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In 2028, there will be 196 million FTTH/B users in 39 EU countries2023-04-25
The FTTH Council for Europe announced the findings of its FTTH/B Forecast for Europe 2023-2028 report at the FTTH Conference in Madrid.阅读详情
In the projections, Homes being passed for FTTH/B in the EU27 plus the UK will reach 211m by 2028, and 308m in the EU39.
By country, the countries with the highest number of FTTH/B households covered will be Germany (33.5 million), France (33.2 million) and the UK (30.7 million). The projections are in line with previous estimates, the committee said.
The report also forecasts 137 million FTTH/B subscribers in the EU27 + UK and 196 million in the EU39 region, with Take-up rates steadily increasing in both regions.
On the technology side, the commission said the data reported an important trend of PON's "gradual but clear victory" over peer-to-peer fiber, due both to ongoing advances in PON technology and the industry's growing focus on power consumption and sustainability.
About EU39: refers to the EU 27 + the United Kingdom, 4 CIS countries (including Kazakhstan and Ukraine), Iceland, Israel, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey.
IDC has cut its forecast for global IT spending for the fifth month in a row2023-04-11
Last Wednesday, IDC cut its 2023 global IT spending forecast for the fifth month in a row, as tech investment continues to show the impact of a weak economy. In its latest monthly forecast for global IT spending growth, IDC 25G SFP28 SR expects overall growth of 4.4 percent to $3.25 trillion this year. Last month, IDC forecast growth of 4.5%; In October 2022, it forecast growth of 6.0 per cent.阅读详情
"Since Q4, we have seen clear and measurable signs of a modest pullback in IT spending in some areas," said Stephen Minton, vice president of IDC's Data and analytics research group. Tech spending remains resilient compared to historical recessions and other types of business spending, but rising interest rates are now impacting capital spending."
A month after cutting its forecast for PCS, IDC 25G SFP28 SR has now cut its forecast for a number of other hardware categories, including servers, wearables and peripherals. Corporate buyers have lowered their forecasts for internal infrastructure investment, while cloud and service provider deployments remain more resilient overall.
Spending by service providers is still down from last year's highs as the industry adjusts to slower growth after the coronavirus pandemic, but planned investments by cloud and super-scale providers have remained largely unchanged since last month. While strong demand for cloud services continues to drive growth in the face of inflationary pressures, non-cloud spending will decline.
Minton said, "The most significant impact is still in the consumer market, where IT spending is expected to fall by 2 percent this year. This would be the second year in a row that consumer tech spending has declined, a big change from the 18 percent consumer growth seen in 2021. On the other hand, enterprise demand for cloud and digital transformation remains strong despite economic headwinds."
Minton added, Resellers, who still make most of their revenue from in-house infrastructure and PCS, will face tough market conditions this year. At the same time, cloud infrastructure, software and services are growing at a slower pace than a year ago, but still account for a larger share of total IT spending and are adding to the general resilience the industry still enjoys."
The arrival of the second wave of 5G: 30 countries in 2023 will launch services2023-04-04
The new data of GSMA Intelligence shows that as technological innovation has accelerated the speed of connection, the number of 5G connections will be doubled in the next two years; in 2023, more than 30 new 5G 10G SFP+ SR networks will be deployed in the world, and these new deployments will be deployed in these new deployments. In the network, it is expected that 15 will be 5G independent networks.阅读详情
GSMA Intelligence predictions show that mobile users and enterprises will experience significant growth. As of the end of 2022, the number of consumers has exceeded 1 billion, which will increase to about 1.5 billion this year, and will reach 2 billion by the end of 2025. This momentum confirms that 5G is the fastest -generation product compared to 3G and 4G 10G SFP+ SR.
As of January 2023, there are 229 commercial 5G networks around the world, and more than 700 5G smartphones are available for users.
Opening of emerging markets
The growth will also from the key markets in the Asia -Pacific region and the Latin American region, such as Brazil and India. The two countries have recently launched a 5G 10G SFP+ SR network. India will be particularly important, and the expansion of the AIRTEL and JIO services in 2023 will be important to the area of 5G in the region. GSMA Intelligence predicts that by the end of 2025, India will have 4 5G networks and 145 million new users.
Many new 5G markets planned to launch the Internet in 2023 are located in the development regions of Africa and Asia, including Ethiopia and Ghana. Today, the 5G 10G SFP+ SR penetration rate in the south of Sahara is less than 1%, but by 2025, it will reach more than 4%, and it will reach more than 16%by 2030. This will be largely due to industry and government organizations with citizens. Common efforts of connection.
Peter Jarich, the head of GSMA Intelligence, said: "So far, the adoption of 5G has been driven by consumers such as relatively mature markets and enhanced mobile broadband, but this situation is changing. We are now entering 5G's No. 1 No. 1. The two waves, this technology will attract different new markets and audiences. Extending to new use cases and markets will challenge the mobile ecosystem to prove that 5G 10G SFP+ SR is indeed flexible enough and can meet these different needs in a tolerance and innovation manner. "
The rise of 5G FWA
As of January 2023, more than 90 fixed broadband service providers (most of them were mobile operators) launched 5G commercial fixed wireless services in more than 48 countries. This means that about 40%of the world's 5G commercial mobile products include FWA products.
In the United States, T-Mobile and Verizon added a total of 3.17 million FWA users in 2022. By 2025, T-Mobile is expected to have 8 million FWA users, while Verizon's goal at the same time is 5 million FWA users. Moreover, as operators such as JIO announced the connection of up to 100 million households across India to its 5G FWA network, the number of FWA users may increase significantly in the next few years.
Although most 5G FWA deployment is concentrated in the 3.5–3.8GHz band, some operators around the world have used 5G millimeter wave spectrum as booster 10G SFP+ SR for capacity and performance to supplement the coverage provided by lower frequency bands.
So far, only 7%of 5G commercial networks use 5G millimeter wave spectrum, but given 27%of the spectrum distribution and 35%tests have been using 5G millimeter wave bands, this situation seems to change. In addition, in 2023 alone, the industry will allocate the use of 5G millimeter wave spectrum, which is significantly increased significantly compared to the 22 countries so far. Spain received the first 5G millimeter wave spectrum distribution in Europe this year. Therefore, Spain Telecom, Ericsson and Qualcomm launched the first commercial 5G 10G SFP+ SR millimeter wave network on MWC in Barcelona in 2023.
Enterprise Internet of Things promotes growth
GSMA Intelligence's data also shows that for operators, the corporate market will be the main driving force for the growth of 5G revenue in the next ten years. The income from commercial customers has accounted for about 30%of the total income of major operators. With the expansion of the digital scale of enterprises, this potential will further expand. Edge computing and IoT technology have provided further opportunities for 5G. 12%of operators have launched special wireless solutions 10G SFP+ SR . This number will grow with the expansion of the Internet of Things deployment in 2023.
Another main development of the enterprise market will be the commercial use of 5G Advanced in 2025. The 5G Advanced focusing on uplink link technology will improve speed, coverage, mobility and energy efficiency, and support new waves of business opportunities. GSMA's network transformation survey shows that half operators are expected to support 5G Advanced commercial networks within two years after the launch of 5G commercial
Yole: The CPO market will generate $2.6 billion in revenue in 20332023-03-30
Yole reports that revenue generated by the CPO market reached approximately $38 million in 2022 and is expected to reach $2.6 billion in 2033, with a compound annual growth rate of 46% in 2022-2033. Projections for the rapidly growing size of Training dataset suggest that data will be a major bottleneck for expanding ML models, so we may see a slowdown in the progress of artificial intelligence (AI). Using optical input/output (I/O) in ML hardware can help overcome this bottleneck. This bottleneck is the main driving factor for the adoption of optical interconnection in the next generation of high performance computing (HPC) systems.阅读详情
Co-packaged optical devices have attracted much attention in high performance computing
For the past 50 years, mobile technology has emerged every decade. Mobile bandwidth requirements have evolved from voice calls and text messages to ultra-high definition (UHD) video and various augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) applications. While the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the telecommunications infrastructure supply chain, consumers and business users around the world continue to generate new demand for web and cloud services. Social networking, business conferencing, ultra HD video streaming, e-commerce and gaming apps will continue to drive growth.
The number of devices connected to the Internet in every home and every person is increasing. With the advent of new digital devices with ever-increasing capabilities and intelligence, the adoption rate of users is increasing every year. In addition, expanding machine-to-machine applications, such as smart meters, video surveillance, healthcare monitoring, networked drives and automated logistics, are greatly contributing to the growth of devices and connectivity, and driving the expansion of data center infrastructure.
The co-packaged optical device (CPO) market faces difficult times due to service provider budget cuts and the fact that pluggable devices can already deliver the cost savings and low power consumption promised by CPOs. Full deployment of CPOs will only happen when pluggable devices lose momentum. It will be difficult for CPOs to compete with pluggable modules for at least the next two generations of switch systems, as pluggable modules will remain preferred for a long time. Cpos have received a lot of attention recently due to their network power efficiency in data centers (DCS). LC's analysis shows that the power savings from the network are negligible compared to the total power consumption of the data center. Only a handful of CPO vendors, such as Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, and others, will bring proprietary solutions to the market. In order to meet market demand and convince end users of the feasibility of CPOs, a multi-vendor business model and the validation of significant cost and power savings are a must.
With the arrival of 6.4T optical modules by 2029 at the latest, fierce competition between CPOs and pluggable optics is likely to occur. A number of technical hurdles in the CPO system are expected to be resolved by this time. However, the transceiver industry is constantly innovating to drive the market for pluggable optics. Until CPO systems are mass-shipped for network applications, pluggable co-packaging approaches will be adopted, and optical engines will become increasingly popular in high-performance computing and decomposed future systems. The industry ecosystem, which includes Ayar Labs, Intel, Ranovus, Lightmatter, AMD, GlobalFoundries, and others around machine learning (ML) system vendors Nvidia and HPE, has made considerable progress, It plans to deliver the products in bulk between 2024 and 2026.
Yole reports that revenue generated by the CPO market reached approximately $38 million in 2022 and is expected to reach $2.6 billion in 2033, with a compound annual growth rate of 46% in 2022-2033. Projections for the rapidly growing size of Training dataset suggest that data will be a major bottleneck for expanding ML models, so we may see a slowdown in the progress of artificial intelligence (AI). Using optical input/output (I/O) in ML hardware can help overcome this bottleneck. This bottleneck is the main driving factor for the adoption of optical interconnection in the next generation of high performance computing (HPC) systems.
Photonic integrated circuits make CPOs with low power and low cost optical interconnection possible
Yole expects 800G and 1.6T pluggable modules to be very popular because they take advantage of 100G and 200G single-wavelength optics and therefore can be technically and cost-effectively implemented in QSFP-DD and OSFP-XD packages. Pluggable packages will be limited in their ability to support 6.4T and 12.8 capacities in terms of required electrical and optical density, thermal management and energy efficiency. Due to the use of discrete electrical devices, power consumption and thermal management are becoming the limiting factors for pluggable
- Product scheme
- Optical Transceiver
- Optical Subassembly(OSA)
- Fiber Optic Connector
- Precision Machined Optical Components
- Address:4th floor, building D1, Chengdu mould Industrial Park, No. 199, dada Road, West District, hi tech West Zone, Chengdu, Sichuan


