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Associated Motorways launches Renault vehicles
Renault is one of the fastest growing global
The Associated Motorways Private Limited (AMW), launched the Renault
brand in Sri Lanka last week.
For over 65 years, AMW has consistently grown to become the
preeminent group in the automotive industry, offering world-class
automotive brands in Sri Lanka, as well as associated products.
By launching the Renault brand in Sri Lanka, AMW will add to its
legacy of launching world-class automotive products. The superior
island-wide after sales service and spare parts availability as well as
financial solutions through AMW Capital Leasing adds to the proficiency
Renault is one of the fastest growing global automotive brands, with
118 years of innovation and passion in the automotive industry.
The Renault Kwid
Speaking about the association with Renault and about the newly
launched Renault Kwid, Managing Director, Associated Motorways Private
Limited, Samantha Rajapaksa said, "Renault is one of the foremost
automotive brands across the globe and it is an honour to be associated
with this automotive giant. With Renault Kwid, we will offer our
customers in Sri Lankaa game-changer compact hatchback which has been
designed and developed by Renault's global teams, making it a truly
Commenting on the distributorship inauguration in Sri Lanka, Country
CEO and Managing Director, Groupe Renault, Indian Subcontinent
Operations, Sumit Sawhney said, "Over the past few years, we have
exponentially grown the Renault brand,entering new and emerging markets.
We have made Renault one of the fastest growing automotive brands."
"We had also expressed our intent of taking the Renault brand to
important countries in the SAARC region, and we are living up to this
promise with the inauguration of our first distributorship in Sri
Lanka," he said.
The state-of-the-art distributorship facility is close to the
Gangaramaya in Colombo. The display area of the facility is spread over
an area of 2,828 sq.ft and is designed basis Renault's new generation
The facility will offer customers an excellent brand experience -
from the test drive, to delivery and after-sales support. The
distributorship will offer Renault's segment defining cars - starting
with Renault Kwid and Renault Duster. Renault Kwid has revolutionised
the compact hatchback segment, creating a new era in automotive history.
The global launch of the Renault Kwid was a progressive step by Renault
to pursue its strategy of accessible mobility for all and was a step up
in its international growth strategy, a company spokesman said.
Duster on its part, is an example of Renault's core specialty of
concept innovation, where an existing segment is redefined to offer
something new to the customer.
The all new Duster range which includes a first of its kind six-speed
Easy - R AMT and also boasts of more than 32 new changes along with
superior engineering, styling, safety and comfort features
. "Both these products have set new benchmarks in the automotive
industry and we are confident that they will appeal to auto enthusiasts
in Sri Lanka as well," added Sawhney.
Founded in 1949, AMW has consistently, over 65 years, grown to become
the preeminent group in the industry. Now an Al Futtaim Group company,
AMW offers world-class brands including Yamaha, Nissan, Suzuki and
Piaggio, as well as associated products like Goodyear tyres and Castrol
lubricants, and New Holland tractors. Adding to the popularity of AMW
are the superior island-wide after sales service and spare parts
availability as well as financial solutions through AMW Capital Leasing.


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Roberto Aspiazu, executive director of the Ecuadorian Business Committee and honorary president of the Mexican Chamber of Commerce in Ecuador, comments on the country’s economic outlook and international trade relations with Mexico, the urgent need for Ecuador to shift its growth paradigm towards increased private investment and explains how the country’s current international trade policies are affecting the structure of its pharmaceutical market.
Mr. Aspiazu, you are a multifaceted businessman, historian and journalist with an engineering background. Could you tell our readers about the path that has led to your current position in the Ecuadorian Business Committee?
“Unlike other neighboring countries on the Latin American continent, Ecuador’s dollarized economy protects all type of investments from the risk of inflation, which are common in emerging economies.”
I used to be involved in the media sector, as a journalist, television anchor and news correspondent in several Latin American countries, but it struck me that taking part in activities related to a different sector would be an interesting and fulfilling personal growth challenge. Thus, as Ecuador was in the process of negotiating a free-trade agreement with the USA 14 years ago, I got involved in the creation of a guild that would promote Ecuadorian business interests at an international level. More specifically, as this free trade agreement was being negotiated, the different Ecuadorian industry chambers remarked the creation of an umbrella organization in charge of coordinating the protection of their interests would be more efficient than individual action. This led to the creation of the Ecuadorian Business Comittee (CEE) of which I became the executive director.
As the honorary president of the Mexican Chamber of Commerce in Ecuador you are also involved in the development of commercial relations between these two countries. How important is trade between these two countries?
The Mexican Ecuadorian chamber was founded ten years ago with the objective of facilitating international trade activities between these two countries. The chamber’s main mode of action remains the arrangement of encounters between business personalities of both countries. The chamber currently supports the international activities of 30 enterprises, most of which are Mexican companies that have established operations in Ecuador.
Mexican-Ecuadorian trade is amongst the most important for Ecuador. In fact, Mexico was Ecuador’s second largest supplier of packaged medicine in 2016 according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity. This economic proximity grounds itself in the shared history of both countries who where both part of the Spanish Empire. As a result of the close cultural and geopolitical ties between Mexico and Ecuador, both countries started trading together early in their history. For instance, the 1993 Mexican Ecuadorian free trade agreement was on of the first international trade partnership signed by Ecuadorian authorities.
Nonetheless, this trade agreement is fairly restrictive and one could reasonably argue for a renegotiation of the terms of trade that would deepen the commercial relationships that unite the two countries. Indeed, the agreement signed in 1993 only included 300 items. The Mexican Chamber of Commerce in Ecuador has attempted to revise the free trade agreement between the countries multiple times in the last seven years- unsuccessfully.
What makes Ecuador an attractive market for Mexican companies?
Despite some political problems faced by Ecuador, its dollarized economy is an element of stability that is reassuring the international community of investors, Mexicans included. Indeed, unlike other neighboring countries on the Latin American continent, Ecuador’s dollarized economy protects all type of investments from the risk of inflation, which are common in emerging economies. Additionally, the strong cultural ties I mentioned previously, facilitate communication in the business world, which is a crucial element in the investment decision-making. Indeed, it is easier to follow up on an investment if one is familiar with local business practices.
After a decade of economic boom fuelled by high prices of exported oil, and key social advances, Ecuador is facing a new set of economic realities. Considering your expertise in the country’s macroeconomic domain, what do you perceive as the country’s economic outlook?
Despite the Ecuadorian Central Bank’s announcement boasting the economy’s 3.3 percent year-on-year growth in 2017’s last quarter, I believe this is an unsustainable figure that has been fuelled by immoderate international debt contracting. Indeed, our economy has been depending on these international loans since 2015 and our growth projections are related to the country’s ability to continuously reach international lenders to sustain the government’s public spending policy. The 2007-2017 period might have been a golden decade in terms of social advancements but it has merely been the result of ostensibly high public spending policies implemented by Correa’s administration as the country exported highly priced crude oil to the USA.
Given the new economic context, I think our government is living beyond its means and should promptly revise its model to avoid defaulting. Indeed, in 2013 Ecuador reached a point where 44 percent of its growth was fuelled by public investment when the Latin American average for the period was around 26 percent. Unfortunately, President Moreno’s cabinet is composed of the same economic advisors as his predecessor, former President Correa, thus increasing the likelihood that the same economic policies will be applied.
While I am confident in our country’s ability to succeed, there needs to be a dramatic turn in terms of public policy giving more room for private investment and liberal economic policies. Ecuador will reach a turning point with the 4th February referendum, after which President Moreno will have the ability to reshuffle his economic advisory board and open perspectives of a different economic line than the one he has followed so far.
The government is looking forward to decrease Ecuador’s dependence on the import of finished pharmaceutical good by supporting the local productive capacity. How relevant are the current policies in this regard?
There appears to be contradictory signals in terms of the government’s domestic production policies. Indeed, while the government has clearly claimed its ambition to develop the country’s domestic pharmaceutical industry, some protectionist barriers are still hampering the ability of local producers to compete with the importers of finished medical supplies. More specifically, some tariffs on imported raw materials exist for the purpose of producing pharmaceutical drugs, while there are none in the case of the imported finished goods. As a result of these policies, imported pharmaceutical products are cheaper than those produced locally.
Unfortunately, the government does not seem to have an adequate lecture about the realities of certain sectors. I believe there must be a real match between the political actors and the economic sectors for the economy to grow. Hopefully, dialogue following the referendum will lead to Ecuador lifting barriers to international investment and reduce public spending. Once these barriers have been lifted, our country will be in a position to start building its competitiveness across various sectors.
Where do you see room for improvement in the Ecuadorian healthcare system?
I used to be a board member of Fybeca, one of the country’s largest retail chains of health related products. It appears that Ecuador’s health system has not yet found ways to reduce costs associated with health- related services such as professional care, medical consultations and price of medication. As a result of the high costs associated with health services in our country and their constitutional universality, the country’s public social security regime (IESS) is in deficit. Precisely, IESS is faced with major financial problems that could lead to its defaulting in under ten years. Indeed, the government has extended the rights of social security regime to dependents of contributors without increasing the institution’s revenue inflow. Currently, IESS is disbursing and estimated USD 1.6 billion out of its USD eight billion savings to cover the costs of social security despite the institution’s council of directors refusing to admit financial difficulties.
Also, access to quality healthcare services is still highly correlated to economic status. Indeed, those who can afford private insurance have the possibility to attend well-equipped clinics. Those who cannot, have no other option than to resort to overcrowded deficient healthcare facilities run by the public system.
Considering your various experiences in several Latin American countries, what advice could you give to someone willing to set up a business in Ecuador?
Finding the right partner, capable of informing them of the country’s current economic situation and guiding them through the principles of doing business in Ecuador’s different regions is essential. This partner will assist the potential new entrant with regards to the administrative complexities of setting up a business in Ecuador and inform him on the potential of the market he is looking to address.
Ecuador is an interesting country to conduct business in; even more so considering the new political openings 2018 has to offer. Indeed, our prior governments were extremely confrontational and unjustifiably reluctant to developing international trade. It appears Moreno’s administration is applying consultative methodologies and willing to reorient the country’s politics according to the new economic context. Hopefully, Ecuadorian authorities will also move forward with an American free trade agreement.

