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We are alerting our clients that due to one of our employee’s family members having COVID, we have decided to take precautions and close the Center for 2 weeks. We are taking this precaution because all of the Veterinary Center employees work in such close contact, in our small office, and we take the safety and health or our staff, clients, and patients very seriously.
For the next 2 weeks, beginning today, Monday October 28th, through on Wednesday November 12th, Doctors will be seeing pets and their owners remotely, via telemedicine appointments during the Center’s usual business hours, that pet owners will be able to schedule themselves directly online. Directions for how to schedule an appointment will be available to pet owners if they call the Center’s regular number, (914) 864-1414. The Center’s veterinarians will be available for after-hours emergency phone calls, as usual, and sick pets needing medical care will be referred to the Katonah Bedford Veterinary Center, where they will be treated under our veterinarians’ guidance, as they usually are after business hours.
We appreciate your patience and understanding during these unusual times. We look forward to being back in the office in 2 weeks, and we hope everyone stays healthy and happy!
Book your Virtual Appointment with us now! See our instructions on how to get started here.
Keeping people safe while caring for pets during the COVID-19 outbreak
To all our valuable clients and their pets, we at the Veterinary Center will continue to stay open to care for ill pets during this difficult time, but to ensure the health and safety of you, your pets, and our staff, we are implementing some new protocols:
Our waiting room is very small, and our exam rooms are even smaller, making social distancing impossible. Therefore, for the health and safety of both pet owners and our staff, we will continue to ask pet owners to hand off their pets in carriers to our staff in the parking lot outside the Center. Pet owners will not be allowed inside the Center. Instead, staff members will carefully remove pets from their carriers inside the building and then return carriers to pet owners in the parking lot. No other personal objects (toys, blankets, etc.) will be taken into the building.
Pet owners will be asked to provide detailed accounts on the phone to the staff about what is going on with their pets. Owners are welcome to listen on their phones to the appointment in progress as it goes on in the exam room and should feel free to ask questions as the doctor comes up with recommended plans for treatment.
Once the staff and the pet owner have agreed on a treatment plan for a pet, owners will be asked to sign permission for treatment online and can either wait in their cars in the parking lot until their pet’s care is complete, or they can return later to the Center at a time they work out with the staff to pick up their pets.
All payment for services will be due at the time of treatment, as usual, and will be processed over the phone.
We are sorry if these new policies inconvenience our clients in any way, but in order to keep our staff healthy so that we may be there to treat your pets, we feel that these steps are necessary. We cannot compromise on these new policies and risk the health of our staff. Please be patient during these trying times so that we can all get through this safely and not compromise our health or the health of our beloved pets.


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Union minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said that the price of the Aakash 2 tablet will be brought down to $35, about Rs. 1,900, when using more local manufacturing resources. The Aakash costs $49, Rs. 2,660 approximately, at the moment. The minister also said that the next version of the Aakash is also being planned, and will come with Skype, as well as other improved features.
"Aakash is a tablet which at the moment costs $49. It will come down to $35 very soon. It has all the amenities of any modern tablet. It performs the same function as a $150 tablet,” Sibal said at Reverse Buyer Seller Meet (RBSM).
"The capacitative ( touch) screen is imported at a cost of $22 or around $20. The manufacturing cost is $2. If you were to set up that manufacturing unit in India, the cost will come down automatically from $49 to $29,” he added, while explaining how the price drop works.
The minister further revealed that the government will soon approve manufacturing of 50 lakh units of the Aakash tablet in India and then float a global tender for the production in the country. Manufacturing of the device on a large scale will help the government bring down the cost.
It's notable that the each unit of the Aakash cost the government about Rs. 2,263. The government is giving a 50 percent subsidy on the device (for students), subsequently bringing down the price of the slate to Rs. 1,130.
The minister was hopeful the device would help provide a quality solution for people. "In fact it will be game changer for the world... [the] consumer in Europe, consumer in Japan, consumer in the United States of America would be looking for those solution because he will be getting the same solution at a much lower cost and a very high quality solution," Sibal said.
Sibal further said that the government is focussing on research and development (R&D) for manufacturing of electronics product in the country that are of high quality and affordable. "We are going to create an R&D fund in which the government will contribute. We are setting up fab so that (electronic) chip manufacturing can be done India," he concluded.
Sibal's remarks that the next tender includes manufacturing of the device in the country comes shortly after it was alleged that the Aakash 2 was a Made in China device. DataWind CEO Suneet Singh, however, said only motherboards were manufactured in China and the final assembly of the device happened in India. Read Aakash 2 being made in China a non-issue; so is the iPad
Source: Times of India

domain: news


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OPPO’s sub-brand Realme launched the Realme 2, the company’s second-generation smartphone in India last week starting at Rs. 8990. It went on sale for the first time on Flipkart at 12PM today. The company has confirmed that it sold 200,000 or 2 lakh units of smartphones in just 5 minutes. Next sale is scheduled for 11th September, which is next Tuesday. Continue reading “Over 2 lakh Realme 2 units sold out in 5 minutes in first sale, next sale on September 11”
Realme today launched the Realme 2, the company’s second-generation smartphone as it had promised. It has a 6.2-inch HD+ 19:9 aspect ratio display with a notch and 88.8% screen-to-body ratio, Snapdragon 450 SoC with up to 4GB RAM, ColorOS 5.1 based on Android 8.1 (Oreo), 13-megapixel rear camera along with a secondary 2-megapixel camera for portrait shot and 8-megapixel front camera with AI beautify features that intelligently recognizes 296 facial features as well as face unlock. It has similar specifications as the OPPO A5 which was launched last week.
Continue reading “Realme 2 with 6.2-inch 19:9 FullView display, dual rear cameras, 4230mAh battery launched in India starting at Rs. 8990”
Realme already announced that the Realme 2 smartphone will be launched on August 28th. Today Flipkart has confirmed that it will be available exclusively with them and also said that it will be one of the first companies to offer a notch screen under Rs. 10,000. Continue reading “Realme 2 launching in India exclusively on Flipkart on August 28, to be priced below Rs. 10000”
Update – August 23: Qualcomm India has confirmed that the phone will be powered by a Snapdragon Mobile Platform. The Realme 1 was powered by MediaTek Helio P60 SoC. Realme also confirmed that the phone will feature a 6.2-inch display with 88.8% screen-to-body ratio, compared to 6-inch display with 75.7% screen-to-body ratio on the Realme 1. Based on Flipkart’s teasers the phone will be exclusively available with them. The Realme 1 was launched exclusively on Amazon.in.
Continue reading “Realme 2 with 6.2-inch notch display, dual rear cameras, 4230mAh battery launching in India on August 28 [Update: Snapdragon SoC]”
After three months of launch of Realme 1, the company has started teasing the Realme 2 with a notch. The company has also teased dual rear cameras for the smartphone.
Continue reading “Realme 2 with a notch, dual rear cameras teased ahead of launch”


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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The New York comptroller has withdrawn shareholder proposals calling for supply chain accountability at retailers Dollar Tree and Dillard's citing their agreements to have their suppliers report on factory safety.
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, trustee of New York's $173 billion pension fund, says the agreements help protect the companies and investors from financial and reputational damage should factory suppliers fail to meet recognized safety standards.
Dollar Tree operates nearly 5,000 stores in 48 states.
Dillard's has 300 department stores in 29 states.
The New York fund owns more than 598,000 shares of Dollar Tree worth about $30.7 million and nearly 59,000 shares of Dillard's worth about $5.6 million.


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NVIDIA has just released their new GeForce GTX 570 graphics card equipped with 480 CUDA cores running at 1464MHz, a 732MHz graphics clock, and 1.25GB of GDDR5 memory 3.8GHz, all for the price of $349.
The GTX 570 is based on a de-tuned version of the GF110 graphics chip that powered the GeForce GTX 580. Although the restrictions aren’t too bad. NVIDIA have only disabled one of its 15 shader multiprocessor partitions and one of its six memory controller/ROP partition combos.
However this cut down GTX 580 card might not be worth the purchase price just yet until AMD has unveiled its full upper-tier cards next week.
Latest Geeky Gadgets Deals
Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.


