text:
Resident joins Ellicott City recovery, one 360-image at a time
By Valerie Bonk
Oct 31, 2017 | 9:00 AM
Gunther Miller has a passion for quirky ventures.
The 47-year-old Ellicott City resident is known for peddling “Choose Insanity” parody bumper magnets, holiday cards featuring photos of dead deer and “HoCo” magnets picturing the vultures often spotted on the side of the road.
But his latest project focuses less on poking fun and more on doing good. It all started with a 360-degree camera he got for his birthday.
“I thought that the gift was great, but it’s not something that you use every day,” Miller says. “I started thinking about how I could put it to good use, and Main Street Ellicott City came to mind because around that time in March a lot of the stores were starting to open up again.”
So Miller jumped into action to help businesses reopening following the July 2016 flood as well as those moving into town. He contacted businesses and set up times to take 360-degree interior photos that they could use for marketing and social media purposes. These digital images allow viewers to look around from a single standing position inside a store, restaurant, museum or other venue.
“It’s another way of showing that Ellicott City is back and in business. I’m really happy to be able to help them out and show potential customers what you can expect when you arrive,” Miller says.
Miller has a full-time job during the week as a quality assurance manager for Vectorworks Inc. in Columbia, along with a side business called Demented Designs, through which he sells the off-color magnets and cards (He’s sold about 1,500 “Choose Insanity” magnets online and at local events). He spends many of his weekends on Main Street setting up, taking photos and posting them on the website he set up specifically for the project: 360ellicottcity.com.
He has uploaded 360-degree photos for around 60 businesses and has about 20 left to photograph.
For Manor Hill Tavern, a restaurant that opened in Ellicott City’s historic district earlier this year, the project has provided a new tool for attracting customers.
“We didn’t have 360-degree photos of our building, and we thought that it would be a great asset to use to promote our party rooms for events so that people could see exactly what the rooms look like,” says Corey Mull, head of marketing for Manor Hill Tavern. “We were really excited that someone was willing to do this. It seemed like a win-win for everyone.”


text:
Our friends over at TechRadar spend most of their days hunting down the latest breaking tech news and rumours, and once every 24 hours we pick out the very best of those stories for our own roundup – today we've got vacuum cleaners, self-driving trucks and more.
1. There's a new Dyson vacuum cleaner in town
Behold the Dyson Cyclone V10: the latest and greatest vacuum cleaner from the company, promising better suction and longer battery life than ever before. The new product marks something of a shift in strategy as well – Dyson says that cordless tech has now developed to the extent that all its vacuum cleaners will be wireless going forward, so at least you won't have to worry about tripping up over wires the next time you clean the living room.
2. Uber's self-driving trucks have been hitting the highway
The self-driving vehicle revolution continues apace, and the latest developments come from Uber Freight, which has revealed it's been putting its self-driving trucks into use on the freeways of the US. Regular, human-driven trucks are used to transport packages to and from depots, with autonomous alternatives doing the long haul in between (check out the video). It'll still be a while before these trucks get on regular roads and byways though.
3. Google Lens is now available across Android devices
Google Lens is like added smarts for your camera, and it's now rolling out across any Android device with Google Photos installed (iOS support is coming soon). What it does is recognise what you're taking a picture of and take appropriate action – so it might bring up product details for a barcode, or display details of celebrities or landmarks when you take a photo with them in the frame. Some augmented reality magic is being added as well.
4. Meet the smartwatch that can help you speak nine languages
Off on holiday? Consider taking the new Time2Translate smartwatch with you, which promises to translate in real-time between nine different languages – just speak at your wrist to get the translation read back to you. English, Japanese, French, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Arabic are the languages supported, and the company behind the device is promising an accuracy rate of 85 percent, which should get you by.
5. And here are the latest leaks on the HTC U12
It's a close call between the Huawei P20 and the HTC U12 when it comes to the number of leaks and rumours we're getting about these upcoming flagship phones, but today we want to report on the HTC handset. The latest whispers from a "trusted source" suggest that the phone will have a curved glass back and a metal frame, with a fingerprint scanner on the rear. A dual-lens camera on the back and multiple colour options are also likely.

domain: news


text:
Alibaba and Tencent (Wechat) have long been part of our everyday lives. These technology companies are representative of the extremely powerful digital economy in our region, whose diverse offerings are enthusiastically accepted by smartphone-loving consumers. Such markets offer ideal conditions for open banking.
Southeast Asia alone is home to 630 million people, 60 percent of whom are under 35. The mobile user penetration rate is over 140 percent, according to The Business Times, Singapore. For the financial industry, this opens up a huge market for services such as e-wallets, money transfers via smartphones and p2p (peer-to-peer) payments. While Open Banking opens up a huge market for providers, observers see the development of API-based technologies for the integration of third-party providers as a huge opportunity for the population, paving the way for greater financial inclusion. Financial institutions thus hold the key to offering a better life to Asia’s unbanked population of approximately one billion people. This underbanked population can, for example, take out microinsurance and tend to be less financially burdened if they require medical assistance. With the help of loans, they can better shape the future; for example, by investing in their children’s education.
The digital transformation of the financial industry is having a much faster and more pronounced effect in Asian markets than in Europe. Technology companies such as Alibaba, Tencent and Kakao Corporation began integrating financial services into their portfolios early on. Furthermore, studies show that customers are open to offers from insurers and other companies through their banks. The financial institutions are now called upon to define their own position in the platform economy and to create the technological framework conditions to adopt it.
In Part 2 of our series “Open Banking in Asia” they read how widespread digital and mobile banking in Asia has already become.
Read our white paper “Open Banking: The future for the finance industry lies in the platform economy”, which you can download here.


