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Who made your World Cup jersey?
Such factories underscore the continuing struggle for many of South Asia’s 40 mn garment workers, who have long grappled with poor working conditions and wages, and whose troubles have been exacerbated by the pandemic
As the World Cup in Qatar kicked off last week, millions of fans pulled on jerseys costing $90 to $150 that were sold by Nike and Adidas, the official outfitter of this year’s tournament. Players, wearing new, brightly coloured uniforms, slipped into shiny cleats and shoes that can retail for more than $200. But what did the people who made these items get paid? In the case of 7,800 workers at the Pou Chen Group factory in Yangon, Myanmar, a supplier of soccer shoes for Adidas, the answer is 4,800 kyat, or $2.27, per day. The Myanmar factory underscores the continuing struggle for many of South Asia’s 40 million garment workers, who have long grappled with poor working conditions and wages, and whose troubles have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Now, with the biggest sporting event in the world underway, efforts by some labourers to improve their working conditions have been met with harsh resistance and punishment.
After workers began a strike in October, demanding a daily wage of $3.78, factory managers called soldiers into the complex and later fired 26 workers. They included 16 members of the factory’s union, who were believed to have led the strike of more than 2,000 employees. In interviews last week, several workers said they believed the factory was using the opportunity to punish workers engaged in organized labor, at a time when Myanmar’s ruling military junta is looking to dismantle democratic structures.
At the same time, rising inflation and a weakened currency are putting pressure on the livelihoods of people in Myanmar. Since last year’s coup, the kyat has fallen more than 50 percent against the dollar, and the cost of groceries, transportation and housing has skyrocketed. One worker, already in poor health, said she had gone three days without food until fellow workers bought her some.
Another worker, 22, who hopes to get her job back, spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared retaliation by her employer. “We worry so much about paying the rent and sending money home to our families so that they can survive,” she said. “It was already so hard before, which is why we asked for more money. And now, without our jobs, it is so much harder. I cannot afford to eat.” In an emailed statement from Pou Chen’s headquarters in Taiwan, the company said that it followed local laws and regulations in handling employees’ salaries and personnel matters and that it respected workers’ right to bargain collectively.
“We are going through an arbitration process with the claimants as per Myanmar’s legal procedure,” the email said, referring to the fired workers. Adidas also provided a statement. “Adidas has objected strongly to these dismissals, which are in breach of our workplace standards and our longstanding commitment to upholding workers’ freedom of association,” the company said. “We are investigating the lawfulness of the supplier’s actions, and we have called on Pou Chen to immediately reinstate the dismissed workers.”
Most Western fashion and sportswear brands do not own production facilities, instead contracting with independent factories or suppliers, often in the Global South, to make their garments. This means they are not technically the employers of these workers, and therefore are not legally responsible for enforcing labor standards or human rights.
Some companies, such H&M, Adidas and Nike, have recently made parts of their supply chain more visible by publishing factory supplier information for their garments, and Adidas provides a separate list of its World Cup apparel suppliers. Nike, which produces kits (as soccer uniforms are called) for 13 World Cup teams such as the United States, England and Brazil, does not publish a separate list of World Cup suppliers, making it harder to track down where they were made.
And transparency about suppliers doesn’t guarantee accountability across the fashion supply chain, which has long been met by union busting — practices intended to prevent or disrupt the formation of unions or attempts to expand membership.
Trax Apparel, a factory in Cambodia where 2,800 workers make soccer shirts for Adidas as well as for the British soccer team Manchester United, laid off eight workers in 2020 after they formed a union to seek better working conditions. The factory’s management said it would reinstate only four of the eight, and only if the union agreed not to fight for the others’ reinstatement or full back pay. Seeing no alternative, the union signed an agreement surrendering these rights.
“I kept waiting for a call, but it never came,” said Sophal Choun, 41, who earned $7 a day at a sewing machine at the factory. “It took a year and a half to find another job — I had to ask my siblings to help support my two young children and take out a loan to keep going with a very high premium which I am now struggling to pay.” She added: “I believed in a union because I knew we needed protection. Now, many days I just cry and cry.” Trax Apparel, whose owners are based in Thailand, did not respond to a request for comment. The predicament of the garment workers is among several serious social issues that have been brought to light during this year’s World Cup. A storm of criticism has been levelled at Qatar over human rights issues, including the authoritarian monarchy’s criminalization of homosexuality and the well-documented abuse of migrant workers.
Seven European nations, including England and Germany, planned to wear rainbow-coloured armbands with the phrase “One Love” as a show of support for minority groups, including L.G.B.T. people. But they backed down last week after FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, said that the armbands violated its strict uniform rules for the tournament and that any player wearing one would be issued a yellow card, essentially a warning of misconduct that can lead to suspension. Still, German players managed a protest of sorts by covering their mouths in a pre-match team photo. And Hummel made a sponsorless, monochrome kit for Danish players in protest of Qatar.
Some people who applaud these protests think that the predicament of garment workers behind the World Cup kits should be recognized, too. “While there has rightly been significant coverage of the conditions facing migrant workers in Qatar, there has been a complete absence of focus on the serious rights abuses of garment workers making World Cup kits,” said Thulsi Narayanasamy, director of international advocacy at the nonprofit Worker Rights Consortium. “The ability of workers to collectively stand together to ensure better conditions in their factories is a basic human right.”


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Author\'s Attempt to Promote Book Backfires
NYTimes Story on David A. Vise, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Washington Post and author of the new book \"The Bureau and the Mole.\"
He bought 20,000 copies of his book, then returned about 17,500 copies and asked for his money back. A rival publisher grumbled that Mr. Vise appeared to be trying to manipulate best-seller lists by bolstering sales of his book.
He said he never meant to manipulate best-seller lists or to profit from reselling his books, and conducted all transactions in the open, under his own name. \"My goal was to increase awareness of `The Bureau and the Mole,\' \" he said.

domain: news


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Amazon is actively working on its first wearable product with Alexa integration according to a new report from Bloomberg. The product? Completely wireless earbuds that work much like Apple's AirPods do.
The earbuds will have touch-sensitive controls, typically relying on taps on the earbuds to control music or answer a phone call, as well as an always listening feature, using Alexa as the wake command that can be used to get weather updates, order products, and other common tasks Alexa is used for.
Charging the earbuds will be done through the case, which will itself charge via a USB cable. This is the same way Samsung's Galaxy Buds and Apple's AirPods charge.
Apple's AirPods first launched in 2016 and slowly became a hit. More recently, Apple launched an updated version that includes always-listening Hey Siri functionality and improved battery life for phone calls. Apple's AirPods currently cost between $159 and $199, depending on the type of charging case you purchase.
It's unclear how much Amazon plans to charge for the earbuds.
According to Bloomberg, the new earbuds are expected to launch sometime in the second half of 2019. In 2018, Amazon held an event in September where it announced a long list of products from an Alexa-enabled clock to a microwave, also with Alexa in tow.
ZDNet reached out to Amazon for comment and will update this post should we hear back.


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Shaheen's 2nd TV ad focuses on small business
Timed with the start of national small business week U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is launching her second television ad highlighting her work with small businesses.
"Jeanne Shaheen is working hard to support small businesses, the backbone of New Hampshire's economy," said campaign manager Mike Vlacich. "Jeanne Shaheen helped craft the Small Business Jobs Act that cut taxes for small businesses and boosted access to credit to help create jobs. She is working to expand opportunities for small businesses to export and sell their products and services to growing markets around the globe. And as a leading proponent of STEM education and job-training programs, she is working to ensure that businesses have access to the best and brightest employees in New Hampshire."
In the Senate, Jeanne Shaheen is a member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
The new 30-second television spot features Adria Bagshaw, the vice president of W.H. Bagshaw Company, a family owned New Hampshire small business. Adria Bagshaw is also the chair of the New Hampshire Small Business Development Center Advisory Board.
Republicans called the ad "a desperate attempt to distract from her abysmal record."
"New Hampshire job creators know that Senator Shaheen has been a disaster for small business, and they are ready to replace her with a responsible Republican in November," said state Republican Chair Jennifer Horn.
Her potential Republican opponent, Scott Brown, has not been up with television ads since April 27.


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Toshiba UK product marketing manager Murray McKerlie said the figures were a surprise as strong government and utilities sales usually make February or March meatier months. McKerlie said that Toshiba sold around 20,000 PCs in the UK in October, including its Infinia desktops. At the Comdex US trade show in November, Toshiba is expected to show off its first PC server products to be available outside Japan.
However, old adversary Compaq is known to be readying a fresh blitz in portables. The firm will folow up its recent aggressive roll-outs with a line of new products to be announced early in the new year.
In the US, Compaq has recently been successful in grabbing back market share. Indeed, according to new figures published by Computer Intelligence, Compaq notebooks outsold Toshiba in the US in September. Compaq had released new US notebooks in August.
In the UK, as in the US, Toshiba remains a distant leader in annual notebook sales.