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According to a recent press release, “Delivering on its vision that ML engineering should be just as easy, fast and safe as modern software engineering when using DevOps techniques, Dotscience, the market leader in DevOps for Machine Learning (MLOps), today announced new partnerships with GitLab and Grafana Labs; deep integrations to include Scikit-learn, H2O.ai and TensorFlow; expanded multi-cloud support with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure; and a joint collaboration with global enterprises to develop an industry benchmark for helping enterprises get maximum ROI out of their AI initiatives. ‘MLOps is poised to dominate the enterprise AI conversation in 2020, as it will directly address the challenges enterprises face when looking to create business value with AI,’ said Luke Marsden, CEO and founder at Dotscience. ‘Through new partnerships, expanded multi-cloud support, and collaborations with MLOps pioneers at global organizations in the Fortune 500, we are setting the bar for MLOps best practices for building production ML pipelines today’.”
The release goes on, “AI-derived business value is forecast to reach $3.9 trillion in 2022. However, many businesses continue to struggle with deploying ML models into production, posing challenges around the value of AI in the enterprise. To address this challenge, Dotscience is collaborating with global enterprises to help them get the most from an early investment in AI. ‘Dotscience not only gives productivity benefits to data scientists but also gives those in governance roles assurance that the firm is doing all it can to mitigate risk from AI,’ said Charles Radclyffe, head of AI at Fidelity International.”
Read more at Business Wire.
Image used under license from Shutterstock.com


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Papa John’s owner charged in NY sales tax theft
A Papa John’s pizzeria owner who runs six New York City stores has been charged with stealing $217,000 of state sales tax.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says Syed Mehboob was arraigned Thursday and charged with grand larceny, offering a false instrument for filing, criminal possession of stolen property, filing false tax return and falsifying business records.
He was released without bail. His next court date is on Sept. 10. His lawyer didn’t return a call for comment.
Brown says that between 2005 and 2010 the 45-year-old underreported his earnings by about $4 million.
A New York State Tax Department audit found the Long Island man collected $1,148,226 in sales tax between 2005 and 2010 but only reported $948,997.
More breaking news
- Plastic surgeons finally joining practices
- Federal judge finds bias in Garden City Village
- Cuomo orders safety upgrades for NYC trains
- Dow jumps 200 points after strong jobs report
- AT&T says it doesn’t have to disclose NSA dealings
- 23andMe to halt health-related genetic reports
- Feds’ site gives states incomplete Medicaid data
- Nassau to hold film location bus tour next week
- Firms give big ‘like’ to Pinterest, Instagram
- US consumer spending up 0.3 percent in October
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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A pair of filmmakers at the prestigious TED Conference used virtual reality (VR) to allow people to experience the ravages of deforestation — from the perspective of a tree.
A presentation on Thursday titled Tree combined sound, sight, smell and touch to let people feel first-hand what is lost when lush forest burns down.
“It was very real: At one point I was going to take the headset off and ask about the fire,” TED attendee Elle Luna said after trying Tree. “Your thinking mind sort of stops and you just feel it all.”
The experience gets under way when participants step onto a platform surrounded by tall, potted plants.
Each person buries a seed symbolically in soil before donning virtual reality headgear and an interactive vest that squeezes or vibrates on cues.
From there, they virtually become the seed.
Looking down, roots are seen sprouting and the participants are transported by the smell of rich earth as they rise to the surface and break into sunlight on a forest floor.
They grow to be tall trees, with birds, monkeys and other creatures perching or climbing on arms transformed into long branches under a glorious sky.
Fans simulate wind. Heaters provide the illusion of the sun’s warmth. The platform and interactive vest tremble as you grow or sway.
Then comes the sound and shake of engines and chainsaws. The smell of smoke, provided by a member of the Tree team lighting a match in the real world, draws attention to a fire devouring the forest.
In the final moments, one becomes a virtual ash floating away. A seed appears to float in the thick smoke in a parting hint of hope that life will start anew.
“It is the story of life and death of being,” one of the creators Milica Zec said. “Everything is amazing until humans come to the forest, then we replace that with forest and everything is taken away from you.”
Not wanting people to end Tree on too grim a note, they are given a real seed to plant along with information about how to connect with the Rainforest Alliance for ways to help fight deforestation.
“We are able to dissolve the screen; now you are the subject,” Tree co-creator Winslow Porter said. “People leave and tell their friends they were a tree.”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, on Monday issued a statement about the balanced life environment it provides its employees, in response to a Fortune article at the weekend in which several former and current employees in the US were quoted complaining about the company’s “brutal” corporate culture. In the statement, TSMC said average work hours at the company have not exceeded 50 hours a week over the past two years with only a few exceptions, such as when the company introduces a new technology process or speeds up building a new plant. In such situations,
At a red-brick factory in the German port city of Hamburg, cocoa bean shells go in one end and out the other comes an amazing black powder with the potential to counter climate change. The substance, dubbed biochar, is produced by heating the cocoa husks in an oxygen-free room to 600°C. The process locks in greenhouse gases and the final product can be used as a fertilizer, or as an ingredient in the production of “green” concrete. While the biochar industry is still in its infancy, the technology offers a novel way to remove carbon from the Earth’s atmosphere, experts have said. Biochar could
WEAK PROSPECTS: The contract electronics manufacturer expects revenue to drop this quarter due to product transitions and a high comparison base a year earlier Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler, yesterday posted a second straight monthly growth in revenue to NT$45.07 billion (US$1.47 billion) last month, thanks to a pickup in smartphone demand. Last month’s revenue marked its best performance since January. On an annual basis, sales dipped 9.45 percent, the smallest annual decline since February, compared with NT$49.78 billion in May last year. Revenue from smart consumer electronics products, primarily iPhones and smartphones for other brands, delivered a “strong” double-digit, month-on-month growth in May because of customers’ pull-in, Hon Hai said in a company statement. That was the only business category
FALLING CHIP DEMAND: Moody’s Investors Service expects revenue at the contract chipmaker to fall by about 1 percent, adding that the firm’s earnings could also retreat Slower global economic growth and US export restrictions would dent revenue at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) over the next 12 to 18 months, Moody’s Investors Service said in its latest report. “We expect revenue at TSMC to fall by 1 percent after its robust growth of around 40 percent in 2022,” it said, adding that earnings would also slip from a high comparison base. Nevertheless, strong net cash positions and good access to funding would enable the company to weather the short-term challenges, Moody’s said. Slowing global growth, coupled with high interest rates and inflation, is reducing chip demand, especially for


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The state has filed a lawsuit against snack food and beverage giant PepsiCo, alleging the company is partially responsible for the trash simply by creating so many throwaway bottles and bags, according to a story by the Associated Press.
The state is seeking “financial penalties and restitution,” claiming PepsiCo is a “public nuisance” by producing large volumes of food and drink containers, some of which end up as flotillas of junk in the Buffalo River. The river was considered one of the country’s most polluted waterways, but the AP reported that it has been cleaned up in recent decades.
To support the claim, Attorney General Letitia James said officials collected river trash at 13 sites to determine its origin. PepsiCo (based in New York) was the leading source at 17% of the nearly 2,000 pieces of garbage gathered. According to the AG’s survey, PepsiCo plastic “was three times more abundant than the next highest contributor.” In addition to cola, the company also produces Frito-Lay foods and a host of other products.
“No company is too big to ensure that their products do not damage our environment and public health,” James said in a statement from her office.
The company lists ambitious goals, with benchmarks to be met by 2025 and 2030, including, as they said, “100% of our packaging to be recyclable, compostable, biodegradable, or reusable” by 2025.
Plastic waste is a problem piling up in almost every corner of the world. We create about 386 million tons of plastic waste a year, which takes up to 500 years to degrade, per data collector Statista. Nanoplastics, small plastic particles, have even been found in human blood. The health impacts are being studied.
In New York, the AG reported that microplastics are in Buffalo’s city drinking water and even in fish that were examined.
“We will not sit idly by as our waterways become polluted again, this time from ever-growing single-use plastic pollution,” James said in the AP report.
Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.


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Microsoft, the leading software giant, announced a new program in early March this year to accelerate the growth of 10,000 African startups and fast-track investment in the continent’s startup ecosystem over the next five years. The opportunities are made available through Microsoft’s ATO, its Founders Hub on the Africa Transformation Office which provides startups with a variety of resources.
The firm also announced entering into strategic partnerships with venture capital investors to provide African startups with access to $500 million in potential funding, allowing them to scale quickly.
According to a press release, the ATO services include access to mentors, skilling content, tools such as Microsoft Azure and GitHub, and go-to-market and business support.
“Microsoft is also forming new partnerships with accelerators and incubators across Africa, including Grindstone, Greenhouse, FlapMax, and Seedstars, to provide market access, technical skills, and funding opportunities to industry-based start-ups.” These collaborations will “provide Africa’s start-ups with access to skilling programs, access to markets, including opportunities to co-sell with Microsoft, and access to technology, with support from Microsoft’s engineering and product teams for co-innovation opportunities,” the statement reads in part.
Meanwhile, Kunle Awosika, MD of Microsoft’s ATO, reiterated the company’s commitment to its earlier promise of investing in 10,000 African startups over the next five years in a virtual media event on Sunday, December 4, 2022.
The virtual media briefing came after Microsoft hosted a meet-up for startup founders and entrepreneurs last week through its ATO, emphasizing the founder’s critical role within the startup ecosystem. The event equally examined the critical role that corporate organizations, VCs, tech accelerators, and incubators can play in advancing startup innovation and growth across the continent.
Microsoft, according to Awosika, is already assisting over 1000 startups through its ATO, with the immediate goal of signing up 3 000 businesses.
A Look at Microsoft’s ATO Activity in Africa So Far
Microsoft established the Africa Transformation Office in 2021 to promote investment and growth in four key development sectors: digital infrastructure, skilling, small and medium-sized businesses, and start-ups.
The company says that after realizing that these lofty goals cannot be met alone, it entered into some strategic partnerships with governments, international organizations, and multinational corporations to enable African businesses to accelerate investments in Africa and boost digital service exports from the region.
Since its inception, the Africa Transformation Office has led programs and formed strategic alliances across the continent to develop digital infrastructure, equip SMEs with digital capabilities, encourage creative start-ups, and train today’s and tomorrow’s workforce.
It also mentions that the Africa Transformation Office has created and supported business and technical acceleration programs for startups in collaboration with three accelerators in South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria.
The Africa Transformation Office has interacted with over 1500 African startups through a series of online and in-person interactions. The office recently hosted ten startups at GITEX in Dubai, including Q-Hop and BancX.
Microsoft has also partnered with several notable venture capitalists, including Banque Misr, Global Venture Capital, and Get Funded, Africa. It intends to expand this network over the next five years to provide more funding for expansion and economic growth.
The company has backed a growing relationship with its South African partner Technvst to give 30 African startups access to clients and opportunities to expand their markets. Microsoft has worked with other South African start-ups on new growth and market potential, including Finclusion, The Awareness Company, Anisoptera, Omnisient, and WalletDoc.
Microsoft’s Founders Hub in Africa
In 2021, the Africa Transformation Office established Microsoft’s Founders Hub in Africa. The self-service hub provides access to a variety of resources; including go-to-market and business support services, as well as tools like Microsoft Azure, GitHub, and Microsoft 365. According to Microsoft, this includes opportunities for startups to sell to their corporate and enterprise clients. It also assists startups with geo-expansion operations, allowing them to grow by opening stores in other countries or regions.
Nearly 150 South African start-ups are among the more than 1000 African start-ups that Microsoft is now assisting through Azure credit, developer tools, mentorship opportunities, and technical help on the Founders Hub.
Awosika says “Our goal is to enable start-ups to rapidly scale using investment funding, and by providing access to skilling programs, access to markets, and access to technology, with support from our engineering and product teams for co-innovation opportunities. We believe start-ups can contribute significantly to developing Africa’s digital economy and contribute to the wider economic growth of Africa.”


