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Snowmobiles and auto repair are helping two Wyoming powersports dealers ride out the economic downturn.
Terry Hloucha credits snowmobilers with keeping his Action Motorsports, south of Gillette, busy, even though he had to delay plans to move to a bigger location.
He started planning for a move last summer, but had trouble getting a loan for the new building. Eventually, he got a loan with support from the Wyoming Small Business Association.
Then slow ATV sales brought the dealer to the brink of layoffs. Now he and his wife, Sandi tell the Gilette News Record they’re happy they kept valuable, trained workers. And the new site may add two more jobs.
Hloucha says snowmobilers want the latest thing, regardless of the economy.
Business has been down so much GT Powersports this year that owner Gary Boyle has been relying on his sideline of repairing cars. “If I just had the powersports side, I’d be starving to death,” Boyle told the newspaper. “For ATVs, 2009 was the toughest year I’ve had since 1994.”
Posted by Holly Wagner


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Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for a vehicle based microgrid system, Ford Authority has learned.
The patent was filed on December 18th, 2020, published on December 20th, 2022, and assigned serial number 11529884.
The Ford Authority Take
In recent months, Ford has filed a number of patents centered around EV charging technology, including one for a bidirectional charging system for ATVs, a portable high-voltage EV charging system, and portable battery packs for EVs and other electronic devices. At the same time, the automaker has has been touting the capabilities of the Ford F-150 Lightning and its ability to charge other EVs and even power entire homes for days or weeks at a time, when coupled with the Charge Station Pro. Now, this new Ford patent continues this trend by introducing an idea for a vehicle based microgrid system.
The idea behind this vehicle based microgrid system builds upon existing setups, which use the traction battery of an EV for little more than energy storage. The patent notes that while some users may have a need for large amounts of energy storage, others may not, and may perhaps favor more storage space, less weight, and lower vehicle costs up front versus more storage. However, thus far, most EVs take a “one size fits all” approach to this problem.
That’s precisely where this new Ford patent comes into play – it utilizes a vehicle-based microgrid with a controller, a power source, and a network, and is able to operate the vehicle’s power source to supply power to the network and make adjustments on the fly as well. This concept would also work with either EVs or ICE vehicles equipped with a traction battery of some sort, and could include other vehicles. Overall, this concept is fairly broad, which isn’t a surprise as Ford continues to explore ways to transfer power from one source to another.

domain: news


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Baskin-Robbins announced that it is celebrating Mardi Gras by bringing the classic f
Newk’s Eatery’s spring menu will prominently feature culinary-inspired seafood dishes suited for the Lenten season.
Charlotte-based Salsarita’s Fresh Cantina and Fort Mill-based PuckerButt Pepper Company have teamed up to create the World’s Hottest Burrito.
Long John Silver’s announced the return of Norway Lobster Bites to its menu.
Wendy’s is reeling in fans with the return of its Premium Cod sandwich, which brings cod back to Wendy’s restaurants across the nation for a limite
Schlotzsky’s leaps into spring with the return of the limited time only Hand-Carved Sandwiches.
With the conclusion of the food-heavy holiday season, many people are starting to boost their exercise and diet plans, w
This February, Giardino Gourmet Salads, the fast casual salad concept of South Florida, introduces grain bowls to its me
Chef Andy Wittman has done it again.
Slow Roasted Pulled Pork is joining char-grilled chicken, steak, tofu, ground beef, and fish to become the sixth protein


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At Google I/O 2017, Google revealed its picks for the best apps on Android. The second annual Google Play Awards ceremony took place on Thursday night, where the finalists and winners were announced to a crowd of Android developers. Read on to find out which apps won.
There are a lot of apps available on Android, and app discovery in the Google Play Store app itself is tragically difficult. But, at least there's the Google Play Awards to tell us which apps, according to the Mountain View firm, are the cream of the crop.
The 2017 finalists included 57 apps in 12 categories, from Standout Indie to Best App and Game. The finalists and winners can be all found in the Play Store, and I suggest you check them all out. Winners were chosen based on quality of the app, user experience and ratings. Behold:
Google Play Awards 2017 Winners
The overall best app award was given to Memrise, an app which helps users learn new languages with creative games, chatbots and tens of thousands of videos by native speakers.
Taking home the award for best game was Transformers: Forged to Fight, which has great graphics and gameplay mechanics.
Mushroom 11 was the standout indie winner thanks to its artistic design, polished look and electronica soundtrack.
Hooked is an app that tells stories to the user by showing them a chat conversation as it unfolds. It's addictive and fun.
Best Android Wear experience:
Runtastic is a running and fitness app that works with Android Wear smartwatches. It tracks activity and provides a variety of other features like audio coaching and a music player.
Best TV experience:
Red Bull TV works especially well on Android TV thanks to its large screen format, so it took home the prize for this category over Netflix and others.
Best VR experience:
The immersive Virtual Virtual Reality app runs on Daydream VR and takes users through multiple realities.
Best AR experience:
Woorld is a cute, fun AR app made with the help of the creator of Katamari Damacy, and it makes great use of Tango technology according to the judges.
Best app for kids:
For kids, the Animal Jam app wins because it promotes learning and creativity.
Best multiplayer game:
Hearthstone, a popular trading card game made by Blizzard (the creators of Warcraft and Diablo), was given the award for best multiplayer game.
Best accessibility experience:
IFTTT does it all by connecting services you use and automating tasks in creative combinations, so it wins for its ability to serve people with special needs and disabilities.
Best social impact:
Share The Meal is an app from the UN which helps to end child hunger around the world. Users can donate money and see exactly who they're helping.
Which will you try? Let us know in the comments.


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Posts filtered on Tag
Interviews with individuals at the Santa Rosa Farmers Market in Sonoma County California. Interview 1) Kim Cook, Cook Spices 2) Brenda Chatelain, Smoked Olive 3) Barbara Walker, Walker Apples 4) Gandolf’s Fine Chocolate 5) Amy McIntosh, Assistant Manager 6) Paula Downing, Market Manager 7) Nate Lopez, Musician
From his Sebastopol, CA development garage, James McGreen, Switch Vehicles founder, talks about his first Sonoma County based electric car company, ZAP! (Zero Air Pollution), the companies vision, funding and the companies first do-it-yourself electric kit car that is due out late next year. Photo Credit: Switch Vechicles – November 2011. Switch Vechicles Mission Statement: Read More
A year ago I when found out that QR Codes could be printed on bread with food coloring, I pitched the idea of an edible press sandwich to a variety of organizations and businesses. Taking a journalist to lunch has been going on since the beginning of the news business. The concept is simple: journalists Read More
Beginning next week and through March 15, Alaska Airlines is offering $59 flights from Seattle to Santa Rosa, CA. Brad Calkins, Executive Director Santa Rosa Convention and Visitors Bureau, talks about activities Seattleites could attend for a winter get-away weekend to Sonoma County. Alaska Airlines: Winter sale fares from Seattle also include: $40 one-way to Read More
A video postcard of the 25th annual FREE Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday, November 27, noon-4pm, at the Santa Rosa Seventh-day Adventist Church. Senior Pastor Ron Aguilera’s Interview Gary Quachenbush’s Thanksgiving Dinner Pitch (November 26)
Brenda Chatelain, The Smoked Olive, talks about starting her “mom and pop” Sonoma County business with her husband, Al, as a “labor of love” on a warm and sunny late November afternoon at the Saturday Santa Rosa Farmers Market. The Smoke Olive has a holiday sampler package that would make a perfect gift for any Read More
After his persentation at the 10th annual San Francisco Green Festival, Chad D’Arcy, Ford Focus Electric Marketing Manager, the Ohio State graduate talked about Ford’s first electrified vehicle in front of the Concourse Exhibition Center.
Green Festival San Francisco – The Orca Island AgBag Project Recycles Irrigation Tubing Into New Products
Sean Coronis, founder AgBag Project, talks about re-using farm irrigation tubing to make custom bags at the 10th annual San Francisco Green Festival. Interview with singer/songwriter Valerie Orth. Media volunteer Jacqueline Lee talks about what inspires her to produce positive videos. Five Ford community grant finalists talk about their organizations and what they would do Read More
J. C. Penney has launched a run-away holiday hit for smartphone gift givers this year: Santa Tags As the above video demonstrates, the department store chain will make available free QR codes through customer service that can be customized with 60 second audio clips.
“Adopt your next dog from an animal shelter!” YouTube teen sensation Lia Marie Johnson, 14, and multi-talented Roxy King, 15, (journalist, actress, singer, songwriter) team-up with the Surf Dogs to motivate people into visiting their local rescue shelters and leaving with a new best friend (or two!) In The News Surfing Canines Star in “San Read More


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Monday, July 18, 2022
The UK retail charts are in, and despite the absence of any major new game releases, there's still a lot of change in last's weeks charts.
That's due to the Amazon Prime Day sales, which saw plenty of older titles discounted, boosting them higher up the charts. F1 22 managed to hold onto its number one spot, but Ubisoft took full advantage of Prime Day this week, with Assassin's Creed Valhalla climbing to number two, while Watch Dogs Legion comes out of nowhere to take the number three spot. Two more Assassin's Creed titles re-entered the charts, as did Kingdoms of Amalur, Marvel's Avengers, and Hitman III.
Over on Xbox Series X|S, Halo Infinite rose to number one, again boosted by Prime Day sales, while Far Cry 6 took the number two spot. Immortals Fenyx Rising re-entered the charts, and two GTA games also clawed their way back in.
You can check out both charts in full down below.
Xbox One Charts: Week Ending 16th July 2022
Xbox Series X|S Charts: Week Ending 16th July 2022
Chart Information provided by UKIE/GfK Chart-Track


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The world’s leading cryptocurrency infrastructure provider, Binance, has partnered with Mastercard to announce the launch of the Binance Card in Brazil.
The prepaid card is a part of the ongoing initiatives to evolve the bridge between existing financial services and the growing crypto ecosystem. The card is still in the testing phase and will be available widely in the coming weeks.
The Binance Card that will be issued by Dock will allow all Binance users in Brazil with a valid national ID to pay bills and make purchases with cryptocurrencies, including BNB and Bitcoin. Purchases can be made at over 90 million Mastercard merchants worldwide, both in-store and online.
Users can enjoy a seamless transaction during which their cryptocurrencies are converted to fiat currency at the point of purchase in real time. Some of the advantages include zero fees on ATM withdrawals and up to 8% cashback in crypto on eligible purchases.
Binance cardholders can manage their cards through the card dashboard on the Binance website and App. Users will also be able to see their transaction history and access customer support through the card dashboard. By using the Binance Card, merchants will continue to receive fiat, and the users can pay in any cryptocurrency they choose.
Binance Card holders in Brazil can pay by using 14 different currencies, including DOT, SOL, ADA, SHIB, XRP, MATIC e LINK, USDT, BTC, ETH, BNB, BUSD, Santos fan token, and Brazilian Real.


