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January 2016 – Wessex Deer Management Supports Rising Popularity of Venison.
Demand for a more interesting and contemporary menu, as well as the lean and healthy attributes of Game are just two of the reasons why there has been a rise in the popularity of Venison, both on a commercial level and with the general pubic.One of the Uk’s leading supermarket’s recently reported Christmas Venison sales were up 115 per cent on this time last year. In fact, they went as far as to say they sold out from the pre-order range and told the Guardian they were working to bring more top quality game to customers in response to its huge popularity.
The customer clearly wants to experience what was once only enjoyed in a hotel or restaurant setting at home. And, in reality, mostly anything you prepare with beef can be enjoyed using Venison as a healthy alternative. It is certainly not something to be afraid of when it comes to preparing every day wholesome meals through to those presented by a chef. And there are many countries where Venison is very much a staple diet.
Wessex Deer Management’s sister organisation, Wessex Game prepare the Venison for the organisation for those land owners who require their Venison prepared. They have certainly seen a sharp rise in interest. Venison is now becoming less of a winter dish and more of an all rounder as its contemporary recipes are now more accessible, making it possible for people to appreciate its flexibility. The age old tradition of a long hanging time for the deer and overly rich sauces divided opinions in the past, but recipes and ideas have changed and the meat can now be considered far more mainstream. Wessex Deer Management will support their Wessex Game organisation with high quality, local Wessex deer, which will in turn enable them to increase sales and boost production of new delicacies such as Venison sausages, House Pies and Jerky. www.wessexgame.co.uk


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U.K. to Create New Payments Regulator (Oct. 10, 2013)
The U.K. government has decided to create a new regulatory body for retail payment systems that will be charged with ensuring a level playing field in the noncash payments market by promoting modernization, innovation and meeting the needs of consumers—all of which might otherwise be stifled by a lack of competition, according to Her Majesty’s Treasury.
Robert Courtneidge, chairman of Prepaid International Forum and global head of cards and payments for international law firm Locke Lord LLP, tells Paybefore the new regulator will go beyond the scope of the Payments Council, an industry group that has been in place to self-regulate and led the failed effort to eliminate checks. “It is hoped [the new regulator] will be a breath of fresh air for the industry,” says Courtneidge. “It is also due to regulate beyond what is regulated today, so the schemes, the switches and the payment networks will all come under its watchful eye.”
“The government has decided that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) should be given the role of Payment Systems Regulator. The Payment Systems Regulator will be established as a separate body under the FCA, with its own managing director and board,” according to Her Majesty’s Treasury report, “Opening up UK Payments: Response to Consultation.” The report expects that, pending requisite approvals, the regulator’s powers will be in effect by late 2014, and the Payment Systems Regulator body will be fully operational by the spring of 2015.
The Payments Council, which continues to operate, welcomed the government’s plans and Chief Executive Adrian Kamellard noted that the council shares the government’s focus on continued industry collaboration.

domain: news


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Months after the reopening of the Western Australian border, the number of international visitors to the state is still only a third of pre-pandemic levels – with tourism businesses expecting to have to wait two years for a full recovery.
- Many foreign tourists have been burned by the WA border reopening backflip
- Perth Airport believes more needs to be done to regain its trust
- Domestic travel has increased significantly in recent months
When the pandemic first hit and international borders were closed, overseas travelers disappeared, leaving tourism operators scrambling to adapt.
There was a silver lining when borders reopened in March and the number of international visitors to Perth jumped by more than 400%.
But the recovery has been slow, with international arrivals at 30-35% of pre-pandemic levels, and many tourism businesses have remained struggling.
Amy Stutt’s skydiving business was thrown into uncertainty when international travel stopped and wiped out more than 75% of its clientele.
“At the very beginning of the pandemic, it was very devastating,” Ms Stutt said.
“About 45% of our customers were from mainland China (…) so our business was affected much earlier than many other tourism businesses,” she said.
Companies forced to adapt or die
While government assistance in the form of JobKeeper was able to get them through the first winter period of lockdown and border closures, the business had to adapt to survive.
“We needed to see how we could better meet local market needs,” Ms. Stutt said.
“We’ve always tried not to because our other skydiving operators in WA have really tied that side of the market world together. »
Capturing more of the local customer base and working in tandem with national and regional marketing campaigns has helped Ms. Stutt’s business weather the pandemic.
But while she remained hopeful since the border reopened, she said there were still many other hurdles in place, resulting in a slow recovery.
“It really depends on the market you are referring to. For example, the Singapore market is becoming gangbuster. We are really excited to welcome visitors from Singapore again,” she said.
“But other inbound markets have other issues. Coming from South Korea, Hong Kong, until recently these markets have had quarantine arrangements in their home countries. »
More work needed to rebuild trust
Recovering the international traveler base is not as simple as opening state borders.
Many travelers and businesses were burned when the state government delayed the original opening date of the Western Australian border.
While $48 million in funding has helped keep businesses like Ms Stutt’s afloat, there’s still work to be done to rebuild trust with travellers, according to Perth International Airport CEO Kevin Brown .
“I suspect there is an element of anxiety with a number of travelers waiting,” Mr Brown said.
“There is a significant investment in marketing and stimulating demand … strengthening these freight links, international education links, conference links, tourist links.
“And encouraging people to go catch up with their families, some of whom, myself included, haven’t seen our families for at least three years. »
Mr Brown shared the hope that tourism businesses clung to, with the hope that international travel would continue to increase.
“There’s a holiday coming up soon, and I suspect Christmas will be a big boost,” Brown said.
“These forward bookings are starting to increase and this will give airlines the comfort to increase capacity and frequency to meet this demand. »
The domestic travel market is heating up
While international travelers have been slow to return, Mr Brown said domestic travel has increased significantly over the past two to three months, with figures reaching around 70% of pre-COVID traffic.
“That’s almost 800,000 passengers a month… there’s still a bit of a way to go, but it’s certainly taken off much faster,” he said.
One of Australia’s largest regional accommodation providers, G’DAY Group, has welcomed the rapid recovery of the domestic travel industry.
“Pent-up demand for domestic travelers to go to wonderful places around the Western Australian coast, and in the North Kimberley and Rottnest Island, is very strong for the domestic market,” said general manager Grant Wilckens.
Wilckens said his business would rely on strong domestic travel demand to sustain itself while waiting for the bulk of international travelers to return.
“We have a very small number of internationals in our booking calendar,” he said.
“Winter-wise, we have a very strong northern season, and it’s usually a domestic Australian clientele at the moment.
“We see, probably, Rottnest coming back in the summer period, starting to see those internationals coming back. »
But Mr Wilckens said the resumption of international travel would be a “slow burn”. So, while hoping, the company will focus on capturing the market of Australians traveling within their own country.
” We are far. We are optimistic, but I think it would be a two or three year burn to come back,” he said.


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HB971 aims to fix NC’s antiquated and inefficient system of selling distilled spiritsDownload this Press Release
Raleigh, N.C. (April 25, 2019) – Representative Chuck McGrady (R-117, Henderson County) continues his efforts to modernize North Carolina’s Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) system with today’s filing of House Bill 971 [Modern Licensure Model for Alcohol Control.] Believing that North Carolina’s 80 year-old system for the distribution and sale of distilled spirits is outdated and inefficient, HB971 reforms the longstanding government management of the wholesale and retail sale of distilled spirits. The bill’s other primary sponsors are Rep. Jon Hardister (R-59), Rep. Jason Saine (R-97) and Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-61).
The current ABC control laws have been on the books since the repeal of Prohibition in 1937, and very little has changed in the past 80 years with respect to how they operate. Rep. McGrady and his co-sponsors believe that these outdated laws not only fail to meet the demands of today’s consumers, but they constrain opportunities for economic growth and create undue hardships for small business owners who sell liquor to North Carolina’s consumers.
“North Carolina would benefit much more from a ‘licensure system’ modeled on the way we currently sell beer and wine,” said McGrady, who co-chairs ABC Committee in the state House. “This licensure model has been very successful in ensuring public safety and preserving local revenue streams — all while streamlining operations and enabling private sector investment. And a recent report by the nonpartisan Program Evaluation Division reveals that many ABC boards are not only inefficient but fail to produce the revenues one would expect from a monopoly — which is exactly what they are.”
In the United States, each state has the authority to regulate the production, sale, and distribution of alcohol within its borders; laws and regulations vary widely from state to state and from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Only seventeen states have adopted forms of the ‘control model’ for the wholesale distribution of liquor; of those, thirteen control retail distribution. North Carolina is the only state in the nation where local government boards have total control over retail liquor sales to consumers and businesses.
And whereas most states only have one liquor control authority, North Carolina has 170 different ABC boards. Varying in size from two to six members, they are appointed by local city councils and county boards — a patronage system fertile for corruption. A scathing report by State Auditor Beth Wood (D) revealed last year that state-run liquor stores were rife with problems, having wasted millions of taxpayer dollars through years of mismanagement.
“Inevitably, there will be scandals and shenanigans directly resulting from having state and local liquor monopolies,” concluded McGrady. “It’s time for North Carolina to turn the page on this antiquated system — I believe that our citizens and our businesses are ready to be treated like we live in the 21st century.”
HB971 is the latest effort by Rep. McGrady to modernize the ABC laws. This proposed law builds on the successful passage of several of his “beer bills” that have made it easier for small businesses to produce, distribute, and sell beer in North Carolina — facilitating our state’s craft beer renaissance and its accompanying economic contributions.
For North Carolina residents to learn more information and easily contact legislators in support of HB971, visit www.FreetheSpiritsNC.com or text FIXABC to 52886 to receive updates about the bill and other ways to become involved.


