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By Scott Logie, MD, Insight at REaD Group
Many have likened the impending GDPR to a data apocalypse and the end of marketing as we know it. Certainly, if you have been brazen enough to ignore the new regulation altogether and failed to prepare then it is most likely a ‘data hell’ that beckons. However, your actions in the final days before the changing of the guard from DPA to GDPR (and beyond for that matter) will determine whether it’s an apocalypse that awaits, or a nirvana.
There have been countless examples over the years of companies committing data blunders and ‘bad data’ seriously affecting consumer’s perception of a brand’s image. Indeed, research carried out in 2016 found that two thirds (66%) of consumers said that they would boycott organisations that continued to send mailings to a loved one that was deceased .
Given recent events surrounding misuse of data and growing unease and distrust from consumers around how their data is used, it seems likely that this figure will only have grown.
In 2014 a woman in California received a credit card offer from Bank of America addressed to ‘Lisa is a…(well, let’s just say a rather offensive word that rhymes with mutt…) McIntyre ‘. A photograph of the offending letter was shared on Twitter and subsequently went viral. While this is perhaps a fairly amusing example of inaccurate data backfiring – and luckily for the bank in this case Lisa saw the funny side – it certainly highlights the importance of ensuring that your database is clean before running a campaign.
Similarly, there is the infamous ‘Dear Rich b**tard’ incident, which has now passed into marketing urban legend. After doing my own research into the origins and validity of this story I discovered that this particular gem of a blunder was carried out by a small UK based company in the early 1990s. After a programmer classed poorly formatted data under the placeholder phrase ‘Rich B**tard’ this was never updated, resulting in mailings being sent out addressed ‘Dear Rich B**tard’. A small mistake to make, but one that could have been far more serious, and costly. Interestingly the company was later contacted by a prospective customer who was indignant that he had not been contacted in this manner as he felt that he qualified for such a title!
I remember a bank a few years ago who mistakenly mailed all of their suppressed records (including deceased and goneaway contacts) instead of suppressing them. As you can imagine they were inundated with complaints from angry consumers…but at the same time received an amazing response rate!? Rather than advocating this mistake, this merely promotes the argument for keeping track of relocated consumers and looking at new occupiers.
Perhaps one of the most distressing and horrific mistakes related to inaccurate data happened in 2014 to a recently widowed woman from Cardiff. After her husband passed away she was bombarded with mailings from her husband’s mobile provider demanding overdue payments and offering new tariffs and deals. Despite attempts to inform the company that her husband had passed away, the mailings continued and became less friendly in tone. Following three visits to a branch, on one occasion bringing her husband’s ashes and death certificate with her, the matter was finally resolved after a huge amount of unnecessary distress and anguish to her and her family had been caused.
This is an extreme example, but the brand damage and bad publicity such an error could cause is enormous – the coverage of the story was incredibly widespread at the time. But it could all have been so easily avoided.
With data cleaning solutions readily available, and with the advent of DaaS (Data as a Service) allowing data to be cleaned in real time, there really is no excuse for having data that is not accurate and up to date.
Article 5 (d) of the new Regulation states that data must be kept accurate and up to date or deleted. This is not something that is up for debate or a nice-to-have, but something that will be enforced in law. Failure to comply with this aspect of GDPR will result in potentially hefty fines from the ICO.
 Wilmington Millennium, The True Cost of Mailing the Dead: Brand Damage, 2016


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While it might not be the wisest marketing choice, associating your hotel with an asylum for the criminally insane, the Holiday Inn City Center gets a pass for its convenient access to E3 2009.
Our hotel room keys this year are sponsored by Eidos' Batman: Arkham Asylum. One features the art from the game's cover, while the other advertises the exclusive PlayStation 3 Joker challenge maps, the news of which came as such a surprise last month. They are being given exclusively to Holiday Inn visitors attending E3, and, as the excited woman behind the desk informed us, "You get to keep them." Yay! The show doesn't officially start for 2 days, and already we've got swag!
I'm sure we will all treasure these for as long as we need them to get into our hotel rooms.

domain: news


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Tacos Mariachi, the restaurant visited by Guy Fieri on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in West Dallas, will not reopen after shuttering during the pandemic. Dallas’ second Tacos Mariachi, on Lowest Greenville, will not reopen, either. But there is new life for this well-liked taco shop: Owner Jesus Carmona plans to open a similar restaurant named Milagro in Dallas’ Trinity Groves.
Milagro is about 450 feet east of the original, on Singleton Boulevard.
“I can’t wait to unveil Milagro and show everyone what we’ve been working on,” Carmona says in a statement.
Milagro means “miracle” in Spanish. And perhaps it is: Carmona promised his loyal customers that a Tacos Mariachi spinoff would reopen somewhere, someday after both restaurants closed. During the pandemic, Carmona opened a sit-down Argentinian restaurant named Chimichurri in Dallas’ Bishop Arts District.
Milagro will sell Tijuana street tacos, as did Tacos Mariachi. A press release says the new restaurant will have carryover menu items from Tacos Mariachi as well as some new additions. Carmona’s delicious pulpo (octopus) taco will be on the menu. We’re also rooting for La Prensa, a grilled chicken and veggies taco with jalapeño aioli. (La prensa means “the press,” and it was named for my Dallas Morning News colleagues who were regulars at the West Dallas shop.)
Beyond tacos, Milagro will also serve a burger with avocado mousse, sauteed shrimp, crumbled chicharron and jalapeño glaze. Other menu items include ceviche and veggie bowls.
Carmona’s taco shop was a popular destination in Trinity Groves when it opened in 2015, and it’s noteworthy that he is returning to the same neighborhood for his next venture. In keeping with Trinity Groves’ new business structure, Milagro is not an incubator, which means Trinity Groves investors do not own a share of the business.
Carmona says he’s ready to serve new and returning customers.
“I’m so passionate about Tijuana’s rich culture and cuisine, and I can’t wait to share tacos, ceviche and plenty of good conversations in the new restaurant,” Carmona says.
Milagro will be at 440 Singleton Blvd., Dallas. It’s expected to open in May 2021.


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One Blog |October 13, 2010 | POS Tracking Software
Marketing at-Retail - What’s Next? Smarter Consumers?
Smarter Consumers - That’s What’s Next.
The results of a recent very large scale retail consumer study are in. The IBM Institute for Business Value recently released the results of a survey of over 30,000 people in three growth markets to discover what consumers will want from retailers in the future.
IBM’s 2010 study, Meeting the Demands of the Smarter Consumer, begins by noting, “The rules of the retail marketplace are changing dramatically.”
New technologies - and perhaps more importantly new demographic and economic trends - are reshaping the retail marketplace. Retail customers are getting more diverse, wealthier and smarter.
Here’s what we know right now: our population is projected to grow nearly 13% by 2020. More people already live in cities than in rural areas, and, if anything, this trend is accelerating. In the “emerging world” over 50% of the world’s population, for the first time ever, is considered to be “middle-class.”
These facts, coupled with rapidly rising universal Internet access, widely available “smart” mobility devices, and rapidly spreading retail technologies, such as in-store kiosks, mean many consumers already have virtually instantaneous access to product information at the point-of-sale. According to the Institute for Business Value, these changes are creating a new pool of shoppers with an estimated $5.4 trillion to spend. Yes, that’s right -Trillions.
Imagine, too, the retail customer poised to buy and armed with information - downloaded to a smart phone less than a minute ago - who still wants more input before making a decision. The consumer can simply send a short tweet out to everyone in his or her social network, asking “what was the name of that [beer, wine or other beverage] we drank last Saturday at Polly’s party?” The point is: buying decisions are still being made practically at the moment (and at the place) of purchase, but in new and previously unimagined ways.
The following is a summary of the Institute’s survey of over 30,000 consumers - your ultimate customers.
Consumers think that “at-Retail” should focus, in order of importance, on:
- Better point-of-sale promotions
- More attractive pricing
- Improved products, and
- More variety.
The results of this survey - notably that consumers appreciate and want better (and more) Marketing at-Retail initiatives - should come as no surprise, if you’ve been following our blog here at OnTrakSoftware.com. However, what may really get your attention is that almost two-thirds of the participants in this survey said they would spend more money, if the improvements they suggested were adopted.
True Marketing at-Retail mavens rejoice. You have yet another data point confirming the power of point-of-sale marketing in retaining and growing your market share. But even so, the faithful should remind themselves “it remains a shopper’s market.”
Smarter Point-of-Sale Marketing
Smarter consumers want “smarter” Marketing at-Retail promotions. Suppliers, distributors and retailers alike must provide the promotions, pricing and products customers prefer. In addition, they should use managed programs and tools to develop controlled and measured at-retail campaigns these ever-smarter consumers demand.


