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THERE'S a certain irony in the mad rush by retailers to exploit the new iPhone launch.
Take JB Hi-Fi. Its stores will be trying to entice shoppers to splash out on the shiny new iPhone 5 when it goes on sale next Friday. Last year it even hoped for a lift in sales when the latest model iPhone was released. Yet at the same time, JB Hi-Fi is seen as one of the companies that is most vulnerable to rapid growth in online shopping, a trend the iPhone is encouraging.
By selling ever more smart phones, ''bricks and mortar'' retailers are helping to perpetuate a trend that's eroding their profits. But they have little choice but to keep on selling these big-ticket items that bring people in the door.
Department stores face a similar dilemma in their battle with online competitors.
Myer, for instance, makes less than 1 per cent of its sales online. But it clearly can't ignore the lower prices being charged by overseas clothing websites. To win back the online shoppers, Myer must be competitive on price. But every cut in prices makes its real stores - which still bring in the lion's share of profits - less profitable.
These examples aren't meant to make you feel sympathy for retail barons. Far from it. Instead, they show how established businesses facing huge technological change can get caught in all sorts of traps - thanks to something known as the ''innovator's dilemma''. The idea was developed in the 1990s by an American business guru, Clayton Christensen. In a nutshell, it explains why large companies often struggle to deal with revolutionary changes in technology.
It goes a long way to understanding why so many companies at the sharp end of the digital revolution - media and retail in particular - are going through such upheavals. It's also a lot more helpful than much of the public discussion of companies' handling of technological change, which often falls into one of two categories.
On one hand, companies that innovate successfully are often surrounded by a type of mythology, with much of the credit going to an ambitious or brilliant chief executive. The popular tale of Apple's late boss, Steve Jobs, seems to fit this mould.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are the stories of stubborn failure to change. When Kodak filed for bankruptcy this year, for instance, the narrative was that it refused to embrace digital cameras until it was too late.
It's all very well to blame management brilliance for success, or incompetence for failure. Good managers undoubtedly make a huge difference. But it also seems too easy.
Kodak, for instance, invented one of the first digital cameras in the world in 1975. An internal report in 1979 predicted the shift to digital photography by 2010, The Economist reported.
So what went wrong?
Kodak clearly wasn't asleep at the wheel. But it made the common mistake of mistiming its leap in response to what Christensen dubbed a ''disruptive technology''.
Kodak thought digital photography would develop gradually, and it could extract more profits from selling film in the meantime. Instead, digital cameras wiped out virtually all profits from film in the 2000s. It was a ''big bang'', and Kodak was ill-prepared.
How to cope with such a big bang is the critical challenge facing online-exposed businesses today. Just like digital photography existed for several decades before finally taking over, Christensen argues that disruptive technologies often lurk in the background before they become dominant. But when they do take off, they do so rapidly. And large, established businesses tend to struggle to adapt.
But why do big companies tend to find it hard to respond to a disruptive technology?
For starters, the priority of big business is often sustaining established profits rather than exploring ideas that may be profitable later. As well, large corporations have a natural conflict in dealing with truly disruptive changes, because these changes often hurt their existing business. Executives at Myer, for instance, may baulk at diverting shoppers to their online store out of fear it will mean fewer people visit their real stores. Newspapers around the world have also been reluctant to ''cannibalise'' high-yielding print advertising profits in favour of less profitable digital ads.
This is the essence of ''the innovator's dilemma'' in big business. While small start-ups can throw themselves into some new industry, big companies often have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. When seen in this light, the upheavals taking place in companies on the digital coalface make more sense. And few industries are more exposed to the digital big bang than media and retail.
According to a report by Deloitte last week, these two sectors will experience changes of more than 35 per cent in key metrics, such as revenue or cost structures in the next three years due to the digital revolution.
This is hardly news to shareholders or workers in these sectors, who have been buffeted by digital disruption for years.
But strange as it may seem, the messy changes in response to technology leave the economy better off overall. Why? Because they lift competition, which makes the economy more productive.
Just like cutting tariffs in the 1980s put competitive heat on manufacturers, digital technology is now exposing other industries to more competition. Before online shopping, setting up a retail business required renting an outlet and considerable expense promoting the business. Now a small retail business can be started from home, and online advertising can be much more aimed at shoppers.
The result from all that extra competition tends to be lower prices for shoppers. There are also benefits you can't measure in dollars, such as the extra choice available, or the time saved by online shopping.
So although the digital disruption is causing plenty of angst for individual companies and their workers, the economy is better off as a result.


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The Goods and Services Tax (GST) completes its one full year of implementation with many hits and few misses. During its launch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that GST will end harassment of traders and small businesses while integrating India into one market with one tax rate.
Well, it seems there is a long way to go. Ironically, thousands of GST officials from CGST office itself have decided to stay away from the one year GST celebration across the country. It indicates though the BJP government is trying to make it a bigger celebration event, everything is not okay within the taxmen fraternity who alleges pressure from seniors to meet the targets.
However, coming to the positive aspects, in last one year inflation is still in control. In fact, inflation rate didn't rise, as it was one of the major concerns during the GST launch. In transportation sector, long queues of trucks and heavy vehicles at state borders have disappeared as check posts were dismantled, creating a seamless national market and benefiting the consumers.
With registrations crossing 10 million, it indicates more businesses are signing up for GST. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) claims nowadays, more people are filing income tax returns which is definitely linked with GST.
The corporate India is delighted with GST roll, but expects the government to add few more items in the list, and importantly, the petroleum products. At the same time, the business community appreciates government's sacrifice towards revenues, as GST has improved compliance a bit and transparency across India.
But as said, there are misses too.
The GST has adversely been impacting real estate sector. Experts say when GST rates were revised to 8 per cent for affordable housing and 12 per cent for other segments of housing, this had created an uneven level playing field. A uniform rate of 6 per cent for all categories of housing will benefit home buyers and the industry.
The biggest dampener was the compliance process, as information technology glitches took more than the anticipated time to be resolved. A new return form is being crafted to help make the process much less painful for businesses and is likely to be available soon. Exporters are still complaining about refund mechanism, including data matching law, particularly the small and medium size companies that saw their working capital requirements rising.
The matter is still under examination by GST Council. The rise in petrol and diesel prices has burnt a hole in the pocket of the common citizen and experts call for bringing the two fuels under GST
With inputs from Sahil Joshi/India Today TV

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The holiday season is finally here!
That means many people are decorating their homes to help them get into the spirit of the season.
This week, Eastern Floral in Grand Rapids, will offer some expert advice during its annual open house.
Professional designers will hold design demonstrations, offer inspiration and answer holiday gift giving and decorating questions.
The open house will be held Thursday and Friday, Nov. 17 and 18 from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 19, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
It is located at 2836 Broadmoor Ave. SE in Grand Rapids.
Visit the store's website for more information.


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It's somewhat surprising given that Microsoft has always said it is betting on Cortana working through its existing billions of machines, rather than creating new hardware, and Alexa on Windows 10 would impede the latter's growth. This functionality was supposed to arrive in December, though it hasn't arrived and we haven't seen or heard anything else about the plans.
HP, Asus (Zenbook and Vivobook), Acer (Spin, Swift, Switch and Aspire) and Lenovo have already confirmed that their new lines announced at CES will come with "wake-word" support (in other words, saying Alexa without touching anything) but it won't be universal. The company has developed its own Alexa app which allows users to ask its assistant questions from the Windows desktop. Ditto for the "drop-in" and calling /messaging features.
"By introducing voice services like Alexa paired with Intel Smart Sound Technology, we anticipate that the PC will serve an even more important role in maximizing your productivity, getting the most from your entertainment, and managing the smart home or office", Anand Srivatsa, general manager of Intel's Desktop, Channel and Systems Group, said in the release.
This could be a huge win for Amazon, which is now trying to stay ahead of Google with regard to in-home digital assistants.
Washington state deputy shot and killed confronting burglars at home
Bethel School District canceled all classes for Monday out of "an abundance of caution", it reported on its Facebook page. They did not immediately have a description of him, but said he apparently shed some of his clothing as he fled.
It's no secret that Amazon wants its Alexa voice assistant to be in as many places around the home as possible.
The company also unveiled the Acer V6820M/i 4K UHD projector, which also supports Amazon Alexa. Since all of these devices have a screen or can be connected to a monitor, Alexa will be able to display information in addition to providing audio feedback.
However, this may not mean the end of Cortana, as past year it was hinted that Amazon and Microsoft were looking at working together to allow their voice assistants to communicate with each other.
The two companies haven't announced changes to the original partnership, but it appears Amazon is starting to take another approach to getting Alexa in front of millions of Windows 10 users.
READ NEXT:Starry Internet to expand wireless broadband service this month Windows PCs are a logical next step for Amazon's rapidly expanding Alexa. Let us know in the comments.


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We have received and investigated a few reports of builds failing that utilize the most recent
windows-server-2019-vs2019:stable image that was released on Thursday May 21, 2020.
Errors are related to
Visual Studio license is expired and SSH is unavailable to investigate further.
We are currently working to resolve these issues and produce a new image, however, we can not provide an exact ETA for deployment of the next image.
Once the new stable Windows image is available we will update this announcement, accordingly.


