofits 40 different products, including solar water heaters and solar lamps, mostly in Africa. In all, about 500,000 end customers have used Angaza hardware, she says.
Other 2018 winners include Code for America, which builds open-source government technology services; Callisto, which helps vulnerable women report sexual assaults by providing actionable data to authorities; SELCO, which develops renewable energy projects in developing countries; and Global Health Corps, which sends out young leaders to help in-need health organizations in Africa and the U.S.


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The Eden Suite Maternity Bereavement Unit at Heartlands Hospital
A hospital charity that provides 'added extras' over and above what is provided by the NHS has received a donation of £1,000 from the Amazon delivery station in Birmingham.
The donation made to University Hospitals Birmingham Charity will go towards the Eden Suite Maternity Bereavement Unit at Heartlands Hospital, in Birmingham, West Midlands to provide cuddle cots, and support for parents who have suffered the loss of a baby.
Charlotte Schofield, from University Hospitals Birmingham Charity, said: "We’re so grateful to the team from Amazon Birmingham for their generous donation.
"University Hospitals Birmingham Charity is pleased to be able to support the work of the Eden Suite. The team there provide incredibly important services for new parents having to deal with the loss of their baby."
Amazon Birmingham delivery station manager, Kasia Szmigielska, said: "We are pleased to support a charity that adds to the care and support provided by the NHS across four different hospitals."
The charity received the donation as part of the 'Amazon in the Community' programme, whereby the company supports the communities around its operating locations across the UK.
Shine a spotlight on your neighbourhood by becoming an Area Ambassador.


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Ofgem says the way consumers are being sold energy needs to be re-examined. As suppliers face the prospect of increased profits, Ofgem's Ian Marlee told ITV News they are looking at ways of reforming the market.
More top news
Watch Molly's shock as her high school sweetheart Kevin pops the question as they are getting their picture taken.
Police are searching for the 'despicable' thieves who stole an elderly couple's Christmas money in a distraction robbery.
The alleged row over parking is said to have started after the local council re-paved a road in Harrow.


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Apple has made quite a lot of progress on its under construction “Campus 2” set to become the company’s new headquarters when complete around the end of the year. Since last checking in a month ago, a video update published today by Matthew Roberts for June shows continued progress on the roof of the main circular spaceship building, including a look at the heating and cooling systems installed throughout, and what looks to be some new outdoor areas surrounding the entrance of the underground theatre. Head below for a look at progress made in recent weeks. expand full story
Theatre Stories May 31, 2016
Theatre Stories April 4, 2016
New Apple Campus 2 flyover for April shows progress on the spaceship over the last year
Theatre Stories March 31, 2016
New Apple Campus 2 drone flyover offers latest close-up of construction progress [Video]
A new drone flyover video courtesy of YouTuber Matthew Roberts gives us our latest close-up look at Apple’s Campus 2 site scheduled for completion by the end of the year.
Theatre Stories March 7, 2016
Apple today shared new photos from within the currently under construction Campus 2 (via Mashable), as well as previously unknown details about the site set to become the company’s new headquarters when construction completes early next year.
The most impressive shots and most of the new details surround the on-site auditorium separate from the main building, where the company will indeed hold future press events. That was expected, but Mashable seems to have gotten the inside scoop from Apple and notes the company is calling the auditorium “Theatre” internally and that it will be “the new stage where Apple will publicly debut its products to the media and, ultimately, the world.”
Sylvania HomeKit Light Strip
Theatre Stories November 27, 2014
Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer will hit iTunes trailer site tomorrow [Update: online]
Lucasfim is such a tease. After initially saying that the trailer for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens would be shown only in 30 movie theatres, the Disney-owned studio has now tweeted that it will also be shown on the iTunes trailers site tomorrow.
You’ll get your chance to see how the stars of the original 1977 film are holding up when they are reunited in the latest in the film series.
Update: Here’s the link, and it’s now on YouTube too:


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Users that weren’t able to make it to Barcelona for this year’s Mobile World Congress, or watch the Microsoft keynote live, still have a chance to see Ballmer, Belfiore and Elop take the stage.
All they have to do is check out the video embedded at the bottom of this article. The software giant has made available on demand video of its keynote at the Mobile World Congress 2011.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president, Windows Phone Program Management, and Nokia President and CEO Stephen Elop have been on stage providing a sneak peek into the future plans for Windows Phone.
“The last year has certainly seen a lot of change for our industry. It's clear today that the mobile industry is moving from a device battle to a platform battle.
“That change is happening faster and faster. It was only a year ago at Mobile World Congress that we first introduced our Windows Phone 7 product.
“Windows Phone 7 was really more than the launch of a single new product. Every Windows Phone brings together the best from across Microsoft, including Bing, and Xbox, and Hotmail, and Office, and Windows Live,” Ballmer noted.
MWC 2011 acted as the stage for Microsoft to reveal a range of key changes coming to Windows Phone 7 in 2011.
Starting with the much requested copy & paste functionality, Windows Phone 7 will be getting a range of goodies, including a mobile flavor of Internet Explorer 9
and support for Office Web Apps
In the keynote Belfiore does an excellent job of demonstrating what Windows Phone 7 devices will be capable of once the Redmond company has provided them with all the updates planned for this year.
And of course, the keynote served as another opportunity for Microsoft and Nokia to highlight their new strategic alliance
“Nokia's support will help Windows Phone overall to build strength versus the other mobile platforms or ecosystems. That's not just good for Nokia, that's actually good for all of our handset partners.
“Additional unit volumes have increasing return for Windows Phone developers as well. And, of course, operators want more alternatives that are at real scale, that enable the operator to add value.
“And as Stephen [Elop] has said from the Nokia perspective, I'll say from the Microsoft perspective, Windows Phone will be the most operator-friendly platform available,” Ballmer added.