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Elon Musk has lofty ambitions for Tesla during the next few years.
By the end of 2017, the company aims to begin production of its more affordable Model 3. And by 2020 it plans to ramp up production to build as many as one million vehicles per year, an ambitious goal considering the company only produced a little more than 50,000 vehicles in 2015.
For any of this to be possible, though, Tesla must first complete its Gigafactory, a giant battery plant appropriately located on Electric Avenue in Sparks, Nevada.
While the plant isn't expected to be complete until next year, Tesla and Musk have already revealed quite a few details about the factory that are pretty mind blowing.
Here’s a look at the 18 most incredible facts that have been revealed about the Gigafactory so far.
The factory is located on a plot of land that is more than three times the size of Central Park.
The factory is located in Storey County, Nevada on a 3,000-acre lot of land.
The original site was 1,000 acres, but in June 2015 the company purchased an additional 1,864 acres of adjacent land.
The purchase will enable the company to expand the size of the factory by 50 or 100 times, Musk has said.
The factory itself is also huge and may get even bigger.
The factory stretches for more than 5.5 million square feet, or the equivalent of 126 acres.
To put that into perspective, that is more than 95 football fields. It’s so big, in fact, that Musk even gets blown away when he visits the plant.
"It's worth seeing, this is crazy, this is like an alien dreadnought - it's really nutty," Musk said during the Vox Media Code Conference in early June.
It’s so big, in fact, that it will be the world’s second-largest building by footprint.
While the footprint of the building is 5.8 million square feet, the total planned floor space will be 13.6 million square feet, according to a report from Bloomberg. This is because some parts of the building will be broken down into four stories.
Once it’s complete, it will be the second largest building by footprint. It will only be slightly smaller the Boeing’s Everett, Washington, plant, which is the world’s largest building by volume.
It is built to sustain earthquakes.
According to building permits acquired by BuildZoom, the factory is composed of four different structures built on four separate foundations so that it can better withstand earthquakes.
According to the Reno-Gazette Journal, Tesla spent an estimated $16 million on the foundation alone.
It will make Tesla’s next car much more affordable.
According to Tesla’s website, the giant factory will help it dramatically cut the cost of its batteries by “using economies of scale, innovative manufacturing, reduction of waste, and the simple optimization of locating most manufacturing process under one roof.”
Once the factory is fully operational by 2020, Tesla estimates the factory will enable it to reduce its battery prices by about 30%.
The lowered cost of the batteries will enable the company to price its Model 3 at about $35,000.
Rail cars full of raw material will come into the factory from the mines and come out as batteries.
Though Tesla hasn’t revealed all of the ways it will reach “extreme economies of scale” at the Gigafactory, we know that recycling will be a huge part of the effort. So much so that Tesla will do things that no other battery manufacturer has ever done before, Musk said recently at the Baron investors' conference.
"What we are doing at the Gigafactory is consolidating the production of the pack all the way from the raw materials," Musk said. "So there's literally cars coming in from the mines, like rail cars of raw materials from the mines, and then out come completely finished battery packs and this has actually never been done before, for batteries at least."
Everything will be recycled.
The factory will be decked out with a state-of-the-art recycling system and will provide recycling capability for old battery packs.
Tesla aims to only use renewable energy to power the factory.
The factory will create all of the energy it needs.
Solar panels will line the roof of the factory and additional panels will be placed on surrounding hilltops to capture more energy.
The company will also utilize geothermal and wind power to meet energy demands.
Keeping with its natural theme, wild horses can also be spotted around the manufacturing plant.
A Tesla representative told Tech Insider that wild horses can often be spotted roaming around the factory.
The factory will have a 1.5 million gallon water tank.
According to BuildZoom's website, which is tracking the permits for the Gigafactory, the facility will have a ginormous water tank.
BuildZoom posted the permit for the 1.5 million gallon steel water storage tank on its website. To help put that into perspective, that's about the twice the amount of water that is used in an Olympic size swimming pool, BuildZoom states.
It will be the largest lithium-ion battery factory in the world.
Tesla is already the biggest consumer of lithium ion on the planet, surpassing even device manufacturers like Apple and Samsung. But it will soon also become the biggest producer of lithium ion batteries.
Tesla aims to build one million cars per year by the later half of this decade.
To power all of those cars, the company will produce more battery cells at its plant by 2020 than all of the lithium-ion battery makers combined created in 2013.
Cell manufacturing at the plant will be extremely fast.
Musk has made no qualms about Tesla becoming the best manufacturer in the world and the Gigafactory will play a big part in helping the company get there.
"Our engineering team has worked very closely with Panasonic to make dramatic improvements to the cell manufacturing efficiency. I think we’re probably approaching 3x the efficiency of the best plant in the world. I think that’s pretty good. Cells will be going through that thing like bullets from a machine gun. In fact, the exit rate of cells will be faster than bullets from a machine gun," Musk said during a recent analyst call.
It will cost Tesla and its partners billions.
Tesla and its partners will collectively invest a total of $5 billion into the factory by 2020. Tesla itself will directly invest about $2 billion in the Gigafactory.
More than 6,000 employees will work at the facility.
Once the factory is finished in 2020, it will house some 6,500 employees.
According to a Bloomberg report, there were about 350 employees already working there as of May.
According to Tesla's website, the company is currently hiring for some positions at the facility, including people who work in human resources and engineering technicians.
But robots will also be used to perform some tasks.
Robots will roam around certain areas of the Gigafactory.
In April, Vice got a sneak peek inside part of the factory where mobile robots called "automated guided vehicles" (AGVs) moved around the factory floor.
AGVs are commonly used in manufacturing settings for moving items from one point to another.
The robots navigate on their own by following magnetic tape on the ground. They are also equipped with sensors and a laser system to help guide them.
Besides the AGVs, the Gigafactory is also equipped with robotic arms that assist humans in making the battery packs at the plant, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal .
Conference rooms in the factory are named after chemical elements.
Specifically, the conference rooms are named after chemical elements that relate to producing Tesla's batteries, according to a report from Bloomberg. This includes lithium, cobalt, nickel, aluminum, and silicon.
It will be shaped like a diamond and be aesthetically pleasing.
Just like with Tesla's vehicles, a lot of attention is being given to the factory's design.
"We are taking care to make sure that it looks good, that it fits in with the surroundings. It's a factory, but we care about aesthetics," Musk said during a press conference in Nevada.
"So the factory will actually be shaped like a diamond and the reason for that is if you make it a box shape, we would have had to move a lot more Earth. So in order to have it fit more in the environment, we had it shaped like a diamond," he said.
The factory is also aligned on true north so that Tesla can map out where the equipment is going to be by GPS and so the solar panels on the roof are properly aligned.
"I think it's kind of romantic to say that it is shaped like a diamond and aligned on the true north, but there are practical reasons for it as well," Musk said during the conference.
There may be more Gigafactories opening down the line.
In November of last year, Musk said during the Baron Investment Conference that Tesla is looking to build more Gigafactories in the future.
"Many autoplants, and many Gigafactories I think are needed," Musk said.
In fact, the name of the Gigafactory is technically Gigafactory 1, so we could see more of these ginormous plants in the future.


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The UK Government has voted down a bill supported by 70 MPs to regulate buy now, pay later firms like Klarna, Laybuy and Clearpay.The amendment to the financial services bill was sponsored by Labour MP Stella Creasy, who referred to the entry of a host of BNPL firms as the “next Wonga waiting to happen”.
The BNPL industry has seen huge growth in recent years, with the likes of Klarna and Affirm becoming multi-billion dollar giants.
According to research by Credit Karma, a quarter of Brits used buy now, pay later services to fund Christmas shopping, setting up a £2.3 billion bill.
Looking for information about how COVID-19 has impacted the payments industry?
The Strawhecker Group (TSG) and Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA) teamed up to survey a representative sample of U.S. consumers, and analyzed Visa’s proprietary spend data, with the goal of understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted consumer lifestyles, payments trends, and how behaviors may change after the pandemic.
Click here to download TSG and Visa’s infographic, Purchasing in a Pandemic.
The post UK Government votes down bill to regulate BNPL firms appeared first on The Strawhecker Group.


