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T-Mobile’s Simple Choice postpaid subscribers who are out of the country for business or pleasure, have unlimited data, the ability to send texts at no extra-charge, and can make phone calls at 20 cents a minute from 145 countries globally. As well as the Bahamas, T-Mobile has expanded to include Haiti, Monaco, Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Guernsey, Alderney, Jersey, Sark, Isle of Man, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan.
According to T-Mobile, the most notable aspect of the expansion of the Simple Global feature is that it now includes the Bahamas, “where more than 2 million Americas travel each year”.
“We’ve just made your traveling even easier in 20 more destinations around the world, expanding Simple Global to cover all of Europe and all of South America”, T-Mobile President and CEO John Legere said in a statement. “The carriers have made billions overcharging consumers who just want to stay connected overseas, and we’ve changed all that!” With T-Mobile, travelers no longer have to deal with add-on plans or staggering roaming charges, the carrier announced in a press release on Thursday, September 17. TMUS claims to “un-carrier” are now once again reiterated by extending the Simple global to 20 and more new destinations. It does get better for other supported countries, where the rate is $25 per 100 MB. Last year, less than 1% of T-Mobile’s Simple Global customers paid for a faster data speed, indicating that they find unlimited 2G data acceptable while away from home.
Earlier in July, the mobile network carrier also made calling, texting and 4G LTE data connectivity available for those travelling to Canada or Mexico when subscribed to its Simple Choice plans under its Mobile Without Borders services. And, to avoid those charges, the carriers make customers jump through hoops to tack on global roaming plans that jack up their monthly bill. The carrier’s goal is to bring free worldwide data coverage to its subscribers, which is something its competitors like Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have not yet accomplished. With the expansion of Simple Global, announced today, 20 additional countries are now included in the plan.


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MMMHop: Hanson to launch beer
The musical brothers Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson are in the process of developing an Indian Pale Ale
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Hanson are launching their own beer.
The musical brothers Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson are in the process of developing an Indian Pale Ale which they plan to release in early 2012, and are going to name the beverage MMMHop after their biggest hit MMMBop.
However, the group admitted they are unlikely to ever follow in the footsteps of other boy bands and develop miniature dolls of themselves.
Speaking at Oxford University Union on Monday night, Zac said: “We of course make records, they are fundamental to what we do, but we wanted to create a brand so that our fans have a greater experience.
“What is vital is that Hanson merchandise is quality and not made solely with the purpose of profit. We have a board game and even a record player to play our last record on, but we will never make dolls, lunch boxes or toothbrushes that play our songs for example.
“It’s vital our fans have trust in everything Hanson do. In fact we are soon going to be selling our own beer, I’m not even joking. MMMHop IPA anyone?”
Hanson are not the first band to launch their own beer, as last month British group Elbow developed Build A Rocket Boys Beer in honour of their album of the same name, while Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott launched a lager named Down ‘N’ Outz.
Elsewhere, the likes of AC/DC and Carlos Santana have developed their own wines.
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Latest News Headlines
MEET 2020 to be held from 10th to 11th November 2020 in Vienna
Austria – MEET 2020 is the only trade show and conference for the event and live entertainment technology industry held in Austria biannually since 1989. MEET has become an established networking event for live entertainment technicians in the area. Over 30 years exceptional shows and highly esteemed conferences have attracted professionals, not only from Austria, but also from neighbouring countries (Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia).
MEET 2020 is directly organised by the Austrian Theater Technical Association (Österreichische Theatertechnische Gesellschaft) OETHG, thus an event run by the industry for the industry.
The MEET 2020 show floor presents a wide range of manufacturers and suppliers of live entertainment machinery and audio visual equipment, scenery producers, costume and make-up suppliers, training institutions, as well as consultants, service providers and distributors of international brands.
The MEET 2020 seminars and conferences are an important element of the show. During two days of conferences inspirational speakers offer comprehensive education and development presentations on topics of interest for every industry professional. The programme is further enhanced by hands-on product demos, vendor-designed presentations and partner networking events.
The exhibition is an excellent platform not only for presenting new products but also for sharing experiences and searching new contacts in the growing Austrian as well as Central and East European markets.
Admission for pre-registered visitors shall remain free of charge.
MEET takes place at:
A-1021 Vienna, Austria
2nd December 2019
© 1999 - 2022 ET Press Ltd News Stories


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According to reports from retailers, the XBOX 360 may have a failure rate of up to 33%. From DailyTech:
EB Games held conference calls for its Canadian stores informing them of the new policy changes and revealing alarming failure rates of the Xbox 360. “The real numbers were between 30 to 33 percent,” said former EB Games employee Matthieu G., adding that failure rate was even greater for launch consoles. “We had 35 Xbox 360s at launch I know more than half of them broke within the first six months (red lights or making circles under the game discs). Two of them were dead on arrival.”
The failure rate nearing a third of all Xbox 360 consoles was found at other retailers too. A Best Buy customer service department manager, who wished to remain unnamed, said that failure rates for the console were “between a quarter to a third” of all units sold.
“We see a ton of [Xbox 360s] come back all the time. We strongly push our customers to buy our service plans no matter what they buy, but it is especially important for them with the Xbox 360,” said the manager. “It’s a lucky thing for us that Microsoft extended the factory warranty to one year, because we were having a hell of a time dealing with the launch units. Now we don’t have to deal with those broken [Xbox 360s] until their second year, for those who have purchased the two year plans.”
Sad. If tipline complaints are an indication of truth, we’d say this was true. That being said, we strongly push our readers not to fall for Best Buy’s service plans, but to instead make sure they take advantage of their credit card’s warranty protection program. Most of Best Buy’s service plans are a ripoff, just ask Consumer Reports. Then again, most popular and well-regarded devices don’t secretly have a failure rate of 33%, so that probably sends all our haughty consumer advice right out the window.
Retailers Estimate Xbox 360 Failure Rate High as 33 Percent [DailyTech] (Thanks, Phil!)
(Photo: Spoon Monkey)


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Bitzlato was shuttered last week and its founder arrested in Miami after the Justice Department charged the platform with money laundering.
Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume, processed $345.8 million worth of bitcoin (BTC) transactions for crypto exchange Bitzlato, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing data by blockchain research firm Chainalysis.
According to Reuters, Binance processed 205,000 transactions in behalf of Bitzlato between May 2018 and last week, when Bizlato shut down after the U.S. Department of Justice charged it and its founder with money laundering.
About $90 million worth of bitcoin transfers were carried out after August 2021, according to the report, which was when Binance said it would start demanding stricter background checks from customers in order to fight financial crime.
Binance was named as one of Bitzlato's top three counterparties by the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Neither Binance nor Chainalysis immediately responded to requests for comment.


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While the packaging for these features is shiny and new, the substance behind them is not. Users could always use Maps while logged out of their Google profile and manually delete stored Echo messages by logging in to their Amazon account. The recently announced features are faster and require less searching through menus, but privacy and ethical-design experts are unimpressed by the measures. While useful, they argue, the new policies do very little to shift the needle.
Mona Sloane is a professor at the Tandon School of Engineering at New York University, where she researches ethical-design principles in engineering and artificial intelligence. The first problem with privacy features that can only pause, not stop, surveillance, she argues, is that users have to enable these features themselves. “Outsourcing that is a way of circumnavigating and avoiding responsibility,” Sloane says. “It’s a way of maintaining the core business model, which is generating as much data as possible.”
For both products, the default remains: You can pause tracking, but you can’t stop it. Users can’t tell Alexa never to store their Echo commands to begin with, nor can they preemptively tell Google to never track them while they’re logged in to the Maps app.
The new shortcuts seem targeted at a user base that’s fed up after two years of big-tech privacy breaches and surveillance scandals. In April, Amazon Echo users were shocked to find out that their recorded voices are collected and sent to human contract workers for analysis. Many Google Nest owners learned that their products shipped with functional microphones via a February tweet. And Facebook is still revamping its public image since news broke of Cambridge Analytica harvesting user data for a national influence campaign last year.
Read: Behind every robot is a human
Amazon’s and Google’s feature announcements, one privacy expert argues, are part of a Silicon Valley campaign to regain trust. “It’s privacy as a promotional tool,” says Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project at the Urban Justice Center. Cahn says that consumers’ perceptions of risk and reward when they’re shopping for smart products are changing. With each new scandal, wary shoppers become more convinced that it’s not worth wagering their privacy to use tracking software. These incognito-style moves are, in Cahn’s opinion, designed as damage control to get back in buyers’ good graces.
Cahn described shoppers’ new caution as an “existential threat” to tech companies. “They’re fearful of what lawmakers will do,” he says, “and they’re trying to win back our trust with these measures that create the illusion of privacy, but don’t threaten their core business model.”
Those business models, some scholars argue, often become tech companies’ ethics, shaping how they design their products. Ben Wagner, a professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, has found in his research that companies do embrace ethical principles after privacy backlashes. But those principles don’t necessarily adhere to the same values that consumers use. Wagner wrote about the risks of this disconnect in 2018, noting that firms regularly engage in “ethics washing” and “ethics shopping,” phrases borrowed from an earlier European Union report on governing AI.


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Some mobile phone users 'are predisposed to pop'
12 November 2009 — 7:00 PM
Research from mobile phone handset manufacturer Nokia has revealed that some people are predisposed to preferring pop music.
The company's gene-based research focuses on the musical tastes of twins - both identical and non-identical.
By comparing how well each pair's musical tastes align, Nokia believes it should be possible to decide whether the 100 per cent genetic match between identical twins is responsible for more of a match.
The findings could surprise some people - as an identical twin is 53 per cent more likely to enjoy pop music if their sibling does.
Owners of handsets without music playback capabilities could be inspired to recycle mobile phones and invest in a new model to find out where their genes fit into the findings.
Nearly 4,000 twins were studied for the research, which also discovered that a love of folk music is just 24 per cent more likely to be apparent due to genetic factors, as opposed to people's upbringing.
For those looking to recycle mobile phones and buy a model with good audio credentials, the Nokia 5730 could be just the thing.
Phil Lattimore of TechRadar this week said that the handset offers "terrific" sound quality during playback.
News brought to you by envirofone.com the UKs largest mobile phone recycling company
Mobile recycling could be an option for recipients of unwanted gifts30 December 2010 — 12:02 PM
People can get money for a phone they do not intend to use.
Selling mobile can create chance to buy HTC Desire HD29 December 2010 — 3:54 PM
People who enjoy a large screen may find all they want in the HTC Desire HD.


