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Johnson Controls Inc. said it will announce its entry into the automotive information and entertainment electronics market this week at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Glendale-based Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) manufactures automotive interiors systems and seating through its automotive experience business segment. The company said in a press release Tuesday that it will provide its first production "infotainment" system to launch globally in a 2014 model year vehicle.
The company tapped Harris Interactive to conduct an online survey in the United States in December that found that car owners want to use their phones and existing apps to safely connect in their vehicles.
"Through this research study, we gain important insight into the needs and wants of consumers as they seek to connect seamlessly and intuitively to their vehicles," said Paul Lambert, group vice president and general manager, electronics, Johnson Controls Electronics & Interiors. "This information is helping us to provide market-leading infotainment solutions that take into account ever-increasing consumer electronics functionality without sacrificing safety."
Johnson Controls said a vast majority of vehicle owners (84 percent) would like to control the features in their vehicle via a touch-screen infotainment system, as well get updates to vehicle infotainment systems delivered wirelessly (83 percent). Three of four respondents would like to connect to the Internet using their vehicle as a Wi-Fi hotspot.
The survey sought vehicle owner input on a variety of options including vehicle diagnostics, navigation, entertainment, communication/connectivity, information apps, audio apps, concierge/personal service and social apps.
The information generated by the study is helping Johnson Controls align its product design and development for future infotainment systems to respond to consumer desires.
Lee Bauer, vice president of Infotainment, Johnson Controls Automotive Electronics and Interiors, the company’s vision for infotainment will address both automakers and consumers desire for a "composited" view of diverse information sources within the vehicle.
"Infotainment and Information applications currently running on multiple operating systems, will be fused together in a comprehensive driver information package that is intuitive, safe and scalable for vehicles," said Bauer. "Multiple operating systems that can run in their own hardware space without modification will be the cornerstone of bringing automotive embedded infotainment and driver information into a cloud-based future."


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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Get ready for bacon like you’ve never eaten, drunk or worn it before.
Bacon milkshakes. Chocolate-covered bacon shaped like roses. Bacon-flavored toothpaste, dental floss and lip balm. Bacon bourbon, margaritas, beer and vodka. Bacon ice cream sundaes. A BLT sandwich with a full pound of bacon.
They’re all on the menu this week as one Atlantic City casino stretches the bounds of good taste and cardiovascular health with Bacon Week. The festival gives new meaning to the term “pigging out.”
The idea of a bacon festival is not as far-fetched as it might sound. Americans eat about 1.5 billion pounds of bacon a year, according to the National Pork Board. And the website bacontoday.com counted nearly 30 bacon festivals around the country last year.
“Bacon is like heaven,” said Nadina Fornia of Egg Harbor Township. “If you’re going to die, die with bacon on your lips and a BLT in each hand.”

domain: news


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NAR Pulse—This week’s headlines
The Free REALTOR.com® App Gets Powerful Upgrades
The REALTOR.com® app already updates listings every 15 minutes, and now, users can search sold properties, foreclosures and price reductions in addition to homes that are active on the market. The new features allow users to dive even deeper into their search experience, and lets them do it faster with a completely redesigned home screen with one-click access to property search. The app has been totally revamped to provide consumers with a more fulfilling search experience, while giving agents the ability to connect with consumers and respond to inquiries even more quickly.
NAR’s 2012 Resource Packet Now Available
The packet includes 100 copies of NAR’s catalog of products, education courses, and REALTOR Benefits® partners, and 100 copies of the “Top Benefits of NAR” brochure with CD. These two recently updated 6”x10” printed pieces can be purchased in the REALTOR® store for just $12, and are a perfect way to help communicate the benefits of membership to your agents.
Code of Ethics Training
Remind current members that December 31, 2012 is the deadline for the current cycle of required Code of Ethics training. Visit www.REALTOR.org/coetraining for information and resources.


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Following his visit to Australia’s Northern Peninsular Area, Prime Minister Tony Abbott told the ABC’s AM program that:
I would very much counsel people in remote areas against expecting the Government to subsidise fresh food. Yes, it’s more expensive than in Sydney and Melbourne but it’s not outrageously more expensive and to be honest, the supermarkets - IBIS and others - do a very good job in getting high quality food to very, very remote places.
But the evidence shows that it’s not just fresh food that is more expensive in remote communities. On average, all food is 53% more expensive in remote communities, with the price increasing annually by approximately 5%, compared to an annual rise of only about 1% in Darwin supermarkets.
What the data shows
Every year in the Northern Territory, government and non-government public health nutritionists gather data on the cost of a standardised basket of food.
This basket is sufficient to provide foods for a hypothetical family of six for a fortnight.
It comprises of a mix of tinned and fresh food items including flour, bread, breakfast cereal, apples, oranges, tinned fruit, orange juice, potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, mixed vegetables, canned meat, fresh red meat, chicken drumsticks, eggs, powdered milk, cheese, sugar and margarine. Data on the availability, variety and quality of fruit and vegetables are also collected.
In 2014, the Northern Territory government surveyed 79 stores and found the average basket cost was $824. This amount ranged from $795 in Darwin remote district stores to an average of $866 for remote East Arnhem district stores; compared to $538 in a Darwin supermarket.
Staples like flour, bread and breakfast cereals cost 23% more, basics like meat were 45% more, fresh fruit and vegetables cost 51% more, goods like margarine and sugar were 79% more, while dairy was 98% more in price.
When we considered food costs in relation to actual food purchases – as opposed to the hypothetical basket – this price difference was even higher.
When we then compared these prices to those in southern cities such as Adelaide, we found the price difference was higher again.
We demonstrated this using food expenditure data collected from 20 remote stores across the Northern Territory.
Foods purchased in these stores cost 60% more, on average, than Darwin supermarkets and 68% more than Adelaide supermarkets. To understand what this is like, imagine adding another $60 or $68 to a grocery shop of $100 next time you’re at the supermarket – but getting no extra groceries for it.
A further advantage for urban shoppers is access to cheaper generic brand options which are generally limited in remote community stores. When we added these to the mix, the price difference for grocery type foods was 136%.
The Northern Territory government is the only jurisdiction in Australia that annually monitors remote community food prices.
In 2010, the Queensland government found prices in Queensland were 26% higher in very remote areas compared with major cities and 38% higher in remote areas more than 2000km from Brisbane.
In 2010 in remotes communities of the Northern Territory, prices were found to be 43% higher compared to the current 53%. This finding suggests the Queensland price difference may now be higher than the recorded 38% of 2010.
Over the last few years, the average number of varieties and the proportion of quality of fresh fruit and vegetables has increased in the Northern Territory.
Remote shops are playing their part to help
Many stores in remote Australia are locally owned and have improved nutrition alongside generating profit as a policy goal. In the Northern Territory, 70% of stores are Indigenous owned, 61% have a store committee and 51% report to have a nutrition policy.
Two major store associations in the Northern Territory, the Arnhemland Progress Aboriginal Corporation (ALPA) and Outback Stores, have pricing initiatives which exempt fresh fruit and vegetables from freight charges. The pricing policies have also resulted in some of the cheapest prices for bottled water in the country. It’s likely there are other similar initiatives to reduce the price of healthier foods for independently run stores. Despite this, the price difference between remote community stores in the Northern Territory and Darwin supermarkets has widened.
This price gap indicates that not all consumers equally benefit from the competing food prices between the major Australians supermarkets and the promotional deals they have with manufacturers. Socially disadvantaged Australians whether in remote or non-remote Australia experience more barriers to eating healthy food, and cost is one of these. One concern is that a socio-economic gradient we have not previously observed has now emerged as being a prevalent for overweight and obesity in Australia.
Indigenous Australians are also more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to experience higher rates of obesity and related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease. At current food prices, a diet following the Australian dietary guidelines is not possible within an estimated $13 per person per day food spend in remote communities; a food spend that is more than that for other Australians.
A role for subsidies and promo-deals
Remote stores are playing their part; a leg-up from either government or major supermarkets and food manufacturers could go a long way to closing the price gap and disadvantage gap for Indigenous Australians living in remote communities.
That “leg-up” could extend to subsidies on food transport costs and facilities like refrigerators needed to make fresh food last. But it may also include manufacturers providing promotional deals to remote stores, as they do to urban supermarkets.
In the end, it is cost of all core foods – not just fresh food – that needs to come down for people in remote areas.


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OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Shopify Inc. (“Shopify”) (NYSE: SHOP, TSX: SHOP), the leading cloudbased, multichannel commerce platform, announced that Shopify merchants selling in USD are able to add the Amazon sales channel to their Shopify account.
This previously announced integration, which was made generally available in December, is designed to seamlessly connect Shopify store owners to the millions of customers searching for products to buy on Amazon. Now merchants can conveniently manage their product catalog for their ecommerce website, retail store, Amazon store, and other sales channels all in one place.
“This is our first integration with an online marketplace. Our work with Amazon is an important step in strengthening our robust multichannel commerce strategy and the ability of our merchants to sell anywhere their customers buy,” said Brandon Chu, Director of Product at Shopify. “With an estimated 40% of Shopify merchants already selling in online marketplaces, Shopify has further simplified the processes to gain entry into Amazon.”
To learn more about selling on Amazon with Shopify, visit: https://www.shopify.com/amazon
Shopify is the leading cloudbased, multichannel commerce platform designed for small and mediumsized businesses. Merchants use the software to design, set up and manage their stores across multiple sales channels, including web, mobile, social media, marketplaces, brickandmortar locations and popup shops. The platform also provides a merchant with a powerful backoffice and a single view of their business. The Shopify platform was engineered for reliability and scale, making enterpriselevel technology available to businesses of all sizes. Shopify currently powers over 325,000 businesses in approximately 150 countries and is trusted by big brands including Tesla, Red Bull, Nestle, GE, Kylie Cosmetics, and many more.


