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More than 200 tubs of skin lightening cream removed from Stratford shops
PUBLISHED: 11:19 04 March 2013 | UPDATED: 11:21 04 March 2013
Hazardous skin lightening creams have been targeted by Trading Standards to halt the sale of them spreading throughout London.
More than 239 tubs were seized last week from two Stratford shops that cannot be named for legal reasons as part of an operation to take the potentially dangerous cosmetics off the streets.
The skin lightening creams contain high levels of hydroquione which is a known carcinogenic substance banned in Europe.
This latest seizure was found by Newham Council’s Trading Standards officers after approximately 2,500 tubs of the cream were confiscated in Canning Town last year.
The team are targeting labels marked hydroquione which they believe is being imported from Ghana, West Africa.
Cllr Unmesh Desai, executive member for Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour, said: “Parents and young people must be very vigilant for these creams.
“Newham is taking the lead in London by cracking down hard as we believe it is circulating across the capital.
“Anyone who comes across it should contact their local council’s trading standards office immediately.”
Members of the public are urged to contact Newham’s Trading Standards team if they spot the cream being sold in the borough by calling Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06.
If you value what this story gives you, please consider supporting the Newham Recorder. Click the link in the orange box above for details.


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A report by Pew Charitable Trusts indicated that about 12 million people use prepaid cards. Moreover, nearly 800 million transactions amounting to $20 billion were completed in 2003 alone. By 2015, the volume of prepaid card transactions had soared to about $317 billion, according to Business Insider Intelligence. The figures prove that consumers value prepaid cards, which are not going anywhere anytime soon.
Those who currently face financial challenges – or have faced them in the past – can benefit from using prepaid cards to pay their bills, curb overspending, and get a better handle on their financial situation. Keep reading to find out more about how prepaid cards can help consumers get their finances back on track after a setback.
A Way to Monitor Your Spending
A study by the Center for Financial Services Innovation reported that more than half of all adults are struggling financially, and nearly three quarters of the population studied did not even have a savings account. On top of that, the study reported that 77 percent of the individuals surveyed regularly use prepaid cards as a way to monitor their spending, to assist in budgeting, and to pay bills.
Many financial crises can be traced back to money mismanagement, and the ability to control one’s spending is one of the most notable benefits of using prepaid cards. People who like the envelope budgeting method—which entails separating cash into specific categories such as housing, food, and car payments—often find prepaid cards to be a modern way to follow its principles. Consumers can plan their purchases by allocating money to specific categories and loading one or more of their cards. Once the money is gone, they must decide whether they will take money from a different category or simply not spend any more on that category until the next time the category is replenished.
While prepaid cards undoubtedly make budgeting easier, there is still a substantial amount of effort required by the card user. It’s important to understand monthly, weekly, and daily expenditures and how they affect reload amounts. Consumers should prioritize their most critical expenses, then move on to any other expenses that are considered needs instead of wants.
A Better Alternative to Banks
Many prepaid card issuers advise their customers that prepaid cards are a better alternative to banks because any associated fees are stated upfront, and consumers don’t have to worry about unpleasant surprises such as overdraft or other fees. Checking and savings accounts feature a long list of disclosures and fees that can be difficult to decipher, particularly for those who may have experienced money management issues in the past.
In some instances, bank debit cards will allow a person to complete a purchase, although that amount is not available in their account. People on a budget often find it easier to use a prepaid debit card because they can avoid the additional burden of added fees from transactions that banks often approve. A prepaid debit card will not permit a transaction to be completed if it exceeds the amount available on the card. This, in turn, often causes prepaid card users to be more careful with planning their purchases, since they know the transaction will be declined if adequate funds aren’t available.
It may seem as if bank locations are plentiful, and this is generally true in major metropolitan areas. However, in certain urban markets and rural areas, access to brick-and-mortar bank locations is often scarce. Prepaid cards afford these individuals the convenience of paying their bills online and over the phone, while also giving them the option of having a powerful budgeting tool.
While sticking to a budget is often easier said than done, using a prepaid card could be the answer to helping those who are struggling financially to make better choices with their money. When choosing a prepaid card, it is important to weigh the pros and cons of each card, as well as to compare them against each other. Some websites offer a handy tool for this purpose. Provided that you conduct diligent research, you are sure to find the best prepaid card for you and to set yourself on the right course toward better financial management.
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Since late October, Barneys has been battling a PR nightmare that hit just in time for the holidays.
- No categories
French fashion house Céline received design patents for two of its iconic handbags to protect its designs and image, which seems to be a current trend in the fashion industry.
As luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton recently decided to forgo its expected appeal and take the fine handed down by Autorité des Marchés Financiers, or AMF, for acquiring shares in family-owned French leather goods maker Hermès, there are a few takeaways for the luxury industry.
Italian fashion house Gucci has filed a lawsuit against a number of counterfeit Web sites and online merchants to help protect the brand’s image, although the legal battles are not likely to stop counterfeiters.
U.S. label Michael Kors is protecting the reputation of its brand by filing a lawsuit against Costco Wholesale Corp. for falsely advertising that its products were sold at the retailer.
Luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton was fined $10.4 million by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers for its way of acquiring a share in family-owned French leather goods maker Hermès.
Family-owned Hermès filed a lawsuit against luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton in an attempt to cancel complex derivatives that allowed Dior’s parent to build up its ownership of Hermès.
Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana were sentenced to one year and eight months in prison for tax evasion, but the court’s decision is not likely to damage their brand in the long run.
The proposed bill to curtail the rampant sale of counterfeit luxury items in New York and protect brand integrity hones in on consumers rather than vendors.
Luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton filed another lawsuit June 4 against a manager at family-owned Hermès, which deepens the legal battle between the two and signifies that a reputation is at stake.


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We spent a LOVELY day in Disney World’s flagship park yesterday!
Some things are certainly different from the last time we popped into the Magic Kingdom, so we’re bringing you an update with alllll the news in construction and merchandise!
Who is behind what’s going on in Westview? Is Agnes who everyone thinks she really is? Is it all Mephisto?! Those are some of the questions you might have after watching the latest episodes of WandaVision.
While you wait for all of those (and hundreds of other) questions to get answered, you can stock up on all kinds of cool WandaVision merchandise, visit an awesome WandaVision photo op in Disneyland, or even get a behind-the-scenes look at the show. And today, while we were at Magic Kingdom, we spotted something NEW for WandaVision fans! Did this come out of the hex?
Hello from Magic Kingdom!
We spent a day wandering around all the lands just so we could get you the latest updates! Ready? Here we go!
It’s the holiday season at Disney World!
You can bet we’ve spent much of our time strolling through a decked-out Magic Kingdom, and we want to take you along! We’re checking out all the updates in Disney World’s flagship park in food, construction, and merchandise!
Hello from the Magic Kingdom!
We spent a day wandering around all the lands just to see what’s new — so here are the latest updates!
Hello friends! Today we’re headed to Magic Kingdom to check out what’s new!
The past few days have been absolutely bonkers around Disney World with the Festival of the Holidays starting at EPCOT, Thanksgiving crowds, and more holiday offerings and entertainment returning! Things likely won’t slow down anytime soon as we progress into the holiday season, but we’re excited to see what Disney has in store. So, if you’re planning to visit Magic Kingdom soon, what can you expect to see? Let’s find out!
Next year is a really exciting one for Disney World — the park is celebrating its 50th anniversary!
We’re really excited about all the ways Disney is planning to celebrate this momentous anniversary. Before we start celebrating that anniversary, there’s another one happening now that deserves our attention!


