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ATLANTA, GA. - The 67th annual International Convention of the Forest Products Society (FPS), was held June 9-11, 2013 in Austin, TX, USA. This year’s convention was held in collaboration with the Society of Wood Science and Technology (SWST). This is the first time that the Forest Products Society and the Society of Wood Science and Technology have joined forces to convene a joint International Convention—the 67th International Convention for FPS and the 56th International Convention for SWST.
“The convention has been an astounding opportunity for all of the attendees to become exposed to the wide range of timely forest products issues facing the industry worldwide,” said Rich Vlosky, chair of the International Convention Planning Committee. “The theme for FPS’s 2013 convention program was ‘Forest Products in a Global Sustainable Economy’ with particular emphasis on wood technology, forest products and the environment, and human dimensions and policy.”
The program led by SWST focused on Technology Advancement and Marketing Practices in Biomass, specifically in natural fiber-based products and biofuels.
Among the highlights of the convention program was a keynote luncheon on Monday, June 10, featuring Russell Taylor of International WOOD MARKETS Group, Inc. as the keynote speaker. In his work with International WOOD MARKETS Group, Inc., Taylor conducts wood products marketing analysis and business assessment/investment projects for numerous global industry partners. He discussed trends in global wood product markets, and highlighted the history and current status of markets, as well as future opportunities for wood-using industries.
“A tightening in the supply-side dynamics for timber and lumber is expected as the log supplies from Russia and Canada become more constrained,” said Taylor. “Over the next five years, recovering demand in US and other export markets is expected to grow steadily, not to mention the huge new impact of China and its need for massive imports.”
The sessions throughout the convention program covered a variety of important topics including Engaging Family Woodland Owners, Environmental Regulation Impact, US Export Trends and Trade Policy. The program also included a jointly held annual Excellence Awards Luncheon in which leaders in the industry were recognized for their achievements and contributions to each of the organizations.
The convention drew 250 attendees from nearly 20 countries. Over 125 scientific posters were presented, and a plenary session on forest and forest product certification brought together three certification organizations—Forest Stewardship Council, Sustainable Forestry Initiative® and the American Tree Farm System—to discuss the focus of each certification system.
Next year’s International Convention will be held in Québec City in conjunction with the World Conference on Timber Engineering on August 10-12, 2014. Information is available online at www.fpsconvention.org.


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PARIS — Watches & Wonders Geneva has bit the bullet and canceled its physical event that was set for April, solidifying the industry’s shift to digital channels to replace traditional trade shows.
“This decision, taken in close consultation with the principal stakeholders, is seen as the most responsible course of action, given the current health crisis and uncertainties as to how the situation may evolve,” said organizers in a statement Tuesday. The event had been scheduled to take place in Geneva at the Palexpo hall on April 7 to 13, 2021.
Plans are to upgrade the digital platform, which was launched in April this year as the coronavirus pandemic swept across the globe, halting travel and prompting the physical event’s cancellation.
The platform is geared towards networking between media, retailers and clients of exhibiting brands, with live chats and presentations streamed online.
Some 50 brands take part in Watches & Wonders, formerly known as SIHH, mostly Compagnie Financière Richemont labels, including Cartier, Jaeger LeCoultre and Vacheron Constantin, but also Hermès and Kering labels Ulysse Nardin and Girard-Perregaux. Some former Baselworld exhibitors, including Chanel, Chopard and Rolex, also planned to show in Geneva in April and are listed on the Watches & Wonders website as exhibiting brands.
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the decline of traditional, physical trade shows, which had struggled to adapt to the rise of digital channels. Watches & Wonders rival Baselworld, which was held in a sprawling exhibition hall in Basel, Switzerland, was known for elaborate booths that rose several stories high. MCH Group, which organized the event, has since abandoned the format, and launched a new platform called HourUniverse for watches, jewelry and gemstone industries after settling with departing labels in May.
More than a dozen labels, including Bulgari, which belongs to LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and Kering labels banded together to host a series of small events in Geneva at the end of August, dubbed Geneva Watch Days.
Watches & Wonders hit the road in September, taking a handful of labels to Shanghai.

domain: news


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GF is joining the MassChallenge initiative, gaining access to top start-ups in Switzerland to develop innovative business models, products, and services.
MassChallenge Switzerland, part of MassChallenge’s global network of innovators, today announces its partnership with the industrial company Georg Fischer, Schaffhausen, a world leading manufacturer in piping systems, casting components and machine tools, present in over 30 countries.
“We are delighted to join efforts with MassChallenge and kick-start yet another initiative that brings us closer to new talent, and new ideas,” said Andreas Müller, GF CEO. “GF has traditionally supported young entrepreneurs and start-ups in their quest to grow their business and create impact. Their innovative drive, leaner infrastructure and agility are a perfect match for a company like ours.”
GF is currently running several mentoring projects with start-ups and academia, including a pilot program with the Zurich-based ETH, allowing students to work on real business cases in strategy, innovation, and leadership.
“GF is the ideal partner for MassChallenge Switzerland, thanks to its track record as an industrial group addressing long-term trends in sustainable water and energy consumption, mobility solutions and advanced manufacturing,” said Matt Lashmar, Managing Director of MassChallenge Switzerland. “MassChallenge Switzerland’s mission is to connect startups to experts and corporations who can help them disrupt the status quo and create meaningful change. GF’s partnership is going to be especially helpful to entrepreneurs whose ideas can help industry operate more sustainably.”
About Georg Fischer
With an established network of business partners, entrepreneurs and even students from around the world, GF is constantly developing new technologies and solutions to help its customers address their needs. These actions support GF’s vision to become a sustainability and innovation leader providing superior customer value.
MassChallenge is the global network for innovators. Headquartered in the United States with seven locations worldwide, MassChallenge equips bold entrepreneurs to disrupt the status quo and create meaningful change. Since launching in 2009, more than 2,928 MassChallenge alumni have raised more than $8.6B in funding, generated more than $3.6 B inrevenue, and created more than 186,000 total jobs.
Media contact: Elodie Waquet, email@example.com


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TEEP, the flagship programme of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, is a US$100m initiative to support emerging entrepreneurs across Africa over 10 years and this year the 2nd round is currently open. It aims to generate a projected $10bn in revenues for Africa and over 1 million jobs for citizens .
Tony Elumelu, a prominent African business entrepreneur and philanthropist, founded the programme because of his:
- Inclusive economic philosophy of Africapitalism, based on the belief that a vibrant African-led private sector is the key to unlocking Africa’s economic and social potential
- Commitment to drive African economic growth through the fostering of African entrepreneurship
- Mission to institutionalise luck and create an environment where home-grown pan-African companies in various sectors can flourish.
The entrepreneurs who make it to the final of the programme receive $5000 in seed funding for their startups, as well as many valuable lessons on managing them over the course of a year.
To apply, entrepreneurs must apply online here that respond to questions on their personal backgrounds, their experience and what their business idea is as well as plans for growth and the proposed pan-African impact of their startup. The successful applicants will have access to the online live-learning support, web mentoring, immersive boot camp, resource library, global entrepreneurship forum, seed funding and membership of the alumni network.
— Tony Elumelu FDN (@TonyElumeluFDN) February 3, 2016
In 2015 the program had over 20,000 applicants from 51 countries and has created partnerships with entrepreneurs, the private sector and governments across Africa and internationally.


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Unity Technologies has reached a licensing agreement with Nintendo which will allow the company to distribute the Unity engine to first- and third-party developers — in addition to the engine’s current 1.2 million registered developers — for use in making Wii U games.
“A lot of our smaller developers are making really good games, but mainly for mobile platforms, on the web, on Steam, and so on,” Unity CEO David Helgason told GamesIndustry International. “People are looking for the next thing, and, hopefully, with Nintendo, we can make sure that for many of them that will be the Wii U.”
“It’s [about] allowing studios to experiment more, and get more work done up front,” he continued. “For a lot of these big studios, and even the not so big studios, it’s about being able to let the designers and artists and creative people start experimenting from day one, instead of the day that the engine has been integrated… Cutting seconds and minutes from everybody’s workload every single day is as big a deal on big productions as it is on small productions.”
Providing more options for designers is certainly a positive. According to a press release, the Wii U deployment part of the agreement is supposed to become “widely available” in 2013.
Unity signs “industry first” licensing agreement for Wii U [GamesIndustry International]


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A 29-year-old woman in Nairobi, Kenya found a way to turn single-use plastic waste into bricks. The bricks are 7X stronger than concrete and can be used to pave roads, driveways, and more.
The inventor, Nzambi Matee, started a company from her idea called Gjenge Makers. Her company accepts single-use plastic waste that would normally end up in landfills and creates usable, practical, strong bricks.
The bricks are primarily sold to individuals, schools, and companies to pave roads and driveways.
Matee’s company turn discarded plastic bottle tops, cooking oil container, and other single-use plastic products into the bricks.
Each day they can produce around 1,500 bricks, that are not only high-quality but also affordable.
They use special machines that compress the plastic into brick and can create three different types: Heavy Duty, Moderate, and Light.
“Plastic is a material that is misused and misunderstood. The potential is enormous, but its afterlife can be disastrous,” Matee said.
Kenya’s Fight Against Plastic Pollution
As a country, Kenya has been a leader in fighting to reduce single-use plastic.
Back in 2017, they banned all plastic bags. But unlike in California, that ban was firm. Travelers to Kenya would have any plastic bags confiscated at the airport. All plastic carrier bags were banned from being manufactured, sold, or distributed in the country.
More recently in 2020, Kenya prohibited using single-use plastic in protected areas, like national parks and beaches.
Though the initiatives are excellent, the country (and rest of the world) face an urgent situation regarding plastic waste and need the deeper innovation as seen with Gjenge Makers.
As Matee noted, Nairobi alone produces around 500 metric tonnes of plastic waste every single day. That’s about 15,000 tonnes per month in that one city alone.
The Future of Plastic
A 2018 United Nations report estimated that 13 million tonnes of plastic waste are released into the oceans each year. What we’re currently doing isn’t working fast enough to make a great enough impact – but Matee’s bricks may play a massive role in slowing our rate of plastic pollution.
Every brick they create provides an affordable and valuable resource to those in need of roads and walkways while reducing a bit of the world’s waste. It’s possible that the plastic bricks could be used to make shelters and provide in other ways beyond roads.
Watch the video below:
What do you think of Matee’s genius invention? Let us know!


