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Principles for Fair Software Licensing in the Cloud
€1 Billion Cost of Unfair Software Licensing
In a follow-up to his earlier research, Professor Jenny, has found that unfair software licensing practices connected to just one product, cost European businesses over €1 billion in surcharges. This new research highlights the real harm and ongoing cost to customers of the bad practices of legacy software giants leveraging dominance in adjacent markets to lock European customers into their own cloud infrastructure.
Read our blog and download the full research for more information.
Principles of Fair Software Licensing
for Cloud Customers
Launched by CISPE and Cigref, the Ten Principles of Fair Software Licensing are being adopted by organisations around the world to challenge the unfair licensing terms of some legacy software companies. The Principles have been developed as an auditable best practice framework for businesses looking to the Cloud for growth, innovation and flexibility.
Fair Software Study
CISPE commissioned renowned economist and expert on competition policy, Professor Frédéric Jenny, to examine the prevalence and impact of unfair software licensing terms on Cloud infrastructure service providers and their customers.
Complaint Against Microsoft with European Commission
CISPE has filed a formal competition complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition (DG Comp). The complaint seeks to represents the whole European cloud infrastructure sector and outlines serious unresolved issues that affect both vendors and customers of cloud infrastructure services. It proposes remedies that will benefit customers and vendors in a vibrant marketplace for cloud infrastructure services.
Recent announcements, blogs and FAQ documents published by Microsoft in an effort to head-off market investigations have not provided the detail, clarity or assurance that it truly intends to bring a swift end to its anti-competitive licensing practices. Microsoft’s ongoing position and behaviours are irreparably damaging the European cloud ecosystem and depriving European customers of choice in their cloud deployments. CISPE feels it has no option but to become a formal complainant and to urge the European Commission to act.
Read the Executive Summary of our complaint here
The CISPE complaint is a confidential legal document. However, in the interests of transparency we hope to publish a redacted version here as soon as we are able. Please check back in the coming weeks to read the CISPE complaint.
* The press release and executive summary are available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and Korean
Main achievements so far
- The 10 Principles of Fair Software Licensing for Cloud Customers have been published in 19 languages.
Campaigns have been rolled out in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, and the Netherlands.
An auditable framework has been developed to allow customers and authorities to rate suppliers’ adherence to the Principles


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TOKYO -- Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing, Japan's biggest clothing retailer by sales, has disclosed all of its major suppliers for the first time in a move toward greater transparency that shows its rising presence in South and Southeast Asia.
The new list of core sewing factories contains the names and addresses of 242 workshops in 11 countries.
China still accounts for more than half of the total, at 128 locations, despite the company's efforts to reduce reliance on Chinese works as labor costs there rise.
Vietnam ranked second in importance for Fast Retailing's supply chain, with 44 factories, followed by Bangladesh with 24.
The company also uses garment workshops in Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, as well as six factories in India, where Uniqlo will open its first store later this year.
The group relies on just two sewing factories in Japan, which make socks and stockings.
"It's hard to do garment production in Japan," founder and President Tadashi Yanai has said, blaming the country's aging workforce and high factory wages.
Fast Retailing began disclosing suppliers for its Uniqlo and GU brands in 2017 in an effort to make its supply chain transparent and ensure proper work conditions. The latest list includes factories that produce for its other clothing lines, including PLST and Theory.

domain: news


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The United States Department of Commerce has just unveiled its Data Privacy Framework Program (DPF) website, which provides more than just information about ensuring data privacy. The site also allows US companies to self-certify in the data privacy framework the United States maintains with the European Union, United Kingdom, and Switzerland.
International data transfers have become more complicated in recent years with the emergence of laws that require companies to store the data of their consumers or users in the same country where the data was generated. This has greatly affected global companies like Meta and Google, which have been collecting data and saving them in servers across different parts of the world. Also, even smaller businesses are impacted by tighter controls over international data transfers.
Data flows between countries in North America and Europe are associated with an estimated $1 trillion worth of trade and investments. That’s why there is meticulous attention over data regulation, and the United States government is trying to help businesses navigate around the legal and technical complexities through the DPF.
Clarifying data privacy
Before going into the DPF details, here’s a brief overview of data privacy. Privacy, as it pertains to data, means providing full control to the data owner over how their data is accessed, observed, and used. It does not mean an absolute prohibition against data collection and use. If there is consent for an entity to access, observe, or use someone’s data, it is safe to say that there is no privacy violation.
However, it is apparent that data privacy violation has become rampant over the years, mainly facilitated by deceptive “terms and conditions” and the tendency of most customers or app users to be careless about their data. That’s why regulators have stepped in to impose more stringent rules and bigger penalties against violators, especially when it comes to data stored abroad. Regulators are trying to rein in unscrupulous businesses and more importantly, cybercriminals who are out to take advantage of lax or almost nonexistent privacy policies.
Certainly, privacy laws are aimed at helping customers or the general public in maintaining their data privacy. However, along the way, these regulatory impositions are creating confusion, inconveniences, and unnecessary legal woes. The DPF, together with the DPF website, addresses these issues for the benefit of customers and businesses interested in collecting and using customer data.
Making good use of the DPF
With European countries casting strict laws over the collection, storage, and use of their citizens’ data, the United States government formulated a mechanism that makes it possible for US organizations to legally transfer data from the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the European Union to the United States. The DPF provides a legitimate and viable way to take data to the United States without violating EU, UK, and Swiss laws on data privacy and security.
The DPF website helps enterprises of all sizes to avoid legal entanglements involving data collection and usage. To be clear, it is not a regulation evasion system but a framework to enable qualified organizations to continue accessing and using data from abroad without adverse legal implications. This is important given the role of data in the interoperation of economies at present. Removing data access and use can seriously impair global economic activities.
The newly launched DPF website provides resources about the Data Privacy Framework, including a list of participants, updates, a program overview for specific audiences, and a self-certification system. The self-certification section of the website allows interested parties (US organizations) to evaluate their qualifications to be part of the framework. If they are certified, they become a participant and their names are included in the list.
Self-certification entails an examination if an organization complies with the applicable laws on data security and privacy. The organization must comply with relevant US laws and the corresponding foreign laws (EU, UK, or Swiss) for the data transfer they want to undertake.
Companies that intend to transfer data from the EU, Switzerland, and the UK are required to sign up and become part of the DPF program by October 10, 2023. Several well-known companies have already signed up on the DPF website. These include 23andMe, Adobe, Akamai Technologies, Bitcoin, ComScore, Coinbase, Google, GoPro, McDonald’s Corporation, Microsoft, Meta, Quickbase, Stripe, Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, Volvo, and ZenDesk.
The importance of strong data privacy and security solutions
The Data Privacy Framework program helps enforce relevant data security and privacy laws in the United States and most of Europe. However, it does not mean that being a participant is permanent and irrevocable. Participating organizations must be able to prove that they can continuously follow the legal requirements to ensure private and secure data transfers. The failure to sustain solid data security policies and solutions does not only lead to the voiding of DPF mechanism access. It can also result in legal charges for violating relevant laws on data privacy and security in the United States and the country of origin of the data transferred.
As such, it is vital to make use of reputable and reliable data security solutions. Organizations need to invest in high-quality data privacy and defense systems. It also helps to religiously implement data handling best practices, including the following:
- Observing strong data protection through strict user access controls and the principle of least privilege
- Data masking or anonymization through encryption, generalization, perturbation, and other techniques
- Data loss prevention systems applied to data in motion and at rest
- Effective data change management, particularly when it comes to tracking, logging, and reporting data structure changes
- Privileged user monitoring
- Auditing sensitive data access
- Securing the archives of audit trails
- Imposing strong user rights management to detect abusive, excessive, or inappropriate data access and use
- Mapping of web application end users
- Ensuring the strict privacy and security of VIP or sensitive data
The Data Privacy Framework program may appear to be more of a legal concern, but it does contribute to real-world data privacy. Governments are often assailed for being slow or inadequate in addressing cybersecurity concerns. However, the finalization of the Data Privacy Framework itself shows that regulators are trying to keep up.
It took years of negotiations for the DPF program to be established. There was a similar attempt a few years back, which was called the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, but the EU Commission invalidated it. The Data Privacy Framework was finally approved on July 10, 2023, and it provides a useful system against abusive data collection and use, especially by Big Tech players.
Article contribution by Hazel Raoult.


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Marissa Mayer, the Google executive who runs all the parts of the search engine, just put her legal team in a pickle. She told conference-goers yesterday at Fortune's Brainstorm conference that Google News, despite being advertising-free, makes $100 million in revenues a year. Fortune writer Jon Fortt explained Mayer's thinking:
The online giant figures that Google News funnels readers over to the main Google search engine, where they do searches that do produce ads. And that’s a nice business. Think of Google News as a $100 million search referral machine.
What neither Mayer nor Fortt explained: The real reason why Google doesn't put ads on Google News. That's because it fears lawsuits from the media organizations whose headlines and text it picks up and republishes. (It's already lost a court case brought by a newspaper group in Belgium). By not running ads on Google News, Google lawyers could argue it's not profiting from their work.
Mayer just shot a $100 million hole in that argument. When she puts a number on how much money Google News makes for her employer, she gives newspapers' lawyers a big, fat, juicy reason to demand a cut of the business. Sure, the newspapers already make money from the traffic Google sends their way — but do you think, given a $100 million prize, they won't try to double-dip?
Here's a suggestion: When Google finishes calculating their legal bill, they should dock it from Mayer's pay. As an early Google employee with a net worth estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars and a penthouse apartment in the Four Seasons San Francisco, she can afford it.