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The GPS option will come as part of a Dell Wireless 700 card, which includes both Wi-Fi and GPS, and uses both for positioning, Dell blogger Lionel Menchaca wrote in a blog post.
Dell hasn't released pricing for the option.
Location services have proven to be a hit in mobile phones, and Dell is extending that logic. "We're betting that location services will be a hit in netbooks as well," Menchaca wrote.
The GPS option will be accompanied by mapping software from CoPilot navigation software to provide turn by turn directions, 2D and 3D maps, and trip optimization including detours. The software will be able to store up to 50 addresses.
Dell's GPS option will initially require Windows XP, although Vista and Windows 7 support will be added later, Menchaca wrote.


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This represents the final step in solubility partnership that Dow and Bend Research announced in October 2012 and it will help Dow to commercially supply solubility enabling excipients. Construction has begun on the new operational facility at Cambrex Karlskoga and commercial product availability is set for year-end 2013.
"Dow's polymer science and application expertise, coupled with Cambrex's capabilities positions Dow for rapid entry into the market. The AFFINISOL product platform has excellent manufacturing flexibility to match the diverse excipients needs of our customers' pipelines," said Bob Maughon, senior R&D director for Dow.
"We are proud to be part of this collaboration with Dow," said Eric Neuffer, vice president of sales and business development for Cambrex. "This agreement between Dow and Cambrex further validates Cambrex's commitment to finding solutions that offer our clients quality products and services to meet a market need. This has been a great partnership with both the Dow and Cambrex teams focused on achieving project goals and objectives in a timely manner."


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Good news to all Canadian owners of the Samsung Galaxy S3! Samsung Canada had confirmed earlier today on their official Twitter page that the Galaxy S3 will be receiving the OTA Jelly Bean update on December 3rd next month.
Jelly Bean starts rolling out to GALAXY S III owners over-the-air Monday. Stay tuned for more Jelly Bean announcements soon!
Though there was no much information given by Samsung, but the update is expected to be rolled out simultaneously across all Canadian carriers.
Source : Samsung Mobile Can (Twitter)


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2020 has been the year of the RV, since air travel and international vacations have largely fallen by the wayside. That’s why this seven-day RV vacation giveaway is a perfect fit for the times. To celebrate medical workers on the front lines of the pandemic, El Monte RV is giving away a weeklong RV trip to one healthcare hero.
Gordon Hewston, Chief Operating Officer of Tourism Holdings Limited, parent company of El Monte RV, said in a statement, “It’s important we continue to find ways to extend our gratitude and give back to the heroic people in healthcare in the midst of COVID-19, especially as the holiday season nears. El Monte RV would like to pay tribute in the best way we know how: with a seven-day RV road trip to the most breathtaking outdoor sites the US has to offer.”


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With only a pair of new releases last week, most of the UK chart top five has adopted a holding pattern this week.
Top of the pile for a second week is Bioshock Infinite, despite a 75 percent drop in sales. Tomb Raider stays at #2, FIFA 13 at #4 and Luigi’s Mansion 2 at #5.
Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed a gap at #3 there: that’s filled by the week’s only new entry, Defiance. A quick glance at the individual formats chart tells us that it did best on Xbox 360 – indeed that version was the second best selling title on a single format, behind only the Xbox 360 version of Bioshock Infinite. Incidentally, we’ll have a review of Defiance for you tomorrow.
There’s no trace of last week’s other new release, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razorâ€™s Edge for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, in either of those charts or elsewhere.
After a good start at #6 last week, Army of Two: Devilâ€™s Cartel has dropped well out of the top ten to this week’s #15. News of its mediocrity has clearly spread. That’s not as bad a second week as LEGO City Undercover though: the Wii U exclusive has plummeted from #12 to #32.


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Earlier this year, it was announced that Apple Pay would finally be accepted as a payment option at CVS Pharmacy. Apple has announced via email that day has come.
Get your essentials in a flash.
Buying snacks, vitamins, personal care, and prescriptions from CVS Pharmacy® just got faster and more secure.
Although CVS payment terminals have supported NFC payments like Apple’s contactless payments solution from the first day the system debuted, the pharmacy chain has disabled the option on those terminals in favor of an alternative mobile payment method called CurrentC, and later a home grown payment method that used a QR code. Competitor Walgreens has long accepted Apple Pay at its stores.
No word on whether Apple’s payments solution could be used to make payment for your prescriptions filled at a CVS Pharmacy located inside a Target department store. (Target is one of the Apple Pay holdouts, along with fellow retailer, Walmart.)


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JD.com, Inc. (JD)
|Net Income (ttm)||7.55B|
|Trading Day||May 10|
|Day's Range||71.39 - 74.35|
|52-Week Range||46.37 - 108.29|
Cathie Wood-led Ark Investment Management on Friday bought 366,879 shares, worth about $27.7 million, in JD.com Inc (NASDAQ: JD), a key rival to Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE: BABA) in the e-commerce spac...
BEIJING, May 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- JD.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: JD and HKEX: 9618), China's leading technology driven e-commerce company transforming to become the leading supply chain based technology ...
In the latest trading session, JD.com, Inc. (JD) closed at $76.39, marking a +1.13% move from the previous day.
Here is what the fundamentals and technical analysis say about buying JD stock. The China e-commerce company has partnerships with Walmart, Tencent and Google-owner Alphabet.
JD Logistics, the logistics entity for Chinese e-commerce leader JD.com (NASDAQ:JD), was approved for an initial public offering (IPO) by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The spinoff could raise up to $4 b...
Investors searching for Tesla-like price appreciation should consider these seven growth stocks for real returns. The post 7 Runaway Growth Stocks That Could Be the Next Tesla appeared first on Investor...
Cathie Wood-led Ark Investment Management on Monday bought more shares of Pinduoduo Inc (NASDAQ: PDD) and JD.com Inc (NASDAQ: JD) — rivals to Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE: BABA) in the e-commerce and onl...
Cathie Wood-led Ark Investment Management has recently been heavily buying into three Chinese stocks that are rival to Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE:BABA) in the e-commerce and online groceries space. The...
Whether Bridgetown invests in Traveloka or not, this entry point looks like a gift.
Value Partners (Trades, Portfolio), a Hong Kong-based asset management firm, disclosed this week that its Classic Fund's top four trades during the second half of 2020 included new positions in Pinduodu...
It's pretty amazing.
China Reins In Tech Giants' Finance Arms
Apr.29 -- China's crackdown on the technology industry continues. Regulators imposed wide-ranging restrictions on the fast-growing financial divisions of 13 companies including Tencent Holdings Ltd.
Chinese regulators are handing down new laws that will restrict the finance operations of some of the country's biggest technology firms, Bloomberg reported on Thursday (April 29). Tencent, ByteDance, J...
JD.com, Inc. (JD) closed at $79.06 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.76% move from the prior day.
JD.com's use of the digital yuan highlights how China's central bank is increasing the scope of testing for its digital currency.
Chinese eCommerce giant JD.com has been paying some of its employees using digital currency for the past few months, the company revealed Sunday (April 25). JD made the revelation Sunday when announcing...
China's plan to introduce its digital currency is getting a lot of help from its tech conglomerates. JD.com, a major Chinese online retailer that competes with Alibaba, said Monday that it has started p...
These three stocks have just one thing in common: The potential for explosive growth.
Although market euphoria has sent many growth stocks to the moon, there are still some viable opportunities on discount. The post 7 Growth Stocks To Buy As They Ride Attractive Discounts appeared first ...
JD.com, Inc. (JD) closed the most recent trading day at $75.72, moving +1.57% from the previous trading session.
JD.com, Inc. (JD) closed the most recent trading day at $78.12, moving -0.86% from the previous trading session.
The A-list of China's tech industry was summoned before the country's powerful regulators on Tuesday for a dressing down over antitrust behavior, just days after Alibaba was hit with a record $2.8 billi...
China imposed a record $2.8 billion antitrust fine vs. Alibaba. But BABA stock jumped on hopes that the bad news is priced in.
Cheap, solid stocks may seem like a mirage considering the equity bull run, but several excellent investments are trading at a discount. The post 7 Cheap Stocks That Won't Be on Discount for Long appear...
The Company has submitted a spin-off proposal to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under PN15, and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has confi rmed that the Company may proceed with the Proposed Spin-off.
Cathie Wood's Ark Investment Management sends out an email every night listing the stocks that were bought or sold by the firm's ETFs that day. In recent months, the emails have known to cause certain s...
Chinese eCommerce giant JD.com said on Wednesday (March 31) that it had officially sold its JD Cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) business to its FinTech unit for a combined valuation of $2.4 billio...
Top space stocks in the ARKX ETF are getting ready to blast off on Tuesday morning ahead of Cathie Wood's big fund debut. The post ARKX ETF Space Stocks: Why TRMB, KTOS, BA, LMT Stocks Are Fueling Up To...
While Amazon is about as close to a sure thing you can get, here are seven stocks to buy that could give the e-commerce firm some competition. The post 7 Stocks That Could Be the Next Amazon appeared fi...
JD.com, Inc. (JD) closed at $81.76 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.38% move from the prior day.
Cathie Wood's new ARKX ETF is a going public and providing a promising option for investors in a booming industry. The post ARKX ETF: The Top 10 Holdings in Cathie Wood's New Space ETF appeared first on...
China's dual-listed tech giants lost $60 billion in market value over three days as delisting threats loom
As of their Friday close, $60 billion was wiped off the combined market cap of Alibaba, JD.com, Baidu and Netease in just three days.
JD.com Inc (NASDAQ: JD), a Chinese e-commerce giant, delivered another solid quarterly report last week. The company has been one of many e-commerce winners during the pandemic with its stock price more...
The deal will give the acquirer a 51% stake in its target.
This online dating company has come out with its first report after going public, and the stay-at-home environment is clearly benefiting it.
JD stock is a buying opportunity, with the company posting big revenue and earnings growth and Chinese consumers ramping up spending. The post JD.Com Stock Undervalued After Tech Sell-Off, Despite Boomi...
You can diversify and upgrade your portfolio by tapping into these promising opportunities in the vast world of Chinese companies. The post These 2 Chinese Companies Popped on Earnings This Week appeare...
Chase Coleman (Trades, Portfolio)'s Tiger Global Management is one of the most successful hedge funds of all time. Its flagship long-short equity fund has compounded investors' capital at 21% per annum ...
China's top retailer is still too cheap relative to its growth.
JD.com, Inc. operates as an e-commerce company and retail infrastructure service provider in the People's Republic of China. It operates in two segments, JD Retail and New Businesses. The company offers home appliances; mobile handsets and other digital products; desktop, laptop, and other computers, as well as printers and other office equipment; furniture and household goods; apparel; cosmetics, personal care items, and pet products; women's shoes, bags, jewelry, and luxury goods; men's shoes, sports gears, and fitness equipment; automobiles ... [Read more...]
|IPO Date |
May 22, 2014
|Stock Exchange |
|Ticker Symbol |
In 2020, JD.com's revenue was 745.80 billion, an increase of 29.28% compared to the previous year's 576.89 billion. Earnings were 49.41 billion, an increase of 305.49%.
According to 38 analysts, the average rating for JD.com stock is "Strong Buy." The 12-month stock price forecast is 108.53, which is an increase of 52.00% from the latest price.


