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The G7 has our attention in this Global Roundup edition. It’s turning on Russia with renewed strength to fight cyber-attacks and disinformation emanating from the country. Will they succeed?
To more updates, NFTs sales have sunk to its lowest levels since June 2021 according to a new report from DappRadar. Snapchat has introduced Snapchat+, an exclusive subscription plan starting at $3.99 monthly.
Buyers are aiming for a share of Meta, as the Facebook parent company’s growth numbers drop.
Let’s get to the full updates in Global Roundup for the week:
G7 strengthens defence against Russian cyber-attacks, disinformation
The Group of Seven leaders agreed on Tuesday to strengthen their countries’ defences against foreign disinformation and cyber-attacks, including threats posed by Russia.
With the rapid rise of cyberattacks in the recent months since the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia war, the statement from the G7 leaders is substantial and shows a unified front from leaders from the West and East.
“We also commit to further strengthening our internal security in light of transnational threats including those posed by Russia and other authoritarian regimes,” said the G7 communique at the end of a summit in Germany.
NFTs sales sink to lowest levels in a year
The market for non-fungible tokens — such as artwork of bored apes — has been spiralling downward after sales sank sharply and the prices of popular NFTs plummeted over the last few weeks.
The crypto niche is on course to record its first month with under $1 billion in sales since June 2021, according to data tracker DappRadar. On the world’s biggest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, sales volume has fallen 75 percent since May, and looks set to scrape the lowest levels since July 2021, Dune data shows.
Prices of top-selling NFTs have also slipped. Some Otherdeed NFTs, which were in such high demand at their May launch that they clogged up the Ethereum network, have seen their price floors fall by about 30 per cent in the last 30 days.
Even high-profile acquisitions of NFT platforms — such as eBay’s deal to buy NFT marketplace KnownOrigin and Uniswap Labs’ purchase of NFT marketplace aggregator Genie — and recent events like the NFT.NYC conference and Bored Apes’ ApeFest 2022 in New York, have failed to revive investors’ enthusiasm.
Snapchat introduces exclusive $3.99 monthly subscription
Snapchat has officially launched its paid subscription plan called Snapchat+ that will offer exclusive features like the ability to change the app icon and being able to see which people have rewatched your Stories.
Earlier this month, the firm confirmed that it’s testing this feature, without giving out many details. Now, it has made Snapchat+ official. The new subscription plan will launch in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with more countries to be added soon.
“Today we’re launching Snapchat+, a collection of exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features available in Snapchat for $3.99/month. This subscription will allow us deliver new Snapchat features to some of the most passionate members of our community and allow us to provide prioritised support,” the company said.
Apart from custom app icons and story rewatch count, Snapchat+ will unlock a special badge, the ability to pin a friend as your #1 friend, and the ability to see “the general direction of travel for where friends have moved recently.”
It’s not yet clear how Snapchat plans to differentiate between features released for beta testers as compared to the ones released for subscribers.
Many social media platforms are experimenting with subscription-based services to earn more revenue. Last year, Twitter debuted its Twitter Blue service in Canada and Australia, later expanding it to the U.S. and New Zealand.
Earlier this month, messaging app Telegram also launched a paid premium tier with features like more chat folders and the ability to send larger files (up to 4GB size) on the app.
While Snapchat had stellar growth numbers in Q1 2022, the company expressed concerns about hitting its revenue targets because of the war in Ukraine. In May, the company said that it will miss its revenue goals for Q2 2022.
Meta’s stock gets fresh buyer attention
For years, investors valued Facebook’s parent company as if its growth would never falter. Now that it has, fund managers who buy cheap, out-of-favour stocks are finally getting a chance to own shares of Meta Platforms Inc.
Stock pickers at value firms Dodge & Cox, First Eagle Investment Management and Artisan Partners bought millions of Meta shares this year. Index-tracking investors now will be buying too: After FTSE Russell’s annual overhaul of its equity benchmarks, Meta on Monday joined other former growth darlings Netflix Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. in the firm’s value indexes, which serve as the basis for billions of dollars of passive portfolios.
Meta began to attract bargain hunters after the company announced in February that Facebook’s user growth had stalled, sending the shares plunging. The stock last week reached its cheapest level ever, relative to earnings. For investors who believe the problems at Facebook are temporary, that’s a buying opportunity.
“We own Meta and are very upbeat about it here,” said David Katz, chief investment officer at value firm Matrix Asset Advisors. “You want to find dynamic growth companies at value prices. Meta has a good outlook, but it is being priced as though it’s in a secular decline.”
Value funds look for stocks that are cheap relative to earnings or book value, often because of business setbacks that at least temporarily derail sales growth or profitability. Until recently Meta didn’t fit the bill: The stock traded for an average of 38 times estimated earnings in the first five years after its 2012 initial public offering as more people flocked to Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Shares of the company, which changed its name from Facebook to Meta in October, surged more than 780% from the IPO through the end of last year, handily beating the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100. Revenue rose 23-fold in that time.
However, with user growth stalling, the company has lost half its value this year, trading now at 12 times earnings versus a multiple of 20 for the Nasdaq 100 and 16 for the S&P 500.
That’s the size for the week. Enjoy your weekend.
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Halewood has unveiled a new social media campaign for Vestal Vodka that pokes fun at what it calls its ‘noisy neighbours’ in the category.
The campaign has been launched off the back of Vestal Vodka’s success at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition (SFWSC), where the brand scooped two golds – one for its 2015 vintage, the other for its black cherry flavoured variant. The accolades follow the 2015 vintage being awarded 99/100 at last year’s International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC).
In the new campaign, four ads are being placed across all major social channels, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Each pokes fun at brands that Vestal founder William Borrell claims “do an awful lot of shouting”, but which didn’t win any golds at the SFWSC.
The executions read: ‘Sorry Ciroc, We Rock’, ‘We Cooked The Goose’, ‘Flying Higher Than Skyy’, and ‘More Gold Than Au’.
Borrell said: “Vestal was the original terroir-led vodka – no one can dispute that – but we’ve always been quite modest in our brand marketing. Winning these two medals though, especially post that IWSC score, has emboldened us. We’ve now got a cracking line-up across different vodka categories and it just feels right to shout about them – albeit in a gently humorous way that contrasts with some of the more OTT brand work out there!”

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Raptor Fighter: Digging Deeper into the Silverado-Based Lingenfelter Reaper
You may not find them practical, or particularly pretty, but for many buyers, the desert off road truck is a kind of supercar. Capable of traveling across dirt and sand at speeds that rival highway travel, these desert pickups have long wheel travel and impressively powerful motors. Right now, the Ford F-150 Raptor is the only one of these trucks you can buy from a dealership, but GM tuner Lingenfelter is trying to level the playing field with the Silverado-based “Reaper.” Commonly known as a Corvette tuner, Lingenfelter seems to be interested in any vehicle with a Chevy V8– having tuned vehicles like the CTS-V. Its latest creation has the Ford F-150 Raptor square in its sights, and so we wanted to get more info from President of Operations at Lingenfelter, Mike Copland. PHOTOS: See More of the 2014 Lingenfelter Reaper “The goal was to build an aggressive off road truck at higher speeds,” said Copland, “And frankly, build a competitor to the Raptor but based on a GM truck.” Copland’s team had wanted to build a truck like this since 2012, but the GMT900-generation Silverado was getting near the end of its life. They wanted to wait for the new truck.
The Reaper made its world debut at the National Automobile Dealers Association’s annual meeting in New Orleans, which hardly seems like the ideal location for such a specialized vehicle. But Lingenfelter had their reasons: “Our partner on this project is Southern Comfort Automotive,” said Copland. “They are a GM outfitter, and are in 100-plus GM dealerships.” Getting the distribution network in place was key to take on the Raptor. Following NADA, the Reaper made its more press-centric debut at the recent Chicago Auto Show.
RELATED: Lingenfelter Turns back the Clock on Muscle Cars
Southern Comfort (not the booze) was not a partner from the get-go, and the original plan was to have a stock-looking front end. But when the two companies came together, the decision was to re-do the front body work– something done completely by Southern Comfort. This new front end is more than just an aesthetic choice, as it offers some advantages. “The new front adds 8 additional inches of ground clearance.” said Copland. “The lower bumper is all steel zinc plated and powder coated– so it’s tougher. It features integrated LED off road light strips, which the custom truck buyer will want.”
Buyers also want power, and the Reaper has it in spades. The base setup is a supercharged 5.3-liter V8 that makes 475 horsepower. If, for some reason, that's not enough power, a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 is available making 550 horsepower.
Other upgrades includes a three-inch lift, long-travel Fox racing shocks, 20-inch wheels, General Grabber tires and a performance exhaust system. The Fox Racing shocks are a dual mode system which offers dynamics that are ideal for both on-and-off road driving.
It was all in an effort to take on the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor. The Raptor has been very successful, but Copland knew there would be some off-road buyers who would never own one. “The Raptor is a great truck,” said Copland, “But truck buyers are VERY loyal. Some Chevy buyers would never touch it, so we knew we had to build them an off-road truck.”
VIDEO: The Lingenfelter Collection - Big Muscle
There are other tuner versions of the Ford Raptor, from Roush and Shelby, but Copland argues that those tuner trucks get very expensive. Which begs the question- how much is this brute going to cost? “The Reaper will start in the mid-$50K-range, and go up from there,” said Copland. “For that, you get an exclusive truck, built in low numbers, and with parts like wheels and exhaust that you can’t go out and buy.” Many of the components are exclusive to the Reaper.
According to Copland, the improved off-road dynamics do not detract from the on-road driving– something that might be a concern for some drivers. “[buyers] are going to be surprised by the on road drivability.” said Copland, “It’s really, really close to the production ride, but it can do 60 mph through dirt roads in the desert in California.”
VIDEO: 200 MPH Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 by Lingenfeleter Performance
We also asked about the potential for Lingenfelter to tune the new mid-size Chevy Colorado pickup. His concerns echoed our own: “We have looked at the Colorado, we’re waiting on the price, and seeing what the market does. Historically the mid-size truck market is very small and the buyers are looking for a vehicle for fuel economy.” But Copland says, in spite of the concerns, it would make a great base for an off-road truck.
When asked about any future projects and what’s next for the brand, Mike’s experience at GM revealed itself, “We’re not ready to release any details, or talk about future products just yet,” he said, reiterating the corporate mantra of most auto manufacturers.
Before we concluded, Copland did offer this as guidance for where they expect to go next: “There are a lot more opportunities for us in the off road genre.” We certainly agree.