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The stand-in chief executive Sam Weihagen also conceded that arch-rival TUI Travel, owner of Thomson Holidays, had outmanoeuvred its
Asked why TUI is in better shape, Weihagen replied: "I think they have a model that is functioning better. Their organisation is not as complex as ours. They got the capacity right. All of these things we are addressing."
Today's turnaround plan includes measures to sell planes and underperforming hotels, increase margins by dropping "unnecessary discounting", and seek other cost cuts across the business.
These moves were overshadowed by the results for the year to September, which show a company in serious jeopardy.
The write-offs and impairment charges total £573 million, plunging Thomas Cook into a £398 million loss. Debts now stand at £891 million, lower than two weeks ago thanks to the sale yesterday of some Spanish hotels.
Nick Batram at Peel Hunt said: "The results came in below our expectations and the extent of the deterioration in the UK reflects the structural issues faced by the group.
"The £573 million exceptional charge was higher than we expected at this stage but there is perhaps more to come. There is a turnaround plan for the UK but the market backdrop remains poor and the risks high and we would continue to avoid
Weihagen conceded it has been a "very challenging year for the group". He said customers remain "supportive" despite attempts by TUI, via adverts, to take advantage of its rival's strife.
He can take some comfort in a 10% rise in sales to £9.8 billion, which suggests the package holiday is far from dead.
Not everyone in the City is convinced that TUI is immune to the problems affecting Thomas Cook.
One fund manager, who has a short position on TUI shares, said: "While they may be able to convince punters in the short term that they are better than Thomas Cook and benefit from a short-term bounce in revenues, the same structural issues that Thomas Cook have experienced will, despite a reputation for great management, come back to haunt TUI."
TUI stock was steady at 152p. Thomas Cook shares were down 0.54p at 14.28p.Reuse content


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36th Street Closes $8MM Financing for Global Rideshare Co
MAR 2, 2020 - 6:35 am
36th Street Capital recently funded an $8 million equipment financing for a technology company that provides ridesharing, meal preparation and delivery services to end-users worldwide.
“This transaction required us to partner with the captive financing arm of a major technology firm to finance essential use equipment for this publicly traded company,” said Mark Horan, Chief Growth Officer at 36th Street. “We’re very excited to bring this credit into our portfolio. Based on the collateral, business model and company’s strong customer base, we were able to get comfortable with the company’s path to profitability. We’re pleased we could structure a transaction that provided additional liquidity for the company and achieved a successful outcome for our origination partner.”
36th Street Capital is an alternative funding source supporting the equipment finance industry. The firm specializes in transactions with middle market companies who find it difficult to obtain credit from traditional industry sources.
You co-founded Currency, poured your heart into it for 8+ years, sold it to a PE fund and stayed on as CEO. But then right before the pandemic hit, they let you go. How did you process this change? Ah.... read more
The top five players in the Monitor 101+ ranking — a captive, two bank affiliates and two independents — commanded 30% of the total market share and contributed 20.4% of the collective total new business volume of the Monitor 101+... read more


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PlayStation 5 Website Updated Ahead of Possible PS5 Reveal
Sony Interactive Entertainment has updated the PlayStation 5 website ahead of a possible PS5 [...]
Sony Interactive Entertainment has updated the PlayStation 5 website ahead of a possible PS5 reveal in early June. At the moment of publishing, it's unclear what the update means. Sony hasn't said what's in the update or why an update was made, but PlayStation fans are convinced it means something, and with the PS5 reveal event rumored to go down soon, PlayStation fans are connecting the dots between the update and the seemingly imminent event.
While Sony hasn't disclosed why the website has been updated or what has been updated, PlayStation fans have noticed some new flavor text, including word of "lightning speed" and "stunning games." Below, you can check out every new line reportedly added:
- Lightning speed
- Harness the power of a custom CPU, GPU, and SSD with Integrated I/O that rewrite the rules of what a PlayStation console can do.
- Stunning games
- Marvel at incredible graphics and experience new PS5™ features.
- Breathtaking immersion
- Discover a deeper gaming experience with support for haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and 3D Audio technology.
Interestingly, there's also a section of the site that's currently not displaying, suggesting Sony may be blocking something. However, it's also quite possible this is a technical issue, like the iframe for the newsletter not working.
As alluded to, the current rumors and reports have the PS5 reveal event pinned for some time during the first two weeks of June. Of course, this isn't official information, and it's also subject to change due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has and will continue to disrupt the plans of many.
That said, the sources in question have proven reliable in the past. which means many PlayStation fans have early June circled in their calendar.
If the reports and rumors are true, then Sony will surely need to announce the event sooner rather than later. Like this week soon. And this PlayStation 5 site update may hint at this announcement.
The PlayStation 5 is poised to release worldwide sometime this holiday season. Below, you can continue to read more about the console via the relevant links:
- Every PS5 Game Confirmed So Far
- GTA 6 Release Date Possibly Revealed
- This PlayStation 5 DualSense Controller Mock-Up Looks Better Than the Real Thing
- New PlayStation Patent Possibly Reveals Another Interesting PS5 Feature
- Should You Upgrade Your PS4 to PS5?
- PS5 Pre-Order Guide
H/T, Reset Era.


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Last night, Kim Kardashian showed off her silver-white hair while hitting New York Fashion Week!
Kardashian attended the Tom Ford show on the same day news broke that her surrogate is pregnant with a baby girl.
Of her new locks, Kardashian wrote on her website, "[Currently] LOVING my new white silver-ish hair!!!”
Kim’s hairstylist Chris Appleton posted his own Instagram, writing, "Guess who? Seeing if blondes have more fun! Silver white hair vibes! It's NYFW! Colour and cut by me #chrisappletonhair @kimkardashian Makeup @makeupbyariel."
Kim recently followed younger sister Kylie Jenner’s lead and released her own line of beauty products.