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Last year, Julia King, a 20-year-old art student and influencer from Texas, noticed that a particular kind of sweater vest was taking over the internet. Celebrities including Bella Hadid had been photographed wearing shrunken, argyle-patterned styles, channelling classic 1990s movies like Clueless during a wave of millennium-era nostalgia. Soon, King found the perfect example in a secondhand shop: a child-sized pink-and-red knitted vest that fit tightly and cropped on an adult. Using herself as a model, King paired it with jeans and a Dior bag, snapped a picture, and listed it for $22 on Depop, an eBay-like resellers’ app favoured by gen Z.
The vest sold instantly, and she quickly forgot about it. But a month or so later, King received a message from one of her Instagram followers. They alerted her to the fact that an obscure, now defunct Chinese shopping site called Preguy was using her photo to sell its own cheap reproduction of the thrift-store vest. “Seeing the pictures of me up on some random fast-fashion website I’d never heard of before made me really upset,” King said.
Replicas of the vest soon began popping up on countless other clothing sites and e-commerce marketplaces, including Amazon, AliExpress, Walmart and Shein. Over time, the image of King’s torso would be altered, warping her body shape; at one point, another person’s manicured hand was awkwardly Photoshopped on to it.
Get the Guardian’s award-winning long reads sent direct to you every Saturday morning
Eventually, retailers began using their own product photos, but that didn’t make the experience any less surreal. Unknown brands with names such as GadgetVLot and Weania marketed their versions of the vest with jumbled strings of keywords: “Autumn Preppy Style Streetwear Clothes,” “Plaid Cotton Knitted Vest Elastic V-neck Sweater Crop.”
A vest that had started as a one-off vintage find was now available for anyone to buy, and often for an even lower price. As with many fashion trends, it had been plucked from social media and dropped into the frenzied machine of the global e-commerce market. It was multiplying, almost of its own accord, in the factories of China’s swelling ultra-fast-fashion industry.
Over the past decade, thousands of Chinese clothing manufacturers have begun selling directly to international consumers online, bypassing retailers that traditionally sourced their products from the country. Equipped with English-language social media profiles, Amazon seller accounts, and access to nimble garment supply chains, they have fuelled the acceleration of trends and flooded closets everywhere with a wave of impossibly cheap clothes.
Rest of World, a non-profit, tech-focused journalism outlet based in New York, spent six months investigating this new ecosystem, speaking with manufacturers, collecting social media and product data, making test buys and interviewing shoppers and industry experts in China and the US. The results of that reporting reveal how Chinese apparel makers have evolved to cater to the desires of internet-native consumers – and transformed their consumption habits in the process. Capitalising on this …….


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Platform capitalism with Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin
This week: we interview Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow, authors of Chokepoint Capitalism, about how platforms capture value in creative markets.
China’s big tech problem: even in a state-managed economy, digital companies grow too powerful
Like the EU and unlike the US, China is trying to rein in the power of big tech companies. Can we learn from these efforts?
‘Transparency reports’ from tech giants are vague on how they’re combating misinformation. It’s time for legislation
Recently, concerns have been raised over the harm caused by misinformation in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic and federal elections.
Big tech – how big is big enough?
How big can big tech be despite raking in some of their biggest ever annual revenue increases amidst the ongoing pandemic and market problems?
AirTags and suburban retrofitting on The Future, This Week
This week: Apple’s AirTag release raises platform competition issues, and the trend of suburban retrofitting changes what suburbs are for.
Business models and big tech on The Future, This Week
This week: reducing the reliance on ad revenue, reducing the reliance on external partners: how big tech companies evolve their business models.
Facebook’s virtual reality push is about data, not gaming
Facebook's Oculus Quest 2 headset is the latest step in the construction of a 'mirrorworld' built on high-tech surveillance and targeted advertising.
Apple, Google and Fortnite’s stoush is a classic case of how far big tech will go to retain power
There has been a clash of clans in mobile gaming, with angry birds Apple, Google and Epic Games in a saga over in-app payments.
Big tech and automation during COVID-19 on The Future, This Week
This week: big tech in the time of corona, and why robots are not taking your job.
The Future, This Week 29 Mar 19: It’s all #AppleNews
This week: a lot of #AppleNews, platforms and piracy.
The Future, This Week 22 Mar 19: More #BreakUpBigTech
This week: the five conversations at the heart of #BreakUpBigTech
The Future, This Week 15 Mar 19: #BreakUpBigTech
This week: big tech breakup, Amazon power and a Facebook rethink.


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Jun 20, 2009 By Srinivas Krishnan
Fiat finally launches the Grande Punto in India. We drive it
Jun 17, 2009 By BSM Desk
Grande Punto pricing a shocker! Starts at Rs 3.99 lakh
Jan 03, 2009 By Rohin Nagrani
Fiat India plans to reinvigorate itself. Can the Linea do just that?
Dec 29, 2008 By Kyle Pereira
Say hello to the ubiquitous Volvo B7R
Oct 21, 2008 By Srinivas Krishnan
We will be seeing more of Tata Motors new baby, the new Indica Vista
Jun 16, 2007 By Bijoy Kumar Y
The world premiere of the Fiat Linea was held in Istanbul. We were there.
Feb 21, 2005 By Shubhabrata Marmar
We settle the much awaited score


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Windows Server 2008: Much Talk, Little Action
When Microsoft's new back-end operating system launched earlier this year, a number of new features caught the eye, and it's fair to say that it was generally very well received. But now that the OS has been out for a while, is it all it was stacked up to be? This, it turns out, is a harder question to answer than it looks. Finding organizations that have adopted the OS are noticeably thin on the ground. In part that's because the product is so new, but there appears to be more to it than just that...The problem seems to be that although Windows Server 2008 may be a great operating system, few people feel the need to actually use it right now. "The codebase of Server 2008 is the same as Vista, and no one wants Vista," said Roy Illsley, senior research analyst at Butler Group. "Equally, there is no compelling case to implement Server 2008 just yet," he added.
To see if you agree with this writer's assessment of Microsoft's newest server product, go to ServerWatch.com.


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Worst Cars Ever Made
The ugliest and worst cars ever made. Pontiac Aztek, 1985 Yugo, Chevrolet Chevette. AMC Pacer/Gremlin and Ford Edsel.
Graveyards for Unsold Cars
When automakers have unsold cars, they often ship them to locations where the automobiles sit until they fall apart. An article in Zero Hedge claims the lots are vast graveyards for unsold cars, but other observers are challenging the charges. One of these massive parking lots for unsold cars is in Sheerness, in north Kent, England. There are hundreds of similar lots around the world, including more than 57,000 rotting cars in one location in Baltimore. The report claims sales of new cars has been declining over the last few years, leaving millions of cars without an owner. They sit in the giant lots, unused and unmaintained. As manufacturers produce more cars, the companies buy more land around the auto graveyards to contain the vehicles. Zero Hedge stated, "The car industry would never sell these cars at massive reductions in their prices to get rid of them, no they still want every buck. If they were to price these cars for a couple of thousand they would sell them. However, nobody would then buy any expensive cars and then they would end up being unsold." Many of these giant lots are visible on Google Maps, including a former test track in Sunderland, England. That track was recently closed due to the enormous number of unsold cars covering the grounds. The latest map views show the automobiles disappeared, according to Zero Hedge. Matt Hardigree, writing for Jalopnik, states that many of the pictures shown by Zero Hedge are old. He said, "Go back into the Getty or AFP or AP sources for these photos and you'll see, by and large, they're photos from the middle of the post-recession Carpocalypse when the car market collapsed in Europe and the United States." If the reports of auto gravelyards are true, this would not be the first time corporations have thrown away vast quantities of unsold product. In 1983, Atari buried tens of thousands of copies of their video Game, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, after suffering the worst failure ever in the history of electronic games. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-16/where-worlds-unsold-cars-go-die http://jalopnik.com/that-zero-hedge-article-on-unsold-cars-is-bullshit-1578 124255 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-01/another-month-another-gm-channel- stuffing-record http://www.vincelewis.net/unsoldcars.html http://www.snopes.com/photos/automobiles/unsoldcars.asp Download your free Next News "Heroes & Villains" Poster here: http://nextnewsnetwork.com/the-2013-heroes-villains-posters Donate USD: http://nnn.is/donate-dollars Donate BTC: http://nnn.is/donate-bitcoin LIVE: http://NextNewsNetwork.com Facebook: http://Facebook.com/NextNewsNet Twitter: http://Twitter.com/NextNewsNet Sub: http://NNN.is/the_new_media Meet the Next News Team: http://youtu.be/2QnNKwQ2WkY Hashtag: #N3 About: Next News Network's WHDT World News program airs daily at 6pm and 11pm Eastern on Comcast, DirecTV and Over-the-Air and Online at http://NNN.is/on-WHDT WHDT World News is available to 6 million viewers from South Beach to Sebastian, Florida and to 2 million viewers in Boston, Massachusetts via WHDN. WHDT broadcasts on RF channel 44 (virtual channel 9) from Palm City and is carried on cable TV channels 44 (SD) and 1044 (HD) by AT&T, on cable channels 17 (SD) and 438 (HD) in West Palm Beach by Comcast, on satellite channel 44 (SD) in West Palm Beach by DIRECTV, and on WHDN-Boston which broadcasts on RF channel 38 (virtual channel 6) from the Government Center district in downtown Boston. More about WHDT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHDT #SR
Chrysler Turbine Car History
For decades, Chrysler worked on an alternative engine design that might have provided a very flexible alternative. It ended without fanfare in 1979, and was never picked up again - as far as we know. Richard Benner, Jr., wrote: "Mike Eberhart (who works here at Chrysler St. Louis) is the guy who take the vehicle around for shows all over the U.S. He gives rides in the vehicles (I have ridden 3 times) and for anyone who says they did ride it it, if they did, they sign into a log that is kept here at the St. Louis Museum of Transportation, who owns the vehicle. Mike just has it on loan to work on and transport it. He did much of the work himself to get it running and in the condition it is in." One turbine-powered car, not made by Chrysler, was entered into professional racing at the Indianapolis 500; the turbine itself was a standard aviation unit, and the car involved nearly won, but a bad wheel bearing took it out of the race. Turbine powered cars were then excluded from racing through rules
Collier Motors AMC (The Last AMC Dealership).
CHECK OUT MORE GREAT PICS AND STORY AT http://blog.cardomain.com/2009/04/07/last-amc-dealership/ NEED FREE MUSIC FOR YOUR VIDEO? CHECK OUT http://www.youtube.com/user/ArcaneFireIceMusic


