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Bundles highlight goods made in Madison Heights
Boxes filled with local product went as far as the White House
Posted February 22, 2013
MADISON HEIGHTS — Public servants at the local, county, state and national levels received boxes earlier this year filled with a variety of goods, representing the diverse array of businesses that form the backbone of Madison Heights.
Included in Madison Heights’ economic engine are industrial companies in the automotive, defense, aerospace and medical fields; established commercial businesses and small upstarts; and a wealth of restaurants offering a range of ethnic cuisines.
The boxes represent a portion of this, with product samples or branded merchandise representing different businesses. About a dozen such boxes were assembled at the end of last year and distributed last month; the boxes themselves were donated by local furniture company Primeway Inc.
The boxes went to officials including the Madison Heights City Council and Mayor Edward Swanson, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, Gov. Rick Snyder and all elected officials representing Madison Heights, including congressional delegates Sander and Carl Levin.
“And Sander Levin and his staff agreed to take one basket down to Washington, D.C., and deliver it personally to the president’s office, so one went to Obama for the inauguration,” said Linda Williams, the city’s economic development coordinator.
Among the items in the boxes were:
• branded hats from Navistar Defense, a military contractor creating Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles for U.S. soldiers overseas;
• professional-grade diamond-based sanding sponges from Daima Screen, featuring cutting-edge tech that lasts 50 times longer than regular sandpaper;
• branded merchandise from Henkel Corp., as well as Dial soap and other items from their consumables division;
• themed decals and free passes to Modern Skate Park, the third largest indoor skate park in the country, located on the border of Madison Heights and Royal Oak;
• Sweet ‘n Salty Mix, a signature product of Kar’s Nuts, and Wholesome Medley, a signature product of Second Nature, a division of Kar’s Nuts;
• a gift certificate and sticker for Moosejaw, a trendy clothing company headquartered in Madison Heights;
• branded merchandise from St. John Hospital Macomb-Oakland, the single largest employer in Madison Heights;
• special filtered water bottles from Power Bottle USA;
• an assortment of fresh-baked goods from Natalie’s Bakery, as well as cherry walnut bread and apple cinnamon bread, the signature products of Knickerbocker Bakery;
• a box representing Milton’s Chili;
• nuts and bolts, manufactured by Shannon Precision;
• gears, manufactured by Ka-Wood Gear & Machine;
• branded aluminum foil, made by Kasper Machine;
• railroad component samples, made by S&K Steel; and
• the Primeway boxes were branded by Brand-Burst, a division of Argon Tool.
“It initially began as a holiday gift for our elected officials, not only as a thank-you, but also as a nice PR marketing piece to place Madison Heights on the map, regarding products from businesses we are proud to have headquartered here,” Williams said. “It’s a very unique and diverse group of businesses that call Madison Heights home.”
Irene Spanos, director of economic development and community affairs for Oakland County, delivered one of the boxes to the county executive.
“(Patterson) was very appreciative for receiving the basket,” Spanos said in an email. “He shared the basket of goodies with everyone in (the department).
“I think it was a great idea,” she added. “We sometimes forget about the diversity of businesses that exist in Madison Heights and throughout Oakland County, from automotive to chili manufacturing to high-end outdoors clothes.”
Williams said the variety of businesses is a huge strength.
“They remain a cornerstone of our local economy, as well as the outstanding schools, a strong sense of community, and a good quality of life,” Williams said. “All of this equates to a vibrant and diverse pro-business community.”
About the author
Staff Writer Andy Kozlowski covers Madison Heights, Hazel Park, Madison District Public Schools, Lamphere Public Schools and Hazel Park Public Schools for the Madison-Park News.
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Harrah's undergoing name change
Harrah's Entertainment Inc. may soon be known as Caesars Entertainment Corporation if the company board of director's plan is approved.
Harrah's announced today its board had approved the name change and it is now pending regulatory approval.
"Adoption of the name Caesars Entertainment Corporation will provide our company with greater prestige and help attract strategic business partners as we pursue expansion opportunities in new jurisdictions," said Gary Loveman, Harrah's chairman, president and CEO.
"The change also reflects our evolution into a full-service entertainment company that offers a rich range of gaming and non-gaming amenities to our guests."
According to a Harrah's press release, the name change is designed to capitalize on the high international name recognition enjoyed by the Caesars brand and to appeal to customers attracted by its connotation of opulent luxury and world-renowned entertainment, dining and shopping options.
Harrah's owns and operates several casino brands including Harrah's, Harveys, Caesars, Paris, Bally's, Flamingo, Rio and more.
In its announcement, the company said Harrah's will continue to be one of its three primary casino brands, along with Caesars and Horseshoe. The name change also won't alter the company's culture or its adherence to a Code of Commitments that governs its relationship with employees, customers and communities.
"Our employees will remain dedicated to the innovation, customer-service excellence and corporate citizenship that have been hallmarks of our company for decades," Loveman said. "But this re-branding of the corporate name can open exciting new opportunities for us in the future."
Harrah's was created in Reno, Nev., more than 70 years ago when Bill Harrah opened up a bingo parlor. It has since grown to be the world's largest provider of branded casino entertainment.
The company now owns and manages casinos on four continents and operates the annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) at the Rio in Las Vegas.

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Japan's SoftBank to offer Apple's 3G iPhone in JapanSoftBank Mobile Corp., Japan's fastest growing mobile operator, announced Wednesday that it has signed an agreement with Apple to offer the iPhone to its customers later this year.
Given that the carrier operates only 2G and 3G networks, the announcement further supports expectations that Apple is on the verge of introducing a new version of its handset built to run on so-called 3G networks.
SoftBank Mobile Corp, Japan's No. 3 wireless operator, recently beat all of its peers in annual net mobile subscriber growth for fiscal 2007, adding 2,676,500 subscribers thanks to its White Plan featuring lower fees.
As of April, SoftBank maintained a combined subscriber base of 18,779,100, which included 14,453,100 customers on its 3G network and 4,326,000 on its 2G network.
Talks between Apple and the carrier date back nearly two years to May of 2006 when rumors had the two companies collaborating on the then unreleased iPhone.
Apple had also been in talks with NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile wireless carrier, though an agreement between the two has not been announced.
On Topic: iPhone
- Samsung responds to iPhone 6 with premium metal & glass Galaxy S6, counters Apple Pay with Samsung Pay
- Apple touts iPhone 6 as world's most popular camera in showcase of extraordinary user photos
- Sources: Apple's 2015 'iPhone 6s' models to gain Force Touch but no dual-camera system
- Firehouse Subs rolls out support for Apple Pay to over 800 locations nationwide
- Apple's iPhone commands record high 89% of smartphone profits while Android plummets to record low


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Walmart is being threatened by grocery stores selling better goods as well as online powerhouse Amazon as positive economic indicators appear.
The Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh has spurred American retailer J. C. Penney Company to action.
Target provides a variety of discounted general merchandise through its popular retail stores. The stock has recently broken above a long-term resistance level and is now consolidating at all-time high price levels.
Costco provides essential products and services to a growing audience looking for efficient shopping trips and relatively inexpensive products. The stock has surged higher over the last few years and is now trading at all-time high prices...
Best Buy provides highly demanded electronic products and services to consumers and growing companies worldwide. The stock is seeing an incredible bounce after a few years of significant selling pressure.
Wal-Mart announced Tuesday that it will withhold from signing the five-year group agreement on Bangladesh, instead opting to draft its own plan.
Since the deadly Bangladesh factory collapse, U.S. and European retail companies that source their clothing from factories in the subcontinental nation have been under increased pressure to help enforce safer work conditions.
Here are some hot stocks seeing market movement today...
Wal-Mart calls on the Bangladesh government to close one of its production factories and inspect another after dangerous working conditions have been reported.
Though Walmart reclaimed the title on the Fortune 500 list, the company continues to get bad press from regulators, watchdog groups and its own employees...
Wal-Mart provides a wide range of discount products and services to consumers and businesses across the globe. The stock broke above a long-term price range and has trended higher since then.
After a series of food scandals, Wal-Mart releases a plan that will cost them $16.3 million to improve food-safety practices in China.
Rumors that Wal-Mart's CEO Mike Duke will soon step down spark speculation over who will be chosen to succeed him and inherit Wal-Mart's problems.
Nokia's annual shareholder meeting in Helsinki, Finland, went anything other than smoothly, as shareholders of the Finnish tech company made their discontent known...
Here are some hot stocks seeing market action today...


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GPU database startup SQream raises $26.4 million Series B funding led by Alibaba Group
Back in February, we reported about Alibaba partnering with big data GPU database startup SQream to deliver cloud database in China. Now Alibaba is betting big on the company with new funding. Yesterday, the Tel Aviv, Israel-based GPU database developer SQream announced that it has raised a $24.6-million strategic Series B funding to cement SQream’s position as the leading GPU database of choice for enabling enterprises to maximize and leverage their big data analytics. The latest funding is led by Alibaba Group with participation from existing and new investors including Hanaco Venture Capital, Sistema.vc, World Trade Ventures, Paradiso Ventures, Glory Ventures, and Silvertech Ventures.
Founded in 2010 by Ami Gal, Kostya Varakin and Razi Shoshani, SQream Technologies delivers the most flexible database for huge dataset analytics. Global enterprises use SQream DB to analyze more data than ever before. SQream DB delivers business intelligence acceleration for smart, informed, near real-time time decision making based on large data sets, in the age of immense amounts of data.
SQream DB, a powerful SQL analytical database, enables companies to analyze up to 20 times more data, up to 100 times faster, at as little as 10% of the cost and administration. SQream DB harnesses the power of thousands of parallel processing cores in NVIDIA GPUs. The solution allows users to easily ingest, store and analyze tens to hundreds of terabytes of data and more with significantly reduced infrastructure and manpower resources. The result is unparalleled power and flexibility to explore and analyze massive amounts of data. The latest investment reinforces the rising challenge facing enterprises to take full advantage of rapidly growing data stores.
“SQream is uniquely positioned to provide enterprises with the solution they require to lower the barrier for accessing and analyzing rapidly growing, large-scale data stores in the cloud. We are pleased to expand our relationship with SQream, and work together to accelerate the growth of the cloud industry,” said Chaoqun Zhan, Director of Alibaba Database Business.
This strategic investment deepens the relationship between Alibaba Cloud and SQream. In February, the companies announced a collaboration agreement to provide Alibaba Cloud’s customers with a cost effective way to set up, access and analyze data in the cloud, enabling more comprehensive analytics and previously unobtainable business intelligence.
“We are very gratified with the vote of confidence we have received from this round’s lead investor, Alibaba Group, and our other key investors,” said Ami Gal, CEO and Co-founder of SQream. “The financing enables us to accelerate technological integration with ecosystem partners, and to grow our global sales and marketing team as we help enterprises worldwide meet the challenges of accessing and analyzing data from exponentially growing massive data stores.”
SQream develops and markets SQream DB, a GPU database designed to enable unparalleled business intelligence from massive data stores. Global enterprises use SQream DB to analyze more data than ever before, while achieving improved performance, reduced footprint, significant cost savings and the ability to scale the amount of data they analyze to hundreds of terabytes and more. SQream DB is available both on premise and in the cloud.