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Step by step, Tim Cook and his team are putting all the pieces in place to introduce The Next Big Thing in 2023 — the Apple Glasses, the device that will move us from the smartphone era into one in where wearables are the key to our information age existence. The latest chess move came out today in the form of the new iPad Pro 2020's secret weapon: a ToF sensor, which Apple calls the LiDAR sensor.
But what the hell is LiDAR, why is Apple calling its ToF LiDAR, and why is it so important for the future Apple AR Glasses — and the future of computing itself?
- Apple AR Glasses: Release date, price, specs and more
- Just in: iPhone 9 enters mass production - but what about the release date?
- Plus: The new iPad Pro is a laptop replacement — but it is not affordable
What is LiDAR?
How does LiDAR — Light Detection And Ranging — work?
In a nutshell, a laser — typically infrared — is fired in a pattern across whatever is in front of it. This is what illuminates the scene. A camera then measures the time each fired photon takes to get back to the emitter.
By measuring the time it takes to come back — hence its name, time of flight of the fired photon — you can calculate the distance between the camera and whatever objects the photons hit.
Furthermore, you can easily apply algorithms to analyze the pattern deformation, which give you a better understanding of the objects that the LiDAR is measuring and in turn offers data to the AI to identify objects too.
There are other considerations, such as close light sources and concave surfaces that could confuse the Time-of-Flight sensor, but those could be accounted to with other algorithms.
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From the instant measuring of distances between objects and your emitter obtained by the ToF sensor in the iPad — or a Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, for that matter — the CPU will be able to obtain precise geometrical 3D data from the world around it.
Why is Apple calling this LiDAR instead of ToF sensor?
Apple decided to call the iPad’s 3D sensor the “LiDAR sensor” for reasons I fail to comprehend. The fact is that LiDAR is a form of ToF, which is what Samsung and other manufacturers are calling it in their devices. Their sensors are mostly manufactured by Sony, which has 95% of the market share for this kind of technology. In fact, Apple is allegedly using the same Sony ToF sensors, too.
Perhaps Apple, always the master of marketing, did it to differentiate itself from everyone else, knowing that one, everyone is using the term ToF and, two, not many people have a clue of what ToF is. It’s one of those obscure technical terms that get thrown around in spec sheets.
At least people has been hearing about LiDAR for a while. Many know these are the cameras that help autonomous cars to recognize the world around them and move safely. In fact, Apple has been working with LiDAR for a while on its Project Titan, the infamous Apple Car that never saw the light of day.
Apple also claims on its webpage that NASA is using the same technology in the Mars Rover 2020 and it’s true. Curiosity uses it, too. Just definitely not the sensor Apple is using but a much more sophisticated one. And in fact many of them and for more purposes than terrain navigation.
Does it work well?
During Apple's virtual press preview for the new iPad Pro, Tom's Guide editor in chief Mark Spoonauer got a sneak peek of some of the AR apps that will be available and optimized for the iPad Pro's LiDAR scanner, including a game called Hot Lava that brings (you guessed it) hot lava right into your living room along with a very realistic looking main character.
The Complete Anatomy app was also impressive, as it can show you in real time which muscles the person in front of you are using as they move around. And IKEA Place looked a lot more snappy, as Apple's A12Z Bionic chip makes setting up your virtual room instantaneous. Presumably, the horsepower for the Apple Glasses would reside in your iPhone or iPad, but the glasses themselves would have a LiDAR scanner on board.
Why LiDAR is crucial for the Apple Glasses
The Apple Glasses will need this 3D sensing technology to be working at 110% of its capacity when they a appear sometime in 2023. As the iPad Pro will demonstrate, truly convincing augmented reality applications need to have instant and constant knowledge of its surroundings in order to successfully merge the virtual imagery with the real world.
Knowing how the world around you looks in 3D at all times will allow you to precisely position 3D objects on the world, apply textures to real world objects, and put virtual objects behind physical objects. If you want your new fantastic mixed world to feel real to your eyes, you need all these abilities working constantly at a high refresh rate. This is how a merged reality may look on the Apple Glasses — albeit a dystopian reality:
Reportedly, the iPad Pro ToF has a 120Hz refresh rate, which lines up with the rest of the industry.
It also needs the longest range possible, so you can convincingly build your world in open spaces. Apple claims that the range of the ToF sensor in the iPad Pro is 5 meters.
By deploying ToF on the iPad Pro — and on the iPhone 12 Pro line by the end of the year — Apple will be building on the foundation it already has going with previous versions of its augmented reality architecture.
The addition of ToF in real consumer products will allow the company to keep refining its artificial intelligence algorithms in the real world, which is crucial for the Apple Glasses to deliver a flawless experience when they come out in a few years.
This process of refinement will get further advanced by Apple's rumored AR/VR headset in 2022 —probably geared towards early adopters and developers. That will be the last stage before Cupertino releases its allegedly nimble Apple Glasses, once the components are mature enough and, more importantly, its AR platform has a deep understanding of the world around it.
And that’s the thing that should get you excited about today’s announcement. What you are seeing deployed today will result in some cool games and apps for the iPad and iPhone, but what you are actually witnessing is the ramp up to a new technology world in which our phones will eventually disappear — replaced by a constellation of wearable devices.
And the Apple Glasses will be at the center of that new computing revolution.
Jesus Diaz founded the new Sploid for Gawker Media after seven years working at Gizmodo, where he helmed the lost-in-a-bar iPhone 4 story and wrote old angry man rants, among other things. He's a creative director, screenwriter, and producer at The Magic Sauce, and currently writes for Fast Company and Tom's Guide.


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Back to Listing
International Trade Tips
01 August 2012
The promotional products industry on the international stage suffered in the Global Financial Crises in much the same way as many other industries did, according to The Kanga Group’s Managing Director, Annalise Law. She also notes that Australia, and more specifically her promotional marketing products business, bucked that trend.
“For the past four years, The Kanga Group has undergone substantial, sustainable growth – 100 percent year on year. Our story is a good one: we have overseas offices and very robust systems. We’ve invested heavily in technology to manage the logistics, sales, supply, CRM, etc, needed to run an international operation. People seem to find our going ‘international’ the most interesting and risky step. In the past year we’ve shipped more than 4 million items to 32 countries – it’s what we do. I actually have an import export business with incredible customer service,” says Annalise, explaining her company’s ongoing international and local success.
Annalise, who grew up attending overseas promotion trade shows with her parents for their family business, now goes every year for her own business: “We attend two show types. Ideas came from America and Europe. Their shows were for innovation and China’s for replication.”
Annalise’s hot tip though is that’s all changing: “The really innovative products and ideas are coming from China, now. I’ll be attending the shows with a complete change of focus – China’s the place.”


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Computer hackers stole the credit card information and some personal data of approximately 19,000 customers who purchased DSL equipment via AT&T’s online store. Subscribers to its service, though, were not affected.
The theft occurred over the weekend, AT&T said, and is currently under investigation by authorities.
The company is offering to pay for credit monitoring services for customers who were affected by the security breach.
“We recognize that there is an active market for illegally obtained personal information. We are committed to both protecting our customers’ privacy and to weeding out and punishing the violators,” said Priscilla Hill-Ardoin, AT&T’s chief privacy officer.
Companies have been separated from their customers’ data in a myriad of ways over the last few years. Some organizations have lost data when laptops containing identifying information were lost or stolen. Other firms — most notably data broker Choicepoint — have been duped into handing over customer data; in Choicepoint’s case, customer data was actually faxed to identity thieves posing as clients.
Hack attacks, such as the one against AT&T, are particulary worrisome because often in these cases, even if the company does everything right, its systems may still be vulnerable.
As a result, there has been an erosion of trust by consumers in e-commerce transactions, fueled in part by incidents such as these.
“Stories like this make the public a little wary of conducting business online,” Ron O’Brien, senior security consultant for Sophos, told TechNewsWorld. “At the same time though, it is a wake-up call for the vendor to make sure its method of collecting data is completely secure.”
By and large, however, e-commerce is safe, he remarked. “The economy is such that it now depends on consumers being able to conduct transactions online.”
That said, certain practices on the part of the vendor can maintain trust with the consumer even when attacks happen, he noted.
For starters, notification by vendors is key. Many companies are obliged to notify customers when their data has been potentially compromised thanks to strict consumer laws passed in many states, most notably California. There is a movement underfoot in Congress, though, to give companies greater discretion as to the circumstances in which they must notify consumers.
This is a mistake, according to O’Brien. “There needs to be trust by consumers in their vendors,” he said.
Another goodwill gesture on the part of vendors that is rapidly reaching the status of best practice is to offer free credit monitoring services to customers that are affected by a breach, as AT&T has done in this case.


