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In September we had American Express review the condition of UK plc amidst the arrival of a new £5 note and more, but this time around for October, we’ve got some highly insightful PwC business analysis to give British SMEs a good idea of what’s going on.
It’s part of our monthly SME Economic Corner feature, in which Real Business hears from an executive at a professional services firm to get their thoughts on the latest business developments and what the economic condition of the UK marketplace is.
But before some PwC?business investigations, let’s recap. The government’s Business Population Estimates report for 2016 was released halfway through October, at which time it was revealed there are now 5.5m companies in operation nationwide ?A new high and an increase of 97,000 year-on-year.
Business and energy secretary Greg Clark said: Britain’s businesses are the heroes of our economic revival and it is great to see the number of businesses rise by over a million since 2010.
We had to highlight the firm’s own study as PwC business research”found stores are closing at an alarming rate of 15 per day.
Here’s what Paul Lantsbury, senior finance partner at PwC, had to say about the UK marketplace.
(1) The government revealed this month that, at 5.5m, there are more British businesses than ever before. What do you believe the main driver of this growth has been?
This is potentially due to a number of factors. The traditional employment system has changed. The concept of having a job for life is rare these days and hence the lack (or perceived lack) of job security has resulted in more people deciding to set up on their own.
The advent of the internet has made it possible to buy anything from anywhere and sell to anyone anywhere, requiring a fraction of the overheads of traditional retailers and enabling businesses to reach almost any customer niche, wherever they physically happen to be.
Further technological advances such as cloud-based applications have given small businesses the same powerful tools that were previously only available to large firms, i.e. from website creation and payment processing to marketing and customer service.
The wider availability of consumer credit plus the accessibility to non-traditional forms of finance, such as crowdfunding, have made it easier to fund a startup business.
(2) Do you feel that the Brexit will prevent this figure from continuing to grow?
Not necessarily, based on PwC business?research around Brexit. Dependent on the type of new business, some will be more directly affected than others by Brexit, such as:
- Businesses which import either materials or finished goods are likely to find their costs will increase in the short term (dependent on the currency in which they are paying), although in the longer term exchange rates are likely to settle down
- Businesses which export goods into both into the EU and elsewhere will benefit from
the devalued pound because their goods will be cheaper for their customers
- Businesses in the UK tourism industry will benefit from the likely boom in visitors for the same reason
- Many types of business which rely on a local customer base are likely to be highly insulated from the short term effects of Brexit and hence the number of these businesses is likely to grow
- It is important not to forget that uncertainty also creates opportunity, and that many entrepreneurs will view Brexit as an opportunity to develop new products and services and new ways to service the UK and international markets profitability
(3) What advice would you have for business leaders that have pumped the brakes on plans to take the company forward as Britain moves forward with plans to leave the EU?
Brexit has resulted in some risks but has also resulted in opportunities which the best-run SMEs will be able to capitalise on. Whilst all businesses should proceed with caution, those that do nothing for the next two years the time it will take to formally exit the EU will be left standing by those innovative businesses which continue to adapt and take advantage of the changing political and economic landscape.
(4) PwC business research found, this month, that despite the volatile state of sterling, Brits are keen to book a holiday as a spending priority. Given that travel businesses look set to benefit from this trend, how can they stand out from rivals?
By helping customers to lock in the price now by encouraging them to pay upfront, and eliminating currency fluctuations in foreign supplier payments through forward contracts or keeping funds in a Euro/USD bank account.
(5) Which other sectors look to benefit from consumer spending?
UK tourism, as a result of the expected increase in overseas visitors due to the devaluation of the pound and the rise of staycation by Britons impacted by the volatility of sterling.
And as UK consumer spending remains relatively buoyant, UK retailers should also be boosted by overseas visitors. Additionally, those which trade particularly strongly overseas will benefit.
Elsewhere, the home improvement sector is likely to benefit by those opting not to sell their home due to the current uncertainty, instead focusing on improving their current home.
(6)?PwC business research also found that 15 stores are closing each day, amounting to 2,656 in H1 2016. Online is a main factor behind this pattern, so what can businesses do to keep doors open” Is there still a place for storefronts?
There is definitely still a place for bricks and mortar stores, but it is essential to adapt to effectively differentiate themselves from an online offering.
Physical stores can offer a much more exciting and engaging retail experience that can’t be matched online. Such stores are uniquely placed to build up a personal rapport with their customers, really showing off their personality and being able to deliver much higher levels of customer service than their online equivalents.
Building on the above point, customers crave interaction with others, something which is incredibly difficult to build online. The best stores will engender that feeling of community, which will result in customers coming back time and time again.
Whilst the internet is ideally placed to sell commoditised items and therefore primarily competes on price, physical stores are much better placed to sell local, unique, or differentiated products because consumers today as just as concerned about where, how and why those items are produced i.e. the story behind them as they are about anything else. The huge increase in the number of farmers markets is a case in point.
(7) The UK ranks eighth globally for research and development spend with £16.5bn last year. What are the most impressive innovations we ve seen from British businesses?
The continuing success of James Dyson vacuum cleaners, washing machines, air heaters/coolers and now hairdryers. And let’s not forget our invention heritage the internet (Berners-Lee), the television (Baird), the telephone (Bell), the chocolate bar (Fry & Sons).
(8) Just how important is it for our SMEs to keep investing in research and development?
This is critical because innovation creates demand which creates new market opportunities for SMEs. This in turn allows UK businesses to grow, employ more people and make a significant contribution to the UK economy. HMRC provides significant tax incentives for R&D expenses and the definition of R&D is much wider than you might think.


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Criminals accustomed to planting backdoors in software may be getting a taste of their own medicine.
Researchers at cybersecurity company Akamai Technologies have found a backdoor in a bootlegged version of 16Shop, a popular phishing kit marketed to criminals targeting Apple users. The data leaks to a channel on the encrypted messaging service Telegram, meaning a victim’s data could be stolen by anyone using the pirated kit, but also by anyone accessing the channel.
“Someone spent a lot of time and effort to build a really good toolkit and to get more money out of that” by planting the backdoor, said Or Katz, principal lead security researcher at Akamai, which published research on 16Shop on Tuesday. The phishing kit consists of hundreds of files, including login pages that spoof targeted platforms.
Industry analysts have been tracking 16Shop since at least last year, and have traced the kit’s development to an Indonesian person known as Riswanda or ‘devilscream.’ While Riswanda may have questionable operational security, the kit’s success has come from giving its users the ability to avoid detection. For example, 16Shop can block a list of IP addresses communicating with it in an attempt to avoid the prying eyes of security researchers.
16Shop has an estimated market price of $50, according to Steve Ragan, a security researcher at Akamai. While it is unclear how many victims the phishing gear has claimed, it is being actively maintained, sold, and reused by criminals, according to Akamai.
“It’s a true multi-level kit, running different stages for different brands, depending on the information the victim provides,” Katz and his colleague Amiram Cohen wrote in a blog post. “It has the ability to change its layout and presentation depending on platform, so mobile users will see a website tailored to their device, while desktop users see something better suited to their situation.”
The data that 16Shop can funnel from a user is manifold; a victim’s Apple credentials are the first in a series of potential targets. By activating other features, an attacker could try to phish users of Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo, according to Akamai. A third stage of the attack spoofs the “Verified by Visa” login page to try to swipe users’ credit card data. The attacker can also ask a U.S. target victim for a Social Security number. The perpetrator can transmit or store the stolen data at each stage, or save it all for one data dump.
For Katz, 16Shop is an example of the “industrialism of phishing” – a way for criminals to scale malicious lures that goes beyond the aimless spraying used in less sophisticated approaches. And for that reason, he said, phishing kits like 16Shop cannot be ignored.
“In a way, phishing is the first step in a chain of a much more sophisticated attack that can happen,” Katz told CyberScoop. “The most important thing we can do as a security community is to create much more awareness around those types of attacks.”

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Consumers in Australia increasingly use in-store technology, with 93% incorporating it into their shopping experiences. However, 80% express concerns about data security, specifically when entering personal details online or through in-store devices. These findings are part of SOTI's latest report "Techspectations: Consumer Demand for Digital Transformation in Retail" which delves into the evolving consumer trends within the Australian retail sector.
The study also noted that 44% of consumers face issues when using these technologies, with problems occurring with self-serve machines and Wi-Fi connectivity. Moreover, 77% of consumers stated that they expect full visibility over the status of their online order, highlighting the critical need for efficient supply chain management. The research suggests that Australian retailers are facing increasing pressure to integrate technology solution into their operations in order to retain consumer loyalty.
The report suggests a disconnect between the expectations of consumers for a seamless shopping experience and the reality of in-store technology capabilities. Whilst 93% of Australian consumers have used an in-store device, these technologies currently do not always deliver the expected experience. From poorly connected Wi-Fi to insufficient staff for problem resolution, as many as 35% of users indicated that these devices often compound the challenges of in-store shopping.
Michael Dyson, VP for Sales, APAC at SOTI, emphasised the pivotal role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in addressing these challenges. "Using AI for predictive diagnostics and proactive support enables retailers to address potential problems before they affect customer interactions,” he said. "AI's ability to combine data such as location, signal quality and speed with vital business metrics, including stock levels and shipment updates, ensures that the convenience and tailored experience offered by online shopping can be mirrored in physical stores."
Besides technological challenges, the report also threw light on security issues. About 80% of consumers expressed fears about putting their personal details online or through in-store devices, and 42% were worried about potential financial fraud, with 39% concerned about identity fraud. The report suggests a clear need for retailers to strike a balance between providing instant, seamless shopping experiences through in-store technology, and maintaining the security and trust of their customer base.
Looking to the future, Dyson highlighted the need to establish consumer trust, ensure data protection, and create integrated experiences that fluidly connect digital and physical retail spaces. He mentioned the important role of operational intelligence tools in granting real-time visualisation of retail operations and supply chains, and their ability to enable retailers to proactively address any issues that may arise. He stated, "The future of retail is not about rapid adoption of technology; it is equally about strategic planning and enhancing scalability through thoughtful implementation."