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“Christmas cheer will be dampened” by food inflation
The BRC has forecasted an “increasingly bleak” winter with food inflation increasing to 12.4 percent in November.
According to Helen Dickinson OBE, Chief Executive of the BRC, the prices of meat, eggs and dairy have been “hit by rocketing energy costs, and the rising costs of animal feed and transport”.
Additionally, Dickinson noted: “Coffee prices also shot up on last month as high input costs filtered through to price tags.”
Shop price annual inflation reportedly accelerated to 7.4 percent in November (up by 1.2 percent from 6.6 percent in October 2022). According to the BRC, this marks another record for shop price inflation since the index started in 2005.
Delving deeper, the BRC has highlighted that fresh food inflation has been subject to a considerable increase as it has risen to 14.3 percent, up from 13.3 percent in October. This reportedly marks the highest rate in the fresh food category on record.
What’s more, ambient food inflation accelerated to 10.0 percent in November (up from 9.4 percent in October), with the BRC stating that this to be the fastest rate of increase in the ambient food category on record.
An “increasingly bleak” winter
With “winter looking increasingly bleak as pressures on prices continue unabated”, Dickinson forecasts that “Christmas gifting is also set to become more expensive than in previous years, with sports and recreation equipment seeing particularly high increases”.
Considering the impact on consumers, Mike Watkins, Head of Retailer and Business Insight at NielsenIQ said: “With prices still rising, the cost of Christmas will be higher this year and shoppers will be managing their budgets more closely than at any time since the start of cost-of-living crisis.”
However, Watkins has claimed that retailers could ease festive food price pressures through “offering seasonal savings and price cuts”.
According to Dickinson, “Christmas cheer will be dampened this year as households cut back on seasonal spending in order to prioritise the essentials”. However, she predicts that there could be a light at the end of the food inflation tunnel, claiming that “there are signs that cost pressures, and price rises, might start to ease in 2023”.
Offering advise, Dickinson has suggested that retailers should continue to support British consumers by fixing the prices of essentials, offering discounts to vulnerable groups, raising the pay of their workers and expanding their value ranges.
However, even with these support measures in place, food inflation is still likely to affect Brits at an already expensive time of year.


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Ever heard of Tata Motors and wondered who they were? Well they are part of a 100 billion dollar company named ‘Tata Group’ which was founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata.
Tata Motors is India’s largest automobile company which has operations in the UK, South Korea, Spain, Indonesia, Thailand and South Africa. You may be wondering how this is relevant to Jaguar Land Rover, however in 2008, ‘Ford’ had to sell Land Rover after being unable to make profit. Therefore after ten months of negotiations, Tata Motors made the deal and Jaguar Land Rover was bought for £1.15 billion.
The journey of Tata Motors has been quite an impressive one to date, with car sales in 2009 taking a huge downwards spiral, this meant Land Rover was forced to request state loan guarantees from Lord Mandelson and then the Business Secretary. However luckily for Tata they walked away from negotiations once the Government had demanded to have control over the company’s strategy. It turned out to be the best decision for Land Rover as since then Jaguar Land Rover has completely flourished in the industry, managing to secure £500m in commercial funding. A huge positive for the Midlands especially was when the plans were disregarded to get rid of the Jaguar Land Rover plant they have. This was due to the increasing rise in sales around the world for Jaguar Land Rover. So when it came to 2010 for Tata Motors they had managed to get the sales of Jaguar Land Rover cars rise 11pc to 63,155, this was especially strong in countries like China, North America and Russia.
So the answer on whether Tata Motors have managed to make a success out of Jaguar Land Rover…is yes. The gamble on a slowly struggling company turned into a great success for Tata Motors who are now have a net income of £1.3 billion.


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According to Giant Bomb’s well-placed tipster, Electronic Arts/EA Sports is currently working on resurrecting Midway’s NFL Blitz series.
EA Sports recently releases NBA Jam remakes across all platforms, and reports had previously suggested EA picked up other Midway sports title, as well. Certainly NFL Blitz would fall into that category, but it may be awhile before we see anything concrete — the game is reportedly early in development, and we may not see it until 2012.
NBA Jam has received plenty of buzz, with most reviews (including my own) pointing out that, yup, it’s definitely NBA Jam; that’s not a bad thing by any means. With Blitz series creator Mark Turmell rumored to be serving as Senior Creative Director for EA’s update, fans of arade-style sports should have something to be excited about… even if it’s just a rumor.
Rumor: EA Sports Working On New NFL Blitz [Giant Bomb]


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These days, plenty of mobile phone manufacturing companies are existing and competing with each other in the market. The game now is not only about having an edge in the competition. It is now with making releases that are way much better than its predecessor. It’s pretty much obvious that Apple is one of well-known and commonly used globally today. Recently, they just launched the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S. On the flip side, Apple enthusiasts are looking forward to meet the iPhone 6, the next iPhone generation that is yet to come. There are lots of anticipation about this phone because individuals wishes to see whether Apple will be able to make great innovations.
The internet now is bombarded with a lot of speculations and rumors about its specs and features. Gadget lovers and consumers alike are expecting much more from Apple considering the other companies today are racing in finding more innovative types of phones. Not just improvements with its features but in addition with its appearance. Many people are saying that iPhone 6 will be a type of similar with iPhone 5C with regards to specs. Furthermore, upgrading the memory storage to 128GB is in fact not an impossible thing Apple. The potential phone’s dimension is not yet introduced to the public, however, for certain, Apple are trying lots of different things for its brand new phone model.
There has been a lot of hype around the iPhone 6 because individuals really wish to see whether it is going to be impressive or a disappointment. Some people can’t wait any further and find their way to have grasp details about it. However, it is important to remember that iPhone 6 release date is scheduled sometime in 2014. Some people states that on September 2014, Apple would possibly release it. Amidst all the speculations, it looks like the greatest thing a consumer can do for now is wait. Absolutely, due to the high level of competition in the industry, every company has become increasingly more innovative with the production of wonderful devices.


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Commutes are Set to Become Easier and Faster for Portland-Vancouver Region Transit RidersMay 21, 2019 | By Chaiti Sen
At a time when we can do almost anything with a click, tap or swipe, there is nothing more frustrating than fumbling around to find a ticket to pay for a ride. Tapping your transit fare card or iPhone to get around a city is now a reality for commuters in the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area. The region’s largest transit provider, TriMet, is ensuring a ride on its bus lines and MAX Light Rail, as well as C-TRAN buses and the Portland Streetcar, is as simple as tapping to go. Using Mastercard token services, commuters can add a Hop card to their mobile wallet and load funds with complete peace of mind.
Starting today commuters in the Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington area can add a digital Hop Fastpass transit fare card to their iPhone or Apple Watch to tap and ride. Commuters will be able to add a card purchased through the Hop Fastpass App to Apple Wallet and simply tap their iPhone or Apple Watch to board the area’s public transportation.
In 2017, TriMet enabled all Hop electronic fare card readers to accept contactless bank cards and credit and debit cards in Apple Wallet to ride buses, trains and streetcars. For riders, this meant that there was no time wasted buying fare at the ticket machine, making an extra trip to the store for a pass or holding up the bus while getting change – and no more funds lost on unused tickets. For TriMet and its transit partners, this means reducing barriers for customers.
“TriMet has long been a leader in the transit industry, focused on the customer experience and ways to simplify riding transit,” said TriMet General Manager Doug Kelsey. With Hop Fastpass, the first transit fare card in the US to launch in Apple Wallet, riders in the Portland-Vancouver area can simply tap-and-go by holding their iPhone or Apple Watch near a Hop a reader.”
TriMet’s transit services eliminate 210,000 daily car trips and save over $150 million per year in congestion costs.
“This is a fast-paced world and it’s important that we enable cities to keep pace with their commuters,” says Linda Kirkpatrick, EVP, US Merchants and Acceptance at Mastercard. “We’re thrilled to bring our technology to solve new problems, and by doing so hope to take some of the frustration out of the daily commute.”
Partnering with cities, transit agencies and technology companies, Mastercard has been architecting flexible transit solutions for almost a decade – and is leading the next generation of integrated mobility services.
For more information, please check out Mastercard’s Smart Cities initiative to see how we are bringing collaborative and connected approaches to urban development.


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Oman announced on June, 23 a renewable five and ten-year extended residency permit to foreign investors to attract quality investments.
The new Investment Residency Program (IRP), to be launched in September 2021, targets sectors like industry, tourism, mining, logistics, agriculture, fisheries, education, health, and information technology (IT), Times of Oman reports.
The major announcement was made to attract investments, create jobs, and enhance growth during a meeting held at the ministry under the chairmanship of Qais Mohammed Al Yousef, Minister of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion.
The IRP is a clear demonstration of Oman’s strong commitment under the leadership of His Majesty Sultan Haitham Bin Tarik for opening up new routes for investment in the wealth of opportunities presented by Oman Vision 2040.
This program comes alongside other enhancements to the Sultanate’s commercial environment, such as the provision of quality digital services and the streamlining of procedures and processes.
This landmark program shows Oman’s determination to become globally competitive, increase trade, strengthen the industry and empower its business community.
The new IRP also targets the enabling sectors represented by the green and circular economy.
The green economy is defined as a system of economic activities connected with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services that results in better human well-being in the long term, to avoid exposing future generations to significant environmental risks.
The program targets the sectors of industry, tourism, mining, logistics, agriculture, fisheries, education, health, and information technology, as well as the enabling sectors represented by the green and circular economy.