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GM to halt most massive pickup truck manufacturing because of chip scarcity
Vehicles come off the meeting line at GM’s Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup truck plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana, July 25, 2018.
John Gress | Reuters
DETROIT – Common Motors will halt most U.S. and Mexican manufacturing of its worthwhile full-size pickup vans subsequent week because of the ongoing international scarcity of semiconductor chips.
The Detroit automaker confirmed the manufacturing cuts Wednesday for vegetation in Michigan, Indiana and Mexico that produce the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups.
GM has prevented halting manufacturing of its massive pickups this 12 months because of the components scarcity by means of aggressive provide chain techniques in addition to constructing some automobiles with out the wanted chips to be accomplished later. It additionally has minimize some options that require chips similar to wi-fi telephone chargers.
“The worldwide semiconductor scarcity stays advanced and really fluid, however GM’s international buying and provide chain, engineering and manufacturing groups proceed to seek out artistic options and make strides working with the provision base to attenuate the affect to our highest-demand and capacity-constrained automobiles, together with full-size vans and SUVs for our clients,” the corporate stated in an emailed assertion.
The cuts embody quickly halting manufacturing subsequent week at GM’s Fort Wayne Meeting plant in Indiana and at its meeting plant in Silao, Mexico. Its Flint Meeting plant in Michigan the place heavy-duty vans are constructed, will go down to 1 shift from three shifts as nicely. Full manufacturing on the vegetation is anticipated to renew the week of Aug. 2, GM stated.
The origin of the scarcity dates to early final 12 months when Covid triggered rolling shutdowns of car meeting vegetation. Because the amenities closed, the wafer and chip suppliers diverted the components to different sectors similar to shopper electronics, which weren’t anticipated to be as harm by stay-at-home orders.
The issue is anticipated to value the worldwide automotive business $110 billion in income in 2021, in response to consulting agency AlixPartners.


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Burger and shake fans in the East Bay, rejoice. Shake Shack is opening a location inside of Oakland's Uptown Station development, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
Shake Shack plans to take over part of the ground-level retail space at 1955 Broadway in Oakland's Uptown neighborhood, the Chronicle reported.
The eight-story building where Shake Shack will be located was bought by Uber in 2015 as part of a plan to move their headquarters to Oakland, but the ride hailing company sold the building to an Oakland firm in late 2017.
In late 2018, electronic payment company Square signed a lease with the Oakland firm that bought Uptown Station from Uber, putting plans to develop the building back in motion.
The burger franchise has been expanding into the San Francisco Bay Area since it opened its first location in the region in Palo Alto in late 2018. In May 2019, Shake Shack opened its second Bay Area location in Larkspur.
For the uninitiated, the fast casual restaurant chain offers smash-style burgers, shakes and crinkle-cut fries that are moderately priced.
There are also plans to open a location in San Francisco's Cow Hollow and the Chronicle reported that the company is hiring for that location while it is undergoing a city review.


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ADOTAS – It was only a matter of time before dynamic creative and real-time bidding stopped flirting and finally hopped in the sack. Tumri and AppNexus have got it on to build a “creative plus media bidding” feature for users of AppNexus’ RTB platform.
AppNexus’ integration with Tumri Ensemble will allow ad networks, DSPs and other high-tech media buyers to use dynamic creative and offer optimization at scale — through custom data integration — when buying on the RTB platform.
“The emergence of real-time bidding has created significant market opportunities across the dynamic display and creative optimization space and we believe this is only the beginning of the performance improvements yet to come,” said Tumri CEO Hari Menon. “Clients are vying for increased personalization as well as data targeted advertising — in less time and to a much wider and dispersed audience.”
Menon then grabbed AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley’s hand as they burst into “We’ve Only Just Begun” by The Carpenters.


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“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”— Erich Fromm
In a recent article on mobile monetization and user acquisition, Robert Weber, co-founder of W3i.stated, “The entire user acquisition market is undergoing a sea change that will require mobile developers to re-think how they obtain and monetize their users. This could be the ‘innovate or die’ moment for a lot of developers as
the competition for mobile users continues to heat up.” “
The growing concern for developers today is trying to indeed, make a living off their apps, because it’s just not enough anymore to have an innovative app, even with an initial million downloads. There’s the unanswered question, what next?
In an overly statured app marketplace the cost of
visibility (user acquisition) is on the rise and the marketplace continues to highly reduce the power of brand ingenuity. Getting downloads for your app is still an obvious first step in monetization but what’s leading the current conversation is the overall strategic outlook of an app’s lifespan, focusing on repeat usage and longevity of each install.
In order to make up for the rising costs of new user acquisition, developers should consider the combination of two important avenues for app success– visibility & lifetime value, and monetization.
App Longevity and “Lifetime” Value
“In March 2011, Localytics published research finding that 26% of downloaded apps were only used one time. Fortunately, another 26% of customers used new apps more than 10 times. This contributed to a shift in app marketing away from download metrics to a focus on customer retention and lifetime value”
And in 2012, this shift has stuck. The users are out there but
it’s keeping them engaged that developers need to invests in and approach with a creative fresh approach. Going beyond your app and its features, making people have some kind of emotional connection, before, during and after app usage is all part of the challenge.
Mobile analytics firm, Flurry, states app usage increases daily, while use of mobile web browsing is decreasing (see more). It’s true, users are in fact spending more and more time using apps over their browser again, reinforcing that developers should be putting more worth on marketing the entire user experience, considering an app’s longevity.
Brand Awareness and Identification = Stronger Brand Loyalty
Leading brands are quickly jumping on the mobile bandwagon, using apps to serve their various marketing goals while effectively enhancing customer engagement, strengthening brand awareness and identification and increasing sales.
is currently running mobile campaign, “Game On, World.”, which lets “you compete with yourself, your friends, your community, and the world,” through a mobile app and other Nike related products.
Durex also launched a mobile campaign, Sexmograf, encouraging their users to increase sexual activities and the sharing of their sexual escapades all while simultaneously competing for prizes. This social experience reaped in great reviews and generated many new downloads, social
shares and attracting much media coverage.
These highly interactive mobile experiences focus around brand products and services and act as direct marketing tools.
At Widdit we’re taking initiative and assisting developers increase app usage and awareness by utilizing features that will enrich their apps. The SDK product we’re currently working on is intended to help developers achieve enhanced user experiences and brand loyalty. Stay tuned or email us to get an invite to the private beta email@example.com