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Netflix is pushing back its plans to crack down on password sharing in the US until sometime before July. In an earnings report released on Tuesday, the streamer says it “shifted out the timing of the broad launch from late Q1 to Q2.”
Earlier this year, Netflix committed to cracking down on password sharing “more broadly” toward the end of the first quarter of 2023. While it did roll out new anti-password sharing rules in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain in February, these rules never reached the US.
Now, Netflix says that it’s “pleased with the results” of its paid sharing implementation in these four countries so far and that it has helped build up Canada’s paid subscriber base, which is “now growing faster than in the US.”
In these locations — along with some of the Latin and Central American countries where it first began testing password-sharing rules — users must pay extra if they want to share their Netflix accounts with people outside of their “primary” households. Netflix tacks on an extra $7.99 CAD (around $5.97 USD) per month per person in Canada, although the option to share an account with up to two other people is only available with Netflix’s Standard and Premium plans.
Delaying the launch of paid sharing should help Netflix implement some of the improvements it came up with while testing the feature outside the US, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters explained during an earnings call. The company says it wants to ensure that users can still access Netflix while traveling outside their primary households, as well as give them the tools they need to manage access to their accounts and devices.
“We felt based on those results, it was better to take a little bit of extra time, incorporate those learnings and make this transition as smooth as possible as we can for members,” Peters said.
This marks the first full quarter that lets us see whether Netflix’s ad-supported tier made any meaningful impact on the company. The plan was off to a shaky start when it was first introduced in November, but it started picking up momentum in the months that followed, according to research from data analytics firm Antenna.
Netflix is already making more money per subscriber with its ad-supported tier
Netflix added 1.75 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2023, making for a total of 232.5 million globally. As pointed out by streaming journalist Janko Roettgers, Netflix is already making more money per subscriber with its $6.99 per month ad-supported tier when compared to its cheapest ad-free tier. Netflix chief financial officer Spencer Neumann confirmed this during the company’s earnings call, noting that the company’s “pleased with our per member ad plan economics” while adding that it’s even “higher” than the company’s Basic plan without ads.
That’s likely why Netflix is doing more to attract customers to the ad-supported tier. Netflix says it’s bringing new perks to the plan starting with Canada and Spain, including 1080p video quality instead of 720p and the ability to watch two streams at once. The ad-supported tier currently doesn’t offer the entire library of content available on other Netflix plans, however.
As Netflix looks to offer even more than just on-demand content, the streamer saw success with its Chris Rock: Selective Outrage live comedy special, which landed on its list of top 10 shows during that week. Things didn’t go so smoothly during Netflix’s second attempt at airing a live event, however, as technical issues forced Netflix to cancel its Love Is Blind live reunion special altogether, leaving users only with the ability to stream the episode after it aired.
This is Netflix’s first quarter with co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters at the helm. In January, former Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that he was stepping down from the position after 25 years and is now serving as executive chair. It also marks a major milestone for the company as it finally shuts down the DVD business it was known for before becoming the streaming giant it is today.
Update April 18th, 6:36PM ET: Added additional statements and context from Netflix executives.


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Manufacturing sales rose for the fourth consecutive month in September, Statistics Canada reports, mainly on the strength of transportation equipment and fabricated metal industries. The 0.3 per cent rise was higher than economists had expected, and sales for the month had a value of $51.5 billion. This was down 0.2 per cent in constant dollar terms, which indicates that volumes of sales were were actually lower.
The transportation equipment industry includes railroad rolling stock, motor vehicles and aerospace parts and products. All of these experienced gains in September, with sales rising 1.5 per cent to $10.6 billion. Fabricated metal producers reported a 2.4 per cent increase in sales, worth $2.7 billion, mainly in architectural and structural metals.
The largest gains by province were in Quebec and Ontario. Ontario’s sales were up 0.3 per cent, coming to $25.1 billion, again mostly due to transportation equipment and fabricated metal industries.
Despite the relatively good news for manufacturers, a cloud hangs over the sector in the wake of the US election. With Donald Trump threatening to take a hard look at NAFTA and to scrap it altogether if he doesn’t like what he sees, Canada could be in for some hard bargaining. But one of the men who negotiated the deal on the US side back in 1993, Mickey Kantor, says the pact is terribly out of date and needs to be revisited. While he believes in NAFTA and touts the economic benefits it has brought to all three signatories, he says it was negotiated in a different time, a world where there was no internet, no cloud, no problem with data transfer.
The fact that the agreement is out of date does not mean it’s a bad agreement. However, reopening it could lead to more problems with perennial Canada-US irritants like softwood lumber, dairy products, and beef.
The importance of Canada’s trade with the US cannot be overstated, and one sector that has been critical to that export economy is manufacturing. According to the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, which represents more than 10,000 manufacturing exporters, Canada’s trade deficit in manufactured goods has “ballooned” in recent years. The group has therefore launched an initiative, Industrie 2030, to double manufacturing in Canada by 2030. This will require growing the labour pool, incorporating new technologies, fostering innovation and commercialization of new products, improving the business environment and increasing market access for Canada’s manufactured goods. That access, the group says, has dropped by 2 per cent over the past fifteen years.
Meanwhile, Ontario’s Economic Development Minister, Brad Duguid, has said it is too soon to worry about Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric about pulling out of NAFTA. According to Duguid, the value of trade between the two countries is $687 billion a year, half of that coming from Ontario. “Make no mistake,” he said. “They need us nearly as much as we need them.”
The fact that Trump was elected indicates that he “struck a chord” with those who feel disconnected from the economic growth that others are experiencing, regardless of the fact that unemployment in the US fell to just 4.9 per cent under Barack Obama. That disconnect between what people feel and what the economic indicators tell us is real, and governments need to recognize it, said Duguid. Some people have good reason to feel that they have been left behind, “because they have,” especially in the manufacturing sector. But it’s not realistic to think we can “roll back the clock” and return to “good old days” that no longer exist.


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An apparent phishing scam has targeted several people in Southwest Florida.
Victims told WINK News it appeared a little over $400 was missing from their Suncoast Credit Union account.
A Suncoast representative assured WINK News they have not been hacked and stated this is more than likely a case of phishing.
That’s when a con artist sends out a text or email in the hopes you will click and provide enough information that they can access your account. If you’ve been a victim, contact your bank and the Federal Trade Commission immediately.
The FTC also offered this advice:
Phishing emails and text messages often tell a story to trick you into clicking on a link or opening an attachment. You might get an unexpected email or text message that looks like it’s from a company you know or trust, like a bank or a credit card or utility company. Or maybe it’s from an online payment website or app. The message could be from a scammer, who might
- say they’ve noticed some suspicious activity or log-in attempts — they haven’t
- claim there’s a problem with your account or your payment information — there isn’t
- say you need to confirm some personal or financial information — you don’t
- include an invoice you don’t recognize — it’s fake
- want you to click on a link to make a payment — but the link has malware
- say you’re eligible to register for a government refund — it’s a scam
- offer a coupon for free stuff — it’s not real
Here’s a real-world example of a phishing email:
Imagine you saw this in your inbox. At first glance, this email looks real, but it’s not. Scammers who send emails like this one are hoping you won’t notice it’s a fake.
Here are signs that this email is a scam, even though it looks like it comes from a company you know — and even uses the company’s logo in the header:
- The email has a generic greeting.
- The email says your account is on hold because of a billing problem.
- The email invites you to click on a link to update your payment details.


