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DETROIT, MI- It’s 12:30 p.m. on a Monday, and the OnStar Command Center staff inside the Renaissance Center is monitoring about a dozen television and graphic screens for problems and emergency alerts.
There are usually about a handful of people in the glass command center, but there are thousands across the globe working with them to ensure that the system is working correctly and that subscribers are safe and satisfied.
On this particular September day, the main screen inside the command center shows OnStar representatives have responded to more than 38,000 calls and “interactions,” including dozens of emergency responses.
Terry Inch, OnStar’s new chief operating officer, said since General Motors Co. introduced OnStar in 1996, customer interactions, which range from emergency response services to turn-by-turn directions, have continued to grow.
In 1997, OnStar had 72,897 interactions with customers. Now, the wholly-owned GM subsidiary is at about 500 million interactions so far this year.
Inch, who was appointed to the position earlier this month, has big plans for the service, which some have questioned its future as new in-vehicle technologies such as “infotainment systems” become more main stream.
“I see it tightly integrating,” Inch told MLive.com in an interview inside OnStar’s headquarters. “Part of the way we’re looking at this thing is we will create an environment where you can bring your digital life into your vehicle and your vehicle into your digital life.”
Part of that expected change is to integrate the OnStar system, which has remained in the rearview mirror for more than a decade, into the new infotainment systems, according to officials.
Inch, as well as GM president of Global Connected Consumer Mary Chan, declined to comment when the integration is expected to take place.
“This is kind of the platform for the next piece of growth,” he said. “We’re going to be able to bring features and services to life bigger, better, faster and stronger with the marriage of what people call ‘infotainment’ right now.”
OnStar already released its mobile “RemoteLink” app, which gives owners the ability to access real-time data from their vehicle and perform commands like unlocking doors remotely.
The company also plans to continue expanding OnStar globally. Earlier this month, officials announced OnStar will offer its security, safety and navigation services in Mexico starting in 2013, with plans of future expansion.
OnStar is already offered in the U.S., Canada and China. Its largest market continues to be the U.S., but China has had a rapid expansion since its introduction in 2009.
Inch said OnStar has a five-year strategy expansion, but was not willing to divulge any particulars just yet.
“There’s a trajectory for one, two, three, four, five years,” he said. “So stay tuned.”
In Mexico, OnStar will offer its automatic crash response, 24/7 emergency services, stolen vehicle assistance, vehicle diagnostics, RemoteLink mobile application, turn-by-turn navigation and remote door unlock on some 2014 Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac brands. Inch said the automaker eventually plans to offer OnStar on all of its vehicles sold in Mexico.
In 2011, GM sold about 169,000 vehicles in Mexico. Through the first seven months of this year, the automaker has sold 99,791 units in Mexico, an 11 percent increase from the same time period a year ago.
OnStar currently has 5.5 million U.S. subscribers; 428,000 in Canada; and nearly 500,000 in China.
Inch said he doesn’t see the system ever not being a subscription-type service, but there could be more options, such as one-time payments, paying as you go or just integrating the cost into the vehicle.
“I think there will be some other options going along the way,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to be necessarily just in one swim lane.”
In the U.S., OnStar subscriptions are $18.95 a month or $199 a year for the “Safe and Sound” package, which does not include navigation. With navigation services, the system costs $28.90 a month or $299 annually.
The OnStar system is part of each vehicle’s rearview mirror. When launched originally in the U.S. in 1996, the system was primarily used for telephone calls, emergency response and operator-generated directions. It has since expanded to offer an array of safety and convenience features.


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Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) wants Congress to hold hearings to, as her office put it, "investigate reports of unsafe toys coming from China."
There's no need for much investigating. The government's own figures clearly indicate that of the 72 toys and children's clothing and jewelry items recalled so far this year, 69 came from China. (See list below)
Korea, the Philippines and Bangladesh contributed one each. One item, an Evenflo infant seat, was manufactured jointly in the U.S. and China.
The numbers come from a ConsumerAffairs.Com analysis of the recalls conducted so far this year by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Recalls are listed on the agency's Web site and in the ConsumerAffairs.Com recall section.
Recalled items this year are similar to those in previous years -- children's clothing with dangerous drawstrings, toys with parts that can become detached and choke infants and tiny magnets that can cause intestinal obstructions if swallowed.
This year's recall roster also includes several items of children's jewelry that contain excessive amounts of lead, as well as toys painted with lead-based paint.
Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee – whose jurisdiction includes product recalls – requested Senate action in analyzing the underlying concerns of toy safety, China’s role and what can be done to safeguard children from potentially harmful products.
Klobuchar and others were especially alarmed by the June 13 recall of 1.5 million Thomas and Friends trains and railroad sets.
The expensive train sets were found to be coated with possible poisonous lead paint. Also recalled because of lead paint were sets of toy drums and a toy bear. An infant wrist rattle was recalled because of a choking hazard.
“As a parent of a 12 year-old and as a Member of the Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Insurance and Automotive safety, I am alarmed by these statistics and concerned that the risks our children face in playing with these unsafe toys are not being adequately addressed,” Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar said increased congressional scrutiny over Chinese imported products, including toys, is "essential to ensure the enforcement of existing consumer safety-related regulations and to address any voids or gaps in the law."

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Celebrating 15 years in business is no mean feat and for independent Sunshine Coast toy store Absolut Toys, this milestone is something to be proud of.
Relocating to the region from Germany in 2006 to run Sunshine Castle at Bli Bli, Stephan Uhrig and Birte Benecke-Uhrig soon discovered the quality European children’s toys they so fondly grew up with were not as readily available for their then-six-month-old son.
“When it came to the big move, Stephan made sure some of his childhood toys had prioritised space in the shipping container when we moved here,” Ms Benecke-Uhrig says.
“He wanted our son to play and enjoy the toys that had been kept from his own childhood and eventually be handed down to future generations.”
Realising a gap in the market, Mr Uhrig began sourcing castle-themed toys to sell in Sunshine Castle’s gift shop and it soon became clear the family was going to specialise in selling quality toys at affordable prices.
“In 2010 the opportunity arose to lease a separate shop at the old fire station in Maroochydore and Absolut Toys came to life in its own brand-new home,” Ms Benecke-Uhrig says.
Absolut Toys began stocking a large selection of beautifully crafted wooden toys, educational toys and eco toy brands and Mr Uhrig, who is locally known as the toy guru, would make annual trips to the world’s biggest toy fair in Germany to ensure children had access to the best toys here.
“Those that had discovered Absolut Toys became fans and appreciated the vast range, fair pricing, personal service and advice that we were able to give them,” Mr Uhrig says.
Over the years, the local store has faced the global financial crisis, competition from larger convenience and chain stores, as well as the recent COVID pandemic, and despite all odds it remained a local institution.
Eventually the online world took off and the difficult decision was made to close the Maroochydore store.
“We got ready to move our toy shop back into our castle and early in 2018 Absolut Toys moved back into its womb, it’s kingdom and its heart space at the castle,” Ms Benecke-Uhrig says.
“Early 2020 – the world changed with COVID-19. When the castle, as a tourist attraction, had to shut its doors there was suddenly a new need. ‘Give me a puzzle and I will have a happy family in lockdown’ was the general consensus amongst the community.
“The phone, messenger and the Absolut Toys website were inundated with requests to buy puzzles, any puzzle.”
Ms Benecke-Uhrig says she is pleased to see a shift back to traditional toys and shopping local, and hopes this trend will continue into the Christmas season.
“While the future is unsure still, traditional, educational and quality toys are more in fashion again than ever,” she says.
Absolute Toys is at Sunshine Castle Bli Bli or visit absolut-toys.com.


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VANCE, Ala. — After 22 years spent growing firs for families to decorate with ornaments, Billy and Katie Gandy are having a bittersweet holiday season as they prepare to retire their Christmas tree business.
“We wanted to get out while we were still able to sell off the trees we had left,” said Billy Gandy, 71. “But we've enjoyed it. These trees have added years to our lives.”
The Tuscaloosa News reports (http://bit.ly/TDODIs ) the couple started Gandy Christmas Tree Farm in 1990 and sold their first mature trees four years later. Their farm has been a holiday staple ever since. The Gandys would sell up to 500 Christmas trees every season until they decided to scale back five years ago. Where they once grew trees on 20 acres, they cut back to about 3 acres.
Now the couple's grandchildren are grown and there's no one around to help out with the work. Billy Gandy said tree farming can be a tough job. Each fall he would plant a fresh set of trees in the ground and trim them three times a year to get the desired fullness. The trees also require spraying every 21 days to prevent fungus from growing. Getting a tree ready to cut takes four years.
“He didn't realize just how much work it would be,” said Katie Gandy, who would prepare for the holiday business by making wreaths to sell along with candles and other knickknacks in the Christmas shop the couple would set up in the garage.
The Gandys said they might ease into growing a different crop, such as blueberries. But the husband-and-wife farmers said they will miss they part they've played in so many families’ Christmas traditions.
“Our best memories are of the grandkids running around the farm, seeing how much they enjoy it,” Katie said. “We haven't even quit yet and we already miss it.”