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Does Sony plan to expand into mobile games? To see a patent, one would say yes!
The Japanese division of Sony interactive entertainment has posted a patent which describes a type of controller suitable for mobile games: it resembles a Dualshock 4 and has a left and right grip, separated by a space where a smartphone should be housed.
In reality, the Dualshock 4 can already be connected to smartphones via Bluetooth, but a controller like the one shown in the patent could mean something more important for Sony – in fact, in October, Sony took over. Nicola Sebastiani, which helped manage Apple’s mobile operations in the division Apple arcade, and already in June Jim Ryan showed the will to bring some of the most iconic IPs of Playstation to mobile devices, thus showing for some time the intention to enter the mobile games.
The image shown in the patent has similar characteristics to third-party adapters used to stream games from smartphone to games on Microsoft’s X-Cloud platform, so Sony’s strategy could be similar, but with the difference that is own. After all, Sony already has a streaming service: PS now therefore, you could find cozy shores on mobile devices.
According to previous statements by Ryan, at the end of March 2022 we should know more. What do you expect from Sony?
Introvert. Beer guru. Communicator. Travel fanatic. Web advocate. Certified alcohol geek. Tv buff. Subtly charming internet aficionado.


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The traditional industrial equipment (IE) business model is changing – and fast. In the relentless pursuit of new revenue streams to offset declining margins, and thanks to the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), leaders in the field are finding new ways to deliver greater value to manufacturing customers.
“Traditional productivity levers have been widely exhausted,” said Dominik Wee, Munich-based leader of the Digital in Automotive & Industrial initiative at global consulting firm McKinsey. “But IoT is opening up a whole new avenue of revenue. Networking physical objects through embedded sensors, actuators and other devices that can collect or transmit information about the objects generates a huge amount of effective data. A number of leading-edge IE companies are leveraging this opportunity to offer pay-as-you-go and subscription-based services that can differentiate them from competitors.”
The shift is coming just in time to avert a profit recession for IE manufacturers, said Paul Boris, head of Manufacturing Industries at GE Digital. “Previously, IE manufacturers have managed to achieve gains of 4%-5% in productivity year on year, but today it’s down to 1% overall. Plants and machines are running more efficiently than ever, so we need to find alternative ways of reducing waste and cost across the entire value chain. For us this meant leveraging IoT.”
“THOSE IE COMPANIES THAT DON’T RETHINK THEIR BUSINESS MODELS ARE AT RISK OF JEOPARDIZING THEIR ENTIRE BUSINESS.”DOMINIK WEE
LEADER OF THE GLOBAL DIGITAL IN AUTOMOTIVE & INDUSTRIAL INITIATIVE, MCKINSEY
GE has invested US$1 billion to turn the IoT into a new revenue engine, installing sensors and developing software systems for its power turbines, jet engines, locomotives, medical equipment and other machines; connecting them to the cloud; and analyzing the resulting flow of data to improve machine productivity and reliability. “One billion dollars represents a big swing for GE,” Matthias Heilmann, chief digital officer of GE Oil & Gas Digital Solutions, said in a recent MIT Sloan Management Review article, “GE’s Big Bet on Data and Analytics.” “It signals this is real, this is our future.”
POWER BY THE HOUR
The mountains of data generated by GE’s new sensor networks are actually changing the company’s business from selling machinery to selling outcomes, including efficiency and uptime.
“By leveraging the same IoT technologies that have helped our customers reap rewards, we’re improving the performance of our own 400+ manufacturing factories,” Boris said. “For example, we’ve just signed a 10-year agreement with Texas-based drilling services company Diamond Offshore, which transfers full accountability for blowout-preventer (BOP) performance to GE Oil & Gas. In this ‘Pressure Control by the Hour’ model, Diamond Offshore will pay GE Oil & Gas only when the BOP is available. We’re applying these very same tools and technologies to enable the digital thread inside our plants.”
Japanese robotics and factory automation producer FANUC – which supplies robots to some of the world’s biggest manufacturers, including General Motors (GM), Apple and Samsung – is also moving toward an outcomes-based business. “We’re just beginning to identify the opportunities,” said Joseph Gazzarato, director of FANUC America’s Zero Downtime (ZDT) Service Center. “We are piloting our ZDT application to collect data from more than 6,000 of GM’s robots in 26 factories. We monitor these robots to see if there’s any abnormal wear that could lead to a failure.”
If a potential failure is identified, Gazzarato said, “We send parts with support to address the issue before any downtime occurs.”
ZDT has already proven its worth. “We’ve been 100% successful in detecting faults,” Gazzarato said. “In one truck plant in particular, we prevented an outage that could have taken four hours to resolve. When you consider that a single minute of factory downtime costs GM up to US$20,000, then you begin to understand the ramifications.”
Global bearing manufacturer SKF, which is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, is also reaping the rewards of an outcomes-based approach. “SKF technologies currently monitor over 1 million assets around the world, many remotely,” said John Schmidt, SKF’s president for industrial sales in the Americas. “We understand the complex language of the bearing and – since the bearing is at the heart of the machine – this can tell us the dynamic health of our customers’ machinery. Every customer is individual, so we offer a variety of ways to work with SKF. This ranges from simple product transactions and traditional service models to performance-based contracts.”
Andy Neely, head of the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge (UK), believes that programs like those underway at GE, FANUC and SKF represent a fundamental transformation in how the IE industry defines its mission.
“There’s a noticeable shift from delivering products to solutions, outputs to outcomes, and transactions to relationships,” Neely said. “It’s a win-win scenario – IE providers get closer to their customers, achieve greater loyalty and increase revenue, and manufacturing customers experience better value for their money, greater uptime and improved efficiency.”
For IE organizations that have yet to make the IoT leap, however, expert observers believe the outlook may be bleak. Douglas Bellin, global lead for the Manufacturing and Energy industries at Cisco, observed in a recent blog post, for example, that “71% of manufacturers say IoT will have a significant impact or some impact on their business over the next five years…Yet, 24% have no companywide understanding of IoT. There’s a significant knowledge gap in how to best plan for and capitalize on these technologies.”
“PLANTS AND MACHINES ARE RUNNING MORE EFFICIENTLY THAN EVER, SO WE NEED TO FIND ALTERNATIVE WAYS OF REDUCING WASTE AND COST ACROSS THE ENTIRE VALUE CHAIN. FOR US THIS MEANT LEVERAGING IOT.”PAUL BORIS
HEAD OF MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES, GE DIGITAL
GE’s Boris said the lag is understandable, however. “There are undeniable challenges for those starting out on this path,” he said. “What’s key is to think carefully about which data paths to unlock first. In a manufacturing value chain there are so many small pieces of data that determine the true performance of an asset – it’s important to avoid the temptation to boil the ocean.”
What’s important, Wee said, is to get started. “The opportunity is huge, but there is a lot of uncertainty for companies, as there is with any emerging trend,” he said. “What’s clear is that those IE companies that don’t rethink their business models are at risk of jeopardizing their entire business.” ◆
Industrial Equipment Industry Solution Experiences from Dassault Systèmes:
PwC’s Colin Carroll on outcome-based pricing


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ENOUGH produces ABUNDA mycoprotein, fermenting fungi using renewable feedstocks to make food protein.
The funding round also included Olympic Investments Inc. along AXA IM Alts through the AXA Impact Fund – Climate & Biodiversity, HAL Investments and Tailored Solutions.
Existing investors CPT Capital and Scottish Enterprise participated as well.
ENOUGH, which has also received funding from the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking within the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, in the process of building its factory, which will initially produce 10,000 tons of its mycoprotein per annum; the company aims to produce over 1m tons by 2032.
It claims the impact of introducing 1m tons of ABUNDA is equivalent to replacing 5 million cows, over a 1.2 billion chickens and reducing more than 5 million tons of CO2 emissions.
Transforming protein production
Nutreco CEO, Rob Koremans, commenting on the move, said: “ENOUGH is an exciting business with real potential to transform protein production. This partnership perfectly supports our ambitions to accelerate the contribution we can make to the challenge of feeding a growing global population. If we are serious about meeting this objective in a sustainable way, we will need to produce protein from a variety of sources such as fermentation, which is very much a shared goal.”
Nutreco is supportive of protein production from both traditional and alternative protein production methods in the context of its ‘Feeding the Future’ business model.
February this year saw it further invest in cellular meat pioneer, Mosa Meat, a company that introduced the world’s first cultivated beef hamburger in 2013, while early 2020 saw it announce a strategic partnership with cell-based seafood startup, Blue Nalu. We spoke to Koremans back then to hear more about the company’s rationale for supporting cultured meat and seafood innovators, and the longer-term goals for the business.
“Cultured meat is not going to replace red meat. In essence, we see that cell-based meat and seafood add to the options available for consumers. If we just continue producing animal proteins as we do today, that is not going to be sufficient to feed a global population of 10 billion people in the future,” said the Nutreco lead back then.