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It was a big deal when Air Canada spun off its frequent flyer program. And it was probably a good idea for the time because Air Canada needed the cash. But times are different now, and Air Canada is in stronger shape. It makes sense it wants to control its own program.
Roughly 15 years after making its frequent flyer program a separate company, Air Canada is calling it quits, saying Thursday it will create its own program in June 2020, after the conclusion of its contract with the company that now controls it.
The loyalty program, called Aeroplan, is owned by an independent company called Aimia. After Air Canada creates its own new program in three years, Aimia will continue to own Aeroplan, though it’s not clear what the company will do with it after the relationship ends. Aimia also owns Nectar, a UK-based loyalty program, which allows consumers to collect points at various retailers.
Air Canada began spinning off its loyalty program in 2002, and it was fully independent by 2008. Selling it helped Air Canada raise cash during a difficult financial time for the airline — it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2003 — but in doing so, it lost control over some of its relationships with passengers.
Air Canada now knows less about its customers than many of its competitors, and unlike many airlines, it doesn’t have lucrative co-branded credit card deals, since those belong to Aimia. Credit cards are branded as Aeroplan.
The relationship has been confusing to customers, with many not understanding Aeroplan is part of a different company than Air Canada. A customer might have an issue with Aeroplan and be frustrated when Air Canada cannot solve it. Sometimes, a passenger flying on a reward ticket must call Air Canada for certain questions, and Aeroplan for others.
One vexing issue for passengers is frequent flyer status. Aeroplan has its own status program for its best customers, with three tiers — silver, black and diamond. But Air Canada has a similar program, called Altitude, with five levels. Air Canada’s program is not a traditional loyalty scheme, since Altitude elite members don’t earn miles from Air Canada toward free travel — they still get miles in the Aeroplan program — but they get perks directly from the airline for being loyal, including free upgrades.
Ultimately, Air Canada decided it wanted to control everything, in part to make messaging to customers more consistent. The airline has not decided what the program will be called, or exactly how it will operate.
In a statement on its website, Aimia said Aeroplan will operate normally until 2020, with customers still earning Aeroplan miles for Air Canada flights until the last day of the contract. It suggested the program will continue in some form after that, telling customers, “We are currently exploring a range of options beyond 2020.” It noted that the company fulfilled more than 700,000 non-air rewards last year, including hotels and car rentals.
Aeroplan has five million members, according to Aimia. They can book air travel on Air Canada, and all airlines in the Star Alliance.
When an Aeroplan member member makes an award booking for flights, Aimia pays Air Canada, an arrangement that makes Aeroplan, “Air Canada’s largest single customer and generates significant cash flows to Air Canada,” Aimia told investors recently.
Members may lose their ability to use Aeroplan miles on Air Canada and other Star Alliances when the contract ends, but that’s not a sure thing. It is possible Air Canada and Aimia will strike a deal to allow customers to use leftover Aeroplan miles for travel on Air Canada. But at that point, Aeroplan no longer will be Air Canada’s official loyalty program.
Over the years, Aeroplan has also become popular among travelers who never fly Air Canada. The program allows customers with points in many other loyalty programs, including American Express Reward Points, Marriott Rewards and Hilton Honors, to transfer those points to Aeroplan. After the transfer, consumers can use the points for travel on Air Canada or any Star Alliance airline.
Like most frequent flyer programs, Aeroplan also has credit cards. The program has deals with TD, CIBC, and American Express. In its statement, Aeroplan told customers, “nothing has changed” for credit cards — at least for now. “You can absolutely keep on earning Aeroplan miles and redeeming rewards as you normally do with your financial card and at our other partners,” it said.
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Photo credit: Just a few months after introducing a new livery and uniforms, Air Canada now says it will start its own frequent flyer program. Air Canada


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External Wall Insulation manufacturer Wetherby Building Systems has revealed that its 2012 turnover has risen to £61 million from £18.4m (2011).
The latest figures come on the back of three subsequent years of steady growth, with the company’s annual turnover now six times the £9.3m it achieved in 2009.
The increase in sales is attributed to the company’s involvement in governmental energy efficiency schemes CESP and CERT, since EWI solutions are one of the primary energy-saving measures included under the schemes, creating huge demand for effective EWI systems.
Wetherby is also seeing demand for its systems to be installed under ECO, the government’s latest energy efficiency scheme launched at the beginning of the year. Involved in some of the largest ECO schemes in the country, Wetherby has recently been selected to provide EWI solutions for a £20m project to renovate 4,700 homes for Watford Community Housing Trust, which is currently the largest ECO project in the UK.
Wetherby has also secured new supply chain deals with major energy companies and building contractors that have ECO contracts agreed, increasing demand for the company’s EWI systems.


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Years ago I spent some time in Second Life, taking my young son to visit a display of NASA rockets and historical sites from classical history, and for my own amusement wandering through a few Star Trek exhibits, and exploring the mostly empty landscapes.
My university bought an island, and I was briefly excited at the possibility of teaching my students to ditch narrated slideshows and instead create narrated 3D environments, in a grand virtual museum that would keep expanding as new students visited the work completed by previous students, and added their own annotations and commentary.
My request was denied.
Instead I was shown how to upload PowerPoint presentations so that my my avatar could join the avatars of my students in a virtual treehouse, where I could subject them to the same kind of slideshow I had been hoping to avoid.
I lost interest in SL, which this month celebrates its 20th anniversary. I remember it as an amusing diversion, and am baffled by Mark Zuckerberg’s huge investment in his very similar “Meta” project.
Zuckerberg recently announced 21,000 redundancies and hinted that all Meta employees may soon be required to return to physical offices, a rather self-sabotaging policy at a company committed to erasing the distinction between the physical and digital. As it sheds employees and investor focus impatiently shifts to the get-richer-quicker possibilities of generative AI, the vision fades. Almost every national newspaper has run a variation on the article: “Whatever happened to the metaverse?”
Yet Second Life – and its more modest vision of an Internet World – persists. This month it celebrates its 20th anniversary; a mobile version is set for release this year and its developer, Linden Lab, estimates the virtual world’s GDP to be $650m. According to the company, around 185m items are sold each year in the Second Life marketplace, with an average cost of $2 each, and 1.6m transactions – also including tipping, services, currency trades – occur every day. During the pandemic, new registrations soared, with close to a million visitors logging in each month and some building viable businesses trading in virtual goods and services. This is nothing close to the world-conquering figures Zuckerberg would need to justify his sunk costs, but Second Life has nonetheless endured as a profitable and, crucially, populated metaverse. —Guardian


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Earlier this year when the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, began sprinting around the world, public health officials told us that social distancing was the most effective way to slow its spread. We’re now many months into the pandemic, and social distancing, combined with mask-wearing, is still the best way to prevent new cases of the disease.
On March 20, 2020, governors on opposite coasts, Gavin Newsom in California and Andrew Cuomo in New York shut down their states, and other states soon followed. Only essential businesses, such as select retailers (grocery and hardware stores as well as pharmacies, for example) were allowed to remain open for business.
Depending on location, it was days or weeks before strict social distancing measures were in place (such as tape stuck six feet apart on store floors has helped shoppers keep their distance). However, shouldn’t there be a more exact and reliable way to gauge social distances in retail stores, gyms, workplaces, and other settings?
David Horsley, founder, and CTO of Chirp Microsystems, a TDK Group company, believes so, and the company is developing technology that does just that. Horsley will share the details in his keynote A Wearable Social Distancing Solution Based on Ultrasonic Time-of-Flight Sensors October 14 at MSEC 2020, SEMI’s first virtual MEMS & Sensors Executive. The event is running on October 6-8 and 13-15, 2020), and registration is now open.
What was the inspiration for providing Chirp’s ultrasonic Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensors for social distancing?
Companies started contacting Chirp about six months ago to inquire about social distance tags to measure the distance between people. They already knew about us because we’ve been supplying MEMS ultrasonic ToF sensors for virtual reality and robotics for several years now, so they knew we could provide the same kind of low-power range-finding accuracy for resource-constrained devices.
How are your customers using Chirp-based social distance tags?
They’re designing Chirp’s ultrasonic ToF sensors into wearable tags worn by workers in distribution centers, factories, and oil and gas production, to name a few areas. The tags alert workers when they’re closer than two meters from another worker to ensure social distancing.
Chirp’s ToF sensors also support contact tracing without recording any personal information, which is a major advantage over other contact-tracing applications from companies like Google and Apple. This is because those apps use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), which is already in your smartphone, the user has to enable location services. This records your GPS location, a privacy BLE is problematic on some other levels as well.
It only provides one-meter accuracy while Chirp’s ToF solution for social distancing delivers one-centimeter accuracy. Moreover, because BLE is only accurate within one meter, it cannot alert you in real-time that you’ve crossed that two-meter boundary to another person.
For example, imagine you’re in the checkout line at the supermarket. BLE can tell you that other people are in your general vicinity, but it doesn’t have enough resolution to tell you whether the next shopper is two meters away from you or only one-and-a-half meters away. Therefore, because it doesn’t use the air as a medium, it registers a lot of false positives. As a result, if you’re separated from a person by a partition or a wall, and you’re within two or three meters of each other, your phone’s social-distance app will register a false positive.
Are you talking with customers in other environments, such as college campuses and theme parks?
There’s a great deal of potential in those markets. For example, Professor Prabal Dutta’s group at UC Berkeley is working on a system that uses our sensors. His work also made us aware of some of the privacy concerns around contact tracing because universities are much more uneasy about student privacy than some private-sector companies are today.
What would you like MSEC attendees to take away from your presentation?
From the beginning, we believed that MEMS ultrasound was very versatile. We expected it to find a home in different types of applications because of its low power, small size, and ease of use (particularly since we provide the enabling software that makes it all work). With design wins in four to five vertical markets, we’re experiencing significant marketplace validation. We’re all hoping that COVID-19 will wind down in the first half of 2021. As the focus on social distancing begins to fade, we’re looking forward to building out our customer base in the markets we’re in today as well as gearing up to explore new markets.
Chirp Microsystems and TDK InvenSense are longtime members of MEMS & Sensors Industry Group® (MSIG), a SEMI technology community that connects the MEMS and sensors supply network in established and emerging markets, enabling members to grow and prosper. Visit us today to learn how MSIG membership can make a difference in your business.
About David A. Horsley, Ph.D.
David A. Horsley, Ph.D., is co-founder and CTO of Chirp Microsystems Inc., a TDK Group company. Horsley is also a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Davis, and is an adjunct professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Since 2004, he has been co-director of the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC), the National Science Foundation’s Industrial/University Collaborative Research Center (I/UCRC) focused on MEMS research. Horsley is also a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award, and has authored or co-authored over 150 scientific papers and holds over 20 patents.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily represent the views of AZoM.com Limited (T/A) AZoNetwork, the owner and operator of this website. This disclaimer forms part of the Terms and Conditions of use of this website.


