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Minnesota-based SUPERVALU announced on Thursday that anyone who ran their credit and debit cards through point-of-sale (POS) devices in more than 200 of its nationwide shops may have had personal information – notably payment card data – stolen in a breach.
From as early as June 22 to as late as July 17, shoppers who used payment cards at SUPERVALU shops and stand-alone liquor stores may have had information compromised by attackers who gained entry to the SUPERVALU computer network that processes card transactions, according to a release.
Names, payment card numbers, expiration dates, and other numerical information from cards used at POS devices may have been compromised. “The Company has not determined that any such cardholder data was in fact stolen by the intruder, and it has no evidence of any misuse of any such data,” according to a FAQ posted on the website.
The incident impacted SUPERVALU stores operating under the names Hornbacher's, Cub Foods, Cub Foods Liquor Store, Farm Fresh, Shop ‘n Save, and Shoppers Food & Pharmacy in various parts of the country, including several in Minnesota, Virginia, Illinois, Missouri, Maryland and North Carolina.
AB Acquisition LLC – operator of Albertsons, ACME Markets, Jewel-Osco, and Shaw's and Star Market – announced a similar breach on Thursday that it said occurred between the same timeframe. The company is working collaboratively with SUPERVALU to investigate, according to a release.
Among the impacted locations: Albertsons stores in Southern California, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, and Southern Utah; ACME Markets in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey; Jewel-Osco shops in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana; and Shaw's and Star Markets in Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
SUPERVALU and AB Acquisition each stated that steps have been taken to secure the breaches and, although an investigation involving forensics experts and law enforcement is ongoing, customers should feel safe shopping at any of the impacted locations.
It is unclear exactly how many payment cards were impacted in the breaches, but both companies are taking steps to notify customers that could have had payment cards compromised, as well as offering them a free year of identity theft protection services.
In a Friday email correspondence, Adam Bosnian, EVP of the Americas with Cyber Ark, told SCMagazine.com that he strongly believes POS devices were compromised by malware. He explained that the attackers likely did this by stealing credentials through phishing and elevating privileges.
“Every business should have controls in place that minimize and eliminate attackers from being able to exploit insider credentials,” Bosnian said, going on to add, “By taking steps like using analytics to determine anomalous privilege behavior, or monitoring all privileged activity, we can get ahead of the breaches before they happen.”
However, preventing these types of incidents from occurring outright might be an impossible task, Bosnian said.
“There are too many threat vectors to eliminate these completely,” Bosnian said. “But what we need [to] do as security professionals [is] make it near impossible for attackers to turn a company's infrastructure against itself. Security needs to start with the assumptions that attackers will get inside – it's what they're able to do once inside that matters.”


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The vast World of technology is forever growing, just take a look at Google, in the past fifteen years they have grown from a simple search engine to purchasing Android all the way to developing self-driving vehicles.
But this article is all about Facebook, if you are on iOS you may have noticed a small app developed by Facebook named “Notify” this app will allow you to keep up to date with all the latest news updates and will keep you up to date 24/7.
For users on Android this is similar to the very popular Google Now, which allows you to do exactly the same thing.
The alerts will show up on iPhone lock screen’s this allows users of the app to quickly read the article without the need to unlock their device. They will also be able to save the link so that they can read it at a later date.
What do you think about Notify though? Do you think that it will be one of those apps on our phones that we never use but always keep? Or do you think that it will be a helpful and handy app?
Nick Grudin, who is the director of media partnership for Notify said:
“We know notifications are a highly sensitive distribution channel,” and then went on to say “If you get them right, they’re really awesome. If you get them wrong, they’re really annoying.”
If you want to see more articles on this check out Facebook News Room

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MCI's net income was dollars 215m ( pounds 155m), compared with dollars 150m for the same period last year. Excluding a special charge in the same quarter a year ago, profits grew by 21 per cent. Total revenue rose to dollars 3.31bn from dollars 2.93bn last time.
MCI has been running an aggressive marketing campaign in the US for its 'Friends & Family' programme, which offers deep discounts to residential customers on a list of selected telephone numbers. At the corporate end of the market, MCI also signed a record number of contracts with large customers during the first half, including the renewal of a worldwide deal with the Holiday Inn hotel chain worth dollars 153m over four years.
'The driving force behind MCI's performance is strong growth in our core business,' Gerald Taylor, president of MCI, said. He pointed to the company's success in attracting large corporate accounts, small and medium-sized businesses and residential customers.
Last year, BT agreed to pay dollars 4.3bn for a 20 per cent stake in the group, and the deal is expected to clear its final regulatory hurdles within the next few months. The alliance between MCI and BT puts both companies in a strong position to win contracts with multinational corporations that want all their telephone and data transmission services managed under a single contract.
Big telephone companies around the world are chasing this business, and MCI and BT plan to combine their resources to offer a global service known as Concert. Glaxo and BP are two BT customers expected to be among the first to sign up for Concert.Reuse content


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Google is beginning to implement support for HTTP/3 in its Chrome browser, the company announced in a blog post. The update will bring some additional performance improvements, mostly thanks to the implementation of QUIC as the transport protocol.
The Internet Engineering Task Force, or IETF, introduced HTTP/2 back in 2015, and one of the big improvements it brought along was support for multiplexing. However, it used TCP as the transport protocol, and the loss recovery mechanisms in TCP, so lost packets can still cause a delay in all of the active transactions. By adopting QUIC, HTTP/3 can further improve the transfer process, since lost packets only affect the transactions directly affected by them.
Google was the original developer of QUIC, but the protocol has been in the IETF's hands for some time and the IETF version of QUIC is now significantly different from Google's in-house one. So far, Google has only been supporting its own QUIC implementation while IETF worked on its version, but now that's changing. Google says that IETF QUIC "significantly outperforms HTTPS over TLS 1.3 over TCP". For example, Google search latency decreases by 2%, while YouTube rebuffer time is reduced by 9%.
As such, the company is enabling support for IETF QUIC in its browser, with 25% of users having it enabled from today. The implementation is based on draft 29, which isn't the most recent version, but there are no breaking changes in subsequent drafts, according to Google. What Google isn't adding yet is support for IETF QUIC 0-RTT, which will come later, and it promises even better performance once it's available.
HTTP/3 is yet to be finalized, and it's not clear as of yet when browsers will have a fully finalized implementation.


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If patent filings are anything to go by, contextual advertising powered by Google will start appearing on digital billboards in a shopping mall near you.
The Mountain View, Calif. search marketing giant has filed a patent application for technology that lets local stores tie their stock control computers to a Google-powered ad network, a strong hint that the company is planning to expand expansion beyond Web, print and radio advertising.
The patent, filed December 21, 2006 with the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office), covers systems and methods for allocating advertising space in a “network of electronic display devices.”
The idea is to tie billboard advertising in local malls to actual products for sale nearby, much like the company’s flagship Google AdWords/AdSense network that handles contextual advertising on the Internet.
The patent filing, first reported by New Scientist magazine, describes a way for retailers to put categories of products up for purchase in the vicinity of a display device.
“Advertisers may upload advertisement messages to a server specifying information such as budget, price per impression, preferred billboards and/or other constraints. One or more keywords or other descriptors are specified for each advertisement message,” according to the USPTO filing (which can be viewed online here).
Google said the system would then generate an advertising campaign specifying where on the display devices the advertisement message will appear. “The output may consist of various forms, including video, audio, printed incentive, interactive data transfers and/or combinations of these,” the company said in the filing.
If the filing is a sign of things to come from Google, kiosk-type billboards, ATM machines and other digital displays in malls and hotel lobbies could start hawking products directly from a nearby retailer’s inventory.
Nowadays, advertising in these screens are limited to looped, poster-type advertisements of movie promotions and other nearby events but, in Google’s eye, the ads could be pulled directly from a merchant’s stock control system.
In the patent application, Google explained that its technology could remove the burden of manually loading looped ads, instead letting merchants create campaigns from available goods and services. The ads can be displayed in rotation and shut off automatically when a product is sold out.
Once the product is restocked, the advertisement can be re-added to the display cycle.
A class action lawsuit against an internet-connected pleasure device highlights the potential pitfalls a growing number of companies will face as they embrace ... read more
Google sparked a small firestorm last week as reports surfaced that its intelligent assistant device Google Home delivered an unsolicited advertisement to unsuspecting owners.
According to Internet Retailer's newly released The Best Digital Marketers in E-Commerce report, Target is the most effective marketer in online retail. So why is it struggling overall?
The rise of YouTube and digital video generally has a lot to do with the rise of the internet and the abundance of digital video content. But YouTube's ascendency is also the result of Google's savvy use of algorithms.