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First Philippine Holdings appoints BBDO Guerrero for identity campaign
Spanning print and online platforms, the campaign will also target students in a recruitment programme. It will also serve as an overarching theme across FPH’s different subsidiaries.
FPH manages various businesses, including energy and energy services, real estate, industrial parks, ...
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Motorola is apparently hard at work on another high-end handset known as the DROID HD - and boy, is it a good-looking piece of kit. Just take a look:
Left to right: DROID BIONIC, DROID HD
The DROID HD appears to be what the DROID X2 should have been - namely, much better in every respect. While it may have a qHD display (not confirmed - just presumed), in almost every other conceivable way, the HD looks like the Moto handset to have. Read More
A few weeks ago, we heard a rumor that Motorola was working on a beefier version of the super rugged Defy, simple called the Defy+. Those rumors were realized today, as Moto official announced this new incarnation to the Defy line, complete with a faster processor and an upgraded shell.
The Defy+ will rock a 1GHz processor "that runs 25% faster" than the current Defy, Android 2.3.x, a 5MP rear shooter, 2GB built-in storage, and a 1700mAh battery underneath its 3.7 inch shell. Read More
Google has just announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The search giant will be paying $40 per share, a premium of 63% from the closing price of Motorola's shares from last Friday. The actual acquisition is expected to take place in late 2011 or early 2012 pending regulatory approvals.
A partnership between the developer of the Android platform and a top 3 Android device manufacturer is likely to light a fire beneath the likes of Samsung, HTC, LG, and other Android partners. Read More
Motorola Photon 4G, Sprint's latest dual-core Android phone and EVO 3D's only true rival, is only 10 days old, but it's not stopping Radioshack from folding its price sticker in half and throwing it on a sweet-sweet sale - $99.99.
The deal is available immediately at RadioshackWireless.com, though it's currently limited to new accounts, as it oftentimes happens (don't even look at it if you're upgrading). Throw in free FedEx shipping, and you've got yourself a pretty good price on Sprint's second best offering today, at least until the Galaxy S2, a.k.a. Read More
Yesterday a German court sided with Apple against Samsung, disallowing the sale of Galaxy Tab 10.1 units in the European Union. Buried deep within this filing is mention of yet another complaint -- but this one is against Motorola, allegedly over the design of the XOOM.
This has been a back-and-forth battle between the two companies for sometime now, with Moto originally going after Apple for violating 18 patents in iOS and some Macs back in October of 2010. Read More
While the US variant of the Motorola XOOM recently received Android 3.2, the European version has been patiently waiting to leave version 3.0.1. That wait is finally coming to its end, as the official Android 3.1 OTA has started rolling out in Europe, according to Motorola EU's Facebook page. Of course, this is a staged rollout, so it may be days - or even weeks - before some users actually see it hit their device. Read More
There is good news for Motorola Atrix users with a penchant for rooting and modding as the CyanogenMod Atrix Developers Team has just released a pre-beta of CM7.
User graemegb posted on the XDA Developers Forum yesterday with links to a post on ModMyMobile.com which had download links for the CM7 pre-beta and the accompanying Google Apps package.
According to the post the following components are working with the current pre-beta release:
- Calls and SMS
- Battery stats
- Proximity sensor
- Screen orientation
- Internal storage and external SD card
- Multimedia playback (videos, music)
Unfortunately, the Bluetooth and camera are currently not working, in addition to “everything else that wasn't included in the [above] working list”. Read More
The Droid Bionic, Verizon's most anticipated and delayed phone of 2011 (alongside the SGS2), expected to show up around September 8th, just got a few details we were curious about confirmed in its FCC filing docs, along with a slew of photos. Hilariously, it looks like either FCC has been testing this phone in a warzone or they have a pack of wild puppies around the office, because the device looks like it's just been through battle and gotten a Purple Heart. Read More
Motorola XOOM 3G owners, today is your lucky day. Okay, well, maybe not lucky, but still good - the OTA update to Android 3.2 has officially started rolling out. This update brings some subtle, yet nice new features to the Motorola tablet:
+ Screen Scaling Compatibility Mode:
Ability to switch to double pixel mode for selected applications.
When selected, application sub-windows and drop down menus are
also doubled. In addition, pixel doubling settings are saved for each
The Android 3.2 update for the Verizon 3G (soon-to-be 4G) XOOM can be flashed right now, before it hits your device over-the-air.
If you've flashed a custom recovery (and gave up the warranty), you can find update instructions over at MDW - in this case, you don't need our instructions below. This option is good for those with unlocked bootloaders (though if you're rooted, it seems the only update option right now is to install a pre-rooted update which will wipe your device). Read More


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BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- As anti-globalization appears to be sweeping across world economies still struggling with slow recoveries, China is poised to defend its exports against escalating protectionism.
"We do not want trade wars, but we will be well-prepared for and actively respond to any trade remedy measures from other countries and regions to protect the interests of Chinese enterprises," Wang Hejun, head of the trade remedy and investigation bureau under the Ministry of Commerce, told the "Economic Information Daily."
His remarks came in as a response to recent exorbitant tariffs imposed by the United States and European Union on Chinese steel.
The U.S. commerce authority ruled earlier this month that importers of stainless sheets and strips manufactured in China will have to pay anti-subsidy taxes up to 190.71 percent and anti-dumping taxes up to 76.64 percent. The European Commission at the end of January decided to levy heavy duties on another Chinese steel product, with rates ranging between 30.7 percent and 64.9 percent.
For China's steel industry, with its average profit margin of 5 percent to 10 percent, the taxes are more than enough to completely drive Chinese companies out of the overseas markets, analysts said.
The two cases signaled looming trade pressures for the world's second largest economy that had once thrived on exports.
"The global trade [situation] is deteriorating and will become even grimmer in 2017," Wang said, predicting Chinese steel and aluminum products will continue to be main targets of trade investigations.
The world's largest exporter has born the brunt of rising protectionism amid the feeble global economic recovery.
Chinese exporters suffered a record number 119 trade remedy investigations initiated by 27 countries or regions last year, a 36.8 percent increase from 2015. Those cases involved 14.34 billion U.S. dollars of goods, up 76 percent year on year.
Weighed on by trade remedies, China's full-year exports in 2016 dropped 2 percent in yuan-denominated terms, and imports up slightly by 0.6 percent, customs data showed. Its trade surplus dropped 9.1 percent.
"Protectionism is becoming increasingly serious, not only because of surging trade probes, but the disregard for and abuse of established rules of some members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which have further compounded the international circumstance," Wang said.
To easily impose exorbitant tariffs on Chinese products, the United States and EU still use costs of production in a third country to calculate the value of products from countries on its "non-market economy" list, which includes China.
The unfair and unreasonable practice should have expired at the end of 2016, according to agreements signed when China joined the WTO in 2001. But the United States has refused to grant China equal trade status, and the EU, although mulling abolishment of its "non-market economy" list, has proposed new restrictions to legalize the old practice.
Trade remedies have been politicized and become an expedient for some countries and regions to transfer domestic economic pressure, Wang said.
Under a prolonged economic downturn, protectionism is on the rise around the globe. The monthly average trade investigations launched by WTO members in 2016 reached the highest level since 2009.
China suffers more trade remedy probes from U.S. in 2016
BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese exporters have suffered a total of 20 trade remedy probes initiated by the United States in 2016, an 81.1 percent increase year on year, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Thursday. Full story
G20 ministers call for inclusive growth, rejecting protectionism
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- Ministers of G20 member nations at the World Economic Forum here have called on the international group of major economies to continue aiming for inclusive growth and free trade, and rejecting protectionism. Full story


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Uber, a company which tried to file for an IPO silently has to suffer from serious media attention. The Initial Public Offering is yet to go through and Uber is still having a tough time comprehending the news that is floating around. The company had to go through a lot of tumultuous times in the past. It had to work through a lot of problems and did shut down in numerous countries. The company is omnipresent when it comes to the world, however, the problem here is the competition.
The initial public offering saw different versions of Uber or different versions of problems caused by Uber. Point being the San Francisco based company causes traffic, pollution and all the other problems caused by excessive vehicles. However, there are some amazing things that Uber has done to the technological world and no one is looking at it. Uber has always been a point of criticism for one matter or the other but this article, purposefully look at one thing, Uber has done.
The ex-employee startups
Nowadays, every company looks at their employees as employees and there are hardly any companies that treat their employees as family. Work is a place where people spend most of their lives and if they are not made at home, their entire lives might be ruined. However, Uber was not one of those companies, this company nested their employees and nurtured them to become a better person. The legacy of Uber can be seen through the work of their ex-employees.
Uber has given life to 34 startups, that is 34 different business, and god knows how many jobs. Now, the 34 startups have one thing in common; every startup was founded by an ex-employee of Uber. This number is not even close to any other company. There are behemoths like Google, Microsoft, Facebook or even Amazon but none of their ex-employees have successful startups.
There is a startup called Bird which is an electric scooter startup which is valued at $2 billion. There is another startup named Beam which focuses on e-scooter rental in the South East Asian market. These are just two examples from relevant fields but there are many startups which are in a totally different tangent as well.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has founded a kitchen rental business. This business is for restaurant deliveries and is called as CloudKitchens. This startup is not competing with Uber. This is the legacy of Uber no one talks about. These are just three startups and apart from this, there are 31 more.


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Well Microsoft is really on a roll at the moment. Ace Combat a series that started on the PS1 before becoming very popular through the life span of the PS2 has now been announced as a Xbox 360 exclusive!.
Namco officially announced this morning that Ace Combat 6 will be exclusive to the big white box.
After Capcoms announcement yesterday of former PS3 exclusives also coming to the Xbox this is turning into a good week for Xbox 360 owners.
It has always been said that the games will end up deciding this next gen war and at the rate that Microsoft is stealing exclusives away from PS3 whilst maintaining their grip on their personal exclusives things are looking very rosy for the Xbox’s future.
I wonder how much cash they have lying around to try and get Metal Gear Solid on the Xbox? That would the coup of the century….
Last Updated: March 21, 2007


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Microsoft has quite a few deals going on to finish off Black Friday, going in to Cyber Monday through the rest of the year. Save $20 on Halo: Reach, Fable III and a Xbox Wireless Headset and $10 off Xbox Chatpad just for a few deals.
More ways to make gamers poor come Cyber Monday! Too many good deals.
The holiday xbox bundle is a good deal
N4G is a community of gamers posting and discussing the latest game news. It’s part of NewsBoiler, a network of social news sites covering today’s pop culture.