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Oppo F19 Pro+ 5G and Oppo F19 Pro India launch today: Check timings, how to watch event LIVE, expected price and more
Chinese smartphone brand Oppo is set to launch Oppo F19 Pro series -- Oppo F19 Pro+ 5G, Oppo F19 Pro and Oppo Band Style in India on March 8 (today) at 7 pm during the virtual event. Earlier, e-commerce platform Amazon India also teased the image of Oppo F19 series smartphones.
Oppo F19 Pro series: Chinese smartphone brand Oppo is set to launch Oppo F19 Pro series -- Oppo F19 Pro+ 5G, Oppo F19 Pro and Oppo Band Style in India on March 8 (today) at 7 pm during the virtual event. Earlier, e-commerce platform Amazon India also teased the image of Oppo F19 series smartphones.
Oppo F19 Pro and Oppo F19 Pro+ will also be available exclusive to Amazon online, though the devices are expected to be available offline as well. The design of the upcoming Oppo F19 Pro series has also been revealed and the smartphones will come with a punch-hole display and a rectangular rear camera module.
Here's how you can watch Oppo F19 Pro series launch LIVE:
The Oppo F19 Pro series will be launched during a virtual event which will start at 7 pm. The event will be a music event. It will include a performance by featuring Indian electronic music producer Nucleya. Interested viewers can visit Oppo's official YouTube and social media channels - Twitter and Facebook. You can also watch the livestream below:
Earlier on Sunday, the company took to micro blogging site Twitter and wrote: "Just 1 day to go before you can catch @NUCLEYA live at the #OPPOF19ProSeries Music Event. Tune in on 8th March at 7PM to #FlauntYourNights. Get notified: http://bit.ly/3uOKg6F."
Oppo F19 Pro+ 5G Specifications revealed:
The Chinese smartphone brand earlier revealed that the Oppo F19 Pro+ 5G features AI Highlight Portrait Video. Be it low light night or bright backgrounds, portrait videos on the Oppo F19 Pro+ 5G are vivid, with sharp details, balance and natural skin tones.
The F19 Pro+ 5G will also be the first F series smartphone to be equipped with Oppo Smart 5G 3.0 compatibility that will enable faster download and upload speeds. Depending on the network availability, F19 Pro+ will also support 4G/5G Seamless Data Switch enabling the device to switch between 4G and 5G networks automatically.
Launching in India today, Oppo F19 Pro series will take forward the legacy of the F series with future ready technology. While pricing isn’t confirmed, according to the several tipsters, the Oppo F19 Pro could fall under Rs 20,000, while the Oppo F19 Pro+ might fall under Rs 25,000.
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Packaging company Orora has seen out the end of its financial year with growth in net profit after tax up 14.4 per cent to A$186.2m ($201m) and sales revenue up 4.9 per cent to A$4bn ($5.3bn) for its full year results.
Net debt increased from A$630m to A$674m from last year’s results and earning per share rose by 14.6 per cent and earnings before interest and tax by 11.1 per cent. to $302.3m. Orora says it has delivered double-digit underlying NPAT, EBIT and EPS growth for the third consecutive year.
Nigel Garrard, managing director and chief executive at Orora says, “Operationally the business has delivered another strong performance, driven by the strength and resilience of the Group’s core businesses and augmented by investments Orora has made to drive growth, particularly with establishing a national footprint for Orora Visual in the North American point of purchase and visual communication sector.”
“Orora Australasia delivered solid earnings and sales growth which more than offset input cost headwinds. In North America, the business delivered constant currency earnings growth of 23.1 per cent and now, with a second stream of earnings beginning to flow from Orora Visual, has contributed more than 50 per cent of Orora’s sales for the first time.”
Orora Australasia delivered a 6.6 per cent increase in earnings before interest and tax, with sales revenue 2.3 per cent higher. Both Australasian business groups – Fibre Packaging and Beverage – delivered earnings growth despite flat economic conditions and higher input costs.
Garrard says, “Since listing on the ASX in late 2013, Orora has been executing The Orora Way operating model, which encompasses the company’s strategic pillars of enhancing the core, innovating to lead and investing to grow. The Group’s disciplined focus and successful delivery against this operating model has guided Orora to more than double earnings over that period.
“Importantly, Orora’s strong cash conversion combined with the strength of its balance sheet, provides the Company with capacity and flexibility to continue to invest with discipline in innovation as well as organic and new growth opportunities, to deliver sustainable value creation for shareholders.”
Orora says higher Fibre Packaging earnings came from cost reduction and innovation benefits and the achievement of sales growth in targeted market segments. Higher glass volumes and improved operating efficiencies across both the glass and cans businesses drove the beverage business earnings growth, which more than offset input cost headwinds in the glass division and marginally lower volumes in cans.
During the year, Orora continued to invest in a range of focused initiatives projects, innovation and acquisitions to drive sustainable future growth, including A$141m to acquire three further North American point of purchase and visual communication businesses to establish a national footprint being: Register in New Jersey; Garvey Group, Chicago and Los Angeles; and Graphic Tech in Los Angeles.
Other investments include the successful completion of the project to increase manufacturing output of the Gawler glass furnaces by 60 million bottles; an upgrade to the plant and machinery at the Revesby Fibre Packaging plant; and the Orora Global Innovation Initiative, which includes a range of projects that enhance innovation, modernisation and productivity.
Orora says it expects to continue to drive organic growth and invest in innovation and growth in the year ahead, with constant currency earnings expected to be higher than reported in FY17, subject to global economic conditions.


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Reliv profit falls 13 percent in Q1
- Staff St. Louis Business Journal
Reliv International Inc. (Nasdaq: RELV) said today that its first-quarter net earnings fell 12.7 percent to $532,384 compared with $609,800 in last year's quarter. The Chesterfield-based maker of nutritional supplements said that for the quarter ended March 31, its net sales fell 9 percent to $19.7 million compared with $21.7 million in the first quarter of 2011. U.S. sales fell 14.6 percent in the recent quarter, while strong growth in Europe drove international sales up 23.4 percent, Reliv reported.
"Europe continues to lead all markets in growth with record-setting sales for Europe in the first quarter of 2012," Reliv Chairman, President and CEO Robert Montgomery said in a statement. "The double-digit growth that started in 2010 has increased as our European distribution network expands. We plan to build on this expansion throughout 2012."
Montgomery said that in the U.S., "we continue to implement our plan to use innovation to jump start sales," including LunaRich soy powder, the first Reliv-exclusive nutritional ingredient. The product was created through the company's R&D partnership with the Missouri Plant Science Center, the company said.
The company also has boosted its online sales tools and social media presence, Montgomery said.
Chesterfield-based Reliv produces nutritional supplements and sells its products through an international network marketing system of independent distributors in 15 counries. The company said it had 58,530 distributors as of March 31, down 2.2 percent from the same time last year.
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I was just in Elkhart last week, cracking wise for the NPR set. The folks there were swell, and they fed us very well. But, if they hadn't, I would have so patronized this guy's joint, and I'm not even a Pizza Hut fan.
Tony Rohr, who started out at the pizza chain as a cook before working his way up to general manager, confronted his superiors after being told the store would need to be open on Thanksgiving. In years past, Rohr said, Pizza Hut stores have been closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas, according to Fox 8. "Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only two days that they're closed in the whole year and they're the only two days that those people are guaranteed to have off and spend it with their families," he told WSBT. His bosses told him to tender his resignation, but he wrote a scathing letter instead. "I am not quitting. I do not resign, however I accept that the refusal to comply with this greedy, immoral request means the end of my tenure with this company," Rohr wrote, according to WSBT. " ... I hope you realize that it's the people at the bottom of the totem pole that make your life possible."
Like almost every other chain pizza joint in the country, Pizza Hut has been from its founding entangled with conservative politics. I'm sure there are good Christian reasons why -- like firemen and cops -- Pizza Hut oven-workers need to work on holidays, but I can't think of any of them right now. But I have lots of new friends in Elkhart and it would be nice if all of them patronized one of the other 700 franchise food joints along the road in from the interstate.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.