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The cruise line, which features some of the biggest ships operating on the high seas, is asking Australians and New Zealanders to post their “wow” moments on special website to win a cruise prize.
The campaign is designed to underpin Royal Caribbean’s “wow” moments advertising campaign.
A microsite, instafilmfestival.com.au, has been launched to hold the entries to the competition.
A panel of august movie judges is being formed, and a film festival is planned aboard one of the line’s ships in Sydney Harbour next year.
A people’s choice will also feature.
Entrants don’t have to be cruise linked, but must feature a “wow” moment.
The entry address is @RoyalCaribbean_aunz
Win one of four cruises to tropical Queensland!
Cruise from Sydney to Tangalooma Resort on the world’s 3rd largest sand island, Moreton Island. Or departing from Brisbane, sail to stunning Airlie Beach – the gateway to the GBR where you can take day trips to iconic locations like Hamilton Island and Whitehaven Beach.


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JINAN, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- The first two-way China-Europe freight train route linking east China's port city of Qingdao in Shandong Province with Mannheim in Germany entered service on Friday.
The first outbound train, which departed from Qingdao, is carrying raw chemical materials, auto parts, daily necessities and other goods worth about 2.5 million U.S. dollars. It will leave China via the Alataw Pass port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and reach its destination in Germany in about 19 days, according to operator Shandong Hi-speed Group.
On the same day, a train loaded with sheet materials left Mannheim and is expected to enter China via Erenhot in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and arrive in Qingdao in mid-March.
In 2021 alone, over 1,800 China-Europe freight trains were handled in Shandong Province. Via a total of 51 international train routes, goods from Shandong can reach 54 cities and 23 countries along the Belt and Road, according to the group. ■


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It just got a whole lot easier to get your hands on an iPhone 5 if you don’t live in the U.S. or Canada, as it’s now available through select regional carriers across the U.S. and the iPhone 5 has landed in 22 more countries worldwide.
A week after Apple released the iPhone 5 with AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, the iPhone 5 comes to other regional carriers including Appalachian Wireless, Cellcom, Cricket, C Spire, GCI, and nTelos. Cellcom, nTelos, and Appalachian are offering the iPhone 5 for $50 cheaper than major carriers with the 16GB at $149, the 32GB at $249, and the 64GB for $349. CSpire and GCI haven’t listed prices yet and Cricket is offering the iPhone 5 without a contract starting at $499.
On top of that, the iPhone 5 has finally landed in 22 more countries around the world. However, with continued stock shortages, online orders in the newly-added countries will still have a wait. New orders from Apple’s online store are currently at a 3-4 weeks shipping delay.
The new countries now offering the iPhone 5 include:
- Czech Republic
- New Zealand


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Industrial Production Plummets
Manufacturing activity weak almost across the board.
Overall industrial production fell sharply at the end of 2022. The headline index plummeted 0.7%, the second consecutive month of decline and below expectations for a modest drop of 0.1%. Declines were widespread across the production of consumer and business goods. Capacity utilization also dropped sharply. Revisions to November were down significantly, another ominous sign for the economy heading into 2023.
The index that tracks the manufacturing sector, which constitutes nearly three-quarters of the headline index, showed the sharpest contraction in December. The sector declined by 1.3% in the month, over a percentage-point below expectations for a contraction of 0.2%. The November decline was revised significantly lower, bringing the 12-month change down -0.5%. The annualized quarterly growth rate at year-end declined by 2.5%, the second consecutive quarter of decline. That suggests that the U.S. economy is poised for a weak start to 2023. With only a few exceptions, a multi-quarter decline in manufacturing activity tends to result in an economy-wide contraction.
The Federal Reserve’s continued fight against inflation is weighing on business investment. Production of business equipment declined by 2.0% in December, after falling by almost the same amount in November. All three major market groups, transit equipment, information processing and industrial and other equipment declined. Widespread declines are expected to continue as business demand for investment goods softens while the Fed continues to raise borrowing costs in the first half of 2023.
Easing in energy prices wasn’t enough to offset high inflation and tight financial conditions for consumers at year-end. The market index for consumer goods contracted by 0.1% in December, the second straight month of decline. The drop would have been worse had the production of energy goods not jumped by 3.1%. Natural gas prices have continued to decrease in January, but oil and gasoline prices have gained over the first half of the month, suggesting the tailwind to production of energy goods could soften in January.
Production of goods tied to the most interest rate-sensitive sectors continued to slip. The housing market contraction weighed on both the production of construction supplies and consumer goods tied to house purchases like appliances, furniture and carpeting. Motor vehicle assembly was also down for both automobiles and trucks. The index that tracks production of motor vehicles and parts declined for the second straight month. This sector is likely to continue to contract at the start of 2023.
One of the few areas of strength in the report was the 1.0% increase in December for production of defense and space goods. The war in Ukraine and elevated geopolitical tensions elsewhere have lifted activity in the sector. The changeover in Congress though raises uncertainty about the willingness to continue to support defense spending for Ukraine.
One of the reasons that the first half contraction in economic activity in 2022 wasn’t deemed a recession is because activity in the industrial sector, which tends to lead recessions, continued to grow. That is unlikely to be the case at the start of 2023. Consumers will continue to be squeezed by tighter financial conditions and persistent inflation. Capital costs will likely remain elevated, weighing on investment. Forward-looking survey data are already signaling further contraction in the months ahead as the Fed is expected to continue to raise rates. That is going to mean tough times ahead for manufacturers.


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The huge Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) vs Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) war in the tech industry shows no sign of resolving anytime soon, as Qualcomm recently came out with yet another explosive accusation levelled at the smartphone giant. This time around, Qualcomm claim that Apple has been involved in a “multi-year campaign of sloppy, inappropriate and deceitful conduct” in order to steal Qualcomm’s trade secrets and embolden their rival, Intel. The accusation made in a legal filing on Tuesday, seen by Reuters.
The Apple and Qualcomm feud is nothing new and goes back a long way. Back in May of 2017, Dazeinfo reported on the souring of the relationship between these two giants of the tech industry. The basic bone of contention was Apple’s claim that Qualcomm was abusing patent rules to unfairly hike their fees, effectively earning money off of Apple’s hard work and innovation.
Since Qualcomm’s royalty business is by far their most profitable enterprise, they did not take kindly to Apple’s accusations and hit back at them by suing them for $1 billion! Apple, in turn, responded by stopping payments to iPhone manufacturers for royalties owed to Qualcomm. This was a kick in the gut for Qualcomm and had a marked effect on their bottom line. However, instead of buckling, Qualcomm responded in kind by attempting to get certain iPhone models banned from being put up for sale in the US.
Now, it seems like things are about to get even more tenuous between the two companies.
Back in November 2017, Qualcomm filed a complaint accusing Apple of breaking a software license contract regarding sharing of confidential information pertaining to Qualcomm chips with their new partner and Qualcomm rival Intel. Under the terms of a deal the two made in 2010, Qualcomm would provide their code to Apple on the condition that Apple would give it the same level of protection as their own code, and also allow Qualcomm to audit Apple’s security practices and compliance with the agreement. According to the complaint filed by Qualcomm in November, Apple subsequently refused to let Qualcomm do so.
However, Qualcomm has now amended its complaint and escalated it even further. They now claim “breach of contract and trade secret misappropriation”, and are seeking damages to cover earnings lost as well as a punitive measure. The complaint also alleges that source code and software tools were illegally misappropriated by Apple in order to help Intel bring their supposedly inferior chips on par with Qualcomm’s.
On their part, Apple filed a Motion to Compel in this case in late August in order to get Qualcomm to present evidence to back up their allegations. They currently maintain that even Qualcomm’s more recent filing is devoid of any evidence. In turn, Qualcomm is also pointing towards an anonymous internet posting by a supposed ex-Intel employee who claims that they “were told to ignore intellectual property rights when designing the modem”, and that there was “a conspiracy to copy Qualcomm’s technology by hints from Apple about the ‘reference device.'”
This case is now just one of several legal disputes involving these two companies. Both sides have levelled some pretty serious accusations at each other, and both now stand to lose a lot if the courts don’t decide in their favour. It is, therefore, no surprise that recently Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf touched on the possibility of an out of court settlement between the two litigious tech giants.


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In the global semiconductor industry, the United States is still the strongest. American companies account for 68% of the global fabless semiconductor industry.
Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) will display Pro AV solutions with Any-to-Any connectivity at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2017. Xilinx and its Alliance Members' high bandwidth video processing and compression demonstrations increase innovation, differentiation, and time-to-market.
Xilinx, Inc. (Nasdaq: XLNX) today announced third quarter fiscal 2017 sales of $586 million, up 1% sequentially, and up 3% from the third quarter of the prior fiscal year. Third quarter net income was $142 million, or $0.52 per diluted share.
Space Grade Virtex-5QV devices provide scalability and flexibility for new applications and innovations throughout its operational life in space
Demonstrations include machine learning, computer vision and sensor fusion on Zynq SoC and Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC devices.
today announced that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is deploying Xilinx 16nm UltraScale+™ Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) in the new Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (Amazon EC2) F1 instance type, accelerating genomics, financial analytics, video processing, big data, security, and machine learning inference workloads.


