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SapientNitro has appointed Chris Hall as the agency’s managing director of the Southeast region. Based in Atlanta, he will report to Alan Wexler, executive vice president and managing director of SapientNitro in North America and Europe.
Hall comes to SapientNitro from BBDO Atlanta where he was CEO for over 14 years. Under his leadership, the BBDO Worldwide Network built strong relationships with clients such as AT&T, Capital One, and ING. Before BBDO, Hall was at JWT for 12 years.
In his new role, Hall will lead SapientNitro’s Atlanta and Miami offices where he will be responsible for strategic oversight and the direction of the business. He will also serve on the agency’s North American leadership team.
Hall said: “I am thrilled to join SapientNitro at a time when connecting with consumers requires a different kind of agency partner. Clients need a partner built to solve the challenges of today and tomorrow. They also need an agency that can help them better understand and engage consumers in a digital, borderless world. I’m excited to join SapientNitro and help write the rules for the next generation of marketing”.
In an often fragmented workplace, where various departments have varying opinions and goals, it can be challenging to get everyone on the same page and make strategy meetings productive.
In part one a few weeks ago, we discussed what brand TLDs (top level domains) are, which brands are applying for them and why they might be important. Today, we’ll take an in-depth look at the potential benefits for brands, and explore the challenges brand TLDs could help solve.
According to a report, references to hashtags appeared in just 30% of Super Bowl 51's commercials this year, down from 45% a year ago.
The explosive growth of video in 2016 makes 2017 an important year for video content and as more publishers are tempted to use it, it’s useful to consider the best strategies to maximise its effectiveness.


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Activision and Infinity Ward faced another backlash over the weekend, as the latest video promotion for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 caused offence almost immediately after being aired.
The video featured spoof interested group the Fight Against Grenade Spam – or FAGS – punning on one of many offensive slurs regularly thrown around during online play.
"I think the core gag is great, the end is a bit too far from the intent of the joke and can appreciate the concerns. Pulled," wrote Infinity Ward's Rob Bowling on Twitter after removing the video.
Phillip Kollar of US site Game Informer was offended by the tone and language of the video, in which Call of Duty fan and Philadelphia Phillies player Cole Hamels describes the tactic of throwing random grenades in the game as "for pussies".
"I'm not organising a mass boycott or even saying I won't buy the game. I'm just pointing out that their decision to become complicit in one of their communities most oppressive slurs in a not-terribly-fun ad campaign is stupid and makes me reconsider my purchase more than any other controversy surrounding the game thus far," wrote Kollar.
Bowling responded that, "I think it was more of a social commentary joke of that stereotype than it was a fist-bump of acceptance to it".
Infinity Ward seems to be struggling with the tone of Modern Warfare 2 – only last week it received criticism for a scene in the game in which innocent people are murdered, which Activision said "is designed to evoke the atrocities of terrorism."
The switch from realism to college humour is doing nothing to endear it to fans of the game or outside commentators, and is just one of the latest controversies that are tarnishing the game before release.
PC gamers are still in uproar over a lack of dedicated servers for Modern Warfare 2, while the price hike on the console version of the game is still a huge sticking point for many consumers.
"While a lot of us would not be offended by it, there are plenty that would and I don't see how this wasn't considered prior to posting given that they are already losing pre-orders on lack of dedicated servers and a controversial airport sequence," wrote one commentator on Game Informer.

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December 12, 2013 10:05:35 AM
JACKSON -- Gov. Phil Bryant has announced a yearlong celebration in 2014 to showcase Mississippi people, communities and enterprises that are moving the state's economy forward.
Bryant made the announcement Wednesday with state tourism officials.
He says the "Year of the Creative Economy" will bring home many well-known artists, performers and others to join the festivities in their respective home communities and to showcase the talent and drive grown out of their Mississippi experience.
State tourism director Malcolm White says from print shops and music venues to art galleries, restaurants and other innovative businesses, the creative economy provides sustainable economic contributions to the state.
■ "Year of the Creative Economy: Mississippi Homecoming": mscreativeeconomy.com
1. Lee Middle deal possibly a month away COLUMBUS & LOWNDES COUNTY
2. Innovation Challenge gives young entrepreneurs a head start STARKVILLE & OKTIBBEHA COUNTY
3. CMSD releases further information on superintendent candidates COLUMBUS & LOWNDES COUNTY
4. Photos: Budweiser Clydesdales in Starkville STARKVILLE & OKTIBBEHA COUNTY
5. Air Force base set to host air show COLUMBUS & LOWNDES COUNTY


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Displaying items by tag: coronavirus
Huawei announces pandemic-inspired smartphone with built-in thermometer
Chinese tech giant Huawei announced that its new smartphone will include built-in sensors that can measure body temperature.
The fever can be an early indicator of infection during times like these where the COVID-19 pandemic is a major concern. Huawei intends to integrate this thermometer in the Honor Play 4 Pro phone.
The infrared technology built into the smartphone will have the ability to measure temperatures up to 100 degrees Celsius.
In a video posted on Chinese social media site Weibo, Huawei demonstrated the phone and how the built-in thermometer would work on a person, via pointing the sensors at the individual’s forehead for a few seconds.
While IR sensors are not as accurate as thermal cameras, it is cheap to use and was in fact already integrated into most smartphones for facial recognition unlock and other camera effects. It was due to this that the tech giant was able to react to the pandemic very quickly.
The phone is expected to be available in China for around $420.
Smartphone shipments plummet worldwide
Global shipments of smartphones have dropped 38 per cent year-on-year in February, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics.
It was the biggest fall ever in the history of the worldwide smartphone market, in-line with forecasts of a sharp decline due to the impact of the global Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.
61.8 million units were shipped during the month compared with 99.2 million during February 2019.
This trend is cited to both production issues, as factories were forced to close in an attempt to limit Covid-19 cases, along with a drop in consumer visits to retailers.
In a statement, Strategy Analytics executive director Neil Mawston said: “Supply and demand of smartphones plunged in China, slumped across Asia, and slowed in the rest of the world.”
The company expects weak demand to also be reflected in its March figures.
Despite the grim forecasts, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf was last week confident on global outlook after a slight rebound in handset demand in China.
The CEO noted the company is working towards the future: “I think the biggest issue you have to be prepared for is when this thing snaps back it snaps back hard, and make sure you’re in a position to take advantage of it. And so we’re trying to do the best job we can to be prepared.”
His comments came as cases of Covid-19 virus appeared to be improving in China, with handset and component production also beginning to return to normal.
Twitter warns of Covid-19 impact on Q1 results
Twitter has announced it expects operating loss in the first-quarter, and quarterly revenue to be down on a year-over-year basis, as a result of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
"Twitter had a strong start to the year before the effects of COVID-19 began spreading more broadly...... it has impacted Twitter's advertising revenue globally more significantly in the last few weeks," said Ned Segal, Twitter's Chief Financial Officer.
Despite this, the crisis has significantly expanded its average daily user base — with a net gain of 12 million so far in the current period. The COVID-19 outbreak have boosted Twitter’s overall daily active users (DAU): According to the company, year to date average total monetizable DAU are approximately 164 million, up 23% from 134 million in Q1 2019 and an increase of 8% from 152 million in Q4 2019.
In the current quarter, “We’re seeing a meaningful increase in people using Twitter, and our teams are demonstrating incredible resilience adapting to this unprecedented environment,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a statement. “We’ll continue to navigate this environment focusing on supporting our employees, customers, and partners, while strengthening our service for everyone around the world and adjusting to a new operating and economic environment.”
While announcing the fourth-quarter results, Twitter had expected operating income to be between break even and $30 million, and total revenue of $825 million - $885 million for the first-quarter.
The company said it withdrew its prior operating income and revenue guidance for the first quarter of 2020, due to the profound changes on the global operating and economic environment and the effect on advertiser demand.
Twitter expects to release financial results for the first quarter on April 30, 2020.


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With the arrival of spring typically marking the start of the convertible buying season, prices of popular ‘drop-top’ models could increase by as much as 20% in value over the next six months, according to used car retailer Carsite.co.uk.
After an extended winter, the return of warmer weather will be persuading many UK car buyers to look to a convertible or coupe cabriolet for their next purchase, with the increased seasonal demand pushing up prices in the sector.
Between 2009 and 2010, Carsite found the trade price of a Mazda MX5 1.8i increased from £10,450 in April 2009 to £12,350 in September 2009 – a rise of £1,900 or 18% – before falling £1,355 to £10,995 by April 2010.
A similar trend was also seen on a Volvo C70 2.4i Coupe Cabriolet which appreciated £1,600 in value from April (£14,395) to September 2009 (£15,995) before decreasing £1600 to April 2010 (£14,395). A Renault Megane 1.6 Coupe Cabriolet’s value also fluctuated more £1600 over the same period.
Seemingly less affected by the seasonal demand, Carsite observed a 2006 Porsche Boxster 2.7 increased only £500 from April to September, before falling just £345 to April.
Alistair Jeff of Carsite.co.uk said, ‘In the peak months for convertible buying, prices can rise steadily all the way into September, adding between £1500 and £2,000 to the value of some models. Combine this with the appreciating nature of the used market at the moment, and we could be seeing greater seasonal variation than in previous years. Drivers looking to get an ‘al-fresco’ motoring experience this summer should be shopping around now.’
For buyers looking to take advantage of the cheaper deals available at the start of the season, Carsite has highlighted a selection of its best used convertible deals including a £1400 saving off the RRP of a 2007 Volvo C70, £1250 off a 2006 Porsche Boxster and £880 off a 2007 Peugeot 307 CC.
Best Buy Under £7.5k
2007/07 Renault Megane CC 1.6 VVT Dynamique (£7,418) (27k miles)
Carsite.co.uk price: £7,418
Recommended Retail Price: £7,995
Best Buys Under £10k
2007/07 Peugeot 307 CC 2.0 S Petrol Auto (£8,845) (34k miles)
Carsite.co.uk price: £8,845
Recommended Retail Price: £9,725
Best Buys Under £12.5k
2007/07 Mazda MX5 1.8i (£10,212) (14k miles)
Carsite.co.uk price: £10,212
Recommended Retail Price: £10,995
Best Buys Under £15k
2009/09 Ford Focus CC-2 2.0 Petrol Auto (£13,744) (3.7k miles)
Carsite.co.uk price: £13,608
Recommended Retail Price: £14,450
Best Buy Under £20k
2006/06 Porsche Boxster 2.7 Petrol (£16,362) (70k miles)
Carsite.co.uk price: £16,200
Recommended Retail Price: £17,459
Best for City Driving
2007/07 Nissan Micra C+C Sport 1.6 Petrol (£7,882) (10.1k miles)
Carsite.co.uk price: £7,882
Recommended Retail Price: £8,495
Best for Families
2007/57 Volvo C70 CC 2.4i S (£13,125) (30.8k miles)
Carsite.co.uk price: £12,995
Recommended Retail Price: £14,395


