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Clipchamp is a perfect fit for Microsoft to extend its existing productivity experiences in Microsoft 365 for households, schools, and companies.
On September 7, 2021, Microsoft announced that it has acquired Clipchamp, a startup that provides web-based video production and editing software that enables anyone to create video presentations, films, or promo for social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
Microsoft was drawn to the acquisition for a number of reasons. Currently, more users are generating and using video, due to a rising range of new technologies that enable anyone including non-professionals to make complex edits and produce great visual content fast and easily. According to the firm, Clipchamp was a desirable acquisition target since it blended the ease of a web application with the full computing capabilities of a computer through graphics processing unit acceleration. As a result, the software is well-suited to the Microsoft user base.
Clipchamp had developed a several online tools in the video making and editing arena, including their video creator Clipchamp Create, which includes features for cutting, rotating, speed control, trimming, and, cropping, as well as adding images, text, colors, audio, and effects. It also includes resources for streamlining a brand's fonts, logos, and colors for usage in the video, such as templates, audio libraries, and free stock video, screen recorders, text-to-speech tools, and many more. Moreover, some of this feature has been transferred over to the new Clipchamp app.
Creators can pick between numerous output styles and aspect ratios for popular social media sites after creating videos using Clipchamp, making it a popular software for digital marketers. Since its launch in 2013, Clipchamp has attracted around 17 million users and have served around 390,000 businesses, expanding at a frequency of 54% year on year. As the pandemic caused more enterprises to work remotely, the use of video has increased as businesses adopted the medium for training, reporting, communication, and other purposes.


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Apple Recap: Bonds, the iWatch, and Tablet Pricing
The volatile trading session, which was sparked by investors anxiety regarding the outcome of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee meeting, pushed all three major U.S. indices in the red Wednesday and left shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) battered. The iPhone maker’s stock ended the day down $8.77, or 2.03 percent, at $423.00. Here’s a cheat sheet to today’s top Apple stories:
How Bad Was Your Apple Bonds Buy? Pretty Bad
Have rising Treasury yields finally ended the bond bull market? Although Apple’s $17 billion April bond offering was given the second-highest corporate bond rating by Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, the prices of Apple’s bonds have been steadily falling as Treasury yields rise.
This has had the unusual effect of making Apple’s long-term corporate bonds more volatile and sensitive to price loss than the Cupertino-based company’s stock. Investors who bought bonds issued by Apple are dealing with losses of more than 8 percent according to MarketAxess data cited by the Wall Street Journal… (Read more.)
Can the iWatch Be More Than a Hobby For Apple?
It seems as though analysts may have spent so much time trying to unveil when Apple rumored iWatch will come out, that they’ve forgotten to consider if it’ll even be successful.
Citigroup analyst, Glen Yeung, wrote in a note earlier this month that he believes Apple has already primed its supply chain and is just waiting for the go-ahead to initiate production for the new highly anticipated product. He events contends the launch could take place before the year’s end… (Read more.)
Has Microsoft Taken a Page Out of Apple’s Book?
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is taking a page out of Apple’s book and offering the 32GB Surface RT at a discounted price to schools and universities across the globe.
Discouraged by paltry sales of its new tablet, Microsoft will offer the Surface RT, typically priced at $499, for $199. An RT equipped with a Touch Cover, normally offered at $599, will only be $249. One with a Keyboard Cover will be offered for $289, compared to a $629 cover price… (Read more.)
Don’t Miss: Analyst: Tim Cook Deserves a Thumbs-Up.
Follow Meghan on Twitter @MFoley_WSCS

domain: news


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Reading-based distributor Global Foodservice Equipment has initiated the liquidation process for the business.
A notice posted today on the London Gazette website stated that Timothy Dolder and Colin Wilson of Milton Keynes-headquartered insolvency specialist Opus Restructuring have initially been proposed as joint liquidators of the company, with the final decision due on 29 January.
The posting detailed: “A meeting of shareholders has been called and will be held prior to 23.59 hours on 29 January 2020, the decision date for the deemed consent.”
“In order to object to the proposed decision, you must deliver a notice stating that to the proposed joint liquidators of Global Foodservice Equipment, Opus Restructuring, not later than 23.59 hours on 29 January 2020. In addition, you must have also delivered a proof of debt by the decision date, failing which your objection will be disregarded.”
Opus has been instructed to start procedures for placing the company in creditors’ voluntary liquidation, and a creditors’ report will be issued subsequent to a final outcome.
Catering Insight contacted Opus and was informed that it cannot make a formal statement until Global FSE’s shareholder meeting has taken place.
Elsewhere, one of the distributor’s ex-employees posted on LinkedIn that all staff had been made redundant. Catering Insight attempted to contact Global FSE’s MD, Mike McDonald, to clarify the situation, but has not been able to reach him as yet.
The distributor’s website is displaying the message: “This site is currently under maintenance and unable to take orders at present.” Plus the company’s main phone line is not being manned at this time.
McDonald established the dealership in 2000, following a stint at the nearby Lockhart Catering Equipment as sales director between 1990 and 1999.
Global FSE supplied both light and capital equipment but with a particular focus on the lighter end, as well as offering kitchen design and installation services.
Over 15,000 product lines were available online, with brands including GenWare, Churchill, Elia, Hamilton Beach and Pujadas.


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Holden axe ends dealership’s 70-year love affair
THE managing director of one of Queensland's biggest Holden dealerships has labelled General Motors' decision to axe the famous brand as "devastating".
GM announced the decision to cut Holden, which has been a flagship in the Australian car industry since 1948, on Monday with as many as 800 jobs expected to be lost as part of the move.
Mark Beitz, who owns and operates Bartons car dealership which has been serving the Wynnum Manly and Redlands areas for more than 70 years and sold Holdens the entire time, said the news was hard to hear.
"We have five brands now and Holden is one of them but we started as mainly a Holden dealership and that's what we were known for, for a long time," he said.
"It's unexpected because we were the first dealership in the country to feature the new branding and everything for Holden and now it turns out we will be the last.
"It's also unexpected because we just completed a new showroom in Capalaba with an assurance from Holden that they'd be here for the long term but now that won't happen.
"So if we don't find something new to go in there, which I think we will, we will be left with nothing in that new showroom after a year.
"But as much as it is disappointing, Holden is only one brand for us and unfortunately Holden have contracted each year, which has led to this decision. We sold 420 cars last year and only 30 of them were Holden.
"The new car market is tough right now, there's way too many brands and way too many dealerships, so something like this was bound to happen."
Bartons, who sell Holden, Nissan, Subaru, Hyundai and Mitsubishi, have recently completed more than $10 million worth of redevelopment with new showrooms opened at Capalaba and Wynnum and have also started construction on a $1 million Nissan and Mitsubishi refurbishment at Wynnum.
The company also employs more than 230 people and Mr Beitz said yesterday's news had not hindered the progress of the developments and added no jobs were in danger at the moment.
"I met with staff internally yesterday to advise them not to panic right now," he said.
"In the short to medium term, there will not be any job losses with us but beyond that you can never be sure. Obviously we'll take a bit of a hit financially but hopefully GM's commitment to compensation is enough, we just don't know enough yet.
"It is our aim that any staff associated with Holden, who want to stay on can be absorbed into roles with our other brands. We have set ourselves up to be able to deal with news like this by expanding and developing relationships with more brands.
"In saying that, it means with our developments and expansion happening, there isn't the scope for new employment but we have the infrastructure in place that when the market turns around, and it will, we have the ability to add more staff."
A Holden lover since he was a teenager, Mr Beitz shared the brand's famous television advertisement from the 1970s on his personal Facebook yesterday with the catchy slogan "we love football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars".
He said the brand had a special place in his heart and in the heart of a lot of Australians.
"It really hit home how much Holden meant to car owners and drivers in yesteryear. As the YouTube clip says "Footy, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars", how Australian.
"There was also a clip in the video which showed a Holden tag that showed 'People Trust Holden' and sadly this is something that has unfortunately eroded over time.
"I am 47 years of age and growing up there was no other car that I wanted to own other than a Holden. It was I just could not afford one as my first car, however joining the motor industry at 21 allowed me to drive one and I continue to drive one to this day.
"I don't like what has happened and in fact I am devastated, however it is a sign of the times and we have to move on. I won't buy into the political rhetoric around this topic rather than accept that the industry has evolved and GM don't see a future here.
"With a brand new Holden dealership just built there will be few in the country that will feel the pain more than me but we will when it all settles, look for another brand to occupy our valuable showroom space and move forward.
"It truly is the end of an era."
Mr Beitz also said the news did not mean Holden would stop being sold immediately and he believed fans of the brand should get out to dealerships in the coming months.
"I expect there to be some cheap Holdens available in the coming months, they're still great cars," he said.
"We expect to have all liquidation and run out bonuses available by the end of the week. When announced I don't expect stock to last long, maybe a few months at best.
"Also, people who have Holdens and buy new ones before the brand is gone, your warranty and services are still guaranteed and will be honoured."
Holden has 39 dealerships in Queensland and 180 around Australia.


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Be optimistic, but careful. Starting a new business is hard work and fraught with danger and unforeseen consequences. See this interesting article in Slate about what happened to two people who started a coffee shop and had it destroy their lives:
The failure of a small cafe is not a question of competence. It is a sad given. The logistics of a food establishment that seats between 20 and 25 people (which roughly corresponds to the definition of “cozy”) are such that the place will stay afloat–barely–as long as its owners spend all of their time on the job. There is a golden rule, long cherished by restaurateurs, for determining whether a business is viable. Rent should take up no more than 25 percent of your revenue, another 25 percent should go toward payroll, and 35 percent should go toward the product. The remaining 15 percent is what you take home. There’s an even more elegant version of that rule: Make your rent in four days to be profitable, a week to break even. If you haven’t hit the latter mark in a month, close.
via Business Pundit Rob.
Photo by pussnboots.