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Budget in price, mainstream in aspiration.
Despite a shaky beginning, Turtle Rock's cooperative shooter is a worthy successor to Left4Dead.
After years trapped in licensing hell, the classic action-RPG is back. But does it still hold up in the days of Dark Souls?
Looks to develop healthcare tech.
Low-power sunlight-readable slates coming soon, says ex-OLPC tech company.
Pixel Qi has announced a new range of low-power LCD displays that could boost laptop battery life up to ten times - meaning 40 hours between charges.
October 14 2021 | 15:04
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| Kolkata |
Published: July 25, 2020 9:13:18 am
Chingari is not a new platform, unlike many others. It was there even before TikTok was banned in India. Chingari first arrived on Google Play store in 2018 and a year later on Apple App store.
For Chingari, the initial idea was to bring a Made in India TikTok rival and compete against the platform. “The ban was never in our business plan,” Sumit Ghosh Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Chingari told indianexpress.com.
Since the Tiktok ban, the homegrown short video platform has gained wide popularity in the country. It is one of the most popular Indian alternatives to Tiktok available right now with over 25 million downloads and close to 3 million daily active users.
Ghosh, however, claimed it’s not the TikTok ban but the anti-China sentiment and Atma Nirbhar Bharat that gave Chingari the “initial push”. “Make in India and Vocal for Local were key driving factors for us,” he added.
With millions of users now on Chingari, Ghosh is confident that even if the TikTok ban is lifted in the future users will stick to his platform because of the “unique” camera features it offers. “We have already made a mark and users know there’s an app called Chingari which is India’s Tiktok and has features like Tiktok. We don’t care if Tiktok comes back, if it does, it will be a fight between Indian and Chinese competitors,” Ghosh said.
Chingari refers to itself as a camera-first company. “We spent a lot of time building the camera of the app. If you look at other apps and their camera and compare them with the Chingari camera you will know the difference. Our camera is technically capable, there are editing tools, filters, and many more tools you don’t get elsewhere,” Ghosh added.
In the days to come, Chingari aims to provide creators with more and more tools to create unique content on the platform. The team is working on adding advanced edition tools — users can pick parts of a track or movie dialogue, add fast and slow track motion filters. “Our team is developing Indianised AR filters like dancing on Delhi metro and underground Kolkata metro. These Bharat-specific features we are building are going to be our USP in the days to come,” Ghosh explained.
The team is also working towards enhancing the UI and UX of the platform. “We want all our users coming from TikTok to feel at home,” Ghosh said.
“We provide video and audio editing tools to our creators backed by best-in-class machine learning personalised recommendation tech. This means once you log in to Chingari, it will automatically learn your taste of short videos and start recommending related content,” he highlighted.
Also Read: HiPi is a short-video step in Zee5’s journey to become Super app
Ghosh claimed Chingari takes content moderation very seriously “unlike Tiktok that doesn’t care about the kind of content being posted on the platform”.
When a video is uploaded on the platform it first goes to 100 users, and then 1000 and if no one reports the video, it goes to others. “We follow the Waterfall model and a video on Chingari doesn’t go viral immediately,” Ghosh said. The platform also has a computer vision algorithm in place that checks videos uploaded on the platform and flags objectionable ones before it appears on the feed. “We have a team of 4-5 people who look into content and alert users who post objectionable content,” Ghosh added.
The platform currently offers content in 11 languages and the company is in the process of adding more languages in the future to enhance the overall user experience.
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Majesco Entertainment Company announced today that BloodRayne: Betrayal will be released as a full-scale digital game on Xbox LIVE Arcade for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation Network this summer. Based on the best-selling vampire game franchise, BloodRayne: Betrayal stars the beautiful yet lethal dhampir anti-heroine as she fights and feeds in a bloody new hack ‘n slash adventure. The game is being developed by WayForward, the award-winning team known for bringing franchise favorites back to audiences in exciting new ways.
“It’s been a long time since Rayne captivated players with her bold mix of brutality and beauty, and fans have been hounding us to release another BloodRayne installment,” said Jesse Sutton, CEO, Majesco Entertainment. “We are excited to once again partner with the creative and committed team at WayForward to bring Rayne back. BloodRayne: Betrayal delivers the action-packed experience franchise fans have been waiting for in a digital format that’s also accessible for new players unfamiliar with Rayne’s over-the-top, stylized gameplay.”
BloodRayne: Betrayal delivers stylish 2D side-scrolling action with a deadly dose of bloodshed. Players become Rayne, the sexy and dangerous dhampir born from the union of vampire and human, blessed with extraordinary strength, speed and agility, but cursed with a thirst for blood and weakness to sunlight. Begrudgingly recruited by the vampire hunting Brimstone Society for one final mission, Rayne teams up with a mysterious new friend to stop an evil vampire massacre. Introducing new characters, gruesome environmental puzzles and a full arsenal of lethal weapons including Rayne’s signature arm blades, BloodRayne: Betrayal stays true to the fan-favorite vampire game franchise while incorporating challenging new enemies and surprises specifically designed for mature audiences.


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As gender barriers continue to erode, many women are no longer thinking pink. Instead, they are thinking blue — blue-collar, that is.
But many aspiring female plumbers and construction workers are facing an unexpected obstacle: limited choices of steel-toe boots for women.
To meet the growing demand for these performance looks, workboot brands are stepping up their offerings for this customer. Timberland Pro, for instance, has made the women’s market a priority with the fall ’17 launch of a seven-style collection and accompanying marketing campaign called Made for Women Who Make, which celebrates female tradespeople.
The collection, according to the company, was created in response to a Deloitte study analyzing data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Gallup. The report revealed an estimated 2 million manufacturing jobs will go unfilled due to a widening shortage of female skilled workers.
“People are retiring from the trades at a faster rate than they are entering, and we see women as a critical group to fill the skills gap,” said Bert Spiller, VP of global product creation for Timberland Pro. “In the trades, footwear is like a tool — it needs to perform. And men and women have distinct needs when it comes to fit, comfort and performance on the job.”
In creating the line, Timberland reached out to hundreds of female consumers for input and then analyzed what they wanted in work footwear. According to Cassie Heppner, director of marketing, positive reaction to the collection has signaled to the company there is a need and want by women to have product built for them.
In addition to footwear, Timberland has committed $20,000 to support the completion of a documentary, “Hard Hatted Women.” Scheduled for release this year, the film is about redefining roles in blue-collar construction trades and refocusing the unionized labor movement. What’s more, the company’s website now lists organizations that can help women get started in the trades as well as links to learning resources.
Keen Utility also connected with female workers for the design of its 2019 collection. According to Robin Skillings, director of global product, the brand relied on the sample group’s feedback for building the line.
“A woman’s gait and how they carry their body when carrying heavy equipment is very different than a man’s,” said Skillings. “It doesn’t do anybody any good to develop new product in a box. You need to make sure you are talking to the end user. What [brands] think might be a good idea, they might see as a safety hazard or not what they are looking for.”
Keen has been selling women’s product since its Utility business launched in 2009, with the category accounting for 10 percent of its business. “There is still a lot of safety footwear marketed to them that’s a man’s boot shrunk down,” said Skillings. “Women are looking for a [footwear] partner and product built for them to [deliver] a higher performance.”
Of course, better-suited offerings also help a brand’s long-term sales. According to Laura Biggie, national recruitment and outreach coordinator for the United Association of Plumbers & Pipe Fitters in Annapolis, Md., companies have the opportunity to build a loyal consumer following among women.
Biggie suggested brands show their products at key conventions. She said events such as the annual Women Build Nations Conference, which showcases companies promoting their products, is a prime place for workboot brands to connect with consumers. “They [can] get a lot of traction there,” Biggie said. “This is where you will get the loyalty of consumers.”
One new player catering to the female labor force is Stanley, which is offering three electrical-hazard styles for this spring. According to Mark Wachter, national sales manager for licensee GVS America, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected a 16 percent increase in construction jobs over the next 10 years, and women will likely be among those workers.
“While women are a small percentage of the construction industry,” the company is poised to take advantage of the construction boom and the role they will play, Wachter noted.
But catering to this burgeoning workboot market has its challenges. Chief among them: “Women are interested in trends. [After] one season, they are onto something else,” said Steve Edelson, owner of Edelson’s Army Store and Sporting Goods in LaGrange, Ga.
Similarly, at industrial footwear chain Shoeteria in Norwalk, Calif., store manager Cynthia Quinones, a 16-year veteran, has found that her female customers have one style demand: no pink.
“At the beginning, brands got it wrong,” she said of those that added pink and purple accents. “Women in these types of industries are not so girlie-girlie. They want a good work shoe that will work for them. They’re not going to be wearing pink at the job site, but a pair of Levi’s. It’s not easy to combine a pink boot with that type of uniform.”
Still, some firms are betting big on the future of this market — and getting women into trend-right looks that perform on the job.
“The female consumer is equally interested in the performance and aesthetic of the footwear and would prefer to see more variety in terms of design and function,” said Karen McSorley, brand manager at Kodiak. To meet these demands, for spring ’18, the company launched the Flex line for women, consisting of casual industrial looks designed with comfortable stretch uppers. Kodiak is also adding more female-focused styles to its Terra and Dickies labels.
Heritage workboot brand Red Wing is also paying attention to this market.
This year, its Red Wing, Worx and Irish Setter lines increased the women’s style count by more than 15 percent, spurred by healthy growth in the category over the past few years, according to Kristin Anderson, senior merchandising manager.
For spring ’18, the Worx line launched the Talus collection of hiker-inspired styles. “They’re low-profile and have great feminine lines,” said Anderson. For fall, the company plans to follow up with the Zinc line of steel-toe electrical-hazard styles.
“[The women’s workboot category] has been an underserved market for so long,” said Keen’s Skillings.
8 AllBirds, Keds and More Athleisure Spring Sneakers for Men and Women
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See the Comfort Shoes Oprah’s Wearing on the Cover of Her May Magazine
Comfort & Convenience Are Two Musts for Fashion Brands to Compete With Sneakers