text:
NEW YORK The U.S. steel wire rod market is experiencing an early summer slowdown, with domestic mills and importers said to be fighting for dwindling business in a lackluster marketplace.
"Theres a bit of a slowdown. Demand has definitely slowed down some and it has all been accompanied by higher import activity mainly from China," said one trader. "People have foreign material in the pipeline already and theyre seeing their demand come off a bit. Its creating a bit of hesitancy in the marketplace."
With domestic demand said to be taking a breather, buyers said some U.S. mills have become more aggressive in their pricing.
"There are a lot of funny deals going on from the domestic mills for May," said one buyer. "Theyre offering me $5- to $10-per-ton discounts here or there. Other mills are pushing me real hard to take steel. I think theyre afraid prices are going to erode even more."
A second trader confirmed the demand slide. "What Ive seen is that customers have become very quiet lately. The (domestic) mills are eager to move to the buyers," he said.
In addition to a pullback in demand, a steady flow of imports is also keeping domestic mills on their toes price-wise, sources said, citing competitive prices on wire rod from China and Turkey in particular.
"The lowering of the price is a way of the domestics trying to entice people to not buy imports," the buyer said.
License applications for April were poised to hit their highest figures in more than a year, according to data from Commerce Departments Import Administration, rising 27.5 percent to 114,008 tonnes from March preliminary figures of 89,424 tonnes. Those orders, set to arrive in April but booked in late December and early January, were led by strong imports from China, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
"I dont know how much the Chinese rod has penetrated the market, but the (U.S.) mills are having a bit of a wake-up call right now because of the material coming in and the stats. Its a bit of a delayed reaction," the second trader said.
According to trader and buyer sources, imported material is still selling at a slight discount to domestic product, making it an attractive option. Imported rod to the Port of Houston sold at around $665 to $700 per short ton this past week, market sources said, down slightly from mid-April prices of $680 to $710 per ton. That compares with domestic prices of around $710 to $720 per ton, depending on the buyer.
"Looking around the world, we can see everyone else slowing. You look at Turkey and theyre not able to sell that much into the European market. China has lots of extra tons," said a second buyer. "Imports are coming in and theyre going to continue being very strong. The domestics missed the first boat."
The lowest-priced imports are said to be from China. Turkish material, meanwhile, is selling at a $15- to $20-a-ton premium to Chinese rod, making it somewhat less competitive but still attractive compared to most U.S. material, sources said.
But even with foreign material selling at a discount, the slowdown in domestic demand is being felt by importers as well, sources said.
"Were finding some pockets of interest. Business is slow but were moving along," the first trader said. "About two months ago, we were booking a lot. Business has pretty much stopped."


text:
Inflation measured by national methodology (CPI) accelerated from 4.8 percent year-on-year in July to 5 percent in August, the Statistics Office announced on September 10. Core inflation stood at 5.3 percent in August, accelerating from 5.1 percent in July, while net inflation was at 4.2 percent, a 0.4-percentage-point increase on the previous month. Over the first eight months of 2008, meanwhile, inflation averaged 4.4 percent year-on-year. Core inflation stood at 4.7 percent, while net inflation reached 3.5 percent.
The prices of food and alcoholic beverages grew by 9.5 percent year-on-year in August. Other significant year-on-year increases were: in healthcare, 8.3 percent; and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, 6.8 percent. The prices of postal services and telecommunications, on the other hand, fell by 0.4 percent. On a monthly basis, consumer prices increased by an average of 0.2 percent in August.
The largest month-on-month increase in August was in the prices of housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, 1.3 percent. Other month-on-month increases were: health care and in hotels, cafes and restaurants, both 0.4 percent; miscellaneous goods and services, 0.3 percent; and in alcoholic beverages and tobacco, 0.1 percent. Conversely, the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages fell by 0.9 percent month-on-month. Other month-on-month reductions were in transport, 0.5 percent; in clothing and footwear, 0.4 percent; in recreation and culture, 0.2 percent; and in postal services and telecommunications, 0.1 percent. Prices of furniture, household equipment and maintenance, and of education remained the same as in July. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
11. Sep 2008 at 9:00


text:
RISMEDIA, September 7, 2010—Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates LLC announced that leading Swedish real estate firm Skeppsholmen Fastighetsmäkleri in Stockholm has joined its luxury real estate network.
The firm will do business as Sweden Skeppsholmen Sotheby’s International Realty and is owned by Lars Andersson, who signed an exclusive 25-year master franchise agreement to develop the Sotheby’s International Realty brand throughout Sweden. Andersson established Skeppsholmen Fastighetsmäkleri in 1992, a real estate business specializing in the sale of luxury residential and commercial properties.
“The addition of Sweden Skeppsholmen Sotheby’s International Realty to our network reinforces the strength of our presence in key markets across Europe,” said Michael R. Good, chief executive officer, Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates LLC. “We look forward to future growth in the Nordic region with this talented team of professionals.”
According to Andersson, his goal is to develop the Sotheby’s International Realty brand throughout Sweden with the immediate opening of Sweden Skeppsholmen Sotheby’s International Realty in both Stockholm and Båstad, followed by openings in Malmö and Gothenburg.
“The luxury market throughout Sweden remains stable and demand is still high for quality, well-priced luxury properties,” said Andersson. “We offer extensive marketing campaigns, use the latest technology and believe in building strong teams of experienced real estate agents. We are thrilled to become part of the Sotheby’s International Realty network, which we anticipate will significantly strengthen our marketing and sales efforts throughout Sweden.”
For more information, visit www.sothebysrealty.com.


text:
Red Tiger Gaming has become one of just a few third-party suppliers available with Finnish gambling company Veikkaus after the successful integration of its multi-award winning slots.
The collaboration reinforces the NetEnt subsidiary’s commercial presence in another key market, having recently inked similar agreements with online operator Dazzletag Entertainment Limited, which boasts a number of brands, including FruitKings.com, Casushi.com, Myjackpotcasino.com, Playsunny.com and PeachyGames.com, and Austrian operator win2day.
“it’s brilliant to partner with such a well-respected and sought-after supplier”
Players of the state-owned gaming operator are now able to enjoy Red Tiger Gaming’s entire slots portfolio, including popular titles such as Piggy Riches Megaways, Dragon’s Fire, and Gonzo’s Quest MegaWays. The partnership will also reportedly see the supplier roll out an exclusive, revamped version of a Finland favorite, Kulta-Jaska MegaWays.
In a company press release, Commercial Director for Red Tiger Gaming, Chris Looney commented on the new deal, saying…
“It’s a real coup go for us to go live with Veikkaus, particularly as only a select number of suppliers are integrated with them. It demonstrates the strong desirability of our offering, and we feel confident our titles will perform well.
“We’re also really looking forward to launching Kulta-Jaska MegaWays™ as the combination of its existing popularity, the Megaways™ mechanic, and Red Tiger’s magic touch should be a smash hit with players.”
Veikkaus recently announced that it anticipates completion of the under-construction Uros Live Arena, which will house its latest land-based casino, Casino Tampere, to begin welcoming guests by December 2021. The venue will reportedly offer a wide array of slot and table games entertainment while employing approximately 80 people.
Also commenting on the new collaboration, Vice President of Casino Games for Veikkaus, Jan Hagelberg, said…
“Red Tiger has had an impressive portfolio for a number of years, and I have no doubt that it will prove popular with our players.”
“We are constantly improving our offering to retain our position as Finland’s number one operator. While serving players with the best customer experience and safest online casino available, providing immersive entertainment experiences is at the core of our philosophy, so it’s brilliant to partner with such a well-respected and sought-after supplier.”