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Samsung’s entire wearable lineup expected to be unveiled next week has been leaked through a premature update for the official Galaxy Wearable application, as detailed in a recent tweet by Ishan Agarwal. The leak not only confirms the extensively-leaked Galaxy Watch Active along with the Galaxy Buds set to replace the IconX earbuds but also reveals that the OEM has developed a couple of new fitness bands called the Galaxy Fit and Galaxy Fit e.
There are a few things to take away from this leak, starting with the fact that the Galaxy Watch Active has been confirmed to ditch the rotating bezel and sport a brand new exterior design. Furthermore, the leaked update to the app seemingly confirms that the upcoming smartwatch will have a smaller display compared to the OEM’s previous models, as denoted by the 40mm case, and will be available in one size only.
Then there are the Galaxy Buds and they, too, seem to have been redesigned. They appear to be smaller compared to the second generation Gear IconX, or at the very least the refined exterior make the earbuds look more compact.
Finally, the leak indicates that Samsung is ready to rejoin the fitness band market with a couple of new products. The OEM’s last fitness band was the Gear Fit2 introduced in 2016, but since then Samsung abandoned this niche segment and instead it infused its smartwatches with additional fitness features.
Like the Gear IconX, the Gear Fit appears to have been rebranded as the Galaxy Fit, but interestingly, the leak also suggests that Samsung has developed two different models, the second of which seems to partially borrow its moniker from the flat-screened Samsung Galaxy S10e. Exactly how the Galaxy Fit and Galaxy Fit e will differ is unclear especially since Samsung included only one image in the leaked update, but presumably, the two fitness bands will have different prices attributed to one or more key hardware changes.
Up until now the main focus for all the leaks surrounding Samsung’s upcoming wearable lineup has been the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active so details surrounding the new wireless earbuds and especially the new fitness bands are rather scarce. But the smartwatch will arrive with a new Tizen OS update and a refreshed user interface, so it’s likely that after nearly three years since the Gear Fit2 was released the new Galaxy Fit / Fit e will boast new software features of its own.
The new Galaxy wearable lineup should be officially introduced at the Unpacked event scheduled to take place on February 20 in San Francisco. It will be accompanied by the Samsung Galaxy S10 flagship series and all of the new wearables are likely to follow the same launch and pre-order schedule as the new smartphone models.
Pricing details are unknown as of yet, but the Gear IconX 2 earbuds were originally released for $199 while last year’s Galaxy Watch was available at launch for $329 or $349 depending on the size of the display. Meanwhile, the Gear Fit2 was introduced for $179 in 2016 so it is possible that the Galaxy Fit / Fit e will also have a sub-$200 launch price.


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Shiba Inu Token Falls 10% Amid Shibarium Code Drama
SHIB's price was down 10% in the past 24 hours, data shows.
Shiba inu's (SHIB) price fell 10% in the past 24 hours amid drama surrounding the codebase of the upcoming Shibarium blockchain.
The much-awaited Shibarium blockchain released its beta version for the layer 2 network last week, as CoinDesk reported. A beta testnet is a blockchain that mimics real-world functioning. Layer 2 refers to a set of off-chain systems (separate blockchains) built on top of layer 1 protocols that reduce bottlenecks with scaling and data.
However, the euphoria surrounding the launch paused on Thursday morning after a top-ranked community member on Shiba Inu’s Discord channel flagged concerns. The concerns came from Shibarium beta testnet using the same Chain ID as an existing blockchain.
“Chain ID is the simplest thing any Blockchain dev looks for first when deploying a Blockchain,” community member Steve wrote. “As using an ID that already exists is just incompetent as your chain wouldn't work properly and everyone trying to interact with your chain would instead interact with the other chain.”
“Why is it that it looks like shibarium test net has taken rinia testnet genesis file. Changed the name from renia. But forgot to change the chain ID,” Steve added.
Developers and other prominent community members were quick to address the concerns. “There is absolutely no evidence that this is a fork of a chain that launched last month,” wrote one JesusM on the Discord channel. “Code is forked all the time. Moreover, there is no confirmation that it was.”
Discord user “Justinlime,” another network validator, chimed in: “Even if some of the code was used in the beta does not mean all of it was. To me it's very doubtful that it's a direct fork with nothing changed. Forking, and building upon already established software, is the core foundation of what FOSS (free and open source software) stands for.”
Shiba Inu ecosystem tokens BONE and LEASH were also down more than 10% in the past 24 hours at the time of writing.
The leader in news and information on cryptocurrency, digital assets and the future of money, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. As part of their compensation, certain CoinDesk employees, including editorial employees, may receive exposure to DCG equity in the form of stock appreciation rights, which vest over a multi-year period. CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to purchase stock outright in DCG.
Learn more about Consensus 2024, CoinDesk’s longest-running and most influential event that brings together all sides of crypto, blockchain and Web3. Head to consensus.coindesk.com to register and buy your pass now.


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3i owned and Duchess of Cambridge favourite - Hobbs - is put up for sale as UK retailer hits tough times
Women's fashion brand Hobbs, a favourite of the Duchess of Cambridge, is being put up for sale.
The owners of the upmarket retailer want to offload it after more than a decade of ownership, it is understood.
Private equity group 3i, which also owns Go Outdoors, is close to hiring investment bank NM Rothschild to handle the auction, according to reports.
Fit for a princess: Hobbs is one of The Duchess of Cambridge's favourite fashion brands
It will be the second time 3i has attempted to recoup some of its investment in Hobbs. It tried to sell the business in 2013 but the tough trading made it clear a turnaround was needed.
Hobbs was founded in Hampstead in 1981 by husband and wife team Yoram and Marilyn Anselm.
The couple retired to France in 2002 when Hobbs was bought out by its management, before being snapped up by 3i in 2004.
It now has 140 stores across the UK and Ireland, and has become popular with the Duchess of Cambridge and her sister Pippa Middleton.
However it has experienced a turbulent few years. Current chief executive Meg Lustman, the former Warehouse boss, was brought in to lead a turnaround in July 2014.
It came after chairman Phil Wrigley, who also joined in January 2014 from New Look, launched a strategic review.
The best of British: Hobbs was founded in London, Hampstead in 1981
But despite this 3i is expected to make a loss on its investment. Hobbs made a £1.4m profit on a turnover of £104.4m in the year to January 2016.
A spokesman for 3i declined to comment on the reports.
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Caesars Interactive Entertainment revealed their first quarter financials this week, noting that they brought in increased revenue due to online gaming, mobile, and social products.
For the quarter CIE brought in $62.6 million, which is up 101.3% from the same period last year. The group's operating income rose 666% to $40.6 million, and income from continuing operations rose 992% to $27.3 million.
The large amount of growth is due to mobile and social gaming, with online operations contributing as well. The company's online gaming revenues from New Jersey and Nevada were up 6% to $9 million.
Virtual product sales for social operations were also up, with he company seeing 4.3% of social gaming users paying more for the products, which is up 134%. Average Revenue Per User was also up 29% to 31 cents, while daily active users were up 6% to 6,061.
Company wide, Caesars Entertainment posted quarterly revenues of $1.1 billion, up 21% from the same period last year.


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Latest News about automobile
Vietnam imported up to 140,000 cars in 2019 worth a total USD3.16 billion, up 84% on-year, with the majority from Indonesia and Thailand.
The move is aimed to help develop the automotive supporting industries, particularly as Vietnam still has to import massive basic materials for domestic car production.
Car dealers at many firms in Vietnam are complaining about slow sales as it approaches the end of 2019.
Vietnam Supporting Industries Forum 2019 held on November 28 in Hanoi.


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Extract the text and images from PDF documents into various Office or AutoCAD formats with Able2Extract.
Microsoft released the public beta of Office 2010 yesterday, but I have already been using Office 2010 for the past four months. Here are my thoughts on the new Office.
Microsoft has released the beta version of Office 2010 to the public. Here are five reasons you should check out the beta and make the switch to Office 2010.
The revised productivity suite introduces interface tweaks, modest but useful desktop innovations, and integration with minimalist Web apps.
While Google believes its online office suite will soon be a "Microsoft Office killer," it's really an idea based on vaporware.
A recent mistake in a Word document caused considerable damage and embarrassment to a publicly listed company in New Zealand.
Microsoft denies claims that it plotted to drive Canadian developer i4i out of business.
Let’s say that Microsoft was forced to halt all sales of Word. Would the computing world as we know it cease to spin? Hardly.
Appeals Court Grants Microsoft Reprieve in Word Case
Microsoft won a stay of an injunction ordered by a Texas court that would halt sales of Word.


