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CALGARY — Following openings in Calgary and Banff, Alta., Pacini Restaurant opened its newest location at Calgary’s Meadows Mile. Connected to the new Holiday Inn & Suites hotel on Blackfoot Trail South East, this 200-seat restaurant offers breakfast and weekend brunch, lunch, dinner and banquet service.
“As a Canadian restaurant franchisor, we’re proud to bring our authentic Italian concept to Alberta for the third time, in partnership with a new hotel partner,” says Nathalie Lehoux, president, Picini.
The owners of the new Pacini Meadows Mile are Doug, Jon and Ken Sholter from Perfect Hospitality and Sukhminder Rai from PHI Hotel Group.
“We are delighted to partner with Pacini to enhance our hotel with authentic and delicious Italian cuisine, exceptional service, its famous Bread Bar and a unique grocery store, as well as the organization of conferences and banquets,” says Doug Sholter, director of Development for Perfect Hospitality.
The Pacini brand has grown quickly in the Canadian hotel industry. In recent years, it has partnered with the Moose Hotel & Suites in Banff; the Acclaim Hotel near Calgary International Airport; the Marriott Hotel in Mississauga, Ont., which will open early this summer; and in Quebec with the Hotel Universel in Alma, the Hotel Le Navigateur in Rimouski and the Auberge Gouverneur in Shawinigan.
For Pierre Marc Tremblay, the chain’s owner, the new Meadows Mile restaurant is the latest in a focused development process. “For several years, we have incorporated the best practices in food and nutrition. Guests can expect to be completely charmed by our hospitality, service, flavours, menus, atmosphere and design,” he says.


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According to Techvibes the first batches of of logins are being sent out and users will be able to start sending Shwowp their receipts soon:
Users can now forward all receipts and order confirmations to firstname.lastname@example.org as well as directly upload them via the site. Shwowp will then aggregate the information, allowing users to add photos, comments, track trends and share their shopping history with friends through Twitter, Facebook and email.
So. Much. Tech.
Some of the biggest names in tech are coming to TNW Conference in Amsterdam this May.
I’ll have to bug co-founder Tara Hunt about my invite getting lost in the mail or something…

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We’re thrilled welcome Jabong to the Flipkart family: As we all know that, Flipkart is the India’s most famous online shopping portal and it is the one of those companies that never stays out the minds of people because of its amazing services and exciting offers. Recently, Flipkart had a deal to compete with its main competitor Amazon. The deal is that Flipkart’s Myntra acquires most famous online fashion portal “Jabong” from its parent company Global Fashion Group in just $70 million. In the online shopping portals, Jabong created its own image and it becomes a fastest growing company in just a few years.
We’re thrilled welcome Jabong to the Flipkart family
The deal makes sense for Flipkart as it is now in a relationship with Jabong, according to the Facebook status of Flipkart and it looks that Flipkart is very excited with the deal as it tweets that “We’re thrilled to welcome@JabongIndia to the #Flipkart family. Here’s to a strong relationship and bold endeavors!”
The deal is cracked in a very low price, but another thing is that Aditya Birla Group valued the company at the half of price Flipkart paid in Jabong. The valuation of Jabong had fallen to $500-800 million. Jabong is very reputed company that gave a run for its money in terms of sales. The company started losing its worth as the funding was dried up.
But now the question is why Flipkart bought a company whose valuation is on a great fall. It is an obvious reason that Flipkart is seeing profitability in the deal with Jabong, but what is the actual strategy behind it no one knows. But now Flipkart is on a run with the deal to compete with its competitor Amazon.
— Flipkart (@Flipkart) July 26, 2016
Flipkart also helped Myntra at the time of its acquisition with a value of $100 million. The valuation of Jabong was gone down because of big leaders of online shopping like Amazon and Myntra. Before the deal with Flipkart, Jabong was posting a loss of Rs. 415 crore on the revenue of Rs. 933 crore. In these days, the valuation of Flipkart is being written down by its investors and acquisition of loss making company also make the valuation down of Flipkart. If the deal of Jabong would not going to be productive for Flipkart then there will be a huge loss in the valuation.


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No love for Xenoblade Chronicles X.
Still trying to ride that Coachella wave, eh, Guitar Hero Live?
Nintendo has announced that The Legend of Zelda Wii U will no longer launch in 2016. However, it will launch simultaneously on both Wii U and ...
Pay what you want for an estimated $179 worth of games for Nintendo systems.
Though that doesn't necessarily mean that the game won't be delayed again.
After almost 10 years with the company, Platinum's president may have left his post.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a proper Star Fox game, in order to make up for lost time, Nintendo has more than just Star Fox Zero for ...


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Min Deposit: 1.00 Max: 20 Skins
buying cs go skins
Minacov and Brechisci manage the risks of the transactions and keep 10 percent of each sale. The two founders say they deal with an average of $120,000 in transactions per day, which means a daily profit of about $12,000. The men say they started their venture because players were getting scammed selling their virtual weapons online outside of the Steam Community Market, the hugely popular marketplace owned by Counter-Strike’s developer Valve.“Ever since SOCOM 2, I’ve always wanted to see a remastered SOCOM,” the mod creator, Redline, told PC Gamer. The 26-year-old freelance programmer from Chicago has pursued it as a side project. “I know a lot of people who always wanted that, too. A little over a year ago, I finally decided to do something about it. Anyone in this community, you could ask them: What would you do if you won the lottery? For a lot of us, it would be, first, I would fund a SOCOM game. These guys are very passionate.” How did a PlayStation 2 game come to be reborn as a mod for an indie shooter on Steam? The project began as a mod for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Redline had never modded games before, but he decided to learn and bring back his childhood favorite. “When I was a kid, I got high speed internet, so I went out and bought a high-speed game: it was SOCOM. I played it nonstop. I skipped school to play it.”When Global Offensive was released, the team completely focused on the new game with immediate results. Their first tournament attended was at ESL's CM Storm CS:GO Opening Cup, in which the squad took the 22nd place of the more than 2,000 registered teams. è arrivata l’ora di tappezzare il proprio fidato fucile come fosse l’armadio di una 15enne fan sfegatata di Bieber! Infatti con l’aggiornamento arrivato proprio ieri sullo sparatutto competitivo di Valve, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, sono stati introdotti gli stickers, ovvero dei veri e propri adesivi da poter attaccare sulle proprie armi per personalizzarle ulteriormente.
It's not all just paint jobs and microtransactions, though. We're also seeing the return of the silenced variants for the M4A1 and the USP, which feature a smaller price tag and magazine size than their louder brethren. Valve has just rolled out a brand new patch for Counter-Strike: Global offensive, the first one of the new year, and the studio makes some pretty big changes to two of the most popular pistols – the P250 and the CZ75-Auto – not to mention a new case of weapon skins, including some stellar ones for the game's rare knives.There are a few CS: GO Twitch streamers who open hundreds of cases per week while spectators watch in hopes of capturing the moment where something of great rarity is found. One of these streamers is ONSCREENlol, a very popular personality who opened more than 10,000 cases in 2015We find this out with the help of stats aggregator SteamSpy, and Medium, which decided to compile the data. SteamSpy works by tracking game activations on Steam, and while it's impossible for its numbers to be 100% correct, it's at least going to be close.Over a decade later, people are still playing that game. Not just playing – it has evolved with time to become one of the most dominant eSports titles on the market today. Even though “Counter-Strike” has existed a long time, at UCLA this is the first year the game has had an official club standing on campus. Similar to the “Defense of the Ancients,” or “DotA,” group, the “Counter-Strike” club on campus is in its first year as an organization, fielding its own successful Collegiate StarLeague team.2. Choose More Tools, and then select Extensions.
While hardly anyone would argue that punishments weren’t needed, Valve began appearing inconsistent and ambiguous, performing legislative and judicial functions simultaneously. Joshua “Steel” Nissan "I realized there had to be more 'degenerate' gamblers like myself," he says. "That's why everything has value, because people can't stop gambling on boxes." He quickly spent another $2,000 in a bid to get his potential business properly up and running.What joins CSGO on our list of the best PC games ever?Even if you don’t want to pay the $5.99, it’s all good - although the majority of the new maps are tied to the Gun Mettle Campaign pass, a brand new Valve-made map will be free for everyone."People used to sell their guns directly on forums", said Minacov. "The buyer would pay via Paypal, but afterwards, would chargeback as soon as he got his item. So people who sold the weapon were getting scammed. The community wasn’t happy about it, so we tried to find a solution."Counter-Strike co-creator Jess Cliffe signed up for a Reddit account this week to begin sharing some details on a long-awaited addition to the game: a remake of one of the game's highest potential but least played maps.
Los Game Skins son coberturas visuales que cambian la apariencia de armas o personajes, y se activan directamente dentro del juego. Los skins son, de hecho, gráficos personalizados que permiten a los gamers distinguirse entre sí dentro del juego. En 2007, Team Fortress 2 lanzó sus propios sombreros coleccionables. Después llegó la era de los free 2 plays con skins exclusivamente no invasivos (no representaban ninguna ventaja en el juego más allá de la apariencia, así que los jugadores seguían estando en igualdad de condiciones). Hoy, los sellos de algunos juegos como TF2, CS:GO, LoL tienen un modelo de negocios basado en la posibilidad de que sus creadores desarrollen el producto al infinito mediante los skins. Regardless of aesthetics, all of the keyboards in our review suite are built with great care. There are no panel gaps, weak corners, or flexible panels on any of the boards.
I followed a simple list of steps, including disabling Windows' default anti-virus protection. I launched a new copy of CS:GO on a fresh Steam account belonging to “Perry C. Gamble,” “loaded” the cheat using the cheat loader, and entered a match. For the first time, I wasn't just another player, but a kind of god.I wanted to see how far I could push it. I was paying for this. I wanted to feel powerful and get my money's worth. I turned on auto-aim, and auto-trigger, which fires your weapon automatically when you point your cursor at an enemy.To test Nvidia's assertion that the card was ideal for MOBA games, I took it for a spin on some of the most popular titles in the genre: League of Legends, Dota 2, and Heroes of the Storm.We recently reviewed the Corsair Strafe ($110), a mechanical keyboard with semi-customizable backlighting. Since then, the Strafe RGB keyboard has come out as the higher-end RGB version with the same chassis.And it's really stat heavy now. I think that's cool though -- I think if we had this back in the day, I would have used this. When I was a hardcore CS player, I used to love seeing how I was doing over the course of weeks, and seeing how my accuracy was improving. This is something that a lot of players really enjoy.I think it's gotten a lot easier for modders to really get their product out there. But at the same time it's really made it a saturated space. It's really hard for people to get noticed, because there's so much out there. It's so hard for some of the good mods to get exposure.Valve designer Greg “Gregori” Coomer published the new Steam Controller demo video over the weekend which shows the new device being put through its paces revealing how the touch sensitive pads function during gameplay.
There was hurt. There was frustration. And then there was the temptation to step inside from the unabating drizzle of life, to take shelter and experience some glee. The glee, of course, would cost him. It would cost him money and friends , though maybe it was worth it.Right now the favored teams are perpetual champions Fnatic followed by Team SoloMid, a team formed in February that hasn't yet won a major.Afterwards, Yammyn was awarded tournament MVP for his consistently powerful performances, the second time the accolade has been granted to a midlaner—last year, it went to Cloud9’s MLCSt3alth. This is however the first time a European team has won worlds, something that many believed wasn’t possible when Epsilon fell behind against Cloud9 in the semi finals. This is also a notable result for British esports: iRaffer is now among the highest-earning British players ever, across all games.As of January 13, competitive gaming group Titan is dead. Founder and CEO Damien Grust announced the disbandment on Titan's website, releasing all players and staff on its roster, which included Smite and CS:GO teams.It would be easy enough to measure the key volume of a mechanical keyboard by how many coworkers it angers, but it’s more helpful to use real values. In order to find some noise levels, we took to Counter-Strike: Global Operations for some finger-snapping fun-er…work.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive came out back in August and succeeded in delivering a multiplayer first-person shooter experience reminiscent of the classic Counter-Strike games that became so popular in the 2000s.ʏһҳúcs go cheap key