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Reports are coming in that the Sillens Hills teaser is becoming unplayable.
Messaging app firm has given up majority control of its Line Games business and raised outside financing as it seeks to expand its collection of games titles and look at global expansion options. The Line Games business was formed earlier this year when , the Korea-based game publisher that it acquired in 2017. Now the business has taken on capital from Anchor Equity Partners, which has provided 125 billion KRW ($110 million) in financing via its Lungo Entertainment entity, . A Line spokesperson clarified that the deal will see Anchor acquire 144,743 newly-created shares to take a 27.55 percent stake in Line Games. That increase means Line Corp’s own shareholding is diluted from 57.6 percent to a minority 41.73 percent stake. Korea-based Anchor is best known for a number of deals in its homeland including investments in e-commerce giant and fashion retail group E-Land. Line operates its eponymous chat app which is the most popular messaging platform in Japan, Thailand and Taiwan, and also significantly used in Indonesia, but gaming is a major source of income. This year to date, , which is primarily virtual goods and in-app purchases from its social games. That division accounts for 19 percent of Line’s total revenue, and it is a figure that is only better by its advertising unit, which has grossed 79.3 billion JPY, or $700 million, in 2018 to date. The games business is currently focused on Japan, Korea, Thailand and Taiwan, but it said that the new capital will go towards finding new IP for future titles and identifying games with global potential. It is also open to more strategic deals to broaden its focus. While Line has always been big on games, Line Games isn’t just building for its own service. The company said earlier this year that it plans to focus on non-mobile platforms, which will include the Switch among others consoles. That comes from the addition of NextFloor, which is best known for titles like Dragon Flight and Destiny Child. Dragon Flight has racked up 14 million users since its 2012 launch, at its peak it saw $1 million in daily revenue. Destiny Child, a newer release in 2016, topped the charts in Korea and has been popular in Japan, North America and beyond. via a dual U.S.-Japan IPO that raised over $1 billion. Note: the original version of this article was updated to clarify that Lungo Entertainment is buying newly-issued shares.
There's something brewing in the world of Toby Fox's Undertale. The game came out way back in 2015 for PC and later for home consoles. The Kickstarted project turned out to be a big indie success, and now there appears to be something new being teased for the title, but the upcoming...
Final details for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate are coming this week, with Nintendo announcing a lengthy Direct video presentation scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 1.
Source: Nintendo Nintendo sold 3.19 million Switch consoles worldwide , up from 2.92 million units in the same period a year ago, reaching a lifetime total of 22.86 million units for the hybrid home/mobile console, surpassing the 2001-2007 era Nintendo GameCube in cumulative sales. The result, , signals a continued strong reception for the Nintendo Switch, which had already exceeded its immediate predecessor, the Wii U, in lifetime unit sales. For the upcoming holiday season, Nintendo is counting a major lift from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for Nintendo Switch, set for release on Dec. 7; and Pokémon: Let’s Go! Pikachu/ Let’s Go! Eevee, scheduled for release on Nov. 17 on the Switch. The Pokémon games will be released in conjunction with a separately sold, $50 device called the . Nintendo maintained its forecast of 20 million units sold for the Switch for the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2019. So far, in the first six months of the fiscal year, the company has sold 5.07 million units of the Switch, . During an interview at the GeekWire Summit in October, Reggie Fils-Aimé, president and COO of Redmon-based Nintendo of America, explained how the company learned from the Wii U in developing the concept for the Switch, which can be picked up and taken on the go. “Certainly without our experiences on the Wii U we would not have the Nintendo Switch in terms of what we learned, and importantly what we heard from our consumers,” he said. “They were telling us, I want to play with this tablet, this Gamepad, for the Wii U, but as soon as I get more than 30 feet away, it disconnects. So the core concept, something that you could take with you anywhere, anytime, was really compelling. So it was an important step for us to be able to deliver on this proposition.” [Watch a GeekWire TLDR video report on Fils-Aimé’s comments above, and .] By comparison, Sony this morning said it in the September quarter. Microsoft no longer discloses Xbox unit sales, but , “Gaming revenue increased $842 million or 44%, driven by Xbox software and services revenue growth of 36%, due to third-party title strength, and Xbox hardware revenue growth of 94%, against a low prior year comparable due to timing of the Xbox One X launch in the second quarter of fiscal year 2018.” Operating profit in the July-September quarter , up from 23.8 billion yen a year ago. The outcome fell short of analysts’ estimates but qualified as the company’s . Nintendo said its results were helped strong sales of Switch games including Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (1.67 million units; May release) and Mario Tennis Aces (2.16 million units; June release). Total software sales for Nintendo Switch reached 42.13 million units, the company said.
Last year Tango Gameworks and Bethesda released The Evil Within 2 to resounding acclaim from gamers and solid review scores from critics. The game has been hailed as one of the better action-horror titles to come out in recent times, and if you've already given it a playthrough you might...
While Bethesda has been keen on bringing properties both new and old to the Switch, the developer announced recently that they just couldn't make Fallout 76 work on Nintendo's platform.
At launch, the long-awaited (and much hyped) western adventure that is Red Dead Redemption 2 is only available on the PS4 and Xbox One. That might not be the case forever, though. Code hidden within the game’s mobile companion app suggests that a PC version could be in the works. Last week, we wrote about , which lets you rip the in-game map off the TV and put it on a nearby tablet, instead. No more pausing just to figure out if you and your horse are still headed in the right direction. Some tinkerers (as spotted by ) have been poking around that very app, and have unearthed a few interesting parameters left behind. Two unused parameters tucked into the app (“PARAM_companionAutoConnectIpPC” and “CommandIsPcVersion”) mention the PC platform by name, but there are also dozens of different parameters referencing advanced graphic settings that generally don’t exist on consoles. While the original Red Dead Redemption never made it beyond the console, this wouldn’t be first foray into the PC world. Many of their most popular games landed on PC… eventually. GTAV, for example, launched on consoles in September of 2013 and made its way to Windows in April of 2015. L.A. Noire shipped for consoles in May of 2011, and hit PCs near the end of the same year. Adding fuel to the fire: A few months back, a mention of a PC build reportedly With all that said: As with all things relating to video game releases, don’t get your hopes up too high until you hear it straight from the developer’s mouth. While the signs point to a PC build having existed in some form at some point, there’s always the possibility that these parameters are left over from the company’s own internal testing, or that plans will change.
The PlayStation Classic is set to launch in early December, boasting 20 classic games pre-loaded on the miniature console. And thanks to a recent update, we now know exactly which games will be included.
Rand Fishkin, bottom center, takes a selfie of the Dungeons & Dragons gang at his house, including, clockwise from left, Scott Haug, Adam Doppelt, Geraldine DeRuiter and Dan Shapiro. (Photo courtesy of Rand Fishkin) Intriguing and quirky characters flock to the tech industry. But how many of them would happily classify themselves as a barbarian or a sorcerer, a druid or cleric? Turns out, in Seattle, a group of longtime and well-known tech executives and some of their family members are part of an increasingly vocal group that is gathering to play the wonderfully dorky game of And they’re doing it without the embarrassment or fear of being labeled “nerds.” They’re certainly not alone. The 44-year-old tabletop role-playing game is played today by more than 10 million people worldwide, according to its maker, Renton, Wash.-based . RELATED: , co-founder and CEO of 3D laser printer maker , was in a pumpkin patch a year ago when he ran into , CEO of the real estate company . Shapiro’s kids were evangelizing to Kelman’s kids about Magic: The Gathering — another Wizards’ juggernaut — when Kelman’s kids started talking about how much they loved Dungeons & Dragons. The two dads decided they should get everybody together for a game. “So there we are at a table with snacks and the CEO of a publicly traded company describing a raid on the Storm King’s castle to four children ages 6 to 10,” said Shapiro, who called it “magnificent and delightful.” He started playing regularly with his family on weekends, and they’d spend two to four hours talking to each other around the dining room table. “Because at the end of the day that’s all the game is, is sitting and talking to each other and telling stories together,” he said. Sales are soaring In an era where video games rule and parents worry about excessive screen time on a range of devices, D&D is a throwback to a nerdier, analog era, when geeks weren’t celebrated as mainstream heroes. For the uninitiated, the game was created in 1974 by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Players adopt fantastical character personas and they’re guided on adventures by a dungeon master. Treasure hunts, battles with monsters, spell casting and more play out with the rolling of a 20-sided die. Nostalgia for the game and mainstream acceptance is fueling some of the recent success. In a story in The New Yorker last year titled reporter wrote Neima Jahromi wrote that “game engineers have begun to describe D&D as though it were crafted as a pastime for Bronze Age poets.” The Hollywood Reporter even that A-list celebs such as Drew Barrymore, Stephen Colbert and Dwayne Johnson play the game. Simon Irving, a sales specialist at , a popular gaming hangout with a location in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, said sales of the game are soaring — a contention backed up by news reports that called 2017 the biggest sales year ever for D&D. Getting the action out of basement rec rooms and onto the internet has certainly helped, with podcasts, live streaming through Twitch and YouTube, multiple Reddit communities and more. “In 2017 alone, we had more than 7,500 unique broadcasters streaming live play D&D for more than 475 million minutes watched over the course of the entire year,” Greg Tito, senior communications manager for D&D, . “It’s been super popular on streaming and I think that is a big contributor to the surge in success of D&D and why it’s so present in the public sphere.” Earlier this summer, Wizards of the Coast hosted what it called its most ambitious live-streaming event ever, where celebrities, streamers, creators and cosplayers gathered for three days of game playing and performances from a Los Angeles soundstage. The Dungeons & Dragons website links to a of live-streamed games on Twitch, and SYFY Wire reported that 9 million people have watched others play the game on the Amazon subsidiary. Irving mentioned two broadcasts in particular that he’s attracted to: by the McElroy brothers, who do the “My Brother, My Brother and Me” podcast; and on YouTube, which has a bunch of quasi-famous L.A. voice actors who have been letting people see for years what it actually looks like to play D&D. is another highly recommended series, and features Chris Perkins, who has been at Wizards since 1997 and today is a senior producer for “Dungeons & Dragons.” Irving is not surprised when he hears that some tech CEOs around Seattle are gathering to play the game. “We can barely keep these in stock,” he said, pointing at the , which spells out the loose rules of the game. A D&D player for nearly 20 years, Irving noted that the game is “very fashionable all of a sudden.” The fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, released in 2014, has struck a chord. Players credit D&D with getting away from the rules-oriented nature of fourth edition and back to the core allure of storytelling. “A lot of those stigmas around what it means to be a ‘geek’ or a ‘nerd’ or ‘gamer’ have really started to erode away,” said Irving. “It’s just become much more culturally normative to have that be a thing you do … and people have realized that it’s really fun.” A secret obsession , the former CEO of the marketing software company , who has since launched Seattle startup , has excitedly watched those stigmas fade away. He was on Twitter last December when he got up the nerve to tweet at , another SEO marketing guru who is CEO of . Lurie is an unabashed D&D original, a dungeon master who has been playing for more than 30 years. Fishkin is the guy who longed to play, feared the mockery as a child and kept his obsession private until only recently. (Twitter via @randfish) “I’m still a little apprehensive to talk about the game, honestly,” Fishkin said. But in a very personal way in a blog post on SparkToro’s website back in May. “D&D was, I’d learned from schoolmates who mocked it, for only the dorkiest, nerdiest, most lonely, pathetic kids. I kept my obsession secret,” Fishkin wrote in the post, which sought to connect his own fear of failing as a startup founder with his fear — at the age of 13 — of being rejected for wanting to play a game. The D&D game hosted by Rand Fishkin and Geraldine DeRuiter starts as a dinner party. (Photo courtesy of Rand Fishkin) “I’ve relied a little bit on the blog post I wrote to let folks talk to me about [D&D] if they’re interested, rather than trying to bring it up,” Fishkin said. GEEKWIRE IN RENTON: Fishkin’s own actions seem to counter his assertion that he has an ongoing discomfort with being associated with the game. He and his wife, author , have been playing host to a weekly dinner gathering and game at their home for months, in which Fishkin directs the action as dungeon master. Shapiro attends, and he called Fishkin “a maestro next to none, who weaves incredible stories.” , a co-founder of the restaurant site Urbanspoon, and Scott Haug, a VP of software engineering at Glowforge, also play. Fishkin and DeRuiter, who have been a couple for 17 years and married for 10, have also played in a game hosted by Lurie. DeRuiter had a passing knowledge of D&D when she was younger but had never played. She was well aware of her husband’s relationship with the game. “When he was shy about it, I was like, ‘What are you doing? This isn’t anything,” DeRuiter recalled. “This isn’t even embarrassing. Get a truly embarrassing passion and then we’ll talk. Just lean into it, because you know your friends are going to be supportive.'” ‘I broke ground for you’ Ian Lurie, second from right, is dungeon master for a D&D gathering that included, from left, Andrew Bohrer, Tony Wright, Rand Fishkin, Geraldine DeRuiter, and Lurie’s wife Dawn Dort. (Photo courtesy of Rand Fishkin) Being a kid — or a kid at heart — can obviously be tough. And being a nerdy kid can be even tougher — especially 30 or 40 years ago, long before nerd culture morphed into semi-popular culture. Fishkin and Shapiro and Lurie didn’t grow up with mainstream hits like “Lord of the Rings” movies or “Stranger Things” on Netflix, or “Big Bang Theory” or internet streaming and podcasts to justify their geeky pursuits. Lurie, who was introduced to the game in the late ’70s, said that at the time people were sure that it was demon worship, that the game was going to corrupt people. “My aunt bought me my first copy of the game and my mom didn’t speak to her for three weeks,” said Lurie, adding a bit of hyperbole to the statement. “…There was tremendous stigma around the game. When I started playing it, it wasn’t that D&D made you weird. It was that if you were weird you were playing D&D. The stigma never stopped me. I’ve been playing the game steadily for 38 years.” One group Lurie has been playing with for 20 years includes a couple players who are in tech, a stay-at-home dad and, yes, … a professional sword fighter. Lurie got his son into the game, who turned the D&D club into the single largest club at his high school. He’s now in college where he plays in a couple games. In 2011, Lurie in which he said that everything he learned about marketing he learned from Dungeons & Dragons. When he wrote the piece, no one else was talking about D&D in the executive world, and he was terrified that he was going to lose all of his clients. That didn’t happen. But Lurie laughed in relaying a message to tech execs today who are writing about D&D and how much they love it. “You have no idea. I broke ground for you. I got smacked around on the playground for you,” he said. Dan Shapiro’s kids like to dress up when they play Dungeons & Dragons, and the game includes dice towers, character miniatures and a sword made on a Glowforge printer. (Photo courtesy of Dan Shapiro) Before running into Kelman, Shapiro said he probably hadn’t considered playing game since he was about 12 years old. He read the books fiendishly and wanted to play when he was a kid, but it was hard for him to find others who wanted to. He abandoned it all after junior high and only really thought about it for nostalgia’s sake. “Now it’s coming back in a really different, more thoughtful, more accessible and more mature way, as a way that people get together and tell stories and play games, and it’s part of the resurgence of board games and part of the excitement about face-to face-interaction versus interaction with a machine,” Shapiro said. Shapiro exudes a confidence about his geekiness that fits well with the notion these days that so-called nerds are to be celebrated, not mocked. So over the course of 30 years or so, one would assume he must have shaken any stigma he once attached to D&D. “No,” he laughed. “I’m terribly embarrassed to be talking to you right now. It’s still there and it’s OK. Right? One of the things as a startup CEO is you get respect for a lot of things and you get laughed at for a lot of things. So I figured, ‘Might as well add one more thing into the laughed-at list.” Lurie agreed that occasional eye rolls come with the territory. But he’s long past worrying about people’s assumptions related to the game — and he gets more negative reactions when he tells people he’s in search engine optimization than when he tells them he plays D&D. “There’s lots of things where people’s perceptions of what I do bother me, but Dungeons & Dragons is not one of them,” Lurie said. “I’ve been doing it for such a part of my life that it’s more likely to bug me if you look at me weird when I eat than look at me weird because I play Dungeons & Dragons.” Love and D&D Geraldine DeRuiter didn’t play D&D as a kid and has plenty of questions when she plays now, but she loves how fun the weekly gatherings are. (Photo courtesy of Rand Fishkin) DeRuiter, who is currently working on an outline for another book, in which she looks at online harassment as it pertains to women and how they survive it, said that the group she plays with is made up of fun people who have a lot of pressures in their lives who just want to enjoy time around a game. “It is just this kind of joyous moment of playing, that you don’t get to do as an adult a lot of the time,” she said. Fishkin gets a kick out of working together with other players to solve a problem that might bring with it high tension or high stakes. As a dungeon master, he thinks he’s becoming a better storyteller, and he’s more comfortable with the rules and processes of the game, although he admits to still having a lot to learn when it comes to engaging new players. His wife laughed about her own frustration and the questions she has as one of those new players. “I haven’t gotten the impression that anyone is frustrated with me, but I worry that they are because my questions half of the time are, ‘Wait, what am I doing? Wait, what are my powers? Wait, do I have the capacity to do that? Hold on. What? What can I do here? Like, what are my options? How do I attack this guy? What happens?'” DeRuiter said. “I just had this litany of questions and it’s great if you’re playing with someone like Ian or Dan or Scott who have played before and they’re like, ‘Yes, you can do that. No, here, roll this die, no do this’ … and not in a bossy way, but just in a this-is-the-mechanics-of-the-game way that I just do not understand.” Fishkin said it’s awesome to share stories about the game with his wife, for a week or two after they play. “She also particularly enjoys flirting with characters I’m controlling, which can get awkward in front of other people,” Fishkin said. “But she gets a kick out of seeing me blush after 17 years together.” And because Dungeons & Dragons is all about storytelling, DeRuiter had her own take on that dynamic, particularly when it comes to a game run by Lurie, where DeRuiter said Fishkin’s character is a halfling rogue. “I play a goliath barbarian,” DeRuiter said. “So I’m huge and I have two weapons and I’m basically kind of a war horse — I think I’m something like 7 or 8 feet tall — and Rand is this tiny little halfling, which is essentially a hobbit that lives in my backpack who pops out and stabs people when he needs to. That’s kind of delightful for me and he’s decided that his character is deeply in love with mine and I was telling him, ‘No, you’re supposed to play something different than you are in the real world.'” “But he was hell bent on that,” she said. “It’s quite cute.” Join GeekWire for a with Wizards of the Coast President Chris Cocks on Thursday, Nov. 1, at the Hyatt Regency at Southport in Renton, Wash. The event kicks off at 5:30 p.m. for more details and to register.