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South Africa’s Telkom mobile phone unit continues to attract customers with compelling propositions. In the financial year to end-March 2016, Telkom Mobile added 519 913 new customers to it network.
During the year, Telkom increased its customers by 24% to 2.7 million versus 2.2 million in the 2015 financial year.
Its prepaid subscribers rose 19% to 1.9 million compared to 1.6 million in the same period last year, while contract customers jumped 37.2% to 794 272.
“Mobile voice and subscriber revenue increased 18.4 % to R849 million (March 2015: R717 million). This can be attributed to a 23.8 percent increase in the number of active mobile subscribers and a 19.2% increase in blended average revenue per user,” the company said.
The company’s mobile data revenue increased 59.4% to R1.5 billion versus R988 million in 2015, driven by the telco’s strategy to focus on data which led to a 72 percent increase in mobile data traffic.
The mobile business has been a star performer over this phase reducing its EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation)loss from R2.2 billion three years ago to R43 million this year.
Since the fourth quarter, the mobile business has been showing sequential break-even on a monthly basis.
With the increasing demand for high speed broadband in mind, Telkom said it aims to grow our broadband penetration through our fixed-line lookalike LTE services and will continue to invest in this service by re-farming our 1800 MHz spectrum to offer a fully mobile LTE service to our smartphone customers.


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By, Rashmi Vittal, CMO, Conversica
The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly placed an inordinate amount of challenges for businesses across nearly every sector around the world. The International Labour Organization (ILO), which is the United Nations’ labor body, recently forecast that the equivalent of 195 million jobs could be lost worldwide as a result of the disruption to global economies.
However, it is also true to say that some industries have been presented with a unique opportunity. The shift to remote and virtual workforces has created a groundswell of demand for digital technologies, services and increased connectivity.
This has inevitably impacted the telecoms industry, which is expected to see a return to growth of 0.8% in 2021, with the sector overall expected to show some of the strongest investment post COVID-19, according to Analysys Mason.
In many respects, the demand for networked communications has never been as high as it is right now. The ubiquity of telecommunications in our lives has become more apparent than ever, with the industry’s role in supporting critical communications and providing networking infrastructure and connectivity that enables people to seamlessly work from home proving indispensable to businesses in multiple sectors.
Indeed, the risks associated with overloading network providers is so great that the International Telecommunication Union, a specialized agency of the United Nations, recently launched a global platform designed to help governments maintain the resilience and availability of telecom networks during the COVID-19 crisis.
Now perhaps more than ever before, communication service providers (CSPs) are showcasing their strengths in enabling what could end up becoming the new norm even once we all emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. A world where remote and virtual workforces and increased online learning may well remain the new reality.
However, while this rise in demand for technologies and services within telecom is clearly welcome, it is also presenting new challenges in terms of customer engagement and satisfaction for telcos. With the volume of inbound inquiries continuing to rise, customer service teams are likely to be struggling to keep up with demand.
This is where technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ability to augment the workforce is the ideal catalyst for fueling new innovation across the telecom industry. It is clear that the demand is certainly there, with a report from Capgemini identifying that nearly three quarters (74%) of organizations view conversational intelligent virtual assistants as an important enabler of successful customer engagement.
As consumers and businesses alike demand a far more consistent and fulfilling digital experience, the use of AI technologies to augment workforces and provide a better and more valued customer experience is increasing. One of the leading examples of this in the telecom industry is the use of intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs), which provide increased value across a number of different functions for telcos.
One of the most prominent examples of this in the current environment is to enhance customer support departments, with the demand on call center resources particularly high as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. IVAs can augment call centre and customer service workforces by replying to more straightforward, mundane and repetitive questions. This in turn enables workers to focus on more higher value tasks such as dealing with more complex enquiries or staff training, thereby improving overall productivity and increasing job satisfaction.
Another key role IVAs can assist telcos with is the fight against fraud. Indeed, enhancing security measures through AI has become an imperative for organizations, according to a Capgemnini report, which also lists telecom as among the most susceptible industries to cyber fraud. This is reinforced by the Cyber-Telecom Crime Report 2019 published by Europol and Trend Micro, which highlights that the telecom industry suffered losses amounting to €29bn due to telecom fraud. IVAs can assist in this fight due to their capability for monitoring and detecting irregular patterns in behaviour and flagging alerts upon detection of such activity.
However, perhaps the most important role IVAs can support telcos with is the transformational impact on front-end office functions; namely marketing, sales and customer success where there are big opportunities to use IVAs to scale the business and accelerate revenue across the customer journey.
One prominent example of this in practice today is CenturyLink, the third largest telecommunications company in the US, providing broadband, voice, video, advanced data and managed network services over a 265,000-route-mile US fiber network. The company has been using AI-powered sales assistants to drive warm leads through its sales funnel.
To begin with, CenturyLink tasked the AI Assistants, which they named ‘Angie’ and ‘Ashley’, with reaching out to smaller prospects that did not have a designated sales rep. This led to 300 calls being set up for four of the company’s sales reps, which quickly turned into a case of enabling CenturyLink to follow up with 800 qualified telemarketing leads per week who are legitimately open and ready to engage with salespeople.
In this respect, incorporating IVAs to augment the workforce has been a fundamental game-changer for CenturyLink’s business. The company is now contacting 90,000 qualified prospects every quarter, whichhas resulted in increased excitement among the sales team and a 8-1 ROI on a monthly basis. This is arguably the most important piece of the puzzle; the fact that the sales team have become accustomed to technology augmenting their work.
As telecommunications turn further towards digital transformation, intelligent automation can play a crucial role in transforming their sales and marketing functions. By being able to follow up with leads quickly and at scale as shown by the likes of CenturyLink, telecommunications can not only provide better value to customers but also enhance internal satisfaction amongst the workforce through utilising IVAs. It really is win-win.
About Conversica: Conversica is a leading provider of Intelligent Virtual Assistants helping organizations attract, acquire and grow customers at scale. A Conversica Intelligent Virtual Assistant is an AI-powered, SaaS-based software application that serves as a virtual team member and autonomously engages contacts, prospects, customers or partners in human-like, two-way interactions at scale to drive towards the next best action accelerating revenue; whether that’s scheduling a sales meeting, gauging interest to buy additional products or services, or politely but persistently collecting overdue payments. To learn more, visit www.conversica.com.


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After IoT devices have been deployed into the world, it may be necessary to update them for additional security or functionality but gaining physical access to the device may no longer be possible or might be very costly. In 2015, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the world's seventh largest automaker, issued a safety recall notice for 1.4 million vehicles in order fix a software hole that allowed hackers to wirelessly break into some vehicles and electronically control vital functions. Vehicle owners were left on their own to install the patch, which would typically be done by downloading the patch to a USB drive, then plugged into a vehicle port and uploading (source).
Fortunately today, there are over-the-air (OTA) software and firmware updates that allow embedded devices to be reprogrammed over their wireless connection instead of with a physical hardware device. In short, an OTA update is the wireless deployment of new software, firmware or other data to edge devices /Internet of Things use cases like consumer electronics, automobiles and smart sensors.