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Zelle’s Secret to Successful Immediate Payments Adoption
As Zelle launches its standalone app, it is already very well positioned to be successful in the P2P space. The network dominates access to U.S. bank accounts and is gaining new customers at a speedy pace of 50,000 per day[ 1 ].
One thing that Zelle has done well so far is to create a common experience. I believe this will go a long way to make it successful in further adoption. The Zelle network has access to a broad banking customer base, but the real trick is how to drive adoption and usage to create ubiquity. How do you create the experience that is as familiar and common as exchanging cash (or checks!) between parties?
This is ultimately the goal of real-time, digital, secure P2P payments—and the Zelle experience is leading the way here in partnership with the U.S. banking market. Zelle has created a common experience within the banks’ mobile and online banking applications that will presumably transcend into the Zelle app (at press time, the app has not been released). Zelle has driven a consistent interaction with guidelines and specifications that avoids ambiguity across banks.
Fundamentally, the experience is the same, regardless of your choice of financial institution, which creates a level of ubiquity and ease in the payment experience. It creates the familiarity to make this type of payment more readily accepted. It also helps consumers form habit—and habits create expectation, in this case the expectation of real-time payments between accounts.
The next piece in the puzzle is making consumers aware of this payment option—everyday people, not just payments geeks like me. ACI conducted a survey earlier in the year that indicates 81% of consumers and SMEs are not aware of real-time payments in the U.S. These results indicate there is a need for more education for this payment type to reach broader acceptance. So far, the banks and Zelle have been very successful at this—as evidenced by the high adoption rate mentioned earlier. As more consumers engage in real-time payments through Zelle’s payment experience, it will undoubtedly influence the expectations in businesses to also have this option. I look forward to seeing if the momentum going right now will continue. My bet is a strong YES.
If you’d like to continue the conversation around Zelle and real-time payments, stop by ACI’s booth (#521) at AFP, held in San Diego, October 15-18.
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Banks are already actively on the path to digital transformation, considering new technologies, new customer experiences and new business models. A critical piece of this digital transformation centers on better understanding the wealth of data within the banks’ systems and mining it for improved customer insight. In the New Payments Ecosystem, data is as valuable to the bank and its customers as the deposits held in their accounts, and it should be protected, and leveraged for the benefit of the customer.
Payments and Fraud: The Paradox Twins
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Building Trust in Open Banking with Behavioral Biometrics and Machine Learning
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Hitting Back Against Telco Fraud with Positive Profiling
Fraudulent activity costs telecommunications companies billions of dollars every year – and it hits these telcos in many different forms. According to reports from CFCA (Communications Fraud Control Association), over USD $12 billion is lost annually purely to consumer-based fraud attacks such as subscription fraud and account takeover. These are fast becoming the biggest growth areas for fraudsters in the telco industry.
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Cybersecurity: Risks, Controls and What to Expect in 2019
The world of Cybersecurity has brought about several subtle changes in 2018. For example, malware and targeted 'Spear Phishing' were on the rise, while the focus on protecting the perimeter has begun to take a back seat to hardening internal controls. As we enter 2019, the changing threat landscape is certain to result in a barrage of additional considerations in how we protect data and systems.
‘Soup To Nuts’ – A Multi-Layered Fraud Menu for the Holiday Season
The holiday shopping season is well underway, with Black Friday now behind us and many retailers around the world braced for higher levels of eCommerce fraud, from Cyber Monday all the way though until Christmas.


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Do Nearly Ten Percent of Americans Think Chocolate Milk Comes from Brown Cows?
On December 9, 2018, the Facebook page “Unbelievable facts” shared the following meme, which held that nearly ten percent of Americans genuinely believed that chocolate milk was produced by brown cows:
That article reported that a study had been conducted to reach alarming figures suggesting that a large contingent of Americans are perilously ignorant about the source of flavored milk:
In a study by the Innovation Center of US Dairy, it was found that seven per cent of Americans believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. That works out at about 16.4m people.
These weren’t children either – the research was conducted on 1,000 people over the age of 18.
A whopping 48 per cent of people said they didn’t know where chocolate milk came from.
An article about the claim published one day prior by the Washington Post, “The surprising number of American adults who think chocolate milk comes from brown cows,” noted that the numbers actually came from a small online survey — not a “study” as claimed by the Independent:
Seven percent of all American adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, according to a nationally representative online survey commissioned by the Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy.
If you do the math, that works out to 16.4 million misinformed, milk-drinking people. The equivalent of the population of Pennsylvania (and then some!) does not know that chocolate milk is milk, cocoa and sugar.
But while the survey has attracted snorts and jeers from some corners — “um, guys, [milk] comes from cows — and not just the brown kind,” snarked Food & Wine — the most surprising thing about this figure may actually be that it isn’t higher.
The piece reiterated the initial claim from the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy (a forum “that leverages the collective power of the dairy community to address the changing needs and expectations of consumers through a framework of shared best practices and accountability”) and lamented that the American public is increasingly and critically ignorant about the origins of its food:
One Department of Agriculture study, commissioned in the early ’90s, found that nearly 1 in 5 adults did not know that hamburgers are made from beef. Many more lacked familiarity with basic farming facts, like how big U.S. farms typically are and what food animals eat.
Experts in ag education aren’t convinced that much has changed in the intervening decades.
“At the end of the day, it’s an exposure issue,” said Cecily Upton, co-founder of the nonprofit FoodCorps, which brings agricultural and nutrition education into elementary schools. “Right now, we’re conditioned to think that if you need food, you go to the store. Nothing in our educational framework teaches kids where food comes from before that point.”
A prescient piece published by the New York Times’ Opinionator blog in 2013 discussed what actually constitutes a “study” (hint: not this milk thing).
An editor’s note added to the Washington Post piece also noted that a “previous version of this story incorrectly reported that the survey in question was commissioned by the National Dairy Council” when it “was actually commissioned by the Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy.”
So is the Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy a school, research body, or other organization devoted to collecting impassive data? According to its own website, its mission didn’t appear to be entirely academic in nature:
The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy is a forum that leverages the collective power of the dairy community to address the changing needs and expectations of consumers through a framework of shared best practices and accountability.
In our search for information about the surprising “study” findings, we discovered a relevant article published by Columbia Journalism Review in June 2017. Although it didn’t seem to spread as far as the other articles did and spawned no memes, that outlet assessed the claim far more thoroughly than others:
The chocolate milk question was part of a survey, commissioned by a dairy advocacy group, ostensibly to gauge what Americans know about agriculture and food production. It turns out: not very much. It was a reminder of the importance of knowing where our food comes from, a topic that touches on other relevant issues, like the much-buzzed-about rural-urban divide and the modern economy.
By the following day, NPR had picked up the story, running with a similarly lighthearted take. Those tuning into All Things Considered heard hosts Ari Shapiro and Audie Cornish mix in audio clips from Jean Ragalie-Carr, president of the National Dairy Council:
RAGALIE-CARR: When we asked them, where does chocolate milk come from, they indicated that they thought it came from brown cows.
SHAPIRO: Seven percent of Americans thought that.
CORNISH: Jean Ragalie-Carr is president of the National Dairy Council, which commissioned the survey. She says they put that question to a thousand people and gave them several options for how to answer.
RAGALIE-CARR: Well, there was brown cows or black-and-white cows, or they didn’t know.
As CJR pointed out, the initial coverage failed to point out that the questions posed to those who commissioned the survey were misleading:
How exactly was the question phrased? Were those the only three options – two cow colors or “I don’t know”? And did this mean that even someone who plainly knew that chocolate milk was simply any milk that had been mixed with chocolate and sugar was not given the option of choosing anything resembling the correct response?
CJR’s digging revealed that the purported findings very strongly hinted at what became a successful bid for free press coverage, not a genuine attempt to gauge Americans’ knowledge of dairy distribution and bovine facts:
Like so many stories, it seems this one was originally hatched as a PR pitch. An advocacy organization, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, commissioned the survey via a marketing firm, Edelman Intelligence, to kick off a campaign called Undeniably Dairy. A spokesperson for the Innovation Center told me the purpose of the survey was to “gauge some interesting and fun facts about consumers’ perceptions of dairy,” and the chocolate milk stat was apparently a winner. (She declined to respond to my queries about the wording of the questions, and said the full results of the survey were not intended to be published.) Food & Wine magazine was the first to bite, on June 1 (World Milk Day), but the ball didn’t really get rolling until the Post jumped in two weeks later.
CJR appeared to stand alone in basic questioning of a claim that was carried far and wide, oftentimes billed as a “study.” The meme above with the claim that “nearly ten percent” of American adults (actually seven percent of survey respondents, a number rounded up by a more-than-healthy margin) believed chocolate milk came from brown cows demonstrated how careless reporting encouraged that factoid to make its way to meme form, still circulating widely a year and a half later in December 2018. It doesn’t even appear anyone attempted to resolve fact that many people make chocolate milk at home from powder or syrup — and plain white milk.
In the end, the evidence to support of the claim that millions of Americans credited brown cows for their chocolate milk was already extremely thin. We contacted the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy to reiterate questions initially unanswered during their first run of media mentions, but have not yet received a response.


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Swype users can type words by dragging a stylus over the letters Nokia has released a beta version of the Swype typing tool designed for the Symbian smartphone platform. Swype is billed as one of...
Your questions on supporting remote and home working answered
The NHSX contact tracing app is currently being trialled on the Isle of Wight, but has the government picked the best approach for privacy and effectiveness?
China has built a new spacecraft able to carry six astronauts to space
Join us for the first part of our virtual event series
/e/OS is a 'de-Googled' fork of Android with trackers removed


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Swiss lingerie and nightwear brand Hanro has appointed a new head of product management and design.
Petra Tassaddikari joins the company from Wolford, where she worked for almost 15 years as senior product manager for bodywear, ready-to-wear and accessories.
Prior to that, she was product manager at Falke and Aigner.
Tassaddikari will assume her new role this month, replacing Heike Dückers, who had been in charge of design since 2008.
She will report directly to Hanro CEO Stephan Hohmann.