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CLOUD DATA MANAGEMENT
Airtel and Google Cloud partner to boost collaboration, digital transformation for SMBs
Airtel will offer G Suite to small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) in India as part of its integrated ICT portfolio.
The UPI effect: Why Indian banks need to up their cloud game in 2020
It is the banks that have to invariably do the heavy lifting for UPI tra...
Lifesciences delivers; BFSI, retail drag TCS' growth in Q3: Key takeaways
TCS logged Rs 8,118 cr profit against Rs 8,105 cr net reported for ...
Sterlite Technologies to continue to look for buyout targets
Anupam Jindal, chief financial officer at Sterlite Technologies, said the company would continue to look at inorganic growth opportunities that allow it to expand its customer offerings or give it access to new customers.
Wipro announces $150 million second venture fund
Buoyed by the success of its first $100 million fund launched in 2015, Wipro Ventures would continue to invest in early to mid-stage companies building innovative enterprise software solutions across key areas, including cybersecurity, application development, analytics, cloud infrastructure, test automation, and artificial intelligence, said the company.
TCS Q3 results preview: Here are key things to watch out for
Analysts tracking the IT major expect profit growth in the range of -2 per cent to 2 per cent.
Techchefs to expand to US, Singapore
Singapore is rated as the second-best country to conduct business globally and as one of the most competitive places to do business, along with being a top startup hub, which is why the company was setting up an office there.
VMware continues to see India as a strategic market: VMWare COO
Cloud computing and virtualization software company, VMWare had made a $2 billion investment in its Indian arm in 2018, which employs close to 6000 people. On the recent consultation paper on cloud services introduced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, it was proposed that cloud-focussed companies would become members of a cloud industry body.
Why programmers & businesses are so kicked about Kubernetes
Kubernetes, a five-year-old open source project started by Google and currently owned by the Linux subsidiary CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation), is one such technology. Some believe it will become the operating system of the cloud.
Wheebox hires Bishnu Nepak as chief revenue officer
Prior to Microsoft, Bishnu was the director for Sales at Gartner India driving large enterprise and government business. According to a release shared by the company, he will drive the enterprise and education business verticals along with growth initiatives for Wheebox Talent Assessments.
SOAR is helping companies reduce cost up to 30%: Inderjit Bains, Oracle
"Most customers today understand that there is a lot of value in moving to cloud and adopting the new practices. So, the challenges include helping the customer see how to do business in a new way and leveraging technology to enable the transformation."
Smartphones done, cars next: Tech giants want to beat slowdown, and transform vehicles into money-making machines
The two industries have converged on the idea of cars providing services and features delivered 'over the air'.
Chinese internet firms falling behind on renewable energy goals - Greenpeace
While some of China's tech firms are procuring clean energy through rooftop solar installations or via a pilot green power certificate scheme, most have failed to match the commitments made by overseas rivals.
Only big social media companies may face tougher norms
TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube will be impacted as the new rule means tougher norms for policing online content.
How IIT-B makes students ready to hit ground running
The curriculum is reset periodically to include lessons in newest technologies. While existing courses on AI, ML and natural language processing have undergone revisions to introduce new methods of deep learning, courses in cloud computing were introduced a few years ago.
Copyright © 2020 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reserved. For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service


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To have and to fold
Ben Laurance meets Andrew Ritchie, the Brompton founder who has created a manufacturing rarity – a flourishing British engineering firm that exports 60 per cent of what it makes
You see them nestling behind seats on trains. You see them behind desks in offices across the capital. Above all, you see them on the roads, piloted through the traffic by commuters on their way to work.
These are bicycles, but not ordinary ones. Their cross bars are strikingly low, their wheels strikingly small. Their riders appear to be perched above, rather than simply on their machines.
These are Bromptons, the product of a man who freely admits that for the past three decades he has been obsessed with one thing — making the best, most portable, most efficient folding bike on the planet. When folded, a Brompton can be secreted behind a sofa or carried up an escalator. Unfolding it takes around 15 seconds: it’s then ready to ride.
And for Andrew Ritchie, the self-confessed obsessive who invented the Brompton, three decades of hard slog have paid off: accounts just filed at Companies House show that in the year to this March, profits doubled.
No, Brompton is not a big operation. Sales last year were £3.7m, and pre-tax surplus was £415,000. It employs fewer than 50 people. But it is a rarity — a British engineering company that has survived, prospered and expanded.
While so much of British manufacturing has been wiped out or exported jobs to low-cost countries in the Far East or eastern Europe, Brompton has stayed put and done well — in west London.
Remember Raleigh? In its heyday its Nottingham factory churned out more than a million bikes a year. Now, all Raleigh bikes are made overseas. British bike production on a scale such as this is a thing of the past.
Only two companies remain that can genuinely claim to produce serious numbers of bikes in Britain. One is Pashley, based in Stratford-upon-Avon. It is best known for making Royal Mail delivery bikes — heavy and certainly not speedy but with a huge load-carrying capacity and tough as nails. The second is Brompton, which will this year turn out around 14,000 folders, of which 60 per cent will be exported.
And the story of Brompton — and Andrew Ritchie — is above all one of sheer dogged persistence. Now, the company is based in a modern factory in Brentford, within a stone’s throw of the M4, where riding a bike would be illegal and where no sane cyclist would want to venture.
Ritchie started making bikes in the bedroom of his flat overlooking the Brompton Oratory — hence the name. It was, in his words, “a knife and fork business”.
He had read engineering at Cambridge, and spent some time working for Elliott Automation — later to become part of Marconi — and as a computer programmer. But Ritchie fancied working for himself and decided there must be money in selling potted plants. He was wrong.
“Selling potted plants door to door didn’t work out, but it did lead to a lot of interest in people having their gardens done, so we ended up doing indoor displays, maintaining gardens and doing landscaping,” recalls Ritchie.
“I rather lost interest, particularly when I met a guy called Bill Ingram, who was trying to lift a bike firm called Bickerton out of its garage existence into being a rather larger business.”
For cycling aficionados, the Bickerton bike marked a design milestone. It folded, it was light and it was genuinely portable. The trouble was that it was weird to ride. Cyclists used to conventional bikes complained that the Bickerton felt as if it was held together with elastic bands.
“I had always thought that a portable bike was a good idea, but never did anything about it because I was engaged with my plant business,” says Ritchie. “Then along comes this guy with something real, and I thought it left quite a lot wanting.”
After the meeting with Ingram, Ritchie started doodling. The design that was to become the Brompton started to take shape. “I managed to persuade some friends to part with £100 each — 10 of them, so £1,000, which in those days was obviously worth quite a lot more than now, but still a pretty meagre sum — to make a prototype,” remembers Ritchie.
A year later, prototype number one appeared : “It was rideable and it worked, but it is something I’m deeply ashamed of as a piece of engineering.”
Prototypes numbers two and three followed. “With those, around 1978, I hawked the idea round to the Raleighs and the Black and Deckers and one or two other would-be players,” he says. The hope was to strike a licensing deal. “We got some pretty serous interest, but it was nibbles, not bites. I was rather frustrated. I was a young chap; I thought this was a good idea.”
Most people would have given up. Ritchie didn’t. And significantly, he now reflects that his failure to tie up a deal with a big manufacturer may have actually been Brompton’s salvation: “In a way, I’m glad we didn’t get a licensing deal with Raleigh. I’m not sure the business would have survived. The bike probably would have been dumbed down and cheapened and it wouldn’t have flown.”
Ritchie tried to raise money from venture capitalists, and nearly succeeded in securing backing from ICFC, which eventually became 3i. Again, he failed, and again, he reflects that, in the long run, that failure was probably a good thing: “If the ICFC idea had come off, they would have been breathing down my neck. They would have been saying ‘Come on, you’ve got to get it on the market.’ And I would have been saying ‘Hang on, this isn’t right, that isn’t right’. To launch things when they’re not right is a disaster because you spend your time sorting out the mess. Now we send things all over the world, we’re petrified about things going wrong. Anything that might cause trouble miles away is simply untenable.”
So in 1980, Ritchie tried another tack. He persuaded 30 people to order a bike and pay in advance — “£250 a pop, which was a lot of money in those days”. The bikes were built — plus a further 20, which he sold straight away.
Over two years, Ritchie made a further 500. But the business did no more than break even, and at the end of 1982, production ceased.
At that stage, Brompton could have died. But encouraged by the late Julian Vereker, founder of Salisbury-based hi-fi maker Naim, Ritchie returned to his project in 1986, raised £60,000 in equity plus a further £50,000 in overdrafts, and finally got production proper off the ground in a railway arch in Brentford in 1988.
Brompton expanded into a second railway arch, then moved to Chiswick, and finally to its current premises. At the last count, it had made around 100,000 bikes.
By why has Brompton not joined the exodus of manufacturing from Britain in search of lower costs? “We are making things against the grain — in Britain, and worse still in west London, which is one of the more expensive places,” says Ritchie. “But I live here, and there are some bright people you can get hold of in London. Rents are more expensive and rates are more expensive, but that’s only a small part of the equation. If we were in a commodity market, it would matter more. There are so many features where the Brompton is different from others. We deliver value for money.”
Now aged 58, he remains obsessed. “I didn’t build the bike purely from an engineering fascination. I thought there was a need. I thought this was a useful thing to own. It does give you extraordinary freedom. In an ideal world, it should be like a magic carpet you can stuff in your handbag, but it has got to be rideable.”
Brompton continues to expand. Ritchie reckons the company could grow by round 20 or even 25 per cent a year. But he is looking to take a more back seat role. “I want to work 30 or 40 hours a week rather than twice that,” he says.
And in the meantime, every week, 300 more of Andrew Ritchie’s metal magic carpets emerge from Brompton’s Brentford factory to be tucked beneath desks, secreted behind train seats and ridden through the commuter traffic.


