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Autocare Sydney 2018 Wrap Up
- May 15, 2018
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ASV Euro Car Parts were delighted to be part of Autocare 2018, held at Sydney International Convention Centre in May. Hosted by the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association (AAAA), Autocare 2018 was a two-day National Convention for aftermarket parts, service and repair professionals and is an exciting addition to the automotive industry event landscape.
Sharing our stand with our official Autocare partner, Brembo Brakes, our stand was a hive of activity from the moment the doors opened on the Friday morning.
As always, our Puncture Free tyres ASV Pfree were a star attraction as we gave passers by the and opportunity to drill screws directly into the tyres and witness for themselves that the tyres lose no pressure, even after the screw is removed.
The event was a great opportunity to meet with many of our existing suppliers and customers. We also welcomed the chance to meet with many new faces and talk about what 2018 has in stall for the aftermarket industry.
Here are a few of the photographs of our CEO and leadership team, as well as some of our sales and customer service team from our New, Used and and Pfree tyres:


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The Solar Cannabis Company, a vertically-integrated cannabis operator based in Massachusetts, adheres not only to strict state regulations on energy use, but also aims to meet its own, more aggressive efficiency goals, which CEO Edward Dow says his company has achieved using light-emitting diode (LED) technology at its flagship facility in Somerset.
“Choosing the LEDs and, in my case, Fluence, was critical to the overall design of my whole facility,” Dow says. “All the other equipment was HVAC-related equipment that was able to be sized smaller and more efficiently. There was really a trickle-down effect throughout the whole facility that was a direct result of choosing LEDs as my light source.”
Massachusetts law requires cannabis cultivators to use no more than 36 kilowatts per square foot of canopy space, which Dow says would be difficult to achieve with high pressure sodium (HPS) lighting, unless cultivators compensated with solar power, for example, to offset their energy use.
Choosing LED lighting during the buildout of its facility was the first step for Solar Cannabis Company to comply with Massachusetts’ strict energy regulations, Dow says. The company now grows three vertical tiers of plants in four operational grow rooms with roughly 200 lights per room.
“It’s almost half the power you’d use for HPS with a much more focused light,” he says, adding that a traditional HPS light uses roughly 1,000 watts whereas an LED fixture uses about 625 watts. While that isn’t quite half of the energy load, Dow says that when Solar Cannabis Company factored in the lower cooling requirements needed for the facility, the team was able to cut its power needs roughly in half with proper design.
“[Using LEDs] was step one, and then that helps to reduce your overall heat load, your electrical profile [and] all your HVAC equipment,” he says. “For us, it started with choosing LEDs and then trickled [down] through the rest of the facility design.”
Beyond complying with the state’s energy rules, Dow ultimately wants Solar Cannabis Company to be carbon-neutral. The company strives to have 50% less emissions than comparably sized operations, he says, adding that his team has “significantly surpassed” this goal.
“We’re hoping by next year, with the use of our combined heat and power units . . . to offset 75% [or more] of our emissions,” Dow says. “We are really excited about it and we’re taking every angle we can to cross into that energy profile and CO2 production.”
Solar Cannabis Company is currently exploring large-scale batteries to capture and use more solar energy on-site, as well as new and more efficient solar panels.
“In the near future we would like to keep more of our solar ‘behind the meter’ by utilizing large battery arrays,” Dow says. “For this to happen, batteries will need to become more attainable and proven reliable for continued, mission-critical operations. Since Solar [Cannabis Company] has no real electric grid backup power (only 500 amps), we always need to balance the decisions we make with our microgrid.”
Dow says the company also aims to modify its chilled water system to utilize the additional waste heat from its combined heat and power (CHP) units, or cogeneration units, by using an absorption chiller, which would further reduce the facility’s energy needs. CHPs are able to generate power on-site via natural gas. By eliminating typical transmission line loss from a traditional power plant, Dow says, Solar Cannabis Company can save over 20% of the power that is lost before the end user.
Heat can also be recaptured from the CHP units and used directly in Solar Cannabis Company’s grow operation, he adds, which further offsets the facility’s energy consumption by eliminating the use of added boilers.
“There are also other less-obvious optimizations we are continually implementing throughout the facility in order to stabilize our overall load profile,” Dow states. “We try to utilize best practices wherever possible, from water recycling to packaging, and [we] try to keep our team focused on operating efficiently and sustainably.”
Solar Cannabis Company uses Fluence by OSRAM LED fixtures throughout its whole facility. The company’s initial order was for roughly 1,200 lights, Dow says, adding that the team did its due diligence before purchasing the LEDs.
Dow originally wanted ceramic metal halide (CMH) lights for the facility, with plans to retrofit with LEDs when his business was financially ready to do so.
“However, when you really looked at what that entailed for the design of the whole facility and the upsize of the HVAC and all the other equipment costs that go along with that, not to mention the energy profile that goes with those cheaper lights, then LED became the real clear winner, provided you could trust the LED manufacturer,” Dow says.
After almost making a deal with another LED manufacturer that has since gone out of business, Dow partnered with Fluence and received about $400,000 in rebates from his utility company when purchasing the fixtures.
Dow says Fluence’s experts helped the team adjust its environmental parameters to accommodate the LEDs after they were installed, and they have also been available for troubleshooting if any issues arise.
In addition to the energy savings associated with the LED fixtures, Dow says his team has also seen increased yields.
“From the first harvest, we were expecting a really tough sort of learning curve, and actually, [Fluence] definitely helped us with some environmental parameters right when we first started,” Dow says. “You’re feeding these [plants] with such intense lights that you also need to have the fertigation or the nutrients to match. Fluence certainly helped us dial that in from early on. So, right out of the gate, we were expecting a ramping up curve to figure out how to use these lights, but we had a really successful first harvest. I want to say we might not yet have hit 2 pounds per light—we might not have been there yet—but we were certainly inching up that way. Now, we have significantly increased the yields we’re getting out of these lights.”
Dow adds that any apprehensive growers who are considering LEDs should know that there is research to support their efficiency in cannabis production.
“Whereas it was a really scary thing to do five years ago, the science is there, the engineers are in the space and there’s a number of really reputable LED companies out there that are producing a top-rate product that can compete with high pressure sodiums any day of the week,” he says. “The science is there. … It’s the environmentally conscious thing to do, and there’s no downside for crop yields.”

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The Ministry of commerce is hosting a fruit festival to boost the sales of tropical fruit and geographical indication (GI) products.
Presiding over the opening of “Thailand Amazing Durian and Fruit Fest” at CentralWorld, Commerce Minister Sonthirat Sonthijirawong said the current administration has a policy to turn Thailand into the world’s leading tropical fruit provider.
It’s hoped the event will trigger the increased sale of Thai fruit domestically and internationally.
This year, prices of durian have risen by 20-30 baht, partly due to the ministry’s quality control policy.
Thai durians have been selling well on thaitrade.com and tmall.com operated by the Alibaba Group.
Minister Sonthirat said Thailand is expected to produce no less than 765,000 tons of durians, which should be enough to meet the demand in the global market.
Thailand’s Amazing Durian and Fruit Fest will come to a close on Wednesday, May 23rd. Visitors can expect to find a wide array of fruit, processed fruit products, and GI products.
The highlight of the event is the 459-baht durian buffet, indulging visitors who love the world’s smelliest fruit.


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St. Louis will host what tourism officials are calling the "Super Bowl of conventions" this summer in what could eventually generate up to $186.5 million in economic benefits for the city.
The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) will host its annual meeting Aug. 6-9 at America's Center downtown. This is a big deal, said Brian Hall, chief marketing officer for the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission, because more than 5,000 association executives, exhibitors and suppliers will visit St. Louis, and if they are impressed with what they find, about one in five meeting planners are expected to book their associations' meetings here, too.
"This is our coming out on a national stage," Hall said. "This really is our opportunity to rise and shine in their eyes."
Associations are in the business of holding meetings. Based on where ASAE has held its annual meetings in the past, 20 percent of the meetings' delegates book that host city for a meeting or event in the next five years, Hall said. That could translate into an economic impact of $186.5 million for St. Louis, he said.
“Member associations dominate this $102 billion meetings industry, spending more than $60 billion annually to hold meetings and conventions," said Kitty Ratcliffe, president of the St. Louis CVC. "ASAE is a great opportunity for us and our many partners to showcase St. Louis as a super region for future meetings and conventions.”
According to ASAE figures, delegates will spend an estimated $5.7 million in the St. Louis region during their stay. Participants will include CEOs and representatives from most major airlines, hotel brands, and convention and visitors bureaus.
The St. Louis Society of Association Executives said more than 900 associations are based in St. Louis, including Optimists International, American Soybean Association, American Optometric Association, the American Association of Orthodontists, National Association of Electrical Distributors and Electrical Apparatus Service Association.
St. Louis last hosted an ASAE meeting in 1979. The past two years it was held in Toronto and Los Angeles.
At this year's event in St. Louis, attendees will be invited to bake dog treats for animals found through Randy Grim's Stray Rescue.
Next summer, Meeting Professionals International, which book events for corporations, also plans to host its annual meeting in St. Louis.