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Going, going, gone … The last ship carrying the last load of sugar
The last field is harvested, the last of the cane processed and the last ship with sugar in the hold has set sail for California
EDITOR’S NOTE: “The Last Harvest” is a series chronicling the various aspects of Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co.’s final harvest as it shuts down at the end of the year after a 145-year run. The shutdown of HC&S represents the end of sugar in Hawaii. The installments will run periodically throughout the year.
KAHULUI — Now, sugar really is gone.
On Friday, the same day that Puunene Mill smokestacks stopped puffing, the last shipment of Maui-made sugar was carried out of Kahului Harbor. Bound for a refinery in California, the 685-foot-long Moku Pahu held 32,000 tons of sugar and 2,000 tons of molasses.
“I’m going to miss it all the way around, just with the cane fields being green, everything,” stevedore Mark Souki said as he watched the ship cruise out of the harbor. “I hate to see big changes in Hawaii happen. I always worry what the future’s going to be after.”
The departure of “the sugar ship” capped a whirlwind 12 months on Maui. In January, Alexander & Baldwin announced it would shut down Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. after 145 years in business. The closure of the 36,000-acre plantation meant the loss of 650 jobs and the end of an industry that shaped Hawaii for more than a century and a half.
Even as plantations elsewhere folded, HC&S managed to stay afloat. But after suffering $30 million in losses last year, parent company A&B decided to put sugar to rest.
“I’ve been dreading this trip all year,” Moku Pahu Capt. Louis Terramorse said Wednesday. “I’d gotten to the point where I was starting to think I’d finish out my career running sugar on this.”
The 2,500-mile journey is likely to be the last Hawaii-to-California sugar run for the Moku Pahu, a specially designed ship that, like Maui’s sugar plantation, is the last of its kind.
A HAWAIIAN HYBRID
From a distance, the Moku Pahu looks like a regular freighter, equipped with a towering bridge at the stern, three tall cranes and six gigantic cargo holds.
But a closer look reveals that the ship is actually made up of two parts: a barge and a tugboat with catamaran-like hulls. The barge goes between the hulls and slides into a notch that locks it in place.
“We handle just like a ship,” Terramorse said. “We’re just a ship that can come apart. Like a Transformer. We’re more than meets the eye.”
The barge was built in Maine in 1981; the Moku Pahu tug was constructed in Alabama in 1982. The whole ship is 685.5 feet long and 139 feet from the keel to the ship’s tallest point. It has two engines and six cargo holds capable of transporting nearly 40,000 tons.
It’s the only integrated tug/barge left in the world, Terramorse said. Built especially for the sugar trade, Moku Pahu once had 12 “sisters,” but since then they’ve all been scrapped or destroyed.
The tug/barge design came about in the 1970s, when shipping companies were trying to cut down on labor costs.
“What they came up with was an idea where you could get in an actual ship, but man it like a tugboat, so you have greatly reduced crews,” Terramorse explained.
Because tugboats don’t have the same crew requirements of larger ships, the Moku Pahu can operate with just 15 crew members. In the 1970s and ’80s, a ship the size of the Moku Pahu would have had a crew of about 35.
The Moku Pahu is owned by the Hawaiian Sugar Transportation Cooperative — of which HC&S was the last remaining member — and managed by Patriot Shipping.
After Matson stopped shipping molasses following a 1,400-ton spill in Honolulu Harbor in 2013, the Moku Pahu was refitted to pump and carry molasses on its own. The $3.5 million project took place in early 2015, said Glenn Wilbourn, executive vice president and general manager of Kahului Trucking & Storage, an A&B subsidiary.
“They had no idea (sugar would end),” Wilbourn said. “They wouldn’t have spent that money if they knew they were going to go out of business.”
Terramorse said that as soon as he heard HC&S was closing, “the whole ship knew about it, because I yelled out, ‘What the — I won’t finish that statement.”
The captain said he knew he had to be there for the final harvest.
“I’ve worked all the sugar (trips) this year,” Terramorse said. “Once I found out (I said), ‘That’s it, man. I’m finishing it.’ “
STOCKING THE SUGAR
Getting a grain of sugar from storage to the ship takes about five minutes, KT&S shop supervisor Michael Mendoza said. In the two buildings where sugar is housed, dozers push the mounds toward the middle of the floor, where it falls through openings onto a conveyor belt hidden below.
“Picture a crab hole in the sand,” Mendoza suggested.
Once the sugar is on the conveyor belt, it travels up and out of the warehouse through about a series of wooden tunnels until it reaches a divider. That splits the sugar into two chutes known as gantries, which pour the product into the cavernous cargo holds of the Moku Pahu.
“We’ll do this round the clock, 24 hours until we’re done,” Mendoza said.
If everything is running smoothly, the belts can transport 1,000 tons an hour and fill the ship in 40 hours.
As conveyor belts full of golden crystals zip past, 31-year veteran Dennis Nobriga meticulously records the tons of sugar going into the ship each hour. As the lead man for bulk sugar, he controls the flow using the divider. A red-and-white stripe on each chute helps him monitor the levels of sugar, and if one side gets too high, he turns a wheel on a cable system that will lessen the flow.
“It’s really primitive, but effective,” Nobriga said. “Nothing is really automated over here. It’s a lot of manual adjustments.”
He and mechanic Chad Toyama make sure everything runs smoothly. Toyama admitted the job can get boring at times, but he said the whole operation is impressive.
“It’s amazing how they figured out how to make all this, how they constructed everything,” said Toyama, who came up through HC&S’ apprenticeship program. “A lot of stuff is still running from when they first built it.”
Every 4,000 tons, Nobriga puts a sample of sugar into a bucket. The samples will go to Honolulu for analysis of the grain quality and molasses content. That helps determine how much the sugar sells for, Nobriga said.
Filling the Moku Pahu is a science of balancing sugar, molasses and fuel. In Kahului Harbor, the bottom of the ship can’t go deeper than 32.5 feet or workers run the risk of “helping dredge the harbor,” which has happened in the past, Terramorse said. Fortunately, Kahului has a “forgiving bottom.”
When the ship is full and the tide is right, the Moku Pahu will depart. Usually, it’s smooth sailing to California. But heading into winter, the last sugar voyage will “probably be a little bouncy.” It doesn’t take a huge storm to put the stern underwater when the ship is loaded, Terramorse said.
However, there’s little risk of losing the precious cargo.
“The only way we could possibly lose any sugar is if the ship turned upside down,” he said. “In that case, the sugar is the last of our problems.”
The journey takes a week with two engines running or 10 days with one. During the journey, crew members “get very used to routine.”
“Let’s put it this way — merchant mariners are model prisoners,” the captain joked. “I get up at the same time every day. I do the same things in the morning. I eat lunch at the exact same time every day. . . . If something happens to disrupt that, it doesn’t feel natural.”
On board, crew members serve as their own fire department, police force and ambulance service.
“There’s a certain amount of excitement to that, a little adventure,” he said. “Although, I’m starting to get older, so that’s starting to die down.”
Terramorse has worked on the Moku Pahu for more than 20 years — longer than anyone else — and said the thought of the tug/barge going extinct is “devastating to me.” The future of the Moku Pahu depends on who buys it and the new owner’s plans, Wilbourn said. As for the 48-year-old Terramorse, who lives in Idaho with his wife and three kids, it’s unlikely he’ll be back to Hawaii unless a shipping company calls him on assignment.
“After 20 years, I feel half Hawaiian,” Terramorse said. “These are the waters I know. I can come in and out of Kahului with my eyes closed.”
THE FINAL CHAPTER
From the first successful plantation on Kauai in 1835 to the last one on Maui in 2016, sugar has been intertwined with local life. It attracted a melting pot of workers and laid a foundation of success for countless immigrant families. It kept thousands of acres in agriculture and diversified Hawaii’s modern, tourism-based economy.
It also raised its share of controversy — some of which continues today — over the health effects of cane burning and the ethics of water diversion.
Since A&B made its announcement in January, 15,500 acres have been harvested, and 158,000 tons of sugar and 56,000 tons of molasses have been produced, according to HC&S. After it’s processed in the California & Hawaiian Sugar Co. refinery in Crockett, Calif., some of that sugar just might make its way back to the islands.
“I tell people when you’re eating out of that pink and white (C&H) bag, at some point you’re eating something that came from Hawaii,” Mendoza said.
* Colleen Uechi can be reached at email@example.com.