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JoyRide Cycling + Fitness Studio, the top boutique studio for premier indoor cycling and cross-training fitness classes in Connecticut and Texas, announced today, in partnership with The Corbin District, the launch of an outdoor cycling pop-up in downtown Darien. This pop-up opens on Wednesday, July 22, and runs through early fall.
Nestled behind the stores on the Boston Post Road, and across from The Darien Playhouse Building, a large 60’ x 90’ tent has been installed and will be filled with 30+ custom Stages indoor cycles, spaced 6-feet apart. Silent headphone technology will be used to offer signature, music-driven JoyRide cycling classes, without disturbing local businesses. The entrance for this pop-up is the driveway between Helen Ainson and Cold Play Cryotherapy (1073-1082 Post Road, Darien).
Parking is available adjacent to the tent. “JoyRide is grateful to the team at The Corbin District for helping us to launch this exciting new pop-up. It will provide a great and safe way for members of Fairfield County to stay fit, healthy, and socially-connected during this challenging time,“ said JoyRide co-founder and chief brand officer, Amy Hochhauser, who founded JoyRide with Rhodie Lorenz, both Westport residents, more than nine years ago. Classes will run seven days a week, led by popular JoyRide instructors including Mo, Dina, Rhodie, Mackenzie, David and Lukie.
Masks must be worn while entering and exiting the tent, and may be removed during class only. As with JoyRide’s indoor studios, their Gold Standard Safety Protocols will be strictly enforced. Details can be found on their website: JoyRide Safety Protocols. This includes no fans during the ride, and all riders must bring their own water and a towel, if needed. “As a small business trying to make the best of this challenging time, we are so fortunate to work with The Corbin District to continue to spread JOY to the Darien community and beyond,” said Becky Cerroni, JoyRide’s CEO.
To accommodate this pop-up, the indoor JoyRide studio in Darien’s Goodwives Shopping Center will be temporarily closed. Regular JoyRide class credits and memberships can be used to book outdoor classes via the Darien schedule on their website, joyridestudio.com.
There will be an additional required $3 headphone rental fee per class that can be purchased as an add-on, along with water, directly from the JoyRide App (available at JoyRide Cycling + Fitness in the App Store). Cycling shoes will not be available for rent; all bikes will accommodate both clips and sneakers. “We look forward to reuniting with current JoyRiders, as well as welcoming new members of the Darien community and surrounding towns, to the JoyFamily.
Our motto has always been: We are stronger together,” said Lorenz, JoyRide co-founder and creative director. Since it launched in 2011, JoyRide has opened three studios in Fairfield County and two in San Antonio, and has seen an explosion in popularity -- and more than 56,000 unique customers -- thanks to high-end, interval-based classes led by talented instructors and studios with positive, inclusive and authentic vibes.
The co-founders have always emphasized that every age, fitness level, and body type is embraced and empowered, as well as offering charity rides for philanthropies and needs affecting their community. JoyRide has just been awarded Moffly Media’s highest honor, Best of the Gold Coast for Indoor Cycling in 2020.


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Mark your calendars for June 9-11, 2017 for the 24th Anniversary North American Sand Soccer Championships. Sign up for sand soccer e-news at www.sandsoccer.com. Applications for 2017 teams are expected to open online December 1st.
We now accept credit card payments for team applications, vendor and sponsorship fees.
In an effort to "GO GREEN" we no longer print or mail any hard copy applications, so go to our website and apply today!
Make sure your team is part of this exciting event in June by completing the Application process early! Deadline is March 15th for the Pro Division, and April 15 for all other divisions -- or sooner as divisions fill.


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State Department eases coronavirus bottleneck for foreign farmworkers [Los Angeles Times]
The U.S. State Department moved Thursday to ease a bottleneck caused by coronavirus precautions and allow more foreign agricultural guest workers to cross from Mexico to work fields in California and other states. The emergency measures helped allay fears of a labor shortage just as the harvest of major produce crops gets underway in California … Most foreign applicants no longer will need an in-person interview to obtain the H-2A agricultural guest worker permits, under the new rules announced Thursday.
Workers critical to world’s food supply are starting to fall ill [Bloomberg]
… The infections speak to a growing threat to the world’s food supplies. Massive operations where workers pick berries together, cut meat side-by-side on a production line or load warehouse trucks in sometimes close proximity risk slowing down. … “If we can’t flatten the curve, then that is going to affect farmers and farm laborers — and then we have to make choices about which crops we harvest and which ones we don’t,” said Al Stehly, who operates a farm-management business in California’s North San Diego County.
COVID-19: Looking for help for specialized crops in Monterey County [Monterey Herald]
Congress has urged federal officials to provide greater assistance to farmers producing specialized crops amid the coronavirus pandemic, potentially impacting Monterey County farmers set to harvest leafy greens, fruit and flowers. … Specifically, the congressional request includes asking the USDA to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables for federal nutrition programs and supplementing dollars from customers unable to fulfill crop purchases due to the crisis. … Monterey County Farm Bureau President Norm Groot said farmers are not seeing losses yet but added “there’s a general concern letting farmworkers know they can still report to work. Farmworkers are essential.”
California’s flower industry gutted from coronavirus as local farms wilt under financial losses [KSBY TV, San Luis Obispo]
… COVID-19 is wilting flower farms and businesses. From canceled events to lack of demand, a number of farms are a petal away from penniless. … A number of farms are multi-generational trying to survive. Crops for Mother’s Day and graduation are already in the ground ready to bloom. … For Ocean Breeze Farms in Nipomo, growers produce about 200,000 stems each week. Sales have cratered up to 95 percent in a matter of days. … There is hope. The love-me, love-me not turns to the grocery stores.
As renewable fuel demand collapses, Pacific Ethanol makes alcohol, hand sanitizer [Sacramento Business Journal]
Sacramento renewable fuel company Pacific Ethanol Inc. has seen demand for its fuel product collapse, but it’s putting its manufacturing facilities to use to make high-quality alcohol and hand sanitizer. … Pacific Ethanol is idling excess production capacity in response to the “unprecedented decline in gasoline and ethanol demand due to the impacts of the coronavirus,” CEO Neil Koehler said in a news release. He added that the company is shipping significant volumes of high-quality alcohol from its Pekin, Illinois, manufacturing plant for the production of hand sanitizers.
Sonoma County grape growers battling to protect vineyards from frost [Santa Rosa Press Democrat]
With overnight temperatures dropping toward freezing and beyond several days this week, it’s been a stressful time for vineyard operators in areas of Sonoma County, with many out in the dark trying to save their crops on back-to-back nights. … “We get frost this time every year, so we’re usually prepared for it,” said Jeff Carlton, president of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau and vineyard manager at Dutton Ranch. … “Like now, we’ve got a lot of clouds hanging around out there,” Sebastopol grower Domenic Carinalli said Thursday. “That all helps. We just gotta see how it plays out.”
Opinion: Farmer: Proposed changes to Proposition 13 could devastate family farms [Visalia Times Delta]
As a third-generation family farmer who supports and defends farming at every turn, I’m stunned that a measure headed for the November statewide ballot could result in the further disappearance of farms and farmland. … While the proponents of the measure claim it will only raise property taxes for commercial and industrial properties, the reality is that the measure is an attack on farms, the fresh fruit, vegetables and dairy products we produce and will ultimately translate to more expensive grocery bills for California families.


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Written by Paige McCartney, The Nassau Guardian, December 23rd, 2022
Businesses were cautioned yesterday to ensure their systems are ready for the switch to ten percent value-added tax (VAT) next week.
The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) and the Department of Inland Revenue held a VAT reduction information seminar yesterday to clarify some of the changes to the business community.
Parliament passed the VAT Amendment Bill, 2021 last month, mandating January 1 as the start for the new ten percent charge.
Although businesses are being given a 90-day grace period to relabel and update product pricing, the Ministry of Finance stressed yesterday that no business should charge 12 percent after January 1.
“To charge VAT at a rate higher than the rate in the law is akin to charging VAT without authorization. The penalties are very severe,” Financial Secretary Simon Wilson said.
“So obviously there are fines I think up to $500,000, you could lose your business license, your ability to operate. The penalties are there. That’s akin to stealing. So we take that to be a very, very serious breach. The rate is the rate that has to be adhered to.”
Asked by a business owner whether systems should be updated on January 1, or whether the 90-day grace period allows for more time for businesses to get ready, Acting Comptroller of the Department of Inland Revenue Shunda Strachan said, “Your systems should be in place, the grace period was really only for pricing. But your systems should be in place, I would think that you want that in place.”
Wilson added, “The 90-day grace period is only to allow businesses that have to individually price goods on the shelf, a period to change prices because they are on a VAT-inclusive basis for most businesses.”
Another business owner asked whether the government would in the future consider allowing for the labeling of prices on items without the VAT price included, similar to the United States and Canada, so as to avoid the “significant” cost associated with changing labels associated with VAT rate changes.
Wilson said, “Well, the US has sales tax, which is a lot different from VAT. The policy decision that was made when VAT was implemented, with the support of the business community, was that we would go to a VAT-inclusive model. I don’t know that that has changed in the last six years, to move to a VAT-exclusive model. But VAT inclusive was the best way to deal with VAT on the retail level for consumers.”
Another issue raised was invoices that were paid in full in 2021, with services continuing into 2022 – for example in the case of construction or building services. In that instance, the Ministry of Finance stated that businesses would have to charge 12 percent VAT for the services rendered in 2021 and ten percent on all completed work in 2022.
“So that’s work in progress. You have two different things happening here, number one, VAT is paid on the actual revenue earned for the work actually done,” Financial Secretary Simon Wilson said.
“So on December 31, you make an assessment of the work that has been done and VAT on that would be 12 percent up to December 31. And then any work done after January 1 will be assessed at ten percent. You must do your own internal calculations to determine which percentage must be returned to the customer of the VAT that you collect, which would be in essence overpayment. And this covers all construction services the same way.”
Wilson said in other instances businesses and companies have the options of either refunding excess payments or offering credits to clients.
The Department of Inland Revenue also noted that the VAT flat rate will now be 6.5 percent. The flat rate is the rate businesses making $400,00 or less in revenue pay to the comptroller when they are filing VAT returns.
Read the article here: https://thenassauguardian.com/businesses-urged-to-have-systems-ready-for-vat-switch-to-10/