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A track-only version of their track-to-road car. This is confusing.
So when McLaren introduced the Senna, they said that it was the ultimate expression... (read more)
In 2019, SUVs are a fact of life and account for the majority category of new cars sold around the world; sad as it is. Increasingly,... (read more)
It was inevitable that McLaren would eventually offer up an open top version of the mad 600LT supercar, itself a more hardcore ‘Longt... (read more)
Informed guessing says, yes.
McLaren, the British supercar specialist marque, have released a teaser image of what they’re saying is a new Longtail mod... (read more)
But….Wouldn’t a bespoke example of the actual McLaren Senna car be more appropriate as a tribute to the man?
It’s been 30 years sin... (read more)
Meet three pairs of limited edition McLarens. They’re part of a new collection the company has unveiled called ‘Racing Through The Ag... (read more)
And it's lost none of the Coupés presence, either.
British supercar marque McLaren could have very easily made their new 720S Spider... (read more)
It says ‘Stealth’ but never mind that.
British supercar marque McLaren have released yet another special-edition of one of its cars,... (read more)
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The Apple Card has only been available for a few months, yet it’s already at the basis of a regulatory investigation. However, this one doesn’t seem like it can be blamed on the tech company alone.
There are issues raised regarding gender bias for credit line approvals. The Apple Card is accused of setting different credit limits for men and women, with blame being thrown at its partner Goldman Sachs as well.
Apple Card Gender Bias
David Heinemeir Hansson, a Danish entrepreneur as well as software developer was the first to report this issue. He tweeted that his wife Jamie was denied a credit line increase on the Apple Card, yet she has a higher credit score than him.
“My wife and I file joint tax returns, live in a community-property state, and have been married for a long time. Yet, apple’s black box algorithm thinks I deserve 20x the credit limit she does,” wrote.
The couple ended up filing a formal internal complaint after raising the issue with Apple’s customer service. While they were assured repeatedly that it was not a case of discrimination, Jamie’s credit limit was eventually raised to be the same as her husband’s, but for him that didn’t address the problem properly.
“This is not just about looking into one algorithm,” wrote the superintendent of New York’s State Department of Financial Services, Linda Lacewell. “DFS wants to work with the tech community to make sure consumers nationwide can have confidence that the algorithms that increasingly impact their ability to access financial services do not discriminate and instead treat all individuals equally and fairly.”
Just like the way facial recognition was found to have a bias, so does the Apple Card algorithm. In both situations, it’s computers that are committing the ultimate bias, yet those algorithms are programmed by people, so the question is always whether the computers and algorithms are ultimately passing on the biases of programmers.
Speaking to the issue of judging women and men separately, Aaron Klein, a Brookings Institution fellow, explained, “Women tend to be credit risks. While it is illegal to discriminate, the data indicates that controlling for income, and other things, women are better credit risks. So giving men better terms of credit is both illegal and seems to be inconsistent with international experience.”
The public response to this issue has forced Goldman Sachs to issue a response. They stressed that credit assessments are made based on individual income and creditworthiness, and this could lead to family members having “significantly different credit decisions.”
Spokesman for Goldman Sachs Andrew Williams stressed that “in all cases, we have not and will not make decisions based on factors like gender.”
Share of the Blame
After a former Apple employee tweeted that it was disappointing to him that this is going on, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak replied that “the same thing happened to us (10X) despite not having any separate assets or accounts. Some say the blame is on Goldman Sachs, but the way Apple is attached, they should share responsibility.”
Do you think Apple is equally at fault as Goldman Sachs for its unequal credit approvals of Apple Card? Do you have the Apple Card and noticed the gender bias? Tell us you experiences in the comments below.
Image Credit: Apple.com and Public domain
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By Dave Ongie, News Editor
It was an odd sight indeed to see a pair of large motorcoaches pull up the gravel parking lot onto Sam Widener’s property last Tuesday afternoon. One by one, visitors from around the United States and several foreign countries filed off the buses and received a hearty welcome from Widener and his family before getting a closer look at Wincrest Angus.
By Widener’s own admission, his family farm is not a large operation, certainly not one that routinely draws busloads of sightseers. Roughly 70 head of cattle are raised on the property, which is bordered on all sides by subdivisions on a landscape that has changed drastically since the farm was established around the turn of the 20th Century.
So what inspired the attendees of the annual Certified Angus Beef Annual Conference to climb on a bus in Asheville, N.C. – home base of this year’s conference – and take a field trip over the mountains to Johnson City? Kara Lee, Production Brand Manager for the Certified Angus Beef brand, chalked it up to the logo painted on the side of Widener’s barn and Food City, which earned the distinction of being named Retailer of the Year by Certified Angus Beef at this year’s conference.
Last year, a large barn on Widener’s farm was selected as one of 40 barns in 40 communities across America to have the Certified Angus Beef logo painted onto it. The logo was part of a throwback marketing campaign to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Certified Angus Beef b rand.
So while the quantity of cattle raised on the Wideners’ farm may not be anything to write home about, the quality is certainly noteworthy. Angus cattle have been raised on the property since 1951.
During his remarks to his guests, Widener noted that Tennessee was the first state to implement a Beef Quality Assurance process.
“Practically every state has a Beef Quality Assurance program now,” he said.
After enjoying lunch and a tour of Wincrest Angus, the visitors loaded up and took the short drive over to the Food City location on North State of Franklin where they received a presentation from Food City president and CEO Steve Smith before touring the store.
Smith briefed the visitors on the grocery chain’s rapid growth, which he chalks up to supplying customers with high quality products, including Certified Angus Beef.
“The Certified Angus Beef brand plays right into that sweet spot for us, because really, center of the plate is so important to our customers,” Smith said.
When presenting Food City with the Retailer of the Year award, the folks at Certified Angus Beef noted that the Abingdon, Virginia-based chain has set the bar high in terms of quality and service by employing trained butchers in each store to property cut the meat, help customers choose the correct cut and offer preparation tips.
“Customers understand the difference, and it’s driven by the people in our stores,” says Dan Glei, executive vice president of marketing and merchandising at Food City. “Our commitment to having a strong, highly trained butcher in the store makes all the difference.”


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Maharani will sell more than Maharaja: Maharashtra minister says name liquor brand on women to push sales
Maharashtra water resources and irrigation minister Girish Mahajan created a stir when he said that liquor manufacturers should name their alcohol brands after women to push sales.
The minister made the sexist remark while speaking at a function at the Satpuda cooperative sugar factory in Nandurbar in north Maharashtra.
The minister said, "One brand of alcohol is Bhingari, another is called Bobby and yet another is named Julie" and added that these brands register high sales. "So, I asked you, what is the name of your liquor brand? You said Maharaja. Then, how can things fit in? Change it to Maharani and see how the sales boom," the minister told the gathering.
"The trend these days is to name alcohol brands after women. Same holds true for tobacco brands as well with names like Kamal, Vimal and Suman," the Maharashtra minister said.
Caught in the eye of controversy, Girish Mahajan today clarified that his remarks were a joke. "I was in Sharada, where a guest told me that their brand of liquor has no demand. Thus, I jokingly asked him to change the name of their brand. My intention was not to hurt anyone's sentiment," he said and apologised for the remarks.
"I don't consume liquor or tobacco. I have always tried to raise my voice against it. I have never made such comments in my career of 25 years. My intention was not to hurt anyone." the Maharashtra minister said.
A complaint has been filed against the Maharashtra minister by a social activist following his sexist remarks on women.
(With inputs from Mayuresh Ganapatye)
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Google took almost three years to disclose to the open information group WikiLeaks that it had handed over emails and other digital data belonging to three of its staffers to the US government, under a secret search warrant issued by a federal judge.
Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, believes his company is still in the very early stages of reaching its full potential.
Will the Internet as we know it disappear soon? Google's Eric Schmidt sure thinks so.
Jack Ma, Alibaba's founder, said one of the reasons his company is so successful is he hires a lot of women. Plus, Ma on Hollywood ambitions.
In a rebuke to a legion of online supporters and what the journalist and one-time member of Anonymous called a “dangerous precedent”, Barrett Brown was sentenced to 63 months in prison by a federal judge in Dallas on Thursday.
Lobby groups representing Google, Amazon and other powerful US tech multinationals have launched a fierce attack on global plans to stamp out artificial corporate structures used to avoid tax.
Google’s new version of its US defence-developed 6ft 2in, 25st Atlas humanoid robot can now operate for up to an hour without wires.
While Facebook is counting on the $2 billion purchase of Oculus to win in virtual reality, Google says users just need an a phone and some cardboard.
Despite a disappointing outlook for 2015, IBM CFO Martin Schroeter tells CNBC the company's latest earnings report reflects its fast-growing cloud business.
Microsoft's Outlook email service in China was hacked by the country's censorship authority, an internet watchdog has claimed, as the government continues its crackdown on U.S. technology giants.


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Only a few minutes after Google's parent company, Alphabet, posted its quarterly earnings, after-hours trading pushed its stock price, surpassing Apple's and making it the world's most valuable company.
The stock price increase makes the company worth $570 billion, comfortably passing Apple's $539 billion valuation.
Of course, it's important to note that it's not yet certain that the price will hold into regular trading — stock prices often move around in times when earnings are announced. Still, it's not insignificant news considering that this is the first time since 2010 that Google has been more valuable than Apple. The news could be temporary, and it means little more than something to brag about, but it is still a noteworthy moment.
Apple and Google traded places as most valuable company quite a bit between 2008 and 2010, before Apple jumped in value between 2010 and 2012, going from being worth $180 billion to being worth a whopping $650 billion. From Google's public IPO in 2004 until April 2008, shortly after the iPhone was released, Google stayed more valuable than Apple.
Google recently announced a business shakeup that saw the creation of its parent company, Alphabet. The Google brand now refers to the Alphabet company that oversees Internet-based products like search and Android, while other divisions, like the Life Sciences branch of Google, now fall under the Alphabet umbrella.
While the company posted a loss of its "non-Google" business of around $3.5 billion during 2015, it made up for it, posting profits of around $23 billion for its Google segment.


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SEATTLE—Property and casualty insurance giant Safeco has named David Monfried senior vice president of corporate communications. Monfried most recently headed corporate communications for MetLife in New York City, where he reorganized the company’s global communications, implemented its worldwide brand management program, and led acquisition and merger communications.
Monfried also has served as vice president of corporate communications for The St. Paul Companies (now Travelers), managing the company’s internal and external communications programs.
During the past year, Monfried has been a marketing and communications consultant for Safeco.
He replaces Laurie Johnson, who had been leading Safeco’s marketing and communications functions and was recently named vice president, online strategy. In her new role, Johnson is overseeing the development of an online strategy and roadmap for the next generation of the company’s website.