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Dubai Tourism shares positive outlook with industry
Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) has provided a positive outlook of the industry to leading stakeholders and partners at its first biannual city briefing event.
The organisation highlighted the sector’s performance across key markets, and sharied first-hand insights into major developments, marketing initiatives and future growth strategies.
Led by His Excellency Helal Saeed Almarri, director-general of Dubai Tourism, the city briefing held at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City was one of a number of regular industry engagements initiated by the department to enhance collaboration with its stakeholders and partners to leverage the growing tourism momentum and achieve the goals of Dubai’s Tourism Vision 2022-2025.
The event was attended by nearly 1,000 managers and key executives representing all industry segments, from hospitality to tour operators, tourism attractions to destination management companies, as well as top officials from Dubai Police and Expo 2020 Dubai.
In a special presentation, Dubai Police drew attention to its ‘Oyoon’ smart security surveillance initiative that’s designed to help ensure the safety and security of all residents and visitors to Dubai, and which covers key sectors in Dubai including the tourism industry.
The Expo 2020 Dubai presentation titled ‘500 days to go’ provided an update on the key milestones that have been reached and the infrastructure and logistics in place to host the mega event that will be launched on 20 October 2020.
Addressing the gathering of industry professionals and senior government officials, HE Helal Saeed Almarri, said: “While we are pleased with the positive performance of the industry since the beginning of this year, Dubai Tourism is committed to hosting such events to ensure that our stakeholders are well aligned with the emirate’s tourism strategy to be able to collectively take advantage of the diverse campaigns and concerted efforts being made to attract more visitors to the city.
“Maintaining a robust industry is at the core of our cross-sector efforts, and as we look ahead, we are confident that our continued cooperation with both public and private sector partners will ensure that Dubai remains a must-visit destination.”
Major General Khalil Ibrahim Al Mansour, assistant to the commander-in-chief for Criminal Investigation Affairs at Dubai Police, said: “Dubai Police is pleased to be a part of this event as it gives us an opportunity to exchange ideas and views with leading players in Dubai’s tourism industry, and secure their support towards further enhancing the safety and security of visitors.
“The ‘Oyoon’ system is an important part of Dubai Police’s strategy to use the most advanced technologies to help maintain the city’s peace and harmony, especially by protecting key sectors including the vital tourism industry that will ensure that Dubai continues to be an extremely safe destination for visitors.”
Sanjive Khosla, deputy chief – Sales and Marketing at Expo 2020 Dubai, said: “With fewer than 500 days until Expo 2020 opens, our preparations are well on track.
“We will be welcoming millions of tourists from around the world, and the hospitality sector has a key role in ensuring that each and every one of those visitors has a fantastic experience, and want to come back again and again, boosting tourism in the long term.”
The city briefing was followed by the hosting of the Dubai Sustainable Tourism Awards, an initiative of Dubai Tourism to recognise and celebrate the important work of Dubai’s hotels and tourism companies in advancing sustainability within the emirate’s tourism industry.


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The site reports that shipments of the systems to Apple will total 100,000 to 150,000 units this month. That number is expected to rise to 900,000 units "eventually." In spite of that, however, DigiTimes goes on to say Apple may not have Ivy Bridge-powered notebooks out the door any sooner than its competitors:
The availability of Apple's new MacBook Pro might come at the same time non-Apple brands launch their new Ivy Bridge ultrabooks, the sources observed. New models from non-Apple brands were previously expected to hit market shelves earlier, which was seen as a good time to sell prior to Apple's new product release, but have been postponed due to a revised shipping schedule for Ivy Bridge chips, according to the sources.
The story also echoes a rumor that's been making the rounds lately: that upcoming MacBook Pro notebooks will look like the MacBook Air, with no optical drives and slim aluminum enclosures. With articles like these floating around and Intel being officially vague about Ivy Bridge launch timing, though, it's hard to know exactly when the new machines will see the light of day.
|Here's the not-so-live video version of The TR Podcast 164||16|
|Here's what's cooking in Damage Labs||34|
|Deal of the week: An IPS ultra-wide for $420, plus cheap SSDs and more||30|
|Microsoft's quarterly revenue up 25% on strong Surface, Xbox sales||23|
|Assassin's Creed Unity PC requires 6GB of RAM, GTX 680||237|
|Join us as we attempt to live stream The TR Podcast tonight||13|
|Civ: Beyond Earth with Mantle aims to end multi-GPU microstuttering||75|
|CPU startup claims to achieve 3x IPC gains with VISC architecture||62|
|I just found this AMAZING trick! Call of Duty takes up 0GB if you just don't buy it!||+122|


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Mantra's fingerprint scanners now support biometric log-in with Windows Biometric Framework (WBF)
The WBF has a set of services and interfaces to support the development and management of biometric devices. This framework provides compatibility with biometric services and drivers and allows device to interact with the system and supports biometric solution development.
During the press conference, Mr. Hiren Bhandari, Technical Director at Mantra Softech stated "We are pleased to offer WBF solution to our global customers who are using our fingerprint devices. Earlier in order to use fingerprint scanning devices, vendors were required to provide their own USB drivers, SDKs, and application that resulted in lacking a homogeneous user experience and a common management platform for all fingerprint biometric devices which complicated the process of applying fingerprint recognition products in Windows. With this framework, it will be now possible for fingerprint device users to operate on a common management platform that will enhance the quality, reliability, and consistency of the user experience".
He also added, "We are currently in the process to make our other fingerprint modules compatible with WBF and soon we will be announcing that news as well".


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The real estate property market is driving growth of China’s economy, with sales in the first half of 2016 increased by 42.1 percent over the same period of last year. Passenger vehicle sales in the first half of 2016 have increased by 11.5 percent over the same period of last year.
According to Wang, China sold over 10 million vehicles in the first half of 2016 and in June alone China sold more than 20.6 percent of passenger vehicles than the same month of last year, the highest growth record in 2016. With robust demand from infrastructure, real estate and automotive markets, coatings output has increased by 6.92 percent to reach 10 million tons by the end of July, 2016, compared with only 1.42 percent growth in the first half of 2015.
As I finish up this issue I am in Shanghai awaiting the first day of the Coatings Summit. Previously alternating between North America and Europe, this year’s biennial event is being held in Shanghai for the first time. The Coatings Summit is a unique opportunity to hear from senior coatings leaders speak about the trends and issues most important to the paint and coatings industry.
According to show organizers, Vincentz Network, the selection of Shanghai reflects “the growing importance of Asia as a coatings powerhouse.”
This year’s theme is “Shaping the Future of a Dynamic Industry” and will feature a mix of speakers from around the world.
Highlights of this event will be presentations from Hiroshi Ishino, presdieident of Japan-based Kansai Paint; Jie Hong, chairman of the board and CEO of China-based SKSHU Paint, Jalaj Dani, president of India-based Asian Paints; Hubert Culik, CEO of Slovenia-based Helios Group; Henrik Andersen, group president and CEO of Germany-based Hempel and Daniel Murad, president of U.S.-based ChemQuest Group.
I look forward to hearing their unique perspectives on the issues shaping our industry, seeing some familiar faces and meeting new colleagues.


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Customers are returning to retailers in the United States. Following the loosening of Covid limits, customers returning to schools and businesses are spending more in physical stores. People who were stranded at home during lockdowns wore comfy joggers and sweatshirts, but the reopening of schools, workplaces, and public areas following vaccines has led them to reinvest in streetwear, such as jeans and shirts.
The holiday season is off to a good start. Customers have shown up early to shop and have been pleased with the selections. Despite port congestion and certain manufacturing shutdown, retailers have shrugged off Christmas inventory concerns, confident that they have enough stock. Department store chains in the United States had a great fiscal third quarter. At the conclusion of the third quarter, American Eagle Outfitters’ inventory at cost climbed by 32% as the company used more expensive air freight to deal with worldwide supply chain challenges.
The clothes retailer has been improving its logistical capabilities. In comparison to the previous year, total net revenue climbed by 24%. Sales at American Eagle increased by 21%, while revenue at Aerie, which offers leggings and bras, increased by 28%. Abercrombie & Fitch’s net sales also increased by 10%. Macy’s had a 35.6 percent increase in sales.


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OK, Peloton’s much-maligned Christmas ad was a terrible idea. But a new report from Wedbush Securities predicts the New York-based company is poised to leave the competition in the $5 trillion fitness market in the dust.
As more people look to “work in” than “work out,” Wedbush expects Peloton to be “one of a small number of fitness companies likely to be an enduring force going forward.”
Wedbush, which is just beginning its coverage of the company, says its forecast that Peloton will outperform the market is based on analysis of current users, prospects, and its business model.
“We do not believe that Peloton will prove to be a fad,” writes James Hardiman, the Wedbush analyst who covers the fitness category. “Peloton has a first-mover advantage in an emerging and compelling subset of the fitness market, providing consumers what they want, where and when they want it,” he says. Wedbush believes Peloton has the best odds of “becoming synonymous with at-home fitness, an undeniable trend with a considerable runway.”
Certainly, the products are pricey. But with the market growing about three times faster than inflation, fueled by aging boomers, Peloton stacks up favorably when compared to the cost of health-club memberships.
“Worsening time poverty and evolving technology allow fitness-seeking consumers to work out how they want, where they want, and when they want,” Hardiman says.
Peloton’s Wall Street performance has been volatile since its initial public offering last fall, the social-media hullaballoo around its “tone-deaf ad,” and the many interactive competitors unveiled at the recent Consumer Electronics Show.
Wedbush believes the company’s subscription business has the potential to reach about 4 million subscribers, including 3 million in the U.S., or about 2% of U.S. households. (Currently, there are about 600,000 subscribers.) In addition to its existing bikes, which cost about $2,000, and treadmills, at about $4,000, the company also offers subscriptions to classes that include yoga, weight training and running. And there are reports it is mulling rowing machines, as well as more affordable treadmills.
In Wedbush’s research, consumers were highly interested in a theoretical rower and an elliptical, and Peloton bike owners and non-owners both expressed “significantly more” interest in a cheaper treadmill.
Wedbush defined Peloton’s potential market as the 31 million U.S. households with more than $50,000 in annual income, who are interested in fitness products and already familiar with Peloton. Of those, Wedbush projects that 15 million are interested in the brand.
Ultimately, the company’s success can be measured by the stability of its subscription business, which Wedbush says should settle at about 22% of turnover annually. (Its current churn rate of 1% is not sustainable, he says.)


