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Coronavirus infections would certainly dive if 80 percent of individuals used masks, study says v face mask watsons
Infections would certainly dive if 80 percent of people wearing masks, research study claims– New York Rouses Factor–.
face mask degrees.
In the air, there are different fragments of dirt and also allergens that can create major damage to the human body. Although no one can manage this, they can take safety measures to handle the scenario. PPE masks can filter out more than 95% of air bits, vapors, and odors. It additionally aids resolve the issue of the coronavirus medically. Individuals that have signs of the disease will often cough as well as sneeze. A face mask to safeguard against infections will avoid the launch of breathing goes down into the air or infect an additional person.
Online face mask offer shop.
Make sure to use a mask when you remain in a congested area; You should also keep it while you exist. If you respect an unwell loved one, after that you should likewise safeguard yourself with a mask. You should additionally utilize one if you know that you are sick to prevent the transmission of the virus to your liked ones.


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CBOE Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBOE) and Gemini Trust Company, LLC today announced an agreement that provides Chicago Board Options Exchange, Incorporated (CBOE) and its affiliates with an exclusive global license to use Gemini’s bitcoin market data for bitcoin derivatives and indices.
Gemini is a digital asset exchange and custodian that allows customers to buy, sell, and store digital assets such as bitcoin and ether. Gemini is a New York trust company that is subject to fiduciary obligations, capital reserve requirements, and banking compliance standards of the New York State Department of Financial Services.
Under the terms of the agreement, CBOE will have a multi-year exclusive global license permitting it to use Gemini’s market data, including Gemini daily bitcoin auction values, in the creation of bitcoin derivatives products for listing and trading.
Pending regulatory review1 by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), cash-settled bitcoin futures are planned to be made available for trading on CFE in the fourth quarter of 2017 or early 2018. Moreover, CBOE will retain exclusive rights to use Gemini market data for the creation of new indexes, as well as rights to distribute Gemini market data over CBOE’s market data feeds.
Ed Tilly, CBOE Holdings Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said:
CBOE is not only a home to options, derivatives and the VIX but also ETF innovations and foreign exchange. This makes us the natural choice for the development and trading of bitcoin futures. We very much look forward to responding to the growing interest in cryptocurrencies through the creation of bitcoin futures traded on a regulated derivatives exchange, with the many expected benefits that this brings, including transparency, price discovery, deep liquidity and centralized clearing.
Mr. Tilly continued:
Gemini has demonstrated time and again its foresight and expertise in this area of finance. The team’s focus and determination to grow the bitcoin market and secure appropriate regulatory oversight as a New York trust company makes them ideal for this venture. We are incredibly proud of this agreement and look forward to all that we can achieve together.
Added Tyler Winklevoss, Chief Executive Officer of Gemini:
Gemini’s key concerns in the cryptocurrency ecosystem have always been security, compliance, and regulatory oversight. By working with the team at CBOE, we are helping to make bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies increasingly accessible to both retail and institutional investors.
Over the last five years, the total value of all bitcoin outstanding (i.e., “market capitalization”) has grown from less than $1 billion to nearly $50 billion. The total value of all cryptocurrency tokens outstanding is now approximately $100 billion.

domain: news


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The recent dismissal of a Federal Trade Commission data security case may chasten the agency as it seeks to bring consumer protection cybersecurity cases, experts say.
The controversial and at times bitter LabMD civil case focused on the potential exposure of information from more than 9,000 patients in a data breach of the medical testing company. The FTC claimed LabMD didn't adequately protect the information, causing consumer harm. The case was tossed out by an FTC administrative law judge last week, who said the government hadn't done enough to prove harm was done to individuals through the data breach. The FTC said it was considering an appeal. The rare loss for the FTC will make the agency take stock, said Anthony DiResta, partner at Holland & Knight. “The decision should humble the FTC staff when investigating or evaluating unfairness for data security matters,” he said. “I don’t think its going to chill their enthusiasm but I do think it needs to give them pause." The FTC will need to seek out cases where there is tangible harm done to people involved, rather than just assuming the breached private data will be misused, he said.
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Best Buy said on Monday it will reveal more of its Black Friday early-bird deals, in a bid to get shoppers to their stores and website during the Thanksgiving holiday.
Bargains include Verizon's ThunderBolt smartphone for $100, a $300 Samsung laptop and a $200 42-inch LCD Sharp high-definition television, Best Buy revealed on its website.
The Richfield-based retailer's move to reveal some of its best Black Friday deals is a reversal of retailers' long-standing practice of closely guarding doorbuster deals until Thanksgiving, worried that other competitors could match their prices.
But with the prevalence of Black Friday websites that leak store ads early and some stores upping the ante by opening on Thanksgiving day, more and more retailers are voluntarily previewing some of their best Black Friday bargains.
Britt Beemer of America's Research Group says he believes this will help Best Buy compete with discount retailer Wal-Mart, which is opening to offer some deals at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Best Buy is opening at midnight on Black Friday.
Beemer said 40 percent of Best Buy's customers also shop at Wal-Mart.
"They are probably trying to freeze their customers from going anywhere else," Beemer said. Best Buy is "probably worried that Wal-Mart is stealing some of their customers."
Best Buy did not immediately return a call for comment.
Best Buy also said on Monday it will be showing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and giving out snacks and refreshments for consumers waiting in line at select locations on Black Friday, starting at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving night.
Other retailers, such as Kmart, also revealed Black Friday specials on Monday. Meanwhile, Sears Outlet is telling its customers that if they bring in a Black Friday ad for a competitor prior to Nov. 30, they will match the price if it is the same model, brand and color.
Beemer said at this point, retailers already have their early-bird specials set for Black Friday.
"At this point, everything is planned out," Beemer said. "There is nothing they can do at this point, except kind of stare at each other."
Wendy Lee --612-673-1712
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Apple’s most up to date portion of remote AirPod earphones are turning into this Christmas season’s most smoking item.
As indicated, the organization’s most up to date remote earbuds, the AirPod Pro, which were discharged this past October, have now sold out from about each major online retailer, including Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Amazon.
Apple recently figured out how to sell out of the buds in November, only a month after their discharge and says it won’t have them re-loaded until after December.
Reports that most physical areas likewise give off an impression of being sold out of the earbuds while the individuals who do have them are just offering a very constrained stock.
Verizon seems, by all accounts, to be one of the main exemptions to this standard, yet as supported, the store’s most punctual conveyance date is as yet two days after Christmas.
Anybody hellbent on securing a couple of the popular earbuds can even now buy them, however they’ll must be open to paying a weighty premium.
On eBay, takes note of that AirPods Pro are selling for around $350, or generally $100 more than their retail cost of $250.
As substantiated, be that as it may, the odds of paying a knock-off pair of earphones on eBay is a lot more noteworthy contrasted with genuine first-party retailers so clients ought to continue with alert.
edesigned AirPods include dynamic commotion crossing out and, improved sound and another structure that makes them more lightweight than their antecedent.
The buds additionally now come in three distinct sizes and brag adaptable silicone ear tips that comply with the forms of every individual ear. Apple has noticed that this structure is ‘a basic factor in conveying vivid sound’.
Apple says it intends to dispatch 65 million sets of AirPods in 2019 alone and another 85 to 90 million sets one year from now.


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Full profile →'">
The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.
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Why do you think we're still seeing this type of anti-gaming legislation moving forward in an age when so many people play games on Facebook and mobile devices and even the President plays games?
I think it’s because gamers and even game developers, are not politically active to the degree that other industries are in Washington. We don’t have our equivalent of an NCAAP or NRA representing us. League for Gamers is the first step towards that type of activism. Also, while President Obama might play games, most of Congress does not, and many representatives are still coming to grips with the Internet. As a game developer, I’ve seen the average age of gamers grow from 18 to 35 and beyond. It’s partly a generation issue. As more politicians retire and are replaced by younger ones who play games and grew up with the Internet, I believe you’ll see less spurious and misguided legislation about games.
At what point do you see games being an accepted mainstream form of entertainment like movies, TV and music, which no longer go through any of this type of censorship or negative connotations from politicians?
Games are mainstream now. They are the key driver of growth on social sites such as Facebook, and they permeate nearly every electronic device we use on a daily basis. But there’s always what we call “lag” in gamer terms…a delay between when something goes mainstream and when it is understood more than feared. With music, it took, well, decades. But we live in a time of accelerating change, and my hope is that the “lag” for games is on the order of just 3 to 5 years.


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Triveni Retail Ventures a subsidiary of Triveni Engineering has put Triveni Khushali Bazaar for sale. The group is looking forward to divest the entire stake or relinquish management control to focus on its core business.
Triveni Khushali Bazaar started operations in 2005 and has 42 stores mostly in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarkhand. The company deals mainly in three verticals Agr-products and Services, Consumer Products and Durables and Financial Services.
I-bankers have sent the feelers to Future Group, Aditya Birla Group, Reliance Retail and also to Reliance ADAG group. Reliance ADAG already has a tie-up for retail financial services business with Triveni.
The company had already indicated in analyst presentation that it is looking forward to partnerships in the near term. They were also consolidating their supply chain right from sourcing farm produce to distribution.


