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|By Business Wire||
|July 14, 2014 08:09 AM EDT||
ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading international provider of electronic payment and banking solutions, today announced that Webster Bank, a leading regional bank in the Northeast, has selected the company to host its online banking platform.
With $21 billion in assets, Webster Bank provides a variety of business, institutional and consumer financial services through its 166 banking centers and 311 ATMs, as well as via phone, mobile and online banking. In order to serve clients’ online banking needs more effectively, improve usability and bring new features to market faster, Webster is moving to ACI's hosted platform from an in-house system.
Following a thorough evaluation, Webster selected ACI’s industry-leading online banking platform, Universal Online Banker. Webster’s application will run in ACI’s secure and fully compliant data center, which hosts banking and payment solutions for more than 4,000 financial institutions, retailers, and billers.
“Because our clients have numerous options when it comes to online banking, it’s important to differentiate our product offering in this ultra-competitive market,” said Phil Picillo, senior vice president, Treasury & Payment Solutions, Webster Bank. “ACI’s platform will help us to provide organizations with an exceptional online banking experience.”
“Innovative banks like Webster are turning to our hosted offerings to gain a competitive advantage in online banking,” said Jeremy Wilmot, senior vice president and general manager, Americas, ACI Worldwide. “We pride ourselves on being our clients’ trusted partner and Webster’s decision to host its online banking initiatives with ACI validates this trust. We look forward to supporting Webster’s growth now and well into the future.”
About ACI Worldwide
ACI Worldwide, Inc., the Universal Payments company, powers electronic payments and banking for more than 5,000 financial institutions, retailers, billers and processors around the world. ACI software processes $13 trillion each day in payments and securities transactions for more than 250 of the leading global retailers, and 21 of the world’s 25 largest banks. Through our comprehensive suite of software products and hosted services, we deliver a broad range of solutions for payment processing; card and merchant management; online banking; mobile, branch and voice banking; fraud detection; trade finance; and electronic bill presentment and payment. To learn more about ACI, please visit www.aciworldwide.com. You can also find us on Twitter @ACI_Worldwide.
© Copyright ACI Worldwide, Inc. 2014.
ACI, ACI Payment Systems, the ACI logo and all ACI product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of ACI Worldwide, Inc., or one of its subsidiaries, in the United States, other countries or both. Other parties’ trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.
Product roadmaps are for informational purposes only and may not be incorporated into a contract or agreement. The development release and timing of future product releases remains at ACI’s sole discretion. ACI is providing the following information in accordance with ACI's standard product communication policies. Any resulting features, functionality, and enhancements or timing of release of such features, functionality, and enhancements are at the sole discretion of ACI and may be modified without notice. All product roadmap or other similar information does not represent a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making a purchasing decision.
On Dice.com, the number of job postings asking for skill in Amazon Web Services increased 76 percent between June 2015 and June 2016. Salesforce.com saw its own skill mentions increase 37 percent, while DevOps and Cloud rose 35 percent and 28 percent, respectively. Even as they expand their presence in the cloud, companies are also looking for tech professionals who can manage projects, crunch data, and figure out how to make systems run more autonomously. Mentions of ‘data science’ as a skill ...
Jul. 30, 2016 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 569
Extreme Computing is the ability to leverage highly performant infrastructure and software to accelerate Big Data, machine learning, HPC, and Enterprise applications. High IOPS Storage, low-latency networks, in-memory databases, GPUs and other parallel accelerators are being used to achieve faster results and help businesses make better decisions. In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Michael O'Neill, Strategic Business Development at NVIDIA, focused on some of the unique ways extreme computing is...
Jul. 30, 2016 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 578
Cloud analytics is dramatically altering business intelligence. Some businesses will capitalize on these promising new technologies and gain key insights that’ll help them gain competitive advantage. And others won’t. Whether you’re a business leader, an IT manager, or an analyst, we want to help you and the people you need to influence with a free copy of “Cloud Analytics for Dummies,” the essential guide to this explosive new space for business intelligence.
Jul. 30, 2016 08:30 AM EDT Reads: 1,015
Manufacturers are embracing the Industrial Internet the same way consumers are leveraging Fitbits – to improve overall health and wellness. Both can provide consistent measurement, visibility, and suggest performance improvements customized to help reach goals. Fitbit users can view real-time data and make adjustments to increase their activity. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Mark Bernardo Professional Services Leader, Americas, at GE Digital, discussed how leveraging the Industrial Internet a...
Jul. 30, 2016 08:00 AM EDT Reads: 736
UpGuard has become a member of the Center for Internet Security (CIS), and will continue to help businesses expand visibility into their cyber risk by providing hardening benchmarks to all customers. By incorporating these benchmarks, UpGuard's CSTAR solution builds on its lead in providing the most complete assessment of both internal and external cyber risk. CIS benchmarks are a widely accepted set of hardening guidelines that have been publicly available for years. Numerous solutions exist t...
Jul. 30, 2016 07:45 AM EDT Reads: 856
Amazon has gradually rolled out parts of its IoT offerings in the last year, but these are just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to optimizing their back-end AWS offerings, Amazon is laying the ground work to be a major force in IoT – especially in the connected home and office. Amazon is extending its reach by building on its dominant Cloud IoT platform, its Dash Button strategy, recently announced Replenishment Services, the Echo/Alexa voice recognition control platform, the 6-7 strategic...
Jul. 30, 2016 07:45 AM EDT Reads: 709
In addition to all the benefits, IoT is also bringing new kind of customer experience challenges - cars that unlock themselves, thermostats turning houses into saunas and baby video monitors broadcasting over the internet. This list can only increase because while IoT services should be intuitive and simple to use, the delivery ecosystem is a myriad of potential problems as IoT explodes complexity. So finding a performance issue is like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Jul. 30, 2016 07:45 AM EDT Reads: 2,396
There will be new vendors providing applications, middleware, and connected devices to support the thriving IoT ecosystem. This essentially means that electronic device manufacturers will also be in the software business. Many will be new to building embedded software or robust software. This creates an increased importance on software quality, particularly within the Industrial Internet of Things where business-critical applications are becoming dependent on products controlled by software. Qua...
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Big Data, cloud, analytics, contextual information, wearable tech, sensors, mobility, and WebRTC: together, these advances have created a perfect storm of technologies that are disrupting and transforming classic communications models and ecosystems. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Erik Perotti, Senior Manager of New Ventures on Plantronics’ Innovation team, provided an overview of this technological shift, including associated business and consumer communications impacts, and opportunities it ...
Jul. 30, 2016 07:30 AM EDT Reads: 448
In his session at Cloud Expo, Robert Cohen, an economist and senior fellow at the Economic Strategy Institute, will provide economic scenarios that describe how the rapid adoption of software-defined everything including cloud services, SDDC and open networking will change GDP, industry growth, productivity and jobs. This session will also include a drill down for several industries such as finance, social media, cloud service providers and pharmaceuticals.
Jul. 30, 2016 07:15 AM EDT Reads: 448
DevOps at Cloud Expo – being held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA – announces that its Call for Papers is open. Born out of proven success in agile development, cloud computing, and process automation, DevOps is a macro trend you cannot afford to miss. From showcase success stories from early adopters and web-scale businesses, DevOps is expanding to organizations of all sizes, including the world's largest enterprises – and delivering real results. Am...
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The 19th International Cloud Expo has announced that its Call for Papers is open. Cloud Expo, to be held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, brings together Cloud Computing, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps, Digital Transformation, Microservices and WebRTC to one location. With cloud computing driving a higher percentage of enterprise IT budgets every year, it becomes increasingly important to plant your flag in this fast-expanding business opportuni...
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"We host and fully manage cloud data services, whether we store, the data, move the data, or run analytics on the data," stated Kamal Shannak, Senior Development Manager, Cloud Data Services, IBM, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 18th Cloud Expo, held June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
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With the proliferation of both SQL and NoSQL databases, organizations can now target specific fit-for-purpose database tools for their different application needs regarding scalability, ease of use, ACID support, etc. Platform as a Service offerings make this even easier now, enabling developers to roll out their own database infrastructure in minutes with minimal management overhead. However, this same amount of flexibility also comes with the challenges of picking the right tool, on the right ...
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IoT is rapidly changing the way enterprises are using data to improve business decision-making. In order to derive business value, organizations must unlock insights from the data gathered and then act on these. In their session at @ThingsExpo, Eric Hoffman, Vice President at EastBanc Technologies, and Peter Shashkin, Head of Development Department at EastBanc Technologies, discussed how one organization leveraged IoT, cloud technology and data analysis to improve customer experiences and effi...
Jul. 30, 2016 04:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,134


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The Securities Commission (SC) Malaysia is exploring the use of distributed ledger technology for the over-the-counter (OTC) market. The pilot project, run through SC’s Alliance for Fintech (aFINity) program, aims to examine how blockchain could facilitate unlisted market activity and improve transparency.
“Traditionally, the unlisted and OTC market space have been opaque due to the lack of information available,” SC chairman Tan Sri Ranjit Ajit Singh told the audience in his opening remarks at the 2017 SCxSC Digital Finance Conference.
“By using a distributed ledger as the technology underpinning the market infrastructure, all transactions and market activities would be recorded and made available to all market participants, while still maintaining transaction confidentiality.”
The findings from the pilot will form the basis of an industry blueprint. The blueprint will elaborate upon the technology architecture, key software functions and development standards which will form the building blocks for interested parties to use blockchain network for unlisted and OTC markets, Ranjit said.
SC is using Neuroware’s Cortex blockchain infrastructure “to help power unlisted secondary market activity across a multitude of different blockchains,” according to the startup.
Neurowave, operated by Malaysian company R1, helps organizations and individuals explore, adopt and implement distributed ledger technologies. Neuroware’s core offerings include creating tools, infrastructure, workshops, and hackathons for developers and newcomers looking to build on blockchain.
The Cortex platform is also used by Ata Plus, one of the six licensed equity crowdfunding platforms in Malaysia. Ata Plus uses Cortex to store structured immutable records of issuers, deals and investments. It became the first regulated financial service provider in Malaysia to introduce blockchain at a production level 18 months ago.
At the SCxSC Digital Finance Conference earlier this month, SC also said it was reviewing relevant regulations and guidelines to facilitate “functional and effective use cases” of digital assets in the capital market, including secondary market trading of established cryptocurrency and digital assets.
It said it was working closely with the Malaysian central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia, on the framework, which is expected to be released in the months to come.
“We note the growing interest of Malaysian investors in trading cryptocurrencies and digital assets,” Ranjit said. “To facilitate such activities in our market and put in place investor safeguards, we are reviewing relevant regulations and guidelines to allow functional and effective use cases of digital assets in the capital market, including the seconding market trading of established cryptocurrency and digital assets.”