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It’s no secret that digital payments have gotten a major boost in the wake of the pandemic, leading to stiff competition in the global industry as disruptive startups challenge incumbents with cutting-edge technology and innovative solutions.
In the Netherlands, for example, payments firm Mollie has seen its business explode since the onset of the pandemic, disrupting a market once dominated by the popular, decade-plus old eCommerce payment system, iDEAL, that was created by local banks to allow customers to pay for online purchases via direct online transfers from their bank account.
In an interview with PYMNTS, the firm’s CEO Shane Happach acknowledged that the iDEAL network is one of a few in developed markets in Western Europe where bank-to-bank payments have successfully challenged card dominance and helped to keep payment costs down for consumers.
But despite operating a highly sophisticated and effective low-cost payment system, banks never went the extra mile to cater to business-to-business (B2B) customer acquisition for online payments.
“They [banks] provided the rails and the infrastructure, but a company like Mollie made those integrations far easier to consume and allowed businesses that wanted to take payment to have a full checkout — not just the last mile, but everything that was required to get a customer through the shopping experience, and then all the way through to reconciliation and aftercare,” Happach told PYMNTS in an interview.
Today, the company offers companies a way to seamlessly integrate payments into sites, documents and other products through the use of an application programming interface (API). Last June, Mollie raised $800 million that valued the B2B startup at $6.5 billion, making it one of the most valuable startups in Europe.
“There’s a lot of tailwinds in the industry and there’s a lot of tailwinds in the company, [and] we’re obviously very proud to have new investors on the cap table to help us grow the business over the next five to 10 years,” he said.
Outside their home base, the Dutch unicorn firm currently serves small- to medium-sized business (SMB) clients in Germany, France and Belgium, and launched operations in the U.K. last year.
Enough Space for Everyone
Despite the firm’s success, Happach said he is not oblivious to the fierce competition in the payments space, as established foreign firms like Visa and Mastercard — and rising giants like Square and Stripe — battle local players like Mollie and Adyen for a bigger share of the pie.
He argued, however, that competition drives innovation and forces companies to up their game to provide a better experience for their customers, making it a win-win for merchants and consumers alike.
Moreover, all the major competitors combined still make up under 10% market share, and because payments remain a highly fragmented sector, there’s still a lot of room for each firm to grow in the specific niche they’ve chosen.
“We would call Adyen a very well-resourced tier one enterprise player focused on big multinationals,” he explained. “We would view Square as a largely physical point of sale champion in the US market [that is] expanding into eCommerce and we would see us [Mollie] as a SMB online-led company potentially expanding into one of the other areas over time.”
Sometimes customers move between payment providers, and other times they use multiple payment providers, which means that multiple payment providers can serve the same end customer.
“[It’s] another thing that keeps the industry really rich in terms of competitive innovation,” he added.
Financial Services Suite for SMBs
Moving forward, Happach said growing Mollie’s presence in the U.K. is one of the firm’s top priorities this year, while acknowledging the heavy lifting that will be required as license regimes are no longer passportable between the two zones since Brexit.
“It’s a common extra cost for us, to be honest, with no real discernible customer benefit,” he explained. “But it’s part of doing business in multiple geographies [and] most businesses have figured a way around this. If you want to be in the U.K. and Europe, you need to engage with dual regimes, but we’re prepared to do that in order to help our business grow.”
The firm is also planning to “dramatically” improve its marketplace product to cater to the underserved small business market across Europe. This move will not only help to widen their total addressable market, but it will also accelerate their goal of moving beyond payments.
“We know that our customers buy many services from other ecosystem players. There are pain points and advantages there, and we will launch our financial services suite starting this year and then grow it over the next couple of years,” Happach added.
There is also an opportunity to be in the merchant working capital space, he pointed out, due to the strong visibility the Dutch payments firm has in forward sales projections, which remains “an area of pain” for their SMB clients.
Another area with strong growth potential is the corporate card market — particularly expense management corporate card issuing in markets that they operate in, such as Benelux and Germany.
“There’s still quite some improvement to be had there and we see an opportunity to build a very elegant product off the back of our merchant dashboard and with the accounting integrations and other things that we have that would help our customers grow,” he noted.
Finally, he said that business banking will likely be the end goal for the company, given that new customers prioritize opening a bank account and developing their banking relationship when they begin operations. It is also why onboarding new businesses much earlier in their decision processes is key.
“We would love to capture a customer as early as we possibly can and to provide the most integrated value to them, [and] not just be in the decision flow after they’ve chosen their bank provider, their corporate card provider, their software [provider], accounting provider and then lastly the payment provider,” Happach said.
Sign up here for daily updates on all of PYMNTS’ Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) coverage.


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Vodafone has forged a partnership with Micromax, wherein customers can own a 4G smartphone for Rs 999
Today’s Paper : As the incumbent operators look to take on Reliance Jio and retain their customer base for feature phones, they are forging partnerships with handset makers so as to make smartphones affordable and within reach of a large section of society.
After Airtel, which has tied up with Karbonn to come out with a smartphone for an effective price of Rs 1,399, Vodafone has also forged a partnership with Micromax, wherein customers can own a Vodafone 4G smartphone for Rs 999.
According to the Vodafone offer, existing and new Vodafone customers will have to buy the Micromax Bharat-2 Ultra smartphone by paying Rs 2,899 and if they recharge at least Rs 150 per month for 36 months, Rs 1,900 will be returned as cashback.
At the end of 18 months, users will receive a cashback of Rs 900 and after another 18 months, a cashback of Rs 1,000, in their Vodafone M-Pesa wallets. Vodafone has not provided a specific plan for the Micromax offer and people buying the device can recharge with existing offers of the company.
As the company is targeting feature phone users, who usually recharge with amounts starting at Rs 10, Vodafone has allowed the flexibility for users to choose recharges of any denomination but to avail the offer, a minimum of Rs 150 should be spent in a month, or Rs 2,700 in 18 months.
Avneesh Khosla, associate director — Consumer Business, Vodafone India, said, “Through our partnership with Micromax, we have democratised 4G smartphones at a price of under Rs 999. This will help fulfill the aspirations of several million phone users across the country who desire a smartphone but couldn’t afford one.”


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On October 31, 2023, UK-based Drinks International published its annual top 50 list of The World’s Most Admired Whiskies based on voting by an Academy of independent whiskey experts (writers, educators, bar owners, and other specialists with no affiliation to any brand) from more than 20 countries. For the first time an American whiskey, Michter’s, topped the charts as The World’s Most Admired Whiskey. Michter’s is celebrating this extraordinary recognition with the December release of one of its rarest offerings: Michter’s 25 Year Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon.
“This release commemorates a truly special moment for us,” commented Michter’s President Joseph J. Magliocco. “The last time we released a 25 Year Bourbon was in 2020.”
The 25 Year Michter’s Bourbon barrels are personally selected by Michter’s Master Distiller Dan McKee and Michter’s Master of Maturation Andrea Wilson.
Wilson observed, “This release of the 25 Year Kentucky Straight Bourbon is an outstanding flavor experience without the overly oaked, dusty old whiskey character. It is a wonderful journey with its transition through sweet and savory depth, world spices, dark chocolates, fruit characters and nut oils almost as if you are eating through a box of fine chocolates. It is an exceptional whiskey for an exceptional achievement in the whiskey world.”
“I am proud to work with a talented team of individuals who strive to create great whiskey,” said McKee. “From Michter’s US*1 Bourbon to our 25 Year Bourbon, our team takes tremendous pride in the lineup of whiskeys we are offering. This release is a truly special one.”
This exceptionally flavorful bourbon was distilled from a select mashbill, then matured to perfection for over a quarter of a century in specially chosen, new charred American white oak barrels.
Michter’s 25 Year Bourbon
Production: Limited Release
State of Distillation: Kentucky
Cooperage: Fire-charred, new American white oak barrels
Bottling Strength: 116.2 proof (58.1% ABV)
Tasting Notes: A symphony of flavors plays at different points on the palate with molasses, holiday spice, chocolate, smoke roasted nuts, dried fruit, melted butter and vanilla providing the highlights


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Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Xingtone Promotes Independents
Los Angeles-based Xingtone, a ring tone provider for cellular phones, announced yesterday that it is debuting a solution that allows independent artists to market, sell and deliver their own ringtones. The firm said that it is offering a turnkey e-commerce store for independent content owners to sell ringtones from their own websites. The new stores will allow anyone to create their own ringtones, upload them as MP3 or other files, set prices, and manage payments and delivery of the ringtones. Xingtone said that the move follows its strategic partnership with The Orchard, a distributor of independent music labels. Xingtone has previously announced the independent plans for its solution in April of last year.


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Enterprise adoption of Office 365 surges as usage of G Suite levels out
Using cloud apps is fast becoming standard practice for businesses and Microsoft Office 365 usage is accelerating ahead of Google's G Suite, according to a new report.
The 2018 Cloud Adoption Report from cloud security company Bitglass shows global cloud adoption has topped 81 percent -- a 37 percent increase since 2016 and a 238 percent increase since 2014.
Office 365 usage overtook G Suite usage in 2016 and has proceeded to stretch its lead since then. Currently, Microsoft's offering has more than twice as many deployments as Google's. While G Suite usage has remained steady at around 25 percent over the last year, Office 365 usage has grown from 34.3 percent to 56.3 percent.
At the same time Amazon Web Services has emerged as the go-to infrastructure as a service (IaaS) solution. Overall 13.8 percent of companies worldwide are using AWS with the technology industry leading the way at 21.5 percent adoption.
"It comes as no surprise that cloud adoption keeps achieving all-time highs year after year. Organizations worldwide have come to trust platforms like Office 365 and AWS as vendors continue to bolster security and feature-sets," says Rich Campagna, CMO, Bitglass. "Competition between major public cloud players such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft will only increase as they fight to grow market share. It remains to be seen which emerging apps will join them to become staples in the enterprise."
The report also looks at the implementation of single sign on (SSO) solutions to protect cloud services. A quarter of organizations now use SSO solutions to authenticate their users. In terms of organization size, large enterprises use SSO more than twice as often as small businesses (44.1 percent compared to 17.9 percent). Looked at by industry, education is the leading adopter of SSO at 40.3 percent, while retail (15.9 percent) has one of the lowest SSO adoption rates.
The full report with more detail on how enterprises are moving to the cloud is available from the Bitglass site.


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- McKesson is looking into a deal for its IT unit so it can better focus on its core drug-distribution business, The Wall Street Journal reported.
- Options for the IT business may include a sale or a merger, sources told the Journal.
- No details have yet surfaced on whether a deal is certain or whether it would be for the entire business.
McKesson's IT business, called Technology Solutions, is a significant player in the healthcare industry, providing software, services and consulting to providers. It recorded $2.9 billion in sales in its last fiscal year and an operating profit of $519 million. It could be worth an estimated $5 billion.
However, as the Journal notes, the IT business is small change compared to McKesson’s drug-distribution business which saw $188 billion in sales in the last fiscal year and an operating profit of $3.6 billion.
It should be no surprise if McKesson moves to divest given the company is no stranger to narrowing its focus to improve its profit margins. The Journal noted Chief Financial Officer James Beer stated last year the company is “prepared to re-look at the portfolio on a continuing basis to figure out what fits and what doesn’t fit.” The decision comes as the company also deals with recent layoffs of around 1,600 employees and cost reductions in response to price pressures attributed to consolidation among its customers.