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Hawkers has grown well selling small plates of Asian street food for $8 or $9 in a full-service atmosphere that gets more than a quarter of its sales from beverages. The pandemic took those beverage sales away, but by May, some of its restaurants were back close to pre-coronavirus levels.
|2019 Systemwide Sales ($000,000)||$22*|
|YOY Sales Change||30.0%|
|2019 U.S. Units||7|
|YOY Unit Change||40.0%|
|2019 Average Unit Volume ($000)||$3,800*|
|Future 50 Year||2020|
For more insights from Technomic as well as Technomic’s analysis, growth forecast and more:


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Tesla plans to begin mass production of its long-awaited Cybertruck in 2023, according to reports.
The electric car maker first unveiled the “bulletproof truck” in 2019 with an initial production target of 2021, however delays have pushed this date back three times.
The latest setback relates to shortages in sourcing components and difficulties with adapting Tesla’s 4680 batteries for use in a larger vehicle, according to Reuters, who first reported the new production date target.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tesla boss Elon Musk described the Cybertruck as an “armoured personel carrier from the future” during the truck’s unveiling, which made headlines after the windows smashed during a test designed to demonstrate their toughness.
The Cybertruck comes with the tagline “Better utility than a truck with more performance than a sports car”, with videos showing the electric pickup ou-accelerating a Porsche 911 and out-towing a Ford F-150 truck.
Pre-orders opened at $39,900 for the most basic model, though Tesla has since raised the prices of its vehicle range in line with market trends.
Customers where required to pay a $100 deposit in order to pre-order the vehicle, with hundreds of thousands of people reportedly signing up.
Tesla was forced to stop pre-orders outside of North America earlier this year after Mr Musk said there had been “more orders of the first Cybertrucks than we could possibly fulfill for three years after the start of production”.
The truck comes with six seats and ultra-strong panels made from the same materials found on spacecraft.
It also features an exoskeleton design that is made possible by not needing to be built around a conventional fuel engine.
The futuristic-looking vehicle is also expected to come with a 400 kilometre (250 mile) range, 3,400kg of towing capacity and 0-100kph acceleration of 2.9 seconds.
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This is a catch up for LA compared with its northern neighbor San Francisco. Sand Hill Road venture capitalists have long been bridged with China, and Chinese tech titans
Peter Brack, an entrepreneur and investor at Mucker Capital in LA, observes that southern California startups center on digital media and entertainment sectors while northern California's emerging companies hinge on deep-rooted technology in software, big data, artificial intelligence and the like. Synergies between the core tech-focused Bay Area and Beijing have existed for years, but haven't developed much yet with LA's glitzy and creative small businesses in media and film.
The China-LA link is gradually strengthening though as leading Chinese companies such as Alibaba, Fosun, LETV and Dalian Wanda go global and begin doing Hollywood type deals. Chinese tech investors have arrived too such as Tencent's $250 million majority stake investment in LA-based video game maker Riot Games in 2011 and
Meanwhile, downtown LA has become a magnet for Chinese developers and purchasers, ranging from the LA Marriott Sheraton Universal Hotel to mixed retail-residential complexes Fig Central and the Metropolis project.
Not to be overlooked are the newly affluent Chinese who are buying up pricey residential real estate. Chinese are the top foreign buyers of U.S. homes, with Los Angeles a focal point. Catherine Marcus, a broker at Sotheby's in Beverly Hills, says Chinese are buying up brand new, multi-million dollar mansions in Pasadena, Beverly Hills and other rich enclaves as a long-term investment overseas. One Chinese family even bought a decorator showcase home equipped with the latest gadgets for their teen-age son to stay in while enrolled in USC.
East LA's suburban Arcadia, adjacent to Pasadena, has become a haven for newly rich Chinese and is known as a Chinese Beverly Hills. A branch of the Chinese restaurant chain Hai Di Lao,


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Microsoft to acquire tech maker Canesta
Silicon Valley motion-sensing technology company Canesta has announced that it is being purchased by Microsoft, with the sale due to be finalized before the end of 2010. Canesta develops 3D sensing hardware not unlike that used in Kinect, which launches next week.
The company also develops software for working with 3D tracking data, which is where wed most likely see the deal bear fruit in terms of gaming, specifically in the evolution of Kinects software-driven capabilities. Its also possible that the acquisition -- at least in the short-term -- is a move to head off any potential claims that Microsoft may have infringed on Canestas patents during the development of Kinect.


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As expected in the 44th AGM, Mukesh Ambani has confirmed the induction of Saudi Aramco's chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan into RIL Board. This shall also mark the company's internationalisation.
He'll be joining the company as the independent director.
The Saudi Aramco deal with RIL is seen to be worth $15 billion. Earlier at the AGM, he said that he expects the company to enter association with Saudi Aramco expeditiously in this year.
Investors shall applaud the announcement it as a whole as it is the only segment of the company's business that has not drawn any huge investment in the recent time. Soon after the announcement, RIL scrip was still trading lower by over 1.4% at Rs. 2171.7.
"The-so called older businesses of Reliance -- refining and petrochemicals -- should be doing very well, given the scenario we are in. While there is a pause, in terms of a catch-up to be played, in terms of the new businesses of telecom, the old businesses are firing from all guns. I think RIL is in a very sweet spot in terms of the traditional business and its ability to consolidate the new businesses," Tandon is quoted as saying in a leading dailies report.


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QuakeCon is going down this weekend in
AustinDallas, Texas -- the annual celebration of everything id Software (makers of Quake and Doom, among a few other classic PC titles) features tournaments and panels on some of the hottest PC games around. But there's already been one big Apple announcement: John Carmack has demonstrated id's newest game, Rage, running at a full 60 frames per second on the iPhone.
We first heard of this game at QuakeCon a couple of years ago, and Carmack has always said that making sure it ran on the Mac would be a priority, but it looks like he's delivered the goods. The demo was run on an iPhone 4, but Carmack said it worked great on the iPad as well. Carmack said the iPhone version would be out sometime this year, before the full version of Rage arrives on consoles and PC.
Oh, and icing on the cake? All of id's iPhone titles are on sale during the show this weekend -- Doom II RPG is down to just 99 cents, along with Wolfenstein 3D. Doom Classic and Doom Resurrection are US $1.99, down from the usual price of $6.99. If you're in
AustinDallas, don't forget that QuakeCon is free and open to the public as well. All hail the great id!


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Officials will break ground on Columbia County's newest sporting and outdoor retail store Wednesday afternoon.
A groundbreaking ceremony for the Gander Mountain store will be at 1 p.m. on Mason McKnight Jr. Parkway, near Flowing Wells Road.
The 52,000-square-foot store will be the outdoor sports retailer's fourth location in Georgia. Gander Mountain, based in St. Paul, sells hunting, fishing, camping, marine and outdoor lifestyle products and services. It has 131 stores in 24 states.
The store is expected to open in the fall.