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The AO Media 100 are creating new revenue opportunities in the more than $16.4 billion online advertising market by disrupting traditional media and advertising models
London, UK (PRWEB) January 19, 2007
Box UK today announced that it has been chosen by AlwaysOn Media as one of the AO Media 100 Top Private Companies. AO Media 100 is a power list of the top private digital media companies. Box UK's clickdensity, the online tool that provides immediate visual insight into website usability and visitor experience, was handpicked by the AO Media editorial team based on a set of five criteria--innovation, market potential, customer adoption, media buzz and investor value creation.
clickdensity and the AO Media 100 will be honored at the AO Media executive summit January 29-31, 2007 at The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City. The summit will focus on the forces that are disrupting user behavior and creating new opportunities in marketing, branding, advertising, and public relations. The event will also showcase top innovative private companies that are changing the way media is created, distributed and consumed.
"The AO Media 100 are creating new revenue opportunities in the more than $16.4 billion online advertising market by disrupting traditional media and advertising models," said Tony Perkins, founder and editor in chief of AlwaysOn. "They are innovating by applying game-changing technology to key sectors including user-generated content, technology-enablers, mobile marketing, community platforms, Web analytics, and online advertising services."
The AO Media 100 was selected from over 1,000 companies, peer-nominated by leading venture capitalists, investment bankers and industry analysts.
clickdensity was selected for providing users with an instant visual insight into website design and layout and visitor behaviour. Using virtual heat maps, click maps and more, to show users the most frequently clicked on page areas, clickdensity is transforming attitudes to usability.
A full list of all the AO Media 100 companies can be found on the AlwaysOn Web site at http://www.alwayson.goingon.com/.
Box UK Managing Director, Benno Wasserstein, is delighted by this latest success:
"Everyone at Box UK is extremely proud to receive this latest prestigious accolade for clickdensity. We've worked very hard to make it the most comprehensive usability and visitor behaviour analysis tool and there really aren't many higher levels of commendation."
For more information, visit: http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/8813
About AO Media 2007
January 29-31 @ The Mandarin Oriental Hotel, NYC
AlwaysOn Media is where cutting-edge technology CEOs from the back streets of Silicon Valley meet the global advertising and media establishment. This two-and-a-half-day executive event features CEO presentations and high-level debates on which forces are disrupting user behavior and creating new opportunities in the marketing, branding, advertising, and public relations industries. At AlwaysOn Media, our editors will also honor the AO Media 100 Top Private Companies. Fifty of the top CEOs from the AO Media 100 will pitch their market strategies to a panel of industry experts in our "CEO Showcase."
About Box UK
Box UK (http://www.boxuk.com/) was founded in 1998 and has earned an enviable reputation in the field of Internet development, design and consultancy.
Since its inception, the company has created dynamic and innovative web applications, utilising internally developed, cutting-edge technology.
Box UK is renowned for its expertise in all areas of web development - including the market-leading Amaxus® (http://www.boxuk.com/amaxus) and Connetric™ (http://www.connetric.com/) content management systems and Accuda™ (http://www.accuda.com/) sales personalisation tool.
The company's ever-growing list of prestigious clients currently includes the Royal Navy, Saatchi & Saatchi, Lloyds TSB Insurance, English Heritage, British Computer Society, Wales Tourist Board, London Development Agency, Chubb, Royal Observatory Greenwich, UK Atomic Energy Authority and the Imperial War Museum.
AlwaysOn ignited the open-media revolution in early 2003 by being the first media brand to launch a global blog network. In 2004, AlwaysOn continued to lead the media industry in innovation by introducing a social network where members can connect and engage. AlwaysOn is also revolutionizing the media business by applying its open-media principles to its executive event series (Stanford Summit, AlwaysOn Hollywood, AlwaysOn Media and GoingGreen) and quarterly print "blogozine" by empowering its members to post and share their ideas and meet each other online. As our loyal readers know, AlwaysOn is committed to the free-market, merit-driven approach to reporting and event programming. No other media brand has dared to create such open interaction with its readers and event participants.


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The American Pharmacist Pfizer announced this Tuesday that it expects to bill about 15,000 million dollars (about 12,460 million euros current change) this year with its COVID-19 vaccine developed together with BioNTech, which involves 25% of your business forecasts.
Pfizer, which reported its quarterly and cumulative results this morning, noted that its total billing forecasts are between the 59,400 and 61,400 million dollars for the entire fiscal year, a figure that reflects the progressive vaccination of the countries and their economic recovery.
In 2020, the company obtained a profit of 9,616 million dollars, 41% less than the previous year, while its revenues increased 2%, to 41,908 million, mainly thanks to the sales of its oncology and internal medicine products.
“Our ability to move fast and use cutting-edge science to help tackle the world’s greatest medical challenges was put to the test by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our record-breaking success in developing a vaccine, along with our partner BioNTech, it’s just one example of what this new Pfizer is capable of, “said its CEO, Albert Bourla.
Two months ago, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech was the first in the world to be approved for emergency use by the authorities, in the United Kingdom, and now has green light in more than fifty countries, but the problems have been transferred to its distribution.
Pfizer noted that has agreed to supply 200 million doses with the US Government and it advanced its delivery date to “the end of May” when it had previously spoken of July, while in the cases of the European Union, with which it has agreed to supply 300 million doses, and the COVAX platform, 40 million doses, he did not specify the dates.
The pharmaceutical company already registered an improvement in its figures in the fourth quarter of 2020, including the first sales of the anticovid vaccine that generated 154 million dollars.
Between October and December, Pfizer obtained a profit of 594 million, reversing the losses of 337 million that it suffered in the same period of 2019, and had a turnover of 11,684 million, 12% higher year-on-year.
During the quarter, Pfizer finalized the merger operation announced in 2019 between its Upjohn business and GlaxoSmithKline’s Mylan firm, creating a new generic drug maker called Viatris.
In the year, half of the sales have corresponded to oncological products (almost 11,000 million dollars, with a growth of 21%) and internal medicine (9,000 million, 2% more).
Pfizer’s vaccines division brought in about 6,500 million (2% more) and the one with the highest projection was that of rare diseases, which grew 29% to almost 3,000 million.
Pfizer raised its earnings per share forecast in 2021 “primarily due to further refinements to the COVID-19 vaccine billing outlook” to a range of $ 3.10 to $ 3.20, up from $ 3 to $ 3. , 10 which he had announced in mid-January.
The results had a mixed reception on Wall Street and at the beginning of the session its shares fell about 3%. In the last year, they have lost 3% of their value.
Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.


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Professional and amateur golfers in the City of London and beyond are set to be hearing much more about Spain’s La Manga Club following the announcement of a new partnership between the leading European resort and N1 GOLF Venues.
The award-winning sports and leisure destination resort in Murcia, south-east Spain, has finalised a deal to become the official Spanish resort partner for N1 GOLF which, in addition to its flagship London site at Greenwich Peninsula, includes seven other golf tuition venues across the country.
As part of the new agreement, La Manga Club will work together with N1 GOLF on a host of activation projects, starting with its team of 40 golf coaching professionals – and also with select promotions to its members, individuals and corporations across the City.
Brendan Dwyer, commercial and resort marketing director at La Manga Club, said: “La Manga Club is delighted to have teamed up with N1 GOLF Venues and we’re very excited at the new opportunities that it presents.
“The new partnership will help give the resort increased exposure in a key target market, giving golfers in the city and across the country the chance to enjoy one of the world’s elite sports and leisure destinations.”
N1 Golf Venues is the largest golf academy in Europe, offering golfers of all abilities a first-class learning experience at its eight English venues in Greenwich, Barnet, Maidenhead, Nottingham, Northampton, Shefford in Bedfordshire, Morpeth near Newcastle and Swadlincote, Derbyshire.
Occupying 300 yards of Thames waterfront land, adjacent to the O₂ and with views to Canary Wharf and beyond, its state-of-the art academy and driving range at Greenwich has proved an instant success since opening 12 months ago, with an estimated 35,000 balls being hit every day.
Phil Richins, director of marketing and events at N1 GOLF Venues, said: “All our partners are carefully selected with the aim of offering our members and guests the best possible experiences in golf, and working with La Manga Club will enable them to benefit from an array of promotional offers at one of the most famous golf resorts in the world.”
Set across an area of 1,400 acres in Murcia, south-east Spain, La Manga Club is widely recognised as Spain’s flagship resort and has been at the forefront of sports and leisure destinations across Europe and beyond since opening in 1972.
A five-time host of the Spanish Open, the resort’s extensive golf facilities include three 18-hole courses, a nine-hole academy course and a recently-opened Leadbetter Golf Academy – the only one in mainland Spain.
Named as ‘Spain’s Best Golf Hotel’ at the World Golf Awards for the last two years, La Manga Club – the official overseas training base of the Lawn Tennis Association – also boasts a 28-court tennis academy, a new High Performance Sports Centre and 2,000m² spa and fitness complex. In addition, it offers the choice of a five-star hotel, four-star serviced apartments and townhouses and more than 20 bars and restaurants.
La Manga Club www.lamangaclub.com.


