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Browder said using an AI-generated version of Browder's own voice, it successfully requested a refund from Wells Fargo, a San Francisco-based multinational financial services company.
The startup, which has been known for automating tasks such as appealing parking tickets and canceling subscriptions, markets this new "robot" system with the battle cry: "Why endure a lengthy call with a bank when a convenient AI-powered bot can handle it for you?"
"We plan on making the tool publicly available with a range of generic custom voices, but to have the user's own voice will be a premium option," Browder told Motherboard in an online chat.
The tweet has since been taken down for apparently violating the Twitter Rules.
In the video, Bowder's fake voice can be heard saying: "Hi, I'm calling to get a refund for wire transfer fees." The customer service representative then asked for the caller's first and last name, which is a standard operating procedure for security and safety. The bot easily supplied the personal information. The AI and the agent then discussed the disputed wire transfer fees, ultimately settling on the fees charged over the past three months.
Great Game India news site reported that the conversation between them sounded very "stilted and unnatural" as there were long pauses as the bot processed the representatives' responses so it can banter.
"It's difficult not to feel sympathy for the Wells Fargo worker who had to remain silent while the bot performed its tasks. However, the bot appears to be successful in securing the requested refunds, based on the video," the article stated.
As a usual sign of real people's politeness and gratitude, the bot even closed the conversation by saying, "thank you for your help." Browder also boasted how his bots called Wells Fargo a dozen times to test the flow.
The British-American entrepreneur revealed that the tool was created using a combination of Resemble.ai (a platform that enables users to generate their own AI voices), GPT-J (an open-source casual language model) and DoNotPay's own AI models for the script. Previously, DoNotPay employed AI-driven bots to negotiate Comcast bills.
In a response statement, Wells Fargo said that upon reviewing the call recordings, the conversation didn't happen the way it was presented in the video. "It appears the customer's video recording of this call was edited to look like a bot was interacting with a customer service representative," the company stated, but Browder told Motherboard the video was not edited, except for removing his account number from the start of the clip.
Meanwhile, an AI court trial will take place in February, with a DoNotPay robot lawyer set to defend a human in court for the first time. (Related: Humans are no match for artificial intelligence – "It's not even close," says Nobel laureate.)
Browder said his company will pay two defendants going to traffic court up to $1,000 each to wear smart glasses that will double up as their attorneys. The locations of the hearings have been undisclosed to prevent judges from derailing the stunts ahead of time. Each defendant will have the option to opt out if they choose.
"My goal is that the ordinary, average consumer never has to hire a lawyer again," the startup owner said.
Bowder told the Daily Beast that the CatXQ's smart glasses will record the proceedings and a chatbot that is built on OpenAI's GPT-3, famous for transcribing ballads and high school essays on demand, will offer legal arguments in real time.
The glasses will have square lenses and a spindly black frame, which can connect to devices via Bluetooth and deliver sounds straight to the wearer's cochlea, the hearing organ in the inner ear, through bone conduction, which is similar to how some hearing aids work.
The chatbot will exist on the defendant's phone as a regular app, absorbing audio through the device's microphone, and dictating legal arguments through the glasses.
FutureTech.news has more stories on futuristic technology "breakthroughs" such as AI bots.
Watch the video below where World Economic Forum's top advisor Yuval Noah Harari revealed AI can take control over humanity.
This video is from the Thrivetime Show channel on Brighteon.com.


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Cryptocurrency: do you need to accept?
There are few topics as divisive in the tech sector as cryptocurrencies and bitcoin. For some people, fiat currencies — those currencies backed by governments around the world — are seen as a tool of control and taxation.
They are easily tracked, taxed and moving them around the world requires the assistance of a third party like a bank that expects to be paid. Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, on the other hand, are supposedly a step on the road to a freer and more democratic world.
They are decentralised and can be moved easily and anonymously around the planet, they can be used to pay for transactions for next to no cost, are extremely secure and it is possible to make a lot of money investing in them.
There is just one problem. Other than transactions in which people purchase bitcoins themselves, not many real world deals are actually being done with the currency.
In fact, the complexity of accepting bitcoins recently created an embarrassing moment for the cryptocurrency revolution when a major bitcoin convention in the US had to stop accepting the currency as payment for tickets dues to the fees and congestion associated with it.
The North American Bitcoin Conference was held in Miami in January and had to pull out of accepting cryptocurrencies for last minute ticket sales. It put out a statement, saying “we have, and always will, accept cryptocurrencies for our conferences, up to fourteen days before the event. However, due to the manual inputting of data in our ticketing platforms when paid in cryptocurrencies, we decided to shut down bitcoin payments for last minute sales due to print deadlines.”
To the wild
Created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to be released into the wild. Its purpose is to allow one person to directly send money to another, in a peer-to-peer transaction that doesn’t require a third party such as PayPal, a credit card company or a bank.
Unlike conventional money, there can only ever be a maximum of 21 million bitcoins in the world, and there are currently around 17 million in circulation. New bitcoins are ‘created’ by a process known as mining, which effectively means having computers solve extremely difficult problems, taking time and energy.
Every bitcoin transaction is recorded and verified on a public digital record, the so-called blockchain, and there are thousands of copies of this record around the world, making it extremely difficult for any person to manipulate or falsify the data.
Bitcoin is by far the best known of the cryptocurrencies, but there are over 1500 in circulation including Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and EOS. Technically, there is nothing stopping anyone from creating a new one at any time.
So what is the situation for Irish organisations looking at cryptocurrencies as a route to new trading and commerce opportunities? Should they accept bitcoin or other currencies as well as euro and dollars?
“Today, it takes one click to buy an airline ticket or a new sweater, but if you want to buy stocks or get a mortgage, transactions like that are more time intensive. Whether it’s waiting for documents or settlement, many types of transactions aren’t instant,” said Liam Chambers of IBM Research Ireland.
“Assets like gold, real estate, fine art or carbon credits are more difficult to transfer, often obligating buyers and sellers to contend with mountains of paperwork and lengthy procedures. By representing physical assets as digital tokens on a distributed digital ledger or blockchain, it’s possible to unlock the value of real-world assets and to exchange them in real time.”
Currencies built on blockchain technology offer tremendous potential to the global financial system and none of this discussion is lost on central bankers.
“Around the world, central banks are actively involved in understanding and even experimenting with digital currencies. In fact, nothing is stopping a central bank from issuing a digital version of its fiat currency today,” said Chambers.
“The adoption of bitcoin shows that the world has an appetite for blockchain-based digital currencies and payment. Whether it’s bitcoin or a central bank issuance, digital currencies can offer tangible improvements to financial services by increasing security and reducing friction, particularly in international payments.”
Promotion of trust
Generally, more transparency, traceability and security can promote trust between parties and help accelerate financial inclusion. Anyone with a mobile device could access a digital wallet to serve as a bank account, essentially ‘banking’ a large percentage of the approximately two billion unbanked adults in the world.
“Programmable money can be designed to flow as easily as e-mail without sacrificing regulatory controls, monetary policy or personal privacy. The future of programmable money is dawning and currently in Sweden, Riksbank is experimenting with eKrona, and the Bank of Canada is working on a proof-of-concept with CADcoin,” said Chambers.
Issuing fiat on a blockchain has numerous benefits. The traceability of blockchain helps prevent financial crimes such as money laundering and corruption, and the efficiency of blockchain will reduce transaction and settlement frictions.
Lots of companies and retail outlets around the world accept cryptocurrencies, including some in Ireland. One is Cosgrove Gaynard Solicitors in Dublin. Earlier this year it announced that it would accept bitcoin as payment for services, making it the first Irish law firm to do so.
“We threw it out there that we would accept them as part of professional fees. Nobody else had done it and we have an awful lot of fintech and tech clients so we’ve moved naturally into that area, with a number of ICOs looking to launch here,” said Susan Cosgrove of Cosgrove Gaynard.
Not much interest
“So far, there hasn’t been much interest, but it’s there as an option. We will have to bounce it off the law society as soon as someone wants to do it. There are law societies in Canada that have laid out the rules for accepting new currencies, but we’ll obviously need to make sure that we stay on the right side of the Law Society here.”
Cosgrove said that when a client chooses to pay with bitcoin, then the currency would need to be cashed out into Euro straight away for regulatory reasons and could not be held for investment purposes.
“It would be a normal transaction, because the Law Society decrees you can’t hold assets like that.”
Built on the concept of blockchain, cryptocurrencies have sparked a wave of development in related technologies. Blockchains are chains of data that are secured and linked through cryptography, forming an open distributed ledger that records transactions in a verifiable and permanent way.
“People associate it with Bitcoin, but there are far more applications than cryptocurrencies. It’s basically a cryptographically secure distributed ledger which means that we can store anything that can be cryptographically represented in a database that is shared across multiple organisations,” said Niall Moran, director of the Microsoft Technology Centre in Ireland.
“Everything is secured and hashed and can’t be tampered with, is distributed across multiple organisations so no one organisation has complete control. That means that any transaction on the blockchain, any digital asset that gets moved from A to B has to have consensus across all organisations. That means you end up with a very secure, tamper proof database across organisations.”
Cryptocurrencies took off, in Moran’s opinion, because financial transactions over geographically diverse areas historically have been slow.
“Supply chain, any type of asset ownership, deeds of houses, ownership of vehicles or auditing the movement of assets across organisations – all of these things can be done using bitcoin-inspired blockchain technology. If you can get all the parties to the transaction into a consortium, working together on the blockchain, you can remove a lot of problems.”
“Our focus is on advancing the enterprise-readiness of blockchain, taking the underlying technology and making it enterprise-grade. Cryptocurrencies aren’t really part of our focus but there’s no doubt that blockchain and the technologies prompted by it are here to stay.”
While blockchain has a bright future, the same can’t unequivocally be said about the cryptocurrencies that have inspired it. Not everyone is an unqualified fan.
“The problem with Bitcoin in particular is that the underlying value of the currency itself isn’t specifically rooted to anything tangible and as a result is massively volatile,” said Dermot Williams, managing director of Threatscape.
“The fiat currencies have some ultimate grounds in reality even if they’re mostly not linked to standard gold value anymore. They’re used by enough people, billions of people, to the point that we can all be reasonably confident that they will retain their value.”
While fiat currencies fluctuate in value in relation to each other, their values normally stay relatively stable compared to each other. Cryptocurrencies on the other hand are subject to wild speculation and their values can change enormously.
In 2017, the price of a single bitcoin went from $800 to a high of nearly $20,000, before dropping to the current level of about $8,500. How can companies operate with that degree of fluctuation?
“With blockchain-based crypto money stuff, in the five or ten minutes it takes to type in a transaction and process it, the value could go up and down. How do you work with that? With bitcoin, even its strongest proponents call themselves holders or ‘hodlers’ because they don’t want to sell it. They think it’s going to go up and up so they intend to just hold on to it,” said Williams.
“This leads to a situation where the same people who are saying ‘this is going to be a bigger, better, newer way of transacting,’ are not actually transacting at all. They’re just sitting back and holding as a long-term investment and very little of it is actually moving around and being transacted.”
Williams is not the only one with reservations like this. Last month, Bill Harris, former CEO of Intuit and founding CEO of PayPal wrote an article for Recode.net which did not pull any punches.
“Okay, I’ll say it: Bitcoin is a scam. In my opinion, it’s a colossal pump-and-dump scheme, the likes of which the world has never seen. In a pump-and-dump game, promoters ‘pump’ up the price of a security creating a speculative frenzy, then ‘dump’ some of their holdings at artificially high prices.”
So, what would it take for a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin to become respectable enough to be worth embracing? The answer, according to Williams, is quite a lot.
“I would answer by pointing out further difficulties that I have, and I think a lot of people have. The whole mechanism underlying Bitcoin which sounds noble and innovative and very technical, doesn’t lend itself to either very rapid transactions or very cost-effective transactions,” he said.
“People who are fans of Bitcoin rush to point out things like if I want to send $100 to my Aunt Mabel who lives in Sydney, going into a bank is time consuming and costly because there’s lots of fees and it might take a few days for the money to move from one bank to the other before it eventually reaches her. By contrast, with Bitcoin you can instantly send money to another Bitcoin wallet in seconds.”
But that is not really accurate anymore because to have a transaction permanently burnt into the distributed ledger which drives bitcoin involves transactional costs and time costs because it is so busy.
“It’ll take time for that transaction to actually get into the block, and there’s a cost. If want to go and buy a coffee, there’s no way you’re going to be able to pay for that with Bitcoin effectively because the costs that you incur are just too high and it’s going to continue to be the case because there are millions of computers around the world participating in the crypto work that’s required for every new block.”
These computers are currently doing that on the basis that there’ i still mining to be done and new bitcoins being awarded to those who win the race to create the next hash for the next block.
A further factor is the environmental cost. All those processors busily mining bitcoins are using an enormous amount of power to do so. According to Digiconomist, the estimated power use of the bitcoin network responsible for verifying transactions made with the cryptocurrency is 30.14TWh — which means that the network uses more power in a year than the whole of Ireland together.
“A measurable percentage of the world’s electricity is now going into to sustain the bitcoin network and from a green perspective, it’s horrible. Some of it’s happening in parts of the world where people have access to cheap electricity because that’s what you need, and of course there are all sorts of people stealing electricity as a means of literally making money,” said Williams.
“If you list some of the key factors that people cite as being why bitcoin is going to change everything and why ten years from now it will be the only way people will transact, most of them don’t hold up to cold reasonable analysis. It’s not faster, it’s not more efficient, it’s certainly not a stable form of value — it’s none of those things.”
“I think as people realise this, that will further drive the insane market capitalisation of all the Bitcoins out there further down. Because in total Bitcoin is worth something like $150 billion at the moment but if everybody rushed for the exit to try and sell, I can guarantee there isn’t $150 billion of real smart money out there that has any interest in buying up an awful lot of digital nothing.”

