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The latest news, press releases and content for all things home.
SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Realtor.com® today announced that it has promoted Rachel Morley to Chief Product Officer. In this role, Morley will lead product strategy for the real estate technology platform; helping to make buying, selling and living in homes easier and more rewarding for realtor.com®'s millions of users. She will report to CEO David Doctorow.
For more than two decades, Morley has helped companies conceive, create and evolve products and technology practices that help organizations and their customers succeed. She is passionate about leading product teams who are bold and relentless in delivering real value to users and customers, and in the importance of close collaboration between design, product and engineering to achieve that.
"Since joining realtor.com® Rachel has proven herself as a leader, a visionary and an integral part of our product team," said David Doctorow, CEO of Move, Inc., operator of realtor.com®. "We're extremely excited to have Rachel lead our product strategy moving forward, continuing to evolve our consumer experience and advance realtor.com®'s mission to make buying, selling and living in homes easier and more rewarding for everyone."
Most recently, Morley served as senior vice president of product at realtor.com®, where she was focused on creating an easy, intuitive and personalized consumer experience. Before joining the company, she held multiple positions at REA Group, which operates property websites domestically and throughout Asia, including Australia's leading property website. As general manager, Morley helped REA transform how agents market their services to buyers and sellers and evolved REA's marketing and sales tactics. As a result, her team achieved an increase in seller leads of 1,500 percent in the first 12 months.
Morley also co-founded Cogent, a product development agency that works with some of Melbourne's best start-ups and technology companies to create new products, including one that is now a critical part of the fight against COVID-19 in Australia.
"At realtor.com® our goal is to reimagine an intuitive and individualized experience for consumers, connecting them with our network of trusted professionals to achieve their property goals," said Morley. "I'm excited to take on this new role and lead an amazing team that is truly passionate about helping people find the perfect place to call home."
Realtor.com® makes buying, selling and living in homes easier and more rewarding for everyone. Realtor.com® pioneered the world of digital real estate 20 years ago, and today through its website and mobile apps is a trusted source for the information, tools and professional expertise that help people move confidently through every step of their home journey. Using proprietary data science and machine learning technology, realtor.com® pairs buyers and sellers with local agents in their market, helping take the guesswork out of buying and selling a home. For professionals, realtor.com® is a trusted provider of consumer connections and branding solutions that help them succeed in today's on-demand world. Realtor.com® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc. under a perpetual license from the National Association of REALTORS®. For more information, visit realtor.com®.
Nicole Murphy, firstname.lastname@example.org


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WATCH: Inauguration Of The $5 Billion Panama Canal Expansion
The inauguration of a long-awaited Panama Canal expansion is underway.
The colorful ceremony celebrating the culmination of this $5 billion project has featured dancing flowers, dragons and a marching band. The first large cargo ship is making its way through the new portion of the waterway.
Tune into the action on this live stream:
The project has the potential to double the Panama Canal's current cargo, as NPR's Carrie Kahn reported. But it has also "weathered cost disputes, serious questions regarding its design and a global slump in international shipping." The project took more than a decade to complete and is opening more than two years behind schedule.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

domain: news


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The designer was dismissed by the top fashion house in 2011 after spewing a drunken pro-Hitler rant at a cafe in Paris. Now we learn there’s more than latent anti-Semitism to Galliano — the man also has academic aspirations.
The fashionista will teach an upcoming three-day workshop at Parsons The New School for Design. A statement released by Simon Collins, the school’s dean of fashion, reads: “We believe that over the past two years Galliano has demonstrated a serious intent to make amends for his past actions, and as part of this workshop.”
Students are encouraged to engage the designer in “a frank conversation” about the challenges of running a fashion house.
We have a lot of questions for him.


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Tron Foundation’s TRX founded by Justin Sun has now surpassed 1 million daily transactions. According to the TRON network data, TRX surpassed 1.1 million daily transactions mark after two weeks of surpassing 500,000 daily transactions.
Tron was specifically created to provide free worldwide content entertainment system with the help of blockchain on a decentralized ecosystem. The protocol allows each user to freely store and own data. The creator gets to decide the distribution, subscription and enables content creators by releasing, circulating and dealing with digital assets.
TRX now has double the amount of daily transactions than that of Ethereum [ETH]. Ethereum’s daily transactions have been stagnant hovering around the 500-600k range.
The astronomical growth of Tron’s transactions occurred due to 200 million TRX payout in TronDice and TRONbet. Currently, Tron has a market cap of $1.53 billion making it the 11th largest Cryptocurrency by Valuation. However, this may not stay the same. With the pace Tron has been growing over the months they’ll surely become the 10th largest cryptocurrency.
This milestone was achieved in just a span of 131 days. It can be confirmed with the help of TronScan, which showed that the daily transactions stand at 1.08 million, the number of individual account holders on Mainnet was around 564,137 and the number of active nodes is 1,137.
Furthermore, the Tron network has 265 active smart contracts which have been triggered a whopping 9.5 million times.
In the blockchain industry, Tron is one of the very few firms which has been purely “decentralized”. They also have high throughput where decentralized applications can be easily handled. The DApps are for the entertainment industry such as gaming, content creation and social media.


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A recently approved incentive package for the bioplastics industry will help Thailand attract investment of at least 10 billion baht to establish Asia’s first polylactic acid (PLA) plant within five years, says the Plastic Industry Club.
The package, expected to take effect this year, aims to strengthen Thailand’s attractiveness to investors and lure international firms.
The large PLA project, with annual production capacity of 200,000 tonnes, will add value to the country’s exports of petroleum-based plastics now totalling 153 billion baht, said club chairman Veerasak Kositpaisal.
The Joint Public-Private Consultative Committee last month agreed on 15-year tax privileges for bioplastics investments, compared with the normal eight-year tax holiday granted by the Board of Investment.
The Science and Technology Ministry was assigned to work with other agencies to study the PLA project in detail and resubmit the plan within two months for further consideration, said Mr Veerasak, who is also president and chief executive of PTT Chemical. He said Thailand faced fierce competition from neighbouring countries to attract such investment.
Malaysia in particular has offered grants for bioplastics projects as it aims to become a regional leader in agro-industries. It also has an abundant supply of bioplastics raw materials led by palm oil.
“Bioplastics investment has entailed high risks, especially high production costs, while the market is still limited but with high growth prospects, with global demand rising by 30% annually,” said Mr Veerasak. Of the 100 million tonnes of plastic consumption globally, only 0.5% or 500,000 tonnes is in the form of bioplastics, he said.
Thailand, meanwhile, is among the world’s leaders in terms of petroleum-based plastics, with more than 3,000 companies in operation. The industry generates revenue of 370 billion baht, of which products worth 152.9 billion baht are shipped abroad, amounting to 3% of Thai exports. The kingdom also has a large availability of cassava, a raw material for bioplastics, with yearly output of nearly 30 million tonnes and the potential to double yield per rai, said Mr Veerasak.
His comments followed a recent statement by the US producer NatureWorks LLC, the world’s leading bioplastics company, that it aims to decide by year-end on a site for a $400-million PLA plant. Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore are listed among potential locations for the project, which is expected to come on stream in 2014 as the second plant of its kind in the world after NatureWorks’ plant in Nebraska.
PTT Plc, the country’s largest petroleum conglomerate, has been in talks with potential strategic partners, including NatureWorks and Japan’s Mitsubishi Chemical, for its bioplastics project.
Source: American Chronicle, 2010-10-05.


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As the New York Times noted a few days ago, cupcakes are hot. I’ve seen shops sprouting around the DC area, and according to the article we are not alone: New York, Los Angeles, Denver, and other cities are also enjoying cupcake boomlets.
I must admit that I don’t know what’s driving the rise of the cupcake. Did Americans finally realize that Krispy Kreme doughnuts are over-rated at best (one man’s opinion)? Was there a technological breakthrough in cupcake production? Has the weak economy lowered rents and labor costs so much that cupcakery is now economically viable?
What I can tell you is that the new cupcake entrepreneurs have a tough road ahead of them. Competition is heating up–good news for cupcake consumers, but bad news for entrepreneurs.
So what is the cupcake entrepreneur to do? Well, the experience of Porche Lovely, who owns a shop in Denver, is instructive:
For each cupcake she sells, Ms. Lovely figures she spends 60 cents on ingredients, 57 cents on mortgage payments and utilities, 48 cents on labor, 18 cents on packaging and merchant fees, 16 cents on loan repayment, 24 cents for marketing, 18 cents for miscellaneous expenses and 4 cents for insurance. That totals $2.45, leaving a potential profit of 55 cents on each $3 cupcake.
So far, the per-cupcake margin is going to pay down start-up expenses. She’s been selling the 2,800 cupcakes a month she calculates she needs to sell to cover her costs — she’s taking only a small salary for now — but she says it’s too early to predict when the store will turn profitable, in part because of the economy and in part because she fears losing business to rival cupcake entrepreneurs.
Ms. Lovely is in the process of rebranding the shop to overcome what she calls “a typical rookie mistake” of underestimating “the power and importance of branding and marketing.” She said she had to do more to tell customers that her cupcakes were made from organic, local and natural ingredients.
Ms. Lovely’s overview of cupcake economics provides a fine illustration of three main points in the economics of competition, which I taught my students a few weeks ago:
- If you want to stay in business in a competitive market, you’ve got to keep a close eye on costs. You absolutely have to cover your costs to stay in business. (And eventually one of those costs should be a real salary for you, the entrepreneur.)
- Rivals will eat into your profits. If cupcakes are a good idea, other bakers will follow.
- To have any chance of making profits in the long run, you’ve got to differentiate yourself. Build a brand and maybe, just maybe, customers will keep coming despite all your rivals.


