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That Siri gal is certainly making the rounds these days. When she’s not answering your questions on a 4S, she’s showing up on iPads and elder iPhones. Not one to play favorites, Siri’s now lending her considerable talents to an iPod touch. Two enterprising young hackers, euwars and rud0lf77, are the ones who put Siri on the iPod, and you can see the results of their labor in the video after the break. Of course, Apple’s servers still aren’t as friendly as the virtual voice assistant, so Siri’s latest cameo remains a silent one — but some Siri’s better than none, right?
Continue reading Siri shows up on an iPod Touch, no longer plays favorites in the iOS family
Siri shows up on an iPod Touch, no longer plays favorites in the iOS family originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
, ios 5
, young hackers
HTC may be busy pondering
its Android 4.0 future, but Sony Ericsson is apparently ready to take a bite out of Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich. Yesterday, in a post on its Facebook page, Sony Ericsson’s Dutch branch stated that it will indeed upgrade its Xperia
lineup to the latest Android OS, though it didn’t offer any details on release dates. We reached out to the manufacturer for confirmation, and received the following statement:
Sony Ericsson is currently rolling out the upgrade to Gingerbread 2.3.4 across its entire 2011 Xperia smartphone portfolio. This software upgrade will be available through a phased roll out in select markets. Beyond Gingerbread 2.3.4, we plan to upgrade our 2011 Xperia smartphone portfolio to the next Android platform made available to us.
The company went on to say that all official software announcements will be posted on its blog, so we’ll let you know as soon as we have more details.
Sony Ericsson bringing Ice Cream Sandwich to Xperia handsets? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 05:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
, operating system
Not enamored by any upcoming AirPlay-enabled
HiFi systems? Audyssey’s curiously square Lower East Side Audio Dock Air could be worth a shot. This is the second wireless speaker from the company, which last year used its audio know-how
for the South of Market Bluetooth Dock
. The LESADA’s light on features, but utilizes “Smart Sound technology” to offer what Audyssey claims is best-in-class audio quality. The unit itself is loaded with two 1-inch tweeters, a duo of 3-inch midrange drivers and two thumping 4-inch passive bass radiators. Up top there’s a single volume wheel, while on the front and back you’ll find a headphone jack and a 3.5mm input (if you’d prefer the vintage experience of plugging in). The Lower East Side Audio Dock Air — in all its cubey goodness — is slated to hit shelves in November for about $400. Full PR past the break.
Continue reading Audyssey’s Lower East Side Audio Dock Air: square to be cool
Audyssey’s Lower East Side Audio Dock Air: square to be cool originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
, wireless music streaming
Instapaper, the internet equivalent of a bookmark, has been given a top-to-toe makeover for its latest outing on the iPad. Fear not, your reading materials remain easy to read (and ad-free), but version 4 has now been smoothed over with a thick layer of tablet gloss. Navigation is all done through a bar on the left, and remains available for prodding as you read through your article selection. The upgrade also adds a subscription option for searching all your previous reads, as well as better social skills, with the ability to pick up and store articles and posts shared by your Twitter buddies — ensuring that you’ll probably never run out of reading material again.
Instapaper gets iPad refresh: more friends, more reading originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Mention music apps and our minds immediately conjure up images of a certain Icelandic songstress’ interactive iPad album. Well, folks the high-art bleeps and bloops don’t have to belong to the aurally experimental, as you, too, can make synthy music to doze off to. Fans of Moog’s synthesizers looking to mobilize the analog noise art now have a 99
, synth keyboard
Kids lacking the imagination to bring their own toys to life now have the option of letting a games console do it for them. Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure has teleported into stores, boxed with three toy figures and a ‘portal device‘ that brings them to life in-game. The bundle totals up at $70, and Activision is billing it as the “first true cross-platform game”, with the toys playing nice across Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, 3DS and iOS versions. The statuettes, which connect to the portal peripheral through embedded RFID tags, also store game data across platforms. The business plan presumably involves groups of kids investing in Spyro’s latest yarn and swapping characters amongst themselves, while holding onto their own precious in-game achievements. If your little brother has trouble trading with friends who couldn’t care less about the antics of lava-belching monsters, they can always can stump up an extra $8 for new figures. Click ‘Read more’ for some explanatory cartoon violence.
Continue reading Spyro figurines bridge the console divide, bring flame-grilled peace to the world
Spyro figurines bridge the console divide, bring flame-grilled peace to the world originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Over in the UK, Virgin Media has given a lucky few (3,500 or so) access to a pilot update for their TiVo DVRs that adds many of the features we’d heard were on the way, plus some extras. Word out of Crawley and Cambridge is that multiroom streaming is enabled, there’s faster performance and an official community post mentions compatibility with TiVo’s iOS apps, BBC iPlayer integration and music streaming from Spotify. A wider rollout is expected before Christmas, for a full list of changes check out the links below.
Virgin Media’s TiVos get updated with Spotify, iOS app support and more originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 08:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
, hd dvr
, ipad app
First Seattle, then London, now the Big Apple — Amazon’s delivery lockers are starting to pop up all over. As we’ve explained before, the lockers are basically giant, automated PO boxes, designated exclusively for Amazon purchases. If you choose to add a locker location to your address book (go check your account settings to see if the option is available to you yet), your package will be crammed into one of these kiosks and you’ll be given a code to unlock a particular slot at the location of your choice. So far there are eight scattered around Manhattan in Rite Aides, D’Agostinos and Gristedes. We haven’t wandered out of our secret lair to get photographic evidence of the drop off locations yet (we prefer to have our Amazon purchases left at the gate under the watchful eye of a turret), but we think the screen shot we took is proof enough that we’re not pulling your leg. Still, if you’re afraid the UPS guy might swing by while you’re still in your jammies this seems like a pretty nice solution.
Amazon lockers come to NYC, no more getting caught by UPS in your PJs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 01:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
, locker location
, new york city
, rite aide
What once was there now is gone. Earlier today, Google Voice was just two clicks away in the iOS App Store. Now, all that remains is a page cache (at the source link below) and versions of the app that were already installed on iPhones and iPod touches. Vincent Paquet, Senior Product Manager for Google Voice confirmed that the app had been pulled, explaining “our last update of this week had a bug that caused the app to crash at sign in. We removed it so it did not affect additional users until the fix gets published.” We’ve been using the most recent version — 220.127.116.111 — on an iPhone 4 running iOS 5 without issue, but recent reviews cite the reported crashing, so it’s definitely affecting at least some users. We don’t have an ETA for when you can expect the app to return, so if you don’t already have it installed, you’ll need to hang tight for the time being. The service should function normally otherwise, assuming your phone number has already been registered, though you won’t be able to begin new text threads or make outgoing calls using your Google Voice number.
Google Voice pulled from App Store following iOS 5 crash originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Oct 2011 18:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
, iphone 4
This week was packed with news on the mobile front, so it was easy to miss a few stories here and there. Here’s some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of wireless for the week of October 10, 2011:
US Cellular launched the BlackBerry Curve 9350 this week, and is now available for free (after rebate) with new activations, and $50 with upgrades. [Unwired View]
That wasn’t the only smartphone added to US Cellular’s lineup this week: the HTC Hero S has also finally made it into loving hands. [US Cellular]
O2 unveiled the Samsung Galaxy Ace, a Gingerbread device with an 800MHz CPU and 5MP camera, in purple this week. [EuroDroid]
MetroPCS debuted a couple new basic feature phones, the Kyocera Presto and LG Beacon. The former is a candybar with the standard numberpad, while the latter is a 2.8-inch touch screen device with a full slide-out QWERTY. The two phones retail for $30 and $70, respectively. [CNet]
Research in Motion may be planning to launch an all-white BlackBerry Bold 9900, according to a few shots taken in Dubai. [Electronista]
Motorola Mobility is sponsoring the NFL internationally in the UK, and is launching an extensive marketing campaign to highlight it. [Motorola]
We’ve heard about the LG myTouch and myTouch Q a few times so far, but this is the first time we’ve seen the two devices in the wild. [TmoNews]
Nokia’s announced the winner and runners-up of its ringtone contest. Sadly, the Great Marvelous didn’t make the cut. [SlashGear]
Samsung announced a new group messaging service called “ChatON.” Sammy’s definitely not the first to come out with a group messaging service, but it does offer the functionality across the board — iOS, Android and Windows are all present and accounted for. [TheNextWeb]
Mobile Miscellany: week of October 10, 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Oct 2011 11:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.


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Financial Services (105)
The bank that’s investing in youth
Intesa Sanpaolo bank created a bank account called Superflash that caters to young adults. They have even opened their first flagship store in Milan dedicated to this audience; the opening hours are form 1.30 to 7pm, it features a relax and play areas, WiFi and even a Formula 1 simulator.
Why it matters
Banks and young people seem to speak two different languages. Superflash is a brand within a brand that speaks the language of this specific audience, with a set of values that differ from those of its family brand Banca Intesa. To really connect with a hard-to-reach audience, do banks need to not only ‘talk the talk’, but also ‘walk the walk’?
LookTel has created an iPhone app that allows for the visually impaired to know the amount of money that they are holding.
The French bank BNP Paribas launched an online bank called “La NET Agence”. This virtual bank enables clients to keep the same financial advisor without having to go into a bank branch in person. BNP goes further and also allows clients to open a bank account by tweeting to the online bank’s dedicated Twitter account.