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- Which company owns Snapchat?
- Will Amazon Buy Snapchat?
- Is Snapchat undervalued?
- What is Snapchat’s net worth 2020?
- Is Snapchat profitable 2020?
- Is Snapchat Dead 2020?
- How much is TikTok worth?
- How safe is Snapchat?
- Did Zuckerberg buy Instagram?
- Who is the youngest billionaire?
- Does Mark Zuckerberg own Snapchat?
- Is Snapchat worth investing in?
- Is Snapchat being bought out?
- Who owns Snapchat net worth?
Which company owns Snapchat?
Snap Inc.Snap Inc.
is an American camera and social media company, founded on September 16, 2011, by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown based in Santa Monica, California.
The company developed and maintains a number of technological products and services, namely Snapchat, Spectacles, and Bitmoji..
Will Amazon Buy Snapchat?
Amazon will acquire Snap Snap announced a new partnership with Amazon last week, introducing visual search on Snapchat, which allows users to use the Snapchat camera to search for products on the e-commerce site.
Is Snapchat undervalued?
Snapchat Stock is Undervalued The third big reason to like Snapchat stock in 2020 is that shares are undervalued relative to the company’s long-term profit growth potential. … Importantly, those unit revenue rates are depressed today, at around $2 per user versus $5-plus rates at most other major social media companies.
What is Snapchat’s net worth 2020?
Evan SpiegelAlma materStanford UniversityOccupationEntrepreneurKnown forCo-founder of Snap Inc.Net worthUS$9.6 billion (December 2020)7 more rows
Is Snapchat profitable 2020?
Snap’s stock price soared more than 22% after hours on Tuesday as the company posted an unexpected, adjusted profit along with positive user and revenue growth in its third-quarter earnings. The company’s net loss fell to $200 million, down nearly 12% from $227 million last year.
Is Snapchat Dead 2020?
Although Snapchat users have been declining, the app is unlikely to be going anywhere anytime soon.
How much is TikTok worth?
“So they might get away with a higher valuation.” Based on the number of TikTok users and projections for $1 billion to $2 billion in 2020 sales, Waral said, the app could probably fetch around $20 billion.
How safe is Snapchat?
Snapchat is a harmful application for children under the age of 18 to use, because the snaps are quickly deleted. This makes it nearly impossible for parents to see what their child is doing within the application.
Did Zuckerberg buy Instagram?
Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for $1bn (£760m), and WhatsApp in 2014 for $19bn. The App Annie ranking highlights just how much power and control Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has. The four main apps that Zuckerberg oversees boast more than a billion users each.
Who is the youngest billionaire?
Kylie JennerKylie Jenner has become the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, according to Forbes billionaires’ list.
Does Mark Zuckerberg own Snapchat?
Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t buy Snapchat years ago, and now he’s close to destroying the company. Facebook reportedly tried to buy Snapchat in 2013 for $3 billion to boost its appeal with younger users. … Now Snapchat’s valuation is falling just before company insiders will be free to sell massive numbers of shares.
Is Snapchat worth investing in?
Any investor considering Snap stock, even below its highs, has to believe that the decade-long bull market will continue into 2020. But if that bull market does persist, SNAP looks set to outperform. Its outlook can match that of any other growth stock, but at least relative to its past, its valuation stands out.
Is Snapchat being bought out?
Snap will not be an independent company by the end of 2019.” “People talk about how its stock has gotten crushed, but it’s still got a market cap of $13 billion,” Galloway added. … And there’s a limited number of companies that can buy a company that’s not making a lot of money for $8 to $10 billion.”
Who owns Snapchat net worth?
Evan SpiegelLife is good for Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel. The 29-year-old is one of the youngest billionaires in the world, with an estimated net worth around $4 billion.


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Ridiculous new TikTok craze starts a FIRE in a supermarket after ‘young people’ set chip packets alight – as police open an arson investigation
- Fire broke out in the chip aisle at an Auckland supermarket on Thursday night
- Around 60 firefighters were called to the store with fire being treated as arson
- Staff believe it may be related to TikTok prank where chip packets are set on fire
A New Zealand supermarket’s chip aisle has gone up in flames – with staff suspecting the blaze was started as part of a TikTok challenge.
A team of 60 firefighters were called to the Countdown supermarket in Henderson, Auckland when the fire ignited just before 8.30pm on Thursday.
Police have confirmed the incident is being treated as arson while workers at the store told the NZ Herald they were aware of a social media craze where young people were setting chip packets on fire.
It is not yet clear how the fire started but it’s believed a group of youths were involved.
A fire broke out in the chip aisle of the Countdown supermarket in Henderson, Auckland on Thursday night
The supermarket was closed on Thursday as police and fire investigators continue to work on the scene.
Shocking footage shows flames of up to three metres high roaring up towards the ceiling with the aisle now being left black and covered in debris.
Shoppers and staff were evacuated as smoke started billowing throughout the mall on Thursday night.
The store announced on Facebook on Friday morning no staff had been injured as a result of the fire.
The store has been closed on Friday while police and fire authorities investigate. Nobody was injured during the incident
‘Following a fire last night, our Henderson Store is closed as we assess the extent of the damage,’ the supermarket said.
‘Our store team are all safe and we’re providing them with support as needed. We’re also making sure any food that can be is donated to our local food rescue partner Fair Food.’
The rest of the shopping centre has since reopened.
A Countdown spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia they are working with authorities to determine the cause of the fire.
‘We have been working closely with the Police and Fire Emergency to understand the cause of the fire in our Henderson store,’ they said.
‘While we can’t comment on the motives behind the event, we’re obviously disappointed that people may have intentionally started a fire in one of our stores.
‘The Police have since opened a criminal investigation. We have provided them with CCTV footage from our store and will continue to support their investigations.’
A supermarket in the US reportedly caught alight after a group of youths tried the TikTok challenge.


