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UK general manager says like-for-like growth will surpass 2013.
Jewellery brand Carat* has reported on a positive start to the year, with the expectation that it will surpass its 2013 growth rate with new wholesale account openings and new standalone stores in the pipeline.
The brand recently showcased fresh designs in its Chelsea and new Power Pearls collections at Jewellery & Watch Birmingham, where it reported meeting a record number of new and existing customers.
From feedback gleaned at the show, along with "strong orders" placed, the brand is now anticipating a bumper year in the UK, with its head of UK wholesale Chris Moses describing the positive impact of shop-in-shop openings and new lines.
Moses said: "On the back of triple digit like for like Christmas sales growth, this year’s [Jewellery & Watch Birmingam] has been the most successful to date for Carat*. We continue to attract quality new business with prospective partners matching our brands aspirations. Our existing customers have also been impressed with the new product lines.
"The new Power Pearl Collection has received very strong opening orders. I fully expect 2014 to surpass 2013’s incredible growth, with our high quality store in store furniture concepts with key partners continuing to be a focus. Our recent shop-in-shop concept with Hugh Rice and Matthew Stephens is an example of the tremendous success that we’ve had with these type of partnerships with our key retail partners."
Carat* opened seven new stores and concessions in 2013, covering the UK, Hong Kong and Shanghai. It now plans to replicate this growth with seven further store openings in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and London in 2014.
Carat* UK general manager Janet Jokat said: "Feedback from existing wholesale partners at [Jewellery & Watch Birmingham] with regards to their sell through and desire to expand the range has been exceptional. Based on the interest shown by new partners wanting to stock Carat* we will exceed our wholesale expectations. Along with the current like for like growth and our plans to expand the retail footprint, it is going to be a very busy year for us indeed."
At present the brand is sold through 33 independent jewellers and department stores in the UK, with more than 150 stockists worldwide.


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When he’s not making 15-foot-high angel wings for Victoria’s Secret fashion shows or giant inflatable wolf heads for Cirque de Soleil, Ted Southern makes spacesuits.
Southern and his business partner, Russian spacesuit expert Nikolay Moissev, have set up shop in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, once a bustling port, now a complex populated with startups and art studios. From their relatively humble workspace, Southern and Moissev are turning out sleek new suits for commercial space industry clients and spacesuit components for NASA. Their company, Final Frontier Design, is just one player in a small but growing field aimed at producing the next generation of astronaut outerwear.
Going from making costumes for Heidi Klum to courting the likes of NASA and SpaceX isn't as unlikely as you might think.
“I’ve always dealt with structures, and thought about how to make them lightweight,” Southern says. “And I’ve always been interested in mechanical stuff.”
Moissev and Southern met a few years ago when they were taking part in a 2007 NASA competition to build a better astronaut glove. Moissev was a lead designer at Zvezda, the company that provided suits to the Russian space agency Roscosmos; Southern had experience in designing and engineering costumes, props, and all kinds of special effects. Neither took the top prize in the glove contest, but they ended up joining forces and scored a second-place win in another NASA glove competition in 2010. Their combination might seem a bit unorthodox, but the team’s designs have performed well enough to garner two NASA contracts and a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $27,000.
Final Frontier is designing a spacesuit meant for the takeoff and landing portions of flight, similar to the bright orange Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES, though sometimes called the “pumpkin suit”) worn by space shuttle crews. Such suits are designed to provide a pressurized environment in the event of an emergency – like a hull breach – that causes the cabin of a spacecraft to depressurize. Basically, they’re full-body versions of the emergency oxygen masks that drop down in an airline emergency.
Without a pressurized spacesuit, malfunctions at takeoff or reentry can prove fatal, as they did for the cosmonauts of Soyuz-11. In 1971, Russian spacefarers Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev died during the reentry of their capsule. An investigation revealed that an air vent in the craft opened up far too soon – 104 miles above the ground – and exposed the cosmonauts to vacuum. Without spacesuits, the loss of pressure inside the Soyuz capsule proved fatal in less than a minute.
But a pressurized spacesuit is also hard to move in. If you look at footage from the Apollo missions, you’ll see that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and company move around on the moon mostly by bunny-hopping. The astronauts had to hop because they had trouble bending at the waist and knees in their stiff spacesuits.
“If you want to just make most basic pressure garment, you just need a gas-filled bag,” Raul Blanco, chief of the space suit and crew survival systems branch at the NASA Johnson Space Center, explained in a phone interview. “If you want mobility, you have to look at every single joint of your body and how it moves.”
Hands are the trickiest part of a spacesuit to make. Right now the gloves on the spacesuits worn on the International Space Station give astronauts about 20 percent of the grip strength they’d have with their bare hands on Earth; NASA’s currently trying to bump that up to 60 percent.
Final Frontier’s trick for making a suit that’s flexible under pressure is what Southern calls “creative patterning.” Their suits have small, strategically placed pockets that allow the joints to move, and maintain the same volume of air inside the joint as it flexes. They’re also focused on a single-layer design that is lighter and thinner than the double-layered ACES suit. Their design has already gone through two prototype models; Final Frontier aims to finish the third generation, or 3G design, by the end of this year.
Final Frontier’s NASA contracts aren’t for full spacesuits. One is for an elbow and shoulder assembly, and another for radiation protection coatings. Both contracts relate to spacesuits designed for “extra-vehicular activity,” which is anything that takes place outside a spacecraft, be it a spacewalk, or a stroll across the surface of Mars.
The company is also in talks with various private space companies. Final Frontier is sending one pressure suit to Spanish company Zero2Infinity, which plans to offer balloon rides up to 22 miles into the atmosphere – not quite outer space, but close enough for thrills.
Meanwhile, NASA is putting some of the finishing touches on the next model of its own next-generation spacesuit, the Z-2, which Blanco says the agency expects to have on hand about a year from now. The Z-1 suit, unveiled in December 2012, is suitable for use both on spacewalks and on planet surfaces. Another new feature of the Z-1 is that astronauts enter the suit through a rear hatch, making them easier to don and doff. Both the Z-1 and the Z-2 were built by ILC Dover, the Delaware-based engineering company that outfitted the Apollo astronauts and which made the EVA suits for both the Space Shuttle missions and the ISS.
Red Tape In Space
As with any business, there are frustrations. One Cold War relic that’s been a thorn in the side of Final Frontier – and pretty much the entire private space industry – is a set of U.S. regulations called the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR. Basically, the military still considers spacesuits a piece of sensitive defense technology, so there’s much more red tape to wade through. ITAR has stymied some of Final Frontier’s attempts to work with Canadians and has racked up about $6,000 to $7,000 in legal fees in a year. While Boeing would probably barely blink at that figure, it’s a sizable enough chunk of change for a small outfit like Final Frontier.
ITAR has also caused some headaches in Final Frontier’s Kickstarter campaign. A German citizen who contributed at the highest levels of the fundraiser is entitled to his own custom spacesuit, but under ITAR, the company can’t ship it to him directly. The Spanish balloon company has offered to step in as a middleman for the transaction.
It’s a bit galling, Southern says, because “we’re building something that’s specifically not a military garment.”
Form And Function
It’s still unclear what features will come to define the next era of spacesuits. Jeff Feige, the CEO of Orbital Outfitters, a spacesuit company based in Washington, DC and California, compares the current state of the space industry to very early aviation.
“With early aircraft, it wasn’t clear what the ‘best’ plane was, whether it was a one-wing, two- or three-wing craft,” he said in a phone interview.
Other next-generation spacesuits depart even more radically from traditional designs. MIT professor Dava Newman is working on an updated version of a “mechanical counterpressure” suit that ditches the whole concept of the inflated balloon look for a design that’s more like a science-fiction speed skater. But Newman’s BioSuit still has a long way to go to move out of the lab and into the spacecraft.
Both Final Frontier and Orbital Outfitters have dealt with a particular private company whose contracts stipulate that suits should look “badass,” but aesthetic concerns (however phrased) often have to take a back seat to making sure the suit does its job of keeping an astronaut alive.
When assessing the artistic value of his own spacesuits, Southern is reminded of a modernist architectural creedo: form follows function.
“I see a great deal of beauty in that [functionality] on its own,” Southern says.
Still, companies want a bit of visual flair. And sometimes clients want spacesuit designs that are unattainable at present.
“The classic one is –“ Feige says, pausing to phrase his words delicately -- “people want suits they can put on women to make them look like women. And while we can sometimes create the appearance of hips, there’s only so far we can go.”
There are also much larger design issues at play. Feige thinks companies should incorporate spacesuit design in the earliest stages of spacecraft development. So much of the spacecraft’s design – cabin volume, seating configuration, how the life support system connects to the suit – makes a big impact on the spacesuit designer's work.
“Spacesuits are not just the clothing you wear at launch day,” Feige says. “They’re an integrated safety subsystem. They’re the point where the human touches the vehicle.”

domain: news


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South African National Parks is asking visitors and stakeholders to give their opinion on the possible construction of a 40 Megawatt hydropower station on the Orange River, upstream of Augrabies Falls. It is anticipated that the project will have an impact on the popular tourist attraction. People who are interested can complete an online survey put together by the Tourism Research in Economic Environs and Society department at North West University. Read more: news24.com
Get inspired to travel everyday by signing up to our daily newsletter.