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MAMARONECK, N.Y. -- A town woman, 29, reported that an unknown suspect stole all four tires and rims from her Honda sometime on Jan. 14 between 1 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. The tires are worth $300 and the silver rims are worth $1,000. The following incidents were also reported in the Town of Mamaroneck Police Department blotter. Attempt Petit Larceny : An unknown man tried to steal six bottles of Enfamil Baby Formula from the CVS Pharmacy at 1310 Boston Post Road Jan. 17 at 10:04 p.m. The bottles totaled $37.48. Grand Larceny : Three people eating at Cosi on 1298 Boston Post Road in Larchmont Jan. 14 reported various items stolen. A Bronx man, 28, reported his cell phone and TD Bank card were stolen. A Mt. Pleasant Avenue woman, 19, and an Astoria, N.Y. man, 38, reported various bank and credit cards missing.
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Not so long ago, cryptocurrencies were considered a fringe occurrence, something drug dealers and other shady characters use to keep their identity hidden from the authorities while still being able to conduct their criminal activities.
Things have changed in the last couple of years, especially since Bitcoin peaked in its value in 2018. The enormous profit margins, especially for early investors, were shocking and many people wanted a piece of that pie. Plenty of sites are offering crypto investment opportunities, like crypto-profit.io.
That is also why we are seeing a flood of new coins being created and released. Currently, there are almost 4,000 crypto coins on the market. Of course, that is just one side of the story.
The other is investors. Coins aren’t worth much if the developers can’t attract investors to back them up. One of the quickest ways to promote a new coin is to get a celebrity to endorse it.
Since most of the new coins are startups with no real capital behind them, they pay their celebrity promoters in the only currency they have in abundance – their own coins. This has created a situation where Hollywood is flooded with thousands of coins, most of them worthless.
But some celebrities have been able to see the rise of crypto in advance and have jumped on the wagon in the early days. That has allowed them to not only make millions on their bitcoin investments but to also be superbly positioned to capitalize on any new coin that shows promise.
Although Bitcoin is far from its peak after the crash, it still retains considerable value, especially compared to the early days. Even better, many experts agree that the age of cryptocurrencies is still yet to come and that is encouraging news for all investors. If you still haven’t, it isn’t too late to jump on board and start investing.
Ashton Kutcher and Mark Cuban are one of the first investors who backed UnikoinGold. It is a currency developed by the gambling company Unikrn. It can be used to bet on events involving Dota 2, League of Legends, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Ashton also holds an earlier investment in BitPay.
Hugh Laurie didn’t really care about bitcoin or any other cryptocurrencies until a friend talked him into investing in them in 2015. He started small with a $5,000 investment but has since increased his portfolio.
The Microsoft co-founder and one of the world’s largest philanthropists, Bill Gates has been a long-time Bitcoin supporter. “Bitcoin is exciting because it shows how cheap it can be,” he said in 2014. “Bitcoin is better than currency in that that you don’t have to be physically in the same place and, of course, for large transactions, currency can get pretty inconvenient.”
The first British performer to accept Bitcoin as payment for her shows, Mel B is a firm believer in Bitcoin’s future. “I love how new technology makes our lives easier, and to me that’s exciting,” she said upon announcing that she’d be accepting crypto payments. “Bitcoin unites my fans around the world using one currency.”
Back in 2013, Snoop was selling his albums for 0.3 BTC. He never disclosed how much he made, but in today’s money, it would be around $1,000 per album. He also supports the XRP Community Night crypto party.
Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t only giving questionable medical and health advice these days. She is also involved with cryptocurrencies, being the face of Abra, a bitcoin wallet. She also works for the company as an advisor. She follows all news related to crypto and regularly shares articles on her Twitter account.
According to his own statement, Pitbull started investing in bitcoins back in 2012. In 2018, he decided to take it one step further and launch his own cryptocurrency, called Smackathon. It aims to revolutionize payments in the music industry. It is an ambitious plan, but Pitbull is confident that he can pull it off.
Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been involved with coins like Stox, Hubii Network, and Centra for quite some time. Certainly, the boxer has plenty of cash to invest, being the world’s best-paid athlete in the last decade.
One of the world’s most famous billionaires and the founder of Virgin, Richard Branson always prided himself in keeping with the times. That is why he hoped on bitcoin wagon quite early and has made a $30 million investment so far. He is also involved with Bitcoin start-up Bitpay.
Mike Tyson’s face tattoo is one of the most recognizable images in the world. That is why bitcoin wallet launched by Bitcoin direct uses it as their logo. Mike is an investor in the project that uses Gildera exchange to allow its users to trade their coins. Mike also launched a Bitcoin ATM system.
Curtis James Jackson, AKA 50 Cent, is a prominent bitcoin investor. He started experimenting with coins back in 2014 when he announced that his album Animal Ambition could be purchased by bitcoin. That decision paid off well since the bitcoin he raked in then were worth more than $7.5 million in 2017.
Johnny Depp has been heavily criticized in the last couple of years for his lavish lifestyle and irresponsible spending. Maybe that is why he has taken steps to improve his financial situation. One of them is teaming up with TaTaTu, a blockchain startup aiming at creating a coin that can be used for purchasing games and movies, or other entertainment items. The new platform has been founded by Andrea Iervolino, who is also involved with the AMBI Media Group.
Nas is one of the most successful rappers in the last few years. Some of the money he earned singing and acting he decided to invest in Bitcoin. Some 420 million of it, to be precise. But that is not all. He also invested in more than 40 startups dealing with cryptocurrencies in the last several years as well.


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Video Game in 'Her' Gets a Real-Life Release [VIDEO]
Jun 16, 2014 10:42
Spike Jonze's Her featured Samantha - the artificially intelligent operating system of the future, but that's not all the movie showed off. The futuristic video game in the film is now making its way into real life.
The animator and designer of the fictional game, David OReilly, announced the release of his first indie game — Mountain — at the Horizon Indie Game Conference at E3 on Thursday. Here's a video reminder of how it was like in the film. Seems totally immersive:
Choosing a local SEO company is crucial to get the desired results for the SEO efforts. You must be ensured the local SEO Company you’re selecting is trustworthy, professional and knowledgeable. In this post, check out the 5 tips to choose the best local SEO company. Read more
Smartphone technology is improving at a rapid rate and it seems like almost every month, a new phone is being released, with a range of new features designed to make users throw out their existing phone and buy a new one. However, are smartphone manufacturers really providing customers with the improvements they want to see? Read more


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U.S. Postal Service letter carriers collected 72.5 million pounds of food on May 10 from the donations of thousands of communities throughout America for the annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.
This represents the 11th consecutive year the event has surpassed 70 million pounds and adds to the more than 1 billion pounds of food collected since the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive began in 1993.
Donations of canned goods and non-perishable food items will feed countless families in need.
Fort Myers area letter carriers and volunteers collected over 366,000 pounds for the Harry Chapin Food Bank located in Fort Myers.
Stamp Out Hunger, the nation's largest single-day food drive, was launched in 1993 by the National Association of Letter Carriers and is supported by the Postal Service.
Canned and non-perishable items are collected by 230,000 letter carriers and other postal employees in 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam.
In addition to the Postal Service, NALC and Feeding America, other Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive national partners include: AARP, Campbell Soup Company, the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, Valpak Direct Marketing Systems, United Way Worldwide, the AFL-CIO, Valassis and Uncle Bob's Self Storage.
Phil Wiebold is a spokeswoman for U.S. Postal Service.


