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In his first Q&A with Skift, Sean Menke, the new CEO of Sabre, says that his past stints as CEO of Frontier Airlines and as a top executive at Hawaiian Airlines and Air Canada give him vital insight into how to steer the technology giant through tougher-than-usual negotiations with airlines.
Editor’s Note: This year we expanded our coverage of the technology companies that do the behind-the-scenes work of powering the technology systems of the world’s major travel companies.
We’re sitting down with a handful of industry leaders for our new Travel Tech CEO Listening Series to discover where they think the industry is heading.
It was only in January that Sean Menke became the chief executive of Sabre, a travel technology company based in Southlake, Texas, with 10,000 employees worldwide.
Yet Menke has already come out fighting.
He says his company is well aware of the recent spate of glitches that have downed airline reservation systems. While Sabre wasn’t responsible for all of the affected systems, Menke says he has “pulled forward some additional spend and re-prioritized projects to get at some of the key issues that need addressing.”
Menke faces industry critics who imply that Sabre hasn’t invested adequately in its various systems.
On its April 2017 quarterly earnings call, the chief operating officer of American Airlines, Robert Isom, said that the airline’s rollout of a premium economy product has been slow because it has to work with its third-party distributors “to make sure that the product is being appropriately displayed in all the systems.”
This echoed comments earlier this year by United’s president Scott Kirby, who fretted about the technical abilities of the middlemen and by top executives at International Airlines Group, the parent company of British Airways, who said that they are frustrated.
Menke says claims of a “technical debt” are full of nonsense. He says his company has been aggressively ramping up its capital expenditure.
Those were among the newsier highlights of Skift’s first one-on-one interview (in full, below) with Menke in late April.
First, the backstory: A majority of Sabre’s revenue still comes from being one of the world’s four major middlemen of airplane tickets, along with Amadeus, Travelport, and Travelsky.
Airlines distribute their fares via these so-called global distribution systems, or GDSs. Sabre, for one, provides booking platforms to more than 400,000 travel agents worldwide plus connections to online travel agencies like Expedia.
These airline middlemen were supposed to be old news, overtaken by newer technologies and nimbler startups. On the contrary, today, after a couple of years of revenue growth, Sabre’s market capitalization has risen to about $6.4 billion. That’s a huge jump over its April 2014 valuation of $3.93 billion at its initial public offering. The jump reflects consistently rising revenue growth.
Menke was previously the CEO of Frontier Airlines and a top commercial executive at Air Canada and Hawaiian Airlines. He plans to use his past airline experience to inform his retooling of Sabre’s relationships with carriers. Having been the executive at Air Canada who limited Sabre’s access to some fares in 2006, he understands hard negotiating tactics.
Distribution isn’t all that Sabre does in aviation. Another side of the house is its information technology services, including reservations systems, for airlines and, to a lesser extent, airports. Menke hopes that technological advancement in this division will lead to revenue gains that offset the business he fears he may eventually lose on the distribution side.
But air isn’t the whole story, either. Like its peers, Sabre wants to diversify beyond its air distribution business, which — while still a cash cow — is facing pricing pressures. Sabre’s most successful non-air line of business is its enterprise software for hotels. Its flagship product is SynXis, the central reservation system used by more than 30,000 hotels.
In an interview, Menke discusses his plans for the travel marketplace company and his view of what’s next for the industry.
Skift conducted the interview before the company’s May 2 earnings announcement and before reports of a (still unresolved) investigation into a security breach in the company’s hospitality platform. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Skift: Since you took the top job at Sabre, analysts have often mentioned that you have held executive positions at airlines. What is it about that airline executive-level experience that informs how you approach your job as Sabre CEO?
Menke: I’m big on teamwork, accountability and precision. That’s what makes an airline run every day. So that airline experience shapes how I approach things here at Sabre.
Plus I also know how much our customers rely on our technology – airlines, agents, corporate accounts, and hotels. So I have a very strong affinity with the customer and their needs and expectations.
But I also know that success comes down to motivated employees. If you give employees the tools, they will take very good care of your customers.
So I’m keenly focused on how we better equip our great employees with the ability to do their jobs. That’s what they want to do. They thrive on taking care of our customers and exceeding our customers’ expectations.
Skift: Last October and November, there were outages at some airlines. Some of those airlines happened to use Sabre technology, though not all of those airlines had a reservation system outage of which Sabre was the cause. But the media attention and Congressional discussions on the outages, in general, have made tech failure a hot topic. How is Sabre doing its part to avoid airline outages?
Menke: We are completely focused on the reliability of our system. That’s what we sell. That’s what we do. And as a former airline executive, I know how much our customers depend on us. And they are not shy in telling us that as well.
In fact, I recently told someone that I don’t feel the pressure of running just one airline – I feel like I’ve got the responsibility of helping run hundreds of airlines, and I take that responsibility very seriously.
We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our technology infrastructure roadmap. We’ve recently pulled forward some additional spend and re-prioritized projects to get at some of the key issues that need addressing.
One of the issues challenging the industry is the intense growth in shopping which is happening with greater frequency week by week. When a shop takes place by an airline, an agency or a consumer using an OTA, airlines are sending back more results than ever before, given the growth of branded fares and fare bundles.
So there is more shopping taking place than ever before, and more shop results being returned. That means more data is being put through the system.
We are rapidly moving more and more of our capabilities to leading edge technology and the cloud to provide us with enhanced infrastructure and also installing additional servers as a back-up to handle the traffic. That is just one of the many commitments we are making to our customers.
The entire airline industry is grappling with greater demands on their technology infrastructure. They will continue to rely on a combination of mainframe, mid-range, and cloud-based solutions. And Sabre will continue to make the right investments to keep our customers’ confidence. Fits right in there with the impeccable performance that we are committed to.
Skift: Let’s talk about Travel Network, the distribution arm of the company, which you headed from October 2015. No major airline CEO is going to pull the plug on GDSs as a channel. But many of them say that GDS technology needs to improve.
Critics say Sabre has a large “technical debt” that it needs to pay down, so to speak, in heavy research and development and capital expenditure (CapEx). They say the company might need to boost its spending on hardware, software, and labor by as much as an additional $300 million a year. To what extent does Sabre have a technical debt, and to what extent do you plan to boost investment?
Menke: I guess I’d start by saying those claims are wrong. While there has been chatter about “technical debt,” “mainframes,” and other such topics, we have continuously evolved our technology architecture and platform solutions to take advantage of more efficient, stable and secure solutions.
We are choosing to accelerate our already extensive adoption of the latest open source systems, so-called midrange processing vs mainframe processing, as well as the introduction of cloud-based solutions for our customers.
We have made continuing, significant investment – CapEx and OpEx – in our technology architecture, network systems, platforms and applications over the last 3, 5, 7 years. This has allowed us to grow market share across all our global businesses and geographies, while operating at the industry’s highest levels of performance across a number of metrics, such as uptime, speed, and bookablity.
For the 4 years 2013 thru 2016, we significantly increased overall annual technology spending – CapEx and OpEx – approximately $200M on a total base that went from about $750M to nearly $1B. We grew revenues by an even greater amount. That combination is how we achieved benefit from investment in our technology and were able to scale the business for positive, financial operating leverage as well as customer wins.
For 2017, we are consciously focusing our technology investment to drive performance and efficiencies through common technology platforms that enable quicker innovation, the highest levels of stability, and ever increasing levels of security.
So we have a clear, focused strategy to invest in the business, continue to build the appropriate architecture, continue to deploy more open-source and cloud-based solutions, and deliver the right technology solutions for our customers.
Skift: There’s talk in the industry that “full content” distribution agreements between airlines and GDSs like Sabre may be replaced with different agreements.
If so-called “full-content” distribution agreements with airlines evolve into something less than “full content,” logic dictates that Sabre Travel Network would have to give up significant pricing to keep all of the content — or else not have received as much content which would make it less attractive to travel agencies. Let’s say the full-content agreements go away. Should investors not be too worried about that, and if not, why not?
Menke: First of all, we believe that full content generates the best marketplace for agents and travelers alike so that all available options can be easily compared.
Furthermore, from the airline side, the GDS value proposition is as strong as ever. A Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysis issued in 2016 found that GDS pricing has fallen approximately 20 percent over the last ten years, due to the deregulation of the GDS industry and fee structures that incentivized carriers to provide full content offerings via the GDS.