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Beware of scammers. Invited on RTL this Monday morning, the director general of the French Banking Federation, Maya Atig, made a reminder to the French, too little attention to security on the internet. As fraudsters become more insistent and imaginative, consumers must guard their personal data jealously, the representative said.
We are under more and more pressure from scammers [...]. More numerous in quantity and stronger in quality, with offers that seem credible, calls that seem extremely professional and people who try to take control of the brains of those they call to scam them, "explained Maya Atig at the microphone of the radio. His organization, which brings together French financial institutions, is therefore launching an awareness campaign on this subject, in order to put the right reflexes forward.
The trend is indeed rather relaxed, among consumers, while a little more than seven out of ten French people - 71% - check the elements of security on websites, according to a survey conducted by the representative organization of the banking sector. A share down over one year. "There is a loss, compared to things that were well known," Atig said. Similarly, inflation obliges, more people attracted by false bargains are ready to click on links, on the internet. "Time is speeding up for each of us, so we're doing more and more things, faster and faster. [...] We click, we do not pay attention and we are fooled, "she then added.
The scam attempts concern everyone, not just the elderly, who are less accustomed to browsing the web, said the director general. A quarter of French people "take risks", by clicking on an unwanted link, for example. The under 25s are "even more numerous" to have been targeted by a scam attempt, even if "less than 10% of the population" was actually scammed in the end.
Pay attention to bank details
Faced with these multiplying attempts, the French Banking Federation therefore calls on consumers to pay more attention than ever to their personal data, and in particular their banking data, a treasure coveted by scammers. Its director general also advised Internet users to use a different password for their banking applications, to limit the risks if another site is hacked and the encrypted data associated with its users is stolen. Beware of calls from fake advisors: a real professional will "never ask for your bank details," said Maya Atig. People who would be victims of scams can be reimbursed in "the vast majority of cases", she stressed. But "the best reimbursement is the one that does not need to be".
Last April, a study by the Banking Federation sounded the alarm, noting that risky behavior remained "too numerous" among consumers. "Bad reflexes" were pointed out, such as registering bank details on a site for future purchases, for 45% of the French, or sending bank details by email to a relative, for a third of them. The organization then launched a national awareness campaign, recalling that "fraud attempts are becoming more frequent and more elaborate". So be careful.


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NFT by singer David Bowie sells for $127,000.
Singer David Bowie’s rare NFT from his collection, ‘Bowie on the Blockchain’ was sold for a fortune on OpenSea. The rare Bowie NFT in collaboration with a 19-year-old NFT artist, FEWOCiOUS, was sold for 96.5 ETH or about $127,000, going by ETH’s market price at the time of the purchase. The news brings cheer amid […]
The post Singer David Bowie’s NFT sells for $127,000 appeared first on CoinSwitch.
Singer David Bowies unique NFT from his series, Bowie on the Blockchain, became available for a fortune on OpenSea.The unique Bowie NFT, created in collaboration with a 19-year-old vintage NFT artist, FEWOCiOUS, was sold for 96.five ETH, or approximately $127,000, based on the ETH market price at the time of the purchase.
The news brings cheer amid the wider crypto marketplace crash and lackluster NFT income. “Bowie at the Blockchain” is a 15-piece series that uses colorful motifs to celebrate the singer’s legendary pop hits.The series encompasses more than one NFT artist, FEWOCiOUS, whose actual name is Victor Langlois. Furthermore, the NFT offered a lively video clip with a shifting sculpture, which has one of all Bowies custom fits on for $127,000.
“I thought it changed into something so cool that he changed into what he desired to be constantly.” and built a world he wanted to live in.Thats without a doubt the sensation I attempt to seize in my art, “stated FEWOCiOUS within the series description.
However, Bowies NFT is no longer the primary within the latest marketplace to promote for a better price. Recently, an investor offered a CryptoPunk NFT for 3300 ETH, aka about $4.45 million, which counts as one of the biggest incomes in NFT history. Yet, the wider NFT marketplace has languished in recent months.
Trading volumes for NFTs have dropped with the aid of 97% from their record high in January 2022, in step with a Bloomberg record primarily based on information from Dune Analytics. From a high of $17 billion at the start of this year, NFT buying and selling extent nosedived to $466 million in September.
Furthermore, the NFT area additionally witnessed a discord hack frenzy this year. Crypto Within the month of May, Twitter posted an extended list of NFT Discord hacks. According to the listing, 70 Discord channels, inclusive of the ones belonging to fundamental initiatives like BAYC, RTFKT, and Cool Cats, have been exploited for the duration of the one-month period.


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SEOUL – South Korean giant Samsung Electronics said Friday it expects operating profit to fall 69 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter due to lower overall demand for electronics.
The company’s October-December operating income is expected to reach 4.3 trillion won ($3.4 billion), a sharp drop of around 13.9 trillion won year on year.
This could be the company’s worst quarterly decline in earnings since the third quarter of 2014.
Samsung said in a statement that its fourth-quarter earnings were “significantly below current market expectations,” attributable to macroeconomic problems exacerbated by persistently high central bank interest rates around the world.
Weak demand for memory chips was “bigger than expected as customers adjusted inventories (…) to further improve their finances amid concerns about consumer sentiment as global interest rates continue to rise, high prices and a poor economic outlook.
In this context, smartphone maker Galaxy “recorded a significant decline in results in the memory chip sector due to falling smartphone demand and sales,” he added.
For the first time in four years, Samsung has issued a press release detailing its situation alongside earnings forecasts.
The company is the flagship subsidiary of the giant Samsung Group, the largest of the family conglomerates that dominate business in South Korea, Asia’s fourth largest economy.
“Samsung Electronics is extremely important to the South Korean economy,” Kim Dae-jeong of Sejong University told AFP.
“Given today’s announcement, this year is going to be very challenging. Not only Samsung, but the entire Korean economy seems to have to find a good survival strategy for the coming year.”
The widely anticipated fourth-quarter decline is the second straight margin decline for Samsung, whose operating profit fell 31.4% year-over-year in the third half.
Until the second quarter of this year, Samsung, like other tech companies, has largely benefited from high demand for electronic devices and the chips they run on during the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the global economy is now facing multiple challenges, including runaway inflation, rising interest rates and the threat of a full-blown debt crisis.
The group is due to publish its final annual results at the end of January.


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Tastemakers’ Arcade1Up recently vacated the Big Apple and set up shop in the Magic City where it’s quickly forged a new alliance.
The maker of retro-inspired home arcade and pinball machines inked a multi-year deal with the Miami Dolphins to open the Arcade1Up Game Lounge inside Hard Rock Stadium.
“Arcade1Up and the Miami Dolphins have a shared passion to offer the best entertainment experience for their fan base, on and around the field at the stadium,” says Scott Bachrach, founder and CEO of Tastemaker’s Arcade1Up.
The first-of-its-kind game lounge features 50 3/4-scale retro gaming machines, including Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Star Wars Pinball, Street Fighter, NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, Marvel Pinball, Pong, and more.
“We believe in innovation and creating custom experiences for our fans, two areas that are core tenets of Arcade1Up’s strategy,” says Jeremy Walls, senior vice president and chief revenue officer, Miami Dolphins. “Arcade1Up’s move to Miami and this partnership will provide an amazing opportunity for a new generation of our fans throughout South Florida to engage in retro gaming and unique arcade content.”
In other Arcade1Up news, the company opened preorders this week for its TRON Arcade Machine. Disney’s 1982 film TRON was accompanied by a groundbreaking line of arcade machines that featured a distinctive design and glowing flight stick. Now, Arcade1Up brings that magic back with a home version of the classic cabinet.


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Discerning Themes That May Define 2021
Friday, January 08, 2021, 10am by Jonathan Freeze, CDME, EDP
Each year since revamping its community engagement strategies officially in 2018, GRCVB has arranged its communications with local community stakeholders around annual themes of import, and this year is no different.
In calendar years 2019 and 2020, Bureau staff created and implemented a multilevel training program for stakeholders called Tourism U, which had great success connecting with key local audiences—albeit virtually due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Now that program is being reevaluated and improved (thanks to research findings from N.C. State’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management), with an updated Tourism U 100 Level to roll out soon (Tourism U 200 is also available).
The pandemic itself has reinforced the value of stronger connections between the Bureau and local stakeholders beyond our traditional hospitality business partners and Raleigh/Wake County economic development colleagues—stakeholders such as town chamber/municipal leaders and managers, corporate leaders outside of the hospitality industries and area residents overall. Impacts from the pandemic, too, are present in the Bureau’s new communication themes:
Destination Resilience Follows Recovery
Our destination’s recovery from COVID-19 losses will be gradual and multiyear, and work to achieve long-term resilience continues, including support for the additional phases of our community’s rebuild (retaining our genuine quality of place) and the sustainability of the Bureau as an integral organization.
This theme stresses that economic recovery for the area’s hospitality/tourism sector is still ongoing, and we (the community and GRCVB) cannot stop working differently than usual until we achieve a state of resilience and financial security beyond where things stood in Feb. 2020. While other sectors will recover rapidly with stimulus investments (or already have seen gains above their pre-pandemic revenues), economists predict, and data already indicate, for tourism a long road to regain true resilience; this is the K-shaped economic recovery seen in some analyses. As GRCVB’s vision is to be the prime visitor advocate and regional leader of destination marketing and product development here, the Bureau is integral to future phases of support for our troubled visitor sector.
The Value of Tourism
Local audiences should understand that attracting more visitor and convention business to the area (GRCVB’s mission) is economic development. Stimulating outside customer demand for local businesses regrows sales of products/services and sustains livelihoods for locals both inside the hospitality industries and in other supporting industries.
All area economic development and municipal leaders can agree post-pandemic that retaining viable, consumer-facing businesses in Wake County is a priority; it will sustain residents’ livelihoods, especially in a hospitality/tourism sector that relies on face-to-face delivery of goods/services to customers along its road to resilience. Some 21% of area food-service employment, 41% of recreation/entertainment industry employment and 100% of hotel employment pre-pandemic (22,542 local jobs) traced to Wake County visitor arrivals, as did another 5,503 direct hospitality-sector jobs. Wake County visitation/visitor spending pre-pandemic ($2.9 billion in 2019) also funded the salaries of 10,986 more local jobs in adjacent industries (e.g., finance, health care) and, in 2019, generated another $1.5 billion in sales for these other industries locally (the indirect/induced impacts of area visitation). Restimulating our visitor demand should happen as safely but as quickly as possible.
Implementation of the Destination Strategic Plan (DSP) has been retooled post-COVID, but the DSP remains the destination’s best framework for achieving resilience while enhancing customer engagement. Recommitment to the DSP can shore up at-risk aspects of quality of place, strengthening other forms of economic development in Wake County.
GRCVB had spearheaded year-one implementation of Wake County’s DSP starting in July 2019 and now has reprioritized/retooled its project implementation for year two (through June 2021), taking new COVID realities into account. The well-researched, 10-year plan remains our best future framework, however, for increasing visitor demand/enhancing customers’ engagement with the destination brand to 21.7 million person-stays annually; the DSP outlines tourism-related economic development work in Quality of Place and across seven other priorities needing stakeholders’ support.
Much talent was attracted to our area from across the nation in recent years based on the diversity of small and independently owned enterprises here, run by savvy entrepreneurs who have created “shop local” products and new experiences found nowhere else; this collectively represents our charmed quality of life, our destination brand and a core amenity/selling point of our region. For all the reasoning above, this quality of place is now at-risk, the short-term satisfaction of newcomers/visitors is at-risk, and the long-term reputation of the region is at-risk if we do not focus on the survival of creative small businesses and startups.
Beyond use in our communication planning, the 2021 themes also can be used as talking points by GRCVB’s staff, our board members, economic development allies and the area’s hospitality business partners when engaging the community at-large this year. Stay tuned to the Tourism Talk blog for more progress reports on community outreach and countywide DSP implementation.
Author: Jonathan Freeze, CDME, EDP
Jonathan Freeze, CDME, EDP, has built a career in the marketing of places, leading the Greater Raleigh CVB's marketing efforts since 2008. Though a firm believer in the science of marketing, Jonathan also began his career as a writer and creative wordsmith. In 2021 he contributed an award-winning chapter to the book Tourism Microentrepreneurship (Emerald Publishing), and recently he earned the Entrepreneurship Development Professional (EDP) credential. Learn more