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ORGANIC farming in Valencia has grown 81.2% in the past five years, more than anywhere else in Spain and exceeding Spain’s average which is only at 20.7%.
The region has seen a huge increase in organic farming due to the launch of a €78.76 million Ecological Production Plan to promote organic farming, provide certification and help transition producers to organic methods.
The Ecological Production Report by the Ministry of Agriculture, shows the number of organic farming operators has also grown by 46.1%, whilst the rest of the country has only grown by 25.9%.
Valencia turned over €626 million, which is 19.6% of the total €3.1 billion for the whole country.
There is a total 146,757 hectares of land being farmed organically in Valencia, making it the fourth biggest in Spain after Catalunya, Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucia.
The fruit and vegetables produced in Valencia are generally larger and the harvests more fruitful than in other parts of Spain.
The Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy, the EU’s flagship food policy, had previously set out targets; 50% reduction in the use and risk of pesticides, a 50% reduction in the sales of antimicrobials, and a goal of reaching 25% of agricultural land under organic farming.
After its release last year, farmers were doubtful over their ability to transition without funding, due to the pressures of agricultural competition as well as the consequences on the industry from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The European Commission has set a target of 25% organically farmed land in each EU country, which parts of Spain such as Catalunya, Andalucia and Navarra are already close to meeting.
Spain is the EU member state with the highest percentage of agricultural land under organic farming, and the third highest worldwide after Australia and Argentina, according to the Spanish Professional Association of Organic Farming Ecovalia.
- Organic growth spurt in Spain
- FROM FARM TO FORK: EU announces farming overhaul to improve animal welfare and tackle climate change
- Locals invited to apply for one of 28 urban ‘eco gardens’ in Orihuela on Spain’s Costa Blanca


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European shower cabin manufacturer Insignia Showers has reported a record growth over the first half of 2019, with a sales increase of 47% on the previous year.
The company cited the growth came from its second Generation showers, with the introduction of Insignia’s leak free shower cabins less than a year ago.
And Insignia Showers has planned a “major expansion” in its shower cabin range for late 2019, in anticipation for expected 2020 demand.
To support its continued growth and expansion, Insignia Showers has also announced plans to expand its warehousing operation by 50,000sqft for its UK-based operation.
CEO of Insignia Shower Leon Maclean, commented: “This is a marvellous year for us so far, all major players in the bathroom industry now sell Insignia products and the knock on is, of course, the extra revenue they have gained from this as well.
“It’s a hand in glove operation as we work very closely with our retailers to satisfy both needs and expectations.”
“Our expansion in warehousing allows stocking a great deal more product and what used to be a build to landed time scale of 13 weeks, is now greatly reduced to around 28 days.
“Brexit is of course a very large issue for all of us. We thought long and hard about worse case scenarios over the last two years, and why concentration was given towards our UK market share giving a greater degree of company stability and security over potential no deal EU markets we currently exist in.”
He added: “In addition to our most successful year ever, we are also proud to announce future build contracts have now been secured forming a multi-million pound commitment over the next 24 months.
“This we see as commitment to both our level of faith in the UK bathroom market, our retailers, and very importantly, job security for our great teams, both in the UK and overseas.”


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According to analysis by IDC, total sales will decrease by up to 3.5 percent in 2022. Apple’s tightly controlled supply chain is supposed to help the iPhone.
From the upcoming smartphone Crisis in the world market Apple should be less affected than other major manufacturers. This is what the analysts at the International Data Corporation (IDC) assume. According to their latest numbers, there will be no growth for the overall market in 2022. Instead of a previously forecast plus of 1.6 percent, the market experts now expect a minus of 3.5 percent to a total of 1.31 billion devices sold worldwide.
Zero-COVID and a drop in demand
This is mainly due to the supply chain restrictions triggered by the strict zero-COVID policy in China due to the omicron variant of the corona virus. The resulting effects resulted in a lower supply of components, and in some cases entire factories – for example in Shanghai – that were busy with the final assembly of smartphones came to a standstill. According to the IDC figures, however, demand is also lower, which in turn is likely to have something to do with the Ukraine conflict and the sharp rise in oil and gas prices.
But the lockdowns also ensured that the huge Chinese market was affected because people were buying less there. So there was the combination of lower global demand and a constrained supply. “Many OEMs have reduced their orders this year as a result,” according to the report. Among them were Samsung and Apple. However, Apple seems to be “the least affected seller” to be. The reason: The group controls its supply chain much more closely than other market participants.
Apple is in the high-price segment
Furthermore, it plays into Apple’s hands that “the majority of its customers are in the high-price segment” . These are therefore “less affected by macroeconomic problems such as inflation” affected. Initially, IDC did not give precise figures on how much Apple’s sales could collapse. In the market as a whole, however, Europe was hit hardest this year by a drop in smartphone sales – it is said to be up to 22 percent. China’s market is shrinking by 11.5 percent and other regions in Asia by 3 percent. However, the IDC market researchers expect a recovery as early as 2023, and growth in the overall market should then be 5 percent.
According to earlier reports, Apple itself does not expect smartphone growth in 2022. The company is said to have ordered 220 million devices from the “iPhone 14” line from its manufacturers. Originally 240 million pieces were planned.


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SuperData Research today released a sales forecast report for the Nintendo Switch, the highly anticipated hybrid console from Nintendo that launches on March 3.
The research firm is expecting the console to sell 5 million units by the end of 2017. "Nintendo is gearing up for a slow-and-steady release of its new console," SuperData said. "Launching much earlier in the year than its predecessors, we expect the Switch to initially appeal mostly to the loyal fanbase, before a broader, more mainstream audience adopts it."
If the past is any indication, North America may account for around 45 percent of sales, with Europe (35 percent) and Japan (12) percent following.
"The biggest challenge for Nintendo is to convince console gamers to purchase the Switch as a second device, as many have already committed to a PlayStation 4 (53.4 million install base, worldwide) or Xbox One (26 million)," SuperData said.
The Switch may be slow to start, SuperData said, in part because of its "high starting price and the absence of strong launch titles."
"Asking $300 for a new console without a bundled game is a comparatively higher barrier to entry for consumers, considering that the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are already discounted and come with a free game," the firm explained.
Nintendo has not shared its internal sales projections for the Switch, though the company has said it will ship 2 million units worldwide to retailers in March.
For lots more on the Switch, check out GameSpot's video review above and written review here.


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A top JCPenney corporate official told local employees in a conference call this afternoon that the Carroll store would be closing as soon as August as part of the retailer’s chain-wide bankruptcy-and-restructuring plan.
Officials described a scenario with complete liquidation of inventory and departure in weeks for the Carroll store.
The Carroll JCPenney, which occupies a prime spot on Adams Street, serves as an anchor in the central business district. Local economic development leaders have worried for weeks, since JCPenney filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May, that the retailer, with deep roots here, would abandon the city, leaving other Carroll-area businesses without JCPenney’s regional customer pull to boost spillover sales and commerce in the region.
The Carroll store is one of about 200 closing in the company’s latest move, said Jim DePaul, JCPenney’s executive vice president for stores, on the conference call, which the Times Herald reviewed.
“Unfortunately, your store is one of those stores that we will be closing,” he said.
Local store management would not comment on the reported closing, and officials with the company’s corporate offices have not returned a call for comment.
“Remaining inventory will be sold over the next 10 to 16 weeks with the final closing date expected to be sometime in September or as early as August,” DePaul told Carroll store employees.
The company is determining whether severance and unused paid-time-off reimbursements would be part of the exit package for Carroll employees under the larger bankruptcy plan.
In the call, DePaul said the company is facing unprecedented times that are forcing it to make tough decisions.
“This decision to close the store locations came after a careful analysis of store performance and future strategic fit for the company,” DePaul said. “It’s a decision we did not take lightly. I know this is difficult news to hear.”
It appears the Carroll store will be in the first wave of closures as part of a “store optimization strategy.”
In a news release issued today, JCPenney said that after “a comprehensive evaluation of its retail footprint and a careful analysis of store performance and future strategic fit for the Company, JCPenney identified the first phase of 154 store closures.”
The company expects additional phases of store closing sales will begin in the coming weeks. JCPenney officials say they intend to reduce the chain’s store footprint and focus resources on the “strongest stores” and its online store, jcp.com.
“While closing stores is always an extremely difficult decision, our store optimization strategy is vital to ensuring we emerge from both Chapter 11 and the COVID-19 pandemic as a stronger retailer with greater financial flexibility to allow us to continue serving our loyal customers for decades to come,” said Jill Soltau, CEO of JCPenney. “I am incredibly grateful to our talented associates for their ongoing dedication and their passion for meeting and exceeding our customers’ expectations during this difficult and uncertain time. All impacted associates will be treated with the utmost consideration and respect.”