domain: news


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Cops in Bensalem are taking police protection to a whole new level.
At community events this month, township police were passing out their very own lip balm.
With a sunscreen protection factor of 15 and a hint of peppermint oil, the township lip balm bears the seal of the police department and the words: Bensalem Police — We are more than lip service.
Township Public Safety Director Fred Harran said the lip balm is hardly a new police tactic. It’s just one more way Bensalem tries to be proactive in connecting with residents at community events, he said.
Local officials said they aren’t exactly sure when the balm were purchased or the cost. (There’s no lip balm line item in the township budget.) The township Web address listed on the labels hasn’t been used by the government in nearly a decade.
Bensalem bought the lip balm from the Lanco Corp. of Hauppauge, N.Y., which sells promotional items on which buyers can put their logos or slogans. Lip balm prices vary from 98 cents to $1.09 a container, depending on the quantity. It’s sold in quantities of 250 to 1,000 units.
On its website, Lanco also markets promotional items such as hand sanitizers, letter openers and rulers. The company also sells a promotional heart-shaped “Affection” aromatherapy wax candle.
Bensalem police will continue to pass out lip balm, rulers and other promotional items at community events, Harran said.
However, there are no plans for stress-release candles bearing the township seal.
James McGinnis: 215-949-3248; email: email@example.com Twitter @James_McGinnis


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Entertainment for the whole family is on the agenda for the 2023 Hendy Performance Open Day at Thruxton on Sunday June 25th.
This family-friendly event is completely FREE to attend, however, tickets must be registered in advance and cannot be obtained at the gate on the day.
There will once again be high-octane action on the track with Paul Swift, the Hendy Group Motor Show, hundreds of performance cars on display, trade stands, live music, guest speakers on the main stage and, new for 2023, dedicated kids’ zones with activities for all ages.
In addition to fans’ own cars on display there will be the very latest performance models from a wide range of manufacturers including Maserati and Lotus.
The kids’ zones will offer plenty to entertain children of all ages and will include an inflatable village, trampolines, bumper cars, and face painters as the event promises to be bigger and better than ever.
Follow www.HPOpenday.co.uk for updates.


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Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Rus’, the chief of the Russian Orthodox Church, has not urged his flock to spend money on Bitcoin, regardless of movies claiming in any other case.
A clip just recently emerged claiming that Kirill had urged the devoted to spend money on cryptocurrencies. Whereas the video does embody real feedback from the patriarch relating to the advantages of robotics for the business enterprise system, and a point out of Bitcoin (BTC), the feedback had been closely edited, with the teller extra claiming that the chief would bless those that want to spend money on crypto in a particular service at a Moscow church.
The church’s high media consultant, Vakhtang Kipshidze, instructed native publication Every day Storm:
“That is an absolute deception, deceptive these individuals who may suppose that the patriarch allegedly encourages soul to participate in monetary system fraud and hypothesis.”
Kipshidze expressed that he thought of the fallacious nature of the video to be obvious, stating, “It will by no means happen to any sane individual that the patriarch would name for investment in some kind of fly-by-night scheme, the fallacious nature of which, in my view, is kind of apparent.”
Spiritual communities around the globe have had various opinions about cryptocurrencies, starting from cautious approval to outright condemnation.
Within the Islamic world, which has its personal set of pointers and legal guidelines pertaining to finance — and now digital property — the acceptance of cryptocurrency is way from uniform
Malaysia’s Islamic law consultatory council, for instance, has declared that buying and merchandising digital property was permissible, whereas late final yr, non secular regime in Indonesia have discovered it “haram,” or forbidden, specifically as a consequence of its speculative nature and purported propensity for fraud.


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RALEIGH, N.C. - As a single man in Raleigh, Greg Labows likes golf, college basketball and most things American. As a 35-year-old corporate riser at IBM, his eyes are overseas. The software-sales executive is preparing for a four-week stint in the Philippines, where IBM is working to build good will and a stronger presence.
"Ten or 15 years down the road, a lot of the opportunities will focus abroad," Labows said, "and experiences like this will open doors."
He is one of 600 IBMers worldwide chosen to serve as a diplomat and aid worker in poor countries, a sort of Peace Corps for capitalism. The aim is for IBM employees to help nonprofit groups provide loans, business training and technology to small and rural businesses. Longer term, it's a corporate bet on emerging-market growth and perhaps a foot in the door in key nations.
Multinational companies increasingly see the future in developing countries, particularly as economies in the United States and Europe slow and nations such as the Philippines, India, China and Brazil take off.
Networking gear maker Cisco Systems is committing hundreds of millions of dollars to high-potential startups in India and investing in education, research and Internet access in China. Software maker Red Hat and PC maker Lenovo are funding research and education in burgeoning technology markets worldwide, places where they see a chance to expand sales or get in early.
"Growth is increasingly outside of the U.S. and in emerging geographies," said Stan Litow, vice president of corporate affairs and creator of IBM's new corporate services corps.
"Ten years ago you weren't as confident about opportunities in India, China, Brazil or Russia. Ten years from now, you'll be marveling," Litow said.
For Labows, the next two to three months will involve flu shots, online language and culture training and getting travel documents, all courtesy of Big Blue.
Then it's off to Davao City, Philippines, where he will apply skills he developed helping health-care clients computerize medical records and other data. He plans to teach small and rural businesses to do some of the same.
Some of the IBM recruits have sales or technical backgrounds. Others come from marketing and finance. All will work on location in teams with local aid groups to expand small-business lending, train rural entrepreneurs in technology and help women business owners network.
Many economists predict economic growth in the developing world to outpace the U.S. and Western Europe for possibly a generation to come. So for IBM, investing in tomorrow's engines today effectively incubates future customers.
For Labows and half a dozen IBM teammates, building those bridges will require living in close quarters for four weeks and working side-by-side in Davao City, a sprawling port city where the native tongue is Bisaya.
"I call it my universal assignment," said Tsegga Siyoum Medhin, originally from Eritrea and now a marketing operations manager for IBM in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
Spending by U.S. firms on businesses and real estate abroad rose 21.3 percent to $153.4 billion in 2006, the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Commerce. More than two thirds of that went to developed countries, but the pace of capital flows to the developing world is rising faster, economists say.
"Big companies are in a war for talent," Litow said. "A program like this gives IBM an edge."


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Soccer specialty store to move into former Fun World in Brookfield
While the 'fun' times at Fun World in Brookfield came to an end in 2010, a soccer specialty store announced the purchase of the building in the Bluemound Road retail corridor.
Stefans Soccer, locally owned in southeastern Wisconsin since 1965, will move into the 25,000-square-foot building at 620 Elizabeth Court.
Richard "Bart" Jahn operated Fun World with TV meteorologist John Malan in the mid-1990s. Fun World featured 120 games, including air hockey, pinball and video games, along with a laser tag room, indoor miniature golf, food service, and a 45-foot-high, 12-seat Ferris wheel.
Stefans Soccer currently leases a 3,200-square-foot retail space in the Best Buy plaza on Bluemound Road (roughly across the street from the new location) and owns a 10,500-square-foot complex for corporate office and warehouse space in New Berlin. The current Stefans Soccer Brookfield store will close and move to the new space by the end of May 2019.
Approximately 30 employees will work out of the new facility, with that number swelling to 50 plus during peak uniform production season in summer. Stefans Soccer currently employs approximately 45 to 70 employees, depending on the season, across three stores and its corporate offices.
“This is an exciting milestone for Stefans Soccer,” said Anne Nowakowski, president and owner of Stefans Soccer, in a news release.
The building will house a 6,000-square-foot expanded retail space, that will feature areas for team-uniform outfitting and production, corporate offices and warehouse all under one roof, the release said.
The new store will offer an expanded “boot room” for players to shop and try on shoes; a customization “bar” where customers can personalize apparel and goalkeeper gloves; and interactive experiences not available at other soccer equipment retailers in the area, said Nowakowski.
The store will also offer a community room that local soccer teams and clubs can use for meetings and small events, the release said.
Bluemound Road growth
The revitalization of this building adds to the growth of retail on Bluemound Road in recent years with The Corridor and nearby The Corners of Brookfield opening in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
The Corners already includes shopping, dining and living options. Now, a Silverspot Cinema is under construction and is set to open this spring. Lake Country Social, a large restaurant with a rooftop lounge, and a Wahlburgers restaurant are expected to open this summer.
The Corridor is a 65-acre mixed-use development that includes a ProHealth outpatient facility; a Holiday Inn Express & Suites and a Fairfield Inn & Suites are both opening this summer; Life Time Fitness’ first Wisconsin location is set to open by September. Party City, a party supplies store, Five Below, a discount retailer, and Old Navy, which sells clothes for men, women and children, are opening here this fall.
Contact Karen Pilarski at firstname.lastname@example.org. Follow her on Twitter at @KarenPilarski.