domain: news


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Canada has blasted out of the gate in the legal cannabis industry, with revenues expected to surpass $7 billion this year according to some reports. Just a single Canadian marijuana corporation,Aurora Cannabis ,sold 9 metric tons in the last quarter alone.
Since Canadian law made cannabis legal last fall, there’s been an opportunity for explosive growth. And although U.S. federal law still bans marijuana, numerous states are legalizing it, sparking what CNBC says “looks like the fastest-growing job market in the country.”
This doesn’t only set the stage for broad competition between the United States and Canada in the pot industry. It’s also setting up a race for talent in executive suites on both sides of the border. I’m seeing this in action already as president of an executive search firm in Toronto.
Because marijuana has always been sold on the black market, the people with the most knowledge of the business have, by and large, not exactly been top-notch executives with experience running public corporations or large private companies. Now, however, everything is changing. The industry is quickly being taken over by legal, established corporations -- a transformation buoyed by a sudden infusion of cash from investors and stockholders.
With so many stakeholders, including regulators, to answer to, these corporations are facing a host of expectations. They’re establishing boards to oversee their operations. And, sensibly, those boards are demanding that leaders with experience running billion-dollar operations take over.
As EY noted, most LPs (licensed producers) “are highly entrepreneurial, which is to be expected, but they will need to quickly organize talent and apply the formality, rigor, and a lens for governance that established organizations do.” Just one of the many challenges these companies face is to “compete with other established adjacent industries — such as tobacco, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, and consumer products — which are likely to have an interest in entering the market for recreational cannabis. These companies have strong ties to capital, possess mature infrastructure, brand recognition, and the knowledge of operating in a highly regulated environment.”
So the search is on for CEOs and other executives to fill out pot’s new C-suites. These men and women are being lured away from pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals; greenhouse growers; generic drug manufacturers; biotech companies; consumer packaged goods companies; and more.
It’s the latest twist in the ongoing competition between the U.S. and Canada for talent, and just
Phase 1 in the battle for “big pot”. The possibility that the United States will legalize pot federally is on the horizon, with a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushing to strike down the federal ban and let each state decide. If such a bill becomes law, there will be no federal impediments to pot sales. It’ll be fertile ground for the emerging industry.
When that happens, then the talent war will really heat up. U.S. marijuana firms will be looking to poach executives from Canadian companies -- executives who, by then, will have had enough time in the industry to see the challenges, opportunities, and avoidable mistakes, making them invaluable to emerging U.S. cannabis players.
Of course, this competition isn’t limited to just two countries. With more governments legalizing weed for medical use, Arcview Market Research and BDS Analytics predict worldwide spending on legal cannabis will reach $57 billion by 2027. So nations from Germany to Mexico can be expected to create new corporations -- and, in the process, look for C-suite talent with marijuana industry experience. Guess where they’ll look first? North America.
We’re also likely to see a surge in competition among investment banks for people with expertise in the pot sector. Legal Cannabis has been a boon to Canadian investment banks, particularly among boutique firms. And the Canadian arms of certain U.S. advisory shops have been actively involved in some of the industry’s largest transactions, such as Greenhill advising Canopy in its $3.4 billion deal for Acreage Holdings. As the United States takes further steps toward legalization, I expect U.S. banks to start looking to pluck Canada-based investment bankers with a specialty in cannabis, who are quickly distinguishing themselves as experts in this emerging sector.
All this is just the beginning. As marijuana legalization changes the landscape, all sorts of new talent pipelines are sure to sprout up. Already, more colleges and universities are launching cannabis courses -- quite possibly laying the groundwork to help develop pot CEOs of the future.
自从去年秋天加拿大法律将大麻合法化以来，有一个爆炸性增长的机会。尽管美国联邦法律仍然禁止大麻，但许多州正在将大麻合法化，这引发了 CNBC 所说的“美国增长最快的就业市场”。
因此，寻找首席执行官和其他高管来填写候选人的新 C-Suites 。这些男人和女人被引诱远离药品和营养药品；温室种植者；非专利药品制造商；生物技术公司；消费品公司；等等。
当然，这种竞争并不局限于两个国家。随着更多政府将大麻合法化用于医疗用途， Arcview Market Research 和 BDS Analytics 预计，到2027年，全球合法大麻支出将达到570亿美元。因此，从德国到墨西哥等国家有望创建新的企业，并在此过程中寻找具有大麻行业经验的 C 级人才。客人们会先看看哪里？北美。
我们还可能看到投资银行之间对罐区专业人才的竞争激增。法律大麻对加拿大投资银行尤其是精品公司来说是一大利好。一些美国咨询公司的加拿大分支积极参与了该行业一些最大的交易，比如格林希尔( Greenhill )为 Canopy 以34亿美元收购 Acreage Holdings 提供咨询服务。随着美国采取进一步的合法化措施，我预计美国的银行将开始寻找总部位于加拿大、专门从事大麻业务的投资银行家，他们将很快成为这个新兴行业的专家。
所有这些只是开始。随着大麻合法化的改变，各种新的人才管道肯定会涌现。已经有更多的学院和大学开始开设大麻课程，很可能为培养未来的大麻 CEO 奠定基础。


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'OB van campaigns won't solve corruption problem'
UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani, in an interview to CNN-IBN, says that Aadhaar enabled service delivery is a far more effective way to fight corruption.
What is Aadhaar enabled public delivery system
The Aadhaar number gives a unique identity and we are doing that so far to 21 crore people, and that's an online ID using biometric technology. Now to that ID you can attach a bank account, a government programme -- like a pension programme or a scholarship. You can credit money electronically to the bank account using the Aadhaar number and a person can just go and withdraw money anywhere from a business correspondent. That is how it will work for cash transfers.
The same concept can be done for Public Distribution System. For e.g. If somebody has a rice account, they can use an Aadhaar number to authenticate before claiming their rice at a PDS outlet. So both for cash and kind, Aadhaar enables a better delivery and accurate beneficiary identification and authentication.
Government departments not accepting the Aadhaar number
I think it's a process and we will see more and more proclamations from different depts.
Over time it will become proof of identity and proof of address for many schemes, including for bank accounts, mobile connections. You have to see this as a major transition...We have now reached 21 crore people i.e. one out of five Indians has an Aadhaar number. By next year one out of three Indians will have an Aadhaar number and by the year after that one out two Indians will have an Aadhaar number. So that is pretty serious penetration. It is already a gateway for LPG connections; it's an ID proof number for SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) transactions, for insurance policies, for railways.
Click NEXT to read further...
Image: Nandan Nilekani
'Aadhaar will help in reducing retail corruption'
Aadhaar number being government's weapon to fight corruption
It is important to understand that it's not just about the corruption dimension. One, it's the world's largest social inclusion project. For the first time millions of people will get an ID in their lives. It will help in making your fiscal spending more efficient by reducing diversion and fraud. It helps in empowering anyone to withdraw their money and as a consequence of all this it also helps in reducing retail corruption.
For retail transactions which involve an individual getting a benefit that could either be cash or in kind...this will help in streamlining that, reducing hassles for them, empowering them. So automatically corruption is addressed. So let's say you can only go to one person for pension or one PDS outlet to get rice. Tomorrow if you have this network, I can go to any business correspondent to withdraw my money or any PDS to withdraw my rice. Automatically the bargaining power shifts to the resident, that's how the empowerment happens.
Aadhaar enabled public delivery system being a pre election gimmick
No, it has been three years since we started this scheme and it has been two years since we launched it. Right from day one we have been saying this will reach six million people by 2014 and we have said that this will be a platform for transfer of both cash and kind. So we are absolutely going by that. I have received strong support from the government since day one. Our goal is to build a plumbing and architecture to make it easy for people to get the benefits.
Click NEXT to read further...
Image: Manmohan Singh addressing at the launch of Aadhaar Enabled Service Delivery, in Dudu, Jaipur, Rajasthan
Photographs: Courtesy: PIB
'You don't fix corruption by creating more laws'
Lokpal and the IAC's (India Against Corruption) anti-corruption campaigns not an effective way to fight corruption
I am as much for fighting corruption as the next guy. I absolutely believe that we need to fix those things but I certainly don't believe that passing a law or creating more inspectors is going to solve the corruption problem. That's absolutely a wrong prescription and you may want some of that... I think we have done enough of that and what we need now is to fix the delivery system.
On Kejriwal's OB van politics
The notion that you can bring corruption down by having a bunch of OB vans (outdoor broadcasting)... I think that's not going to solve problems. I think that there is a lack of appreciation of what the long-term institutional changes required are to get to what we want.
What Aadhaar mean for the fight against corruption
I think it means for millions of people, social inclusion... where they become part of the formal society; empowerment for them, improvement in the way they deliver benefits and as a by-product of this it also means the resident's state interface gets streamlined and automatically corruption in that interface comes down. That's my point that you don't fix corruption by creating more laws, more inspectors and more punitive measures on bureaucrats. You fix it by changing the underlying system that millions of people get better service.
Image: Arvind Kejriwal


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Secretary of State Antony Blinken said NATO is considering more permanently keeping troops in the Baltic region, the clearest sign Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is causing Washington and the alliance to rethink plans to base troops in Eastern Europe.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is “looking at questions of more permanent deployments,” Mr. Blinken said on Monday in Lithuania. In a later stop in Latvia, Mr. Blinken said that no decision had been made and that permanent deployments would be decided as part of a broad review of NATO’s force posture.
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The Yee Yee lifestyle line is getting a new addition this week, and it’s a pretty tasty one. Granger Smith revealed that he and his brothers have been working on a beefy jerky brand for over a year, and this week they are finally ready to launch it.
“We tasted hundreds of different types of jerky (there are worse jobs in the world) and tweaked every detail imaginable. When we had the choice to sacrifice quality, as many other jerky brands have been faced with, we refused. That’s why our jerky is made fresh with Prime Texas Beef.”
Yee Yee Beef Jerky will be available in two flavors—original and teriyakYee. According to some comments on social media, it is priced at $8.99 per 3.5 oz bag. You can grab it (on the website I’m assuming) Friday, November 26 at 11 AM.


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I came very close to buying a Playstation II, just so I could play Guitar Hero. Looks like there’s no need, as it’s coming out for the Wii.
From The Tanooki:
That’s right, during Activision’s conference call on Wednesday, CEO Mike Griffith stated that Guitar Hero will be making it’s way to the Wii:
“The key difference in our strategy versus the prior cycle, is that in addition to full support on Sony and Microsoft platforms, we will aggressively target the Nintendo platforms consistent with our multi-platform strategy and Nintendo’s expected growth. In fiscal 2008, we will double our offerings on the DS and the Wii, including Spider-Man, Shrek, Transformers, and Guitar Hero.”
No other details were given during the 60+ minute conference call. Since the announcement was given by the President of Activision, I think the chances are high for an official press release in the future.


