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December 01, 2022
The New York Times’ Wordle editor made FEAST the puzzle’s solution last week during Thanksgiving. Too cute, some say (I agree). Will the answer on the 25th of this month be SANTA?
Today’s edition: 1,570 words, 6 minutes
1 big thing: Nintendo’s mobile fizzle
Six years since it started releasing mobile games, Nintendo has at best had meager success despite its proven expertise in game development.
Driving the news: Dragalia Lost, a mobile game co-developed by Nintendo and Cygames, shut down on Wednesday, rendering it unplayable.
- The game’s creators didn’t say why it was being deactivated, but had given players ample warning and thanked them for their support.
- Since 2018, Nintendo has shut down as many mobile games as it has launched, three apiece.
State of play: Nintendo’s revenue from mobile games has been dropping all year and remains a miniscule part of its business. From April through September, the company earned $4.5 billion from Nintendo Switch games and hardware, but just $169 million from mobile games and other income related to its intellectual property, according to its most recent financial statement.
- With Dragalia Lost shuttered, Nintendo is down to five active mobile games: Super Mario Run (2016), Fire Emblem Heroes (2017), Animal Crossing Pocket Camp (2017), Mario Kart Tour (2019), and the Niantic-published Pikmin Bloom (2021).
- According to mobile tracking firm data.ai, the company’s Nintendo Switch Online app was downloaded more this year than all but two of these games: Mario Kart Tour and Super Mario Run.
What they’re saying: Nintendo casts its mobile games as marketing.
- “While we feel the importance of generating revenue and profit through our mobile business, our basic strategy with the business is to expand the number of people who have access to Nintendo [intellectual property],” a company rep told Axios in a statement.
- The company says its mobile games reach people in countries where the Switch hasn’t launched, allowing people “to experience new entertainment from Nintendo and get familiar with its IP.“
- A game such as Dragalia Lost, which was original to mobile and had no spin-off on Switch, doesn’t fit such a plan.
Flashback: Nintendo had approached the mobile market gingerly, resisting and then bowing to investor pressure as its Wii U and 3DS platforms struggled in the post-Wii, pre-Switch era.
- Nintendo debuted on mobile in 2016 as a disruptor. Its first big game, Super Mario Run, was offered with promises to cap player spending on it, defying the conventional mobile business model of free games that constantly cajoles players to spend more.
- But subsequent Nintendo mobile releases embraced the microtransaction model.
- Along the way, its mobile games received solid reviews, but nothing close to the glowing praise for the stellar design of its major releases for its own gaming devices.
Yes, but: The Pokémon series, which is co-owned by Nintendo and managed by The Pokémon Company, has thrived on mobile, primarily via the still-healthy Pokémon Go from Niantic.
- Pokémon is handled separately from Nintendo’s other business.
What’s next: Nintendo may have plenty of Switch games announced for the coming months, but it hasn’t announced a new mobile game since Pikmin Bloom was unveiled and launched in October 2021.
- “We are focusing on delivering great experiences for our current mobile games through continued updates and improvements while also considering new applications for the future,” the company said in a statement to Axios.
2. Jesus: The video game
Gamers can now turn virtual water to wine in the newly released playable prologue of the PC video game I Am Jesus Christ.
Why it matters: Movies, TVs shows, and songs about Jesus Christ have been around for a while. A very famous book dates back even further. But a game about Jesus is all but unheard of.
Details: I Am Jesus Christ is played in a first person perspective that puts players in Jesus’ sandals, mixing serious depictions of moments from the New Testament with those best described as video gamey.
- In the free prologue released today, players can chat with Jesus’ mother Mary and approach two future apostles to encourage them to be “fishers of men.”
- But players will also learn to repel fireballs that Satan hurls at them in the desert. They’ll marshal physics powers to create and move gold blocks. And they can’t perform the water-to-wine miracle at the wedding in Cana without first destroying several purple crystals in the region, claiming the land like it was a cleared zone in a Far Cry game.
- The experience is novel, if technically rough and at times awkward to control. It’s also explicitly a free work-in-progress, with prompts to offer the developers feedback.
What they’re saying: A video game take on Jesus can give an audience more of a you-are-there feel, says I Am Jesus Christ’s lead developer, Poland-based Maksym Vysochanskiy.
- “They virtually visit places where Jesus Christ walked,” he tells Axios. He noted that readers of the Bible or people who watch a movie about Jesus are taking a passive role; his players will take an active one.
- In the game, virtual Jesus Christ has that most video game of elements: a health bar that depletes when he gets hit. Vysochanskiy says 1) It’s a game and “the main character should have that” and 2) “In my opinion Jesus Christ was born in a human flesh.”
What’s next: The full I Am Jesus Christ game is set to release as a still-in-development early access game by Easter 2023, Vysochanskiy says.
- It is set to offer players an unlockable suite of powers for Jesus, including walking on water (30 seconds at a time) and tossing a dove into the air to guide the player to their next quest.
- It will also include interactive versions of events such as The Last Supper.
3. Need to know
⚠ Czech development studio Bohemia Interactive has published tips for distinguishing video of its game Arma III from real-life footage of war, after clips from the game have repeatedly been mistaken for scenes from -- or used as propaganda regarding -- the war in Ukraine and other conflicts.
- A Bohemia rep said that issuing takedown notices on top video and social media platforms has been “very ineffective” given the frequency of new uploads. The team has instead focused on proving fact-checks for Reuters and other news outlets.
👏 Today’s Google doodle is a game that lets players tweak and reprogram a batch of simple games.
- It commemorates the birthday of the late Jerry Lawson, the engineer who led the creation of the original video game cartridge and one of gaming’s most notable Black pioneers.
🤔 The 2022 finals for the Smash World Tour, an unofficial Smash Bros. tournament, were canceled on Tuesday less than two weeks before the event, following a dispute with Smash rights holder Nintendo, Kotaku reports. That has exacerbated long-running tensions between Smash pros and the game maker.
😲 Nintendo has acknowledged the poor technical performance of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, which launched two weeks ago to record-setting sales. Developers are “working on improvements to the games.”
💰 Online betting giant Entain is getting into esports betting with the revival of Unikrn, a service it’s rolling out in Brazil and part of Canada.
🤔 Roblox has poached a top Apple veteran to lead its engineering team, Axios reports.
⚾ 2023’s first notable game release is currently set to be the mobile app for Blaseball, the absurdist online fantasy baseball game that is returning on Jan. 9.
4. The week ahead
Note: This weekly calendar has always linked to the excellent esports schedule maintained by Juked, but that service is unfortunately shutting down. I’ll have more on that next week.
Friday, Dec. 2
- The Callisto Protocol (PC, PlayStation, Xbox), Marvel’s Midnight Suns (PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series) and Need for Speed: Unbound (PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series) are released.
Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 3 and 4
- Fortnite’s Chapter 3 finale event runs live in the game at 4pm ET on Saturday.
- Indie Live Expo Winter 2022, an online festival in Japan for indie games, is held throughout the weekend.
Monday, Dec. 5
- A quiet day
Tuesday, Dec. 6
- A day of DLC: New expansions for Back 4 Blood (PC, PlayStation, Xbox), Disney Dreamlight Valley (PC, console), Far Cry 6 (PC, PlayStation, Xbox) and Two Point Campus (PC, console) are released. A free add-on for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla scheduled for this day was released early.
Wednesday, Dec. 7
- Genshin Impact (PlayStation, mobile) update 3.3 is released.
Thursday, Dec. 8
- The Game Awards are held in Los Angeles and livestreamed worldwide.
Friday, Dec. 9
5. I played... Marvel's Midnight Suns
It’s been a good season for Marvel superhero games, first with the mobile card game Snap and now with Marvel’s Midnight Suns (15 hours played on PC, also out tomorrow on PS5 and Xbox Series consoles).
It’s a game of two parts.
The better part: turn-based strategic combat featuring a cast of superheroes, from the famous (Iron Man, Spider-Man, etc.) to the fairly obscure (Nico Minoru, the Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider).
- The catchy combat system involves maneuvering three heroes around a battlefield and playing randomly drawn (and upgradable) cards representing various powers, while bracing for counterattacks during the enemy's turn.
- Midnight Suns’ development team at Firaxis previously made the acclaimed turn-based strategy series XCOM.
The weaker part: the between-combat time players will spend in the abbey where the heroes hang out.
- In theory, this is the part of the game where you can develop relationships and improve your characters, but so far it's fallen flat for me, thanks to forgettable dialogue.
Will I play more? The strategic combat is so good that I'll happily wade through more of the abbey.
🎁 Like the newsletter? Refer Axios Gaming to your friends to spread the word and get free stuff in the process. Follow the link here to begin.
🐦 Find me on Twitter: @stephentotilo.
Thank you to Peter Allen Clark for editing and Patricia Guadalupe for copy editing this newsletter.
Heads up: I'll be in Los Angeles next week. Last-minute decision and my schedule's already filling up, but if you've got a story tip or another great reason to cross paths, reply to this email and let me know.


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CrossFit Champ Signs on to Promote Milk in Michigan
CrossFit champ Rich Froning, Jr. is such a fan of milk he has a five-gallon dispenser of it on the wall in his gym.
So it’s only fitting he was just named an athlete ambassador for Milk Means More, a Michigan initiative to help people better understand dairy farming, local dairy products and nutrition.
Froning is a four-time worldwide CrossFit Games winner, a fitness regimen that involves high-intensity interval training, and owns a CrossFit gym—also known as a “box.” He says that while some people may be afraid of carbs, dairy—specifically, chocolate milk—can be a great post-workout drink.
“I encourage the athletes to consume dairy daily and to use it as part of their recovery,” says Froning.
Froning comes by his love of dairy honestly: His cousins own a dairy farm in Sunfield, Michigan.
This post was originally published 7/20/2017.