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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), for 2013, is mainly looking to work on three main areas. The first is to improve its mobile experience for the nearly 700 million users of its service. Though the company has worked to make its mobile apps faster and more reliable in 2012, but in 2013, it looks to improve it further.
The second area will be designing new experiences using its Social Graph, which could be used by third parties also. The third area will be to invest in the methods that will help it monetize its products and find new ways to reach consumers and market their product offerings. A report from Morgan Stanley does not expect the company to monetize Graph Search in the near term, but “expect[s] to see more products resembling mobile app install ads.”
Gates Capital Management's ECF Value Funds have a fantastic track record. The funds (full-name Excess Cash Flow Value Funds), which invest in an event-driven equity and credit strategy, have produced a 12.6% annualised return over the past 26 years. The funds added 7.7% overall in the second half of 2022, outperforming the 3.4% return for Read More
Users logging into Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) mainly assumes that Facebook fits in well with brand advertising, “where marketers aim to subtly influence a purchasing decision that may not happen right away,” says the report from MS. The social networker was encouraged with the Newsfeed optimizations that boosted the likes by 50% on average. The company believes the Newsfeed campaigns should closely resemble the organic posts above and below them, instead of directly pitching for sales. The social networker has witnessed very little negative impact from the introduction of Newsfeed ads to its users, despite an increase in ad loads, says report.
To take on the local social incumbents in Russia, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) plans to design the same “viral conditions” for growth as it did in Brazil. Instagram was viewed as a potential competitor by Facebook, which “led to its acquisition” says the MS report. As per the report, the company plans to boost investment in analytics, and at the same time is looking for value in the third “party analytics companies that validate its own findings.”
To strengthen its ad serving and analytics business, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) announced Yesterday its decision to acquire Microsoft’s Atlas. Terms of the deal and the likely closing date for the acquisition are still to be announced.
The report from Morgan Stanley does a SWOT analysis of Facebook. As per the analysis, its main strengths include: leader in social networking, robust data assets etc. The threats given by the report should be seriously taken by the company as it will help it work on the problems before they begin to have an effect on its business. The threats listed include, problem monetizing in developing countries, privacy regulations etc.


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Both consumers and small businesses are feeling pretty good about the economy, say two recent influential reports. And many travel agents say that already bodes well for their customers and their businesses this quarter.
The National Federation of Independent Business said on Tuesday that U.S. small-business confidence reached a 12-year high in December, sparked by the optimism of business owners about the economy following the November election. The group's index of small business confidence rose to 105.8, its highest since December 2004, and up 7.4 points from November, the biggest monthly increase since July 1980.
The feeling of confidence carried over to consumers as well. The University of Michigan survey of consumer confidence in December reported an index of 98.2, the highest level since January 2004. The U.S. Travel Association last year also measured what appears to be a rise in travel plans.
And indeed, travel agents with whom TMR spoke this week shared the optimism as well. “I’m doing at least double the business I was this same time last year,” said Perrin Cothran Conrad, owner of Azalea Travel—South and Beyond in Summerville, SC. “I’m sensing a lot of optimism for the future from clients, and I’m busier than ever."
Travel agent Loulu Lima agreed, saying she “is getting more travelers looking to increase spending and folks who normally would just go to the OTAs. I’m projecting a very strong 2017.”
There are always the challenges. “I specialize in Paris and France and though we’ve seen a steady increase every year, the events of late 2015 and 2016 knocked us a bit sideways,” said Julia Browne of Walking the Spirit Tours. “That said, I saw a record number of visitors at Christmas this year. When talking to my clients they say, ‘We were nervous for a while there but you know what, we just want to go.’ It feels like there’s a new warrior spirit—to realize the world has changed and they’re determined to roll with those changes. Many of my clients are African-American and there is a real drive now to feel part of the larger world; 2017 is starting off really strong for us and I’m super-energized by the enthusiasm of my clients."
Debby Hughes of Debby Hughes Dream Vacations in Broomfield, CO, says, “Wave season is definitely starting off strong this year, with our total sales 50% over last year. People are excitedly booking new ships, destinations and itineraries as soon as they are available!”
Theresa DelToro of Dream Traveler in Vero Beach, FL, says her “numbers for bookings and spending on both land and cruises are indicating a tremendous sales increase this year. Italy, either independent or escorted travel, still remains the favorite for my clients. Although we cannot predict the future it does seem clear that people will travel more in 2017."
After seeing her sales fall 50% in 2016, Lainey Melnick of the eponymous Dream Vacations franchise in Austin, TX, says “my sales are at a 1458% increase so far this year. I am seeing more interest in premium vacations, affinity groups and land travel to exotic destinations. So far it’s looking like a great year.”
In short, says Faith Sproule of Niche Travel Group in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, “We are starting 2017 off with a bang. We see an increase in river cruise, luxury coach tours and African safari. The baby boomers have decided to stop putting off their dreams and Millennials refuse to start."
And Karen Coleman-Ostrov of Associates Dream Vacations says 2016 sales were up 21% over 2015, and this year is up 26% over the period last year. Beyond consumer confidence, she attributes the rise to the fact that “people are tired of getting no personal service and are flocking back to ‘traditional’ travel agents in my opinion.”


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News tagged ‘фото’
Apple has just unveiled the iPhone 7 and its larger sibling iPhone 7 Plus. Below you can take a look both handsets and their key specs. Please stay tuned for more updates about the devices, their detailed specifications and availability.
Just as we all expected, Apple has today unveiled the 4-inch iPhone SE. The handset is the first 4-inch smartphone released by Apple since 2013 and in terms of design it’s quite similar to the iPhone 5s. When it comes to the hardware specs, however, it’s absolutely different from its predecessor.
As you probably know, Apple has a special page on its website that is dedicated to the photos and videos shot using the iPhone. The guys from Cupertino have recently updated this page with a four new short videos. You can find them either below, or on Apple’s official website under the "World Gallery films" section.
Several interesting images have recently appeared on the Internet. These images show us the cancelled smartwatch developed by Nokia last year. This wearable device could have become a potential Apple Watch rival, however, after Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia, the development of the smartwatch was stopped. The smartwatch codenamed Moonraker was introduced at Mobile World Congress in 2014.
As a part of iOS 9 announcement, the guys from Cupertino on Monday announced their long-awaited streaming music service called Apple Music. Although it is yet to be launched, we can now discuss its main features.
It is Sunday today, which means I should tell you about the most interesting posts of the past seven days. To be honest, there are some articles worth your attention, so let’s not waste time and take a look at them right now.
Earlier this month, first rumors began to appear on the Internet suggesting that the long-anticipated iPhone 6s will boast of the 12-megapixel camera. According to a usually reliable website Feng.com, Apple’s new handset will indeed feature a 12-megapixel RGBW sensor produced by Sony.
As you probably know, Universal is currently working on a new Steve Jobs biopic, which is expected to be released on October, 9th. The movie is directed by Danny Boyle and is based on the script written by Aaron Sorkin. Michael Fassbender is starring as Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs.
Nearly half a year before the official debut of the long-awaited biopic, Universal has released the very first trailer for the movie. It is available below, so you can take a look and then tell me what you think about this short clip.
According to what IHS Technology Research Director for China Kevin King has recently shared on Weibo, Apple’s next-generation iPhone will feature a 12-megapixel camera with smaller pixels. This rumor goes in line with the most-recent report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who also stated that the guys from Cupertino may equip their new gadget with a brand new photo sensor.
As you probably know, Apple’s main rival, Samsung, released two new smartphones, namely, the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge earlier this year. Both handsets are made of aluminum and have a pretty nice design. According to the latest images posted online by @evleaks, in the near future, the South Korean tech giant will release something called the Samsung Galaxy S6 Active. The rugged version of the flagship device will reportedly feature a 5.1-inch QHD Super AMOLED display, a 14-nanometer Exynos 7420 processor and two cameras, rear and front-facing, with 16 megapixels and 5 megapixels respectively. Looks like there will be no fingerprint sensor. However, the waterproof and dustproof device will get a 3.500mAh battery.
According to the latest report from people familiar with the matter, the long-awaited Apple's streaming music service based on Beats Music functionality will be called Apple Music and feature a deep social integration for artists. In fact, they will get an opportunity to share their music, photos, videos and posts with their fans. Similar feature called Ping was once added to iTunes. Looks like the guys from Cupertino have decided that an opportunity to follow the page of the favourite artist will allow to lure more customers and make the streaming service more popular.
According to the latest aerial images shared by a traffic reporter Ron Cervi, the construction workers at Apple’s Campus 2 are working with an enormous speed. The images shared via
One very interesting and funny video has recently appeared on the Internet. It shows us a strange man using a grinder to turn his Apple Watch into a device with a round clock face.
The video is available either below, or on the YouTube channel called PeripateticPandas. I recommend you to take a look at the clip right now. Just for fun.
As you probably know, last year, Apple released two smartphones, namely, the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus. According to the latest rumors and the reports from reliable insiders, this year Apple may unveil two or even three smartphones at once: one with 4.7-inch display, one with with 5.5-inch display and one smaller with a 4-inch display. If to speak about other specs of the long-anticipated devices, they remain unknown.
Keeping in mind all the rumors, a well-known concept designer Martin Hajek has recently created its own model of the next-generation iPhone called presumably the iPhone 7 (or the iPhone 6s). The smartphone features a massive display and the Home button with Touch ID integrated right into it. You can take a look at the concept below.
Apple has earlier today launched a new iPad-dedicated microsite aimed at showing users how the tablet may change their lives and help in accomplishing various tasks. This site has several sections, namely, Cooking with iPad, Learning with iPad, Small Business with iPad, Traveling with iPad as well as Redecorating with iPad.
Apart from launching a new new website, the guys from Cupertino have also released a new iPad ad called Everything Changes with iPad. The commercial is available below and on Apple’s official YouTube channel, so you may take a look at it right now.


