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Samsung filed a motion last Wednesday to add Apple’s iPad 4 and iPad Mini on its list of iOS devices that allegedly infringed their latest wireless patents. This includes more Apple products to be heard in an upcoming lawsuit.
Samsung vs. Apple: Asserting Multiple Patent Claims Once Again
First spotted by The Verge, it was reported that Samsung amended their original filing to add the iPad 4 and iPad Mini on their list of iOS devices that allegedly infringed their latest wireless patents. Asserting multiple patent claims, the South Korean tech giant modified their counterclaim against Apple’s Galaxy Nexus case.
The suit will be heard by the same court who ruled the Apple vs. Samsung patent trial, which ordered the latter to pay the Cupertino-based company a total of $1.05 billion last August. The upcoming Apple vs. Samsung patent infringement case is set to be heard sometime in 2014.
According to Mike Abramsky of RBC Capital Markets, Apple’s newest patent infringement against Samsung will be their strongest case yet. In case the iPhone maker wins the preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus, its sales will be barred in the US and it may prompt Samsung to remove the handset’s “infringing features” such as the unified search, slide to unlock and predictive text.
The smartphone patent war is now at its highest intensity. While Apple’s litigation to date has failed to produce any significant wins, Apple is now bringing its strongest patents into the war.
Samsung: Tacking on More iOS Products
It was reported that Samsung is planning to add the iPad 4 and iPad Mini to their counterclaim against Apple’s lawsuit. The amendment is based on the infringement of two UMTS wireless technologies, as well as a number “feature patents” used in both cellular and Wi-Fi only versions of iPad.
Additionally, Samsung’s filing would like to clarify whether the US Patent No. 7,672,470 was correctly asserted against the three previous versions of Apple’s iPod Touch, just in case the original contention was improper. The patent suit covers the volume control found in a portable music player.
On the other hand, Apple also augmented their claims against Samsung. They recently set their sights on Galaxy Note 10.1 and the Android Jelly Bean build for Galaxy phones. Prior to this, the iPhone maker added the Samsung Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note “phablet” to their pending case.


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IOS set to make older Apple devices obsolete
A NUMBER of iPhone and iPad owners won’t be able to use the next version of Apple’s mobile operating system.
The company announced iOS 11 at its latest developer conference, teasing its plans for the future of the iPhone.
However, it’s now been confirmed that several of the company’s devices aren’t in line for the big update.
iOS 11 will not support the iPhone 5 or the iPhone 5C or fourth-generation iPad when it arrives later in the year. That means these devices will be stuck on iOS 10, the current version of the operating system, which will stop receiving important security and performance updates from Apple, leaving them potentially vulnerable to bugs and glitches.
That’s a serious problem. If you own an iPhone 5, iPhone 5C or fourthgeneration iPad, now’s the time to consider either upgrading to a newer model or switching to another platform, like Android or Windows. The three devices were the last to have been built on a 32-bit architecture. As expected, the company has completely switched over to 64-bit architecture.
As such, new iPhones and iPads won’t even be able to run 32-bit apps when iOS 11 arrives, which could prove problematic later down the line. The software introduces a number of new features, including a more natural-sounding and capable Siri, and a clever new Do Not Disturb mode. – The Independent

domain: news


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Glanbia has received planning approval for the construction of a €140 million cheese manufacturing plant at the IDA’s Science and Technology Park at Belview.
Having received initial planning permission from Kilkenny County Council, appeals lodged to An Bord Pleanála by An Taisce and Friends of the Environment led to a delay in the development, a joint venture with the Royal A-Ware group from The Netherlands.
Part of An Taisce’s objection read: “Intensive cattle farming is also a major emitter of GHGs (Greenhouse Gas emissions) and is contributing significantly to Ireland’s ongoing failures to reach its legally binding Paris Agreement targets…
“The location attraction of Ireland for Royal A-Aware is its direct and indirect subsidy regime, supporting expansion of milk production, processing and export of products.”
Reacting to the planning green light, a Glanbia spokesperson stated: “This strategic partnership between Glanbia Ireland and leading Dutch dairy producer Royal A-ware will create a new route to market for the milk supplied by Glanbia Ireland’s network of 4,500 family farms and diversify its portfolio of consumer dairy products and ingredients as part of a Brexit mitigation strategy.”
In making its case, Glanbia cited both the ability of the national dairy system to provide a nutritional product sustainably and the fact that Ireland boasted the lowest emissions per kilogram of milk solids within the European Union.
“The proposed facility is a key part of Glanbia Ireland’s Brexit mitigation strategy and will help diversify into new markets beyond the UK, thus helping to limit the potential impact of Brexit on our farmer suppliers,” according to Glanbia. “Glanbia Ireland already has a volume of milk currently being processed by third parties which would be processed in the new facility.”
Speaking in January 2019, Royal A-Ware CEO Jan Anker stated: “With this announcement, Royal A-Ware is taking another step towards achieving its goals of working with strategic partners to build innovative and sustainable agri-food chains and offering its customers an enhanced product portfolio. It also gives our company access to additional volumes of high-quality cheese through a local supply chain.”
The plant, which was originally due to be in operation in 2022, will be built alongside Glanbia’s milk processing plant in Belview and is expected to produce 40,000 tonnes of cheese annually in addition to processing 450 million litres of milk.
The project, which was initially announced in January 2019, will occupy a 10-hectare (25 acres) site and will lead to the creation of 80 full-time jobs once operational. At least 100 construction jobs will be created during the development of the facility.


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Start-up is mining public data bases to provide users hyper-focused news, such street construction, liquor-licenses applications, and lost-and-found items on Craigslist.
New street-level view in Google Maps shows panoramas and offers zoom-in feature to read signs. Images: Google's view from the street
At MashupCamp, one of the youngest attendees on hand walked away with the big prize. Photos: Crowning the top mashup
Like software makers, Web sites are encouraging coders to build upon their data, giving users more-tailored services.
The two companies hope to encourage developers to create new apps to expand search. Also: Amazon launches mapping service.


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The nation’s top contract notebook producers all saw monthly decreases in consolidated revenues last month, as shipments slowed ahead of the launch of Windows 8-equipped devices in the fourth quarter, according to statements issued by companies.
Microsoft Corp announced on Thursday last week that it had released its next-generation operating system to manufacturing, which represented the final stage before Windows 8 hits the market on Oct. 26.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), the world’s largest contract notebook producer, said in a statement on Wednesday that its consolidated revenue last month was NT$88.99 billion (US$2.97 billion), which was down 1.58 percent month-on-month, but up 3.98 percent from the same month last year.
The company said it shipped 4.5 million notebooks last month, which also represented a decrease of 16.67 percent from the 5.4 million units it shipped in June.
In the first seven months, the company said its accumulated revenue was NT$544.74 billion, down 9.78 percent year-on-year.
Quanta’s monthly sales decline was smaller than those of its domestic rivals such as Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), Wistron Corp (緯創) and Pegatron Corp (和碩), as the company benefited from MacBook orders from Apple Inc and contributions from non-notebook devices.
On the other hand, Compal, the world’s second-largest contract producer of notebooks, yesterday said its consolidated revenue last month was NT$56.08 billion, down 10.95 percent month-on-month, according to a company statement.
Compal attributed the monthly decrease mainly to a decline of laptop shipments to 3 million units from 3.5 million units the previous month, although it expected this month’s shipments would grow between 5 and 10 percent from last month.
On a yearly basis, last month’s sales revenue was 3.33 percent lower than the NT$58.01 billion recorded a year earlier, Compal said. Accumulated revenue for the first seven months was down 5.73 percent to NT$382.2 billion from NT$405.45 billion the year before, it said.
Wistron, the world’s third-biggest contract notebook producer, also saw lower shipments of its products across the board with the exception of desktop computers and LCD monitors.
Moreover, notebook shipments fell to 2.35 million units last month from 3 million units the previous month, further dragging down the company’s consolidated revenue to NT$48.84 billion last month, down 16.32 percent month-on-month and 5.28 percent year-on-year. However, Wistron, which also sells LCD TVs and smart mobile devices, said its total sales between January and last month increased 10.51 percent year-on-year to NT$384.64 billion.
Meanwhile, Pegatron Corp (和碩) reported a 3.21 percent month-on-month decline in revenue last month to NT$63.72 billion on a consolidated basis, because of a double-digit decrease in shipments of notebooks.
However, last month’s figure represented the second-highest in the company’s history after June’s NT$65.83 billion and indicated a jump of 23.30 percent from the same period of last year, the company’s data showed.
In the first seven months, its accumulated revenue was N$394.76 billion, up 66 percent year-on-year, Pegatron said.
Pegatron is a manufacturing spinoff of PC vendor Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which yesterday said unconsolidated sales last month was NT$30.21 billion, 16.14 percent lower than NT$36.02 billion in June and 5.18 percent less than NT$31.86 billion a year earlier.
Total revenue between January and July was NT$203.67 billion, up 21.64 percent year-on-year, Asustek said.
‧ Quanta Computer: down 1.58 percent month-on-month.
‧ Compal: down 10.95 percent month-on-month.
‧ Wistron: down 16.32 percent month-on-month.
The rise of the cryptocurrency dogecoin has reached a new level after the token was used to pay for a lunar satellite launch. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s commercial rocket firm, is to embark on a moon voyage next year carrying a so-called cubesat — a mini-satellite used for space research — from Geometric Energy Corp that has been paid for entirely in dogecoin. The development is the latest twist in the saga over the digital token, which started as a joke in 2013, but is now a dominating Internet meme and sitting on a 21,000 percent rally in the past year. Musk has
CAPACITY EXPANSION: Construction of the site, which is to be the firm’s first mRNA production facility outside of Europe, is to begin this year and likely finish in 2023 COVID-19 vaccine maker BioNTech SE yesterday said it would build a Southeast Asia headquarters and manufacturing site in Singapore to produce hundreds of millions of messenger RNA (mRNA)-based vaccines per year. Construction of the site would start this year, and it could become operational by 2023, the German company said in a statement. “With this planned mRNA production facility, we will increase our overall network capacity, and expand our ability to manufacture and deliver our mRNA vaccines and therapies to people around the world,” BioNTech chief executive Ugur Sahin said. The vaccine produced by BioNTech jointly with Pfizer Inc of
OUTBREAK: About 200 of the airline’s 1,200 pilots are not able to work. Most of them have been quarantined to prevent further infection, but 12 have COVID-19 China Airlines Ltd (CAL,中華航空) yesterday confirmed that it would temporarily reduce its cargo flight services to cope with a pilot shortage, as one-sixth of its pilots have been sidelined by a COVID-19 outbreak. “We are working out a new schedule,” the airline said in a statement after local news media reports on Saturday said that it would be reducing its cargo services from Wednesday, primarily affecting US destinations. CAL declined to give details about its new operating plan, but the reports said that it would be suspending its cargo flights to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and
STAKING A CLAIM: Spain plans to spend about 13 billion euros to promote domestic sales of EVs, build a battery cell plant and attract automakers Spain is moving aggressively to land new battery and electric vehicle (EV) plants, using billions of EU COVID-19-pandemic relief funds to avoid being left behind as the global auto sector undertakes the biggest technology transformation in a century. As Europe’s second-largest vehicle-producing nation, behind Germany, and with the automotive sector accounting for 10 percent of its economy, Spain has a lot to lose as automakers overhaul supply chains and manufacturing for electric vehicles. Germany and No. 3 European producer France are already pouring funds into battery plants, supporting their respective national champion automakers, and Volkswagen AG and Renault SA are investing heavily