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Dodge will serve as the exclusive automotive sponsor of TNT’s new series Wanted. The company’s 2006 Dodge Charger and 2006 Dodge Dakota will be integrated into the series’ story lines and driven by its lead characters. The Charger will appear in at least six episodes. Dodge will co-promote the series in on-air, online, print and outdoor ads. The crime show debuts July 31. | By the numbers: In prime-time hours, brands were spotted 29% more during the recently ended broadcast network season that ran from September 2004 to June 2005, according to Nielsen Media Research. That represents 75,975 brand occurrences, up from 58,896 during the 2003-04 season. | Jeep, Mountain Dew and EB Games will serve as the presenting sponsors of cable channel G4’s third annual G-Phoria video-game awards show. The brands will back the show with online, on-air, sweepstakes and retail advertising.
Have a news tip? Contact the editor: Marc Graser, 323-370-2438 | [email protected]


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Service charge by hotels not mandatory
In what could be good news for those who love eating out in restaurants and hotels, the Union government on Monday stated that customers who are not satisfied with services in any hotel or restaurant need not pay service charges.
New Delhi: In what could be good news for those who love eating out in restaurants and hotels, the Union government on Monday stated that customers who are not satisfied with services in any hotel or restaurant need not pay service charges.
In the wake of a number of complaints from consumers that they are being forced to pay service charge in the range of 5-20 per cent, in lieu of tips, irrespective of the kind of service provided to them, the government has said that a consumer can now refuse to pay the service charge if he/she is not satisfied with their dining
The Consumer Protection Act, 1986, stipulates that a trade practice which, for the purpose of promoting the sale, use or the supply of any goods or for the provision of any service, adopts any unfair method or deceptive practice, is to be treated as an unfair trade practice and that a consumer can make a complaint to the appropriate consumer forum established under the Act against such unfair trade practices.
In accordance to the Act, the Department of Consumer Affairs called for clarification from the Hotel Association of India, which in response stated that the service charge is completely discretionary and, therefore, it is deemed to be accepted voluntarily.
The Central government, in a press release, has also directed the state governments to “sensitize the companies, hotels and restaurants in the states regarding aforementioned provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.”
In addition, it has asked state governments “to advise the Hotels/Restaurants to disseminate information through display at the appropriate place in the hotels/restaurants that the ‘service charges” are discretionary/ voluntary and a consumer dissatisfied with the services can have it waived off.”
So the next time you’re at a restaurant or a cafe and you’re not happy with the experience, remember — you have the right to say no to that service charge printed on your bill.


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SLO County voters overwhelming approved a new cannabis tax on June 5 for pot businesses in unincorporated areas. On the same day, the SLO City Council put the finishing touches on its own cannabis tax for voters to decide on in November.
Unofficial results show that Measure B-18, a 4-percent gross receipts tax on all county cannabis businesses except testing laboratories, passed 77 percent to 23 percent. The tax is intended to cover increased county spending related to cannabis in code and law enforcement, policy development, public health and education, and environmental cleanup.
- File Photo By Jayson Mellom
- TAXES SLO County voters overwhelmingly approved a 4 percent gross receipts cannabis tax on June 5.
Annually over the next three years, the Board of Supervisors may increase the tax in 2 percent increments, to as high as 10 percent in 2020-21. Many local cannabis industry members criticized that maximum tax as too high.
"At its highest percentage point, I don't like it at all. But I also don't think it will go that high," said Jason Kallen, president of the SLO County chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).
Kallen said the combination of local and state taxes is daunting for the emerging industry, though many understand the need for some taxes.
"As a new industry, we're going to get more traction if we are paying taxes," he said. "But the combination of all the taxes together is a heavy tax burden. I would have probably rather seen them start at 2 percent and work up from there just to give the businesses a little time to adjust."
Meanwhile at SLO City Hall, the City Council unanimously approved its own cannabis tax measure with a slightly different structure. It would charge retailers a 6 percent tax—and manufacturers, distributors, and testing labs, 2.5 percent, 2 percent, and 1 percent taxes, respectively. By 2022, those taxes could increase to 10 percent, 4 percent, 3 percent, and 2.5 percent. Cultivators would see a $7 per square foot of canopy tax.
The county expects to generate several million dollars per year from its tax, depending on how much the industry grows, while the city estimates $1.5 million in revenue by 2020 to boost police, fire, and park services, housing, and economic growth. Δ


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PARSIPPANY, N.J. — Duncan Hines has introduced limited-edition flavors under its Frosting Creations line.
Evoking traditional, nostalgic holiday flavors and aromas, Duncan Hines already has introduced apple pie and pumpkin spice flavors to the market, followed by the debut of peppermint stick and gingerbread flavor mixes on Nov. 1.
"Leaves are changing, the air is cooling and passionate bakers are preparing their holiday menus and dessert gift baskets — only this year they have a secret seasonal weapon at their disposal," said Joe DiPaolo, corporate pastry chef for Duncan Hines. "Our limited-edition Duncan Hines Frosting Creations flavors exude the essence of holiday, reminding us of fall apple picking and the magic of the winter holidays that makes us all feel like kids again."
Duncan Hines Frosting Creations are available at retailers nationwide.


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Philip Kives, the tireless TV pitchman whose commercials implored viewers to “wait, there’s more!” while selling everything from vegetable slicers to hit music compilations on vinyl, has died at age 87.
Samantha Kives said Thursday that her father died a day earlier after being hospitalized with an undisclosed illness.
Kives became wealthy after founding marketing company K-tel International, which sold Miracle Brush hair removers, Veg-o-matic vegetable slicers and compilation albums with such titles as “Goofy Greats” among numerous other products.
Through it all, Kives mostly remained in his beloved Winnipeg and always balanced work with family life, his daughter said.
“He would literally leave in the middle of a business meeting to come watch us play in a tennis tournament,” she recalled. “The commercials were also a family affair. A lot of the commercials he shot, he’d bring us kids in … and we’d be actors in the commercials.”
Kives started K-tel in the 1960s, and according to a biographical sketch on his website, his biggest selling product was the Miracle Brush, which sold 28 million in the late 1960s. More products would follow, including the Pocket Fisherman, a hamburger patty stacker, and the mood ring.
The TV commercials sometimes included the hook line: “But wait, there’s more!”
For a generation of teenagers in the 1960s and 1970s, Kives’ legacy was a long list of compilation albums with hit songs that were sometimes edited down to fit 20 or more cuts on two sides of vinyl. A glam-pop song by The Bay City Rollers could be found on the same record as country singer Dolly Parton and soul act The Drifters. Novelty song compilations such as “Goofy Greats” featured songs about purple people-eaters, itsy-bitsy bikinis and surfing birds.
Many of the products were developed by a company founded by Samuel Popeil, another Jewish marketing maven. When their partnership dissolved in the mid-1960s, K-tel went on to record and sell compilation music albums with titles like “25 Polka Greats,” “A Musical Journey: Pan-Flute” and the Hooked on Classics series, which featured disco versions of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach.
Kives said his biggest music seller was ‘Hooked on Classics,’ which sold more than 10 million records.
K-tel grew exponentially in the 1970s and by the early 1980s, the company had sold more than half a billion albums world-wide.
After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1984, Kives rebounded with a new company, K-5 Leisure Products, that marketed sports and fitness gadgets. The company continues to license and sell its music library.
Kives was born in Ougre, Saskatchewan, on February 12, 1929, the third of four children of Eastern European immigrants who settled in a Jewish agricultural colony Canada. The family lived on a small farm and survived on government welfare at times during the Depression. By the age of eight, Kives was trapping animals and selling the fur to afford clothes.
“I started my first entrepreneurial venture at the age of 8, when I set up my first trap line,” the former farm boy remembered in a company biography. “Not only did I sell my own furs, but I bought furs from all the other kids in school and re-sold them at fur auctions. I made just enough money to buy my few clothes for the year.”
“In 1957, I left the farm for good for the lights of the big city of Winnipeg, Manitoba,” the biographical sketch reads. “I had various jobs — from taxi driver to short-order cook. Then I tried my luck selling door-to-door, such items as cookware, sewing machines and vacuum cleaners.”
In 1961, Kives made his way to New Jersey and did sales demonstrations at a department store. The following year, he returned to Winnipeg and found a new way to push products to a much larger audience.
“I made a live five-minute TV commercial on a Teflon non-stick fry pan,” he recalled. “To my surprise, sales took off at a remarkable pace. I quickly spread the TV advertising throughout Canada and this five-minute commercial became the world’s first infomercial ever.”


