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Plastic has been getting a lot of attention in the past 12 months.
The Science Museum’s Plasticity exhibition, which runs until next January, charts the evolution of plastic variants, examining its applications, and has, to some extent, revived interest in its relevance to designers.
Of all the plastics, expanded polystyrene is perhaps the least valued, given its lowly status as a filler for white- goods packaging.
However, a design competition launched last September by packaging group EPS is trying to change this perception by stimulating designers’ interest in its properties.
Launched to a fanfare in London’s Trafalgar Square with Tom Dixon’s polystyrene chair giveaway during last year’s 100% Design, the project has now come to fruition.
Ten winning concepts are being prototyped and will be exhibited at the 100% Futures event, which runs from 20-23 September.
Emerging product designer Benjamin Hubert says that he stumbled across the competition while already working with expanded polystyrene on some of his other designs.
‘I’m interested in the surface texture, the fact that [expanded polystyrene] is lightweight and that it moulds like injection-moulded plastic. The Tom Dixon chairs last year were great. It just shows what you can do. The whole thing was really clever, even if it was a PR stunt,’ says Hubert.
The competition brief, deliberately kept open in terms of usage and context, was to create a design that would exploit the lightweight, insulating and buoyancy qualities of the material, according to EPS spokeswoman and competition organiser Bridget Bouch.
Although the concepts that made the winning list were not entirely original, such as design lecturer Ken Newton’s drinks cooler, or architect Graham Lewis’s disaster-relief capsule, they demonstrated the most ‘intelligent use of the material’, according to Bouch.
The company is hoping that designer Michael Sodeau’s creation for the 100% Futures stand will make visitors sit up and take notice. Made entirely from expanded polystyrene, the stand will take the form of a white pod with blue lighting.
‘We’ve had to use 7m blocks of expanded polystyrene to create the stand. It’s very modern and backs on to the green room, where we’re hoping to catch traffic. The idea now is to get the prototypes picked up by a retailer to take to the marketplace,’ says Bouch.
EPS is keen to dispel what it claims are myths about the material, such as it being toxic when burnt, or that it is non-recyclable.
‘It is, in fact, no more toxic when burnt than wood. It is also 100 per cent recyclable. The problem is for businesses setting up [recycling] schemes. Most local authorities are reluctant to collect it because they have targets based on weight, and it just doesn’t make sense for them to collect something that’s so lightweight,’ says Bouch.
Ken Newton, design lecturer, UK
Michiel Knoppert, designer, US
Graham Lewis, architect, UK
Beanie safety hat
Dylan Banks, student, UK
Annemiek Pronk, designer, the Netherlands
Steve Gummer, designer, UK
Scott Wilson, designer, US
Benjamin Hubert, designer, UK
Richard Lawson, designer, UK
David Duncalfe, student, UK
EPS design competition judging panel included designer Tom Dixon; journalist Clare Dowdy; Claire Norcross, design manager at Habitat; and Tent director Jimmy MacDonald


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"It's entirely unconstitutional and it'll just subject the state to costly litigation," says Tvert, a Marijuana Policy Project and critic of Project SAM, an organization that opposes legalization. "The constitution now includes language saying that these stores have the ability, the right, to sell to consumers 21 and older. 'Consumer' is also now defined within that as someone who is simply 21 and older."In November, voters passed the measure that made small amounts of recreational pot legal for adults -- and Governor John Hickenlooper signed it into law in December. The governor also set up a diverse task force charged with making recommendations to the legislature about the implementation of the law, focused largely on the establishment and regulation of retail shops.
The commercial component of Colorado's new law requires new legislation. For that reason, it will be at least a year before any recreational businesses can open up -- if the federal government doesn't object.
But in early talks at the task force, the idea of some sort of residency requirement has cropped up, though the group hasn't crafted any final or even preliminary recommendations.
Tvert says it's quite obvious that constitutionally, a push for this sort of requirement is a battle not worth fighting.
"They can't now say, 'Oh, it's only Coloradans,'" he says. "They can try, but it's really not what we should be focused on. We should be focused on developing a tightly regulated system that will work and accommodate the demand for marijuana."
Part of the discussion about Amendment 64, before and after it passed, is how the legalization of marijuana might help tourism (though some are worried legalization will discourage investments in the state).
"On one hand, we've got our opponents who say if we pass this initiative, it's going to bring all these out-of-town people here who want to use marijuana," Tvert says. "On the other hand, they're saying let's ensure that those people can only get marijuana in an underground market. The goal here was to eliminate the underground market, so it's just foolish."
Continue for more of our interview with Mason Tvert.

domain: news


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Scandal tainted final days of Liliane Bettencourt, L’Oréal heiress and world’s richest woman
L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt died in September 2017 at the age of 94. Bettencourt was the richest woman in the world at the time of her death.
Pros And Cons Of Dental Bonding Understanding the Pros and Cons of Dental Bonding Posted by Admin in Dental Cosmetics, Dental Procedures, Dr. Donald Marks Recommends If you are suffering from stained, chipped or broken teeth, dental bonding is an economic solution you might want to. An expert from Brighton Institute of Modern Music and a dental professional have devised a
L’Oréal Finance: financial news of the L’Oreal Group, leader in cosmetics and beauty, investor relations
Jan 16, 2018 · L’Oréal is trying to protect its standing as the top-selling beauty company in China amid growing interest there in homegrown brands such as Pechoin and.
L’Oreal wants to figure out how to make shorter, more relevant videos ads. And it has turned to Google for help.
L’Oréal Group has its head office in the Centre Eugène Schueller in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris. The building, constructed in the 1970s from brick and steel.
When Jean-Paul Agon, chief executive of L’Oréal, met his counterpart at Nestlé, Mark Schneider, for the first time at a summit in Berlin a week ago, it proved to.
Money Bag Chain Upmarket supermarket chain Booths has been put up for sale, opening the door for takeover bids by the likes of online giant Amazon. The 170-year-old Lancashire-based. On Jan. 6, the Brownsville (Texas) City Commission approved a ban on plastic shopping bags beginning in 2011. San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban the bags
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“style my hair” app. l’orÉal professionnel integrates 3d real time hair color try-on based on artificial intelligence
Woworuntu, who has a bachelor’s degree in finance and banking management, worked in Indonesia as a financial analyst and treasury manager before political.
What happens to a business empire when its owner dies? Thursday’s passing of Liliane Bettencourt, the billionaire heiress of L’Oreal founder Eugene Schueller, has thrown the future of the world’s leading cosmetics company up in.
All the answer to your questions about hair of the world : composition, growth, loss, color, shape, care, types and properties
Nestle said on Tuesday its approach to its 23 percent stake in French cosmetics firm L’Oreal was unchanged after the death of L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt last week triggered speculation of an ownership shake-up. "Our.
With respect to Nestle’s stake in cosmetics firm L’Oreal, the company said the board decided not to renew its shareholder agreement, which expires on 21.
Soccer player David Beckham has partnered with L’Oréal for the launch of his first global grooming brand, House 99. The collection of 21 products is aimed at providing all the tools men need to experiment with their look in order to express.
L’Oreal harnessed the French reputation for elegance to become a global cosmetics giant — and the company’s CEO says European economies should apply similar logic to escape their current woes. Jean-Paul Agon, L’Oreal’s chair.
Jan 18, 2018 · L’Oreal Paris is breaking barriers and making history by featuring Amena Khan, a hijab-wearing woman, in a hair campaign.
In the coming two years, L’Oreal will not only carry out popularization and education programs targeting the public and the young in particular, via both online and off-line communication platforms, but also provide micro finance to.
In Paris, construction materials supplier Cie de Saint-Gobain, and cosmetics.
Timo Pfeiffer, head of research at Solactive, added, “Thanks to this gender lens methodology, investors can integrate gender balance into their portfolios, which.
To celebrate its 20 years anniversary in China, L’Oréal, in partnership with the China Women’s Development Foundation (CWDF), launched the L’Oréal China Women Empowerment Fund to select and finance 20 projects nationwide to help.
Imagine being able to deal with important financial matters in a way that doesn’t distract you from what you do best. When you’re meeting with your accountant.
CES 2018 : LA ROCHE-POSAY UV SENSE. L’Oréal advances its commitment to promoting sun safety with La Roche-Posay UV Sense
Wiseguyreports.Com Adds “Mascara -Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities and Analysis Of Top Key Player Forecast To 2023” To Its Research Database Mascara is a cosmetic commonly used to enhance the eyes. It may darken,
How To Prepare A Financial Analysis Digital Library > Defining and Serving a Market > Competitive intelligence “How to Conduct and Prepare a Competitive Analysis” An in-depth investigation and. A "larger installed base of TouchPad and webOS devices should increase the value of webOS in a potential sale," Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu wrote in a research note widely circulated on
Jan 23, 2018 · "We have recently been made aware of a series of tweets posted in 2014 by Amena Kahn, who was featured in a UK advertising campaign," a L’Oreal.
Nov 28, 2010 · The L’Oreal INOA (named INOA for “Innovative No Ammonia”) line is advertised as a revolutionary new breakthrough in hair color that does not contain.
Within Finance 3.1, Antoine is an expert in reporting improvement and automation. Antoine is also CEO at UpSlide, the most complete Microsoft Office add-in.
First Light Federal Credit Union Las Cruces CHI St. Joseph’s Children (505) 924-8150. Native American Professional Parent Resources (NAPPR) – Parents As Teachers (505) 345-6289 Rebecca Riley , Jennifer. Emily Beardmore, special events and sponsorship manager for El Paso Live, said that as an added feature, FirstLight Federal Credit Union will sponsor special events at the ice rink every Thursday. The fun
Earnings season continues with reports from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ryanair, Toyota Motor Corp., BNP Paribas, BP, General Motors, Walt Disney, SoftBank, Sanofi,
Find the latest news, headlines, blogs and video about retail, consumers, shopping and retail companies from CNBC.com.
One of the government’s priorities is to build “digital hubs” to accommodate SMEs. The US$ 283.8 million investment by the Ministry of Finance in the Science Park.
L’Oréal Finance : chiffres l’actualité financière du groupe international expert en cosmétiques, relations actionnaires, relations investisseurs
A raft of earnings to digest today including heavy hitters Nestle and Airbus. Nestle said it had no plans to increase its stake in L’Oreal, and a trader said the comments had triggered speculation Nestle could sell its stake. The Swiss.
Along the way, they solve different business tasks across departments such as finance, sales, marketing, operations and research and development. The goal is to complete various challenges with maximum scores. The game takes a.
European and US shares suffered their worst week since January 2016, with.
"Whatever happens, L’Oreal is a very solid company able to resist in any environment," Jean-Paul Agon, L’Oreal CEO, told CNBC on Friday. Meanwhile,
Sep 22, 2017 · Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers just inherited the £79.3 billion L’Oreal fortune following the death of her mother, Liliane Bettencourt. By some estimates.
PARIS (Reuters) – The death of billionaire Liliane Bettencourt focused attention on Friday on how L’Oreal’s founding family and major shareholder Nestle would manage their stakes in the world’s biggest cosmetics firm. Bettencourt, listed by.
Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers (L), her son Nicolas, prepare to speak to journalists on May 28, 2015 at the Bordeaux courthouse, southwestern France, after the deliberations of the tribunal in his trial for allegedly exploiting France’s.