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The plea comes weeks after an insolvency court cleared ArcelorMittal's bid for Essar Steel, which was auctioned by lenders to recover unpaid loans.
Mauritius-based Royal Partners (also known as RPMG Investments) has submitted a bid to buy the firm.
Mittal’s steel company is finally nearing the end of a yearlong battle to break into India.
Sources close to Essar Group claim that ArcelorMittal is interested in the captive assets & is on a diligence tour.
ArcelorMittal said in a statement that its investment in the JV will be “equity accounted”.
Now lenders can expect to get back their full principle and “a substantial part” of interest.
The four facilities will together add 8 MT rolling capacity to Liberty House and take it to 15 MT a year apart from adding 12,500 people to its total workforce.
This nomination reflects the increasing global strategic role Aditya has across the group, supporting chairman and CEO Lakshmi Mittal, it said.
The two companies have been partners for the last thirty years for two JVs in the US that produce high value-added downstream products which serve the automotive and domestic appliance markets.
The facility will be secured by inventory and other working capital and related assets of ArcelorMittal USA and certain of its subsidiaries in US.
The LaPlace facility in Louisiana along with a rolling mill in Harriman (Tennessee) manufactures steel billets, flats, channels, angles and beams. The Vinton facility, located in El Paso in Texas produces rebar and grinding media.
"Record date for ArcelorMittal shares is expected to be on March 14, 2016, at the close of business on each applicable market where the shares are traded," the firm said in a regulatory filing.
China's economic slowdown is upsetting the calculus of just about all commodity producers, including steel makers, but with a twist. Rather than importing steel, China has ramped up its own capacity, which now accounts for about half of all global production of raw steel.
In May 2015, NRI billionaire Lakshmi Mittal-led ArcelorMittal and domestic steel giant SAIL inked a memorandum of understanding to look at the possibility of setting up an automotive steel plant in the country.
ArcelorMittal is hosting an investor event in London on Wednesday to focus on the company’s global automotive steel franchise.
The proposed JV will construct a state-of-the-art cold rolling mill and other downstream finishing facilities in India that will offer technologically advanced steel products to India’s rapidly growing automotive sector
Steel has the capability to remain the preferred material for the automotive industry, ArcelorMittal chairman and CEO Lakshmi Mittal has said, reopening the debate on use of aluminium vs. steel in automobiles. His comments were made a day after the company inaugurated, Valin ArcelorMittal Automotive Steels (VAMA), a $832-million plant for producing high-end automotive steels in China, where global brands like, Volkswagen, GM, Ford, PSA, Daimler-Benz, Toyota, Honda, Renault, Fiat and Nissan – and local manufacturers will be their customers.


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It wasn’t your usual Saturday crowd at Chapel Hills Mall.
If you were at the mall the weekend of Aug. 25, you might have seen a Darth Vader look-alike perusing the merchandise at Dick’s Sporting Goods, a Daenerys Targaryen sipping a soft drink in the food court, and a few Star Trek crew members strolling the aisles.
Tens of thousands of fans, many in costumes depicting pop culture icons or fanciful creatures, lined the hallways waiting to get into Comic Con, the three-day geekfest hosted by Chapel Hills at its Event Center.
Once inside, attendees could circulate among scores of merchandise booths offering everything from vintage comics to lightsabers, and meet celebrities such as Lou Ferrigno, known for his portrayal of The Incredible Hulk, and Natalia Tena, the actress who portrayed Osha in Game of Thrones and Nymphadora Tonks in several Harry Potter films.
Jill Lais, regional marketing director for Chapel Hills Mall and The Citadel, said 10,000 tickets were presold for the event, and another 5,000 people were expected to purchase tickets at the door.
Events are one of the biggest ways the malls are attracting customers.
“Comic Con brings people to the center who may not realize what shops are here,” Lais said.
Most of those people are in the desirable kid-to-35 demographic, and many of them shop in the mall during breaks from the event.
“A lot of merchants were super busy” during Comic Con weekend, Lais said. Store owners she talked with after the conference said their sales were up over the same weekend of last year. “Some beat their plan numbers.”
In addition to Comic Con attendees, the vendors who offered items including costumes, masks, jewelry, videos and collectibles shopped in the mall as well, Lais said.
The Event Center has been the site of several other events, including a model train show in January, the Housing and Building Association’s annual Home & Garden Show in February, and a military veterans employment expo and KoboldCon, a tabletop gaming convention, in May.
Other events take place in the mall’s central courts and open spaces. The mall hosted a sidewalk sale July 27-29, a kids’ safety day in August and a country music karaoke contest that took place over several Saturdays in June and July. A farmer’s market sets up in the parking lot outside Sears each Saturday.
Individual stores also can sponsor events that bring additional shoppers into the mall.
“When we had Pay-Your-Age Day at Build-a-Bear Workshop, we had several thousand people here,” Lais said.
The store caters to families, who can stuff and dress a bear, unicorn or other plush toy. The toys usually retail for $15 to $45, but on Pay-Your-Age Day, July 12, fees equaled a child’s age, so a 3-year-old got a new furry friend for $3.
The event generated long lines, and other stores benefited.
“A lot of stores reported average transactions but increased sales,” Lais said.
“We do know events bring people to the malls,” she said.
Besides generating immediate sales, events may stimulate shoppers to return later once they see what’s there.
Malls under pressure
Conventional, enclosed malls survived for years by luring shoppers with a convenient place to find nearly everything they could need or want, regardless of the weather. They served as hangouts for teens and places where kids could spot the latest clothing trends.
Now they’re competing not only with trendier mall configurations such as shopping villages — the Promenade Shops at Briargate and First & Main are two local examples — but also with online shopping.
Chapel Hills and The Citadel certainly have been feeling pressure.
Macy’s at The Citadel closed in 2009, and the 193,000-square-foot space is still vacant, although Lais said interest in the property has recently been expressed. Dillard’s downsized and converted its store into a regional clearance center.
A consortium of Namdar Realty Group, Mason Asset Management and CH Capital Group owns both malls.
The New York investment group bought The Citadel mall in December 2015 for $20 million, after it had been taken over by a Maryland-based lender. That price was a bargain compared to the last time the mall changed hands. In 2007, at the height of the commercial real estate market, it brought $153.2 million.
The New York consortium acquired Chapel Hills in March of this year for $33.5 million, less than half of the price the previous owner, who faced foreclosure, had paid seven years ago.
“It is important for malls to reinvent themselves,” Lais said, adding she thinks it’s something of a misconception that online retailers are killing sales.
“A lot of stores are letting you order online and pick up items at the store,” she said.
That includes smaller, local stores as well as larger retailers. There is no doubt, however, that malls are evolving.
Writing on Forbes.com, retail analyst Deborah Weinswig said malls across the nation are converting space to leisure and entertainment uses, and hosting events and pop-up stores.
“The U.S. mall is certainly not doomed, but it may look quite different in 2023,” Weinswig said in “Three Major Changes Predicted to Reshape the U.S. Mall in the Next Five Years,” an article published May 22.
“I expect the malls of 2023 to be diverse ecosystems that incorporate more non-apparel retailers such as grocery stores, more leisure and entertainment tenants, enhanced food-service offerings, spaces for events and pop-up stores, and more physical stores from digital-first brands,” Weinswig wrote, adding the malls of the future may also add business services such as coworking spaces and offices.
The Citadel and Chapel Hills malls have already started employing many of those strategies.
“What’s making these malls successful is the mix of stores, the events we bring in, nontraditional retail, nonprofits, activities, gaming and all of that,” Lais said.
The two-level, 44,000-square-foot Event Center fills a space at Chapel Hills formerly occupied by Gordman’s, which closed in May 2017.
“At The Citadel, we don’t have that type of venue, and we have to be more strategic,” Lais said.
A big event is coming up Sept. 1 from noon-1 p.m. at The Citadel’s midlevel Center Court: the SoCo Teen Pop Star Karaoke Finals for young singers ages 13 to 19.
Three elimination rounds have pared down the contestants to nine, who will compete to win a $1,000 shopping spree at the mall. The contest is co-sponsored by radio stations Sunny 106.3 and MY99.9.
“Events like this bring in families, fans and supporters, and people who haven’t been to the mall before,” Lais said.
It’s important to let people know about upcoming events, she said, adding, “We advertise events; social media is big for us.”
Another strategy at both malls is to bring in nonretail entities that target youths and their families.
“At The Citadel, we have Fun for Kids, an indoor play area, and we will be opening one at Chapel Hills as well,” Lais said.
Glowgolf, glow-in-the-dark miniature golf courses, are found at both malls. They are popular sites for birthday parties and other group events.
Gaming to You, a mobile video game and laser tag truck, is coming to Chapel Hills.
A youth-focused gym, Kinetic Sports Performance, works with middle- and high-school kids to help them hone their skills for team sports. Located on Chapel Hills’ upper level outside Sears, it offers classes and one-on-one coaching, and is adding classes for adults such as Zumba, Lais said.
At both malls, reinvention involves bringing in “nontypical retail” such as Gaming to You along with a mix of national, regional and local retailers.
KJ Comics, a local store that sells comic books, toys and collectibles at The Citadel, soon will be gearing up for Halloween.
Wing It, a food court retailer at The Citadel, is also expected to open a location at Chapel Hills as well.
The Citadel has implemented a unique strategy in inviting nonprofit organizations to open their doors and present events within the mall.
For example, the Women’s Resource Agency, a nonprofit that serves low-income women hoping to get a job or find a better one, is located on the upper level near JCPenney.
Staffed by volunteers, the agency offers donated clothing through a boutique called Suit-Up for Success and provides workshops and classes on a variety of topics including resumé writing, interview skills, self-advocacy and women’s empowerment.
Helping Hands Helping the Community sponsored a series of holiday bazaar fundraising events last year at the mall. Among the beneficiaries were children, families and disabled veterans.
Both malls also offer specialty leasing programs for kiosks.
“To keep shoppers coming, we have to address everything for everybody,” Lais said, “and focus on specific market segments when we can.”