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A new study has revealed that the global spending on apps around Christmas time this year increased by a mammoth 35% over last year’s Christmas.
The coronavirus pandemic had a good portion of smartphone or users sticking to their homes and avoiding all sorts of outdoor activities, and as such we saw app sales crossing the $100 billion for the first time in a single year.
Mobile spending on Christmas comprised 4.5 percent of the month’s total spending so far, which reached approximately $9 billion globally from December 1 to December 27. The majority of the holiday spending was on mobile games, which climbed 27 percent from $232.4 million on Christmas 2019 to $295.6 million this year. Tencent’s Honor of Kings was the category leader with approximately $10.7 million in consumer spending, up 205.7 percent Y/Y from $3.5 million on the same day in 2019.
Consumers spent $112 million on non-game apps this Christmas, up 59 percent from $70.5 million in the previous year. Compared to last Christmas, non-game apps saw 4.2 percentage points more total spending.
There’s no surprise that as has been seen in the past few years, we once again have Apple carving the biggest piece of the share for it self compared to Google with iOS apps generating the most revenue.
Apple’s App Store captured the bulk of the spending between the two platforms. It saw 68.4 percent of the spending, or $278.6 million, up 35.2 percent Y/Y. Google Play saw $129 million in revenue, up more than 33 percent Y/Y.
(Source: Sensor Tower)
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The regulator launched the inquiry to ensure the companies were complying with rules on face-to-face and telephone dealings with customers.
Npower, Scottish Power, Scottish and Southern Energy, and EDF Energy, which make up the “Big Six” along with British Gas and E.ON, will be the focus of the investigation.
Andrew Wright, Ofgem’s senior partner for markets, said: “Suppliers have existing obligations to detect and prevent misselling and new licence conditions were brought in following our probe to further increase protection for customers.
“We expect all suppliers to comply with these tougher obligations but if our investigations find otherwise we will take strong action.”
Misselling includes giving misleading information to consumers as well as “pressure selling” to persuade customers to switch suppliers.
In 2008, Ofgem fined npower £1.8 million after an investigation into misselling. London Electricity, which is now part of EDF Energy, was fined £2 million in 2002.
Audrey Gallacher, head of energy at Consumer Focus, said: “This is a welcome step by Ofgem to address years of customers getting a bad deal on energy prices on their doorstep.
“Complaints have declined since new rules came into effect this year, but suppliers still seem to be flouting the rules. Some customers are still being given misleading quotes and information, which leave them worse off when they switch provider.
“While many doorstep sales people will do a good job, the pay and rewards system continues to encourage misselling, despite years of regulation and voluntary initiatives.
“If better advice for customers and enforcement of the tougher rules doesn’t end the flagrant abuse of this form of selling, the big question will be whether it should be completely banned.”
Ofgem has set up a hotline for customers to use to report misselling, which can be reached on 08454 04 05 06. When dialling this number, customers should choose option one.


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Lately, major tech companies including Facebook, Instagram, and Microsoft have been focused on building the “metaverse.” The term refers to shared, virtual worlds that parallel the physical world. Headset users can immerse themselves in virtual reality that mimics or expands the real one. While immersive virtual technologies will likely transform education, health care, entertainment, and military applications, they may also, without adequate safeguards, create new issues or get bogged down in old issues like harassment and disinformation.
Lawmakers and Congress have yet to make legislation to address tech-enabled dangers such as data privacy, consumer safety, misinformation, and biometric security that plague computers and smartphones. At this point, along with the federal government and tech companies, they are still struggling to limit damaging cyberattacks and plug security gaps.
Another decade may pass before the 3D metaverse develops fully. But with this new technological evolution, the tech industry and companies are working with lawmakers to try to ensure its safe rollout. It’s a positive change compared to previous tech developments, where privacy invasion and disinformation took hold before anything was done to prevent it.


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Tax revenue in Texas grew by a record 25.6 percent for the 2022 fiscal year through August, according to the latest tax collection data released by the state Comptroller of Public Accounts, Glenn Hegar.
All-funds tax collection for fiscal year 2022 until August came in at $77.2 billion, beating projections made in the Certification Revenue Estimate by nearly $841 million, the data show.
Since 1988, the growth in the all-funds tax collections has exceeded the prior fiscal year by double digits just five times. And even then, the increases were only in the range of 10 to 13 percent. The 26 percent increase in fiscal 2022 until August is almost double the largest increase seen since 1988.
In a Sept. 1 press release, Hegar credited the higher sales tax collections to economic growth and inflation. As demand remains strong, both individuals and businesses continue to pay elevated prices for goods, he pointed out.
State sales tax receipts tend to spike during periods of high inflation. The 12-month Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of annual inflation, has remained above 7 percent for every single month in 2022, hitting a peak of 9.1 percent in June.
The CPI was only at 1.4 percent in January 2021 when President Joe Biden took office. In a recently published survey conducted by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, 48 percent of respondents blamed Biden and Congress for inflation and the rising cost of living.
Texas does not have a corporate income tax or state income tax meaning the state is highly reliant on sales taxes for its revenue. Sales tax accounts for 56 percent of all tax collections in Texas and is the largest source of government funding.
Sector-Wise Tax, Future Collections
“The strong growth in August came from receipts remitted by the oil and gas mining sector, which were up by nearly 80 percent compared with a year ago,” Hegar said in the release.
“Receipts from the construction, manufacturing, and wholesale trade sectors showed double-digit growth for the ninth consecutive month, demonstrating continued strong spending by businesses in the state.”
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Reports of Apple preparing an iOS-powered TV set are circulating yet again. This time around, the rumors were stoked by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster in an investors note. According to Munster, 2013 will bring significant changes to Apple’s product mix, with a full-fledged Apple TV set (priced between $1500-$2000) expected to hit the streets in time for the 2013 holiday season.
He believes the Apple TV will boast screen sizes between 42 and 55-inches. The analyst also expects the set to offer both Siri and FaceTime capability, and, as noted above, unbundled TV channels.
“We expect the beauty of the design to be a feature, but the most important feature will be the ability to use the TV as the main interface for the living room across multiple devices,” Munster wrote. “We believe the TV will include Siri and FaceTime. The biggest item unlikely to come with the TV will be unbundled channels.”
Munster also notes that another major product announcement is likely to be made around March of 2013 when Apple rolls out a new streaming radio service to compete with Pandora – possibly an iPad mini with a retina display.
Finally, the analyst weighed in on a possible upcoming iPhone launch, which he estimates could happen around November 2013 as a relatively “modest upgrade” from the current iPhone 5. The new handset is likely to offer a faster processor, more RAM and an updated camera.
“We [also] expect new iOS 7 core features to include additional wallet features for Passbook, commerce integration for Siri (Groupon/LivingSocial as an example), and Maps improvements… We expect MacBook Airs will get a Retina display option,” he added.


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Distributor Tech Data is expanding the products it offers for point-of-sale and product data capture under a newly inked deal with Intermec Technologies, a manufacturer of asset-management and data-collection solutions.
Clearwater, Fla.-based Tech Data Corp. launched a POS (point-of-sale) business unit two years ago, and built it up by adding POS product lines from 12 vendors, including IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co., DigiPoS Systems Group Ltd. and 3M Touch Systems Inc. But it still needed a comprehensive offering in data capture.
Intermec Technologies Corp. not only fills that gap, it brings with it a solid reputation, according to Karl Werner, director of the Advanced Technologies Group at Tech Data. “We really needed a marquee name on the side of data capture,” he said.
Tech Data, which does not sell directly to end users, will distribute the full line of Intermec products through its POS/Data Capture Specialized Business Unit.
Intermec products include RFID (radio-frequency identification) scanners, label printers and supplies; secure networking hardware and management software; wireless handhelds, tablet PCs and printers; and data capture wands, scanners and bar-code printers.
Werner said he expects that the Intermec partnership will expand his POS business by drawing in data-capture resellers and solution providers who dont currently do business with the distributor.
Conversely, many resellers who already buy technology from Tech Data will expand their business with the distributor as a result of this new vendor relationship, he said.
“The big draw from a Tech Data perspective, and certainly from Intermecs perspective as well, is to bring new solutions to new resellers, and then to new end users,” Werner said.
Among those solutions is Intermecs EasyADC, a data-capture package that can link its data with that of accounting and inventory systems to eliminate the need to key in information, Werner said. He added that he expects EasyADC to play well with SMBs (small and midsized businesses).
The SMB market, in fact, was a key reason Everett, Wash.-based Intermec decided to partner with Tech Data, according to Annie Neubrech, director of channel programs at Intermec.
The distribution agreement also provides Intermec with access to legions of Tech Data customers who provide retail solutions or Cisco connectivity solutions, both of which Intermec has targeted.
“We are aggressively going after the retail market,” Neubrech said. “Were designing [products] with the retail market in mind. Tech Data has a large reseller base in the retail point-of-sale market.”
In addition to targeting immediate market needs, the partnership with Intermec also positions Tech Data for the expected growth in RFID, which employs tags containing a chip, antenna, and product data to transmit the information to machines that keep track of inventory.
Proponents of RFID expect the technology to eventually replace bar codes, but for now the technology is mainly applied to tracking cases and pallets.