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Here’s the front and back cover of the CD release of STUCK IN LOVE. Score by Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott of BRIGHT EYES. Orders already being taken at Varese Saraband’s web site.
There will also be a unique digital release of the complete score and soundtrack on iTunes.
Observer theme by Zack Sultan


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FAO’s Food Index hits 10-year highs
Amid inflationary fears, the UN Food and Agriculture agency, FAO, has issued a serious warning about rising food prices around the world. Its price index increased by 39.7% in May in annual terms, reaching 2011 levels. The warming of raw materials also affects the prices of food production.
The reopening of developed economies only adds pressure to food producers around the world. The pandemic only temporarily averted the perfect storm over the food sector. China’s voracity for basic grains, such as wheat, or soybeans, products that serve as a food base for much of the world and for the meat industry, the severe drought in Brazil, one of the main food pantries on the planet, and soaring prices of vegetable oils to respond to the energy demand for biodiesel are behind a historical increase in food prices.
The FAO index , which for many products tends to mark the selling price in many wholesale markets, is made up of various sub-indices of prices for oils, sugar, cereals, prices for meat and dairy products. The main index averaged 127.1 points in May 2021, that is, 4.8% more than in April and 39.7% more than in the same period last year . To find the index so high you have to go back to September 2011.
The fear of uncontrolled inflation has been brewing for months . First it came to the financial markets. The resounding recovery at the end of last year in the US and the new fiscal package triggered inflation expectations in the medium term . It is having its reflection in the interests of the debt of the whole world.
The deployment of vaccines together with the forecast of the reopening of the European economies for this summer has generated a strong expectation of growth in demand in the markets of raw materials. The commodities are the first to respond and adapt to changes of supply and demand.
Until now inflation was only a threat. The real fear is that it will end up leaking into the real economy, with an increase in prices without ever accompanying growth. Central banks are still confident that these inflationary pressures are temporary .
Today’s FAO report is a real warning to boaters. The institution’s economists warn that the increase in prices will be suffered by the poorest economies, which are highly dependent on imports of raw materials; but so will advanced economies. The dreaded second-round effect of inflation will be felt in supermarkets and restaurants. In the end, companies end up transferring the increased costs that it entails.
The largest price increases occurred in oils. FAO explains that the sub-index reflects the rise in the values of palm, soybean and rapeseed oils. International prices for palm oil remained on an upward trend in May and reached their highest level since February 2011. Regarding soybean oil, the robust outlook for world demand, especially from the biodiesel sector, favored the rising prices, while international rapeseed oil values were sustained by continuing shortages in global supply. The vegetable oil index has shot up practically 100%, compared to a year ago. While cereals registered a rise of 6% more than in April and 36.6% above their level of May 2020.
The FAO Sugar Price Index increased 6.8% from April, mainly due to delays in harvests and concerns about lower crop yields in Brazil, the world’s largest sugar exporter, However, the large volumes of exports from India helped to moderate the sudden increase in prices.
The FAO meat price index increased by 2.2% compared to April, due to the rise in prices of all types of meat as a result of the acceleration of the pace of imports in China, as well as well as the growth in domestic demand for poultry and pork in the main producing regions.
The FAO Dairy Price Index rose 1.8% on the month, averaging 28% above its year-ago level. The increase was driven by strong import demand for skimmed and whole milk powders, while butter prices fell for the first time in nearly a year due to increased export supplies in New Zealand.


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US-based electronics and appliance retailer hhgregg intends to shut six outlets in two states.
The stores are located in Milwaukee and Illinois.
The company was quoted by Ibj.com as saying: “At HHGregg, we pride ourselves in being focused on serving our customers in the best possible way.
“As a natural course of business, we regularly evaluate our real estate positions to determine when and where new store openings, relocations, or at times closings make the most sense for our customers and our company.”
The employees affected by the move will be given an opportunity to work at other HHGregg outlets.
In addition to the closures, HHGregg announced changes in senior management last week.
The company appointed Kevin Kovacs as its new chief financial officer, replacing Robert Riesbeck, who was promoted as CEO.