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From Canon’s press release:
Canon expands its commanding presence in the imaging industry with the rollout of nearly two dozen new consumer products at the 2004 Photo Marketing Association exhibit Feb. 12-15. Building on the company’s recently announced record results for 2003, Canon’s big picture for 2004 features a battery of new imaging products designed to fit pro photographers’ needs and consumers’ lifestyles.
“Canon is proudly in the position of imaging industry leadership thanks to the foresight, creativity, and talents of our engineers and designers who consistently find new ways to improve technology for real world applications,” said Yukiaki Hashimoto, senior vice president and general manager of the consumer imaging group at Canon U.S.A., Inc, a subsidiary of Canon Inc. (NYSE: CAJ). “It is our goal
- Canon pulls veil off its 4K prosumer and waterproof camcorders at CES 2019
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Could web-based development (game) engines be the end of App Stores?
If you own a phone, you have used an App Store to download and/or purchase an application. The convenience of having every conceivable tool for taking better photos, measuring your space, buying fashion, learning or blasting aliens has propelled a massive ecosystem, that for the past decade has been maturing under the watchful eye of gatekeepers Apple & Google. In just 6 weeks, the “lawsuit heard round the software world” between Epic Games and Apple has turned a $77 billion industry on its head.
Even Microsoft’s Mixed Reality guru, Alex Kipman suggests a future without App Stores in this Wall Street Journal Interview on May 13, 2021.
UPDATE (NOV 18, 2020): Apple has capitulated to the pressures of the market and reduced their App Store fee from 30% to 15% starting January 1, 2021. This is a huge win for developers everywhere and shows that Apple remains the trend setter and the best platform for distribution of apps…
UPDATE (March 22, 2021): Google updates their Play Store commission to 15%. Apple CEO Tim Cook to testify in court against Epic Games.
WITH ONE CAVEAT: This generosity is only for businesses and developers making less than $1m/year. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook said in an official statement “Small businesses are the backbone of our global economy and the beating heart of innovation and opportunity in communities around the world. We’re launching this program to help small business owners write the next chapter of creativity and prosperity on the App Store, and to build the kind of quality apps our customers love. The App Store has been an engine of economic growth like none other, creating millions of new jobs and a pathway to entrepreneurship accessible to anyone with a great idea. Our new program carries that progress forward — helping developers fund their small businesses, take risks on new ideas, expand their teams, and continue to make apps that enrich people’s lives.”
The App Store Decade
Apple’s App Store launched in July 2008 quickly providing a one-stop shop for any and all programs you may need on your phone. The App Store launched with just 500 apps; today it has over 1.8 million applications. When you combine this with the over 2.5 million applications on Google Play; you begin to realize the enormous value these stores have given to consumers and developers alike.
Apple and Google also reduced the traditional margin for software — from >50% for physical retail to only 30% while also taking care of payment processing and providing new tools and algorithms for consumers to find the right apps at the right time. Over the past decade, the standard 30% commission fee model has been replicated by everyone from Steam (Valve), Unity, Microsoft, Facebook (Oculus), and many more, but this trend is slowly starting to change.
Important Note: Apple and Google’s App Stores do not take a commission on the sale of physical goods/services like Amazon, Uber, or even content such as Netflix, Kindle, Amazon Prime, etc. referred to as ‘reader apps’.
In November 2018, Steam made adjustments to their developer commission structure to put more money in the pockets of the developers and companies that work so hard to produce amazing content. Immediately after this, in December 2018, Epic Games launched their own app store with a dramatic twist; Epic offered developers the opportunity to sell their games and keep 88% of the proceeds instead of the traditional 70%. For anyone who has run a business, it is easy to understand that 18% can be the difference between success and failure.
“The 70/30 percent split was a breakthrough more than a decade ago with the advent of Steam, the Apple App Store, and Google Play. But today, digital software stores have grown into a $25B+ business worldwide across all platforms, yet the economies of scale have not benefited developers. In our analysis, stores are marking up their costs 300 percent to 400 percent. We simply aim to give developers a better deal.”
— Epic CEO, Tim Sweeney
Fast forward only 12 months from Sweeney’s statement and Apple’s App Store revenue increased to over $50B alone.
Of all the mobile games in world, none has taken off so massively as the multi-player phenomenon known as Fortnite. Fortnite has over 350 million users playing a combined 3.2B hours of the game, in April 2020 alone!
Enter the lawsuits…
Epic Games (valued at $17.4B) is the maker of the Unreal Engine, and the massive online, cross-platform game, Fortnite. On September 13, Epic pushed an update to the game that would enable players to purchase in-app currency ‘V-Bucks’ via Epic’s own app store for a 20% discount, circumventing the Apple App Store altogether. Fully aware that this was in breach of Apple’s terms and conditions, Epic was prepared for Apple removing the offending app from their store. Epic filed suit and pushed a video to all 350 million of their users accusing Apple of the very thing they had railed against in their 1984 ad for the Macintosh computer. Read the timeline of events here.
In its massive anti-trust lawsuit, the company wrote “Epic brings this suit to end Apple’s unfair and anti-competitive actions that Apple undertakes to unlawfully maintain its monopoly in two distinct, multibillion dollar markets: (i) the iOS App Distribution Market, and (ii) the iOS In-App Payment Processing Market”
Later that day, Google removed Fortnite from their app store and Epic responded in-kind with another monopoly lawsuit. You would think that suing two TRILLION dollar companies would be costly and you would be right, but far less than the 30% the app stores are taking on a game estimated to rake in over $1B a year!
As of this writing, Apple has filed a counter suit against Epic stating “There is nothing anticompetitive about charging a commission for others to use one’s service, many platforms — including Epic’s own app marketplace and Unreal Engine — do just that.”
There has even been a new Coalition for App Fairness created that claims “Everyday, Apple taxes consumers and crushes innovation” with prominent members like Epic, Spotify, Deezer and Basecamp.
Microsoft, who recently acquired game studio ZeniMax and their Game Publishing division, Bethesda Games for $7.5B in cash, is trying position themselves in the best possible light sharing their ‘10 app store principles to promote choice, fairness and innovation’ on an internal blog.
It would seem that there is a major tectonic shift in how games and other applications are created and shared/sold to users around the world.
Rise of the Game Engines
Another massive event occurred recently when Epic’s game engine rival, Unity Technologies (U, NYSE) went public (IPO) raising over $1B in fresh capital valuing the company at over $13B on launch. Unity’s stock closed on day one up about 31%, to $68 a share. As of October 12, 2020, Unity’s price was $92.00 for a market cap of over $24B.
Unity’s interactive, real-time 3D game engine is a rival to Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. Unity CEO John Riccitiello has been noted as saying “[Epic is] a very good and noble company, and they do some really cool things that we benchmark against,” he said. “But… I don’t think of them as competitors.”
So what is a ‘game engine’ anyway?
Development (Game) Engine (Wikipedia): a software-development environment designed for people to build experiences or video games. Developers use these engines to construct games for consoles, mobile devices, and personal computers. The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine, sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, scene graph, and may include video support.
Things seem to be really heating up in the development (game) engine space. But in reality, there are still only two main players in this space.
“So instead of a choice of half a dozen rendering engines, we’re now down to 2 and a 1/4 and one of those (Mozilla) is on life support” — Rene Ritchie
With all this chaos of lawsuits, app stores and IPO’s, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that consumers now have really powerful supercomputers in their pockets and the most ubiquitous content delivery system in the world has improved by leaps and bounds. This ‘original app store’ is also known as the internet.
While development (game) engines like Unity and Unreal represent nearly all of the apps developed on the app stores, they actually represent a very small number of applications and services that are delivered every day, for free on the web.
Enter a new type of development engine, one that uses the power of the web to unlock access to apps, games, education tools, marketing, training, advertising all without having to pay a single % to anyone. Enter the Metaverse.
“The Metaverse is going to be some sort of real time 3D social medium where instead of sending messages and pictures to each other asynchronously, you’re together with them and in a virtual world and interacting and having fun experiences which might span anything from purely games to purely social experiences.” — Tim Sweeney, Epic CEO
Wikipedia describes the Metaverse as “a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet.”
Before we can get to the point where we all put on glasses and live, work and learn in a completely virtual world, we will have to prepare society for less physical contact, but more social interaction. The pandemic certainly sped this up by connecting billions of people on Teams, Hangouts, House Party and of course Zoom, all delivered via the web, and the app stores.
But watching hours of zoom calls lacks the presence and physical cues of meeting in real live (IRL). Technologies like VR and AR are starting to bridge the communication gap and are rapidly advancing towards maturity.
The author has also contributed to a free global resource guide to virtual, augmented & mixed Reality (XR) collaboration tools to help individuals and organizations understand the best practices and available options of these tools. Download the guide and access the directory at XRCollaboration.com
Why am I mentioning XR in an article about game engines? Good question…
Every virtual experience you have had whether it was a dancing hot dog, face-filter, animal in your space, or slicing fruit in VR, every one of these experiences were built with the same game engines that power all the mobile apps on the app store. They power EVERY digital experience we have with the exception of video. Even live concerts are bringing in millions of participants in these game engine created virtual worlds.
Over the past 10 years, in the era of the app store, Unity and Unreal Engine reigned supreme in the mobile app market. They also play in the elite world of AAA games with a few other players like Crytek’s CryEngine, EA Sports’ Frostbite and Microsoft’s DirectX. Here are a list of the major game engines based on their ecosystem (let me know if I missed any):
The Rise of Web Engines
Web development engines have mostly come out of research labs at universities such as MIT. These ‘game’ engines have focused most of their efforts on games, and tried to compete with mainstream engines like Unity & Unreal, but since the web had some fundamental obstacles such as single-thread CPU access and the lack of a robust and simple creation editor, most of these have been relegated to obscurity. Recently there has been a resurgence of highly optimized, mobile-first architectures, combined with the every growing power of mobile devices, opening the door to delivering app-quality games and experiences over the web.
In June 2020 at Augmented World Expo, a new web-based game engine was introduced after being in stealth development under the name Cherry3D for four years. Forbes referred to MetaVRse as the ‘3D Game Engine for Business’ and prominent XR blogger, Skarred Ghost called MetaVRse the ‘XR Engine for Enterprise’
Paid Endorsement Notice: The Author is the Co-Founder & CEO of MetaVRse.
The MetaVRse Engine has already demonstrated the ability to push over 1M polygons on a mobile device with photorealistic quality and has a robust and versatile feature roadmap that will give developers and creatives a powerful new tool that is no longer bound to the need for any app stores. You can try the list of live demos yourself on any device.
Building with MetaVRse is 3X faster and 2X simpler than building with Unity — Sikaar Keita, Head of XR Lab at Oracle
Once written off like Flash and HTML5, web-based game engines are finally catching up to the power of the incumbents and could power the next generation of mobile apps, games, VR and AR as the fight for the 30% rages on.
The question we posed at the beginning of this article was ‘Could web-based development (game) engines be the end of the App Stores?’ While it seems unlikely that users will want to fully surrender the benefits of walled gardens, the Apple/Epic lawsuit is part of a larger struggle where developers will take advantage of new and emerging technologies in order to reduce platform commission costs. This “flight to the web” will explode if Apple proves to be the winner.
Only time will tell, but at least developers and creatives now have powerful new options to consider when building their next 3D game or experience for mobile without having to consider app approvals, commissions and censorship.
One thing is certain, the world is now becoming aware of what a game engine is and how much these invaluable tools empower us as we live, play and socialize on our devices upwards of four hours a day on average. I think we can all imagine a time where we can save 30% on our apps.
About the author
Alan Smithson’s purpose in life is to inspire and educate people to think and act in a socially, economically and environmentally sustainable way.
Mr. Smithson is the CEO of MetaVRse, a universal, web-based 3D creation platform that enables anyone to leverage the power of spatial computing. He is a proud Father, Business Leader, TEDx Speaker, and Podcast Host. Previous to MetaVRse, Mr. Smithson co-invented the World’s first touchscreen DJ system, Emulator — featured on Dragons’ Den and winning DJ Mag’s Innovative Product of the Year in 2011. His 10-year-old daughter invented sandals that leave a heart-shaped tan line on your feet called Love Sandal winning Top 20 Under 20 at only 10 years old. He is an Independent Global Advisor on the Business of XR.