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CVC Corp’s roadmap to develop into the primary Turistech in Brazil
In the first half of 2022 alone, the largest tourism company in the country invested BRL 105 million in digital innovations and new technological resources
In the second quarter of 2020, CVC Corp, the largest travel group in Latin America, set itself a challenge: to become the first Turistech in the country.
Among other requirements, the new concept required the company’s digital transformation to meet consumer needs and a data engineering and information processing structure different from the one CVC Corp had until then.
Just over 2 years and many news later, CVC Corp is on the way to fulfilling its objective. The company incorporated unprecedented digital innovations in the Brazilian market and made technology one of the pillars of its business.
“With the new approach, we no longer have just a transactional relationship with customers, but we have become much closer to them,” says Tulio Oliveira, Director of Technology and New Business at CVC Corp. “Now, we are a company focused on the complete tourist journey and not just for the trip.”
Oliveira recalls that the concept of Turistech is essentially anchored in the convergence of online and offline channels. To use the language of the new times: it is the strategy phygital permeating the activities of the CVC.
To take digital transformation forward, the company will use its more than 1,100 franchises to leverage the digital world – and vice versa.
The executive uses a practical example. Let’s say that a client searches the site for a package to Porto Seguro and for some reason – price, for example – does not complete the contract for the trip.
With the new features of artificial intelligence and machine learningthis search will become a lead of sales to a franchisee, who will contact the customer already knowing, in advance, what he was looking for.
“From there, the franchisee can make some adjustments to the package and present the customer with exactly what he is looking for, with a highly personalized offer”, says Oliveira. If the person says he cannot go to a CVC unit to close the package, the deal will be formalized in the same way.
The professional at the nearest CVC store will send a link to the customer through a WhatsApp message guided by geolocation, who will make the payment through the My CVC website or app, in an optimized shopping experience, identical to the one they would have in the store. This is Omnichannel at its core.
The project should reach its peak in the coming weeks, when the group starts to integrate all its operations in a single platform. “It will be a transformative step”, reinforces the executive.
The project should reach its peak in the coming weeks, when the group starts to integrate all its operations on a single platform.
In the first half of 2022, the digitization process has already consumed BRL 105 million in investments. Part of this amount was allocated to the acquisition of minority equity interests in startups such as VHC and Wetrek.
The artificial intelligence systems plugged into the operation made CVC a more agile company. In the last quarter of 2021, a concept called “dynamic pricing” was launched.
It is an artificial intelligence (AI) system that analyzes 400 variables, including real-time searches on the website, visits to stores and even prices charged by competitors.
From there, the AI calculates the best price to offer in that exact period and automatically adjusts it. Throughout the day, various calculations of possible values for the packages are made – hence the concept of dynamic budget.
To strengthen the Turistech concept, CVC Corp continues to invest in the convergence of on and offline channels to offer the right destination, at the right time, for each potential customer, that is, with personalized offers.
Using artificial intelligence and machine learning resources, the company has been improving the capture of data and information that came from the communication channels and points of contact with customers opened by CVC Corp.
Currently, the company has a base of approximately 30 million customers. And, with the technological advance that is taking place, CVC Corp’s systems have made it possible to segment and cross-reference the profile preferences of nine million customers to arrive at unique and personalized recommendations, which are sent daily by mechanisms such as emails, push messages and the like.
Two new projects are expected to make CVC Corp’s technological framework even more robust. The first, launched in July, is the credit marketplace that allows several financial players to offer travel financing to customers. The second consists of a loyalty program focused on the tourist experience throughout their journey, scheduled to debut by the end of the year.
“With these initiatives, we have become a company with a very strong technological bias”, says Oliveira. “This is great for CVC, but even better for its customers”, concludes the Director of Technology and New Business at CVC Corp.
Source: Brazil Journal


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Samsung has presented Milk VR, a video streaming system for Gear VR that can now be downloaded by owners of this device from the Oculus Store, and they have reached an agreement with the NBA so that we can live the games as if we were sitting at the foot of the court.
Starting next month, we will be able to use Gear VR to live NBA experiences. For the moment, they are still deciding what kind of content will be offered initially, but it seems pretty clear that the possibility of seeing a live game in a seat privileged will be very tempting for the millions of followers of this league basketball spread around the world, many of whom will have to settle with watching the games on television, but that dream with the possibility to live each day as if it were there.
The possibilities are endless: sports, movies, TV shows, live concerts and almost anything we can think of. The entry of a giant like Samsung will open many eyes and there is no doubt that throughout this year that we have just released a huge number of similar initiatives will be launched. Milk VR is the firm bet of the Korean giant in that direction.


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Hommerson Online Obtains Dutch License for Upcoming Online Business on Finnplay Platform
Hommerson Online, a well-established brand with a 125-year history in the entertainment industry, has received a Dutch license for its forthcoming online venture.
This development marks Hommerson as the fourth brand to launch on the Finnplay platform in the Dutch market, showcasing Finnplay’s strong record of compliance in the region.
Hommerson’s Entry into Online Gaming
Hommerson, a brand with a respected reputation and a long history in the entertainment industry, is set to venture into online gaming. The brand will offer a diverse range of gaming options, including Casino and Live Casino, with plans to introduce a Sportsbook in the future.
Hommerson’s CEO, Remco van den Berg, expressed anticipation for the online expansion, stating “We are looking forward to bringing the Hommerson brand online with an exciting offering of Casino, Live Casino and later Sportsbook. We appreciate the hard work and expertise of Finnplay’s team in helping us build the site and succeed with the licence application process.”
Finnplay’s Managing Director, Jaakko Soininen, emphasized their pride in supporting Hommerson in their new online venture. He said “We are proud to be supporting Hommerson in their new online business. Hommerson has a long history in the region of providing top quality and responsible entertainment, and our team will work hard to translate that experience online.”
This partnership reflects the ongoing growth and evolution of the online gaming industry, as established brands like Hommerson embrace digital platforms to offer a broader range of entertainment options to their customers.


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Xbox has officially confirmed the full lineup of former Xbox distinctive video games coming to Nintendo Swap and PlayStation consoles, a 7 days on from the official Xbox organization update, exactly where the appearance of these game titles was only teased.
In a new Xbox Wire weblog, Matt Booty, President of Activity Articles and Studios, verified Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded, Pentiment, and Sea of Thieves are the titles coming to Nintendo Change and PlayStation, with every arriving in the coming months.
“At Xbox, we attempt to make online games that inspire, entertain, and join gamers from about the globe,” Booty reported. “As a publisher and system we are dedicated to meeting players exactly where they are, by bringing extra online games, to additional men and women, and on far more devices … The studios that constructed these celebrated video games have drawn on their multi-system knowledge to open the worlds they established to even more gamers and communities.”
Study: Xbox Podcast reveals bold statements for future-gen console, verdict on exclusivity
As in depth, the online games will be arriving in the adhering to home windows:
- Pentiment will launch for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Change on 22 February 2024.
- Hi-Fi Hurry will be coming to PlayStation 5 on 19 March 2024.
- Grounded is coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Change on 16 April 2024. Multiplayer crossplay will be supported throughout all consoles.
- Sea of Robbers is coming to Playstation 5 on 30 April 2024.
Though the shock of the announcement was partly spoiled by rumours, that does not consider absent from the excellence of the picks right here. Pentiment is a great and elegant narrative secret that certainly deserves a fresh viewers. The identical can be said for Hello-Fi Rush, which rocks awesome rhythm mechanics.
Grounded and Sea of Robbers, meanwhile, will likely gain from a new inflow of players, as equally are substantially much more fun when you have got good friends actively playing by your facet.
You can discover additional about these approaching releases on the newest Xbox Wire blog site.


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Retro design may have been hot for a while. But as CarBuzz editor-in-chief Noah Joseph points out, they may soon become a thing of the past...just like the cars they were designed to emulate in the first place.
Not long ago it seemed the entire industry was going retro. Volkswagen had brought back the Beetle. BMW had brought back the Mini. Jaguar's XJ and S-Type were thoroughly retro designs. Chrysler was building the PT Cruiser and Plymouth Prowler, as Chevy was the HHR and SSR. Ford took a retro approach with the Thunderbird, and perhaps most relevant of all, the throwback-style Mustang. The theme had some merit, but as we flip the calendar to another new year, we here at CarBuzz can't help but wonder if the retro design phase is behind us.
The hypothesis rests principally on the Mustang. After decades of Fox-body and jellybean-shaped pony cars, Ford reached back into its archives for the design of the fifth-generation Mustang in 2005. And with some revisions here and there, that design is still evident today. But as has been widely reported, Ford is going a decidedly anti-retro route, previewed by the avant-garde Evos concept, with the sixth-generation Mustang that's due to launch in a couple of years from now. The question is whether the Mustang is a harbinger of things to come across the entire industry, or whether the competition will continue down the retro path even after the Mustang has galloped in the opposite direction.
One indicator could be found in Jaguar. Although its products in the 90s took on retro styling elements, the British automaker has since abandoned that design philosophy altogether. One look at the current XJ and XF and you'll immediately see how decidedly modern they look compared to the models they replaced. But Jaguar is not the only one. While BMW has done some retro concepts recently, its production cars are decidedly modern. Lamborghini similarly toyed with a retro Miura concept in 2006, but went a very different direction with the Aventador. In reviving the Alpine, Renault may have taken an old nameplate, but the design is thoroughly modern.
Though Ferrari has brought back old nameplates like California and GTO, it resisted the urge to give them retro designs as well. That, in the end, may be why the nixed the program to base a new Lancia Stratos on its platform. Even some of the retro pioneers, if you can call them that, have been getting away from entirely retro designs. Mini is adopting the reshaped headlamps of the Countryman across its entire range. Volkswagen has toned down the retro cues on its latest Beetle. And Aston Martin, whose entire range was designed to look like Astons of old, has been steadily mixing in elements from the modernistic One-77 in place of retro cues.
Of course some cars still hold fast to the retro theme. Toyota's FJ Cruiser and Mercedes' AMG, different as they are, both draw their styling from their forbearers. And Fiat, building on the success of the 500, has been expanding on the theme with new retro models. While Ford takes the Mustang in a new direction, the Dodge Challenger and Chevy Camaro still take their cues from their classic namesakes. But with both these models due for replacement in coming years, we wonder if Chrysler and GM will still go the retro route or follow Ford's lead along a new path. (Look for a new editorial from Noah Joseph on the first Wednesday of every month.)


