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Olympic swimmer and gold medal winner Missy Franklin made news with the announcement that she will be retaining her amateur status for the next four years. As such, she “stands to lose millions in endorsement deals,” reports Forbes. But a comparison of Franklins’ earning potential to that of Michael Phelps underscores the pervasive underrepresentation of female athletes in advertising.
Not a single female athlete appeared on the 2011 Sports Illustrated list of the 50 highest-earning U.S. athletes, a fact that’s highlighted in a forthcoming study in the Journal of Brand Management. A Turner report found that, of the sports figures featured as endorsers on 11.9 percent of television commercials, only 3 percent are women.
For an endorser to be successful – according to a well-established branding model — he or she must follow the pillars of “Familiarity, Likability, and Similarity.” Researchers John Antil and Matthew Robinson, who conducted a series of focus groups on the topic, found that female athletes are lacking in all three.
The familiarity part is obvious: the Olympics, for the two short weeks when they take over the news cycle, are an exception to the otherwise general U.S. disinterest in female athletics. But Antil and Robinson suggest that it’s also the way female athletes are portrayed in the endorsements they do get — with the focus on their youthful, toned bodies — that alienates them from female consumers, contributing to their general lack of marketability.
The study makes the troubling accusation that female consumers are jealous of spokeswomen who are made out to be paragons of strength and attractiveness, suggesting that’s one reason why ads focused on female athletes’ physicality are unsuccessful. “A female looking at an attractive female, as opposed to saying ‘I want to be like that,’ actually has a negative reaction,” said Robinson.
Originally, the authors wanted to call the study “Guys Want to Be Like Mike, Girls Want Mia to Be Like Them.” In branding strategy, they stress, there needs to be a transfer of meaning from the endorser to the product to the consumer. When there’s a disconnect in this process, the endorsement doesn’t work. Robinson adds that middle-aged women have trouble connecting with younger female athletes, while teen girls react to images like Danica Patrick’s GoDaddy commercials by saying, “That’s like seeing my mom in a bikini.”
An underlying issue may simply be that Olympic athletes are such outliers from the norm. “When you promote sexuality and beauty, the average woman has a hard time relating to that,” said Antil. He insists that it’s not disempowering to tone down the focus on endorsers’ athletic ability, and that the same thing occurs with male endorsers. Once athletes have established a modicum of celebrity through their performance, advertisers would do well to attempt to find something about them that is more universally relatable. Ideally something relevant to the product they’re attempting to sell.
1984 gold medal gymnast Mary Lou Retton, said Robinson, sets a positive example for how female athletes might go about retaining their familiarity and connecting with a consumer base. Marketers focus on the way Retton balances being a wife and mother with her athletic endeavors and her celebrity status. The ad campaigns therefore reach similar women, a demographic with significant purchasing power.
Retton’s staying power is an anomaly, and one that is crucial for Olympic athletes who hope to make money from endorsement deals. The “Fab Five” of this year’s U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team have the potential to remain popular beyond this summer, said Antil, as much because of their personalities as because of their performance. As they attempt to maximize their marketability in the long term, advertisers will probably do well to humanize our Olympic heroines rather than flaunt their superhuman physiques.


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DEARBORN — All Dearborn restaurants can register to participate in Dearborn Restaurant Week from March 3-12.
Dearborn Restaurant Week is designated to celebrate Dearborn’s diverse food culture and signature culinary experience. This allows both food lovers and frequent restaurant goers to experience this unique and savory cuisine as well as give the participating restaurants a chance to showcase their specialty dishes.
The participation fee has been reduced to $15o from the original fee of $300, as an added incentive for restaurants throughout the city to participate.
Dearborn Restaurant Week is offering the opportunity for all restaurants along all of the city’s business districts to participate in this 10-day experience. All Dearborn restaurants are encouraged to sign up in celebration of the culinary diversity that the city has to offer. Businesses have until Friday, Feb. 17 to register at www.dearbornrestaurantweek.com/signup.
Dearborn Restaurant Week helps give restaurants exposure to thousands of visitors through DRW and Downtown Dearborn social media platforms. Participating restaurants are eligible to receive event promotions, including radio and digital media outlets.
How to take part in Dearborn Restaurant Week 2023?
Restaurants are required to showcase a price-fixed menu with prices of $15, $25 and $40, specifically for participants of DRW. Some restaurants may offer 2-for-1 pricing. Menu items will be representative of the particular restaurant’s style of cooking.
For further information, visit https://www.dearbornrestaurantweek.com/signup/
Any questions can be directed to firstname.lastname@example.org.
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Earlier this year when Nike introduced its Breaking2 campaign, which found purpose in marathon runners finishing the 26.2 mile trek in under two hours, it was largely thrust upon the shoulders of Eliud Kipchoge. This past weekend Kipchoge participated in the Berlin Marathon, and he received a special gift from Nike collaborator and Off-White founder, Virgil Abloh, upon completion.
The Nike Zoom Fly, one of “The Ten” in the designer’s highly touted collaborative collection, was customized by Abloh for Kipchoge. Unfortunately Eliud didn’t quite break two this race, yet finished the marathon at an insanely impressive 2:03:32 mark.
Abloh, as he’s made famous this year, wrote Kipchoge’s time on the midsole in quotations to celebrate the triumphant marathon finish. And although his finish time wasn’t record-breaking, it did manage to secure yet another race victory for Kipchoge.


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See you at Hiperbaric HPP Innovation Week 2024, with the return of the HPP Innovation Awards!
HPP Innovation Week is the benchmark event on High Pressure Processing (HPP) Technology for the food & beverage industry. The virtual conference brings together manufacturers, retailers, food service companies, regulatory, academic leaders, and others in the HPP industry to discuss the latest trends and updates in the industry.
Hiperbaric actively contributes to the dissemination of the latest scientific advances on High Pressure Processing (HPP), providing the food industry with valuable insights that enable the adoption of HPP technology for the development of highly nutritious and safe food products. To acknowledge researchers for their contributions in the field, Hiperbaric will host the HPP Research Awards during HPP Innovation Week 2022.


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ONE® and MyONE® Custom Fit™ Condoms now available at Walmart stores in the United States
Walmart stores in the United States have three condom styles available from ONE® Condoms, an industry pioneer in innovative safer sex products.
In February 2022, ONE® and MyONE® Custom Fit™ became the first and only condoms cleared for anal use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The milestone inspired ONE® and Walmart to partner with each other on new packaging that highlights the FDA clearance for safer anal sex. The result is the ONE® Backdoor Pack™, a new three-pack available exclusively at Walmart stores nationwide in the U.S.
“At ONE®, we’re proud to be leading the way once again with the first condoms FDA-cleared for anal use,” said Davin Wedel, CEO and president of Global Protection Corp, the owner of the ONE® brand. “We couldn't be more thrilled to partner with Walmart to make our products more widely available across the country."
The Backdoor Pack includes samples of the three styles that earned FDA clearance for anal sex:
- ONE® Vanish®: 25% thinner than the standard ONE® Condom, and specially enhanced with ONE® Move® lubricant.
- ONE® Super Sensitive™: thin, smooth condoms that feature 50% more lubricant.
- MyONE® Custom Fit™: Five years ago, ONE® revolutionized the condom industry with the release of MyONE® Custom Fit™, a line of condoms in 52 different sizes to help ensure the perfect fit. Because as consumers have quickly learned, one size definitely does not fit all.
The ONE® Backdoor Pack™ at Walmart includes a popular MyONE® size, based on customer purchasing habits, that is slightly shorter and slightly wider than a regular condom. The pack also includes a FitKit® measuring tool, so people can measure at home to find their perfect fit.
In addition to the Backdoor Pack, Walmart stores in the U.S. now carry 12-count packs of ONE® Vanish® and ONE® Super Sensitive™ condoms, both with packaging that highlights “FDA cleared for anal use.” And while size matters when it comes to condoms, so do other things. That’s why Walmart stores also carry the popular ONE® Move® silicone lubricant and Oasis Silk®lubricating lotion so no one will ever be left high and dry.
To learn more visit onecondoms.com/backdoor.
Milla Impola, Director of Marketing & Communications