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Sales of take-home groceries have surged and food retailers’ online growth reached new heights, the latest grocery market share data has shown.
Take-home grocery revenues advanced 14.3% over the 12 weeks to May 17, the fastest rate since 1994, according to market monitor Kantar.
The rise in such goods was accompanied by a fall in sales of food-on-the-go, snacks and drinks, which would ordinarily have totalled £1bn.
In the last four weeks of the period, online grocery sales were up 75% year on year as almost a fifth of UK households placed orders.
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Safe to say that right now you have at least one item of outdoor gear that is made from Polartec.
If you haven’t then why not as it’s one of the best fabric inventions the outdoors has seen.
Earlier this year the staff at Polartec asked the adventure community to share old-school images of them with their Polartec gear on. The results did not disappoint and now the company has just released the Polartec Family album, a showcase of how fashion and design has changed over the years. It has even started an additional Instagram profile called @polartecfamily
As it says on their website: “It’s cringey, it’s awkward, it’s The Polartec Family Album. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Polarfleece and the 30th anniversary of Polartec’s founding, and we’re celebrating with the people who helped make Polartec a part of the outdoor story. We wanted to look back at all the incredible adventures throughout the years…but our memory is a bit fuzzy. So we asked folks from around the world to send us all of their outdoor photos. We asked for the fun pics, the silly snaps, the hardcore hits, the puppy pics, the really embarrassing ones, and of course, all the fleecy pics in your photo library. We wanted to see everything from the ‘80s, ‘90s, ‘00s, and today. And man, you did not disappoint.”
“Polartec is as much a part of the outdoor lifestyle as backpacks and hiking boots,” says David Karstad, Polartec Marketing VP and Creative Director while Steve Layton, Polartec President adds: “The modern history of Polartec is one of transformation, from a traditional mill into a performance textile innovator. We’re excited to tell this story of how collaboration with our business partners resulted in iconic fabrics and garments that literally changed what we wear when we go outside.”
Find out more in this Polartec landing page here and go and give @polartecfamily a follow.


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Now it's PayPal's turn: two factor authentication is hackable
08/07/2014 - 03:06
An Australian teenager has found a way to get around a security feature that is offered by PayPal to prevent hackers doing just that.
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The Pattaya News
Naklua, Pattaya- The 14 year anniversary of the Naklua Eat and Walk Festival at Naklua Old Market saw thousands of tourists and visitors on its first weekend of the festival. The event, which features tons of food, musical performances, culture, and entertainment, has become a holiday staple in Naklua. The last two years, however, it
Eat and Walk in Naklua has a successful first weekend with large crowds of visitors
The Pattaya News – Real. Unbiased. Impactful. In the moment.


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TOKYO—Japan ceded its spot as the world's second biggest economy to China in 2010, with a contraction in the fourth quarter as the strong yen contributed to an export slump, the end of auto subsidies depressed car purchases and a new tobacco tax hit cigarette sales.
The Japanese economy's fall from its 42-year reign in the number two spot behind the U.S. comes as pressure is mounting on Prime Minister Naoto Kan to halt further decline. But merely achieving moderate growth ahead may prove difficult as the government grapples with a staggering public debt, prolonged deflation and low approval ratings.
The Long Rivalry
China passed Japan in 2010 to become the world's second-largest economy after the U.S. Compare the two economies over the past 50 years.
Real gross domestic product contracted 1.1% in annualized, seasonally adjusted terms in the October-December period, slowing sharply from a revised 3.3% expansion in the previous period, government data showed Monday. The result marks the first contraction since a revised 1.9% pull back in July-September 2009. It compares with the median forecast for a 2.4% contraction in a poll of economists by Dow Jones Newswires. In on-quarter terms, real GDP contracted 0.3%, compared with revised 0.8% expansion in the July-September period.
A Historical Shift
Take a look at major events in Japan and China over the past decades.
Japan's nominal GDP for 2010 was 479.223 trillion yen, or $5.474 trillion, falling below the $5.879 trillion figure for China in the same year. While China's economy has several times in the past surpassed Japan's based on quarterly data for the two countries, Monday's reading marks the first time that China has done so on a full-year basis, the standard generally used for global rankings.
China's success story overshadows the fact that Japan's economy expanded for all of 2010. Growth in the first three quarters of the year meant that even with the poor showing in the fourth quarter, Japan's real GDP for the full year expanded 3.9% on year.
Japan leads the pack among Group of Seven countries that have so far reported full year GDP growth—besting expansions in Germany (3.6%), the U.S. (2.9%) and the U.K. (1.4%).
But economists cautioned against optimism, saying Japan's dependence on exports means GDP growth could fall off again if global trade sours. That happened during the global financial crisis, when Japan's economy shrank 6.3% in 2009, the worst contraction among G-7 countries that year.
Hobbled by weak domestic demand, Japan's economic output is about 5% smaller in nominal terms than it was in 2008, despite the rebound in 2010. In contrast, the U.S. economy is now 2% bigger than it was in 2008.
While China overtakes Japan, it is also helping it along. Japanese exports to China hit a record 13.087 trillion yen in 2010. The rapidly growing Chinese market for everything from cars and high-tech electronics to beverages is galvanizing corporate Japan. Naoki Izumiya, president of the beer-maker Asahi Breweries Ltd., said last week that the company's business in China has "increasing potential and appeal," a remark that rings true for various Japanese firms.
Continued growth in the Chinese economy as well as further pickup in the U.S. is expected to help Japan's economy bounce back in the first quarter of 2011.
Some analysts said that the numbers were stronger than expected but did not necessarily bode well for the economy going forward since part of the rise was due to higher inventories, which could result in a slowdown in production if consumption remains weak.
Mizuho Research and Consulting senior economist Norio Miyagawa said he now expects full-year 2011 growth of less than 2%. "Japan's weak consumer spending will likely keep weighing on the economy," he said.
Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano put the issue of China's growing economic clout growth in a positive light, saying that its high growth rate benefits all of Asia. "We are pleased to see China's economy rapidly developing," he said in comments to reporters soon after the figures were announced.
A rebound can come none too soon for Japanese workers. Smaller winter bonuses dragged down earnings late last year. The jobless rate hovers around 5% as firms hesitate to ramp up hiring, except for contract positions that pay less and offer fewer benefits.
The bleak jobs situation is hurting personal spending. Many young Japanese don't enjoy the kind of job stability and wage growth their parents did, meaning new cars and other high-priced goods are out of reach for many in the younger generation.
Consumer spending, which accounts for nearly 60% of Japan's GDP, was down 0.7% on quarter, compared with a revised 0.9% rise in the previous quarter.
Government purchasing incentives for fuel-efficient cars expired in September, weighing on car sales in the fourth quarter.
Consumption also suffered as smokers bought fewer cigarettes, after a tax introduced in October pushed up prices.
The falls overwhelmed a jump in sales of flat-panel televisions and other electronics covered by an incentive program for environmentally friendly products that was scaled back in December.
Domestic demand contributed 0.2 percentage point to the rate of GDP contraction, after adding a revised 1 percentage point to the GDP expansion in the previous quarter.
External demand, or exports minus imports, contributed 0.1 percentage point to the GDP contraction, after subtracting 0.1 percentage point from the GDP expansion in the previous quarter.
Exports fell 0.7% from the previous quarter, due in part to the strong yen, after rising a revised 1.5% in the previous period. The contraction was the first since exports slid in the January-March quarter of 2009 as trade plummeted amid the global financial crisis.
The fall in exports came as the yen surged during the period, making Japanese goods more expensive overseas and eating into profits sent back to Japan. Tokyo intervened in currency markets for the first time in more than six years in September, but the attempt failed. In early November, the dollar sank to 80.21 yen, its lowest level in fifteen years and near the post-World War II record low of 79.75 yen.
Capital expenditure, which accounts for 16% of GDP, rose 0.9% on quarter, slowing from a revised 1.5% gain in the previous quarter.
Business investment will likely remain sluggish for the first half of 2011, as concerns over any renewed yen strength continue to influence spending plans, economists said.
"Companies have been rather hesitant to increase capex at home until confirming the stability of foreign exchange rates," said Credit Agricole's chief Japan economist Susumu Kato. The dollar was at 83.23 yen.
Despite some easing recently in price falls, entrenched deflation continues to weigh on business investment by pushing up real borrowing costs and prompting consumers to delay purchases as they wait for prices to fall further. That is one reason firms have remained reluctant to spend more despite generally strong earnings, economists say.
The GDP deflator, the broadest measure of price trends, was minus 1.6 in the quarter, compared with a revised minus 2.1 in the July-September period.
One bright spot during the period was real estate. Private residential investment increased 3% on quarter, higher than a revised 1.8% rise in the previous period. Discounted mortgage rates and a government purchasing incentive scheme for environmentally friendly properties have encouraged more people to buy homes despite anemic growth in income.
--Kazuhiro Shimamura, Takashi Nakamichi and Takashi Mochizuki contributed to this article.


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SILVERHILL — Sunny skies and warmer weather greeted guests on Saturday, Nov. 20 for the 11th Annual Family Farm Day at Humming Star Alpacas in Silverhill.
Owners Cheryl and Andy Bowen welcomed guests who were treated to alpacas of all shapes and sizes. Even a couple of dogs and a giant tortoise made appearances during the event.
The event included a Christmas market with alpaca roving, yarn, socks, sweaters, teddy bears, scarves and many other items. A total of 40 arts and crafts and food vendors participated in the event, Cheryl Bowen said, along with live entertainment and demonstrations.
Join in the fun Dec. 4, 11 and 18 for alpaca yoga beginning at 9 a.m. and shop in the store from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Humming Star Alpacas is located at 19700 Blueberry Lane in Silverhill.
Call 251-214-8224 for more information. You can also check out the Humming Star Alpacas page on Facebook.