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Sydney, australia , december 7, 2016 view all press releases gartner survey shows wearable devices need to be more useful high abandonment rates indicate the need for more compelling value propositions to drive greater adoption. Most australians now own a wearable device, but are they really sold on them john riccio looks at the results of pwc's latest wearable statistics report. Ballard predicted that one megatrend will be the collision between the internet of things and wearable devices as many major companies are that are continuing to help drive both adoption and engagement on wearable writer at techrepublic, covering hardware devices. Just under 50 million wearable devices were shipped in in 2015 and over 125 million units are expected to ship in 2019 recommended by forbes 17 'internet of things' facts everyone should read will lifi take big data and the internet of things to a new level. Every day, it seems like there's another news item about wearable devices, or wearables stories about how trackers will revolutionize personal fitness, privacy concerns about recording video without permission, why wearables will never catch on, and everything in between today, mobile technology is ubiquitous, with many consumers.
The adoption of iot technology and smart mobile devices worldwide will drive the wearable tech market expected to grow at a cagr of 189% through 2021. This report examines the range of business applications being developed for wearable devices and wearables market adoption in 2015. Total expected adoption wearable ﬁtness device it warmed and defrosted automatically the internet of things: the future of consumer adoption. The global wearable computing devices market is expected to register a strong cagr of 368% during the projected period. Accessing and analyzing big data will make wearable technology useful to enterprise users, says saar bitner of sisense. Experts say adoption of wearables at work will outpace it at home thanks to improved safety, productivity, and collaboration.
However, the mounting security and compliance concerns in smart wearable devices has hindered their adoption, which is likely to impede the wearable sensor market to an extent nevertheless. India is likely to become a big market for wearable technologies: vishal gondal how is your wearable device different from others how do you see the adoption of such devices in healthcare in india.
Topics in this webinar include: who wants wearable devices, and what will consumers do with them which types of wearables will take hold in the marketplace wearables—10 insights on device adoption and business opportunities 1. The market for wearable devices - be they smartwatches, fitness trackers yougov wearables wearable devices adoption poised to hit the mainstream twitter follow the market for wearable devices. A forecast of the adoption of wearable technology: 104018/ijtd2015040102: this research aims to quantify the current market size for wearable technology, and determine why this market has struggled over the past decade these are.
Customers are buying more wearable fitness tech, but they aren't happy with the apps andrew meola mar 30 wearable devices from fitbit, microsoft as wearable adoption continues to increase. Wearables: 2017 year in review dec1317 | about: wear etf (wear) this article is now exclusive for pro subscribers but in actuality many new and groundbreaking trends transpired this year that pave the way for broader adoption of wearable devices and an acceleration of growth in the. The impact of fitness technology on health outcomes megan c kelley wearable technology (eg, fitbit, nike fuelband) and mobile apps (eg more than ever, our society is prepared for fitness and wellness technology adoption trends of smartphone adoption rapidly increasing to near.
Experts suggest wearable adoption will slow due to cost and unmet user wearables still slow to catch on in the us some wearable device manufacturers are hedging towards slowed growth in device adoption, redirecting their resources from hardware to software that can propel. Background wearable technology has shown the potential of improving healthcare efficiency and reducing healthcare cost different from pioneering studies on healthcare wearable devices from technical perspective, this paper explores the predictors of individuals' adoption of healthcare wearable devices. Increased adoption for wearable devices, like the apple watch, impacts financial services from bank alerts to payments, it is time to develop a strategy. The general geekiness of early wearable technology offerings like google glass and samsung's galaxy gear smartwatch is obviously a significant barrier to widespread adoption, but it's hardly the only barrier. Wearable devices bring human data to the connected job site that hourigan's first wearable adoption is both a connected device and focused on safety is telling of where key developments are being made in wearable the wearable device alerts workers when they're in the presence of. Wearable technology is becoming a common topic in daily news coverage — from discussion on the latest how wearable devices fare among numerous studies have shown that educators who adopt technology can have an impact on students' adoption and can influence their students. Use and adoption challenges of wearable activity little is known about how personal preferences and other individual characteristics affect use and adoption of wearable activity to understand and further articulate gender differences in use and adoption of wearable devices.
With the development and advancement of information communication technology, smart wearable devices are playing a more and more important role in peoples' daily lives this study aims to investigate. The enterprise wearable technology summit (ewts) is the most comprehensive and longest-running event dedicated to the business and industrial applications for wearables eastman chemical company, and keolis - companies operating in different environments and different phases of adoption. Wearable medical devices market segmentation by product market in mea is expected to exhibit subdued market growth owing to lower adoption of wearable devices in the region adoption of wearable medical devices is also gaining traction in the home healthcare sector however. Pet wearable market is presently in its nascent stage however, in terms of growth rate, the adoption of devices to ensure the safety and security of pets and to facilitate medical diagnosis and treatment is expected be the leading segment. The second annual survey from rock health on consumer health adoption revealed numerous interesting statistics on the current state of digital health in america most notably, the number of americans who own wearable devices increased to nearly one out of every four individuals, which is up significantly from 12% in 2015. Wearable technology and iot wearable devices andrew meola dec 19, 2016 fitbit wearable technology is often touted as one of the greatest applications of the internet of things, and with good reason wearable accuracy will remain the top barrier to widespread adoption. Nearly 25 percent of americans own a wearable device and use it to improve their health such devices are one of the most popular ways to track.


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India has decided not to join the RCEP agreement over India’s concern not being addressed in deal .PM Narendra modi says “neither the talisman of Gandhiji nor my own conscience permits me to join RCEP”
Let us now see what are the reasons behind this decision. Before that let us see what is RCEP ?
- What is RCEP ?
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a proposed free trade agreement in Asia Pacific region between the 10 member states of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)(Brunei , Cambodia ,Indonesia ,Malaysia, Myanmar , The Philippines ,Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) and 6 FTA partners (Australia ,China ,Japan, New Zealand ,South Korea and India)
Reasons behind non participation :
- Indian economy is passing through a difficult time. Industry is reeling under pressure .A massive free trade pact like RC EP would expose the Indian business and agriculture to unequal competition from countries like giant sharks in export arena.
- India runs a large trade deficit with at least 11 out of 15 RCEP members ..China alone accounts for $53 billion of India’s $ 105 billion trade deficit.
- widening trade deficit would empty foreign exchange reserves of India at a faster rate.
- In agriculture domestic players dealing in dairy products, spices, rubber, coconut etc. would face dumping from South Asian spice majors
- Vietnam and Indonesia have very cheap rubber to export and Australia and New Zealand are waiting for a free access to India for their dairy products.
Hence to protect Indian industry and agriculture and to avoid further trade deficit India has decided not to join RCEP. But according to some experts RCEP could have been beneficial to India as it covers over 3 billion people and over 20% of global GDP ,access to this market on frictionless duty free basis would have provided tremendous advantage to India’s exports.


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Pippa Middleton, sister of the future queen of England, could be facing legal questions in Paris, after one of her companions in a car in which she was a passenger allegedly pointed a semi-automatic pistol at a photographer.
Pippa, 27, the sister of Prince William’s wife, Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, was riding in the Audi convertible in the middle of downtown Paris when the driver pulled out the gun.
Pippa had a attended the 29th birthday of Paris fashion entrepreneur Arthur de Soultrait, who also was in the car, according to press reports. France has strict gun laws.
All of those involved in the incident could face up to seven years in jail, and up to two years in jail, if the gun turns out to be fake, according to London’s Daily Mail.
Middleton was reportedly being driven to the Gare du Nord station to board a Eurostar high speed train to London on Saturday (Apr.14).
At least one person who witnessed the incident has complained to Paris police and provided photographic evidence. “If the evidence points to (Pippa Middleton’s) involvement, she will be prosecuted. Anybody involved in the illegal use of a handgun in public is liable to arrest and interrogation,” a source told The Mail.
In France, it is illegal to brandish a handgun in public to “warn people off.” Even if someone is licensed to carry a weapon, it must be kept covered at all times.
de Soultrait is a French aristocrat whose fashion brand, Vicomte A, sells preppy style clothing and sportswear all around the world.


