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OBERLIN, Ohio, July 17, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Annual student spending on college course materials has declined steadily over the past seven years, according to the National Association of College Stores' (NACS) twice-yearly survey of college students in the U.S.
The study, Student Watch™: Attitudes and Behaviors toward Course Materials: Spring 2015 shows that average annual spending by students on required course materials has dropped from $701 in 2007/2008 to $563 in 2014/2015. The $563 average also dropped approximately $75, from $638, between the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 academic years.
Many factors have influenced this downward trend, says Elizabeth Riddle, director of OnCampus Research, the research arm of indiCo, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NACS.
"Many cost estimates are based on purchases of new materials, but the reality is that because of the many options students have today – rentals, digital, used and print-on-demand – what students are actually spending is much less than what is generally reported," Riddle said. "Campus stores, the leading resource for acquiring course materials, also have implemented more effective buying practices, increased used books and rental programs, and offered materials in multiple formats to help ease students' burden."
Costs down, but students still obtaining same number of course materials
While student spending on course materials has declined, the number of course materials being acquired has remained consistent across fall academic terms. In Fall 2009, students obtained 5.3 course materials; 5.0 were acquired in Fall 2013, and students purchased 5.3 in Fall 2014. These numbers exclude course materials obtained for free (borrowing, downloading, sharing).
"This is a true reflection of a decrease in prices," Riddle says. "This number has remained relatively consistent over time; however, student spending on course materials has continued to drop. So this information suggests that on average, the cost of course materials is slowly decreasing while the number of required course materials students are obtaining for each class may be slightly increasing."
Other factors influencing the trend in declining student spending include:
- Faculty are more aware of student cost concerns and are working with campus stores to source less costly materials and use the same course materials for multiple semesters.
- College stores are increasing used course material options and enhanced buyback pricing.
- Students have become savvier shoppers, spending more time researching affordable options through multiple outlets. Price comparison software has enabled much of this flexibility.
- Open Educational Resources (OER), digital formats, and borrowed materials have combined to help students spend less overall on required materials.
Price comparison technology, Riddle says, located on many college store websites, compares prices of course materials (new, used and rentals) both in-store and online with many online-only retailers, helping students make smart choices and offering the convenience of one-stop shopping.
Preference of print vs. digital course materials is individual choice
While 46% of students say they prefer print course materials because of the usability and familiarity of print (despite a likely higher price tag), use of digital course materials are slowly but steadily climbing in use, about three percent this academic year. The survey found that when it comes to digital course materials, convenience is the primary reason behind their purchase. The ability to easily transport the material is the top reason for going digital, with price ranking second in importance and the versatility of the digital functionality, like search and find, coming in third. Students who prefer digital appreciate the interactive nature of the materials, which they indicate improves their ability to study and learn the coursework, Riddle said.
About The National Association of College Stores
The National Association of College Stores (NACS) is the professional trade association representing the $10 billion collegiate retailing industry. NACS represents nearly 3,000 campus retailers and approximately 1,000 industry-related companies that supply course materials and other merchandise and services to campus stores. NACS provides education and other resources that help its member stores support student success, the campus experience, and the academic missions of higher education institutions. NACS is headquartered in Oberlin, Ohio. Additional information can be found online at www.nacs.org.
About the Student Watch™ Survey
Student Watch™ is conducted online twice year, in the fall and spring terms. Campus stores distributed the survey to their students by email. Each campus survey fielded for a two or three week period in February 2015. A total of 9,647 valid responses were collected. The margin of error for this study is 1.0 at the 95% confidence level. Twenty-three campuses across 16 states were selected to participate based on the following factors: public vs. private schools, two-year vs. four-year degree programs, enrollment size, and geographic location.
SOURCE National Association of College Stores


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Microsoft will begin releasing the new operating system Windows 11 to the public on October 5. It will be first available with newer PCs (and PCs being sold in stores) and then to other supported systems over the next nine or so months. It will be offered as a free upgrade for eligible Windows 10 PCs. “We expect all eligible devices to be offered the free upgrade to Windows 11 by mid-2022,” Aaron Woodman, general manager of Windows marketing at Microsoft, said. On existing Windows 10 PCs, Windows Update will let people know when the upgrade is available for Windows 11. People can also check to see if their device is eligible for the Windows 11 upgrade through Windows Update, or Microsoft’s dedicated PC Health Check app.
However not all of the announced features will be available on October 5. As an example, Microsoft is bringing Android apps to Windows 11 in partnership with Amazon and Intel, but this feature will come later. Windows 11 can be installed only using an ISO method, as long as the PC has a 64-bit 1GHz processor with two or more cores, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a TPM 1.2 chip. An unsupported Windows 11 PC might not get access to Windows Update. Microsoft is still supporting Windows 10 until October 14th, 2025. Windows 11 brings a modern look, with rounded corners and app icons displayed in the center of the taskbar. New sounds are designed to be less jarring. Microsoft redesigned the Start menu, the app store and the Settings app, and it’s easier to arrange multiple app windows on screen.

domain: news


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Opel Range 2022 New Concept.
Opel has seem appraisement and equipment for the brand new Combo-e Burden ablaze bartering agent in Eire. It says that the 100 per cent electrical Opel Combo-e bunched van makes no compromises on performance, abundance or security.
Out there in ‘Version’ and ‘Sportive’ trims, the Combo-e boasts a ambit of as much as 275km from a abounding allegation and presents as much as 3.3m3 burden area, 800kg burden and a 750kg towing capability.
Opel says that it’s going to retail from €34,395 further supply, or from €28,000 ex-VAT, the brand new emissions-free van is now accessible to order.
For enterprise to enterprise prospects, SEAI grants could also be accessible to condoning companies. It offers admission helps seem the acquirement of N1 class electrical cartage for enterprise and accessible entities.
N1 class cartage are about child appurtenances accustomed vans with a technically permissible greatest accumulation not past 3500kg. A greatest admission of €3,800 is accessible for condoning BEV N1 class aback bought commercially.
The most recent accession to Opel’s all-electric LCV


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- Created: Wednesday, 26 August 2015 15:42
By Aaron M. Swift, Esq.
Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion—the three largest credit reporting agencies which collect and distribute credit information on more than 200 million Americans—will (allegedly) change the way they respond to consumer disputes as part of the largest industry overhaul in the last ten years. The Big Three—as the agencies are so named—reached settlements with attorneys general in 32 states culminating years of nationwide investigations into shoddy business practices. The settlements aim to resolve a myriad of consumer complaints including:
- corrupting credit reports of consumers with good payments histories by assigning someone else’s bad credit history to them;
- failing to act or even investigate when consumers disputed errors;
- employing low-paid non-trained employees to review dispute documentation; and
- reporting unpaid medical debts as collection accounts before insurance payments process.
Major Errors Common
One in five consumers have a major error on at least one of their three major credit reports, according to a 2013 Federal Trade Commission study, and nearly 43 million Americans have past-due medical debt on their credit report, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”). Additionally, over half of all collections debt on credit reports is related to medical expenses. Given the magnitude of the problem, the settlements should provide much-needed relief to consumers if the Big Three in fact follow through with the changes contemplated by the agreements. Eric Schneiderman, the New York State Attorney General, wrote in an e-mail statement that the agreement “is a good sign that the reporting agencies are finally willing to step up their game and respond to the needs of hardworking consumers and their families.” Under the new agreements, the Big Three must wait 180 days before adding any medical debts to credit reports, and when medical debts are eventually paid by insurance companies, the collections account must be removed immediately. In contrast, most delinquencies and other negative credit information usually remain on a consumer’s credit report for up to seven years.
Other major changes to the industry include:
- streamlining the dispute resolution process;
- maintaining a list of creditors and debt collectors that routinely report bad or inaccurate information about consumers;
- formalizing communication between the Big Three and consumers regarding documentation sent in support of disputes; and
- separating the dispute and complaint process from the sale of creditor-monitoring services.
Stuart Pratt, the CEO of the Consumer Data Industry Association—the trade and lobbying association of the Big Three—said in a written statement, “the settlements, which arose out of collaborative discussions between the three agencies and a group of state attorneys general, will enhance credit report accuracy, increase transparency, and provide meaningful benefit to consumers.”
The consumer lawyers at LeavenLaw dedicate themselves to fighting for our client’s rights against banks, debt collectors, and the Big Three. If you have errors on your credit report, please call us today at 855-LeavenLaw to schedule your free consultation. You can also access free copies of your credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com and then schedule a free credit report analysis with an experienced FCRA lawyer. For more information, please visit www.leavenlaw.com.