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There’s no game that has been hyped for so long, at least not that I can recall, as Cyberpunk 2077. Revealed just before the release of The Witcher 3, the sci-fi title feels like it has been lingering in some form or fashion over the entire console generation that is at its end. After just a few days on the market, it’s been a massive success, but it’s also been plagued with technical issues. While the PC version and the next gen console versions are suffering some bugs, crashes, etc., they are perfectly playable, but those on older consoles are finding the game shockingly poor. It’s so bad that OpenCritic issued a PSA about playing the game on the base PS4 and Xbox One. The game’s developer acknowledges that, and says a lot of it comes down to underestimation.
In the latest conference call with investors, CD Projekt president Adam Kiciński acknowledged the poor state of previous generation versions. He said that the team was simply too focused on getting the game out the door and, surprisingly, even said that exclusively using the PC version in marketing could be seen as misleading. He does say that more fixes are coming and they hope to get the PS4/Xbox One versions of the game to a better state next year (thanks to Wccftech for transcribing the quotes below).
“After three delays, we as the management board were too focused on releasing the game. We underestimated the scale and complexity of the issues. We ignored the signals about the need for additional time to refine the game on the base last gen consoles. It was the wrong approach and against our business philosophy. On top of that, during the campaign, we showed the game on PC, which caused loss of gamers trust and the reputation that we have been building to a big part of our lives. And that’s why our first steps are solely focused on regaining those two things.
“We are concentrated on fixing Cyberpunk 2077 on last gen consoles. The first substantial set of fixes was released over the weekend. The next set of fixes will be released within the next seven days. Big updates are planned for January and February together with smaller fixes. Of course, PC gamers will also be getting regular updates and fixes to improve the game. We’ll do everything possible to prove that we stick to our values. We truly hope that our efforts will let us rebuild the trust we have lost.”
While CD Project RED has always been known for some buggy releases (anyone who played any of The Witcher titles at launch will know that), what we’re seeing with the base PS4/Xbox One version is far beyond those issues of the past, it seems. When you add in the relatively well running PC and PS5/Xbox Series X/S versions, it makes the issues even more pronounced. CDPR has been known for continuing to work and refine their games, so hopefully they can polish up those versions to something working halfway decently in the near future.
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THE first cars I imported about 10 years ago arrived in the country smoking despite paying the Japan Export Vehicle Inspection Centre Company Limited (JEVIC) for pre-export roadworthiness inspection.
By then US$200 per car was not as hurting as it is now when the new cost lingers between US$300 and US$400.
Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) the initiator of this costly but necessary venture, contend that it reduces the risk of unsafe and substandard vehicles entering our country.
This is debatable because all used vehicles imported into Zambia have to undergo another mandatory fitness test done either manually or electronically by the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA).
Most JEVIC-certified cars fail the local test.
Five years ago our country was importing about 1,500 car imports per month. This figure has been rising steadily and steeply in the â€œmore money in your pocketâ€ government.
The increase in the used motor vehicle imports can be partly attributed to the civil servantsâ€™ salary hike coupled with favourable bank car loan facilities.
The result is that even by conservative terms, Zambia imports on the higher side of 4,000 vehicles from Japan every month.
But this five-year triple increment has been a cash cow for one company called JEVIC.
Imports assure this company and its agents a fair share of US$1.5 million, not annually but monthly.
What ripple effect this amount may have on our economy every month is anyoneâ€™s guess.
Although economists might argue that money matters are not as straight as they seem, a cool US$1.5 million, if well channeled, can make a major difference on the lives of ordinary Zambians.
This is where tact and negotiation comes in handy.
A government-to-government arrangement can put a caveat on all exporters of Japanese vehicles to Zambia by compelling them to follow minimum standards at their own expense.
This could encompass, among others, limitations on the age of vehicles, which directly eliminate cars with chlorofluorocarbons and safety and mechanical inspection, which is expected of car exporter. Zambia should have zero tolerance on dumping.
Why not have our own border inspection levy of say US$200 per car that could directly filter into our economy through the national Treasury?
Importers, who pay JEVIC anyway, are willing to pay this fee whether in Zambia or in Japan as long as it goes into Zambiaâ€™s coffers.
It is not a hidden fact that ZABS has been arbitrarily charging about 30 percent for the cost insurance and freight (CIF) of imported cars that evade paying JEVIC at our borders.
If this charge and inspection was localised, it might entail the erection of state-of-the-art border inspection centres, whose vehicle rejects can feed our scrap metal industry.
The long term effect could change the outlook of Nakonde, Kazungula, Chirundu, Livingstone, Katete to mention a few border points.
JEVIC is a Japanese-registered company that, unfortunately, is feeding right into the economies of vulnerable African countries like Zambia.
Although this company is highly respected for its pre-shipment inspections and certification of cargo, the underlying factor is that all its proceeds benefit Japan and its citizens and not the importing companies.
Iâ€™m yet to research on its shareholding; perhaps there could be some African nationals or even Zambians who might have propelled this Yokohama-domiciled company.
In the recent past there have been some concerns about the sharp increase in the number of second-hand vehicles that have flooded our country.
There were intimations that Government was even contemplating altogether banning second-hand vehicles, as most of them had been declared unsafe in their countries of origin.
This is the more reason a government-to-government arrangement is the way to go and one clear parameter is to use the age of the vehicles.
I know that ZABS might come out with guns blazing over this article, but my reasoning hinges on how the money we are injecting into Japan could improve our countryâ€™s economy.
JEVICâ€™s premise on the Zambian Standard ZS 560 â€“ Code of practice for inspection and testing of used motor vehicles as declared in late 2006 can be localised.
The author is a social and political commentator.
Is JEVIC milking our precious forex?


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That means most major Volt powertrain components – from its battery cells to its range-extender – will be made in Michigan, establishing the state as the company’s global engineering center of excellence for vehicle electrification.
“We must provide the breakthrough technology that our customers want,” said CEO Mary Barra. “Our investments in the 2016 Chevrolet Volt and Michigan signify our commitment to lead the industry in technology and innovation.”
CEO Mary Barra also will announce at the Detroit Economic Club today that the automaker will invest an additional $300 million in other Michigan operations by the end of this year.
Since 2009, GM has announced more than $11 billion in investments in the United States, with almost half of that investment committed to Michigan.
In addition, GM has worked with its UAW partners to develop initiatives that will lead to more than 22,600 jobs in the United States. This hiring has begun and will continue over the next few years, and many of these jobs will be based in Michigan.
Approximately $1.82 billion in capital has been invested in projects dedicated specifically to vehicle electrification.
– GM’s Brownstown Township facility is the country’s first high-volume lithium-ion battery pack manufacturing site operated by a major automaker.
– GM’s Flint Engine Operations will build the 1.5-liter, four-cylinder range extender for the Volt. The unit is part of an all-new engine family.
– Warren Transmission will build the GM Voltec Multi-Mode Electric Drive Unit, which allows the Volt to drive in pure electric or extended range electric mode.
Battery cells for the Volt and ELR are produced by LG Chem in Holland, Mich., and the Volt’s vehicle’s electric motors will also be made in the United States.
Within the first year of production, about 70 percent of the Volt’s parts will be made in the United States or Canada, which GM believes is the most for a plug-in or conventional hybrid.
– Since the Volt was launched in 2010, owners driving in pure electric mode have helped reduce gasoline consumption by more than 25 million gallons.
– Based on a GM study of more than 300 2011-2012 model year Volts in service in California, many owners exceed the EPA-rated label of 35 miles of EV range per full charge, with about 15 percent surpassing 40 miles of range.
– Volt owners who charge regularly typically drive more than 970 miles between fill-ups and refuel less than once a month. The 2014 Volt provides owners with EPA-estimated fuel economy of 98 MPGe (electric) and 35 mpg city/40 mpg highway on gasoline power.
– Nearly 70 percent of Volt buyers are new to GM. The Toyota Prius is the most frequently traded-in vehicle for a Volt.


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This panel, moderated by Mi3’s Paul McIntyre, featured Adam Ferrier (Thinkerbell) Caitlin Lloyd (Tidal) and Mark Green (The Monkeys).
For Ferrier, central to any marketing strategy is understanding the “language of brands”: what is a brand and how does it grow?
“The holy grail of brands is to create the category,” he said, pointing to several key examples.
He also warned about the dangers of over-reliance on data:
“Media brands find it hard to build a brand because they’re constantly getting feedback from the consumer,” he said.
“A lot of our clients are starting to reinvest in brand.”
Mark Green of The Monkeys said that in his organisation, “We are firm believers in long-term brand building, and those brands that invest in this long-term view tend to be more successful.”
He also stressed the need for advertising to engage audiences.
“We’re interrupting them, so we owe the audience interesting, provocative and entertaining advertising.”
Caitlin Lloyd, who has recently joined Tidal, lamented the decline of creative marketing initiatives as brands retreating to “the safe middle ground.”
“There has been such a fear of upsetting people.”
Non-profits are more willing to take big risks with ads, mostly because they have less to lose, she argued.
She also spoke about wider issues within the industry.
“There’s not enough diversity in agencies, boardrooms, which means we’re not getting the wealth of ideas we need.”


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According to a new Market Directory marketing report, Apple is the world’s most valuable brand with $ 355.1 billion.
The annual Brand Finance Global 500 Index’s rating is based on the value of the brand, not on the value of the company. The Appe Brand thinks about how much it would cost to license another third-party company to sell Apple products.
According to Brand Finance, the Apple brand would be worth $ 355 billion if it were licensed to sell such products. Apple also overtook Amazon for the first time in 2021 to become the world’s most valuable brand. According to Brand Finance Global 2021, Apple is the most valuable brand in the world with over $ 263.4 billion, up 35% from 2022 in the previous year.
Brand Finance’s list of the top 10 brands is followed by Apple (Amazon) (over $ 350 billion); Google (over $ 263 billion); Microsoft. (Over $ 184 billion); Walmart (over $ 111 billion); Samsung Group (over $ 107 billion); Facebook (over $ 101 billion); ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) (over $ 75 billion); Huawei (over $ 71 billion) and Verizon (over $ 68 billion) are next in line.
Ranked 18th on the list of the world’s most valuable brands, TikTok was the world’s fastest-growing brand, jumping from $ 18.7 billion in 2021 to $ 59 billion in 2022. The technology sector is one of the most valuable businesses in the world, behind it. Banking services; The media and the telecommunications industry are following suit.


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The Edgecomb Community Church has a busy holiday fundraising season approaching.
The thrift store will be holding biweekly sales of Christmas clothing and decor along with bake sales and raffles.
Each Tuesday and Saturday, from Nov. 11 to Nov. 25, freshly homemade baked items will be for sale at the thrift store. A grab bag table of beautifully wrapped Christmas items will also be available for a minimum $3 donation to the Boothbay Harbor Fuel Assistance Fund.
A Christmas basket will be raffled off at $1 per ticket, as well as a beautiful handmade candy cane shaped pinecone wall or door hanging to raise funds for the church’s local mission outreach endeavors.
Homemade crafts will be featured as well during these same weeks.
Such items as children’s sweaters, hats, mittens, scarves, and Christmas ornaments, all made by the church’s Busy Hands Committee, will delight shoppers, and help complete holiday gift giving.
The last day of these sales is Saturday, Nov. 25, when the thrift store will be closing for the winter months.
The church’s yearly Thanksgiving pie sale will take place from 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, Nov. 22 at the church and at Ames True Value in Wiscasset.
Freshly baked apple, blueberry, rhubarb, pecan, pumpkin, and other assorted pies will fill the room for guests to purchase at $6 to $18 depending on the size. Delivery is available and pies can be preordered by calling church coordinator and pie sale organizer Marjorie DiVece at 882-6338 by Sunday, Nov. 19.
Come visit the Edgecomb Community Church thrift store any Tuesday or Saturday to do some of that holiday shopping. Shop local and often.
The church is located at 15 Cross Point Road in Edgecomb. All proceeds will be helping neighbors in need.