But with that said, while the carriers’ focus over the past several years on driving branded/bundled fares and ancillaries exclusively via direct channels has generated new sources of revenue growth, we believe that opportunity is becoming saturated.
By ignoring indirect channels, carriers now realize they have been leaving money on the table, which is why there has been significant growth in carriers making ancillary and branded fare content available through the GDS.
Tapping into the full potential of indirect channels to sell branded/bundled fares, ancillaries and customized offers – especially to business travelers who are less price sensitive than leisure travelers – provides the opportunity to drive new revenue and growth for airlines.
To help airlines realize the opportunity, Sabre is investing in content acquisition and shopping capabilities while agencies are making investments in their mid/back-office systems to properly ticket and fulfill ancillary and branded fare transactions.
Relying heavily on the direct channel while valuable customers continue to shop via indirect channels also ignores a basic rule of retailing: when a customer has his or her credit card in hand and is ready to spend, let them spend!
Don’t tell them to come back later or go down the street. Make the sale and close the deal. The GDS can facilitate that transaction quickly and efficiently. The explosive growth of mobile is changing the landscape. Consumers want marketplaces.
The Sabre GDS has been the Amazon of travel, and as we see, consumers are embracing marketplaces more than ever. We help our airline partners get in front of consumers wherever they are shopping, at a very low cost of customer acquisition compared to the all-in costs of other tactics.
It’s our job to continue to enhance the value proposition for the Sabre GDS in this e-commerce environment, and we are focused on that and believe it will continue to thrive.
Skift: Sabre also offers a suite of enterprise software solutions for airlines, such as SabreSonic, the reservation system used to by airlines to handle about 789 million annual passengers. What are reasonable expectations for Sabre regarding its chances of winning some of the airlines that process 650 million annual passengers and that are currently running their reservation system on older or internal platforms?
Menke: In Airline Solutions, we own the broadest solutions portfolio in the market spanning reservations, retailing, planning, and operations. With a global customer base of over 225 airlines and our proven ability to serve airlines of all sizes, we believe we have a unique perspective on the evolving needs of our customers.
As large reservations deals come to market over the next five years we believe we will win more than our fair share. But we’re also focused on helping our customers deliver on a vision of the connected airline. By connecting applications and sharing data across solutions, we can tackle the legacy complexity in airline operations and help our customers deliver a better experience for travelers across the entire trip.
If I were to borrow my old airline hat for a second, I think the real way to think about reservations systems moving forward is a holistic approach to distribution.
As carriers look to personalize and customize their offerings, they need to bring together the insights from the direct and indirect channels to have a keener point of view of the customer. Airlines also want to deliver a consistent experience across various channels, and we are in a unique position to deliver that capability at any point of sale.
So we think our GDS expertise and insights can combine with the passenger systems we already provide to give our airline customers more value.
Skift: What is the Sabre Red re-launch about and why is this summer’s re-launch of Sabre Red significant?
Menke: The 2017 global launch of our new Sabre Red Workspace is the first application we are bringing to market on our new Sabre Red Platform.
As the market maker between travel providers and our agency distribution partners, we have collaborated with both sides of the marketplace to ensure we are delivering a customer led, market-leading offering that addresses their collective needs with industry-leading capabilities.
For travel providers, the new Sabre Red Workspace and orchestrated APIs enable them to sell their goods and services the way they want them sold and with a brand experience that is more consistent with their direct offering from base fares, to branded fares, and ancillary products.
For agents, in addition to equipping them with tools and insights to help them retail this broader array of goods and services from travel providers, we are also delivering a world-class user experience to address the changing needs of the agent demographics.
Plus we are improving workflow and automation to efficiently manage and fulfill the increased offerings and complexity while k costs.
I believe it will be a game changer for all parties in the travel distribution system. Its graphical interface and consumer-grade user experience will be tremendous tools for agents.
And I think travel providers will be very happy with how it enables them to sell how they want to sell. We are getting very positive reactions from customers – both airlines and hotels, as well as agents – who are seeing the preview of the technology.
And our successful pursuit of the Flight Centre account last year also gave us valuable feedback and insight to incorporate what agents need and want in a new technology platform.
Skift: Sabre has seen strong revenue gains via its hospitality IT services. What are your goals for that effort in the next few years?
Menke: There is a big opportunity in hospitality, and our goal is to seize it. Even very large lodging companies are using legacy technology that doesn’t support today’s operating complexity. As lodging companies grow and adapt to more consumer and management demands for better technology, they realize that trying to build their systems is no longer efficient.
We have done very, very well in the mid-market segment – medium-sized regional chains. And we were the first to break through with a true enterprise deal in support of Wyndham Hotel Group. We think there is a lot of opportunity in that segment.
We have a digital deal with Carlson Rezidor to support all 1,400 of their properties, and we are in talks at various levels with lots of household brand name hotel operators. I can’t get into specifics, but we feel good about the market opportunities in that sector.
Skift: Is Sabre’s suite of hospitality solutions essentially complete? Or are there still major strategic gaps in value offered that you need to fill in either by building or buying?
Menke: We’ve got a new version of our property management system coming online later this year. That’s our focus at the moment, as that’s what the market has been asking for. The goal is to roll out the update for the select-service market first (think a Marriott Courtyard or Hyatt Place kind of property) and over time roll it up to support full-service hotels which have much greater demands as they manage food service, spas, meetings and events along with lodging.
Beyond property management, there are some other areas where we will continue to expand our current offering, such as business intelligence and analytics, and other areas where we aren’t active today but could see adding in the future, such as in the groups and meetings space parts of the business. Regarding build vs. buy, we’ll continue to do a mix of both as has been the case over the last decade.
Skift: CEOs sometimes have philosophies about how they want to affect company culture. Six Sigma. Test and Learn. Agile development. That sort of thing. Is there one example you can cite that illustrates the spirit of your approach to the CEO job and how you plan to set the pace and tone of Sabre that you can share?
Menke: I recently read a book written by Jim Whitehurst, a former Delta executive who is now the CEO of RedHat, the world’s leading provider of open source software.
Jim transitioned a very structured management environment (airlines) to the open organization that characterizes RedHat. In fact, I’ve asked my management team to read his book “The Open Organization.”
Now I think that a truly open organization probably needs to start that way and retain that culture as it grows – as RedHat did – so it’s much more challenging to get an entire company and all its employees to reverse engineer how they do things.
But every organization can adapt some of the characteristics of an open organization like RedHat around collaboration, decision-making, personal accountability, and creativity.
But I’m also a pretty structured guy. So I like to start meetings with an understanding of the purpose, and I like to end those meetings with a clear understanding of what needs to get done in follow-up, and who is on point to get certain things done.
I’m am also committed to continuing to break down the silos that still exist around the company, which somewhat naturally developed when we operated as a holding company. So for example, our incentive comp program had different formulas for each business unit and staff group.
We’ve just moved to a companywide formula to drive home that we all share in the successes and shortcomings to drive better teamwork and a better understanding of the entire company, rather than a focus on the one specific area in which an employee works.
I’ve shared with our employees my four priorities around which I will manage: commercial growth and leadership; innovation in product and technology; unparalleled teamwork; and impeccable performance. Those aren’t built around slogans or gimmicks. It’s simply laid out as the four areas where we need to excel.
Skift: Finally, can you talk about Sabre’s corporate booking and corporate traveler experience products? What’s the recently revamped strategy there?
Menke: Our focus in the corporate travel space has been usability, and specifically on mobile. Our user experience team conducted hundreds of qualitative usability sessions to evaluate what travelers really want and need from a corporate booking tool.
As a result, GetThere is now a mobile-centric tool that integrates with TripCase and lets travelers book, cancel or change their plans in-trip, which is an industry first. Of course it does what travel managers needs as well, with fraud protection through Virtual Payments, flexible integration with expense providers and travel risk management via SafePoint.
Visa is an excellent example of its success. Before implementing GetThere, they had a 17 percent adoption rate companywide – but within a week of launching their adoption rate spiked to 70 percent. That’s a powerful testament to its appeal to business travelers.
And it gets back to our earlier discussion about what consumers want and how the GDS is a powerful force in delivering frictionless transactions, a great mobile experience and a robust marketplace.
Check out other articles in Skift’s Travel Tech CEO Series, including interviews with the CEOs of Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport.
Photo credit: Sean Menke speaking at Sabre's customer conference last summer, prior to becoming CEO. Sabre