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Pebble launched a new watch called Pebble Time on Kickstarter this morning raising $1 million in 49 minutes, the fastest Kickstarter project to get to a million ever. The watch features a color e-ink screen, a microphone and a new interface called Timeline that shows information in chronological order rather than in an app interface. Kickstarter backers get a discount and should start receiving watches in May. The rest will pay $199 at retail a few months later.
Microsoft launched a new OneDrive API on GitHub according to VentureBeat. The new API works across Windows, Android, iOS and the web and improves on both speed and functionality. Feature highlights include the ability to resume upload files of up to 10GB, customizable thumbnail images for files, and ability to keep large sets of files synced with minimal calls.
GigaOM reports that Steve Perlman’s Artemis Networks is building a network using its pCell technology to cover most of San Francisco with unlimited LTE data and voice using Dish Network’s spectrum. The ultimate goal is to sell the technology to carriers. To that end, Artemis will sell the Artemis I Hub to let carriers test pCells in their own networks. Artemis is also releasing a detailed white paper this week to answer questions about how it has made the tech work. For San Francisco’s test, Artemis needs core infrastructure an MVNO agreement and FCC approval to be able to sell SIM cards by Fall.
TechCrunch reports that voice and SMS company Twilio has acquired two factor authentication company Authy. About 6,000 sites use Authy. Nothing will change for Authy users for the moment. Twilio users will soon have an easy way to add two-factor authentication to their Twilio-powered services.
It’s a bad day for people who want to post nude pictures of other people. Google announced that starting March 23 users of its blogger service will not be allowed to share images and video that are sexually explicit or show graphic nudity. Such blogs will be made private so only trhe admins can see them. Exceptions will be made for material that “offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary or scientific contexts.” Meanwhile Engadget reports Reddit’s latest security policy prohibits posting photos or videos of naked people or people having sex without their consent.
OMG Chrome reports Google’s Renee Niemi announced that a second generation Chromebook Pixel will go on sale “soon,” but that Google would only make a small number of them. The Pixel laptop is aimed primarily at developers, and won’t be marketed to regular consumers. The laptop will reportedly keep the 12.85-inch screen, feature reversible ‘Type-C’ USB ports, and may be the first device to ship with Chromium’s new “Freon” pseudo-display server replacement.
The Verge passes along The Hill report that FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn would like to see some adjustments made to Comissioner Wheeler’s proposal for Open Internet Rules. Apparently Clyburn takes issue with the provision that could allow Title II regulation to be applied to interconnection agreements between ISP’s and content providers like Netflix. Clyburn would prefre the regulation be limited to only the explicitly mentioned relationship between consumers and ISPs.
ReCode reports Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz took to Reddit for Ask Me Anything. It did not mean he would answer. Among the teases about his mysterious product Abovitz said Magic Leap would mean the world would no longer need physical screens, laptops, smartphones or even smartwatches. He also indicated steroscopic solutions to VR like Oculus and Project Morpheus may be unsafe. He also said Magic Leap hopes to get prototypes in developers’ hands this year.
News From You:
djsekani sent us this story from USA today about the US’s 9-1-1 emergency network’s problem reliably locating calls that come from cell phone. According to the story 911’s chance of getting a fix on your location ranges as low as 10% to as high as 95%. The FCC is working in conjunction with the 4 largest cellphone carriers to address the issue including new rules for carriers to transmit location data, with deadlines for delivery of location data for 40% of cellphone calls by 2017 and 80% by 2021. The problem is that the 911 system relies on the carrier to locate the phone while apps like Google and Facebook use a phone’s GPS.
starfuryzeta wants you to know that the next Uber may be…Waffle House? The Verge reports that the US diner chain is partnering with a company called Roadie, that lets travelers earn money by delivering packages. Users can now meet at the company’s 1750 diners across the US. Drivers making deliveries will get a free waffle and drink.
habichuelacondule sent us the Reuters report that The National Association of African-American Owned Media filed a $20 billion lawsuit Friday in Los Angeles against Comcast and Time Warner Cable for allegedly discriminating against African American-owned media and paying advocates from the African-American community to prevent them from interfering. The same group filed a $10 billion lawsuit in December against AT&T Inc and DirecTV. Both suits come in relation to proposed mergers.
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Pick of the Day: Ninite
It’s a good time to remind people that it is safer to update you JAVA and other free apps using http://ninite.com instead of SOME of the native update programs. Notably the JAVA updater installs adware and or toolbar software.
Steve in the OC
Wednesday’s guest: Chris Ashley, co-host of the SMR podcast


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A VinFast VF8 electrical automotive on show in a showroom.
Yu Ruidong | China Information Service | Getty Photos
It has been a problem for Vietnamese electrical automobile maker VinFast to crack the U.S. market amid powerful competitors and softening demand.
VinFast lower month-to-month lease costs for its first U.S. patrons to $399, down from $599 per 30 days. American rivals like Tesla slashed costs to draw extra clients and drive gross sales, whereas Lucid forecast lower-than-expected 2023 manufacturing after orders dropped.
associated investing information
However VinFast CEO stays optimistic on the long-term demand for EVs.
“I feel everybody agrees that the entire business or the entire world is shifting from inside combustion engine to EVs,” CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy mentioned on CNBC’s “Squawk Field Asia” on Tuesday.
“And if you happen to take that view, and if you happen to have a look at the laws in all totally different international locations and and picture what number of electrical autos must be on the street within the coming years, within the coming decade, there’s quite a lot of room for lots of gamers out there,” mentioned Le.
She added that VinFast is coming into the market “with clear approaches” reminiscent of providing premium high quality and accessibility for the mass market with out reducing corners in cybersecurity and practical security.
“We nonetheless have loads to show. It is loads forward of us,” Le mentioned.
Software program issues delayed deliveries of VinFast’s first batch of automobiles to U.S. patrons from December 2022 till March 2023. However on March 1, solely 45 SUVs arrived out of 999 EVs that had been alleged to be delivered.
VinFast automobiles are additionally at the moment ineligible for the $7,500 tax credit score within the U.S. as a result of they don’t seem to be made within the U.S., however are made in Vietnam — which is able to impression their U.S. gross sales.
“After all, in the long term, we are also pushing for the crops in North Carolina and to ensure that sooner or later, our autos can be certified for tax advantages underneath the IRA,” mentioned Le.
Le beforehand advised CNBC that the agency is within the ultimate levels of acquiring permits for its manufacturing plant in North Carolina and that the plant is on observe to start manufacturing in 2024.
Whereas the corporate filed for an preliminary public providing in December, it has not but launched its roadshow.
“For us, it isn’t about elevating monies but it surely’s loads about making the corporate extra worldwide and different company functions and the market has been difficult as ,” mentioned Le.
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Described by Secret Tunnel Entertainment as “Hotline Miami meets WarioWare”, Shapes of Gray is set to arrive on the North American Wii U eShop on 21st May.
As previously noted, Shapes of Gray is an aesthetically simple 2D title that takes players through 10-second battles within small game environments.
Originally released on PC last year, the remake for Wii U will receive new levels, boss battles, an arcade mode with use of the GamePad and an extended country soundtrack by indie-punktronic, AndrewNee.
Unfortunately a European launch won’t be happening any time soon according to the developer.
Take a look at the latest trailer below, and if you live in North America, let us know in the comments if you’ll consider this Wii U eShop title on release.


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Our Commitment to Veteran-Owned Small Businesses
Veterans Day reminds us to acknowledge the sacrifices made by our service members and their continuing impact on the world, especially veterans in small businesses. OnDeck, Enova’s SMB lending business, is proud to empower veteran-owned small businesses across the country with simple access to working capital when they need it. November 2022 U.S. Census data shows that about 5.6% of employer businesses are veteran-owned, while a 2023 OnDeck survey shows that nearly 8% of OnDeck customers are veteran-owned businesses. Veterans are known for being direct. OnDeck’s technology-powered approach to lending, accessible through mobile phones, uses business cash flows to help directly underwrite loans and lines of credit for growing businesses.
The Tenacity of Veteran Entrepreneurs. Veterans possess unique skill sets that allow them to excel in entrepreneurship. The expertise honed on the battlefield—leadership, discipline and adaptability—translate seamlessly into the business arena. It’s no surprise that approximately 2.52 million U.S. businesses are veteran-owned, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration – and 99.9% of them are small businesses. These enterprises bolster the economy, create jobs, and drive innovation, employing more than 5 million people in the U.S.
Challenges on the Home Front. After serving in the military, adjusting to civilian life can be a daunting task. Starting a business, on top of that, can be an even greater challenge.
Securing capital, understanding the civilian market and navigating the regulatory environment are crucial to the success of small businesses. Working with a financial services company that understands the significance of quick, reliable funding for small businesses can be a huge difference-maker.
In it for the Long Haul. Our commitment to veteran-owned small businesses isn’t limited to lending. We advocate for policies that benefit veteran entrepreneurs and partner with organizations dedicated to their success, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. We’re in it for the long haul, continually looking for ways to enhance our support for those who have served our country.
Success Stories. The success stories of the veteran-owned businesses we have supported reflect our commitment to this belief. From tech startups to family-owned restaurants, each business’ success underscores the importance of combining the right goal and vision with tools and opportunities to bring that vision to life.
Investing in businesses owned by brave veterans who have served our country, supports them, and invests in their future and the future of their families as they build successful businesses and contribute to their communities.
On Veterans Day and beyond, let us show our appreciation by supporting the small businesses owned by our veterans.