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Stickers, bundle boxes, and charitable support are just a few ways coffee businesses are honoring Pride this month.
BY CHRIS RYAN
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Feature photo courtesy of Uncommon Coffee Roasters
If 2020 were a typical year—how’s that for a fantasy?—we would be in the midst of parades and large-scale events every weekend of June to celebrate Pride Month, the annual celebration of LGBTQ+ people and traditions. We’ve written in the past about coffee companies participating in Pride parade floats and hosting other Pride-focused celebrations, but that unfortunately won’t be the case in 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic has led cities to shutter planned large-scale gatherings to prevent the spread of the virus. (Though plenty of big spontaneous gatherings in the form of protests have popped up, addressing racial and social injustice.)
So how are coffee companies celebrating Pride in this unique landscape? Perhaps not surprisingly, most Pride-focused efforts in the coffee world in 2020 are centered around promotional items to show their support of the LGBTQ+ community and organizations.
Partners Coffee, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based roastery and multi-location café, set out to design Pride-themed stickers to benefit New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, which is located a few blocks from Partners’ café in New York’s West Village. “The Center was established in 1983 as a result of the AIDS crisis,” says Allie Caran, Partners’ director of education. “It has grown and evolved over the last four decades, creating and delivering services that help empower people to lead healthy, successful lives. The Center has continued to serve the LGBTQ community through virtual support services, launched almost immediately after the building closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Partners is supporting the Center with their Love Is Limitless stickers—holographic, colorful creations that Allie says were created to represent the brightness of the LGBTQ+ community. Allie adds, “We are thrilled that every sticker sold will be matched by our good friends at Savor Brands, who create our colorful, zero-waste manufactured bags.”
At Uncommon Coffee Roasters in Saugatuck, Mich., a National LBGT Chamber of Commerce-certified business, owner Guy Darienzo says they celebrate Pride year-round. When the area’s Pride community event was canceled this year due to the pandemic, organizers restructured the event into a Care-A-Van car parade, which Uncommon Coffee Roasters took part in. “Our staff drove our three delivery vans in the car parade, proudly displaying our rainbow coffee beans and Roasted with Pride logo,” Guy says. “In addition, staff wore Pride shirts and rainbow Pride face masks.”
Uncommon has taken its Pride support to its products as well: They’ve been roasting their Pride blend for nine years, which is now complemented by the Love Wins blend. In June, Uncommon is offering the Pride Bundle, which includes 12-ounce bags of the Love Wins and Pride blends, along with their exclusive Spread Love and Coffee rainbow heart sticker. For Guy, while it’s nice to do something special for Pride Month in June, Uncommon does everything with Pride in mind. “Pride at Uncommon is more than just a rainbow, it is infused in everything we do,” Guy says. “Whether it’s doing direct trade with coffee farmers in Honduras or supporting local outreach centers here in West Michigan, we do so with pride.”
44 North Coffee in Deer Isle, Maine, also opted to do a Pride box for the month of June, which includes their new Sol y Luna blend, a holographic sticker, camp cup, reusable metal straw, and Pride chocolate bar, and is supporting a Maine charity. “We were looking for a creative way to support our statewide LGBTQ organization, Equality Maine, through our website sales,” said 44 North in a statement. “We took the opportunity of this blend and box to hand-silkscreen the bags in a rainbow of colors.”
The 44 North team shares that the response to the Pride box has been very strong, with many people giving it as a gift to friends at a time when they cannot spend Pride together in person. “Considering all that is currently happening in our world, country, and community, we feel there is no better way to bring some light and love to the celebration of Pride than to give the gift of coffee as a symbol of positive change and celebration for the LGBTQ community,” the 44 North statement reads.


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After the bankruptcies of FTX, BlockFi, Celsius, Voyager Digital and others, another big name joined the list. That’s the once mighty exchange Bittrex.
Bittrex was one of the oldest in the industry, founded in 2014. The Seattle-based company’s US branch filed for bankruptcy, announcing that it would cease operations in the US.
However, Bittrex Global, which operates outside the US, will continue its business as usual, serving non-US customers.
So why was the problem only there? As they claim, there has been difficulty working with regulators. They could not withstand the pressure from the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s charges against the company and its former CEO.
For customers who have not yet withdrawn their money from the platform, the company said that their money remains safe.
The Bankruptcy Court will ultimately decide the method by which these funds can be claimed and distributed, with Bittrex stating that its intention is that they will be able to withdraw their money as soon as possible.
The bankruptcy filing states that Bittrex has more than 100,000 creditors, to whom it owes between $500 and $1 billion.
For its part, the SEC claimed that Bittrex was operating an unregistered platform that traded securities.
It has also accused the company of violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. Accusations that led Bittrex to agree to pay about $29 million after a settlement.
Is the SEC really protecting investors with the rigor it is showing?
Well, we’re not sure, as it directs them to platforms outside the US that are difficult to monitor because it lacks jurisdiction.
It’s no coincidence that even Nasdaq-listed Coinbase is planning to open a new platform outside the US.
The crackdown on them by the SEC may have been a major factor that led to the shutdown, but it is also true that Bittrex was also behind the competition.
According to Coingecko, the daily trading volume was 4 million. Way behind Binance, which averages 10 billion and Coinbase, with 1 billion.
In February, Bittrex had laid off 83 employees, citing market difficulties caused by the bankruptcies of other companies in the space.
Developments are running at high speed in the crypto space. It is not enough to be good, as is generally the case in other sectors of economic activity. You also have to be fast!
- LeBron James Rocks Exclusive Nike Sneakers, Unlocked Only Through Ethereum NFT Mining
- Solana Empowers ChatGPT: OpenAI’s Chatbot Gains Access to Solana Blockchain Functions
- Crypto-Twitter Reacts: $4.5 Billion Worth of Bitcoin Withdrawn from Binance Exchange
- Liechtenstein Embraces Bitcoin: Citizens Can Pay Taxes with Crypto, Government Eyes Bitcoin Investments
- What is Moon Tropica (CAH) – Technology, Tokenomics, Game Preview


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Friday, December 23, 2005
Still Think Wal-Mart Isn't So Bad?
"BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 22 - A California jury on Thursday ordered Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, to pay $172 million in damages for failing to provide meal breaks to nearly 116,000 hourly workers as required under state law."
I know I've said it before, but this is why unions exist. Sure they can be corrupt, but what organization with enough money lying around isn't? They're there to protect workers from the corporate giants who would otherwise chew them up and spit them out like garbage.
Posted by Kate at 23.12.05


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--(BUSINESS WIRE)--What: Howard Melamed, CEO and President of CellAntenna Corporation, Author of the book The Science of Opportunity, will be speaking at the upcoming Export and Matchmaker Trade Fair and Conference being held September 14, 2011 in Tampa Florida. The event is being sponsored by U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of International Trade Florida District Export Council, U.S. Department of Commerce, Commercial Service and the Florida Small Business Development Center Network.
Mr. Melamed is the recipient of the 2010 Export Achievement Award from the United States Department of Commerce. Mr. Melamed’s address will highlight how our nation’s small businesses can expand by boosting manufacturing in America and selling their products overseas. CellAntenna has been exporting American products including cell phone signal boosters and cell phone control systems. Mr. Melamed has successfully grown CellAntenna into an exporter to more than 38 countries.
Who: Howard Melamed, CEO and president of CellAntenna Corporation, a multinational telecommunications company, is an expert in cellular technology. He is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world.
Where: Wyndham Tampa Westshore Hotel 700 North Westshore Boulevard Tampa, Florida 33609 (813) 289-8200
When: Howard Melamed will be speaking on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 12:45 PM.
About CellAntenna: CellAntenna is an experienced system integrator that specializes in cellular phone control solutions. For nearly a decade, the company has increased its clients’ productivity and safety through the boosting of signal strength and reduction of dropped calls using cellular repeaters and mobile phone signal boosters. CellAntenna’s Detection, Managed Access and Cell Phone Jamming solutions are used by governments around the world as well as the U.S. Federal Government. Headquartered in Coral Springs, FL, CellAntenna, a woman owned ISO 9001 2008 company also has offices in Europe. More information is available at www.cellantenna.com , www.cjam.com and www.cawireless.com.


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China's scrapping of its one-child per family policy has created an unexpected increase in minivan sales.
In Europe and the U.S., minivans have been in freefall for years as customers switch to SUVs and crossovers. Those bodystyles are also growing in popularity in China, but sales of large minivans are also surging with volume up 27 percent to 1.63 million last year, according to IHS Markit
"It's all due to the government abandoning the one-child per family rule," said Peter Horbury, a former top designer at Ford Motor and Volvo who now leads the design direction of the Geely, Volvo and Lynk & Co brands. Horbury moved to Shanghai four years ago to create a new design department for Geely Auto Group that now employs 200 people in China and another 300 in Europe and the U.S.
China was a market historically dominated by sedans, often with a long wheelbase, because this allowed families to have the father in the driving seat, the mother on the front passenger seat and grandparents in the rear seats where the long wheelbase meant more legroom. The family’s single child occupied the middle of the rear seats.
With families now able to have two children, sedans are not big enough for the larger families and SUVs and crossovers are not universally loved. “Not all Chinese customers like the rough design and higher ground clearance of SUVs," Horbury said.
The hot growth now is for high-specification, premium-like large minivans, built in China by Chinese automakers. These are better specified than current passenger versions of large vans.
"These new minivans have two armchairs in the central row of seats, as Chinese have a strong sense of the family and a high respect for their parents, who should always have the best seats in the car, while the third row is for the children," Horbury said.
To strengthen his point, Horbury unveiled the Geely MPV Concept at the Shanghai auto show last week. The vehicle is a production-ready concept for a large and luxurious minivan that will go on sale next year. It will be sold at a “surprisingly competitive price because we aim to deliver refined cars for everyone," Horbury said.
Design-wise, Horbury said the concept moves minivans away from being a “box on wheels” to become a vehicle that is “refined, dynamic and user oriented."
Looking at the sleek, stylish concept, Horbury seems to have delivered.