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Nowadays, OnePlus is busy with the OxygenOS 13 stable update for its eligible devices, and the stable OxygenOS 13 has not reached all the eligible smartphones yet. Meanwhile, the company has revealed the launch date of the upcoming global software version of OnePlus. Now, the Chinese tech giant is planning to launch the OxygenOS 13.1 upcoming software version in H1 2023.
According to Gary Chen, head of software products at OnePlus, the OxygenOS 13.1 will launch in the first half of 2023 alongside the OnePlus 11 series, which is expected to arrive in the rising part of 2023; it is highly expected that the next flagship of the company will be launched, this will come with this upgraded Android 13 build.
Moreover, the @techdroider confirmed that the OxygenOS 13 would introduce new features that aim to focus on three basic areas of the operating system, which include Privacy, Multimedia, and Performance tuning.
In addition to the OxygenOS 13.1, The company also confirmed that the OnePlus upcoming OxygenOS 14 Custom user interface is under development. However, the company hasn’t shared any details about the upcoming OxygenOS 14 or what we can expect with the upcoming update.
On the other hand, OnePlus has confirmed that “selected devices launching in 2023” will now receive 4 OS updates and five years of “regular” security patches. For more information, click here.
OnePlus 11 Specifications [Expected]
OnePlus 11 should be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2 SoC. Furthermore, the phone could feature a 6.7-inch QHD+ AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate. The phone is expected to feature a triple camera setup, which includes a 50MP primary camera, a 48MP ultrawide sensor, and a 32MP telephoto sensor. It may pack with a 5,000mAh battery and offer 100W fast charging support.


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Pets At Home still on the up
THE pandemic pet boom that saw locked-up Brits embrace cats and dogs as family members like never before is still aiding the leading animal business in the UK.
But Pets at Home warned today that wider economic issues could hit its profits later, even in such a pet-friendly country as this one.
The company saw profits for the half year down 9% to £59 million, a challenge to new CEO Lyssa McGowan, who recently replaced the highly regarded Peter Pritchard.
Pritchard moved on after 11 highly successful years that saw the business become a household name.
Today McGowan said the pet care market was “resilient” despite a looming recession, something regarded as inevitable by many economists.
Pets At Home is seen as a key economic indicator since all studies show Brits are so passionate about their pets that they maintain spending on the animals even after they have cut meals for themselves.
Revenue in the half year to October rose 7% to £727 million, a sign that so-far pet spending is robust in the face of a cost-of-living crisis.
Sarah Riding, retail partner at law firm Gowling WLG, said:
“The increase in the number of ‘pandemic pets’ during COVID-19 gave a boost to the retailer
, and despite the current cost of living pressures, it has maintained strong growth. As consumers start to feel the economic pinch ever more so over the next few months, the company’s revenue may take a hit and investors will be wary of this eating into profits.”
McGowan said she has been learning how the company operates and thinks pet care will be a boom sector whatever the economic weather.
She said: “I am more convinced that Pets at Home is well-positioned to capitalise on an attractive growth opportunity in our structurally-growing pet care market, supported by our unique blend of products and services, deeply-embedded culture and expert, passionate colleagues and partners.
“Our first-half performance shows progress and resilience across the business.”
Pets At Home shares fell 12p, 4%, to 290p today on concern that the coming recession could even see people cut back on treats and food for their animals.
The stock is down 40% in the past year on exactly that concern.
Pets At Home said full year profit should be £131 million, in line with previous guidance to the City.


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Researchers at Tufts University analyzed 60 fruits and vegetables for their antioxidant capability -- and blueberries came out on top, rating highest in their capacity to destroy free radicals. All of the benefits of the blueberry are now being added to with a neat and modern technological twist, as scientists from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome announced that they developed a new type of solar panel made with the pigment of blueberries.
The research team concluded that they could make a solar panel that was completely devoid of all silicon, and the end result was a solar panel that is much cheaper and more efficient, because the panels are more flexible. In fact, future solar panels based on the blueberry pigment could even be made into transparent sheets.
The research team's technology is based on the idea that organic semiconductors could significantly reduce the cost of producing solar panels -- a main drawback of this alternative energy source. Solar panels that are currently in use have an efficiency rate of 15 percent -- which means that the electric energy produced is 15 percent of the solar energy captured.
Newer solar panels using only organic materials -- such as the pigments of blueberries -- are achieving an efficiency of 4 percent in the lab setting, but the hybrid panels created with a mixture of organic and inorganic material are already presenting efficiency rates of 10 percent or more, which is close to what current commercial panels offer.
The blueberry-enhanced solar panel technology may start competing with traditional solar panel technology soon if it continues to show the promise it has recently.


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THE 2020 AWARD WINNERS
Foxtel broadcasts a new culture of personalization.
As the most innovative and dynamic media company in Australia offering subscription TV, Foxtel knew they had to increase their appeal to customers by making engagement easier, more personal, and more mobile-friendly. They saw a unique opportunity to increase the insights and customer personalization with Adobe Experience Cloud technology. They used Adobe Target, Analytics, Audience Manager, and Experience Manager to initiate a “build, test, measure” approach to their marketing and customer-related initiatives.
Chelsea Kiko of McGraw Hill Education aces advanced customer engagement practices.
Chelsea Kiko is marketing operations manager at McGraw Hill — a learning science company that delivers personalized learning experiences to students, parents, educators, and professionals. By using Adobe solutions to understand what their customers wanted, Chelsea reshaped the routing strategy, getting marketing leads into the hands of sales reps more quickly. She developed a relationship with the sales team to create enhancements in routing that both serves the customers more quickly and increases pipeline.
Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand paves a new path to digital maturity.
Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand (CAANZ) serves as the premier, member-based body for accountants in their region. Among their branding presence, CAANZ maintained seven different web properties. They knew that their usage was high, but visitors were not finding what they were looking for. CAANZ used Adobe technology, the creation of data-first culture, and organizational buy-in to significantly grow the company’s digital maturity.
Westpac gets personal in a new age of digital banking.
As Australia’s first bank and oldest company, Westpac had to connect its customer experience across all channels. To do so, Westpac first had to bring consistency to the different digital tools being used across the business. They turned to the solutions in Adobe Experience Cloud, which allowed them to operate efficiently across multiple channels and experiences. Westpac reinvented their approach to personalization.
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reaches a wider audience.
NCMEC is a private, non-profit corporation whose mission is to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization. NCMEC felt that it was critical to adopt technologies that not only engaged people with desktop experiences but mobile and tablet experiences as well. With the help of Adobe Experience Manager, they created three new websites that met more diverse audiences with messages relevant to them. It’s transformed NCMEC’s ability to engage people, keep the country’s children safer, and bring more missing children home.
VMware gets sales and marketing on the same page.
VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable their 350,000 enterprise and SMB customers to thrive in the Cloud Era. They were in need of a single source of truth when determining if a lead qualified for a sales team follow-up. VMware used Marketo Engage to empower their marketing teams to execute their own marketing programs. The result is a system that empowers all teams at VMware, not just marketing, to realize revenue goals and continue to hit their numbers.
Refinitiv creates a new digital ecosystem to make life easier for their customers.
Refinitiv provides market-leading data for trading and risk management analytics, blending 160 years of Reuters heritage with the latest technology. They needed to reinvent the customer’s digital journey, align their offerings, and empower the financial community with a better online experience. They created a new component library system and increased the reusability of content and capabilities across their online properties, while Adobe Analytics provided a consistent data layer across their ecosystem. Lastly, they used Adobe Advertising Cloud to introduce programmatic advertising capabilities.
Rite Aid brings a new omnichannel focus to their stores at a personalized customer level.
Rite Aid Corporation, while a recognizable brand, knew they couldn’t stand still in a retail and B2C environment. They saw opportunities to modernize in ways to be more customer-centric, provide better services, offer better access to products and wellness brands, and deliver best-in-class content. Adobe Experience Cloud provided the right mix of tools and functionality to further the content-to-commerce mission of their strategy. By bringing Adobe Experience Manager into the mix in 2020 and other suites moving forward, Rite Aid aims to bring a more unified experience to the entire customer journey.
TELUS drives customers to their helpful mobile experience.
TELUS, one of the largest Canadian telecommunications companies, found that customers who adopted their mobile app were more likely to perform high value self-serve activities and were much more engaged than web users. TELUS created customer segments using Adobe Audience Manager to connect their online and offline data and used these segments in Adobe Target to serve personalized app download banners. They then used Adobe SDK5 and Adobe Campaign to send push notifications and in-app messages to drive user engagement. Since the effort to drive customers to the mobile app, TELUS has seen their average monthly app downloads triple over the prior year.
Rural King brings heightened convenience to rural communities.
Rural King started in 1960 and provides a broad range of food, seed, and other farm and home products. They found that they struggled with website performance issues, which caused them to lose online sales, damage customer trust, and impact relationships with suppliers. Using Magento Commerce, Rural King automated much of their order tracking, inventory management, fulfillment, tracking and reporting. They have changed the way their customers shop, combining the conveniences from online and in-store shopping as well as hybrid buy-online-pick-up-in-store options.
CenturyLink found a way to get more out of their customer interactions.
CenturyLink is a technology leader delivering hybrid networking, cloud connectivity, and security solutions to customers around the world. One of their biggest struggles revolved around multiple business units using technology that didn’t integrate or was redundant and under-utilized. They consolidated and optimized their digital systems, datasets, and marketing spend using Adobe Experience Cloud, while streamlining deployment of strategic product, campaign, and customer experience initiatives to the field using Adobe Target, Experience Manager, Analytics, Marketo Engage, and CenturyLink’s internal data lake.
The Experience Maker Executive of the Year
Nitin Sethi of IndiGo Airlines brings a better individual experience to all customers.
Nitin Sethi is vice president of digital at IndiGo, India’s largest passenger airline focusing on providing low fares, being on time, and delivering a courteous and easy experience. To address siloed systems, limited customer profiles, and omnichannel needs, Nitin liked the holistic approach that Adobe Experience Cloud and its platform offer. He and his team successfully launched the fare drop experience for their customers — which is the first in the industry for an airline. And now, with a 360-degree view of customers, IndiGo can drive personalization and understand repeat customers better.
The Experience Maker Team of the Year
Sprint’s Hive helps create more personalized experiences.
Sprint is an American telecommunications company that, prior to their merger with T-Mobile, was the fourth-largest mobile network, serving 54.3 million customers. Sprint’s challenge was finding the best way to serve personalized customer experiences. They used Adobe Target to capture anonymous behavioral data, and then started testing to improve performance. There’s been a 22 percent increase in overall order conversion rates and an increase of 14 percent in the conversion of brand-new customers.
The Experience Maker of the Year
Josh Mann helped Comcast break down data silos to personalize customer communications.
Josh Mann, director of marketing technology at Comcast, faced a tough challenge: customer data was fragmented across systems and stuck in channel-specific silos. Josh and his associates successfully adopted Adobe Campaign without business interruption, including data migration of 60 million prospects and customers. Now Comcast delivers journeys and campaigns that reach the entire prospect and customer base of over 60 million people across the entire customer lifecycle.