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Hip-hop lifestyle magazine and website Complex unveiled its list of the 25 Most Powerful People In Rap (Right Now), naming Cash Money label heads Bryan “Birdman” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams No. 1. Jay-Z, Kanye West, Joie “I.E.” Manda and the pair of Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine also rank in the Top 5. The magazine compiled the list with the help of hip-hop personality Reggie Osse (a.k.a. Combat Jack), noting that it seeks to answer the question “Who are the artists, booking agents, radio suits, DJs, A&Rs, label execs, and (yes) editors who everyone else can’t say no to?”
“Between concerts, major labels, independent artists and terrestrial radio, streaming services, artist management and legal, the entertainment business has become a constantly shifting matrix of power,” Complex notes in the intro. “But power, in rap, is different.”
Birdman and Slim Williams, who are co-founders and co-CEOs of Cash Money, locked in the top spot thanks largely to their Young Money Entertainment imprint, which houses Nicki Minaj, Drake and Lil Wayne. Complex notes that the brand has sold over 500 million units worldwide, making the label the leader in rap today.
Jay-Z follows at No. 2, thanks to his role as CEO of Roc Nation and his own acclaim as a hip-hop artist. Manda, president of Def Jam Recordings, follows at No. 3, while Dr. Dre and Iovine, chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M and CEO of Beats Electronics, score the No. 4 spot. Although the latter pair’s business ventures, including Beats by Dre, are highly cited, Dre’s Aftermath label, which includes Kendrick Lamar, helped bolster the duo’s success, according to Complex.
West, who founded G.O.O.D. Music, trails at No. 5. Sean “Diddy” Combs, Warner Music Group president of A&R Mike Caren, Atlantic Records president of black music Michael Kyser and Warner/Chappell president of creative “Big” Jon Platt are also highlighted at the top of the list. Questlove comes in at No. 12 and Grammys agitator Steve Stoute claims No. 13.
Not all of the 25 honored are rappers and well-known personalities, though. Some of the less famous — but no less influential — include Theo Sedlmayr, a lawyer who has represented Eminem, Rick Ross and 50 Cent; Lee “Q” O’Denat, founder of WorldStarHipHop; Pitchfork Media founder Ryan Schrieber; and Rap Radar co-owner Elliott Wilson.
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Stranger Things 4
This Is Me ... Now


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In the wake of the Great Recession, small business nationwide and in Ohio are doing all they can to strengthen and grow their businesses. Small business owners are constantly looking for innovative ways to help their businesses run more efficiently. As part of these efforts, recent scientific opinion polling conducted by Small Business Majority shows that Ohio’s entrepreneurs want utilities to offer renewable energy sources that will help them improve their energy intensity and reduce utility costs, and believe the use of renewable energy can have economic benefits for their businesses.
Small business owners nationwide are doing all they can to strengthen their businesses and put the Great Recession’s effects behind them. Now more than ever, it’s critical they have the help of smart employment laws allowing them to attract and retain the best talent. National scientific opinion polling shows the vast majority of small business owners believe we’re long overdue for federal and state policies protecting all workers from discrimination, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Small businesses account for a significant share of Ohio’s economy. For every one large business in Ohio, there are 236 small businesses diligently working to reenergize the state’s economy. Small firms make up 98.1% of the state’s employers. These entrepreneurs are doing everything they can to hire, grow and move their businesses and the economy forward. As part of these efforts, recent scientific opinion polling shows that Ohio’s entrepreneurs want pragmatic, innovative policies that help guide them into a competitive, modern clean energy economy.
America’s small business owners are doing all they can to outlast the condition of today’s economy. These hardworking employers know they need the right kind of help if they are to thrive. That’s why they believe immediate action is necessary to form bold clean energy policies that will prompt innovation, and in effect, stimulate small business and the economy.
Scientific opinion poll finds small business owners are hiring, but those doing so are having a hard time finding candidates with the right background; they support programs such as apprentice and internships to identify and increase the number of qualified workers.
Small Business Majority's scientific opinion polling shows small business owners often feel disadvantaged by large corporations and the electoral system overall. They believe our current campaign finance system puts large corporations at a competitive advantage and support significant reforms to level the playing field between small employers and large corporations.
Small Business Majority released a national scientific opinion poll—including oversamples in five states—that found small business owners oppose denying services to LGBT customers based on religious beliefs, rights to free speech or freedom of artistic expression. Further, the poll showed that a majority of small businesses support enacting federal and state laws to protect LGBT individuals from discrimination in places of public accommodation. Small business owners feel that nondiscrimination policies are good for their state’s business climate and their own business’s bottom line.
Small business owner Lynn Meyers is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to ensure critical packages are delivered on time.
“In this business, it’s important to be able to sleep standing up,” said Lynn.
Lynn is the owner of Cincinnati, Ohio-based United Courier Inc.—a delivery service that attends to the time-sensitive needs of its clients. A self-proclaimed “chronic entrepreneur,” Lynn has been in the business of creating small firms since 1986 and settled into her current role in 2006.
When you talk to business owners about what make their business successful, they often say their employees are their number one assets. That’s certainly true for the Columbus small business I co-own with my father, Wolf’s Ridge Brewing. We want to keep our employees happy, and for us, part of how we do that is by offering paid family and medical leave via a short-term disability policy. But paid leave isn’t just about treating our employees well – it’s also boosted our bottom line by increasing employee retention and morale.
To say that Columbus entrepreneur Victoria Calderon wears many hats is an understatement. In addition to co-owning two successful businesses with her sister, Virginia Nunes Gutierrez, Victoria is a marketing expert, policy advocate and published author with more than 10 years of experience in the media, corporate, non-profit and small business sectors. Victoria is also a first-generation immigrant from Venezuela who is fluent in Spanish, English and Brazilian Portuguese.


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In his Ars Technica review of the Nintendo Switch remake of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (available September 20), Sam Machkovech says the terrific music and visual upgrades are not enough to justify paying $60 for a game that "feels like 1993.... When the game isn't offering laughs or smiles via its quests and quirkiness, it's either serving up all-too-familiar challenges or making players fumble blindly in search of a single, buried clue."
“NVIDIA GameGAN is a powerful new AI model created by NVIDIA Research and was trained on 50,000 episodes of PAC-MAN to produce a fully functional version of the classic without an underlying game engine.” Read the article about it was done here. Image: Nvidia
My kids and I loved playing Paper Mario on the Wii. Today, Nintendo announced a new Paper Mario title for the Switch, called Paper Mario: The Origami King. Release date is July 17. The kingdom has been ravaged by an origami menace! Join Mario and his new partner, Olivia, as they team up with unlikely […]
“Lumen in the Land of Nanite” is a real-time Unreal Engine 5 demonstration running live on PlayStation. The new UE5 has two technologies: “Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry, which frees artists to create as much geometric detail as the eye can see, and Lumen, a fully dynamic global illumination solution that immediately reacts to scene and […]
First, they were all about serving a protective necessary function. But now, about 10 weeks after the explosion of the COVID-19 outbreak, face masks are beginning to serve a different role. Just like all the fashion accessories that came before them, face masks are now showing off a little piece of ourselves to the everyday […]
Promoting products is almost nothing like it was back in the Mad Men days. In fact, the digital landscape has changed the ad game so much that it barely even resembles early Grey’s Anatomy days anymore. Marketing a product digitally isn’t about the right ad slogan or color scheme. It’s about crafting the narrative around […]
Every once in a while, we see a new product come along that’s so versatile and elegantly simple that it’s strange no one’s ever gone there before. Portable lights themselves aren’t new, but there’s something about the MOGICS Coconut Light that’s so seamlessly well-designed and adaptable that it feels startlingly original. The Coconut is basically […]


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Traveloka has launched a new tagline Life, Your Way, reflecting its mission to enable consumers to discover travel experiences that cater to their unique preferences.
Kicking off with a one-minute video on December 1, 2022, the new tagline also reiterates Traveloka’s commitment to delivering tech-driven customer experiences through its range of services.
Traveloka’s data revealed that as of 3Q2022, when compared to the year before, there has been more than five times increase in travel bookings for international destinations, more than 30 per cent uplift in bookings for domestic destinations, and overall flight bookings have jumped four-fold.
Recognising a big change in consumer trends and preferences over the past few years, Traveloka has refreshed its tagline to reflect its ability to cater to an individual’s travel preferences.
“The needs of travellers have changed, and we are seeing a big trend whereby they want to personalise their experiences more than ever before. We want travellers to know that by choosing Traveloka, they will be able to fulfil their travel aspirations in a convenient, efficient, and secure manner,” said Shirley Lesmana, chief marketing officer, Traveloka.
Traveloka has a strong foothold in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, with its platform offering consumers a choice of over 1.8 million accommodations around the world, more than 110,000 experiences in 60 countries, over 200 airlines, and over 30 payment options to suit their preferences.


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Apple is due to drop another iPod bomb on Wednesday with a shakeup of the line. The regular iPod we know and love will be dropped and replaced with a new 30GB iPod photo ($349) and a 60GB iPod photo ($449). The iPod mini also gets a shakeup with the “Gold” being dropped and new 6GB iPod mini ($249) with color screens being introduced. A regular 4GB iPod mini ($199) will remain.
All prices are in USD.


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19 Nov 2022
Cardano (ADA) commercial division has announced its intention to release a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar using fiat currency.
The company claims the crypto asset is backed 1:1 and complies with all applicable regulations, noting that the product bridges the gap between conventional banking and decentralized currency markets (DeFi).
There will soon be a new cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar, as revealed by the Cardano (ADA) blockchain's commercial arm. To start 2019, EMURGO has announced that it will release USDA, the first USD-backed stablecoin for the Cardano ecosystem.
By combining the long-term stability of the US Dollar with the high security, low fees, and environmental friendliness of the ADA blockchain, the stablecoin was reportedly developed by EMURGO to protect investors and Web3 firms from volatility within the crypto markets.
In addition, the company claims the crypto asset is backed 1:1 and is compliant with all applicable regulations, noting that the product bridges the gap between conventional banking and decentralized currency markets (DeFi).
To ensure that the stablecoin is compliant with all applicable laws and regulations, EMURGO has partnered with a U.S.-based regulated financial services company to handle cash deposits.
USDA's robust and long-term price stability is backed by real-world assets, which could eventually lead to the release of more trustworthy financial services for the Cardano ecosystem.
The USDA is the first offering from [Anzens and] EMURGO's new product suite, designed to "bridge the gap between traditional finance and DeFi."
According to the announcement, users can tokenize their dollars and transfer them as native ADA assets through EMURGO's Anzens product line.
As a means of speeding up the creation of Cardano-based decentralized applications (DApps), EMURGO was released at the beginning of the year. In the first phase, a modular toolkit was made available, and in the second, developers were given access to the ADA ecosystem.
Disclaimer: Nothing on this site should be construed as a financial investment recommendation. It’s important to understand that investing is a high-risk activity. Investments expose money to potential loss.