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Major Austrian Bank Raiffeisen Joins R3 Corda-Powered Global Trade Finance Network
Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has announced it will pilot R3’s Marco Polo blockchain network for trade finance, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 8.
As previously reported, Marco Polo — which is powered by R3’s Corda enterprise blockchain platform — counts major international banks such as BNP Paribas, ING and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation as members. Other prominent bank members include Standard Chartered Bank and NatWest, according to today’s press release.
RBI has reportedly been eyeing expansion in the Central and Eastern Europe market, after reporting a consolidated profit of 1.27 billion euros (around $142 billion) — up 14% year-on-year — in 2018.
As the release notes, Marco Polo leverages a distributed trade finance platform from TradeIX alongside Corda and aims to bring greater cost and time efficiency, as well as transparency, to commercial banks’ traditional and structured trade finance solutions.
In a statement, Daniel Cotti — managing director at the RBI Center of Excellence, Banking & Trade — said that the bank is looking to considerably expand its geographic coverage and help to drive Marco Polo as the main trade finance network in Europe and the fasting growing globally.
R3 CEO David E. Rutter underscored that “the current infrastructure that underlies trade finance is outdated and in need of investment and modernisation.” The blockchain-powered platform offers technological solutions such as APIs and an ERP-embedded application to innovate working capital offerings, the press release states.
As Cointelegraph has reported, Marco Polo successfully conducted its first live trade finance operations in March 2019 in an operation involving two German firms and major local bank Commerzbank.
A competitor trade finance blockchain platform, IBM-powered We.trade, made its commercial debut in 2018.
Back to the list


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Vivo is preparing to update its Y series smartphone family with two new models. Devices called Vivo Y76s and Vivo Y53L will target users with limited budgets.
Chinese manufacturer Vivo will soon announce two new smartphones as part of the Y Series. Some of the basic features of the devices that have passed the certification process have come to light.
We are talking about Vivo Y76s and Vivo Y53L models. Both smartphones will join the budget-friendly models. In parallel, it should be noted that they will be released without 5G support and will be limited to 4G / LTE connection.
Launch is coming soon
Vivo Y76s will include an 18-watt fast charging battery, but the battery capacity is not yet clear. We will probably see an HD + screen, MediaTek processor and a two or three sensor rear camera system on smartphones.
We do not know anything about the new models that Vivo is preparing to release, other than the above details. The official announcement is expected in late May or June.


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GameFly is looking to branch out into mobile gaming but instead of its usual rental model, it is looking to get developers on-board from a much earlier stage. The new initiative would see GameFly becoming the publisher and promoter of a developer’s game. GameFly has set aside a fund for game developers who are already working on their next big game but do not have the resources to publish and promote it; GameFly would take care of that side of the games development
"GameFly is dedicated to giving consumers the best user experience possible, and to be their single destination for console, PC and mobile gaming needs," said Sean Spector, GameFly co-founder and SVP of Business Development and Content. "We plan to be a leading player in mobile games by launching our retail GameStore for Android and helping to fund mobile developers of all sizes to publish, promote and sell their smartphone and tablet games."
GameFly is already accepting submissions from game developers and the first title should be available later this summer. GameFly already has an app available in the App Store which allows users to discover new games and get great deals on lots of gaming titles. If you are a GameFly subscriber you can also manage your rental queue and manage your account all within the app.
Source: PR Newswire


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Johannesburg - The Competition Appeal Court dismissed an application on Friday by three ministers who sought to review and set aside the Competition Tribunal's approval of Walmart's R16.5bn takeover of Massmart Holdings [JSE:MSM].
The court ruled against the government’s appeal to have the deal set aside, but partially upheld a separate union appeal and said about 500 previously fired workers must be reinstated.
The ruling is likely to be seen as a victory for Walmart in its plans to expand in fast-growing Africa. It is also likely to soothe local investors, who had feared the ruling would
tarnish South Africa’s reputation as a business-friendly country.
The court held in favour of the SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers' Union (Saccawu) that 503 workers who had been retrenched were entitled to reinstatement.
The court ordered that a study should be commissioned by three experts - representing Saccawu, the ministers of economic development, trade and industry and agriculture, forestry and fisheries - and the merging parties.
The three experts must be appointed within one month of the order, and will then have a further two months to produce a report for the consideration of the court.
It must look into the best means by which South African small and medium suppliers could participate in Walmart's global value chain and thereby ensure that benefits from the merger will flow to this important sector of the economy.
South Africa’s anti-trust regulator in May approved Walmart’s bid
for 51% of discounter Massmart Holdings with token conditions. That
prompted the government and the main service workers union SACCAWU to launch
separate appeals.Procedural issues
The state’s appeal centred on procedural issues during the May
hearing, such as government access to Wal-Mart documents and an alleged lack of
time for cross-examination.
“Neither of these arguments justified the setting aside of the
Tribunal decision,” the court said in its statement on Friday.
It did rule that 503 previously fired workers should be reinstated
and that the union, the government and the merging companies should set up a
study on how to ensure that smaller companies can participate in Walmart’s
The court also rejected proposals that Walmart should be forced to
meet targets on local procurement.
“We are pleased that the Competition Appeal Court has recognised
the public interest issues which were raised by our government,” Saleem Mowzer,
special advisor to Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, said after the
A handful of Saccawu members picketed outside the court where they
did the “toyi toyi” dance.
“I think this is something we can welcome on the question of
conditions,” Saccawu spokesman Mike Abrahams told reporters. “The judgment says
they are not satisfied with the conditions that the Tribunal has agreed upon.”
A Massmart spokesman said the company welcomed the decision.


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Higher meat prices push restaurants to create more cost-effective plates
New cuts, buying strategies and menu ideas can help operators get the most bang for their meat buck.
By Patricia Cobe, Restaurant Business
Apr. 02, 2021
Ever since The Publick House reopened for indoor dining earlier this year, Executive Chef Nick DeRosa is paying 12% to 15% more for meat than he was pre-pandemic. “Sometimes, the wholesale price can skyrocket $5 in a week,” said DeRosa. Meat comprises about 45% of the menu at the Mountainside, N.J., gastropub, so high protein prices can seriously impact margins—especially when your dining room is at 50% capacity.
Although the beef and pork supply has almost bounced back after the packing plant closures of last spring, some of the cuts destined for restaurants “have to find their home again” as dining out resumes, said Will Sawyer, lead economist in animal protein at CoBank in Atlanta.
Additionally, feed costs are 25% to 30% higher, the export market is thriving and inflation is rising—a combination that pushes up wholesale meat prices for U.S. operators.
It’s predicted that in the second half of 2021, cattle herds will see some contraction and pig farmers are finding pork exports to be more profitable. With the price picture not likely to improve through 2021, full-service restaurants have to find ways to maximize their meat dollars and improve margins.
DeRosa has several strategies...


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Microsoft has today sent out invites to the press for its upcoming event in NYC. As expected, Microsoft is going to reveal new first party Windows 10 devices at this event. As per previous reports, we will see two new flagship Windows 10 Mobile devices (Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL), next generation Surface Pro (Surface Pro 4) device and Microsoft Band 2 at this event.
Do you expect anything more from Microsoft at this event?
Update: Microsoft will also live stream the event. Watch it here.


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As fabless semiconductor startup Netronome grows, it’s bringing the region with it. By the end of this year, two tech companies, new to the area, will have set up shop.
“These are two companies in Cranberry that weren’t here before Netronome,” said Jarrod Siket, senior vice president and general manager of marketing, on my recent visit to the company’s offices.
First is Blue Coat Systems, a cybersecurity company, which last week announced it bought Netronome’s SSL (or secure sockets layer) product line. This product line uses Netronome’s chips and allows a network administrator to look inside encrypted messages while also maintaining high data transmission speeds.
Siket said the company will be opening an office near Netronome and both will be working on the product’s further development.
“Everyone ended up better because of the deal,” he said. A new company is moving in, and Netronome got a large customer.
The second company coming to town is Sourcefire Inc., a strategic investor brought in on the latest funding round that is planning to take office space as part of Netronome’s current office expansion and is establishing an research and development facility.
Sourcefire (NASDAQ: FIRE), based in Columbia, Md., makes intrusion detection and prevention technology for mid to large organizations.
The company uses Netronome’s chips as part of its technology.
Netronome has a total of 209 employees and contractors, and about 85 of them are in the Cranberry office. The company also has offices in Santa Clara, Calif., and Boston.
The company’s chips are used in large networking devices such as routers and switches and offer high throughput speeds and also high security and all for a cheaper price. Previously, there was a trade off between speed and security. Faster speed usually meant lower security and higher security meant a slower speed.
Netronome, which has deep roots in FORE Systems and chip giant Intel, is seeing fast growth as computing shifts to mobile and cloud applications and network infrastructure evolves to keep up.


