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Bed Bath & Beyond, Walgreens and PetSmart are among the retailers selling through Google’s voice-activated devices.
Buying keywords at Internet search engines is driving sales of specific items at Sears.com, including 400 quesadilla makers a day.
As one of the giants of retail, Sears, Roebuck and Co. has what people want: its online offering includes more than 15,000 products in 85 categories from 497 manufacturers. But a big store faces a big challenge: making sure shoppers find what they are looking for.
“With that many products, there is a need to drive marketing efficiency and productivity, especially when we’re seeing decreasing effectiveness from traditional Internet marketing approaches,” says Scott Kluth, search engine manager at Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based Sears. To solve the problem Sears is turning to paid search. Sears in October launched an aggressive search engine marketing campaign with pay for placement search engine Overture Services Inc.
While Kluth is revealing few details on results, Sears is pleased enough that it is spending an amount on search-driven click-throughs that’s comparable to what it spends on e-mail marketing, he says. As the result of stepped-up search marketing, for example, Sears is expecting search under “Sears” to deliver some 2 million shoppers to its web site this year. And to capture web shoppers who are looking for items Sears carries, but who aren’t necessarily thinking of Sears, Sears’ program with Overture has also locked up keywords covering many of its online products. Holiday results from one of the more esoteric-quesadilla makers-shows why Sears is sold on paid search.
During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Kluth says, a Sears manager was mystified as to why the quesadilla makers she ordered from her supplier could never be found in inventory. She probed for problems at the warehouse or with delivery by the supplier, but came up empty. Further investigation finally revealed that items were being delivered as ordered, but that they were selling out immediately online. Paid search on the appropriate keywords was delivering enough online shoppers directly to the listing page on Sears.com to sell out 400 or more quesadilla makers a day. After the inventory listings were updated each night to reflect the day’s sales, the manager would arrive to check inventory the next morning to find no quesadilla makers in stock-again.
“We can message at the keyword level, target event-driven searches and control landing pages based on conversion findings, and we only pay when someone clicks through,” Kluth says. “Search engine marketing works.”


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Consumers show signs of faltering Confidence falls, but home sales set another record
Consumers snapped up existing homes at a record pace in July amid signs that optimism about the economy may be waning, according to two private economic reports released Tuesday.
The National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes surged 4 percent to a record 4.93 million pace in July, continuing a remarkable boom in the housing market fueled by steadily sinking mortgage rates and plentiful jobs. The stock of unsold homes fell to a 5-month supply, a squeeze that has home builders working at a feverish pace.
However, consumer confidence may have peaked. The Conference Board said its closely watched consumer confidence index dropped to 133.1 from 137.2 in July, the first time the index had dropped two months in a row since the fall of 1996.
The level of confidence remains at high levels, but concerns about the future are beginning to show. The expectations index sank to 107.5 from 113.4 in July, mainly on worries about jobs and income. The present situation index fell modestly to 171.5 to 172.9.
The impact of the Asian economic crisis was plastered all over Tuesday's data. The weak Asian economies have helped drive U.S. interest rates ever lower, making houses and cars more affordable. On the other hand, regions that export heavily to Asia - such as the Pacific and Plains regions - suffered the biggest drops in consumer confidence.
"If you are commodity-oriented or if you have exposure to Asia, you're starting to get nervous," said Conference Board chief economist Delos Smith.
Smith said he didn't see any signs of a large, protracted drop in consumer confidence, even though fewer consumers reported plans to buy new homes, autos or appliances over the next six months.
"Since consumers have heavily fueled economic growth over the past several years, confidence readings in September and October may throw more light on the pace of activity we can expect for the final months of the year," said Lynn Franco of the Conference Board.
Written By Rex Nutting, Washington bureau chief, CBS MarketWatch

domain: news


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10th March 2012
Colleagues at Sainsbury's Wimbledon ready to go the extra mile for Sport Relief
· The official Sport Relief 2012 merchandise is now on sale at Sainsbury's Wimbledon
· Customers can now support Sport Relief by purchasing this year's range of in-store merchandise
· Customers can also choose to make donations via in-store collection buckets, colleague fundraising activities and take part in the Wimbledon Sainsbury's Sport Relief Mile on the 25th March
Sport Relief is back and Sainsbury's Wimbledon are ready to go the extra mile in their fundraising for this year's campaign! As one of the UK's biggest fundraising events, Sport Relief brings the entire nation together to get active, raise cash and change lives. Fundraising has already begun at Sainsbury's Wimbledon with the release of exclusive Sport Relief merchandise and will culminate in an action packed Sport Relief Weekend from Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th March.
This year's Sainsbury's Sport Relief Mile takes place in London on Sunday 25th March and Sainsbury's Wimbledon colleagues, customers and Wimbledon residents are already entering at http://tinyurl.com/7crhnge
One individual already signed up and preparing to take part in the mile is Rico Nuarin, a commercial team leader colleague from Sainsbury's Wimbledon. He said: "The sign-up process was really easy and I'm already limbering up to take part! I'm going to be doing the 1 mile event. It'll be my 1st time I've taken part in the Sainsbury's Sport Relief Mile and I'm really looking forward to getting sponsored to take part and raising funds for a vital cause."


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Irish consumers demand greener business options
SPEAKING to colleagues and watching the news, it's clear the environment, and in particular sustainability, are certainly going to be key themes for 2020.
Increasing environmental pressure from not just the youth of Ireland but from all age groups combined with rapid urbanisation around the world, is driving a global trend towards a more responsible lifestyle.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) commissioned research just before Christmas which found that brands now risk reputational damage if they fail to adopt more sustainable packaging practices. The research found that a quarter of consumers in Northern Ireland now judge a company's ethics on its packaging, and almost a fifth stated they would pay more for an item packaged in sustainable packaging.
A massive 88 per cent of the 2,000 questioned across the UK and Northern Ireland felt shopping has too much packaging, with children's toys, mobile phones and cosmetics considered to be the worst offenders.
So, what's being done to address the issue? In the eyes of Irish marketers, packaging has a significant part to play in addressing a range of consumer requirements. It provides a key communications role portraying brand values through design and imagery.
As packaging becomes more important as a communication channel, Irish marketing departments will face new challenges. For example, the desire to meet consumer demand to promote green credentials or support of a cause must be balanced with a brand's identity, or the very thing that attracted the consumer to the brand in the first place could be lost. So, what steps should we take to become more conscious in our consumption?
There are a range of innovative ideas and services from Irish and other international businesses. Readily available apps can calculate the carbon neutrality of your food and clothing purchases or help you shop more wisely.
Happy Cow, for example, is an online service that helps shoppers locate vegan or vegetarian options and can help making greener buying decisions more easy. Grown, an Irish organic clothing brand, puts their production line through an in-depth life cycle analysis to ensure there are no negative impacts on the environment, a conscious factor for not just the environment but for how they produce their clothing for the consumer.
Alternatively, your bank could help you put a stop to both your over-spending and over-consuming. Swedish fintech company Doconomy has a black credit card with a built-in CO2 limit that stops you shopping once you have reached your carbon quota that month.
Making greener purchasing decisions is a growing concern for consumers and increasingly a point of differentiation for brands. It's clear that consumers don't want or require the excess packaging that comes with products - both online and in store.
The onus is now on Irish and other international businesses to take what consumers are telling us and fully embrace sustainability-led strategies. If we can do this 2020 could be a greener and more prosperous year for Irish businesses everywhere.
:: Eileen Curry is chair of CIM Ireland


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Park Avenue is getting another luxury automobile showroom.
Audi of America is expected to announce today that it will open a showroom in December at 250 Park Avenue, on the corner of East 47th Street. BMW, at 51st Street, and Mercedes-Benz, at 56th Street, are the other luxury car dealers with showrooms on Park Avenue.
The 6,450-square-foot showroom, which will not have a service department, will fill a space that had been empty for three years, said Robert Billingsley, executive vice president of Colliers ABR, the leasing agent for 250 Park Avenue. DAVID W. CHENContinue reading the main story


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Have you heard? A new study out of Stanford has concluded that organic food doesn’t contain any additional nutrients compared to regular ol’ chemically grown food, so you and your hippy liberal friends should stick that in your gay granola pipes and smoke it! It’s all a scam to make you pay more for nothing!
Everyone from the BBC to NPR to Jezebel is reporting about how the organic food industry is nothing more than a scam devised to separate gullible hairy vegans from their hard-earned money. See, aside from not containing any unnatural pesticides or fertilizers, there’s no difference between organic and “regular” food.
Except that that’s exactly the reason why people choose organic food. No one thought organic food was a magic cure for cancer. The whole reason people eat organic food is to avoid pesticides. So yeah… there’s really no news to report here other than wide-reporting of a non-story.