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A UPS supervisor recently drove up to Hunt Country Vineyards, perched on a hillside high above Keuka Lake, to return wine addressed to a licensed distributor in Texas.
"Look," he yelled, "we won't ship wine out of state for any reason to anybody!"
Clearly, this wasn't the first time the world's largest freight hauler had sent back Art Hunt's wine. On occasion, Hunt or his wife, Joyce, had to visit the depot to retrieve undelivered packages. Other times, they were told, their cargo was destroyed.
Shipping wine across state lines entails navigating a Byzantine maze of alcoholic beverage laws liable to make sober heads spin. Each state has its own regulations dating to the repeal of Prohibition 69 years ago. Some even prohibit trucking wine through "dry" counties.
In west-central New York's Finger Lakes region, scores of small wineries said they found the restrictions more onerous than ever in 2002.
For years, winemakers maintain, United Parcel Service and FedEx Corp. tolerated shipments to competitions, wholesalers, exporters and others licensed to accept wine. Now, carriers are steering a wide path around all out-of-state deliveries, fearful of getting tripped up by the confusing or ambiguous hodgepodge of shipping laws.
"Anything with alcohol in it needs to be regulated and kept out of the hands of minors, but it doesn't have to be put in the same status as an illegal drug," said Hunt, who wanted to ship free samples to the Texas distributor in hopes of launching sales there. The brouhaha comes as pressure builds to blow the lid off a hotly disputed distribution system that bars wineries in 23 states from shipping directly to out-of-state customers.
"It does seem to me that if other states can do it, why should we be disadvantaged competitively?" asked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
Fueling the conflict are a swelling number of U.S. wineries -- 3,182 compared with 919 in 1980; the rise of Internet and mail-order sales, and a flurry of legal challenges that could land on the U.S. Supreme Court's doorstep before long.
Under a three-tier system laid down by the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition in 1933, wineries export their best brands at a deep discount through licensed wholesalers and distributors. Wine is then sold to package stores, restaurants, bars and other retailers.
Serving as a buffer between producers and the public, the politically powerful wholesalers collect billions of dollars in excise taxes each year. Looser controls on wine, they argue, could lighten state tax coffers and pump up underage drinking.
Vintners counter that the 21st Amendment allowing each state to regulate the importation and sale of alcohol created unconstitutional barriers against interstate commerce.
In October 2000, wholesalers pushed through a 21st Amendment Enforcement Act that had "a real chilling effect" on wine shipments by private haulers, said David Sloane, president of the American Vintners Assn.
Atlanta-based UPS "would rather be entirely correct about what we're doing than run the risk of doing something illegal," said spokesman Robert Godlewski. "There are so many hoops to jump through."
But Jim Trezise, president of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation, said other regions have no trouble sending samples out of state to wine writers, competitions or licensed operators.
"It's totally legal what Art was doing -- his wine was going from a licensee to a licensee," Trezise said. "The problem is one of consistency. I've talked to UPS and they just say they can't train all their drivers about what's legal and what's not."
California produces 93% of the nation's wine, but second-ranked New York's 2.8% share is still substantial in a market with an estimated $15 billion in gross sales.
In the Finger Lakes, a largely unspoiled setting of lakes, hills and valleys that has sprouted 65 new wineries since 1976, most sales are made in tasting rooms. Just a few wineries have become big enough to easily hook up with distributors in other states.
In fact, only a few hundred wineries in the nation produce more than 10,000 cases a year. At least 85% of New York's wine is made by one conglomerate, and most of that crosses state lines.
Of the other 166 wineries, less than 10% of their wine is shipped out of New York. Drop the direct-shipment ban to customers, boosters say, and sales at boutique wineries would jump at least 25% overnight. A few vintners are already getting around the barriers by forwarding orders to wine retailers willing to do the shipping for them.
"If we grow to a certain point where we do show up on a wholesaler's radar screen, that's so much better," said John Martini of Anthony Road winery next to Seneca Lake. "That's what frustrates me about the distributors. I can't believe they think everybody will ship their wine by UPS. It's not an efficient system."
Karen Gravois of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America suspects some wineries have been shipping illegally. Haulers are simply "enforcing the law and taking responsibility where the wineries should be taking responsibility," she said.
Thirteen states, mostly in the West and Midwest, have reciprocal pacts allowing them to ship wine to each other's consumers. Another 14 allow shipments that are either tightly restricted or require special permits.
New York, evidently swayed by lobbying from wholesalers, spurned an effort last year to join the reciprocal-state ranks. But it is one of 30 states that allow direct shipments to customers within its borders.
Judges recently declared wine-shipping restrictions in North Carolina, Texas, Virginia and New York unconstitutional.
In New York, a judge ruled in December that out-of-state wineries should be allowed to ship to customers in the state if local wineries already do so. It remains to be seen what effect the order, put on hold pending an appeal, would have on outward-bound shipments.
What is clear, however, is the nation's small wineries view direct shipments as increasingly vital to their well-being.
"Our guys are literally facing a market-access crisis," Sloane said. "There's going to be a showdown over the next year or so between wholesalers and wineries."


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The head of German mobile developer Fishlabs has explained some of the factors that led the studio to cut 25 staff and seek the German equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
“Raising money is always a challenge, especially when you don’t yet have a live game that shows great metrics – at least in a handful of countries,” he said.
“You might think success stories like Supercell have made it easier to raise money, but for some investors and even strategic partners the opposite is true.
“If you don’t have a game that has the potential to generate $1 million a day, it is a tough call.”
Fishlabs is one of the most experienced mobile gaming companies in Germany and is responsible for premium iOS titles like Galaxy on Fire (which boasts an install base of 40 million players for the franchise) that have pushed the boundaries of smartphone development.
“With such a strong foundation, we had been able to expand continuously over the past five years with growing revenues and profits year-on-year,” said Schade.
“However, there have also been obstacles that slowed us down, such as the transition from premium to free-to-play and constantly keeping up with an ever-changing mobile market, which is dashing towards console quality at lightning speed.”
“Ultimately, we were no longer able to deal with these challenges without the aid of a significant investment.”
Despite these challenges, such a record would hopefully mean the company is high on investor’s lists, but as it turns out the studio made business decisions early on that now limit its appeal.
“Our biggest challenge followed from the fact that we had given away too much equity in our Series A funding round back in 2007,” explained Schade.
“With the founders being down to 39 percent, getting new investors on board for a potential Series B round has been next to impossible. To make things worse, any stock option programs for the team would have been taken from that 39 percent as well.”
This is where bankruptcy comes in; though many see claims for such legal protection as the death-throes of a company, if successful a bankruptcy filing can give the company a fresh start – and that’s just what Schade is gambling on.
“Going through chapter 11 puts us into a new situation where we can buy-out all our assets and restart with a new legal entity and a fresh, healthy capitalisation – including a reasonable stock option program for the team,” he said.
It might already be paying off, as the news of the company’s predicament has drawn out some would-be rescuers.
Even so, Fishlabs is going to have to start fresh. Free-to-play is a different model than premium games, and the company will have to demonstrate it can adapt.
“Before we hire new talent again, we first have to prove that we can be successful within the free-to-play environment,” said Schade.
“It is much more difficult to be commercially successful with a free-to-play title than it is with a paid game, because you need a much bigger team working on the game design, backend, tracking and performance marketing.”
First, the company needs the cash to float such a team, and to ride out the cycle of iterations needed to see a free-to-play launch to success.
“You also need to have enough cash up your sleeve to go through several iterations because you have to optimize the game permanently after its initial launch,” Schade concluded.
“And last but not least, you also have to spend quite a few marketing dollars to make sure that more and more players find out about your game and sign up to your servers.”


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Former US President Donald Trump is all set to launch its most awaited social media app called the Truth Social today. According to the reports, Trump is aiming to take on Twitter with this new social media app. A post from Reuters referring to an internal source who is closely working with the development of the app claims that the Truth Social app is going to be available for Apple users from the US Presidents Day holiday. Let’s have a closer look at the details of the upcoming social media app.
Truth Social Details
As per the chief product officer, Billy B has answered some of the questions related to the upcoming app from the users who were invited to test the app during the beta phase. A user asked him when the company is planning to launch the app on which Billy B confirmed that the app will go live on February 21st. “We’re currently set for release in the Apple App store for Monday, February 21,” BGR India quoted Billy as saying.
Was just able to setup an account using the handle @donaldtrump on 'Truth Social,' former President Donald Trump's new social media website.— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) October 21, 2021
Although the site is not officially open, a URL was discovered allowing users to sign up anyway. pic.twitter.com/MRMQzjNhma
The "donaldjtrump" account of Trump's TRUTH Social has already been hacked. pic.twitter.com/LDQ5w24tcV— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) October 21, 2021
However, the former Republican U.S. Representative Devin Nunes in a recent statement has contradicted Billy by saying that the Truth Social app will be launched by the end of March. Trump has decided on making his own social media app after big names like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in the market have already blocked him. It seems that the launch of Truth Social will be the reason for Trump’s return to social media.
According to a recent report, the upcoming social media app is going to roll out starting this week in phases. Users will also get access to verified accounts similar to Twitter, but the company is yet to reveal the criteria for certification. So far we know this much about the Truth Social app, we will keep you updated once the app goes live.
Cover Image: Pixabay


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Amazon has a few safeguards in place, but it’s mostly hoping a basic upvote and downvote system will keep out low-quality responses.
The news: Amazon publicly launched a program called Alexa Answers in the US yesterday, Fast Company reports. It lets anyone field user questions for which its voice assistant software Alexa doesn’t already have any answer—for example “How many instruments does Stevie Wonder play?” The program was tested in a private beta with thousands of customers last year, after internal testing.
How it works: People can sign up and look for unanswered questions to answer here. Then the next time someone asks a question that’s been answered by a member of the Alexa Answers community, Alexa will speak the answer, noting that it is “according to an Amazon customer.”
Potential for misuse: If you’ve been paying any attention to big tech firms in recent years, you’ll know it’s safe to assume that if a platform can be abused, it will be—especially by coordinated trolls and other bad actors. It’s virtually a guarantee that Amazon Answers will be fed offensive or inaccurate answers (even by people without bad intentions).
Safeguards: Amazon says it will use machine learning and automated filters to strike out profanities. Bill Barton, Amazon’s vice president for Alexa Information, told Fast Company the team responsible will try to filter out “questions with a political angle.” In essence, though, it’s hoping that a Reddit-style voting system will keep the worst user impulses in check. It seems a remarkably optimistic approach, especially in a country where people are often unable to agree even on basic facts.
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Lithium miner Sigma jumps on report Tesla considering buyout
U.S.-listed shares of Sigma Lithium rose 21 percent in extended trading on Friday after Bloomberg News reported that Tesla was weighing a takeover of the Canada-based battery metals miner.
Tesla has been speaking with potential advisers about a bid, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the matter, and added that Sigma Lithium is one of the many mining options the electric-vehicle maker is exploring as it mulls its own refining.
Tesla and Sigma Lithium did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Sigma is finishing construction of a hard rock lithium mine in Brazil that it expects to open by April. The mine will produce spodumene concentrate, which can be used to make lithium hydroxide, a type of the metal preferred by some automakers including Tesla and BMW.
The project would use hydroelectric power, thus helping to greatly reduce its carbon footprint.
U.S. stock of Sigma Lithium, which has a market capitalization of $3.21 billion, nearly trebled in value last year.
Chief Executive Elon Musk said last year Tesla was open to buying a mining company if producing its own supply of electric vehicle metals would speed up worldwide adoption of clean energy technologies.
Tesla and other automakers routinely talk to mining companies of all sizes about potential supplies of lithium and other EV metals without necessarily signing contracts.
Last month, Tesla signed an agreement with Piedmont Lithium for supply of spodumene concentrate from Quebec, starting later this year.
Tesla also has supply contracts for nickel, lithium and a range of other EV metals from suppliers across the globe.