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Last week the Australian directory publisher Sensis released its half-year financial results, ended Dec. 31, 2009, which showed pretty strong resilience but nonetheless a meaningful decline in print revenues. For the half-year period, combined print and online Yellow Pages results were down 4.3 percent. Print Yellow Pages declined 8.7 percent. Including White Pages, the print drop was 7 percent. White Pages (print and online) declined 3 percent.
These are declines that would be the envy of most global incumbent publishers, and in fact they are far better than what other traditional media peers have experienced in Australia. Newspapers, for example, declined 18 percent in the same period. But over the past few years, Sensis has been an industry beacon for sustaining print growth while so many other companies were seeing declines ranging well into double digits. The latest results raise the obvious question of whether Sensis is facing the same fate as its peers, albeit delayed a year.
We spoke yesterday with Sensis CEO Bruce Akhurst, who doesn’t believe the declines reflect a sudden secular shift, and he expects to see “a more stable selling environment” in 2010 than in 2009. Akhurst offered several explanations for the 1H 2009-10 drop, and for why he is confident that print will rebound.
Akhurst noted that the first half of Sensis’ July-June financial year features all its largest markets (including Sydney and Melbourne), which as in other global markets have often substantially weaker print performances than small town and rural directories. Second, Akhurst pointed out that sales canvasses for these books took place in the early part of 2009, when worry over the global financial crisis was at its peak.
Akhurst also cited cause for hope. “Our customer base has remained intact,” he said, adding that most of the decline came from advertisers pulling back, or failing to expand into new books and categories as in the past. In general, customers did not abandon the category. Akhust says Sensis has 600,000 advertisers.
Also, Akhurst said that while the financial crisis created an overhang of fear, the actual economy has not suffered very much, with unemployment around 4 percent. He believes an improving economy plus loyal customers suggests a rebound in White and Yellow print.
“The next canvasses will be very important to us,” Akhurst says.
Still, the company is making changes. First it is moving significantly this year from a product based to a “network based” sales approach, meaning Sensis will focus its sales messaging around lead-generation and ROI metrics, across channels. The company will still sell on a pay for inclusion basis. Akhurst does not see pay for performance or performance guarantees anytime soon.
“It’s a continuation of a journey we’ve been on,” he said, noting for example the company’s dramatic increase in its commitment to call measurement a few years ago. The completion of the journey to the “network” approach depended on launching a new generation Amdocs publishing system, which went live in October.


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For the original news story, please visit https://prdistribution.com/news/press-release-distribution-get-in-front-of-the-potential-customers-in-no-time.html.


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Speculation of an acquisition by publishing giant Electronic Arts has refused to go away, after the company bought a 20 per cent stake in Ubisoft two years ago.
"We have the capability, the management, the brands, the studios and the energy to go on alone," said Alain Corre, executive director for Ubisoft EMEA.
"I think it would be dangerous for a company like Ubisoft to get together too much with a company like EA, because it could kill creativity - and in our industry, I think that's key."
"The plan is for us to go on developing the business ourselves. What we have proven over the last 18, 20 months after EA got into our capital is that being independent, keeping our own strategy, was very lucrative and was the right thing to do," he added.
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
"The best games of the year and the creative teams behind them were in the spotlight at the grand award ceremony of the German Computer Game Award 2024." - German Computer Game Awards.
Seven months after its infamous launch, the Van Gogh Museum is restocking its popular Pokémon collaboration items -- and selling out fast.


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Q3 2022 results
Euronext published its third quarter 2022 results on 3 November 2022 after market close. The press release and the presentation are available on this page.
An analyst webcast and conference call, hosted by Stéphane Boujnah, CEO and Chairman of the Managing Board of Euronext, and Giorgio Modica, CFO, was held on Friday 4 November 2022 at 09:00 CET (Paris time) / 08:00 GMT (London time).
The replay is available at: Euronext Third Quarter 2022 Results.


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China’s bike-sharing startup Mobike is exploring new opportunities as it plans to introduce its bike-sharing services in Singapore. Co-founded by a former Uber executive, Mobike is offering a new mode of transportation for short distances traveling using the electronic bike.
Mobike is also the world’s first station-less bike sharing service, where users can just book and pick up an electric bike, ride it for short distances before returning it to any public bicycle parking. But ultimately this is enabled as the bike-lock is activated by scanning a QR code.
With Mobike, it will not only solve the individual’s personal transportation problem but more importantly, the electric bike will incarnate a revolutionary lifestyle which is much healthier, reducing congestion and pollution that is caused by transportation.
This also goes in lieu with Singapore’s development as the city-state is pushing to become a cycling-friendly city, evident with the government National Cycling Plan that aims to create a cyclist-friendly, extensive well-connected off-road network that will provide safe and healthy cycling for all.
Florian Bohnert, Mobike’s Singapore general manager who has moved to the country for its expansion said that it has been in talks with universities and polytechnics in Singapore to start the service on their campuses.
“Students can cycle from classroom to classroom within the campus, or from the campus to a nearby MRT station, or even a neighboring town.” Florian Bohnert told The Straits Times.
Mobike uses their own manufactured bikes whereby the bikes consist of a full aluminum frame which will prevent rust, airless tires and a crank-and-shaft transmission with the drivetrain concealed, that will prevent users to deal with the traditional issue of chains popping off. Furthermore, the bike locks charge themselves when the user pedals. These features result in the bikes being maintenance-free for 4 years.
In China, the startup is locked in battle with local rivals like Ofo which are backed by the support of Xiaomi and Didi Chuxing, the most dominant ride-hailing. However though Mobike has only found its footprints in four cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing, but the startup has found favor with investors like Tencent, Sequoia Capital, and Singapore Vertex.
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
Looking at Mario, it is perculiar how such a simple looping animated image featuring viral moments or pop cultural references manages to be so eye-catching.
Known as a GIF, which is short for Graphics Interchange Format, the animated image has exploded in popularity and successfully drawn in big interest from users and investors. As Giphy, the platform for all things GIF has announced today that it has raised US$72 million in its round of equity funding. The funding was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Institutional Venture Partners, and China Media Capital as well as existing backers Betaworks, RRE Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Alphabet Inc’s GV.
Following this, the startup based in New York has now doubled to a total funding of US$150 million as well as a valuation reported at US$600 million. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, this growth in funding and valuation came after the startup made an announcement last week that its GIFs has a daily viewership of 100 million people and that it serves one billion GIFs per day through its search engine, apps, and partnership deals which includes Viacom, Disney, and Major League Baseball. In totality, this culminates to about 2 million hours of GIFs viewed each day.
Understanding the never-ending thirst for silent, short videos ranging from silly to serious matters, the company was founded in February 2013 by Alex Chung and Jace Cooke. Although the company started out as part of a Hacker-in-Residence program at betaworks, it has always held the mission to make GIFs more searchable and shareable. The platform has since then been GIF-orientated, providing GIF-based products, including the ability to turn video into a GIF, Giphy Keys – a GIFkeyboard, and Giphy Cam available App Store, which is a portfolio of tools to help media companies publish GIF contents.
Additionally, the company also has a team in Giphy Studios that helps broadcast GIFs primarily turning media events like the Oscars or the Emmys into a library of GIFs, which is done in real-time. Furthermore, Giphy offers all these tools and resources to individual publishers and media companies for free, without any copyright restraints. In other words, to date, Giphy has not activated any form of monetization and is operating on a zero revenue basis.
Though it may seem like that this lack of exchange does not fare well for Giphy’s future revenue streams, but Giphy founder and CEO, Alex Chung sees a huge opportunity in advertising, saying at the TC Disrupt SF in September that “In a world where mobile messaging needs a native ad format, GIF is the perfect format for that.” He further elaborated that the mobile platform has yet to land on a native advertising format and his ambitions for GIFs to fill that role. It would be done in a way where brands could insert their products into intimate conversations, done so in a format that would feel natural and relevant.
But for now, Giphy says that it is not going to flip the monetization switch as long as the service continues to grow and investments flows in. For this round of funding, Giphy intends to use the funds to hire more editorial staff as well as in projects for the improvement of its technical capabilities.
On the same not, Giphy has also seized on the popularity of Vine, the six-second video service that began shutting down last week, offering users the option to convert Vine videos into GIFs, with the provided option to download the original file, audio and all from Giphy at any time.
For more information, please visit http://giphy.com/
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
With the future of VR unfolding at the moment, many have clearly seen the use of the technology playing out on gaming computers and home consoles. Starbreeze, a company based in Stockholm, Sweden similarly sees the potential of VR. But instead of going for 3D game engines like most companies, the startup has, on the other hand, decided to pursue what fits into their mode of production – that is taking VR on a high-end headset, designed for amusement parks and IMAX theaters, in what known today as the StarVR headset.
Consolidating the company’s status in the VR scene, this week the company has made some major new acquisition – announcing last Tuesday that it has purchased Nozon, a Belgium-based visual effects studio for 7.1 MEUR, which roughly translates to about US$7.78 million. The deal was closed with 4.6 MEUR (approximately US$5.05 million) in cash with the remaining 2.5 MEUR as newly issued Starbreeze B-shares, worth about US$ 2.74 million. Additionally, both parties have also agreed on a capped ten-year earn out for Nozon founders based on PresenZ future financial performance.
Looking at Nozon, it is a VFX and 3D animation company that produces feature films, where among some of the company’s portfolios include animated feature films such as Asterix, the Mansion of Gods, and Minuscule which has won the César for Best Animated Movie in 2015. Yet essentially, the company’s emphasis is on developing VR cinematic using an in-house tool, PresenZ which was the tool that ultimately led to this partnership between Starbreeze and Nozon.
Introduced in 2015, PresenZ is a revolutionary technology, known for its function to be able to deliver high-quality blockbuster computer graphics (CG). Its main feature, however, lies in its ability to create an interactive parallax in virtual reality which allows viewers to move their heads with a six degrees of freedom in a pre-rendered animated video. Essentially, it enables a degree of positional tracking and when being in a movie scene. In other words, the tool facilitates a better immersion experience. Just imagine looking down the rabbit hole with Alice in Wonderland.
“PresenZ technology for multiple virtual reality applications will allow for room scale scanning and virtualization, and high-quality computer graphics rendering at an almost movie-level polygon count. The technology’s parallax capabilities will greatly complement the high fidelity of the StarVR HMD with its 210-degree field of view,” said Bo Andersson Klint, the CEO of Starbreeze.
Besides that, Starbreeze‘s immersive virtual reality cinematic experiences are scheduled to be out later in the year. As the company has already partnered with IMAX to deliver new cinematic video content to location-based pods in movie theaters and shopping malls. On the same vein, with Facebook announcing its VR social networking experience last month and EXA Global, the first VR theme park in Southeast Asia slated to launch early next year, the world is becoming lively with virtual reality and its endless possibilities.
“The future of VR is undefined but it is easy to imagine with this technology, where a space can be scanned and rendered in high-quality CGI. And with Nozon joining Starbreeze family, it is possible to imagine with the applications it houses that you could render a space like the Louvre in Paris or Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice, and provide interactive guided tours.” the CEO of Starbreeze further adds.
For more information, please visit http://www.starbreeze.com/
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
According to a report by Bloomberg, instant messaging app, Snapchat is reportedly planning to raise a targeted amount of US$4 billion in its initial share sale.
With this, the sale may value Snapchat higher than its initial US$20 billion valuation that it has received in its earlier funding this year, at an amount of US$25 to US$35 billion. But no final decision nor details has been made public, thus the size of the IPO may still be subjected to changes.
But despite the variations that may occur in the lead up to an IPO, the company which recently has changed its corporate name to Snap Inc. is in the process of preparing filings for a listing. It aims to sell their shares in the first quarter of next year. Earlier this month, the company has also confirmed that Snap has hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to lead its IPO.
Additionally, as due to the company’s revenue which is less than US$1 billion, the company plans to file their IPO documents with US Securities and Exchange Commission confidentially. Snap Inc. declined to comment regarding these speculations.
But from previous records, the Los Angeles-based company after its last funding round held in May, has already reached a private market value of US$18 billion. With the ongoing plan of IPO, this would mean that Snap Inc would mark the highest social media company since Twitter Inc. sold its shares in November 2013.
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media
Carousell, a mobile commerce platform for the operations of classifieds marketplace, after the recent acquisition of Malaysia-based personal safety app “Watch Over Me”, has announced again yet another acquisition. This time, it’s a Singapore-based used car marketplace known as Caarly.
Founded in 2014, Caarly’s operations are similar to Carousell wherein it is a mobile application which facilitates online trading. But the company, different from Carousell, instead focuses on cars. That is the application enables car dealers and individual sellers to use a smartphone app to take photos and list their cars on Caarly’s online marketplace. The enterprise currently boasts a partnership with more than 200 car dealers in the city-state.
The reason behind this acquisition is because the Singapore-based peer-to-peer marketplace noticed that there was an increase in users who were looking to sell and buy cars on the site.
Siu Rui Quek, the co-founder and CEO of Carousell, further elaborates the motive underpinning the acquisition, saying that “Carousell has grown over the last 4.5 years, and so have our users. Over 50 per cent of them in Singapore are now over 25 years old, and have significantly more purchasing power. We’ve seen how their evolving needs have resulted in more listings and greater demand in higher value verticals like cars.”
The terms of the deal are undisclosed. But the entire Caarly team will join Carousell, being positioned in the car classified vertical. Both applications will proceed as normal, as existing Caarly users can continue to use the Caarly platform to list their inventory with a simple 1-tap post to cross post to the car category on Carousell.
Acquiring Carrly will help Carousell improve its used car classifieds as well as bring car dealerships into its platform. The startup has plans to start releasing their used car listing from dealers in Singapore and eventually into its other markets. To date, the platform is currently available in 14 cities.
Additionally, Carousell has also made an announcement on Thursday that it has appointed former PropertyGuru managing director, Winnie Khoo as the general manager for its Singapore and Malaysia operations as well Rakesh Malani who is the former CFO of the Indian adtech firm Komli Media to join the team.
With this new development, of acquisition and new hires, it seems that the mobile classifieds platform strategy is moving towards implementing a sustainable monetization model.
For more information, please visit https://sg.carousell.com/
By Vivian Foo, Unicorn Media


