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If US Court Says Delta-8 Product Is Lawful And Trademark Valid, Will Federal Agencies Listen?
Recent 9th Circuit ruling upheld granting a firm preliminary injunction stopping competitor from using its trademarked brand for delta-8 THC products. Ruling generally runs counter to USPTO policy against accepting trademark registrations for hemp or cannabis products and specifically counters FDA stance delta-8 doesn’t meet definition of hemp under 2018 farm bill.
You may also be interested in...
Reference in report accompanying House Appropriation Committee bill for FDA FY2023 budget isn’t binding and wasn’t appropriators’ first mention of agency’s response to de-scheduling hemp as a controlled substance. But their ’ statement was more pointed than in previous appropriation reports.
Announcement and warnings, in addition to noting firms’ violative drug and disease claims, explain differences between delta-8 THC and other hemp-derived cannabinoids intended for de-scheduling as controlled substances in 2018 farm bill.
Cannabinoid products have been available in US since at least 2012, when states began legalizing cannabis, but the earliest USPTO is recognizing submissions for those marks is December 2018 and it won’t register trademarks until FDA allows lawful use of the ingredients in non-drug products.


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In theory, getting users to ditch one Internet search engine for another should be an easy sell. But doing so is likely to cost Microsoft every penny of the roughly $100 million it plans to spend on an advertising campaign that starts Wednesday for its new Bing search engine.
In economist speak, there are virtually no “switching costs” for a consumer that wants to change from one search engine to another, other than the burden of typing Bing.com into a Web browser instead of Google.com. That’s nothing compared to the switching costs of a company changing a complex piece of enterprise software, which may require employee retraining, or a consumer who switches to a new operating system, requiring the purchase of new application programs.
In reality, of course, habit and inertia make it very challenging for a company like Microsoft to improve its 8% share of the search market against rivals like Google and Yahoo. There’s also the problem that most people say they’re happy with their experience on Internet search engines today, though some of their online behavior–for example, the large amount of time they spend on typical searches–suggests otherwise, according to Microsoft’s research.
The company’s ad campaign will try to convince consumers, in a cheeky way, that they are afflicted by Search Overload Syndrome, an imaginary condition that occurs when you get too many irrelevant search results, a barb at how Microsoft views results from alternatives like Google search. In the ads, ordinary people go into babbling, zombie-like states, triggered by questions from others around them.
Adam Sohn, a spokesman for Microsoft’s search business, says the advertisements are intended to create “a little bit of dissonance” for people familiar with Internet search engines. “They say the world as you know it may be fine, but it has potential to be great,” Mr. Sohn says.

domain: news


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Last month, PCMag.com EIC Lance Ulanoff explained (at the 2:20 mark of this video) why he thought women would be the biggest readers on the iPad. Today, eBookNewser featured a Media Beat interview with Cosmopolitan editor Kate White–who also agreed that women will lead the eBook revolution.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview with mediabistro.com senior editor Donya Blaze: “I think women may not always be on the vanguard, but boy, have we proven that we can embrace the digital world. What was interesting for me was to hear that my Kindle sales for [my novel] Hush were really exceptional. We don’t have the time in life to putter around and the Internet makes us so much more efficient, digital makes us more efficient–we are all going to embrace that.”
Tune in to Media Beat on April 5th to watch the complete interview with White.


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Digital advertising spend in South Africa amounted to R36.6 billion in 2018, surpassing print advertising for the first time. With a growth rate of 13%, digital advertising will surpass TV advertising by 2022 to be the largest media channel. In many countries, digital advertising already represents over 50% of total advertising spend by marketers.
All of this growth in digital introduces new ways for marketers to better connect with and engage their customers. Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube continue to innovate with digital advertising experiences and offer them at an unprecedented scale, which has led to their businesses growing fast.
Digital advertising globally will be over $300 billion this year with social platforms accounting for over $100 billion of it. The revenue for social platforms as a category is growing at a healthy rate of 25%, almost twice that of the South African digital advertising market.
Social platforms may be experiencing rapid growth - however most of the marketers who spend on their platforms are not enjoying the same growth. The South African economy grew 0.8% in 2018 and is estimated to grow a mere 1.1% this year. By comparison, Facebook grew 28%. Google grew 19%. The data signals an imbalance between how effective advertising is on the platforms and makes it clear that the platforms are benefiting, not the businesses who are spending on them.
While platforms may have reach and audience engagement, it may not be the right environment for marketers to achieve their business growth objectives.
The platforms know this better than anyone, which is why they have all built walled gardens that do not allow marketers to independently verify advertising effectiveness. User privacy has become a convenient cover for both Facebook and Google in the past year to limit how marketers can use audience data for targeting and attribution. The platforms not only mark their own homework by telling marketers how their campaigns performed but also are in a conflicted position to take credit for value they may not have created.
The good news is that the scrutiny is increasing on the platforms. However, it is coming from an unlikely source: governments and regulators.
These public-run institutions have historically been laggards to come in and clean up bad business practices. But when it comes to holding platforms accountable for brand safety, third-party verification, data portability and user safety, marketers have been the laggards and continue to quietly spend money on Facebook and Google, who may not be actually helping them grow their business. Marketers have the strongest voice and can choose to align with the Trusted Web instead of the Toxic and Dirty Web.
This choice in 2020 may not only help them achieve their business growth objectives but also make a positive impact on the society and culture their customers ultimately expect.
Kunal will be in South Africa with The SpaceStation from October 28 to 30 to
share global perspectives that will influence how digital advertising will
change in 2020. Contact The SpaceStation to learn more.


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A nonprofit grocery store not far from Talen Energy Stadium has more frozen food options now thanks to a $25,000 donation from the Philadelphia Union Foundation.
Fare & Square, the only full-scale nonprofit grocery store in the nation, has made it its mission to provide Chester families "good food right around the corner." It was the first grocery store to operate in the city in 12 years when it opened in October 2013.
Mike Basher, vice president of retail operations, said the store has been growing, increasing in sales by 25 percent in its second year, but needed more freezer space to provide additional options of meat, vegetables, juices, seafood and halal.
That's where the Union Foundation came in, providing a donation that enabled the store to add 24 additional feet of frozen food options.
"I think it just says so much to the community that the Union is here not just to be in the community, but part of the community," Basher said. "I think it's a tremendous message."
Officials from the Foundation, the Union front office and Philabundance, the Philadelphia food bank that spearheaded the creation of this one of a kind supermarket, were on hand at the 9th and Trainer Street store Thursday for a check presentation. So too were kids from the Wizz Kids Learning Academy and students from Chester High School.
Gift bags were given out, along with an autographed jersey and soccer ball and the little ones even got to kick some soccer balls around.
"This isn't just superficial," said Dave Rowan, the Union's executive vice president and chief revenue officer. "This is truly making an impact in the community. You look at the kids that are here and you look at what this store represents in an area that doesn't have a lot of opportunity and it's significant."
Rowan credited the fans who support the foundation by buying 50/50 tickets at games and attending foundation events and the foundation's corporate partners for making this "phenomenal day" possible.
"It's not the foundation, it's not the Union, it's collectively the fans, the community supporting programs," Rowan said.


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New York (CNN Business)Stocks jumped Wednesday following the latest twist in the US-China trade saga.
President Donald Trump suggested that he could use the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei, as a bargaining chip in trade talks. Trump told Reuters in an interview Tuesday that he’d consider getting involved in Meng’s case if it could help move trade talks along.
“If I think it’s good for the country, if I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made — which is a very important thing — what’s good for national security — I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary,” Trump said.
The Dow surged more than 450 points at one point before pulling back a bit. But the Dow was still up 250 points in late day trading led by gains in US companies with significant exposure to China, such as Apple (AAPL), Boeing (BA), Caterpillar (CAT) and 3M (MMM).
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose about 1% too. The rally helped push the Dow and S&P 500 closer to breakeven territory for the year. The Nasdaq is up more than 3% in 2018.
China’s Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng also rallied Wednesday. And shares of leading Chinese companies that trade in the United States — including Alibaba (BABA), Baidu (BIDU) and JD (JD) — were all higher.
Stocks also got a lift from a Wall Street Journal report that suggested China is looking to soften some of its protectionist stances and allows more access to the Chinese market for US and other foreign companies.
The market has been extremely volatile for the past few weeks, rising and falling with the latest headlines about what’s next for US-China trade relations.
But some experts are shaking off the turmoil.
“Volatility doesn’t strike us as anything out of the ordinary,” said Thomas Cole, CEO of Distillate Capital, a Chicago-based investment manager.
“Is there something looming that will cause corporate cash flows to be in trouble? It doesn’t seem like there is anything egregious,” Cole said.
Stephen Lee, a portfolio manager with Logan Capital, added that the uncertainty with trade talks has created some good values for investors, who should be focusing less on day-to-day headlines and more on corporate earnings.
“Fundamentals will drive things more next year. Merit starts to matter,” said Lee, adding that Nike (NKE), Amazon (AMZN) and MasterCard (MA) are companies that look attractive.
Tencent Music makes its NYSE debut
The newfound optimism about China trade talks could give a much needed boost to the initial public offering of Tencent Music as well. Tencent Music, which is owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday.
Shares of Tencent Music rose nearly 10% but the company raised less money from the IPO than it had planned. The Tencent Music (TME) IPO also comes at a time when tech stocks in general, and top streaming music rival Spotfiy, are struggling.
Spotify (SPOT) went public earlier this year and its stock is trading below its offering price. But Spotify’s stock got a lift from Tencent Music, gaining nearly 1% Wednesday.
Trade talks with China and Chinese stocks weren’t the only thing investors were watching Wednesday though. Wall Street was also be keeping a close eye on the latest developments with the UK and Brexit.