text:
While there are many reasons to invest in Africa investors should be aware that the continent will test their patience. The African markets are unstable and time horizons may not always work. Even sophisticated businesses may need to revise their business plans as Nestle did in 21 African countries in the last year. Many countries also have deficits. These gaps must be filled by smart and savvy investors who can bring greater prosperity to Africa.
TLcom Capital's $71 million TIDE Africa Fund
The latest venture of TLcom Capital has been closed at an estimated $71 million. The fund's predecessor was shut in January of last year. TLcom, Bio, CDC Group and Sango Capital contributed five million dollars. The first fund invested in 12 tech companies in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. TIDE Africa II will focus on fintech companies in East Africa. The investment firm also has offices in Nigeria and Kenya. The portfolio of TLcom includes Twiga Foods, Andela, uLesson and Kobo360. Each company is worth $500,000 to $10 million.
TLcom, investors looking for projects to fund located in Nairobi, a VC company with more than $200 million under management. The firm's Managing Partner, Omobola Johnson, has been instrumental in launching more than a dozen tech companies across the continent which include Twiga Foods and a trucking logistics company. Omobola Johnson (a former minister of technology for communication in Nigeria) is part of the investment firm's team.
TIDE Africa is an equity investment fund which invests in growth stage tech companies in SSA. It will invest between $500,000 and $10 million in companies in the early stages with a particular focus on Series A and B rounds. The fund will be primarily focused on Anglophone Africa but it plans to invest in Eastern and Southern African countries. TIDE for instance, has invested in five high growth digital companies in Kenya.
Omidyar Network's $71 million TEEP Fund
The Omidyar Network is a US-based company that invests in philanthropy that aims to invest $100-$200 million into India in the next five years. The fund was founded by eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar and business investors in south africa has invested $113 million in 35 Indian companies since the year 2010. In India the company invests in entrepreneurship, consumer Internet, financial inclusion, transparency in government property rights, and businesses that have social impact.
The Omidyar Network's TEEP Fund makes investments that are designed to increase access to government information. It aims to identify non-profits using technology to develop public information portals and tools to citizens. The network believes that having open access to government information increases public awareness of government procedures, which will result in a more engaged society that holds government officials accountable. Imaginable Futures will invest the funds in nonprofit and for-profit organisations that focus on education and health.
If you're looking to raise funds for your African startup, you should look for a company with an emphasis on Africa. TLcom Capital, a fund manager located in London is one of these companies. Angel investors have been attracted to its African investments, and the company has raised money in Nigeria and Kenya. TLcom recently announced the launch of a new $71 million fund that intends to invest in 12 startups before they reach revenue.
The capital market is becoming aware of the potential of Africa venture capital. More private investors are recognizing the potential of Africa to grow and are not subject to the same restrictions as institutional investors. This means that raising funds is never easier. Raise allows businesses to conclude deals in half the time and is free of any institutional constraints. There is no standard way to raise money for African investors.
Understanding how investors perceive African investments is the first step. While YC hype is appealing to investors of all kinds however, it is important to look beyond the Silicon Valley giant and Agenda 2063 of the African Union. African companies are now searching for the YC signal to approach US investors. Kyane Kassiri is an Tunisian venture capitalist, has recently spoke about the importance of the YC signal when it comes to raising funds for African investors.
GetEquity, an investment platform based in Nigeria, was founded in July of 2021. It aims to bring about democratization of the funding of startups in Africa. It aims to make financing African startups easier for everyone by providing capital-raising tools and world-class capital for all startups. It has already assisted numerous startups get more than $150,000 in funding from investors from all over the world. It also offers secondary markets for investors to buy tokens from other investors.
In contrast to equity crowdfunding investing in early-stage businesses is a highly privileged activity that is usually only available to the top individual angel investors and capital institutions and syndicates. It is not accessible to family and friends. New startups are attempting to change this unwelcome arrangement by making it easier to obtain funding for startups in Africa. It is accessible for both Android and iOS devices. It is free to use.
With the introduction of its cryptocurrency-based wallet, GetEquity is making startup investing in Africa possible for everyday investors. With the aid of crypto funds investors can invest in African startups for as little as $10. Although it's a small amount, it's still substantial money compared to traditional equity financing. With the recent acquisition of Paystack by Spark Capital, GetEquity has developed into a thriving ecosystem for investors willing to invest in Africa.
Bamboo's first obstacle is convincing young Africans to invest in the platform. Up until now investors in Africa were restricted to a limited number of options including foreign direct investment (FDI), crowdfunding, and legacy finance companies. About a third of Africans have made a purchase on any platform. However the company has announced that it is expanding into other parts of Africa and plans to launch in Ghana in April 2021. More than 100,000 Ghanaians are on the waiting list as of this writing.
Africans have limited alternatives to save money. The value of the currency is decreasing against the dollar due to inflation of close to 16 percent. Investing dollars can help you protect yourself from inflation and the possibility of a declining dollar. One platform that allows Africans to invest in U.S. stocks is Bamboo, which has experienced rapid growth over the past two years. Bamboo will go live in Ghana in April 2021. Bamboo already has more than 50,000 users who are waiting to get access.
Once registered, investors are able to fund their accounts with as little as $20. Funding can be made through credit cards, bank transfers, and business investors In south Africa payment cards. In the future, users are able to trade ETFs and stocks, and receive regular market updates. Bamboo's platform is bank-level secured so anyone from Africa can use it as long as they have an active Nigerian Bank Verification number. Professional investment advisors can utilize Bamboo's services.
Nigeria is a major hub for legitimate investment and business. Nigeria's entertainment and film industry is among the biggest in Africa. The country's expanding fintech sector has resulted in an increase in the number of startup companies and VC activity. One of the most well-known backers of Chaka, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, said to TechCrunch that the country's progressive trends will eventually open doors to a new category of investors. In addition, to Aboyeji's investment, Chaka has also secured seed-funds from the Microtraction fund which is headed by Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel.
The deteriorating US-China relationship has accelerated Beijing's interest in African investments. Increasing anti-China sentiment and the trade war has made it more attractive to investors to invest in African companies that are not part of the US. The African continent is home to large, emerging economies but the majority of markets are small to support venture-sized companies. African entrepreneurs should be prepared to adopt an expansion mindset and create a coherent expansion story.
The Central Securities Clearing System oversees the Nigerian Stock Exchange, making it a safe and secure platform to invest in African stocks. Chaka is free to join and gives the benefit of a 0.5% commission on every trade. Cash withdrawals are able to take up 12 hours. On the other hand, withdrawals for sold shares can take up to three days. Both are handled locally.
Africa is enjoying positive developments due to the increasing number of investors looking to invest. Its economy is stable, and its governance is sound, which is a major draw for foreign investors. This has led to a rise in the standard of living in Africa. However, Africa is still a dangerous investment destination, so investors must take care and be careful. There are plenty of opportunities to invest in Africa. However, the continent must make improvements to draw foreign capital. In the next few years, African governments should work to create more business investors in south Africa-friendly environments and improve its business environment.
The United States is increasingly willing to support African economies through foreign direct investment. In 2013, U.S. governments helped develop a major financing for healthcare facility in Senegal. The U.S. government also supported investment in new technologies in Africa and assisted pharmacies in Nigeria and Kenya supply high-quality medications. This kind of investment can create jobs and foster a long-term partnership between the U.S. and Africa.
There are many opportunities on the African stock exchange. However, it is important to know the market and perform your due diligence to avoid losing money. If you're a small investor, it's a great idea to invest in an exchange-traded fund (ETFs) which track the performance of a variety of Sub-Saharan African businesses. For U.S. investors, American depositary receipts (ADRs) are a convenient option to trade African stocks on the U.S. stock market.