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AMERICAN gardeners who buy a new brand of pesticide made from the seeds
of the Indian neem tree will be the unwitting beneficiaries of “intellectual
piracy”, argue Indian scientists.
DAZA, or dihydro-azadirachtin, received a licence from the US Environmental
Protection Agency last month. In 1995, environmentalists launched an
unsuccessful legal challenge to the patent covering its production, claiming it
contained nothing original (This Week, 16 September 1995, p 7).
The Indian Research Foundation for Science and Ecology says Indian farmers
have used the pesticide for hundreds of years. Farmers boil neem seeds, leave
them to sit in the water overnight and then scrape off the froth. They use this
to kill a range of insect pests.
The new product, marketed by Agridyne Technologies of Columbia, Maryland, is
made using a similar process.

domain: news


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ReshaMandi, a silk-tech startup, announced Series A funding round of $30 million, led by global alternative investment manager Creation Investments and other investors. This round featured a mix of equity and some debt. The equity funding includes new investors such as 9 Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Sandeep Singhal from Nexus, Brijesh Agarwal, founder of IndiaMART, and Omnivore, which also led the seed round of ReshaMandi. Debt investors include Northern Arc, Alteria, Innoven, and Stride Ventures.
Founded in May 2020, ReshaMandi provides a full-stack digital ecosystem, starting from farm to fashion and serves as a B2B marketplace for silk farmers, businesses, and retailers in India. The company was founded by Mayank Tiwari, a NIFT gold medalist, Saurabh Agarwal, former Cisco Systems technologist and entrepreneur, and Utkarsh Apoorva, a serial technology entrepreneur from IIT Delhi..
ReshaMandi has on-boarded more than 35,000 small businesses spanning across farmers, SME manufacturers, and retailers onto its supply chain, impacting over $1.5 billion worth of market, in the first 15 months of its operations. Its processes have helped increase small business incomes by 35-55% and the use of indigenous raw silk dramatically, it said in a press release.
Mayank Tiwari, CEO, ReshaMandi, said, “This round of funding will allow us to expand into newer territories and operationalize our R&D work while helping further stakeholders reap the benefits of our innovations and efficiencies.”
“Shortly after this round, a whole new range of saris and other fashion wear will be available in Tier-II towns in India where we are expanding,” said Utkarsh Apoorva, Co-founder, and CBO, ReshaMandi. “Our supply chain ensures that silk becomes affordable, and is available to middle-class households across the country, with a design range and price points never seen before. This will change the way people in Tier-II shop for silk apparel.”
ReshaMandi plans to expand its agricultural business in all major silk-producing states across India while also establishing itself as a leader in weaving clusters like Banaras, Salem, Kanchipuram, Maheshwar, and Dharmavaram. The company also aims to extend its retail footprint further into Agra, Kota, Gorakhpur, Dhanbad, Ranchi, Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur, Rajkot, Vadodara, Surat, Pune, Nagpur, Satara, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Madurai, Coimbatore, Kochi, and Kannur, over the next three to six months.
“Technology remains the core foundation for us,” said Saurabh Agarwal, Chief Technology Officer, ReshaMandi. “With this round, we can enable contributors with financial solutions that will boost their production via scientific advisories and improvements, give access to a democratized marketplace, and the ability to create products that are of high quality and set the stage for international recognition, which is long due for Indian silk.”
Tyler Day, Partner at Creation Investments, says, “With India producing 30 percent of the world’s silk and still needing more to meet demand, companies like ReshaMandi can make the whole silk supply chain run more efficiently. Ultimately, this benefits the whole ecosystem – from farmers and weavers to clothing manufacturers and buyers.”
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)


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July 20, 2015
Radii is set to come out with a brand new silhoutte this upcoming Fall/Winter season, let’s take a good look at the brand new Radii Vertex high top sneaker.
The “Vertex” is said to be inspired by high-fashion European aesthetics that we’re known to seeing in today’s luxury brands. It will come with a vulcanized outsole with textured dual dense foxing as well as a Cloud 9 insole. Coming in your choice of either, white, black slick or blood python, all colorways will come dressed in a full-grain leather upper equipped with perforated hits for added breathability. The Vertex will ankle strap to further go along with that high end look and feel. Completing the look is the vegan leather lining as well as the stitched padded quilted tongues.


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The industry of fashion and a multimedia artist (E351)
Dedicated followers of fashion were aware that this week was Fashion week not just in London but globally – just one of the consequences of the coronavirus. But the pandemic has also highlighted a toxic side to this lucrative industry; fast fashion, unregulated supply chains and an unsustainable 50s business model based on vast growth and turnover. It is a fragile infrastructure but there is a growing movement to raise awareness of these issues. TRAID is a charity working to stop clothes from being thrown away and Maria Chenoweth is the organisation’s CEO. We invited her onto Sputnik to tell us more about what they do and how they are working to tackle the problem of clothes waste.
Not many artists from Nelson in Lancashire end up exhibiting in Doha, Qatar, neither do they find success writing novels. With work in private and public collections worldwide, Shahida Ahmed is truly a multimedia artist. She joined Sputnik to tell us about her road to success and amongst other things we find out why her paintings are all signed “She”.


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Competition & Markets Authority
Metro Bank customers receive £10.5m overdraft fee refund
Metro Bank has committed to repay more than £10.5 million after it breached a legal order by failing to send texts warning people about unarranged overdraft charges.
The bank was found to have breached Part 6 of the Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) Retail Banking Market Investigation Order 2017. This requires banks to ensure that customers with personal current accounts receive a text alert warning about charges before banks charge them for unarranged overdrafts, so they have time to act and can avoid unexpected fees.
The CMA’s investigation found that Metro Bank failed to inform nearly 130,000 customers that they would be charged for entering an unarranged overdraft. Although text alerts were sent, these did not inform customers that they would be charged. This breach has been continuing since February 2018, when the Order was introduced. Additionally, some of these alerts were sent later than they should have been.
As well as refunding £10.5 million in fees, Metro Bank has offered to pay back 8% interest on the charges bringing the expected total remuneration to around £11.4 million. It will also consider reasonable claims for extra costs incurred by affected customers.
Adam Land, CMA Senior Director for Remedies, Business and Financial Analysis, yesterday said:
The text alerts we ordered banks to send to customers have been crucial in helping people avoid unexpected fees from entering an unarranged overdraft.
While it is disappointing to see so many customers being charged wrongly, Metro Bank’s commitment to refund those affected – and to cover interest charges and consider claims for extra costs suffered – will put this right.
Read the CMA letter to Metro Bank.
Notes to Editors
- Part 6 of the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order came into force in 2018, after the CMA’s retail banking market investigation identified a number of competition problems in both the personal current account (PCA) and small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) banking markets. The Order is part of a package of remedies designed to address these problems.
- The responsibility for enforcing the sending of text alerts was transferred to the Financial Conduct Authority in December 2019.
- The total number of Metro Bank customers affected was 128,564.
- For press queries, email firstname.lastname@example.org or call 020 3738 6460
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By Claire West
In a Google world of buzzing Blackberries, non-stop Tweeting and social networking sites, it is difficult to imagine life without the send button. But for 10 million people, cyber-space is still a distant galaxy.
According to UK online centres, 20 per cent of adults in the UK do not use the internet, 73 per cent of the non-user population are in socioeconomic groups C2DE and 86 per cent of those without access are over 45.
The government-funded UK online centres are a network of thousands of centres which help people get started with computers and the internet. Staff are on hand to offer help and support with more than 30 free, easy courses on www.myguide.gov.uk. The Online basics course package is designed for beginners. It shows them how to use a mouse and keyboard and send their first email. The Online jobs package can help learners search and apply for jobs online and prepare for interviews. Other packages can introduce learners to online shopping, banking and networking.
Unionlearn, the TUC's learning and skills arm, has now become a partner organisation with UK online centres and, with support from its network of 25,000 union learning reps, will be reaching out to people who need help with their IT skills. The IT programs will be introduced to the 400-plus trade union workplace and community learning centres. The centres can be found in factories, bus depots, offices, the Brighton Pavilion and even in a Sikh temple.
Unionlearn will also be taking part in next month's Get online week, (from Oct 18-24). The campaign aims to help 80,000 get online, making it the single biggest digital inclusion campaign in the UK to date.
Judith Swift, unionlearn's union development manager, said: 'Getting online is actually 'Getting a Lifeline' in today's society. Not being able to shop online, book holidays or train or theatre tickets is a costly pain. Even more than that it opens up a new world of understanding how much fun and enjoyment is to be had from browsing the net, sending emails and photos to distant relatives or tracing family history.'
Sarah Bridges, senior direct delivery manager at UK online centres, said: 'We are pleased to be supporting unionlearn centres and union learning reps to help people in the workplace gain new skills using Online basics. Basic computer skills are now more important than ever, boosting people's chances of gaining employment and increasing their ability to achieve a higher salary.'