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Former AOL Chief Executive Jonathan F. Miller and former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn have joined together to start an Internet company, according to people close to the situation.
General Atlantic LLC, a private-equity firm, has committed to back Messrs. Levinsohn and Miller's investments in Internet start-ups, these people say. General Atlantic in a statement said the two men had agreed to become advisers to the private-equity firm and declined further comment.
The new entity, called Velocity Investment Group, is already actively scouting for acquisitions and has signed letters of intent with a few consumer-oriented Internet companies. Velocity aims to purchase start-ups in related content areas and boost their online ad revenue by selling across multiple properties. Velocity is also considering buying out companies that broker ads for other Web sites. It is being advised by the investment bank Allen & Co.
It could prove a difficult time to be buying Internet companies. Valuations of even tiny ones can be extremely high, and competition for hot properties is intense. However, the two executives hope that their backgrounds will help them attract entrepreneurs.
Mr. Miller was chief executive of Time Warner Inc.'s AOL division from 2002 to 2006, where he led the company's transition from a dial-up Internet service to a Web-based portal. Mr. Levinsohn formed News Corp.'s Internet division in 2005 and spearheaded the purchase of the social networking Web site MySpace.com. Levinsohn left News Corp. in late 2006.
The two executives are considering buying Internet companies in several niches, including online video, according to people close to the situation. The idea would be to buy up several companies in a related area, then possibly spin off the consolidated entity into a public offering or a sale.


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The world is in business again after COVID-19 closed stores, factories, and offices. People stayed home, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth started circling the toilet. But Gross Domestic Product growth is in full swing again. According to the Federal Reserve Board, GPD growth in 2021 could hit 10%. That’s an incredible turnaround since GDP growth in the second quarter of 2020 was waist-deep in negative territory.
Executives in all segments of the economy use intelligence of some kind to identify what they have to do to increase their revenue stream after the vaccines surfaced. The main issues businesses faced are pinpointing market penetration and analyzing their market opportunities after COVID changed the way consumers buy products and services.
Market Intelligence Helps Executives Understand The Condition of Their Market
The question on the minds of some executives is the effectiveness of its post-pandemic marketing campaign. Consumers turned to the Internet during the pandemic because of the uncertainty in all sectors of the economy.
Executives had to reassess marketing strategies, and they had to collect new competitor intelligence to determine where they fit in a post-pandemic economy. Data collecting methods that produce intelligence vary depending on the social media analytics used, according to NetBaseQuid executives. NetBaseQuid’s social media tools help companies like Coco-Cola and American Airlines with their marketing information needs.
Effective Marketing Intelligence helps executives identify market penetration as well as understand the new market metrics that developed because of the virus. Finding the right post-pandemic opportunities is also part of a successful intelligence platform. An effective intelligence platform includes competitor, product, and market information.
Market research is the old name for market intelligence. The information executives depend on includes market changes, competitive research, and new product development information.
There Are Three Key Ingredients In Market Intelligence
Knowing where a business stands in its industry is another key element in increasing revenue growth after the pandemic. Market share is the measuring stick for consumer participation and acceptance of products and services, as well as the trends that developed during and after the virus, did its dirty work.
The basic data collection methods still play a role in giving businesses the information they need to maintain as well as increase market share. Businesses need competitor product development information. And all businesses need consumer feedback, according to NetBaseQuid.
NetBaseQuid’s Name Comes Up A Lot In Market Intelligence Meetings
When businesses need marketing information of any kind, they find out how the corporate giants get their intelligence. The New York Times, American Airlines, Coca-Cola, and United Airlines use NetBaseQuid’s Artificial Intelligence platform. That platform is able to find out what consumers think about products and services offered by those companies.
The voice of a key opinion leader is another tool in NetBaseQuid’s intelligence platform. That platform also AI has in its bag of tech tricks. The big auto companies are in market and competitor intelligence mode, thanks to Elon Musk. Musk introduced the world to Tesla, his electric-powered vehicle company.
Musk is a key opinion leader in several industries. And he is also an influencer in some financial markets. Musk needs intelligence of all kinds in order to stay number one in space travel, electric vehicle manufacturing, and tunnel drilling.
Mr. Musk and other key opinion leaders play a role in market intelligence. They usually have connections that produce pertinent intelligence in product and service development, marketing, operations, and social media acceptance.


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CMO Amber Lippiett said AML impressed with “a real understanding of the sector and the wider opportunities that are untapped in the financial services market. We were looking for a partner that could be a real driving force to get the business launched. AML demonstrated a real ability to deliver simple but effective ideas.”
EXO Investing goes live this week following an intensive research and development programme led by CEO Lennart Asshoff. Described as a ‘breakthrough for private investors’ the platform creates unique, bespoke investment portfolios using market-leading tools, which are then managed on a daily basis.
It’s the kind of service previously only available to ultra high net worth investors, but at an affordable cost. A multi-channel launch campaign using digital, outdoor, press and social will follow next month. The firm is backed by Madrid-based AI firm ETS.
AML MD Tim Lloyd said, “This is precisely the kind of innovative, tech-led thinking we like at AML. EXO will simplify and democratise a complicated and exclusive market – and it’s a great chance to do some equally innovative communications.”


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Fadi Moubarak VP Channels at Avaya International, has disclosed how their cloud portfolio has evolved over the last few years – and is enabling their customers to transform their business processes.
Ahmad Dorra, Customer Experience Solutions, Sales Leader Middle East, Africa & Turkey at Avaya International, discusses their new solutions and products at GITEX 2022 in an interview with tahawultech.com.
Veronica Martin caught up with Mario M. Veljovic, General Manager at VAD Technologies to discuss GITEX 2022 and the company’s …
Maxim Beloenko, Sales Global VP at Qrator Labs, said the company was showcasing their cloud solutions that are designed for network security at GITEX 2022.
Danish Siddiqui, Assistant Vice President of Digital Banking at Raqmiyat, has declared that the company wants to position itself as the ‘point of contact’ for every bank seeking digital banking solutions in the future.
Manish Bakshi, Managing Director at BenQ, has revealed that the company has enjoyed a brilliant 12 months, and as a result have expanded their presence across the Middle East.
Ajay Nawani, Director of Sales Engineering at Sophos, told tahawultech.com that the company is on a mission to simplify security for its customers and end-users.
Maya Zakhour, Channel Sales Director, MEA at NetApp, has said that they are using GITEX 2022 as a platform to reinforce their key alliances in the cloud as part of their efforts to empower their end-users on their cloud journey.
Shane Grennan, Channel Director, Middle East at Fortinet, outlines the changes and updates the company has made to their partner program.
Charbel Zreiby, Director Channel Presales at Dell Technologies UAE, told tahawultech.com about its impressive work transformation product portfolio, its growth strategy – and the key technologies driving its success and future innovation roadmap.
Dion Smith, Head of Channels EMEA at Zoom, discusses the new products and solutions Zoom has showcased during GITEX 2022 in an interview with tahawultech.com
Ben McDonald, Senior Marketing Director, Middle East at Dell Technologies, outlines the future technologies they are showcasing at GITEX, their commitment to help its clients thrive in the new normal – and the evolution of marketing over the last few years.
Mohammed Sharif, Regional Sales Manager – Video Collaboration, KSA at Logitech on how the company is helping to bridge the …
Mohammed Abu Okdeh, Country Manager, KSA & Bahrain at StarLink, on why the company continues to be respected in the market as a trusted Value-Added Distributor specialised in cybersecurity, data centre and the cloud.


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FedEx CEO Fred Smith said his company was ready for Christmas 2021, forecasting an additional 100 million shipments this holiday season compared to 2019 despite the global supply chain crisis, provided it can hire the number of employees needed to handle the volume.
Smith appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday and said FedEx was prepared to deal with the significant increase in shipments by leveraging e-commerce and investing billions of dollars, including modernizing its fleet. air to use less energy and emit less carbon. dioxide.
BIDEN ADMIN WORKS TO “TAKE OFF THE PORTS”, IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE INDUSTRY TO “INCENTIVATE” THE PRODUCTION OF CHIPS IN THE UNITED STATES: RAIMONDO
“We’re ready, assuming we can recruit the employees,” the CEO said.
|FDX||FEDEX CORP.||242,77||-2.24||-0,91 %|
Smith said the staff shortage was due in part to the Delta variant of COVID-19 and the increase in unemployment benefits. Despite the lack of employees, Smith said FedEx processes about 90,000 job applications and hires thousands of people.
He remained convinced that increasing hiring would help the delivery side of the supply chain succeed this holiday season.
Smith also spoke briefly about the bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed Friday evening, saying supply chain problems were the result of a lack of investment in infrastructure and a need for improvement. logistics systems.
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“This is a step in the right direction,” he said of the bill.
While FedEx has added a fuel surcharge to some shipments, Smith believes prices will start to drop by the middle of next year, adding that the more important issue was to free up the supply chain.
“We think inflation will, in the middle of 22, start to come down a bit,” he said. “But the key is to unblock supply chains. “


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The supermarket chain was accused of racism after labelling its dark chocolate ducks 'ugly' on packaging.
Journalist Andre Walker has said that Waitrose knew their Magazine Editor was joking in an email where he said there should be “a series on killing vegans”, but the supermarket is “too afraid of twitter trolls”.
William Sitwell has stepped down as editor of Waitrose Food magazine after coming under fire for joking about "killing vegans" in an email.
The editor of Waitrose Food magazine, William Sitwell, has come under fire after an email surfaced in which he joked about "killing vegans".
The group, which is hosting a strategy day, said it does not expect to make a half-year profit, while profits for the full year will come in "substantially" lower than last year.
Andrew Joret spoke to Paul Ross and Carole Malone about the egg contamination scare, after produce from the Netherlands was found to be tainted with a pesticide.
A number of eggs from the Netherlands are thought to be contaminated with the insecticide Fibronil
Julia Hartley-Brewer tells former Labour advisor Kevin Meagher that no one is allowed to criticise Waitrose on her show, whilst they chat about Emily Thornberry's comments
A survey by Lloyds Bank has revealed that having a supermarket close to your house can put thousands on the asking price. But which store makes the biggest difference?