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DTH Broadband, Ka-band broadband service is only feasible if there is a strong demand
NEW DELHI: The commercial launch of Broadband DTH may be viable if there is a strong demand for this type of broadband services, today said an expert.
"The DTH operators can provide satellite broadband or Ka-band broadband service up to 50 Mbps downlink and 20 Mbps uplink speed. Yet there must be a demand for this type of broadband and appropriate content for possible service," RK Arnold, Member , Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, said at an event here.
He said there are now many options. Broadband in the area such as wireless broadband and cable broadband in India.
DTH Broadband will soon make room in the Indian market, he added.
According to the latest data released by TRAI, India had about 61 million cable subscribers at the end of September 2013.
At the end of December 2013 broadband subscribers in India reached 5.5 million rupees. Mobile broadband services, including high speed mobile dominant numbers with more than 4 million rupees connections. Number of fixed broadband users totaled 1.45 billion rupees.
"TRAI side is open, there is no restriction. Who to start, you may want to do it," Arnold said.
"There are two bottlenecks. Initially, the consumer awareness is should know that broadband is useful for them and the second is the availability of devices, Arnold said, adding that the demand gradually develop, he said.
The government also plans to make under license from telecommunications available to produce offer a new segment for all telecommunications services and the TV via a single company, ie provide customers their cable TV channels or DTH pay telecommunications services through a single account.


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Posted by Barry Silverstein on November 28, 2012 01:09 PM
There's good news and bad news when it comes to AIDS, and ONE wants to make sure the world's population is aware of both this December 1, the 24th annual World AIDS Day.
The ONE Campaign, the global advocacy organization co-founded by U2's Bono, just released a new report on the global fight against HIV/AIDS. The good news: Scientists now have the tools to "turn the tide" on AIDS, and the world should be heartened that the UN set targets for the "beginning of the end of AIDS" to be met in 2015. The bad news: Unless "sufficient funding, coordination and political will" are brought to bear in the fight against AIDS, it will be 2022 before the "beginning of the end of AIDS" can be reached.
With America mired in a heated national debate over how to fix the debt and the looming fiscal cliff, Bono has been personally lobbying U.S. lawmakers to urge them not to cut U.S. foreign assistance and aid funding. ONE is stoking up the urgency through a variety of actions in conjunction with World AIDS Day 2012.Continue reading...
Posted by Shirley Brady on November 28, 2012 12:06 PM
In July 2011, President Obama warned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that he would pressure Republicans to compromise and make a deal by "going to the American people" in order to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, and he's doing just that.
The White House (with more than 3 million Twitter followers) and Obama (with 23.9 million followers) created a trending topic on Twitter today by promoting the #My2K hashtag to rally support for the president's call for legislation before the year-end fiscal cliff deadline for former president George W. Bush's tax cuts package.
Obama is stepping up his effort to get Americans to lobby their elected representatives to pass the middle class tax cuts, personalizing the message with "My 2K" as a reference to the $2,000 (well, $2,200) that may be coming out of their pockets: "If Congress fails to act before the end of the year, every American family’s taxes will automatically go up. A typical middle-class family of four would see its taxes rise by $2,200 starting in 2013."Continue reading...
Posted by Sheila Shayon on November 21, 2012 01:08 PM
Americans are shopping en masse on mobile devices and increasingly in unusual places, including (ahem!) on the toilet, according to new research from CashStar, the digital gifting and incentives firm. And not because they're supporters of World Toilet Day.
Apparently, more than 38 million online adult Americans have shopped in the can — men, it seems, more prone to that kind of multitasking than women, in case you were wondering — while almost 17 million have shopped on their mobile device while standing in the retailer's physical store.
"Smartphones and tablets have enabled consumers to shop and gift on-the-go in more ways and places than ever before," said David Stone, co-founder and CEO of CashStar.
Other report findings include:
- More than four million have shopped online while driving a car.
- More than nine million admitted secretly shopping while in a business meeting.
- More than seven million have filled their grocery and online shopping carts at the same time.
"The retailers who have been paying attention and catering to where and how consumers want to shop by mobile-optimizing their e-commerce sites and offering mobile eGift Cards will reap the rewards this holiday season and have a jump on the competition going into 2013,” added Stone.Continue reading...
Posted by Barry Silverstein on November 21, 2012 12:02 PM
The annual holiday shopping hysteria is upon us, and this year's Thanksgiving madness promises to be more mobile than ever. In fact, a new survey indicates 28 percent of adult consumers who own smartphones or tablets will use them to shop on Thanksgiving day. That's nearly double last year's percentage.
As 20 percent of shoppers definitely plan to shop on Black Friday, they'll be enabled by QR codes (although almost 60 percent of shoppers don't know how to use them) as well as apps from websites and retailers catering to shoppers with smartphones and tablets. And beyond Black Friday throughout the holiday season, more so than ever this year.
"Apps will play a particularly strong role for driving commerce this holiday season," reports Mobile Commerce Daily. Nearly a third of smartphone owners will download a shopping app to use for holiday shopping, according to a Pricegrabber study and of those, over 80 percent will use their smartphones this holiday season in an effort to save money on purchases. eMarketer puts that figure at about 53%.
This year, retailers have resigned themselves to the fact that "showrooming" (checking out merchandise at stores and purchasing online) is the new competitive environment. "Consumers have been empowered by shopping apps," said Alexander Muse, founder of the Future Of Retail Alliance. "They've been armed with more product knowledge than clerks in most retail stores have. Retailers used to be threatened by this; now, they are finding ways to capitalize on it — such as through aggressive price-matching, as well as ship-to-store and other omnichannel strategies. That's the big difference between Black Friday 2011 and Black Friday 2012."Continue reading...
Posted by Dale Buss on November 20, 2012 06:03 PM
It's the holiday season already, but we're getting a late start on the whole peace and goodwill thing.
Peace? Don't look for it in millions of American homes on Thanksgiving afternoon as household members square off on whether they'll start hitting Target and other chains that are going to open that evening, or forswear what many see as one new intrusion too many on family traditions. Few retailers are as gutsy as Gander Mountain, the outdoor-retailing chain that is going the whole bird on Thanksgiving Day — open in many locations from 9 a.m. to midnight. However, as more bricks-and-mortar retailers invade the once-sacred time-space of Thanksigiving itself, preferring not to leave shopping on that day to the internet realm alone, they also are sparking more protests and regrets from rank-and-file Americans.
Goodwill? There won't be much of that in evidence at some Walmarts around the US on Friday, which is offering price-matching and a one-hour in-stock guarantee to shoppers — and the possibility of being short-staffed to handle the rush. Now that the chain seems to have gotten physical threats to doorbusters under control by preventing them from trampling one another, a new threat looms large: potential walkouts by workers and disruptions at about 1,000 stores across the country, caused by labor agitators who are organizing protests by as many members of Walmart's non-union workforce as they can.Continue reading...
Posted by Dale Buss on November 16, 2012 12:02 PM
The retail stampede is on, as early bird shoppers are being wooed this year to become pre-bird shoppers.
Whether Black Friday actually starts on Thanksgiving Thursday at 5:23 p.m., which is when eBay says it starts, or 9 p.m., which is when Target is opening its doors, doesn't really matter anymore. The fact is that America's biggest shopping day is getting a jump on itself, and there's no going back. Neither will retailers trying to get a jump on Black Friday by pre-positioning themselves with shoppers weeks ahead of time as they set their Black Friday plans.
Walmart already has released its Black Friday promotions online — buy now! — telling USA Today that it has bought so "deep" that it will have enough of some of the hottest electronics items — including iPad 2s — to satisfy shoppers who are sure to swarm their stores on Thanksgiving night while the day's slate of NFL games on TV is still playing itself out. Of course, retail workers are outraged, with charges of "pure greed" being bandied about, while at least one Walmart (in Bergen County, NJ) is being forced to close for two hours on Thanksgiving to give staffers a chance to gobble down some turkey.
Walmart and other bricks-and-mortar chains have been shifting more of their deals for Black Friday to the web for some time now. Staples plans to begin on Thanksgiving Day with some special mobile offers. The National Retail Federation projects that fewer Americans will brave physical stores this year than last year — but thanks to the deals and ease of shopping online, they'll spend more.Continue reading...
Posted by Dale Buss on November 16, 2012 11:52 AM
As restaurant brand executives cut jobs and announced their intentions to raise prices in the wake of President Obama's re-election, no one can say they weren't forewarned.
Chains such as Papa John's are explicitly tying their actions to the costs of Obamacare, while other brands — including GE Healthcare and Virgin Airlines — also are announcing job cuts as a result of their expectations for a continuation of U.S. economic sluggishness in the wake of the voting results.
Papa John's CEO John Schnatter has been the most outspoken. The Mitt Romney backer has said that he'll raise the price of a pizza pie by 10 to 14 cents as well as slash employee hours — but it's not, he says, because of the two million pizzas he's giving away, but due to the cotss of Obamacare. He's not alone. A Denny's franchisee in Florida, John Metz, said that he plans to add a five-percent surcharge to his customers' bills and also to reduce his employees' hours.Continue reading...
Posted by Dale Buss on November 14, 2012 01:06 PM
Century 21 enjoyed its own Super Bowl performance in February so much that the nation's leading Realty brand has scheduled an encore. A TV commercial by the company will appear during the third quarter of the CBS telecast of Super Bowl XLVII on February 3 from New Orleans.
"It was a powerful play for 2012," Bev Thorne, CMO of Century 21, told brandchannel about the brand's Super Bowl debut with a commercial that starred Donald Trump, Apolo Anton Ohno and Deion Sanders. "It turned into lots and lots of leads for our Century 21 agents, then turned into appointments and closed transactions."
The second Super Bowl ad, which Thorne talked up at the recent NAR Realtors Conference (above), will resemble the first one thematically, once again touting Century 21's agents as "smarter, bolder, faster." But this time around the brand is placing its commercial earlier in the game, right after halftime. Why not the third quarter again? "The timing happened to be good" because it was a close and exciting game, she said, "but we know there's always a good viewing audience right after the halftime show."Continue reading...