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In brief: SK Hynix has started using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography for mass production of fourth generation 10nm LPDDR4 DRAM, after successfully testing it in limited production runs for 1ynm DRAM. This means new phones and ultrabooks will integrate faster and more energy-efficient memory that’s also cheaper thanks to improved wafer densities achieved with the new 1anm process node.
SK Hynix was the first company to launch DDR5 DRAM modules for enterprise use last year, these provide reduced power consumption and increased reliability thanks to the use of in-chip ECC functionality. Consumer-grade modules should arrive in 2022 alongside a new generation of Intel and AMD CPUs, and with a bit of luck the current chip shortage situation will have improved enough to keep prices at an acceptable level.
In the meantime, the Korean company is hard at work improving existing DRAM products like DDR4 and LPDDR4. Today, SK Hynix revealed it has started mass production of 8 Gb LPDDR4 DRAM based on 1anm, a new generation of 10nm process technology. The first phones and laptops to incorporate the new chips are expected to be launched later this year.
The 1a technology follows three generations of 10nm DRAM which are simply named 1x, 1y, and 1z. Its main benefit is a 25 percent increase in the number of DRAM chips that can be produced per wafer when compared to the 1z process node, leading to better prices for end customers. At the same time, SK Hynix is optimistic about the potential of 1anm DRAM to help satisfy the high demand for memory products.
It’s also worth noting that performance of LPDDR4 chips manufactured using the 1anm process node is at a respectable 4266 Mbps, the fastest achieved to date and the maximum speed as described by the LPDDR4 standard specification. Power consumption is also reduced 20 percent, although we’ll have to wait and see how this will translate into better smartphone battery life.
SK Hynix says it will use the new 1a process node to make DDR5 DRAM starting next year, so the first consumer grade modules to hit the market are likely to be even better than current ones designed for the data center.


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Your Nosy Amazon Alexa Can Now Interrogate You
Rohit Prasad, vice president and head scientist for Amazon Alexa, said this week in an interview posted at Amazon's blog that AI holds promise and will have "deep societal impact and will help humans learn new skills that we can’t even imagine today." He also announced that socialbots—currently being tested by Amazon Alexa users—are capable of holding a 10-minute "coherent" conversation.
In the next five years, he said, "we will see conversational AI get smarter on multiple dimensions as we make further advances with machine learning and reasoning." In addition, "we will see Alexa become more contextually aware in how she recognizes, understands, and responds to requests from users. Alexa will become smarter more quickly as unsupervised learning will dominate how she learns."
Amazon is well on its way to the goal of creating a socialbot that can hold a 20-minute conversation. The company recently held a competition for university students "to advance human-computer interaction." The teams, which competed for $3.5 million in prizes, were tasked with creating socialbots that were able to converse "coherently and engagingly with humans on a range of current events and popular topics such as entertainment, sports, politics, technology, and fashion." Participating teams each received a $250,000 research grant, Alexa-enabled devices, and free Amazon Web Services (AWS) to aid in project development.
Amazon announced the winners in November of last year. The first place team, from the University of Washington, created a socialbot that was able to converse for 10 minutes and 22 seconds. The team was awarded $500,000 to share among team members.
The second place team, from Czech Technical University in Prague, was awarded $100,000. The team that came in third, from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, will share a prize of $50,000.
Amazon gave an example of a socialbot conversation:
- User: Let’s chat about the Mars Mission.
- Socialbot: There are multiple Mars missions, some public and some private.
- User: Who do you think will succeed?
- Socialbot: I think more than one will succeed. The first one to get to Mars will open the doors for others.
- User: I’d love to go to Mars.
- Socialbot: Me too. Luckily I can hitch a ride on any computer.
- User: That’s very funny.
- Socialbot: The biggest challenge isn’t technology, it’s funding. It will cost $500 billion to send humans to Mars.
According to Prasad, the socialbots created by the student teams can be accessed now with the prompt "Alexa, let's chat."
"Our customers have logged more than 100,000 hours of conversation with the 2017 Alexa Prize socialbots," he said.
I tried it out on my Amazon Alexa this week. On my first try she asked me if I had played any sports growing up (I said softball) and she proceeded to ask me a series of questions related to the sport and eventually recited some Wikipedia-type facts.


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KFC wants to open new drive-thru restaurant in Hucknall
Fast-food giant KFC is eyeing up opening a new drive-thru restaurant in Hucknall.
As the Dispatch reported last year, the company was looking to expand its business in Nottinghamshire with up to 10 new drive-thru restaurants and Hucknall was rumoured to be one of the towns it was looking at opening up in, with a spokesperson at the time telling Hucknall chicken fans to ‘watch this space’.
Now, the company has confirmed on its website that Hucknall is one of 500 new locations it is looking to open up new restaurants in, with Hucknall’s being a drive thru facility.
KFC already has a restaurant in Bulwell and now wants to expand further.
No details are on the website about where in Hucknall the proposed new restaurant would be at this stage.


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It’s been a busy few weeks around these parts as the conference season winds down. Over the last few weeks I, along with my colleagues Steve Banker and Clint Reiser, have made the rounds on the conference scene. Our trips included HighJump Elevate, Oracle Modern Business Experience, Descartes Evolution, Promat, BluJay Soar, MercuryGate Velocity, Transplace Shipper Symposium, and JDA ICON. Plus, Steve and Clint will be at Manhattan Momentum next week. While I always miss my family when I travel, the good news is that I get to meet with key clients, speak to their customers, learn from my peers, and watch some good movies on my flights. This time around I watched A Star is Born with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. Two things surprised and impressed me with this movie. First, Lady Gaga was fantastic as an actress. I knew the singing would be a walk in the park for her, but she nailed it as the leading actress as well. The second part, which is the complete opposite, was Bradley Cooper’s ability to sing and play the guitar. I know he put in the work and it certainly showed on screen. And just to prove it was really him, he has joined Lady Gaga on-stage multiple times to perform Shallow. Well done to both of them. And now on to this week’s logistics news.
- Amazon in the news:
- Walmart announces free “NextDay” delivery
- E2Open and Amber Road announce definitive acquisition agreement
- DB Schenker completes successful platooning trials
- FMCSA looking at wider pilot to study younger interstate truck drivers
- Gucci’s owner to push stricter animal welfare standard worldwide
Amazon has been looking for ways to expand its delivery infrastructure and lessen its reliance on FedEx and UPS. Last year, the company announced its Delivery Service Partner program, which created a network of independent delivery fleets. The initial start-up cost was estimated at around $10,000 to cover overhead and the lease of a delivery vehicle. Amazon is now expanding this program and encouraging employees to start their own delivery company. Amazon is promising to cover some of their startup costs, including “up to” $10,000 plus the equivalent of three months of an employee’s most recent salary.” Amazon also confirmed that it’s expanding the program to include its employees in the UK and Spain, where it will also cover their startup costs.
In other news, Amazon is also debuting a new delivery option for customers, and in an unusual move, the company is launching it outside of the US. The new service is dubbed Counter and will allow customers to retrieve packages from staffed UK and Italian retailers. In the UK, Amazon will partner with Next Plc to operate the counters at the apparel chain’s more than 500 outlets across Britain. In Italy, Amazon has formed similar partnerships with bookstore operator Giunti and other stores. The new service has a dedicated app enabling customers to order items from Amazon and select their pick-up location. The company said it chose Europe for the launch because of customer demand for convenient click-and-collect locations and the high penetration of online retailing.
In response to Amazon’s efforts to increase same-day and next-day delivery, Walmart is launching a new subscription-free service for next-day delivery in select markets. Earlier this week, Walmart announced it is adding “NextDay” delivery to customers in Phoenix and Las Vegas, with plans to expand to Southern California in the coming days. Walmart plans to continue to roll out the service over the course of the year, with a goal to reach approximately 75 percent of the US population by the end of the year. The free NextDay delivery is available on eligible orders over $35 and up to 220,000 frequently-purchased items including diapers, laundry detergent, electronics and toys. The orders will be fulfilled from one of six fulfillment centers that is closest to the customer rather than from stores, as stores will continue to fulfill orders for same-day pick-up or delivery.
E2Open and Amber Road have announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement for the acquisition of Amber Road. E2Open provides a networked supply chain solution enabling customers to plan, collaborate, and execute their end-to-end operations. Amber Road provides a GTM platform enabling customers to digitize their supply chain across a broad solution set including sourcing, global logistics, transportation, and trade compliance. According to Amber Road CEO James Preuninger, “the combination of E2Open’s supply chain and logistics technologies with Amber Road’s global trade management platform will also allow customers to more fully digitize their operations and better compete in global markets.” The agreement is still subject to customary closing conditions and will be an all-cash purchase price of approximately $425 million.
Global logistics company DB Schenker has completed the world’s first field test using truck platoons in real logistics operations in Germany. The pilot program was a joint effort by DB Schenker, MAN Truck & Bus, and Fresenius University of Applied Sciences was part of a research project sponsored by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. The program used professional drivers to drive two electronically linked vehicles on the Autobahn 9 between the Nuremberg and Munich branches of DB Schenker over the course of seven months, covering more than 35,000 kilometers. According to DB Schenker, “operating electronically linked trucks on German motorways is safe, technically reliable, and easily applicable in the routine of a logistics company.” It will be interesting to see how this technology continues to expand.
The truck driver shortage is not going away, and with more drivers retiring every year (without younger drivers to take their place), the problem is only getting worse. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has not yet proposed a pre-rule (let alone a rule to lower the age for interstate truck drivers), but the agency announced this week that it’s seeking public comment on a “potential” pilot program that would allow drivers ages 18 to 20 to operate commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce. Last year, the agency said it would initiate a pilot program to allow 18-20-year-olds with military experience to operate CMVs on interstate highways. This latest action could increase the availability to those without military service. One thing is clear – something needs to be done to attract more drivers.
Kering SA, the French owner of Gucci and Saint Laurent, says it wants to improve suppliers’ treatment of animals used for products like leather handbags and cashmere suits. The luxury company will apply European Union standards for animal welfare (considered to be among the world’s most rigorous) as a global baseline by 2025. For suppliers that already meet the requirements, which include unfettered access to clean water and room to move freely, the company said it wants to encourage further improvements like allowing free grazing for cattle or making sure ostriches have enough space to run.
That’s all for this week. Enjoy the weekend and the song of the week, Black Eyes from A Star is Born.