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Intel said it is cutting 11 percent of its workforce, or 12,000 jobs, as it revamps to focus on areas such as data center and the Internet of things.
The chip giant said that the restructuring will be completed in mid-2017 and result in a $1.2 billion charge in the second quarter. Intel expects to save $750 million this year and $1.4 billion a year by mid-2017.
With the move, it's clear Intel is trying to become less dependent on PCs and focus more on enterprise infrastructure. Intel ended the first quarter with 112,000 employees.
In an email to employees, CEO Brian Krzanich said:
We expect that this initiative will result in the reduction of up to 12,000 positions globally. This will be achieved by voluntary and involuntary departures, global site consolidation, and efficiency initiatives. The majority of these actions will be communicated over the next 60 days, with some spanning into 2017.
These are not changes I take lightly. We are saying goodbye to colleagues who have played an important role in Intel's success. We are deeply committed to helping our employees through this transition and will do so with the utmost dignity and respect.
Today's announcement is about accelerating our growth strategy. And it's about driving long-term change to further establish Intel as the leader for the smart, connected world.
As we drive this transformation, there is an extraordinary opportunity ahead. We will emerge as a more productive company with broader reach, and sharper execution.
Intel's restructuring comes amid first quarter sales that fell short of expectations.
The company reported first quarter earnings of $2 billion, or 42 cents a share, on revenue of $13.7 billion. Non-GAAP earnings for the quarter were 54 cents a share.
Wall Street was looking for first quarter earnings of 48 cents a share on revenue of $13.83 billion.
Along with earnings, Intel said that CFO Stacy Smith will leave his post to focus on leading sales, manufacturing and operations. Intel is looking for Smith's replacement.
Intel's results highlight why it is trying to restructure its way to growth. The company's client computing group delivered revenue of $7.5 billion, up 2 percent from a year ago. The data center unit delivered first quarter revenue of $4 billion, up 9 percent from a year ago. Intel's Internet of things sales were $651 million, up 22 percent from a year ago.
We are seeing growth in Data Center, Internet of Things, Security, and Programmable Solutions (formally Altera) groups, which all helped offset a weak PC market.
As for the outlook, Intel projected revenue of $13.5 billion, give or take $500 million, in the second quarter with gross margins of about 61 percent. For 2016, Intel sees revenue up mid-single digits, which is down from the mid- to high-single digit growth guidance before. For the year, gross margin will be about 62 percent.


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By Travis E. Poling
DENVER — Hundreds of hopeful brewers and brewery owners stood for more than two hours at the Great American Beer Festival Saturday to see if they had achieved beer greatness. In the end, Colorado and California breweries walked away with a pile of medals. Texas breweries and brewpubs had four, including one that has been making beer for only about six months.
The only gold went to Humperdink's of Dallas for their American-style Amber Ale. The Uncle Billy's brewpub location at Lake Travis won silver for the Bottle Rocket Lager in the kellerbier/zwickelbier category under brewer Brian "Swifty" Peters, who is no stranger to GABF medals.
In Belgian-style lambic or sour beer category, well-established North by Northwest brewpub of Austin won bronze for its cherry lambic Barton Kriek. The newcomer Austin Beerworks, which specializes in canned craft beer, won silver with its Peacemaker Extra Pale Ale in the English-style summer ale category.
Texas breweries had five medals last year, but three went to Houston's Saint Arnold Brewing Co.
Travis E. Poling writes about beer from his home base in South Central Texas and is co-author of Beer Across Texas : A Guide to the Brews and Brewmasters of the Lone Star State. He can be reached at email@example.com
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Legislation to better prepare Rhode Island for the rapid growth of electric vehicles on the state’s roadways has been signed into law.
The legislation (2023-H 5159aa, 2023-S 0988aa), which passed the General Assembly June 16 and was signed into law by Gov. Dan McKee last week, requires that new and expanded parking lots built using any public funds include a certain percentage of electric vehicle charging stations.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2024, new parking lots and lots that undergo an expansion of 50 percent or more parking spaces using public funds will be required to include electric vehicle charging stations according to the following ratio of parking spaces to minimum charging stations:
“Drivers will be reluctant to purchase electric vehicles if they are worried about where they’ll be able to charge them,” said Senator Lombardo (D-Dist. 25, Johnston). “This legislation helps address that issue, ensuring wider availability of charging stations and better positioning our state for the coming EV revolution.”
Said Representative McGaw (D-Dist. 71, Portsmouth, Tiverton, Little Compton), “Transportation accounts for 40 percent of Rhode Island’s greenhouse gas emissions. It is absolutely imperative that we encourage and enable drivers to shift toward electric vehicles to help slow the rate of climate change and to meet our commitment under the Act on Climate. EV charging stations are a critical resource to support that move. Just as we have requirements for things like runoff controls and safe entrances and exits, we should have requirements for the charging stations that electric vehicles need.”
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Boots the chemist has been snapped up by US retailer Walgreens. There had been some comment that the objective was for Walgreens to relocate out of the US on tax grounds – but the way this deal is structured, that’s not apparently possible. The non-US company being acquired, in this case Boots, would need to own at least 20% of the merged company – which it doesn’t in this instance.
As it is, President Obama has been signalling a crackdown on so-called “tax inversion” so this could be construed as something of a victory for him. It’s also worth mentioning that 200,000 people in the US signed an online petition claiming they would boycott Walgreens if it relocated out of its home country.
Had Walgreens been able to move HQ – it could have chosen between Nottingham, UK or Switzerland, where Alliance Boots is headquartered. Instead it looks set to remain in Deerfield, Illinois.


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News By Tag
* B2B Portal
* More Industries...
News By Location
Toboc.com launches its latest avatar- Toboc Foundation Release One
Toboc.com, the premier B2B Online trading portal has launched its latest update that puts forth new features and services for its member base.
TFROne ushers in the concept of ‘Credits’ to purchase paid services on the website unlike the earlier versions where the member was required to pay individually for every on-website purchase. Members are required to buy Toboc Credits and utilize the same from their Credits account to purchase paid services across the website. The other major update involves the way members can classify their posted product leads as ‘Featured’
Theodore Harth, President of Toboc International says, “Toboc.com is all about making online trading a viable alternative for SMEs so that they can compete with the bigger boys in the sphere of business. With the TFROne release, we are adding new tools to an SME’s marketing arsenal and bringing a mix of sophistication and simplicity that’s not easily found elsewhere. The new look Toboc.com helps an SME approach real trading opportunities and as is evident from the website, do so in a cost effective, no-nonsense manner. Our members are sure to appreciate these sweeping changes.”
About Toboc International:
TOBOC.com is a premier multinational B2B website that brings together suppliers, buyers, Transporters, Brokers and related service providers from across the world, giving them an online platform to do active business and drive mutual growth. Established in November 2003, TOBOC has emerged to be the leading online trading resource for small and medium sized companies (SMEs). Proudly affiliated with international bodies such as ‘The World Bank’, ‘Dun and Bradstreet’, ‘Federation of International Trade Associations (FITA)’ etc., Toboc International has a global presence with its headquarter in Montreal, Canada and branches in China, India, USA, France and Brazil.
If you'd like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with the development team, please contact Sales and Customer Support Team: firstname.lastname@example.org . Visit us at www.toboc.com


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JPMorgan (JPM) now says hackers had access to the personal records of 76 million households and 7 million small businesses in the U.S. Hackers obtained access to names, addresses, email accounts and any internal information. Various sources are reporting hackers had the highest administrative level access to dozens of JP Morgan servers. In effect hackers had run of the place but apparently haven’t stolen anything. At least not yet.
Actually JPMorgan didn't say this so much as have it exposed. The company revealed this disturbing security breach not in a press conference or statement, but rather an SEC filing. The New York Times picked up on the story and JPMorgan spent yesterday alternating between spin-control and obfuscation.
This wasn’t a new attack, just further details on the one we heard about in August. It started in June, lasted until late July and seems to have been perpetrated by "Southern Europeans possibly sponsored by the Russian government." At least we sort of hope so because the level of sophistication and restraint on display goes way beyond your standard phishing scheme. Nothing has been stolen. This wasn’t a cash grab or attempt to get your Target (TGT) debit card information. This is bigger.
If you're wondering whether or not the list of victims includes you the answer is probably yes. There are only about 120 million households in the country. There are 28 million small businesses of which more than 75% are based from home. If you have a bank account or house, basically if you're anywhere "on the grid" you can assume hackers have an email account and address with your name on it.
All you can do personally is be paranoid without panicking.
Change your passwords, check your bank accounts and visit your bank in person. Don’t trust any emails you get with links. Basically don’t trust anyone online. Ever.
It's become clear that cyber-security is an oxymoronic term. The Internet is an enormous, gross public bathhouse of information and we’re all roaming around naked. We live in a post-privacy, post-embarrassment world. Big Brother isn’t just watching you. He’s hanging out in your living room with your wife and kids, throwing a ball for your dog and sifting through your bank accounts.
That nothing has been stolen is the creepiest aspect of this. These hackers had a month to take whatever they wanted yet chose to hold out for something more. Whatever the real goal is it probably goes beyond gutting your accounts. That’s probably not a good thing.


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The cannabis industry is growing and labor unions want to get in. Last month, the United Food and Commercial Workers union and cannabis retailer Have a Heart signed the state’s first cannabis collective bargaining agreement. In other words, the road is now paved for additional unions to organize workers in the state.
As part of the agreement, Have a Heart’s employees are guaranteed above-average wages for the industry, fair treatment, and a variety of benefits, including comprehensive health coverage. The Seattle Times reported that Ryan Kunkel, the CEO of Have a Heart, believes the union reaffirms the company’s goal to create a “safe and empowering workplace.”
Labor unions have been losing members for years. Between 1983 and 2018, the number of union workers dropped in half – from 20.1% of the U.S. workforce in 1983 to just 10.7% today. For unions, the cannabis industry represents a significant opportunity.
It’s important to note that Washington isn’t the first state where cannabis workers have organized. Unions have already organized cannabis workers in multiple states, including California, New Mexico, New York, Minnesota, and more. Unions like the United Farm Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers, and Teamsters are actively engaging with cannabis workers across the country to organize them.
However, the story of Have a Heart isn’t the same as many other stories you’ll hear about cannabis workers organizing into unions. Many employers are against them, and that’s because the reality of unions includes both advantages and disadvantages.
For employees, unions benefit workers by ensuring they’ll receive fair pay and raises, fair treatment, vacation time, adequate working conditions, and generous benefits packages. Workers have more stability when they’re part of unions.
For employers, their costs might become more predictable after workers organize, but those costs will go up (remember, they’ll be paying higher wages and providing more comprehensive benefits). If the company’s costs go up, it’s very likely that those costs will trickle down to consumers in the form of higher prices. As a result, the business could become less profitable and less competitive.
For the cannabis industry, it’s too soon to quantify the impact of unions on a wide scale. So far, we know that the power of unions can help on the political front. In addition, unions can add a sense of legitimacy to cannabis businesses, which could help those businesses in other areas. The question is will the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for cannabis businesses and the industry overall. Only time will tell.
Currently, the United Food and Commercial Workers union claims to have thousands of workers from the marijuana industry in union contracts. In addition, the union claims tens of thousands of workers have claimed representation by the union but haven’t completed their contracts yet with a formal vote. If those numbers are accurate and all of those workers organize, we could see a seismic shift in the cannabis industry in the near future.
One thing is certain, the labor unions won’t stop trying to expand their footprints in the cannabis industry.