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he number of new vehicles on dealer lots and in transit dipped further in July to just 1.09 million vehicles, down by 70% from the average level in 2019, according to data from Cox Automotive. But the mix of those inventories has changed in reaction to the spiking gasoline prices this year:
Hot demand for fuel efficient vehicles has depleted inventories of minivans, sub-compact cars, compact cars, and midsize cars.
At general merchandise stores, the inventory-sales ratio jumped to 1.61 months’ supply, the highest since 2007, having solidly surpassed pre-pandemic levels earlier this year. This segment includes stores like Walmart and Target, and department stores.Inventory Shortages & Gluts, by Retailer Segment: Where they Are and Why | Wolf Street


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Poke! The latest street food trend comes to town
IT'S the latest street food trend to hit the Capital, and Treacle bar and kitchen, on Broughton Street, are leading the way with the city's first '˜Poke Bowl'.
Poke - pronounced poh-keh - is a typical Hawaiian dish of raw fish (usually tuna) in an Asian dressing served as part of a colourful salad.
The dish originated from fishermen seasoning and eating the off-cuts of their catch, and now, like the burrito, ramen and poutine before it, Poke has become the next big thing in Los Angeles, New York, London and now, for the first time, Edinburgh.
Treacle, already known for its contemporary Asian influences, has introduced a new menu which focuses on Southeast Asian and Pacific cuisine as part of a wider redesign paying tribute to the region.
The new menu includes Rainbow Pok-e - a bowl of raw tuna, avocado, brown rice, mint, sesame and pickled cucumber.
If raw fish isn’t your thing, Treacle’s new menu also has an array of Eastern delights; from Vietnamese Banh Mi filled with Lemongrass chicken with mango and shredded carrot to Grilled steak, mooli slaw and wasabi mayo.
Or even, seared tuna with an Indonesian watermelon salad and Katsu chicken curry with pad Thai rice noodles.
To accompany the change on the menus, the interior has been given a fresh new look, with a colour palate of washed denim, raw whites and citrus greens, a polished wood floor and designer lighting from Kartell and Dowsing and Reynolds
Although the distinctly 90s feel brought by a Keith Haring mural will remain, the surroundings now aim to provide a relaxed summer atmosphere all year round - creating an idyllic escape in the centre of the city.
Treacle, Broughton Street, 10am-late, 7 days a week


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One-Two-Fives. It is the motorcycle that everyone talks about in high school. It is the upper limit of what you can ride until you turn 18. Honda has now added its new CBR125R to its local range, a motorcycle that will surely be a topic of discussion during break time, and assembly.As is the case with ...
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SCAMMERS LOOKING TO DEFRAUD CONSUMERS BY PROMPTING EXPENSIVE CALL BACK
WASHINGTON, May 3, 2019-The Federal Communications Commission is alerting consumers to reported waves of “One Ring” or “Wangiri” scam robocalls targeting specific area codes in bursts, often calling multiple times in the middle of the night. These calls are likely trying to prompt consumers to call the number back, often resulting in per minute toll charges similar to a 900 number. Consumers should not call these numbers back.
Recent reports indicate these calls are using the “222” country code of the West African nation of Mauritania. News reports have indicated widespread overnight calling in New York State and Arizona.
Generally, the One Ring scam takes place when a robocaller calls a number and hangs up after a ring or two. They may call repeatedly, hoping the consumer calls back and runs up a toll that is largely paid to the scammer.
- Do not call back numbers you do not recognize, especially those appearing to originate overseas.
- File a complaint with the FCC if you received these calls: www.fcc.gov/complaints
- If you never make international calls, consider talking to your phone company about blocking outbound international calls to prevent accidental toll calls.
- Check your phone bill for charges you don’t recognize.
Advances in technology allow massive amounts of calls to be made cheaply and easily. In addition, spoofing tools make it easy for scammers to mask their identity. The FCC is working to combat scam calls with enforcement actions, a strong push for caller ID authentication, and support for call blocking tools. Another key tool is consumer education like this alert and the FCC’s One Ring scam consumer guide: https://t.co/pROJ0ldMXv


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A new security bug has sparked online panic, with experts saying that users of a large number of sites should change their passwords – but not right away.
Heartbleed is a security flaw in OpenSSL technology, a protocol that is used to protect data across the web.
Around two-thirds of the web uses OpenSSL and the Heartbleed bug has been present for around two years.
The bug can, in theory, allow anyone access the information of people who used affected sites and there is not much that can be done just yet.
It’s unclear whether any information has been stolen as a result of Heartbleed, but security experts are particularly worried about the bug because it went undetected for more than two years.
Google sites such as GMail and YouTube are clear, the company says, but a large amount of other websites are still affected.
Yahoo, which has more than 800 million users around the world, said Tuesday that most of its popular services — including sports, finance and Tumblr — had been fixed, but work was still being done on other products that it didn’t identify.
A GitHub list compiled by a user outlines around 10,000 sites and whether they are or are not affected.
It is recommended that users of sites that have passwords search the list for their bank, email and important account providers. Ultimately, you’ll need to change your passwords, but that won’t do any good until the sites you use adopt the fix. It’s also up to the internet services affected by the bug to let users know of the potential risks and encourage them to change their passwords.


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UGANDA – According to the FY2021/2022 annual dairy performance report by the Dairy Development Authority (DDA) of Uganda, dairy exports generated more than UGX382 billion (US$103M) as compared to the previous year.
The country’s export earnings increased by 11% despite the drought witnessed in some milk sheds.
The DDA attributes this growth to the increased compliance of the country’s dairy products to both regional and international standards.
The report read, “Uganda exported a total of 83,063 metric tonnes of dairy products to 16 countries”
The number of countries that imported their dairy products from Uganda however fell from 18 in the previous financial year to 16.
The country lost Qatar, the UK, the Czech Republic and Sri Lanka as existing markets but gained the United States and Somalia as new export markets.
According to the report, the country mainly exported UHT milk, butter, casein powder, milk powder, whey protein, and cheese in FY2021/2022.
Uganda currently exports to the East African Community but the DDA recently announced that the country intends to expand its export reach to Algeria as well.
According to Mr Samson Akankiza, the DDA executive director, during the presentation of the dairy performance report, the country is in talks to export milk powder to Algeria effective this month.
He informed that technical verification of the regulatory framework of the country’s dairy value chain was carried out last December by an Algerian delegation and that business meetings are currently being held in Algeria.
“Algeria’s milk production is generally low and most of their milk products are being imported from other countries. Uganda has quality milk which is organically produced meaning we shall have the best product on the market,” said Akankiza.
The DDA also noted that the average international raw milk price increased from UGX1,120 (US$0.3) recorded in FY2022 to UGX1,757 (US$0.47). The global market price is therefore at least 48% higher than the national farm gate price.
The DDA reassured that the farm gate milk prices are relatively fair but the county’s per capita milk consumption is somewhat wanting.
According to the report, the national per capita consumption stands at 62 litres, far below the 200 litres per capita consumption recommended by the World Health Organization.
The report also highlighted that licensed milk collection centres have increased to 547 in the reviewed financial year with an estimated capacity of 2.3 million litres compared to 475 recorded in the previous year.
The Ugandan dairy sector is growing despite the challenges it faces. According to data from the DDA, Uganda’s annual milk production in 2018 was recorded at 2.2 billion litres, a gradual increase from the 1.8 billion litres produced in 2012.
As of June 2019, annual milk production in the country had risen to 2.4 billion litres and by 2021 the country was producing 2.8 billion litres of milk annually.
The country’s dairy sector is currently valued at US$ 1 billion according to the DDA.