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NEW YORK — Agencies for years have pined for a third player to break up the stringent control of digital advertising wielded by the Google-Facebook duopoly, and with Amazon — whose ad business raked in $10 billion in revenue in 2018 — they're getting their answer. But as with any disruptive ecosystem, Amazon requires new skill sets, and there are complexities particular to the service that present both headaches and opportunities for marketing services professionals to consider, according to Mark Power, founder and CEO of the Amazon specialist agency Podean.
"They're very siloed, and it's going to take some time for them to open up," Power, who's written a book on Amazon for CMOs, said of the platform during a workshop at the 4A's StratFest conference this week. "They've only just in the last two years tried to open up to agencies and build out a partnership framework."
Amazon's appeal to marketers is clear: More so than Google and Facebook, it can close the purchase loop by linking advertising back to its e-commerce platform. That platform is rich in the type of first-party shopper data that the duopoly can't offer, though Facebook and Google are ramping up their e-commerce plays. Amazon's also got a leg up and large market share in emerging spaces from livestreaming video (Twitch) to voice-enabled technology (Alexa, Echo hardware) and connected TV (Fire TV), and is quickly encroaching on legacy digital channels like search, including through the introduction of new advertising formats like video.
The range of products and properties Amazon offers can be overwhelming, but agencies should push their clients to try and move early on the space, per Power. Of the millions of merchants on the platform, he said only about 15% actually advertise through Amazon, though areas like search bidding are getting more competitive and expensive. Even for non-endemic brands — those that don't sell products directly on Amazon — figuring out a strategy could become an imperative in the same way it has for Google and Facebook before it, especially since Amazon's data pools are so deep after decades of e-commerce conquest.
"The non-endemics are now realizing the power of Amazon Advertising due to its data and the targeting capabilities," Power said, pointing to automotive and financial services as two categories that are less present in the market but particularly ripe for tapping into Amazon.
"Amazon is relevant for just about every brand out there today," Power added. "There's some way that they have to partner with it, some way that they have to either understand or compete with it."
Obstacles to consider
Amazon's rapid rise has resulted in some growing pains for agencies to grapple with. Its search interface and demand-side platform for programmatic buying are not up to snuff, according to Power.
"These tools are just being built very scrappily and they're not very advanced at all, but they're making a lot of money," Power said. "They're very hard to work with."
His sentiments are shared by others in the industry: A recent report by Marin Software found 37% of surveyed marketing professionals believe Amazon's reporting and campaign management tools are suboptimal.
Beyond the comparatively poor user interface, Amazon's internal marketing teams could be more aligned, even as they now have thousands of employees. Power said they don't "connect together" and can be tough to navigate, but recent deals could help Amazon close the gap faster. Purchasing some of the key ad-tech assets of Sizmek, for example, was partially an "acqui-hire" move, according to Power.
"Amazon's coming to the point where there's only so much they can do themselves," Power said in response to Marketing Dive's question about the acquisition. "They want to do more self-serve. With [Sizmek] came a few clients, but mainly talent."
Power forecast that Amazon will continue to be acquisitive as it looks to fill out ad-tech expertise. In other ways, Amazon doesn't need to patch everything up in the short-term.
"There's lot of third-party software vendors coming in to try and solve problems, and Amazon's loving it because the more people in there, the more money they're making," Power said.
Devising client strategies
Like vendors, agencies can capitalize on Amazon's ascendancy by leveraging their client networks and historical knowledge around areas like creativity and media. Power said that Amazon has become more liberal in sharing data around metrics like product feedback and brand engagement in another indication that it's opening itself up.
"For Amazon to go from $15 billion to $100 billion [in revenue], which is what they want to do, they are going to need to partner with agencies," he said.
Convincing clients to funnel more dollars toward Amazon is only step one for agencies looking to build a bigger business around the service, however. Power cautioned that agencies should advise clients not to expect Amazon advertising to do all of the heavy lifting in promoting their brands, which could be a tough pitch to make at marketers who are used to running set-it-and-forget-it campaigns on other platforms.
"Clients need to have their strategy right, they need to have their brand advocacy platform right, they need to get the analytics right, the retail pages [right] and have A+ content," Power said.
"If you don't get those foundations right, none of the media's going to work," he added. "That's why you've seen a whole group of Amazon-focused agencies crop up."
Agencies also shouldn't expect to be able to master Amazon advertising quickly. Power said he believes there are between 200 to 300 Amazon-specific marketing terms, and that the glossary is growing.
Cost is another consideration: search, which is where most advertisers are putting their money on Amazon at the moment, will continue to get more expensive, while more complex activations, like experiential campaigns or custom packaging, can cost up to millions of dollars, per Power.
But Amazon's edging closer to offering a completely closed-loop ecosystem might make some of the steep price tags worth it, especially at a time when marketers are feeling greater pressure to prove that their work improves performance.
"If I put a dollar in [to Amazon], I'm going to be able to work out exactly how far that dollar went, which is really what CMOs of organizations are looking for," Power said. "They want to understand what their investment will return. Amazon is really pushing the boundaries of that."


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Facer, the ultimate watch face app for Android Wear, received a massive update this week on Google Play. Updated to version 3.0, the app now has support for Tizen devices, meaning Gear S2 and Gear S3 owners can get in on the action, plus a ton more features that may even have me charging up my Android Wear device.
On top of support for the Gear watches from Samsung, the app now also supports other Android Wear devices, including The Mission from Nixon, Polar M600, devices from Michael Kors, ZenWatch 3, and Moto 360 Sport.
Now, onto the good stuff. Explained by Little Labs in a Medium post, Facer 3.0 includes new features such as “Color Matcher.” For example, if you’re rocking an outfit that you can’t find a watch face for, you can simply snap a picture of your shirt, the app recognizes the color, then switches your watch face’s color to match the outfit. Sounds clutch.
Additionally, Facer Creator, the platform where anyone can design their own watch faces, now supports the three major wearable platforms: Android Wear, Tizen, and Apple Watch. As explained, “To support your efforts, this new release also includes improved community features and a brand new documentation with tutorials and recipes for the most common watch components you’ll want to include in your designs.”
To help make creating faces more accessible, a new app in the macOS App Store has been launched today.
To celebrate the launch of Facer 3.0, Facer created a bundle of 30 of its best premium faces for only $3. You’ll need to hurry, though, as the deal will only last for 3 days.


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Watch: Pokémon releases new ad that will air during Super Bowl
January is coming to a close, which means it’s Super Bowl commercial season. Pokémon just released a pretty riveting commercial in celebration of its 20th anniversary, which is worth your time even if you have no interest in Pokémon whatsoever.
Gyarados sort of looks like Cam Newton in blue.
- Kenny Ducey


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Users' fear of data loss on personal devices must be balanced with an organization's need to protect sensitive information, says ZixCorp's Nigel Johnson. He explains the evolution of mobile device management.
U.S. card issuers and retailers agree tokenization has to be part of the country's EMV migration. But making investments in tokenization won't make sense for merchants until a universal, open standard for tokenization is developed.
A report claiming that Las Vegas Sands Corp. was hit with a "wiper" malware attack back in February, similar to one that recently affected Sony Pictures Entertainment, illustrates why more organizations need to mitigate the risks of such an attack.
Security experts see the FIDO Alliance's release of two universal authentication specifications as a positive move in the effort to eliminate passwords. But the standards' impact will be minimal unless they're widely adopted.
A recent blog post by Managing Editor Mathew J. Schwartz, "Why Are We So Stupid About Passwords?" raised a number of issues about the ongoing risks involved in using passwords for authentication. Read the strong reaction to the commentary and join the conversation.
A new version of the Destover malware includes a legitimate certificate from Sony. But a researcher claims it's a hoax. Meanwhile, new evidence emerges that the hackers who attacked Sony Pictures Entertainment had criminal - not nation-state - intentions.
Security experts are sounding warnings that a flaw known as POODLE, revealed Oct. 14, can now be used to decrypt some Internet communications secured using TLS. Vendors have begun describing workarounds and issuing patches.
The "wiper" malware attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment has numerous commonalities with previous wiper attacks in Saudi Arabia and South Korea. This infographic summarizes the attacks and highlights their similarities.
The latest entrant into the password "hall of shame" is Sony Pictures Entertainment. As the ongoing dumps of Sony data by Guardians of Peace highlight, Sony apparently stored unencrypted passwords with inadequate access controls.
Technology will always play a critical role in security. Yet, companies cannot rely exclusively on the tools. People present a number of security-related problems that companies must address with education.
A remote-access attack that compromised a parking facility provider with locations in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Washington highlights how commonly used point-of-sale terminal and software brands are increasingly being exploited by hackers.
The destructive code that was used to infect and erase hard drives at Sony Pictures Entertainment - and which apparently was the subject of a recent FBI "flash alert" - has been identified as "wiper" malware known both as Destover and Wipall.
Who hacked Sony? Not us, say the North Koreans, ending days of silence. As Deloitte becomes the latest victim of the G.O.P. gang that's claimed credit, one thing is certain: Sony won't have to buy the movie rights to this hacking story.