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Check ’em out:
Biomedical engineers at UC Davis have developed a microfluidic chip to test for latent tuberculosis. They hope the test will be cheaper, faster and more reliable than current testing for the disease. The researchers used a novel approach: They coated a gold wafer with short pieces of a single-stranded DNA segment known to stick specifically to interferon-gamma. They then mounted the wafer in a chip that has tiny channels for blood samples. If interferon-gamma is present in a blood sample, it sticks to the DNA, triggering an electrical signal that can be read by a clinician. The researchers plan to refine the system so that the microfluidic sensor and electronic readout are integrated on a single chip.
To modify a metal surface at the scale of atoms and molecules-for instance to refine the wiring in computer chips or the reflective silver in optical components-manufacturers shower it with ions. While the process may seem high-tech and precise, the technique has been limited by the lack of understanding of the underlying physics. In a new study, Brown University engineers modeled noble gas ion bombardments with unprecedented richness, providing long-sought insights into how it works. The improved understanding could open the door to new technologies, such as new approaches to make flexible electronics, biocompatible surfaces for medical devices, and more damage-tolerant and radiation-resistant surfaces. The new model revealed how ion bombardments can set three main mechanisms into motion in a matter of trillionths of a second. The researchers dubbed the mechanisms “dual layer formation,” “subway-glide mode growth,” and “adatom island eruption.” They are a consequence of how the incoming ions melt the metal and then how it resolidifies with the ions occasionally trapped inside.
(GigaOm) “A dozen years ago, people couldn’t spell LED,” recalls Steve Lester, the chief technology officer of LED chip developer Bridgelux, in an interview. But “nobody debates the future of (LED lighting) anymore.” For example, earlier this month at Lightfair International, one of the world’s largest lighting tradeshows, Lester recalls that there was only one booth that featured a non-LED product. While LED lighting has caught on for commercial spaces, like spotlighting merchandise and for outdoor use like street lighting, it has yet to make its presence felt inside homes. That’s mainly because of its high, largely double-digit price tag, which leads to a much longer payback period, considering that consumers don’t keep lights on for as long as businesses do. However, despite a slower adoption by consumers, a McKinsey & Co. report last year projected that LED lighting could make up nearly 60 percent of the total lighting market by 2020.
(Tecca, via Rare Metal Blog) Those adventurous enough to get quirky furniture for their homes know that they can add a lot of life and sparkle to an otherwise dreary space. Some people with deft hands and imaginative minds even go as far as to make their own. Take for example 19-year-old reddit user mememetatata, who decided one day that he wanted a floating bed… and actually built one using wood and magnets. It took him roughly a grand to buy the necessary materials: 10 puck-sized neodymium magnets—one of the strongest rare-earth magnet variants—priced at $72 each, and $200 to $300 worth of wood. Five of the magnets went inside a thinner, upper wooden panel, and were positioned to repel similar poles of the other five magnets inside a larger base, effectively creating a floating bed.
The administration today announced a $26 million multi-agency Advanced Manufacturing Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge to foster innovation-fueled job creation through public-private partnerships. These coordinated investments will help catalyze and leverage private capital, build an entrepreneurial ecosystem, and promote cluster-based development in regions across the United States. This is the third round of the Jobs Accelerator competition, which is being funded by the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, NIST, DDE, Department of Labor, the Small Business Administration and the National Science Foundation.
DOE Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman announced in Fayetteville, Arkansas, $11 million in innovative research and technology grants of up to $150,000 to nearly 70 small businesses nationwide. He also highlighted that over the past year, the agency supported $8 billion in contracts to over 7,000 small businesses. Poneman made the announcements during a tour of Arkansas Power Electronics International, which develops state-of-the-art technology in power storage systems for electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies.
Do you know thatCrystalToolkit has recently been updated to perform spacegroup determination? Now, you can upload a POSCAR or cif of a structure with an unknown spacegroup into CrystalToolkit and the spacegroup will be displayed along with the crystal. This facility works whether the input structure is ordered or disordered. The spacegroup determination capabilities in the Materials Project is built on the excellent spglib written by Atsushi Togo. This code has also been incorporated in the latest version of pymatgen (v1.9.0) and a SymmetryFinder wrapper has been built to allow spglib to work seamlessly with pymatgen’s Structure objects.


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News - VFACTS - Sales 2019
VFACTS: Kia shines in a gloomy market
Kia hits new heights as Australian motor market slumps another 9.1 per cent
6 Nov 2019
KIA made the best of another bad month in the Australian motor industry in October, increasing its sales by more than 10 per cent over the same month last year to grab fourth spot on the sales ladder for the first time.
The South Korean company’s 5062 sales was a company record for October, earning it a 6.1 per cent market share – a new monthly benchmark for the brand, according to official VFACTS sales data.
Kia’s stablemate, Hyundai, was one of the few other major motor companies to edge into the black – up 0.3 per cent with 7455 sales last month – as most of the industry leaders slid backwards, dragging the overall market down 9.1 per cent.
The industry sold 82,456 vehicles in October, 8262 fewer than in the corresponding month last year, thus marking 19 months of continuous decline.
Sales this year are now running 8.0 per cent behind 2018, with all major segments – passenger cars, SUVs and commercial vehicles – showing weakness as economic woes such as the drought and low wage growth bite.
Long time leader Toyota again showed the way in October, topping the sales list with 16,988 sales – down 4.6 per cent – for a market share of more than 20 per cent.
While Toyota’s HiLux was again the best-selling vehicle in the land, the popular ute’s sales were down 20.1 per cent in October – from 4401 last year to 3516 last month – in a sign that should have warning bells ringing in Canberra.
Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries CEO Tony Webber said the drought and other domestic conditions were impacting the market, but the FCAI’s key concern was the effect of over-regulation of the financial sector.
“The FCAI and our members have been concerned about the risk averse approach to lending in Australia for some time and see improved access to finance as a key to driving economic growth in 2020,” he said.
“Of particular interest is the fact that sales are down across all buyer types, with private sales down 5.2 per cent compared to October 2018, business sales are down 8.2 per cent and government sales are down 7.3 per cent.”
Last month, Hyundai moved up to second place behind Toyota, with Mazda relegated to third with 6370 sales – a decline of 22.1 per cent.
Kia moved ahead of Ford and Mitsubishi, thanks mainly to a strong performance from its Cerato small car – up 36.5 per cent to 1827 sales for the month.
Year to date, Kia is ranked sixth with 51,422 sales, but is now little more than 2000 units behind fifth-placed Ford with two months of 2019 to go.
Ford’s sales last month fell in line with the market, down 8.8 per cent to 4891 units, while Mitsubishi – in the middle of model changeovers – dived 22.6 per cent, to 4811 units.
Holden made it back into the monthly top 10 after dropping out for the first time in its history in September, but its sales were nothing to write home about – down 41.3 per cent to 3086 units.
The Colorado ute made up almost 40 per cent of Holden sales last month as its passenger car sales continue to wane.
Holden ended up 10th, behind Subaru (3301, -24.4%) and ahead of Honda (2761, -10.0%).
Holden’s heavy advertising for its SUV range paid some dividends, with the large Acadia and Trailblazer both putting on sales compared with October last year.
In the luxury sector, Mercedes-Benz shrugged off the economic gloom to increase car and SUV sales by 19.4 per cent, to 2586 units.
Likewise, BMW sales were up 4.9 per cent, to 1784 sales, but Audi trailed, down 28.1 per cent to 1246 units.
Top 10 selling brands October 2019
The Road to Recovery podcast series
3rd of October 2019
VFACTS: Holden slides out of the top 10
Holden dominance a memory as former manufacturer sheds half its sales in two years
4th of September 2019
VFACTS: Vehicle market decline accelerates
August sales down 10.1 per cent as new-vehicle decline stretches to 17 months
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Motor industry news


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As smartphones become more popular, they're going to get some unwanted attention from criminals, Google's head of Android security said Wednesday.
The iPhone continued to shine as the sales of smartphones to end users grew by 27 percent during the second quarter compared to the same period last year, according to Gartner.
It's gloves-off time for two of Silicon Valley's darlings, and if they're not careful, one of them might get their hair mussed.
Despite recent drama, Google Voice will soon be available for iPhone -- as a Web-based app, says The New York Times.
Apple booted another popular app today from its iPhone App Store and it appears it did the right thing.
Another day, yet another odd application found in the iTunes App store. 'Poop The World' from SWS Digital allows users to track their bowel movements and share them with the world, all in real-time.
O2 could lose its exclusive deal to stock Apple's iPhone in the UK on October 9 this year.
We still don't know exactly when the TomTom for iPhone GPS application will be available. But, we may know how much it will cost: a UK online electronics store has apparently leaked the price of the upcoming app via a pre-order listing.
Today's hot Apple rumor suggests an iPhone 3GS 8GB may be on the way. The Boy Genius Report has screen grabs that purportedly show one or more documents from Canadian wireless provider Rogers. In what appears to be an internal memo, Rogers says it's ...
Just when you thought the iPhone App Store approval process couldn't possibly become more of a debacle, it did. John Gruber of Daring Fireball details the story of Ninjawords, an iPhone dictionary that Apple censored.
Navigon has released the full Australian version of its MobileNavigator app for the iPhone, providing full turn-by-turn GPS navigation.
It was only a matter of time, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt has resigned from Apple's board of directors.
Microsoft has published a case study detailing how to port an iPhone application to its Windows Mobile platform as it prepares to launch an online store for mobile applications to compete with Apple.
The Federal Communications Commission has begun an inquiry into Apple's rejection of the official Google Voice app for the iPhone and their subsequent removal of other Google Voice related apps which had already been approved. The FCC has asked Apple...
Rumors that Apple is working on an iPhone Nano are spreading -- again. The latest batch of rumors began when an Apple patent was rediscovered.
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They are upgraded versions of last year’s RTX cards
NVIDIA announced a new line of RTX cards under the SUPER line roughly a year after unveling their realtime ray tracing-capable cards.
Comprising of the RTX SUPER 2060, the RTX SUPER 2070 and the RTX SUPER 2080, all three cards offer improved performance compared to their predecessors.
The RTX 2080 SUPER offers an increased memory speed of 15.5Gbps compared to 14Gbps with the RTX 2080. The new card claims to be faster than NVIDIA’s previous generation Titan XP cards.
The RTX 2070 SUPER claims to be 24% faster and on average 16% faster than the RTX 2070. NVIDIA also claims that it is faster than the GTX 1080Ti.
Lastly, the RTX 2060 SUPER gets more GDDR6 RAM at 8GB compared to 6GB on the RTX 2060. NVIDIA claims that the RTX 2060 is better than the GTX 1080.
The RTX 2060 SUPER is priced at $399(~Php 20.5k), while the RTX 2070 SUPER is priced at $499(~Php 25.6k). Both are available starting July 9, with the RTX 2070 SUPER replacing the RTX 2070.
The RTX 2080 SUPER, on the other hand, will replace the RTX 2080 and will retail for $699(~Php 35.8k). It will be available staring July 23.