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Arturia celebrates the Prophet V synth
What’s hot today for the Arturia special summer deal? Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, their Organisation LP, the 80s and the Prophet 5 synth.
Enola Gay is one the biggest hit from the 80s and, like many songs from this era, Sequential Circuits and the Prophet 5 synth contributed to its sonic signature. For the record, OMD got their synth stolen sometime after the release of Organisation and the recently-reformed band is now an Arturia product user.
Arturia gives you the ability to revive this era with a special deal on their Prophet V emulation, that you can purchase now for 49 € instead of 99 € for a limited time. The offer, as well as the video of Enola Gay, are online at www.arturia.com.
Viewers of this article also read...
- Arturia AudioFuse 8PRE audio interface review Just over two years ago, French manufacturer Arturia first stepped into the world of audio interfaces. More recently at NAMM 2019, the Grenoble-based company announced two new models, one of which the AudioFuse 8Pre. Has it been a successful addition to the line?
- Antelope Discrete 4 Synergy Core review About a year and a half ago, Antelope released the Discrete, a new range of Thunderbolt & USB interfaces including discrete preamps, their famous FPGA module as well as the stack of audio effects that would usually come with it. Now back in June 2019, Antelope releases a new version of its Discrete 4, this time providing dual DSP chips in addition to the FPGA. Marketing ploy or real step forward?
- The top commercial audio editing software for 2018 Four years after our first poll on the topic, few things have changed in the world of audio editors, at least according to our French readers.


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A new study finds that over 2,000 apps on Google Play store are harmful in some way.
Researchers from the University of Sydney and CSIRO’s Data61 have compiled an investigative report on the Google Play store and found that around 2,040 malware-laden replicas exist in the world’s largest house for apps. The study was based on the testing of over one million apps on the Google Play store, and unfortunately, some of them are extremely popular and have millions of downloads.
Moreover, the two-year long study has revealed that a massive number of impersonated popular gaming apps available on the Play Store. Some of these popular gaming apps include Temple Run, Free Flow and Hill Climb Racing. The study claims that some of these apps contain risky malware while other apps were found requesting at least five sensitive permissions. These apps required permissions to access data that they don’t need in the first place.
The report’s co-author Dr. Suranga Seneviratne from the University of Sydney said;
“While Google Play’s success is marked on its flexibility and customizable features that allow almost anyone to build an app, there have been a number of problematic apps that have slipped through the cracks and have bypassed automated vetting processes. Our society is increasingly reliant on smartphone technology so it’s important that we build solutions to quickly detect and contain malicious apps before affecting a wider population of smartphone users.”
Amongst the one million apps tested by the researchers, around 7,246 of the total apps were found to be malicious and 2,040 of them were fake and high-risk apps. Meanwhile, 1,565 apps requested sensitive data permissions from users and around 1,407 embed third-party ad libraries.
To investigate these applications on the Google Play store, the researchers used neural networks. On the other hand, Google claims that most of the apps studied by the researchers have already been removed.


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The holiday season can only mean one thing: the release of the Air Jordan 11. In previous years, we’ve seen remastered versions of the Cool Grey 11, Space Jam, Bred, and Concord, while updated concepts such as the Jubilee, Win Like’82, and Win Like’96 have carved out new territory for the modern era. For 2022, reputable sources @zsneakerheadz and @sneakerfiles confirm that the year-end release will be a white/red mix simply dubbed the “Cherry.”
While a low-top version of this color-blocking was introduced in 2001 (and was reintroduced in 2016), it has never been seen on the Mid. Converting popular low-tops into mid-tops appears to be a popular and buzzing trend in 2022 Jordans, as evidenced by the widespread praise for the upcoming Jordan 13 “Brave Blue.” The “Cherry” colorway speaks directly to the core Air Jordan fanbase, as the colorway itself could easily fit into the 1996 grouping. Even Chris Paul, the king of Air Jordan 11 PE, has never received an issue like this, so this upcoming release will undoubtedly be a treat. Meanwhile, the “Cherry” moniker, which first appeared on the Air Jordan 12 retro in 2009/2010, has been applied to this colorway for obvious reasons.
A retail price of $225 has also been confirmed, and while a firm release date has not been confirmed, you can pretty much book these for December. Keep an eye out for additional information as it becomes available, as there are still a slew of 2022 Jordan releases to go through before these make their way onto our radar.
Where to Buy
Make sure to follow @sneakerdose for live tweets during the release date.
Air Jordan 11 “Cherry”
Release Date: Dec 2022
Mens: $225Style Code: N/A


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When John J. Nevin became president of Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. late in 1979, the company was in desperate trouble, an industrial dinosaur trapped by obsolete plants, a bloated payroll and a mountain of debt.
To save the company, Nevin attacked it with a cleaver. He closed seven of its 17 plants in the United States and Canada, trimmed the number of employes by about 25 percent, reduced the product line, abandoned some foreign operations and sold off a money-losing subsidiary to raise cash.
The result was a dramatic turnaround. For the nine months that ended July 31, Firestone reported net income of $121 million, against a loss of $98 million in the same period a year earlier. Debt, which at today's interest rates was crippling the company, has been cut in half, from $1.1 billion in April 1980 to about $550 million today. The remaining plants are operating at nearly 90 percent capacity, up from 57 percent.
Firestone, third-largest tire company in the world and second in the United States behind Goodyear, with total 1980 sales of $4.85 billion, has reached the point where it appears assured of surviving the shakeout that analysts say is coming in the stagnant world tire market, and Nevin has turned his attention to improving the company's performance. In June, he submitted to Firestone's directors a "strategic plan" that calls for raising the company's credit rating, achieving a 9 percent return on equity in 1982 and 15 percent in 1985, and diversifying to reduce Firestone's dependence on the tire business.
Grappling with the Firestone crisis has not cut down the flair for holding forth with iconoclastic opinions on economic affairs, government regulation, Japanese technology and American productivity that have gained Nevin a reputation as a maverick when he was president of Zenith Radio Corp.
Nevin, 54, holds an MBA from Harvard and has spent his entire adult life as a business executive, at Ford Motor Co., Zenith and Firestone. But his views are not those that might be expected from a man of his background. A fluent speaker, a public figure who keeps up a dialogue with Ralph Nader, Nevin hardly fits the stereotype of the conservative tycoon.
Samples of the Nevin outlook, obtained during a long interview at his office:
"Nobody in this country understands that American labor is about 50 percent more productive than Japanese labor. Productivity is not a function of job attitude; the Japanese, who are regarded as so quality-conscious today, are exactly the same people in terms of ethnic and cultural background who generated the junk that had 'Made in Japan' labels on it before the war. This isn't a matter of cultural heritage, it's a matter of priorities and management."
Government regulation of business, consumer protection measures and pollution controls are "not at all inherently antibusiness or disruptive of economic activity. I would make a case that the responsible businessman is as much protected by those regulations as the consumer. He is not forced to give up market share because some charlatan goes into the market with an unsafe product made cheaper. Rationally administered, I think those laws are necessary in a complex economic society."
Wall Street analysts are misguided in their stress on growth in assessing a company's future, because "more than 75 percent of the people in the world work in nongrowth industries. This great romance about growth industries is nonsense. When I went to work for Ford in 1954, the auto industry wasn't a growth industry any more, everybody had a car. It was a replacement industry, and a lot of guys got rich in Detroit, working at what the analysts would call a nongrowth industry."
American industry is likely to be "hurt more than helped" by the Reagan administration's economic policies, because the tax cuts "represented a level of revenue reduction that I frankly think cannot be offset with expense reduction in our society. If that conclusion is right, then the federal government is going to be in the money markets for increasing amounts of money to fund federal deficits. There is more chance that very high interest rates will discourage investment and job creation than that the euphoria associated with tax reduction will encourage them. The net impact may be negative."
Nevin said, "Many businessmen felt we would be better off to wait for tax reductions till we got the spending cuts to balance the budget, but business support for the program was like a high school pep rally before the homecoming. Now the market's off 17 points . . . . those guys aren't voting the same way on Wall Street that they were when they were writing to their congressmen."
Firestone has about 80 percent of its $3.1 billion in total assets tied up in its worldwide tire operations, a far higher percentage than the other major U.S. tire companies, which have diversified. General Tire and B.F. Goodrich, for example, have less than 40 percent of their worldwide assets in the tire business.
That means that Firestone, at least in the short term, must rise or fall with its tire business, as Nevin acknowledged, and tires are a stagnant industry. A recent analysis of the worldwide tire market prepared by Merrill Lynch International said that 1980 was a decisive year for the tire industry, with American tire manufacturers shrinking and, Goodyear excepted, pretty much forced to abandon a global strategy in order to preserve their domestic positions. The only tire companies likely to grow in real terms are Michelin of France and Bridgestone of Japan, and they, along with Goodyear, are likely to dominate the industry, the study concluded.
The study predicted that by 1985, Bridgestone would overtake Firestone as third in total sales, behind Michelin and Goodyear, and that the gap between those three giants and the rest of the industry would continue to widen. Nevin, naturally, does not agree.
Referring to the growth of Michelin and Bridgestone, he said, "There is a tendency on the part of stock analysts who see a chart of growth to see that the line is going up and say that it will always and forever go up. That theory says that Waterloo never happened. It's silly."
He acknowledged that Firestone cannot match the efficiency or productivity of Michelin's new U.S. plants. But he said Firestone could remain competitive by modernizing its factories, which would require much less capital expenditure than building new facilities. Bridgestone, which is making a major attempt to penetrate the U.S. market, will be a "real threat," Nevin said, but cannot match Firestone's dealer network of 1,400 company-owned stores and more than 3,500 independent dealers.
To protect its long-term future, he said, Firestone is contemplating diversification, but "we would be ill-advised as a company to run out and buy somebody else's business just so we could say we are diversifying. We'd have to divert management talent to run it. I'm interested, I hope that someday Firestone will have as much invested in other businesses as it does in tires, but in the short term we have to run our tire business right."
Nevin is proud that his performance at Firestone has drawn high grades from the Wall Street analysts he professes to ignore. The only subject on which he said he feels defensive is the decision to lay off more than 25,000 workers.
"We were at the brink of economic disaster," he said. "The issue was not whether to keep those jobs, the issue was only when to stop taking the losses. There was no one in this world who could have saved those jobs. You could have risked the jobs of the other 80,000 people in this company by trying to hang on for another year or two, and this company had gotten into a lot of trouble by doing that."


