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Did you know, according to the latest research Indian AI start-ups have raised about US$836.3 million in 2020, it is the largest funding outlay in the past seven years at a year-to-year growth of about 9.7%. India’s AI ecosystem is witnessing explosive growth with a lot of inventive AI start-ups in 201 entering the space. Here are the top 10 Indian AI start-ups that have raised funding in 2021.
Myelin Foundry is a deep tech product AI start-up that was launched in 2019. It is a Bengaluru-based start-up that aids in changing industry outcomes by building and designing artificial intelligence algorithms on voice, video, and sensor data. The solutions of the company include Myelin edge AI platform, edge AI to make decisions and actions, video and sensor data, and providing real-time analytics and insights. This is one of the best Indian AI start-ups that has raised funding in 2021.
Emotix is a Mumbai-based AI start-up that has developed a companion robot called Miko which can help parents to keep their children occupied. This is one of the top Indian AI start-ups in 2021 that has increased its funding this year. The company leverages technologies such as AI, robotics, and IoT to initiate conversations, identify moods, and learn about the surroundings to better keep the child occupied. The start-up is backed by Chiratae Ventures, YourNest Capital, and IvyCap Ventures.
Wysa is a Bengaluru-based AI start-up that has come up with an AI-powered chatbot that employs evidence-based cognitive-behavioral techniques to make the user feel heard. This is one of the top Indian AI start-ups in 2021 that have raised its funding and have also powered more than 100 million conversations. And the interesting part is that this start-up is a part of the Google assistant investment program too.
The Nextbillion AI is a start-up that is headquartered in Singapore with its offices located in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Beijing. The company focuses on building the world’s easy-to-use, advanced hyperlocal AI solution in a cost-effective manner. Even though this has launched in 2020 it is one of the Indian AI start-ups that has raised its funding in 2021.
Ziptrax is a Delhi-based start-up that uses an AI-based engine and IoT-enabled hardware that can make lithium batteries that can last up to 40 percent longer. The company developed a digital platform to collect all the used batteries and put them through rigorous quality checks and tests. After which it employs machine learning algorithms to regroup cells and use AI to repurpose the discarded lithium batteries.
This is one of the top Indian AI start-ups that has raised funding gradually over this year.
The start-up works on a mission to use AI to make healthcare more affordable and accessible to all. For which the AI start-up takes the help of deep learning with scientific, clinical, and regulatory knowledge to handle real-life situations. Qure.ai is a Mumbai-based start-up that analyses abnormalities on CT scans, X-rays, and MRIs. It is one of the Indian AI start-ups in 2021 that raised the bar for its funding and its products are also powered by AWS, Azure, NVIDIA, and Intel.
WotNot is a Business Consumer no-code chatbot platform and also a live chat solution. The AI start-up allows enterprises to build and create powerful chatbots to engage visitors and enhance customer satisfaction in real-time across various channels. The platform has features like autosave, auto-arrange, bot management, clone, and undo-redo. This Ahmedabad start-up is one of the top Indian AI start-ups that has increased its funding this year.
LogiNext is an automation and transportation start-up that uses AI for managing the tracks and workforce in real-time. It has offices in Singapore, UAE, and Indonesia. This is one of the Indian AI start-ups in 2021 that has higher funding and operates in more than 50 countries now. It serves services like Myntra, McDonald’s, and also Decathlon.
The start-up is headquartered in Ahmedabad and designs waste sorting plants and solutions using Industry 4.0 technologies using AI, ML, and IoT. The solutions of the company include NETRA (Machine Vision System), YUTA (AI-powered robotic sorting), SUKA (AI-powered Air sorting), and IoT-enabled smart bins. It is one of the top Indian AI start-ups that has raised the bar high in terms of funding.
Yellow.ai was previously known as Yellow Messenger. The AI start-up offers an omnichannel conversational AI tool to automate customer experiences for enterprises. It is one of the top Indian AI start-ups that has raised the bar high in terms of funding. When we take a look at the start-ups’ chat and voice-based bots, there are nearly 100+ languages that are available across nearly 35+ channels.
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Through a Twitter post, director Morio Kishimoto announced that a Free demo From acoustic boundariesbut only for Nintendo Switch. This beta can already be downloaded from the Japanese eShop and in the next few hours / days it will also be distributed in other countries, including Italy.
In response to a user who asked if we’ll see the Sonic Frontiers demo on other platforms as well, Kishimoto replied that no further versions will be released since the team is also working on post-launch updates (or at least, that’s what we do) learning from translating Tweet). In short, this isn’t an exclusive demo, Sonic Team simply can’t at the moment create custom demos for other platforms either.
Pity. Given that the game is also available on PS5 and Xbox Series X | S, PS4, One and PC, demos are likely to attract more players to give blue hedgehog adventure a chance.
It’s currently unclear when the Sonic Frontiers demo for Nintendo Switch will also be available on the European eShop, as Sega hasn’t provided exact timings. We’re probably talking about waiting a few days at most.
Sonic Frontiers recently reached 2.5 million copies in sales, according to data released by Sega.
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Kraft Heinz Reveals $181m in Accounting ‘Misstatements’
Food giant Kraft Heinz has revealed that it discovered certain misstatements in its financial statements after an internal review was conducted by the company. As a result of these findings the company will now have to restate its accounts of previous 3 years. It is estimated that account heads representing figures of $181m will now be restated by the company.
The company has admitted that it has identified a number of staff members of procurement department involved in the misconduct.
Kraft Heinz has said that it will have to restate its issued financial statements for 2016, 2017 and 3 quarters of 2019.
Earlier this month it was reported that the company’s audit committee agreed that these figures cannot be relied upon due to those financial statements containing some misstatements.
The company said that it did not believe that highlighted misstatements constitute a quantitative material misstatement to any financial period presented in company’s prior interim or annual financial accounts, but because of the qualitative nature of the issues highlighted in the review, including the time period over which the misconduct continued to occur and the number of business transactions, procurement employees and suppliers involved, the company has decided that it would be appropriate to rectify the misstatements in the financial statements previously issued by the company by restating such financial accounts.
The company said that it had discussed the matter with its external auditor, PwC.
The misstatements highlighted during the internal review conducted by the company mainly relate to the timing and recognition of supplier contracts.
The review and investigation identified that the company is required to make adjustments of around $208m, of which $27m was recorded as part of the cost of items sold in the previously issued financial accounts of quarter four of 2018.


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Thursday, September 14 at 3 PM ET
For PRINT’s next livestream Book Club, Neville Brody will be in conversation with Debbie Millman and Steven Heller about his third monograph, The Graphic Language of Neville Brody 3, released earlier this year. Picking up where his 1994 second edition left off, Brody’s collaboration with writer and designer Adrian Shaughnessy is essential reading if you want to understand the evolution of design over the last 30 years.
For over four decades, this seminal designer, typographer, and brand strategist has received global acclaim for his ‘visual language,’ experimentation, and knack for pushing creative boundaries in all aspects of his practice.
Steven Heller called The Graphic Language of Neville Brody 3 an “ongoing history featuring work by one of the most innovative designers of Century 21.” Read his Daily Heller write-up and Angela Riechers’ review for a sneak preview, and don’t miss this exciting talk on Thursday, September 14 at 3 PM ET! Register for the call here and buy Brody’s book here.


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Market Commentary and Intraday News
News Summary: Panasonic returns to profit in 1Q
322 days ago
By The Associated Press
MAKING MONEY: Panasonic Corp. says it returned to a profit in the latest quarter. That's despite a 6 percent decline in revenue amid weak demand in its Japanese home market.
WHAT HAPPENED: It reduced costs after cutting more than 38,000 jobs over the past year.
OTHER FACTORS: The European financial crisis and the strong yen, which erodes overseas sales when repatriated to Japan, also weighed on the company's performance.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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iClick Interactive Asia Group (NASDAQ: ICLK) recently presented a keynote speech on data-driven marketing in China at the Product Marketing Alliance’s Product Marketing Festival in APAC. Held from July 29 to July 30, 2020, the event is the world’s first and only online festival dedicated to product marketing in the Asia Pacific region. “While there is tremendous potential in the Chinese digital advertising market for international brands to build market share, long-term success requires a customized strategy specifically adapted to China’s complex market and cultural landscape,” Frankie Ho, president of International Business at iClick, stated in the news release. “iClick is focused on helping brands gain a better and deeper understanding of China’s market and creating the best marketing strategies backed by real-time data and advanced algorithms.”
To view the full press release, visit http://ibn.fm/9yhRr
About iClick Interactive Asia Group Limited
iClick Interactive Asia Group is an independent online marketing and enterprise data solutions provider that connects worldwide marketers with audiences in China. Built on cutting-edge technologies, iClick’s proprietary platform possesses omni-channel marketing capabilities and fulfils various marketing objectives in a data-driven and automated manner, helping both international and domestic marketers reach their target audiences in China. Headquartered in Hong Kong, iClick was established in 2009 and is currently operating in ten locations worldwide, including Asia and Europe.
For more information, please visit ir.i-Click.com.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to ICLK are available in the company’s newsroom at http://ibn.fm/ICLK
QualityStocksNewsBreaks provide a rapid summary of corporate news that catch the attention of QualityStocks. QualityStocksBreaks are designed to keep investors up to date on important and breaking news in the small-cap and micro-cap markets. Spanning all industries, including energy, entertainment, telecommunications, healthcare, retail and more, these news breaks deliver opportunities the investment community may have missed. Whether it is earnings results, mergers and acquisitions, or any other market-moving news, our news breaks keep you in the know. QualityStocks is committed to connecting subscribers with companies that have huge potential to succeed in the short and long-term future. It is part of our mission statement to help the investment community discover emerging companies that offer excellent growth potential.