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It’s a frontrunner for Game of the Year as it is, but it’s nice to see that From Software’s latest title has already been experienced by a healthily-sized audience, as latest sales figures for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice show it has reached almost 4 million units shipped worldwide.
The financial report of From Software’s parent company Kadokawa revealed that 3.8 million copies of Sekiro have been sold in as of June 30, 2019, which covers the first three months after its March 22 launch. That’s a pretty impressive number for such a challenging singleplayer title, let alone a brand new IP.
In the same report, it was also revealed that From Software’s Dark Souls series has amassed a whopping 25 million units sold. Again this is quite remarkable as the previous figure before the launch of Dark Souls 3 was 10 million. Sales of that game, and the remastered version of the first game, are likely to have been instrumental in that additional 15 million copies since March 2016.
So From Software’s model is clearly doing well for it. The company’s next title, Elden Ring, has great sales potential as a result, and the fact it features a collaboration with Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin should only sweeten the pot.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is out now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
Source link : http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BloodyDisgusting/~3/ieWbH4kXPlw/
Author : Neil Bolt
Publish date : 2019-08-09 12:35:24


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At the same time, there’s been a lack of novelty in the designer bag space in recent seasons. Instead, people are digging into the archives. “Old bags are back,” Amanda Mull wrote in The Atlantic earlier this year. “A significant—and growing—number of fashion-conscious people appear to be mining the depths of their closets or scouring secondhand marketplaces for designs released in the past decade or so.”
Designers appear eager to feed the demand with reissued styles, too. See: the Gucci horsebit chain shoulder bag and the Prada Re-Nylon 2000 Mini-Bag, both of which retail for well over $1,000. Baggu’s nylon shoulder bag, on the other hand, features a similar crescent shape to the Prada bag—for a mere $44.
Although not everyone believes there’s been a complete lack of new high-end It styles as of late, the minimalist part of the equation still rings true.
“I have been seeing The Row’s Margaux tote everywhere lately,” says Jess Graves, writer of The Love List, a shopping newsletter on Substack. The Row’s leather Banana Bag, which retails for $2,350, is also a favorite of TikTokers looking to emulate the Olsens’ signature aesthetic. Squint, and the Uniqlo bag is a solid dupe for roughly one-twentieth the price.
Graves concedes that cost and It factor aren’t mutually exclusive. “I don’t think a bag has to live at a specific price point to be ‘It,’” she says. “I think ubiquity is a key factor, as is the buy-in from people we might see as aspirational, whether it’s a celebrity or just a cool girl on the street.”
Graves points to the COS quilted bags—which start at $49 for a “micro” size—as achieving that status. “The COS bag has such mass appeal because it’s distinct enough to clock as a ‘thing’ but not a blatant knockoff of something else,” she says.


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As pork is forbidden by Islam, the use of pork-based gelatin in many vaccines has resulted in considerable resistance to vaccination among the Islamic community. Data has demonstrated a decrease in immunization rates in majority Muslim countries such as Nigeria and Pakistan, where leaders and clerics have made complex claims against vaccines. A 2012 survey of parents in an Islamic primary school in Australia found that over 40% did not feel they knew enough about vaccines to make informed decisions, with over 70% expressing a desire for further information to reduce the uncertainty.
This confusion and uncertainty is ongoing in spite of leading Muslim scholars stating, in consultation with the World Health Organization, that the gelatin used in vaccines should be considered halal – and thus that there is no religious reason for Muslims to refuse vaccination. Refusal of vaccines, and the anti-vaccine movement in general, pose a major public health challenge resulting in the loss of protection from herd immunity. Consequences can be fatal.
In an attempt to ease doubts and encourage greater uptake of vaccines among the Muslim population, a number of halal-certified vaccines are currently in development. Vaccines may be acceptable to many Muslims in the current context, where there are no alternatives. However, if there is a choice between halal and non-halal products, Muslims must choose the halal option.
It goes without saying that the creation of halal vaccines potentially opens up a very lucrative market. The managing director of AJ Pharma Holding, a Saudi Arabian-owned and Malaysia-based pharmaceutical company developing a number of halal vaccines, believes the global halal vaccine market could be worth approximately $1.1 billion by 2030, given the growing affluence of the Muslim consumer base.
There are 1.8 billion Muslims around the world, constituting 25% of the global population; Muslims are the single largest religious group worldwide. Key markets include Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh – as well as the smaller but more affluent Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Hajj also creates a large market, as Saudi Arabia requires a certificate of meningitis vaccination from each of the millions of pilgrims travelling to Mecca every year.
For today’s major vaccine players, halal poses some important business questions. How will halal vaccines impact their sales? What degree of threat do they pose to their business model? To what extent is it worth considering development of their own halal vaccines in order to gain a stronger foothold in the increasingly important and lucrative Muslim market?
There might also be opportunity for halal vaccines beyond the Muslim population, as is increasingly the case with halal foods. The halal food segment – already worth approximately $700 billion globally and one of the few food product categories experiencing fast growth – is surging rapidly among non-Muslims and in non-Muslim majority markets. For example, in Moscow, sales in halal stores grew by $25 million between 2004 and 2006.
The halal skincare and cosmetics market is experiencing similar growth, with the co-founder of Indian halal beauty brand Iba suggesting that 50% of its consumers are non-Muslims. Interest among this segment is continuing to increase at a fast rate due to overlap in values with the vegan and ethical beauty markets (in terms of their shared emphasis on cruelty-free manufacturing processes). Companies such as Al Islami foods, a Dubai-based halal food manufacturer, cite the marketing of halal foods to non-Muslims as one of its key growth strategies. As the halal concept emphasizes quality, safety and hygiene, these values might also have a broader appeal in the context of vaccines and in healthcare more broadly.
Interestingly, within healthcare the desire for halal products is not restricted to vaccines. There is also demand for halal surgical sutures and plasma-derived products, and even pharmaceutical products themselves.
Capturing this growing market is not without challenges. For example, there is not yet a universal standard to define good manufacturing practice for halal medical products. While the Halal Food Standard sets out clear parameters for food products, its guidelines are not sufficiently nuanced to be easily transferable or applicable to healthcare and the pharmaceutical sector.
Perhaps even more importantly, such products may be more expensive than their non-halal counterparts – which raises a number of ethical and access issues in cases where healthcare products are publicly funded. Awareness and demand for halal products is also not uniform across Muslim and Muslim-majority countries. For example, awareness and education are higher and regulatory guidelines are stricter in the ASEAN countries of Indonesia and Malaysia compared to Pakistan.
Halal in healthcare is undoubtedly in its infancy, and it remains to be seen how the market will evolve. There is an immediate need for greater education regarding halal and vaccines for Muslim consumers worldwide. Developing communication materials targeted specifically to Muslims may constitute an important first step in ensuring informed-decision making and a defense against rejection of currently available vaccines. Indeed, as Muslim markets become an increasingly important source of revenue for global pharmaceutical/vaccines companies and competitors race to develop “true” halal alternatives to established products, halal certification is an area that should be on everyone’s radar.
Originally published on www.mmm-online.com
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JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon warned at a quarterly meeting of the Business Roundtable (BR) that socialism would be a “huge mistake."
“When government owns and controls companies used for political purposes, not economic purposes, it usually means jobs and votes and can lead to huge deterioration,” said Dimon, who chairs the BR.
The executive says the U.S. remains the most prosperous in the world, but policies need to be fixed to improve growth. The past 10 years the U.S. economy has grown by 20 percent, but should have grown 40 percent coming out of such a deep recession, amounting to $4 trillion in lost GDP, according to Dimon. Policies, including health care, infrastructure and immigration are holding back the U.S. economy, he says, not secular stagnation. “It’s a disgrace and needs fixing,” said Dimon.
Tom Linebarger, chief executive of engine maker Cummins and chair for the BR's Trade and International Committee, says businesses are open to looking at policy proposals. “We recognize there are issues of fairness,” he said. “We need acknowledge what we’re getting and what we’re giving up, [but] the capitalist system has created the single-largest, most successful economy.”
The executives spoke out on the same day that Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders championed democratic socialism, saying the economy is not working for the working class. Sanders says Wall Street and Republicans don't oppose all forms of socialism. “[They] may hate Democratic socialism because it benefits working people, but they absolutely love corporate socialism that benefits Trump and other billionaires," said Sanders. He added, “I believe in democratic socialism that works for the working families."
Socialism wasn’t the only risk, the executives warned about. Executives now see trade as the biggest risk to the economy.
Net taxes for businesses are now higher than before tax reform because of tariffs, says Linebarger. The CEO of Cummins says there's a significant opportunity for improvement and lengthening of the business cycle if tariffs are removed. “Tariffs in place now are a significant burden and will be for some time a concern as far as the impact on the U.S. and Chinese economies,” he said. "If the US-Mexico-Canada deal were to pass that would boost the economy."
The impact from tariffs will take time to be felt, say executives. There is long-term damage to supply chains and competitiveness because companies may not move immediately or take time to adapt and adjust, all of which can slowly hurt growth and jobs. Businesses are already moving out of China, says Linebarger, to other countries. Executives are hopeful President Trump and Chinese President Xi will meet at the G-20 later this month and get trade talks back on track.
Businesses are also concerned that mixing national security with trade, as President Trump did with Mexico using tariffs as a threat to get our southern neighbor to stem the flow of immigrants, sets a dangerous precedent. “There are border issues and we are concerned, but mixing trade tools with national security tools lessens credibility for national security because you can’t tell what you’re fighting,” said Linebarger. “It creates volatility in trade situations for business.”
For now, uncertainty about trade and slowing global growth caused respondents to the Business Roundtable’s quarterly survey to lower expectations for sales, capital investment and hiring for the next six months. Though executives still expect spending, hiring and sales to remain in a healthy range.
The CEO Economic Outlook Index still signals a positive direction for the economy and remains well above a level that would indicate a recession is coming. CEOs are projecting GDP of 2.6 percent this year, up one tenth from the 2.5 percent projected for the year last quarter.
The survey was conducted May 16 through June 3 -- a time during which the Trump administration increased the level of tariffs on more than $200 billion in imports from China and threatened to use tariffs on Mexican imports over immigration on the southern border.