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The company responsible for staffing a Pennsylvania Amazon warehouse is fighting to keep some former workers from getting their unemployment benefits, but that hasn't stopped the company's CEO from enjoying a few of the finer things in life.
Integrity Staffing Solutions, a temporary staffing agency hired by Amazon to hire workers for its Lehigh Valley, Pa., warehouse, is involved in hundreds of unemployment claims appeal hearings per year, more than most Pennsylvania employers, according to a report from The Morning Call.
While the company is fighting former workers for their benefits, ISS CEO Todd Bavol lays claim to a beach house and a BMW, according to a 2009 Q&A in the Philadelphia Business Journal, The Morning Call noted.
Amazon and ISS didn't respond to requests for comment from The Huffington Post.
It's not rare to challenge former workers’ unemployment claims, especially during the recession, when more employers began fighting their former employees’ ability to collect their jobless benefits, according to The Washington Post. Businesses save money when they’re able to block jobless claims because their jobless insurance rates are based on how much their workers collect in unemployment claims.
This isn’t the first time ISS and Amazon have come under fire for the way they treat workers in the Lehigh Valley warehouse. Workers there allegedly contended with sweltering temperatures during the 2011 summer heat wave, according to a report last year from The Morning Call. Amazon announced in May 2012 that it would spend $52 million to retrofit its warehouses with air conditioning.
In the U.K., a 2008 Times of London report alleged that some Amazon workers weren't allowed to take sick leave and were effectively forced to work seven days a week. Amazon contested the report, saying it was inaccurate.
Amazon has been taking steps to counter critics. The company announced in July that it was launching a program to provide up to $2,000 in tuition assistance for college or vocational training to warehouse workers.


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Last year, 2K Sports announced they were halting development on their MLB 2K series.
“We have decided not to renew our MLB 2K series for 2014,” read a statement from a company earlier in the year. “We are very proud of the achievements made by the MLB 2K team and look forward to their contributions to our future titles.”
Many outlets, rightfully so, took it as if the company was abandoning baseball altogether. We’ve might have spoken too soon. (more…)


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B.C. consumer-spending trends continue to stem from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Society has opened up, and government restrictions that temporarily kept people from dining out, gathering in large groups and travelling have all long ended.
The lingering effects of the pandemic, however, include inflation (fuelled in part by government spending), interest-rate hikes (to control inflation) and a consumer eager to spend on services and experiences, particularly travel.
Reports differ on how strong the Canadian and B.C. consumers are, but indications are that there is a slowdown in spending, particularly in B.C.
Statistics Canada released retail data in June that showed B.C. and Newfoundland as the only two provinces where retail spending declined in April, compared with the same month in 2022.
Canada overall saw a 2.9-per-cent rise in dollars spent on retail goods, including restaurant services, in April, compared with April 2022.
In B.C., however, consumers spent $8.953 billion in April on those goods and services, or about 0.1 per cent less than in the same month in 2022.
When inflation is factored in, it is clear that B.C consumers are buying much less. They spending less and getting less for each dollar spent.
Canadian inflation spiked to a 39-year high of 8.1 per cent in June 2022, and has since settled down to 2.8 per cent in June.
Perhaps it is because inflation remains higher than retail-spending growth that Nielsen Consumer LLC research shows Canadian consumers have adopted spending patterns indicative of a recession.
"A consumer recession is when the core habits of traditional consumption have shifted, forcing shoppers to behave as though a recession is already here," Neilsen's NIQ unit said in a June 28 report. "They consume less, shift their spending to value retailers and brands, and buy more products on promotion."
NIQ has what it calls a "sensitivity index" to chart consumer recessions. A point rank of 80 on that index indicates that the country is in a consumer recession. In the first quarter of 2023, NIQ's sensitivity index for the Canadian consumer was 77.
Odlum Brown executive vice-president and director of investment research Murray Leith told BIV that there is a bifurcation in consumer resilience that stems from how people fared during the pandemic.
Home owners and those with lots of money in the stock market watched their asset values soar, he said.
Others, he added, are hurting.
"It's been wonderful for my business, and our clients, with inflating asset values, but it's really fuelled huge inequality across the country and that is a problem," Leith said.
Indeed, Statistics Canada released data July 4 that showed that the gap between rich and poor in Canada is widening at the fastest annual rate since the nation's number cruncher started keeping data on that metric in 2010. The gap is, however, slightly smaller than it was pre-pandemic, when comparing the wealthiest quintile of the population with the least wealthy quintile.
Other data showing that the least wealthy quintile of the population is struggling comes from MNP Ltd.
Its July 10 survey found 52 per cent of Canadians said that they were $200 away, or less, from not being able to pay all of their bills at the end of the month – up six percentage points from a similar survey MNP did in April.
Leith's concern for the Canadian economy and consumer spending is that even those who own high-priced homes are going to start to feel less wealthy, and consequently reduce spending.
This is even as the Canadian job market remains strong. The country added 60,000 jobs in June, which was more than most analysts expected.
Canadians have more debt than Americans do, in part because many Americans scaled back their debt during the 2009 Global Financial Crisis, Leith said.
Canadians also proportionally have more variable-rate mortgages than do Americans, he added.
Variable-rate mortgages' interest payments rise immediately when the Bank of Canada hikes interest rates, such as it did on July 12, to five per cent.
Canadian inflation is also likely to keep rising in part because of government handouts, such as Ottawa's so-called "grocery rebate." That program aims to help families that earn up to $64,946 with rebates up to $628 to help them deal with rising prices.
"Inflation isn't the only problem that we have in society," Leith said. "We have great inequality and lower income people who are really struggling."
Spending shifts to services, essentials and travel
Retail analysts and studies have identified several big-picture trends for how consumers are spending money.
The main shifts are:
• toward experiences and away from goods;
• toward essentials and away from discretionary items; and
• toward travel to make up for lost years during the pandemic when travel had restrictions.
"The pandemic helped consumers realize that while material goods are fine, there's a life out there," said Retail Insider owner Craig Patterson.
"People are now searching more for experiences. They got a bit of a taste of mortality, through hearing about death constantly."
Blackrock research, starting in the 1950s, shows steady growth in the percentage of spending that American consumers allot to experiences and services versus goods. The pandemic prompted a brief reversal of that trend but the shift back to spending on experiences has returned even though it has yet to surpass what it was in 2019.
Consumers increasingly view travel as an essential item, and not discretionary, because they experienced travel bans during the pandemic, Patterson said.
Corporate earnings reports support the theory that the consumer is spending more essentials.
Aritzia's (TSX:ATZ) share price fell 24 per cent on July 12, after it revealed a declining profit margin and slowing sales growth that indicated that consumers are shifting spending toward essential items and away from discretionary goods, such as clothing.
Home Depot Inc. (NYSE:HD) noted recently that big-ticket optional purchases, for items such as appliances, have declined.
This may in part be because consumers are scaling down home renovation projects that were in vogue during the pandemic.
"High inflation rates have led customers to prioritize essential products over higher ticket discretionary ones," Canadian Tire (TSX:CTC-A) CEO Greg Hicks said on his company's May conference call.
He added that customers are also shifting to house brands from premier name brands.
"Customers moved away from best-level products in certain categories, such as tires and household consumables, towards our better and good-level products," Hicks said.
Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN) CEO Andy Jassy earlier this month echoed those thoughts in a CNBC interview.
"People are trading down whenever they can," Jassy said. "They’re buying but they’re very conscious about price. It’s an uncertain economy."
Patterson said the trend of trading down to by less expensive products is helping dollar stores.
"Dollarama (TSX:DOL) is opening new stores and is doing quite well," he said.
Luxury retailers are also affected.
While the ultra-wealthy may see no need to cut back on spending, there are many shoppers at stores such as Holt Renfrew who save up to splurge on a special item that they have long coveted.
"I've spoken to people who do sales at Holt Renfrew who have said that the aspirational shopper, to a degree, has dried up, and that [the aspirational shopper is] now trying to put food on the table as opposed to buying a Prada bag," he said.
Spending at restaurants is part of the shift toward spending on experiences but the boom in that spending may be short lived, DIG360 owner and retail analyst David Gray told BIV.
"I am surprised to see restaurant spending continuing, menu price inflation and the spike in gratuities that seem to be growing higher while grocery inflation is slowly cooling," he said.
"I am concerned that dining out will be an early casualty of any fall downturn." •


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GENEVA – After 38 years in downtown Geneva selling shoes, Giesche Shoes owner Gregory Giesche and his brothers are looking to retire.
“My family has been selling shoes since 1892, and – before that – we were shoemakers,” Giesche said. “My two brothers and I – we’re all in our 60s. They don’t have children, and I have one daughter and she is not interested. So, it’s time to retire.”
Giesche said if someone was interested, he would sell the business as well, but – if not – he would have a retirement sale once the building is sold.
The 4,150-square-foot building at 21 N. Fourth St. was just listed for sale at $799,000 with Real Estate Consultants Inc. of Barrington.
Giesche said the family at one time had six stores, but now have two. The other store in Glen Ellyn is under contract for sale, Giesche said.
“I’m approaching it from this standpoint, that there is all kinds of space for lease in Geneva, but not that much for sale. I’m happy to lease it, but I stand a better chance selling it,” Giesche said. “Geneva has been very good to us. I had a lot of fun [selling shoes], but it’s time to move on.”
According to Geneva Township property records, the building was built in 1955 and has a 1,120-square foot basement. It is a free-standing, single-story structure with masonry brick construction, according to the listing agency.
Randy Kotwica of the listing agency said the building is in business zoning, with a lot of uses permitted, such as a showroom, another retail store, a restaurant or even a winery.
“It’s got potential for redevelopment,” Kotwica said. “The building has a wide-open floor plan top and bottom. It has a large basement with the same footprint as the building itself. It has the potential for many different uses.”
Kotwica said the market was tough, but its location in Geneva and the building’s good condition all work in its favor.
“Downtown Geneva has a lot to offer, Kotwica said. “That’s one of the best things going for it. And it’s a clean building, well-maintained, and it’s still occupied.”
That Giesche was selling the building and looking to retire was sad news to the Geneva Chamber of Commerce.
“I’m very sad to hear that,” chamber spokeswoman Laura Rush said. “Giesche Shoes is an icon in Geneva. Greg Giesche was Chamber Member of the Year last year.”
As to what he might do in retirement, Giesche said for the time being, he plans to stay in Geneva.
“I’m going to try to do a few things I have not done in 40 years,” Giesche said. “Like go to Swedish Days and have a sandwich. Or go to the Christmas Walk. Or have a glass of wine at Festival of the Vine. These have been around me all my life, but I’ve never been to any of them. I’ve always been in the store.”