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Disney may make Redbox wait 28 days for new movies
- Staff L.A. Biz
The Walt Disney Co. might make discount movie rental services such as Redbox wait 28 days before selling them the studio’s new DVD and Blu-ray releases.
During an earnings call with analysts Tuesday, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said the company is in discussions with Redbox and other services about imposing the 28-delay.
Iger said Disney hadn’t previously chosen that route, as other studios have, because the company “was not seeing any effect from these dollar-rentals on their sell-through business," according to the Los Angeles Times.
But falling DVD sales has made the company rethink strategy. Disney cited soft DVD sales as a reason behind a 16 percent drop in revenues in its studio entertainment segment to $1.6 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31.
Therefore, Iger said, the studio has “decided to take a step in the direction of further protecting the initial window of the sell-through," according to the Times.
Iger didn’t respond to questions on whether Netflix would be included in the delay, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
NBCUniversal’s Universal Pictures and News Corp.'s Fox already have imposed a 28-day rental window on Redbox and Netflix., while Warner Bros. in January said it will make rental companies wait 56 days.
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Listen, I’m not a Golden State Warriors fan by any stretch. Now that they’ve become the epitome of the Evil Empire, the even-more-impossible-team-to-beat in the Western Conference by acquiring Kevin Durant, it pretty much seems like they’re a sure lock for next year’s title (Vegas thinks so, too). So of course, there’s going to be people rooting against them by the droves. It always goes that way for the favorites.
However, while Golden State won’t be getting my fandom next season, KD’s kicks that Nike just dropped in three new Warriors colorways definitely do. Mostly because those were my high school colors, and also the Sixers throwback colors, too. Peep these Iverson’s if you don’t believe me. The gold and navy colorway will always have a special spot in my heart, and I totally have to get my hands on these limited edition KD9s. So fresh.
Might need one in every colorway if we’re being honest. Here’s what Nike had to say about the new KD9s.
On Monday, Kevin Durant chose a new team in free agency and today #35 was officially welcomed to his new team in an introductory press conference. In recognition of his move to the Bay Area, Nike is offering exclusive customization of Durant’s ninth signature shoe, the KD9.
Durant’s evolution has been reflected in his Nike signature shoe line and this NIKEiD customization is just the beginning of an exciting future.
The KD9 NIKEiD shoe is available now for a limited time on nike.com. Multicolor knit is limited to North America, while home and away options are global.
Fresh as fresh gets.


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November 30, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell spoke to the Washington D.C.-based Brookings Institute Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy about the economic outlook, inflation, and the labor market. Chairman Powell delivered a prepared speech and then took questions. A quote around the 16th minute sums up the tone of the speech, "Ongoing rate hikes are appropriate to attain a policy stance that is sufficiently restrictive to move inflation down to 2% over time." Watch the entire presentation here.
· Core inflation is essentially the same as in December 2021, when tightening began.
· The Fed will continue raising rates until “below trend growth” is sustained for an extended period.
· Wage growth is higher than would be consistent with 2% inflation
· The Fed firmly committed to “stay the course” until inflation holds at 2%.
Chairman Powell began his speech by stating he would give a progress report on the FOMC’s efforts to restore price stability “for the benefit of the American people.” His report acknowledged that inflation is too high, “exposing families to significant hardship, straining budgets, and shrinking what paychecks will buy.” Powell immediately transitioned to his familiar opening phrase, “price stability is the responsibility of the Federal Reserve and serves as the bedrock of our economy.
The first point Powell spoke about was core inflation. The October numbers were less than expected, but the two previous months were more than expected. He appreciated October's numbers, but it will take significantly more data to confirm that inflation is declining. Powell stated that core inflation has been moving sideways and near the same as in December 2021, when tightening was in the early stages. Powell transitioned by asking, “when will inflation come down?”. He rebuked the market analysts who predict inflation will come down in about a year. He said the forecasters have already been predicting such a decline for a year while inflation is moving stubbornly sideways. “The truth is the path ahead for inflation remains highly uncertain.”
Instead of being an arbitrary date, Powell listed four economic conditions necessary to bring inflation down to the 2% goal.
1. Economic growth has slowed well below its longer trend growth, which needs to be sustained for an extended period.
2. Supply bottlenecks, goods production, and good prices need to ease for an extended period.
3. Housing services inflation needs to fall significantly from current levels.
4. The labor market and wage growth must be consistent with 2% inflation. The current wage growth is too high and inconsistent with a 2% inflation target.
Translating the four economic factors to plain English:
1. Below trend growth is political speech for a recession. The first economic condition is an extended recession. The traditional definition of a recession is two-quarters of negative GDP. Two quarters would be six months. It isn't clear what an "extended period" means. Still, a recession lasting only six months would be the minimum qualification of a recession and probably not described as extended.
2. The prices of goods need to decrease, and supply chain problems need solutions. The Fed does not have the tools to stop the Ukraine war, the European energy crisis, or the Chinese Covid lockdowns. The tools of the Fed work primarily on aggregate demand but cannot affect supply chain issues or solve supply bottlenecks. (This condition is a conundrum for the Fed and the idea the Fed hopes the media doesn't pick up on. The Administration and the Fed have repeatedly blamed the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Covid for the high inflation. There are two options. The Fed agrees it is their loose policies and excessive printing that caused inflation, or they are intentionally taking destructive actions unable to affect supply chain inflation.)
3. Housing service inflation is inflation connected to home prices, rents, and services connected to rents. Housing service inflation lags other types of inflation indicators because leases don’t tend to turn over every month. Leases usually last several months to years. Housing/rents need to come down, and tenants must sign leases at significantly lower prices to satisfy this requirement. It could be at least a year before this metric is even measurable.
4. There are too many jobs, and employers are paying too much to have 2% inflation.
Translating the translation:
The Fed can't control Russia and China. Still, it intends to create a recession, collapse housing, and destroy the labor market to bring down inflation.
Powell stated about the economy, “so despite some promising developments, we still have a long way to go in restoring price stability…My FOMC colleagues and I are strongly committed to restoring price stability…Ongoing rate hikes are appropriate to attain a policy stance that is sufficiently restrictive to move inflation down to 2%.”
Powell concluded his speech with a very ominous warning that strangely sounded positive until you think about what he was saying. “The full effects of our rapid tightening so far are yet to be felt; thus, it makes sense to moderate the pace of our rate increases as we approach the level of restraint that will be sufficient to bring inflation down…history cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy, and I will close by saying, we will stay the course until the job is done.”
What does he mean by “the full effects of our rapid tightening so far are yet to be felt?” Keep in mind that slower does not mean lower. Since the Fed started raising rates in March, stock and bond markets are down double digits. According to Powell, the economy needs ongoing rate hikes, and there is still unrealized downward pressure on asset values from interest rate hikes already instituted. Within 24 hours of Powell's speech, the price of gold climbed by nearly $80. Are you sure you want to keep your wealth in the banks and paper markets?
Call the U.S. Gold Bureau today.


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March 3, 2013
Twins Kate and Jane Wenzel, 9, of Wichita, Kan.,enjoyed their first day on skis with their mother, Jenny Wenzel, at Snowy Range Ski and Recreation Area on Feb. 17.
Stories this photo appears in:
For every glamorous destination ski resort in North America, there are dozens of smaller ski areas that have their own vital roles to play in the ski industry. Snowy Range — just west of Laramie, Wyo., and owned and operated by the Maddox family of Steamboat Springs — is among them.