text: The mystery night, the seasonal event of Warhammer: Vermin tide 2, this year is bigger than ever, and now longer. Developer Fat shark announces the mystery night to extend another week to make sure the players have the chance to make the most of it. At the same time, when the mystery night was started this year, Fat shark also brought Grudge Marks to Warhammer: Vermin tide 2. While mystery night is a temporally limited event, Grudge Marks remain permanently in the game. Here is the official trailer to Warhammer: Vermin tide 2 — Grudge Marks and mystery night: Mystery and Grudge Marks are available on PC and consoles. In addition, Warhammer is playable: Vermin tide 2 from 4 to 7 November to Xbox for free.


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Full screen recommended.
"15 Signs A Massive Car Market Crash Is Already Upon Us"
By Epic Economist
"A devastating car market crash is now in motion, and it will trigger brutal consequences for buyers, sellers, and dealers. The U.S. auto market entered 2023 in a massive bubble, with average new car prices hitting an absolute record high while used car prices were almost 42% higher compared to 2019 levels. But now several factors are contributing to a collapse in the value of cars. At the same time, auto loan debt levels are shooting up and even borrowers with good credit scores are becoming unable to afford car payments and having their vehicles repossessed. A famous industry executive said this could lead the country to the next great financial crisis, and considering the pace at which this downturn is unfolding, it looks like his warning is spot on.
In February 2023, the average cost of a new car climbed to $50,000 in the United States, up from just $38,948 in December 2019. That marked the highest price for a new car in history, according to data compiled by Edmunds. At the same time, a growing number of consumers are having to stretch their budgets to afford a new vehicle. The average monthly payment for a new car is up 26% since 2019 to $718 a month, and nearly one in six new car buyers is spending more than $1,000 a month on vehicles, also a record. Other costs associated with owning a car have also shot up, including insurance, gas, and repairs. "With new car prices as high as they are, it's getting more and more difficult for most Americans to stomach these payments," stresses Ivan Drury, Edmunds director of insights.
After the pandemic broke out, automakers expected car demand to collapse, which led them to reduce output, and microchip manufacturers followed suit. With a shortage of new cars hitting the market in 2020, consumers started to use their stimulus checks and took advantage of low-interest rates to purchase used cars instead, driving up prices four times faster than the growth seen in the inventory of new cars. “The perfect storm of supply and demand created a temporary and unsustainable spike in used car prices, says Motley Fool’s analyst Sean Williams. A huge bubble was formed, but a reckoning has just arrived.
The repercussions of the car market collapse can throw the entire country in disarray. We must consider that the U.S. car industry is a significant contributor to the country's economy, accounting for millions of jobs and billions of dollars in revenue. A crash in this market can result in a significant economic downturn, leading to widespread job losses, bankruptcies, and a sharp decline in consumer spending. It can also disrupt the supply chain for many other industries. Given that car manufacturers rely on a vast network of suppliers to produce their vehicles, when the crash finally occurs, it will trigger a domino effect on these suppliers, leading to mass disruption in many sectors. When Musk says this could turn into a financial nightmare, he isn't bluffing. We should all pay very close attention to the next developments of this crisis because it will ultimately impact all of us. That’s why in today’s video, we compiled several facts that prove that the U.S. auto market is in huge trouble."


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OnePlus One continues to maintain the hype that it managed to create during MWC 2014 and the phone is all set to be unveiled completely on April 23, 2014. With less than a week to go, leaks are common and this time we have a leaked photo showcasing the Swappable back covers.
OnePlus has taken a different approach in introducing the phone to the world as it has announced a feature every week and the swappable back covers was one of its features, but they hadn’t showcased the back of the device then. But now, the back covers have leaked in full glory in what is rumored to be the press render.
The Image was a older one, but now they have upgraded the processor to Snapdragon 801.
There have been leaks about how the device will look and you can see that it see that in the leaked box content images right below.
The official specifications of the device so far are
- 5.5″ JDI 1080p display
- Snapdragon 801 (MSM8974AC – Quad-core at 2.5GHz)
- 3100+mAh battery (non-removable)
- Sony Exmor IMX214 6-Lens 13MP camera
- 5MP Front-Facing camera
- 3GB of RAM
- 16GB & 64GB Variants
- Stereo Speakers
- StyleSwap Covers – Multiple materials/textures
- Single-SIM card
- Global LTE
- GSM Only
- Something better than pre-orders
- No front branding
- 2 year CyanogenMod support
OnePlus have also posted a few camera samples from the OnePlus One on their forums and the photos look quite good.
In their forums, they have also posted a few screenshots of how the CyanogenMod will look on the OnePlus. You can check out the screenshots right below.


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- Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, says he's "not going to talk about bitcoin anymore."
- In September, Dimon called bitcoin a "fraud," while other major Wall Street executives have taken a more favorable or nuanced view of digital currencies.
- JPMorgan is already involved in some blockchain projects, primarily related to digital currency network ethereum.
Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said he is no longer going to discuss bitcoin after his comments last month that the digital currency was a "fraud" caused quite the stir on Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
"I wouldn't put this high on the category of important things in the world. But I'm not going to talk about bitcoin anymore," said Dimon in response to a question during the bank's third-quarter earnings call with media on Thursday.
JPMorgan CFO Marianne Lake then took over the conversation.
"We are open-minded for digital currencies that are properly controlled and regulated," she said, also discussing the potential merits of blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin.
Blockchain technology allows the immediate, secure transfer of funds anywhere in the world without a third party such as a bank to facilitate the transaction.
Dimon had the last word. "I was reminded that we move trillions of dollars a day ... digitally. It's not cash."
Dimon told an investor conference last month that bitcoin was a fraud "worse than tulip bulbs." His comments ran contrary to many on Wall Street who have begun to embrace, or at least experiment, with bitcoin and the blockchain technology it utilizes.
During Citigroup's earnings call Thursday, Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach said, "We think the area of cryptocurrency and digital currency is an area worthy of exploration." Gerspach said Citi's labs in Tel Aviv and Dublin are looking at digital currencies, cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
Bitcoin rose more than 8 percent to a record high of $5,231.28 Thursday, according to CoinDesk. Another digital currency, ethereum, traded mildly higher near $307. Many digital currency enthusiasts see ethereum as the foundation for the next generation of the internet.
JPMorgan is already involved in some blockchain-related projects. In 2015, the company began working on Quorum, an enterprise-grade transaction network focused on data privacy and built on ethereum.
The bank then became a founding member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance in February, and partnered with the developers of privacy-focused digital currency Zcash in May.