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With all the renewed talk of a Sprint-T-Mobile merger in recent months, one big assumption has been that the Trump administration would view it much more favorably than the Obama administration did, and that it wouldn’t therefore be shot down this time as it was last time. However, Bloomberg reports today that the staff lawyers at the Department of Justice are mostly the same as under the previous administration, even if the leadership and presidency has changed in the interim, and that the lawyers themselves are likely to reach much the same conclusion today as then. In other words, if the deal is to be approved by the DoJ, it will likely happen over the objections and recommendations of the staff rather than with their support. That’s certainly not a deal-killer – SoftBank Chairman Masa Son has cozied up to the Trump administration on issues like job creation, and would presumably curry some favor on that basis. But this does make it more challenging for the deal to go through than many might have assumed. Last time around, the deal was called off before it even formally went through regulatory approval on the basis that it wouldn’t succeed, so I would guess that Son and others would be feeling out the regulatory authorities quietly behind the scenes again this time around to ensure smoother passage.
Google Acquires Podcast App 60db (Oct 10, 2017)
Business Insider is reporting that Google has acquired a podcasting app called 60db, which specialized in shorter audio segments, among other things. Interestingly, 60db had earlier published a blog post on Medium announcing the acquisition, only to take it down immediately after, though not before it was captured by a publication covering the podcast market. In that post, the company said it was joining Google News, which is an interesting wrinkle given that Google’s current podcasting efforts sit within Google Music and not Google News. That suggests that the podcast app might perhaps complement web-based news with audio news, conceivably as part of Google Home. Podcasts have become a big focus for other companies in the last couple of years after Apple was almost the only big player in the market for a long time, and it still dominates overall listening, in part by virtue of being the only platform with a dedicated podcast app installed on its devices. But Spotify, Amazon, and now Google are all taking the space more seriously, which will mean some meaningful competition for those users who care enough to look for alternatives to the default apps that come with their phones.
via Business Insider
GM’s Cruise Automation unit has acquired Strobe, a startup which has been working on “chip-scale” LIDAR technology for use in self-driving cars. LIDAR is one of the big bottlenecks in autonomous tech development, both expensive and low-volume at present, with Velodyne currently the dominant supplier. As this Recode piece points out, GM is a bit more deeply invested in autonomous driving than most other legacy carmakers, having acquired Cruise itself as the “brain” of the system and also running various experiments of ride sharing and other services through Cruise and the GM Maven brand, and this acquisition extends that integration. My guess is that the technology was at a fairly early stage – the company seems to have just 11 employees – and it’s therefore unproven, though GM had an existing investment and may know something other potential acquirers didn’t, allowing it to swoop in at an opportune moment to take it off the market. Waymo and Uber, of course, are battling in court over the latter’s attempts to make its own in the image (or otherwise) of Waymo’s.
Amazon has acquired Body Labs, a startup which makes software for creating detailed and realistic 3D maps of people’s bodies, for somewhere between $50 and $100 million. The technology has an obvious connection to Amazon’s Echo Look, one of its more marginal Echo devices, but one which has potential to drive strong ties with the burgeoning clothing side of Amazon’s e-commerce business. Beefing up the capabilities of that device and the associated app-based capabilities for evaluating fashion looks and the like could therefore pay off in a big way for Amazon as it looks to differentiate itself from other clothing retailers.
Walmart is buying New York same-day delivery specialist Parcel, which currently performs that function for a variety of smaller e-commerce companies and will continue to do so alongside becoming Walmart’s in-house vehicle for doing so. This acquisition echoes that made a while back by Target, when it bought Grand Junction, another company specializing in delivery in New York City. New York continues to be something of a unique market – I’m visiting this week, and have seen ads for almost nothing but delivery services on the subway trains I’ve been on, while the products being delivered range from groceries to food from restaurants to other essentials. The population and residential density in NYC is unmatched in pretty much any other locale in the US, and so it lends itself uniquely well to good economics for rapid delivery. None of this feels particularly scalable across the US, but as Amazon has long demonstrated, that’s not to say it doesn’t make for a multi-tiered approach to delivery in various places across the country, with ever faster deliveries in the biggest and most densely populated urban areas.
Apple Has Acquired a Small French Photo Analysis Company (Sep 29, 2017)
Apple has made another one of its characteristic quiet, small acquisitions of a technology company, this one a French business specializing in computer vision for photo analysis. Unlike some other photo analysis tools, however, this one isn’t so much about recognizing the content of photos as determining which photo in a group might be technically best, or which photos are duplicates. It’s easy to see those technologies being used in future version of Apple’s Photos app on the iPhone to select the best picture from a burst of photos, or to manage a photo library on a Mac. Apple has put enormous attention into its cameras almost from day one of the iPhone, but its photo management software hasn’t kept pace for much of that time, though recently it’s began to invest more seriously in it both on the iPhone itself and on the Mac. This small acquisition is a sign that it plans to continue to make incremental improvements, if nothing else.
This has been a long-running saga with several false starts in reporting a conclusion of the deal, but Toshiba has now finally announced an agreement on the sale of its memory business to a consortium led by Bain Capital for two trillion yen, or roughly $18 billion. Apple is among several companies providing funding for the deal, and it looks like it’ll end up paying about $1.5 billion for its stake. Ensuring that Toshiba’s memory business remained a going concern and that it secured its share of its output was paramount to Apple given the constraints and competitiveness in the global memory market, which has pushed up costs and prices over recent months while boosting Samsung’s memory business enormously. Given the frustrations Apple has experienced in having to rely on Samsung as a supplier for OLED screens in an equally constrained market, this long-term imperative will have taken on even greater significance lately. There are additional complexities in the deal because Western Digital, which owns several joint ventures with Toshiba, continues to oppose it, but it looks like it should now go ahead.
I said in commenting on last week’s Reuters story about Sprint and T-Mobile merging that the one element that didn’t ring true was SoftBank ending up with 40-50% of the combined entity, and Bloomberg is now reporting that majority owner SoftBank is willing to accept something close to its current market price for Sprint, leaving it with closer to 30%, which feels much more in line with what I would have expected. It’s not a great exit for SoftBank, which bought 72% of Sprint for $7.65 a share in July 2013, while shares are trading at $7.83 at the time I’m writing this, having dropped 8% during the day so far, presumably on the back of this news about valuations. However, the stock had traded as low as $2.66 early last year, so SoftBank is at least poised to get about what it paid for Sprint in return for a decent minority share in what could be a much more promising company once the integration goes ahead. Sprint’s valuation, of course, has been bid up significantly over the past year partly off the back of its own improving business but in large part also because a deal with T-Mobile has seemed more likely since last fall’s US presidential election. Its price rose from around six dollars to over nine in the period immediately following that election, so the drop today is likely a reflection of the fact that expectations for a premium are dissipating.
Imagination Technologies, whose GPUs Apple said it would soon stop using back in April, prompting a massive selloff in the stock and a decision to explore strategic options, has announced that it’s agreed to sell most of its business to a Chinese-backed private equity firm, Canyon Bridge, with Silicon Valley investment fund Tallwood Partners buying the MIPS business it had previously said it might sell separately. Apple, of course, announced a GPU designed in-house at last week’s iPhone event, which means its abandonment of Imagination Tech as a chip supplier is going even more quickly than we might have thought. Since April, the story of Imagination has been a cautionary tale about what a double-edged sword being an Apple supplier is – on the one hand, a huge boon to your business, and on the other hand a massive risk that it someday pulls the plug because it’s found an alternative supplier or simply decided it can do things itself. It’s good to see Imagination find a way out, but the acquisition price of 182 pence per share, a significant premium over its recent share price, is still way below its high of 291.50 right before the Apple news came out.
Reuters reports that Sprint and T-Mobile are nearing agreement on key terms of a merger deal, and suggests that due diligence and other steps would need to come before announcement of a merger agreement in October. This is a follow-up to an earlier report this week that the two companies were in serious discussions, and fleshes out one or two details, though at least one seems off. The report suggests SoftBank’s stake might be as high as 40-50% after the merger, which seems much too high given the relative value of Sprint and T-Mobile and SoftBank’s stake in the former. Sprint’s Nextel merger had disastrous results in large part because the Nextel portion was valued much too highly in a touted “merger of equals” and the company spent the next several years slashing costs fiercely in a bid to justify the price with synergies, something which led to its terrible network performance and decline in the years afterwards. So neither Sprint nor T-Mobile should want to make that mistake again. With SoftBank driving the deal, I would expect it to make concessions and end up with a much smaller stake at the end of the day. But big synergies could indeed follow as the companies merge, and their combined scale would drive much more competitive network and advertising spend, retail presence, and other big benefits in their competition with the two big carriers.
Google and HTC finally announced the deal that’s been rumored for a while and for which many details leaked yesterday. Google is in the end only acquiring 2000 employees and some non-exclusive intellectual property, for $1.1 billion, an amount over half of HTC’s market cap before the deal was announced. The 2000 are around half the research and design team at HTC (and a fifth of the total workforce), while the other half will remain and work on a streamlined portfolio of first-party HTC hardware including a new flagship already in the works. Google’s blog post about the deal is remarkably vague and unhelpful, and it’s equally remarkable that there’s no SEC filing or press release on Alphabet’s investor relations site about the deal given its magnitude. It’s almost as if Google doesn’t want to talk about the deal or its details, but HTC very much wants to, emphasizing both the financial boon – the money to be paid in cash once the deal closes in early 2018 – and its ongoing commitment to making smartphones and VR devices.
The deal has echoes of Microsoft’s bailout acquisition of Nokia a few years back – HTC is a far less important strategic partner to Google, but this very much feels like Google offering a financial lifeline to the very unprofitable and shrinking HTC in return for some assets it needs. Those assets are IP necessary to make Pixel phones without being sued by HTC or anyone else but also the research and design skills necessary to build those phones exactly to Google’s specifications and needs rather than having to work off HTC’s foundation and platform, originally built for other devices. That optimization and the integration with Android it should enable are going to be critical for Google to squeeze the most out of its hardware efforts, though it also needs to go deeper on the chips side, something it’s been reported to be doing separately.
One of the things I’ve been asked about by reporters over the last 24 hours or so is what effect this will have on other Android OEMs. The simple answer is that it clearly strengthens Google’s first party hardware capabilities, which for now aren’t much of a threat. But it’s not as if those OEMs can do anything about it – Android is the only viable open smartphone platform out there today, and if OEMs aren’t producing top-notch, differentiated hardware, Google’s efforts in the space are far from their only problem. One thing is notable: Android engineering head Dave Burke is apparently in Taipei – which is interesting because Google hardware has been said to run at arm’s length from Android team, like any other OEM, so there’s no real reason why Dave Burke would need to be involved in this transaction, and yet there he is in HTC’s home city as this deal is announced.
From HTC’s perspective, the cash infusion will give it breathing room to continue working on a strategy that can again provide sustainable profits in the long run, presumably with its Vive VR business at its core, given that even a shrunken smartphone team isn’t likely to be profitable at its current (or smaller, Pixel-less) scale. I do wonder why Google didn’t just buy the whole company – at under $2 billion market cap, Google could presumably have paid roughly double what it is and had the whole thing, taking what it needed, including manufacturing capability, VR hardware expertise, and other useful pieces, and shut the rest down. This deal is certainly simpler and less painful from an integration perspective, but I’m still not sure I see a viable future for HTC even with this investment and the attendant changes.
HTC has formally announced that its shares will halt trading for a material announcement tomorrow, and Bloomberg is reporting that it will be that Google is acquiring at least part of the company’s smartphone operations. Other sources – including Taiwanese site Apple Daily and as I understand it shortly also the Wall Street Journal – are saying that it’s the smartphone design operations specifically that Google will acquire, for a relatively small sum in the hundreds of millions of dollars. As I’ve said before, there’s a strong logic to this acquisition despite the history with Motorola. The biggest change since that earlier acquisition is that Google is now far more clearly serious about hardware, with a consolidated division about to announce a second generation of major products at an October 4th launch event. In addition, acquiring a very focused slice of HTC would be a very different proposition from buying what was at the time a much larger and more diverse Motorola business, which was subsequently run largely at arm’s length inside Google. I would expect Google to bring the HTC assets deeply into its own hardware division and to use the new capabilities to drive much more optimized and integrated hardware design relative to the ODM approach used for Pixel hardware, which likely relied heavily on existing designs and platforms from HTC.
All of this is, of course, further validation along with Microsoft’s Surface push of the approach Apple has long taken to tightly integrating hardware and software. It’s increasingly clear that the best results in hardware are achieved by those who can combine hardware and software in such a way, preferably with tight control of the whole process, and Google would get a lot closer to that goal through this acquisition. The big question still remains what happens to whatever’s left of HTC, which presumably will abandon making smartphones and focus on its Vive VR efforts, something that’s going to be a tough proposition in an increasingly competitive market. I’m still surprised that Google isn’t taking over the whole thing, because it could clearly benefit from the Vive assets as it seeks to deepen its own Daydream VR capabilities.
CNBC reports that T-Mobile and Sprint are in active discussions about a stock-for-stock merger, with Deutsche Telekom likely to end up the majority owner and SoftBank a significant minority shareholder. This has always seemed the likeliest merger to come out of the recent resumption of deal talks after the end the 600MHz spectrum auction and its associated quiet period came to an end, but it’s felt like the sticking point was T-Mobile’s unwillingness to be bought out by Sprint/SoftBank. A stock-for-stock deal with Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile ultimately calling most of the shots is likely a lot more palatable, especially for TMO CEO John Legere, who’s arguably been enormously successful running the company over the last few years and would understandably be reluctant to cede control to the Sprint side. It sounds like the two sides are still some way from a deal, and of course even if it’s finalized it will take months to go through regulatory approvals, a period that would likely see Sprint lower its investment and manage for cash flow and profitability, something that’s likely to lessen competition in the US market even before a deal closes. Following such a deal, the combined entity would at least theoretically be in a much more competitive position given its combined scale, though many of the synergies would take some time to flow through.
NBC News reports that Amazon has been talking to traditional TV companies about taking some of their lower-profile networks off their hands. Four specific examples cited in the article linked below are VH1 and CMT at Viacom and Adult Swim and Boomerang at Turner. Big TV companies have been shutting down cable networks over the last few years and focusing their efforts on a smaller number of successful channels with big audiences as cord cutting begins to really bite, so there are potentially quite a few channels with smaller audiences out there for the taking, and NBC says Amazon might buy “scores” of them, though that number might be a bit of a stretch. At any rate, the question becomes what Amazon would do with them, and the obvious answer is either bundling them into Prime or selling them as add-ons to Prime. But another really interesting angle to think about is advertising, where Amazon has been quietly building a big online business but with very little action so far on the video side. Owning lots of linear channels would allow it to build a much bigger video ad business as a complement to its online ad business, and potentially do cross-platform targeting across them. It’s also a fascinating alternative to spending ever more to commission and/or acquire original content for its streaming service – it could probably snap up some of these channels pretty cheaply and run them for less than it would cost to build up equivalent amounts of original content from scratch. Importantly, some of these networks have small audiences but lots of distribution – VH1 is in well over 80 million homes, for example. That would be pretty good relative to Amazon’s own domestic distribution through Prime.
via NBC News


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Going a different direction when it comes to its latest funding round, Crowdcube alum and Italian Wine Cafe, Veeninvest Ltd. (trading as Veeno) has launched a Funding Tree campaign to raise £150,000 for seven new locations.
Veeno is described as a chain of premium Italian wine bars offering family-produced Sicilian wines and Spuntini – Italian appetisers for sharing. Two business management graduates, Nino Caruso and Andrea Zecchino, started the company back in 2013 and it is notably considered the UK’s first recognized Italian Wine Café brand.
The company shared:
“The chain is uniquely positioned in the food and drink market: neither restaurants nor wine bars, the cafés offer a balanced mix of premium quality Sicilian food and drink. There is growing confidence in the company’s brand and its new take on Italian dining; a recent equity raise of £200,000 will pave the way for the opening of new sites to develop the chain’s national presence.”
To support the growth strategy and the opening of the new cafes, Zecchino and Caruso are now seeking to supplement the £200,000 equity investment with a £150,000 loan investment. With the addition of the new locations, Veeno’s total number of cafés will rise to 10 in 2015. The company’s long-term goal is to have 80 stores UK-wide by 2018 with operating revenue in excess of £13 million.
Other items that the funds will be used for are:
- Refurbishment (builders work, plumbing works, decorations and painting, flooring and ceilings, contractor management fees)
- Fit out (design features, counter works, signage)
- Equipment and furniture (includes chairs and tables, shelf units, catering equipment and ventilation equipment)
- Other (solicitor costs, recruitment fees and marketing)
Veeno’s Funding Tree campaign is set to close at the beginning of August.
Have a crowdfunding offering you'd like to share? Submit an offering for consideration using our Submit a Tip form and we may share it on our site!