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Snapchat has added one of its biggest new features in recent memory with the addition of Context Cards, which will be reached through a swipe up on a Snap tied to a specific location. The Context Cards will offer various additional details about the place, and also provide links to ride sharing and restaurant booking services as well as information like address, reviews, and so on. This is yet another move by Snapchat beyond its original limitations, along with the addition a while back of outbound linking from Snaps. What both of those features offer is a way to add additional detail and context to a Snap beyond the limited photo/video formats Snapchat has supported natively. It’s also an interesting alternative to voice assistants, bots, and other ways to add context to what’s currently happening on screen without the user having to type text into a search box. The feature certainly lends itself well to monetization opportunities in future too, whether advertising or revenue sharing with the initial or additional partners. However, as with other Snapchat features, it doesn’t feel particularly tough for others to emulate if successful.
Also worth noting, briefly, is the fact that Evan Spiegel, who has rarely done press interviews, did not one but two as part of the launch of this feature, as a sort of follow-on to his recent comments that he realizes he needs to do more public communication now that Snap is a public company.
Twitter Announces It’s Working on a Bookmarking Tool (Oct 10, 2017)
Several Twitter employees tweeted on Monday evening about a new feature the company is working on, which would allow users to bookmark tweets. This is a fix for the ambiguity of what started out as the “favorite” feature (denoted by a star) but morphed into a “like” feature symbolized by a heart – while some users have undoubtedly used it for bookmarking, it connotes approval of the tweet as well, which can send the wrong signals. Why Twitter feels the need to test this feature, which seems to work perfectly fine in the screenshots the employees shared, is beyond me – it feels like Twitter could have just pushed this feature out without testing it broadly, especially because it doesn’t break anything connected to the way Twitter works today and merely adds value. That’s indicative of the slow speed with which Twitter has fixed basic issues with the service over the last several years. More importantly, though, as with the recent change to the character limit (also still in testing), it still feels like Twitter is tinkering around the edges rather than fundamentally changing the experience in ways that would make it more accessible, especially to new or casual users.
Update: later in the day, Twitter also announced another feature, also covered by BuzzFeed here. This one feels much better aligned with what Twitter really needs to be working on in terms of making the site more usable for those who haven’t spent ages curating feeds, and it appears to be built on work the company previously did for its live video events. However, it’s still event-based and therefore somewhat limited – it doesn’t, for example, allow people to follow topics of ongoing interest.
Instagram Offers Cross-Posting of Stories to Facebook (Oct 5, 2017)
Facebook seems determined to keep trying to make the Stories format a success in its core app, even as all the evidence shows that hardly anyone is using it. The latest push is a feature which enables users of Instagram’s Stories feature to cross-post a Story created in that app over to the Facebook equivalent as well. That will certainly provide a low-friction way to get people to create content for the Facebook Stories feature, and will therefore likely lead to at least a small increase in usage. But the big difference between Instagram and Facebook is often the size and nature of the audience. Yes, some people have big followings in both places and for them cross-posting will be natural and even useful, but for many others the appeal of Instagram is the smaller, more intimate audience they publish to there in contrast to the mishmash of people known well and not so well that clutter many people’s Facebook networks. As such, the appeal and usage of the feature is likely to be somewhat limited, for all the same reasons that Facebook’s Stories feature in general hasn’t taken off.
Twitter has just made the surprise announcement that it’s testing expanding the 140-character limit that’s characterized the service from its inception to 280 characters in all languages except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, which make far more efficient use of characters. Various people have suggested expanding the Twitter limit over time as a way to make the service more useful and less frustrating, but the 140-character limit has been a defining feature, forcing brevity and making streams of tweets very easy to consume. Even just looking at the first few 280-character tweets I’ve seen from Twitter executives has broken up my feed and forced a mental shift in my consumption. There’s something magical about the 140 character limit which makes the vast majority of tweets inherently glanceable in a way a 280 character tweet never will be. I continue to maintain that expanding the character limit and other superficial changes are peripheral to the real changes Twitter needs to make to go more mainstream – those changes instead need to revolve around getting beyond the account-by-account following model. This is a bold step for Twitter (albeit one still in testing) but it feels like it misses the mark in terms of making Twitter more useful. I’d argue that if removing constraints was the focus, Twitter should have found a way to attach longer blocks of text to tweets natively instead – that would have replaced the many screenshots of text people post, which aren’t searchable or readable by accessibility software, without breaking the fundamental model. Personally, I’m not a fan, but more importantly, I’m skeptical this will actually improve the Twitter experience in ways which lead to more usage and most importantly more users, which continues to be one of Twitter’s biggest challenges.
Facebook has Sprawling, Unfocused Plans for Marketplace (Aug 18, 2017)
Twitter Finally Adds Curation by Topic, But It’s Flawed (Aug 16, 2017)
Twitter has finally added curation by topic, but only as part of its Explore tab, and the implementation seems to be pretty flawed. I argued that Twitter needed to get beyond its account-centric model to enable further growth in a piece written a year ago this week, so I welcome the move in principle. But the topic-based feeds are buried behind the search button, and the actual content in the various feeds feels unfocused and often irrelevant. More to the point, this topic-based approach needs to be part of the on boarding experience for Twitter, which has remained far too account-centric and therefore overwhelming for new users, something I documented here a few months back. So this is a step in the right direction, but needs to go further.
Today’s Instagram announcement is ostensibly about the launch of live video replays, a new feature that allows users to save their live videos for 24 hours as an Instagram Story. However, the part most outlets I’ve seen have focused on is the announcement of 250 million daily active users for Instagram Stories as a whole, which is naturally being compared once again with Snapchat’s overall user numbers. That’s always a bit disingenuous because comparing a single feature in an app with 700 monthly active users with daily active user numbers for a standalone app isn’t a like for like comparison – some large number of people who regularly use Instagram as an app might occasionally dip into Stories without ever posting one, while the average Snapchat daily active user spend sover 30 minutes in the app every day, suggesting a very different level of engagement. But this is the inevitable comparison, not just because the Stories feature was copied from Snapchat but also because its launch seems to have come at just the time Snapchat user growth slowed. The reality is that Facebook’s reach is now such across its many apps that it can easily launch new features and services and have them reach this kind of scale, and in the process eat into the time spent in other apps, but I don’t think anyone at Facebook would suggest that Instagram Stories by themselves generate nearly the engagement of Snapchat as an app, and even Instagram as an app likely only generates the same engagement and time spent as Snapchat among a minority of users. But that doesn’t mean Instagram Stories isn’t a huge hit for Instagram and a great way to neutralize the ongoing threat presented by Snapchat as a competitor, especially among the demographics where it hasn’t yet gained wide adoption.
Amazon Adds Reminders and Named Timers to Alexa (Jun 2, 2017)
Skype is one of those odd products – a fairly sizable communications property owned by a major tech company, and yet one which doesn’t make much money, isn’t growing much, and hasn’t really been focused on either messaging or social communication. It’s been clear, though, for some time that Microsoft would very much like Skype to be a big part of its consumer push and become more of a messaging- centric app, and the makeover it announced today seems like a big step in that direction. The new design, rolling out first on Android and later on other platforms, puts social sharing and messaging much more prominently in the app, but that’s no guarantee that people will actually use those features more or even see Skype as a natural place to do that kind of sharing. I only ever use Skype for work phone calls at this point, and others I’ve spoken to who use its messaging features use those almost exclusively for work communication too, so I’d be very curious to hear more from Microsoft about who is using messaging on Skype and what they’re using it for. My guess is that, for all the changes Microsoft is making here, it won’t be that much more successful than in the past in making Skype a mainstream consumer service or app for social communication and messaging. It doesn’t have the brand or the user base to make that objective work. It’s also adding in more bots, an effort that began with a bang at Build last year but has been quiet since, but again those will only be relevant inasmuch as people are spending a lot of time in Skype already and want and expect to find those interactions with brands and companies there. In the end, I don’t see anything here that makes me think Skype is going to become a radically different animal, even if it might look quite different after these changes. And that’s emblematic of Microsoft’s broader consumer challenges: it simply doesn’t have a broad-based consumer play at this point beyond productivity.


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Giant retailer Walmart announced Tuesday that it would conduct in-depth safety inspections of all 279 of its Bangladesh suppliers, in the wake of the building collapse that killed more than 1,100 people.
The US retailer said it would release publicly the names and inspection information on each of the factories, and meanwhile also issued a list of more than 200 factories that are blacklisted for failing to meet its standards for suppliers.
"The company will immediately order its production stopped at facilities where urgent safety issues are identified, notify the factory owner and government authorities of the need to take action, and require remediation," Walmart said in a statement.
"As a result, workers in these facilities can be assured of safer working conditions, and the entire market will be lifted to a new standard."
The company did not say however if it would join a protocol agreed by a number of other major buyers of clothes made in Bangladesh, the "Accord on Fire and Building Safety" endorsed by Benetton, Mango, Marks & Spencer, Inditex and H&M.
The action comes in the wake of the April 24 collapse of a nine-story building outside Dhaka housing multiple garment factories, including some which reportedly supplied Walmart, killing 1,127 in the worst disaster ever in the global textile industry.
In November 111 workers were killed in a fire at a garment factory in Bangladesh that also supplied Walmart, among other global names in the clothing industry.
Walmart said it was hiring global inspections group Bureau Veritas to conduct fire-safety training for all workers in its Bangladesh suppliers.
It will also contract Labor Voices, a company that works with workers to understand their issues, to help Walmart maintain its factory standards.
"Walmart is committed to a global supply chain that first and foremost provides safe conditions for workers," said Rajan Kamalanathan, vice president of ethical sourcing for Walmart.