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With global oil prices at their lowest point in nearly 11 years, U.S. retail prices for diesel and gasoline continued to decrease this week and are projected to keep declining into the first quarter of 2016, according to data tracked by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
The national average retail price for diesel dropped 5.4 cents this week to $2.284 per gallon, EIA said, which is 99.7 cents cheaper per gallon compared to the same week in 2014.
Diesel prices declined in every region of the U.S. the agency said, dipping the most in the Rocky Mountains; by some 7.1 cents to $2.304 per gallon.
The Gulf Coast is home for the cheapest diesel this week, at $2.181 per gallon (down 3.1 cents from last week), while California hosts the most expensive at $2.611 per gallon (down 3.9 cents from last week), the EIA noted.
The national average retail price for gasoline also declined this week, the agency added, albeit just barely; down one tenth of a penny to $2.026 per gallon, which is 37.7 cents cheaper per gallon compared to the same time period last year.
However, prices did tick up slightly in two regions of the U.S., according to EIA’s data. The Lower Atlantic witnessed a four-tenth of a penny hike to $1.962 per gallon, while the West Coast experienced a 5.6 cent jump to $2.570 per gallon (which morphed into a 1.2 cent hike to $2.283 per gallon with California’s prices removed from the mix).
Gasoline prices fell in every other region of the country this week, the agency added, with prices below the $2 per gallon mark in four areas: the Lower Atlantic ($1.962), the Midwest ($1.876), the Rocky Mountains ($1.994) and the Gulf Coast ($1.781, which is the cheapest regional price for gasoline in the U.S. this week, EIA noted).
The agency also expects retail prices for both diesel and gasoline to keep falling at least into the early part of next year.
According to its Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO) issued earlier this month, retail diesel fuel prices, which averaged $3.83 per gallon in 2014, are projected to finish 2015 at an average of $2.71 per gallon and then fall to an average of $2.67 per gallon in 2016.
Where retail gasoline prices are concerned, EIA expects them to average $2.04 per gallon in December 2015 and $2.14 per gallon in the first quarter of 2016.
Lower projected crude oil prices this winter are contributing to a reduction in residential heating oil prices, the agency said – and since heating oil is made from the same base stock as diesel fuel, that should help keep diesel prices down.
EIA said that households using heating oil are expected to pay an average of $2.40 per gallon this winter, which is 64 cents per gallon lower than last winter. As a result, the average household is now expected to spend $1,282 for heating oil this winter, $570 less than last winter, the agency noted.


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When Google's AlphaGo software beat champion Go player Lee Sedol at a five-game match in March, many compared it to the chess showdowns that pitted Garry Kasparov against IBM's Deep Blue back in the mid-1990s (they won a match apiece). But this was different. Go, a game that's popular in Asia, is even more nuanced than chess and infinitely complex, which is why beating a human opponent had become a holy grail for computer scientists. AlphaGo's victory wasn't simply one step beyond Deep Blue; it proved that "smart" artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer some far-off dream.
Over the past few months, we've started to get a taste of the real-world implications. Microsoft, Facebook and Google all kicked off their most recent developer conferences with a clear message: Forget the rise of the machines — the future
is smart software, a.k.a. bots. You've probably already interacted with bots, on messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and Kik, or by calling up Apple's digital assistant, Siri, on your iPhone. As Siri has shown, bots can be programmed to have something approaching a personality and to engage in human-like conversations. They can also carry out tasks like ordering a pizza or booking a flight to New York.
Those might not be earth-shattering examples of change, but as is often the case with digital, what at first seems like an entertaining trinket or marginal convenience can bode deep structural changes ahead. When it first debuted in 2007, the iPhone was simply a slick new smartphone, but it sparked seismic shifts across
So it will be with bots, because the AI that drives them represents a new kind of tool. Just as we might send in a robot to defuse a bomb, bots could be deployed to mine and analyze the huge and unwieldy amounts of data produced in today's digital-first world at a pace and scale humans simply can't match. They're even starting to be able to relay qualitative information: not just What is my next appointment? but What are the most promising sales trends from the past year? AI's capacity to replace human actions — and do them better — represents the next great business upheaval.
The underlying trend here is machine learning (a concept demonstrated disastrously by Microsoft's Tay chatbot back in March when it took one day for its Twitter chat bot to become a Hitler-loving, anti-feminist 9/11 conspiracy theorist and Donald Trump apologist). The idea is to create software that can produce new information and tools of its own accord — for instance, a system that could sort through stoplight patterns and use what it learns to better direct traffic, all without explicitly being told to do so. This is already happening. IBM's Watson AI has gone from playing (and winning) Jeopardy to delivering treatments for lung cancer, partly by keeping up with and factoring in weekly developments in oncology. Watson is also helping to reintegrate military personnel into civil society by answering questions about benefits and medical concerns, and doing it all in natural, ordinary language. That's a key part of what makes bots so full of potential — the fact that they can understand human queries and respond in kind, rather than with complex mathematical formulas. Now imagine this technology in the hands (literally) of rank-and-file employees at your own company, and you start to get a sense of how AI might change things — and how many jobs it could render obsolete. A sales exec could ask her phone a simple question — say, how oil's effect on currency influenced sales in British Columbia over the past three years — and then use that information to make better strategic decisions. Bots offer a whole new competitive advantage.
For the Googles and Microsofts of the world, the big question is who will own the "layer"—who will become the Windows or iPhone of AI. For just about everyone else, and almost certainly for Canadian companies, it's more a question of where and how to deploy the technology. Because bots will very quickly evolve beyond ordering takeout and calling taxis to become an arsenal of strategic tools able to manage financial reports, staff evaluations, inventory levels, market analysis, logistics and more. In fact, there's a good chance that a decade from now, bots will have changed the business sphere in ways we can't even imagine. After all, who could have foreseen that the iPhone would effectively kill the desktop computer, spawn social media behemoths like Facebook and shake up transportation with the advent of Uber?
Winning at Go was just the start. Brace yourselves — the bots are coming.
You can follow Alang on Twitter: @navalang


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Anyone who has struggled to merge lanes at a construction site might find the idea a little hard to swallow, but Honda is imagining what it calls a “cooperative mobility ecosystem” in which cars, if not necessarily their drivers, all work together to reduce highway congestion and improve vehicle safety.
The Japanese maker plans to present its vision – embodied in an “automated EV commuter vehicle” it’s calling NeuV – at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas early next month. Traditionally dedicated to smartphones, TVs and other gadgets, CES has become an increasingly important place of automakers to show and tell about their latest high-tech concepts.
In the case of Honda, it says its “The exhibit will include the NeuV, a concept automated EV commuter vehicle equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) called ‘emotion engine’ that creates new possibilities for human interaction and new value for customers.”
It’s apparently meant to take things to a new level beyond the bonds many folks are already forming with the likes of voice assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. That’s in line with what we’re already seeing from other Japanese automakers.
(Honda gives best look yet at new Civic Si. For more, Click Here.)
Rival Toyota, for one, recently began selling – in Japan only – a 4-inch-tall robot first used by a Japanese astronaut during his stint on the International Space Station. Dubbed Kirobo Mini, it’s designed to chat away and can even recognize a companion’s facial expressions. The little companion is able to recall its owner’s likes and dislikes and even remember places they have visited together.
Japanese makers have unveiled several other concept cars that supposedly can read a motorist’s emotions, even adjust interior lights to soften a bad mood. And European researchers working with PSA Peugeot Citroen displayed a concept several years ago able to read facial expressions to detect oncoming road rage, as well as when a driver grows tired or fatigued.
NeuV is a joint venture between Honda an Cocoro SB that was first announced last July. Exactly how far they’ll go with giving the car some sort of voice and emotions, well, we’ll have to wait and see, but one thing seems clear, it will be difficult to get very emotional about the basic design of the electric commuter car – which can best be described as a box on wheels.
(Honda Civic named best overall buy for 2017 by KBB.com. Click Here for the story.)
From the teaser image provided by Honda, NeuV is about the size of – and perhaps even a touch smaller than – the Smart Fortwo, but with an even more utilitarian design.
Whether there is any plan to actually put the two-seater into production remains to be seen. But one can expect to see voice assistants become a common presence in tomorrow’s vehicles. Hyundai recently announced it will team up with Amazon to harness the Alexa service. And Ford announced similar plans during CES last year. Many vehicles can now access Siri through a touch of the steering wheel, as well as the Android alternative.
Beyond artificial intelligence capabilities, expect to see more vehicles add connected car services that will tap into both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure systems. That should become all but ubiquitous as autonomous vehicles eventually start taking to the highways.
(To see what makers took top honors on U.S. News & World Report’s best brands list, Click Here.)
We’ll learn more about what Honda has in mind during its CES news conference on Jan. 5.