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Tara Elaine Nykoluk (DOB 12/19/75), of Simi Valley, was convicted on three felony counts of embezzlement and forgery. The jury also found true a special allegation that Nykoluk’s crimes involved a theft of more than $100,000. This case was jointly investigated by the Simi Valley Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office Fraud and Technology Crimes Unit.
From 2006 through 2015, Nykoluk worked as a part-time bookkeeper for T&M Plumbing (T&M), a small plumbing company based in Van Nuys. In 2015, the company owner fired Nykoluk after discovering she used a company debit card to make unauthorized personal purchases. A subsequent audit revealed that throughout her eight-year employment with T&M, Nykoluk embezzled approximately $348,000 on more than 1,500 occasions by means of unauthorized company debit card payments and checks. Nykoluk used the stolen funds to pay for vacations, meals at restaurants, and ordinary consumer goods and services.
Nykoluk remains out of custody on bond pending her sentencing hearing scheduled for May 14, 2021, at 9:30 a.m. in courtroom 47 of the Ventura County Superior Court. Nykoluk faces a maximum sentence of 4 years and 4 months in state prison.


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OTTAWA, ONTARIO, September 19, 2023 /CNW/ – Yesterday, the federal government held a meeting with from Canada major retailers to combat the food inflation that Canadian consumers have faced in recent years. In some cases, profit margins for large food retailers have skyrocketed compared to their pre-COVID-19 levels.
“Dairy farmers, like all Canadians, face food inflation when purchasing groceries for their families. Additionally, they must cope with inflation in the price of fuel, feed and machinery, as well as high interest rates, while producing food for the nation. They too want to see food inflation tackled,” said the CEO of Dairy Farmers of Canada, Jacques Lefebvre.
Link to video file (Jacques LefebvreCEO, Dairy Farmers of Canada): https://youtu.be/x4MfgA41-Zk
“This consultation is a good first step. However, if the exercise with large food retailers is so extensive, the government will miss an opportunity to shed light on practices that include the imposition of astronomical listing, placement and marketing fees on processors. The domino effect of these practices is that processors seek to maintain or mitigate the impact of these measures by seeking support from producers,” added Lefebvre. “It’s time to provide consumers with transparency about how these practices contribute to inflating retailer profits and, ultimately, food inflation.”
Link to video file (Jacques LefebvreCEO, Dairy Farmers of Canada): https://youtu.be/JTR-vMgUP7Q
AABOUT DAIRY FARMERS CANADA
Dairy producers of Canada is the national policy, lobbying and advocacy organization representing Canadian dairy producers. DFC strives to create stable conditions for our country’s dairy sector. It also seeks to maintain policies that promote the sustainability of Canadian dairy production and promote dairy products and their health benefits. Dairy producers have set themselves the goal of net zero emissions from their on-farm dairy production by 2050.
SOURCE Dairy producers from Canada
View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2023/19/c6226.html


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CocoaAction – Two Years On
Formed in 2014 primarily to address sustainability issues, CocoaAction representatives took to the stage at this year’s Chocovision to deliver an update on their progress.
CocoaAction is a voluntary, industry-wide strategy that aligns the world’s leading cocoa and chocolate companies, origin governments and key stakeholders on regional priority issues in cocoa sustainability. It convenes the sector in order to align complementary roles and responsibilities, leverage scale and efficiency through collaboration, and catalyse efforts to accelerate sustainability in the cocoa sector.
But is this acceleration going ahead as fast as it needs to? At Chocovision 2016, Barry Parkin, chairman of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) was joined by four key representatives from CocoaAction to update on their progress and highlight the areas that still need work.
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Crypto Investors are becoming more involved in the $220 billion cryptocurrency market than many observers may realize. Buyers such as hedge funds have replaced high-net-worth individuals as the biggest buyers of large swaths of digital coins worth more than $100,000 through private transactions, according to Bobby Cho, global head of trading at Cumberland, the Chicago-based cryptocurrency trading unit of DRW Holdings LLC, which handles the over-the-counter purchases.
“Wait until institutional investors embrace crypto” has long been the rallying cry for digital-currency enthusiasts as prices surged and collapsed in the past year amid shifting expectations for regulatory acceptance of the asset class.
Meanwhile, the big sellers — miners, whose computers generate coins by confirming transactions — have begun scheduling regular coin sales instead of holding or waiting to offload them during market rallies. Many of the largest miners have also set up their own liquidity desks and operations.
“What that’s showing you is the professionalization that’s happening across the board in this space,” Cho said. “The Wild West days of crypto are really turning the corner.”
The over-the-counter market facilitated anywhere from $250 million to $30 billion in trades per day in April, according to researchers including Digital Assets Research and TABB Group. Exchanges have recently handled about $15 billion in daily trades, according to CoinMarketCap.com.
“We’ve seen triple-digit growth enrolling in our OTC business,” said Jeremy Allaire, chief executive office of Boston-based Circle Internet Financial. “That’s a big growth area.”
While the OTC market has declined along with crypto prices, it likely hasn’t dropped as much as volume on exchanges, which is down 80 percent since its peak, according to Digital Asset Research. Many institutional buyers have dived into crypto recently because the wide swings in prices have eased, Cho said.
“One of the biggest criticisms of crypto by institutional investors has been the volatility,” Cho said. “Over the last four to six months, the market has been trading in a very tight range, and that’s seems to be corresponding with traditional financial institutions becoming more comfortable diving into the space.” A third of DRW’s transactions are happening during Asia hours, he said.
Large buyers and sellers like private sales because transactions on exchanges can move coin prices. In a private sale, parties can fix the price in advance, instead of worrying about a sudden plunge or spike just as the transaction takes place.
“If they are liquidating [coins], they are liquidating them via OTC,” said Tom Flake, founder of Bcause, a provider of mining facilities whose customers are institutional miners with hundreds to thousands of machines. The largest miners also sell their coins to sellers directly or through brokers.
One of the biggest reasons to buy coins outside of exchanges, though, is that there are often not as many coins offered for sale as the institutional buyers would like to buy, according to Sam Doctor, managing director and head of data science research at Fundstrat Global Advisers.
“At this point in time, because more and more institutions are beginning to enter the market, there’s more of an imbalance,” Doctor said. That’s why brokerage firms are springing up to help institutional buyers find inventory, he said.
What’s more, miners can offer something unique: brand-new, “virgin” coins, which some investors covet. Such coins command a premium of up to 20 percent, according to Travis Kling, founder of the hedge fund Ikigai. It’s easier to prove they’ve not been involved in money-laundering operations, he said.


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LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stock futures rallied on Friday after jobs growth in February rose 262,000, above the market expectations but not as high as the most bullish forecasts. See full story.
Economic Report: U.S. Feb nonfarm payroll up 262,000
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The labor market didn't disappoint in February, as 262,000 new jobs were added to the economy, the Labor Department reported Friday. See full story.
Elan, Biogen slide as second PML case confirmed
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Irish pharmaceuticals maker Elan Corp. dropped 17 percent on Friday after the company said investigators have confirmed a second case of a central nervous system disease in a patient treated with Tysabri. See full story.
Private jet whisks Martha home from prison
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Martha Stewart left prison in style early Friday on a private jet that flew her from the Alderson, W. Va., federal correctional facility, where she had served five months for lying about a stock sale, to her New York mansion. See full story.
Dell adds as much as $10 billion to buyback plan
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Dell Inc., the world's largest personal-computer company, authorized a plan Thursday to buy back an additional $10 billion in company stock. See full story.
John Dvorak's Second Opinion: Intel banks on new architecture
BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Intel nearly put all its eggs in a new architectural basket some years back when it announced the roadmap for the Itanium processor and nearly lost control of the industry it invented. See full story.
Vital Signs: Drug industry's direct-to-consumer ads under fire
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Makers of prescription-drug advertisements that target potential patients are getting a taste of their own medicine this week in clever counter-marketing from consumer groups. See full story.


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Sebago Brewing Sells Brewhouse to Lone Pine Brewing
(GORHAM, ME) — Sebago Brewing Co. (SBC), announced today the sale of its 13,000-square-foot installed brewery in Gorham to Portland-based Lone Pine Brewing Company. The additional brewing equipment, packaging and warehouse space included in the sale will quadruple the size of the young brewery from 5-barrel to 20-barrel capacity.
SBC has been brewing and packaging their beer in the Gorham industrial park since 2005. Since then, co-founders Kai Adams, Brad Monarch and Tim Haines have experienced amazing growth leading to their recent news of the construction of a new 31,000-square-foot destination brewery on Lower Main Street in Gorham, which is schedule to open in mid-February.
“It was always our intent to sell the brewery installed and in place to a Maine brewer who was growing and needed the capacity or a new start-up looking to find a home,” said Adams. “We know what it takes to start up a brewery and the costs and planning it takes to install all the equipment. John, Tom and the team at Lone Pine worked hard in a short timeframe to make this happen, and we’re really excited to see what they will create here.”
Lone Pine, which started brewing at its Anderson Street location in March 2016, is already brewing its well-known Portland Pale Ale at the new location. Co-owners Tom Madden and John Paul will keep the tasting room location in Portland open and plan to enhance the draft list there, using the location as more experimental space.
“Diverting our core brands to a larger facility will allow us to expand our product line with our current small batch system,” said Madden. “Moving into a turnkey facility will allow us to focus almost exclusively on product quality and consistency, while positively contributing to the legacy of Maine breweries.”
Paul and Madden credit their success not only to hard work and dedication, but to the local support they’ve received from their SBA lender Northeast Bank and Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI). “Growing over 400 percent in 20 months, our proof of concept has encouraged our financial partners to move forward with us in this venture,” said Paul.
Lone Pine expects to add at least seven new hires to their 10-person team once they take over the lease from Sebago in February.
“When Tim, Brad and I opened this brewery, we had help from people in the industry locally who wanted nothing in return but to see us brew great beer. We want to do the same for someone else, while creating a hub in Gorham for more great craft beer,” added Adams.
About Sebago Brewing Company
Sebago Brewing Company is a Maine-owned and -operated company firmly rooted at the crossroads of food and beer. Since opening in 1998, Sebago has become Maine’s premier contemporary American brewpub and one of the fastest growing craft breweries in the state. Sebago offers a full line of year-round beers, five seasonal beers and several highly anticipated, limited-edition Single Batch Series beers. Sebago Brewing Company has a reputation for creative, high quality, unique beers that tempt and satisfy the palates of beer lovers.
For more information on Sebago Brewing Company’s events and beers, visit www.sebagobrewing.com.
About Lone Pine Brewing Company
Lone Pine Brewing Company is a Portland based brewery focusing on American ales and small batch specialty beers that feature unique, local ingredients. Founded in 2016, Lone Pine currently operates its production and tasting room facilities on Anderson Street in the East Bayside neighborhood of Portland. Lone Pine is one of the fastest growing breweries in Maine, having increased from 400 bbls per year in 2016 to a projected 6,500 bbls in 2018. Learn more at www.lonepinebrewery.com