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HYDERABAD: After collecting Rs 968 crore towards application fees for running the liquor shops across Telangana
, the excise
department has issued an internal circular seeking an enquiry into the less number of applications received, especially in Hyderabad.
According to the circular (dated October 17, 2019), 22 applications had been received — on an average — for each shop in the state for 2,216 liquor licences this year. “However, some influential men formed syndicates and cartels and saw to it that less number of applications were filed, especially in Hyderabad. Local cartel formation, syndicates and threats to entrepreneurs/applicants has led to receipt of lesser number of applications in a few districts,” the circular said.
The circular further said that to shore up government revenue and to ensure fair trade practice, it had been decided to order an enquiry. Some shops in Hyderabad and Secunderabad
received less than five applications. Two shops in Dhoolpet, one shop in Golkonda, one shop in Kachiguda and three shops in Musheerabad received very few applications.
Sources said officials have been directed to enquire and ascertain the facts for the ‘poor’ response and submit a detailed report within 48 hours. Nizamabad district has also received less number of applications when compared to other northern districts. “The investment cost is very high in Hyderabad when compared to districts. The margin on beer has been reduced and this could be one of the reasons for the less number of applications filed from the city,” said a liquor shop owner.
The excise department received over 48,000 applications for 2,216 liquor licences this year. Each applicant had to make a non-refundable deposit of Rs 2 lakh, which was double the fee in 2017.


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President Uhuru Kenyatta has asked Ethiopia Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed and his government to consider opening up mobile money market to investment opportunities following the liberalization of the country’s telecommunications market.
The President who witnessed the issuance of mobile telecommunications licence to Safaricom-led Global Partnership for Ethiopia (GPE) consortium in Adds Ababa on Tuesday said mobile money stands to enhance Ethiopia’s financial just like it has done in Kenya which currently has 32.5 million active registered mobile money subscribers and 264,390 active mobile money agents as at December 2020.\
“Having witnessed first-hand in Kenya what mobile financial services can do in the transformation of the lives of citizens and a country’s economy, I am hopeful that your Government will consider, in the near future, opening up the opportunity for mobile money in Ethiopia. This move will be particularly timely, as it will offer the millions of Ethiopian people avenues for financial inclusion,” said President Kenyatta.
Ethio Telecom is currently the only operator of mobile money service in a country with 112 million people.
President Kenyatta added, “studies have shown that enhanced access to mobile financial services, have a great potential to reduce poverty as more people are enabled easier and safer savings and in effect, greatly influencing the kind of choices they make in life,”
Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa had earlier indicated that the telco targets to leverage on its M-pesa success in Kenya to gain a foothold in the Ethiopian market after acquiring the telco license for $850 million (Kshs. 92 billion) through a bidding processes.
“Ethiopian authorities recently confirmed that a new licensee will be allowed to operate mobile money within the next 12 months. Of course that needs to be confirmed in writing, but that is good progress,” said Ndegwa in May after the announcement.
GPE plans to roll out data, voice and SMS in Ethiopia next year after.
According to President Kenyatta, mobile money market also stands a chance of bridge existing gender disparities in Ethiopia.
“Women, have particularly been empowered by these services, and are now able to participate meaningfully in the economy, alongside men. This is an area we must devote our collective efforts as we usher in the digital economy.”
In the full year ending 31st March, Safaricom earned Kshs. 82.6 billion in revenue from M-pesa which declined -2.1% year-on-year due to COVID-19.


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US: Fifth & Pacific coy on Juicy Couture sale
Apparel firm Fifth & Pacific has remained coy on speculation it is looking to sell its struggling Juicy Couture brand.
The company is in the early stages of exploring alternatives for the Juicy brand, including a potential sale, according to a Reuters report. Fifth & Pacific has contacted potential buyers, it said, including some in Asia.
However, the discussions were preliminary and the group has not decided whether it will sell the brand, the report added.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Fifth & Pacific told just-style: "We do not comment on market speculation or rumours."
Last month, the company was forced to admit that disappointing Juicy Couture sales and Superstorm Sandy hit its fourth-quarter performance. Over the quarter, Kate Spade and Lucky Brand saw sales increase 27% and 3% respectively, while Juicy posted a 2% decline.
Despite the fall in sales, Fifth & Pacific reiterated its commitment to the Juicy brand last month, as it outlined its goals and priorities for 2013 at the ICR XChange conference in Miami.
"This has to be the year where Juicy finds stabilisation," chief executive officer Bill McComb said.
"Juicy is in full turnaround mode. The brand identity is actually as strong as Kate Spade's - even stronger overseas and the shifts in positioning merchandising that did not deliver are being addressed now," McComb added.
Fifth & Pacific Companies is reportedly in late-stage talks to sell its Lucky brand to private equity firm Advent International for an undisclosed sum....
Children's apparel retailer The Gymboree Corporation has appointed Levi Strauss & Co executive Joelle Maher as the company's new chief operating officer....
Fifth & Pacific subsidiary Kate Spade has won a trademark dispute related to the name and logo of its newest clothing brand, Kate Spade Saturday....
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Dine and Dish: Don Pepe Taqueria rising all through Fresno
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — The orders come in and go out quickly at Don Pepe Taqueria.
They can make up to 1,000 tacos a day.
“We have like 12 different meats,” says owner Andres DeAnda.
Rveryone has their favorite.
“Shrimp tacos — spicy shrimp tacos are my go-to,” says Juan Vargas.
Thinly sliced pork shaved off the vertical spit is extremely popular.
DeAnda served up a version of tacos al pastor, which doesn’t appear on the board.
“It’s kind of like our secret menu,” he said.
That’s the one we wanted to try and the reward came instantly.
“Tacos al pastor is my favorite — I just had those,” says Gus Rangel.
Behind the counter, an army of cooks keeps the food coming.
“Just having the same people working for us for the past 15-20 years, we’ve been able to maintain that consistency,” DeAnda said.
They don’t skimp on the shrimp.
“The most popular items besides the tacos are our shrimp plates,” DeAnda said. “Our shrimp tacos and burritos.”
You can even get shrimp with your bottle of beer.
DeAnda says everything they make has to be on point.
“Usually, we all eat here too, so we’re very picky on the quality of our food,” he said.
Don Pepe Taqueria has grown right alongside the city of Fresno. It now operates a total of four locations.
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At CES this past week Qualcomm was demonstrating the Snapdragon-based reference prototype running Google’s Android operating system. This demo included a large WVGA display along with Snapdragon’s always-on wireless connection to demonstrate the stability of Android on a larger scale device that the T-Mobile G1.It may not look like much all torn up on the table but it speaks volumes for the Android platform.
The Snapdragon has a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU complete with integrated HSPA+, and support for1080p high definition. It also has support for mobile TV and GPS capabilities making this perfect for the on the go user. Based on an ARM platform, Qualcomm has modified the processors to run at three times the normal speed. The company suggests that the Snapdragon-based devices will be able to stay connected to a data network.
Qualcomm says that Snapdragon is ideal for Android with its heavily Internet based functions. This company has demonstrated a touchscreen netbook based on this chipset. They have also confirmed that Snapdragon devices will launch sometime in 2009. We are all aware that Google intended the Android platform to be more than just a mobile phone platform. I will gladly take an Android-powered netbook any day, lets just hope that they push one out sooner rather than later.


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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (AP) - A Bristol plant that makes lead-acid batteries used in automotive, marine and speciality industries is adding 90 new jobs.
Exide Technologies plant manager Jim York told the Johnson City Press that the plant just agreed to supply products to Nissan's Smyrna facility and will also provide products to the Fiat assembly plant in Mexico.
Exide currently has 375 employees at the 635,000-square-foot plant.
The company laid off 567 employees in May 2009, about 70 percent of its work force at the time. York said since then, the plant has added back around 150 positions due to an increase in demand.
Information from: Johnson City Press, http://www.johnsoncitypress.com
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Dickson Goody's changing to Gordmans 'off-price' retailer
A new retail store, Gordmans, is replacing the Dickson Goody's in late March, according to company representatives.
The same company, Stage Stores, owns both Gordmans and Goody's. Stage, which is based in Texas, is converting the Dickson store as well as 14 other Goody’s and Peebles stores in Tennessee to Gordmans.
According to a company press release, Gordmans is an "off-price retailer," meaning Gordmans offers popular name brand apparel, home decor and other merchandise at prices "lower than department stores."
A company spokesperson said customers are "responding positively to Gordmans’ off-price concept." The conversion to Goodmans should be happening nationwide, the company states.
The release states that Gordmans stores receive new merchandise deliveries weekly. Guests can use their Goody’s and Peebles credit cards, gift cards and Style Circle Rewards at Gordmans.
The release also states that customers can also ship their Amazon orders to Gordmans’ in-store Amazon Counter for fast, flexible and secure package pick-up.
Stage Stores, Inc. operates more than 700 stores in at least 40 states. According to its website, the company acquired Gordmans in 2017.


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Security researchers at Google have found a way to reliably exploit a serious hardware bug that is present in many laptop devices.
Android for Work is offering a sweeter choice than the sour taste of fragmentation when it comes to business security and device management.
The discovery of a flaw in Google Apps allowing cybercriminals to conduct email spoofing through the admin console may have some early adopters concerned.
According to Google, patching older Android WebView versions is too difficult because of the sheer amount of code involved in such patches.
Google has reportedly decided to stop issuing Android patches for older versions of the operating system, putting millions of smartphone users at risk.
Many major websites are still vulnerable to the POODLE attack, which now works against certain Transport Layer Security (TLS) implementations.
Holes in Google App Engine could allow third parties to access or steal information from the company's cloud-based service for hosting Web apps.
According to Google's Project Zero, an Adobe Reader bug has been around for months, raising questions about how well Adobe addressed this vulnerability.
According to the recent "State of Mobile Apps Security" report, popular iOS and Android apps have been hacked, highlighting the need for boosted security.
Cybercriminals use the following tools and techniques to hack mobile apps. Here's how you can harden and protect an application against run-time attacks.