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Aeropostale, one-time mall king, seeks bankruptcy protection
NEW YORK - Aeropostale, once the vibrant epicenter of the U.S. mall scene, is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The New York company said Wednesday that it is closing 113 of its 739 U.S. stores and all 41 locations in Canada. Going-out-of-business sales at those U.S. stores will begin this weekend.
Aeropostale expects to emerge from bankruptcy protection within six months as a smaller company after renegotiating contracts and resolving an ongoing dispute with the investment firm Sycamore Partners, a major shareholder that pushed through changes in company leadership.
The company's shares traded for more than $30 six years ago, when annual sales exceeded $2 billion. Two weeks ago, it was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange with shares having failed to break the $1 barrier since last year.
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Bethesda has released another piece of concept art on the official Fallout 3 website. This one showcases a strip mall in the town of Paradise Falls.
We finally are starting to see some of the artistic styles that scream "Fallout." 1950's style art deco design, a car that looks like a crashed Highwayman, and is that a corpse in a suit of power armor the citizens are proudly standing over? While the cheery blue skies kind of dampen the mood, it's the closest thing to Fallout we've seen yet.


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Business houses throughout Europe will soon be able to conduct payment processing transactions 24/7, 365 days – thanks to an all-new real time processing engine which will be introduced by the leading payment infrastructure service provider team from FEBA Clearing and Intesa Sanpaolo.
A highly flexible solution for payment products in Euro, and which conform to European Payments Council SCT Inst Scheme and ISO 20022, the platform will facilitate account-servicing payment service providers all over SEPA to transact payment operations to global messaging standards and in real-time frequencies.
Already an established leader in pan-European payment infrastructure solutions, EBA Clearing manages two Systematically Important Payment Systems (SIPS), and has been fully acknowledged for tireless performance as a reliable pan-EU system for high-value, high volume Euro payment transactions. The system operates through its two celebrated platforms, EURO1 and STEP2, which have proven to be a boon for financial institutions across the EU, to conduct fail-safe credit transfer and direct debit procedures in the Union’s own recognised currency .
With the first test results working in favour of the infrastructure builders, a promising future awaits end-users throughout Europe, to enjoy the power of banking through payment platforms that work seamlessly throughout the days and nights of an entire calendar year.


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Microsoft has some pretty rosy predictions for Halo: Reach, claiming their latest entry in the series will outsell Activision’s upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Quoth Stephen McGill (head honcho of Xbox UK) at a Reach launch event last night: “More than 34 million people have bought [a Halo game] and those people are going to want to play Halo: Reach. We’re going to do incredibly well.”
When asked about sales figures and particularly their position against Black Ops, he replied: “It’s going to be a really good fight and yes I do [believe it]. We have huge expectations.”
The game (for which review embargoes lift this Sunday) hits worldwide next Tuesday the 14th.


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Mbali Nkosi has taken to her social media to reveal that she is proud of her clothing brand.
The star launched her brand this year and it has been a dream come true for her.
Many of the celebrities are looking back of how far they have come this year and what to work hard more next year 2022.
Mbali on the other hand is grateful and proud of her brand.
She said: “One thing I’m proud of this year is @emme_label ‼ #myemmelabel”
See post below:


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Rockford Area Residents Are Being Tricked By Fake Amazon Reps
During the heart of the pandemic, online sales were absolutely through the roof. Even though COVID-19 seems to be on the downside, the bad guys are still furiously trying to grab your online shopping money and more.
Crooks are doing this all across America, including right here in Rockford and surrounding areas.
Bad actors pretending to be someone that they are not isn't a new phenomenon. However, it's one that seems to just keep going and growing strong, stealing people's money and making off with their identifications, passwords, user-names and more. No one has any idea how to make it go away, just some suggestions on how you can avoid having it happen to you.
Here's something that I learned while spending some time at ComputerWeekly.com: almost 80% of domains containing the word "Amazon" are potentially dangerous. I was blown away by that number, and I was also surprised to see that in the 30 day run up to Amazon Prime Days in June, more than 2,300 domains linked to Amazon were registered.
Online security experts at CheckPointResearch took a look at Amazon-related domains, and found that:
One in two (46%) were malicious – clearly set up to con shoppers into giving up their Amazon credentials, email addresses and credit card details, and one in three (32%) were unprovably suspicious in some way. Their goal is to make money from your personal details. The tactic cyber criminals use in their deception is domain spoofing, where you click on a page that appears to be from Amazon, but you’re actually on malicious ground.
Some of the victims stories that are circulating include a woman who got a fake Amazon email and ended up giving the cyberthieves her username, password, and credit card information. Another person was messaged on Facebook and told that her Amazon account had been compromised. She was given a number to call to fix the problem, but the number was not connected to Amazon. She ended up losing around $13,000.


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Storage devices just keep getting cheaper. In today’s Amazon deal of the day, a 512 GB microSD card from PNY is on sale for $80.99. That’s is the lowest price we’ve seen on a card that size, by about $20, and it’s more than 50 percent off the $169.99 launch price on this particular model.
There’s also a PNY Pro Elite 512 GB micro SD card, which is a bit faster and can record 4K video, on sale for $89.99.
With the Nintendo Switch’s measly 32 GB of internal memory, a storage upgrade is practically a necessity, unless you’re willing to buy only physical games or pick and choose which games to keep installed at any given time. 512 GB will hold a lot of games; I’m only just beginning to reach capacity on the 256 GB card I put in my Switch over a year ago.
The Amazon deal of the day discounts some other PNY storage devices as well, including flash drives, SSDs, and standard SD cards. It ends at 3 a.m. ET on Friday, June 15.