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Amazon India on Friday has launched the updated version of the Fire TV stick under the name Fire TV Stick 4K Max, in India. The company has introduced its new fire stick at the price of Rs 6,499.
Amazon company has listed the device on the e-commerce shopping platform www.Amazon.in which will release on on October 7. Interested customers can pre-book the product from the site.
With the launch of the updated Fire TV Stick, now Amazon has a total of five fire sticks that include Fire TV Stick Lite, the Fire TV Stick 3rd generation, Fire TV Cube and Fire TV Stick 4K.
What’s new in Fire TV Stick 4K Max?
The new generation Amazon Fire TV Stick comes with the latest processor which is 50 to 60 percent is better than the current fire sticks. The new Stick comes with a quad-core MediaTek MT8696 SoC, which will allow users to have a smooth streaming experience.
As far as RAM is concerned, the new fire stick comes with 2GB RAM. The company has made another major update in terms of connectivity, the new 4K Max fire stick comes with a MediaTek MT7921LS chipset that enables compatibility with WiFi 6 routers.
With the new 4K Max fire stick, customers will be able to experience 4K Ultra HD videos with the support of Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos audio and HDR, on compatible devices.
There is no Change in the remote, which means customers will get the same remote set that used to come with third-gen Fire TV Stick. The new remote also gets a separate button for Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Amazon Music.
Amazon devices India head, Parag Gupta said, there are millions of people that use Fire TV at the moment in India. He further said, with the launch of the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max, the company has made the best streaming media player so far and it will give a far better, faster experience to the users without slowing down their home Wi-Fi.


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iTunes Store Customer Spending Down 24 Percent Year Over Year (Report)
The stat highlights the dramatic effect that the download sales decline has had on customer interest within the iTunes Store.
It would seem that Apple's purchase of Beats and attendant move into the streaming music service business was prescient.
Fortune, citing a report from Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, writes that Apple's per-user spending in its iTunes Store -- which sells and rents television shows, movies and books as well as music -- dropped 24 percent year over year.
The decline isn't new news -- Nielsen SoundScan reported in January that U.S. download sales had decreased 5.7 percent in 2013 -- but the dramatic effect that the download sales decline has had on customer interest within the iTunes Store certainly is.
Streaming music has yet to stem the tide of industry revenues' general decline, down worldwide by $600 million last year. That, in spite of a 51 percent increase in revenues from streaming.
As reported in January, 49 percent of music-directed investments -- totaling $838 million -- went to services that license music, services like Beats Music, Rdio and Spotify.
Apple, which posted Q2 2014 revenues of $36 billion to $38 billion, had a good year with iTunes in 2013, bringing in $16 billion, up 25 percent over the year previous.
This article first appeared on Billboard.com.


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Travel The Most Important Thing to Know About Inflation Right Now
Full transcript of "Face the Nation" on April 4, 2021
On this "Face the Nation" broadcast, Cecilia Rouse and Jonathan Nez sat down with Margaret Brennan.Click here to browse full transcripts of "Face the Nation.
To understand what’s happening with inflation at the moment, you have to dig a tiny bit.
For the past two months, the cost of living has been rising quickly. In May, thejumped 0.6 percent, than economists anticipated. It was the second largest monthly increase in more than a decade, just behind April’s 0.8 percent spike.
Some inflation hawks, such as Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, have treated the latest numbers as confirmation that government spending on coronavirus relief is causing prices to spiral out of control. “Today’s CPI data again proves true what I have been warning about for months – inflation is rising and so are the prices of goods for Florida families,” he said in a. “[T]he data clearly show that spending beyond our means has consequences.”
Earl 'E-40' Stevens on growing a 'spirits empire' in a pandemic, investing early in Clubhouse, and how a Verzuz appearance propelled his business
Earl "E-40" Stevens spoke to Insider in a wide-ranging interview tied to the signing of a national distribution deal for his spirits business. E-40 spoke at length on his entrepreneurial history and diversified investment strategy, and discussed how he continues to approach the rap game 35 years into a music career. See more stories on Insider's business page. For hip-hop legend and entrepreneur Earl "E-40" Stevens, the COVID-19 pandemic has been "a blessing at the same time as an unfortunate situation.
But beneath the big topline numbers, there’s a more a complicated and reassuring picture. It turns out that a large share of the inflation we’re now seeing is being driven by just a small handful of consumer-spending categories that have been affected by the pandemic, mostly related to transportation. More than half of last month’s increase in the CPI was due to the rising cost of new and used cars, auto rentals, and airline fares. Used vehicle prices, which jumped 7.3 percent in May after a 10 percent increase in April, were alone responsible for more than a third of the index’s overall jump.
Right now, the big question about inflation is whether the price rises that consumers are seeing now are just a transitory blip or the beginning of something more sustained and dangerous. Inflation doves have argued that the increases are probably just temporary, and have been largely fueled by problems with supply chains that have cropped up as the economy has awkwardly emerged from the pandemic, but which are sure to fade. The hawks believe that excessive government spending has created too much demand in the economy, which could create a self-fulfilling spiral of rising prices as businesses and consumers come to expect higher inflation in the future.
Tips for Recovering Financially After a Divorce
Learn how to get your finances back on solid ground after a divorce on this week's Money Confidential podcast."I didn't have a bed, I left the desktop computer—things like that that you wouldn't necessarily think about," Alicia says. "I've incurred a lot of expenses.
The fact that so much of last month’s price increases were concentrated in cars and travel suggests that at least a significant portion of what we’re seeing now really is temporary.
After all, it’s not a mystery why travel and auto purchases are getting more expensive at the moment. People have started to fly again, pushing up airline ticket prices, which cratered during the pandemic. The car market, meanwhile, has been beset by a complicated, which have created a shortage of vehicles on dealer lots just as demand has spiked from consumers flush with stimulus cash and eager to take summer road trips. Thankfully, these are likely to be temporary issues. At some point, the cost of airline tickets will stabilize, and car production will get back to normal. Happy Honda Days will come again!
Even if you ignore cars and planes, inflation is still running somewhat higher than normal. Consider the core Consumer Price Index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices. If you take out vehicle purchases, car rentals, and airfares, it still rose at roughly a 4.3 percent annual rate, which is quick, though not exactly out of control by historical standards.
Used car prices surged 10% in April - and drivers are getting hammered by other rising prices as the US reopens
The crippled Colonial Pipeline has sparked gas stockpiling and price hikes, while the April used-car surge was the highest in data going back to 1953.But it's really expensive to drive anywhere, or even to buy or rent a car.
But investors also seem to be buying the idea that inflation will mostly be transitory. Traders mostlynumbers. Stocks rose a bit, suggesting that Wall Street doesn’t expect the Fed to intervene by raising interest rates earlier than anticipated. Meanwhile, Treasury yields fell a bit on Thursday. If markets were really worried about higher long-term inflation, you’d expect them to rise, since investors would demand higher interest rates to keep up with rising prices.
This, more or less, has been the story of the last few weeks. As the consumer price index has run hot and economics pundits have becomeabout the threat of inflation, actual traders with money on the line seem to have relaxed about it. After peaking at 1.69 percent in early May, the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond has to around 1.47 percent. The 5- and 10-year break-even rates—market measures of how high investors expect inflation to rise—have also declined. The money guys simply don’t seem to think inflation numbers like the ones we saw on Thursday are much to worry about.
One theoryis that the bond market might not really reflect how worried investors are about inflation because of slightly obscure technical dynamics playing out underneath its surface. Most importantly, banks have been buying lots of Treasuries over the past year in order to satisfy some of their regulatory requirements, helping to keep prices high and yields low. But while that may be the case, it’s not clear why all that activity, which has been going on for a while, would suddenly be causing yields to fall now. The more likely explanation is that investors are looking under the hood of the inflation data, and just don’t see anything worth getting worked up about.
Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal explains why there's 'no obvious solution' for our never-ending supply chain predicament .
Supply chains underpin our society. Between a labor shortage, computer hacks, and other disruptions, we're seeing what happens when they struggle.Here is my full conversation with Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal. You probably know him as @TheStalwart on Twitter or as the co-host of Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast. I was excited when Joe accepted my offer to get on the phone and talk about trucking and non-trucking topics. Here's our conversation.