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Envision Announces Patent Pending For Flood Avoidance EV Charging Station
Envision Solar International, Inc., the leading producer of unique and sustainable infrastructure products for electric vehicle charging, energy security, and outdoor media, announced that its flood-proof EV ARC™ product is now patent-pending through U.S. Patent Application No. 16/898,097.
The flood proof EV ARC™ 2020 incorporates all the benefits of previous generations of EV ARC™ products and can now withstand an inundation of over nine feet without suffering damage or ceasing to operate. Transportable, but permanent, and deployed without construction or connections to the utility grid, the EV ARC™ 2020 is an ideal solution for the Gulf Coast, Florida Panhandle, East Coast and any other environment where the potential for flooding exists and where electrical infrastructure is required.
The EV ARC™ product family provides a source of power for EV charging and emergency preparedness in locations where it is too expensive, too impactful or simply impossible to extend the utility grid. Because EV ARC™ products generate and store all their own electricity they are also ideal EV charging and emergency power solutions during grid failures such as blackouts and brownouts.
Traditional grid tied EV chargers and the cabling and conduits that supply them are generally destroyed by flooding. The new patent pending EV ARC™ 2020 will continue to generate and store electricity during flood conditions. The product’s emergency power panel is installed more than 10 feet above ground level and will continue to supply electricity during weather events which disable traditional sources of electrical power.
“This latest patent pending product will enable us to deliver an additional layer of energy security to our customers,” said Envision CEO Desmond Wheatley. “Grid failures and flooding create significant vulnerabilities for EV owners whether they are private vehicle owners or fleet managers. We’ve been supplying EV charging solutions that are immune to grid failures for many years. We have seen them used in COVID-19 emergency centers, during fire related public safety power shut offs, and by first responders across the country. With this new patent pending product, those emergency workers and others will know that they have a supply of vital electricity which will serve them faithfully even during and after flooding.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fifth assessment report anticipates that, in light of climate change, North America will experience “an increase in the number of heavy precipitation events” and “increased damages from river and coastal urban floods.” Local electrical distribution infrastructure is particularly vulnerable to flooding whether by fresh or saltwater. An increase in the number of electric vehicles (EVs) being used by both government and non-government entities means that flood-resilient infrastructure is already an imperative for disaster continuity programs.
Envision believes that the combination of EV charging, emergency power, and transportability make the patent-pending flood-proof EV ARC™ 2020 an essential tool in any fleet operator’s disaster preparedness program. As COVID-19 stimulus infrastructure funds are directed by Federal, State, and Local Governments, the EV ARC™ will provide a shovel ready, American-made option that is vital and timely.


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The number of consumers turning to wholesale shopping bags as a reusable and green alternative to the traditional plastic bag is on the rise.
Results from a study undertaken by WRAP, the governments waste body show that the single use of plastic carrier bags have been gradually declining over the years. The progress made in recent years is reflected in the fact that thin carrier bag usage is down 40% on 2006.
The increased awareness of the environmental impact of these bags amongst retailers and consumers has helped to change shopping habits.
Leading environmental campaigners state that the use of single-use plastic bags cause significant environmental problems such as harming wildlife, spoiling the landscape and furthermore take over 1000 years to decompose.
Keen to show the changes in buyer behaviour, leading retailers have adopted a number of schemes to help encourage the take-up of bags of life, by unveiling their own lines of branded cotton carrier bags.
Other different techniques employed by retailers include staff being trained to ask customers whether they require a bag and increasing the collection of used bags for recycling at store.
The decrease in the number of single-use bags has been significantly driven by the introduction of a levy in Wales, the plastic bag tax, which retailers claim has seen usage cut by a whopping 90%. The progress shown could see the tax rolled out across the UK.
Six months after the minimum charge of 5p per bag was introduced in the country, a number of leading supermarkets have stated that one-time plastic bag usage has dropped.
Sainsbury’s saw a 90 per cent fall, the Co-op reported 86 per cent and Morrisons 60 per cent, BBC Wales revealed.
Sainsbury’s said to the BBC: “The scheme is working well and has clear benefits both for the environment and for charities.
“Over the last three months we’ve seen a drop of around 90 per cent in the use of single use bags in our Welsh stores.”
Northern Ireland looks set to introduce a similar tax next year with Scotland and England set to follow suit.
By purchasing wholesale cotton bags in bulk, it gives customers an alternative to the plastic bag and encourages them to use the cotton bags. These bags can be easily branded with company logos and slogans to give them more of a corporate identity.


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Move over Beats by Dre, another Southern California audio company is taking the market by storm. BRONSTEIN Electronics with its “NACKS BY BRONSTEIN” line is experiencing rapid growth and has recently inked a whopping $15 million sponsorship deal with a yet-to-be-named artist.
The company, which started making microphones in 2011, has recently delved into the audio gear market by coming out with NACKS, a line of affordable in-ear earphones that seems to be aimed squarely at the Beats by Dre market. The company has been sponsoring local California artists, including Rahn G, Jayy Starr and DJ Lo-Khem.
According to the company, its NACKS line has been selling like hotcakes and is currently being carried by several local retailers in the Southern California area. A nationwide expansion is planned for later this year.
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Battlefield 3 Premium sells 4 million
$50 subscription service reaches new user milestone; Origin membership climbs to 50 million; EA revenue for quarter hits $495 million.
We'll begin emailing you updates about %gameName%.
Battlefield 3 Premium now has 4 million subscribers, publisher Electronic Arts announced today as part of its financial report for the first fiscal quarter ended June 30.
A subscription to Battlefield 3 Premium costs $50, meaning the service has now generated $200 million for EA. EA also announced that its Origin service now has 50 million users, including 22 million on mobile devices.
For the quarter, EA posted net income of $222 million on revenue of $495 million, up from $491 million during the same period last year. Of note, EA digital revenue for the period surpassed packaged revenue for the period by a healthy margin.
"EA had a solid quarter driven by continued digital growth and disciplined cost management," executive chairman Larry Probst said in a statement. "We are also executing on a clear set of goals for leadership on mobile, PC, current and next generation consoles."
The publisher also called out The Simpsons: Tapped Out as a top performer during the period, posting its highest revenue quarter since launch in August 2012. EA's mobile and handheld digital revenue was also a bright spot, rising 30 percent to $103 million.
Real Racing 3 has been downloaded more than 45 million times, EA said, and has averaged over 2 million daily active users since launch in March. FIFA 13 digital net revenue hit $70 million in the quarter, surging 92 percent versus FIFA 12.
EA also announced today that it had signed an agreement with TenCent to bring FIFA Online 3 to China. Further details about the agreement will be released in the near future.
EA will hold an earnings call beginning at 2 p.m. PDT to discuss results and answer questions. Check later for more.
GS News Update: New Rainbow Six Siege Operators Possibly Leaked Monster Hunter World Deviljho Hunt -- Official Gameplay God Of War PS4 Makes Big Changes Dragon Ball Super Movie - Official Teaser Trailer The Comic History of The Shadow King | Legion Season 2 Dragon Ball Legends Gameplay: Super Saiyan Battles On The Go Deadpool 2 - Official Trailer This Horror Game Makes You The Monster GS News Update: Pokemon Go Easter Event Returns Tomorrow Fortnite - Replay System Project Spotlight Trailer Cobra Kai Trailer - The Karate Kid Saga Continues Sea Of Thieves: Before You Start


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Super Bowl LVI is just weeks away, and automakers are throwing the hype train for their expensive ads. Kia has unveiled the first teaser for its ad which will air during the big game on Sunday, February 13, and it shows off the all-new Kia EV6 all-electric crossover and the little robotic dog that could play alongside it.
“Kia’s 13th Super Bowl ad is the centerpiece of a comprehensive marketing campaign that will include digital, social, outdoor and a very special new CSR program in partnership with the Petfinder Foundation,” said Kia America vice president of marketing, Russel Wager.
Kia doesn’t specify what or who we should expect to see in the ad. However, Kia also announced that it has formed a partnership with the charity Petfinder Foundation, which could explain the robot dog in the teaser photo. The two will provide “Kia Animal Adoption Grants” to help shelter animals find their forever homes. More details will arrive before the big game kicks off tonight.
The Kia EV6 should start arriving in dealerships in a few weeks, so putting it front and center in advertising makes perfect sense for Kia. The EV6 is the brand’s first model launched as part of its new Plan S strategy focused on the electrification of the future. The car is available in several configurations, although the spiciest flavor EV6 GT which develops 577 horsepower (430 kilowatts) and 546 pound-feet (740 Newton-meters) of torque.
When the EV6 goes on sale in the United States, it will start at $42,115, including the $1,215 destination charge, but not the federal tax credit. The inclusion of the dog is fascinating as Hyundai Motor Group bought Boston Dynamics at the end of 2020, and the company previewed its robot-filled vision of the future. Perhaps we will see an evolution of this dream in a few weeks?