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Tax code rewards wellness - and doughnuts
Published 4:00 am, Sunday, September 6, 2009
Wellness. A big buzzword in the health care reform debate. Constantly touted as a key means of reducing out-of-control health care costs.
A couple of years ago, Chris Mittelstaedt, founder and CEO of the FruitGuys, a San Francisco company that delivers fresh fruit to business offices nationwide, asked the firm's accountant to check into the tax implications of providing such wellness-oriented benefits to employees - whether the provision of fresh fruit, for example, comes under the de minimis fringe benefit rules, meaning the cost is deductible by the employer.
It does, according to the accountant's reading of the tax code. Fruit is specifically mentioned under Treasury Reg. 1.132-6(e)(1) , but so are "occasional cocktail parties, group meals, or picnics for employees and their guests," along with "coffee, doughnuts, and soft drinks."
That caused the accountant to add in a note: "I have to take a moment to comment on the irony. By way of this law employers are encouraged to provide coffee (heart attack), doughnuts (obesity) and soft drinks (rotten teeth) to their employees."
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We don't know whether Washington is cognizant of such irony, and thus considering relevant changes to the tax code. Nor do we know whether a proposed "sin tax" on sugary soda, and beer and wine currently floating around the Senate Finance Committee, will make its way into a health care bill.
We do know the fate of previously proposed junk food and drink taxes, which could save hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs. They've died a quick, unremarked death at the hands of industry lobbyists who have considerably more clout than the FruitGuys.
Walking the walk: There was much talk of wellness and prevention programs at last week's San Francisco Chamber of Commerce confab on health care reform. That's where I met Mittelstaedt, who was one of the panelists. He and his wife, Pia Hinckle, a former San Francisco Examiner business editor, started delivering boxes of fruit to downtown San Francisco offices in 1998 when the dot-com era was at its peak but its pioneering ground troops were eating poorly.
Having survived the dot-com bust, the Fruit Guys ( www.fruitguys.com) now has outlets in Chicago and Boston as well as San Francisco, delivering approximately 100,000 pieces of fresh fruit a week. Approximately 2,000 businesses are on the company's customer list, and revenues are "edging up" to $10 million annually, said Mittelstaedt.
The recession has hurt some. "It's difficult for some businesses to justify buying fruit for some employees while laying off others," he said. "But I'm starting to see companies investing in wellness again."
As to his views on health care reform: "Most of the current push is for access, which is a great first step," he said. "But the real fix is not just about greater access to doctors and hospitals. It's about incentives to encourage healthy behavior and disincentives to discourage unhealthy behavior, through the tax code and other means.
"We have to change. We have to become healthier as a country, and that's the responsibility of government, businesses and individuals."


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California will be the 18th state to propose a "Right to Repair" bill for electronics. It would require hardware manufacturers to make repair information, alongside equipment and service parts, available to product owners and independent repair shops. California assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman detailed the legislation that aims to give more users control over their gadgets. Instead of paying a high price to a manufacturer to fix an electronic, Eggman says some people are forced to prematurely upgrade when they should have other repair options. "The Right to Repair Act will provide consumers with the freedom to have their electronic products and appliances fixed by a repair shop or service provider of their choice, a practice that was taken for granted a generation ago but is now becoming increasingly rare in a world of planned obsolescence," Eggman said in a statement.
My co-worker, Tracey, held her iPhone like a baby bird with a bent wing. I stared at the dark screen. The device was still on, but stuck between the worlds of being living technology, and a busted iPhone. She explained that while making a phone call shortly after having third-party iPhone screen repair company iCracked replace her shattered iPhone 6 screen, the device made a popping sound, and got really hot in one corner. Then, her screen cracked, and burnt her ear.
Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. The people have spoken, and they want their phones to last. And across the nation, elected officials are proposing a type of legislation that would give consumers more power to fix their devices as they age or are damaged. Over the past two years, these "right to repair" bills have gained popularity. This week, California joined the list, bringing the number of states with proposed legislation to 18.
Third-party repair stores are a common option if you drop or break your smartphone, but Apple is reportedly not a fan of these alternative repair options. Apple is one of several high-profile companies that have been lobbying against a New York state bill that would make it easier to independent stores and users to repair devices. According to Motherboard, the Fair Repair Act would have companies sell replacement parts and tools to everyone, bans software locks that would limit repairs and, in some cases, have companies provide repair guides publicly. However, Apple and other companies have come out aggressively against the proposed legislation. Along with Apple, other companies who have lobbied against the Fair Repair Act include Toyota, Caterpillar and Verizon.
Apple is planning to oppose a "Right to Repair" legislation introduced last month in the Nebraska legislature, Motherboard reported Wednesday, citing an unnamed source within the legislature. The bill for the Fair Repair Act is aimed at ending the manufacturers' aftermarket monopoly, wherein only authorized service providers are allowed to carry out repairs. However, the right to repair movement, which has also gained cachet in the states of Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts, Kansas, Wyoming, Illinois and Tennessee -- has faced vehement opposition not just from Apple, but also from tractor manufacturer John Deere. The company argued in 2015 that allowing people to tinker with their software -- even if it's for the purpose of repair -- would "make it possible for pirates, third-party software developers, and less innovative competitors to free-ride off the creativity, unique expression and ingenuity of vehicle software designed by leading vehicle manufacturers." When the Nebraska bill is tabled for a hearing on March 9, Apple -- which has successfully lobbied against similar bills in other states -- is expected to argue, among other things, that allowing customers or independent mechanics to repair their own phones could cause the devices' lithium-ion batteries to catch fire.


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Despite the ratification of African Continental Free Trade Area agreement, Nigeria businesses’ readiness for the free trade opportunity is being impacted by the economic effect of COVID-19 pandemic, among others. IFE OGUNFUWA examines the issues
Nigeria will become eligible to trade freely in products and services with 55 African countries once the instruments of ratification for the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement has been deposited with the African Union.
As contained in Article 23 of the agreement establishing the AfCFTA, Nigerian will also be bound by the rules and procedures on the settlement of disputes on the day the instruments are deposited.
The agreement stated that countries that have ratified the agreement would have to comply with protocols on Investment, intellectual property rights, competition policy, and any other instrument within the scope of this agreement.
Already, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, is preparing the instrument of ratification for the AfCFTA following its ratification by the Federal Executive Council on Tuesday.
The National Action Committee on AfCTA said the instrument, when ready, would be signed by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) and transmitted to the African Union.
The committee has also intensified sensitisation of sstakeholders in all sectors that will be relevant to the intra-African free trade.
However, many Nigerian businesses are unprepared to take on the free trade opportunities in the AfCFTA that is billed to take off in January 2021, investigation has revealed.
Despite the shift in the commencement date of the intra African trade agreement from July 1, 2020 to January 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was gathered that many Nigerian businesses were still reeling from the impact of the pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has put pressure on the economy of Nigeria and other Africa countries and effort of the Nigerian government is currently geared towards the recovery of the economy and helping businesses to thrive.
Trade experts in the private sector say there are no incentives from the government to encourage them to participate in the AfCFTA.
According to them, the agreement is meant to be government-driven but there has been no communication on a clear-cut strategy, goals and priority areas from the Federal Government.
They expressed fear that Nigeria could become a dumping ground for goods from other African countries if Nigerian businesses don’t actively participate in the AfCFTA.
The AfCFTA aims to create a single continental market for goods and services in Africa, and allow free movement of people across borders.
The Secretary General, AfCFTA, Mene Wamkele, estimated that with the combined African GDP of $2.5tn, the volume of intra-African trade could increase to over 50 per cent by 2030.
Speaking with The PUNCH, the President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria’s Export Group, Chief Ede Dafinone, said exporters under MAN were presently not sufficiently encouraged by the government to prepare for the free trade deal.
According to him, the payment of Export Expansion Grant, which is a major incentive for exporters, is not being honoured by the government.
He stated that the EEG that had been successfully paid by the government was highly discounted, which amounted to a loss for exporters.
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MCLEAN, Va. — On July 26, the Food Processing Suppliers Association (FPSA) announced the creation of new membership groups called Networks. According to FPSA, each of these Networks help create opportunities to work with professionals in similar disciplines and tackle critical issues in the food and beverage industry.
As part of this announcement, three new Networks are being created including the Packaging Network, the Food Safety Network and the Technology Network. These join the already existing Women’s Network (formerly Women’s Council) and Young Professionals Group (YPG).
“The Networks not only create new avenues of participation for FPSA members,” said Jarrod McCarroll, chairman of the Food Processing Suppliers Association (FPSA) and president of Weber Inc. “They provide substantive content development in critical areas across the entire food industry spectrum. While our industry Councils have a vertical focus, the Networks have a horizontal span across all segments that enables solutions that cross pollinate from one industry to another. Frankly, we look forward to the not-too-distant future, the content developed from these Networks will have a significant impact on all FPSA programs.”
“Establishment of the new Network structure addresses an issue that our leadership has discussed for some time now, that of cross industry collaboration,” said David Seckman, President and CEO of FPSA. “The Networks will give members another platform for substantive work on prominent issues, regardless of the industry segment they belong to. Additionally, the Networks will include relevant subject matter experts, academics, and government officials to participate and in so doing, greatly enhance the knowledge base of each group.”
Any FPSA member is eligible for a seat on any of the five Networks. FPSA is a trade association serving suppliers to the global food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. The association’s programs and services assist its members in marketing their products and services, and in improving their business practices.