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January 19, 2005
January 19, 2005 (Prices Byte)
Falling Energy Prices Lowers CPI in December
January 19, 2005
By Dean Baker
The overall CPI fell by 0.1 percent in December driven by a 1.8 percent plunge in energy prices, along with a 0.1 percent drop in food prices. The core (excluding food and energy) CPI rose by 0.2 percent for the third straight month. The annual rate of inflation in overall CPI has been 3.0 percent over the last quarter, down slightly from the 3.3 percent rate over the last year. The rate in the core has been 2.0 percent over the last quarter, compared with 2.2 percent over the last year.
The 3.3 percent overall rate of inflation is the highest since a 3.4 percent rate in 2000. It is 0.6 percentage points above the 2.7 percent rate of wage growth over the last year. The core inflation for 2004 was 2.2 percent, up from 1.1 percent in 2003 and the highest since a 2.7 percent rate in 2001.
In recent months, slowing rental inflation has been an important factor holding down the core index. The rental components, which account for 37.6 percent of the core index, have risen at just a 1.8 percent annual rate over the last quarter. Even this increase probably overstates the true rise in rental prices. The rent component should in principle exclude the cost of utilities, but utility prices still tend to move the index to some extent. The pure rent index has increased at a rate that is 0.8 percentage points higher than the owners' equivalent rent index over the last six months, presumably reflecting in part the sharp rise in gas and electricity prices over this period.
There were few notable anomalies in the December data. Apparel prices fell by 0.4 percent, after being largely flat for the year. This drop probably reflects heavy discounting by many retailers to sustain holiday sales. Medical care prices increased by just 0.3 percent in December, bringing the annual rate over the quarter to just 3.8 percent, down from 4.2 percent over the last year. Medical care prices had been increasing at close to a 6.0 percent rate at the beginning of the year.
Inflation also moderated slightly at earlier stages of production. The finished goods index fell by 0.7 percent in December, driven by a 4.0 percent drop in energy prices, following sharp increases in the previous two months. The core finished goods index rose just 0.1 percent, the smallest increase since a 0.2 percent decline in July. Even with the December numbers, the core index rose at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the last quarter and 2.2 percent over the last year. It had been falling as recently as 2002.
The intermediate goods index also showed some moderation, with the overall index falling 0.3 percent and the core index rising 0.5 percent. The core index has risen at a 4.6 percent annual rate over the last quarter and an 8.3 percent rate over the last year.
It is worth noting a slowdown in the rate of inflation in construction materials. The price of these goods has risen at just a 1.2 percent annual rate over the last quarter compared to 10.0 percent over the last year. While these price movements are erratic, if this slowdown is real, it would be consistent with other data showing some weakening in the construction sector.
While inflation clearly does not pose any serious problem at the moment, it does appear to be on an upward path. Thus far, the main force pushing inflation higher has been higher material and import prices, as wage growth has not even kept pace with inflation. This does raise the prospect of a further increase in the inflation rate, when the labor market tightens enough to allow real wages to begin increasing again. It is also worth noting that the latest data indicate some slowing in productivity growth, with the third quarter rate reported as 1.8 percent, and 4th quarter rate likely to be close to 1.5 percent if projections of 3.5 percent GDP growth prove correct.
Dean Baker is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.
CEPR’s Prices Byte is published each month upon release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' reports on the consumer price and producer price indexes.


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United Healthcare is now offering its hi HealthInnovations hearing aids to people enrolled in its various vision benefit plans.
The customized and programmable hearing aids (BTE shown) are being offered at $649 each, a price point that is generally lower than those of other leading brands with similar capabilities.
The discount program already has been available to people enrolled in many UnitedHealthcare medical plans, including employer-sponsored, individual, and Medicare Advantage plans, as well as Medicare Part D plans. According to UnitedHealth, some of its Medicare plan customers pay no out-of-pocket costs for their hearing aids.
In 2011, UnitedHealth originally launched hi HealthInnovations with these hearing aids along with a web-based self-diagnostic hearing health testing system. However, the self-diagnostic system was eventually shut down by the FDA because the system had not been approved by FDA regulators.
UnitedHealth plan participants and consumers interested in purchasing an hi HealthInnovations hearing aid are now required to receive a hearing test from a qualified provider, “including primary care physicians, audiologists, or hi HealthInnovations hearing professionals,” according to the UnitedHealthcare press release. The audiogram is then submitted to hi HealthInnovations, which programs the hearing aids for each person’s specific hearing loss. Consumers can have the device sent directly to their residence or be fitted in-person.
“Cost is a significant barrier for millions of Americans suffering from hearing loss, and this new discount will help make hearing aids more accessible and affordable for more people nationwide,” said Linda Chous, OD, chief eye care officer, UnitedHealthcare Vision. The company also says that every hearing test result and hearing aid order is reviewed by a licensed hearing professional to determine suitability.
hi HealthInnovations hearing professionals are reportedly available in many cities around the United States, offering hearing health seminars in local communities and providing education, testing, and support services in person, over the phone, or online.
For more information, visit hihealthinnovations.com.


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The other day I realized that Apple only came out with the first iPad two years ago. It’s only been two years! The iPad is still technically a baby. But it’s become so ubiquitous that it’s easy to think it’s been around forever. Same thing with the iPhone—remember that scene in the Sex and the City movie where Samantha hands Carrie her iPhone and Carrie takes one look at the touchscreen and the apps and hands it back, saying “I can’t use this”? That was 2008.
ComScore released data today showing that tablet penetration has reached a new high, with one in six people (16.5%) now using tablets. Among smartphone owners, that penetration rate is even higher. Nearly one in four smartphone owners (23.6%) are using tablets.
Both figures represent a big leap from last year, when only 4.7% of the general population was using tablets, marking a difference of 11.8 percentage points. And this time last year, only 9.7% of smartphone owners were using tablets, compared to 23.6% today, which represents a jump of 13.9 percentage points.
It comes as no surprise that tablet users tend to skew towards the higher income demographic. Among households earning $100k a year and more, 37.7% own tablets, compared to 18.3% of those earning $75k-$100k, and 17.7% of those earning $25k-$50k. They also tend to be used most widely among those ages 25-34.
Another interesting find: tablet users are three times more likely to watch video on their devices than smartphone users. More than half of all tablet users watched video and/or TV content on their device compared to 20% of smartphone owners. So it makes sense that tablet owners are also more likely than smartphone owners to watch video content on their devices regularly, with 24.6% watching up to three times a month, 18.9% watching once a week, and 9.5% watching every day. Only 2.9% of smartphone owners admitted to watching video content on their devices every day.
More importantly, one in four tablet owners have actually paid for video content, which is good news for anyone looking to cash in on mobile video.
“Tablets are one of the most rapidly adopted consumer technologies in history and are poised to fundamentally disrupt the way people engage with the digital world both on-the-go and perhaps most notably, in the home,” said Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of Mobile, in a statement. “It’s not surprising to see that once consumers get their hands on their first tablet, they are using them for any number of media habits including TV viewing.”


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As the OmniMount team gears up for the largest consumer electronics show in January, CES, the show’s awards committee has announced some really exciting news—the Ergotron WorkFit-A for Apple has been named a CES Innovations 2014 Design and Engineering Award Honoree! There’s no doubt amongst our internal team that this product ROCKS, but being recognized by such a distinguished award on the merits of our design and engineering feels great!
The WorkFit-A for Apple and WorkFit-P for Apple, along with a slew of new TV mounts, will be on display in OmniMount’s CES booth, #26115, in the Digital Health Zone. Why there, you ask? Because products like Ergotron WorkFit and OmniMount ActionMount encourage the healthy use of home electronics.
Sitting all day anywhere is a thing of the past. We’re hoping to make the same thing true whether on your couch or in the office. If you’re anything like the average American, you’ll probably agree that you spend a few too many hours being sedentary each day. With the right accessories, that doesn’t have to be the case.
Visit us at International CES booth #26115 or start following us on social media (@OmniMount) to keep up on the latest show updates.