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It is Apple tradition to refresh its key products once a year and the iPad is no different. It is highly expected that Apple will release a new iPad sometime this spring with a camera and now possibly a global GSM/CDMA chip inside too.
Apple currently only sells the iPad with chips built in that work on the GSM network, while many parts of the world use this standard, there are also quite a few who use CDMA network too. Currently the iPad will not work natively on the CDMA network but that may soon change.
According to Allthingsd.com, “Recent checks…suggest Apple is going to be ratcheting down production of the existing 3G iPad over the next two months in anticipation of ramping up a new World iPad that is powered by Qualcomm and will run on both GSM and CDMA based networks around the world,” Blair writes. “Given our recent checks that suggest Apple is preparing to build approximately 48 million iPads in calendar 2011.”
The idea seems logical that Apple would build one device that would work on numerous networks rather than being locked to one carrier. Something that cant be overlooked is that if Apple is dumping its exclusive AT&T iPad data link, could they also be dumping their iPhone exclusiveness as well too? While many reports suggest that Apple is looking to produce a CDMA iPhone, this 'world iPad' report could also be the reason that Apple ordered so many CDMA chips and not because its building an iPhone.


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What has the U.S. learned five years after the financial collapse? Banking analyst Meredith Whitney and the Financial Times' Tom Braithwaite join Morning Joe to discuss. Has America steered itself out of the recession?
BBC's Richard Hammond drives a car into a reservoir, and explains how it has been specially designed and built for this purpose. Despite a few leaks, it does actually 'drive' underwater. A car that transformed into a submarine in the James Bond movie "The Spy Who Loved Me" was recently sold at a London auction for 550,000 pounds ($865,000).
SpaceX is exploring methods for engineers to accelerate their workflow by designing more directly in 3D. The company is integrating breakthroughs in sensor and visualization technologies to view and modify designs more naturally and efficiently than by using purely 2D tools. SpaceX is just beginning, but eventually hopes to build the fastest route between the idea of a rocket and the reality of the factory floor.
Rumors that BlackBerry might be bought out by its biggest shareholder is fueling optimism about the smartphone maker a day before Apple's new iPhone announcement. Blackberry most likely won't steal Apple's thunder, but BlackBerry shares are rallying.
New numbers show August had the highest number of auto sales of any month since the Great Recession. Toyota, Ford, Nissan, Chrysler and General Motors all reported double-digit U.S. sales. Financial and economic analyst Mellody Hobson explains why sales are booming.
The 1935 Avions Voisin C25 Aerodyne was designed by an aviation designer and takes cues from airplanes of that era. The designer of the Voisin was originally an aviation designer and wanted to transfer aviation design to the automobile to create the best car he could. It recently sold at Pebble Beach for $1.925 million.
SPM Instrument releases the latest portable instruments in Vibration and Bearing Monitoring. Rugged Construction, Tri-Axial Vibration, Shock Pulse, Electronic Stethoscope, Temperature, Laser Alignment, Balancing, Voice Recording, and much more.
The Nissan Juke Nismo delivers only 9 HP more than the base Juke model, but with tighter suspension and steering it does make this small SUV just a touch more fun. Nismo is Nissan's performance brand, and in this case, does deliver just a bit more power.
NASA has successfully tested a new kind of rocket engine component created using 3D printing. The engine injector was put through high-pressure, test firings of liquid oxygen and gaseous hydrogen, and it passed.
Microsoft's $7 billion deal to buy Nokia's cellphone business has investors wondering if the software giant can finally stake a claim in the mobile phone industry. A source of national pride, Finland's Nokia Corp. had led the cellphone industry for more than a decade, reaching a peak of 40 percent market share in 2008.
As students go back to school, CBS News' Mo Rocca explores that classic writing instrument: the pencil. He introduces us to David Rees, who has written the book on sharpening pencils, and brings us to Pencil City USA to learn how pencils are made.
Stocks initially rose after a new report signaled the country's manufacturers are getting stronger. A jump in orders helped Unites States factories expand in August at the fastest pace in more than two years.
South Korean researchers have developed an electric car that folds in half for easy parking. Named for the armor-covered mammal of the same name, the 'Armadillo-T' is a two-seater prototype vehicle that is designed for commuters in busy urban areas. Reuters' Rob Muir has more.
Walmart SVP Michelle Gloeckler explains her company's $50 billion effort to sell more American made goods over the next ten years. Even if Walmart is successful in getting key retailers and suppliers on board, experts say it won't rejuvenate the U.S. manufacturing industry. But the movement could help stem the tide of jobs flowing to China and elsewhere that has been occurring in the last two decades.
For the first time, Ford Fusion vehicles are being built just outside Detroit, a positive sign that the automotive industry is bringing production back to the United States. The company's Flat Rock, Mich., plant near Detroit will start making the Fusion Thursday. Ford hired a second shift of 1,400 new workers to make the Fusion at the plant, which also makes the Mustang sports car.
'Cheetah Cub' is a robot being developed by scientists in Switzerland, to one day assist in search and rescue missions. The machine does not yet have a head, but otherwise looks and runs like a cat, to go into places inaccessible or too dangerous for humans. Reuters' Jim Drury has more.
The new Mini Cooper Paceman is a two-door crossover SUV that features a turbo-charged engine, four-wheel drive, and a spacious interior. While it could be considered a "less practical, SUV," losing two doors completely changes the character of the vehicle, says CNN's Peter Valdes-Dapena.
A nature reserve in central Hungary has become a testing ground for self-contained, solar-powered train travel. Engineers say the narrow gauge train is the first of its kind and could become a template for larger train transport systems. Reuters' Matthew Stock reports.
Nissan announced that the company's engineers have been carrying out intensive research on the technology for years, alongside teams from the world's top universities, including MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Tokyo. Executive Vice President Andy Palmer gives all the details on Nissan's 20-20 vision.
Nissan announces a 2020 autonomous drive timetable for bringing the high-technology cars to global markets. Nissan announced that the company's engineers have been carrying out intensive research on the technology for years, alongside teams from the world's top universities, including MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Tokyo.


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Young people are a target market for dietary supplements for weight loss, muscle building, energy, and more. A team of researchers aimed to determine the relationships between dietary supplements and adverse health impacts in children, adolescents, and young adults. The results of this observational study were published last week in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
According to a press release from Harvard Chan School of Public Health, the study determined that compared with vitamins, dietary supplements for weight loss, muscle building, and energy are linked to nearly three times as many severe medical outcomes in young people. Supplements linked to sexual function and colon cleanse were linked to two times the risk for severe medical outcomes, compared to vitamins.
To determine these impacts, the research team conducted an observational study using reports of adverse events between January 2004 and April 2015 using the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System on food and dietary supplements database. “Severe medical events” were defined as death, disability, life-threatening events, hospitalization, emergency room visits, and required intervention to prevent permanent disability.
Researchers discovered 977 single-supplement-related adverse events reported for the target age group of 0 to 25. Most of the adverse events occurred in young adults aged 18 to 25. Approximately 40% of those reports included severe medical outcomes such as hospitalization and life-threatening events—22 of which were deaths.
Lead-author Flora Or told the New York Times that what we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. She stated, “There is huge underreporting with these adverse events. Many physicians don’t report these things.”
The study’s authors suggest proactive enforcement to reduce access and consumption of dietary supplements among children, adolescents, and young adults. In the press statement regarding the study, co-author S. Bryn Austin—a professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences—stated: “How can we continue to let manufacturers of these products and the retailers who profit from them play Russia roulette with America’s youth? It is well past time for policymakers and retailers to take meaningful action to protect children and consumers of all ages.”