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Watanabe" -- the canny Tokyo housewife who dabbles in currency trading in between school runs and shopping -- barely begin to tell the story of Japan's retail traders in the foreign exchange market. With almost 800,000 active forex accounts, Japan boasts the world's most powerful force of retail traders. It has doubled in size in little more than a decade and spurred some of the most dramatic price moves of recent times, including the January "flash crash" that hammered the dollar and sent the yen soaring. Watanabe," most of the traders are middle-age men, who've been driven into the market by years of ultra-low interest rates. They toil in offices by day and trudge home to moonlight in foreign exchange, hoping to build a family nest egg in a country where banks pay savers next to nothing.
The COVID-19 pandemic is fueling a surge in currency trading by retail investors, who are discovering that working from home means they can moonlight in the market during the daytime. Trading volume in margin accounts held by individuals more than doubled last month, just as volatility in the dollar-yen exchange rate spiked and Japan began to get more serious about social distancing. The nation boasts the world's most powerful force of retail forex traders, with almost 1 million margin accounts, and the recent change in their behavior is significant for global markets. Until now, most of them had been active at night, during European and U.S. trading hours, and their go-to trade was selling the yen to buy high-yielding currencies, often in emerging markets. One 14-year veteran of Japan's retail trading scene said that he'd intensified his trading activities since he started to work from home in late February."I've
Landing a good job is generally considered the purpose of education today. But not everyone subscribes to that. "Your economic security does not lie in your job; it lies in your own power to produce--to think, to learn, to create, to adapt. It's not having wealth; it's having the power to produce wealth." As today's foreign exchange or "forex" market shows, this is indeed true.
SINGAPORE/TOKYO - Singapore is seizing an opportunity measured in milliseconds to win a bigger slice of the world's foreign exchange market, worth $5.1 trillion (¥570 trillion) daily. The Southeast Asian nation is encouraging major foreign exchange operators to build systems in the country to remove the sub-second delay caused by routing trades via Tokyo or London. The move is part of a plan to expand the island's overall currency trading industry, said Benny Chey of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). UBS Group AG and Citigroup Inc. have already set up pricing engines on the island, and MAS hopes to bring in six to eight more big players, including nonbanks and multidealer platforms. "We are positioning ourselves to be plugged in to growing Asian wealth," said Chey, assistant managing director of development and international at MAS. "As this large macro shift in Asian economic growth and rising Asian wealth takes place over the medium term, we are trying to build out the efficiency of our ecosystem" to close the gaps with other trading hubs, he said.
The Foreign Exchange (Forex) is a large decentralized market, on which trading analysis and algorithmic trading are popular. Research efforts have been focusing on proof of efficiency of certain technical indicators. We demonstrate, however, that the values of indicator functions are not reproducible and often reduce the number of trade opportunities, compared to price-action trading. In this work, we develop two dataset-agnostic Forex trading heuristic templates with high rate of trading signals. In order to determine most optimal parameters for the given heuristic prototypes, we perform a machine learning simulation of 10 years of Forex price data over three low-margin instruments and 6 different OHLC granularities. As a result, we develop a specific and reproducible list of most optimal trade parameters found for each instrument-granularity pair, with 118 pips of average daily profit for the optimized configuration.


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The world’s biggest and most recognizable brand names are immune to being penalized by Google, right? Not exactly. They may almost always dominate the search results, but not even the biggest brand names are safe from being hit with a show of reprimand. Learn a few SEO lessons from them here.
BMW – BMW might be one of the grandest trademarks around when it comes to cars, but it has had its share of shady SEO in the past. Way back in 2006, BMW’s website was axed entirely from the web due to cloaking; a technique where a site might show a different thing to a search engine and human visitors. BMW’s website got removed for 3 full days, which was big news at that time.
Rap Genius – A well-known lyrics site, Rap Genius got penalized by Google after launching an “affiliate program” which asked bloggers to post a series of links to Justin Bieber lyrics pages. Rap Genius would then tweet the post to its followers in exchange for the links. It was penalized on Christmas day, and at that time only links to its Twitter and Facebook page was shown on the first page with its entire website off the deep end.
Washington Post – Even reputable journalistic sites had shady SEO practices. Washington Post was penalized back in 2007 for selling links, causing its PageRank value drop from PR7 to PR5. While the site has rebounded (it’s now at PR8), the administrators surely learned their lesson.


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Automotive Holdings Group has agreed to sell its interest in Motorcycle Distributors Australia (MDA) to Austrian company, KTM Sportmotorcycles (KTMS).
AHG currently owns a 74 per cent interest in MDA and its subsidiaries which import and distribute KTM and Husqvarna motorcycles across Australia and New Zealand. KTMS holds 26 per cent of the business and will assume 100 per cent ownership on completion of the sale.
The trading result for the MDA business in the ten months to the end of April 2019 was a profit before tax loss of approx. $1.4 million.
The transaction values the total business at approximately $18 million. The final consideration and cash proceeds to AHG (for its 74 per cent share) will be subject to determination of working capital and other asset valuations at settlement, expected in July 2019.
It is not expected to impact the current takeover bid from AP Eagers.
Scania commercial vehicles have been a major force in ushering in improvements for safety and comfort in the transit of goods and freight. But it’s also providing solutions for booming infrastructure businesses like Image Linemarking as it retains the newest equipment and machinery so that it can meet the long hours required of it on major projects in Victoria.


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The online retail trade in both the U.S. and Western Europe is in store for double-digit growth over the next five years, according to Forrester Research.
The U.S. online retail business is likely to grow 10 percent a year compounded annually, reaching $249 billion by 2014, according to the report "US Online Retail Forecast, 2009 To 2014," released Monday. Online firms in Western Europe, meanwhile, are eyeing an 11 percent annual gain over the next five years, hitting 114 billion euros ($155.7 billion) by 2014, according to a second Forrester report out Monday, "Western European Online Retail Forecast, 2009 To 2014."
Last year, as consumers continued to weather a recessionary economy, 154 million people in the U.S. bought items online, about 67 percent of the total number of online users and a 4 percent rise from 2008. Those numbers helped the online retail trade grow 11 percent over the prior year, ringing up $155.2 billion in sales, according to Forrester. A briskhelped buoy the numbers for the overall year, according to a number of market watchers.
In the U.S., the hottest online retail categories have been and will continue to be clothing (apparel, footwear, and accessories); consumer electronics; and computers (hardware, software, and peripherals). Those three markets already capture around 40 percent of all online retail sales across the country.
Online sales of apparel, footwear, and accessories hit $27 billion alone last year, a 17 percent jump over 2008. Since younger and more tech-savvy buyers are the ones most likely to buy clothes online, Forrester expects this market to outpace that of overall online retail sales over the next few years.
In 2009, consumer electronics also saw growth of 17 percent over the preceding year. This category is particularly suited for online sales since consumers can easily compare products, look for low prices, and read reviews on the Web.
Last year's online sales of computer hardware, software, and peripherals weren't as strong, advancing only 7 percent over 2008 to reach $27 billion, notes Forrester. Since more than 90 million U.S. homes already own a PC, this market will continue to depend heavily on new technologies and devices like Netbooks.
In Western Europe, clothing is also one of the top online trades, but books and event tickets are popular sellers as well. Online growth in the more mature Northern European region will probably lag gains in the Mediterranean countries, says Forrester. But the U.K. will likely remain the largest market, where online sales make up 35 percent of the total Western European segment, currently worth around 40 billion euros ($54.6 billion).
Online shopping in Europe has progressed over the past few years, moving from early adopters to more mainstream users. More than half of online buyers across Europe say they find products on the Web that they can't find elsewhere, according to Forrester.
Consumers have flocked to online stores for a variety of reasons, notes Forrester. Convenience, selection, value, and price are all key drivers. But buyers appreciate the richer and more innovative shopping experiences offered by more Web sites. Retailers have also attracted more customers and boosted sales by maintaining leaner inventories and providing social shopping tools.