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Who's Behind The False Rumors That Facebook Might Start Charging?
from the you-gotta-wonder dept
It looks like someone may be trying to pull the same trick with Facebook. Apparently a bunch of rumors have been spreading about Facebook planning to charge, resulting in huge protest groups in Facebook, and the company needing to make a public denial of any plans to charge. In Facebook's case, this is even more believable because the company claims that it's already profitable from existing ad sales. And, knowing how Facebook operates, I can't see anyone there seriously considering charging for use. They know the idea is preposterous and would destroy the site.
So the only thing I'm wondering is who kicked off these rumors? Is it another social network? Is it MySpace again trying to regain relevance? Or was it really just another malware scam to get people to click on unsafe links, that then resulted in a misguided panic?


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At the CES exhibit in Las Vegas earlier this year, Blue Spark Technologies showed off a wireless thermometer patch aimed at parents looking to keep a close eye on their children’s fevers. It’s now available for purchase for $25 a piece directly from the manufacturer.
The TempTraq has a thermometer and a Bluetooth transmitter built-in that shares the readings continuously with a paired smartphone. The patch works for a full 24 hour period, comfortably stuck under the arm of even small children. It lets parents know the temperature of their babies without disturbing them with a traditional thermometer. Since it works at a distance, you may not even have to take the chance of waking the kid up by opening the door to the room.
The accompanying app tracks the temp readings, letting you know how the night went and whether fever reducers worked as expected.
The patch is single use, but you can use a number of them if you have more than one child to track everyone’s temperature with the single installation of the app.
Here’s a promo video for the TempTraq:
Product page: TempTraq…
(hat tip: Engadget)


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Dollar Tree, a leading operator of discount variety stores, is expected to deliver a year-over-year decline in earnings on Wednesday when it reports results for the holiday quarter ended January 2022.
The Chesapeake, Virginia-based company is expected to report earnings of $1.78 per share in the fourth quarter, down over 16% from $2.13 per share seen in the same period a year ago.
But the discount variety stores that sells items for $1 or less would post revenue growth of more than 5% to $7.13 billion. It is worth noting that the company has consistently beaten consensus earnings estimates in the last two years, at least.
“While no-moat Dollar Tree should benefit from a price increase at its namesake banner (to $1.25 from $1), with potential additional opportunity from activist investor Mantle Ridge’s involvement, we are unenthusiastic about the stock at its current trading price (around 20% above our revised $111 per share valuation, which is up from $106 mostly to reflect the time value of money),” noted Zain Akbari, Equity Analyst at Morningstar.
“Instead, investors looking to capitalize on discount retailers’ appeal in an inflationary economy should look to off-price chains.”
Dollar Tree stock traded over 1% higher at $143.91 on Tuesday. The stock rose nearly 2% so far this year after surging more than 30% in 2021.
“While supply chain disruptions and associated costs are top of mind given the unexpected magnitude of these costs in 2Q and ongoing impact in 3Q, we believe that Dollar Tree’s price-increase initiative will likely be a focal point for investors,” noted Randal J. Konik, equity analyst at Jefferies.
“More specifically, we think investors will look to better understand customer receptivity to these price increases, the degree to which these price increases can mitigate the aforementioned supply chain costs, and to what extent the company is utilizing higher price point items to diversify merchandising and sourcing.”
Dollar Tree Stock Price Forecast
Eleven analysts who offered stock ratings for Dollar Tree in the last three months forecast the average price in 12 months of $167.10 with a high forecast of $181.00 and a low forecast of $147.00.
The average price target represents a 16.85% change from the last price of $143.00. Of those 11 analysts, nine rated “Buy”, two rated “Hold”, while none rated “Sell”, according to Tipranks.
Morgan Stanley gave the base target price of $150 with a high of $220 under a bull scenario and $90 under the worst-case scenario. The investment bank gave an “Equal-weight” rating on the discount store operator’s stock.
“We are EW with a balanced (and uncertain) R/R skew. Earnings power looks relatively intact amidst COVID-19 disruption, with sales accelerations (especially at FDO) partially offset by incremental expenses and margin headwinds. Inconsistent results (especially at FDO) and limited EPS visibility keep us on the sidelines. Underlying Dollar Tree (DLTR) results should be steady while FDO sales can improve, driven by “H2” renovations,” noted Simeon Gutman, equity analyst at Morgan Stanley.
“Cost headwinds (freight, wages, shrink, and tariffs) may continue to weigh on profitability. Favourable skew of macro-outcomes: Dollar Tree (DLTR) benefits in a recession while gaining share in a low-growth environment. Store growth potential remains, but likely slower than prior history.”
Several analysts have also updated their stock outlook. UBS raised the target price to $175 from $170. Deutsche Bank lifted the price objective to $176 from $171. Telsey Advisory Group upped the target price to $180 from $175.
Technical analysis suggests it is good to buy as 100-day Moving Average and 100-200-day MACD Oscillator gives a strong buying opportunity.
Check out FX Empire’s earnings calendar
This article was originally posted on FX Empire


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Apple Airtags Are Being Used by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
The DEA used an AirTag to track a couple of packages that border agents suspected were on their way to an illegal narcotics manufacturer
The embargo has lifted on the first media reviews of Apple’s latest HomePod mini smart speaker. Priced aggressively at $129 CAD, it’s no surprise HomePod mini is now a must-have for Apple users. Check out the reviews roundup below:
Click here to buy the HomePod mini from Apple.ca for $129 CAD–it launches on November 16, 2020.


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Protecting the Guest Experience from Hotel and Restaurant Cyber Attacks
November 28, 2022
Take these steps to protect guest privacy and your hotel or restaurant from cyber attacks.
Stay ahead of the news
In the hospitality profession, staying up to date with the latest news is key to your success. You need to know what’s happening in the industry ASAP. We provide the information you need to stay a step ahead.


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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global Filgrastim Market By Drug Type, By Indication, By Distribution Channel, By Regional Outlook, Industry Analysis Report and Forecast, 2021 - 2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
The Global Filgrastim Market size is expected to reach $953.4 million by 2027, rising at a market growth of 8% CAGR during the forecast period.
Key Market Players:
- Abbott Laboratories
- Amgen, Inc.
- Pfizer, Inc.
- Novartis AG
- Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd.
- Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.
- Kyowa Kirin Co., Ltd. (Kirin Company)
- Cadila Healthcare Ltd. (Zydus Cadila)
- Apotex, Inc.
- Toksoz Group
Filgrastim refers to the recombinant DNA-derived granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), which is generally utilized to cure low blood neutrophils. It is especially used in cases wherein lukapheresis is linked with rising white blood cells. In addition, there are some side effects of using filgrastim that include chest pain, hair loss, joint discomfort, and vomiting.
Filgrastim injections are utilized in the process of curing neutropenia which is a condition of having low white blood cells that can be caused by cancer medicines. This injection is a man-made form of a substance, which is naturally created in a person's body called a colony-stimulating factor. In addition, filgrastim assists the bone marrow to develop new white blood cells.
COVID-19 Impact Analysis
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the workflow of the healthcare industry around the world. The disruption in the supply chain of various goods and the temporary ban on manufacturing units had a negative impact on the filgrastim market. The pandemic has increased the pressure on healthcare systems of the world. More staff and resources were reassigned to treat COVID patients who were earlier taking care of patients with a different disease.
A decline in recruitment to the trials and obstruct in the planned release of the latest oncology studies is expected to affect the filgrastim market. There are certain biosimilar developers who have also entered the market of non-biosimilar products for the development stage to find a treatment for the SAR-COV-2 virus. There are certain filgrastim biosimilars that are also utilized to cure COVID-19 infected patients.
Market Growth Factors:
Increase in the aging population
There is an increase in the geriatric population across various nations of the world, which is expected to fuel the demand for biopharmaceuticals like filgrastim biosimilars to cure the side effects caused by the treatment of numerous chronic diseases like cancer. People with the age of 65 years have surged around the world along with that age-related chronic ailments have also increased. These aged people are more vulnerable to chronic diseases.
Growing cases of chronic diseases
Chronic disease refers to a group of diseases including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, and others. There is a rise in the number of chronic diseases among the population across the globe. Factors such as sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet, and consumption of tobacco are responsible for chronic diseases. Cancer is one of the top reasons behind death across the world which caused approximately 10 million deaths in 2020. Among the total number of deaths due to cancer, approx. 70% of deaths were reported in low- and middle-income countries.
Marketing Restraining Factor:
Stringent government regulations and policies
Pharmaceutical companies that are developing biosimilars like filgrastim face a major challenge in the approval process of their products. Different countries have a different process of approval for any medicine, treatment, vaccine, and medical device; however, these approval procedures are difficult to follow. It is due to the various regulations and evidence required to prove the efficacy and safety of that product.
Key Topics Covered:
Chapter 1. Market Scope & Methodology
Chapter 2. Market Overview
18.104.22.168 Market Composition and Scenario
2.2 Key Factors Impacting the Market
2.2.1 Market Drivers
2.2.2 Market Restraints
Chapter 3. Global Filgrastim Market by Drug Type
3.1 Global Biosimilar Market by Region
3.2 Global Biologic Market by Region
Chapter 4. Global Filgrastim Market by Indication
4.1 Global Chemotherapy induced Neutropenia Market by Region
4.2 Global Chronic Neutropenia Market by Region
4.3 Global Other Indications Market by Region
Chapter 5. Global Filgrastim Market by Distribution Channel
5.1 Global Hospital Pharmacies Market by Region
5.2 Global Retail Pharmacies Market by Region
5.3 Global Online Pharmacies Market by Region
Chapter 6. Global Filgrastim Market by Region
Chapter 7. Company Profiles
For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/x6jx9i