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The assets of Internet performance testing company Porivo Technologies have been sold at a cut-rate price to one of the firm’s former customers.
Waltham, Mass.-based Gomez, which also runs web performance tests recently acquired Porivo for an undisclosed sum. But Gomez spokesman Alan Alper, when asked whether the deal was a case of his company looking for expansion possibilities or Porivo looking for an out in a tough economy, tells LocalTechWire, “It was really both. … We got a good deal.”
Gomez acquired the technology assets of Porivo and hired two of the latter company’s employees, Alper says. “We didn’t want an office there (in Durham). We felt everything would work better consolidated up here,” he says.
Porivo was founded in early 2000 by two interns at the Aurora Funds venture capital firm, Sam Kirby and Will Holmes, and a third partner, John Hartingh. Aurora provided seed capital for the company and initially allowed operations to be run out of its Durham office.
Scott Albert of Aurora, who was a member of Porivo’s board of directors, didn’t return phone calls seeking comment about the sale.
The initial idea behind the company involved “distributed computing,” or harnessing the computer processing power of desktop PCs while they are idle. Instead of running a screen saver, computers that are linked to a corporate network or the Internet would donate their processing power to handle the mountains of data collected by a computer system or through online transactions.
But Porivo later morphed into a performance measurement company, using distributed computing to build a global network of some 10,000 PCs to evaluate the speed of websites and other aspects of web performance from various types of Internet connections, Internet backbones and ISPs. The service provided customers with some perspective of the quality of the online experience of end-users and helped detect problems before they seriously affected online business transactions.
The company attracted $2.2 million in venture capital during its life – much of it from Aurora – and during its height opened an office in Silicon Valley and hired a former executive of NBC’s Internet division as chief executive. Its customer list included the likes of Microsoft, WorldCom, Global Knowledge and North Carolina State University.
Gomez also signed up as a Porivo customer. The company measures performance from an ISP to a website and used Porivo’s service to measure from a site to the desktops of users, Alper says. The firm welcomed the opportunity to bring that technology in house when Porivo’s assets became available.
“We saw a lot of possibilities in peer networking,” he says. “This definitely helps us extend our web monitoring and gives us visibility on the desktop.”


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Why Google Chromebooks aren’t in favour in India2 min read . Updated: 21 Sep 2018, 06:17 AM IST
Google Chromebook is an always-connected laptop, and that is a problem in India
New Delhi: Seven years have elapsed since Google (Alphabet Inc.) unveiled the first Chromebook. Yet, India is yet to see widespread adoption of these devices. A Chromebook is an always-connected laptop that runs on Google’s Chrome OS, the company’s second operating system after Android. That is the main problem because unlike in most Western countries, connectivity is poor in emerging markets like India.
“Since data is in the cloud, always-on connectivity is still a challenge here. Hence consumers need to be convinced on the advantages of owning a Chromebook as their main laptop," said Chandrahas Panigrahi, chief marketing officer and consumer business head of Acer India—one of the largest drivers of Chromebooks in the global space. According to Panigrahi, “popular applications are yet to be fully optimized" on Chrome OS, and it’s still at an early stage.
Chromebooks were expected to do well in India because they were positioned as “affordable". In fact, Google had tied up with Xolo, Nexian and other manufacturers, in 2015, to bring low-cost Chromebooks to the country. These moves, though, fizzled out fast. Like Western markets, stakeholders expected them to do well in the education segment. However, according to S.N. Rai, co-founder and director of Lava, an Indian mobile brand, instead of education the laptops were being bought by companies who wanted to give their employees cheap laptops, where the main purpose was browsing, email and enterprise data sharing, etc.
Rai said they expected sales to come from the education sector, where there’s a need for controlling the content, but that didn’t happen. He added that Google itself didn’t really push and Xolo didn’t find scalable demand in the market at the time. Xolo continues to sell these laptops in small quantities but positions them as cheap ultrabooks that run on Windows.
Pointing out that internet penetration has increased since 2015, Rai still believes that Chromebooks may work in India. Acer also agrees that increased connectivity and Chromebooks’ cost advantage could still drive sales in the country. With the growth of smartphone users, companies expect people to be better versed with cloud storage, and more dependent on it. That, they hope, should also open up avenues to sell more Chromebooks in India.
When contacted, a Google spokesperson said the company did not have any new plans to share in this space. It appears, however, to be waiting patiently for the bandwidth tide to turn.


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Why Stadium Naming Rights are a Brand’s Winning Ticket for Building Revenue, Community
As revenue flows in for professionals sports, for the team owners and decision makers in the industry, sports is getting equally more expensive. Just look at the lucrative salary cap increases across major sports due to an increase in earned revenue. Most recently, the NFL announced that they plan to raise their salary cap to $208.2 million in 2022, a 14% raise. Another expense in sports that has grown over the years, though, is the sometimes under-appreciated but important investment into stadium naming rights deals.
New stadiums across the country are reaching multimillion dollar deals for sponsorship partners. In November, Staples Center, home to the Los Angles Lakers and Clippers, sold their naming rights to Crypto.com for $700 million which is a $584 million increase when Staples bought the rights in 1999. Recently, California has been a hot bed for new stadium rights deals; back in 2013, the San Francisco 49ers and Levi’s reached a recording breaking deal at the time for to secure a name on the new stadium. In the past two years, both the Los Angles Rams and Chargers, as well as the Los Angles Clippers, have made headlines with their stadium rights deals for their new arenas.
The Crypto.com name change is set to debut on Christmas Day when the Los Angeles Lakers take on the Brooklyn Nets. But as sports professionals know, stadium naming rights are more than just the physical act of putting a brand on the side of the arena. These names can shape communities, and they can be huge revenue drivers for the sponsored brands. According to Jon Stainer, Managing Director of Nielsen Sports, these rights deals have multi-layered appeal for almost any company.
“When I think about the benefits of naming rights I think about three areas. One is brand building, two is community immersion, and the third area is around showcasing,” said Stainer.
Stainer points out that brands use these rights to build a platform locally, nationally and globally. The local connection is also a part of a larger strategy for community immersion, in which brands support the local community where their stadium resides through outreach and various support programs.
“We talk about another recent naming rights deal with the Amazon Climate Pledge Arena. There is a significant focus around that deal, around purpose, connecting consumers and fans to sustainable arenas and sustainable venues. We know that connects really well with the modern younger-age fan as well, they really appreciate what brands do around social responsibility and sustainability programs,” said Stainer.
Despite the partnership still being as fresh as the ink on the $700 million check, Crypto.com has already reaped a variety of benefits. According to Nielsen Sports, there are 100 million Lakers fans worldwide, 15 million being in America. In a one-week span in November after the sponsorship was announced, Nielsen Sports says there were 3,300 articles written about Cyrpto.com which reached 371 million impressions, equating to $4 million in discounted media.
This type of outreach and exposure doesn’t just extend to sports teams, but other consumer groups as well; most stadiums are multi-purpose venues which hold concerts and a number of other events. According to George Perry, a term instructor at George Mason University’s School of Business and a 22-year sports marketing veteran, this is an investment that brands are willing to make because of the exposure involved.
“These sponsorships have evolved. They are no longer about, ‘Hey, pay me money, we will put your name on the building and give you a few other things.’ This is about, ‘How do we turn this into a strategic win-win partnership between both parties?’ And if it is done right, both parties can benefit. If it is done wrong, that can cause trouble for one party or the other,” said Perry.
When the partnership is done right, it could open up more avenues for both parties to make more money. To Perry, the quid pro quo is a team getting more money from sponsors to help pay for rising expenses, and the sponsor getting one-of-a-kind, lasting exposure.
“You got the sports and entertainment properties looking for more revenue, more ways to pay for these sports, these businesses that they are running basically,” said Perry. “Then you also have brands who are saying, ‘Hmm, we are finding that this association with sports teams or venues is a really good marketing tool but we want to find a way to differentiate ourselves and what better way to do that than to have an ownership position with the team. We own, we named that venue.'”
Finding that right partnership is something that Jason Miller has been doing for years. Miller, who’s the Senior Vice President and Management Head of Property Sales at Excel Sports Management, had a hand in helping negotiate a stadium naming rights deal between Q2 and Austin FC for their stadium’s naming rights.
A big part of the process with Q2, according to Miller, was connecting with the local community. He says the brand is utilizing the sponsorship to help promote brand awareness for current and future employees so they can compete with other fintech companies in the increasingly competitive Austin, Texas market. Although this would fall under a “traditional” reason for a brand to get involved in a naming rights sponsorship, Miller argues that brands like Crypto.com are untraditional in how they’re leveraging this high-profile deal.
“When you see a company put their name on a building the first thing a lot of people think of is, ‘Wow that is a company that is here to stay!” Those are long term commitments, long term deals and so that is one of the reason’s why you see crypto companies taking positions, what Crypto.com did in Los Angeles, what FTX did in Miami,” said Miller. “Then all the different activities that are happening in that category are a quick opportunity for these companies to acquire customers just like what you saw with Daily Fantasy, a number of years ago between DraftKings and FanDuel and the people underneath that category. And of course with what you are seeing with the sports betting category.”
No matter the reason why a brand gets a stadium naming rights sponsorship, Miller believes there has never been a better time for brands to seek out and participate in these deals.
“Right now is definitely the hottest naming rights market that we have ever seen in the history of North American sports,” said Miller.
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For 3rd quarter in row, Indian startup funding crosses $10 bn in Q1: Report
The startup ecosystem has created as many as 14 unicorns in the first three months of 2022, and for the third consecutive quarter, they have received over USD 10 billion across 334 funding deals, says an industry report.
Creation of 14 more unicorns takes the overall tally of startups with over USD 1 billion valuation in the country to 84 now, according to a PwC India report.
This is the third consecutive quarter ending March 2022 when the fund inflows into the domestic start-ups ecosystem have grossed over USD 10 billion in fresh funding. The quarter also has seen as many as 14 startups becoming unicorns, the report said, adding the total fund inflow in Q1 stands at USD 10.8 billion.
According to the agency, the quarter saw maximum funds flowing into software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, grossing more than USD 3.5 billion.
Unicorn creation continued to flourish with 14 startups attaining the coveted status in Q1 with the SaaS sector accounting for the largest share creating five unicorns.
Amit Nawka, the startups leader at the consultancy, told PTI that despite uncertainties in the global economic environment, the domestic startups have continued to attract capital, particularly in the growth capital stage.
He further said as more startups mature, talks around corporate governance are now becoming mainstream and it will become increasingly important for the startups to design a corporate governance roadmap that is in sync with organisational growth aspirations.
The quantum of investments into SaaS ecosystem has a threefold increase in the last three years, he said, adding the pandemic has only boosted this ecosystem globally, given the rising importance of remote working, productivity and overall digital transformation.
The past year has seen the advent of 15 SaaS businesses in the unicorn category amongst in the country, including Darwinbox, Fractal, Uniphore, Hasura and Amagi Media Labs.
With Freshworks' blockbuster listing on the Nasdaq late 2021, mature SaaS players are increasingly considering public listing, he said.
The first quarter saw around 80 M&A transactions in the start-up ecosystem, driven primarily by roll-up e-commerce companies. And Curefoods, Mensa Brands, GlobalBees and MyGlamm, which have M&As as their core business strategy continued to be the top acquirers in Q1 as well and Upscalio and Evenflow are other roll-up e-commerce companies that have joined this bandwagon.
Read More at https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/for-3rd-quarter-in-row-indian-startup-funding-crosses-10-bn-in-q1-report-122041000519_1.html