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A 2017 study analyzed 84 CBD extracts from various brands and found that only 31 percent of them contained the amount listed on the packaging.
“It’s expensive for manufacturers to ensure the quality of their products,” explains Mike T. Nelson, Ph.D., a Minneapolis-based exercise physiologist who studies CBD. If they find a batch has too much THC (the federal threshold for THC content in products is 0.3 percent) or too little CBD, many companies will opt to push the items to market to avoid tossing thousands of dollars’ worth of merch.
Discrepancies between stated and actual contents aren’t the only problem. “Cannabis is a bioaccumulator, which means it absorbs whatever is present in the surrounding soil,” adds Laura Lagano, RD, co-founder of the Holistic Cannabis Academy health practitioner training program in Boulder. If your CBD oil came from plants grown in low-quality dirt, it could contain harmful toxins from pesticides and heavy metals that have long-term health effects.
The bottom line:
Before choosing a CBD product, check the brand's website to make sure the products are tested by third parties (which means they’re screened for CBD, THC, and soil-derived contaminants) and in several batches (which confirms multiple samples were evaluated for quality).


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FDA tests 147 CBD products to see what’s real: 2020
The FDA has tested 147 CBD products. Preliminary results were published in a letter to congress. Watch the video above for the full scoop.
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Author: Jeremy Orozco
Jeremy is a former firefighter turned health writer. He is a co-founder of CBD Examine and migrainekey.com, where he pioneered CBD and migraine research. His latest book, Hemp for Migraine, was the largest collection of peer-reviewed research relating to CBD, cannabinoids, and migraine relief.


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Discussion Starter · #1 ·
New York Auto Show: 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek Ups the Outdoorsy Image - Forbes.com
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhenr...-subaru-xv-crosstrek-ups-the-outdoorsy-image/Subaru announced at the New York International Auto Show it will add a more SUV-like version of the Impreza model, called the 2013 Suburu XV Crosstrek, with sales starting this fall.
The 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek is basically a Subaru Impreza which has been raised to create more ground clearance, and with a few exterior styling changes around the front and rear bumpers, and the grille. Sticker prices are expected to start around $25,000.
“This will bring us a new customer mindset,” said Tom Doll, executive vice president and COO of Subaru of America Inc., the U.S. sales and marketing subsidiary, Cherry Hill, N.J. Its parent company is Japan-based Fuji Heavy Industries.
Subaru’s customers like its outdoorsy image. Even if they don’t always do much in the great outdoors, they like to know they could if they wanted. The 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek is aimed at the more-outdoorsy end of the spectrum.
In other world markets, the 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek is called simply the Subaru XV. The “Crosstrek” was added for the U.S. market. The underlying Impreza model was totally redesigned last year for the 2012 model year.
Subaru is on a big-time roll in the U.S. market. The company said it’s the only brand that chalked up its fifth year in a row of sales increases in 2011. Sales last year set a record of just under 270,000. In 2012, U.S. sales were up 19.4 percent to 80,568 through the end of March, according to AutoData Corp., Woodcliff Lake, N.J.
That puts Subaru on track to set another all-time U.S. sales record of 320,000, Doll said. Subaru probably would have broken 300,000 units in U.S. sales in 2011, only the deadly tsunami and earthquakes in Japan disrupted production.
“We would have done it last year for sure, if not for the tsunami,” said Subaru dealer Don Hicks, the owner of Shortline Subaru, Aurora, Colo.
I remember in late 2009, Doll first mentioning out loud that the company had its sights on the 300,000-unit mark. It seemed a little far-fetched at the time, but with a bunch of new models, including the all-new Subaru BRZ sports car as a “halo” car, it looks like this could be the year.


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Microsoft has announced that updates of Windows 10 in 2018 will no longer be free for “accessibility users.” There was no explanation given for this change in policies.
From Tech Times
Windows 10 is starting to get more exclusive as each day goes by. There was a time when practically everyone, provided they had the hardware, was eligible to get it for free. But back in July 2016, Microsoft stopped offering free Windows 10 upgrades. Save for one exception: those who use accessibility features were still able to access the free upgrade. But that offer will soon go away.
Microsoft has — rather quietly — updated its website to reflect this change, revealing that those who are using accessibility features can no longer expect free Windows 10 upgrades after Dec. 31. Microsoft failed to explain why it’s dropping the offer for such users.
Free Windows 10 Upgrade For Accessibility Users Ending December
The FAQ page now reads:
“If you use assistive technologies, you can upgrade to Windows 10 at no cost as Microsoft continues our efforts to improve the Windows 10 experience for people who use these technologies. Please take advantage of this offer before it expires on December 31, 2017.”
But still: Who in the heck still doesn’t have Windows 10 installed? Well, as it turns out — a lot. While latest PCs and laptops sold by retailers already have it preinstalled, 46.6 percent of PCs are still running Windows 7, according to NetMarketshare. It’s possible these users either have lacking hardware to run the latest operating system or are intentionally standing their ground.
Many offices around the world still use Windows 7. Heck, some are still running older ones like Windows XP. So, what’s with that? Well, as Engadget notes, some companies might be feeling a bit of inertia with regard to concerns over compatibility, or regular users maybe just aren’t in a rush to upgrade.
It’s tough to explain Microsoft’s reasoning for this, but it marks an important inflection point for Windows 10, because if the company is now willing to let go of free upgrades, there must already be enough users who have upgraded for Microsoft not to care about the percentage of those who haven’t. Perhaps Microsoft’s plan to convince users to transition to Windows 10 by removing the price barrier worked.


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Dentsu Malaysia has been awarded the media and marketing agency services pitch for Resorts World Genting. The agency will be responsible for developing and driving the marketing strategy for the brand and also the launch of the new theme park, Genting SkyWorlds.
Dentsu will be delivering across omnichannel media strategy, planning and buying, customer experience management, performance marketing, and e-commerce.
“We are deeply honoured to win this business. The brief was to go beyond media agency services and create an agile but compelling marketing strategy,” Dheeraj Raina, CEO Dentsu Media Malaysia.
“Travel and tourism industry needs a rapid recovery, and we are committed through this partnership to enhance the consumer experience with the use of data, technology and human storytelling.”
Dentsu participated in the pitch as an integrated service solutions team, having recently completed a restructure that brings all of the former Dentsu Aegis Network brands under one umbrella.
“We are excited about launching the Genting SkyWorlds to our customers and also enhance the overall experience of visiting Resorts World Genting. In times as unpredictable as these, we wanted an agency partner that would be strategic, consultative, data driven and as passionate as us to deliver the customer delight,” Dr. Nicco Tan, Vice President, Marketing of Resorts World Genting.
We never share your info, we only share ours.


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Out of all of Detroit’s automakers, Dodge is perhaps the most unabashedly American in their approach. The company builds exclusively performance-oriented vehicles these days, whether that be their Charger or Challenger muscle cars, or the bruiting Dodge Durango SUV. Exclusively for the 2021 model year, all three of these offerings are available with Dodge’s most iconic powertrain: the 6.2L Hellcat V8 engine. Well, sort of. The 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat was limited to a production run of just 2,000 units, all of which were spoken for in just a matter of weeks. As it turns out however, this may not remain the case for long. According to the brand’s official Dodge Garage blog, Stellantis now has plans to produce more 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcats due to an issues with dealer allocations.
According to the blog, issues arose within the ordering process for the 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat once production began in January. Certain dealers did not end up receiving allocations from the automaker, despite the fact that they “sold” units to pre-order customers. This created a bit of an issue for these customers, as their $80,995-plus SUVs were then spoken for elsewhere. Now though, Dodge has a plan to make this right. The report notes that Dodge will be upping the production totals of the Durango SRT Hellcat in June, and will cover all sold orders within the dealer system.
“Any time you launch a limited-production vehicle and plan to build fewer units than the number of Dodge dealers across the country, you risk leaving a lot of customers very unhappy,” said Dodge Brand Director Bob Broderdorf in the blog. “As we finalized the production plan for this amazing SUV, we found a way to move some 6.2-liter HEMI Hellcat V8 engines from other vehicles to ensure every ‘sold order’ in our systems will get built. We didn’t want to disappoint these customers and wanted to find a way to ensure they are part of the Brotherhood of Muscle.”
While we don’t know how many of these SUVs Dodge will have to crank out, we know that it needs to happen before the end of the 2021 model year.
Unlike GM and the C8 Corvette, Dodge can’t simply push these customers back to the next model year. That’s because the Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat won’t meet new regulations coming into play for the 2022 model year. More specifically, platform changes and new evaporative emission requirements will ensure this 710 horsepower SUV is a one-year exclusive.
So then it appears that we will be getting more than 2,000 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcats. MC&T has reached out to Dodge for comment on the exact number of extra builds that will be taking place, and will update this page when we get an answer. While it is true that no one really needs an SUV capable of ripping off an 11.5 second ¼ mile, we’re glad that everyone who wanted one will reportedly be able to get one.