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New local food hub lands federal funding
A federal grant will help a new local food hub move forward with sales and marketing.
The Dakota Fresh food hub was started earlier this year through SDSU Extension and has grown to more than two dozen local food producers in southeastern South Dakota. The idea is to create a hub that will allow them to aggregate and market products to larger venues such as restaurants and institutions.
The $100,000 grant, through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will help the group with several goals:
- Obtain commitments from up to 25 farmers as members in Dakota Fresh.
- File paperwork necessary to obtain limited liability company status in South Dakota.
- Build a website and extended marketing campaign.
- Hire a part-time manager to lead marketing and distribution efforts.
- Select and equip a small warehouse for aggregation of products.
- Lease a delivery vehicle for transportation to markets.
- Certify producer-members in food and farm safety plans.
The funding comes at a critical time in building the state’s local food system, said Kari O’Neill, SDSU Extension community development field specialist.
"Consumers not only want to eat fresh, high-quality foods, but they are more interested in ever in knowing where and how their food was produced,” she said. "Building strong relationships between eaters and producers can benefit everyone and boost local economies."
The hope is to provide new markets that will offer incentives to new young farmers and boost production for established local food producers, she said.


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Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have arrested 95 suspected internet fraudsters in Warri, Delta State.
Phones of different brands, laptops and 15 vehicles of different brands worth N300 million were recovered from the suspects, according to the anti-graft agency.
The suspects were arrested in a sting operation by personnel of the Port Harcourt Zonal command of the anti-graft agency, EFCC spokesman Mr Wilson Uwujeren said. He said the suspects were arrested at Adesa Ughonton and Jedda axis of Warri, Delta state for suspected fraudulent internet-related activities.
While saying that the suspects would be charged to court once investigation was concluded, he disclosed that the cars and other items recovered from them are also being investigated.


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US-based connector and valve manufacturer FasTest has rebranded in response to accelerated company growth.
As part of its rebranding, FasTest has changed its website, logo, graphics, and communications, creating a new look and feel for the company.
“After 35 years of connecting with our customers around the world we strongly believe that now is the time for a fresh and vibrant look that matches and reflects how our business has evolved,” said Gary Rychley, President at FasTest.
“Product Innovation with new technology to supply our global customers with the broadest and most advance product line in the industry sets us apart and positions FasTest for the next 35 years.”
“The FasTest brand is well known in industry to symbolize the highest quality with the latest innovation. The new rebrand presents a clean, efficient, and edgy look to FasTest,” said Rob Danielson, Vice-President of Engineering at FasTest.
“It reflects on our progression to where we are today and leads into where we are headed tomorrow. We will continue to be bold and evolve to exceed the expectations of our customers”
FasTest’s new logo is a simple and bold navy colour with a red emblem demonstrating connection and flow.
“As we continue to develop innovative Sealing Connection Tools and systems building off our 35 years of expertise, we wanted a look to reflect that. Welcome to the new FasTest,” said Matthew Erdal, Associate Creative Manager.


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D-Link has launched a new wifi camera that supports new Apple HomeKit technology and the new Home app released with the new iOS10. This makes D-link one of the latest and major brands to support the Apple’s new home kit tech framework. Right now, D-Link offers plethora of wifi enabled cameras as a part of its connected home series.
Tushar Sighat, Executive Director & CEO, D-Link (India) Ltd said this about the new camera,
In D-Link, we’ve been building Wi-Fi cameras for more than 10 years and we understand the strategic importance of these cameras to your home’s IoT ecosystem. We’ve been working hard with Apple to help make a unique connected home experience that meets the real needs of users. Now, through the new HomeKit-enabled D-Link camera and Apple’s new Home app in iOS 10, we are excited that families around the world will have an easy and secure way to monitor their homes.


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12:05, 9 FEB 2018
It's National Pizza Day!
The perfect excuse to order that tasty takeaway...
High street retailers issue product recalls
Shoppers are being advised to check these products, as they could pose a safety risk.
Sainsbury to slash 2,000 jobs in the UK
The announcement comes amid a major cost-cutting programme that has seen Sainsbury’s commit to slashing £150 million of costs this year and £500 million in the following three years.
Forget the cloud egg - here is the bacon cloud egg!
The web has been going crazy over the cloud-like creations, but now someone has come up with a new twist - the bacon cloud egg.
New 'cloud egg' craze emerges
If they grab your attention, they are quite easy to make yourself.
Houmous taken off shelves at Sainsbury's
The supermarket giant has taken every variation of its chickpea based snack off the shelves as an investigation ensues into a 'metallic taste.'
Elderly man has wallet taken outside of Sainsbury's
Delyth Crew witnessed the theft yesterday (Wednesday, June 22) at noon as she was about to start her shopping.
Sainsbury's rejects claim parking charges are invalid
Charnwood Borough Council has said Sainsbury’s do not have planning permission, leading one resident to question the validity of the parking tickets.
Sainsbury's apps for bookworms and movie fans
The eBooks by Sainsbury’s eReader app is free to install and available now from the Windows store.
Ben Dijkstra claims gold in the boys 3000m at the 2014 Sainsbury's School Games
Dijkstra was among more than 1,600 talented athletes from across the UK to descend on Manchester to compete in 12 sports across four action packed days.
Changes to Sainsbury's car park
The system will be managed by Horizon Parking and those found to have stayed longer than two hours will be fined £60
New superstore given approval
The site is currently occupied by Duflex, which manufactures foam mattresses and cushions, but the developer is helping them relocate
Coffee morning for carers in Loughborough
CLASP :The Carers Centre (LeicesterShire & Rutland) are holding a coffee morning for carers week at Sainsbury's in Loughborough on Wednesday June 12 between 10am and 3.30pm.They will be on hand to answer any questions or concerns you may have about caring or will be in the cafe just for someone to talk to .
In this week's Echo
READ all about it! There is plenty of reasons to buy this week's paper.
Sacred Heart youngsters celebrate Sainsbury's award
Sacred Heart Catholic Voluntary Academy
CHILDREN at Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School will be getting more active after receiving more than £250 worth of sports, cooking and gardening equipment from Sainsbury’s.
Sainsbury's £90,000 boost for hospice
RAINBOWS Hospice has gratefully received a cheque for £90,000 raised through the hard work of staff from 19 Sainsbury’s stores across the East Midlands.
Ice plummets from sky into car at Sainsbury's in Loughborough
A SHOPPER was left in shock when her car was destroyed by a block of ice believed to have fallen from an aircraft.
Reliving the Seventies
HIS weekend I'm taking a step back in time to the glorious 1970s when men were men, but smelt of Brut, continental cuisine was provided by Vesta and sipping Blue Nun was a sign of class.
Green Cones scheme explained to residents
RESIDENTS in Loughborough can find out more about a new idea to stop their food waste going to landfill.


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OKLAHOMA CITY – One newspaper called it “a great idea for Oklahoma families, and one of the most taxpayer-friendly moves the State Legislature has made in decades,” a statement proven by Oklahomans.
The state’s first “Back-to-School” sales tax holiday exceeded expectations across Oklahoma, with retailers showing record business and families getting a real tax break they could see at the cash register.
Senator Jay Paul Gumm, D-Durant, fought for years to pass the law that removed the sales tax on clothing and footwear costing less than $100 last weekend. The lawmaker said the state’s economy got an incredible boost as Oklahomans, and visitors from other states, flooded retailers.
“The weekend was a tremendous success,” Gumm said. “Oklahomans had a great opportunity to save money and they took advantage of it, spurring increased economic activity across Oklahoma. Most importantly, though, families got a real tax break on one of the biggest annual expenses: back-to-school clothes.”
The “Back-to-School” sales tax holiday removed the state, county and municipal sales tax on articles of clothing and footwear costing less than $100. The holiday began at 12:01 a.m., Friday, Aug. 3 and ran through midnight, Sunday, Aug. 5.
According to news reports from across the state, retail groups and chambers of commerce put together promotions to make the most of the three-day shopping event. Retailers also brought on more staff to prepare for the increased activity.
“That certainly was the case in my district,” said Gumm, who represents the area surrounding Lake Texoma. “Many of the retailers with whom I spoke said their sales exceeded expectations and the shoppers I saw told me this made a real difference in their family budgets.”
The Oklahoma law was based on the Texas “Back-to-School” sales tax holiday, and was originally planned to be the same weekend as the Texas event. However, two weeks after the Oklahoma law was signed, the Texas Legislature moved the Texas event to Aug. 17-19, meaning Oklahoma had the first weekend in August all to itself.
As a result, many retailers reported Texans crossed into Oklahoma to make back-to-school purchases, giving Oklahoma an unexpected boost. Also, in northern parts of Oklahoma, retailers reported many Kansas residents crossed the state line to take advantage of the holiday.
“The sales tax holiday performed exactly as many of us predicted,” Gumm said. “We kept Oklahomans shopping in our hometowns, we kept our economic strength at home, and we boosted our economy. Also, we saw folks from out-of-state spending money in Oklahoma, giving our state an even larger economic ‘shot-in-the-arm’.”
The lawmaker concluded by saying groups and individuals that opposed the sales tax holiday for many years were proven “dead wrong” this weekend.
“We had a great weekend for retailers, and cities and counties will see increased tax revenues,” he said. “Most importantly, we helped Oklahoma families stretch their back-to-school dollars farther. It makes you wonder why anyone would have ever opposed this common sense policy.”