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The Laws Around Cannabidiol and the League: Will Gronkowski’s Partnership Sway the NFL?
When legendary NFL tight end Rob Gronkowski announced last summer that he was teaming up with Abacus Health Products and its CBDMEDIC brand and would advocate for professional football players to be able to use cannabidiol (CBD) for pain relief, the three-time Super Bowl champion was technically retired.
Fast-forward eight months. Gronkowski has come out of retirement to join former teammate Tom Brady with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, making his relationship with the world of cannabis somewhat complicated.
After all, marijuana and cannabinoids still aren’t legal under the NFL’s substance-abuse policy.
Restrictions were eased greatly when the league finalized a new collective-bargaining agreement with its Players Association in March. The league’s annual marijuana testing period used to run from mid-April to mid-August, but that four-month window was reduced to a two-week stretch at the start of training camps (which typically launch in late-July). Meanwhile, the threshold for a positive test was raised from 35 nanograms of THC per milliliter (ng/ml) to 150 nanograms ng/ml. That’s three times higher than the 50 ng/ml threshold utilized most typically by American workplaces that have testing policies in place.
What’s more, players can no longer be suspended for failed tests. They can eventually be fined, but the initial reaction from the league will be to allow a board of medical professionals to review the offender’s case to determine if treatment is needed.
That was a strong indication that North America’s richest and most popular sports league is at least trying to keep up with shifting laws and mentalities regarding the use of cannabis, which remains illegal under federal law but is now legal for recreational use in 11 states and decriminalized in 16 more.
Still, active NFL players are not currently permitted to use CBD. And while rules regarding personal sponsorships are murky, the NFL still forbids its players from privately endorsing alcoholic beverages, despite the fact alcohol is broadly legal and is not a banned substance under the CBA.
Logic would indicate the league would at the very least disapprove of one of its most famous active players publicly plugging products related to cannabis, and yet when you go to the CBDMEDIC website, the first thing you see is a giant picture of a smiling Gronk looking blithely at a range of products containing CBD.
But if anything, Gronkowski could further push the NFL to at least reconsider its stance on said products, which are usually non-psychoactive and generally contain only trace amounts of (if any) Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
The World Anti-Doping Agency removed CBD from its list of prohibited substances two years ago, while hemp — from which CBD can be extracted — was legalized in the United States as part of a 2018 farm bill.
Gronkowski is wildly popular and extremely likeable. He’s well-positioned to get away with publicly challenging the NFL on its arguably antiquated stance on CBD.
If the NFL were to eventually embrace CBD, it could be a harbinger for even more growth in an already-booming industry which is projected to reach $20 billion in sales by 2024, according to cannabis market intelligence and consumer research firm BDS Analytics.
What’s the incentive for the NFL? Beyond potential business partnerships, accepting CBD could quite simply enhance the league’s product. Healthy, happy players are logically more likely to continue to produce on the field.
It’s thought that the majority of players use marijuana recreationally already. How many would prefer CBD to highly addictive opioids and related painkillers for recovery? You’d have to imagine they’d at least appreciate the option to use a natural alternative that is closely related to something they’re already likely to be familiar with.
“During my career, I pushed myself while recovering from nine surgeries and countless injuries,” Gronkowski said in the Abacus press release announcing their partnership. “I was in near constant pain and needed to make a change. Once I retired, I looked for better and more natural ways to recover and discovered CBDMEDIC. These products have helped me safely manage pain better than anything else I’ve tried. Building on my own experience with CBDMEDIC for pain, I’m inspired to work with the company to introduce new CBD products to the market.”
The league could compel Gronkowski to end that relationship, or it could decide to look the other way on a relatively benign issue. How it deals with Gronkowski’s connection to CBD could be an indication as to whether more progress is on the horizon.


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WATERLOO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – August 16, 2012) – A new program from Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM)(TSX: RIM) can save enterprise and government customers on the costs of upgrading to BlackBerry® 7 smartphones while also helping with the responsible recycling of old devices. RIM announced today that it is working with e-Cycle LLC to offer a new trade-up and recycle program to customers in the United States.
Under the program, enterprise and government customers can get a rebate of up to $100 per device purchased when they trade in an older BlackBerry smartphone for the purchase of a new BlackBerry 7 smartphone(i).
“RIM is pleased to work with e-Cycle to help customers upgrade their older BlackBerry smartphones to the latest BlackBerry 7 models, while also helping to facilitate responsible recycling,” said Richard Piasentin, Managing Director for the U.S. at RIM.
“This program provides BlackBerry customers with a cost effective way to upgrade to the latest BlackBerry smartphones and helps reduce the impact on the environment by diverting electronic waste from landfills,” said Christopher Irion, e-Cycle founder and CEO.


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IBM Puts Smart to Work at CES
- Business transformation zones for Live, Work, Play and Impact
- Quantum computing model with digital journey
- Media Center included live interviews daily
- Included in “Best of CES” by Event Marketer Magazine
Disruptive innovation is changing every aspect of how we live, work, play and impact our world. How will you navigate and inspire your business in a world of multi-cloud, 5G, and AI?
At CES, our challenge with client IBM was threefold:
- Demonstrate IBM’s relevancy to consumers through tangible innovations spanning industry applications to shared problems
- Grow and progress existing relationships through IBM’s legacy of trusted leadership
- Drive press coverage of IBM in the consumer space and extend stories beyond CES
With the message “Let’s Put Smart to Work,” IBM’s presence at CES 2020 was a prime opportunity to showcase how IBM technology is changing the way the world lives, works, and plays.
With that in mind, the 60×130 foot experience was organized into zones that focused on business transformation solutions, as well as demonstrating IBM’s impact in areas of Quantum computing and Tech for Good leadership.
A welcome desk greeted attendees and a media center provided a broadcast backdrop for live interviews and discussions with IBM subject matter experts, which took place daily throughout the show.
The remaining space was broken out into Live, Work, Play and Impact zones, where over a dozen sensory experiences allowed attendees to learn about innovative solutions that IBM is using to bring the competitive edge to clients across all industries, and across the world.
Attendees could hear, learn, and taste first-hand how IBM Foodtrust and blockchain are working to transform the way we think about food and the supply chain. Activities included seeing how a celebrity chef creates cuisine with trust and transparency, and refueling at the coffee bar while learning how IBM is impacting the world’s supply chain for ethically sourced coffee.
A showcase for empowering the future of work and what is possible today. IBM Vital Awareness helping the Fashion Institute of Technology lead in areas of manufacturing, health, and fitness. AI-guided work, informing and instructing methods of addressing manufacturing defects. All part of a new era of productivity.
The Cloud & AI Engine activation helped attendees learn how IBM can help IT leaders modernize their core business applications and data architectures using next generation technologies and industry expertise. With the click of a button, a series of colored spheres were launched into the machine, highlighting IBM key differentiators through a combination of analog elements and voice-over storytelling.
From bringing data and analytics from the Wimbledon Championships to life through art, to leveraging the latest machine learning techniques to turn ESPN Fantasy Football data into insights, to teaming up with Samsung to amp up the stadium fan experience, IBM demonstrated the breadth and depth of technology solutions impacting the way we play.
The IBM Quantum experience featured the show stopping quantum computer model, where attendees could see the inner workings of how an IBM quantum system works. Alongside this dynamic model were interactive, digital storytelling modules demonstrating IBM’s role in the future of technology and problem-solving.
Through a coordinated and expansive presence in the conference lobby, Convention Center Expos Hall, and even private meeting rooms, each space offered a unique experience with specific purpose and coordinated IBM experience journey.
The experience was even featured in a Best of CES article by Event Marketer Magazine.


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Specsavers is usually the pin-up for in-house advertising.
The scale of this very simple, yet utterly heartfelt of surprises is to be applauded.
Dune London launched its Spring Summer 2018 collection on Valentine's Day with a film that captures the behind-the-scenes buzz, excitement and chaos of a fashion shoot.
Dorset Cereals is encouraging young urban families to slow down for breakfast.
Digital estate agent Yopa continues its "Seriously, why not?" campaign to introduce its new "No Sale, No Fee" plan, in which consumers don't have to pay until their house is sold.
Actress Alicia Vikander and director Niclas Larsson team up again for a Vogue original short film exploring what happened after the Tomb Raider star found that existential, coin-operated fortune-telling machine in 2016's Magic Diner.
It can be tough out there for single people on Valentine's Day.
Thatchers Cider builds on its "What cider's supposed to taste like" campaign with 16 episodes bringing to life the farm and family facts behind the brand.
Erotica fashion brand Coco de Mer is collaborating with Sotheby's on its Erotic: Passion & Desire Auction for the second year running.
Leo Burnett London
McDonald's McCafé introduces the flat white to its menu in another ad mocking pretentious coffee culture.
Adam & Eve/DDB
Waitrose is running a tactical print and outdoor campaign for Valentine's Day with a clever play on words.
Just in time for Valentine's Day McCain has released a warm film that opens with the question, "When it comes to love, what's normal?"
Publicis London's Dave Monk and VCCP's Matt Lever review ads from the British Army, Toyota Aygo, Tinder, Trainline, NSPCC, KFC, Cadbury, Bulk Powders, Birds Eye and The Guardian.
Wieden & Kennedy London
Nike's joyful film celebrates the passionate, enterprising and fiercely competitive young Londoners who shape their city.
Toyota's beautifully shot film for the Olympics is a stirring tale of human strength and determination.
New York Bakery Co. has released a limited edition Bagel Beer to celebrate National Bagel Day on Friday (9 February).
An advertising creative team believe Valentine's Day messages are outdated and even sometimes inappropriate.
Renault made an animated film for Valentine's Day that tells a comical love story about a postman fighting off attacks from a noise-sensitive dog.
David Beckham fronts a global campaign calling upon leaders to prioritise the fight against malaria.
Leo Burnett London
McDonald's is celebrating 50 years of the Bic Mac by reminding customers of their first times tasting the burger.
Fashion brand Rag & Bone's strange yet mesmerising short film plays with visual experimentation and features an eclectic group of talent from the worlds of music, dance and cinema.
Boost, a new pay-as-you-go energy supplier, introduces Boost Lee, a character inspired by martial arts legend Bruce Lee.
Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Absolut employees get totally nude to prove just how transparent the vodka brand's process is.
River Island's SS18 campaign mocks outdated and irrelevant labels given to people based on their gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or religion.
To mark 100 years since women got the vote in the UK, Channel 4 asked three 100-year-old women to introduce programmes and explain what has changed in their lifetimes.
Legendary commercials director Jonathan Glazer is behind Squarespace's fifth consecutive Super Bowl ad.
British Heart Foundation
The British Heart Foundation beautifully animates hearts to celebrate the lives saved due to the organisation's research.
Families around the world will celebrate Chinese New Year this month, but many people will have to work through the holidays.
Aldi shoppers achieve Olympic feats in the supermarket's campaign for the upcoming Winter Games.
Subway serves up idents with a space and science theme for the brand's sponsorship of The Big Bang Theory.
Lucky Generals gets its first shot at the Super Bowl in an ad for Amazon promoting smart-home device Alexa.
Adam & Eve/DDB
Lloyds Bank wants to encourage more open conversations about mental health in the campaign that won Channel 4's Diversity in Advertising Award.
A 30-second film and one day in which to shoot it - what could possibly go wrong?
To correct the misunderstanding that blind children have different aspirations to their sighted peers, the Royal Society for Blind Children commissioned artwork by artist and poet Robert Montgomery, in a campaign by Crispin Porter & Bogusky.
Ancestry's new ad has an emotional message for Brexit Britain: "We may be leaving Europe, but Europe will never leave us."
Publicis Singapore made a four-minute film for P&G's Vicks that is based on a true story of a young man whose life is transformed by an abandoned baby.
Users are advised to not try these product demos at home in OnePlus' wacky new ads.
Martin Freeman is flung into a spy thriller in the latest Vodafone ad launching the brand's range of smart devices, V by Vodafone, which includes car, pet and bag trackers.
Specsavers introduces Jason Shutter, a hapless and myopic paparazzi photographer, in a shift of its "Should've" campaign.
Apple debuted two Animoji music videos featuring songs from nominated artists at the 60th Grammy Awards.
Adidas continues its Cannes Grand Prix-winning "Original is never finished" campaign to inspire the next generation of creators.
Ford's new ad campaign celebrates darkness.
Virgin Trains wants to bring out its cheeky personality in a national campaign comprised of various 10-second ads.
Channel 4 has teamed up with Wallace and Gromit creators Aardman and StudioCanal for a bespoke and contextual ad campaign starring Stone Age characters from the animation company's upcoming feature film Early Man.
Director Francois Rousselet returns for Diesel's "Go with the flaw" sequel, this time telling a romantic story about the power of imperfections and individuality.
BBC Sport's ad campaign to launch the 2018 Winter Olympics is a dark and bold animation that captures the tournament's intensity.
A sassy and confident girl boss pitches Robinsons' new Fruit Creations to grown-ups in the Britvic brand's first ad campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi.
Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Audi is known for picking great music for its ads - usually remaking classic songs such as Stephen Sondheim's Send in the Clowns - but its latest spot by BBH London has no soundtrack.
The Guardian's website redesign and tabloid debut met with some lukewarm response, so the newspaper has ground to cover with its ad campaign for the launch.
A "bootylicious" car comes to life in Churchill's TV ad promoting its Vandalism Cover insurance offer, which protects customers if their car is vandalised.
Travellers will go to all kinds of lengths to wrangle a seat upgrade in Emirates' new marketing campaign.
The celebrities who front Bulk Powders' funny online films weren't afraid to make themselves look silly.
The charity War Child UK is challenging conversations around the mental health and wellbeing of children affected by war with a film that follows a small robot struggling to fit into everyday life, bond with its mother and make friends.
Subaru's ad for the XV model shows a boy who is sceptical of his dad's new car, in the first work by MullenLowe since winning the account last year.