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Reality Pros are set to become the first flop of modern Apple. With the launch of Reality Pro, the glasses for virtual and augmented reality, Apple is betting big and risking its reputation as an infallible company in choosing the products it puts on the market; in practice they could be the first high-profile failure of modern Apple, the one since Jobs’ return to today. This is the gist of an article published today by Bloomberg and signed by Mark Gurman, a journalist who has the ability and the right connections to see behind Cupertino’s moves.
After having already gone into detail last week on the functioning of this accessory, Gurman launches into a scarcely reassuring forecast that is made clear from the beginning: «there is a very concrete possibility that at the launch Reality Pro, although loaded with technologies that will make them a marvel from the point of view of innovation, turn into a real flop». The reasons? Multiple and pitted one by one with references to the past and the present and which at first sight are logically unbreakable.
We start from intrinsic problems, the autonomy of only two hours, the uncertain functioning in full light, the scarce availability of contents and the uncomfortable design, to more general issues. Firstly, Apple still has no idea what their real function might be, the killer application for which glasses should become something to buy. Currently Cupertino “hopes that immersive video, integration with other Apple products and FaceTime calls will entice consumers but I am skeptical – says Gurman – that this will be enough”.
Indeed, with Reality Pro Apple dives into almost uncharted waters. Not so with iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch that already had a clear function and predecessors that had already won the interest of masses of customers. There it was just about creating something better to beat the competition. The result was that Apple sold one million iPhones in a few months and ten in the second year, fifteen million iPads in eight months and ten million Apple Watches in one year. Apple now estimates it will sell less than a million Reality Pros in its first year. Which would make the Reality Pro a product that according to Apple’s metrics is little more than a dot on the radar.
Each of the previous products, Gurman considers, had points of advantage over other products that people knew: the iPhone revolutionized the smartphone experience, the iPad was better than an iPhone and a Mac in navigation, video and in the photos, the Apple Watch superior to the iPhone as an activity tracker. Reality Pros, on the other hand, will perhaps be better than the iPhone only in video viewing and FaceTime: «I doubt that this is enough to push people to spend $3,000 on them, six times the price of the iPhone at launch, a price that someone at the time already thought it was exaggerated ».
The market sends alarming signals in this regard: Microsoft’s HoloLens are far from a mainstream product so much so that version three may never see the light of day and Meta’s QuestPros have had a cold reception both in the $3500 and in the more expensive versions. economic. More than half of the $400 version of Quests go unused 6 months after purchase, and visitors show disinterest in Horizon Word shortly after signing up. Reality Pros will face the same struggles affecting Microsoft and Meta products: high price and dubious utility.
«Apple to avoid a failure of gigantic proportions – concludes Gurman – will have to travel a very narrow path. Present the low-profile Reality Pros, as a developer preview of something yet to come, soon reduce the price and accelerate on hardware development by increasing autonomy and content with the help of partners. But Apple has never followed such a path, in particular it has never had a low profile about its products because it never had a need to. For this reason, at least at the moment, Apple’s reputation as an infallible machine capable of churning out one success after another is in the balance»


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What The Financials
Inc42 unveils and deciphers all the important financial metrics of Indian startups across industries. Find out revenues, unit economics, profit & loss and all the important financial metrics to judge how the startup will perform in the coming years.
After a year when its loss increased 72% year-on-year (YoY) to INR 183.49 Cr, Pepperfry managed to turn the tide, rein in the expenses and cut losses by 33% to a little over INR 122 Cr.
A chief factor for Pepperfry’s better financial performance was the increase in revenue by 26% YoY to INR 260.61 Cr. Moreover, expenses fell, albeit marginally, by 1.79% to INR 383 Cr.
Of the company’s total revenue, INR 246 Cr was operational revenue, of which, INR 245,88 Cr was from the sale of services, while INR 0.15 Cr was license fees.
For Pepperfry, revenue from operations comprises commission from suppliers of furniture and other products sold through its ecommerce site and app. The company has a contractual arrangement with many of the suppliers. In addition to over 10K sellers, the company has 10 private label brands including Woodsworth, Mintwud, Casacraft, Amberville, Bohemiana, Mudramark, Mollycoddle, Clouddio, Primorati and Mangiamo.
As for the breakup of the company’s expenses, employee benefit expenses fell by 34% to INR 23 Cr; finance costs by 63% to INR 1.43 Cr; depreciation, depletion and amortisation expense increased by 3.6% to INR 3.74 Cr; and, other expenses, which includes the company’s spending on rent, fuel, conveyance, bad debts, legal and advertising services, increased by 2% to INR 354.65 Cr.
Omnichannel Focus Lowers Advertising Costs
Interestingly, the company had major plans in FY20 to launch high-tech virtual reality-enabled showrooms. In November 2019, the company told Inc42 that it opened 25 new stores or Pepperfry Studios since April 2019. Overall, the company had 67 (including both owned and franchise) such studios across 24 Indian cities in FY20.
Cofounder Ambareesh Murty had said then that 35% of Pepperfry’s business comes from users that have registered at Pepperfry Studios, and typically within 60 days of registration. “This number last year used to be about 27-28%, we see this number settling at about a 35-40% rate over the next year or so,” he said.
With an omnichannel focus, it has also reduced its reliance on advertisements. While in FY19, Pepperfry’s advertising expenses had increased 87% YoY to INR 170 Cr, in FY20, they’ve fallen by 24% to INR 129 Cr.
Furniture Startups Suffer Lockdown Blues
Founded in 2011 by Ambareesh Murty and Ashish Shah, to date, Pepperfry has raised $240.5 in eight funding rounds from seven investors. The company last raised funds worth $40 Mn in a Series F round led by Pidilite Industries in February 2020.
The company competes with several other startups in the online furniture industry such as WoodenStreet, Wakefit, Furlenco, Rentomojo and HomeLane, along with ecommerce marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart.
According to Statista, revenue in Indian’s furniture and homeware market is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2021-2025) of 8.7%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$2,131 Mn by 2025.
It is worth mentioning that the FY20 financials are for the period ending March 31, 2020, and hence, wouldn’t accurately reflect the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the company’s business.
However, all retail businesses suffered a hit on their revenues amid the Covid-19-induced hard lockdown for nearly 67 days from late-March till late-May. For Pepperfry, both its online and offline businesses would have been impacted during the lockdown, and even post that, demand would have been slow to pick up, as witnessed with most retail businesses.
The pandemic also saw Pepperfry’s competitor Urban Ladder go through a distress sale to Reliance Retail for INR 182 Cr. Considering that Urban Ladder was an eight-year-old company then with more than $120 Mn in funding, the terms of the deal were certainly an undersell, evidencing the state of the online furniture industry in India last year.
Industry experts believe that most companies in the online furniture business are in bad shape today. “Though they claim to be earning huge revenues, their operational costs and losses are really high,” Lokendra Ranawat, cofounder at Wooden Street said in October last year.
In June 2020, Pepperfry founder and COO Ashish Shah told Inc42 that prior to the pandemic, 38% of the company’s sales were coming from offline stores. However, given the churn in the market due to the pandemic, the company was doubtful about retail outlets getting back to track anytime soon. Shah was optimistic about online sales for Pepperfry.


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Gold imports by the world’s second-biggest consumer edged higher in June as the pandemic’s lethal second wave ebbed in India and buyers trickled back to stores drawn by a drop in prices.
Overseas shipments increased to 15 tons last month from 13.2 tons a year ago, according to a person familiar with the data, who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public. That would take the April-June quarter imports to about 97 tons, down by half from the previous quarter. Finance Ministry spokesman Rajesh Malhotra didn’t immediately respond to calls to his mobile phone.
Virus cases in India have eased from a peak of more than 400,000 daily infections in May, when the world’s fastest coronavirus surge left overflowing hospitals and crematoriums. Jewelers, including Titan Co. and Kalyan Jewellers India Ltd., have gradually started reopening stores for short periods since June as states lifted pandemic-related lockdowns. Buyers looking for bargains have also returned to stores after domestic prices fell by the most in four months in June.
India Supercharged Its Economy 30 Years Ago. Covid Unraveled It
“Though business hours are restricted, we are seeing people coming in to buy gold, including coins, as they feel prices will shoot up again and they may not get an opportunity to buy if a third wave of the virus emerges,” said Kumar Jain, owner of U.T. Zaveri store in Mumbai’s biggest jewelry market. However, sales will only pick up in a big way once the state governments ease all restrictions on movements and businesses, he said.