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Led-lighting-industry-in-india, the demand for led lighting in india is still mostly driven by its adoption in metro cities, mainly because of better awareness and higher socio-economic growth. however, the demand from tier-ii cities is also expected to grow based on requirements from the street lighting and industrial lighting domains.. Led is a reliable and energy-efficient source of lighting. led lighting products have gained a prominent spot in the indian lighting market, owing to their numerous benefits over older lighting technology., kwality is the first indian firm to set up led manufacturing in the country. but more than that, it has the highest market share in the led lighting business of all domestic companies. established in 1966, the company is a quality manufacturer of led lamps and led displays. so, there you have it..
Read more about indian led industry set to touch rs 21,600 cr by 2020 on business standard. the market size of indian led industry may touch rs 21,600 crore by 2020 on the back of government's decision to switch to led for all street lamps and public space lighting, an industry official said., lighting india - the only magazine of its kind covering the lighting industry in india as well as globally. lighting india covers latest trends, innovations, technological finds, product reviews on lighting design, automotive lighting, stage lighting, festive lighting & wedding lighting, led signage & displays, leds, solid-state lighting, drivers, energy efficiency, industrial lighting ....
Although indian led lighting market is at a nascent stage, it offers innumerable opportunities for growth over the next few decades. as india represents one of the biggest lighting markets, it offers a lucrative option for led manufacturers to set up their facilities in the region., while the demand for a smart and connected, lifestyle is a driving force behind the led lighting industry, the industry faces a number of challenges..
In reality, led lighting has vast potential in india owing to power shortages and high electricity costs. now-a-days, india struggles to meet the increasing electricity demand with its exceptional growth in the economy leading to build more power plants for sustaining the higher electricity demand of its widely growing population., the indian lighting industry is evolving rapidly due to the shift from conventional bulbs to leds, which is being driven by increasing government energy conservation initiatives, rising consumer awareness about energy-efficient products and innovative product offerings in sync with the mega trend of digitisation..
The led lighting market is valued at usd 58.91 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach usd 127.97 billion by 2024, with a cagr of 13.75% during the forecast period (2020 - 2025).


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Monjasa, the Danish bunker trader, has reported a big rise in bunker fuel sales during 2018. The company said that it sold a total of 4.1m tons, which is estimated as a 17% increase on annual basis.
Year 2018 was great for Monjasa, despite the turbulence and volatile environment in the bunker industry, the group said. From a regional perspective, group’s sales in America experienced an increase of 31%, with Southeast Asia to follow with a rise of 25%, while bunker sales in Europe were reported 23% higher than those in 2017. As a result, revenue was up at $2.1 billion, from $1.4 billion the previous year.
However, such increase is not evident on the bottom line of its results since the company’s net profits have experienced a drop of $2 million during the year; from $7m in 2017, down to $5m in 2018. According to a company’s statement, that happened due to some non-recurring costs in the beginning of the year.
The Group’s CEO, Anders Ostergaard, in a statement mentioned that the company succeeded to increase its sales volume of bunker fuels significantly across all markets, while at the same time it improved its core business fundamentals.
Ostergaard also notes that the company has taken actions to establish its position in the market and strengthen its financial capabilities. First, the company has managed to expand its banking facilities with two new partnerships which can support the company’s working capital needs in its bunkering activities in the US and in the Middle East. Furthermore, according to Ostergaard, the company has succeeded to build close relationships with oil majors in an effort to secure future availability of low-sulfur fuels to comply with the IMO 2020 regulations.
In the company statement Anders Ostergaard says: Tomorrow’s success comes from extended transparency, getting all details right and daring to be rated by those around us. In these challenging shipping markets, I am pleased to say that Monjasa is in a good position in the global bunker industry.”
Going forward, Monjasa will continue to focus on quality and extended transparency on bunker purchases, which is vital for a company to grow in the bunkering industry, the company said in its statement. “The increasing regulatory framework across the shipping industry only confirms that the investments made to provide clear document trails are indeed relevant” it concluded.
Link to the statement on the company’s website: https://monjasa.com/news-archive/monjasa-increases-sales-volume-by-17-and-delivers-positive-result-for-2018/


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After a handful of delays, legal battles and other fun stuff, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is finally set to hit Xbox 360 consoles starting April 17th, and developer CD Projekt RED has marked the occasion with a particularly amazing trailer.
Originally launched on PC in May last year, CD Projekt intended to releaes the console version not-so-long afterward, with an anticipated date of late 2011. However, a bunch of things conspired against the developer – including a legal battle over publishing rights (eventually won by Namco, by the way) – and the game was put on the backburner.
Now though, it’s back, set to arrive on Microsoft‘s console along with re-worked controls, 3+ hours of bonus campaign content, additional in-game movies and a few other bits and pieces thrown in (like, oh, three new characters).
…if you’re a PC fan, don’t get too disheartened about all the cool stuff being given to the console gamers: All of the new additions will be available for The Witcher 2 on PC, published in the near future as DLC packs.


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Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
Yellow Card said that the fundraise shall help them build strategic partnerships across Africa, and develop new product innovations.
On Monday, September 19, the pan-African crypto exchange Yellow Card Financial announced its $40 million fundraising in a Series B funding round.
Polychian Capital led the funding round along with participation from Valar Ventures, Sozo Ventures, Third Prime Ventures, Fabric Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, DG Daiwa Ventures, The Raba Partnership, Jon Weiner, Alex Wilson, Pat Duffy, and more.
Yellow Card said that this funding will help drive exponential growth for their business. It will also them towards successful expansion across the continent, build strategic partnerships across Africa, and develop new product innovations. Chris Maurice, CEO and co-founder of Yellow Card, called this fundraise an outcome of immense hard work. He further added:
“For the past three years our team has worked tirelessly to make this technology accessible to anyone and create a world-class product. This fundraise in this market not only showcases the resilience of our team but also reiterates the appetite and necessity for cryptocurrency in Africa“.
Expanding their Market Footprint
Since its launch in Nigeria back in 2019, Yellow Card runs its operations in 21 countries across the globe. It has been relentlessly working to make Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital assets accessible to investors across Africa.
Last year, the company raised $15 million in its Series A funding. Since then Yellow Card achieved a few more milestones. This includes surpassing 1 million customers earlier this year in March, granting stock options to full-time employees, launching Yellow Pay, a crypto-powered way to send value across borders, etc.
The recent fundraise is quite a significant move as it comes during the crypto market downturn. Yellow Card said that it reflects the confidence in the country expressed by new and existing investors. Speaking on the development, Will Wolf, Partner at Polychain Capital said:
“Yellow Card is the best executing team on the continent. We are impressed by the way they seamlessly adjust and adapt to the unique opportunities and demands of the various African markets. We’ve barely touched the surface of what is possible when it comes to crypto in Africa, and we’re excited for what’s to come”.
Amid the market turmoil, fundraising in the crypto space has slowed down significantly. However good firms with robust performance have still managed to raise money from the market.


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An Internet privacy standard, as implemented in Microsofts recently released Internet Explorer 6 browser, is causing headaches for some Net companies.
The World Wide Web Consortiums Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) specification first became widely available in IE 6, which Microsoft released in late August. IE 6 is also a primary component of Windows XP, to be launched this week.
That means some Web site features will not function the way theyre supposed to if a third-party partner does not support P3P. To be sure, its not a catastrophic problem. In the worst-case scenarios, for example, a users preferences wouldnt be readable by the target site, or an online advertising firm would lose some of its ad-tracking data. But IE 6 also displays a privacy alert icon on the status bar every time it blocks a cookie – something no site wants its customers to see. Industry observers say many sites werent prepared for P3P and are now scrambling to work up policies to support it.
“Weve been talking about P3P for five years, but obviously there are some sites out there that dont yet support it,” said Ari Schwartz, the Center for Democracy and Technologys associate director, who helped develop P3P. “It seemed like companies were not paying attention until IE 6 came out.”
DoubleClick, which serves as many as 60 billion ads each month, has been P3P-compliant since IE 6 was launched, said Jules Polonetsky, the online ad firms chief privacy officer. He said the unpleasant surprise for many companies will be finding out theyre third parties on their own Web sites. For instance, if a companys main site is www.example.com but user personalization features are served from a different site at www.myexample.com, cookies from the second site will be blocked if the company doesnt support P3P.
“Youre going to have warnings all over the place for companies getting their own cookies blocked,” Polonetsky said.
Another issue with IE 6s handling of P3P is that, even if a site is P3P-compliant, the browser blocks “legacy” third-party cookies that were already on a users computer before they upgraded the browser.
“Its an annoyance at this point,” said Jay McCarthy, vice president of product strategy at WebSideStory, a firm that tracks visitors to more than 150,000 sites using third-party cookies. “It makes us look like privacy invaders, when its really the opposite.”
Internet Explorer 6 accounts for 8 percent of all browsers used on the Net, according to the latest data from WebSideStory.