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Uber Technologies is drafting plans to offer banking services to its drivers as part of an effort to fend off ride-sharing competition, according to a report by Quartz.
The plan would provide drivers with a chance to register for a bank account or prepaid card when they apply to work for the car service. This would allow drivers to be paid on the same days they work, rather than on a weekly basis, Quartz reported, citing interviews with unnamed sources and documents it reviewed.
Many Uber drivers also work with other ride-sharing apps, and the firm reportedly is hoping that the financial products will make drivers more loyal to Uber.
The San Francisco-based company has reached out to different partners regarding the new services, according to Quartz, which did not name any specific firms. Uber did not respond to a request for comment from American Banker.
Other banking-related services Uber is reportedly exploring include cash-back discounts, merchant offers and international money transfers.
Uber already runs a separate program that offers an auto-leasing option for prospective drivers.


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Results for Articles:
Each week, it seems, brings a new bit of technology, a new source of information. Keeping up involves continual mental adjustments and the refreshing of skills.
5/22/2013 5:00:57 AM
The days of digital may have its perks, but it also may have a harmful impact on retailers’ quality of consumer relations.
5/21/2013 9:00:48 PM
The smilies, frowny faces, and sideways looks that people type using keyboard symbols are fun and lighthearted, but they’re not appropriate for every business conversation.
5/21/2013 4:00:50 PM
Mark these distinctions to keep them straight, and remember the handy acronym POETS.
5/21/2013 1:58:10 PM
Consumers care about the positions company leaders take on the big issues of the day, but the fallout from taking a controversial stand usually blows over, a new study found.
5/21/2013 1:57:43 PM
The ‘ironic, downscale chic’ choice of hipsters, PBR has led the way as domestic brews see hikes in popularity—and consumer cost—at taverns and restaurants.
5/21/2013 1:55:21 PM
Just because a shiny, new platform or digital network is dangled in front of marketers doesn’t mean your company should necessary be on it.
5/21/2013 1:52:40 PM
This infographic explores the psychology of color and suggests why brands like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut prefer red whereas Lowe’s opts for blue.
5/21/2013 1:51:39 PM
The verse, which a chaplain wrote about keeping the fun in youth baseball, got a big boost on Facebook and now graces Little League fields nationwide, with help from Farmers Insurance.
5/20/2013 1:51:59 PM
Drive results from visual content with the help of this June 6 webinar.
5/20/2013 1:50:30 PM
Like movie-goers, PR Daily readers were all about 'Gatsby' this week. Plus, top traits of good press release writers, email etiquette tips, and more.
5/20/2013 1:45:00 PM
Demand for the chicken has residents of the isolated strip paying triple the usual cost to have it smuggled past Israeli blockades, a four-hour trek. Talk about poultry in motion…
5/17/2013 1:54:04 PM
The NBC comedy series may be drawing to a close this week, but there’s no doubt it’s going to leave a lasting impression. ‘That’s what she said.’
5/17/2013 1:51:18 PM
Read this, because the free secret you’ll find here instantly delivers value.
5/17/2013 1:48:17 PM
The CEO’s assertion that only ‘cool kids’ should wear Abercrombie and Fitch togs, as well as reports that A&F burned damaged items rather than clothe the needy, spurred Greg Karber to make a point—and a video.
5/17/2013 1:47:26 PM


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It's that time of year again! BT customers should expect a price rise in the coming weeks
Virgin Media, Three and Vodafone customers have recently been notified about incoming price rises for their monthly bills. But before BT customers smugly pat themselves on the back, there’s bad news about your broadband bill on the way. That’s because the Consumer Price Index rose to 0.6 percent this week.
BT relies on the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, to adjust the amount that its customers will pay each month. To calculate what customers will be paying for the following year, BT takes the CPI rate of inflation and then adds an additional 3.9 percent. So, in total, that’s a rise of 4.5 percent compared to what you’re already paying each month. For example, if your BT broadband bill clocks in around £40 a month, you’ll need to cough up an extra £1.80 on each bill. That’s around £22 extra over the course of a year.
On BT’s FAQs, it confirms that price rises will take place annually at the end of March. If you’re currently with BT, you can expect to start paying the bigger bills from April 2021.
Those who pay for multiple services from BT, including Broadband, Landline, and TV, can expect to see prices rises by a significant amount, since all of these monthly services are eligible for a price bump.
On its site, BT states: “Each year we will adjust the amount customers pay per month for their plans according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rate of inflation plus an additional 3.9%. The CPI rate is announced in January each year and we will adjust a customer's bill by this amount plus an additional 3.9% from 31 March of the same year. For example, if the CPI rate announced in January 2021 is 2%, then their monthly plan prices from 31 March 2021 will increase by 5.9%. This reflects the increase in the costs to run and invest in the network and service that we provide.”
Here’s the full list of BT services that will see prices rises in line with the CPI after March 2021:
- Extra charges, like out out-of-allowance calling rates and your optional add-ons
BT confirmed that customers would see price increases once a year in line with the CPI back in September 2020. At the time, the telecom firm said that it believed this predictable annual increase would be better for customers as it would allow them to prepare. The upcoming price rises will be the first under the new simplified system from BT.
Speaking last year at the announcement of its new strategy, a spokesperson for BT said: "While we recognise that no one likes to see their prices go up, with the major growth in data usage seen recently, both at home and on the move, we want to continue to invest heavily in our networks, products and services, simplify our packages and policies, and offer greater support and flexibility to those who need it the most.
"That’s why we’re making some changes to our contract terms, and better reflect the Fairness commitments laid out by Ofcom last year, by bringing all our products and brands in line with a single annual increase, of a known and predictable amount. This is far clearer for our customers and moves away from the unpredictable changes that customers can face today across the industry."
Martin Lewis explains BT broadband price hike
Reacting to the announcement of the latest CPI, Founder of Zen Internet, which commits to never increase prices during a customers’ contract, Richard Tang told Express.co.uk: “While it will not come as a surprise, it’s still incredibly disappointing to see consumers’ pockets being squeezed even further by these price rises and well beyond current inflation rates. As lockdown continues and connectivity becomes even more important for everything from working and learning to shopping and beyond, it is vital that providers start to put customers first, and put an end to common practices such as bumping up prices automatically.
“This is why Zen introduced the lifetime price guarantee a few years ago and disbanded additional data charges at the start of the first lockdown. Zen’s lifetime price guarantee means that our prices actually come down in real terms, as inflation increases, but we feel this is the right thing to do to reward customer loyalty. It’s part of our B Corp ethical responsibility to balance purpose and profit. Providers should reward loyalty and not punish customers by raising prices, particularly in the midst of a pandemic.”


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A survey by Royal Mail Data Services has revealed how UK organisations are waking up to the ills of poor data management practices and are improving such processes to comply with the GDPR when it comes into effect.
One-third of UK organisations have no formal data-cleansing processes in place even though the GDPR is less than a year away from being implemented across Europe.
While many UK organisations, as revealed by many surveys and reports, continue to remain ill-prepared for the GDPR which is set to come into effect in May 2018, a number of them are now becoming aware of how poor data management practices can hurt revenue and impact their reputations at the same time.
In fact, the number of organisations that are concerned about non-compliance with the GDPR has risen by 242% over the past year, and half of them are also worrying about whether third-party data sources will comply with the GDPR’s strict permissioning guidelines.
As a result of the increased understanding of the GDPR, many organisations are now focussing on the quality of the customer data they hold and the effectiveness of their existing data management processes.
The Use And Management Of Customer Data report by Royal Mail Data Services has also warned that organisations without comprehensive data-cleansing processes will eventually lose out to ones that use accurate, complete customer information to drive sales, retain customers, and enhance their brand positioning.
‘The problem of poor-quality customer data has blighted business for many years, and as the GDPR deadline approaches, those companies that lack effective data management processes will not only continue to suffer an unnecessary hit to the bottom line, but also potentially risk non-compliance with tightened data regulations,’ says Jim Conning, Managing Director, Royal Mail Data Services.
Despite the increased awareness, the preparedness of UK organisations for GDPR is still a long way off the mark with as many as one-third of UK organisations having no formal data-cleansing processes in place even though the GDPR is less than a year away.
As per the Royal Mail Data Services report, even though 24.2% of organisations believe better data quality and analysis will improve the performance of their marketing campaigns, 22.9% of them have admitted that poor-quality data is holding them back and another 20% of them admitted that their organisational cultures don’t value the importance of maintaining good-quality data.
‘It still comes as a surprise that a large proportion of organisations today have no formal processes or solutions in place to either cleanse or enhance customer data on a continuous basis.
‘Yet data quality is of paramount importance to support customer acquisition and retention activities. Rather than regard the enforcement of the GDPR as an unwanted regulatory headache, companies should view it as a spur to action to improve and enhance data quality in order to provide a truly customer-focused marketing experience,’ Conning adds.
Back in October, an Annual Market Survey by SailPoint revealed that even though the adoption of formal BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies will help organisations comply with the GDPR and prevent data leakage, the adoption of formal BYOD policies trails the adoption of BYOD in the UK, thereby placing sensitive corporate and customer data help by a number of organisations at risk.
According to the survey, 7 out of 10 (72 per cent) organisations have embraced BYOD and SaaS application adoption, while only 53 per cent have formal policies in place to protect corporate data.
‘For enterprises to have full visibility into who has access to what, understanding the ‘who’ in that equation is more important than ever. This is why putting identity at the center of security strategies is the best approach for defending and protecting today’s modern enterprise,’ said Juliette Rizkallah, CMO at SailPoint.
Therefore, in order to prepare adequately for GDPR, aside from embracing the best data management practices, organisations must also embrace formal and watertight BYOD policies to ensure they know who has access to what data and how can sensitive data be restricted to a few individuals.