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Competitive video gaming is a huge and booming business. With more than 453 million fans worldwide, the global eSports market is expected to generate revenues of $1.1 billion in 2019 and reach $1.8 billion by 2022 through sponsorships, media rights, advertising, merchandising and game publisher fees.
While more than half of eSports enthusiasts are in Asia, the United States has a healthy audience of its own. Games and eSports analytics company Newzoo estimates the current U.S. eSports audience - about 52 million - will grow by almost five million this year, and about 11% of those eSports enthusiasts are Latino.
Looking to tap into a growing lucrative market, Telemundo Deportes launched the first-ever U.S. Spanish-language eSports channel.
“With the immense growth of eSports both globally and within the United States, there was a natural need for prime Spanish-language eSports content,” states Eli Velazquez, EVP of sports content, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.”The crux of our mission is to tell stories and present events that tap in to the passion points of sports fans and principle among them is the excitement of competition. It doesn’t matter if it is on a pitch or on a screen, eSports competition has become a serious proposition for us to grow our brand.”
Telemundo plans to offer more than 2,000 streaming hours of content a year featuring exclusive streamers, short-form content and competitions, available via livestream on Twitch and YouTube. It recruited established streamers Sofia Ornelas of Mexico and Juan “El Patán” Sotullo from Argentina to host the Telemundo eSports channel.
The Telemundo Deportes eSports channel had a soft launch in mid-January, announcing its existence in March when it picked up rights to the EA Sports™ FIFA19 Global Series. That’s the first competition to stream on its eSports channel, starting with the EA FUT Champions Cup April 5-7 and continuing until the Grand Final taking place in the summer.
Telemundo Deportes has streamed eSports in the past, including the FIFA eWorld cup final and FACEIT’s Universal Open Rocket League tournament. The company wasn’t able to provide audience numbers for past events.
Telemundo isn’t the only Spanish-language media company interested in this fast-growing international phenomenon. Mexico’s TV Azteca is diving into eSports as well - and with good reason.
According to Newzoo, the total eSports audience in Latin America will reach 45.5 million and the number of eSports enthusiasts will hit 19.2 million in 2019. That number is expected to rise up to 32.7 million in 2022, overtaking the number of U.S. eSports Enthusiasts that year with occasional viewers surpassing 38 million.
When it comes to Mexico, the eSports audience this year will grow to 11.2 million; 4.5 million will be eSports enthusiasts.
Seeing a growth opportunity, TV Azteca, a Grupo Salinas company, signed a five-year strategic alliance deal with the World Poker Tour (WPT) to bring its poker content library to a growing Latin America audience. It also struck a deal with WPT’s sister company Allied Esports to develop and launch an eSports strategy that includes live eSports experiences, eSports related content, and an online platform in Mexico and throughout Latin America.
As part of the arrangement, WPT will introduce its premier poker events throughout Mexico and license its internationally recognized brand to TV Azteca to develop social poker and gaming products customized exclusively for the Latin America marketplace. As the WPT’s global presence grows, Grupo Salinas will feature WPT-branded merchandise throughout its stores, placed all over Mexico and throughout Latin America.
“We are fully committed to using our vast network to completely change the social gaming market in Mexico and to ensure that these games are available to all people in ways that are catered to them. By pairing with the WPT in this long-term relationship, we are taking a major step into social gaming,” says TV Azteca CEO Benjamin Salinas.
TV Azteca will introduce the first Spanish-language WPT-branded social poker game. It has also pledged to localize all WPT programs with well-known world-class commentators who will be announced at a later date. Beyond plans for multi-channel television distribution, the WPT will partner with TV Azteca to put on world-class poker tournaments as part of the newly developed WPT LATAM Tour. The first event is expected to take place within the first 11 months.


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Guinness strike hits Diageo shares
DRINKS giant Diageo was today one of the biggest fallers among the UK's top 100 companies as a strike halted production of Guinness in Ireland for the first time in more than 25 years.
The stoppage, involving 1,200 workers at the brewery, went ahead after the failure of a last-minute bid by Ireland's Labour Relations Commission to have the action called off.
More talks over the central issue in the dispute - the planned closure of a Guinness packaging plant in Dundalk, Co Louth, with the loss of nearly 150 jobs - were due to go ahead in Dublin later today.
Strikers operated pickets from early this morning at the Dundalk operation, as well as at Guinness premises in Dublin, Waterford and Kilkenny. Guinness estimated that, if prolonged, the strike would cost them £12m a week.
Diageo shares fell 8p to 707 1/2p before showing a slight recovery to close at 710p, a fall of 5 1/2p.
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Nov 13, 2015 at 07:05 AM CST
The four facilities sold to United Cooperative have a combined grain storage capacity of over 13 million. United Cooperative also acquired the retail agronomy locations at Westfield and Auroraville. The Oshkosh location includes a liquid fertilizer terminal capable of receiving rail or truck with storage capacity of over 20,000 tons.
“United Cooperative currently operates facilities in and serves customers in much of the same geography, said David Cramer, United Cooperative president and chief executive officer. "We look forward to the efficiencies our combined operations will bring our customers in these areas.”


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A first batch of 196,000 eggs, imported from Belgium, was distributed between April 16 and May 2, and was followed by a second batch of 48,000 Dutch eggs sold by the discount retailer Leader Price between July 19 and 28, Travert told RMC radio.
“The risk for human health is very low, given the levels of fipronil detected in the contaminated eggs, but also given French habits of food consumption,” Travert said.
Fipronil is a chemical used to get rid of fleas, lice and ticks from farm livestock but is banned by the European Union from use in the food industry.
At least 11 countries in Europe, including France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland and Britain, have found eggs contaminated with fipronil since the scare emerged on August 1, with millions of them pulled off shelves by supermarkets.
The episode has also unleashed finger-pointing among European countries over who is to blame and whether there was a cover up.


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Samsung sent out invites today for Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2011, promising to reveal "what's new with Android" at the event in San Diego on October 11th.
Considering Eric Schmidt's indication of an October/November release for Android Ice Cream Sandwich, and the fact that the Nexus Prime (Google's flagship ICS phone) is said to be a Samsung device, it's looking like this announcement will almost certainly be related to Android's latest iteration, and perhaps, if we're lucky, the latest Nexus device as well.
For those who don't happen to be hanging out in San Diego for the next couple of weeks, a live stream will also be available to view at YouTube.com/Android. The event begins October 11th at 11:30am PST. Our own David Ruddock will be live on the floor, bringing you all all the exciting news as it happens.


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The opening of a new Market Basket in Chelsea is causing a tsunami of excitement on the boards and in real life: Chowhounds report that the fire department was stationed at the store over the weekend to control the crowds.
The store has the same attractive prices as others in the chain, but the place is huge: There are 32 checkout registers, great big wide aisles, a sushi bar, and a café with coffee drinks where you can sit to eat the prepared foods for sale in the store.
Early reports say the sushi bar is above average: “They make a veggie caterpillar roll which I’m now addicted to,” says food4dogs, who adds that the bakery and produce sections are big, and stocked.
The store is pretty mobbed after 10 a.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. on weekends, says Karl S, so go early. And buy a box of fudge grahams for us while you’re there.
Market Basket [Chelsea]
170 Everett Avenue, Chelsea
Board Link: Just opened -Chelsea Market Basket


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2.5 Million sales of anything within 30 days is substantial – this is just what Microsoft has achieved with their latest gaming apparatus, the XBox 360 Kinect. The guys at Microsoft released it at the perfect time, with sales of the Nintendo Wii flatlining / decreasing which was a sign that the gaming market was set for a new innovative challenge.
What is Kinect?
Kinect brings games and entertainment to life in extraordinary new ways without using a controller. Imagine controlling movies and music with the wave of a hand or the sound of your voice. With Kinect, technology evaporates, letting the natural magic in all of us shine.
I’ve been busy reviewing phone gadgets lately, so haven’t had the chance to play with one. With news like this, I’m going to get one soon to see what the fuss is about!
Microsfot Xbox 360 Kinect 2.5 Million Sales Press Release
Microsoft Corp. today announced it has sold more than 2.5 million Kinect sensors to consumers worldwide since it launched less than four weeks ago. More than one million units were sold during the US three-day Black Friday weekend.
“We are extremely excited to see how consumers have responded to Kinect in Australia and around the world. It is truly revolutionary entertainment that creates a magical experience for the whole family,” said David McLean, General Manager of Xbox, Microsoft Australia and New Zealand.
“Kinect will be one of the biggest gifts for Christmas this year, and is to date one of the most significant consumer electronic product launches in history. We’re currently on track to reach our forecast of 5 million units sold to consumers by the end of the year.”
Kinect is now available at more than 60,000 retailers in 38 countries. It is the only controller-free games and entertainment system available that lets you control games and movies, with gestures and movement. Retailers, reviewers and analysts are calling it a must-have gift this Christmas.
Do you have one? Like it? Post a comment below.