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TOWN OF ULSTER >> The JCPenney department store at Hudson Valley Mall will close in early April after more than 32 years in business, the company said Wednesday.
The store will shut its doors around April 7, according to an email from JCPenney Media Relations.
The company did not provide a specific reason for the closing, but said in the email: “We continually evaluate our store portfolio to determine whether there’s a need to close or relocate underperforming stores.”
“While it’s never an easy decision to close stores, especially due to the impact on our valued associates and customers, we feel this is a necessary business decision,” the email added.
The company said 74 people work at the Ulster store, but it did not provide a breakdown of full- and part-time workers. All eligible employees who do not remain with the company will receive “separation benefits,” the company said. It also said it will help employees find job opportunities at nearby JCPenney stores, if possible.
The nearest JCPenney stores are at the Poughkeepsie Galleria, in southern Dutchess County, the Galleria at Crystal Run, near Middletown, and Crossgates Mall, just outside of Albany. The company said it has no plans to close any of its other stores in the region.
Some Hudson Valley Mall shoppers expressed surprise at hearing the news.
“I think that’s too bad,” Carol Dennin of Napanoch said Wednesday. “It’s been a great store. I shop in it often.”
Dennin said she shops in JCPenney once or twice a month and probably will to the Poughkeepsie Galleria store after the Ulster store closes.
Melissa Costakis, a Red Hook resident, was less surprised to hear the local store was closing. She said she doesn’t shop there often and noticed it underwent a lot of changes over the years, making it appear it would shut down.
JCPenney opened in Hudson Valley Mall in October 1982, about a year after the mall itself opened at 1300 Ulster Ave., and it has anchored the west end of the complex ever since. A mall official did not return a call for comment Wednesday.
JCPenney previously had a store at 318 Wall St. in Uptown Kingston. That store, on the block between John and North Front streets, opened in the late 1920s and closed when the mall store opened.
The Ulster store operates in a 67,000-square-foot space on a single floor. It sells primarily clothing, accessories and linens and also has a hair salon.
The mall’s other anchor stores are Macy’s, Sears and Target.
JCPenney operates about 1,060 stores in 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. There are 42 JCPenney stores in New York state, the company said.
JCPenney’s financial situation has been up and down in recent years, but just this week, the Texas-based company reported its November-December 2014 sales were 3.7 percent higher than in the same period a year earlier.