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India: 3 claimed their lives in a flare-up at firecracker shop in Chhattisgarh’s Kondagaon
Three individuals, including the shop owner, were burned to death in a fire at a firecracker shop in Kondagaon region of Chhattisgarh, policemen said on Monday.
The mishap took place in grocer Kashi Sen’s shop in Makdi village late on Sunday midnight.
Policemen said that Sen ran a grocery shop near Bazaar Chowk in the community and also sold firecrackers from there through Diwali celebration as he had a permit.
Sen sold firecrackers to the villagers on Sunday on Diwali and his two friends – Balram Netam and Shivlal Shrimali – leaned in to help him in controlling the crowd at the store.
The three continued inside the shop after pulling the shutters and the firecrackers stored there took fire at around 11.30 pm, police responded.
An official spoke police hurried to the spot and that the flames were splashed with the aid of locals.
The flames, nevertheless, gutted the whole store and the three men died on the scene.
A unit of specialists from a forensic science laboratory attended the site on Monday morning to determine the specific cause of the fire.


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Thank CTOnews.com netizens Cainiao N for the clue delivery! CTOnews.com, December 12 news, recently, the Deepin Wine team of Universe Software announced the successful migration of two applications for data synchronization between mobile and desktop, iTunes and vivo, to facilitate the efficient cooperation and interconnection between Uni-Credit UOS and other platforms.
Tongxin Software said that at present, there are official data synchronization applications and third-party mobile assistant software developed by some mobile phone manufacturers on the market, but they have not yet spread to the Linux application ecology. This time, the Deepin Wine team migrates two applications that are synchronized between the desktop and the mobile, enabling Tongxin UOS application ecology, and users can use Tongxin UOS to manage their iPhone or Android phones.
The goal of iTunesiTunes is to provide users with a comprehensive media management and playback platform, which can manage and play digital music and video, and synchronize and manage iOS devices such as iPhone and iPad. This time Deepin Wine migrates most of the main functions of iTunes, such as music playback, management devices, synchronization and restore functions.
Through the Wine version of iTunes, users can manage music, video, Podcast and other streaming media content in iOS devices in Tongxin UOS, and can back up the data in iPhone and iPad to Unixin UOS, or synchronize data from Tongxin UOS to iOS devices.
Vivo is an efficient file transfer tool specially built by vivo for users, which can achieve zero-flow data sharing without any network connection.
Install mutual transmission on Android mobile phone and Tongxin UOS, open mutual transmission application together, and scan the QR code of mutual transmission application on Tongxin UOS with mobile phone to connect mobile phone and Tongxin UOS.
At the same time, the pictures, videos, music, documents and application data in the mobile phone can be managed through mutual transmission, and the files in UOS can also be sent to the mobile phone.
Data transmission through mutual transmission does not need to consume traffic, and does not need external WiFi, but also can set up groups for many-to-many mutual transfer of files, the fastest transmission speed is 6m / s.
In addition to sharing files and backup materials, we can also carry out multi-screen interaction through mutual transmission to share the mobile phone screen to the Tongxin UOS desktop to achieve cooperation and sharing among multiple devices.
2023 operating system Industry Conference and Tongxin UOS Ecological Conference is scheduled for December 20, which is expected to bring more ecological adaptation content of Tongxin UOS, and CTOnews.com will follow up the follow-up news.
Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.
According to CTOnews.com on December 8, the PC version of "Need for Speed 22: unruly" went on sale on December 2, with the standard edition costing 248yuan. Now, sapphire, a maker of graphics cards, has released frame rate data for its AMD graphics cards to run the game. one hundred and eight
How to evaluate the current folding screen mobile phone market? Huawei and "others" are the default answers in many people's minds, especially with the release of Huawei Mate X3, Huawei's flagship new generation of folding screens, Huawei has further strengthened its technological research and innovation in the folding screen market. Therefore, in the hearts of more and more users
CTOnews.com March 26, according to Jiangsu News, the semiconductor industry intellectual property operation center, the first materialized intellectual property operation platform in the semiconductor field, was launched in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. The intellectual property operation center of the semiconductor industry is located in Wuxi.
September 21, according to foreign media reports, Spotify said on Tuesday that it has launched audiobook service in the United States, a move to compete with Amazon's Audible. According to Spotify, users can browse the directory on Spotify App and


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Ferrari million dollar concept cars Net Worth is .Ferrari million dollar concept cars ...
Ferrari million dollar concept cars Latest News
Giugiaro has penned the design of cars for Alfa Romeo, Lamborghini, Ferrari, BMW ... this one-off Maserati will fetch at least a couple of million dollars when it goes up on auction. Unlike most concept cars, the Maserati Boomerang is a fully-functional ...
Posted: June 17, 2015, 9:05 am
But that’s exactly what makes the spectacle so enthralling to the petrosexual. Check it out as Tom Price and his multi million dollar Ferrari 250 GTO goes hammer and tong with the ultra rare 1959 C1 Corvette racer at the hands of Ron Cressey.
Posted: September 6, 2016, 11:22 am
"When you're talking about these types of people, a million-dollar ... Ferrari FXX. (There are only 30 of those, whereas thousands of Californias are made every year.) Every time a brand's race car wins a Formula 1 event, or a newly unveiled concept ...
Posted: April 8, 2015, 6:34 pm
“When you’re talking about these types of people, a million-dollar ... Ferrari FXX. (There are only 30 of those, whereas thousands of Californias are made every year.) Every time a brand’s race car wins a Formula 1 event, or a newly unveiled concept ...
Posted: April 9, 2015, 4:32 am
This year we could see more than that number of cars sold for more than $10 million ... future. Worth reading the full story on the auction page. Unveiled at the 1964 Geneva Auto Salon, the 500 Superfast was the last in a series of ultra-exclusive Ferrari ...
Posted: August 11, 2015, 3:11 am


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Achieving carbon neutrality will soon become the new norm as companies commit to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. What’s involved in reaching that milestone within a narrower, more demanding timeframe is of considerable interest.
Food group Danone is ahead of most and announced on Wednesday that its facility in Wexford is the first baby-formula production site in the world to be certified carbon neutral by the Carbon Trust, an independent climate change and sustainability consultancy.
The French-owned multinational employs 350 people at the plant manufacturing baby formula including the Aptamil, Cow & Gate and Nutrilon brands for consumers in 41 countries.
The actions it took to achieve carbon neutrality include sourcing 100 per cent renewable electricity and using a biomass boiler powered by sustainable wood fuels. This has cut CO2 by 10,000 tonnes since 2010, a 70 per cent reduction in its carbon footprint. Remaining direct carbon emissions are offset and certified.
All waste from production or packaging is recovered with nothing going to landfill. It uses digital technologies to enhance efficiencies and sustainability performance, notably becoming a paperless site and using drones to monitor inventory.
It also supports “regenerative agriculture practices” through Origin Green, Bord Bia’s sustainability programme.
The company has reached the peak of its full scope carbon emissions five years ahead of schedule while a €2 billion climate acceleration plan is due to transform its agriculture, energy and operations, packaging and digital capabilities between 2020 and 2022.
Danone is also seeking to reduce the climate impact of its other baby formula production site in Macroom, Co Cork, which relies on natural gas for energy needs.
And, since last year, it is showing a carbon-adjusted recurring earnings per share that takes into account the estimated financial cost of absolute greenhouse gas emissions on its entire value chain – regarded as a transparent indicator on the path to decarbonisation.


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Banc of America Securities cut the target price on Western Digital to $7 from $9, saying it sees "no reason to be bullish on any of the drive stocks."
Banc of America said the company's fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $749 million beat its estimate by $50 million but earnings per share of 14 cents met the firm's view. The research firm said that although unit shipments were 7% greater than expected, "aggressive pricing caused gross margin to come in 250 basis points below out forecast."
Banc of America said, "Western Digital has the best-cost structure in the face of industry struggling to find ways to make money. We don't see an end to pricing issues, and therefore believe Western Digital's margins will continue to face pressure."
Banc of America rates Western Digital peers Seagate Technology and Maxtorboth at "neutral" with respective price targets of $12 and $4.70. In fact, in its enterprise hardware coverage, Banc of America's least favorite is Seagate. The firm's top pick is Dell, rated at "buy" with a price target of $40.