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Mexican pig prices jump, grains also
The Mexican pork market has been gradually recovering from the low prices at the beginning of the year. In the last month and a half, it has managed to push up the prices by around $0.33 per kilo liveweight to $1.76/ kilo, according to the latest Genesus market report. However, the outlook on the sector is far more complicated as prices of grains, most of which are imported, have risen 50% in cost, significantly impacting pig production costs in the North American country. "If the exchange rate between the Mexican peso vs. US dollar remains stable as up to now, around 20 Mexican pesos per dollar, it is still profitable to produce with the high costs of food raw materials.
The situation would become more dramatic if the Mexican peso suffered a devaluation, which is not strange, especially in times of high volatility such as the current ones.
The recent spike in pork prices is believed to be due more to seasonality than any other effect. It is normal that at the end of the Holy Week and Easter festivities the consumption of red meat returns to its normal course. However, what happened in the last year has been very atypical due to the Covid-19 pandemic," commented Fernando Ortiz, Ibero-America Business Development Manager at Genesus Genetics Inc.
It is also believed that other external factors have contributed to a recovery in live pig prices, and these are mainly an increase in exports to China, showing higher demand. As well as the increase in swine diseases in the United States such as PRRS and PED. Herd expansion foreseen by the analysts back in 2019 is still pending, awaiting further stabilization of the market. Rumors of some producers and some packers wanting to sell their assets, both farms and meat processing facilities have been heard but no major deal was completed so far.
Great Britain is working hard to avoid a mass culling in pig farms, where almost 120,000 pigs are...


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Businesses can start filing their first GST returns and pay taxes for July on the portal of GST Network — the IT infrastructure provider for the new indirect tax regime, beginning August 5, he told PTI here.
“We will start the facility of filing interim returnform GSTR 3B by August 5 and any registered entity who has transacted business in July will have to file the return by August 20,” Kumar told PTI.
GSTN has tied up with 25 agency banks authorised by the RBI to collect taxes, he said.
“We have tied up with all major banks, both private and public. The facility for tax payment is already on andIntegrated GST is being collected. Along with filing of returns by August 20, payments for central and state GST will also come in,” said Kumar, in-charge of the biggest technology backbone created for the new indirect tax regime.
The final GST returns for July will have to be filed by these businesses by September 5 instead of August 10.
The sales returns for September will have to be filed by October 10.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)


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AWS Outage: Implications for Internet, Enterprise Cloud Customers
Yesterday's hours-long Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage provided a vivid illustration of how much large parts of the Internet depend on the cloud service. It also presented a puzzle for many users: because the AWS health dashboard itself depends on the cloud service, the status messages failed to indicate any signs of trouble throughout the outage.
Now resolved, the Feb. 28th outage of Amazon's S3 (Simple Storage Service) cloud-based object storage service caused many Web sites to be inaccessible or slow to load for several hours. Affected sites and services included Adobe, Coursera, Cracked, Imgur, Mailchimp, Medium, Quora, Slack, Trello as well as Internet health-tracking sites such as Downdetector and Is It Down Right Now.
S3 is an "object storage with a simple Web service interface to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the Web," according to Amazon. Used by more than 150,000 Web sites, S3 is designed for up to 99.99 percent availability. Yesterday's outage illustrated that one-in-ten-thousand chance of non-availability.
Problem at Virginia Data Center
While Amazon's cloud service health dashboard gave no indication of trouble, yesterday morning AWS noted on its Twitter account that S3 was "experiencing high error rates" that the company was working to recover. Because the dashboard wasn't showing alert color changes due to the S3 issue, Amazon also posted updates in a banner at the top of the Web page.
By 1:49 p.m. PST, all S3 services for object retrieval, listing, deletion and addition had been recovered and were back to working normally, Amazon said. The company said that the outage was traced to its US-EAST-1 gateway location, which is its data center in northern Virginia.
During the outage, Twitter became the place for various AWS customers and others to share information as well as to vent and post humorous items about the event. Adobe Customer Care, for example, posted a GIF of a puppy stampede to take customers' minds off the service outage, while another popular meme was a screenshot of Homer Simpson's dad with the headline, "Old Man Yells at Cloud."
Enterprises Need 'Balanced Approach'
In an analysis published today in Forbes, analyst Patrick Moorhead said yesterday's outage underscored a problem not with Amazon, but with enterprise users who don't fully consider the implications of moving key services into the cloud.
"This incident is an indictment, not of AWS or Amazon.com, but of business and IT decision makers," said Moorhead, who is founder, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. "Too often the decision to move IT services to the public cloud was driven by either cost or the thought that 'we need to get to the cloud to be competitive.' But not understanding the value that your IT can deliver today shortchanges the business."
While it makes sense for many enterprises to move some workloads into the public cloud, other services require a more balanced approach that might include use of private cloud as well as legacy systems, according to Moorhead.
The non-profit Institute for Local Self-Reliance made a similar observation in a report about Amazon published in November. "Amazon increasingly controls the underlying infrastructure of the economy," the report noted. "Its Amazon Web Services division provides the cloud computing backbone for much of the country, powering everyone from Netﬂix to the CIA."
In its most recent quarterly financial report issued in early February, Amazon said its AWS operating income for the 12 months ending Dec. 31 amounted to $3.1 billion, compared to $1.5 billion for same 12 months in 2015.
Image credit: Amazon/iStock/Artist's Concept.
Posted: 2017-03-01 @ 2:25pm PT
An indictment of IT decision makers? I would plead guilty any day for the decision to use AWS. One 5 hour outage a year beats every large internally hosted infrastructure, not to mention all the automation and technology you have at your disposal with a few clicks.


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ENRICH Your BIO Experience!
ENRICH in the USA working with the Enterprise Europe Network, Temple University, the University City Science Centre, the Wistar Institute, Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development, Philadelphia Department of Commerce - City of Philadelphia, and BusinessFrance introduced a wide array of European Union (EU) companies at the BIO International Convention.
“We are helping EU early stage entrepreneurs and researchers that are looking for partnering and investment opportunities in the United States. ENRICH in the USA’s Philadelphia hub just moved to Temple University - Small Business Development Center and hosts its first 4 European companies, 2 of whom pitched at BIO. Many of these EU companies will be rolling out innovative biotech, life sciences and e-health products and services. We have also arranged for several of these companies to pitch at the European Commission pavilion at the convention,” said Blandine Chantepie-Kari, VP University & Entrepreneurship Soft Landing Programs of the ENRICH in the USA partner EAEC.


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Monthly economic report the Japanese government released on Friday indicated some improvements in some sectors of the Japanese, including sector of the personal consumption. According to the report, country’ economy continues to recover at a moderate pace after the recent decline. Japanese government has raised assessment of the personal consumption and business sentiment indices.
It is not expected that the Bank of Japan will introduce additional measures of monetary policy easing at the meeting on September 21. This means that Japanese economy and stock market will not receive additional support from the Bank of Japan by means of the quantitative or qualitative easing (QQE). According to recent data, the number of sell orders for the USD exceeds the number of buy orders in the pairs compared with the yen.
On the other hand, it is not expected that the Yen will grow against the USD. Strong psychological level of 100.00 will prevent further decline in the pair USD/JPY.
Despite recent weak US macro-economic statistics, the pair USD/JPY remains above the level of 100.00 the lows reached in the June and August.
It is likely that the Bank of Japan and the US Fed will not change monetary policies. In this case the pair USD/JPY will continue to move in the narrow range of 100.60 и 104.20 (highs of September) and a wider range of 100.00 and 106.50 (Fibonacci 23.6% after the decline from the level of 125.65 since June 2015).
Today, investors’ attention will be focused on the US news. At 15:30 (GMT+3) consumer price index for August will be released. It is expected that the index will rise by 1.0% against 0.8% in July); at 17:00 Reuters/Michigan preliminary index of consumer confidence in September will become known. In case of the positive data the USD will receive support and traders will more actively close USD short positions at the end of the trading week.