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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2021 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2021) . . Page.. 1857 ..
Regarding mixing of vaccinations, including AstraZeneca and then to Pfizer, which we know is a question that is being asked, ATAGI has advised that there is not yet the requisite evidence on the effectiveness of mixed schedules for different vaccines, but ATAGI and TGA will continue to review the evidence object that issue. I note that ATAGI does not have any current approvals in place in relation to that.
MS LAWDER: My question is to the Minister for Business and Better Regulation. Minister, you have repeatedly stated that the ChooseCBR scheme was a business stimulus program, yet of the 4,000 eligible businesses only 797 made any money. Of those 797 businesses which benefited, almost 180 businesses redeemed fewer than 10 vouchers and so would have made an average of about $150. A further 200 businesses redeemed fewer than 50 vouchers, so would have made approximately $750. Minister, wouldn’t it have been simpler, smarter and cheaper to divide the $2 million between all eligible 4,000 businesses so that each received $500?
MS CHEYNE: As Ms Lawder rightly points out, it is a stimulus scheme. Stimulus is not defined as just the minimum voucher transaction that occurred in store for these businesses. It achieved a raft of things, including that it allowed people a greater awareness, I think, of businesses—both near to them and far—that they might not have otherwise been aware of. There were people who were exploring more, which is exactly what we encouraged them to do. There were people who may not have had a chance to use their voucher during the quick time of the uptake of the scheme but still used the map function and the search function to understand what other businesses are out there.
In addition to that, the people who were able to get to those businesses and use those vouchers may have been spending more. We already know that the overall economic impact was more than double—it was about 2.6—with $5.1 million injected into the economy. I think that those relationships—the new relationships between businesses and customers—even if they have not quite started yet, will be ongoing. The scheme was not just to do with the immediate financial injection of the voucher but was also about these ongoing relationships and the ripple effect.
MS LAWDER: Minister, beyond the $2 million of taxpayer money that less than 800 businesses benefited from, what was the total amount of taxpayer dollars forked out on ChooseCBR?
MS CHEYNE: It is a bit exasperating that I spent quite a lot of effort on a ministerial statement that seems to have not been listened to or read. As I stated, we are $203,000—
Mr Hanson: Madam Speaker—
MADAM SPEAKER: Minister, resume your seat.


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By Patrick Avenell
SYDNEY: The Australian Retailers Association (ARA) has immediately praised the Reserve Bank for cutting the cash rate by 100 basis points – equivalent to a full 1 per cent reduction to interest rates.
The ARA executive director, Richard Evans, said this was great news for retailers, as consumers should have more money to spend on gifts this Christmas. This is the most important time for consumer electronics retail industry, with many stores looking to make up their year targets with a boon period over the next three months.
Evans, however, did little to inspire confidence in his own prediction, as the words he uses are eerily similar to US Presidential candidate Senator John McCain’s (R-Arizona) now infamous “fundamentals of the economy” speech.
In a statement released today, Evans said, “Regardless of whether banks pass on this interest rate cut, the RBA’s decision today is a very strong sign that our leading financial regulators believe the underlying foundations of the Australian economy is strong”.
Compare that with McCain’s statement from 15 September at a rally in Florida.
“There has been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street. People are frightened by these events. Our economy I think, still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong…,” said McCain.
If it turns out that Evans is indeed taking his cues from McCain, members of the Australian Retailers Association might well start to worry just how much the executive director knows about the economy.


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The July acquisition of German underwear maker Schiesser AG made an immediate contribution to Delta Galil Industries Ltd.’s sales, earnings and margins in the third quarter.
“This is Schiesser’s first quarter as part of the company, but it’s a very promising start,” Isaac Dabah, chief executive officer of the Tel Aviv-based maker of innerwear, hosiery and performance knitwear, told WWD following disclosure of the results. “It was a great fit for us strategically and it’s a consistent company with excellent shelf space. It was very profitable and there’s every reason to think it will continue to be so.”
In the three months ended Sept. 30, the firm registered net income of $20.2 million, or 82 cents a diluted share, more than two-and-a-half times the $7.7 million, or 32 cents, registered during the prior-year quarter. Excluding nonrecurring items that lifted profits, the most recent quarter’s net income was $10 million, or 41 cents.
Advancing for the 12th consecutive quarter, sales rose 26.6 percent to $234 million from $184.8 million. Excluding the $48.4 million contribution of Schiesser, revenues were up 0.4 percent to $185.6 million. Gross margin leaped to 24.3 percent of sales from 20.1 percent in the third quarter of 2011.
Dabah credited Schiesser with adding “new markets, including Europe, while delivering a higher EBIT [earnings before interest and taxes] margin. With a strong and diversified portfolio of four business segments, we are also increasing our business with a wide range of existing customers and are adding new customers.”
With EBIT of $6.2 million, Schiesser’s EBIT margin — operating profit as a percentage of sales — was 12.9 percent, higher than Delta USA (4 percent), Global Upper Market (7.3 percent) or Delta Israel (2.3 percent). With Schiesser, Europe’s share of corporate sales rose to 35 percent from 24 percent a year ago.
He said the company was in the midst of evaluating opportunities for integration with its new subsidiary, including, as an example, using the Schiesser sales force to bring more DG products to European customers. “A lot of what we’re discussing will come to fruition next year, although we’ve already addressed some of Schiesser’s MIS needs,” Dabah pointed out.
Profitability was pressured by the company’s decision to consolidate production from two of its Israeli plants into one as it moves more manufacturing to lower-wage countries in and out of the Middle East.
While reiterating its full-year guidance for 2012, the firm issued its first projections for 2013 results, including revenues of $910 million to $920 million, approximately 12 percent above 2012 estimates, and EBIT of between $55 million and $60 million, approximately 13 percent above the view for the current year. Directors also authorized $2.5 million for stock repurchases during the three months beginning Nov. 11.
For the nine months, net income more than doubled to $43 million, or $1.75 a diluted share, as sales increased 13.7 percent to $571.2 million.
@chanel and @pharrell dropped what’s being dubbed as the world’s most exclusive sneakers yesterday. The Adidas Originals NMD Hu, which Williams designed in collaboration with Chanel and @adidasoriginals, has a waiting list of over 120K people who pre-registered online at chanelatcolette.fr –– and only 500 pairs are on sale. The singer predicted the resale value of the shoes could reach $40K. Read the full interview on WWD.com. Link in bio. #wwdfashion (📷: Dominique Maître)
@imanshumpert is diving deeper into his creative endeavors and relaunching his clothing line, Post 90s, and is helping to raise money for the hurricane victims in St. Maarten with a jersey he’s designed with his brother. The Cleveland Cavaliers player talked to WWD about kneeling during the national anthem, working with fashion brands and how he wants to be more than an @nba player. Read the interview on WWD.com #wwdfashion (📷: George Chinese)
Not only does #TheProfit return to CNBC tonight, but @marcuslemonis has launched @shopmarcus, a new shopping and lifestyle retail experience in Aspen and Chicago, with more locations to come. The retail stores offer in-store stylists and a variety of contemporary womenswear selections.
“It’s life, I’m going to face it,” @mingxi11 sighed. “I fell, but you know, I think the most important thing is that I get back up. I had the love, the help from my sister — the girl next to me Gizele [Oliveira] — she’s so nice. When I went backstage everybody was trying to comfort me like ‘Oh Ming, it’s OK.’ I’m really, really touched. I think it’s them who gave me the courage to go back on stage for the finale,” Xi told WWD of her fall at the @victoriassecret fashion show. (📷: David Fisher) #wwdfashion #vsfashionshow #victoriassecret
@louisvuitton tapped @therealpeterlindbergh for its latest city-centric photo book, which is part of a series called Fashion Eye. The primarily black and white book captures the spirit of Berlin in 57 images shot between 1989 and 2019. “Berlin is an inspiration for me, more than a city. I mean @millajovovich is simply Berlin!” said Lindbergh. #wwdfashion
“You know, I think audiences expect a certain performance so I have to deliver to them what they’re expecting to a certain degree. But I’m also a different actor and a different person, I have my own spin on the character,” says @noahegalvin of his takeover of the leading role in “Dear Evan Hansen” following the departure of @bensplatt, who originated the role. Read WWD’s interview with the 23-year-old actor on WWD.com #wwdeye (📷: @jilliansollazzo)
For pre-fall 2018, @etro created richly-colored wonderland, using tapestries, textiles and wallpapers from the Eastern world at large. The line featured floral and graphic prints and jacquard motifs, like this two-piece look featured here. #wwdfashion (📷: Giovanna Pavesi)
@kith is moving into children’s. The men’s and women’s streetwear brand has launched Kidset, a Kith kids line located in New York at 64 Bleecker Street. The line includes mini versions of staple Kith pieces like the Astor bomber jacket and the Kith box logo sweatshirts, along with a wall that can display up to 120 pairs of shoes from @adidas, @newbalance, @timberland and more. #wwdfashion
“I just wanted to create this fully rounded character, but I do think what excited me most was just the opportunity to give a group of people representation that I feel needs it. I like to do characters in projects that stand for something and Karolina definitely does, so that was really exciting to me,” @ginnygardner says of her new role in @hulu’s “The Runaways.” Gardner plays Karolina Dean, a queer superhero, which is a rarity for @marvel. Read more about Gardner’s character on WWD.com #wwdeye (📷: @dandoperalski)