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Limousine drivers operating with the new Ride Genie smartphone application system say the process of requesting a ride will get easier for customers who use the service.
Integrity Vehicle Solutions, a Las Vegas-based technology company spun off from the Frias Transportation Group, unveiled the new app Wednesday and 400 sedans, limousines and sport utility vehicles are operating with the app.
Mark James, CEO of Integrity, said he expects 80 percent of the limousine fleet in Southern Nevada will be enabled with Ride Genie technology and taxi cabs also will be using the app within weeks.
James also said Ride Genie would be operating in other major cities in the United States within two months.
At the end of the day Wednesday, Integrity did not have a count on the number of apps downloaded on the first day.
“It’s going to make things a lot easier for end users,” said Paul Poteat, director of technology development for Bell Transportation, parent company of the Bell Trans and Presidential Limousine companies.
Poteat coordinated the set-up between Bell and Integrity and explained that using the app is easier than scheduling a reservation and the customer has the added benefit of monitoring the location of the vehicle assigned to the ride.
Customers must first download the free app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. A customer must fill out a registration form, which includes providing a credit card or Pay Pal account number for ride payments.
When a customer requests a ride, the closest available vehicle is contacted and when the driver accepts the assignment, both the driver and the customer are notified by text and have screens with maps that show the location of each party.
If the closest vehicle doesn’t accept the assigned ride after 30 seconds, the system moves to the next closest vehicle until the ride is assigned.
James said that part of the operation may be the most ground breaking because he said it’s one of the first times that owners in Southern Nevada’s highly competitive limousine and taxi industries agreed to work within a system with competitors.
David Wong, a driver with Presidential Limousines, got his first chance to use the app several weeks ago when Integrity was beta testing the product and regulators wanted to see how it worked.
Once a customer presses the button to hail a vehicle, the closest vehicle — Wong’s in this case — gets a high-pitched whistle on his computer tablet. Once he accepted the ride, he was given a route to the customer.
When the ride was over, the system tabulated the costs and sent a receipt to the customer. Customers also have the opportunity to override the 20 percent tip that is built into the billing and rate the driver and the vehicle for company feedback.
Right now, most of the companies using the system are using a universal tariff approved for Integrity, which means customers will pay the normal charges for the ride plus $5.
A workshop meeting on developing tariffs for e-hailing is scheduled Thursday morning by the Nevada Transportation Authority and the first tariff requests are scheduled to be heard by the three-member commission at Tuesday’s monthly meeting.
James is hoping the public will participate in the meetings to give regulators feedback about the app and how it’s used.
While local residents and frequent Las Vegas visitors are likely to be the first to download Ride Genie, James expects numbers to grow as the system spreads nationwide and occasional Las Vegas visitors learn of the app’s existence.
Representatives of Uber, a San Francisco-based ridesharing company that says it is trying to establish a toehold in Southern Nevada, was unfazed by Integrity’s announcement.
“Innovation is more than just creating an app,” the company said in a statement issued late Wednesday.
“This is not innovation — it’s the same old model of hidden fees, long wait times and unreliable service dressed up under the guise of technology,” the statement said. “Uber offers convenient, affordable, seamless rides and Las Vegas deserves Uber.”
James said earlier this week that he was thankful that Uber had played up the need for new transportation technology in Southern Nevada, crediting the company’s “whining and complaining” with building awareness that Ride Genie would be able to take advantage of.
Uber and another ridesharing company, Lyft, have been reluctant to enter the Southern Nevada market because it could not be profitable under some of the current limousine and taxi regulations.
Contact reporter Richard N. Velotta at email@example.com or 702-477-3893. Follow him on Twitter @RickVelotta.


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WPP's Xaxis Bids Buyers to Look at Digital Like Broadcast
GroupM's Beaumier says Xaxis wants to show consistency across audiences, better measure cross-platform campaigns
By Lindsay Rubino -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/19/2013 1:52:23 PMaccording Ad Age.
Christina Beaumier, VP of product development with Xaxis, says matching TV programming schedules to set-top box data from I-Behavior (owned by WPP) will achieve that goal, the story said. Xaxis uses Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings and comScore's Validated Campaign Essentials to measure audiences, according to the report.
Though the end goal of many marketers is to steal away dollars from television, Beaumier said that "it's really about broadcast dollars and spending them in a broadcast fashion, whether it be online or on television," the report said.
A big question still looms, and that is whether to apply the TV-centric GRP standard to digital video. Without an industry standard, clients are left to guess, the story said.
"We owe it to our clients to figure it out....This is really our problem," Beaumier said in the report.
Additionally, Xaxis will create TV network-inspired video content in conjunction with 10 partners, according to the article. The inventory of video will be available in the third quarter, according to Beaumier in the story.
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Mosaic of living options
DEVELOPER Leighton Properties is gearing up to launch a limited selection of three-bedroom apartments at its Mosaic development in Fortitude Valley.
The new stock follows the release of the development’s revamped selection of one and two-bedroom configurations late last month.
Mosaic, on the corner of East, Church and Ann streets, is a $150 million mixed-use venture inspired by sustainable developments in Europe and the United States.
There are four three-bedroom apartments available. Features include a multi-purpose area and deck with expansive CBD views.
The state-of-the-art precinct, expected to start construction midway through this year, will feature 208 apartments set above restaurants, bars, shopping and boutique offices.
Up to 6000 plants and 50 different species of flora will be incorporated into the development, along with hanging gardens on each floor and a rooftop terrace with community vegetable plots and an organic worm farm.
Buyer interest in the development has been strong, forcing the developer to review its initial selection of stock to meet demand.
Leighton Properties executive director and Queensland state manager Andrew Borger said project architects Cox Rayner had completed a recent review in response to strong demand for certain apartment types.
“We have been inundated with demand for our two-bedroom product and consumers also wanting multipurpose spaces in their apartments,” Mr Borger said.
“As such, we are now releasing a larger 104sq m two-bedroom apartment to include a media room, providing an additional entertainment space, which could also double as a guest room or study.
“We’ve still maintained the wide variety of different apartment layouts, because we believe that has been a key part of Mosaic’s success.
“The other hot button has been the response to the seamless indoor/ outdoor living zones and we’ve now rolled this into the majority of our onebedroom product.”


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International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics
Saturday, 29.04.2017, 20:34
On April 27-29 IX WHITE SQUARE International Advertising Festival, one of the leading creative events of Eastern Europe, will take place.
Keyword tags: Baltic States – CIS, Belarus, EU – Baltic States, EU – CIS, Forum, PR, Technology
The largest creative festival in Eastern Europe, White Square, will be held in Minsk, Belarus at the end of April turning into a prestigious tournament of advertising excellence and talent.
There are just 10 days left to enter the creative ring and submit the entries to one of the leading festivals of creativity in Eastern Europe – IX White Square International Advertising Festival. CALL FOR ENTRIES RUNS OUT ON APRIL 7!
''Trump's analysts'' have also tried their luck in Latvia in the past by consulting Slesers and Skele24.03.2017
The political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica, which this past autumn gained fame by helping U.S. President Donald Trump get elected, had also tried its luck in Latvia in the past by consulting two of the country's so-called oligarchs Ainars Slesers and Andris Skele back in 2010, but were not very successful, as they were not voted into parliament, according to the Bloomberg reports writes LETA.
n alliance of three companies has won a EUR 3 million tender for advertising Latvian dairy products in China, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and Israel over the next three years, the Latvian Central Dairy Association (LPCS) said LETA.
Latvia’s Dzintars cosmetics company plans to develop a new communications and marketing strategy, the company’s board chairman Ilja Gercikovs told LETA.
Lithuania will until 2020 use a new tourism brand to market itself to foreign tourists, reports LETA/BNS.


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Drive Bigger with Volkswagen of Inver Grove
The diesel emissions situation of 2015 was not the brightest moment in Volkswagen history. Since then, the company has been working hard to address the situation and redefine itself, one step at a time. Internally Volkswagen has instituted new ethics and compliance programs, and shifted its focus to invest heavily in electric vehicle development and production.
In the darkest moments, a glimmer of light has the potential to shine much brighter. You may have missed this limited-run video that debuted during Game 3 of the NBA Finals, but in it, Volkswagen acknowledges what happened in 2015, and kicks off its new campaign, “Drive Bigger.”
It’s important to note that Drive Bigger is not just a campaign, it’s a promise to the world as a whole. The company is thinking bigger than simply Volkswagen customers of the past, present, and future. It’s a long-term vision for the company. With bold commitments, for the wellbeing of the planet, as well as amplify all the good that people do.
The new Volkswagen mission:
Globally, Volkswagen expects to spend nearly $50 billion over the next 4 years to develop and build EVs and develop the digital services and infrastructure around them
Through 2028, the plan is to sell 22 million EVs across the globe
By 2025, Volkswagen aims to reduce its CO2 footprint by 30%, and be completely carbon-neutral by 2050
How do we start? We’ve already begun. In March 2019, Volkswagen announced that it is sharing its EV platform with other car companies to help afford electric vehicles. Currently, very few people can afford to buy even a “cheap” version of the most popular EV, but Volkswagen is leading the way to change that.
"This IS ’the people’s car company.’ Like we did with the Beetle in the ‘50s and ‘60s, we will be the company that makes EVs accessible to millions, not just millionaires. No other automotive company is in a better position to electrify because our history of innovation and our track record built over decades of producing high-quality vehicles on a global scale at a great value.” — Scott Keogh, Volkswagen Group of America CEO
The Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, where we currently build the Atlas and the Passat, will be expanded to create more jobs while producing the first in the new line of electric Volkswagen vehicles, the I.D. Crozz. You will be seeing this trailblazing EV in our dealership by the end of 2020.
Next with the new Volkswagen subsidiary Electrify America, there will be DC Fast Charging stations across the highway corridors of the country, including here in Minnesota as well as Community Fast Charging stations to create the largest network in North America.
Drive Bigger will soon be an integral part of the experience with Volkswagen of Inver Grove, whether it’s during our support of community events or engaging new customers with ways to benefit the causes you support. Because when you drive something bigger than yourself, you change the destination. Our dealership will not be a destination for Inver Grove customers to purchase an electric vehicle, but a starting point for a brighter future.
We look forward to Driving Bigger with you.