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Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk was one of David Letterman‘s guests last week.
The Tesla Motors CEO came on to promote his company’s upcoming Model S. The four-door version of the all-electric vehicle is set to debut in 2011, and costs about half as much as $100,000 two-seat sibling.
Watching Letterman, one gets the sense that he is clearly fed up with the fact that electric motors have been in existence for about 100 years but are still referred to as “cutting-edge technology”. The 40-mile range of the Chevy Volt is “crap,” good enough to get the paper at the end of the driveway, Letterman joked.
This wasn’t the first time the ‘Late Show’ host had discussed electric cars on his show. Back in 2006, Tom Hanks spent much of his quality time with Dave discussing his electric car, which Letterman playfully dubbed “The Hankster”.
The best part of last week’s segment, though, was when Letterman pretended to be electrocuted when he took hold of the Model S steering wheel, shouting “Turn it off! Turn it off!”
See both clips below…
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Christine Picard’s search for a better bug to feed the world starts with dead bodies. Well, not the corpses themselves, but the blow flies, flesh flies, and other squirmy, wriggly things that wing their way to corpses in the minutes and hours after death. Picard, a forensic entomologist at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, studies why some insects grow much more quickly than others. This is important for criminal investigations, because the maturity and type of insects found on a body can help nail down exactly when someone died. But Picard’s research on corpse-munching flies is starting to have an effect way beyond autopsy reports: Now her focus is on food.
Don’t worry. It’s (mostly) not for you.
The booming insect farming industry is becoming extremely interested in what makes some larvae grow faster and fatter than others. In 2021, Picard became one of the lead researchers at the Center for Environmental Sustainability Through Insect Farming, a new US-based research center that wants to make farming insects much more efficient. Although the industry is growing, by pure numbers it is still relatively puny: European farms only produced a few thousand tons of insect protein in 2020, a drop in the ocean compared to other sources of protein. These small production numbers keep the price of farmed insects high. One way to solve the problem is to selectively breed fatter and faster-growing bugs—the same approach that the livestock industry has used for centuries to make farm animals more productive.
Breeding better bugs is a high-stakes endeavor. There are now dozens of startups farming insects to sell as ingredients in pet, livestock, and human food. Insects have long been touted as a healthy, low-carbon source of protein that provides an antidote to animal agriculture’s many ills, like methane-burping cows and chicken farms that fuel the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria. If more of us could join the 2 billion or so people who already eat insects, then we might start putting a dent in the 14.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions that currently come from farming livestock.
But you might have noticed that the much-promised future of cricket smoothies for breakfast, cicada sushi for dinner, and mealworm cookies for dessert hasn’t quite materialized yet. Instead, it’s animals—our pets and livestock—that are really driving the edible insect revolution. In Australia, dogs can chow down on pumpkin and mealworm biscuits made by Buggy Bix. In Europe, the brand Tomojo sells all kinds of animal treats supplemented with black soldier fly larvae. Mars, the world’s largest pet food manufacturer, now sells its own brand of insect-supplemented food for cats and dogs. For now, pet food is the largest market for insect protein.
Antoine Hubert, CEO of the French insect-farming startup Ÿnsect, says that the ground mealworms he sells to pet food firms makes up more than 50 percent of his company’s revenue. Pet owners pay a premium to feed their animals food with a lower environmental impact. “It’s where the market adoption has been the biggest,” says Hubert. Although the meat component of pet food typically comes from the bits of animals that humans don’t always eat, it still has a sizable environmental impact. One 2020 study from the University of Edinburgh found that the production of dry pet food alone is responsible for between 1 and 3 percent of global emissions from agriculture.
But feeding pets is only the beginning for insect farming. In 2022, for the first time the EU will allow farmers to feed insects to pigs and poultry—a reversal of rules that banned feed made from animal remains in the wake of the mad cow disease outbreak in the mid-1990s. The poultry and pig feed market is huge: There are 146 million pigs in the EU and 7.2 billion chickens are slaughtered for meat there every year. Even supplying a tiny slice of this market with insect protein would require massively boosting insect production. Ÿnsect is currently building one of the world’s largest insect farms in northern France, but scaling up to feed pigs and poultry would require hundreds of similar farms, Hubert says.
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It’ll also require more meatier and faster-growing bugs. One of the major components of chicken feed is soy, which is extremely cheap and widely used across the world. If insect farmers want to start replacing cheap commodity crops like soy, then they’ll need to find a way to bring down costs.
That’s where insect geneticists like Picard come in. “There’s just not enough production right now,” she says. Tuure Parviainen, CEO of Finnish insect farming startup Volare, agrees. “The demand is there, but the production needs to be taken to quite a large scale for the big producers to actually start making a product,” he says. This is just as true for pet food as it is for poultry: The volumes are so huge that big manufacturers aren’t quite ready to go all-in on insects. “The supply is not really there so that they could flip a switch and change ingredients yet,” says Parviainen.
One way to ramp up is to make sure that insect farms are as productive as possible. Scotland-based startup Beta Bugs runs breeding programs to develop more productive versions of the black soldier fly—one of the most commonly farmed insects. “What we have is effectively a very kind of raw material which can then be improved through selective breeding,” says CEO Thomas Farrugia. “Increasingly I think people are starting to realize that this is how we make the industry scale over time.”
Fortunately for insect breeders like Farrugia, time is on their side. Although it might have taken humans thousands of years of breeding to come up with modern cow varieties, insects have much, much shorter life cycles. A black soldier fly is ready to harvest about 14 days after hatching. Its entire life cycle can take around six weeks. “What this means is that you can cram a hell of a lot of selective breeding in a year,” says Farrugia. The trick to breeding a better bug, Farrugia says, is to balance different traits off against each other. You could have one variety of bug that produces lots and lots of skinny larvae, or another that produces a smaller number of fatter young. As larvae mature, the nutrients inside them also change, so one of the tricks of breeding is hitting the sweet spot between fat, juicy bugs and those that are at the right stage in their life cycle.
That said, they don’t want insects that mature too quickly, because the insects are shipped to insect farms while they’re still in the egg stage, to make sure they’re fresh when they arrive. Beta Bugs breeds its black soldier flies in a facility just outside of Edinburgh. From there, eggs are packaged and sent across the EU. Picking the right courier is key, Farrugia says. Black soldier fly eggs hatch in about four days, so if a package is delayed the customer may end up with a delivery that is slightly more alive than they anticipated.
In France, Ÿnsect has launched a breeding program to study the genetics of Tenebrio molitor, the mealworm beetle. The company has already collaborated with the French national center of genome sequencing, Genoscope, to sequence the mealworm’s genome and has also identified a strain of the buffalo worm, a close relative of the mealworm, that grows 25 percent faster than the original strain.
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There is a huge amount of genetic diversity inside insects just waiting to be discovered, Picard says. Fruit flies and black soldier flies diverged from each other around 200 million years ago, so the differences between species can be huge. Some are generalists, munching on any kind of waste, while others prefer specialized diets of manure or certain fruits. This might make certain species particularly suited to specific tasks. The oil from mealworms could be a suitable replacement for palm oil, for example, while others might have the specific nutrients that piglets need. We already have different cows for different kinds of beef, Farrugia points out. It might be just a matter of time until we’re chowing down on Angus Aberdeen mealworms, too.
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CHICO — Chico Mall , which opened 25 years ago Aug. 3, will celebrate this Saturday with “Rad ”80s”-themed activities from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The first 200 shoppers will receive themed goodie bags at Center Court. A costume contest with ”80s-style dress open to mall employees and customers will take place at 12:30 p.m. for prizes at Sears Court.
DJ music, dancing and games will go 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. throughout the mall . An ”80s dance routine by Hype Dance Studio at 1 p.m. and music by the Chico School of Rock band will be performed 2-3 p.m. at Center Court.
The original Pac Man arcade game may be played at the JC Penny”s Court, with proceeds going to benefit a local organization.
Birthday cupcakes will be given to the public.
The mall is at 1950 E. 20th St.
For information about the activities, visit piinterest.com/chicomall/celebrate-the-80s/.


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The government’s quest to rein in Big Tech just took a major step forward. Two weeks after the House antitrust subcommittee issued its landmark report outlining the anticompetitive abuses of the top players, the Department of Justice made its long-awaited move against Google.
The DOJ’s antitrust division announced Tuesday that it is suing Google parent Alphabet Inc. over antitrust law violations surrounding its search engine, saying the company has become “the monopoly gatekeeper of the internet.” The landmark case alleges Google abused its market-dominant position and stifled competitors, specifically citing its exclusionary distribution agreements with Apple Inc. and other technology companies that made its search engine the default option on mobile devices and browsers. Google, in a blog post rebuttal, called the suit “deeply flawed,” adding consumers choose to use its free search engine because they prefer it. Eleven Republican state attorneys general signed on to the case.
For months now, we’ve known that the DOJ has been preparing an antitrust case against Google. What we didn’t know was how far-reaching it would be. There was speculation that regulators would rush out a half-baked complaint to meet a political deadline. It turns out, the government is pursuing the tech giant full-on by targeting the company’s crown-jewel Google search engine. That’s good, because the situation demands it.
This initial step is a savvy move. First, the government is focusing on the most pertinent issue with the largest impact — Google’s search engine dominance. It’s a higher priority than the company’s ad-serving technology platform, which, while powerful, accounts for a smaller portion of Alphabet’s earnings and wouldn’t have been as significant for the technology industry at large. Second, the lawsuit zeroes in on Google’s most egregious behavior, including the large cash payments it makes to partners to maintain its search share. This will pay dividends as the focus helps crystalize what’s at stake and may sway public opinion and politicians to support further action.
Earlier this summer, I wrote how Google’s practice of paying for platform placement was blatantly anticompetitive and should be banned. That view still stands. Bernstein estimates the internet giant pays Apple roughly $8 billion a year to make its search engine the default option for its hardware devices. A number that large for Google, which already has a monopoly-type position in the search market, is indefensible. Prohibiting such agreements that clearly suppress competition would allow smaller companies to have a chance.
The government can do more, though. While specific remedies will come later in the proceedings, other issues ought to be addressed on top of these payment practices. First, Google’s use of scraping data off of third-party websites should be restricted. The act of taking other websites’ proprietary content without permission to keep users on Google’s properties doesn’t seem fair. Second, the internet giant’s practice of ranking its own services higher on its search results pages even when they are inferior should be scrutinized. The lawsuit, while a good start, is only the opening salvo in a legal battle that will extend well into the next administration, regardless of the winner of next month’s presidential election.
Notably, no Democratic state attorneys generals have signed on to this DOJ lawsuit, but that’s likely because they want to file a broader complaint later. The DOJ signaled as much on a press call Tuesday, adding that the attorneys’ hesitation to join the suit wasn’t for lack of support of the arguments. Unlike the large divergence between Republicans and Democrats on social media regulation, the two parties’ positions on Google’s overreach and the need for antitrust remedies aren’t far apart.
Where do things go from here? I expect a growing bipartisan consensus to form against Google, with concrete actions to curb some of the aforementioned practices. Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., has said he is preparing legislation based on the proposals in the recent House antitrust final report. And some Republicans have already said there are portions of the House report they can support, meaning the DOJ may conceivably get more tools to curb Google’s market power –and that of the other Big Tech behemoths such as Facebook Inc., Apple and Amazon.com Inc. — from congressional action next year as well.
This process won’t be easy. But the likelihood of the government achieving effective restraints on Google’s anticompetitive abuses shouldn’t be underestimated.
Tae Kim is a Bloomberg columnist covering technology. He previously covered technology for Barron’s, following an earlier career as an equity analyst. © 2020 Bloomberg News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.