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TEST YNG TEST YNG
Take a look through the latest in-depth industry news as well as a range of features, insights and advice across a variety of different financial topics. Have a browse through our guides and web pages, so you can get an idea about what options might be possible and most helpful in your situation.
The latest research from insolvency trade body R3 has found that in September, the number of businesses in the Yorkshire region at a higher than… Read more »
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Last fall, Ross Saldarini swung by Confluence Kayaks hoping to learn something about retail. The president of Mountain Khakis was pondering a branded flagship store, and he wanted to share the idea with store owner Jon Kahn, who has been carrying Mountain Khakis for years. Saldarini had his eyes on a spot in Denver’s historic Larimer Square, less than a mile from Kahn’s shop.
“We want to be able to provide a full Mountain Khakis’ product and brand experience in our own retail environment, something that is difficult to do with just displays,” Saldarini says. “But I wanted to be a good partner and a good neighbor. So I told Jon that my viewpoint was that if we did this right, it will be a win for Confluence Kayaks.”
Maybe we could hang one of your kayaks in the flagship, Saldarini suggested. How about a summertime table for visitors to sign up for Confluence Kayak stand-up or paddling lessons? “If we were getting into retail and we were a brand that has been around for 40-plus years, maybe we wouldn’t need to focus so much on community aspects. But if you have a young brand and are entering a new community, I think it’s vitally important to take seriously being a good neighbor and integrating yourself into that community,” Saldarini says. “It can, if done right, have the impact of raising awareness and raising sales for everyone.”
The suddenly red-hot flagship trend is not inherently bad for independent speciality. In many ways, a brand’s efforts to build its identity through its own store is taking a page from those retailers, who foster the growth of countless brands from obscurity to international prominence.
But from a retailer’s perspective, there are certainly good ways and bad ways for an outdoor brand to develop and operate its own retail flagship store. If it’s designed as a way to reinforce a brand’s distinctiveness and support its omnichannel sales and outreach strategy, it can work by building customer interest and loyalty. But if it’s a discount warehouse and the store cultivates a customer’s expectation for deals, it can do damage to specialty retailers, especially those nearby.
There’s a cautionary tale here. If a brand’s specialty retailers are grappling with oversupply, as many today are, that flagship could spur a less-than-healthy multichannel pursuit that ends in their own oversupply, which would trigger discounts that prod retailers to drop the brand.
Immersed in the Experience
Kahn, whose shop is the city’s premier independent whitewater and backcountry skiing retailer, has carried Mountain Khakis for a decade. He was one of the first retailers to champion the nascent Jackson Hole brand. So he understands the Mountain Khakis’ flagship push, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.
The Mountain Khakis store opened April 1, 2017, and, a few weeks later, Kahn hadn’t noticed a decline in sales. “But we are definitely buying a little less than we might otherwise because we don’t know what the impact is going to be,” Kahn says. “We assume we are likely to lose some sales with them being so close. But we do plan on continuing to carry the brand.” More brands are following suit, adds Kahn, who hears that Kühl, whom he also carries, might also open a flagship in Denver.
According to Saldarini, his company’s first-ever flagship will not be undercutting retailers with discounts and sales. It will only sell Mountain Khakis’ product at full retail.
“We are here to enhance awareness of the brand and hopefully create more sales for everyone,” he says.
Mountain Khakis is not the only hot, young brand to head down the flagship route. Corey Maynard, the head of marketing for Yeti Coolers, just opened his company’s first flagship store in the brand’s hometown of Austin. He calls the 8,000-square-foot marquee location adjacent to Austin’s most trafficked hike-and-bike trail “a brand museum.”
There’s a music stage. A meeting space. Photos and artifacts from adventures by the brand’s heavy-hitting ambassadors like Conrad Anker and Shane Dorian. According to Maynard, the store was designed to reflect the feel-it-all experience of a children’s museum.
“Our intention was to build a fully immersive brand-experience center much more than becoming a retailer. We’ve never had the intention of selling a lot of product from this,” Maynard says.
The cooler maker even invited retailers from the region to the store for a soft opening in the spring. Maynard wanted to show them it wasn’t really a store.
“I’m sure no retailer loves there being any kind of distribution point for our product besides them. It’s definitely a sensitive subject, but our focus has been for this to be a giant marketing vehicle,” says Maynard, who expects the store could help with employee recruiting as well. “We believe it elevates the brand profile. It makes Austin a Yeti town, and we believe it’s going to elevate all our retail partners in the area.”
And just to be clear, Maynard says, there are no plans to open more stores like the flagship in Austin. “We are going to stick to coolers from here on out,” he says.
We Can Work It Out
The direct-to-consumer trend is one specialty retailers have been watching warily for the last several years, and the its progression has evolved toward flagships. That’s disconcerting to retailers, especially when a flagship opens near their stores. But not always. The 45-store, 59-year-old, family-owned Christy Sports has many locations within a stroll of Burton, Marmot, The North Face, Arc’teryx, and Helly Hansen branded stores.
It’s working out well, says Dan Fox, head of operations for Christy Sports, which ranks as one of the nation’s largest winter sports specialty retail chains. “We didn’t stop buying any of those products,” he says. “As a specialty retailer we feel it’s our goal to to deliver a broader spectrum. We are never going to give one manufacturer full presentation.”
But there’s definitely a way to do it wrong, according to Fox. Come in and be very competitive with retailers or evolve into a discount outlet, and you will alienate them and lose their trust, he says. But hold prices and, if you do have sales, offer them later than retailers, and it can be a very symbiotic relationship.
“Most manufacturers don’t want to be retailers,” he says. “They would rather have a retail partner. Right now these flagships are trendy and hip, but we will see what their lifespan will be. If they fade, they’ll want to have that retailer support.”
In Steamboat Springs, Smartwool is taking a sort-of half step into branded retail. In addition to bolstering wholesale relationships and partnerships with speciality retailers, the company is planning three “pop-up” stores this year. The brand opened its first temporary pop-up in Chicago during the holiday season last year, and it proved “successful and incredibly insightful,” says Molly Cuffe, Smartwool director of global brand marketing.
Pop-ups are nimble, short-lived, unique spaces that are sometimes inside partner stores and sometimes stand alone or are part of an event. For Smartwool, the pop-up is way to show consumers that the brand has mid-layer products beyond their wildly popular socks and base layers.
“Same as with partner stores, picking a location is a critical component in the process. We want to make sure we are in a location that works for the brand and is accessible to our consumers, but not next door to a key wholesale partner,” Cuffe says. “Equally important is working closely with our wholesale partners in the area to ensure we are all driving toward the same promotional strategy in that we are all pushing the same story at the same time so we have maximum voice in the marketplace.”
Columbia Sportswear’s vibrant direct-to-consumer strategy leans on a mix that is dominatd by outlet stores, followed by ecommerce, and then branded stores. As of March 31, 2017, the company has 93 U.S. outlet stores, four U.S. branded stores, two employee stores, and four brand-specific ecommerce sites. It plans to open 11 new locations in 2017.
“Outlet stores provide us with a profitable means to clear excess inventories in an orderly fashion without relying on third-party liquidation channels, thereby helping to protect the brand(s) and keep in-line wholesale channels more healthy,” says Ron Parham, Columbia senior director of investor relations and corporate communications.
Rich Hill, the president of Grassroots Outdoor Alliance, a 61-store collective of outdoor retailers across the country, says the trend of brands discounting their products at flagships isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just doesn’t work for specialty retailers.
“If you’re trying to figure out whether a flagship store is ‘good or bad’ for specialty, you need to know a lot more than the neighborhood and the square footage. You need to know the direct-to-consumer strategy that’s driving the store’s retail practices, like the percentage of goods sold at MSRP,” Hill says. “If you don’t know that, then it’s really difficult for anyone to form an opinion on whether it’s a good or a not-so-good thing.”
Some brands are doing direct-to-consumer right with pricing practices that enable retailers to thrive, Hill says. “But there are also companies out there that definitely are not playing well with others,” he says. “If our stores did the same things they’re doing, those brands wouldn’t open us as a dealer.”
There’s one more point, according to Hill: Flagship stores are excellent at speaking to the choir. They tickle brand loyalists. “What they aren’t so good at is creating new converts,” he says. “That is what the trusted third-party opinion of specialty does so well.”
Follow the ROI
The danger for a brand opening a flagship is that a lack of retail experience can cost more than they expect and they end up becoming outlet stores, which ultimately does damage to retail partners, says Joe Butler. His 14,000-square-foot Black Creek Outfitters in the 150-store St. Johns Town Center outdoor mall in central Jacksonville, Florida, is steps away from more than a dozen branded stores, but none of them directly compete with his outdoor, paddlesports specialty. But he’s close to nearby big retail competitors like Dick’s Sporting Goods, West Marine, and REI.
“Walk around our area and you can’t help but walk down brand roads. There’s Microsoft, Apple, Tommy Bahamas, Lululemon. You can’t help but notice the consistent drumbeat of mark-downs at these brand stores,” Butler says. “Then it becomes the expectation. Why would a consumer pay full price for anything? It’s a trap branded stores can fall into.”
Butler has an idea for manufacturers eager to build a castle for their brands: Avoid the seemingly unavoidable outlet trap and look at the flagship through the lens of a return on investment.
“If they took every dollar they used to build and run these branded stores and sunk it into their top 50 retailers and said, ‘you might not be a brand store but we want to treat you like a brand store’… it would empower retailers and just knock it out of the park. They could have one store in one location or 50, 75 zealots for their brand spread across the country,” he says.
Butler has partnerships with five brands, and his team members are experts on them: Yakima, Hobie, Outdoor Research, Osprey, and Astral. Those partnerships elevate the balance of being valuable to the consumer, the vendor, and the manufacturer.
“It just required a willingness to understand what a vendor is good at and them recognizing there are things they are not good at,” Butler says. “It’s a pretty simple decision.”
Butler, like Kahn, understands why a brand would develop a flagship. They get to control their message, their merchandising, their distribution. “It’s a perfectly good business model. But it’s not compatible with my business model,” he says.
Renowned retail consultant Michael Dart co-authored the book New Rules of Retail: Competing in the World’s Toughest Marketplace, which posits that the retail world’s rapid transformation, including the surging direct-to-consumer movement, is dismantling traditional business models and could eliminate more than half of the today’s retailers and consumer companies.
Dart has studied the flagship phenomenon, and it’s not bad news for retailers. He says the branded store builds familiarity with the brand, so when a flagship store visitor eventually sees the brand in a specialty shop, they are engaged and the brand is further validated. He’s seen that happen in shopping malls, where an Oakley sunglass shop opens up a few doors down from a Sunglass Hut.
“You’d think the Sunglass Hut would be decimated, right?” Dart says. “But they both sold more glasses. They didn’t cannibalize each other. They ended up incrementally driving more sales. You’d think it would be detrimental, but it turned out beneficial for both.”
Flagships also tell a story and that ends up selling more product in specialty retail stores, Dart says. And those aspirational products found in branded stores—like say, The North Face’s $1,000 Himalayan Suit, which stores don’t carry because, really, how many people need a down one-piece made for climbing above 8,000 meters?—linger with flagship visitors, Dart says.
“So when they see the standard line in the store, they are tempted,” Dart says. “What’s been shown is that retail stores around flagship stores actually do better with that brand than they have done previously.”
Back in Denver, at Confluence Kayaks, Jon Kahn is wary.
“It’s not really fair or unfair. I would prefer they don’t open flagships within a mile of us, but I can respect their decision. At the same time, it’s a sign that their loyalty is with themselves and not with specialty retailers. That makes us maybe more likely to look at other brands and something new,” Kahn says. “It’s kind of tough when Denver is the outdoor epicenter right now. In the end, it’s about what sells through for us and if a flagship negatively impacts our sales, it will make it difficult for us to keep them in the long term.”


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The Bradford-based company’s turnover also rose by £1.7M this year from £22.8M last year, following the appointment of Jonathan Bye as ceo in 2012.
In its latest accounts filed with Companies House for the year ended March 2014, Seabrook Crisps’s directors hailed the company’s turnaround strategy as the main game changer.
An increase in profits was also reflected in the company’s remuneration packages, with the highest paid director receiving a £240,000 bonus this year – up by £62,000 on last year.
“The creation of a sustainable, scalable business, appropriately structured for growth represented the first phase of the turnaround,” they said.
The company also plans to further develop its brand, which is more popular in Yorkshire and the north east of England than southern England, to create more growth and boost profits.
“There will be a number of new product launches to include a straight cut crisp … and our entry into the sharing market in the form of a lattice cut crisp, [which] is the first of its kind in the UK,” they added.
Although Seabrook Crisps has returned to growth, bosses of the family-owned business are aware of the potential threats stiff competition and commodity price fluctuations pose.
“The market in which the company operates is highly competitive with aggressive pricing strategies and high levels of promotional activity,” the directors said.
To combat potato and sunflower oil price fluctuations, Seabrook will lock in prices for periods of up to 12 months to “reduce or culminate” the risk.
Focus on fixing prices was given particular attention as a result of the poor potato harvest last year, the effects of which were still felt by the company in the first quarter of 2014, said the directors.
“This adversely affected our results in this [first quarter]. However, with contracts already placed covering our next financial year, this issue shouldn’t recur.”
Meanwhile, Bye, the former boss of Vimto, told Food Manufacture last year he didn’t realise the full scale of the company’s troubles when he joined.
“Although I was in no doubt throughout the interview process that the business had run into a difficult period after having some great times, I probably didn’t realise the magnitude of the challenge,” he said.
Last year the company repositioned and relaunched the brand to focus on its core audience of 40 to 55-year-olds.
Seabrook Crisps also posted a £430,000 loss for 2013.
Read an interview with John Tague, Seabrook Crisps’s former commercial director, who transformed the company’s turnover from £11M to £30M between 2008 and 2011, by clicking here.