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The agency said the SENS (4 classes) and Modified 5C systems (Rayner’s score, 5 classes) essentially categorised foods in similar ways depending on their content of fat, sugar and salt and other nutrients like fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals, but such classifications would only be possible with full formulation information, rather than label information, which is all product classifiers would have to work with.
“it will not be possible”
“In terms of feasibility, for the SENS system and to a lesser degree for the Modified 5C system, the availability of composition data is the limiting step, since the [2011 EU food labelling regulation - Food Information for Consumers (FIC)] does not make it mandatory to provide on the labelling all the data needed for applying the two algorithms,” ANSES said.
“Thus, apart from the food producer, which will have determined all these necessary data, it will not be possible to determine the food class solely from the data available on the packaging from 13 December 2016.”
It developed its opinion via consumer surveys and applying the two systems to 1066 foods.
The effort to better label food is part of a French government programme to reduce social inequalities in health. Called the French National Health & Nutrition Programme, it seeks “to promote accessibility to food of good nutritional quality, in particular by improving consumer information relating to nutrition.”
ANSES said: “In France, the French Act of 26 January 2016 on the modernisation of the health system stipulates that this information may be accompanied by a supplementary presentation or expression using graphics or symbols, in order to facilitate consumer information and help them make fully informed choices.”
Ways to label
A 2014 report advocated implementing a labelling system based on Rayner’s score thresholds developed for the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA), which led to a threshold algorithm which came to be ‘Modified 5c’. The report recommended a 5-colour labelling system and noted ‘modified 5c’ had high consumer acceptability although it has not been tested in any food market.
The French Trade and Retail Federation (FCD) has backed the 4-class SENS labelling system.
The agency was asked to give its opinion of the nutrient profiling systems by the Ministries in charge of Health, Food and Consumer Affairs.
It has also been asked to provide a further “comparative analysis of the relevance of these two systems, in nutrition terms, in light of the public health issues.”
That work is expected to be completed in autumn.
French food industry (ANIA) president Jean-Philippe Girard previously has opposed colour-based labelling. “We must avoid the pitfall of reducing it to five colours. Real condition experiments are needed to build a suitable and efficient device.”
The European Union has been considering nutrient profiling systems for more than a decade but it has stalled over appropriate labelling systems, nutrient thresholds for which foods may be able to bear claims and whether certain foods like high-fat cheese or high-fructose orange juice may be exempt from such regulation.


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Apple Maps Catches Up to Google Maps with Offline Navigation in iOS 17
Apple’s upcoming iOS 17 update has been confirmed to bring a long-awaited feature to Apple Maps that has been available on Google Maps for years. Offline functionality will be introduced in Apple Maps for the first time, allowing users to download specific areas on their devices with a simple tap. While offline, users will have access to turn-by-turn navigation for driving, walking, transit, and cycling, along with estimated time of arrival and the ability to find places within Maps.
The addition of offline functionality in Apple Maps addresses a common frustration among users – the loss of connection or reliance on cellular data while navigating. By downloading directions and information ahead of time, users can have a seamless and uninterrupted navigation experience, regardless of their internet connection.
Another notable feature coming to iOS 17 is the real-time availability of electric vehicle charging stations in Maps. Apple’s app will provide filters for charging network and plug type, allowing users with compatible vehicles to select their preferred charging options.


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Last Updated on February 22, 2024 by Hamza Khan
Blockchain has proven over time that it is here to stay, and several global stakeholders have acknowledged it. Experts have predicted that blockchain will likely become the world’s future technology. With several changes and volatility in technology, it has become essential to remain abreast of happenings and trends that may develop. Several blockchain communities have been established to update the latest trends in the blockchain industry constantly. For every stakeholder with a vested interest in technology, a blockchain community is a must to stay on top of changes. This article has curated seven engaging blockchain communities with the latest trends and updates.
What are Seven Engaging Blockchain Communities with Latest Trends
Created in 2013, CoinDesk is an engaging and popular blockchain community designed to promote global engagement for transforming blockchain currency and the emergency of the cryptocurrency industry. The platform has unique features like current news, coin prices, events, media, and data and indices to promote cryptocurrency investment. The community has also made a name for itself with regular features on The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg, Business Insider, and many other reputable platforms! Asides from its regular industry events and webinar, the community has more than 13 million monthly viewers and a record 20,000 attendees.
BitcoinTalk is a general forum for discussing hot topics in the blockchain space, particularly concerning Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Bitcointalk has many forums and communities, but its Bitcoin Discussion forum has more than 255,000 posts on about 98,000 topics. A sign-in or login is required for a person to participate in the discussion. However, the posts, trends, and discussion can merely be viewed by a person as a guest without needing an account. BitcoinTalk was founded in 2009 courtesy of Satoshi Nakamoto, the Bitcoin developer, and it has since remained home to a community of persons interested in Blockchain technology and the latest trends in the industry.
In search platform that consistently provides blockchain trading knowledge, Newsletters, updates, and crypto markets guides? AltCrypto Talk has got you covered. The venue is home to recent updates and cryptocurrency news in a simplified and short manner. It provides strategies for maintaining profits in the blockchain industry and protecting themselves from the risk that comes with cryptocurrency. Although not your traditional blockchain platform, AltCrypto Talk is great for understanding and keeping up with the latest trends in blockchain communities.
Indeed, Forbes has become a giant, and its crypto and blockchain arm is no exception. The Forbes Crypto provides up-to-date trends and news about cryptocurrency and blockchain. It also has an advisor that is a go-to destination for expert reviews on crypto coins and trading and updates regarding market cap and charts on digital assets and cryptocurrency prices. As the cherry on the top, Forbes crypto offers ingenuous ways to utilize blockchain-derived mechanisms to save and invest money.
The Coin Telegraph offers news, updates about policies and regulations, market trends and caps, an encyclopedia for cryptocurrency, videos, podcasts, press releases, and more. The CoinTelegraph was founded in 2013 primarily to cover directions and updates on blockchain tech nobly and cryptocurrency assets. At the platform’s core, CoinTelegraph prioritizes accuracy and promptness in delivering news relating to decentralized technology and its centralized counterpart. It has stations worldwide and is managed by a team of efficient authors to bring people up-to-date at light’s speed on happening in several fields not limited to only blockchain but Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, and Quantum Computing.
The ChainLink Forum is a wide range of communities offered by ChainLink. It spans platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and even a ChainLink blog where users can primarily discuss and chat on the latest trends and possible opinions about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. ChainLink also has an annual programming event called SmartCon which is, as the name implies – a workshop and activities events for the blockchain and technology industry.
Cosmos Community is a platform that allows people to discover; attest trends in the blockchain industry, share their knowledge, or add that to pre-existing knowledge. It is a community renowned for being a fast-growing platform for global developers and innovators worldwide. It has Twitter, Reddit, Telegram, Discord, and GitHub forums. Cosmos Community also offers workshops, and activities designed to help developers and promote knowledge of the blockchain industry and the Internet of Things (IoT)
The communities and platforms above are just a few examples of the numerous communities that exist to provide updates and broader perspectives on the blockchain industry and any other product in the blockchain ecosystem. They are perfect for research and can bring fun and engaging knowledge to one’s fingertips.


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27 October 2016
AN array of fashion designers will tomorrow exchange notes at the Cotton to Clothing Indaba 2016 scheduled for Wild Geese Lodge in the capital.
The event also seeks to connect the industry with cotton farmers to tertiary education institutions who have fashion and designing on their curriculum.
Minister of Industry and Commerce Mike Bimha will officiate at the event which is being hosted by Association of Cotton Value Adders of Zimbabwe.
It is also sponsored under the Regional Integration Support Mechanism (RISM)funds, made available by the European Union.
Young designers from Harare Polytechnic, Chinhoyi University of Technology and Speciss College will have a chance to showcase their talent on the ramp which will be opened up by Tariro Muza’s collection.
“Young designers are the future of this industry.
“They will gain exposure and experience as many members of ACVAZ also participate and exhibit at this event.
“A number of young designers have in the past been recognised, recruited and gone on to become professional designers,” reads part of the statement.
Meanwhile, Zuvva Designs will also be part of this indaba together with Thembani Mubochwa’s TZM which will be presenting the Craig Zoowie collection.
Other activities that will be taking place on the day will be an exhibition by the various players of the industry and a cocktail party where the attendants will have a live performance from Willis Wataffi of Afrika Revenge.
The event which is expected to cost over $ 45 000 will all be covered by EU under COMESA in an effort to assist with the cotton to clothing strategy aimed at supporting the value chain in areas.


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New technology trends that could impact your life and business.
Articles about Emerging Tech
While there are plenty of new products emerging to challenge organizations in the way they plan, drive, deliver, and support the business, it helps to understand the leading players.
As enterprise technology often struggles to keep up with the consumer world, here are the high impact products breaking into the mainstream with excellent chance to help companies keep up and get ahead.
The technology is interesting, but the novelty will eventually wear off.
Microsoft is highlighting some of its big-data and analytics projects at this week's TechFair research fair.
Can the retail giant emulate Amazon's ecosystem-building success?
Who needs a smartphone to make low-value payments when giving the till a high five can do the same job?
Governments should adopt a light touch approach in regulating virtual currencies and instead allow technology to help protect consumer interests, says Singapore-based Bitcoin broker, Coin Republic.
Google reckons its Glass Explorer club has reached capacity after the company opened it up to the public for one day only, but it's staying mum on numbers.
Users wanting to create an account on Australia's first bitcoin ATM will need to provide a phone number, and undertake a scanning of their driver's licence, face, and palm.
The UK-based company Brightwake used Stratasys 3D printed parts to reduce prototyping costs by 96 percent for its blood-recycling machine Hemosep - reiterating the cost efficiencies 3D printing can bring to the prototype process.
The Windows Phone 8.1 developer preview bits, including a beta of its Cortana digital assistant, are available as of April 14. I've been using WP 8.1 for over a week. Here's what I found.
This is the last of the reviews. We end on a high note with IBM, Solvis Consulting, and The Pedowitz Group, all consulting organizations, all very different, all having an impact, and all at a crossroads. See what they think -- and what I think -- they have to do. A worthy way to say goodbye for this year.
Microsoft researchers are looking at ways to allow Windows 8, Windows Phone and Xbox users able to interact directly with Live Tiles.
Canon Marketing Japan will begin selling a broader line of 3D Systems 3D printers.
Poor communities have undiscovered talent that can be nurtured and channeled into well paying jobs such as software engineering.