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Informal-dining chains are leaning on technological know-how to make the sit-down cafe knowledge more automated for guests and more streamlined for chaotic employees—and in some instances to compensate for a lack of servers.
Cracker Barrel’s eat-in clients can spend for their meals through an app on their phones and tablets at all of the company’s 660-moreover Southern-themed restaurants.
“The additional we can shift volume to items like that, it normally takes the pressure off the labor in the stores,” stated
Sandra B. Cochran,
Cracker Barrel’s president and main executive. Staffing has become demanding at Cracker Barrel, which has categorized the personnel problem at 10% of its places to eat as “critical,” Ms. Cochran reported.
The know-how investments at informal-eating chains are partly meant to relieve the force on the wait around staff members who returned to get the job done at the time pandemic limitations have been lifted. As shoppers headed again to hospitality companies in droves, numerous staff did not. The U.S. Labor Division counted 993,000 unfilled positions at restaurants at the close of March, and their house owners are hoping a variety of practices to encourage people today to apply, which include larger fork out and bonuses.
Rapidly-foodstuff eating places have been supplementing servers and cashiers with self-serve kiosks for about a decade, in a bid to bump up income margins and hold the buying course of action fast.
There has been a discussion about this sort of systems’ area in complete-assistance, casual-dining dining establishments, mentioned John Glass, a taking care of director and equity analyst covering dining places at
“If deal with-to-encounter conversation is essential to your brand, and you quickly took it away, you’ve taken out a layer of the model differentiation,” he explained.
But extra full-provider chains have started integrating so-identified as tabletop technological innovation into the dining encounter for the reason that it has demonstrated its worth, equally for the customer’s encounter and the restaurant’s bottom line, stated Deepthi Prakash, worldwide director of product and promoting TBWAWorldwide, an
Omnicom Group Inc.
Buying from a monitor and not a server indicates buyers are extra probable to decide on the dishes, substitutions and amount of money of foodstuff they seriously want, without having stressing whether or not the waiter will decide them, said Ms. Prakash, who formerly labored with eating places as an experience style and design marketing consultant.
“People purchase far more and the tables transform about speedier, since they can get their orders and they can get their payments faster,” she mentioned.
Dave & Buster’s, which gives customers arcade games along with foodstuff and drink at 141 spots, has earmarked all around $5 million for choosing applications and retention initiatives. It is also growing its contactless support design, which relies on a mobile website platform managing on tablets presented by the cafe.
“The stores running on this system have been capable to expand the size of server sections and lessen staffing amounts to be much more successful,” the company’s chief running officer,
said on a phone with buyers in June. All of the chain’s dining places will be operating on the new model by July, she mentioned.
The enterprise is also testing a system wherever customers use their have telephones to order and shell out at two locations, in Dallas and New York City’s Moments Square.
“If the visitor is not comfortable and is seeking for the server encounter we can adapt, but what’s been intriguing is in both of these situations we’ve experienced high visitor adoption,” Ms. Manning reported.
Places to eat are also introducing much more refined back-of-home technological innovation to make employees’ employment much easier. Cracker Barrel explained that this summer season it would check a new labor method that it hopes will streamline and simplify managers’ get the job done. And
Darden Dining establishments Inc.,
the owner of Olive Garden, stated it ideas to make improvements to the consumer interface of the program utilized by its supervisors, as perfectly as its central issue-of-sale process.
Applebee’s, which is owned by
Dine Makes Global Inc.,
has brought in hand-held tablets for servers in close to 500 of its 1,705 dining establishments. Wait around staff members beforehand experienced to produce down orders, then walk to a devoted position-of-sale laptop or computer to mail them to the kitchen. Now, they can deliver orders from the table, a transfer that improves get accuracy and speeds up services, the firm stated.
“Bottom line—the servers enjoy these tablets because it would make their work much easier and makes it possible for them to make extra income,”
president of the grill and bar chain, stated in a connect with to buyers.
Compose to Katie Deighton at [email protected]
Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Organization, Inc. All Legal rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8


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Nissan factory chiefs have said they cannot rule out that £200,000 worth of damage at their North East car plant may have been the result of sabotage.
An internal investigation is under way into the damage to 20 cars at the Sunderland factory on Monday night.
Bosses at the plant said it was not unknown for cars to be damaged during production.
But they admit the damage could have been the result of a staff protest following an announcement they had to do an extra hour of overtime at the end of their shift.
It is thought the damage was done on Line One at the plant.
A Nissan spokesman said: "We build more than 1,500 cars a day, so it is not unheard of for some to get damaged while they are in production.
"But we cannot rule out that the damage was done on purpose either. We are just trying to find out what may have occurred."
Dave Telford, Amicus regional officer, said : "It is not unusual for them to experience damage to cars, but there would not usually be an investigation."


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Thomas Cook is suffering the consequences of a devalued pound, terrorist attacks in Europe, plus political instability in Turkey, as holidaymakers either choose destinations in their home country or opt for safer locations. There has been a growing tendency for people to shun Turkey as their holiday spot for seemingly safer locations, such as the Canary or Balearic Islands and the United States.
Before this summer, Turkey was Thomas Cook’s second most popular holiday destination. During the summer, there was a failed military coup in Turkey as well as a number of terrorist attacks in its capital Ankara, Istanbul and other cities.
Thomas Cook Group plc, a 175-year-old British global travel company based in Peterborough, says its summer bookings have declined.
Thomas Cook said sales in its second-most popular destination – Turkey – were steeply down compared to 2015. However, winter bookings are holding up as are advanced bookings for 2017 summer vacations.
Sales across continental Europe plummeted by 9% over the summer, with bookings for Belgium being ‘significantly down’ after the terrorist attacks in March at Brussels airport. Summer bookings in Germany were 6% down compared to summer 2015.
Thomas Cook suffering with others
Most UK-based airlines and travel companies have had a bad summer, mainly for two reasons:
1. Brexit Vote: on 23rd June the British people voted for Brexit – Britain Exiting the European Union – in a Referendum. Since then, the pound sterling has devalued by 10%. Whenever a country’s currency devalues, the cost of travelling abroad becomes relatively more expensive for its citizens.
2. Terrorism: the terrorist attacks this year in France, Germany, Belgium and Turkey have scared many Britons into staying at home or choosing a holiday destination within their home country this year.
Thomas Cook said bookings for UK destinations increased by 1%, i.e. *staycations have increased. However, overall bookings – including UK and international locations – have declined by 4% compared to summer 2015.
The devaluation of the pound and fear of a terrorist attack have discouraged many Britons from going on holiday abroad this year.
* According to the Oxford Living Dictionary, a ‘staycation’ is:
“A holiday spent in one’s home country rather than abroad, or one spent at home and involving day trips to local attractions.”
Business excluding Turkey up
Total bookings excluding Turkey, however, increased by 8% in summer of 2016, compared to the same period last year.
The shift away from Turkey forced Thomas Cook to lower its profit guidance range by 3% to 10% in July. Since that announcement, its stock has been on the slide.
Peter Fankhauser, CEO of Thomas Cook, said he is still optimistic – he reported that business figures for the summer ‘progressed largely as expected’.
Regarding consumer preference, Mr. Fankhauser said:
“There is still a strong desire among holidaymakers to go abroad, with the exception of Turkey, where demand continues to be volatile in light of the terror threats there.”
— Thomas Cook (@ThomasCookUK) July 5, 2016
The travel company says it expects operating profits to be £300 million for the twelve months to 30th September.
Winter bookings so far are about the same as they were at this time last year, Thomas Cook informed. It said twenty-seven percent of its winter portfolio has been sold so far, with bookings in the UK 8% higher than at this time last year, while demand in Germany and Belgium is especially weak.
However, consumers are already booking for the summer of next year at higher volumes than one year ago.
On Monday, the owner of Monarch, a British low-cost carrier, revealed that it is in talks regarding a possible takeover of the company and is considering throwing a multi-million-pound lifeline.
Earlier this year, Low Cost Holidays collapsed, affecting over 140,000 customers.
Video – UK tourism boosted after Brexit vote
The post-Brexit vote weak pound means more Britons are staying in the UK for their holiday, and a greater number of foreign tourists are coming to Britain.