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Android is reportedly the most rapidly adopted smartphone platform, and new Canalys data suggests the platform is expanding its reach even further. Shipments in Q4 2010 put Android devices in the No. 1 spot among smartphones, and mobile marketers should consider that this means Google is critical to reaching mobile searchers.
The Canalys data indicates that Google accounted for nearly one-third (32.9 percent) of smartphone shipments last quarter. Nokia was arguably a close second, representing 30.6 percent of shipments. Other market leaders Apple, RIM and Microsoft lagged far behind at 16.0 percent, 14.4 percent and 3.1 percent of shipments, respectively.
This means that Google stands to dominate in the mobile realm, where the search engine already has more influence than it holds in the PC market. Statcounter data shows that Google accounts for more than 98 percent of mobile searches.
As mobile internet usage is on the rise – and Brafton has reported that some suggest it is poised to eclipse PC internet usage in the next several months – brands will want to develop aggressive Google search campaigns for mobile. As with any search campaign, quality content will be key to catching clicks from mobile users, especially in light of Google's recent algorithm updates to fight spam. Marketers should remember that studies indicate mobile internet users are highly likely to search for fresh, timely and locally oriented content.
In addition to offering quality content, brands might take advantage of some of Google's new mobile-friendly advertising developments, including its expansion of Google Boost and updated photo options for Google Places users who may be deciding where to shop while on the go. Plus, the company's recent acquisition of SayNow is expected to result in further mobile-social ad platforms this year.


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Facebook And Advertisers.
The Register has a slightly worrying story:
The dominant social network tells users it won’t share their details without consent, but according to the Wall Street Journal, it has handed over information that advertisers can use to look up individual profiles.
MySpace had a similar loophole, it’s reported. Both sites said they were making changes to stop the handover.
Advertisers were getting reports whenever users clicked on their ads, as is typical across the web. However, Facebook and MySpace’s reports contained the URL of the user’s profile page, which often included their real name or user name. Neither site had bothered to obscure the data, in breach of their own privacy policies.”
This is the WSJ piece:
“Across the Web, it’s common for advertisers to receive the address of the page from which a user clicked on an ad. Usually, they receive nothing more about the user than an unintelligible string of letters and numbers that can’t be traced back to an individual. With social networking sites, however, those addresses typically include user names that could direct advertisers back to a profile page full of personal information. In some cases, user names are people’s real names.
Most social networks haven’t bothered to obscure user names or ID numbers from their Web addresses, said Craig Wills, a professor of computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, who has studied the issue.
The sites may have been breaching their own privacy policies as well as industry standards, which say sites shouldn’t share and advertisers shouldn’t collect personally identifiable information without users’ permission. Those policies have been put forward by advertising and Internet companies in arguments against the need for government regulation.”


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The Social Media Trends to look out for in 2017
Year on year, social platforms evolve at an accelerated rate to suit business and consumer needs. 2016 showcased this well with the likes of Vine and Meerkat winding down, while Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat boomed.| January 30th, 2017
Clearly there has never been a better time to become conversant with what is to come in the industry. Here, we arm you with an outlook on what to expect from social in 2017.
The Revolution will be Live-Streamed
- Facebook are currently experimenting with in-stream advertising (such as pre-rolls) which they intend to introduce once streaming becomes popular.
- Applying greater targeting and segmentation of audiences to your Facebook Live streams will be possible in 2017.
- Beyond Facebook Live, the key streaming platforms expected to see growth in the coming year include Live.ly and Twitch, the live-gaming platform owned by Amazon.
There are currently over one hundred live-streaming apps in China, a fact which showcases the growing popularity of the medium. From these, we expect major players to emerge who will compete in the much same way that behemoths WeChat and Sina Weibo seize share across that market from blocked competitors such as Facebook. Inke and Huajiao are two of the most prominent ones to keep an eye on.
An important caveat to this, is that that live streaming content creation is expected to be difficult for most brands to initially leverage.
Even with its recent Live Catwalk on Facebook Live, advertising megabrand Burberry has not yet been able to reap equivalent viewing figures to traditional TV format. 2017 could nevertheless be the year the nut is cracked.
The Lasting Impact of Perishable
- Prior to 2016, evergreen content was the key focus for brands. However, in the last year Snapchat has paved the way for branded content with a limited shelf life to flourish.
- Users in 2017 are expected to become increasingly open to perishable content, with its popularity a key shift from the perfectly curated ‘Instagram-ready’ content users have grown accustomed to from brands.
- Realising the need to evolve, Instagram has entered into this arena with their Stories. This feature contains an algorithm that ranks stories by perceived relevance to the user.
- Perishable content is almost entirely organic at this stage, which makes it an enticing ground for smaller, challenger brands. It remains excellent for seasonal content, limited time promotions, competitions, and amplifying experiential activities.
Influencers Remain as Popular as Ever
- Recently published research carried out by the University of Southern California found that teens perceive YouTube stars to be 90% more genuine and 17 times more engaging than mainstream celebrities. Findings such as these suggest brands will continue to invest in using the authority of influencers to promote their products.
- There are three approaches to working with influencers: (1) Getting them to create content, (2) Getting them to promote brand content, and (3) combining these two to achieve creation of great branded content and marry it with distribution.
- While brands are increasingly seeing greater value in the latter of these options, at present 67% of influencer usage by brands remains for promotion only. There are opportunities for brands to make headway in this space in 2017.
- Influencers are ideal for live video content, in particular because Facebook currently sends notifications to the phones of all pages that use Facebook Live.
Soft Launch for Bots
Head to airline company Iceland Air on Facebook (www.facebook.com/Icelandair) and send the page an inbox message. You will be answered by a bot that utilises artificial intelligence to provide assistance to potential customers.
Although bots such as this have existed on Facebook for the last year, the platform has yet to make users widely aware of their existence.
The reality is that AI has yet to crack the ability to naturally converse, which limits the ability of these bots. Simply put, they are not yet capable of replacing social media community managers who can offer a human voice on behalf of a brand. Nevertheless, bots can work and be powerful tools in instances where they are kept simple and functionality-driven.
An example of this currently being trialled by Uber is to offer a bot to users asking simply if they would like to request a car, activated the moment a user types the word Taxi into a conversation on Messenger with one their contacts.
This conversation tracking on dark social is an area of huge potential for brands, providing users learn to embrace it. Suffice to say that in 2017 as brands seek to crack the best methods to deploy bots into dark social, stand-alone app usage is expected to go down.
Follow @weareMBA on Twitter for more news and information on the work we do


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Iran's religious rulers declared Barbie, an un-Islamic doll decade ago, but as tensions with the West increase a new crackdown is underway.
While the doll, made by U.S. company Mattel Inc was first declared un-Islamic in 1966, it was until recently openly on sale in many Tehran shops.
However Barbie is now under threat since as following the increase of tensions between Iran and the West, the country's moral police have now decided to re-launch a campaign against the doll's "destructive cultural and social consequences".
In a report Reuters say shopkeepers have been asked to remove all Barbies from their shelves.
Restrictions were first issued three weeks ago, after shopkeepers were warned they had to "to hide the leggy, busty blonde behind other toys as a way of meeting popular demand for the dolls while avoiding being closed down by the police", the report says.
In order to curb the demand for the American doll, two other dolls, Sara a female version and Dara a male version, which are more in accordance with Islamic culture, were launched in 2002.
The dolls are dressed in traditional style, with Sara wearing a headscarf to cover her hair.
The more "Iranian" toys have it seems failed to impress some of the kids with a mother telling Reuters: "My daughter prefers Barbies. She says Sara and Dara are ugly and fat,"
Sara and Dara will soon be followed by a new toy, Iranian media reported, as a version of the US spy drone recently captured by Teheran should also soon hit the shelves.


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The American Car Rental Association(ACRA) is proud to announce that the following OEM's have joined with ACRA to support the car rental industry:
- Chrysler Group LLC
- Subaru of America Inc.
- Toyota Motor Sales USA.
- General Motors
ACRA's car rental companies have long been the largest purchasers of fleet vehicles and the association welcomes these manufacturers as its recommended fleet suppliers to all its car rental members.
You can find out more about the American Car Rental Association at www.acraorg.com.


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Africa must invest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for women and girls, disciplines which would boost their economic empowerment and access to digital finance.
Keiso Matashane-Marite, Acting Chief of the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Section, Gender, Poverty and Social Policy Division at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) says women and girls are marginalized economically. Women and girls face deep barriers in financial inclusion because they do not have the requisite skills and knowledge that STEM careers avail.
Ms. Matashane-Marite, speaking at a media briefing to present the results of the African Women’s Report on ‘Digital Finance Ecosystems – Pathways to Women’s Economic Empowerment in Africa’, lamented the many barriers that prevent financial access for women in Africa. The study was done to promote economic empowerment of women and girls.
“Without economic empowerment of women, substantive empowerment of women is an issue,” Ms. Matashane-Marite,” noted, arguing that economic empowerment for women is the right step in ensuring women are empowered in the social and political spheres.
Tied to its mandate, the ECA was providing technical support to member countries in promoting women empowerment through policy implementation and the transformation of the financial system. The Gender, Poverty and Social Policy Division at ECA has developed a result area on digital transformation to ensure that gender informs digitalisation in every aspect.
“We have set out a number of pillars where we are starting…the first one is on STEM because we want to see African member states institutionalizing STEM education for girls and to see a movement just beyond policy pronouncement to implement the policy undertakings that have been done on STEM. STEM is critical,” said Ms. Natashane-Marite.
Furthermore, the ECA is working with the African Union Commission in a campaign on financial inclusion for women. Ms. Natashane-Marite revealed that the ECA was undertaking research on digital transformation in ‘making a case for ensuring that STEM does take root’.
Digitalization, particularly in the financial sector, has the potential to be a critical backbone for economic and social transformation in Africa where the digital economy is envisaged to reach $300 billion by 2025 as a result of a fivefold increase in digitalization and internet use.
“Digitalization is critical to the realization of all components of women’s empowerment,” said Mr. Syed Ahmed, the Lead author of the three-year study conducted jointly with the Graca Machel Foundation, highlighting that digital finance has a critical role to play in women’s economic empowerment’.
Digital finance refers to digital forms of credit, savings, insurance and financial transfers.
Mr. Ahmed noted that digital and mobile connectivity, digital finance readiness and ICT usage have enabled women’s access to digital finance. However, women have limited access to internet usage than men across Africa. Furthermore, women have other limitations such as affording digital tools, poor digital literacy, poor digital skills and restrictive social norms.
The study recommended concrete policy responses to overcome these barriers such as lowering the risks of accessing credit by women, removing inherent, invisible and unwitting barriers to women’s access to financial products and services.
Besides, financial laws at all levels of government should be amended to encourage mobile money uptake particularly for women, across Africa, thereby increasing savings ratios and enhancing their economic empowerment Mr. Ahmed urged.
“Although mobile money services are more common in Africa than in other regions of the world, only 29 per cent of women in sub-Saharan Africa use mobile Internet, compared with 48 per cent of women globally,” said Mr. Ahmed, adding that “In Africa as a whole, approximately 12 percent of women have sufficient digital finance-related ICT skills, which is below the global average. Capacity development programmes are therefore clearly needed to enhance digital finance skills.”