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How tensions between Russia and Ukraine could impact US consumers
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) - Tensions between Russia and Ukraine are rapidly growing.
You may wonder what impact the situation, a world away, could have on us here in the US.
Economic experts say, right now, it’s a guessing game of how further tensions between Russia and Ukraine could hurt consumer pockets.
“Right now we are in the risk phase, where everyone is trying to figure out what the full extent of hostility will end up being,” said David Flynn, the research director at the Institute of Policy and Business Analytics at the University of North Dakota.
US consumers are already dealing with rising prices like paying more at the gas pump.
Flynn says the tensions could possibly make inflation worse.
“Increasing natural gas prices and oil prices. You could look at other commodities that come out of that area. That could be corn and other cereal grains. You’ll start to see those kinds of prices increase or at least not decrease like you had anticipated,” he said.
Flynn says war could mean more pressure on the US to make larger financial commitments.
“That then starts to raise questions about how are we financing these commitments? What is that going to do as the federal reserve and others attempt to raise interest rates? Is that going to change the calculus both political and economic going forward,” he said.
Flynn says there are other concerns as tensions continue to spiral.
“It seems likely that we will expect cyber attacks on financial institutions, maybe along gasoline supply lines like we saw in October,” he said.
Right now, Flynn says consumers do not need to worry.
“Cautious, sure. I think it’s a situation that consumers should pay attention to because its the kind of thing that will have unpredictable side effects.”
Copyright 2022 KVLY. All rights reserved.


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The health of small business is improving in 2012, according to new survey data from Constant Contact(R), Inc., with the majority of small businesses reporting revenue increases over 2011. When asked how their organizations have done so far this year:
- 59 percent said revenues increased.
- 30 percent said revenues remained flat.
- 11 percent said revenues decreased.
The continued outlook is positive, with 79 percent of small business owners expecting revenues to increase over their 2011 revenues. When asked what their revenue expectations are this year compared to last year:
- 52 percent expected their revenues to increase more than 10 percent.
- 27 percent expected their revenues to increase less than 10 percent.
- 13 percent expected their revenues to remain flat.
- 4 percent expected their revenues to decrease less than 10 percent; 3 percent expected their revenues to decrease more than 10 percent.
Rising costs remain a challenge, with 45 percent of small businesses reporting their operating costs have increased. Further, a full 30 percent report their cash flow is inadequate and preventing them from growing their business. Of the 19 percent of small businesses that have sought funding this year, only 16 percent received some or all of the funding they needed.
Though the revenue outlook is brightening, challenges remain for small businesses, primarily how to achieve growth. When asked about what keeps them up at night:
- 76 percent said how to attract new customers.
- 49 percent said how to connect with, and better engage with, existing customers.
- 41 percent said how to get referrals from current customers.
While attracting and engaging customers is a top concern, marketing spend has stayed steady for most of the small businesses surveyed. Sixty percent report keeping their marketing budget the same as 2011, and only 29 percent have increased their budget. When asked which marketing activities they find to be effective for their organization today:
- 83 percent chose email marketing.
- 71 percent chose website marketing.
- 68 percent chose in-person interactions.
- 49 percent chose social media marketing.
The majority (53 percent) of small business owners ranked social media as the marketing channel they need the most help with, indicating that social media could play a more prominent marketing role if they were more confident in their social media skills. Among social media tools, Facebook(R) still rules the day. When respondents active in social media were asked which tool was most effective:
- 75 percent chose Facebook.
- 10 percent chose LinkedIn.
- 7 percent chose Twitter.
- Pinterest, YouTube, and Yelp all came in between 1 to 3 percent.
Increased revenue has not yet translated into hiring, however. Some 66 percent of small businesses are not planning to hire additional full-time employees in the next six months. Almost 20 percent said they need to hire more employees but can’t.
The survey was administered in May 2012 to 1,000 participants in the Constant Contact Small Biz Council, a research panel of US small businesses and nonprofits recruited from the Constant Contact customer base. This is the first installment of an ongoing study about the state of small businesses and the ways they connect with, and grow, their audiences. Results include responses from 728 respondents across a range of business-to-business and business-to-consumer industries.


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OxygenOS is one of the significant aspects of OnePlus that attracts the users of OnePlus. In a recent preview, Pete Lau gave us a quick look at the AOD (Always on Display) feature from the upcoming OxygenOS 11. While that happened, LeakerBaba gave us another look at the features coming to the OxygenOS 11. The leak bases on HydrogenOS 11, OnePlus’ OS for China. The features you see here will arrive on the OxygenOS later this year.
OxygenOS 11 Features Leaked
OxygenOS has always been a community-driven OS since its release. Over the years, we have seen incredible changes to the OxygenOS. Rather than being a completely different UI on top of Android, OxygenOS keeps the stock Android feel while maintaining a set of device-specific features.
After Android 10, OnePlus looks forward to improving the OxygenOS with the arrival of Android 11. OnePlus has already announced that they’re working on a new kind of Always-ON Display. Apart from that, here is what we will see on OxygenOS 11 based on Android 11.
Here are the features you’d see on OxygenOS 11:
With what we see from the images, it’s clear that we’ll be seeing Always-ON Display on the OnePlus devices, finally. Alongside, you’d see a complete overhaul to the OxygenOS. There’ll be significant UI changes to the software, and the design language seems curated for One-Handed usage as well. Furthermore, Zen Mode will get an update to 2.0, adding a Meditation Mode. Dark Mode seems to get an improvement with better differentiating cards over the UI. The images also show a new Gallery app, which looks great.
Seems like OxygenOS 11 update will be an interesting update and one of the biggest updates to OxygenOS in a long time. These aren’t the whole set of features that’ll be introduced in OXygenOS 11, but there is a whole lot to come.
What do you think of the OxygenOS 11 features? Are you excited? Let us know your opinions in the comments below.
For the latest tech news and reviews, follow TechBaked on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and join our Telegram Channel for daily tech news in your inbox.


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Diana Kander used pizza and planking as tools for teaching work optimization in a webinar Thursday.
Kander shared lessons from her latest book, “The Curiosity Muscle,” which is set to be released later this month. Kander said she selected the title to convey that the weight of expertise can make entrepreneurs lose their impulse to seek out answers and innovation.
The book, which Kander co-authored with Andy Fromm, chairman and CEO of Service Management Group, uses a fictional story set in a gym franchise to teach lessons in curiosity.
An entrepreneur and author based in Kansas City, Kander works at consulting company Maddock Douglas, where she serves as director of innovation culture and habits.
Some companies can still feel like startups at 20 or 30 years old, Kander said, if their curiosity stays piqued.
She said businesses tend to tell themselves, “we know what the customers want.” But that can be a perilous assumption.
“Facts about your customers and their worldview can change overnight,” Kander said. “And the only way to know when that change happens is to always be asking.”
Kander used Domino’s Pizza as an example. Around the Great Recession, the company’s stock plummeted to under $4 per share. Today, it’s worth almost $280 per share, even though Domino’s still sells pizza. The restaurant chain has made leaps and bounds through incremental innovation, she said.
Kander wanted to challenge herself to a goal she’d set for the characters in her book: hold a plank pose for 10 minutes. In the first phase of her challenge, Kander tried her best and was eventually able to plank for three minutes, but then her progress plateaued.
Kander said many people take on mammoth goals with the same straightforward approach she tried — just resolving to do their best. With the inevitability of blind spots, though, this strategy is limited, Kander said.
Involving other people who can offer insight is key, Kander said. She began researching, and found record plank sessions of more than eight hours. She learned from the record holders’ exercise routines, training new muscle groups, and in about two weeks she doubled her plank time. Eventually she exceeded her goal by a minute and a half.
“Each of us has blind spots that are slowing us down,” Kander said. “If you just take the time to involve the right people … you will be able to exponentially accelerate whatever it is that you’re trying to accomplish.”


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BT offers free Premier League football in BSkyB battle
BT is to offer free Premier League football coverage to its broadband customers, the telecoms company says.
The announcement is a signal of BT's intent to challenge BSkyB's dominance of the UK's sports pay-TV market.
BT won a three-year deal to show 38 Premier League games a season, beginning this year.
BT has 6.3 million broadband customers, but just 750,000 pay-TV customers, compared with Sky's 10 million subscribers.
BSkyB's shares closed more than 6% lower in London, after BT unveiled its plans.
BT's move is an attempt to establish itself as a major multi-platform provider, offering TV, internet and telephone in one package.
It will provide all of its 38 Premier League games free to broadband customers, including 18 "first pick" matches, on three channels: BT Sport 1, BT Sport 2 and ESPN.
'Fans the winners'
Broadband packages on BT will cost from £10 a month.
But customers who want to access the sports channels will also need to pay for a set top box, or pay an extra £5 per month for the basic television package.
That compares with Sky's offer of 116 Premier League matches, as part of a six-channel sports package that costs £42.50 per month for the first six months, and includes broadband internet.
BT Sport's channels will also show 69 live Aviva Premiership rugby matches per season, plus live football from leagues in Germany, France, Italy and Brazil.
Chief executive Ian Livingston said: "UK sports fans have had a rough deal for too long. Many have been priced out of the market, but we will change this by giving away BT Sport for free with our broadband.
"Sports fans are the winners today."
BSkyB dominates the pay-TV market with about 10 million customers, but lags behind BT with 4.3 million broadband customers.
BT Sport is also taking on BSkyB in pubs and clubs, with an offer of 12 months' subscription for the price of nine, and a free installation offer lasting until 1 July.
About half the premises taking up the offer will end up paying £135 a month, BT said, while packages for hotels and betting shops could undercut Sky by 75%.
Analysts say the entry into the market by BT represents a serious challenge, despite Sky's success in fighting off previous competition from the likes of ITV Digital, Setanta and ESPN.
"Compared with the others BT is in a much stronger position because it has a massive number of customer relations already," said Toby Syfret, a television market analyst at Enders Analysis.
"This is a major player matching the scale of Sky coming in - we haven't had that before."
But he also warned that BT would be limited in terms of the matches it has available.
The majority of BT's highest profile games are scheduled for Saturday lunchtimes, while Sky's games are scheduled for Sunday afternoons, when audiences are significantly higher.