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By Claudia Assis, MarketWatch
Tesla Inc. stock rose more than 5% in premarket trade Thursday after the Silicon Valley car maker reported a second-quarter GAAP and adjusted profit, setting it on a course to join the S&P 500 index and surprising investors as most of the quarter was beset with coronavirus-related stoppages.
Tesla /zigman2/quotes/203558040/composite TSLA -0.08% said it earned $104 million, or 50 cents a share, in the quarter, contrasting with a loss of $408 million, or $2.31 a share, in the year-ago quarter.
Adjusted for one-time items, Tesla earned $2.18 a share, swinging from an adjusted loss of $1.12 a share a year ago. Sales fell 5% to $6.04 billion from $6.35 billion a year ago.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected an adjusted loss of 2 cents a share on sales of $5.15 billion.
“Demand is not our problem,” Chief Executive Elon Musk told analysts on a conference call after the results. Most of the challenges, including some parts shortages, are related to supply-chain and production issues, he said. “Don’t worry about demand, that’s not the issue.”
Neither Tesla in its letter to shareholders nor Musk during the call addressed the coronavirus pandemic directly. Musk started the call thanking employees for their efforts: “There were so many challenges, too numerous to name, but they got it done.”
The call veered on sedate, for Tesla standards, with Musk issuing calls for “revolutionary actuaries” to further develop Tesla’s insurance product; urging more mining companies to mine for nickel, used in batteries; and announcing the Austin, Texas, area as the site of Tesla’s future second U.S. car-making factory.
Tesla is not trying to be “super profitable,” Musk said, but rather it is focusing on maximizing growth and making electric cars that are affordable, he said.
The second-quarter numbers were “very strong,” setting Tesla for S&P 500 index /zigman2/quotes/210599714/realtime SPX -1.86% inclusion, said Alyssa Altman, an auto-industry consultant with Publicis Sapient.
“Tesla is showing the market they move fast, make quick decisions and are not afraid of failure,” she said. “They made bold choices to reduce costs while still launching a new model with all the challenges that go with a new model launch. In doing that, they are seeing success and confidence from the market. Any profit in this environment is good and shows resilience in uncertain times.”
The “real news,” said Gene Munster of Loup Ventures, “is Tesla hit profitable and free cash flow with sustainable measures. The company did not pull a one-time lever to get to profitability.”
In the letter to investors, Tesla said its progress in the first half of the year “has positioned us for a successful second half of 2020. Production output of our existing facilities continues to improve to meet demand, and we are adding more capacity.”
Tesla did not provide an outlook for 2020, saying it was still “difficult” to predict shutdowns and shifts in consumer sentiment for the second half of the year. The word “pandemic” appeared only on standard legal disclosures at the very end of the document.
The company also kept its 2020 goals unchanged from its first-quarter letter, mentioning again “capacity” to achieve the milestone of selling more than half a million vehicles in the year.
“We have the capacity installed to exceed 500,000 vehicle deliveries this year, despite recent production interruptions. While achieving this goal has become more difficult, delivering half a million vehicles in 2020 remains our target,” it said in the letter.


text: Getting Your Head Into The Facebook-Oculus Virtual Reality Deal By editor • Mar 26, 2014 TweetShareGoogle+Email An attendee wears an Oculus Rift HD virtual reality headset at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images Originally published on October 29, 2014 11:03 am Author Howard Rheingold has been thinking about virtual reality tech for decades. He spoke to us on Twitter about Facebook's $2 billion purchase of Oculus VR, the company behind the Oculus Rift headset.Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. TweetShareGoogle+EmailView the discussion thread.


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From DCAT Value Chain Insights (VCI)
FDA has issued a draft guidance to specify a change in the agency’s interpretation of the five-year new chemical entity (NCE) exclusivity provisions as they apply to certain fixed-combination drug products (fixed-combinations). Historically, FDA has interpreted these provisions such that a fixed-combination was ineligible for five-year NCE exclusivity if it contained a previously approved active moiety, even if the product also contained a new active moiety (i.e., an active moiety that the agency had not previously approved).
In issuing the draft guidance, FDA noted that it recognizes that fixed-combinations have become increasingly prevalent in certain therapeutic areas (including cancer, cardiovascular, and infectious disease) and that these products play an important role in optimizing adherence to dosing regimens and improving patient outcomes. As a result, in the draft guidance FDA is revising its historical interpretation of the five-year NCE exclusivity provisions to further incentivize the development of certain fixed-combination products. If the new interpretation is adopted, FDA intends to apply the new interpretation prospectively, so the guidance, if finalized, would not apply to fixed-combination drug products that were approved prior to adopting the new interpretation.
Thank you for reading DCAT Value Chain Insights (VCI), an information resource from the
Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association (DCAT).
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More indications continue to surface about CBD’s natural health benefits
As cannabidiol (CBD) gains popularity for its great health benefits, more research is targeting other health conditions that haven’t been considered and that might also get benefit from this cannabis compound. With is non-psychoactive effects and great medical value, CBD is rapidly becoming more than just an alternative treatment. Starting with its anti-inflammatory properties, diabetic patients might also be getting benefits to the many symptoms that can suffer as a result of this metabolic condition.
Patients with diabetes can suffer a variety of symptoms depending on how controlled the disease is, and CBD has already proven to be helpful in things like chronic pain, headaches, digestive issues, epilepsy, and inflammation. In fact, there are some people suffering from type 2 diabetes who have even noticed a major change in their blood sugar level. Besides the condition itself, which causes complications with controlling blood sugar levels, there are other things in the body that can contribute to extra sugar releases in the body, such as pain. When someone is in pain, there is a stress response that increases cortisol that leads to more sugar be sent to the blood, using CBD to alleviate any pain for a diabetic person might really help lowering down sugar levels as well as improve sleep.
No official studies have been published in this area, but there have been reports of relief in symptoms induced by diabetes. A doctor in Nevada talked about a type 2 diabetes patient that was using CBD to rub on her nerve pain and eventually her sugar levels and her sleep improve noticeably.


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For the second time in four years, Japan’s Citizen Watch Co. Ltd. has purchased a Swiss watchmaker. In May, Citizen agreed to buy Switzerland’s Frédérique Constant Holding SA and its three watch brands — Frédérique Constant, Alpina and the tiny Ateliers DeMonaco — for an undisclosed sum.
“Citizen is implementing a multi-brand strategy and seeking to complete its brand portfolio by acquiring Swiss brands,” Citizen said in a statement. “This particular acquisition will enable Citizen to strengthen its brand portfolio, offering consumers a variety of products from accessible timepieces to accessible luxury timepieces.”
Citizen is a giant manufacturing conglomerate with annual sales amounting to the yen equivalent of $2.9 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31. Watches and clocks account for 52 percent of that revenue. As the world’s top producer of quartz watches, Citizen is a powerhouse in the mid-priced market from $300 to $1,200 on the strength of its Citizen and Bulova brands.
About five years ago, Citizen made a strategic shift to expand into the luxury mechanical-watch segment of the watch business and become a multi-national watch group. (For more, see “Redefining Citizen” in WatchTime’s April 2016 issue.) In 2012, it acquired Switzerland’s Prothor Holdings, owner of the respected mechanical movement manufacturer La Joux-Perret and the Arnold & Son brand.
Arnold, which specializes in high-mechanical complications produced by La Joux-Perret, gives Citizen a presence in the small-batch, premium price segment of the market. Frédérique Constant will give Citizen a foothold in the affordable luxury segment. FC watches sell primarily between $1,000 and $4,000 (a few models can cost as much as $13,000). Sports-oriented Alpina has similar price points. Frédérique Constant says it has developed, manufactured, and assembled 19 in-house calibers since 2004. It describes its mission as “making fine watches available to the largest possible audience of watch enthusiasts at sensible prices.”
Peter and Aletta Stas, the Dutch husband-and-wife team who founded Frédérique Constant in 1988 and have run it ever since, will remain with the company. In a statement, the couple said that Citizen had specified that it would “keep both of us and the current management team in place for at least five years. Within the [Citizen] group, we will be the largest Swiss entity and we will continue to operate independently.” They said they opted to sell the company when their two children decided not to join the family business.
Citizen CEO Toshio Tokura, the architect of the Swiss acquisition strategy, said, “We have a great opportunity to expand the sales of Frédérique Constant through our current distribution channels, particularly in Japan and the U.S.”