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Neuron Mobility, one of Australia and New Zealand’s leading electric scooter rental operators, has announced that it has successfully raised a further USD$12 million in Series A+ investment, as consumers across the world are realising the potential of e-scooters as a safe, convenient and socially-distanced transport option during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The investment, led by Australian venture capital firm, Square Peg, along with GSR Ventures, brings the Singapore-headquartered company’s total Series A funding to USD$30.5 million. The fresh capital puts the company in a strong position to accelerate international expansion, particularly in Australia and New Zealand post Covid-19, and to maintain industry leadership when it comes to innovation and safety.
Neuron has partnered with councils across Australia and New Zealand to operate in nine locations including Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Canberra, Townsville and Auckland. The company aims to build on this further by expanding into at least five new cities across the region within the next 12 months. This will see the creation of around 400 jobs which will be split between Australia and New Zealand as well as its headquarters in Singapore. Outside of the region, the company has announced a launch in Slough, the first UK location amongst a number that the company will be operating in before the end of the year.
During the Covid-19 lockdown in Australia, Neuron reported that one in five users had never ridden an e-scooter before, and since then many have actively chosen to change their travel habits. Increasingly concerned with social distancing, Australian and New Zealand riders have increased their average e-scooter trip distance by 23% to 2.6km, while the average duration has risen by 10% to more than 14 minutes.
Zachary Wang, Neuron Mobility’s CEO, says: “Cities across the world are rethinking their transport systems and increasingly people are looking for a safe, inexpensive and socially-distanced way to travel post Covid-19. This presents a great opportunity for micromobility providers. Our experience of operating in Australia and New Zealand, combined with fresh funding, will help us accelerate our growth across the region and beyond.
“Our approach has always been to partner with cities and to adapt to meet their needs – this has led to quite a few world firsts and innovations. We strive to lead the industry when it comes to safety and sustainable operations – we’ve a whole host of exciting new features in the pipeline that we’ll be rolling out soon.
“Cities are increasingly open to micromobility — in the last two weeks we have opened in Canberra and Townsville in Australia, and have announced our first location in the UK — the time is right to export our knowhow to new cities across the globe.”
Neuron’s industry-leading e-scooters are built specifically for renting and rider safety. The company was the first to implement a full suite of geofencing, allowing councils to better control where and how fast e-scooters can be ridden. Neuron’s e-scooters were also the first to feature interchangeable batteries for greener operations. They were the first to integrate voice guidance to educate users to ride safely. Neuron also launched the world’s first app-controlled helmet lock, which secures a safety helmet to the e-scooters between trips for the benefit of safety-conscious riders.
Neuron has introduced a range of other innovations including a topple detection feature that can detect if an e-scooter has been left on its side which then alerts an operations team to reposition it safely; an emergency button which can tell if someone has had a fall and helps the rider call the emergency services; and, a “Follow my Ride” feature allows the rider’s friends and family to track an e-scooter trip in real time for added safety and peace of mind.
Since the last funding round in December 2019, Neuron has launched in a further eight cities in Australia and New Zealand and has announced its entry into the UK market. Currently operating a fleet of 4,000 e-scooters, the company’s 400,000 Australian and New Zealand riders have completed close to 2 million trips and 4 million kilometers of city travel.


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Samsung launched its first foldable cell phone, the Galaxy Fold, on February 20, 2019, and released it for sale after having screen issues in September last year. Later, the company launched the Galaxy Z Flip with a flexible but smaller screen and with a different type of intention than the first cell phone. Now all the rumors point that Samsung will launch the second edition of this phone, which could be called Galaxy Fold 2, although the name has not been confirmed.
Due to Huawei’s current problems with the United States and the launch of a second edition of the Chinese company’s folding cell phone, the Huawei Mate Xs, with limited distribution, everything seems to indicate that Samsung has little competition in the section of folding-screen phones. huge, since the new Microsoft Surface Duo with Android would not arrive until the end of the year.
The big question at the moment is whether Samsung will risk launching two expensive cell phones at the same time, with the significant unemployment rates that not only the United States but many countries in the world live due to the coronavirus. And we are not only waiting for the Galaxy Fold 2 this summer but also the Galaxy Note 20.
But … what do we know about the Galaxy Fold 2?
Explore the Contents
Samsung Galaxy Fold 2: Release Date
According to the rumors website Sammobile – which has a respected level of success – Samsung is preparing the Galaxy Fold 2 for August and will produce 3 million cell phones. This is an important fact because there were only 500,000 Galaxy Fold units.
The Korean Herald newspaper also believes that the Galaxy Fold 2 will arrive in the summer, although it does not define whether it will be in July or August, but it seems clear that it will be done through an online event.
Samsung is expected to make a single announcement of the Galaxy Fold 2 and Galaxy Note 20.
A foldable cell phone with a stylus
One of the strongest rumors is that the Samsung cell phone would be the first flexible cell phone with a stylus. Consultant Ross Young of Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC) unveiled several features of the phone, including this compatibility.
Having the possibility of including a stylus would make the phone more versatile, more multipurpose, and also serve as an alternative to tablets. The inclusion of a stylus in the first version of this phone was practically impossible because the plastic of the screen was not exactly the most resistant.
However, Samsung now has a new display technology first used in the Galaxy Z Flip, which makes the panel stronger. Doubts hang over whether the company will include the stylus inside the phone like the Note 10, or whether it will be an additional accessory.
Galaxy Fold 2: 120Hz screen
It is not definitive, but Young himself said that the Galaxy Fold 2 could have a 120Hz screen. Of course, only one of them, the interior and largest, which would technically measure 7.59 inches. This refresh rate makes watching videos, checking websites, and even playing games much smoother, but it also drains the battery much faster.
That inner screen would have a resolution of 2,213×1,689 pixels, meanwhile, the outer screen would maintain the 60Hz that we have known so far.
A Galaxy Fold with the same design but, waterproof?
Rumors so far have not indicated that Samsung is going to make a major change to the phone’s design. Possibly the company would use the same structure, although we could expect fewer bezels on the inside and a stronger exterior screen, as revealed by this patent published by Let’s Go Digital.
That document shows that Samsung would have made the hinge, not an impediment to making the Galaxy Fold 2 waterproof, something they had not been able to achieve in the past.
Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 Cameras
The same previous report ensures that Samsung is planning to include three cameras in the phone within a box, similar to the Galaxy S20. In addition, one of the cameras would be periscope, which helps improve optical and digital zoom.
As the original Galaxy Fold took its cameras from the Galaxy S10 Plus, we hope that something similar will happen this year with the Galaxy Fold 2. A report by Max Weinbach, a reputed contributor to XDA Developers, revealed that the cameras would be just like those on the Galaxy. S20 Plus, among other details.
This is the camera configuration we can expect: 10 megapixels for the selfie on the inner screen, the main 12-megapixel, 64-megapixel, 12-megapixel, and Time of Flight on the back, and a new periscope camera on the outside.
Expected features Galaxy Fold 2
Through all the rumors we have gotten during these months, we managed to put together a list of possible characteristics of the next Samsung folding phone.
- Main screen: 7.59 inches: 2,213×1,689 pixels
- External screen: 6.23 inches; 2,267×819 pixels
- Processor: Snapdragon 865 or 865 Plus
- Storage: 256GB and 512GB
- Connectivity: 5G and 4G
- Operating system: Android 10
- Materials: stainless steel and ceramic versions
- Colors: blue, silver, gold, pink and black
Galaxy Fold 2: price
The Galaxy Fold Original cost $ 1,980. Considering the current global recession, if Samsung is encouraged to launch this phone, not all of its potential customers may want to invest as much in a phone right now.
Although it is speculated that there could be cheaper models, the Galaxy Z Flip, which is cheaper, is still expensive, at $1,380, and the cheapest Galaxy S20 Ultra costs from $999. Therefore, the Galaxy Fold 2 would hardly cost less than the Galaxy Z Flip and its price would not be cheap.


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Ace World Companies has installed two 250USt capacity cranes, each with 25USt capacity auxiliary hoists, at a new manufacturing facility at Cape Canaveral. Ace, a manufacturer of overhead cranes and hoists, provided the 201ft span cranes for an aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company. These are some of the largest top-running cranes ever built […]
AFE Crane, based in Iowa USA, has installed a custom hoist and crane system comprised of over 1000ft. of monorail track and 20 custom hoists in the manufacturing facility of an outdoor lighting manufacturer. AFE Crane is a strategic distributor of ACCO Material Handling Solutions LLC, a manufacturer of material handling products and part of […]
Fritt Fall is not for the faint hearted. Up to 4000 visitors a day can enjoy the biggest attraction of the Gröna Lund theme park on the island of Djurgarden in Sweden’s capital Stockholm. The passengers are lifted to a height of 80m at a rate of 3m/s before falling into the bottomless pit – […]
Safe Lifting Europe BV a Dutch rental company specialising in heavy lifting, has taken delivery of a modular spreader beam able to lift a 2000t load, which it commissioned Modulift to design and manufacture. Known for product innovation, Modulift managed the entire process led by its experienced team of in-house engineers. From full design specification […]
Hammerer Aluminium Industries (HAI) employs a workforce of 1600 at its eight sites in Europe, and the company’s activities include supplying high-tech aluminium profiles and finished components as well as employing highly efficient recycling processes. It is now using three multidirectional forklifts from the Irish manufacturer Combilift, which ensure the safer and more efficient handling […]
UK company, Rope and Sling Specialists (RSS) Ltd, has proof load tested two 140t capacity truss lifting beams (frames) at crane rental firm Cramscene’s heavy lift division in Morley, West Yorkshire. RSS, a lifting and rigging equipment and services company, accepted a scope of work from Sheffield-based TFL Responsive Engineering Ltd., which delivers engineering services, […]
A UK fruit processing site operating a range of zero-emission BYD forklift trucks has won the Environment category of The Logistics Awards. Kent-based Cottage Farms, a fruit processor which supplies a household-name grocery chain with fresh apples and pears from local and overseas growers, won the prestigious accolade after demonstrating to the judging panel how […]
Dynamic Load Monitoring (UK) Ltd (DLM), of Southampton, UK has provided eight bespoke Running Line Monitors (RLMs) for Jan de Nul’s 236.8m-long Les Alizés, a next generation, 5000t capacity floating installation crane vessel, currently being built in China. DLM, a specialist in the design, manufacture, repair and calibration of load cells and load monitoring equipment, […]
A new intermodal terminal in Fényeslitke, Hungary, is set to become one of the largest and most modern terminals in Europe. The innovative crane technology for this comes from Kuenz, a market leader for intermodal container cranes. East-West Intermodal Logistics Ltd has 125 hectares of land at its disposal in Fényeslitke, Hungary, near the Ukrainian […]
Bowker Group, one of the UK’s leading independent third party logistics (3PL) service operators, has ordered a new fleet of Flexi articulated warehouse trucks designed and built in the UK by Narrow Aisle Ltd. The Flexi truck fleet will go into service at the Bowker distribution centre facility at Selby, Yorkshire. In addition to the […]
14/02/2021 - 17:14 pm
LHI April 2021
In this month's issue
Manual hoists and winches
IPAF Summit and Awards plus the ePAL app.
Face Time: Joel Cox, president of Pintsch Bubenzer USA.
The drive to electrify aerial lifts continues.
The Insider, service as part of the recovering economy.