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What was Sebastian Junger, best-selling author of ''The Perfect Storm,'' doing in a high school gymnasium in Greenwich, Conn., filled with 500 children?
First, feeling ''nervous,'' since he had not been near that many teen-agers since he was one himself. Second, sharing a podium with Linda Greenlaw, a fishing boat captain featured in his book, whose own memoir, ''Hungry Ocean,'' has just been published.
But most important, he was being party to the kind of marketing that an independent bookstore must mount if it is to survive in a business increasingly dominated by discount stores, chains and the Internet.
A report scheduled to be published tomorrow by the Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit research organization, shows that in 1998, independents represented only 16.6 percent of outlets where books are sold, down from 21.6 percent in 1994, and falling.
The visit by Mr. Junger and Ms. Greenlaw to the students of Brunswick Academy and its sister school, Greenwich Academy -- and their speaking engagement before 200 adults later that day at the Indian Harbor Yacht Club down the road -- had been arranged by an independent bookseller, Warren Cassell. His quid pro quo was to have already sold each of those 500 children a copy of Mr. Junger's book as enrichment reading. Although Ms. Greenlaw's book was published too late for that, by day's end it had sold 135 copies.
But that is not all. Mr. Cassell has arranged with Brunswick to provide speakers and books on a continuing basis. The school benefits because it gets top-of-the-line speakers for free. Mr. Cassell benefits because he will sell at least 500 copies of each book.
At first glance, Just Books, Mr. Cassell's store in tony Greenwich, seems an unlikely font for marketing wisdom. It is a hole in the wall sans armchairs, with cramped, poorly lighted aisles and water-damaged ceilings and walls. The kind of comfortable, coffee-selling bookstore people have come to take for granted in the 1990's it definitely is not.
Yet with annual sales running about $850,000 for 600 square feet of selling space, Mr. Cassell is doing something right. This is recognized by the major publishers, who are clamoring to feed him their best authors for events. What Mr. Cassell and thriving independent retailers like him have succeeded in doing ''brilliantly,'' said the president of Time Warner Inc.'s trade publishing operation, Maureen Egen, is ''to take the store out to the public and cater to their tastes and interests.''
Nine times a year, Mr. Cassell organizes literary breakfasts at a hotel. On May 27, almost 800 people paid $18 each to hear George Stephanopoulos, John Feinstein and Dan Rather while downing their coffee.
They also bought 425 books. In September, the best-selling authors Frank McCourt and Dava Sobel will have their hot buttered toast alongside their hot-off-the-press books; in October, it will be George Bush's turn. Not every author is so A-list: if Mr. Cassell really believes in a book, he has been known to sneak an unknown author onto a panel.
Louise Brockett, publicity director at Mr. Junger's hard-cover publisher, W. W. Norton, and Jennifer Landers, her equivalent at Ms. Greenlaw's publisher, Hyperion, a unit of Walt Disney, point to other variations on the theme. For example, when a customer buys a ticket to a literary lunch or breakfast organized by Elaine Petrocelli, owner of Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif., the ticket price includes a signed copy of the book.
Mr. Cassell, meanwhile, who says he has lost 15 to 20 percent of his total business to the Internet in the last 18 months, is busy making it up on that front as well. The store's Web site, which is updated every two weeks, and a monthly newsletter, mailed to 7,000 customers, keep the breakfasts humming to capacity, along with events at the Garden Education Center, a yacht club and a synagogue. He also does a brisk Internet business in signed copies and collectibles.
How does he keep costs down? Mr. Cassell has four computers, but only 3,500 books in his store. ''We consider the wholesalers our inventory,'' he said, as his phone rang on a recent Friday with customers requesting titles.
They would get them the following Monday.


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Vice Minister Li Guo meets with Mrs. Marie-Gabrielle Ineichen-Fleisch, the head of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), State Secretary of Switzerland.
On April 24, Vice Minister Li Guo met in GACC with Mrs. Marie-Gabrielle Ineichen-Fleisch, the head of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), State Secretary of Switzerland, and Mr. Luis Miguel Etchevehere, State Secretary of Agroindustry of Argentina, respectively.
Vice Minister Li Guo and State Secretary Marie-Gabrielle Ineichen-Fleisch addressed in depth the topics such as the registration of Swiss pork establishments in China, customs control on cross-border e-commerce and TBT/SPS cooperation under the framework of China-Switzerland Free Trade Agreement.
Vice Minister Li Guo and Secretary Etchevehere discussed registration of Argentine meat establishments in China and the safety of import and export food. The two sides signed the Protocol on Inspection, Quarantine, Veterinary Sanitary Requirements Regarding Import and Export of Pork between China and Argentina, and the Memorandum of Understanding to Strengthen the Cooperation in Safety Issues of Imported and Exported Food. Mr. Diego Guelar, Argentine Ambassador to China also participated in the meeting.
General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China
Address: No.6. Jianguomennei Avenue, Dongcheng District, Beijing, China Postcode: 100730


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Xiaomi India has been teasing the coming of Redmi Note 7 for quite a few weeks now. The company has hinted at the imminent launch of the phone via various teasers but hasn't yet revealed the India launch timeline of the Redmi Note 7. Past reports had hinted that the Redmi Note 7 will launch this month, that is in February, but new reports suggest that Xiaomi wants consumers to wait for a little longer. The report suggests that the Redmi Note 7 India launch may not happen any time before March.
The biggest competitor of the Redmi Note 7 when it comes to India will be Samsung's newly launched M series phones. Most specifically the Galaxy M20. Ever since the Galaxy M20 and M10 have been made official in the country Xiaomi India has left no stones unturned to take a dig at the Samsung phones. Although Xiaomi India hasn't named the phone specifically, but considering the company has been using the word 'M' in almost all its teasers we believe the company is targeting the Galaxy M series from Samsung. More so, the Samsung Galaxy M20 has been priced pretty rigorously in India.
The India price of the Samsung Galaxy M20 starts at Rs 10,990. Considering the China price of the Redmi Note 7 the Xiaomi phone, we believe, will also fall under almost the same price point.
In one of the latest Redmi Note 7 teasers, Xiaomi posted the AnTuTu score of both the 48MP camera phone aka Redmi Note 7 and Galaxy M series phone. The teaser shows the Redmi phone score much higher than the competitor which is expected to be the Galaxy M series. In AnTuTu Redmi phone manages to score 143,000 points which is significantly higher than the M branded phone which scores 123,000 points. The teaser has been captioned "The 'M'ic drop moment when you realise #?W8? will outperform! #MiPowerd RT if you agree!"
There's still time for the Redmi Note 7 to come to India. The launch reportedly was scheduled to happen in February but looks like that may not happen anymore. A new report suggests that the Redmi Note 7 may have been delayed by another month. This means that the Redmi Note 7 may not launch in India before March. That being said, there could be high chances that Xiaomi may directly bring the Redmi Note 7 Pro instead of Redmi Note 7 to India.
Xiaomi is expected to launch the Redmi Note 7 Pro in China this month, in February. The Chinese smartphone is yet to reveal the exact launch date of the Note 7 Pro, but considering the rumours about Redmi Note 7 Pro flooding the internet, we believe the phone will go official in a few more weeks or so.
Overall, the Redmi Note 7 Pro is expected to be a much-improved version of the Redmi Note 7. The smartphone is rumoured to also come with a 48MP camera but use Sony IMX 586 sensor unlike the Note 7. The Redmi Note 7 also comes with 48MP main rear camera paired with Samsung ISOCELL Bright GM1 sensor. As for the looks and display the Redmi Note 7 Pro will be similar to the Redmi Note 7 and come with gradient finish, waterdrop notch, glass back, among other things. The Redmi Note 7 Pro is said to be powered by Snapdragon 675 chipset and not Snapdragon 660 SoC that powers the Note 7.


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So, finally the first issue of Vogue Turkey has arrived! This is the special addition of the magazine, which started to be sold in Instinye Park today in an exclusive event. You'll see Jessica Stam's photo by Patrick Demarchelier on the cover. Sweet!
The magazine has 562 pages, and the one you see right now is one of the 1000 copies published exclusively. No: 0086.