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Brokerages predict that Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT) will announce sales of $215.00 million for the current quarter, according to Zacks. Two analysts have made estimates for Haverty Furniture Companies’ earnings. Haverty Furniture Companies posted sales of $220.60 million during the same quarter last year, which would indicate a negative year-over-year growth rate of 2.5%. The company is expected to issue its next quarterly earnings report on Tuesday, February 20th.
On average, analysts expect that Haverty Furniture Companies will report full year sales of $215.00 million for the current financial year. For the next financial year, analysts expect that the company will post sales of $842.25 million per share, with estimates ranging from $840.40 million to $844.10 million. Zacks Investment Research’s sales averages are a mean average based on a survey of analysts that cover Haverty Furniture Companies.
Haverty Furniture Companies (NYSE:HVT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 31st. The company reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $0.24 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $207.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $215.32 million. Haverty Furniture Companies had a net margin of 3.53% and a return on equity of 10.10%. The firm’s revenue was down 1.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.34 earnings per share.
Shares of Haverty Furniture Companies (NYSE:HVT) opened at $23.25 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $508.20, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.10, a P/E/G ratio of 3.63 and a beta of 1.13. The company has a current ratio of 2.17, a quick ratio of 1.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. Haverty Furniture Companies has a 52-week low of $21.05 and a 52-week high of $27.23.
In related news, Director Fred L. Schuermann sold 1,950 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $23.15, for a total transaction of $45,142.50. Following the sale, the director now owns 3 shares in the company, valued at $69.45. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Rawson Haverty, Jr. sold 23,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $23.30, for a total transaction of $535,900.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 82,331 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,918,312.30. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 32,871 shares of company stock worth $769,483. 10.31% of the stock is owned by company insiders.
A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in HVT. Russell Investments Group Ltd. grew its position in Haverty Furniture Companies by 20.8% during the second quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 6,764 shares of the company’s stock valued at $169,000 after buying an additional 1,164 shares during the period. Schwab Charles Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Haverty Furniture Companies by 23.8% during the second quarter. Schwab Charles Investment Management Inc. now owns 108,485 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,723,000 after purchasing an additional 20,882 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC purchased a new position in Haverty Furniture Companies during the second quarter valued at $103,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in Haverty Furniture Companies by 1.7% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 324,218 shares of the company’s stock valued at $8,137,000 after purchasing an additional 5,488 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings in Haverty Furniture Companies by 6.3% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 35,320 shares of the company’s stock valued at $885,000 after purchasing an additional 2,097 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.64% of the company’s stock.
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About Haverty Furniture Companies
Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc is a retailer of residential furniture and accessories. The Company sells home furnishings in its retail stores and through its Website, havertys.com. As of December 31, 2016, the Company had 124 stores in 16 states in the Southern and Midwest regions. As of December 31, 2016, the Company’s retail store space totaled approximately 4.5 million square feet for 124 stores.
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NetOne has announced that it will be closing all its shops on some days of the week but the telecommunications company did not reveal what triggered the move.
The government-owned telecoms giant said its shops will be open three days a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday, between 9 am and 11 am.
The announcement comes hours after another telecommunications company, Econet Wireless had announced that it was temporarily closing all its shops after some workers tested positive for the coronavirus.
The closure also coincides with President Mnangagwa’s review of lockdown regulations. The president announced on Tuesday that only companies providing essential services were allowed to open.


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Over the years online trading had been evolving in a unique way and because of that, public regulators had been forced to adapt legislation to changes. You as a trader must be fully aware of some of the most important changes that took place, which is why today we will talk about the MiFID 2.0 and the new ESMA regulation for CFDs.
What’s new in MiFID 2.0?
If you don’t already know, MiFID is the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, adopted in 2004 by the European Commission, which is applicable since November 2007. It represents one of the most important law for financial markets, contributing to the improvement of competitiveness and a higher degree of protection for investors.
On the other hand, MiFID 2.0 is a revised legislative proposal adopted by the European Commission on October 20th, 2011, and published in the EU Official Journal on June 12th, 2014. The news legislation ensures a greater degree of transparency, reduces the use of dark pools and OTC trading, sets stricter rules for high-frequency trading and introduces new requirements for investors’ protection.
Brokers like Oanda, forex.com, and others, need to fully comply with the EU law if they have clients with citizenship in one of the EU countries.
ESMA regulation for CFDs
More recent legislation, adopted by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in June 2018, sets up new and stricter rules for CFD trading. Applying since August 1st, 2018, the new law prohibits retail binary options trading.
With regards to CFD trading for retail investors, leverage limits, a margin closeout rules, negative balance protection, and a specific risk warning, represent new measures which need to be taken into account by all brokerage companies.
In terms of leverage, it varies between 30:1 (for the major currency pairs) and goes as low as 2:1 for cryptocurrency-related CFDs. The market close out rule is set at 50% of the minimum required margin, and the negative balance protection is on an account basis.
Brokerage companies are prohibited from offering trading incentives for retail investors and they are also required to provide a standardized risk warning, including the percentage of losses on the provider’s retail investors accounts.
All the above-mentioned requirements were set in order to reduce excessive risk and potentially limit the losses which may encounter with CFD trading. If you are a retail trader, you need to be fully aware of them and make sure that your broker is compliant.


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By Alison Young, USA TODAY
The plant responsible for a current recall of children's liquid Tylenol and other medicines was cited last year by regulators for "knowingly" using a bacteria-tainted ingredient, according to a 2009 inspection report obtained by USA TODAY.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also cited the McNeil Consumer Healthcare plant for a similar violation last month. The April inspection, which found serious manufacturing violations and drugs that were potentially too potent, prompted the current recall.
McNeil spokeswoman Bonnie Jacobs said no bacteria-tainted components were used to make the "recently recalled products."
AFTER TYLENOL RECALL: Drug plant inspection on fast track
The FDA didn't respond to questions.
The 2009 inspection report said the plant used an ingredient contaminated with a bacteria called Burkholderia cepacia. Although it poses little risk to healthy people, it can cause serious infections in people with compromised immune systems or lung diseases, especially cystic fibrosis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
FDA inspectors wrote in 2009: "McNeil's lab determined the presence of B. cepacia in … raw material to be objectionable, placing the target population at risk if the contaminant was in the product. The product is for use in infants and children. However, the firm knowingly proceeded to partially release some of the remaining raw material … which was used to manufacture more product." The inspection took place from May 19, 2009, through June 4, 2009.
The FDA cited the plant for using a tainted ingredient again in April, but the recent report doesn't specify what type of bacteria was the "known contamination" in raw material approved for use to make "several finished lots" of children's and infants' Tylenol, "which remain within expiration date(s) on the market."
Arthur Levin, director of the non-profit Center for Medical Consumers, called the 2009 violation "trust shattering" because it's the second time the FDA has made the finding. "It's one thing if things happen inadvertently," he said. "But when they happen knowingly, it takes it to another level."
The massive April 30 recall will be the subject of a hearing Thursday in the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
"I am troubled by the history of this company and the possible risks posed to children who took medications manufactured in their facilities," said committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y. Top officials from the FDA and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, McNeil's parent company, are scheduled to testify.
The FDA has told the committee's investigators that the agency is not aware of any child being harmed by taking any of the recalled products. The FDA has received more than 775 adverse-reaction reports involving products made at the plant, including reports that involve 37 deaths, according to a committee report.
Adverse-reaction reports filed with the FDA come from a variety of sources and often list multiple drugs that patients were taking when they died or had a potential adverse reaction. The committee's report gives no detail about FDA adverse-event reports, the patients or the drugs they were taking.
"McNeil has no indication of a serious medical event, including death, caused by any of the issues referenced in the recall announcement," Jacobs said.
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Johnson Publishing Co.'s decision to shift Jet magazine to an all-digital format may be a 21st-century move, but it's also a bid to shore up a faltering business built around its bigger magazine brand, Ebony.
With print ad revenue crumbling industrywide and circulation declining, the all-digital move will take Johnson a step further in its efforts to reduce costs to match lower revenue.
Jet, first published in print in 1951, will be available as a new app for delivery on phones and tablets starting on June 30, at a cost of $20 a year. The new delivery mode will give readers the news faster with more video and photos and will provide advertisers with a more interactive, dynamic means of reaching readers, said Johnson Publishing CEO Desiree Rogers.
"Our consumers are asking for more information more quickly -- waiting three weeks for news is not a good place to be,” Ms. Rogers said. “Most magazine apps don't go as far as we go with all the bells and whistles we're going to have on Jet.”
The iconic African-American magazine business, born in Chicago in 1942, has been slashing costs for years, reducing headcount 17 percent last year and downsizing its headquarters to just one floor, according to former employees. Eliminating the cost of printing and distributing Jet, which had a circulation of 720,300 as of the end of last year, will help reduce expenses, at least for now.
Jet was historically a news weekly but, in recent years, the small-format publication focused on entertainment and celebrity news, leaving harder-hitting cultural and current affairs coverage to Ebony.
“ 'News' and 'weekly' are just contradictory terms today unless you really have a handle on news that no one else has,” said Charles Whitaker, a former Ebony editor and now a professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.
And Jet hasn't even been weekly lately. Before news of its digital transition broke today, Jet's frequency had been cut over the past two years; most recently, it was being published 18 times a year. That didn't make sense for readers or advertisers, Mr. Whitaker said. “If you don't have a regular production cycle," he said, "no one can rely on you.”