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Half of all households in the UK are in credit with their energy supplier and could claim up to £1.2bn between them, according to a survey.
More than 13m homes are in credit by an average of £86, said comparison site uSwitch, equivalent to 52pc of households and up from 47pc last year.
Some 21pc of households are in credit by more than £100, while 260,000 households could reclaim more than £500 from their supplier.
USwitch said a mild winter and concerns about cost meant households cut back on their energy use and are now in credit with their supplier, because energy bills are often based on estimated use rather than actual energy consumption.
The comparison site said households must take regular meter readings to improve bill accuracy.
The study of more than 2,000 adults found that almost four million households are in debt to their supplier, owing an average £128.
The Telegraph has heard from readers told their monthly direct debits would increase, even though their energy supplier owed them money.
David Richardson, a retired bank manager, faced a 54pc increase in his direct debit payments after EDF's systems did not recognise two one-off card payments.
The big six energy companies have committed to reviewing all direct debit accounts every 12 months and refunding any credit directly back to customers.
Ofgem has also ruled that they must refund any credit on the request of the customer at any point in the year.
USwitch director of consumer policy Ann Robinson said: "With temperatures rising, now is the time for people to spring clean their energy accounts and find out if they are in credit with their supplier.
"Energy bills are often based on estimations rather than actual usage and so they can be very far off the mark. Reclaiming this credit has never been easier as new rules from Ofgem mean suppliers must refund this money to customers whenever they request it.
"However, those who are in the black should remember that this may only be temporary as accounts can fluctuate between credit and debt depending on the season. Being in credit can provide a buffer against the colder months when usage typically goes up.
"The best way for people to stay on top of this and ensure their bills are as accurate as possible is to take regular meter readings."
Find your cheapest gas and electricity tariffs with the Telegraph Energy Switching Service. Get a quote for your postcode and switch online in minutes >


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The Vine Grove Chamber of Commerce will have its fourth annual Spring Fling. This will be a craft show, flea market and huge yard sale. The event is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 8 at the Optimist Park in Vine Grove. The Payne Killers will perform.
Set ups are $10 for 10-foot by 10-foot spaces for yard sale and flea market vendors. Food vendors and craft vendors are $20 per 10-foot by 10-foot space.
For information, contact Donna Broadway at 877-2422 or donna@ vinegrove.org


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CARS24, one of the leading e-commerce platforms for pre-owned vehicles, announced today the closing of Dh1.2 billion round in Series F equity funding. This nearly doubles the valuation to Dh6.75 billion.
The Series F equity round was led by DST Global, Falcon Edge and SoftBank Vision Fund 2* along with participation from Tencent and existing investors Moore Strategic Ventures and Exor Seeds. With the latest investment, CARS24 will expand its global presence as well as further build its cars, bikes, and financing business in India, while continuing to invest in technology that delivers the best customer experience possible.
CARS24 is the market leader in the online used car segment with over 90 per cent market share in India and has clocked more than 13 million monthly traffic and over 400,000 transactions till date. The company has already sold over 1,000 cars in the UAE since the launch of its operations in April this year.
CARS24 also officially announced its launch with a new campaign last week in Australia. This funding and vote of confidence from top global investors comes just months after CARS24’s expansion into the UAE and Australian markets.
Speaking on the development, Vikram Chopra, Co-founder & CEO, CARS24 said, “Just last month, we celebrated our six successful years of operations, and we are incredibly excited to share that CARS24 has officially closed its largest round of funding to date. We have been working relentlessly over the last six years to fulfil thousands of people's dreams of owning a car by transforming the customer's journey - 'the CARS24 way' - that is hassle-free, safe and transparent.
"With this investment, we will continue to penetrate into existing car, bikes and financing business while venturing into new overseas geographies this year. With an extensive line-up of vehicles, we entered the UAE earlier this year with a goal of bringing a car within reach of every car enthusiast.”
Founded in 2015, CARS24 exists to transform the way consumers buy and sell cars by leveraging technology at every leg of the consumer journey to solve genuine pain points and deliver a seamless experience.
Rahul Mehta, Managing Partner at DST Global said, “CARS24 is at the forefront of transforming the way consumers buy and sell cars by providing a unique end-to-end digital shopping and transaction experience. They have emerged as the undisputed leader in the used car space in India and early traction in international markets is exceeding expectations. We love backing founders who are bold and ambitious thinkers and couldn’t be more excited to enter the second innings of our long-lasting partnership with CARS24.”
“We have studied used car platforms globally and are struck by the similarities we see between CARS24 and analogous businesses that have scaled successfully. CARS24 has cemented its first-mover advantage by building wide-ranging supply side moats, which in turn drive demand liquidity on the platform. In positioning itself as a buying and selling solution for consumers, CARS24 drives immense top-of-mind recall. It is rare to find a business as focused on the consumer experience and as driven to ensure it is outstanding via the use of data science and technology. Finally, we are deeply impressed by the founders’ leadership, and are thrilled to back them as they transform the used car industry in India and scale internationally across MENA and SE Asia”, said Navroz D. Udwadia, Co-founder of Falcon Edge Capital.
Munish Varma, Managing Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers said, “CARS24 is building a data-enabled tech platform that is organizing the fragmented used car market in India. We have been closely tracking its approach and efforts that have disrupted the used car retailing in India.”
Sumer Juneja, Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers added, “We believe CARS24 is enhancing the customer experience in the used car industry with its sharp focus on technology. We will continue to support this growth given our expertise in e-commerce businesses across markets”.
CARS24 has made a significant mindset shift in the UAE by taking the entire car buying experience online. Every car bought from CARS24 comes with a seven days return policy and two years warranty.
CARS24 is the largest online transaction platform for pre-owned vehicles in India. Founded in 2015 by Vikram Chopra, Mehul Agrawal, Ruchit Agarwal and Gajendra Jangid, it offers an efficient, reliable, and hassle-free transacting experience to customers to buy and sell pre-owned vehicles (cars and bikes) as well as financing options. CARS24 operates in over 130 cities in India. Since its inception, CARS24 has built a strong technology backbone that features various first-of-its-kind offerings including an innovative auction format, a state-of-the-art proprietary inspection app, and a powerful algorithm that matches supply and demand across the country. In addition, CARS24 also features an innovative price discovery mechanism for used vehicles.
CARS24 is the first player in the pre-owned vehicle industry to procure a non-banking financial company (NBFC) license and launch consumer lending business with CARS24 Financial Services and two-wheeler segment BIKES24. It is backed by marquee investors like Sequoia India, SoftBank, Falcon Edge, Exor Seeds (venture arm of Exor, one of the world’s leading holding companies controlled by the Agnelli Family), DST Global, Kingsway Capital (London based multi-billion US$ fund), Unbound (global investment firm headquartered in London), Moore Strategic Ventures and KCK (Silicon Valley & New York based investment firm).


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UAE to completely ban single-use plastic bags from 2024
As part of the UAE efforts to enhance the environmental sustainability nationwide, it issued the Ministerial Resolution No.380 of 2022 regarding regulation of the use of single-use products in the country’s markets.
The Resolution seeks to curb the consumption of plastic bags and regulate the production, circulation and use of single-use products.
It prohibits the import, production or circulation of single-use plastic shopping bags as of January 1, 2024 across the country.
This includes biodegradable plastic bags. Furthermore, it prohibits the import, production or circulation of single-use bags, regardless of the material used in their manufacturing as of January 1, 2024.
In accordance with the Resolution, import, production, or circulation of plastic products, such as soft drink cups and caps, cutlery (spoons, forks, knives, chopsticks, plates, straws, stirrers, food containers and boxes made of Styrofoam) will be banned in the UAE as of January 1, 2026.
The Resolution called on all parties and consumers to work on and adopt mechanisms and practices that help reduce the production and consumption of single-use products such as packages and packaging material made partially or completely of plastic material, including those used in food packaging, plastic bottles, cotton sticks, crackers bags, cigarette butts, wet wipes, balloons and balloon sticks.
However, it excludes a number of products, including rolls of thin bags that meet the specifications set by the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment in coordination with the concerned authorities.
It also excludes the products intended for export or re-export, provided that a clear label is placed indicating that the purpose of production is export or re-export, as trade in these products in the country’s markets is forbidden.
Other items are exempt from the ban such as single-use bags and products made from recycled material in the country, and any products and materials that are identified and excluded by the competent authority, in coordination with the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment.


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PS4 owners have one more beta before Monster Hunter: World hits consoles on January 26.
Some creatures that make an appearance are Kushala Daora, which defends itself by generating strong wind storms, and Teostra, who spits fire at any hunter who dares to face it in battle. The upcoming beta will keep the hunts seen in the previous two for Jagras, Anjanath and Barroth, and also add a new quest to hunt the Nergigante.
Capcom's livestream lasted about an hour and detailed what the community should expect before, during and after launch week.
Finally, Capcom today confirmed that there are plans for post-launch support of Monster Hunter: World with regular content updates, as well as major title updates for free. One, named Dodogama, has a unique saliva that causes rock to become explosive.
Mega Millions jackpot up to $363 million
The last time anyone won was on October 13, when Mega Millions winners in MI and Rhode Island shared the $42 million drawing. Nobody won Saturday's drawing but 2.2 million people won almost $19 million in non-jackpot prizes.
Monster Hunter: World will be heading to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 26th January.
The trailer also highlights more than just the Elder Dragons... we also get to see numerous various creatures from the game in glorious eighth-gen quality. The second trailer is a sneak peek at the Deviljho Update, the first of several free patches - featuring new quests, monsters and armor - set to debut in 2018.
Are you excited for Monster Hunter: Worlds big leap from handheld devices to console? The first major title update will be coming in Spring 2018 which includes the addition of the fan-favorite monster Deviljho.
This new beta will take place just a few days before the game is scheduled to release.