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Companies are forced to shell out back payments to interns providing free labour, as HM Revenue and Customs crack down on work experience contracts.
Intern schemes have fallen prey to heavy criticism in recent years, due to the unpaid nature of the contracts. Images of poor graduates being holed up in fashion cupboards or office filing rooms are no longer surprising. But where the normal sigh of ‘getting a foot on the career ladder’ through free labour seemed genuinely plausible, companies are now bordering on the line of legality as unpaid contracts keep extending to unreasonable lengths.
Defending the company name against future critique regarding intern payment is Arcadia – owner of Topshop and Dorothy Perkins, amongst other well-known high street stores. The business has sent hundreds of pounds worth of back-dated payments to dozens of interns who had ‘to ship clothing back and forth to media contacts from a ‘windowless’ stockroom’ during their time at the company, reports the Guardian.
The company were put under pressure after receiving complaints about an unpaid internship at Arcadia-owned Miss Selfridge, as well as the recent campaign, fronted by HM Revenue and Customs, to pay all interns minimum age when the worker is over the age of 21.
Defending his position within the Arcadia family, Sir Philip Green said of the situation: ‘We’ve done everything we think we’re supposed to do. We think we’ve been leaders in education in the fashion retail business. We’ve built an academy. We’ve got 700 kids working. We try to encourage other people. We’ve done our job.’
The company subsequently made a separate statement, following the payments, confirming that they were ‘perfectly satisfied’ their internship policies fully complied with the new legislation.
HMRC, meanwhile, forge ahead with their mission to crack down on companies taking advantage of free intern labour. ‘There is no excuse for not paying the minimum wage, and HMRC will relentlessly pursue those who try to bend or break the rules,’ asserted a spokesperson for the HMRC.
Picture credit: Shutterstock


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Thinking_J, the pie chart represents categories summing up this section of the results of the survey, which included many questions posed to respondents. There are also other illustrations depicting somewhat different data from the survey, which you can access using the link we provided.
I asked Carole, the DuPont spokeswoman quoted in the article, if we could give more details. Carole, thanks for sharing these with our audience and addressing their questions about DuPont's survey design and the survey respondents.
I agree, Mydesign. Until there is a significant breakgrough, the EVs will probably not contribute greatly to meeting CAFE standards. As it stands now, the EVs will proably not have sufficient sales to help car makers meet CAFE.
I agree, Chuck. weak sales of EVs make EVs a weak contributor to CAFE standards. Of course that could change quickly if battery technology breakthroughs bring down the cost of EVs and hybrids. What do you think the chances of that are?
At the JEC Europe 2015 composites show in Paris last month, makers of composite materials, software, and process equipment showed off their latest innovations. This year's show saw some announcements related to automotive applications, but many of the improvements came in the world of aerospace.
The DuPont-sponsored Plastics Industry Trends survey shows engineers want improved performance in a broad range of plastics and better recycling technology. These concerns top even processing enhancements that improve productivity.
Plastics leader SABIC recently announced a global initiative to help its customers take advantage of additive manufacturing (AM) and also advance 3D printing (3DP) technologies in several application areas. The company's plans go way beyond materials, and also include design, processing, and part performance.
A theme that was reflected in several ways at NPE 2015 was the use of 3D printing to assist in, or improve on, injection molding, as well as improvements in 3D printing materials and processes that are making better functional prototypes and end-use parts.
Focus on Fundamentals consists of 45-minute on-line classes that cover a host of technologies. You learn without leaving the comfort of your desk. All classes are taught by subject-matter experts and all are archived. So if you can't attend live, attend at your convenience.


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Glasnost On Paris Runways: Velour-Clad Guns and Miniskirts
PARIS (AP) _ After years as the butt of Western jokes, East Bloc fashion hit the Paris runways with a display of such glasnost-inspired styles as see-through culottes, minuscule minis and a velour-covered submachine gun.
Four designers from the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary and East Germany paraded their creations before a small group of invited guests at the Prince de Galles Marriott Hotel on Wednesday.
It was a preview of a big fashion show-cocktail party for 700 guests to be held tonight at the Salle Wagram, a dance hall-turned-auditorium. A prize will be awarded by the Lalique crystal company to the most talented designer.
Whoever wins will be happy, but all four designers were pleased to be showing in Paris, widely viewed as the West’s fashion capital.
Soviet designer Lena Zelinskaia, 25, startled the audience with shiny velour culotte suits in fire-engine red, turquoise blue and grass green - accompanied by matching velour-wrapped submachine guns.
She denied the guns were a ploy to attract photographers.
″The machine-gun accessory symbolizes the Russian Revolution, which is still very much in our minds,″ Zelinskaia said, taking a bow with the other designers after the show.
Her clothes were a far cry from the Western image of Soviet fashion, perhaps most mercilessly parodied in a TV commercial for Wendy’s, in which a matronly model in a drab dress for daywear merely adds a flashlight for evening, and a beach ball for swimwear.
As for the future of Soviet design, she said: ″It won’t be French. We’re a different country with different religion and politics. But we have many tendencies, and I can’t speak for the others - only myself.″
″I’m an old designer, in the business for 30 years,″ said Polish creator Jerzy Antkowiak, 50, who displayed the most variety in his preview. His clothes ranged from a flowing gray crepe de chine printed duster over a wide long pantskirt to a deep red taffeta mini-dress with several daring cutouts on the back and a transparent navy long-culottes outfit.
″We’ve got many problems in Poland,″ said Antkowiak, dressed in a loose charcoal linen suit and ochre scarf. ″For instance, we have to import all our fabrics. But we have hopes that we’ll get investments from the West to set up better manufacturing and business.″
The show was organized by the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Compiegne, a French business school north of Paris. Last year the school featured top Soviet designer Slava Zaitsev.
This year’s choice of designers evolved from embassy suggestions and from connections that one of the organizers, Boris Bostjancic, has with Moscow Contact, a new firm that seeks to set up East-West commercial agreements.
East German designer Anja Wenzel showed attractive long looks, featuring some folklore-inspired fabric mixes and a black chiffon halter-necked jumpsuit with a metal snake slithering up back and front.
Hungarian designer Katelin Berenyi, 24, has lived in Paris for the past two years, studying at the national decorative arts school.
One of her outfits - reminiscent of Pierre Cardin - included a velvet micro-mini over thigh-high socks and cone-shaped, pleated gauntlets of white paper on the model’s arms.
″I love crazy fashions,″ said Antkowiak, who admits that his clothes look way-out and are expensive for Poland - about $50 a dress. He said they are usually purchased by privileged richer women, diplomats and tourists.
″So far, I have to keep prices high,″ he said. ″Because if I offer cheaper models, my old clientele asks why, and doesn’t want to buy them. They want to be special.″


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Coca-Cola HBC downgraded by Jefferies after recent outperformance
Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co has been downgraded by analysts at Jefferies, with the investment banking firm reducing its rating to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’.
According to Jefferies, the UK-listed bottling arm of Coca-Cola is now adequately valued after its share price has risen 58% since last September.
There have been reports that the company is weighing up an offer for a stake in Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, and Jefferies believes that would be beneficial for its stock market performance.
However, it rates the likelihood of such a deal going ahead at 50%.
While analysts continue to see an attractive recovery story, they downgraded their rating to limited visibility on M&A.
The standalone value for CCH was calculated at 2,450p, however, a target price of 2,700p reflects a 50% probability weighting of the CCBA deal taking place, Jefferies said.
Analysts added that the TP could be as low as 2450p if there is no deal, while it could be as high as 3000p if the acquisition does go through.
Jefferies said CCH could announce a special dividend of between £1.50 and £2.00 per share, depending on the outcome of the deal.


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EOS is one of the top digital currencies in the world, sitting at the number five position on the list of top digital currencies with a market cap of about $10.8 billion. At the time of writing, the digital currency is waiting for the storm to be over and the return of bulls. Digital currency analysts are worried about the negative trend that is being seen in the digital currency market.
A lot of experts have said that this negative movement in the value of digital currencies in the crypto market might continue in the next couple of months as well.
The Current Value of EOS
Earlier this week, the digital currency was trading at $13.18, but right now it is trading below the $13 mark. At the time of writing, the digital currency is priced at about $12.4. In the past twenty-four hours, the value of EOS is declining at an alarming rate of 8.3 percent.
The Drastic Decline
In the past seven days, the value of the digital currency has been dramatically declining as it was priced around $18 on the 11th of May, and today, the value has declined to $12.4, more than a decrease of $5 in a period of seven days.
On the 29th of April, the values were almost up by 200% year-to-date compared to its current value. After the digital currency came down from that level, there has not been any vigorous momentum in the value of the cryptocurrency.
The Launch of EOS’s Mainnet
EOS is a digital currency that is linked to an innovative blockchain network which can be used for running Dapps (decentralized apps). There have been so many speculations about the launch of EOS’s Mainnet which is scheduled for early June. Analysts believe that the value of the cryptocurrency will surge after the launch of its Mainnet.


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Learning from the private sector banks that have been utilising the Video KYC feature to open contactless saving accounts in times of pandemic, now the State Bank of India, the country's largest lender has also launched a Video KYC-based account opening feature on its mobile banking app YONO.
The bank said that the Video KYC feature which will be available to customers planning to open a new saving account is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Facial Recognition technology. This functionality will help customers open an account with SBI without having to visit a bank branch.
“It gives us immense pleasure to announce the launch of online Savings Bank account opening facility which is very much necessary in the current pandemic situation. This is a step ahead to ensure customers' safety, financial security, and cost-effectiveness,” said SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara in a statement.
He said, “We believe this initiative will add a new dimension to mobile banking and empower customers to go digital for their banking needs. This development is yet another proof of our commitment to a digital India.”
YONO is an integrated digital banking smartphone app from SBI. Available both on Android and iOS, the app helps users to access a variety of financial and other services such as flight, train, bus and taxi bookings, online shopping, or medical bill payments.
The platform also includes YONO Krishi, YONO Cash, and PAPL and more features are lined up for the future, said the bank.