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Celebrating 50 Years of Collaboration - and the Next Century of Digitalisation
31 March, 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the GTIN. In 1971, industry leaders in commerce, including Heinz, General Mills, Kroger and Bristol Myers Company, put aside their differences and remade global markets for the better, by agreeing to use a unique identifier for product identification - Global Trade Item Number - or known as the “GTIN”.
Today, GS1 barcode is scanned over six billion times every day and remains one of the most trusted symbols in the world.
It is no exaggeration to say that the development of the GTIN set the stage for global, digitalised commerce. This is one of the greatest, untold stories in the history of international business, a remarkable coming together of fierce competitors to solve real business challenges.
Watch our 50-year-anniversary GTIN story:
Next Generation Barcodes
To meet the needs of the 21st century economy, and address consumers’ demand for more and better product information, industry must once again collaborate to deploy new technologies, including data-rich, next-generation barcodes. It is time to bring barcodes to the next level.
Developments towards next generation barcodes, for example QR codes, which can hold vastly more information, should be used to empower consumers with trusted information and reshape global commerce in the new era. Their use, for example, can tell consumers if a product contains allergens, if it is organic, and information on its carbon footprint. Ultimately, this provides consumers with a greater level of trust and loyalty relating to the products they buy.
Half a century ago market rivals convened and triggered a revolution in commerce, with GTIN. Now, we have an opportunity and a need to replicate that spirit of cooperation and leadership to meet the needs of a new century.
Stay tuned, the next-gen barcode will come very soon.


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Alibaba Net More Than Doubles After Commissions IncreaseLulu Yilun Chen
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., China’s largest e-commerce company, had profit that doubled in the three months ended in December after commissions likely increased on surging sales.
Net income at Alibaba jumped to $642.2 million in the quarter ended December from $236.9 million a year earlier, according to a Yahoo! Inc. filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Revenue rose 80 percent to $1.84 billion, Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo, which owns about a 24 percent stake in Alibaba, reported. John Spelich, an Alibaba spokesman in Hong Kong, declined to comment today.
“The majority of growth is likely to come from commissions,” Victor Yip, an analyst at UOB-Kay Hian Ltd. in Hong Kong, said by phone today. “Transaction volumes were up.”
Jack Ma, Alibaba’s billionaire executive chairman, said last year the company may go public within five years. While Alibaba has said it has no timetable for an initial public offering, analysts are anticipating an IPO this year or next. The valuation could reach $62.5 billion, according to the median of eight estimates by investment banks and research firms since February, based on data compiled by Bloomberg.
“Their strong growth is good news before the listing,” Yip said.
Proceeds from the IPO would be used along with additional cash to buy back stock held by Yahoo, a person familiar with the situation has said.
Yahoo gained as much as 6.4 percent to $26.79 in New York trading, the biggest intraday gain since Oct. 23 and the highest level since June 2008, before closing 3.6 percent higher at $26.07. Shares have gained 31 percent this year.
Alibaba doesn’t sell merchandise itself. Instead, it runs platforms including Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com that connect retail brands with consumers, a cross between Amazon.com Inc. and EBay Inc.
“The results were better than we expected, probably because of stronger revenue from commissions,” said Alex Wang, a Beijing-based analyst at Internet consulting group iResearch. “This will be positive for their anticipated IPO.”
The value of goods sold on Alibaba this year may reach about $330 billion as more Chinese shop online, Wang said.
Morgan Stanley estimates Alibaba’s revenue for the 12 months through December of this year may increase 59 percent from 2012 to $7.48 billion, and another 44 percent in the next year, analysts Jordan Monahan and Scott Devitt said in a March 6 research note.
Net income this year at Alibaba may reach $2.18 billion, more than double last year’s $746.3 million, according to the Morgan Stanley note.
“Companies usually will dress up their margins before IPOs,” said Echo He, an analyst for Maxim Group LLC in New York. “U.S. investors have an appetite for Chinese Internet companies, especially ones with dominant market share in China.”
Online retailing in China more than doubled each year from 2003 to 2011 and is projected to more than triple to $395 billion from 2011 to 2015, according to a McKinsey & Co. report in March. China had 564 million Internet users at the end of 2012, 10 percent more than a year earlier, according to the government-run China Internet Network Information Center.
In a move to strengthen its mobile business, where an increasing number of shoppers place orders, Alibaba last month said it paid $586 million for an 18 percent stake in Sina Corp.’s Weibo unit, which is China’s largest Twitter-like service. That gives Alibaba access to the company’s 46.2 million daily active users -- 75 percent of whom access the service through mobile devices, according to Sina.
Alibaba said in April it was working with five Chinese handset makers to use its operating system, called AMOS, as it takes on Google Inc. and China-based Tencent Holdings Ltd., which runs a messaging service, for mobile-device users.
In addition, Alibaba is offering a credit-payment service to provide consumer credit to Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com shoppers. The credit limit is as much as 5,000 yuan ($812) per month, according to the company.


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You might have to say goodbye to 50% discount on clothes on your wishlist or to that iPhone you were planning to buy this Holi. You also need not wait for the ‘Big Billion Sale’ anymore.
This is because, from today, 1st February 2019, e-commerce platforms will not be able to sell products of those companies in which they own equity. They will also not be able to have exclusive marketing arrangements with sellers so as to influence the price of a product.
This means that let’s say if Flipkart invested in a company ‘X’, it will not be allowed to sell the product of this company ‘X’ on Flipkart as it would give X competitive advantage.
Also, let’s assume Flipkart had an agreement with Xiaomi to sell its smartphone when it would launch its phone ‘Y’. Now it would no longer be able to do this kind of exclusive launch anymore.
As for the special marketing arrangement, it refers to Amazon Prime and Flipkart Assured that give its users special access and treatment.
It is estimated that this arrangement can wipe out almost 4 lakh products from Amazon India and Flipkart could lose nearly 25% of its sales revenue!
E-commerce platforms are supposed to act as a market to connect buyers and merchants, not as inventories. For this reason, e-commerce companies cannot hold inventories anymore. 100% FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) is allowed in the market model.
However, inventories are allowed with 100% Indian made goods, an attempt to boost Make In India.
Investment analysts believe that “not the regulation but its erratic implementation will discourage future investment in the industry”.
It will also hamper India’s image as an FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) destination especially because it was just last year when Wallmart invested billions of dollars in Flipkart.
Why did the Government take such a drastic step?
E-commerce platform, with their deep pockets and deeper discounts, were hurting brick-and-mortar retail, so to create a level playing field, the government went for these regulations.
But industry watchers believe that it is an act by the ruling regime to appease millions of small traders that form a considerable vote bank. They were hard hit by demonetization and GST rollout and have long complained of the undue advantage that the e-commerce big boys enjoy.
It also aims to benefit smaller e-commerce players who cannot compete with e-commerce players.
There’s also speculation that the government did this for Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) owned by Mukesh Ambani, as Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio, together will launch a new e-commerce portal soon.
Whatever may be the reason, the government must not take such knee jerk policy decisions as it affects millions of people on both sides of the market.
We users had become used to the pampering done by e-commerce sites in the form of huge discounts and fast delivery, both of which might no longer be available anymore. This makes me wonder if online shopping will lose its charm in its post-discount phase.
Image Credits: Google Images
Find the blogger @parihar_tweets
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Casio today unveiled its latest addition to its G-SHOCK line up of timepieces with the GM2100 series, a collection of watches that feature a metal-clad shock resistant structure with a thin profile…
Casio announced today the release of the A100WEPC, a collaboration model featuring the iconic PAC-MAN game that is popular around the world. The A100WEPC is based on the recent reissue of the..


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Natural Light “has crashed the seltzer party” with Natural Light Seltzer, its new hard seltzer brand that’s both boozier and cheaper than its spiked seltzer competitors, according to Anheuser-Busch.
Natural Light Seltzer is available nationwide in two excessively yet vaguely described flavors: Catalina Lime Mixer: When Cherry & Lime Become Best Friends; and Aloha Beaches: When Mango & Peach Go Beach Mode. (It literally says this on the can labels.)
Each “blend” is a slightly boozy 6-percent ABV, compared to a majority of spiked seltzer’s 5-percent ABV. As for the lower cost, a spokesperson told VinePair in an email, “Anheuser-Busch does not dictate price nationally and it varies from state to state and retailer to retailer. However, I can confirm that the price will be roughly 20 percent less than the mainstream brands.”
(So, if in-house competitor Bon & Viv Lemon Lime is $8.49 for a 6-pack, we can assume a Natural Light Seltzer Catalina Lime Mixer 6-pack will go for about $6.80.)
Natty’s summer-themed sparklers are available in 12-packs, 24-packs, and 25-ounce single-serve cans. As part of the national rollout, Anheuser-Busch is also giving away 1,000 cases of Natural Light Seltzer via a sweepstakes on Twitter.
“Tell us on social why your party needs more flavor and we may just deliver cases of Natural Light Seltzer right to your doorstep,” the press release said. The sweepstakes is open to U.S. residents aged 21 and older from August 13, 2019 through September 8, 2019. To enter, tweet the hashtags #NattySeltzer and #Sweepstakes.
And just like that, Naturdays were a thing of the past.