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January 11, 2016 12:00 AM | by The Fustany Team
Golden Globes 2016: Jennifer Lawrence is Red Hot in Dior
We don't know about you, but we definitely couldn't wait to see what Jennifer Lawrence chose to wear on the red carpet at the 2016 Golden Globes. Jennifer Lawrence arrived on the red carpet looking extremely elegant in a red cut-out Dior dress.
Attention must be served to the statement diamond necklace she chose to accessorize her look with. Her hair, makeup, full beauty look was on point with her fashion choice, proving once again that Jennifer Lawrence definitely know hows to carry herself in Dior.
They are under the spotlight for a reason. Get inspired by our Celebrity Style section.
For more Golden Globes 2016 red carpet coverage, click here.


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— Smartsheet Inc (NYSE: SMAR) reported third-quarter 2019 loss of $0.15 per share, vs. $0.18 per share loss expected.
— Net revenue grew 53% to $71.5 million, vs. $69.7 million expected.
— 83,139 domain-based customers at the end of Q3.
— For Q4, expects revenue of $77-78 million and adjusted loss per share of $0.17 to $0.16.
— For full year 2020, expects revenue of $269.4-270.4 million and adjusted loss per share of $0.53 to $0.52.
— SMAR shares rose 2.7% immediately following the announcement.
Retail giant Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) reported higher earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter of 2020, reflecting a marked increase in merchandise sales. The results also topped analysts’
The disruption caused by coronavirus has affected almost all sectors except business service providers like Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ: CTAS), which is busy helping clients maintain hygiene and safety during the
Rite Aid Corporation (NYSE: RAD) reported a narrower loss in the second quarter of 2021. Net loss shrank to $0.25 per share in the recently ended quarter from $1.49 per


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In an eagerly awaited move, a fraud complaint has been filed by France's state health insurance fund against a firm that sold hundreds of thousands of allegedly faulty breast implants around the world.
It also emerged Friday that the firm's founder and his children were in the process of creating a new company to take over the operations of the now-defunct Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) when the implant scandal erupted.
Prosecutors in Marseille said the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM) had filed the complaint for aggravated fraud after French authorities advised 30,000 women to have their PIP implants removed because of an increased risk of rupture and agreed to pay for the procedure.
Prosecutors in Marseille, near PIP's laboratory at Seyne-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean, have received more than 2,500 complaints from French women who received the implants and are pursuing a criminal investigation.
Officials had earlier said the cost of removing the implants could reach 60 million euros ($78 million) and that the state would seek compensation.
Between 300,000 and 400,000 women in 65 countries from Europe to Latin America have received implants made with sub-standard silicone gel by PIP, once the world's third-largest producer of silicone implants.
Local newspaper Nice-Matin meanwhile reported that PIP founder Jean-Claude Mas and his children, Nicolas and Peggy Lucciardi, had in June founded a new firm to restart the implant manufacturing business.
The firm, called France Implant Technologie (FIT), was registered under the names of Nicolas Lucciardi, 27, and Peggy Lucciardi, 24, at the address of their mother, Dominique Lucciardi, who was Mas's former civil partner.
In a business plan for FIT obtained by Nice-Matin, Mas is named as a "technical-commercial consultant" to the company and its objectives are listed as exporting implants on the "European, South American and Chinese markets".
The report said the company was looking to invest 2 million euros to get the former PIP plant up and running by next June. Two former managers at PIP were also listed in senior positions with the new company.
The business plan said the company's goal was to manufacture 400 implants a day with about 20 employees.
It planned to continue PIP's low-cost approach, vowing to offer implants at a price 10 percent lower than its competitors.
PIP was shut down and its products banned in April 2010 after it was revealed to have been using non-authorised silicone gel that caused abnormally high implant rupture rates.
According to PIP's 2010 bankruptcy filing, it had exported 84 percent of its annual production of 100,000 implants.
Authorities in other countries have advised women to consult their doctors over the implants, while some nations, including Bolivia and Venezuela, have said that in some cases the implants will be removed for free.
Mas has admitted through his lawyer that the company used non-standard silicone gel but insisted there is no evidence of any health risk.


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USA / Global
bmw z3 Articles
BMW M5-Powered Z3 M Coupe Looking For A New Owner
Is it worth the price?
Feb 15 2018
Mysterious BMW prototype rumored to be a front-wheel drive Z2
Yesterday's mysterious BMW prototype continues to spawn debate but a new report is indicating the model is a mule for a new Z2 roadster.
Dec 16 2014
BMW reportedly working on a new Z1 & Z3
According to a recent report, BMW is planning to revive their Z lineup with a series of new sports car.
Dec 09 2014
Next-gen BMW Z4 to be co-developed with Toyota, will receive Z3 moniker - report
New details have emerged about the third generation of the BMW Z4 which will have a front-engine, rear-wheel drive layout.
Jan 22 2014
BMW M squeezes V12 engine in a Z3 prototype
BMW's M division has revealed a one-off version of the Z3 fitted with a V12 engine.
Aug 07 2012
75 Years of BMW Roadsters
BMW has been making roadsters for 75 years beginning with the 315/1. Follow a short history of its two-seater topless cars from 1934 to 2009.
May 28 2009
Car Buying Service
Get upfront price offers on local inventory.
Vehicle Imagery licensed from EVOX Images
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Mumbai: Shares of Simplex Projects surged 16 per cent today after the company sold 51.21 per cent stake in its arm Simpark Infrastructure, proceeds of which will be utilised for business purposes.
The stock zoomed 16 per cent to Rs 27.90 on BSE.
At NSE, shares of the company jumped 14.76 per cent to Rs 27.60.
The company, however, did not give any financial details of the deal.
“The Board of Directors of the company at its meeting held on March 28, 2016, had decided to sell its investment in the wholly-owned subsidiary, Simpark Infrastructure…Accordingly, 16,31,400 shares (51.21 per cent) have been sold,” the company had said in a BSE filing yesterday.
Simpark Infrastructure is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Simplex Projects.
Earlier, the Board of Directors had resolved that “investment up to 75 per cent only in the wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, Simpark Infrastructure Private, be sold and the sale proceeds be utilised for business purposes.”


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finder.com.au Insights Manager, Graham Cooke, said: “The research shows younger Australians are more scared about participating in auctions than older generations.
“Younger generations are used to the comfort and safety of their smartphones, making the idea of face-to-face bidding too terrifying for many.”
He added: “If your dream home is up for auction and you are too anxious to attend - consider getting a professional to bid for you.
“Doing it this way means you get to call the shots from the comfort of your current home instead of the chaotic auction environment.”
• 11% said they love auctions
• 12% said auctions don’t scare them
• 18% said auctions scare them
• 60% had no opinion
From VOLVO, BMW and OFFICEWORKS
Check them out.
Also, Keep track of your CPD hours with the NEW CPD Diary in your member portal! Log in today.