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UK: Co-operative sees Christmas sales gains
The Co-op sees strongest growth in convenience
The Co-operative Group has booked a 2.4% increase in sales at its food retail business over Christmas, driven by like-for-like gains and higher growth at its convenience outlets.
The company said in the three weeks ending 5 January like-for-like sales rose 2.2%. Comparable revenue at its convenience stores rose 5.5%, growth the company attributed to targeted promotions and its new advertising campaign.
The Co-operative Group chief executive Peter Marks said: "These results represent a really encouraging and resilient performance in some of the most testing trading conditions for 40 years."
Marks emphasised that the numbers "helped sustain the positive sales momentum" the group has witnessed in the second-half of the year.
"While conditions remain very challenging, we now enter 2013 in a position where we expect to make continued progress."
The GM debate has re-emerged in the UK in the last couple of weeks with the news four major supermarket operators will allow their suppliers to use GM feed for poultry and eggs....
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Buoyed by strong growth in global economy and a robust economic growth in Euro area, production in the EU chemicals sector grew 2.6% from January to February 2018 compared to the same period of 2017, with output rising in most chemicals sub-sectors, says the latest Chemicals Trends Report by Cefic. Paints and coating and consumer chemicals grew about 6% each during the same period (y-o-y). Specialties posted less significant output growth (2.7%, y-o-y). Meanwhile, producer prices were above the previous year’s level, growing 3 per cent in the EU chemicals sector from January to February 2018 (y-o-y). Polymers and petrochemicals posted significant and positive growth in prices compared to the other sectors.
The EU chemicals imports reached the value of €106.7 bn in 2017, rising by 8.1 bn (+8.3 per cent). All chemicals sectors posted an increase in import revenue. The analysis shows that imports went up significantly with China, the USA and Russia. On the sectoral side, imports in specialty chemicals went up by 11.2% in 2017 compared to 2016, followed by polymers (10.7%). Chemicals consumption rises 8.4% (2017) Chemicals consumption (domestic sales + imports) in the EU home market developed positively in 2017. Consumption wentup significantly, reaching €499.4 bn in 2017, up from €460.6 bn in 2016 (8.4 per cent, y-o-y).
On the exports front, the EU chemicals exports reached the value of €155.4 bn in 2017, rising by 9.5 bn (+6.5 per cent). All chemicals sectors posted an increase in export revenue. The analysis shows that exports increased significantly with Asian countries including China. On the sectoral side, exports in consumer chemicals went up by 10% in 2017 compared to 2016, followed by polymers (8.9%). The net trade surplus was €48.7 bn during the twelve months of 2017 (additional €1.4 bn), the largest EU chemicals surplus occurring with rest of Europe. EU chemicals however registered a trade deficit with South Korea, India, and Japan.


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VCs have backed a classy Dutch e-bike start-up as demand accelerates
VanMoof cofounder Taco Carlier driving one of many firm’s e-bikes.
LONDON – Because the pandemic forces individuals to rethink how they get from A to B, enterprise capitalists need to capitalize on corporations providing new types of transport.
VCs from Norwest Enterprise Companions, Felix Capital and Balderton Capital introduced Wednesday that that they had backed Dutch e-bike VanMoof with $40 million, only a few months after the corporate raised $13.5 million from tech buyers.
Amsterdam-headquartered VanMoof, which has raised $73 million in whole, mentioned it’s going to use the Collection B funding to the additional capitalize on a worldwide e-bike increase that has been fuelled by the coronavirus.
“E-bike adoption was an inevitable international shift that was already going down for a few years now however Covid-19 put an absolute turbo on it to the purpose that we’re approaching a vital mass to remodel cities for the higher,” mentioned Ties Carlier, co-founder of VanMoof in a press release.
The corporate mentioned its revenues have grown 10 occasions within the final 24 months to hit $100 million and the U.S. is now its third quickest development market. Through the worldwide lockdown, revenues climbed 220%, VanMoof mentioned.
Colin Hanna, principal at Balderton, mentioned the agency’s “management over design and manufacturing” was a key benefit that allowed the corporate to “react nimbly and successfully to the disaster.”
The brand new funding will assist meet elevated demand and scale back supply occasions, VanMoof mentioned. A few of it’s going to even be used to arrange a world e-bike restore service and software program that works at the side of the corporate’s e-bikes.
Accountancy agency Deloitte estimates that over 130 million e-bikes will likely be bought between 2020 and 2023 and VanMoof is not the one e-bike start-up catching the attention of VCs.
In June, Brussels-based Cowboy introduced a 23 million euro ($27 million) collection B funding spherical led by Exor Seeds, the early stage funding arm of Exor, which is the controlling shareholder of Ferrari.
The corporate’s e-bikes, which price 2,290 euros, are linked to an app that’s used to unlock the bike and provides real-time data on velocity, battery life and instructions.
Elsewhere, Dance, arrange by the founders of music streaming service SoundCloud, mentioned in June that it has raised 4.Four million euros ($5.1 million) from a consortium of buyers led by VC agency BlueYard, which can be based mostly in Berlin.
In contrast to different start-ups, Dance does not wish to promote e-bikes, which may price effectively in extra of $2,000.
As an alternative, it has launched a 59 euro per thirty days subscription service that provides prospects entry to an e-bike inside 24 hours of them signing up through the corporate’s app. Dance says it’s going to additionally care for the e-bike and substitute it free of charge instantly if it will get misplaced or stolen.


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- Flexport is buying the bulk of Shopify's logistics assets, the companies announced Thursday.
- The acquisition includes Deliverr, an e-commerce fulfillment company Shopify acquired last year.
- Dave Clark described how his new job related to his old one on Fox Business Thursday.
Dave Clark's getting back into the e-commerce fulfillment game, but this time it's different, he told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Thursday.
Clark was on the show to discuss Flexport's first acquisition since he fully took over as CEO from founder Ryan Peterson on March 1.
In the deal, Flexport will gain Deliverr, an e-commerce fulfillment tech firm cofounded in 2017 by Amazon-alum Harish Abbott, who will transfer to Flexport to oversee the transition reporting directly to Clark, when the deal closes.
Deliverr knits together disparate, independent warehouses with a common software layer, giving relatively small online sellers access to a nationwide warehouse network and facilitating faster shipping. It caters to marketplace sellers across platforms like Walmart, eBay, Google Shopping, and Shopify.
Clark said that Deliverr will allow Flexport to extend its global freight-moving service deeper into the domestic logistics market with the addition of picking and packing packages and eventually last-mile shipping — which right now Deliverr offers through partnerships with existing parcel carriers like UPS and FedEx.
"Now, under one system, you can get your goods from the manufacturer all the way to the US through the ports to a distribution center to either your store or to the customer's door," said Clark.
His comments led the host to ask: "It also enables you to better compete with businesses like Amazon, right? Your old stomping ground!" Clark spent 23 years building Amazon's logistics network into an untouchable juggernaut of fast delivery and ran the company's entire consumer business until he left last year.
Clark responded that he "personally would rather think of ourselves as more of an extension of the Amazon network than a competitor to the Amazon network."
Deliverr's core business is e-commerce fulfillment which covers inventory storage, picking and packing, and handing off to delivery companies for online orders.
The Amazon comparison points to Fulfillment By Amazon, the company's fulfillment service for sellers. FBA previously only fulfilled orders made through Amazon's e-commerce site for many years, but it opened up the service to purchases made on other websites in January, making it technically possible that sellers could use it as their sole fulfillment service.
"Amazon is a great company and a great product for sellers," Clark said. "But we're also going to do fulfillment to your store so we can replenish your physical stores. We can ship to your e-commerce site as well. So we're going to do sort of a suite of things that maybe Amazon isn't doing and I'd rather think of ourselves more as a compliment."
Shopify's intention before it abandoned the plan was to offer sellers an alternative to FBA. And Shopify executives say that even after the sale they will still be able to do that by partnering with Flexport as their sole official logistics partner.
Clark has grand plans to create perhaps the most comprehensive end-to-end service for online sellers available, and the comparisons to what he built at Amazon are unlikely to stop here.
In a tweet Thursday, Clark, who was known as an aggressive builder of complex networks at Amazon, said "Time to Build!"
It's still early days for his tenure at Flexport, but Amazon alumni can see echoes of Amazon in the team he's building today.
"If you look at who they brought over from Amazon, it's all the people that built domestic transportation at Amazon," said Derek Lossing, an Amazon Logistics alum-turned-investment advisor with Cirrus Global Advisors.
Got a tip? Contact Senior Reporter Emma Cosgrove at firstname.lastname@example.org


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Italian fashion brand Sunnei has renovated the interior of an ex-recording studio to create a minimalist headquarters as a canvas for furniture and art pieces by the brand’s collaborators.
Located near its flagship store in Milan, the brand named its headquarters and studio Palazzina Sunnei to reference typical Milanese residential buildings.
The Sunnei headquarters is located within a former recording studio
Palazzina Sunnei was organised as a series of multi-functional “livable spaces”.
It houses a photo studio, showroom, archive and meeting rooms along with office space for Sunnei’s team.
When the fashion brand first moved into its new headquarters in 2020 it occupied a
→ Continue reading at Dezeen