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According to Nick Pinkston, the world’s components mostly lay jumbled in an old-school, fragmented environment where the customer in search of the right item ultimately suffers. So while the business of industrial hardware procurement is critical, it is also incomplete.
For Pinkston and longtime collaborator Jeremy Herrman, there’s an obvious solution, though it’s not exactly simple: the hardware industry is in desperate need of its own dedicated, vertical marketplace.
Volition was born in 2019 as a fix, designed to support buyers with a marketplace of vetted suppliers offering transparent pricing and a user-friendly interface. The platform intends to be “the hub that organizes all of the world’s components” and runs on a data processing system that can ingest complex product data and harmonize it into a database.
“We think Silicon Valley has largely forgotten about the industrial world,” Pinkston explains, “and we want to act as a bridge between the latest technology and the companies that make the components that build our world.”
So if Pinkston and Herrman – equipped with entrepreneurial and tech pedigrees – can get this off the ground, will sellers and buyers flock to it? So far, so good. Volition recently completed the core build-out of the platform and spent most of its stealth mode pitching the concept to industry stakeholders, the result of which, says Pinkston, is $200 million in signed commitments from buyers who plan to move their spend once the platform is live.
Now, Volition is ready to net commitments from suppliers — and hopes to sway them by targeting the pain points that often keep respected brands from playing ball with the likes of AmazonBusiness. For example, explains Pinkston, many shy away from opportunities outside of their traditional channels because of the time and cost involved in setup, which costs sellers their money and effort if, for example, they struggle to effectively sell to platform customers. In the case of Volition, suppliers can list their products at no cost and with minimal setup. The seller only pays when a customer purchases their products.
Not to mention, Volition believes its value lies in the fact that it’s been developed from the ground up for the hardware market. Pinkston believes industrial and hardware e-commerce is the most challenging of any industry, and it comes down to the heavy customization and widely varying language used to describe product content. He says that most marketplace platforms have been built to address consumer needs. As an example, there’s no question that something like t-shirt search customization is a far simpler proposition than spec’ing a motor, and Pinkston feels that Volition offers a language-processing advantage that goes beyond anything that exists in the market today.
“General purpose marketplaces are very reliant on search systems, but that doesn’t work when specs are extremely subtle,” explains Pinkston. “I think our user interface on Volition is the only one that actually can do this to scale.”
Volition’s platform was built from scratch when team members determined, after evaluating “basically every off-the-shelf tool,” that the only way to approach this market was from the ground up. They use an end-to-end approach that supports millions of products in a way that Pinkston claims is very tolerant of changes. It operates as a storefront with a variety of search methods that assists users in quickly finding, understanding, utilizing and ordering the right parts for the job. And users can check out all at once with multiple vendors, streamlining the transaction process.
Volition has so far received more than $6 million in seed funding, and company leaders say its effective presentation and intuitive functionality makes it a no-brainer for most of the companies who evaluate it. With 10 million SKUs and 6,000 brands, the challenge is vast but the objective is simple. Says Pinkston, “Our goal is to organize the world’s parts.”
To learn more about how to list products on Volition, visit https://www.govolition.com/suppliers.


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According to news, hackers have invented a drone capable of stealing contents off your cell phone. The hackers are conducting experiments with the drones in London. The results of the research will be presented at Black Hat Asia cyber security conference in Singapore.
The name of the technology is Snoopy and the drone is equipped with it. The drone can target a cell phone if the phone’s WiFi connection is on. The drone is able to send a signal back pretending to be the network you are connected to previously. As soon as the mobile phone is connected to the drone, all the data on the phone will start to be shared on the drone.
Wilkinson, the developer of the drone technology, says that the he is an ethical hacker, and the purpose of the new technology is to increase awareness of the flaws in smartphones of today.
Installing this technology on drones will create threats since drones are totally mobile and pedestrian cannot see them. So, drone can follow people without getting detected.
While most of the uses of the technology are creepy, the law enforcement agencies can also use this technology. For instance, these drones can be used to identify looters in a riot.
If users want to protect themselves from the drones, all they need to do is switch off the cell phone Wifi connection.


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As ever, it's been a confusing time for Undertale fans. A few days ago, the official Undertale Twitter account released a file for something that seemed to be a survey, but turned out to be a demo for the follow-up game to Undertale. Named Deltarune, the game's first chapter kept players entertained for between two to three hours, and even came with its own original soundtrack.
Ask any Undertale fan what they love most about the game and chances are they'll name the soundtrack. The original music was composed by creator Toby Fox, and received a great deal of praise for its clever use of leitmotifs (recurring themes) to represent each of the main characters. Like 8-bit Wagner, really.
UPDATE 31/10/2018: Since the events of earlier today, in which the Undertale Twitter account released an entirely new game onto the internet with no warning, multiple players have reported issues when uninstalling the game.
UPDATE 28/8/18: Nintendo's latest Nindies Showcase was positively heaving with rapid-fire, blink-and-you'll miss it details, including the long-awaited release date for Undertale on Switch, now confirmed to be September 18th.
US players can pre-purchase the game on Switch's eShop right now for $14.99 (about £12), and Undertale's official Twitter page notes that pre-purchases are heading to Europe next week.
ORIGINAL STORY 13/8/18: Developer Toby Fox has announced that beloved lo-fi RPG and endless meme generator Undertale will be coming to Switch in September - in digital and physical forms.
Undertale, Toby Fox's cult classic RPG that takes its inspiration from Nintendo's Earthbound series, among other things, is coming to Nintendo hardware for the first time.
Undertale is a game all about endings, so it's fitting that its console release comes towards the tail-end of one particular piece of hardware's life. If this is a finale of sorts for Sony's PlayStation Vita, then it's a wonderfully apt one - there's something irresistible about the pairing of a handheld that became the home of a number of indie darlings and this, the indie phenomenon of the past few years.
Developer: Toby Fox
Undertale fans are known for being a little pushy when it comes to ensuring their game receives the attention they feel it deserves, but this perhaps takes it to the next level.
The 2016 Independent Games Festival has revealed the finalists for its upcoming awards ceremony to take place at this year's Game Developer's Conference.
While it didn't quite come out of nowhere, nobody could have predicted just how huge Undertale would become this year. At the time of writing, 19,394 positive reviews to 321. Half a million sales, by SteamSpy estimation. Beating Ocarina of Time in GameFAQs' Best Games Ever list. Making people give a crap about GameFAQs' Best Games Ever list. It's quite the thing.


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Denver, CO (PRWEB) August 14, 2008
Silent Message, an organization without political or religious affiliations, will be promoting a boycott of all Chinese products for the last week of the Olympic games August 18-24, 2008.
Tibet was invaded in 1949 by China in an unprovoked and unilateral attack that was rationalized by China as an act to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. Nothing in history clearly points to this as both countries have their own unique history and culture, with Tibet restating her independence again in 1911. It is ironic that such a circumstance should befall the peaceful entity of Tibet, with the Buddhist faith as it's moral compass and cultural consciousness. Since China annexed Tibet, the Chinese occupation has destroyed thousands of monasteries, killed and imprisoned over one million Tibetan people, and have profoundly suppressed Tibetan culture.
In 1959 HH, The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, fled his native Tibet to seek political asylum in India, where he has lived ever since. From time to time China has made political gestures towards Tibet's government in exile, but these are smoke-and-mirrors meetings that take place in out-of-the-way locations with low-level delegates.
Even though many people feel strongly about China's occupation of Tibet and their human rights record in general, they still support those actions by buying huge amounts of Chinese made products. Silent Message does not seek to show anger towards the people of China, but rather make their government understand the error of their ways. According to Silent Message, the people of Tibet have a right to choose their own path and religion and should never be persecuted for trying to do so. By making a united stand and boycotting Chinese products for one week periods of time, a powerful message will be sent to retail operations, corporations that do business in China and to the Chinese government.
The Olympic games is the perfect platform to launch such a campaign. To mark this a song called "Silent Message" has been recorded to play on the site and will be available shortly for download at most online retail stores. Written specifically for the project and performed by Jen Pumo, the proceeds of the sale of the song will go towards an open free Tibet. Please visit http://www.silentmessage.org for more information.