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Public Relations: Singapore leads Corporate Spin's Asian expansion
SINGAPORE: Danish public relations company Corporate Spin has embarked on an aggressive Asian expansion, with headquarters set up in Singapore and offices in Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai.
Copenhagen-based Corporate Spin was hived-off from parent PR company Gunbak PA in August this year.
According to Steffen Egelund, Corporate Spin area manager for Asia, the aim of the company is to provide PR services to Scandinavian companies that have operations in Asia, as well as local companies targeting the Scandinavian market.
Egelund said the agency was focusing on Asia because many Danish and European companies are now outsourcing to Asia and this is a big issue in Europe. "There is a perception that labour laws and environmental laws are more liberal in Asia. Companies that outsource to Asia are viewed as cynical capitalists that want to be able to pollute more, and save money on safety regulations and labour costs," he said.
"We are here to counsel companies on how they should conduct their business and to try to explain to Danish journalists about what is happening out here."
Clients of Corporate Spin include A.P. Moller-Maersk and United Plantations of Malaysia.
This article was first published on Media Asia
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NIBL unveils Re 1 saving account
Kathmandu, August 22:
Nepal Investment Bank Ltd (NIBL) has launched a new Re 1 saving scheme, Afnai Bachat Khata’, across all its 16 branches starting August 17.
The scheme is targeted towards lower and middle class segment. Customers can open a saving account with a low minimum balance of Re 1 at any of the branches, states a bank press release.
All customers will be issued a Visa Electron Debit Card on an issuance fee of Rs 200 under this scheme.
As part of the core strategy of the bank to expand its clientele base, the scheme has been introduced to inculcate the first banking experience among citizens, adds the release.
The scheme provides an opportunity to people with low disposable income to start banking relations with one of the leading banks in Nepal and avail all international services and privileges associated with it.
The bank has also added one more value added service for the first time in Nepal, especially for Nepal Telecom’s prepaid cellular mobile phone users. Now, the prepaid mobile users can recharge their phone through NIBL ATM counters instead of buying a recharge card.


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The Coolest HVAC Trends that will impact every industry worldwide this 2022.
The HVAC industry is promised a year of transformation. The past year exceeded expectations on that front, as the sector underwent a constant stream of development.
Here are some of the HVAC trends that are shaping its current growth in the industry.
Because it’s readily available and becoming smarter, technology is at the forefront of many HVAC trends and advances.
There are sensors that communicate with each other in today’s HVAC designs.
As a result, multiple systems inside a building may communicate with one another.
With occupancy sensors, for example, you may control the temperature and humidity levels in your home or office.
HVAC companies also no longer have to operate manually.
There are a variety of software platforms and technologies that HVAC firms are embracing to improve their sales, customer service, and technical assistance.
This includes invoicing, estimating, payment, routing, and contact with customers, all improved by smart and mobile systems.
Today’s construction methods are a little different than they were in the past.
Smart meters, thermostats, and other energy-saving devices are becoming more popular as more and more architects and constructors incorporate “green” thinking into their designs.
In addition to temperature management, building owners may also adjust humidity levels and ventilation.
High Energy Price
High energy prices are affecting everyone, not just homeowners.
When it comes to heating and cooling commercial buildings, there is a lot more room to work with.
The trend toward reducing one’s carbon footprint isn’t simply confined to house owners.
Because it’s less expensive and more visible, turning green is becoming more popular among businesses.
The Future: HVAC Trends 2022 and beyond
Finally, the future of the HVAC business is bright, especially as more and more nations focus on producing high-performance insulation and glazing.
These technologies will save the general people a large amount of money on their utility bills.
Certain HFCs used in air conditioning systems have already been outlawed in a number of nations.
Click below to read the magazine: HVAC Trends 2022
Click here to download the magazine: HVAC Trends 2022
Click here to read on Yumpu: HVAC Trends 2022


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Email volume should hit record highs this holiday season, according to a prediction by Listrak, the provider of a digital marketing platform.
Email marketing volume rose 38.5% in 2016 compared with the prior year, Listrak says. And the firm expects a double-digit increase this year.
Based on this projected upsurge, Listrak offers the following email marketing tips:
Email produces high revenue impact overall — Sending four additional emails per month can produce a revenue boost, and a return of $59.25 for every dollar spent.
Give thanks for dark stores — Costco, H&M, Ikea, Marshalls, HomeGoods and other retailers are remaining closed or observing limited hours on Thanksgiving. And they are touting the fact. This could mean increased site traffic. Listrak recommends sending multiple emails around that day.
After dinner deployment — Add an after-dinner email to the deployment schedule to leverage evening site traffic.
Email all day long — Sending multiple emails throughout Black Friday to engage consumers who shop all day long.
Keep going on Cyber Monday — Send two or even three emails on Cyber Monday — shoppers are looking for deals throughout the day. Listrak reported a 42.4% increase last year over cyber volume in 2015.
Email all week — Don’t stop on Cyber Monday. Keep your campaigns rolling through Cyber Weekend — and the following week. According to Listrak, 27% of shoppers start their Christmas shopping in the first two weeks of December.
“Many retailers have already started to ramp up their email deployment schedules, which is a key tactic to making the all-important fourth-quarter year-end revenue goals,” states Listrak CEO Ross Kramer.
He adds that “just sending more emails alone isn’t a strategy. Consumers are bombarded with email messages this time of year, so you really need to consider when and what to send.”


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Shock fall in store takings belies Bank optimism
· Worst performance since second world war
· Growth at risk as shopping boom runs out of steam
Friday 17 February 2006
Retail sales unexpectedly tumbled last month after a strong run-up to Christmas, casting fresh doubt over the strength of consumer spending and suggesting the Bank of England may soon have to cut interest rates again.
The seasonally adjusted volume of retail sales fell 1.3% in January from December, the worst performance in over a year, while the amount of money entering shops' tills failed to grow at all compared with last January - the worst performance since records began in 1945.
"This was extraordinarily weak, even taking into account the seasonal unreliability of the data," said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec Bank in the City.
The 1.3% drop was far worse than City economists expected and left sales only 1.3% higher than a year earlier, against a rise of 4.3% in the year to December. Price falls of an average 1.2% over the past year left takings unchanged on the year, the Office for National Statistics said.
The £17.4bn that changed hands last month was the same as in January last year, something that has not happened since the second world war.
The gloom hit all sectors with the exception of specialist internet retailers. Food stores saw sales drop a relatively modest 0.5% on the month but other sectors suffered worse falls. Household goods sales fell 3% following a strong December when shoppers snapped up flat-screen televisions, which have fallen in price. Department stores and clothing stores suffered a second consecutive monthly fall. The weakness explains the big price cuts by furniture and clothing stores seen in inflation figures earlier in the week.
The so-called "deflator" - a measure of high street inflation - showed prices cut by 1.2% compared with a year earlier, the weakest figure for almost a year and one which demonstrates the extent to which retailers are having to reduce prices.
"Retail sales figures for January indicate that the momentum that built in the months preceding Christmas was not maintained into the new year," said Richard Lowe, director of retail and wholesale at Barclays business banking.
The ONS said it is normal that retail spending falls sharply between December and January but this year the drop was 32%, the biggest for 10 years. "After the pickup at the end of 2005, retail sales are back to the meagre trend that prevailed in the summer months of 2005, suggesting the pre-Christmas boost was only transitory," said Lorenzo Codogno, economist at Bank of America in London.
He added: "The fresh weakness in January, although larger than we had anticipated, is consistent with our view that after-tax real disposable income is unlikely to provide much support to consumption going forward. With our projected flattish trend for house prices over the next few quarters, households will likely continue their balance sheet consolidation, implying a rise in the savings rate and continued below-trend consumption growth."
On Wednesday the Bank of England revised up slightly its economic growth forecast, in part on the assumption that consumer spending will rise in line with its long-term average, something economists are sceptical of, given the high debt hanging over consumers who have only just received Christmas credit card bills. It made it clear it was reluctant to cut interest rates from 4.5% because a recent fall in long-term rates on financial markets has boosted the stock market and house prices, but many City pundits think cuts are inevitable because the consumer seems to have run out of steam. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the economy, with retail sales a third of that. Car sales, which are not included in the retail sales figures, have fallen 10% in the past year, suggesting the weakness in consumption is not confined to the shops.
Economists say consumer spending is likely to be crimped by high petrol prices and rising gas and electricity bills as well as higher council tax bills. Unemployment has been rising while wage growth is subdued. All of this points to limited disposable income growth, meaning the outlook for consumption is weak.
"Grouped together with the soft inflation data and the ongoing threat to spending from low wage growth, rising unemployment and higher taxes and utility bills, we remain convinced that the BoE will eventually cut interest rates," said James Knightley of ING Barings.
Other economists pointed out that monthly data are volatile and if the three Christmas season months are taken together, sales were up a respectable 1.3% from the previous three months, making talk of a meltdown premature.
The rush to e-shops
Online retailers are changing the whole dynamics of the retail sector, not just in the UK but throughout the world. The advent of broadband in many British homes has been a key factor behind that growth, making price comparisons and shopping online a far quicker and easier alternative to trekking down the high street or driving out of town. It is by far the fastest-expanding sector of the UK retail market, growing at a rate some 19 times faster than overall retail spending. According to recent figures from Verdict Research, consumers in the UK spent £8.2bn over the internet last year, equivalent to 3.1% of total retail spending and a 29% increase on 2004.