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Despite slightly better occupancies, the hotel industry is still feeling the effects of timid consumer confidence as travelers are booking much closer to the date of their stay, Jonathan Tisch, chairman and CEO of Loews, told CNBC on Thursday.
"People are making decisions much later," Tisch said. "We don't have the luxury as the hotel operators to get a sense of where things are going to be until a much shorter time period."
Loews receives a large portion of its revenue from business travelers, and has seen more companies sending their employees back out on the road.
But the industry needs to see a bounce-back in leisure travel as well before hotels can raise room rates, said Tisch.
He expects that will occur between 2011 and 2012.
The travel sector is still facing a nation with hesitant consumers and a 10 percent unemployment rate — not an environment where families freely book trips.
In the mean time, Tisch says hotels can mitigate the uncertainty by providing value. Whether it is based on bargain prices or brand loyalty, Internet-savvy travelers today are seeking value and can still find some "really good deals."
More from Consumer Nation:
- Coach Caters to Men With New NYC Shop
- The Long, Slow Slog to Retail Recovery
- Some Retailers Still Far Outclassing Others on the Web
- Gas Prices Unlikely to Spike Despite Growing Gulf Oil Spill
Questions? Comments? Email us at firstname.lastname@example.org


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At a time when Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is dominating the world with Android and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is maintaining its position as an end-to-end smartphone ecosystem provider, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) is transitioning itself at an increasing pace.
Android and Apple iOS have completely dominated the market with a combined 96.4% of the market share compared to only 0.5% for BlackBerry. These numbers do indicate that BlackBerry is almost finished, but this holds true only if we believe that the Canadian firm’s entire business is based on the smartphone sales, says a report from N4BB.
BlackBerry not competing with Apple, Google
The truth is, in last year or so, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) is transitioning from a hardware dominated business to primarily a services and software business. CEO John Chen has always asserted that he focusing on the enterprise, government, and business solutions, and expect the revenue from the software segment to rise significantly.
New features introduced by BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) highlights the same focus. BBM Meetings, Enterprise Identity, VPN Authentication, Project Ion, BlackBerry Blend, QNX are all focusing on the enterprise, and present a potential revenue options for the company. With innovation in the consumer smartphone market drying up, BlackBerry has rightfully chosen a perfect segment to focus on. Also, Google and Apple have not yet fully focused on these segments.
New segments like mobile device management business, the internet of things, mobile communications software, and mobile enterprise devices are the new areas for BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB), and these segments are largely untouched by Google and Apple. So, BlackBerry is already in lead in this new race, and therefore do not need to beat Apple, Google and other tech giants at their own games.
Going back to roots
Top players in the smartphone business have been coming up with their own hardware for a while now, but now the players are bring more direct with competition surrounding software or OS. Microsoft recently launched its own Windows Phone 8.1 devices, and biggest Android user Samsung also making efforts to popularize its Tizen. All these players have recently realized the importance of services unlike BlackBerry, which has been doing this from the start.
Even Samsung, who is way ahead of Apple in terms of sales volume, have partnered with the Canadian firm for their KNOX and BES 12 solutions. The partnership will help Samsung to strengthen its security, and will accelerate BES 12 deployment for BlackBerry.
Initially, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) has its roots in the enterprise mobility solutions, but later it expanded to the world of consumer smartphones, and now again it is solidifying its position in enterprise. Therefore, there is no need for the Canadian firm to outperform Apple and Google. In a way, these tech firms will help BlackBerry by indirectly provoking IT departments to search for a secure multi-platform.


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Health is much more than how many steps you take each day. Although fitness trackers have made some major advancements in the breadth and depth of health measurements they can track over the past f
If you want to buy a stylish Apple Watch, now is the best time. Best Buy currently sells a 40mm Apple Watch Series 6 with a navy blue sports strap for $299.
Apple Watch is undoubtedly the bes
Take advantage of these excellent holiday season price reductions and save on Samsung Galaxy smart watches.
The holiday is far from over, we have many last-minute gift ideas for anyone on you
A special computer algorithm based on artificial intelligence (AI) created by Mount Sinai researchers can learn how to recognize subtle changes in an electrocardiogram (also called an electrocardio
A recent report by Transparency Market Research pointed out that the global cardiac dynamic monitor market is expected to grow substantially from 2016 to 2024. According to the report, the compound
Huge holiday sale sale list (over 100 pieces)!
Offer includes Garmin Fenix 6 series discount of $250 or more (Pro model $399!). In addition, there are more discounts, including GoPro He
By: Anthony Pearson, MD June 24, 2019
Skeptical cardiologists have been evaluating the demo version of AliveCor's new KardiaMobile 6L.
I have always advocated
2021 Black Friday Galaxy Watch 4 offers are now online, please browse the latest Black Friday Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy 4 Classic offers below
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(BUSINESS WIR


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With the new regulations coming in later in the UK, what will be the effect if we don't change payment providers in time for the European deadline on 1st January 2021?
The blog entry that Shopify has put forward says this:
The full enforcement of the SCA requirement in the EEA (except for the UK) is January 1, 2021. The UK regulator has extended its enforcement deadline to September 14, 2021.
What would be the difference for example if a European registered card was used on our website that wasn't compliant as opposed to a UK card? Would the UK card work normally and the EU card be declined?


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HeyCar Germany has appointed Stephen Ballot as its new chief product officer, the company announced Tuesday.
Ballot (LinkedIn profile) joins HeyCar from OLX Group Berlin, where he held several strategic positions, including director of product management.
“With Stephen Ballot we have a proven expert on online classifieds and product management in our ranks. He fits perfectly into our team — with his expertise and experience he will help us keep up the pace in upholding our product design,” said Reinhard Schmidt, CEO at HeyCar Germany.
Before joining HeyCar, Ballot worked for OLX Group, where he started out as head of product in South Africa before becoming director of product management. He also worked at Naspers Group in Cape Town and founded his own company as a software engineer.
“In terms of usability HeyCar is already setting the standard for online platforms. It is my goal to make the transaction processes via heycar.de as customer-oriented and as user-friendly as possible. The market conditions for this are currently ideal,” said Ballot.
HeyCar launched in 2017 with financial backing from Daimler. The company’s shareholders include Volkswagen Financial Services, Volkswagen AG and Daimler Mobility Service. The startup quickly established itself as one of the leading car verticals in Germany. It currently offers 400,000 vehicles from around 2,000 dealer groups.