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With the Apple vs. Epic Games lawsuit continuing on, there are no signs that Apple has any intention of allowing popular battle royale game Fortnite to return to the App Store on iPhone and iPad.
Epic Games has found a workaround though, by partnering up with Nvidia. GeForce NOW, Nvidia’s streaming gaming service, will soon add Fortnite support, allowing Fortnite to be played through a browser on iOS devices with touch-based controls.
Nvidia in November 2020 introduced Safari integration, allowing GeForce NOW’s library of games to be played on iOS devices. At the time, Nvidia said that it was working with Epic Games on a touch-friendly version of Fortnite that would run on the iPhone and iPad.
More than a year later, Fortnite for mobile is nearly ready to launch. Nvidia today announced the upcoming release of a Fortnite limited time closed beta, which users can sign up for.
There is a waitlist on the GeForce NOW website, and Nvidia says that players can register for free for a chance to play the new touch-control version of Fortnite on mobile devices. The game is going to be available on Android and iOS devices through browser integration.
Those interested in participating will need to create an Nvidia account and sign up for the waitlist, and sign up for a GeForce NOW membership. Both free and priority memberships have an equal chance of gaining access to the beta, but Nvidia says that spots are limited.
Selected beta testers will receive access to the Fortnite mobile game later in January, and after the limited time beta, we can expect to see an official launch of the Fortnite experience for GeForce NOW. There is no word at this time when Fortnite might be more widely available.
The Fortnite app has not been available from the iOS App Store since August 13, 2020, which is when Apple pulled it after Epic Games broke Apple’s App Store guidelines by adding a direct purchase option.
An initial decision was reached in the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit earlier this year, but both companies are appealing and there was no provision in the ruling requiring Apple to reinstate Fortnite.
Apple in September said that it had no plans to consider allowing Fortnite back into the App Store until the legal battle has played out, a process that could span multiple years.Tags: Epic Games, Fortnite, Epic Games vs. Apple
This article, “Fortnite Coming Back to iOS Soon Thanks to Nvidia’s GeForce NOW Service” first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums


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July 8, 2019
Adidas suffered a loss at the General Court of the European Union when it upheld a decision of the EU intellectual property authorities that limited the protection attributed to Adidas's three stripes trademark.
The Court determined that Adidas’s trademark does not protect the use of three parallel stripes in any direction. The Court stated that there was no “distinctive character” in such general branding, and it is an ordinary “figurative mark” which does not warrant trademark protection. The protection is thus limited to when the three stripes are slanted in a particular way, as is commonly seen on Adidas apparel.
The German sportswear giant was originally granted the more broad protection it desired in 2014. However, the trademark was challenged by a Belgium-based company, Shoe Branding Europe, and the trademark was subsequently annulled by the EU Intellectual Property Office. The recent upholding of the annulment may not put an end to the issue as the decision can still be appealed to the European Court of Justice.
A major issue identified by the Court was that Adidas had only provided evidence that the three stripes have acquired a “distinctive character” in five of the twenty-eight European Union member states.
Adidas released a statement regarding the ruling, saying it is disappointed with the result but that it is “limited to this particular execution of the three-stripe mark and does not impact on the broad scope of protection that Adidas has on its well-known three-stripe mark in various forms in Europe”.
Authors: Jaclyn Tilak and Sasha Seeber


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A technology that lets copper telephone wires compete with fiber has finally been standardized, opening the way for affordable, interoperable equipment running at up to 1Gbps.
The International Telecommunication Union should resist calls to adopt rules allowing countries to charge fees for Internet traffic coming from outside their borders, said 21 digital rights groups from 11 countries.
Members of the public will be able to eavesdrop on intergovernmental negotiations about the future of the Internet that began Monday in Busan, South Korea, after participants voted to webcast the meetings.
Widely accepted projections of a shortage of mobile spectrum may not be as dire as many analysts in the mobile and tech sectors are making it out to be, according to a new study.
A broadband standard that aims to support bandwidth-intensive applications such as streaming Ultra-HDTV movies without the need to install fiber between the distribution point and people's homes met its first-stage approval, the International Telecom...
A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee has voted to approve a bill that would make it official U.S. policy to promote an Internet "free from government control," with promises that the Republican majority would work with critics of the bill's w...
Legislation that would make it official U.S. policy to promote a global Internet "free from government control" could restrict the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from using its authority and prevent law enforcement agencies from taking action...
U.S. lawmakers want to make it clear that they're against a takeover of the Internet by the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union and member governments.
Countries pushing for international regulation of the Internet through the U.N. International Telecommunication Union will not quit after a partial victory at an ITU meeting in December, some Internet government experts told U.S. lawmakers.
Public policy formulation in all domains, including the Internet, is the sovereign right of member states, according to ITU Secretary General Hamadoun Touré, suggesting that a debate over control of the Internet is far from over at the telecommunica...
Expect no major changes to the functioning of the Internet in the coming months after a controversial ending to the International Telecommunication Union's World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), but an agreement hammered out the...
The U.S., U.K. and Canadian delegations to a worldwide telecom treaty-writing meeting will not ratify a resolution approved by the majority of countries because regulations will include provisions on Internet governance and content.
The World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) apparently has placed a resolution on the Internet in the regulations being developed at the meeting, drawing accusations that it acted improperly.
Russia, China and some other countries have withdrawn a draft proposal at the World Conference on International Telecommunications, that according to some accounts aimed to bring the Internet under the control of the International Telecommunication U...
The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution urging the U.S. government not to give the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU) control over the Internet.
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Bacardi Rum Delivers Sustainable Packaging
Bacardi says it delivers its rum with sustainable packaging, from trees that generate cardboard containers, to production lines that bottle and box, to trucks that transport the product.
Harvested trees provide pulp for the recyclable cardboard cases — close to 10 million a year — and all receive endorsement from Forest Stewardship Council, Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification or Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
The Good Spirited program sets a goal that by 2017, Bacardi will obtain 40 percent of the sugarcane-derived products from certified, sustainable sources — and 100 percent by 2022.
Additionally, Bacardi says the way containers are stacked and loaded onto transport trucks now is streamlined — another savings in terms of carbon footprint. Fewer trucks deliver the same amount of bottles.
The overarching vision of the Good Spirited sustainability platform is to return to the environment as least as much as it takes away. The company pledges to use eco-friendly design in its brand packaging and point-of-sale materials.
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Movers and shakers from the hotel industry were gathered together last week in Los Angeles for the Americas Lodging and Investment Summit, where they discussed the prospects for business this coming year.
Bracing for Better Business Climate
Real estate companies as well as hotel businesses are looking towards the coming year with hope despite the fears they have about the European economic situation and challenges finding debt financing.
The economic recovery has been business-led, which has given a boost to US hotel occupancy rates. Nevertheless development of new projects seems to still be stalled as credit conditions remain tight, making the building of new hotels difficult. Yet, the hoteliers remain optimistic.
“People are expecting 2012 to be a pretty positive year, with solid performance by the industry in terms of the demand for hotel accommodations and the ability to get deals done,”
Arthur de Haast, chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, said at the summit.
Billion Dollar Industry
Jones Lang, a hotel investment services firm, predicts that hotel deals in the Americas will at least do as well as last year’s level, reaching about $15 billion in value.
Hotel deals increased in their activity in the first two quarters of 2011, but substantial slowing down occurred at the end of last year due to the economic troubles in Europe began to make headlines.
Even though Europe has by no means recovered from its woes, most people at the three-day hotel summit believed that a further recovery which includes room-rate rises, will make the hotel sector seductive for investment.
“There’s a lot of money on the sidelines waiting to pounce and find opportunities,”
said Christian Charre, president and chief executive of the Charre Group, a Florida-based hotel brokerage and consulting firm.


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AMD has revealed its plans for addressing the client AI opportunity in 2024. The company announced at the AI Summit in Santa Clara that the next phase in personal AI processing is the mobile Ryzen 8040 Series processors, which will be available in various laptops from early next year.
Expanding on the Ryzen 7040 ‘Phoenix’ Series announced at CES this year, the Ryzen 8040 Series processors will focus more on the Xilinx-derived NPU processing for client AI workloads. In terms of power, AMD will divide the processors into 15-30W U Series designed for ultra-thin laptops and 35-54W HS Series for performance models with a discrete GPU.
The Ryzen 8040 Series processors will use the same Zen 4 CPU and RDNA 3 GPU architectures as the current models, allowing for easy integration into existing laptops without any changes in design or footprint. AMD’s goal in this next step is to deliver high performance and power-efficient NPUs with Ryzen AI technology to reimagine the PC, offering increased AI capabilities to handle larger models and enable the next phase of AI user experiences.
From a high-level perspective, the Ryzen 8040 Series processors will feature quad-core CPU processing on Ryzen 3, up to octo-core on Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9. Integrated graphics will remain consistent with the current models, with the largest difference between models being the inclusion of a more powerful AI NPU unit in the Ryzen 8040 ‘Hawk Point’ models. AMD claims that the new series will be up to 40% faster than the best 7040 Series processors for common models such as Meta’s Llama 2.
The Ryzen 8040 Series processors’ sweet spot is for local inferencing of medium-sized models, offering high performance gains when running common AI models compared to the current generation. In addition to hardware improvements, AMD has introduced Ryzen AI Software to make it easy to port existing AI models designed with industry-acknowledged frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, and ONNX to run on AMD hardware.
AMD also teased upcoming processors codenamed ‘Strix Point,’ which are based on the next evolution of the XDNA architecture and promise up to 3x the generative AI performance of today’s Ryzen 7040 Series processors. These advancements represent the ongoing innovation in AMD’s Ryzen AI roadmap, showcasing its commitment to delivering cutting-edge AI solutions for next-gen laptops.