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Ever since Satya Nadella took control of Microsoft, he's been referring to the company as competing in a "mobile-first, cloud-first world." It's a phrase he's used for years, even as he's shut down Windows Phone manufacturing and essentially killed Microsoft's mobile ambitions. The latest sign that Windows 10 Mobile is a dead OS walking is courtesy of Microsoft's annual report.The company's vision statement in its latest form 10-K filing reads(Opens in a new window):
Microsoft is a technology company whose mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We strive to create local opportunity, growth, and impact in every country around the world. Our strategy is to build best-in-class platforms and productivity services for an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge infused with artificial intelligence ("AI").
In 2016 and 2015, the company led with different phrasing(Opens in a new window) (2014 didn't include a Vision Statement at all). In both years, the annual report led with the following: "Microsoft is a technology company whose mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our strategy is to build best-in-class platforms and productivity services for a mobile-first, cloud-first world."AI can mean anything from more effective rendering to a self-driving car, as illustrated by NV's recent ray-tracing demo at SIGGRAPH 2017. The fact that Microsoft is effectively shutting down its aspirations in mobile is no surprise. The company's latest annual report doesn't even refer to mobile except when discussing other products, like Office 365, or when discussing providing backend services for other mobile devices. But the emphasis on AI -- it's mentioned in six places throughout the report -- is an interesting twist for a company that previously didn't discuss that topic at all:
AI will be pervasive across devices, applications, and infrastructure to drive insights and act on the user’s behalf. Azure is also unique in its support for emerging applications so that Internet of Things (“IoT”) devices can act locally at the edge while taking advantage of the cloud for global coordination and machine learning at scale.That's a remarkably fast pivot for a company that didn't previously mention AI in any of its annual reports, but it's also a sign of how trendy it's become to talk about artificial intelligence.
Is AI the New Cloud?
We included the Azure reference in the quote above to highlight an interesting trend in how Microsoft talks about its own products and services. AI may be new, but Azure isn't -- and Microsoft's previous 10K reports discuss Azure in nearly identical language to what we see above, except that the phrases about Azure as an IoT backend or AI platform aren't mentioned.
I don't doubt Microsoft's determination to push into AI, deep learning, and similar markets; we're seeing the entire hardware ecosystem move in this direction. Everyone -- everyone -- wants to talk about AI, deep learning, self-driving cars, the Internet of Shitty Things, and similar technologies. It's far from the first time we've seen an industry pivot on this kind of topic. When cloud computing became officially A Thing, companies fell all over themselves to rebrand previously available products as "cloud" products, often by slapping a new logo on them as opposed to including any new features.
It may seem odd to raise this issue, given how much coverage has been dedicated to AI and how many companies are pursuing it, but there's reason to be skeptical. The tech industry scarcely has a perfect record on predictions of the future, and the term "artificial intelligence" is so vague as to be easily abused. Azure didn't magically evolve AI-friendly hosting capabilities in the past year, it's being rebranded to discuss a hot topic in computing.On the other hand, Microsoft's shifting vision statement could indicate that the company is now diverting far more resources into AI research and development. But if it is, we haven't heard about the products or services that will feature this capability just yet. Expanding Cortana's ability to perform searches without opening a browser, for example, may be an advance, but it's scarcely AI.


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Coronavirus: China set to open factories, lift outbound travel curbs
Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in China will lift outbound travel curbs starting April 8
China slowly but steadily is restarting production at factories and resuming flights. According to reports, employees in China are re-joining work, and production has commenced.
Analysts at Sanford C Bernstein said in a note on Tuesday said that real time indicators show that China is re-starting its industrial complex.
According to Bernstein, other signs include Chinese subway traffic increasing 21% last week, and online sales of large appliances rebounding in both volumes and average prices on a week-to-week basis.
Wuhan city, the capital of Hubei province, China has decided to lift outbound travel curbs starting April 8. The move comes as the city has recorded no fresh infections of coronavirus in the last seven days.
But the ones who wish to travel outside must possess a green health code, meaning no contact with any infected or suspected COVID-19 cases, Xinhua news agency quoted a circular issued by the provincial COVID-19 control headquarters as saying.
Much of China was closed for weeks starting in late January after the outbreak extended a Lunar New Year holiday break.


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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Women Wing Balochistan’s President Fehmida Jamali said on Thursday that TDAP and other related government body didn’t fix the things yet for the revival of exports despite the country’s total exports declined by 14.40% to $10.322 billion in the first six months of fiscal year 2015-16 from $12.058 billion during the same period last year.
“Ministry of Commerce had to announce the trade policy and the business community is looking for incentives from it. The government has delayed the launch of the trade policy by almost six months,” she said in a statement.
On year-on-year basis, the country’s exports declined by over 16.80% to reach $1.788 billion in December 2015 compared to $2.149 billion in December 2014, according to the data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. However, on month-on-month basis, the exports declined by 7.58% in December 2015 compared to $1.662 billion in November 2015.
Fehmida said it was alarming situation for the country. The government must initiate effective business plan for the revival of the exports and CEO TDAP SM Muneer should be directed for implementation with effective marketing tools. “We must admit that an export strategy is an essential component of your business plan, but we have to make sure that relevant stakeholders may involved in achieving export results are aware of the plan and has a sense of engagement with it. Bring your key export goals into sharp focus – so you know exactly where to aim your efforts.”
She suggested that the Ministry of Commerce should also direct TDAP to initiate public private dialogue with the important trade bodies, including FPCCI and overseas chamber of commerce, and submit the report to the government in two months so that policy-makers must know what private sector exactly wants. “If we want to increase exports, then we have to listen to the voice of the private sector first.”
PTI leader also demanded that all parties conference (APC) may be called to seek the exact reason for the declining of the exports.


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Harry McCracken for TIME writes:
It would please me if it turned out that the mobile-platform wars continued on indefinitely, with both iOS and Android — and Windows Phone, and BlackBerry 10, and operating systems yet to be invented — remaining viable, evolving and exciting. When there are multiple attractive options, and nobody feels forced into using a product unwillingly, consumers win. That’s the state of affairs right now. And isn’t it the only victory that really matters?
Android might have larger market share, and iOS might rake in more profits. But, at the end of the day, consumers still have options. The last thing anyone wants is a monopoly in the mobile space.


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Could the Instant Pot be a harbinger of Bed Bath & Beyond's (BBBY -5.23%) doom? The insanely popular pressure cooker is driving Amazon.com's (AMZN 3.15%) growth in the housewares segment, and the online retailer's ability to map consumer buying habits gives it a competitive edge that could make it unrivaled in the space.
A report by One Click Retail reveals that housewares is second only to consumer electronics in importance for Amazon, which means that its prowess at extracting and analyzing data about its 300 million active customers "with unmatched accuracy" should be of significant concern to any retailer counting on that niche to revive its own fortunes.
The analysis by the e-commerce data measurement company found U.S. sales of housewares surged 20% last year to an estimated $8 billion, driven by such kitchen appliances like the Instant Pot, which nearly doubled its sales in 2017, and almost single-handedly drove the majority of Amazon's sales growth in the category.
That's key because the online retailer's core demographic is the millennial -- an age group that ranges from early 20s to mid-30s, and that is finally entering homeownership in serious numbers. One Click Retail says the Instant Pot's phenomenal success offers some useful insights about these customers, who, because they're investing heavily in their homes -- but who also work long hours and desire products that save them time and effort -- find the Instant Pot a magical convergence of "convenience and in economy of space."
Depending upon who's counting, it's estimated that half to two-thirds of all U.S. households have an Amazon Prime account, the $99-a-year membership loyalty program that gets you free 2-day shipping, along with a bunch of other amenities like free streaming movies and music.
Using artificial intelligence and analytics, Amazon can drill down into consumer purchase history and preferences, and target its offerings accordingly. Combine that with an infrastructure network that puts half the U.S. population within 20 miles of a fulfillment center, and it's clear why brick-and-mortar niche players should be worried.
Making a new home for itself
Amazon recently launched Amazon Home, a dedicated e-commerce zone that allows consumers to shop by category or room, with a particular emphasis on delivering large furniture and appliances. It has already assembled an air fleet for delivery, is planning to build a new distribution center in Kentucky, and just announced its own trucking service to compete with UPS and FedEx for last-mile delivery.
From small household appliances and vacuums to air conditioners and bedding, Amazon.com is able to anticipate everything the consumer will need. The Instant Pot was its top seller not only on Prime Day, but was also one of the most popular purchases of the Christmas season; according to Amazon, its customers bought "enough Instant Pot pressure cookers this holiday to make more than nine million bowls of chili at once."
That has to be worrisome to Bed Bath & Beyond, which is suffering from persistently declining sales. Amazon sold about the same amount of housewares across all of 2017 as the home goods retailer sold in the first three quarters of the year; if trends continue, the online retailer will soon surpass Bed Bath & Beyond.
But it's not only Bed Bath & Beyond that is counting on the home department to survive. J.C. Penney, for example, says it is attempting to increase the amount of revenue per customer it generates primarily through housewares (and also toys). It has added appliance showrooms to some 600 stores, and mattresses departments to 500. And Sears Holdings is opening stand-alone appliance and mattress stores.
One Click Retail says Amazon's new focus on housewares "is no passing interest – it's a strategic move designed to anticipate (and meet) the evolving needs of their core audience."
Those were needs once served by specialty outlets like Bed Bath & Beyond and department store chains such as J.C. Penney and Sears. Amazon.com is using its unique capabilities to lure away customers from those competitors, and may soon crush them in the process.