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MEC, a leading media agency, today announced the appointment of Lisa Walker as a Managing Partner.
Lisa will oversee client leadership and communications planning and will report into Paul Hutchison, Deputy Managing Director at MEC.
Speaking on the appointment, Paul Hutchison, Deputy Managing Director at MEC said: “Lisa combines a deep understanding of client marketing and advertising needs with a strategic approach to multi-media and communications planning. I’m confident that the work she will be overseeing at MEC will be key for the growth of our clients’ business.”
Formerly Marketing Director at 118 118, Lisa brings with her a wealth of experience in branding, communication and media planning. In her previous role she was tasked with repositioning and refreshing the brand through advertising and sponsorship. Lisa launched a major multi-million pound re-positioning campaign and developed a complex customer segmentation-based multi-channel media buying and creative strategy to optimise media effectiveness for the company. Lisa also held senior marketing and digital marketing roles at companies including HSBC, Fish4 and T-Mobile.
Lisa Walker said: “As the industry continues to get increasingly complex, I am thrilled to be joining MEC at what is an exciting time for the agency. MEC's culture, clients and passion for results drew me to the organisation and I look forward to drawing on my client-side knowledge and expertise in this new role.”view more - Hires, Wins & Business
Genres: Peoplelbbonline.com, Wed, 04 Jun 2014 13:06:44 GMT


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Nigel Huddleston MP briefed Asia House Corporate Members on the UK’s international trade agenda, the India-UK free trade agreement, the UK’s accession to CPTPP and ongoing trade negotiations with partners throughout Asia on Wednesday, 12 July. Appointed as UK Minister of State for International Trade in February of this year, Minister Huddleston discussed the UK’s business and trade ambitions across the global markets and also highlighted the role of the Department of Business and Trade in these endeavours.
The minister spoke extensively on the rapid industrial growth in the Indo-Pacific region, followed by an enriching discussion on the India-UK free trade agreement amid ongoing negotiations between the two nations. Minister Huddleston also highlighted the UK’s ambition to become a leading global investment centre, along with emphasising how the Department of Business and Trade contributes to supporting British businesses to grow globally by reducing trading barriers. The minister also highlighted how the UK’s recent inclusion in the CPTPP will turbocharge trade in the Asia Pacific region.
Chaired by Asia House Chief Executive Michael Lawrence OBE and held at the think tank’s London headquarters, the briefing gave Asia House Corporate Members a unique insight into the UK Department of Business and Trade’s endeavours and its aims towards accelerating growth through increased ties with global emerging markets.
Find out more about the benefits of Corporate Membership at Asia House.
Join our mailing list to receive Asia House research, analysis and event information direct to your inbox.


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The Kitchen and Bath Market Index (KMBI) has just been released, and while sentiments among industry professionals have certainly cooled since the start of the year, there is still a lot to look forward to on the horizon, according to the report. Despite the overall index being down 4% quarter over quarter, the record-breaking growth of the industry in Q2 has fueled a promising growth prediction of 12% leading into 2022 and beyond.
“The latest results fall slightly short of the very strong projections from Q2 but are a positive sign that the Kitchen and Bath industry will finish the year strong,” said Bill Darcy, Chief Executive Officer, National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA). “Persistent challenges such as supply chain disruptions, cost of materials and availability of skilled labor are hampering the industry’s ability to take full advantage of strong demand.”
These issues, it seems, have at last caught up with the early eagerness of many consumers. As a result, homeowners, now less lenient when it comes to delays in schedules, are pushing projects back into 2022 in hopes the market will correct itself.
“The positive news is that despite the ongoing challenges, the report found that consumers are opting to delay their projects rather than cancel them. When customers do decide to execute on the remodel, they tend to gravitate towards higher-end products, as well as lumping several rooms into one overall project, helping fuel a projection of 9% growth in 2022, positioning the sector for another strong year.” continued Darcy.
Key Findings for the Kitchen and Bath Industry
Positive Close for 2021 Projected
Despite ongoing challenges, the industry continues to see a rather healthy expansion, with NKBA members rating it 78.7 overall, slightly lower from the 79.8 and 82.3 scores registered in Q1 and Q2 of this year. Still, the year has been incredibly successful, and the sector is on track to end the year on a high note according to the report.
Vendor-Agnostic Relationships and Domestically Sourced Products
The increasing demand for the sector has led to many prioritizing product availability above relationships and other factors. Traditionally underused brands are now seeing greater adoption to circumvent global supply issues. Manufacturers are also prioritizing high-value products to protect profit margins while stockpiling excess materials to help ease lead times and overall constraints.
Supply Chain Shortages Continue to Affect Production
Port congestion is further compounding strained supply chains while labor shortages continue to cause delays in the transportation industry. Lead times domestic and foreign raw materials have also skyrocketed to 6+ weeks and has many within the sector struggling to keep up with demand in today’s economy. As a result, product backlogs extend well into 2022 as these difficulties prevent those in the industry from staffing full production schedules.
Continued Growth Seen into 2022
With the consideration of ongoing issues, the industry remains cautiously optimistic due in part to the resilience of suppliers, manufacturers and construction teams. Members have rated their overall sentiment a 7.9 out of 10 in the KBMI Q3 report.
The delays in projects offer only a small insight into the movements of the industry overall, as demand continues to rise for building and construction projects with 84% of firms reporting low postponement rates as well as 90% reporting low cancellation rates relative to their overall project volume.
When consumers do start their projects, they’re trending toward higher-end products with 73% of retailers reporting price points shifting toward high-end products. Overall, members still expect full-year sales growth to be positive in 2021 and are projecting solid full-year sales growth in 2022 of 9.1% as some deferred projects are expected to resume.


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Staff Writer | 14 November 2023
The Department of Tourism and tech giant Google have signed an agreement that will see the department leverage Google’s technology to boost tourism in South Africa.
The deal was finalised yesterday in Cape Town by tourism minister Patricia de Lille and Dr Alistair Mokoena, country director for Google SA.
“In an era of digital transformation, collaboration between technology giants and government entities has the potential to reshape industries and enhance public services,” says De Lille.
“As stated in the Tourism Sector Green Paper, there is a lack of support mechanisms for the sector, particularly SMMEs, to adapt to a digital future and other technological advancements.”
The goal of the collaboration is to harness Google’s tech to support the department’s efforts to promote SA as a prime tourist destination. It will facilitate knowledge-sharing, skills development and the use of digital tools to enhance tourism experiences and sustainability.
The department says no monetary exchange will take place as a result of the agreement.
The deal includes insights into global travel trends provided by Google, specific studies to investigate the impact of digital platforms and online content, digital skills training for SMMEs through the Google Hustle Academy and Google Ads training.
Tourism start-ups can be supported by Google programmes, such as the Start-up Accelerator and Black Founders Fund.
The deal marks an extension of collaboration between Google and the department. During the COVID-19 lockdown, a deal was signed to help SA become a virtual tourist destination.
Additionally, the partnership aims to showcase SA’s unique travel sites and hidden gems through the existing Google Arts and Culture portal.
Mokoena says Google is excited to partner with the department and sign the letter of intent, which aims to position SA as a great tourist destination.
“As a company that prides itself on organising the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful, we look forward to rolling out various programmes, in conjunction with the department, to fast-track digital transformation in the sector, helping with digital skills and showcasing South African tourism,” adds Mokoena.
The partnership will also allow for the creation of a tourism thought leadership seminar, which will focus on the digital opportunities for accelerating economic growth in the sector.
“By tapping into Google's technology, through digital skills training and the sharing of insights, SA's industry, notably SMMEs, can present their offerings in innovative ways, engaging potential tourists and inspiring them to explore the country,” comments De Lille.
In September, the department signed a memorandum of understanding with accommodation-sharing platform Airbnb SA, allowing them to work closely to advance SA’s tourism sector and create more jobs.
‘Disclaimer - The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the BEE CHAMBER’.


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While travelling in bus or any public transport, don’t you have an experience of strangers looking in your cell phone and reading your conversations or messages? Well, I can see many nodding heads here! Yes, this is the most common situation as well as an irritating problem that one has to face-off while travelling in public transport and you cannot actually shout at people every time they look into your phone’s screen, isn’t it?
Well, what if we told you that there may soon launch a phone which will have a screen that only visible to you and work on? No, we are not kidding at all, A Turkish inventor Mr. Celal Goger from Diyarbakir has invented a way to hide information using a special screen used in combination with a smart glass.
Check the real idea of Ghost Phone here
The Ghost Phone seems to be an outstanding invention in the tech world. The phone is modified using a chip which makes the screen of the phone appear white. A second chip is used in a pair of glasses which connects the Goggles to the phone’s screen visible ONLY to the wearer.
The technology is simple behind the invention of Ghost Phone. By using the Goggles and phone fitted with the chip you can enjoy your very private and personal conversations and chats on your phone without getting disturbed even in public.
How Mr. Goger got the idea?
The idea occurred in the mind of Celal Goger while he was travelling in a crowded public transport in Istanbul and he sensed some prying eyes over his phone reading his business messages. Having an innovative technology studio, there he found a way to save his phone from those prying eyes.
Mr. Goger stated,”I think I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I had been born in UK I think I would have gotten a lot more support to move this project forward and start the mass production of my invention.”
In the short span of four months he came up with the ‘Ghost Phone’ and which he decided to name as ‘C.COGER I.’
Mr. Goger is planning to put an On/Off button on the phone to make the user decide whether he/she want to activate the function or not. Well, he is still waiting to get his project funded. There is no news available about when and for how much this ‘Ghost Phone’ will be available for public use but one thing is for sure, whenever it will make its debut in the markets, the phone is going to rock the floors.
Disclaimer: While we provide the information about these kick-starter/crowd-funding projects, we cannot guarantee for their transfer or whether they would be successfully created or not, but they are amidst the creative ideas people have got.
Like the Post? Share it!