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BANGKOK • Thailand reported that exports grew in February for the first time in 14 months, thanks to two unusual items - helicopters and an eightfold increase from a month earlier in gold shipments.
Last month, exports rose 10.27 per cent from a year earlier, the Commerce Ministry said yesterday.
Imports plunged 16.82 per cent, an indication that exports - traditionally a growth driver in Thailand - remain weak, in spite of the reported rise.
Many imported items are parts assembled into finished goods and shipped out.
Pushing up last month's exports, in the government data, were helicopters and vehicles for military drills of US$683 million (S$936 million) and gold of US$1.89 billion.
Those two items accounted for nearly 14 per cent of total exports of US$18.99 billion.
Exports may contract for another two to three months before turning positive in the second half when commodity prices should start to recover.
MS PIMONWAN MAHUJCHARIYAWONG, an economist at Kasikorn Research, on the data on export
Deputy Commerce Minister Suvit Maesincee said that when helicopters/vehicles and gold are excluded, "normal trade (exports) was down 2 per cent" from a year earlier.
Economist Pimonwan Mahujchariyawong of Kasikorn Research Centre said the data reflects one-off gains. "Exports may contract for another two to three months before turning positive in the second half when commodity prices should start to recover," she said.
Exports, equal to more than 60 per cent of Thai output, have long been weak, one reason why Thailand's military junta has struggled to revive South-east Asia's second- largest economy after taking power in May 2014.
Exports have contracted the past three years, with shipments last year down 5.78 per cent, the biggest annual pace of fall in six years. Domestic demand, another growth driver, has also been sluggish.
The Bank of Thailand expects another contraction this year, a factor in its cutting its 2016 economic growth forecast on Wednesday to 3.1 per cent from 3.5 per cent. The central bank said exports would shrink 2 per cent, rather than be flat.


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ADOTAS – In the U.S. alone, there are more than 327 million mobile devices being used on a daily basis. And according to the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, an astounding 91 percent of Americans currently own cellphones, with nearly two-thirds of consumers utilizing mobile devices to access the Internet.
Undeniably, mobile holds tremendous promise for an ailing publishing industry, and advertisers believe it will soon be the dominant screen to reach consumers. Up until now, brands and agencies haven’t really been building first for mobile, instead simply retrofitting ads originally designed for desktop viewing into mobile environments. Needless to say, this approach resulted in highly intrusive and ineffective mobile ad campaigns that garnered poor results and provided lackluster experiences.
“Advertising technology hasn’t been able to keep pace with the exponential growth of mobile the last few years – now on pace to account for more overall ad impressions than desktop by end of year,” said Chad Gallagher (pictured), director of mobile at AOL. “Users want ads that are more customized to the device and site they are on – the rectangle box at the bottom of the smartphone just doesn’t cut it anymore for advertisers.”
Things are about to change for the better. Today AOL Platforms (formerly AOL Networks) (NYSE: AOL) unveiled its new mobile download app unit that allows marketers to easily and cost effectively insert native advertising into campaigns across the mobile Web. The new native ad unit currently reaches 86 million users per month, according to comScore.
“We are finally moving beyond a Band-Aid approach to mobile and launching a scaled platform that is customized for each mobile site/app,” said Gallagher. “On the publisher side, this represents an opportunity to increase yield by 60% on mobile, which is an amazing opportunity when you take into account the scale of mobile.”
More clicks mean more revenue for publishers and more eyeballs for brands – something that native approaches are known to deliver.
“Native mobile ads are just better than mobile banner ads; they’re easier to read, less annoying, and we get fewer accidental clicks,” stated Tyler Davis, Partner at digital agency Chong + Koster. “So when our AOL team told us they’re rolling out native mobile ads to their quality publishers like HuffPo and TechCrunch, we were more than just excited; we wanted to be among the first advertisers to run these ads.”
Quietly over the last 4 months, AOL has been running AOL Native against its owned and operated properties, as well as across a handful of large third-party publishers. Preliminary metrics indicate the new ad units result in six times the conversions of smartphone display banners: Average conversion rates are between 0.8 percent and 1.2 percent, while AOL’s native units averaged 6 to 8 percent. AOL will now offer its native ads to its more than 22,000 publishing partners and will go live within the next two weeks across all of AOL O&O – including TechCrunch, Engadget, Huffington Post, and AOL Mail.
The company is also working on integrating into exchanges, despite the belief that native exchange inventory for mobile is still relatively low volume.
“For our clients, this simply represents another format to drive performance,” Gallagher added. “For example, an advertiser could simply add text + image to their campaign, and now they will be able to run in native inventory in addition to everything else they do with us. The future of native on mobile is using technology to scale native globally. That’s our No. 1 focus. Native can’t live in closed silos on a few sites; we need to use real-time technology to scale across global sites, customized for each publisher, but standardized in format for advertiser.”


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Time was that unless your home coffee machine was bean-to-cup, you’d be scoffed at. Though infinitely more accessible, compact and convenient for most people’s homes, pods were seen as being lesser quality, not to mention bad for the environment. However, in recent years there’s been an image overhaul of the pod market, with eco options, high-end producers and now, celebrities too. So, are pods finally cool?
Walking past what used to be the Nespresso store in St Pancras station the other day, the pale pink hoarding covering ongoing renovations had a message for passers-by. It read “We’re recycling the former Nespresso store into a new and improved one that’s better for the planet”. Grind’s cheeky pod advertising has been slowly spreading across London, with slogans such as “Doesn’t come with ready-made latte art, but we’re working on it” for some time.
Its mail order and subscription coffee business may have been born of Grind’s physical café business, but now things have come full circle. Such is the success of its pods for home coffee machines, that they now have their own store; a standalone emporium with a window filled with its upturned compostable pods, which – to really hammer home that they’re the first in the UK to make home-compostable coffee pods – are being used as plant pots. It even has the world’s first composting live stream. Who knew composting would one day be cool?
There’s no doubt that brands such as Grind have helped to finally bring the cool factor, a fresh take, and FINALLY some innovation to a category that sorely needed it. Whereas pioneers Nespresso introduced consumers to the concept, first launching in the 1980s to bring consumers barista-quality at home, there hasn’t been much innovation in pods since. In fact Nespresso’s USP was what was at the time a premium aluminium pod, and seemingly endless coffee varietals. But with every supermarket and indeed coffee shop launching a me-too brand, it hasn’t had the edge for some time. Also, George Clooney is great and everything, but those that regard him as a heartthrob generally remember the days of dial-up internet, so…. there’s that. We’re not scoffing; we remember those days too.
The fourth wave has to be fun
The growing affordability of machines, the increasing unaffordability of frequent purchases from coffee shops, and the shift to greater at-home consumption during and post-pandemic have all been helpful in building a bourgeoning market for pods. So beyond not killing the planet (Grind has grabbed that one) how to truly innovate?]
Like Grind, there’s a number of brands globally looking to bring a cheekier, younger and crucially eco approach to pods, and making the experience of shopping for them, way more fun. Singapore-based brand No Harm Done says its tapping into the new ‘fourth wave’ of coffee with its products. During the third wave of the 2000s, consumers became more aware of what good coffee is. During the fourth wave, with quality now a given consumers want to have some fun, says the brand, with products presented in a more light-hearted manner. New flavours are a part of this, it says.
In a brand overhaul, it replaced its western-style flavours last year, with more locally inspired and locally grown coffees with an Asian-spin. They include Gula Melaka Kopi (with caramelised coconut sugar), and Choco Kopi (coffee with a chocolate infusion). Its pods are also fully compostable.
Uh oh, the celebs are here
Is the true sign that a category is on the up when a celebrity arrives, much like when a Starbucks arrives on your local slightly-crap shopping street? I mean, it’s not that they’re a shining endorsement, but it does mean that they smell money. Which is good.
YouTube darling Emma Chamberlain, has recently expanded her Gen-Z coffee brand to include pods. Surely that’s a category endorsement? Of course, they’re compostable. Chamberlain Coffee launched in 2020, but the pods were only added in late 2022. In common with No Harm Done and Grind, the packaging is bold, colourful and playful, aimed at speaking directly to a Gen Z consumer who yes, wants the best quality coffee they can get… thank you very much, but isn’t taking life too seriously. And they want to save the planet too. Or at least, f*ck it up a little less.
Making an Achilles heel a selling point
Turning what was once a detriment – their packaging – into a huge selling point has become a savvy talking point for these brands. Ironically, it’s something that has helped it speak Gen-Z’s (and others) language, making pods a credible way to consume coffee at-home, in a way that instant coffee has never been able to be.
Beyond the environment, let’s not forget also that at its heart coffee is about rituals. It’s about that much needed first cup of the day, it’s about that cleansing 11 am cuppa, and it’s very much about the process of making it. Instant may be convenient, but its always lacked the quality cues of other formats. Pods not only offer a fresher product, more akin to the quality consumers have grown used to paying coffee shops a premium for. But they also more closely replicate the process of making a good coffee. Pod machines may only require you to fill them and press a button – just like a kettle, really – but their screaming, whirring, steaming fanfare as hot water is pushed through the pod somehow feels much more barista-like.
That’s right, the success of pods is all about appearances. And now a flurry of brands have proved they can be cool, there will of course be more that follow. Expect hip, well-designed brands speaking to consumers in causal, light-hearted ways. Expect functional brands that offer more benefits beyond a caffeine hit. Expect brands that profile local flavours and preferences. Expect producers to more closely highlight their connections with growing regions, individual farms and communities. And of course, now that they’re cool, expect more celebrities to join in.
What’s the golden rule for new pod brands looking to claim a share of the market? In the fourth wave of coffee – but arguably only the second wave of coffee pods – brands need to look good, taste good and do good, to stand out.
Interested in finding out more about what this might mean for you and your business?
Please contact us at email@example.com or 0207 101 3939