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Neato Adds Coverage Maps to Botvac D3, D5 Connected Robot Vacuums
Users of Neato Robotics' Botvac D3 and D5 Connected robot vacuums can now see cleaning summaries screen that displays their cleaning Coverage Maps and showcases their cleaning history and statistics.
Neato Robotics has launched Coverage Maps on its Botvac D3 and D5 Connected models. This feature previously was only available on the Botvac Connected, but Neato is now rolling it out across its entire Connected line of robot vacuums.
Botvac D3 and D5 Connected owners will now be able to access the cleaning summary screen, which displays their cleaning Coverage Maps and showcases their cleaning history and statistics. This data allows users to see where their robot has vacuumed and any obstacles that prevented the robot from completing a full cleaning cycle.
To access this new feature, current users of the Botvac D3 and D5 Connected robot vacuums need to download the latest Neato app version 2.1 and then install the update to the robot over-the-air.
This new generation of the Neato app was launched at IFA 2017 and offers a modern user interface, additional alerts and an improved cleaning summary with Coverage Maps and statistics.
Robot Vacuum Comparison: Neato Botvac D3 Connected vs. Botvac D5 Connected


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Yesterday (5 April) integrated solutions partner for consumer brands SharpEnd / io.tt announced that it had expanded its leadership by filling two positions as part of its IoT growth plan.
The London-based company announced that James Greening will join as creative partner and Jessica Markowitz will join as client director for North America. SharpEnds says the two new hires will support its service offering and worldwide strategic partnerships. It adds that their roles will see the integration of cutting-edge creativity, largely focused on connected packaging and immersive retail experiences.
Founder and CEO, Cameron Worth, said: “These are exciting times for us as we bring on board these veterans in the industry to bolster our unique approach to IoT and support clients and partners in taking connected packaging to the next level. The reimagining of the connected customer journey and the role of IoT has created a seismic shift in how brands can (and want to) engage with their customers.
“James and Jessica will play a defining role in developing the future of IoT for brands globally.”
Markowitz’s client director role for North America is being seen as a breakthrough move as the company explains its the first leadership appointment in the region. She will oversee the growth of the North American team and support the company’s portfolio of clients, which include Estée Lauder Companies Inc., Rabble Wine Co., PepsiCo and Levi’s.
SharpEnd says that part of Markowitz’s role, who has ten years’ experience in the spirits industry, will be securing new strategic partnerships for the io.tt platform.
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Creative partner and head of creative, James Greening, will be based in the UK and SharpEnd says he will ensure that creativity remains the top focus for all global IoT rollouts. The company says creativity has been central to every IoT execution and that Greening will help to evolve the creative offering further.
In an exclusive comment to Packaging Gateway Greening said: “First and foremost creativity drives us to create meaningful and insightful experiences, regardless of format. As the connected product space grows, with more consumers and brands adopting this new technique than ever before, SharpEnd has had to grow with it.
“With this growth comes an influx of talent, perspectives and insights and I am proud to lead the creative function into this exciting new future.”
“Companies in all sectors are increasingly looking to digitalise their supply chains and make faster and better-informed decisions based on the data collected,” explained GlobalData analyst Luke Gowland at the time.
“Fully integrating interconnected technologies like IoT, AI, cloud and edge computing through the entire packaging value chain represents a significant opportunity.
“IoT as a service (IoTaaS) vendors provide various platforms to assist organisations with IoT deployment without in-house expertise. IoTaaS aims to make it easy for enterprises to deploy and manage their connected devices, and has become an accelerator for IoT adoption, especially in predictive maintenance, advanced automation and condition monitoring.”


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Terminal 21 in Korat will reopen its doors to public on February 13
NAKHON RATCHASIMA — Terminal 21 in Korat, a shopping center in the city and scene of a mass shooting over the weekend that claimed 30 lives and 58 injured, will reopen on Thursday, February 13.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Feb 11, Facebook page @TeeneeNakhonratchasima announced that Terminal 21 will reopen its doors to the public on Feb 13. An alms-giving ceremony will take place, and everyone is welcome to join the ceremony to make merit in memory of the deceased.
Terminal 21 Korat is managed by Siam Retail Development and named after the company’s Terminal 21 Asoke Shopping Mall in Bangkok. The Bt6-billion shopping mall is located on 32 rai of land in Muang district of Nakhon Ratchasima and was officially opened on December 19, 2016.
Source: The Nation
Mass Shooting in Korat: Gunman opens fire, killing several people
- Hailstorm in Nan turns streets and houses white - March 14, 2023
- Tourism and Sports Minister to ask CCSA to end Thailand Pass - June 10, 2022
- PAL announces 81st anniversary seat sale for as low as P181 - March 20, 2022


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**UPDATED DEC. 12** Wicked Weed and The Chemist release a collaborative bierbrand, Sweeten Creek cans Scooties Stout and more local beer news.
The latest Silent Sundays features adventure films while two venues host a recent documentary about combatting climate change.
The Blue Ghost and Mills River Brewery teams discuss establishing their brands in the vicinity of famous neighbors.
**UPDATED JAN. 9** Asheville Brewing releases 2019 Love Ninja, Highland taps a trio of new small-batch beers and more local beer news.
**UPDATED JAN. 3** Area breweries ease into 2019 with new releases and the return of a few favorites.
**UPDATED DEC. 21** Area breweries answer Sierra Nevada’s call to brew a Resilience IPA and raise funds for people impacted by the California Camp Fire and more local beer news.
**UPDATED OCT. 10** Asheville Brewing releases its first ginger beer, Daidala brings in Original Sin Cider’s founder for an apple tasting and more local beer news.
**UPDATED JUNE 21** The Asheville Pink Boots Society holds its first official meeting, Sweeten Creek releases its first seasonal canned offering and more local beer news.
**UPDATED MARCH 14** Asheville breweries celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, Wedge at Foundation hosts Bike of the Irish, Burial welcomes 3 Floyds and more local beer news.
**UPDATED OCT. 26** Devil’s Night returns to South Slope breweries, Urban Orchard turns four, Burial celebrates “Stranger Things” and more local beer news.
**UPDATED AUG. 12** Tasty Beverage Co. hosts hosts Terrapin Watermelon Gosefest, Blue Ghost releases Roatan Paradise IPA during a day-long Island Party and more local beer news.
**UPDATED JULY 17** Catawba releases the first in a series of seasonal fruited IPAs, Monk Beer Academy explores Mixed Culture Farmhouse Ales and more local beer news.
The Henderson County brewery hosts the second Fletcher Firefly Festival on Saturday, June 24, in its new Firefly Field.
Hi-Wire releases the latest bottles from its Single Barrel Series, Catawba hosts a beach bash with Buxton Hall Barbecue and Monk Beer Academy delves into the history and growth of North Carolina craft beer.
**UPDATED DEC. 3** Hi-Wire offers membership to its RingMaster VIP Beer Club, Blue Ghost taps Jack Daniel’s Barrel-Aged Scotch Ale and more.
Blue Ghost Brewing Co., hosts a night of country music tribute performances to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society on Sunday, Sept. 11.
When it comes to new breweries in the Asheville area, delayed openings are almost an expectation. Permit holdups, equipment malfunctions and slow construction are all constant hiccups on the road to opening day and that first pour. Just don’t tell that to Erik Weber and Zach Horn, co-owners of Fletcher’s Blue Ghost Brewing Co. Blue […]
**UPDATED MAR. 5** Asheville Brewing releases a dry-hopped grapefruit Shiva IPA, Thirsty Monk focuses on sours and Blue Ghost has its grand opening.


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The hiring push comes as businesses are looking for labor in an increasingly tight market.
Elon Musk's decision to stop Tesla from accepting bitcoin as payment has led to fresh scrutiny of the cryptocurrency's environmental impact.
McDonald's is raising the hourly wages for its U.S. company-owned restaurants as the fast-food chain looks to hire 10,000 workers for those locations.
The city is joining a handful of states that already have launched such auto-IRA arrangements or are close to doing so.
Shoppers will be able to use the technology to try on clothing from Walmart's private labels or national brands it carries and get opinions from friends.
Ford is calling its new remote update capability "Power-Up," highlighting the ability for the company to enhance and upgrade a vehicle well into its lifecycle.
The blue-chip Dow is slated to extend Wednesday's steep losses. The cryptocurrency market tumbled after Tesla halted car purchases with bitcoin.
"I want to create an ecosystem... where we would have multiple companies going for IPOs," Masa Son said of the Vision Fund.
U.S. Treasury yields retreated on Thursday morning, though the 10-year rate held above 1.68%, following a higher-than-expected inflation print.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Tesla would suspend car purchases using bitcoin, wiping off billions of dollars of value from the cryptocurrency market.


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Energy scam warning
Local small businesses are being warned about a cold calling energy sales scam that offers to claim back up to £6,000 on their utility bills and leaves them hundreds of pounds out of pocket.
Nottinghamshire County Council’s Trading Standards team is investigating a series of complaints about a local company, which has used a number of names, that has been targeting pubs, cafes and takeaways and claims that they are being overcharged by their electricity supplier.
The scamming company arranges for an auditor to review the business’s energy bills and persuades them to sign a contract without an upfront fee to claim for the overcharged money.
The signed-up business receives a call shortly afterwards from an organisation claiming to be their main energy supplier and apologises that they have been overcharging them.
The company completes the scam by persuading the business to sign a contract that agrees to a £325 fee in the small print.
Affected businesses have received a follow-up letter outlining that the overcharged money cannot be claimed back as they signed up to the energy tariff as part of their original contract with their provider.
Councillor Glynn Gilfoyle, Chair of Nottinghamshire County Council’s Community Safety Committee, said: “We are investigating this scam but we are interested in hearing from other businesses that have been targeted by this or similar companies.
“We encourage businesses to be wary of cold calling companies claiming that they are being overcharged with their bills and they can get the money back – if it seems too good to be true it often is.”
To report any scams involving cold calling companies contact Citizens Advice Consumer Service on 03454 04 05 06.