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Barren & Metcalfe
Friday morning the Barren-Metcalfe Chamber of Commerce held a brand reveal party complete with a confetti cannon to reveal its new logo and branding.
They chose a new logo that reflects a more modern look a and captures their mission to be “Your Partner for Business Growth” as the premier business membership organization in Barren County.
“We are proud to announce the launch of our new logo as part of the on-going evolution of our brand,” said Treva Shirley, 2021 Chamber President. “We have created a new logo to reflect who we are today and to symbolize our dynamic future.”
At the gathering, Shirley further described the new logo as being representative of new synergy. Before it was revealed Shirley detailed the symbolism of the colors used: red, green and blue.
Red symbolizes power of unity and inclusiveness, green symbolizes education, knowledge, and transformation
and blue symbolizes wisdom and strong communication.
“The arrows are representative of the chamber’s forward motion,” said Shirley.
The logo was released as a part of the restructuring of the Chamber. The new brand identity, which includes a new logo, colors and font was presented at a local brand reveal party at the future home of the Chamber. The decision to create the new brand is an extension of the merger between the chamber and the economic authority.
In the upcoming months you will see the new brand anywhere the Chamber has a presence including social media, marketing materials and our new website, which will be launched in January 2022.
“We worked with BRIX Brand Management. The logo was part of an overall branding development project with a total cost of $1,500, this included the creation of several marketing pieces, business cards and letterhead,” said Maureen Carpenter.
“Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in our story. With this new foundation in place, we will launch a whole new brand campaign the first of the new yea,” said Maureen Carpenter, Executive Director of the Barren County Economic Authority, and future President & CEO of Barren Inc. “At the heart of it will be our members and the benefits they reap from Chamber membership. We can’t wait to bring new life to all the amazing things the chamber does.”
Logo and other marketing materials are part of a branding campaign to modernize the image of the chamber, now that it has joined forces with BCEA.


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This marks the third round of funding this year for the New Delhi headquartered company, taking the total amount raised to $1 million.
Launched in 2018, the startup sells vegan, 0mg sugar, chewable hair and nail vitamin gummies. It plans to utilise the funds for product research, team expansion and marketing its new products.
“With the current funding raised, we aim to grow our operations by 6X more this year and further launch products in various variants, focusing on different health and wellness categories and segments. Achieving an annual revenue run rate of over Rs 8 crore in the first year of operations motivated us to give the best to our customers,” said Divij Bajaj, founder and CEO of Power Gummies.
Commenting on the investment, Deepak Shahdadpuri of DSG Consumer Partners said, “Power Gummies is a unique brand which is making its mark in the nutraceutical sector, people are looking out for alternatives to take nutrition and Power Gummies happens to be the sweet spot. With the perfect reach and positioning, we only look forward to witnessing a sustainable business growth in the market, looking at how people are moving towards preventive care and nutrition for their health and wellness.”
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The United States government has approved the construction of a $5 to $10 million dollar heavy equipment factory in Cuba’s Mariel port and special economic zone located 30 miles west of the Cuban capital of Havana. This announcement comes merely 15 months after the United States and Cuba announced plans to normalize relations. The Oggun Tractor Plant, as it is to be named, marks the first significant American business investment in the small island nation since the rise of Fidel Castro in 1959, when $1.8 billion dollars (estimated present day value of $7 billion) worth of American corporate and private property was nationalized.
The company’s initial focus will be on producing low-cost, durable tractors for private farmers in Cuba. These tractors are much needed in an ailing Cuban agriculture industry, which suffers from low productivity that is attributed to the excessive control and gross inefficiencies of the nation’s centrally planned state bureaucracy. The tractors will initially be assembled in Cuba from American exported components, with the eventual goal of manufacturing these components in Cuba. The American manufacturing company also hopes to take advantage of much of Latin America’s low tariffs on Cuban imports, by exporting their tractors at competitive prices all across the region. Following up on their anticipated success of the tractors, the company plans to move into producing other highly demanded heavy equipment to help Cubans deal with their deteriorating infrastructure.
Moving forward, all signs point to a commitment from both countries to re-establish and strengthen their economic ties. It appears likely that the Oggun Tractor Plant will be the first of many investments from an American company into the Cuban economy.


