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Internet search giant Google is reported to be hatching a massive expansion plan to sell its own music-streaming system which would be controlled by Android smartphone handsets.
Top related searches:
The company is expected to bring a product to market later this year which can wirelessly play music on other devices in the home.
This would bring Google into direct competition with Apple and other electronics giants such as Sony and Panasonic.
Last May the company gave industry figures a peek at what it called "Project Tungsten", a music-delivery system that will allow streaming into the home.
And the company is now expected to be selling its own branded speakers and related devices to work with smartphones or tablet devices using its own Android operating system - using its recently launched online music service.
The products are expected to undercut the market-leading, but rather pricey, Sonos brand of network-based music systems.
Presenting Project Tungsten last year, Google engineering director Joe Britt said: "A Tungsten device runs the Android OS and the Android at Home software framework. It's always powered on and always connected to the cloud.
"It has audio out [meaning it can play music] and these examples can connect to either speakers or my home stereo system.
"You can enjoy your music synchronised throughout your house, all streaming Music Beta ... since the boxes are running Android, they just pull the music directly from the music library in the cloud."
What do you reckon? Can Google win at this game? Comment below...


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The Columbia County Sheriff's Office is looking for two suspects wanted for taking a mislaid wallet from a Grovetown Kroger store.
According to the sheriff's office, the incident occurred on Sept. 9 between 7 and 8 p.m. at the Kroger on Lewiston Road.
The suspects entered the Kroger and used a shopping cart the victim's wallet was accidentally left in. The wallet was not turned in to the store, according to the sheriff's office.
Anyone with information can contact investigator Tyler Bultman at (706) 541-1044.
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Get ready for Ricó®News
Have you met Ricó® yet?
From 9 July, this blushing newcomer will be hitting the fresh produce section of major retailers throughout Victoria and New South Wales.
Its arrival marks the next stage in the development of the Ricó® pear brand. Following the past few years of growth and export to Asian markets, at last Australian consumers will see this “delightfully different” pear in their everyday shopping.
According to Louise Wood, Category Manager at Freshmax, the launch provides a huge opportunity for this new variety.
“Strong backing from a respected household name, and one of Australia’s largest food retailers, is starting Ricó® on the right foot for pushing into the domestic market,” Louise said.
“The attractive blush and pleasing shape really make it stand out, and that’s the first step in enticing customers to try it. When they do, they will find Ricó® to be a great fresh eating pear – and it’s also so versatile that consumers are going to keep coming back.”
Hear more from Louise about why a pear like Ricó® – which delivers on both looks and flavour – is a fresh fruit game-changer, in her interview on 2GB Radio.
The marketing push behind this new brand is aimed at changing the way consumers think about pears. Craig Chester, APAL Head of Commercial & Brand Development, says the Ricó® brand has the grounding to be here for the long term – not just a flashy trend.
“We want to create a new generation of pear-lovers,” Craig said. “Offering this premium, attractive product supported by a well-developed advertising campaign that is completely different from anything else in this category is the best way of achieving this. Consumers see pears as the quietest fruit in the fruit bowl. With Rico pears and our marketing approach, we’re going to change that
The outdoor advertising campaign from Di Marca and Freshmax will see Rico splashed across trams, trains and bus shelters, reaching beyond the shopping aisle to engage consumers directly. The stylish adverts and cheeky slogans – supported by an ongoing digital presence – will appeal to a younger generation, liberating Ricó® from “nana’s fruitbowl” and offering “a pear with personality.”
According to Andrew Mandemaker, APAL Head of Group Quality, Innovation and Commercialisation, Ricó® will be available in stores for the next 12 weeks – if supply can meet demand.
“We’ve spent years investing in the development and export of Ricó®,” Andrew said. “It’s resulted in a purpose breed pear that looks beautiful and tastes just as great, and it’s already enjoyed success as an export brand in Asia. Our marketing is driving up demand for this high-quality premium product, so we will need continuing growth to meet this both in Australia and abroad, year after year.”


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If you are a business owner, you may soon be able to take customer orders and attend to support tickets right from your Facebook window. The Menlo Park based social network company has recently filed a patent application that provides a hint of this upcoming feature.
The patent application is titled ‘Techniques for Automated Messaging‘ and essentially describes different ways a business may use Facebook Messaging to automate order taking and communication with their customers. This includes allowing customers to make new orders via Facebook Messaging and letting businesses communicate the status of these orders back to customers. In addition to this, businesses may also set predefined responses to frequently asked questions which is kind of similar to what helpdesk services offer on their platform.
So how does all of this tie in with what Facebook does currently? From the various demo images provided by Facebook on their application, a typical transaction could be something like this.
1. Businesses advertise on Facebook like they do now. Only now, users may also chat with the business or buy from within the Messenger platform
2. The target user may now click on ‘Chat Now’. This should take them to the Messenger where they deal with an automated messaging system set by the business.
3. The user may pick and choose their product of choice from within the Messenger window
4. From the business end, the Facebook Messenger could work like a helpdesk tool that comes with template responses.
Threaded commenting on Facebook is one of the long sought requests from users. And Facebook too, many times in the past, has been caught testing the feature in small pockets of the cyberwebs.
The latest report comes from New Zealand. Our reader Chandler reports that his network is now able to reply to comments. It’s not clear how Facebook is testing this among a closed group considering that your Facebook friends can always extend beyond the group that Facebook is testing. In any case, I hope threaded commenting is provided as a feature to the entire Facebook network soon. Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like
Last week INQ released two smartphones that were facebook oriented. But, now Gemalto has managed to put facebook on to a SIM card. Although no match to the latest generation of smartphones, these SIM devices which were developed in collaboration with facebook allows users to poke, send friend requests and look at statuses of friends. The sim is compatible with any GSM enabled handset. All that the user needs is a GSM SIM toolkit which is of course part of any GSM handset. The toolkit allows one to enable facebook menus, updates and other facebook related basic features.
Gemalto provides security solutions like smart cards, sim cards, e-passports and additional software applications to various enterprises like banks, wireless operators and the Government. So, there is now no need to possess a real smartphone in order to stay connected with friends.
Apparently, both Google and Facebook are holding talks with Twitter with regards to its sale. Twitter, the very famous microblogging site which started in 2006 had actually grown phenomenally in its initial years. It is estimated that Twitter would quote a price of 8-10 billion dollars. Estimates are that Twitter only managed to make 45 million dollars in the year 2010. Also, Twitter has hired more employees and acquired new data centers. Due to this, Twitter has supposedly lost a fair amount of money. It is also being estimated that the turnovers of twitter in 2011 are only going to be 11 million dollars utmost.
Now, if Facebook were to acquire Twitter, it is most likely that the only genuine competitor that it ever had up to now would be gone with a swift blow. If Google were to acquire it, it would certainly look to expand Twitter, as they have failed miserably with Buzz.
Let’s wait and see which giant gets the cherry!
INQ Mobile yesterday unveiled two Facebook oriented smartphones that run on Goolge’s Android 2.2 or Froyo. The two smartphones viz. Cloud Touch and Cloud Q have been developed by INQ Mobile and facebook together. While Cloud Touch has a touchscreen keyboard, Cloud Q possesses the conventional QWERTY keyboard. Both the phones have facebook at their core. The Cloud Touch comes with a 3.5 inch HVGA touchscreen and a 5.0 megapixel camera with autofocus. On the other hand, Cloud Q possesses a 2.6 inch touchscreen.
As both the phones are facebook oriented, the homepage contains a facebook widget that provides live news feed from time to time. Also, both these phones run a spotify overlay along with facebook overlay. The features of facebook can be accessed directly with the help of a scrollbar which is also included on the top of the home page.
Both the smartphones would hit the markets sometime this summer.
An interesting bit of rumor has been doing the rounds lately across the blogosphere. According to some Facebook users, the popular social network might be testing a new ‘Call‘ feature on the user profile pages. These users have reported to have noticed this button appear on the top right of their friends’ profile pages. However, pressing this button did not initiate any calls and neither have their friends reported to have received any alerts.
It is being speculated that Facebook may integrate its service with Skype’s VoIP calling service. It is worth noting that both these companies had signed a partnership late last year that will make it easy for Facebook users to call and video chat with their friends using Skype. Is the partnership already bearing fruits? We will await an official confirmation in this regard.
It has been quite a while since we wrote about the Facebook Phone. For those who are not aware, sometime last year, folks at TechCrunch broke the news about Facebook possibly working on a new “Facebook phone“. While no details regarding the phone itself was available, it was seen as a way for Facebook to cater to the heavy social networking users – primarily teenagers.
The rumor itself was pretty audacious. However, Mark Zuckerberg went out of the way to quell these speculations that raised suspicions that there might be some truth in the rumors. A recent Bluetooth SIG filing now sheds more light on these rumors.
In the filing, INQ has filed a new device called “Cloud Touch” that is “an Android smartphone built to make messaging faster and smarter. It’s designed around the way people naturally communicate and has Facebook built into its core. The homescreen features multiple entry points to different Facebook functions, while a dynamic widget displays a feed of status updates, albums, videos and photos.”
It is worth noting that a report on Bloomberg that was published soon after TechCrunch broke the story had claimed that INQ could be manufacturer of this new phone. With the recent filing seemingly confirming the news, it will be interesting to see what the official response is from Facebook.
Farmville has finally been dethroned. Although this social gaming application, which at one point in time was synonymous with social gaming on Facebook, had been replaced by Phrases DIY trivia builder application as the most popular application on Facebook, it still retained the tag as the most popular gaming application until now. No longer.
Data collected by app metrics firm AppData has showed that Zynga’s Cityville has replaced Farmville as the most popular gaming application. This is across any single platform and is not limited to Facebook alone. According to data revealed by AppData, the new game from Zynga amassed as many as 61.7 million monthly users – just 22 days after its launch on December 2. Farmville on the other hand has reported close to 56.8 million during the same period.
Another noteworthy information is that Zynga’s total traffic during this period adds up to 261.6 million active users that is close to being its all-time peak. That’s 63 million more than what Zynga reported for November this year.
Zynga has launched a mobile version of its popular Mafia Wars Atlantic City game. This is the social gaming company`s first ever application to be designed for the mobile web. Well, it just seems like Zynga has a lot to show to its potential investors rather than just sticking to the social games on Facebook. This game […]
Zynga has launched a mobile version of its popular Mafia Wars Atlantic City game. This is the social gaming company`s first ever application to be designed for the mobile web. Well, it just seems like Zynga has a lot to show to its potential investors rather than just sticking to the social games on Facebook. This game makes use of the HTML 5 format which means that it will be able to run on most smartphones.
One advantage that HTML 5 has is that it is not platform dependent like Adobe Flash and other native formats, which is apparently the reason why Zynga chose to build the game in it – Build once, and run on multiple platforms. Zynga makes a significant chunk of its revenues from Facebook and it is likely that the company feels it’s time for them put their hands in the mobile market.
You can play this new Mafia Wars game on your mobile by visiting m.mafiawars.com or download it from the GetJar application store.
Software giant Microsoft could well become the first company to have social games running on their search engine. Their search engine Bing would soon be hosting the social game “Happy Island” and from doing this the company thinks that it will be proving its innovative talent in the sector. The company apparently came up with […]
Software giant Microsoft could well become the first company to have social games running on their search engine. Their search engine Bing would soon be hosting the social game “Happy Island” and from doing this the company thinks that it will be proving its innovative talent in the sector.
The company apparently came up with the idea to incorporate social games on their search engine when their biggest rival Google came up with a fully fledged application and gaming store for its Google Chrome OS. Speaking about the launch, Parri Munsell, executive producer of Gaming on Bing has said,
“We believe this launch brings several important innovations to the social gaming industry, starting with the ability to experience great gameplay before being required to sign in,”
As per Microsoft’s press release there is a 100 percent possibility of other games like “Zuma`s Revenge” and “Bubble Town” to making in into the search engine soon. As for “Happy Island”, the game already has its presence on Facebook, iPhone and Android devices.