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New Delhi: On his visit to India, Apple chief executive officer (CEO) Tim Cook on Wednesday evening met Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw at the Railway Ministry office in the national capital.
As Cook walked through the office of the Railway Ministry, he stopped to see the photograph of the Chenab Bridge right outside Vaishnaw’s cabin. Seeing the photo, Cook’s instant reaction was “Wow.”
In a video shared by Railway Minister Vaishnaw, he could be seen explaining to the Apple CEO the significance of the Chenab bridge which is currently under construction. He told Cook that the Vande Bharat train would be running on this railway bridge by December this year.
“This bridge connects the northern state of Kashmir. And this bridge is about 30 metres taller compared to the Eiffel Tower,” Vaishnaw told Cook. On this, the Apple CEO replied “Wow”.
Vaishnaw further said, “Again fully designed in India, we recently commissioned the railway track over it. And by December we will be running the Vande Bharat train on this.”
“Oh wow! that is special! Wow!” reacted Tim Cook.
Notably, Vande Bharat trains are one of the most ambitious projects of the Modi government with these semi-high-speed trains connecting the length and breadth of the country
“India laid about 5,000 kilometres of new tracks. 5000 kilometres of new tracks is like setting up a completely new network equivalent to what Switzerland has. Switzerland is about 5,200 kilometres. So, it is like setting up one whole new Switzerland rail line. That is the pace with which the country is working,” the Railway Minister said.
Tim Cook’s response was “That is amazing!”
On Wednesday evening during his meeting with the Railway Minister, the Apple CEO was presented with a special memento - a replica of the Vande Bharat train.
Taking to Twitter after the meeting, Vaishnaw said “Met with Tim Cook, CEO, Apple. Discussed deepening Apple’s engagement in India across manufacturing, electronics exports, app economy, skilling, sustainability and job creation, especially for women. Jointly charting a long-term and strong relationship.”
The Apple CEO met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday. Minister of State for IT and Electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar also met the tech giant’s CEO on Wednesday. Cook expressed confidence about a long-term working relationship with India.
Tim Cook is currently in India for the launch of two Apple stores. The first was launched in Mumbai on Tuesday while the second retail store was unveiled in Delhi on Thursday.
Viewing India as its long-term market, the iPhone manufacturer has expressed interest in expansion plans, including manufacturing the latest products.
Currently, the employment strength of Apple in India stands at 1 lakh. Sources said this is expected to go up to 2 lakh in the coming years.


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Over 23% of users changed their preference of channels for buying daily commodities, medical care, and fresh grocery products, according to a recent iResearch report. Overall, users tend to favor JD and PDD more. The preference for Tmall has remained the same while Taobao has declined. JD has become Chinese consumers’ first choice for fresh […]
Suning.com is an e-commerce website with mobile apps and stores on major Chinese e-commerce platforms, owned by Suning.com Co., Ltd.
On 3 June 2016 Suning Commerce Group issued about 1.86 billion new shares to Taobao (China) Software Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, for about 28 billion RMB.
During the year the company sold some properties to Zhang, making an extraordinary profit for the loss-making company.
In 2018, the listed company was renamed to Suning.com Co., Ltd.
In 2019, Suning.com acquired 80% stake of the Chinese division of Carrefour.
Sales & insights of China’s mid-year shopping festival (618) 2019
Taobao 618 Livestream 618, usually from mid-May to 18 June, is China’s largest mid-year shopping festival. This year’s Tmall 618, there were hundreds of domestic and foreign brands whose sales exceeded last year’s Double 11, with the highest growth rate exceeding 40 times. Taobao/Tmall 618 Performance With over 200,000 brands taking part. Innovative marketing campaigns […]
How the biggest shopping festival affects China e-commerce apps users growth, engagement, and loyalty
Online shopping has become a lifestyle in China. Let’s take a look at the influence of China’s biggest shopping festival Double 11 in 2018 on the top e-commerce platforms. Mobile Taobao’s daily active users surged by 63.4% on the very day of Double 11. Tmall had the highest growth in daily active users during the pre-sale […]
Tmall and JD had a combined market share of over 85% in China’s B2C e-commerce market
In China, the online retail B2C e-commerce grew by 28.4% to a US$226.38bn market in Q4 2018. Tmall took the lead, followed by JD, Suning, Vipshop, and Gome.
4 e-tailers’ Double 11 marketing tactics
The record-breaking 213.4 billion yuan gave this year’s Tmall Double 11 a good ending. Some turned their attention to the performance of top retailers and wanted to check out what they did to achieve such success. Double 11, named after Singles’ Day (or Bachelor’s Day) in China on 11 November, is the biggest shopping festival of […]
Top advertising companies and brands in China in Q3 2018
The top 20 companies accounted for 23.6% of total full media ad spending during the Q1-Q3 period. Internet companies debuted in the top 20 ranking of full media in H1 2018. Tmall, JD Mall, Coco-Cola, Suning, Xiaomi, Apple, Huawei, and Tencent were among the list of top buyers. By comparison, some emerging internet retailers paid attention […]
Double 11 statistics of top retailers & top 50 Tmall stores in 2018
The Double 11 rising on the popularity of China Singles’ Day (Nov 11) is growing bigger every year. Top e-commerce players all saw record-breaking sales on this very day. Sales on Tmall reached 10 billion yuan in 00:02:05, sales on NetEase Kaola exceeded 100 million yuan in 00:03:49, and GMV on Suning exceeded 100 million […]
Alibaba, Jingdong, and Suning among world’s top 50 retail brands in 2018
Amazon’s brand value has risen 42% to US$150.8 billion, retaining top billing as the world’s most valuable retail brand according to a Brand Finance report, while other e-commerce brands are in strong growth, such as Alibaba (up 58% to US$54.9 billion) and JD.com (up 47% to US$19.6 billion) as well as Germany’s Zalando (up 40% […]
China B2C online retail market overview 2017, led by Tmal and JD
China online retail market totaled 1,974.59 billion yuan (US$311.69 billion) with an increase of 41% YoY in Q4 2017 according to data from Analysis. China’s B2C online retail market reached 1,189.35 billion yuan (US$187.74 billion) with an increase of 43.2%.
Understanding China’s Retail Trends in 2018
China retail giant Suning held its annual spring conference this month; as the largest O2O retail enterprise in China, this meeting does not just announce Suning’s strategy and development goals for 2018, but also serves as a bellwether for the whole retail industry in China. Looking back at Alibaba and Suning’s 2017, it is possible […]
China online retail market overview for Q3 2017; led by Tmall and JD with 86% combined share
China online retail market totaled 1.8 trillion yuan (US$271 billion) in Q3 2017 with a growth rate of 38.7% YoY according to data from Analysis. The online B2C market reached 985.44 billion yuan (US$148.56 bn) with an increase of 39.1% YoY. The total transactions on Tmall grew by 47% YoY in Q3 2017 or 7.4% QoQ, […]
China online shopping market forecast 2017-2019
The total transactions of China’s online shopping market totaled 4.7 trillion yuan (US$680 bn) in 2016 with an increase of 23.9%; and, it’s estimated to reach 7.3 trillion yuan (US$1.06 trillion) in 2019. Tmall dominates China’s B2C online shopping market with over 56% market share.
14 Chinese retailers made it to Top 250 retailers list
Deloitte’s annual Global Powers of Retailing report identifies the 250 largest retailers around the world. JD.com ranks on top of all Chinese companies in the Top 250 retailers list.
Top e-commerce platforms in 2016
The top e-commerce platforms in China are JD, Tmall, and YHD in 2016 according to Kantar Retail.
China online shopping platforms market share Q3 2016
Total transaction value of China online shopping market reached 1.15 trillion yuan (US$166.85 billion) in Q3 2016, up 23.6% YoY or 2.6% QoQ, according to data from iResearch.