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Small Cheval, home of one of Chicago’s most-favorite burgers, is set to open its second location next week inside a Loop skyscraper that overlooks the Chicago River. While Hogsalt Hospitality’s Brendan Sodikoff hasn’t shown his cards, personnel over at 150 North Riverside say that the restaurant will open on Monday, October 23 inside the office tower which opened earlier this year.
Now, as it’s been branded and documented, the Au Cheval burger isn’t the same as the Small Cheval version. Au Cheval is Hogsalt’s venerable West Loop dining destination where customers line up for hours to order the griddled double stack. Riding the wave of burger popularity, Sodikoff opened a smaller spin-off, Small Cheval in 2015. Small Cheval offers burgers, fries, shakes, and beer. Now two years later, some feel that the brand has real nationwide potential for expansion. Hogsalt plans a third Chicago location in Old Town, but the company hasn’t shared an opening date.
The 54-story office tower where Small Cheval will stand opened to the public this spring. Porter’s Kitchen & Deck, run by Four Corners Tavern Group (a frequent collaborator with Sodikoff), also opened earlier this year in the same building.


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OnePlus is set to launch its next flagship iteration – The onePlus 10 series this month. And the official date is touted to be on 11th, through various leaks.
Once official, it marks the first new phone launch of 2022. The all-new OnePlus 10 series will initially launch in China and gradually come to other nations. It’s a curved display, premium processor and triple camera setup in the rear.
OnePlus 10 Series
OnePlus is ready to put an end to all the rumors and leaks of its upcoming handset – The OnePlus 10 series. The Chinese company will initially announce this premium smartphone line-up in its home country on January 11th and gradually bring it to other nations.
While there’s a week for the official launch, here’s how it could be as per reliable leaks we’ve gathered till now. The OnePlus 10 Pro variant is said to have a curved display with a punch-hole selfie camera set in the top-left corner of the screen. The display will be 6.7″ long in the QHD+ panel, offering a 120Hz screen refresh rate.
With upto 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM, the OnePlus 10 Pro variant offers storage options until 256GB. The entire series comes in four color variants – black, teal, purple, and silver. The OnePlus 10 series shall come with three cameras at the rear with a matte finish rear panel, as per leaked renders.
The primary among them will be produced by Hasselblad and could be a 48MP lens. This is followed by a 50MP ultra-wide camera and an 8MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. Upfront, there will be a 32MP camera for selfies stuffed into the punch-hole design.
Under the hood, the phone will run by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, which is 20% powerful than Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888, said OnePlus CEO, Pete Lau. Finally, the phone may have a 5000mAh battery with 80W wired and 50W wireless fast charging support.


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SSE, CargoSmart Launch Carrier Reliability Index
Chinese shipping index organization Shanghai Shipping Exchange (SSE) and shipping management software provider CargoSmart have signed a memorandum of cooperation (MoC) to develop a new shipping index for ocean carrier schedule reliability.
Both parties will work together to create a new methodology to calculate schedule reliability for key trade lanes to help shippers optimize their supply chains and for the industry as a whole to improve service quality.
SSE has been playing a significant role in providing up-to-date and accurate shipping information for the global shipping market, including publishing the China Containerized Freight Index (CCFI) and Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI).
“The alliance with CargoSmart allows us to expand the insights we provide for the shipping industry,” said Yao Weifu, Vice President of Shanghai Shipping Exchange. “We look forward to collaborating with CargoSmart to deliver a new shipping index that increases transparency to ocean carrier performance.”
With over 20 years of experience in providing shipping management solutions and connections with more than 20 ocean carriers, CargoSmart monitors and analyzes over 16,000 vessels, 1,400 global container ports, 3,000 ocean carrier services representing 85% of the market, and 10 million sailing schedules.
“CargoSmart and Shanghai Shipping Exchange share a common desire to improve supply chain efficiency and productivity,” said Lionel Louie, chief commercial officer of CargoSmart. “Our cooperation will extend our contributions to the shipping industry.”


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NEW YORK — Fresh off his first New York Fashion Week, Intel’s chief executive officer Brian Krzanich was back in town Friday, talking up the Maker movement at the Chelsea boutique Story.
In town for the World Maker Faire, his cameo also touted the Intel Galileo board, among other futuristic products on view. After the meet and greet, Krzanich told WWD a bit about Intel’s outlook on wearables and his take on fashion.
Having teamed with Opening Ceremony for the design of its My Intelligent Communication Accessory (or MICA) bracelet, Krzanich caught the company’s fashion shows at Milk Studios and its Spike Jonze-directed play at the Metropolitan Opera. “I probably enjoyed the play a little more, because the subject was a little different for me. I liked the concept of having models as part of the play and showing that models have more skills than just walking,” he said. “Isn’t the whole idea to do something that’s going to upset half the people and excite the other half? That’s how change occurs and you stay on the edge. That’s what some people have told me, and I’m an engineer, so I don’t know.”
MICA’s secondary role in the production was another bonus. “I remember sitting there, thinking, OK, here I am. Yoko Ono is on one side, Jonah Hill is a few people over, Intel products are onstage with a bunch of models. Robert Noyce is just rolling over,” Krzanich said. “The Intel founders just never would have thought that would be Intel product up there.”
Although short on specifics, Intel’s chief said the company “is trying to do partnerships across the wearable spectrum” and may introduce eyewear, apparel, watches and/or footwear next year. “Oh gosh, the way I think about it, you could just go through your body, so shoes, clothing….We’ve shown smart shirts that measure heart rate, perspiration, all kinds of things. Then you can go to your wrists, watches and all kinds of things,” he said. “Our theory on wearables is that if you take a tech company and make a wearable, it looks like a tech-company wearable. It’s kind of cool. We make a lot of them, and we think they can do really well. But these big brands are very good at this….So rather than we make eyewear that’s smart, why not go find some of the better eyewear manufacturers and say, ‘Why don’t we make something great together? You do the design, and I’ll do the technology.’ ”
With MICA, which will make its debut for holiday, Intel, a $52.7 billion juggernaut, is targeting socially active women and found the right partner in that space, Krzanich said. During the development stage of MICA, Krzanich’s wife wore a prototype and discovered how much information — “text and Facebook messages, all this stuff for the kids and work partners” — she had been missing by keeping her smartphone in her purse, he said. With MICA, she got all of that in real time and felt that much more connected, Krzanich said. “I think that’s what’s going to drive people to this business. It’s about being connected. I don’t know that it’s [a feeling of] warmth. I don’t use words like that. Connected makes you warm, I guess.”
Most of Intel’s potential wearable partners have some sort of combination of freestanding stores and e-commerce. “Nobody does just one or the other anymore,” he said.
Sales for these yet-to-be-proven products are tough to predict. “We have no idea. All of these are somewhat experiments, too. We think MICA is a great product. We actually think it’s priced fair and it’s about great design. And we have no idea how many we’re going to sell. We put out Galileo boards and we sold six times our first estimate,” he said. “These are all new, so we’re just putting them out there to see what the market wants.”
The fashion scene is another puzzle for Krzanich. “I find the whole thing curious, to be honest with you. It’s just so different. When somebody judges or looks at technology, you can measure the advancement of it well. ‘Oh, you did that in three steps instead of four,’ or ‘Look, you were able to compact that to this,’ or ‘You’re using one-tenth the battery power of the last guy who tried to do it.’ Fashion has no measurement system, so I find that…how do you judge it? I think it’s so curious. So I sat there in that play, thinking, Well, this is a lot easier to watch than a bunch of people walking down the stage, or at least it’s going to keep me interested.”
Krzanich isn’t the only top executive to have dropped by Story recently. Target’s ceo Brian Cornell was among the first to check out Style.Tech at Story, which transforms its space every few months based on a new theme.


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NEW YORK, August 16, 2022 – Today, Inc. revealed that Forester Haynie is No. 172 on its annual Inc. 500 and Inc. 5000 lists, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America. Forester Haynie was also named the #1 Fastest Growing Law Firm in the U.S!
The companies on the 2022 Inc. 5000 have not only been successful, but have also demonstrated resilience amid supply chain woes, labor shortages, and the ongoing impact of Covid-19. Among the top 500, the average median three-year revenue growth rate soared to 2,144 percent. Together, those companies added more than 68,394 jobs over the past three years.
“When I found out that Forester Haynie made not only the Inc. 5000 but also the Inc. 500 list, I was in complete shock. When you think of the Inc. 500, you think of innovators on the front lines of business—like Amazon and Microsoft. You usually do not think of law firms, especially those that represent individuals rather than companies. Five years ago, Jay and I set out to create a firm so that American has equal access to justice. Our now nationwide firm helps Americans in all 50 states and we successfully attain life-changing outcomes for our clients.” – Matthew Haynie, founding partner of Forester Haynie.
We are extremely honored and excited to receive this accolade and could not have achieved this without our hardworking team. They work tirelessly to ensure that our clients are equipped with the best legal representation to stand up for themselves. Every day, we see instances of both corporations and employers putting profits over people. We are determined to hold them accountable by all means necessary. Through our unique approach to the law and clients, we have successfully recovered millions of dollars for our plaintiffs. Whether you’ve been injured in an accident, wronged by an employer, or injured by a defective medication or medical device, Forester Haynie will fight to get you the compensation you deserve.
Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database can be found here. The top 500 companies are featured in the September issue of Inc. magazine, which will be available on August 23.