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Gboard for Android combines old emoji to create new ones
The new feature called 'Emoji Kitchen' is now rolling out.
UK wants telecoms regulator to police social media companies
The UK government is "minded" to give Ofcom new powers.
Microsoft won't force Office 365 business customers to use Bing after all
Backlash from those customers forced Microsoft to change course.
The Galaxy S20+ vs. the competition: A bigger screen and more lenses
Do four rear cameras help Samsung's new 6.7-inch handset jump ahead of the pack?
The Galaxy S20 vs. the competition: Pretty in pink (or blue or black)
The smallest of Samsung's new flagship phones is no slouch in the spec department.
The Galaxy S20 and S20+ sport fast screens and crazy sharp cameras
The FTC has opened an investigation into Facebook and Google acquisitions
Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are also being looked at.
All Nest accounts will require extra sign-in security this spring
It's insisting on two-factor authentication.
Google offers free Titan security keys to help secure political campaigns
The keys will help reduce the risk of hacking.


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President Trump sticks up for gun rights while speaking to union workers in Ohio. President Trump speaks to a crowd of union workers in Richfield, Ohio, telling them not to worry about the left’s attacks on the Second Amendment.
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) was caught on video telling his constituents to “take up arms” against President Donald Trump. He was at a town hall meeting in Huntington, New York, addressing a crowd who reacted with nervous laughter. Rep. Suozzi was not joking around as he doubled down, explaining “that’s Read More
In pursuit of the ever-popular Beltway sport of False Equivalence, it’s common to see today’s left-bent resistance to Donald Trump compared to right-wing extremist movements of the recent past, from the tea party movement to precincts further off in the fever swamps. This sort of talk is often the product of laziness Read More
Major retailers around the nation have become battlegrounds for political correctness, using their businesses as soapboxes to make social statements. In a time when online business has disrupted the retail market and big box stores are diminishing by the dozen, it doesn’t seem wise to polarize your customer base with Read More
President Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, has been mostly out of the spotlight with the exception of a few well-timed tweets in response to a few of the latest controversies liberals have put his father in the middle of. While we saw a lot of the president’s respectable Read More
Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft. More than anything else, the indictments of Paul Manafort and his partner Rick Gates demonstrate the fraudulent nature of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Read More


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The head of two-wheeler giant Bajaj Auto is staking all on a rugged rural bike, a 600-cc super bike for export and a more elegant and comfortable auto rickshaw
Ask Rajiv Bajaj what is keeping him busy nowadays and he will talk of his three pet projects. The managing director of two-wheeler giant Bajaj Auto Ltd (BAL) has recently thrown down a challenge to his research and development unit, to build a “Bharat Bike” with a 150-cc engine, which will cost Rs 40,000 and run on rugged rural roads. Bajaj is currently king in the 150-cc bike segment, but the bike costs over Rs 50,000 (Discover), while the popular Pulsar is available for Rs 60,000.
“What I want is a tractor on a two-wheeler that can take two or three riders and the extra load of products on it, or simply a 150-cc bike at the cost of a 100-cc one,” says Bajaj, elaborating on his strategy.
That is not the only challenge that he has put up for his team. He also wants to sell sub-600-cc bikes that are made in India, leveraging Bajaj’s lower cost as an OEM supplier to the KTM brand in hitherto untapped new global markets like the US, Latin America and, may be, even Australia. Bajaj has already picked up a 40 per cent stake in the European sports bike maker, which is known for its 600-cc-plus heavy bikes. “There is a large market for our bikes in newer untapped markets,” says Bajaj.
And if that isn’t enough, he is also working on a new auto rickshaw model that promises to look better and be more comfortable than the existing range.
Underlying these projects is a common theme: BAL is looking at creating new markets where it can take a leadership position or ensure that it maintains its leadership, either through a new category in bikes or by entering new countries through KTM, or by launching a new revamped product (such as auto rickshaws, where the company wants to maintain its dominance).
Analysts say the strategy for a new Bharat bike emanates from the fact that competitors like Hero Honda have made a big dent in the rural market, which comprises over 45 per cent of their sales (up from 42 per cent last year), thanks to in-depth distribution, mostly of 100-cc bikes. BAL needs to attack rivals here to create a new category to grab the market. Also, market penetration of two-wheelers is only 10 per cent in rural India, so there is a large upside.
Moreover, Hero Honda is now concentrating on the premium segment (125 cc and 150 cc), challenging BAL’s pre-eminent position in this segment. So, BAL needs a product that can entice Hero Honda's 100-cc market, on which it has a stranglehold. After all, it has a 67 per cent share of the 100-125-cc market.
Bajaj says that the current 100 cc bikes (Hero Honda sells them in large numbers in rural markets) are not good enough for rural roads and the kind of loads they have to carry. BAL had the option of coming out with a 100-cc bike costing less than Rs 40,000 (maybe Rs 30,000) and building a new market, Bajaj says, but argues that this would not have offered buyers any value preposition.
The challenge is to create a new category and provide value for the customer. So how will BAL cut the cost of its new bike by Rs 10,000? Well, it is working on various alternatives. For instance, the bike will not have a digital console or LED systems, which come at a cost. Engineers who are working on the bike have promised that it will provide at least 50 per cent more torque than a normal 100-cc bike. That would also mean losing out on mileage, but the idea is to give more torque and lose only 10 per cent in terms of mileage when compared to a 100-cc bike. The company hopes consumers will be ready to make this small compromise.
Bajaj has not assessed what exactly the size of the market will be, as the product is slated to be launched sometime in the second quarter of this year. But he says that as many as 400,000 bikes are sold in the country every month in the 100-cc segment, and the game plan is to get as many consumers as possible to buy the new bike with a higher engine capacity.
The new bike is just one part of the story. BAL exports about 30 per cent of the bikes it produces, but wants to enter new untapped markets where Bajaj is well aware that the company’s name will not sell. That is where his acquisition of a 40 per cent stake in KTM will help. The European bike maker sells only 70,000 super bikes every year – the second-highest after Harley Davidson, which sells 200,000, while Ducati sells 35,000. But KTM needs to increase its volumes and BAL can sell the bikes as an OEM; the cost of manufacturing in India would be much cheaper. “The idea is that in five to 10 years KTM will buy more bikes from India than it now sells around the globe,” says Bajaj.
A beginning has already been made with the Duke 125, which KTM is selling across various markets. The product has been developed and manufactured in BAL’s Chakan plant in Maharasthra. Bajaj says his company’s products could be sold as KTM bikes in new markets of Europe, the US, Australia and Brazil, where they have just entered.
Bajaj’s third pet project is to rebuild three-wheelers once again. After all, there are over five million Bajaj Auto scooters on the road and, with high levels of pollution, they are not green. Bajaj hopes that he will be able to replace them with a new product. The new product, which is on the drawing board, will be more spacious, larger, more comfortable and much more fuel efficient than the current range of three-wheelers, which gives 25-30 km a litre.
To achieve his objective, Bajaj hopes to modify the same platform that it is building for the proposed Renault-Nissan car project. He says the car project is just the icing on the cake and BAL is building this platform in any case to make four-wheeler products and to manufacture a new scooter for Indian as well as global markets (50 per cent of the scooters are exported). The new product will be more expensive, but Bajaj hopes to undertake a balancing act. It is working on a price that would be 15-20 per cent higher than the average Rs 1.1 lakh that customers fork out for a scooter.
Surely, no one will mind that. Bajaj has taken on some ambitious projects which could well determine its future. The question is whether he will be able to pull off this gamble.