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As the sector economy is evolving, recent financial companies and markets are turning into originate to commercial. As of late, these untapped markets are a recent focal point of multinational enterprises. Alternatively, the language barrier is proving to be a huge hurdle for commercial expansion and model.
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Melville-based health care, dental and veterinary products distributor Henry Schein on Wednesday reported that net income rose 5.2 percent to $96.8 million as net sales rose 5.7 percent to 2.2 billion.
The firm grew sales and earnings, even though seasonal influenza vaccine sales dropped for the third quarter and despite the impact of less favorable foreign currency exchange rates.
CEO Stanley Bergman said the firm gained market share in each of its four business groups during the third quarter, although unfavorable exchange rates impacted results.
Global dental sales dipped 0.3 percent to $1.1 billion, due to drops related to changes in foreign currency exchange rates.
Global veterinary product sales rose 19.2 percent to $598.1 million, medical sales rose 4.2 percent to $442.5 million and technology and value-added services sales rose 14.1 percent to $71.0 million.
Excluding sales of seasonal influenza vaccines, Schein’s net sales increased 6.4 percent. The firm sold about 6.8 million doses of that vaccine during the quarter.
More breaking news
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- Republicans moving to repeal financial rule opposed by banks
- Hauppauge building sells for $3.9M
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- Adventureland offering free rides on National Roller Coaster Day
- President Trump will meet Friday with LI law enforcers
- Help not only wanted, needed
- Priciest home sales in Hempstead


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Elon Musk Tells Twitter He Might Take Tesla Private
In an unexpected series of tweets, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced he was considering taking the company private at a share price of $420.
This led to increased confidence from shareholders, leading to a surge of 10 percent.
Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
That spike came after a halt in shares for about an hour waiting for further news from the company and its leadership. Analysts showed that Tesla's market value at $420 a share would place the company at roughly $71 billion.
The CEO then took to the Tesla blog page to further explain that "a final decision has not yet been made."
"As a public company, we are subject to wild swings in our stock price that can be a major distraction for everyone working at Tesla, all of whom are shareholders," Musk wrote. "Being public also subjects us to the quarterly earnings cycle that puts enormous pressure on Tesla to make decisions that may be right for a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long-term. Finally, as the most shorted stock in the history of the stock market, being public means that there are large numbers of people who have the incentive to attack the company."
He then elaborated on what a structure would look like for shareholders -- emphasizing they had more choice in their investments should Tesla go private.
"Either they can stay investors in a private Tesla or they can be bought out at $420 per share, which is a 20% premium over the stock price following our Q2 earnings call (which had already increased by 16%)," Musk wrote. "My hope is for all shareholders to remain, but if they prefer to be bought out, then this would enable that to happen at a nice premium."
Musk noted Tesla employees would remain shareholders of the company and keep that fact similar to the current structure of SpaceX. This would not change even if Tesla went private. Musk noted it would allow employees to still be able to periodically sell their shares and "exercise their options." Despite the similarities in shareholdings, Musk stated the intention of his idea is not to merge SpaceX with Tesla.
My hope is *all* current investors remain with Tesla even if we’re private. Would create special purpose fund enabling anyone to stay with Tesla. Already do this with Fidelity’s SpaceX investment.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
"Basically, I’m trying to accomplish an outcome where Tesla can operate at its best, free from as much distraction and short-term thinking as possible, and where there is as little change for all of our investors, including all of our employees, as possible," Musk concluded.
Did Musk Violate Regulations with his Tweets?
Musk has never shied away from putting the latest company happenings on Twitter first, but could these tweets have said too much?
Currently, Regulation Fair Disclosure (or FD) requires that companies "distribute material information in a manner reasonably designed to get that information out to the general public broadly and non-exclusively."
Similar public posts from other CEOs on social media have triggered investigations. Netflix's CEO Reed Hastings made a comment on his personal facebook page about a spike in shares. That post alone triggered an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Comission.
“If a company has always issued its earnings releases in a conventional matter, and it had not alerted investors, then that can be a problem, because an investor who happens to watch the Twitter feed, may have an unfair advantage,” said Ira Matetsky, a partner at Ganfer Shore Leeds & Zauderer in Manhattan, in an interview with Market Watch.
No one will know for sure until the SEC pursues an investigation. However, the tweets certainly piqued the interest of financial analysts and Tesla fans alike.
Via: CNBC, Tesla Blog, Market Watch
Geothermal energy is notorious for the high costs of installation. A woman-led energy company is working to change these notions and reduce energy bills.


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PINE BELT, Miss. (WDAM) – Business owners in downtown Laurel are excited for the events the spring weather brings.
Many opened their doors Tuesday to let in the fresh air and welcome locals and tourists to take a stroll into all that downtown have to offer.
For two years, the owners of Touch of Grace have been selling stylish women’s clothes on Magnolia Street. Just last month, they opened The Duck Blind – a brother store next door.
“We have a local guy that actually makes our turkey calls, and so we’re helping local businesses as well by advertising, you know, putting their product in our store,” says owner Joe Williamson.
He and his family are all about supporting local businesses this year. He gives credit to the HGTV show “Hometown” for making business flourish again in Laurel.
“’Hometown’ has actually helped out the economy here tremendously, you know. Before we weren’t even recognizable on a map, you know,” says Williamson.
Downtown construction has been a point of concern for lots of owners recently.
“Construction has hindered a lot and actually hurt a lot of businesses on Central Avenue. I like to tell everybody to go to Central Avenue, bear with the construction. But there’s a lot of good businesses as well for a lot of great stuff over there,” Williamson explains.
Just around the corner at Lee’s Coffee and Tea, manager Sarah Smith says January is one of the slowest months of the year.
“Can’t really control what numbers come in day-by-day but you can just be prepared and be uplifting and encouraging to local businesses and each other,” Smith explains.
The family-owned business is a downtown staple and has been for generations. Smith says the shop has a similar experience so far with the construction.
“We have fortunately not been too much hit by the construction. But we know our neighbors have. We encourage people the foot traffic that comes through here the tourism’s that we do have our locals, I always tell them, ‘Hey, you can walk down this path to get there,’” says Smith.
Just like Southern Antiques owner, Andrea Milham, they are all looking forward to a spring and summer full of fun downtown.
“We are super excited about everything that the spring and summer has to offer. We’re hoping to bring back our huge summer sale that we have done in the past. We stopped it for a couple of years due to COVID and those sorts of things because it does bring in a lot of traffic. But that is one of the things that we are going to be bringing back this year,” Milham explains.
Milham says despite the construction being a few doors down from her store, the support people are showing is incredible and very much appreciated.
“For the past three or four years Southern Antiques has seen record growth year over year, every single solitary year. For us to be doing improvements over those numbers has been a wonderful surprise for us, especially with the construction that’s going on downtown and all of the things that we’re having to overcome,” says Milham.
“The customers are still coming in. We’re still seeing visitors coming into Laurel and it’s been a wonderful season for us.”
Owners encourage people to spread their time across a visit to downtown.
“Since we’ve been here, the support has been not only local, but we get tourists coming in and seeing our products. We’ve actually, you know, we’ve grown a lot, and we plan on growing a lot more. So I thank everybody for their support,” says Williamson.
Some upcoming events in downtown Laurel include Trustmark’s Annual “Touch a Truck” on March 5, Laurel Mercantile’s Mississippi Made Event on March 12, “Wine Down Downtown” on March 25 and the Live in Laurel Spring Concert Series starting on March 26.
You can see more events in downtown Laurel on the community calendar here.
Copyright 2022 WDAM. All rights reserved.
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Supply chains, not government spending, caused inflation.
“Slaying the stimulus scare-bug” by DALL∙E 2
As the pandemic raged, governments had to find ways to keep their economies afloat. Lockdowns meant businesses would collapse as they didn't have customers, supplies, or workers. That is unless they got support. Countries had to spend big to support companies and households or face calamity.
But some economists and pundits opine that this stimulus caused inflation. They argue that more spending meant higher prices. They're wrong. Lockdowns and supply chain problems, not deficits, made prices rise. And treating a supply-side problem with a demand-side solution won't work.
According to International Monetary Fund data, countries targeted different types and levels of stimulus. Some countries focused on spending more and taxing less. Others supported liquidity with loans, guarantees and asset purchases. Combining those shows that rich countries did more stimulus as a percentage of GDP than poor ones. America, for example, spent an extra 28% of its GDP to support individuals and firms. Germany spent 43%. While Pakistan and Zambia only spent 2%.
If stimulus had caused inflation, the more a country spent, the higher its inflation would be. There should be a correlation. But, plotting each country's stimulus against inflation reveals no relationship. The result is the same regardless of whether you use 2021 or 2022's inflation data.
This dot plot may hide causality and omit other variables that cause both outcomes. But as the stimulus was discretionary, it measures the government's spending policies. Further, although this analysis is simple, it would be hard to argue a link between the two in the face of this.
So why is there no connection here? The answer lies in understanding the nature of inflation.
There are two types of inflation: demand-pull and cost-push. The first occurs when there is too much money—the government spends more than the economy's productive capacity can handle. While cost-push inflation happens when production costs rise, leading to price increases.
Cost-push inflation caused the recent price hikes we see. The pandemic disrupted global supply chains, which led to shortages and higher costs. That, in turn, drove prices up. Stimulus measures, like job-retention payments, supported spending. But they didn't cause the price jumps. During lockdowns, the global economy was underutilising labour and productive resources. That meant there was productive capacity waiting to come online when lockdowns finished.
Lawmakers are tackling the wrong problem. They want to hit demand by targeting a higher interest rate. But demand wasn't the problem. Supply was. Higher interest rates and less money don't create barrels of oil.
But the good news is that cost-push inflation is temporary. It tends to self-correct. Higher prices drive higher profits and more investment. This supply increase has already happened in some sectors like energy and materials. Prices there have come down as supply chains have expanded and stabilised.
By slaying the stimulus scare-bug, regulators put themselves in a better position to fix future inflation. We have the money to support the vulnerable without making prices spiral. But the longer we stick our heads in the sand, the worse.
"It's hard to beat the system when we're standing at a distance. So we keep waiting, waiting on the world to change." — John Mayer