text:
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has taken the wraps off three Rambus DRAM (dynamic random access memory) memory modules targeted at specific markets – networking, servers and high-end personal computers – marking a move from the current one-size-fits-all strategy as the competition at the high end of the memory market increases.
Each of the three modules has been designed to best perform in its target application, said Samsung.
For example, the server and high-end PC modules are capable of storing 512M bytes of data and have four input/output channels in place of one. This means data can be shifted at a rate of 6.4G bytes per second – something that is important if the machine is performing complex modeling applications or processing digital video. The networking modules are available in 64M byte and 128M byte versions because such applications do not require as much memory as PCs, said Samsung.
Samsung’s move to target individual markets is not surprising. The company is already the largest producer of Rambus DRAM chips in the world and has stated an intention to remain on the leading edge of the business, having exited the commodity memory chip business to try to insulate itself from the ups and downs of that market.
The company predicts the market for these devices will reach 20 million units this year, based on a 128M byte per module unit.
Rambus Inc., the U.S. company that developed the proprietary memory interface technology used in the chips but makes no chips itself, has been pushing for a little over six months the idea that its chips are suited to applications outside of its current core markets of workstations and high-end personal computers. The new chips will help it sell this idea to networking equipment vendors.
At the Comdex computer show in Las Vegas in November last year, Avo Kanadjian, vice-president of Rambus worldwide marketing, told IDG News Service the company is looking to the burgeoning networking and digital television markets.
Rambus DRAM’s biggest rival technology in the PC market, DDR (double data rate) SDRAM (synchronous dynamic random access memory) is also being promoted for use in networking equipment, and other technologies are on the horizon. Samsung, together with NEC Corp., Cypress Semiconductor Corp., IDT Inc. and Micron Technology Inc., is developing QDR (quad data rate) technology specifically for use in networking routers and switches.
Samsung Electronics, in Seoul, can be contacted at http://www.samsungelectronics.com/.


text:
Circle.com Comes Up Short
Snyder Communications Inc.'s Circle.com, the Bethesda marketing company's Internet business division, doesn't have enough cash to fund its operations through the end of this year, Snyder said in its quarterly filing this week.
Circle.com, based in Baltimore, is mostly owned by Snyder Communications, but Snyder created a tracking stock late last month to give the company a market value.
In the filing, Snyder said it would have to put more capital into Circle.com, issue more shares of Circle.com stock or seek a third-party lender for Circle.com. If Snyder has to sell more Circle.com stock, it would likely result in a dilution of existing Circle.com shareholders.
Snyder Communications is controlled by Redskins owner Daniel M. Snyder.
Savvis's Big Sale
Savvis Communications Corp. of Reston filed an application with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell $75 million worth of common stock.
The Internet service provider and networking company said the proceeds of the offering will be used to expand the Savvis network and to support more sales and marketing.
Bridge Information Systems Inc. holds a 74.8 percent stake in Savvis.
Meanwhile, Savvis this month named Robert McCormick as interim CEO, replacing Clyde Heintzelman, who recently became CEO of Net2000. [Related article, Page 8]
Aether Stays Hot
Aether Systems Inc., the Owings Mills company that sold stock last month in one of the hottest IPOs in the region this year, posted its first quarterly results as a public company this week.
Aether's third-quarter revenue increased threefold, to $1.5 million, while its net loss during the quarter was $2.85 million. For the first nine months of the year, Aether lost $7.17 million on revenue of $2.28 million.
Aether provides wireless data services for hand-held devices that enable users to view information and conduct transactions -- such as stock trades -- anywhere. It raised $102.7 million in its IPO, and its stock has been strong even for a high-tech IPO. It shot up more than $10 Friday to close at $88.
Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. in Baltimore has secured a major equity position in an online beauty products retailer.
Sinclair, one of the biggest owners of television and radio stations in the country, entered into the deal with Synergy Brands Inc., owner of BeautyBuys.com. Sinclair will invest cash, advertising and media services into BeautyBuys in exchange for a 16.5 percent stake. Synergy is a publicly traded consumer products distribution and marketing company. BeautyBuys sells brand-name cosmetics, fragrances and a variety of other health and beauty items.
Sinclair will provide BeautyBuys up to $50 million in advertising on Sinclair stations and $18 million in media services. In return Sinclair will get stock in BeautyBuys, three seats on BeautyBuys' board and one seat on Synergy's board.


text:
Upmarket UK retailer Waitrose has extended its ice cream range to include an additional variant.
Seriously Creamy Peanut Butter Ice Creams combines peanut butter with chocolate ice cream and double cream, finished with a layer of Belgian milk chocolate, the firm said today (9 August). The ice cream retails at GBP2.89 (US$4.71) for a three pack of 120ml cartons.
The product is made with British dairy ingredients, Waitrose added.
On Friday, Waitrose revealed an 8% increase in sales for the first half of 2011.


text:
Recently hype was created from Vivo leading mobile brand, today a piece of news came from China IQOO will be a gaming smartphone and this phone has powered by Snapdragon 855 Plus processor that supports 5G network.
This image shows that IQOO Pro has triple rear with a LED flash located Vertically, The volume and power button is on the right side. This phone has come 12GB of RAM and 512GB internal storage, a user can’t place an SDcard. And it has 4410mAh battery.
Earlier it became known that iQOO Pro is equipped with a 6.41-inch AMOLED display with Full HD + resolution and a fingerprint scanner built into the screen. The presentation of iQOO Pro is expected on August 22 this year.