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Group celebrates 10th anniversary with immersive fan experience
On the heels of a sold out opening week, Hybe, BigHit Music and Live Nation have announced BTS Exhibition: Proof in Los Angeles will extend the limited viewing in Los Angeles through July 8th, giving visitors additional opportunities to celebrate all the moments in the group’s history that have brought them to their current global superstar status.
The BTS Exhibition is an immersive visual journey that explores the members’ past, present, and future through photographs, videos, and experiential installations in a multi-room walkthrough experience. Visitors who attend the exhibit will also have the opportunity to shop for limited edition merchandise.
The exhibit is located at the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. It’s open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 am until 8:30 pm and runs $50-$60. Tickets can be purchased online.


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If you haven't been in Union Square lately, you may not know there's a new store being built inside the first floor at 240 Stockton. The building, owned by Bently Holdings (Christopher and Amber Marie Bently), and the plaque adjacent to the elevator banks says it's an Energy Star awarded building. What this means to potential tenants is they have to build green. Next door neighbor, Gucci, was looking to expand their store, and although the deal took some time, they are now doing their "first green build-out of any of their stores," says Amber Marie Bently. And supposedly they're very excited about the project.
When I asked Amber Marie about how the space would differ from the existing store, her first thoughts, being a jewelry designer, were about the jewelry department where she said they would be expanding. She then went on to explain that most couture retailers sell costume jewelry, whereas Gucci makes theirs with only 18k gold and quality gems.
Construction has been going on now for a while, but hopefully we'll see Gucci moving into the new space in June. It will be their new West Coast flagship store. So Gucci fans, start saving up - two more months.


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UK food and drink producers need to expand trade relations beyond Europe and focus on shipping goods to the USA and Asia via Liverpool if they are to take full advantage of the sector’s potential export value, according to DIT, Welsh Government and key players from the northern food and drink industry.
The Port of Liverpool could be the gateway to lucrative export markets in the Americas and Asia for thousands of UK producers.
The message was delivered at an event in Liverpool last month designed to help firms export. It comes at a time when British produce is growing in popularity with over £22 billion of food and drink products shipped around the world last year and over £1.7 billion from the North West alone.
Hosted by port operator Peel Ports Group in partnership with the Department for International Trade and the Welsh Government, the dinner saw 50 food and drinks producers from across the Northern Powerhouse and North Wales come together to accelerate their export potential via the Port of Liverpool.
Attendees included Halewood International, producers of Whitley Neill Gin and Crabbie’s Alcoholic Ginger Beer.
Scott Kilshaw, Supply Chain Director at Halewood International, said: “We’ve cultivated an export emphasis in Asia, particularly China and Thailand where our products are growing in popularity. With trade links from Liverpool to Asia and the Americas, the potential for UK firms to increase their export volumes via the North West is endless, regardless of any consequences Brexit may bring.
“Demand overseas is growing, and the more we can export, the more mature the international market will become. If we don’t commit to fulfilling the UK’s food and drink export potential we will be losing out on a significant market which already has a taste for British produce. With significant investments being made at The Port of Liverpool in recent years, the North West has a deep sea gateway to the world which is ideally located in the heart of the UK.”
Atlantic Container Line, who have 8 sailings per week between UK and North American ports, is a key player in facilitating UK exports.
David Shaw of ACL, said: “The Port of Liverpool has been instrumental in growing export levels in recent years. 80 per cent of our transatlantic trade arriving by road comes from within an 80 mile radius of Liverpool, which really shows the density of producers in the North of England and their export potential. Peel Ports’ long-term vision for turning the North West into the UK’s trading gateway to the rest of the world is commendable, and the investments made around the Port of Liverpool show they are extremely well prepared for continued export growth via the Atlantic.”
Patrick Walters, Chief Operating Officer at Peel Ports, said: “Bringing together government, business and logistics partners under a shared goal of increasing levels of food and drink exports has been extremely productive and satisfying. Liverpool has the potential to turn thousands of producers across the UK into global exporters. Connected to the heart of the UK by road, rail and canal, shipping via Liverpool provides direct access to the bulk of the UK’s population, and in turn, to a significant amount of producers looking to take the next step on their journey and export goods abroad.”
Lynne Gillen, Department for International Trade Team Leader, said: “Figures provided from the Food and Drink Federation state that the UK now exports over £22 billion of food and drink products globally, with over £1.7 billion coming from the North West. Companies are increasingly looking for new markets and the US and Canada are of great interest. With this in mind we will be promoting various trade shows in the US, hosting CETA events to promote trade with Canada, and have plans to bring buyers over from the US and Canada in the summer months. It is important that all organisations involved in the exporting journey make life as easy as possible for companies and I believe the resource of Liverpool2 will have a great impact on the Northern economy.”
Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs Lesley Griffiths said: “In recent years, Welsh food and drink has gained a growing and well-deserved reputation for high quality. Working with businesses and growing the industry is one of the key priorities of our Action Plan and we are well on track to achieving the growth target of £7 billion ahead of 2020. However, it is important that we continue to build on our success. Our trade events calendar gives our businesses the opportunity to access buyers from around the world. Working alongside partners such as the Port of Liverpool and our Welsh ports will give our business the benefit of a gateway to a global export market”.
To watch our event wrap-up video please click HERE.
Back to News & Media


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What’s the difference between two e-reader models, produced by separate companies, that both include dual screens and a Google Android operating system? According to Spring Design, which unveiled its Alex e-reader with just such a form-factor on Oct. 19, not much-which is why it plans on suing Barnes & Noble over the latter’s own device, the Nook, that also runs on Android and features two displays.
“Spring Design unfortunately had to take appropriate action to protect its intellectual property rights,” Eric Kmiec, Spring Design’s vice president of sales and marketing, said in a Nov. 2 statement. “We showed the Alex e-book design to Barnes & Noble in good faith with the intention of working together to provide a superior dual screen e-book to the market.”
Spring Design announced Alex on Oct. 19, a day before Barnes & Noble’s Nook made its high-profile debut in New York City. As part of that announcement, Spring Design described a device that included a 6-inch monochrome electronic paper display paired with a 3.5-inch color LCD touch-screen capable of displaying multi-media content. It will be able to connect to the Web via Wi-Fi or 3G, EVDO/CDMA and GSM mobile networks. The company suggested that, while it was still looking for distribution partners, the e-reader would likely make its debut by the end of the year.
Barnes & Noble’s Nook, which also runs on the Google Android operating system, features a 6-inch e-ink display alongside a second multi-touch display for navigation and book purchasing. During a presentation at Chelsea Piers on the Hudson River, William Lynch, president of Barnes & Noble’s online site, demonstrated how that touch-screen component could be used to flip through a book catalog and buy a book with two finger-taps.
Spring Design claims that it had discussed the features and capabilities of its e-reader with Barnes & Noble as far back as “the beginning of 2009,” and that the bookseller had signed a non-disclosure agreement regarding the device. The company did not specify a damages amount.
“As a matter of policy, Barnes & Noble does not comment on litigation,” Mary Ellen Keating, a spokesperson for Barnes & Noble, said in an e-mail to eWEEK on Nov. 3.
The Nook is still scheduled for release at the end of November, with a price point of $259. Barnes & Noble’s eBookstore, launched in July, will provide Nook users with a library of some 700,000 downloadable books, alongside another 500,000 free public-domain volumes from Google; books can also be downloaded via a B&N app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Barnes & Noble has aimed the Nook squarely at challenging Amazon.com’s dominant mind-share in the e-reader arena, and Amazon.com has responded by slashing the prices for its original Kindle device to $259.
While the overall market for e-readers remains relatively small, with Forrester Research predicting some 3 million units sold in the U.S. in 2009, they are increasingly important for online retailers such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Although Amazon.com has declined to break out exact numbers, CEO Jeff Bezos has claimed in the past that Kindle-related sales bring in 35 percent of his company’s book-related revenue.
Smaller IT startups, including Plastic Logic, have also announced plans to release e-readers into the marketplace. Plastic Logic’s QUE, scheduled to debut in 2010, will be aimed at the SMB (small- to medium-sized business) and enterprise markets, with the ability to download and display Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents.
For much of 2009, Amazon.com managed to corner much of the public’s attention with high-profile debuts for each successive Kindle device, including a rollout event in New York City for the Kindle 2 that included a reading by bestselling author Stephen King. As more devices from competing companies prepare to hit the marketplace, however, the attention will likely shift to other devices-not to mention the lawsuits they cause.


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iTunes’ overall sale success of US$9 billion since its 2003 launch is boosted significantly through the recently revealed annual figures of US$2.4 billion in media sales and US$4.1 billion in app and service sales, AppleInsider announced earlier this week.
This signifies a 30 per cent growth in the app and service department and 28 per cent escalation of iTunes purchases.
iTunes offers iOS shoppers a choice of 35 million songs in 119 countries, 60,000 films in 109 countries and 1.7 million iBooks.
In addition, the iOS App Store also boasts a popularity percentage of 74 of over all app sales across all platforms, Peter Oppenheimer, chief financial officer confirmed.
Defeating competitors such as Android and Google, Apple’s apps are downloaded at a rate of 800 per second with a 70 million download count per day.
Now two years short of a decade celebration, the Apple App Store offers 850,000 iOS apps to 155 countries and shows US$9 billion worth of sales.
Apple apps are accessible to 90 per cent of the world’s population with 350,000 iPad-developed apps available for download.