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Foldable touchscreen devices are one of the most exciting and frustrating new frontiers in mobile tech. Microsoft is banking on that craze with its new Surface Duo, which was first announced in October but has yet to be used by the public. But a recent video shows the device out and about for a day on the town — the first real taste we’ve gotten for what to expect from the Duo.
Not all that many details — The video is more of a novelty than anything else. It begins with a few snapshots of the device fully open with two apps side-by-side, and then some footage of it being used closed with a single screen. The Duo’s hardware looks just as slick as Microsoft purported it to be.
Still a little buggy — Most notably, there are a few moments where the UI seems to struggle a bit. The screen takes a few seconds to switch from landscape to portrait mode, and then it fails to pull down a menu until the user swipes down a few times. This isn’t surprising, given that the Surface Duo isn’t due out until the end of 2020.
Two distinct screens could be the winner — One of the biggest failures of foldable touch-screen devices thus far has been their lack of stability — and this is often because creators are attempting to make one long screen that’s able to fold over itself. Both Motorola’s new Razr and last year’s Samsung Galaxy Fold suffered from this problem. But the Surface Duo takes a fresh approach: two separate touch screens connected by a thin, sturdy hinge. That could be the deciding factor in the device’s hardware stability. As for how the device works overall, we’ll have to wait for more hands-on previews to make that call.


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EcoSecurities' Lisa Ashford explains how a simple change to cooking stove designs can help to cut carbon and improve lives
I want to bang the drum about energy-efficient cooking stoves. The "technology shift" away from the standard three-stone stove to a more efficient model is slight, but the impact that can be made is...
CBI and International Chamber of Commerce join forces to step up calls for new investment and policies to deliver on SDGs and tackle climate change
Molly Scott Cato predicts pressure on the agri-chemical industry will only intensify, as awareness of biodiversity impacts grows
From Ecuador's electric buses to Balearic climate laws, BusinessGreen rounds up all the green business news from the world this week
Low-cost, high-energy lithium batteries are already disrupting power as we know it — but there's even more in store


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by Lisa Tome
You can't get this flavor from the microwave.
Supporters of the Cecil County Farm Museum are gearing up to host their 10th annual traditional apple butter making demonstration and festival. The event is set for Saturday, October 19 at the Fair Hill Race Track at the Cecil County Fairgrounds in Fair Hill.
In addition to the apple butter making, there will be colonial craft demonstrations, music, traditional food and drink including apple dumplings and apple pies offered from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. The site offers free parking. Admission is also free.
The open kettle apple butter making will be demonstrated throughout the day. The apple butter is then placed in jars and sold as a fundraiser for the farm museum.
Jerry England is a board member for the Cecil County Farm Museum. He is also one of those who works to make the apple butter.
"Our goal is to get a farm museum for the education or the public and the preservation of artifacts of year's past," said England, who has a small display of items, including apple butter cooking kettles at his shop, Jerry's Auto in Rising Sun. "We are working on a couple locations but we are not ready to disclose that yet."
He said that the apple butter making is a good fundraiser. "People travel from all over to buy it. Earl Simmers (farm museum member) also ships cases of it to Georgia and South Carolina," said England. "He's been shipping cases for years."
In 2003, the farm museum group took over the apple butter making fundraiser from the Elk Creek Preservation Society. Now, each group hosts their own event. Four years ago, the farm museum group moved their sale to the racetrack site.
This year, Rising Sun Church of the Nazarene will provide a food booth. There will also be hay rides, seasonal items sold by Amish crafters, a wood carver, and children's activities and games. There will also be a display of antique cars and one of classic tractors.
Despite the many activities, the "star" of the event remains the apple butter. Between 10-14 hours go into making each jar. Apples must be peeled, cut, stirred, spiced, sugared, and slow cooked.
"I enjoy doing it still. It's a lot of work, a lot of hours," said England.


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U.S. Consumer Spending Held Up in February Before Virus Hit
“U.S. consumer spending held up in February, the latest sign that the world’s largest economy remained on stable footing before measures to contain the spreading pandemic began rippling through consumers and businesses. Personal spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of the economy, rose 0.2% for a second month, according to Commerce Department data released Friday that matched the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.”
Johnson Becomes First World Leader to Say He Has Coronavirus
“U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has become the first world leader to say he has tested positive for coronavirus. Johnson will self-isolate in Downing Street for seven days after a test on Thursday found he had the virus, his spokesman James Slack told reporters on Friday. Meals will be left at Johnson’s door while he continues to work by video-conference, Slack said. I’ve developed mild symptoms of the coronavirus, that’s to say a temperature and a persistent cough,” Johnson said in a video posted on Twitter. “Be in no doubt I can continue, thanks to the wizardry of modern technology, to communicate with all my top team, to lead the national fightback against coronavirus.”
Japan Mulls Economic Response after Clearing Budget Hurdle
“Japan’s parliament passed a regular annual budget Friday that clears the way for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to come up with new stimulus measures to help an economy reeling under the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Even though a portion of the 102.7 trillion yen ($950 billion) budget will fund parts of a stimulus package announced in December, it already looks outdated because it was put together before the virus started spreading across the world.”
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Facebook has finally pulled the plug on its Free Basics service in India. after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) favoured Net Neutrality and banned differential pricing. Differential pricing means charging customers different prices for access to different websites and services.
“Free Basics is no longer available to people in India,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement to TOI. Reliance Communications had partnered with Facebook for Free Basics (then Internet.Org) to provide the service in India, but it was suspended by the TRAI as it did not follow the principles of Net Neutrality. The authority had announced earlier this week that “no service provider can offer or charge discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis of content”.


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The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has confirmed that its new payments platform rollout is on schedule to begin before the end of the year.
Addressing the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics on Friday, RBA Governor Philip Lowe said his organisation’s work on building the infrastructure behind the new payments platform is on schedule and currently undergoing industry testing.
“Developments look on track to allow the first payments to be made through this new system towards the end of this year,” Lowe said. “Financial institutions are also working hard on their internal systems so that customers can take advantage of the new system.”
The new payments platform will allow for near real-time funds transfer between bank accounts, regardless of who people bank with. All a user will require to perform an “instantaneous payment” with the forthcoming system will be the recipient’s email address or mobile phone number.
The payments project is a cooperative effort between the bank and the payments industry to modernise key parts of our electronic payments system, which has been actioned under the guidance of the RBA’s Payments System Board.
The RBA kicked off the project in 2012 when a review of its internal innovation capabilities laid out “strategic objectives” for the Australian payments system.
These included the ability for users to make real-time payments; send more complete remittance information with payments; address payments in a relatively simple way; and make and receive payments outside of normal business hours.
The RBA then invited input from industry to determine the most effective way of delivering on those objectives.
The following July, the RBA published an expression of interest (EOI) for the provisioning and implementation of the solution. At the time, the bank said it wanted a complete overhaul to help it deliver an improved banking service for its customers with a more contemporary architecture and programming platform.
The EOI specified that the platform would be used to support payments systems that process in excess of 320 million payment and 25 million collection transactions per year.
Mandatory technologies for use was also specified and included using either a Microsoft SQL Server or an Oracle database server; Microsoft Active Directory for identity management integration; and use technologies such as Secure FTP, secure assured messaging technology like MQ messaging, and web services-based integration.
Lowe also said on Friday that a related focus of the payment system board is the important role that technology can play in promoting competition.
“In recent meetings the payments system board has discussed the opportunities that distributed ledger technology could offer in the payments system and financial market infrastructures,” he said. “And it’s also interested in the potential for fintech to deliver improved customer experiences.”
He concluded by saying the board is therefore taking a “very keen interest” in the work that is being done by the Australian Payments Council on digital identity and on customers’ access to their banking payments data.


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Bitstamp, one of the oldest cryptocurrency exchanges, is reportedly planning to expand its operations and services through a new fundraising plan. The exchange, founded in 2011, is seeking to raise funds through strategic investors to accelerate its growth and provide new products and services to retail and institutional crypto customers.
Bitstamp Plans to Expand Its Presence in Europe
Jean-Baptiste Graftieaux, CEO of Bitstamp, stated that the exchange is not for sale and that the current priority is to raise money through strategic investors. Galaxy Digital Holdings oversaw the beginning of the fundraising initiative in June 2023.
According to a spokesperson for the company, the funds raised will be used to scale the exchange’s operations, including launching derivatives trading in Europe early next year. Bitstamp also plans to expand its market presence in Asia and the UK and simplify its service offerings across various markets.
Bitstamp has been a major player in the cryptocurrency industry since its inception. The Luxembourg-registered exchange first announced its plans for global expansion in 2018 when it was acquired by Belgium-based investment firm NXMH.
Bitstamp’s co-founders Nejc Kodrič and Damijan Merlak stated at the time that they were not looking to sell or seek investment.
The exchange has continued to grow and evolve over the years, with recent developments including securing approval from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to function as a registered crypto firm in the region. This has allowed Bitstamp to increase its presence and investments in the UK market.
With this new fundraising plan, Bitstamp aims to further expand its operations and services, providing even more opportunities for customers to engage with the cryptocurrency market. It will be interesting to see how this plan unfolds and what new developments arise from it.
Galaxy Digital Holdings, a crypto-focused financial services firm, is acting as Bitstamp’s adviser in the fundraising process.