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Amazon announced that it will allow Auto Dealers to sell cars on its site, starting with Hyundai in 2022. While Amazon has previously offered digital showrooms for car research, this marks the first time customers will be able to make a purchase directly through Amazon. Shoppers will be able to search for available vehicles, select a car, and check out using their preferred payment and financing method. Additionally, Hyundai will include Amazon's Alexa voice assistant in its cars starting in 2025. The news caused shares of used car dealers and new car dealers to drop.
The post Amazon will allow auto dealers to sell cars on its site, starting with Hyundai appeared first on Balanced News Summary.


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Since last year, a new trend of smartphones with large screen to body ratio has emerged on smartphone market since the launch the Xiaomi Mix followed by Samsung Galaxy S8 and LG G6. Today, the founding father of Android – Andy Rubin has launched a new flagship named as Essential Phone PH-1. It comes with a large display with an aspect ratio at 19:10, comparatively larger than the Galaxy S8.
Essential Phone PH-1 specifications：
- 5.7 inches 2K IPS display（5th generation Corning Gorilla Glass）
- Snapdragon 835
- 4GB RAM+128GB ROM
- Front 8MP +13MP dual rear camera
- 3040mAh battery
- Dual SIM standby
- 141.5 x 71.1 x 7.8 mm
- Runs on Android 7.1
- Available in black, white, grey, green
As a flagship, the 8MP front camera supports 4K video recording while the dual rear 13MP camera supports 360 camera. It is one of the greatest camera on an Android smartphone out there.
Despite the removal of 3.5mm audio jack, Essential Phone provides a converter USB to 3.5mm audio jack for the USB Type C port. This smartphone will be first available in the US at $699 while the panaromic camera + smartphone combo is at $749.
Source : 每日头条


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Dubai – March, 2022: SAMENA Telecommunications Council has announced that its awaited annual congregation of Telecoms multi-industry leaders, the Leaders’ Summit, will be held in Dubai on May 9th, 2022 under the chairmanship of Saudi Arabia’s stc Group and with patronage of the UAE’s Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority. The Leaders’ Summit is an annual leadership event, which encompasses private and government sector leaders’ knowledge exchange and progress driven goal-setting discourse among stakeholders from across the ICT/Telecoms as well as other industries and sectors. To be held under the theme “Thriving in the New Opportunity Realm with Resilience”, the SAMENA Council Leaders’ Summit 2022 will be held fully physically at Atlantis – The Palm. This annual international leadership summit will be hosted in legacy partnership with Huawei for the nineth consecutive year.
Officially announcing the Leaders’ Summit 2022 and inviting industry stakeholders to mark their calendar for the important day, Bocar BA, CEO & Board Member, stated: “Leaders’ Summit 2022’s timing has been linked with and is crucial to the Industry’s evolving need for planning new investments in 5G, cloud infrastructure, and in discovering resilience in the new opportunity landscape. Moreover, the Summit aims to signal normalcy in business, and to help open doors for leadership discourse on critical industry, policy, business, and societal matters as digital transformation paces on. After a hiatus of two years, the physical edition of Leaders’ Summit is once again ready to welcome renowned global and regional leaders to a platform known for its outstanding multi stakeholder engagement, leadership, collaboration, innovation display, and knowledge-exchange in a world-class setting, powered by the Industry’s greatest enablers.”
“Our objectives in this back-to-business, physical edition of Leaders’ Summit is to help demonstrate leadership and commitment of stakeholders to accelerate post-pandemic recovery; showcase participation and relevance of new industries and stakeholders in the 5G and post 5G eras; experience newest innovations in digital 5G-era technologies, network infrastructure, collaboration models, integrated digital service delivery; and to unearth new possibilities for Telecom Operators as well as vertical segments in materializing new business successes”, BA added.
Bocar BA, CEO & Board Member SAMENA
Huawei’s President of the Middle East & Africa Region and Member of the Supervisory Board, Steven Yi, stated: “The global digital economy is developing rapidly, and over 50% of the global GDP will be digitalized in 2022. Huawei is dedicated to come together with industry partners to share knowledge, experiences, and best practices to continuously create value for telecom carriers and to help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation.
“The ICT sector and in particular 5G, cloud, and digital power will play a vital role in tackling sustainability needs of the Telecom industry and its contributions to other industries. It is essential to keep building onto past successes in terms of dialogue, timely decision-making, and innovation, so that momentum in the region 5G development can be maintained. Huawei is committed to innovation, and we highly value the need to work together to address the issues that our Industry and our world face, and drive our collected work towards meetings the region digital future requirements. Leaders’ Summit 2022 is a platform, which supports stakeholders’ commitment to understanding and adjusting to new realities and to setting new goals in digital development”, Yi added.
Huawei’s President of the Middle East & Africa Region and Member of the Supervisory Board, Steven Yi
Leaders’ Summit 2022 will welcome Chairmen and CEOs from the private sector, and top decision-makers from regulatory authorities and global bodies and institutions, spanning multiple geographies. It will also include participation of global leaders and entities focused on institutionalizing and fostering cross-sector digitization and collaboration, making the Leaders’ Summit the year 2022’s premier virtual destination for leadership, dialogue, demonstration, and for refining future policy and regulation.
The past four and in particular the last two virtual editions of Leaders’ Summit delved into the fast-unfolding reality of digitalization in the era of 5G, with Connectivity, Digital Infrastructure, Cloudification, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Data Centers, Optical Networks, IPv6/IPv6+, Investment Incentivization, and Policy as well as Regulation taking on whole new dimensions. The four-year focus on “5G” from multiple angles is now at a stage at which “Integration” is merited – for technologies, private and public clouds, data processing systems, communications infrastructure, sustainability-led approaches and priorities, as well as discussions and strategies to move forward. Leaders’ Summit 2022 will build the case for taking 5G discussion beyond connectivity to real-life innovations and impact for the business and the society.
Participation in the Leaders’ Summit is by-invitation-only. Industry stakeholders, including ICT and non-ICT segments, may contact SAMENA Council at email@example.com to learn more.