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But has your boyfriend/best mate/work colleague spun out the line that they’ve only got one for their health benefits? Ie, they boost concentration and reduce stress?
Turns out, this reasoning is a little shaky, says a new review in Current Opinion In Pediatrics. Yep, that’s right – pediatrics is kids medicine. The authors point out that “peer-reviewed studies do not support the beneficial claims”.
The authors say that despite product advertising to the contrary, there’s no scientific evidence to support the purported benefits of this craze. “Due to a recent surge in popularity, fidget spinners and other self-regulatory occupational therapy toys have yet to be subjected to rigorous scientific research,” the researchers point out.
Of course, if you’re a fidget fan, don’t be too disappointed. There’s no studies now to justify your habit, but a fidget-spinning scientist could conduct one in the future.
Plus, you could justify this habit as a “mindfulness tool” – it worked for adult colouring books, anyway.


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ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI)-based weekly inflation for the week ended on February 27 decreased by 0.16pc as compared to the previous week.
The SPI for the week under review in the combined consumption group was recorded at 129.15 points as against 130.67points registered in the previous week, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
The weekly SPI was 100 collected with base 2015-16, covering 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups.
The SPI for the lowest consumption group, up to Rs17,732, also witnessed a 1.34pc reduction, as it went down from 134.03 points in the last week to 132.23 points during the week under review.
As compared to the corresponding week of last year, the SPI for the combined consumption group during the week under review witnessed an increase of 14.60pc, while for the lowest group, it increased by 12.94pc.
Meanwhile, the SPI for the consumption groups from Rs17,733 to Rs22,888, from Rs22,889 to Rs29,517, Rs29,518 to Rs44,175 and above Rs44,175 per month also decreased by 1.85pc, 1.23pc, 0.92pc and 0.75pc, respectively.
During the week under review, average prices of 13 items registered a decrease, while that of 13 items prices increased with the prices of 25 items remaining unchanged.
The prices of the commodities that recorded an increase during the week under review included LPG, bananas, onions, vegetable ghee, washing soap, mustard oil, rice, curd, milk fresh, cooked dal, pulse (moong) and cooked beef.
On the other hand, the commodities that witnessed a reduction in their prices included tomatoes, eggs, chicken, sugar, wheat flour, firewood, electricity, pulse (mash) and gur.
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NEW ALBANY, Ohio – Taking a path at odds with other retailers who have slashed prices to lure customers through the door, Abercrombie & Fitch focused instead on reinvigorating its brand and it paid off in the third quarter as profits more than doubled.
Investors who have been rattled by weak sales and dismal forecasts from the sector rewarded Abercrombie before the opening bell Friday, sending shares up 15 per cent.
“Our third quarter results exceeded our expectations coming into the quarter and provide the strongest validation yet that our initiatives are working,” said Executive Chairman Arthur Martinez.
The shift in strategy can be seen in the company’s quarterly adjusted gross profit rate, which was 63.7 per cent. That’s an improvement of 120 basis points, and 210 basis points on a constant currency basis, over last year.
For the period ended Oct. 31, Abercrombie & Fitch earned $41.9 million, or 60 cents per share. A year earlier it earned $18.2 million, or 25 cents per share.
The performance looked even better thanks to an improved tax situation, which turned into $5.9 million on the plus side this quarter. Last year, the company incurred an expense of approximately $9.6 million.
Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring gains, were 48 cents per share. That blew past the per-share projections of 19 cents on Wall Street, according to a poll by Zacks Investment Research.
Revenue for the New Albany, Ohio, company totalled $878.6 million, also handily beating analyst expectations for $869 million.
Sales at stores open at least a year dipped 1 per cent. The metric is a key indicator of a retailer’s health because it excludes volatility from recently opened or closed.
But that decline in the current environment appeared palatable for investors. Late Thursday, Gap reported a 4 per cent decline at name brand stores, and a 12 per cent decline at its Banana Republic locations. Its Old Navy stores did much better, however.
Abercrombie’s Hollister locations led the way, where same-store sales rose 2 per cent, which offset some weakness at name brand stores.
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. anticipates fourth-quarter sales at stores open at least a year to be about flat.
The company’s shares gained $2.96 to $22.45 before the market opened.
Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on ANF at http://www.zacks.com/ap/ANF
The gross profit rate for the third quarter was 63.7%. Excluding certain items, the adjusted gross profit rate for the third quarter was 63.4%, reflecting an improvement of 120 basis points on a reported basis and 210 basis points on a constant currency basis over last year, primarily due to higher average unit retails coupled with lower average unit cost. Adjusted gross profit for the quarter excluded a benefit of $2.6 million related to higher than expected recoveries on the first quarter inventory write-down.
Keywords: Abercrombie & Fitch, Earnings Report


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When does Apple open pre-orders for the iPhone 11? Can I pre-order the iPhone 11 / iPhone 11 Pro?
Apple begins accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max on Friday, September 13, 2019 at 5am Pacific Time (8am Eastern).
The iPhones in Apple's 2019 lineup will begin shipping on Friday, September 20, 2019. On this date the devices will also be available in retail stores. The iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro feature the A13 Bionic processor and multi-camera image and video capture systems. Click here for iPhone 11 pricing information.