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East Villagers may have noticed that the controversial new Starbucks has put up its signage on St. Marks and Avenue A. While we brace for impactuccino, there is, of course, more coffee news nearby: Blue Bottle Coffee, the Oakland-based brand that opened a roastery and cafe in Bushwick earlier this year and then announced a major East Coast expansion, has opened a new Greenwich Village location at 101 University Place, near East 12th Street.
As you can see from the photo, the Union Square location isn’t exactly as “palatial” as the Bushwick home base, which also serves as a training center, but it’ll do in a pinch. Proceeds from today’s opening will go toward the International Rescue Committee.
Next up, Blue Bottle is expected to move its Williamsburg location to North 4th Street sometime in the fall. But will the new place be as alluring to tourists?
Sitting at the Blue Bottle in Williamsburg and there is a group of tourists outside taking pictures of it like it's the Eiffel Tower.. pic.twitter.com/s8fBZI040R
— Stose (@Stose) July 15, 2017


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Paul Sawers was a reporter with The Next Web in various roles from May 2011 to November 2014. Follow Paul on Twitter: @psawers or check h Paul Sawers was a reporter with The Next Web in various roles from May 2011 to November 2014. Follow Paul on Twitter: @psawers or check him out on Google+.
It’s four months since we last touched base with ThingLink, the image-tagging and interaction tool. Back in June, we covered the startup’s launching of rich media tagging, which basically turns an image into an independent, self-contained platform where you can embed video, sounds, and other data meaning that users can consume more content from across the Web within an image itself.
So Web publishers, brands, bloggers…anyone with a desire to upload interactive images to a website, can use this functionality. Rich media tags have so far been developed for the likes of Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Spotify, Vimeo, Wikipedia, SoundCloud and Twitter. Check out this picture to get a better idea of what rich media tagging can do for an image:
At the Wired 2011 event in London today Ulla Engeström, founder and CEO of ThingLink, announced the launch of ThingLink Labs, which it’s calling “a dedicated environment from which to incubate and productize innovations in the field of image interaction”.
Rich Media Notes
ThingLink Labs’ inaugural project was also announced at the Wired event today. Rich Media Notes is a tool to create printable versions of ThingLink images using Near Field Communications (NFC)-enabled rich media tags which are readable by smartphones and other enabled mobile devices.
Rich Media Notes is being showcased for the first time today, in collaboration with London-based designer Klaus Haapaniemi. “When images and everyday objects become access points to Web content, the consumption and distribution of online media will change from laptop to mobile devices,” says Ulla. “With Rich Media Notes, we are creating demand for new kinds of enhanced, printable products such as posters, flyers and handouts that carry rich media web content, discoverable through NFC.”
NFC technology is becoming more commonly used across different industries, and can be found everywhere from retail outlets to trains stations as a facilitator for mobile payments. It’s worth reading our NFC feature piece from earlier this year: How will NFC get its piece of the $4 quadrillion payments pie?
In terms of ThingLink’s latest product, Rich Media Notes will make it possible to print content-embedded images as posters, photos or physical goods. These objects in turn might contain a song, a video, a blog post or a link to anywhere on the Web.
The Next Web caught up with Ulla at the Wired event to get the lowdown on the company’s progress over the past few months, and some words on the new product.
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Can Main Streets survive in today's market.
Offices over stores on main streets can't be given away and yet businesses in the 5,000 to 25,000 square-foot range are expanding. Many of these businesses were begun when the corporate giants of America laid off thousands of Westchester workers who then began businesses of their own.
Other expansion is taking place because the space next door becomes available and small businesses which are a little bit crowded are afraid not to take it, believing they will grow out of their own spaces in the next year or two.
More and pop retailers usually remain where they are along the shopping streets, where rents are lower, and hope a giant mid-west competitor doesn't come to town. Local pharmacies quake when CVS eyes a store nearby, but even CVS shivers as Price Clubs, K-Marts and PayLess drugstores target its market.
Most often, little local guys watch the big out-of-towners move into the malls, taking profit margins with them. Recently several local Arkansas drugstores won a law suit against Walmart which, they charged, priced items under their cost.
Noreen Preston, Economic Development Specialist with the Westchester County Office of Commerce and Economic Development said, "If we can keep the businesses here and the people here during the day, we can keep those small businesses. There is no doubt about it, there is very severe competition from these cut-rate places, but there is a niche for a small neighborhood store that offers services rather than large packages."
While the big players will knock out a certain percentage, agreed Ronald B. Bruder, president of the Brookhill Group, which= manages and invests in shopping centers, he says there is always the customer who wants to be recognized. "You're not going to get that from a Walmart. So you can shrink the retailers but a few will survive."
Michael H. Siegel, executive director Edward S. Gordon Westchester Connecticut office said, "If we look back years ago, the neighborhood stores were there to service the neighborhood. People would know them by name. Contrast that with the situation at the mall - employees turn over, there is no personalized service. At smaller stores, customers get to know you.
Retail rents in most malls are on the high end of the mid 20's and low 30's, says Siegel, but significantly less outside the malls.
Siegel believes the character of the shopper in a mall is different than that of the street shopper. A store has to be set up a certain way to be in a mall, he noted, and many stores just can't walk in from a main street location.
"I think the main streets are going to attract a new wave," Siegel believes. "There are always entrepreneurs and businesses starting. Rents will decline and will attract new upstart stores."
In Stamford, Connecticut, the Town Center mall actually had a strong effect on the shopping area around Atlantic and Bedford Street. "But if you look at Broad Street, further away, a lot of the retail has gone out," Siegel observed.
There has been some negotiation to make the former Bloomingdales in Stamford into a multi-retail location, but in the meantime, everything around there is very depressed.
"If you look at the contrast between retail and office at Greenwich Avenue or Downtown White Plains," observed Siegel, "the vibrancy has swung to retail. The high end retail is clearly Greenwich and White Plains. Unfortunately, New Rochelle hasn't gotten the benefit. The new revitalized mall is not going to be high-end. It's not what the demographics call for."
New Rochelle Turnaround
New Rochelle just lost a bidding war for UNICEF, but will get a former Macy's mall renovated out of bankruptcy with a Bradlee's and 14-screen movie theater and more. A Price Club Warehouse is going to a former 7-UP site and Home Depot, which has made a deposit on urban renewal land on the other side of town, will soon follow. Taco Bell just broke ground, right across from a Pizza Hut.
Its Main Street boasts a renovated Lillian Vernon headquarters, but lost the outlet shop to Central Avenue - a North/South road that runs from White Plains through Yonkers and is a shoppers paradise, with Caldors, Bradlees, Service Merchandise, Staples, Burlington Coat, Filene's Basement, Barnes and Noble and much, much more.
Towns like New Rochelle have lost business to Central Avenue for years and are hoping to cash in with these new large power centers. But there are still plenty of empty shops along Main Street, where eight people were shot outside a dance club this summer. Two movie theaters are out for good and "for rent" signs adorn many stores, as well as the upper story office space.
Gerald T. Rhine, who handles commercial space in Westchester and Fairfield counties for Abrams Benisch Riker, represents 145 Huguenot. "New Rochelle is trying very hard to make a comeback," he said. His building is on a major intersection with North Avenue and only two blocks from the train station.
"While people think of the suburbs as being in a sleepy area, being in a downtown environment is stimulating," Rhine observed.
Huguenot is a one-way street running parallel to Main Street, which goes in the opposite direction, but it is not a shopping street and is not in what Rhine deems the congestion of New Rochelle.
Fred Knapp, a real estate attorney who has space in a Huguenot building across the street, said there are vacancies in every structure. "A lot of users have too much space and if there was one chance in a hundred to consolidate and move out, they did," he complained.
Like others in New Rochelle, Knapp is disappointed UNICEF passed them by. "They busted their chops to get their bid together," he said of the local government. "[UNICEF] got a better deal out of New York at New Rochelle's expense. I don't think they ever intended to come here."
Mayor Timothy C. Idoni is still upbeat about the city and feels the push to bring in a UNICEF campus energized the town fathers. "We're ready to redo our downtown area and ready to market it to the private sector," he said. "Our development possibilities were non-existent two years ago and a lot of other developers have come to us because of what they have read about UNICEF."
A $100,000 study is going on to revitalize Main Street, while another plan was created for Huguenot Street. "Eventually we will put together a master plan," said Idoni. Additionally, although a residential plan ten years in the making for David's Island was turned down earlier this year, the island is undergoing a coastal management plan in preparation for another shot at development.
White Plains Malls Gain
John D. Goodkind, senior vice president and manager of Newmark Real Estate's Westchester/Connecticut office, said IBM is having a large impact on the market because they put close to 1 million square-feet on the market and may put on more.
"It puts a huge drag on everything else both commercially and residentially and retail," he explained. "A lot of IBM employees used to flood those buildings and are not there to go shopping every day. This affects the retailers."
With nearly a 35 vacancy in White Plains office space, it makes a dramatic effect in the numbers of people walking the street, agrees Donald B. Rosen, an associate broker with the White Plains based Kempnet Corporation. Retail is running at 7 to 8 percent vacancy, he said, not bad for the county seat.
Rosen explained a 2,000 square-foot store pays about $20 a foot or $40,000 a year on Mamaroneck Avenue, with stores on the perpendicular Main Street fetching closer to $10.
If the rule of thumb for the rent factor is 10 percent of rent, the Mamaroneck Avenue store has to do $400,000 a year or $200 a foot to survive. "That is a tall order for a normal retailer in White Plains," he said. "Food you can do it with, but I don't know if you can do it running regular merchandise."
Rosen believes certain food shops and specialty retailers such as the Jewish Quarter and Sam Ash will be survivors in the Downtown core. "The others will get squeezed out," he said.
The Mamaroneck Avenue shopping strip, agrees Siegel, is not going to draw shoppers from outside the town. "You have food stores and low-end clothing," he said. "The other difficulty is that it's more impulse shopping because of the parking. They wouldn't say "I'm going to spend the day' and walk Mamaroneok Avenue."
These experts agree White Plains is making a comeback because at least two mega shopping centers are coming into the core. But how these malls will affect the foot traffic on Mamaroneck Avenue's small retailers is yet to be seen.
The high end Nordstroms is heading to a renovated space on the site of the old B. Altmans and connected to Neiman Marcus. This Westchester Mall formerly called the Fashion Mall and still referred to that by area brokers-has rents in the $70 to $100 a foot range. It is targeting high end retailers and will be competing with nearby Bloomingdales and Saks.
The Saks store has had a few rocky years of preparing for a mall renovation by the Conroy Company, which acquired NYNEX property nearby in June.
Bloomie's may be lured across the street by ion Halperin to a former Nestles corporate headquarters and have its own boxey store turned into a multi-plex cinema and grocery - a better use for its underutilized parking lot and multi-level land tucked into the side of a hill.
Closer to the center of town, the former Alexanders is being turned into a power center known as Westchester Pavilion, a big box bag 'em up spot with Toys 'R Us, Border Books, Office Max, Educational Warehouse and others.
In the office sector, William V. Cuddy, Jr., senior vice president of Rostenberg-Doern Company INC., said there has been a strong pace of leasing from small to midsize companies in Downtown White Plains. "Downtown White Plains is still a great place to do business. It is the county seat. Law firms are expanding. It is the transportation hub of the county."
Goodkind, who just signed Dannon Yogurt coming out of the NYNEX headquarters to 37,000 square-feet at his Christiania Building in Tarrytown, says he has no doubt that these buildings might be refilled in the next few years.
'There is enough business coming out of Manhattan. Not every tenant is used to going to 287 and out of the Central Business District," he said.
|Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback|
|Title Annotation:||Suburban Markets; analysis of retail and office leasing market in Westchester County, New York|
|Publication:||Real Estate Weekly|
|Date:||Oct 20, 1993|
|Previous Article:||BOMA president outlines plans for future.|
|Next Article:||Fairfield County office market recovering.|