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OCEAN CITY- What’s being called the world’s most addictive cracker found its way to the country’s biggest morning television show this week, even if it was only for a few short minutes.
Little Ragghi’s Crackers, a locally created and produced artisan flatbread cracker that has seemingly sparked nationwide interest and critical acclaim in the gourmet food industry in just six months of existence, caught the attention of the producers of the “Today Show,” and were one of five products chosen to be featured on live national television Monday morning to roughly 4 million viewers.
Just before 10 a.m. on Monday, the crackers were shown and got some face time to the nation, but as Little Ragghi’s co-owner Guy Bayshore said, they didn’t quite get as much time on camera as he would have hoped.
“They were literally running out of time on the segment, and though we got a mention, we unfortunately didn’t get our website put up on the screen like a few of the other products before us,” said Bayshore. “Obviously, we are thrilled to be on the ‘Today Show’ and the producers were very nice and told us that they loved the product and regretted running out of time.”
Bayshore has been hustling to get these crackers to the top levels of the specialty foods industry in just a mere six months. Alongside creator and namesake Raggatha “Little Ragghi” Calentine, Bayshore has placed these crackers in major food stores, distributors, wholesalers, chains, and brokers in 38 of the 50 states.
Yet, Bayshore said that the “Today Show” was a total bonus, as the product caught the eye of famous celebrity chef Giada Delaurentiis, who was at a food show in Washington D.C. with “Today Show” producers in search of a few standout products to bring on-air.
“They came up, tasted the cracker, said they loved it, and then came back later and tried it another two times, before telling us that we were going to be on the show,” said Bayshore. “Apparently, their train got delayed going back to New York and they sat and enjoyed a bag of Little Ragghi’s Crackers while they waited.”
The story of these little crackers and the obvious taste of them have made them what some in the industry are calling “the hottest product in brokers hands in a decade,” according to Bayshore.
“It’s taken a lot of hard work to get it to this point,” he said. “Sometimes, I’m working on this for 20 hours a day, but I know that it’s already taking off, and I honestly feel like it’s about to explode in the next few months.”
Bayshore has gotten the product noticed at the Fancy Food Show in New York, and the crackers were considered a standout product in that show that featured over 200,000 products.
In addition, Bayshore says that the crackers have been popping up in stores in Napa Valley, to Dean and DeLuca stores in New York City, to the huge Texas Chain Central Markets.
“We really can’t believe everywhere that we have gone in such a short amount of time,” said Bayshore. “It really is quite amazing and almost mind boggling.”
“Little Ragghi” is extremely gentle in nature, and admittedly quite shy as she seemed pleased but generally un-phased by the early rise of her creation, citing that she is doing all of the hard work for Native American children (which a portion of all the profits go to the charity of her choice, the National Native American Family Camp.)
“I think that it’s great what’s been happening, and we may have to get a bigger factory to make the crackers in, which will make me sad because I pray over these crackers and I pray for the people that buy them, and for the people that the money is going to help in the charity,” said Calentine, “I just hope I can still do that wherever this goes.”


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Walmart announced their plans to carry Harlem Brewing Company beers
On Monday, Walmart, the largest company in the world, announced it planned to carry the brand created 17 years ago in a Harlem apartment by this woman with a cardboard box on her head which became just her thing to do. Starting in March, Walmart locations in New York will sell the three primary beers brewed by Celeste’s five-person company: Harlem Sugar Hillgolden Ale, Harlem Renaissance Wit, and Harlem Sugar Hill Strawberry Cider.”Sooner or later, someone will open a door for you and the first door for me was Sylvia’s Restaurant,” Beatty said. Today, customers can find Harlem Brewing Company beers at Settepani and hundreds of other bars and restaurants around the world. Celeste declined to share her annual sales numbers, saying only that she brews millions of ounces of beer every year. Celeste expects the Walmart deal to increase her sales by as much as 20 percent. New York State as Harlem Brewing Company continues to grow.


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MakeMusic today announced a change to their technical support policy for Finale, which will go into effect later this summer. This change only affects customers who have not upgraded since Finale 2009. The statement reads:
“MakeMusic, Inc. has a long tradition of providing free technical support for our Finale® customers. In a world where most software companies charge for technical support, MakeMusic is committed to offering free personalized support to its customers. To do so, it’s necessary to limit support of older software versions.
As of August 15, 2012, MakeMusic will no longer provide phone or case support for Finale 2009 and earlier versions. Users of Finale 2009 and older products will still be able to authorize their software, search for answers to frequently asked questions, and use other self-service resources online. The change is only with phone and case support.
MakeMusic will continue to offer free phone and case support for Finale 2012 AND two previous versions Finale 2011 and Finale 2010.”
Read MakeMusic’s support policy here.
Avid currently charges $100 per year for Sibelius Support.


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In terms of Government of India Notification No.4(6)-B(W&M)/2023 dated December 08, 2023, Sovereign Gold Bonds 2023-24 (Series III) will be opened for subscription during the period December 18-22, 2023 with Settlement date December 28, 2023.
The issue price of the Bond during the subscription period shall be Rs 6,199 (Rupees Six Thousand One Hundred Ninety Nine only) per gram, as also published by RBI.
The Government of India in consultation with the Reserve Bank of India has decided to allow discount of Rs 50 (Rupees Fifty only) per gram from the issue price to those investors who apply online and the payment is made through digital mode. For such investors the issue price of Gold Bond will be Rs 6,149 (Rupees Six Thousand One Hundred Forty Nine only) per gram of gold.
In the row, Colin Shah, MD, Kama Jewelry said on the Third Tranche of Sovereign Gold Bond that, “The successful closure of the initial tranche of the Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) at a CAGR of approximately 10.8%, coupled with an additional annual interest of 2.5%, serves as a noteworthy testament of the popularity of this asset class among investors.
The incorporation of a 50% discount for transactions conducted through digital modes further enhances its attractiveness. Given India’s status as the world’s leading consumer of gold, SGBs have emerged as a compelling avenue for diversifying investment portfolios. Investors stand to benefit in the long term from the potential capital appreciation of gold prices, all while mitigating concerns related to the security associated with physical gold holdings.”


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Airtel Launches 4G Pan India servicesBharti Airtel, on Thursday 6th August 2015 has announced the commercial launch of high speed 4G services ( aka LTE) in 296 towns across India.
Airtelsubscribers can enjoy 4G at 3G data prices, with packs starting at Rs 25.
Bharti Airtel had earlier launched 4G service in select cities in India.
Airtel also announced tie-ups with Flipkart and Samsung for bundling 4G handsets with its services.
Airtel has also launched an automated platform called Flexpage that allows customers to track their data usage and get real time usage alerts.
To use Airtel 4G, customers need to switch to a 4G SIM.
Apart from Airtel stores, Samsung retail stores will also facilitate 4G SIM swaps.
Airtel introduced a new range of 'Infinity Plans' starting Rs.999 which gives unlimited voice calls along with data and access to Wynk Movies & Music apps.


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The majority of Australian mums know not to add sugar to their children’s food but are still adding almost triple the recommended amount per day according to Brisbane paediatric dietitian, Kate Di Prima.
A new study conducted by consumer research company, Lonergan, for the manufacturers of milk flavouring brand Sipahh Straws, shows that 94% of Australian mums are unclear of the recommended daily amount of added sugar their child should be consuming.
Kate Di Prima, who is not employed by either Sipahh Straws or Lonergan Research, independently reviewed the research and found that it was consistent with her daily practice.
“It’s no surprise that parents want to cut down on the sugar intake but are not sure of what’s good sugar and what’s not,” she told Motherpedia.
“I see it in my practice every day. Parents get confused about with natural sugar and added sugar.
“This confusion gets worse when they are told that carbs are no good and, in response, they cut out something like fruit from their child’s diet. Fruit is an essential part of their diet. It provides fibre and is rich in antioxidants and the sugar is all natural,” says Ms Di Prima.
She said while the World Health Organisation (WHO) advises that 2-10 year olds should receive no more than 2-3 teaspoons of added sugar per day, the research study found that parents are giving their children more than 10 teaspoons per day.
Ms Di Prima believes there should be improved labeling of food and education so parents know exactly what is meant by sugar content.
“Parents need to know the difference between healthy natural sugars and added sugars.”
She encourages her clients to consume natural sugars found in fruit (fructose) and plain milk (lactose) and to avoid added sugars (usually in the form of sucrose or table sugar).
She says that children should have a variety of up to 15 serves of food per day, comprising fruit, vegetables, dairy food, whole grains and lean meats. But the serves also have to be the right size.
“Once again, many parents don’t know what ‘a serve’ is, so their kids are getting supersized portions when they don’t need it.
“It’s another aspect to the challenge of getting the right balance,” she said.
“Parents try to portion control sugar for their kids. There is so much confusion as to what is a suitable food to choose for their children. Some parents are removing foods such as yoghurt and fruit from their children's diets for fear of the sugar, not realising the nutrient loss this would cause,” she continued.
Ms Di Prima believes that children only need two drinks – milk or water.
“Water is best for hydration, and milk contains so many vitamins and minerals including calcium.”
She says that the flavour added to Sipahh Straws is less than ½ teaspoon of sugar compared with 2 teaspoons in a full flavoured milk.
“I’ve got two children myself.
“I know that it’s a constant balancing act to make sure kids have the right food, eat healthily and also have an occasional treat.
“The more mums can know about food and nutrition, the easier it is for them to manage and to make a difference to their children’s lives.”
The bottom-line, she says, that if it’s natural sugar in food such as fruit, milk and some vegetables, it provides essential nutrients, protein and fibre, and it’s good. If it’s added sugar, such as in biscuits, soft drink and fruit juice, it is nutrient poor and does nothing but add kilojoules - and should be no more than 2-3 teaspoons a day.


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Xiaomi is working on a new Redmi smartphone that will meet the IP68 rating against dust and water, according to information released by the renowned Chinese informant Digital Chat Station.
The source adds that this phone will be equipped with dual stereo speakers and will support 120W fast charging. As a reminder, in August, Xiaomi introduced the Redmi Note 10 JE smartphone, which became the brand’s first phone to comply with IP68 protection. However, it is only sold in Japan.
Presumably, the smartphone will be released under the name Redmi K40 Ultra. There is also a version according to which the smartphone will become a copy of the upcoming flagship Xiaomi 11T Pro.
Earlier, the same source said that the Xiaomi 11T smartphone, which will be presented on world markets on September 15, will later be released in China under the name Redmi K40S. Redmi K40S will be based on the Snapdragon 870 SoC, it will receive a 50-megapixel camera.
Digital Chat Station was the first to accurately report the specifications and release dates of the Redmi K30, K40, Xiaomi Mi 10 and Mi 11.