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Nintendo’s finances took a dip in the company’s third quarter report for FY 2015 – sales stayed relatively stable with just 3.9 per cent shrinkage to 427.7 billion Yen ($3.5bn), but profits dropped by 32 per cent year-on-year to 40.5 billion Yen ($336m).
Although the bottom line failed to excite, plenty of familiar faces performed well for the publisher’s software arm, as well as a few new names. Top seller was Child friendly Wii U shooter Splatoon, shifting over four million units. Super Mario maker wasn’t far behind on 3.34 million, whilst Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer reached 2.93 million. Collectively the 3DS family sold 5.88 million units of hardware and 38.87 million games. The Wii U totalled 3.06 million consoles and 22.62 million pieces of software. 20.50 million Amiibo figures were sold, and approximately 21.50 million Amiibo cards.
Those eagerly awaiting news of either the new NX system or the company’s first smartphone game will be disappointed – neither was mentioned in the company’s forward looking statements. Instead, the publisher focused on relatively known quantities.
“For Nintendo 3DS, we will globally release a special edition hardware pre-installed with Pokémon title(s) from the original Pokémon series on February 27 which marks the 20th year since the original Pokémon series release,2 read the accompanying statement.
“Furthermore, Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and key titles from third-party publishers are scheduled for release. For Wii U, we will strive to maintain the attention level of Splatoon and Super Mario Maker, which are continuing to show steady sales, while introducing new titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD. Meanwhile, for Amiibo, we will continue to expand the product lineup in order to maintain momentum. At the same time, we will aim to further expand sales by offering new gaming experiences with the use of Amiibo. In addition, the first application for smart devices, Miitomo, is scheduled for release.”
The company has maintained its full year target of 35 billion Yen in profit.
The Nintendo NX may surpass the Wii U’s lifetime installed base in its first year on shelves. According to a Digi-Times report, Nintendo’s upstream component suppliers are expecting to provide the company with enough hardware to ship 10-12 million units in 2016.
That would mark a rebound after the Wii U, which through September had put up lifetime sales of a little under 11 million. However, Nintendo may be expecting even more from its next platform; in July, Digi-Times reported that the company was planning to ship 20 million Nintendo NX systems globally in 2016.
The report states that Foxconn Electronics will manufacture the NX, with mass production beginning at the end of the first quarter. Foxconn Technology, Macronix, Pixart Imaging, Coxon Precise Industrial, Nishoku Technology, Delta Technology, Lingsen Precision Industries and Jentech are expected to be supplying components for the NX.
Japan’s Nintendo Co announced that it is delaying the much-awaited launch of its videogame service for smartphones by a few months to March 2016, disappointing gaming fans as well as investors who drove its shares down by more than 10 percent.
Under a strategy announced by its previous chief executive, who died of cancer earlier this year, Nintendo had said it would introduce its first smartphone games by the end of 2015. Fans and investors had hoped it would include its best-selling videogame franchise Mario in the first lineup.
Chief Executive Tatsumi Kimishima, a former banker who succeeded Satoru Iwata, said the delay would help Nintendo concentrate on selling its existing consoles and game software during the year-end holiday season.
“The year-end is traditionally our peak season for sales,” told a packed news conference, when asked about the delay. “This way, we’d be able to introduce our new applications after the holiday season is over.”
He avoided commenting on whether Mario would come to smartphones, instead introducing a new social networking service-style application called “Miitomo” which would be available in March.
The news knocked Nintendo’s shares down more than 10 percent in morning trade, erasing earlier gains. DeNA Co, Nintendo’s mobile gaming partner, fell as much as 19 percent.
Kimishima must avoid cannibalizing traditional console sales at the same time as pushing aggressively into the rapidly growing mobile gaming segment. On Wednesday, Nintendo reported a weaker-than-expected operating profit for the July-September quarter on tepid sales of game software.
“This (move into mobile gaming) is a sea change for them and there may be some growing pains like this along the way,” said Gavin Parry, managing director of Hong Kong-based brokerage Parry International Trade.
Former CEO Iwata, credited with broadening the appeal of videogames, died of cancer in July just months after deciding to enter mobile gaming despite years of resisting investor calls for such a move.
Verizon Communications Inc launched a trial version of its new mobile video service on Tuesday, looking to prove that telecom players can compete with mobile ad industry titans Google Inc and Facebook Inc.
Verizon said its service, a mobile app dubbed “go90″, will be offered initially to a select set of its own customers, with advertisements from well-known brands, which it declined to name, but without newly acquired ad technology from AOL, the media company it bought in June for $4.4 billion.
Verizon is targeting young viewers or millennials with about 100 to 200 hours of exclusive content from online video networks such as AwesomenessTV and Machinima, said Brian Angiolet, Verizon’s senior vice president, consumer products. The free service will drive revenue from data usage and targeted advertising.
Verizon’s best chance to prove its advertising potential rests on technology from AOL, which has built tools to deliver targeted Web and mobile ads. That, combined with Verizon’s customer data, should improve targeting, analysts say.
The AOL technology is in the process of being integrated with Verizon’s video service, and targeted advertising tools will be available over time, Angiolet said.
The service will launch officially to all users as soon as later this month, a Verizon spokesman said.
Companies from Netflix Inc to Dish Network Corp already offer Web-based video services through subscriptions, but the No. 1 U.S. wireless company’s ad-supported, short-form video model is unusual.
Go90 pits Verizon against Internet advertising industry heavyweights Google and Facebook, and advertisers will take a “wait and see” approach to determine how many viewers Verizon captures, telecom industry consultant Tim Farrar said.
“Pretty much without exception telecom operators have not been successful as third parties in exploiting the Internet access service, whether it’s video or anything else,” Farrar said. “What percentage of people’s app viewing is going to be over a Verizon app versus YouTube or Facebook…That’s the biggest uncertainty.”
Verizon’s rival AT&T Inc has said it has mobile video services targeting young viewers in the works. Smaller rivals Sprint Corp and T-Mobile US Inc have said they are watching their competitors’ efforts closely.
Studios like Disney, which has made blockbuster films like “Frozen” and Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy,” have been attempting to steer movie fans towards digital purchases as sales of DVDs decline.
Walt Disney Studios added that it would launch the app on video streaming-device maker Roku Inc and Google Inc’s Android TV on Sept. 15, coinciding with the DVD release of “Cinderella.”
The collection in Disney Movies Anywhere can be accessed through its new app for theMicrosoft Xbox 360 and for Amazon’s Fire tablets, Fire TV and Fire TV Stick.
The media company launched Disney Movies Anywhere in February 2014 with Apple Inc’s iTunes, and in November partnered with the Google Play online store and Walmart Stores Inc’s online store Vudu.
The two new additions come on the same day as its early digital release of Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
The Biel, Switzerland-based company is competing with Apple and other watchmakers in the budding smartwatch market.
“Our product is called Touch Zero One and that gives enough room for Zero Five, Zero Nine,” Nick Hayek was quoted as saying by Switzerland’s Tages-Anzeiger newspaper. “The Touch Zero One is not the end of the progression.”
Hayek told the paper Swatch would launch Touch Zero Two at next year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
The Swiss company’s strategy appears primarily to revolve around including individual tech features in different models rather than going head to head with Apple to create all-in-one smartwatches combining many functions.
On top of its Touch Zero One, which can track the distance the wearer travels and help beach volleyball players measure the power of their hits, Swatch is planning to launch watches with an embedded “near field communication” chip this year.
The last of the console makers is ready to sign up to AMD chips, according to the latest rumor
Some details are now coming to light on Nintendo’s upcoming NX console. The console will be in the shops in a year’s time, but we might know who’s building the NX’s chips.
AMD will manufacture the CPU + GPU combo, giving the outfit total control of the console market. It was pretty much a no brainer. AMD created the APUs found inside the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Although it is getting increasingly difficult to tell the consoles apart.
AMD’s CEO, Lisa Su, confirmed that the company had a new chip contract. Su said the deal could generate billions, but she did not identify the customer .
It now seems she was referring to the Nintendo deal, which means she is more optimistic about the products’ success than us.
The NX will be based around the Android operating system and should released some time next year. Nintendo is saying nothing about the deal at the moment.
AMD is needs more deals like this if it is going to turn around its dependence on the ever-shrinking PC market. There are only so many consoles that made every year and AMD appears to be inside them all.
For a while now, people had been wondering what the next Wii would be called, with smart money being on the Number 2. However it seems that the new console dubbed the Nintendo NX has a few surprises under the bonnet.
According to Nikkei Nintendo is planning an Android console so that game developers would be able to port their games over with relative ease.
This could also indicate that games developed for the Nintendo NX could extend to other Android-powered devices like smartphones and tablets, play nice with the console.
Games developers have been ignoring the Wii U in droves so this might actually help Nintendo get back into the race.
Android-powered consoles have appeared before but they died horribly in the market place.
There’s something genuinely surreal about sitting down to write an article about region locking in 2015. It feels archaic and almost nostalgic; I might as well be writing something about blowing into cartridge ports to get games to work, or bemoaning the long load times for cassettes. Yet here we are. Years into the era of digital distribution, long after we reached the point where it became technically harder to prevent customers from accessing games from anywhere in the world than it is to permit the same, region locking is back in the news. Thanks, Nintendo.
The focus of this week’s headlines is the Humble Bundle promotion which Nintendo is running for a number of indie titles on 3DS and Wii U. It’s a great deal for some excellent games and is raising money for a solid cause; plus it’s wonderful to see console platform holders engaging with the Humble Bundle approach, which has been so successful at bringing indie games (and other creative works) to wider audiences on the PC. It ought to be a win, win, win for Nintendo, gamers and indie developers alike.
Unfortunately, though, the bundle only works in the Americas; North America and some bits of Central and South America. Customers elsewhere are entirely locked out, a matter which has been a source of deep frustration not only to those customers, but also seemingly to Nintendo’s own staff working on the project. The result is that what ought to have been a straightforward PR win for the company has turned bittersweet; there has been more widespread news coverage of the region locking debacle in the past few days than there has been for the bundle itself.
Although this is a terrible shame for the developers involved – and I sincerely hope that Nintendo can pull its thumb out of its backside and launch an international version of the bundle in short order – no sympathy is due to Nintendo in this situation. It’s a problem entirely of the company’s own making; the firm made a deliberate and conscious decision to embrace region locking even as the internationalisation of digital distribution made that look increasingly ridiculous, and until that stubbornly backwards piece of decision making is reversed, it’s going to continue causing PR problems for the firm, not to mention genuine problems for its most devoted customers.
Remember, after all, that the rest of the gaming world has ditched region locking en masse – Sony gave it up with the PS3, even making it painless to use digital content from different regions by creating multiple accounts on the same console, while Microsoft made region locking optional on Xbox 360 (making a bit of a mess where some publishers enforced it and others didn’t) before ditching it entirely on the Xbox One. At the same time Nintendo, ever the merry contrarians, went the opposite direction, not only maintaining region locking on the Wii and Wii U, but even extending it to the 3DS – in contrast to the company’s prior handheld consoles, which had been region free.
The idiocy of a region locked handheld is staggering; these are systems which are quite simply at their best when you’re traveling, yet lo and behold, Nintendo don’t want you to buy any games if you go on holiday or on a business trip. The excuses trotted out were mealy-mouthed corporate dishonesty from start to finish; it was all about protecting customers, honest, and respecting local customs and laws. Utter tosh. Had those things been a genuine issue, they would have been an issue in the previous decades when Nintendo managed to sell handheld consoles without region locking; they would also have been an issue for Sony and Microsoft when they removed region locking from their systems.
In truth, there’s only one reason for region locking in this day and age – price control – and Nintendo’s calculation must have been that they had more to lose from the possibility, real or imagined, of people buying cheaper 3DS games from countries overseas, than they had to lose from annoying a chunk of their customer base, be they keen gamers who wanted to try out titles unlikely to be released in their regions, expats who want to play games brought from their home countries or parents who find that a game bought in the airport on the way home from holiday results not in a pacified, happy child on the flight but in an angry, upset child with a game that won’t work.
In Nintendo’s defence, Satoru Iwata has recently been musing publicly about dropping region locking from the Nintendo NX, whenever that turns up. That the company is clearly planning to move down that path does rather confirm that it’s been fibbing about its motivations for region locking all along, of course, which might be why Iwata is being cautious in his statements; it’s a shame if such face-saving is the reason for Nintendo failing to keep up with industry moves in this regard, because the company is going to keep being periodically beaten with this stick until the problem is fixed.
Admittedly, there would be problems with removing region locking from its existing consoles – not least that Nintendo’s agreements with publishers probably guarantee the region locking system, so even if it could be patched out of the 3DS and Wii U with a software update, that can’t happen legally due to the contracts it would breach. What Nintendo could and should do, however, is to offer gamers a gesture of good faith on the matter by dropping region locking from all its first-party software from now on – and perhaps emulating Xbox 360 era Microsoft by making it optional for third-party publishers as well. I can envisage no legal barrier to that approach; it would earn the company enormous kudos for responding to its audience and dealing with the problem, and would cost them precisely nothing. There aren’t that many easy PR wins floating around the industry right now; Nintendo should leap on this chance to show itself to be on the customers’ side.
Wheels turn slowly in Kyoto, though, and it’s probably too much to expect the company to react in a startup-like way to the region locking issue. In some ways it’s Nintendo’s strength that it reacts slowly and thoughtfully rather than jumping on every bandwagon, but in recent years, it’s also been a weakness far too many times – and the thoroughly wonderful software that the company has been turning out in the past few years, perhaps the finest line-up it’s produced in decades, has been regularly undermined by bad decisions in marketing and positioning of its platforms, many of which can be traced to a failure to understand where the market is and where it’s moving.
Region locking isn’t the biggest problem. Fixing it would be cheap and easy but would hardly be a panacea for Nintendo’s issues – but it’s a problem that’s symptomatic, emblematic even, of the broader problems Nintendo has with putting its customers first and applying the same care and attention to its corporate aspects which it always applies to its software development. Fix a problem like this in a proactive, rapid way, and we might all start to believe that the company has what it takes to get back on top.
Nintendo has formed a comprehensive new alliance with DeNA that will make every one of the company’s famous IPs available for mobile development.
The bedrock of the deal is a dual stock purchase, with each company buying ¥22 billion ($181 million) of the other’s treasury shares. That’s equivalent to 10 per cent of DeNA’s stock, and 1.24 per cent of Nintendo. The payments will complete on April 2, 2015.
What this will ultimately mean for the consumer is Nintendo IP on mobile, “extending Nintendo’s reach into the vast market of smart device users worldwide.” There will be no ports of existing Nintendo games, according to information released today, but, “all Nintendo IP will be eligible for development and exploration by the alliance.” That includes the “iconic characters” that the company has guarded for so long.
No details on the business model that these games and apps will be released under were offered, though Nintendo may well be reluctant to adopt free-to-play at first. The information provided to the press emphasised the “premium” experiences Nintendo currently offers on platforms like Wii U and 3DS. Admittedly, that could be interpreted in either direction.
However, Nintendo and DeNA are planning an online membership service that will span Nintendo consoles, PC and smart devices. That will launch in the autumn this year.
This marks a significant change in strategy for Nintendo, which has been the subject of reports about plans to take its famous IPs to mobile for at least a year. Indeed, the company has denied the suggestion on several occasions, even as it indicated that it did have plans to make mobile a part of its core strategy in other ways.
Analysts have been offering their reflections on the deal, with the response from most being largely positive.
“Nintendo’s decision to partner with DeNA is a recognition of the importance of the games app audience to the future of its business,” said IHS head of gaming Piers Harding-Rolls. “Not only is there significant revenue to be made directly from smartphone and tablet consumers for Nintendo, app ecosystems are also very important in reaching new customers to make them aware of the Nintendo brand and to drive a new and broader audience to its dedicated console business. Last year IHS data shows that games apps were worth $26 billion in consumer spending globally, with handheld console games worth only 13 per cent of that total at $3.3 billion.
“The Nintendo-DeNA alliance is a good fit and offers up a number of important synergies for two companies that are no longer leaders in their respective segments.
“DeNA remains one of the leading mobile games company’s in Japan and, we believe, shares cultural similarities with Nintendo, especially across its most popular big-brand content. The alliance gives Nintendo access to a large audience in its home market, which remains very important to its overall financial performance. Japanese consumers spend significantly more per capita on mobile games than in any other country and it remains the biggest market for both smartphone and handheld gaming. While the partnership gives Nintendo immediate potential to grow its domestic revenues through this audience, gaining access to DeNA’s mobile expertise is important too to realise this potential.
“This alliance makes commercial sense on many levels – the main challenge will be knitting together the cultures of both companies and aligning the speed of development and iteration that is needed in the mobile space with Nintendo’s more patient and systematic approach to games content production. How the new games are monetised may also provide a challenge considering the general differences in models used in retail for Nintendo and through in-app purchases for DeNA.”
In a livestreamed press conference regarding the DeNA deal, Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata reassured those in attendance that the company was still committed to “dedicated video game systems” as its core business. To do that, he confirmed that the company was working on a new console, codenamed “NX”.
“As proof that Nintendo maintains strong enthusiasm for the dedicated game system business let me confirm that Nintendo is currently developing a dedicated game platform with a brand new concept under the development codename NX,” he said.
“It is too early to elaborate on the details of this project but we hope to share more information with you next year.”
Nintendo is heading back to black, with the company’s financial announcements this week revealing that it’s expecting to post a fairly reasonable profit for the full year. For a company that’s largely been mired in red ink since the end of the glory days of the Wii, that looks like pretty fantastic news; but since I was one of the people who repeatedly pointed out in the past when Nintendo’s quarterly losses were driven by currency fluctuations, not sales failures, it’s only fair that I now point out that quite the reverse is true. The Yen has fallen dramatically against the Dollar and the Euro in recent months, making Nintendo’s overseas assets and sales much more valuable in its end-of-year results – and this time, that’s covering over the fact that the company has missed its hardware sales targets for both the 3DS and the Wii U.
In short, all those “Nintendo back in profit” headlines aren’t really worth anything more than the “Nintendo makes shock loss” headlines were back when the Yen was soaring to all-time highs a few years ago. The company is still facing the same tough times this week that it was last week; the Wii U is still struggling to break 10 million units and the 3DS is seeing a major year-on-year decline in its sales, having faltered significantly after hitting the 50 million installed base mark.
In hardware terms, then, Nintendo deserves all the furrowed brows and concerned looks it’s getting right now. Part of the problem is comparisons with past successes, of course; the Wii shipped over a million units and the DS, an absolute monster of a console, managed over 150 million. In reality, while the Wii U is having a seriously hard time in spite of its almost universally acclaimed 2014 software line-up, the 3DS isn’t doing badly at all; but it can’t escape comparison with its record-breaking older sibling, naturally enough.
Plenty of commentators reckon they know the answer to Nintendo’s woes, and they’ve all got the same answer; the company needs to ditch hardware and start selling its games on other platforms. Pokemon on iOS! Smash Bros on PlayStation! Mario Kart on Xbox! Freed from the limited installed base of Nintendo’s own hardware – and presumably, in the case of handheld titles, freed to experiment with new business models like F2P – the company’s games would reach their full potential, the expensive hardware division could be shut down and everyone at Nintendo could spend the rest of their lives blowing their noses on ¥10,000 notes.
I’m being flippant, yes, but there’s honestly not a lot more depth than that to the remedies so often proposed for Nintendo. I can’t help but find myself deeply unconvinced. For a start, let’s think about “Nintendo’s woes”, and what exactly is meant by the doom and gloom narrative that has surrounded the company in recent years. That the Wii U isn’t selling well is absolutely true; it’s doing better than the Dreamcast did, to pick an ominous example, but unless there’s a major change of pace the console is unlikely ever to exceed the installed base of the GameCube. Indeed, if you treat the Wii as a “black swan” in Nintendo’s home console history, a flare of success that the company never quite figured out how to bottle and repeat, then the Wii U starts to look like a continuation of a slow and steady decline that started with the Nintendo 64 (a little over thirty million consoles sold in total) and continued with the GameCube (a little over twenty million). That the 3DS is struggling to match the pace and momentum of the DS is also absolutely true; it’s captured a big, healthy swathe of the core Nintendo market but hasn’t broken out to the mass market in the way that the DS did with games like Brain Training.
Yet here’s a thing; in spite of the doom and gloom around downward-revised forecasts for hardware, Nintendo was still able to pull out a list of this year’s million-plus selling software that would put any other publisher in the industry to shame. The latest Pokemon games on 3DS have done nearly 10 million units; Super Smash Bros has done 6.2 million on 3DS and 3.4 million on the Wii U. Mario Kart 8 has done almost five million units, on a console that’s yet to sell 10 million. Also selling over a million units in the last nine months of 2014 on 3DS we find Tomodachi Life, Mario Kart 7 (which has topped 11 million units, life to date), Pokemon X and Y (nearly 14 million units to date), New Super Mario Bros 2 (over 9 million), Animal Crossing: New Leaf (nearly 9 million) and Kirby: Triple Deluxe. The Wii U, in addition to Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros, had million-plus sellers in Super Mario 3D World and Nintendo Land.
That’s 12 software titles from a single publisher managing to sell over a million units in the first three quarters of a financial year – a pretty bloody fantastic result that only gets better if you add in the context that Nintendo is also 2014′s highest-rated publisher in terms of critical acclaim. Plus, Nintendo also gets a nice cut of any third-party software sold on its consoles; granted, that probably doesn’t sum up to much on the Wii U, where third-party games generally seem to have bombed, but on the 3DS it means that the company is enjoying a nice chunk of change from the enormous success of Yokai Watch, various versions of which occupied several slots in the Japanese software top ten for 2014, among other successful 3DS third-party games.
Aha, say the advocates of a third-party publisher approach for Nintendo, that’s exactly our point! The company’s software is amazing! It would do so much better if it weren’t restrained by only being released on consoles that aren’t all that popular! Imagine how Nintendo’s home console games would perform on the vastly faster-selling PS4 (and imagine how great they’d look, intones the occasional graphics-obsessive); imagine how something like Tomodachi Life or Super Smash Bros would do if it was opened up to the countless millions of people with iOS or Android phones!
Let’s take those arguments one at a time, because they’re actually very different. Firstly, home consoles – a sector in which there’s no doubt that Nintendo is struggling. The PS4 has got around twice the installed base of the Wii U after only half the time on the market; it’s clear where the momentum and enthusiasm lies. Still, Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8 managed to sell several million copies apiece on Wii U; in the case of Mario Kart 8, around half of Wii U owners bought a copy. Bearing in mind that Nintendo makes way more profit per unit from selling software on its own systems than it would from selling it on third-party consoles (where it would, remember, be paying a licensing fee to Sony or Microsoft), here’s the core question; could it sell more copies of Mario Kart 8 on other people’s consoles than it managed on its own?
If you think the answer to that is “yes”, here’s what you’re essentially claiming; that there’s a large pent-up demand among PlayStation owners for Mario Kart games. Is there really? Can you prove that, through means other than dredging up a handful of Reddit posts from anonymous people saying “I’d play Nintendo games if they were 1080p/60fps on my PS4″? To me, that seems like quite a big claim. It’s an especially big claim when you consider the hyper-competitive environment in which Nintendo would be operating on the PS4 (or Xbox One, or both).
Right now, a big Nintendo game launching on a Nintendo console is a major event for owners of that console. I think Nintendo launches would still be a big event on any console, but there’s no doubt that the company would lose focus as a third-party publisher – sure, the new Smash Bros is out, but competing for attention, pocket money and free time against plenty of other software. It’s not that I don’t think Nintendo games could hold their own in a competitive market, I merely don’t wish to underestimate the focus that Nintendo acquires by having a devoted console all of their own underneath the TVs of millions of consumers – even if its not quite the number of millions they’d like.
How about the other side of the argument, then – the mobile games aspect? Nintendo’s position in handheld consoles may not be what it used to be, but the 3DS has roundly trounced the PlayStation Vita in sales terms. Sure, iPhones and high-end Android devices have much bigger installed bases (Apple shifted around 75 million iPhones in the last quarter, while the lifetime sales of the 3DS are only just over 50 million), but that comparison isn’t necessarily a very useful one. All 50 million 3DS owners bought an expensive device solely to play games, and the lifetime spend on game software of each 3DS owner runs into hundreds of dollars. The “average revenue per user” calculation for Pokemon on the 3DS is easy; everyone paid substantial money for the game up front.
By comparison, lots and lots of iOS and Android users never play games at all, and many of those who play games never pay for them. That’s fine; that’s the very basis of the F2P model, and games using that model effectively can still make plenty of money while continuing to entertain a large number (perhaps even a majority) of players who pay nothing. Still, the claim that moving to smartphones is a “no-brainer” for Nintendo is a pretty huge one, taken in this context. The market for premium, expensive software on smartphones is very limited and deeply undermined by F2P; the move to F2P for Nintendo titles would be creatively difficult for many games, and even for ones that are a relatively natural fit (such as Pokemon), it would be an enormous commercial risk. There’s a chance Nintendo could get it right and end up with a Puzzle & Dragons sized hit on its hands (which is what it would take to exceed the half a billion dollars or so the company makes from each iteration of Pokemon on 3DS); there’s also an enormous risk that the company could get it wrong, attracting criticism and controversy around poor decisions or misjudged sales techniques, and badly damage the precious Pokemon brand itself.
In short, while I’m constantly aware that the market seems to be changing faster than Nintendo is prepared to keep up with, I’m not convinced that any of the company’s critics actually have a better plan right now than Satoru Iwata’s “stay the course” approach. If you believe that PlayStation fans will flock to buy Nintendo software on their console, you may think differently; if you think that the risk and reward profile of the global iOS market is a better bet than the 50-odd million people who have locked themselves in to Nintendo’s 3DS platform and shown a willingness to pay high software prices there, then similarly, you’ll probably think differently. Certainly, there’s some merit to the idea that Nintendo ought to be willing to disrupt its own business in order to avoid being disrupted by others – yet there’s a difference between self-disruption and just hurling yourself headlong into disaster in the name of “not standing still”.
There’s a great deal that needs to be fixed at Nintendo; its marketing and branding remains a bit of a disaster, its relationships with third-party studios and publishers are deeply questionable and its entire approach to online services is incoherent at best. Yet this most fundamental question, “should Nintendo stay in the hardware business”, remains a hell of a lot tougher than the company’s critics seem to believe. For now, beleaguered though he may seem, Iwata still seems to be articulating the most convincing vision for the future of the industry’s most iconic company.
The veteran tech pioneer, which long ago lost the mantle of the world’s most inventive company, is making a bold play to regain that title in the face of stiff competition from Google Inc and Apple Inc.
Virtual or enhanced reality is the next frontier in computing interaction, with Facebook Inc focusing on its Oculus virtual reality headset and Google working on its Glass project.
Microsoft said its wire-free Microsoft HoloLens device will be available around the same time as Windows 10 this autumn. Industry analysts were broadly excited at the prospect, but skeptical that it could produce a working model at a mass-market price that soon.
“That was kind of a ‘Oh wow!’ moment,” said Mike Silver, an analyst at Gartner who tried out the prototype on Wednesday. “You would expect to see a relatively high-priced model this year or next year, then maybe it’ll take another couple of years to bring it down to a more affordable level.”
Microsoft does not have a stellar record of bringing ground-breaking technology to life. Its Kinect motion-sensing game device caused an initial stir but never gripped the popular imagination.
The company showed off a crude test version of the visor – essentially jerry-rigged wires and cameras pulled over the head – to reporters and industry analysts at a gathering at its headquarters near Seattle.
It did not allow any photographs or video of the experience, but put some images on its website.
Dailymotion Games will put the firm into a market that so far includes Twitch, a streamer that has cemented its place as a gaming add-on and a coveted option on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles.
The Dailymotion information does not dwell on Twitch, which has been a feature of many a gushing press release from console makers such as Sony, but it does say that the live streaming gaming platform has some decent credentials.
For example, the promotional information says that the platform is backed with “industry leading video and live streaming technology”.
The firm also reminds us that it has some history here, and has been e-gaming for some time.
“Since 2011, with the first Dailymotion Cup on Starcraft, Dailymotion has accompanied e-sport growth on the internet,” said Martin Rogard, Dailymotion’s chief operating officer.
“Dailymotion Games is entirely dedicated to e-sports fans and streamers who come together every evening to form an amazingly talented and gregarious community.
“Over the coming months, we will significantly increase our investment in the e-sports domain to ensure worldwide recognition of all our talented content producers.”
Dailymotion said that live streamers will be able to monetise their content, which Microsoft recently confirmed is fine for its users, and that streamers could run their own “controlled video advertisement” and any number of social tools including search and real-time communications. Android and iOS apps are available.
The service is currently in beta. Dailymotion said that it serves some 180 million game videos a month.
“We have been building our team on assumptions of faster growth than have materialized. As a result, we announced today that we plan to simplify our organization … we also need to consider possible employee reductions,” Chief Executive Mikael Hed said in a statement.
According to Rovio, the Angry Birds game, in which players use a slingshot to attack pigs who steal birds’ eggs, is the No. 1 paid mobile application of all time.
Rovio has expanded the brand into an animated TV series and merchandising of toys and clothing, but at the same time it has struggled to retain players, resulting to its earnings halving last year.
In August, the company named Pekka Rantala, a former Nokia executive, as its next CEO.
Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto doesn’t want to make games for “passive” people; the attitude that games ought to be to be a roller-coaster ride, to entertain without challenge, is, to his mind, “pathetic”. That was the message from the legendary game designer in an E3 interview with Edge magazine, published in this month’s edition; it’s been presented by other news outlets as a sign of a Nintendo U-turn, moving away from the casual market it sought with the Wii and the DS in favour of re-engaging core gamers.
That’s exactly the sort of message that most of the games media wants to hear, of course. The media, after all, speaks exclusively to core gamers; casual players generally don’t bother with specialist media. “Nintendo has seen the error of its ways and realised that the only people worth making games for are you, my dear brethren!” is a crowd-pleaser of a message; but it’s also a pretty big leap to make from the comments Miyamoto actually made.
First, the context. Edge had just challenged Miyamoto over the fact that his prototype games at E3 were all somewhat difficult to play. They used the Wii U GamePad in new ways which it took a while to get accustomed to; the question implied in the text of Edge’s interview isn’t about casual games at all, but about the difficulty level of the prototypes. Miyamoto’s response does make clear a mental distinction between different types of game consumer and a preference for those who enjoy some challenge in their entertainment, but to extrapolate that into a U-turn in Nintendo’s development priorities is an overreach.
In fact, Miyamoto’s comments – equating passivity with “the sort of people who, for example, might want to watch a movie. They might want to go to Disneyland. Their attitude is ‘OK, I am the customer; you are supposed to entertain me’” – are punching in a number of directions at once. Certainly, he’s frustrated by people who play games without ever really engaging with them as a challenge; I doubt he’s a fan of free-to-play systems that allow you to pay money to bypass challenges. Equally, though, those comments are an attack on some approaches to AAA game design; barren technological wonders which serve as little more than on-rails galleries for artwork and pale narrative. Miyamoto isn’t saying “casuals have ruined the market”; far from it. He’s saying that there are consumers who demand spoon-fed entertainment at all points of the spectrum from core to casual, and that he doesn’t want to make games for any of them. (It’s also worth noting that he’s not really blowing his top over this; “pathetic” doesn’t carry the same kind of stinging indictment in Japanese that it does in translation.)
Later in the Edge interview, Miyamoto veers back to similar territory when he talks about the proliferation of mainstream game-capable platforms like iOS and Android devices. While adamant that Nintendo needs to continue to make hardware as well as software, he’s delighted that these new platforms exist, because they provide an “on-ramp” for consumers who haven’t engaged with games before. Nintendo previously saw itself holding a responsibility to try to open up new demographics for the games industry; now it seems that we’ve reached a tipping point, technologically and culturally, where that’s happening by itself.
Edge speculates that this means Miyamoto (and hence Nintendo) believes that the window has shut on making games for entry-level gamers. Titles like Brain Training, which opened up the DS to a huge audience of people who had rarely if ever played games before, may now be pointless; the consumers they ought to target are all playing games on their phones and tablets, so there isn’t an addressable market remaining there for dedicated hardware and more expensive (non-F2P) games. This is fair analysis, and indeed, it probably features in Nintendo’s thinking; let iOS serve as the entry level for new gamers and then hope that those who enjoy the experience will ultimately upgrade to the superior offerings available on a dedicated console.
At the same time, though, Nintendo itself has a conception of “casual” and “core” that probably isn’t shared by the majority of sites reporting Miyamoto’s comments. Miyamoto talks not about themes but about enjoyment of challenge as the distinction between the two groups. To him, a supposedly “adult” game full of blood and ripe language could be utterly casual if it spoon-feeds players with dull, linear gameplay. Meanwhile, a brightly coloured Mushroom Kingdom epic could qualify as “core” if it challenges players in the right way. Consequently, Nintendo’s family-friendly IP and the broad appeal of its themes is entirely compatible with a focus on “core games”, to Miyamoto’s mind. What he’s talking about changing is something at the root of design, not the thematic wallpaper of the company’s games; he wants to challenge people, not to force Nintendo’s artists to remove all the primary colours from their Photoshop palettes.
Viewed in this light, Miyamoto’s comments are an earnest and down-to-earth appraisal of Nintendo’s present situation; still recovering from the heady days of the Wii and figuring out how much of that flash-in-the-pan market is really sustainable, but knuckling down to the challenge of entertaining and delighting (and of course, selling to) those within the audience who really enjoyed games rather than latching onto the platform as a fad. Contrary to the more excitable reportage on his comments, Miyamoto is promising no major changes to Nintendo’s approach; rather, he’s re-committing himself and the company to the same course of action which delivered games like Mario Kart 8, a title firmly within the family-friendly Nintendo tradition and absolutely celebratory of challenge and good design.
“Core gamer” is a phrase that’s picked up a strong whiff of soi-disant elitism and exclusion over the past few years; the phrase “as a core gamer…” in a forum post or comment thread is this odd little corner of society’s equivalent of “I’m not a racist, but…”, indicating a post that’s probably going to brim with self-important awfulness. The bête noire of the core gamer is the “casual”, and just as any move by a game creator or publisher to cater to “casuals” is despised and derided, any prodigal son who declares their abandonment of the casual market and return to the core is greeted with an I-told-you-so roar of delight. This is a thin sliver of the market overall, of course, but a noisy one; as such, it’s worth reiterating that what Miyamoto absolutely did not say is that Nintendo is resetting its course to please these people. Nintendo, for many years to come, will still be a company defined by games that are broadly appealing, generally family-friendly and enormously accessible. Under Miyamoto’s watchful eye, they’ll also be challenging and engaging; but anyone taking his comments on “passivity” as near-confirmation that we’ll see Grand Theft Mario down the line is utterly misreading the situation.