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BrandPost Sponsored by Samsung Ergonomics is often one of the most overlooked health concerns within the office. While there are OH&S regulations for lifting, moving heavy objects, and safety when working with chemicals and electricity, and there are guidelines for how long a person should be “sedentary”, there are no formal governance requirements for the chairs that people use, or their computer equipment.
BrandPost Sponsored by Huawei Huawei’s major presence at the recent GITEX GLOBAL expo and HUAWEI CONNECT 2022 in Dubai showcased its mission to support digital transformation in over 170 countries.
BrandPost Sponsored by QCT and Intel
Want to Drive Industry Breakthroughs or Speed Up Innovation? Start by Optimising Your HPC and AI WorkloadsData in today’s digitalised economy offers significant monetisation opportunities. For companies to unlock the full value of their data, accelerated computing is key given how data volume is growing at an unprecedented pace. Explore the ways HPC, and AI enhance IT transformation and drive breakthroughs, as well as how to optimise workloads to reduce TCO and achieve better business outcomes.
BrandPost Sponsored by Ping Identity Global platform Ping Identity has formed an alliance with Deloitte Australia to provide Australian organisations with both design and delivery of enterprise-grade identity systems.
BrandPost Sponsored by Intel vPro As the broader economy and business environment continues to recover and rebound, there is an opportunity for IT leaders to leverage increased budgets to strategically invest in and prepare for new approaches to enterprise technology.
BrandPost Sponsored by Intel vPro Technology is becoming ever-more core to the educational experience, with teachers and students alike relying on rich media, deep data and analytics and cloud delivery to drive better educational outcomes.
BrandPost Sponsored by SUSE Having many hundreds of interconnected devices in what we now call edge environments is nothing new. In manufacturing and engineering facilities, PLCs (programmable logic controllers) have been attenuating and monitoring industrial devices since the invention of the microchip. What's different now is that the concept of what will comprise a network node is changing rapidly, along with the number of interconnected devices.
BrandPost Sponsored by Business ICT Australia It’s no secret that the last few years have been challenging for businesses, with the rise of remote and hybrid working demanding new information and communications technology (ICT) options, while the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted supply chains.
BrandPost Sponsored by Colt Technology Services According to CIO.com’s State of the CIO 2022 research, the number of business leaders who now look to CIOs as strategic advisors has jumped 30 per cent since before the pandemic. It’s a stark change from before the pandemic, where CIOs were considered essential strategic advisors by just 28% of company business leaders.
BrandPost Sponsored by 2degrees The cloud has become ubiquitous to work in New Zealand. Research from MIT Technology Review shows that New Zealand ranks 14th in world for its cloud ecosystem, based on factors such as technology, regulations, and the cloud skills within the nation.
BrandPost Sponsored by Samsung Clutter has become one of the unexpected consequences of the shift to hybrid work styles. Once, a computer desk simply had the computer sitting on it. Now, however, professionals are looking to improve the experience when working from their devices.
BrandPost Sponsored by SUSE The logical progression from the virtualization of servers and storage in VSANs was hyperconvergence. By abstracting the three elements of storage, compute, and networking, data centers were promised limitless infrastructure control.
BrandPost Sponsored by Samsung Encouraging employees back to the office will be a key priority for businesses going forward, but for many employers, doing so needs to be a case of providing superior in-office experiences, rather than attempting to mandate it.
BrandPost Sponsored by SUSE Today, we find that there is a common tendency in larger organizations for management and oversight of development projects to be given greater importance than the actual creation of value by people writing, iterating on, and shipping code.
BrandPost Sponsored by SUSE The microservice deployment and management stack is proving very effective for companies taking advantage of the cloud's capabilities to scale and adapt. Containers (often alongside Kubernetes) sit on top of this elastic fabric with agile DevOps and CI/CD workflows that transition code from development to production in short timescales.
BrandPost Sponsored by AVEVA Oil and gas prices have reached their highest levels in six years, but as the world pushes towards stronger global sustainability targets, digital transformation is becoming key to driving better efficiency and profitability.
BrandPost Sponsored by NEXTDC Nowadays, customers aren't buying products, they're buying experiences; the product is just a part of the whole encounter. Companies that are putting their data to work are ahead of the rest in perfecting the experience they provide.


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Growing New England sailboat dealership becomes newest official sponsor of 52nd “Thrash to the Onion Patch”
Newport, RI (July 8, 2021) – The Bermuda Race Organizing Committee (BROC) has named Bluenose Yacht Sales an Official 2022 Race Sponsor as well as Exclusive Sponsor of the YB Tracker, which allows race fans to follow the fleet.
“We are thrilled to be a sponsor of the 2022 Newport Bermuda Race,” says Bluenose Yacht Sales owner and managing partner, Glenn Walters. “Many of our brands have won or finished on the podium in past races, not least of which was a Jeanneau 53 taking first in class in the last race.”
Walters adds that he anticipates several Jeanneau models will register for 2022, including the new SunFast 3300. “We look forward to seeing these boats in both doublehanded and team divisions,” Walters says.
“The YB Tracker is an increasingly important way of keeping tabs on the race as it develops,” says Somers Kempe, BROC chairman. “Having the sponsorship of Bluenose Yacht Sales helps raise the visibility of this race feature, making it more readily available to friends, family, and fans through Bermudarace.com. In recent years, it has been viewed close to 100,000 times during the 635-mile race.”
Bluenose Yacht Sales (BYS) is a broker/dealer staffed by experienced, like-minded sailors, dedicated to assisting clients in the boat-buying process with integrity and trust. Representing brands such as Jeanneau, CNB, Saffier Yachts, and EXCESS Catamarans, BYS is a premier dealer for quality yachts and an exceptional buying experience. The Bluenose team also has an extensive brokerage program with a promise to sell your boat in 90 days or less. With over 50 years of combined yacht sales experience, all members of the Bluenose Yacht Sales are excited to be an Official Sponsor and the exclusive YB Tracker Sponsor for the 2022 Newport Bermuda Race.


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- Clean water under attack in the U.S. Congress
- Man faces charges following attempted armed robbery
- Discovery Center experiences record public attendance
- Pet Talk: Probiotics for your pets
- Illinois home prices climb 3.7 percent in December
- Supreme Court and gay marriage — U of I expert weighs in
- More than 6,100 residents of Winnebago County enrolled in Marketplace
- First large U.S. delegation to visit Cuba since opening of relations
- Merger complete for Illinois Bank & Trust, Galena State Bank
- Crusader welcomes Dr. Maria Lozano Vazquez
To the Editor: Thank you, Rockford-area Divas!
Goodwill Industries of Northern Illinois would like to thank all the Rockford “Divas” who attended our first Diva Dress Sale Sunday, May 16. The event was a great success with more than 500 attendees and tremendous media and community support.
The event featured beautiful dresses and accessories on sale at Goodwill prices, so every Rockford woman can afford to be a diva! Thank you to the Holiday Inn and the Hoffman House for hosting the event and their support, as well as Educators of Beauty and Spa Contouz for their generous donations.
We wish to thank all the community members who donate their items to our local Goodwill retail stores, as this event would not be possible without the generosity of our community. Funds generated from the Diva Dress Sale and Goodwill stores go toward training and placement services for individuals with barriers to attain meaningful employment.
Thank you, Divas, and see you next year!
Goodwill Industries of Northern Illinois
From the June 2-8, 2010 issue


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Voot’s growth trajectory has seen very positive signs in the last few years and it has been possible due to its tactical approach to the world of OTT, as per Chanpreet Arora, Head - AVOD (Voot), Viacom18 Digital Ventures. She also said that there has been a sharp uptick in Voot’s audience base in the last one month.
A recent report from TVision Insights found that the share of time spent on AVOD has increased from 9.3% in the first quarter of 2021 to 38% in the third quarter of 2021.
“Voot's OTT audiences have increased by 30% in the last month and since Voot Select service is also doing well, it is working out great for us,” she said.
Meanwhile, on the question of the entry of Netflix in Advertising-based Video On Demand (AVOD) segment, Arora said that it will have no impact on the Indian OTT space.
As per recent reports, slowing revenue growth and a declining subscriber base have forced Netflix to explore an ad-supported subscription tier, which it plans to roll out soon.
“It is bound to happen because India is a very interesting market. Our cost of content is almost as high as compared to most developed countries. But our monetisation, CPM or subscription revenue is not even one-tenth as compared to other countries. Hence, the high-quality content whether you look at shows, non-fiction, live or at high production of movies or television series, cannot be funded through subscription or advertising alone. It is a hand-in-hand strategy. There is a cost of access but people will stream content anywhere, from AVOD to SVOD. It is finally going to get closer to a sustainable model,” Arora added.
The appeal of AVOD as an advertising platform lies in its high consumer engagement and rapid growth.
“Voot has innovated and created content which is digital-first. In 2017, it launched ‘Silsila’ which is an extension of an old TV show on the basis of its fandom. The platform has also started doing originals for its AVOD audiences with shows like ‘It’s Not That Simple’ (INTS) that featured Swara Bhaskar,” Arora added.
Talking about big-ticket revenue properties on the platform, Arora mentioned, “In 2021, Big Boss OTT was launched on Voot and that saw a growth of 50% in revenue YoY. It has shown a healthy rate of growth partly due to the three-tier content strategy of acquisition, engaging and marketing TV content used by the platform.”
The aim is to make the platform more interactive for the younger audience, she said.
She said that Voot is offering viewers digital exclusive IPs which has increased the platform’s viewership and time spent, hence presenting brands a promising offering of audience engagement.
Talking about subscriber growth, she said, “Last year (because of Big Boss OTT) we achieved four million new audiences. This year (two months ago) when we launched our AVOD original IP Cybervaar , it has already given us over six hundred thousand new viewers on the app.”
Sharing more insights about Voot’s audience base, Arora said more than 65% of their viewers are under 35 at a root level. Moreover, 98% of Voot’s audience is addressable on the platform, as per her, which gives them an edge over knowing their user behaviour.
According to Arora, there are three things that work in digital; engaging users to choose their content, choosing the time and choosing the platform where they want to engage themselves.
Talking about how the content being created by Indian players is different from international giants, she said, “There needs to be a strict code of content according to Indian values, because India is a culturally-rooted country. We follow the new government regulations for online entertainment.”
According to Arora, Voot has three strategies for creating content that caters to a diverse audience: multi-lingual, multiple formats, and interactive television for online audiences.
She said more advertisers are coming in to create campaigns and build brand affinity.
These advertisers include Swiggy, Coin DCX, Google and Meta.
She said, “We are able to target the right audience and provide them with content that is engaging. We are also able to give advertisers the opportunity to engage with their audience on a pop-cultural level.”


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Thirty jobs have been lost at the Evesham-based Young Plant Division of Proculture Plants after it was purchased by rival, R Delamore.
Production of young plants in Evesham ceased immediately and the transfer of the business left members of staff without jobs.
This acquisition will significantly strengthen Wisbechbased Delamore's market share in the raised young plant sector.
Derek Jarman, sales director of Proculture, said: "The production of the nurseries in Evesham were nearing the end of their commercial life and the failure to secure planning permission from Wychavon District Council for new greenhouses meant the directors had little choice but to accept the offer."
A difficult trading year, a decline in consumer spending and steeply rising labour costs are amongst several other reasons which were attributed to the closure. The production of the fully grown plants division will continue to trade in Evesham.