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The subcontractor who revealed Apple’s Siri grading program is going public. Thomas le Bonniec isn’t satisfied with what happened.
Yesterday Apple released the iOS 13.2 software update and one of the features it brought was the ability to turn off Siri grading.
The latest Apple betas like iOS 13.2 have a feature that lets you delete your Siri audio history in settings.
In addition to offering an explicit opt-in, Apple has promised that only employees, and not contractors, will be involved in reviewing the audio clips. However, this doesn’t stop the automated text transcriptions of your Siri requests from being transmitted to Apple, irrespective of whether you opt-in or -out, although they will pseudonymized and dissociated from your Apple ID. What’s more, these transcripts could be reviewed by employees and contractors.
I’m glad that Apple is adding this feature, and given its privacy stance I’m surprised it’s a feature we don’t already have.
Apple published an article promising to improve Siri privacy by making changes to its grading program, along with firing contractors.
John Martellaro and Adam Christianson join host Kelly Guimont to talk about Siri’s grading program and the end of John’s MacBook repair saga.
Apple is pausing the Siri grading program that sends some Siri queries to its servers for better processing.


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Stuff Magazine has announced its predictions for the top ten gadgets that gadget geeks will have to have in 2005. Topping the list is the Sony PlayStation Portable, knocking Apple’s iPod into second place.
To own all ten gadgets on Stuff’s Top Ten Essentials list will set the buyer back £7,455, £1,000 less than last year’s top ten. Stuff put the lower cost down to falling manufacturing costs which are making gadgets more affordable.
The Essentials list is dominated by portable gadgets, including Sharp's 902 3G mobile phone which comes in third. Editor of Stuff Essentials Adam Vaughn said: "What this…shows is that gadgets are now cheaper, sexier and more indispensable than ever.” Source


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Posted: 02/21/2012 05:25:31 PM PST
February 22, 2012 1:30 AM GMT Updated: 02/21/2012 05:30:16 PM PST
Businesses will have an opportunity Thursday to connect and maybe help grow one another’s bottom line. It’s happening at the fourth annual Valley Business Expo at the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Hotel, 2500 Hollywood Way in Burbank.
Sponsored by the Valley Economic Alliance, it’s billed as the region’s largest business-to-business gathering. It could be another green shoot in a slowly improving economy, said Ron Wood, the alliance’s president and CEO. And the pulse of the Valley’s business community is a little stronger than a year ago, he said.
“People are starting to feel a little better, and they are starting to reach out. We’re seeing better opportunities,” Wood said. “(Business) people were in such a down mood they had retrenched. Now they are seeing a better future and reaching out to get their businesses going again.”
The event is Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and admission is $10. It is open to any size business and all industries. One feature is a “Meet the Bankers” area for advice on securing funding from lenders, including Chase, Wells Fargo, US Bank and the Valley Economic Development Center, which specializes in Small Business Administration and other types of financing. There will also be sessions on how to do business with some of the region’s largest private sector companies and public agencies, including the Port of Los Angeles, Los Angeles World Airport, Van Nuys Airport, Walmart, Republic Services Inc., which serves in the domestic, nonhazardous solid waste industry, and Vons. There will be at least 106 exhibitors, Wood said. They will feature a variety of products, including marketing and advertising, sales strategies, social media, email marketing, finance and capital access and businesses development services. “It’s an opportunity to learn from fellow business owners and connect with other business owners. They can learn what others are doing to expand their business,” Wood said.
Economist William W. Roberts, director of the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at CSUN, also senses a better overall feeling about the economy. “People have adjusted to what the economy has become. It’s better than it was. We’re moving forward, incomes are going up and unemployment is coming down,” he said. “We’re getting positive signs pretty much clear across the board.” For additional information on the expo, contact the alliance at 818-379-7000 or www.thevalley.net/expo.