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Synergy Grill Technology has appointed Steve Simmonds as national account manager in what is a brand-new role for the company.
Simmonds joins Synergy with 24 years’ experience in the catering distribution industry, including 8 years in a business development manager role at Lockhart Catering Equipment, and more recently Nisbets, where he has worked as a national account manager for the past 10 years, looking after restaurant groups across the UK.
He commented: “Energy consumption and money savings are at the top of everybody’s agenda within the hospitality industry, and with Synergy, the benefits are clear to see without substituting the quality that operators have come to expect.
“I am eager to get going in my new role as national account manager and start networking with Synergy’s vast portfolio of clients across the country.”
Justin Cadbury, chairman of Synergy Grill Technology, said: “We are delighted to be expanding the Synergy Grill Technology team by introducing a brand-new national account manager role. The role serves to understand our customer’s demands, plan how to meet these demands, and generate sales as a result.
“With a plethora of industry knowledge behind him, we believe that Steve is the perfect candidate to support the relationships with our large chain customers which continue to grow at speed. We welcome Steve to Team Synergy and look forward to him being part of our continued expansion.”
In a further update to Synergy personnel, Ian Parsons has now left the company to focus more time on his consultancy business.


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Bluffton residents might soon be allowed to light up and drink indoors in a certain type of bar — one whose main focus is cigars — under a proposed change to the town’s smoking law.
The law bans indoor smoking in restaurants and bars, among other public places.
But on Tuesday, Town Council tentatively approved a provision for “cigar bars,” tobacco shops that would be allowed to sell beer and wine while patrons smoked. The amendment would allow only cigars — not cigarettes.
The proposal was made at the request of Councilman Ted Huffman on behalf of Burt Sky, owner of Peaceful Henry’s Cigars and Tobacco on Bluffton Road, according to town officials.
Sky said he wants to expand his business beyond tobacco sales and make Bluffton consistent with other South Carolina communities — including Hilton Head Island, Charleston and Greenville — that make similar exceptions to their smoking bans.
Tobacco shops are already exempt from the smoking ban, but selling beer and wine would require a special provision in town ordinance, along with a state beer and wine license.
The town’s proposed amendment also says a cigar bar:
Must have a walk-in humidor. Can’t sell food or hard liquor. Must earn at least 30 percent of yearly gross revenues from the sale of cigar and tobacco-related products, other than cigarettes. Can’t give discounts on alcohol if sold in combination with cigars or other tobacco products. Town officials could not identify businesses other than Sky’s that would benefit from the change. “We are always open to seeing how we can make things work for the betterment of all businesses, while not affecting the rules other establishments are working under and continuing to protect citizens from secondhand smoke,” Mayor Lisa Sulka said.
Attempts Friday to reach Huffman for comment were unsuccessful.
Members of Peaceful Henry’s private smoking club — who pay a $200 annual membership — are already allowed to bring their own liquor, wine and beer into the establishment.
“I just want to take it to the next level,” Sky said.
Owners of two Bluffton restaurants and bars, where smoking is banned, were comfortable with the proposal.
“I don’t see it being that big of a threat, that big of a deal,” said Tanya Aquino, a co-owner of R Bar & Grill in Sheridan Park. “Most people who come out to the bar are cigarette smokers. I don’t see a lot of people puffing on a cigar. I don’t think it would take business away from us.”
Ally Rogers, owner of Pour Richards off Bluffton Parkway, echoed the sentiment.
“It doesn’t bother me,” she said. “To me, it’s a non-issue.”
Bluffton Town Council could give final approval to the amendment July 16.


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Dean Blake, Author at Inside FMCG
Coles edges into meal kit market with delivery of ‘ready-to-eat’ range.
New UBS study finds Coles on the rise, while Woolworths plateaus.
Warehouse on track for 2019 launch, says Drakes CFO.
US supermarket and tech giant collab with two pilot smart stores.
Former Sainsbury’s chief to join the board of struggling UK department store.
T2, Boost Juice and Krispy Kreme among the finalists for the 2019 Retailer Awards.
Supermarket says staff want opportunity to earn public holiday rates.
Chairman finds rich-lister’s offer wanting.
Green Party bill to allow Kiwis a better understanding where their food comes from.
Wholesaler retailers unveil new 68,000 sqm distribution centre.


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Karnataka is one of India’s garment-industry heartlands, with thousands of factories and hundreds of thousands of workers producing clothing for international brands including Puma, Nike, Zara, Tesco, C&A, Gap, Marks & Spencer and H&M.
Garment workers making clothes for international brands in Karnataka, a major clothing production hub in India, say their children are going hungry as factories refuse to pay the legal minimum wage in what is claimed to be the biggest wage theft to ever hit the fashion industry.
More than 400,000 garment workers in Karnataka have not been paid the state’s legal minimum wage since April 2020, according to an international labour rights organisation that monitors working conditions in factories.
The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) estimates the total amount of unpaid wages so far to be more than £41m.
Scott Nova, executive director of the WRC, said: “In terms of number of workers affected and total money stolen, this is the most egregious act of wage theft we’ve ever seen. The children of garment workers are going hungry so brands can make a buck.” Nova said the “indifference and inaction” of all the brands sourcing clothing from the region about the situation facing its mostly poor, female workforce was “shameful and cruel”.
For the past two years, western brands had either refused to intervene or had not acted to ensure that workers making their clothes were paid in line with Indian law.
“Payment of minimum wage is pretty much the lowest bar on a brand’s responsibility towards its workforce. If they won’t even insist on this being paid then they are letting a human rights violation on a huge scale continue with impunity.”
One worker said she only earned about half of what she needed to cover basic living costs, such as food and rent.
“If we had got the wage increase last year, we could have at least eaten vegetables a few times a month. Throughout this year I have only fed my family rice and chutney sauce,” she said. “I tried to talk to the factory management about it,” she added, “but they said, ‘this is what we pay to work here. If you don’t like it, you can leave.’”
The annual cost of living increase to the minimum wage, the “variable dearness allowance” (VDA), was increased to 417 Indian rupees (£4.10) a month in April 2020. The WRC said that as this supplement for low-paid workers, which amounts to 16p a day, had gone unpaid for 20 months, each employee had been underpaid by R8,351 (£83).


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VIJAYAPURA: In a big relief to government schools which have been complaining about rice and dal going missing from their premises, Vijayapura police have nabbed thieves who were targeting government schools. They were stealing rice, dal and other commodities supplied by the government under the mid-day meal scheme.
Many rural schools have complained to police that rice, dal and other food items was stolen. Police achieved a breakthrough in the case on Saturday by arresting eight persons including two merchants who were buying the stolen rice and dal from the accused. Police have recovered 50 quintal rice worth Rs 2.7 lakh, 15 quintal dal worth Rs 2.24 lakh and Rs 1.06 lakh and vehicles worth Rs 19 lakh from the accused.
The accused are Sarfbhushan Sharat Bhimashankar Doddamani, 22, from Kannal village, Srikanth Kattimani, 22, Mallikarjun Mopagar, 21, Sanju Myageri,22, Sachin Hunshyal, 22, of Korwar village, and Santosh Hosakoti, 19, of Shegunasi village. Two traders who purchased the stolen goods from the accused are Rahul Pawar, 33, Minchinal Tanda, and Nagaraj Uppin, a Uppuliburja resident.
One more accused, Sachin Ingaleshwar of Hangargi village, is absconding, said a police source.
Vijayapura superintendent of police HD Ananda Kumar told TOI that two people who were involved in transporting rice and dal to government schools under the mid-day meal scheme were providing details of the goods supplied to the schools. As most schools lacked proper security, the accused targeted them.
“After we came across some complaints, we formed a special team consisting of senior officers and started an investigation. Based on definite information, we intercepted a goods vehicles carrying huge quantities of rice and dal at Kannal Cross on Vijayapura-Solapur National Highway on Saturday. During interrogation, it came to light that the same gang had stolen rice and dal meant for mid-day meal scheme from 13 schools in Burnapur, Inttangihal, and Hitnalli villages in the last one month,” the SP said.
“We have increased the beat system in and around schools in rural areas where rice and dal are kept. We have informed the district administration to take further steps to improve security at schools,” he said.
A teacher said the government has not made any proper arrangements in most schools in rural areas to store rice, dal and other commodities supplied for the mid-day meal scheme. “We must store them in classrooms without any proper security. During holidays, or vacations, it is a big challenge to protect the goods in rural schools,” he said.