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The doors have officially opened to customers at Marshall Motor Group’s “monster” £12 million Toyota and Lexus dealership in Bristol.
Customers were today (December 6) welcomed into the Lexus side of the purpose-built multi-million pound facility on Hayes Way, Cribbs Causeway, Bristol, less than a fortnight after AM revealed that the project was nearing its completion.
The Toyota side of the dealership, which will also accommodate a staff training academy, is set to open on Thursday.
Paul Dillon, Marshall’s Toyota and Lexus franchise director, said: “The Bristol market is a key territory for the Toyota and Lexus brands, and this investment represents another step in our growth strategy, working closely with our valued brand partners.
“With Toyota and Lexus in such a strong position, backed by their extensive focus on hybrid, plug-in and green technology, we are delighted to represent both brands in a territory that we know very well.”
Construction at the new Marshall retail site – located with easy to access Hayes Way, close to The Mall shopping village – started under Motorline ownership back in October 2020.
Marshall acquired £700m turnover Motorline in October and is now itself now the subject of a takeover bid from BCA, cinch and WeBuyAnyCar owner Constellation Automotive.
The opening of the new Toyota and Lexus dealership in Bristol completes the relocation of Lexus from Pioneer Park, Whitby Road, and Toyota’s move from Gloucester Road.
Dillon said: “Marshall are one of the biggest motor retail groups in the UK and these new facilities will also create additional jobs across sales and service departments.
“We are confident and pleased to be investing further with Toyota and Lexus and growing our partnership in this way, expanding our sales volumes, whilst providing our customers with the very best new facilities to visit and enjoy.”
Marshall chief executive Daksh Gupta, who described the Bristol site as a “monster” in comments made to AM, said: “The team who delivered the new facilities have done an outstanding job, creating something unique and incredibly special.
“Marshall Motor Group prides itself on delivering an industry leading customer experience and with our significant investment in this location, and the Toyota and Lexus brands, we are confident our colleagues and customers will enjoy a truly outstanding environment.”
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Would you ever sell your second hand smartphone or PC without first scrupulously scrubbing all trace of personal information from it?
What about your connected car?
Charles Henderson, a researcher with IBM, recently warned in a blog your smartphone may remain ‘connected’ to your old vehicle for years after it is sold, and called for vehicle manufacturers to take action to ensure owners are disconnected when they sell up.
Henderson said the connection persisted despite him going to great lengths to wipe his data from the vehicle: “I deleted all my personal information from the car, reset the phone book, removed all connected devices and reset the garage door opener.”
The researcher added his efforts were complemented by his car dealer, which checked all personal data was cleared.
While ostensibly a peculiar quirk of the connected car market, Henderson noted the issue raises questions regarding the broader Internet of Things (IoT) market, including whether auto makers are deliberately developing IoT “functionality for the first owner because that’s where their revenue comes from?”
The nub of Henderson’s argument was he could still see his old vehicle in the connections menu of his replacement car, which was from the same manufacturer. While this availability doesn’t seem to have granted Henderson the ability to do anything so drastic as take control of critical functions on his old vehicle, he was clearly concerned about the security implications of his data effectively being left on the old car – and indeed the flip side for the vehicle’s new owner.
Henderson’s warning comes amid growing discontent with connected cars.
Consumer insights company J.D. Power this week said technology related problems are contributing to worsening reliability in vehicles. The company’s 2017 Vehicle Dependability Study noted technology issues impacted US drivers’ perception of reliability for the second year in a row, with the most troublesome area being so-called infotainment systems (which J.D. Power refers to as audio, communication, entertainment and navigation, or ACEN).
Some 22 per cent of the 35,186 original owners of 2014 model vehicles quizzed by the company cited problems with ACEN systems compared with 20 per cent in the 2016 survey. Bluetooth was a flash point for the third year in a row in the 2017 report, with the main issues surrounding pairing and connectivity, and “built in voice recognition misinterpreting commands.”
The company also noted a growing number of vehicle owners are having problems with the battery, though it is unclear if the issues are related to the rising levels of technology and electronics being fitted to vehicles or a decline in battery quality.
In terms of autonomous or self-driving vehicles, the potential problems go beyond whether the technology actually works.
Proposed UK government legislation highlights changes required in the insurance industry to ensure autonomous vehicles are protected regardless of whether a person or the car is in control, BBC News reported. The suggested laws would also make drivers liable for any insurance claims in the event they have tampered with built-in software or failed to install updates mandated by their insurance policy, the news outlet said.
A separate BBC News report highlighted there are other problems to be overcome in auto-makers’ push to create self-driving cars, including delays in the vehicle relinquishing control to real-life drivers when the limits of on-board technology are reached.
The report cites such problems as a reason Ford, for one, aims to develop fully autonomous vehicles, skipping stages which would see self-driving technology gradually introduced into its vehicles – effectively taking the person out of the equation altogether.
Many of the reader comments posted to the article also focused on the issue of who is to blame in the event of an accident, while one user noted the drive to autonomy will simply mean driver error is replaced by software failures.
The editorial views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and will not necessarily reflect the views of the GSMA, its Members or Associate Members.


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Austin, Texas-based startup Kerv raised $12 million in a growth round in May led by venture capital firm Trinity Capital Inc, bringing its total to $30 million since inception in 2017.
The startup, whose clients include Macy’s, Lexus and Apple, offers technology that makes video ads buyable. Kerv uses machine learning and AI to recognize items featured in advertisements, match items to a brand’s products, and insert links that people can click to purchase the product.
Kerv’s technology works with digital video,
like TikTok. CEO Gary Mittman said his company also has a product that will allow advertisers and publishers to integrate product placements into TV shows. He’s banking on this product taking off as media companies like NBCUniversal and Amazon roll out the ability to digitally insert product placements.
“We’ve invested five years and millions of dollars building a platform that provides an innovative new solution for show monetization,” Mittman said.
Mittman said Kerv will use his new funds to expand his operations and media buying teams. The company will also use the money to improve a product placement feature that recognizes each show’s subject matter.
Here are the main slides from Kerv’s growth round investor game.


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Mon Jun 10, 2013 - Cotton prices in India are expected to trade higher this week due to a decline in spot supplies and good demand from millers, while concerns over lower acreage and firm global prices are also seen supporting prices. Domestic cotton supplies have declined as the season has ended and farmers are busy with planting. The sowing of cotton has begun and it will pick up pace with the spread of monsoon rains, traders said. India's monsoon recorded higher than average levels in the first week of the four-month season, weather office sources said on June 6, reflecting a timely onset and progress so far over the southern states. "Cotton is seen extending gains due to concerns over lower acreage.
Farmers in Maharashtra and Rajasthan are seen shifting to soybean and guar for better returns," said Chowda Reddy, a senior analyst at JRG Wealth Management. The local currency hit a record low on Monday. The weakness in the Indian rupee has made Indian cotton, as well as cotton yarn, competitive in the global market. The Indian rupee is at an all-time low, making cotton and cotton yarn exports competitive, while firm global prices are also supporting the natural fibre futures in India, Kotak Commodities said in a research note on Monday.
The June cotton futures contract ended 1.37 percent up at 19,220 rupees per bale of 170 kg each on the Multi Commodity Exchange. Sales from government reserves, however, were seen weighing on the sentiment.
The Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) had offered to auction 58,200 bales on Monday, according to a notification on its website. In New York, the most active July contract on the Intercontinental Exchange was up 0.04 percent to 84.89 cents per lb at 1325 GMT. China, the world's largest cotton importer, is looking at changing its aggressive stockpiling policy which traders say has distorted prices and supplies. (Source: Reuters)


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Our newest store in Eatontown, NJ, store #180, opened its doors this morning at 5am! This store marks the closing of a our current store, store #10, around the corner and the opening of a brand new location for our customers to visit. The store team from store #10 has gladly relocated to a newer and bigger space.
Yesterday, the store orientation went off without a hitch and the ribbon-cutting ceremony welcomed old and new customers alike to our newest location. CHEK out some of the photos from yesterday’s ceremony and, if you’re in the area, stop in and visit Store Leader Steve Furey and his team!