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We caught up with the Overwatch League’s only Australian player, Scott ‘Custa’ Kennedy, at the Melbourne Esports Open for a casual chat about the recent All Stars weekend, transitioning from the troubled Dallas Fuel to the triumphant Los Angeles Vali...
Interview: Battle for Azeroth's lead character artist tells us who the expansion's biggest hero really is
On the eve of World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, we caught up with Blizzard’s own Dusty Nolting, lead character artist on the game, to talk about what they brought to the MMORPG’s eighth expansion.
On the eve of the launch of World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, we caught up with Blizzard’s own Darren P. Williams, senior software engineer on BFA, to talk about what he brought to the venerable MMORPG’s latest expansion - which promises to put ...
We spoke with Allen Kao, Synology’s CTO, and came away with several key insights about the how the company is tacking AI in 2018 and more.
We caught up with comics legend and Preacher creator Garth Ennis to talk about the upcoming release of World of Tanks: Citadel, a new digital and printed comic book series based on the popular online multiplayer game.
Ahead of this year’s IEM Sydney, we sat down to chat with Intel’s GM for gaming and VR/AR sales Lee Machen to talk about eSports, VR and where Intel’s broader positioning in the gaming space is taking them.
Interview: Netgear CEO Patrick Lo talks eSports, the NBN and why mesh is the smartphone of home Wi-Fi
We caught up with Netgear co-founder and CEO Patrick Lo at the Australian launch of the company’s Nighthawk Pro XR 500 Gaming Router in Sydney and had a chat that covered everything from the rise of eSports to the state of the NBN.
It might sounds like pretty heavy philosophical stuff but, at its ragged, windswept core, Dim Bulb Games’ Where The Water Tastes Like Wine is a game that wears its heart on its sleeve. We spoke to the lead developer behind the project, Johnnemann No...
We caught up with Katrina Garsten and Mikey Dowling from Obsidian Entertainment to talk about Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, which is set for release later this year.
Intel took a moment at this year’s Mobile World Congress to speak to the press and share some details and stories from their recent involvement in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
Away from the chaos of the showfloor at this year’s Mobile World Congress, we caught up with Intel’s Rob Topol, the General Manager for 5G Business and Technology for the company’s Communication and Devices Group.
We caught up with HMD Global’s Mark Trundle to talk about HMDs prospects heading into the rest of 2018 and what to expect from the newly announced Nokia 8110, 6, 7+ and 8 Sirocco.
Interview: Blizzard's Paul Kubit and Shani Edwards discuss the new Allied Races joining the fray in World of Warcraft: Battle For Azeroth
We caught up with Blizzard's Paul Kubit and Shani Edwards to talk about the Battle for Azeroth’ new Allied Races and scaled leveling system.
To anyone in attendance at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, it was clear that TCL is a company with lofty ambitions. We caught up with TCL Electronics Australia’s National Sales Director Jason Carrick to talk about what the company’s CES announcements m...
2018 is shaping up to be a big year for networking brands like D-Link. We caught up with D-Link Australia MD Graeme Reardon at this year's CES to talk about what the company has in-store for the coming year.
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They want Maine fries with that.
Sen. Olympia Snowe and and Maine Reps. Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud have written to the owners of Five Guys Burgers and Fries franchises in New England, asking them to use Maine potatoes in their Maine restaurants.
Citing the state’s “long, proud history of potato production,” the members of Congress wrote: “As you know, purchasing locally can cut down on transportation costs as well as result in fresher food. Additionally, a growing number of consumers in Maine and around the country are keenly interested in supporting local farmers and appreciate having a connection to those growing their food.”
There is only one Five Guys in Maine, at 425 Fore St. in Portland. There are plans to open another on Stillwater Avenue in Bangor next spring.
The New England franchises are owned by Gene Prentice and Jamal Bourdoute, but decisions about what potatoes to use in the Five Guys restaurants are made at the corporate level. Molly Catalano, spokesman for Five Guys corporate office in Lorton, Va., said franchisees are required to purchase potatoes from distributors chosen by the corporation.
Catalano said Five Guys sources its potatoes from Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Potatoes from Prince Edward Island and Canada are used for fries in some Canadian stores. She said the company is open to buying Maine potatoes in the future.
“We are actually going to be testing some Maine potatoes this year,” Catalano said. “We’ve found that the potatoes that are best for our French fries are grown above the 42nd parallel, so there are other states — Maine, Michigan, North Dakota — that do grow potatoes above that line, and each year we re-evaluate. This year we happen to be looking at some Burbank potatoes from Maine.”
She said Maine distributors who would like the company to take a look at their potatoes are welcome to contact Five Guys.
“We’re open to evaluating those potatoes,” she said.
Staff Writer Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at:


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Nvidia Announces 3000-Series GPUs Coming to Market Soon
Nvidia’s new line of Ampere GPUs are here, doubling down on AI-assisted features for gamers and content creators. Here’s the scoop.
After weeks of teasing and looking back at past product launches, Nvidia finally announced their 3000-series of GPUs via a live stream on Sept. 1.
Nvidia announced three new GPUs during their live-streamed event, with the flagship $699 RTX 3080 leading the way. The more affordable RTX 3070 offers a slightly better performance than Nvidia’s current best GPU — the RTX 2080 Ti — at an incredibly low price of $499. Finally, the RTX 3090 is a behemoth, dubbed the “BFGPU” (get it?), by Nvidia, costing a staggering $1499. The RTX 3090 is capable of 8K gaming at 60fps, a previously unheard of and absolutely ludicrous resolution and frame rate combination.
Nvidia’s new GPU lineup uses the second-generation RTX Ampere architecture, which promises faster clock speeds, better cooling, advanced AI-assisted features, and more efficient ray-tracing. The live-streamed event, presented by CEO Jen-Hsun “Jensen” Huang from his kitchen, focused mainly on the gaming aspect of the new GPUs, with Jen-Hsun giving a nod to gamers’ role in the development of GPUs. Jen-Hsun said:
It is the gamers and their insatiable demand that is the driving force of the GPU.
All three Founders Edition versions of the GPUs use a new dual-axial flow-through cooling system that’s said to keep the GPU cooler while remaining quieter than previous models. Ampere GPUs use second-generation ray-tracing cores and third-generation AI Tensor cores. The GPUs also use GDDR6 VRAM and the new RTX IO feature, which Nvidia claims can load game assets directly from storage to VRAM and lower CPU use by up to twenty times when accessing storage. Specifications for each of the GPUs vary, but here’s the full spec sheet.
Why This Is Good News for Creatives
While the Ampere GPUs are certainly great for gaming, thanks to ray-tracing — ray-tracing renders light in a realistic, life-like way — they’re also great for creatives working in video editing, visual effects, animation, architecture, and other fields that require computer graphics. Video editors using the paid version of DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro can take advantage of a powerful GPU to render video and assist with other in-software tasks via hardware acceleration.
Though Nvidia’s line of professional-grade Quadro GPUs are best for creative projects, this new line of consumer-grade Ampere GPUs offer incredible performance at a competitive price. The Beat recently published an article on building video editing PCs, and we recommended Nvidia’s current flagship, the RTX 2080 Ti, in our high-end video editing PC build. The RTX 2080 Ti is approved by Adobe for use in Premiere Pro and After Effects, making it a reliable option for GPU-accelerated rendering. The problem is that it’s too expensive, costing over $1000, but the new lower-priced $499 RTX 3070 offers better performance, at less than half the price. When the RTX 3070 goes on sale in September, it’ll be possible to build a great video editing PC for much less.
The video above was not pre-rendered. It’s from a demo that is using real-time ray-tracing to simulate lighting. A previous demo showed off this same gameplay running on current hardware, and the differences are appalling. It’s only a matter of time before creators use the full potential of these GPUs to create amazing games, animated movies, and more.
According to Nvidia, their RTX 3000-series of GPUs are capable of 3D rendering times that are up to two times faster than the current Nvidia GPUs. For visual effects artists and animators that use 3D rendering software — such as Blender Cycles and Maxon Cinema 4D — Nvidia promises to reduce wait times. SheenCity Mars and D5 Render — 3D rendering software used for architecture — use Nvidia’s new DLSS 2.0 feature. Deep Learning Super Sampling is a deep-learning neural network that RTX GPUs can use via their Tensor Cores — AI processors — to render sharp images and high frame rates.
Other Features Announced
Though many of the features announced at the event were directed at gamers, several features stood out for content creators. Nvidia Broadcast gives streamers, and those working from home, the tools to enhance their cameras and microphones on various streaming and videoconferencing software. And Omniverse Machinima lets creators use game assets to create their own stories.
Streamers can now get more out of their setup by using Nvidia’s Broadcast software, which uses AI to enhance video and audio. The Nvidia Broadcast App is a plugin that integrates with streaming software, such as OBS, Twitch Studio, and even video conferencing apps like Zoom.
When streaming or videoconferencing, a quiet environment is necessary, but not always possible. Nvidia Broadcast introduces Noise Removal, a feature that uses AI to remove background noise. In the video above, you can hear as the sound of the blow dryer immediately goes quiet as Noise Removal is turned on. With Noise Removal turned on, crying babies, barking dogs, and other background noise will no longer interrupt stream or video calls.
Virtual Background is another useful feature. Zoom uses similar technology to remove and replace what’s behind a person, but Nvidia Broadcast’s Virtual Background uses AI to change the background. This feature not only removes or replaces the background, it can also blur the background, a look that’s only obtainable by using expensive cameras with large-aperture lenses. It’s almost impossible to tell the difference between using Virtual Background and using a green screen to get the same effect.
Finally, Auto Frame tracks a user’s head as it moves around the screen, creating the illusion that the camera is moving. The software zooms in on the subject, making it possible to track head movements from side to side. Users who turn this on will stay in-frame, even when reaching for a drink or moving away from the computer.
Nvidia Broadcast will become available to download later in September, for users with Nvidia RTX GPUs.
Omniverse Machinima is a new Nvidia-developed tool that lets users create videos using assets from video games. Users can import characters, backgrounds, and other assets from video games and animate them to create stunning videos. This type of filmmaking is known as Machinima. And, while it has been around for years, the tools within Omniverse Machinima will make it easier for others to pick up the skill.
The software uses real-time ray-tracing, physics, and character animation for like-like simulation. Users can import a voice track and fully animate a character’s mouth by using the software’s face animation AI. By capturing a user’s movement via webcam, the AI can animate a character’s movement. Omniverse Machinima integrates with software such as Maya, Unreal Engine, Photoshop, and others. The software isn’t available yet, but prospective users can apply for early access.
Ampere Shatters Expectations
A third-party GPU manufacturer may have accidentally leaked Nvidia’s new Ampere GPUs’ specifications ahead of schedule, but the final reveal seems to have been worth it. Both the RTX 3070 and 3080 are affordable, relative to last-generation RTX GPUs, and they’re clearly more powerful than even the most powerful consumer-grade GPU currently on sale.
The spec sheet for Ampere GPUs is impressive, but the bevy of other features, such as Nvidia Broadcast and Omniverse Machinima, show that Nvidia puts creators at the forefront. While gamers will certainly get a lot out of these impressive GPUs, creators will find ways to push boundaries on animation, video production, and 3D rendering.
Until reviewers get their hands on Ampere GPUs, we won’t know their real-world performance, but Nvidia seems confident about their products. Referring to a future when holodecks and light speed spaceships are made a reality, Jen-Hsun said:
In this future, we will look back and realize that it started here.
Nvidia and third-party manufacturing partners are set to release the RTX 3080 and 3090 GPUs in the coming weeks. The affordable, yet incredibly powerful, RTX 3070 will hit shelves some time in October.
Cover image via sdecoret.