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Snowcrash, one of the NFT marketplaces of Solana, recently declared that Universal Music Group and Sony Music had partnered with the platform. The two largest music labels in the world have planned on releasing the Miles Davis and Bob Dylan NFT collections this year while preparing for a far wider integration with their rosters of artists. Interestingly, the co-founder of the marketplace is Jesse Dylan, the son of Bob Dylan. The marketplace also draws its name from the novel by Neal Stephenson written in 1992.
Snowcrash Will Soon Have NFT Collections of Bob Dylan
According to the latest information, Bob Dylan has been seen as a major investment by both of the labels. Universal reportedly spent close to $400 million on his songs in 2020 while Sony went ahead and bought his record music rights for around $150 million. In one of the statements put out by the co-founder of Snowcrash, Dylan Jr. has mentioned that the current position of the NFT market is simply the tip of the iceberg. He also opted for the blockchain of Solana over the Ethereum network to launch the platform due to its sustainability procedures.
As it can be understood, Snowcrash will be competing with the two existing Solana-based marketplaces of NFT such as Solanart and MagicEden. The President of Digital Business for Sony, Dennis Kooker, recently spoke about how the company was working with this marketplace in order to develop a host of opportunities for their recording artists. Also, the focus would be put entirely on producing user-friendly experiences while delivering accessible content for both fans and creators.
Snowcrash also has a major venture with the cryptocurrency exchange firm FTX and is also a major strategic partner of Solana Labs. As it can be understood, the music industry has already taken up quite an interest in NFTs as a way to increase content while creating unique communities.


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Nomura, Credit Suisse cut rating on India's Hindustan Unilever
MUMBAI Jan 23 (Reuters) - A number of investment banks, including Credit Suisse and Nomura, cut their ratings on Hindustan Unilever Ltd, a day after India's largest consumer goods maker disappointed investors with slower-than-expected volume growth and a hike in royalty payments.
Credit Suisse cut its rating on Hindustan Unilever to "neutral", while domestic brokerage IDFC downgraded it to "underperformer".
CLSA cut the company to "sell" from "outperform," while Nomura cut its rating to "reduce" from "neutral". (Reporting by Abhishek Vishnoi and Manoj Dharra; Editing by Prateek Chatterjee)
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Although iPhone users won't have a chance to get their hands on the new iPhone operating system until later this summer, the official SDK was released earlier this week in order for app developers to get a head start on integrating the new OS' features into their programs. Despite having the SDK for only a couple of days at this point, many enthusiastic developers are digging deep within the forthcoming OS' code, which has produced some rather interesting news today. According to a report posted by ArsTechnica, code within the OS 3.0 SDK makes mention of four new products from Apple, including new iPhones, new iPod touchs, and a mysterious, unknown product.
According to the post, the new OS makes mention of the current and previous generation products, whose code references have already been established: iPhone1,1 (the original iPhone), iPhone1,2 (iPhone 3G), iPod1,1, (iPod touch), and iPod2,1 (iPod touch 2G). In addition to current product codes, however, are four new code references: iPhone3,1; iPod3,1; iFPGA; and iProd0,1.
The iPhone3,1 is believed to be a standard hardware revision for the iPhone 3G, as is the iPod3,1 code for an updated iPod touch, however, the iFGPA and iProd0,1 are brand new product codes. Because of the iFGPA's lack of numerical version indication, it is expected to be a prototype device unintended for mainstream release, on the other hand the iProd0,1 reference suggests a prototype product, with a trackable version I.D.
What exactly is the iProd0,1 product? It's tough to say at this point. Given recent rumors, the iProd reference could be an upcoming netbook or tablet Mac, or, it could be the much talked about iPhone nano.
Stay tuned to IGN Gear for all the latest from Apple.


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The US’ recent blacklisting of Chinese technology giant Huawei, which the Trump administration is accusing of helping state espionage, is already having major repercussions across the tech industry. Yesterday, Reuters reported that Google had suspended all business with Huawei, which means that future Android-powered smartphones from Huawei won’t have access to the Google Play Store, and Google Play Services.
Google later clarified that existing Huawei smartphones will continue to work as usual, but these devices likely won’t receive Android Q, the next major update for Android which is slated to be released this summer.
For Huawei users' questions regarding our steps to comply w/ the recent US government actions: We assure you while we are complying with all US gov't requirements, services like Google Play & security from Google Play Protect will keep functioning on your existing Huawei device.
— Android (@Android) May 20, 2019
Huawei is currently the second largest smartphone maker worldwide behind Samsung, and the Chinese company is now selling more phones than Apple. Over the years, Huawei’s smartphones became very competitive thanks to their excellent design, performance (Huawei now designs its own Kirin SoCs), and cameras, and the company’s success reflects the global rise of Chinese smartphone makers like OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Oppo.
Huawei losing access to the Play Store and Google Play Services is a pretty big deal as the company will now be forced to replace these services with its own in-house solutions, similarly to what Amazon did with its Android-based Fire tablets. Huawei’s smartphones for the Chinese market already use a customized version of Android with no Google services on it, and the Chinese company is also rumored to be working on an Android alternative for its own devices.
However, the problem for Huawei is that Google isn’t the only company that can no longer do business with the Chinese giant. Bloomberg is reporting today that Intel, Qualcomm, and other chip makers like Broadcomm will stop supplying Huawei while Trump’s executive order is active, and this will likely impact Huawei’s PC business as well.
For now, it’s not clear if Huawei’s Windows 10 PCs will stop receiving major Windows 10 updates, or if Microsoft will stop selling Windows 10 licenses to Huawei. Contacted by Techradar, the Redmond giant said that “we have nothing to share,” but it’s hard to imagine the company not doing anything. The current situation is pretty unique in recent history, and we’ll have to wait to see if the Chinese government decides to strike back. China is currently the world’s biggest factory, and we remind you that US tech giants all depend on a lot of components that are being manufactured in the country.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment and we’ll let you know if we hear anything back.


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Razer, the U.S.-Singapore firm that produces PCs and peripherals for gamers, is set to raise as much as $550 million from its Hong Kong IPO after it revealed its price range.
The company first filed to go public in July, and today it confirmed that it plans to offer 1,063,600,000 shares at a range of HK$2.93-HK$4.00, that’s around $0.38-$0.51. If the full allocation sells at that top price then the listing would raise $550 million, at mid-range that’s HK$3.5 billion or $450 million.
12-year-old Razer plans to spend the proceeds on developing new product verticals — it is expected to announce its first mobile device before the end of this year — funding acquisitions and R&D, and also growing its brand via increased marketing initiatives.
It already has an impressive following — its most devoted fans sport tattoos of the Razer logo — thanks to a mantra of selling products that are “For Gamers, By Gamers.”
Three-quarters of revenue comes from the sales of PC accessories like gaming mice, souped up keyboards, specialist headphones and more, but the firm branched into PC devices with the Razer Blade, a high-performance laptop dedicated to portable gaming that costs more than $2,000, and it bought audio visual brand THX in 2016. Despite the price, margins on the Blade are low at under three percent.
Razer said in its prospectus that it isn’t likely to be profitable for some time as it is focused on expanding its business. Beyond hardware it is betting that a digital services play can leverage its brand to pay dividends, with its payments platform — funded by another acquisition — representing a critical part of that strategy. It aims to grow its presence in key markets like China, where it claims to be the top gaming accessories brand, and North America, which already accounts for 50 percent of sales.
That’s yet to come and Razer can point to being profitable in 2014 — to the tune of $20.3 million — before losses in 2015 and 2016, $20 million and $59.6 million, respectively. The former, it said, was largely down to the cost of an aborted U.S. listing, while its most recent financial year saw an increase in stock options and more R&D. Excluding that compensation, Razer’s loss for 2016 was a more modest $20.6 million.
Revenue-wise, Razer is in a tricky spot. Total sales growth hasn’t been amazing, instead the company’s real opportunity is that the global games industry itself will expand to give it more customers to sell to.
There’s precious little analysis on the peripherals space but a report commissioned by Razer itself concluded that gaming peripherals were a $2 billion market in 2016. With the base of global gamers predicted to jump from two billion in 2016 to 2.7 billion in 2021, Razer is pitching investors on that opportunity coupled with its forays into mobile, AV, services and payments.
Existing backers who have already bought into the vision include Foxconn, Intel, IDC-Accel and Hong Kong’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, who invested via his Redmount Ventures fund.
The SCMP reports that they’ll be joined by committed IPO investors Singapore fund GIC, real estate firms Kingkey (China) and Singhaiyi (Singapore), cigarette group Djarum from Indonesia, and Macau-based casino owner Loi Keong Kuong. A tranche of shares for the public will be offered up this week.
Alongside Razer, Tencent’s China Publishing Group — an Amazon Kindle-like ebooks business — is also going public in Hong Kong. The HKSE has increased its appetite for tech firms after selfie app make Meitu raised $629 million in a December listing.