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A California winery is continuing its experiment in aging wine in the ocean off Charleston.
On Tuesday, seven cases of Cabernet Sauvignon submerged in Charleston Harbor last November were brought to shore. One case will remain in the water for another six months.
It was a year ago that Mira Winery of St. Helena, Calif., pulled up four cases of wine that had been aged in the water for three months.
Winemakers have long known that wine recovered from sunken ships has a unique taste and being submerged is thought to have something to do with that.
Mira is working to determine what effect water motion, light, temperature and other factors have on aging wine. The winery is owned by Charleston resident Jim "Bear" Dyke Jr.
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A cyber problem that temporary shuts down a top U.S. cloud computing provider could trigger as much as US$19 billion in business losses.
Microsoft outlines roadmap to the promised land of digital transformation, offering clearest indication yet as to where future channel success lies.
Worldwide spending on cloud, cyber security and analytics are set to grow with government CIOs planning to make new and additional investments in 2018.
More than a quarter of enterprises now evaluating or using blockchain, paving the way for the channel to take advantage of early deployment plans.
- Tech giants back Microsoft’s international email search warrant fight
- Datacom leverages Dell EMC to go live with Azure Stack in NZ
- Public cloud services spending set to skyrocket to $160B
- IBM issues round of NZ distribution changes
- Lotto NZ implements local firm Verifi's Cloudcheck software
- Watchguard plucks Exeed's Kurt Brandon for NZ sales lead
- Philip Cronin takes control of regional Adobe channel
- Ex-IBM developer jailed for 5 years for stealing code
- Google Cloud hires for channel talent in Auckland
- IBM returns to revenue growth after six-year decline
- Air New Zealand on-boards Amazon’s digital side-kick Alexa
- Soft Solutions strikes unified comms deal with Canadian vendor
Microsoft 365 Business is a highly secure solution that allows SMEs to enable and manage mobile users without the need to manage their own servers and environment.. Read more
Looking back at the top 15 M&A deals in NZ during 2017
Kiwi channel closes 2017 with After Hours
Tech industry comes together as Lexel celebrates turning 30
Reseller News ICT Industry Awards 2017 - Meet the winners...
Keynote speakers set the scene for Reseller News ICT Industry Awards 2017
Channel toasts 2017 success as Champagne Reception kicks off Reseller News ICT Industry Awards
The iOS version of Edge uses the same WebKit engine that powers Apple's Safari, while the Android Edge is based on the Blink engine Google maintains for Chrome.
As the migration of businesses to the cloud picks up steam, Oracle is intent on keeping up.
Here's what will happen to Flash Player on Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari between now and the end of 2020.
Creators Update is now suitable for broad deployment in enterprise.
Microsoft today followed May's unprecedented release of security updates for expired operating systems by issuing another dozen patches for the aged Windows XP.
Windows 10 will be supported until Oct. 14, 2025 — unless your computer has a Clover Trail CPU. Then you’re out of luck.
The nagware announcements are gone, but Microsoft, along with AMD and Intel, has made darn sure you’ll be running Windows 10 and not Windows 7 on the next PC you buy.
The Windows 10 Anniversary Update brings incremental improvements in Edge, the Start menu and Windows Ink, among others -- but Cortana haters won't be happy.
From the faster new A9 chip to updated cameras, a faster Touch ID system and a new pressure-sensitive multitouch display, the latest iPhone represents more than a typical evolutionary update.


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Fast Charge: The Pixel 5 is a Nexus phone in all but name, and that’s fantastic
This week reviews hit for Google’s latest phone, the Pixel 5. If you missed it, don’t worry, there’s a good reason.
For years despite Google making a big song and dance about them, Pixel phones have been a niche release that only appeal to a select audience.
Related: Pixel 5 vs Pixel 4
Being quite honest, outside of their cameras most of the Pixels we’ve tested, from generation one and above, have always had at least one fatal flaw putting them firmly behind their Galaxy, OnePlus and Huawei competition.
Key issues have included the Pixel 2’s abysmally badly calibrated screen to the Pixel 4’s shamefully short battery life. With so many other, debatably better, phones on the market from Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Huawei and Oppo each year, this has made most Pixels distinctly forgettable and their impact on the overall market at best negligible.
But this year, for the first time in years, I’ve found myself back on the Made By Google train, with the new Pixel 5; but not for the reason you’d expect.
Being clear, I think the Pixel 5 is an awesome bit of hardware. The camera features the same Google processing wizardry that earned past Pixels a spot as one of, if not the, best mobile snappers on the market. The software is also wonderfully bloatware free and guaranteed to get regular software updates to the newer versions of Android. If that wasn’t enough, they also have 5G connectivity, high refresh rate screens and all the other trimmings you’d expect of a flagship save for one: a top end processor.
Though the 7-series CPU could be viewed as this year’s sore thumb “weakness” for the Pixel 5, for me it’s actually indicative of the phone’s greatest strength: it targets the middle, not top of the market.
Since Pixel first hit the scene I’ve always been very vocal about my belief Google going premium to take Apple and Samsung head-on at the top end of the market was a mistake. Google isn’t a traditional hardware company and by the time it entered that space Apple and Samsung already owned it – to the point even Microsoft, BlackBerry, Nokia, HTC and Sony couldn’t get a look in edgeways.
This is one of the reasons Pixel phones have never been top sellers year-on-year. Look at the latest quarterly sales reports from Kantar, Counterpoint, IDC, Forrester or IDC and you won’t spot Google Pixels in the top 10, let alone 5 best selling handsets shortlist.
Related: Best phone
Which is why for me the Pixel 5, which retails for a mid-range friendly £600 is a great move by Google. This is because the pricing puts the Pixel in the same mid-tier category that the Nexus-line once led and, being frank, dominated.
For the youngsters reading this column, Nexus was the first phone line Google officially lent its name to. The brand wasn’t technically made by Google, instead it saw the firm partner with a third party OEM to make that year’s flagship. Google effectively ran Nexus like a pop idol competition forcing OEMs to compete to get the hallowed partner slot year-on-year. This led to some of the best value Android tablets and phones ever made.
Highlights include the stellar LG-made Nexus 5, which matched the specs and performance of phones close to twice its price at launch and Asus Nexus 7, which was the first Android tablet worth buying, despite retailing for a modest £200.
Notice the trend? Price was always the critical factor, not sales or flashy features, that made Nexus so important. The brand became synonymous with “best value”, and a benchmark that all other Android phones were judged against. This trend debatably laid the groundwork for a fresh drive among third party phone makers to match the Nexus and create top notch devices at lower price points. I personally don’t think we’d have the Moto G, Samsung A-series or OnePlus without Nexus and the groundwork it lay.
Which is why I’m pleased to see Google at least partially return to its Nexus roots with the Pixel 5. Hopefully Google will continue this trend and once again establish itself as a benchmark for top value within the Android ecosystem, which is needed given how similar phones are getting at the moment.


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With the border tensions growing further, the Indian Government is considering another significant move on trade lines.
The government is reportedly considering a proposal to place trade curbs on companies that belong to countries ‘illegally occupying Indian territory’, especially in the PoK region.
The implementation will directly hit China as it had earlier occupied 38,000 sq.km. of Indian territory in Ladakh, illegally.
Pakistan has also occupied around 5,000 km in the Shaksgam Valley to China.
If implemented, the curbs will be effective under the Public Procurement Order of 2017, made in preference to ‘Make in India’.
While India already placed a bar on Chinese FDI, the latest efforts with more restrictions on Chinese firms are coming in view of the rising tensions.
This will be a major hit to many Chinese companies holding investments in Indian government and private projects.
The discussions are also underway to keep Chinese company Huawei out of the country 5G plans.
The Order offers impetus to self-reliant India because of its rules that mandate ‘minimum ’50 percent local content’ in all procurements.
Pak Bans PUBG
In an unexpected move, Pakistan placed a ban on Chinese game PUBG, citing negative impact.
The Pakistan Government has reportedly taken this decision after receiving complaints over the game’s ‘physical and psychological impact on children’.
Apple and Google Follow Orders
Even after the Indian Government banned 59 Chinese apps, Apple and Google refrained from doing so, saying they are ‘yet to receive orders’.
In the latest decision, the two giants also agreed to comply with the new rules and started preventing access to these apps.


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International Management students develop a new product concept
Students from Ghana, India, Laos, and Russia at the IEM TSU master's program International Management will jointly develop a concept for a new food product for the SAVA company, as part of the course Design Thinking. The results of the work will be evaluated by representatives of the company.
- The approach taught to students in the course is universal and can be applied to products or services in any area, - says Evgenia Kaz, associate professor of the Department of Strategic Management and Marketing. - That is why it is now in demand in different countries. The marketing specialists of SAVA set a practical task for us. Solving it, students will master the art of creating a product prototype and testing it, acquire the skills of interviewing and identifying the target consumer, and finally, offer their solutions for the company.
The SAVA marketers told the students that one of the immediate goals of the company is to bring a new product not only to the Russian market but also to international markets.
- The students’ task is to understand the tastes and preferences of people from different countries concerning beverages containing ingredients that help maintain and improve health and to offer a prototype of a new product for SAVA, - said Yulia Romina, head of SAVA’s marketing department.
Master's students have already begun to conduct in-depth interviews. The result of the work will be the development of prototypes that will be evaluated by experts.