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Showing 129 results for: Practical Traveler?query=AUTOMOBILE RENTING AND LEASING
Paying Less for That Rental Car
HITTING the road this summer? Better get booking. As the busy summer car-rental season begins, prices are expected to climb. ''In early June through the end of August, these rates will spike,'' said Neil Abrams, president of Abrams Consulting Group, which tracks the car rental industry. Last July, for example, the average rate for a weekly airport rental of a compact car booked seven days ahead was $369.62, or 56 percent more than the $236.73 charged in March, according to the Abrams Travel Data Index. Here are some tips to keep costs down.


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To combat the COVID-19 crisis in India, central government has launched a mobile app to help citizens be aware of their surroundings. This app will let users know if they have been close to any person affected by COVID-19.
The Ministry of Electronics and IT has created the app and named it as Corona Kavach. The app is currently in the beta testing phase for both Android and iOS smartphones. A select group of Android users have access to the app from Google Play store while to get the download, iOS users have to share their device IDs with the National Informatics Centre.
The functionality of the app is dependent on the Bluetooth and location of a device. The app will track down if a person has come closer to any known person infected with COVID-19. Probably, by matching the location with the database of patient records from official statistics. The travel history of a person may also be taken into account for an improved result. The app will not reveal the name and identity of the corona+ patient, though. The app will notify users as soon as they enter an area with a high number of coronavirus cases.
ALSO READ: Reliance Jio Launches Symptom Checker Tool for COVID-19
The Corona Kavach app Features Include:
- Monitoring the spread of coronavirus through the user’s location,
- Alerting the users when they come closer to an infected person, and
- Sending notifications if a user is in close contact with COVID-19
It is also expected that the government will use this platform in spreading awareness regarding the coronavirus pandemic with basic do’s and don’ts and even help track patients who have been quarantined.
Earlier, the Indian Government announced a 21-days complete lockdown of the country to avoid the spread of coronavirus. The state governments are working tirelessly to help citizens access daily essentials like groceries and medicines during the lockdown.


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Is business at an inflection point? The economy continues to wring its way through a major, pain-inducing shift, and organizations are emerging from the other side of the recent downturn looking very different than before they went in. There's a greater reliance on information technology, more global approaches to problem solving, and a greater willingness to try more unconventional ways to innovate.
Here are 10 disruptive forces that stand out as game-changers for the year ahead:
1) Analytics. Analytics is seen as the competitive differentiator — perhaps the only competitive differentiator — between companies competing in the new global realm. A global survey of 4,500 executives, managers and analysts, released earlier this year by MIT Sloan Management Review and the IBM Institute for Business Value, finds the information ‘haves’ — companies with in-depth experience with analytics technologies and methodologies — increasingly saw competitive advantage, and were more than twice as likely to have outperformed their analytically challenged peers over the past year. (Full report available from MIT SMR or IBM.) Overall. adoption of analytic capabilities has been rapidly proliferating as of late. Fifty-eight percent of organizations now apply analytics to create a competitive advantage within their markets or industries, up from 37% just one year ago, the study confirms.
2) Watsons. Earlier in 2011, IBM's Watson defeated two reigning Jeopardy! champions, demonstrating that artificial intelligence has matured to a point where it can address queries in areas relating to business intelligence, medicine, engineering, and more. Expect to see more systems capable of responding to natural-language queries supporting decision-making across a variety of disciplines and industry areas.
3) Do-it-yourselfers. The New York Times' Tom Friedman described it as the emerging DIY economy, made possible through "the mass diffusion of low-cost, high-powered innovation technologies -- from hand-held computers to Web sites that offer any imaginable service -- plus cheap connectivity. They are transforming how business is done." It's all about self-service, and the ability to start, fund and staff businesses through online resources. The barriers to entry have fallen dramatically, and expect to see a boom in startups with very low capital requirements. This may offer a partial explanation as to why the actual size of the workforce has remained flat over the past decade (declining 1.1%), while corporate profits, GDP and productivity have risen.
4) Cloud. Computing power is almost becoming "too cheap to meter" -- thanks to the cloud, massive data center power is available for literally pennies. This is a good value proposition for companies looking to expand or needing to expand their IT capabilities. Cisco's latest Global Cloud Index, finds that organization’s data centers will be moving to the cloud in a big way. This also good news for economic growth. Thanks to the availability of powerful and low-cost on-demand technologies, innovators now have access to computing and information resources unheard of even a few years ago. There was a time when launching a serious startup required serious capital for hiring talent, marketing and promotion, office space, and for technology to make it all happen. Thanks to cloud computing and social networking resources, it now costs virtually pennies to secure and get the infrastructure needed up and running to get a new venture off the ground.
5) Crowdsourcers. Talk about outside-the-walls innovation. Many organizations will increasingly be turning to online resources for new ideas or to solve tough business problems. From digitizing library collections to prediction markets, online resources and collective talent will be brought to bear on many areas. One example is prediction markets -- there are external markets, but organizations will be increasing applying their own internal markets to help drive decision making. Internally, organizations may have thousands of employees and petabytes worth of information -- prediction markets and crowdsourced competitions may help capture that knowledge efficiently.
6) Smartphones. Smartphones will continue disrupting just about everything that moves. A entire new delivery channel has emerged for the delivery of data and services to consumers and partners. The rise of the smartphone is also disrupting an unheard-of number of product markets. Things now disrupted by smartphones include cameras, portable music players, video games, GPS devices, PCs, watches, remote controls, alarm clocks, levels and other measurement tools, thermometers, radios, microscopes, calendars, advertising, and, oh, yeah -- cellphones and landline telephones. Who knows shat's in store for disruption in 2012?
7) 3D printers. Greater efficiencies through IT, combined with eEmerging developments such as 3D printing brings more production back to North America. Research by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) suggests that production of transportation goods such as vehicles and auto parts, electrical equipment including household appliances, and furniture will soon return to US shores. The most promising new concept with the greatest implications for manufacturing and production, however, is “desktop manufacturing,” made possible by 3D printing. If 3D printing takes hold, mass production within the US could be far cheaper than producing and shipping products from overseas.
8 ) Games. 'Gamification' may be the latest buzzword du jour, but there's big money now riding on it. A 2011 survey of 755 Internet users conducted by the Pew Research Center confirms the economic viability of the game business: 19 percent of respondents said they had purchased online games in the most recent quarter. Considering the fact that there are about two billion Internet users across the globe, that translates into one big, big market. Gartner predicts that 50% of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify those processes by 2015, 70% of global 2,000 organizations will have at least one gamified application by 2014, and M2 Research predicts there will by $2.8 billion in direct investment in gamification by 2015. (Nice infographic here.)
9) Talent (not enough of). While it may seem paradoxical at a time when unemployment is still running high, many organizations are having difficulties finding the skills they need to move forward with greater automation. A survey of 1,201 CEOs by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), finds business leaders are confident about their growth prospects in 2012, but are not confident they will be able to find enough talented employees to carry that growth forward. As economic worries recede to the back burner, new priorities now occupy the business leaders’ agendas: driving innovation, and finding the right talent to drive that innovation. A majority of business leaders say looming skills shortages is a big issue: Two-thirds say they face a “limited supply of candidates with the right skills,” and 54% cite “challenges in recruiting and integrating younger employees.” Another 52% even report they are having issues with “competitors recruiting some of our best people.” However, organizations have been stingy with support for training -- which would close a lot of the skills gaps now being experienced.
10) Social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility will enhance engagement with customers and communities. Companies are far more transparent now, thanks to information technology and social media. This calls for a new type of relationship with the world. As reported by my colleague Heather Clancy, management consulting firm KPMG shows that a vast majority of top companies around the world are now reporting on their corporate social responsibility activities as a matter of course. Areas benefiting from CSR include reputation and brand, ethics, employee motivation, innovation and learning, and risk management.
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com