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Issued on February 14 by developers, a warning emphasizes that there is currently no official DeFi Curve Finance app, urging users to stay vigilant against scams. The unauthorized Curve app, falsely attributed to MK Technology Co. Ltd, has triggered concerns as it bears the genuine Curve Finance logo.
Unveiling the Fake Curve Finance’s Application and Its Tactics
The imposter app, currently boasting a 4.6 out of 5 stars rating with nine reviews, claims to be a “powerful app for managing borrowers and their loans.” Interestingly, it promotes additional in-app entertainment features, including puzzle games. The official website, hosted on Google Sites, only provides a single proton mail contact address along with a “Curve Finance” descriptor. It remains uncertain if the app is merely exploiting Curve Finance’s brand without authorization or if it poses a more significant threat, intending to siphon users’ wallet assets through deceptive in-app functionalities.
Persistent Issue of Fake Crypto Applications
The appearance of this fake Curve Finance app underscores the persistent challenge of unauthorized crypto applications infiltrating major app stores. Notably, tech giants like Apple have faced previous instances where malicious apps compromised users’ crypto assets. In June 2023, Apple removed a malicious Trezor wallet app that coerced users to input their wallet seed phrases, leading to the unauthorized drainage of crypto holdings. Similarly, Microsoft grappled with a recurring issue, removing a fake Ledger app in November 2023 that had already stolen $588,000 across 38 transactions before its delisting.
Read more: More articles about DeFi
The discovery of a fake Curve Finance app on the Apple App Store serves as a stark reminder of the ongoing threat posed by fraudulent crypto applications. Users are cautioned to exercise heightened vigilance, particularly when downloading financial and decentralized finance-related apps. Tech companies continue to grapple with these challenges, emphasizing the need for enhanced security measures and user awareness in the ever-evolving landscape of digital assets.


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After the success of Social, legendary chef Heinz Beck announces new restaurant
What’s On reveals details of a new Heinz Beck restaurant in Dubai, to be called Taste Of Italy by Heinz Beck, situated at The Galleria Mall on Al Wasl Road.
Legendary chef Heinz Beck is to open a second restaurant in Dubai, less than one year after his venture in the region.
The three-times Michelin-starred German has enjoyed great success with fine-dining establishment Social by Heinz Beck at the Waldorf Astoria The Palm since it’s opening in April 2014.
And now he has revealed details of a new project at The Galleria Mall on Al Wasl Road that is set to open in February 2015.
‘Taste Of Italy by Heinz Beck’ will be a far more laid back affair than Social, offering a fully-fledged retail store for deserts, gelato, pastries and breads, as well as the widely-hailed Italian food that made Beck’s name.
Speaking through a statement, the chef said: “The restaurant menu has been specifically designed with the discerning palette of UAE residents in mind, and I am very much looking forward to sharing some tastes that captured my attention as a chef more than two decades ago with Dubai very soon.”
Beck’s flagship dining establishment, La Pergola in Rome, is considered one of the planet’s best, and is the only restaurant in the Italian capital to be awarded the coveted three-star rating by Michelin.
His outlet on The Palm was described by What’s On as ‘smart and chic’ with a decor that ‘tells of a class and style most thrive to be a part of’. It is ‘top end, but not inaccessibly so’. The review, in our September 2014 issue of the magazine, signed of by saying: “The name may be Heinz, but this is as far from baked beans as it’s possible to get”.
Marka, the company behind the venture has also revealed it will launch four new retail brands in the second phase of the Meraas developed City Walk project, while also having deals at Yas Mall in Abu Dhabi and The Beach in Dubai. The company also recently bagged the franchise agreement for football star Cristiano Ronaldo’s new CR7 footwear.


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Last November, Activision Blizzard made a shocking decision when it suddenly ended its partnership with Netease, the company which brought games like Overwatch and World of Warcraft to China, after 14 years. Now we know why. According to the New York Times, Netease suggested it could sway Chinese regulators on Microsoft’s planned acquisition of Activision, a statement NetEase says was intended as a conciliatory gesture, but that Activision executives interpreted as a threat. The two companies ended the partnership a month later.
The two companies were negotiating the terms of their contract renewal on a Zoom call, making use of translators at times to facilitate communications. NetEase chief executive William Ding wanted their companies to switch to a “licensing” deal rather than a distribution-based relationship, a change which would be more profitable for NetEase while also, the company argued, better positioning it to comply with new government regulations. In September 2021, NetEase lost $US60 billion in stock value after Chinese regulators announced restrictions on the number of hours that children could play video games. So there was financial pressure on the publisher to come out with a better deal.
While Bobby Kotick seemed open to the idea, he was concerned that a licensing deal would affect the regulatory talks surrounding the Microsoft acquisition. In response to these concerns, Ding told Kotick that NetEase could sway the Chinese government to either prevent or allow the Microsoft acquisition, which was being reviewed by Chinese regulators at the time. According to the Times’ sources from NetEase, Microsoft would have to deal with Chinese regulatory laws if it did not offload Activision Blizzard’s properties to NetEase. Kotaku reached out to Kotick’s representative, but did not receive a comment by the time of publication.
The Times claimed that Activision executives felt that NetEase had “threatened” Kotick. After the meeting, Activision offered NetEase the licensing deal if the company paid $US500 ($694) million upfront as a means of offsetting the cost of regulatory complications. NetEase reportedly rejected the offer, calling it “commercially illogical.” Kotaku reached out to Activision Blizzard, but did not receive a comment by the time of publication.
Selling games in China is a draconian process compared to other markets. Both domestic and foreign gaming publishers have to contend with China’s National Press And Publication Administration (NPPA), which approves individual titles that could be sold to Chinese consumers. From July 2021 to April 2022, the agency stopped approving titles altogether — putting nearly 14,000 gaming companies out of business.
The two companies also had earlier disputes between them. In 2018, NetEase invested $US100 million in Bungie, a move which reportedly displeased Kotick. Activision had been a partner on Destiny and Bungie was behind schedule in developing new content for its popular shooter, so Kotick felt that the NetEase infusion would potentially distract the developer from attending to that task. In the same year, NetEase had invested in a game company founded by a former Activision employee. The Times reported that investment caused Kotick to consider ending their partnership early.
“It is unfortunate that Activision Blizzard continues to harass and taunt companies and regulators worldwide, making unfounded accusations to distract everyone from its real problems,” NetEase wrote in a statement to Kotaku. “ Our recent negotiations revealed a clear misalignment between the two companies, both in commercial terms and in corporate values, therefore we decided it was not in our long-term interest to serve the short-term goals of Activision Blizzard’s current leadership or to deviate from our founding principles.”
The Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard is a mess, but it’s ordinary people who have paid the price for the ongoing drama. NetEase laid off or reassigned most staff from the team that was operating Activision Blizzard’s games in China. And these games had been massively popular in the Chinese gaming community. A Beijing-based World of Warcraft player said that the MMO had kept him connected to “thousands of people since 2005.”
“What I’m most worried about now is that these friendships will disappear,” he told the Times.
The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans
Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.


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Just so you know where this column comes from: I am a 45-year-old white man with two kids, a pound dog and a minivan. I'm about as hip-hop as Dick Cheney, and in my world a do-rag is something the wife hands me when she wants the kitchen counters cleaned.
In that sense, I fit far more comfortably in NBA commissioner David Stern's demographic than Allen Iverson's, so perhaps it's no surprise that I'm in favor of the NBA's new dress code.
Stern announced Monday that players must dress in “business casual attire” during team or league activities, and those who are on the bench and not in uniform must wear sports jackets, shoes and socks.
The fashion no-nos on Stern's list include sleeveless shirts, shorts, T-shirts and jerseys — Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe — headgear of any kind, jewelry worn over clothes and sunglasses while indoors.
As you might expect, the dress code isn't sitting well with many NBA players, who believe they're old enough to dress themselves, thank you.
"I think it's going outside of their jurisdiction to us,” said Suns point guard Steve Nash, whose usual game-day outfit is jeans and a T-shirt. “Definitely on the bench, I think they have every right to at least give us some ideas. I'll do it. I'll go with the majority. “But my personal view is that . . I think it's kind of up to the individual."
Others, like Charlotte Hornets point guard Brevin Knight and Denver Nuggets center Marcus Camby, said the league should give players a clothing allowance if it's going to insist they dress a certain way.
Oh, please. The minimum salary in the NBA last season was $385,000. I'm guessing a couple of suits won't put players in debt.
The more serious objection — and one Stern had to know was coming — is that the dress code is racially motivated because it targets black players who embrace the hip-hop culture.
Certainly, the hip-hop world is an urban phenomenon that appeals to a good number of black NBA athletes. It would be naive to suggest otherwise.
But the dress code is not as much about color as it is about business. The NBA has skewed young and urban, and while it can't turn back the clock, trying to attract a more diverse audience is a good business decision.
It's no secret the Baby Boomer generation — and Madison Avenue — feels more comfortable with Michael Jordan in Armani than Iverson in gold chains and a cap perched sideways on his head.
“There are some disconnects that have taken place,” Suns chairman Jerry Colangelo said. “We're not trying to avoid the hip-hop culture, but everybody has to be sensitive to the big picture. We're appealing to people from all walks of life and different economic status.”
Although I agree with Stern's decision, I can't help but consider the hypocrisy involved: All of a sudden the NBA has a problem with do-rags when rap music is blaring in arenas and the featured performer at the All-Star game last February was Destiny's Child.
As Suns forward Raja Bell told The Associated Press, ‘‘We sell to kids and people who are into the NBA hip-hop world.’’
Stern's concern, apparently, is that the NBA isn't selling to anyone else.
As I was debating the dress code's merits, one thought persisted: Is it asking too much of NBA players to dress professionally? If the Tribune asks me to meet and greet readers at a company-sponsored event, I'm not going to show up in shorts and flip-flops.
The NBA deserves the same respect from its employees.
“This is about how we would like people within the industry to conduct themselves and dress themselves appropriately,” Colangelo said.
That may sound old-fashioned in this era of sweatsuits and bling bling, but the players shouldn't mind a little Frank Sinatra between tracks of 50 Cent.
They may even discover a suit and tie can be as cool as baggy jeans and a San Diego Chargers throwback jersey.