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In today's daily news digest from ExchangeWire: Group Black launches with USD$75m (£54m) backing; Amazon demanding warrants from partners; and Retina raises USD$8m (£5.8m).
Group Black launches with USD$75m (£54m) backing
Group Black Inc., a collective of media companies with the shared goal of advancing opportunity and investment for Black ownership within the global media industry, has launched with USD$75m in backing from WPP's GroupM unit. The collective will utilise a two-pronged approach when advocating for increased Black ownership within the ecosystem: firstly it will expand its collective as it seeks to deploy USD$500m in media spend for Black-owned media companies by the close of 2022; secondly it will launch an accelerator, dubbed Group Black Ventures, for equity investments and tutoring. Founding members of the collective include Afropunk; Baller Alert; Essence; Holler; PlayVS; and The Shade Room.
Travis Montaque, Co-Founder, CEO, and Director, Group Black, commented, “Our mission is simple: dramatically transform the face of media ownership and investment. We started Group Black to infuse diversity into the next generation of creativity and storytelling, and create scaled solutions for brands. The promise and approach is both urgent and personal. We have the expertise to know what solutions will work, entrenched allies to support us, and a dogged belief that we must build a self-sustaining platform of Black media ownership for the industry to evolve. Our approach and allies have put us in a unique position to deploy significantly more dollars into existing and emerging Black-owned media companies than ever before.”
Amazon demanding warrants from partners
Amazon is increasingly demanding the right to purchase company stock in its vendor and service partners in future, via warrants tied to the value of contracts between the firms, according to former executives and lawyers of the firm speaking to The Wall Street Journal on condition of anonymity. The e-commerce giant has purportedly brokered at least 88 of such deals in both public and private companies, which in some incidents also gives the firm the right to board representation and to file counter-offers to takeover bids. Examples of companies which have agreed to such warrants include grocery distributor SpartanNash (up to 15%); Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (up to 20%); aircraft leasing firm Air Transport Services Group Inc. (19.5%); Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc. (up to 30%); CargoJet; and call-centre operator Startek Inc. (20%).
While the deals are likely to attract the interest of antitrust investigators, the deals are likely to fall outside the scope of current probes, such as an ongoing investigation by the European Union, as these primarily focus on its activity with merchants rather than service partners. Third-parties are also targeting investments in vendors which primarily sell their wares through Amazon, as evidenced by yesterday's announcement from business acquisition platform Forum Brands that it has raised USD$27m (£19m) in equity financing from Norwest Venture Partners.
Retina raises USD$8m (£5.8m)
E-commerce AI and data analytics company Retina has announced that it has raised USD$8m (£5.8m) in a Series A financing round led by Alpha Intelligence Capital and Vertical Venture Partners. The investment will be used to support its cookieless customer acquisition and customer lifetime value insight products through recruitment and technical development. In additional news from the customer acquisition space, Arrows, which specialises in onboarding customers for software companies, has secured USD$2.75m (£1.99m) in funding from Google's Gradient Ventures and at least 28 angel investors.
Commenting on the funding, Emad Hasan, Co-Founder and CEO of Retina, wrote, “The response to our platform has been overwhelmingly positive and the company has achieved impressive growth over the last year.” said Emad Hasan, Co-Founder and CEO of Retina. “We’ve been arming e-commerce companies with actionable customer insights that rivals data from the likes of Amazon. With Retina, brands can effectively target and thoughtfully engage with their highest value customers, as well as measure the value of ongoing campaigns in near real-time.”


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Reputation.com, a Redwood City, CA-based Online Reputation Management (ORM) platform, closed its latest round with funding from Heritage Group.
The investment came from Heritage’s second Healthcare Innovation Fund, which is backed by 14 healthcare organizations including Adventist Health System, Community Health Systems, Intermountain Healthcare, Sutter Health, and Tenet Health.
The company will use the funds to continue to expand operations and its market reach.
Led by Shrey Bhatia, President and CEO, Reputation.com provides a SaaS automated platform that enables businesses across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific to monitor and respond to reviews, tap into vast quantities of experience data and sentiment to make systematic improvements in the delivery of their services and improve their reputation online. The company’s technology has managed tens of millions of consumer reviews and interactions across hundreds of thousands of online points of presence for global companies spanning 77 industry verticals, including healthcare, retail, automotive, restaurants and others.


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By now, most people are familiar with the novel coronavirus, more commonly known as COVID-19. The pandemic has swept through countries all over the world for the last several months — and it's not over yet. Although social distancing practices have helped "flatten the curve" and slow the progress of the virus in some countries, new infections are still on the rise.
Most of North America has been under some sort of shelter-in-place order, which has helped slow the spread of COVID-19. However, several states in the US that were hit hard with the virus have begun the first phases of their reopening process. Businesses will still be under partial restrictions and social distancing is still required, but an increase has already been seen in many newly-reopened areas. This recent spike reinforces concerns of many experts predicting a second wave of the pandemic.
Some experts warn a second wave could arrive before fall if restrictions are lifted too quickly. If a second wave waits until the fall, it will line up with flu season — making it even more difficult to detect. Since COVID-19 cases are already present, the virus will take off much more quickly than it did when it was new to North America.
During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States suffered record unemployment numbers in “Non-essential” sectors that impacted lower socioeconomic populations the worst. Consequently, grocery stores were forced to changed their hours of operation because the public went into a panic while hoarding items such as storable food, toiletries, sanitization products and bottled water.
If a second pandemic were to break out, would you be able to weather the storm? In order to determine this, let’s examine what has happened during the height of this pandemic and what we can expect to happen if another wave hits North America.
Food Prices Skyrocketed
Each week that you go to the grocery, you’ve probably experienced sticker shock. Many of your household staples have suddenly risen in price. USA Today recently published an article saying that food prices have seen the highest one month increase since 1974.
Food that can be stored in your pantry has already become scarce and to add insult to injury, experts suggest that jobs provided by many small businesses may never come back. The combination of rising food prices coupled with scarce employment opportunities is a recipe for crisis.
Unfortunately, when food prices go up, they rarely go down. When you think about the amount of money the US government had to print in order to send everyone a stimulus check, you can understand why your dollar has less buying power today than it did several months ago.
Storable Food Companies Were Sold Out
Many storable food companies rapidly sold out of their non-perishable foods when it became clear that the pandemic was going to have a serious impact on our economy.
There is an old saying in the prepper community: “Storable food is insurance you can eat.” That saying rang true during the height of the pandemic. Many viral videos showed the true nature of humans during a panic. Many videos featured people fighting over supplies at the supermarket. Others showed senior citizens having critical items ripped from their arms.
Can you imagine what would happen during another pandemic scare? Rather than fight the crowds for last remaining supplies on the shelf, wouldn’t it be better to have cache of emergency food on hand? Stocking items like MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and purified drinking water can give you the reassurance in knowing you and your family will food and water if needed.
Inflation: The Invisible Tax
One of the most dangerous aspects of another wave of pandemics is the looming impact of inflation. Politicians typically get a bad rap whenever they vote to raise taxes. However, when they simply rack up more national debt, taxes aren’t directly levied on citizens. They’re indirectly levied by diluting the value of the dollar.
When governments begin borrowing and spending, the damage is already done. Government entities have shown that they are willing and able to print their way out of a pandemic. With food prices already hitting new highs, what will happen if another pandemic hits? Will governments continue printing more money?
When you go ahead and purchase survival foods such as MREs, you’re locking in your food at a price that you know you can afford. If you look at other economies that have been impacted by hyperinflation, you could get a glimpse of the dangerous situation that could be created when the value of the currency is diluted to a point to where it becomes difficult to afford basic necessities.
Supply Chain Risks
Do you ever think about how food arrives on the store shelves? There are warehouses, there are truck drivers, and there are entire workforces that must be on the same page in order for the food to show up at the supermarket.
Many news organizations continuously reported on the fact that grocery supply chains started to fail. Did you notice how ground beef, chicken and steak became scarce? Many families began hoarding canned goods and groceries had to start putting purchasing limits on specific items in order to alleviate the strain on the supply chain.
One of the more under reported aspects of the pandemic was the price of oil. While oil prices dropped to record lows, this negatively impacted supply chains all around the world. If supply chains falter, food will not make it to the supermarket shelves. This could set off a chain reaction of negative events in your community.
Grocery Stores May Limit What You Buy
If the supply chain falters and inflation causes food prices to continue to go up, the government may force groceries to limit what customers can buy. These types of measures would be put in place to prevent people from hoarding what little food is left on the shelves.
What if groceries no longer allow shoppers to come into the stores? Your grocery shopping may be limited to the bare essentials. Eggs, bread, and milk could be the main items available, if they are even available at all.
If a second pandemic impacts the North America and your food options are limited, can you be confident that the grocery store will have enough food from week to week?
The Unforeseen Dangers of Pandemic Desensitization
Going into the Summer of 2020, we are already seeing many who are simply ignoring the social distancing guidelines put forth by the World Health Organization. As news cycles change, the COVID-19 pandemic may seem like a distant memory to some.
These individuals could be desensitized to the idea of a 2nd pandemic therefore they could inadvertently contract the disease and spread the illness to their friends and family members.
This in turn could cause the government to shutdown common areas in your community which could directly impact your ability to get food. Imagine the panic and chaos that would ensue if this scenario were to play out.
Contact Tracing is Becoming Mainstream
With governments heavily investing in contract tracing technologies, these systems could be used to quarantine various communities. What happens next? What if you happen to come in contact with someone who has the virus?
What if you are forced into quarantine? Contract tracing is a new frontier and this endeavor could bring about its own set of challenges. Wouldn’t it be better to avoid these hassles and invest in survival food so that you aren’t left worrying about what could happen in times of uncertainty?
If you are able to shelter in place and thus relieving you of the responsibility of always having to go out and find food, there's less risk of you coming into contact with the virus. This is a win-win situation for everyone involved.
Food Banks – Will They Exist?
During the first wave of pandemics in North America, we witnessed a phenomenon that we never thought we’d see happen. Community food banks were picked bare in a matter of days. Charities never seem to have enough but during times like these, food charities were completely decimated by the sheer demand for their services.
Some food banks started to ration what they gave out to the community. Others simply closed their doors due to being overwhelmed and out of food. When your community runs out of food and the charities are unable to help, where would you turn next?
How to Mitigate the Dangers of Food Shortages
Some parts of the Western Hemisphere were impacted much more harshly by the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts seem to be in agreement that a second pandemic wave could be more severe than the first wave. In order to get ahead of the curve, you must first meet your basic needs as a human being.
Securing a source of food during times of uncertainty will help put you way ahead of the curve. While others may be content with relying on the supermarket to provide them with their next meal, you can rest easy at night knowing that you have a cache of survival food available to you at any time.
If you are wondering whether or not you should buy emergency food, pause for a moment and consider the inherent advantages you’ll gain from stocking up on meals ready to eat (MREs).
It’s kind of like buying a fire extinguisher. It’s never something you want to use, however, if you need it, it’ll be there waiting for you and having it can mean the difference between life and death in some cases.
The Facts on Survivalist Food
Soldiers all around have used emergency food rations in order to eat healthy, nutritious food whenever they are in a situation where traditional food cannot be easily procured. These rations provide enough calories, vitamins, minerals and nutrients to help soldiers forge on and carry out their missions in some of the most extreme conditions.
When you decide to invest in MREs, you’ll get food that:
- Can be stored for several years
- Is perfectly portioned into 1,200 calorie per day meal plans
- Tastes flavorful
- Doesn’t require an oven or cooking utensils
Did you know that during the Great Depression, one of the leading causes of health problems was malnutrition?
In those days, people commonly hunted rabbits and squirrels in order to help prepare a dinner. In today’s industry-centric society, ordinary people can stock up on storable foods that will help them get through an emergency situation.
There’s really no reason to not be prepared. In previous years, the general public mocked the prepper movement. Now that everyone has been forced to endure a global pandemic, the tongue-in-cheek comments about buying storable food have all but stopped.
The Dangers of Not Having Storable Food
If you do not have storable food in today’s society, it’s like driving a vehicle without an insurance policy. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of the infrastructure and a 2nd wave could cause global catastrophe. Securing storable food helps you lock-in healthy, nutritious food at an affordable price before the inevitable panic buying begins.
If you choose to not buy storable food, you’re risking the chance of not being able to find the food you need on the store shelves in the future. When you make the choice to secure food now, you’ll only need to worry about finding shelter and procuring water. Since most people have a roof and have indoor plumbing, these two things could be solved fairly rapidly. However, if you elect to not buy storable food products, finding food that you enjoy eating could potentially be an issue in the future.
Once you order storable food, you may elect to buy some extra food with the intention of eating it as soon as you get it. Why? Because if you buy storable food and you’re forced to eat it and you don’t like the taste, you can always buy other meal plans in order to have food on hand that matches your flavor palate.