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A research programme is being launched next month to monitor
advertising attitudes among Britain’s over-50s. Its organisers claim it
is in reaction to a mass of advertising devised by twentysomething
agency creatives and account directors, which fails to acknowledge the
growing numbers of consumers aged 50 and over.
RSGB, the quantitative research company, is carrying out the work in
co-operation with Prime, a creative and marketing consultancy
specialising in ’grey’ consumers.
Car companies, under fire for advertising which is oriented towards
young drivers even though up to 65 per cent of cars are bought by people
aged over 50, are among those taking an interest.
’Nobody has ever taken this market as seriously as we are doing,’ Steve
Martyn, Prime’s managing partner and a former Ogilvy & Mather account
Prime has evolved out of Cohort, an agency established two years ago by
the senior creatives, Reg Starkey, a former Creative Circle president,
and David Delmonte, to target the ’grey’ market.
It claims to have already uncovered evidence of a communications
breakdown between older consumers and advertisers.
The research reflects the UK’s changing demographics. More than 19
million Britons are aged over 50 and the category is growing by 50,000 a
The study aims to give advertisers access to people aged 50 and over and
to provide them with a ’health check’ on the effectiveness of their
communications. It will attempt to demolish the theory that advertisers
can lock in consumers for life, if they ’catch ’em young’. Martyn said:
’The fact is that people are more likely to switch brands the older they


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Biotechnology company, ViAqua Therapeutics announced the completion of a US$8.25mn investment led by S2G Ventures to scale RNA-based solutions in aquaculture
According to an analysis from Kontali, disease management is currently the biggest issue facing the aquaculture industry, resulting in more than US$8.5bn in economic impact for the shrimp industry alone. Among the various aquatic species, shrimp in particular, are highly susceptible to disease, given their lack of adaptive immune systems and available products to address shrimp disease such as the White Spot Virus (WSSV), which causes an annual loss of around US$3bn, along with a 15% reduction in global shrimp production.
ViAqua has therefore developed a biotechnology-based oral delivery platform for the targeted administration of RNA-based solutions to improve disease resistance in aquaculture. Its first product is a feed supplement to enhance resistance to viral infections in shrimp, with the initial application targeting WSSV. This solution will provide much-needed production stability for farmers while also creating the opportunity to increase production per farm without increasing disease risk.
Produced using commercial, industrial processes, ViAqua is scaling production to take its first product to market, through its established commercial partnership by means of a joint development and marketing agreement with Skretting, a Nutreco company. While ViAqua is currently focused on shrimp production, the delivery technology has numerous applications in aquaculture and beyond, which the company is excited to explore.
CEO of ViAqua, Shai Ufaz emphasised the importance of oral delivery, given the impossibility of vaccinating individual shrimp. He further highlighted its ability to bring down operational costs of disease management, while improving outcomes. Investment director at Rabo Ventures, Shishir Sinha noted that the bank's aquaculture specialists, Gorjan Nikolik and Novel Sharma were impressed by the game-changing impact potential of the solution and believed that it would make a meaningful difference in the lives of the smallholder farmers, who represent 80% of supply. "We are truly excited by the potential of ViAqua's technology because of the value it unlocks for the planet and the farmers."
For more information, visit: https://www.viaqua-t.com/


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|Bid||5,410.00 x 54200|
|Ask||5,650.00 x 67200|
|Day's Range||5,423.00 - 5,488.00|
|52 Week Range||4,237.00 - 5,643.60|
|PE Ratio (TTM)||21.78|
|Dividend & Yield||2.10 (3.00%)|
|1y Target Est||N/A|
Spain's anti-trust watchdog is investigating tobacco companies for alleged non-competitive practices in the manufacturing, distribution and commercialisation of their products in the country, the CNMC said on Tuesday. Philip Morris Spain, Altadis, JT International Iberia, British American Tobacco Espana and Compania de Distribucion Integral Logista were all being looked at as part of the investigation, the CNMC said.
The number of high school students who smoked cigarettes in the 30 days before being surveyed fell to 8% from 9.3% in 2015.
British American Tobacco has said it expects sales volumes to "outperform the industry" for the full year as it increases market share, while it also benefits from the weak pound. BAT, the third-largest ...


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Apple is finally opening the doors to its bank vault, saying it will distribute $100 billion in cash to its shareholders over two years.
Apple Inc. on Tuesday said it will buy back $60 billion in shares — the largest buyback authorization in history. It is also raising its dividend by 15 percent.
Investors have been clamoring for Apple to give them access to its cash hoard, which ended March at an unprecedented $145 billion. Apple's tight grip on its cash has been blamed for the steep decline in its stock price over the winter.
News of the cash bonanza coincided with the company's release of a poor quarterly outlook for the three-month period that ends in June. It sent the Cupertino-based tech giant's stock up in after-hour trading.
Apple said it had better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter, but its outlook for next quarter fell far short of expectations — and it posted its first profit decline in ten years.
Its projected drop in third quarter sales would mark the first year-over-year third quarter drop in many years. The June quarter is generally a weak one for Apple, since consumers tend to hold off for the next iPhone, which the company usually releases in the fall.
U.S. & World
According to its earnings report, Apple also increased its dividend by 15 percent to $3.05 a share, according to CNBC.
Here are the numbers: Apple reported earnings of $10.09 a share on revenue of $43.6 billion. Last quarter, Apple earned $12.30 a share on revenue of $39.2 billion.
Looking ahead, Apple forecast revenue of between $33.5 billion and $35.5 billion for the next quarter. That is well below the $38.25 billion Wall Street was forecasting.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement that Apple is pleased to report record March quarter revenue thanks to continued strong performance of iPhone and iPad.
Apple said it sold 37.4 million iPhones in the quarter, compared to 35.1 million in the same span last year. Apple sold 19.5 million iPads during the quarter, compared to 11.8 million a year-ago. It sold just under 4 million Macs, compared to 4 million a year ago.
International sales accounted for 66 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
"Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline," the statement read.
“Our cash generation remains very strong, with $12.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter and an ending cash balance of $145 billion,” Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said.


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June 28, 2015
Summary: Mobile banking is enabling mobile phone users in Eastern Europe to achieve financial liberation. Despite the rapid adoption of mobile banking initiatives by banks the services on offer mostly seek to serve smartphone users. This single focus could risk alienating the region’s unbanked, feature phone subscribers and could create room for alternative financial payment providers, such as M-Pesa to recreate the success they found in East Africa.
Story: The increasingly mobile-centric lifestyle of many Europeans can largely be attributed to the increase and success of mobile channel initiatives focused on providing cheaper, more convenient services. Although still playing catch up to Western Europe, mobile subscribers in the


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Food prices are set to jump significantly in the new year, says a new report from Dalhousie University
Ian Mendes shares the details of his tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship with Costco.
Loblaws announced a drive-thru grocery store in Toronto, with the hopes that other cities will follow. Here's why parents across the country should rejoice.
Ever wonder how to coax your kids into trying new foods? Hint: Brown rice and broccoli are only part of the picture.
The 2014 Product of the Year Canada award winners were just announced. See our selection of family-friendly products from the full list.


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A new British independent poll conducted by Ipsos Mori concluded that the people who do the most illegal downloading also buy the most music. This is in line with many other studies elsewhere and is easy to understand: people who are music superfans do more of everything
to do with music: they see more live shows, listen to more radio, buy more CDs, buy more botlegs of live shows, buy more t-shirts, talk about music more, do more downloading -- all of it.
And of course, these are the people the music industry's supergeniuses have set their sights upon for bizarre enforcement regimes like the one that British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has promised: anyone who lives in a house that generates three or more copyright infringement notices will be barred from Internet access.
"The latest approach from the Government will not help prop up an ailing music industry. Politicians and music companies need to recognise that the nature of music consumption has changed, and consumers are demanding lower prices and easier access," said Peter Bradwell, from the think-tank Demos, which commissioned the new poll conducted by Ipsos Mori.
Illegal downloaders 'spend the most on music', says poll
However, music industry figures insist the figures offer a skewed picture. The poll suggested the Government's plan to disconnect illegal downloaders if they ignore official warning letters could deter people from internet piracy, with 61 per cent of illegal downloaders surveyed admitting they would be put off downloading music illegally by the threat of having their internet service cut off for a month.
"The people who file-share are the ones who are interested in music," said Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research. "They use file-sharing as a discovery mechanism. We have a generation of young people who don't have any concept of music as a paid-for commodity," he continued. "You need to have it at a price point you won't notice."
In July, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Dr Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute Assistant Professor of Computer Science; now the US government has asked a court to dismiss Dr Green’s claims. A brief from EFF explains what’s at stake here: the right of security experts to […]
More than 10,000 people have signed onto EFF’s open letter to HP CEO Dion Weisler, taking the company to task for its dirty trick of using a security update to revoke its customers’ ability to print with third-party ink.
Yesterday, Google announced “Youtube Go,” an “offline first” version of the popular video service designed for the Indian market where internet coverage is intermittent, provided by monopolistic carriers that have a history of network discrimination, and where people have a wide variety of devices, including very low-powered ones.
Amazon’s Audible is hands-down the most popular place to find audiobooks. With its library of over 180,000 books, Audible has the biggest audiobook selection in the world, and a membership gets you a free book each month. You can sync Audible across multiple devices, so you’ll never lose your spot whether you’re on your computer or your phone.This […]
#1. A-Audio Legacy Noise Cancelling Headphones with 3-Stage Technology The A-Audio Legacy Headphones are the Boing Boing Store’s best seller this month, and it’s easy to see why. With 40mm drivers, powerful circuitry, and memory foam padded circumaural ear cups, these are clearly super high-quality headphones. Plus, the patented 3-Stage Technology lets you toggle between passive […]
Vaping is getting more mainstream by the day, which means there’s been an influx of quality yet affordable vaporizers on the market. We’re particularly excited about the APX Wax Vaporizer Kit, which is an easy-to-use, high-quality vape that works with both dry herbs and waxy concentrates.If you’re a beginner trying to get into vaping, the APX […]


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Wahyoo, an ecosystem builder that focusses on digitizing traditional small-scale announced the closing of its $5 million Series A round of financing, led by Intudo Ventures. The funding was graced by influential Kinesys Group, Amatil X (Coca-Cola Amatil), Arkblu Capital, Indogen Capital, Selera Kapital, Gratyo Universal Indonesia, and Isenta Hioe.
The startup plans to expand operations into new cities outside of Greater Jakarta, make new hires, and add new features.
“With this round of financing, we plan to expand our operations into new cities outside of the Greater Jakarta Region and make new hires, especially for our tech and product units,” said Peter Shearer, Founder, and CEO of Wahyoo.
“We will continue to add new features and services to better meet the needs of ‘warung makan’ owners, especially improving supply chain systems and financial products, which are designed to help eateries improve margins and gain access to financial service.