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Profile of Bob Evans
News & Commentary Posts: 1070
Bob Evans is senior VP, communications, for Oracle Corp. He is a former InformationWeek editor.
Articles by Bob Evans
posted in June 2009
With bankrupt Chrysler about to resume production and as both it and General Motors struggle with huge losses and drastic new ownership structures, at least 30% and perhaps even 40% of the suppliers that feed the U.S. automobile industry will not be able to survive, says a restructuring expert.
Indian IT services firms have been cutting their rates by 35% or even 40% as global clients continue to look for ways to reduce costs in the global economic downturn. The depth of this latest round of rate cuts is "unprecedented," according to an industry expert based in India.
A leaked SAP strategy document says the company expects to reach an operating margin of 35% by 2014 and also expects current revenue to double during that five-year period. Right now, archrival Oracle has an operating margin of 51%, so it will be interesting to see how each side spins its profit story to its customers.
IBM was awarded 4,186 patents last year to lead the Top 10 list, marking the 16th straight year IBM has earned more US patents than any other company in the world. IBM's achievement - that's more than 11 patent granted every single day for the entire year - also marks the first time any organization has been awarded more than 4,000 US patents in a single year.
During the global economic downturn, an IT industry that delivers too much complexity and not enough flexibility has lost a lot of credibility, says Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, and a major repercussion has been the rise of the reference-account CIO as sales driver. Is your commission plan all set up?
The enterprise-software powerhouse is rightfully proud of its financial prowess. But in this brutal economy, are its customers getting a fair return?
In Tuesday's eagerly anticipated earnings call, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison might have been expected to talk about the company's $23.5 billion software business or its Q4 operating margins of more than 50%. But in a sign of the changing times, he talked not about software but instead about a hardware-based Oracle product that "is shaping up to be our most exciting and successful new-product introduction in Oracle's 30-year history."
Among smartphone users who don't currently have Blackberries, only 14% say they plan to buy a Blackberry as their next smartphone. But among smartphone users who don't currently have an iPhone, 38% say the iconic Apple smartphone is the one they're going to buy. Eh, cut-and-paste, schmut-and-paste!
Oracle's acquisition binge has allowed it to take customers and market share from SAP, analysts say, but their bigger focus is on whether Oracle can stem its recent declines in new-license revenue. We'll find out for sure later today when Oracle releases its quarterly numbers, but here's what some analysts are projecting.
In yet another stark example of the type of fresh thinking CIOs need to embrace to overcome tomorrow's business-technology challenges, Citrix CEO Mark Templeton says IT organizations need to create self-service models to lower the cost of infrastructure and give employees more flexibility and power. He even says employees should be given the freedom to provision their own apps and services.
During this difficult economic time, augmented reality has the potential to help you enhance your role as a visionary business technology leader, inspire your team, and steal the march on your competitors.
Not too long ago, a mythical CIO finally authorized the Blackberry for corporate use, and overnight was transformed from know-nothing whipping-boy to rock-star hero. But now comes the iPhone 3G S and the troops are threatening an all-out uprising unless they all get one. A real-life IT exec from the U.K. tells this tale of woe in "The CIO and the iPhone."
Hewlett-Packard has acquired full interest in an HR business-process outsourcing firm formed as a joint venture between EDS and Towers Perrin in 2005 and called Excellerate HRO. Now that HP's wholly owned services unit, EDS, has full control over the venture, HP is likely to become more aggressive in courting outsourcing deals in the HR sector.
Reports are circulating that Oracle will trump this week's acquisition of Conformia with the purchase of GoldenGate Software, whose data-migration and real-time integration tools are already widely used to link Oracle with Siebel and other environments.
It seems inevitable that the Obama administration will seek to cap executive compensation across the board, including CIOs, and not just for companies bailed out by taxpayers.
"Having faced the humiliation of having their IT budgets unilaterally cut, [some CIOs] are now in a tail spin that will ultimately have serious business consequences." Sound familiar? IT consultant Ade McCormack says that unless such CIOs are willing to accept the job of IT manager, they need to heed his "call to arms for a 21st-century CIO."
At the end of a recent article detailing the 2008 compensation packages of the five highest-paid CIOs - with #1 on the list having earned $24.65 million - BusinessWeek asked the rather bizarre question, "Do you think limits should be set for CIO pay?" After reading the article a second time, I think BusinessWeek wants the answer to be yes.
Oracle has landed two significant new deals: with HBO to help it shift more IT spending away from internal operations and more toward content creation and customer engagement, and with Abercrombie & Fitch to create a global single instance for store merchandising and operations as the retailer undertakes a global expansion.
HP CIO Randy Mott, who last year completed a sweeping transformation of HP's IT operations that flipped the ratio of IT spending on maintenance/innovation from 80/20 to 30/70, tops a list of the five best-paid CIOs at public companies in the U.S. Other public companies whose CIOs made the list: Best Buy, State Street Corp., American Express, and JC Penney.
IBM CEO Sam Palmisano recently told institutional investors, in a very pointed fashion, that IBM is "not like the other companies in the IT industry" because it's transformed itself. And so when IBM sued one of its VPs to prevent him from joining Dell, the VP defended his legal right to make the move by using Palmisano's own words as proof that Dell should not be regarded as a competitive threat to IBM.
CIOs from all industries need to sit down with their C-level peers and imagine fresh new approaches and processes that give customers more choices while driving more actionable, customer-based knowledge back to headquarters.
A professional investor who's used PCs for 20 years relates the superb retail experience he had at the Apple Store in Tokyo, and emphasizes the power of atmosphere and interpersonal interactions in driving brand equity, revenue and customer engagement. After buying, he wondered, "What excuse could I find to visit my new friends in Ginza, and buy something else from them?"
A Google News search on "SAP" turned up this headline attributed to BusinessWeek: "SAP hits on-demand SaaS button to avoid extinction." But that silly headline and equally silly article weren't written by BusinessWeek - they appeared on a new BusinessWeek site where readers post stories from other sites. With outcomes like this, is SAP the one that should be worried about extinction?
An anonymous IRS official has leaked some comments about a proposed tax-code change that could make it less expensive for businesses to comply with tax laws governing deductions for cell phones. Forgive me if I'm a tad suspicious, but when was the last time that the IRS did anything to save any money for anyone? And why did the comments have to be made anonymously?
Cisco's recent entry into the server business has caused two of its former partners, HP and IBM, to retaliate by buying more high-end SAN switches from Brocade rather than from traditional supplier Cisco. The result: "a landslide shift in market share in just one quarter."
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says his company will spend $9.5 billion on R&D this year. That's almost 50% more than IBM's $6.5 billion, and it's more than the combined R&D spending of IBM and either Oracle ($2.7 billion) or Google ($2.8 billion). And almost nine times as much as Apple's $1.1 billion. Is Microsoft deriving equivalent multiples in business value?
UBS CTO and head of IT Peter Sany is leaving the company after about 10 weeks on the job and all you CIOs out there please take note: UBS's CEO said ongoing cost cuts include "pooling services such as information technology." Is that how your company views you and your IT operation: just another commodity service, like HR and facilities, waiting to be pooled?
Seeking to gum up America's expansion into the 21st century by advocating Industrial Age processes, a labor union is demanding that Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent deconstruct their global supply chains to prove by hand that only U.S.-made components are going into a $7.2 billion government-funded project to expand broadband access. Cisco is finding these nativist policies to be anything but stimulating.
When American companies expand their operations outside the U.S., those global investments lead directly to the hiring of more workers in the U.S. at higher wages because the companies become more successful and competitive, according to a new study from Harvard and Berkeley. To you nativists who'll howl like roasted cats at such objective research, there's an old saying: you can look it up.
While SAP today had to enjoy announcing a rip-and-replace deal over Oracle and IBM for a utility client, it also had to sit by and watch as longtime SAP global strategic partner Siemens not only overlooked SAP for a whopping 420,000-seat workforce-management license but also selected a SaaS vendor to boot. This is surely not a business for the faint of heart.
Maybe Microsoft and Salesforce could each be very good for what ails the other.
Last week we shared an outsourcing expert's list of "The 10 Riskiest Places In The World For Outsourcing," but for those IT organizations looking for a slightly less exuberant outsourcing adventure, today we're happy to offer you that same expert's list of the world's 10 safest locations for outsourcing. Hint: none of the 10 safest is in India.
A rapidly growing number of Western companies are selling to outsourcers their India-based "captive" software and IT operations because the model is no longer profitable or the sellers need cash or both. One U.S. outsourcer said it's done six such deals this year and has 15 more in its pipeline.
Emboldened by President Obama's desire to punish global corporations for employing workers outside the U.S., the nativists are screeching once again about the ongoing threat to "our jobs." But that begs the question of just what exactly "our jobs" are: with 70% of IBM's employees based outside the U.S., and 40% of Microsoft's outside the U.S., just whose jobs are they anyway?
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Symantec Chairman John Thompson say the Obama administration's plans to revise tax policy on foreign profits will force U.S. companies to move more employees overseas due to the higher cost of business and lower profits such policy would trigger.
On Monday I wrote about a list compiled by outsourcing experts showing that Bogota, Colombia, is #1 on their new list of the riskiest cities in the world for outsourcing. Some followup research about Bogota has me wondering just how these outsourcing experts formed their opinion of the Colombian capital, which several other sources describe as a safe, business-oriented, and forward-looking city.
A Senate bill aimed at limiting some H-1B visas will hurt the competitiveness of American companies, jeopardize ongoing projects, trigger a trade dispute with India, and prove to be "misguided and dangerous," say Indian IT execs. Anyone else foresee a Pyrrhic victory from all this protectionist grandstanding?
The New York Stock Exchange's IT organization is "accepting alternatives that [it] never ever would have considered a year ago" because budget pressures are forcing its CIO to go with unorthodox approaches that last year would have been met with "That is too crazy. That is risky. That makes no sense." Is this a revolution - or spurt evolution?
If you're a CIO thinking about which mobile phones to deploy across your enterprise, you need to check out a Deutsche Bank analysis showing that RIM and Apple will grab huge percentages of the industry's total operating profits this year. Apple's share of those profits will jump from 20% in 2008 to a projected eye-popping 31% in 2009, but guess what - RIM will do even better.
Citigroup former head of technology and operations Kevin Kessinger is one of five former Citi top-level executives who were promised severance packages totaling $100 million but will receive only about $50 million because of the company's concern over "a public backlash," the Wall Street Journal reports. Question: does Citi have a contractual right to make such a move?
Several universities in Australia are reporting sharply higher demand for IT degrees just several years after the dot-com crash threatened to put the kibosh on info tech as a viable career. And it's particularly good to see these schools offering interdisciplinary programs that blend intense IT education with parallel immersion in commerce, science, medical, and legal curricula.
The list, built around concerns over terrorism, pollution, and geopolitical tensions, includes cities from a range of countries that could otherwise constitute a round-the-world tourism dream: Thailand, Jamaica, South Africa, Brazil, India, Israel, the Philippines, and Colombia. Read on to see if your company's global outsourcing map matches up with this list of the world's10 riskiest locations for outsourcing.
With the U.S. auto industry in shambles and the government transferring ownership of it to the autoworkers' unions, one analyst says the only salvation lies in retooling the entire car industry around the model of the IT industry: electric cars built with off-the-shelf hardware and differentiated by software.