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While global equity markets have had a great run this year, I’m still seeing plenty of buying opportunities. Here are three stocks I’d buy as we begin August.
One stock that strikes me as a buy as we begin August is Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). The tech giant has a huge amount of momentum right now. Last week, the company posted its third-quarter results for the period ended 26 June and the numbers were very strong.
For the quarter, the company generated record revenue of $81.4bn, up 36% year-on-year, along with earnings per diluted share of $1.30, up from $0.65 in Q3 2020. When you consider that Apple is a $2.4trn company, that level of growth is pretty incredible.
In my view, Apple’s valuation is very reasonable at present. Currently, the consensus earnings forecast for the year ending 30 September is $5.54. That means Apple’s forward-looking P/E ratio is about 26. As such, see a lot of value on the table right now.
One risk here is regulatory intervention. Currently, Apple makes huge profits from its App store. Regulators could step in and force the company to lower its fees.
But I’m comfortable with the risks though. Overall, I think Apple is a great stock to buy right now.
Another stock I like for August is Diageo (LSE: DGE). It’s one of the world’s leading alcoholic beverage companies. Its brands include Smirnoff, Tanqueray, and Guinness.
Diageo posted a strong set of half-year results last week. For the six months ended 30 June, the group generated organic net sales growth of 16%, with growth across all regions, along with a 7.4% increase in adjusted earnings per share. On the back of this growth, the company raised its dividend by 5%.
And in an upbeat message investors, CEO Ivan Menezes said: “I remain optimistic about the growth prospects for our industry, with spirits continuing to gain share of total beverage alcohol globally and premiumisation trends remaining strong. I believe Diageo is very well positioned to capture these exciting opportunities to drive long-term sustainable growth and shareholder value.”
Diageo currently trades on a forward-looking P/E of about 27. That valuation doesn’t leave much room for error. If sales growth slows, the stock could underperform.
I think DGE is a good stock to own in the current environment however. It’s worth noting that analysts at Credit Suisse just raised their price target to 3,950p.
Finally, I see Upwork (NASDAQ: UPWK) as a strong buy as we begin August. It operates the world’s largest freelance employment platform.
Businesses across the world are embracing freelance workers at the moment and Upwork is benefitting from this trend. In its second-quarter 2021 results, published last week, the group reported year-on-year gross services volume (GSV) growth of 50% and revenue growth of 42%.
Meanwhile, non-GAAP net income came in at $4.6m compared to a non-GAAP net loss of $3m in Q2 2020. Looking ahead, Upwork said it expects revenue growth of around 30% for the full year.
Investors should be aware that Upwork’s a highly volatile stock. This is illustrated by the fact that after these great results, the stock actually fell about 15%.
Overall however, I think the long-term risk/reward proposition here’s very attractive. I think this stock has a lot of growth potential.


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BIOSTAR Racing to the Future Tours India for launching its RACING series Motherboard
The BIOSTAR Race to the Future Takes a 4-City Tour of India to show off its latest products
July 13th, 2016, New Delhi, India – BIOSTAR is proud to announce its successful series of dealer conferences in India where it stopped by four cities – Delhi, Kolkata, Vijaywada and Chennai in its Race to the Future tour. Together with the key dealers in the region, BIOSTAR treated their guests in an evening of thanksgiving and enjoyment as the company showcases its latest and greatest products which it brings to the Indian market ensuring its prolonged commitment and vision of success for the country. BIOSTAR brings their latest Racing series motherboard and PRO series products to India and shares their unique features with everyone present.
The first stop for the tour was Delhi were both dealers and media were present and then proceeded to hold dealer conferences in Kolkata, Vijaywada and Chennai to view the formal launching of new BIOSTAR products including the flagship RACING series, the PRO series and the new SoC motherboards. The motherboards on highlight were the BIOSTAR RACING series motherboards and the latest mini-ITX Z170GTN motherboard from the company. Meanwhile, BIOSTAR also present their latest mechanical gaming keyboard and gaming mouse with LED lighting during the event.
The RACING Z170GTN is the new mini-ITX offering from the flagship series of BIOSTAR motherboards featuring support for processors for the LGA1151 socket, support for DDR4 memory, all-solid capacitor build and BIOSTAR’s unique VIVID LED DJ and Smart Ear technology. Onboard interfaces include the latest U.2 and M.2 interface which allow gamers to access the latest high-speed storage technologies by taking advantage of the NVMe PCIe SSDs like the Intel 750 series SSD. With transfer speeds almost four times that of tradtional SSDs, these new storage devices allow unlimited possibilities in creative and high-performance workload.
“We’re excited to hold this 4-city tour in India this July, BIOSTAR is heavily committed to the Indian market and it is vital that we show this focus by visiting each key region”, said Mr. Jesse Chen, Sales Director IMEA at BIOSTAR. “Our products are packed with features which will make them stand out and provide the best possible experience with the gaming trend in customizing and building color themed gaming PCs with our new Racing series of motherboards featuring the vivid LED DJ feature.”
Abacus Peripherals Pvt. Ltd. Sales VP Mr. Vipul Modi also presented during the tour to welcome their customers and complement BIOSTAR’s part in their ongoing business as well as support for the market and industry as a whole. The distributors acknowledge BIOSTAR as a key partner in their business and presents a good balance of cost and performance for consumers. BIOSTAR and Abacus look forward to a prosperous partnership moving forward and hope to develop the market in India further for BIOSTAR. Furthermore, Abacus that they will be extending their after-sales services and support.
“We are thrill to see BIOSTAR’s focus in the Indian market”, said Mr. Vipul Modi, VP of Sales & Marketing of Abacus Peripherals Pvt. Ltd. “We are highly confident in the performance and quality of BIOSTAR products and we’re excited to witness the fruits of our ongoing partnership and what it may bring in the future.” Moreover, BIOSTAR and Abacus have enjoyed a thriving 10-year partnership with BIOSTAR product distribution and they are hopeful for another 10 years.
The dealer conference highlighted BIOSTAR’s RACING flagship motherboard series as being the first to feature racing design on motherboards. Together with the new PRO series motherboards which marks BIOSTAR’s 30 year in the industry, these products serve to highlight the company’s longstanding interest in creating and innovating.
Currently BIOSTAR holds a very strong portfolio in the Indian Markets, designed with an array of onboard features and technologies that lets the user unleash the full power of their PC. All BIOSTAR RACING series products are available in India now.
For more information, visit the official website: http://www.BIOSTAR.com.tw
Follow BIOSTAR India on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BIOSTARindia/
BIOSTAR, is a brand dedicated to the production of motherboards, graphics cards, industrial computing systems, IOT, and healthcare solution. Since its establishment in 1986, the BIOSTAR GROUP has become a major motherboard supplier in the IT industry as well as in IOT, Internet Of Things. In order to pursue the best quality and aesthetic design, BIOSTAR has invested heavily in ID design, equipment, global marketing research as well as R & D. With a constant emphasis on quality, BIOSTAR always seeks to beyond better and race to the future.


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has teamed up hotel reservation service Booking.com to offer hotels across Europe via its website. The tie-up follows its split with Expedia last year over unpaid revenues to the carrier of around ?5 million.
Ryanair’s passengers can now gain access to over 57,000 hotels in more than 15,000 destinations mainly across Europe.
The low-cost carrier says the partnership offers hotel accommodation which will cater to every budget with accommodation ranging from small independent hotels to luxury five star hotels.
Sinead Finn, Ryanair, said: “Ryanair will carry 67 million passengers this year at our guaranteed lowest fares and no fuel surcharges and we are delighted that our partnership with booking.com will ensure they gain access to the best hotel accommodation in Europe. Ryanair passengers will benefit from a wide selection of hotels at great prices which will cater to the needs of every budget.”
Nick Monaghan, Director of Distribution, Booking.com said: “We are proud to welcome such a key partner and to be a part of Ryanair’s commitment in meeting their customers’ needs. With highly competitive hotel rates, a vast choice of properties, multilingual content and the flexibility to make last minute reservations, we believe this partnership offers great added value for Ryanair customers.”