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Technology is new 'land' and digital cooperation is the path
Hi-tech cooperation between China and EU has huge potentials, and dialogues and mutual trust are keys to forming closer digital ties between the two sides, Luigi Gambardella, the president of the ChinaEU business association, said.
"In ancient times, countries competed for land. Today, the new 'land' is technology," said Gambardella in an interview with China Daily website during the fifth annual conference of the Taihu World Cultural Forum.
A business leader in the telecommunication industry, Gambardella is dedicated to bridging relations between China and Europe in the tech sector.
China successfully launched the twin Beidou-3 satellite this September, contributing to the digital Silk Road initiated by China in 2015, which involves helping other countries to build digital infrastructure and develop internet security.
Commenting on the digital Silk Road, Gambardella said it has the potential to be a "smart" player in the Belt and Road Initiative, making the BRI initiative more efficient and environment-friendly. The digital links will also connect China, the world's largest e-commerce market, to other countries involved in the initiative.
According to a report by China Academy of Information and Communications Technology in 2018, digital economy accounts for a third of the country's national GDP. "China is expected to leapfrog US to become the world's largest digital economy in the future," Gambardella said.
By the early 2018, an estimated 750 million Chinese people, or 97.5 percent of China's netizens, had access to mobile internet, which enables them to use mobile payment, social media platforms and online government services. Such a high number of highly connected internet user shows great progress and potential of building tech-driven smart cities.
While China is up-and-coming in the technology sector, Gambardella said Europe is traditionally a global power in hi-tech fields like robotics and it boasts highly developed manufacturing industries, including vehicle manufacturing. "Between the two, there are great opportunities that we have never had before," he said.
There are precedents where European and Chinese have partnered up. In 2016, Midea took over Kuka, a major German robot manufacturer, and Huawei took up about 24.8 percent of Europe’s market share with a double year-on-year increase in sale.
Challenges in the cooperation
However, Gambardella said the current level of dialogues and cooperation between China and EU is insufficient for deep mutual trust, which, according to him, poses the biggest challenge in the China-EU digital cooperation. The lack of mutual trust could be one of the obstacles hindering further exchanges in some EU member states amid surging security concerns.
To promote mutual understanding and trust among countries, efforts are needed from all sectors, including political, business and academic exchanges and joint ventures. According to Gambardella, cultural exchanges are especially essential to resolving misunderstandings and mistrust which are obstacles to a deeper China-EU digital cooperation.
"It is for this reason that we need high-level events like the Taihu World Cultural Forum. It brings people together and help we understand what are the differences and reasons behind and, eventually, how we can work together and find solutions," Gambardella says.
A member of the high-level advisory board of Wuzhen's World Internet Conference, Gambardella also said that the WIC is a successful brand built by China and a wonderful place for dialogues and international cooperation. He expects this year's conference to see relevant parties work to "jointly build a community of shared future in cyberspace".
Video/edited by: Sun Xiaoyu