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From Bentleys to presidential suites, the city of Miami is ready for Super Bowl Sunday -- not just for thousands of screaming fans, but for the rich and the famous.
While you fight for a spot on the couch, many of the most affluent fans will be arriving by private jet and taking advantage of some of the luxury accommodations and packages that the city has to offer.
"An event like this attracts not just sports fans, but corporate sponsors, businessmen and celebrities," says David Whitaker, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitor's Bureau.
There is a growing audience of super-affluent people in this country and many of them are sports fans, adds Laura Hughes, executive editor of Elite Traveler magazine.
Officials at Miami International Airport say they are expecting to have 1,000 private jets land in greater Miami as the rich and famous descend on the city to watch the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears battle it out for football's ultimate bragging rights.
A life of luxury doesn't come cheap. Hughes says that it can cost upward of $5,000 an hour to charter a private jet. But the high price is not stopping those who can afford it. According to Elite Traveler, private jet travel is the fastest growing luxury market in the world and is projected to triple in the next 10 years.
"There's been a 67 percent increase in jet travel for this year's big game compared to last year," Hughes says. The good news is that despite the crowds expected to arrive by private jet, Miami can handle it.
"South Florida is very well equipped to handle private jet travelers, as it's one of the most popular destinations for the affluent," she says.
The airport's not the only place preparing for the surge of big spenders: Local hotels are offering some pricey perks that could make anyone jealous.
For guests who want to avoid traffic jams getting to the game, the Mandarin Oriental is arranging helicopter transport to the grand entrance to the Super Bowl. Or if that doesn't appeal to you, the hotel will arrange a 40-foot cigarette boat rental to the game for a mere $1,750.
If you'd prefer to stay on the ground, how about a ride to the game in a Continental Bentley? The Fairmont Hotel has put together the "Ultimate Fantasy Football Escape Package" for a cool $410,000.
The package includes round-trip transportation on a private jet with pickup in a new Bentley Continental GT, ultra deluxe accommodations in the resort's presidential suites and a host of other amenities that include being outfitted in your favorite team's gear.
A huge perk in that package? You get to keep the Bentley.
"The couple gets to keep the car after the game -- not the driver through," says Hughes.
Because the Super Bowl can be stressful, the Regent South Beach Hotel offers balcony massages with a beachfront view to wind down after the game.
The Biltmore is offering one lucky couple a $15,000, five-day Super Bowl package. That couple will get accommodations and a golf suite, tickets to the game, VIP seats, a poolside cabana at one of the most famous pools in the country and lots of other goodies, including food, spa visits and drinks.
"We sold the first package, so we are now offering a second," Biltmore public relations coordinator Carolina Santalla says. The hotel has been fully booked for the Super Bowl for the last two years, she says.
Whitaker says the huge crowds will bring even bigger parties among the rich and famous.
"Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez are headlining one of the big Super Bowl parties here… that's sure to attract a crowd," he says.
A lot of stars are also using the Super Bowl to boost their civic causes by holding charity events in Miami this weekend.
For example, former NFL quarterback Rodney Peete and his wife Holly Robinson-Peete are holding a Gridiron Glamour charity fashion show and benefit to raise money for Parkinsons Disease.
Whitaker says Miami is prepared for the diverse crowds and he is happy for the chance to show off the city to current and future customers.
"Whatever you're into -- whether it's yachts, fine dining or art -- Miami has it all," he says.


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The Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) in late May approved NatureWorks Asia Pacific Co.,Ltd’s application to invest more than 15 billion baht (around $490 million) in a project to produce Polylactic Acid (PLA) a low-carbon-footprint polymer derived from agricultural feedstocks, reflecting Thailand’s attraction to foreign investors as a bioplastics production base.
NatureWorks’ plant will produce approximately 75,000 tons of PLA per year, the BOI said. The PLA resin is used to make biodegradable goods ranging from compostable food containers, to filament for 3D printing, hygiene masks, and household appliances.
"This project demonstrates once again Thailand’s leadership in the ASEAN region when it comes to the bioplastics value chain," said Ms. Duangjai Asawachintachit, Secretary General of the BOI. "Our strong agricultural base offers the required raw materials while our logistics networks and strategic location enable companies to realise the full potential of their investment."
The plant will be located at Nakhon Sawan Biocomplex, a project established in line with the country's BCG concept (Bio-Circular-Green economic activities), some 200 kilometres north of Bangkok. NatureWorks Asia Pacific is a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based NatureWorks LLC, a leading global producer of PLA. The company’s PLA is marketed under the Ingeo trademark.
From 2015 to March of this year, the BOI has approved a total of 21 projects in the bioplastic value chain, from upstream to downstream, with a combined investment value of over 31 billion baht. Most of these projects have already entered production.


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Amazon to lower the commission it charges third-party sellers
Third-party sellers are small-scale retailers who depend on big eCommerce players such as Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) to sell their products on their platforms. These sellers are a great source of profit for Amazon and eBay, which earn a commission from sales without investing in product costs.
To maintain a good relationship with its sellers, Amazon is lowering the fees it charges them, according to a report from Business Insider. The report mentions that this reduction will start on February 19. It says, “This year, we are lowering our referral and minimum referral fees across categories to help you increase your selection of products.”
The importance of third-party sellers is evident in the fact that in October, eBay accused Amazon of poaching sellers from its platform. Sellers also don’t like to put all their eggs in one basket. According to a report from Feedvisor, “52% of surveyed Amazon merchants are also selling on eBay in 2018.” Only 25% of Amazon’s merchants are also selling on Walmart (WMT) and its Jet platforms. However, a year ago, these numbers were 65% for eBay and 17% for Walmart.


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I’m teaming up with a bunch of food bloggers and gourmet food trucks to conduct a food drive with the donations benefiting the Second Harvest Food Bank Orange County. Through its 450 member charities, Second Harvest provides meals to nearly 220,000 individuals every month.
We will be holding a mobile food drive for two weeks before Thanksgiving, so between November 7 and November 20th, we are encouraging everyone visiting gourmet food trucks to bring food donations and drop it off at the food trucks they are visiting. The gourmet food trucks will act as mobile food collection centers for these donations.
Saturday Night Foodies has reached out to other bloggers to help during this slow economy to help the food banks. Gourmet food trucks participating are:
Oh For Sweet Sake
The Burnt Truck
Please go to the food truck’s website for their schedule and don’t forget to bring a can (or two, or three) to drop off for those less fortunate when you visit.


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Drew Westen Psychologist and neuroscientist :
If the economy continues to tank and the stock market continues to plummet, nothing McCain or Palin can do or say will make much difference. But it would certainly be helpful to the Obama team to connect the dots for voters—that as middle class voters are struggling to pay their mortgage, Palin and her husband are spending hundreds of thousands on their wardrobes on a shopping spree at “elite” stores, courtesy of contributors big and small, and that this is just one more example of how out of touch with what the average American family is going through that McCain and Palin are. The impact of a story like this depends on the story you tell about it, and if it’s just “Palin bought nice clothes,” it will have no effect. If the story is that this is yet another index that they don’t “get it,” it would have a very different meaning to the average voter, since that’s already a concern they have about the GOP ticket.


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We’ve talked about how Microsoft technology such as Power BI for Office 365 can help businesses and educational institutions save money, and now, that the solution has proven itself in real-world use cases. Microsoft is now looking to make Power BI ... Read more
We’ve covered the use of Microsoft’s line of Surface devices in education, aviation, and a range of other industries in great depth. The devices have been very well received by enterprises around the world thanks to their hybrid nature of ... Read more
We’ve got smartwatches, smartphones and smarthomes, but where are all the smartbuildings? Here’s an interested stat for you; in the US alone, businesses are collectively forced to dedicate $100 billion on energy bills to power their offices on a yearly ... Read more
In organizations of all sizes, employees are usually presented with the option to use corporation-issued mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones, or they follow a Bring You Own Device (BOYD) strategy, where employees are allowed to bring their own devices ... Read more
Microsoft has released a new tool to help IT staff better understand their company; the software will generate a Lync Online client devices report and give a read out of what different devices employees use when connecting with Lync. This ... Read more
Microsoft has named its new enterprise tech conference Ignite. This conference will absorb the Management Summit, the Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, and TechEd conferences into a single event in Chicago. The event will be held on May 4th after //Build ... Read more
Today Lenovo has made public their plans to acquire IBM's x86 server business. This will make Lenovo the third largest manufacturer of servers in the world. The company plans to take a similar path as their PC business, which turned ... Read more
The recently announced Lumia 830 has its looks going for it, appearing to be the result of a cross between the Lumia 1020 and Lumia 930, which are gorgeous devices in their own right. With the quad-core CPU, a 10-megaixel ... Read more
Gartner does a study where they evaluate companies based on "Magic Quadrants." Microsoft is currently positioned as a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrants for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, x86 Server Virtualization, Enterprise Application Platform as a Service and Public Cloud Storage Services. You can see ... Read more
Microsoft could see its earnings rise in future quarters thanks to a strong corporate PC refresh cycle, according to a new analyst report. Corporations are now increasingly allocating budgets for rolling out Windows 7, says Gleacher & Co. analyst Yun Kim.
"We believe Microsoft has been unfairly grouped into so-called PC tech bellwethers that are currently facing growth challenges in the post-PC area," Yun Kim, an analyst with Gleacher & Co., wrote today in a research note, "in which portable devices and new form factors are displacing traditional PCs."
Raising the stakes in its war of words, Microsoft today said Google simply doesn't understand what b
Nearly half of the companies still using the nine-year-old Windows XP plan to keep running the aged