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TweakTown NewsRefine News by Category:
Fingerprint modules on smartphones typically require you to press your finger on a raised button, meaning they must be mounted externally. LG's South Korean outfit Innotek is innovating on this front, though, and has created a fingerprint sensor that doesn't require a button at all and is mounted beneath the screen, thus offering the functionality without interfering with the form.
With the sensor out of the way, companies can be more free with their smartphone designs.
While the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus are the current flagship smartphones from Apple, we're months away from the purported iPhone 7 - and years away from the iPhone 8. That however, doesn't stop the rumor mill from spinning out rumors on the iPhone 8.
The iPhone 8 will reportedly feature a system-on-chip on the 7nm process, which should deliver a huge jump in performance, and hopefully, battery life. The iPhone 8 will reportedly feature wireless charging, and the lack of the TouchID-based home button.
Barclay's analyst Mark Moskowitz has said that there might not be an 'S' cycle next year, with Apple skipping the 'S' series smartphone and jumping directly from the iPhone 7 to the iPhone 8. Moskowitz said: "Silver lining - there might be no "S" cycle in C2017. Our conversations with industry participants suggest Apple could skip the "S" cycle next year and instead jump to IP8. The jump could showcase major form factor changes, including OLED, no home button, and wireless charging. In our view, these potential changes could drive a mega cycle, underpinning our C2017 iPhone unit growth estimate of 10.3%, vs. 6.3% previously".
Apple's thin and light Macbook, a return to the popular less expensive non-pro brand, has been updated with new Skylake processors that should help increase already great battery life and boost performance while still keeping it just as petite.
The exterior has retained the same svelte 11.04 x 7.74 x 0.52-inch and 2.03lbs dimensions, but pick up a new Rose Gold finish to compliment the Space Grey, Silver and Gold options already in the store. The changes under the hood are evolutionary, changing out the Broadwell M processors for Skylake M. Now the $1,199 model comes standard with a new 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Core M3 attached to 256GB of PCIe-based storage with 8GB of LPDDR3 1866 and Intel's HD 516 pulling graphics duty. The more expensive $1,599 model switches to a Skylake-based 1.2GHz Intel Core M5, 512GB of PCIe-based storage and the same 8GB of LPDDR3 1866. There's an option for both models to upgrade their storage and the processor to a more speedy M7 variety as well.
One of the major complaints against the re-envisioned Macbook was that the storage was much slower than it should have been, being purely SATA based, which has now been fixed at absolutely no price increase. The inclusion of the new processors should help with battery life and even the overall experience. Battery life is quoted as being an hour longer at around 10 for browsing and 11 fro movie playback. The original is a testement to the memory management and general efficiency of OSX, with most tasks being completed with ablomb. You won't use it as a primary video editing platform, however.
Apple is feeling generous, auctioning off a one-of-the-kind iPad Pro, Smart Cover, and Apple Pencil to London's Design museum to raise money.
The Apple products were donated by Jony Ive and the Apple design team, with the iPad Pro, Smart Cover and Apple Pencil produced for a once off in these colors. The three products are all made from the same materials the normal versions are made from, but the color scheme is custom.
The 12.9-inch iPad Pro is a greenish yellow color, while the Smart Cover is blue leather, and the Apple Pencil looks like it arrives in a slick leather case, in orange. There's a nice gold band around the top of the Apple Pencil, too, which makes it even more unique.
Some new leaks on the Galaxy Note 6 have arrived, teasing the 5.77-inch 2560x1440 display, which should arrive with a new Slim RGB AMOLED panel.
Samsung's new Galaxy Note 6 should rock a 5.7-inch 1440p panel, 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM, 64/128GB UFS 2.0 storage, a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera, the infamous S-Pen, and more. As for the processor, we should expect the purported Galaxy Note 6 to rock the Exynos 8890 processor.
It looks like Verizon is preparing a new set-top box based on Intel technology, something it acquired a few years ago.
Intel sold its Internet television project to Verizon a few years ago for a rumored $500 million, but nothing much came of it - so the new rumors from Variety are pointing to the new STB from Verizon to launch with their Fios markets by the end of 2016.
Variety reports that Verizon filed documents with the FCC earlier in the week, looking for approval on a new "video set-top box". The purported set-top box is codenamed Mallard, and is considered the crowl jewel in Verizon's upcoming service. It will reportedly offer a new UI that won't look like the current Fios TV service, with the company reportedly starting work on the project before it acquired Intel's TV technology.
Two days ago, AMC CEO Adam Aron considered the prospect of bringing texting and phone use to his movie theaters, and it hasn't taken long for the idea to get canned. As was the case when Regal Entertainment brought it up two years ago, public feedback was resoundingly against it, and so the company has publicly announced it will not happen.
"We have heard loud and clear that this is a concept our audience does not want," Aron wrote in an open letter to customers, later continuing, "With your advice in hand, there will be NO TEXTING ALLOWED in any of the auditoriums at AMC Theatres. Not today, not tomorrow, and not in the foreseeable future."
Sharp is launching a phone in Japan that's also a tiny robot: it dances, speaks, projects videos and photos, and costs $1,800.
RoboHon, as it's known, supports 720p resolution for projection, LTE, and three voice recognition technologies (which cost you a small monthly fee, unlike with most devices). Sharp plans to have it help users call taxis or find nearby restaurants and the like via apps.
RoboHon will launch in Japan, with other regions anticipated to see it later on.
Adam Aron, new CEO of movie theater giant AMC is pondering allowing texting and phone use during films in a bid to get more millennials into seats.
"There does seem to be a consensus that there are pockets of consumers who do not see as many movies as other segments of the population and that we can be doing more to attract those people. Millennials come to mind," he said to Variety. "We need to reshape our product in some concrete ways so that millennials go to movie theaters with the same degree of intensity as baby boomers went to movie theaters throughout their lives."
Asked if this would include allowing texting or phone use, he replied positively.
Some new screenshots have shown up that seem to show a few, albeit small, changes to Windows 10 Mobile. These new, small, improvements are supposedly part of a new build that'll be making it into a public build that'll be rolling out very soon. Or so sources say.
The changes focus on making significant changes to the Action Center and how it's arranged. In this, as of yet unknown version number, build it looks like you're able to rearrange quick actions by dragging them and dropping them where you'd like them. Microsoft, if these are to be trusted, has put a few settings in different places, such as the Glance screen now being in the Personalization section, which makes a bit more sense.
Other than that, there are some other improvements, or additions, in what might be the next build. A new Active Hours and a custom restart time. But aside from these screens, there's really no concrete information about what they're planning for the next Windows Mobile builds. This is, however, part of the Redstone branch of updates, which means that it's only available for those that are already running Windows 10 on their phones, or have been invited to update already. There'll be no updating for any phones any older than those already inducted into the Windows 10 hall of fame.
These aren't exactly ground-breaking changes, but it does show that they're looking at making usability a prime concern for them. These small adjustments show a willingness to listen to feedback. Even though this is an internal build at the moment, it might be heading to the inside preview program quite soon. We expect to see it within a week or slightly more.


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Rwandan investors have been urged to take advantage of Ghana’s socio-economic growth and competitive environment to establish firms in the country.
They could also partner their counterparts in Ghana to put up businesses for mutual benefit.
Ghanaian trade agencies said this in a virtual summit jointly organised by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA).
It was aimed at deepening the bilateral trade and investment relations between Ghana and Rwanda.
The participants who included GEPA, the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), and the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), took turns to explain investment opportunities which the Rwandan businesses and entrepreneurs could take advantage of while their counterparts in Rwanda also spoke of the business opportunities in that country.
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer of GEPA, Mr Samuel Dentu, said to ensure business continuity which was central to global economic recovery, new approaches to building market contacts such as harnessing online promotion and networking had become necessary.
He said through such initiatives, opportunities could be created for suppliers to link up with potential buyers or distributors without escalating the risks of further spread of the virus, while ensuring that necessary revenue from international trade was sustained.
Currently, the trade value between the two countries is below $1 million.
“Our recent visit to Rwanda gave us an experiential and more insightful view of opportunities for trade between both countries. We picked learnings from the intentional effort Rwanda has put in place to position the country as a destination of choice on the continent.
“Similarly, we identified areas where Ghana can meet Rwanda for mutual benefit, especially in the sectors of manufacturing, agribusiness and services,” Mr Dentu said.
According to him, it was imperative for the two countries to intensify their trade relations and also take advantage of the current trade protocols birthed by the Africa Union (AU) through AfCFTA.
With the operationalisation of AfCFTA, Mr Dentu said the promotion of trade among African countries had become paramount due to the large market and the removal of trade barriers.
For her part, the Head of Special Economic Zones and Export Facilitation Department of RDB, Ms Diane Sayinzoga, said Rwanda, with a population of about 12.6 million people, had leveraged the right leadership to make important economic and structural reforms for sustained economic growth rates over the last decade.
Rwanda now aspires to reach middle-income status by 2035 and High-Income Country (HIC) status by 2050.
“This aspiration will be achieved within a seven-year national strategy for transformation (NST1), underpinned by detailed sectoral strategies that are aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals,” she added.
The NST1 has been preceded by two, five-year economic development and poverty reduction strategies — EDPRS (2008-2012) and EDPRS-2 (2013-2018), under which Rwanda experienced robust economic and social performances.
Growth averaged 7.2 per cent over a decade till 2019, while per capita growth domestic product (GDP) grew at five per cent annually.