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The aluminum alloy market has performed a 'roller-coaster' show in the past 2.5 months. The market price has plunged from the top in mid-Oct, down by about 20%. Yet, with the year-end production peak is coming, aluminum price is expected to rise again..
In the past two months, Chinese government imposed strict orders to press down soaring prices of energy products, such as coal and oil, and increased the electricity prices to encourage power plants to produce more. Many factories have recovered normal production, which was haunted by the shortage of power in Aug and Sep.
On the other hand, internation marine shipment seems to alleviate a bit since large shipping companies volunteered to control the shipping cost and increased the input of new liners.
All these may encourage another round of overseas demand for Chinese goods, including the aluminum extrusion products.


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Jump's Netflix-like gaming subscription service will focus on indie games
An upcoming game subscription service called Jump aims to give users the freedom of trying out as many different indie games as they want while also giving developers a new avenue for making money off their projects.
According to this in-depth preview from IGN, Jump will cost $10 a month when it launches later this summer (a currently ongoing closed beta that is set to end on July 24 can be opted into courtesy of the service’s website). For that $10 monthly fee, users will be able to download and play all of the indie games included in Jump’s library, a library which is expected to encompass a sizeable number of titles at launch (the current estimates are between 60 and 100 individual games) with more being added each month.
Interestingly enough, the developers behind games featured on Jump will apparently earn revenue based on how much time Jump subscribers spend playing their games. Thanks to a third-party service called PlayFab, all Jump titles will also support cloud saves, achievements, leaderboards, and, where appropriate, multiplayer and matchmaking.
A specific launch date for Jump hasn’t yet been confirmed, but interested users can sign up for email alerts so they can be notified on any major announcements.


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SoulCycle’s venture into the media business is taking another step as the company, together with SiriusXM, announced plans for a dedicated radio channel called SoulCycle Radio.
In a press release, the channel was described as featuring the same “inspirational energy” as a SoulCycle class. The music will be curated by SoulCycle instructors, who will also share inspirational messages. Along with the new dedicated station, SiriusXM will also livestream SoulCycle’s “Sound by SoulCycle” concerts.
“Wherever you live, this new channel will allow SoulCycle riders to extend their experience throughout the day, and for those who are uninitiated, to get a taste of what it’s like to be part of this high-energy, inspired community,” SiriusXM president and chief content officer Scott Greenstein said in the release.
The move represents the latest step into media for SoulCycle, which launched its media division last year, bringing on former Mashable chief content officer Gregory Gittrich. According to Variety, SoulCycle’s media strategy is to expand its brand while paving the way for new revenue opportunities in the future.
“With SoulCycle Radio on Sirius XM, we can reach our riders wherever they are in their day-to-day lives, as well as reach people who may not have yet experienced the motivational magic that is SoulCycle,” said SoulCycle CEO Melanie Whelan.
SoulCycle’s revenue currently comes from its exercise classes and apparel retailing. The company’s media division now employs 20 people.


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Calum MacLeod of USA Today reports China’s authoritarian government struggles to reassure citizens than it can deliver the safe food they rank as a top priority.
In the city of Guangzhou, whose Cantonese cuisine is celebrated worldwide, more than 46% of residents are dissatisfied with food safety, and over 37% said they had suffered recent food safety problems, according to a survey released this month by the Guangzhou Public Opinion Research Center.
"There are two Chinas on the tip of the tongue," says Shanghai student Wu Heng, a fan of the series. "There’s the China shown on TV, with its traditional food culture and long history. Then there’s another China shown on my website, the current environment in which black-hearted enterprises make black-hearted foodstuffs and have a large market."
Wu, 26, became active in the food safety cause because of his favorite dish of braised beef and rice. Startled by a news report on fake beef, he was inspired to create an online food safety database that allows visitors to add the latest problems nationwide, often involving the illegal use of additives.
With his website, "Throw It Out the Window," Wu hopes more public awareness and pressure will produce bold steps to tackle China’s food safety crisis. His site’s popularity is soaring at a million-plus views a day, Wu says.
Food safety has already taken a turn for the better, says Wu Yongning, chief food safety scientist at the Ministry of Health in Beijing, who insists there are less serious incidents today than four or five years ago.
"There is greater media supervision now which exposes problems and makes the government play the role it should," he says.


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Saab is recalling 4,400 vehicles for a fuel pump problem that could cause the engine to stall. Saab’s recall affects certain 2010 and 2011 9-3 vehicles.
The affected 9-3 vehicles may have fuel pumps that were installed as original equipment that might have internal components with incorrect specifications. These fuel pumps can seize, causing the engine to stall, which increases the likelihood of an accident, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports. The affected vehicles were manufactured from June 2010 through December 2010.
Saab said it will notify owners of affected vehicles on or about Feb. 18, 2011. The defective fuel pumps will be replaced free of charge for affected owners.
If the recall doesn’t bother you, in January, Saab is offering shoppers 0 percent auto loan rate incentives for up to 36 months on the 2011 9-3 lineup of vehicles. On remaining 2010 Saab 9-3 vehicles, the automaker is offering 0 percent car loan financing for up to a lengthy 72 months. Remaining 2010 Saab 9-3 models also have a cash back rebate option of $5,000 on the 9-3 Sport Sedan, 9-3 SportCombi and 9-3X. The 2010 9-3 Convertible has $7,000 in consumer cash for shoppers who choose not to take the 0 percent auto loan incentive.


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Sainsbury’s convenience stores will overtake its number of supermarkets this year demonstrating the shift in focus in the sector.
Sainsbury’s, which opened its first Local store 15 years ago, operates 591 supermarkets and 541 smaller Sainsbury’s Local stores.
Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King confirmed he is set to open more smaller formats than its supermarkets at the grocer’s annual general meeting yesterday, according to The Telegraph.
The retailer is currently opening two convenience stores each week.
King added that the “space race” in the industry was not over, despite Tesco boss Philip Clarke stating it had ended.
King said: “It may be that one or two of our competitors have chosen to leave that race. But that’s not quite the same as saying the space race is over, because for Sainsbury’s there’s still much opportunity to grow our business into the future.”


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German bike manufacturer BMW Motorrad will organise the Indian national qualifiers for the 2018 BMW Motorrad International GS Trophy in Goa from October 26th to 29th, 2017. The top three participants of the event will form a team to represent India in the 2018 BMW Motorrad International GS Trophy which will be held in Mongolia.
The GS Trophy is an exciting and adventurous two-wheeler competition which is open to all non-professional BMW GS Motorcycle riders from the different parts of the world. There are series of challenges in the event designed to test the riding and navigation skills of the competitors. Additionally, it also examines their mental tenacity and physical fitness as well as their ability to work as a team in an unfavourable condition. The 2018 BMW Motorrad International GS Trophy is going to be a seven-day event where the GS riders will get to enjoy an approximate of 2,000 km off-road adventure ride.
The national qualifier for India will be the replica of the international event, where the challengers will have to sustain their position through similar tough tests by riding through the toughest of the terrain. The qualifier is open to the owners of the BMW GS motorcycle, who are willing to participate in the thrilling competition can register their names before the opportunity to showcase your driving skills goes away. Moreover, if you come with flying colours, you get to represent your country at an International platform. The four-day event for the national qualifier will be a great event to witness some of the best bike riders around the country.
The qualified riders from all the countries will be provided with a personalized BMW GS motorcycles including riding gears and essential equipment for the event. President of BMW Group India, Vikram Pawah said, "The GS Trophy is a celebration of the spirit of the BMW GS motorcycle, bringing together those elements of leisure, adventure and challenge that this bike engenders."