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The Intex Cloud Power+ has gone official in India and is taking its place amongst the big battery smartphones, a category which has been increasing greatly over the past couple of months. The phone is priced at Rs 8599 and it offers mid-range features.
The Intex Cloud Power+ isn’t the cheapest option on the market, but it places itself as an alternative pick to other devices including the Rs 9999 Lenovo A5000 and the entry-level Wiio WI3. The 4000mAh battery isn’t the only attraction on this smartphone. But before we move on, the power pack is capable of up to 17 hours of talk time or around 1176 hours of standby.
The Intex handset is powered by Android 5.0 Lollipop which is a huge advantage as most devices with large batteries still run KitKat. For visuals, there’s a 5-inch 12890 x 720 pixel LCD panel, while a 1.3GHz quad core processor delivers the steam. And for memory, the company has thrown in 2GB RAM, 16GB flash storage and a microSD card slot which supports up to 32GB.
The cameras are pretty high quality as well, with the front sporting a 5MP shooter and the rear a 13MP snapper. You’ll also have to deal with various preloaded applications including Opera Mini, OLX, News hunt, Truecaller, Intex Play, Intex zone and more.
Intex Cloud Power+ key specifications:
– Android 5.0 Lollipop
– 1.3GHz quad core processor
– 5-inch HD IPS LCD panel
– 2GB RAM, 16GB expandable storage
– 5MP front camera, 13MP main shooter
– Dual SIM w/ HSPA+
– 4000mAh battery
The Intex Cloud Power+ is currently available for purchase through Snapdeal in black only, but a white option should arrive soon. The phone is bundled with a free flip cover worth Rs 599.


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Apparently unfazed by the recent defeat of his sugary drink ban, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is now pushing for a law that would require stores to conceal tobacco products.
Under the law, which Bloomberg will reportedly introduce to the City Council this week, stores would have to hide tobacco products, including cigarettes, behind a curtain, or store them in cabinets, drawers or under counters.
“New York City has dramatically lowered our smoking rate, but even one new smoker is one too many,” he said at a press conference, according to Bloomberg. “Young people are targets of marketing, and the availability of cigarettes and this legislation will help prevent another generation from the ill health and shorter life expectancy that comes with smoking.”
If the measure is passed, it would make New York the first U.S. city to institute such a ban, although the Associated Press notes that countries such as Ireland, Iceland, Canada and England have approved similar laws. The ban does not address tobacco advertising, leading some critics to question its effectiveness.
Bloomberg is known for his often-aggressive public health initiatives. Since becoming mayor in 2002, he has introduced mandated calorie counts on restaurant menus; raised tobacco taxes; banned smoking in restaurants, bars and other public places; and outlawed trans-fat additives.
Not all of his campaigns have been as successful, however. Just last week, a judge struck down a law that would have prevented certain businesses from selling sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces. Judge Milton Tingling said that the ban was “arbitrary and capricious” because of its many loopholes that “serve to gut the purpose of the rule.”
Read more at Bloomberg.
For more coverage of the tobacco industry on InsideCounsel, see:


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CHENNAI: With equity markets back on track, life insurance companies are trying to woo investors with unit-linked insurance plans (ULIPs) that require limited premium payments. Companies such as ICICI Pru Life, HDFC Standard and Max New York Life have recently launched ULIPs with a limited premium paying terms ranging from 1 to 5 years.
Experts say people are preferring to pay premiums for a shorter period and hence, life insurance companies are preparing products to bridge this gap. ICICI Prudential Life has launched its SecureSave product aimed at retail customers, HDFC Standard's Unit Linked Wealth Multiplier targets High Networth Individuals while Max New York Life Insurance has played it safe with Smart Xpress, a limited premium payment ULIP product offering many options.
Pranav Mishra, senior vice-president and head, products, ICICI Pru, said: "Our experience shows that in the short term, equity investment is bound to be volatile. However, the growth potential of equity remains intact over a long term horizon. We realised that the investors want to invest in equity but still remains worried about the volatility, therefore they needed an investment with potential for upside, without the risk of loss."
ICICI Pru's SecureSave provides a guaranteed maturity benefit upto 150% of the sum of all the investment premiums paid as well as the additional advantage a limited premium payment term with minimum premium for 10-year tenure coming at Rs 20,000 per year.
Max New York's Smart Xpress offers single, three-year and five year premium payment options. The minimum single premium payable is Rs 1,50,000.


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Nio stock has been on a free fall for the better part of this year and today it has extended the fall after dropping by 4.67%.
Nio is among many stocks that had had a very strong growth pre-2021 only to come crashing.
Today’s crash can be mainly attributed to the skepticism among investors as they fear putting their money into shares of Chinese companies following the recent decision by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to tighten their grip on foreign companies listed in the US.
To help stock investors interested in investing in Nio stock, Invezz has created a brief article on what it is and where to buy it.
To find out more, please continue reading.
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What is NIO stock?
NIO stock is the stock of Nio Inc – ADRand it trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NYSE: NIO.
Nio is a Chinese multinational EV automaker. Its headquarters are in Shanghai.
Nio is among the foreign companies that are listed in the US stock market. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Should I buy Nio stock today?
The price of Nio stock has been on a downward trend for the better part of this year and the trend may accelerate especially following the recent decision by the US SEC to tighten its grip on foreign companies listed in the US stock market.
Therefore, it would only be safe to buy Nio stock after it submits the required accounts reports and other documentation for audit in compliance with the US SEC since if it doesn’t it risks being delisted.
Nio stock price prediction
Although most investors believe the Nio stock is one of the most undervalued EV automaker stocks, analysts speculate that the price of Nio stock will continue dropping until it complies with the new regulations from the US SEC.
$NIO social media coverage
The post Nio stock is down 4% amid stiff competition and delisting fears: here is where to trade it appeared first on Invezz.


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In Trollhättan, negotiations with some suppliers continue and, according to Saab employees, seem to be nearing completion. Also, further funding for Saab seems to be on the right track.The sale of the company property, followed by Saab's lease back, seems to be progressing decisively.
The originally intended buyer was the Convers group of Vladimir Antonov, around which it became very, very quiet. Meanwhile, Saab has an international one Broker switched on. Gunilla Gustavs from Saab's press office told the local press today that negotiations with a new buyer could be concluded soon. She put the sales value of the properties at 270 million Swedish kronor.
The sale of real estate is not a solution for long-term financing, that's clear. Saab bridges the time until a corresponding investor can get in and then buys back the buildings after the lease expires.


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Garbage and recyclable material will be picked up today, Thanksgiving Day, in Beaverton.
City officials say the most asked question at this time of year is: "What's my garbage day during holiday weeks?"
Unlike Thanksgiving, pickup will be delayed a day for Christmas Day and New Year's Day, which also fall on Thursdays this year. Garbage and recycling pickups will be on Friday those weeks. Also for those two weeks only, Friday customers will have Saturday pickups of garbage, recyclables and yard debris.
Regular service will resume the week of Jan. 5, 2009. For details visit http://tinyurl.com/6zp35z, or call 503-526-2665.


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Business and leisure travelers are increasingly concerned about their safety when they travel abroad, which somehow has a negative impact on global travel.
Police have intensified their manhunt for Joseph Jakubowski, a suspect who robbed a gun shop in Wisconsin and threatened to stage an attack sometime in the future.
Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau warns citizens on travelling to Middle Eastern countries for the possibility of ISIS terror attacks.
The travel industry would have to live up to offering different vacation getaway locations just so it can safeguard the safety of the travellers. One of the largest tour operators in Europe has revealed this news to CNBC.


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In a Wednesday morning interview with MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said Uber would likely shut down temporarily if it failed to appeal a recent ruling requiring immediate reclassification of its drivers as full-time employees. Currently, Uber’s business model relies on classifying drivers as “independent contractors” who do not enjoy the benefits or stability that come with employment.
"We think the ruling was unfortunate. We respect, obviously, the law and the court and the judge," Khosrowshahi said. "If the court doesn’t reconsider, then in California, it’s hard to believe we’ll be able to switch our model to full-time employment quickly, so I think Uber will shut down for a while."
In the interview, Khosrowshahi warned Uber may have to shut down until November, when voters will choose to accept or reject Proposition 22, a $110 million referendum led by Uber and backed by a coalition of gig economy companies to save their business model. Proposition 22 is meant to give drivers more protections while allowing Uber to still minimize labor costs, but researchers at the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that the measure would only guarantee $5.64 an hour, not the $15.60 an hour that Proposition 22 advocates promise.
The MSNBC interview is the latest in a round of public relations initiatives Uber has undertaken in order to beat back encroachments on its business model and propose alternatives to classifying drivers as employees. The company’s tooth-and-nail fight to convince lawmakers and the public hinges on the idea that Uber likely would not survive as a juggernaut if it had to treat drivers like other companies treat their employees. This argument is well-worn for Uber, as is the tactic of exiting uncooperative cities.
When pressed by Ruhle on what Uber would look like once it was AB5 compliant, Khosrowshahi replied: "You would get a much smaller service, much higher prices, and probably a service that's focused in the center of cities versus a bunch of the smaller cities or the suburbs that we operate in right now."
In a New York Times op-ed earlier this week, where Khosrowshahi proposed a new law that would force companies including Uber to pay into benefits funds for drivers, he made a similar argument. Khosrowshahi said that "drivers can continue to have the flexibility they have, but they can enjoy the protections—benefits fund, an earnings standard—so that they've got the protections many associate with full-time work." The op-ed also raised the specter of a very different Uber if it classified drivers as employees: expensive rides, fewer cities.
Indeed, Uber's value proposition to investors, according to its own IPO documents, would be "adversely affected if Drivers were classified as employees instead of independent contractors" because of the threat of unionization, minimum wages, benefits, and other unconscionable costs.
Currently, Uber is facing down a major tab in numerous jurisdictions arising from its mistreatment of drivers. Uber already owes New Jersey $650 million for unpaid unemployment insurance taxes from 2014 to 2018. Additionally, more than 5,000 Uber and Lyft drivers in California have collectively filed over $1.3 billion in wage claims (each company burns through hundreds of thousands of drivers each year). Uber and Lyft are also estimated to owe California $413 million in unpaid state unemployment insurance taxes from 2014 to 2019.
Research has shown that Uber drivers are neither flexible nor independent, but in fact tightly surveilled and controlled by a company that experts have said is likely violating antitrust law—all contrary to Khosrowshahi’s assertions. But there is likely truth to the idea that classifying drivers as employees rather than contractors would come at a major cost to the company.
It is not as though these conditions are propping up a money-maker. Despite Uber’s ubiquity, the company has never turned a profit and burns billions of dollars annually with spending on subsidies and promotions in order to extend its reach. In a 2019 SEC filing, Uber admitted that this strategy of gaining market share even at a steep financial cost “may adversely affect [Uber’s] financial performance.”
Uber has engaged in years of heavy-handed tactics to avoid any changes to its business model, including the threat of stopping or suspending service and appealing to the public.
In 2018, Veena Dubal, Ruth Berins Collier, and Christopher Carter, co-wrote a paper detailing how Uber regularly flaunted the law by either mobilizing its apps' users to help the company bully politicians into abandoning talk of regulation, or by simply leaving. When Austin lawmakers tried to require ride-hail drivers to get background checks, for example, Uber and Lyft put forward Proposition 1 to kill the reform—the referendum failed on May 7, and by May 9, Uber and Lyft were gone. Similar finger-printing requirements emerged in Houston and San Antonio. In Houston, Uber accepted the regulation before threatening to leave—it stayed once lobbying successfully overturned the decision. In San Antonio, Uber outright left in protest of the fingerprinting requirement, but returned as the city made fingerprinting optional.
It’s worth noting that Uber has had years to plan for re-classifying its drivers. Drivers have technically been employees since 2018’s Dynamex decision, and AB5 merely codified that California Supreme Court ruling.
While the goal of Uber’s PR push is to demonstrate its value to the public and to push back against re-classifying its drivers, ultimately, it reminds us that merely existing hurts the company and following the law just might kill it.
When Motherboard reached out to Uber for comment about its plans to restructure if the appeal failed, a spokesperson directed us to a motion Uber filed asking for a stay on the injunction to allow Uber a few weeks to seek its appeal.