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The MN legislature changed the tax
rules so we need to start collecting/paying sales tax on video we collect as of
July 1st. We didn’t change our prices going from 2012 to 2013,
so this seems like a reasonable time to revise our prices. The prices on the list below include all appropriate sales tax we need to
You'll notice we're trying to nudge the industry into doing 13, 24 or even 48 hour
turning movement counts with our pricing. It would be a huge step forward for our industry to start using 48 hour turning movement counts in our analyses.


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Sleep is the new sex, reckons Marian Salzman, a New York advertising executive and author of “Next Now”. In hectic lives, sleep is at a premium. And sleep sells, whether it's flat beds on airlines, sleep consultancy, or a nap at MetroNaps in the Empire State Building. In America, growing numbers of couples are installing “sleep chambers” to give them a sleep-alone option as well as a sleep-together option. Why suffer from a partner's snoring? People are “finding it harder to do the sharing thing,” says Ms Salzman.
Person-to-person lending will flourish in 2008, predicts Jeremy Gutsche, the Toronto-based head of TrendHunter.com. Borrowers and lenders come together directly on the web and cut out the banks. Some of these lending operations use an auction like eBay in which the lender willing to provide the lowest interest rate gets the borrower's loan; others (like CircleLending, an American firm) are for people who already know one another but who want someone to help formalise the loan arrangement. “Peer-to-peer” lending is working its way into the charitable sector, too: Kiva.org puts potential “social investors” in touch with small businesses in the developing world, which promise to send e-mail updates on how the business is developing.
N11 is Goldman Sachs's shorthand for the “next 11” countries snapping at the heels of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as investment opportunities. They are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam. In 2008, watch especially for booming Vietnam.
Vicarious consumption, a term coined a century ago by an economist, Thorstein Veblen, to describe the thrill rich people get when they buy their butler a lovely new uniform, is making a comeback in a new form, according to Amsterdam-based Trendwatching. It involves services for telling consumers “exactly what other consumers are enjoying and valuing most”—websites such as iliketotallyloveit.com and ballofdirt.com are part of the trend.
Newly released ex-cons—one of Mark Penn's many “microtrends”—will continue to flood out of America's jails, needing training and jobs. In the 1980s and 1990s, America's prison population quintupled. Now, their time served, prisoners are being released in record numbers. This is a microtrend, argues Mr Penn, that “government and business need to get going on right away”. And if the credit crunch of 2007 continues to bite, another of Mr Penn's microtrends will become all too pertinent in 2008:
bourgeois and bankrupt.


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The rumors are true, a new Battlefield is in development and set for a 2021 release. With EA also confirming Battlefield mobile for 2022.
The console and PC version of Battlefield will launch this year and EA is advertising it as the biggest game in the series. Considering how terrible Battlefield V’s release and post-launch went it’s the least they can do. With Battlefield V launching to major technical issues and the post-launch content being canceled after constant disappointments.
EA and DICE didn’t reveal when this game will take place but rumors state it’ll be set during WW2. EA and DICE promise more information will be revealed later, most likely during Summer 2021 during EA Play.
As for the mobile game, EA and DICE confirmed it’ll be separate from the core franchise. Considering the massive profitability of Call of Duty mobile expect the same market. Large microtransactions and pay-to-win mechanics which is what EA is notoriously good for. It’s set for a 2022 release.
It’s always been our vision to bring Battlefield to more platforms. So, after years of prototyping, I’m super happy to be able to let you know that our friends at Industrial Toys, working closely with all of us here at DICE, are developing a completely new Battlefield game bringing all-out warfare to smartphones and tablets in 2022.
Battlefield 2021 will launch this holiday season. No exact platforms were revealed.


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As a first-generation college graduate, Susana Ferreira understands the benefits of earning a degree. The associate professor of agricultural and applied economics also knows that studying in another country can be life-changing.
In 2005, as an undergraduate student in the University of Georgia’s dietetics and consumer foods program, Janice Giddens wrote an essay as part of her application to the International Agriculture Certificate program:
“Teaching people the importance of growing indigenous and nutritious foods is as important as teaching them why they should consume them. This program will give me the ability to do this.”
When Maria Moore learned that scholarships were available to attend the Future Leaders Forum sponsored by the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development (AIARD), she immediately applied.
Aggrey Gama, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Griffin campus, is crafting a drink that would deliver the nutrition and tastiness of peanuts to consumers in his home country of Malawi.
As she began her sophomore year, Caroline Phillips knew something was missing from her collegiate experience.
“I had friends, was a member of various organizations, and was doing fine academically,” she recalls. “But I thought I needed something more.”


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Volo update on Black Friday
Last week Volo Commerce had a hardware failure which resulted in them having to change an IP address over the Black Friday weekend. Normally this wouldn’t make a difference to their customer as IP addresses aren’t generally something we remember – we use URLs as a human friendly way of finding webaddresses and the Internet (actually DNS servers) change these URLs to IP addresses and would automatically have updated to the new server’s IP address.
Volo informed their customers of the IP address change as some larger companies will be running firewalls and would only open specific IP addresses for traffic and block all other IP addresses. In these circumstances customers would have had to whitelist a new IP address for their computers to talk to Volo’s servers. It probably only affected a handful of customers but naturally Volo informed their customers to make sure that those affected knew what to do.
Volo have given us the following update:
Volo Commerce customers benefited from a booming Black Friday / Cyber Monday weekend, resulting in 22% growth compared to the same weekend last year.
With increased online spending compared to bricks and mortar stores, and a number of retailers making the most of the eBay deals over the extended period, sales went from strength to strength.
Paul Watson, Volo CEO, said “Leading up to the weekend we were excited to see how results would compare to last year. In 2014, many customers saw sales over the weekend reach levels they’d never experienced before. This year we had the whole team primed for action to ensure the weekend ran as smoothly as possible for our customers, and the sales numbers just continued to rise.”
Tamebay published an email sent by Volo to its customers earlier this week regarding a hardware failure. Watson clarified, “This unforeseen outage impacted our FTP feeds server, not our core platform, and would have only potentially affected a small number of customers. We proactively notified customers to keep them up to date, and worked fast to rectify the issue. Overall, it had no impact on the great results our customers saw.”


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So you want to save the planet, but you can’t afford to buy a Prius or build a solar-powered house off the grid.
Environmentalists and eco-friendly entrepreneurs say one way to start living a greener life is to make just a few simple changes in your habits.
Among more than 200 exhibitors at a “Go Green Expo” June 26-28 in Atlanta were businesses hawking wares designed to help people use less energy, produce less waste and have less of an impact on the environment.
From their products and advice were drawn this list of five things those of more modest means can do to live a greener life:
Bring your own bags. The Georgia nonprofit GreenPlate Inc., which tries to persuade people to quit using petroleum-based plastic products, says consumers in the United States daily use more than a million plastic bags. Though many bags can be recycled, a lot of them still wind up in the trash, or on the roadside, or in the ocean.
According to GreenPlate’s Web site, “In the Pacific Ocean there’s an area twice the size of Texas where the plastic to plankton ratio is more than 6:1. We now know 90 percent of marine trash is made of plastic — and 80 percent comes from land and local watersheds. Plastic is being mistaken for krill, eaten by fish, and is now entering our food chain.”
Try to break the plastic-bag habit. Get cloth bags and keep them in your car to use when you buy groceries or other goods.
Bottle your own water. Polly Sattler of GreenPlate said a consumer can save from $375 to $1,500 by filtering water into a reusable bottle instead of buying bottled water. For $39, GreenPlate sells a stainless steel bottle with a filter inside. The filter can clean 100 gallons of water before it needs replacing, she said. A replacement filter costs $22. The steel bottle takes the place of 750 plastic water bottles, she said.
According to researcher Marcus Eriksen: “Our ‘throw away’ society produces 120 billion pounds of plastic in the U.S. alone, and recovers less than 5 percent.” When it comes to plastic water bottles, only 20 percent are recycled, said Wayne Griffin of Aqua Filter King, another producer of stainless steel, filter water bottles. The company’s campaigning to get college students to stop buying water in plastic bottles, noting that if 20,000 students each buy one bottle of water a week for 40 weeks, it adds up to 800,000 bottles, or 12 tons of plastic waste. Aqua Filter King is sending its product overseas to countries where water-borne diseases are a deadly threat.
Change your light bulbs. Compact fluorescent light bulbs use 70 percent less energy and last 10 times longer than conventional incandescent bulbs. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, taking out one 60-watt incandescent bulb and replacing it with a 13-watt compact fluorescent bulb can save you $30 before the bulb burns out. Incandescent bulbs burn hot, heating rooms and jacking up air-conditioning costs.
Another option: light-emitting diode or LED lights. They’re eight to 10 times more efficient than standard light bulbs, but according to RedBird LED of Atlanta, they can cost $24 or more, depending on the model. The benefit is that an LED light uses so much less energy that it soon pays for itself in reduced power costs. And it produces less heat, too. At the Atlanta expo, RedBird had a 46-watt halogen light and a 15-watt LED light each shining on a dark surface. Each light was equally bright, but the temperature on that black surface was 96 degrees under the LED, and 170 degrees under the halogen light.
Stop driving so much. When it’s practical, try taking the bus, biking or walking to work or to run errands. Besides burning gas and costing you money, cars contribute heavily to air pollution, and to water pollution, too, in parking lot runoff. Columbus is investing $12.5 million in a bike trail from downtown to Psalmond Road, and the Chattahoochee Riverwalk can be a scenic alternative for commuters or shoppers whose routes parallel the river.
If you think it’s too hot to pedal, consider this: Among the exhibitors at the Atlanta expo was Steven Bodenstein with Worldwide Electric Bikes Inc. of Marietta, who has come up with a kit that enables bicyclists to power their bikes with a rechargeable lithium-phosphate battery. It has a three-speed control. It can make a bike go up to 22 mph. It can last three years or 1,000 recharges, and you can ride your bike to work, slide the battery off, take it inside and plug it in by your desk. The battery-powered system will go 18-25 miles before it needs a recharge. The kit costs $650, but Bodenstein says it will work on any bike, including one he got at a yard sale for about $15. He also sells battery-powered bikes you can fold up and stick in your car trunk, for $779.
Grow your own food. Gardening is not just a satisfying hobby; it’s a money-saver, once you’re good at it. According to Daron Joffe of Farmer D Organics, a properly prepared 4-by-8-foot garden bed planted with greens, tomatoes, garlic, spinach, lettuce and peppers over the course of four seasons can save the grower $500 in grocery costs. Because of the weakened economy, more people are going green by growing their own goods, Joffe said. The nursery industry reports that vegetables and herbs have surpassed perennials in sales, and seed companies have more than doubled their business. Don’t have a yard to plant? Farmer D sells boxed beds that can rest atop a kitchen counter or out on an apartment balcony.
But of course you don’t have to mail-order a garden. You can get all you need at local shops, and get advice from your local extension service office. The one here in Muscogee County is now taking applications for a fall Master Gardener Class, held 9-11:30 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays Sept. 1-Nov. 6. For more information, call Jennifer Davidson at 706-653-4200.