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As trends are churned out with increasing speed and then exhausted equally quickly, Saks Fifth Avenue's fashion director Michael Fink strives to decipher the relevance to customers.
"The fashion cycle has gotten so fast and the industry keeps pushing it. The bottom line for customers is that it doesn't need to be that fast," he said last week during the Trends luncheon at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
In his talk, titled "Upscale Fashion's Next Wave," Fink touched upon fast fashion's side effects, the booming accessories business, escalating apparel prices and the telltale signs of a designer with longevity.
One upside to the fast-fashion phenomenon is a renewed interest in craftsmanship. "With everything being knocked off so quickly, designers are becoming designers again. We're seeing better and more well-thought-out collections. Hopefully, that will merit their price points, which are at a premium," Fink said.
One trend Fink doesn't see ebbing is the ongoing popularity of accessories, especially shoes. Shoppers are having an easier time justifying buying a pair of $800 shoes that they can wear to walk out the door than buying a $4,500 Chanel jacket. With apparel prices still on the climb, the shoe industry has been savvy enough to "push hard" to make the category exciting, Fink said.
He also mentioned the overall lackluster retail climate. "It's going to be a difficult first quarter. I think we all agree on that. With price points soaring, there have to be special things that she doesn't own in her closet. Our job is to siphon through the collections to come up with clothes that are emotional. I can't say that word — emotional — enough. Of course we want integrity and quality in design, but 'emotional' is what is speaking to her right now. She's thinking, 'I'm out the door. I'm not thinking about it.' That's what is driving the accessories trend now."
Fink's take on the real newness is consistency — designers who have a clear personal vision that does not draw references from others.
"If there are too many references, there is no longevity because it has already been done. I must say schools are not good at teaching that," he said.Not surprisingly, Fink is not eager to usher in the return of minimalism, signs of which can be seen in pre-fall collections and a subject that was broached by the event's host, Gloria Gelfand.
"We haven't even celebrated the feminine clothes in bright beautiful colors that have hit stores for spring yet," Fink said.
@tradesy is turning the concept of a showroom upside down with its new space in Santa Monica. Here, the company plans to hold events, art exhibits and a showcase rare fashion pieces like this Louis Vuitton boxing set. Get all the details on Tradesy’s first showroom on WWD.com. #wwdnews
Spotted last night at the @erdem x @hm launch event: Kate Bosworth, Rashida Jones, Kirsten Dunst and Selma Blair. The party, which took place in LA, also marked the opening of their pop-up shop. “I was interested in creating a collection that wasn’t in any way disposable. It was about pieces you’d create and keep forever, things that have a permanence to it,” designer Erdem Moralioglu said. #wwdeye (📷: Katie Jones)
Renee Zellweger in yellow in 2001 and again in 2017. Chosen as one of the 12 @pantone Leading Spring Colors (and dubbed “Meadowlark”), it only makes sense that the bright hue stands the test of time and is making a resurgence this season, seen already on stars like @blakelively and @gigihadid. (📷: Donato Sardello & @rexfeatures) #wwdfashion #tbt
Dior’s 70th anniversary celebration continues with a new exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. “Christian Dior,” which is scheduled to run through March 18, takes a look at the founders tenure from 1947 to 1057 and feature 40 designs. Pictured here is an evening gown from the Ailée, fall 1948-49 haute couture collection. #wwdfashion (📷: Brian Boyle)
As one of the most recognizable models in the world, Christy Turlington Burns has an insider’s view of the fashion industry and the allegations of sexual harassment swirling around it. “I can say that harassment and mistreatment have always been widely known and tolerated in the industry. The industry is surrounded by predators who thrive on the constant rejection and loneliness so many of us have experiences at some point in our careers,” Turlington told WWD, along with her suggestions for how the modeling world should protect younger women and men. Read more on WWD.com. Link in bio. (📷: Tony Palmieri) #wwdnews
@asics America has tapped a new brand ambassador: famed DJ/record producer @steveaoki. This initiative is intended to set the tone for the new brand identity and philosophy and will include partnerships with influencers and in-store and off-line activations that will continue into next year. This is Asics’ most significant marketing effort in two decades, and is expected to attract younger consumers to the brand. #wwdfashion
24-year-old Jean Prounis is redefining the rules of jewelry. Formerly a studio assistant to Jemima Kirke and a design apprentice at Ghuran, she focuses on handcrafted subtleties and ancient goldsmithing techniques. “There was a really sterile feel in the environment and I wanted to have jewelry with character that shapes how you wear it everyday,” Prounis said. Each piece is hand made in New York, either by Prounis or three other jewelers in the district. #wwdfashion
“These collections continue to build on that vision, empowering differently abled adults to express themselves through fashion,” said @tommyhilfiger of his line of adaptive apparel, which launches today. The line consists of 37 men’s and 34 women’s styles based upon the pieces from the spring Tommy Hilfiger sportswear collection. #wwdnews


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Apple: Samsung Case About More Than Money (But We’ll Take the Money)
Apple said Thursday it is pleased that a San Jose federal jury awarded it a further $290 million in damages, on top of more than $600 million awarded by a separate jury last year.
“For Apple, this case has always been about more than patents and money,” Apple said in a statement to AllThingsD. “It has been about innovation and the hard work that goes into inventing products that people love. While it’s impossible to put a price tag on those values, we are grateful to the jury for showing Samsung that copying has a cost.”
A Samsung representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday’s verdict.
Thursday’s $290 million verdict was the result of a partial retrial of last year’s landmark case in which a jury awarded more than $1 billion in damages. However, the judge in the case ruled that roughly $400 million of that amount was improperly calculated, necessitating the current retrial.
Lawyers for both sides are now reviewing the verdict to make sure the calculations are accurate, though both sides will doubtless be appealing this verdict as well as many other elements of the overall case. In addition, a second trial on a newer generation of Samsung products is scheduled for the same courtroom next year.
Update: The jury has now been dismissed, with the total due Apple from the two cases adding up to $929.83 million. No word on how much both sides have racked up in legal bills.
Update 2, 2:26 p.m. PT:
Samsung issued the following statement: “We are disappointed by today’s decision, which is based in large part on a patent that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has recently deemed invalid. While we move forward with our post-trial motions and appeals, we will continue to innovate with groundbreaking technologies and great products that are loved by our many customers all around the world.”
- Apple: Samsung Case About More Than Money (But We’ll Take the Money)
- Jury: Samsung Owes Apple Another $290 Million
- Samsung Seeks to Have Current Apple Case Put on Hold Following Patent Office Action
- Samsung Says Apple Is Trying to Patent Pretty Phones and Shouldn’t Get More Than Another $52 Million
- Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda: Apple Makes Case for Why It Deserves $379 Million More From Samsung
- Men in Black Suits II: Apple-Samsung Retrial Suffers From Sequel’s Curse


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Join Us for an Amphibian Adventure on April 3
Take a walk on the wild side when the Hunterdon Land Trust hosts an amphibian event at the Idell Preserve in Kingwood on Thursday, April 3 at 6:15 p.m. The event is free and everyone is welcome.
Participants will likely see salamanders, American bullfrogs, spring peepers, turtles, birds, owls and some emerging plants.
Tom Thorsen, land steward at the Hunterdon Land Trust, will lead the walk with Dr. Randi Eckel of Toadshade Wildflower Farm. He said early evening is the perfect time to meet the amphibians.
“Many amphibians are either crepuscular – which means they come out at dawn and dust – or nocturnal,” Thorsen said. “Hopefully we’ll catch them when they’re migrating from the vernal pools and to their upland habitat.”
Thorsen advises participants to wear waterproof footwear, bring a flashlight and not to bring pets. Visitors should park at the kiosk near 32 Barbertown-Idell Road.
Rain date is Thursday, April 10.
The Land Trust recently preserved additional acreage at the now 57-acre Idell Preserve. The additional land allowed for easier access onto the property.
“The first time I saw the property I thought it would be great for an amphibian event,” Thorsen said. “I’ve seen turkeys out there and all kinds of habitat, amphibian eggs, Eastern box turtles and more. There’s great birding, and the first time I visited I could hear spring peepers, and it was barely April. So, it’s really alive out there.”
For more information, contact the Hunterdon Land Trust at 908-237-4582 or email email@example.com.
Our Next Farmers’ Market is Sunday, April 27
The next Hunterdon Land Trust Farmers’ Market will be held Sunday, April 27 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the historic Dvoor Farm on the Route 12 circle.
Farmers scheduled to appear at the market and their products are:
Apple Ridge Farm — artisan breads and hearty pastries.
Comeback Farm — organic vegetables.
Fulper Farms — cheese and yogurt.
Griggstown Farm — poultry and poultry products.
Headquarters Farm — lamb, lamb products and sheep skin.
Milford Farm — beef.
Purely Farm — pastured pork and turkey.
Sandbrook Meadow Farm — organic vegetables.
Tassot Apiaries — honey and honey products.
The Coffee Scoop — locally roasted coffee beans and fresh coffee.
Toadshade Wildflower Farm — native plants, teas and nuts.
Villa Milagro Vineyards — wine.
WoodsEdge Wools Farm — alpaca products, yak and aged beef.
Our regular Farmers’ Market opens Sunday, May 18 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
2014 Schedule of Events
|DEC. 2-3, Saturday & Sunday 9 a.m.||Trail Maintenance Project||Zega Lockatong Preserve|
|DECEMBER 15, Sunday 11 am-1 pm||Winter Farmers’ Market||Historic Dvoor Farm|
|JANUARY 11, Saturday 10 a.m.||Hike the extended Zega-Lockatong trail.||Park in lot in front of Bulls Island on Rt. 29.|
|JANUARY 18, Saturday 10 a.m.||Hike along the Frenchtown Preserve||Park at DesignPlan building south of Frenchtown on Rt. 29.|
|JANUARY 19, Sunday 11am–1pm||Winter Farmers’ Market||Historic Dvoor Farm|
|FEBRUARY 16, Sunday 11am–1pm||Winter Farmers’ Market||Historic Dvoor Farm|
|MARCH 16, Sunday 11am–1pm||Winter Farmers’ Market||Historic Dvoor Farm|
|APRIL 3, Thursday, Time: 6:15 p.m.||Amphibian Walk||Idell Preserve, Barbertown-Idell Road, Kingwood|
|APRIL 27, Sunday, 11 am-1pm||Farmers’ Market||Historic Dvoor Farm|
|JUNE 28, Saturday 9 a.m.||Treasure Hunterdon||Starts at Historic Dvoor Farm|
*The Hunterdon Land Trust Farmers’ Market is open every Sunday, 9am–1pm, May 20–November 24, rain or shine. See the Farmers’ Market page for a list of vendors.
Click here to view our: Farmers’ Market Schedule
Dvoor Farm (111 Mine Street, Flemington): Headquarters of the Hunterdon Land Trust! Read more