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WATCH: How Steinhoff plans to tackle its legal battles
Steinhoff CEO Louis du Preez talks to Business Day TV about the company’s legal battles
Steinhoff International is looking to settle some of the lawsuits against the embattled retailer by offering claimants cash and Pepkor shares.
About 90 separate lawsuits have been filed against Steinhoff, with combined claims of more than R136bn.
Business Day TV caught up with CEO Louis du Preez for more detail on the proposed settlements.
Or listen to the full audio:
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In this week’s edition of FAST FORWARD, FOX Business Network’s Jo Ling Kent interviews Geoff Chaiken, the founder and CEO of Blink Health, A popular new mobile app that is making generic prescription drugs more affordable.
In REBOOT, Jo discusses Meerkat, The live streaming app that made a celebrated debut at South By Southwest last year. The CEO is turning the company in an entirely new direction, thanks to the popularity of Twitter’s Periscope.
Subscribe and get automatic downloads of this podcast on iTunes
Join FOX Business Network’s Jo Ling Kent with this edition of Fast Forward
FAST FORWARD is a podcast on tech, innovation and media. Every week, FAST FORWARD, digs into today’s stories with the most dynamic leaders and voices. Featuring the inventors, innovators and investors who shape the future while we wait patiently in the present, we leverage our Fox Business intel to explore what happened, why and what’s coming next. And robots. Lots of robots.


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The children of influencers, mommy bloggers, and fitness models are beginning to reach their teenage years.
As the first round of children to come from the Instagram generation, these kids are facing a range of brand new issues. Their faces, identities, and childhoods, in many cases, have been aired online for years. They’ve never really known the privacy many of us enjoyed in the time before social media. One such teen, the child of a longtime mommy blogger, has had enough. They posted on the Am I The Asshole subreddit to air their grievances with a mother who robbed them of the option to live an offline life.
The post begins with some background on the situation. The original poster notes that their mother has built up a hefty following online. It is her primary source of income, and has been for years. OP and their little sister have been a big piece of their mother’s success so far, but they are starting to tire of the situation. Thankfully, OP came up with a brilliant plan.
“I found a website that will print custom jackets, print all over the front and back and arms,” OP wrote. “And I ordered some hoodies that say a bunch of phrases all over them. ‘No photos,’ ‘no videos,’ ‘i do not consent to be photographed,’ ‘no means no,’ ‘respect my privacy,’ ‘no cameras’ ‘no profiting off my image.'” With their clever photo deterrent donned, the poster successfully removed themselves—and their 9-year-old sister—from photoshoots (for the most part).
AITA? My mom is an influencer. I am sick of being a part of it, I had "NO PHOTOS" hoodies printed for me and my little sister. from AmItheAsshole
Unsurprisingly, OP’s mother had some opinions on the hoodies. With her favorite photo subjects suddenly unavailable, she scrambled for a solution. In the days since OP’s hoodies arrived, their mother has tried a variety of tactics to remove the offending attire from the equation. She’s used a number of arguments, from the usual “oh I thought you wouldn’t mind” to arguing that “that’s how she makes income” and using money as a manipulation tactic.
Thankfully, OP is sticking to their guns. But when their mother continued to push back and called them out for wearing the hoodie in what she deemed “inappropriate” situations, OP turned to Reddit to find an answer. And that answer was resounding. A child who does not want their parent’s chosen career to steal every drop of privacy from their lives is, very clearly, not an asshole. The Reddit community came together to encourage OP in their free expression.
“Your mom has exploited you all your life, for money,” one commenter wrote. “That’s shitty enough, but then to try and guilt-trip/manipulate you into continuing to participate even though you’ve told her explicitly you don’t want to be a part of it anymore? That is beyond the pale.”
Other commenters agreed. They offered advice, ranging from a competing account to changing their name or encouraging their mother to rebrand. “It’s not like being an influencer is the only job on earth. Go work in a travel agency or something,” one commenter wrote. “It’s also not like she couldn’t continue to be a blogger – she’d just have to rebrand to one that doesn’t focus on being a ‘mommy.'”
As the conversation continued, talk turned to future generations and the issue of social media. “I think this is going to be a big legal issue in the future,” one commenter noted. “So many kids having to deal with the crap their parents post online about them.”
it’s so interesting that the first generation of kids who were used as props by their instagram influencer moms have grown up and are now asserting their own agency. and their reaction isn’t exactly a surprise. who would want their childhood to be online like this? pic.twitter.com/EFwm0Yei8K— in fair corona where we quarantine (@post_hog) February 7, 2020
The conversation is an interesting one. Several people brought up legal cases in which parents were suddenly struck by lawsuits regarding their children’s lack of consent in online posting. These examples, along with dozens of problematic YouTube channels that have gained infamy over the last few years, all point to a pretty massive future problem. The ever-shifting world of social media presents quite a few societal challenges, and the question of consent may be one of the biggest.


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How Does The Bitcoin Network Process Transactions? There are three elements involved in a bitcoin transaction: a transaction input, a transaction output, and an amount. The transaction input is the bitcoin address from which the money was sent, and the transaction output is the bitcoin address to which the money was sent. These transaction records are updated by the Bitcoin network and
Bitcoin Millionaire Lifestyle There’s no denying that cryptocurrencies have been making waves on a global scale in recent years – with Bitcoin the most. 07/07/2017 · $25 million from an initial investment of $3,000—those are the sort of returns that make a Bitcoin millionaire. Of course, Smith still owns 1,000 Bitcoins, which he plans to sell, “When the. Electrum
But such digital wallets don’t actually hold anything, unlike a physical wallet. For instance, a crypto wallet is simply a.
More than eleven years after its creation, Bitcoin is struggling to gain widespread institutional acceptance. While.
Mike Novogratz, the CEO of Galaxy Digital believes Bitcoin is heading for $10,000, $14,000 then $20,000. PayPal and Venmo could soon allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin price made a.
Electrum Bitcoin Wallet Download When it comes to investing in cryptocurrency, choosing where to store it is nearly as important as buying it in the first place. So, what’s the best bitcoin wallet in 2020? Just as you likely. How Does The Bitcoin Network Process Transactions? There are three elements involved in a bitcoin transaction: a transaction input, a
Bitmain’s ousted co-founder is offering to buy his rival out of the company at a $4B valuation, significantly less than at.
One day, we won’t talk much about blockchain at all – because it will be a default setting for gaming, entertainment, even.
View the real-time Bitcoin Gold price, conversion rates (USD, GBP, EUR), charts, predictions, latest price news and more.


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Helmut Lang, one of the legacy innovators of what we now understand to be '90s cool, is hitting the road with its latest project, so to speak.
Upon arriving in New York from Vienna in the mid-'90s, the iconic fashion brand immediately established itself at the forefront of trendsetting minimalist chic, becoming the first to spread its messaging and advertisements via the NYC taxi system. It proved to be a smart business move: Dozens of fashion brands across categories have since followed suit over the years, literally placing their ads on top of roving taxi cabs.
The latest initiative sees Helmut Lang taking their taxi project global this summer: The taxi logo they created for New York will now get reimagined for (and an homage to) the cab transit systems of Hong Kong, London, Tokyo, and Paris. To honor cab drivers in each city, the brand has commissioned photographers in each city to capture the roles drivers play in the cities' respective cultures. The photographers are Alexandra Leese for Hong Kong, Tom Emmerson for London, Alex Lee for New York, Patrick Welde for Paris, and Kenta Nakamura for Tokyo.
Like Helmut Lang's original New York taxi collection, a similarly taxi-themed limited-edition capsule of $255 hooded sweatshirts and tees ranging from $175 to $210 for each fashion capital will be for sale. The pieces are now available for pre-order on helmutlang.com, and for those of you really hankering for a nostalgia fix, the brand will also re-release their '90s New York taxi line.
Photos Courtesy of Helmut Lang


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5 minutes in the past
Fri twenty ninth January 2021 | 01:30 AM
MOSCOW (UrduPoint Information / Sputnik – twenty ninth January, 2021) Coinbase, a significant US cryptocurrency exchange platform, introduced Thursday that it might go public by way of a direct itemizing as a substitute of an preliminary public providing.
“Coinbase International, Inc. at present introduced its intent to grow to be a publicly-traded company pursuant to a proposed direct itemizing of its Class A typical inventory,” the exchange stated in a weblog post.
The digital platform was arrange in 2012 to make it simpler to buy and promote digital cash, corresponding to Bitcoin and Ethereum, in a bid to open up the worldwide monetary system. It claims to have 43 million customers.


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TNT reaches deal on job cuts
Dutch postal company TNT, one of Europe's biggest, announced it had concluded an 'in-principle agreement' with labour unions resulting in thousands of job cuts but pay rises for those left.
"TNT and the trade unions have reached an in-principle agreement on a collective labour agreement and a social plan," the company said in a statement.
TNT spokesman Ernst Moeksis said the deal would mean pay rises for workers in 2010 and 2011, "but also dismissals between now and December 31, 2012".
The company had previously announced that it intended cutting 11,000 jobs out of a total 58,000 in its postal unit in the Netherlands, where postal volumes were declining by about six per cent per year, mainly due to liberalisation of the market and competition from the Internet.
The new agreement has to be officially approved by the company's workers by March 15 this year. TNT staff rejected an earlier draft deal in a referendum in April 2009, which would have resulted in salary cuts in exchange for job retention.
TNT, which also has an express courier business, announced in December it would sell its mail activities in Europe in a bid to save €200 million (Dh1.10 billion) in 2010.
The company employs some 152,000 people worldwide.
Keep up with the latest business news from the region with the Emirates Business 24|7 daily newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, please click here.
Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.


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Coronavirus infections would plunge if 80 percent of individuals wore masks, research says t shirt face mask no sew
Infections would certainly plunge if 80 percent of people using masks, research study cases– New York Rouses Point–.
face mask degrees.
In the air, there are different bits of dirt as well as allergens that can create serious damage to the body. Although nobody can manage this, they can take safety measures to handle the circumstance. PPE masks can strain greater than 95% of air bits, vapors, and smells. It likewise assists fix the trouble of the coronavirus scientifically. Individuals who have signs and symptoms of the disease will certainly usually cough and also sneeze. A face mask to protect versus infections will certainly prevent the launch of breathing goes down into the air or spread to an additional individual.
On-line face mask offer store.
Be sure to use a mask when you remain in a congested location; You should likewise keep it while you exist. If you appreciate an ill enjoyed one, then you must likewise secure yourself with a mask. You should also utilize one if you recognize that you are sick to prevent the transmission of the infection to your enjoyed ones.