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SHANGHAI, April 17, 2019 – Galleria Art Center, Jiahao International Holdings most renowned wedding club, recently held its 2019 annual gala in Shanghai. Popular singers, veteran actors, business leaders and fashion celebrities gathered together to put on a fantastic show for the young audience.
A leading player of the wedding industry in China, Jiahao International Holdings has tapped into a range of sectors related to culture and fashion, enhancing the brand’s appeal to young people.
“We are not merely making weddings happen. We are creating fantasies and dreams for the young in China and making their dreams come true. Through romantic fantasies, young people show their aesthetic values and lifestyle choices,” said Allen Shi, Founder and Chairman of Jiahao International Holdings.
The young, passionate and visionary Allen Shi has been dubbed “the Godfather of China’s wedding industry.” He has tapped into the growing demand for western-style romance in China and brought innovative and bold energy to it. To make weddings more personal, special and unforgettable, Allen Shi has travelled around the world to learn about the wedding industry and returned very inspired. The entire wedding experience produced by Jiahao International Holdings, including the pre-wedding photo shoots, is fun, tailor-made, topnotch and set in an exotic background.
Aimed at high-end consumers, its wedding services, especially pre-wedding photography, are delivered with top standards in every detail, including hair and makeup artists, stylists, photographers, shooting backgrounds, cosmetic products and accessories. To achieve that, Jiahao International Holdings has cooperated with a wide range of luxury brands around the world, including Chopard and Jimmy Choo.
Aided by new technologies, Jiahao International Holdings provides unique and immersive experience for weddings. With location changes brought through 4D multimedia technology, the dream of having ceremony in Paris and dinner party in Hawaii comes true. The Galleria Arts Center is the one and only wedding studio in China that offers island-themed wedding services. The Galleria Arts Center creates an authentic presentation of the St. Laguna Chapel in Guam, one of the most popular wedding destinations in the world. It also offers one-stop services including yacht parties and ceremonies at musical halls.
Allen Shi calls the business they are involved in “the “happiness industry.” In 2018, Australian filmmaker Olivia Martin-McGuire made a documentary about the pre-wedding photo shooting industry in China, titled China Love. Allen Shi is featured as a major player of the industry in the documentary, as what he has done is not merely reshaping the industry but creating a new one. For Allen Shi, pre-wedding photography is just part of the “happiness industry,” which is a holistic industrial chain providing products and services appealing to all the needs related to a wedding.
Tapping into the booming “love economy,” Allen Shi and his company are committed to expanding their business across the global landscape, creating fantastic wedding experiences and sharing the most important moment of one’s life with people around the world. “We hope people can have a romantic wedding of their own. That’s our dream,” said Allen Shi. A crucial part of making the Group’s “happiness industry” a global one, according to Allen Shi, is talent nurturing. The Group has been seeking partnerships with institutions across the globe to set up programs specifically for the wedding industry in the areas of photography, costume design and others. “We hope that more creative and professional talent will bring new energy to the traditional wedding industry, drawing on the experience of creating fashion shows and luxury lifestyle events. Starting with that, we are building an ‘ecology’ for the wedding industry,” said Allen .Shi.
Jiahao International Holdings brand portfolio includes over 20 renowned wedding studios such as the Artiz Studio from Korea. The Group has set up over 200 physical stores around the world, offering unique and top-notch wedding services.
About Jiahao International Holdings
Founded in 2008 in Shanghai by Allen Shi, Jiahao International Holdings is committed to the development of global cultural industry with the vision of reshaping the wedding industry. It is now engaged in a range of businesses, including the cultural and fashion sector, education, pre-wedding photography, wedding dresses, jewelry, hospitality, finance and industrial properties. The Group has built an industrial chain and has been expanding its business across the globe. It has set up many branches in the USA, France, Korea, Singapore and Malaysia.
Name: Haili Zhang


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MIDDLETOWN, OH (CBS.MW) - Investors these days tend to give steel stocks a reception as cold as, well, steel.
And who can blame them?
The industry is fragmented, beset with pricing and overcapacity issues and is now facing an economic slowdown that is cutting demand from major customers like automakers. And don't forget those bankruptcies.
But there may be some sterling to be found among the companies tarnished by the industry's problems.
AK Steel AKS, +0.63%, which produces flat-rolled carbon, stainless and electrical steel products for automotive, construction and manufacturing markets, as well as standard pipe and tubular steel products, is the most profitable of the U.S. integrated steel producers.
And in an important symbolic move, the company's chairman and chief executive officer Richard Wardrop recently broke ranks with the industry by dropping AK Steel's affiliation with the American Iron & Steel Institute, a major industry trade organization.
The basis for the decision was twofold, according to AK Steel. First, the company said it was unable to endorse certain public policies of the organization. Second, the institute was formed mainly to research and promote carbon steel products, which may not always be in the company's best interest given its diversified product mix.
"This was a bold move as it showed the company was not on board with the troubled industry and was willing to do what it has to do because the industry can't survive with this model," Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analyst Waldo Best told CBS.MarketWatch.com in an interview after he toured the company's Rockport Works facility. "AK Steel is best of breed but it's still a dog group."
The company has a very attractive high end product mix and a management that is viewed as having the best operating performance in the industry, Best noted, adding that it has done what it needs to do and all that it can do as a standalone to change its fate.
But that's not enough to help the company when the industry model is flawed, he said.
This flaw is fragmentation. The top 10 steel producers control only about 35 percent of the steel produced in the U.S. That leaves steel makers with too much high cost capacity and too many competitors.
While Europe and other foreign markets have seen improvements from consolidation in the industry as evidenced by the recently announced merger plans of Usinor, Arbed and Aceralia, the United States has not been that lucky.
"There are currently 25-30 steel companies operating in the United States," Best said. "We need to get down to at least under 10, preferably five-one or two integrated companies serving automakers; one or two stainless companies and one or two mini-mills serving the spot market."
Consolidation, however, will only help if it results in a decrease of overcapacity. Both Best and Wardrop are more in favor of rationalization.
While investors may be worried about all those bankruptcy filings in the sector, including LTV Corp.'s latest, Best and Wardrop consider them a good thing for the industry. While Wardrop expects we will see a few more bankruptcies, including a few "relatively big names."
"The government needs to allow certain of the weaker companies to go bankrupt and shut down," Wardrop said. "If it stops putting good capital into bad investments the rest of the industry will become stronger."
Best said government policy of supporting companies such as LTV LTVCQ violates the laws of evolution and has put the entire industry at risk.
"We face the risk of the entire industry being boarded up if we continue to operate on the current industry model," Best noted. "If this environment continues, even stronger companies in the industry will never get access to industry capital again."
Eventually, Best believes politicians will come to the realization that this long-standing policy is not working but he expects no help in the near-term from the new Bush administration since the steel unions had overwhelmingly supported Al Gore.
As much as he likes the company, Best, on Feb. 16, downgraded his rating on the stock to "outperform" from "strong buy" based on the more pessimistic view of the long-term prospects for the steel industry.
Still Best holds out hope for the stock, noting that even with lowered earnings estimates the stock is cheap on a price-to-earnings basis.
"We believe investors will adopt a best in class strategy and realize that in this questionable economy where earnings matter this is a solid company with real assets that will make money this year, albeit at a lower rate," Best said.
As for the company, Wardrop says it will continue its time-tested strategy of commitment to safety, low cost production and rich product mix to weather the current storm.


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SHANGHAI/FRANKFURT -- By purchasing the largest stake in Daimler, China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group likely hopes to benefit from the German automaker's technologies and solidify its position in the intensifying global race to develop the vehicles of the future.
Geely's nearly 10% stake in the owner of the Mercedes-Benz brand puts it in position to begin talks with Daimler for a technology alliance, especially in the area of batteries, a key technology for electric vehicles, which the Chinese government has been pushing.
Geely has so far been at a disadvantage in terms of the scale of its business and the level of its technology. The acquisition gives it a much needed competitive lift in the evolving technological environment, which has also been driven by non-auto companies such as Google.
According to documents disclosed by Daimler, Geely founder and Chairman Li Shufu bought a 9.69% stake in the company, making him the top shareholder. The purchase is estimated to be worth 7.3 billion euros ($8.97 billion).
"Daimler is pleased to announce that with Li Shufu it could win another long-term-orientated shareholder, which is convinced by Daimler's innovation strength, the strategy and the future potential," the company said in a statement.
China's Hurun Report, which tracks the country's wealthiest people, puts Geely's Chairman Li in 10th place, with assets totaling 110 billion yuan ($17.4 billion) in 2017.
According to media reports, Geely initially approached Daimler last autumn and suggested Daimler issue new shares for it to buy, but the proposal was rejected. Li subsequently bought Daimler shares on the open market through an investment company.
It has also been reported that Li may visit Germany this week to start talks with Daimler management.
But how keen Daimler management is to work with Geely is unclear. Daimler does not appear to have much to gain from a technology tie-up.
Daimler plans to introduce over 10 electric vehicle models by 2022, with total spending of about 10 billion euros. It has announced plans to manufacture electric vehicles through a joint venture in China with local partner Beijing Automotive Group, also known as BAIC Group.
Geely, on the other hand, could get what it wants out of talks if Daimler decides a tie-up would help it expand its footprint in China, the world's largest auto market. Geely's sales in 2017 totaled 1.25 million vehicles, up 63% from a year earlier. The company aims to sell 1.58 million vehicles this year.
Such a scenario could have a significant impact on the current arrangement of strategic alliances in the area of new technologies and development strategies.
Daimler is already in a cooperative relationship with the alliance between Japan's Nissan Motor and France's Renault. A Chinese joint venture between Nissan and a local automaker also announced a plan this month to invest about 60 billion yuan ($9.46 billion) to introduce over 20 electric vehicle models.


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Strategic Partnership Aims to Drive Innovation and Accelerate Data Privacy Adoption in the Middle East
GITEX 2022 was a resounding success for Evanssion, as the company participated as an exhibitor and had a lounge style setup at the Dubai World Trade Center from October 10-14.
What is GITEX Global?
GITEX GLOBAL brings together the world’s most innovative and influential ecosystems to drive progress in business, economy, society, and culture. This year’s event, the largest and most inclusive tech and start-up event in the world, showcases ground-breaking technology and ideas that will shape the future, including the transformative power of 6G and the limitless potential of the Metaverse.
Evanssion is thrilled to announce that it participated as an exhibitor in the 5th edition of CyberX Qatar Summit, held on 1st and 2nd June 2022 at the prestigious Ritz Carlton in Doha.
New Partnership Will Make API Security a Reality for Organizations in the Middle East and Africa.
The collaboration will see the distributor creating awareness for regional businesses to test their cyber resiliency in increasingly digitalized and distributed work environments
Centraleyes announces its latest strategic partnership with UAE-based, value-added distributor, Evanssion.