text:
23 Jan 2020
The Delhi-based QSR wants to deploy funds to strengthen its market presence with slew of cloud kitchens, pizza lounges and logistics centres in South, West and East India
BY arpita srivastava
More than a decade after its launch, Delhi-based Chicago Pizza is looking to raise Series-A funds for faster expansion. The brand plans to dilute 10-20% shares of the company. It has clocked over 150% growth in sales in the current fiscal and asserts to increase the revenues to Rs 1,000 crore over the next three years with more store launches, new brand formats, and aggressive growth plans. Speaking about how the company would like to deploy the funds, Vishal Kapur, Co-Founder, Chicago Pizza, said, “A majority of the funds would be used to further strengthen our presence and build more warehouses to cater to other locations, apart from North India.”
“Though we have seeded outlets pan-India ranging from Chennai to even remote locations in Guwahati, we wish to open commissary or logistic centers in three locations to further support, facilitate and grow in South, West and East India. We want to maximize on the pizza delivery revolution which was once captured only by international brands like Dominos or Pizza Hut. Today, customers are more open to brands like Chicago Pizza. We wish to open 10 cloud kitchens in virgin Tier I cities as well as in Mumbai and Bengaluru to keep operations cost low and get maximum sales through the owned delivery website, CRM, logistics as well as from third-party deliveries,” he added.
In addition, Chicago Pizza has devised a new franchise model, Chicago Pizza Beer and Wine Lounge, offering liquor with pizza. The brand has finalized 10 such lounges in Delhi NCR to further enrich the experience of consuming pizza along with wine or beer. According to Kapur, sales from such lounges serving alcohol would be higher on which the brand would be charging 9% royalty on both food and alcohol. He added that these strategies with a mix of lounge experience and dark kitchens will assist the brand to expand swiftly.
The big thing in favor of the brand has been its ambitious plan to take its footprint far and wide. Launched with a single outlet in Delhi-NCR in 2007, Chicago Pizza has spread over 120 locations pan-India. Popularly known for its ‘by the slice pizza’ concept, Chicago Pizza operates in two models – company-owned and franchise-owned. Another highlight of its services has been the ‘do-it-yourself’ pizza kit that the brand provides to its customers who would like to bake their own pizza with sauces and toppings of their choice.