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Unilever aims for 100 percent recyclable plastic packaging by 2025Monday, February 20, 2017
U.S., Jan. 16 -- Unilever has announced its commitment to the use of only reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic packaging by 2025. Alongside this move, the company has called on all similar consumer goods businesses to help accelerate progress towards the circular economy. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, only 14 percent of plastic packaging used in the world actually ends up being recycled, with 40 percent littering landfills. It is estimated that by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans. Unilever has already committed to reducing the weight of its packaging by a third before 2020, and increase its use of recycled plastic content in the packaging by at least 25 percent by 2025, all as part of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. In 2015 it achieved its goal of sending absolutely no non-hazardous waste to landfills across its manufacturing operations. Unilever's CEO, Paul Polman, said: "Our plastic packaging plays a critical role in making our products appealing, safe and enjoyable for our consumers. Yet it is clear that if we want to continue to reap the benefits of this versatile material, we need to do much more as an industry to help ensure it is managed responsibly and efficiently post consumer-use. "To address the challenge of ocean plastic waste we need to work on systemic solutions - ones which stop plastics entering our waterways in the first place. We hope these commitments will encourage others in the industry to make collective progress towards ensuring that all of our plastic packaging is fully recyclable and recycled. "We also need to work in partnership with governments and other stakeholders to support the development and scaling up of collection and reprocessing infrastructure which is so critical in the transition towards a circular economy. Ultimately, we want all of the industry's plastic packaging to be fully circular." Ellen MacArthur added: "By committing to ambitious circular economy goals for plastic packaging, Unilever is contributing to tangible system change and sends a strong signal to the entire fast-moving consumer goods industry. Combining upstream measures on design and materials with post-use strategies demonstrates the system-wide approach that is required to turn the New Plastics Economy into reality."


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Dangote’s Pan-African drive will benefit AFCFTA-KACCIMA
….as KACCIMA honors Dangote
The interim Chairman, Management Committee of the Kano Chamber of Commerce Industry Mines and Agriculture (KACCIMA) Mr. Aminu Ahmed has said that the pan-African drive shown by the Dangote Group will benefit the Africa Continental and Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA).
Dangote has been consistent in the sponsorship of the Kano International Trade Fair.
Mr. Ahmed, who was speaking at the Dangote Special Day at the Kano International Trade Fair said the Pan-African company can drive the AFCFTA to success, through its presence in several African countries.
He said the industrialization of Africa is now paramount and that the Dangote Group should be rallied and commended for it belief in Africa.
SOLACEBASE reports that this is coming as the company was named the most consistent and supportive partner of the year.
He added that the Dangote Refinery will revive Nigeria’s status as the ‘Giant of Africa’.
The refinery is adjudged to be the Single-largest Train Refinery in the Word with the capacity to churn 650,000 barrels per day, BPD,
Mr. Ahmed added that the company is also helping Nigeria mitigate the ravaging poverty through job creation and corporate social interventions.
Also speaking, the representative of the Dangote Group Aliyu Da’u Aliyu, said the company is desirous of setting the tone for Africa’s Industrialization hence it positive stance on AfCFTA.
“We are optimistic that AFCFTA will offer the long-awaited opportunity and make it easier for African businesses to trade within the continent and benefit from the huge African market of over one billion people.
He congratulated the Council Members for their recent appointments, and for organizing the 43rd edition of the Trade Fair, said to host no fewer than 50 foreign companies and 1000 local companies.
Earlier, the Emirs of Kano, Alhaji Aminu Ado Bayero; Bichi, Alhaji Nasiru Ado Bayero; Karaye, Alhaji Ibrahim Abubakar ll, and Gaya, Alhaji Aliyu Ibrahim Abdulkadir as well as District Heads visited the Dangote pavilion with their separate occasions and commended the Group for its contribution to economic growth.
Dangote’s business interests include cement, sugar refining, salt and seasoning, tomato and rice farming, Infrastructure, Real Estate, Packaging, Logistics, automotive, Training Academy, Oil, and Gas, and fertilizer, among others.


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Netflix has been a leader in helping consumers cut the cable cord. Its video streaming content gives users an option other than paying an expensive cable bill for many channels they might not watch, at a monthly price generally much higher than Netflix's.
Yet one major reason why many consumers can't completely abandon cable is that Netflix doesn't offer news, sports, and other live or daily content. Why is that the case?
No news, no sportsNetflix offers unlimited commercial-free content for one low monthly price. To do so, the company must limit is own expenses. One major cost is licensing fees for the third-party content it shows. These licensing agreements are one reason Netflix has been relatively slow to expand further internationally, and also why the company is focusing so much effort on producing original content.
There are a number of reasons for Netflix's relatively restricted video offerings. It's not just that it would be too hard to get the licensing sorted out for more content options, or to get the technology in place for streaming live or nearly live content.
The company won't offer news, sports, user-generated content, or porn for that matter, because these options are outside its focus. For those offerings, Netflix knows that linear TV serves customers well. By trying to focus on too many options, Netflix wouldn't be able to serve its key audience as well as it does. Instead, Netflix emphasizes its core competency of being an inexpensive provider of movies and TV series.
In its long-term vision document, the company states that:
Limited by scope, butexpansive in its contentSo while Netflix has a limited streaming offering restricted to movies and TV series, it is working hard to remain the best option for its focused segment. Netflix is spending billions of dollars on creating original content.
Netflix original content was first seen as a potential disruptor to the big media companies with itsHouse of Cardsoriginal series. Then,Orange Is the New Blackalso did extremely well. Netflix has other hit series under its original content belt, and is preparing to offer much more material to subscribers in the near future.
"With each original, we learn more about what our members want, about how to produce and promote effectively, and about the positive impact of originals on our brand," according to Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer.
In 2015, Netflix plans to release 320 hoursoforiginal content, which is threetimes as much as in 2013. Of course, Amazon.comand other video streaming companies are working to catch up to Netflix with their own shows. Still, Netflix is by far the streaming video leader when it comes to original content, with 31 Emmy nominations in 2014.
The focused model worksLast summer, Netflix raised its prices for regular U.S. consumers. While a drop in subscriber growth in the second half of the year was originally attributed to the price increase, management during its latest earnings call attributed the development to other factors, the biggest one being that Netflix is already such a huge player in the U.S. market with 40 million domestic subscribers. Now that it's saturating the market, Netflix will try to add higher value in other ways (such as with better technology and more original content).
Therefore, it appears Netflix has strong pricing power, despite only offering movies and TV rather than becoming a stand-alone service for consumers who might also want it to offer news, sports, and other content. Long term, it appears Netflix made the right call in remaining so focused.
The article Why Is the Netflix Streaming List So Limited? originally appeared on Fool.com.
Bradley Seth McNew owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool recommends Amazon.com, Apple, Google (A shares), Google (C shares), Netflix, Sky, and Starbucks. The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com, Apple, Google (A shares), Google (C shares), Netflix, and Starbucks. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Copyright 1995 - 2015 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.


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The solution package will help them reduce cost
Cisco’s Korean business has launched a new tech solution package aimed at local small and medium enterprises (SME), the company said Thursday.
Dubbed Cisco Designed, it will allow SMEs access to the company’s machine learning, artificial intelligence and cloud solutions.
They will be able to build and operate these solutions more conveniently, the company added.
Cisco Designed comes with optimized solution package, a new app that will help in reduction of cost and network complexity as well as Cisco Meraki for security.
저작권자 © THE ELEC, Korea Electronics Industry Media 무단전재 및 재배포 금지


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Powerful officials in Qatar have called on Fifa to prevent the sale of beer in all of the eight World Cup stadiums just days before the huge event is set to kick off.
Fans at home will have no trouble enjoying a few drinks while watching England play in the upcoming matches, but those travelling to Qatar to watch the football may find themselves restricted as a result of demands made by Qatari leaders in the last few hours.
It comes after officials from the highest the Qatari state demanded earlier this month that tents selling and advertising Budweiser, a big sponsor of the World Cup, must be moved to less 'obtrusive locations'.
Fifa and Qatar had previously reached an agreement that the sale of alcohol would be allowed in a security perimeter outside venues, but not inside the stadium bowls themselves. However, footage shared online on Sunday showed members of staff moving tents bearing Budweiser's logo to new locations.
Now, with just two days to go until the tournament kicks off on Sunday, 20 November, it is expected that fans will be told they can't buy beer at any games.
Qatar is said to have put more pressure on Fifa to perform a U-turn on its beer policy for the event just last night (17 November), so at the moment the only place that fans can confidently expect to get a beer will be at the Doha fan parks.
The demand is thought to have come from the Al Thani royal family in Qatar, which typically restricts the sale of alcohol only to certain hotels in Doha.
If Fifa decides to adhere to the demand, it could be that the only place selling alcohol inside stadiums are the hospitality boxes, which will set fans back by a cost of $22,450 (about £19,000) per match.
Hospitality suppliers have insisted they will not be affected by the restrictions on alcohol, according to The Times, with advertising for the suites promising a 'selection of drinks available according to custom and preference; soft drinks, beers, champagne, sommelier-selected wines and premium spirits'.
Budweiser pays approximately $75 million (£62m) as a sponsor of the World Cup, and if it is not allowed to sell its beer or advertise its product at the event then Fifa could find itself in breach of a multimillion-dollar contract.
LADbible has reached out to Fifa for comment.Featured Image Credit: Qatar/Alamy Stock Photo/PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo


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All three Mad Italian Gelato Bar locations have been shuttered. Blaming the poor economy (and perhaps the polar vortex?), owner Eli Turkienicz said it all came down to dollars and cents: "It was losing too much money." Turkienicz may have some new ventures on the go but it's too early to tell. For now, a moment of silence for the pizza cone.
· The Mad Italian closes its doors after sane moment of epiphany [Toronto Life]