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Chairing a jury at a festival such as Cannes Lions is quite a responsibility. But, as I discovered, it is also very exciting when you come across work that demonstrates quite how inventive our industry can be. Some of the campaigns that did well this year demonstrated how technology can be used to drive and unlock creativity in very inspiring ways.
The consultancy arranged to charge up 21 batteries in 21 different ways – including using the power from cheerleaders, a hamster and someone doing a workout – as a way of making electricity visible and starting a public conversation about the value of this energy source. They also made a machine with which to facilitate the battery charging.
We all loved it because it used technology in such an elegant, creative way to express a brand’s view of the world. Dentsu and Panasonic steered clear of the temptation to attempt to wow the audience with new technology just to look smart. Instead they took a unique approach, blending new and old tech in a way that felt meaningful and showed consistency across all formats.
More and more design consultancies are integrating data to create powerful, empathetic brand campaigns. In Panasonic, ING and Lockheed Martin’s cases, brands are incorporating tech to create visual design that delivers fully-connected experiences and establishes narratives that are grounded in powerful insight.
My prediction is that over the next two to three years we’ll see more tech weaving its way into traditional branding, creating completely new experiences that people can interact with and share with others. In particular, I think that we’ll be seeing increasing use of VR technologies as an insight tool to aid our creative teams.
We’ve heard a lot over the past few years about how tech is transforming media, but I think this is the start of a wave of tech-enriched creativity that is going to mark a sea-change in how we all work, artificial intelligence (AI) being a case in point.
AI has the potential to make us more efficient and effective at our jobs, integrating data into our creative planning. As Brian Eno observed at the festival, AI offers most when it is used to enrich human creativity.
Tech alone doesn’t deliver the goods. You need a great idea that has powerful human implications, to really strike creative gold. This year’s Cannes demonstrated the importance of using technology; not because we can, but because we should, in order to deliver meaningful difference.
Tristan Macherel is executive creative director at Landor Paris and was president of the design jury at this year’s Cannes Lions Festival, which took place in June.


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The MPAA says the closure of MegaUpload has been a success
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) sent a document to the Office of the Representative of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), describing the success that has meant the closure of MegaUpload, which would have disturbed the market massively file storage Internet.
The MPAA says that after the fall of megaupload and MegaVideo, several other sites that depended on it became useless. “When these two sites were removed, many sites that linked, configurators and custom streaming systems that depended on these websites for content became inoperative. Some sites were abandoned by their operators, others lost traffic, while others changed their business model, “said the document obtained by TorrentFreak.
The closure of MegaUpload also had an impact on other similar services, they closed. “For example, Wupload.com, who was on last year’s list of MPAA, disabled the ability to share files . Affiliate programs that pay for these services were also discontinued contained or eliminated “indicate.
Indeed, the closure of MegaUpload had a very strong impact from file sharing services, however, the document there is no analysis of the impact that these actions may have on legitimate businesses and innovations that could be made. Nor is there evidence that has benefited in terms of profits for the industry itself.
In a paper recently published and discussed by the MPAA is suggested that the closure of MegaUpload might have had a negative impact on the sale of movie tickets.
The industry representatives also praised the actions taken against Demonoid , which was confiscated in Ukraine.
The group, however, said there are still dangerous sites that pose a risk. Between The Pirate Bay elloas appear, SeriesYonkis, ExtraTorrent, isoHunt, Kat.ph, Rapidgator.net and elsewhere, which would promote the illegal distribution of Movies and series.
Will they be the next to be visited by the police? This month is expected to launch its own USTR summary of significant sites, including the recommendations of the MPAA and RIAA.
Link: MPAA: MegaUpload shutdown was massive success (TorrentFreak)Tags: Copyright, megaupload, Movies, MPAA, Piracy


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The Central Financial institution has for the first time aged its contemporary product intervention powers to ban the sale of binary alternatives and restrict the sale of contracts for distinction (CFDs).
Binary alternatives, which the Central Financial institution described as a “inaccurate product”, allow an investor to speculate on the non permanent sign movements of an asset.
The doable result is predetermined, with an investor generally shedding their preliminary funding if their prediction is unsuitable or receiving a mounted pay-out if they’re factual.
CFDs are complicated, leveraged, derivative instruments which allow merchants to speculate on the non permanent sign movements of an asset.
The trades could per chance also cease up in unlimited losses with diminutive capital required upfront.
Businessman Seán Quinn and his household constructed up a 28% stake in Anglo Irish Financial institution between 2006 and 2008 utilizing CFDs.
Mr Quinn mentioned his household misplaced €3.2 billion on its funding in Anglo Irish, which used to be nationalised in 2009 and place into liquidation four years later.
Right here is the first time that the Central Financial institution has aged its product intervention powers, introduced in 2018, which allow it to limit or restrict the sale of particular products.
It mentioned the interventions judge its “main concerns” concerning to the sale of CFDs and binary alternatives to retail merchants.
The Central Financial institution issued a warning in March 2018 to merchants on CFDs and binary alternatives.
EU study had published that between 74% and 87% of retail clients incurred losses when investing in binary alternatives.
On CFDs, a Central Financial institution inspection printed in 2015 came upon that 75% of retail CFD clients made a loss, of which the frequent loss used to be €6,900.
A phrase-up evaluate of a sample of the greatest CFD services in Eire in 2017 came upon that, within the two-yr length up to 31 December 2016, 74% of retail clients misplaced money with an moderate lack of €2,700.
Director Authentic (Financial Behavior) Derville Rowland mentioned utilizing the Central Financial institution’s contemporary nationwide product intervention powers demonstrates its persevering with dedication to behave decisively and robustly to handle investor security concerns.
“The Central Financial institution is banning the sale of binary alternatives to retail merchants as we protect in thoughts them a fundamentally inaccurate product, which have not got any situation within the funding plans of retail merchants,” Ms Rowland mentioned.
“They’re no more an funding than making a bet on a horse,” she mentioned.
Ms Rowland also mentioned the Central Financial institution has concluded that retail merchants ought to be protected against outrageous ranges of leverage, which is in a position to result in all sincere now excessive ranges of losses and from the probability of shedding more cash than they place into their CFD myth.
“We also prefer to quit corporations utilizing incentives to entice retail merchants to exchange in these immediate term, speculative products,” the central banker added.


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Hotels in India can benefit from the array of experiences the country offers, which is exactly what today’s travelers are looking for.
REPORT FROM INDIA—Experiential travel is growing rapidly in the industry, and it’s now beginning to take root in India, according to sources.
The biggest selling point remains India itself and its multifaceted diversity. Hotels are rolling out the red carpet for guests with experiences such as bungee jumping, swimming in the icy Pangong Lake in the Himalayas or biking across the Ladakh region in Kashmir.
Jose Ramapuram, executive director of Evolve Back, which operates three resorts in India, said he has noticed the increase in experiential travel in India, although he decries the lack of “quantitative data to back up my claim.”
“Today’s tourist is driven by a quest for new experiences. He is looking to enrich his life and broaden his horizons through meaningful travel. At the same time, he does not wish to adversely impact the destination with his presence,” Ramapuram added.
Steve Borgia, chairman and managing director of Indeco Hotels, which also operates three Indian properties, says he considers India as very much an experiential country allowing guests to be as adventurous or non-adventurous as they wish.
“There is something to experience at every nook and (cranny). Since the last decade, we have moved from experience to emotions. I have no problem whether the tourism is going up or going down or flopping or not flopping, we seem to be doing very well,” Borgia said.
India is a vibrant destination with something to offer for every traveler, and the hotel industry needs to integrate that message in sales strategies, and all the way through the journey, sources said.
Akanksha Maheshwari, director of destination marketing for India at Hilton, said this desire is being translated into consumers spending more on hotels.
“We have certainly seen an increase in Indians spending more of their disposable incomes on travel. In fact, recent industry studies indicate that the proportion of disposable income spent on tourism in India is at par with that of the developed markets of the United Kingdom, United States and Australia,” Maheshwari said, noting one report she had seen shows that spend to have increased from 7% of disposable income in 2013 to 11% in 2018.
That 2018 percentage is likely to rise, said Jaideep Dang, managing director of hotels and hospitality at business advisory JLL.
“While experiential travel constitutes a very small portion of tourism in India, there has been a clear growth in this segment, which can only be expected to increase further. India has an extensive offering ranging from culture and heritage (to) spiritual and wellness tourism to adventure and eco-tourism. There are limited reliable figures on the growth in this segment as it is partly driven by the informal tourism sector,” Dang said.
“The travel market (in general) is largely driven by domestic travelers. However, with increased marketing and the introduction of the electronic visa system there has been a rise in the number of international travelers. Domestic tourism constituted approximately 87% of total tourist expenditure in 2018, as per the World Travel & Tourism Council’s Economic Impact 2019,” Dang added.
One reason for the rise in experiential travel is millennials, fueled by social media, according to Maheshwari.
“By 2020, the average age in India will be 29 years, making us the youngest country. Consumer behavior shows that the millennials are tuned to doing things unique and different. … (and) with disposable incomes, they have sizeable spending power. It is not uncommon for them to travel by train or to select more ‘budget’ lodging and instead spend more on the unique experiences,” Maheshwari said.
Indeco’s Borgia said there is a requirement to approach the experiential trend with caution and care.
“We need to be responsible. (India is) a country that speaks 2,000 languages and writes in about 50. We are the only country that can sell emotion,” he said.
Borgia said Indeco has conserved three dilapidated villages as part of its asset in Swamimalai.
“We have redefined tourism and hospitality to cater to (experiential travel), and that is where India should go,” Borgia added.
The genre is not only open to those who have a month’s leisure at their disposal.
“We cater to bleisure experiences at our city hotels as well. If a guest has a few hours before catching a flight, we can curate an experience for them to get an insight into the local culture or cuisine of the destination. It could be sightseeing, shopping, musical shows or even street-food binging,” Maheshwari said.
“What we do is to soul-stir the tourist such that the guest does not want to leave. He is pampered from the time he sets foot in the resort. At Swamimalai resort, the tourist is transported to a different period or world. … (Our) Coorg (resort) is in a 300-acre working coffee plantation,” Borgia said.
Nature, wellness and organic produce all blend together in India’s experiential offer.
“I am confident that given Indian ingenuity and entrepreneurship, experiential tourism in India will get better and better, and it would not surprise me if we emerge as world leaders in this segment,” Evolve Back’s Ramapuram said.