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Both Max and I were honored to have Marie Langer as our guest in this episode of the 3DPod. Marie is the CEO of EOS the leading firm in sintering of both polymers and metals. For the past decades, EOS has lead the way in commercializing sintering (L-PBF) for manufacturing and prototyping. Now the firm is at the bleeding edge of manufacturing with 3D printing but also finds itself facing competition from the likes of GE and HP. What makes EOS very special as a firm is that they’re a privately held company. Marie’s father started it thirty years ago and now it’s her turn to helm the family business. We talk to Marie about what this is like, what her outlook and strategy are and what she finds important. We also look at industrialization for 3D printing and what this means, culture, sustainability and the future of 3D printing. We really enjoyed doing this episode and hope that you enjoy listening to it as much.
Greg Paulson joins us to talk about 3D printing trends.
Velo3D’s Zach Murphy talks about Velo’s technology and development.
We interview Formalloy’s Melanie Lang on directed energy deposition.
Here we discuss 3D Printing in space.
We interview pioneering designer Scott Summit as he crosses Amsterdam on a bicycle.
Janne is another pioneering designer in 3D Printing.
Interview with 3D Scanning pioneer Michael Raphael.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, what is happening now?
We’re all going to live forever with bioprinting.
The first episode: Beyond PLA.
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China, others lift ban on meat imports in boost for Brazil
China lifted a ban on imports of meat from Brazil on March 25 after Brazilian authorities clarified details of a police investigation into alleged bribery of health inspectors, in a victory for President Michel Temer's efforts to stem damage from the probe.
The move by China, the biggest national consumer of Brazilian meat, was accompanied on March 25 by the lifting of import bans in Egypt and Chile, bringing hope of an end to a crisis that saw one-fifth wiped off the value of Brazilian pork and poultry exports last week.
A slew of major meat importers issued bans after Brazilian federal police unveiled on March 17 an investigation into alleged payments to government health officials by meat processing companies to forego inspections and ignore abuses, codenamed "Operation Weak Flesh."
Temer's government, alarmed the scandal could damage one of the few sectors that has defied a deep recession in Latin America's largest economy, launched a campaign to convince trade partners that any abuses were limited in scope.
Meat is Brazil's third-largest export, after soy and iron ore. The country sold around $13.5 billion in chicken, beef and pork products last year.
Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi welcomed China's decision and said the government retained a ban on exports from 21 processing plants directly linked to the federal police investigation as it carried out its own inspections.
"Lifting this suspension was the result of a giant effort by Brazil to explain that the investigation targeted the conduct of individuals and not the quality of the meat," Maggi told Reuters.
Officials said that the only one of the 21 plants that exported to China is owned by Seara Alimentos Ltda, a unit of Brazil's JBS SA, the...


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Claims against Bayer have more than doubled the number of plaintiffs that Roundup causes cancer.
Since early July the number of plaintiffs claiming that the herbicide Roundup causes cancer has grown from 18,400 to 42,700. The $63 billion acquisition of Monsanto by Bayer AG has opened it up to thousands of lawsuits about the herbicide and its active ingredient glyphosate.
Three juries have found the products caused non-Hodgkin lymphoma; awarding multi-million dollars to the plaintiffs. Roundup cancer trials set for the St. Louis area, in the former home state of Monsanto, this summer and fall have been delayed until next year.
MARKET VALUE DROP
This has chopped nearly 30% off Bayer’s market value. This loss has resulted in some investors calling for Bayer to reach a settlement. A settlement below $20 billion would be positive for Bayer’s share price. Reaching a settlement would be difficult given that Roundup is still being sold. This would make it hard for the company to reach an agreement that would prevent future plaintiffs coming forward.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, “Claims Against Bayer Increase”, Thursday, October 31, 2019


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President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to also distribute cash assistance to sari-sari store owners affected by the price ceiling on rice, the Palace said Sunday.
The DSWD would work with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to identify the beneficiaries, and would distribute the cash assistance from Sept. 25 to 29, it added.
Marcos had also directed the DSWD to provide cash assistance to small rice retailers affected by the mandated price ceiling on regular and well-milled rice.
The President approved the price caps of P41 a kilo of regular milled rice and P45 for well-milled rice.
Based on its latest report, the DSWD said that it has released P92.415 million in financial assistance to 6,161 out of the 8,390-target micro and small rice retailers affected by the implementation of the EO 39.
Meanwhile, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno said he does not expect the proposed lowering of the import tariffs on imported rice to significantly affect the government’s revenue collections.
“It’s actually not that big… Our collection from rice imports is around P17 billion,” Diokno said, referring to the latest Bureau of Customs data showing that rice imports tariff collection stood at P16.81 billion from January to Aug. 26, 2023, 6 percent up from P15.82 billion a year ago.
“But it will depend on to what extent [the tariff will be reduced]. Right now it is 35 percent. It depends if it is reduced to 20 percent or 10 percent, and also on the quantity of imports,” Diokno said.
The Department of Finance earlier proposed to reduce the 35 percent rice import tariff rates, both ASEAN and MFN (most favored nation) rates, temporarily to 0 percent or a maximum of 10 percent to arrest the surge in rice prices.
Rice, which accounts for around 9 percent in the consumer basket, was one of the triggers of the two-month high 5.3-percent inflation in August from 4.7 percent a month ago, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Farmers groups, who fear the entry of cheap imported rice will hurt them, have attacked the DOF proposal and called for Diokno’s resignation.
But Diokno said he would not make a recommendation because the Tariff Commission will do so, to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) board.
While the commission has already conducted a hearing on the proposal, it has not yet made a recommendation, he said.
Diokno earlier said reducing the import tariffs on rice was part of a comprehensive strategy to reduce prices for consumers and mitigate a potential shortage of the staple due to the impact of the ongoing El Niño phenomenon.
The PSA said the bottom 30 percent of households felt the impact of higher rice prices the most. Data showed that regular milled rice in August 2023 averaged P43.34 nationwide, up 8.9 percent year on year, while well-milled rice averaged P47.63, higher by 8.1 percent.
Earlier, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) exempted the rice subsidy program for small-scale retailers and fuel subsidy program for public utility vehicles (PUVs) in relation to the 2023 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) spending ban.
The DSWD had asked the Comelec to exempt the nationwide distribution of financial aid to micro rice retailers from the election-related ban on the release of public funds.