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The Telugu OTT space has very recently seen two box office disastrous debutants and it is now set to welcome two blockbuster films.
The said two disasters are Ranga Ranga Vaibhavanga and Chor Bazaar. Both the films were duds at the box office and have made OTT debut in the last 3 days. Ranga Ranga Vaibhavanga is streaming on Netflix and Chor Bazaar is streaming on Aha Video.
Well, there’s a lot more promising stuff coming up as Bimbisara and Karthikeya 2 head for their OTT premieres this week. Both the films will stream on ZEE5.
Karthikeya 2 will be made available for streaming on ZEE5 from the 5th of October and the same was confirmed by ZEE5 already.
It is heard that Bimbisara will make the OTT debut on ZEE5 on the 7th of this month but the same is yet to be confirmed by the OTT platform.
All in all, the Telugu OTT space has seen two box office disasters recently and it is now bracing up to welcome two box office blockbusters.
It is also heard that OTT watch-worthy film, Oke Oka Jeevitham could be making its OTT debut next week. October 10th is the rumored OTT release date of the film but the same is yet to be confirmed by Sony Liv.


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Indmin | 12 November 2015
New Zealand minerals sector could benefit from planned EU trade deal
by Keith Nuthall and Wendy Mill
The free trade agreement currently in discussion could benefit a number of mineral producers in New Zealand including Imerys Ceramics’ New Zealand division and Dominion Salt, for which Europe has never been a natural market owing to the high percentage of export costs accounted for by freight.
New Zealand’s industrial minerals sector could benefit from a new planned trade agreement with the European Union (EU) with preparatory talks for the deal now under way.
EU Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, and New Zealand’s Trade Minister, Tim Groser, met in Brussels last week to explore a future bilateral free trade agreement.
A deal is expected to go beyond the classic tariff reduction agreement and also address regulatory harmonisation and trade facilitation issues. Given the potential clash between EU and New Zealand agricultural interests, talks could be protracted.
Both sides said they wanted to make progress however: "New Zealand is a close partner of Europe that shares our values and views. I am committed to strengthening this partnership by working towards an ambitious trade agreement," said Malmstrom.
A trade deal could boost the New Zealand industrial minerals sector, the development of which "is constrained by the population’s concerns about the environmental issues related to mining, the ecological sensitivity of the country, and New Zealand’s location far from major industrial markets", according to a US Geological Survey (USGS) report.
According to the UGSG, New Zealand has reserves of antimony, bauxite, bentonite, beryllium, clay, diatomite, dolomite, perlite, phosphate rock, pumice, rare earths, salt, silica, sulphur, and zeolites.
In terms of production in 2013, the latest USGS figures, New Zealand produced 762 tonnes bentonite (2,263 tonnes in 2012); 62,288 tonnes clay for bricks and tiles; 13,066 tonnes kaolin; 4 tonnes diatomaceous earth; 5,542 tonnes dolomite; 3,598 tonnes perlite (in 2012); 93,865 tonnes pumice; 100,000 tonnes salt; 101,702 tonnes silica and glass sand; and 155 tonnes zeolites.
New Zealand exported $6.5m worth of kaolin in 2014 and $5.7m worth in 2013, according to international trade data. It sold overseas $11.5m worth of salt in 2014 and $10.3m in 2013. The country also exported $375,907 worth of perlite in 2014. As for pumice, New Zealand exported $88,419 worth in 2014. $79,491 worth of silica sand in was meanwhile sold in 2014, and $104,060 worth sold in 2013.
Bernie Napp, policy manager for Straterra, the collective voice for the New Zealand minerals and mining sector, stressed that New Zealand is currently "more of a niche exporter of these goods". While current duties for New Zealand mineral exports were low, he said an agreement could have a positive impact on investment guarantees.
Salt exports are one niche where an EU trade deal could help. Dominion Salt Ltd, based near Blenheim, South Island, exports gourmet food salts to Europe, but not the 50,000 tonnes of pharmaceutical and high grade food manufacturing salts that it currently sells overseas.
"Given that freight makes up 50% of our export costs, Europe has never been a natural home for our products. We are focused on regions south of the equator such as South-East Asia, South America and the developing world," said Shane Dufaur, Dominion Salt’s CEO.
Imerys Tableware New Zealand Ltd, based northwest of Whangarei, quarries and processes halloysite. Part of the Paris-based Imerys group, a world leader in mineral-based specialities for industry, the company could also benefit. Its products are exported globally for ceramics applications and New Zealand is the only location where Imerys works this mineral. Currently, the EU represents only a small percentage of sales for Imerys Ceramics’ New Zealand division.
The Crown Minerals Group, under New Zealand’s ministry of economic development, is responsible for managing all state-owned minerals in the country, which includes all minerals on or under crown-owned land.


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THE Federation of Master Builders (FMB) has appointed its first chief executive.
Derek Bostock, national president of the FMB, said: “I’m delighted that Brian Berry has agreed to take on the role as the FMB’s first chief executive.
“He has an excellent track record in the construction sector having worked for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and more recently as director of external affairs at the FMB.”
Brian Berry said: “Leading the UK’s largest trade association in the building industry is an exciting challenge.
“The FMB’s drive towards becoming a professional trade association is something that I’m personally committed to as it will help ensure that FMB members are recognised as the best in the building industry.
“The FMB’s application to government later this year to become a Competent Person Scheme operator will be the first milestone on this journey, as will the review of how FMB delivers services to its members.”
Mr Bostock added: “The construction sector industry is facing a very tough time with an estimated 45,000 people expected to leave the industry this year.
“It’s more important than ever that small building companies have the expertise and single voice that the FMB is able to offer them.
“Brian’s background makes him ideally suited to achieving our aim to transform the FMB into a professional trade association.”