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HP on Monday announced it is reselling software from Transat that lets wireless carriers give cell phone subscribers the ability to roam onto public Wi-Fi networks and get one bill--just like they would when roaming between different cell phone networks. Wi-Fi is a technology that allows laptops and other devices located within a 300-foot radius to communicate without wires.
Juniper Networks also on Monday unveiled new equipment meant to make it easier for wireless carriers to add Wi-Fi to their list of service offerings. Like HP's gear, Juniper's equipment is meant for wireless carriers to install on their networks.
The announcements highlight a recent push to find more ways for wireless carriers to combine their networks with "hot spots," public areas that offer wireless Web access. All major U.S. carriers have announced plans to offer such services, hoping to cash in on Wi-Fi's expected surge in popularity. Gartner Dataquest predicts 50 million people will be using hot spots by 2006.
Carriers have two ways to offer such services. One is to build a Wi-Fi network, which can be an expensive proposition. T-Mobile in the United States is now in the process of outfitting thousands ofstores with Wi-Fi equipment. , backed by Intel, IBM and AT&T, plans to build nationwide networks as well.
Maurice Marks, chief technology officer of HP's service provider business, said the company is giving carriers another method: reselling access from existing hot spots. There are now about 14,000 hot spots worldwide, which are mostly independently owned and operated.
The Transat software allows a cell phone account to be billed from a hot spot. Marks said HP made Transat's software part of its OpenCall SS7, which is used by wireless carriers tocell phone subscribers every time they turn on a phone to make or take a call. Marks said there are dozens of carriers using OpenCall SS7, representing about 100 million cell phone subscribers.
"There will be 300,000 hot spots by 2006," Mark said, citing Gartner Dataquest figures. "No carrier will want to build their own network."
Transat software is already used by several Monzune. A wireless carrier in China is also testing Transat's software, according to Marks.telephone companies, including Swiss carrier


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**Media Moment of the Week: Victoria Derbyshire’s heels hiccup
**Can the City harness the power of the Netflix model?
**The CMA goes for GIFs
Media Moment of the Week: Victoria Derbyshire’s heels hiccup
Late on Wednesday evening prolific BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire tweeted to say she’d be on air three times in a single day. At 9am the next day this happened (complete with audible “Oh my God”):
For God’s sake, someone let Victoria have a holiday.
Can the City harness the power of the Netflix model?
Let’s face it, of all the possible players to enter the ever-escalating streaming wars, Salesforce was probably not high on your list. Yet in a surprise move the US software behemoth this week officially weighed in with plans to launch a new streaming service devoted to business content.
We may not have seen it coming, but Salesforce Plus (as it’ll be imaginatively named) does make a lot of sense. Salesforce is a B2B powerhouse that holds a lot of sway in the corporate world. In many ways the new platform will be an on-demand version of Dreamforce — its annual conference in San Francisco that attracted 171,000 attendees in 2019. Building on this success and moving it online seems a savvy move, especially in light of the pandemic. And while the company has no immediate plans to monetise Salesforce Plus, it will no doubt have an eye on future advertising and sponsorship opportunities, as well as drumming up business for its own services.
But Salesforce isn’t alone. Last month FTSE education giant Pearson unveiled plans for a new college learning app for US students, dubbed Pearson Plus (at least it’s alliterative, I guess). This is just the first step in a new direct-to-consumer push spearheaded by boss Andy Bird, the former Disney executive who took the reins last year.
Bird, who led Disney’s move into streaming, has been upfront about his intention to harness the power of the Netflix model by offering content directly to consumers. According to the veteran media boss, Pearson Plus “looks and feels like the rich media experience students use to consume news, music and movies”. This, then, is Netflix or Disney for education.
Of course, the two ventures are not the same. For Salesforce, the move into streaming is essentially a massive content marketing campaign and, as a result, far more of a gamble. It remains to be seen just how much demand there is for on-demand business content (does anyone really like conferences that much?). Moreover, Salesforce Plus — which will develop programmes in its in-house studio — will no doubt require considerable sums of cash. Justifying this expenditure to shareholders will require some work.
For Pearson, the push to streaming is a more logical move. As students shift online for most parts of their social and entertainment needs, it makes sense that education should also go digital. But switching to streaming is not just a question of modernisation — it will also help Pearson recapture the crucial secondary market and win back revenue from parents and students who’ve traditionally shunned new textbooks in favour of cheaper second-hand copies.
Still, both Salesforce and Pearson are making bold moves to adapt the Netflix model for new corporate environments. In a world of on-demand content and subscription services, the only question now is who will be next?
The CMA goes for GIFs
In the next instalment of unlikely business scenarios, the UK competition watchdog is getting its (very earnest) teeth stuck into GIFs. While on the surface animated images may not seem like Big Tech’s biggest issue at the moment, Facebook’s planned $400m of Giphy is hardly a small deal. Now the Competition and Markets Authority is moving to block it.
In a bombshell statement yesterday the CMA said it had provisionally concluded that the deal would harm competition. It warned that Facebook could block other platforms’ access to GIFs or request more data in exchange, adding to its already considerable market power. The watchdog also highlighted Giphy’s pre-merger plans to expand into other countries including the UK — a move that would have boosted competition in the online advertising market.
If its preliminary findings are confirmed, the watchdog could force Facebook to unwind the merger and sell off Giphy.
Facetious GIF jokes aside, the intervention could be the CMA’s first successful attempt to block a Big Tech merger under its new, more aggressive approach. I’ve written previously about boss Andrea Coscelli’s vowed intent to use new post-Brexit powers to take on tech, and it seems this could be bearing fruit. The CMA also didn’t pass on the opportunity to stick the knife in on Facebook in its press release, referring repeatedly to the tech giant’s dominance in the social media and online advertising markets.
This, though, is new territory for the watchdog. As an overseas regulator, its effort to block a deal between two US companies is an unusual — and no doubt unwelcome — move. Facebook has already made its distaste clear, so the CMA could be gearing up for its first big fight.
The algorithm recommends
- Foreign asset sale latest: NortonLifeLock has confirmed it’s buying rival Avast in a deal that could value the British cyber firm at up to $8.6bn.
- The BBC is weighing up a sale of its iconic Elstree studios in a move that could lead to a major upheaval for Eastenders.
- The Reddit gold rush continues as the online messaging forum this week secured a valuation of $10bn following a fresh funding round.
Got a story? Drop me a line at email@example.com or on Twitter


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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — There’s going to be even more delicious food choices at Target Field this year.
On Tuesday, the Minnesota Twins and their food partner, Delaware North Companies Sportservice, have announced the addition of a variety of specialty foods for the 2014 season.
The new foods will include items from the Butcher and the Boar, more Valentini Supper Club selections and hand-dipped cones and cups from Izzy’s Ice Cream.
At the new Butcher and the Boar grill inside Gate 34, the Sportservice will serve a BBQ Basket of Rib Tips with house-made spicy pickles, local craft beers, Knob Creek bourbon and Jim Beam batch cocktails.
Valentini’s Supper Club will now feature the Valentini’s Porketta “Slugger,” which is an Iron Range porketta and cream cheese rolled in an eggroll and served with a house-made red sauce, as well as the Valentini’s Italian Burger, which is a meatball put in patty form, grilled and topped with pepperoni, provolone cheese and house-made red sauce and served on a potato roll.
Izzy’s Ice Cream will be served inside Gate 14 near Hrbek’s.
Other new food options include:
• A new Smoked BBQ Beef Brisket Sandwich, in-house smoked and then fresh-carved at the Gate 6 Carvery.
• Specialty Cider Cocktails featured at several portable concession carts, Hrbek’s and Town Ball Tavern. The signature “Angry Fastball” will feature Angry Orchard cider with cinnamon liqueur.
• The Bigger, Better, Burger Bloody Mary that includes a bacon cheeseburger slider.
“The Twins will continue to make food and beverage offerings a top priority to enhance the overall game day experience at Target Field,” said Dave St. Peter, Twins president. “The high quality products, local favorites and unparalleled selection have played a significant role in making Target Field one of America’s greatest sports venues.”
The Twins Territory Market in Section 112 will continue to offer healthier menu items, which are great for those with dietary needs or food allergies.


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The UK’s Fairtrade Foundation (part of Fairtrade International) has announced that it will not be involved in the new pilot fair trade scheme being launched by the supermarket Sainsbury’s over concerns that it fails to meet core principles of Fairtrade and would disempower farming groups in Africa.
With the launch of the programme, Sainsbury’s own-brand Red Label and Gold Label ranges will no longer be certified Fairtrade, but instead be part of its new ‘Fairly Traded’ range. The changes will affect over 229,000 farmers.
“Fairtrade and Sainsbury’s have worked together for many years and we are rightfully proud of what we have achieved for some of the world’s most marginalised farmers,” says Michael Gidney, CEO of the Fairtrade Foundation. “Whilst we welcome and expect companies to work towards improving social, economic and environmental outcomes within their supply chains, we don’t believe the execution of this current model will, on balance, deliver positive changes for tea farmers. Therefore, at this stage we are unable to partner with the Sainsbury’s Foundation (the organisation set up by the supermarket to oversee its fair trade scheme) as it does not yet meet our core principles, particularly in the area of producer empowerment.“
Commenting on the launch of the pilot, Sainsbury’s group chief executive, Mike Coupe, said: “I’m immensely proud to be launching the Fairly Traded pilot today, alongside the new Sustainability Standards and advisory board. Ethical and sustainable sourcing are at the heart of our business and as the world changes we cannot stand still. That’s why this innovative pilot will build on our existing work and relationships and we’re aiming to deliver significant benefits for our farmers, our business and our customers.
“The business case is clear. Our farmers and growers can expect financial security through long-term relationships and a greater level of support to help them plan for their futures. At the same time we safeguard the future quality and availability of the great British cuppa for our customers.”
“We told Sainsbury’s loud and clear: your model will bring about disempowerment”
But in an open letter, tea producers from across East and Central Africa and Southern Africa Networks of Fairtrade Africa wrote: “We told Sainsbury’s loud and clear: your model will bring about disempowerment. We are extremely concerned about the power and control that Sainsbury’s seeks to exert over us … We see the proposed approach as an attempt to replace the autonomous role which Fairtrade brings and replace it with a model which no longer balances the power between producers and buyers.”
A centra objection is that the Sainsbury’s Fairly Traded Social Premium will be housed and managed by Sainsbury’s Foundation, so farmers and workers will only be able to access the funds if they are successful in applying for grant funding for investment following project proposals.
Gidney called on the supermarket to commit to a thorough monitoring and evaluation of the tea pilot before any further expansion. “We’re certain Sainsbury’s will welcome further public scrutiny and we look forward to seeing their published plans for their tea pilot including transparent standards, delivery plans and measurable outcomes at the earliest opportunity,” he added “ Whilst we cannot partner with them on an untested pilot as it stands we would welcome opportunities to work with Sainsbury’s in the future if together, we can embed Fairtrade’s principles within their model.”
A Sainsbury’s spokesperson told Natural Products News: “We are matching all the benefits of the Fairtrade model and building on them.”