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We are happy to welcome Kellie Pike-DeLamerens to our Discover FSHN Series! Kellie is a double gator, graduating from the University of Florida with both her undergraduate and graduate degrees. Now, she is back in the Food Science and Human ... READ MORE
Welcome back to the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department at the University of Florida for the 2022-2023 academic year! We look forward to sharing many incredible adventures in research, academics, special events, and more. Read on to ... READ MORE
They may be called “aromatic” blueberries, but they don’t just smell nice -- they taste good.
University of Florida scientists now know why: These fruits contain just the right genetic combination to produce the chemistry required for ... READ MORE
This week, 20 high school students from Collier County explored food science, entrepreneurship and more on the University of Florida campus, thanks to the partnership of Taste of Immokalee, the UF/IFAS food science and human nutrition department ... READ MORE
WHAT: The UF/IFAS food science and human nutrition department has partnered with Taste of Immokalee to bring 20 youth to the UF campus to explore food science and develop a new food product with current UF food science undergraduates. On July ... READ MORE
In this installment of our Discover FSHN Series, we are pleased to welcome Dr. Boce Zhang. Dr. Zhang is an assistant professor of food microbiology in the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department at UF. His multi-disciplinary research aims ... READ MORE
Kombucha, a fizzy drink made from fermented tea, used to be found only at specialty stories. But today, many grocery stores carry an array of kombucha products.
Both consumers and kombucha brewers are driving this trend, said Katherine Thompson-Witrick, ... READ MORE
Florida farmers and other businesspeople are bubbling with enthusiasm to make wine.
There are about 40 wineries around Florida. Further, as of 2017 (the most recent year for which there’s data), growers in the Sunshine State were producing ... READ MORE
Welcome to our latest installment of FSHN Research Journeys, which follows the research of graduate students in the Food Science and Human Nutrition program at The University of Florida. Today’s guest poster is Gözde Gülseren, a first-year ... READ MORE
Welcome back to FSHN Research Journeys, a series that follows the research of graduate students in the Food Science and Human Nutrition program at UF. Today's guest poster is Sharyn Passeretti, a former chef and current FSHN lab manager who ... READ MORE


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The Coolest Tech Trends 2015
3D-printed cars, intelligent parking, and smart glasses: the most intriguing technological innovations of the past year and what to expect 2016.
The Human Body as a Communication System
Everyone’s talking about wearables, the term commonly used to refer to data glasses, smart watches, and fitness wristbands. Now, the world of science is taking this technology a step further by using the human body to transmit magnetic signals that enable these devices to communicate with each other. The advantage of this technique – which makes humans and their gadgets part of the same communication network – is that it requires significantly less power and is more secure than conventional methods.
Researchers at the University of California in San Diego have already tested this new communication technique on a Ph.D. student who works in the labs there. This involved coiling copper wires around the student’s arms. Because, to pass through the human body, magnetic fields require circular geometries. Devices like smart watches and fitness bands are therefore ideally suited for the human body communication technique, whereas flat sensors are not. The magnetic fields that pass through the body do not pose a health risk, say the researchers; their effects on the human body are less harmful than those of the magnetic fields that occur naturally on Earth.
Read Bernd Leukert’s blog: From Fiction to Functionality: Wearables at Work
American motor vehicle manufacturing company Local Motors presented the world’s first 3D-printed car at the Detroit Motor Show in 2015. The two-seater electric roadster, known as the “Strati”, is made almost entirely from carbon and plastic, and is powered by a Renault drivetrain. The car currently takes 44 hours to build, though the manufacturer is working to bring the printing time down closer to 24 hours.
Read Tim Clark’s blog: How 3D Printing is changing the World
Glasses Get Smart
If researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have any say in the matter, then Google Glass may no longer be the must-have product of the future. Because they’ve developed a 1mm-thick augmented reality display that can be integrated into any ordinary pair of glasses. So, instead of calling a smartphone app, users will be able to have information such as their fitness, their pulse rate, and the distance they have jogged routed from their smart glasses directly into their field of vision.
Read the blog: Bosh Shares Experience with Smart Glasses
Wouldn’t it be great if we no longer had to endure the tedious search for a parking spot and could sit back and let our cars do all the work instead? Although that day is still a fair way off, diligent researchers are on the case: Audi, for example, is using complex electronics to test this tantalizing vision in a parking garage at its headquarters in Ingolstadt.
SAP Vehicles Network, a cloud offering from SAP, on the other hand, is already a reality. It enables drivers in North America to use digital payment services or apps to share data from the Internet of Things, activate gas pumps, pay at the pump, reserve parking, open off-street parking gates, and pay for on-street parking from the car.
Drones vs. Beetles
Drones created by Chinese manufacturer DJI use a microwave radar to scan the ground below them and maintain the right distance from crops to spray the correct amount of pesticide. Analysts predict that the world of agriculture is set to become increasingly mechanized and that devices such as drones will play a key role in supplying farmers with information in real time. The digitization of agriculture (digital farming) will empower farmers to increase their productivity, and the SAP HANA Cloud Platform will support this transformation. Its aim is to collect and analyze the vast quantities of data that are generated in farming operations so that farmers can make better-informed decisions in managing their business and so that manufacturers can offer them more tailored products and services.
Read the blog: Farmers’ Tablets Yield Digital Harvests
How the Apple Watch is Saving Lives
For 20 hypertension patients from Louisiana who are taking part in a trial in New Orleans, the future of modern medicine is already here. They each have an Apple Watch that alerts them when it’s time to take their life-saving medication. The wearable also displays an image of the pill they need to take so that they don’t confuse it with other meds.
SAP is also testing the Apple Watch. The German software company wants to find out if its real-time notification functions increase employee punctuality at meetings and help close sales deals by preparing personnel more effectively for customer appointments. SAP has purchased several hundred Apple Watches for testing purposes.
Read the blog: 2015 Will Be the Year of the Smartwatch
Detecting Unripe Avocados
In a paper presented at the UbiComp 2015 conference, American researchers describe how their “hyperspectral” camera can predict the relative ripeness of fruits with 94% accuracy. Another really great thing about this camera is that, at around $50, it’s affordable enough to be added to a smartphone.
Watch the video
Back to the Future: Here Comes the Hovercraft
October 21, 2015, was “Back to the Future Day” with fans from all over the world celebrating the date on which time-traveler Marty McFly arrived in the future in the 1980s film classic “Back to the Future II”.
While the announcement of a hoverboard like the one Marty McFly used turned out to be a hoax, it looks as if a similar technology could actually become a reality very soon. Because U.S. aero-tech development firm Aerofex has announced a futuristic hovercraft called the “Aero-X ”, which rides like a motorcycle ‒ though hovering about 10 feet off the ground ‒ and can carry up to two people at a speed of 45 miles per hour. The first test “flights” will take place in 2016 and the “hoverbike” will go on the market for a price tag of $85,000 in 2017.
What was your coolest tech trend in 2015, and which innovations will take off in 2016?


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There has been a lot of talk in regards to the Audi E-Tron since the company first mentioned it back in 2009 and E-Tron has over time expanded into, not an individual vehicle, but a line of vehicles.
The vehicles which fall under the E-Tron line include the all electric A2 E-Tron concept, E-Tron Spyder concept, A6 L E-Tron PHEV, R18 E-Tron Quattro racecar, A3 Sportback E-Tron and of course the vehicle which started it all the R8 E-Tron.
As of recently two more vehicles have been added to the line and they are the A1 E-Tron plugin hybrid and the A5 E-Tron Quattro plug in hybrid. That is a slightly confusing mouthful. Come on! The E-Tron was SUPPOSED to be just one awesome car!
Anywho, despite the hefty line up of E-Tron vehicles; absolutely none of them(not one) has made it to the streets. They are all still concepts, excepting the R18 E-Tron Quattro race car. Funny. Is it not? Well, Audi intends to change that for 2014 as the company plans to make one of the vehicles available to the public. Finally.
The vehicle to be released is the A3 Sportback E-Tron, which will be launched soon. No date yet. We just know it’s “soon”. What we do know is the A3 will be powered by a 1.4 liter TFSI engine, which will transfer the power to the wheels via a 6 speed E-S Tronic transmission. The A3 has a power output of 204hp and 258lbf. This allows the vehicle to do 0-62mph in 7.6seconds and goes on to reach a top speed of 138mph,and 80 mph in all electric mode. On the electric side of things; it has a 8.8kwh battery pack which is able to produce a range of 31 miles on a full charge. The A3 can be charged from a regular 110volt power supply and should take about 3 hours and 45 minutes to receive a full charge.
We can all agree that it took Audi a very long time to release one of their E-Tron vehicles. Now was it worth the wait? That is yet to be found out. But soon young paddy ones. Soon…
+ Link: Audi.com


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Plastic pollution is a hot topic throughout the world.
Because it needs to be.
adidas has been working with Parley for the Oceans, an organisation that raises awareness about the beauty and fragility of the oceans, since 2015, to fight plastic pollution and make people aware that it’s a problem. The partners are supporting Run for the Oceans, this year, for the second year in a row. Run for the Oceans is a global running movement raising awareness about the threat of ocean plastic pollution, by activating runners all over the world through events and activities to “run for the oceans”. Each kilometre run counts as a symbolic gesture and over 10 million kilometres have been recorded so far.
adidas’ Running’s global creative partner, TBWA\Neboko, has created a global toolkit for Run for the Oceans, calling on local running groups to unite in one movement to raise awareness for the threat of marine plastic. To support it, TBWA\Neboko developed creative assets for six key cities.
The agency has also created the global campaign, FW18 UltraBOOST Parley, embedding its new UltraBOOST running shoe into the initiative. The fabric of the new adidas running shoe is is made from recycled plastic. The campaign film, made with stop-motion animation, uses that fabric as a canvas. On it, the creation story of the UltraBOOST Parley is told through embroidery.
Thomas Jullien, creative director at TBWA\Neboko spoke to The Stable about the agency’s work:
The Stable: Where did the campaign idea come from?
Thomas Jullien: The idea came from the partnership between adidas and Parley. Together they’ve created a yarn made from oceans plastic and turned it into a shoe. Our role as an agency was to bring the story behind the product and the movement to life. We knew it had to be big and thus, resonate on a global scale. We partnered with the local adidas running captains & crews to be the ambassadors of the movement. Runtastic played a big role during the launch and beyond as this was the platform that hosted the activation.
TS: What challenges did you have to conquer? What helped to make it easier?
TJ: When people have the opportunity to take part in a great movement for a great cause, magic happens. Once the campaign was out, the world took notice. Adidas running crews & influencers did an amazing job in getting people motivated through their social posts to take part and Run for the Oceans.
TS: Has working on the project changed the team’s plastic waster attitudes or behaviour?
TJ: This project certainly changed the team’s view of plastic and plastic consumption. We are very aware of the impact it has on our planet and as such have become more conscious of our day to day plastic consumption – especially when it comes to single use plastics like water bottes & plastic bags. It is still a long way to go before everyone will follow, but it needs to happen one step at a time.
TS: It can be difficult to marry a brand’s selling goal and a cause goal – authentically – or indeed two goals in one advert. Were these concerns part of the campaign planning? How did they affect your decisions?
TJ: Indeed. The strength of the campaign is fundamentally its authenticity. We’ve worked with real runners and running as a platform to elevate our main message: if the oceans die we die. We’ve used creativity to deliver a message that resonates with the world staying truth to adidas DNA: Sports has the power to change lives & the world.