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Vinamilk, the nation’s leading dairy producer, with VND40.223 trillion in revenue and VND7.7 trillion in profit in 2015 now holds 53 percent of the liquid milk market share, 84 percent of yogurt, 80 percent of condensed milk market shares and controls the distribution network with 212,000 retail points and 575 showrooms throughout the country.
Pham Thi Viet Nga, CEO of Hau Giang Pharmacy
Determined to develop the distribution network, the nation’s leading dairy producer allocates huge budgets for ads, listing itself among the three biggest consumer goods manufacturers which spend most on ads.
Mai Kieu Lien, the CEO of Vinamilk, is described as a courageous woman. Vinamilk once tried to make beer and coffee. However, Lien made an important decision on leaving the markets soon after realizing that it cannot find the opportunities there. The returning to its core business field helped the company gather its strength to develop.
|Vinamilk, Traphaco and Hau Giang Pharmacy – three out of the largest Vietnamese conglomerates - all are led by women.|
It has bought Driftwood in the US, established cooperation with partners in New Zealand and set up representative office in Poland which would serve as a jumping board for Vinamilk to enter Europe.
Like Vinamilk, Hau Giang Pharmacy’s key to success is the focus on the core business field.
Pham Thi Viet Nga, CEO of Hau Giang Pharmacy, is a pharmacist.
Hau Giang Phamarcy had huge amounts of cash, but Nga did not pour the money into financial investments or invest in other business fields.
Nga’s strategy on focusing on core business fields has brought encouraging results. Hau Giang gets annual revenue of VND3.6 trillion and holds 9.6 percent of the share of the $1.7 billion market.
Traphaco, another pharmacy company, is also believed to gain big successes thanks to their large distribution networks. Hau Giang is the first pharmacy firm which pays attention to developing the distribution network throughout the country and compete directly with foreign imports.
Tran Thi Thuan of Traphaco decided that Traphaco must not rely on wholesale, but it needs to gather more strength to develop retail channels. Wholesale once brought 60 percent of revenue to Traphaco in the past, but now it accounts for 20 percent of revenue only.


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HÃ¤agen-Dazs launches its new pan-European ad next week directed by Vaughan Arnell, the man behind the hit videos for George Michael’s Outside and Geri Halliwell’s Look At Me. The TV campaign, created by EURO RSCG Wnek Gosper, features a young girl sitting outside a cafÃ© eating a tub of Pralines & Cream flavour ice cream who is interrupted when an old man sitting next to her starts crying. He reveals that it is his 93rd birthday and that he is married to a beautiful 25-year-old. When the girl assumes he is crying with joy, he says ‘No, I can’t remember where I live’. The ad, which breaks in the UK on May 24, ends with the line ‘at least HÃ¤agen-Dazs is 100 per cent perfect’. Pillsbury UK will also be using print ads for HÃ¤agen-Dazs as part of a 7m push for the brand in the UK – its highest spend to date.
Spar UK, the country’s biggest convenience store symbol group, is to pool its advertising into one agency as part of plans to create a nationwide advertising approach for the regionalised chain. Spar UK, which is part of Dutch group Internationale Spar Centrale, the world’s biggest retailer by number of stores, splits its operations into six […]
Sainsbury’s has revealed details of a deal with the Post Office which will allow 200 rural post offices to stock its own-label lines by 2001. Sub-postmasters will be able to order Sainsbury’s lines in bulk from their local store as part of the deal. It follows an eight-store trial launched through the Village Retail Services […]
BT has appointed global business chief Peter Macleod to head its UK Markets division, following the departure of Afshin Mohebbi. Macleod, BT Global Business Markets managing director and chief executive of Concert Communications, takes over as managing director of BT UK Markets, which incorporates marketing. Marketing director Angus Porter will report to Macleod, who in […]
The latest IPA Bellwether data anticipates particularly strong growth in main media advertising over the coming year, suggesting marketers are plotting a return to brand building.
The property company’s CMO Gary Bramall wants to unlock the positivity of moving home with a brand refresh designed to reflect his vision of a “holistic Zoopla”.
CEO Ken Murphy is “optimistic” about the future of the business, highlighting value, loyalty and online as the three areas Tesco will be focusing on in the year ahead.
Even before the rise of ecommerce, customers could reserve stock in one store at the till of another. Now the key to retail success is making it easy to access the right channel at the right time – and having a product worth buying.


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Earlier this month, Facebook rolled out a feature allowing users to create repeat events, aimed at making it easier to duplicate details from past events if they were similar to those for new ones. Now, the social network is apparently testing the concept with its ad manager, allowing a select group of page administrators who manage multiple pages to create similar ads for their different accounts, including duplication of the targeting parameters.
Facebook is taking steps to provide more clarity to direct-response marketers on the effectiveness of their ad campaigns on the social network, announcing the extended beta test of a self-service conversion-measurement feature that it plans to roll out at the end of November.
Facebook added a widget to the dashboard on its ad manager that reminds users what the exact minimum dimensions should be for graphics.
The changes and tweaks to the process of advertising on Facebook continue, with some users seeing a redesigned start screen for the social network’s ad manager.
Facebook has announced that its advertising metrics will include new data points labeled actions, measuring how campaigns fulfilled specific marketing objectives.


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Most Denverites think steak when they hear the name Del Frisco's — expensive steak. But the new Del Frisco's Grille, which opens tonight in Cherry Creek, only has three cuts of prime beef on the dinner menu: a filet, a New York strip and a ribeye. The rest of the menu is devoted to casual and modern fare that general manager Gavin Berry says modern diners are looking for, whether they're just rolling off the golf course or coming in after a business meeting or afternoon of shopping.
While the interior of the eatery, three years in the making, is definitely well appointed (to the tune of between $7 million and $8 million in total construction costs), the menu takes a more laid-back and cheeky approach. Shareable plates are labeled "Food to Fight Over," and the daily lunch deal, with a main and a side, is called "Grab a Pair." In typical chain fashion, the kitchen, headed by executive chef Dan Kane, offers a little something for everyone, from Asian street tacos to an assortment of housemade flatbreads to beef short rib stroganoff. But unlike at many chains, everything in the kitchen is made from scratch, and daily specials are offered for both lunch and dinner.
Del Frisco's opens at 4 p.m. this afternoon, but thereafter will kick things off every day at 11 a.m. for lunch, with brunch beginning at the same time on Sundays. And in a nod to Denver's bar culture, happy hour will take place weekdays from 4 to 6:30 p.m. — not typical for other Grille locations, according to Berry — with a menu of $6 snacks and drinks.
Restaurant features include two floor-to-ceiling wine walls with more than 300 labels; a private dining room that can be booked for larger parties; an intimate eight-seat nook clad in wood paneling and dubbed the Mile High Room; and a rooftop patio that's still under construction but that should be ready for customers by the end of November.
Berry, Kane and several other members of the management staff all did time at Sullivan's Steak House downtown before the Del Frisco's group closed that location in May, so there's a certain amount of continuity and familiarity that carries over to the new spot. Berry said the opening was timed to coincided with a rebirth of the Cherry Creek North shopping district, which is on the verge of seeing several new condo and apartment complexes and hotels open, all sporting new retail space at street level.
The crew has hosted a number of friends-and-family lunches and dinners over the past few days, so we stopped in to check out the food and the vibe during a full lunch service. Keep reading for more photos.
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