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Sales-, use-tax collections up in Boulder
Last Updated: 11:29 June 12, 2013
The city collected $7.2 million in May this year compared with $7.1 million for the same period a year ago.
Retail sales tax was up 1.9 percent, from $5.6 million in May 2012 to $5.7 million in May this year.
Year to date, Sales- and use-tax collections are up 4.9 percent. Retail sales tax is up 6.2 percent, construction use tax is down 12.1 percent, and motor vehicle use tax is up 8.5 percent.
For the year, retail sales tax makes up 79.4 percent of the collections, followed by business use tax, 9.4 percent; Construction sales and use tax, 8.4 percent; and Motor vehicle use tax, 2.8 percent.
More breaking news...
RefactorU obtains provisional license from state
Judge strikes down Longmont fracking ban
Sam's Club buys land at Village at the Peaks
District Judge D.D. Mallard ruled in favor of the state Oil and Gas


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Koons Kia Dealership Owes Over $1 Million Back to Scammed Customers
Kia dealerships seem to be a magnet for drama. While the Kia Telluride SUV might be one of the most popular new cars on the market, that doesn’t mean the dealerships are falling in line. Koons Kia dealership in Maryland has to pay its customers back over a million dollars after tacking on bogus fees during the buying process.
Koons Kia dealership has to return over $1 million to customers
The Maryland Attorney General, Brian E. Frosh, put out an official press release this week regarding one Kia dealership in Baltimore, Maryland. Koons Kia of Reisterstown Road, Inc, is in big trouble regarding bogus fees. The documents state that Koons Kia decided to tack on extra fees to the purchase of a vehicle under the guise of “freight charges.” Koons Kia did not include these charges in any of the advertised prices for Kia cars and SUVs added on at the end. Dealerships and manufacturers factor shipping fees into the advertised price already.
The Attorney General has instructed Koons Kia dealership to stop charging these fees to consumers. Taxes and title fees are acceptable as these are known and advertised. Koons may no longer charge a different price for a Kia than what is advertised on the Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). It has also agreed not to charge extra for shipping or freight charges if the dealership already included these prices in the advertised price. Koons Kia has agreed to return all fees previously collected from buyers under false pretenses. The dealership agreed to return any extra fees collected for shipping freight already included in advertised prices.
This Kia dealership has agreed to return more than $1 million to customers, the Attorney General said. The dealership also owes the Division $100,000 for the investigation.
This Kia dealership participated in “unfair and deceptive trade practices”
In the Assurance of Discontinuance, more information about Koons Kia’s deceptive practices is described.
“The Consumer Protection Act makes it an unfair, deceptive or abusive trade practice to make statements that are capable of misleading consumers or to fail to disclose material facts, the omission of which deceives or tends to deceive consumers.”Assurance of Discontinuance | Office of the Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division
The Attorney General went on to say that this practice is an “unfair and deceptive trade practice” that the Consumer Protection Act explicitly prohibits. Initially, Koons denied any wrongdoing. Soon after, the Kia dealership also agreed to forgo a trial to solve the issue faster and easier.
Attorney General Frosh commented that dealerships need to honor the advertised price of the vehicles. “I am glad that Maryland consumers will receive refunds for the fees that they paid above the advertised price,” Frosh said.
If you are a customer of Koons Kia and believe you overpaid for your vehicle, the Consumer Protection Division will contact you. Customers do not need to do anything else as the investigation has uncovered those who overpaid. Part of the agreement included Koons Kia providing a spreadsheet with the name, address, phone number, MSRP, and other pricing information to the AG. Customers can reach the Attorney General’s office at 410-528-8662 or 888-743-0023 with any questions.
These are not the same as dealership markups
With all of the changes to new and used car prices in the last few years, many dealerships have added a “dealership markup” to the price. This is different from what this Kia dealership did, but still a bad practice. A dealership markup is just an additional cost added to the MSRP due to supply and demand or any other reason the dealership might come up with. In recent years, the semiconductor chip shortage has made the supply of new cars dwindle, driving prices up.
It is not uncommon to see a popular car with a dealership markup added. Some Kia Telluride SUVs were marked up by $25,000 thanks to this practice. Similarly, Toyota 4Runner SUVs, Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons, and various other cars had a hefty price tacked on as a dealership markup. These are generally easy to spot and say “dealership markup” on the window sticker or online listing. Shady, but not illegal. The Ford Maverick and Jeep Wrangler are experiencing this right now.
As long as Koons Kia pays back the money as agreed, this dealership should be operating in the clear soon. Hopefully.


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Audio Pro Jumps Into Bed With Google With New G10 Network Speaker
Audio Pro has jumped into bed with Google big time with a new G10 wireless speaker.
Apart from Google Assistant the speaker also has Google Cast and Apple AirPlay 2 onboard for easy streaming.
Jens Henriksen, the firm’s CCO, claims customers have voiced a “rising requirement” for AirPlay 2 and Google Cast.
“Whilst still creating a speaker with this compatibility, we thought it appropriate to go all the way with the additional integration of the Google Assistant feature, allowing users convenient voice-activated control over their audio, simply by speaking to it,” he says.
Distributed in Australia by Aqipa pricing and availability for the new speaker have not been announced, it is expected to sell for around $599.
Audio Pro says the G10 has a small footprint, making it easy to place around the home, and it’s a speaker that can also be mounted on a wall or contemporary ceiling rail that’s apparently become quite the trend in the home furnishings sector. Visually the speaker continues to differentiate itself from the Addon range of speakers with its cylindrical form.
Henriksen added “We are now trying to further adapt to the needs we are experiencing in many markets today and reach out to those customers which prefer Google’s platform over Amazon. Through its Google Cast function, the G10 has the ability to form a multi-room system with other Google Cast speakers. This invaluably allows voice-activated control over an entire group, or household, of Cast-compatible speakers, even if they do not directly possess a built-in Google Assistant function.”
The Audio Pro G10 will be available in two shades of grey.