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The Sony 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Standard Zoom is a solid starter lens when bundled with the a camera, but it's priced a bit too high when purchased separately.
Topping tech headlines Tuesday, Apple sends invites for an Oct. 22 event, Intel reports encouraging earnings, and Ubisoft pushes Watch Dogs and The Crew launches to 2014.
The RX10 uses the same 1-inch sensor as the RX100 II, but marries it to a 24-200mm f/2.8 lens.
Sony introduces two new E-mount camera models, both with full-frame image sensors.
Ubisoft today announced that the release of its highly anticipated Watch Dogs video game has been delayed until 2014, as will The Crew.
One month ahead of its PlayStation 4 launch, Sony this week debuted its first console commercial during "Monday Night Football."
Sony's second-generation, Android watch is now available at retail stores and online, as are the Xperia Z Ultra and Xperia Z1 as unlocked devices.
The Sony VAIO Flip 15 supersizes the convertible laptop, with a large screen that can work in various poses. It's starting to approach the convertible sweet spot, but it needs a few more iterations to become lighter and easier to hold.
An internal investigation reveals students are working off the clock manufacturing Sony's latest game console.
NetherRealm Studios' Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition will hit U.S. shelves on Nov. 12 with additional content.
Sony's Alpha NEX-5T mirrorless camera is simply last year's NEX-5R with added NFC support for quick image transfer to a smartphone. And the price has come down. So this isn't a bad thing.
Topping tech headlines Thursday, Instagram is rolling ads into its photo feed, Facebook Home now includes more social content, and Tesla is putting out fires after its Model S went up in flames.
This holiday season, gamers are more likely to unwrap a PlayStation 4 than an Xbox One, according to new predictions from IDC.
Sony this week rolled out a new system software update for the PlayStation 3, bringing a number of enhancements to tide gamers over as they wait for next-generation consoles to hit the market next month.
What's hot this month? We checked with our analysts, the women and men in the PCMag Labs testing the latest tech. Here's what they're playing with.
Topping tech headlines Monday, Grand Theft Auto Online lands Tuesday, Facebook Graph Search now surfaces posts and status updates, and Facebook is reportedly sharing social TV data with networks.
The Gigabyte U2442T-CF1 has most of the features that a high-end power user wants, including multimedia and 3D benchmark performance, a 10-point touch screen, and comfortable keyboard and chassis. It's up to you to decide if the few tradeoffs are worth it, or relegate the system to also-ran status.
According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, more U.S. shoppers are eying Sony's PlayStation 4 than Microsoft's Xbox One.
The HP Rove 20-K014us portable all-in-one desktop PC has both the innovations and problems that come with being a first-generation product in a nascent category.