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In the midst of everything that runs on Android TV we have heard about so far at CES 2015, Razer's recently announced Forge Android TV box with Google Cast technology built-in is certainly something we didn't see coming. With the rise in Android gaming though through various means like the already available Nexus Player and future Android TV devices, as well as the Fire TV, perhaps we should have expected a legitimate gaming peripheral company(who also makes gaming laptops)to come out with something along those lines.
Razer's Forge Android TV Box is packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 CPU and an Adreno 420 GPU for the graphics processing, 2GB of RAM, and it'll allow the user to not only play Android games that are compatible with Android TV, but it also holds a feature to let the user stream games from their PC to the TV connected to the Razer Forge, which apparently isn't dependent on having a specific GPU type for it to work like we see from the Nvidia Shield products. This more open approach could allow Razer to shine in this area for anyone who is either running a non-compatible Nvidia GPU, or something non-Nvidia entirely. How it will work(quality wise)remains to be seen of course. Thanks to our boots on the ground at CES we were able to get some hands on shots of the Forge, which is coming in at $99, a staggeringly low price for what it offers, but also sensible considering the Nexus Player is $99 as well.


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According to a new report, the Google event to be held on Oct. 29 in New York City is going to be a busy one with the unveiling of new hardware as well as software.
An anonymous source speaking with The Next Web spoke with the site and said that Google has been informing its employees of its plans for the Oct. 29 event. It sounds like a rundown of just about every rumor we have been hearing as of late, and it sounds exciting.
Android 4.2 definitely appears to be real, but instead of being called Key Lime Pie as had been rumored ages ago, it will instead keep the Jelly Bean moniker that was introduced with 4.1. There have been precedents for this happening with Android in both 2.0/2.1 (Eclair) and 3.0/3.1/3.2 (Honeycomb), so it isn’t unheard of. The new version is said to allow for multiple user accounts on the same device, a new Play Store widget and improved panoramic photos.
On the hardware side of things, the LG Nexus 4 which has been showing up in photos after photos will make its debut with Android 4.2 in tow. It will also be joined by the 32GB Nexus 7 that has been turning up everywhere, and it will come in both Wi-Fi and HSPA+ flavors.
The Nexus 10 from Samsung that was first rumored back in June, but only picked up real steam earlier this month, will indeed be present at the event. The device is said to be known as “Codename Manta” internally at Google and will be running Android 4.2, have a 2560X1600 resolution and have a PPI (pixels per inch) of around 300, meaning it will clock in above the New iPads 264.
While all of this does come from an anonymous source, The Next Web seems fairly confident in the information. We will be on hand at the event on Oct. 29, so be sure to check in with TechnoBuffalo for all of the news and announcements as they happen.
[via The Next Web]


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Harmony One, the deep sharded scalable blockchain built by a team of engineers from Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Harvard and Stanford, has announced its launch on KuCoin exchange. The trading will start at 6pm (UTC+8), August 22nd and supported trading pairs include ONE/BTC and ONE/USDT.
With over 5 million registered users from about 100 countries and regions, KuCoin, an IDG-backed crypto exchange, is often known for a wide range of tradable digital assets. By listing high quality blockchain projects, the platform aims to better meet investors’ needs while provide enhanced liquidity of projects’ token to worldwide base of users.
Garlam Won, Head of Marketing at Harmony One said, “We want to make $ONE available to everyone in the world, regardless of their country, race or gender. And having a global exchange like Kucoin as a launch partner will allow us to provide liquidity of $ONE without borders”
With the mainnet launched, Harmony is expanding its ecosystem out into the Non-Fungible Collectibles sector with its recent acquisition of Sequoia funded digital collectible startup Quidd with Animoca Brands. Quidd raised $13m in venture funding led by Sequoia to build a digital collectible mobile app. Today, Quidd has 325 brand licenses including Game of Thrones, Rick and Morty, and Marvel superheroes. Quidd has issued and sold over 2.1 billion individually-serialized digital collectibles, and generated over $10m in gross revenues from its community of digital collectors.
With a focus towards radical decentralization and fair economy, Harmony’s recent initiative Pangaea onboarded 700 nodes as a participant, making it the biggest game of stake ever played in the blockchain space.
Since launching the IEO on Binance, Harmony One has been expanding its liquidity through Bitmax as well as being oversubscribed by 12,000% on their recent launch on Gate.io. Harmony One has also been shortlisted by Coinbase as one of the 8 assets to be added to Coinbase.
Harmony is a fast and secure blockchain. Built by a team of engineers from Google, Apple, Amazon, Harvard and Stanford, Harmony helps businesses build marketplaces of fungible tokens (such as energy credits and loyalty points) and non-fungible assets (such as game collectibles and real estate). Harmony has a robust ecosystem building strategy focused on creating partnerships that drive adoption of the protocol. At scale, Harmony helps businesses tokenize their assets and incentivize user engagement. For more information visit https://harmony.one/ or join Twitter or Telegram
Harmony, Head of Marketing
The KuCoin Exchange opened for cryptocurrency trading in September 2017 and enjoyed steady growth into 2018. The KuCoin Exchange puts a high priority on the quality of the projects listed based on a well-trained research department that scours the blockchain industry for the highest quality projects. KuCoin provides an exchange service for users to conduct digital asset transactions securely and efficiently. Over time, KuCoin aims to provide long-lasting, increased value to its more than five million registered users, in over 100 countries. In November 2018, ‘The People’s Exchange’ officially partnered with IDG Capital and Matrix Partners.


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Aixtron and PlayNitride signed a joint-collaboration agreement to accelerate Micro-LED development. Aixtron will deliver an AIX G5+ C MOCVD system to Playnitride, that will be used to produce GaN-based Micro LED devices.
Aixtron says that the G5+ C is an advanced advanced production tool that offers market leading wavelength uniformity to meet the tightened Micro LED market specifications in a batch reactor high-throughput environment. The system allows for the lowest defect and particle level in the industry due to an effective in-situ cleaning technology and the cassette-to-cassette handler which is essential for high yields. The G5+ C MOCVD was recently ordered by Plessey for its own GaN-on-Silicon Micro-LED development and production.
According to reports, PlayNitride aims to release its first Micro-LED display products in 2019. In 2017 the company started to sample micro-LED panels and shipped samples to 10-20 potential customers. The company's chairman and CEO, Charles Li, said in June 2018 that 5-6 of these customers are continuing the developing of micro-LED modules based on these panels.
In May 2018 PlayNitride demonstrates two Micro-LED prototypes - a small 0.89" 64x64 (105 PPI) panel with a brightness of 800 nits and a larger 3.12" 256x256 (116 PPI) panel.
In April 2018 Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology approved PlayNitride's application to setup a NT$500 million (US$17 million) production facility at Hsinchu Science Park. PlayNitride aims to produce micro LEDs, display modules and panels at its new facility at Hsinchu.
According to reports, Apple is in preliminary talks with PlayNitride towards a possible Micro-LED technology cooperation. It is also rumored that Samsung Display is also in talks with PlayNitride regarding a possible collaboration.
In PlayNitride's R&D setup, it takes about 10 seconds to transfer and place 200,000 LEDs - which means that a 5" panel will take only 10 minutes to produce. However the cost for a single smartphone panel could reach about $300 - much higher than the cost of even the highest-end flexible OLED. Possible applications where Micro-LED displays could succeed commercially at this stage include smartwatches, VR / AR, automotive and transparent displays.


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Tesla war of words risks agency's ire
WASHINGTON — Elon Musk, the billionaire co-founder of electric carmaker Tesla Motors, is sniping over semantics with the industry's regulator, the latest step in what he calls a crusade to revolutionize the automobile.
The flap began as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last year started investigating battery fires in the $70,000-and-up Tesla Model S sedan. It escalated after the agency listed as a recall Tesla's steps to reduce fire risks during recharging. An exasperated Musk took to Twitter Jan. 14, saying "the word 'recall' needs to be recalled."
As Musk looks to start selling into the safety-conscious mass market within three years, he wants to dispel any notion that owning a Tesla is inherently dangerous. Yet by sparring publicly with NHTSA, he risks rankling a regulator that could force costly alterations or fine Tesla millions of dollars for not reporting what it considers safety defects.
"This is just the kind of reaction you get from someone who is essentially a rookie in the car business," said Karl Brauer, senior analyst with Kelley Blue Book. "You will not hear a seasoned auto executive knock NHTSA."
Automakers typically work behind the scenes to negotiate with NHTSA on the scope and timing of recalls. For the largest automakers, these efforts can result in recalls covering fewer model years or applying only to vehicles made in certain factories, narrowing the cost to companies.
"Because Tesla gets so much attention, NHTSA rides us pretty hard," Musk said. "People are going to think our car has a greater propensity for fire than a gasoline car, which is simply untrue.
"We've now almost 30,000 Tesla vehicles on the road. Fire incidents are one in 10,000. For gasoline cars, it's one in 1,300. That doesn't make any sense to us," he said. "We should be applauded for how amazing our car is for never catching on fire relative to a gasoline car."
While Tesla shares have rallied almost 43 percent since a low of $120.50, much of it after the company said Jan. 14 that fourth-quarter sales exceeded targets, they're down about 10 percent from a record in September — with some of the biggest tumbles occurring after safety-related news.
Tesla's latest regulatory challenge dates to November, when a fire broke out while a Model S was recharging in an Irvine, Calif., garage. The company concluded the fire was caused by house wiring. Orange County fire officials said it could have been the house or the car's charging cable.
Tesla issued an over-the-air software update that enables a charging Model S to reduce amperage if heating is detected. While Musk said that fix removed almost all of the safety risk, the company said Jan. 10 it would mail replacement adapters to owners, after Bloomberg News reported that at least six incidents of plugs smoking or melting had been discussed on a Tesla owner website.
The plug adapter replacement showed up Monday as a recall notice on NHTSA's website, which along with media reports about it set off Musk's swipe on Twitter. Company officials said it wasn't a true recall because customers could swap the parts themselves without taking their cars to a service center.
"NHTSA may sometimes call this a recall," Jerome Guillen, Tesla's vice president of worldwide sales and service, told reporters Tuesday at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. "We call it modern technology."
NHTSA Deputy Administrator David Friedman downplayed any tensions with Tesla during an interview Tuesday at the auto show. The company is doing a good job of communicating with and responding to the agency, he said.