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When it comes to 3D printing materials, you won’t come across a more popular choice than plastic – there are all sorts of plastics to choose from, and it’s also the cheapest of the 3D printing materials. However, plastic definitely has its issues – landfills around the world are filling up with plastics, and the material is depleting fossil feedstocks, as well as forming CO2 in production and combustion processes. A team of researchers with the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) in Moscow have developed a 3D printable polymer made entirely from biomass that negates these issues.
Additive manufacturing processes are typically better for the environment than other forms of manufacturing, but plastic waste is still a worldwide issue. Plastics are made up of a range of synthetic, or semi-synthetic, malleable organic materials, and many efforts have been made to use recycled plastic to 3D print objects like prosthetics, leaves that make up a floating Christmas tree, bee boxes, and supplies for astronauts in space.
3D printing polymers have their own disadvantages, such as being attacked by organic solvents, shrinking when heated, and poor adhesion to the print bed, all of which can cause printing errors. But the RAS researchers, who are working with elected RAS member Prof. Dr. Valentine P. Ananikov, have developed a material process that’s not only sustainable, but also eliminates these problems.
They developed a polymer from cellulose called polyethylene-2,5-furandicarboxylate (PEF) that can be easily, and inexpensively, used to 3D print high-quality objects that are recyclable and highly solvent-resistant. The researchers detailed their work in a paper, titled “Three-Dimensional Printing with Biomass-Derived PEF for Carbon-Neutral Manufacturing,” in the journal Angewandte Chemie; co-authors include Dr. Fedor A. Kucherov, Dr. Evgeny G. Gordeev, Dr. Alexey S. Kashin, and Prof. Dr. Ananikov.
The abstract reads, “Biomass-derived poly(ethylene-2,5-furandicarboxylate) (PEF) has been used for fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printing. A complete cycle from cellulose to the printed object has been performed. The printed PEF objects created in the present study show higher chemical resistance than objects printed with commonly available materials (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polylactic acid (PLA), glycol-modified poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PETG)).
The studied PEF polymer has shown key advantages for 3D printing: optimal adhesion, thermoplasticity, lack of delamination and low heat shrinkage. The high thermal stability of PEF and relatively low temperature that is necessary for extrusion are optimal for recycling printed objects and minimizing waste. Several successive cycles of 3D printing and recycling were successfully shown. The suggested approach for extending additive manufacturing to carbon-neutral materials opens a new direction in the field of sustainable development.”
The researchers melted powdered polymer in an oven to create a filament, which was then formed, through hot drawing, to a 2.85 mm diameter. Then they drew digital models using Autodesk 123D Design and successfully printed them on an Ultimaker 2, as that particular 3D printer’s feeder is farther away from the print head and allows for smaller segments of experimental material to not directly contact the mechanical parts. The 3D printed objects had smooth, high quality surfaces, and the layers were “firmly bound to each other.”
The PEF objects, along with objects printed out of PETG, PLA, and ABS, were then subjected to tests, which demonstrated that the PEF objects were more resistant to an aggressive solvent called dichloromethane.
PEF material has high thermal stability, which meant that the 3D printed test objects were able to be melted, re-made into filament, and printed again multiple times. PEF also has a greater polarity than other materials, and the research team believes that this structural diversity means that the material will have new applications.
In addition, according to the researchers’ computer calculations, the building blocks that make up PEF may actually have non-linear fragments; these fragments form a spiral twist, which offer “access to new types of geometry.”
Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.[Images: Russian Academy of Sciences]
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Egypt’s largest national banks – Banque Misr, National Bank of Egypt, and Banque du Caire along with Global Ventures, a leading MEA-focused venture capital firm, announce the launch of Nclude by Global Ventures, following approval by the Central Bank of Egypt (“CBE”).
The initial amount, equivalent to $85 million investment in the Fund, is led by Banque Misr as an Anchor Investor and National Bank of Egypt and Banque du Caire as Strategic Investors alongside other investors including eFinance Investment Group and Egyptian Banks Company.
“We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to partner with the local and international investor community to provide ambitious founders the tools they need to succeed and compete at local, regional and global levels, while contributing to Egypt’s socio-economic development and prosperity.”
~ Eslam Darwish, General Partner of the Nclude FinTech Fund
Fintech activity in Egypt has exponentially increased in recent years, making the country an attractive location for entrepreneurs and prospective investors in this industry. The supportive investment ecosystem reflects the success of government reforms aimed at streamlining regulatory and licensing processes, in addition to the Central Bank of Egypt’s initiatives in partnering with fintech players to promote a digitized and cashless economy.
Nclude is launched to support emerging high-potential new players in Egypt’s financial services sector, with an eye to developing the market’s e-payments ecosystem and expanding the Group’s transaction-based revenues.
The newly launched fund has already made investments in four Egypt-based fintech startups including Khazna, Lucky, Mozare3 and Paymob.
“This step is an implementation of the directives of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to support innovative youth in Fintech and Fintech-enabled sector, as well as CBE’s FinTech & Innovation Strategy which aims to create an enabling environment for the FinTech industry and adopt more innovative FinTech solutions capable of delivering banking and financial services to all segments of society more easily and at less cost, as a crucial step to transform Egypt into a regional center for the FinTech industry in the Arab World and Africa.”
~ Tarek Amer, Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt
“This is an important step to transform Egypt into a Regional center for the Arab and African Fintech industry. It will also help raise financial inclusion rates and accelerate Egypt’s digital transformation, which is integral to delivering the Egypt Vision 2030.”
~ Mohamed El-Etreby, Chairman of Banque Misr
“The Nclude Fund aims to sponsor early-stage Fintech startups, and young Fintech talent, who will help build the Egyptian economy of the future. In addition, the Fund targets creating an appropriate environment to attract, nurture, and localize talent in the Egyptian market to build creative Fintech solutions, while promoting innovation in the digital banking and financial services sector, to reach all segments of society with ease and efficiency. “
~ Hisham Okasha, Chairman of the National Bank of Egypt
“The launch of this Fund creates a unique opportunity for investors, and entrepreneurs to come together and create a scalable and affordable financial technology solutions. Such solutions will not only improve the quality of current services but will also create new services using cutting edge technology that leverages a data-driven approach to attract the underbanked and financially excluded segments of society.”
~ Tarek Fayed, Chairman and CEO of the Banque du Caire
“We are delighted to have the overwhelming support of all our investors in this Fund, and thankful for their trust. Over the past few years, we have had the privilege of being part of the journey of many entrepreneurs across MEA, with a particular focus on the Fintech sector and Egypt as a key priority market.”
~ Basil Moftah, Partner at Global Ventures


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Immense Opportunities in the Indian non-alcoholic beverage market
With a population of nearly 1.30 billion, India offers immense opportunities for domestic and international beverage companies. The Indian non-alcoholic beverage market has grown steadily over the years. However, much like the other markets, demand for carbonated beverages has stagnated. Packaged juices, water, energy and health drinks have taken a huge share from carbonated soft drinks.
The Indian non-alcoholic beverage market has come a long way in the past decades. With only a few Indian players in the 1970s and 1980s, the market witnessed the re-entry of several multinationals such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi in the 1990s. Since then, various Indian companies as well as foreign multinationals have tried to get a piece of the fast-growing market.
Today, India represents an important market for various players to build a strong beverage brand. The Indian non-alcoholic beverage market is among the fastest growing markets globally, as various macro factors support strong growth. The current low per capita consumption signals significant potential for volume growth in the future. The Indian soft drinks market might continue its “robust growth trajectory” as annual per capita bottle consumption is expected to reach around 84 by 2021, according to the annual report of PepsiCo India’s bottling partner Varun Beverages Limited.
Still, compared to most of Asian countries, the Indian non-alcoholic beverage industry is relatively underdeveloped with low penetration. The per capita consumption is far lower than global averages, despite double-digit growth rates of recent years. The main segments constituting the soft drinks market in India are carbonated soft drinks, juices and bottled water, which together accounted for over 99 percent of the total volumes sold.
The battle on the Indian non-alcoholic beverage market: Carbonated beverages vs. packaged juices
Carbonated beverages, which traditionally has had the largest share in the Indian non-alcoholic beverage industry has been losing their market share to other beverage categories in the last few years. The growing consumer preference for healthier food and beverages and the excessive use of sugar in their soft drinks has played against the carbonated beverages during these years. The packaged juices segment – categorized into three sub segments fruit drinks, juices and nectar – has grown at a CAGR of nearly 15 percent over the last five years. Until now dominated by mango juices and nectars, other juices have recently started to grow big. The mango juice segment, within the INR 120 billion packaged juices market in India, is estimated to be over 50 percent in size, owing to the popularity of the fruit. This segment has been growing in double-digits steadily, prompting beverage majors to focus on this category in a major way.
Packaged water and natural flavors
Packaged water has become one of the fastest growing sub-segments in the non-alcoholic beverage category in India in the last ten years. At the end of year 2018, the total market of packaged water was estimated at INR 160 billion. Nearly 67 percent market share of the sector is held by the top five players such as Bisleri, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Parle and Dhariwal. Mineral and packaged water bottles which were considered a luxury and that, too, only during travelling are now commonly available at every nook and corner of the country. The rise in the consumption of mineral water has been mainly due to increasing awareness about health, increase in tourism and easy availability of bottled water. There is a new variant called flavored water that has taken over the luxury tag from mineral water bottles. The target market is the people who prefer a healthy lifestyle on the go and love to drink water infused with vitamins, natural flavors or nature identical flavoring substances such as basil, lemon, mint, orange, hibiscus, fruits, etc. O’cean, Blue and Qua are some brands in this category.
Key growth drivers & opportunities in the Indian non-alcoholic beverage market
The Indian non-alcoholic beverage market is in its growth phase. Favorable demographics, low per capita consumption, long summers and higher spending on packaged products makes it an attractive market. This coupled with continued innovations towards product packaging and sizing to enhance product affordability are likely to strengthen growth rates. India is home to one of the largest and fastest growing middle-class populations anywhere in the world. The rising aspirations of this segment is expected to boost demand for non-alcoholic beverages in the coming years to new highs. India’s aggregate consumer expenditure is likely to grow over threefold from 45 trillion in 2010 to nearly 150 trillion by 2020 and its affluent and aspiring households from 48 million to more than 100 million.
India’s annual soft drinks consumption at 44 bottles per capita is relatively low compared to matured markets like the U.S. (1,496 bottles), Mexico (1,489 bottles) and Germany (1,221 bottles) and even developing markets like Brazil (537 bottles) (Source: Varun Beverages Limited).
Challenges for the Indian non-alcoholic beverage market and industry
One of the biggest challenges for the Indian soft drink industry is penetration in rural markets, which form about 67 percent of India’s total population. In addition to the vast population, reaching to rural consumers in the gigantic geography of the country poses significant challenges in distribution. Making carbonated drinks available to this vast population in the chilled form is also a challenge.
Despite numerous opportunities offered by a huge population base, there is a number of challenges for the Indian non-alcoholic beverage industry and producers.
Major beverage producers in the Indian non-alcoholic beverage market
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo lorded over the Indian soft drink market for almost three decades, often setting the rules of the game. Indeed, after PepsiCo entered India in 1989 and Coca-Cola re-entered India in 1993, cola had become synonymous with beverages and vice versa. At the close of the last century, they had cornered nearly all of the organized carbonated beverage market between them. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have retained their hold in carbonated beverages with a near 96 percent share but, unfortunately for them, the segment is lagging overall industry growth. However, in recent years a number of domestic companies have also started to give a tough competition to the two established powerhouses. These domestic companies are strong in some geographies and niche segments.
This article is powered by Verlag W. Sachon.