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Information received from MomsRising.org
The time has come.... Back to School shopping can't be ignored any longer
North Carolina Parents throughout the state, most likely are use to having the first weekend of August brightly labeled on their calendars due to the very much loved Tax Free Weekend - which is when a majority of back to school supplies is normally purchased...
But not this year.
For the first time in 12 years, parents are having to do all of their back-to-school shopping without the help of the tax-free holiday, thanks to the tax reform package which was passed last year by the General Assembly. With parents being use to the opportunity of saving between 6.75 and 7.5 percent on items they purchase for the school year during the tax free holiday, families are really starting to suffer this year.
In the past, families with school-aged children have used this weekend to save on school essentials, and 77% of those families report that the tough economy impacts their spending plans. Families in our state have saved an estimated $14.7 million during previous tax holiday weekends. But it all came crashing down!
Tax Free Weekend was canceled this year as part of a tax reform package passed by the General Assembly last year. As parents - Us Moms and dads are in extreme need for tax-free weekend because school supply budgets have sadly been cut which leaves us as parents being asked to make up the difference..... That may be possible!
Family-friendly tax policies are needed across the board in NC. The tax reform package also included the elimination of the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which benefited 900,000 workers and nearly 1.2 million NC children, helping lift them out of poverty and allowing their families to meet basic needs such as shelter, food, utilities, transportation, and childcare.
Instead, the tax package gave the wealthiest North Carolina residents and corporations a tax break and shifted the tax burden onto the remaining 80% of families, including canceling this much-needed tax-free weekend for shopping for back to school supplies.
An estimated $680 million in revenue has been lost because of the tax plan that was passed, and NC will lose $5.3 billion over the next five years in the funds that pay for education, healthcare, and more.  North Carolina spends less today on K-12 education than it did just 5 years ago, even though there are more students and even more needs that are going unmet.
And parents aren’t the only ones upset about the loss of the tax-free holiday. Businesses are also concerned. Previously, this weekend has been good for businesses as well, driving business into local malls, outlets, and other retailers. It has increased employment and payroll taxes as more employees are hired to help meet the popularity of this weekend.
South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia are having their tax-free holidays this weekend. Families in those states will have the option to save money on items they need, while families in North Carolina had their tax-free holiday taken away last legislative session to support tax cuts for the rich.
Everyone knows that many families have to stretch every dollar and struggle on a limited budget. Our lawmakers needs to be reminded of this, too.
Together we are a powerful voice for North Carolina families!
- Melea, Beth, Tracy, Ruth, and the whole NC MomsRising team -
Share your experience with how not having the tax-free weekend hurts your family, or how recent cuts have hurt your school.
Using the link below, Send your lawmaker a letter letting them know just how much of the loss of the tax-free weekend hurts your family. They need to know the impact these changes have on our NC families and that they must repeal them next session.
Disclaimer: This blog accepts compensation in the form of products and/or monetary for selected posts which will be labeled as sponsored. No matter the compensation, I only write about items and/or services that I have personal experience with and believe my readers will enjoy and/or benefit from. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of others.
View Full Disclosure for further details.


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Here’s everything new in Death Stranding: Director’s Cut
Death Stranding: Director’s Cut was announced at Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest in June, so it makes sense that an even closer look would be revealed at Geoff Keighley’s Gamescom Opening Night Live. It’s just what besties like Hideo Kojima and Keighley do.
In the extended look at the Director’s Cut, Kojima Productions shared new delivery tools, like a cargo launcher, and boots that decrease fall damage. Buddy Bot, too, was shown in more detail; it’s a new feature that lets Sam Porter Bridges carry more cargo, or even ride along as Buddy Bot does all the hauling. There’s also a firing range where players can practice with weapons — and “train and compete” for high scores.
New “action-packed” delivery missions are coming, too. In the clip, we do see Sam Porter Bridges heading deep into what appears to be a subterranean facility. Plus. there’s new weapons and also the ability to revisit boss battles. (You can check them out in your room.) This means players can, again, compete for high scores.
Too stressful? The Director’s Cut has new songs for Sam Porter Bridges to dance to in his room. For even more fun, the Director’s Cut will also let players do stunts and tricks, plus race on a race track, on the motor bike and other vehicles. Yes, Death Stranding is now Mario Kart.
Image: Kojima Productions
However, the trailer apparently replaced Sam Porter Bridges’ beloved Monster energy drinks with a generic brand. Upsetting!
Since that announcement in June, information about the Director’s Cut — including the fact that Kojima does not like calling it a director’s cut — has slowly trickled out. This new version of Death Stranding will launch on PlayStation 5 on Sept. 24, several more major improvements to the game, other than the ones mentioned Wednesday. Many are focused around combat, but there are also additional tools to help Sam Porter Bridges be a more effective delivery man — like the aforementioned catapult and ride-on bot.
Gamescom officially kicked off Wednesday with Keighley’s livestream, though Microsoft held its pre-show on Tuesday. Yes, there were trebuchets. Like last year, Gamescom 2021 is entirely digital due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: Read Full Article


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ISM 2020: Decorative designs, packaging safety, recyclability as key industry drivers
Show Full Gallery
Snacks and candy packaging stole the show at ISM and ProSweets 2020, hosted in Cologne, Germany, February 2-5. Packaging suppliers exhibited the latest in machinery, materials and decorative techniques needed to bring confectionery safely, hygienically and attractively to retail shelves. A labyrinth of large-scale, fully and semi-automatic machinery gave visitors a closer look at the detailed procedures of candy and chocolate packaging processing. Novel front-of-pack designs also drew event attendees closer to the stands, while convincing messages of corporate sustainability held them compelled.


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OCEAN SPRINGS, MS (WLOX) - It's the last weekend before Christmas and all through downtown, there are plenty of people stirring-- and buying.
In contrast to the heavy traffic in large retail shopping centers, shoppers in downtown Ocean Springs are turning a last-minute rush into a relaxing experience.
Last-minute shopping for sisters Sheresa Van Antwerp and Roxanna Bennett? Maybe. Stressful? No way.
"We're out shopping for ourselves today," Bennett said. "All the grand kids are bought, everybody's paid for, but we're on our own today."
Hannah Tanner has a lot to buy late in the game.
"I've been really busy," she said. "So, just trying to get it all together."
Retail experts say this weekend will be the busiest time this holiday season for the bricks-and-mortar businesses.
"Christmas has been phenomenal," said Brandin Brosh, owner of Charisma Boutique. "As you can see, it's been a huge weekend for us."
"The Christmas holidays have been nice," said Dena McGrath of Bella Luna Boutique. "We're new, so it's our first season. But, we've been very blessed with the business and everyone shopping local."
Joyce Hicks shops in waves to keep down anxiety. She does her first round in June, then again around Thanksgiving.
"And then, right before Christmas, I get into the craziness of shopping again, but by then I'm not stressed," she said. "No problem. No stress. All fun."
Brad Warren of Mobile waited late, but no problem. The shopping experience here has a few perks.
"Ocean Springs is a nice, laid back place," he said. "There's a lot of things to offer that fit everybody's needs and, plus, it's open container downtown. So, it's a great place to visit."
At Miner's Toy Store, orthopedic surgeon Jim Hudson has turned into a toy building elf.
Merileigh Miner Furr couldn't be happier.
"People are stressed out about packages arriving for things they may have ordered online or shipping," she said. "And they are coming in here so grateful to have real items on the shelves. They buy them and we wrap them. There's a lot of joy here that we're sharing together."


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Singaporeans spend 27 years and 1 day of their lifetime online
A recent NordVPN study shows that Singaporeans spend a third of their life on the internet
LONDON, May 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A new survey by the leading virtual private network provider NordVPN revealed that Singaporeans spend 27 years and 1 day of their lifetime online. Compared to the average life expectancy, which in Singapore is 83.5 years, that is almost a third of their lives.
During a typical week, Singaporeans spend a bit more than 54 hours using the internet, which is the equivalent of more than two days. Out of those 54 hours per week, more than 18 hours are spent working.
The average time Singaporeans start browsing the internet each day is 9:17 – and they don't log off until 21:47.
Biggest amount of time spent watching online videos
The biggest amount of Singaporeans' time per week – 7 hours and 17 minutes – is spent watching videos on platforms like YouTube. Just an hour less – 6 hours and 16 minutes – is spent streaming TV shows and films on platforms like Netflix, Amazon Video, or Hulu.
A further 5 hours and 32 minutes a week are dedicated to scrolling through social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, while 3 hours and 34 minutes are spent listening to music on Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, and similar platforms.
In addition, 2 hours and 32 minutes/week are used for online shopping, 2 hours and 23 minutes are used for making video calls, while another 1 hour and 46 minutes are spent playing games such as Fortnite or Minecraft.
"Most of us seek to ease and enrich our daily lives with various online platforms and services. However, barely anyone thinks about their online security or the privacy of the data they provide to apps and websites.
"Long hours spent on the internet increase the risk of becoming another cybercriminals' victim – current global circumstances have made them even more active," says Daniel Markuson, a digital privacy expert at NordVPN.
Methodology: The survey was commissioned by NordVPN and conducted by the external company Cint between January 11-18, 2022. The survey's target group was residents of Singapore aged 18+, and the sample was taken from national internet users. Quotas were placed on age, gender, and place of residence.
NordVPN is the world's most advanced VPN service provider, used by millions of internet users worldwide.
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Here’s what you should know about Media Landscape of Vietnam


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In big news for the sneaker world, more than 200 pairs of designer sneakers have been sold at auction for an incredible $25.3 million - more than eight times the somewhat conservative initial estimate of $3 million!
The sneaks went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in February, but what makes them so special and why were they in such high demand? Well, they were designed by none other than the late American fashion designer Virgil Abloh… which should tell you all you need to know!
The special edition Louis Vuitton and Nike Air Force 1 shoes were designed by Abloh for the Louis Vuitton Spring-Summer 2022 collection, CNN reports. Certainly an exciting investment for fashion enthusiasts, with a Sotheby’s representative saying that the collection had secured a “record auction total” for fashion auctions!
Virgil Abloh was the artistic director for Louis Vuitton Menswear and the fashion house’s first black artistic director. Abloh died in November 2021 at the age of 41 after a two-year battle with cancer.
In a philanthropic move, all proceeds from the sale will go to the Virgil Abloh Post-Modern Scholarship Fund to help students of black, African-American and African descent.
Sotheby’s chief executive Charles Stewart said of Abloh: “[He] was one of the most visionary artists and designers of his generation whose widespread influence and impact is still palpable.”
The sneakers sold at Sotheby’s ranged in size from 5 to 18, with the size 5 shoe coming top in sales at $325,800 (£240,375)! In all, a total of 10,000 bids were made, with 40 per cent of total interest hailing from Asia.
If you want to buy rare Air Force 1 '07 LV8 worldwide trainers, visit our online store today.