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Russia's only tea exporter to double the area of plantations in few years
Dmitry Feoktistov / tass , 2021-04-09
The area will be increased due to the reconstructed 80 hectares of land
SOCHI, April 9. / TASS /. The leaf-collecting areas of the tea plantations of the Matsesta tea company in Sochi are planned to be almost doubled in a few years - up to 170 hectares, the
area will be increased due to the reconstructed 80 hectares of land, the press secretary of the company Irina Novikova told TASS on Friday.
"Over the past 4 years, about 80 hectares of tea plantations have been reconstructed. In a few years, these areas will be put into agricultural circulation and the volume of gross harvest will increase," Novikova said, adding that this work could take about five years. The new space has already been cleared, and rejuvenated tea is starting to grow there. The tea will be ready for picking in three years. In another two years, it will be possible to start mechanical leaf picking.
Last year, the Matsesta Tea Factory installed new modern equipment in the tea leaf processing workshop, which made it possible to fully automate the process of cleaning tea semi-finished products. In the future, the company intends to modernize small-scale mechanization equipment for collecting tea leaves. "Since our industry is unique, such equipment is not produced in Russia, so we buy for foreign currency," the company explained. As the regional Ministry of Agriculture told TASS due to the general growth in the area of tea plantations in 2020, almost 350 tonnes of tea were harvested, which was 116% compared to 2019. Despite the fact that last year there were spring frosts and summer drought. The press service clarified that in 2021, 7.2 mln rubles are provided for support in the development of tea growing.
The Matsesta Chai company produces more than 100 types of tea products, its plantations are located in the Matsesta Valley among the mountain ranges of the Caucasian ridge. The company is engaged in the revival of plantations that fell into disrepair in the 1990s. The enterprise has a full production cycle - from growing and processing tea leaves to producing finished products. The Matsesta Tea Factory is the only Russian tea exporter, in 2020 it made the first delivery to Serbia. Also, products are sent to private stores in Japan and the UK. The company has plans to sign export agreements with a number of other countries in the near future.
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An introduction to Leather and the Circular Economy
09 / 01 / 2023
Contenido publicado por: World Leather
In December 2019, the European Commission published a 24-page document to explain a set of policy initiatives it is calling The European Green Deal, which has the aim of “resetting” the organisation’s commitment to tackling climate and environment-related challenges. The document describes such an undertaking as “this generation’s defining task”.
It wants the European Union (EU) to continue to be a prosperous body and for its economy to grow, but it wants this growth to become “decoupled” from the use of new resources. Renewable resources and the reuse of resources already in circulation will be fine, as long as they can be produced or recovered in sustainable ways.
In fact, this is precisely what the future looks like: using what we can grow and recover to make the products we use to live, keeping things for a long time, repairing them when we need to, passing them on for someone else to use when we no longer can or want to and, eventually, taking the product back and recovering the materials it’s made from and giving these a second, third, fourth, fiftieth life. Materials must go round in circles; as little as possible must go to waste.
These are global questions, of course, which the European Commission acknowledges. It says in the December document that the EU will “use its influence, expertise and financial resources” to convince companies and governments around the world to join it on a sustainable path. As “the world’s largest single market”, the EU believes it can set standards that will apply across global value chains. The Commission has said it will use its economic weight to shape international standards that are in line with its environmental and climate ambitions.
In the Green Deal, it presents an initial roadmap of the policies and measures that it wants business leaders, politicians and people in the EU and around the world to take to contribute to the objectives of achieving climate neutrality by 2050 and of helping the United Nations meet its Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. It proposes to set up a “carbon border” so that products entering the EU from external countries may incur a carbon tax if “differences in levels of ambition” persist in their countries of origin. Therefore, cutting corners in seemingly low-cost outsource manufacturing locations will prove to be a false economy and companies that continue to pursue this practice may find that they cannot sell their products in the EU because the penalties in place will make these imports less affordable than alternative products made in the correct way. The correct way is circular.
Action needed now
The European Commission believes a move to a circular economy is an essential part of its plan. It says it could take 25 years to transform supply chains from the linear model of make-sell-use-throw away and instead make them circular, with manufacturers taking by-products from each other to keep adding value and nothing going to waste. But it insists that action needs to take place now so that, by the target date of 2050, we can have sustainable ways of making and consuming things.
“From 1970 to 2017, the annual global extraction of materials tripled and it continues to grow,” the Green Deal document says. “About half of total greenhouse gas emissions and more than 90% of biodiversity loss and water stress come from resource extraction and processing of materials, fuels and food. The EU’s industry remains too linear and dependent on a throughput of new materials extracted, traded and processed into goods, and finally disposed of as waste or emissions. Only 12% of the materials it uses come from recycling.”
In the document, the European Commission says it wants to support and accelerate industry’s transition to the circular economy and the Green Deal contains a new circular economy action plan. Part of this will be to take action to stimulate markets, inside and outside the EU, for circular products, encouraging the companies that make these products to create new, green jobs. It will support the circular design of all products and will prioritise reducing and reusing materials ahead of recycling them.
This circular economy action plan will also include measures to encourage consumers to choose reusable, durable and repairable products, handing a competitive advantage to companies whose products or materials meet that description. It says new business models based on renting and sharing goods will play a role “as long as they are truly sustainable and affordable”. The Commission says it will tackle false green claims, vowing that companies engaging in green- washing will end up red-faced, named and shamed.
Public authorities, including the EU institutions, are to lead by example and ensure that their procurement is green. Legislation and guidance on green public purchasing will follow. Billions of euros are at stake here. Companies that verifiably meet the green criteria will be the ones winning the contracts.
Circular economy horizons
It has much to say about waste, making it clear that if waste cannot be avoided, “its economic value must be recovered and its impact on the environment and on climate change avoided or minimised”. Here, too, there will be new legislation, including targets and measures for tackling waste generation. In parallel, the Green Deal document makes clear, “companies should benefit from a robust and integrated single market for secondary raw materials and by-products”.
At the start of this new decade, in which progress is essential if the global economy is to hit its 2030 and 2050 targets, all of these ideas seem sound and well thought- through. It will be obvious to readers of World Leather magazine that, in leather, the European Commission already has in front of its nose a clear example of a production sector that can already meet all of its circular economy requirements. Leather and the circular economy are a perfect match. And yet, the December 2019 document explaining The European Green Deal makes no mention of leather. Zero.
We can say on the one hand that this is disappointing but it’s no surprise, in truth. The European Commission published an earlier document at the end of 2015 called EU action plan for the circular economy. This one made no direct reference to leather either. As in the 2019 document, though, there are lots of indirect references that show how well leather ties in with this concept. Both European Commission documents fail to make the connection between leather and the circular sourcing, circular production and circular consumption arguments they put forward as a model for the future. It’s obvious that the responsibility for establishing those connections lies with the leather industry.
For this reason, World Leather has decided to begin 2020 with a new Leather and the Circular Economy section. We will provide a platform for tanners, leather chemical companies and finished product manufacturers to share their opinions and experiences on this subject. For millennia, skilled people have been taking a by-product from meat and, rather than let it go to waste, have turned it into a material whose versatility, durability, naturalness, sensuality, renewability and beauty knows no parallel. To use leather in shoes, furniture, automotive, aviation and other forms of transport, interior design, handbags or apparel is to choose a raw material that might, otherwise, have gone to waste. It is a material that you can repair and recover for reuse at the end of a product’s useful life, preventing waste again and avoiding the need to extract new resources for the products we buy. It’s the circular economy material par excellence and it’s time more people realised that.
Our Leather and the Circular Economy section will include two types of articles: some covering the thought leadership on the circular economy that people across the leather industry are demonstrating, others covering case studies from companies that make or use leather to showcase their circular stories. The aim is to keep publicising examples of the leather industry’s circular economy credentials.
To make the connection clear, we have picked out ten aspects of the way the best in the business make and use leather and tied them in with the policy details that have come to light so far in the documents from the European Commission. If asked to show why leather is an ideal example of a circular economy product, anyone in the industry will be able to point to these ten reasons. We are pleased to share these ten criteria in the infographic above and we are delighted to offer our first circular economy thought leadership and circular story articles in the December 2019-January 2020 issue of World Leather.
You can read the original post HERE.
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For the first time in the industry's history, pay-TV saw a net loss of subscribers, not just in one quarter, but two consecutive ones. Some analysts say it's not out of the question to expect similar results in the final quarter of 2010.
Cable operators took the brunt of the hit, losing some 1.4 million subscribers in the second and third quarters.
Despite significant subscriber gains by Verizon and AT&T, as well as net gains by Dish Network and DirecTV, losses still outpaced gains.
The cable industry explained away the defections as the product of a struggling economy, as strapped homeowners opted to reduce bills by returning to over the air options.
ESPN, in a study using Nielsen data, said that only a fraction of subscribers actually abandoned pay TV overall, stressing that it believed most who abandoned cable simply switched to other pay-TV services. The study, it said showed that most users who actually cut the cord were "mainly middle-aged, middle-income households and persons who are light or non-streamers. In short, cord cutters are more likely to be recession-challenged householders making hard choices about their expenses."
Not everyone agrees.
SNL Kagan senior analyst Ian Olgeirson said, "It is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss the impact of over-the-top substitution on video subscriber performance. Particularly after seeing declines during the period of the year that tends to produce the largest subscriber gains due to seasonal shifts back to television viewing and subscription packages."
Strategy Analytics analyst Jia Wu said SA surveyed 2,000 U.S. households recently and "found that the perceived value of pay-TV is very low."
"In fact," he said, "only 20 percent said their service exceeds or greatly exceeds their expectations."
And, he said, new connected TVs and devices are making going without a pay-TV option more appealing.
"With something like a Sony TV, you don't have to have a set-top box, you don't have to make any confusing connections, it's all right there," he said. "Younger users already are getting their content from other places than traditional pay-TV. It's just another shake out of the pay-TV industry."
Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, who knows something about losing younger customers to emerging technology, at a conference in September said OTT delivery was a major threat to the pay-TV industry, one that could lead to more substantial subscriber losses.
"I've seen the movie," he said. "If you remain static too long, the technology is going to nibble at you on the edges, and you have to be prepared for it."


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As per the new regulation, which will become effective after 120 days, broadcasters must inform the regulator details of their commercial deals with cable and DTH players, or distribution platform operators (DPOs). These details include individual agreements like marketing and placement, agreements on advertisement slots, and extended credit facility.
It also seeks details of any kind of fee that a broadcaster pays or receives from a DPO. “Any incentive (monetary or otherwise) for marketing or support or visibility or placement signed between broadcaster and distributor of television channels shall be reported to the authority by the broadcaster,” Trai said.
A top broadcast executive said the new regulations would not hurt the business, but were unnecessary. “We have done deals across the world, nowhere regulators ask for so many details,” he said, adding: “The kind of restrictions and control Trai is exerting on the broadcast sector is nowhere else in the world, except maybe in China, where it is state controlled.”
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Dutch nuclear specialists warn that “Anti-5G” necklaces are harmful
The Dutch nuclear authority has warned people who wear “anti-5G” pendants to “protect” themselves from phone mast radio frequencies that their necklaces are radioactive.
“Quantum pendants” and other “negative ion” jewellery should be stored away as they continuously release ionising radiation.
The ANVS issued a product alert for ten goods.
“Exposure to ionising radiation can cause adverse health effects,” the agency warned. “Due to the potential health risk they pose, these consumer products containing radioactive materials are therefore prohibited by law. Ionising radiation can damage tissue and DNA and can cause, for example, a red skin. Only low levels of radiation have been measured on these specific products.
“Exposure to ionising radiation can cause adverse health effects,” the agency warned. “However, someone who wears a product of this kind for a prolonged period (a year, 24 hours a day) could expose themselves to a level of radiation that exceeds the stringent limit for skin exposure that applies in the Netherlands. To avoid any risk, the ANVS calls on owners of such items not to wear them from now on.”
The health impacts of mobile telephony have been raised as governments around the world begin to build 5G infrastructure.
Ofcom fines Christian TV channel for Covid conspiracy allegations
In addition to questions about the quality of studies regarding the influence of radio frequencies and closeness to masts, some claim 5G causes anything from headaches to immunodeficiencies.
The WHO says 5G is safe and that the radio signals produced by 5G are not fundamentally different from those produced by 3G and 4G.
Despite this, a jewellery industry has sprung up, claiming to “utilise pure minerals and volcanic ash extracted from the Earth.”
About 15 EU member states asked the European Commission to investigate recent arson assaults on telecommunications masts.