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FRANKFURT–Automakers at the Frankfurt Auto Show were guardedly optimistic Tuesday after new figures showed sales rose across Europe during July and August. But while they welcomed the improvements, they acknowledged that the road to recovery would be bumpy at best.
Porsche Automobil Holding SE chief executive Michael Macht said Tuesday that his company's sales were down 24 per cent for the fiscal year, but that the decline was likely the low point of its sales slump.
"Although the next few months will remain difficult, we are moderately optimistic for calendar 2010,'' he told reporters, analysts and others at the show.
Tadashi Arashima, the head of Toyota Motors Europe, told reporters ahead of the 63rd Frankfurt Auto Show that the "second part of the year should be better," but added that demand may not completely recover until the final six months of 2010.
His remarks came after the Brussels-based European carmakers' association ACEA said that an array of government-backed cash-for-clunkers programs across the continent helped keep car sales on the rise over the summer, lifting them 2.8 per cent in July from last year and another 3 per cent in August.
Makers of smaller cars are benefiting most from the higher sales. PSA Peugeot Citroen SA, Fiat SpA and Renault SA all performed well in both July and August. Europe's biggest car maker Volkswagen AG had mixed results, with sales falling 0.7 per cent in July and rising 8.4 per cent in August.
Luxury car manufacturers are feeling more pain. Sales of Daimler AG, the maker of Mercedes, contracted by a quarter in August and by 9.1 per cent in July. BMW AG saw sales decrease by 5.4 per cent in August and 14.7 per cent in July.
Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo said his company's revenues were down 8 per cent in the first half of 2009, although the first half of 2008 was a record for Ferrari in terms of both sales and revenue.
"I don't want to be too optimistic, or triumphal, but we don't just sell cars, we sell dreams," Montezemolo said, noting that Ferrari 2009 results to date are in line with 2007 and better than many competitors in their class.
Fiat Automobiles CEO Lorenzo Sistino said the Fiat brand hopes to end the year with a market share in Europe above 7 per cent, with volume sales expected to end up 1 per cent in 2009.
It was the third month running that automakers saw slight gains after 14 months of declining sales as consumers, encouraged by incentives to trade in older and less fuel efficient models for new cars, became slightly less wary of spending.
But the automakers are aware that the government incentive programs cannot last forever.
The scrapping scheme is ending in Germany, where some euro5 billion ($7.28 billion) was earmarked for the program, with no plans to renew it. That, analysts have said, could see another drop in sales in upcoming months.
Toyota's Arashima said automakers' improving health would depend on whether cash-for-clunker programs are extended.


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The residential market in the city has bounced back as new launches in H1 (first half) 2018 were 44% more than H1 of 2017 and sales breached the 8,000 unit mark for the first time since bifurcation. Office space transactions have increased by 15% compared to last year and the IT and ITeS sector has lost ground to other services sector.
According to a report released by Knight Frank India, the residential segment witnessed a sale of 8,313 units in H1 2018, a year-on-year change of 5%. The report stated that among several cities, Hyderabad saw a price appreciation by around 8%.
Residential markets across the city recorded a growth except east Hyderabad which comprises Uppal, Malkajgiri and L.B. Nagar. Explaining the launching and buying patterns, Mr. Arthur said, “The ₹75 lakh to ₹1crore bracket has seen the highest number of launches.” This, he said, is despite affordable housing being given a thrust. “The ₹50 lakh to ₹75 lakh bracket continues to do well,” he said.


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PARIS (Reuters) - Global commodities trader Louis Dreyfus is to buy Dutch-based dairy trading group Ecoval for an undisclosed sum to tap growing demand in emerging countries.
Louis Dreyfus said on Monday the deal to buy Ecoval from Belgian group Prominter and Dutch firm CV Datrex Beheer was expected to close in the second half.
The move came with family-owned Louis Dreyfus stepping up its investments - it has plans to spend $7 billion over the next five years, making more acquisitions than previously.
In the past week, Louis Dreyfus has unveiled plans to list Brazilian sugar and ethanol division Biosev in an offering that could raise up to $548 million, while also taking a stake in the $3.1 billion listing of Felda Global (FGVH.KL) as part of an alliance with the Malaysian palm oil producer.
Ecoval had sales of more than $530 million last year and handled about 250,000 tonnes of dairy products.
“This acquisition is a significant step for the development of LDC’s (Louis Dreyfus Commodities) dairy platform and will elevate us to be an important player in the global trade markets for a diverse portfolio of dairy products,” LDC chief operating officer Ciro Echesortu said.
The combined dairy business would have a “special focus in serving growing demand in emerging markets such as Asia, Africa and Latin America”, he said.
LDC, the trading arm of the Louis Dreyfus group, posted sales of $59.6 billion in 2011.
Reporting by Gus Trompiz; Editing by Dan Lalor


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It seems that the PlayStation 4 Slim wasn’t thin enough because Sony is reportedly planning to come with an even thinner console. If the rumors to be believed, the PS4 Slim launched late last year would be an obsolete piece of tech quite soon.
In a recent article about Nintendo Switch’s shipments, the Taiwanese newspaper Digitimes claimed that Sony is expected to release a thinner version of PlayStation 4. Apart from this, the article talks about projected shipments of Nintendo Switch for the first year along with the upcoming Xbox Scorpio that is reportedly being manufactured by Pegatron Technology and Flextronics. The two contract manufacturers also made the previous gen Xbox consoles too.
The report doesn’t mention any other detail about the PS4 Slim console. There is no information when it would be released or what it would exactly be. A slimmer version of PS4 Pro makes sense as the PS4 Slim already exists and the Pro variant might need some slim treatment. This also makes sense as Microsoft is also planning to announce an enhanced Xbox console later this year.
Bringing a major specification overhaul, the PlayStation 4 Pro was launched in November 2016 as a more powerful alternative to the PlayStation 4. It brought support for 4K gaming and improvements to performance as well. On the other hand, the PS4 Slim carried the same specifications as the original PS4 but with a visibly slimmer profile.
Sony is continuing to show strong sales numbers for their latest consoles. In January, the company reported worldwide PS4 sales of 53.4 million while the sales games for the console reached staggering 401.1 million.


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【腾讯10分彩_10分彩套路_腾讯10分彩套路】UK economic growth rate continues its pre
LONDON, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- The British economy continued its pre-Brexit slowdown in the GDP growth rate, with the rolling three-month rate continuing to decline from a peak seen in the summer, according to official figures released on Friday.
The rolling three-monthly growth rate for the period of September to November in 2018 was 0.3 percent, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
"This is the weakest since last May. GDP got a boost over the summer from the hot weather and catch-up from the first quarter," Dr Howard Archer, chief economic adviser to EY ITEM Club, London-based economic forecasting group, told Xinhua in an interview on Friday afternoon.
"It does look like the economy has stepped down a gear in the last few months and that is no surprise, with Brexit uncertainty becoming ever more to the fore and that has led to some caution particularly among businesses over investment," Archer added.
However, the monthly GDP growth figures showed a different story, with growth in November over the October figures of 0.2 percent, beating the consensus expectations of economists for 0.1 percent growth.
November's monthly growth was driven largely by the dominant services sector, representing nearly 150 percent of the economy, with growth broadly based, and driven by retail, wholesale, and auto trading, boosted by strong pre-Christmas retail sales.
"The monthly figure for November was a little bit better than expected, and was up from 0.1 percent in October and a flat performance in September and that was largely the service sector growing by 0.3 percent month on month --but monthly GDP figures are volatile," said Archer.
Growth in the manufacturing sector continued to follow the downward trend seen in other European economies, such as Germany and France, with a monthly decline of 0.4 percent in industrial production, with declines across all sub-sectors.
"The main disappointment in the November figures was a further fall in the manufacturing sector, which has been a sector that has been struggling not just in the UK but in most countries -- that seems to be a global trend," Archer said.
Construction sector growth rebounded at 0.6 percent monthly growth, with the recovery from weakness in October driven by new work on private sector homes, but public sector construction continued to contract.
"It is hard to argue against the idea that the economy suffered a loss of momentum over the latter part of last year. This is a pattern which has been shared with most other major economies, but the UK's experience appears to have been exacerbated by the damage to sentiment from ongoing uncertainty around Brexit," said economist Andrew Goodwin of Oxford Economics.
UK economic growth looks set to slow to a quarterly rate of 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018 from 0.6 percent in the third quarter, according to data from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), an independent economics think-tank in London.
There were several factors at play in the sharp slowdown, but that Brexit-related uncertainty was not primary, as there is a global slowdown of both services and manufacturing -- the UK is part of that, Amit Kara, head of UK macroeconomic forecasting at the NIESR, told Xinhua.
Kara forecast economic growth in the first quarter of 2019 will yield a modest improvement as the manufacturing sector stabilized.
Kara said: "Going forward we feel that the first quarter of 2019 will see growth of about 0.4 percent on the previous quarter. We will see services sector growth staying stable, and manufacturing sector which appears to have shrunk quite sharply in Q4 of 2018 will stabilize in Q1."
However, Brexit uncertainties and their effects on economic performance could become more noticeable, Kara said.