text:
Credit and debit card fraud costs the financial world billions of dollars each year. However, The Tech Herald spoke to Tom Patterson, a past advisor to the FBI on cyber security and the current CSO of MagTek. He explained the ties between card fraud and terrorism and discussed one layer of security that could help eliminate debit and credit card fraud altogether.
MagTek, which is the main day-to-day employer for Patterson, offers various protection products for the financial industry. As the CSO, Patterson uses his history in the security industry to oversee development of company products, and at the same time, he has launched a campaign to end counterfeit card fraud by 2011.
[Disclosure: Part of this solution will use MagTek products, and they hold the patent on the technology.]
We started talking with him regarding his plan for plan for ending card fraud and the ties he and his Intelligence Community associates have noticed between card fraud and terrorism over the years.
Patterson started the conversation about how he got into this business. As a former Intelligence Community person, he worked in Washington D.C. most of his adult life. “I came into this to try and fight organized crime and to fight global terrorism and this is a perfect way to do it. To get the payment card industry to work together with the merchants, to make counterfeit cards not work anymore,” he explained.
The story Patterson told starts with a waiter or waitress, the kid at the gas station working extra hours to make more money for school or the holidays. Most people know the kid or the waiter, they are from the same community, and rarely do they think twice about handing over their credit card to make a payment. That lack of hesitation is where the link between fraud and terrorism starts.
Somewhere in the U.S., before the clerk or waiter starts their shifts, they are approached by someone who offers them a card skimmer, which easily fits in the palm of their hand and into their pocket. All they have to do is swipe all the cards they can through it during their shift, and in return they are paid $20.00 per swipe.
“So you can make $50.00 in pay and $500 in credit card skimming, just because this guy showed up. A lot of people are doing it, and they’re nice normal people. They’re the kids you went to school with, they’re the parents on your kid’s soccer teams, school mates, they’re otherwise not criminals,” Patterson explained.
“Opportunity knocked here, and they feel it’s a victimless crime and they’re not doing anything bad. When we catch them, that’s uniformly their response, ‘Hey you know we needed the money for rent, the economy is bad, we weren’t really hurting anybody, the banks end up covering it, it’s not a bad thing.’”
So where do the skimmers come from? After some investigation, law enforcement officials, including the FBI, Secret Service, local police and others, traced the skimming operations to a sect of the U.S. population that are in every city and state. This sect is the local gang population, with confirmed skimming operations discovered in the Bloods, Crips, and Latin Kings. To them, card skimming is their number three revenue source after weapons, drugs, and extortion.
“[Skimming has] moved up above extortion, and it has become a significant business for these gangs to go out and run these people. So on average, one gang member is going to run 20 to 25 otherwise normal waiters, waitresses, or clerks. They’ll give them the skimmer at the beginning of their shift, pick it up at the end of their shift, and they’ll pay them off. The gangs are turning around, and by having a bunch of members, they are able to harvest over 10,000 high value credit card numbers a night collectively through the system in a big city on an average weekend night.”
The investigations continued. Following the money, they were able to see exactly who the gangs were selling their harvested cards to. It turns out that once the gangs have the harvested data in blocks of 10,000, they sell them upstream to foreign organized crime.
The two largest, Patterson explained, are the Russian Mob and Chinese Triad. These groups buy fresh numbers that have been harvested in the last couple days, targeting the cards that were harvested from good stores and expensive restaurants. The reason for this is because that’s where the high value cards are found.
“Within three days of them being skimmed by some nice looking freckle-faced kid that you trust, the cards are in the hands of Russian organized crime where they’re pairing it with a very good looking fake piece of plastic and then selling that combined card on online auction systems for about $80. Within a week people can buy a card that’ll work for the next 15-20 days until the billing cycle is up.”
So where do the cards from the Russians go? At this point in Patterson’s story there is a solid tie to the hard core criminals, since gang members are far from shy about crime and violence. Yet, this is not terrorism.
On October 12, 2002, 202 people, including 152 foreign nationals, and 38 Indonesian citizens, were murdered when two bombs were detonated outside popular nightclubs in Kuta, on the Indonesian island on Bali.
The attack has been called the deadliest act of terrorism in the history of Indonesia. When law enforcement arrested those with ties to the Bali terrorist attacks, they poured over everything they had on them, every scrap of paper and book was searched for information.
“In there was the Al-Qaeda terrorism handbook, which is a handwritten book that is passed around to anyone who wants to call themselves Al-Qaeda. Chapter 3 is all about funding, we translated the Arabic to English, and it talks exactly about how to get counterfeit credit cards and use them to fund the struggle,” Patterson told us.
“It talks about how it is anonymous and very low cost to go to these online sites and buy these cards. As we interdicted other sites and other terrorist cells in Europe and Africa, even one in Ohio, we found the same people are buying these stolen credit cards and using them to fund the struggle exactly as they are taught.”
With that final tie, there is a complete cycle. One that when explained to executives in the financial world, obviously shakes them up a bit. Patterson notes at this part in his story that the real shocker isn’t the connection itself, but the speed of the connection.
“So you can go out on Friday night, to a nice steak joint, have your card skimmed by a nice attractive looking waitress, who then gets $20 for it and gives it to a gang member at the end of her shift. By Sunday it’s in Russia and by Wednesday the following week it’s up for sale and being delivered within 10 days and used,” he said.
This scam isn’t just in the U.S., it runs all over the world. The common criminal elements in the streets are being tapped to start the cycle as it were, and to them this is a clean crime. There is little risk. The payout is huge for them as they get working cards to use, as well as money for what they collect.
Keep in mind that the criminals pushing the skimmers are not the typical carder that you read about in the cyber security world. These are the drug dealers and hustlers who often go ignored until there is a drive-by or revenge killing. They will use money as a reward to start with, but if someone refuses, pain and intimidation work for them as well.
So we asked, is the ability to use these cards for all their worth before the next billing cycle the end goal? Patterson said yes, and went into another example of where a deeper shady criminal element with potential terrorist ties used stolen cards to move a mule across Europe.
A woman was discovered in the streets of Turkey, and the local police thought it was a prostitute killing. During the autopsy, they noticed her body started to decay right in front of their eyes. They discovered she was a nuclear materials mule. What happened was that the criminals had given her pellets of nuclear material that had been coated in plastic, and she was to swallow them and go through Europe and deliver them to the countries she was assigned.
One of the pills ruptured, and she died a horrible death. In her purse were 16 counterfeit cards, and instructions to use one and trash it, then use another and trash that, working her way through the cards, one at a time, so no one could catch her. By the time the owner of the card noticed any issues, the card had already seen its one use, and in this case the person who used it was dead.
The tie between card fraud and low to high-level criminal or terrorist activity is becoming a frequent common denominator. The reason for this is how easy it can be to get the stolen cards in the first place.
When you add in the organized method of how they are used, catching the criminals behind card fraud is easier said than done. However, like any war, you need money to operate. Patterson’s goal is to cut the funding by killing off card fraud.
Even with the best of our technology, thanks to fraud detections used by the banks and payment processors, there’s still $4 billion dollars stolen every year. Patterson said that the solution he is shooting for will help as a strong layer of protection once added to the existing defenses.
So what is this solution? It turns out that a music professor at the University of Washington came up with it, when he was looking to find a way to eliminate the hiss in cassette tapes. He determined that the hiss is actually a magnetic fingerprint, and it is more unique than human DNA.
“Every piece of mag-stripe, if you know how to look for it, has this unique array of three-billion particles of ferrous oxide that are sprayed on it and randomly arranged by nature. All you have to do is listen to that noise pattern, and you can determine the uniqueness of that mag-stripe, and therefore the uniqueness of that card. So it doesn’t cost anybody anything, but what I’m trying to do is get the card creators, who issue the cards, and the processors who process the cards in bulk, to record that magnetic fingerprint into an authentication database,” Patterson said.
When the card is swiped, in addition to reading the other information written on it, you can read the magnetic fingerprint as well. This fingerprint as it were, can be correlated against a master record, and if it matches, the transaction will complete. “If it’s not, if it’s nowhere near, as a counterfeit card will be, then it’s declined and the card becomes worthless,” Patterson added.
The key piece to this protection, Patterson explained, is that it isn’t a new technology. Quite the opposite, this is nature. “It’s not another encryption effort. Every time we come up with a technical innovation, the bad guys come up with a counter for it. Sometimes before we can even mass deploy these things, there’s a way to get around it. So I like this because it’s not technology, it is nature.”
When it comes to the noise pattern, you can hear it on headphones, but what you cannot do is write it. This is because to write it, you will need to put it on another piece of magnetic tape, which will keep you from exactly replicating that noise pattern, and thus prevent you from replicating the fingerprint.
“Every piece of magnetic tape is going to be created randomly by nature. Each particle of ferrous oxide is like a little bar magnet with a north pole and a south pole, and you’re literally spraying them through a spray nozzle on to Mylar, and then ironing them on to the card. They’re randomly arrayed, they could be pointed one way or another, but you can’t re-engineer that. So, all we have to do is get them to record the magnetic fingerprint and add that information to the rest of your banking information,” Patterson explained.
The process is known. There have been trials for over a year now with Visa and Fifth Third Bancorp openly talking about them, while other financial organizations have kept their testing out of the public eye. Patterson said that there have been over one-million in-use swipes so far.
All of the cards, which are the good cards, are correlating from 80 to 100-percent of the fingerprint. The reason for the large gap is that over time the stripe will wear down with usage. Once the card degrades so much the correlation drops below acceptable levels, a new card could be issued.
However, because most people get a new card every few years anyway, the fingerprint would rarely degrade below the required levels. When it comes to fraudulent cards, when they were scanned during testing, they only correlated at about 0.5-percent.
For cards that are in circulation, the system can pick the fingerprint up as the card is used, preventing costly re-issues on a whim. When this happens, a card is checked against a set level of transactions to develop a base, and if no fraud is reported, the established base is used as the fingerprint until the customer gets their new card as normal, where a new fingerprint has been recorded.
One bank participating in the trials did just this, using their ATMs to record the magnetic fingerprint over the period of three months, establishing a base for an undisclosed amount of customers. In less than a year, Patterson said, this bank was able to flag 1,100 counterfeit debit cards, and their fraud level plummeted from $11 million dollars to zero.
The numbers and results are impressive. At the same time, this entire solution is only one layer of protection, as it will not help protect against Card Not Present fraud, or other banking crimes. This fact is one that is stressed by Patterson, and he adds that what he sees in the fraud arena today, the vendors working in that space are making great strides to lowering the amount of loss felt in the industry.
Still, he believes what he is doing will make a difference. This enthusiasm comes off clear when he talks about his 2011 goal.
“So I launched an industry campaign to get the banks and the merchants to work together. All I've got to do is break the chicken and the egg. The banks say ‘we’d do it if the merchants checked’ and the merchants say ‘we’d do it if there was something to check against’…I hope that by this time next year, that the Christmas shopping season is safer.”
We hope so too. More information is available here.