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Ballyhooley Beef has done it again - winning best retail brand with the Murray Grey meat at the Steak of Origin competition last week in Feilding.
But this year, Winton farmer Barry Macdonald and his beef have done one better, as his steak was chosen as the tastiest by the public, also winning the people's choice award.
In what was a first for the competition, Mr Macdonald's steak was put up against the other 19 finalists to see which the public liked best.
This year was the second time Mr Macdonald has entered Steak of Origin since he began the Ballyhooley Beef brand two and a-half years ago.
''I sell Ballyhooley Beef at the Southern Farmers Market. That's really how it began. I was already on the committee ... it took two years to take the plunge to start selling the meat,'' he said.
Mr Macdonald had been breeding Murray Greys for more than 40 years. It all began with one small trip for his father to Wright Stephenson back in the early 1970s.
His father had a run in with their Angus bull and it was after that they decided to begin artificially inseminating their cows and
Murray Grey breeding come into the mix.
It was not until 1999 that Mr Macdonald solely went into beef cows, after working in television.
''I decided it was time we beefed up the cow numbers.''
The Torrisdale Murray Grey Stud, which is run at Oreti, near Winton, is the largest registered performance-recorded Murray Grey herd in New Zealand.
Mr Macdonald said the Murray Grey breed was very adaptable to all conditions and they were very popular in the dairy industry.
''They produce a medium-size carcass which is renowned for its tenderness and flavour, which is all to do with the inherent IMF [inter muscular fat content]''.
The end result is a product that consumers want, he said.
The first Torrisdale stud online bull sale was four years ago and this year he would hold his 11th annual sale, on May 28.
- by Nicole Sharp


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Where the U.S. Solar Industry Is Shining
There’s at least one bright spot in the troubled U.S. solar industry. After a plunge in prices sent panel manufacturers reeling, consumer demand for the alternative energy is soaring. That’s a boon for California companies such as SunRun, SolarCity, and Sungevity. These startups are buying panels at depressed prices and leasing them to homeowners at little or no up-front cost.
By teaming up with lenders such as Bank of America and U.S. Bancorp and taking advantage of a federal tax credit for renewable energy, installers can bring down the costs of panels, which for a home typically run between $30,000 to $40,000, and help consumers and businesses reduce the use of fossil fuels. Their success is helping revive the solar industry, which gained notoriety last year from the collapse of panel maker Solyndra. “The price of solar is coming down even faster than anyone expected, so who benefits? The consumer benefits,” says Steve Vassallo, a general partner at Foundation Capital, which is an investor in SunRun.
The residential market for solar is still nascent, with less than 0.1 percent of U.S. homes outfitted with panels. That number could climb to 2.4 percent by 2020, estimates Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Prices for solar cells fell 51 percent in 2011, to 88¢ a watt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
While rising demand is boosting the installation business, the more notable story last year was the crash of Fremont (Calif.)-based Solyndra, which got a $535 million U.S. government loan. Solyndra was one of three U.S. panel makers pushed into bankruptcy in 2011, in part because lower-cost Chinese manufacturers ramped up production. Other U.S. companies that, like Solyndra, bet on thin-film technologies—which use cadmium telluride or a combination of copper, indium, gallium, and selenide, as opposed to silicon—are also struggling. Nanosolar, SoloPower, and Abound Solar, which have raised about $1.5 billion combined in government loan guarantees and venture funding, couldn’t bring down their costs enough to keep up with the plunge in panel prices. “I don’t think most of the companies that are in later stage are going to succeed,” says Mark Pinto, executive vice-president of the energy and environmental unit of Applied Materials, which sells manufacturing gear to the solar industry.
While competition from China threatens to drive more U.S. thin-film companies out of business, it has spurred adoption of solar stateside. Developers in the U.S. added 449.2 megawatts of solar-generating capacity in the third quarter of 2011, the latest data available, up 140 percent from the same quarter a year earlier.
Demand for clean power is also driven by government incentives. In 2009 the Treasury Dept. instituted a 30 percent tax credit for construction projects using renewable energy. The subsidy, which will remain in place until 2016, has helped five solar leasing companies raise more than $1 billion in venture capital combined, according to a Dec. 27 report from Lux Research analyst Matthew Feinstein.
SunRun is backed by $85 million in venture capital. The San Francisco company also has raised $750 million in project financing from U.S. Bancorp and utility PG&E, a sum which co-founder Lynn Jurich says is enough to outfit about 20,000 homes with solar. Installing and financing panels is a more sustainable business than manufacturing, she says: “Participating downstream, we thought we’d be the beneficiary of the process of making solar cheaper.”
SunRun hires local companies in 10 states to install solar arrays on customers’ roofs. The company charges clients for the electricity they generate— at monthly rates as much as 15 percent below those of regular utilities. Jurich says she expects SunRun to have a presence in 15 to 20 states within five years.
SolarCity, headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., operates on a similar basis, except that the company employs its own installers. SolarCity counts Google among its backers: The search giant contributed $280 million to a financing round that closed in June. The company also secured a loan for as much as $350 million from Bank of America in November for a $1 billion project to install panels in military homes and offices in as many as 33 states.
SolarCity, which is chaired by Elon Musk, chief executive officer of electric carmaker Tesla Motors, will file for an initial public offering as early as next month, according to three people with knowledge of the matter who are not allowed to speak on the record. The IPO may value the company at more than $1.5 billion, one of them said. SolarCity spokesman Jonathan Bass declined to comment.
Sungevity has raised more than $175 million for residential solar projects. The Oakland (Calif.)-based company sold a minority stake last year to home improvement retailer Lowe’s, which has said it will eventually offer the company’s installation services through its stores.
Heather Smith, a partner at Greentech Capital Advisors, expects there to be consolidation in the market over the next 18 months. The winners will be those that have developed a profitable all-in-one package of delivery, installation, maintenance, and finance that works for homeowners. “The only way we’re going to deploy solar in the U.S. isn’t by the government telling people to put solar panels on your roof,” Smith says. “It’s by an economic model which makes sense to the consumer.”
— With assistance by Andrew Herndon


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This week Groupon Inc. announced it will acquire LivingSocial, its onetime big rival that was partly owned by Amazon, for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will unite two of the top names in the once popular daily deal business sector that has recently fallen out of favor with both investors and consumers in recent years. The deal is expected to close in the next month.
Groupon declined to reveal the value of the LivingSocial deal, but said the price wasn’t material to Groupon’s earnings, meaning it is small enough that they do not have to disclose the price.
The transaction marks a quiet exit for LivingSocial, which once competed hard against Groupon for both merchants to list deals for their goods and services, and consumers to buy those offers. Once valued at more than $6 billion during its peak in 2011, the Washington, D.C company raised nearly $1 billion in venture funding since launching in 2007, including a notable $175 million investment from Amazon in 2010. Amazon later stopped investing in the business due to the declining value of the company after consumers and retailers lost enthusiasm for internet coupons.
Daily deals were once considered a potential boon to small and midsize businesses. But the onslaught of emailed deal offers led many consumers and merchants to shy away from the discounts offered by Groupon and LivingSocial.
Prior to this week’s final deal with Groupon, the online coupon service has gone through several rounds of restructuring and layoffs in recent years as it struggled to find a sustainable market for its platform.
Groupon itself has lost much of its luster since the early promise of e-mail deals proved difficult to convert into a large-scale business. Valued at $16.7 billion when it went public in 2011, the Chicago-based company had a market capitalization of $3.02 billion at Wednesday’s close.
Groupon continues to quietly work on rebuilding its business and points to underlying signs that there is a market for its brand and its role in offering customers more offers from merchants local to them.
“Our strategy continues to deliver results with double-digit growth in North America local billings and our highest quarter for customer acquisition in over three years,” said Groupon CEO Rich Williams. “We are looking forward to a strong finish to the year and further progress on our mission to make Groupon a daily habit for consumers.”
Along with the announcement of the LivingSocial acquisition, Groupon said Wednesday it also plans to downsize of its overall business operations from 27 markets to 15 in 2017.
The company hasn’t yet decided whether it will keep the LivingSocial brand name.


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posted by Thom Holwerda on Tue 7th Sep 2010 20:15 UTC
"It took Hewlett-Packard less than a day to file a lawsuit against its former chief executive, Mark V. Hurd, over his decision to join its rival and partner Oracle as a co-president. H.P. filed its lawsuit on Tuesday in the Superior Court of California in Santa Clara, claiming that Mr. Hurd had breached his contract with the company. The lawsuit said that Mr. Hurd could use his intimate knowledge of H.P. and its trade secrets to aid Oracle and harm H.P. The two companies compete in the market for computer servers, storage systems and business software."