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Author: Syedur Rahman
10 December 2021
2 min read
The surge in popularity of Non-Fungible Token'>NFT’s since the start of 2021 is undeniable. The fact that the Collins Dictionary has made NFT the 2021 word of the year is proof of the huge surge in interest surrounding them. And yet they are not commanding universal admiration.
Rarity and demand have always driven prices up for just about every item that has ever come on to a market. Yet there has to be a concern that NFT’s represent unchartered digital territory, which makes them susceptible to criminal activity.
There are well-established fears that many NFT purchases are conducted to launder money, so that the proceeds of crime can be moved around, free from the watchful gaze of the authorities. Then there is the illegal practice of wash trading, where someone – sometimes with the help of a broker - will buy and sell NFT’s in order to mislead the market and make profits. While wash trading is not unique to NFT’s, the fact that they are a new and relatively under-scrutinised commodity makes them attractive to those looking to engineer such illegal gains.
It is also worth making the point that regulation and risk management are in their infancy regarding cryptocurrency on-ramps and off-ramps – where conventional currency is converted into digital assets and vice-versa. And while insider trading is illegal in most regulated capital markets, such restrictions do not exist for NFT’s. It does not take a genius to recognise how to exploit that loophole.
Yet the need for action has, at least in part, been recognised by the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF). FATF’s recent guidance tells regulators when and how they should identify and regulate NFT’s as virtual assets.
This guidance clarifies that NFT’s are not considered virtual assets based on their general use. But the FATF does encourage the evaluation of NFT’s on a case-by-case basis. The FATF says that they should be regulated as virtual assets when the use of them conforms to the definition of a virtual asset, adding “some NFTs that on their face do not appear to constitute as virtual assets may fall under the virtual asset definition if they are to be used for payment of investment purposes in practice.’’
This is an approach that is rooted in the actual use of NFT’s as opposed to the technology. The challenge now facing those who are involved with NFT’s is to identify which NFT’s meet the FATF functional definition of a virtual asset. If the definition is satisfied, compliance and monitoring obligations will need to be met by the relevant parties. This in itself is a challenge, bringing as it does the need to take a risk-based approach to preventing unwanted customer transactions and ensure any suspicious incidents are flagged up swiftly. Regulators will be expecting those involved with NFT’s to be proactive when controlling risk. Yet such parties will also need to take care not to compromise the NFT user experience.
There remains a clear and pressing need for more regulation and a transparent legal framework regarding digital NFT’s. In the fast-moving digital environment, the NFT is currently the must-have commodity, as well as the word of the year. But there is still work to be done to protect investors and reduce the risk of NFT becoming a byword for criminality.
Syedur Rahman is known for his in-depth experience of serious fraud, white-collar crime and serious crime cases, as well as his expertise in worldwide asset tracing and recovery, international arbitration, civil recovery, cryptocurrency and high-stakes commercial disputes.


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It’s a busy week for TECNO: aside from making the Phantom X2 series official in the Philippines, the brand also unveiled its first foldable at MWC 2023 with the Phantom V Fold. While TECNO did say at MWC 2023 that the Phantom V Fold will be made available in Q2, we also received word that the brand has plans of bringing it to the Philippines as well.
This is very interesting especially if you consider the pricing: TECNO said that the Phantom V Fold will be priced at INR 89,999(~Php 60.2k) for the 256GB model and INR 99,999(~Php 66.8k) for the 512GB model. Should TECNO manage to follow the same pricing here in the Philippines, the Phantom V Fold has the potential of being the most affordable foldable phone in the market.
To recap, the Phantom V Fold has a 7.85-inch 120hz LTPO inner display with a 2000×2296 resolution, and a 6.42-inch 120hz LTPO inner display with a 1080×2550 resolution. It’s powered by a Dimensity 9000+ processor and packs a 5000mAh battery that supports 45w charging.
Aside from flagship internals, the Phantom V Fold has a promising camera setup that consists of 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with 2x zoom, and a 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera.
Make sure to stay tuned to the site, as TECNO is set to reveal more details about local availability in the coming months.


text: According to the General Administration of Customs on January 14th, the data released by the General Administration of Customs on Monday showed that China's aluminum exports in 2018 increased by 20.9% compared with the previous year, setting a record high, because the US implementation of the Russian aluminum (Rusal) system stimulated China's aluminum Demand. China’s exports of unwrought aluminum and aluminum products reached 5.8 million tons last year, although the United States imposed a 10% tariff on imported aluminum from March. China is the world's number one aluminum producer. The shortage of sanctions imposed by the United States on Rusal has increased demand for Chinese supplies. The United States imposed separate tariffs on products such as aluminum foil and aluminum alloy sheets produced in China, which did not damage the overall export. Data show that China's aluminum exports in December decreased by 0.6% from the previous month to 527,000 tons, due to the narrower price arbitrage than the international market. In December, aluminum exports increased by 19.8% from 440,000 tons in the same period of last year. In November, exports were revised to 530,000 tons, the second highest level in history. November is the first month in which China's export of semi-aluminum can achieve a higher 16% value-added tax rebate, so exports are encouraged.


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Nordic scale-ups joining forces to conquer Europe with smart energy and solar app
Energy app Tibber enters into cooperation with solar juggernaut Otovo in bid to conquer Europe with smarter ways to use and make energy.
Tibber has entered into a partnership with Otovo, the solar energy marketplace, to cross sell each other’s products. Tibber makes an app that is powered by AI to manage energy use in homes when electricity costs are low and has integrated their offering with a multitude of hardware makers, including Tesla, BMW, EV charger manufacturer Easee and more. Otovo is a marketplace for solar installers that selects the cheapest and best quality local installers as homeowners want to make their own energy.
- Now that energy prices are increasing across Europe, our users were increasingly asking for an app to manage their energy consumption to the optimal times in the day. Partnering with Tibber was logical to answer that consumer demand. With solar panels on the roof and an energy app with brains, they stand to save hundreds of euros per month on their electricity bill, says Otovo CEO Andreas Thorsheim.
Both Tibber and Otovo are betting heavily on European growth in 2019 and 2020. Tibber recently raised $12m in equity from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Petter Stordalen in the first quarter in 2019, while Otovo raised the same amount a quarter earlier from Nysnø Climate Investments and KLP. Tibber is Scandinavia’s fastest growing electricity provider, while Otovo is the region’s largest solar energy company and recently entered France by acquiring In Sun We Trust.
- European energy markets are going through a massive change. It’s getting easier to make, store and optimize energy at home, and power is quite literally moving from the large utilities to consumers and their smart devices, says Edgeir Aksnes, CEO of Tibber.
Tibber will take over Otovo’s portfolio of electricity subscribers in Norway and Sweden as part of the agreement. Otovo’s customers will get the benefit of Tibber’s technology working to optimize the energy produced by the solar panels by triggering car charging or other devices in the home at the right times - essentially operating the house like a battery.
Going forward Otovo will offer the Tibber subscription to their solar energy customers while providing data from the solar array to the Tibber app. The agreement covers Norway and Sweden, where both companies operate today, but also contains a clause for expansion as their footprint gets bigger.
- We’re looking to grow in the large and advanced markets in Europe. These markets usually have high potential for energy optimization in addition to solar, so Tibber is the obvious partner all across the continent, says Thorsheim. Aksnes adds:
- We have already established Europe’s largest virtual battery by connecting thousands of electric cars. Together with Otovo we are now aiming to connect thousands of homes into a huge virtual solar power plant, accelerating our transition to a sustainable future.
Otovo - Otovo is a solar energy marketplace that creates the easiest, best and most cost-effective way of going solar. Otovo make it easy for consumers to get solar panels installed by assembling only the best installers and hardware on the platform, comparing their prices and managing the installation from start to end. Otovo was started in 2016 by software entrepreneur Simen Jørgensen, Schibsted executive Andreas Thorsheim, Circle K and Statoil F&R executive Lars Syse Christiansen and the former REC technology director Andreas Bentzen. The company has raised approximately €20 million to date. Otovo has around 65 employees in offices in Oslo, Stockholm and Paris and had revenues of approximately €10 million in 2018.
TIbber - Tibber is building the first digital energy company, enabling consumers to benefit from low energy prices and new technologies such as electric cars, smarter homesand solar energy. The Tibber app makes sure connected devices in the home are used in a way to lower the energy bill by reducing the use of electricity and steering consumption to times of lower prices. Tibber has raised €12 million since inception. Tibber has 20 employees in offices in Førde, Helsinki and Stockholm. The company had revenues of approximately €10 million in 2018.
Edgeir Aksnes, CEO, Tibber, +47 994 52 350
Andreas Thorsheim, CEO, Otovo, +47 930 65 178
Otovo puts solar panels on your roof, with no hassle and no up front cost to you. With the company's unique planning software and ecommerce expertise, Otovo calculates how much you can save and how much you can impact the environment by going solar, and tailor a solar panel system to maximize your home's solar resource. Otovo alsp helps to finance the installation with its solar loan providers, creating a low, fixed monthly payment, that compares more and more favorably with electricity prices from the grid, as power gets more expensive. Otovo is also a fully licensed power company, operating a virtual microgrid of solar power makers and regular consumers buying the surplus power. Otovo thus provides users with clean energy at night or in winter, when the panels don't yield enough to cover your consumption. No hassle. No up front cost. Just clean, inexpensive energy.
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Keeping the Linksys name alive, parent company Cisco on Wednesday unveiled a new line of wireless routers, the Linksys E-Series. The sleek looking lineup is part of Cisco's effort to streamline its Linksys routers, as well as showcase the company's new Cisco Connect software.
"Linksys pioneered the first home router 10 years ago, and 50 million units later is the world's leading provider of home wireless routers," said Jonathan Kaplan, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Consumer Products. "The new E-Series caters to Linksys' core technology-minded consumer base, with a simplified product lineup that is ideal for today's sophisticated home network user."
There are five new routers in all, including the E1000 Wireless-N, E2000 Advanced Wireless-N, E2100L Advanced Wireless-N with Linux, E3000 High-Performance Wireless-N (dual-band), and AE1000 High-Performance Wireless-N USB Adapter. Each one comes with Cisco's Connect Software designed to simplify the process of setting up and configuring settings, such as auto-assigning the WPA security passkey and SSID.
Pricing has been set to $70 (AE1000), $80 (E1000), $120 (E2000 and E2100L), and $180 (E3000).
Image Credit: Cisco


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The largest Russian-owned cigarette manufacturer is up for sale and foreign buyers are eager to snap it up, according to a story by Aleksey Danichev for RIA Novosti.
Donskoy Tabak is based in the south of the country and currently has about four per cent of the domestic market.
The company, which produced about 26 million cigarettes last year, bought local rival Nevo Tabak at the beginning of the year.
It owns two local brands, Donskoy Tabak, and Nasha Marka, and produces Richmond and Senator under licence.
Higher taxes and new anti-smoking laws are putting pressure on tobacco producers, making it difficult for smaller companies to survive.
“Big international companies have more options to meet the requirements, than smaller ones,” says Vadim Zhilin, chief executive of the Russian Association of Tobacco Producers. “Companies are trying to be more efficient and merging,” he added.
The Kommersant newspaper reported that Imperial Tobacco was interested in buying Donskoy Tabak, a move that would lift its share in Russia above 12 per cent.