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Mitigating security threats on POS systems
By Digital News Asia April 1, 2014
- Despite improvements in card security technologies, there are still gaps
- End of support for WinXP will pose increasing security risks on POS systems
ONE of the earliest forms of cybercrime is credit and debit card data theft and this persists until today, security company Symantec said in a statement.
Cybercrime gangs organise sophisticated operations to steal vast amounts of data before selling it in underground marketplaces. Criminals can use the data stolen from a card’s magnetic strip to create clones, and it’s a potentially lucrative business with individual cards selling for up to US$100.
“There are several routes attackers can take to steal this data. One option is to gain access to a database where card data is stored,” said Nigel Tan, director of Systems Engineering at Symantec Malaysia.
“But another option is to target the point at which a retailer first acquires that card data – the point of sale (POS) system,” he added.
Tan said that while many POS transactions are in the form of cash, many of these payments are made by customers swiping their cards through a card reader.
These card readers may be standalone devices but modern POS systems, particularly those in larger retailers, are all-in-one systems which can handle a variety of customer transactions such as sales, returns, gift cards and promotions.
Most importantly from a security standpoint, they can handle multiple payment types, he added.
Given the sensitive financial and sometimes, personal data to which modern POS systems have access, it is an obvious but not always well recognised fact that the security of these systems is of utmost importance, Symantec said.
Security issues in POS systems
Modern POS systems are specially configured computers with sales software installed and equipped with a card reader. Using a process known as ‘skimming,’ card data can be stolen by installing a device onto the card reader which can read the data off the card’s magnetic strip.
As this requires additional hardware and physical access to the card reader, it is difficult to carry out this type of theft on a large scale.
This led to the development of malware which can copy the card data as soon as it’s read by the card reader, Symantec said.
The first of such attacks were seen in 2005 with a series of campaigns orchestrated by Albert Gonzalez, a hacker who stole over 170 million card numbers. Since then, an industry has developed around attacking POS systems, with tools readily available in the underground marketplace.
“Despite improvements in card security technologies and the requirements of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS), there are still gaps in the security of POS systems,” said Tan (pic).
“This, coupled with more general security weaknesses in corporate IT infrastructure, means that retailers find themselves exposed to increasingly resourceful and organised cybercriminal gangs,” he added.
Card data theft is likely to continue in the near term, Symantec said. Stolen card data has a limited shelf-life. Credit card companies are quick to spot anomalous spending patterns, as are observant card owners.
This means that criminals need a steady supply of ‘fresh’ card numbers, the company added.
The good news is that retailers will learn lessons from attacks and take steps to prevent the re-occurrence of this type of attack, it said.
Payment technology will also change. Many US retailers are now expediting the transition to Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) standards, or ‘chip and PIN’ (personal identity number) payment technologies.
Chip and PIN cards are much more difficult to clone, making them less attractive to attackers, Symantec said, adding that new payment models may also take over. Smartphones may become the new credit cards as mobile, or NFC (Near Field Communications), payment technology becomes more widely adopted.
“There’s no doubt that cybercriminals will respond to these changes. But as retailers adopt newer technologies and security companies continue to monitor the attackers, large-scale POS thefts will become more difficult and certainly less profitable,” said Tan.
Risks with WinXP end of support
The majority of POS systems run the older Windows XP version of Windows Embedded. This older version is more susceptible to vulnerabilities and therefore more open to attack, Symantec said.
In addition, Microsoft will end technical assistance for the Windows XP operating system on April 8, 2014, including automatic updates and regularly issued security patches.
Systems that continue to use Windows XP after the deadline will face increased security risks, particularly if new vulnerabilities are discovered in the operating system, Symantec said.
Consequently, these systems are susceptible to a wide variety of attack scenarios which could lead to large scale data breaches. Organisations with systems running on Windows XP Embedded (XPE) face a similar situation, but have more time to make their transition as Microsoft will end support for XPE in January 2016.
As many POS systems are running a version of Windows, they are also capable of running any malware that runs on Windows. Thus, attackers do not need specialised skills in order to target POS systems and malware that were not specifically designed for use on POS systems could be easily repurposed for use against them.
“There are many steps that POS operators can take to reduce the risk from attacks against POS systems but above all, the overarching reminder is to implement layered security on the POS systems and throughout the network,” Tan said.
A properly configured endpoint protection product can block even the most determined attacker, and this is especially true when it comes to a POS system.
POS systems actually have a security advantage over a PC as a single function device, Symantec said. Because no one on that device is web browsing, emailing or opening shared drives, the functionally of the machine and the files needed on that machine are limited.
In short, to implement the best protection for Windows-based POS systems, organisations should have layered security as part of the IT architecture, the company argued.
Target: Learning from security breaches on POS systems
Being PCI compliant merely the first step in payment security
Warning, warning: 30 days to WinXP, Office 2003 expiry
Smarter, shadier and stealthier cyber-crime forces dramatic change
For more technology news and the latest updates, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Like us on Facebook.


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Why the need for SAFEhouse?
Apex Cordset Technologies is proud of its affiliation with the South African SAFEhouse Association – a local independent, registered non-profit industry organization. It is established by the electrical industry to protect South African consumers by combatting the recent influx of poor-quality unsafe electrical equipment that can lead to serious injuries or even death in South African homes and workplaces.
It’s referred to as “the China Effect” as markets across the globe are being flooded by the import of cheaper, mass produced products. South Africa is no exception. Our clothing, textile and motor industries have up until now been the main sufferers, but in recent years the electrical manufacturing industry has unfortunately also felt the pinch as local retailers increasingly turn to these cheaper Far East imports instead of stocking locally produced items.
Not only is this negatively impacting the South African economy through the inevitable job losses, but these products are often of sub-standard quality. They are produced from inferior materials and are generally not held to same stringent production and manufacturing standards as South African items.
While it might be inconvenient to purchase a clothing item that lets you down in fit and wear, it can be downright life-threatening if electrical equipment used in your home fails or malfunctions. While the Fire Protection Association of Southern Africa’s statistics are not as current as we’d like, the most recent information reports about 3 800 electrical fires occurring roughly on a yearly basis. Even more worrying is the roughly 14 000 fires that are qualified as “undetermined” in their causes. Instances of electrocution is also not often reported either, so the damage could be much more widespread than previously imagined. This is according to SAFEhouse spokesperson Pierre Nothard.
What is SAFEhouse?
SAFEhouse is an association of organisations from within the South African electrical industry – mostly comprised of distributors, suppliers, wholesalers and even large contractors. SAFEhouse can benefit any organisation that fulfils the role of supplying electrical equipment either directly to the public or by supplying retail outlets and electrical contractors. SAFEhouse aims to regulate the product purchasing of electrical organisations by providing them with the criteria by which to judge whether the products that they are distributing conform to industry standards and are not merely selected with an increased profit margin in mind. While it certainly does not see itself as a consumer watchdog or protection body, SAFEhouse does welcome safety-related complaints from any party exposed to sub-standard electrical equipment and installations.
SAFEhouse operates on the following premise:
- They list and offer products that adhere to the strict safety standards set by industry experts themselves
- Clients are informed if any products should happen to fail the safety standards.
- Necessary steps are then taken to recall all unsafe products.
- Distributors are instructed to exchange any unsafe products that they might have installed or distributed, or if applicable, they can redo any work previously done to improve the safety of the installation.
Apex Cordset Technologies holds its dedication to the safety and quality of our products in extremely high regard, and through the SAFEhouse initiative we are further empowered to guarantee the exemplary quality and performance standards that our customers have come to rely on.


text: Bae oversees the firm’s core global buyout business, which includes a big expansion in Asia as well as real estate and infrastructure. Private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co is expected to step up exports to Asia, launch new products and sell and lease back factories after paying more than $3 billion for iconic biscuit maker Arnott's and other Campbell Soup Company operations in the Asia Pacific. ", KKR 'Barbarian at the Gate' banker Cliff Robbins turns into friendly activist. Sales from its oil pumps and compressors slumped, its shares on the New York Stock Exchange languished, and in 2012 opportunistic financiers, now in the form of a hedge fund, pounded the table for change. The pressure is still on us and we control 55pc, so we're responsible. Barbarians at the Gates is a fascinating tale about the rise and fall of food giant Nabisco. The firm’s airy lobby is shared with venture firm Sequoia Capital and decorated with gelatin silver photographic prints by Ansel Adams. That's the moment you have to take accountability to your partners, to outsiders, to yourself," says Murphy. Together, KKR and OSIM’s managing director, Teo Chay Lee, mulled over which stores to keep and improve, and which ones to close or relocate. Roberts adds, “Japan today reminds me of the 1960s and 1970s in the United States.”. Students of financial history can now remove their jaws from the floor. KKR operates on a different scale today than it did when it took over RJR. “I would have had a better conversation with a glass, but we got along just fine,” Kravis says. “If you think about what this firm was, it basically was started with three guys and a broom—Jerry, George and me,” Kravis says. "Monetising 45pc of our stake is a pleasing outcome," he says. “PE taught me the importance of finding good, open-minded management teams and the skills to work in partnership with them. V3 today owns 90% of Global Active, now called ONI Global, whose 226 stores in Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan last year generated S$16 million in profits on S$174 million in sales. They learned the art of dealmaking from the same mentor—KKR’s third cofounder, Jerome Kohlberg—and have been business partners for 43 years, working in harmony virtually all that time, 2,930 miles apart, high-profile Kravis in New York and low-profile Roberts in San Francisco. By far the biggest innovations at KKR have been structural. Follow me on Twitter at @antoinegara, © 2020 Forbes Media LLC. While newly dual-listed biotech Opthea has spruiked the success of its new Nasdaq listing in The Australian, it's hard to argue Australian investors have yet seen much upside. The creation of an underwriting business has been another fee bonanza. Nuttall is a familiar face to public stockholders and is the driving force behind KKR’s expansion in credit and capital markets. “I’ve been going to Japan since 1978. Robbins doesn’t publicly deride his targeted companies or file lawsuits to force changes and has yet to wage a proxy war for board seats -- all sticks activists typically use when confronting recalcitrant corporations. There are red flowers and a large black-and-white drawing of Chairman Mao by Andy Warhol, a lithograph by Jasper Johns and a staircase painted in diagonal blue lines by the contemporary artist Terry Haggerty. When Roberts moved up the ranks at Bear, he recommended Kravis to look at Kohlberg’s buyout invention. An $884 million natural-resources fund, raised in 2010, lost most of its value. Over the past five years it has returned on average just 5% annually, underperforming the S&P 500’s 12% annualized gain. Ross Johnson was head of Nabisco’s rival Standard Brands. “Let’s not delude ourselves,” says John Skjervem, chief investment officer of the $100 billion Oregon State Treasury, a KKR investor since 1981. For KKR, and competitors like Blackstone and Apollo Global, we’ve entered the era of public equity, with PE as the white hats. Pamela Ambler Forbes Staff. He also saw potential in TWG’s cofounder, Frenchman Taha Bouqdib, now its CEO. "Arnott’s has not been sold. The rich stock grants to Bae and Nuttall have caused grumbling inside the firm, when you consider that KKR has since significantly reduced stock compensation to staffers in what may be a maneuver to reduce share dilution and bolster the stock price. Acquired for $6.6 billion in 2005, the retailer wound up filing for bankruptcy in 2017 and shuttering its U.S. stores in 2018. Carl Icahn has rebranded himself as an outspoken shareholder advocate. But KKR has grown to be more powerful than ever, as it spreads its influence around the globe. KKR takes Gardner Denver public in 2017. Since asset prices recovered, KKR’s permanent capital has swelled to $14 billion and seeded its fundraising expansion into new sectors like infrastructure, real estate, healthcare and technology. Gardner Denver is a shining example. Over the next 10 years KKR spun off RJR Nabisco's tobacco business into a separate company, renamed the food business Nabisco, and divested dozens of other non-core assets before eventually selling the biscuit business to Philip Morris, which merged it with Kraft Foods and which eventually became Mondelez International. “It took them almost a year to do due diligence,” says Sim in his first one-on-one interview since the deal. Since the days of the corporate raiders of the 80s, shareholder activism has evolved into a formidable asset class, with an estimated $200 billion to invest. But his strategy seems a departure from KKR’s epoch-defining buyout of RJR Nabisco, the $25 billion megadeal chronicled in the book “Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco.”, “We’re a friendly activist, that’s been a key to our success,” said Robbins, referring to the hedge fund he founded in 2004, Blue Harbour Group.