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Until recently, if you asked any major airline if they offered special discount travel deals to large corporations, you would be told that the airline would be happy to make a charter deal on a specific one-time flight, but that was it. No airline wanted to discount what it considered the most lucrative segment of its traffic -- business travel.
Not any more. In the last two years, major U.S. corporations, conscious of the high cost of business travel, have sought ways to cut their expenses. In the wake of deregulation, one solution that is being attempted is rebating through direct deals with individual airlines (getting them to shave prices) or with travel agencies (who are being asked to rebate part of the commissions they receive from the airlines).
For example, the regular coach fare from Los Angeles to Atlanta on Eastern Air Lines is $426. However, the Harris Corp. -- a communications and graphic arts equipment manufacturer based in Melbourne, Fla., -- will pay only $289 for an employe's ticket.
Why is the fare 30 percent less for employes of the Harris Corp.? Because Eastern and Harris have a corporate discount contract. The Harris Corp. has agreed to give all of its air travel on routes flown by Eastern -- worth approximately $20 million annually -- to that airline in return for a 30 percent discount below coach fares.
If you are an employe of Bell South, you also could be entitled to a substantial discount.
And if you work for IBM, don't book your flight just yet. IBM, which last year spent more than $500 million on travel expenses, is aggressively seeking to make a major rebating deal with U.S. travel agencies and has invited competitive bids. (If the giant corporation is given a 3 percent rebate on its travel budget, it could save at least $15 million a year.)
Following the corporate lead, a number of individual travelers who fly frequently have approached travel agencies with the same rebating request, and in some cases agents have reluctantly agreed.
With travel costs continuing to increase, virtually every major corporation with any travel business clout is cutting special discount or rebating deals with travel agencies and airlines. But such deals haven't always been easy to strike.
"We won't do it," said a Trans World Airlines spokesman in 1980. The president of USAir officially opposed the idea of corporate travel rebating and in 1981 sent travel agents a letter notifying them that they must "adhere exactly to our filed fares and applicable rules." However, 1981 also was the year in which the Civil Aeronautics Board issued a ruling that essentially made rebating legal, subject only to prohibition by individual airlines.
Less than a year later, the president of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) expressed official concern at rebating and urged member airlines to wage a voluntary battle against the practice. IATA enforcement officials had found five travel agencies in California selling tickets to their large corporate accounts at from 20 to 25 percent off the listed price.
But it was too late. In the wake of airline deregulation, there was only official posturing by the airlines.
For a brief moment in 1983, in a futile effort to end travel agency rebating, American Airlines and TWA announced they were reducing agency commissions from 10 to 9 percent. The move lasted barely a week. Travel agents' reactions were so swift and negative that both airlines reversed their positions.
Then, USAir changed its rebating policy and told travel agents it would "no longer restrict" them from rebating if they found such actions to be "a competitive necessity." Then, United Airlines, admitting it was impossible to police the 24,000 travel agencies in the United States, said it would delete language prohibiting rebating from contracts it has with travel agents.
It was only a matter of time before someone broke the ice.
The ice was virtually shattered last year when Delta Air Lines announced it had made special travel arrangements with General Electric, in which G.E. received a 30 percent discount on full coach fares on 28 Delta routes. In return, G.E. agreed to purchase at least $3 million worth of travel from Delta in one year.
Eastern Air Lines chairman Frank Borman reacted quickly to the Delta-G.E. deal with the announcement of Eastern's discount arrangement with the Harris Corp. And full-scale official rebating was off and running.
According to a 1984 survey of 92 corporate travel managers done by Runzheimer and Co., a consulting firm that specializes in managing travel costs, 39 percent of the corporations surveyed were receiving some type of rebate. The average rebate was only 3 percent.
"Deregulation has allowed the big end users -- corporations -- to do volume buying or dealing for discounts," says Peter M. Sontag, chairman and chief executive officer of Sontag, Aniss and Associates, an independent consulting firm that specializes in the travel industry. "The more you buy the less you pay is a law of economics, so it should apply to the travel business, too."
There are three separate levels of sophistication in corporate volume buying of airline tickets, according to Sontag. The first level is rebating. The corporation says to a travel agent: You are getting a 10 percent commission and your service is only worth 7 percent to us, so we want the 3 percent back.
The second level is discounting. The corporation accumulates and manipulates data to determine future usage. Then they approach a vendor and promise to use that airline for a certain amount of travel. The discount from the airline is usually 30 to 50 percent of the standard coach fare, depending on the choice of departure and arrival cities and the volume. "The longer the haul, the higher the discount," says Sontag.
The third level involves the initial management budgeting process. A corporation knows there are price advantages when they buy in bulk. "The corporation says we wrote a check for $100 million to you last year. I only want to spend $85 million this year for $100 million worth of travel. You are the experts; you are the gurus; you figure out how."
At least one corporation hasn't bothered to worry about rebating with travel agencies. Last year, when Polaroid and TWA announced a promotion that offered a 25 percent discount off most TWA flights with the purchase of a camera, the NCR Corp. in Dayton, Ohio, purchased 2,000 Polaroid cameras. They bought the cameras for gifts to corporate clients and employes, and kept the discounts for their own corporate travel, according to a company spokesman.
Not surprisingly, most travel agencies are not big rebating fans, since it cuts into their commissions. Still, more and more of them have been forced to do it in order to stay competitive.
The pressure is, indeed, mounting. Now even the state of California is taking bids for its estimated $20 million travel account. The state is looking for discounts either directly from airlines or from travel agents on both intrastate and interstate city pairs (the most common city pair being Los Angeles to Sacramento, generating about 52,900 one-way trips per year).
There are, of course, a number of travel agency holdouts. "We don't feel we need to give away part of our profit margin to do a good job," says Bill Howell, general sales manager of Rennert World Travel in San Antonio, Tex. "There is not that much there anyway, so why give it away?" Only 30 percent of Rennert World Travel's business is corporate.
"A rebate is giving a service that the client does not pay for," says Dorothy Kucera, director of sales and marketing for Foremost Travel and Tours in Chicago, where 70 percent of their business is corporate travel.
"We are trying to convince corporations that they are already getting rebates -- such as limousine service to the airport, mailing or hand delivering of tickets, flight insurance or carrying a customer for several months on our accounts receivable. They don't pay for those things," Kucera says. "We can't afford to give them anymore. But they don't see it that way. They still have the nerve to ask for cash back."
"We don't give rebates," says Bob Diekmann, executive vice president of North Western Business Travel in Minneapolis. "We invest in worthwhile services that give long-term benefits. In the Twin Cities, companies such as Pillsbury are insulted when you offer them a rebate. And it doesn't make good business sense to give your profits away -- what little there are in this business -- when you get nothing in return."
Diekmann, whose business is 90 percent corporate, however, is not as adamantly opposed to rebates as Kucera.
"If there are mutual benefits, we would give rebates," says Diekmann. "We don't always oppose it. Part of the problem is that neither Northwest nor Republic Airlines, who have about 80 percent of the business in the Twin Cities, pay override commissions to travel agents , which is where rebate money comes from." (When agents generate business worth more than a certain amount, an airline may agree to increase the regular commission paid them; that increase is the "override.")
The one airline that currently has a specific discounting agreement -- Eastern (with the Harris Corp.) -- declined to comment on the subject. "The people in sales and marketing are not interested in giving interviews at this time," says Paula Musto, director of corporate communications. "It's a touchy issue."
One reason the airline is a little sensitive these days is an agency named Reid Travel in Boca Raton, Fla. It is one of the agencies that lost its share of the $20 million IBM account when it came up for renegotiation. The agency alleges they were told by Eastern that they would lose their plates (the equipment, owned by an airline, that is used by an authorized agent to issue valid tickets on airline ticket stock) if they agreed to rebate to IBM. Now it says that Eastern looked the other way when two other agencies bidding for the account agreed to rebate to IBM. Reid Travel and Far Horizons Travel are suing Eastern for $600,000 each in damages. Eastern has declined to comment on the case. Depositions have been taken but a trial date has not been set.
Prior to losing the IBM account, Reid Travel was 70 percent corporate. It is currently 55 percent corporate, although losing the IBM account is not the only reason the corporate percentage has dropped.
"We made a conscious effort to reduce it," says William Jacob, president of Reid Travel. "We don't want someone to do it to us again. In vacation travel we don't have this sort of problem."
If all of these agencies oppose rebating, then who is supporting it?
Just ask Ask Mr. Foster, which has 313 locations nationwide -- $900 million in volume -- and is the largest single travel agency in this country.
"We have determined to be competitive in the marketplace and so, I assume, would most travel agencies," says Hans de Lange, president of Ask Mr. Foster. "Rebating weeds out weaker and less-well-managed travel agencies. The well-managed, lean, mean agency will survive and be competitive. Bigger agencies are getting bigger. The small, boutique-type agencies will survive, but the intermediate travel agencies will suffer."
"We didn't start rebating, the intermediate travel agencies did," says de Lange. "We waited almost two years to enter the competition. In late 1982 we started losing accounts and then we made the decision to fight fire with fire."
If you travel more than a few times a year, and are a shrewd shopper, it's possible you may find a travel agency that will work with you on rebating.
In 1982, a woman bought four first-class United Airlines tickets valued at $6,000 from Suburban Travel Agency in West Hyattsville, Md. She got a $180 rebate check from the agent. The agency temporarily lost its plates from three airlines for rebating.
Today, that agency would not be punished.


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Talc and petroleum jelly among the best lubricants for people wearing PPE: Talcum powder, a coconut oil-cocoa butter beeswax mixture, and petroleum jelly provide the best skin protection for long-term PPE use, say scientists.
For frontline healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) like face visors, googles, and respiratory protective equipment is an essential part of working life. More workers are wearing facial PPE now than ever before, often for extended periods of time, to protect them against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
However, extended PPE use, particularly on the delicate skin of the face, can cause friction and shear injuries like skin tears, blistering, ulcers, and hives.
The effects of friction and shear can be reduced by lubricants, which workers are advised to apply every half hour. Half-hourly applications can be impractical during shift work and may expose workers to the virus, and many typical moisturisers don’t last long as they are designed to be absorbed into the skin for a ‘non-greasy feel’.
Now, researchers from Imperial College London have investigated which products create the longest-lasting protective layer between PPE and skin. They hope their findings will help healthcare workers and other long-term PPE users like those in hospitality to prevent skin injury and deformity.
They found that the best lubricants to use are those that don’t absorb into the skin, creating a long-lasting layer of protection between skin and PPE. They say that non-absorptive creams like coconut oil-cocoa butter beeswax mixtures, and powders like talcum powder, are most likely to provide PPE wearers with long-lasting skin protection.
The findings are published today in PLOS ONE.
Lead author Dr Marc Masen, of Imperial’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, said: “We think of moisturisers as good for our skin, but commercial skin creams are often designed to absorb into the skin without leaving any residue. While this is fine for everyday moisturising, our study shows that a greasy residue is precisely what’s needed to protect skin from PPE friction.”
To identify the best-performing lubricants, the researchers custom-built a tribometer – an instrument that assesses friction between two surfaces – and used it to test the friction between skin and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), which is a common component of PPE.
They used the tribometer to test commercially available products to measure how they changed the friction between PDMS and the inner forearm skin of a healthy 44-year-old male participant. They tested friction upon application, and then one, two, and four hours after application.
They found that while most products initially reduced friction by 20 per cent, some silicone-based and water-and-glycerin based lubricants increased friction levels over time by up to 29 per cent compared to dry skin.
However, two products reduced friction as time went on. Talcum powder reduced friction by 49 per cent on application and 59 per cent at four hours, and a commercially available product comprising coconut oil, cocoa butter and beeswax reduced friction by 31 per cent on application and 53 per cent at four hours. A mixture of petrolatum and lanolin reduced friction by 30 per cent throughout testing.
When testing commercial moisturisers, they found that friction on application was low, but increased drastically within ten minutes of application. The researchers say this is because the active ingredients, known as humectants, attract water like magnets from the lower layers of skin to the upper ones, leaving it soft, unlubricated, and breakable.
Co-author Dr Zhengchu Tan, also of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, said: “The products that don’t absorb easily into the skin are the ones that provide a protective layer. In fact, for PPE wearers, it’s best to actively avoid creams and moisturisers which advertise a ‘non-greasy feel’.”
Dr Masen said: “Friction can be incredibly damaging for the skin, particularly when applied for an extended period. We hope our study will save healthcare workers and other frontline PPE wearers from suffering with the painful and damaging effects of skin friction.”
The researchers say that while their study signposts PPE wearers to the best skin-saving products, they are looking to perform further studies using facial skin and more participants. Due to COVID-19 restrictions during lockdown, they were only able to test the products on one study participant, and used his inner forearm as a surrogate for facial skin.
This research was funded by the Imperial College COVID-19 response fund.
The authors paid for the products, shipping and handling, and declare no competing interests.
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- New insight into combatting drug-resistant prostate cancer - 11th April 2024