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“Because companies of all sizes are strapped for time and assets and in-particular person video shoots are now not practical in lots of nations, we are accelerating the following stage of Video Builder availability,” Google stated in a statement. This previous week, Google offered particulars about its advert credit program for small and medium-sized businesses.
Social Media Marketing News
To bolster that argument, eMarketer cites a report saying that Amazon just lately decreased its funding in search adverts. Speaking of YouTube, that website is seeing an uptick in visitors through the pandemic. However, that improve in views isn’t translating to more income for video creators.
According to a new study by GumGum, contextually related advertisements pique folks’s curiosity greater than their non-contextual counterparts. But it’s not simply Disney+ and Netflix that made adjustments as a result of the pandemic.
Mom-and-pop shops just lately shuttered their doorways on account of the outbreak. As of May 2019, greater than 500 hours of video have been uploaded to YouTube every minute; greater than a billion hours of all those videos get watched daily. Facebook has greater than 2.7 billion monthly lively users, the overwhelming majority of whom post and share family pics, jokes and memes.
Sender Beats Subject Line: The Power Of Weblog Branding
Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram downgraded streaming quality as nicely. Google is offering its own stimulus package to businesses hit by the pandemic fallout. Take advantage of Facebook’s new bulk video options to ramp up your video marketing on the platform.
- In addition, The Verge provides a number of the snappiest, liveliest writing I’ve come across online – a genuine pleasure in today’s oversaturated media setting.
- With consumers moving online, entrepreneurs invested to make sure that their links and products can be current and ready to be found as people looked for solutions.
- If you’re on the lookout for clever, insightful social media news , look no further.
- Although The Verge’s editorial range is incredibly extensive, overlaying every thing from robotics applied sciences to virtual reality, it’s additionally an excellent source of breaking news for what’s occurring in search and social media.
- Ars Technica is similar to The Verge in that it covers an enormous range of matters, but its news reporting is among the absolute best the Web has to offer.
- Although SocialTimes is not an independent news web site, however quite a web site owned and operated by AdWeek, that doesn’t diminish the standard of its coverage or its worth to social media marketers.
This previous week on Twitter, someone posed the question about whether Google surfaces AMP content over non-AMP content material within the SERPs. In a press release, eMarketer said it’s lowering the forecast due to the financial influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon, unsurprisingly, will benefit significantly from that uptick. If you promote your brand with Facebook live streaming, take a look at the new features and see how they may help you construct a greater online presence.
If you’re selling merchandise on Amazon, search for ways in which you need to use Sponsored Display adverts to extend sales. The Sponsored Display adverts appear next to evaluations, on the best-hand sidebar, and in search results. The internet stream additionally exhibits comments next to the video content material (as a result of there’s room for that). So viewers can watch the content or attempt to read the feedback that rapidly scroll up subsequent to the viewport.


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Taking a cue from a Star Wars Episode, AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) staged a decision to introduce the first holographic Smartphone – Red Hydrogen One during this summer. It has already received a wide publicity through technology press.
According to AT&T, the Smartphone is equipped with tools to create and view the content. Senior Vice President (Red Hydrogen One and network services marketing) of AT&T said the innovative gadget features a 4-view holographic display for better viewing.
The company is putting in all of the efforts to showcase the device at Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles next month.
Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), which is a rival to AT&T, is gearing up to introduce a gadget later this year. The new device will provide an innovate way to capture the videos. It will also provide more entertainment for mobile phone users. It doesn’t need any special glass to view the content.
After witnessing better than expected growth for Smartphone in the early years, the wireless industry is looking for innovative features to drive the growth. According to the recent estimates, the shipments of Smartphones worldwide has declined by 3% in Q1 compared to the same period of last year.
The Senior Vice President of AT&T said the new gadget will provide more advancements for the users to create/ view the content without any need for the special glass.
AT&T Gears Up to Respond to The Letter from Senators about Michael Cohen
AT&T said the company is preparing to respond to a letter received from three senators on concerns about its relationship with Michael Cohen, the personal lawyer of President Trump.
The senators Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren have sent a letter to CEO of AT&T requesting for more details about the firms’ relationship with a firm owned by Michael Cohen. They require a detailed report from the company and how it affects the takeover of Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) as per the reports of payments to Essential Consultants LLC of Michael Cohen published in New York Times and other publications.
AT&T and the US Department of Justice have clashed about the deal with Time Warner in the court. The cause is being reviewed by a judge in the court.


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PORTLAND, Ore. — May 31, 2018 — Columbia Sportswear Co. — an innovator in the active outdoor apparel, footwear, accessories and equipment industries — today announced that Andrew Burns has joined the company as director of Investor Relations and Competitive Intelligence, reporting to senior vice president and CFO Jim Swanson.
In his new role, Burns will be based at Columbia Sportswear’s headquarters in Portland, Ore.
“Andrew joins us with deep experience and brings a unique point of view having covered the outdoor industry, global retailers and Columbia Sportswear Company (COLM) as a sell-side equity research analyst for D.A. Davidson and other investment firms over the past 14 years,” said Swanson. “I’m confident that Andrew’s professional background, investor and industry expertise and focus on financial insights will ensure the success of our investor relations activities and competitive intelligence program.”
Posted June 4, 2018
Source: Columbia Sportswear


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1) Economists paint a grim image, decrease India’s FY20 GDP development forecast
With the financial development price plunging to a 25-quarter low of 5% within the first quarter of the present monetary 12 months, suppose tanks and economists have minimize their projection of the gross home product growth for 2019-20.
Earlier, their predictions have been shut to six.eight%, which was recorded in 2018-19. Now, it’s means decrease. (Learn extra right here)
2) Govt will reply to vehicle business’s demand, says FM Sitharaman
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday stated the federal government would reply to the calls for of the auto business, which is going through the worst droop in twenty years. Sitharaman’s assurance to the auto business got here forward of the GST Council assembly, slated for September 20.
The FM, whereas chatting with the media right here on 100 days of the Modi authorities 2.zero, stated, “We’re aware that we have to reply.” When requested a couple of potential price minimize on automobiles, Sitharaman stated that decision could be taken by the GST Council at its assembly in Goa subsequent week. She, nonetheless, added that a few of the business options had already been thought-about. (Learn extra right here)
three) Govt’s huge plan to push EVs: Rs 40,000-crore subsidies within the works
The federal government is contemplating extra sops and advantages to push electrical mobility in India — this time on the provision aspect.
The plan is to spend Rs 40,000 crore on subsidies over the following 10 years, geared toward firms that can arrange manufacturing items for batteries, components of electrical automobiles (EVs), or elements supporting infrastructure like charging stations, Enterprise Normal has learnt. (Learn extra right here)
four) India to evaluation Asean free-trade settlement amid rising imports worry
India and the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on Tuesday agreed to evaluation their free-trade settlement (FTA) amid criticism from the home business that the deal was serving to imports rise a lot quicker than exports.
The choice was taken throughout a gathering between Commerce and Business Minister Piyush Goyal and Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit, representing Asean, in Bangkok. (Learn extra right here)
5) YES Financial institution’s co-founder Rana Kapoor prone to promote his stake to Paytm
Rana Kapoor, co-founder of YES Financial institution, is alleged to be in talks with One97 Communications, proprietor of Paytm, to promote his stake within the personal sector lender. Kapoor and his affiliate entities owned 10.6 per cent within the financial institution on the finish of June 2019. Round 7.34 per cent of the Kapoor household stake has been pledged with Reliance Nippon Asset Administration Firm (RNAMC).
In keeping with studies, Kapoor has held preliminary talks with Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founding father of One97 Communications. The construction of the deal would rely upon the approval from the Reserve Financial institution of India (RBI), on condition that Sharma already owns a stake in Paytm Funds Financial institution, stated sources. (Learn extra right here)
6) Company bond issuances on the upswing, attain Rs 5.45 trillion until August
Opposite to expectations, the company bond market is witnessing a spurt of issuances, and within the first eight months of this calendar 12 months, the issuances have been the best ever. Whereas liquidity performed a job, banks’ reluctance to lend as a result of danger aversion and tightened group borrower publicity limits are pushing corporations to the company bond market area, say consultants. (Learn extra right here)
7) With greater than 7000 start-ups, Delhi-NCR emerges as India’s unicorn hub
TiE Delhi-NCR and consulting agency Zinnov on Tuesday launched a report, ‘Turbocharging Delhi-NCR Begin-up Ecosystem’. Rajan Anandan, president of TiE Delhi-NCR, stated, “NCR’s start-up ecosystem has unbelievable momentum. Regardless of the progress thus far, we consider we’re nonetheless in Day One. With concerted deal with an important areas, the NCR has the potential to turn out to be a High 5 International hubs for start-ups, lead innovation throughout many sectors, create many extra start-ups and have not less than 30 unicorns in NCR by 2025.” (Learn extra right here)
eight) Blackstone set to purchase remainder of Indiabulls’ industrial belongings
Blackstone Group has signed a time period sheet to purchase the remaining 50 per cent stake in Indiabulls Actual Property’s industrial properties for greater than Rs four,420 crore, the Financial Instances reported on Wednesday, citing individuals with direct data of the event.
The report added that Blackstone had concluded an analogous deal for 50 per cent of the portfolio for near Rs four,750 crore in March 2018, marking one in every of India’s largest such transactions in actual property.
9) Google faces probe by 50 state legal professional generals for antitrust violations
A bunch of 50 American states have introduced an investigation into Google’s “potential monopolistic behaviour” and the Web big’s dominance of the internet advertising market.
Asserting the probe, the legal professional generals from these states alleged the Web is just not free on account of a few of the practices of Google. “Fifty legal professional generals from totally different states and territories are launching an investigation into Google’s potential monopolistic behaviour,” Legal professional Basic of the District of Columbia Karl Racine instructed reporters. (Learn extra right here)
10) Anil Ambani’s Reliance Capital inches nearer to exiting mutual fund biz
Anil Ambani-led Reliance Capital will promote as much as 6.three per cent stake in Reliance Nippon Life Asset Administration —generally known as Reliance Mutual Fund —by way of the supply on the market (OFS) route, on Wednesday.
The share sale is a part of Reliance Capital’s deleveraging programme, which includes exiting the asset administration operations, amongst different companies. At current, Reliance Capital holds 32.12 per cent stake in Reliance MF. (Learn extra right here)