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Following the expansion of Crypto and Bitcoin, Crypto Enthusiasts and traders in Australia can now shop for Bitcoin at their local post offices. The news breaking out yesterday has stated that users of popular crypto website Bitcoin.com.au will be able to buy Bitcoin from more than 3,500 post offices all over the country. Customers were already able to purchase crypto from about 1,500 retail stores before but now will be able to complete transactions from Post offices. This will no doubt increase the number of crypto transactions in Australia since there is now more opportunity for people to trade in Crypto.
The CEO for crypto website Bitcoin.com.au thanks Australia’s post offices who helped implement this new service in their existing operations and also stated that the trust factor that people have with local post offices will make crypto adoption easier on first time users. Since those people are used to receive and send money, it will feel safer for them to trade in person that online. Australia is not the only place moving towards making Crypto available for the public. America is on top of this revolution with over 25,000 physical locations present for Bitcoin transactions while In September 2019, 7Eleven stores in the Philippines also started Bitcoin selling. Tobacco shops in France also have a similar service and we believe that the world will follow suit in adopting this innovation.
With the new trend of Bitcoin purchasing going viral in the world, companies have started finding new ways to make the concept of cryptocurrency expand with Bitcoin seemingly leading the charge. There is no doubt that the Crypto industry has had quite the successful start in the past decade with more and more people trading with the digital currency as time has progressed and going by the current flow, will continue to grow even more. Recently, there has been a massive growth in Bitcoin ATM’s all over the world with the number crossing 8,200 as well as Crypto buying capability in some stores as well. Through LibertyX, Bitcoin transactions have been made possible in over 20,000 physical stores in the US namely in 7Elevens, CVS stores and Rite Aid Pharmacies. According to the company, this is just the start and that these sources will only continue to expand.
So, what do you think about this expansion? Will Bitcoin keep expanding and will this make new users try it more? Will Australia benefit from this new operation? Will there be any different cryptocurrency to launch their own portal in a physical location next? Send us your thoughts and opinions and well will be glad to feature you on our platform.


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Now investors often treat Nike as a proxy for China growth. So are these numbers telling us that the China story isn't as bad as everyone seems to think?
The stock is trading sharply higher after reporting a third quarter earnings beat, reports CNBC's Brian Shactman.
Silicon Valley's rumor mill suggests that Google, too, has a smartwatch in the works.
Stock index futures were higher Friday as investors adopted a wait-and-see approach in response to the growing uncertainty in Europe over a Cyprus bailout.
Some of the names on the move ahead of the open.
Nike beat on earnings Thursday and said future demand for its apparel and shoes rose. Shares rose after-hours.
Stocks finished in negative territory Thursday, dragged by techs, amid ongoing concerns over Cyprus' ability to get a bailout.
Check out which companies are making headlines after the bell Thursday:
Lululemon Athletica on Thursday said it could see a $40 million loss in profit for the year due to a recent decision to recall defective workout pants from its stores.
Sam Poser, senior research analyst, Sterne Agee, says Nike's change from a pull model to a push model could indicate trouble and says the brand needs to take control of its margins and its Chinese offerings.
Stock index futures hovered around the flatline Thursday following the weekly jobless claims report, while uncertainty in Cyprus kept investors on edge.
Housing and jobs data will get a close look from traders Thursday, as they continue to dissect the latest comments from the Fed.
Nike, which reports after the bell on Thursday, not only provides insight into the American economy, but also gives a great snapshot of business in China. Here are three things to look for.
We are standing at the cusp of a computing and industrial revolution with the use of three-dimensional printers, said a Washington insider.
The Fed could add fuel to the market rally in the week ahead, keeping the Dow on track for its best first quarter since 1998.
Jim Cramer is watching a slew of events that could be market moving in the week ahead.
A lot of pro athletes strive to transform their talents into marketable brands, but not baseball star Albert Pujols. He has little interest in cultivating a personal brand in the open market, and it's not just because he's guaranteed $240 million from the Los Angeles Angels.
Stocks soared for a second day to finish near session highs Wednesday, with the Dow within less than 100 points of an all-time closing high, boosted by upbeat earnings and economic reports and as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reaffirmed his support of the central bank's stimulus policy.
Following an unconfirmed report that upscale retailer Coach is exploring a sale of itself, the company's shares rose in early trade.
U.S. stock index futures edged higher Wednesday following the durable goods orders report and ahead of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's second round of testimony, but ongoing worries over political deadlock in Italy kept a lid on gains.


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Simon Property makes new General Growth buy-out bid
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Simon Property Group Inc. today unveiled a watered-down version of its $10 billion General Growth takeover offer, responding to taunts from the company earlier this month.
General Growth Properties Inc. submitted a bankruptcy plan April 1 that did not include money from Simon, its Austin Highland Mall co-owner, but it said it would reconsider if given a sweeter deal. So today, the mega mall owner conceded, making an offer that leaves some of the power on the table.
Simon submitted a plan that essentially matches a competing deal from Brookfield Asset Management, Pershing Square Capital Management and Fairholme Capital Management, but it eliminates close to a billion dollars worth in warrants.
The $2.5 billion investment proposal could also include a $1 million co-investment from Paulson and Co. and Simon would buy 250 million shares of General Growth common stock for $10 a share. Brookfield’s offer would give it the right to 60 million shares at $15 per share.
Also, in the revised deal, the Prime Outlets San Marcos owner would limit its voting interest to about 20 percent.
The offer came in time before an April 19 deadline for Simon to improve its offer and address concerns that a combination of the two companies would violate antitrust laws.
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Owner BC Partners is reportedly looking to make a rival bid for the electronics retailer, as the deadline for negotiations between Dixons and Carphone Warehouse is postponed
Phones 4U is reportedly talks with Dixons over a possible merger.
Such a move would see it go head to head with rival mobile retailer Carphone Warehouse, which has bid £4 billion for Dixons.
The news coincides with a decision by the UK takeover panel, which regulates deals, to extend the deadline for negotiations to May 19. Talks were due to conclude at 5pm today (March 24).
“Since the announcement of February 24 was made when discussions were at a very preliminary stage, both parties have agreed that they require more time to evaluate a potential merger of the two businesses,” separate statements from the companies said.
Reports that Phones 4U’s owner, private equity group BC Partners, are looking to buy Dixons will come as no surprise to analysts.
Those Mobile News spoke to following the Carphone Warehouse/Dixons announcement said they expected Phones 4U to bid as it has concession stores within the chain.
“I think a better fit, before this was put together, might have been Dixons and Phones 4u, because Phones 4u provided the contract sales in Dixons’ stores,” chief of research at analysts CCS Insight Ben Wood told Mobile News.
Phones 4U declined to comment.
BC Partners were not available for comment.


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Samsung has launched the Galaxy S6 today, at the Unpacked Event in Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, with some mind blowing features. The device is certainly one of the best we have seen from Samsung in the last few years, not just in terms of the hardware but also the design, which is for sure is better than the Galaxy S5 with the dimpled back.
The brand has moved from the plastic back panels to full metal inclusions, which is all thanks to the user’s feedback. Now there is a lot of buzz in the Social Media that Samsung has again copied Apple and this time their latest flagship, i.e. the iPhone 6, but we have a different though on this. Before you start comparing the Galaxy S6 photos with the iPhone 6, you need to ensure that you have taken a quick look on Samsung’s own ATIV S Smartphone that was running on Windows Phone 8. The ATIV S was announced in 2012 and didn’t make a hit in the market but at least has inspired them to use the design in the latest flagship.
Samsung ATIV S Photos
Apple iPhone 6 Photos
Samsung Galaxy S6 Photo
Let me know with your thoughts on who has copied whom or who’s inspired with whom from the photos hosted above.