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LONDON: British fashion retailer Next on Thursday reported a halving in annual pretax profit after COVID-19 lockdowns closed its stores but raised its forecast for a big rebound this year.
Profit before tax of 342 million pounds (US$471 million) for the year to end January was in line with company guidance but down from 729 million.
With most of Next's stores closed for a significant portion of the year, group sales fell by 17per cent to 3.6 billion pounds.
Yet Next has shown resilience during the crisis, benefiting from its long-established online operation.
Rivals with weaker or no online business, notably Primark, have seen far larger falls in sales. Others, such as Topshop-owner Arcadia, and Debenhams have collapsed.
In the first eight weeks of the current financial year, Next said online sales had been stronger than expected and up more than 60per cent on two years ago.
The group raised its central guidance for profit before tax for 2021-22 to 700 million pounds from 670 million.
It maintained its forecast for flat full price sales versus 2019-20 - a two-year comparison.
Shares in Next, up 11per cent in 2021, closed Wednesday at 7,866 pence, valuing the business at 10.4 billion pounds.
(US$1 = 0.7268 pounds)
(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Jason Neely)


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Patrika, the Hindi news daily from Rajasthan, has launched its 35th edition from Chhindwara district in Madhya Pradesh. The new edition was launched on April 2.
Chhindwara district is the largest district of the state in terms of area and occupies 3.85 per cent of the area of the state. Industrially, Chhindwara is famous for its spices, textile, coal mines and wood industries. It is also an important region for textile and apparel designing.
Patrika's first edition in Madhya Pradesh was launched in 2008 at Bhopal and Indore. The main focus of the new edition will on news and on making it a platform for people's voice.
Patrika has been there for nearly six decades now and is published from MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Delhi.


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Tesla allows drivers to play video games in moving cars, raising safety concerns
Tesla has updated its software that allows vehicle occupants to play video games on the central touchscreen while in motion, raising questions about safety and driver distraction. Previously, video games were only playable while the vehicle was in the park.
But according to The New York Times, an over-the-air software update was released last summer, allowing some games to launch regardless of whether the car is stationary or not, raising serious safety concerns.
The edge confirmed in a Tesla Model 3 that: Sky Force Reloaded, solitary, and The Battle of Polytopia can be played on the center touchscreen while the vehicle is in motion. A notification asks the player to confirm that he is not the driver before starting the game, but the message is hardly a deterrent. A driver can simply tap “I AM A PASSENGER” and play a complex action game like Sky Force while in motion.
Some interactive apps in the car were already working in motion even before the update, including the drawing pad and karaoke mode in music – which also warns the driver not to participate.
A Model 3 owner told the Time that he had filed a complaint with the NHTSA when he discovered that the games could be played while he was driving his car. That complaint will not be a first. Tesla currently has 59 complaints from owners regarding the Model 3.
A spokesperson for NHTSA told Reuters that it “discussed” the issue of playable video games in moving cars with the company. “Distraction accidents are a concern, especially in vehicles equipped with a range of convenience technologies such as entertainment screens,” the spokesperson said. Reuters. “We are aware of drivers’ concerns and are discussing the feature with the manufacturer.”
Tesla has a reputation for regularly circumventing safety regulations and ignoring recommendations from regulators for improvements. The company offers a version of its level 2 advanced driver assistance system called “Full Self-Driving”, which makes its vehicles non-autonomous and requires drivers to remain vigilant while in use.
The US government has shown renewed interest in Tesla and recently announced that it is investigating incidents where Tesla cars with Autopilot have crashed and collided with parked emergency services.
NHTSA is also seeking more information from Tesla about FSD’s growing public beta testing, the recently launched “Safety Score” evaluation process for participation in the program, and the nondisclosure agreements Tesla allowed participants to sign up until recently.
Touchscreens in vehicles are quickly becoming the norm as manufacturers continue to remove tactile buttons and buttons from their vehicles. This makes many vehicles more dangerous. According to a study 2019, drivers can be distracted and looking away from the road for up to 40 seconds per task.
Tesla is a pioneer in the use of wireless software updates in the automotive industry, using smartphone-like updates to add features such as enhanced driver assistance to crazy Easter eggs, such as the “James Bond mode” to its electric vehicles. The company has also rolled out a slew of video games it calls Tesla Arcade (we tried it out on a Model 3 in 2019).
Tesla has begun using an interior camera to monitor drivers for its Full Self-Driving beta program, which allows drivers to use automatic steering, lane-keeping and adaptive cruise control on local, off-highway streets. But the vast majority of Tesla vehicles don’t use cameras to track the driver’s eye movements to ensure they keep their attention on the road.


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Is Apple about to formally enter the smart-home market? A new report says the tech giant will soon announce a system to control appliances and security systems in a home -- a move that could overlap with the needs of small offices.
According to a report in Monday's Financial Times, an Apple system will be presented at its Worldwide Developers Conference next week. The Times said the Apple system, which of course would be controlled by iOS mobile devices, will include certification of compatible products.
If the company does take such a move, it could be seen as attempt to counter Google's entry into that market in January, when it purchased smart thermostat maker Nest. It could also be seen as a classic Apple move to connect the dots in a nascent industry that has all the pieces, but has not yet come together into being a robust category.
It's not like no else is trying to offer smart home systems. Microsoft has been showing demonstrations for years, there are systems from companies like AT&T, Honeywell and Belkin, and there are open standards.
And, as Current Analysis' Avi Greengart pointed out to us, the iPhone and iPad are "already being used by the major players in the market as a control device," because, with such a large installed base of mobile devices, "Apple is by default one of the control devices." Greengart didn't predict that Apple would make this smart-home move, but he noted that the smart home is an early adopter market, the kind "that Apple might go after."
Greengart said it wasn't clear "how Apple would attack this situation," in part because it would require the company to become a standards-keeper and enforcer among a wide range of electronics -- security systems, entertainment systems, standalone appliances and built-in heating and cooling systems.
Additionally, Apple's solutions are known for their ease of use, and an Apple system covering such a diverse group of multi-functional devices and system will be a major challenge to work easily and smoothly.
'Does Not Play Well'
In other words, the large number of potential issues in controlling so many devices not made by Apple would appear as a potential jeopardy to the company's good name of making things "that just work."
Some Apple-watchers point to other hurdles that Apple would have to overcome to offer a complete solution for smart homes. For instance, Endpoint Technologies Associates' Roger Kay wrote in Forbes magazine Monday that "Apple does not play well with others," having turned on more than a few partners in its belief that integrated systems it makes and controls work better than federated systems. A smart home, by definition, is a federated system.
Another question is the impact that any emerging smart-home standards will have on smart offices. Greengart told us that there could be "overlaps" between a smart-home solution by Apple and a smart-office solution, such as for a small office, "but targeting one is not the same as targeting the other" because of the many differences between home and office systems, equipment and needs.


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The City of Delta will continue lobbying senior levels of government to further regulate cannabis production on agricultural land.
On Feb. 11, councillors voted in favour of pushing Health Canada to impose a moratorium on issuing licences for cannabis production facilities in Delta until the federal department sets up a system to mitigate odours coming from greenhouse operations. In addition, council also passed a recommendation to lobby the province to ban cannabis cultivation on agricultural land.
The concern, as noted in a report by city staff, is that with more greenhouses converting to cannabis production following the legalization of recreational marijuana last October, there will be fewer food producers in Delta.
The report points out that after Houweling’s Nursery greenhouses finally convert to cannabis production, the facility — at 2.2 million square-feet — will be Canada’s second largest. All told, Delta will be home to more than five million square-feet of cannabis-producing greenhouses.
“With over 50 percent of Delta’s land base being within the [Agricultural Land Reserve], many more cannabis production facilities could establish themselves within city limits with little control from Delta, and cumulatively result in less areas available for local food production,” the report says.
In order to restrict such activities in the ALR, the city has to convince the provincial government and the Agricultural Land Commission to amend the latter’s decision that cannabis production is a designated farm use.
On the topic of odours coming from cannabis production facilities, the report said though Health Canada requires licensed producers adhere to all municipal laws, it has no system in place to ensure growers comply. Per federal regulation, a designated cannabis production site “must be equipped with a system that filters air to prevent the escape of odours and, if present, pollen.”
In November 2018, Mayor George Harvie received a letter from Murray Driediger, president and CEO of BC Fresh, who complained about the smell of a cannabis greenhouse on 80th Street. He wrote that at times his workers cannot stand the emissions.
”There are days when the odours are unacceptable and it impacts quality of life in the area for those that live and work nearby,” Driediger wrote in his letter. “The impact of masking deodorizers used by the cannabis greenhouses can be just as bad and is no panacea.”
The staff report also said that Health Canada has not addressed the issue, even after city staff met with representatives from the department and Metro Vancouver last fall.
“Staff urged Health Canada to address the issue directly through their licences. To date, little improvement has been observed,” the report reads. “Staff maintain that Health Canada should fully address odour mitigation prior to issuing production licences.”
At council, Coun. Dylan Kruger asked the mayor what the city’s delegation intends to bring up with the federal government when it travels to Ottawa next week. Mayor Harvie said he will ask Health Canada to hold cannabis growers on agricultural land to the same standards as growers on industrial land when it comes to odours and emissions.
“The odour control by Health Canada in our industrial areas has worked very well,” Harvie answered. “But for some reason, they’ve chosen to ignore their own regulations in our agricultural areas because they feel it’s not going to harm anybody [and] that it won’t be a nuisance to anybody.”
With respect to a recommendation that development applications for retail cannabis shops in Delta not be accepted until a council workshop was undertaken, the mayor wanted to do away with any ambivalence on future pot shops. He disagreed with the recommendation and instead proposed that any efforts to start allowing applications for retail stores first go through the new public safety committee, which would hold community consultations and send its own recommendations to council.
Pending those recommendations, council will further instruct staff on how to go about allowing retail pot shops in Delta. For now, however, the city will not be accepting any applications for them.
“We have zoned out the ability for cannabis dispensaries in our city,” Harvie said at council. “I don’t want the retail public out there that were interested in cannabis dispensaries thinking that we’re open for business — we’re closed for business at this time and until further notice, to be decided by council.”