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College Students Rewarded for Good Deeds
OBERLIN, Ohio, Sept. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- College students who volunteer their time and energy to charitable causes now have the opportunity to win valuable prizes, ranging from a $3,000 scholarship to an iPad, as part of the first annual National Student Day contest.
National Student Day, set for Oct. 6, 2011, is sponsored by the National Association of College Stores. It is a day dedicated to celebrating and promoting social responsibility by college students.
"For years, college students have been volunteering across their campus community and beyond," said NACS Director of Public Relations, Charles Schmidt. "From cleaning up a local park to serving as a Big Brother or Big Sister, they have taken time out of their busy schedules to perform selfless acts without seeking recognition. The contest not only rewards students for their work, but more importantly, allows them to showcase their work on a national level."
To enter the contest, students can submit their story on how they give back to their community online. Stories will then be voted on by students across North America. Voting closes Oct. 14, 2011. The 10 most popular stories will win awards consisting of $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000 scholarships as well as seven iPads.
National Student Day will also be celebrated on hundreds of campuses across North America Oct. 6. Participating college stores throughout the United States and Canada will host an array of events in their stores to celebrate and promote social responsibility. These events will consist of giveaways, parties, contests, and more. For more information about National Student Day and the contest, go to www.nationalstudentday.com. For tips on volunteering, videos from students, and to stay up to date on the latest news, find National Student Day on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Headquartered in Oberlin, Ohio, the National Association of College Stores (NACS) is the professional trade association representing the collegiate retailing industry. NACS represents more than 3,100 collegiate retailers and approximately 1,000 associate members who supply books and other products to college stores. NACS member stores serve America's college students while supporting the academic missions of higher education institutions everywhere. Additional information on NACS can be found online at www.nacs.org.
SOURCE National Association of College Stores


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Nintendo have released a new video throwing the spotlight on some great looking indie games for the Switch.
There's a fair bit to unpack in the video. Along with games we've already seen on other consoles and PC, there are several that have somehow flown under my radar. The Gardens Between is a gorgeous time-bending puzzler releasing in September. Children of Morta came out of nowhere and is a day one purchase for me.
The insane body morphing shooter, Morphies Law and Prison Architect got a surprise release and are available right now on the eShop. I really like the look of Bad North but it appears to only be out in some regions.
We got another look at Monlighter , which is already out on the PS4, Xbox One and PC. I've been desperately waiting to play this one on my Switch and this new clip (without a confirmed release date) doesn't make the wait any easier. Everspace is making its way to the Switch and looks excellent. a Windjammers sequel was also teased. I still can't wrap my head around what the hell is going on in Baba is You. If anyone figures it out, please let me know.
FromSoftware's must-anticipated Samurai slasher now has a release date.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice will release worldwide on March 22, Activision announced today during Gamescom.
Set in late 1500s Sengoku Japan players will control the "one-armed wolf", a disfigured warrior equipped with an arsenal of deadly prosthetics.
Generation Zero, the upcoming open world shooter from Just Cause and Rage 2 devs, Avalanche Studios is shaping up to be a fantastic co-op experience.
Generation Zero's unique setting of an alternate Sweden in the 1980s, is a welcome breath of fresh air for the shooter genre. The game sees your peaceful country homeland invaded by a terrifying army of vicious machines.
Players will be able to fully customise a unique character and their weapons, while teaming up in squads of up to four players. The game also features a fully persistent world where enemies will continue to show any damage you deal if you aren't successful in fully decommissioning them.
Fox21 has secured the rights to develop a TV series based on DONTNOD Entertainment's recent blood sucking RPG, Vampyr. Wonderland Sound & Vision and DJ2 Entertainment are set to handle the television adaptation.
The production companies in question have helped create some amazing TV shows already like Sons of Anarchy, The Chi and The Americans, so the Vampyr franchise looks to be in good hands.
DONTNOD CEO Oskar Guilbert stated “we believe it is a fantastic premise for a television show. This is a new and exciting way for fans of the game, as well as the uninitiated, to enter and engage with VAMPYR’S rich, deep story. We cannot wait to see how the talented team at FOX21 will bring out the darkly atmospheric universe of our game into television.”
Halo fans can rest assured; Halo Infinite will not be a prequel or spinoff, despite its title lacking a definitive number.
343 lead writer Jeff Easterling addressed the question during a recent 343 Social Stream on Mixer (at the 1:22:20 mark).
"It is Halo 6. You should just consider it Halo 6," said Easterling. "Don't think of it as a weird prequel kind of thing. It's the next story. It's the next chapter in what is going on."
Developer Io Interactive has released a short video for the upcoming Hitman 2 (the first in a series of gameplay clips to come) titled "How to Hitman: Immersion".
In this video, we get another look at the games gorgeous Miami race day location and a brief look at some of the disguise options available to Agent 47 as he expertly blends in to the crowds despite his shiny bald melon.
The game features more unique NPC models and larger hyper-detailed locations than ever before, giving players a wealth of options when approaching each assassination contract. The video also touches on some of the different outcomes, depending on how players decided to dispatch their targets.
The news of today's acquisition of the TimeSplitters IP by THQ Nordic will be music to the ears of many.
Fans have been crying out for a new TimeSplitters game for years, ever since developer Free Radicals shut down back in 2008.
Featuring time travelling elements and a comic book-inspired design, TimeSplitters produced a trilogy of games between 2000 and 2005.
Bethesda are back fighting the good fight for cross-play on console, with Elder Scrolls: Legends becoming the latest title to raise the issue.
In an interview with Game Informer, Bethesda's senior VP of global marketing Pete Hines drew a line in the sand when discussing the studio's card battle game.
"[The Elder Scrolls Legends] is a strategy card game that encompasses both single and multiplayer. It is both cross-platform play and cross-platform progress.
“BJ’s got a fight to finish, and I can’t wait to see what insanity occurs next when he does it.”
Don't miss a thing - get the day's top gaming stories blasted into your brain every evening.