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The customers are highly concerned about their safety at the moment. Unless the pandemic is in the rearview mirror, restaurants are expected to maintain very high standards of cleanliness and social distance. One of the best ways to do it […]
As the world begins to open again, restaurants are employing new techniques for their survival. Innovative technologies such as restaurant POS app, digital waiter, etc are being used almost everywhere. Safe and contactless services are the new normal and every […]
What is pre-order? Pre-order is the process of ordering your food in advance. It can be done with the help of digital mediums such as a website or mobile application. While pre-ordering, customers can skip the queue and get their […]
Table reservation apps are getting popular nowadays. Almost every restaurant is providing the option for online table reservation. The customers can confirm the booking without calling the restaurant again and again. They also do not have to wait in line […]
If COVID-19 has made you consider starting online food ordering at your restaurant, welcome aboard. Thousands of restaurants have signed up for a food ordering system at their venue since the coronavirus outbreak, and the numbers seem to be increasing […]
The food ordering industry is growing at a rapid rate, and it does not appear to be slowing soon. As online food ordering evolves, new players are taking their piece of the pie, while new technologies are taking the demand. […]
The coronavirus outbreak has infected more than 550,000 people around the globe and the restaurant industry around the world is counting costs. The countries and territories have imposed travel restrictions and proposing people to follow social distancing. The coronavirus pandemic […]
As a restaurant owner, you need to explore more technologies to increase sales. Here are the top restaurant technologies you must invest to survive the increasing competition.
The food tech revolution is driven by convenience and instant gratification. As a restaurant owner, you need to understand that smartphones are all-time high and won’t get down anytime soon.