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UPDATE 1-Chile's economic activity growth hits near four year low
(Adds detail, background, comment) SANTIAGO, March 5 (Reuters) - Chile's monthly economic activity rose at its weakest pace in nearly four years in January, undershooting market estimates and adding to evidence that an ongoing slowdown in the top copper exporter could be more severe than expected. The IMACEC economic activity index, encompassing about 90 percent of the economy tallied in gross domestic product figures, rose 1.4 percent in January from the same month a year ago, the central bank said on Wednesday. That came in below a Reuters poll forecast for a 1.9 percent rise and is the lowest figure since March 2010, when the country was still reeling from a devastating earthquake. It is also the lowest January reading since the 2009 recession. The weaker-than-expected data comes hot on the heels of anemic manufacturing output, less frenetic retail sales growth and disappointing jobless figures. "Investment, particularly in machinery and equipment, is undergoing a significant contraction, in addition to which individual consumption is beginning to feel the slower rhythm that the labor market is beginning to show," said Matias Madrid, economist with Banco Penta. The data will increase expectations that the central bank will continue its easing cycle when it meets to decide the benchmark interest rate next week. The market is already predicting a cut to 4.0 percent from 4.25 percent, after the bank maintained a negative bias when it reduced rates from 4.5 percent last month. In the minutes of the February decision published on Wednesday the bank said that all board members "stressed that recent data pointed to a deeper than expected slowdown." It said the "surprise" was that output and consumption continued to grow in line with expectations. Although the rate of growth is slowing, retail sales have remained robust, propping up the economy in recent months. Late Tuesday, Chilean retail giant Falabella reported profit up 15 percent in the fourth quarter. In comparison with December, January's IMACEC decreased a seasonally adjusted 0.6 pct. The December 2013 IMACEC reading was 2.6 percent growth, the lowest of the year. (Reporting by Rosalba O'Brien and Alejandro Lifschitz; Editing by Sophie Hares and Sofina Mirza-Reid)
© Thomson Reuters 2017 All rights reserved.


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Mass Effect producer Michael Gamble confirmed to Siliconera that the Extended Cut DLC for Mass Effect 3 will come included in the Wii U version of the game.
“The extended ending is basically going to be part of the game instead,” said Gamble. “You won’t have to download it.”
That news should of course be well received as it obviously saves space on the system’s hard drive.
Gramble wouldn’t reveal when the game would hit the Wii U, though we’re hoping it’ll arrive sometime around the launch of the system this holiday season.