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Remember when people used to say, “There’s nothing good on TV”? That may still be the case, but man, there sure is a lot of it, and finding what’s at least worth checking out is complicated by the wide variety of streaming options now at our remote-cradling fingertips.
Likewise, the Bellevue, Wash.-based recommendations app born out of the office of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, has published new research showing just how confused Americans are by the glut of streaming services.
Whether it’s Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, YouTube TV, HBO Now, Disney+ and so on and on — HBO unveiled its HBO Max this week, and Apple TV Plus debuts Friday — 57 percent of those who have a streaming service believe there are too many. Likewise says the average streaming household has three streaming services and 70 percent of those surveyed say that despite having access to so much content, they often struggle to figure out what to watch next.
Likewise released a new app this week for Apple TV to help people discover, save, and watch shows and movies across streaming services. No matter the streaming platform, Likewise users can find shows and create one watchlist to track everything for future viewing. Likewise TV allows users to launch right from Apple TV and avoid skipping around on multiple streaming apps.
“The bottom line is that people need help figuring out what to watch and where to watch it. That’s the problem we’re solving for Likewise users and why we created the Likewise TV app,” Ian Morris, CEO of Likewise, said in a news release. “Streaming services are attempting to provide recommendations to their viewers, but only for shows on that particular service, leaving people frustrated as they are forced to hop from one service to another to discover and watch their favorite movies and TV shows.”
In an era where many television viewers are ditching traditional cable packages to cut costs in favor of pick-and-choose streaming services, piling on multiple subscriptions does little to save money. And the Likewise survey only illustrates how much time and effort is spent looking for shows and movies.
- 49 percent say they spend too much time trying to find new things to watch and that number increases sharply for people with more services: 39 percent for people with one streaming service, 49 percent for people with two to four, and 68 percent for those with five or more.
- 44 percent find navigating multiple streaming services frustrating and confusing.
- 59 percent say that they often get frustrated when they can’t find a specific show or movie.
86 percent say that recommendations from friends and family are useful in deciding what to watch next.
Over a third (36 percent) of users with more than one streaming service plan to cancel at least one of their current streaming services within the next year. This increases to 59% for those that have 5 or more services.
Likewise is the brainchild of Larry Cohen, the former Microsoft communications chief, who is now CEO of Gates’ private office. It’s a way of remembering and finding recommendations for restaurants, TV shows, movies, books and more, primarily from friends but also from in-house experts, with the ability to follow other users and their lists of favorites.


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Premiums quoted for the physical delivery of gold have halved in about 15 days, coinciding with a nearly 5 per cent fall in prices. The premium of $120 an ounce prevailing a week before Diwali has come down to $60-$70 an ounce (roughly Rs 1,200 per 10g) in the Mumbai market.
Traders say in the run-up to Diwali, smuggled gold was sold in a big way, which led to a fall in spot premiums and, effectively, a fall in prices. The premiums fell at a time when international prices were on the decline. In effect, the fall in gold prices in the Indian market is more than that seen in the international market over the past fortnight despite rupee depreciation.
At one point on the day before Diwali, premiums were quoted at $30 an ounce but they rose again. On Saturday, the gold price at Mumbai's Zaveri Bazaar went up by Rs 10 per 10g to close at Rs 30, 790 as against Friday night's 1.5 per cent fall in price in the international market after strong US jobs data.
Premiums are still relatively high because official imports are low. In October, 23 tonnes of gold was imported - 13 tonnes of it by exporters -according to trade estimates.
Jewellers say domestic demand is low whereas the commerce ministry has sensed an unusual pick-up in export activity. The ministry has called a meeting of various stakeholders on Monday to discuss the export scenario and a possible tightening of norms amid reports of increased round-tripping of the precious metal. Exporters are said to be exporting mostly gold chains, the manufacture of which does not cost much. They sell at a loss, according to industry insiders, but make money by importing gold and diverting it to the domestic market.
At the ministry meeting, stringent value-addition norms for exports are likely to be proposed. At present, an exporter is required to add at least 3 per cent value for exporting jewellery, which may be raised to 5 per cent. Another proposal is to reduce the permitted level of wastage. When gold is converted to jewellery, some wastage takes place, which is deducted while calculating the value addition. Currently, 3.5 per cent wastage is allowed but only 2.5 per cent is genuinely wasted, say trade sources.


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Starck and Knable form hotel brand
Hotel designer Philippe Starck and former Wall Street Regent hotelier Christopher Knable have teamed up to form a luxury hotel brand called Starck Hotels & Resorts. Mr. Starck, who designed the Paramount, Royalton and Hudson hotels here, is considering sites in London, New York, Paris and Dubai for his new hotel venture. Mr. Knable had most recently been a partner with Giuseppe Cipriani to start a Cipriani hotel brand, but that initiative has ended, Mr. Knable says.
P. Diddy selling half of his empire
Sean "P. Diddy" Combs is selling half of his Bad Boy Entertainment empire to Warner Music Group. While neither party is commenting officially on the deal, which is estimated to be worth more than $30 million, Mr. Combs made the statement at the Mixtape Awards at B.B. King's nightclub in Manhattan this week, with Kevin Liles, executive vice president of WMG, at his side. The deal has been on-again, off-again for weeks because Mr. Combs disagreed with WMG's valuation of his company, insiders say. WMG has been working hard to build up its urban music roster ahead of an IPO, which the company announced on Friday. Mr. Combs will end his distribution relationship with Universal Music Group as a result of the deal.
Fired CBS News producer shops book
Mary Mapes, the CBS news producer fired for her role in the erroneous story about President George W. Bush's Air National Guard service, will meet with several New York publishers this week to pitch a book, according to her agent Wesley Neff. The book is expected to defend the controversial segment, which was discredited after questions arose about the authenticity of memos that were crucial to the reporting.
Museum of Biblical Art to open on West Side
A new museum called the Museum of Biblical Art is opening in May. The $3 million museum is being built in the former home of the Gallery at the American Bible Society, on Broadway and West 61st Street, which closed last October. The American Bible Society, one of the oldest Christian organizations in the United States, is covering the construction costs.
Control Group grabs larger digs downtown
A tech consulting firm whose clients include Daniel Libeskind and Maya Lin is renting larger offices downtown at 60 White St. Control Group signed a five-year lease for 2,300-square-foot offices. Sinvin Realty Corp. represented Control Group and the landlord, Blumberg Excelsior. The building's asking rents average $24 a square foot. The firm currently rents smaller, 1,000-square-foot offices at 428 Broadway.
ThinkEquity Partners add ex-Goldman exec
Investment bank ThinkEquity Partners is expected to announce that Tad Nacheff has joined as managing director of the New York institutional equity sales group. Mr. Nacheff, 43, previously worked as head of New York technology research sales at Goldman Sachs. San Francisco-based ThinkEquity has 28 employees in its New York office.
Random House unveils children's imprint
Random House Children's Books is launching Schwartz & Wade Books, a children's imprint. Led by children's book veterans Anne Schwartz and Lee Wade, the imprint will publish four books next spring.
American Eagle winging from JFK to Canada
American Eagle, the regional subsidiary of American Airlines, will launch five daily flights to Canadian destinations out of John F. Kennedy International Airport on July 2. The flights will go to Toronto and Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Cossette Post breaks window ad campaign
Midtown ad agency Cossette Post will launch a campaign for window treatments manufacturer Hunter Douglas in April. Dubbed "Light Can Change Everything," the ads will run in lifestyle publications like Architectural Digest to be followed by television ads in the fall. The estimated media buy for the campaign is more than $6 million.
More Macy's stores rack Trump's suits
Marcraft Apparel Group, licensee for the Donald Trump suit line, is taking its look west this month, as it rolls into 60 more Macy's stores across the nation. Mr. Trump will introduce dress shirts, ties and separates into the line at a fashion show this week at Macy's in Herald Square.