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Shop! Environments Association is proud to partner with VMSD on its International Retail Design Conference. “The event is being reimagined as a virtual event, and we’re excited to bring you an enriching experience with excellent education and networking,” says Jennifer Acevedo, IRDC conference director. Featuring global retail design innovators and influencers, the conference will air live on Oct. 28-29, 2020.
Topics range from the future of retail to Las Vegas’ newest experiential complex, AREA15.
Featured thought leaders include:
- Ron Thurston, author, Retail Pride: The Guide to Celebrating your Accidental Career
- Michael Beneville, Chief Creative Officer, AREA15
- Bevan Bloemendaal, VP, Global Environments, Timberland
- Samar Younes, VP, Creative Director, Showfields
- Alasdair Lennox, Group Executive Creative Director of Experience, Americas, Landor & FITCH
“This year’s event features new insights into changing shopper behavior, key strategies for post-COVID retail, and the influence of design on industry business models,” says Paul Hagar, Shop! executive director. “IRDC is a great example of the quality education that Shop! identifies from our industry partners to complement our association offerings.”
Presented annually by VMSD magazine, IRDC is a chance for the retail design industry to take time out each year to explore best practices, evolve trends, and learn about the latest strategies to engage shoppers and maximize resources.
“In light of the current changes and evolutions retail is seeing, it’s critical that we share resources and knowledge across the industry,” says Murray Kasmenn, VP and group brand director for SmartWork Media. “We’re pleased to partner with Shop! for this event.”
For more information and to register, visit http://bit.ly/IRDCregister. Shop! Members can use the promo code SHOP20 for 20% off their registration.


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Popular stationery outlet Paperchase has confirmed a fall in sales of precisely 0%, following a boycott by Daily Mail readers.
The boycott comes after the company pulled all future advertisements from the paper.
The decision emerged after customers pointed out that advertising cards offering “tidings of comfort and joy” next to Katie Hopkins slagging off some underprivileged children probably isn’t the best of ideas.
Despite the boycott, Paperchase has seen no fall in profits, after it emerged that no Mail reader has ever engaged in reading or writing other than that carefully checked by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, who meticulously ensures no facts have accidentally crept into any articles.
Many Mail readers offered their intellectual insights into the decision, with reader Simon Williams demanding to know “Who the hell are they to decide where they put their adverts?”
Meanwhile, part-time journalist, and full-time waste of space Piers Morgan took to Twitter to let everyone know they won’t be seeing his intolerable face in a Paperchase anytime soon, a prospect expected to drive many new customers into the store.
The company hit back at this announcement letting Piers know that “based on the popularity of our new desktop cactus selection, we feel the store already has enough pricks in it as it is”.
I think, therefore I am (not a Daily Mail reader)


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Google is gearing up for tomorrow's Pixel event and one of the first hints of everything we've got coming our way is a redesign of the Google Home app that seems to be rolling with the new version 18.104.22.168. We're seeing it on all of our devices so this doesn't seem to be a sever-side test.
First, upon launching the app, you'll notice a new animation of squares and circles and triangles in Google's traditional yellow, green, red, and blue colors, interspersed with a little grey. It looks nice and you'll notice that the app now has two tabs on the bottom: Discover and Browse. Read More
We've been hearing about the Google Home Mini for a couple of months now: first we revealed Google's plans to make a smaller Home then Droid-Life leaked the Mini's design and price. Now we have one more confirmation of the Mini's existence and look.
Raymond Durk, who lives two blocks away from the Google campus, spotted a new Google Home Mini ready to be set up in his Google Home app. Read More
WhatsApp has always used iOS' emoji designs and fonts in all of its apps. Whether you're on iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Symbian, or desktop, you would see the same emojis independent of your device's built-in emojis. That created a unified approach to avoid any confusing moments like, "you sent me a gun!" and "I said it was a water gun!" However, it looks like WhatsApp is now breaking the shackles of its iOS emojis... somewhat.
In the latest Android beta v2.17.364, WhatsApp introduced a new set of emojis that are its very own. They look like iOS and Android Oreo emojis had a baby and from every comment we received, no one is enthused about them. Read More
Sony may not come to mind as one of the most developer-friendly mobile tech companies out there, but its Open Devices program proves otherwise. The latest fruits of this creation come in the form of AOSP Android 8.0 Oreo, which is now available for six Xperia smartphones. Read More
Now that Android 8.0 Oreo is out of beta and making its way onto devices in earnest, the Wear team is taking a turn with its own preliminary firmware update. Starting today, Google's Beta Program page is now distributing an early version of the next release of Android Wear. However, if you were looking forward to a lot of new features, you might be disappointed to hear that this is being referred to as a "technical upgrade to API 26" – mostly an update to the underlying infrastructure. On top of that, only one watch qualifies for betas at this time: The LG Watch Sport. Read More
To call the Facebook suite of apps a bloated mess would be an understatement, most especially the ever-growing Messenger — I think I've used it once, after which I uninstalled it. However, in a surprising turn of events, Facebook has launched the "lite" version of the app in North America, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. Read More
Microsoft has a streaming music service, though you'd be forgiven if you've forgotten about it (or in my case, forgotten about it several times). The relative unpopularity of it has pushed the tech giant to put to rest its Groove Music Pass in favor of Spotify. Read More
Huawei has unceremoniously unveiled the latest in its mid-range line, the Nova 2i. Complete with the company's 18:9 FullView display and four cameras, this phone appeared on Vmall, Huawei's official store. Astute readers may notice a similarity here. Read More
Another month, another update to the Google Developer dashboards. This time there's something new in the Android version stats, although it's a very, very small something. After the unsurprising no-show last month, Android 8.0 Oreo has made its first appearance this time with a grand total of 0.2% device share. Read More