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Lockdown definitely seems to be dragging on now, and we’re all looking for ways to make it a bit more bearable.
One of the things that is easing the struggle a little, along with the nice weather of course, is a good tipple now and again.
Now, M&S has released what could be the best drink so far - a pink passion fruit martini, reports MEN
Writing on Instagram, M&S said: "Our INFAMOUS Passion Star Martini has had a cheeky Summer makeover and a pink version joins the popular range.
"It’s the same delicious cocktail, but with a fruity twist of raspberry, which blends perfectly with the passion fruit and vanilla (think raspberry ripple ice cream."
Fans of M&S are already excited at the thought of trying out the new drinks, and have been sharing their excitement on Instagram.
One person said: “Hats off to the genius who thought of that”.
Another added: “Game changer.”
"More post-lockdown ideas," said somebody else.
A spokesperson for M&S has confirmed that the cans cost £2 each, and are available to buy in stores now.
If you do want to try them, make sure you're buying them as part of your essential shop, and enjoy them from the comfort of your own home or garden.


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Our research found that real-time payments are an area of weakness for both account holders and executives. But this is not the case for FinTechs and their management. Real-time payments are gaining importance and may become even more vital when the Federal Reserve launches its FedNow service later this year. Financial institutions (FIs) participating in the FedNow service will give customers more choices in managing their finances, emphasizing the importance of innovation in choosing a primary FI.
“Credit Union Innovation: Staying Ahead Through Payments Innovation,” a collaboration with PSCU, explores the growing importance of innovative payment options. We examined CU and FI account holders’ dispositions toward payment innovations, especially real-time payments. Our findings are based on a census-balanced survey of 4,282 U.S. consumers conducted from Oct. 17, 2022, to Nov. 17, 2022, a survey of 100 CU executives conducted from Oct. 7, 2022, to Oct. 31, 2022, and a survey of 50 FinTech executives conducted from Oct. 12, 2022, to Oct. 31, 2022.
Key findings from the report include the following:
CU members report using as many payment methods as the average bank account holder but tend to use more traditional methods, such as checks, credit cards and debit cards. These consumers would rather have new digital payment innovations that other FIs provide. CU members CUs are much less likely to offer members contactless card options or Zelle, a real-time payment solution.
PYMNTS’ data finds that 29% of account holders would switch FIs for more innovative solutions, including 27% of CU members. This sentiment shows how innovation is an increasingly important factor consumers consider when deciding which FI to use. CU members are no different than the average bank account holder in their interest in adopting innovative payment products. Sixty-four percent say they want their CU to offer more innovative products.
Less than 50% of CU executives reported being very or extremely well acquainted with real-time payments. This knowledge gap may prove costly, as FinTechs are seizing the opportunity presented by rising demand for real-time payments. More than 70% of FinTech executives say they provide real-time payment capabilities, and 40% plan to strengthen their real-time payments architecture to increase competition.
Consumer demand for more innovative payment methods and competition from FinTechs will continue to grow. CUs must increase their awareness of these methods and respond by offering innovative products to keep consumers at their door. Download the report to explore consumers’ changing needs surrounding payments innovation.


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Data Rights Management Platform Trunomi Wins Inaugural BakerCREDITS Award at Singapore FinTech Festivalby Fintech News Singapore November 17, 2017
Trunomi, a company that enables business to unlock the power of customer data with consent and data rights management, is the winner of the inaugural BakerCREDITS Award, which was presented at this year’s Singapore FinTech Festival.
Baker McKenzie is one of the world’s leading legal services provider to fintech and regtech companies, with a focus on helping start-ups and fast growth companies meet the multitude of legal requirements that monetizing and moving into new markets can create.
As such, Baker McKenzie has designed the BakerCREDITS legal services package for start-ups and fast growth companies. CREDITS stands for contracts, regulations, employment, data management, intellectual property, taxation, and strategic fundraising, all of which will impact start ups, particularly in highly regulated industries, during their growth trajectory.
The BakerCREDITS Award provides the equivalent of US$25,000 in legal services, which can be used across any of Baker McKenzie’s 77 offices in 47 countries.
Trunomi was selected out of the 20 ‘Hackcelerator’ finalists at this year’s Singapore FinTech Festival, an incredibly strong field of highly innovative fintech and regtech companies that are making their mark on the financial services sector and beyond.
The award was decided based on both the innovative nature and the practicality of the offering, as well as cross-border reach and potential, ability to support the wider fintech ecosystem, and ability to attract investment. Trunomi also won the overall MAS FinTech Hackcelerator Award.
Stephanie Magnus, Head of Financial Institutions, Asia Pacific, Baker McKenzie, presented the award, and commented:
“Trunomi empowers customers to manage and safely share personal data, with consent and control, providing an innovative product that solves a major need, and with user experience at its heart. We predict even bigger things for this exciting, fast growing company in the future, and look forward to partnering them to help solve the legal complexities they may face.”
Trunomi Founder and CEO, Stuart Lacey, said:
“We look forward to working with Baker McKenzie and receiving their expert support and advice to continue contextualizing our consent and data privacy rights solution for the Singapore and wider Asia Pacific market.”


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Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram are the Channels Seven, Nine and Ten of today and the mobile phone is the new TV and TV is the new radio, potty-mouthed entrepreneur, social media guru and all-round raconteur Gary Vaynerchuk has told the 14,000 strong audience of HubSpot’s Inbound conference in Boston this evening.
In a wide-ranging address on the evening before the first full day of the marketing technology conference, which will include Alec Baldwin, Serena Williams and Anna Kendrick among its speakers, Gary Vee (as he is widely known) set the bar for ensuing three days with humour, candour and crassness.
Apart from describing social media platforms as the new TV channels, Vaynerchuk said that the winners in this new paradigm would be the people making the equivalent of MASH, Seinfield and Neighbours. In other words, content despite changing form factors remains the key ingredient in gaining the ultimate prize of consumer’s attention.
He also said Google through AdWords destroyed branding because we all became blue, but now FaceBook is bringing it back thanks to video advertising. He said the marketing world was divided between the maths and science of Google and the art and creative of FaceBook video and Instagram stills. To succeed, marketers must embrace both aspects he said.
Vaynerchuk also described marketers as being responsible for “fucking everything up . . . as soon as marketers saw that little ghost (Snapchat) they said: oh I’m going to fuck that up,” he said.
What Gary Vee is inferring is marketers pursued attention and in the process killed the thing that caught people’s attention.
Similarly, he said bulk emails via LinkedIn were the work of the devil and went so far as to make all B2B marketers present during his speech promise to cease sending such campaigns. Also getting a thumbs down from Vaynerchuk was Twitter, which he said was overcharging for its ads given the sheer volume you could buy and the subsequent lack of attention they garnered. He said “this pained him, as Twitter was what made him”.
Speaking of what made him, Vaynerchuk is relatively famous in the US, but remains pretty much unknown in Australia.
His back story is this.
“Gary Vaynerchuk builds businesses. Fresh out of college he took his family wine business and grew it from a $3M to a $60M business in just five years. Now he runs VaynerMedia, one of the world’s hottest digital agencies. Along the way he became a prolific angel investor and venture capitalist, investing in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Uber, and Birchbox before eventually co-founding VaynerRSE, a $25M investment fund.
Gary also currently hosts The #AskGaryVee Show, a way of providing as much value as possible by taking questions about social media, entrepreneurship, startups, and family businesses and giving his answers based on a lifetime of building successful, multi-million dollar companies. The show is also available as a podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and SoundCloud.”
In his own words on stage, ‘Gary Vee’ says he bought the word “wine” on Google Ad Words in the 1990s for five cents a thousand. Now that same word costs more than $30 per thousand and then some.
However it was his willingness to invest advertising at the fringe which gave him “the greatest arbitrage in the world”.
He said Facebook currently represented the greatest arbitrage in the world. He said you can buy Facebook advertising for five cents a thousand but predicted in 36 months you could expect the very same advertising to cost more like $30 per thousand. “Start doing FaceBook ads now!”
Despite the inexorable shift to social media, The Super Bowl still remained the greatest bang for buck for advertisers. “Yes it will cost you $6 million for 30 seconds, but the entire country watches it,” said Vaynerchuk. “Second, is Facebook.”
OOH transit company Adflow has announced the success of the first phase of its regional expansion program. Adflow’s regional footprint has increased by 60 per cent to now include 65 regional locations. With 9.1 million people living regionally in Australia (growth of 1.1 per cent experienced in the 19/20 Financial year) and most regional centres […]
Freshworks, a leading software company, has started trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, marking an important milestone for the company. The company priced its IPO at US$36 per share (AU$49.76), raising about US$1 billion (AU$1.4B), resulting in a total market capitalisation of AU$13.7 billion (US$10B). Freshworks, which was founded in India, has strong roots […]
Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) is the biggest player in the holiday shopping game and Google’s most recent research suggests consumer interest for the peak sales season starts much earlier than retailers may realise. The pandemic has fundamentally changed buyer behaviour over peak sales season, with Google suggesting that global consumer interest in Black Friday […]
Awindependent PR Agency Agent99 has added The Distilled Spirits Council of the US (DISCUS) to its client roster, alongside thought leader and commercial property specialist, Helen Tarrant. DISCUS is a national trade association representing U.S. producers, marketers, and exporters of distilled spirits. The account was won following a competitive pitch earlier this year. DISCUS has […]
Melbourne-based independent creative agency, By All Means, has today released limited edition ‘Locktown’ t-shirts to create a positive, artistic commemoration of their city, while shining a spotlight on the significant impact of lockdown on the mental health of Victorians. After 235 days under strict stay-at-home orders, Melbourne today claims the unenviable crown from Buenos Aires […]
Global marketing agency, Komodo, has announced it will be launching a dedicated TikTok arm to the business in Australia, following a series of key industry hires and new creators signed to their roster. The agency, who partners brands with social influencers across the globe, aims to bring a new dimension to influencer marketing by assisting brands […]
According to Fifth Dimension CEO Lyndall Spooner, whether you like roller coasters or not, we have all been riding ‘Dashed Hopes’ the COVID-19 emotional roller coaster for over 18 months and many of us have turned to online retail therapy to cope. Spooner uses the analogy of an emotional roller coaster to depict consumers’ […]
Underscoring its ongoing commitment to team care and wellbeing, during and beyond the pandemic, Havas Village Australia has introduced be together – a reconnection initiative to enable staff to reconnect with loved ones for longer when domestic and international borders reopen. The initiative, which reflects the Havas core value ‘Better Together’, gives staff from Host/Havas, […]
Global ecommerce and marketplace specialist Pattern has ranked a group of 50 brands selling on Amazon.com.au based on a set of best practice criteria it has developed. Pet brand Zenify topped the ranking in Pattern’s Amazon Australia Benchmarking Report, scoring 82 per cent of the possible marks against a set of criteria designed to measure […]
Fifth Dimension Consulting has announced the expansion of its executive leadership team in response to the organisation’s significant growth over the last 18 months. Lyndall Spooner has moved from the position of managing director to the role of chief executive officer (CEO). As CEO, she will lead Fifth Dimensions’ innovation arm, as well as the […]