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Suggested preliminary reading: $199 Kindle Fire: Android 2.3 with specific UI layer and cloud services [Sept 29 – Nov 13, 2011]
Update (when neither up or down the market is an option for the company):
Acer Likely to Withdraw From Tablet PC Market [Dec 28, 2011]
Routed by Apple Inc. in the tablet PC competition, the Taiwan-based Acer Inc., one of the world’s top five PC suppliers by market shares, has intended to disband its touch business group in January, 2012, indicating its withdrawal from the competitive landscape to follow the footsteps of HP and Research In Motion.
Headed by Acer’s corporate president Jim Wong, the touch business group was set up in April 2011 to develop and promote tablet PCs and smartphones, regarded as the company’s best promising business unit then.
However, the momentary impression has proven unable to secure the business unit an expected success, as the company, after struggling with the sluggishness of tablet PC sales in the past months, is determined to dissolve the unit starting in January, 2012. Of over 300 workers of the touch business unit, 150, mostly R&D engineers, will be transferred to other business divisions, and only 100 will be retained, with the remainder likely to be laid off, according to industry insiders.
Although the disbandment has yet to be publicized, Acer directors have confirmed that the company has recently merged its Android tablet business, which originally belonged to the touch business group, into its global logistics center management, saying that the once-promising division now exists in name only.
With the touch division to be streamlined, market observers believe that Acer, which just halved its tablet PC sales projection to the range of only 2.5 million to 3 million units from 5 million units optimistically set right after the division was established, is likely to leave the challenging market that has been dominated by Apple with its iPad.
Although global PC makers have eagerly ventured into tablet PC business in the wake of iPad’s success over the past year, many of them, however, have proven unmatchable with Apple in the competition, with HP and RIM already out of the market. Taiwanese contract manufacturers, such as Quanta Computer Inc. and Inventect Corp., have also been jeopardized by customer’s withdrawal from the segment, forced to cut their employees as a result.
The Kindle Fire Is On Fire: Amazon Expected To Ship 3.9 Million This Quarter [Seeking Alpha, Dec 2, 2011]
The Kindle Fire looks like a bona fide hit right out of the gate. New estimates from IHS iSuppli have Amazon.com (AMZN) shipping 3.9 million Kindle Fires this quarter, which would make it the No. 2 tablet after the iPad 2 (with an estimated 18.6 million shipments). The Kindle Fire will become the No. 1 Android tablet by a wide margin (the Samsung (SSNLF.PK) Galaxy Tab is the next biggest, with an estimated 1.4 million shipments).
To put this 3.9 million number in context, just remember that the very first quarter Apple sold the iPad back in the September quarter of 2010, it sold 3.3 million. So the Kindle Fire sold more in its first quarter than the iPad did in its first quarter on the market. Of course, Apple sold 7.3 million iPads the second quarter it was on the market, which was the 2010 holiday quarter.
Quanta shipments of Kindle Fire reach 3-4 million units [Dec 2, 2011]
Shipments of 7-inch Kindle Fire tablet PCs from Quanta Computer to Amazon have reached 3-4 million units, according to industry watchers. However, Quanta declined to comment.
The sources said Amazon has continued to increase its orders for Kindle Fire and aims to see total OEM Kindle Fire shipments reach five million units by the end of December or early January.
Wintek, a major supplier of touch panels for Kindle Fire, has recently raised its internal forecast of shipments to Amazon. Industry sources have estimated that Wintek will ship about 3-3.5 million touch panels for Kindle Fire before January.
However, some makers in the supply chain have built up inventory of needed parts and components steadily, and OEM Quanta has also kept its shipments regular, for the sake of avoiding over stockpiling inventory in case there is a reverse in order visibility, the sources pointed out.
The out-of-the-market case #1: White-box players in China quitting tablet PC market [Dec 8, 2011]
As non-Apple tablet PC players are dropping their tablet PC prices to compete against Kindle Fire, white-box players in China are starting to quit the tablet PC market and can only wait for the rise of the next innovative device to appear in the market.
Since China-based Lenovo is offering its tablet PCs at a price of CNY1,000 (US$158), several large white-box players have quickly dropped their tablet PC prices to help clear their inventory, while several white-box players that offer tablet PCs at below CNY800 are even preparing to sell their devices at cost and then quit the market.
With the launch of Android 4.0 and Nvidia Tegra 3, first-tier brand vendors have been dropping their tablet PC prices to compete for market share, especially Lenovo, which has recently dropped its 7-inch 16GB LaPad A1 from CNY2,500 [$US393] originally to less than CNY1,400 [$US220] and its entry-level 2GB model is offered at CNY1,000 [$US157], cheaper than most of the large white-box players’ models.
Since Lenovo is stronger in the retail channel, while offering warranty and its products have basic quality, these advantages are all piling strong pressure upon white-box players.
Some China-based ODMs pointed out that their orders from white-box players have dropped sharply by about 30-50% with several clients clearing their inventory by dropping prices; however, since they still cannot outmatch first-tier players, some of them have already decided to temporary quit the tablet PC market.
As the situation may become worse, the ODMs expect that more than 70% of the existing white-box players could quit the market by the first quarter of 2012.
Note: White-box is a term often used to describe computer makers who are not the well-known name brands, but rather B- or C-tier players.
The down-the-market case #1: Players drop tablet PC prices to compete against Kindle Fire [Nov 24, 2011]
Several tablet PC players including RIM, High Tech Computer (HTC), Lenovo, and ViewSonic, have dropped their 7-inch tablet PC prices to compete against Amazon’s Kindle Fire, priced at US$199, according to sources from channel retailers.
The sources pointed out that RIM has recently cooperated with Best Buy to offer its 7-inch 16GB PlayBook at a price of US$199, down from US$499 originally. Meanwhile, the price of HTC’s 7-inch Android 2.3-based Flyer tablet PC has dropped to US$299, Lenovo’s 7-inch A1 tablet PC to US$199, and ViewSonic’s 7-inch Viewbook 730 to US$169.
Meanwhile, several China-based white-box players are also offering their 7-inch tablet at prices as low as US$75.
In addition to the 16GB model, RIM also dropped its 32GB model from US$599 to US$299.
Since part of the reason consumers buy Kindle Fire is because of its strong content support, even though other brand vendors are trying to attract consumers by lowering their prices, they may not be able to achieve the same sales results as Amazon.
The sources also revealed that several vendors are already in talking with upstream suppliers hoping to develop a tablet PC that costs less than US$199, but since there is still not yet a suitable solution to accomplish such a goal, most of the brand vendors are halting their 7-inch tablet PC projects.
The out-of-the-market case #2: Dell kills off its last Android tablet in the US [Dec 6, 2011]
Dell has taken its 7-inch Streak Android tablet out of commission, according to its website. While some retail sites still have stock, the company no longer offers the Streak for sale from its own website and will no longer produce it. The Dell Android tablet species is officially extinct in the US.
The fadeout of the 7-inch Streak follows the disappearance of the 5-inch Streak in August, when it failed to corner (read: create) the 5-inch tablet market. The 7-inch Streak went on sale in January and was priced at $200 with a T-Mobile contract, but has failed to generate any significant interest in the last year. The only Dell tablet still in production is the 10-inch Streak, sold in China.
From here, Dell will move on to making Windows 8 tablets when the operating system launches next year. Speaking at the Dell World 2011 conference, Michael Dell, the company’s CEO, said that “the Android market has not developed the expectations [Dell] would have had.”
Lenovo is reaffirming its commitment to its Android-based tablets – at least for now – in the wake of the demise of Dell (NSDQ:Dell)’s Streak 7 Android tablet. Dell nixed the 7-inch tablet on Tuesday, posting a note on the Streak 7’s landing page saying that the product, unfortunately, is “no longer available for sale.”
Dell declined to comment on exactly why it discontinued the tablet, which was its last Android-based device on the U.S. market.
Many reports, however, are suggesting that Dell pulled the reins on the Streak 7 to start transitioning from Android-based tablets to Windows 8-based tablets, upon the new OS’ release next year. Dell declined to confirm the move, but other PC makers, such as Lenovo, have expressed their commitment to Google’s OS – even if just for now.
“Our tablet strategy today is an Android operating system,” said Chris Frey, vice president of North America Commercial Channels at Lenovo in an interview with CRN. “As operating systems evolve next year and new operating systems become available, we’ll make decisions on the hardware and the operating system that will go on that hardware as we get closer. Right now [Android] is the operating system we have and are driving in the market.”
Lenovo designed the ThinkPad Tablet with business users in mind. The optional pen accessory and the preloaded software are options business users may appreciate. During our tests, we felt the ThinkPad tablet was great for taking notes, surfing the web, checking email, and many other daily tasks that are typical of a business user.
Battery life with the ThinkPad Tablet is a bit of a mixed bag. Although the tablet is rated at up to five days of use, this longevity is dependent upon the user putting the tablet into suspend mode each time he or she is finished using the tablet. Even then, battery life is sure to vary greatly depending on how much you use the tablet. We would expect that many users may place the tablet on their desk to take a phone call or deal with another interruption and forget to press the power button. In doing so, you’ll suffer a considerable hit in terms of battery life.
In terms of connectivity, the ThinkPad Tablet has a lot going for it. Not only does the ThinkPad Tablet have a full-size USB port, but it also offers a card reader, microUSB port, mini HDMI port, a ThinkPad Tablet dock connector, and headphone jack. Most tablets on the market today offer considerably fewer ports, so this is an area where the ThinkPad Tablet really shines.
IT departments will also appreciate the encryption and remote wipe capabilities of the ThinkPad Tablet. The optional pen accessory is definitely a nice add on that gives the tablet some additional functionality, and we found ourselves using it often during our evaluation process. The biggest drawback to this tablet is its battery managment. Assuming you’re religious about pressing the power button each time you’re finished using the tablet, it won’t be a problem. If you’re like us and tend to forget however, you’ll want to keep a charging cord nearby at all times. Regardless, we feel the ThinkPad Tablet is a great tablet for business users who want some of the added capabilities and software that Lenovo includes. It’s a full-featured device that offers a tablet experience not found in many others on the market right now.
- NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz ARM SoC w/ NVIDIA graphics
- 1GB of RAM, 16 – 64GB Storage
- Lots of ports: mini HDMI, USB 2.0, micro USB, dock connector
- Full size media card reader
- Relatively short battery life in idle mode
- Pen is not included (costs $30)
[Price: 16GB: $499, 32GB: $569, 64GB: $669]
Apple iPad Sales Slowing as Amazon Lights Kindle Fire [Dec 7, 2011]
Since launching in 2010, Apple’s iPad has been the global leader in tablets. But since Amazon’s first table, the all-new low-priced Kindle Fire came out in November Apple’s dominance may be sagging. In a new analyst note, Shaw Wu of the brokerage firm Stern Ageesees iPad sales as a “little light” in the current quarter.
Wu assigns the blame for light iPad sales to stiff competition, namely from Amazon’s Kindle Fire, priced at $199 while the starting price for the Apple iPad is $499. He also notes that some Apple customers are buying the MacBook Air instead of an iPad, but in lowering his estimate for iPad sales in the quarter from to 13.5 million units from 15 million units, it’s clear the Kindle Fire is the leading culprit.
[from: Apple’s iPad sales look light amid Kindle Fire, MacBook Air popularity [Dec 7, 2011]
Wu wrote in a research note:
In the Mac business, we are seeing particular strength in the MacBook Air, arguably the best ultra-mobile PC on the market. Last but not least, iPads appear a little light of expectations due in part to competition from Amazon’s Kindle Fire but also as some users opt for a more full-featured MacBook Air.]
IHS iSuppli estimates Amazon will sell nearly four million Kindle Fire tablets by the end of the year— not bad for a product that didn’t ship until mid-November. Reviewers note that the Kindle Fire isn’t the Apple iPad — it is short on apps and isn’t known for content creation abilities. Yet it seems to serve at a low price what most tablet buyers want — a handy device good for watching videos and Web browsing and content reading on the go.
It’s not like Apple’s iPad dominance is going away, either. If the company sells 13.5 million tablets in the quarter as Wu estimates, the Cupertino, Ca.-based company still has a global leader on its hands. But the Kindle Fire has shown out of the gate that a device can ably compete with the iPad after others like the HP TouchPad and the BlackBerryPlayBook failed.
Wu isn’t the only analyst who thinks the Amazon Kindle Fire is dipping into Apple iPad dominance, either. Another new report from Michael Walkley of Canaccord Genuitysees the same trend.
“With our expectations for a new iPad launch during the March quarter leading to potentially lower inventory levels combined with increased competition from the $200 Kindle Fire,” Walkley said in a note, “we have slightly lowered our December quarter iPad estimates from 14M to 13M units.”
But it’s interesting to note that some analysts don’t think Apple is overly concerned with the low-priced Kindle.
“If anything, we believe that Apple is not too concerned about the low-priced entrants,” wrote Mark Moskowitz, an analyst with J.P. Morgan, in a Dec. 2 research note. “Recall, it has been our view that low-priced, reduced feature-set entrants, such as the Kindle Fire, are soap box derby devices stuck between a tablet and an e-reader.”
iPad feeling some heat from Amazon’s Kindle Fire [Dec 1, 2011]
After hitting retailers on November 15 at $199, Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is already outselling the iPad at Best Buy. Sorting tablets by the top sellers at the Best Buy Web Siteshows the Fire in first place followed by the 16GB Wi-Fi-only iPad 2 at $499 coming in second. A range of other iPad flavors from different carriers are scattered throughout the top 40 tablets.