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Note: photo submitted by Dubizzle.
After eight years of running Dubizzle, the biggest classified ads site in the UAE, founders J.C. Butler and Sim Whatley have announced that they are stepping down to return to the U.S. and spend more time with their families.
"It's been something we've been working on for awhile. We made the decision that we wanted to transition out of the business last year. Dubizzle is so far away from where we're from, and it became about more than just us, it became about the needs of our wives and families,” says Whatley, who is expecting a child soon.
“We also felt that Dubizzle needed us less and less; we had been able to hire very talented people who had grown within the organization, and we could see that we were being needed less and less to make decisions,” he reveals. Butler, who had one child last year and has another on the way, echoed the same sentiments.
The move will see the two founders sell a portion of their
equity to investor MIH, a subsidiary of South African media
multinational Naspers, which will now own a majority share. In
2011, MIH invested for a 25% stake in the company.
“If we're not going to be here, running the business, [we realized that] it was in all of our interests- J.C. and I and MIH- to get their share up to 51%,” says Whatley. Neither founder has immediate plans for the future, but both remain "significantly" invested in the company.
Can Dubizzle tackle a market outside the UAE?
The founders' departure comes after a two-year struggle to expand; while Dubizzle continues to see wild success in the UAE, it hasn’t been able to successfully own a new market.
It’s clearly a bittersweet moment for both Butler and Whatley, who famously built the company up from scratch, investing $12,000 of their own money, living on passion and a 10 AED-a-day budget until they met an angel investor in 2006.
In the early days, they acquired customers “one person at a time,” says Whatley, cold calling offline secondhand sellers with a friendly pitch to let them know that online was a better option.
Today, Dubizzle is the 7th most popular site in the UAE, ranking 1,180th globally, according to analytics platform Alexa.
Experience listing jobs, properties, and goods in the Dubai market did not prepare the founders for the steep learning curve that they hit when they went to make a regional land grab, says Butler.
“Our only experience had been launching in the UAE, where we were our target audience; we spoke English, and we could do a lot of trial and error. When we wanted to launch across the Middle East, we didn't know how to do it,” he candidly admits. “We wanted to launch in all of these markets at once. It was a plan, but it wasn't necessarily a good one. We made a lot of mistakes.”
After going down a “bumpy road” to launch an Arabic site, they "flipped the switch on" in every major Arab market from Morocco to Oman, except for Iraq, Palestine, and Yemen.
Today, the site has closed down Libya, Syria, and Morocco, all for obvious reasons; Morocco may not be politically unstable, but it’s a saturated market where first mover Maroc Announces is battling it out with Russian giant Avito and Swedish-led Bikhir to retain its market share.
When we asked Butler about Morocco this April, he noted over email that they shut down operations in early 2012: “We had dipped our toe in the market but had decided not to pursue it.”
To counter their mistakes, the founders hired Arto Joensuu, who will now step into the role of company CEO. “When we found Arto… that's when our internal communication strategy really started to form,” says Butler. "It forced us to go on a soul-searching journey as Dubizzle."
Going after Egypt
Perhaps Avito’s entrance into the Egyptian market (as Bekam, not to be confused with price comparison site Bkam) in mid-2012 made Dubizzle double down on owning Egypt after giving up in Morocco. When we visited Cairo this March, we couldn’t help but notice billboards plastering the city with Dubizzle’s name, boasting their unfortunate transliterated tagline: “bee3 weshtery in your city” (“sell and buy in your city”).
Avito, which recently merged with two other Russian sites to become the third largest classified site in the world after Craigslist and China’s 58.com, is known for spending millions on marketing and user acquisition. In its latest funding round this March, it was valued at around $270 million.
Not to be daunted, Dubizzle sent a team to study the market on the ground and quickly produce television ads. Now, Butler says that Dubizzle has become a “household name” in Egypt, despite the political instability. The company is taking a “long term view," but also having “bigger and faster success [in Egypt] than we had in UAE during the same time frame.”
When it comes to their customer acquisition strategy in Egypt,
or any of their new markets, Butler says there’s no magic
“We use the same digital channels, the same offline channels; maybe we do more face-to-face on the ground stuff,” he says. “I think a lot comes down to the DNA of our vision; it's not just about conversion rates and numbers.”
What matters most, he says, is their philosophy (during our conversation, both Butler and Whatley repeatedly got philosophical about the impact of classified ads on growing economies): “Our goal is to disrupt something that's not working, and to better people's lives by bringing transparency to economies, and to allow self-starters to raise themselves up by their bootstraps and make money in ways they've never been able to make money before."
Challenges to Dubizzle
Dubizzle has successfully monetized via display ads, targeted
property and auto ads, and by taking a fee for posts over a certain
quantity. But if it rests on its laurels, rivals like
Propertyfinder.ae and Bayt.com could potentially claw market share
by providing a better user experience.
Dubizzle claims that its property section has “seven times the amount of traffic” that Propertyfinder.ae has, yet rival Propertyfinder.ae’s interface is a bit sleeker. In time, that could make a difference. Perhaps especially in the auto segment, which seems to dominate the majority of Dubizzle's non-UAE markets.
Whatley insists that the site is already improving its experience, and hints that that will be a bigger focus in the days to come: “You'll see some customization within these verticals. We release something every week."
And now, the task of keeping users happy will fall to Joensuu, who displays what might be some trademark Dubizzle bluster. "It's a sad moment in terms of not being able to see the guys [Whatley and Butler] everyday, but in terms of our future, it looks very bright. We're not in the business of being another classified site; we’re in the business of changing lives. We're ready to kick some ass."


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Attendance dropped precipitously at the annual Sonoma County Harvest Fair this weekend following controversial changes intended to save the money-losing event, but organizers vowed to continue the festival again next year.
Fair Manager Tawny Tesconi said the decline in attendance was the natural result of organizers' decision to create a new format for the three-day event, which ended Sunday.
"I think it's really just growing pains," Tesconi said Monday. "It's going to take people time to get used to the experience."
Overall, about 7,400 people attended the fair over the weekend, she said, down from about 20,000 last year.
About 3,200 this year purchased the $50-per-person ticket to the unlimited tasting pavilion, offering wine, food, beer and cider. That was about 1,500 fewer paid attendees than Tesconi and her staff had projected.
Last year, 13,000 paid the $10-per-ticket general admission price. Despite the higher attendance, last year's fair lost about $30,000.
"If we wanted to continue with the old format we had in the past, we would have to find a way to finance that," Tesconi said.
It's too early to tell how this year's fair fared financially, but the tasting pavilion tickets generated about $156,000 and Tesconi is hoping the event at least broke even.
Gone this year were many of the traditional elements of the four-decade-old Harvest Fair, including exhibits of livestock and antique farm machinery. Most child-oriented attractions were removed, and the judging for produce and homemade products such as jams and jellies was folded into the Sonoma County Fair over the summer.
Tesconi said people in the tasting pavilion expressed pleasure at the event, but she acknowledged the howls of protest that accompanied the other changes at the fair. The fair simply had to bow to financial reality.
"To bring back the attractions that everybody traditionally enjoyed at Harvest Fair would probably drive the ticket price to a point where people couldn't afford to attend," she said.
Longtime fairgoers expressed shock at the changes in content and atmosphere.
"The whole community of people who got involved was wiped out; it's gone," said Terri Lynn French, who has been competing in the annual grape stomping competition for six years and has been a frequent contestant in the garden and home cooking competitions for a decade. "Now it's all just about the winemakers and chefs of Sonoma County. I think it sucks."
She vowed never to attend the event again. She was particularly bitter about sharp demarcation between attractions for the general public and those able to afford the tasting pavilion tickets.
"It made you feel like an outsider if you didn't have the $50 to go in this building," she said. "It was like being in prison."
Chris Clifton of Santa Rosa was less strident, but he too expressed disappointment, saying he had fond memories of the antique farm equipment exhibits of bygone fairs. He and about 10 friends and relatives attended the fair this year and found little to draw them back.
"It just didn't feel like a harvest fair," he said. "It felt like a wine expo."
Indeed, the name itself might be a problem, Tesconi said. The annual professional wine competition and awards dinner is a popular part of Harvest Fair and it will continue next year, she said, but it may become necessary to change the name to avoid disappointing people who are expecting a traditional harvest fair.


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BETHEL, Alaska (AP) – Former airline workers have been charged with intercepting nearly 350 Apple computers, many of which were bound for school districts in remote areas of western Alaska.
KYUK-AM reports a federal grand jury last week indicted six former employees of Ravn Alaska airline on mail theft and conspiracy charges.
Authorities say the ramp agents at the Anchorage airport stole $489,000 in mailed merchandise from March 2015 to April 2017.
According to court documents, at least 16 computers mailed to the Lower Yukon School District were stolen.
District Superintendent Ron Picou says the missing computers didn’t raise suspicion because mail delays are common. He says the district didn’t lose money, but contacted Apple to have more computers shipped.
Information from: KYUK-AM, http://www.kyuk.org
The post Ex-airline workers charged with stealing computer shipments appeared first on Newstalk 750 – 103.7 KFQD.