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Midnight Oil warns disappointed fans not to buy tickets from scalpers, as passes go for inflated prices
It took just minutes for Midnight Oil's Melbourne concert to sell out on Monday afternoon, leaving thousands of fans disappointed.
- Midnight Oil had promised special measures to beat scalpers
- Tickets resold for $632 each, shortly after being offered at $145
Band has promised fans extra shows
But minutes later when tickets for the same event appeared for resale online — at many times the original price — disappointment turned to anger.
Stall tickets for the Sidney Myer Music Bowl show on November 6 were resold for as much as $632.50 each, shortly after being offered at $145.
And it is not just the Melbourne events. Prices for the concert in Sydney's domain have appeared on resale sites for almost $900 each.
Scalping is not a new problem. Tickets to see marquee acts such as Justine Bieber and Adele were offered for resale in the thousands of dollars.
But Midnight Oil is a band that has had a long and strong connection with its passionate fan base, and on the day it announced its long-awaited reunion, it promised special measures to beat the scalpers.
Those measures included limiting tickets to six-per-person and issuing paper, rather than digital, tickets which would not be physically sent to fans until August.
Ticket holders will also only be admitted to events if their name matches the name on the receipt. But the measures have had limited effect.
'This is just deflating'
On a Facebook page for the band's fans, anger boiled over and was targeted especially toward Ticketmaster, which sold tickets to the Melbourne events but at the same time, on its Ticketmaster Resale site, also offered tickets at inflated prices.
Fans like Rowena Cairns said shortly after tickets went on sale she could only get stall tickets for $746 each.
"Face palm. We just wanted some seats with the kids but can't pay this," she wrote on Midnight Oil Facebook fan group, Powderworkers!
Ian Barrett, a "die hard fan of 36 years", said he was left disappointed after trying to buy tickets.
"Not looking forward to going home to tell my kids we have missed out again this sucks."
"It's been a terrible experience for many fans," Chris Verdich posted.
"I know the band is not responsible, but this is just deflating."
'We share frustration over scalping'
Today, the band posted a statement promising extra shows, and warned fans not to buy tickets from re-seller sites.
"Such unofficial sites may currently be legal but they typically charge vastly inflated prices and sometimes even offer fake tickets," the band said.
"Midnight Oil is well aware of the problems caused by automated ticket buying around the world and the band is as frustrated as its fans are by this ticket scalping.
"It may be legal and impossible to stop in many places, but it is clearly a big problem for both fans and artists on all "high demand" shows these days."
The ABC has sought comment from Ticketmaster but the company is yet to respond.


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General Motors says its common stock will sell for $33 per share when its initial public offering takes place Thursday. The IPO brings the U.S. government closer to getting back part of the $50 billion […]
General Motors is confirming reports that it will increase the number of common shares to be sold in its Initial Public Offering.
General Motors says it is raising the price range for its initial public offering of common stock to $32 to $33 per share. The new price range is about 14 percent higher than originally expected.
General Motors executives are playing up bright spots in the company’s future as they try to persuade investors to buy stock: a better lineup of cars and trucks, potential for global growth and a new […]
While GM has captured many of the headlines for it’s IPO, there’s also big news from Ford Motor Company. Ford’s stock is strong, and getting stronger.
General Motors’ initial public offering of stock later this month is expected to be enough to take government ownership below the 50 percent level.
General Motors Co. wants to set aside five percent of the company’s common shares for its employees, car dealers and retirees to buy in an initial public stock sale expected next month.


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Just before Samsung hopes to surprise the world with a new smartphone, its arch nemesis Apple pulls a fast one with something old…
But with a shiny new coat of paint.
Apple kept it low key, announcing the special edition Product (RED) iPhone 7 and 7 Plus only on its website today.
Features stay the same, but storage capacity now starts at a whopping 128GB for this model, just like the shiny Jet Black iPhone announced last September.
Pricing remains the same with 128GB and 256GB models retailing for $749 and $859 (before taxes), respectively.
The best part, if you decide to buy one, is that a portion of your purchase goes to the HIV / AIDS global fund.
The Cupertino-based company has long been a supporter of Product (RED) and has produced a wide range of red devices and accessories.
But this is the first time the iPhone is as red as an apple.


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Apple may be ready to innovate again, and Samsung is trying to win a game of “feature leaks.”
In a previous article, I was quite critical of Apple’s AAPL, -2.26% latest flagship, the iPhone 11 series. I said Apple was hardly innovating, while Android rivals were providing consumers with a much more enticing price-to-value ratio. But this may change in 2020.
In his latest report — the information in this article is as of mid-October — industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo highlights what could be expected in next year’s iPhone lineup (most likely called iPhone 12), and this time, there are features to be genuinely excited about: ProMotion displays, 3D cameras, USB-C (finally!) and 5G support for every model. Naturally, this has phone manufacturers for Google’s (a unit of Alphabet GOOG, -2.27% GOOGL, -2.35% Android operating system riled up.
So Samsung SSNLF, +0.00% has arranged a series of leaks of its own. All of them pertain to the next-in-line Samsung Galaxy S11.
First, let’s talk about the camera. Samsung’s upcoming smartphone could feature three of them (ultrawide, wide-angle, telephoto), as well as a significant update to the rear camera sensor. The update was dubbed a “new beginning” for Samsung by Ice Universe, a popular leak outlet.
This commentary draws special attention, especially because both Samsung’s Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10 feature an outdated primary sensor from 2016 for their rear cameras. This was one of the reasons why Samsung kept lagging behind the kings of mobile photography — Huawei and Google.
The latest iteration is rumored to have a mind-boggling 108-megapixel (MP) resolution, as well as a telephoto camera that uses the same lens as Huawei’s P30 Pro, enabling five times optical zoom. Not much more is known about the camera, but this significant upgrade could be what Samsung needs to increase the appeal of its phones in the eyes of mobile photographers worldwide.
Recently, Samsung has applied for a patent featuring a spectrometer implemented in a mobile phone. A spectrometer is used for chemical analysis of sample materials. In short, it can tell what elements are present in a substance, as well as their quantity.
A phone armed with a spectrometer could display the nutritional value of food simply by scanning it. It could also read skin moisture levels, the percentage of body fat and the percentage of alcohol in drinks. Will it become a part of the Galaxy S11? At this point we’re uncertain, but if it does, it will become an indispensable feature of health and fitness apps, giving the S11 the upper hand over other phones in that segment.
Next comes the display, and it could be another game changer for Samsung. The manufacturer started implementing its signature curved screens with the Galaxy S8. Dubbed “Infinity Display,” these screens cover nearly the entire front of each phone, stretching from one end to the other.
The S11 could go one step further, possibly featuring a four-sided curved screen, as was revealed in Samsung’s patent (courtesy of LetsGoDigital), and a smaller front camera. Although Samsung is working on a solution that will effectively hide the camera behind the display, this particular feature most likely won’t be implemented in the S11.
Finally, the S11 could be Samsung’s first buttonless device, according to Ice Universe. The replacement for buttons? A mix of finger gestures and taps that would replace hardware button functions — i.e., a finger slide on the right upper side of the screen could increase/decrease volume, a double tap could wake up the device, etc.
Samsung’s upcoming flagship may also feature a special, graphene-based battery, which could substantially improve charging times and total battery capacity. Leaker Evan Blass said that with a graphene battery, recharge times could be under 30 minutes, but he also noted there is a chance those batteries will be delayed until 2021, since Samsung still needs to tweak the capacity vs production cost ratio. The company had better do its homework this time — no one is looking forward to phones exploding on them.
Lastly, here’s a final rumor — a possible launch date: Feb. 18, 2020. Location: San Francisco. There is still much to learn about the phone, but as the date approaches, new details will surface. At that time, it’ll be easier to tell if the S11 will truly be a game changer, or yet another Android device vying for attention in a saturated global market.
Jurica Dujmovic is a MarketWatch columnist.