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On World Tech Update this week Osama bin Laden's death breaks a Twitter record, Sony execs apologize for the Playstation Network outage, Intel intros a new transistor and the Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone shows up in Europe.
- Transition Systems lands sole distie deal with Avocor
- Are the new Apple MacBook Pros enterprise ready?
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Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, #23, during the NBA game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Jan. 7, 2024.
Jevone Moore | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images
The U.S. media world was rushing — or panicking? — Wednesday to try to figure out the ramifications of Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox‘s new joint venture, an unprecedented move to work together in the years since media companies broke out their own competing streaming platforms.
The service will launch this fall and cater to sports fans who don’t subscribe to the traditional cable bundle. Consumers will have access to all of the networks owned by those companies that carry sports, along with Disney’s ESPN+.
Some of the motivations for the companies are clear, as they look to sports to help drive streaming profits. Other reasons for launching the product are murkier and more company specific.
Many media executives are scrambling for answers about a deal that could have major ripple effects in the industry.
What’s the audience?
At first glance, the venture is a big concern for the three largest pay TV operators, Charter, Comcast and DirecTV.
But just how much they stand to lose is murky. One person associated with the launch of the new venture told CNBC the platform will be “a monster” and massively disrupt cable TV.
That’s possible. Some percentage of people who eventually sign up for the sports bundle will cancel traditional cable in favor of the new, cheaper alternative. The price for the new product hasn’t been determined, but sources told CNBC it will be higher than $30. One person said $45 to $50 per month seemed logical after discounted introductory offers expire.
A product around $40 a month is much cheaper than the $72.99 per month for YouTube TV, which is now a growing cable alternative for sports fans.
But it’s also possible the platform simply doesn’t have a huge audience. There’s a reason tens of millions of Americans have canceled cable. Many simply don’t want access to sports and the associated cost.
Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said Wednesday that the product is geared toward people who have never signed up for cable. But it’s a leap of faith to assume a lot of these people want to spend $40 or so each month for live sports.
Spokespeople for Charter, Comcast and DirecTV all declined to comment on the new offering.
Charter and Comcast haven’t really cared about video defections for years now. Broadband is a far more profitable product. Cable TV has been relegated to an add-on that helps keep people subscribing to high-speed internet.
But broadband subscriber growth has stalled for both Comcast and Charter as Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T have rolled out 5G home and fixed wireless broadband products. That makes additional loss of video subscribers potentially more harmful for the companies.
Satellite TV providers DirecTV and Dish, which don’t have high-speed broadband products at all, are potentially more at risk — so are virtual distributors of linear networks, such as Google‘s YouTube TV, FuboTV and Hulu with Live TV, which is owned by Disney.
The Disney, Warner Bros. and Fox service isn’t a full sports offering. It doesn’t include NBC or CBS, which both broadcast a lot of sports, including the all-important National Football League. Granted, NBC and CBS are free over the air with a digital antenna, and both offer streaming services — NBC’s Peacock and CBS’ Paramount+ — that already include sports.
Still, the more consumers feel they need to add on to this service, the greater the cost and hassle, and the less appealing it becomes.
Now that the joint venture exists, perhaps the distributors can also eventually get more flexibility to offer similar skinny bundles.
There’s another dynamic at play: ESPN is still planning to launch a full direct-to-consumer offering in the fall of 2025, CEO Bob Iger said Wednesday. That product will also have an audience.
It remains to be seen just how many people subscribe to the new platform. Maybe it’s a game changer, maybe it’s not.
What does this mean for news?
Traditional pay TV still has about 70 million subscribers. That includes so-called “virtual MVPDs,” like YouTube TV, which just announced it has more than eight million subscribers.
The cable bundle has largely survived because it still contains exclusive live news and sports.
Now there’s a cheaper way to access most of the sports, and it doesn’t include cable news networks such as Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and CNBC. The shift could pose a threat to those channels, which are now at risk of losing subscribers.
Could the news networks gang up to offer a skinny news bundle, in a similar fashion to the new sports bundle? Or will the new sports venture be a catalyst to news bundles, a concept CNBC has written about for many years, but hasn’t happened? Could Fox News bundle with other conservative-leaning publications? Could CNBC partner with The Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times to offer a print and video combination?
These are hypotheticals, but the sports package may force executives to think in new ways.
Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney trade-offs
LightShed media analyst Rich Greenfield called the new sports platform “the Winners’ bundle.” To some degree, he has a point. Customers for this new platform will keep paying Disney, Warner Bros. and Fox for content, and they won’t be paying NBCUniversal and Paramount Global.
But it also brings risks for Warner Bros. and Disney.
Warner Bros. has unbundled TNT, TBS and TruTV from the rest of its networks with the skinny bundle. That may prompt pay TV distributors to demand they only pay for the same package, putting many of the old Discovery networks at risk, including HGTV, Animal Planet, TLC and the Discovery Channel. These are low-cost, profitable channels for Warner Bros.
Those that want the Discovery networks can always subscribe to Max. All the content is already there.
Fox faces less risk. Cable providers will probably still need Fox News to placate the network’s rabid fan base.
Disney’s flagship ESPN streaming service now feels muted by this new sports offering. Previously, the only way for cord cutters to get ESPN outside the cable bundle would have been that coming service. Now, the new platform will also give cord cutters a cheaper way to get ESPN.
The joint venture will require Disney to split revenue with two other companies. Disney’s direct-to-consumer offering is all Disney. The launch of the platform seems to be at best a hedge and at worst a critique of the potential popularity of an expensive ESPN-only streaming product.
One possible way Disney can add some juice to its own direct-to-consumer product is if the three-company sports platform comes with limited or no on-demand options. But if that’s true, it may decrease the appeal of the joint venture.
David Zaslav’s merger campaign
Part of the rationale behind this announcement comes down to competitive dynamics. There has never been any love lost between Disney and Comcast.
It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that the product wasn’t a shared venture between those two companies after years of disagreements on the direction of Hulu. Ownership of the product is still split between the companies as valuation discussions plod along to make the service wholly owned by Disney.
The structure also can be seen as a not-so-subtle jab at Paramount Global and NBCUniversal from Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav, who may have interest in merging with either or both companies.
The message from him to Paramount Global and NBCUniversal is clear: You’re not strong enough on your own anymore. Not inviting either company to the sports platform party is a signal that Iger and Zaslav feel the programming from NBCUniversal and Paramount Global is simply not needed.
If the joint venture does turn out to be a “monster,” Zaslav may have just earned himself some leverage in future merger discussions.
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
WATCH: ESPN should have been in a sports bundle “from the beginning,” says Lightshed’s Rich Greenfield
Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO:
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SPARC bills itself as San Francisco’s “premier cannabis dispensary”, and it has earned it from the San Francisco Business Times as far as Bay Area employers in the cannabis industry go. This is the first time the business journal has looked at the industry by this metric, and it published the ten leading employers. The list, which covers direct and ancillary businesses, is based on employer responses and includes only those companies that responded.
SPARC led the list with 145 employees. Second place belonged to Berkeley Patients Group, which reports 80 employees. The Apothecarium earned third place, with 75 employees. The balance of the list included mainly dispensaries, but a laboratory, a brand and two distribution companies made the cut as well.
Subscribers can view the complete list of 35 companies free of charge, while it is also available for purchase for $35.
Read Julia Cooper’s “Meet 10 Bay Area weed businesses with the biggest workforces”: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2017/03/08/top-10-bay-area-weed-businesses-most-workers.html


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Mark your calendars as the crowd's favourite candidate and employee experience conference, Talent Experience Forum is back!
Happening only in KL, Malaysia on 5 November. Register your seat because you will be hearing top insights from C-suite and senior HR leaders from Dell, Digi, GoCar, IPG Mediabrands, Nestle, Tesco, Unilever and more.
According to a report in Vulcan Post, staff from Lazada Malaysia have worked for 24 hours from November 10 leading up to November 11, as part of their Online Revolution (OR) sale, which is also one of the biggest online shopping and selling events in Southeast Asia.
To encourage its employees to get through this intense period, Lazada has created employee survival kits which include coffee mugs, t-shirts, and other commemorative collectibles across all markets.
In fact, Lazada Malaysia is not the only country with such perks. All of its markets have organised different activities to support the staff during OR. From town hall meetings with the CEO, kick-off celebrations, group coordinated dances, pizza and coffee parties and in-office massages, these perks have been chosen by the people teams, admin teams and local markets, with strong support from its CEO.
“Online Revolution is for all. It is the biggest event of our year and Lazadians (its employees) really go the extra mile during this period and we want them to feel excited and appreciated. We want to unite all Lazadians and get them excited for the next month of activity. The energy and participation has been amazing and we’re happy for the celebratory spirit our employees have, we’re really in this together,” said Tim Rath, Lazada’s chief people officer.
Not only that, Lazada has created a Yammer page dedicated to OR, where teams can post photos, updates and news about their respective work. This way, employees across all of its markets and functions are aligned and informed about what is happening in the lead up to OR.
Photos / Lazada


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Expansion to Jamaica will better serve local clients and its Jamaican workforce
GroceryList Jamaica, a Florida-based online shopping platform, has announced the formation of its Jamaican subsidiary, GroceryList Jamaica Limited.
The subsidiary was incorporated this month and began operation days later. As the company expands its operations, jobs will be created in a number of areas, such as marketing, customer care, tech support, data centre, call centre and in agriculture.
In a news release announcing the formation of the local subsidiary, GroceryList Jamaica discloses that it is looking to launch in five other countries in 2023. However, the company is adamant that Jamaica will remain the headquarters for its call centre activities that serve the English-speaking countries on its platform.
In the news release, co-founder Rory Richards discloses that the online shopping company is now affiliated with a local bank through which all Jamaican employees will be paid. He said this affiliation will allow the company to expand the Jamaican gig economy, as more persons will be able to sign on as shoppers and delivery personnel.
Faster and better service clients
This, Richards added, will allow for faster and better service to clients in Jamaica whose relatives shop for grocery on the platform. He outlined some the benefits of the expansion, noting that the opening of Jamaican subsidiary will allow the online company to better serve its local clients.
In addition, it will be better able see to the welfare of its many Jamaicans workers. Richards, who is also the company’s CEO, argues that its local operations will be a benefit to the Jamaican Government saying it will allow the company to pay taxes to the Jamaican Government, thus contributing to the expansion of the economy.
According to the GroceryList co-founder, “we designed Grocery List Jamaica to help ease the economic burden on Jamaican households, as well as (to) empower Jamaicans to earn through creating an additional income stream”.
GroceryList connects to 150 local stores in Jamaica, where Jamaicans in the diaspora may order grocery items for their loved ones in Jamaica and have the items delivered to their doorsteps within minutes of placing an order.
The platform covers all 14 parishes and operates in the same manner as shopping for items on the Amazon platform. In addition to the over 150 local stores, there are some 500 persons in Jamaica who do the shopping and delivery.
Richards, who was recently in Jamaica, held talks with a number of government officials and business interest, where he advised that every order placed on the platform provides two jobs through the gig economy system: the in-store shopper and the delivery personnel.
Co-founder Jermain Morgan explained that the idea of the grocery shopping platform was inspired by the experience of his business partner’s mother falling ill and being unable to physically go to the grocery store to make her own purchases. Persons may visit Grocery List shoppers to place their orders, who will make the purchases and deliver them to the recipients.