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Inaugural Southwest Detroit Restaurant Week focusing on Latin American food
More than 20 restaurants participating
DETROIT – More than 20 restaurants are participating in this week's inaugural Southwest Detroit Restaurant Week, but the first-year event is honing in on Latin American cuisine.
The event, which runs until Oct. 14, will feature special menu items "designed to showcase traditional and affordable selections," according to a press release.
“Southwest Detroit is well known for its incredible line-up of authentic and reasonably-priced restaurants, making our very own restaurant week a tremendous sense of pride for our community,” said event organizer Monica Casarez. “For our inaugural event, we wanted to build upon Southwest Detroit’s solid reputation for food and hospitality by helping visitors to explore the area, enjoy authentic Latin American cuisine and walk away with an incredible cultural experience.”
According to Robert Dewaelsche, president of Southwest Detroit Business Association, people will be able to select from restaurants that offer "authentic cuisine commonplace in countries like Guatemala, Honduras, and Venezuela, among others."
“We also encourage everyone to take full advantage of their visit to Southwest Detroit by supporting our many local businesses, including restaurants, bakeries, mercados, specialty retailers, merchants and more," he said.
Copyright 2018 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved.


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Cultural institutions and creators join industry, consumers and educators in support of fair use. Today libraries, cultural institutions and creators join other groups in welcoming the Attorney-General George Brandis’ commitment to fixing Australia’s copyright law. This coincides with the final...
Righting the copyright imbalance
The internet has profoundly changed the way we access, share and create content. It enables widespread access to knowledge, new opportunities for community participation and fosters digital innovation.
The internet age challenges our copyright framework as the chief means of regulating the creation, distribution and use of information. Balanced and flexible copyright laws are fundamental to the broad dissemination of knowledge, culture and education and to encourage innovation.
The Australian Digital Alliance is the peak body representing copyright users and innovators in Australia advocating for balanced copyright laws. Its mission is to promote a copyright law in Australia that is balanced and flexible, respects user rights, and encourages access and innovation in the public interest.


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John Lewis has revealed that it has become the first major department store chain to adopt Google Street View.
The mapping of the London Oxford Street store is one of three trials the department store is running over the Christmas period to improve customer experience. Google recently added airports and train stations, including Gatwick Airport, Manchester and most of the London mainline stations, to its Street View database.
Simon Russell, director, retail operations development at John Lewis, said: “We intend to keep investing and innovating in our shops so that they remain compelling and hassle-free places for customers, offering multiple reasons to visit them. Partly this will see us use an increasing amount of technology to make shopping easier and offer more ‘in shop help’.”
Visitors to the retailer’s seven-floor, flagship store will now be able to virtually walk the aisles and plan their trip using the virtual tour designed by Ideal Insight.
If the Google Map trial is successful, the virtual tour could be rolled out to other branches in the next two years.
In addition, John Lewis is trialling transactional tablets in its John Lewis Cheadle, Brent Cross and Peter Jones stores, to help customers beat the queues at tills. The tablets will be fully linked to the shop’s till systems, enabling customers to complete their purchase in the shop or arrange a home delivery with the member of staff who advised them on the shop floor.
The tablets will be trialled in a number of departments, including technology and white goods.
Meanwhile, John Lewis is trialling ChargeBox, a service that allows customers to charge their mobile phones and tablets for for free while they shop.
The trial, in its final development stage in the retailer’s Peter Jones and Watford shops, will allow customers to connect up their devices in individual, locked units, for 30 minutes. The charging stops after 30 minutes and the device remains in the unit until the owner returns with the key to release it.
John Lewis has installed wall mounted units in the audio and TV departments in the trial stores, as well as free-standing units next to its ‘Place to Eat’ cafes in both shops. If successful, the ChargeBoxes will be rolled out to other John Lewis shops in summer 2014.
Department store chain Leekes had its Coventry-based shop mapped on Google last year.


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Apple made a couple of announcements at their “California streaming” event including the new iPhone 13 series, Apple Watch Series 7, new iPad Mini and more.
Tag: iPad Mini
Apple has unveiled an all-new iPad Air and a new iPad Mini.
There was quite a few announcements that Apple made today including a brand new iPad, a new Apple TV set-top box, new OS updates and of course a updated iPhone.
The Apple iPad turns 5
Five years ago, on April 3rd is when Apple released the first generation iPad. This came three years after the Apple announced the iPhone in 2007.
Since 2010, the iPad has gone through a number of designs but it still remained a tablet when boiled down to the core.
The iPad has changed the way computing works in our daily lives.
Here is a look at the iPad’s history.
Original iPad Announcement – January 27th, 2010
Steve Jobs took to the stage at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco. Jobs unveiled the original iPad to the world and would be followed by it’s release a few months later.


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strategic cooperation | | leadingpharm, liansheng pharmaceutical and logan instrument reached strategic cooperation to jointly build an advantage platform of transdermal drug delivery preparations ! -凯发官方
on the morning of may 27th, the signing ceremony of strategic cooperation between leadingpharm, liansheng pharmaceutical and logan instruments was successfully held. all parties will give full play to their own advantages in technology, industry and equipment, jointly build an advantage platform of transdermal drug delivery preparations, improve industry standards and promote the development of china's pharmaceutical industry.
mr. tao xinhua, chairman of beijing leadingpharm, ms. gao shijing, president, mr. yan yaodong, assistant president, ms. zhang yan, assistant president and director of technical marketing department, and mr. zhu haobin, director of medical department, mr. wang hongfeng, chairman of liansheng pharmaceutical, ms. li ailing, vice president, mr. liu wei, director of r & d, and mr. hong changda, director of marketing department, mr. liang xiaojing, project director of lugen instrument asia pacific, mr. xie kaiping, operation director of hong kong louis enterprise, mr. chen zhuangzhi and account manager, mr. xu xuezeng,, the special guests, mr. wang zhiguang, secretary general of pharmaceutical chamber of commerce of all-china federation of industry and commerce, and ms. lv donghong, deputy director of all-china federation of industry and commerce medical & pharmaceutical industry chamber attended the ceremony.
▲ beijing leadingpharm signed a strategic cooperation agreement with guizhou liansheng
▲ beijing leadingpharm signed a strategic cooperation agreement with logan instrument and equipment
beijing leadingpharm has professional drug research and development and clinical technical service team. after 16 years of accumulation, leadingpharm has a lot of drug research and development experience and registration experience, developed into pharmaceutical research and development leading enterprises, while integrating resources to build the leadingpharm cxo whole industry chain service system, established the intestinal solution, high-end liquid preparations, inhalation preparations, percutaneous administration preparation and other high-end preparation research and development platform, which can provide customers with technical services of the whole life cycle.
guizhou liansheng is comprehensive enterprise and a collection of production, research and development, sales. it has 5 holding subsidiary, 8 production line with gmp certification covering capsules, tablets, granules, wall broken drinking pieces, patches, paste, and so on, and has a strong demand for generic drugs, new drug projects, import projects, clinical projects and other projects with technical advantages .
logan instrument and equipment (shanghai)
logan instrument and equipment (shanghai) is one of the main suppliers of drug dissolution and skin diffusion system in the pharmaceutical industry, and has always been committed to the research and development, design, production, sales and service integration of drug dissolution automation system and skin diffusion system. it has now obtained several patented technologies and several software rights. the company's products have been used by many pharmaceutical companies around the world for nearly 30 years. adhering to the concept of fine design products, starting from the aim of serving the needs of enterprises, provides drug inspection instruments with high technology, excellent quality and reasonable price, as well as scientific and reasonable solution methods to companies in china.
chairman tao xinhua said, today is very lucky to invite secretary wang zhiguang and deputy director lyu donghong to witness the cooperation between the three parties. both leadingpharm and liansheng are vice president units of the pharmaceutical chamber of commerce, logan is also a member of pharmaceutical chamber of commerce. supported by the pharmaceutical chamber of commerce of thousands of member units, we are full of confidence in the cooperation prospects of the three parties. the next ten years are the golden decade for the development of china 's pharmaceutical industry, hope we can jointly build the percutaneous drug preparation platform into a strategic platform, and push china' s pharmaceutical industry to a new level!
wang hongfeng chairman said, the mission, vision and values of liansheng and leadingpharm are very similar, the strategic cooperation will not only develop one or two products, but focus on the whole industry layout, produce more quality medicine continuously by deep cooperation, help the development of the industry, and make all the chinese people can benefit from it.
a leader from logan said that logan can not only provide advanced equipment, but also have a strong technical team, which can provide a strong guarantee for their strategic partners. he wished the strategic cooperation a complete success and also hope that he can continue to expand the breadth and depth of cooperation in the future, and jointly contribute to the development of china's pharmaceutical industry!
secretary general wang zhiguang pointed out in his speech that since the establishment of the pharmaceutical chamber of commerce, it has been committed to doing practical things for enterprises and become a bridge of communication and cooperation between enterprises. he was pleased to witness the strategic cooperation between the two vice presidents of the pharmaceutical chamber of commerce, and also witness the successful integration between pharmaceutical research and development and the industry. on behalf of the pharmaceutical chamber of commerce, he congratulated on the success of the signing and wished the cooperation of all parties in the future could produce fruitful results.
by this strategic cooperation, all parties will work together to build an industry-leading percutaneous drug preparation platform, jointly carry out scientific research, break through technical barriers, achieve win-win development, help the development of china's medical and health industry in an all-round way, and achieve the healthy china dream!