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Lucent is buying UK call centre systems developer SDX Business Systems for $200m (#124m). SDX markets INDeX, a range of voice and data call centre systems for the small and medium enterprise market,...
Remote-access features of electric car chargers can be exploited by attackers to damage the vehicles, claims Kaspersky
'Alliance with Atos, Curzon and Cognizant has delivered a four-fold increase in RoI', says Anglian Water
Anglian Water speaks to Computing after winning the digital project of the year award at the UK IT Industry Awards 2018
BT & Thoughtspot discuss winning the Enterprise Data / Analytics Project of the Year at the UK IT Industry Awards 2018
ICO: 'Generic third-party consent is not enough and companies will be fined if they break the law'


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I need to...
Get to know what you should be aware of when deciding to buy a car, build a house, investing for your retirement and many other activities.
Year after year we are conferred with new awards and accolades by local and foreign independent organisations which have recognised Commercial Bank for its outstanding contribution to the Banking Industry. Very few Sri Lankan banks have won such awards for excellence.
The Commercial of Ceylon has been adjudged the ‘Most Innovative Customer Service Banking Brand, Sri Lanka 2018’ by the UK-based ‘Global Brands’ – a magazine that provides reviews, opinions, news and polls on leading brands across the globe.
Commercial Bank was evaluated alongside more than 7,000 other companies in a study conducted by an independent external research agency appointed by the Global Brands and was chosen as the recipient of this award from Sri Lanka. The agency collected data from publicly available sources and submitted its nominations in the award categories to Global Brands Publications Limited.
The Bank received this award at a ceremony at the Banyan Tree Macau. Commercial Bank’s Deputy General Manager Marketing Mr Hasrath Munasinghe accepted the award on behalf of the Bank.
The Global Brands Awards programme was established with the aim of honouring excellence in performance and rewarding companies across different sectors. The awards recognise companies that have performed extraordinarily well in the fields of Finance, Education, Hospitality, Lifestyle, Automobiles and Technology.
Among the most prominent customer service enhancement features that the Bank has introduced are Automated Banking Centers in strategic locations to allow customers to carry out their banking transactions 24x7. The Bank also introduced Sri Lanka’s first fully-automated cheque deposit machine and has a widespread network of holiday banking centers including supermarket banking counters, branches that work from 9.00 am to 9.00 pm and branches that are open on weekends and national holidays.
The Bank has also introduced many cutting-edge innovative e-Banking solutions including SMS Banking, Mobile Phone Cash Top Up, Overseas SWIFT Money Remittance Services as well as Self-service Touch Screens in branches and Automated Instant Cash and Cheque Deposit Machines and ATMs which offer utility bill payment facilities in addition to cash withdrawals.
Additionally, Commercial Bank Cards have introduced many service enhancements such as Over The Air Pin (OTAP) facility, auto bill pay facility, remitting money through Visa and Mastercard, and Credit Card bill settlements through the website to facilitate customer convenience.
The only Sri Lankan Bank to be ranked among the world’s top 1000 banks for eight years consecutively, Commercial Bank operates a network of 266 branches and 830 ATMs in Sri Lanka. The Bank has won multiple international and local awards in 2016 and 2017 and over 30 international and local awards in 2018.
Commercial Bank’s overseas operations encompass Bangladesh, where the Bank operates 19 outlets; Myanmar, where it has a Representative Office in Yangon and a Microfinance company in Nay PyiTaw; and the Maldives, where the Bank has a fully-fledged Tier I Bank with a majority stake.
Commercial Bank Deputy General Manager Marketing Mr Hasrath Munasinghe (right) receives the award presented by ‘Global Brands’ in Macau.


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Company directors pocket pay rises of 16 per cent
Tuesday 02 September 1997
The double-figure increases come at a time when average earnings in the economy are rising at around 4 per cent and headline inflation is moving up at 3.3 per cent. Fresh revelations about "fat cat" pay will fuel inflationary pressures already discerned in the labour market.
Some of the largest pay packets are to be found in private limited companies. LRD traced 23 directors who were paid more than pounds 2m last year.
City firms also tend to dominate the high pay league with 270 directors on pounds 500,000 or more, 51 of whom received in excess of pounds 1m. Nicholas Roditi, a UK-based adviser to George Soros, the New York financial guru, reportedly earns pounds 80m a year. The LRD calculates he is Britain's biggest earner.
Among the big hitters are celebrities who are directors of their own companies. Pop musician Elton John received pounds 5.5m - a 241 per cent rise - and the earnings of rock star Sting leapt by 659 per cent to pounds 10.2m.
Despite Sir Richard Greenbury's call for boardroom "sensitivity" when setting the pay of directors, of the 186 top earners in public companies traced by the research organisation, 110 were awarded increases of more than 10 per cent. Some 35 of them are now on more than pounds 1m a year.
The two biggest rises in quoted businesses went to directors of Allders, the stores group. Harvey Lipsith's 223 per cent rise to pounds 736,000 included a pounds 500,000 "special payment" on the sale of the group's subsidiary Allders International. Anthony Collyer, who has since left the company, enjoyed an increase of 203 per cent to pounds 552,000, again largely because of a special payment.
Next in the league came Roger Head, who retired from defence manufacturer Vickers after his pay and benefits jumped by 122 per cent to pounds 659,994.
Among the highest earners in publicly quoted companies were Jim Fifield of music group EMI, on pounds 5.8m, and Sam Chisholm, who was paid pounds 3.8m before leaving British Sky Broadcasting.
Overall in public and private companies, LRD found 123 directors on more than pounds 1m a year, compared with 97 in last year's survey. Some 418 got more than pounds 500,000 compared with 339 last time.
Pay among directors of private companies tends to be volatile with an average rise of 20 per cent last year comparing with 1 per cent in the previous year. The clearest example of volatility, according to LRD, was Mohamed Pervez, chairman of Bestway, the cash and carry group, whose 1,208 per cent rise rocketed him to pounds 3.113m from just pounds 238,000 the previous year. In 1994 his total pay was given as pounds 2.752m.
While increases in average earnings are still at a relatively modest level, Income Data Services reported yesterday there were signs that settlements were beginning to respond to a higher inflation rate.
More than half of deals in recent weeks were in the 3 to 4 per cent range with indications that they were set to move substantially higher in response to the Retail Price Index.
Top ten directors' pay increases
Director Company Pay (pounds ) % increase
(year ending) Harvey Lipsith Allders (9.96) 736,000 +222.8
Anthony Collyer Allders (9.96) 552,000 +203.2
Roger Head Vickers (12.96) 659,944 +121.7
Jean Pierre-Garnier SmithKline 1,965,000 +107.5
Mike Smith Ladbroke (12.96) 800,000 +98.5
Carol Galley Mercury Asset 2,211,000 +97.9
Johnathan Leslie RTZ (12.96) 632,000 +90.9
Robert Adams RTZ (12.96) 701,000 +80.2
James Walsh Laura Ashley (1.97) 648,000 +80.0
Stanley FInk ED & F Man (3.97) 969,000 +78.4
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Skype will soon release an app for Windows Phone 8.1 that will allow users to upgrade their regular calls to video calls and use personal assistant Cortana to start Skype calls using voice control. The app will integrate into Windows Phone 8.1, adding a video button to the phone's standard dialer menu that will activate its camera, turning a cellular call to a Skype video call.
Skype will be integrated with Cortana, meaning users won't need to enter the app before using voice control. Instead, the phrase "Skype, get [insert contact] on video" can be used to start a Skype call from a Windows Phone 8.1's home screen or menus. Skype says the new app, detailed during Microsoft's ongoing Build conference in San Francisco, is coming "in the next few months," but that users will be able to preview the FaceTime-esque video cellphone call feature in Skype's Store app when the free Windows 8.1 update is rolled out.


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Fast-food retailer Subway has announced plans to open 51 new stores on both sides of the Irish border, creating just over 400 new jobs in the process.
According to the company, the new stores are necessary to cater for ‘customer demand’.
Subway intends to have 3,000 outlets open across Ireland and the UK by 2020.
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The U.S. Postal Service's Board of Governors last week approved the postal management's proposed average 3.3 percent international mail rate increase, and announced part of its spending plan for FY99.
Rates, which will be implemented on May 30, include a 9 percent increase for USPS' Global Package Link Service, a 5 percent increase for air-letter mail sent from the United States to Canada and a 25 percent rate reduction for International Priority Air Mail. Also approved: a new pricing structure for international rates, a new volume discount program for mailers who send at least 100,000 packages overseas and the March 14 implementation of a national delivery confirmation system for Priority Mail and parcel post shippers.
The proposed changes were published in the Federal Register late last year and were open to public comment for one month. Few companies responded.
“The USPS received no public comments for Global Package Link rates,” said USPS spokesman Roy Betts. “As for the traditional services, most of the rate changes were driven by cost changes — particularly the costs we incur to have our mail delivered in foreign countries — and we received only two comments for these categories of mail.”
The BOG approved capital funding of $20.7 million to purchase and install 37 Small Parcel and Bundle Sorter Feed Systems designed to increase productivity and enhance workplace safety. The funding is part of the USPS' 5-year, $17 billion investment program, which was implemented last year. It expects to spend $4.4 billion of capital commitments this year including $1.8 billion to build and improve facilities, $1.2 billion for advanced mail processing equipment and $294 million for delivery and collection vehicles.
Postmaster General William J. Henderson announced three senior management appointments in operations, labor relations, and consumer affairs effective immediately: Jack Potter, previously senior vice president of labor relations, has become senior vice president of operations. Anthony Vegliante, previously district manager of the Baltimore Performance Cluster, has become vice president of labor relations, and Francia G. Smith, manager of marketing infrastructure, has become vice president and consumer advocate.


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Online scams targeting credit unions and other financial institutions are evolving into social engineering.
Cybercriminals look to capitalize on sports, travel, politics and other hot summer topics.
Bogus gift cards and fraudulent Cyber Monday sites are a few tricks targeting holiday shoppers this year.
Tech firm reveals one-third of the country's hottest financial fraud markets are in the Sunshine State.
County prosecutors warn about lottery fraudsters.
Carl Washington gets one day in custody, year of home confinement and two years of supervised release in credit fraud case.
Median loss is $140,000 and scam lasts 18 months before detection, CUNA Mutual consultant tells session.
The scams are the “inbox equivalent of a boiler room sales operation, hounding investors with potentially false information.”
Washington state businessman hit with fraud charges.
Sixteen states, five provinces on alert, while several cease and desist orders issued. Website promises up to 2.7% daily return.