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Posts for August, 2011
Zita Bridal Salon will move into the first floor of George Watts & Son, at 761 N. Jefferson St., in November, leaving its longtime home on E. Silver Spring Dr. in Whitefish Bay.
I wrote about the ownership change at Zita earlier this summer. Marina Kuhn and Cynthia Apfelbach's purchase of the longtime Milwaukee-area boutique business marks the second turnover in ownership there in two years.
Watts will get a grant from the city of Milwaukee that will cover costs for interior improvements to the space. The maximum amount for the so-called "white-box grants" is $30,000. Retailers can be reimbursed for 75% of their costs for the buildouts. The downtown Business Improvement District will pay 30% of the grant, or $7,500. »Read Full Blog Post(10)
Edgar O. Huber, a former Liz Claiborne executive, has been named president and chief executive officer at Lands' End, the Dodgeville-based division of Sears Holdings Inc.
Huber succeeds Nick Coe, who left the company earlier this year to become CEO of Bath and Body Brand Management. Coe's departure sparked a lawsuit over his noncompete agreement with Sears, but the two sides quickly reached a settlement.
Huber most recently was executive vice president, global business development for Claiborne. Before that, he was an executive with L'Oreal.
Southridge Mall is looking for a new manager, just six months after the shopping center appointed Patrick Basche to the post.
Les Morris, spokesman for Simon Property Group, said that Basche has left the company. Basche, who formerly managed Simon's Bay Park Square in Green Bay, was named to manage Southridge in December, following the departure of Mary Wenger.
Morris declined to comment on the Basche's departure but said Simon was actively seeking a replacement. The staffing change comes at a time when Southridge is undergoing a multimillion dollar renovation that includes the addition Macy's as a new department store anchor at the long-vacant space at the south end of the center. (4)
A Minnesota resident has won a $50,000 car in the Roundy's Monopoly game. The supermarket chain started the game in June and it runs until the end of August at Pick 'n Save, Metro Market, Copps and Rainbow stores.
Since the game started 2,170 people have won 34,000 prizes valued at $2.8 million. Four people in Wisconsin have won $5,000 Carnival cruises, three have claimed $1,000 in cash or grocery gift cards and 6 shoppers won iPads.
The car's winner shops at a Rainbow store in Woodbury, Minn. (6)
Kohl's Corp. reported a 4.6% decline in same-store sales for the month of July, one of the biggest disappointments in the industry. But the Menomonee Falls-based department store chain raised earnings guidance for the quarter, because higher prices resulted in better profit margins at the same time the company kept expenses in line.
Analysts had expected Kohl's to report a 3.6% increase in sales for July. Kohl's now expects to earn $1.07 to $1.08 per share for the second quarter, at least five cents more than the $1.02 per share than the consensus estimate from analysts.
Overall, the retail industry reported a 5% increase in same-store sales for the month, exceeding analysts' expectations.
Bon-Ton Stores Inc., parent company to the Boston Store, reported a 1.6% drop in same-store sales, worse than the 0.3% expected by analysts. (315)
Kohl's has completed the renovation of its store at 7200 Green Bay Rd. in Kenosha, and plans a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Wednesday, Aug. 10.
The store is among 100 locations that will get updates this year. Remodeled stores have updated fitting rooms, rest rooms, new merchandise displays and new customer service areas at the front of the store.
The new Costco store on Highway 164 just north of Capitol Drive in Pewaukee will open Oct. 27. It will be the second location in the area for the wholesale club, which has a store in the Grafton Commons shopping center at Highway 60 and I-43.
Costco representatives are at the Wisconsin State Fair, in the Expo building, selling memberships in advance of the opening in Pewaukee. They are promoting the $100 membership with a $20 cash card and the promise of 2% cash rebates on purchases. The less-expensive membership is $50 per year. (54)
The Factor Women model search will be at center court at the Shops of Grand Avenue from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 13.
Three Chicago agencies, Factor Women, Chosen Models and Stewart Talent will be at the shopping center, looking for children from age 8 to 11, girls age 11 and up and men age 16 and up, who stand 5 feet 11 inches to 6-feet-2-inches tall.
The event will include a fashion show, a free mini-photo session and free mini-makeovers. Aspiring models should bring two non-professional photos to be left with agents.
This is the second year the event will be held at Grand Avenue. (1)
The Kmart store on Milwaukee Ave. in Burlington will close in November, according to a notice from the company to the State Department of Workforce Development.
About 55 employees at the store will lose their jobs, the company said. Terminations will start Nov. 6 and the store will close Nov. 13.
Update 8/10: A spokeswoman from Sears Holdings said the store is closing because the lease was not renewed. She declined to say whether Sears or the landlord made the decision to not renew, and wouldn't comment on the store's performance. (22)
Gander Mountain will unveil its second gun training facility in the state at the grand re-opening of its DeForest store this weekend.
The store, just off I-90-94 at exit 132, has been remodeled with Gander's latest prototype design, which includes the Gander Mtn. Academy, a civilian training facility that offers skilled instructors, multi-media classrooms, a live-fire range and virtual simulation technology. The technology has been available previously only to military and law enforcement agencies.
The Gander Mountain store in La Crosse was remodeled with the gun training program earlier this year, along with two other stores in Lake Mary, Fl. and Lakeville, Minn. Gander Mtn. Academies will open this year in Wichita, Ks. and Spring, Tex. »Read Full Blog Post(1)
Customers who paid for items they never received from Furniture Deals and Steals, the bankrupt furniture retailer, can make claims with the court until November 7. The store shut down abruptly in July, and the owners did not respond to repeated attempts to contact them.
These customers are now unsecured creditors in the receivership case in Jefferson County Circuit Court. In a receivership, like a bankruptcy, there is no certainty that the unsecured creditors will recover any money.
Anyone who already has filed a claim with the state Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection, or the Better Business Bureau, should receive a claim form directly from the court-appointed receiver. »Read Full Blog Post
Furniture Today, a trade publication, is reporting that Wisconsin-based Ashley Furniture is the winning bidder for Berkline Benchcraft Holdings, an upholstered furniture importer.
The Third Ward's Falcon boutique will close on Aug. 31. The shop, at 315 N. Broadway, is owned by the Chirchirillo family, who also operated the former Valentina boutiques.
The Chirchirillos closed their Brookfield Valentina store in 2009, and they shuttered the Mequon store this summer. Falcon, managed by daughter Gina Frakes, opened in 2009.
The high-end Valentina stores made news in recent years because of their famous clients.
The Chirchirillos tangled in court with Oprah Winfrey when they tried to collect from Oprah for bills racked up by her mother at the Brookfield store. The Mequon store, meanwhile, was a favorite destination for Sue Sachdeva, who spent more than a million dollars there out of the $34 million she embezzled from her employer, Koss Corp. (1)
Heartland Produce Co. in Kenosha has filed a suit in federal court in Illinois against the Sendik family operators of stores in Brookfield and Milwaukee. The suit claims that the Sendiks haven't paid for about $78,000 worth of produce.
The suit involves the Sendik's stores on N. 124th St. and W. North Ave. and the store on N. Downer Ave. Tony, John and Salvatore Sendik are named as defendants. The suit does not involve the larger, "red bag" chain of Sendik's stores that are operated by the Balistreri family.
The Brookfield Sendik's store recently negotiated a new supplier agreement with Sheboygan-based Piggly Wiggly, after having problems in its relationship with Supervalu, a Minnesota-based wholesaler. The store for several months had been operating with half-empty shelves before switching to Piggly Wiggly. (6)
The new 82,000-square-foot Pick 'n Save store on S. 76th St. and W. Coldspring Rd. will open at 6 a.m. Tuesday.
The store has some of the latest amenities that Roundy's is adding to its new and remodeled stores, including a 16-foot salad bar and an expanded offering of hot foods and sandwiches. The new store replaces one of the oldest Pick 'n Saves in the chain, across the street on S. 76th St. (20)
Gimme Credit, a New York bond research firm, has downgraded Kohl's Corp.'s debt to "underperform," based on the retailer's second quarter earnings report and announcement that the company will need to restate financial reports for 2010 and for the first quarter of this year.
The restatements, due in September, are needed to correct accounting errors in connection with leased properties. Adjustments will not affect cash.
At the same time, analyst Carol Levenson pronounced Kohl's new Jennifer Lopez clothing line "ghastly." In her report, Levenson admits to being "a fogey" but says she doesn't like animal prints and fake fur. »Read Full Blog Post
Dunham's Sports has signed a lease for a space at the Fox River Plaza in Burlington, in a location formerly occupied by a Pick 'n Save.
Pick 'n Save moved to a new store just down the street on Milwaukee Ave. in 2009.
While the center gets a new Dunham's soon, it will lose its Kmart store when it closes in November. Centro Properties in New York is the owner of the center.
Paul Ruklic of Delafield collected a $50,000 check from Roundy's Supermarkets Inc. Tuesday afternoon at the Wales Pick 'n Save store.
Ruklic is the second winner in the $50,000 car category in the supermarket Monopoly game. A Minnesota woman won the other one a few weeks ago.
Ruklic will be able to do whatever he wants with the money--buy a car, save it or spend it on anything else, said Roundy's spokeswoman Vivian King.
The Monopoly game ends August 31. (4)
Sears will close a hardware store at 1715 Wisconsin Ave. in Grafton In December as part of a nationwide shutdown of 29 stores.
Sears Holdings Inc. announced the store closings as part of the company's second quarter financial report Thursday. Sears lost $146 million in the quarter ended July 30.
I reported earlier on the closing of the Kmart store in Burlington in November as part of the same national reduction of stores. The 29 stores include 10 Kmart stores, three Sears stores, 12 hardware and appliance stores, two Sears Auto Centers and two Great Indoors stores. »Read Full Blog Post(28)
Danny Vegh's, a Cleveland home entertainment retailer, will open its first store outside of Ohio at Bayshore Town Center in October.
The family-owned company will have a 4,200-square-foot store on Silver Spring Dr. next to Trader Joe's. It wlll be the fifth store for Danny Vegh's.
Products include pool tables, ping-pong tables, custom-order barstools, theater seats and patio furniture, as well as pinball, shuffleboard and air hockey games. Danny Vegh's will be the exclusive dealer for Brunswick Billiards in Milwaukee. »Read Full Blog Post(24)
Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater from Disney's Cars along with Dora the Explorer are going to be all over the schoolyard this fall, according to a new survey from the National Retail Federation.
The retail trade group's latest survey shows Disney's Cars characters for boys and Dora for girls are the favorites for back-to-school items--clothing, backpacks, lunchbags--just about anything kids need for school.
In second through tenth place for girls: Hello Kitty, Disney Princess, Tinkerbell, Justin Bieber, Hannah Montana, Barbie, Smurfs, iCarly, SpongeBob SquarePants.
For boys, second through tenth: Star Wars, Spider Man, SpongeBob SquarePants, Transformers, Captain America, Harry Potter, Super Mario Bros., Batman, Ironman.
Target Corp. has its new website up and running at www.target.com/. The Minneapolis-based retailer uveiled the new site this week.
The transition takes Target's online business off of the Amazon.com platform, with Target now running its own e-commerce process.
Redbox, the movie rental kiosk business, is offering one free DVD rental on Thursday, Aug. 25. To take advantage of America's Movie Night, go to the Redbox Facebook page and print the coupon.
You can find Redbox kiosks in supermarkets and elsewhere around the Milwaukee area. There is a locator tab on the Facebook page.
Piggly Wiggly will hold a job fair from 9 a.m to 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 29 at their new store at 123 W. Oklahoma Ave.
Customers who paid deposits on orders from Furniture Deals and Steals chain, can expect to get what they ordered, according to the court-appointed receiver in the Jefferson County court case.
The company, based in Fort Atkinson, abruptly closed all six of its stores in Wisconsin in July and didn't answer calls from customers or from the media. The company later filed for protection from creditors in a receivership action.
Facebook postings describe problems with placing and tracking orders and with access to gift registries. A customer who contacted me said he waited an hour on a customer service line and couldn't get help there either.
I have contacted Target for a company statement on the problems but haven't heard back yet.
Target isn't the only retailer to have difficulties with a website. When Kohl's relaunched its site in 2007 with a larger inventory of items online the site was down for a week. The company also had problems with the site crashing under unexpected heavy volume at the start of the holiday shopping season in 2009. Kohl's has since spent money to upgrade the site to handle its growing sales volume. (2)
Susan Fredman Design Group of Chicago will hold a grand opening Oct. 22 for its new retail store at 401 E. Silver Spring Dr. in Whitefish Bay.
Mary Buckley, reporter for our Now sister publicatons on the North Shore, first reported on this earlier this month. The design store will move in with James Hoffman builders, but will operate as a separate business, according to Mary's report.
Chicago-based Discovery Clothing has signed a lease for a 16,000-square-foot store at 2855 N. Mayfair Road in Wauwatosa.
The small chain is owned by the Goldman family and operates stores 26 stores, mostly in the Chicago area. There are two Discovery stores in Wisconsin, in Appleton and on S. 27th St. in Milwaukee.
The stores feature inexpensive clothing aimed at teens and young women. A date for the opening in Wauwatosa hasn't been announced.
Indianapolis-based electronics and appliance retailer hhgregg wants to open a store in Greenfield in a building that once housed a Circuit City store.
HhGregg, a publicly traded company with stores in the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast, will come before the Greenfield Plan Commission on Sept. 13 with a proposal for the vacant building at 4585 S. 76th St.
The 40,000-square-foot building most recently was the site of an Ultimate Electronics store. That store closed shortly after opening when the company filed for bankruptcy. More recently, Pawn America wanted to open a store there but was turned down by the city. »Read Full Blog Post(14)
Six area George Webb restaurants have defected from the franchise organization and will start operating Thursday as Griddlers Cafe.
The locations are at 10706 W. Greenfield Ave., 4160 W. Loomis Road, 7510 W. Layton Ave. in Greenfield, 2012 W. Layton Ave. in Milwaukee, 211 N. Chicago Ave. in South Milwaukee, and N88-W16747 Appleton Ave. in Menomonee Falls.
Don Hensiak, a 20-year franchisee, owns most of the locations and the Griddlers Cafe franchise. Diane Neavins owns the Menomonee Falls location and will operate as Griddlers under a franchise agreement with Hensiak. »Read Full Blog Post(218)