Amazon itself shows the Kindle Fire as the top-selling tableton its site, with the 16GB iPad further down the list. But that seems a less accurate gauge of popularity since Fire buyers may be more likely to pick up the tablet directly from Amazon.
Even before the Fire launched a little more than two weeks ago, the tablet was proving to be a big seller, racking up a huge number of preorders. Pegging the Fire as one of the hottest consumer devices among holiday buyers, research firm DisplaySearch recently increased its shipment projectionsfor the current quarter.
DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim now expects Amazon to ship up to 6 million Fire tablets this season, up from 4 million previously.
Another analyst also sees the Fire giving the iPad some competition, but to a lesser degree.
In an investor note out today, J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz said he’d trimmed his fourth-quarter sales estimates for Apple’s tablet to 13 million from 13.3 million previously. Moskowitz attributed the lower forecast mostly to more limited growth in production but also pointed to the Fire.
“To a lesser extent, the Amazon Kindle Fire’s better-than-expected momentum with more price sensitive consumers is a factor, too,” the analyst wrote.
Of course, Apple is certainly in no danger of losing its current dominance in the tablet market. Moskowitz believes that over time the iPad will actually gain more traction in the business and educational markets. And despite the hot holiday demand for the Fire, the analyst doesn’t see Amazon’s current version of its tablet as a strong enough competitor over the long haul.
“We think that for any vendor to wrestle momentum longer-term from Apple, a fully loaded offering is a must, and here, the current revision of the Kindle Fire falls short,” Moskowitz wrote. “We think that, over time, consumers may come away disappointed with the Kindle Fire’s lack of functionality and smaller screen size. In our view, the Kindle Fire is the current Netbook of the media tablet market. The bigger question is whether the Fire evolves into a bona fide tablet in its next-generation release.”
As a consequence of the above two articles one observer dares to note that:
Not even Apple understands the tablet market [Dec 7, 2011]
Just last quarter, iPhone sales took a big dip. Apple (AAPL) was fine as iPads saved the day. This quarter could turn out to be the complete opposite.
If Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu is right, iPad sales will be lower than expected because of the popularity of both Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire table and Apple’s own MacBook Air, as ZDNet’s Larry Dignon notes. It’s a competition sandwich that underscores how little, still, anyone in the tablet market, including Apple, thoroughly understands the dynamics and what people ultimately want to do with the devices.
Initial trials are over
Not that the iPad — or other tablets — will whimper and crawl to a corner. Far from it. But given what products that Wu thinks are drawing attention, Kindle Fire and MacBook Air, you have to question whether anyone knows, yet, what consumers want from tablets, particularly as we’ve yet to see any solid numbers (and are unlikely to) for Kindle sales.
The presumption is that Kindle Fire snags the price-sensitive and Amazon fans. The MacBook Air switch is by people who need a lot more than what the iPad can deliver. That throws open a lot of assumptions. What percentage of buyers expected a tablet to be a media access device only? How many realized that they needed more than an on-screen keyboard? What price points will maximize sales?
For most of the Android tablet vendors, the answer to “What do consumers want?” has been, “Something other than what you sell.” Maybe Apple has all the answers, but even that seems pretty unlikely. Last quarter, unit sales were up. This month, maybe down. Steve Jobs was certain that a 7-inch tablet couldn’t see any success, but Amazon seems to be disproving that.
It’s time for everyone to take a step back and reconsider the basic questions. Maybe talk to a lot of customers, do some usability studies, and follow individuals around (with their permission) to better understand how they use the devices. Only some determined research is going to get beyond the seat-of-the-pants navigation that the tech industry seems to heartily embrace so often.
The Kindle Fire may “vaporize” the market for every for-profit tablet maker except Apple
While Amazon’s Kindle Fire has come out of the gates strong, as expected, we see Apple maintaining its competitive lead, if anything accentuated by what now looks like the only tablet to so far mount any credible iPad challenge apparently needing to do so by selling at cost; not to mention Amazon’s success may just vaporize other “for profit” Android tablet OEM roadmaps (e.g., we est Amazon 50% of all Android tablets in CY12). Meanwhile Apple goes on as the only vendor able to cream off the most profitable segment of each market it targets, whether tablet, smartphone or PC. (emphasis ours)
The up-the-market case #1: Asustek sets shipment goal for 2012 [Dec 6]
Asustek Computer, at its global sales meeting on December 5, has set the shipment goals for its four major product lines for 2012 with notebooks and netbooks together to surpass 22 million units and the company internally expecting shipments to reach 23.8 million units, while tablet PCs will reach at least three million units with the company internally expecting the volume to reach six million units, surpassing Samsung Electronics.
for tablet PCs, Asustek expects its shipments will reach about 1.8 million units in 2011.
As for the recent report that Asustek was not invited into the Windows on ARM (WOA) development project, Asustek noted that it has the strongest R&D ability among notebook vendors and is the largest client of Nvidia; therefore, the company will continue to have tight partnership with ARM-based processor makers over development of the WOA platform.
See also: NVIDIA Tegra 3 and ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime [Nov 10 – Dec 2, 2011]
for all related information + Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime: The Rolls-Royce of Android tablets [Dec 2, 2011] as one of the first reviews
Note: Wistron Enters Asustek’s Tablet PC Supply Chain [Dec 8, 2011]
Aimed at becoming the largest brand for the Android- and Windows8-enabled tablet PCs, Asustek has aimed to challenge a goal of six million tablet PCs in 2012, three times that of this year’s 1.8 million units.
Asustek Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jerry Shen … vowed that his company will become one of the top tablet brands, next only to Apple (iPad) and Amazon (Kindle Fire). His pledge is considered by some industry executives as a challenge against Samsung, which is now the most popular brand name supplier of tablets only trailing Apple and Amazon.
Demo: Ice Cream Sandwich on Asus Transformer Prime [nvidia, Nov 17, 2011]
The up-the-market case #2: Acer, Lenovo to launch quad-core tablet PCs [Nov 29, 2011]
Acer and Lenovo are set to launch quad-core tablet PCs featuring Google’s Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and Nvidia’s Tegra 3 in the first quarterto compete against Asustek Computer, which has already launched its latest Eee Pad Transformer Prime with Tegra 3 and Samsung Electronics, according to sources from notebook players.
The sources pointed out that the competition over the quad-core tablet PCs will be difficult as these quad-core devices will only see improvements over their performance and design, but will still feature the same concept as their dual-core predecessors.
Therefore, these players may need to battle it out before being able to enter competition against players such as Amazon or Apple, the sources noted.
The sources noted that although these players’ performance in the dual-core tablet PC competition were not as good as expected, they will continue to advance and launch new quad-core devices to defend their brands.
The new quad-core tablet PCs from Acer and Lenovo are expected to be priced between US$459-599.
Since non-Apple players’ machines have no advantage to compete against Amazon or Apple’s tablet PC devices, the sources believe non-Apple players will together account for only 10-15% of the total tablet PC market.
The real up-the-market case: Amazing Screen Technology: Samsung Flexible AMOLED [Dec 4, 2012]
Some time earlier this year there were concept drawings of a Samsung phone with a flexible OLED display. This was a rather intriguing concept that we didn’t think would be happening anytime soon, but we were then proved wrong as Samsung stepped forward and said that flexible display smartphones were in the works and would be introduced some time in 2012.
Now Samsung’s Mobile Display Division has released a new concept video of what a transparent and flexible tablet of the future could look like and what it could accomplish. We’re guessing that Samsung’s flexible smartphone for 2012 won’t be anything like the concept video, but we definitely like where Samsung’s ideas are headed.
It showcases a tablet that can be shrunk and expanded according to our needs, augmented reality translation, and what appears to be 3D imagery as well that seems to literally leap off your screen.
From: Samsung shows off flexible display concept tablet in video [Dec 5, 2011]
In its quarterly earnings call, Samsung’s vice president of investor relations, Robert Yi, told investors, analysts and press, “The flexible display we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part. The application probably will start from the handset side.”
After flexible-screen mobile phones roll out, the company plans to introduce the same technology for tabletsand other devices.
In January 2011, Samsung purchased Liquivista, a strategic acquisition that will allow it to produce the kinds of displays that were announced today. Liquivista made electrowetting display technology, which is used to create mobile and other consumer electronic displays that are bright, low-power, flexible and transparent.
Flexible screen technology was also a focus of Samsung’s in March, when Yongsuk Choi, director of Samsung Mobile Display, gave an overview of the company’s future mobile device plans. At that time, Choi said most of the flexible-display technology Samsung was working on was still in very early stages.
From: Samsung’s new phones will have flexible screens [Oct 28, 2011]
See also on Samsung Mobile Display site:
– Future Display Used : Flexible Display – Foldable Display – Dual Display – 3D Display – Paper Thin Display: “Flexible Display: AMOLED products that are still fully functional when they are folded or rolled can be expanded and applied to full-color and mobile market as digital signage and e-book markets and technologies are developed.” …
– SMD History: … “Nov 2010: Developed WVGA [Wide VGA 800×480 resolution] Flexible AMOLED for the first time in the world” … “May 2009: Developed the world’s biggest 6.5” of Flexible AMOLED” …
HP, Dell, Acer to expand R&D investments [Nov 24, 2011]
Seeing that the PC industry is going through a slowdown, PC players Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell and Acer have all expanded their investments in R&D and as the PC industry will enter an atmosphere that is filled with multiple platformsin 2012, each vendor’s R&D, branding and marketing abilities will become important drivers to increase their competitiveness in the future, according to sources from PC players.
HP is set to increase its investment in R&D and to strengthen the related resources. The company also changed its policy to have senior vice president of research, and director of HP Labs Prith Banerjee directly report to company CEO Meg Whitman.
Meanwhile, Dell is set to expand its R&D funding to US$1 billion each year, up 51.28% from US$661 million, that was reported a year ago. Dell also noted that the company will continue to acquire companies in the future and will need more funding to integrate the acquired firms.
Furthermore, Acer’s first R&D center is also expected to increase its total engineers from 600 in the middle of the year to 1,000 by year-end with executives of brand vendors and ODMs all major targets for headhunting.
An Acer executive also pointed out that the PC industry is experiencing a significant change, transitioning from Wintel system dominated to competition between several different platforms. Therefore, to the ability to develop devices based on Google’s Android system or ARM will become important.
AMD helping Android fans port to x86 [Dec 6, 2011]
A team of developers working privately to port the next version of Android to the x86 platform has been receiving a lot of support from AMD, but less from other key players.
The project is seeking to port the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) android-4.0.1_r1 release build to the x86 platform, and Chih-Wei Huang, one of the enthusiasts involved, told The Register that AMD had not only donated two tablets to the cause, but also has a couple of engineers helping out. As a result, the porting to AMD’s Brazos platform is now largely complete and the source code has been made available.
The first porting of Android to the x86 platform was actually done by Google engineers, but he explained that the Google team had not been continuing with the project since Android version 1.5, aka Cupcake. While the developers submit patches to Google, they seldom hear back, although some Google engineers are helping out privately with the project. Intel, too, hasn’t been keen.
“Generally speaking, Google didn’t care for the x86, at least before ICS,” he told The Registerin an email conversation. “Intel doesn’t care, either. They don’t want to help us. I’ve tried to contact Intel in different ways, but the replies were negative.”
Intel’s position has caused the team considerable problems, not least in getting Android to work with the video chipsets, and particularly the hardware acceleration added to Chipzilla’s kit. Work is still continuing, but since this is a voluntary project by people who have day jobs, then Android users might have a while before they can plaster an Intel Inside sticker on their systems.
Chih-Wei Huang, an open source advocate based in Taiwan, started the project with a former colleague in June 2009, and it has morphed to the point where the scheme has 2,600 subscribers to the project forum. He said that while he tried to keep the porting process up to date, it was a lot of work and some people weren’t sharing data.
“Now ICS is more mature for x86 tablet or netbook, so there are more practical reasons to do that,” he said. “Actually, I know some vendors like Bluestack, Viewsonic, and Insyde have already shipped Android-x86.org based products. However, they never contribute back. That usually makes us feel bad and angry.”
Supplementary information: Android: A visual history [Dec 7, 2011]


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Re: Sony Xperia SP has lost its Light Effects after updating!
We saw that you also posted this question in the Xperia S section. Hopefully, someone with knowledge of the device will be able to assist before too long.Live long and prosper.
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Looking for unique products for your four-legged friend? A new Hamilton Mill area pet supply store will carry everything from premium dog foods to luxury pet beds.
, located at 2590 Hamilton Road, Suite 104 (in the shopping center next to Walmart), will hold its .
Brian Nichols, buyer for The Puppy Pantry, said the event will include a charitable cookout benefiting the Gwinnett County Humane Society, adoptions from the Georgia SPCA, raffle prizes and more.
Watch the video for a message from Nichols and a sneak peek at the new store.
For more information, follow The Puppy Pantry on Facebook.