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Recall that the Ministry of Industry and Trade is currently negotiating with two Chinese car companies interested in opening production in Russia – in a former factory Renault in Moscow. It can be assumed that some preliminary agreements have already been reached, or that the possibilities of future partners fully meet the requirements of the Russian side. This is according to the statement of Presidential Assistant Igor Levitin.
He assured that new cars to be produced at the plant under the Moskvich brand will be offered to customers at an affordable price, Solenka.info writes. That is, most Russians will be able to afford them.
In addition, the official said the country “has all the necessary infrastructure and specialists” for the production of its own cars. Perhaps we are talking about a compact model of KAMAZ Kama-1 – an enterprise from Naberezhnye Chelny will cooperate with a new Russian factory.
Recall that the start of production of cars under the Moskvich brand is expected this year.
Source: Z R


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Author: Rajiv Nanjapla
Rajiv Nanjapla started working at Market Realist in 2015 and has been covering the restaurant, home improvement, tobacco, and cannabis sectors. He holds a post-graduate diploma in finance and operations.
Since Andrew Yang announced his presidential run, he's advocated for cannabis legalization. He says existing cannabis policies are "deeply racist."
Canopy Growth (WEED) (CGC) will report its fiscal 2020 first-quarter earnings results today after the market closes.
Tilray (TLRY) reported its second-quarter earnings after the market closed on Tuesday. The company reported revenues of $45.9 million.
Piper Jaffray has rated Cronos Group as “overweight.” The investment company has given Cronos Group a 12-month price target of $18.
As of Monday, CannTrust was trading at 3.04 Canadian dollars. The company has lost 53.6% of its stock value since the beginning of July.
Kevin O’Leary’s interest in cannabis stocks favors medicinal use over recreational use. We look at the changing landscape of the US cannabis industry.


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How to ensure children aren't blowing their parents' digital wallets on in-app purchases on smartphones or tablets? The UK's Office of Fair Trading has some ideas, outlined in its Children's Online Games report published earlier today.
The OFT launched its investigation in April this year after a spate of reports of children spending three or four-figure sums on virtual items without their parents' knowledge or permission.
The OFT examined 38 web and mobile games as part of its research, while also accepting submissions from around 160 parents and 40 "industry stakeholders". Its report says the apps industry does have a case to answer, particularly around pressuring children to make in-game purchases.
The results of the consultation are eight proposed principles for the industry to follow, with the OFT inviting further responses from parents and stakeholders by 21 November before final versions are published early in 2014. In theory, from April any app developers that flout these principles will face "enforcement action" under existing UK consumer protection laws.
You can read the 30-page report as a PDF or just browse the eight principles also as a PDF. Here are some thoughts on the finer points of the OFT's conclusions, and some of the new questions that they raise.
Sensible and welcome guidelines
There isn't much controversy in the eight principles: they can be summed up in the OFT's headline for its press release: "Games industry should not pressure children to purchase".
While making costs for apps and games clearer before they're downloaded or played is part of that, there's plenty more in the report outlining the kind of gameplay design that risks prosecution under those existing laws. The OFT has taken pains to outline positive and negative examples for each principle, rooting the theory in developer practice.
After a few read-throughs overnight, there is nothing that seems like it will clamp down unfairly on developers' ability to make money, contrary to the fears of some trade bodies (more on that later).
It's also a good (if dispiriting) insight into some of the techniques that have been used in the past, with the devil often in the detail. App store screenshots, for example: the OFT is unimpressed with the idea of a game based on collecting horses that is free to download, but whose promotional screenshots show "the stable full with horses" that would have to be paid for with real money.
It also targets developers who prompt players to pay without letting them know that they could earn the same virtual items by waiting or "grinding", citing the example of "USE A SEED to finish growing the plant now" without additional text explaining that the alternative is to wait 30 minutes.
Telling players to "click here to get more" of a virtual item without making it clear that an in-app purchase will be initiated is also criticised, as are games that "implied that consumers who did not make a purchase would let others down – either other players or characters in the game". Something that the OFT sees children as particularly susceptible to.
It looks like it's curtains for games involving sick pets who can only be cured by a speedy infusion of gems, in other words. Even the developers who've built their businesses on such practices will struggle to find convincing faults with the OFT's principles.
Some of this is happening already
Apple has been the chief whipping boy in media coverage of children overspending on in-app purchases, largely because at the time – 2012 and early 2013 – iOS was still the key platform for children's apps. But reading through the OFT report, it struck me that Apple has been putting some of its implementations into place already.
The OFT's desire for in-app purchases to be signalled upfront, for example, is already reflected in the "Offers In-App Purchases" warning on freemium iOS app listings in Apple's App Store, which was introduced in March. Before that, the store was also showing lists of popular IAP purchases on those apps' pages.
Meanwhile, the store's new Kids category comes with its own stricter rules for developers about using "parental gates" to double-check that the iTunes account holder is aware of in-app purchases, as well as a demand for clear privacy policies. Apple saw the way the winds were blowing (not just from the OFT, but in the US too) and acted accordingly.
The report also suggests that by default, devices should require a password to be entered every time a purchase is made – that infamous 15-minute window allowing kids to spend willy-nilly after their parents had entered an iTunes password to download a game is frowned upon, and rightly so.
There are tweaks: the report suggest that app store listings could include the range of prices for IAP in a particular game, not just the most popular ones (e.g. "in-app purchases ranging from 69p to £1.99 are available") – something that may help parents spot games whose IAP goes up as high as £69.99.
I sense that the OFT report may direct more attention beyond Apple and iOS though, comparing its policies with those of Google, Amazon and other Android app store owners, for example. With Android tablet sales growing fast – not to mention explicitly family-focused devices like Samsung's Galaxy Tab Kids and Tesco's Hudl – this issue shouldn't be seen as an Apple-only thing.
What is a children's game anyway?
The big question that the OFT's report doesn't quite nail is that of what counts as a children's game and what doesn't. Many of the cases involving kids over-spending on IAP have been in games not specifically targeted at children.
A few minutes browsing MailOnline, which has been enthusiastically covering this issue, reveals cases involving My Horse, Smurfs' Village, Hay Day, Campus Life, Zombie Takeover, Clash of Clans, Tiny Monsters, Tap Zoo and Zombies vs Ninja. How many of these qualify as "children's" games as opposed to games with a wide audience that includes children?
It's a point that is addressed in the report, a bit, when the OFT refers to the 38 games examined as part of its research. "The OFT considers that most of the games it has examined are either directed at or likely to appeal to children (and that traders can foresee this)" it explains. Later, there's a reference to "where it is reasonably foreseeable that a game will be likely to appeal to children".
A pragmatic view might be that all mobile games would benefit from ditching commercially aggressive practices that try to push people towards buying in-app purchases.
But when it comes to enforcing the principles in this report, I wonder if the OFT will run into problems if it tries to take on games that aren't aimed just at children. Not least because it's impossible to tell what proportion of a mobile game's players are adult – children are playing on devices linked to their parents' iTunes accounts, not their own.
Apps as a global business
The OFT may be showing its teeth when it comes to commercially aggressive children's apps, but this is a global business: what effect will guidelines in the UK have if they're not reflected elsewhere?
That's addressed in the report too: "We intend to share the Principles with our international consumer enforcement counterparts to achieve consistency – as far as possible and where jurisdictional differences permit – in compliance and enforcement strategies," explains the OFT.
It's a reminder that the real enforcement role may be for those app store owners: Apple, Google, Microsoft and others. The principles may usefully feed in to their app store approval policies (posing more of a question for Google on that front, since it doesn't operate the same kind of pre-approval submissions policy for the Google Play store).
It's not just about stricter rules though: the app store owners have key roles to play in a more positive sense: the children's apps and games that they promote on their stores, helping parents to discover the ethical ones and so help their developers run successful businesses.
There's also a role for games industry bodies to play, perhaps better than they've been playing it so far. UK body Ukie's response to the OFT report, for example, places as much emphasis on the risk that the final guidelines might "stifle the creativity of games developers or prevent the growth of the UK games industry" as it does on protecting that industry's players.
Ukie's claim that "the games industry takes its responsibility to children very seriously" is undermined by some of the examples in the report. But bodies like Ukie and TIGA in the UK can play an important part in that industry's growth by helping developers get to grips with the ethical ins and outs of children's games.
Every time a parent gets stung by surprise in-app purchases and relates the tale at the school gate, or every time a £3,000 iTunes bill is splashed over newspapers or websites, it's a bad thing for responsible children's app developers too, in terms of eroding parental trust.
Rather than restraining developers' ability to make money, the OFT's principles have the potential to help build a bigger, responsible children's apps market – with Apple, Google, developers and industry bodies important participants.
Update: in a statement released after this article was published, TIGA provided its own positive take on the report. "It is absolutely vital the FTP games model provides clear protection for gamers, particularly children, and proper guidance for parents and developers alike," said chief executive Dr. Richard Wilson.
"TIGA has been working with the OFT to develop these principles, having submitted evidence earlier this year, and it's encouraging to see that many of our recommendations have been taken into account, especially the principles of absolute transparency and a consistent global approach, in keeping with the export-driven nature of the UK video game industry."