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Next Month, Original Google Pixel And Pixel XL Phones Will Get The Final Software Update
Google's original Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, launched in 2016, were not expected to receive the Android 10 OS update in any case.
Google Pixel XL. Representative Image. (Image: News18.com)
After Google released the November security update for the Pixel smartphones, barring the Pixel and Pixel XL, it seemed that the company would not provide any further update to the original Pixel. It seems Google has now confirmed that the Google Pixel and Pixel XL phones will be getting "one final software update" in the month of December. The report mentioned Google saying that while the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones will not receive the November update, they will get a number of updates in December. The smartphones were not supposed to receive the Android 10 operating system update in the first place, though Google eventually did roll it out.
When Google announced the Pixel, Pixel XL devices back in 2016, it said that they would come powered with two years of software updates as well as three years of security updates. Pixel users, however, were left surprised after earlier this year Google gave them access to Android 10, which meant these phones got the update for one more year than it had initially promised. Now, all eyes are set on what is in store for Pixel users as the devices are set to receive the one final update.
Get the best of News18 delivered to your inbox - subscribe to News18 Daybreak. Follow News18.com on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, TikTok and on YouTube, and stay in the know with what's happening in the world around you – in real time.
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2009 Ford Verve
Ford's late start
Ford has gotten a late start in wooing this
potentially huge audience. Honda, Nissan and
While this new generation of customers may expect more than their parents, it’s as important as ever to woo them over, since someone buying an entry-level model, like Verve, will eventually move up into more expensive cars, trucks and crossovers.
“Millennials will be the defining group of customers in the future, driving all types of consumer trends,” stressed Farley.
By Ford’s estimates, about 11,000 Millennials come
of driving age, in the
It’s all the more important to score with an entry
into this rapidly expanding product segment. Small vehicles, in general, are
expected to account for nearly half the global market, with demand soaring in
the so-called “B-car” segment. Even in the
Developing a product for this segment has
traditionally been a challenge, and was often a money-loser in the
“These concepts demonstrate how leveraging our global strengths can yield attractive benefits for our customers in markets around the world,” he explains.
Verve will be the first new world car, but quickly followed by a replacement for the larger Focus. By 2012, says Ford CEO Alan Mulally, virtually all Ford products will be developed on a global basis, but for those, like the F-Series pickups, for which demand is localized to specific markets.
2008 Detroit Auto Show Coverage by TCC Team (1/6/2008) Ford F-150, Hyundai Genesis and Corvette ZR1.


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QuickChek food donation 2016
Pictured (from left) Community FoodBank of New Jersey Vice President of Development Karen Leies, QuickChek Vice President of Sales and Marketing John Schaninger, Tyson Convenience Director of Sales Denny Woodard, QuickChek Chief Executive Officer Dean Durling, Convenience Store News Editor Don Longo, Tyson Convenience North Division Manager Elaine Otte and QuickChek Director of Food Service Jennifer Vespole. (photos courtesy Russ Mensch/Mensch & Company, Inc.)
QuickChek, based in Whitehouse Station, Tyson Foods, Inc. and Convenience Store News partnered to donate a truckload of food to the Community FoodBank of New Jersey on Wednesday.
The donation of 30,580 pounds of food is equivalent to 152,900 servings. It was made in conjunction of QuickChek being named Convenience Store News' 2016 Foodservice Innovator of the Year.
"We are honored to be recognized as the industry's Foodservice Innovator of the Year and thank Tyson and Convenience Store News in making this wonderful donation," said QuickChek Chief Executive Officer Dean Durling, whose family-owned company was also named 2016 National Convenience Store Chain of the Year earlier this year.
QuickChek is a longtime supporter of food banks in New Jersey and New York. QuickChek raised $160,000 during the FoodBank's Check-Out Hunger campaign in 2015 and $125,000 in 2014. It is currently participating in the 2016 campaign.
More than 30 volunteers comprised of senior management, support center staff and store team members will be sorting donations in the FoodBank, located in Hillside, on Thursday as part of their ongoing partnership throughout the year.
"QuickChek is really a class act and they richly deserve accolades for continuously improving their food service offer," said Convenience Store News Editorial Director Don Longo.
The Community FoodBank of New Jersey, which serves people in need across the state, will distribute the donated food among its network of more than 1,000 community partners including soup kitchens, food pantries and shelters.
"The Community FoodBank of New Jersey is grateful for partners like Tyson Foods for helping us provide healthy food for our neighbors in need," said Karen Leies, vice president of development for the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. "This donation of much-needed protein will go a long way in feeding families this holiday season.
"We also want to recognize QuickChek's ongoing commitment in the fight against hunger. They partner with us on our Check-Out Hunger campaign, volunteer with us and much more."
Tyson Foods' "KNOW Hunger" campaign is focused on helping more people understand and join the effort to eliminate hunger in America. The company partners with Feeding America, Share Our Strength and Lift Up America to raise awareness and help feed the hungry across the nation. Since 2000, Tyson Foods has donated more than 100 million pounds of food in the United States.
In 2015, Tyson Foods pledged $50 million in cash and in-kind donations by 2020 to fight hunger, with a special focus on innovative initiatives at the local level.
"Partnering with organizations like the Community FoodBank of New Jersey is important to us in raising awareness about food insecurity in communities all around the U.S.," said Kevin Miller, senior marketing manager for Tyson Convenience. "Nearly one in five kids in New Jersey is food insecure and the FoodBank distributed more than 43 million pounds of food last year alone. We're honored to support those extraordinary efforts."


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- Walmart is growing its health clinic presence in Florida with plans to open 16 new centers in the state next year, the retail giant said Wednesday.
- The locations, which will be next to Walmart Supercenters in the metro areas of Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa, will open by the fall of 2023, according to a release.
- The expansion will bring Walmart’s total health clinic footprint in Florida to 22 centers.
Since launching Walmart Health in 2019, Walmart has invested millions into expanding its reach, and currently operates more than 30 locations across five states: Georgia, Arkansas, Florida, Texas and Illinois. However, the retailer faces stiff competition from other national pharmacy chains like CVS and Walgreens, which are also looking to become the front door to a wider range of healthcare services than just prescription drugs.
Walmart has been focused on building out its omnichannel care offerings as it moves into direct healthcare delivery, leveraging telemedicine, home touchpoints and perhaps its biggest competitive advantage, a national network of more than 5,000 brick-and-mortar stores.
The Walmart Health centers are geared at patients with no or poor insurance coverage in underserved areas. They deliver primary and urgent care, labs, X-rays and diagnostics, dental, optical, hearing and behavioral health and counseling in one facility, with transparent pricing for patients at the point of service.
Walmart first opened six locations in Florida in 2022. The state is attractive for Walmart Health due to its growing population, aging demographics and access challenges, the company has said.
Florida has the second-highest number of Walmart stores in the country, after Texas, and is where Walmart launched its $4 generic prescription program more than a decade ago. The state also has a large population of elderly patients with chronic health needs, making it ripe for players looking to provide low-cost preventive care.
Walmart has been expanding its reach in the healthcare sector beyond care delivery. Earlier this month, Walmart announced it’s getting into clinical trials by launching the Walmart Healthcare Research Institute, which could become a valuable stream of revenue as drug companies look for participants for potential trials and studies.
In addition, Walmart and UnitedHealth in September linked up on a decadelong collaboration deal to offer healthcare services, first targeting seniors.
The value-based care partnership will start next year with 15 Walmart Health locations in Florida and Georgia, and expand into new geographies over time.