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Vogue Hommes International is an international males’s fashion journal primarily based in Paris, France, and L’uomo Vogue is the Italian men’s version. The new property goals at offering a worldwide perspective on the fashion trade with business insights. Although sharing the Vogue model name, Vogue Business is operated as a separate enterprise entity with an impartial editorial staff. In June 2019, Vogue Business launched the Vogue Business Talent, a platform that promotes vacancies from worldwide fashion manufacturers and companies with the goal to match professionals with their job alternatives. Vogue launched the teaser for its podcast collection on September 10, 2015. The magazine introduced that star André Leon Talley would host the podcasts, and the inaugural twenty-one minute podcast was released on September 14, 2015, featuring Anna Wintour. In October 2016, the journal acknowledged that “Vogue endorses Hillary Clinton for president of the United States”.
Boohoo, by contrast, may order as few as 300 or 500 units of a given style—just enough to see whether it might catch on. Only a couple of quarter of the initial styles had been reordered, according to Kane. Abdullah’s enterprise was profitable sufficient that he bought himself a Rolls-Royce; his son Mahmud noticed the potential for even larger income. In 2006, Mahmud and his enterprise associate, Carol Kane, started promoting low-cost garments directly to customers via Boohoo.com. Without the burden of retail shops, the company’s costs had been comparatively low, besides when it came to marketing. Young girls who went on YouTube were inundated with microtargeted adverts for Boohoo bodysuits and minidresses.
Solved: Pratt Alumna Margaret Burton Is On A Mission To End Fashion Waste
The following month, the company laid off six American workers, together with a reporter, a multimedia producer and four internet editors. The move came as Guardian News and Media opted to rethink its US technique amid a huge effort to cut costs throughout the corporate. In subsequent years, however, The Guardian has employed various commentators on US affairs together with Ana Marie Cox, Michael Wolff, Naomi Wolf, Glenn Greenwald and George W. Bush’s former speechwriter Josh Treviño. Treviño’s first blog publish was an apology for a controversial tweet posted in June 2011 over the second Gaza flotilla, the controversy which had been revived by the appointment. One week later, Chris Elliott expressed the opinion that the newspaper should https://fashion.com have rejected the language used in the advert and may have negotiated with the advertiser on this matter. s readers’ editor, wrote that “Guardian reporters, writers and editors have to be extra vigilant about the language they use when writing about Jews or Israel,” citing current instances where The Guardian obtained complaints regarding language chosen to describe Jews or Israel. Elliott famous that, over 9 months, he upheld complaints concerning language in certain articles that have been seen as anti-Semitic, revising the language and footnoting this alteration.
These inflated gross sales numbers then enabled the Journal to charge similarly inflated promoting rates, because the advertisers would suppose that they reached extra readers than they actually did. In addition, The Journal agreed to run “articles” featuring Executive Learning Partnership, presented as news, but successfully promoting. The case got here to light after a Belgian Wall Street Journal employee, Gert Van Mol, informed Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton about the questionable apply. As a result, the then Wall Street Journal Europe CEO and Publisher Andrew Langhoff was fired after it was came upon he personally pressured journalists into covering one of many newspaper’s enterprise companions concerned within the concern.
Watch Alber Elbaz And Hamish Bowles Focus On Fashion, Philosophy, And Food At Vogues Forces Of Fashion
For decades, this formula has confirmed successful in shaping college students into inventive professionals prepared for a seamless transition into the trade. The department has cultivated a powerful relationship with the style industry and prides itself with being on the chopping edge of innovation.
In 1860, The Observer quoted a report that the newly elected president Abraham Lincoln was against abolition of slavery. Therefore, the newspaper asked “Why should the South be prevented from freeing itself from slavery?” This hopeful view was also held by the Liberal chief William Ewart Gladstone. When the abolitionist George Thompson toured, the newspaper mentioned that “lavery is a monstrous evil, however civil warfare just isn’t a much less one; and we might not seek the abolition even of the previous by way of the upcoming hazard of the latter”.
Fashion Four Improvement
The move was seen as an attempt to compete with different providers of on-line subscription companies such as Netflix and Hulu. In 2016, YouTube launched Shopping & Fashion a global program to develop creators whose videos produce a optimistic social impression.
What is the fashion color for 2020?
After popping up on several fall 2020 runways, green in shades of chartreuse, mint, and olive quickly began taking over Instagram and the street style scene. The verdant hue feels fresh, especially for the fall/winter season, and looks good in both apparel and accessory forms.
A 2021 article in the Columbia Journalism Review recognized Wikipedia’s page safety insurance policies as “erhaps an important” means at Wikipedia’s disposal to “regulate its market of ideas”. In January 2007, Wikipedia entered for the first time the highest Shopping & Fashion-ten list of the most well-liked web sites in the US, in accordance with comscore Networks. With forty two.9 million unique guests, Wikipedia was ranked at quantity 9, surpassing The New York Times (No. 10) and Apple (No. eleven).


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Shafaq News/ The exchange rate of the US dollar against the Iraqi dinar is witnessing a continuous and noticeable increase, which led to disruption of commercial activity in the local markets, and contributed to the rise in food and consumer prices, especially in the wholesale markets in the Jamila commercial area in Baghdad.
This area, along with the large shurja market, in the Iraqi capital, has become almost devoid of shoppers, which some merchants and economists see as linked to the rise in the exchange rate of the dollar in the parallel (black) markets.
A wholesaler in a beautiful area, Muhammad Abdel-Hussein, told Shafaq News agency, "The rise in dollar prices has definitely affected the prices of foodstuffs, whether rice, flour or vegetable oils," noting that "these materials are imported in dollars, and therefore their sale is also in dollars.”
He added that "the trader is not affected by the rise in dollar prices as much as the buyer is from the owners of retail stores and citizens," pointing out that "the only damage that falls on the trader will be in the lack of purchase quantity as a result of this rise and the hesitation of some to buy because they expect prices to drop in the future, which is What makes a beautiful market almost empty of shoppers today.”
For his part, financial and economic expert Hilal Al-Taan confirmed to Shafaq News agency, "Any rise in dollar exchange rates directly affects the market," noting that "currency and black market traders are present and taking advantage of opportunities in the absence of government control over the markets, and thus this rise It will affect citizens, especially the low-income and poor classes."
Al-Taan pointed out that "this rise affects the market's activity and its movement, because the citizen will avoid buying because of this rise," stressing that "the best solution to reduce dollar prices is the central bank's tendency to sell dollars directly to citizens through widespread bank branches and at specific prices to reduce the gap." between what the bank sells and what is currently in the market.
And the exchange rates of the dollar rose on the main stock exchange in Baghdad to more than 152 thousand dinars for every 100 dollars at a time when the central bank sells one dollar for 1460 dinars.
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The EcoSport small SUV could become one of Ford’s best-selling vehicles in Europe if the carmaker could get enough supply from India, Ford of Europe chief operating officer Barb Samardzich told Automotive News Europe. Around 30,000 EcoSports will be shipped to Europe from this year, but the demand for the small SUV is expected to outstrip the supply.
Samardzich said that the volume of the EcoSport would grow over time as Ford expands the range with more powertrain and trim options. Ford is expecting the Ecosport to help its bottom line as SUVs are not as heavily discounted in Europe. According to Samardzich, Ford expects very aggressive pricing on its existing models while new vehicles by its rivals are also aggressively positioned.
She said that since SUVs of all sizes are in demand, carmakers could sell them at a good price level. She added that growing demand for SUVs is placing extra price pressure on mainstream models of the same size. She noted that SUVs like the Kuga needed lighter discounts than mainstream models like the Focus.
She said the the success of small SUVs translates into higher discounts for mainstream subcompact hatchbacks. Ford will start selling in Europe the India-built EcoSport in June, particularly in Germany.
Ford of Europe is in currently in the midst of core product changeover seen to be completed by the end of 2015. Ford will sell the face-lifted Focus – to be rolled out in August – as its main new product. In the first quarter of 2015, Ford will start selling its new Mondeo mid-sized sedan and wagon in in Europe, following a delay of around 18 months due to a change of its production site.


text:
Samsung continues to advance with plans to launch the next Galaxy device series. The Korean Chaebol appears to be taking advantage of supply chain issues related to Covid-19 (coronavirus) which reportedly could cause delays in launching by its main rival, Apple.
In a statement, the Seoul-based vendor revealed it would hold an annual Unpacked event on August 5.
The launch event was packaged as a virtual program, in contrast to the direct launch which was usually held luxuriously like before the outbreak of the corona pandemic.
According to the leading Daily, Korea Herald at least Samsung will launch the newest Flagship Galaxy Note, Galaxy Z Flip 5G, Galaxy Watch 3, and Galaxy Buds Live.
Samsung’s plan to move forward with this event came after Broadcom, Apple’s main semiconductor supplier, said that the iPhone maker could delay the launch of the next new model due to supply chain problems due to the corona pandemic.
In an income conference call with analysts on June 5, Hock Tan, Broadcom’s chief executive officer, discussed the “major product cycle delays” to “large North American smartphone” customers. Tan often refers to Apple in this matter.
“We’re in,” Hock said, referring to the Broadcom component on the iPhone. “The question is time.”
“This year, we don’t expect to see this revenue increase until our fourth fiscal quarter,” added the CEO. “So according to that, we hope, our wireless revenues in Q3 will go down sequentially.”
Apple plans to release the next iPhone lineup a few weeks later than usual, Bloomberg News previously reported.
Companies usually launch a new iPhone in the second half of September, but sometimes, as in the case of iPhone X in 2017, Apple will only launch new models later in the year.


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Today, governments worldwide are beginning to change their stance on cannabis and embrace its medicinal possibilities. Studies are finding that medicinal cannabis is an effective, affordable and natural treatment for a variety of illnesses. As such, legal cannabis markets are evolving rapidly around the world.
The growth has largely been driven by Canada and in the United States where recreational consumption has been legalised. Other countries like the United Kingdom and Germany are also beginning to make great advancements in the use of plant based therapies.
In 2016, the Australian government established a licensing and permit scheme for the lawful research, cultivation and manufacturing of medicinal products. With superior climate conditions and high green standards, Australia has positioned itself to be a key supply centre for the rest of the world.