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With a feared recession yet to materialize, GroupM is feeling somewhat optimistic.
In its midyear forecast, released on Monday, the holding company predicts that global advertising is on track to grow 5.9% in 2023, in line with its projection from December.
Still, that number represents negative growth when accounting for inflation. While 2022 started out strong and slumped in the second half of the year, the inverse is happening in 2023.
Ad revenues in the first half were coming out of a trough because “inflation was a bit stickier and interest rates continued to rise for longer than we had thought,” said Kate Scott-Dawkins, global president of business intelligence at GroupM.
“We expect more of a recovery story in the second half of the year,” she said.
GroupM projects that global ad revenue will reach $874.5 billion in 2023, excluding political ad spend, and that US ad revenue will grow by 5.1% this year to $325.3 billion and by 5% in 2024.
RMNs on the rise
Digital ad revenue as a portion of overall ad spending is also set to grow. It’ll be up by 8.4% this year and make up 74.4% of total ad revenue by 2028.
The dominance of digital and the maturity of the sector means that digital ad revenue will no longer grow at double-digit rates. GroupM predicts digital ad revenue growth to continue slowing down over the next five years.
But there are certain standout channels within digital that will keep on growing at a breakneck pace.
For instance, retail media, including delivery services such as Instacart, DoorDash, UberEats and Amazon, will grow 9.9% to $125.7 billion in 2023, making up 15.4% of total ad revenue by 2028. In a telling sign of its powerhouse status, retail media revenue is expected to surpass overall TV revenue by 2028.
So seductive is retail media’s call that many companies are pulling money from trade budgets.
“There is this push within CPG, the biggest endemic category for retail media, to bring [trade and marketing] closer together, to have visibility over the entire spend with these retailers,” Scott-Dawkins said.
This inevitable shift of trade budgets to online media could get a little awkward, however, because the fight for budget creates competition between a brand’s trade marketing team and its digital marketing team.
Growing like a weed
But while retail media is expanding rapidly, it’s only the third-fastest-growing category within digital.
According to GroupM, digital out-of-home (DOOH) and CTV take first and second place on the podium in terms of growth rate (although it should be said that ad spend across both categories is still tiny compared to retail media).
DOOH will grow 26.1% to $13.3 billion in 2023, capturing 37.2% of all OOH revenue. By 2028, DOOH revenue will represent 43% of OOH revenue.
And out-of-home as a whole recovered a year earlier than projected in GroupM’s December forecast. GroupM pegs global OOH to grow 12.7% in 2023 and keep growing through 2028.
CTV ad revenue, meanwhile, is set to increase by 13.2% to $25.9 billion in 2023 – and there’s still runway for growth.
In the US, subscription video on demand (SVOD) has grown more popular over the years. Still, only 21.6% of consumer video spending went to SVOD in 2022. So streaming providers have plenty of room to grow their subscriber bases.
“The overwhelming trend for where people are spending their time is toward streaming, especially among younger generations,” Scott-Dawkins said.
You down with UGC
Another behavioral shift driven by younger users is more consumption of user-generated content (UGC) on channels including YouTube, Meta, TikTok, Snap, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Twitter.
“We have seen growth in time spent,” Scott-Dawkins said. “Obviously, ad dollars are following.”
In 2016, UGC represented a scant 9.8% of ad spend, versus 60.2% for professionally produced content. By 2022, UGC seized a 25.6% share of ad dollars, compared to 34.7% for professional content.
But content creation is changing.
GroupM predicts generative AI will inform a minimum of half of all ad revenue, including both media optimization and ad creative, by the end of 2023 and more than two-thirds of advertising by 2028. “AI touches everything,” Scott-Dawkins said. “It’s so pervasive.”
But despite the benefits, such as helping marketers automate repetitive tasks and enhancing decision-making, AI comes with pitfalls as well.
A deluge of AI-generated content, for example, could engulf UGC platforms and the open web until they become so “cluttered with content that you don’t know whether it was created by AI or not, whether it’s true or not,” Scott-Dawkins said.
Brands might hold back their spending on UGC channels due to concern over brand safety issues, she said.
GroupM also sounds a cautionary note on how IP rules and regulations surrounding generative AI are in flux.
For instance, the EU AI Act proposes that companies employing generative AI must disclose any copyrighted assets they tap to train the algorithm. But the US Copyright Office has stated that images produced by generative AI models such as DALL-E 2 and Midjourney can’t be copyrighted.
AI will continue to grow despite these hurdles.
But there is no joy in Mudville for other channels. Predictably, linear TV will experience a revenue decline of 1.2% this year.
Still, the overall ad revenue forecast is bright.
Brands continue to spend on advertising despite factors such as macroeconomic pressures, data privacy and antitrust regulation hovering over Big Tech, the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike and surrounding generative AI, according to Scott-Dawkins.


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Jen-Hsun Huang, the CEO and co-founder of Nvidia has claimed that Android is the operating system (OS) to dominate the future of mobile gaming.
Despite keeping their options open when it comes to Surface and Windows RT, the company sees Android as the dominant force in the market, with Huang pointing to their Shield device as a means of further growing the OS’s ecosystem. The Shield is an Android-powered portable gaming console, with the ability to output game content to larger screens.
“Shield is our initiative to cultivate the gaming marketplace for Android,” explained Huang. “We believe that Android is going to be a very important platform for gaming in the future, and to do so we have to create devices that enable great gaming to happen on Android.”
Android has started to overtake Apple’s App Store in a number of important criteria. More mobile phone devices now have access to the Android OS than Apple, with 497.1 million phones running on Android last year compared to just 135.9 million on Apple. The OS’s primary app store, which offers users access to a vast library of game apps, is also larger than the App Store, with roughly 25,000 more app titles. In addition to this, Android users are also able to access a large number of mobile dedicated gaming sites, such as RoyalVegasCasino.com.
Huang added that Android could stretch beyond gaming into various entertainment markets: “Android is the most disruptive operating system that we’ve seen in a few decades… We have some for [plans] for Windows RT or Surface but our focus is that going forward the vast majority of Windows or ARM will be Surface and the vast majority of everything else in Tegra is Android. Android is not just about phones.”
These statements, which Huang made on an investor call, signify the intended future direction for Nvidia. Huang identifies Android as a means for further growing and expanding the company’s market offerings.
With the release of the Shield console, Nvidia are hoping to encourage independent Android game developers to create tailored game products for Tegra, Nvidia’s system on a chip for mobile devices. If this occurs, more Android device original equipment manufacturers may begin to consider equipping their devices with Tegra when building out specification for new hardware.
It is a long-term strategy for the company, with Nvidia congregating close to the Android boom to benefit from the knock-on effects. Huang concluded: “At a time when many are struggling with the decline in the mainstream PC market, our visual computing leadership has positioned us well to grow with the accelerating adoption of GPUs in the cloud and the world of connected devices.”


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Published November 28, 2022
Ex-Foody founders’ startup Cooky raised $4.5M from Nextrans and Do Ventures
Cooky was founded by Minh Dang and Dai Nguyen who were the founding members of Foody • Vietnam’s pioneer food delivery player. After successfully exiting Foody to SEA Group, the leading Internet company in South East Asia, the duo has set out on a new journey to become the soulmate for those who don’t have much time but love to cook. Cooky app currently has over 1 million downloads after 1.5 years of operation.
The pandemic has driven a surge in home-delivery groceries demand, and this behavior is being fostered in Vietnam by a young and tech-savvy population. With the rapid adoption of e-grocery solutions, Vietnam’s e-grocery market is expected to reach $1.5B by 2025, according to Cooky’s estimates. In this setting, Cooky stands out as a health-minded FoodTech company that combines an online grocery store with a meal kit service, allowing customers to shop for either individual ingredients or entire recipes. Cooky provides a wide range of choices with a focus on ready-to-cook meal kits.
Cooky’s meal kits, all of which come with portioned ingredients, contain everything needed to create healthy dishes at home. All ingredients are selected carefully from reliable farms and brands in Vietnam. Cooky chefs take care of every aspect of cooking preparation, from getting the right ingredients, weighing out exactly what you need, and providing the recipe, which means your meal will come together in 30 minutes or less. Online orders will be delivered within 1 hour of order placement or at the customer's preferred time frame.
"We want to provide easy-to-make, delicious, and healthy meals for everyone who wants to eat well but does not have time to cook. Our customers can leave behind the hassle of grocery shopping and cook whenever they want with no food waste,” said Minh Dang, CEO of Cooky.
The fresh funds will be utilized to accelerate Cooky's R&D to create more diverse healthy meal kits at better prices. The company will also focus on maximizing customer satisfaction by improving personalized services based on customers' needs.
Seung-Ho Chae, Managing Director at Nextrans, said: "Vietnam grocery retail market should be innovated to become more efficient and transparent. Cooky provides excellent ready-to-cook meals with better pricing and a pioneering system built for farm-to-table distribution. Nextrans believes that Cooky's innovative model will make meal preparation more convenient and give Vietnamese people a healthier lifestyle.”
Vy Le, General Partner at Do Ventures, said: "In today's busy schedule, Cooky provides us with a comfortable way to make meals without planning recipes and going to the supermarket. We're thrilled to support a team with a proven track record and profound experience in FoodTech and supply chain operations. We believe that Cooky's founding team can build on its previous success and create a game-changing food delivery service in the Vietnam market.”