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Microsoft Surface Pro's Future: 5 Facts
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the Surface line is here to stay. But are changes coming to the company's device strategy?
October 10, 2014
5 Min Read
Windows 10: 11 Big Changes
Windows 10: 11 Big Changes (Click image for larger view and slideshow.)
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said this week that Microsoft is committed to its Surface products. Why was the clarification necessary? Microsoft introduced its first Surface tablet in fall 2012 and ever since, critics have been pointing out reasons the company should stop making devices.
Disastrous early sales gave Surface detractors plenty of ammunition, for example. Those sales have gradually improved -- but not enough for Microsoft to actually disclose sales numbers. Without strong sales figures to appease concerns, some Microsoft critics have dismissed the tablets as ill-advised Apple envy. These critics, who have reportedly included influential Microsoft shareholders, fear that devices eat up resources that Microsoft could more profitably allocate to high-margin enterprise software efforts.
The well-received Surface Pro 3, though nowhere near an iPad-level success, has quieted some of the criticism. So has Nadella. Whereas previous CEO Steve Ballmer positioned devices as a core pillar in Microsoft's strategy, Nadella has emphasized that productivity platforms and cloud products define his vision, with products such as the Surface playing a supporting role.
But how big a role? Nadella terminated the Surface Mini that the company had planned to announce alongside the Surface Pro 3, raising questions about the Surface line's long-term direction. Recent supply chain rumors claimed Microsoft might shut down its first-party tablet efforts, and though Microsoft said Thursday that this won't be the case, many questions remain.
What do we know about the future of Microsoft's tablet efforts? Here are five facts.
1. The Surface line has Nadella's full support.
In a blog post, Nadella said, "Microsoft is putting its full and sustained support behind the ongoing Surface program as one of a number of great hardware choices for businesses large and small." Its notable Nadella mentioned the Surface as one option among many "great" choices -- language that not only reflects the Surface line's "supporting role" within the company, but also suggests Microsoft wants to avoid the impression that it's competing with its own hardware partners, such as Dell and Lenovo.
2. Surface Pro 3 accessories will work with the next-gen Pro device.
According to the blog post, the next-gen Surface Pro will be compatible with almost all of the Surface Pro 3 accessories available today: Type Cover keyboards, power adapters, Ethernet adapters, and other "infrastructure" accessories, and the Surface Pro 3 Docking Station. According to Microsoft, this means businesses can invest in Surface Pro products without worrying about support issues down the road. It also indicates that future Surface Pro models will share the Pro 3's 12-inch display size -- though in typically secretive fashion, Microsoft reps declined to confirm that this will be the case.
3. Surface Pro tablets will be compatible with Windows 10.
Nadella's blog post mentioned that Surface Pro 3 will be fully compatible with Windows 10. In an interview, Surface Director Cyril Belikoff told InformationWeek older Pro models will be upgradable to Windows 10 too. The outlook for non-Pro Surfaces is less clear, however (see next item).
4. ARM-based Surfaces might be axed.
Microsoft has confirmed ongoing support for its Surface Pro models, but company reps have been much cagier when asked about the ARM-based Surface products -- the original Surface RT, and its follow-up, the Surface 2. Some online reports suggest Microsoft might be working on additional ARM-based Surface tablets, but at least one rumor indicates the company will focus on Intel-based Surface models going forward. If Microsoft doesn't update the year-old Surface 2 ahead of the coming holiday season, the inaction would certainly raise questions about the company's ongoing commitment to ARM tablets.
Microsoft has struggled to convince other manufacturers to invest in ARM-based Surface tablets, which lack the full compatibility with desktop apps offered by Intel-based models. Some Windows 10-based smartphones will presumably use ARM chips, but it's unclear what that means for next-gen Windows tablets, let alone Surface models in particular. Last month, Microsoft execs previewed Windows 10's enterprise-oriented features and promised to reveal the OS's consumer versions in coming months. The company's plans for ARM-based Windows devices should come into sharper focus by then.
5. Optimized Surface apps are finally appearing.
Microsoft recently revealed that half of its corporate Surface Pro 3 customers purchase the device with its docking station. This arguably speaks to the device's utility as a laptop or desktop-replacement -- but what about its tablet mode? Microsoft has pitched 2-in-1 use cases since its Surface tablets hit the market, but because of a dearth of compelling touch apps, the hybrid model hasn't yet broken out. That could be changing, though. Earlier this month, Adobe and Microsoft showed off versions of Adobe's Creative Cloud apps that have been optimized for use with the Surface Pro 3, for example.
The changes don't merely apply touch sensitivity to Adobe's traditional UI; rather, Adobe, with input from Microsoft, rebuilt the apps from the ground-up, meaning customers will be able to use either the familiar mouse-and-keyboard UI or a completely new interface built for touchscreens.
The Internet of Things demands reliable connectivity, but standards remain up in the air. Here's how to kick your IoT strategy into high gear. Get the new IoT Goes Mobile issue of InformationWeek Tech Digest today. (Free registration required.)
About the Author(s)
Associate Editor, InformationWeek.com
Michael Endler joined InformationWeek as an associate editor in 2012. He previously worked in talent representation in the entertainment industry, as a freelance copywriter and photojournalist, and as a teacher. Michael earned a BA in English from Stanford University in 2005 and, pending the completion of a long-gestating thesis, will hold an MA in Cinema Studies from San Francisco State.
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M&S, Sainsbury’s and Tesco team up on closed-loop solution for black plastics
Supermarket giants Tesco, Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer (M&S) have collaborated to introduce a solution for hard-to-recycle black plastic that places recycled content into food-grade packaging.
The supermarkets worked with recycling and packaging production firm Viridor on the recycled solution, which will enable 120 tonnes of plastic to be recycled in the UK every month, starting from July, with the volume expected to rise over the next 18 months.
The solution enables machinery in recycling plants to accurately detect the black pigment in hard-to-recycle packaging items such as food trays and separates them for shredding, melting and re-use in new packaging; a feat which had not previously been achieved at the UK’s waste processing facilities.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove hailed the discovery as a “breakthrough”, claiming that it may enable the UK to export less of its plastic waste. Currently, two-thirds of plastic waste in the UK is exported to be recycled and only 9% is recycled domestically, according to the latest Green Alliance figures.
M&S, Sainsbury’s and Tesco have all pledged to start using the recycled black plastic in packaging provided by UK manufacturer Faerch Plast for their own-brand products from July, after successful trials of kerbside waste collections from households across the UK proved there was a consistent black plastic waste stream.
“The project has proved a commercial process which can be extended across the UK,” Viridor’s commercial director, Paul Ringham, said.
“The more plastic collected, the more is made available to be recycled and put back into the circular economy. In this way, we all contribute to reducing the amount of virgin plastic entering the economy.”
The move comes in the same month that vegetarian food brand Quorn Foods committed to remove black plastics from its packaging supply chain, in a move to make 300 tonnes of its packaging widely recyclable in the UK each year.
The three retailers that have partnered with Viridor have also taken action to reduce the amount of plastics in their supply chain, with Tesco last month calling for a recycling infrastructure reform as it pledged to make all its packaging closed-loop.
M&S has additionally committed to make its plastic packaging “widely recyclable” by 2022 and is planning to develop one recyclable plastic polymer for use across its entire range. Sainsbury’s has pledged to reduce volumes of own-brand packaging by 50% by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.
The trio of supermarkets are also signatories of WRAP’s UK Plastic Pact and its Courtauld Agreement 2025, which aims to achieve a 20% reduction in food and drink waste across the UK and a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas intensity of food and drink consumed in the UK.


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Swedish-based audiovisual artist and woodworker Love Hulten is no stranger to weird and wonderful creations.
Waldorf’s Quantum caused quite a stir when it was first released in 2018 and was always going to be a tough act to follow with an update.
It's the 5th anniversary of Korg's Prologue, which was first released in 2018. To celebrate, Ultimate Patches has unveiled the Prologue 2023 Ultimate Patches collection.
More than 3200 exhibitors participated in CES 2023, which was held in Las Vegas from January 5 until 8, 2023. One of these was Roland, who took the opportunity to showcase their Bridge Cast, D-02K, and TD-02KV V Drums, as well as their 50th-anniversary concept piano.
Karanyi Sounds are wishing synth enthusiasts a happy new year by making their Polyscape analog texture designer free for a limited time.
Synth fans with an appreciation for retro pixel art shouldn’t miss out on picoSYNTH by Johan Peitz. It is currently available on itch.io for $2.99 (https://johanpeitz.itch.io/picosynth), which provides access to Windows, Mac, and Linux builds of the software.
Price: $19.99 (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sqsl-latch/id1659829499)
The season of giving is over, but there's still some time to pick up a few new softsynth-related releases for free. BPB 64 by Bedroom Producers Blog
A number of both new hardware and software synthesizers have been unveiled, with some available right away while others can be pre-ordered for shipping in 2023. Check out the following notable releases. SYNTRX II by Erica Synths
As 2022 begins to draw to a close, quite a few companies have released new softsynths or software versions of their hardware products to draw in new buyers. Here's a roundup of some of the most notable recent releases. Copperhead (iOS)
Eurorack fans have two brand new offerings by Modbap Modular to choose from in the form of Trinity and Hue. Trinity is a three-channel digital drum synth array, while Hue is an audio color and textural processing effect.
Owners of the MiniFreak keyboard got an early Christmas present recently when Arturia announced the release of the MiniFreak V. According to Arturia, MiniFreak V is a mirror image of the MiniFreak, only in software form.
Cherry Audio recently announced a great deal for anyone who would like to get their hands on their complete virtual instrument collection for an affordable price.
Anyone on a tight budget who would like some help to achieve natural-sounding performance results in the studio will appreciate the Air | Music Edition plugin by Sound Particles.
Dave Smith was a groundbreaking synthesizer designer, and when he passed away early in May of 2022, it was a significant loss for the synth community. However, thanks to Sequential releasing the Trigon-6, fans will be able to experience the last synth that Dave has ever worked on.