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Snap Inc. ( ) a reputed multimedia and social networking company based in America, created by three former students at Stanford University, reported loss of $2 billion in its first initial public offering. This huge revenue fall was biggest for any technology company till date in US. Though many investors were hopeful about Snap’s first quarter report, the company didn’t live up to the expectations, and the numbers were quite shocking. Facebook and twitter the rival companies of Snap Inc had also disappointed with their revenue in the first quarter but being giants compared to Snap, their bad performance isn’t a big deal.
The CEO of the company Evan Spiegel, isn’t known for his public appearance but this time he has answered all the queries confidently and has taken control of the situation. He mentioned that the reason of such a tumble might lie in unawareness of the value of his platform and the business model of the company. Even he has not missed an opportunity to hit Facebook by mentioning that Facebook is copying most of Snapchat’s features. The recent feature of Snap ‘stories’ which automatically delete the videos and photos after 24 hour of its posting has also been implemented on Facebook which drastically reduced the number of Snap users. In 2013 Facebook proposed to buy ephemeral photo-messaging app from Snap but was not successful.
Being questioned about how they are going to deal with the competitor, assuring investors he said “If you want to be a creative company, you have got to be comfortable with and enjoy the fact that people copy your products if you make great stuff”. Further illustrating his though about competitors he gave example of the competition between two internet search companies Yahoo and Google saying both had same features but the latter had overpowered the former.


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Media Digest 10/15/2007 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Barron's
According to Reuters, Citigroup (C) and other large banksare planning to create a roughly $80 billion fund to buy ailing mortgage securities and other assets.
Reuters writes that Medtronic (MDT) is suspending sales of a heart devices that may have caused some deaths.
Reuters writes that Ford (F) believes it will sell Jaguar and Rover within the next two months.
The Wall Street Journal writes that Gabelli funds will vote against a plan to take Cablevision (CVC) private.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Chrysler will try to get a piece of China’s small car market.
The Wall Street Journal writes that Broadcom (BRCM) has invented a chip that could bring down the cost of making mobile handsets.
The New York Times writes Nokia (NOK) has started shipping its N95 with 8 Gigabyte memory.
The New York Times writes that Sallie Mae (SLM) is seeking to speed up the trial involving private equity groups that dropped a bid to buy the company.
The New York Times writes that six banks will start selling today at least $11 billion in debt to finance the buyout of the Texas energy giant TXU, one of the largest LBOs of the year.
The FT writes that Carl Icahn may make another run at Motrola (MOT).
The FT also reports that Pfizer (PFE) is leading big pharma into social networking.
CNN Money writes that Airbus will deliver its first A380 superjumbo today.


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Cornelia Kunze, currently chief executive officer of Edelman Germany, will move to Mumbai as vice chairman of Edelman Asia Pacific, supporting president and CEO David Brain in expanding the agency's presence in the region. The appointment is effective 1 October.
Kunze will be charged with developing the agency's consumer and brand planning offerings throughout the region. She will also focus on the Asia activities of Edelman’s current German-based clients, including BMW, Osram, BASF and TÜV SÜD. She will also support Robert Holdheim, managing director of Edelman India, which is expanding rapidly thanks to winning the business of Tata.
Brain, who worked with Kunze for seven years in EMEA, called her a "great brands thinker" and one of the best leaders he has worked with.
A new chief executive officer for Edelman Germany has been appointed and will be announced later this month.
This article first appeared on Campaign Asia Pacific.


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CBM calls on Government to widen energy support for ‘forgotten’ smaller manufacturers
Hundreds of small to medium-sized manufacturers are being frozen out of new plans by the Government to support businesses who are high energy users.
The stark warning came from the Confederation of British Metalforming (CBM), who are predicting that thousands of jobs could be at risk if these smaller businesses are not given similar levels of assistance to the ‘big boys’.
Under current plans, the UK government is consulting on the option to increase the level of exemption for certain environmental and policy costs from 85% of costs to 100%, but this will only apply to about 300 businesses that are directly involved in making steel, paper, glass, ceramics and cement.
Companies further down the supply chain are being ignored again by Whitehall despite the UK metalforming sector directly accounting for 300,000 jobs.
Stephen Morley, President of the CBM, commented: “We’ve challenged this approach before, yet it seems to fall on deaf ears with ministers who appear to be more inclined to help a select few, rather than the many.
“Our members, who are predominantly small to medium-sized manufacturers in the supply chain, are faced with an impossible conundrum. Many were asked to renew and fix charges based on a 4x increase in electricity costs, something that is simply not commercially viable.
He continued: “The issue is 4x has now become 6x, so a good number of companies are chancing their arm by embracing the ‘day ahead’ market and hoping that the situation with Russia/Ukraine improves, we have a mild winter and domestic users cut back on their usage.
“There is a lot of ifs, buts and maybes there and a lot that can go wrong. However, some bosses feel they have no choice but to play the game as locking in will mean business failure. How can you run a business on so much speculation and why aren’t they worth of support.”
The Confederation of British Mealforming, which supports 200 companies involved in the manufacture of fasteners, forgings and pressings and fabrications, is continuing to lobby the Government on this issue and is requesting urgent meetings with Ministers to get them to extend the consultation.
It is also asking for SMEs to have their say by coming forward and writing to their local MPs to highlight the impact of energy cost increases on their businesses and what they need to survive.
Stephen concluded: “There does seem to be a reluctance to look further down the supply chain by this Government and we are determined to change that. The top tier firms employ thousands of people, but the SMEs employ hundreds of thousands more and these are jobs are important to protect.”


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Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Hudson, Alexa Chung along with Jasmine Tookes were in attendance at attended The 2016 CFDA Fashion Awards was held at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Monday (June 6) in New York City.
Jennifer Hudson is wearing a strapless onyx and crimson Prabal Gurung Reosrt 2016 crepe asymmetric gown .
Jessica Chastain wore a strapless Prabal Gurung Fall 2016 high-low organza lurex gown styled with a pair of black Paul Andrew heels.
Jasmine Tookes is rocking a black halter Prabal Fall 2015 hand embroidered tank dress styled with a pair of pumps.
Alexa Chung is wearing a sleeveless black Prabal Gurung top that has a plunging neckling flared knee length skirt and black heels.


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'Difficulties' in meat sector sees a 50% fall in profits at Linden Foods
Linden Foods, one of Northern Ireland's biggest meat firms, has posted a fall in pre-tax profits of more than 50% to £0.8m after it was hit by the "difficult economic climate".
Around 50% of Linden Foods, which includes Kettyle Irish Foods in Co Fermanagh, was sold by Northern Ireland co-op Fane Valley last week to Irish meat giant ABP.
It is now co-owners of Linden Foods in a joint venture.
Linden Foods specialises in sourcing and processing beef and lamb for retailers and the meat-packing industry in the UK and Europe. One of its best-known brands is Kettyle Irish Foods, which specialises in dry-ageing beef in salt chambers. It sells a large amount of its beef to Marks & Spencer as own-brand product.
Linden Foods employs around 1,079 at Granville Industrial Estate in Dungannon, but it's headquartered in Moira along with the overall Fane Valley Group.
For the year to September 30, 2016, the company reported turnover of £182.7m, which was down 3.6% from £189.5m
Pre-tax profits were also down from £1.7m to £794,713. But employee numbers were up 17%.
Linden Foods said it had maintained "steady growth" in some of its key export markets while making investments in new processing.
However, the company said its results had "continued to be affected by the difficult economic climate within the meat industry".
"The continued weakened consumer confidence in meat products, along with a shortage of supermarket-specified livestock, caused gross margins to be squeezed during the year.
"Despite the difficult economic climate within the industry, the group has continued to invest in capital projects which will help meet its strategic goals.
"The board are confident that the strategic direction of the group will lead to an improvement of results in line with the expectations of its shareholders."
The sale of 50% of Linden Foods to Irish meat giant ABP was given a cautious welcome by the Ulster Farmers Union last week.
Vice president Victor Chestnutt said: "It is early days but ultimately we will judge the success of this new venture on the future producer returns for cattle and sheep."


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updated 07:40 am EDT, Tue May 4, 2010
2010 iPhone leans more on parts from Taiwan
Apple has switched up the suppliers in use for the new iPhone, a report by Taiwan's Economic Daily News paper said today. Foxconn will still put together the finished product, but Apple is now believed using three companies for the touch layer: Chimei Innolux is making 15 percent of the panels while the rest is split between Wintek and TPK. The American company is also leaning more heavily on Taiwan as a whole, as quartz maker TXC and laminate maker Taiflex Scientific are moving from less than a fifth of orders to 45 and 65 percent each.
Kinsus and Leadertek are belived to be making all of the PCBs for the circuit boards and X-ray testing gear. While the camera modules are believed to be designed by LG Innotek and may use an OmniVision-designed sensor, Taiwan's Largan Precision and Genius Electronic should be the ones to actually manufacture the completed parts.
Production is believed to have already started, as Foxconn has already been receiving parts since April. Apple normally starts manufacturing at least one to two months before the actual release to have enough supply for its planned launches. Based on the company's historical tendencies, it will likely unveil the phone at WWDC in early June and ship the hardware later that month.