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According to the USCIS, as of May 18, 2012, the agency has received 42,000 out of 65,000 available cap-subject H-1B petitions for FY-2013 and 16,000 out of 20,000 available petitions under the H-1B Masters Cap Exemption.
On a related note, the USCIS has announced: “Due to the high number of recently filed I-129 petitions with USCIS, customers may experience a longer than usual period of time to receive a receipt notice from USCIS. Usually, customers can expect to receive their receipt notice within 30 days of delivery confirmation. However, due to an unexpectedly high volume of I-129 petitions, it may be an additional two to four weeks before customers receive a receipt notice.”
These factors suggest that the H-1B cap for FY-2013 will be exhausted in the next few weeks.


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News Corp is a network of leading companies in the worlds of diversified media, news, education, and information services.
All the latest news, features and updates from Apple
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If you're planning to install Apple iOS 11 today you need to do THIS first
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Watch an Apple boss endure a VERY embarrassing fail as he shows off the new £999 iPhone X


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Get One Of The Last Utica Monopolys In Time For Christmas
This past summer a Utica Monopoly Edition of Monopoly was commissioned and all 5,000 of the first run quickly sold out. I even saw an elderly couple at the post office last week with one of the last ones who were sending it to their son out-of-state. However, do not fret. The Cooley Group, who's brainchild this was has reordered another 3,000 for the Holidays and they'll be available for purchase by Dec 18, but pre-order quickly as this will be the last run of this historic and popular game.
Don't forget that the proceeds from the game's purchase benefit the Abraham House and you can purchase them there and also other Utica area places of interest like Chanatry's, Munson Williams, Adirondack Bank Center, which just so happen to be spaces on the board too!


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As Summer Starts, VeChain Is Bearing Fruit
Lu hints at more to come.
Share this article
As the past weeks have shown, VeChain has continued to #Buidl through crypto winter, and is now starting to deliver. Here are some of the latest developments:
Cupid’s Farm Milk Supply Chain Tracking Goes Live
Perhaps VeChain’s biggest recent success is the launch of a supply chain application, which tracks the supply of milk by Chinese-based Bright Food.
VeChain has been working with Bright Food to develop BrightCode, a supply chain tracking and consumer confidence index built on the VeChainThor blockchain. The Cupids Farm milk brand, produced by Bright Foods, was the first product to go live on the platform, according to the announcement. Ultimately, the VeChain technology is expected to be integrated across the entire supply chain.
This isn’t the first supply chain application for DLT, but the consumer confidence index is what makes it interesting. The technology is available to end consumers, who can easily check the provenance of the milk on a smartphone.
If you don’t fancy popping over to Shanghai for a pint of milk, a helpful Redditor has uploaded a video so you can see it in action for yourself.
BrightCode was developed on ToolChain, a partner version of VeChain’s blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform which launched in late April. VeChain showcased Toolchain at the Viva Tech event in Paris in mid-May.
VeChain’s Expanding Partnerships
VeChain had already established a strong relationship with DNV GL, a leading risk management and quality assurance company. The two worked together on the development of My Story, a digital assurance solution that allows consumers to track the journey of their products. The solution is already being used by Italian winemakers.
Last month, the partnership was solidified with the announcement that DNV GL had acquired a minority stake in VeChain. The announcement also stated that DNV GL will be expanding its blockchain capabilities thanks to becoming one of the 101 authority node holders on VeChain.
After securing Deloitte’s migration to VeChain from Ethereum in early May, the project has also hinted at further news about its existing collaboration with PwC. Nothing has so far been confirmed, but CEO Sunny Lu recently dropped heavy hints about a collaboration with one of PwC’s major clients.
The announcement would be “significant for the whole blockchain space,” Lu hinted.
The teaser came at the VeChain Summit held in San Francisco, when VeChain also revealed the fruits of its collaboration with BMW. Dubbed VerifyApp, the application allows users to track the data for all service and maintenance performed on the BMW vehicles.
Even secondhand buyers will be able to view vehicle history on VeChain’s blockchain. This has obvious consumer benefits, and can also protect manufacturers from counterfeit parts.
Why Aren’t These Successes Translating in the VET Price?
However, VeChain’s successes don’t seem to be translating into the same level of price action on the VET token. In the past month, VET prices increased only 11% percent against the dollar, compared with 47% for BTC and nearly 55% for ETH.
Perhaps due to its enterprise focus, VeChain isn’t a crowd favorite, so many of its successes may be underrated in the crypto space. Enterprise adoption of blockchain doesn’t necessarily appeal to all corners of the community.
It’ll be interesting to see if Sunny Lu’s big news in June has any effect on the price. Either way, if VeChain continues establishing high-profile enterprise partnerships and clients, it could eventually pay off for VET hodlers.


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Earlier this month, superstar restaurateur Danny Meyer’s New York City-based Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) announced it would move all of its restaurants over to online reservations platform Resy by early 2019. The move wasn’t completely unforeseen: USHG partnered with Resy back in 2016 when it began outfitting staffers at iconic NYC restaurant Union Square Cafe with Apple Watches equipped with front-of-house management software, and it also uses Resy for reservations at its newest restaurant, Manhatta.
But USHG’s perennially popular Gramercy Tavern has long used OpenTable, as has pasta destination Maialino, which opened in 2009. The financial impact of losing those restaurants aside, a high-profile restaurant group like USHG abandoning OpenTable for a younger, flashier startup also seems like a symbolic blow to the company, which has been around since 1998.
So why make the switch to Resy? Currently, USHG’s restaurants are scattered across OpenTable and Resy, while its museum restaurants, Untitled and the Modern, accept reservations via online form or phone — so it’s not a surprise the group would look to streamline. But OpenTable persists in commanding its market. “OpenTable is as ubiquitous as Coca-Cola,” notes Dallas restaurateur Brooks Anderson.
Though neither reservation platform would share growth numbers, USHG’s switch to Resy may reflect a shift in the marketplace. It’s too soon to tell definitively, but it’s no secret that more restaurateurs are getting antsy enough to cancel their OpenTable accounts — or are at least thinking about it.
OpenTable still dominates, big time
As a pioneer of the online reservations landscape now in its 20th year, it’s an understatement to say OpenTable dominates the space. The company services 47,000 restaurants in 20 countries, and seats 26 million diners per month via online reservations. It was acquired in 2014 by Priceline (now Booking Holdings) for a whopping $2.6 billion.
OpenTable charges $249 month plus $1 per seated cover that’s booked via OpenTable; for covers booked via the restaurant’s own website, Facebook page, or marketing emails, the company charges 25 cents per head. (The company used to also charge an initial $1,295 for the initial equipment installation, but it eliminated that fee years ago, likely due to increasing competition.)
Long the dominant player in the online reservations game, for years OpenTable could charge whatever it wanted with little competition. But since 2014, a succession of reservations startups has cropped up. Not only do they provide the ability to make reservations online, in some cases, they also offer point-of-sale and front-of-house management software — for much less.
Founded in 2014 by entrepreneurs Gary Vaynerchuk and (Eater co-founder) Ben Leventhal, Resy services more than 2,000 restaurants in 160 global cities. It seats over 1.5 million diners per week — and while that’s certainly nothing to sneeze at, it’s a small fraction of the 26 million a month that OpenTable does. Resy’s plans all offer flat-fee pricing, ranging from $189 to $899 a month. (Interestingly, some of the most high-profile restaurants that Resy had partnerships with when it launched no longer user the platform: NYC’s Estela now uses OpenTable, and LA’s Otium now utilizes SevenRooms.)
Another bit player is Reserve, which also launched in 2014 and differentiated itself from the other reservation apps like Resy by offering users the ability to get their tab and pay for their meal within the app. It charged a flat $5 fee for that capability, and the demand for such a premium service seemingly faded out along with pay-to-play reservations. (Reserve did not respond to an email inquiry for this story.)
Then there’s Tock: Launched in early 2015 and co-owned by Chicago restaurateur Nick Kokonas (Alinea, Next), it led the charge on selling pre-paid “tickets” for high-end tasting menus at restaurants like Next and the French Laundry. Tock offers two different plans for restaurants: The first is $199 per month plus a three percent fee for prepaid reservations, or a flat $699 per month. Tock has more than 2 million users signed up and says it has been utilized by more than 800 restaurants, wineries, and pop-ups, while its restaurant subscriber base has grown nearly 200 percent over the past year.
The demise of “pay-to-play” reservations
When Resy was founded in 2014, it debuted a “pay-to-play” business model: The platform charged diners a fee to book tables at hot, in-demand restaurants, reasoning that restaurants now fall under the category of entertainment — like, say, a night at the theater. (Though it popularized it, Resy did not in fact pioneer the “pay-to-play” reservations model: That distinction belongs to Table8, an SF-based startup that shut down in 2017.)
OpenTable also briefly experimented with this model, trialing a service called Premium Reservations that charged a “small fee” for prime-time tables (think $200 for an 8 p.m. table for four at NYC’s Cosme). But the practice of “buying” reservations never sat well with diners or restaurateurs, some of whom compared it to bribing a maitre’d with a palmed $100 bill, and the pay-to-play reservations trend died out rather quickly. Resy began shifting away from that model in 2015, and all restaurant reservations on Resy are now free (though a handful charge a small deposit at the time of booking to discourage no-shows).
While diners enjoy being able to secure a reservation from their phone or laptop, they simply don’t want to pay in advance: Kokonas notes that free reservations on the platform now outnumber the pre-paid tickets Tock was originally known for, which he calls an indication “that we are moving to more approachable dining options.”
Making the switch
Chicago hot spot Pacific Standard Time has used Resy as its reservation system of choice since opening its doors in April 2018. Partner Josh Tilden used OpenTable in his previous position as strategic director of operations for Paul Kahan’s One Off restaurant group, which includes acclaimed restaurants Blackbird, Avec, and the Publican. For Tilden, who recently joined Resy’s board of advisors, the decision to use Resy at his new restaurant venture was mostly driven by technology. “OpenTable’s tech was a little bit lagging,” he says.
Tilden also appreciates the user experience of Resy, which he says is so streamlined that “when we bring in our host team, some of which have never used the platform before, they become proficient in one shift,” he says.
Finally, price was also a factor when the team behind PST picked Resy over OT. “I’ve seen some [profit-and-loss reports] for concepts where they’re paying 50 to 60 thousand dollars a year to OpenTable.” Resy, at least for now, is on average far less costly by comparison.
Still, PST is the only member of the One Off group to make the switch. Kahan’s top restaurants, including the award-winning Blackbird and Publican, still use OpenTable, and Avec is on Reserve. Change is hard for some longstanding establishments, but last year chef Eric Ripert made the switch to Resy after years of offering OpenTable to diners wishing to eat at his Michelin-starred Le Bernardin.
In Atlanta, acclaimed restaurant Bacchanalia now uses Resy after using OpenTable for 17 years. “The economics are a no-brainer,” Anne Qatrano told Atlanta Magazine last year. “We spent about $1,000 per month on OpenTable (a flat rate plus a charge per reservation) compared to an $89 flat fee per month with Resy. The floor management is not quite as efficient, but we have learned to work around it.”
Obstacles to switching
It’s rare that a restaurant deciding to switch reservations systems makes headlines, like USHG’s move to Resy did: For most businesses, it’s simply a behind-the-scenes operational decision that can have a significant impact on the bottom line. Switching to Resy or Tock has the potential to save many restaurants thousands of dollars a year — so why aren’t more of them abandoning OpenTable for cheaper pastures?
While Resy has a notable presence in markets like NYC and SF, it’s much lesser known in a smaller market such as Dallas, and that presents a major barrier for restaurateurs who want to switch to save money. Anderson, who co-owns the wine bar Veritas and restaurants Boulevardier and Rapscallion in Dallas, is thinking of switching from OpenTable to Resy, but knows that a lot of his customers find his restaurants when they use the original restaurant reservations app as a discovery platform. “When only 10 other restaurants [in Dallas] are on Resy, you don’t want to be the one to take the plunge and possibly lose revenue,” Anderson says. “People are afraid to make the switch.”
While OpenTable’s vast selection of restaurant partners includes everything from independently-owned fine-dining spots to Benihana, Resy has focused on presenting a more “curated” selection of restaurants to its users. “When you open the Resy app you should see 20 or 30 or 40 restaurants and you should have confidence in knowing that they’re all great,” Leventhal said in a 2016 interview with the Austin American-Statesman. “There’s only good choices among them. As a consumer, that is a profound shift from other services that are discovery portals.”
Diners who habitually use OpenTable are probably just not ever seeing the restaurants on Resy or other platforms — and many restaurants can’t afford to take that chance.
For Anderson, the technology behind the various platforms isn’t a concern: “Anybody that uses a smartphone is going to be able to use [the OpenTable terminal] just fine. Their customer service has been certainly passable if not good,” he says. Rather, it’s about cost. “It’s just incredibly expensive. Our restaurants are small, and we’re spending $30,000 a year at Boulevardier and Rapscallion on OpenTable. When people ask ‘Why is your burger $16?’ I want to show them my monthly bill from OpenTable.”
Anderson believes the reigning reservations king will at some point have to reconsider its pricing: “I’m no economics forecaster, but it seems like eventually OpenTable will have to change their business model or they’re going to lose a significant amount of market share to Resy and other similar platforms,” he says. “At some point, $1,500 a month for a tiny restaurant to get reservations is just outrageous.”
Whether more restaurants will start jumping ship from OpenTable remains to be seen, but restaurants undoubtedly have more choices than ever when it comes to picking a reservation platform: “It’s incredibly exciting to see that restaurants now have real choice when it comes to picking technology and picking the technology partners,” Resy co-founder Leventhal told Skift Table earlier this month.
In the meantime, OpenTable can clearly feel competitors nipping at its heels: As CEO Christa Quarles told Skift Table in her own recent interview, “We’ve got to keep pace with the challenges that our restaurants feel so that we can be a preferred partner.”