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Ready for a blast from the past? BMW certainly is, as it takes its Mini Cooper on a journey back in time with its new electric model. The 2024-2025 Mini Cooper Electric is all about reviving the vintage vibe of the iconic car while keeping up with the latest trends in the automotive industry.
You’d be forgiven for thinking the iconic Mini Cooper had passed its prime. The plucky little car first rolled off the line in 1959, after all. But BMW has breathed new life into the retro legend over the years, and now the Mini is embracing electrification in a major way.
The new Mini Cooper Electric has always been a favorite among urban women, thanks to its small and stylish design. But BMW has taken it up a notch with its tuning, giving it a more rigid side that’s full of driving pleasure. And when it comes to electrification, the Mini Cooper is no slouch. In fact, it’s the earliest and most successful electrified model in BMW’s history, paving the way for the brand’s embrace of electrification.
When BMW relaunched the Mini in 2001, no one expected it to be a pioneer in EV tech. But the zippy Mini was a natural fit for an electric makeover. In 2008, BMW debuted the Mini E concept, an all-electric adaptation of the Cooper. Global field tests followed, making the Mini one of the first players in BMW’s electrification game.
Fast forward to today, and the Mini is still leading the charge. BMW’s latest financials show a mind-blowing 150.7% increase in EV sales, with the Mini SE seeing demand shoot up 8.8%.
With the clear future of electrification, BMW has found a new goal in retro styling. Spy photos of the 2024 Mini EV show that BMW intends to maintain modernity in the car’s exterior while going all-out retro on the interior. In fact, this new Mini is considered more Mini than any other Mini, with interiors that draw inspiration from the first-generation designer Alec Issigonis.
Looking closely at the interior of the new electric Mini, you’ll notice that it adopts almost the exact same layout as the first generation. The Mini internal design team removed the instrument panel and carried all information on a HUD, while the in-car entertainment information is integrated into the middle circular control, echoing the simple dial of the first generation. And if you think it’s all about technology, think again. Mini’s electrified models follow the first generation by retaining a large number of physical buttons. The simple and clear style pays tribute to the first generation, and the retro flavor is overwhelming.
New 2024-2025 Mini Cooper Electric is getting a seriously tricked out cabin, Mini just debuted their new “Mini Experience Modes” interior, and it looks crazy futuristic. We’re talking full-on immersive lighting, augmented reality, and some real sci-fi vibes up in the new electric model.
Ambient LED lighting illuminates the entire cockpit, with colorful light projections on the knitted dash. It’s like mood lighting on steroids! There’s also a head-up display straight out of Iron Man, showing info right on the windshield so drivers don’t take their eyes off the road.
But the wildest feature has to be the AR experience. Mini designed an augmented reality system that literally transforms the interior. One mode makes it look like you’re driving through outer space!
Other modes change colors, graphics, and textures to completely revamp the interior look and feel.
We’ll get all the juicy details on the Mini Cooper Electric and its tricked out cabin at the Munich Motor Show this September before it hits in early 2024. The future of driving looks neon bright!
With its vintage-inspired interiors and modern exterior design, new Mini Cooper Electric aims to capture the hearts of drivers who love the classic Mini Cooper but also want to keep up with the latest trends. The Mini has always been more fashion than function. As BMW steers toward an electric future, they’re taking a cue from the past. Turns out retro is right on trend. Who says you can’t go home again? For the Mini Cooper, the future looks an awful lot like the beginning.


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Thales announced on Monday it is partnering with Google to launch its new eSIM Discovery service that aims to make it easier for users to download and activate eSIMs onto compatible Android devices, including tablets, laptops, and smartwatches.
The Indian government is working on developing an Indian mobile phone brand, a minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, whose portfolio includes communications, said this week.
IDC reported the Indian smartphone market was flat with a 1% uptick in shipments totalling 146 million units in 2023.
Nokia and Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo reached a resolution and threw out their lawsuits from the Indian high court which was originally filed by the Finnish company.
India’s smartphone market leader Xiaomi requested the Indian government to provide manufacturing incentives and lower import taxes, amid heavy scrutiny levied at Chinese companies in the country.


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The latest Apple iOS update is causing problems for some users.
Apple rolled out its highly anticipated iOS 10 update Tuesday, but there were some issues.
For some, the update process failed with a subsequent error message asking users to plug their iOS device into a PC or Mac for a complete restore of the operating system, Apple told The Verge.
Some users say the update bricked their iPhones and iPads, meaning they were locked out of their devices.
Apple says if that happens users should first update iTunes on their computers, then update the device by plugging it into the computer.
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This includes major game expos such as Gamescom in Germany and Paris Games Week
, The eSports Observer reported.
There are also other gaming events like the Tokyo Game Show in September and the Paris Games Week
Developers Naughty Dog gave fans a glimpse of the game at Playstation Paris Games Week
, but it's not for the faint hearted.
Also, like every year, Trackmania was part of the Electronic Sports World Cup during Paris Games Week
, for the ninth consecutive year.
Shuman has also revealed that this year's PSX will feature a new slate of panels who are going to present more developer insights related to the biggest announcements at the Paris Games Week
. Though the lineup of participating developers has yet to be finalized, Shuman can already confirm that Sucker Punch Productions and Media Molecule are coming to the event.
28 -- Sony kicked off Paris Games Week
with a two-hour-long press conference, where the company not only showcased a potpourri of games, but a lot of PlayStation VR content, too.
On Monday, Drinkbox Studios' Metroidvania-style platformer was among the first games revealed as part of the pre-show prior Sony's Paris Games Week
. Sony itself shared the good news about the sequel to fans when it posted a short trailer for the game on (https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/925017412692594688) Twitter .
Sony is set to hold one of the biggest PlayStation events of the year at the Paris Games Week
, which begins at 12:00 a.m.
Sony's Paris Games Week
press conference takes place Oct.
Detroit: Become Human was first announced as a PS4 exclusive during Paris Games Week
2015, and its developers at Quantic Dream are still hard at work polishing the narrative-driven game.
On Thursday, Nintendo revealed to Jeux-Videos.com that it is not attending Paris Games Week
, which is slated to run from Oct.


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WASHINGTON — Dismal retail traffic and consumer spending in December lead to an unprecedented decline in holiday sales.
The U.S. Commerce Department reported Wednesday that sales for the month plummeted 9.8 percent below December 2007, the first year-to-year decline since such records started being kept in 1968. On a month-to-month basis, all retail and food service providers reported a seasonally adjusted decrease of 2.7 percent to $343.2 billion. For all of 2008, retail sales were down 0.1 percent from the previous 12-month period.
Sales at specialty retailers fell 2.5 percent in December compared with November, while department stores slipped 2.3 percent. Compared with December 2007, receipts at apparel stores plunged 7.1 percent to $17.4 billion at specialty stores and 7.2 percent to $16.1 billion at department stores.
“This is not just a bad report, this is really a remarkable report,” said Charles McMillion, president and chief economist at MBG Information Services. “It is sending shock waves through both producers and retailers. It means we’re going to see a bloodbath of retail firms and jobs lost over the next six months.” He said depending on how President-elect Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package comes together, overall job losses could still far outnumber the number of jobs saved.
While December sales numbers were widely expected to decline, the results were much worse than expected, exceeding consensus predictions by more than double.
“The current economic crisis proved to be more challenging than any had anticipated,” said Rosalind Wells, chief economist at the National Retail Federation. “Consumers showed they were more than willing to wait out retailers this year, causing increased pressure on prices.”
NRF’s analysis showed the first decline in holiday sales since the association started tracking figures. Weakness was noted particularly at clothing and accessories stores, home furnishing and furniture stores, and electronics and appliance retailers. According to NRF data, apparel stores showed a seasonally adjusted 2.5 percent month-to-month decline and a 9.4 percent year-to-year drop.
“The December report is another stark reminder of the extensive damage to consumer confidence and spending from the deepening recession,” said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight.
The only positive note of the retail sales report was a further drop in gasoline prices, which slipped 15.9 percent in December, economists noted. Gasoline prices tumbled 42.1 percent in the last half of 2008 and were 35.5 percent lower in December compared with a year earlier, noted McMillion.
Anecdotal evidence from the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book report, also released Wednesday, supported the weak holiday numbers from the Commerce Department. Reports from most of the Fed’s districts were negative and focused on widespread, deep discounting during the holiday season. Retailers in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Dallas and Kansas City said holiday sales were weak. Some retailers in Boston and New York said sales did pick up a little after the holidays.
Discount stores generally fared better, with many areas reporting luxury items and big-ticket purchases, such as jewelry and electronics, were particularly weak performers. Retailers in Boston were cautious in the forecast, citing an expectation that consumers will “hunker down” in the coming months. Retailers in New York said sales were sluggish but not disastrous.�
“What he has done at Vuitton is really exceptional,” said @gameofthrones’ actress Gwendoline Christie on @mrkimjones’ final show for @louisvuitton. “He has rebooted luxury in terms of making it commercial, viable and contemporary. And most importantly artistic. He has never compromised his artistic vision for the sake of commodity.” (📷: @zefashioninsider)
After seeing a demand for men’s wear from its customers, British contemporary women’s wear label @ariesarise has added a men’s wear component and will launch a unisex collection with @mrporterlive. The 20-piece collection includes jackets, denim, logo T-shirts and more with deconstructed ‘90s vibes. Set to launch on January 18, you can shop the pieces on Aries’ website and on mrporter.com. #wwdfashion
“And so spending so much time with a character who thinks like that, inevitability you try and analyze yourself and go back and think about your own demons and dark chapters that you had in your life,” says @thedanielbruhl of his role in TNT’s “The Alienist.” The show, set in the Gilded Age of New York, also stars Dakota Fanning and Luke Evans. Head to WWD.com to read about how 39-year-old Brühl prepared for the role and why he thinks the show is so relevant to today #wwdeye ( 📷: @Eriktanner)
Now that Celine Dion’s collection has topped $10 million in sales, the pop superstar, fashion icon and newly-minted industry player is eyeing growth in Asia. Read the full report by @tiffanyap, link in bio. #wwdnews #celinedion
“My personal philosophy to beauty is paying attention to oneself. I love to be outdoors, lots of fresh air, trying to take care of yourself as best you can. I always notice that comes through,” says Felicity Jones, the global face of @shiseido-owned @cledepeaubeauteus, which launches today. Head to WWD.com to read more about the actress’ love for beauty and how she prepared for her new role in “The Basis of Sex,” playing the young Ruth Bader Ginsburg. #wwdbeauty (📷: @dandoperalski)
Among the familiar faces at @off____white’s show was a surprise figure: Japanese artist @takashipom, pictured here on Wednesday morning. Other show-goers included @jerrylorenzo, who spoke about his upcoming project: a @nike collaboration for back to school, with designs inspired by his childhood on the West Coast. Sitting in the front row were Future, Don Crawley, @miguel and more. See the rest of the photos on WWD.com #wwdeye (📷: Stephane Feugere)
According to @laurentsai, former “Terrace House: Aloha State” cast member, she didn’t know she was auditioning for the Japanese version of “Real World.” “I was telling a couple of my friends and someone’s like, ‘That sounds a lot like Terrace House.’ I was like, ’No it can’t be.’” Turns out, it was. But Tsai isn’t just a reality star — she’s an illustrator who has worked with Starbucks Japan and most recently, she’s dipping her toes into the fashion world. Head to WWD.com to read about her time on the show, modeling and her art. #wwdeye (📷: @danieldorsa)
More changes are coming to New York Fashion Week: Beginning with the spring 2019 collection, @alexanderwangny will move his New York show to June from September, adopting a biannual schedule with collections shown in June and December. Additionally, the @cfda is planning for an official summer/winter fashion season taking place as soon as June and December 2018. Read more about the upcoming changes on WWD.com. #wwdnews #wwdfashion (📷: @slovekinpics)