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In February 2024, the debut of Apple Vision Pro catapulted AR and VR technology back into the limelight. However, while Vision Pro’s appeal is mainly associated with real use cases in immersive gaming and fitness, the potential of Apple Vision Pro in healthcare app development is less explored.
As we cull it from the online collective hive mind, Apple plans to make its new headgear the next big thing in the healthcare space. But is there tangible value beyond the hype? And should you jump head-first into Vision Pro healthcare app development? Our experts break it down for you.
A look inside Apple Vision Pro
Apple Vision Pro is a mixed-reality headset that blends digital content with the physical world, transforming your space with apps, entertainment, photos, videos, and more. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple Vision Pro marks a new era in technology and “introduces users to spatial computing.” Vision Pro applications run on the visionOS platform, which is Apple's first spatial operating system, designed specifically for its XR headgear.
What makes the Vision Pro device different is the way it merges the two worlds, allowing apps and digital content to live in your space. As of March 2024, users can find over 600 new spatial experiences in the all-new App Store, alongside 1+ million compatible apps across iOS and iPadOS.
Unique features of Apple Vision Pro that make the latest talk in the tech town
Resembling a pair of ski goggles, the device sports a curved front with an external screen for EyeSight, a brand-new feature that displays your actual eyes to those nearby.
The device has a raft of other innovative features in store:
- Hand, eye, and voice management – users can interact with the interface by using their senses.
- 3D Persona – a dynamic digital avatar that captures the user's face and hand movements in real time.
- Automated spatial awareness – equipped with advanced spatial mapping algorithms, the device helps you stay aware of your surroundings, preventing collisions with furniture and other physical objects.
- High-resolution passthrough – with Apple Vision Pro, users can seamlessly overlay virtual designs on physical spaces.
- Customizable environments – users can transform their physical environments into stunning landscapes, with effects and subtle videos weaved in.
The device doesn’t have any specific health and fitness features, so app developers can leverage the features mentioned above and tap into the variety of machine learning and computer vision technologies to build a mixed-reality health or fitness app. Also, Apple Vision Pro apps can use all the bells and whistles of 3D content, real-world sensing and mapping, streaming processing, and a whole lot of other next-gen features.
Real-world applications of Apple Vision Pro in healthcare
Unlike precursors like Meta's Oculus headsets that lack existing use cases, Apple Vision Pro has already made its way into healthcare. And here’s another twist: the medical community is supportive of the technology with 75% of US medical professionals being open to exploring the use of Vision Pro devices at work. Ok, doc: but how exactly are early adopters putting it to work in healthcare?
Patient data visualization
The spatial computing device allows physicians to have vital health data in their field of view during exams. Doctors can keep anything from test results to medical records and Apple Watch datasets at the forefront, facilitating data-informed diagnosis.
Epic Systems, one of the largest providers of health information technology, has recently jumped at the opportunity. The EHR provider is rolling out its Epic Spatial Computing Concept app for Apple Vision Pro to allow physicians and clinicians to handle charting, review labs, and communicate via secure chat.
Surgery preparation and training
Medical teams can use a Vision Pro during surgery preparations to visualize a patient’s autonomy, select tools, and monitor the surgery process. The headgear also provides a virtual environment for surgeons to practice in and improve their surgical precision without putting patients at risk.
And these are not theoretical considerations: a medical team in the UK had VR goggles during two spinal surgeries. The app market keeps up with demand. The new myMako app, designed specifically for visionOS, allows surgeons to visualize and review patients' Mako surgical plans, while the brand-new CyranoHealth app delivers an immersive training experience for healthcare workers.
Startups are also willing to catch the wave and make ground with the leading players. FundamentalVR startup pushed out an app for the Vision Pro, currently available on an “invite-only” basis, for a simulated catheter placement procedure.
Medical imaging and diagnostics
The unmatched eye-tracking technology enables the spatial headset to pick up conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular conditions, retinal diseases, and neurological disorders. With advanced visualization tools, high-resolution displays, and integrated AI algorithms, Vision Pro turns into a robust processing engine for medical imaging, giving deeper insights into the patient's health and facilitating proactive health monitoring.
UC San Diego Health became the first health system to pilot Vision Pro-enabled imaging. The hospital system adopted the Visage Ease VP app, a new diagnostic imaging platform designed by an enterprise imaging solutions provider for Apple Vision Pro.
The visionOS ecosystem has recently welcomed a handful of other medical imaging apps. Medivis and Falcon Vue put a new spin on radiology technology, helping practitioners improve patient outcomes.
Behavioral health and wellness
AR and VR technologies have long been used to augment mental health apps and wellness solutions with immersive experiences. Vision Pro takes it up the ante, offering a gateway into full-blown immersive therapy sessions. The device can also gauge a wearer's facial expressions to detect depression and anxiety or estimate stress levels.
The Xaia app is a fine specimen of the new, visionOS breed of mental health apps. It features a 3D avatar to emulate a human therapist and lead a patient through an adaptive and fully immersive therapy session.
As for mindfulness practice, meditation apps like Odio and TRIPP bank on Vision Pro’s Spatial Audio capabilities and intuitive gestures to create relaxing spatial environments.
Medical training and onboarding
Apple Vision Pro provides a simulated, risk-free environment for medical training, allowing both students and practitioners to hone their skills and address gaps in their knowledge. Accessible and versatile, the headset can simulate high-pressure ER scenarios, present 3D models of anatomical structures, and visualize CT and MRI scans. Newly hired medical professionals can also benefit from interactive walkthroughs and enjoy a consistent onboarding experience.
This application has already found its way into the real world. Medical publisher Elsevier has debuted Complete HeartX, a groundbreaking educational app that runs on visionOS and guides students through human anatomy and physiology with the help of interactive 3D models, images, and simulations.
So far so good, right? Especially for something as recent as Apple Vision Pro. However, its future in healthcare is tinged with uncertainty. Here’s why.
Challenges of adopting Vision Pro for healthcare app development
Like with any other cutting-edge technology, early adopters of Vision Pro have to grapple with stringent healthcare regulations, privacy concerns, and the affordability of the solution.
Privacy and security concerns
We still don’t know how the device assists in safeguarding patient data and maintaining patient confidentiality. Additionally, there are concerns about the collection, storage, and usage of user data by Apple. The device gets detailed insights into the space around the user, their body, and motion — and it’s unclear what visibility third-party apps have into this data.
Surely, this makes it challenging for Vision Pro apps to achieve full compliance with healthcare regulations such as HIPAA or GDPR.
Affordability and access
As trailblazing as the Apple Vision Pro feels right now, with the price tag of $3,499, it is unlikely to reach its potential in the cash-strapped healthcare industry. Besides, only 5% of the Americans surveyed have had the opportunity to use an Apple Vision Pro.
Rumor has it that Apple has a more affordable version of Vision Pro in the works that will cost around $1,500 to $2,500. It’s more palatable than $3,499 but still prohibitive for healthcare.
With a battery life of two and a half hours and a weight of 650 grams, the metal-framed device is suitable for short-term use only. This means that its application field is limited to minor procedures and brief tasks. Also, the bright lights of operating rooms stand in the way of passthrough VR, making it hard for surgeons to see the patient while projecting the MRI data.
Lack of high-quality medical images
The scarcity of high-quality medical images for training is the problem that holds true for all ML-enabled applications. Obtaining such data is resource-intensive and time-consuming, which can stymie the broad use of Apple Vision Pro in diagnostics.
Predictions for the future role of Apple Vision Pro in healthcare app development
We can’t tell for sure whether the device will become a ubiquitous tool in healthcare any time soon. However, one thing is certain: the launch of Apple Vision Pro can be the next leap forward, offering a new factor that revolutionizes telemedicine, chronic disease management, and preventive care.
In healthcare, Vision Pro adopters will likely find themselves in a tangle of regulatory problems and tech limitations, but on the other hand, it’s always the case with next-gen technologies in this industry.
Another factor that hints at the possibly bright future of Apple Vision Pro is that Apple pitches its product as a healthcare tool to the largest players in the industry. Sharp HealthCare, together with Epic and Elsevier, launched a spatial computing center of excellence featuring Apple Vision Pro. A partner ecosystem of this caliber can lay the first stone for the wide-scale adoption of VisionOS healthcare apps.
The proliferation of the device in healthcare also has a lot riding on the developer community. As of today, there are slightly over 600 apps on the visionOS Apple Store. If the ecosystem doesn’t catch on with developers, it is unlikely to make it far, irrespective of the industry.
Seize new opportunities with Orangesoft
Since 2011, Orangesoft has been helping healthcare organizations, clinics, medical device manufacturers, and healthcare startups build meaningful digital experiences that promote better care. Whether it’s a good-old iOS app or a spatial computing application for visionOS, our team has what it takes to create healthcare tech applications powered with the latest technology. Contact us to share your project details and create a digital product that resonates with the needs of modern healthcare.