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Facebook for Business 1 Während die Gaming-Branche expandiert und in die nächste Reifephase eintritt, zeichnen sich mehrere neue Gaming hat mittlerweile fast alle Zielgruppen erreicht: 86 % der weltweiten Internetnutzer geben an, dass sie News · Newsletter abonnieren · Tipps zur Anzeigengestaltung · Events. Berlin has become one of the most important locations for games and mobile content, virtual reality The Games industry in Berlin leads the way in Germany with the strongest growth across the country: Latest news about Games industry. Pteria: A New DAO Will Change the Gaming Industry. NewsBTCin 10 hours. Published on November 10, GMT-8edited on November 10,
THE UMBRELLA BRAND FOR THE VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY IN BAVARIAsplit and growth rates, as well as operator and game performance Casino Database – is the social casino industry's leading market intelligence and Daily news digests every morning; Access to industry leading insights. Berlin has become one of the most important locations for games and mobile content, virtual reality The Games industry in Berlin leads the way in Germany with the strongest growth across the country: Latest news about Games industry. GameDuell in the news Tagesspiegel about meeting of games industry with Berlin Senator of Economic ktp-recruitment.com Review Balloon Blast (German).
Gaming Industry News Gaming Industry News VideoBiggest Controversies in 2020 - A Look Back at the Gaming Industry
Auf Gaming Industry News des Landgrafen Ludwig von Gaming Industry News die Spielbank fГhrten. - More related contentWhether we meet virtually to do Www Adultfriendfinder in our team members' garden, have our kids pull a face, or we totally fail at singing birthday songs, even Superliga a karaoke tool, we always do it with a smile on our face and a good laugh. Sign up for The Daily Update and get the best of GamesIndustry. ESL reportedly set to disqualify ESL Meisterschaft teams who have players competing in Dota Pro Circuit Gaming Industry News Dot Esports US' H-1B ban extension and its impact on India's techies. The post The biggest gaming industry news stories of appeared first on Gamepur. The 5-reel, 4-row video slot, whi The fact that smartphones and tablets are so ubiquitous and affordable now also accounts for their popularity, and the COVID 19 pandemic has also led to an increase in mobile gamers, as people search for socially distanced forms of entertainment. Horizon Forbidden West launching in for PlayStation Crossiron Mills Casino. In response, Epic sued Apple and Google. No account? Instant Win Gaming Limited deepens Kraken Account Hampshire Lottery partnership Adam Morgan. Minecraft Earth only has a few months left SVG 5-Jan Ubisoft needs to shake up its games, not just its leadership PC Invasion 5-Jan We cover important industry events and changes from American tribal gaming and the Caribbean to India and Macau.
It became a quarantine sensation, playing a pivotal role in an Indian home due to the game's long history and its evergreen nature.
One of the big events that impacted Indian gamers was the ban of PUBG. The app was banned under Section 69A of IT Act.
PUBG mobile's parent PUBG Corporation has now severed its ties with Tencent and is trying to make a comeback in a new avatar, but is yet to get the green light.
Historically an "under-financed" sector in India saw a coming-of-age year in We saw the entry of RIL with Jio making an undisclosed Series A investment in AR gaming startup Krikey.
We even saw India's first gaming-focused VC fund, Lumikai that will back 20 early-stage companies. Nintendo acquires Next Level Games The Luigi's Mansion developer will become a wholly owned subsidiary of the platform holder in March By Marie Dealessandri Yesterday.
So long, , and thanks for all the fish food Creature Comforts We're off until the new year, but figured our readers could use one more gallery of developer pet pictures before we go By Brendan Sinclair 13 days ago.
Pre-orders open on January 12 twitter. Google employees announce union open to all Alphabet workers Over Google employees have formed a union after over a year of behind-the-scenes organization By Rebekah Valentine 2 days ago.
Football Manager fastest in franchise history to move 1m copies Simulation game launched in November had more than , active players last week twitter.
Epic Games acquires shopping mall for new headquarters The company will transform the ,square-foot and acre Cary Towne Center into its new campus by By Marie Dealessandri 2 days ago.
Koei Tecmo's sites offline following cyber attack The email addresses, account names, and passwords of 65, users have been compromised By Marie Dealessandri 2 days ago.
Apple removes 39, games from China store in biggest single-day takedown Assassin's Creed Identity and NBA 2K20 caught up in mobile company's purge of unlicensed games By James Batchelor 2 days ago.
How to map social media to your marketing funnel Phoenix Labs' RuthAnne Berry talks about using social media to meet your game's goals By RuthAnne Berry 2 days ago.
Our coverage here will inform readers about everything from employment and job fairs to major moves being anticipated by the big industry players.
Reporting on sweeping regulatory changes as well as the oft-times more nuanced fluidity of case law and legal interpretations of existing laws are some of the items we cover in this section.
Industry participants will find pre-show and post-show coverage of some of the most important conferences and tradeshows in the gambling world, whether land-based or iGaming in nature or both.
Thought leaders and those looking to increase their knowledge of current trends in the global gaming industry may wish to visit our Calendars of Gaming and iGaming Conferences and Seminars for important details on summits ranging from G2E Global Gaming Expo and ICE to roundtables focused on sportsbetting.
We cover important industry events and changes from American tribal gaming and the Caribbean to India and Macau. If it affects the industry, for professionals or players, you'll find the story here.
Gaming Industry News International gaming industry news: conferences, regulation, laws, employment and major gaming company moves. Home Gaming Industry News.
BBC Sounds podcast Press X To Continue chooses its best and worst of gaming in For some young protesters in Hong Kong online gaming tactics have mirrored real life activism.
The unprecedented move comes as players say the game is riddled with bugs and glitches. It was meant to be the biggest game of - but it's been pulled from stores and players refunded.
Games giant Electronic Arts is set to acquire the British game-maker, beating an earlier rival offer. Players are reporting performance issues and the game crashing on PS4 and Xbox One.
Electric Gamebox lets small groups play video games projected on the walls of easy-to-clean rooms. Nintendo gives update on Luigi's Mansion 3 studio Digital Spy 5-Jan Nintendo Acquires Studio Behind Luigi's Mansion 3, Super Mario Strikers DBLTAP 5-Jan Patty Jenkins Reveals "Internal War" With Warner Bros.
Over Wonder Woman GameSpot 5-Jan Cyberpunk Mod Allows Male V To Romance Judy Fully Voiced, CDPR Says It's Not Cut Content GameInformer 5-Jan Minecraft Earth Is Ending In June After Less Than Two Years UploadVR 5-Jan Brazilian League of Legends Personality Accused of Sexual Assault The Esport Observer 5-Jan Cyberpunk Mod Allows Male Vs To Romance Fully-Voiced Judy, CDPR Says It's Not Cut Content GameInformer 5-Jan Minecraft Earth is shutting down in June Shacknews 5-Jan Nioh 2 developer may have several new games in the works SVG 5-Jan Minecraft Earth Is Being Shut Down This June Twinfinite 5-Jan BC video game development company acquired by Nintendo Daily Hive 5-Jan Project Wunderwaffe Wants You To Help The Nazis Win WWII TechRaptor 5-Jan Hunt: Showdown and Crysis developer might have a new game on the way SVG 5-Jan The Witcher Season 2 Says Goodbye to Original Roach Comic Book 5-Jan Cyberpunk Bunnyhopping Is Faster Than Any Car You Can Find GameSpot 5-Jan Minecraft Earth Shutting Down, Citing Coronavirus Pandemic GameSpot 5-Jan Minecraft Earth Is Ending In June UploadVR 5-Jan Pathologic studio's new game is an 'emotional' adventure about life in post-Soviet Russia PC Gamer 5-Jan Gaming Industry News NewsNow aims to be the world's most accurate and comprehensive aggregator of gaming industry news, covering the latest developments, publishers, studios, analysis and more from the best online news publications.
Relevance is automatically assessed so some headlines not qualifying as gaming industry news might appear - please feel free to contact us regarding any persistent issues.
UK Top Stories. WikiLeaks' Julian Assange denied bail in UK after avoiding extradition CGTN Julian Assange WikiLeaks US. Sega announces Game Gear Micro in Japan.
Blizzcon has been canceled. Gaming News - Latest News in Gaming Industry Gamecrate. Listen to the Persona soundtracks on Spotify now.


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Google recently unveiled its newest smartphone, the Nexus 6, and it's the company's largest phone yet. It comes with a massive display that's even larger than the iPhone 6 Plus'.
But the Nexus 6 isn't just Google's biggest phone; in fact, it marks a few important firsts for the Nexus line. It's the only Nexus phone that will be released widely across all major US carriers rather than just the Google Play Store.
The Nexus 6 will be available next month, and here's a look at what to expect.
Here's what the box for the Nexus 6 looks like.
The box is sealed shut with two red stickers that tell you which configuration you bought.


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Thu, 5 Dec 2013
Recent lawsuit raises questions about a company providing its own products and services to its own employees in its own qualified retirement plans.
The search giant's first-quarter results underscored the fact that even with Android's explosive growth, Google's bread and butter remains its still-fast-growing advertising business, says Morningstar's Rick Summer.
Morningstar markets editor Jeremy Glaser digs into Microsoft's weak quarter, Google's unwelcome surprises, and brick-and-mortar retailers' continuing battle against their cyber rivals.
Cliffs plus ceilings, the Fed plus tightening, and Google plus regulators are just some of the pairings that caught investors' interest this week.
Companies that have solid intellectual property and very strong portfolios around software will continue to drive earnings growth and are good long-term holdings, says Morningstar's Grady Burkett.
Morningstar markets editor Jeremy Glaser sizes up the investment impact of recent court judgments and corporate judgments calls.
Morningstar's Brian Colello sees plenty of big, sharp TVs but no iPhone killers at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Cyclical and economic concerns have hampered the tech sector but are also creating potential buying opportunities in large- and mid-cap names, according to Morningstar's Grady Burkett.
Morningstar's Rick Summer sees Facebook and Google dominating the Internet advertising market as Facebook finds better ways to monetize its massive user base.
©2012 Morningstar Advisor. All right reserved.


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Hushpuppi Spends N2.3M On Drinks In Lagos Club
Nigerian big boy based in Malaysia, Hushpuppi is spending the money ‘lau lau’.
The man, who describes himself as a philanthropist and a hard worker, on Sunday spent 2,390,000 Naira; just like that!
He bought 10 drinks, 1 Hennessey XO, 4 Ace Of Spade and 5 Crystal.
He took to his snapchat to showcase his self-acclaimed flamboyancy with a receipt of his spending as proof.
Huspuppi was on the news some time ago over a beef he had with Davido when he called out to Davido over his Omo Baba Olowo status.
He stated that there is a big difference between Baba Olowo (rich man) and Omo Baba Olowo (son of a rich man).
They have since settled their beef with both men showing off receipts of exorbitant spending at various clubs at home and abroad.


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Apple plans to livestream its March 9 event. Credit: Apple
Apple today invited reporters and analysts to an event scheduled for March 9, when it will probably talk up the Apple Watch and perhaps unveil other hardware.
The presentation will be live-streamed.
The venue, San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, has frequently been used by Apple, most recently for the October 2013 unveiling of the iPad Air. Apple may have chosen Yerba Buena for space reasons, as it seats 755, considerably more than the Cupertino, Calif. company's on-campus theater.
As is Apple's practice, the invitation teased the presentation with a coy reference, in this case, "Spring forward."
The phrase tipped the Apple Watch; Sunday, March 8, is the day most of the U.S. changes to Daylight Savings Time. The phrase "Spring forward, Fall back" is an oft-called memory aid for which way to move clocks, watches and other time-keepers when changing from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time or vice versa.
"That's a nice date if it is [about] the Watch," said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research and head of U.S. business for Kantar WorldPanel Comtech, pointing to the "Spring forward" cue.
Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook used the company's earnings call to announce that the Apple Watch would go on sale in April, but revealed no other details. If Apple does highlight the Watch on March 8 and retains the April on-sales window, it would mimic other instances when the company has introduced a product, but delayed the sales date by several weeks to assemble more units and ship them to its warehouses and stores. In the interim, Apple has often taken pre-orders.
Milanesi saw another reason for a delay that revolved around pre-orders. "The Watch is new, so pre-orders would be valuable from a channel perspective," she said. "They might help Apple understand where the demand is and what is the most popular SKU [stock keeping unit], then tweak things before [the Watch] ends up in the stores."
Apple has a habit of kicking off sales on Fridays. April 2 is the first Friday of the month, and about three-and-a-half weeks after the scheduled event.
Cook and other Apple executives will presumably use the presentation to disclose pricing -- they have said the lowest-priced model will list for $349 but haven't talked dollars about the other two lines -- demonstrate more software, including third-party programs; and spell out such things as battery life, recharging time and down-the-road upgrade possibilities, if any.
Milanesi also expected that Apple would take the opportunity to again talk up Apple Pay -- "It's worth taking a moment to talk about its success," Milansesi said -- because of the integration between the electronic payment service, which launched last year, and the Apple Watch.
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