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Microsoft promised just a few days back that the Windows Phone 7.5 update (otherwise known as “Mango”, because updates need funny little names now) would roll out “sometime in the next week or two” — and sure enough, said roll out has just begun.
As for who it’s rolling out to… that’s still a bit of a mystery.
Check out this statement:
Today we’re starting the roll out of Windows Phone 7.5 to more than 98 percent of existing Windows Phone customers. This is a simultaneous, coordinated, global update that cuts across carriers, phone models, and countries. This time, almost everybody is going first.
Then, just a few sentences later:
So we’re deliberately starting out slow. This week, we’ll be making the update available to 10 percent of customers.
So, good news: Hurray! 98% of people will get the update beginning today! Everybody goes first!
But the bad news: only 10% of people actually get to install and use it.
A slow roll out makes sense, of course; previous Windows Phone 7 updates have gone as sour as to brick handsets. Their message just isn’t entirely clear, and their “Where’s my update?” isn’t very helpful: again, they say they’re “delivering” the update today, with a special little asterisk clarifying that the update might not actually go live for a few weeks. Messy.
Forgotten what’s new in Windows Phone 7.5? Here’s quick recap of the highlights:
- Facebook Places support integrated
- Dynamic Live Tiles for third party developers
- Contacts can be grouped and pinned to homescreen
- Twitter/LinkedIn support
- Windows Live Messenger and Facebook Chat
- Threaded messages and e-mail
- A suite of Bing stuff (Song ID, QR code reader, Album/CD cover identifier, etc.)
- New camera UI
- Internet Explorer 9
- Ringtone management
- Front facing camera support
- Optional, depending on the carrier: Visual voicemail, internet tethering


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News / Expecting demand boom, Samskip introduces pre-Brexit peak surcharge
European shortsea shipping line and multimodal operator Samskip is planning a pre-Brexit peak volume surcharge ...
News / Samskip targets intra-Europe shortsea traffic with new Italy-Netherlands rail service
Icelandic shipping line and multimodal operator Samskip has launched a direct rail service between the ...
People / Birkir Hólm Guðnason to take CEO chair at Samskip
Following the resignation of Pálmar Óli Magnússon as chief executive, Samskip, the Icelandic shipping line ...
News / Samskip boosts its presence in Norway with acquisition of Nor Lines
Samskip, Europe’s largest multimodal and shortsea container operator, is to acquire Nor Lines from DSD ...
- 1.Panalpina board must resign and DSV will cherry-pick best staff to keep
- 2.Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, Temasek, rescues debt-laden carrier PIL
- 3.Claims that Maersk has started a new rates war, as carriers slash FAK prices
- 4.Analysis: with the clock ticking, Agility faces the Bolloré temptation
- 5.$1.5bn Amazon Air freight hub breaks ground, but the pilots have misgivings
- 1. Alex Lennane on Rival carriers eye key routes as India's Jet Airways is declared bankrupt
- 2. George on Rival carriers eye key routes as India's Jet Airways is declared bankrupt
- 3. email@example.com on Claims that Maersk has started a new rates war, as carriers slash FAK prices
- 4. Gavin van Marle on Latest vessel fire leads Grimaldi to demand tighter regs on ocean cargo
- 5. firstname.lastname@example.org on Claims that Maersk has started a new rates war, as carriers slash FAK prices


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Tractor Supply Company has named Hal Lawton as its president, CEO and a member of the board of directors, effective January 13, 2020. Lawton, who is currently president of Macy’s, will succeed Tractor Supply’s CEO Greg Sandfort, who previously announced his intent to retire.
farm and ranch
Tractor Supply Company has named Christine Belknap vp/leadership development, training, diversity and inclusion.
Blain’s Farm & Fleet has reached an agreement for a fifth Michigan location in the city of Walker at the Standale Shopping District. The Walker store is slated to open in Fall 2020.
Tractor Supply Company rolled through a strong first quarter ended March 30, 2019, with solid comparable store and seasonal sales growth.
Tractor Supply Company has promoted Kurt Barton to evp/chief financial officer and treasurer.
Tractor Supply Company reported a strong fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 29, 2018, with both net sales and income growing.
Tractor Supply Company recently rang the Nasdaq stock market closing bell in celebration of the company’s 80th anniversary of operations.
Mills Fleet Farm has appointed Michael Schwindle evp/chief financial officer.


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The Federal Government is set to announce a major assistance package for dairy farmers affected by the recent milk price cuts.
If you’ve been following this issue you would be aware that many dairy farmers across the country have been left hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt after the largest dairy processor in Australia, Murray Goulburn, and New Zealand processor, Fronterra, slashed prices within a week of each other.
Murray Goulburn blamed its cuts on changes in the exchange rate, lower than expected adult milk powder sales in China and a downward spiral in the value of the milk supplies it owns when it cut the $5.60 per kilogram price for milk solids to between $4.75 and $5 per kilogram.
Fronterra says its price cut was the result of a “supply and demand imbalance”, which led to prices falling from $5.60 per kilogram to $5.
Governments and social media got behind Australian dairy farmers, with a push to abandon the cheap home brand of milk available in supermarkets and corner stores across the country. It worked, with shelves quickly becoming empty of the dairy farmer products while less expensive litres remained aplenty.
Facing enormous pressure to ‘do something’ the Federal Government is likely to introduce concessional loans among the measures it will announce.
— ABC Current Affairs (@amworldtodaypm) May 24, 2016
It follows the Victorian Government’s $11.4 million offer to struggling dairy farmers, which includes provisions for mental health support.
Starts at 60 will provide an update on this story once this announcements have been made.


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SAN JOSE, Calif. and BRUSSELS, Belgium, Sept. 24, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global B2C marketing automation company, Selligent, today published the Selligent Global Connected Consumer Index, a global study of 5,000 consumers focused on behaviors and expectations as it relates to interactions with brands. Sixty-nine percent of surveyed consumers find it “creepy” when they receive ads based on unprompted cues from voice assistants like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. Fifty-one percent are worried that voice assistants are listening to conversations without their consent. The younger the consumer, the more inclined they are to believe they are being listened to without their knowledge: 58 percent for Gen-Z (ages 18-24) and only 36 percent for Baby Boomers (ages 55-75) agree.
While privacy concerns are on the rise, the study shows consumers are adjusting their behavior in different ways:
The survey also revealed that 51 percent of consumers are still willing to share personal data for a more personalized experience. For brands, this means a greater focus on delivering truly relevant, omnichannel experiences that bring value to consumers at the right moment. Additional survey findings:
“Building consumer trust and long-term loyalty is the holy grail for any marketer,” said Niki Hall, CMO at Selligent. “Consumers today are more connected than ever; they expect a level of personalization in their brand interactions and want everything in an instant. But because they are also wary of their data being used in ways they may not agree with, brands need to develop a strategy that strikes a relevancy balance – articulating personalized consumer value without being intrusive. To successfully do this, businesses need an intelligent platform that provides a complete view of the customer. Having full visibility across all consumer touchpoints will enable brands to deliver an elevated customer experience and drive lasting value.”
To download the second edition of the Selligent Global Connected Consumer Index, visit www.selligent.com/maximize-every-moment.
About Selligent Marketing Cloud
Selligent Marketing Cloud is an intelligent B2C marketing platform that empowers ambitious marketers to maximize every moment they engage with connected consumers. With native AI capabilities, a robust data layer, and a powerful omnichannel execution engine, Selligent Marketing Cloud enables marketers to deliver ultra-personalized and highly relevant customer experiences that speed time to value swiftly and at scale.
More than 700 global brands in retail, travel, automotive, publishing, and financial services trust Selligent Marketing Cloud to help deliver their marketing programs. With offices across the United States and Europe and a global network of partners, Selligent serves over 30 countries with local, personalized service. Learn more at www.selligent.com and connect with the team at Twitter, LinkedIn, and our blog.
Media Contact: Sylvie Tongco, Director of Corporate Communications email@example.com