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Vodafone's global procurement chief tells us how going digital on a 'best-of-suite' platform has opened up visibility across spend and supply chain management
Imagine where you'd be if you had started your work from home transformation two years ago. Everise did just that.
Proof that it is possible to source, recruit, hire, train, and manage a large workforce globally in a work at home environment.
Chris Middleton speaks to the CEO of Canadian quantum cloud startup Xanadu about what it claims is the world’s first photonics-based quantum computing platform available in the cloud.
Trainline CTO Mark Holt says his team worked hard during lockdown to develop new ways to keep travellers informed and safe.
Virtual events and the flawed obsession with entertainment over interactivity - will fall events get it right?
The fall virtual event season is almost upon us. I don't know about you, but I'm bracing myself. Can we have better events this fall? Only if we get entertainment versus interactivity sorted.
Ubiquitous UK sandwich and coffee shop chain Pret is having to rethink its business model quickly as the impact of distributed working shakes up the role of the city centre.
Edge computing looks set to provide mainframe computing with an escape route from being trapped forever in the silo marked `back office’.
The UK-based publisher best known for Harry Potter has migrated digital assets relating to its academic and professional titles to a cloud-based DAM platform from Cloudinary
The market didn't like Zuora's Q2 numbers as the company continues to focus in on the leading sectors of the subscription economy
As service organizations move to outcome-based contracts, real-time data transparency allows asset-centric customer service delivery, writes Mohan Rajagopalan of ServiceMax


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World Television Day 2017 – is TV still the world’s most effective advertising medium?
As far as global ubiquity goes, television is hard to beat. While it may have be in the process of being usurped in sheer global reach by the internet, it is safe to say that you will find people staring at TV sets in all corners of the globe.
21 November is World Television Day, and has seen the release of a stream of figures showing TV’s continued strength as an advertising medium.
A new report from the newly formed Global TV Group, which brings together broadcasting trade bodies from Europe, North...


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Tesla trainer Elon Musk has damaged belligerent during a new bureau in Shanghai, a electric carmaker’s initial prolongation plant outward a US.
The trickery will furnish Model 3 and Model Y cars as it pushes to grow a participation in a world’s largest automobile market.
The American automaker faces rising foe from internal rivals in China.
But a new bureau would assistance Tesla equivocate US tariffs on automobile imports into a country.
In a array of tweets on Monday, Mr Musk pronounced a plant would build “affordable versions” of a Tesla Model 3 – a carmaker’s mass marketplace automobile – and a due Model Y for a Greater China region.
He pronounced a supposed Gigafactory – that could cost as most as $5bn (£4bn) according to reports – would start Model 3 prolongation during a finish of year.
“Aiming to finish initial construction this summer, start Model 3 prolongation finish of year [and] strech high volume prolongation subsequent year” a businessman tweeted.
- The uncanny and smashing life of Elon Musk
- Tesla prolongation hits record high
The pull into China comes amid simmering trade tensions between Beijing and Washington.
US carmakers have been vocal critics of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, that have targeted a automobile zone among others.
China has lifted import duties on US-made cars as partial of a broader trade quarrel with a US.
At a time, Tesla pronounced a costs that go into a cars are roughly 55% to 60% aloft than for internal firms, when tariffs and sea ride costs are take into account.
Negotiations directed during solution a sour trade dispute between US and China holding place in Beijing this week.


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NECA’s new line of licensed cord accessories called Scalers is set to begin arriving on shelves over the next two weeks.
The summer box office has been a mixed bag so far with animated sequels performing well, while live-action blockbusters fail to impress.
WizKids/NECA and MFV have launched a new puzzle app, “Connect with Pieces” that includes custom puzzles featuring Pacific Rim.
Legendary Entertainment has announced a wide-reaching licensing program for its upcoming film Pacific Rim.
©2017 UBM. All rights reserved. A UBM Company.


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More competition for Coles and Woolies
Aussie Farmers Direct – which delivers fresh meat, vegetables and produce sourced from Australian farmers to customer's doors – has now expanded to include general supermarket items with the launch of a new site which stocks pantry items, non-perishables and household goods.
Launching in Melbourne first, the combined product range offers hundreds of grocery brands at competitive prices tipped to beat IGA and Aldi, and provides an alternative to the supermarket bigwigs with Aussie Farmer's Direct pledging to match prices with Coles and Woolworths.
Preference for Australian-made
The General Store, which will sit alongside the Aussie Farmers Direct site claims it will have greater transparency around country of origin labelling where consumers can use specific filters to search for 'Australian first'.
CHOICE media spokesperson Tom Godfrey says consumers need to look closely at country of origin declarations if they want to support local growers and manufacturers. "Aussies have a big appetite when it comes to supporting Australian farmers and are often happy to pay a little more to do so."
Aussie Farmers Direct says it sells Australian fresh produce online and aims for farmers get a fair price, while new offering The General Store will feature Australian grown and Australian made products. The company has also pledged to donate 10 percent of profits from those products to the Aussie Farmers Foundation, which supports farmers doing it tough. "Our customers love getting their fresh produce delivered from smaller Australian farmers and local suppliers direct to their door. But until now they still needed to visit the supermarket for all their pantry staples," says Louie.
The General Store kicked off in Melbourne yesterday and there are plans for it to be rolled out in most Australian cities going forward.


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TAJBank Managing Director/CEO, Mr. Hamid Joda (L) and the bank’s Executive Director, Mr. Sherif Idi, displaying the PCI-DSS certificate at the bank’s headquarters in Abuja on Friday
By Kadiri Abdulrahman
TAJBank Nigeria, advised banks to invest in critical IT infrastructure to ensure customer data security and real-time service delivery.
Mr. Hamid Joda, managing director/managing director of the leading provider of interest-free banking products and services, said so in a statement on Monday.
Joda advised following the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) certification of TAJBank in Abuja.
He said the bank received PCI DSS certification in recognition of its globally recognized information security standards across all areas of business.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that TAJBank is one of the first banks licensed by the CBN since 2015 to be so recognized.
Joda said the certification was the result of its secure services to millions of its customers since it began operations just over two years ago.
PCI DSS is an information security standard created by the major card scheme operators (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB).
It is built with a set of technical and operational requirements to ensure wide adoption of consistent data security measures by organizations that process, store or transmit cardholder data.
According to Joda, the certification clearly demonstrates that TAJBank has implemented all necessary operational and technical controls for appropriate security protection in processes related to the lifecycle of cardholder data generation, management and administration. Map.
He said the certification validated the bank’s interest-free protection of customer card data and reduced the risk of data breaches.
“It establishes TAJBank’s effective processes in detecting and preventing physical and network attacks.
“This will allow TAJBank to gain stakeholder confidence in its payment card processes and transaction systems, and also demonstrate its ability to mitigate and manage a potential data breach and its implications.
“It is another milestone for TAJBank to have obtained the PCI DSS certificate.
“This clearly confirms the effectiveness of TAJBank’s card operational security in the banking industry.
“It also ensures a higher level of protection for payment card users by ensuring that banks that store, process and transmit payment card data do so in accordance with best practice security requirements.” (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)


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Aston Martin faces investor revolt for handing bonuses to its chief executive after accessing £13m in emergency funds to survive pandemic
Aston Martin faces an investor revolt for handing bonuses to its chief executive after accessing £13million in emergency funds to survive the pandemic.
Shareholders have been advised to vote against the luxury car maker's pay plans at its annual meeting, calling them a 'material disconnect' from the firm's performance.
Investor advice group ISS criticised the company for paying a £142,000 bonus to chief executive Tobias Moers, who received a total of £1.48million in 2020.
Anger: Shareholders have been advised to vote against the luxury car maker's pay plans at its annual meeting
The payout comes after Aston Martin's revenue fell 39 per cent to £612million and losses widened to £419million.
ISS said Moers' bonus was 'questionable', given the company's performance and the £13million raised in emergency cash calls and from taxpayer aid. The company accepted a £690,000 grant from the Welsh government, but went on to cut hundreds of jobs in South Wales.
Advisory firm Glass Lewis also warned there were no targets attached to Moers' €1million signing-on bonus.
Moers received €500,000 when he joined the firm in August 2020 from Mercedes-AMG where he was chief executive. He will receive a further €500,000 on August 1 this year. He also received £50,000 in cash each year to fund the costs of moving to the UK. The signing-on bonus was to compensate for the loss of rewards if he had stayed in Germany.
An Aston Martin spokesman said its remuneration committee recognised the significant progress made in implementing its turnaround programme and 'determined that the strategic objectives had been met in full by the end of the year'.
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Images of GDR3 and "Bittersweet shimmer" update for Windows Phone 8 are leaked
Based on the screenshots taken from the phone, the update would allow Windows Phone users to close out apps on a multitasking window by clicking on an "X" in the upper right of the screen while the app's name and icon are shown below. Other screenshots show that users will be able to disable (love that combination of words) the accelerometer, locking the phone in the current orientation that it is in. Windows Phone 8 OS Build 10484 also includes a Driving Mode that offers users the option to turn off phone and texting capabilities so that you can do nether while driving.
Other features coming in the update, discovered from another source, will allow users to set up individual sounds for email, text, calls and reminders and restore over Wi-Fi if you have to reset your unit.
Microsoft is expected to push this out in November, and for now, you can check out the slideshow below with screenshots taken from what appears to be the real deal.