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Wanna buy a SOCIAL brand pen for a dollar? No? How about social.web or cloud.guru or direct.flowers?
One intellectual property lawyer closely associated with a number of new gTLD registries has been using a flimsy online pen-selling business in order to obtain potentially valuable domains during sunrise periods.
Thomas Brackey of Beverley Hills law firm Freund & Brackey has acquired dozens of premium domain names during sunrise periods. He was good enough to share some of the details with DI.
Brackey owns three trademarks on the terms “DIRECT”, “SOCIAL” and “CLOUD”. All three were registered in Switzerland in late 2012, having been applied for in July that year.
All three cover the category “stylos”, or pens.
If you want to buy a CLOUD brand pen, you can do so at pentm.ch, a web site Brackey seems to have thrown up rather quickly using Shopify.
All three marks appear to have been registered via Marcaria.com, which charges $960 for a Swiss trademark registration.
Brackey obtained Trademark Clearinghouse registrations for his three trademarks, which would have cost him at least $150 per mark.
He seems to have used the pentm.ch web site to fulfill the TMCH’s “proof of use” requirement.
With TMCH registrations, he’s able to participate in new gTLD sunrise periods, giving him the first opportunity to register social.tld, cloud.tld and direct.tld for the usual inflated sunrise prices.
The pens themselves, Brackey assures us, are real.
But he makes no attempt to pretend that the pen-selling business was in thriving need of brand protection under the new gTLD program’s brand protection mechanisms.
Brackey told DI:
In the course of preparing new gTLD applications, I came to be pretty familiar with the various policy developments surrounding the creation and implementation of the TMCH.
For the first time mark holders of all stripes, and from every country would be given a pre-emptive right to acquire domain names that had nothing to do with the substance of their brands.
Musing on that, I identified what I believed to be a legitimate opportunity to acquire some domain names in the newTLD landscape. More curious than anything, I decided to put my theory to the test and resolved to try buying some domain names.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the domains I’ve purchased. I’ve never been a domain investor before, and not confident I qualify as one now. It’s all a bit of an experiment at this point and is certainly fascinating territory from an IP perspective.
There will no doubt be a number of important international legal developments that arise from the gTLD process — new rules, new policies and new opportunities.
At least two of Brackey’s new gTLD clients — What Box? and Plan Bee, which use Brackey’s law firm as their mailing address — have also registered large numbers of sunrise names using this same method.
He’s even selling Plan Bee’s “CONSTRUCTION” and “BUILD” pens on his web site.
Brackey acknowledged that some people take a “pretty dim view” of what he’s doing.
I’d have to say I’m one of them.
In my view, while Brackey may not be strictly breaking the rules of the new gTLD program, he’s certainly not acting within their spirit.
Members of Intellectual Property Constituency and others fought hard for rights protection mechanisms that would help them protect their or their clients’ pre-existing brands from cybersquatters.
The RPMs were not designed to provide a way for investors to avoid landrush auctions or a mad scramble for nice names on the first days of general availability.
The “proof of use” requirement was added to the rules in order prevent the kind of debacle we saw with the European Union’s .eu launch, where bogus trademarks were used to game EurID’s sunrise period.
But the barrier is tissue-thin, requiring merely a screenshot of a web site to overcome.
Gaming new gTLD sunrise periods may not be cheap — it may not even be profitable — but I have to wonder what kind of reputational impact it will have on new gTLD registries that choose to participate.
If you’re a brand owner, would you be more likely or less likely to trust a new gTLD registry that chooses to participate in sunrise gaming?
PeopleBrowsr has decided to cancel the landrush phase for its forthcoming .best new gTLD, citing “very little engagement” from registrants.
The TLD is due to go to sunrise today. Two days after it ends on May 19, it will go directly to general availability.
VP of operations Michael Deparini said in an email:
Many of our registrars have given us feedback that there has been very little engagement with the TLD Landrush Phase. We have decided to cancel Landrush.
We are excited to announce that we will open General Availability (GA) ahead of schedule to commence on May 21 at 16:00:00 GMT (12pm EST).
PeopleBrowsr is also the company behind .ceo, which launched two weeks ago with just 250 names in its first couple of days on the market — about 40% of which belonged to one cybersquatter.
.ceo currently has 798 domains in its zone, making it the fourth-smallest of the 74 new gTLDs that currently appear to be selling names.
The total number of new gTLD domains broke through half a million for the first time yesterday, but it seems to be due to Frank Schilling obtaining tens of thousands of names in his own TLDs.
Uniregistry’s .link became the fifth-largest new gTLD, moving almost 20,000 names, but it appears that the vast majority are registered to a company affiliated with CEO Schilling.
Uniregistry’s other gTLDs — .tattoo, .sexy, .pics, .photo and .gift — all saw huge jumps too, apparently for the same reason.
This morning’s .link zone files show a pop of 19,945 names, to a total of 20,050.
That would be the third-best GA-day performance, after .guru and .berlin, of any new gTLD to date, but it seems the vast majority are actually premium names acquired by a Uniregistry affiliate.
Of those new .link names, 18,272 (91%) are being parked on internettraffic.com, another Schilling company.
I took a random sampling and found them all registered to North Sound Names, a company based on Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman, which is where Schilling lives.
Schilling said this on Twitter yesterday:
— Frank Schilling (@Frank_Schilling) April 15, 2014
Premium names are of course those that were reserved by the registry. So either a third-party has bought them wholesale, or Uniregistry has simply shifted them over to an affiliated company.
I’ve asked Schilling to confirm that North Sound Names is also his company and will update this post with his answer.
Testing some domains in Uniregistry’s other gTLDs, I found a similar pattern — big spike, mostly parked at internettraffic.com, North Sound Names in a sampling of the Whois.
Here’s a screenshot of today’s best-performing new gTLDs from DI PRO (click to enlarge):
Overall, six of Uniregistry’s new gTLDs grew by a total of 50,735 domains today — 95% of the 53,147 industry total — and internettraffic.com’s name servers are responsible for 37,668 new names.
This brings the total number of “registered” domains to 538,093, though I would suggest that this metric may no longer be a decent measurement of actual end user interest in new gTLD domains.
The new gTLD .luxury seems to have sold more than $500,000 worth of domain names already.
(UPDATE: That’s probably not accurate. I seem to have misread some registrar pricing pages. The sunrise price was actually much lower than $1,000. See comments below.)
Saturday’s zone file for the Luxury Partners-owned TLD popped from 1 domain to 470 domains. Most of the new names appear to have been registered during the sunrise period, which ended early last week.
Given the current retail price of over $1,000, it seems .luxury is already a $500,000 business, at least for 2014. Renewal pricing is around the $700 mark, equating to $329,000 a year just on sunrise registrations.
That’s including the registrar markup, of course. The registry will be making a bit less.
“Luxury” brands such as Cartier and Formula 1 bought multiple domains during sunrise. Some tech firms, such as Facebook and Google, continued their blanket approach to defensives.
With such a high price, one wonders what some of these rights holders are thinking: do they really believe cybersquatters are prepared to drop $700 a year infringing their brands?
It will be interesting to see whether any of these registrants actually use their domains, or whether they’re mainly defensive registrations. I suspect the latter will be more often the case.
Currently in landrush, .luxury is due to go to general availability in about a month.
Belgium wants Donuts’ application for .spa rejected after the new gTLD applicant declined to sign a deal with the city of Spa.
In a March 20 letter to ICANN, published today, the Belgian deputy prime minister Johan Vande Lanotte said “negotiations between the stakeholders are closed”, adding that Belgium:
requests the Board of Directors of the ICANN to delegate the new “.spa” gTLD to the candidate who has a formal agreement with the local authorities of Spa and in respect of the public interest.
That’s the other applicant in the two-horse .spa race, Asia Spa and Wellness Promotion Council, which has promised to earmark up to 25% of its European profits to spa-related uses in the environs of Spa.
The letter was sent a week before the Governmental Advisory Committee issued its Singapore communique, which noncommittally noted that it “welcomes” the agreement between Spa and ASWPC.
ICANN may or may not be currently in receipt of firm, consensus GAC advice to accept or reject either of the remaining .spa applications.
In Beijing a year ago, the GAC put .spa on a list of gTLD strings where “further GAC consideration may be warranted” and asked ICANN to “not proceed beyond Initial Evaluation”.
At the Durban and Buenos Aires meetings last year the GAC said ICANN should not “proceed beyond initial evaluation until the agreements between the relevant parties are reached.”
Given that Donuts and Spa evidently cannot come to an agreement, ICANN presumably remains advised to keep one or both .spa applications on hold. The advice is pretty vague.
The string “spa” is not a geographic name within the rules of the new gTLD program. Donuts argues that it’s too generic nowadays to belong just to Spa.


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Google and Orange to jointly invest in tech startups
Written by NTN staff
French telco Orange has formed a partnership with Google to invest in technology startups in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Orange said it has entered the partnership with Alphabet owned Google through Orange Digital Ventures, a fund it launched in 2015 to invest in early-stage companies across the EMEA region.
The two partners will jointly assess investment opportunities in fields including cybersecurity, Internet of Things, cloud computing and fintech.
No financial details were disclosed or the volume of the initial fund.


text: Texas Best Shindig will be held November 4-5, 2016 at the Santa Rosa Rodeo Grounds. This will be the 7th year of the State Championship Red River BBQ Battle. New this year will be Hunter's Heaven. Hunter's Heaven will have vendors with hunting and outdoor items, as well as vendors with clothing and household items. There will also be food vendors and things for the kids to do. A Gun Raffle will take place as well as a 50/50 jackpot raffle. A Dance will finish the event at 7:00 p.m. with live music. For more information, to become a vendor, sign up to cook, or to sponsor, contact the chamber at 940-552-2564.