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Updated from 5:27 p.m. EDT
But investors appeared leery of the new strategy and quickly pushed the stock down $1.75, or 6.4%, to $25.50 in after-hours trading Thursday on Instinet.
The "strategic decision," as CFO Chris Liddell calls it, explains the company's surprisingly weak bottom-line performance in the just-completed third quarter and the disappointing earnings guidance for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2007.Late Thursday, Microsoft announced that it had earned $2.98 billion, or 31 cents a share, (excluding a legal charge of 3 cents a share) on sales of $10.9 billion. Although that represented year-over-year revenue growth of 13% and earnings growth of 17%, it fell short of Wall Street's expectations. Analysts were looking for $11 billion on the top line and 34 cents a share on the bottom line. The sudden bout of bottom-line blues surprised Microsoft bulls and gave skeptics like Pat Adams, chief investment officer of Choice Investment Management, more reason to stay away. "There's just no reason to be in this stock until new products ship," he says. Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, attributed the miss to heavy spending in a number of areas, including the Xbox 360 product costs, accelerated hiring, more R&D and heavy marketing, as the company prepares for the launch of Vista, the new version of its flagship Windows operating system. "We're willing to make those tradeoffs for growth," Liddell said during a conference call with analysts. Surprising as the third-quarter miss was, the weak earnings guidance was simply stunning. "I'm blown away," commented Richard Williams, chief software analyst for ICAP. EPS in the June, or fourth quarter, will be about 30 cents, the company said, compared to expectations of 34 cents. Revenue will range from $11.5 billion to $11.7 billion, the company said; Wall Street was looking for $11.6 billion.


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The new EastWest brand products also received acclaim from the press for its uniquely healthy and sustainable pet treats. The company’s Slim’Dog and Calm’Cat products were featured in the popular “Fave Finds” section by trusted pet publications Modern Dog and Modern Cat magazines; given the coveted “stamp of approval” from Animal Wellness Magazine, the leading pet magazine in North America; and mentioned in a newsletter feature by award-winning cat blog The Purrington Post. In addition to its premiere Slim’Dog and Calm’Cat products, Natural Pet Science, under the Canadian health group EastWest, is working hard to release more hemp-based pet treat formulas boasting equally innovative, healthy recipes in the near future.
“We realized early in market development there were significant gaps in the market for unique all-natural, plant-based food and treat options for pets,” explains Rodney Gelineau, co-founder and chief executive officer of the brand’s holding company EastWest BioScience. “We discovered hemp and cricket ingredients could hold a really unique spot in the market for us. First, both hemp and crickets provide remarkable health and nutritional profiles and secondly, they both represent exceptionally sustainable farming practices. We are simultaneously producing pet products that are healthy for the pets and for the environment, something we believe today’s consumer markets are demanding.
“For instance,” says Mr. Gelineau, “a comparative analysis of cricket flour verus steak, conducted by Maxxim Analytics, showed that cricket flour is gluten free, has two times more protein — 60 per cent by volume; has six times more vitamin B12; and boosts an ideal Omega 6 and Omega 3 ratio of 3:1 versus steak’s ratio of 18:1.”
Since the brand’s beta launch in July, Natural Pet Science has secured an agreement with Purity Life, the leading natural health product distributor in Canada, for nationwide distribution across Canada.
About Natural Pet Science
Natural Pet Science is a hemp-based pet brand producing, manufacturing and distributing premium health products for cats and dogs. The brand continues to innovate and produce high-quality hemp-based alternatives to support the preventive care of pets.
About EastWest BioScience
EastWest Bioscience is a seed-to-sale organization that offers world-class manufacturing and premium hemp-based consumer goods. Since it was founded in 2016, EastWest continues to grow as a high-quality producer, manufacturer and distributor of multiple lines of premium hemp products. EastWest is strategically positioned in mainstream consumer markets with holistic natural products and has developed distribution channels into mainstream stores and markets in Canada.
For more information or press inquiries, please contact:
Gleb Vaguine email@example.com
CONNECT WITH US
Natural Pet Science website: naturalpetscience.com


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Belarus to export grains in 2009
Too early to forecast export volumes
Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Ivan Bambiza announced on June 2 that the country would start exporting grains in 2009.
The program was announced two years ago and will be implemented this year with the export of spiked grains, beginning with rye used for baking. However, Bambiza added it was too early to forecast export volumes.


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BANGKOK, 6 June 2013 The University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce revealed that the country’s consumer confidence index (CCI) in May, stood at 82.5, dropping from 83.7 in April.
Director of the Center of Economic and Business Forecasting of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce Thanawat Polwichai said Thailand saw a drop in its CCI for 2 consecutive months. The CCI, in May, was at 82.5, while the confidence index for the overall Thai economy stood at 72.8, and the confidence in employment index stood at 100.4. When compared to the previous month, the figures were lower in all areas.
The director cited worries of consumers over future spending as a key factor of the drop. The worries came after the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) had adjusted the country’s GDP growth anticipation down to 4.2-5.2 percent from 4.5-5.5 percent.
Another factor behind the drop in the country’s CCI was the export sector which saw only a 2.9 percent increase in April, said Mr. Thanawat.


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McDonald’s menu has changed drastically since the American restaurant chain first came to the UK decades ago, with new additions like the vegan wrap and mozzarella dippers having appeared in recent years. However, McDonald’s also removes items from its menu from time to time, much to fans’ disappointment.
This is due to a nationwide shortage of the item.
The Chicken Deluxe, Chicken Selects, and the Big Flavour Wraps are already unavailable at all McDonald’s chains across the country.
Although McDonald’s has said it is working hard to get the Chicken Selects and wraps back on its menu soon, the Chicken Deluxe will not be reappearing.
A McDonald’s spokesperson commented on the Chicken Selects shortage supply, saying: “We are working incredibly hard to get this popular menu item back on sale in our restaurants.
“We know some customers will be disappointed to hear this news, and we would like to apologise for the short-term inconvenience.”
As for the McFlurry flavours getting axed from the menu next week, they are the Galaxy Chocolate McFlurry and the Galaxy Caramel McFlurry.
The five items to be removed were introduced for a limited six-week period last month, on May 5.
However, McDonald’s often rotates its menu, therefore the items could reappear later in the year.
When the fast-food chain gets rid of menu items, it usually reintroduces new ones.
But it is not yet known which new products will be available at McDonald’s from next week.
In other McDonald’s news, the brand is currently offering customers £5 off on orders over £15.
Additionally, from tomorrow, June 14, customers will be able to buy a McChicken Sandwich for only 99p.
On Tuesday, the restaurant chain is offering fans 30 percent off its entire menu.


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Peloton’s Christmas ad is compared to a Black Mirror episode, Billie Eilish has gone viral for, like, 3 things this week, Baby Yoda and White Claw have been combined into a tattoo to summarize 2019, and many more viral stories you should know this week…
Peloton’s Ad Is Being Compared to Black Mirror—& Might Have Caused a Stock Drop
Peloton had a really, really unmerry week. If you were on the internet, or watched the news, or paid attention to the stock market this week, you probably heard about the high-tech exercise bike’s Christmas commercial, which went viral for all the wrong reasons. In the ad, a husband gifts his fit wife a Peloton bike for Christmas, and she spends the year documenting her fitness journey. Sound nice? Almost no one thinks so. The ad was compared to Black Mirror, called sexist and dystopian, and parodied on social media (a favorite has almost 4 million views). Many said the wife looks terrified, and others criticized the fact that she is already physically tiny before her year-long Peloton adventure. The ad currently has over 4 million views on YouTube, and far more dislikes than likes, though the brand is standing behind their marketing. Things got so bad that the brand’s 9% stock dip this week is being blamed on the commercial backlash—though Adweek says the “dumb” ad isn’t the real cause. (Meanwhile, people are loving this Christmas ad from a family-owned hardware store that cost them just $130 to make.)
Pantone’s Color of the Year Is All About Easing Our Anxiety
Pantone has announced their color of the year for 2020, and everyone is feeling comforted. The color is Classic Blue, “A timeless and enduring blue hue, timeless in its simplicity” and as Design Milk says, it’s meant to “evoke calm evening skies, a sense of peace, and reassurance in trying times”—something that stressed out Gen Z and Millennials are always looking for. With everyone from Teen Vogue to The Cut praising its “anti-anxiety” qualities, headlines about the color were everywhere this week. The tweet announcing the color has been retweeted over 18,0000 times, #ClassicBlue was all over social feeds, and of course, brands jumped into the conversation as well.
Billie Eilish Has Gone Viral For, Like, 3 Things This Week
Seventeen-year-old Billie Eilish won Global Artist Of The Year at Apple Music’s first ever awards this week, but that was just the beginning of the headlines about the singer. First, Eilish went viral for saying she doesn’t know who Van Halen is—eliciting strong reactions. Some on Twitter were horrified, while supporters said “Ok Boomer,” and Elizabeth Warren came to her defense. Van Halen became the number one trending topic as a result. Then, Eilish released her latest music video, “Xanny,” which has gotten over 10 million views in a day, and shows the singer without her signature slime green hair. It’s also being called an anti-smoking PSA, thanks to the cigarettes being put out on Eilish’s face in the vid and her statement that “This song is obviously about how stupid cigarettes are.” But the internet wasn’t finished with Eilish news yet. Now, a #BillieEilishIsOverParty is being held on Twitter by Lady Gaga fans after Eilish, a vegan, responded negatively when asked about Gaga’s infamous 2010 meat dress. Of course, Billie’s fans, and even some of Gaga’s are defending her. Confused? Welcome to the internet at the end of 2019.
Spotify’s Year Wrapped Playlists Spark Shame, Envy
It’s that time of year again! Spotify has released their annual Wrapped playlists for its users, recapping the music they listened to the most, and this year they’re causing shame for some and major envy for others. Apple Music doesn’t release a year-retrospective, leaving its users “feeling left out” and looking on sadly. Meanwhile, many of those who did get a nostalgic look back at their music listening for the year were embarrassed by the results—the data behind their top songs revealing some uncomfortable truths. Others are seeing the impact that sharing their Spotify passwords with their parents has had (lots of John Mayer). The app also released some of the year-end stats for major artists: Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” has been streamed over 919,000,000 times, and BTS’s “Buy With Luv” was streamed by their Army over 300 million times in 2019.
Links We’re Passing
This Baby Yoda drinking a White Claw tattoo summarizes 2019
Everyone’s talking about how the star of Disney’s Aladdin hasn’t had an audition since the movie
A teen made a TikTok after car crash—from inside the flipped car
Nintendo Switch was released in 2018, and it just had its best sales week ever in the U.S.
Post Malone dropped his new Croc line at the fast food spot he once worked at—and lines were seriously long
A vegan blogger started eating only meat, and her followers aren’t happy