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Last week was a blessing for the Salvation Army Plymouth Corps when it received a large donation from Walmart on Ford Road in Canton.
Walmart donated two pallets full of school supplies, plus they gave an additional grant to spend in the store on items the Plymouth Corps needed for other programs.
In addition, Walmart helped fill another grant the Salvation Army received from Community Financial Credit Union to purchase new coats for children this winter. Plymouth Coprps staff spent all Friday morning and part of the afternoon shopping at Walmart.
Everything is boxed and bagged up, but the Salvation Army is looking for assistance with sorting it all through. For more information, contact Volunteer and Special Events Coordinator Sandy Kollinger at 734-453-5464 or visit the Plymouth Corps online at www.misalplymouth.org.


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The 2013 Mitsubishi Outlander has released the first image and official details at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, and it will also be the brand’s first mass-produced plug-in hybrid.
In Europe, the 2013 Outlander will get both petrol and diesel variants for either the two-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive variants. The gasoline engine will be a 2.0 liter inline 4-cylinder, and the diesel will be a 2.2 liter 4-cylinder turbo MIVEC engine. Depending on which market the car is sold in, a start-stop system and a new six-speed automatic transmission will be part of the package.
Mitsubishi released vague technical details about it, saying only that it is targeting a range of almost 500 miles, and very low CO2 emissions at over 800 km (500 miles) and a target of below 50 g/km, respectively.
The 2012 Mitsubishi Outlander will debut in Russia before spreading throughout Europe towards the end of Summer. Followed by Europe in late summer, Japan, Oceania, China and North America.


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LinkedIn launched several mobile features Wednesday aimed at making the company a bigger part of members’ communications.
A new service called “Intro” shows iPhone users the LinkedIn profiles of people who have sent them email. Without leaving the regular iPhone email app, the recipient of an email can see the sender’s name, LinkedIn profile picture, workplace and title. The recipient can also click to see more about the sender’s career, and how they are connected on LinkedIn by other users.
LinkedIn said members who want the service can sign up for it free on their iPhones immediately. LinkedIn members who don’t sign up will still automatically have their public profiles shown to people who use the service.
A LinkedIn spokeswoman said LinkedIn members cannot opt out of having their profiles included in the service, but said only their public profiles are displayed.
“This answers the question, ‘Who is this?’ and addresses spam,” said Deep Nishar, senior vice president of LinkedIn’s product and user experience.
The functionality was originally built to work with Gmail by a startup called Rapportive. LinkedIn bought the company a year and a half ago.
LinkedIn on Wednesday also introduced a new iPad app, available for free, with a refreshed design and new gesture functionality that lets users slide to add a fellow user as a connection or to see more about a content post. LinkedIn iPad app users can also now search for jobs. (A LinkedIn executive slyly suggested that’s just in case users get fed up at work and take their tablets to lunch. It’s not a far-fetched notion: More than 30 percent of LinkedIn job views come from mobile and half of members who’ve applied via mobile for jobs posted on LinkedIn have never applied from their desktop, the company said.)
Finally, the company also said new integration of its services with the reading app Pulse is coming soon, personalized for users around professional news and topics. The app will pull in articles being shared by members’ LinkedIn connections.
A launch event for the new services came with a hiccup: LinkedIn’s website and apps were uncharacteristically down or very slow for some users Wednesday morning for at least an hour.
With new content and mobile features, LinkedIn is trying to grow its usefulness beyond being a professional online resume and into more of a social and mobile network. The company says its mobile site and app visits have nearly tripled in the past two years.
Here’s a video LinkedIn prepared to demonstrate intro:


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LAREDO (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — Federal agents in South Texas have seized nearly 80,000 bogus-label clothing, electronics and other items at a public storage facility in an estimated $16 million counterfeit cargo bust.
Investigators with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement say the trademark-infringed merchandise was shipped from China to an international cargo terminal in Laredo.READ MORE: Lincoln Riley Leaves OU For USC, Bob Stoops Returning As Interim Head Coach For Bowl Game
Authorities on Monday said no one has been arrested in the investigation of items with fake tags representing Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Adidas, Nike, Apple, Samsung and Sony.READ MORE: 16 Units Damaged In 3-Alarm Apartment Fire In Fort Worth
Agents began surveillance on a storage facility May 17. Not only did officers observe people transferring boxes from the storage unit to vehicles with Mexican license plates, but they also witnesses the arrival of a large box truck loaded with suspected trademark infringed merchandise.
Authorities confiscated 275 boxes that displayed bogus recipients and addresses in Laredo.MORE NEWS: VIDEO: A Candid Conversation With Kristaps Porzingis
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)


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A busy week on the exchange meant that although the absolute value of Bordeaux trade remained flat, the region’s market share fell. Activity from all other regions apart from the Rhone crept up.
The Liv-ex 50 advanced to another new five-year high, closing at 353.11 on Thursday, up 0.4% for the week. Lafite Rothschild 2010 was the top riser, up 3% in the past seven days. Earlier today Liv-ex published a recent blog examining the performance of the Bordeaux 2010 vintage. Many of the wines are now above their release price having initially fallen in the secondary market.
Champagne’s market share was lifted as Louis Roederer Cristal 2009 found the bid in volume. A recent panel tasting reported on by Jancis Robinson gave this wine a score of 18.4/20, the highest out of 8 different pairs of champagnes from the Grand Marques.
Two large parcels from the 2016 vintage were among the top traded wines this week. Both wines have seen slight increases from their ex-negociant release. Lafite 2016’s last trade price is up 6% while Mouton is up 4%.
Neal Martin 2018 released
On Monday Vinous announced that Neal Martin would be joining the publication from February 2018 onwards. He will be covering Bordeaux (along with Galloni), Burgundy (along with Stephen Tanzer), South Africa and New Zealand.


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HTC has responded to reports that its larger rival, Asustek Computer, was interested in taking over the company. Asustek’s chairman, Johnny Shih, had been quoted as saying, ahead of the company’s AGM, that the two companies had held informal talks. However, HTC issued a statement saying it had not made any contact with its rival, and nor would it consider a merger.
The rumours emerged after HTC’s CEO, Cher Wang, warned that the company needed to change the way it operated and “immediately” cut costs, in order to face tough challenges in the smartphone industry. HTC has dramatically cut its financial forecast for the current quarter after the company lost almost one-sixth of its market value on the Taiwan Stock Market. Wang also said that HTC plans to develop new business opportunities, such as virtual-reality headsets.


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Conversational AI is changing the way people interact with technology and Conversational AI Platforms allow for a more human-like, natural experience.
Established in 2016, FinChatBot is an AI-powered chatbot for the financial industry. Recently, the company has secured £1.2 million from Saviu Ventures, a French investment holding company that focuses on African startups. Existing investors including Compass Venture Capital and Kalon Venture Partners also participated in the round. To date, the company has raised $4.3 million (approx £3.2 million ) in funding.
Antoine Paillusseau, FinChatBot co-founder and CEO, “We are grateful for the support of our investors who believe in our vision to become the leader in selling and servicing financial products with the use of conversational AI solutions. By implementing our solutions, financial service providers can double their conversion rates, reduce operational costs by more than 60%, retain customers better, and gather more data about customers which can be used for product innovation and customer retention.”
How will the funding be used?
The company will use the funding to grow its team to 50+ people and to expand into the UK, Europe, and West Africa, with the opening of three offices in France, the UK, and Portugal. FinChatBot is looking out for engineering, sales, customer success, project management, business analysis, and AI expertise.
Key conversation and customer service channels
Founded by Antoine Paillusseau, and Romain Diaz in 2016, FinChatBot enables financial services providers to increase their onsite conversion rate while gathering more information about their potential customers. As per the company’s claims, it’s solutions have become a key conversation and customer service channel for most financial service providers in South Africa.
Currently, it services 20+ top-tier financial service providers including banks and insurers, helping to sell and service financial products with no human intervention.
Benoit Delestre, founder and managing partner, Saviu Ventures, commented: “FinChatBot met our investment criteria as an African B2B business with talented entrepreneurial leadership looking to expand regionally or globally which keeps a good balance between growth and cash burn.”
Clive Butkow, Kalon CEO, said, “We identified FinChatBot as a leader in this new industry, two years ago. We continue to be impressed by FinChatBot’s focus on the financial services industry and its consistent growth which is helping to disrupt a traditionally frustrating customer experience.”
Bastien Maucet, the partner at Compass Capital, highlights that they were attracted to the strength of the leadership team of FinChatBot. “Our belief in team FinChatBot has been proven to be right as it continues to help financial service providers acquire and retain customers whilst reducing operating costs – a very strong customer proposition.”
The post FinChatBot, an AI chatbot platform secures £1.2M funding to expand in the UK appeared first on UKTN (UK Tech News).