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According to e-Marketer, consumer e-commerce spending within the US is expected to increase by 16.2% during the 2018 holiday season. Due to an overall positive economic status within the nation with a 3% GDP growth, and increased e-commerce spending so far in 2018, users are expected to spend more liberally over the shopping season compared to previous years. To nobody’s surprise, mobile shopping will be where the largest growth will be seen, with a 33% projected growth in mobile e-commerce spending, which will account for 44% of total user spending. Voice search is playing a more integral role in the overall shopping funnel, with many users starting their shopping research via voice searches through Alexa, Google Home, and other devices. Speaking of Alexa, NetElixir says Amazon is expected to capture 40% of all online sales over the holiday season, up from 35% in 2017, so it’s essential to ensure your advertising strategies are adapted to account for this growth.
Overall, Q4 is going to be big. Are your campaigns ready for it? Visit our Media page to find out more information, or email us at [email protected].


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Aug. 1, 2008
San Francisco’s Fast-Food Menu Rule Should Be Upheld, Groups Urge Federal Court
Congressman, Public Health Organizations and Experts Join Public Citizen and CSPI In Support of Rule to Combat Obesity Epidemic
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A federal court should uphold San Francisco’s requirement that fast-food restaurants disclose nutritional information on their menus, according to a brief submitted to a federal court by Public Citizen and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The nonprofit organizations, joined by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), former FDA Commissioner David Kessler, M.D., and several leading health groups and professors, filed the brief Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in response to a lawsuit by the California Restaurant Association.
The fast-food industry claims that San Francisco’s rule is pre-empted by federal law and violates the First Amendment rights of fast-food restaurants. Public Citizen and CSPI contend that federal law does not pre-empt the rule because city authorities stepped into a regulatory gap that Congress intentionally left open to state and local governments when it enacted the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) in 1990. The NLEA requires food manufacturers to provide nutritional information on nearly all packaged foods but explicitly exempts restaurants.
Both Waxman, who was the chief sponsor of the NLEA in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Kessler, who was commissioner of the FDA when the law was passed, have said that the legislation was intended to allow state and local authorities to institute their own nutrition labeling requirements for restaurants. In addition to Waxman and Kessler, the Public Citizen-CSPI brief is signed by a distinguished list of organizations and experts, including the American Diabetes Association, the American College of Preventive Medicine, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, the Trust for America’s Health and several leading professors of nutrition and public health.
The San Francisco lawsuit is the latest round in the fast-food industry’s campaign to stop cities and states from enacting laws requiring disclosure of calories on fast-food menus. The industry also challenged New York City’s identical rule in two recent lawsuits. In April, a federal judge allowed New York City to begin enforcing its calorie-disclosure rule. That case is now before a federal appeals court in New York and a ruling is expected shortly. The FDA filed a brief in that case supporting the New York rule. Most recently, the restaurant industry has sued Santa Clara County, Calif., over a similar rule.
“It’s astonishing that the fast-food chains are fighting so hard to prevent consumers from learning how many calories are in their products,” said Deepak Gupta, the Public Citizen attorney who wrote the brief. “The same information has been available on the labels of most food in the grocery store for many years. Given the strong link between fast food, the obesity epidemic and serious health problems, San Francisco’s new rule is just plain common sense.”
American adults and children consume about a third of their calories from restaurants and other food service establishments, and studies link frequent eating out with obesity and higher caloric intakes. Without nutrition information, it is difficult for consumers to make informed choices. In requiring fast-food restaurants to disclose calorie information on their menus, San Francisco has joined New York and other cities in addressing one of the largest contributors to the nation’s obesity epidemic. The U.S. Surgeon General and the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine also have recommended that chain restaurants provide more nutrition information.


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Okay, you don't have to be a goldbug to appreciate the beauty of an American Eagle Gold Bullion coin. But demand certainly petered out a bit last year. That's according to full-year U.S. Mint data. It can't be a good sign for goldbugs.
The U.S. Mint sold 753,000 ounces of American Eagle gold coins during 2012, the lowest annual figure since the 198,500 sold in 2007. It's well below the 2011 sale of one million ounces, which itself was below 2010's sales and 2009's 1.4 million.
See a trend in those numbers? Sales are high, for sure. But they're trending downward. The financial crisis and ensuing set of unorthodox monetary policies by the Federal Reserve sent many Americans scurrying for gold coins. The price of gold just staged its twelfth straight yearly rise in 2012, but the ascent of another seven percent was anything but steady.
In short, you can't deny the downtrend, which is something that holders of the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), iShares Gold Trust (GLD), Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS), and Market Vectors Gold Miners (GDX) should note.


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On April 26, 2014, Yes Exacty filed a provisional patent for Attention Based Currency (ABC), a form of microcurrency designed for use in electronic transactions whose value is less than $1 USD.
“Our customers and website visitors increasingly participate in an information economy where the only way to monetize billions of dollars worth of creative content is through the use of advertising. ABC represents an alternative paradigm,” says CEO Tess Gadwa. “We believe it has significant potential for integration with Yes Exactly e-commerce projects currently under development and as a standalone product and technology.”
Yes Exactly incorporated in December 2012 as a Massachusetts S-Corporation. We provide tools, platforms, and technologies that makes individuals and small groups more competitive in economic spaces traditionally dominated by large groups. For more information, please visit http://www.yesexactly.com.
Yesterday the discovery of an Internet security vulnerability known as “Heartbleed” was announced by researchers at Google and Codenomicon. This bug could in theory compromise the security of user passwords and other sensitive information stored by systems using the OpenSSL implementation of the popular and widely used SSL security protocol.
Due to the seriousness of the vulnerability and because of the many large commercial sites affected, we urge you to update your Internet passwords and avoid using the same password for multiple sites.
We are pleased to report that Yes Exactly hosting and customer accounts were not affected by this exploit; nor were those of our e-commerce partners.
For more information, please visit the following sites:
CEO, Yes Exactly, Inc.
Check out the article in The Greenfield Recorder about our Thematizer web development project:
By RICHIE DAVIS
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Photo Credit: Recorder/Paul Franz
There’s something of a disconnect between web-site developers and graphic designers, even though a lot of times, they inhabit the same turf.
Art Meets Code, a collaboration between a Greenfield Web developer and a Lowell art gallery, attempts to get everyone working on the same screen.
“The problem with where Web design meets programming right now is there’s not any good way for a programmer to talk to a designer,” says Tess Gadwa, who started Yes Exactly website design studio in Greenfield four years ago and has since built some 70 sites for businesses and organizations, about 30 percent of them outside the Pioneer Valley.