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India ranks first among the top exporters in cut and polished diamonds, and second in gold jewellery, silver jewellery, and lab-grown diamonds as of year 2022 reports. India’s gems and jewellery exports reached US$ 39.45 billion in 2022, a 54.68% rise from the previous year. The gems and jewellery sector in India employs about 8.23 million people.
India has around 450 organised jewellery manufacturers, importers & exporters and is the main hub for jewellery manufacturing in the whole world. The demand for jewellery is expected to be significantly supported by the recent positive developments in the industry. India’s gems and jewellery industry is expected to reach US$ 100 billion by 2027.Market size
India’s gems and jewellery market size was at US$ 78.50 billion in the last fiscal.Industry Investments The total foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in the gems and jewellery sector during 2022 stood at US$ 58.77 billion. The FDI inflows in the gems and jewellery sector increased by 60.78% in FY22.
Cumulative FDI inflows in diamond and gold ornaments stood at US$ 1,213.06 million between April 2000-March 2022, according to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).


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Elden Ring is an immense success, but developer FromSoftware isn’t taking a break. In a new interview with 4Gamer.net, Dark Souls and Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki stated that the company’s next game is in the “final stages” of development.
Table Of Contents
In a translation provided by Gematsu, 4Gamer brought up a statement Miyazaki gave a few years ago when promoting the then-upcoming Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. At the time, Miyazaki said that FromSoftware was underway on 3.5 different titles and two of them were currently unannounced. One of those games was Elden Ring and we still don’t know about the other. When asked if that other title was still in development, Miyazaki responded, “Yes, development is currently in the final stages.”
The only hint we have as to what this game might be comes from the next question. When pressed about what Miyazaki would like to do as a director in the future, he responded, “In the mid-to-long term, I would like to work on a more abstract fantasy than anything we’ve done in the past.” Miyazaki also states that he is currently working on his next title as director, so we may be in store for another Souls-like in the not-to-distant future.
What Comes Next?
If this interview makes you think that FromSoftware is turning away from Elden Ring, you can rest easy: the company is dedicated to continually updating the game in the present. “First off, we’re going to continue releasing updates for Elden Ring,” Miyazaki said when asked about the future of the company. While that doesn’t necessarily mean DLC is coming, it does point to an eventual expansion being released. As for anything else, Miyazaki reiterates that the company has multiple titles in development with directors other than himself. It’s still too early to reveal what those games are, but Miyazaki promises that we’ll learn in due time.
This all follows with some recent job listings that FromSoftware has posted. Earlier this morning on the official FromSoftware Twitter account, the company put out a recruitment ad teasing “a wide range of occupations for multiple new projects.” That definitely lines up with everything Miyazaki has stated.


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As you lie there dreaming about the next best idea, creating the next big thing, all the money you could make, accolades you could earn, luxuries you could buy if your startup clicked, we have an intervention.
Sorry to bring you out of your reverie, but we have an important lesson to share with you. A lesson important for the entrepreneur in you to realise your dream. And it’s from Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho, who should know something about running a business considering he’s been running one profitably for 21 years.
In case you haven’t heard of Vembu or Zoho, here’s a quick update:
Vembu is the man who built Zoho, a SaaS unicorn based out of Chennai, which employs more than 5000 people, generates hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue — its estimated revenue for FY17 was $310 Mn — and has transformed Chennai into India’s SaaS hub. It also runs the Zoho University for unique education and staffing practices.
You might say Zoho’s not the only company in its league. Well, it is, if you consider the fact that Vembu has been running Zoho as a bootstrapped company for 21 years now, and it has been profitable every single year since its inception.
Now you see why we had to intervene? We thought Vembu is just the person to share his secret sauce of running a profitable company with you. Inc42 caught up with Vembu for a Facebook Live AMA, where we asked him how he keeps creating milestones and achieving them.
Vembu shares with us, “If you look at the 21-year-old journey (of Zoho), we initially went through the dot-com bubble (1995-2001). That was a period of hyper-growth with money flying in from everywhere. Then the bust arrived, for two years. And those were very educational moments.”
He further explains that as an entrepreneur, he learnt that you should never take the good times for granted. There will be hard times, and you will have to go through them.
Vembu adds that Zoho has always kept a series of products up its sleeve so as be able to reinvent itself and not fall out of the race.
“That’s somewhere when Google also entered the office suite online. We realised that having them as direct competition in the office suite was going to be a losing proposition,” Vembu says.
Realising this, Zoho decided to get its business app right in terms of strategy. Vembu says, “I remember thinking that it will be tough to compete with Google but not tough to compete with Salesforce. That’s when we moved into CRM, which became the blockbuster of our success.”
Had Zoho just stuck to fighting Google in the office suite space, it would have spent billions of dollars in marketing. But by finding other opportunities, CRM in particular, the company was able to carry forward the R&D in office and build another business alongside. “Then this whole thing came together as a whole suite,” says Vembu.
So, count your blessings but don’t depend on them, identify your strengths and the right space to be in, and reinvent according to market need — these are the ingredients of the secret sauce that helped Vembu run Zoho for 21 years and that too profitably.


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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday that the company will lay off another 10,000 employees, according to his blog post.
It makes Meta the first Big Tech company to announce a second round of mass layoffs as the industry braces for a deep economic downturn.
The company's November move to slash its headcount by 11,000 marked the first mass layoffs in its 18-year history. Its headcount stood at 86,482 at the end of 2022, up 20 percent from the year before.
Meta shares jumped six percent on the news. The widely anticipated job cuts are part of a wider restructuring that will also see the company scrap hiring plans for 5,000 openings, cancel lower-priority projects and flatten layers of middle management.
"I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years," Zuckerberg said in a message to staff.
Worries of an economic downturn due to rising interest rates have sparked a series of mass job cuts across corporate America, from Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to Big Tech firms including Amazon.com and Microsoft.
Meta, which is pouring billions of dollars into building its futuristic metaverse, has struggled with a post-pandemic slump in advertising spending from companies worried about the economic outlook.
In response, Zuckerberg has promised to turn 2023 into a "year of efficiency." With the latest move, Meta expects expenses in 2023 to come in between $86 billion and $92 billion, lower than the $89 billion to $95 billion forecast previously.
Zuckerberg said Meta will remove multiple layers of management, ask managers to become individual contributors and give them less than 10 direct reports, which would make the organization "flatter."
"We don't expect to grow headcount as quickly; it makes more sense to fully utilize each manager's capacity and defragment layers as much as possible," he said.
The tech industry has laid off nearly 290,000 workers since the start of 2022, with about 40 percent of them coming this year, according to layoff-tracking site layoffs.fyi.


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OCALA, Fla. -- Fuel distributor and c-store operator Diamond Oil LLC purchased eight Kwik King convenience stores here as part of a larger sale of all 50 Kwik King locations, Diamond stated.
"Our success with both our own stores and our dealers continues to validate our profit enhancement strategy," Jay Patel, Diamond Oil CEO, said in a statement. "Pricing continues to be the determinant factor in driving volume."
As part of the agreement, Diamond will supply fuel to an additional 11 Kwik King locations throughout central Florida. In addition, all 19 stores will be rebranded from Shell to the Diamond Oil banner.
"Oil just hit a $100 a barrel," Patel said. "By providing dealers with competitively price unbranded fuel, we are seeing store volume increase from 20,000 gallons a month to four times that amount and higher. Most dealers are ecstatic when they consider doing that kind of increase in fuel sales."
He added: "The real issue to consider is the effect that kind of jump in fuel volume has on in-store sales -- that's where Diamond provides the extra assistance to our dealers. To compete in this market, you have got to get the customer to the pump. To succeed, you've got to get them in the store."


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The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is looking into a security breach involving Target stores in central California, ABC affiliate KXTV in Sacramento reports, though it is unrelated to the cyberattack that affected Target stores across the country at the end of 2013. The new issue was detected in January, and investigators identified a suspect in April.
Postal inspectors executed two search warrants on a suspect Thursday in Stockton, Calif., related to an apparent scheme to steal the credit card information of Target REDcard holders, KXTV reports. The suspect reportedly told investigators he figured out the sequencing system for the cards, allowing him to make fraudulent cards and use them to buy at least $200,000 in merchandise. Investigators believe hundreds of cardholders’ accounts and identities have been compromised as a result of the operation.
Calls and emails requesting comment from Target and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service were not immediately returned.
There may be little information available, but concerned customers can identify potential fraud by checking their REDcard activity for unauthorized transactions, particularly those made in the central California area.
Though this incident is unrelated to the other data breach, it could further damage customer confidence in a company already battling reputation issues. Target announced earlier this year efforts to review and improve company security procedures following the massive breach (and after this particular incident took place).
Target is also not the only company scrambling to keep up with and clean up after hackers. The Secret Service recently announced the widespread use of a type of malware named “Backoff,” which is believed to have compromised payment data at roughly 1,000 American businesses, possibly including Target. In light of that revelation, any consumer should take the time to regularly monitor their credit and debit card activity, so fraudulent purchases don’t go unnoticed.
Debit card fraud could mean you’re out of the money you rely on to pay important bills, and credit card fraud could seriously hurt your credit standing unless you get the problem resolved. In addition to monitoring your payment card transactions, you should also use your credit score as a fraud monitoring tool by checking it for significant, unexpected changes. You can see two of your credit scores for free every month on Credit.com.
Updated 3:50 p.m. – Molly Snyder, a spokeswoman for Target, provided us with the following statement:
“It’s important to note that there is absolutely no indication that this situation is in any way related to a breach of Target’s networks or point-of-sale systems,” Snyder said via email. “Information protection is a top priority at Target and our investigations team has partnered with local California law enforcement and the local office of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to bring charges against this individual that we believe has engaged in physical credit card fraud.”
More on Identity Theft:
- How Can You Tell If Your Identity Has Been Stolen?
- What Should I Do If I’m a Victim of Identity Theft?
- How Credit Impacts Your Day-to-Day Life
Image: Marcus Quigmire