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The UK is consistently ranked among the best places in the world to start a business. From Sir Richard Branson to Sir James Dyson, some of the world's leading billionaires were born and raised on British shores.
The Queen’s Speech this summer, which set out the government's agenda for the year, pledged to “make the United Kingdom the best place to start, finance and grow a business”.
Prime Minister David Cameron has previously said that the "only strategy" for UK economic growth is to support Britain's entrepreneurs.
Small firms account for 99.3pc of all private sector businesses in Britain, and 15.2m people are employed by small and medium sized businesses in the UK.
In the past year we've spoken to around 1,000 "disruptive" British entrepreneurs - people that are shaking up the way things are currently done. They are creating jobs, solving problems and finding customers worldwide.
Here are just some of the exceptional business owners that made waves in 2014.
THE TECHNOLOGY HEROES
Stuart Sawyer, D30
D30 is a bright orange putty that is soft when handled gently but stiffens immediately when hit.
Boss Stuart Sawyer has created a market for this patented gel in products ranging from snowboarding clothing to “military grade” smartphone cases and trainers.
Elizabeth Gooch, eg solutions
Software boss Elizabeth Gooch single-handedly built a global empire before being ousted from her own company.
Sales tumbled in her absence, but now she's back and the company is flourishing.
Alex Abrey and Sean Smith, Eden Research
The brains behind Eden Research have developed a new kind of technology that allows farmers to use natural products such as lemon juice and tea tree oil to protect crops from harmful bugs.
This clever process doesn't harm bees, and moved the global farming industry further away from harmful pesticides.
The small company is making agriculture more sustainable - and its innovation could have interesting new applications: such as perfume that keeps its scent all day, not just a few hours.
Ian Forshew and Tom Hatton, RefME
RefME is an online tool that allows students to create references and footnotes for essays and dissertations in a matter of seconds.
Since launching in October, the company has added between 5,000 and 30,000 users a day, mainly through word of mouth.
THE CHAMPIONS FROM RETAIL
Louise Ferguson and Kate Cotton, Skinny Tan
Skinny Tan, the fake tanning brand that was backed by Dragons’ Den investors Piers Linney and Kelly Hoppen in last year’s series, has become a retail sensation, generating £1m in sales.
We caught up with founders Louise Ferguson and Kate Cotton earlier this year to find out the secret to their success.
Richard Bye, Fat Lad At The Back
This cycling wear brand for the larger man was rejected out of hand on Dragons' Den earlier this year.
However, Fat Lad At The Back founder Richard Bye has gone on to prove the Dragons wrong, winning nationwide distribution deals for his high-quality gear.
Ning Li, Made
Online retailer Made.com has changed the way we buy designer furniture by cutting out the middleman.
Co-founder Ning Li spoke exclusively to The Telegraph about creating a culture of "furniture porn" - and also shared the mistakes he made along the way.
Eric Partaker and Dan Houghton, Chilango
Ex-Skype executives Eric Partaker and Dan Houghton (pictured below left and centre) are the founders of Chilango, a fast-growing chain of Mexican restuarants.
Not content with shaking up the nation's tastebuds, the duo are also financial innovators, launching a "burrito bond" on crowdfunding site Crowdcube (that's founder Luke Lang on the right of the picture) earlier this year - the first bond of its kind on the site.
Chris Robshaw, Black, White and Red
Harlequins flanker and captain of the England rugby team Chris Robshaw is now the proud owner of a coffee and wine shop in Winchester.
Unlike many sportsmen with sideline careers, Robshaw has thrown more than just money at his new venture, training as a barista.
DISRUPTIVE MAKERS AND TALENTED ENGINEERS
Rob Law, Trunki
The designer behind Trunki, the children's ride-on suitcase, has created a new market with his invention.
However, this year has been tough for Law, who is fighting off competition from Chinese rivals.
Tom Newman, Celt Experience
This brewer-meets-microbiologist has built his Welsh craft beer business into a global brand, which is on target to sell 1m bottles next year.
His creations are often weird and wonderful, featuring unusual ingredients - a tonne of strawberries and raspberries went into a recent brew.
He's won the respect of ale-drinking beardies and young hipsters alike with his brewery, Celt Experience, and courted controversy with a spot of breaking and entering to harvest "holy yeast" from Tintern Abbey.
Roger W Smith, RW Smith
Britain's most exclusive watch maker sells his handmade timepieces for up to £250,000 and has a four-year waiting list.
Mr Smith, based in the Isle of Man, mastered 32 trades to design and build every component of a watch from start to finish – and he’s one of only a handful of people in the world with this skill.
Will Crawford and Peter Brewin, Concrete Canvas
These engineers have developed an innovative concrete material that can be transported in a roll and hardens when you add water.
The invention slashes construction times tenfold, and allows entire buildings to be transported in a bag.
Ian Tansley, Sure Chill
This engineer (below, left) has developed a new fridge that remains cold for up to 12 days without power.
Not only can vaccines be safely transported to off-the-grid rural areas in developing nations, where diseases such as polio claim hundreds of lives each year, the massive energy savings will benefit people and the planet.
Adam Place and Diego Alcala-Gaona, NuDesine
The co-founders of Bristol-based company NuDesine have developed an electronic musical instrument called the Alphasphere.
Shaped like a football, the Alphasphere is comprised of 48 tactile pads that respond to touch, velocity and pressure. Place developed the instrument two years ago after getting bored with conventional keyboards.
Nick Hounsfield, The Wave
Surf enthusiast Nick Hounsfield is the man behind The Wave, a giant artificial surfing lake that will be built in Bristol next year.
A mock up of how The Wave will look
Mr Hounsfield raised £220,000 in a crowdfunding campaign - well over his £150,000 target - and has also received grants and cash from private backers to collect the £6.8m needed to build the lagoon.
Steven Greenall and Hugh Rashleigh, Warwick Music
Two brass musicians have developed a ground-breaking new plastic trumpet that retails for just £100 but has the sound quality of a high-end instrument.
The invention is set to breathe new life into trumpet popularity, as schools invest in the cut-price version for students.
Catharina Paukner, Cambridge Nanosystems
This young scientist is building a supersized graphene factory in Cambridge that can turn methane from landfill - or even cows - into modern day black gold.
A visionary entrepreneur, she sees a future where liquid graphene can be used to literally paint radiators onto the walls or floors of your home.
Jason Powell, Longbow Shop
Founded by former graphic designer Jason Powell in 2011, the Longbow Shop sells traditional English longbows, the 6ft medieval bows famously used in the battles of Agincourt, Crecy and Poitiers.
Jennifer Lawrence's Hunger Games character, Katniss Everdeen, has helped encourage young people to take up the sport.
INNOVATORS IN FINANCE AND BANKING
Giles Andrews, Zopa
Zopa matches borrowers with savers, generating returns of up to 5.2pc on its rainy day funds and providing unsecured personal loans of up to £25,000.
Sean Oldfield, Castle Trust
Castle Trust is an equity loans provider combined with an investment product linked to the national housing index.
This allows those with money to invest to get a return based on house prices, while those who need finance could unlock the value of their homes with minimal risk.
THE YOUNG GUNS OF 2014
At just 23, James Roberts, designed a simple, low-cost inflatable incubator to help reduce mortality rates in premature babies across the developing world.
His invention won acclaim from engineer emeritus, James Dyson, and he is hoping to get his product onto the market in 2015 to start saving lives.
Josh Valman, RPD International
19-year-old Josh Valman has built a global hi-tech manufacturing company, which was valued at more than £1m after just six months.
He built his first robot at 13, and now runs RPD International, which allows companies of all sizes to pay a fixed retainer to access a flexible supply chain, comprising designers, engineers and distributors.
“We can help any company to make any product,” he says. This is Josh's story.
Solveiga Pakstaite, Bump Mark
22-year-old Solveiga Pakstaite from Brunel University has solved the problem of inaccurate sell-by, best-before, and use-before dates by inventing the Bump Mark, which reacts to the freshness of packaged foods.
When the product is no longer good to eat, bumps can be left on her clever food label.
It could save the UK billions in wasted food each year.
Toby and Oliver Bartlett, Alan Bartlett and Sons
These 23-year-old twin brothers have developed the world’s first bushy top purple carrots at their family farm in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire.
They are the fourth generation of the Bartlett family to work on the farm, which also grows parsnips, and are hoping to keep the farming tradition alive by innovating new and interesting varieties.
Nathan Winch, Winch Pharma
This 23-year-old a biology graduate landed million-pound deal to sell his range of alcohol-free hand sanitizers to the NHS.
Not only can these sanitizers be used by patients of all faiths, they are also helping to discourage alcoholics from visiting hospitals to drink the alcoholic varieties.
Oliver Murphy, Reviveaphone
20-year-old inventor turned entrepreneur Oliver Murphy has devised an ingenious system for bringing phones that have been damaged by liquids back to life.
Within weeks of launch in July this year, he was selling 200 a month through his Reviveaphone website.


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NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - A must-have gadget has become a can-probably-wait. Apple’s sales of iPhones fell 7% in the quarter ending March 28, and the fall in the following three months should be worse. That is both predictable, and self-limiting. Apple should bounce back.
It’s no shocker that a product made in China, shipped around the world and purchased in currently-closed retail stores hasn’t sold well during the coronavirus pandemic. The decline from iPhones was the main driver why Apple’s revenue only grew 1%, year-on-year. But the mass boredom caused by widespread lockdowns benefits Tim Cook’s firm in a different way. Service revenue jumped 17%, as customers spent more on apps, and Apple’s gaming and music services. It accounted for 23% of all revenue in the quarter. It was about 20% of revenue during the same quarter last year.
Apple can’t count on additional iPhone sales in the current quarter. This month’s rollout of a $399 low-end iPhone might help, but as long as stores are shut and the smartphone market already saturated, demand may not rebound for several months – or quarters.
Compared with some tech rivals like Facebook and Alphabet-owned Google, Apple has a disadvantage: its reliance on revenue from China and on selling physical goods through retail outlets. Yet in another sense, Cook’s firm is better off. After all, unplaced internet ads on Facebook are gone forever, whereas phone purchase are simply delayed. The release of 5G phones later this year will make users long to replace the iPhones they have.
That might explain why all three stocks have performed similarly, with only a slight fall in the year to date. True, that’s still a comedown for a company that has delivered a total shareholder return triple that of the S&P 500 Index over the past five years. But even a bruised Apple should be able to bounce back.
Reuters Breakingviews is the world's leading source of agenda-setting financial insight. As the Reuters brand for financial commentary, we dissect the big business and economic stories as they break around the world every day. A global team of about 30 correspondents in New York, London, Hong Kong and other major cities provides expert analysis in real time.
Sign up for a free trial of our full service at https://www.breakingviews.com/trial and follow us on Twitter @Breakingviews and at www.breakingviews.com. All opinions expressed are those of the authors.