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On Oct. 8, 2020, Castle Keepers House Cleaning Founders Tom and Janice Stewart met with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) representatives to discuss COVID-19 guidance for the cleaning industry.
For the Stewarts, who have lived in Charleston and owned Castle Keepers House Cleaners since 1994, being leaders in the cleaning industry is nothing new. Mr. Stewart is a past president of the Association of Residential Cleaning Services International (ARCSI), co-founders of the industry trade magazine Cleaning Business Today, and owners and instructor at Cleaning Business Builders.
“We’ve worked hard to build a professional cleaning business,” said Mr. Stewart. “It is an honor that our clients, our community, and now OSHA, recognize Castle Keepers as an authority on home cleaning.”
During the OSHA meeting, the Stewarts expressed concern over access to appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) and necessary cleaning products, and discussed different federal, state, and local COVID-19 guidelines.


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Modern Manufacturing Expo Sydney 2022
20 September, 2022 - 21 September, 2022
Announcing the launch of Australia’s first Modern Manufacturing Expo, Sydney Showground, 20 & 21 September 2022, where leading suppliers will connect with manufacturing leaders to showcase the latest technologies and equipment to power-up operations and processes. The Modern Manufacturing Expo will showcase the future of manufacturing, highlighting the path for the digital transformation journey with a focus on the latest technology, equipment and operational models, in line with the government’s Modern Manufacturing Strategy.
On Tuesday, 20 and Wednesday, 21 September 2022, leaders from all corners of the industry will come together at the Sydney Showground, Sydney Olympic Park Homebush for the Modern Manufacturing Expo 2022.


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OnePlus had launched its value flagship, the OnePlus 9R smartphone, in selected regions such as India. The OnePlus 9R was a very good smartphone powered by Snapdragon 870 5G chipset, 48MP triple rear camera, 120Hz OLED Display, and much more. The company has already started working on the successor of the OnePlus 9R smartphone, namely the OnePlus 10R. The leaks about the smartphone have already started to circulate online.
A new leak via Android Central reveals chipset details of the upcoming OnePlus 10R smartphone. The following report claims that the upcoming OnePlus 10R smartphone will be powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 5G chipset. It can be a thing because the OnePlus R series of smartphones is limited to a few selected regions only. They won’t launch globally. The report further claims that the device will launch in Q2 2022, i.e., April, May, and June.
It is worth mentioning that the high-end smartphone in the OnePlus 10 series, the OnePlus 10R, has already been launched in the Chinese market. The global and Indian launch of the upcoming device has been awaited. The OnePlus 10 is also yet to be revealed. If the following information is true, we might see the official global launch of the OnePlus 10 series of smartphones in Q2 2022.
OnePlus 10 Pro
Talking about the specifications of the OnePlus 10 Pro smartphone, the device offers many tops of the line specifications such as a 6.7-inches LTPO 2.0 Curved OLED Display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, 48MP+8MP+50MP triple rear camera setup, and 32MP front-facing selfie camera. The camera color calibration has been done in partnership with Hasselblad. It is backed by a 5000mAh battery, which supports up to 80W fast wired charging and 50W wireless charging support.
What do you think about the upcoming OnePlus 10R, and what are your expectations from that device? Do let us know by dropping a comment in your words down below.


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If you haven't been playing close attention, "it's not just over the Mass Effect 3 ending," writes Usher, "it's over Origin, it's over Project $10, it's over early server closings, it's about DLC charity abuse, it's over them gutting studios like Pandemic, Westwood, Origin Studios and Bright Light, it's over the lawsuits, it's over the nickel-and-diming with Day-1 DLC, and everything else in between. If you didn't any of that then you're informed enough to say why people shouldn't have voted for EA."
If, on the other hand, you do know about all of these issues, it's not hard to see why EA took the top spot in The Consumerist's contest. If it were actually an issue of anti-gay backlash surely JC Penneys would be somewhere up there at the top. Of course, the retailer wasn't even included in the contest.
To be clear, when I say that EA is running a PR campaign aimed at shining a good light on the company, I am not claiming that they are directly responding to any one item of bad press. EA isn't explicitly saying, "Hey, we were just voted worst company because people are homophobic."
This isn't going on, to my knowledge, at all. But the recent spat of articles defending EA over the anti-gay boycott does seem awfully well-timed.
P.S. No, I don't think EA is the worst company in America. As I've said before, this contest is just badly-named. It ought to be "most hated company in America" or at least, most hated company online in America since this is more a gauge of internet opinion than anything else.


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Sometimes you stumble across an apartment listing so absurd that you can't help but be amazed. This new condo development in Toronto is one of those listings.
Toronto condos seem to get smaller each year. As it is one of Canada's most expensive cities, the 6ix is in peril of becoming inaccessible to the common person. With prohibitive prices and little in way of amenities, condo developments are slowly becoming Airbnb ghost hotels owned by the rich.
This condo development on 576 Front St. West in downtown Toronto features units that are under 480 square feet and have no oven. 162 of these units are like this and each can go up to $2,100 a month!
Minto Westside is a brand-new condo development that is, according to the project website, a "stunning new landmark for the city." The condo building has two towers, one 18-storey and one 20-storey that are meant to represent "the architectural style of the area's heritage buildings."
While visually appealing, the condo units are pretty small. Currently, the biggest condo on offer is only 861 square feet. As mentioned, the smallest condos are less than 480 square feet and feature no oven.
According to a report by the Toronto Star, condo buildings with no standalone ovens are slowly becoming a trend in the condo landscape. Some experts cite the prevalence of app delivery services such as Uber Eats and SkipTheDishes as the reason why people are more attracted to living spaces without ovens.
Experts also mention that many people who live in the downtown core don't cook. Furthermore, one commentator from Ryerson University said that not installing cooking appliances saves the builder millions.
Interestingly enough, the same Ryerson University expert suggested that investors would be attracted to these living spaces for Airbnb purposes. Unlike Montreal, Toronto doesn't have such stringent rules in place to limit short-term rentals.
The building and the unit look, for the most part, quite decent. It's clear that investments were made into the aesthetic value of the development. However, in the above picture, you can clearly see a tiny kitchen.
People hope that this trend toward ovenless condo units isn't the new norm. Always ordering delivery isn't sustainable to the long-term well-being of your health or your wallet or the environment... really it's not good for anyone.
Still though, with condos like this being at sold at exorbitant prices, it's no wonder people are worried about the future of our cities.
To find out more about Minto Westside's ovenless condo units, please read Ilya Bañares's article in the Toronto Star.


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Posts for January, 2013
BMW says it's recalling 2,385 of its S1000RR bikes because the kickstand could fail and cause the bike to topple over.
Bits of metal on attachment threads could allow bolts to loosen and the kickstand to separate from the frame. The bikes in the recall are 2012-13 models.
In another recall, Vega Helmet Corp. said it's recalling more than 30,000 XTS motorcycle helmets after testing found that some did not meet safety standards. The recall will start in late January and centers on large, extra-large and extra-extra-large helmets.
Vega says it doesn't know how many of the helmets, manufactured betweeen May 2011 and last October, didn't meet federal standards, so it's recalling all of them.
The Tukwila, Wash., company says it will replace the recalled helmets and it has changed the design.
What could be the only remaining Leo motorcycle, made 107 years ago in California, is scheduled to be auctioned Jan. 10 in Las Vegas.
The bike, found in complete and original condition in the storage area of a Massachusetts museum, represents the earliest surviving example of an American two-stroke motorcycle, according to the auction firm Bonhams that's selling the bike.
Leo motorcycles were thought to have been produced for just one year, 1905.
Here's a link to a photo of the bike that's going to be auctioned.
Unlike many bike manufacturers of the day, the Leo was a purpose-built motorcycle utilizing a motorcycle frame rather than a bicycle frame -- although it looks like a bicycle frame.
Its lightweight, compact motor was ahead of its time as two-cycle engines were not commonly used in American motorcycles until after World War I.
The bike was not a prototype, either, as it has signs of many miles of use.
Discovered in the warehouse of a museum where it was hidden and forgotten for decades, the 107 year-old Leo is in extraordinary condition, according to Bonhams.
It has a freely-turning motor, strong compression and original components such as spokes and rims, Thor pedals and a Troxel leather saddle.
The bike will be auctioned Jan. 10 at Bally's Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, along with other motorcycles including Steve McQueen's 1970 Husqvarna 400 Cross.
Indian Motorcycle said Monday it will display its 2013 lineup at the International Motorcycle Show in Minneapolis Jan. 11-13 and at the same traveling event in Chicago Feb. 8-10.
The lineup includes the recently announced Chief Vintage Final Edition, which commemorates the era of Indian bikes that were last built in Kings Mountain, N.C.
Here's a link to photos of the Chief Vintage Final Edition, that sells for $37,599.
Here's a link to the International Motorcycle Show schedules for Minneapolis and Chicago.
Steelhorse Motorsports says it has acquired Wildside Customs, a custom bike builder and service shop.
Both businesses are located in Beaver Dam. Steelhorse is owned by Wade Fletcher, Tim Fletcher and Brad Weber, longtime motorsports enthusiasts who also own Hogz & Honeez Bar & Grill in Beaver Dam.
Previously, Wade Fletcher and Brad Weber were owners of Wisconsin Harley-Davidson, in Oconomowoc.
Jason Welsh, former owner of Wildside Customs, will stay on as the firm's lead service technician.
"We expect expansion to come quickly, and with it, more jobs," Wade Fletcher said.
Previously, Steelhorse sold motorcycle parts and accessories. With the acquistion, it now gets into custom bikes and service work.
House of Harley-Davidson, on Layton Avenue, is hosting its 10th annual indoor bike show that features dozens of custom motorcycles, live music, food and beer.
The custom bike competition is open to all makes and models. New this year, attendees will be the judge and use text messaging to vote on their favorite bikes. Entrants will be competing for more than $2,500 in cash prizes.
The show is Friday and Saturday until 10 p.m. Here's a link to the dealership's website for more information.