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With tax time in full swing, the Australian Taxation Office has announced tough new measures to clamp down on tax evasion – specifically targeting the hospitality and building & construction industries.
The ATO has stated businesses that deliberately use cash transactions to hide income and evade tax obligations will be under the spotlight. Illegal behaviour included companies who paid cash-in-hand wages, skimmed cash takings, ran normal business activities off the books, and underground operations that do not register or lodge returns.
Businesses in industries with ready access to cash will be the main target, with the ATO implementing specific strategies to catch offenders. Those involved in illegal business dealings will be investigated and brought to light through data matching – a highly effective system used to identify those who are not reporting income or lodging returns.
Cafes/coffee shops that purchase more than 15kg of coffee per week, as well as individuals and businesses holding a hardware store trade account with yearly purchases totaling more than $10,000, will attract close scrutiny from the ATO.
More than 1000 individuals and almost 400 companies were prosecuted and convicted for tax offences last year.


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Follow us on social media:
0:00 Tesla Berlin Down Longer Than Expected
0:46 Japanese OEM Stocks Plunge on Interest Rate News
2:02 Automakers Investing Heavily in Brazil
3:21 GM Closer to Offering Military Vehicles to UAE
4:24 Volvo Dominates EV Heavy Trucks, But It’s Still Small
5:13 Drunk Driver Tech Won’t Work Without Public Support
6:13 Rivian Efficiency Gains Allow It to Cut Shift
6:44 2-Seat Tesla Exempt from Vehicle Tax in France
7:29 Buy a Tesla Get Free Supercharger Miles
7:59 South Africa Gets Its 1st Chinese Luxury SUV
This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
TESLA BERLIN DOWN LONGER THAN EXPECTED
The attack by extreme environmentalists that shut down Tesla Berlin is going to take a bit longer to fix than originally expected. Tesla says the plant will be shut down until at least the end of next week. That means the plant will lose at least two weeks of production which would equate to about 12,000 vehicles. We estimate that represents lost revenue of about $600 million. Tesla might be able to make up some of that lost production with overtime. But the plant was already running flat out. So it could take many months to make up for that lost production.
JAPAN OEM STOCKS PLUNGE ON INTEREST RATE NEWS
Japanese automakers have benefitted greatly from the weak yen over the last few years. But the days of easy money may be about to start fading away. The Bank of Japan is considering raising interest rates from their extremely low levels. Get this. A 10-year bond yield is at 0%, and short term interest rates are actually negative, which means the bank pays you to borrow money. Since it made no sense to invest in the yen, it plummeted in value. Over the last 4 years, it fell 30% against the dollar. That weak yen helped Japanese automakers export cars at lower prices, and it bolstered their bottom lines thanks to extremely favorable foreign exchange rates. But even just a hint that the Bank of Japan might raise rates spooked the stock markets. Toyota’s stock dropped almost 3% on the news, Honda dropped almost 4%, Nissan was down 5.6% and Mazda was down more than 6%. That’s quite an impact, and it shows how much investors are worried about a stronger yen hurting the car companies.
AUTOMAKERS INVESTING HEAVILY IN BRAZIL
There’s so much focus on all the automotive investment pouring into Mexico that everyone’s missing how much investment is also pouring into Brazil. General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai and Stellantis are making mega investments in the country. GM will invest $1.4 billion, Toyota is good for $2.2 billion, VW is going in with $1.8 billion, Hyundai will spend over $1 billion, and Stellantis will plunk down more than $6 billion over the next 5 years. All together that’s well over $12 billion. Brazil initiated a new decarbonization program called Mover and the automakers are reacting to that plan. Some of that investment will go into making electric cars. But since more than 80% of the vehicles sold in Brazil run on ethanol, most of it will go into making what are called bio-hybrids, or hybrids that run on ethanol.
GM CLOSER TO OFFERING MILITARY VEHICLES TO UAE
For the first time ever the military product arm of General Motors sent a vehicle to the Summer Trials in the United Arab Emirates, which is a pretty demanding on- and off-road test. The Infantry Squad Vehicle or ISV from GM Defense had to travel nearly 2,000 kilometers or over 1,200 miles across highways, sand dunes and rocky trails, sometimes loaded to its maximum payload. But it was able to finish and received its certification of completion, which is one of the steps required to see if the ISV can meet the technical and tactical needs of UAE Armed Forces and other regional countries. Just over a year ago, GM Defense signed a cooperation agreement with an entity of the UAE government to eventually deliver solutions to military, security and government customers from the region. This is part of GM’s larger goal to see its Defense unit generate $1 billion in revenue by the end of the decade.
VOLVO DOMINATES EV HEAVY TRUCK SEGMENT, BUT IT’S SMALL
Volvo Trucks dominates the electric heavy-duty segment in Europe. It ended last year with a nearly 50% share of the market and total sales were up 256%. But it’s not as impressive as you might think. Volvo Trucks doesn’t give the exact number of electric heavy-duty trucks it sold in Europe. However, it does give its global sales number, which was 1,977 units in 2023. So, that means with some number less than 1,977, Volvo Trucks was able to claim nearly half of the EV heavy-duty truck segment in Europe. By comparison, it sold over 143,400 gas and diesel trucks globally last year.
DRUNK DRIVING MONITORS WON’T WORK WITHOUT PUBLIC SUPPORT
Automakers are saying that the public has to be on board with any drunk driving detection technology that is mandated, or it will fail. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a lobbying group that represents most automakers in the U.S., told NHTSA that technology in cars that can detect drunk drivers “becomes a moot point if it is not accompanied with public awareness and acceptance.” The infrastructure law from 2021 mandated that NHTSA must issue a final rule by the middle of November to require that new vehicles must be equipped with technology to prevent drunk people from driving. NHTSA is still trying to figure out what the standards will be. Once it issues the final rule, it has to be standard equipment in all new passenger vehicles by 2027. But suppliers who are developing the technology have told Autoline they’re skeptical it will be ready by then.
RIVIAN EFFICIENCY GAINS ALLOW IT TO CUT SHIFT
Rivian is cutting the third shift at its plant in Normal, Illinois, but it’s not laying off any workers. About 8,000 people work at the plant. Rivian is shutting down the facility next month to retool it for greater efficiency and lower cost. And with that greeter efficiency, it says it doesn’t need the third shift. Even so, Rivian said that production at the plant will remain flat this year and it only expects to build 57,000 vehicles.
2-SEAT TESLA EXEMPT FROM VEHICLE TAX IN FRANCE
Tesla is dipping its toes into the commercial side of the business with its passenger EVs. It developed a 2-seat version of the Model Y for France that has over 2,100 liters or about 76 cubic feet of cargo space and 565 kilometers of range, which is about 30 kilometers or over 18 miles of range more than versions with the second row. In France commercial vehicles with 2- or 3-seats don’t have to pay the vehicle tax, which is 20%. Where it can, Tesla has already started replacing Chevy and Mercedes mobile service vans with its own models, so we could probably see similar vehicle upgrades in France.
BUY A TESLA GET FREE SUPERCHARGER MILES
In other Tesla news, it’s offering a bunch of free Supercharger miles to anyone in the U.S. who trades in a vehicle to lease or buy a new Tesla before the end of the quarter in March. Those that lease will get 5,000 free Supercharger miles and it’s double that or 10,000 miles for those that buy. We typically see a significant bump in Tesla sales at the end of every quarter and one way it does that is with incentives like these.
SOUTH AFRICA GETS ITS FIRST CHINESE LUXURY SUV
Chinese automakers continue to expand globally. Great Wall Motor is jumping into the luxury SUV segment in South Africa with a model called the TANK 300, becoming the first Chinese automaker to sell an SUV in the country. But Great Wall is no stranger to South Africa. It’s been selling vehicles there for 17 years.
And that brings us to the end of today’s show. But don’t forget to tune into Autoline After Hours at 3PM EST today to see if John and his guests can’t figure out this affordability problem for automakers. Thanks and hope to see you there.
Thanks to our partner for embedding Autoline Daily on its website: WardsAuto.com


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Owners of iPhones will be getting a software update that allows the uploading of high-definition video over wi-fi, it was announced today.
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs also said that when people take photos with their iPhone, the new software saves three slightly different copies that, when combined, make for a sharper image.
The new software is version 4.1 of the iOS system that runs Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Mr Jobs appeared at a media event in a crewneck top, rather than his trademark mock turtleneck.
The event is likely to lead to updated iPods, though the company has not confirmed any details.
Apple watchers have speculated that the company could show off a new version of its Apple TV set-top box or add more music-discovery features to its iTunes music software.