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The world is still dealing with a massive chip shortage that impacts various industries, including consumer electronics and automotive. It might be car makers that complained the most about the inability to manufacture more vehicles because of the shortage, but several electronic device makers feel the same pressure. Samsung confirmed a few weeks ago that the silicon shortage would impact its smartphone business, saying that it’s taking steps to mitigate the issue. The Galaxy Note 21 cancelation was reportedly on the table, although Samsung might have discontinued the Note line even without a components crisis.
At the time, reports said that Apple’s operations remain largely unaffected thanks to the iPhone maker’s proven ability to manage the complex supply chain and plan its moves accordingly to ensure enough parts supply for its core products. But a new report claims that two Apple products are now directly impacted by the chip shortage, including the iPad and MacBook.
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Global chip shortage impacted iPad and MacBook production originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 8 Apr 2021 at 07:31:58 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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USA: Pilgrim's Pride Corp posts record Q2 net income
Texas-based poultry producer Pilgrim's Pride Corp has announced net income of US$1.3m, or US$0.03 per share, for the Q2 ended 30 March 2002, up US$11.1m year on year. The dramatic increase was due to the change in tax laws in Mexico, said David Van Hoose, CEO, president and COO, which bought a US$9.7m income tax benefit.
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New developments at FBOs including regulations and noise issues; legal disputes; openings, acquisitions and mergers.
Signature Flight Support's new San Jose FBO includes a 60,000-sq-ft hangar that can fit two 767s.
Services offered by Paragon include marketing, brand awareness, sales and economies of scale.
The Turks and Caicos-based service provider says its enhanced online presence will speed customer handling.
Based on customer feedback, MyHandling.com has issued an enhanced version of its software program.
Designed to recognize and distinguish ground handlers for meeting its safety, regulatory compliance, and customer service standards.
NBAA's latest edition of its Schedulers and Dispatchers Conference reached new heights in terms of exhibitors and attendees
With a decade of use in Europe, the TugMaxxe line of remote control tugs is set to enter service on this side of the Atlantic.
Across is one of eight service providers on the field.
Based on steadily increasing totals over the past several years, 2016 could be a breakout year for the U.S. FBO industry.
Airport/FBO view provides an analysis tool for companies providing or looking to provide operational support at a specific airport.