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By: Sriram Bharadwajan, Management Consultant, Consumer Business Unit, Wipro Limited More than a billion middle income people will be added to the consumers’ list from emerging markets alone by 2020….
- Semiconductor industry leads in artificial intelligence adoption: Accenture
- Can organizations embrace the digital native mindset?
- Data center for hyper-scale providers
- MyGov Announces Entrepreneurship Quiz 2019 for Students and Professionals, Winners to get Rs 20,000
- Grey Orange hires Jeff Cashman as SVP and global COO
- Rockwell Automation announced as founding member of ISA Global Cybersecurity Alliance
- Emerson, Dragos collaborate on cybersecurity for power and water industries
- Royal Brothers’ Journey with PayU Payment Gateway
- NetApp appoints Sanjay Rohatgi as senior vice president and general manager for APAC
- Nexford University launches Rs 1.4 Crore startup funding for its graduates


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Premium high street brand Jaeger has bolstered its design team with two senior creative appointments. The chain has appointed Jsen Wintle as creative director of menswear, while Sheila McKain-Waid will take on the creative director of womenswear role.
Wintel, who joined in September from Marks and Spencer, will report into Caroline Lee, director of menswear and e-commerce, while McKain-Waid, who joins the retailer later this month from luxury fashion brand Daks, will report into Liza Webb, director of womenswear.
Commenting on the appointments Colin Henry, CEO said: “I’m delighted to welcome Jsen and Sheila to Jaeger as we continue to strengthen the creative team. This injection of luxury expertise demonstrates our commitment to developing a strong premium womenswear and menswear offer.
“With Sheila we are getting world class creativity and great luxury expertise for our core area of womenswear. Jsen has a rich and extensive experience in luxury menswear design as well as having run his eponymous label Wintle. I’m immensely excited about all the ideas they will collectively bring to the brand.”


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The Hertz Corporation has announced the launch of Hertz 24/7, a revolutionary rental service allowing Middle East travelers to hire a car any time, day or night, during their summer vacations in the USA and Europe.
Hertz customers from the Middle East will now be able to hire a wide variety of vehicles when needed, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and for any length of time – hourly, daily, weekly or monthly – from any of 1,800 neighborhood and airport locations in the USA, France, Germany, UK, Spain and Australia.
After registering for the service, customers will receive their own personal Hertz ‘keyfob’ which they can then load with credit. The Hertz 24/7 customer experience is powered by the fast and easy Hertz “Click. Swipe. Go!” process.
Driven by the company’s award-winning technology, Hertz is reinventing the car rental industry by putting the rental process in the hands of consumers,” commented Hertz Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mark P. Frissora. “Technology-enhanced vehicles will be available close to where customers live or work, making it easier than ever to reserve and quickly pick-up a rental vehicle at the customer’s convenience.
The service will be especially popular not only among Middle East travellers on their summer vacations to US and European destinations, but also to the thousands of expats that return home for several weeks and who need an easy and convenient car rental option.
“The service will be especially popular not only among Middle East travellers on their summer vacations to US and European destinations, but also to the thousands of expats that return home for several weeks and who need an easy and convenient car rental option.”
The Hertz 24/7 service will be extended to more than 2,000 locations by year end and currently has a fleet of 35,000 vehicles (cars, mini-vans, vans and SUVs) equipped for 24/7 rentals. The company will be prepared to have approximately 500,000 Hertz 24/7-enabled vehicles in service globally by 2016
We know Avis likes to play "me too". So this is good news that Hertz is doing this. Not sure why IDSY is not suing Hertz for patent infringement. With rising gas prices and Hertz rolling out virtual to their fleet, Enterprise getting in the game, Avis will play "me too" again.
If Avis wanted to beat Hertz to the punch, we know that Avis already rolled out 20K IDSY cars in one quarter last year without missing a beat. If they double that rate, they get their entire fleet rolled out before Hertz at a lower initial cost and lower ongoing cost.
Competitive pressure may get this Avis deal done folks. Still have 30K shares


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CTM Kenya has rewarded 3 lucky winners with vouchers worth Ksh 150,000.
The winners were picked after participating in the Christmas Sale competition when CTM partnered with Classic 105.
The winners, Mike Kiplimo, Earvin Okumu and Rosemary Mulama get a chance to create their dream house today.
The winners were picked by Celebrated Classic 105 Radio host Maina Kageni based on the pictures of their homes that they wanted refurbished. The lucky winners get to pick selected CTM Products worth KSHS 50,000 from any CTM Store country wide.
In readiness of the festive season, CTM Kenya has the Christmas Sale currently running with festive discounts on tiles, taps, basins, sinks, bathroom furniture and so much more.
Speaking at the awarding ceremony, CTM Ngong Road Floor Manager Rachel Karani said that they would like to encourage people to visit the CTM store and take advantage of the below than average prices to spruce up their home.
“We have discounts on everything. I would also like to commend the winners on their win with CTM.”
Mike Kiplimo who won a voucher worth Ksh 50,000 of selected CTM Products.
Mike is among 3 winners who won after participating in the CTM Christmas Sale that was running on Classic 105.
The other winners are RoseMary Mulama and Earvin Okumu who won similar amounts.


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Washington, Jan. 24 (ANI): Microsoft's earnings for the fiscal second-quarter are reportedly better than market expectations, despite the company's pending announcement about any replacement for outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer.
The software company reported sales of 24.5 billion dollars and 78 cents per share, whereas, Wall Street had predicted it to be 23.7 billion dollars with a profit of 68 cents per share.
According to Cnet, the earnings report stated that Microsoft's Windows OEM revenue went down by 3 percent, highlighting the company's 'continued softness' in the consumer PC business, while the Windows OEM Pro revenue went up 12 percent.
Revenue from its Surface range of tablets went up from 400 million dollars in the first quarter to 893 million dollars in the second quarter.
The Xbox unit sales totaled to 7.4 million units, revenue from its search engine, Bing, went up by 34 percent, and its commercial revenue went up by 10 percent to 12.67 billion dollars, the report added. (ANI)


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PC and components manufacturer ASUS has made a video explaining how to pronounce its name properly after admitting many people were getting it wrong.
In a post on Linked In linking to the video, ASUS UK marketing director John Swatton said he had "lost count" of how many people have asked him how to pronounce its brand over the past year.
This is despite Taiwan-based ASUS now being EMEA's third-largest PC manufacturer, behind only HP and Lenovo, according to Gartner.
"So our designers created a video using a radio ad that we ran last year. Hopefully the next time I'm cold-called, the caller might pronounce our brand correctly," Swatton said.
The correct pronunciation is said as the letter 'A' followed by 'Zeus', Asus moved to clarify in the video.
"Originally named after Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, but now sounds like Zeus, the God of storms and thunder," the video's commentary states.
Commenting on the post, Andy Booth, who runs Essex-based IT development and datacentre services firm Naglotech, admitted he is among those to have got the pronunciation wrong.
"We were arguing about this at work the other day. Finally it's been confirmed: I have been saying it wrong for many years!," he said.
But in a comment on the YouTube video, 'Andy Wales4' said he was not on board. "Sorry, but I will stick with A-sus. No zeds for me!," he said.
Businesses also admit to holding data without permission of subjects
Zedsphere says end-point security vendor's offerings will be a 'key' feature of its wider portfolio
New acquisition will bring UK cloud service provider's global headcount to over 700
Law firm claims that Oracle lied to investors over what is driving its cloud revenue growth and boosted sales through 'threats and extortive tactics'


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Kyrie Irving seems to have found a new shoe partnership in the hardwood.
Irving isn’t just an NBA free agent this summer, but after his breakup with Nike this past season, he was also looking for a new partner in the shoe game.
He seems to have found it in Anta Sports, a Chinese equipment company that has NBA sponsors with a few players including Klay Thompson and Gordon Hayward.
During his annual basketball camp, Irving was seen wearing the Anta Shock Wave Pro 5, and it came after the All-Star point guard recently posted that he was going to be announcing a new shoe partner soon on his Instagram Live.
“I will be signing my new shoe deal very, very soon. I won’t even call it a shoe deal. I’m about to blow this out the water. I’m so excited about it,” he said.
Nike ended its long-term partnership with Irving following his decision to post an Amazon link to a film that had antisemitic messages in it on his social media platforms.
Irving’s initial chance to apologize didn’t go according to the plans of his former team, the Brooklyn Nets, as he didn’t seem genuine when he was approached by reporters. That led to an eight-game suspension for Irving until the Nets deemed him ready to return.
In turn, Nike also ended its partnership with Irving for his comments, cutting ties with him in December 2022. Nike canceled the launch of his ninth signature shoe, the Nike Kyrie 8, one month earlier.
He was eventually traded to the Dallas Mavericks at the NBA trade deadline, and his counterpart, Kevin Durant, was also moved to the Phoenix Suns.
Irving’s deal with Anta has not been made official, nor has free agency kicked off to see where the polarizing point guard will play next.
Irving averaged 27.1 points last season with 5.1 rebounds and 5.5 assists between the Nets and Mavericks in his eighth year as an All-Star in the NBA. The 2016 champion will be 31 years old at the start of next season.
NBA free agency officially begins July 6.