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One of the myriad effects of the coronavirus pandemic is that the NYC Department of Sanitation has stopped the recycling program that takes your e-waste by appointment. The program is still paused and is not set to resume its normal cadence of accepting e-waste at delivery points until at least June 2021.
Fortunately, you have a few short-term options if you need to get rid of some tech in the coming weeks.
Early in the outbreak, the Lower East Side (LES) Ecology Center drop-off site near Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal permanently closed its doors. According to Christine Datz-Romero, co-founder and director of the LES Center for Ecology, it was one of the few drop-off sites in New York City that accepted and recycled e-waste and diverted 1 million pounds of e-waste from landfills in 2018. manager.
However, the LES Ecology Center is now partnering with recyclers to accept your e-waste every weekend during the month of November – more dates are likely in the future if COVID-19 case numbers remain low near planned collection sites. These pop-up sites will be in a different place each week, so check this in event calendar. And before I go make sure that what you have to recycle will be accepted.
Offering some release sites again in NYC is a return to form, albeit in a more limited way.
Whether you’re in NYC or not, you can leave at least some of your e-waste at Best Buy. company approved Boundary He said he plans to continue the recycling program throughout the pandemic. Still, there are some things to be aware of. You can recycle up to three items per household per day at Best Buy. If one of these items is a modem, router, or both, the company will give you a coupon that will give you 15 percent off new networking devices. You can do Check out the fine print and list of items Best Buy can accept.
If you want more options, my colleague Barbara Krasnoff’s list of big companies that accept donations and technology recycling is still a great resource. Some will take clothes, books and more, so check if you want another way to get rid of your stuff.
For more information on the global problem governing e-waste, see the old boundary Reporter Colin Lecher hosted the video above that reveals the dark side of e-waste recycling. Moreover, boundary environmental reporter Justine Calma gave a fascinating glimpse into 2019, which broke records for e-waste left behind.
Finally, if you’re wondering how our team is getting NYC’s five boroughs out of e-waste, as illustrated at the beginning of this post, this behind-the-scenes post is for you.


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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — They promise to be there when your appliances go bad, but companies offering home warranties aren’t always good.
Kristi Smith grabbed a bag of hash browns from her freezer and gave them a good squeeze.
“It’s like mush,” Smith said, disgusted. “Nothing is frozen.”
Smith’s freezer is no longer working and the main compartment of her five-year-old Whirlpool refrigerator is barely staying cold. It’s an expensive mess that Smith was confident would be covered by her homeowner warranty plan – Choice Home Warranty.
“I read the contract,” Smith said. “I read everything in it, and the fridge was included. “
Smith called Choice Home Warranty. It sent out an independent repairman who diagnosed the problem as a broken compressor — a $1,041 repair.
At first Choice told her the repair would not be covered, but after multiple calls — including one from the repairman himself — a Choice customer service representative agreed the repair fell under the warranty.
However, Choice wasn’t going to pay to repair Smith’s refrigerator. It was going to giver her cash to replace it.
“I was like ‘OK,’” Smith recalled.
But then came the bad news. Choice was only to give her $450. Money it said should be enough to replace her $3,000 refrigerator.
“If they can get my fridge at $450, I want to know where they are getting it because I want to get it at that price,” the mother of two young sons said.
Although Choice eventually agreed to up the price to $850, Smith was still upset and called FOX4 Problem Solvers. She’s just one of multiple people who have contacted us complaining about home warranties they say didn’t live up to their promises.
People like Peggy Miller.
“We are in dire straits here,” Miller said. “There are four of us in the house, and we need to do laundry.”
That was the predicament Miller found herself in when her washer and dryer suddenly stopped working. She called her warranty company Select Home Warranty.
After a week of waiting, Miller said Select sent out a repair company. When it couldn’t fix the problem, Select told Miller to buy a new washer and dryer.
But here’s the catch. Select was only going to pay $100 of the purchase price. That’s the amount Select said her appliances were worth at the time they stopped working.
Miller insisted Select pay in full to replace both appliances, telling a Select customer service representative that’s what she was promised when she purchased the home warranty.
Select refused and cancelled her policy.
If you read the fine print in both Miller’s and Smith’s policies, you quickly realize both warranties have given themselves a broad brush to do anything they want. But Miller insisted to us that’s definitely not how the policy was sold to her when she signed up.
So FOX4 called Select, posing as a potential customer interested in purchasing a home warranty. We asked the salesman what Select would do if our oven were to suddenly stop working and couldn’t be repaired. Would Select replace the appliance?
“Yes mam, exactly correct,” he told us. “Like for like,” he said.
Not sure what ‘like for like’ meant, we asked Select if we would receive just the depreciated value of our old appliance.
“No, we’ll replace it to the same caliber of the one you had in your home,” the salesman promised FOX4.
What he never actually said, however, was that I would be getting a new appliance, just the “same caliber” of the one I already have.
If you read Select’s warranty policy, we would most likely be getting exactly what Miller got; the depreciated value of my broken appliance, which has almost no value at all.
Kristi Smith’s Choice Warranty policy allowed for up to $1,500 for one appliance repair per year, but it also allows Choice to “replace” your appliance if it doesn’t want to pay for the repair.
Choice gets to make decision, not the homeowner.
Aaron Reese with the Better Business Bureau of greater Kansas City said it’s hard to tell the difference between a good and bad warranty company. Often what they promise sounds the same. The proof is in what they deliver.
“If a consumer is looking to get a home warranty, they can’t research the company enough,” Reese said. “I can’t stress that enough.”
Select Home Warranty has 1,700 complaints on the BBB’s website. Choice Home Warranty has more than 3,600 complaints. Plus, in 2015 it got in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission for bribing customers with financial incentives in exchange for writing a good review. That same year, the company paid $779,000 to the state of New Jersey to settle claims of deceptive business practices.
Another big hint that some of these warranty plans may not be great is the cost. Smith paid $1,000 for five years worth of coverage. That’s just a fraction of the cost of a home warranty from a more reputable company.
Now here’s the good news: FOX4 Problem Solvers was able to solve Smith’s refrigerator problem. We called her refrigerator’s manufacture, Whirlpool, for help.
Although the manufacture warranty had expired, Whirlpool immediately sent out a repairman who fixed the problem for free. Even the ice dispenser in the door is now working – something she hasn’t been able to use in months.
“Yes, the whole thing works,” Smith said. “It’s a problem solved.”
Smith has now canceled her policy with Choice Home Warranty and said she’ll most likely never get a warranty again.


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您的当前位置：首页 > 음악 > Golf club's 'no Japanese car' policy sparks controversy 正文
时间：2023-12-04 18:26:02 来源：网络整理 编辑：음악
A South Korean golf club has caused controversy online for its policy of restricting services for th
A South Korean golf club has caused controversy online for its policy of restricting services for those driving Japanese cars.
The club, located in North Jeolla Province, prohibits parking of Japan-made cars at the club's parking lot, according to a notice posted on an online community on Nov. 11. Staff at the club will not load and unload golf clubs for those arriving in Japanese cars, it added.
Toyota, Lexus, Infiniti, Subaru and Isuzu cars are among those listed as banned in the notice.
“Do not forget the contributions of our ancestors who defended this country under the Japanese occupation,” the notice reads, referring to when Korea was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910-45.
“The purpose of this policy is not to forget the men and women who made sacrifices for the freedom of Korea during the Japanese colonial rule."
A nationwide boycott of Japan-made goods, mostly clothing, beer and cars, began in 2019 against Tokyo's export restrictions of some key industrial materials to Korea. The boycott has in recent years lost traction as Japanese brand goods have soared in popularity, especially among the younger generation, alongside improved Korea-Japan ties.
The notice drew mixed response from netizens. Some expressed support for the company, while others criticized the measure as a marketing gimmick, pointing to the popularity of Japanese-made golf clubs in Korea, which are not subject to restrictions at the golf club.
The vehicle ban has been in place from Jan. 1, 2022, the notice added.
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Kroger Purchases Location for New Whitehall Store
It’s most likely still several years before a grand opening, but Kroger has officially taken the first step toward relocating its Whitehall store on East Broad Street. Last week, the Ohio-based grocery chain purchased a building located across the street at 3662-3712 East Broad Street in the Town & Country Shopping Center.
The 78,000 square foot building formerly housed a Big Bear grocery store, but has sat empty since that chain went bankrupt and closed its remaining stores.
Kroger has not yet made any announcement on what the new store will look like, or when the relocation might occur.
“I can confirm that Kroger purchased the former Big Bear site on East Broad Street in Whitehall, but at this point, I don’t have a timeline to share,” stated Jennifer Jarrell, Media/Government Relations Manager with Kroger.
In Upper Arlington, Kroger purchased the former Macy’s site in 2015 with plans to build a new store. Lawsuits delayed the process though, and construction is slated to likely start on that project sometime in 2018.