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Alcoa is traditionally the first of the 30 companies in the Dow average to report earnings.
Market-watchers expect the quarter's results could include many surprises because of such events as Superstorm Sandy, the presidential election, and the narrowly avoided fiscal cliff.
The European debt crisis continued to cast a pall over the market. Unemployment in the 17 countries that use the euro hit a new high, leading the European Union to warn about the risk of fraying social welfare systems in southern Europe.
Trading has been cautious in the week since Congress and the White House struck a deal to maintain lower tax rates and postpone sweeping cuts in government spending. Enthusiasm about the compromise pushed the Dow up 300 points last Wednesday.
In corporate news:
Agriculture products giant Monsanto rose $2.56, or 2.7 percent, to $98.50 after saying its profit nearly tripled in the first fiscal quarter, helped by strong seed sales in Latin America. Monsanto raised its earnings guidance for the year.
Video game seller GameStop lost $1.56, or 6.3 percent, to $23.19 after reporting weak holiday-season sales and cutting its revenue guidance.
Yum Brands, operator of the KFC and Taco Bell fast food chains, plunged after saying a key sales metric in China fell more than expected in the fourth quarter. The decline was related to problems at two small chicken suppliers; nearly half of the company's revenue came from China in 2011. Yum lost $2.85, or 4.2 percent, to $65.04.
In Korea, electronics giant Samsung said it expects record earnings for the fourth quarter as shoppers continue to embrace its smartphones and tablets. But there were signs its momentum is slowing, and the company's stock closed down 1.3 percent in Seoul.


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The upcoming action role-playing game King of Seas from 3DClouds has just received a new gameplay trailer. It provides a much better idea of how pirate combat will work, as well as a brief overview of the story of the world around players. The game is set to launch in holiday 2020, though no firm release date has been set just yet. King of Seas is set in a brutal world ruled by pirates. As a newly formed pirate crew in a procedurally generated world, there’s so much to explore and conquer, so many riches to be found, and an […]
The post King of Seas gets new gameplay trailer showing off ship-based combat appeared first on Nintendo Enthusiast.


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People walk past a Best Buy store in Manhattan, New York City, November 22, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
Best Buy cut its full-year sales outlook Tuesday, as the company weathers a period of cooler demand and prepares for price-conscious holiday shoppers.
The consumer electronics retailer beat Wall Street’s quarterly earnings expectations, but fell short on revenue.
Best Buy said it now expects revenue to range from $43.1 billion to $43.7 billion for the fiscal year, down from its previous range of between $43.8 billion to $44.5 billion. The retailer said it expects comparable sales to decline by between 6% and 7.5%, lower than its previous guidance of a 4.5% to 6% drop.
It also lowered the high end of its profit guidance, saying it expects adjusted earnings per share to range from $6 to $6.30 instead of between $6 and $6.40.
CEO Corie Barry said in a news release that Best Buy anticipated softer sales of consumer electronics this year. But with an economic backdrop marked by high inflation and the Federal Reserve’s campaign to cool down spending, she said consumer demand “has been even more uneven and difficult to predict.”
She said the retailer is ready for the holiday season and “prepared for a customer who is very deal-focused with promotions and deals for all budgets.”
Here’s how the company did for the fiscal third quarter, compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:
- Earnings per share: $1.29 adjusted vs. $1.18 expected
- Revenue: $9.76 billion vs. $9.90 billion expected
Best Buy, like home improvement retailers, is seeing demand moderate as it follows years of increased purchases of computer monitors, home theaters, and appliances during the Covid pandemic. Barry previously told investors that she expected this fiscal year to be “the low point in tech demand” before purchases pick up again.
In the three-month period that ended Oct. 28, Best Buy said net income dropped to $263 million, or $1.21 per share, from $277 million, or $1.22 per share, in the year-ago period. Revenue fell from $10.59 billion a year earlier.
Comparable sales, an industry metric that includes sales online and at stores open at least 14 months, fell by 6.9% year over year and 7.3% in the U.S., as shoppers bought fewer appliances, computers, home theaters and mobile phones. The company said it did see sales growth in gaming.
The company’s online sales declined by 9.3% in the U.S.
Even as it saw lower demand for merchandise, Best Buy drove higher profitability as it made money from its annual membership program, sold products with more favorable margins and had lower supply-chain costs.
Shares of Best Buy closed at $68.11 on Monday. So far this year, the company’s stock has tumbled about 15%, underperforming the 18% gains of the S&P 500 during the same period.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
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For those of you who own an Apple device that supports the new iOS 11, yesterday the company released their new operating system to users here in Malaysia and it brought along a lot of features that really enhanced the experience even for older devices. However, some changes have been made to the Control Center in the new update which is particularly targeted at the Bluetooth and WiFi controls.
When tapping on the two icons, it shows that it becomes disabled, however, this does not actually turn off the radio for both these features. They are left in the background running to keep features like the file transfer, AirDrop, geolocation services and communications with an Apple Watch intact. Now, this might seem like it’s not such a big deal, but we live in the age where an unsecured WiFi connection can lead to unwanted access into your devices, this also applies to the Bluetooth connection as well. This issue was found by security researcher Andrea Barisani who also mentioned that it is good practice to turn off both the WiFi and Bluetooth if you are worried about potential attacks and saving battery.
PSA: iOS 11 new control center WiFi and Bluetooth toggles don’t actually turn off their respective radios.
— Andrea Barisani (@AndreaBarisani) September 20, 2017
The two radios can be shut off but it requires you to go directly into the each individual settings menu and switch them off there. Let’s hope that in future updates, Apple would make this process easier or indicate to users that their WiFi and Bluetooth is kept on for a good reason.


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Progressive Care, a Florida-based healthcare services company, started accepting Bitcoin payments for its COVID-19 Rapid Resting services
Progressive Care, a Florida-based healthcare services company, announced today that it has begun accepting Bitcoin payments for COVID-19 Rapid Resting services at its PharmcoRx locations.
Progressive Care now accepting Bitcoin payments for COVID-19 Rapid Testing
As such, US citizens can now pay for a quick COVID-19 test with Bitcoin, thanks to the personalized healthcare and technology company, Progressive Care.
According to the company, the decision was made on the eve of Bitcoin 2021, the world’s largest Bitcoin Conference taking place in Miami this week. The company said the event will attract more than 50,000 visitors to Pharmco’s core market in the Miami metropolitan area, most of whom are tourists.
Alan Jay Weisberg, CEO, and President of Progressive Care noted that the healthcare services company believes in the future of blockchain technology.
“We want to extend our market-leading services in rapid COVID-19 testing solutions to those who prefer to pay through Bitcoin. This is an excellent alternative for post-pandemic tourists coming into our communities from abroad. We are happy to invite Bitcoin holders to our locations for all of their COVID-19 testing needs.”
Progressive Care created QR codes for Bitcoin payments to give customers a user-friendly and streamlined experience.
The COVID-19 Rapid Test is provided by PharmcoRx, a subsidiary of Progressive Care. PharmcoRx started accepting crypto payments in 2018, becoming the first pharmacy to offer crypto payment solutions for its pharmaceutical services. The company is now looking forward to expanding its commitment to its COVID-19 testing solutions.
While PharmcoRx’s COVID-19-based PCR test is currently required by most international airlines as a travel requirement, the company hopes to become the leading testing destination for Test solutions. Rapid COVID-19 testing across multiple industries including Fortune 500 global entertainment companies, chain restaurants, corporate employers, and financial institutions.
Since the beginning of this year, large companies and institutional clients around the world have continued to use BTC as a method of payment or reserve asset.
Last month, Sheetz, a family-owned convenience store chain based in the US, announced that it would start accepting BTC as a payment method. In February, Portugal-based electricity retailer Luzboa said it was starting the necessary technological adaptation procedures to allow it to accept Bitcoin payments from customers.
- El Salvador Is Set To Become The First Nation To Accept Bitcoin As Legal Tender
- The Hacktivist Group Anonymous Has Recorded A Message Aimed At Elon Musk For Allegedly Manipulating Bitcoin Price


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Reliance AMC named as India’s Best Employer Brand : Aon Hewitt study
Posted on:05 Apr 2016 09:20:06
05 April 2016 Current Affairs GK: Reliance Asset Management Company - India's third biggest mutual fund in terms of asset under management has been recognized among the best employer brands in a recent study released by Aon Hewitt to honour India's best employer brands of 2016. Aon Hewitt, the global talent, retirement and health solutions business announced its 2016 Best Employers Study bringing laurels to the best brands that have contributed to organizational excellence. Reliance AMC is the only mutual fund company to get this recognition in India in the top 25 AON list for 2016. The Aon Hewitt Best Employers study is conducted in the Asia Pacific Region conducted across 12 markets -- China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. The study's research methodology covered 113 companies across 12 industries, cumulatively employing approximately 950,000 employees to adjudge India's Best Employer of 2016. This recognition, from Aon, is a testimony for promoting entrepreneurship - with high degree of employee engagement and business performance - within the organisation, said Sundeep Sikka, CEO, Reliance Capital AMC. According to Aon Hewitt (India), Reliance Capital Asset Management's strong Employee Value Proposition helps it enhance the internal employee experience and develop an employer brand that strengthens company's credibility to attract high-quality talent, said Aon Hewitt (India). Reliance Capital Asset Management Limited stands out for its innovative talent sourcing strategy of hiring from diverse industries; promoting learning and innovation" said Tarandeep Singh, Partner, Talent & Performance Consulting, Aon Hewitt (India).
FreshersLive - No.1 Job site in India. Fresherslive Current Affairs 2017 section offers informative quiz questions with answers regarding latest current affairs today for all sorts of competitive exams like UPSC, TNPSC , IFS, IAS, IPS, railway exams (RRB) and banking exams like IPBS PO, IPBS clerk, Federal Bank PO, ICICI, SBI, RBI legal officer & Grade officer posts and much more. Register with us to get latest Current Affairs Updates. Also get latest Current Affairs news and quiz Updates for free alerts daily through E-mail