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For most investors, there are two ways to make money in the stock market: share appreciation and dividends.
While over the long term most companies that consistently increase their dividends will likely see share price appreciation the same can not be said of the short term - where anything can happen. It is for this reason that for investors looking for consistent returns dividends paid by the right companies are the only game in town. Investors should also look for stocks with a history of increasing their dividend payments, which usually comes once a year. Those increases not only put more money in shareholders' pockets, but are also a sign of corporate strength and increasing cash flow, which can come in spite of a flat share price.
Let's take a look at three big-name consumer-facing companies that should be lifting their dividends this fall.
While McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) stock has floundered in recent months, but its dividend is looking as tasty as ever. The fast-food giant actually just last week announced a 5% increase in the quarterly payout to $0.85 from $0.81, a decision that comes even as the company is expecting operating income to decline this year. That decision signals marks the 38th year in a row that McDonald's has raised its dividend, putting in the exclusive club of "dividend aristocrats" -- companies that have raised their dividend at least 25 years in a row. Investors cheered the dividend increase, sending shares up 1.5% the following morning. With the higher payment, McDonald's now offers a 3.6% dividend yield, one of the best in the restaurant industry. However, 2014 will in all likelihood be the third year in a row that McDonald's dividend grew faster than its earnings per share, during which time its payout ratio has gone from 47% to 61%. That trend will not be sustainable for long, however, as above 80% is considered an unsustainable payout ratio. Going forward, either McDonald's will have to find a better way to grow earnings, or slow down its dividend increases. In recent years, the company has spent nearly all its free cash flow on dividends and share buybacks, and CEO Don Thompson has promised to return $18 to $20 billion to shareholders between 2014 and 2016.
The sneaker king has been no slouch when it comes to dividends either. Nike (NYSE:NKE) began paying dividends in 1984 and has raised the payouts every year for the last 11, all the way from $0.03 to $0.24 a quarter, while the stock jumped 500% during that time. Currently, the stock sports a 1.2% dividend yield, and after a 14% hike last November, another big jump may be in store. With just a 30% payout ratio based on net income, Nike has plenty of room to grow its dividend if it so chooses, and analysts are projecting a 14% increase in EPS in the current fiscal year so I would expect a hike of at least that much in Nike's dividend. Recently, the footwear-maker has been devoting the vast majority of its free cash flow to an $8 billion share buyback program, spending $2.2 billion on it last year. With its P/E ratio a reaching 27, however, the company may be better off returning that money directly to shareholders through dividends.
The coffee giant did not begin paying a dividend until 2010 as it's still growing at a significant pace, but there are plenty of reasons to expect its dividend yield to head north in the future. Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) offers a 1.3% yield and last lifted its dividend payout in October 2013, raising it 24% from $0.21 to $0.26 per quarter. Starbucks usually announces its dividend increase in its fourth quarter earnings report so you can expect the increase to come in next earnings report, due out in late October. The java-slinger has also performed well this year with strong same-store sales and expected EPS growth near 20%. With a relatively low payout ratio of 36%, I'd expect Starbucks to lift its payout by 20% or more once again this year. Considering the promising growth opportunities it has in China and through recent acquisitions, Starbucks' dividend could see several more of years of strong growth without eating into cash flow.
Two kinds of yield
Dividend growth is so important for investors because it makes the original investment that much more valuable. While we calculate dividend yield using the present stock price, investors should really think about in terms of the price they paid for the stock. As an example, let's use McDonald's stock. If you had bought the stock in January 2003, you would have paid just about $14 for it. With the annual dividend now it $3.40, you'd be making 24% annually off your annual investment, essentially a 24% dividend yield, and you would have already made back your original investment and then some. In other words, a good dividend will make it essentially free to buy stocks, paying you back the money from your initial investment over time. Now that's more than enough to reason to look forward to this fall's dividend hikes.
Jeremy Bowman owns shares of Nike. The Motley Fool recommends McDonald's, Nike, and Starbucks. The Motley Fool owns shares of Nike and Starbucks. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.


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For various reasons some very high-profile sites and services have been up and down over the last 24 hours. Find out what’s going on.
Remain Calm, All Is Well(ish)
The Twitterverse has been thrown into various spasms of panic in recent hours with various sites and services vanishing from the Web at different times. The basic details are:
Apple: The company store went down for an update, to much rumors of an iPhone 5 announcement (most likely pre-orders). When it came back up, there had been a redesign to make it more friendly to pick and buy the right iPad. With steps to choose the color, RAM and connectivity options, all made simpler. With nothing more dramatic than that, back to business.
Apple’s new store features making picking options easier
Microsoft: Microsoft has had trouble with some DNS resolution problems beyond its control, making MS services including the likes of Office 365, Azure, Hotmail and other cloud services vanish to users. Services seem to have been largely restored by around 4AM EST.
Microsoft’s services have been restored
Sony: Sony suffered due to the power problems affecting California down to Mexico with some game servers being knocked offline. Sony Online Entertainment is reporting that “The San Diego power outage could persist throughout the night affecting log-in servers, forums, and websites. We appreciate everyone’s patience as the City attempts to restore power.”
Using People Power
With millions lacking power in San Diego and other areas, many other services also seem to have been affected. Companies can use the break in service as a live test of their back-up, alternate service providers and disaster recovery procedures.
All this comes after Google Docs vanished the other day, and continues this year’s bad run of downtime. Let us know in the comments, if anything else is currently unavailable and we’ll add them to list of try and find out what the problem is.


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VIENNA (dpa-AFX) - Austria's producer prices declined at a slower pace in
June, figures from Statistics Austria showed Wednesday.
The producer price index index fell 0.6 percent year-on-year in June, slower
than May's 0.9 percent...
VIENNA (dpa-AFX) - Tourist overnights stays registered in the first six
months period in Austria dropped from a year ago, preliminary figures from
Statistics Austria showed Monday.
The number of overnight stays dropped 1.4 percent compared to the...
VIENNA (dpa-AFX) - Austria's production index that combines industry and
construction output dropped in May, figures from Statistics Austria showed
The production index declined a working-day adjusted 2.1 percent year-on-year in
SAN FRANCISCO (dpa-AFX) - Gap Inc. (GPS) said Monday that it will introduce
the Gap brand to Slovenia and Austria through agreements with new and existing
Magistrat International, a new partner, has been selected for the...
VIENNA (dpa-AFX) - Austria's consumer price inflation accelerated in June,
figures from Statistics Austria showed Thursday.
The consumer price index 1.9 percent year-on-year in June, faster than May's 1.8


text:
A significant proportion of the food and beverage sector is served by SMEs and local producers. If the industry is to transition towards net zero, these businesses need to be part of that journey. FoodNavigator catches up with Growing Green, a UK project...
Young Foodies, a community for small and medium-sized food brands, is launching a new direct-to-consumer sales channel, Mighty Small. It is hoped the innovation will help smaller brands who have seen their shelf space squeezed during the COVID-19 crisis.
Small and medium sized food brands who have benefited from the diversification of the grocery aisle in recent years are now feeling the squeeze as the unprecedented coronavirus crisis sweeps Europe – and the world.
European project REFRAME, which aims to support the development of rural SMEs, has been granted an extra year of funding. According to the project’s coordinator, small rural businesses are “uniquely positioned” to meet changing consumer preferences.