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Playboy, an American adult lifestyle magazine, has reportedly sued a Canadian blockchain company, Global Blockchain Technologies [GBT] under the accusation of breach of contract and fraud. According to the case filed, the blockchain company did not integrate blockchain technology on Playboy’s online portal.
The case has been filed with the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Reportedly, the company entered into the agreement with Playboy in the month of March. The main agenda of the agreement was to implement a technology with which Vice Industry Token [VIT] could be accepted on the adult magazines online portals.
The adult magazine had announced that they were looking into creating an online payment wallet for cryptocurrencies. The company was supposedly going to be the first to launch a wallet which supports cryptocurrency. This would have enabled Playboy to accept payments with cryptocurrency and mainly, Vice Industry Token.
Vice Industry Token [VIT] aims to reward consumers to earn from consuming content which is free online. They have partnered with various adult industry players like DDBusty, StormyDaniels, AnalX. The most recent collaboration of the platform is Tube8. VIT has lost over millions of cryptocurrency because of the partnership between Playboy and GBT.
On the topic of the feud, the CEO of VIT, Stuart Duncan stated that he is “very disappointed with Playboy”. He said that the adult industry company did not reach out to them for tokenizing their online portals even after providing them with millions of tokens.
The CEO further adds that “maybe” they have a reason for a lawsuit against Playboy as the company had provided them with tokens which is almost equal to millions of dollars and there was no benefit from doing so. Duncan said that he has no knowledge regarding the details of the agreement between Playboy and GBT
Playboy also claims that the blockchain company has not paid around $4 million which was also a part of the agreement. The adult magazine company has filed the lawsuit claiming for compensation.
However, GBT has dismissed all the allegation of the fraud calling it, “frivolous” and states that the dispute as a normal dispute amongst the companies.
Recently, Pornhub and Brazzers announced that they would be accepting Verge [XVG] as a mode of payment from their customers. Following which, the leading adult industries announced that they will also be accepting Tron [TRX] for payments.
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Whale Alert: Massive $300 million transfer takes place on Binance Chain; funds SAFU, says CZ
Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has been having a wonderful year in terms of new developments, such as their new Binance DEX and the massive growth of Binance Coin [BNB]. Binance’s native token has grown by approximately 500 percent in 2019 alone.
The exchange also recently announced the launch of BTCB, with an objective to provide a crypto-asset pegged to BTC’s value for trading purposes on Binance DEX, with the assets being backed by Binance itself.
Binance’s ecosystem is progressively active and it was recently observed and reported by Whale Alert, an online cryptocurrency-transaction tracker, that a sum of approximately $302 million, equivalent to around 8 million BNB coins, was transferred on the Binance Chain.
The transaction took place of 26th January 2019, with a time stamp of 07:52:56 UTC. It was sent from an unknown address, bnb1jkvrjawcd8wlugk8455wqjggxecyxj9uf0g7uy, to another unknown wallet, bnb13wmeg7ypkcr39wnzy2q02mku2qemnrm4kclezs, for a transaction fee of 0.000375 BNB. The block height of the transaction was #15820220, and it was deemed a successful one.
Following the massive transfer, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, responded on Twitter regarding the transfer and claimed that the current movement was a rotation of funds between some cold wallets.
CZ suggested with a linked tweet that the movement of funds should not necessarily raise any alarms as the funds were SAFU.
In another tweet, CZ stated that there were currently 4 addresses that were holding 8 million BNB coins each. A total of $32 million BNB was unlocked for the Binance team. However, it was understood that the tokens were not spent and saved in the addresses themselves.
It is speculated that CZ took the initiative to list the reason for the massive transfer as previously, huge BTC transfers, which included a Coinbase wallet transfer, was accused of market manipulation.
At press time, BNB coin was priced at $37.30, experiencing a hike of 1.87 percent over the past 24 hours.
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Lizard Squad now offering DDoS attack tool for as little as $6 per month
After crashing Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, Lizard Squad is making its DDoS tool available as a service, but totally just a stress testing tool with no malicious intent. Promise!
By Ryan Whitwam
North Korea kicked off the internet by giant DDoS: Was it the USA, or someone else?
Yesterday evening, North Korea was unceremoniously knocked off the internet by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This comes shortly after the US government promised a 'proportional response' to the Sony Pictures hack, which the FBI believes was carried out by North Korea. While it would be rather funny if the US government was responsible for taking North Korea off the internet, it's more likely to be the actions of some disgruntled hacktivists such as Anonymous or Lizard Squad.
Sony's PlayStation Network taken down by DDoS, as company reels from last month's massive Sony Pictures hack (updated)
Poor Sony: This morning, the company's PlayStation Network was unreachable due to suspected foul play by Lizard Squad, the same hacker group that took down Microsoft's Xbox Live network last wee. Lizard Squad used a distributed denial of service (DDoS) to take the networks offline. This latest Sony outage comes just a couple of weeks after a devastating and very-high-profile hack on Sony Pictures, which resulted in a massive leak of sensitive information and unreleased movies.
Hackers take down PSN with DDOS, and Sony president's plane with a bomb threat
In a rather bizarre twist of events, a group by the name of Lizard Squad has taken hacking to the next level: Not only did the hackers take down the PlayStation Network with a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack, but they also took down Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley's airplane with a bomb threat.


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It's not that the public is rushing to diesel, like they have hybrids-aafter all, the 8,653 clean diesel vehicles sold in July only represents 0.82 percent of the total market--but, consumer interest seems to be on the rise.
Volkswagen is clearly leading the diesel charge. Sales of the segment leader Jetta TDI were 5,206 in July, bringing the diesel sedan's year-to-date total to 56,717. The Golf TDI didn't enjoy nearly the same level of demand (the Golf never does), but its sales of 966 units in July landed the hatchback in second place among all diesel vehicles. In third, with sales ringing in at 562 units, was the diesel-fueled BMW X5 xDrive35d.
VW is still selling the same Jetta Sportwagen it was in 2010. That car, which gets 32 mpg city/43 mpg highway and built on the last generation Jetta, is still very much in demand and selling without discounts. A Sportwagen based on the new Jetta is expected in 2012.
Volkswagen plans on adding to its diesel offerings with the all-new 2012 Passat sedan. VW expects that the Passat TDI may account for as much as half of all Passat sales.
"Diesel is a very misunderstood piece of technology in the U.S.," says AOL Autos Editor-in-Chief David Kiley. "Unfortunately, most people still associate diesel with the black exhaust belching out of tractor trailers...and that is just way out of date."
Clean diesel vehicles typically get between 25% and 35% better fuel economy than gasoline powered vehicles. Diesel fuel has been ringing up around 10% more at the pump, so the savings are still substantial.
Diesel versions of vehicles, like Jetta and Passat, cost more than the gasoline powered versions of the same model by around $2,500-$3,000. But diesel buyers site the durability of diesel engines, as well as the performance aspects of the engines, as being worth the premium, on top of the fuel economy.
U.S. automakers have been gun-shy about introducing diesel cars to the market, even while 50% of their sales in Europe are clean diesel. They sell diesel heavy-duty pickup trucks in the U.S., but they haven't seen demand for diesel passenger cars like they do in Europe.
But General Motors is planning to break the trend by introducing a diesel version of the Chevy Cruze for the 2013 model year in late 2012 in the U.S.


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Tag "television apps"
Yahoo! has dropped another app into the Android Market today with the release of the television-centric IntoNow. Ever walk into someone’s living room and wonder what show they were watching?
Monsoon Multimedia is now offering their Vulkano Flow mobile accessory, which allows for users to watch TV anywhere, even on their Android devices. Once the Flow is hooked directly to
GetGlue has released the Android version of their entertainment-based social network service today, allowing users to earn points and stickers for checking into movies, books, music, and shows. Already available for the iPhone, GetGlue also provides personalized recommendations and exclusive rewards from top entertainment brands such as HBO, Showtime, Barnes and Noble, and Universal.


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There's been a lot of talk in the gaming industry about how for the next-generation console race both Microsoft and Sony (and Nintendo, but they haven't said so in a while) intend to launch "first", i.e. ahead of their competition. This drive to be first makes me want to sigh and shake my head; we're seeing captains of industry becoming the metaphorical equivalent of people who stuff online message boards full of "First Post!" messages. Now the desire to be ahead of the game has transcended to the actual console unveilings themselves.
Joystiq reports that Microsoft has a sudden press conference scheduled for a mere three days before the big E3 show next month, presumably to reveal the Xbox 360 and therefore be "first" to do so. Now Sony has countered with a press conference scheduled to begin only a few hours before the instant Microsoft conference, supposedly to show off the PlayStation 3 for the first time. However (and here's the kicker) neither company has actually officially announced that next-gen hardware will be on display at these times. So essentially we have a case of two companies striving to have press conferences only days from more press conferences that may or may not reveal new hardware, but at least one of them will be the first to do so. Anyone else remember when gaming companies wanted to be "the best" and not "the first"?


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Doesn’t look like Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) is done eliminating “non-core” services quite yet. The company says it is considering shutting down MyBlogLog, a social networking service built around blogs that it acquired two-and-a-half years ago for $10 million. ReadWriteWeb cited sources yesterday who said MyBlogLog would be closed down next month. A Yahoo spokesman tells us, however, that nothing has been decided. On the Yahoo Developer Network Blog, the company says it is “actively discussing the future of MyBlogLog” and says that a shut down is “an option but there are other options as well.”
The possible shutdown comes as Yahoo has discontinued nearly a dozen of its products this year; most of those cutbacks, however, were announced through June. If the company does go ahead and close down MyBlogLog it once again does not speak well to its track record with acquisitions. As we outlined this summer, Yahoo has given up on at least six companies it bought, including Maven Networks, which it purchased in February 2008 for $160 million and Geocities, which it bought for $3.6 billion.