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The important earnings report, since it included sales of the first BlackBerry 10 device, the Z10, failed to enthuse investors.
BlackBerry shipped 6.8 million smartphones in the quarter, of which only 2.7 million were BB10 devices including the aforementioned Z10 and the QWERTY-packing Q10 that was released in Canada and the UK but did not reach the U.S. in time for this earnings report.
By comparison, Apple shipped over 37 million iPhones in the last quarter, and Samsung shipped over 40 million.
The company reported a loss of $84 million on revenue of $3.1 billion, and cited Venezuelan foreign exchange regulations as the sole reason for the loss.
Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 28 Jun 2013 21:50


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- Belgian regulator to rate iPhone 12 after French ban
- Apple says the iPhone 12 complies with global radiation regulations
- German regulator says France will lead Europe
- Italy says it is monitoring the situation, but no action yet
PARIS, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Belgium said on Thursday it was reviewing health risks associated with Apple’s iPhone 12, after France ordered a halt to sales for exceeding radiation exposure limits, raising the prospect of several European countries banning the model.
However, there appeared to be no immediate prospect of an EU-wide ban, as the European Commission will wait for the opinion of other EU countries before deciding on any action.
EU member states have three months to provide feedback, the French regulator announced on Wednesday. Some, like Italy, said they would take no action for now.
Apple opposes the French findings, saying that the iPhone 12 – now a relatively old model launched in 2020 – has been certified by several international organizations as complying with radiation standards.
Over the past two decades researchers have conducted numerous studies to assess the health risk of mobile phones. According to the World Health Organization, no adverse health effects from their use have been established.
Mathieu Michel, Belgium’s secretary of state for digitalisation, told Reuters the Belgian regulator was looking into the matter after the French actions.
“We immediately asked the IBPT (Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications) for confirmation or at least an analysis, which is currently underway,” he said.
Michael also asked for a review of all Apple smartphones and devices made by others.
However, he stressed that European standards are very cautious and there are no immediate safety concerns.
“That’s why today it’s obviously crossed a threshold (according to the French regulator) that’s not acceptable, but in terms of health and safety, I don’t think there’s any reason to think we’re all going. Be the little green men.”
The iPhone 12 passed the radiation test conducted by the French company in 2021.
Germany’s network regulator BNetzA reiterated that the work in France could serve as a guide for Europe as a whole and would explore the issue for the German market if the process in France is sufficiently advanced.
The Dutch digital watchdog also said it was investigating the matter and would seek an explanation from the US company, while insisting there was “no serious security risk”.
Italy’s Industry Ministry, meanwhile, said it was monitoring the situation but took no action for now.
Portugal’s telecoms regulator, ANACOM, said it was monitoring and analyzing the developments in coordination with France, and expected one of two possible outcomes: Apple to remedy the situation or, failing that, Brussels to “take proportionate measures” for EU member states.
Britain, which met radiation safety standards when the iPhone 12 was released, has not announced any plans following France’s decision.
Industry experts said there were no safety risks because regulatory limits based on the risk of burns or heating from the phone’s radiation were set far below where scientists found evidence of harm.
Apple’s revenue in Europe was about $95 billion last year, making it its second-largest region behind the United States. Some estimates suggest that more than 50 million iPhones were sold in Europe last year.
Apple, which doesn’t break out its sales by country or model, launched the iPhone 15 on Tuesday, and the three-year-old iPhone 12 is no longer available to buy online from Apple in France and other European countries. However, it can be purchased from third parties, including Amazon France.
“Limiting iPhone 12 sales shouldn’t hurt iPhone that much. We’d be more concerned if the new models were involved,” said DA Davidson analyst Tom Forte.
Forte said Apple could face bigger problems elsewhere, such as potential bans on iPhones in China and new data regulations in Europe.
Additional reporting by Foo Yun Chee, Hakan Ersen, Giuseppe Fonte, Silvia Aloisi, Supantha Mukherjee, Patricia Rua; by Dasilo Hummel and Ingrid Melander; Editing by Mark Potter and Alexander Smith
Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Dassilo is a trained lawyer who first joined Reuters in Berlin and then rejoined in Paris. He covers French politics and business, EU institutions and NATO.


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Meghan Markle showcased her modern fuss-free and totally lady-like style at the now iconic official engagement photocall at Kensington Palace on 20 November, as she posed with husband-to-be Prince Harry. The stunning former Suits actress wowed waiting photographers in a stunning white, simple trench coat by Canadian brand Line The Label, priced at £470 (which has now been re-named as the 'Meghan' coat in her honour!) a bottle green dress by P.A.R.O.S.H, costing £328 which was just seen underneath the coat, and in the televised interview.
Meghan Markle's engagement style is in high demand!
She finished the look with strappy Aquazzura Matilde Crisscross nude suede pumps that are priced at £420. Meghan's total outfit price racked up to £2068 (including her 18K gold earrings.) But, if you want Prince Harry's fiancée's style on a budget, look no further! We have found affordable alternatives, with the entire lookalike outfit for £101!
Dress, £46 Warehouse
High Street brand Warehouse have a bottle green dress, with a flattering, flirty hemline and long-sleeves, which is a dead ringer for Meghan's number, for just £46! Her now sold-out trench coat can be emulated at online store Boohoo, who stock a white, duster-style coat for just £20.
White coat, £20 Boohoo
Lastly, as much as we wish we could invest in £400 shoes, it is nearly Christmas! So why not be inspired by these budget nude heels, for just £35, from online shoe site JUSTFAB. The entire look comes to £101!
Shoes, £35 JUSTFAB
Meghan's own selling power is also already in full-force. Within minutes of her coat being identified, Line the Label's website had crashed due to the amount of people trying to get their hands on their own 'Meghan' coat. Her stylish stamps and also her green dress have also completely sold out online!
It's been a very exciting week for the royal family and the general public following Harry and Meghan's engagement announcement. Kensington Palace announced the happy couple will wed in May, and we cannot wait to see what kind of bridal style the actress will opt for!


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Marketplace for Thursday, November 22, 2012
Episode Teaser Image
Enjoying Thanksgiving dinner? Your turkey may have cost a little bit more this year thanks to last summer's drought. Planning to go Black Friday shopping? We look at why stores open so early, anyway. And if you're planning to head to Walmart, you might encounter demonstrations. Some workers are planning a walkout over unfair pay. We talk with Gallup's Frank Newport about who's shopping on Black Friday and check in with two expats about how they're doing on turkey day. Plus, stories on prestigious colleges offering courses online and will the U.K. leave the EU?
Posted In: Retail, Black Friday, shopping
Most people don't go to Black Friday's early store openings. But for retailers, it's like an arms race. If their competitors open early, they have to respond.
Posted In: Walmart, Black Friday, protests
Walmart workers will walk picket lines outside stores on Black Friday to protest the retail chain's low wages. Walmart, with more than a million employees, helps set pay levels for the retail industry.
Posted In: Whats up Europe, expats, Thanksgiving
Americans may be stuffing themselves with turkey on Thanksgiving, but what about Americans on the other side of the pond?


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Earlier this year, Honda unveiled a concept version of its Acura NSX at the Detroit Auto Show. Now, the Japanese automaker appears to be taking a speedy approach to hybrid sales in China similar to that mid-engined sports car.
Automotive News (sub. req.) reports that Honda is once again working on a "spiritual "successor" to the long-dead Acura NSX. Though we've heard ramblings that Honda was developing a new-generation NSX, this is the only time we can remember hearing direct quotes from Honda execs confirming the project's existence.


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Black-owned businesses have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus. A study in the Wall Street Journal finds geography, weaker ties to financial institutions, and limited reach of the Paycheck Protection Program as contributing factors to the disparate impact of the coronavirus on Black-owned businesses.
A recent study finds a strong correlation between the number of Black-owned businesses in a region and the number of coronavirus cases per 1,000 residents. Unfortunately, this tie between Black-owned businesses and virus prevalence exacerbates direct and indirect factors that result in business hardship. This includes business closures, fewer customers, and increased likelihood and duration of social distancing.
In response to this problem, SAP launched the Spotlight Black Businesses program, which is designed to help move the needle in helping these businesses attract new customers. It also reinforces the company’s long-term commitment to standing against racism. The program features SAP employee-nominated Black-owned businesses on our social media channels and a dedicated website to foster ongoing support for struggling businesses within their respective communities.
Over the past few months, SAP employees nominated more than 150 Black-owned businesses, and a sub-set of those were chosen to receive a portion of SAP’s advertising spend. Geotargeted advertisements for the selected businesses will run for a month and appear on various channels to spread the word and help these businesses survive and thrive.
Leon Scott, owner of Silver Legends Jewelry and Spotlight Black Business participant, shared how coronavirus has affected his business.
“Once COVID-19 forced us to close our doors, we directed our focus to e-commerce via our website, but our bottom line has still been adversely affected, and we miss the personal interactions with our customers,” he said. “While we were closed, the civil unrest, sparked by the mistreatment of Black people, also affected our business.”
“At SAP, we are taking an active stand against racial inequality and supporting the livelihoods of those affected by the pandemic,” said Alicia Tillman, global chief marketing officer of SAP. “Through the Spotlight Black Businesses program, we have been utilizing our platforms and voice to address social injustice. We remain committed to demonstrating our support and are looking forward to the next step in the program, which further supports small, Black-owned businesses in their local communities.”
Spotlight Black Businesses empowers every consumer to be a changemaker. Businesses notice the tangible impact of our conscious buying decisions, and program participants report increased sales, in some cases even a backlog in order fulfillment due to increased traffic.
“I’m proud that SAP has been able to shine a spotlight on so many amazing Black businesses and happy that we are extending our investment to include marketing and advertising,” Judith Williams, chief diversity and inclusion officer at SAP, said. “In doing so, we are helping these business owners lead with their strengths, generate new business, and by extension we are supporting the communities they serve.”
Join SAP in taking a stand against racism and social injustice by supporting Black-owned businesses in your neighborhood. Follow the campaign at #SpotlightBlackBusinesses and visit the Spotlight Black Businesses website to learn more.
Janis Fratamico is global head of Brand Experience at SAP.