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Flowers Are Affordable Pleasures During Inflation, CNN Reports
Consumers are holding back on purchasing pricey items as the U.S. dollar inflates, but flowers seem to be among affordable treats they are allowing themselves, CNN recently reported.
“They mostly stop spending on nonessentials, like eating at restaurants,” according to Parija Kavilanz of CNN Business. “But they do indulge in tiny pleasures like flowers and candles.”
Kavilanz noted recent statements by retailers Walmart, Target, and market information company NPD.
“There is a tug-of-war between the consumer’s desire to buy what they want and the need to make concessions based on the higher prices hitting their wallets,” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail industry advisor for NPD. “And consumers aren’t just buying less stuff, they are shopping less, which means a loss of the impulse-shopping moments that are critical to retail growth.”
In a recent NPD survey, consumers indicated plans to look for more promotions, seek generally less expensive items, or even cut back on purchases overall in the next three to six months.
“Marketers must be well versed in all the conditions influencing their retail channel, and their target consumer or they will risk missing growth opportunities,” Cohen said. “An appealing shopping environment, displays that make the product pop, and persuasive promotions are necessary to get more items into the basket when consumers do shop.”
Priya Raghubir, professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business said consumers spend on small luxuries like perfume even in a downturn, in what’s called the “lipstick effect,” according to CNN.


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Microsoft unveiled its mobile OS earlier this year and while the user interface looked promising, the lack of copy and paste stood out as a glaring omission. Good news for Windows Phone fans as Microsoft confirmed today that copy and paste will come to Windows Phone 7 in early 2011. So what happened to this feature and why is it not present at launch?
Copy/paste has been a standard feature on smartphones since the early days of stylus input. Android, BlackBerry, and webOS have limited versions of copy and paste, even Microsoft offered copy and paste on its ancient Windows Mobile platform. Apple broke this mold when it launched its iPhone without copy and paste. Early adopters of this popular smartphone began complaining loudly about this missing feature and Apple finally incorporated copy/cut and paste in its third iPhone OS revision.Good things come to those who wait and Apple introduced what is arguably the best mobile implementation of this feature.
Microsoft is taking a similar approach with this copy/paste feature as Apple did with its iPhone. Microsoft first argued that copy and paste was not necessary as the user interface for Windows Phone was designed to alleviate the need for this feature.
Windows Phone 7 Series will not initially offer copy and paste; instead, we try to solve the most common uses for copy and paste via single-tap action. For example, people often want to take an address and view it on a map, highlight a term in the browser and do a search or copy a phone number to make a call. Instead of the user manually doing a copy and paste in these scenarios, we recognize those situations automatically and make them happen with just one touch. In our early testing people have been pleased with this approach, but we’re always listening to feedback and will continue to improve our feature set over time based on what we hear.
After the complaints and criticisms changed from a low drone to a resounding wail, Microsoft revised its position on this feature. The Redmond company then confirmed that copy/paste would be added to Windows Phone 7 at some point in the future. According to Microsoft, time was the deciding factor for its omission and the software giant simply ran out time to implement the feature. Microsoft senior director Paul Bryan said in an interview with TechRadar,
“We ended up getting to the point where we said we need to deliver a great experience and there are certain things we can get done in this period of time and certain things we can’t.”
Thankfully, Microsoft now considers copy/cut and paste a high priority and is looking to roll out this feature in one of the early revisions of Windows Phone 7. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft implements this feature and how it compares to the offerings available on other platforms. Apple has set a high bar for the other mobile platforms. I wonder if Microsoft can meet, or even beat, Apple’s implementation. Anyone care to wager?


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Minisforum has formally announced its V3, one of the industry's first AMD Ryzen 7 8840U-based hybrid PCs that can serve as a tablet, a laptop, and an external display, which is why the company positions it as a '3-in-1' system. As the machine packs an eight-core CPU, it may offer the performance of some mid-range laptops. Meanwhile, despite being a 'tablet,' it has two USB4 ports and an SD card reader, a rare feature for this class of devices. The Minisforum V3 is closer to a classic laptop than a tablet, but this happens often. The system features a 14-inch detachable multitouch display with a 2560×1600 resolution, a 500 nits brightness, a 165 Hz refresh rate (which will undoubtedly be appreciated by gamers), and a...
The slate computing market is about to explode, with a literal flood of new tablets releasing over the coming months. Many of them will be Android based, running NVIDIA’s...81 by Vivek Gowri on 12/9/2010
Next year is looking to be a very important year for smartphone and tablet performance. Just as we saw widespread migration to the ARM Cortex A8 and Qualcomm Scorpion...39 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/8/2010


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Stay Woke?: A look at corporate activism in 2021
Corporate Reputation29 Jul, 2021
The whole world is watching. Corporate activism has expanded from covert legislative efforts to broader, deliberate social and community initiatives – ranging from simple good intentions to internal employment and leadership developments to monetary donations.
But 2020 changed everything. When governments differed in their responses to social, environmental, and political conflict, attention turned to corporations to set the standard, responding and acting with purpose.
Corporate transparency and accountability are no longer a warm fuzzy, but an expectation and necessary action. Employer brand, purchase appeal, trust, willingness to recommend, and general reputation are all impacted by corporate behavior towards social, political, and environmental experiences.
As we say here at RepTrak, saying and doing the right thing is good for business.
Yet, too many flashy declarations have become empty promises, and the public has noticed. Consumer attitude towards corporate activism has grown more demanding and more cynical, and continues to evolve.
Here’s what our data is telling us.