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Government officials and farmers’ groups from seven ASEAN countries went on a rare study tour together in Thailand to learn more about cooperatives in the country and also to get to know one another better. Mia Gomez looks at the effort to increase dialogue between farmers and ASEAN sectoral bodies in this story for the ‘Reporting ASEAN: 2015 and Beyond’ series.
Exporting cassava to Thailand has never been tougher for Cambodian farmers, who say Thai authorities are erecting non-tariff barriers as a protectionist measure. Does the ASEAN Economic Community’s vision of free trade work in reality? Sor Chandara of the ‘Phnom Penh Post’ reports for the ‘Making AEC Work’ series, ‘Reporting ASEAN:2015 and Beyond’ programme.
The third largest producer of palm oil in the world, Thailand is facing domestic and international challenges in its management of the prized crop. Although oversupply, high costs and lack of competitiveness in terms of pricing are ongoing concerns, the country is adamant about protecting the sector, as Kornchanok Raksaseri of ‘Econ News’ finds out in this ‘Making AEC Work’ story, part of the ‘Reporting ASEAN:2015 and Beyond’ programme.
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 6 (Reporting ASEAN) – Who knew that agricultural products like coffee could be a force for good, empowering communities, notably women, to engage in profitable yet sustainable livelihoods?


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Direct carrier billing (DCB) and phone-paid services have transcended their niche appeal and are now in use by a significant proportion of consumers off all ages in the UK.
So suggests the latest market analysis by the Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA), which finds that an average of 62% of the population aged between 16 and 60 use phone-paid services, with the majority (56%) using them because they are convenient.
Affordability was once again the second-most popular answer (48% in 2022–2023, compared to 47% in 2021–2022) and impulse purchasing the third-most common (46% in 2022–2023, compared to 47% in 2021–2022). The trends from the past 5 years have remained consistent, with convenience and habit continuing to have an increasing influence on customers’ phone-paid service use.
More excitingly for the telemedia sector, consumer confidence in phone-paid services is high, which also acts as a driver of phone-paid service use. In 2022–2023, fewer phone-paid service users reported encountering service issues, with 24% reporting issues with at least one service this year compared to 26% in 2021–2022. Despite the positive change, this number remains roughly consistent with overall complaint level since 2018 (which is around 25%). It is unclear whether this indicates the start of a decline in complaint rates.
The most common problem encountered by phone-paid service users was the difficulty in accessing or using services. This is consistent with previous years, however the percentage of respondents that encountered such problems declined this year (42%, down from 44% in 2021–2022), which is also a continuing trend from last year.
Sexual entertainment, connection services and personal and relationship services resulted in complaints from the largest proportion of respondents. This reflects the same pattern as last year. The percentage of respondents who encountered a problem with sexual entertainment services remained static year- on-year (30% in 2022–2023 and 30% in 2021–2022), but the number of those respondents who had issues with connection services (30% in 2022–2023 and 28% in 2021–2022) and personal and relationship services (29% in 2022–2023 and 28% in 2021–2022) increased compared with the previous year.
The second-most commonly reported issue was the perceived differences between the service advertised and the service received (40%, down from 42% in 2021–2022). The third most-commonly reported problem related to price misconceptions, where the service was more expensive than users had expected (34% down from 37% in 2021–2022).
The percentage of respondents reporting issues within all other service categories has, for the most part, either decreased or remained static since 2021–2022. One explanation for this is likely to be the removal of bad actors from the phone-paid service industry thanks to regulations such as Code 15.
In general, those working in the industry report very few complaints regarding phone-paid services usage and have mentioned that the clear parameters introduced through Code 15 have helped to alleviate previous issues around consumer confidence in this area, which mostly centred on the adult and ICSS segments. Another beneficial consequence of Code 15 is the departure of problematic service providers (for example, scammers or those providing poor-quality services) from the market, which has also helped to improve consumer confidence.
Where is it heading?
The report suggests that consumer spending via operator billing will grow at a CAGR of 6.5% between 2025and 2026 to £355 million. This growth will be driven the increasing popularity of games, which will lead to a higher number of games downloaded from app stores and to higher consumer spending on gaming console platforms. Entertainment subscriptions and subscription-based payments for higher-quality lifestyle services are also expected to drive growth.
In particular, industry stakeholders reported in interviews that there are plans to add more streaming services to the phone-paid services market in the next 12 to 18 months, which suggests a positive outlook for the future of operator billing. Several industry stakeholders also mentioned in interviews that they are exploring the possibility of bringing new services to operator billing (for example, e-ticketing and carparking).
However, most providers are at an early stage of exploration and, in some cases, the addition of these new services largely depends on a potential revision of the PSD2 spending limits. Any change to these limits would likely promote growth in the operator billing market and we would need to revise our forecast accordingly. However, a PSD2 consultation only began recently, and we do not anticipate any major regulatory changes or any significant market response to occur within the time of our forecast.
Spending via premium SMS will, however, decrease at a CAGR of 0.7% between 2022–2023 and 2025–2026 to £184.6 million. After an increase in spending in 2023-2024 due to the return of uninterrupted, year-round competitions, spending on TV and radio broadcast competitions will decline due the continuing shift to digital payment methods, as more service providers move to online platforms in an attempt to offset increasing competition by digital service providers. The report authors expect that consumer spending via premium SMS will decline across other service categories for similar reasons and do not anticipate any large-scale adoption of new services, so spending via this payment channel will continue to decline.
Premium SMS could be a good payment option for parking and other new service types in the long term, but few operators and service providers shared news with PSA of any plans to roll out these services on premium SMS. One interviewee reported that merchants that are looking to enter the phone-paid service market are turning to operator billing over premium SMS because the former channel is more conducive to repeat payments and subscriptions, whereas the latter is better suited to one-off payments.
End-user spending on games will continue to grow significantly, increasing at a CAGR of 9.2% between 2022 and 2026. By the end of our forecast period, the report expects this category to overtake TV and radio engagement to make up the largest part of the phone-paid services market, accounting for 28.8% of total user spending (up from 24.0% in 2022–2023).
Spending on TV and radio engagement will be slightly higher in 2025-2026 (£173.9 million) than in 2022-2023 (£173.2 million), although this represents growth to £175.0 million in 2023-2024 before decline from that point onwards (overall CAGR of +0.1%). It will account for 27.0% of total user spending by 2025–2026 (down from 29.2% in 2022–2023). Entertainment is expected to remain the third-largest service category and spending will grow at a CAGR of 3.3% between 2022–2023 and 2025–2026.
Charity donations and lifestyle services will also grow between now and 2025–2026. Spending on other service categories including betting, gambling and lotteries, assistance services and competitions and quizzes will continue to decline over the forecast period.


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One year ago today, Nio unveiled its Power North plan to do what other EV makers are not willing to do to improve the experience for customers in northern China.
(Image credit: Nio)
One year ago today, Nio (NYSE: NIO, HKG: 9866) unveiled Power North, a plan designed to improve the electric vehicle (EV) experience for customers in northern China, on the first day of the Shanghai auto show.
Now that the program is celebrating its first anniversary, Nio has announced its implementation progress.
Between April 19, 2021 and April 18, 2022, Nio added 23 battery swap stations in eight northern provinces of China, bringing the number of facilities in the region to 28, according to data released today by the company.
Nio has added 113 supercharging stations in the region over the past year, including 320 charging piles. To date, Nio has 119 supercharging stations in these provinces, including 348 charging piles.
The company has also added 61 destination charging stations in these provinces, including 238 charging piles. The total number of Nio's destination charging stations here now stands at 67, including 252 charging piles.
In addition to Nio's own replenishment facilities, it has access to more than 8,000 third-party charging posts in these provinces.
The colder temperatures in northern China are a major barrier to local residents choosing EVs, and have made EV companies less willing to expand the coverage of charging facilities there.
Nio's Power North plan is aimed at infrastructure planning and charging incentives in eight northern Chinese provinces, including Heilongjiang, Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin and Xinjiang.
The company said on April 19 last year that it plans to have 100 battery swap stations, 120 mobile charging vehicles, 500 supercharging stations, over 2,000 supercharging piles and over 10,000 destination charging piles in the eight provinces within the next three years.
(William Li, Nio founder, chairman and CEO, announced the Power North plan on April 19, 2021. Image credit: CnEVPost)
By then, there will be an average of one battery swap station or super-charging station for every 100 kilometers of highway in these areas, an average of quality charging facilities for every 3 square kilometers in urban areas, and 95 percent coverage of charging resources in scenic areas above 4A level, Nio said at the time.
Nio said it hopes to enhance the replenishment experience for EV users in these areas by deploying charging infrastructure, including battery swap stations, supercharging stations, destination charging stations, and mobile charging vehicles, and by using third-party facilities.
Until December 31, 2024, all Nio vehicles in these eight regions will be entitled to 1,000 kWh of free charging for the year using Nio's public charging piles, and service fees will remain waived after 1,000 kWh are exceeded.
It is worth noting that since Nio's charging stations are open to other brands, the increased infrastructure in the northern region will also benefit other EV makers.
Between July 1, 2021 and April 18, 2022, 70.5 percent of the power provided by China's charging stations in those eight provinces was used by other brands of EVs, Nio said today.
Nio customers used more than 1.16 million kWh of free electricity during this period, according to the company.
Over the next two years, Nio is continuing to build more charging and battery swap facilities in the eight provinces, and hopes to make charging more convenient than refueling through the efforts of Nio Power and its partners, the company said.
Nio today added two new battery swap stations in China, bringing the total to 902, according to data monitored by CnEVPost.