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TEDxDelft is happy to announce that tickets for the main event on Friday 15 April 2016 are now for sale. Click here to order your tickets online to make sure you will be there to listen to exciting new ideas and perspectives.
This edition will be TEDxDelft’s 5th anniversary and will be held on the birthday of one of history’s biggest thinkers, Leonardo da Vinci. Come join us on April 15th to celebrate the universal genius and share some more brilliant ideas.
Keep an eye on the TEDxDelft website as the speakers for this year’s event will start to be unveiled soon.


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Chris Hood and Jon Schultz bought the domain Ebola.com back in 2008 and have just sold it to a company called Weed Growth Fund. The terms of sale call for Hood and Schultz to get $50,000 in cash and 19,192 shares of Cannabis Sativa, Inc., a company run by former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson that hopes to market legal cannabis products throughout the world.
The stock is currently trading under the CBDS ticker symbol at $8.55 share, which means the value of the shares sold to Hood and Schultz is $164,091, DomainInvesting.com reports.
Hood said he and Schultz have about 5,000 domain names in their portfolio, including Birdflu.com. He admits the Ebola.com sale got the most public attention, but wasn’t the most profitable.
“We’ve had others like LasVegasRealEstate.com and PaydayLoans.com that sold for more,”. “People don’t understand what we do. We don’t buy domain names hoping there’s a disaster.”
As for the future of Ebola.com? It might go to pot, if recent comments made by Johnson on Fox Business are any indication.
Johnson told host Stuart Varney that “we actually believe we have efficacy with regard to treating Ebola,” and said it could potentially be a cure.
Johnson subsequently told the Albuquerque Journal, he was not claiming marijuana could cure the Ebola virus, but that more research should be done on whether cannabis compounds might be effective in fighting the disease that has killed nearly 4,500 people, mostly in West Africa.
Weed Growth Fund CEO Eric Miller said when the new Ebola.com website debuts in a few weeks, it will be a “go-to resource” on all aspects of the disease.
In addition, his company will finance research on cannabis that he says “may or may not prove a connection between cannabis and Ebola prevention.”


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The upcoming Disney streaming service will effectively bring an end to the company’s infamous “vault,” which came to identify a system through which Disney’s in-demand titles would be released periodically to theaters or home video and then would disappear from circulation for a few years.
“While answering a shareholder question at Disney’s annual meeting in St. Louis, company CEO Bob Iger strongly suggested that the new Disney+ streaming platform would effectively end the company’s storied ‘vault,'” Vulture reports.
Iger is quoted in the report saying of Disney+: “At some point fairly soon after launch, it will house the entire Disney motion picture library. So the movies that … traditionally have been kept in a vault and brought out basically every few years will be on the service.”
Vulture adds: “He also made it clear that Disney won’t be stingy with recent releases either, saying 2019 films such as the new ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Avengers’ movies will appear on Disney+ within a year.”
Disney has also announced a number of development projects that are in the works exclusively for Disney+.
“Those include a ‘Star Wars’ series called ‘The Mandalorian,’ which is set during the rise of the Resistance; an untitled Marvel series revolving around Loki that will involve Tom Hiddleston; another ‘Star Wars’ series called ‘Cassian Andor’ that follows the titular hero played by Diego Luna in ‘Rogue One’; and yet more projects that span everything from ‘High School Musical’ to ‘High Fidelity,'” Vulture reports.
Disney can also be expected to be pulling its titles off other streamers, the report notes.


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New gluten-free products launched in Australia
Two different gluten-free bakery products have been launched this week by different food companies in Australia.
More gluten-free cookies
Popular New Zealand snack foods brand Cookie Time is due to launch its first gluten-free biscuit into the Australian market next week.
The Cookie Time Gluten-free Chocolate Chunk Cookie is a gluten and wheat free version of Cookie Time’s Original Chocolate Chunk Cookie, which will be available in Woolworths stores throughout Australia, from 9 July
The Gluten-free cookie licensing deal is the second major Australian licensing arrangement for Cookie Time Limited this year. In January, as Australian Food News reported, Cookie Time’s world-first One Square Meal bars were launched into Coles and Woolworths supermarkets in a major licensing deal with Sanitarium.
Gluten Free Grain Free Bread Mix launched
For consumers who want to bake their own gluten-free items at home, Gluten Free Grain Free Company, based in Nambour on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, has just released a “bake@home range”, which is claimed to be “Australia’s first gluten and grain free bread mix”.
Owner of Gluten Free Grain Free Company and co-founder of the award-winning Husk & Honey Café Tania Hubbard said, “All our products are tried and tested in the café over three years. They are free of yeast and dairy, have nothing artificial and are packed with natural nutrient-rich, wholesome ingredients that taste great,” Ms Hubbard said.
The bread mix produces a loaf with a similar consistency to sour dough. “All you need is a bowl, a whisk, and a regular oven,” she said.
Last year, Ms Hubbard launched a cookbook called ‘Gluten Free Grain Free Food We Love’ which increased the popularity of the bake@home range.
The bake@home range is available online at the Gluten Free Grain Free website, or at Husk & Honey Café. The Gluten Free Grain Free Company has plans for Australia-wide distribution in the near future.
Pepsi Co Australia and New Zealand has launched a new Gatorade range called ‘Gatorade Fierce’.
Streets is selling a new ‘Finding Dory’ ice cream in Australian convenience stores and supermarkets.
Roza’s Gourmet is now selling a mayonnaise suitable for vegans.
Australian snack company, Funch, is looking to expand its market share and is making a number of cha...
H2Coco has designed a special line of coconut and melon waters to fit in lunch boxes.
Bakers Delight is now selling FODMAP Friendly bread. It is the first certified FODMAP Friendly bread...
Three new cheese products have been added to Maggie Beer’s eponymous range.
Nespresso Australia is selling coffee-pods especially designed for making iced-coffee.


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Sprint for years has lacked one key feature in its phone lineup… a regular phone with a keyboard for email and text messaging. While Sprint has carried several smart devices with built-in keyboards, no Sprint (regular) phone has delivered on this feature, until now.
Image courtesy Sprint Users
The LG LX-375 will add to Sprint’s lineup their first consumer-focused messaging device. The LX-375 offers a slide-out keyboard, and an email client (which is likely an integrated version of Sprint Mobile Email). The phone also features much of what you’d find in a typical high-end phone, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, microSD storage, music player, 1.3 megapixel camera, and full-duplex speakerphone.
The LX-375 will be available in multiple colors and is expected to be released in time for the holiday buying season.