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Care By Design and AbsoluteXtracts provide $20,000 of free medicine to local patients affected by fires in California.
Care By Design asked thousands of patients about their use of CBD-rich cannabis and its impact on pain, discomfort, energy, mood, and overall wellbeing. Here's what they learned...
When solar energy pioneer John Schaeffer sold the first photovoltaic panel to a U.S. retail customer in Mendocino County in 1978, he didn’t realize that he had struck a decisive blow against the war on drugs.
Project CBD science advisor Jahan Marcu, PhD, reports on the hidden dangers of propylene glycol and vape pens that smolder.
O’Shaughnessy’s looked at a total of 19 cannabis oil samples from 13 popular cartridge brands and did a side-by-side lab-based comparison. Regarding THC levels, AbsoluteXtracts and Pure Cure topped the chart in potency.
GW Pharmaceuticals’ CBD plant extract Epidiolex has been granted “Orphan Drug” status by the Food and Drug Administration, setting the stage for Phase 2 clinical trials later this year.
Concentrated cannabis oil extracts are becoming increasingly popular among self-medicating patients as a claimed cure for many illnesses. Each oil extraction technique has advantages and disadvantages.
New research in medical marijuana is shocking scientists in the industry right out of their white lab coats, and its implications for treating medical conditions that range from cancer to schizophrenia are poised to take the federal government by storm.
As cannabis reforms sweep the nation, it is clear the U.S. has reached a pivotal point in the marijuana dispute. Martin A. Lee's new book Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana—Medical, Recreational and Scientific provides an unprecedented history of the controversial plant.
Denver-based Dixie X Elixirs and Edibles recently launched a new line of ingestible CBD products to complement its medicated foodstuffs, tinctures, and creams infused with THC. Project CBD gives Dixie's CBD products a thumbs-down.


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NY Attorney General’s Office releases ‘Top 10’ consumer scams from 2020
ALBANY, N.Y. (WHEC) — New York State Attorney General Letitia James released Monday a "Top 10" list of consumer scams New Yorkers faced in 2020.
The release was part of a kick-off to "Consumer Protection Week" in the state, and many of the scams dealt with the COVID-19 crisis. News10NBC has investigated several scams as it relates to the pandemic.
Here’s a breakdown of the scams.
- Internet-Related (internet services and service providers, data privacy and security, digital media, data breaches, frauds through internet manipulation)
- COVID-19 Price Gouging (online and brick and mortar gouging of prices for items such as hand sanitizer, masks, gloves, bathroom tissue, food)
- Landlord/Tenant Disputes (security deposit releases, tenant-harassment)
- Health Clubs (continuous charging of fees while clubs were closed, inability to cancel memberships, refunds not provided, no response from clubs)
- Automobile (sales, service, financing, repairs)
- Consumer Services (security systems, tech repairs, immigration services, employment training)
- Retail Sales (any sale of goods: food, clothing, rent-to-own, online orders)
- Credit (debt collection, credit card billing, debt settlement and debt relief, payday loans, credit repair, credit reporting agencies, identity theft)
- Utilities (wireless and residential phones, energy servicers and suppliers, cable and satellite)
- Travel (inability to cancel or lack of refunds for cancellations required by COVID-19 travel restrictions)
The AG’s office has compiled a list of warnings and tips, which you can check out here.


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Published Tuesday, April 27, 2021 | 2 a.m.
Updated Friday, April 30, 2021 | 9:14 a.m.
As the coronavirus pandemic gripped Las Vegas last year, nearly every aspect of the travel and tourism industry was impacted, from hotels to casinos, nightclubs and airlines.
Las Vegas’ taxi companies did not escape unscathed, as the virus shut down the Las Vegas Strip for more than two months starting in mid-March 2020.
In January 2020, before the pandemic, taxis in Las Vegas provided some 1.3 million rides. By that May, the number had plummeted to just 18,000.
“Nobody was going anywhere,” said Stan Olsen, chairman of the Nevada Taxicab Authority.
Olsen recently answered some questions about the impact of the pandemic, which he called the “most devastating” crisis the industry has ever faced. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
What kind of impact has the pandemic had on the taxi industry and how long will it take for it to fully recover?
The impact on the taxi industry is equal to the impact on the gaming community. This drove them all into the ground for a while, and they're trying to recover. The cab industry, like the hotels, were trying different things to make ends meet.
So the cab industry is slowly recovering, as is the hotel industry. And I think both of them are going to take, I'd say, upwards of five years to completely recover as they were prior to the pandemic.
How does the impact of the pandemic compare to other challenging times the taxi industry has faced in Las Vegas?
It's been the single most devastating impact the cab industry has ever faced. When the economy went down in 2008, people still came to Vegas, maybe not in the same numbers, but they still came.
People still were able to move from point A to point B as needed, whether they be locals or tourists, and the vast majority of them were using cabs. With the pandemic, it just virtually put everything at a dead stop.
What role did the Taxicab Authority have in establishing and enforcing coronavirus safety protocols for cabs, drivers and passengers?
The Taxi Authority has almost full authority to expand and identify ways to ensure safety. We mandated that drivers had to wear a mask — period, no excuses, no exemptions.
And then we moved forward again when it started getting worse and we mandated that passengers had to be masked up or they couldn't get a ride.
So we mandate what the driver can and can't do, over and above what is existing state law, and we can tighten up those as needed and we did. COVID's a good example of that.
What have the biggest challenges been for taxi companies and regulators operating amid the pandemic?
Even before the pandemic, it is illegal operators — people that advertise on Craigslist or drive up and try to get somebody to ride on a cash basis, or the Ubers and Lyfts that operate off an app, which is illegal. We have — working with the NTA (Nevada Transportation Authority) — a very robust enforcement operation for that. When they're captured, they're arrested, their vehicles are impounded.
Anything you would like to add?
The riding public, whether they be tourists or locals, need to know that you cannot get a safer ride than in a cab.
We encourage people if you feel you have a problem with a driver, you notify the Taxi Authority, and it will be looked into. And we've had situations where we've looked into it and the driver was reprimanded by the Taxi Authority. The company has their own way of dealing with it, and they will deal with it also.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the name of the Nevada Transportation Authority. | (April 30, 2021)


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Early bookings surge bodes well for UK's premier wood machinery show15 April 2011
Organisers of the UK’s leading woodworking technology show say they are amazed at the pace of bookings, with 90% of space in two of the three exhibition halls already booked some 18 months before the next event.
John Smith-Bodden, exhibition director of W12 – Working with Wood, also said the October 7-10, 2012 show at Birmingham NEC would seek to develop the materials and components aspect of the event, with the possibility of a focus on lightweight panel products.
“We are already at about the halfway point, which is amazing because we only opened bookings eight weeks ago,” said Mr Smith-Bodden. “Compared to W10, I think we are looking conservatively at being 40% up in terms of square footage which, in these times, I think is quite a performance.”
SCM, Weinig, Homag, RW Machines, Felder, Daltons Wadkin and Leadermac are some of the larger companies to confirm their re-attendance. Many companies are increasing the size of their stands, while a significant number of new exhibitors is also signing up.
“W10 was held during not easy times but it was a really good show and the people that were there did good business,” added Mr Smith-Bodden.
He said W12 was extending into Hall 6, which would feature components, materials and static machinery or handling equipment.
Mr Smith-Bodden said a W12 team would travel to Ligna, along with NEC representatives, for inspiration as to how to develop this part of the event. W12 is also talking to NEC about putting a transport package together for Scottish and Irish companies wanting to attend, in light of the cancellation of Woodworking Scotland.
“There is still not a platform in this country for timber components. I don’t think what we’re doing competes with Timber Expo. We know our audience will not travel to Ligna or ZOW, so we think it’s very important to have a UK platform.”
W10 attracted 210 exhibitors and 9,332 visitors.