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Buffett Does Dallas
Almost everyone is doing just fine, thank you very much.
That seems to be the consensus among Dallas-area casual furniture retailers a year after Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM) opened its Texas-size store (560,000 sq. ft.).
In early 2015, no one could predict the effect that the 560,000-sq.-ft. store would have on the Dallas market. Especially after Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway is majority owner of NFM, opined on TV that the store would “do over $1 billion” in first-year sales.
Could the greater Dallas market support that kind of volume in a single store? Could existing casual retailers survive with a newcomer vacuuming up that much revenue?
The answers are, respectively, apparently so and yes.
NFM’s move into Texas is a jaw-dropping business achievement to outside observers, and an adrenaline-pumping experience to those directly engaged in the fray.
“I guess there’s more strength to the Texas market than people give us credit for,” deadpanned David Barish, president of The Chair King, a Houston-based company with three stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Casual furniture, of course, is just one of the categories that the recently-arrived retailer offers. NFM also competes in interior furniture, electronics, appliances, flooring, home décor, fitness equipment, and more. So it’s fair to say that many Dallas-area merchants felt a little uneasy when the store opened in March 2015.
NFM now is part of the retail landscape in Dallas, and most casual furniture merchants say business is pretty good in spite of the competition.
“This year our business in Dallas is up considerably,” Barish said. “We’ve got no complaints.”
David Schweig, president of Sunnyland Furniture in Dallas, reports a similar experience. “Our business is up over last year,” he said. “We had a good year last year, even with their opening.”
|Sunnyland Furniture’s outdoor showroom.
Jackson’s Home & Garden is 23 miles away from the NFM store.
“We probably do some of the same stuff they sell,” said owner Bob Jackson. NFM’s huge media presence has “brought a lot of attention to all kinds of products,” he said. “We had a record year last year, and we’re having a great year this year.”
Into the Garden, a single-store specialty retailer near downtown Dallas, is the only casual store interviewed by Hearth & Home that reports a slight downturn since NFM came on the scene.
Into the Garden is about 20 miles from NFM’s suburban location. Mary Van Meter, vice president of Merchandise and Marketing, thought the specialty shop and its customers might be insulated from the big store’s impact.
But foot traffic, as well as sales, is down, she said, and NFM’s delivery trucks regularly are seen cruising downtown neighborhoods.
“We didn’t anticipate the threat to be that bad,” she said. “We have to reevaluate.”
Nebraska Furniture Mart of Texas didn’t rake in $1 billion in sales during its first year. Edward Lipsett, store director (manager), told Hearth & Home, “We didn’t get there yet. But we have no doubt that in the future we’ll get there.”
Lipsett declined to specify the store’s first-year sales volume. The Dallas Morning News reported (without attribution) in April that sales totaled about $750 million – still an amazing figure for a single store to generate.
NFM’s projections of outdoor furniture sales were off the mark but in a good way. “Our sales are definitely way better than expected,” Lipsett said. “We’ve had to make some adjustments on what types of products to carry.”
For example, “lower price-point wicker hasn’t been as big as in the Midwest,” he said. “The customers want nicer patio furniture. I guess some would say that’s not a big surprise.”
NFM is sticking to a “good-better-best model,” he said, “but the best is extremely popular.” One individual item that has proven more popular than anticipated, he said, is chaise lounges.
“The grill business is another one that’s been great,” Lipsett said. Although NFM doesn’t offer construction services for outdoor kitchens, it sells more built-in grills than stand-alone units.
The casual furniture season “if you buy right” can last year-round in the Dallas market, he said. The “winter market” includes patio furniture as well as fire pits and outdoor heaters.
The “best customers are spending multiples of thousands of dollars on a patio furniture set. Customers have no problem spending more money,” Lipsett said.
He was unable to provide data on the average ticket for a patio furniture sale.
Considering that most of the area’s existing casual furniture stores appear healthy, the buying power of the Dallas-Fort Worth market truly is impressive.
The region’s healthy economy no doubt convinced NFM that it could venture beyond its established markets in Omaha, Kansas City and Des Moines. Retail sales in Dallas-Plano-Irving in 2005 were about $22 billion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Fort Worth-Arlington retail sales reached almost $10 billion that year.
|Nebraska Furniture Mart, Dallas, Texas.
The Chair King, Sunnyland and most other casual dealers interviewed by Hearth & Home didn’t simply ignore NFM and do well in spite of the giant competitor. They remained true to their roles as specialty retailers, doubling-down on their areas of expertise.
They kept a close eye on the new competitor’s brands, products, prices and advertising. They adjusted their offerings and strategies throughout the season, using intelligence gained through observation and listening to shoppers.
Garrett Wallace, vice president of Stores at Yard Art Patio & Fireplace, characterized the situation this way. “They’re doing what they do,” he said of NFM, “and we’re doing what we do, and making sure we’re not getting beat.”
Yard Art has five stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Two of its stores flank NFM’s location, just a short drive to the east or west.
NFM of Texas is part of a 433-acre project being developed by the company. NFM calls its $1.5 billion development Grandscape. The NFM store is the anchor tenant, to be surrounded by restaurants, hotels and other retailers. Four restaurants are open, with another five scheduled to open by summer 2017. Two hotels should be open by the end of next year.
Wallace said NFM came into the market with a “Big Box mentality” but made adjustments as it learned what sort of outdoor furniture Texas shoppers wanted. Even so, he said, specialty retailers have an advantage in retailing higher-end products because of their years of experience, staff expertise, and even store layout.
Lipsett estimated that special orders at NFM probably account for no more than 10 percent of casual furniture sales. Most orders are filled from the store’s 1.3-million-sq.-ft. warehouse.
Special, or custom, orders at better specialty merchants typically account for 40 percent or more of all sales. Special orders allow customers to purchase unique fabric and color combinations and generally provide merchants with higher margins.
Wallace noted that NFM customers making special orders must do so on the busy showroom floor where other shoppers may be a distraction to customers as well as to the sales staff. NFM has a special design room for consultations, he said, but it is “not near the product.”
At Yard Art Patio & Fireplace, Wallace said, “We’re able to do stuff they’re not up to doing.”
Schweig, at Sunnyland Furniture, said the massive size of NFM can be a daunting experience. “For those who are shopping, it’s an effort,” he said.
The store was projected to draw eight million visitors annually, which works to an average of nearly 22,000 shoppers a day. The store, which is open from 10 am to 9 pm daily, except Sunday when it closes at 6 pm, has a staff of 1,750. “We hear stories all the time about people walking in and not being pleased with the process,” Schweig said.
NFM, by virtue of its size and reputation, draws the curious as well as serious shoppers.
A study commissioned by NFM and carried out by America’s Research Group estimated that the store would attract about 40 percent of the consumers in the Dallas area to come by and check it out, said C. Britt Beemer, chairman and CEO.
The projection was off, Beemer said. “We actually influenced 60 percent of the consumers in Dallas in the first year,” he said. The heavily promoted Grand Opening probably helped push up the percentage, he said. “And I think they’ve had some tourists shop.”
Beemer told The Dallas Morning News that the store already is profitable and that it should achieve $1 billion in annual sales by its third or fourth year.
Tourists and relatives visiting family in the greater Dallas area can be the only explanation for a map that locates the home address for every customer who bought from NFM (see Figure 1). The pins spread from coast to coast. Texas is almost covered in blue pins. So are Florida’s southern Atlantic and Gulf coasts. California’s Bay Area and Southern California are home to plenty of NFM customers, as are New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Out-of-town sales are not uncommon for other casual retailers. High-rolling, high-style Dallas is a shopping destination. Yard Art has customers from Arkansas and Oklahoma as well as far-East and far-West Texas, Wallace said.
Shoppers from the West Texas oil town of Midland often come to Dallas, which is a 4.5-hour drive if they choose to come by Interstate 20. Some opt to fly the 330 miles.
“A lot of those people have private planes,” Wallace said. “They come up for the weekend and shop.”
|Pins indicate location of every person who has bought from NFM since it opened.
Competing with NFM means keeping a close eye on what the giant retailer is doing, because that’s exactly the strategy NFM pursues as it battles for consumer dollars.
“We pay attention to everybody,” store director Lipsett said. “We’re always going to be the lowest price in town. It’s just who we are. And the way to do that is to know what all your competitors are pricing.”
Specialty retailers in the area have come to recognize NFM staffers who visit regularly to check products and prices. “They are in the stores at least once a week,” says Yard Art’s Wallace. “And we are in their store at least once a week doing the same thing.”
Sunnyland’s Schweig also mentioned that competing with NFM means walking that store’s casual furniture department with a critical eye toward brands, groups and pricing.
Yard Art is in direct competition – “apples to apples” – on three specific Agio groups, Wallace said. Yard Art staffers check NFM’s prices once a week, and if Yard Art’s prices are higher, Wallace said, “We lower them.”
The tit-for-tat strategy “has sucked all the money out of those groups,” he said. On the other hand, he’s confident that the volume retailer can’t match his staff’s expertise in selling higher quality, special-order goods. He noted that Yard Art’s special-order business is up in certain high-end lines.
NFM’s presence in the Dallas market has led casual furniture retailers to step up their game in order to remain competitive. The retailing giant is “obviously doing things right, because they are doing the volume,” Schweig says.
Yet so many facets of the most desirable casual business are unrelated to selling large volumes of lower-priced goods. That leaves plenty of room for specialty retailers to thrive.
NFM, Schweig said, “is here and will be here for a long time. How we address it is to make sure everything is exceptional and exceed our customers’ expectations.”


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An opening date has been set for the new Novotel Liverpool Paddington Village hotel.
The four-star hotel will become the highest in the city when it launches on July 4.
The 16-storey building will include 221 bedrooms and is the flagship hotel for the new £1bn Paddington Village development.
Completed by Morgan Sindall Construction, the Liverpool City Council-owned hotel is franchised by Accor and will be managed by Legacy Hotels & Resorts on the authority's behalf.
The Liverpool Echo recently reported that the hotel will cost the local authority around £43m, according to initial estimates.
The hotel was designed by Ryder Architecture, with Faithful+Gould acting as project manager.
General manager Howard Lewis will lead the team responsible for launching the hotel.
Mr Lewis said: "Novotel Liverpool Paddington Village will be a game changer for Liverpool and will bring something new and exciting to the already world-class hospitality offer the city is renowned for.
"As one of the first brands to be part of the £1bn Paddington Village development, we also find ourselves in a unique position of being a main player in the city's vision to be an international destination of significance for life-science, healthcare, and technology industries.
"We are more than just a hotel, and I cannot wait for guests to come through our lobby for an unforgettable hospitality experience, complete with that world-famous Scouse welcome.
"I want this hotel to be a destination that the local community can be proud of and can call their own."
Cllr Sarah Doyle, Liverpool City Council’s cabinet member for economy and development, added: "The opening of the city’s new Novotel will be a big moment for Paddington Village and the wider Knowledge Quarter.
"I wish the hotel every success and all who are employed to work there. Successful regeneration schemes deliver opportunities that change not just the economy but people’s lives and careers, and that is exactly what Paddington Village is doing."
Stephanie Rowe, Accor VP marketing for Novotel in Northern Europe, said: "We’re thrilled to have this experienced and accomplished leadership team at the helm of Novotel Liverpool Paddington Village.
"People are the hospitality industry’s greatest asset and the hotel’s opening will generate a number of career opportunities for the community in this much-loved industry.
"A flagship for the Novotel brand, the hotel will offer state-of-the art facilities for business and leisure travellers, from meeting and conferencing facilities to a children’s recreational space in the lobby.
"It is the first hotel in the UK to feature the brand’s new global design concept by the internationally renowned Sundukovy Sisters, which encapsulates elegance, modernity, and simplicity in a welcoming social hub open to visitors and locals alike."


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Sling TV announced a major update to its streaming TV plans, including the addition of new channels, improved features and higher prices.
According to a post on the company’s site, the streaming service is adding FOX News, MSNBC and CNN’s HLN to Sling’s Blue package. In addition, some of the service’s add-ons are being upgraded as well, with the Big Ten Network (BTN) added to the sports offerings. FXM and FXX are being added to Blue’s Hollywood Extra, and the Nat Geo Wild channel is coming to Blue’s Heartland Extra package.
The company is also improving their DVR service, finally including at least some DVR capability for free. The current DVR add-on is being rebranded as “Cloud DVR Plus,” and will still offer 50 hours of recording, along with the ability to save recordings indefinitely so they aren’t deleted when the available space is used up.
As part of the update, Sling is also raising prices by $5 a month. The Orange and Blue plans are both $30 a month, with the bundle coming in at $45. The company points out this is the first time it has raised prices on the Blue package since its launch, and the first price raise on the Orange package since June of last year.
While it’s certainly good to see one of the oldest streaming services continue to evolve, bolster programming and add features, it would be nice to see more than 50 hours of DVR. Hulu currently includes 50 hours free, while offering up to 200 hours for an extra cost; YouTube TV offers unlimited DVR; and fuboTV includes 30 hours, with 500 hours available as an upgrade. With that kind of competition, 50 hours seems positively anemic, especially for an extra fee.


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Norwalk, CT – LeftField Media, an organizer of pop-culture consumer events in the US, was acquired by Urban Expositions, a Clarion Events Company.
Urban Expositions bought out the stakes of three of LeftField’s founders. The fourth co-founder, Greg Topalian, will remain with the company as president and minority owner along with LeftField’s staff.
LeftField was founded in 2014 by Topalian and a trio of top management at Business Journals, Inc (BJI): Britton Jones, Sharon Enright and Mac Brighton. BJI was sold to the British organizer UBM in April. The acquisition will provide LeftField increased capital and infrastructure, while offering Urban Expositions new expertise and market reach in B2C events.
LeftField organizes Awesome Con, a comic and science fiction consumer event in Washington, DC. The firm also runs Audio Expo North America in a partnership with JD Events, and Play Fair, a public event held in conjunction with the annual Toy Fair trade show in New York and organized under a partnership with the Toy Industry Association, Inc.
“LeftField Media has seen incredible growth in less than two years,” Topalian said. “I’m excited now to see what we can do with the resources and confidence of a global event organizer at our back.”
Clarion, one of the largest independent show organizers in England, acquired a majority stake in Urban Expositions in 2015. The Atlanta-based organizer has a portfolio of 35 events in six industry sectors, including the recently launched P3: Progressive Pet Expo and The Classic Car Show.