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For the month of October, Nissan’s global production rose to 363,227 units, an 11.6% increase when compared to October 2009 -- an all time record for October. As Japan’s government subsidy program for environmentally friendly vehicles is about to end, production has decreased by 12% year-on year to 87,215 units.
Meanwhile, production outside Japan has increased by 21.9% to 276,012 units. Production in the US has increased 1.4% year-on-year to 47,280 units while production in Mexico rose by 27% to 52,276 units because of the rise in demand for all models, especially the Tiida.
UK production increased 1.7% year-on year to 40,355 units. Spain’s production increased 97.3% from October 2009 to 11,178 units. And in China, production rose by 17.0% year-on-year to 84,686 units. In other regions, production was up 92.5% year-on-year to 40,237 units.
Another record for the month of October was set in the global sales of Nissan products. It also got an 11.4% increase compared to the same month from last year to 319,330 units.
Japan sales had gone down to 33,626 vehicles, including mini-vehicles, a 24.1% drop from the same period last year. Because of the termination of the government subsidy for eco-friendly cars, the overall vehicle registrations in Japan had fallen by 30.6% year-on-year to 25,369 units.
Sales outside Japan went up to 285,704, a 17.9% increase over the same month in 2009 -- an all-time record for October. Nissan's exports also increased 12.4% year-on-year to 63,749 units.
In particular, exports to North America rose by 27.4% to 39,560 units, because of the rise in demand for the new Juke, Infiniti G series and Rogue. Exports to Europe rose by 17.6% to 5,935 units, compared to October 2009. This is attributed to the rise in demand for models aimed at the Russian market.


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If you have been holding back for a 'pay as you go' iPhone 3G, then you will be glad to hear that O2 plan to release a Pay & Go iPhone 3G in the UK on 16th September.
The new iPhone 3G 8GB will cost £349.99 and the 16GB version will be a mere £50 more, priced at £399.99, inclusive of unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi for the first 12 months after activation.
After the first year, users will continue to receive unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi for a cost of £10 per month.
Available as of 16th September, from The Carphone Warehouse and Apple stores.
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Robert Rowling of Omni Hotels: “I don’t want this in my hotels!”
In an October 2000 New York Times article, Omni’s president, Jim Caldwell, said that his company’s decision to remove the sex-videos would cost it an estimated $1.8 million per year. The company stated that “[t]he anticipated loss in revenue demonstrates the company’s commitment to the issue. Omni Hotels has already removed adult magazines from the gift shops at its owned and managed properties.”
American Family Association led these efforts with Omni, together with a group of other nonprofits, including our organization, National Center on Sexual Exploitation (formerly known as Morality In Media).


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Their wait ends today. Brands can upgrade their pages include Timeline immediately, although they do have the option to curate their timelines for 30 days before having to do so.
No ad to show here.
The social network claims that the new Facebook Pages “help businesses, organisations and brands share their stories and connect with people.”
TechCrunch’s Josh Constantine reckons that “Timeline should inspire users to spend more time browsing Pages and reading their feed stories”.
The feature could work particularly well for brands with long histories. Think about it, a big news outfit like the New York Times could populate its Timeline with digitised versions of its biggest stories, all the way back to its founding in 1851. In fact it’s already done pretty much that.
MTV’s page meanwhile could remind users of a time when it actually played music.
While Facebook Timeline was initially pitched as “telling the story of your life”, brands must have been considered in their implementation.
Facebook has already made Timeline attractive to some companies by including them apps from some 60 new media partners, such as Foodspotting, Foodily, Ticketmaster, Pinterest, Rotten Tomatoes, Pose, Kobo, Gogobot, and TripAdvisor.
The new apps allow users to update their timelines with activities relevant to them. Pintrest or Pose users, for instance, can use the apps from those companies to post pictures of their favourite items onto their timeline.
The creator of Timeline, Facebook product manager Sam Lessin told TechCrunch that Facebook is “doing this because consistency matters. Organizations have identities too. A lot of brands are’t great storytellers, but the best ones are. All barands should aspire to that level with their Timeline. It weaves together the best stories from the brand and the best stories from your friend about the brand.”


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With an video retail industry trade show in Las Vegas this week, it's not surprising we're seeing a flurry of news involving the Blu-ray and HD DVD movie formats. Today, Warner Home Video has finally announced its first wave of Blu-ray titles, shipping on August 1: Training Day and Good Night, and Good Luck will be priced at US$28.99, while Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang and Rumor Has It will sell for $34.99. All but Good Night, and Good Luck are already available in HD DVD.
Even as the company announces its plans for Blu-ray, yesterday Warner joined in the announcement of the formation of a new marketing blitzkrieg by backers of HD DVD. Armed with $150 million for a marketing campaign, yesterday marked the formation of a HD DVD promotion group that's based in the U.S. and driven by supporting studios Warner, Paramount, and Universal, and by technology companies Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, and Toshiba. The goal of the marketing surge, which includes a 10-city tour and an advertising campaign with the slogan "The Look and Sound of Perfect" (with a corresponding, eponymous Web site) is to raise awareness of HD DVD at retail, and give the HD DVD format an edge heading into the holiday season.


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TIA is holding its Network of the Future conference Tuesday through Thursday in Dallas. The Arlington, Va.-based trade association represents high-tech equipment manufacturers. The association has about 500 member companies including names such as Ericsson, Cisco, Intel and Apple. TIA develops standards for the telecom industry as well.
“The biggest challenge is, how do we as an industry handle this unprecedented demand for data and data driven services — i.e. video — and how it is impacting the consumer experience,” Seiffert said.
By 2016, online video will account for almost 90 percent of all Internet traffic, according to projections made by networking company Cisco.
“The Internet is being driven by rapid innovation,” Seiffert said. “At no time in history have we experienced this kind of change taking place among our customers, our members."
The conference will include keynote presentations from some of the biggest names in the information and communications technology industry, including AT&T Chief Technology Officer Krish Prabhu, former Apple chief evangelist Guy Kawasaki and Panasonic CTO Todd Rytting.


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Speaking to Money Management, Ignition Wealth's chief executive, Mark Fordree said the "low touch, low-cost, high-tech model" will help make quality advice easily accessible to the public by providing a robo-advice platform that can be viewed across smartphones, tablets and online channels.
"For the last six or seven years, our core technology business here at Ignition has been providing tools primarily to the industry funds," Fordree said.
"We [were] looking at the opportunity of bringing an automated advice engine into the Australian context and that's exactly what Ignition Wealth is."
Ignition Wealth's mandate is to "transform the investment advice market" by providing a unified financial advice platform for risk profiling, asset allocation, trades and customer identification.
According to Fordree, almost three out of four Australians currently lack access to financial advice because they are deemed "uneconomic clients" by the industry.
"You can walk into a bank or a product manufacturer and they'll happily sell you their own product, but if you want to get independent, unbiased advice, you really need somewhere north of $250,000 to invest before a traditional adviser will have any interest in talking to you," he said.
"Rather than addressing the market gap, traditional advisers and banks continue to lift the hurdle, setting the minimum investment point at an ever rising level."
With Ignition Wealth signing a partnership agreement with Lonsec Research earlier this year, Fordree believes the new robo-advice platform will be an opportunity for both consumers and advisers to embrace technology and use self-service tools to significantly improve the efficiency of the sector as a whole.
"We will likely move rapidly to a norm where algorithms will take care of everyday investments, with customers grazing for human advice only for specific event triggered needs, such as tax or estate planning," Fordree said.
"Our new website will be [live] by the end of the month … before we launch formally. We don't want to let the fireworks off just yet [but] we're pretty much there."


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Odds are, if you work in fintech, you know what open banking is. It is such a popular concept that in Europe an entire regulatory regime, PSD2, has sprung up around the concept.
So if Europe is progressive enough to create regulations mandating open banking, how is the U.S. doing? It turns out that some banks in the U.S. are taking an opposite approach and preventing third parties from accessing consumer data.
Keeping it secure
The motive behind this move is pure: banks are closing down connections to third party apps to keep customer information secure and limit data breaches. Data retrieval methods such as screen scraping or using the customer’s password to gain access are indeed unsafe. We spoke with Chief Growth Officer and Co-founder of Flybits, Gerti Dervishi, who said this type of data sharing is “risky in so many different ways” since data scraping is not a standard protocol. Regarding recent decisions of U.S.-based banks who are gating off third parties, Dervishi said, “Honestly, this couldn’t go on for much longer.”
JP Morgan Chase recently came up with a new access plan for third party fintechs that require access to customer data. The aim of this new plan is to stop third parties from using password-based access to retrieve customer banking data. Starting July 30, fintechs will be barred from pulling customer information until they sign data access agreements and stop using customer passwords to retrieve banking information. Instead, JPM wants third parties to connect to consumers’ accounts via its open API. The bank made it clear that not only is this method more secure, it will also place consumers in control of what data they want other applications to access.
PNC Financial is also cracking down on third party data access, but is leaving third parties with fewer options. Explaining the decision to the Wall Street Journal, PNC Chief Customer Officer Karen Larrimer said, “When aggregators access account numbers, many store them indefinitely, often unbeknownst to customers. This puts customers and their money at risk. We want to make sure we know who is setting up the account.”
As part of the move, Pittsburgh-based PNC is preventing customers from using P2P money transfer app Venmo and has blocked “multiple different aggregators,” including Plaid, which PNC states circumvented its security protocol. Plaid, a popular data transfer network, connects consumer information to other third party apps such as Square’s Cash app, Robinhood, and Digit.
Who owns the data?
But shouldn’t the consumer be able to decide if they want a third party to use their data? This became a major issue when PNC began directing users from PayPal’s P2P payment app Venmo to Zelle, the bank’s in-house P2P money transfer tool. This is because, as Dervishi said, “There is already an agreement in place with Zelle. [PNC] understands data sharing with Zelle, but they don’t have a standardized agreement with Plaid.”
When it comes to the issue of data ownership, Dervishi circled back to the need for standardization. Because PNC does not have a clear agreement in place with third parties, there is nothing to hold them accountable when it comes to how they use or store customer data. “We need a NAFTA for data,” he said.
So though it may seem as if both of these U.S. players are taking a “closed banking” approach, that statement isn’t exactly correct. Both banks offer open APIs. The difference is that PNC has shut out Plaid (and, in turn, the many third party apps that use Plaid) to head off security issues. JPM (and potentially others) may not be far behind. As Ron Shevlin pointed out in his piece The Real Story Behind the PNC Venmo Clash, “[JPM will] be watching what happens with PNC, for sure. If PNC sees limited account attrition, other Zelle banks will be likely to follow.”
At the end of the day, the only thing to prevent banks in the U.S. from taking a “closed banking” approach may be to follow in the footsteps of the European Union and create a PSD2-like, standardized regulation for data sharing. “Because each bank takes a different approach to third party data access,” Dervishi said, “until we have a well-understood framework like open banking and PSD2, we will have a thousand different methods [to access data].”