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Mascots are one of the most popular ways in which brands communicate with their audience. They act as the brand’s storyteller and convey the brand’s message in a more relatable manner. Along with strengthening the brand positioning, they also increase the recall value. Duracell’s Bunny, Bisleri’s Badal (camel), Hutch’s Pug, and Geico in the USA have gained tremendous popularity over the years and have been etched in the audience’s mind. Gooddo, GoodDot’s mascot, has also been introduced with the aim of promoting GoodDot’s core message: Do Good.
Post campaign, the company witnessed a sharp spike in online sales. According to Abhishek Sinha, co-founder, GoodDot, it’s important to pass on the message of goodness in a fun form and people are very receptive to such campaigns.
“We are finding that more and more consumers are adopting plant-based meats and simultaneously reducing and even eliminating animal meat from their diet. In fact, we have already issued 5000 documented certificates of appreciation for people who have given up meat all across India,” Sinha added.
“While we can’t exactly quantify the amount for marketing, it’s in crores and digital push will be the main focus area along with offline activations,” he further commented. The company manufactures and sells textured vegetable proteins using vegan ingredients and produces all kinds of plant-based alternatives for mutton, chicken, fish, egg, and other meats.
The current sales outlook of the company is extremely optimistic and plans to grow more than 100 percent YoY. GoodDot is present all across India and is also tying up with leading retail chains like D-Mart, Reliance Retail, Spencer’s, Spar, and Namdharis to expand its footprint. Exports are another focus area for the brand.
In terms of its HoReCa presence, the brand is already supplying to Domino’s, Samosa Party and properties of Marriott, Leela, Trident, Radisson, Fern, Sofitel, etc. “This year we will focus on building even stronger partnerships with the HORECA players and some exciting partnership announcements are on the anvil,” Sinha stated.


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Kidcoin partner Basement Sports, a mixed reality gaming company, is dropping 32,000 unique Country & Player NFTs (1,000 for each of the 32 qualifying teams) on Day 1 of the 2022 World Cup. The minting – which costs $25 per player – will happen through the Basement Sports app, where users will get to choose and showcase these unique avatars on social media and use them in actual soccer gameplay within the app. Where does Kidcoin come in? Gamers can livestream and earn Kidcoins as reward points when using NFT Teams.
“There has never been a soccer fan club like this, with gaming options where your character comes to life,” says Basement Sports Founder Arman Rousta, “By minting their own player NFTs, worldwide football fans get exclusive access to game features, Kidcoin rewards, sports merchandise and VIP experiences – both virtual and real-world.”
All the information about how to get these NFT avatars is on Basement Sport's website at basementsports.com/nft. Fans get to choose single teams like Brazil or France, full 4-team groups as per the World Cup bracket, or the full slate of 32 countries. NFT Owners can “trade,” sell or buy skins through the app or on NFT exchange, OpenSea.
The creative mind behind this NFT project is Mustafa Farhad, Creative Director at Blueliner, a global digital agency. “We wanted to create player avatars that young soccer fans the world over can immediately relate to and through them share in the common excitement, passion, glory and heartache that is the World Cup.”
On the technical side, a team of engineers led by Blueliner CTO, Kaiyes Ansary, built the Basement Sports app and now the NFT system, which includes Kidcoin payments integration. “This is a unique cross-over project, that brings web3, crypto elements into a mainstream interface, using web and app platforms that kids and parents are used to engaging with. We chose the Polygon network to build the NFT architecture because of its speed and reliability, as it is a layer on top of the trusted and secure Ethereum Network.”
With World Cup action slated to kickoff next week, the Basement Sports team is planning several watch parties globally, as well as daily contests, from which winners will be rewarded NFTs and other prizes. Each World Cup Group has an Ambassador and Team that can be followed on Basement Sport's official Twitter and Instagram channels.


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NATICK, Mass. – Tom Blakey remembers cooking everything from coffee to potatoes in his helmet during World War II. He and other members of the 82nd Airborne Division would plop their “steel pot” helmets onto campfires and heat whatever was inside.
That isn't an option for modern-day soldiers, whose Kevlar-fiber helmets can defend against bullets but don't work so well for cooking.
So researchers at the Defense Department's Combat Feeding program in Natick came up with an easier way for troops to make a hot cup of joe: A thick, resealable polyethelyene bag that can be used anywhere.
Soldiers mix instant coffee with water in the bag, then slide it into the flameless ration heater bags troops use to warm their meals. A magnesium and iron oxide pad within the flameless ration bag transfers heat to the water in the hot beverage bag. Within minutes, the coffee is steaming hot.
Soldiers slip the bag into an envelope-like cardboard carton, which can be used like a cup to drink the coffee and protect their hands from scalding.
Barbara Daley, a food technologist at the Defense Department's Combat Feeding program, said many soldiers on the front lines were going without coffee because there was no easy way to make it. So researchers in the feeding program, based at the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, spent about two years developing the Hot Beverage Bag, or HBB, as it is known in military speak.
“There are coffee lovers out there and they wanted a way to make a hot cup of coffee. We found a simple, dependable, inexpensive way to do it,” said Daley, who helped develop the bag.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Rick Haddad, who spent two months in Afghanistan last year, said the lightweight, easy-to-use bag was a big hit with the soldiers in his platoon, who previously often went without coffee.
“It's a morale thing,” Haddad said. “Any time in a cold weather environment, if you can have something hot once a day, that definitely improves morale, especially if you are pulling guard duty for 12 hours a night with no sunlight.”
Still, the instant coffee won't be mistaken for Starbucks.
The bags were first introduced to troops last year and are now being included in every meal pack, known as Meal, Ready-to-Eat, or MRE. They cost about 6 cents each to produce.
Blakey said a device like the hot beverage bag would have come in handy during World War II. Although helmets were a popular way to make coffee or cook meals for a group of soldiers, that could only be done when they were sure the enemy wasn't close enough to see or smell smoke from the campfire.
“You had to have the proper circumstances ... because of the fire situation and the proximity of the Germans,” he said. “When we found a fire they were building, we bombed it, just like they did to us.”
David Stieghan, U.S. Army Infantry Branch historian at Fort Benning, Ga., said soldiers have used a variety of military-issued utensils as well as their own ingenuity to find ways to make coffee during wartime.
In the Civil War, Union soldiers were issued unroasted and ungrounded coffee beans, along with a one-quart tin-plated steel cup. Soldiers would roast a few coffee beans at the bottom of their cups or in a small frying pan, then use their bayonet socket to crush the beans. They would then pour water into the cup and boil it on a campfire, Stieghan said.
In recent years, front-line soldiers have used gelatinous fuel tabs to heat up coffee in their canteen cups, but that system wasn't always practical. Neither the fuel tabs nor canteen cups were always readily available, and soldiers had to use matches to light the tabs, so making coffee or other hot beverages that way could be messy.
“When it comes to coffee, soldiers have always done whatever it takes,” Stieghan said, “just for the pick-me-up or the feeling of having something warm in their hands.”