text:
Live Index – Tue, 27 Oct 2015 Premarket
December E-mini S&Ps (ESZ15 -0.07%) are down -0.04% and European stocks are down -0.20% ahead of Apple quarterly earnings and before the FOMC begins its 2-day policy meeting. With nearly no chance of a Fed rate hike priced into this month’s FOMC meeting, the markets will look to Wednesday’s post-FOMC meeting statement to gauge the Fed’s assessment of the economy and to when it may begin to raise interest rates. Weakness in energy producers is also pulling the overall market lower with Dec crude (CLZ15 -1.32%) down -1.16% to a 1-3/4 month low. European stocks were also pressured by a 3.3% drop in BASF SE after the world’s largest chemical maker cut its full-year growth targets due to the slide in crude prices and slowing demand in Brazil and China. Asian stocks settled mostly lower: Japan -0.90%, Hong Kong +0.11%, China +0.14%, Taiwan -0.50%, Australia -0.03%, Singapore -0.99%, South Korea -0.13%, India -0.40%. Asian stocks were undercut by weakness in energy producers and Japanese stocks also closed lower as exporters sold-off when the yen strengthened against the dollar, which reduces the earnings prospects of exporters. China’s Shanghai Stock Index erased losses in the last hour of trade and closed higher after defense stocks rallied as a U.S. navy patrol sailed close to islands in the South China Sea claimed by China.
The dollar index (DXY00 -0.12%) is down -0.08%. EUR/USD (^EURUSD) is unchanged. USD/JPY (^USDJPY) is down -0.58%.
Dec T-note prices (ZNZ15 +0.05%) are up +1.5 ticks.
ECB Executive Board member Praet said the ECB is looking at ways to lift inflation without “taboos” as “we are in a situation in which the reaching of our objective could be delayed.”
Key U.S. news today includes: (1) Sep durable goods orders (expected -1.5% and unch ex-transportation, Aug -2.3% and -0.2% ex-transportation), (2) Aug S&P CaseShiller composite-20 home price index (expected +0.10% m/m and +5.10% y/y, Jul -0.20% m/m and +4.96% y/y), (3) preliminary-Oct Markit services PMI (expected +0.4 to 55.5, Sep -1.0 to 55.1), (4) Oct U.S. consumer confidence from the Conference Board (expected unchanged at 103.0, Sep +1.7 to 103.0), (5) Oct Richmond Fed manufacturing index (expected +2 to -3, Sep -5 to -5), and (6) the first day of the FOMC’s 2-day meeting.
There are 43 of the S&P 500 companies that report earnings today with notable reports including: Apple (consensus $ 1.88), UPS (1.37), Ford (0.47), Baxter (0.29), Merck (0.92), Pfizer (0.50), Comcast (0.80).
U.S. IPO’s scheduled to price today: Optex Systems (OPXSD).
Equity conferences during the remainder of this week include: Hart Energy DUG Eagle Ford Conference on Mon-Tue, and Money20/20 Conference on Mon-Wed.
Ford Motor (F +0.06%) reported Q3 EPS of 45 cents, less than consensus of 47 cents.
Pfizer (PFE +0.32%) reported Q3 EPS of 60 cents, above consensus of 51 cents.
Baxter International (BAX +1.44%) reported Q3 EPS of 41 cents, higher than consensus of 29 cents.
Merck & Co. (MRK +0.06%) reported Q3 EPS of 96 cents, above consensus of 92 cents.
Corning (GLW -1.59%) reported Q3 EPS of 34 cents, below consensus of 35 cents.
Mondelez International (MDLZ +0.58%) rose over 2% in after-hours trading after it was rated a new ‘Positive’ at Susquehanna with a 12-month price target of $ 60.
Edwards Lifesciences (EW -1.97%) climbed nearly 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 adjusted EPS of $ 1.07, higher than consensus of 98 cents, and then raised guidance on fiscal 2015 adjusted EPS to $ 4.43-$ 4.53 from a previous estimate of $ 4.30-$ 4.40, above consensus of $ 4.38.
Swift Transportation (SWFT +1.92%) slid nearly 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 31 cents, right on consensus, but reported Q3 revenue of $ 1.06 billion, below consensus of $ 1.08 billion.
The Cheesecake Factory (CAKE +2.52%) fell over 5% in after-hours trading after it reported adjusted Q3 EPS of 59 cents, better than consensus of 56 cents, but reported Q3 revenue of $ 526.7 million, less than consensus of $ 535.5 million.
Hartford Financial (HIG -0.87%) slid over 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 86 cents, weaker than consensus of 99 cents.
MicroStrategy (MSTR +4.29%) fell over 11% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 revenue of $ 129.5 million, below consensus of $ 137.8 million.
Rent-A-Center (RCII +0.74%) plunged nearly 20% in after-hours trading after it lowered guidance on fiscal 2015 EPS to $ 2.00-$ 2.10 from a September estimate of $ 2.05-$ 2.20, below consensus of $ 2.15.
Marvell Technology (MRVL -1.26%) tumbled 17% in after-hours trading after PricewaterhouseCooper resigned as its external accounting firm.
Gold Resources (GORO -1.06%) fell over 3% in after-hours trading after it cut its 2015 gold production forecast by 6% to 29,600 ounces and cut its silver production estimate by 16% to 2.5 million ounces.
Dec E-mini S&Ps (ESZ15 -0.07%) this morning are down -0.75 of a point (-0.04%). Monday’s closes: S&P 500 -0.19%, Dow Jones -0.13%, Nasdaq +0.15%. The S&P 500 on Monday closed lower on caution ahead of the Tue/Wed FOMC meeting, the sharp -11.5% decline in U.S. Sep new home sales, and weakness in technology stocks after Apple fell by more than 3%.
Dec 10-year T-notes (ZNZ15 +0.05%) this morning are up +1.5 ticks. TYZ5 +5.50, FVZ5 +2.50. Dec T-notes on Monday settled higher on weakness in stocks and on the sharp decline in U.S. Sep new home sales to a 10-month low.
The dollar index (DXY00 -0.12%) this morning is down -0.080 (-0.08%). EUR/USD (^EURUSD) is unch. USD/JPY (^USDJPY) is down -0.70 (-0.58%). Dollar Index -0.266 (-0.27%), EUR/USD +0.0040 (+0.36%), USD/JPY -0.37 (-0.30%). The dollar index on Monday closed lower on expectations the FOMC this week will keep rates unchanged and on strength in EUR/USD which recovered from a 2-1/2 month low and closed higher after the German IFO Oct business confidence fell less than expected.
Dec crude oil (CLZ15 -1.32%) this morning is down -51 cents (-1.16%) at a 1-3/4 month low and Dec gasoline (RBZ15 -0.34%) is down -0.0001 (-0.01%). CLZ5 -0.87 (-1.95%), RBZ5 -0.0162 (-1.25%). Dec crude oil and gasoline on Monday closed lower with Dec crude at a 1-month low. Crude oil prices closed lower on weak U.S. economic data and the ongoing supply glut as EIA data shows U.S. crude inventories at 476.6 million bbl in the week ended Oct 16, the highest for this time of year in data going back to 1930.
|US||0830 ET||Sep durable goods orders expected -1.5% and unch ex transportation, Aug -2.3% and -0.2% ex transportation. Sep capital goods orders non-defense ex-aircraft expected +0.2%, Aug -0.8%.|
|0900 ET||Aug S&P CaseShiller composite-20 home price index expected +0.10% m/m and +5.10% y/y, Jul -0.20% m/m and +4.96% y/y.|
|0945 ET||Preliminary Oct Markit services PMI expected +0.4 to 55.5, Sep -1.0 to 55.1. Oct Markit composite PMI, Sep 0.7 to 55.0.|
|1000 ET||Oct consumer confidence (Conference Board) expected unchanged at 103.0, Sep +1.7 to 103.0.|
|1000 ET||Oct Richmond Fed manufacturing index expected +2 to -3, Sep -5 to -5.|
|1100 ET||FOMC begins 2-day policy meeting.|
|1300 ET||Treasurys 2-year T-note auction postponed due to debt ceiling constraints.|
|EUR||0500 ET||Eurozone Sep M3 money supply expected +5.0% y/y, Aug +4.8% y/y.|
|UK||0530 ET||UK Q3 GDP expected +0.6% q/q and +2.4% y/y, Q2 +0.7% q/q and +2.4% y/y.|
|0530 ET||UK Aug index of services expected +0.2% m/m and +1.0% y/y, Jul +0.2% m/m and +0.8% 3-mo/3-mo.|
|JPN||1950 ET||Japan Sep retail sales expected +1.1% m/m and +0.4% y/y, Aug +0.8%m/m and unch y/y.|
|CHI||2145 ET||China Oct Westpac-MNI consumer sentiment, Sep 118.2.|
|Airgas Inc||ARG US||Bef-mkt||Q2 2016 Earnings Release||Q2 2016||1.292|
|Baxter International Inc||BAX US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.294|
|Corning Inc||GLW US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.347|
|Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc||MMC US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.598|
|Merck & Co Inc||MRK US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.915|
|Pfizer Inc||PFE US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.504|
|Comcast Corp||CMCSA US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.799|
|Waste Management Inc||WM US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.712|
|Simon Property Group Inc||SPG US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||2.464|
|United Parcel Service Inc||UPS US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.372|
|Waters Corp||WAT US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.398|
|AMETEK Inc||AME US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.648|
|Reynolds American Inc||RAI US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.547|
|HCA Holdings Inc||HCA US||Bef-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.17|
|EI du Pont de Nemours & Co||DD US||6:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.1|
|Textron Inc||TXT US||6:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.608|
|Wyndham Worldwide Corp||WYN US||6:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.679|
|CONSOL Energy Inc||CNX US||6:45||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||-0.032|
|Ford Motor Co||F US||7:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.465|
|Ingersoll-Rand PLC||IR US||7:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.156|
|Masco Corp||MAS US||7:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.318|
|Coach Inc||COH US||7:00||Q1 2016 Earnings Release||Q1 2016||0.397|
|Bristol-Myers Squibb Co||BMY US||7:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.35|
|Cummins Inc||CMI US||7:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||2.601|
|Sealed Air Corp||SEE US||7:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.56|
|Masco Corp||MAS US||8:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Merck & Co Inc||MRK US||8:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Textron Inc||TXT US||8:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|PACCAR Inc||PCAR US||8:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.163|
|Baxter International Inc||BAX US||8:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Corning Inc||GLW US||8:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc||MMC US||8:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Comcast Corp||CMCSA US||8:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|United Parcel Service Inc||UPS US||8:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Waters Corp||WAT US||8:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|AMETEK Inc||AME US||8:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Coach Inc||COH US||8:30||Q1 2016 Earnings Call||Q1 2016|
|Wyndham Worldwide Corp||WYN US||8:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|EI du Pont de Nemours & Co||DD US||9:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Ford Motor Co||F US||9:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Kroger Co/The||KR US||9:00||Investor Meeting||Y 2015|
|Hartford Financial Services Group Inc/The||HIG US||9:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Reynolds American Inc||RAI US||9:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Airgas Inc||ARG US||10:00||Q2 2016 Earnings Call||Q2 2016|
|Cummins Inc||CMI US||10:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Ingersoll-Rand PLC||IR US||10:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Pfizer Inc||PFE US||10:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Waste Management Inc||WM US||10:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Sealed Air Corp||SEE US||10:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|CONSOL Energy Inc||CNX US||10:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|HCA Holdings Inc||HCA US||10:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Ford Motor Co||F US||11:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call – Fixed Income||C3 2015|
|Charles Schwab Corp/The||SCHW US||11:00||Business Update Call|
|Torchmark Corp||TMK US||11:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Simon Property Group Inc||SPG US||11:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|AvalonBay Communities Inc||AVB US||11:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Bristol-Myers Squibb Co||BMY US||11:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|PACCAR Inc||PCAR US||12:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Gilead Sciences Inc||GILD US||16:05||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||2.879|
|CH Robinson Worldwide Inc||CHRW US||16:15||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.936|
|Edison International||EIX US||16:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Apple Inc||AAPL US||16:30||Q4 2015 Earnings Release||Q4 2015||1.878|
|Gilead Sciences Inc||GILD US||16:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Akamai Technologies Inc||AKAM US||16:30||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Total System Services Inc||TSS US||17:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Apple Inc||AAPL US||17:00||Q4 2015 Earnings Call||Q4 2015|
|Fiserv Inc||FISV US||17:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|CBRE Group Inc||CBG US||17:00||Q3 2015 Earnings Call||Q3 2015|
|Aflac Inc||AFL US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.482|
|Anadarko Petroleum Corp||APC US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||-0.73|
|Owens-Illinois Inc||OI US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.553|
|Edison International||EIX US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.18|
|Total System Services Inc||TSS US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.592|
|Cincinnati Financial Corp||CINF US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.68|
|Express Scripts Holding Co||ESRX US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.44|
|Fiserv Inc||FISV US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.974|
|Macerich Co/The||MAC US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.981|
|Akamai Technologies Inc||AKAM US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.575|
|CBRE Group Inc||CBG US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.457|
|Assurant Inc||AIZ US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.569|
|Verisk Analytics Inc||VRSK US||Aft-mkt||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||0.766|
|Universal Health Services Inc||UHS US||17:01||Q3 2015 Earnings Release||Q3 2015||1.579|
|Danaher Corp||DHR US||ITC to Release Findings in Danaher Corp vs. Instradent Patent-Infringement Case|
|Amgen Inc||AMGN US||PDUFA, talimogene laherparepvec, metastatic melanoma|