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Let me start by saying I'm a fan of generic drugs. They save Americans billions of dollars each year and give us access to wonderful drugs at affordable prices. I've recommended generics in this column many times and use them myself when possible.
But there is a gnawing concern among some doctors and researchers that certain prescription generic drugs may not work as well as their brand-name counterparts. The problem is not pervasive, but it's something consumers should be aware of — especially now that more insurers insist that patients take generic medications when they are available.
Let me also prepare the groundwork for what I hope will be full and frank reader comments, by acknowledging that this issue is controversial.
Joe Graedon, who has been writing about pharmaceuticals for three decades and runs a consumer advocacy Web site, the People's Pharmacy (peoplespharmacy.com), was 100 percent behind generics for many years.
"We were the country's leading generic enthusiasts," he told me recently. But over the last eight or nine years, Mr. Graedon began hearing about "misadventures" from people who read his syndicated newspaper column, also called The People's Pharmacy.
The stories were typically from patients who were switched from a brand name drug to a generic one and had side effects or found that their symptoms returned — or even became worse than before they were medicated. Most recently Mr. Graedon has been hearing complaints on his Web site about generic forms of the antidepressant Wellbutrin XL 300 (known as Budeprion XL 300 in one generic form), the heart medicine Toprol XL (metoprolol succinate) and the antiseizure medicine Keppra (levetiracetam).
"Consumers are told generics are identical to brand name drugs, but that is clearly not always the case," Mr. Graedon said.
Some specialists, particularly cardiologists and neurologists, are concerned about generic formulations of drugs in which a slight variation could have a serious effect on a patient's health. The American Academy of Neurology has a position paper that says, in part, "The A.A.N. opposes generic substitution of anticonvulsant drugs for the treatment of epilepsy without the attending physician's approval."
But insurers tend to argue otherwise. On Thursday, ExpressScripts, which handles drug insurance for big employers, put out a news release announcing results of a study it sponsored that found no difference in hospitalizations or emergency-room visits for people on brand-name epilepsy drugs compared with those taking generics.
The Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, says it stands behind generic medications and its methods for approving them.
"We have not seen any scientific studies that show generics do not hold up as well as brand name drugs," says Gary J. Buehler, director of the agency's office of generic drugs. "We believe the generic drugs we approve work in everyone."
The American Medical Association concurs. A spokeswoman for the group told me in an e-mail message, "the A.M.A. position is that as a whole generic drugs do work as well as name-brand drugs."
Yet, after hundreds of consumers posted messages about problems with the generic drug Budeprion XL 300 on the People's Pharmacy Web site, Mr. Graedon worked with an independent laboratory, ConsumerLab.com, to test the drug, which in other generic versions is typically known as bupropion.
The lab found that Budeprion XL 300 released the active drug at a different rate than the brand name Wellbutrin XL 300. Mr. Graedon and the lab conjecture that the different dissolution rates might be to blame for the reported side effects and lower effectiveness of Budeprion.
But Mr. Buehler at the F.D.A. explained to me that over the course of 24 hours a patient ends up with the same amount of the drug in the bloodstream, so there should be no reason for a variation in effectiveness. "We remain puzzled," he said.
The maker of Budeprion XL 300, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, recently announced that it would conduct a clinical trial comparing its product against the original, Wellbutrin XL.
A Teva spokeswoman said in an e-mail message that the company was working with the F.D.A. on a study "specifically designed to answer the questions raised following the recent anecdotal commentary on generic budeprion."
"We believe the study and the resulting data will provide further scientific support for the product's bioequivalence to the innovator drug," she said.
To parse that statement — or at least understand "bioequivalence" — it is worth taking a step back to consider what a generic drug is and how it gets approved.


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WaterWipes, the World’s purest baby wipe, donates free WaterWipes packs to families of premature and sick babies in NZ.
As part of the partnership with The Little Miracles Trust, WaterWipes packs are being donated to families with premature or sick babies. WaterWipes and the Little Miracles Trust are working together to help raise awareness of the potentially harmful chemicals in other baby wipes. WaterWipes are manufactured by Irish Breeze, an Irish company which has been manufacturing cotton wool and personal hygiene products since 1993.
Irish Breeze spent several years researching and testing, in conjunction with internationally renowned microbiologists and toxicologists, to develop the perfect baby wipe. The result is WaterWipes – a revolutionary new product in the baby wipes market.
Few parents realise that there are chemicals in baby wipes – but they should. It’s their right to know what they’re actually using on their baby. They could be cleaning their baby’s delicate skin up to 20 times a day with wipes containing harsh chemical ingredients. We want to raise awareness of this issue and we’re calling it “The Great Bottom Campaign”.
As part of this campaign, WaterWipes is providing the Trust with a supply of WaterWipes for the Trust to distribute to parents in their NICUs (Neonatal Intensive Care Units). Parents around NZ can help that support by clicking on ‘Like’ on WaterWipes NZ Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/WaterWipesNZ. So tell family and friends to get clicking and help make a difference to our little miracles!
Andrea Hawes, Marketing Manager for the Distributors, reports that sales in the last 4 months have quadrupled due to overwhelming support from Health Professionals and discerning new mums who care for their babies and go out of their way to avoid any type of chemicals on new born skin.
WaterWipes are for sale in over 140 stores including Countdown, selected New World and Pak ‘n’ Save supermarkets, Fresh Choice and Super Value Stores as well as Online.


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Map of Japan and Korea also did not show up.
Among users of Bing Maps in a number of countries, was shocked by the disappearance of the map of the three influential countries in the world, Japan, Korea and Israel from the map application.
The new generation of Samsung smart phone has been released, introducing the new Samsung Galaxy S5, what can you expect? As we have already known that there are lots of features we can expect such as a more durable design and also a more fun experience [...]
One of the best Android smartphone HTC output, One X, is now getting a refresher with some improvement in terms of hardware.
Products named HTC One X+ uses an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core 2nd generation 1.7GHz speeds.
“One X+ equipped with batteries [...]
To promote Windows Phone 8, Microsoft took the actress Jessica Alba and singer Gwen Stefani as their commercials. The two celebrities have been selected for the top stars, their status was also a homemaker.
Ads featuring Windows Phone 8 is a busy celebrity [...]
BlackBerry before giving shocking news to the ready release of BlackBerry Messenger to iOS and Android.
Unfortunately, the destination device is a smartphone.
Quoted from Techradar, Friday (17/5), this means that the BlackBerry Messenger can not be used [...]
AMD re-introduce the newest graphics cards in the Radeon HD 7000 series.
The product this time called the Radeon HD 7790 is for gamers middle class because the price is cheap, which is about $130,99 US dollars.
Although cheap, the graphics card is claimed [...]
Various monitors with lots of different sizes in the market at affordable prices. However, sometimes you are confused in choosing the size of the computer monitor widescreen or standard size.
Here are some comparisons of the size widescreen computer [...]
The name is usually known as a popular browser, Firefox, is now present as the operating system of a smartphone made by Alcatel.
Quoted from Ubergizmo, Monday (2/25), in the event Mobile World Congress 2013 Barcelona, Alcatel introduced a product called [...]
The observations made by Repair Labs under a microscope.
According to a report released by Repair Labs, the quality of the screen which is owned by iPad mini, it is still above iPad second generation.
It is based on the quality of each screen tablet [...]
Eidos Montreal announced a new game genre action adventure titled Thief 4, which is scheduled to be released on the PS4 console, PC and next-gen Xbox.
The game is scheduled to be released in 2014. Thief Game is a reboot of the classic series that brings [...]
Samsung has finally officially introduced the new members in the family of Galaxy Note, the Galaxy Note 8.0.
Quoted from IGN, Monday (2/25), the South Korean manufacturer utilizing the Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona February 25 to 28 to show [...]