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(Oct. 15, 2013) — “Our new MCL wireless mobile column lift series boosts productivity through superiority ergonomics and by expanding application flexibility,” said Werner. “Not only can you lift a wider variety of vehicles with our new lifts, but once the vehicles are elevated, they enable service techs to operate virtually unencumbered.”
(Oct. 15, 2013) — “Our new 20,000-pound rated Companion hitch is a response to recent trends in the structure and shape of truck beds, along with the increasing lengths and weights of trailers,” said Stockebrand.
(Oct. 14, 2013) — Cummins Inc. has announced it will begin producing the ISV5.0, a new five-liter V8 diesel engine designed to power pickup and delivery vehicles, other light- and medium-duty trucks, school buses and motorhomes. Production of the ISV5.0 will start during the fourth quarter of 2014.
(Oct. 14, 2013) — “This is a skeleton of the way we produce units. One thing you won’t find in our factory is staple guns. We use screw guns,” Lundgren explained. “This unit is basically put together with tubular aluminum and extruded aluminum floors. There isn’t one piece of wood in the entire unit.”
(Oct. 14, 2013) — Winnebago Industries, Inc. is showcasing several new products at the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association’s 61st California RV Show in Pomona, Calif., going on now through Oct. 20, including the Solei 38R, Minnie Winnie 22R, Trend and Travato motorhomes.
(Oct. 11, 2013) — “I am confident this grand gesture by Jeff Hirsch will get the ball rolling for this year’s fundraising campaign,” said Pastore. “As usual, Jeff is leading by example, with both generosity and enthusiasm. I can only encourage our industry to follow his lead.”
(Oct. 11, 2013) — “We worked really hard over the past eight months to finish the transition we began for Tradition at last year’s Louisville Show,” said Holman. “It was extremely satisfying to see the reaction from our current dealers and pick up new dealers as well. We knew we could get this product right and now feel it’s the best product at its price point, hands down.”
(Oct. 11, 2013) — The concept for a new online service would allow RV owners to rent out idle RVs for cash to offset the cost of ownership. Travelers could rent quality, privately-owned RVs at competitive prices. It would shorten the sales cycle for dealers and manufacturers by enabling prospective buyers to experience RVing before they buy.
(Oct. 11, 2013) — Fed up knowing the so-called federal government “shutdown” was keeping them off their practice fields, a group of young lacrosse players in Northern Virginia challenged the government in court and won, for now, the Washington Post reports.
(Oct. 11, 2013) — Delighted tourists are enjoying reopened Zion National Park, and employees at Arches and Canyonlands national parks are preparing to open their roads at 5:30 p.m. today, writes the Salt Lake Tribune.
(Oct. 11, 2013) — “Even though we have always had our manufacturing processes inspected by a certified ANSI inspection company, we are pleased to be able to fully support our industry and assure our customers that we are building to industry standards,” said President Mike Scheetz.
(Oct. 11, 2013) — Lunar has also launched a new and unique poleless, inflatable tail gate awning. The light and easy to inflate awning employs Vango poleless ‘AirBeam’ technology that uses robust inflatable tubes in place of traditional poles. The awning can be easily inflated in minutes with the use of the electric onboard air pump resulting in a strong and rigid structure.
(Oct. 10, 2013) — The new California law permits fifth wheel trailers to be up to 48 feet in overall length, provided the kingpin to rear axle length is 40 feet or less for a fifth wheel with two or more axles, or, if there is only one axle, the kingpin to axle length may not exceed 38 feet.
(Oct. 10, 2013) — CNPSR-gathered figures show that the shutdown is resulting in 715,000 visitors lost daily (based on October 2012 national park attendance numbers), $76 million in lost visitor spending per day and $450,000 in lost revenue each day.
(Oct. 10, 2013) — So far, 2013 has been a great year for the recreation vehicle and campground industry in Michigan, with consumer show attendance, campground reservations, and unit sales were on the rise. Motorhome sales through July were up 29 percent, and towable unit sales were up over 4 percent compared to 2012, MARVAC reported.
(Oct. 10, 2013) — Initial unemployment claims in the United States jumped by 66,000 to 374,000 in the week ending Oct. 5. This represented the highest level of claims since the end of March and the largest weekly jump since the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in November, RBC Economics reported today.
(Oct. 10, 2013) — “With the GO-Easy, SylvanSport has developed a product with a streamlined focus on loading, storing, and towing outdoor adventure gear with ease, said Mundt. “The GO-Easy squarely addresses the public’s need to safely — and easily — move gear from Point A to Point B, while avoiding the five worst towing nightmares.”
(Oct. 11, 2013) — In the suit, Stetler charges that Camping World induced Bellissimo Entities to obtain Stetler’s trade secrets in order to share them with her competitor. She also claims Camping World then took her inventory and customers, put them in the same RVs they had previously used and on the same RV park Stetler had built with her own money — and even banned her from competing in the event.
(Oct. 10, 2013) — “As a volunteer, Bob played a key role in getting RVDA established in the Washington D.C. area and, as president, developed a professional organization and staff to serve dealers more effectively,” said Ingrassia. “He left a lasting impression on this association and will be missed by his many friends in the RV industry.”
(Oct. 10, 2013) — When RV buyers are ready to go diesel, Winnebago Industries hopes they’ll consider the all-new, pleasantly priced Winnebago Forza. Inside, owners will appreciate amenities such as polished Corian galley countertops, coffee-glazed cabinetry, upscale entertainment features, and LED lighting.


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Microsoft might be heading down novel road with its future generations of Windows phones. While currently handsets like the Xperia Play have to make some usability sacrifices if they want to deliver as gaming phones, a newly-revealed patent from Microsoft reveals a different idea: different keyboards and components that can be swapped out of the same smartphone chassis.
As you can see above, the phone in question has a slide-out section behind the screen, where we’d usually expect to find a physical keyboard (a la HTC Desire Z), but in this Windows phone there’s also what’s quite clearly an old school gamepad, an extra battery pack, and a… well, we’re not sure what that third one is. Something to do with cameras, though.
This isn’t the first modular concept we’ve seen from Microsoft. Back in July internet detectives unearthed another piece of fringe mobile design from Microsoft that featured a phone with a second detachable screen. The idea was apparently to use the first, bigger-screened bit as a mobile, while the other slimmer contraption would find a use as a sort of universal remote. Bonkers.
As with all off-the-wall patents that get uncovered, there’s very little actual chance that this latest Microsoft mobile will arrive in the shape or form pictured, but we’re glad to see any designs that show there could be a future beyond the touchscreen candy bars of today’s mobile market.
Source: Unwired View


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NY Firm Buys Archway Marketing for $300M
A New York firm paid $300 million to acquire Rogers-based Archway Marketing Services, Inc., which provides marketing logistics and fulfillment services in North America.
Investcorp, which bills itself as a provider of alternative investment products, announced its purchase on Monday. It bought Archway from an investor group led by Tailwind Capital, Black Canyon Capital, and members of Archway’s management team.
“Over the past four years, despite economic headwinds, Archway has more than doubled in size, broadened its service offerings, and emerged a leader in the marketing logistics and fulfilment industry,” Investcorp Managing Director Chris McCollum said in a statement. “We look forward to partnering with Archway to continue this strong growth and expansion of its leadership position in this growing industry.”
Investcorp said that it will work with Archway’s management team to continue to grow Archway’s customer base.
Archway—which employs roughly 1,800—operates more than 4 million square feet of warehouse facilities across 14 major metro areas throughout the United States and Canada.
With its marketing logistics and fulfillment offerings, Archway serves the automotive, consumer packaged goods, financial services, food and beverage, pharma and life science, publishing, quick-serve restaurant, retail, technology, and communications industries. The company also runs gift card programs for retailers and claims to be the largest distributor of prepaid gift cards in North America.
Privately-held Archway doesn’t disclose its revenues. But last summer, Archway appeared on Inc. magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in America—and that list put its 2010 revenue at $184.2 million. Archway said at the time that its revenue grew 104 percent between 2007 and 2010.


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The Tata Group is trying to expand its electronics portfolio and may be finalising preparations to enter the semiconductor market. Tata Group is actively looking for property near its electronics manufacturing site in Tamil Nadu’s Krishnagiri district.
The conglomerate might either expand the scope of its existing mobile component manufacturing business there or establish an outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) operation.
Tata Electronics’ planned expansion, which was established as a greenfield venture in 2020, follows the Tata Group’s ongoing acquisition of Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron’s iPhone manufacturing plant in neighbouring Karnataka’s Kolar district, as reported by ET on May 22.
Tata Electronics, a subsidiary of the Tata Group, inked a memorandum of understanding with the Tamil Nadu government in 2021 to establish the phone component manufacturing complex, which will cost Rs 4,684 crore and employ more than 18,000 people.
If the development plans of Tata Electronics are successful, a third major mobile and allied component manufacturing site would be built in Tamil Nadu. Foxconn and Pegatron, both of Taiwan, have facilities in the state.
Expelts believe Tata Electronics has already made its objectives in critical sections of the end-to-end semiconductor and electronics industries obvious, either directly or indirectly.
Earlier this month, the Tata Group announced the appointment of Intel veteran Randhir Thakur as CEO of Tata Electronics. Thakur, who previously led Intel Foundry Services, is expected to manage the company’s attempts to enter semiconductor chip fabrication, packaging, and manufacturing.
Tata Electronics is the sole domestic company that Apple has shortlisted as a vendor as it seeks to diversify its manufacturing away from China. Tata Electronics has been contracted by Apple to manufacture iPhone enclosures.
- Wistron is exiting India and will sell all its factories in the Country
- Instagram will soon be colliding with Twitter with its own text app


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Northern Irish business will face additional barriers to trade with Britain after Brexit, despite Boris Johnson’s promises to the contrary, the Government admitted on Wednesday.
Mr Johnson said Northern Ireland’s businesses could throw customs declarations forms “in the bin” because there would be no “no barriers of any kind” to trade crossing the Irish Sea in November after negotiating the Withdrawal Agreement with Brussels.
Michael Gove told the House of Commons that Northern Irish traders would not face new import declarations and administrative requirements on goods they were exporting elsewhere in the UK but he admitted that would be subject to the EU agreeing to that system.
“There will need to be declarations on goods, as they are moved from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. But these systems will be electronic and administered by UK authorities,” Mr Gove said.
The Cabinet minister admitted that existing customs infrastructure in places like Larne and Belfast would need to be expanded. There would have to be more checks in the agriculture and food sector to ensure animals met EU standards, he said.
While existing customs infrastructure would have to be expanded, no new posts would be built, Mr Gove said.
“There is no such case however, for new customs infrastructure. And as such, there will not be any,” the cabinet minister said.
The Prime Minister agreed that Northern Ireland would stay part of the EU’s customs territory after Brexit to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. Under the terms of the deal, the border is effectively moved to the Irish Sea rather than risk the inflammatory return of guards and checks to the land border.
Labour’s Rachel Reeves said the new protocol meant “a significant escalation” in customs checks and would need a brand new border management system.
She said the new Government paper exposed “the broken promises made by the Prime Minister”
“Today there has been an admission for the first time that there will be additional checks, that there will be tariffs on goods at risk of entering the Single Market,” the shadow cabinet member said.
“Even now, many fear that the Government are not willing to admit the full extent of those.”
Mr Gove said that no tariffs would be paid on goods imported into Northern Ireland from mainland Britain that did not travel on to EU territory, except some at risk of entering EU territory.
He added that there would only be tariffs on British goods imported to Northern Ireland which were at risk of entering the Single Market, if ongoing UK-EU trade negotiations failed.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, responded furiously to a letter from David Frost, his British counterpart, criticising the bloc’s offer of a zero tariff trade deal.
After the last round of negotiations ended in mutual recrimination, Mr Frost wrote to Mr Barnier on Tuesday. He said, “What is on offer is not a fair free trade agreement between close economic partners but a relatively low quality trade agreement coming with unprecedented EU oversight of our laws and institutions.”
“[An exchange of letters] cannot be a substitute for serious engagement and detailed negotiations,” Mr Barnier scolded. “I would not like the tone that you have taken to impact the mutual trust and constructive attitude that is essential between us.”
Britain argues that EU demands for level playing field guarantees on tax, state aid, labour rights and the environment, are far stricter than those asked from countries like Canada. The EU says the stricter guarantees are needed to guarantee fair competition due to the proximity of the UK market.
“Just as we do not accept selective benefits in the Single Market without the corresponding obligations, we also do not accept cherry picking from our past agreements,” Mr Barnier said, “The EU is looking to the future, not to the past, in these negotiations,”