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Limited Economy: Apple unable to meet demand on flagship products due to supply shortages
October 25, 2021
3 min read
What's going on here?
Continued chip shortages may result in the tech giants failing to meet its projected iPhone 13 production targets for 2021 by up to 10m units.
What does this mean?
Apple will be unable to hit their projected 90m iPhones because Broadcom Inc, which supplies wireless components, and Texas Instruments Inc., which supplies display parts, are struggling to deliver the relevant components. Whilst other suppliers have also been unable to keep up, affecting Apple’s ability to ship the new iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro max to customers, these components rely on chips which continue to be in short supply. In addition to the limited iPhone stock, Apple has been struggling to meet the demand for the Apple Watch Series 7 and other products across the board.
The new models were released to the market in September, yet it is said that orders may take up to a month to even be delivered, suggesting that this mid-November deadline may allow Apple to meet the intense demand amidst the crucial holiday gifting season. However, the White House has warned American consumers who are used to excessive availability that they may need to be patient during the Christmas period. A senior White House official responded to questions around holiday shopping by stating that “there will be things that people can’t get”. The White House believes that these items can be substituted effectively, and although frustrations may rise, that there is no need to panic.
What's the big picture effect?
It is no surprise that even tech giant Apple is susceptible to the fallout from the pandemic and supply chain shortages. This shortage is one of the most recent signs of the “serious bottlenecks affecting the flow of global trade”. As shares in Apple continue to fall, this lingering impact of COVID-19 highlights the broader dips within the US stock market.
National economies have now been forced to recover at an accelerated pace as the pandemic eases. This has put immense pressure on “just-in-time, cross-border supply chains” that are responsible for keeping shelves stocked. In response to these disruptions, the US Department of Commerce has sent questionnaires to global chipmakers, however, executives in Taiwan and South Korea, where chipmakers are concentrated, have resisted this effort to make the supply chain more seamless. Furthermore, Gina Raimondo, the US Commerce Secretary publicised the proposed $52 billion plan to support chip manufacturing in Japan. This accelerated support will diversify where chips are made and can help alleviate the pressure and reliance on Taiwan and South Korea.
These shortages display how limited stock in one part of the supply chain has serious knock-on effects when meeting consumer demand and is likely to last over the next year and further as national economies rush to adapt and recover from the production stagnation brought on by the pandemic.
Apple tends to set the “annual rhythm” for electronic supply chains yet right now, even they are struggling with similar disruptions despite their incredible buying power. The market needs to be aware that a multitude of sectors across the commercial scope have been adversely affected by this shortage. Businesses need to brace themselves and prepare for a potential dip in customer satisfaction as production tirelessly tries to meet a blitz of demand that was nowhere near as high during the course of the pandemic. As a society, we have become so accustomed to receiving what we want on demand as a result of a highly efficient and highly-connected global supply network. It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds, and how our expectations might need to change, as the world emerges from the fallout of COVID-19.
Report written by Rida Ahmed
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Weekly chain-store sales rise slightly: survey
(7:59 AM ET) NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Chain-store sales for the week ended June 28 rose 2.2% from the year-ago period, according to a survey released Tuesday by the International Council of Shopping Centers. On a week-over-week basis, sales rose 0.1%. "There is little driving consumer spending other than staples and basic," said Michael Niemira, ICSC's chief economist. "A shift to staying close to home during the summer, however, may lift spending a tad as consumers redirect some of that summer travel spending to home activities." For June, ICSC expects same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least one year, to rose 2% to 2.5%.
Constellation profit and sales rise
(7:58 AM ET) NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Constellation Brands Inc. STZ, +1.40% on Tuesday said fiscal first-quarter net income rose to $44.6 million, or 20 cents a share on class A shares and 19 cents a share on class B shares. In the year-ago period it earned $29.8 million, or 13 cents per class A share and 12 cents per class B share. On a "comparable" basis, which excludes acquisition-related integration costs, restructuring charges and unusual items, the wine, spirits and beer company earned 34 cents a share vs. 21 cents a share in the prior year. Sales rose to $1.21 billion from $1.18 billion. Analysts, on average, expected it to earn 32 cents a share on sales of $895.9 million, according to FactSet Research. For fiscal 2009, Constellation expects to earn $1.38 to $1.46 on a reported basis, and $1.68 to $1.76 on a comparable basis.
MSC Industrial Direct posts rise in third-quarter profit
(7:56 AM ET) NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- MSC Industrial Direct Co. MSM, +2.38% said Tuesday that its fiscal third-quarter net income rose to $51.4 million, or 81 cents a share, from $45.8 million, or 69 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. The year-ago quarterly profit included pretax charges totaling $1.5 million. The Melville, N.Y., maintenance-supplies company said revenue for the period ended May 31 rose to $457.2 million from $431.1 million. On average, analysts polled by FactSet Research expected earnings of 78 cents a share. For the fourth quarter, MSC expects earnings of 74 cents to 76 cents a share on revenue of $443 million to $449 million.
Schnitzer Steel quarterly profit up 46% to $2.14 per share
(7:44 AM ET) NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc. SCHN, +2.55% said Tuesday its third-quarter profit totaled $62 million, or $2.14 per share, from $44 million, or $1.47 per share, in the same quarter a year before. On average, analysts had expected profit of $1.86 per share, according to a FactSet Research survey. The Portland, Ore., steel recycler said revenue for the recent quarter was $972 million, up from $709 million in the year-ago period. "Global demand for recycled metals remained robust, driven by economic growth in developing countries," said CEO John Carter.
Dollar Thrifty Automotive warns on profit
(6:14 AM ET) LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Car rental company Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group DTG, +2.01% warned Tuesday that it expects to miss its previous profit forecast for the year due to lower revenue per day and vehicle depreciation costs in the second quarter and a "less robust" outlook for the rest of the year. The group said it now expects adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of a minimum of $50 million. It's previous forecast had been a range of $97 million to $115 million.
HMV profit jumps after Japanese disposal
(2:30 AM ET) LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.K. CD and DVD retailer HMV Group(UK:HMV)said Tuesday that its net profit for the year ended April 26 jumped to 89 million pounds ($177 million) from 16.1 million pounds as total sales for the year rose 2.2% to 1.94 billion pounds. Excluding gains from the sale of its Japanese business and one-time costs a year ago, profit rose 16% to 40.7 million pounds. The group said it's ahead of where it expected to be in its restructuring plans, which began in March 2007. Growth was driven by its HMV-branded stores in the U.K. and Ireland. The group said the new financial year has started in line with its expectations and it's confident of achieving its medium-term target for a return on sales of 4.5% to 5%.
Chocolate major Callebaut's sales up; local U.S. line is set
(1:47 AM ET) TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- Barry Callebaut AG,(CH:000900296)the Zurich cocoa- and chocolate-producing major, reported fiscal nine-month revenue rose 19% and said that because the dollar and British pound had weakened against the euro and Swiss franc, it would introduce locally produced gourmet chocolate in the U.S. and Asia. For the nine months ended May 31, revenue reached 3.61 billion Swiss francs ($3.55 billion) from 3.04 billion in the year-earlier period. Sales volume rose 10% to almost 873,000 metric tons from 794,000. With the help of cost cuts companywide, Chief Executive Patrick De Maeseneire said in a statement, Barry Callebaut is "confident we will reach our ... financial targets" for fiscal 2008 through fiscal 2011. The targets average to annual growth of 13% to 16% in net income and 9% to 11% in revenue. The new locally produced chocolate lines stem from the fact that "unfavorable exchange-rate developments have started to weigh on exports of gourmet chocolate from Continental Europe to the U.S., the U.K. and Asia," the company said.


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Would anyone assume that Vitaminwater is good for them? Not according to Coca-Cola, the brand's owner. The non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest has sued the soft drinks giant for false advertising, on the grounds that Vitaminwater labels and advertising make "deceptive and unsubstantiated claims" to health benefits. Coke has responded that "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage." Though Vitaminwater is "basically sugar water... with about a penny's worth of synthetic vitamins," says John Robbins in the Huffington Post, to argue that it doesn't portray itself as healthy is a "staggering feat of twisted logic." Coke has clearly tried to create the impression that "Vitaminwater contributes to 'better health,'" says Andisheh Nouraee in Creative Loafing. But "in fairness to Coke's lawyers, they're right." You would have to be pretty dumb to think this sugary drink was good for you from watching the ads. Decide for yourself:
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(Bloomberg) — Yelp acquired food-ordering service Eat24.com and raised its revenue and profit outlook for this year, sending the shares higher.
The cash-and-stock deal is valued at $134 million, San Francisco-based Yelp said today in a statement.
Eat24 lets people order food from about 20,000 restaurants in more than 1,500 U.S. cities via the Web and mobile applications. Yelp, which provides local user reviews of everything from restaurants to hairdressers, is expanding even as it faces more competition from Google and other rivals in local Web advertising.
The CEO of Chicago's GrubHub, which competes with Eat24, said there's plenty of opportunity in the takeout space. Seamless, another home delivery service, is part of GrubHub.
“It's just business as usual for us,” GrubHub CEO Matthew Maloney said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “Eat24 has been around and have had a business partnership with Yelp for years, so I'm questioning why they pulled the trigger on acquisition when the benefits of working together already existed.”
Yelp paid $75 million in cash and 1.4 million shares for San Bruno, Calif.-based Eat24. The deal closed Monday, the company said.
Yelp raised its 2015 revenue outlook to $574 million to $579 million, up almost 7 percent from previous forecast.
“As more food ordering transactions move online, further integrating Eat24 will enhance our user experience with an easy- to-use product and service that allows our large consumer audience to transact directly with businesses,” Yelp Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Stoppelman said in the statement.


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Machine tool orders posted a small gain in October, helped by a boost from machine shops and the auto industry, according to a monthly report.
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Manufacturing should expand in the first half of 2020, including increased revenue for companies, the Institute for Supply Management said this week in a semi-annual forecast.
Manufacturing got smart when companies figured out how to make products in one market and sell them in another. Today, we call this supply chain logistics. But somewhere along the way, the innovation chain connecting supply (manufacturing) and logistics (the supporting infrastructure) started to diverge.
Manufacturing Management Stay informed with the latest insights, news, resources and products in Manufacturing Management to improve your manufacturing career and operations. manufacturing
Perceptron is an evolving case study in the merits of concentration versus diversification.
Canadian based 7D Kinematic Metrology Inc., has acquired Nikon Metrology’s iGPS dynamic tracking business. The closing of the transaction is expected to take place on March 31.
Voestalpine Eifeler Coatings announced today the opening of their newest coatings facility in Walnut, California. The new facility is located to provide Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) coatings solutions to the manufacturing communities in California and the Western United States, according to the company.
It doesn’t take long to see the changing face of manufacturing staples in Volusia County. Strategically located in the thriving central Florida marketplace east of Orlando along the I-4/I-95 highways, Volusia County has always been a good geographic location for manufacturers.
In manufacturing, the most efficient process is destined to come out on top. Efficiency is the highest priority. Toyota revolutionized the standards of efficient manufacturing by applying the principles of what is now known as lean thinking, a term coined by Daniel T. Jones and James P. Womack who have studied Toyota’s rise in-depth.
It’s amazing what you can learn at a trade show. Editor in Chief Alan Rooks was reminded of this at the recent EASTEC show. He reflected on his visit with Joe Stanford, vice president, engineering and applications support for Applied Measurement Solutions LLC, Bristol, Conn., the largest metrology distributor for The L.S. Starrett Co., Athol, Mass.


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From Olay India’s new campaign titled #STEMTheGap aimed at enabling more girls to fearlessly pursue what they want and close the gender gap in this segment to Apple debuting three new “Shot on iPhone” ads highlighting the camera capabilities of the iPhone 13 Pro and Hero MotoCorp’s ad for its scooter Hero Pleasure, here are the ads that caught Ritwika Gupta’ interest this week –
Ads of the week:
Brand: Olay India
Agency: Publicis PG ONE Singapore
Campaign: Detectives / Basement / Pavel
Brand: Hero MotoCorp
Campaign: Why should boys have all the fun?