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First-party segments bring publisher data to the open market
Lately, there has been a lot of talk about how web browsers are changing to protect user privacy. These changes have triggered shifts in how and where advertisements are targeted. As we prepare for the end of third-party cookies (now...
Lately, there has been a lot of talk about how web browsers are changing to protect user privacy. These changes have triggered shifts in how and where advertisements are targeted. As we prepare for the end of third-party cookies (now in 2023), we’re pursuing our four initiatives to make sure that our publishers are able to navigate the changes successfully and come out thriving even better than before.
Today, our advertising technology partner Magnite announced new efforts around third-party cookie replacements. We’ve worked closely with them on this initiative and are excited to share how this affects current publishers.
3 key takeaways
- CafeMedia is leading initiatives to connect publisher data to the open market
- We’re helping drive and standardize industry changes that benefit publishers
- If you’re working with CafeMedia, you’re already taking advantage of these new standards
First-party solutions to a third-party problem
In a future world without third-party cookies, advertisers face the challenge of reaching consumers in innovative ways. With much of the web anonymous, it will be difficult for advertisers to know much about audiences and where to target advertising. To locate their target customers, they need information about the audiences where they advertise.
Publishers, however, tend to know their readers and continually deliver exactly what they’re looking for online. As a representative for our publishers in the ad industry, we want to help take advantage of the full value of publishers’ deep audience knowledge.
Our sales team includes publishers’ content and audience insights in direct-to-advertiser deals. But so far, publishers across the industry haven’t been able to make this first-party data available in the open market.
That is all changing. Inspired by two articles from our team in 2020, companies across the industry started working together to make this vision a reality. Today, we’re announcing that the first phases of this initiative have been successful.
New features from CafeMedia and Prebid.org
Our internal Data Science expert, Patrick McCann, has been very involved on the board of Prebid.org, which creates the open-source software that helps publishers manage their programmatic advertising. They are always looking to develop innovative solutions to help publishers generate revenue through advertising.
Until now, publishers sent a small set of information through Prebid to advertisers about ad impressions (e.g., IP address, browser, operating system). The rest of the information came from third-party cookies. With third-party cookies going away, we need to give ad buyers more information to maximize the value of every ad impression.
As a first step to enable publishers to make first-party data available, Patrick and the team at Prebid have built new features to allow publishers to pass this data to the open market.
Now, we can attach more helpful information in addition to the basic information that was already available to advertisers around an ad impression. These new features give publishers much more control over what info to share, when to share it, and who to share it with.
Connecting publishers and advertisers across the industry with new standards
With raw data, advertisers need some type of decoding to help decipher what it means and how they can use it. For that, we needed to work across the entire advertising industry (with global advertising agencies, advertising technology firms, and major publishers) to create a compelling proof-of-concept and get buy-in from many parties.
The Publisher First-Party Segments Initiative, publicly announced today, brought together many of the biggest names in the industry. Alongside our company, you’ll find publishers like Conde Nast, News Corp, Future, Meredith, and Insider, and advertising agencies like Merkle, Havas, and Goodway Group.
As part of the initiative, we’ve partnered with the IAB Tech Lab to use Content Taxonomy to standardize first-party data. This taxonomy provides a standardized format for publishers and advertisers to give shorthand identifiers about a publisher’s content. Taxonomy categories range from very general (Video Games) to the specific (Music and Party Video Games), making them flexible and attractive enough for advertisers to buy ads across the open web and independent publications.
So far, we’ve been the only ad management firm involved in these discussions. Adding our voice to these pillars of the advertising industry, we’re working to maintain a level playing field for publishers, large and small. And it means CafeMedia publishers are already taking advantage of this innovative platform.
CafeMedia and the future of digital advertising
With so many changes happening in the world of digital publishing and advertising, it can be overwhelming trying to keep up.
We are always here to ensure our publishers’ futures are secure through advocacy and support at every level. Interested in learning how your site could benefit from these new changes? Contact us here.


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Regular, "linear" TV viewing — watching scheduled TV as it is broadcast, in other words — is dying. That's a trend not just being adopted by millennials — even older people are switching off their TV sets in favor of online video alternatives, according to a new report from Forrester. Anecdotally, most people tend to say they are watching less TV, favoring on-demand services and streaming.
How effective is video advertising on the web? Conversion rates for regular web ads can be tiny — 1 percent or less. But recent research suggests that once consumers start watching video ads — especially videos that include product demonstrations — purchase conversion rates can skyrocket.
Last month, we told you how the food delivery service Eat24 used porn sites to advertise its offerings to the stay-at-home crowd without paying the higher advertising fees demanded by other publishers.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes a commercial great, but like a Supreme Court justice once said in a slightly different context, you know it when you see it. Ostensibly a commercial should make you want to go out and immediately buy the product, but it also should evoke some emotion, most likely happiness or nostalgia.
General Motors said Friday it will skip the next SuperBowl advertising extravaganza because ads cost too much, just days after it pulled online ads from social network Facebook.GM, the nation's largest automaker, was one of the biggest advertisers on this year's Super Bowl, American football's championship game.Watching the Super Bowl television spots has become a sport itself, as viewers eagerly await the advertising world's top-tier rivalry for the big sports audience.


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Apple is on the cusp of releasing a major update to its iPad line up.
The iPad Mini and the bigger iPad are due for big changes next week.
To get you ready for what Apple will announce, we've rounded up all the major rumors.
Apple is expected to add the "A7" chip, which is its latest, greatest chip. The A7 is in the iPhone 5S and it supports 64-bit architecture. What is 64-bit architecture? Well, it brings desktop-computing power to mobile devices. For the iPad, this could be huge. The iPad is fast becoming consumers' primary PC, so making it more powerful just makes sense.
This is unclear. We have heard little to no rumors about it happening, so our inclination is to think it's not coming. Apple may be struggling to make enough finger print readers for the iPhone 5S, and therefore it will not want to up the production for the iPads.
There's been a lot of talk that Apple might not even be able to release an iPad Mini with Retina this year because it's struggling to make the Retina display. We believe it will happen, but we think the supply is going to be limited initially. Expect the Retina iPad to be tough to get this holiday season.
Historically, Apple drops the price of last year's model and sells it along side this year's model. We don't know if Apple will do that with the iPad Mini. But, it would be a smart move to sell last year's iPad Mini for $229. Google and Amazon have super-cheap tablets. Apple could compete with them.
There's talk out there that Apple is planning a really big iPad — 12.1 inches. We're skeptical it happens, but if it happens, it's not happening this year. It's also possible there's some confusion out there. There are also rumors of Apple doing a 12-inch laptop, which we don't expect next week.
The rumor is that Apple is going to update its Apple TV. It might have some sort of motion-tracking technology a la Microsoft's Kinect. Apple is NOT expected to release a full-on television, though. Just an update to the hockey puck. But there's been very little chatter on the TV, so it would be a real surprise.


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Since the departure of Gucci’s former Chief Executive Patrizio di Marco and creative director Frida Giannini in January of this year, the brand has emerged with an aesthetic overhaul under Gucci’s new president and CEO Marco Bizzarri, and former Gucci accessories designer turned creative director Alessandro Michele.
Departing from its former glamorous Italian image in favour of a distinctly retro, sun-drenched, 70s vibe, Alessandro Michele appears to have made his mark on Gucci, and it has been met with a hugely positive response.
Having originally served as the accessories designer, Michele’s mysticism and eccentricity is undeniably present in Gucci’s A/W15 campaign. His style is a marked contrast to the former glossy and understated approach of his predecessor, Giannini, and his appointment as creative director has given Gucci’s AW15 collection a distinctly dream-like vintage feel.
The colours clash, the prints are bold, the textures are ruffled, the models are quirky and unknown with an air of effortlessness, and the Gucci shoes are noticeably eccentric. The campaign, shot by photographer Glen Luchford, has an urban backdrop; wind-swept subway platforms and vintage looking busses of Los Angeles help to blend bohemian fashion with the enduring feel of everyday city life.
Watch the full video to see why Gucci is capturing everyone’s attention right now:


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Monday, may 7, Microsoft announced Azure Blockchain Workbench — a new set of tools for developers who interact with bloccano.
This week, developers from around the world join the company at the annual Microsoft Build conference to learn about the latest technologies. The blockchain remains a key theme of the event.
Over the last 18 months thousands of customers have experimented with blockchain templates and development tools available on the Azure Marketplace. Enterprises of different industries have developed many applications to meet the needs of customers ranging from pharmaceutical and booking, and ending with the creation of a digital local currencies .
While use cases are diverse, the problems are for customers, only beginning its journey was the same — existing applications has been costly and time consuming to develop and difficult to integrate.
According to Matthew Koerner, General Manager of Microsoft Azure, the new offer Azure Blockchain Workbench can shorten the application development time from several months to several days. Workbench quick start the client by automating the configuration of infrastructure so developers can focus on application logic and business owners to devote more time to identification and the verification of their uses.
According to representatives of Microsoft, some of the existing partners already have used Workbench.
In Israel the Bank Hapoalim uses Workbench to create a solution that simplifies the time-consuming manual processes required to issue Bank guarantees on large purchases such as real estate.
In Italy, Nestle has teamed up with Microsoft Digital to pilot solutions supporting IoT to track the movement of their famous and delicious chocolate through the supply chain.
In the United States Apttus is using Workbench to help banks and asset managers to quickly create smart contracts for security, monitoring and adjustment of change in loans, protecting against risks, which “added fuel to the fire” of the financial crisis of 2008.
And companies like Quisitive, Macaw and Cegeka has created a cutting-edge blockchain centers using Workbench to help customers to integrate the blockchain in their business.