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Getaround, the carsharing platform that empowers users to instantly rent and drive cars shared by people in their city, announced its availability in Miami.
Car owners can reduce the financial burden of car ownership, and even make some fun money, by listing their car on the platform. People share everything from sporty convertibles to practical sedans and earn thousands in extra income. Each car is equipped with Getaround Connect, a proprietary technology that enables people to rent, locate and unlock the car using the Getaround app. Residents and visitors of Miami can instantly rent nearby cars without meeting the owner to exchange keys or waiting in line at a rental car company.
“It’s been our vision to drive change that has global impact, yet also positively affects local communities,” said Sam Zaid, CEO and co-founder of Getaround. “Our platform radically disrupts traditional car ownership by empowering those with cars to earn money on an often idle asset, and providing those who choose to live car-free with a hassle-free and convenient way to grab a car when they need one.”
In addition to creating economic opportunity for Miami locals, Getaround is investing in the South Florida area. Overseeing the Miami market is General Manager, Nick Chong, who has brought on a dozen local employees to help ensure a successful expansion into the area. Chong has partnered with several auto-body shops and regional vendors to support the company’s continued growth.
“As a long time Miami local, I’ve been thrilled to have watched the city boom,” said Chong. “With growth comes more people, more visitors and more cars on the road, resulting in congestion, traffic and a strain on our local transit system. Miami is ripe for a new, sustainable transportation option, and I’m confident Getaround will make an immediate impact on the city’s traffic and congestion.”


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IPSWICH pet owners who love their pooches, cats, horses, lizards and rodents can now access a special cremation service for their animals.
Pets Rest in Peace, based in Toowoomba, have appointed an Ipswich manager to deal with a high demand for their unusual service in the region.
Company owner Beric Lees said Ipswich pet owners increasingly wanted to cremate their pets.
"We get a lot of pets from Ipswich; everything from mice to horses," Mr Lees said.
"Normally, our clients are people who have grown up with a much-loved pet and want to be able to remember them in this way."
"We offer the exact same service as a human crematorium; we treat the pets with special care and have a specially-made crematorium."
Mr Lees said he and Ipswich manager Vivien Konwerski-Garman shared the same background of working in the human funeral industry.
"I've worked in this area for people for 20 years, and I came up with the idea to start Pets Rest in Peace five years ago," Mr Lees said.
"People are very attached to their pets; they're a member of the family and sometimes people have pets instead of children."
"Pet owners often don't realise how important their pets are; they'll come home everyday and their pet will be happy to see them and you start to take that for granted."
Mr Lees said his business had recently been chosen to cremate Dreamworld's white Bengal tiger Mohan.
"Being selected to cremate Mohan was an honour and I think it showed we offer an outstanding service."
He said cremation prices started at $120 for tiny pets.
"We charge about $285 as a base price for a small animal like a dog," he said.
Prices range up to $1295 for large horses.


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When is the next photo?
In an era of smartphone cameras that snap a selfie every second and then delete the pictures, it’s a bit hard to believe the picture of the day is taken with a smartphone.
The next time you snap a photo of a piece of artwork on a wall, or your first photo of your newborn son or daughter, do you really know what you’re getting into?
The question is: when are you going to get your hands on a smartphone camera?
That’s the question of a new report by the European Union (EU) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) that shows that by 2030, more than one billion people around the world will be using smartphones, according to a new study by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The report shows that smartphone adoption is set to grow by 10% to 15% a year by 2030.
By 2030, the report says, smartphone users in the EU will account for more than 40% of all smartphone users, which is almost twice as many as there are today.
In contrast, in China, which will be the second-largest smartphone market by 2030 with the largest share of smartphone users after the US, the penetration of smartphones is expected to be just 14%.
The EU report also shows that mobile penetration in Europe will grow by 6% a decade, but this will only take place if mobile phone users can get their hands on smartphones at the same time.
It’s also a sign of the times that in China smartphone penetration is set at only 9%.
In fact, it will take a few years for the penetration in the US and China to equal that of Europe.
The report says that the penetration is likely to grow faster in developing countries because smartphone penetration there is already so high.
The study also shows a strong correlation between the growth of smartphone use and the rise of social media, which has become a major social media platform.
The internet and social media have given rise to an explosion of information, which in turn has fuelled a rise in social networks.
The ITU report predicts that by 2035, social media use will reach 50% of the population.
By 2030, that figure will reach 80%.
Social media is also believed to be responsible for the increasing adoption of the smartphone, which the report describes as a ‘global communication tool’.
“In a world where the internet is omnipresent, it is not surprising that mobile phone use will be an important social tool in the future,” said Dr David Breen, the ITU’s vice president for communications.
The use of mobile phones in many countries will increase in line with this trend.
In China, where the number of smartphone owners is expected increase from 5% in 2030 to 10% in 2035.
In India, which aspires to be the world’s largest smartphone market, the number will increase from 9% to 14%.
In the UK, which was the first country to introduce a mobile phone bill in 2014, the figure will increase to 18%.
In Germany, where mobile phone penetration is projected to be around 13%, the number could increase to 23%.
In Japan, where there are plans to introduce mobile phone charging stations, the country’s mobile phone market will increase by almost 60%.
The ITUC report says the growth in smartphone use is set, not just to the use of smartphones, but also to other devices such as cars, which have become so popular that the report suggests that by the year 2030, cars will account the world market share for the first time.
By 2035 the use and adoption of cars will be greater than that of mobile phone.
This trend will be accelerated by the launch of electric cars.
By the year 2040, the use in the car market will be at the level of that of the car industry, and the number in the automotive industry will exceed that of smartphone penetration.
In addition, the growing use of smart phones will accelerate the pace of change in the mobile phone industry.
By 2025, the growth rate of the smart phone market is projected at 35%, the ITUC predicts.
The number of mobile smartphone users will reach almost 20 billion people by 2040.
This figure is projected by the ITUU to reach nearly 45 billion by 2060.


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There’s been a vacuum in AAA. Amy Hennig was the woman who made Nathan Drake witty, but disappeared from Naughty Dog in 2014; Jade Raymond sent Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs and Splinter Cell: Blacklist on their way before vanishing from view.
EA have plugged the gap: building a new studio in Montreal to bring the two together.
Raymond will lead Motive Studios in developing “incredible action experiences” – starting with Amy Hennig’s Star Wars game.
You might remember that Hennig joined Visceral in California to make her Star Wars game – not Motive in Montreal. As it turns out, Raymond will be overseeing both studios from now on. She’s got the experience, having most recently pulled Ubisoft Toronto up from the earth.
“I’m a huge fan of the games that have come out of Visceral and I feel honoured to be working with such a talented team led by studio GM Scott Probst,” said Raymond. “I’ve also known Amy for years and have admired her work on the Uncharted games! An opportunity to work with her and the Visceral team, and to play in the Star Wars universe, is once-in-a-lifetime stuff.”
I’ve known and admired Jade for many years – this will be our first opportunity to work together. Great things ahead!
— Amy Hennig (@amy_hennig) July 13, 2015
Beyond that, Motive will work on some “entirely new” projects and tag-team with BioWare’s Montreal outfit – the studio behind Mass Effect: Andromeda.
“As a player of the latest Battlefield and Dragon Age games, I have experienced what the Frostbite engine can do,” said Raymond. “I can’t wait to get my hands on it and see what a new team can create!
“Everyone in this industry has a motive, an idea they want to bring to life, a new idea they’d like to see in a game. It’s what’s so great about this industry. And it’s what I want to get back to.”
Hmm! The air feels like it did circa 2007, when EA seemed to be making nests for some of the most creative people in the industry. What would you like to see come out of all this?


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Bush Australia is expanding its range of retro digital audio products with the addition of the Heritage, a DAB+ digital radio.
DAB+ digital radio is slowly making its way into cars, with an announcement on Friday that all new BMW 5 Series and 7 Series cars will be able to have DAB+ digital radios fitted as an option from May. The new BMW 6 Series sedan will have DAB+ digital...
Data newly released by Commercial Radio Australia indicates that more than 400,000 DAB+ digital radios have been sold in Australia since the service's launch in 2009, with more than 700,000 listeners tuning into Australian digital radio stations ever...
Leading DAB+ digital radio manufacturer Pure has released a new Internet-connected digital radio, the ONE Flow. The Pure ONE Flow joins other Pure DAB+ digital radios like the Oasis Flow, Evoke Mio and ONE Elite in Pure's Australian portable line-up,...
Broadcasters from Malaysia and Hong Kong will visit Sydney this week to take part in a Commercial Radio Australia digital radio study tour, gaining first-hand knowledge and experience of DAB+ digital radio.
Digital radio is attracting an audience that tunes in for longer than Internet radio's, says Commercial Radio Australia (CRA).
Pure has unveiled a DAB+ and internet radio with an embedded 5.7in colour touchscreen. The Pure Sensia can also browse the web.
Broadcasters and radio personalities from more than 40 different commercial and public radio stations participated in an outdoors broadcast this morning in the nation’s capital cities, to celebrate the launch of digital radio services in Australia.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation switched on its digital radio services yesterday in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Sydney.
Dick Smith has released the results of an online survey that asked shoppers about their awareness of digital radio, which officially launched nationwide today. Sixty nine per cent of people polled were aware of what digital radio is; an increase of 3...
Sydney has become the fifth state capital in Australia to commence digital radio broadcasts
UK company Pure has announced the release of the Sirocco 150 -- a DAB (digital audio broadcast) radio that is also compatible with the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch.
Commercial Radio Australia’s analysis of the digital radio channel plans released by the Australian Communication and Media Authority shows that “well over 90%” of Adelaide’s population will be able to access digital radio. This figure means that Ade...
Melbourne will become the first capital city on the east coast with permanent DAB+ digital radio services on 11 May.
Australia's first permanent DAB+ digital radio services have been switched on in Perth by nine commercial radio stations. Although digital radio signals have already been broadcast in several capital cities, these have been test broadcasts from a sma...
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