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The recent slew of mergers and acquisitions is part of a larger corporate transformation that is remaking American healthcare â€“ for the worse
A golden age of corporate medicine may be dawning. A slew of mergers and acquisitions looks set to transform American healthcare, drawing health insurance giants, pharmacy benefit managers, physiciansâ€™ practices, drugstores, surgical centers and â€œretail clinicsâ€� in pharmacies and supermarkets together into giant corporate healthcare blobs. Whether you view this as a positive development may depend on your stock portfolio: good for industry profits, perhaps, but almost certainly detrimental to the publicâ€™s health.
Last week, health insurance giant Humana bought a large physiciansâ€™ group based in Florida, which comes on the heels of recent news that retail behemoth Walmart may be angling to buy Humana. Meanwhile, drugstore giant CVS, which already runs a pharmaceutical benefits program and the nationâ€™s largest chain of retail clinics, is buying insurer Aetna for $69bn even as it expands into the dialysis game. And health insurer UnitedHealth Group has been gobbling up physiciansâ€™ practices from coast to coast, building a powerful â€œarmy of tens of thousands of physiciansâ€�, as Bloomberg puts it, alongside more than 200 surgical facilities and 230 urgent care centers.
This post was syndicated from Health | The Guardian. Click here to read the full text on the original website.


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American dairy farmers are complaining about steep cuts in the price of Canadian ultra-filtered milk (mostly used in cheese production). UFM isn’t defined as milk under NAFTA, so while Canada keeps the cost of drinking milk very high, they’ve slashed the cost of ultra-filtered milk. Lowering this price umbrella to world market levels has hurt American dairymen.
If Canada can drastically reduce the cost of an industrial milk product it could also cut the cost of drinking milk for Canadians. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though, because it’s Canadian government that keeps that cost high. In effect, Canada subsidizes UFM by heavily overpricing drinking milk, which it protects with high tariffs.
Canada is a country that doesn’t even have internal free trade. The Canadian Constitution Act of 1867 prohibits internal trade barriers, but Provinces have nonetheless spent nearly 150 years erecting trade barriers against each other and preserving picayune local regulatory prerogatives.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in provincial “supply management boards” dealing with milk, cheese, eggs and poultry. Canadian milk is subject to the precision wisdom of centralized planners – a maze of quotas, price floors, subsidies and entry barriers intended to protect incumbent Canadian dairy farmers from competition at the expense of consumers.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Canada’s barriers to international trade in those markets are even worse. This has attracted the attention of our President, who – visiting the dairy state of Wisconsin – complained about it in almost the same breath as he emphasized his “Buy American-Hire American” policy.
We’ll skip over the question of why Canadians aren’t allowed to have a “Buy Canadian – Hire Canadian” policy for the moment, because many Canadians agree with President Trump about Canadian milk policy; or at least resent the high prices they have to pay for milk.
It’s not as if the American treatment of milk is free of mercantilist shenanigans, but when President Trump says Canada’s milk policy is unfair, he has a point, even though he’s not thinking about how unfair it is to Canadians:
Canada’s dairy quota system has been Canada’s shame since it was introduced in 1970. The quota system makes milk prohibitively expensive for poor families, it denies Canadian consumers the right to purchase diverse cheeses from around the world and it destroyed Canada’s once-great cheese industry, whose many small producers capitalized on milk surpluses to make world-famous cheddars — Ontario alone once supplied England with half of its cheddar cheese imports…
Canada remains one of the West’s great bastions of protectionism, barring foreign ownership of banking and other major sectors and unable to achieve even internal free trade among our provinces, despite 150 years of trying. The provinces themselves don’t accept the provisions of NAFTA, cannot be bound by them and haven’t honoured them.
And he is certainly not bemoaning the restrictions on Canadian diary farmers:
The fact that each individual Canadian dairy producer is told exactly how much milk he may produce, and exactly to whom he may sell it (Hint: There’s only one legal customer and it happens to be a provincial marketing board) is evidence of just how transparently anti-free trade we are in this realm. And a recent agreement struck by Canadian dairy farmers and producers which effectively slapped a new import tariff on ultra-filtered milk (a product used to make cheese and yogurt, among other things), has drawn the ire of Australians, Mexicans, New Zealanders and members of the European Union.
Meanwhile, Canadian consumers pay the price. The Montreal Economic Institute estimates that the country’s supply management system costs each of us [Canadians] $258 a year. Which is not especially surprising, when you think about it. We have official, explicit collusion and price-fixing going, after all. It’s how we’ve chosen to conduct business.
Or, the barriers to entry in the Canadian market:
That governments have been so unwilling to set aside a policy that is responsible for Canadian families paying two and three times the world price for basic food items, all to benefit a dwindling number of wealthy and aging, farmers (young farmers face a formidable barrier to entry, in the form of the cost of quota: more than $25,000 per cow) is one of the great dilemmas of public policy. If we have to enlist Trump to save us from ourselves, so be it.
So, just as our tariffs on Brazilian sugar, Chinese steel and Canadian softwood lumber hurt American consumers and eliminate jobs with manufacturers using those products, milk quotas and tariffs hurt Canadian consumers and Canadian cheese and yogurt making employment.
Not to be outdone by Canada, President Trump has decided to impose higher costs on American consumers by placing an additional 20% tariff on Canadian softwood lumber. The average new house built in the United States will increase in price by around $1,000 and eliminate many thousands of American jobs in the construction, furniture and paper industries.
This is the fifth time since 1982 that softwood lumber has precipitated a dispute with Canada.


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Addressing an Indonesian Farmers Council (Patani) meeting at his office here on Tuesday, the minister said Australia had promised to invest in Indonesia, particularly in the animal husbandry sector, at an investment forum held in that country, which was attended by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
However, Suswono pointed out, the promise had yet to be fulfilled.
The minister stated he had visited Darwin in 2010 to follow up on the meeting, in which seven Australian companies had pledged to invest in Indonesia.
"But those promises have not been kept. It seems as if Australia only wishes to use Indonesia as a market. After all, Indonesia is an attractive market," he continued.
Suswono noted that there was no indication so far from Australia that it would keep its promise of making investments in Indonesia.
"They use the excuse that Indonesia does not offer the necessary supporting infrastructure for them to invest here," he said.
At the meeting, titled "Agribusiness` Readiness to Meet AFTA 2015," the minister said the ASEAN free trade era will begin by December 2015.
After that, he continued, the ASEAN region will become a free trade market, in which ASEAN member countries can trade in agricultural products free of duties.
"The agricultural sector will also benefit from the free trade market. We must be involved in it because we are part of the international community," Suswono said.
The minister noted that the proposal of making ASEAN a free trade area was launched in 1992. Therefore, he said, Indonesia will only have itself to blame if it cannot get ready to conduct free trade by 2015.
"We must face it: Indonesia can only succeed by improving its competitiveness in regional as well as international markets," Suswono added.
(Reporting by Subagyo/H-YH/INE/KR-BSR/S012)


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Undoubtedly one of the hottest topics for our industry this year comes into effect this month. No, it’s nothing to do with the ongoing Airgas-Air Products situation but instead, what could prove to be an almost seismic impact on the global helium business.
Late August (2010) saw the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) revise its methodology for calculating the price of crude helium for open market sales.
Representing more than just the average cost pass-through news announcement, the BLM revised its methodology for calculating the price of the crude helium offered during its yearly Open Market Sale.
As a result, Federal Crude Helium will be sold at $75.00 per thousand cubic feet in FY2011, compared to $64.75 in 2010, signalling a 15.8% price increase. This price covers helium debt repayment and interest and includes administrative and storage costs.
The BLM is responsible for administering the Department of the Interior’s Federal Helium Program, following the intent and requirements of the Federal Helium Privatization Act of 1996 (HPA). The Act established a minimum pricing for the helium based on a calculation that would retire the program’s total debt to the US Treasury by 2015. BLM has been charging the minimum price established by the Act, a price that represents the cost of the helium not its value on the open market.
According to a statement sent to gasworld by the BLM, the new pricing methodology is in response to recommendations from the recently released National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, entitled ‘Selling the Nation’s Helium Reserve’.
John E. Hamak, Assistant Field Manager for Helium Operations at BLM, told gasworld, “In prior years, BLM adjusted the price annually, in October, based primarily on the Consumer Price Index. The new pricing methodology is in response to recommendations from the recently released NAS report, Selling the Nation’s Helium Reserve.”
“The BLM reviewed information regarding private helium prices and in-kind prices and used this information to determine the new open market price. The Conservation Helium will be sold at $75.00 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) for FY2011. In accordance with the Helium Privatization Act of 1996, this price covers helium debt repayment and interest since the helium debt was frozen in 1996 and includes administrative & storage costs associated with the Conservation Helium calculated on a per Mcf basis.”
“Additionally,” Hamak continued, “the price includes an estimated liquefaction differential between crude helium and pure helium of approximately $10.00, based on an analysis of private industry crude and refined helium prices.”
The BLM is keen to note that the in-kind helium price for fiscal year 2011 will remain at $64.75 and that the BLM will continue to determine the in-kind price for federal users in
the same manner as in the past.
As one of the industrial gas industry’s leading experts on the helium business explains, the BLM announcement could be just an initial step towards a much tighter, more expensive helium market in the future.
Matheson’s Phil Kornbluth, Executive VP, International & Helium, is expecting helium supplies to become tighter and more costly until major new sources of supply enter the market during the 2013/2014 period.
He explains that as helium demand recovers from the global recession and only modest new capacity comes into the market between now and 2013, helium markets may be increasingly vulnerable to shortages due to production outages at one or more of the world’s 16 helium plants.
According to Kornbluth, capacity utilisation, which dropped to an estimated 86% in 2009 due to the recession, has recovered to approximately 90% in 2010. Kornbluth noted that when helium markets reach 95% capacity utilisation, they are essentially sold out, since, at any given time, one or more of the world’s helium sources is usually not operating at full capacity.
Once capacity utilisation exceeds 90%, a modest amount of growth or an outage at one of the sources is all it would take to trigger shortage conditions. While Kornbluth is not looking to a severe, extended shortage like the industry experienced in 2006/2007, his view is that the trend is clearly toward a tighter market.
After rebounding from the depths of the recession, Kornbluth expects global helium demand to grow by a modest 2-4% per year during the next few years. However, with so little spare capacity, this could be enough to trigger a shortage of supply.
Kornbluth notes that the new plant that Matheson is building near Big Piney, Wyoming, in a 50:50 joint venture with Air Products and Chemicals, is the only new capacity expected to come online before 2013. The 200 MMCF per year initial production from the Big Piney Plant only represents a 3% increment to world supply. Existing sources are probably declining by a comparable amount due to depletion.
With an air of caution, Kornbluth doesn’t foresee an end to the period of tighter supply until 2013 or 2014, when new sources are expected to commence production in Qatar and Algeria. And we should not be surprised if the new sources do not start up on time or at full capacity.
“In my experience”, stated Kornbluth, “these plants never start up early and usually experience occasional hiccups during the first 6-12 months.”
The bottom line, says Kornbluth, is that the period of relatively ample helium supply associated with the global recession may be coming to an end in the not too distant future.
While the supply of helium is gradually expected to tighten up, the cost of helium appears poised to undergo a step change, Kornbluth believes.
While agreeing with the sentiments behind the BLM pricing actions, he warns that a tighter, more expensive market dynamic might evolve for helium in the future.
“The BLM’s move to market pricing is sensible and consistent with the NAS study’s recommendations,” Kornbluth reasoned. “At a time when the US government is running huge deficits, why should the government be selling a stockpiled commodity for anything less than the market price?”
The 15.8% price increase that will go into effect on 1st October 2010 will have a far reaching impact on the cost of helium, since roughly one-third of the world’s helium production is refined directly from BLM crude – and another significant portion of the world’s helium production is sold under contracts whose pricing is contractually linked to the BLM’s posted price.
Kornbluth expects that any significant increase in the cost to produce refined helium would likely be passed through to helium customers.
So what does this all mean for helium customers? “Look for increased scarcity of helium and higher costs not too far down the road,” Kornbluth concludes, “with no relief in sight until major new sources commence supply in 2013 or 2014.”