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Josh Constine for TechCrunch:
Last week, Facebook sent out invites to a big press event to “see our new home on Android”. My sources got us the scoop that Facebook plans to unveil a new homescreen for Android that pipes in its news feed content and notifications for instant access. We’re told this experience will be debuted on an HTC handset running a version of Android that’s been modified by Facebook. The homescreen replacement is also likely to make its way to other handsets, either in the form a launcher app that can run on standard Android builds, or through Facebook partnerships with other OEMs.
A Facebook home screen could be interesting, but it could just as likely be a non-factor in the mobile phone market. At best, it could be something somewhat similar to Google Now. The problem is that it would be very limited when compared to the true Google Now.


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Regional wireless provider U.S. Cellular has announced that over 1 million of its customers are now enrolled in the company’s Belief Project. The cellular plans allow customers to earns points, similar to credit card points, that they can then use towards their U.S. Cellular bill, services, or early upgrades. The longer customers stay enrolled in the Belief Project, the more Belief Points they can earn. The company also announced it would be giving away over 1 million points to its customers for the holiday season. Hit the jump for the full press release.
THE BELIEF PROJECT FROM U.S. CELLULAR
SURPASSES 1 MILLION CUSTOMERS
Company Celebrates by Surprising Customers with More than 1 Million
Belief Reward Points to Use Toward New Phones, Faster Upgrades,
Ringtones, Accessories and More
CHICAGO – (December 23, 2010) – On the heels of its top ranking by customers in a Consumer Reports survey, U.S. Cellular is celebrating the more than 1 million customers who are now part of The Belief Project. Staying true to its commitment to delighting customers, the company marked this milestone by surprising Moshe Weitzberg of Highland Park, Ill., with a windfall of 100,000 Belief Reward Points. The appreciation continued when another 1,000 customers on Belief Plans were randomly chosen to receive a gift of 1,000 Belief Reward Points. That’s a giveaway of more than 1 million points, just in time for the holidays.
“I recently switched to U.S. Cellular because of their commitment to the community,” said an excited Weitzberg when company representatives called to deliver the news. “This is unbelievable. They’re already showing how much they value me as a customer.”
The Belief Project recognizes customer loyalty with innovative programs like upgrades to the coolest phones at promotional prices every 18 months without requiring customers to repeatedly sign contracts. After completing the first contract, customers never have to sign another one. U.S. Cellular customers on Belief Plans get Belief Reward Points for doing simple things like paying their monthly bill on time, adding a line or referring new customers.
Weitzberg now has some fun decisions to make because 100,000 Belief Reward Points go a long way. He could upgrade all of the lines on his Belief Plan to the hottest Android-powered smartphones and get the Samsung Galaxy Tab™, a handheld mobile tablet with a 7-inch screen that runs on the Android platform and provides an impressive multimedia, messaging and music experience. In addition to these cutting-edge devices, Weitzberg would still have plenty of Belief Reward Points left over to use for free accessories, ringtones or spread holiday cheer by giving a phone as a gift.
The 1,000 lucky customers who were surprised with 1,000 Belief Reward Points can bump their phone upgrades up a whole month or use them for free ringtones and accessories too.
“We predicted that the millionth customer would sign up for a Belief Plan some time in February. Hitting this mark in December says that existing and new customers are embracing how we’re changing the rules of the wireless industry,” said Alan D. Ferber, executive vice president of operations for U.S. Cellular. “We love our customers, which is why we’re always looking for ways to show them how much they are appreciated. They can expect surprises like these to continue.”
A recent Consumer Reports survey of 58,000 participants ranked U.S. Cellular #1 in service and was named the best carrier in the country based on customer feedback.
For more information about The Belief Project, visit any U.S. Cellular store, go to uscellular.com or check out U.S. Cellular on Facebook. All decisions on award of Belief Points are final.


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What Happened On Google Search In 2018? ⋆ Crypto New Media
For many in the crypto and blockchain space, 2018 ends with some laudable achievements; research into blockchain and cryptocurrencies, and their impact on banking, e-commerce, global remittance, and other sectors increased. Many financial institutions joined the blockchain titanic, developing and researching into distributed ledger systems, and collaborating with blockchain startups to build the next financial infrastructure for the world.
For the cryptocurrency traders, 2018 looked like a year that will never end. The charts were mostly red, hodlers had it rough, the Lambos weren’t in, and consequently, the crypto Christmas tree was dry. But on the world’s largest search engine, something was going on. People were interested in blockchain, bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies, and searches for these terms rose. Here’s how the industry has performed in 2018 according to data from Google.
Interest in blockchain has been very low compared to cryptocurrencies, and over the years, ‘blockchain’ as a term has thus received low search volume on Google. Something changed around July 2018, when the term ‘blockchain’ surpassed the term ‘cryptocurrency’ for the first time in search frequency on Google. Though the increase in search is not skyrocketing, the search momentum for blockchain has been strong since July.
Data from Google’s Year In Search 2018 reveals that searches for the term ‘blockchain’ were especially strong in Malta, China, Singapore, Ghana, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates, Slovenia, and many other regions. Blockchain as a term was also higher than other emerging technologies like Machine Learning, Robotics, the Internet of Things, and Big Data in search volume throughout 2018. Artificial Intelligence, however, beat blockchain in search frequency the whole year.
One possible explanation to the high search frequency for the term blockchain is that the distributed ledger technology has become an important technology that companies and governments all over the world are looking into for the next technology infrastructure. Companies like IBM, Microsoft, Facebook, and many other tech conglomerates are researching into and building distributed ledger systems.
Additionally, the increasing interest in blockchain depicts that, truly, many cryptocurrency enthusiasts are not in the game just for the prices of cryptos, but they are in it for the tech, as a popular crypto meme depicts.
For cryptocurrency as a search term on Google, the year 2018 hasn’t been that good. Since the end of 2017, which was regarded as the year of cryptocurrencies, interest in ‘cryptocurrency’ as a search term has been declining. Google Search ranks search popularity from 0 to 100, and cryptocurrency as a search term, has been falling from 100 in December 2017 to below 10 in December 2018. Some of the regions that received more interest in cryptocurrency searches in 2018 were Singapore, Slovenia, Australia, Cyprus, South Africa, Ghana, United Arab Emirates, St. Helena, Ireland, and Nigeria among others.
Bitcoin leads as the most searched ‘crypto’ term for some years now. Google trends data shows that the term ‘Bitcoin’ is about 10 times more popular than the terms ‘blockchain’ and ‘cryptocurrency’. Searches for the term Bitcoin reached a 6 months high in November 2018, even when bitcoin took a 30% fall. Other terms, such as ‘Is Bitcoin dead?’ and ‘HODL’ also surged upwards. Data from SEMrush also shows that apart from the term ‘Bitcoin’, other terms such as ‘bitcoin price’, ‘bitcoin value’, and ‘bitcoin to usd’ got a lot of attention on Google trends.
In a blog post, Investopedia revealed that there has been a sudden increase in readership for bitcoin-related content on its platform, adding that some of their most viewed landing pages have been those related to bitcoin. According to the post, some of their most viewed pieces over the course of 2018 have been related to bitcoin, what is bitcoin, bitcoin stock symbol (BTC), bitcoin mining, why is bitcoin volatile etc.
To culminate the high interest in Bitcoin, “What is Bitcoin?” topped the Google Year in Search 2018 charts in the “What is…?” category in both the US and the UK. The same “What is Bitcoin” was the number one search term in Romania. In the “How to…?” category in the US, “How to buy Ripple” was the fourth (4th) most searched phrase.
Increase in search volume doesn’t guarantee mainstream adoption or regulatory acceptance, but it shows that people are ready to learn about cryptocurrencies, bitcoin, and blockchain. This move, of course, will contribute to mainstream adoption.


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Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered has been a great spectacle for PS5 players. The 2018 PlayStation exclusive had earned the title of Game of the Year and is one of the best games in the line of Spider-Man video games. With the launch of the new-gen consoles, players were naturally waiting to see a remastered version of the game.
Devs at Insomniac Games have been quite regular in releasing updates for the game. With the latest one, they have finally added a feature that fans have been asking for quite a while now. Insomniac Games’ community director, James Stevenson, wrote of this patch in his recent tweet.
Devs have already added the performance ray-tracing mode to the latest game in the franchise, Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
The pandemic has made players and coaches think out of the box to train together…
Insomniac Games adds Performance RT mode to Marvel’s Spider-Man remastered
The 1.002 update patch went live today in the game, and the news of the Performance RT mode has left players elated. But what exactly is this Performance RT mode?
As you may know, in order to increase the performance of the game and to maintain high framerates, the consoles use dynamic resolution that renders textures in a lower res when needed. However, the Performance RT mode is one that runs the game with ray-traced graphics while maintaining a 60 fps framerate.
With this, players can enjoy high-resolution gameplay with ray-tracing without having to comprise the frame rate. You don’t need us to tell you exactly how big this is. As expected, fans are losing their mind over it.
Looks like the devs will not rest until they have turned the line of Spider-Man games into the stuff of dreams for the community.