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500 Startups has closed its largest-ever global fund at $140 million, while simultaneously rebranding as 500 Global and expanding its strategy to include later-stage deals.
The US-based VC is known as an early-stage investor, not least in Asia where it has backed the likes of Southeast Asian unicorns Bukalapak, Carousell, and Grab, as well as Australia’s Canva. The firm...
Hitachi has agreed to sell its Japan-based radiation measurement devices and industrial x-ray CT devices businesses to local private equity firm Nippon Mirae Capital.
MBK Partners has agreed to buy five ocean theme parks in China – four operational and one under construction – from Hong Kong-listed Haichang Ocean Park Holdings for RMB6.53 billion ($1.01 billion).
Trustar Capital, formerly known as CITIC Capital Partners, has invested an undisclosed sum in Intramco, a Europe-based manufacturer of components used in electric vehicle (EV) charging.
Vitalbridge Capital, a China-based venture capital firm that spun out from Trustbridge Partners, has raised $275 million for its second US dollar-denominated fund.


text: ROUNDTABLE: Do Super Bowl Ads Still Matter? by The Dendrocast published on 2019-02-04T04:34:22Z In the new era of precision targeting and programmatic ad buys, why do Super Bowl ads still garner so much attention? Listen as our roundtable unpacks the questions around what the future of Super Bowl advertising will look like. And why this one event makes the average consumer think they're a creative director. Today's panelists include Jessica Ragusa of WiT Media, Dan Walsh of Shepherd, and Kevin Kertscher of Big Ocean Media.


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Misconception about healthy food
There are a lot of new diet trends going around. Some focus on regulating the amount of food intake and some on regulating the kind of food. Recent study finds that more people lean towards the latter.
A study conducted by professors from Vanderbilt University, finds that more consumers are influenced by the perceived healthiness of a food than a food’s portion size. This tendency to neglect the quantity of food intake causes people who are trying to lose or maintain their current weight choose “healthy” items in larger amounts than the food’s calories justify.
In the studies, food type emerged as a “primary dimension,” or a factor that was highly relevant and influential to participants’ judgments of the food’s healthiness. Meanwhile, food quantity acted as a “secondary dimension,” holding much less sway over participants’ healthiness evaluations unless portion size was explicitly brought to their attention. And even then, food quantity affected judgments less than the primary dimension of food type.
The effect of neglecting quantity intake is further explained in an article published by Medical Xpress. Food type being the primary consideration for people to achieve their health goals, the portion much less sway over participants’ healthiness evaluations. Because of this, people tend to eat more of the food perceived as “healthy” even though it has higher cholesterol level.
“These findings are innovative because they distinguish between and explicitly compare two common routes to healthier consumption that are perceived to be very different. These findings suggest that the primacy of type over quantity could potentially have a negative impact on efforts to lose or maintain weight through reduced caloric consumption.” the authors of the said study explained.


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One Piece Odyssey has released a new trailer highlighting more of the game’s JRPG features.
The trailer places the Straw Hat Pirates in a typical turn-based JRPG setting.
The Straw Hats’ ship is launched high in the sky in new footage released during the Summer Game Fest broadcast. The crew must dodge obstacles before making it through the clouds.
One Piece Odyssey’s new trailer
At this year’s Summer Games Fest, Bandai Namco unveiled new footage from the latest One Piece game. While most of the franchise’s recent games have been Museo-style brawlers or fighting games, Odyssey will offer players complete control of the Straw Hat Pirate crew in a Dragon Quest-style, turn-based RPG.
The new trailer teases the game’s exploration, dungeon crawling, and puzzle-solving components. The trailer also contains a new character, who seems to be a young girl.
Check out the new trailer below:
One Piece Odyssey opens with Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Sanji, and the rest of the Straw Hat crew shipwrecked on an unknown island. There, they encounter Adio Suerte, a severely tattooed adventurer. Adio is a brand-new original character created by series creator Eiichiro Oda particularly for this game.
Motoi Sakuraba, a renowned video game composer, best known for his work on Namco’s Tales RPG trilogy and the Dark Souls series, will also provide a soundtrack for the game.
This week has been a busy one for One Piece headlines. Oda revealed on Tuesday that the manga would be taking a month off to prepare for the book’s 25th anniversary. Furthermore, Netflix is currently producing a live-action adaptation of the popular franchise and released a new peak at the project at production during its Geeked Week event on Monday.
One Piece Odyssey game development
ILCA is creating the new game. ILCA is a Japanese game developer who previously worked with Bandai Namco on Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 and Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. The studio is also notable for creating Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. They were launched for the Nintendo Switch in 2021 as 3D remakes of the monster gathering franchise’s 2006 Nintendo DS premiere. In addition to Pokémon, ILCA worked on Square Enix’s Dragon Quest XI. Thus the studio has a lot of expertise working on turn-based RPGs.
The new game will be available in 2022 as part of the ongoing celebration of the 25th anniversary of the original publication of the One Piece manga. The pirate tale first appeared in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump in 1998. One Piece has since become the best-selling manga franchise in history and the second best-selling comic in the world, with over half a billion copies worldwide.
Despite his continued popularity, Oda recently stated that Luffy’s travels are finally ending. He confirmed that the One Piece manga’s next story arc would be its final saga. The anniversary will also be honored in Japan with the release of the franchise’s 15th film, One Piece Film: Red, on August 6, 2022.
Are you excited to play the upcoming One Piece Odyssey game? What do you think about the new game trailer released? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.


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The second all about automation gets underway in Hamburg from January 24-25, 2018. The regional fair for north Germany showcases industrial automation technology from components to complete systems. Around 112 exhibitors, a rise of 50 per cent over 2017, including manufacturers of components and systems, distributors and providers of industrial automation technology services will present their latest products in the Hamburg-Schnelsen fairgrounds.
The exhibition gives practitioners searching for concrete, ready-to-use solutions an opportunity to discuss automation tasks face-to-face. Complete booth packages with a standardized concept ensure a professional exhibition presence with minimum effort and manageable costs. Targeted, regionally focused visitor marketing provides for ideal visitor quality.
A free programme including application-orientated talks by exhibitors and independent experts will be held in the “Talk Lounge.” Secure human-robot communication, Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 issues facing SMEs are on the agenda as well as functional safety or pitfalls in international business. Special emphasis will also be on switchgear construction.
Sources and further information:


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PARIS — At the Paris Motor Show in October, two small automakers revealed concept cars featuring Michelin’s Active Wheel system, which combines an electric drive motor, brakes and an active suspension system inside the hub of a car’s wheel.
Venturi, a sports car company in Monaco, unveiled the Volage, an electric supercar. Featuring motors in all four wheels, the Volage should be capable of producing the equivalent of about 300 horsepower, which the company claims is enough to propel the car from 0 to 60 miles an hour in less than five seconds.
But while the futuristic Volage attracted plenty of attention and only the vague promise of production, a French company, Heuliez, revealed a more humble-looking five-door hatchback, the WILL, which the company said could be released in limited numbers by 2010.
Developed with Michelin and Orange, a French telecom company, the WILL is based on the Opel Agila (available in Europe). According to Edmunds:
At the heart of the zero-emissions technology is a 95-pound wheel packing a drive motor, an active shock-absorption system with its own dedicated motor, and disk braking. Although the WILL could be fitted with four Active Wheels, its light weight (1,980 pounds, including lithium-ion battery pack) requires only two.
Together, the two front wheels will be able to provide 82 horsepower. That’s sufficient to reach 60 miles per hour from a standstill in 10 seconds. The car will have a top speed of 87 m.p.h.
The hub motor is not a new design. In 1901, Ferdinand Porsche built a car, the Lohner-Porsche Elektromobil, powered by electric motors placed inside the front wheel hubs. (It also had a small onboard generator and was an early example of a serial hybrid).
Michelin has been working on Active Wheel for 12 years. Other than offering zero-emission driving, Active Wheel frees up space that would normally house the engine and other ancillary units — like the transmission shaft and gearbox.
Mitsubishi and General Motors are among many other companies that have also invested in hub motor development. One major technical hurdle has been keeping wheel weight down (for ride quality and safety reasons). Average wheels are much lighter than the Active Wheel.
Protecting the wheels and their hub motors from external damage and cost are also issues. Heuliez has projected a price of around $27,500, which seems very low for a car with lithium-ion batteries and Active Wheels.
In December, Michelin signed an agreement with a Chinese battery manufacturer, CITIC Guoan Mengguli, known as MGL, to develop and test lithium-ion batteries for Michelin’s Active Wheel system.


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More than 200 Accredited Practising Dietitians took part in an online survey run by Australia’s peak nutrition body, the Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) on the diets most to be avoided in 2014. From a list of eleven popular diets, the Lemon Detox Diet came out as the ‘worst’ by nutrition experts for the third year running, with more than two thirds (68%) of the dietitians voting against it.
SkinnyMe tea was shunned by more than half of the dietitians (55%) while the Ashy Bines Bikini Body Challenge attracted votes from 32% of nutrition experts.
DAA Spokesperson and Accredited Practising Dietitian, Melanie McGrice, acknowledges that with rates of overweight and obesity as high as 79% in some areas of Australia¹, weight is a big concern. However, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
“The problem with fad diets is that they’re all about restrictive eating patterns that you can’t stick to over the long haul and may even undermine your health,” said Ms McGrice.
“What you lose on these detox diets, like the Lemon Detox Diet and SkinnyMe tea, is usually fluid, healthy gut bacteria, electrolytes – all the things to keep your body healthy, rather than fat. And you don’t need to go on a severe detox because your body has an inbuilt detox system – the lungs, liver, and kidneys working every minute of the day.”
“If you want to ‘detox’, nourish your body by cutting down on fatty, highly-processed foods, alcohol and caffeine, and eat a balanced diet – making sure you get plenty of fruit, vegetables, whole grains and water.”
Diets such as the Ashy Bines Bikini Body Challenge often demonise certain foods and make it a challenge to meet nutritional needs.
“For long-term success, Aussies should choose realistic and achievable goals that they can do every day. For example, including an extra serve of vegetables at lunch and dinner or cutting back your alcohol,” said Ms McGrice.
DAA is about to launch its annual Australia’s Healthy Weight Week campaign (17-23 February), which focuses, this year, on helping adults between 25-50 years to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, using simple tools like home cooking and right portion sizes.