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According to an Autocar report, Toyota has chose to name the GT 86 successor as GR86, adding another model to Gazoo Racing's lineup after the GR Supra and the recently revealed Yaris GR-4. Now, a new report published by Autocar attempts to shed some light on the dynamic duo, which is expected to switch from a Subaru platform to Toyota's TNGA.
Transitioning to the new architecture will be done to provide the 86 and BRZ with an improved rear-wheel-drive behavior as the cars will allegedly go through "substantial changes" compared to the current models. But while Toyota will provide the platform, it is believed Subaru will be in charge of providing motivation by installing a flat-four boxer engine, presumably a turbocharged 2.4-liter derived from the Ascent.
Subaru's hulking US-market Ascent SUV ekes out just over 190kW from the engine - known as an FA24 - so we wouldn't put it past Toyota/Subaru to nudge it up to 200kW when the engine is put into service in a performance vehicle.
Power will continue coming from a Subaru flat-four engine, only instead of the naturally aspirated 2.0-liter unit, the new models will employ the brand's turbocharged 2.4-liter engine that's now in use with models like the Legacy, Outback and Ascent.
Toyota and Subaru are working together for the next generation of the 86/BRZ duo and more information has surfaced online about the sports auto duo.
Where now the vehicle is focused on no-frills, no-nonsense, driving purity mixed with affordability, its replacement is expected to bring a lift in safety technology, materials and fit and finish that could see the auto positioned slightly more upmarket than it is now.


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The East African Business Council (EABC) said on Wednesday that economic recovery from COVID-19 related shocks in the region was on course amid easing of travel restrictions, ramped up vaccination and renewed investor confidence.
John Bosco Kalisa, executive director of EABC, a regional body of private investors, said that governments have made bold policy choices to hasten the revival of key economic sectors like tourism, agriculture and manufacturing that experienced a downturn at the peak of the pandemic.
He spoke at a virtual forum convened by EABC to discuss the revival of trade and investment in the region after a slump occasioned by pandemic containment measures like lockdowns and curfews. “We are working on a post-COVID-19 recovery strategy targeting sectors that have a huge impact on the economies and livelihoods in the region,” Kalisa remarked.
Kalisa said that senior policymakers and investors in the region have commenced dialogue to explore fiscal incentives that can be rolled out to accelerate pandemic recovery, restore businesses and jobs. Reforming the tax regime, policy harmonization and negotiating for low-interest loans from lenders have been prioritized in order to rebuild economies in the region.
Rashid Kibowa, director of Trade at the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat said that implementation of an economic recovery strategy focusing on enhanced cross-border trade and investment that was initiated at the onset of the pandemic had gathered steam.
According to Kibowa, the strategy lays emphasis on trade facilitation, investments promotion, improving transport logistics, reviving tourism, agriculture and manufacturing.
He noted that intra-regional trade declined by 5.5 percent in 2020 due to the pandemic’s disruptions on supply chains, adding that easing of containment measures has gradually restored the cross-border movement of goods and services.
Kibowa said that EAC member states have reawakened their COVID-19 mitigation measures while streamlining regional supply chains and promoting electronic commerce to accelerate economic recovery.
He said that encouraging the Diaspora community to invest in their native countries, the establishment of innovation hubs, export promotion, and funding start-ups have been identified as key to pandemic recovery in the region.


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Europe’s consumer watchdog has warned that food manufacturers will be authorised to claim that some products are low in fat, salt or sugar, even when they are not the healthiest options.
The European Commission is drawing up rules setting out the amounts of salt, sugar and fat that will be allowed in different foods if a manufacturer wants to make health claims, such as ‘low fat’ or ‘high fibre’. The limits vary for different food groups, such as meat, dairy, bread and ready meals.
Ruth Veale, of BEUC, the European consumers’ organisation, said the group was concerned about the threshold values. “For us, they should only allow the healthiest options to get a claim,” she said, adding that the values should be “much stricter across the board”.


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Pune: City based entrepreneur and amateur Botanist, who is known for his outstanding research on flowers of Sahyadri Mountain ranges has successfully brought the Paddy Art to Pune. His first creation of Paddy Art near Donje Phata on Sinhagad Road is catching the attention of art lovers from the city. This interesting art form that originated in Japan has found place for the first time in India.
Inakadate village in Aomori district of north Japan has been a traditional rice growers’ heritage. They plant rice with their hands and do not use modern machinery. Few years back the peasants of Inakadate found out that paddy growing tradition of their village had completed 2000 years. To celebrate this occasion rice growers of Inakadate joined hands and invented the innovative ‘Tambo Ata’ or Paddy Art in 1993.
Using their hand skill they created a giant picture of ‘Mount Iwaki’. Rice plants of different varieties were the colours and merged rice fields was the giant canvass. They used rice plants that had coloured leaves. This novel ‘paddy art’ became a block buster and has now become an annual festival of Inakadate. Thousands of tourists visit Tambo Ata festival each summer since 1993. Inakadate has enthusiastically created new images each year including the celebrated pictures of Monalisa and Merilyn Monroe. Computer graphics has been helping paddy art to take up very challenging images like portraits.
Inspired by this information Ingalhalikar chanced upon on internet, this season he has experimented with an image of Lord Ganesh in his rice field at Donje Phata on Sinhagad road.
The created Lord Ganesh image is 40 meters long and has just 2 colours. Creating an image by planting rice plants in pouring rain and in a knee deep slush was a big challenge.
The image is created in a rice field located near Donje Phata on Sinhagad road inside the premises of his factory ‘Lexon Winders’. A platform is constructed to get a bird’s eye
view of the image. Though Ganesh festival is an ideal time to see the image, the image can be seen till December in different hues of colours as the crop ripens.
”The objective of creating images in this art is to motivate educated youngsters from the nearby villagers to take up agriculture”, he stated.
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One thing all free-to-play games need is an item or resource that people will want to repeatedly pay money for, and digital card games have found that in their booster packs.
$75 on Hearthstone this year -- Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament preorder. $25 on SolForge for Darkforge Rising.
I spent money on eye of judgment cards which was real cards for a real card video game. Wish it was successful cause I liked it, the only problem I had with it was the camera lighting.
N4G is a community of gamers posting and discussing the latest game news. It’s part of NewsBoiler, a network of social news sites covering today’s pop culture.


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The city is newly stylish, with hyped restaurants and an Ace hotel, thanks to a steady flow of Carnegie Mellon grads who decided to stay.
NYS Entity Status
NYS Filing Date
AUGUST 21, 2013
NYS DOS ID#
NYS Entity Type
FOREIGN NOT-FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION
2013 - LIFE RENEWED INTERNATIONAL, INC
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Remember the “TRL” studio and crowds in Times Square? Music? Carson Daly? MTV hopes you do, and will tune in again.


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Queensland woman's horror Uber ride
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Inspired has signed an agreement to supply its award-winning Virtual Sports to Novomatic in Italy.
The deal includes Inspired’s full suite of certified games, including the brand new Rush Football 2, which was debuted to the Italian market in March at Enada 2016.
Thanks to the recent regulatory changes in Italy, Novomatic, through AdmiralYES and Millennium brands, will offer up to 2,000 events per day through Online and Retail channels.
Vitaliano Casalone, Presidente of Inspired Italia, said: “Inspired are delighted to be working with Novomatic Italia and we are proud to supply our market-leading Virtual Sports products to this valued customer, following the launch on AdmiralYES. Together we can take advantage of the new regulations in Italy and supply more world-class content to customers for longer. 20 per cent of all bets in Italy are now made on Inspired’s products, and we anticipate that this number can only increase as we extend the availability of our Virtual Sports through this new exciting collaboration.”
Markus Buechele, COO Novomatic Italia, added: “Within our land-based and online operations, we aim to provide the best gaming products. We therefore selected Inspired as our technology partner to supply the virtual games. We will offer the Inspired virtual product not only for our successful online gaming portal admiralyes.it, but also for our new retail initiatives with Millennium, where the Inspired virtual product will be showcased together with our Novomatic gaming and betting content in a completely new shop concept.”


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January 11, 2018
Correction: A previous version of this story mistated the projected timeline for the combined product. It is Q1 this year, not Q1 next year.
WellDoc and Voluntis, two companies with FDA-cleared, clinically validated platforms aimed at the management of Type 2 diabetes, have signed a commercial agreement to combine their technologies and offer joint products in the future.
“My thought is that a...