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First Micro-Market offer in US launched by Simplebet
Global sports betting technology firm Simplebet has announced the release of a brand new Micro-Market betting offering in the US. The firm says that this offering will be the first ever in-play, fully automated real money product of its kind in the USA. It will initially be available in Washington DC through a new partnership.
Simplebet’s new partner is INTRALOT Inc, which is a US subsidiary of INTRALOT Group. It is a global sports betting and lottery supplier. Thanks to this partnership, players in Washington DC will be able to have access to millions of betting opportunities across professional sports being played in the US.
The Micro-Market pricing engine will merge automated market mechanics such as suspension, creation and repricing with odds for each possible outcome. This, in combination with the lottery operated sports betting platform, will provide players with many more opportunities through GambetDC.
CEO and CO-Founder of Simplebet, Chris Bevilacqua, mentioned the significance of this launch and the ways that it will affect the player experience in DC. He said:
“We’re excited to launch our real money betting product in Washington DC and showcase the power of what we do at Simplebet alongside our great partner, INTRALOT. DC legalized sports betting nearly two years ago and has become an energetic melting pot for sports fans and casual sports betters so we are looking forward to rolling out our Micro-Market solution which we know will deliver an unmatched product and experience.”
INTRALOT CEO, Byron Boothe, stated that this partnership will help increase fan engagement and allow both of the brands to be unique in the competitive sports betting scene across the USA.


text: Sony cut Playstation Vita's RAM in half! Thats the line you see all over the net right now. Ever since the the idea got around that Vita would be releasing with 512MB of RAM, rumors of a cut have been getting people up in arms. Let's say this all was true, what would happen to the Vita and it's graphics quality? Read on to find out!


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CA is gearing up to do a ‘deep dive’ into its EMEA channel to weed out the partners that are under performing in the market.
The vendor, which last week held its CA World event in Las Vegas, has a 90-day window to complete the review, which could also see some partners moved up the CA partner ladder.
Ned Jaroudi, vice-president of partner marketing at CA, told CRN: “This is all about encouraging some partners to up their revenue bands and weed out the ones that have done very little business with CA.
“Within the next 90 days we are going to figure out who those partners are and map out their skills. Two areas that have traditionally been the weakest at CA have been channel and marketing, but both of these have gained tremendous momentum over the past 18 months.”
CA also announced its latest channel strategy at the event, tied in with its new mid-market focus. For the first time in the company’s 30-year history, direct sales teams will be compensated if they win deals for partners and similarly partners will be compensated if a customer decides to go direct.
The vendor has also invested in other key areas, including its partner portal, reseller training, joint-marketing and lead generation. Its Partner Reward Centre will also feature more automated incentives.
Bill Lipsin, senior vice-president of worldwide channel sales at CA, said: “The channel is critical to CA’s success.”
Joe McKenna, managing director of CA partner Infrasolve, said: “The renumeration of the direct sales guys is particularly welcome because it reduces the number of strategic accounts and means more market space for us to work in. CA is also choosing the partners that it wants to invest in, which will make a difference.”
Highlander MD Steve Brown tells CRN about the skills he learned on the pitch and brought to the boardroom
Reports suggest Dell is pursuing a straightforward IPO, contradicting existing plans to buy out tracking stock holders
Analysts predict upturn in PC market next year, but 2018 to remain plagued by components shortages
Neil Sawyer claims he has 'never seen so many conversations about a new method of investing in workplace technology'


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Entomophagy, or insect-eating, has lately become something more than a curiosity. Bugs are now appearing on the menus of high-end restaurants in North America and in grocery stores in the Netherlands, and a growing number of scientists, entrepreneurs, and chefs are arguing that they represent a sustainable, humane source of protein that we’d be foolish to overlook. This video includes some footage I took with my phone while reporting on the subject for my story in this week’s issue of the magazine.
After the Kavanaugh Allegations, Republicans Offer a Shocking Defense: Sexual Assault Isn’t a Big Deal
A startling number of conservative figures have ended up in the peculiar position of defending the right of a Supreme Court Justice to have previously attempted to commit rape.
A Reporter at Large


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Punjab's debt projected to cross 1 lakh cr mark in 2013-14
Punjab's total outstanding debt is projected to cross whopping Rs 1 lakh crore mark in next fiscal.
Punjab governmet announces 7% dearness allowance hike
The Finance Minister said 7 per cent DA increase would put an additional liability of Rs 351.63 crore on the state exchequer.
Punjab government employees 'awaiting' March salary
Punjab government has admitted that several state employees were yet to receive their salaries for the month of March.
Punjab cabinet is a club of billionaires
Only 3 minister, Balbir Singh Bath (SAD), Arunesh Shakar and Laxmi Kanta Chawla (both from BJP) owned assets worth less than Rs 1 cr.
How Grofers survived to deliver and tell the tale
The decision of founders to pivot to an inventory-led model paid off for the firm.
OYO books top spot at ET Startup Awards 2018
At a meeting on Monday in Bengaluru, an exemplary jury led by Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekani chose eight winners from a shortlist of 40 contenders for The Economic Times Startup Awards 2018.
Startups fight big global e-commerce firms to win online grocery battle
A real, unprecedented opportunity is triggering a war in India, and its contours are finally emerging.
Grofers sees 5x jump in sales, starts financial year in a good note
The firm claims to have started the new financial year on a positive note by clocking Rs 7.8 crore in sales on day one of the new financial year.
SoftBank, Tiger back Grofers with Rs 400 crore
Grofers confirmed the development to TOI and said it had turned profitable in Delhi on a per-order basis, after having gone through a tough few years.
Ecommerce companies step up discounts in bid to get rid of stock
Some discounts are 3-5% higher than those at Diwali and could be aimed at clearing stock before new rules kick in.
Congress fields Jyotiraditya Scindia from Guna, Manish Tewari from Anandpur Sahib
The Congress on Friday fielded former union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia and Manish Tewari from Guna (Madhya Pradesh) and Anandpur Sahib (Punjab) parliamentary constituencies respectively.
Modi government writes new rule book for BigBasket, Swiggy & Zomato
Food products offered for sale are liable to sampling at any point in the supply chain as per new rules.
President confers Padma awards on 47 'inspiring' personalities
Forty-seven prominent personalities were conferred the Padma awards by President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday.
Grofers to enter FMCG segment; eyes Rs 2,500 crore sales in FY19
Online grocery firm Grofers today said it is entering the FMCG segment and is targeting an overall revenue of Rs 2,500 crore by FY19.
FSSAI wants calorie count on restaurant menu to promote healthy habits
The authority has also asked e-commerce and retail companies to promote healthy options such as fortified foods on their landing pages and checkout counters.
Copyright © 2019 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reserved. For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service


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Washington, April 5 (IANS) Beware of seemingly harmless free applications (apps) -- they could be draining your smartphone of 75 percent of its energy, just tracking your location and transmitting the information to advertisers and downloading ads, a study reveals.
"It turns out the free apps aren't really free because they contain the hidden cost of reduced battery life," said Y. Charlie Hu, Purdue University professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Because smartphone batteries must be small and lightweight, power consumption is a major issue, the researcher said.
Hu led the work to create a new tool called Eprof -- for energy profiler -- to analyze how much energy a smartphone app consumes, said a university statement.
New findings show that 65 percent to 75 percent of the energy used to run free apps is spent for ad-related functions.
"We performed an in-depth case study, the first of its kind, of six popular smartphone apps, including Angry Birds, Facebook and Android Browser," said Purdue doctoral student Abhinav Pathak.
The free Angry Birds app was shown to consume about 75 percent of its power running "advertisement modules" in the software code and only about 25 percent for actually playing the game. The modules perform marketing functions such as sharing user information and downloading ads.
"We believe it is mainly to provide information about the user's geographical location so the ads can be more targeted or customized to that location," Hu said.
An application may contain tens of thousands of lines of code, broken down into many components called subroutines, threads and processes.
Eprof maps how much energy comes from each component, representing a new way for researchers to study smartphone energy consumption without using a power meter, an expensive and cumbersome piece of lab equipment.
"Eprof tells you how much energy is spent where," Hu added.
These findings will be presented at the EuroSys 2012 conference April 10-13 in Bern, Switzerland.
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