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Plastic plays a vital role in the European economy, yet rising plastic pollution has pushed the European Union (EU) to implement circularity targets across the entire plastic (waste) value chain. These include a target of 55 per cent recyclable packaging by 2030.
Despite ambitions to be the world’s leading circular economy, the EU will underperform on plastics recycling, where only 11 per cent of post-consumer plastics are recycled. Meanwhile, “on-par” (product-to-product) plastic recycling is limited to 2-3 per cent.
Current industry endeavours are woefully insufficient to create a circular plastics economy due mainly to longstanding structural challenges across the value chain. Polyolefins account for half of plastic waste and two-thirds of plastic packaging waste in the EU. Between 4 and 7 million metric tonnes of the 20 million metric tonnes of polyolefin waste generated yearly in the EU are recycled. Approximately 60 per cent of polyolefin waste (12 million tonnes annually) is incinerated or landfilled.
Against an ever-increasing amount of plastic waste threatening to consume our world, this report outlines why action must be taken now. Europe must implement new strategies and employ the latest technology throughout the waste-to-materials value chain. By improving failing infrastructure now, ambitious recycling objectives can still be met.
“Changing how we produce and use plastics and manage plastic materials after use must be the focus of effort right now.
“We urgently need to reduce dependency on virgin plastic and re-imagine plastic “waste” as a valuable commodity. That means re-using and recycling plastics at scale.
“Smarter infrastructure needs to be built, investments need to be made, and policies introduced to set the conditions for the entire value chain to act.”
Mark Barnaba, Chairman, Sea the Future (pioneered by Minderoo Foundation)
This report identifies an apparent mismatch between the European Union’s circularity goals and the existing reality of low recycling rates for plastic, which shows approximately half of plastic waste is not sorted for recycling.
Most of the plastic waste collected and sorted is still incinerated, landfilled, or shipped elsewhere. Only 11 per cent of all post-consumer plastic waste in the EU is recycled into new products. For the EU to achieve its targets, it is necessary to solve critical value chain challenges.
Establishing systems that enable collecting, sorting, and recycling multiple types of plastic is essential to meeting EU targets. Extensive additional capacity is required to increase the volume and improve the quality of recycled plastic. Upgrading the end-to-end system will cost EUR 20 billion in new infrastructure.


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The show must go on.
After the passing of legend Joan Rivers, many wondered if her show Fashion Police would be able to carry on in her absence.
Well, we finally have our answer.
Read the emotional statement (below):
[Image via E!.]
The thing about stars is that they all eventually either burn up, shoot across the sky, or turn into large black holes.
We're not sure which one of these fates exactly befell Fashion Star, but definitely one of them.
After a drop in ratings between season one and season, NBC will NOT be renewing the fashion competition show for a third season.
President Bob Greenblatt confirmed the news this weekend at the TCA press tour after he was asked if Fashion Star would be back on the network's schedule. His answer? A "swift and firm" no.
Are U bummed about Fashion Star's cancellation???


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The Roaring ’20s are here, according to brands and retailers.
In a new Glossy and Modern Retail survey, 62% of brand and retailer workers said their company’s sales are at pre-pandemic levels. Of those, 36% said their sales hadn’t slid at all during the pandemic, and 26% said their sales went down but have since recovered.
Meanwhile, 25% of survey respondents said they expect sales to bounce back by the end of 2021, and 13% said they’ll return by the end of 2022. Rent the Runway is among the former group. According to the New York Times, the fashion rental company has seen a 92% increase in active subscribers since May and is on pace to top 2019 levels by the end of this year. RTR’s offers three subscription tiers, at different monthly rates.
Ad position: web_incontent_pos1
Predictions of people giving in to pent-up demand post-vaccine via revenge shopping and Roaring ’20s-style revelry seem to be panning out. Brands and retailers are betting that more people will be out and about, sooner than later.
Compared to in the prior six months, the number of respondents who said they plan to open pop-up shops, launch out-of-home marketing campaigns and run event marketing campaigns in the next six months at least doubled. Sixteen percent plan to host pop-ups, 23% are running OOH ads and 55% are hitting go on event marketing.
Ad position: web_incontent_pos2
According to Glossy reporting, those already investing in temporary stores include piercing and jewelry store Studs, contemporary brand Rails and luxury leaders Dior and Louis Vuitton. Dior has also invested in OOH ads, via Saks’ flagship storefront. Likewise, Tiffany & Co. and Glossier are betting on foot traffic, with different forms of outdoor signage: In May, Tiffany & Co. rolled out its largest ad in history, enveloping its 57th Street flagship in New York with imagery promoting its new Hardwear collection. And in March, Glossier took over movie marquees in Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston.
As for events, they’re clearly ramping up, said Max Pollack and Matthew Rowean, co-founders of experiential marketing and advertising agency Matte Projects. Matte is known for producing parties and events, including NYC’s annual Full Moon Music Festival and Rihanna’s Met Gala afterparty in 2018. Its clients include Tom Ford and Google.
“We’re busier than we’ve ever been right now,” said Rowean, who noted that the company recently added a creative director to its team. “As more people get vaccinated, you can feel the energy starting to come back, even in New York. People have been starved for human contact for so long, they’re looking to come together. It genuinely feels like we’ve come around the corner.”
He said that Matte is mostly working with brands to plan experiential events for the second half of the year.
And, according to Pollack, those events are set to pack more impact than those brands wanted pre-2020.
“Experiences have lacked depth,” he said. “They became excuses for selfie capture versus an actual reason to bring people together. But people really missed being together and talking and experiencing live music and experiencing something that kind of shifted their perspective for at least a couple of hours. Coming together has become even rarer. And it really needs to be justified, in both the expense for brands and the impact on guests.”