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Jtekt Leads Japan Bearing Makers Lower on Price-Fixing Probe
Jtekt Corp. (6473) led Japanese makers of ball bearings lower after the European Commission began an antitrust investigation into the industry on concern that there may have been violations of competition rules.
Jtekt, which said its Dutch unit was inspected by the EU antitrust body, lost 8.5 percent to 744 yen. NSK Ltd. (6471) said its German unit was investigated. NTN Corp. (6472), which said units in France and Germany were probed, and Nachi Fujikoshi Corp., whose German unit was also subject to visits, dropped by at least 5 percent.
NSK plunged 7 percent to 522 yen. NTN tumbled 5 percent to 306 yen.
The commission confirmed on Nov. 8 that antitrust officials inspected companies that make bearings used by automotive and industrial manufacturers over suspected price fixing. It didn’t name the companies in an e-mailed Nov. 8 statement.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Gentle at email@example.com


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South Korean biometric security specialist Suprema, Inc. has announced that it has added biometric authentication to its newly launched X-Station 2 access control terminal.
The upgraded version of the X-Station 2 is now able to support fingerprint authentication via new modules in addition to its existing support for mobile access cards, RFID cards, QR codes, and barcodes.
“With COVID-19 increasing the demand for smartphone-based, non-face-to-face solutions, we received good reviews following the original launch of our X-Station 2 mobile access authentication terminal,” commented Suprema CEO Hanchul Kim. “The newly launched X-Station 2 fingerprint model diversifies contactless authentication options to customers who use existing biometric information. They can now enjoy the same level of security performance while offering users the convenience and peace of mind that mobile access brings.”
The X-Station 2 — introduced in May of 2021 — was designed to provide venue operators with a more flexible approach to their access control setups. This flexibility has been further enhanced now that the terminals feature support for an increasingly popular biometric authentication modality.
Among the main features of Suprema’s terminal is the use of an built-in camera for fraud prevention via user photo authentication. The devices feature a 4-inch touch screen panel, and are capable of storing and processing as many as 500,000 users.
The X-Station 2 also features compatibility with iOS and Android phones, using NFC and Bluetooth technologies to communicate with mobile devices running these operating systems.
“X-Station 2 is a versatile terminal that can be installed in any facilities with time and attendance, visitor management and access control needs,” said Suprema CEO Hanchul Kim. “Its mobile credential options can also satisfy contactless and non-face-to-face needs.”
This past summer, Suprema showcased the X-Station 2 at ISC West in Las Vegas, alongside its contactless offerings such as the BioStar 2 solution and its FaceStation F2 terminals equipped with facial recognition.


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The official Eurovision album is now digitally available!
As usual, EBU will release the official album of Eurovision, which will contain all the 40 participating entries of this year’s contest. The CD release is due to April 22, however, the digital version of the album is now available on all streaming platforms!
This year, fans can celebrate the sound of music with a nostalgic twist. The album of the contest will be released also in Vinyl and Cassettes! These versions will be available in early May.
You can listen to the album on Spotify below!
Are you going to buy the CD? Do you like the idea of getting the vinyls or the cassettes? Let us know in the comments below!


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10/3/2012 2:28:01 PM
EE start selling 4G-ready handsets
EE has started selling 4G-ready phones although it is still staying tightlipped about how much a next generation contract will cost.
The operator announced earlier today (Wenedsay) that it will switch on 4G across 10 cities on 30 October. In addition to the 4G-ready iPhone 5, which went on sale last month, the Samsung Galaxy S III LTE, HTC One XL and Huawei Ascend P1 LTE are now available on Orange and T-Mobile contracts. It will also sell a 4G compatible Samsung Galaxy Note II from 15 October. Nokia's forthcoming 4G-ready handsets are expected at the end of October or early November.
Customers who buy the devices will have the choice of switching over to EE's 4G network when it launches or staying on the existing 3G network. EE said customers will be able to upgrade onto a 4G plan at any point of their contract. Pippa Dunn, chief marketing officer at EE, said: 'We’re delighted to now be offering our customers a range of 4G-ready smartphones to choose from. Not only can they use their phones straight away on the UK’s biggest 3G network, but they can also have the opportunity to be amongst the first to benefit from superfast 4G mobile speeds when we launch our EE brand on 30 October.'
Editor: Graeme Neill


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Last week I wrote that McDonald's anti-union labor practices are more harmful than its food. Well, the SEIU is calling on us all to stand up. Tomorrow at noon, the SEIU wants you to go into your local McDonald's and educate employees about Employee Free Choice. They're fed up with the fact that McDonald's CEO makes 770 times the average worker.
You can help raise awareness about the need for fairer wages and working conditions, and all it will take is an hour of your time tomorrow at lunch. SEIU has all the details, including action materials and instructions.


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The new pan-African passport reported to be introduced in 2018 will allow travellers from across Africa to visit other countries on the continent without a visa. This, according to research by global travel technology provider Sabre Corporation, is expected to increase travel spend by 24%.
Travellers from were surveyed to gain insights into travelling in Africa in an effort to alleviate airlines of certain issues and capitalise on opportunities. The travellers surveyed had all flown within the past 24 months and shared that they would be willing to spend between $1,100 to $1,500 more on travel with the introduction of the pan-African passport.
Survey participants also highlighted that they would like more personalised and tailored travel journeys, saying they’d be willing to pay up to $104 more per trip for extras such as excess baggage and special food and beverages.
“Airlines will flourish if they invest in technology that can make sense of customer data, and use it to offer passengers the right product in the right context at the right time,” said Dino Gelmetti, Sabre vice president Airline Solutions, Europe, Middle East and Africa. “This technology, which empowers airlines to mirror the personalised shopping tactics already mastered by the online retail industry, has been proven to increase ancillary revenue by an average of 10%, and is being used by some of the world’s most forward-thinking carriers.”
Of those surveyed, 23% has not travelled abroad at all in the past two years. Their top reasons for not travelling more often:
- 32% said travel is too expensive.
- 31% said it’s difficult obtaining visas.
- 30% said it’s too difficult to book flights.
- 28% said there are no flights to their chosen destination.
Issues cited about travelling:
- 27% said the check-in process takes too long.
- 22% said the check-in procedure is confusing.
- 20% don’t like the food on planes.
- 19% think there is not enough to do at the airport.
Their top three reasons for choosing a local carrier over a foreign airline:
- It offered cheaper tickets.
- It offered the latest technology on board.
- It offered greater comfort on board.
“The results suggest that while travel is inaccessible to many and is difficult for those that do travel, there is still a strong desire to travel more,” said Gelmetti. “Additionally, most of the pain points can be addressed by airlines, and these tweaks could make all the difference to travellers. African carriers currently face tough competition from international rivals that control 88% of African airspace. But, as demand for travel increases, African airlines have a real opportunity to win the lion’s share of bookings by addressing the pain points of travellers and going the extra mile to improve their experience.”


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“Nioh” official strategy guide will no longer be released this month. In the meantime, the game has already exceeded its one million mark in number of units sold.
by Mia P.
Koei Tecmo's "Nioh" has reportedly received great reviews since its launch.
by Michael Augustin