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In 2020, California voters approved Proposition 22, a law that app-based companies including Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash said would improve worker conditions while keeping rides and deliveries cheap and abundant for consumers. But a report published today suggests that rideshare drivers in the state have instead seen their effective hourly wage decline compared to what it would have been before the law took force.
The study by PolicyLink, a progressive research and advocacy organization, and Rideshare Drivers United, a California driver advocacy group, found that after rideshare drivers in the state pay for costs associated with doing business—including gas and vehicle wear and tear—they make a hourly wage of $6.20, well below California’s minimum wage of $15 an hour. The researchers calculate that if drivers were made employees rather than independent contractors, they could make an additional $11 per hour.
“Driving has only gotten more difficult since Proposition 22 passed,” says Vitali Konstantinov, who started driving for rideshare companies in the San Diego area in 2018 and is a member of Rideshare Drivers United. “Although we are called independent contractors, we have no ability to negotiate our contracts, and the companies can change our terms at any time. We need labor rights extended to app-deployed workers.”
Uber spokesperson Zahid Arab wrote in a statement that the study was “deeply flawed,” saying the company’s own data shows that tens of thousands of California drivers earned $30 per hour on the dates studied by the research team, although Uber’s figure does not account for driver expenses. Lyft spokesperson Shadawn Reddick-Smith said the report was “untethered to the experience of drivers in California.”
In 2020, Uber, Lyft, and other app-based delivery companies promoted Proposition 22 as a way for California consumers and workers to have their cake and eat it, too. At the time, a new state law targeted at the gig economy, AB5, sought to transform app-based workers from independent contractors into employees, with all the workers’ rights attached to that status—health care, workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance. The law was premised on the idea that the companies had too much control over workers, their wages, and their relationships with customers for them to be considered independent contractors.
But for the Big Gig companies, that change would have come at the cost of hundreds of millions dollars annually, per one estimate. The companies argued they would struggle to keep operating if forced to treat drivers as employees, that drivers would lose the ability to set their own schedules, and that rides would become scarce and expensive. The companies, including Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and DoorDash, launched Prop 22 in an attempt to carve out an exemption for workers driving and delivering on app-based platforms.
Under Proposition 22, which took force in 2021, rideshare drivers continue to be independent contractors. They receive a guaranteed rate of 30 cents per mile, and at least 120 percent of the local minimum wage, not including time and miles driven between rides as drivers wait for their next fares, which Uber has said account for 30 percent of drivers’ miles while on the app. Drivers receive some accident insurance and workers’ compensation, and they can also qualify for a health care subsidy, although previous research by PolicyLink suggests just 10 percent of California drivers have used the subsidy, in some cases because they don’t work enough hours to qualify.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, major US freight railroad companies reached a tentative agreement with unions, narrowly averting a nationwide rail shutdown less than 24 hours before a strike deadline. A work stoppage would have heaped devastating consequences on the nation’s economy and supply chain, nearly 30 percent of which relies on rail. Even a near miss had some impact. Long-distance Amtrak passenger services, which use freight tracks, and hazardous materials shipments are now being restored after railroads suspended them to prevent people or cargo becoming stranded by a strike.
The tentative agreement, to be voted on by union members, came through talks brokered by the Biden administration. It scrambled this week to avoid a shutdown that would have caused major disruption and worsened inflation by restricting the supply of crucial goods and driving up shipping costs. Rail unions and the railroad industry association released statements Thursday welcoming the deal. But freight rail service has been unreliable since long before this week’s standoff, and trade groups representing rail customers say much work remains to restore it to acceptable levels.
Just two-thirds of trains were arriving within 24 hours of their scheduled time this spring, down from 85 percent pre-pandemic, forcing rail customers to suspend business or—grimly—consider euthanizing their starving chickens. Scott Jensen, a spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council, whose members depend on rail to ship chemicals, called the latest shutdown threat “another ugly chapter in this long saga of freight rail issues.”
Although Thursday’s agreement was lauded by companies dependent on rail freight, the ACC, the National Grain and Feed Association, and other trade groups also argue that further reforms to the rail industry are needed. Competition has dwindled as service concentrated among a handful of big railroads, which slashed their combined workforce by 29 percent over the past six years. Rail customers have asked lawmakers and rail regulators to intervene. Suggestions include federal minimum service standards, including penalties for leaving loaded cars sitting in rail yards for long periods, and a rule that would allow customers to move cargo to another service provider at certain interchanges, to work around the fact that many customers are captive to a single carrier.
Major US freight railroads made deep staff cuts in recent years as part of an effort to implement a leaner, more profitable operating model called Precision Scheduled Railroading. Profits have indeed soared—two of the largest freight carriers, Union Pacific and BNSF, owned by Warren Buffett, broke records last year. But after many workers decided not to return to the rail industry after pandemic furloughs, a staffing shortage tipped the network into crisis. At federal hearings this spring, rail customers complained about suffering their worst ever service levels from a network that had been stripped of its resiliency.
Many freight rail jobs have always involved erratic schedules and long stretches away from home, but workers complained that the leaner operations saddled them with still longer hours, higher injury rates, and less predictable schedules. Many workers received no sick leave and were penalized for taking time off outside of their vacation time, which averaged three weeks a year, or holiday and personal time, which reached 14 days a year for the most senior employees.
Autonomous driving company Cruise and US regulators said on Thursday that the General Motors subsidiary had recalled software deployed on 80 vehicles after a June crash in San Francisco involving a Cruise car operating autonomously injured two people. The incident occurred one day after the state of California granted Cruise a permit to start a commercial driverless ride-hail service in the state. The flawed software was updated by early July, Cruise said in a filing with the US National Highway Traffic Safety Agency.
The crash occurred when a Cruise vehicle attempting to make an unprotected left turn across a two-lane street was struck by a car traveling in the opposite direction that was speeding in a turn lane. Cruise said in its NHTSA filing that its software had predicted that the other car would turn right, and determined that it was necessary to brake hard in the midst of its own vehicle’s left turn to avoid a front-end collision. But the other vehicle continued straight through the intersection, T-boning the now stationary Cruise car.
At least one person in the speeding vehicle and one Cruise employee riding in the autonomous vehicle were treated for injuries, according to a report that Cruise submitted to the California Department of Motor Vehicles in June. Cruise responded to the incident by putting its robot cars on a tighter leash until their software was updated. The company reduced the area of San Francisco the vehicles operated in, and barred them from making left turns altogether.
Cruise said in its NHTSA filing that the software update improves its self-driving software’s predictions, especially in situations like that which led to the crash. The company said it has determined that if the vehicle involved in the June 3 incident had been running the current software, no crash would have occurred.
The recall is just the NHTSA’s second to involve fully self-driving software. In March, the self-driving developer Pony.ai recalled three self-driving vehicles after it found a software error caused the system to shut down unexpectedly while its vehicles were in motion. The company said all affected vehicles were repaired. The increasing amount of software in vehicles means more and more vehicle recalls—even among human-driven cars—can be accomplished through over-the-air updates.
In a written statement on the Cruise recall, NHTSA head Steven Cliff said the agency continues to investigate crashes involving self-driving vehicles and will “ensure that vehicle manufacturers and developers prioritize the safety of pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vulnerable road users.” Cruise met with NHTSA officials multiple times to discuss the crash, according to the recall filing.
Cruise spokesperson Hannah Lindow said in a written statement that the software issue has been resolved. “Cruise AVs are even better equipped to prevent this singular, exceptional event,” Lindow wrote. Right now, Cruise’s service operates in 70 percent of the city between 10 pm and 6 am, except during rain or fog. Interested riders must apply to use the service. The robots can make left turns again.
Rumors of an Apple electric car project have long excited investors and iPhone enthusiasts. Almost a decade after details of the project leaked, the Cupertino-mobile remains mythical—but that hasn’t stopped other consumer electronics companies from surging ahead. On the other side of the world, people will soon be able to order a vehicle from the Taiwanese company that mastered manufacturing Apple’s gadgets in China. Welcome to the era of the Foxconn-mobile.
In October 2021, Hon Hai Technology Group, better known internationally as Foxconn, announced plans to produce three of its own electric vehicles in collaboration with Yulon, a Taiwanese automaker, under the name Foxtron. Foxconn, which is best known for assembling 70 percent of iPhones, has similar ambitions for the auto industry: to become the manufacturer of choice for a totally new kind of car. To date it has signed deals to make cars for two US-based EV startups, Lordstown Motors and Fisker.
Foxconn’s own vehicles—a hatchback, a sedan, and a bus—don’t especially ooze Apple-chic, but they represent a big leap for the consumer electronics manufacturer. Foxconn’s ambitious expansion plan also reflects a bigger shift across the auto world, in terms of technology and geography. The US, Europe, and Japan have defined what cars are for the last 100 years. Now the changing nature of the automobile, with increased electrification, computerization, and autonomy, means that China may increasingly decide what car making is.
If Foxconn succeeds in building a major auto-making business, it would contribute to China becoming an automotive epicenter capable of eclipsing the conventional powerhouses of the US, Germany, Japan and South Korea. Foxconn did not respond to requests for an interview.
The automobile industry is expected to undergo big transformations in the coming years. An October 2020 report from McKinsey concluded that carmakers will dream up new ways of selling vehicles and generating revenues through apps and subscription services. In some ways, the car of the future sounds an awful lot like a smartphone on wheels.
That’s partly why there’s no better moment than now for an electronics manufacturer to try car making, says Marc Sachon, a professor at IESE Business School in Barcelona, who studies the automotive industry. Electric vehicle powertrains are simpler than internal combustion ones, with fewer components and fewer steps involved in assembly. The EV supply chain is simpler to manage than the conventional supply chain, which is one of the core competencies of established carmakers. China, Sachon adds, has a strong EV ecosystem, from batteries to software, and even the manufacturing of components.
China is especially well positioned to lead the charge towards electrification. The country already has some of the world’s most advanced battery manufacturers, including CATL and BYD, the latter of which also produces cars. Carmakers in the region may gain an edge in terms of understanding and harnessing new battery technologies simply by virtue of proximity—much in the same way as software companies benefit from being close to chip design firms.
This week, a US Department of Transportation report detailed the crashes that advanced driver-assistance systems have been involved in over the past year or so. Tesla’s advanced features, including Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, accounted for 70 percent of the nearly 400 incidents—many more than previously known. But the report may raise more questions about this safety tech than it answers, researchers say, because of blind spots in the data.
The report examined systems that promise to take some of the tedious or dangerous bits out of driving by automatically changing lanes, staying within lane lines, braking before collisions, slowing down before big curves in the road, and, in some cases, operating on highways without driver intervention. The systems include Autopilot, Ford’s BlueCruise, General Motors’ Super Cruise, and Nissan’s ProPilot Assist. While it does show that these systems aren’t perfect, there’s still plenty to learn about how a new breed of safety features actually work on the road.
That’s largely because automakers have wildly different ways of submitting their crash data to the federal government. Some, like Tesla, BMW, and GM, can pull detailed data from their cars wirelessly after a crash has occurred. That allows them to quickly comply with the government’s 24-hour reporting requirement. But others, like Toyota and Honda, don’t have these capabilities. Chris Martin, a spokesperson for American Honda, said in a statement that the carmaker’s reports to the DOT are based on “unverified customer statements” about whether their advanced driver-assistance systems were on when the crash occurred. The carmaker can later pull “black box” data from its vehicles, but only with customer permission or at law enforcement request, and only with specialized wired equipment.
Of the 426 crash reports detailed in the government report’s data, just 60 percent came through cars’ telematics systems. The other 40 percent were through customer reports and claims—sometimes trickled up through diffuse dealership networks—media reports, and law enforcement. As a result, the report doesn’t allow anyone to make “apples-to-apples” comparisons between safety features, says Bryan Reimer, who studies automation and vehicle safety at MIT’s AgeLab.
Even the data the government does collect isn’t placed in full context. The government, for example, doesn’t know how often a car using an advanced assistance feature crashes per miles it drives. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which released the report, warned that some incidents could appear more than once in the data set. And automakers with high market share and good reporting systems in place—especially Tesla—are likely overrepresented in crash reports simply because they have more cars on the road.
It’s important that the NHTSA report doesn’t disincentivize automakers from providing more comprehensive data, says Jennifer Homendy, chair of the federal watchdog National Transportation Safety Board. “The last thing we want is to penalize manufacturers that collect robust safety data,” she said in a statement. “What we do want is data that tells us what safety improvements need to be made.”
Without that transparency, it can be hard for drivers to make sense of, compare, and even use the features that come with their car—and for regulators to keep track of who’s doing what. “As we gather more data, NHTSA will be able to better identify any emerging risks or trends and learn more about how these technologies are performing in the real world,” Steven Cliff, the agency’s administrator, said in a statement.