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We hope you’re hungry, Calgary! Canada’s meatiest festival, Le Burger Week is back and ahead of what will surely be their biggest, best and longest festival ever, they’ve finally released a kick-off list of participating restaurants!
From local bars to cafes each city is in for a very special TWO weeks of some wildly tasty creations in celebration of its 10th anniversary and we couldn’t be more excited.
Not entirely sure what we’re commemorating? Well, for those of you who have never gotten to sink your teeth into a Le Burger Week, here’s a rundown of what you’ve been missing!
Every September, in support of locally-owned businesses and do-gooders, this delicious festival encourages everyone from pubs, cafes, 5-star establishments and Canadian chains to go head to head in a battle of the buns.
These condos around the GTA are appreciating in value more than any others in Toronto
11 new restaurants, bars & cafes that you have to check out in Calgary
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With a little help from their friends at Saputo, each spot is tasked with creating something over the top, unique, and above all, super tasty in hopes of winning the prestigious title of ‘best in the city,’ voted by you – the muncher!
In addition to this, a portion of the proceeds made from each burger sold will go to one of two charities chosen by the organization – Anorexia and Bulimia Québec (ANEB) and the United Way.
Want in? Here are the 10 restaurants confirmed as participating this year – so far, and what they’ll be serving in the name of do-goodery!
- Trolly 5 Brewpub – The Vegetarians Nightmare
- Hotel Blackfoot – “Z” Burger
- Roy’s Korean Kitchen – Roy Boy’s Trash Burger
- Moxies (Red Deer/Barlow/Deerfootmeadows and Shawnessy) – Loaded Beyond Spicy Burger
- Redhead’s Japa Cafe – Japa Chicken Burger
- Anorexia and Bulimia Québec (ANEB) or the United Way – Longga Burger
- Last Best Brewing and Distilling – The Big Pig Burger
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Now, it is worth noting, of course, this list will likely be updated a few more times until the event starts on September 1st as others sign up, but it’s already looking pretty good!
For more information or to see others restaurants and bars that have been added in real-time, visit their website here – and don’t forget to vote for your favourite!
It’s going to be a tasty time, friends!
LE BURGER WEEK 2021
When: Wednesday, September, 1st – 14th
Where: see above
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Jisr Venture Partners founder and chairman Waleed Albanawi is making another investment into the food and beverage (F&B) space by backing Singapore-based food ordering and payment application Waitrr.
Launched in August 2015 by German entrepreneur Tim Wekezer and Hungarian entrepreneur András Bokros, the Waitrr app allows diners to order their meal quickly instead of waiting for busy restaurant staff to take their order.
This is Jisr Ventures’ second investment in the F&B sector. In May, they backed the Palestinian entrepreneur Khalil Shadid’s Dubai-based online restaurant reservation platform Reserveout.
Relatively new on the investor scene in Dubai, Jisr Venture Partners is run by Albanawi and son Omar. For them the investment in Waitrr aligns with their “strategic intent to improve automation and progress in the F&B sector with the help of inventive and useful application of technology,” Waleed told Wamda last week.
Waleed, a Saudi national, is the former director of the diversified manufacturing corporation Banawi Industrial Group.
While sharing his experience successfully managing logistics for a complex product launching in a new country and in a very short time span, Waleed said that his counsel and regional network in the corporate world is a huge X-factor. The network complements the money he gives to foreign startups hoping to strike gold in the Gulf.
This type of strategic investment where cash isn’t the sole factor in the interaction is commonly referred to in the startup community as ‘smart money’.
Jisr don’t usually invest in early stage startups. They’re looking for startups with some traction and for them that generally means looking outside the MENA region.
According to Omar, Jisr chose to invest into Waitrr because they exhibited demonstrable traction at an early stage and already have a number of casual dining restaurants in Singapore already using the app.
They have stayed away from investing in regional startups because most are early-stage and he wants to see results that usually only more established startups provide.
“[Young founders in the region] tend to be giddy about entrepreneurial ventures but they don’t have a strong understanding beyond the technology: issues like how do you scale and how do you find talent,” Waleed explained.
Though Jisr is looking to invest in advanced startups outside the region, it won’t discount the idea of investing in a regional startup if it meets their criteria and the numbers are right.
In the case of his investment in Shadid’s Reserveout, launched four years before its $4 million round this year, Waleed said he trusted the entrepreneur after taking into account his experience working in the corporate world at a blue-chip IT firm in the US. For Waleed, Shadid’s profile was the opposite of many first-time entrepreneurs, who often launch startups soon after graduating from university.
Omar hinted at bringing a popular F&B chain that is excelling in California to the Dubai market and helping it navigate the Gulf business scene.
“We’re looking ideally at B Series or C Series. I like to see companies have delivered revenue topline for at least two to three years. We don’t care about the valuation,” said Waleed.
“Early stage investments come with their own risk,” he said. “I struggle with the amateurish entrepreneurs. I need someone who has understood past the stage of building and growing a company and is now addressing issues like marketplace and delivery.”
F&B on demand
The investors said that they’re keen on investing in the F&B space because they’ve noticed a trend: a stronger interest in the on-demand economy at a time when consumers can order what they want within seconds.
“We do really like the F&B space in the MENA region. I’d like to say that Kuwait is the leader. There are really cool concepts coming out of Kuwait,” said Omar, while namechecking the food order startup Talabat, eventually sold to Rocket Internet for $170 million. The acquisition was one of the MENA region’s largest startup successes in recent history.
Believing it to be important to the economy of Dubai, they said that they’ve noticed that just a small percentage of the market has been captured, and startups like Reserveout and Waitrr are scratching the surface in this era of digital transformation of traditional industries.
“We’re not just an investment firm: we don’t have clients knocking on our door asking for a profit. We’re actually looking to add values to companies and help them dominate the spaces they are in,” said Omar.
“We are investing our own personal money. We invest in companies we like and that we think are going to have a positive impact,” he added.
Feature image via Pexels.com


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Manchester, NH (November 15, 2012) – Dyn, the global Internet Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) leader, announced that Scott Dussault, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Demandware, has been added to its Board of Directors.
Dussault has had a long and distinguished career in guiding technology companies through various stages of growth. Since joining Demandware in 2008, Dussault has helped lead the Burlington, MA-based ecommerce platform provider from early stage growth through its initial public offering (IPO) in early 2012.
From 2008 to 2011, Demandware significantly expanded its business, growing revenue from $7.5 million in revenue to more than $56 million in 2011.
“Scott brings an unbelievable amount of financial insight to our Board, as well as a proven track record of successfully managing rapidly growing technology companies,” said Dyn CEO Jeremy Hitchcock. “We believe Scott’s advice and guidance will provide a new and valuable perspective as we execute our aggressive growth strategy. We are very pleased to have such a well-respected professional join our board.”
Prior to joining Demandware, Dussault was the Chief Financial Officer of Archivas, Inc., a developer and distributor of online storage management solutions, sold in 2007 to Hitachi Data Systems. Previously, he was the Chief Financial Officer of Astra Tech and Chief Financial Officer of StorageNetworks, a publicly traded data storage software and services company.
“I am excited to join the Dyn Board of Directors,” Dussault said. “The executive management team has built a great industry leading company and I am looking forward to working with my fellow board members as Dyn advances into the next phase of its growth.”
Dussault joins a board that already includes:
- Jeremy Hitchcock, Dyn CEO and co-founder
- Tom Daly, Dyn Chief Scientist and co-founder
- Jason Calacanis, founder and CEO of Mahalo, co-founder of ThisWeekIn, co-founder and former CEO of Weblogs, Inc. (acq. by AOL) and a respected angel investor
- Ric Fulop, General Partner at North Bridge and co-founder of A123 Systems
- Russ Pyle, General Partner at North Bridge
Incorporated in 2001, Dyn is the worldwide Internet Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) leader, powering Managed DNS and Email Delivery for more than four million enterprise, small business and personal users. With nearly 20 data centers around the world and industry-leading uptime for over 10 years, Dyn’s commitment to customer relationships and engineering excellence shines every day.