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Barclays to Sell U.A.E. Retail Unit to Abu Dhabi IslamicArif Sharif
Barclays Plc agreed to sell its retail banking business in the United Arab Emirates to Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank PJSC for 650 million dirhams ($177 million) as the U.K.’s second-biggest lender by assets shrinks its business.
Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank said it will add 110,000 customers and absorb all of Barclays’ U.A.E. retail staff following the transaction, according to a statement to the local stock market today. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.
The sale comes as Antony Jenkins, who replaced Robert Diamond as Barclays’ chief executive officer in 2012, tries to rein in pay and boost earnings to help restore investor confidence after the lender was fined for manipulating interest rates. The London-based bank plans to eliminate 12,000 jobs to curb costs after its fourth-quarter profit declined.
The decision to sell the U.A.E. retail assets “while not taken lightly, allows us to focus on our businesses in corporate and investment banking and wealth and investment management,” John Vitalo, Barclays’ CEO for the Middle East and North Africa, said in the statement. “These businesses are strong, performing well, and have significant future growth potential.”
Barclays joins Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Britain’s biggest government-owned lender, and Lloyds Banking Group Plc in exiting consumer and commercial-banking business in the U.A.E. as part of cost-cutting plans. HSBC Holdings Plc bought Lloyds operations for $769 million in 2012, while Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC acquired RBS retail banking assets in 2010.
Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, the second-biggest Shariah-compliant lender in the U.A.E., said the deal to buy Barclays’ operations “is a perfect fit” as it expands into the expatriate market segment. The Gulf nation has a population of 8.3 million of which about 80 percent are expatriates.
The U.A.E., the second-biggest Arab economy, has the biggest banking market in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council that also includes the biggest Arab economy Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The country has 51 operating banks, including the local units of Citigroup Inc. and Standard Chartered Plc.
Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank shares fell 0.6 percent to close at 7.03 dirhams today, trimming their advance this year to 54 percent. That compares with a gain of 16 percent for Abu Dhabi’s benchmark ADX General Index.


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Sony unveiled a new virtual reality headset prototype called "Project Morpheus" this week at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, a move that signals massive competition and development of virtual reality for consumers.
According to Forbes, the new prototype
for the PlayStation 4 promises to be at least as big in the video game world as motion controls were with the launch of the Nintendo Wii, Xbox Kinect, and PlayStation Move.
"Nothing delivers a feeling of immersion better than VR," Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Worldwide Studios, said Tuesday at the conference. "VR has been a dream of many gamers since the computer was invented. Many of us at PlayStation have dreamed of VR and what it could mean to the gaming community."
Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll
The announcement comes roughly two years after the demonstration of the very similar "Oculus Rift" virtual reality headset at the E3 conference. The company, Oculus VR, has raised over $93 million to develop a consumer version of their product
, which is due out in 2014 or 2015.
Digital video game distributor Valve Corporation is also said to be working on their own headset that "might be better than the 'Oculus Rift,'" according to The Verge
Getting down to the specs, the Morpheus headset employs a 1080p LCD screen, gives users a 90 degree field of vision, and will integrate with the PlayStation Camera for tracking and PlayStation Move for motion control. It also has stereoscopic sound to immerse gamers in whatever worlds developers create.
Richard Marks of Sony Magic Lab joined Yoshida on stage to assist in the presentation, identifying six areas Sony is working on in creating the perfect VR experience: sight, sound, tracking, control, ease of use, and content.
"The thing that makes VR special is really the feeling of being in another place . . . there's no way to explain it to you that will make sense, but it's that feeling of presence," he said. "VR is going to be pervasive, and what I mean by that is it's going to be used for all sorts of things you might not think it would be used for."
Editor's Note: ObamaCare Is Here. Are You Prepared?
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Prime US digital asset change Coinbase has efficiently registered as a cryptocurrency change and custodian pockets supplier with the Financial institution of Spain.
Coinbase says in a brand new announcement that the registration will let the corporate supply its full scope of merchandise to retail and institutional customers in Spain inside regulation.
Spanish customers will now have the ability to entry Coinbase’s custody companies, purchase and promote digital property utilizing fiat foreign money and commerce crypto towards different crypto, as per the announcement.
Nana Murugesan, vice chairman of worldwide and enterprise improvement at Coinbase, says coordinating with regulators exterior the US is a part of the corporate’s most important technique.
“Many of the world is stepping as much as the plate and offering readability and steering for the crypto business. Within the final yr, alone we have now obtained VASP (digital asset service supplier) registrations in Italy, Eire, and the Netherlands, in addition to in-principle approval and launching in Singapore, launching in Brazil, and, most just lately, launching in Canada. Working with regulators in these jurisdictions is a basic step in our technique to develop internationally and proceed our momentum.”
Whereas Coinbase seems to be rising in different components of the globe, the crypto change is combating for regulatory readability within the US. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong just lately stated that crypto corporations based mostly within the US are going through an “unfair” regulatory atmosphere.
In response to Armstrong, sure members of the federal government are making it troublesome for the crypto business to thrive.
“It seems this yr, we’ve needed to flip our consideration in fact to the coverage aspect as lots of you had as effectively. It’s a extremely unfair atmosphere that we’re in proper now the place each startup within the area is simply getting hit with a subpoena [or] a Wells discover.
There’s a extremely concerted, targeted effort proper now to attempt to curtail and kill this business. Particularly, I believe the 2 actors I’ve seen which can be most liable for which can be most likely the SEC (U.S. Securities and Trade Fee) Chair Gary Gensler and [Senator] Elizabeth Warren.”
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As part of an initiative to green its fleet, Verizon purchased 576 Chevrolet Silverado Hybrids, the world’s only two-mode hybrid pickup. The Silverado’s two-mode hybrid system blends an internal combustion engine with battery-powered electric motors to offer customers the advanced technology needed to reduce emissions and fuel consumption.
“When Verizon first approached us about environmentally friendly and fuel-efficient vehicles for their urban drivers, we knew the Silverado Hybrid was the perfect fit because of its outstanding city and highway MPG ratings,” said Brian Small, GM Fleet and Commercial Operation general manager. “Immediately the team went to work to meet Verizon’s ambitious July delivery deadline.”
The 2010 Silverado Hybrid is a full-size, fully capable, V8-powered truck that delivers up to a 40 percent improvement in city fuel economy. By applying GM's unique two-mode hybrid technology, the Silverado Hybrid provides fuel efficiency with an EPA estimated 21 MPG city and 22 MPG highway, the best fuel economy of any full-size pickup. At 21 MPG city, it delivers the city fuel economy a 4-cylinder sedan.
GM's two-mode system maintains the truck’s dependability, performance and utility, while significantly improving fuel efficiency. GM’s two-mode hybrid technology system not only enables the Silverado to launch and drive up to 30 mph on electricity alone, it allows the Vortec 6.0L V-8 engine to operate in its more economical V-4 mode for longer periods. This technology is the only hybrid system capable of being used in full-size trucks, which further emphasizes Chevrolet's full-size truck leadership.


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It may not be the yellow pages, but the economic development commission's updated business directory lets the browser's fingers do the walking.
The directory, printed in red and black on 11-by-17-inch glossy paper, was mailed to residents Saturday. Several hundred additional copies are available at the development office, the town clerk's office or the Portland library.
The directory is broken down into 36 categories. Commission member Linda Manchester compiled the original list in 1995 and has spent the last few months updating phone numbers and addresses.
The 1997 version includes new categories for optometry and electronics as well as 33 new business listings. There are a total of 383 businesses listed along with 46 non-profit and civic organizations.
"It's been a big hit with a lot of people," Manchester said. "It's referred to a lot and provides a guide to Portland businesses. We are hoping to get people to think of Portland businesses first. It gives residents a sampling of what the town has to offer."
Manchester said she also sends the directory to businesses that might be looking at Portland as a new home.
"It's a great guide," First Selectman Edward L. Kalinowski said Monday. "People don't realize how many and the variety of businesses we have in town. We support the commission and their efforts to draw businesses to town 100 percent."


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INDONESIA: Aeon to launch Ministop in Indonesia
Aeon has signed an accord with PT Bahagia Niaga Lestari for the roll-out of the Ministop stores
Japanese retailer Aeon has announced plans to launch its Ministop convenience store network in Indonesia.
Aeon has signed an accord with PT Bahagia Niaga Lestari, a local retail unit of Udinda Co, to enable the roll-out of the stores, it said last week.
Under the contract, the first store will open in Jakarta by the end of February 2013, and Aeon estimates this will reach around 300 stores by February 2018.
Aeon hopes that the move will enable it to capitalise on the growth of the middle class and urbanisation in the market. The company predicted the number of middle income consumers in Asian countries will double to about 2bn by 2020 and the number of people living in urban areas to grow by 400m to 2.2bn in a decade.
The Ministop store format will offer products that meet local preferences, the retailer said.
Aeon's Ministop convenience chain currently operates in China, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines. Ministop has 2,124 stores in Japan.
French retail giant Carrefour has denied reports it is in talks with Hong Kong-based China Resources Enterprise about a potential partnership deal in the Chinese retail sector....
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