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It’s been an interesting few days in the world of Vanilla Reloads. First there were some reports that a CVS in Florida had gotten a memo that credit cards wouldn’t be accepted for Vanilla Reloads starting on March 31st, 2014.
Gary had a more detailed report today on his blog with some notes from some potential CVS employees indicating the changes might be April 4th. That seems consistent with CVS rolling this out across multiple regions over the course of a week, maybe due to system updates.
I think CVS is on the ball enough from a technology perspective that if this is real it will be a software change to the POS. If they can automate a requirement for scanning a driver’s license on certain transactions I have confidence they can program to preclude Vanilla Reloads from using credit card as a tender method.
We’re in a bit of a waiting mode now. If you have any experience over the past few days trying to buy Vanilla Reloads please let me know and I’ll add it to the update list below. Here’s an update of what people are seeing:
David was in Dallas, TX today and confirmed that a CVS there told him he could no longer use a credit card to pay for Vanilla Reloads at that store.
ncsam is reporting that in central CT CVS has coded the registers to not allow credit cards as a tender type for the purchase of VRs. He has a bit more info in the comments below.
Updates as of this past Monday:
One reader said they know a CVS manager in Atlanta that hasn’t seen the memo yet.
Reader Nicole is reporting no cards available at all in Fairfield Cty, CT.
Gary of View From The Wing reported his local CVS, presumably somewhere in the DC area, had not received the memo.
A CVS is Florida has seen the memo.
My sister in New Jersey (Toms River area) managed to find a few cards at a store today that let her buy them with credit cards and did not mention the memo. She’s reporting most CVS stores there keep them behind the counter due to some theft issues from local patrons.
JP2 reports availability in Southern metro Atlanta. The CVS said they had not heard of the memo.
Joey says he had no problem buying in NYC and they had not heard of the memo.
Jon reports seeing cards in Groton and Bridgeport, CT.
ncsam is reporting business as usual in central CT and South Florida.
As an aside, on my way back from Richmond I stopped in a Sheetz gas station with the family. Even Sheetz is in on the VR game, though they’ve already limited it to cash only.


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Going online with pharmacies can save you time and improve patient care, but liability issues may increase.
Electronic prescribing has been slow to catch on, partly because many physicians don't see value in it. Today, only about 20 percent of doctors use either stand-alone e-prescribing programs or e-Rx modules in electronic health record systems. And until recently, most e-prescribing physicians either computer-faxed their prescriptions to drugstores or printed them out for patients.
But with the development of nationwide connectivity between pharmacies and doctors' offices, more physicians are starting to transmit their prescriptions to pharmacies online, say e-prescribing and EHR vendors. This two-way communication link allows physician offices to handle renewals electronically. Soon, the technology will facilitate several other transactions that could improve office efficiency and the quality of care. These benefits may make e-prescribing more appealing to doctors.
Whether you're planning to acquire an e-prescribing or an EHR system, or you're sitting on the sidelines, these new possibilities will change some important aspects of patient care. So it's important to know how the new technology works and what it offers, both pro and con.
National pharmacy network is a reality, but still has holes
Physicians can send scripts to drugstores via an electronic network operated by SureScripts, which was formed by the trade associations of the chain and independent pharmacies. About two-thirds of pharmacies can now accept your prescriptions online, including most of the chain outlets.
"The big gap is still on the independent side," says Cameron Deemer, president of DrFirst, a stand-alone e-prescribing vendor. "Independent pharmacies still aren't participating to the extent we need them to yet. But the pharmacy chains are aboard in a big way."
Independent drugstores remain prevalent in many rural areas. But the chains hold sway in metropolitan areas. So in some cities and suburbs, 80 to 90 percent of the pharmacies are online with SureScripts, says Kevin Hutchinson, the company's CEO and president.
Even in pharmacies that have connectivity, however, not all druggists are aware of it or understand how it works. That can create problems for physicians who send scripts online, notes internist Sarah Corley, chief medical officer of NextGen, which makes EHR and practice management systems.
"We get some pushback from physicians if they're in an area where they get a lot of callbacks when they've sent something electronically and the pharmacist tells their patients, 'Your doctor didn't send it,' because the pharmacist didn't look in the right place," she says. "That becomes frustrating, and then we have to try to work with the pharmacies in the area to make sure that they know what they're supposed to be doing."
Rick Spurr, CEO of ZixCorp, which offers an e-prescribing service, agrees. "The extent to which pharmacies have gone beyond connectivity to full training, changing workflow, and checking in the right places varies. But we're still early in this process."
There are still shortcomings on the vendor side, as well. SureScripts has tested and certified more than 60 e-prescribing programs for their ability to exchange information online between physician offices and pharmacies. However, most of the 150,000 physicians who have these programs are still using older versions of their vendor's software-versions without electronic connections to pharmacies. As a result, SureScripts says, these doctors' offices often still send new prescriptions and renewals by fax.
The vendors who participated in the roundtable discussion are trying to address this deficiency. All of them are making online connectivity with pharmacies available to new customers and have also upgraded or begun to upgrade their established customers' systems.


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Bunge North America, the North American operating arm of Bunge Limited, announced that it has purchased Minsa Corporation, a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Grupo Minsa S.A.B. de C.V., valued at $75 million. The acquisition includes corn flour mills in Red Oak, Iowa and Muleshoe, Texas.
Corn masa, the primary ingredient for tortillas, tortilla chips, and other foods, is a key growth category in packaged food and food service channels, with sales projected to steadily increase.
“This acquisition is an important strategic step to strengthen our Food & Ingredients business in the U.S., and could provide additional growth opportunities for the company’s other regions,” said Todd Bastean, president Bunge North America. “These assets, together with our existing plant in Worthington, Indiana, make Bunge a leading U.S. producer of corn masa, a product that is experiencing significant growth not only here, but around the globe.”
The Minsa Corporation acquisition creates scale in Bunge’s masa milling capacity and brings additional products and capabilities including specialty products such as organic and non-GMO masa and on-trend colors such as blue and red corn. In addition to traditional bulk, tote and 50 pound bags used by food manufacturers and food service customers, both the Iowa and Texas locations can produce one kilo/2.2 pound packages commonly sold by retailers under their own store brands.
“With additional locations throughout the U.S., we will be better able to provide customers with a high-quality, reliable supply of products nationwide,” said Daniel Maldonado, managing director, Bunge Milling. “We look forward to partnering with customers to help build their brands and using our strong innovation capabilities to further support them in meeting evolving consumer needs with an on-trend portfolio.”
With headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, Bunge North America and its subsidiaries operate grain elevators, oilseed processing plants, edible oil refineries and packaging facilities, and corn, wheat and rice mills in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.


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Huawei today teased the unveiling of its first foldable 5G phone at MWC 2019. Featuring the tagline “Connecting the Future,” the image shows the close up of a foldable phone.
Huawei was rumored to unveil its foldable phone ahead of Samsung but that did not happen. So far, Samsung has given a demo of its foldable phone and it is expected to provide more details about it at its Unpacked event on February 20 where it will also unveil the Galaxy S10.
— Huawei Mobile (@HuaweiMobile) February 1, 2019
Huawei’s foldable phone is likely also going to feature 5G connectivity. While 5G networks are almost non-existent at this point in time, Android OEMs are going to hype 5G connectivity in a bid to attract new customers.
Alongside its foldable phone, we might also see Huawei unveil its P30 series of smartphones. The P20 series started the trend of triple-camera setup last year which Huawei further improved with the Mate 20 Pro towards the end of the year. For P30, the company is further expected to improve its triple-camera setup and use its new 7nm Kirin 980 chipset to deliver outstanding performance.
Huawei’s MWC 2019 event is scheduled for February 24 at 2 PM Barcelona time.
While Huawei and Samsung are involved in a race to launch foldable phones and devices with 5G connectivity, Apple’s 2019 iPhones are expected to jump on the triple-camera bandwagon. Apple is not expected to unveil a foldable phone anytime over the next few years and a 5G iPhone is not launching before 2020 at the very earliest.


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With the focus shifting to electric vehicles (EV), Ford plans to reduce headcount in the engine business. The US car manufacturer wishes to invest and concentrate more on EVs amidst stiff competition from the likes of Tesla. Also, the American economy is experiencing a slump, which has pushed the Company to aim for a leaner structure.
A recent report in Bloomberg said that Jim Farley, chief executive, Ford, was ready to cut about 8,000 jobs, so that finances could be diverted towards EV manufacturing. The employees at Ford Blue, which produces gasoline-powered vehicles, are expected to be impacted the most.
When reports of Ford’s intentions to lay off emerged, Farley sent the employees a video message via e-mail, wherein he acknowledged the rumours pertaining to downsizing and that it was bound to create anxiety amongst the workforce. He, however, is said to have requested employees to focus on their work and explained that Ford needed to bring down costs in order to remain in the race.
He conveyed how important it was to drive transformation and significant change so that the Company could grow in the area of all-electric vehicles.
The Company had indicated that a smaller team is more agile, and hence, ensures speedy decision making.
Ford has been redoing its cost structure so that the Company becomes more lean and efficient enough to compete with the best in the EV space.