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Disney+ and Apple TV+ will complement and not doom Netflix in a fast-expanding streaming TV space, MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson said Friday.
His Jan. 17 research note argued Netflix won’t be replaced by Disney and Apple’s new streamers, at least early on, and should successfully beat back their competitive threat over time.
“The data clearly shows that the 4Q 2019 launches of both Disney+ and Apple TV+ DID NOT immediately inflict significant damage to the streaming market structure. Rather than serving as substitutes, perhaps multiple major SVOD services will serve as complements and augment the penetration of streaming as a whole,” the MoffettNathanson analyst wrote.
The run-up to Disney+ and Apple TV+ launching was preceded by Wall Street forecasts that U.S. consumers would drop Netflix to view content like The Mandalorian and Star Wars movies on Disney+ and pricey original series The Morning Show on Apple TV+. “What we don’t expect is for a wave of Netflix customers to cancel on day one because Apple TV+ has seven dramas or Disney has one great original and is available for a low monthly price of $6.99,” Nathanson argued.
His comments echo other Wall Street watchers who forecast that, despite Apple TV+ and Disney+ launching and other streaming players getting set to compete, Netflix will not greatly bleed subscribers.
“We continue to believe the ‘streaming wars’ narrative is false and there will be multiple winners in global streaming and thus continue to recommend buying Netflix (NFLX), Amazon (AMZN) and Discovery (DIS) together,” BMO Capital Markets entertainment analyst Daniel Salmon argued in a Jan. 15 research note ahead of Netflix releasing its latest financial results on Jan. 21.
If anything, Nathanson says Disney+ and Apple TV+ will need to aggressively compete on content and talent to keep pace with Netflix, especially given both can be had initially as part of free-year promotional offerings.
“Time will tell if customers stay with these services after the free-year offer, but these numbers start to signal that promotions are effective in bringing in a larger customer base immediately after launch in an already saturated marketplace. We would think that both of these new services need to quickly accelerate original spending to limit customer churn once the free promotions wear off,” the analyst said.
More recent streaming arena entrants like Facebook Watch, Apple and Google-owned YouTube are also ramping up investment in originals even as Netflix faces new competition in the form of WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and Comcast’s Peacock.
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The Northeast Farmer’s Market returned Dec. 15, when it moved indoors to East Side Food Co-op at 2551 Central Avenue NE.
The indoor market will be open from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. the second Saturday of every month, and will run through April.
A masseuse, a nonprofit organization, musicians, and crafts highlight the inedible items offered at the winter version of the Farmer’s Market. Honey, jams, baked goods, sweets, apples and ice cream will be available to fill your pantry with organic goods.
“We’ll have people who need their apples from the apple guy, or their honey from the honey guy, but we do get a lot of new traffic from the co-op,” said Sarah Knoss, manager of the Northeast Farmer’s Market.
Knoss also mentioned that they will have fresh vegetarian spring rolls for sale, marking the first time there will be prepared food offered at winter Farmer’s Market.


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Craft beer fans who snagged a ticket to the sold-out Dark Lord Day festival Saturday at Three Floyds Brewing in Munster, Ind., will have a few more transportation options to get to and from the event this year.
For the first time, Uber drivers will be available to pick up Dark Lord Day festival-goers in Northwest Indiana as a preview of the ride-share company's upcoming expansion into the area, which could come as soon as next week, Uber spokeswoman Brooke Anderson said. Until then, Uber will be available Saturday only for Dark Lord Day.
"It's such a big event," Anderson said. "Many of our driver partners will be in the area and available to provide safe rides."
Three Floyds, located in an industrial park 30 miles south of downtown Chicago, is notoriously difficult to get to without a car. The brewery is at least 20 minutes away from the closest public transit rail station, and parking is limited. Dark Lord Day, the only day of the year Three Floyds sells its popular limited-edition, coffee-flavored Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout, could draw 10,000 beer enthusiasts.
Private shuttle service operators told the Tribune they are selling shuttle tickets to the festival faster than previous years as they scramble to figure out if they need to add more service to handle demand. At least one Northwest Indiana cab company is adding 50 percent more vehicles to handle the extra calls.
"The festival just builds every year," said Rick Julien, owner of Chicago Brews Cruise, which is operating three shuttles between Dark Lord Day and The Beer Temple, an Avondale beer store. "People have learned in the past that getting there and back is the rub."
Julien said he's sold more than 175 one-way trip tickets, at $13 a seat, for Dark Lord Day. One morning and one evening shuttle have already sold out. It takes about an hour and 15 minutes to make the trip to Munster from Avondale on the Northwest Side, Julien said.
The officially sanctioned Dark Lord Day shuttle is operated by FestDrive, a group and event transportation company. Andrew Ripani, FestDrive director of event services, said he's sold more than 615 round-trip tickets at $25 a pop. Ripani said he's close to selling out a few of his shuttles, which travel between Three Floyds, at 9750 Indiana Pkwy., and Jaks Tap, a Near West Side bar.
Eat. Watch. Do.
Dark Lord Day tickets cost $40, and for those who opt to take a cab, round-trip transportation may be more expensive than the festival ticket. Paul Coulis, president of Yellow Cab and Limousine of Northwest Indiana, said his company is adding 50 percent more cabs to handle passenger loads. Some riders request to go as far O'Hare International Airport, Coulis said.
Coulis said long lines often prevent pick-up and drop-off directly in front of the brewery. Coulis said sometimes his cab drivers have loaded bicycles in the back of their trunks for transport back to Chicago.
For those who Uber, the ride may be more expensive than usual because of surge pricing, which goes into effect when demand is high for Uber vehicles. Lyft, another ride-share company, does not serve Northwest Indiana, according to its website.
Dark Lord Day runs between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. Some ticket-holders are given a time when they can buy the Dark Lord beer but often the event will turn into an all-day affair as attendees waiting in line swap beers with strangers. Bands are also scheduled to perform.
But anyone who wants to bring a bottle of brew home can't bring it on the South Shore Line, said John Parsons, spokesman for Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District. Glass bottles are not allowed on the South Shore Line but alcohol consumption is allowed, Parsons said. The line's Hammond station is about eight miles from Three Floyds.


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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed NRIs to pay bills on behalf of their families in India through Bharat Bill Pay System (BBPS). This facility will start soon.
Experts say this is a significant development showing RBI’s commitment to standardizing and further optimizing the digital payments ecosystem in India.
“The announcement by RBI to allow NRIs to pay bills for their family members in India directly on BBPS, depicts a further liberalisation measure on cross-border payment transactions front,” said Sudhir Sharma, Senior Partner, DSK Legal.
Instead of transmitting money to Indian accounts and using it to pay such bills, NRIs will soon be able to directly pay such bills on BBPS.
“This will enhance ease and reduce delayed payments, thereby benefitting the economic ecosystem as a whole,” said Sharma.
BBPS is a one-stop financial framework for payment of bills that is interoperable and accessible at any point in time and from anywhere. It has been authorized by the RBI and is the brainchild of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which has been at the forefront of piloting this novel project.
With the latest RBI decision, NRIs will be able to make direct payments of various utilities such as water bills, electricity bills or telecom for their respective families in India via the BBPS platform.
“The BBPS platform will be the facilitator for the payments between the individuals utilizing the service, the service providers and the ones making the payment. Thus, BBPS will be a bridge between the non-resident Indians, their families in India and the service providers, ensuring all stakeholders benefit from the same,” said Suvigya Awasthy, Associate Partner, PSL Advocates & Solicitors.
BBPS has enabled various payment options such as payment via cards (credit or debit), NEFT, UPI or wallets.
“Such diverse payment options will ensure convenience for the non-resident Indians making the payments to the service providers and utilizing various modes of payments as per their financial suitability,” said Awasthy.
To provide a holistic framework, a consumer complaints option has also been provided to provide concurrent support to consumers regarding any grievances apropos BBPS.


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Creative Kailua Painter Moves Into E-merchandise Marketing
By SARAH PACHECO
Windward residents are no strangers to the artwork of Barbara Eberhart. Her original paintings of Hawaiian beachscapes and nature, for example, currently hang on the walls at Kalapawai Café, and a large diptych is behind the front desk at Kailua’s new Gallery 315.
Windward Unity Church also has about two dozen of the Lanikai artist’s paintings as part of its fundraiser.
Her latest exposure comes with the launch last week of a bag line by Eberhart and her daughter, Kasha Cabato.
“I grew up loving my mom’s paintings and wanting to see her unique style expanded to a broader audience,” said Cabato, a graduate of Parsons school for design in New York City. “I love fashion, so after graduating from Parsons, I recognized an opportunity to transform her work outside the fine art industry and into the realm of style.
The mother-daughter duo came up with the idea for a fully lined canvas pouch that can be used as either a fashionable clutch or functional iPad case – aimed at today’s multi-faceted woman-on-the-go. Eberhart’s most popular paintings are printed on both sides of the pouch using a high-quality permanent printing system, while the inside is fully lined with soft quilted cotton.
“Art has always been a strong influence on fashion, and I think the fact that the bags are so directly related to a piece of artwork makes them that much more special and unique,” said Cabato of the bags, which are all made by hand in Hawaii.
“We believe in keeping the manufacturing local, rather than using some big factory overseas,” Eberhart said. “That way, we have more control over the quality of each bag. (But) most importantly, we wanted to offer a product that we are really proud of.”
Barbara Eberhart Bags are available at Fighting Eel and Island Treasures in Kailua, or online at barbaraeberhart.com/bags.html.


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Major film companies are increasingly hardened their venues for movies and serials. It would seem that, Netflix Such competitors must bother: the company lost 20% of its content last year, because NBC Universal And Disney withdrawn licenses for their own services, writes Game Informer. However, in fact Netflix More worried about O Fortnite.
Netflix published a fresh report for shareholders. The company stated that he considers his main competitor Fortnite, but not HBO. The latter releases serial monsters of rolling like “The game of thrones” And “Wild West World”. Furthermore, Netflix Recognizes that quite often inferior Fortnite in battle for user attention.
As Game Informer adds, Netflix has at the moment 139 million subscribers, and Fortnite – 200 million registered users. But if you compare the active audience, the alignment will change: in Fortnite Every month about 80 million people enter, and in NetFlix – 100 million people.
Only in Fortnite, He believes the author of Game Informer, the people are returned to: people are well represented, what “expirers” are waiting for them in the game, whereas in Netflix you can poke into a random film and stay disappointed.


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