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These days, it seems everyone's craving the cool taste of frozen yogurt. Google's Android 2.2 operating system -- better known by its nickname, "Froyo" -- is slowly making its way to handsets around the world. But there's still plenty of confusion over which phones will get Froyo and which will be left in the cold.
It's no surprise: Since Google's announcement of Android 2.2 in May of 2010, many manufacturers and carriers have been slow to reveal specifics about their Froyo upgrade plans. But piecing together the bits of info the powers-that-be have divulged, we can get a fairly decent picture of where most major devices stand.
Here's what we know right now.
[Page last updated: February 21, 2012]
The Android 2.2 Upgrade List: Phones That Have Received (or Are Receiving) Froyo
Nexus One [UPDATED]: As expected, Google's flagship phone was first in line for the Froyo upgrade. In late May, a "very limited test group" received an early copy of the 2.2 software. By late June, a full Nexus One Froyo rollout had taken place.
HTC EVO 4G [UPDATED]: Sprint rolled out Froyo to EVO users in early August, making the EVO the first carrier-specific device to receive the upgrade.
Motorola Droid [UPDATED]: Verizon rolled out Android 2.2 to the original Droid in August, shortly after the EVO upgrade had begun. A second update, which enabled support for Adobe Flash, was released soon thereafter. (After receiving the second update, you'll need to download the Adobe Flash Player software from the Android Market in order to gain Flash functionality.)
HTC Droid Incredible [UPDATED]: Verizon started rolling out Froyo to the Droid Incredible on Friday, August 27.
HTC Desire [UPDATED 2/8/11]: The European edition of the HTC Desire started seeing Froyo over the July 31st weekend (2010). The rollout began with unlocked versions of the phone and is now making its way to the various carrier-branded devices. In the States, meanwhile, U.S. Cellular made the Android 2.2 upgrade available for its Desire handset on February 8, 2011; the software has to be manually downloaded and installed from U.S. Cellular's website.
Motorola Droid X [UPDATED]: Verizon started sending the Android 2.2 update to Droid X owners in mid-September. Some Droid X users have reported issues with their phones' performance since receiving the Android 2.2 upgrade. According to a support forum posting by a Motorola employee, Motorola is aware of these issues and is working on a secondary software update that will correct them.
MyTouch 3G [UPDATED 1/27/11]: T-Mobile rolled out Froyo to the original MyTouch 3G beginning on October 13 and lasting through mid-December 2010. The initial rollout affected only the original MyTouch 3G phone. After promising a January 12 start date for the myTouch 3G 3.5mm Jack and myTouch Fender LE's rollout, T-Mobile started sending the 2.2 update to those devices on January 25.
MyTouch 3G Slide [UPDATED 4/1/11]: No April Fools here: T-Mobile and HTC finally offered up Froyo to MyTouch 3G Slide users starting April 1, 2011. The update is a manual download; you can find the files you need along with instructions at HTC's Android 2.2 upgrade page.
Dell Streak [UPDATED 2/23/11]: Call it a tablet, call it a phone, call it whatever you want -- Dell's plus-sized Android device is finally getting its fill of Froyo. In a posting at its official company blog, Dell said it had begun sending Android 2.2 over-the-air to unlocked (non-U.S.) Streak devices as of November 15, 2010. Phones purchased through non-U.S. carriers started receiving the update soon thereafter. On February 23, 2011, Dell announced it was rolling out Froyo to Streak users on both AT&T in the U.S. and Rogers in Canada.
Acer Liquid E [NEW ADDITION]: Acer Canada released the Android 2.2 upgrade for its Liquid E handset in mid-November. The update can be manually downloaded and installed from the "Download Center" section of acer.ca (located under the site's "Service and Support" menu).
Archos Internet Tablet [NEW ADDITION]: Archos released the Android 2.2 upgrade for its Archos Internet Tablet in late November. Models 28, 32, 43, 70, and 101 are all supported. The update can be manually downloaded from Archos' Web site.
HTC Legend [UPDATED]: Some users of carrier-bound HTC Legends, such as those purchased from Vodafone in the UK, started receiving Froyo in November. Users of unbranded Legend devices, meanwhile, started receiving the upgrade from HTC in early December.
HTC Magic [UPDATED 12/15/10]: Vodafone announced the start of the HTC Magic's Froyo rollout in mid-December. The update will be sent in waves, meaning it'll reach only a limited subset of users each day and thus may take some time to make its way to everyone. You'll receive a notification on your phone when the download is available to you.
Samsung Intercept [UPDATED 4/8/11]: Sprint started the Samsung Intercept's Froyo rollout on December 17, 2010. Like most Android upgrades, the software is being sent out over-the-air in waves; that means it'll reach only a subset of users each day and may take a good few weeks to hit every handset. Some users who received the upgrade in the first few days experienced problems with their phones; see "Sprint investigating issues with Samsung Intercept Froyo rollout" for the full story. Virgin Mobile, meanwhile, started rolling out Android 2.2 to its Intercept handset in mid-April 2011.
HTC Aria [UPDATED 2/24/11]: The HTC Aria is actually getting Froyo right now. HTC announced the rollout of Android 2.2 for Aria users in Southeast Asia in December 2010. In a posting on its Facebook page in late February, AT&T said the Froyo update would be made available for its HTC Aria customers on Friday, February 25, 2011.
HTC Wildfire [UPDATED 12/20/10]: HTC started rolling out Froyo to Wildfire phones in Europe in late December, according to a posting on the company's official Facebook page. The Wildfire upgrade will move to other countries next, with the full rollout set to be finished by February of 2011.
Samsung Acclaim [UPDATED 1/13/11]: U.S. Cellular made the Android 2.2 upgrade available to users of its Samsung Acclaim smartphone on January 13. The update is a manual download; you can find it here.
LG Ally [UPDATED 1/19/11]: After promising a February 2011 Froyo rollout for its LG Ally smartphone, Verizon ended up started the process early. Verizon's support site was updated with instructions for the Ally's Android 2.2 upgrade on Tuesday, January 18. The following morning, the carrier announced that the rollout had officially begun. The Ally's upgrade will be sent out to users in waves, as most Android updates are. That means it may take several weeks for the software to reach everyone.
Samsung Galaxy S [UPDATED 4/20/11]: All of Samsung's Galaxy S handsets will be getting Froyo. That includes AT&T's Samsung Captivate, Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G, T-Mobile's Samsung Vibrant, and Verizon's Samsung Fascinate. Some specifics:
The Android 2.2 upgrade became available for T-Mobile's Samsung Vibrant on Friday, January 21. Despite early reports that the software would be sent over-the-air, as most Android upgrades are, it appears T-Mobile is requiring users to manually download the software via PC using Samsung's Kies Mini program. You can find full instructions and get your upgrade started by visiting T-Mobile's official support page.
Sprint started rolling out its Epic 4G Froyo upgrade the night of Monday, February 21. Sprint then halted the Epic's update on February 24 due to storage problems some users were having as a result of the new software. After adjusting the release, the carrier restarted the rollout the week of March 21. On February 24, AT&T made the Froyo upgrade available to its Samsung Captivate phone. The update must be manually downloaded and installed through Samsung's Kies software; you can find instructions here.
Verizon Wireless has confirmed it will finally launch Froyo for its Samsung Fascinate on Thursday, April 21, 2011. Users will be able to manually download the update by selecting the "Update Phone" option in the "About Phone" section of the device's settings. Additional info and instructions are available on Verizon's official Fascinate update page.
U.S. Cellular posted the Android 2.2 upgrade for its Samsung Mesmerize Galaxy S phone on March 26, 2011. The update can be downloaded and installed from U.S. Cellular's Web site.
Galaxy S handsets in the Nordic region started receiving the upgrade in mid-October.
Some Galaxy S devices in the UK and Korea started getting the update in mid-November; others, such as phones connected to UK carrier ThreeUK, received the upgrade in early December.
The Froyo upgrade became available to all Galaxy S owners in Canada in December.
Motorola Milestone [UPDATED 3/15/11]: After several delays, on March 15, 2011, Motorola announced it was beginning the Android 2.2 upgrade for its Milestone handset. The rollout will take place "in selected countries," Moto said via its Facebook page, with more locations being added in phases. Motorola says you can keep tabs on motorola.com/mymilestone to check on your country's upgrade status. It also appears you can now manually download and install the upgrade from Motorola here.
Motorola Bravo [UPDATED 4/15/11]: Motorola announced the start of its Android 2.2 rollout for the Bravo on April 15, 2011. The Bravo's Froyo upgrade will be sent out in waves, meaning a subset of users will receive it each day. Typically, it takes anywhere from several days to a few weeks for this type of rollout to complete. You'll receive a notification on your phone when the upgrade becomes available to you.
Nook Color [UPDATED 4/25/11]: It isn't technically a phone, but Barnes & Noble's Android-powered e-reader received an Android 2.2 upgrade in late April 2011. The software update fo the Nook Color can be downloaded and installed from Barnes & Noble's website.
Motorola Defy [UPDATED 7/5/11]: Motorola made the Android 2.2 upgrade available to Defy owners on April 21, 2011. The update is available as an over-the-air download; you can view the full Motorola Defy Froyo release notes here. (For Defy users on T-Mobile in the U.K., the upgrade is expected to become available in late July, according to the carrier.)
ViewSonic ViewPad 10 [UPDATED 5/4/11]: ViewSonic updated its ViewPad 10 from the archaic-sounding Android 1.6 to Froyo in early May 2011. The upgrade isn't exactly simple; for instructions, visit ViewSonic's PDF info sheet or call the company at 1-800-888-8583.
LG Apex [UPDATED 5/12/11]: U.S. Cellular released Froyo for its LG Apex phone in early May 2011. The update is available as a manual download from U.S. Cellular's website.
Huawei Ascend [UPDATED 6/7/11]: MetroPCS made the Android 2.2 upgrade available to its Huawei Ascend phone in early June 2011. The upgrade must be installed manually; for instructions, see MetroPCS's Ascend upgrade page.
Motorola Flipside [UPDATED 8/18/11]: Better late than never, Motorola announced availability of the Android 2.2 upgrade for its AT&T Flipside phone in August of 2011. The upgrade is available as a manual download from Motorola's website.
Samsung Continuum [UPDATED 2/21/12]: After months upon months of rumors and waiting, Samsung and Verizon finally delivered Android 2.2 to the long-neglected Continuum in February of 2012 (!). More information about the upgrade is available at Verizon's website.
The Android 2.2 Upgrade List: Phones Expected to Get Froyo
Samsung Transform [UPDATED 3/18/11]: In an October 2010 press release, Sprint said its Samsung Transform smartphone was scheduled to be upgraded to Android 2.2 before the year's end. 2010 is officially behind us, though, and the rollout has yet to begin. Sprint thus far has not announced a new target date, though recent rumors point to March 21 as the day to watch.
Samsung Galaxy Apollo [UPDATED 1/28/11]: Samsung reps on Twitter have said that the UK-based Galaxy Apollo will receive an Android 2.2 upgrade "once the Galaxy S rollout is complete." On January 28, an unofficial Samsung blog said the Apollo's update would become available in "one month." It provided no source for its information. There's been no official mention of the Galaxy 3 device, meanwhile, but given its similarity to the Apollo, one might surmise that it has a decent shot at receiving an upgrade as well.
Sanyo Zio [UPDATED 2/17/11]: In mid-February, screenshots said to be from Sprint's internal computer system appeared on the Web suggesting that the Zio would receive an over-the-air upgrade to Android 2.2 on February 21. As of now, the information has not been confirmed.
Orange San Francisco [UPDATED 6/20/11]: The confusingly named Orange San Francisco handset -- available only in Europe -- may finally be getting its fill of Froyo. According to European Android blogs, ZTE will deliver the Android 2.2 upgrade to the San Francisco handset in the last week of June 2011.
The Android 2.2 Upgrade List: Phones Where Froyo Looks Iffy
Motorola Backflip [UPDATED]: The Android phone given the locked-down treatment by AT&T might get the Froyo nod, but I wouldn't place any wagers just yet. The Backflip didn't receive Android 2.1 until mid-November, and so far, Motorola has stayed quiet about the prospect of any further upgrades. It could happen -- but you may not want to hold your breath.
Motorola Cliq [UPDATED]: The Cliq is in a similar situation to the Backflip. With the upgrade to 2.1 just released in November and not a word said about 2.2, the odds of Froyo arriving anytime in the foreseeable future sure don't seem high. (This type of delay, by the way, is why I say it's time for the baked-in Android UI to die.) After accidentally tweeting about a Cliq Android 2.2 upgrade in October, T-Mobile and Motorola confirmed the Cliq phone was currently still in-line only for the 2.1 release.
The Android 2.2 Upgrade List: Phones Not Expected to Get Froyo
T-Mobile G1: The first Android phone, unfortunately, isn't expected to get the Froyo upgrade; its hardware is said to be too limited to provide full support. It's been nearly two years since the phone's release, though, so the option for a handset upgrade shouldn't be too far away for Android's earliest adopters.
Samsung Behold II: Samsung has indicated its Behold II won't be upgraded beyond Android 1.6. As for a reason, the company has said only that the phone is "not upgradeable" beyond that point.
HTC Hero [UPDATED]: The Hero will not receive the Froyo update, according to information released by Sprint in late June.
Samsung Moment [UPDATED]: The Moment is also not slated to receive Android 2.2, that same Sprint information revealed. No further details were provided as to what led to the decision for either phone.
Motorola Devour [UPDATED]: Motorola has confirmed the Devour will not be upgraded to Android 2.1, let alone Android 2.2. Things had looked iffy for Verizon's non-Droid Motorola Android since the start; up until late August, the phone had been listed as "under evaluation" for the Android 2.1 upgrade.
HTC Droid Eris [UPDATED]: After months of speculation, Verizon has now confirmed that the Eris will not get Froyo. The phone, debuted alongside the original Droid in 2009, had taken a back seat to higher profile devices since day 1. Verizon stopped selling the Eris earlier in the summer.
Motorola Milestone XT720 [UPDATED 7/5/11]: In late November, Motorola announced it would not upgrade its XT720 tablet phone -- available in Canada and Europe -- beyond its current Android 2.1 level. The company gave no specific reason for its decision. In late July, Cincinnnati Bell provided a workaround for its Milestone XT720 users; you can find details here.
Sony Xperia X10, Xperia X10 Mini, & Xperia X10 Mini Pro [UPDATED 1/6/11]: Sony swore its first AT&T Android phone would receive an upgrade to Android 2.1 before 2010's end, and in late October, it made good on that promise. After stayed oddly quiet for months about its plans to bring 2.2 to the device, however, the company has now gone on the record as saying the Xperia X10 phones will not receive any future OS upgrades.
Motorola i1 [UPDATED 2/6/11]: After months of silence, Motorola confirmed in early February that its Motorola i1 Android device would remain on Android 1.5.
Motorola Charm [UPDATED 2/6/11]: Motorola has confirmed that its Charm Android phone will not be upgraded beyond Android 2.1.
Motorola Flipout [UPDATED 2/6/11]: The Motorola Flipout won't be bumped up beyond its current Android 2.1 level, according to an update released by Moto in early February.
Motorola Cliq XT [UPDATED 2/6/11]: The Cliq XT will not be upgraded to Froyo, Motorola has now confirmed. In a posting on Motorola's official owners' forum, a representative said "the software could not meet the basic performance standards required" while running on the device.
The Android 2.2 Upgrade List: The Rest of the Phones
If a phone isn't listed here, chances are there's just not much in the way of clear info about its fate so far. So stay tuned and set your bookmarks: I'll continue updating this page as new details become available for any Android devices.
In the meantime, why not learn the five-minute trick to free Android tethering? Or check out this 10-step guide to improving Android battery life -- you never know when an extra hour of power might come in handy.
Hey, anything that takes your mind off the wait for Froyo can only help.
UPDATE: For the latest upgrade info on Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread, click over to our new Android 2.3 upgrade list. And for an in-depth look at who's making the grade and who's failing when it comes to Android upgrade reliability, be sure to check out our special report: Android upgrades: Which manufacturers can you trust?