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Sabre Holdings has appointed Hugh Jones, president and CEO of Travelocity, as president of Sabre Airline Solutions.
He will be replaced by Carl Sparks, current president of Gilt Groupe and a former online travel executive.
Both Travelocity and Sabre Airline Solutions are business units of Sabre Holdings.
In his new role, Jones will oversee the growth of Sabre Airline Solutions, which provides technology solutions to the air transportation industry.
Sparks has previously held executive leadership roles at Expedia and Hotels.com.
In his new role, he will take responsibility for the growth of Travelocity Global and its subsidiaries Travelocity, Travelocity Business, Travelocity Partner Network, IgoUgo, AllHotels.com, and lastminute.com in Europe and Zuji in Asia Pacific.
The changes take effect from 25 April.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Established by the famed Sarkies Brothers in 1885, the Eastern & Oriental (E&O) Hotel in Penang is the only hotel in the heart of the George Town UNESCO World Heritage Site that possesses prime sea frontage. Today, the luxurious 228 all-suite hotel stands as the grand dame of heritage hotels, its distinctive classic elegance and grace of service enhanced with time.
For more information, visit www.eohotels.com


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Recently, the award ceremony of "2020 New Economy Industry Annual Summit List" organized by iiMedia
Research was held online, and the winners of the "2020 New Economy Industry Annual Summit List" were
grandly unveiled The winners were announced Qeeka Home (01739.HK), the first home improvement vertical
platform, was selected as one of the 12 companies on the "2020 Most Innovative Brands/Enterprises" list
from nearly 1,000 participating companies.
Since its inception, the annual "New Economy Industry Annual Summit List" was launched by the well-known
third-party data mining and analysis agency Aimedia Consulting, based on investment value, comprehensive
strength, development potential, innovation ability and other dimensions, combined with Aimedia's big
data monitoring and analysis system and original data modeling system, selected by a large number of
netizens' votes and nearly 100 authoritative experts' think-tanks, the list is a verification and
affirmation of the achievements of new economy enterprises. The list is currently influential,
well-known and well-recognized both inside and outside the industry, and its inclusion means that the
achievements of enterprises or individuals in the field of new economy have been widely recognized.


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Copyright Getting In The Way Of Preserving Video Game History
from the and-again-and-again-and-again dept
We keep hearing stories of how copyright is getting in the way of preserving or archiving cultural works. The latest is video games, which face a double whammy of obsolete proprietary hardware and restrictive copyright laws, making it quite difficult to legally preserve those games:
Even if preservationists had the resources to develop the kind of emulators that can stand the test of time, their task would be made all the more difficult by the tendency of game companies to worry more about piracy than preservation. This means that documentation on how their machines work is either non-existent (if the company goes out of business or fails to preserve it) or secret, so makers of emulators must laboriously reverse-engineer existing hardware.
Finally, there’s the copyright issue. Getting permission to preserve a game requires signoff by everyone with a stake in it–its creator, publisher, etc.
Given the current legal situation concerning emulation, it is not possible to preserve video games digitally using emulators and copy media to different physical layers without the manufacturer’s agreement. Establishing responsibility for the preservation of digital data must be seen as a priority. Awareness has to be raised among the manufacturers of console video game systems and console video games to reach agreements about how to preserve their work.
The article also notes that there probably needs to be a legal change, such as exempting such archival activity in the DMCA rulemaking process that just concluded — but so far it doesn’t seem like such changes are likely.


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The popular British preschool series Peppa Pig has launched on Disney+ in 19 new markets across Europe, with availability in 25 additional languages.
The animated series is now available on the platform in the Balkans, the Baltics, Benelux, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, GSA, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the U.K. It will debut on the streamer in Portugal on March 29.
Peppa Pig has been airing for almost 20 years across nine seasons. Seasons one through six are now available in the aforementioned territories on Disney+.
“We’re delighted to be partnering with Disney+ to bring Peppa Pig to our existing fanbase of passionate preschoolers, as well as introducing the series to a new wave of families across Europe,” said Monica Candiani, executive VP of content sales at Entertainment One Family Brands. “For nearly 20 years, Peppa Pig has helped kids to embrace all of life’s adventures, building curiosity and confidence to jump into everyday firsts. We’re excited to continue sharing these important themes with fans across the globe on Disney+.”


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What you should about the advertising industry in China
China’s new advertising law
In recent years, the advertising industry in China faced many problems caused by fraudulent advertisements. According to the former Chinese State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC)—which after a general reshuffling of the national regulatory bodies in 2018 was integrated in the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR)—in the eight years spanning from 2007 to 2014 a total of 370,000 cases of illegal advertising were recorded, 30% of which were categorised as fraudulent. In 2014, there was 26,700 cases of false advertising in China. Therefore, after this eight-year trend, authorities decided to step up their efforts in dealing with illegal advertising practices. Crest, a branch company of the US-based conglomerate P&G specialising in oral hygiene products, bore the brunt of the new regulations put into place at the end of 2014.
According to a report published by the Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce (SHAIC), which is the Shanghai watchdog for Advertising Law in China, Crest was fined because of a television advertisement showing the well-known Taiwanese celebrity Dee Hsu displaying marble-like white teeth. In the advertisement, it was claimed that the result was achieved after merely one day of using the company’s toothpaste. However, after this bold claim, the SHAIC conducted specific research and found out that the alleged whitening-effect of the toothpaste was none other than heavy computer graphic editing. For this reason, the company was found guilty of purposefully employing a fraudulent advertisement that violated China’s new advertising law.
Stricter advertising laws to protect customers in China
China’s Crest advertisement read as follows, “use Crest dazzle double effect whitening toothpaste for just one day and your teeth really turn white”. Because of this claim, which was deemed deceitful by the SHAIC; Crest was fined 6.03 million RMB ($958.000), the highest fine in the history of the advertising industry in China so far. The Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Bureau of Investigation motivated the decision to fine the company with the following statement, ” Toothpaste is generally intended for teeth cleaning and sometimes has anti-acid or desensitizing functions. Whitening is actually very difficult to accomplish”.
China’s new advertising lin detail
The revision of the Advertising Law of the People’s Republic of China(China’s New Advertising Law)was passed by the fourteenth plenary meeting of the 12th National People’s Congress (NPC) on April 24, 2015, and implemented on September 1st, 2015. China’s New Advertising Law is a major overhaul of the first version of the Chinese Advertising Law of 1994. The changes concern the expansion of the provisions from 49 to 75. Furthermore, changes and improvements to the legal liability of advertising bodies have been made, so that it would be easier for the regulatory authorities to identify deceitful advertising and hold companies accountable when they break the law. In particular, the New Advertising Law is believed to be a remedy for false advertising in China thanks to the following two breakthroughs:
- A clearer definition of false advertising
Previously, in the old advertising law, there were only a few provisions for the definition of fraudulent advertisement. The new advertising law provides a very detailed definition of false advertising in China with five specified situations and, for the first time, with clarifications of what is considered fraudulent advertisement in China.
2. Heavier administrative penalty & civil responsibility
In China’s old advertising law, the advertising agent and publisher bore joint liability with the advertiser only when they designed, produced or published the advertisement with knowledge of the falsity of the advertisement.
However, with the new law in place, the advertising agent in China, publisher or endorser must bear joint liability with the advertiser, particularly in the case when a false advertisement is published for commodities or services which cause damage to consumers’ life or health, even if the agent, publisher or endorser is not at fault or negligent.
New costs in, old costs out. Crackdown on false advertising in China
To comply with the new advertising law, firms, previously reliant on misleading or false advertising, now must factor in the risk of incurring in significant fines. In fact, the new law greatly increases the penalties for false advertising in China. However, it is not fully clear yet how effective the new regulations will be on most large companies, which can easily absorb large fines without incurring in a market loss. On the other hand, the new advertising law helps companies reduce market entry costs. In fact, the 1994 version of advertising law required the advertising agent to undergo the process of company or advertising management registration before conducting advertising activities. This provision is completely absent in the new advertising law, which means that the modification further reduces government intervention in the Chinese advertising market by virtually eliminating market-entry costs.
Small e-Commerce shops of personal care products face big reform
As hinted before, one of the risks related to the new Advertising Law in China is that big brands will not be affected by the new regulations as much as small firms, which have limited capital. In fact, small companies may find themselves particularly vulnerable to the relatively large fines that the SAMR will impose for false advertising in the Chinese advertising market. Therefore, many online shops specialised in personal care products, for example, are likely to be affected by the new advertising law in a way that it will become increasingly difficult for them to compete with big companies. The result may be that of a general decrease in market competition and the emergence of a quasi-oligopolistic advertising industry in China where only big brands can afford to publicise their products.
New Taboo words in the Advertising Industry in China
Although in the updated guidelines, China’s new advertising law prohibits the use of superlative expressions, like “state-level”, “highest level”, and “the best”, just like in the 1994 version, the online commerce sector has reacted with panic to the increased penalties ranging from 200 thousand up to one million RMB. For example, as early as January 1, 2015, Taobao launched an “identification of information inconsistent with the reality and rules of punishment and implementation details” for Taobao sellers. It stated that words such as “highest, lowest, best, hottest,” as well as advertising inconsistent with the actual effect, will be subject to an appropriate “legal process” and listed a detailed approach.
The effects of the new advertising law on specific products
In addition, moisturizing, whitening, firming, anti-acne, and other common adjectives regarding the efficacy of cosmetics will be difficult to freely advertise in terms of describing the products effectiveness. In fact, the new advertising law also stipulates that advertising spokespersons shall not make recommendations or testimonials on products they have not used or services they have not received, which implies that men can no longer endorse female cosmetics and care products and vice versa.
New rules for children in the advertising industry in China
Lastly, the new advertising law addresses also the employment of minors for advertising purposes. In fact, now, children under ten years old are no longer allowed to work as advertising spokespersons. This change in advertising policy will be particularly impactful for popular reality TV shows like “Dad, where are we going”, which in China made many kids celebrities. In this specific reality show, some kids were able to earn up to 150 thousand RMB per day simply through endorsements of brand products.
Pros and cons of the new advertising law
China’s new Advertising law addressed some of the systemic problems that have been affecting the advertising industry in China for years. Clearer definitions of what is regarded as a fraudulent advertisement in China, more precise regulations on the assignment of the legal responsibilities and financial liabilities and the regulation of endorsement practices will certainly be beneficial for the transparency of the industry and the protection of customers’ rights. That notwithstanding, some of the new regulations, like the harsher fines, risk penalising small and medium businesses more than large ones, thus creating an almost paradoxical reduction in market competition. For this reason, companies that intend to enter the Chinese market should pay great attention to how the new advertising law will affect their business.
Let China Paradigm have a positive economic impact on your business