text:
Vending machine automates process of allowing students to rent iPads
Vending machines that can serve up nearly anything have been popular in Japan for years, and most US airports and some malls now have "mini-store" type vending machines that can offer items like electronics or pet supplies. Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has been renting iPads to students since 2013, but has now automated the process with a kiosk that offers up to 12 iPads available for rental to students.
BlackBerry opens pre-orders for Red, White Passport
BlackBerry's previously-revealed limited edition versions of the Passport smartphone are available to pre-order today. The red version with black framing and highlights, along with a white model, can be pre-ordered now from BlackBerry directly ready for shipping on November 28th. The red model is priced at $699, while the white version is being sold at a lower $599.
Prices start at $4.25, limited selection
A MacNN reader has reported an announcement from Apple that iTunes movie rentals are now available in that country. While the iTunes Store has been available for music in Portugal since October of 2004, this is the first time movies have been available for rental. Prices for film rentals appear to start at 3€, or about $4.25. The country also recently got its own iBookStore at the end of September. Apple only got iTunes stores running in all EU countries last month.
Estimated to be 475,000 per day, mostly TV
Video rentals from iTunes represent just a tenth or so of those recorded by Netflix, suggests Gleacher & Co. analyst Brian Marshall. Apple recently revealed that people are buying or renting about 150,000 movies and 400,000 TV shows through iTunes each day. Assuming that 75 percent of movies and 90 percent of shows are rented, says Marshall, Apple should be serving about 475,000 rentals a day versus Netflix's 5.1 million.
Report claims option coming soon
NBC may be ready to allow 99-cent TV show rentals on iTunes, a report suggests. 9to5Mac is basing the claim on a screenshot unearthed in iTunes, depicting 99-cent rentals as an option for season five of The Office. The image could simply be a mockup, suggesting that Apple was or still is expecting NBC to come on board for rentals. At present, only shows from ABC and Fox stations can be rented.
Adds AirPlay, AirPrint, free Find My iPhone
The delayed iOS 4.2 firmware has finally been released. The firmware is the first version of iOS 4 to reach the iPad, and makes several feature upgrades, such as support for streaming music, photos and video to an Apple TV via AirPlay, and printing to a handful of HP printers by way of AirPrint. Apple notes that greater printer support and AirPlay-compatible speaker options are expected over the course of the next several months. [updated]
99p rentals at iTunes UK
The UK storefront for iTunes has joined those in Canada and the US in offering discount movie rentals, Apple has announced. The site now advertises a "99p Film of the Week" program, letting people rent a single movie at a sharp discount over the normal cost of £2.49. The chosen debut movie is John Frankenheimer's Ronin, a 1998 thriller about the life of spies in a world without good, evil or the Soviet Union.
Blockbuster in-store D/Ls
Blockbuster will soon launch a pilot program of in-store movie downloads, says the company's CEO. James Keyes revealed the information at an annual shareholder meeting Wednesday, noting that a trial will take place sometime within the next month, and involve store visitors inserting a form portable device into a kiosk, and copying movies in a process that should take approximately two minutes. At present the major issue is said to be studio support, as Blockbuster is still negotiating for available content.
Representing the latest effort to compete with iTunes in the burgeoning movie download space, CinemaNow is now offering a variety of paid content services through Windows Media Center. These include download-to-own movies, priced from $10 to $20; TV shows and music videos are priced at $2. The company claims that download-to-own movies are available day-and-date of retail DVD release, but doesn't mention the breadth of the upcoming library (right now there are about 3,400 feature-length movies in CinemaNow's collection). The service will also offer 24 hour movie rentals priced between $3 and $4. Select Pay-Per-View titles are available day-and-date of retail DVD release.
Apple fails to deliver
Apple promised the world in mid-January that 1,000 iTunes movie rentals would arrive at the company's iTunes Store by the end of February, but those rentals were still missing in action on the last day of last month. Macworld quotes Apple's statement during the Macworld Expo in San Francisco earlier this year: "iTunes Movie Rentals launches today and will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV."
Apple TV gallery
After a small delay, Apple has unveiled Apple TV Take 2, a software update that adds many features to the set top box. MacNN today had a chance to explore the update fully, examining the new iTunes movie rentals and store interface, as well as the addition of photo streaming from .Mac and Flickr. Below is a gallery of the new interface and features.
Apple extends rental limit
Although Apple has said it is confident that users are enjoying iTunes rentals, widespread critique began to form regarding the 24-hour rental period. Users insisted that it was simply not enough time to finish a movie due to a busy lifestyle, while others were exploring methods that would circumvent the time limit. Macworld.com notes that Apple has quietly extended the duration of movie rentals to allow users the opportunity to finish watching a film
Analyst: Rentals stand out
The keynote delivered by Apple CEO Steve Jobs yesterday was generally underwhelming, says American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu. Many of the announcements were anticipated and not especially dramatic, Wu notes, and among these he includes the MacBook Air, what was intended to be the highlight of the presentation. Despite its unusual design, Wu argues that its features overlap too far with current MacBooks, and may thus not push incremental sales in the same way as ASUS' Eee subnotebook.
iTunes movie rentals
Apple CEO Steve Jobs today launched movie rentals via the company's iTunes Store. Disney, Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate and New Line Cinema are confirmed as being on-board, as are Fox, Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount and Touchstone -- bringing "every major studio" into the equation, according to Jobs. The companies have agreed to offer their movies to iTunes customers on a rent-to-watch basis, with people paying $2.99 and $3.99, respectively, for old and new standard-definition releases, or $3.99 and $4.99 for HD-quality titles. New releases consist of titles arriving 30 days after their retail DVD shipment.
Macworld gear expectations
Three main announcements will be made at Macworld 2008, according to Shaw Wu of American Technology Research. The biggest of these is the widely-anticipated subnotebook, which Wu notes will mark Apple's first such computer since the PowerBook 2400 released in the late 1990s. It is predicted that the new subnotebook will make use of NAND flash storage, not only increasing access speed but improving weight, reliability and battery life.
Fox, Disney iTunes rentals
More details of the highly-anticipated iTunes rental service have been leaked, according to Variety. The movie trade magazine cites "studio sources" as saying that Fox and Disney are indeed confirmed as partners, and will make some sort of appearance during the January 14th Macworld keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The two may also be joined by other distributors, such as MGM, Lionsgate and Paramount, which like Fox and Disney already sell permanent downloads on the iTunes Store.
iTunes rentals beyond Fox?
Apple's unconfirmed video rental service will debut with several companies onboard, not just one, according to the New York Times. The Financial Times recently uncovered a deal with 20th Century Fox, which should see new releases come straight to iTunes, and iPod-sized, FairPlay-encoded files carried on DVD titles. The New York Times now cites "several people familiar with the negotiations" as saying that when Fox appears on stage at Macworld January 14th, it will be joined by several other companies whose names are not being leaked.