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Engineer Gerry Caroro’s electric cars have been launched here in Quezon City! Now, people can get a ride in the electric cars at the Quezon Memorial Circle. Here’s the complete video feature from GMANews.tv.
For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV
According to Mr. Caroro, he’s also working on an electric jeepney for the city right now. We’re definitely looking out for that one. Click here and here to read our past features on G Car Motors.


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Dordogne out in Spring 2023
Posted on 3 weeks ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch eShop | 0 comments
The hand-painted 3D watercolor narrative adventure game Dordogne was announced for Switch a couple of years ago, but we now have update about the launch timing. Today, it was announced that the game is slated for Spring 2023.
In case you missed our previous coverage, check out the following overview:
SnowRunner update out now (verion 1.0.8), patch notes
Posted on 1 month ago by Nicolas in News | 0 comments
A new update has just made its way to the Switch version of SnowRunner, bringing the game to version 1.0.8. The update is mostly providing some bug fixes, particularly to New Game+, and is also adding new features to the game’s MOD editor.
Below are the full patch notes for the update:
A Plague Tale: Requiem launch trailer
Posted on 1 month ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Switch eShop, Videos | 0 comments
Focus Entertainment and Asobo Studio have readied a launch trailer for A Plague Tale: Requiem. The video shows off the action adventure stealth game, which arrives today.
Here’s an overview of the title:
A Plague Tale: Requiem gameplay overview trailer
Posted on 3 months ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Switch eShop, Videos | 0 comments
With Gamescom 2022 taking place next week, A Plague Tale: Requiem has received a new gameplay overview trailer ahead of the show.
The title will have a playable demo at the expo between August 24 and August 28. On top of that, Focus Entertainment will kick off its “In Focus” behind-the-scenes video series on August 30 to present the making of the title.
A Plague Tale: Requiem release date set for October, gameplay showcase
A Plague Tale: Requiem has secured a final release date on Switch. It will be out on October 18, publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Asobo Studio confirmed today.
A Plague Tale: Requiem was confirmed for Switch last June. We previously had a vague 2022 release window.
A Plague Tale: Requiem gets “End of Innocence” gameplay trailer
Posted on 5 months ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Switch eShop, Videos | 0 comments
A Plague Tale: Requiem debuted a new “End of Innocence” trailer at the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase 2022 today. The video servers as a first proper look at gameplay.
We have more on A Plague Tale: Requiem in the following overview:
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, retro-inspired first-person shooter, announced for Switch
Posted on 6 months ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch eShop | 0 comments
Today, publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Auroch Digital announced Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun. The retro-style first-person shooter is due out on Switch in 2023.
Speaking on today’s announcement, Focus Entertainment chief creative officer Dessil Basmadjian said:
Puzzle adventure game Chants of Sennaar coming to Switch
Posted on 7 months ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch eShop | 0 comments
Publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Rundisc have announced that Chants of Sennaar, a puzzle adventure game, is in development for Switch. The project is targeting a 2023 launch.
Learn more about Chants of Sennaar in the following overview:
The ninth content update for Farming Simulator 20 has been released for Switch, which includes two new machines. Players interested can check out the overview and trailer below:
Othercide getting a physical release on Switch
Posted on 10 months ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 0 comments
Limited Run Games will be distributing a physical version of Othercide, the company has announced. It will be a standard copy – there are no plans for any special editions.
Othercide first launched for Switch in September 2020. Up until now, the game has been digital-only via the eShop.


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LOS ANGELES - The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has announced that starting on Monday, March 16 they will be temporarily closing some stores and move to reduced hours in others due to COVID-19 coronavirus concerns.
The remaining locations will offer take-out and delivery only.
Modified operating hours will be posted at the store locations and on their website.
RELATED: CoronavirusNOW.com, FOX launches national hub for COVID-19 news and updates.
Guests can also place orders via The Coffee Bean Rewards App or through Postmates.
The company will continue to monitor this situation closely and provide updates as they become available.


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France pushes back against EU banning combustion cars by 2035
France is resisting the European Union effectively phasing out combustion-engine car sales by 2035, advocating for a more lenient target for the end of the decade and a longer leash for plug-in hybrid models.
The French government backs a target to reduce emissions from cars 55% by 2030 and for hybrids to remain on the market for longer, an official in President Emmanuel Macron’s office said Monday. Bloomberg News reported last week that the European Commission plans to require emissions to fall by 65% from 2030 and drop to zero from 2035.
The official, who asked not to be identified per government policy, commented after Macron met with top executives at auto companies including Stellantis NV and Renault SA, as well as labor representatives to discuss the transition to electric vehicles. The country will also consider fresh support for the industry to help it adopt new technology, the official said.
The French position could signal a battle is brewing within the EU over new climate targets and how they will affect the auto industry. The effective ban on combustion engines by 2035 is part of an ambitious plan to align the region’s economy with more aggressive climate targets. It would also mean a faster phasing-out of hybrids than some executives and labor officials expected.
“We know there will be no choice but to switch to electric cars,” said Jean-Marie Robert, a representative of the CFDT labor union, who attended the meeting. “What’s important is that we prepare in advance.”
The new EU emission targets would be significantly stricter than existing fleet-wide goals requiring a 37.5% emissions reduction by 2030. While the auto industry has been bracing for tougher rules, the meeting with Macron was part of an effort to gain support for a slower phasing out of combustion engines.
La Plateforme Automobile, France’s main lobby group for the industry, estimates 17.5 billion euros ($21 billion) in investment is needed in the country by the middle of the decade to develop batteries, charging stations, hydrogen and related services.
The phasing-out of combustion engines could lead to a loss of roughly 100,000 auto jobs in France through 2035 and the shutdown of manufacturing sites, according to a PFA presentation. The industry directly employs about 190,000 people currently.
Production of electric and fuel cell vehicles are less labor-intensive compared with hybrids and those with diesel engines, the PFA said. France lags behind countries including Germany, Japan and the U.S. in terms of the number of robots used by the auto industry, and French workers are more expensive than staff in eastern and southern European countries.
Stellantis, the auto giant formed via the merger of Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group, last week said it plans to spend 30 billion euros to deliver fully electric vehicles where demand, state support and regulatory pressure is highest. Rival Renault has also unveiled a plan for an EV and battery hub in northern France and a phasing out of combustion engines.
Top executives at the carmakers, plus suppliers Valeo SA, Faurecia SE and Cie Plastic Omnium SA, attended the meeting Monday with Macron.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.


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Taurai Mangudhla Senior Business Reporter
Bikita Minerals stands accused of prejudicing the country of tens of millions in potential revenue annually by exporting undeclared lithium to Asia and Europe. A report by lobbyist Farai Magawu titled “Investigating Illicit Financial Flows in Zimbabwe’s lithium sector”, said Bikita Minerals boasts of a world class lithium pegmatite resource and was once the largest producer of petalite and lepidolite in the world.
However, lithium is not listed among the products exported by Bikita Minerals, raising a strong possibility that the high value mineral is being exported illicitly as petaliote said the report.
Mr Magawu, a director at the Centre for Natural Resource Governance and the research study, used a combination of broad contextual; analysis, desktop study and a case study analysis of Bikita Minerals, where in-depth interview and observations were utilised.
Significant resource rents are then generated abroad, perhaps for the sole benefit of Bikita Minerals and countries with a thriving lithium market such as China. The report said the reluctance of Bikita Minerals to venture into value addition and beneficiation vis-à-vis the Zimbabwe government’s thrust on beneficiation, as enunciated in the Zim-Asset points to some underhand deals between the company and its clients who are deriving extreme financial benefits from the unprocessed products from Bikita Minerals. Bikita Minerals’ reports have also been questioned.
The report said the price at which Bikita Minerals claims to be selling its products is way below the market value of $180/tonne. This is highly unlikely given that Whaubochi Mine in Canada produces spodemene at $170/t , which is cited as the lowest lithium ore production cost. There has to be a more sensible argument as to why Bikita Minerals is allegedly selling its products at an uncompetitive price of $180/tonne.
The reports also said Bikita Minerals could be seriously under invoicing thereby prejudicing Zimra of taxes. The report said Government is out to take a firm stand against illicit financial flows if domestic resource mobilisation is to yield results.
Zimbabwe is ranked the sixth largest lithium producer in the world producing 23 000 tonnes in 2013. Zimbabwe produces 1 100t of lithium primarily from Bikita Minerals which sits on over 11 million tonnes of lithium-containing resources.


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Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of Internet specialist Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA) were getting booted out of investors' portfolios today, falling as much as 13% after a disappointing earnings report.
So what: Ixia's numbers were actually pretty strong on the surface, as revenue was up 43%, though all of that growth came from acquisitions. Without the addition of Anue Systems and BreakingPoint Systems last year, sales actually declined 2%. Adjusted earnings per share also beat estimates by $0.03, coming in at $0.25.
Now what: The market seems to be punishing Ixia for the drop in organic revenue, and management admitted to seeing a slowdown from some equipment manufacturer deals. Still, the company expects growth in its core business to increase 7% sequentially in the current quarter, and the stronger-than-expected growth from its acquisition should also not be overlooked. Given the growth potential there, Ixia looks like it should be able to bounce back.
Don't miss the next update on Ixia. Add the company to your Watchlist here.