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Our friends at Real Fast Fotography happen to catch this 2020 Ram 5500 Crew Cab Chassis Cab doing some testing. It is the first time we have actually seen the 5th generation Ram 5500.
This 10-lug beast, appears to be undergoing testing by Cummins. If you look closely at the shot of the front end, you can point out that the new grille insert styling goes hand in hand with the all-new Ram 1500. This truck still carries more of the hardcore “big-rig” styling compared to its little brother, the Ram 1500.
New LED headlamps can be seen on this model. It appears that the LED headlamps are very different from the ones found on the all-new 2019 Ram 1500. These lamps have the LED headlamp bulbs on top of the housing, while it appears to be a LED signature lights in the middle of the housing, while turn signals adorn the bottom of the housing.
We believe this to be a Laramie model, for the fact of the LED headlamp option, grille trim and chrome 10-lug wheels.
We did catch a 2020 Ram 3500 Chassis Cab a while back which appeared to be a Limited model. It had the same trim inside the grille as the new 2019 Ram 1500 Limited models and appeared to different headlights than this model, which were similar to the Ram 1500 Limited with a slimmer profile. However, those headlamps were shaped differently.
The new Ram 5500 Chassis Cab should make its debut sometime after the Ram 2500 and 3500 Heavy Duty trucks appear in January at the 2019 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.


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BANKS are being accused of fobbing off millions of customers who have genuine grievances.
The industry has admitted to handling more than 1.25million complaints in the first half of 2010.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg as the banks are not obliged to report gripes they resolve within 48 hours.
New research by watchdog Consumer Focus found less than half of customers were happy with the way their bank dealt with their complaint.
Despite this, 75% of customers have never considered switching their account to another bank.
Oliver Morgan, financial services expert at Consumer Focus, said people believe switching is too much hassle.
They also fear being landed with a bill or having services cut off if things go wrong. Consumer Focus published its damning findings as banks report massive profits and pay out bumper bonuses.
Barclays kicked off the bonanza this week by revealing profits jumped almost a third to £6billion last year.
Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group will follow next week.
Consumer Focus is urging banks to take complaints more seriously and devote more resources to improving their customer service.
“Customers are willing and able to fight their corner and take the first step of complaining,” said Morgan.
“The problem is they then seem to become disheartened by the banks’ poor service and complaints systems.”
He says the level of dissatisfaction should be a “wake-up call” for banks.
Poor customer service and complaints handling was a sign of weak competition in the market, he added.
“Decent customer service is a necessary part of a healthy market and a successful company,” he said. “The evidence suggests banks are falling a long way short.”


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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump vowed to bring more jobs back home during his campaign, especially from China. Here is one company he might start with: China’s largest and the world’s second-largest aluminum extrusion company: Zhongwang Holdings.
Currently, the company is under U.S. investigation for allegedly dodging import duties of as high as 374% through its U.S.-based subsidiaries. It’s said to have links to a stockpile of 6% of the world’s aluminum inventory at a factory in the Mexican desert.
Last month the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that a type of Zhongwang’s aluminum exports evaded U.S. antidumping restrictions, based on its preliminary investigation. A final determination will be announced next month.
“The determination has no impact on our sales and operations,” said Lu Changqing, president of Zhongwang, according to a press release on this matter. “We exported an insignificant amount of 5050 extrusions in response to customer requests between 2013 and early 2015, constituting less than 0.1% of our total sales over that period,” Lu explained, referring to the type of aluminum that’s under investigation.
This is not the first time Zhongwang faced a Commerce antidumping and countervailing investigation. In 2010 Zhongwang’s rapid growth in the U.S. caught the department’s attention. However, the case did not draw much attention back then.
In October 2015, the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee and other petitioners tried again, urging Commerce to investigate Zhongwang’s “unfair” trade practices. Following The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of Zhongwang and the Mexican stockpile, and a strong push by other trade organizations, the petition succeeded this time. The Aluminum Extruders Council called the timing of these media stories “perfect” on its website. “With our fall conference located in Washington, D.C., we were able to take our case to Capitol Hill,” it said online.
Trump on China trade
Whether or not this is a case of transshipping and misclassifying to avoid high U.S. tariffs and duties on surplus Chinese aluminum, it adds tension to already strained U.S.-China trade relations in the aluminum business, where the U.S. is China’s largest export destination.
In recent years, China’s aluminum industry has been accused of being heavily subsidized by the government, hurting U.S. producers. Today, only two smelters are fully operating in the U.S., where eight smelters have either closed or been curtailed since 2015, according to The Aluminum Association. Direct aluminum industry jobs have dropped by nearly 60% to around 5,000 in three years. The other side of the story is that U.S. aluminum customers are benefitting from cheaper Chinese products, thus cutting their costs and possibly boosting their sales and creating more jobs.
Under the new Trump administration, U.S.-China trade relations face uncertainties because its trade policy toward China is not yet clear. During his campaign, Trump said he would slap a 45% tariff on Chinese goods and call China a currency manipulator from day one in the office. But the questions are: will he really turn this campaign rhetoric into reality, and how will China respond to the possible trade war?
“The facts prove that co-operation is the only correct way for China and the U.S.,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping during his call with Trump last month.
Zhongwang’s U.S. business
Zhongwang’s U.S. business has experienced ups and downs since its expansion in 2009, the same year the company was listed in Hong Kong. In 2009, U.S. revenue reached RMB 5 billion ($740 million), compared with RMB 214 million ($31.6 million) in 2008.
That rapid U.S. increase caught Commerce’s attention in 2010. Naming several Chinese aluminum extrusions companies, Commerce released findings on aluminum subsidization in China, and requested a response from Zhongwang. But the company did not respond.
In 2011 the company’s U.S. revenue plunged to RMB 404 million ($59.7 million). In its 2011 annual report it blamed Commerce’s countervailing duty investigation. However, it picked up again in 2012, reaching RMB 1.1 billion ($160 million).
The Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee’s petition includes a July 2015 report from Dupré Analytic, a low-profile company specializing in investigating Chinese companies. The report says Zhongwang’s success in building its U.S. business so fast is related to Zhongwang’s officially undisclosed global network in Mexico, the U.S., Vietnam and Malaysia, where some subsidiaries help to re-melt and export aluminum to the U.S. to allegedly circumvent duties. Zhongwang firmly denied all the allegations.
Mexico-based Aluminicaste Group and U.S.-based Perfectus Aluminum are two companies that may be under the control of Zhongwang Chairman Liu Zhongtian’s family. The report shows that the re-melt facility Aluminicaste, owned by Liu’s son, received Zhongwang aluminum shortly after its establishment in 2010. However, the slow process of re-melting aluminum created a stockpile at the facility, causing the U.S. government’s suspicion about the source of Zhongwang’s aluminum.
Back in 2014, a California aluminum businessman discovered a massive amount of aluminum when flying over a Mexican town in the Sierra Gorda mountains on a private jet. He took a picture of it.
It turned out that what he discovered was 850,000 tons of aluminum--6% of the world’s aluminum inventory. It did not take long to find out who was the mysterious owner—Liu Zhongtian. Jeff Henderson, who was the newly elected president of the Aluminum Extruders Council, was convinced that the aluminum was linked to Liu’s Zhongwang Holdings, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The report also says California-based Perfectus Aluminum is linked to Zhongwang. Perfectus was created from the merger of Peng Cheng Aluminum and Global Aluminum in 2014. Liu’s son serves as the president of Perfectus. This year Commerce started to probe a New Jersey-based factory, Aluminum Shapes LLC, which was owned by Peng Cheng and Global Aluminum.
Hong Kong-listed Zhongwang suspended its stock the day after the report was published last year. Shares dropped 18% once they resumed trading. In August 2015, the company issued an announcement--denying all accusations by listing 11 counterarguments and strongly condemned Dupré Analytic for causing the company financial losses in the stock market.
Zhongwang argued that these other companies that helped the company with overseas business are independent of Liu and Zhongwang. Five of these companies are Zhongwang’s suppliers and two are customers, it said.
On the transshipping through Mexico allegation, China’s Nonferrous Metals Industry Association stepped in, calling the accusations “strongly deviate from the truth.” Its response points out that, first, if the aluminum council is saying Zhongwang transshipped raw aluminum material, then Chinese companies would make little profit because the Chinese government levies a 15% tariff on exports. Second, if the council is saying Zhongwang transshipped aluminum products and is assuming that these products were from Zhongwang, based on World Customs Organization rules, paying tariffs on aluminum products is neither against Chinese or U.S. law.
This year the company has slowed down its U.S. expansion--its principal strategy is “focusing primarily on China and to a lesser extent on the overseas.” Based on Zhongwang’s 2016 interim report, 84% of company revenue came from China and 12% from the U.S.
The man behind Zhongwang
Once one of China’s youngest entrepreneurs, Liu, 52, was 14 when he started in the lumber business around Changbai Mountain at the beginning of China’s economic reforms. He worked in steel and the cement business shortly before moving to Hong Kong in the early ’90s. He earned his first big fortune in the city’s real estate market. In 1993 he founded Zhongwang Holdings, when he was 29. Today Liu lives in Liaoning Province, where Zhongwang’s headquarters are located.
Zhongwang is the second-largest aluminum extrusion company in the world, producing lightweight products for transportation, machinery and the electric-power engineering sector. In May 2009 the company launched the world’s largest initial public offering of that year, raising HK$9.8 billion ($1.26 billion). Owning 74% of the company’s shares and a net worth of $3.79 billion, Liu ranked No.8 on FORBES ASIA’s 2009 list of china’s richest. He is now worth $3.1 billion.
Some people say Zhongwang’s success is because of a bold transition in the early 2000s. He took a huge gamble on shifting from producing construction aluminum extrusions to industrial ones. That turned the small town of Liaoyang in northern China into the world’s leading aluminum-producing base.
Liu’s move seemed odd at the time. While Zhongwang was a top three producer in the construction aluminum business in China, the industrial aluminum extrusion business was hardly taking off. Disputes over the direction of the company led Liu to kick family members out. In 2002 he fired his brother Liu Zhongsuo and paid each family of his relatives RMB 5 million ($740,000) in exchange for their company stakes.
In an interview with Chinese news site SINA.com in 2009, Liu said: “You can give your family members money but you should not allow them to work with you.”
Betting that industrial aluminum was the future, Liu led his team to the U.S. on study trips from 2002 to 2004. He bought the world’s largest aluminum extrusion machine at that time, costing the company $3 billion and a large amount of financial stress from 2004-2005. In the end, Zhongwang’s transition into industrial aluminum extrusion products was a success, which led to the company’s IPO.