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|Gala Bingo, the privately owned gaming group, is to launch an interactive gaming site. It is expanding the Gala brand ahead of a possible flotation later this year.|
The site, Gala Interactive, will be launched this summer, will cost £5m to develop and is expected to break even within nine months of going live.
It will be the first Internet product from a UK company to combine casino and bingo. It will be licensed and run out of Gibraltar where Gala has a casino.
John Kelly, chief executive, said it would swap to a UK license as soon as legislation legalizing gaming on the Internet is passed.
The entire gaming industry is gearing up to benefit from sweeping changes to the regulatory environment following a Government White Paper on gambling reform.
While many of the reforms to Britain's gaming act are unlikely to become law before 2004, the prospect of deregulation has boosted the chances of Gala, which is backed by Credit Suisse First Boston and Royal Bank Private, announcing a £800m stock market flotation this year.


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Canada mulls electric car PPP
The province is seeking to kickstart development and investment in the electric vehicle industry and expand the availability of charging stations across Ontario. Information gathered through the RFI process will help identify opportunities to partner with the private sector to build, test and expand it.
Infrastructure Ontario is managing the RFI process on behalf of the Ministry of Transportation. RFI submissions will not be evaluated as part of any potential future procurement and the deadline for interested respondents is 4 June.
Ontario has set a goal of having 5% of all new cars electric by 2020.


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Michael Wittmeyer parlayed his technical knowledge into a thriving business in the precious metals market. He’s got one of those amazing wunderkind stories: He built websites while in high school, used SEO to acquire customers, drove those customers to websites in exchange for commission payments, and then realized he could do the same in the precious metals market – owning the process from start to finish.
Born and raised in western New York in Allegany, Michael wasn’t a typical student. He played baseball and did “decently” in school. His parents are highly educated, with his dad being a mechanical engineer and his mom a professor. When Michael started making money by building sites and driving customers to various poker web sites, they were skeptical. He went the expected route of attending college.
While enrolled at Penn State, Michael sold his first business. He then used the same model of driving traffic to sites – but this time the target was precious metal sellers. After a short time, he realized he could buy and sell the gold, silver, copper and platinum himself, while retaining the tech side. He decided to drop out and go for it. “It was tough on my parents,” he said.
With the motivation to prove he could do it, Michael dove in. He had a partner and found investors to launch JM Bullion outside of Philadelphia. “I didn’t know anything about precious metals before. When I first started, we were unknowns. So we were sourcing inventory from another retailer who gave quantity discounts. We’d sell them at a slight markup. Now we are one of the largest, so we can source directly from the U.S. mint, Royal Canadian mint, Perth mint, etc. for government-backed coins. We also sell privately minted products that are usually gold and silver bars.”
In the early days of JM Bullion, Michael worked in Chicago with the customer-facing side of the business. His partner was at the official headquarters in Pennsylvania’s Amish country. When the partnership ended, finding new tech-savvy employees in Amish country was impossible. With 10 employees, Michael and his investors decided to move before they got too big to do it. They were searching for a state with no income tax and had some suppliers in Dallas. The choice was clear. “I’d never even been here and just moved here, sight unseen,” Michael explained. He found and joined EO Dallas in March 2019.
In 2021, the company will start minting and selling its own products. There has been so much demand for products this year that the supply chain was not reliable. They simply couldn’t get enough. Michael and his team decided to have more control and manufacture what they need. As Michael put it, “We have been paying markups to wholesalers and mints. Now we’re working on branding and marketing for us to make our own products in-house. It will be under a new brand that we control. I expect it to be up and running in about four months.”
They also moved in March 2020 to the Campbell Center, a series of buildings at Central Expressway and 635. “Seventy-five percent of our employees have never even seen the place,” Michael said, since COVID shut everything down and people began working remotely.
Every time there is a geopolitical shift or uncertainty, the demand for precious metals increases. It’s also a good hedge against inflation. Michael expects business to increase over the coming year. He sells actual gold and silver products, but will soon also sell digital products where people accumulate precious metals without actually holding the product themselves. They could eventually take the physical investment if they want. Crypto-currency is something Michael feels the younger generation really believes in, so this is a step towards marrying his business with that concept – but with an actual product behind it.
Michael’s motivation in the early days was to prove that he could make the business work. Now he simply enjoys working every day with his team. In his free time, he plays golf whenever he can. He also works out, reads, and travels. His family is still in the New York area, but he has a girlfriend in Dallas who is an orthopedic nurse.
With Michael only being in EO before the big COVID shut down, he’s been most active in his Forum. Ideally, we’ll all get to see Michael and meet in person soon!


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The Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services will host a free Consumer Protection Fair on Tuesday, Sept. 22 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Clayton E. Hutcheson Agricultural Service Center (559 N. Military Trail, West Palm Beach).
The purpose of the event is to inform the public of current issues related to consumer fraud and scams, and how to report businesses attempting to defraud consumers.
Representatives from state and Palm Beach County agencies will be on hand to provide information and answer questions.
The Palm Beach County participants include the Division of Consumer Affairs, business librarians, veterans services, the Contractors Certification Division, victim services and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services’ participating divisions include consumer services, animal services, forestry and food/nutrition/wellness. Also participating are the Florida Department of Professional Regulation and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation.
Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services Commissioner Adam H. Putman is scheduled to attend and talk with participants and attendees.
For more information on the event, and consumer protection services provided by Palm Beach County Consumer Affairs, call (561) 712-6600 or visit www.pbcgov.com/consumer.
For more information about the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, call (800) 435-7352 or visit www.freshfromflorida.com.


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GALLAGHER WARNS FLORIDIANS OF NEW SCAM TO STEAL CASH AND SECURITIES VIA PASSWORD THEFT
Tom Gallagher, Florida’s chief financial officer, warned Floridians to protect themselves from a new scam designed to steal user names and passwords to drain online investment accounts. It is estimated that up to $20 million in stocks, securities and cash has been stolen nationwide with this scheme.
“The good news is that you can protect yourself from becoming a victim of these crooks,” said Gallagher, “but you have to be proactive. The stakes are very high because these thieves can drain some accounts of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a matter of days.” Gallagher added that the key to stopping these scams is to install and update computer security software. “In fact, many brokers and firms are offering free and discounted security measures to their customers,” he said.
Computer crooks reportedly key into online accounts by using a key-logging program or a virus. If they hack into an account they can sell some or all of the securities contained in the account and direct the brokerage to move cash into an account opened under the same name. The cash can then be moved to an offshore account that is difficult to trace. Gallagher said Floridians can shield themselves and their portfolios from these types of computer crimes by:
Floridians should call their brokers immediately if they think they may be victims of this crime and call the Department of Financial Services’ consumer service hotline at 1-800-342-2762.


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I must provide a warning: This may be the most boring road test of a supercar I ever write. There will be no feats of daring bravado, no vivid descriptions of lurid burnouts, no grandiose depictions of tire-shredding broadslides accomplished with James Bond-like élan.
My generation of muscle car enthusiasts has been enjoying the nostalgia trip back to our youth with Chevrolet’s fifth-generation Camaro since 2010. With the engineers bumping up the horsepower and handling to sate our insatiable appetite for power.
After departing abruptly almost two decades ago, fans of one Italian car brand have been crying, "Oh, Alfa, Alfa Romeo, wherefore art thou?" But with the arrival of the all-new Alfa Romeo 4C sports car this year, parent Fiat’s sportiest brand is back in business in Canada.
Porsche has released official images of its 2014 911 Turbo Cabriolet. Its 3.8-litre six-cylinder engine delivers 520 hp in the 911 Turbo and 560 hp in the Turbo S. Zero to 100 km/h acceleration is 3.5 and 3.2 seconds respectively, reaching a top speed of up to 318 km/h. The topless Turbo arrives in Canada in early 2014, with a starting price of $183,400 and $221,200 for the Turbo S Cabriolet.


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Foreign Strategic Partnership
Tag: Foreign Strategic Partnership
DRB-HICOM to make Proton great again, says foreign bidders are still in the run
Mar 28, 2017 4:15 pm
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Proton sales up 118% since 2018 – 5,100 average SUV sales...
Proton aims to become RHD EV manufacturing Hub, to start with...
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Maryland beer distributors generate $784M economic impact, report says
Beer drinkers now have a new justification for guzzling suds: It’s good for the economy.
A new report from the National Beer Wholesalers Association shows Maryland beer distributors generate a $784 million total economic impact and directly employ 1,787 people.
The study, “America’s Beer Distributors: Fueling Jobs, Generating Economic Growth and Delivering Value to Local Communities,” found that beer Maryland beer distribution generates $177 million in local, state and federal taxes. The industry also produces $159 million in federal, state and local alcohol excise and consumption taxes.
Indirectly, Maryland’s beer distributors support a total of 4,919 jobs in the state, including employees in the personal services, food services and retail sectors.
Nationwide, beer distributors directly employ 130,000 people and add $54 billion to the gross domestic product, the study found.
Bill Latham and Ken Lewis of the University of Delaware’s Center for Applied Business Economic Research produced the report. Click here to see beer distributors’ economic impact on Maryland, or view the full report here.
Sarah covers hospitality/tourism, minority business, marketing and new media
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