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ANPACT: Accelerating Heavy-Vehicle RecoveryBy Alejandro Enríquez | Tue, 02/02/2021 - 11:36
Miguel Elizalde, Executive President of ANPACT, explains how the pandemic influenced the heavy-vehicle market and the sector’s plans for a faster economic recovery.
Q: How will USMCA impact heavy-vehicle OEMs in the country?
A: Heavy vehicles have a seven-year period to achieve regional value content (RVC) standards. Labor value content (LVC) and steel and aluminum requirements are already in place, as well. However, due to the work of Minister of Economy Graciela Márquez and Deputy Minister Luz María de la Mora, companies can apply for special regimes so LVC and steel and aluminum requirements can be achieved taking into account the average of an 18-month period.
OEMs need to have a close relationship with their suppliers to meet the percentage of steel and aluminum, as well as LVC while working toward RVC in 2024. At the stage we are in, we consider the local industry successful. That said, it still requires hard work, money, and cooperation. By adhering to the new USMCA rules, Mexico will maintain its leadership as the leading freight-vehicle exporter, fourth-ranked bus exporter, and sixth-leading heavy-vehicle producer in the world. As a country, we will maintain the 85,000 jobs in the sector, of which 18,500 are direct jobs. These are pre-pandemic figures.
Q: How is the enforcement of NOM-044 influencing the heavy-vehicle segment?
A: NOM-044 is a Mexican norm that regulates diesel emissions of heavy vehicles. Vehicles that weigh 3.857 tons or more are included here. NOM-044 is intertwined with NOM-016 on petroliferous, including diesel and gasoline. Mexico is among the few countries in the world that uses both Euro and EPA environmental standards, which creates a greater and better offering in the market.
In 2018, Mexico had Euro IV / EPA 04 technologies and NOM-016 ruled that the country was supposed to have ultra-low sulfur diesel by the end of 2018. Mexico’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) took this as a reference to establish NOM-044 that implied that by mid-2019, only Euro V / EPA 07 vehicle imports or local manufacturing for the domestic market would be allowed. However, PEMEX asked for a prorogue to comply with NOM-016 and ultra-low sulfur diesel production.
Euro V and EPA 07 vehicles can work with regular diesel if it is close to 50 ppm. The next deadline was set for Dec. 31, 2020, when only Euro VI / EPA 10 vehicles would be allowed to be imported or produced locally for the domestic market. These vehicles only work with ultra-low sulfur diesel. As PEMEX received authorization to continue distributing regular diesel, the planned process to implement NOM-044 was interrupted.
SEMARNAT is aware of this situation, which was in fact further complicated by the pandemic. An extension for NOM-044 was granted and Euro V / EPA 07 vehicles will continue to be imported or produced locally for the domestic market until Dec. 31, 2021. This extension is about to become official.
PEMEX supplies 75 percent of the diesel in the country and has no legal obligation to supply it to the entire territory. The rest is supplied by private parties. This scenario motivated Mexico’s Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) to adjust NOM-016 so that PEMEX can comply with ultra-low sulfur diesel supply. Originally, PEMEX’s supply was set in the three major metropolitan areas, the northern border region, and 11 industrial corridors. The adjustment implied PEMEX is allowed to supply regular diesel in the industrial corridors up to six months after the pandemic is officially over.
The adjustments to NOM-016 are still pending and the specifics could be known by 1Q21. Should the ultra-low sulfur diesel supply dates change, NOM-044 will have to be adjusted accordingly. The current scenario dictates that regular diesel will be supplied until 2024. ANPACT expects NOM-044 to be discussed in 2021 when the sector will know for sure when ultra-low sulfur diesel will be in fact mandatory. We insist that both Euro V / EPA 07 and Euro VI / EPA 10 technologies need to coexist given the country’s energy reality.
Q: How are new technologies influencing the heavy-vehicle market?
A: Electric vehicles are a reality and, in time, autonomous features will reach heavy vehicles given the expected ROIs. In fact, autonomous vehicles could solve the problem of the scarcity of freight transportation drivers globally.
The advancement of EV trends will rely on battery life. A heavy EV requires a greater initial investment than diesel. When taking into account that the average age of Mexico’s heavy-vehicle park is 22 years for freight transportation and 19 for buses, the leap into electrification might seem complicated. Before getting to EVs, however, the market will experiment with other technologies such as hybrid and natural gas vehicles. This does not mean we are not ready to use this technology. Many electric buses are already used in public transportation across different cities but we need to think about ROI and the incentives the industry requires.
ANPACT has insisted that vehicle renovation goes hand-in-hand with five important elements. First, the industry needs green incentives for electric vehicles, natural gas vehicles, and the newest technologies. If the vehicle park is 22 years old on average, those are really old emissions standards. Second, the market needs more financing. The federal expenditure budget and federal income law for 2021 do not take into account financing for heavy vehicles, although this could change as it is still being discussed in Congress. Third, the sector needs professionalization. Practically all transportation companies in Mexico started as owner-operators. Even though the knowledge was passed on to younger generations throughout the years, training in business management is still necessary.
Those are the three most popular points. The other two are the elephant in the room. The fourth and fifth elements are updating the legal framework and applying that legal framework. The former implies updating all related norms, including NOM-016, NOM-044, and others, while the latter requires enforcement of the norms.
Q: What are the most relevant impacts of the pandemic on the sector?
A: The pandemic has had an impact on vehicle renovation as we are selling 49 percent below last year’s rate. For an economic recovery, we need to bet on vehicle renewal. This will support the sector horizontally. Approximately 56 percent of all cargo and 83 percent of land transportation use trucks. Meanwhile, 96 percent of all passengers traveling between states, 27 percent of students, and 41 percent of workers move by bus. Economic recovery is fundamental to boost SMEs and create a domino effect that starts with the pillars of mobility and logistics.
When the pandemic started, our sector was not labeled as essential, which put a stop on sales and only allowed for maintenance operations. It took us two months to be labeled as essential by the federal authorities. From manufacturing to vehicle plating, the entire chain was disrupted.
Vehicle plating represents a great challenge for the sector. Mexico’s Ministry of Communications and Transportation sent most of its staff to the home office amid the pandemic. Seventy percent of the sectors’ sales are plated by the SCT and for over three months no plates were issued. In Mexico City, for instance, to get a plate can take up to three months. This prevents new vehicle sales since no one will buy a new truck that will be parked for more than three months. In Guadalajara and Monterrey, the situation is similar. We have had talks with the authorities to create solutions for this problem given that the industry’s recovery is also influenced by this. Our proposals include dealerships taking care of plating and support for online procedures.
Q: How is ANPACT collaborating with INEGI on open data?
A: ANPACT was looking for a neutral party, such as INEGI, to publish the data related to heavy-vehicle production and exports, which are useful to the industry and academia and for economic competition. For seven years, there were no figures at all. At ANPACT, we believe that transparency is healthy and promotes competition that serves the final consumer. Now, all ANPACT members are reporting retail sales, wholesale, production, and export figures.
Q: How is the pandemic distorting market performance?
A: Buses are being used less. A public transportation system used to transport 100,000 users daily is facing income troubles as in some places there are only half of the regular users. On the other hand, companies are implementing more staff transportation programs at a lower capacity. This does not necessarily imply an increase in vehicle sales, given that many school buses are stopped. Besides, for every 100 vehicles sold in Mexico, 25 junk vehicles are imported from the US.
When it comes to transportation and last-mile logistics, e-commerce and last-mile delivery companies are growing. Logistics are changing and the industry is changing as well. Wholesales between January and September fell 49.3 percent, while retail sales fell 40.6 percent in the same period. Accumulated production fell 38.4 percent and production dropped 45 percent. We were aware of the decrease but not at those rates. To assure a faster recovery, we insist on our five points toward vehicle renovation: incentives for new vehicles, financing, professionalization, regulatory reforms, and regulatory compliance.
The priorities for ANPACT are to focus on economic recovery and accelerate SCT’s vehicle plating processes. After this, we will take a closer look at financing and incentives for vehicle renewal, which also results in benefits for the environment and society in general.
The National Association of Bus, Truck, and Tractor-Trailer Manufacturers (ANPACT) represents heavy-vehicle and engine manufacturers based in Mexico. It promotes the development of the commercial vehicle industry in the country


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BodeTree, an online service aimed at helping small business owners better understand their finances, has closed on $2 million in Series A funding, led by its seed round investor Denver-based Greenline Ventures with participation from other, undisclosed angels. CEO Christopher Myers says the company did a soft close, as they may allow for some strategic investors to join in a “tag-along round” closing in July.
The company offers business owners an online dashboard-like interface that uses colorful charts, widgets and graphs to help track financial data, overall business health, valuation, goals, strategy, and more. It can also help companies working through the loan application or funding process, and it now connects with third-party partners, including Quickbooks Online and Xero, for example, for further integrations.
As of mid-April, Myers says BodeTree hit the 50,000-user mark, and now expects to more than double that in the months ahead. The target is to hit over 200,000 users in the next 12 months. “Selling new technology to small businesses is really hard so we’re super proud of this growth,” he says.
The site has also undergone a redesign that introduced the new funding and solution centers. The latter is a notable change as, before, BodeTree was only focused on delivering insights, not actions a business owner could take next.
BodeTree has raised $5 million to date.


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Tattoos--once considered outlaw art--have seeped from the skin of consumers into the fabric of advertising and marketing.
First trendy and now common as a form of personal expression, tattoos are popping up in magazine and online ads to sell a range of mass-appeal products looking to communicate an image of hipness or edginess, or just to stand out.
Converse has tattooed versions of its Chuck Taylor sneaker, and it has created an ad in which a man with facial tattoos is photographed with a pair of shoes adorning his neck.
Dodge has an ad for its Caliber in which an artist tattoos the bumper of a car, while Captain Morgan Rum Co. has released a rum called Tattoo.
A recent Juicy Couture ad marketing a fragrance features a heavily tattooed man seen with a group of models. And Elle magazine also recently published a fashion spread with a tattoo-covered male.
A survey by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology released last year found that more than one in three Americans age 18 to 29 has at least one tattoo. As the number of people sporting ink rises, advertisers are cashing in on the cachet of the art.
"In reality, anything that starts to bubble under pop culture is always co-opted by advertising," said Jim Schmidt, creative director at advertising firm Downtown Partners in Chicago. "I've definitely seen more models with tattoos in ads. You used to never see people with tattoos in ads."
In a bid to communicate their messages to younger demographics, marketers are doing more than showcasing tattoo-covered models. They're also applying tattoo culture's aesthetic to graphic images and typefaces.
"It's almost as if it is the next cool step, the subliminal rendering of tattoos though the typeface of a logo, the backgrounds or the artwork that's incorporated into the advertisements themselves," said Marshall Cohen, chief fashion analyst at the NPD group in New York. "It's a subtle attempt to put tattoos in the message so consumers can interpret it how they want."
Agencies and companies have used tattoo artists to create logos, ads and products. Camel cigarettes, for example, used New York tattoo artist Scott Campbell to launch its nationwide Camel Wides campaign. He designed a collection of poster-size advertisements that look like old watercolor tattoos with hand-drawn lettering and bright colors.
Camel used a handful of other tattoo artists from across the country to design other ads and a few to draw designs for the cigarettes boxes, including Katja Opel, based in Houston, Philadelphia tattoo artist Jason Goldberg and Marcus Kuhn, who owns a tattoo parlor in Portland, Maine.
Gyro Worldwide, which worked on the Camel campaign, is also responsible for the Sailor Jerry line of merchandise that uses tattoo-inspired work from legendary tattoo artist Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins, who tattooed during the World War II era in Hawaii. Sailor Jerry Ltd., which Gyro owns, sells its own brand of rum, made by Glenfiddich, and has worked with Converse on a series of Sailor Jerry-tattooed Chuck Taylor shoes, Gyro owner Steven Grasse said.
For Camel, "The big consumer insight was that Wide smokers love self-expression and tattoos are something they use to do it, and maybe there's something we can do to incorporate that into the product," said Todd Holbrook, Camel's senior marketing director.
Tattoo artist Campbell, who did the majority of Camel's Wide cigarette advertisements, has seen an explosion in the number of companies that want his design work. Since doing the Camel Wide campaign, he has worked for Volkswagen, Comcast, Neiman Marcus, Nike, fashion designer Douglas Little, jewelry designer Bing Bang and Maserati.
"It's kind of just exploded into a bunch of different projects, some of it for people looking for tattoo-oriented designs and some of it for people looking for designs from artists who they consider in-the-know," he said.
Campbell, who owns Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn, said clients seem to want a more hand-drawn aesthetic, eschewing the perfect "Photoshop cut-and-paste look."
"Tattooers are this community of people who are so much more prolific than graphic designers, producing manually two to 10 drawings a day," he said. "With tattoos hitting more mainstream, that talent and skill has become more appreciated."
For a Volkswagen Web site, Campbell was commissioned to draw a series of tarot cards to promote the new Eos car. He was commissioned by Nike to design the display for the exclusive Nike ID store in New York and is currently working on product design for the company, he said.
Overwhelmed by the amount of work, Campbell started his own advertising agency, Mama Tried.
"For a lot of clients, they can sit with their illustrator and hypothesize about what their target audience wants, but in a tattoo shop their target audience is in a chair sitting 20 feet away getting tattooed," Campbell said. "We're in the commercial world, but we're also a part of that target market."