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Tourism bureau to focus on convention center, service
Its plan, to be unveiled at the group's annual meeting Friday at a South Beach nightclub, calls for renewed focus on some basics: • Upgrading the Miami Beach Convention Center...
Coastal homes: Miami
After living in Miami Beach's northern enclaves of Golden Beach and North Beach, fashion designer Karelle Levy relocated to South Beach's Belle Isle, a strip of ...
more news below
Halloween #onLincoln! 2023 - On October 31, Lincoln Road will open its streets to a fun-packed day and night of the ghoulish, glamorous and everything in between. Ghosts and goblins o...
8 hours ago


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Here’s a collection of highlights, selected totally subjectively, from this week’s HPC news stream as reported at insideHPC.com and HPCwire.
>>10 words and a link
SGI: “We will be back in the visual supercomputing business”;
Criminals control four petaflops supercomputer;
Verari offers new server-storage rack;
ByteandSwitch.com hunts for the world’s five largest SANs;
First Blue Gene/P plugged in;
SGI announces latest network-attached storage family;
First demo of quantum computing chip;
>>PNNL signs on the line for an 18,000 core Opteron machine from HP
HP and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory announced that PNNL is installing a 163 TFLOPS system focused on research in the environmental molecular sciences. At that size it would have earned the number two slot on the June Top500 list. From the release (http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/1805360.html):
The system will be a key capability in the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE national scientific user facility located at the PNNL in Richland, Wash. As such, the system will be available as a resource to scientists from around the world.
Stats? You bet:
The HP supercomputer architecture runs on HP ProLiant servers and includes an InfiniBand 4x DDR interconnect, 4,620 AMD Opteron processors, 37 terabytes of memory and aggregate disk bandwidth of about 950 gigabytes per second enabled by nearly 21,000 disk drives in HP enterprise virtual arrays. Consisting of 18,480 2.2 gigahertz AMD Opteron processor cores, the supercomputer will have an expected total peak performance of about 163 teraflops.
I believe this machine is the largest Barcelona-based system announced.
>>Woven’s growth spurt
This week Woven Systems closed a $20M series B round of venture funding with a tier 1 venture capital firm. Woven plans to use the new-found capital to expand sales of its EFX 1000 line of ethernet fabric switches. Details are available at http://insidehpc.com/2007/09/25/woven-raises-20-million-in-vc-funding/ and http://insidehpc.com/2007/09/25/update-wovens-new-growth-spurt/.
This is a really interesting company with great technology, and it looks like they are really poised for growth: About six weeks ago, Woven added a new CEO with strong growth experience; their 144-port 10 Gb Ethernet layer 2 switch entered general availability a couple weeks ago (these switches can be connected together to build a fabric with 4,000 leaf ports all in layer 2); and now they’ve got the money they need to build out a sales and support organization. Check out the 4-1-1 on them for more background info: http://insidehpc.com/2007/08/29/the-411-woven-systems/.
The company is recruiting heavily right now. Yhey have a staff of 40 in house, and they have 22 open positions on their Web site, all but five of which are in manufacturing, marketing or sales. The company isn’t talking publicly about what exactly it intends to do with the money, but if one was to gauge what company leaders intend to do with their shiny new $20M based on the hiring profile, it looks like most of that money is going into getting product out the door.
And sales is their big challenge. The Woven solution looks like it has a lot of advantages over competing solutions (especially strong is the adaptive congestion control as demonstrated by the Sandia/Chelsio results), but as the new kid, they have to get boots on the ground to start building the mindshare that leads to market share.
Looks like they are now set to give that the old college try.
>>ClearSpeed on the move
ClearSpeed had a raft of business announcements this week that indicate the company is continuing to gain the momentum it will need to innovate over the long term.
First, ClearSpeed has announced a partnership with Sun Microsystems to deliver their Advance accelerator boards for Sun high performance computing solutions. Most recently, the marriage of ClearSpeed and Sun yielded 48 TFLOPS at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. From the release (http://www.clearspeed.com/newsevents/news/pressreleases/ClearSpeed_Sun.php):
“Our partnership with ClearSpeed means that we can offer even better and more efficient performance to our customers,” Dr. Simon See, director of HPC Solutions – Systems Practice at Sun commented. “HPC is a major growth area and many of our clients will benefit from the addition of application acceleration technology to their data centers. Sun’s expertise in system design, configuration, and support will bring ClearSpeed’s technology to them in a low risk, energy-efficient solution.”
ClearSpeed also announced this week that Warwick University’s Digital Laboratory is using ClearSpeed’s e620 boards in a new Sun cluster for real-time rendering of virtual environments (http://insidehpc.com/2007/09/27/warwick-adopts-clearspeed-tech-for-rendering-in-virtual-environments/).
And, finally, the company announced a series of new reseller partnerships that will open China, Taiwan, and South Korea up to ClearSpeed’s technology. In China and Taiwan the company is partnering with Super Sonic Technology (http://www.clearspeed.com/newsevents/news/pressreleases/ClearSpeed_SuperSonic.php); and in South Korea, ClearSpeed is working with Tao Computing (http://www.clearspeed.com/newsevents/news/pressreleases/ClearSpeed_Tao.php).


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01. 01. 2023
Mojang's innovative Minecraft updates have always been a surprise to players. They include new biomes and mobs as well as new items. They have revived the sandbox survival game with the Caves and Cliffs updates. The Wild update will add more excitement to the game.
It is difficult to predict what Mojang will bring next, as there are many possibilities. We do know what's in store for players with the next update. Mojang provided a glimpse at the Minecraft Live 2021 event to the community.
The Wild Update will bring the Allay, an adorable and helpful mob. The Allay was chosen from a group possible new mobs that were submitted by players during the Minecraft Live event. This adorable mob can grab items dropped on the ground and bring them back to the player. The mob will drop its stacks if the player places a block of notes.
Mangrove Swamps, a new biome type that will soon be available, will have mangrove trees and new blocks. It will be home to firefly mobs and frogs, adding an extra wild and boggy element to the game.
This feature is very much anticipated by the community. In order to move many items across water bodies in one go, players will soon be able load chests onto boats. This feature was rejected at a Minecraft Live event. However, Mojang plans to make it permanent.
The Wild Update will introduce a new biome to complement the Mangrove Swamp. The Deep Dark biome, as its name implies, will be found deep within caves. It will have mysterious sculk block and a terrifying new mob. Mojang claims that this biome will have new types of valuable loot and chests with strong loot.
The Warden, one the most fearsome mobs in the game, is perhaps the most anticipated addition to the game. Unique in its ability to locate players using sound and smell, this intimidating blind mob is extremely dangerous. It is also believed to be the most powerful mob in the game, capable even of killing players wearing netherite armor.


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The company changed its mind after considering how the volatile stock market and global financial markets have had a ``disproportionately negative impact on the Internet sector,'' it said in a statement.
Earlier this year Zap announced it would buy 31 Internet properties and e-commerce businesses. It made an offer to buy Excite and was turned down.
However, Zap said it would continue to run zines Word and Charged, which it purchased from Icon CMT Corp., Weehawken, N.J.
Copyright October 1998, Crain Communications Inc.