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Microsoft really did surprise its gaming fanbase during the E3, 2017 when it announced the Xbox Game Pass for the first time. Since then, the Game Pass has never stopped offering gamers with new and exciting titles alongside some pretty amazing deals and updates. Recently, Microsoft allowed Xbox Game Pass members to support their favourite Mixer streamers. Microsoft’s next move was the announcement of four more new games for the Xbox Game pass during the Microsoft Inside Xbox Livestream. Moreover, Microsoft even added six months of Spotify Premium following which Microsoft added two games, each to the Xbox Game Pass on Xbox One and PC. Then last month, Xbox Game Pass got seven new games. Yesterday, Microsoft announced an impressive deal wherein you can get Xbox One’s Game Pass Ultimate for 3 months for $1. And now, Microsoft is adding 10 ‘Final Fantasy’ games to Xbox Game Pass.
With the blessing of Square Enix, Microsoft will add 10 Final Fantasy games to the Xbox Game Pass: Here are all the new games coming to Xbox Game Pass:
- Final Fantasy VII
- Final Fantasy VIII: Remastered
- Final Fantasy IX
- Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age
- Final Fantasy XIII
- Final Fantasy XIII-2
- Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
- Final Fantasy XV
- Final Fantasy X: HD Remastered
- Final Fantasy X-2: HD Remastered
Moreover, Square Enix is expected to launch Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX and Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue on Xbox One, next year.
— Xbox (@Xbox) November 14, 2019


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(Journal file photo)
A Rite-Aid store on Danforth Avenue in Jersey City was robbed early Saturday morning just past midnight, according to police.
A man, carrying a handgun, entered the store wearing a black facemask and jumped over the cashier’s counter, according to the police report.
The man then hit a female cashier over the head, according to the report. The woman ran out the front door of the store screaming, tripped and fell, and ran to her home, said police.
The man then pointed the gun at another employee and demanded that they open the cash register, according to the report.
The robber stole $1,090.48 from the cash register, said police.


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If you've been a bit confused lately about what exactly the Internet of Things refers to and why you should care about it, take solace in knowing that you're hardly alone. In fact, nearly half (43%) of the manufacturing executives polled recently by LNS Research said they either don't understand or don't know anything about the IoT. What's more, only 10% say they've started to invest in IoT technologies (6% say they see value to their operations, and 4% say their investments are being prompted by customer demand).
The Internet of Things, basically, is a catch-all buzzword that refers to a network of connected, intelligent devices and sensors that "talk" to each other. One of the chief selling points of the IoT is that it enables real-time performance monitoring, which is of particular value in maintenance and asset-management applications when machinery can self-optimize, self-configure and self-diagnose themselves. However, start-up costs can be considerable, and to date most ROI projections are strictly anecdotal.
According to Mike Roberts, an analyst with LNS Research, "Given the IoT's relative nascency -- not to mention the manufacturing sector's traditionally slow-to-deploy mentality -- these 'don't understand' numbers are not all that shocking." He believes the emergence of industry groups such as the Industrial Internet Consortium (which includes Cisco, General Electric, IBM, Intel and Toyota) will help promote best practices and a better understanding of the technology.
At any rate, the IoT is expected to grow at an enormous rate throughout the decade, with analyst firm Gartner predicting as many as 25 billion Internet-connected intelligent devices by 2020, a big jump from the roughly 3.8 billion believed to be in use now. Manufacturing, utilities and transportation are currently the top three industries using IoT devices, and by next year more than 700 million connected things will be in use.
"It's important to put IoT maturity into perspective because of the fast pace at which it is emerging, so supply chain strategists need to be looking at its potential now," says Michael Burkett, managing vice president at Gartner. "Some IoT devices are more mature, such as commercial telematics used in trucking fleets to improve logistics efficiency. Some, such as smart fabrics that use sensors within clothing and industrial fabrics to monitor human health or manufacturing processes, are just emerging."
As Burkett sees it, the IoT will help manufacturing supply chains deliver more targeted and efficient service to their customers, thanks to the ability of physical assets "to communicate their state to a networked ecosystem, that then formulates an intelligent response." This will also put pressure on product developers to react more quickly to the demands of a customer base that will come to expect smarter products that can, in effect, improve their performance.


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Sanitarium.FM is a radio station dedicated to gamers and technology fans alike! Its run, hosted and edited by gamers, for gamers. We deliver high energy music for all of your gaming needs, from epic questing to ultimate PvP'ing! A whole host of different DJ's will be playing different games and playing different music, so stay tuned for your specific gaming top tips! We discuss latest technology releases and up to date game release info! These are also posted on our Forums so take a look. Because in our world, gamers need to rest but the gaming doesn't!
Titanfall 2 has already had quite the price drop despite having only launched recently. Now, if you’re still not sure, it’s getting a limited trial so people can try out the multiplayer for a few days before Christmas. The trial has been open to Origin Access members since the end of November, and now […]
So after a few weeks of waiting, card reveals and information being handed out to us on the three crime families of the expansion, Hearthstone’s Mean Streets of Gadgetzan has finally made its entrance to the public servers. The release was staggered out across the different regions of the world, in a bid from […]
It’s that time of year again fellow card slingers, when the nights get longer, the weather gets colder, and three factions of organised criminals kick their turf war over a fictional goblin city into high gear. That’s right Hearthstone’s latest expansion ‘Mean Street of Gadgetzan’ finally has a release date and is due to hit […]
So, as predicted today brought the announcement of Means Streets of Gadgetzan’s release date, and it’s soon – December 1st. Gadgetzan was one of many reveals at BlizzCon this year, with a lot of teasers placing the expansion in the outpost – but no one really predicting the angle it was going to take. […]
It’s time for your weekly look into some of the interesting new campaigns that have appeared on Kickstarter in the Gaming section. As always we start off with some updates on previously covered campaigns. We’ll start off with the bad news. Death Witch: Bloodlines, Cloud Runner, and Alone in the Woods have all completed […]


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Harlem to Receive U.S.' Largest Free Wi-Fi Network
December 11, 2013 11:48 AM
It will cover 95 blocks throughout Harlem
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is looking to attract new businesses and entrepreneurs to Harlem with the country's largest free
public Wi-Fi network
According to Bloomberg's website, the network will cover 95 blocks throughout Harlem, offering free Wi-Fi to its 80,000 citizens.
Bloomberg wants this service to draw new businesses and entrepreneurs to Harlem as well as serve visitors and current residents, including the 13,000 people currently living in low-income housing and may not be able to afford Internet.
The new Wi-Fi network will offer 24/7 access to anything from educational tools for kids and adults to paying bills to checking sports stats.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg [SOURCE: Business Insider]
The Wi-Fi network will be rolled out in three separate phases, which will be completed in May 2014. Phase one will cover 110th to 120th Street (between Madison Avenue & Frederick Douglass Blvd.) and will be completed this month. Phase two will cover 121st to 126th Street (between Madison Avenue & Frederick Douglass Blvd.) and will be completed February 2014. The third phase will finish off with 127th to 138th Street (between Madison Avenue & Frederick Douglass Blvd.) and will be done in May 2014.
The free public network will serve the community for an initial five-year term and is funded through a donation from the Fuhrman Family Foundation to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.
This isn't the first time
NYC has received free Wi-Fi
. Back in January of this year, Google partnered with The Chelsea Improvement Company and design/installation company Sky-Packets to place free Wi-Fi between Gansevoort St. and 19th St. from 8th Ave. to the West Side Highway. It's also available in public spaces like the Chelsea Triangle, Gansevoort Plaza and 14th Street Park.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
"The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." -- Robert Heinlein
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PORTLAND, Ore. – A Canadian investment firm plans to buy a majority stake in Oregon-based door and window manufacturer Jeld-Wen Inc. after initially agreeing to a minority interest in one of the state’s largest companies.
Jeld-Wen owns Silver Mountain Resort in Kellogg. The resort includes a ski operation, nine-hole golf course, condos and indoor waterpark.
Onex Corp., of Toronto, will keep Jeld-Wen’s headquarters in Klamath Falls and retain CEO Rod Wendt in the $864 million deal, The Oregonian reported today.
Onex will control at least 58 percent of Jeld-Wen, half its board seats, and will appoint a new president: Philip Orsino, Onex’s building products industrial partner.
The deal supersedes a previous arrangement in May, when Onex announced plans to pay $475 million for a 39 percent stake in privately held Jeld-Wen.
Instead, Onex will pay $675 million for the majority stake. It will also issue a $189 million loan to be paid off within 18 months by the sale of unspecified “noncore” Jeld-Wen assets; failing that, the loan converts to stock.
The collapse of the U.S. housing market hammered Jeld-Wen. Business research site Hoover’s reports that sales fell 26 percent between 2007 and 2009, to $2.5 billion. Jeld-Wen said revenue totaled $3 billion last year.
Jeld-Wen had planned on refinancing some outstanding debt, said company communications director Teri Cline, but held off due to continued volatility in the bond market.
Eventually, Jeld-Wen and Onex decided that selling more of the company made better sense than waiting out the bond market.
“It lessens the amount that we need to go sell in private placement of bonds,” Cline said.
Existing shareholders, including the trust of Jeld-Wen co-founder Richard Wendt and family members, will retain a minority stake. Rod Wendt is the son of Richard Wendt, who died a year ago at the age of 79.
“They’re very excited about the deal,” Cline said. “They wanted to do what was best for the long-term vision of the company.”
Jeld-Wen employs about 20,000 workers, including 1,200 in Klamath County, according to Trey Senn, director of the Klamath County Economic Development Association.
The company last winter sold three central Oregon resorts to a partnership led by Northview Hotel Group of Westport, Conn. The properties were Eagle Crest near Redmond, Brasada Ranch in Powell Butte near Bend, and the Running Y in Klamath Falls. Also sold was Ridgewater Properties, adjacent to the Running Y.