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Highlights for the third quarter ended September 29, 2012:
Highlights for the thirty-nine weeks ended September 29, 2012:
Tom Stoltz, Body Central's COO, CFO and interim CEO, stated: "Our third quarter results were in line with our expectations. We completed the transition from summer clearance merchandise to fall and ended the quarter with lower inventory levels on a per store basis.
“We now believe our assortment of styles are more in line with customer preferences. We also refined our test and reorder strategy by increasing the number of styles tested and raising the sell-through hurdle rates for test merchandise.
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Letter to Editor
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A US-owned factory in Shanghai is at the center of China’s latest food scandal: Chinese health authorities have suspended operations at Shanghai Husi Food, owned by the Illinois-based OSI Group, for reprocessing old and discarded meat to extend its use-by date. Husi was supplying meat to KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonald’s restaurants in China. Staff were captured on camera reprocessing expired and discarded meat—in one case picking up food off the floor and throwing it into processing machines.
OSI, McDonald’s largest protein supplier, is one of several American firms that have recently been buying and building plants in China in hopes of capitalizing on the country’s rising standard of living. But the allegations, made by local Chinese media Dragon Television, are a reminder of how difficult it can be to improve China’s food safety problems.
OSI has been operating in China for over 20 years and has ramped up over the last few years in hopes of becoming one of China’s largest poultry producers and food processors, with 10 factories in China as of last October. ”There is no other place in the world growing as quickly as China, and we feel fortunate to be a part of it. We look at China as the number one growth effort among all of our global activities,” David McDonald, OSI’s president, said last year. An official at OSI told Reuters that the company is working with the local government to investigate the issue.
As we’ve pointed out, foreign livestock companies have realized that one of the best ways to compete in China is by providing the safest food. One reason why Shuanghui Group, China’s largest pork producer, acquired America’s Smithfield Foods last year was to gain access to more sophisticated safety safeguards for pork production. Tyson Foods has been building its own processing plants (paywall) in China, and wants to be running 90 of its own farms in China by next year to better control the supply chain. Cargill opened a $250 million poultry plant in Anhui province, and McKey Food Services—a subsidiary of of the food services giant Keystone— is a supplier in Shenzhen for China and nearby markets.
OSI has spent at least $750 million on three “vertically integrated” poultry processing centers that are designed to ensure “biosecurity, food safety and traceability throughout the supply chain.” The company’s relatively short supply chain was credited as a reason why McDonald’s was able to stay clear of Europe’s horse meat scandal last year, and industry observers say that OSI has a good reputation in the industry. But the latest scandal demonstrates that exporting effective food safety protocols is a lot more difficult than importing actual meat.


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Economic data weakens the USD
The economic data from the United States were released at the beginning of the session giving weakness to the US Dollar.
Q1 GDP fell to -1.5% vs -1.3%; the previous data was marked at -1.4%. This fall is the result of several factors: inflation above 8% (40-year highs) slowing down the consumer price index from 8.3% in April year-on-year giving slow growth, (although consumer spending grew by 3.1% annually from January to March), national spending on imports from other countries rather than on native exports, a slow recovery in goods and warehouses that had accumulated their inventories in the last quarter for the Christmas season.Data, which was worse than expected, showed the third consecutive month with a falling GDP, calling into question the control that the FED is trying to put in place to avoid the recession that, according to the classic definition, the country is already in following two consecutive quarters of negative GDP. According to the CBO, it projected that GDP will grow 3.1% this year.
April’s monthly pending home sales came out much worse than expected, almost doubling to -3.9% vs -2.0%, marking the sixth consecutive month of decline, a slowdown not seen in 10 years. The reason for these multiple falls and reduction in demand is thanks to high prices and the increase in interest rates to control inflation. Mortgage rates are above 5% and are expected to continue rising, resulting in extended losses on existing home sales. New home sales fell 17% in April to a 2-year low.
“Pending contracts are revealing as they better reflect the more timely impact of higher mortgage rates than closings” …. “Scaling mortgage rates have increased the cost of buying a home by more than 25% over the last year, while higher home prices are adding another 15% to that figure” – Lawrence Yun, NAR Chief Economist.
New jobless claims improved despite the tight labor market, coming out better than expected with 210K vs 215K, remaining at pre-pandemic levels. Still, employees’ average hourly earnings fell 2.6% in April year-over-year and 0.1% month-over-month in March, thanks to higher inflation failing to boost wage growth. Over 400k jobs have also been added in a year and the unemployment rate is near its 50-year low.
On the other hand, today’s Loonie data was set at 0.0% vs 1.4%, for retail sales, worse than expected, even representing a retracement from previous data which was at 0.2%. Regarding core retail sales, they were marked at 2.4% vs 2.0%, better than expected. Growth of 0.8% is estimated for April, according to Statistics Canada.
In addition, Canada has benefited from being a country related to raw materials, due to the rebound in the price of oil to $114 and gas that has reached $9 in the US. Although permits and pipelines have strongly restricted investment in oil and gas, the situation could improve due to the security risk from the Russia-Ukraine war and energy demand.
Sales for the country rose in 10 out of 11 sectors to 7.4% led by gas stations but were overshadowed by a 6.4% drop in auto sales, according to Statistics Canada.
Technical analysis – USDCAD
In the Weekly chart, USDCAD declined for a second consecutive week, after reaching highs at 1.3075 and testing the 200-period SMA, leaving a shooting star the week of 08/05 with a bearish perspective.
On the Daily chart, a head-to-shoulder collarbone structure skewed to the upside but capped at the Fibo 50% at 1.2766. On the 25th the price left a shooting star after testing the 20-day SMA to fall below 1.2800 today and close the day at 1.2769 testing the pattern’s collarbone. The target of the pattern, if the collarbone is broken, would be close to the April lows around 1.2450.
On the H4 chart, the price was in a wide range for a week from 1.2766-1.2895, although now we can see a small HCH pattern with highs at 1.28842 and shoulders at Fibo 38.2% at 1.2839. The price has already broken the collarbone and found a low at 1.2800 and has a target below the 50% Fibo level at the early month lows at 1.2710. The price has broken the 200-day SMA and is currently at 1.2772.
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Google reportedly collecting rival apps data to improve its own products
- A new report claims Google has been collecting usage information of third-party apps.
- Google has reportedly used the information to improve its own app offerings.
Building apps for an OS it develops may not be the only advantage Google has over third-party Android developers. According to a report by The Information (paywall) (via MSPowerUser), Google has been collecting and studying usage data from competing apps to better develop its own apps.
The report claims the anonymized, user-consented data is stored in an “Android Lockbox” service. Google says this service primarily powers features like background apps management. The company also noted that this info is freely available to the apps’ developers, but their visibility is limited to their own products.
Why is this important? For starters, it allows Google to make critical business decisions based on data viewable only by itself and the developers of an app. The Information reports that Google utilized data garnered from TikTok to better understand how or when to launch a rival app for the Indian market. The company also reportedly analyzed usage data gathered from email apps competing with Gmail, as well as Instagram and Facebook.
Theoretically, Google could garner information about apps across a slew of categories. To better Gboard, it could gain information from third-party keyboard apps. Google Keep could benefit from studying note-taking app data. YouTube Music could be improved by looking at data from streaming and music services. Google could use this info to improve its products or to discover potential business opportunities.
There’s a strong case to be made that, as the developer of Android, Google is entitled to monitor how apps behave on the platform. But the company’s use of this data could be seen as anti-competitive behavior. It’s an issue the company has run into multiple times before in the EU, India, Russia, and now possibly the US too. Google has already racked up billions of dollars in fines from antitrust decisions, but it’s not yet clear if these new revelations will result in further legal trouble.


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In keeping with the newest findings in ‘The 2023 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report’ by Chainalysis, India continues to carry its floor as one of many main cryptocurrency markets globally, securing the second place regardless of dealing with a difficult tax regime. Regardless of the implementation of a 30 % tax on beneficial properties and a tax deduction on the supply at a price of 1 %, the report highlights India’s strong efficiency within the crypto sphere, accentuating its resilience and noteworthy grassroots adoption.
Chainalysis, a distinguished US-based blockchain information platform, emphasised that India’s resolute adaptation to cryptocurrencies is notably mirrored in its main place on the World Crypto Adoption Index. Moreover, the nation has remarkably ascended to change into the second-largest crypto market worldwide by way of uncooked estimated transaction quantity, surpassing a number of economically prosperous nations. Notably, the US maintains its dominance atop the rankings, underscoring the worldwide dynamics of the cryptocurrency panorama. The report estimated the cumulative worth of transactions in India at a formidable determine exceeding $260 billion, testifying to the nation’s vital contribution to the burgeoning crypto economic system.
Nevertheless, the report sheds gentle on the intricacies posed by the regulatory and tax surroundings inside India, citing the difficult panorama that business gamers should navigate. Previously yr, regulatory companies have endeavored to offer heightened readability on a number of crucial points, together with the formal declaration of the applying of anti-money laundering rules to cryptocurrency transactions. Nonetheless, the imposition of a considerably increased tax price on cryptocurrency transactions in comparison with many different nations has introduced a notable hurdle for the crypto business inside the Indian market.
The report additional underscored the importance of Tax Deducted at Supply (TDS) assortment, noting that whereas quite a few home exchanges are mandated to gather TDS from Indian customers, the efficient implementation of this coverage stays a problem for a lot of worldwide exchanges. Consequently, this discrepancy is perhaps directing Indian customers in direction of worldwide exchanges, versus platforms primarily centered on the Indian market. The substantial improve in internet site visitors from India to worldwide exchanges, which has surged from under 2 crore to 2.72.8 crore since July 2022, serves as a testomony to the evolving dynamics and preferences of Indian cryptocurrency customers inside the international crypto ecosystem.