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TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Local handicraft and furniture producers in the province are seeing a production breakthrough with the new epoxy resin technology.
The Department of Trade and Industry-Kalinga sponsored a three-day training on product innovation on scrapwood and driftwood furniture and handicrafts using trendy epoxy resin under its One Town One Product Next Gen Program.
Benita Mangadap of DTI-Kalinga said the new technology converts scrapwood, driftwood, and other wood plunks as raw materials for furniture.
Through the application of epoxy resin, “waste” woods are polished into ready raw wood materials for the production of furniture, decors, souvenir items and other handicrafts.
Furniture producers were taught about the technology to reshape irregular surfaces and remove odd color on raw scrap wood into fine designs and coloring to the buyer’s choice and preference, Mangadap said.
With the prevailing environment circulars on cutting of trees, the epoxy resin technology is an answer to the industry’s need for raw material, Mangadap said.
Participants are optimistic the training will open more opportunities for them to recover from the effects of the pandemic, she added. – Larry Lopez


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Airbnb’s three co-founders (from left): Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk, and Brian Chesky. Reports say the company has been profitable for the past 17 months. Airbnb
Airbnb Inc., the home and apartment rental company, pulled in about $1 billion in net revenue for the quarter ended in September, according to people familiar with its financial results.
The third quarter gross income continued Airbnb’s profitability streak.
The nine-year old travel upstart has maintained a steady profit before interest, taxes and amortization, for at least 17 months, said the people who asked not to be identified discussing the private company’s earnings.
Airbnb first became profitable during the second half of 2016, the people said.
Last week, Morgan Stanley released a report that said Airbnb’s growth is slowing. The analysts based their view on an online survey of 4,000 consumers from the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany.
The survey did not include Latin America and Asia, which saw an 80 percent growth in bookings compared to the previous year, says one of the people.
Latin America, saw bookings increase by 150 percent for the same amount of time, said the person.
[Skift Editor’s Note: Read more about how profitability figures into Airbnb’s pursuit of an IPO here.]
©2017 Bloomberg L.P. This article was written by Olivia Zaleski from Bloomberg and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to email@example.com.


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Global food prices rose one% in March compared to the previous month, driven mainly by an 11% increase in dairy products, according to the UN body Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
FAO has the Food Price Index (FPI) to measure the monthly change in global prices of a basket of food commodities.
“FPI averaged 212 points in March 2013, up 1% from February. The small increase in March was mainly the result of an 11% surge in the dairy sub-index, which carries a weight of 17% within the FAO Food Price Index,” the FAO said on its Web site.
However, food prices during last month were lower by 1.7% compared to March 2012, it added.
Stating that there was exceptional volatility in dairy items last month, the UN body said the FAO Dairy Price Index jumped 22 points in March to 225, one of the largest recorded changes.
The price surge was caused by hot, dry weather in Oceania, which has led to milk production falling off steeply and a concomitant reduction in the processing of dairy products in the region, it said.
Dairy prices used in the price index calculation are based on the exports of New Zealand, as it is the world’s largest dairy exporter, accounting for about one-third of global trade.
Export prices for dairy products have also risen for other important exporters, such as the EU and the US, but not to the same degree, it added.
However, the prices of other major commodities remained stable in March. The FAO Cereal Price Index averaged 244 points, unchanged from February.
While maize prices increased last month on a fall in exportable supplies from the US, lower wheat prices on prospects of a good world harvest offset those increases.
The FAO Oils/Fats Price Index fell 2.5% from February, mostly due to soya oil prices, which dropped on account of favourable weather conditions in South America, a record 2013 US soybean crop and a cancellation of purchases by China. Palm oil prices were also slightly down.
The FAO Meat Price Index averaged nearly 176 points in March, down 2% from February, whereas the FAO Sugar Price Index edged higher 2.8 points or 1% from February.


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The International Monetary Fund revised down Korea’s gross domestic product growth forecast Tuesday to 2.8 percent this year, from the 3.2 percent it estimated earlier this year.
But the IMF said it expected Korea’s economy to progress toward the trend of 4 percent next year, when it would grow 3.9 percent on the back of improvements in exports and increased private investment.
The IMF’s revised economic outlook came after Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hyun Oh-seok told lawmakers that Korea could reach 2.8 percent growth this year, backed by a supplementary budget and a package of economic measures aimed at reviving the economy.
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance forecast Korea’s growth at 2.3 percent, down from its initial forecast of 3 percent, while the Bank of Korea revised down its growth from 2.8 percent to 2.6 percent.
IMF’s revision on Korea’s growth is aligned with other changes it made on the U.S., the eurozone and the global economy.
The U.S., Korea’s second-biggest export destination, is expected to post 1.9 percent growth, down from 2 percent this year mainly due to across-the-board spending cuts, also known as the sequester.
The IMF projected a contraction of 0.3 percent for the eurozone, revised from minus 0.2 percent, on the prolonged debt crisis.
The global economy will grow 3.3 percent, down from 3.5 percent.
China, meanwhile, is likely to maintain its growth at around 8 percent this year.
The IMF made an upward growth projection on Japan’s economy from 1.2 percent to 1.6 percent on monetary easing.
It warned that global consumption and investment could fall should the advanced economies such as the U.S., the eurozone and Japan fail to come up with fundamentally sound measures to resolve their fiscal problems.
By Park Hyong-ki


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Discount grocer Aldi is increasing its selection of organics and healthy options, while staying true to its low price policy.
To reduce impulse buys of snack foods or unhealthy products, Aldi is introducing healthier checklanes in select stores this year. Rather than chocolates and candies, these checklanes will be stocked with healthier items like single-serve nuts and trail mixes, dried fruits and an assortment of granola bars.
Aldi plans to roll out the program to its nearly 1,500 locations by the end of 2016.
"By introducing healthier checklanes and through a number of other initiatives, we are doing our part to remove temptation at checkout and stocking stores with even more nutritious options," said Jason Hart, CEO, Aldi. "At Aldi, we truly care about our customers, and we're responding with guilt-free checkout zones and increased food options they can feel good about."
Changes go beyond the checkout lanes. Aldi's assortment is 90 percent private label and these products are now free of certified synthetic colors, partially hydrogenated oils and added MSG. Aldi recently found that more than half of Americans believe items without artificial ingredients are more expensive and harder to find, and the company is responding to customers' priorities, all at the lowest prices possible.
Dairy products are now all free from artificial growth hormones, and items on the perimeter of the store—fresh foods—are being expanded, including fresh and organic meat and produce.
Aldi is also partnering with a registered dietician to provide tips, recipes and meal-planning ideas.
Grocers have been expanding natural and organic offerings, bringing healthier options across product categories. Target, Walmart and Kroger have all made this a priority and increased competition in the natural food aisles is putting pressure on Whole Foods, forcing it to lower prices.
-See this Aldi press release
Hy-Vee expands online shopping to all markets
Aldi's prices cheaper than Walmart's
Traditional grocery stores rank highest for customer loyalty
Dash's Markets launches delivery service
Natural Grocers launches one-hour delivery service


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Manolo says, the Manolo’s shoe-loving friend Wayne sends the Manolo the link to this article in the Toronto Star
Among the curiosities on the fall 2007 runways: Balenciaga’s Lego/robot shoes, Chloe’s curved cone heels, and Stella McCartney’s tilted platforms that angle the toes towards the sky.
Spring offerings are even more theatrical with Prada heels that look like floral doorstops. Marc Jacobs’ surreal runway styles included some where the models’ heels rested above the shoes.
The current selection at Holt Renfrew Bloor St. bears out the trend, with “hidden” platforms cloaked in green leather and heels that look like shiny black popsicles, or sawed-off coffee table legs.
No wonder the new shoe department at Saks Fifth Avenue’s New York flagship store has its own zip code.
“Footwear seems to be where it’s at when it comes to the forefront of design,” comments Tommy Ton, a photographer who documents street fashion in Toronto and abroad. After the recent spring ’08 collections in Europe and New York, Ton believes that the excitement in fashion has shifted to ground level.
“Footwear has always been an art form but designers are really pushing the envelope and treating it like art,” Ton says. “They’re giving women something more visually stimulating and challenging to sink their teeth and pocketbooks into. Fabrications and ornamentation are becoming more elaborate and eccentric.”
“At the Dior store in Paris, some of the shoes are like works of art,” says Debra Anissimoff, owner of two Zola Shoes stores in Toronto. “They are embellished, and strapped, and so over the top, with heels like a series of red lacquer balls.”
The more cutting-edge styles are presented in a separate gallery-like environment that enhances the wow factor. “Seeing those shoes on the shelves – you could have been looking at a glass vase,” Anissimoff says.
That feetwear is currently at the forefront of fashion design is not news to the regular readers of the Manolo, for it is here, at the humble shoe blog of the Manolo, where shoes have always and forever been celebrated as high art.
That others are just now coming to realize this pleases the Manolo very much.


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Firms 'need support from government' over trainees
Small firms could create one million apprenticeships if they had more support from the Government, according to a report.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) predicted a fall in the number of companies taking on an apprentice because of the cost of training.
Smaller companies were crucial to achieving the Government's target of having three million new placements by 2020, but extra support was needed, it was argued.
FSB chairman Mike Cherry said: "Smaller businesses are taking on more apprentices than ever and a quarter of members say they are considering employing an apprentice in the future.
"This presents a huge opportunity and is great news for vocational training, which has become an increasingly attractive option for young people put off by the rising cost and uncertain returns of a university degree."