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The 2022 Honda Civic hatch will be available in Europe exclusively as a hybrid.
This Mini special edition celebrates Pat Moss and Ann Wisdom’s 1962 Tulip Rally victory for International Women’s Day.
The 2021 Mini Strip is a stripped back sustainable concept developed with fashion designer Paul Smith.
The Skoda Fabia was the last of the Volkswagen Group’s superminis to remain on the PQ26 platform, but now it’s finally on MQB-A0.
The 2021 Skoda Fabia hatch is larger, more spacious, better looking, has the modern MQB-A0 platform, and turbocharged gas engines.
The electric 2021 Mini Cooper SE Collection hatch has the same facelift as its gas and diesel brothers with a simplified bumper and grille.
The 2021 Mini Cooper hatch is the second facelift for the third generation (F56), and has a simpler face and details.
The third generation F56 Mini Hatch has had two facelifts (one in 2021, and an earlier one in 2018). This the Cooper S hatch compared side by side.
The 2021 Mini Cooper S Hatch has the third generation’s second facelift with a simplified bumper and grille, and digital instrument pod.
The Hyundai Accent is leaving the Great White North at the end of the 2020 model year, leaving the Venue SUV as the company’s smallest car.


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Clinigen plans first pharma float in five years
Clinigen, a fast-growing UK company, on Tuesday announced its intention to float on AIM in a deal that will be the first pharmaceuticals IPO in London for five years. It paves the way for the founder and chairman to exit the business.
According to reports, the listing will value the company at £170m. The companys EBITDA for the first half of this year was £17.3m, up 109% from last year. Revenues were up 135% in the first half of 2012.
Floating the group will allow for the departure of its founder
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Amazon and Pandora shares fall over 10% on disappointing earnings, while Zillow earnings jumped on rumors of an imminent acquisition.
Most analysts remain bullish on Amazon.com despite disappointing second-quarter earnings.
Amazon.com shares plunged in after-hours trading after the company reported second quarter earnings that were worse than expected.
Facebook shares took off on strong earnings, while AT&T shares fell on missed estimates and Nokia shares rose after earnings beat expectations.
Analysts are largely bullish on Microsoft despite the stock remaining relatively flat after reporting its quarterly earnings yesterday.
Facebook shares surge in after-hours trading following better-than-expected quarterly results led by strong mobile advertising revenue growth.
Apple and Microsoft shares rose after reporting strong earnings for the quarter, while Xilinx and iRobot shares fell after reporting disappointing earnings.
IBM and USAA are partnering so returning veterans can use the IBM supercomputer Watson to answer questions about adjusting back to civilian life.
Netflix falls on missed earnings despite largely positive analyst coverage, while America Movil rises on stronger than expected earnings and Yahoo rises on acquisition.
Amazon's new Kindle Unlimited doesn't move shares, while GoPro rises on analyst initiation and Netflix gears up for second quarter earnings.


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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Mark Zuckerberg reportedly wanted Facebook to ‘inflict pain’ on Apple
By Noah Manskar
Apple’s public jabs at Facebook rankled CEO Mark Zuckerberg so much that he once said the social network needed “to inflict pain” on the iPhone maker, according to a report.
The reported comment was a harbinger of a bitter feud between the two tech titans that’s recently burst into public view after simmering behind the scenes for years.
Zuckerberg expressed his desire for vengeance after Apple chief Tim Cook panned Facebook’s data collection practices amid the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, according to the Wall Street Journal (paywall).
Asked how he would respond to the revelation that the political consulting firm had misused data from millions of Facebook users, Cook simply said he “wouldn’t be in this situation.”
In his public retort, Zuckerberg called Cook’s comment “glib” and “not at all aligned with the truth.” But he later seethed in a private meeting that Facebook needed to strike back at Apple for treating the social media giant so poorly, the Journal reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the exchange.
It’s unclear when exactly that meeting took place and what its purpose was. But it was just one episode in a battle over privacy, commerce and corporate responsibility that’s heated up over Apple’s efforts to prevent apps from secretly tracking people’s data.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Google reach deal on payments for journalism
By Meg James
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has reached an agreement with Google Inc. for the tech giant to pay for digital distribution of the publishing company’s news articles.
The landmark deal, announced Wednesday, comes after a 14-year-plus campaign by Murdoch and his lieutenant, News Corp. Chief Executive Robert Thomson, for Google and other technology giants to compensate publishers for the use of their journalism.
Google and Facebook have freely distributed news stories despite a steep decline in the publishing industry, which has been ravaged by a loss of advertising dollars that instead have gone to Google, Facebook and other online sites. Murdoch and Thomson have long believed that Google and other Silicon Valley platforms were unfairly profiting from the work of professional journalists.
Under the three-year agreement, News Corp. said it will receive payment when stories from its publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, New York Post, the Times of London, the Sun tabloid in London and dozens of papers in Australia, are featured in the Google News Showcase. News Corp. said the payments would be “significant.”
The pact comes amid a push for sweeping new regulations in Murdoch’s homeland of Australia, where the government has been poised to crack down on tech giants by forcing them to pay local news outlets for featuring and linking to their stories. Negotiations had been tense. Last month, Google threatened to pull its search engine out of Australia if the nation’s legislators adopted the proposed measures.
Facebook will block Australian users and publishers from sharing news links in response to new bill
By Nick Statt
Facebook has decided to block both Australian users and media companies from sharing links to news articles and related content on its main social network, following the country’s proposed landmark regulatory measure that would force tech giants to pay Australian news organizations for using their content.
The bill passed the Australian House of Representatives today and is believed to have enough votes to pass the Senate, The New York Times reported. The bill also targets Google, which at one point last month threatened to leave the country entirely. However, Google has since decided to start cutting deals with major Australian media organizations, like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., to comply. Facebook, it appears, will not follow suit — for now.
“The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content,” reads a blog post from William Easton, the managing director of Facebook Australia & New Zealand. “It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.”
The policy change from Facebook will have stark consequences for both users and media organizations.
LiveRamp pushes ahead with alternative to third-party cookies
By Kim Davis
LiveRamp, one of the biggest players in the data-driven CX (customer experience) space, has identified an alternative to third-party cookies known as Authenticated Traffic Solution, or ATS.
Travis Clinger, SVP, Addressability and Ecosystem at LiveRamp said “We’ve been investing substantially over the past four years in our authenticated traffic solution, ATS, which enables publishers to connect their first-party identities (a user log in on the New York Times, for example, or the Washington Post) to our people-based platform. As we see the end of the third-party cookie looming, and the changes to the IDFA happening this spring, we expect to continue to scale ATS. Already we have about one in five people logging in on the ATS network, and we expect to continue scaling that over the coming months, allowing marketers to continue to connect with their consumers across any channel without the need for a third-party cookie.”
Despite the opportunity ATS may offer, it’s not a perfect solution. Anonymous traffic, consisting of users who don’t log in to websites, eludes the grasp of ATS. Clinger agreed, but added, “a log in can be a variety of events. For example, it could be clicking a newsletter link, signing up for text alerts, or using a widget on the site to engage in comments or discussion.” The idea is to have consumers enter into a value exchange with the publisher, receiving content in return for elements of their identity.
There are many contrasting viewpoints about the effectiveness of contextual advertising, the long-established practice of assuming that audiences for certain types of content will be interested in certain types of products or services. Think beer commercials during NFL games, or just “soap operas.” With addressability now in question, it was inevitable that contextual advertising would get another close look.
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Upgraded security platform aims to clamp down on harmful malware and malicious Android apps.
The Redmond giant beats analysts expectations with a strong quarter showing non-GAAP revenues of $24.7 billion.
The move sees two of the largest and most notorious dark web marketplaces seized and shut down by Europol.
Citrix cloud users will now be able to manage secure digital workplaces on the Google Cloud Platform.
Need for returns is ranked higher than the lack of available infrastructure or improved device security.
Matt Hillman, principle security researcher on MWR InfoSecurity’s detection and response unit Countercept, breaks down what has happened, and offers practical advice on keeping safe and potential recovery.
Matt Bush, Director of Agencies at Google UK explains why brands need to step up their voice search if they want to serve customers well.
The growth of autonomous cars will spur the transition from an ownership model to cars as a service.