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Google may turn to carriers for start of Glass retail sales
Right now, Google Glass is stuck in this unusual middle ground, somewhere between a pre-release prototype and a finished consumer product. Certainly sales are a lot more open today than they were with early days of the Glass Explorer program, but we’ve yet to hit that tipping point where the wearable’s price drops to an approachable level and it sees the scope of its sales greatly expand. For well over a year by now, we’ve been wondering about just how that shift might happen, and a lot of the conversation has been centered around possible plans for Google retail stores. But now we’re hearing that sales of Glass might not end up taking a very different form than sales of phones, with a rumor that Glass could end up on the shelves of AT&T stores.
Since Glass won’t have a cellular connection of its own, it’s a little odd to think about a carrier getting involved with it, but we suppose this isn’t too out of line with the sort of accessories carrier stores already offer (smartwatches and the like). More than that, carrier stores already enjoy a nationwide presence all ready to be tapped into, and their staff is experienced with explaining new technology to an unfamiliar public – really, it sounds like it has the potential to be a good fit.
Now, we still don’t have an ETA on when AT&T might bring Glass to its stores (not to mention a better sense of a final price), but we’ve got to hope that it’s coming soon. Google’s got new Glass hardware options arriving later this month, right before I/O gets started; could the conference bring news of retail sales? We could be just two weeks away from finding out.


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CO-OP Financial Services strikes an ATM deal with 7-Eleven.
Credit union technology collaboration takes place to accelerate real-time payments.
A new study shows a 79% spike in fraud risk for online consumers.
Americans have a high tolerance for credit card fraud and believe CUs are doing a good job with data protection.
Credit unions work to reinforce device intelligence in the wake of rising account takeover fraud cases.
There's evidence that who wins the Super Bowl affects how well the financial markets do each year.
A new report estimates 79% of ATMs will complete EMV chip migration by the end of 2017.
A large remittance business merges with Ant Financial.
This is a first - more than 50% of all bills paid in the U.S. are paid online.
For the first time, more ATMs are located away from branches.


text: 2013 ABNA! Yay! The entry period begins on January 14, 2013... Of course, this year it has undergone some interesting changes. First, Penguin is no longer involved and the winners will be published through Amazon itself (physical and ebook formats). Second, there will be more winners and, thus, more prizes. In previous years, there were … Continue reading 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is on!


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The growing Apple cult – Innovate, Ideate, Create
Steve Jobswas famous for his “Cool” quotient and applied it in all his creations. The famous “half eaten apple” logo of the technology giant has now become a status symbol in itself. Apple devices like iPhones and iPads are accompanied with accessories such as smart cases, smart covers, apple digital AV adapter, power cord, wireless keyboards and screen guards. The Apple accessories market has good growth potential and is never ending. The more the accessories a company manufactures, the higher the profit graph is likely to shoot. Accessories have excellent margins and the theory of relativity is greatly at play here. To elaborate, if an individual is an Apple loyalist, he/she would definitely own an iPhone and chances are he/she will most likely buy at least one Apple accessory, be it a smart case or a charging stand.
Recently, Apple announced the introduction of an app called swift playgrounds, available only on iPads. This app will help kids learn codes through gaming. To add to this, the playgrounds not only help kids learn to code, but also teaches them the new coding language “Swift” that Apple uses. This will fuel Apple’s growth as a services compoany in future, especially in China, as the next generation might embrace Swift. Developing markets such as China and India are key regions for Apple as it has witnessed good sales growth in these regions over the last couple of years. China in particular is a more lucrative market for Apple products and accessories. Apple’s fashion accessories are also creating many opportunities for small businesses (small accessory companies). An example of Apple’s successful entry into the accessories market is the introduction of watchbands. Apple sold more than 10 million watches in 2016, accounting for over 45% of the market share, making the Apple Watch the second best-selling product in the history of Apple. The company capitalised on the frequent public trend of changing watch bands and introduced more watch bands with an innovation in the body of the band, which comprised woven nylon and a military feel. It is highly anticipated that Apple will launch “smart bands” in the near future.
To add to this, Apple’s watch series 2 is yet another success story for the company. Features such as a waterproof body, speed of operations, and availability of a GPS system all integrated into the device have already grabbed consumer eyeballs, and the erstwhile non-Apple fans are now switching loyalties to the brand because of such innovative accessory developments. According to recent news, Apple continues to innovate accessories for iDevices as a fantasy. Back in 2015, Apple had introduced the iPad Pro along with a smart cover. However today, Apple’s engineering teams have considered a hard cover accessory for the iPad Pro. The trackpad idea that Apple dreams of, even though difficult to materialise, might create interest amongst Apple fans. The idea of using an iPhone as a trackpad on the MacBook is a unique concept in itself. However, this is not the big picture. Apple has been researching for years on repurposing the area of the trackpad for other functionalities with the help of a plug-in device for new accessories. In keeping with its heritage, Apple will continue to innovate and redefine the meaning of bringing endless possibilities to fruition.


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Chevron at SHIPPING Insight 2017
With a raft of imminent legislation and continued downward pressure on costs, operators are looking for ways to future-proof their fleets and prepare for change without compromising performance. These key themes dominating the shipping industry form the agenda of Shipping Insight 2017, where Chevron Marine Lubricants will this year share their insights in to the future of marine products and technology.
Conference seminar with Monique Vermeire, Chevron Fuels Technologist
Regional Manager Mike Sarisky and Fuels Technologist Monique Vermeire will hold a pre-conference seminar and cocktail reception at the Shipping Insight conference on Monday, October 9, at the Stamford Marriott Hotel & Spa in Stamford, Connecticut. Topics addressed will include 2020 fuels, marine bunker challenges and lubricant optimization in today’s environment.
To reserve your place contact email@example.com. Spaces are limited.
“We are focusing on being future-ready by addressing concerns around upcoming legislation and reassuring our customers and partners that we have the lubrication solutions, technological expertise and services to meet the challenges that lie ahead”
Ayten Yavuz, Regional Manager, Marine, for Northwest Europe and Americas
Chevron Marine Lubricants
Chevron Marine is a leading supplier of marine products dedicated to providing innovative and reliable solutions for today's shipping industry. Chevron Marine supply an extensive range of high performance products at over 700 worldwide ports, including 25 Chevron Hallmark Ports. Our lubricants, greases and coolants are backed up by industry leading FAST™ fluid analysis services and the knowledge of our world class technical teams. Committed to developing technology-led, cost-effective solutions and building strong customer relationships, Chevron Marine aims to be the partner of choice for the global marine community.
The products and services herein described in this press release are not endorsed by The Maritime Executive.