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Sound and vision… and beyond – Magazine articles
Let me ask you a question. Do you want to challenge Amazon and its dominance of online retail, revamp your presence on the High Street, and sell more than your competition in 2019?
I thought so.
It could be every retailer’s New Years Resolutions list, but rather than promise to drink less, sleep more, and finally master the banjo, these retail resolutions are, in fact, achievable. With laptop.
Christmas 2018 has been a very moving affair. While online spending accounted for more than half of all Christmas spending, according to MasterCard, 27% of the total – more than half of online spending – was on mobile devices. This last Christmas was the first real mobile Christmas.
However, that’s not really the big news we’re pushing forward in 2019: mobile as a channel is a given. What’s new is that it’s likely to have some pretty fundamental impacts on retail craftsmanship over the next 12 months – largely positive.
Before getting into the thick of it, however, it’s important to consider the backdrop around which the mobile will play its central role. As High Street stores close at an increasing rate – their doors are closed by the pressure of online dominance, along with unrealistic rents and rates – and shoppers are more wary of how they spend with it. The uncertain shadow of Brexit hanging over them, the retail industry is feeling beaten and bruised. But that doesn’t mean the stores are dead. Far from there. In reality, they are not drowning, but changing.
And it’s this shift that offers the openness for mobile – it’s the key to bringing together changing buying habits and the old world of retail. So aside from the obvious – a better informed workforce with mobile devices, better payments from phones and watches and the rest, what are truly revolutionary retailers going to do with mobile in 2019 – and how? Will it help stop giants like Amazon from eating their lunch?
VISUAL AND VOICE COMMERCE
One of the most underrated attributes of mobile has long been its use as a âvoice machineâ with an eye on the world. In other words, it is a telephone connected to the Web (in the most literal sense, “tele” meaning “from afar” and “telephone” meaning “voice” or “sound” in Greek) associated with a tendril eye camera.
To this day, the smartphone has been viewed by retailers – and just about everyone – as a display. However, as voice-activated devices such as smart speakers have started to gain traction in the home, the phone’s voice recognition potential is starting to show.
According to a study conducted late last year by RedBox, 76% of CIOs, general C suite employees and IT management companies believe that a âVoice Firstâ strategy will be in place in retail businesses. over the next five years, showing a clear shift towards recognizing the value of speech – with 95% of C-level executives rating voice data as “valuable” or “very valuable” to their organization.
Google Home, while an internal smart speaker, also comes in the form of a smartphone app – one of the reasons Argos quickly partnered with Google rather than to Amazon, when it entered “voice commerce” last year.
âVoice technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we shop in the future,â says John Rogers, CEO of Argos. âDigital home assistants have grown in popularity over the past year and more people are looking to their smart devices to help them run smoothly. “
He continues, âArgos is a state-of-the-art digital company and it’s really exciting that we are harnessing the simplicity of voice control with the convenience and popularity of click and collect to make our customers’ lives easier. We expect the Voice Shop service to be a great success and will further develop and refine the offering as we receive feedback from our customers.
Along with these developments, retailers are also looking to exploit the camera. As augmented reality and virtual reality grab the headlines (and we’ll get to that later), image recognition on smartphones – and the visual search that comes from it – is also starting to gain traction, with d ‘more to come in 2019.
Already eBay, Asos, and H&M to name a few, but three have, if I’m sorry, have looked into this. Application provider Poq has added it as standard to its product line. With retailers looking to differentiate themselves, visual search is going to be a key tool in 2019.
âInspiration for shopping can happen anytime, whether you’re walking down the street or browsing your social media feed,â says Rob Hattrell, vice president of eBay UK. âAt eBay, we are focused on creating new, complementary technologies that help our millions of customers. Whether it’s helping buyers easily find the things they love for the best value for their money, or bringing relevant seller inventory to the platform in a new and engaging way. EBay Image Search allows people to buy and sell on eBay using any image or photo that inspires them.
The benefits of visual search – especially for the increasingly less patient Gen X and Y – are that it gets closer and closer to instant gratification at retail. What makes it more attractive to retailers is that it can, used intelligently, provide a much needed link between the web and the store.
The benefits for retailers, according to Poq, are more comprehensive searches, higher conversion rates, higher engagement, and 30% monthly user growth. It also meets the consumer’s needs for instant gratification and makes it easy to find what they want.
Conventional wisdom may suggest that this is a great way to find things to buy in the endless online aisle, but it can also be a way of driving people to a store. It can also be used in store to increase the experience.
INCREASE IN REALITY
Augmentation is the next step in visual commerce. While there will be a wave of visual search services in 2019, there will likely be a trend to incorporate more AR and VR – and MR, where real, augmented, and virtual are mixed.
The benefits of this type of technology have long waited for a problem to be resolved – and it seems where it finds its feet is allowing users to view virtual goods in their homes and even on their bodies. This closes a circle that has long dominated e-commerce: the need to “see”, “feel” and “try” products before you buy. AR offers that.
AR, where additional content and information is superimposed over the real world on the phone or tablet screen, has already found increasing use in 2018. As Black Friday approaches, Amazon has added AR to its app to give shoppers the ability to view thousands of Amazon products for sale on Black Friday – and beyond – before they buy them.
Using this feature, shoppers check the selected products from all angles by tapping the AR View option available in the camera icon in the search bar of the app. They can even rotate objects 360 degrees with just one finger. Large household items, such as appliances, coffee makers and more, can also be viewed on the spot, layered over the guest’s bedroom, tables or surfaces to give a feel for the fit.
This move towards a true deployment of AR follows on from Domino’s Pizza which has also deployed an AR feature in its app, to allow hungry customers to see the toppings combinations they may want to select on a variety of pizza bases. .
AR is also starting to take off with other retailers, with Flixmedia offering a free and nifty AR add-on to retailers, as discussed in our recent webinar. Here, retailers, including Curry’s PC World, are experimenting with using ultra-precise AR not only to visualize what products will look like in the home, but also whether they will fit into the available space.
While AR offers much-needed âtry before you buyâ online retailers, AR also has the ability to use visual commerce to help under siege stores.
âMixed reality (MR) has perhaps the most potential for retailers,â says Tim Morgan-Hoole, managing director of JTRS, a digital transformation agency. âWhile AR is used to overlay digital graphics on real environments and virtual reality immerses the user in a head-mounted simulation, MR uses a combination of the two to deliver a unique immersive experience. Users can interact with their physical environment while benefiting from additional digital elements, which could be a game-changer in the retail world.
This âbest of both worldsâ approach is not only going to help retailers deliver the kind of experience consumers want, but it’s all part of the retail transformation that’s likely to happen in 2019. The Streets mainstream isn’t dying, it’s changing – and these technologies are going to be part of that change.
At the same time, online retailing is also becoming more and more competitive and these pure-plays must also improve their game. Once again, mobile augmented reality, visual and voice interaction will be the engines of this new world order.


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Blog: just-food attends the European Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
Ben Cooper | 4 June 2014
just-food attends the European Rountable on Sustainable Palm Oil in London
Today's European Roundtable being held in London by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at creating a sustainable global supply of palm oil, promises to be an absorbing occasion.
The delegate list shows the event will be very well attended, with representation from food companies, palm oil producers, banks, NGOs and government agencies.
While it lays claim to being a growing cross-stakeholder coalition successfully addressing a pressing environmental issue, the RSPO has come in for heavy criticism from campaigners, being branded as 'greenwash' by some. The Greenpeace report, Certifying Destruction, sets out a host of criticisms of the RSPO certification standards, contending that the RSPO is failing to prevent deforestation. The report includes no fewer than 11 recommendations to the RSPO regarding its standards and practices.
Greenpeace is represented at today's conference and its senior forest campaigner, Pat Venditti, will be participating in a panel debate which will discuss whether "RSPO certification presents the best option we have right now to source sustainable palm oil that protects the environment and supports livelihoods". Also on that panel will be representatives of Cargill, Marks & Spencer and the UN Global Compact. It should be a highlight of the day.
The keynote address, to be given by Dr Alan Knight, sustainability director at Business in the Community and a former board member of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), should also provide a balanced appraisal of how effectively the RSPO is proving in addressing its noble aims.
A year after union officials alleged Fyffes abused workers on plantations in Central America - and called on the produce giant to be kicked out of the Ethical Trading Initiative forum - the company is...
Much of the chatter about where 3G Capital could look next has centred on packaged food - but might the private-equity fund be about to extend its foodservice empire?...
Headlines that Mead Johnson's board has backed Reckitt Benckiser's takeover bid will no doubt overshadow the other news on the group this week – that it is facing a US lawsuit from a “whistle blower” ...
Kantar Worldpanel issued its monthly supermarket share data in the UK this morning - and the numbers showed a change in the identity of the country's top five food retailers....
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- Kerry operating earnings strengthen on slow sales


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By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Crawling billboards: A picture by Dietrich Wegner entitled Sabine and Sebastian from his Cumulous brand series in archival inkjet print which attempts to highlight the way children are bombarded by adverts every day
It's said that children are bombarded with 40,000 adverts a year as companies increasingly look to make their mark on the young.
Now one artist has sought to highlight this overt use of corporate branding by doing quite literally that.
Using some digital trickery, Dietrich Wegner has covered babies in a plethora of tattoos, from firms such as Lego, Gap, Apple and Sony, to turn them into tiny crawling billboards.
Cumulous Brand, Sebastian as Auntie Gretchen, 2009: Mr Wegner has tried to get his message across by plastering the babies in fake tattoos of company logos including Honda, Lego and Gap
By creating this friction, the Pennsylvania-based artist says the images become 'a meditation on how our identities evolve and how we declare them'.
On his website, it says he likes to create images that are 'safe and unsettling, abject and beautiful'.
It continues: 'It is this conflicted experience Dietrich Wegner’s work strives to evoke in a viewer in order that we will have a sparked curiosity and unstable assumptions.'
Cumulous Brand, Sabine Sitting Up, 2009: Mr Wegner says he likes to create images that are 'safe and unsettling, abject and beautiful'
The pictures, supplied by Carrie Secrist Gallery in Chicago, are part of a series entitled Cumulous Brand, which focuses on children, their identities and how they change over time.
The tattoos were added to pictures of the babies using image editing software.


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Allot Ltd., a global renowned provider of innovative network intelligence and security solutions for communication service providers and enterprises, has announced that Hutchison Drei Austria, a global mobile service provider, has launched “lnternetschutz” – a security-as-a-service powered by Allot's NetworkSecure solution to protect the company’s mobile and home users against various cyber threats. The engagement between Drei and Allot is based on a recurring monthly fee derived from the actual number of subscribers using Allot’s cyber security solution.
‘Interschutz’ security solution
Drei, enabled by Allot’s NetworkSecure, a network-based security solution, will offer its customers a security service
Drei, enabled by Allot’s NetworkSecure, a network-based security solution, will offer its customers a security service to protect them against emerging cybersecurity threats, including malware, phishing, ransomware, and crypto-mining. All this without the need for subscribers to download or install anything on their devices.
NetworkSecure, part of the AllotSecure product suite, is the market leader in the growing network-based, mass-market cybersecurity category protecting more than 21M mobile users globally. Coupled with Allot’s consumer marketing suite, the GDPR-compliant NetworkSecure solution has been proven to achieve high penetration.
Network-based security platform
“With our mobile users being exposed to newer, more sophisticated threats every day, they are in need of a proven security solution,” said Rudolf Schrefl, CCO at Drei. “We are, therefore, excited to offer a secure and trusted mobile service, while also enabling parents to be worry-free about how their children are using their devices in the near future.”
“Easily and quickly integrated into the service provider network and with a seamless user experience, our clientless, network-based security platform delivers increased ARPU, and customer loyalty to service providers across the globe,” said Hagay Katz, VP Strategic accounts, Cyber Security at Allot. “We are proud to provide Drei’s customers with the much-needed security they deserve, and also support Drei’s business goals.”