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Sweden may well be the one country in the world that is leading the charge toward cashless societies. Swedes use very little cash, and companies like PSI-Pay, and their affiliate Kerv Wearables, are leading us to believe that cashless payments will dominate the market soon enough. Cashless is already gripping the world, but PSI-Pay takes this one step further and are betting that “contactless” payments will be the wave of the future, and rightfully so. Money is expensive to print and is a dirty commodity. In fact, Kerv has a contactless payment ring that is already posing a threat to traditional payment systems in the UK.
With venerated institutions like the Church of England jumping on-board, creating electronic terminals for collecting cashless donations, there is growing comfort in cryptocurrencies and their relatively traceless transactions. Some security concerns speak of technology, loop holes, tracing information and how there are vulnerabilities around every corner. Others go as far as to say the only way to truly protect oneself is to use “prepaid” credit cards for online, cashless, and contactless transactions.
That seems antiquated, and with credit card companies, banks and systems like Apple Pay perfectly established to thwart fraudulent efforts, going back to taking cash to a big box store to buy a prepaid credit card seems like talking about rolling up car windows and mailing checks to pay bills. Everything is changing very fast, and companies like PSI-Pay are paving the way to the future solidifying social media and banking.
What we once thought of as privacy and protected personally identifiable information are now just scary words fear mongers use to paralyze those who can be frightened. Social security numbers are rather easy to obtain, and names, addresses and phone numbers are all over the internet. Contactless transactions are likely here to stay, so no more clinging to social security numbers and credit card numbers; your iris is likely to become your new personally identifiable source of information, and that cannot be stolen or duplicated.
Biometrics is the new, very safe frontier. Soon we will be contactless, blinking into our cameras on our computers so as to effect payment for a transaction. In this we can all take solace, because this is the most terribly secure way of transacting if ever there was one.
Read about other PSI Pay news on their crunchbase profile:


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Home Minister Rajnath Singh will on Sunday inaugurate the sixth edition of 'Hunar Haat', a platform made available by the government for artisans from minority communities to showcase and sell their works.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh will on Sunday inaugurate the sixth edition of ‘Hunar Haat’, a platform made available by the government for artisans from minority communities to showcase and sell their works. The Haat, with the theme “development with dignity”, would be held along Baba Khadak Singh Marg in Connaught Place here tomorrow onwards and Singh would inaugurate it a day later. The Haat will go on till February 18. The latest edition of the Haat will witness the participation of hundreds of artisans from 22 states/UTs from across the country, a statement from Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi’s office said. A number of culinary experts, including several women, from 12 states would also be participating. In addition, Gajal, Kawwali and other musical programmes will also be held daily by famous artistes, the statement added. Exquisite pieces of handicraft and handloom work like ajrakh, applique, bagh, bandhej, batik, bidriware, black stone pottery, calligraphy in wood and others would be on display and on sale at the Haat, it said.
Besides, the visitors would also be able to enjoy various delicacies from Bengal, the North East, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Kashmir, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and other areas, the statement said. “Exquisite handicraft and handloom made by master artisans from across the country will be on display at the Haat and people can also have a glimpse of traditional Indian music at there,” the statement quoted Naqvi as saying. He the Haat, being organised by the Minority Affairs Ministry, would provide domestic and international market exposure to master artisans from communities across the country.
The Haat, he said, had become a “credible brand” to fulfil Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to ‘Make In India’, ‘Stand Up India’, ‘Start Up India’. He claimed that the Haat, in one year, had helped provide employment and employment opportunities to more than three lakh artisans and other people associated with it. “The Haat is a hit (among people) as lakhs of them visit, encouraging master artisans and culinary experts who come from every corner of the country,” he said. Till now, five editions have been organised at International Trade Fair at Pragati Maidan (in 2016 and 2017), Baba Kharak Singh Marg (2017) – both in Delhi; Puducherry (2017) and Mumbai (2017).


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In acknowledgment of the GDPR anniversary (25th May), Yiannis Fragkoulopoulos, Buyer Safety Director at Obrela Security Industries, assesses the current use of GDPR as well as the challenges it poses for businesses of all size, regardless of geographic location.
GDPR has come under some scrutiny in the past few years since its implementation. In theory the General Data Protection Regulation is designed to imbue users in today’s fast-moving and data driven economy with more power and insight into the processing of their personal data. However, despite the positive intentions, GDPR is by no means a polished form of regulation. The news that the UK is technically no longer part of the EU scheme after withdrawing from the European bloc has left many reeling.
However, despite the positive steps that GDPR presents, such as enhancing individuals’ rights over their personal data and simplifying the regulatory requirements for international business being conducted within the European Union, GDPR has several flaws that at best present glaring errors, and at worst can put consumer rights in danger. Throughout this article we will be discussing and delineating the many shortfalls of the EU’s GDPR and how these could be rectified in order to provide greater visibility into the inner workings of data processing and protection.
What does not work about GDPR?
GDPR presents issues for both organisations and consumers. On the higher level, some businesses have been struggling with data retention issues as organisations have policies and processes in place to dictate timeframes for all the data they process, but the question arises: how efficient are they really? Furthermore, how can you achieve data retention technically, when you need to keep backups for business continuity reasons? This complicates the data storage issue, especially in fast moving and hybrid work environments.
While GDPR was implemented to imbue consumers with more power over the handling of their data, in reality customers have limited to no visibility at all as to where their data are stored and transferred, especially in the age of cloud technologies. The vast majority of organisations are struggling to implement processes and technology for supporting data subject rights provisioned by GDPR, despite this being one of the inspirations behind the implementation of the regulation.
The challenges presented by GDPR
GDPR poses several hurdles for organisations of all sizes, from enterprise to small and medium businesses (SMBs), this regulation can often act as more of a hurdle than meaningful data security. For small businesses, who may be struggling to process large amounts of business-critical information, GDPR can present many challenges. For those businesses processing personal and sensitive data as well as corporate secrets, they may be hindered by limited technological capabilities due to an understaffed workforce.
This has become an increasingly difficult challenge for smaller businesses to attract talented cybersecurity and data security professionals as the global skills shortage worsens. This can make it incredibly difficult for smaller businesses to limit the flow of data and safeguard data, particularly within overlapping teams. Another frequent challenge that small businesses face when adhering to GDPR is that they often do not have the required support or resources from their board or leadership team. It can be difficult to devote one person’s role to data protection officer (DPO), despite the fact that this is a crucial aspect of data security. This leaves glaring gaps or can spark conflicts between internal departments, and collaboration with third party management is a solution that does not always provide good return on investment.
On the other hand, even large businesses with devoted data security teams and budgets face challenges while achieving GDPR compliance. For groups of companies that operate within sprawling networks of data, it has become increasingly difficult to isolate data, systems and critical information that has been processed, particularly if it is frequently moving between departments.
To make matters worse, much of the available applications and software were built in the pre-GDPR era meaning that even expensive systems do not ensure full compliance. Examples of these legacy technologies and software include encryption, anonymisation, and masking. However, the biggest challenge for large business is to continue conducting business while using cloud technologies, because data, IoT and wearables devices, and the innovation of biometric controls, and geolocation data have made it very difficult for data to be quantified, never mind secured.
What can make GDPR better?
For some time, critics have suggested that a scaled data privacy regulation would be more effective in terms of GDPR. In simple terms, this would mean a smaller organisation would have a different level of compliance requirement than a large business, like Facebook. However, this would only lead to a more complex regulatory environment full of confusion for all parties, particularly considering which group each organisation belongs. Instead, the compliance requirement should be analysed and authorities need to provide guidance on each of them (e.g. the extensive list of work parties, workshops and guidelines published on DPIA).
In the future, when working on the new UK data protection regulation, there are issues with the current GDPR that must be addressed. Firstly, the data transfer of EU and UK citizens between each bloc should be streamlined and simplified. It should also be noted that organisations based in the UK or EU should be clearly informed as to how they are expected to adhere to an ever-growing list of regulations. This should come from the top down as the government should open a dialogue between those processing data and consumers to ensure that each party is properly prioritised.
Many organisations in the UK are already compliant with GDPR, so any changes or alterations to the regulation could only result in confusion and perhaps even more lost data. Cybercriminals notoriously prey on fear and confusion to ply their trade and only by providing as many safeguards as possible will the UK, and EU be able to protect their data and their citizens.