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Why there is always a demands of iPhone’s in the market?
Apple Inc. is seeing higher iPhone requirement than it expected, thanks to 2 compels consumers find hard to resist: decreasing costs and the inevitable aging of old versions.
*Since lost vacation sales targets this past year, the company has cut some costs and provided more appealing trade-in prices. *
That is collaborated with the steady aging of iPhone 6 and 6s models, that broke Apple earnings records once they came out in late 2014 and 2015. Now, countless millions of users are seeking to update handsets hobbled by slow processors, weak batteries and lack of compatibility with the latest applications and solutions.
Sales of Apple’s iPhone 11 have been slightly higher than expected, according to individuals familiar with the matter. Earlier this season, Apple asked suppliers to make 70 to 75 million complete iPhone units for 2019. Now suppliers have been told to aim the high end of that range, said the individuals, who asked not to be identified discussing personal strategies.
The 999 variant of the iPhone 11 Pro with a 5.8-inch screen has also been among the most common new versions, the folks added. A recent research on Apple’s website showed many shops in the U.S, Greater China, the U.A.E, and Australia were offered from most of the Guru models, while the base iPhone 11 was still abundant. Many versions ordered online now will not arrive till early November.
Since Apple unveiled the new handsets on Sept. 10, the organization’s stock has jumped into a record. Shares of several providers also have rallied.
Apple stocks are trading back in record levels
Consumer interest in the iPhone 11 indicates Apple might be handling an issue that has plagued its own lower-end models lately: several men and women want the very best iPhones, but can not afford them. The iPhone 11 bridges that difference. The only major differences between that model and the iPhone 11 Guru is a third-camera for zoom and the resolution of this screen. Reviews of this iPhone 11 are positive, with praise coming for the consistency of this camera between the regular iPhone 11 along with the Pro version.
Shannon Cross of Cross Research credited the strong requirement into the reduce cost of this iPhone 11, the demand for clients to update older devices, and longer battery life of their iPhone 11 Pro.
While the iPhone 11 along with iPhone 11 Professional lines aren’t major overhauls, the apparatus have came since some of the most popular iPhones ever are getting so old that many consumers will have to upgrade soon.
The normal iPhone user upgrades every four years, analysts estimate, so handsets purchased in 2015 are most likely to be replaced. This was the year that the iPhone really went mainstream after the debut of the bigger 6 and 6 Plus versions at late 2014. The business offered a record 231 million units in its 2015 financial year, up 37% from a year before.
Consumers of 2014 iPhones will also be finding that iOS 13, the company’s latest mobile software update, does not work with their handsets. That means they are missing out on new attributes for example Black Mode, services like Apple Arcade, along with fresh programs from third party developers.
why there is an iPhone Upgrade Fever?
Over 40% of iPhone owners are employing a model that first came out before 2017, based on data from Mixpanel Inc.. That means there are about 350 million of those devices primed to get an update, dependent on an iPhone installed base of more than 900 million.
In a research note from September, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi forecast Apple to sell about 368 million iPhones at 2019 and 2020. That could be down from the 434 million units sold in 2017 and 2018 combined. But since Apple missed earnings goals late last year, expectations are somewhat more muted, and a few of Wall Street’s attention has shifted to the business’s growing digital services industry.
“Upgrading the install base is 1 thing, but additional factors such as services earnings are crucial too,” Cross explained.
The business is scheduled to report financial fourth-quarter results on Oct. 30 and analysts expect earnings of $66.9 billion, about the same as last year. Apple will ship 30.9 million iPhones at the interval, down 13% from a year earlier, based on Sacconaghi’s estimates from September. That quarter includes less than fourteen days if the new handsets were offered to purchase.
Investors will be watching Apple’s forecast closely. The fiscal first quarter covers the 2019 holiday period once the business will market a lot more fresh iPhones. Analysts are looking for revenue of approximately $86.3 billion, 2 percent higher than last year. Apple will ship 66.2 million handsets that quarter, up 2 percent from the exact same period a year ago, based on Sacconaghi.
The Cupertino, California-based tech giant might have yet another strong showing next year once it starts its first iPhone design overhaul because 2017 and its first low-end variant since 2016.


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Call it foresight, but Microsoft is equipping Windows 8.1 with a big, significant feature: native support for 3D printers.
As a part of its ongoing unveiling of Windows 8.1, Microsoft announced that the upcoming update will come with device-specific APIs for not only scanners and point-of-service devices but 3D printers as well.
While that’s a bit jargon-heavy, essentially what it means is that Microsoft is treating 3D printing in Windows 8 just like it treats 2D printing. By building 3D printing support into Windows, Microsoft is giving the technology a major vote of confidence. 3D printers will just work.
We don’t have much info besides that, but the most obvious conclusion to make here is Windows 8.1 is going to make life a lot easier for designers and 3D printer owners. And that’s good news for the 3D-printing industry.
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Aggieland Outfitters profit share Wednesday benefiting “Aggie Rings for Veterans” Fund
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - Aggieland Outfitters is hosting a profit share event on Veterans Day. A portion of the proceeds from Wednesday’s sales will go to the “Aggie Rings for Veterans” Fund. The nonprofit provides Aggie Rings to veterans.
One of the store directors says they hosted the first Veterans Day profit share last year and were able to raise enough money for one Aggie Ring for a veteran. This year, they’re hoping to raise enough money for two rings.
“These men and women mean so much to us. These are the people that go and sacrifice so much and ask for nothing in return. And to us, it just means so much that we want to find any opportunity we can to give back them," said Cole Geist with Aggieland Outfitters.
The profit share is being held all day Wednesday, November 11 at both College Station store locations and online. The store also offers a military discount year round.
Copyright 2020 KBTX. All rights reserved.


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HideAway Used Books is excited to announce that we are moving to a new location!
Located less than a full block away, the bookstore will be expanding from it’s current 1100 sq. ft, location on Center Street, to a 1700 sq. ft. building at 8 E. Main Street, in American Fork. This space is next to Tangie’s Cafe, and was most recently occupied by Revity.
To facilitate a quick move, the bookstore will be closed at 3 p.m. Oct. 31, and reopen at the Main Street store, at 10 a.m. Nov. 13.
HideAway Books will be participating in the annual Halloween on Main event on Oct. 31, from 3:30 to 5:30, handing out candy, toys, books, and a bookmark in front of the new location.
As a side note, we will not be able to take additional books for store credit or donation until Dec. 1, in order to get our current inventory organized.
Thanks to the amazing community of book lovers who have made this growth possible.


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real-time news and commentary for investors
Tuesday, Sep 10
Perrigo gets FDA approval for generic version of Children's Zyrtec allergy syrup
- Perrigo (PRGO +0.3%) says it's landed final approval from the FDA for its abbreviated new drug application for a bubble gum-flavored cetirizine hydrochloride oral solution, the generic version of Children's Zyrtec Allergy Syrup.
- The company plans to begin shipments during the next cough, cold and flu season.


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About 100 vendors at Snoeung Market in Battambang province’s Banan district have resolved to ignore today’s relocation deadline and instead travel to Battambang town to protest in front of provincial headquarters, a vendor representative said Thursday.
“If we still haven’t heard from district officials, we will take taxis to the provincial offices to ask for help,” Bun Thet said.
The vendors were notified by authorities on Wednesday that they would need to move from their current location because the market was interfering with a proposed road upgrade.
District authorities have suggested that the vendors pay between US$800 and $1,000 to set up shop in a market about 200 metres away, but the vendors have said they cannot afford the new stalls.
Banan district Governor Sreng Sreang on Thursday reiterated officials’ position that the market would interfere with the road upgrade.
“The upgrade will impact all of the land on which the old market is built,” he said.


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6 Reasons Why Retail Isn't Going Anywhere
WASHINGTON, DC—The specter of e-commerce as a retail killer is overwrought and overplayed. Here are six reasons why the brick and mortar retail center will continue to flourish.
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