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Pikmin 4 will go on sale July 21, Nintendo has announced
The release date was revealed during a Nintendo Direct on Wednesday, which began with a new trailer showing off a close-up of the camera and a new dog-like sidekick.
Nintendo said the following: “Introducing Pikmin, the tiny, plant-like creatures you can grow, gather, command, and dominate your enemies on your grand quest on a strange planet.”
“These curious helpers come in different types: fire is no problem for red Pikmin, and the new ice Pikmin can freeze enemies and the environment. Use your Pikmin’s miniature power (and a little thought strategic) as you explore.
“You also have a Space Dog: Oatchi can help you break through obstacles and transport Pikmin on your adventure. With tiny Pikmin and a capable dog in tow, no challenge is too big or too small!”
Nintendo Head of Game Design Shigeru Miyamoto first announced Pikmin 4 during a Nintendo Direct presentation in September and showed off the first images of the highly anticipated sequel.
In a suggestion that the game could see a significant change in its formula, Miyamoto said the game will allow users to play from the perspective of the Pikmins closer to the ground.
Brent Dubin, known as the Gaming Giant among Globe Live Media staff, is the chief Gaming Reporter for Globe Live Media. Having attended all the major events of Gaming around the World, he is sure to give you exactly the update related to gaming World you are looking for.


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Designer News is where the design community meets.
over 3 years ago from Roman Shamin, Desingineer @ Evil Martians
Wow - well done on this article Evil Martians team! Really appreciate how many code samples you show. Sharing with my team.
Where the design community meets.
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Promote Yoga centric tourism; Shripad Yesso Naik tells Kerala
Thiruvananthapuram: Union Minister of State for AYUSH, Shripad Yesso Naik, on Thursday said Centre is ready to offer all kinds of assistance to Kerala to promote Yoga centric tourism and stressed the need for promoting Tourism, which integrates Ayurveda as well as Yoga.
Inaugurating 'Yoga Ambassadors Tour' at Kovalam, the Union Minister said Yoga is of great importance to the most popular Ayurveda treatment in Kerala and more than 60 Yoga Ambassadors from 23 countries are participating in the Tour which will culminate on International Yoga Day June 21, 2018.
'Yoga Ambassadors Tour' was organized by Association of Tourist Trade Organizations India (ATTOI), with the collaboration of Union Ayush Ministry and Kerala Tourism Department. Kerala Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran delivered the Keynote address in the event. Ranjith Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of AYUSH, Ms Rani George, Secretary, Tourism Department, Govt. of Kerala, are also addressed the gathering. Anish Kumar PK, President, ATTOI, gave the welcome speech and Additional Director (General) Jafar Malik expressed the vote of thanks.


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KOCHI: Leading tyre maker Apollo Tyres has decided to stop the production at its two factories in Kerala -- Kalamassery in Ernakulam and Perambra in Thrissur -- for two days ending Saturday due to sluggish demand. The company produces off-highway tyres, truck tyres, bus tyres and tyres for light commercial vehicles (LCVs) at its Kerala plants.
When contacted, Apollo Tyres spokesperson said: “While the demand for our tyres in the replacement market is still strong, the slowdown in the vehicle sales has resulted in lesser demand from the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Our production is tuned to the market demand and as such this has called for rationalisation from time to time.
In the current scenario as well, there is a need to rationalise the production, including rationalising of the contractual manpower. ”The spokesperson said the company hopes that the good monsoon, the recent stimulus package by the government and the ensuing festivals will see a turnaround in demand from the OEMs.
Company to resume production tomorrow
The installed capacity of Apollo Tyres’ plants in Perambra and Kalamassery is 1,13,724 metric tonnes and 35,567 metric tonnes, respectively, according to its latest annual report. In addition to the two plants in Kerala, the Gurgaon-headquartered Apollo Tyres also has factories in Limda (Gujarat), Chennai and Chinnapandur (Andhra Pradesh). Sources said the company could be slowing down production in these plants as well. “There is a slowdown in the passenger car segment. Obviously, it will hit us too,” said a source.
Apollo Tyres supplies tyres to Maruti Suzuki, which has reported 36.1 per cent decline in sales to 93,173 units during August. The cumulative domestic sales of passenger cars for the April-August 2019 period have fallen 15.89 per cent to 97,32,040 units, as per the latest data by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
The domestic sales fell 23.55 per cent in August, 18.71 per cent in July, 12.34 per cent in June, 8.62 per cent in May and 15.93 per cent in April. There is a similar slowdown in demand for trucks, lorries and LCVs across the country.
The Kerala plants supply tyres to OEMs such as Ashok Leyland, Tatas and Eicher Motors.
“As per an agreement with trade unions in Kerala, the company can shut down production for two-three days or even more in the two factories if the inventories pile up due to slackening demand,” said a source, adding that the company would resume production from Sunday.


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(StatePoint) If you are like many Americans, you probably read advice about health and wellness everywhere, from news feeds to social media. But, despite the abundance of information, many are still struggling to reach their weight loss goals. So, what is the cause of this disconnect?
This article is restricted per publishing limits. Soon we will offer the ability to buy the ability to read this content.


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Ideas are flourishing for new trade initiatives to address the urgent circumstances of the global COVID-19 crisis and deter countries from engaging in counter-productive restrictive trade measures. According to Global Trade Alert, fifty-four countries have applied new trade restrictions on medical supplies since the beginning of 2020, and there is a real danger of copycat actions from others. This is happening despite the fact that most countries are far from self-sufficient across the range of pharmaceutical products, medical devices, and other essential medical supplies that will be critical during a sustained outbreak. Even more troubling, there are signals in some instances that new restrictions might be motivated by the desire to promote nationalistic industrial policies and not simply by urgent responses to ensure adequate treatment of victims and healthcare providers.
Setting aside questions surrounding the motivations behind new restrictions, there is a serious risk that the collective impact of such measures will harm everyone. Competitive protectionism rarely ends well, and that is likely to be the case in a global crisis of this scale, where millions of lives may be at risk and the global economy is on the brink of disaster. In response, there have been important ideas proposed in recent days for urgent action on trade, particularly through the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Group of Twenty (G20). Former Deputy US Trade Representative Wendy Cutler has suggested that the WTO consider taking up negotiations on a new zero-tariff agreement on critical medical supplies. Furthermore, former US Trade Representative and World Bank President Robert Zoellick has advised that the G20 and Group of Eight (G8) take up trade restrictions without delay.
There are many players in this unfolding drama, with two of the most important being the United States and India. While their history of multilateral collaboration on trade in the WTO has been a fraught one, their trade negotiators have been working intensively for nearly two years now on an unprecedented, even if modest, bilateral trade deal.
Both the United States and India will be key players in future developments in the medical supply trade relevant to the COVID-19 crisis, as each is a giant on the world stage in pharmaceutical production. India is the second largest exporter of pharmaceuticals to the United States and the United States is the largest exporter of medical devices to India. However, each has now put into place—or is considering—trade restrictions in these sectors. India has banned exports of certain active pharmaceutical ingredients in order to counteract recent interruptions in supplies from China and has just put into place a ban on exports of ventilators and surgical and patient masks. The United States is reportedly considering new “Buy American” restrictions on pharmaceutical products.
Rapid action to curb the spread of COVID-19 in every country is paramount, but new trade restrictions in one nation will most likely inspire others to follow in their footsteps. The consequence would be reduced trade in these products globally and diminishing supplies in all countries.
Looking ahead, both the United States and India will need to be deeply involved in global discussions on the trade implications of the COVID-19 crisis. There should also be a role for the WTO to play, as it is the only multilateral organization with responsibility and expertise on trade that includes agricultural products, which are crucial for every economy; services—from information technology to health and education; and, not least, critical medical supplies and technologies. However, the WTO is rarely fast-moving and currently confronts a host of limitations in regard to early action on COVID-19. It is mired in a leadership crisis over the Appellate Body and is generally viewed as being in a rut with respect to its negotiating function. Additionally, the WTO currently confronts its own COVID-19 crisis following a Secretariat official testing positive, causing all meetings to be suspended in the immediate future. As a result, the much-anticipated Ministerial Conference meeting in Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan in early June has been canceled.
The G20 and the Group of Seven (G7), on the other hand, are built for the task of taking up the full range of COVID-19 issues, which include efforts to reach agreement on keeping global trade in medical supplies flowing. Although any commitments agreed by leaders in these forums are political ones—in contrast to the legally binding agreements in the WTO—there has been a strong record of success in addressing some previous global challenges, such as the Great Recession of 2008. As then, the G20 can request that the WTO take up a monitoring role for implementation of pledges on avoiding new trade restrictions.
Even before that, or in parallel, the United States and India should start their own coordination on trade matters relevant to the COVID-19 crisis. The two sides have already begun to reengage in their efforts to conclude a bilateral trade deal, following their failure to do so when US President Donald J. Trump visited India in February. Prospects for this deal remain very good given that the pending issues are no more than a handful and the ministers involved—US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal—enjoy a strong rapport. It may not make sense to add new issues to the agenda for this deal when it appears to be wrapping up. However, they should not miss the opportunity to exchange perspectives on trade in medical supplies and explore possibilities for coordinating their positions in initiatives involving other countries, including in the G20 and eventually the WTO.
When all is said and done, there is a strong likelihood that COVID-19 will have hit both the United States and India hard. Even despite their differences, they share much in common as the two largest democracies in the world, which may make the challenges more difficult in steering public opinion towards social distancing and related preventative actions. The United States and India also have a deepening strategic relationship and their efforts to conclude a bilateral trade deal—even as difficult as that has been—suggest greater potential for expanding their collaborative work. More significantly, this is precisely the kind of situation that can test the potential for building out the relationship and contributing to a larger global response. Let a new initiative in the US-India partnership begin—one that can contribute to a global response to COVID-19.
Mark Linscott is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. He served as the assistant US trade representative (USTR) for South and Central Asian Affairs from December 2016 to December 2018. He previously served as the assistant US Trade Representative for WTO and Multilateral Affairs from 2012 to 2016 with responsibility for coordinating US trade policies in the WTO.
New Atlanticist Feb 27, 2020
Trump’s India trip comes up empty on trade: What’s next?
By Mark Linscott
After their failure to get a new deal, the United States and India certainly should turn to other issues in their future engagement on trade. With all of their focus on a handful of issues, mostly involving market access for bilateral trade in goods, the two sides allowed other important issues to fester, and perhaps the best opportunity to begin to develop a record of incremental confidence-building trade outcomes will be found in these areas, such as intellectual property rights, digital services, and better protection and promotion of investment through more transparent and predictable regulatory approaches.
New Atlanticist Mar 22, 2020
What the G20 needs to do to combat the global coronavirus economic crisis
By Hung Tran
The stakes for the upcoming G20 virtual summit are quite high. Either it succeeds in presenting a plausible global approach to deal with the pandemic and its impact, thus stabilizing public confidence and financial markets, or it can leave the world rudderless in the storm.
New Atlanticist Mar 17, 2020
How coronavirus is shaking the global economy
By Bart Oosterveld
COVID-19’s deadly spread delivers a trifecta economic shock: there is a collapse of aggregate demand through severely reduced consumption, a shock to global business through supply chain interruptions and bankruptcies, and resulting financial market gyrations.