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Electric motorcycle companies are leveraging partnerships with lenders specialising in asset finance to drive sales in Kenya targeting boda boda riders.
Swedish-Kenyan technology company Roam has partnered with M-KOPA to deliver a fleet of motorcycles by the end of 2022 in time for mass deployment in early 2023.
ARC Ride Kenya which launched a plant in Kenya producing 500 two and three-wheeled electric scooters and bikes each month also partnered with M-KOPA and Watu Credit to be able to offer the product through flexible financing terms.
Kenya and the region are rapidly catching up on electric mobility but cost remains a big obstacle to abandoning fossil fuels for clean energy.
Manufacturers are turning to asset finance companies that offer flexible "pay as you go" terms that allow riders to acquire the units and pay as they earn an income.
Roam said that by combining the power of digital micropayments with the Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology, M-KOPA enables underbanked customers to access a broad range of products and services without collateral.
“M-KOPA will aid in the deployment of the motorcycles through its innovative ‘Pay-As-You-Go’ model, which allows customers instant access to products while building ownership over time through flexible micro-payments,” said Mikael Gånge, co-founder and chief commercial officer, Roam.
Kenya is racing against time to catch up with the rest of the world in the shift to clean mobility in efforts to reduce pollution of the environment.
The country has more than 1,000 low-carbon emission vehicles with dealers expecting an increase due to the high cost of fuel.
Recent geopolitical tensions in Europe following Russia's war in Ukraine have seen fuel prices spike out of reach for most motorists.
Car and General (C&G) in January announced that it will start selling electric vehicles and tuk-tuks as part of a plan to diversify into the ‘green’ mobility business that is expected to grow amid a push to address climate change and pollution.
Kenyan electric vehicle start-up BasiGo raised $4.3 million in seed funding and has launched a Sh5 million passenger electric bus in anticipation of increased demand for environmentally friendly transport.
The 25-seater bus, which is designed by the world’s largest manufacturer of electric buses BYD Automotive, has a 250-kilometre range with a recharging period of fewer than four hours.
Buyers will also be subjected to a daily subscription fee of Sh20 per kilometre to cover the cost of leasing the battery, nightly charging at a BasiGo depot as well as service and maintenance for the buses.


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Diane Karabin looked out across barren pumpkin fields on her Southington farm and thought about the children from area schools who come for a visit each year.
The field that usually yields about 6,000 pumpkins has barely sprouted 500.
"The kids are accustomed to going out in the fields for the pumpkins. But we had to stage the whole thing," she said.
For the first time since starting the farm in 1984, Diane and her husband, Michael, had to purchase pumpkins from out of state.
"We resorted to buying pumpkins from New York and trucking them in," Diane Karabin said. "Then we put them in the field so the children who come aren't disappointed."
The summer of 1999 -- one of the driest on record -- shriveled pumpkin vines across Connecticut. Farmers who weren't able to irrigate lost much of their crop, sending them scrambling for pumpkins from other farms that did survive and pushing prices up as much as 20 percent.
In the past, the Karabins have turned to Leo Grouten in Farmington for pumpkins when they had to supplement their harvest. But Grouten plowed his pumpkin field under in July.
"They fried right up," he said. "We didn't find one pumpkin in a six-acre lot."
Grouten, who farms 235 acres of vegetables, usually sells pumpkins wholesale to about a dozen farm stands in the state. This year, he had to scout around to find a supply that he could resell to his clients. He eventually found a farmer in Cobbleskill, N.Y., who had extra pumpkins to sell. Grouten expects to be making the two-hour trip there again this weekend for more pumpkins.
"It's the first time in 30 years I've ever had to do that," he said.
For farmers, the loss of the crop means the loss of the main attraction of the fall season, when stands are crowded with visitors seeking cider, doughnuts and their annual Halloween hayride to the pick-your-own pumpkin fields.
Janet Carville, co-owner of the Pickin' Patch in Avon, said acres of pumpkins that were out of reach of the irrigation system "bit the dust" this year. Others were stunted.
Carville said she'll purchase pumpkins from other farmers to keep activities at the Pickin' Patch, such as hayrides, in full swing.
At the 4-H Farm in Bloomfield, three acres of pumpkins were lost to the dry weather.
"We have a beautiful crop of weeds, though," director Beth Salsedo said.
Salsedo said some larger pumpkins that were planted in a shady area did well, and some that were planted in a demonstration site that workers were able to water also survived. But most of the pumpkins for the farm -- which last year lost its apple crop when rainy weather prevented bees from pollinating -- failed.
Wayne Young, owner of the High Hill Orchard in Meriden, also has a nice field of weeds where plump orange gourds should be.
Young lost 50 percent of his pumpkins. He's increasing his price by six cents, from 29 to 35 cents a pound, to try to make some profit from the pumpkins he has left.
"But I doubt I will get back a great return," he said.
Rick Macsuga, marketing representative at the state Department of Agriculture, said pumpkin lovers shouldn't fear that they'll be without jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween.
Farmers who were able to irrigate or planted in wet areas saved their crops. And the hot, dry weather meant that pumpkins didn't have to battle as many of their usual adversaries, such as mold and insects.
But John Lyman, vice president of Lyman Orchards in Middlefield, cautioned gourd lovers to get their pumpkins early this year. The orchard lost 75 percent of its pumpkin crop this year.
Lyman is seeking help from a pumpkin broker to purchase supplies from Quebec and Vermont.
"There's a good supply now," he said, "but I'm not sure what it will be like later."
Jay Green, co-owner of Hamden Green House, a wholesale and retail business, said his clients are ordering 50 percent more pumpkins than in the past. Green gets his pumpkins from northern states and Canada, where the cooler weather helped protect the crops.
"The pumpkin brokering business? I'd say it was very good this year," Green said.
Prices have risen by 5 cents to 7 cents a pound for pumpkins across the state because of the volume of crop failure. Last year's average price was 32 cents to 35 cents a pound; this year's range is 35 cents to 39 cents a pound, Macsuga said.
Ray Waterman, pumpkin farmer and president of the World Pumpkin Confederation in upstate New York, said the heat has made it difficult to grow huge, prize-winning pumpkins, but many growers took on the challenge.
His annual pumpkin weigh-off in Clarence, N.Y., Saturday will go on, drawing growers from all over the country, he said.
The true diehards were careful to pamper their pumpkins, watering them and giving them enough shade, he said.
"We're looking at cracking into 1,100 pounds," he said.


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AGRI-IMPACT LIMITED LEADS THE DEVELOPMENT AND PROMOTION OF ORANGE FLESHED SWEET POTATO IN GHANA WITH A BAKERS WORKSHOP IN THE VOLTA REGION
As part of efforts to promote the cultivation and consumption of Orange fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) in Ghana, Agri-Impact Limited, with support from AGRA, have initiated a project to create awareness about the crop dubbed “Development and Promotion of Orange fleshed sweet potatoes in Volta Region”.
With the Volta Region being the target region for the pilot project, a 2-day workshop was organised from the 20th to the 22nd June, 2017 at Hohoe and Kpando, respectively, to train bakers in the region on how to use OFSP as a substitute for flour in baking bread. The workshop, which was aimed at practically taking bread bakers in the region through the processes of preparing OFSP puree for baking and the actual baking of OFSP bread, also sought to enlighten them on the economic and health benefits of using OFSP puree for baking. The workshop witnessed a cumulated attendance of about seventy (70) bakers from across the region.
Also in attendance for the workshop were the project managers from Agri-Impact Limited, Mr Kingsley Jectey and Mr. Gideon Mankralo, the National Chairman of the Potato Innovations Platform, Mr. Emmanuel Darkey, Regional and District representatives from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Representatives of some FBOs in the region and the Consultants who took the bakers through the whole procedure.
Delivering a speech during the workshop, Mr. Kingsley Jectey, Business Manager of Agri-Impact Limited expressed his appreciation to the bakers for showing up in their numbers and mentioned that, the success of the project will be largely dependent on how the bakers embrace and own the process. He said, it is only when the bakers own and embrace the project, that it can be scaled-out. Highlighting the benefits of the OFSP in bread baking, Mr. Jectey noted that the use of the OFSP puree is economically expedient since it serves as a substitute for flour, sugar and milk, which are mostly used for baking bread. He stressed that 46% of OFSP puree and 54% of flour are the only ingredients needed to bake an OFSP bread, adding that the use of the OFSP limits importation of flour, creates a vibrant local economy for OFSP farmers and opens up a profitable and sustainable venture for bread bakers. To him, it is a win/win situation for the farmer, baker and the government if the OFSP puree is prioritised for bread baking.
Adding to the benefits of OFSP, Mr. Jectey emphasised the nutritious advantages of the crop and its resultant effect on health, stressing its rich vitamin A contents. Rounding up his speech, Mr Jectey encouraged the participants to not only keep the good news about OFSP to themselves, but also sensitize others to patronize the crop and reap its health and economic benefits.
On his part, the National Chairman of the Potato Innovations Platform, in delivering his speech at the workshop, allayed fears of the participants on the availability of the crop for their production. He noted that Agri-Impact Limited has so far registered 1000 farmers in the Volta Region who are being supported to grow OFSP, with a target of 5000 farmers cultivating the crop in the region by end of the year. Giving details about the crop, Mr Darkey stressed that aside bread, OFSP could be used in some other cuisines like mpotompoto, soup, cake, chips, gari etc. Mr. Darkey accentuated the huge consumer demand for the crop and its products, especially the bread across the country and encouraged the bakers to also consume the bread because of its health benefits. Mr. Darkey, in ending his speech thanked the Regional and District MoFA officers for their immense support towards the project, and expressed his heartfelt appreciation the bakers association for organizing its members to attend the workshop.
Agri-Impact Limited, since April 2017, has been leading the development and promotion of orange fleshed sweet potato in Ghana, with a pilot project in the Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions, in partnership with Crop research Institute (CRI), Ohumpong Investments Limited, Benzine Farms and Modern Africa Productions (MAP).Back to news
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