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A report released Monday says the security protocols in connected cars aren’t nearly secure enough. It’s yet another example of the basic dilemma posed by the Internet of Things: how to connect more devices to each other and the Internet, while making them easy to use, technologically innovative and private and secure.
Cars with wireless systems connected to the Internet are vulnerable to hacking and data theft, according to the Senate report, which found that auto-industry security measures are “inconsistent and haphazard.”
“Every time you add a new point of connectivity to a device, you have increased the attack surface — more ways to gain access,” says Steve Checkoway, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute. Checkoway participated in experiments in 2010 that showed how vulnerable cars can be.
Automakers are designing cars with the same kinds of wireless connectivity technologies that consumers have come to expect from their daily digital devices. Accordingly, cars are becoming subject to the same growing pains facing computers and smartphones – in addition to featuring digital door locks and thermostats.
Silicon Valley is grappling with a delicate balance: Keeping these products easy to use while implementing enough security to keep customers comfortable with using them.
“The out-of-the-box experience when you start up a product [is that] when you unpackage it, put it on the wall, it needs to be very seamless,” says Tom Kerber, who heads research into the Internet of Things at Parks Associates. If customers have to grapple with too many steps to implement security protocols, Kerber says, they will reject products instead of adopting them.
In the meantime, Silicon Valley is churning out connected products based on the same model it used to churn out computers and apps. “Innovation in Silicon Valley is all about iteration and experimentation,” says analyst Frank Gillett of Forrester Research.
Experimentation tends to mean that products aren’t fully cooked when they come to market, he says. “So the idea is: Figure out the minimum viable product that will let you experiment with an idea, develop it and see if there’s something there, and then figure out how to improve it, iterate it, make it better,” Gillett says.
While companies often think about security when first releasing a product, their process of improving a product after launch means security is often playing catchup, he says, and that model is not likely to change soon.
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How outdated RPI inflation cost us millions on rail fares, student loans and taxes: Officials demand it's killed off
- Price of items such as strappy vest tops show implausible inflation, says ONS
- One item of clothing rose 328% over the past eight years on the RPI measure
- But the same item was up just 36% according to the CPI formula
The ONS said some clothing items - thought to include women's vests and strappy tops - have shown 'implausible levels of inflation'
Millions of families are being hit by eye-watering price rises on rail fares and student loan repayments because the Government is using a widely discredited measure of inflation, officials have warned
A report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) yesterday found that the Retail Prices Index (RPI), which is also used to set a string of taxes, including tobacco and alcohol duties, 'is likely to overstate inflation' – resulting in unfair increases in many living costs.
The ONS said some items used to measure the rate – thought to include women's vests and strappy tops – have shown 'implausible levels of inflation' since 2010.
One item of clothing, it said, rose 328 per cent over the past eight years on the RPI measure but by just 36 per cent according to the formula behind the preferred Consumer Price Index (CPI).
RPI also dictates increases in many private sector pensions and the interest paid on around £400billion of Government debt.
RPI was replaced as an official statistic in 2013 by the CPI, which is seen as a fairer reflection of living costs and is typically a percentage point lower.
But it continues to be widely used by the Government, regulators and private companies.
In a stark message to ministers, John Pullinger, national statistician at the ONS, called for RPI to be abandoned. He said: 'We do not think it is a good measure of inflation and discourage its use.
'There are other, better measures available and any use of RPI over these far superior alternatives should be closely scrutinised.'
Not only do students face tuition fees of £9,250 but their loans now have interest at RPI plus 3 per cent applied while they are studying
Sir David Norgrove, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority watchdog, said: 'The RPI is a poor measure of inflation.
'With this strong evidence for the deficiencies, I remain concerned by its widespread use.
'If people want to measure changing prices they should use other indices which do not suffer the technical weaknesses of the RPI.'
Consumer groups agreed. Steve Chambers, at the Campaign For Better Transport, said: 'The Government needs to stop using RPI.
'The ONS stopped using it as a measure of inflation in 2013 because it consistently over-estimates. Now it's time to apply CPI to rail fare increases.
'Using the CPI to set rail fare increases would have little impact on railway revenues, but it would save passengers money and bring fares into line with things like pensions.'
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Locations & Hours
Sep 12, 2023
ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Alias Coffee has opened its second location at 76 North Pearl Street in Albany. The shop officially opened on September 8.
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Check out Nippertown coverage of Alias Coffee Jazz!
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With the goal of becoming sustainable, Pakistan is taking leaps in this direction. Many brands that have a presence in the country are also participating in this journey. In such an effort, Walls Unilever curated a play space from waste material in a park in Karachi made from waste material. Next, the baton reached Coca-Cola Pakistan’s hands. With that, they constructed the first plastic road in the midst of Islamabad.
First Plastic Road
The road was officially launched and runs in the F-9 area of Pakistan’s federal capital. The ceremony took place at the National Incubation Centre (NIC). Right after the ceremony, a small patch of the plastic road was tested near Fatima Jinnah Park at F-9. Ataturk Avenue became the next spot for the pilot test. Here, almost a kilometer length was recarpeted with plastic waste and asphalt.
Beautiful day today in Islamabad as we launch Pakistan’s first plastic road on Ataturk Avenue. Made entirely out of 8-10 tonnes of recycled plastic with the incredibly witty @ShkhRasheed. @CokePk #CleanGreenPakistan pic.twitter.com/zuSWaJyLX3
— Selina Rashid Khan (@selinarashid) December 6, 2021
How it was made
To unlock this incredible achievement, a number of players joined hands and that included Coca-Cola Pakistan, NIC Teamup, and CDA. The project involves using plastic waste that is essentially non-biodegradable and takes hundreds, if not thousands, of years to break down and use it into recarpeting of roads. The science involves plastic waste which composes Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), Polypropylene (PP), High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE), and Polyethylene (PE).
Origins of the idea
The idea originates from the fact that tons of waste is discarded in landfills or incinerated. When dumped into landfills, while most of the other water breaks down, the non-biodegradable plastic stay poisoning the land. When incinerated, the gaseous waste leads to extreme air pollution.
Hence, it is better to reuse plastic and reduce the carbon footprint we have on this Earth. It is happening already with some brands recycling their packaging or creating new goods with recycled material. But of course, such measures do not use all of the plastic. This is why Coca-Cola took the initiative to employ the huge amounts of plastic waste into making roads. Should this road be successful in Islamabad, maybe Karachi, a city where we need to do recarpeting every 2 years, can also adopt this technology.
Safe to say, the 1,003 meters (roughly 1km of the plastic road) is momentous to World Without Waste initiative. Coca-Cola launched this initiative in January 2018. The goal is that by 2030, Coca-Cola will collect and recycle every bottle or can it sells.
Coca-Cola initiative seems well on track and so does Pakistan’s aim to fulfill UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Stay tuned to Brandsynario for the latest news and updates!


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Originally founded as quattro in 1983 and now known as Audi Sport, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the performance division. Celebrations take place at the Nürburgring 24 Hours from May 18 to 21. As an official partner of the 24-hour race since 2002 and provider of the ‘official cars’, Audi Sport has a close connection to the circuit. The Nürburgring has also been a key testing ground for new R and RS models during development.
At the race this weekend, four Audi R8 LMS cars will enter, showcasing famous retro liveries from Audi’s motorsport history. Former DTM champions Mike Rockenfeller, Timo Scheider and Martin Tomczyk will race with the number 40 as their start number. In keeping with the theme, their Audi R8 LMS from Audi Sport Team Scherer PHX is styled on the 1992 Audi V8 quattro DTM.
Several models will be on display in the ring boulevard including everything from the first-generation Audi R8 and RS 4 Avant to the modern R8 GT and the RS 4 Avant Competition. This is also an opportunity to embrace the firm’s electric future and what better example to exhibit than the all-electric Audi S1 Hoonitron, driven by Ken Block in Las Vegas in the Electrikhana video.
Rolf Michl, Managing Director of Audi Sport GmbH and Head of Motorsport at Audi says, “The Nürburgring is the world’s toughest race track. It is a magical place for us and that’s why it is perfectly suited to start our 40th company birthday at the 24-hour race. The Nürburgring-Nordschleife is considered a Mecca for all motorsport fans. For me, the 24-hour race is one of the most beautiful things you can experience in motorsport, but the Nürburgring is also essential for the development of our production cars. All our models are tested there under extreme conditions and brought to production readiness.”


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Coming to your living room … again!
Stop us if you've heard this one before, but Google will make a play for your living room during IO 2015.
What we hope is different this time around is Google coming at your favorite four walls with some kind of cohesive plan in place.
The company recently announced Nexus Player, perhaps its most robust and practical entertainment offering to date, but don't expect it to stop there. Even if it should.
Google struck gold with Chromecast, the dirt cheap dongle some people own more than one of, so no one would be surprised if the firm returned to the formula with Chromecast 2 or another bargain bin-priced device. In fact, Google is reportedly already working on Chromecast 2, making an IO reveal seem all the more likely.
Whatever Google does, we want it to, you know, make cohesive sense. So far, this "scatter gun approach" (hat tip James Rivington) is only creating a series of half-baked products that no one is buying into. That is, except Chromecast.
It might be time for Google to put its money on the winning horse, if you catch our drift.
'Android Wear, where you at?'
Yes, Google's wearable OS has taken hold in a surprisingly quick turnaround from announcement to market. The only thing missing? Google's own smartwatch running its home-grown Android Wear OS. No biggie, right?
Like the Apple Watch before it, the Google watch has been the stuff of legend for what feels like ions. Unlike the Apple Watch, the Google watch is still unannounced. Even more unlike the Apple Watch, the Google watch probably won't be on sale by the time IO 2015 rolls around (the Apple Watch release is slated for early 2015).
This leaves Google out of a growing hardware product category while others grab hold. One could argue Google has more than enough of a stranglehold on the smartwatch market with Android Wear, and it's certainly a valid point.
However, in order for Google to truly be in the wearable conversation, we need to see its own branded hardware serve as the hallmark for what Android Wear can really do.
So, Google, give us the Nexus Watch, or whatever you want to call it. Give us something we can point to and say, "Hey, Apple, you see what Google came up with?" Give us something to strap on our wrists so we can complete the look with our Nexus phone, Nexus tablet and Google Glass.
Give us the wearable we've been waiting for.
Update December 10, 2014: With the release of Android Lollipop for Android Wear, Google introduced a bevy of custom watch faces for the wearable. The firm also released its Watch Face API, letting developers take a crack at creating their own watch faces. We have an inkling the many faces of Android Wear (plus a whole lot more) are due for some major airtime at IO 2015.
And the other stuff
Just like ice cream flavors, everyone seems to like the idea of vanilla Android, so don't drop your jaw if Google announces another Google Play Edition flagship phone.
Google seems to be spacing its hardware reveals further and further apart, making a new Nexus phone or tablet reveal at IO 2015 feel unlikely.
Like last year, the company will probably focus most on its software platforms, stressing the ease of developing for Chrome and Android over OSes-that-shall-not-be-named. Another Android iteration after 5.0 could definitely come (Android 5.5, for example), as could improvements to Google Now and the other services Google offers.
- Is the Galaxy S5 the best Android phone around?
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Michelle was previously a news editor at TechRadar, leading consumer tech news and reviews. Michelle is now a Content Strategist at Facebook. A versatile, highly effective content writer and skilled editor with a keen eye for detail, Michelle is a collaborative problem solver and covered everything from smartwatches and microprocessors to VR and self-driving cars.


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Did you know British consumers enjoyed the second-lowest gas prices in Europe? At least they did for the second part of 2010, according to new figures from Eurostat. It claims UK consumers enjoyed lower price per gigajoule - an average 11.58p compared to an EU average of 15.88p. Believable?
Considerably less affluent Bulgarians, Eurostat claims, were forking out an average 26.92p per gigajoule while Hungarians (25.11p) and Slovenians (22.82p) also were paying through the nose - according to Eurostat.
However statistics can be misleading and most European states still apply widely differing taxation and VAT rates to their domestic prices.
European consumers are also on the rack for another reason: competition, or rather its lack. Look at how French energy giant GDF Suez, for example, has consolidated itself.
A monster of a company (it bought British International Power) last year and is present right down the energy chain - production, exploration and environmental services.