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Further details about Facebook’s cryptocurrency – codenamed Libra – are about to be revealed, with sources saying that June 18th is the most likely date.
While the official launch date of the cryptocurrency hasn’t been locked down officially, a recent TechCrunch report talks about the publication of a related whitepaper on June 18th. The same report also explains that TechCrunch has since received a news embargo for that date.
Not that much is known about Libra yet, other than it will be a so-called “stablecoin,” pegged to various currencies rather than one. This, as we’ve explained in a previous report, helps prevent fluctuations that would exist if it were connected to just one currency.
The eagerly-awaited cryptocurrency project is headed by former PayPal President and current Messenger VP David Marcus and his team, and is likely to be called Libra (as it’s currently codenamed) – and not GlobalCoin, as previously claimed. Facebook even recently registered a company in Switzerland to run the currency. The company itself is called Libra Networks.
According to the rumours, the cryptocurrency’s formal launch will not take place before 2020.
Its launch could revolutionise commerce and payments on Facebook, allowing people to “sidestep” credit card transaction fees, and this could lead to a cheaper way for merchants to get paid through the platform.
It could also “facilitate microtransactions for a la carte news articles or tipping of content creators,” explained TechCrunch’s Josh Constine. It may also offer “better understanding of who buys what or which brands or popular could aid Facebook in ad measurement, ranking, and targeting to amplify its core business.”
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Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 smartphone is no longer an online property. Xiaomi revealed that the Redmi Note 4 handset would be available for pre-order offline in North region including select large format retailers (LFRs) located in the South regions. You will be able to pre-order Redmi Note 4 between March 14 and March 17 through LFRs. If you are located in the North, you can place an order from offline stores located in Delhi, Jaipur, and Chandigarh from March 16 to 21.
When it comes to the real sale and availability, the handset will be available on LFRs starting March 18 and via offline retail stores in Delhi, Jaipur, and Chandigarh starting March 21. If you would like to buy Redmi Note 4 via online, you can purchase either via Flipkart or Mi.com.
As of March 14, Xiaomi had sold over one million units of Redmi Note 4 within 45 days of the launch. Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 is available in 2GB/32GB, 3G/32GB, and 4GB/64GB internal storage variants. The company conducted the first sale on January 23. You should note that it is tough to buy the phone since the stocks go out of stock within few seconds of the start of the flash sale. We hope the company will start the open sale of Redmi Note 4 by the middle of 2017.
Commenting on the development, Vipin Raina, Head – Offline Sales, Xiaomi India revealed that the company is gearing up to build extremely strong operations in the offline channel. It will pave the way to bring innovation in the offline model approach adopted by the company. With the launch of offline sales, Xiaomi has extended the innovation to everyone.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 features a 5.5-inch FHD 2.5D arc glass display alongside a fingerprint sensor on the rear. The handset is equipped with a Snapdragon 625 processor, Adreno 506 graphics, 13MP rear camera, 5MP front-facing snapper powered by 4100mAh fast charging battery.
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Minister calls for probe on possibility of adulterated tea
Minister of Plantation Industries D. M. Jayaratne
instructed the tea researchers and relevant authorities to
investigate whether the tea sold in the local market is adulterated.
SLSI to help launch national standard in forest stewardship
SRI LANKA Standards Institution (SLSI) will
initiate the formulation of a national standard, which could be used
in Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, Wasantha
Meewaddana, Marketing and Promotion Director, SLSI told the Daily
Hayleys posts better 9-month result but looking for higher
Hayleys Group has posted a profit after tax of
Rs 955 million at the end of the third quarter of 2006-07, a growth
of 41 per cent that reflects a notably improved nine-month financial
performance this year, despite an unexpected slower third quarter.


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As you may already know, Sykes allows you to book any of our 9000+ cottages up to 24 months...
We are absolutely delighted to to announce that Sykes Cottages has won the British Travel Award for the Best Large UK Self Catering Booking Company for the fourth year in a row. In addition to this, Sykes Cottages also picked up silver in the Best Customer Service award, ahead of some of the UK’s biggest travel companies. The British Travel Awards, presented at the prestigious ceremony in London last night, celebrate the best of the travel and leisure industry and recognise the very best in travel including self catering holidays, car hire, coach holidays and hotels from across the globe, as well as recognising companies going above and beyond to bring their customers great service.
Over 1.3 million votes were cast between July and September, with over 330,000 consumers registering to vote in the awards this year. The fact that these awards are votes for by the public makes us especially proud to have won for the fourth year in a row. We would like to thank each and every person that has voted for us over the last few months and we look forward to providing fabulous holidays for our customers for many years to come.
Thank you from all at Sykes Cottages.


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According to NAB’s Monthly Business Survey, business conditions eased for the second consecutive month, down 2 index points in March to +16.
The result was underpinned by weaker employment conditions (down 2 index points) and profitability (down 1 index point), and flat trading conditions.
But NAB chief economist Alan Oster said despite weakness over the past few months, business conditions remain stronger than the long-run average.
“Business conditions have been resilient, slowly edging lower over the past few months but remaining well above their long-run average,” he said.
“Trading conditions are particularly elevated, indicating that businesses continue to experience strong demand, and conditions are generally strong across states and sectors.”
Meanwhile, business confidence improved but remained in negative territory (-1 index point), buoyed by an 8-point increase in confidence across the manufacturing sector but offset by declines across mining and construction.
Business confidence remained negative across the retail, wholesale, and finance industries.
“Confidence appears to have stabilised, but it remains below average at -1 index point,” Mr Oster added.
“Confidence was particularly poor in retail and wholesale, likely reflecting that firms are concerned about how much longer consumer spending will hold up.”
Inflationary indicators also eased, with price and cost growth slowing. Labour costs grew 1.9 per cent, down from 2.6 per cent in February, and purchase cost growth slowed to 1.8 per cent, down from 3 per cent.
Overall price growth fell to 1.2 per cent, down from 1.6 per cent, with retail inflation easing to 1.6 per cent, down from 2 per cent.
“There are some encouraging signs that some of the upstream cost pressures that have driven inflation to date are now easing considerably, particularly around non-labour inputs,” Mr Oster said.
“Labour cost growth has also eased from its July peak, but with a very tight labour market the outlook wage pressure could remain a factor.
“Importantly, output price growth in key consumer facing sectors like retail and recreation and personal services also eased in March.”
Reflecting on the overall data, Mr Oster said the result suggests inflationary pressures are easing but remain a long way from the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) 2–3 per cent target range.
NAB’s latest monthly business survey comes just a week after the RBA opted to pause its monetary policy tightening cycle, holding the official cash rate at 3.6 per cent.
The halt, which followed 10 consecutive hikes since May 2022, aimed to provide the RBA with “additional time” to assess the impact of 3.5 per cent in cumulative increases to the cash rate.
“The board recognises that monetary policy operates with a lag and that the full effect of this substantial increase in interest rates is yet to be felt,” he said.
Governor Philip Lowe acknowledged global inflation “remains very high”, but said in Australia, the latest data suggests inflation has peaked and growth has slowed.
The statement also referenced recent market volatility in response to banking collapses in the United States and the demise of Swiss lender Credit Suisse.
However, governor Lowe noted the local labour market “remains very tight”, contributing to continued wages growth — albeit less pronounced.
As such, the RBA remains open to actioning additional interest rate hikes in the near term.
“The board expects that some further tightening of monetary policy may well be needed to ensure that inflation returns to target,” governor Lowe added.
“…In assessing when and how much further interest rates need to increase, the board will be paying close attention to developments in the global economy, trends in household spending, and the outlook for inflation and the labour market.
“The board remains resolute in its determination to return inflation to target and will do what is necessary to achieve that.”


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Today The Redmi K40 Game Enhanced Edition launch date teased through sources. The phone is launching on April 27th in China and sources confirm that is a gaming phone. The device is featured with glowing light around the lens according to the button function mounted on the side. Moreover, there is the text written on the Triple camera on both sides; Freezing and Speediest. It is indicating of an improvement in heat dissipation and performance as well.
Redmi Gaming Smartphone teaser is now up! –it will tagged as “K40 Game Enhanced Edition”.
» Samsung E4 OLED Display
» Center aligned punch-hole
» 144Hz Refresh Rate
» MediaTek Dimensity 1200
» 5000mAh + 67W fast charge
» Lifting Button
Unleashing this April 27 in China! pic.twitter.com/7ShwqPobit
— Mi Update Philippines 🇵🇭 (@miupdateph) April 20, 2021
Redmi K40 Game: In-Depth
According to sources, the company stated the phone with light body. Despite that, the phone will be having full hardcore gaming performance, control, audio, and video at an affordable price. However, the smartphone supports 67W fast charging with a monster 5000mAh battery. It is upgraded with MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC. The smartphone will have the same display as of Samsung E4 AMOLED screen, having a refresh rate of 144Hz.
The Redmi K40 Game will run on Android 11 based on MIUI 12.5, the model number of the device will be M2104K10AC. That’s it!


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Australia’s export of goods rose by 13pc to A$35.1bn in January 2021 compared to A$28.4bn in January last year, while its exports fell by 9pc from A$35.1mn in December 2020, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The country’s imports dropped by 7pc to $23.3bn in January this year from A$25.1bn during the same month in 2020 and it declined by 10pc from A$25.9bn in December 2020.
Export of ferrous ores rose by 53pc to A$4.9bn in January 2021 compared to January last year while it dropped by 10pc from the previous month. The main reason for such decline was drop in export of iron ore in January this year by 7pc to A$963mn from the previous month, ABS reported.
The country’s import decline in January this year was mainly driven by a 23pc fall in import of road vehicles and 16pc drop in import of general industrial machinery.