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The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, or MBTA, has announced a partnership with Masabi that will bring electronic rail passes to iPhones and other smartphones in fall of 2012. Customers will be able to purchases passes with their smartphones. MBTA employees will then validate the electronic tickets by scanning a special code on the device’s screen.
Those traveling with iPhones around Boston can expect a pilot program this summer, and if that goes well, an official launch in the fall.
[Via The Loop]


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There is a reason why American investors have started looking at the European market with raising interest. The value that European companies, especially in London and Berlin, are creating means something to them, opportunities. In a continent where people can move from country to country, often with the same currency, Europe becomes the land of opportunities both for entrepreneurs and investors.
The Europas Awards, held by Mike Butcher, Editor in Chief of TechCrunch Europe, are a European Tech Startup Awards that celebrate the value that people are creating in this continent.
Best Entertainment / Media Startup (Media, Music, Leisure)
(Deezer, MUBI, Songkick, SoundCloud, Spotify, YPlan)
With over 200 million regular listeners today, and acquirers circling, Soundcloud continues to be a fantastic European success story and an ambassador for Berlin’s tech scene.
Best E-Commerce Startup
(Delivery Hero, FoodPanda/hellofood, Ozon, Thread, Tictail, YemekSepeti)
Winner: From Berlin FoodPanda SLASH Hellofood
For its huge global expansion in the last year.
Best Education Startup
(Babbel, Busuu, Fluentify, Gojimo, Memrise, ShowMyHomework)
Winner: From Berlin: Babbel
For becoming one of the worlds leading language learning platforms, used in 190 countries, with 15 million users.
Best Startup Accelerator/Incubator
(Axel Springer Plug & Play, Entrepreneur First, Seedcamp, Startupbootcamp, Tech Stars London, The Family)
Now working across Istanbul, London, Berlin, Israel and operating across numerous verticals, Startup Bootcamp has extended its model across Europe and has created a force to be reckoned with internationally.
Best Advertising, Marketing Startup
(Adbrain, Brainient, Brandwatch. Future Ad Labs, Social Bakers, Struq)
From London and now in New York, this cross-device interactive video platform continues to scale in an impressive fashion internationally.
Best Gaming or Social Games Startup
(Brainbow, MAG interactive, Peak Games, Supercell, Wooga, Zeptolab)
From Helsinki, it’s impossible to argue with Supercell’s super success in the last year, with a Billion Dollar investment and smash hits like Clash Of Clans.
Best Social, Mobile Startup
(AppLift, AppsFire, Cleverbug, EyeEm, Pin Drop, State)
From Berlin, EyeEm started small with a great product and has battled its way to tens of million of users, a unique marketplace where photographers get paid and amazing photographs, all against the might of Instagram.
Best FinTech Startup
(Funding Circle, GoCardless, iZettle, Klarna, PayMill, Transferwise)
From London, GoCardless has shaken up the world of Fintech, processing $200m worth of transactions and disrupting the Direct Debit business – making users lives easier.
Best Enterprise / SaaS / B2B Startup
(DataSift, Duedil, import°io, Prezi, Qubit, Wunderlist)
From the UK, Datasift is a deep tech startup that has impressed users globally with is big data on social media, enough to attract the attention of significant UK and US venture capital.
Best Hardware Startup (Wearables, Robotics, Connected Devices)
(Blaze, CubeSensors, IntelClinic/NeuroOn/Sleep Mask, Jolla, Kano Computing, Petcube, ROLI)
From Kiev, Ukraine, Petcube’s founders have, against all odds, designed built and raised money for a radical new interactive device for pets, all from the midst of incredible upheaval in their home country.
Best Sharing / Crowd-Sourcing Economy Startup
(Bizzby, BlaBlaCar, BorrowMyDoggy, HouseTrip, Love Home Swap, Seedrs)
From Paris, BlaBlaCar has built a ride-sharing marketplace which has reached into the furthest parts of Europe, scaling its business to 30 million riders a year and counting.
Best Health Startup
(Big Health (Sleep.io), Clue App, Lifesum, mySugr, Teddytheguardian.com, Toothpick, Vint training, Zesty)
Winner: Big Health with Sleep.io
From the UK, Big Health’s Sleep.io service Big Health creates highly personalised medicinal programmes delivered via web and mobile using data collected from personal devices such as the Jawbone UP. The future of health indeed!
Best Security / Privacy Startup
(CyberGhost, Digital Shadows, Lavaboom, ThetaRay, Wallarm, ZenMate)
From Berlin, ZenMate encrypts users’ internet connection to protect their privacy while browsing – crucial in the age of the NSA and GCHQ…
Best Virtual Currency Startup
(Bitstamp, Coinfloor, Elliptic, GoCoin, Localbitcoin, Safello)
Based in “The European Union”, Bitstamp based bitcoin marketplace allowing people from all around the world to safely buy and sell bitcoins and is at the forefront of European startups in this space.
Best Travel or Transport Startup
(GetYourGuide, GoEuro, Hailo, Kabbee, OneFineStay, Secret Escapes, TaxiBeat)
Direct from 3 London Cabbies, Hailo is taking on Uber and many others in the fight to become the the world’s transport system.
Best Internet of Things Startup
(Evrything, Kontakt.io, Little Printer / BERG Cloud, Relayr, Withings)
With founders from London and Zurich, Evrythng plans to connect every product on the planet to the Internet and make it smart.
Coolest Technology Innovation
(3D Hubs, CodeAnywhere, Indoor Atlas, Sayduck, Swiftkey, The Eye Tribe)
From London, Swiftkey has changed the way people type on smartphones and is even manage to impress the tough to please Apple with its tech.
Best Fashion Startup
(FarFetch, Girl Meets dress, Lyst, Stylight, Thread.com, VideDressing, Vinted)
An idea born in Spain but scaled in London, FarFetch has taken the luxury fashion industry by storm and added to London’s hot-bed of fashion startups.
Best Angel or Seed Investor of the Year
(Connect Ventures, Federico Pirzio-Biroli / Playfair Capital, Hasan Aslanoba, Peter Read, Robin Klein, Xavier Niel / Jeremie Berrebi / Kima Ventures)
Winner:Xavier Niel & Jeremie Berrebi of Kima Ventures
Working between Paris and Tel Aviv, Kima Ventures now invests in literally hundreds of early stage startups a year. If you need someone to write a cheque, Kima plans to give you a fast yes or no.
Greatest Tech Influence On Society
(Believe.in, CodeClub, Hour of Code/Code.org, Impossible.com, ResearchGate, Year of Code)
From London, CodeClub started out as a simple idea to teach kids to code, but has now spread internationally and is poised to make a real impact on the whole world, not just Europe.
Best VC Investor of the Year
(Accel Partners, Balderton Capital, DFJ Esprint, Earlybird Ventures, Index Ventures, Passion Capital)
Winner: Index Ventures
From London, amid incredibly tough competition, Index Ventures has knocked it out of the park in the last year, participating in or leading deals in startups which have produced FIVE BILLION DOLLAR European exits in the last 6 months.
Best Startup Founder/Co-founders
(Fred Mazzella / Francis Nappez / Nicolas Brusson, Azmat Yusuf, Matt Robinson / Hiroki Takeuchi, Safa Sofuoglu / Rina Onur / Hakan Bas / Sidar Sahin, Peter Arvai / Peter Halacsy / Adam Somlai-Fischer, Ben Medlock / Jon Reynolds)
Winner:Peter Arvai, Péter Halácsy and Ádám Somlai-Fischer from Prezi
Based between Budapest and San Francisco, Prezi has changed how people present and learn information and taken on the might of Microsoft PowerPoint.
Fastest Rising Startup Of The Year
(Citymapper, Hassle, Kippt, Telegram, Togethera, UppTalk)
Built in St Petersburg, Russia, and now based, well, “on a plane”, Pavel Durov’s Telegram app has exploded onto the messaging space amassing 35 million users in a matter of months, not long after he left Russia’s Facebook, VKontakte.
Hall Of Fame Award
(Daniel Ek, Eileen Burbidge, Klaus Hommels, Martin Varsavsky, Robin Klein, Sherry Coutu, Xavier Niel)
Daniel Ek, Spotify, Stockholm/London
Eileen Burbidge, Passion Capital, London
Klaus Hommels, VC, Zurich
Martin Varsavsky, Fon, Madrid
Robin Klein, Index Ventures, London
Sherry Coutu (CBE), Silicon Valley Comes to UK / Founders4Schools
Xavier Niel, Kima Ventures, Paris
The Europas Grand Prix
Winner: From London, Swiftkey
SwiftKey was founded by friends Jon Reynolds and Dr Ben Medlock who are Math geniuses and realised they could build an engine which could predict words and phrases as people typed them. After millions of downloads, a launch on IOS and raising $22 million, Swiftkey is the latest company that proves you can build a global startup form Europe.


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Google and the European Union are still battling over different product bundling schemes in Google’s empire. The latest news has to do with the integration of Google Shopping with Google Search. In 2017, the EU ruled that the integration of Google Shopping with Search violated antitrust laws. Today, Google lost its appeal and the court upheld the €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion) fine. Google can appeal the ruling one more time, but this time the company would go to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the highest court of the EU.
As in many other antitrust lawsuits facing Google worldwide, EU regulators disagreed that Google is artificially promoting its own services above the competition on the search results page. Google Maps, Google Shopping and Google Flights all automatically get premium spots above the organic search results.
Google’s verticals provide Google’s search results with rich, often useful content beyond the standard “10 blue links” interface, but there’s no reason why non-Google services can’t provide this data as well. Google often says that regulations will remove these rich results from search results, but it has a whole “structured data format” that allows for rich results from non-Google sites, so the claim is wrong. Google regularly shows high-result content from third-party sites these days; it’s just not pinned to the top of the page.
Google Shopping is a different beast than Google’s other services. From 2012 to 2020, it was exclusively a vector for advertisements. Instead of an organic list of shopping-oriented search results, each listing was something a product seller paid for. Google dropped its “paid listing only” policy in April 2020, and now if you scroll down the site you’ll see some organic (and free) listings. Unlike Google Search, Shopping is still not an indexed service where Google scours the internet for information. Instead, merchants need to sign up for a “Google Merchant Center account” and send Google a structured feed of product data.
The origins of the Google Search/Google Shopping complaint go back to 2009 and today’s ruling may not even be the final ruling if Google chooses to appeal again. Google continues to face other EU antitrust cases related to AdSense and Android, and the EU is conducting additional investigations into Google’s advertising activities.