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Cruise News Update 27 : CDC No To Cruise, Cancellations Into 2021 And More
It’s been another busy week of cruise news and developments, including a surprising CDC intervention against cruising, why April looks like when cruises will really resume among more cancellation news, lots of progress in the UK, what Caribbean ports are saying and doing about cruises calling again, cruise lines cash burn and much, much more.
This is another of my Tips For Travellers cruise updates, where I will unpick the biggest breaking cruising news, and discuss what it means for all of us as cruisers. You can watch this as a cruise update video on my YouTube channel.
CDC No-Cruise Advisory
First up, I want to discuss the latest move by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in the United States.
In the past week they surprised pretty much everyone by ramping up their advice against cruising to the highest possible level. It is now “Level 4: Very High Level of Covid-19”. It says (and I quote) the “CDC recommends that all people avoid travel on cruise ships, including river cruises, worldwide, because the risk of COVID-19 on cruise ships is very high”.
The timing is interesting as first of all, there are no options for US citizens to go cruising at the time this announcement was made. Yet they still made it.
Remember, there are no cruises operating in or out of USA ports, the option for US residents to cruise in the Caribbean is gone after SeaDream put their cruises on hold after the outbreak on their first voyage, and the limited cruises operating in Asia and Europe are only open to local residents.
On top of this, the CDC and lines are supposed to be working, and partnering, together to get cruising to resume out of USA ports as soon as possible – based on the CDC’s own Framework for Conditional Sailing which replaced a no-sail order!
This plan includes lines running test voyages, which the lines are hoping they can do as soon as early January. The implications of the advice is on these running is not clear. Seems hard to see how they can.
Many will remember that when the current White House Coronavirus Task Force placed pressure on lifting the no-sail order in October, it was reported that the CDC wanted it to be extended to at least the end of February 2021.
Over the coming weeks, it is worth remembering this and also that the CDC decide the pace that cruise lines will pass through their defined stages to resume cruising. And so, in my view, their latest update advising people not to cruise does not suggest an easy, smooth or fast timeline ahead.
UK Cruises Take Small Step
The UK is another country with strong travel advice against ocean cruising. There is now some progress towards cruises resuming in the UK with three new items of news.
First of all, the UK government has agreed a pathway for cruising to reopen as they accept the CLIA and cruise lines proposed protocols.
In an interview with The Telegraph in the last few days, Grant Shapps, the UK Transport Secretary, said the cruise sector had worked hard to guarantee Covid-secure travel and added that, for the final clearance, lines had to first prove compliance to the protocols and secondly the Government required guarantees that lines would pick up the cost of repatriation if there were any outbreaks on ships while cruising beyond the UK.
He said (and I quote) “Provided that [the agreement on repatriation] is agreed, this green lights cruises as long as they are Covid secure and using Covid tests”.
However, there is a catch as a specific date has not been agreed, and the UK Global Travel Task Force recommends cruising should only restart once the country’s national coronavirus alert level is reduced from the current level.
Although they have not set a specific date, this is in my view a key step forward as the UK have accepted the proposed cruise line protocols, which include the testing before boarding, reduced capacity, masks, social distancing and controlled excursions, and unlike the US which added many more layers and requirements, the UK have only added the repatriation costs requirement.
CLIA, the cruise line association, is lobbying for a more specific date to be set especially to allow lines to start running UK only port sailings for UK residents.
In other good cruise news in the UK, MSC Cruises will homeport a ship every year in Southampton from summer 2021, starting with the massive MSC Magnifica. This is the first time a ship has been home ported by them in UK for many years.
And Southampton, the biggest cruise port in the UK, has announced it will open a 5th cruise terminal also in the summer of 2021 which can handle ships capable of carrying up to 6,000 passengers.
First Carnival Ship back in USA
Returning back to the United States, One milestone did happen this past week as the first Carnival cruise line ship returned to US waters !
Early on after the shutdown, Carnival Cruise Lines (and sister lines like Princess and Holland America) pulled all their ships out of USA waters. They have been out of the US for months.
Many of Carnival Cruise line ships stayed close to Bahamas or other Caribbean islands, while others sailed to Europe or Asia to repatriate crew. But a few are now heading back to the USA to start the process of being able to sail again.
The Carnival Horizon was the first ship back, and it returned to Miami early on 23 November to start the complex process to prepare for returning to service. Horizon is the first Carnival Cruise Line ship that is scheduled to return to sailing. The second will be Carnival Breeze, also due to return shortly.
So, the return of the first Carnival ship to the US is definitely a milestone and a step on the journey for them to resume cruising. Other ships that also left the US are also on their way back including from Disney and Holland America .
Lines Cancel Further into 2021
As I covered in the last update, cruise lines especially those that rely on multi-country itineraries are having to cancel deeper and further into 2021. This continued this past week.
Despite the moves in the UK, P&O Cruises based there has just extended their cancellations into April 2021, They say this in response to the current uncertainty around if and when European ports will be open.
To be honest, looking at the way cancellations are moving globally, the signs are increasingly that April looks like the month most lines realistically believe sailings will really resume globally, after winter has passed.
People have asked me to include the latest situation on the return to cruising for the major lines in these updates.
So, here is the latest at time of recording, though I have to say I am sure almost 100% sure the January resumptions will move back. The dates I am going to give you are based on when at least one ship in the line’s fleet is due to start sailing
January: Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Celebrity, Marella, Regent Seven Seas, Oceania and Virgin
February: Carnival, Disney Cruises, Fred Olsen and Viking Ocean
March: Azamara, Celestyal Cruises, Crystal, Cunard and Windstar
April: P&O Cruises, Star Clippers, Holland America, Princess, Saga Cruises, Seabourn and Silversea
Although these are target dates and rely on much to happen, MSC Cruises has just announced that they are the first international cruise line to receive the required health and safety certification to be able to resume cruising in Japan as scheduled in April 2021.
MSC Bellissima will be deployed to Japan, homeport in Yokohama to sail six to nine-night cruises in April, May and June 2021 and again during October and November 2021. Although unfortunately for most of us, these cruises will be for Japanese guests only. But it is good to see countries opening.
Caribbean Prepares For Return
Many of the popular ports across the Caribbean are using the shutdown, especially as it drags on, to upgrade and increase capacity to take more cruise ships.
We are seeing big investments to make it easier for ships to call at some ports, especially the large mega-ships. Clearly, Caribbean governments believe people will return to cruising, and in growing numbers in the years ahead. Showing huge faith in cruising bouncing back and building.
Cozumel, already one of the busiest and well-known cruise destinations, has been given the green light by the Mexican Government for a fourth cruise ship dock.
Cozumel already has the Punta Langosta cruise pier located downtown at San Miguel, the Puerto Maya cruise facility that caters for Carnival Corporation ships further south of downtown, and nearby is the International Pier, which is mainly used by Royal Caribbean group vessels.
Construction on the new development is set to begin in December and the pier is set to cater for the new mega cruise ships coming into service.
Meanwhile Nassau, the main cruise port in the Bahamas, is ramping up its cruise capability with major work also starting in December.
In addition to repairs to existing piers, they are adding a berth that can hold two Oasis-class ships and extending a pier to handle a third Oasis-size vessel while also transforming the waterfront with new shops, restaurants and cruise facilities.
Bahamas expects to become even more important to cruise lines sailing out of US ports through 2021 as it is the closest island to Florida homeports, and they expect lines to return initially with short cruises focused on their own private islands (most of which are in the Bahamas too) and possibly stops in Nassau.
Cruise Lines Raise More Funds
I am often asked if the major cruise groups and lines will survive, and which will go bust.
These questions started up again with more urgency following with so many lines extending cancellations into 2021.
An analysis I received this week from an investor group calculates that the Cruise Industry will Lose Almost $20 billion in Revenue across the world, a 71% Plunge in revenue year on year. Massive
I have made a specific episode looking at the financial health of the major groups, and the huge amounts of funds they have raised from the investment community if you want to delve into that more.
However, In the last week, they have just taken even more cash in to tide them over even longer.
Norwegian Group, which includes of course Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania and Regent Seven Seas, issued 40 million shares and raised $830 million of cash during November. With a projected burn rate of at least $175 million every month, this adds another 5 months of cash. They now have enough money to have no sailing right into and through the summer before facing a cash problem.
The Carnival group, so that includes Carnival, Princess, Holland America, Seabourn, Cunard, P&O Cruises and others, which is losing about $650 million a month, had already raised a staggering $12 billion from investors, have this month added another $2 billion through issuing debt notes. They also now have enough cash to carry them right through summer with no sailing.
So, the major lines have funds. The financial community and investors are confident that cruising will return and grow and are putting a lot into the lines. Lines of course are not getting government bail outs as they are incorporated and their ships are registered in tax-havens like Panama, Liberia and so on.
Those are the biggest news stories breaking that I felt you need to know about, and what I think they mean for us as cruise lovers.
ABOUT TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS
Gary Bembridge’s Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of the world. To help you, in every video I draw on my first-hand tips and advice from travelling every month for over 20 years and average of 10 cruises a year.
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Highfive unveiled a clear commitment to the channel this week at Enterprise Connect.
The first announcement is a new partner program led by Greg Popham, an industry leader and former executive at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), who takes over as vice president of global channel sales.
Highfive and Popham have built a program that empowers its channel partners with speed, an ease of doing business, and plenty of potential for scale.
The company is also providing extra support to its current and new partners by providing refreshed tools, deal registration, and a portal designed to make reselling and provisioning of Highfive seamless.
What’s more, Highfive has added an asset disposition program, making it significantly easier for resellers to help end users rip and replace existing technology, but recover value still left in the hardware.
As Highfive looks to add sustainable partners to its program, it has expanded globally to Canada, Europe, and Australia. The company is now working to enable more VARs and service providers to sell Highfive directly to customers with full whitelisting and provisioning capabilities.


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bp and Mercedes-Benz Trucks UK have successfully tested In-Truck Pay, the first digital in-truck fuel payment system in the UK.
The new app-based system, bp In-Truck Pay, which was first trialled in Germany, makes fuel purchasing and management faster, more efficient and more secure for both truck drivers and fleet managers.
The app has been developed for the latest-generation Mercedes-Benz Actros, which can be specified with Multimedia Cockpit, Interactive. This incorporates the Truck App Portal, an open platform that can be used by fleet managers to easily assign apps to their vehicles via their Multi-Touch Display.
Automatically relaying purchases, mileage and other data back to base, In-Truck Pay eliminates errors, provides accurate information to managers and removes the need for drivers to enter mileage themselves.
bp In-Truck Pay is designed specifically for fleet operators to help get drivers back on the road faster. It requires just three simple steps – drivers confirm the site, unlock the pump and refuel.
The truck directly logs the fuel transaction – paying for the fuel itself. Drivers don’t need to pay in the shop or to enter data. And there is no need for fuel cards, removing complications from managing lost or damaged cards and the risk of fraudulent card use.
“The trials have shown an increase in efficiency, with savings of approximately five minutes per transaction,” says Lee Thompson-Halls, National Fleet Manager for Wren Kitchens.
“When you add that up over time, it will have a hugely positive impact on our business, which delivers over 100,000 kitchens per year across the UK. Not only that, but it will also be beneficial for our drivers, by creating a safer and quicker way to pay for fuel.”
The post bp and Mercedes-Benz trial In-Truck Pay fuel payments in UK appeared first on Payments Cards & Mobile.


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Drinking tea with several spoonfuls of sugar might not sound like such a bad thing, but several studies have shown otherwise, with it being associated with cancer and heart disease. In addition, consuming too much sugar can increase the risk of conditions like obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
In the study, researchers found that drinking tea without sugar is beneficial and that long-time tea drinkers can make this change without craving sugar.
For the study, the researchers observed 64 men who usually consumed tea with sugar for one month. The participants were separated into three groups.
The findings indicated that both sugar reduction strategies were effective: Some of the tea drinkers were able to enjoy their beverages even without adding sugar. A follow-up conducted a month after the study revealed that 42 percent of those who gradually reduced their sugar intake reported that they no longer drink sweetened tea. Meanwhile, 36 percent of the participants in the group that quit sugar reported that they also stopped adding sugar to their tea. Only six percent of the volunteers in the control group quit drinking tea with sugar.
The researchers acknowledged that while there are health benefits to cutting down on one's sugar intake, some of the participants would be unwilling to drink tea without sugar, especially if they have gotten used to consuming a sweeter tea. However, scientists remain hopeful that the same approach can help people lower the amount of sugar they add to various drinks. (Related: Why diabetics should drink more tea and eat more cherries.)
Drinking unsweetened tea is only one way to cut down your sugar intake. If you want to manage your sugar consumption, follow the tips below.
The researchers involved in the study cautioned that consuming too much sugar is a public health problem that must be addressed immediately, especially since sugary drinks is linked to total intake. Cutting down on sugar added to beverages can help drastically reduce overall use, which can also lower diabetes risk.


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Feed additive might have cancer fighting abilities
June 11, 2008
by FoodBusinessNews.net Staff
COLUMBUS, OHIO — Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center are studying whether adding a component from cotton plants to chicken feed might result in eggs and chicken meat with anti-cancer properties.
"We are trying to produce cancer-fighting chicken meat and eggs by feeding chickens gossypol-enriched cottonseed meal," said Dr. Young C. Lin, leading researcher. "The theory is that if humans were to consume gossypol-enriched chicken meat or eggs, they could reap the anti-cancer benefits."
Gossypol is a natural pigment and insect repellent found in cotton plants, and Dr. Lin’s research indicates gossypol inhibits the proliferation, development and spread of drug-resistant cancer cell lines in the breast, ovary, cervix, uterus, adrenal, pancreas and colon.
Dr. Lin is now specifically studying the potential anti-cancer effect in human breast cancer cells compared with conventional cottonseed meal. The idea is gossypol would be released from the enhanced chicken and eggs by a digestive enzyme resulting in cancer protection.
"Tailor-made food components that possess anti-cancer and cancer chemopreventive effects in meat and eggs produced by hens fed with gossypol-enriched cottonseed meal will be a novel vision for improving value of agricultural commodities," Dr. Lin said.