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Mullen Automotive (NASDAQ: MULN), an emerging electric vehicle (“EV”) manufacturer, has sold 22 EV cargo vans to the Randy Marion Automotive Group, the company’s authorized distributor of commercial EVs in the United States. The sale marks the company’s first revenue, which will be reported in the next quarterly report, for the period ending June 30, 2023. Revenue from the sales will total $308,000. The company is reporting that the vans will start shipping today from Mullen’s Mississippi-based assembly plant to Randy Marion Automotive Group in North Carolina. The announcement also noted that Mullen is currently “in process” with six campus EV pilot programs across four different industry categories including aviation, pharmaceutical, public utility and universities, with a company official reporting that the campus van is a great fit with various different closed-campus commercial applications. “These shipments are significant as they represent the first revenue recorded on our financial statement, reflected on the June 30, 2023, 10-Q,” said Mullen Automotive CEO and chair David Michery in the press release.
To view the full press release, visit https://ibn.fm/YunRd
About Mullen Automotive Inc.
Mullen Automotive is a Southern California-based automotive company building the next generation of electric vehicles (“EVs”) that will be manufactured in its two United States-based assembly plants. Mullen’s EV development portfolio includes the Mullen FIVE EV Crossover; the Mullen-GO Commercial Urban Delivery EV; the Mullen commercial class 1–3 EVs; and Bollinger Motors, which features both the B1 and B2 electric SUV trucks and class 4–6 commercial offerings. On Sept. 7, 2022, Bollinger Motors became a majority-owned EV truck company of Mullen Automotive, and on Dec. 1, 2022, Mullen closed on the acquisition Electric Last Mile Solutions’ (“ELMS”) assets, including all IP and a 650,000-square-foot plant in Mishawaka, Indiana. To learn more about the company, visit www.MullenUSA.com.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to MULN are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/MULN
MissionIRNewsBreaks provide a rapid summary of corporate news that catch the attention of MissionIR. MissionIRNewsBreaks are created by our Team of professional journalists that keep a constant eye on the markets, these posts are designed to inform you on the latest happenings of our clients and other publicly traded companies on our radar. From earnings, acquisitions and agreements to conference attendance and clinical study results, our news breaks keep you up-to-date with the day’s top movers. MissionIR is primarily focused on strategic communications. We have executed countless communications programs to address the needs of companies ranging from start-ups to established industry leaders, gaining valuable experience and the expertise necessary to determine the most effective strategy for any given situation.


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It's been quite a few years since an Assassin's Creed game didn't leak before Ubisoft's official announcement, and it seemed like the next instalment would be no different when rumours claimed that the next game after Assassin's Creed Origins would take us to Ancient Greece back in March. Ubisoft refused to say anything about the rumours though, so things calmed down after a while. Now, however, it's time to get the rumour mill spinning for real again.
The folks over at Jeuxvideo have gotten their hands on a photo of a key chain for Assassin's Creed Odyssey. It doesn't just confirm the game's title either, as the helmet clearly indicates that the rumours of a Greek setting are spot on as well.
Ubisoft declined to comment on the photo when we contacted them, but this, the rumours from March, and Walmart's big E3 leak should convince most of you out there that this is indeed real. Now we'll just have to wait for the official details and launch date.
Is this the setting you were hoping for?


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Change.org are seeking support for a petition to put pressure on the UK’s leading supermarkets to label the meat and diary products which come from GM-fed animals. Add your name here.
Dear Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons, the Co-Op, Marks and Spencer, Waitrose and all other UK supermarkets,
We are concerned that you are no longer committed to ensuring that the meat and dairy products you sell have come from animals fed on non-GMO feed. We urge you to reconsider selling these products, but in the meantime we request that you label GM-fed animal produce as such. This goes for meat, dairy, fish and eggs. As supermarket customers we believe that we should have the choice about what we buy.
We also wish to call your attention to some important points in the hope and expectation that it will lead you to reconsider your policies on this critical and increasingly high-profile consumer issue.
GM material has been detected in meat and dairy products:
Several scientific studies have shown that when livestock is given GM feed, GM material makes its way into the meat and dairy products produced from the animals (1-4).
As a result of these findings, the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA), having previously denied that GM material could make its way into the produce we consume, was forced to concede: “It is… possible that DNA fragments derived from GM plant materials may occasionally be detected in animal tissues, in the same way that DNA fragments derived from non-GM plant materials can be detected in these same tissues.”(5)
GM feed has been found to be toxic to animals
Some studies have revealed toxic effects in animals fed a GM diet and people may, through lack of informed choice, find themselves eating the products of animals in less than optimum health (6). This could have implications for the health of the livestock animals in your supply chain as well as that of the human consumers of their products.
Consumers do not want GMOs in their food
A Consumer Attitude Survey commissioned by Friends of the Earth and GM Freeze and carried out by GfK NOP concludes that of those surveyed:
- 72% would pay extra for non-GMO food
- 89% want meat from animals fed on GM feed to be labelled
- 66% would prefer to buy meat from animals fed a non-GMO diet (6)
Non-GM feed is available
Following close consultation with Brazilian suppliers, German supermarkets have forced the German Poultry Association (ZDG) to return to using GMO-Free feed. The largest German poultry producer, Wiesenhof, announced that it would meet the German supermarkets’ demands for GMO-Free Poultry products (8). Several German supermarkets including REWE, EDEKA, ALDI and LIDL stated that consumer demand and the fact that there is enough Brazilian GMO-free feed in the system to supply Europe’s needs led to their decision.
The rationale behind the decision of UK supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, Lidl, Aldi and Morrisons to allow GM feed into its animal supply chain has been shown by the German supermarkets to be no longer relevant due to the following facts:
There is enough Brazilian GMO-free feed to meet demand, and this supply is increasing (9). In addition, soya production in China and India is 100% non-GM (10).
The current rationale for selling the products of GM-fed animals appears increasingly unconvincing to consumers. We therefore urge all UK supermarkets to reverse their decision to remove the non-GM requirement for animal feed in its supply chain and ensure that no animals in its supply chain are given feed containing GMOs.


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Ad spending in the gay and lesbian press has grown at almost three times the rate of other consumer magazines over the past ten years in the U.S., according to a major annual survey released this week.
Ad spending in gay and lesbian publications in 2006 reached a record $223.3 million, an increase of 5.2% over 2005 and an increase of 205% since 1996, according to the 2006 edition of the Gay Press Report, an annual survey produced by advertising agency Prime Access Inc. and gay media representative firm Rivendell Media.
During the same ten-year period, ad revenues for all consumer magazines increased by only 47%, translating to a compound annual growth rate of 4% for consumer magazines versus a ten-year growth rate of 11.8% for gay media.
Howard Buford, founder and president of Prime Access, Inc., said the report reflects how far both corporate America and gay media have evolved since 1996, a watershed year that saw Ellen DeGeneres come out on prime time television and on the cover of Time magazine.
“This year’s report confirms how, in just one decade, gay and lesbian consumers have gone from an overlooked niche to an audience that Fortune 500 companies are working overtime to reach,” said Buford. “The numbers make it clear that corporate America recognises and values both the spending power and influence of gay consumers.”
Among Fortune 500 brands, more than 183 were active in the GLBT consumer market (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) in 2006, up from only 19 in 1994. Currently, the most popular product categories among these Fortune 500 brands are travel, financial services, automotive, fashion and entertainment.
“Over the past ten years, the gay market has become one of the most coveted demographics in the advertising industry,” said Todd Evans, president and CEO of Rivendell. “Gay and lesbian consumers have more discretionary time than their straight counterparts, and Fortune 500 companies and local businesses alike are committing more and more advertising dollars to reach them. Higher brand loyalty and less advertising clutter also make the GLBT market quite attractive.”
The 2006 Gay Press Report provides a unique, historical perspective on the gay and lesbian market. This year’s survey analysed 131 individual publications targeting gay and lesbian consumers, including local and national newspapers, consumer magazines and entertainment guides.