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Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Nestle’ Pakistan made a handsome profit of Rs. 5.87 billion during the first half of 2021, which is 49 percent higher than the profit reported in the same period last year.
The volume growth, overheads control, and value chain cost optimization initiatives led to a 24.3 percent increase in the company’s operating profit as compared to the same period of the previous year. Additionally, the reduction in the financing costs contributed to an improvement in the net profit.
Despite all the challenges of the ongoing pandemic and the rising input costs emanating from the surge in the commodity prices, the company remains cautiously optimistic about the performance in the coming period on the back of strong brand equity and continuous initiatives for operational excellence supported by a highly committed workforce.
Nestlé Pakistan’s revenue for the first half of the year was recorded at Rs. 65.8 billion, which is 12.7 percent higher than what was recorded in the same period last year.
The revenue growth was broad-based and supported by investments behind the brands, new product launches, and pricing management. Furthermore, the growth also benefitted from the depressed base of last year which was impacted by strict lockdowns.
The share value of the company also reported a significant increase that stood at Rs. 127.5 from the level of last year when it was Rs. 85.4 per share.


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Google is making a handful of announcements related to RCS today, but the piece of news you’re most likely to notice is that the default SMS app Google offers is now called “Android Messages” instead of “Messenger.” Or rather, it will be the default RCS app. RCS, if you don’t recall, is the next-generation messaging standard supported by a group of carriers and Google. It offers multimedia messages, read receipts, and other features you’d expect from a normal chat app like WhatsApp or iMessage.
Amir Sarhangi, Head of RCS at Google, tells The Verge that the app is getting renamed because Android Messages is becoming more like Android itself: an industry effort spearheaded by Google, but with other stakeholders involved (namely: the carriers). the new name is also a signal to users that the app fully supports RCS. Users will be able to download the Android Messages app directly from the Play Store — which gives the added benefit that the app can be updated directly rather than make people wait for a software update from their manufacturer.
But “default messaging app” is a very fraught idea on Android, where Google is pursuing a three-fold app strategy that also includes Allo and Hangouts. In this context, what it really means is that a slew of Android manufacturers have agreed to use Android Messenger instead of a custom app made by the manufacturer. That list includes:
LG, Motorola, Sony, HTC, ZTE, Micromax, Nokia, Archos, BQ, Cherry Mobile, Condor, Fly, General Mobile, Lanix, LeEco, Lava, Kyocera, MyPhone, QMobile, Symphony and Wiko, along with Pixel and Android One devices.
Along with the app update, Google has announced that a bunch of wireless carriers have agreed to adopt the “Universal Profile” for RCS, meaning their rich text messages are guaranteed to work when you send them. Some of them are using Google’s RCS service and others are just doing it themselves. The carriers on board with this messaging standard include: Sprint, Rogers, Telenor, Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Globe, and Vodafone.


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Trick-or-Treat warning: Candy corn recalled by company due to potential deadly mishap
Check your pantry, trick-or-treat enthusiasts: A snack company issued an alert this week recalling its candy corn due to a potentially deadly mishap.
Arcade Snacks of Auburn, Massachusetts has recalled its 15-ounce packages of candy corn because they may contain undeclared egg, according to the FDA. People who are allergic to egg may experience a possible life-threatening allergic reaction if they eat the company's candy corn.
The product, distributed in two New England states, comes in a clear plastic container marked with the UPC: 018586001144 and a March 8, 2023 best buy date.
Hot-dog-flavored candy corn?: Brach's releases exotic new flavors of the fall sweet
The company reported it distributed the product in Massachusetts and Connecticut at these locations:
- Johnson Roadside Farm Market in Swansea, Massachusetts
- Donelan’s Supermarkets in Massachusetts
- Fieldstone Farm Market in Marion, Massachusetts
- Foodies in Massachusetts
- Windfall Market in Falmouth, Massachusetts
- Highland Park Market in Glastonbury, Connecticut
As of Friday's recall post, no illnesses had been reported in connection with the recall which was initiated after it was discovered the egg-containing product was distributed in packaging that did not reveal the presence of egg.
Egg allergy symptoms
According to the Mayo Clinic egg allergy symptoms include hives, nasal congestion, runny nose and sneezing, cramps, nausea and vomiting and coughing, wheezing, chest tightness or shortness of breath.
According to experts, severe allergic reaction can lead to anaphylaxis – a life-threatening emergency that requires an immediate epinephrine (adrenaline) shot and a trip to the emergency room. It can occur within seconds of exposure to eggs and cause a person to go into shock.
Are co-sleeper beds safe?: Some re-branded as 'loungers' after infant deaths, rule change
Consumers who have purchased the product are urged to return them to the place of purchase for a full refund.
Questions? Call the company at 1-508-832-6300.
Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at email@example.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.


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Kristen Bell is launching her vegan CBD skincare brand Happy Dance at Ulta Beauty stores across the U.S.
The actor, singer, and animal advocate founded Happy Dance in 2020 in partnership with cannabis company Cronos Group Inc. The new brand’s products include body butter, a multi-purpose coconut melt, and a bath bomb — all infused with high-quality, U.S.-grown, traceable CBD.
CBD stands for cannabidiol, the active compound in cannabis. While largely unstudied, there is a moderate amount of evidence that CBD products can reduce chronic pain, ease anxiety and depression, and help with sleep and relaxation.
The CBD industry is growing fast, and many proponents also note that hemp production has several useful environmental benefits, including the promotion of healthy soil. On its website, Happy Dance emphasizes ingredient transparency, and its entire vegan CBD skincare range is made with “sustainability in mind.”
Vegan CBD skincare for moms
Bell, who is well-known for her roles in Veronica Mars (2004 – 2019), Gossip Girl (2007 – 2012), and The Good Place (2016 – 2020), has been vegetarian since she was 11 years old and briefly adopted a vegan diet after watching the documentary Forks Over Knives (2011).
Happy Dance is not the first vegan brand founded by the actor. Together with her husband, actor and writer Dax Shephard, Bell previously launched the vegan and cruelty-free baby care line Hello Bello at Walmart.
At the time, she said: “Our products are fresh and fun. More importantly, we use plant-based ingredients and organic botanicals that are better for our kids and better for our world.”
Happy Dance is also “made with moms in mind,” and Bell was inspired by her own experiences with CBD products to launch a brand that would “help take care of the people who spend so much time taking care of everyone else.”
A new way of life
In a recent interview with Forbes, Bell explained that she hopes the partnership between Happy Dance and Ulta Beauty will help the products reach more people.
“Accessibility means two things: it means a price point that you can afford, but it also means availability on a shelf where you can purchase it at a store near you,” she said.
Launching at a national level will also help highlight the brand’s charitable partner, Los Angeles-based nonprofit A New Way of Life Reentry Project. The organization was founded by NAACP Image Award winner Susan Burton and helps support women after prison.
A New Way of Life aims to mitigate the effects of mass incarceration, with a view to ultimately abolishing the prison system entirely. It also aids the communities “disproportionately affected by marijuana-related offenses.” One percent of all Happy Dance profits will be donated to the organization to support its work.
“It was not lost on me that the BIPOC community has been adversely affected for marijuana-based crimes throughout history,” explained Bell.
“Because CBD is pulled from the same strand of the hemp plant, we thought it was the perfect chance to donate one percent of profits back to this amazing organization,” she added.
Last year, Bell was called out for promoting “colorblindness” with the release of her children’s book The World Needs More Purple People.
In response to criticism, the actor told TODAY: “Some people interpreted that as trying to say it was colorblindness, which I want to be really clear it is not at all. When I say find sameness or common ground, I mean look at each other as human beings, right? We have an identifiable feature.”
Happy Dance products are currently available at 101 “SPARKED” Ulta Beauty stores — which highlight emerging brands — and the range rolls out to 550 additional locations from March 15. Prices begin at $15 per item.


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Rogers Store Robbed and Employees Tied Up by Thieves Say Police
Ontario Provincial Police are still on the hunt for two suspects that robbed a Rogers retail store in Alliston, Ontario, according to Barrie 360.
On Monday evening, two men are said to have forced their way into the Rogers store at 21 Young Street at Doyle Plaza, just before closing. The suspects tied up three employees in the back of the building, before stealing numerous mobile devices from the store.
According to provincial police, the suspects are six feet tall and have slim builds. They left the store driving a silver Toyota minivan, seen on Highway 89. The vehicle was later found abandoned in Toronto by police, with the suspects still on the loose.
Anyone with information is being told to contact police or Crime Stoppers.
These stolen smartphones will most likely need to be activated before their use, so be wary of too good to be true cellphone ‘deals’ on used classifieds.