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Rethinking foot traffic
Urban planners tend to applaud when pedestrians replace cars (something NYC is now considering for Times Square.) But officials in Boston are now considering the ...
Urban planners tend to applaud when pedestrians replace cars (something NYC is now considering for Times Square.)
But officials in Boston are now considering the opposite course of action: They want to take the troubled Downtown Crossing pedestrian shopping mall and turn it back into a street.
Exhibit 1 for the argument that cars on the street will bring pedestrians back is Chicago's State Street. From the Boston Globe:
The historic downtown shopping destination, once anchored by classic department stores like Marshall Field and Goldblatt's, was dirty, dangerous, and down on its knees. The city had blocked off traffic on the street, turning it into a pedestrian mall in hopes of competing with suburban malls.
But instead of enlivening the street, the mall isolated it from the rest of downtown. Businesses closed, shoppers fled, pigeons and trash proliferated, and the street emptied into a wasteland at night. Like their counterparts in Boston, Chicago officials dispatched fruit vendors, hoping they would bring back shoppers. They didn't.
Under mounting pressure from business owners, the city made a fateful decision in 1996. Like hundreds of cities across the country, it decided to rip up its pedestrian mall and reconnect State Street to downtown.These days, State Street is at the heart of a downtown renaissance.
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Monster Hunter Rise, the sixth mainline entry in Capcom’s creature-slaying action RPG, is now broken on Steam Deck. It seems that, right after the company replaced its old digital rights management (DRM) software with a new one, the game just wouldn’t boot up anymore. That sucks, but Capcom is investigating the issue.
DRM is quite controversial within the PC gaming space. Basically, it’s used to stamp out piracy and other illegal means of getting your hands on copyrighted works. In practice, though, DRM tends to counterattack whatever software a game runs on like positive and negative charges repelling each other. This is what happened with Resident Evil Revelations, as Capcom recently added DRM to the 2012 game which reportedly caused tons of performance issues, prompting the studio to immediately roll that back as the game was review bombed.
Now, the same thing has happened to Monster Hunter Rise. In a Steam update that dropped on January 22, Capcom said that “some system data will be updated.” While the company didn’t clarify what this meant, VGC reported (via modder FluffyQuack) that the company replaced Monster Hunter Rise’s Denuvo DRM tech with Enigma Protector DRM, the same software that broke Revelations.
As X/Twitter user _flowerworks_ demonstrates in the above video, Monster Hunter Rise just doesn’t start on Steam Deck anymore. Other folks in the official subreddit have also posted about the game being unplayable now that Capcom has replaced Denuvo with Enigma Protector.
Capcom is aware that Monster Hunter Rise is broken now, posting on the game’s Steam store page that the development team is “investigating” the issue.
“There have been reports of the game not running on Steam Deck after updating to Ver.126.96.36.199,” Capcom said. “The team is currently investigating this issue. We will let you know as soon as we find out more, so please hold on for further information.”
Kotaku reached out to Capcom for comment.
This is a bummer, but it shouldn’t be too surprising. In October 2023, Capcom said during an R&D presentation that game mods are the same as cheating. Since DRM doesn’t just curb illegal acquisition but also game tampering, and given that mods mess with a game’s files, of course the company would do whatever it can to stop folks from tinkering with Capcom games by any means necessary. That doesn’t make it OK, especially if the software breaks a game.


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Quick Note: T-Mobile to Begin Selling Apple Devices Next Year
December 6, 2012 2:32 PM
comment(s) - last by
All of America's "Big Four" wireless carriers will now have access to the iPhone
Late last month, T-Mobile USA tried to
throw some water on rumors
that it would finally be gaining access to Apple iPhone. The company's COO, Jim Alling, stated, "Make no mistake about it: We would love to carry the iPhone. However, we want the economies to be right for us."
Well, something must have happened in the past few weeks to make the financial details gel for T-Mobile USA and Apple. Today, T-Mobile USA parent company Deutsche Telekom announced in a press release that the wireless carrier will become the last of America's "Big Four" to gain access to Apple devices. In the long press release, there was just this one sentence:
In addition, T-Mobile USA has entered into an agreement with Apple to bring products to market together in 2013.
We can only assume that the family of iPhone smartphones and cellular iPad/iPad mini tablets will be making their way to T-Mobile USA's network.
Deutsche Telekom announced in early October that it would
merge with MetroPCS in order to strengthen its fortunes in the United States
. The combined company will have roughly 42 million customers, putting it within striking distance of third place Sprint with 52 million customers.
This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RE: Better late than never
12/7/2012 3:48:44 PM
Jesus, the haters never learn do they? You were out in fall force claiming T-Mo would never "cave in" to Apple, and now that you see T-Mo selling iPhones you insist that this is some ju-jitsu on T-Mo's part, whereby Apple give them great prices.
The nature of the deal is no secret. T-Mo is doing this by going off-contract. They WILL NOT bundle the cost of the phone (as far as I can tell, ALL phones, not just iPhone) with your contract. Instead, like the rest of the world, you will buy (or bring) a phone, and SEPARATELY you will buy a phone contract.
This is, IMHO, a clear win for Apple. They now get a US market which can serve both people who are happy with the subsidized contract scheme and people who want the price of their phone to be decouple from their contract.
It's not as clear if it's a win for T-Mo. Carriers get fat off the excess money they take in once your contract is over, and they will be giving up that cash. In the world of iPhones, that cash isn't much because (at least so far) most iPhone users have been pretty aggressive about updating as soon as their contracts hit two years; but for other phones updating has been less aggressive.
Personally I'd love to see T-Mo successful in this, so that all carriers adopt the model, but who knows?
"A politician stumbles over himself... Then they pick it out. They edit it. He runs the clip, and then he makes a funny face, and the whole audience has a Pavlovian response." -- Joe Scarborough on John Stewart over Jim Cramer
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The anti-austerity protest which is getting under way on 20th June, is not just a politically motivated objection to a policy of the governing Party. It is a protest with deep foundations in both theory and common sense.
For successive governments GDP growth has been the holy-grail. Despite misgivings over its validity (https://gordonpearson.co.uk/2015/02/19/the-great-gdp-deception/#more-1278), it is accepted that balancing a budget with a growing GDP is a whole lot easier than doing so in recession. But imposing austerity on the economy only stifles GDP growth. So why do governments of both main Parties – assuming Labour takes the suicidal Blairite route – accept austerity as the necessary medicine for our economic ills?
The economy is a complex of many different sectors, public and private, that relate to each other in all sorts of different ways, and it is continually on the move with some sectors growing and some shrinking, some dying off altogether and new ones emerging. That dynamic is the result of millions of people striving to make progress. Politicians don’t control the economy; the best they can aim for is to do the people no harm.
In 1911, Irving Fisher came up with an equation which defined the economy in terms of money: MV=PT where M is the amount of money, V the velocity of its circulation, P prices and T the number of transactions. Like most equations in economics it was obviously unmeasurable in the real world, but was nevertheless much quoted in support of policies which achieved little of value.
The MV quantity did, however, provide some insight. Injecting an additional £100 into an economy will not have any economic impact if its recipient just sticks it under their matress, ie velocity of circulation zero. If, on the other hand, it is spent on real goods and services it will have an impact, growing the economy by £100. If it is spent again by those who received it first, it will have a double impact. In that way, the £100 injected could be re-spent, say, every month, thereby having the economic effect of £1200 over the year. The velocity of circulation is clearly important in determining GDP growth.
As a proxy for GDP, the MV measure suggests two possible ways of increasing economic activity: increasing the amount of money in the economy or increasing its velocity of circulation.
Friedman was the lead economist associated with the misuse and policy failure of the quantity theory of money. Even he acknowledged, late in his life, that its results were ‘disappointing’. Nevertheless, post 2008, politicians have persisted with repeated rounds of quantitative easing (QE), money paid to the banks in the professed hope they would invest it in the real economy. QE in the UK has so far totalled an eye-popping (to quote the Financial Times) £375 billion. The banks have used the money to rebuild their balance sheets, placing the funds in the care of professional traders and fund managers.
The reason why QE has failed to impact the real economy has been reported many times over, including on this blog (eg https://gordonpearson.co.uk/2011/08/08/pushing-the-economy-with-aaa-rated-string/#more-946). J K Galbraith referred to it as ‘trying to push the economy with a piece of string.
Prior to the 1986 ‘big bang’ stock market computerisation and financial sector deregulation, money was mostly invested in real economy enterprises, in the absence of more lucrative alternatives, with the result that real jobs were created and the whole economy gained. Since 1986, a virtual economy has grown up which is drawing investment away from the real economy of manufacture and non-financial services, to betting on deliberately opaque composite securities. According to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, that virtual market is now worth many times the world’s investment in stocks and shares of real firms.
Instead of increasing the quantity of money by QE, common sense suggests increasing its velocity of circulation would be more effective. To make sure that injections to the economy circulated fast they would need to be made available to those who would spend them quickest. That would, of course, be those in greatest need, who wouldn’t have any option but to spend immediately. That would seem to maximise the economic impact of the injection.
The policy of austerity has exactly the opposite effect on GDP growth, reducing the spending power of those who would spend fastest. The combination of austerity with QE, multiplies the adverse impact, ensuring growth is focused on the virtual economy where investment is for speculative gain.
That is where the application of Friedman’s theory inevitably leads. The common sense response was provided more than eight decades ago by Roosevelt’s New Deal which invested directly in the real economy to provide employment among those who would spend fastest and therefore stimulate the economy most. That was before the publication of Keynes’ General Theory which provided an explanation of why it worked so well.
But that’s where economics being politics comes in. There are so many layers of political loyalties which cling to fragile economic theory for their justification. It surely isn’t the Osborne-Cameron aim to screw the poor for the benefit of the rich. But that is their effect. If they were to apply common sense to the situation, rather than clinging to a half-baked economic theory, they would pursue the Roosevelt line and invest to create jobs. There are no lack of investment opportunities for governments prepared to think beyond the next quarter’s results. The world is not just demanding, but screaming out for, the development of new sustainable technologies which, as of today, only the Green Party is fighting for.