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Google Maps and Street View are being used in a new Japanese visual novel. The game was released on Steam on October 14, 2022. The player and heroine may see real-life pictures as background locations.
The teams website revealed that (), a series of visual novels that Hudson Soft released for Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 between 1999 and 2004, sparked interest for this title. Like the series, it will take place in Japan''s Hokkaido prefecture, but with a particular focus on Hakodate. The player and the game''s heroine will attempt to see as many landmarks throughout Hakodate for a weekend, with the average playthrough time ranging from two to five hours.
While these books had the photos included in their standalone designs, it distinguishes itself by using Google Maps and Street View.
After showing descriptions of the real-life amenities, the game will play a scene with the heroine, which often features quick event response choices. Rojimaga also cautioned that the browser-based visual novel may be unplayable if there are too many player sessions during the day.
The Steam version of is now available worldwide at this writing with a price tag of $4.99 in the United States, but the visual novel currently only supports the Japanese language. Outside of Steam, Rojimaga sells the game for 500 yen. The game was initially released for free on September 27, 2022, before it switched to paid sales and sent public press releases.
Rojimaga will go on Android and iOS devices later in October 2022. The developer team has also announced plans to develop additional games and services that utilize Google Street View.


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Shopping complex coming to corner of Citation Boulevard, Georgetown Road
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) — A new, $60 million shopping center is coming to the corner of Citation Boulevard and Georgetown Road.
Greer and Web companies announced plans for the development of the Citation Centre shopping complex Thursday morning. The 28 acres for the shopping complex were acquired from the estate of its long-time owner William Gatton, a philanthropist with ties to the University of Kentucky.
The project will include national grocery and pharmacy stores, retail shops, multiple sit-down and fast food restaurants, and offices and medical facilities. Announcements will be made “in the coming weeks” of what’s intended to open in the shopping complex.


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LG launched the Bello mid-range smartphone last year at the IFA 2014, and its successor, the LG Bello II, has just been officially announced. The LG Bello II is a mid-range smartphone that will help LG strengthen its mid-range smartphone lineup, which is struggling to keep up with the likes of Xiaomi and Samsung.
The LG Bello II features a 5-inch IPS LCD display with a FWVGA resolution, a quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage, a microSD card slot, a 2,540 mAh battery, and runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. There’s an 8-megapixel camera at the back with an LED flash, and a 5-megapixel on the front. The gesture shot feature in the camera app allows clicking images by hand gestures. It also has a soft selfie flash which turns the screen of the smartphone into a flash for clicking pictures with the front camera.
LG Bello II Specifications
- 5-inch IPS LCD display, 854 x 480 pixels, 196 ppi
- Android 5.1.1 Lollipop-based LG UX
- 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB RAM
- 8GB internal storage, expandable via microSD card (up to 32GB)
- 8-megapixel rear camera, LED flash, 5-megapixel front-facing camera
- Dual-SIM, 3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS
- 2,540 mAh battery
The smartphone will be made available in three colours – Titan, Gold and White –, and is expected to be available in India anywhere between Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 15,000. Even with these specifications, we don’t think LG will do a lot of business, thanks to better specifications available in devices like the Xiaomi Mi 4, Huawei Honor 6, and the Samsung Galaxy J7.


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The world's largest social network has more than 2 billion daily users, and is expanding rapidly around the world. Led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook undergirds much of the world's communication online, both through its flagship app and its subsidiaries Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus. Despite huge financial success, Facebook is also confronted with questions about data privacy, hate speech on the platform, and concerns that frequent social media use can lead to unhappiness. The Verge publishes a nightly newsletter about Facebook and democracy, subscribe here.
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Microsoft and Meta are on a collision course for metaverse competition
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Bengaluru, May 31 (IANS) Celebrated British chef Marco Pierre White is back in India to host a two-day gourmet festival ‘World on a Plate’ (WOAP) at a star hotel in this tech hub from Saturday, according to the event organisers.
“Marco is holding the second edition of the fest in south India for the first time, five months after his debut in Mumbai in January, to explore the exotic dishes of Indian and overseas culinary experts,” a spokesperson of the event organiser The Inner Circle told IANS here.
At the gourmand weekend, the acclaimed chef will curate a fine dinner, brunch and 2 masterclasses at the hospitality partner hotel Ritz Carlton, paired with the best wine and cocktails the country offers.
Noted chef Manu Chandra will interact with White at Nolte’s social kitchen during the weekend fest.
“The fest will explore a thematic representation of ‘Garden of Eden’ congruent with a landscape, an ‘organic produce’ marketplace, a beer corner, a ‘dessert market’ and a ‘garden Sunday sundowner’,” said the spokesperson.
Bangalore’s 16 best restaurants and 6 patisseries will compete for the ‘WOAP Restaurant of the Year’ trophy.
New age Indian and international chefs will host master-classes, workshops and contests, parallel to White’s live-judging of culinary talent from India at the festival’s Taste Theatre.
“Marco will also headline WOAP’s initiative to fight hunger in India as they donate over 1,00,000 meals for underprivileged kids in association with HUG Foundation,” the spokesperson said.
About 10 celebrity chefs will also showcase 22 food pop-ups by restaurants serving regional and global cuisines, desserts, cocktails and live music.
Joining the culinary fest will be famous chefs like the star hotels’ chef Bruno Cerdan, Palate Culinary Academy owner Rakhee Vaswani, Everstone Capital Culinary Director Vicky Ratnani, patissier and chocolatier Neeth Medappa, Lavonne Bangalore’s Vinesh Johny, Lavasalt Melbourne owner Sabastian Simon, Capeberry’s Abhijith Saha and Vikas Seth of Sanchez.
“The chefs will also educate on exploratory cuisines, teach gourmet food pairings and impart lesser known tips and tricks learnt in kitchens the world over,” added the spokesperson.
Recalling his visit to Mumbai five months ago, White said he had lots to learn from Indian food.
“India gave me more than I could. It’s time to share my kitchen secrets and favourite cooking techniques while preparing some of my signature dishes using fresh local produce,” he told reporters ahead of the event.
Chef White will also live-judge 16 of the city’s best restaurants to award the ‘WOAP Restaurant of the Year’ trophy to the most deserving talent.


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The S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 0.53% to close at 6,993 on Wednesday, retreating from two-month highs, weighed down by sharp losses in technology stocks as well as a2 Milk after the US FDA deferred its request to import infant milk formula products into the US. The dairy producer’s shares sank 6.9% and 7.5% at the Australian and New Zealand exchanges, respectively. Australian technology firms also tracked their Wall Street peers lower, with sharp losses from Computershare (-4.8%), Block Inc (-6%) and Xero (-3.8%). Mining, energy and clean energy-related stocks mostly declined as well on weaker commodity prices. Elsewhere, Commonwealth Bank of Australia eased 0.3% even after posting strong annual earnings, as the lender warned of easing consumer demand as borrowing costs rise.
Historically, the Australia Stock Market Index (AU200) reached an all time high of 7632.80 in August of 2021. Australia Stock Market Index (AU200) - data, forecasts, historical chart - was last updated on August of 2022.
The Australia Stock Market Index (AU200) is expected to trade at 6851.44 points by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate it to trade at 6381.39 in 12 months time.