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AMD made a number of huge announcements at its annual Financial Analyst Day gathering on Wednesday, involving products across its CPU and GPU businesses. Many of the announcements confirm rumours and speculation that have circulated for months. AMD might have decided to go public with them ahead of the annual Computex trade show in order to generate buzz before Intel unveils its own high-performance hardware.
Starting with the desktop, AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su confirmed that the company will launch 16-core/32-thread high-end desktop processors. Details are scarce, but the name currently being used is Ryzen Threadripper. These will be the first such CPUs in the world, and will target extreme PC enthusiasts and those whose workloads involve massively parallel tasks such as content creation. Video editing, transcoding and gaming while streaming were specifically named as target workloads.
There's no confirmation of the number of models or variants, much less pricing, though if the performance of the Ryzen 7 (Review) is any indication, AMD could try to undercut Intel severely. There is no precedent for a 16-core desktop CPU, but Intel is likely to announce a 12-core model at Computex priced lower than its current top-end Core i7-6950X (Review) which was launched at Rs. 1,69,000. Threadripper will also likely require a new server-class platform when it debuts in "summer 2017". Mainstream Ryzen CPUs will begin appearing inside prebuilt PCs from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer and Asus this quarter.
Next up is the announcement of Epyc, AMD's Zen-based server product formerly codenamed Naples. AMD values the server CPU market at $16 billion. Epyc processors will have up to 32 cores and 64 threads, and will be capable of running in dual-socket configurations for double the processing power in a single server. Up to 4TB of RAM is supported on a dual-CPU motherboard, with eight channels per CPU. AMD is also touting better PCIe bandwidth than Intel and the ability to pair more GPUs, specifically AMD's own Vega GPUs. These processors will launch as soon as June 2017.
Speaking of Vega, the first graphics card to feature AMD's next-gen technology will be called the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition, and it will be available for purchase by the end of Q2 2017. Aimed at the professional market, the Frontier Edition card is touted to be capable of 25TFlops of FP16 performance and 13TFlops at FP32. It will have 16GB of high-bandwidth memory and 4,096 processing units divided into 64 clusters. It will be aimed at workloads involving neural networks, deep learning, real-time visualisation, VR, multimedia post-production, and game development.
Later this year and into early 2018, AMD will release Ryzen Pro and Ryzen Mobile processors for business machines and portables respectively. Ryzen Pro will be marketed at customers for whom security and manageability are important, and these will likely be very similar to existing Ryzen CPUs. Ryzen Mobile promises versatility and power efficiency, and will show up in a variety of laptops ranging from 2-in-1s to ultraportables to gaming machines.
Ryzen Mobile parts will feature integrated Radeon Vega graphics, using the Vega architecture that is also expected to debut in high-end desktop graphics cards soon. According to AMD, Ryzen Mobile will offer 50 percent better compute performance, 50 percent better battery life, and 40 percent more graphics performance than existing AMD mobile CPUs.
On the manufacturing technology front, AMD will roll out current-gen products on the existing 14nm process and a 14nm+ refresh, before it moves to a 7nm manufacturing process with Zen 2 and then 7nm+ with Zen 3. While detailed timelines were not disclosed, AMD said that it expects Zen 3 to ship in 2020.


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Cryptocurrencies have turn into a sizzling subject over the previous a number of years, with the worldwide blockchain market anticipated to hit roughly $23 billion by 2023 and the whole market dimension for cryptocurrencies anticipated to hit greater than $1 billion by 2026. This surging market is a hotbed for cybercrime, nonetheless, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review discovering that just about $3 billion was laundered by way of cryptocurrency exchanges in 2019 alone, up from $1 billion the yr prior.
Person authentication and onboarding are key to stopping this wave of fraud, however cryptocurrency exchanges that leverage these are nonetheless within the minority. Fifty-six p.c of cryptocurrency exchanges world wide don’t have any such onboarding solutions in place, a crucial safety hole that would doubtlessly result in extra cryptocurrency cybercrimes sooner or later. Background checks, worldwide sanctions lists, verification of government-issued IDs and even telephone interviews will probably be key to holding this rising trade protected.
The June Digital Onboarding Tracker® explores the newest on the planet of digital onboarding, together with the fraud issues confronted by cryptocurrency exchanges, the unreal intelligence (AI)-based programs many are deploying within the face on regulatory stress, and new blockchain-based safety programs that might be a sport changer for the trade.
Developments From Across the World of Digital Onboarding
Cryptocurrency exchanges are seeing nothing lower than a cybercrime disaster, and particular person buyers are struggling the prices. Nearly 7,000 people reported losses of greater than $80 million in investment scams since October with a median loss per sufferer of $1,900, and losses have elevated by 1,000 p.c for the reason that yr prior. Most victims of cryptocurrency funding scams are younger, with people aged 20 to 49 greater than 5 instances as more likely to be victimized by these scams.
In mild of those cybersecurity weaknesses, federal authorities are stepping in to attempt to get cryptocurrency exchanges’ act collectively. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) introduced that it might start working with Congress to crack down on cryptocurrency cybercrime, however it might face some challenges on this undertaking. The SEC solely spends as much as 17 p.c, or $325 million, on expertise yearly, far lower than lots of the firms and exchanges it intends to police.
Some cryptocurrency exchanges are taking the initiative to enhance their onboarding programs reasonably than look forward to an oversight crackdown. BITPOINT LATAM this month introduced a partnership with Acuant to combine the latter’s Acuant GO answer, for instance, which is at present used for practically 2 billion transactions yearly. The system leverages AI-enabled biometrics and doc verification, each of that are complemented by a human safety staff to double-check flagged purposes.
For extra on these and different digital onboarding information objects, obtain this month’s Tracker.
Bettering Cryptocurrency Exchanges’ Onboarding Procedures Via AI
Cryptocurrency exchanges are going through new waves of fraud makes an attempt as digital engagement soars, with specialists worrying that lots of their present AI-based onboarding programs might doubtlessly be circumvented by fraudsters.
On this month’s Characteristic Story, PYMNTS talked with Konstantin Anissimov, government director of cryptocurrency trade CEX.io, about how new blockchain-based safety programs can assist forestall social engineering assaults.
Deep Dive: How Cryptocurrency Exchanges Can Cut back Fraud Via Onboarding
Cryptocurrencies are notoriously unstable, however they’ve not too long ago surged in worth as their public curiosity grows. This sharp improve in value in addition to cryptocurrencies’ inherent nameless nature has made them hotbeds for fraud, and cryptocurrency exchanges are sometimes reluctant to incorporate person authentication of their onboarding procedures.
This month’s Deep Dive explores the implications of subpar onboarding within the cryptocurrency world, and the way these exchanges can step up their authentication sport.
In regards to the Tracker


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Research from Parks Associates in the US has found that preferences for apps on mobile phones over web browsers are growing among younger demographics.
The Mobile Cloud Media and Access Platforms study found that the majority of consumers who prefer to use apps over mobile Web browsers are under 35 years old.
"Consumers under 35 are starting to ditch browsers in favour of mobile apps, where they don't have to type in a web address or contend with slow browser speeds. They are also put off by web pages that do not fit the small phone screen, whereas the mobile app is native to the platform," said Harry Wang, Director of Mobile Product Research, Parks Associates.
The report adds that mobile apps are already the dominant medium for access to internet radio, maps, social networks, navigation (including Google Maps) and games.
Parks Associates says that while mobile apps will not replace web browsers, content owners and distributors that rely too much on mobile web might lose audience and revenues.
"The mobile experience is all about convenience and instantaneous access," Wang added. "The advantages of mobile apps could lead to a new content distribution environment for paid and ad-supported media services."