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Rise of the Tomb Raider was released as an Xbox exclusive last November, a decision that took some serious flak from gamers ever since it was announced. Microsoft was out looking for a new flagship game for its console, a game that could be as significant as PlayStation’s Uncharted. So far it’s proven to be a winning…
The fully realized take on Superhot, an awesome game jam experiment from 2013, is due to arrive on February 25 for PC, Mac and Linux. The Xbox One version is coming “just a few weeks later,” according to the developers.
Last month, game releases picked up in speed after the end-of-holiday lull of December. As a result, we have 21 recommendations for you, from triple-A fares and indie gems to a simulator about breeding cute slimes. There’s all kinds of games to choose from, so dig in.
I whirled around and plugged two perfectly placed shots into an enemy player. I was finally getting the hang of Vive VR shooter Hover Junkers. I was in the zone. I thought nobody could take me by surprise. Then I watched as another player slowly raised a gun to their head and pulled the trigger.
Valve and HTC’s virtual reality headset, the Vive, is almost here. It’s the one that tracks you while you move around, and it’s pretty damn cool. During a recent event, I got to play 12 of the games that it’ll launch with. Here is what they look like and what I looked like while playing them. Hint: not cool.
Valve recently brought the hammer down on custom Counter-Strike servers that don’t fall within a set of very specific guidelines. It’s a big change to the game’s ecosystem, and many players don’t think it’s for the better.
When we last saw Lara Croft, she was growing out of being a victim. A victim of fate, of other people’s aggression, of her own uninspired previous playable incarnations. She’s still growing, but she’s different now.
As the pace of new video games picks up, so does the amount of people writing about ‘em. That’s good for Worth Reading, our weekly round up of the best stories around the Internet.
The only technical testing I’ve done with the beta of Ubisoft’s upcoming game The Division is seeing whether I’ll like it. So far, it has passed that test.
DRM-free gaming service GOG is introducing its own take on Early Access. Thanks to things like strict curation, a version rollback feature, and generous refunds, I’m super into it. I hope Valve is taking notes.
If you’re playing The Division’s beta this weekend, you may come across this dog. The dog can die, if you happen to shoot it. So...maybe don’t?
Team Fortress 2's long-awaited competitive mode is officially a thing. Valve’s created a Steam group for competitive matchmaking’s beta, and you can join for a chance to be part of it. Prepare for bitter, drama-packed rivalries! And probably also more hats.
I’m falling asleep at the wheel. I’ve been driving for 16 hours straight, hauling freight across the border between Nevada and California. Yawning, my eyes briefly flutter shut and I lose sight of the road. My eyes flick open and I straighten up my lorry.
Maybe you’ve heard of Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13—not only has the historical strategy series been around for a while, it also has several spin-offs, such as Dynasty Warriors. Well, now Romance of the Kingdoms is tearing up the Steam charts.
Sometimes you just want to play a really pretty PC game, and in walks the PC port of Rise of the Tomb Raider.
DayZ social experiments continue to delight and amaze me.
I’d rather not spoil anything. I’d rather you figure out everything in The Witness yourself. But if you need some general advice, here goes.
As a movie-based LEGO game, LEGO Marvel’s Avengers doesn’t go far off script. As a Marvel Comics fan service vehicle it’s absolutely nuts.
A small number of puzzles in The Witness will be difficult or impossible for some color-blind and hearing-impaired players to solve, though those puzzles are optional and the game can be completed without them.
Dragon’s Dogma, one of Capcom’s most underrated games of the past few years, is getting a new lease on life, thanks to the great PC version that just launched. It’s also an opportunity for more people to discover how batshit the story gets.


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The code also featured references to a Gobi comparison shopping feature that could be in the AR app, and, in line with previous rumors about a possible Starbucks partnership, there were references to Starbucks discounts at specific locations, which suggests the Gobi app could offer promotions or content experiences based on location.
Constine says QR codes open up Mac Pro and Apple Watch websites, the Star Wars: Rogue One movie in iTunes, and the Starbucks Card sign-up.
Details about iOS 14 have been trickling out , and today, Josh Constine (formerly of TechCrunch) has shared leaked Apple QR codes, details about Apple's work on an AR app, and sounds for the upcoming Apple Tags in his Moving Product newsletter Apple appears to be implementing a new QR code format that uses colored cones, with the files found in the "Gobi" AR app that Apple has been working on.
A leaked version of the iOS 14 update has been circulating for a few months, giving us an idea of what Apple is working on behind the scenes for the new update.
Many other leaked features have been found in iOS 14, such as hints of a new fitness app, new features for Messages like mentions and retractions, new Apple Pencil features, Home screen updates, Find My changes for AirTags, the CarKey API that will allow an iPhone to be used in lieu of a CarKey, and tons more, with full details available in our iOS 14 roundup.


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Some UK supermarkets are restricting the sale of fruit and vegetables
LONDON — Some UK supermarkets have imposed restrictions on customers buying fruit and vegetables due to “sourcing challenges” attributed to weather conditions in southern Europe and North Africa, the industry said on Tuesday.
The country suffers from a tomato shortage that has now spread to other fruits and vegetables, causing retailers to limit sales.
He follows growers and suppliers in Morocco who have reported adverse conditions – cold temperatures, heavy rain and flooding – affecting production levels in recent weeks.
Bad weather, which also affected farmers in southern Spain, caused ferries to be cancelled, exacerbating supply problems.
“Difficult weather conditions in southern Europe and North Africa have disrupted the harvest of some fruit and vegetable varieties, including tomatoes and peppers,” said Andrew Opie of the British Retail Consortium in a statement.
“Although the disruption is expected to last for a few weeks, supermarkets are adept at managing supply chain issues and are working with farmers to ensure customers have access to a wide range of fresh produce.”
A spokesman for Asda, one of the UK’s leading supermarkets, said it was having “sourcing challenges with some produce” grown in the region.
“We have implemented a temporary limit of three of each product for a very small number of fruit and vegetable lines to allow customers to pick up the products they are looking for,” he added.
The limits apply to tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, lettuce bags, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries.
Meanwhile, rival seller Morrisons said it will introduce a two-item-per-customer limit for tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and peppers from Wednesday.
Source: Crypto News Deutsch


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BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary’s calendar-adjusted retail sales HURETY=ECI fell by an annual 2.1% in May as a national lockdown was gradually lifted, after a 10.2% year-on-year plunge at the peak of the coronavirus crisis in April, the Central Statistics Office said on Monday.
Food sales increased by 1.8% and non-food sales grew by 0.7%. Fuel sales fell by 13.8% year-on-year, it said.
CALENDAR-ADJUSTED RETAIL SALES (Y/Y % CHANGE)
May 2020 April 2020 May 2019 Jan-May 2020
-2.1 -10.2 3.1 1.5
Reporting by Marton Dunai


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UK exports banned pesticide to developing countries
27 September 2017
Author: Laurent Gaberell, Public Eye, Agriculture expert
It was first introduced onto the market in 1962 and has been described by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as “the only highly toxic herbicide of the post-war years”. It is on PAN International’s list of highly hazardous pesticides (2) because of its acute toxicity and has been banned in the EU since 2007.
The fact that the UK is exporting paraquat to the rest of the world was reported in the New York Times (3) as recently as December 2016. Syngenta, the largest company in the agrochemical market and the main manufacturer of paraquat, has a manufacturing plant in Huddersfield, from where it then exports the product to the rest of the world. Paraquat is only exported as an active ingredient. It is then formulated in the importing countries.
As a banned pesticide, paraquat falls under the European Union’s Prior Informed Consent regulation (4) and is subject to an export notification procedure (5). Although some of this data is publicly available, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) does not disclose the names of companies and volumes exported. Recently, for the first time, a right to information request granted Public Eye access to this restricted data.
UK exports 41 000 tons of paraquat each year
137 exports originated from the UK, with the remaining 48 originating from Belgium. Since 2015, all EU exports of paraquat have come from the UK. 100% of UK paraquat exports are from Syngenta.
In terms of volume, an annual average of 41 000 tons of paraquat was exported from the UK in 2015, 2016 and 2017. This makes the UK the second largest exporter of paraquat in the world, behind China with over 160 000 tons a year (6).
61 % of UK paraquat exports go to developing countries
Brazil ranks first, importing 2 % of the total volume (an average of 9 000 tons a year), followed by Mexico (10 %, 4 200 tons/year), Indonesia (8 %, 9 500 tons/year), Guatemala (7 %, 8 100 tons/year) and India (4 %, 4 500 tons/year). The US imports 36 % of the total volume, an average of 15 000 tons per year. The high volumes of paraquat exported to Brazil is probably linked to the rise of glyphosate-resistant super weeds. Paraquat is now increasingly used as an alternative to glyphosate, especially in soy cultivation.
The UK is not alone. China recently announced a ban on the sales and use of paraquat by 2020 (7), but is the main exporter of paraquat worldwide. Switzerland was recently accused of exporting atrazine and paraquat to developing countries, while both pesticides are banned within its own borders (8). France has also faced criticism for allowing exports of atrazine (9) which has been banned in the European Union since 2004. It is a known endocrine disruptor and contaminates drinking water.
In a recent report to the Human Rights Council (10), the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on Toxic Wastes and the Right to Food stated that "to subject individuals of other nations to toxins known to cause major health damage or fatality is a clear human rights violation". They called on countries to "remove existing double standards among countries that are particularly detrimental to countries with weaker regulatory systems". They recall that "pesticides are responsible for an estimated 200 000 acute poisoning deaths each year, 99 % of which occur in developing countries, where health, safety and environmental regulations are weaker and less strictly applied". The UK should take the lead and end this shocking double-standard. Pesticides that are considered too dangerous for use in the UK should not be allowed to be produced and exported to other countries.
Article published in: Pesticide News. The Journal of Pesticide Action Network UK, issue 109, september 2017.