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SEATTLE - It may lack the hype and glitter of Windows, but the new version of Microsoft's best-selling suite of business applications unveiled Thursday certainly attracts the money.
Office 97 is the latest blend of Microsoft's word processing, spreadsheet, database, graphics presentation and desktop organization software. This version has been extensively revamped to work with the Internet.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, marking the start of retail sales of the new products, called them "a centerpiece of Microsoft's Internet strategy."
"Over a year ago, we talked about embracing and extending the Internet. This year, the theme is to go beyond embracing the Internet to take the leadership through innovation," he told about 1,000 reporters and industry leaders Thursday at New York's Lincoln Center.
The event was staid compared to the worldwide circus-themed extravaganza with the Rolling Stones and Jay Leno to launch Windows 95, or the incessant drumbeat of how the Internet is going to change humankind.
But Office is no less a core product for the world's largest producer of software. It holds an 80 percent or better share of its market, and an estimated 55 million computers use one or more of its component programs.
IBM-Lotus Development's SmartSuite and Corel's WordPerfect Suite and Office Professional account for nearly all the rest.
Office will provide the bulk of this year's estimated $5 billion in annual sales for Microsoft's applications division, which supplies about half of the company's revenue, says Dennis Tevlin, the division's director of product marketing.
About 500,000 copies have been ordered by retailers, Mr. Tevlin said, and about 3 million have been ordered for corporate use.
Those numbers aside, Office 97 won't be an overnight sensation, industry analysts say. Its prime market, large corporations looking to standardize business software, don't make such decisions overnight.
"It takes a long time for businesses to upgrade," says Dan Lavin, an analyst at Dataquest in San Jose.
As an example, Boeing Co. already makes widespread use of earlier versions of Office or its component programs on its 65,000 desktop and workstation computers, says Joe Lussier, Boeing's manager of software architecture and standards.
But Mr. Lussier says Boeing will make an extensive technical analysis of Office 97 before it decides whether it makes economic sense to upgrade.
Office 97 again bundles the Excel spreadsheet, Word word processor, Access database and PowerPoint graphics presentation programs, as in previous Office versions. It adds Microsoft Outlook, an information manager that organizes electronic mail, contacts, appointments, to-do lists and other workday tasks.
Increasingly, Mr. Tevlin says, it will be where users start work as projects become more collaborative and companies embrace e-mail, the Internet and in-house "intranets" to get jobs done.
Office 97 has been extensively reworked to use the Internet, with tools for the World Wide Web embedded throughout. Also new is Office Assistant, which uses animated characters, including a midget Einstein, to provide help on Office's thousands of functions.
Ease of use has been a big concern, Mr. Tevlin said. The program is so big (191 megabytes in its largest version) and broad (Que Corp.'s book on how to master it runs 780 pages) that discovering a function can be an adventure. In fact, one-fourth of customer calls to a Microsoft "wish line" recommending new Office features suggested functions that were already in the software, an indication that users didn't know how to find it.
That huge capability has been scorned as "bloatware," with skeptics wondering who would ever have time to use all those functions and still operate a business.
"The challenge for us is to deliver all that without complexity," Mr. Tevlin said.
Office 95, the previous version, has been criticized as a "placeholder," not that much different from its predecessor and brought out mainly to accompany Windows 95.
For this new version, Mr. Tevlin said, "We really gave it our all. We invested close to $250 million and had about 750 people in design, development and testing."
Office 97 requires Windows 95 or the Windows NT operating system for high-end computers and networks.
But despite all the Windows 95 hype, it and Windows NT were only running on 20 percent of corporate desktop computers by the end of 1996, said Eric Brown, analyst at Forrester Research.
This year, though, that figure is expected to soar to 50 percent and to 85 percent by the end of 1998, as the wait-and-see corporations migrate to the more powerful operating systems, Mr. Brown said.
"Office 95 has had lackluster results," Mr. Brown said. "Office 97 will have different results because it's really a different product playing into a different market."
Here's a quick look at Microsoft's Office 97 software package, which goes on sale Thursday:
WHAT'S IN IT:
Five software programs for office work: Word, a word processor; Excel, a spreadsheet program; Access, a database; PowerPoint, a graphics program for slides and other presentation materials; and Outlook, an information manager that combines e-mail, scheduling, contacts, to-do lists and access to documents.
Elements of each program work together; for example, data from Access can be plugged into a Word document, and figures from an Excel spreadsheet can be transformed into a PowerPoint graphic.
In addition, Office 97 has Internet Explorer, Microsoft Camcorder and Photo Editor, new drawing tools, plus hundreds of images, sound effects, templates and graphics.
- Adds Outlook, the desktop information manager.
- Geared throughout to create and use material for the Internet or for in-house corporate "intranets."
- Office Assistant, animated characters that offer suggestions and other help.
- Menus and toolbars have been revamped.
- More tools for customizing programs.
- Windows 95 or Windows NT version 3.51 Service Pack 5 (an interim Windows NT release) or later.
- Minimum Intel 486-33 processor or equivalent; the more power the better.
- Multimedia capability to use sound, graphics and video.
- A modem, electronic mail program and Internet service provider, if necessary, for e-mail and Internet access.
- 8 megabytes RAM to run applications individually, except 12 MB to run Access; more memory needed to run additional applications simultaneously. For Windows NT Workstation, 16 MB to run individual applications, more to run programs simultaneously.
- 73 to 191 megabytes hard disk space for professional edition, with 121 MB a typical installation. For standard edition, 60-167 MB, with 102 MB typical.
- Standard and Small Business editions, estimated retail for new users $499; upgrades from non-Microsoft software, $249; upgrade for Office users, $209.
- Professional edition, estimated retail for new users $599; upgrades from non-Microsoft software, $349; upgrade for Office users, $309.
- Developer edition (out March 1997), estimated retail for new users $799;
upgrades from non-Microsoft software, $539; upgrade for Office users, $499.
© 2018. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us


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Mastercard recently released a study showing that during the first quarter of 2020, an increasing number of consumers in Latin America and the Caribbean turned to contactless payments to make the most necessary purchases.
This increase occurs in a period when many countries imposed restrictions to maintain social distance.
According to the new Mastercard study, 35% of people in the region indicated that they increased the use of contactless payments. Users cited simplicity, safety, and hygiene as the main advantages.
Contactless payments are all payment methods that use radio frequencies to carry out the transaction, including debit and credit cards, cell phones that use user proximity, or even some initiatives promoted by governments, such as CoDi promoted by Banco de México.
Accelerated adoption of contactless payments in LatAm
The consumer survey conducted by Mastercard showed an accelerated trend towards the adoption of contactless payments. The results of the study carried out suggest that social distance and other security standards have influenced the consumer’s payment behavior.
Among the data obtained by the company, it stands out that:
- 56% of Latin Americans mentioned being more aware of hygiene problems when handling cash.
- 84% of Latin Americans believe that contactless payment is more hygienic.
The pandemic has been a clear factor that has changed consumption habits, including payment methods. The results have been striking in a region that has been characterized by its resistance to bank penetration. In the region, 66% of consumers use cashless frequently or do not use it at all. Since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic, 77% of Brazilians use less cash or do not use it at all, while 61% of Colombians said they are using less cash, according to data from the Mastercard. In Costa Rica, 7 out of 10 respondents also claimed to avoid cash, while the percentage of Dominicans who prefer contactless methods is now 58%.
The Mastercard study suggests that this change in habit will not be temporary. 78% of Latin Americans indicated that they will continue to use contactless payments even after the pandemic ends. This conviction is even greater among those under the age of 35, where 82% assured that they will continue with this type of payments, even after the health contingency passes.
Walter Pimenta, Senior Vice President of Products and Innovation, Mastercard for Latin America and the Caribbean, highlighted one of the peculiarities of this pandemic and gave a credible explanation for the adoption of contactless payment methods.
“As we experience the first global pandemic in an era defined by the digitization of our lives, contactless card payments have taken on a new urgency. It has been encouraging and rewarding to see our partners across the LAC region embrace the change and acceleration of contactless technology. The technology is available, and it is clear that the change we are witnessing in consumer behavior is here to stay, “said the executive.


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Followers of the Netflix unique Squid Recreation now not need to surprise how they’d fare within the sequence’ many challenges.
The streaming platform introduced a brand new actuality present on Tuesday, entitled Squid Recreation: The Problem, a real-life model of the video games — although Netflix famous it’s not life or dying at stake in these video games, simply the largest money prize in actuality TV historical past.
The winner of Squid Recreation: The Problem will obtain a US$4.56-million prize (over $5.9 million Canadian). On this sport, Netflix claims, “the worst destiny goes residence empty-handed.”
Canadian programming will see no less than $1.B a 12 months from on-line streaming invoice: minister
Squid Recreation is Netflix’s hottest sequence of all time, with over 1.65 billion view hours within the first 28 days of its launch in September 2021.
The Korean language program was a straightforward fan favorite for its ruthless, gory plot and “get wealthy, or die attempting” themes.
Over 9 episodes, viewers watch Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a divorced gambler, compete as certainly one of 456 gamers in six completely different, deathly childhood video games.
In keeping with the press launch from Netflix, the brand new actuality sequence may also have 456 gamers.
Freeland says Canada’s financial fame was in danger, prompting Emergencies Act
Microsoft to retire Web Explorer after 27 years, push customers to Edge browser
Netflix claims Squid Recreation: The Problem contestants will compete in a sequence of video games impressed by the present (and a few new ones too), all of the whereas growing methods and alliances simply as Squid Recreation‘s fictional characters had.
The present is now casting. On its web site, Netflix has utility choices for U.S., U.Ok. and worldwide casting. Contestants should be over 21 and capable of communicate English.
Netflix lays off roughly 150 employees amid slowing development
“Squid Recreation took the world by storm with Director Hwang’s fascinating story and iconic imagery. We’re grateful for his assist as we flip the fictional world into actuality on this large competitors and social experiment,” mentioned Brandon Riegg within the press launch, Netflix’s VP of unscripted and documentary sequence.
This week Netflix introduced Squid Recreation would return for a much-anticipated second season.
This isn’t the primary time somebody has tried to make Squid Recreation attainable in actual life.
In December 2021, common YouTuber Mr. Beast recreated each single set from the Netflix unique sequence. He hosted a contest between 456 individuals, the place the winner took residence US$456,000 (roughly $591,000).
As of this writing, the video has over 258 million views.
© 2022 International Information, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.


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Enjoying that shiny new PlayStation 4? I certainly am, and that’s because the device launched with some rather damn good games. I’m busy experiencing Killzone Shadow Fall, which plays like the cutscene that Killzone 2 wanted to be. But the future of the PlayStation 4 can’t rest solely on sequels, something that PlayStation president and CEO Andrew House knows all too well.
“In terms of sheer breadth and depth, we are in a better shape in terms of third party support for this console launch than certainly any I’ve ever launched,” House said to MCV about the launch of PS4.
“And I do think that the early consumer is going to buy in if they sense that there is a roadmap of great content that is going to come down the pipe,” House explained, emphasising that bringing out new IP in 2014 was “critically important”.
We are more committed to new IP establishment and delivery than most other platform holders out there.
That 2014 piece of brand spankin’ new intellectual property that Sony is pushing out? The Order 1886, which scratches that Steampunk itch and puts players in ye olde Victorian London, arms them up and sees a horde of monsters get on the wrong end of a rifle.
It’s not the only game on the way though, as there’ll be plenty of debuts from third-party sources. Murdered: Soul Suspect, Destiny, The Division and Watch Dogs are just a few such examples of this content.
All in all though, it looks like 2014 will be a damn good year for games.
Last Updated: December 18, 2013


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The playlist for the upcoming Marvel movie ‘Black Panther II’ was released on Friday, November 4, 2022, and it created a buzz online due to the featured tracks from Nigerian Afrobeats artistes. The playlist was released in advance as fans await the release of the highly anticipated movie set to be released in cinemas worldwide on November 11, 2022.
The playlist is available on different music streaming apps, and fans can’t get enough of it. The playlist has a lead track ‘Lift Me Up’ by Rihanna, which has gotten a lot of attention due to the singer’s six years hiatus. The Nigerian artistes featured in the playlist are Tems, Rema, Fireboy, and African Giant Burna boy. This is another feat for Afrobeats as the genre is being introduced to a new audience.