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How Can Near-Sourcing Help a Company Gain a Competitive Edge?
The trend of outsourcing work to Asian countries exploded during the 1990s, but many companies are returning production to areas close to their customer bases -- called near-sourcing -- to gain a competitive edge in 2011 and beyond. However, near-sourcing doesn't necessarily mean outsourced jobs will return to America. In addition, near-sourcing won't benefit all companies.
Companies may save millions of dollars on shipping costs by manufacturing products closer to their headquarters. For instance, importers have historically spent 15 percent of their shipping costs on fuel. In 2009, 40 percent of the cost to operate a carrier came from fuel, according to BG Strategic Advisors. In addition, the U.S. dollar started dropping in value against other major currencies, such as the Japanese Yen and Chinese Yuan, in 2006. Stronger foreign currencies make imports more expensive and domestically produced goods cheaper.
Manufacturers in countries such as China and India usually require importers to pay for their goods up front and wait 90 days for the product. It also takes about 90 days to receive payment once an importer sells its product to a retailer. By the time the retailer sells the product and remits payment to the importer, it may take nine months or longer for a business to receive payment for outsourced goods. On the other hand, domestic manufacturers usually produce goods first and allow the client 60 days to remit payment. Thus, the company using near-sourcing receives an interest-free loan and payment from customers right about the time it pays the manufacturer, according to Jack Stack of "The New York Times."
Near-sourcing may mean shifting jobs to Latin American countries rather than bringing them stateside. Latin American countries, such as Mexico and Nicaragua, have much lower minimum wages and a growing number of English speakers. For instance, Nicaragua had a minimum wage of $400 per month and more than 4,000 English speakers in 2005, according to Danna Harman of "USA Today." Large companies, such as Russell Athletic, Western Union and Dell, like near-sourcing to Latin American countries because they can take advantage of cheap labor and stay in the same time zone as their company headquarters.
Some companies, such as West Coast importers that depend on imports from Asia, suffer from companies producing goods in the U.S. and Latin America. Businesses in the supply chain should consider adding services to help near-source manufacturing to gain a competitive advantage. For instance, a trucking and shipping company could offer logistical support to long haul truckers transporting goods from Mexico to the U.S. Before a company hops on the near-sourcing bandwagon, it should consider whether outsourcing benefits the company. For example, domestic and Latin American manufacturers may not have the infrastructure to produce electronics in sufficient quantities, so outsourcing to Asian countries may at times make sense.
Russell Huebsch has written freelance articles covering a range of topics from basketball to politics in print and online publications. He graduated from Baylor University in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.


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Special Cruise Offers
Black Friday sale on 29 Princess Cruises sailings in 2016
Princess Cruises launches its four-day Black Friday offer tomorrow, with savings on 29 voyages sailing next year to destinations including the Mediterranean, Scandinavia and Russia.
Further reduced rates will be available for bookings with a third or fourth person in the same stateroom.
Deal fares include several roundtrip voyages from Southampton such as:
The deals will be offered on five ships including the soon-to-be refitted 3,000-guest Emerald Princess. The ship will cruise from Southampton in spring and summer 2016 complete with “SHARE”, a new specialty restaurant inspired by celebrity chef Curtis Stone, as well as the recently-introduced Salty Dog Gastropub.
Last year Princess became the first cruise line to introduce a Black Friday sale.
Tony Roberts, vice president, Princess Cruises UK and Europe, said: “This short sale gives fantastic prices on sailings across Europe. With added savings for extra guests sharing a stateroom, now is the time to take advantage of this limited-time offer and book your 2016 cruise.”


text: mick Saturday, 05/23/20 04:08:04 PM Re: mick post# 216142 Post # of 218440 Teekay Tankers (NYSE:TNK) announced its quarterly results before the market opened on Thursday, May 21st. The company reported $3.27 earnings per share (EPS) for the previous quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $2.91 EPS by $0.36. The company had revenue of $341.90 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $227.00 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.05 earnings per share. The company's quarterly revenue was up 43.5% on a year-over-year basis. The stock had previously closed at $16.49. This announcement was viewed 85 times. Read More.


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(Time.news) Menus, catalogs and books that can pass from hand to hand without the risk of contagion. A Perugia-based typography, Graphic Masters, has patented a new type of printer totally ‘antibacterial’ with the name ‘Happy touch’. An idea born in the middle of the lockdown, when the two founding partners, Enzo Guazzarini and Giuseppe Cellini, were wondering about a way to keep production going without suffering the repercussions of the pandemic. The answer was to apply the new sanitation needs to traditional printing, to meet the needs of hotels, restaurants, museums, which have been forced to use disposable prints for a year now.
A ‘protective print’
To ensure maximum safety without wasting paper, this type of ‘protective printing’ is born, which can be used both for simple brochures and for the world of packaging. This is done through the use of sanitizing products and chemical additives inserted in the machine, in the wetting liquid and in the finishing above the sheet, capable of creating an inhospitable protective barrier for infectious particles. “It happens in this way that if I take a sheet, even if there is a bacterium or a virus on my hand, when I pass it to another person, this person will not risk contracting it, because the product will be totally sanitized”, explains Enzo Guazzarini
Used for the catalog of an exhibition on Raphael
With ‘Happy touch’ a catalog has already been printed: that of the CariPerugia Arte exhibition “Raffaello in Umbria and his legacy in the Academy”, which was held in Palazzo Baldeschi, in Perugia, between October and January, created by Fabrizio Fabbri publisher. A book that could be browsed by multiple visitors in a completely ‘Covid-free’ way. “The duration of the protection is long – explain the owners of the company – in December we analyzed this product again made in September and it was still totally sanitized”.
The aim of the typography is to apply this new technology to the most diverse fields: not only for the brochures of museums and fairs, hotels and restaurants, but also for the books used by children in schools and above all for parcels of any kind, starting with products that are touched by many people in stores. “For now there are no other companies that have patented a similar technology – they argue – we are trying to promote it and the interest is considerable, especially for our publishing customers abroad, where there is greater demand and sensitivity towards safe products. and sanitized. It seems to us a good project – they conclude – which allows us to continue working and to look to the future ”.


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Zynga And Facebook Move Closer To Real Money Gambling
New Agreement Between Social Media Platform And Social Games Developer Brings Real Money Poker Closer
Social game developer Zynga has restructured its agreement with social media platform Facebook which paves the way for the launch of real money games such as online poker to be made available on Facebook.
The agreement, signed Thursday, Nov. 29 sees the loosening of ties between the two companies – Facebook is now free to develop its own games.
The key clause relating to real money games says, “If Facebook allows real money gambling games on the Facebook web site in countries where Zynga has real money gambling games, Zynga will subsequently launch such games on the Facebook web site, if certain conditions are met by Facebook.”
Zynga recently signed a deal with bwin.party which will see it launch real money poker in the UK via its Zynga Poker brand on the Party Poker network.
Zynga’s share price fell 12 percent on the news of the renegotiated deal as investors got nervous about the end of the special relationship between the two companies.
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East London-based House of Sunny went viral last summer for its now-signature swirl-print dress, favored by the Kardashian clan. Now it’s translating its flair for psychedelic prints and all things nostalgic for a fall collection that’s equally photogenic — and a welcome antidote to the sea of beige taking over fashion in the last year.
The look: Childlike prints — from unicorns to scenes from Disney’s “Fantasia” — pastel hues and body-hugging knits. This is not for the shy or the minimalists.
Quote of note: “We wanted to bring a playful and psychedelic feel to everyday life. Textiles were designed to provoke memories and fun stories to bring comfort and escapism to people during a global pandemic,” said the label’s managing director Camilla Ley.
Standout pieces: Retro faux fur-trimmed cardigans and a winter version of the viral Hockney dress, redone in an ocean blue hue and long sleeves.
Takeaway: Funky, feel-good clothing that will work well for post-lockdown life — and keep the Instagram likes coming.


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PRATT HONORS: Pratt Institute, which is marking a milestone with its 125th commencement ceremony on May 16, has finalized this year’s honorary degrees. They are Yoko Ono for her multimedia art, designer Karim Rashid, Brooklyn Museum director Arnold Lehman and The New York Times architectural critic and author Michael Kimmelman. Kimmelman is also delivering the commencement address that day.


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Detroit may have filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history on Thursday, but Shinola remains hopeful for a renaissance in the beleaguered city. Late last month, the Motor City-based watchmaker — backed by Fossil Inc. founder Tom Kartsotis — opened its first store a few blocks away from its 30,000 square-foot headquarters and watch production facility. On Friday, it opened the doors of a second store in New York’s TriBeCa neighborhood.
Despite Detroit’s precarious finances, Shinola executives said initial sales at its new hometown store at 441 West Canfield Street, opened June 27, have been robust. “We had a conservative plan, given that retail is untested waters for us, and it’s exceeded our wildest expectations,” said Heath Carr, chief executive officer of Bedrock Manufacturing Co., the investment and brand management firm controlled by Kartsotis. Apart from Shinola, Bedrock owns Filson, majority stakes in Original Jams and Mollusk, and minority stakes in Steven Alan, Clare Vivier and Marissa Webb.
A Stella McCartney sketch of a custom dress made from protein-based silk in partnership with biotech lab Bolt Threads. The dress will be displayed at The Museum of Modern Art's upcoming design exhibition, "Items: Is Fashion Modern?"