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Papa John’s International Inc. officials told investors Wednesday that marketing plans and new-unit development this year would help the company sustain the momentum gained in 2010 amid “unprecedented” competition in the pizza segment.
Papa John’s discussed plans for 2011 after reporting higher net income and positive same-store sales for the fourth quarter, which ended a year that founder and co-chief executive John Schnatter said was marked by steep discounting and prolific advertising by the chain’s two larger rivals, Pizza Hut and Domino’s Pizza.
“I’ve never seen two of the biggest competitors we have change their core product and run the discounts they ran,” Schnatter said. “Through that, we still had positive traffic. If you use that as a litmus test, the brand is very solid.”
Papa John’s domestic same-store sales increased 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter and were flat for the year.
Chain officials noted that Papa John’s average check dipped in 2010 as the brand kept up with the pizza segment’s rampant discounting — Pizza Hut pivoted from a $10 any-pizza deal to a new, cheaper pricing structure, and Domino’s advertised its reformulated pizza with an offer of two medium, two-topping pies for $5.99 each.
Chief marketing officer Andrew Varga said Papa John’s would continue to balance promoting “competitive” offers and “premium” ones, like $11 large specialty items like Hearty Italian Meats, Spinach Alfredo or Double Bacon Six Cheese pizzas.
“This is the third time this month we’ve run the $11 price point on TV,” he said. “We feel good about it and what it does for us. We think it’s the right move at the right time.”
Papa John’s, which operates or franchises 3,646 units worldwide, said it would look to grow its system by 300 domestic units and about 1,200 international locations over the next several years. The company also said it would extend its Franchise Development Incentives for another year to encourage franchisees to open more restaurants, and that it has reached a new three-year agreement for contributions to its National Marketing Fund.
The contribution rate for franchisees has increased to 4 percent for 2011, though franchisees would be eligible for royalty rebates if they reach certain sales milestones or complete remodeling requirements before a certain time in fiscal 2011, Papa John’s officials said during the call.
Executives would not disclose the contribution rate to the marketing fund for 2012 or 2013, but said the agreement would shift the advertising spending in ways meant to make the brand more competitive.
“We believe the additional funding is important,” Varga said. “It gives us more exposure on national TV and in digital marketing, and we’ll be making record investments in those areas. We have plenty of runway to build this over time.”
Schnatter said the Franchise Development Incentives, which waive franchise fees and the first year’s royalties for any operator opening a new franchised restaurant in 2011, would continue to help grow the Papa John’s system grow, bolstering everything from the marketing fund to the brand’s wholly owned commissary, PJ Food Service.
“One great way to put more dollars in there is by adding units,” Schnatter said. “As we add units on our net development, which is why we have the incentives, they start contributing to that fund and buying commodities from PJ Food Service. It just makes a healthier system.”
Papa John’s also will pursue international growth aggressively over the next few years. At the close of 2010, the brand had 775 international units in 32 countries.
“We are pleased our international franchisees can access public- or private-capital markets to grow and continue to do so,” co-chief executive Jude Thompson said, noting that Russian franchisee Worldwide Papa recently listed itself on Germany’s stock exchange to raise expansion funding. “We expect to reach break-even results in 2012 in our international business.”
For the Dec. 26, 2010-ended fourth quarter, Papa John’s recorded net income of $14 million, or 55 cents per share, compared with $13.7 million, or 49 cents per share, a year earlier. Latest earnings reflected an after-tax gain of 5 cents per share from the consolidation of results of a franchisee-owned commodities purchasing company BIBP Commodities Inc.
Latest-quarter revenue rose 5.2 percent to $286.8 million, Papa John’s said. Domestic same-store sales increased 0.7 percent, which included a 2.1-percent gain at corporate restaurants.
Franchise revenue increased $1.2 million, primarily due to a hike of the franchise royalty rate from 4.25 percent a year earlier to 4.75 percent, the company said. High sales volumes and commodity costs drove an $8.8 million gain in commissary sales for Papa John’s. International revenue rose $1.6 million, largely on the strength of more restaurants opened abroad in 2010.
For the full year, Papa John’s net income totaled $51.9 million, or $1.96 per share, including an after-tax gain of 16 cents per share from the consolidation of BIBP. A year earlier, the company reported net income of $57.5 million, or $2.06 per share, including an after-tax gain of 52 cents per share from BIBP’s consolidation and a 4-cent gain from the finalization of certain income tax issues.
Papa John’s said the year-end deficit from BIBP has been eliminated with the new National Marketing Fund agreement between the company and its domestic franchisees.
Revenue in 2010 increased 4.4 percent to $1.13 billion, reflecting gains of $7.3 million in franchise revenues, $36.8 million in commissary sales and $6.5 million in international-restaurant sales. Same-store sales in the United States were flat for the year, including a 0.6-percent decrease for corporate locations, the company said.
Louisville, Ky.-based Papa John’s operates 612 corporate locations and franchises another 3,034 franchised units worldwide.
Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].


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There's big news in the truck world.
The 2018 F-150 is joining the elite ranks of half-ton diesel trucks.
With only a couple half-ton trucks on the market that boast an available diesel engine,... Read Article
The new F-Series has been leading the truck world since 1977, but it hasn't been an easy road to drive. When Ford invested more than $1 billion into the new body style of the F-150 in 2015, it... Read Article


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COLUMBUS, GA (WTVM) – Columbus police are searching for three individuals who have stolen from elderly people.
There have been multiple reports of elderly individuals having their wallets stolen from shopping carts. The suspects then use financial cards at a nearby store in order to purchase Visa gift cards and other items.
Police believe elderly people are being targeted.
If you have any information on the individuals shown in the pictures above please contact Columbus Police Financial Crimes Unit at (706) 225-4380.


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The rear camera is also regarded as one of the finest smartphone snappers around with it scoring top marks from the team DxO.
The leaked image shows an operating system that can run Android apps and includes a dock for quick access applications at the bottom of the tablet's screen.
The detachable keyboard is nicely designed, it seems, with circular keys and pogo pins to attach it to the Slate.
Google's Pixel 3 event begins at 11:00 AM ET on October 9th, so we'll soon see if they have any announcements left to surprise us.
Google is all set for the big launch event on October 9th in NY.
There are a lot of products which are expected to launch in Google's launching event on October 9th. So unless the company delays the tablet, you should be able to get your hands on the Pixel Slate within a matter of days or weeks (depending on availability).
Google is also going to be launching the first Chrome OS tablet named the Pixel Slate Tablet at the upcoming event.
We've also seen rumblings that the Pixel 3 XL will ship with Pixel Buds. According to 9to5Mac, the smaller Pixel 3 has slim bezels around the display, front facing speakers, and two front-facing cameras.
Spec-wise the two new Pixel devices should don the Snapdragon 845 chipset, alongside somewhere 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, Active Edge for summoning the Google Assistant, a USB-C port, and Android 9 Pie on board. The new Pixel Slate will be available in four flavors, with Intel Celeron, m3, i5, and i7 processor options. The Google Home Mini with the all-new colour option will go on sale in the USA from the Google Store and Walmart later this month. Given that the Chromecast hasn't received a new advanced version for a few years, it's entirely possible that Google might unveil the third generation Chromecast. Something we have heard on the grapevine is that the device might enable users to dual-boot Windows 10 and Chrome OS if needed.
We'll see the device in the flesh tomorrow.
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- Democrat Joe Manchin announces support for Brett Kavanaugh confirmation
- Backed by senators, Kavanaugh on track for U.S
- LG V40 ThinQ Launched
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- Get a flu vaccine, not the flu
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- Jose Mourinho is caught up in Manchester United's identity crisis


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Puma’s recent push into basketball looks like a winning strategy as the iconic brand re-asserts itself in the incredibly competitive market.
The company’s growth performance is diversified as far as regions and products are concerned. The sportswear company saw growth in China and the Middle East, as well as a double-digit increase in the Americas. Cowen Equity Research cites the Clyde Court and Uproar Charlotte sneaker models as catalysts for Puma’s success as it attempts to take share in basketball market.
To be clear, Puma has a long way to go. According to NPD’s Matt Powell, Puma has less than 1% of the basketball sneaker market share.
Puma’s re-entry into basketball ramped up in the summer of 2018. The company with the cat logo signed 2018 first overall NBA draft pick Deandre Ayton and NBA All-Star DeMarcus Cousins.
And in a move that harkened back to Puma’s basketball glory days, the company also granted a lifetime contract to its first star NBA star Walt “Clyde” Frazier. Puma signed the New York Knicks All-Star and NBA Champion in 1973. Until then Pumas were seen as track shoes worn by runners.
In the early ‘70s, most NBA players wore Converse or Adidas (ADDYY) which was created Adolf Dassler, the brother of Puma founder Rudolf Dassler. Frazier, one of the more stylish and charismatic players in the game, brought legitimacy to Puma as a basketball shoe when he started wearing the brand.
However, this legitimacy would soon wane. The ‘70s became the ‘80s, a decade when superstar Michael Jordan helped begin Nike’s (NKE) march to becoming the dominant basketball sneaker brand.
Although Puma took decades to reinsert itself into the mainstream of basketball footwear, it seems to be paying off. In 2018, Puma achieved record revenue of $5.2 billion. In Q1 of 2019 the Herzogenaurach, Germany, headquartered company saw a sales increase of 15.3%.
As with all things, it’s uncertain what's in store for Puma's basketball fortunes. But if the brand finds a way to sign more high-profile NBA stars, Puma could continue to make some noise in the space.
Reggie Wade is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @ReggieWade.