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I’m a day late in my post, but yesterday began American Craft Beer Week. May 11 – 17 is a celebration to support craft breweries and the culture of craft beer. Many bars and breweries around the country are planning special events this week. If you are on Facebook, you can also sign the Declaration of Beer Independence by joining the American Craft Beer Week fan page.
Unfortunately, there are no events listed for South Carolina this week. However, for those of you in the rest of the country, take a look at the site and see what’s going on near you.
I do know that Bell’s is celebrating their South Carolina release this week. Last night there was an event in Greenville at Barley’s. Tonight is the Flying Saucer in Columbia, Wednesday it’s the Mellow Mushroom in Charleston. Thursday Bell’s will be available for sale at the Charleston Beer Exchange. I believe they’ll have several selections on tap for growler filling.
Be sure to support your local craft breweries by buying their stuff this week, and every week for that matter. There are no words of support louder than your money.


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India’s Ministry of Tourism is hoping to promote a new perception and better understanding of yoga and Ayurveda as a holistic way of life to attract more health-conscious, high-end travellers deeper into India.
In an interview with TTG Asia at the recent ITB Berlin, Alphons Kannanthanam, the minister of state for tourism, said: “There is already a strong fan base for yoga and Ayurveda, but there are misunderstandings that yoga is just a form of exercise and that Ayurveda is a spa treatment. If we are able to (correct) that misperception, we will be able to attract more health-conscious travellers to India and perhaps even more millennials, as this is a generation that greatly values a balanced way of life.”
B Venkatesh, senior general manager, inbound-sales, with Cox & Kings India, agrees, further explaining that yoga and Ayurveda on their own “can be practised anywhere in the world” but only when they are combined and recognised as a serious medical solution will they be strong magnets for health-conscious travellers.
Kannanthanam believes that yoga and Ayurveda will help drive international arrivals deeper into India, away from just the big cities, and bring much needed tourism spend to the rural communities. This is because “yoga and Ayurveda are often practised in quieter, rural districts”, he explained.
“Furthermore, as yoga and Ayurvedic retreats are often lengthy, running for a week or more, we will be able to keep travellers longer with us and have them spend more in the community for lodging, food, sightseeing and others,” he remarked.
The minister pointed out that these wellness retreats “don’t come cheap”, which fulfils India’s desire to attract higher yielding travel markets.
According to Biju George, director-overseas marketing, Somatheeram Ayurveda Group, a seven-night package inclusive of accommodation, treatments and full-board meals could cost from 875 euros (US$1,083) for a single standard room to 7,532 euros for a 14-night double deluxe suite.
Somatheeram Ayurveda Group is recognised as one of India’s leading Ayurveda specialist provider, offering five resorts in Kerala and treatments that are certified by the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers.
Venkatesh noted that there are also ultra-luxury resorts in India that offer a combination of yoga and Ayurveda, such as Ananda in the Himalayas and Carnoustie Ayurveda & Wellness Resort, where treatments carry a hefty price tag of 9,000 euros and up per person for a week of stay and treatments.
“Wellness travellers are rarely price-sensitive, as their focus is on tuning their bodies and mind, and recovering from whatever that ails them,” he said.
While Cox & Kings India gets wellness demand from all over the world, Somatheeram Ayurveda Group sees Europe as its dominant market, making up 75 per cent of bookings.
Baby Mathew, chairman and managing director of Somatheeram Ayurveda Group, hopes to do more to court travellers from Asia where he has seen stronger interest in recent times.
“We will open our sixth resort this November, the five-star Somatheeram Amruth in Kerala. With more room inventory and treatment facilities, we will be better able to attract even more people,” Mathew said.


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Following drop in the arrival of tomato to the Nethaji Daily Vegetable and Fruit Market, the wholesale price of tomato has increased to ₹ 30 a kg while the vegetable is sold between ₹ 35 a kg to ₹ 45 a kg in retail.
On an average 5,000 boxes, each weighing 15 kg, arrive from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Talavadi to the wholesale market in the city. Due to an increase in production, the wholesale price of tomatoes was more than ₹ 15 a kg in the past two months. After the start of the rainy season in the past three weeks, the arrival of tomatoes to the market dropped significantly leading to sharp increase in the price.
Traders said that continuous rain had damaged the crops in the past one week leading to drop in arrival to the market. “The wholesale price was around ₹ 10 a kg last month. But now we sell it for ₹ 25 to ₹ 30 a kg”, they added. Traders said that it is normal that the price of tomato and other vegetables will shoot up in October and November as rain affect the crops. Many traders said that the quality of tomato is also poor due to rain and they expect the same in the coming weeks.
In retail, fine quality tomatoes are sold above ₹ 35 a kg while second quality tomatoes are sold at ₹ 25 a kg.
Source: Read Full Article


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Many passenger vehicles have already made the switch to either a hybrid model, where the car runs on both gas and battery power, or, more recently, a totally electric model that runs on battery power alone. But will this trend find footing for fleet trucks as well? Experts say yes – in fact, the small movement toward electric trucks that began over the last few years has gained more and more momentum, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. What does this mean for the future of fleet trucks? Read on to learn more.
Change Across the Board
A switch to electric trucks would not just change one or two components of the fleet industry – it would create a series of developments that affect everything from your operating costs to your drivers’ responsibilities.
For instance, you probably realize that electric trucks cut your fuel consumption down to nothing. Even if you only utilized a few electric fleet vehicles and continued using conventional trucks for the remainder of your fleet, you would still see a significant impact on your fleet’s fuel consumption as a whole.
Time spent on scheduled maintenance would also be reduced in electric vehicles, thanks largely due to the simpler nature of the electric drivetrain. While a learning period would certainly be necessary for techs to familiarize themselves with a new system, the average time spent on maintenance and repairs to the trucks would decrease rapidly. Even maintenance on components that need attention due to wear and tear, like brakes, would require less attention and fewer replacements.
Even your driver retention rate could be affected – studies done by companies utilizing electric fleet vehicles have shown that employees are highly satisfied with the electric model for a variety of reasons, resulting in an increased retention rate for drivers. Consider the costs associated with recruiting, training, and onboarding a new employee, and you will realize why this seemingly insignificant benefit may be one of the biggest assets of electric trucks.
When Will It Happen?
There is no set deadline in mind for electric trucks to become the norm rather than the exception, but more and more companies are exploring the benefits of incorporating electric vehicles into their fleets.
The big names in the trucking industry are also starting to take note of the electric vehicle trend – and they are taking steps to make changes so they aren’t left behind. These companies are conducting studies and trial runs to determine exactly what it would take to begin the conversion to electric fleet vehicles, as well as research into how this change could change the fleet industry as a whole.
Of course, it won’t happen overnight. The concept of electric trucks is still new enough that there is no feasible way to compete with the current diesel model that the majority of companies still use. The bottom line still depends on reliable, consistent service, and no company wants to risk business just for the sake of trying out an electric truck. However, as electric vehicles become more common, many agree that we will see a sweeping change in the fleet industry as the electric trend finds its home in heavy trucks.
More on Dickinson Fleet Services
Headquartered in Indianapolis, Dickinson Fleet Services (DFS) has grown to become one of the largest independent fleet maintenance and management companies in the country. DFS is the leading provider of on-site mobile maintenance and repair services nationwide, offering mobile on-site maintenance and repair services for light, medium and heavy-duty trucks and trailers with over 500 mobile units operating nationwide. DFS services fleet customers with 23 maintenance facilities each offering select services from accident repair, paint, refurbishment and dedicated technician services, combined with an in-house CARES CALL center providing 24/7 repair assistance. DFS has made significant investments in training and technology, including WebWrench® (maintenance tracking and scheduling through proprietary technology) and TRAIT® (real-time reporting and dynamic preventative maintenance inspections processed through a proprietary field service application) and is the only fleet services company in the nation to provide both fleet maintenance and management to its customers nationwide. www.dickinsonfleet.com