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'GrayKey' iPhone Unlocking Box Seeing Wide Adoption Among Law Enforcement
GrayShift's recently publicized "GrayKey" box designed to crack locked iPhones is seeing wide adoption among police forces and federal agencies across the United States according to a recent investigation by Motherboard.
Motherboard found that regional police forces like the Maryland State Police, the Indiana State Police, and the Miami-Dade County Police have purchased or are soon purchasing GrayKey technology, while other forces like the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department have looked into boxes and received quotes from GrayShift.
The Secret Service is also planning to purchase "at least half a dozen" GrayKey boxes for unlocking iPhones, while the State Department has already bought them and the Drug Enforcement Administration has expressed interest.
Current FBI Director Christopher Wray said in January at the International Conference on Cyber Security that law enforcement officials are facing a "Going Dark" challenge where an "enormous" number of cases rely on an electronic device. "We're increasingly unable to access that evidence, despite lawful authority to do so," said Wray.
Motherboard's investigation into GrayShift, the GrayKey iPhone unlocking boxes, and other smartphone unlocking methods suggest that is not the case. The FBI uses the going dark debate to advocate for easier access to electronic devices through backdoors, but the seemingly readily available tools like GrayKey undermine these arguments.
"It demonstrates that even state and local police do have access to this data in many situations," Matthew Green, an assistant professor and cryptographer at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, told Motherboard in a Twitter message. "This seems to contradict what the FBI is saying about their inability to access these phones."
"The availability and affordability of these tools undercuts law enforcement's continual assertions that they need smartphone vendors to be forced to build 'exceptional access' capabilities into their devices," Riana Pfefferkorn, cryptography fellow at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, told Motherboard in a Twitter message.
In recent months, law enforcement officials have been quietly revisiting proposals that would require tech companies to build backdoor access into smartphones and other electronics, something Apple vehemently fought against back in 2016 following the San Bernardino shooting where the FBI attempted to order the company to provide it with a tool to crack the iPhone 5c involved in the case.
As has been previously reported, the GrayKey mentioned by Motherboard is a small, portable gray box that's equipped with dual Lightning cables. An iPhone can be plugged into one of the cables to install proprietary software that's able to guess the passcode for an iPhone in either a few hours or a few days, depending on the strength of the passcode.
Once the GrayKey software has unlocked an iPhone, it can be plugged back into the GrayKey box to download all of the data on the iPhone. GrayKey can crack the latest iPhones running modern versions of iOS, including iOS 11, providing law enforcement officials with easy access to locked iPhones for criminal investigations.
Grayshift charges $15,000 for a GrayKey box that requires internet connectivity, is geofenced to a specific location, and allows for 300 unlocks, or $30,000 for a box that requires no connection, can be used anywhere, and can unlock an unlimited number of devices.
As Motherboard points out, the technology used in the GrayKey boxes may eventually be outdated through updates to the iOS operating system, leading to periods where some versions of iOS may be difficult to access. Because of the ongoing cat and mouse game of Apple patching a vulnerability as third-party iPhone cracking services look for new methods to get into iPhones, the argument for backdoors into smartphones is likely to surface time and time again.
Motherboard's full report on the iPhone unlocking tools available to law enforcement officials can be viewed over on the website.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.


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CHICAGO (FOX 32) - Yet another bike store smash and grab on the North Side of Chicago is the latest in more than a dozen burglaries targeting high-end bikes worth thousands of dollars.
Police are now confirming the thefts are connected.
Mark Mattei has owned Cycle Smithy in Lincoln Park since 1978 and says he’s never seen anything like it.
“It's a crew that's got their stuff down and they're doing it again and again,” said Mattei.
Four men captured on a surveillance camera around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning cut through a security gate and smashed the front window, grabbing five high-end bikes worth more than $24,000.
“They just went through cable, which is pretty straight forward,” said Mattei. “But I’ve got at least two of these u-shaped or kryptonite type locks that were also gone through and those are even harder to cut."
It's believed the same crew is responsible for up to 15 bike store thefts on the North Side, several captured on camera. They’re in and out in less than a minute and go for the good stuff, possibly to be shipped overseas where the serial numbers won't matter.
“They're not popping up on eBay or Craigslist,” said Mattei. “The detectives tell me they're not showing up in pawn shops."
After Mattei was burglarized just three weeks ago, he spent thousands of dollars putting up a giant steel barrier to protect the front windows. However, that didn’t even work.
After 41 years, Mattei says he would like to stay in business, but not under these conditions.
“Not if I have to be under the threat of a break in every month or two, twice a month or whatever,” said Mattei. “I can't sustain that just as a business model. I will become untenable."


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The first all-electric Lotus supercar, the 2000 HP Lotus Evija, made a dynamic public debut this weekend at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. None other than Lord March (the son of the event’s host, the Duke of Richmond) put a pre-production version of the car through its paces as part of the event’s celebration of decades of Lotus’ heritage.
Goodwood Celebration of Lotus Heritage
Three examples of the Evija are on display at Goodwood’s SpeedWeek. The first in a vibrant Lotus “Solaris Yellow” finish, and two wrapped in a black and gold pattern that recalls iconic Lotus racing liveries of the past. Those cars also feature a stylized image of Goodwood’s West Sussex road course, along with the words, “Lotus x Goodwood: Creating History since 1948,” which was the year of both the very first Lotus-branding car and the first motorsport event held at Goodwood.
Lotus has been making waves in the EV space ever since the initial reveal of its Evija supercar last year. At the time, the 2000 HP super-performance car was being marketed as the world’s most powerful production car … and, a year later, that statement is true as ever. With that much power on-hand and Lotus’ traditional excellence on the chassis side, there’s no question the Evija is going to be a thrill-a-minute ride.
Lord March agrees. “The Evija is unbelievable,” he says. “The power, the speed, I’ve never experienced anything like it– it is exceptional. This new dawn of electric hyper cars brings ultimate motoring to life for a new generation and a younger audience. The advancement in electric cars over the last 10 years is astonishing. There is a huge amount of growth potential for these machines to continue allowing us to keep enjoying and driving high performance cars. Lotus continues to appeal to both the inner driver and the inner child in all of us– so much fun, and ultimately for the driver to control and enjoy.”
The limited edition Lotus Evija should start to reach customers’ hands early next year, with the COVID outbreak having had a small impact on the initial delivery dates. But, I mean, what’s a global pandemic, really, to the few dozen or so global billionaires that will be buying these things, right?
Anyway, take a few seconds to check out the new Lotus Evija in its Goodwood heritage colors, below, then scroll on down to the comments section and let us know how you plan to order yours, too. Steve Hanley and I will drop into your DMs rather sooner than later to try and set up a quiet and responsible test drive.
Source: Lotus Cars.
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Former Tesla Battery Expert Leading Lyten Into New Lithium-Sulfur Battery Era — Podcast:
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...


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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - Better-than-expected online sales and an increase in leads generated helped CNet to turn yet another profitable quarter, beating Street estimates by two cents.
"Definitely a good quarter," said Daniel King, an Internet analyst at LaSalle St. Securities. "It looks like the upside surprise on the sales came from the online unit and that's why gross profits came in higher as well."
San Francisco-based CNet CNET, -5.75% reported a second quarter profit of $9.2 million. Excluding goodwill amortization, equity losses and gains on the sale of equity investments, proforma profit came in at $5.4 million, or 7 cents a share, two cents better than expectations.
Quarterly sales also surpassed projections by 14 percent, growing 92 percent to $25.6 million. Revenue from the online division, which is generated mostly from advertising, grew 109 percent to $23.8 million.
Still, sales growth was not as robust as the prior reporting period when CNet grew revenues by 101 percent and online sales by 124 percent.
Shares of CNet edged higher to 52 in aftermarket Instinet trading. It gained 1.5 percent in regular trading ahead of the release.
Operating margins improved to 21 percent, above King's 13 percent. The number of lead generations, a key metric for advertisers, grew to 130,000 leads-per-day in the month of June, up 25 percent from March.
"That's great considering they raised prices -- that's even better," King said, referring to the leads. King assumes that CNet makes 60 cents per each lead.
Among the key metrics for advertisers zoom in on: CNet said it had 10.8 million daily page views in the quarter, up from 9.5 million in the prior period.CNet also grew its unique users to an average of 8.2 million in the month of April and May, according to Media Metrix data.


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Thor Industries beats second quarter estimates
from Daily Finance
Thor Industries Inc. announced its overall second-quarter RV sales were up 15 percent from the second quarter of 2011. "We are pleased to report improved earnings during the seasonally most difficult quarter of our fiscal year," said Peter Orthwein, Thor chairman and CEO.
7701 Las Colinas Blvd., Ste. 800, Irving, TX 75063