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PointsBet joins Curling Canada!
PointsBet Canada named official Sports Betting Partner of Curling Canada
Curling fans will have new ways to enjoy their favourite sport, as PointsBet Canada will become the official Sports Betting Partner of Curling Canada.
The long-term partnership takes effect immediately and will allow PointsBet Canada, the distinct Canadian operation of global online gaming leader PointsBet, to offer exciting and innovative ways for fans to engage with Curling Canada events. As part of the agreement, PointsBet Canada will also become a title sponsor of a Curling Canada Season of Champions event, beginning in the 2022-23 season.
“With the passing of legalized sports betting by the federal government this past summer, we knew that there would be many opportunities available for our sport to be part of a new, legal and regulated way for fans to enjoy our events,” said Katherine Henderson, Chief Executive Officer of Curling Canada. “PointsBet’s track record speaks for itself, as the company has existing partnerships with a variety of highly regarded partners around the world, and we couldn’t be happier to enter into this new venture with an industry leader.”
PointsBet, one of the fastest growing online gaming operators in the United States, is a cutting-edge bookmaker originally founded in the mature sports wagering market of Australia. The company prides itself on offering unmatched speed and ease of use across every customer touchpoint as well as the deepest slate of pre-game and in-play betting options in the world, thanks to owning and controlling its technology end to end.
While most operators outsource core functions to third parties, PointsBet is an anomaly in sports betting by truly owning their roadmap, avoiding any third-party technical or risk management dependencies – a point of difference that allows enhanced creativity and reliability to benefit consumer fan engagement, including bet types that cannot be found anywhere else, to unmatched speed and ease of use across every customer touchpoint, to a world-class suite of exclusive product features like the Name-A-Bet platform, to so much more. PointsBet’s distinct Canadian operation, PointsBet Canada, has hit the ground running in this country with the passing of Bill C-218 by the federal government in August, legalizing single-game sports betting.
“As one of the only true Canadian operators, it was important for PointsBet Canada to partner with organizations deeply rooted in our nation’s identity,” said Scott Vanderwel, CEO of PointsBet Canada. “Our partnership with Curling Canada will not only support community-based sports but bring curling fans an unprecedented experience from coast-to-coast-to-coast.”
PointsBet has secured exclusive gaming partner status in the U.S. with numerous professional sports franchises, including the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and NBA’s Denver Nuggets, and also has U.S. partnerships in place with the NHL, NBA, WNBA, NFL, MLB, and the PGA TOUR, among others. Viewed as an industry leader for responsible gaming efforts and awareness, PointsBet and Curling Canada will also work together on best-in-class practices to protect the integrity of contests.


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Creator royalties have largely fallen out of favor in the Solana NFT space lately, as top marketplace Magic Eden made paying them optional last week after royalties-shunning rivals snatched away market share. Now Metaplex, the creator of Solana’s NFT standard, says it is developing a new standard that can enforce royalty payments across the board.
Metaplex announced the news on Thursday night amid the ongoing debate around creator royalties, saying it is “building a new asset class that will enable creators to enforce royalties at the protocol level.”
While artists and creators can set royalty rates via project smart contracts—that is, the code that powers autonomous, decentralized apps—marketplaces can work around those stipulations and ultimately choose whether or not to honor them. In doing so, NFT traders avoid paying between 5% and 10% in fees on each sale. And while this has largely upset project creators that depend on those fees for revenue, NFT royalties are not currently enforceable with the current Solana standard.
We’ve heard you - the community is ready. Metaplex is building a new asset class that will enable creators to enforce royalties at the protocol level by extending the Token Metadata program, which powers 99%+ of all NFTs on Solana.
— Metaplex (@metaplex) October 20, 2022
The existing Metaplex standard is used by more than 99% of all Solana NFTs that have been minted to date, the firm said. Metaplex said that it can create enforceable royalties by expanding its token metadata program, which is how NFT creators append data and information that makes NFTs—or blockchain tokens representing ownership in an item—unique from each other.
Metaplex’s tweet thread suggests that it aims to support multiple NFT asset standards within its framework, offering creators options for future projects. Since the Metaplex technology is already widely supported by marketplaces and wallets, it may be well suited to roll out such changes that could impact the entire Solana creator community.
“We believe multiple asset classes and behaviors will coexist in the future—token metadata provides the interoperability and stability the ecosystem needs to move forward without fragmentation,” Metaplex wrote, describing it as an “iterative process” ahead.
CEO Stephen Hess tweeted that Metaplex attempted to enforce royalties at the protocol level and introduce additional asset classes in July when it proposed the Digital Asset Standard framework, but that it couldn’t find “critical mass” among builders at the time. “That’s changed,” he wrote.
Metaplex also teased additional solutions for Web3 creator monetization that will be revealed at the Solana Breakpoint conference in Lisbon next month. Royalties have been a key part of many NFT projects’ revenue streams in the past, although the uncertainty around platforms honoring them has pushed creators and builders in the space to consider alternative methods.
Yawww was the first Solana marketplace to ditch creator royalties earlier this summer in an apparent effort to draw traders away from the dominant Magic Eden, and the trend caught on across other platforms, as well. The recent launch of Hadeswap—a zero-royalty NFT trading platform built on liquidity pools—helped accelerate Magic Eden’s market share decline.
Magic Eden claimed last week that it would maintain creator royalties on its platform, instead partnering with NFT aggregator and marketplace Coral Cube to enable royalties-optional trading through its platform. But last Friday, bowing to pressure from rivals, Magic Eden changed course and said it would also make paying creator royalties optional.
Separately from Metaplex, noted pseudonymous NFT creator Frank—the founder of popular Solana projects DeGods and y00ts—shared his own proposal for addressing creator royalties across the ecosystem.
My thought process on what a solution to the 0% royalty movement could look like for Solana NFTs.https://t.co/MbEW52G5xY
— Frank (@frankdegods) October 21, 2022
Frank’s pitch similarly focuses on a new ecosystem-wide standard. He envisions a standard that enforces royalties on trades, includes a blacklist for marketplaces and platforms that try to evade them, and lets community members vote on a fixed royalty rate across all projects. He also believes that existing projects should be able to migrate to the new standard.
“We can either accept royalties going to zero as ‘the tragedy of the commons,’ or we can rally together as a community to solve the problem,” Frank wrote. “This entire ecosystem is driven by social consensus. If we all decide we want royalties, there is a way to make this happen. If we don’t, that’s fine too. The key is that we all control our destiny as an ecosystem.”


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SSANGYONG CONFIRMS ITS NEW LARGE SUV TO BE CALLED REXTON28-03-2017
- New large and authentic SUV will deliver style, a great driving experience, high levels of safety and new technology
- New car inherits its flagship DNA from original Rexton
- To be unveiled at the Seoul Motor Show, Thursday 30 March
SsangYong Motor Company, (CEO Jhong-Sik Choi; www.smotor.com/en) has announced that its new car to be launched this week will be called Rexton.
Developed under the project name of Y400 and seen as the LIV-2 concept at the Paris motor show in September 2016, the new car inherits the heritage and DNA of the original Rexton as a large, authentic SUV. It will be known internationally as Rexton, and ‘G4 Rexton’ in Korea.
SsangYong expects this new generation Rexton to compete with traditional D & E segment SUVs, and will continue the renewal of SsangYong’s brand identity which began with the launch of Tivoli. Inheriting the brand values of the original Rexton as its flagship, it will also further underpin the company’s reputation as Korea's oldest vehicle manufacturer and only 4x4 and SUV specialist producer.
With a refined and luxurious interior, the new Rexton will feature Apple Carplay and Android Auto with device mirroring, 3D Around View Monitoring (AVM) and a wide 9.2-inch HD screen.
The new car embodies robust and dynamic SUV styling and blends drivability with high levels of safety that includes nine airbags. With a front mounted engine, rear-wheel drive and 4x4, Rexton will be a class-leading contender. It will offer excellent driving characteristics on and off-road, balanced weight distribution, great towing capability and NVH performance.
Constructed using a Quad-Frame body structure using 1.5Gpa giga-steel - a world first, it also features 63% advanced high strength steel (AHSS) to create greatly improved body strength while reducing weight.
Rexton is 4,850mm long, 1,920mm wide, 1,800mm high, and has a 2,865mm wheelbase. It will be powered by both petrol and new clean-burning diesel engines.
The car will go on sale in Korea during the first half of this year, and internationally before the end of 2017.
SsangYong cars are manufactured in South Korea by SsangYong Motor, which is 73 per cent owned by the Indian engineering conglomerate Mahindra & Mahindra, and imported into the UK by SsangYong Motor UK. Established in 1954 it is Korea's oldest vehicle manufacturer and only 4x4 and SUV specialist producer.
There are currently some 60 SsangYong dealers covering England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with new locations being added to the network all the time. Further information is available from: www.ssangyonggb.co.uk