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Facebook posted revenue of $3.9 billion in Q4 2014, which represented a year-over-year increase of 49%, and came in slightly ahead of our expectations. However, the top-line growth decelerated as compared to 60% levels seen during the prior two quarters, due to tougher year-over-year comparisons. We think FB’s monetization will continue to rise rapidly in the coming quarters, driven by surge in mobile monetization, better and more targeted ad products, as well as increase in the number of marketers on the platform. A scale up in video-based advertising on both the core platform as well as on Instagram will further push up revenues during the year.
FB’s profitability slipped during the fourth quarter with GAAP operating margin falling to 29% as compared to 44% in the same period a year ago, due to rise in stock-based compensation and marketing expenses. The margins could continue to slip through the year as the company plans to step up its investments in several areas. We believe this strategy could reap huge profits for the company over the next five to ten years, as it could leverage several drivers to bolster its business. Moreover, FB has not even begun tapping the monetization potential of several of its platforms and businesses (including WhatsApp, Messenger, Search, etc.), and these could become multi-billion dollar businesses for the company over the long run.
Costs Will Accelerate During 2015
Facebook provided more color on its planned investments during 2015 over the earnings call. It indicated that its GAAP expenses would rise in the range of 55% to 70% during the year. And in non-GAAP terms, its expenses could rise by 50% to 65% annually in 2015. Capital expenditure is anticipated to rise from $1.8 billion in 2014 to around $3 billion (at the mid-point) in 2015.
While this planned increase in spending may seem troubling, we think the company is taking the right steps in investing heavily in areas such as people, products and infrastructure. There is tremendous opportunity ahead for FB to enhance not only its core-platform business but also its monetization from other platforms. WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Search each have hundreds of millions of active users, and these can become multi-billion dollar businesses for the company in the long-run; FB hasn’t even begun scratching the surface of this potential and hence, these investments could propel top-line growth over the next five to ten years, in our view.
Mobile Platform Will Drive Future Growth
FB’s mobile strategy is turning out to be highly rewarding. During the fourth quarter of 2014, mobile advertising revenue almost doubled annually to comprise 69% of the overall advertising revenue; in comparison, its share was 53% in Q4 2013. Moreover, mobile monthly active users (MAUs) rose by 26% annually in Q4, and comprised over 85% of the total monthly active user base on Facebook.
We believe the rapid increase in mobile monetization will continue to fuel FB’s growth in the coming quarters as well, as the mobile platform is still under-penetrated within brand advertising budgets. Though consumers spend a large portion of their spare time on mobile devices, this platform comprises for only about 5% of the average advertising budget for brands (according to a study by Forrester). And this largely stems from the inability of marketers to accurately measure ROI from mobile advertising. Since Facebook is taking various measures to improve its ad relevance and measurement, we believe as mobile advertising gains popularity among advertisers, the company’s monetization could further shoot up. With monthly active users on FB’s mobile platforms - Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp - surpassing 300 million, 500 million and 700 million, respectively, we believe FB is strongly positioned to gain in the future.
The continued shift from desktop to mobile devices, as well as greater proportion of feed-based ads (which are fewer but are more prominent), also positively impacted price volume dynamics during the quarter. Though the overall number of ad impressions fell by 65% during Q4, the average price per ad engagement rose by 335%. We expect this trend to persist in the coming quarters, as the roll-out of better and more targeted ad products will enhance ROI and thereby push up ad pricing on the platform.
New Ad Products To Spur Revenue Growth, While WhatsApp, Messenger Monetization Could Take Time
Another positive trend that came out during the earnings call is that online video advertising is quickly gaining traction. People are increasingly sharing videos on their newsfeeds, and this has resulted in video views per day on FB increasing to over three billion recently, as compared one billion in September 2014. During the fourth quarter, the company also rolled out auto-play video ads internationally. With more than 65% of video views being seen on mobile devices, this trend will fuel FB’s mobile ad revenues in the future,in our view. Facebook recently also starting scaling video ads on Instagram and, considering this platform has more than 300 monthly active users, we think Instagram could contribute a significant revenue stream in 2015. Note that Instagram users spend around 21 minutes each day on the app (as of Q3 2014).
On the other hand, we think FB’s management will move slowly in monetizing WhatsApp and Messenger during 2015, as it will continue to focus on the user base and engagement growth on these platforms in the near-term. With over 30 billion messages being sent on WhatsApp daily, we believe this has the potential to become a huge business for FB in the long-run, and could likely be monetized through gaming, advertising, or value added services, etc.
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Bioplastics scenario in India: regulations, production and market
The Indian bioplastics industry is again growing rapidly after digesting setbacks of the covid pandemic and the October 2, 2019 SUP (single-use plastic) ban fiasco.
The growth of the bioplastic industry depends on many parameters like government policy, the effectiveness of rules implementation, cost competitiveness, public awareness, etc.
The government of India had announced that from October 2, 2019, all SUP items will be banned all over India. Afterward, due to massive oppose from plastic industries, the ban could not be implemented. Later on, the government had released the guidelines to implement the SUP ban in a staggered manner starting from October 2021 and gave the plastic industry enough time to be prepared. Meantime, the bioplastics industry was struggling due to unclear government guidelines and the ineffectiveness of rules implementation. Moreover, the covid pandemic has also affected the industry largely.
As per current government guidelines, polythene bags of less than 75 microns have been banned from September 30, 2021. Moreover, from July 1, 2022, manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of single-use plastic items including, earbuds with plastic sticks, plastic sticks for balloons, plastic flags, candy sticks, ice-cream sticks, polystyrene [thermocol] for decoration, plates, cups, glasses, cutlery such as forks, spoons, knives, straw, trays, wrapping or packing films around sweet boxes, invitation cards, and cigarette packets, plastic or PVC banners less than 100 micron and stirrers will be prohibited. From December 31, 2022, polythene bags of less than 120 microns will be banned.
The first phase of the guideline starting from September 30, 2021, is currently effective countrywide. But, proper implementation is not being carried out in many states. Very few states of India have made it strict and started using eco-friendly and compostable alternatives.
Production and Market
After the first announcement for the SUP ban on October 2, 2019, the bioplastic industry had seen remarkable growth and many new manufacturers came into the field. Soon after witnessing the fiasco of the same, the industry got stuck and started looking for a way to sustain the business. Afterward, the covid pandemic gave strong disturbance. Some industries could not sustain and closed in this period of time.
From September 2021, the industry is witnessing significant growth and positivity in the market due to strict bans in some states of India. In addition, the export market is also being developed. New players are also coming in the field of biopolymer compounding, compostable product manufacturing and trading.
Almost 162 companies have registered so far on the government portal to sell/manufacture/trade compostable items in India.
Numerous processors are producing many compostable products in India. But, the main issue is with raw material availability. The main raw materials are PLA, PBAT, Bio-PBS, PHA, etc. These materials are being imported to India and have limited manufacturing capacities worldwide. Moreover, when demand comes, short supply is there. This is the main reason behind the slow growth of the industry. Until enough raw material supply is available in India, product manufacturers can’t ignore the fear of keeping their production idle because of raw material unavailability.
Few companies have shown interest to start manufacturing PLA and PBAT in India, which will lead to the massive growth of the industry in India and will also lead to lower cost and easy availability of the bioplastic raw materials.


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Jeff Mills has announced the development of a new percussion instrument inspired by the infamous UFO sightings in 1950s L.A.
The Martinez Brothers have announced the launch of their brand new label Cuttin' Headz, inaugurated by a 3-track vinyl only EP from the duo, entitled Tree Town.
We've teamed up with our good friends at Toolroom Records, to bring you an exclusive first listen of Doorly's new collaboration with dance icon Todd Terry.
A special Gallery night to end the month, which welcomes two gentlemen many regard as their all-time musical heroes. Starting with Vitalic, whose 2001 club anthem ‘La Rock 01’ is regarded the epitome of a ...


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With its long-delayed redesign expected to go live in the next six weeks, Time.com has its sights set on being a 24-7 news destination. It’s already shown significant traffic growth this year, and the site was on track to have a record December. But a look at an array of numbers shows how far the print-centric brand has to go to catch up in the intensely competitive news category, comprised of digital natives and network TV brands as well as other print stalwarts. Here’s how Time.com, whose redo is being closely watched as Time Inc. prepares to spin off as an independent company, stacks up against some of its rivals:
Traffic: With 19 million monthly unique visitors on mobile and desktop combined, Time.com ranks No. 16 (comScore, November), behind such heavy hitters as Yahoo News (99 million), BuzzFeed (53.3 million) and ABCNews.com (32.8 million). Time’s magazine content accounts for less than 5 percent of the site, but the fact that it’s behind a paywall may not be helping the site’s traffic.
Engagement: Time also lags its competitors when it comes to time spent on the site; it was in 20th place, with visitors averaging only 4 minutes (mobile and desktop, per comScore, November). “Right now, we get a ton of traffic through social and search,” said Edward Felsenthal, who became Time.com's managing editor in April. “We want them to stay longer. Video, interactive and 24-7 news coverage are the pillars of what we’ve done this year, and we’ve got a variety of plans to expand further next year.”
Volume: Time.com has been averaging 214 posts a day, a tenfold increase since the beginning of the year. But it trails digital natives like the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed that churn out 700 and 292 daily posts, respectively, albeit by playing by different rules; HuffPost leans on unpaid contributors to boost its volume, while BuzzFeed trades in addictive linkbait. Time.com wants to take a higher ground, but it can't live on deep reporting and investigative journalism alone for traffic; to that end, it's set up a continuous news desk to feed its breaking news offering.
Staff: Time.com has added 30 staffers ahead of the relaunch, and while all edit staff works on both print and Web, its masthead shows 40 edit people dedicated to the site. Again, that’s well behind digital-only brands like HuffPost, with 500 edit staffers; and BuzzFeed, with 140.
Video: Thanks to a huge focus on video this past year, Time.com now produces up to 10 videos a day, roughly on a par with NYTimes.com and BuzzFeed. Then again, it can't compete with HuffPost, which aggregates YouTube and others' videos in addition to producing its own. Time.com plans to do more video in 2014, including some recurring daily shows.
Native advertising: Time.com is already running some native ads, and they’ll be a big part of the redesign. But other brands have been in the game longer, like BuzzFeed, whose advertising is 100 percent native; and the HuffPost, where native accounted for 15 percent of ad revenue this year, helped by the contribution of a new division, Partner Studio.


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Bigger the better
Samsung Electronics announced that it has begun mass producing the industry’s biggest Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) solid state drive (SSD).
Apple doomed unless it can come up with something else
IDC beancounters have added up some numbers and worked out that we have reached "peak smartphone" which means that unless Apple can come up with a new cash cow, it is doomed to maintain or lose its stonking sales figures.
Rumours of 7nm
The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn claiming that the Samsung Galaxy S10 will get 7nm Snapdragon 855 chipset.
2+6 cores mainstream
Qualcomm is gaining traction with its 600 series chipsets and it is about to announce a new one. The Snapdragon 670 comes with dual high-end CPUs and six energy efficient ones, all in 10nm.
Ready in 2019, confirmed by Cristiano Amon
One thing we came away with from yesterday’s big Qualcomm announcement that 20 companies are committed to coming to market in 2019 with Qualcomm X50 NR based devices. Cristiano Amon, the President of Qualcomm just confirmed that Samsung is also on board with the X50.
Galaxy S8 owners get them at last
Samsung has apparently started sending out the long awaited Galaxy S8 Android 8.0 Oreo update in parts of Europe and other regions should get them soon.
Easy to find security flaws
Consumer Reports has found that millions of smart TVs can be controlled by hackers exploiting easy-to-find security flaws.
Even if he loses, it is not as if he is going down
Samsung Electronics’ ailing chairman, Lee Kun-hee, was named by South Korean police as a suspect in a $7.5 million tax evasion case that involved the use of bank accounts held by employees.