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India’s largest e-commerce marketplace, the Walmart-backed giant Flipkart, announced Tuesday it has acquired Israeli retail analytics startup Upstream Commerce, Indian financial news organization BloombergQuint reports.
While no official financial details were disclosed at the time of the announcement, Globes reports that sources close to the buyout say the deal closed for about $30 million.
According to a statement from the Indian company, Flipkart will now have access to advanced data science-based intelligence solutions through the acquisition and will strengthen its ability to deliver insights to its sellers.
While Upstream will continue to work out of its office in Tel Aviv, it will become Flipkart’s development center in Israel.
Upstream was founded in 2010 by Amos Peleg and Shai Geva, the company’s current CEO and CTO. The company, which has offices in both Tel Aviv and New York, provides cloud-based, automated pricing and product analytics solutions for online retailers.
“We are excited to become a part of India’s largest e-commerce player,” Peleg said, “During our discussion, as we got to know more about Flipkart, we realized that we share the same passion for technology, and the same vision for the contribution of data science to the future and success of online retail. The choice and vision of Flipkart to establish its presence in Israel through acquiring Upstream Commerce is a significant vote of confidence in the company’s team, technology and domain expertise, and are looking forward to help growing the presence of Flipkart in Israel.
Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy adds, “With the Upstream acquisition, we’ll now have tech and talent presence across Asia, U.S. and Israel, some of the key global hubs for innovation. We are also looking forward to making Israel one of our excellence centres to do cutting edge data science work.”


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Boxee CEO: MSOs Should 'Go Over-the-Top'
“They need to go-over-the top themselves. That’s what they should do. They should offer [Comcast’s] Fancast [Xfinity TV] and whatever is going to be the brand… to anybody who has a broadband connection,” Ronen said at panel session featuring cable and Internet video executives hosted by VideoNuze.
“They shouldn’t be afraid of cord-cutting. They should encourage it,” Ronen added, suggesting that selling tiers of faster broadband Internet connections could become the core business for many cable operators. (See Indie MSOs Plug ‘Dumb Pipe’ Video Model.)
Turner Broadcasting System Inc. SVP of business development Jeremy Legg said his company would be open to supplying its programs to what he described as a “virtual MVPD" (multichannel video program distributor) and pointed out that Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) or Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) could also try to take the lead in delivering over-the-top (OTT) video.
“We’re agnostic from a distribution standpoint as long as the business model delivers what you want to deliver,” Legg said.
But Legg emphasized that he believes charging viewers subscription fees for long-form online video is the best strategy, and he teed off on top Internet video site Hulu LLC for offering hit TV series and movies for free.
“I personally don’t think it’s been good for the industry. It’s taught consumers that you can access content for free with virtually no ads in it.”
The Turner executive also suggested that the reason Hulu is now looking at ways to charge for content is because the company, which is backed by NBC Universal , News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS), has failed to make money under its current, ad-supported business model. (See Hulu Plans Paid Subscriptions.)
“We think there’s a reason that they only report video streams and not revenue,” he noted. “When the models really change, people will start touting that they’re making money, and they [Hulu] don’t.”
Teeing up 'TV Everywhere'
Much of the panel session, moderated by Broadband Directions founder Will Richmond, also featured executives from ESPN and VEVO, and centered the debate on distributing subscription- or advertising-supported Internet video, and the potential of cable-backed TV Everywhere sites such Comcast’s Fancast Xfinity TV. (See Comcast's 'Xfinity' Goes Live .)
Legg said two factors affecting the cable industry’s rollout of TV Everywhere sites, which allow viewers to access content from their cable subscriptions, are Hulu’s broad offering of free ad-supported content and NBC Universal’s pending merger with Comcast. (See Comcast to Take Control of NBC Universal.)
“The TV Everywhere rollout has been complicated by the presence of Hulu and how Hulu is going to evolve. The Comcast-NBCU merger also becomes an input into this, given that the largest distributor will also own part of Hulu,” he said.
But he added that Turner and parent Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) will continue to hit the accelerator on their own TV Everywhere plans. “Irrespective of that, we are going to charge forward. We believe at the end of the day someone needs to lead this initiative.”
Another topic of debate was gauging how many consumers may be willing to cut the cord on their cable TV subscriptions and rely on Internet video delivered via a broadband connection for home entertainment programming.
Yankee Group Research Inc. CEO Emily Nagle Green shared results from a Yankee survey that found 7 percent of consumers have considered cord-cutting but haven’t yet canceled cable subscriptions, and that 2 percent have already cut the cord.
Green also said 47 percent of consumers said they haven’t thought about cord-cutting -- which, she observed, means more than 50 percent have. And she said 21 percent of consumers that Yankee surveyed said they would never cut the cord on cable.
“We start to see this phenomenon take root over the next five years in certain demographics,” Green noted, adding that consumers that own gaming consoles and other broadband-connected CE devices would be the first to cut the cord.
Another issue that could influence the future of Internet video are rules governing network neutrality. Legg said Turner supports network neutrality, and is opposed to distributors charging consumers “by the bit” or “any situation where content is being gated or turned down or throttled down.” (See Net Neutrality Ruling: FCC Loses, Comcast Wins.)
— Steve Donohue, Special to Light Reading Cable


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Nov 10, 2018
Johanna Ortiz and Aerin Beauty launch lipstick collaboration
Nov 10, 2018
Fashion designer Johanna Ortiz has become the latest creative to get the lipstick bug. The Colombian designer has teamed up with the lifestyle brand Aerin on a new capsule collection of three lipsticks, as reported by Vogue.
The lipsticks, which have now launched exclusively on the e-commerce site Net-a-Porter, come in the vibrant shades of ‘Tayrona Nude Beach,' a rich, pretty nude hue, as well as the spicy red ‘Cali Aji' and the juicy orange ‘Cartagena Sunsets'. Each comes in gold bullet casing, with packaging inspired by Ortiz's signature floral fashion fabric designs.
"The brands are very similar, they are feminine, romantic, and pretty," Aerin founder Aerin Lauder told Vogue.com.
Ortiz is the latest of several fashion designers to step into the beauty game -- last year famously saw the prestigious French house of Balmain team up with L'Oréal Paris on a lipstick collection, while Tom Ford regularly attracts attention with new additions to his ‘Boys And Girls' collection -- which features hues inspired by celebrities and friends of the designer. Sportswear giant Puma also got in on the act this year via a collaboration with MAC Cosmetics.
Fans can shop the Aerin Beauty + Johanna Ortiz collection on the Net-a-Porter website.
Copyright © 2023 AFP-Relaxnews. All rights reserved.


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Middle and Back Office Solutions Insights
4th March 2021
Hopes of detailed spending plans for fintech were dashed when Chancellor Rishi Sunak failed to specifically mention the sector in his Budget speech on March 3.
Luke Hamm, CEO of R&D tax specialists GovGrant said in a statement that the government had “fallen short” of expectations.
“Fintech is one of the crucial sectors... read more
2nd March 2021
These days, there are three main software delivery models on the market: out the box, off-premises, and on-premises.
In the out of the box delivery model, the user buys a disk containing a software distribution kit and installs it. Simple as it may seem, the main disadvantages of the model are: the need for a machine that’s powerful... read more
2nd March 2021
Reaction to the long-awaited Kalifa Review of UK Fintech by the fintech community has been broadly positive. But the industry’s attention now turns to the UK government and how it will implement the raft of recommendations made in the report.
Published on February 26, on the eve of the Budget, the Kalifa Review sets out five key areas... read more
9th February 2021
On January 12 Challenger Revolut launched confirmation of Payee with Modulr as part of its latest anti-fraud security feature. This comes after it announced it had applied to the FCA for a banking licence the day before.
Payments provider Mastercard, on January 18, announced it had joined forces with FrenchSys to enhance and speed up the... read more
3rd February 2021
Global inflows into sustainable funds were up 88 percent in Q4 2020 to $152.3bn compared with the same period in 2019, with Europe continuing to dominate the space, accounting for 80 percent of these inflows, while the US took in 13.4 percent, up slightly from 12 percent in the last quarter, according to a recent report by Morningstar.
But while... read more
29th January 2021
Forty-one percent of authorised push payment (APP) scams have been reimbursed since the introduction of the Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) but “there is more to do”, according to the Lending Standards Board (LSB).
The self-regulatory body published its review into the voluntary code following an industry wide consultation... read more
11th January 2021
This is not a regular time - and, as Robert Frost said, "the best way out is always through”. Even now, insurers are following the path of technological progress, trying to keep up with the market. Many actions have already been taken, key trends are being implemented by the industry, so will 2021 bring about significant changes? Or can... read more
6th January 2021
It is set to be a transformative year for payments say those in the industry. The pandemic will continue to have a huge impact, particularly in digital payments and open banking.
While digital payments have grown over the past few years, they became an essential, as merchants and consumers reacted to the crisis. According to Visa, 77... read more
21st December 2020
Starling Bank’s latest partnership is a “completely different vertical for us”, says Gareth Towler the bank’s marketplace product analyst.
The challenger bank recently added PayPal’s iZettle to its Business Marketplace as part of its new strategy for deeper integrations.
“From a marketplace perspective,... read more


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It took years of petitions but it finally happened: Band-Aid has announced the launch of a new line of bandages with a range of different skin tone colours, going from pale beige to dark brown.
The company says the range will "embrace the beauty of diverse skin".
Band-Aid, owned by Johnson & Johnson, will roll out the new products to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
The new range has been applauded on social media, with people saying that "it took long enough" but "it's never too late".
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
"Some will say it's not enough, others will say it took too long. While there's no arguing both points, if this is what it takes to make progress, I'll take it," one Twitter user said.
Other people, however, pointed out that it took Band-Aid many decades of selling paler skin coloured bandages before they made the change.
"It took 100 years Band-Aid. #WeSeeYou," one Twitter user said.
It is not yet known when the new bandages will be on sale.