text:
Bankera the first dedicated bank for cryptocurency which will be launched soon, developed by Spectrocoin, a well established Bitcoin exchange (and not only) and will allow buying BNK tokens with XEM during ICO sale (maybe even during pre-ICO, they are working on that). There's no secret that Lon.
Small, Short-Term Contracts Let You Trade Up & Down Moves. Open an Account!
bitcoin forum – An Amazing Coin! – Do You Want To Know More About Bitcoin? Search To Get Answer.
Dec 8, 2017. On Nov. 12, someone moved almost 25,000 bitcoins, worth about $159 million at the time, to an online exchange. The news soon rippled through online forums, with bitcoin traders arguing about whether it meant the owner was about to sell the digital currency. Holders of large amounts of bitcoin are often.
Get started with Bitcoin: find a wallet, buy bitcoin, shop with bitcoin, read bitcoin news, and get involved on the forum. on Bitcoin.com
Will Bitcoin Value Continue To Rise Bitcoin 4H The ETH market has been hit by a string of reports that included their. This Will Make Investors Rich in 2018 50 Bitcoin Experts Reveal What Bitcoin Will Be Trading. – No idea, I would be happy to see Bitcoin continue its rise, but not at the cost of stability. Currently the value
AMA – Ask Me Anything, Bitcoin Discussion, Development & Technical Discussion, Media, Mining, Technical Support, Project Development, In the news, Economics.
How To Use Bitcoin Atm Dec 4, 2017. Drug dealers are laundering illicit funds through London's bitcoin ATMs, the Met police have said. Officers said they saw a dramatic increase in the use of about 100 machines across the UK where anybody can deposit sterling in exchange for crypto currencies such as bitcoin. Once digitised, the funds can. Will Bitcoin
Bitcoin Vs Dollar History It climbed to within a few hundred dollars of the $20,000 mark before slipping. eventually help iron out some of the wild gyrations in the price of bitcoin. Related: Bitcoin vs history’s biggest bubbles: They never end well And more big. Will Bitcoin Ever Rise Again If Bitcoin erodes established corporate and state powers, it
The bitcoin market has been getting chopped to pieces for weeks as the market has faked up, faked down, consolidated and routinely stopped out traders.
Join our active forums and interact with other crypto enthusiasts and crypto traders. Find out why the market is moving in a certain direction, investigate trading.
The evolution of money is already in progress. Do you understand the mechanics at work of digital currencies?
The concept of CT was first introduced by computer scientist Dr. Adam Beck on the BitcoinTalk Forum in 2013. will it maintain its status? Bitcoin’s status as the.
Feb 15, 2018 · Bitcoin Forum. Bitcoin is an open-source peer-to-peer digital currency project. P2P means that there is no central authority to.
Hi folks, few days without writing. Seems IOTA has increased it's value vs bitcoin. Yesterday when bitcoin was around 3800USD IOTA was near.48USD. Right now, BTC is 3800 while IOTA is.547USD If BTC grows up to 3250…
The scheme was previously discussed on the Bitcoin Talk forum last fall, which raised concerns about. late last year and was reported to prosecutors by the.
Known as a global centre for innovation and investment opportunity, Dubai.
Jan 4, 2018. Qoinpro Downline Builder Free Bitcoin Daily, Earn 7 Levels Image Upon signing up we will give you an unique referral link. Use this link and when your friends sign-up we will give you a percentage of every coin they receive, every single day. If they refer their friends, you also get a percentage. The more.
Over the last month, bitcoin has seen large swings in price as the bulls scramble to call the bottom and the bears scramble to call the top of the market.
Jan 25, 2018. The CEO of Goldman Sachs has denied a report from last year which said that the investment bank was moving to launch its own bitcoin trading desk. Speaking with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, CEO Lloyd Blankfein called the report "not true" – though his comments left.
Hello Forum, Bitcoin has been in the rise for years now and adoption has increased a lot. Many people now buy into Bitcoin to hedge against market.
Bitcoin Market place where you can buy and sell with people all over the world for bitcoin.
Discogs Forum – Should Discogs accept Bitcoin? – (if you plan of saving your bitcoin to spend) If you convert your bitcoin to cash at a Bitcoin exchange fee is usually about 2% of your sale plus the 04 cent transaction fee. $100 sale w/ Paypal – fees = $3.20 (total profit $96.80) $100 sale w/ bitcoin fee = $0.04 (if you keep your Bitcoins to make a purchase) (total profit $99.96)
A new technology is set to rocket up 8,000%
Where Can I Open A Bitcoin Account Step 0: What is a Bitcoin wallet? A Bitcoin wallet is where you can store, receive, and send bitcoins. It's like your own “bank account”. All wallets have a Bitcoin address (also known as a public key). Your Bitcoin address is like your email address; it's what you give out to people to be able


text:
NeWay Logistics’ busiest trade lanes are the intra Middle East routes with business driven by the oil and gas, military and humanitarian sectors.
The firm’s general manager, Erwin Burger tells Air Cargo Week that the third quarter started slower versus last year, but from September onwards it has picked up again and is now on the level of where it was last year.
He explains there has been no peak season as it has been busy with demand from the Far East, mainly China into Europe and Africa increasing, adding: “Despite all the additional scheduled freighter capacity being added on routes out of the Far East, we still see enough requests coming through for (part) charter flights.”
NeWay plans on continuing to focus on the current company set-up and any expansion Burger says will most probably not happen in the upcoming year, unless there is an immediate requirement, which would call for it.
But what is NeWay’s strategy to grow?
Burger says: “We are a small sized company, however with a global strategy and customer reach. As for every year, so not only 2017, we will continue to maintain a close relationship with customers and at the same time increase our sales activities towards the global market.
“I am a strong believer in face-to-face meetings with a customer, or a potential new customer. Although nowadays almost every contact is via the phone, email or other messenger communication systems, I continue to be convinced it is extremely important to go out and meet people in person.
“When I say customer, I mean freight forwarders, airlines and other charter brokers. Let us be clear that we do not work directly with any consignors or consignees, our neutral position within the market is important for our customers and we cherish this position.”
Interesting recent charters have included taking on an Antonov 32 aircraft on ACMI, which it will base in Afghanistan within the next few weeks for at least one year. Outside of its scheduled operation, the aircraft will be available for ad-hoc charters within Afghanistan, or the immediate surrounding countries.
How does Burger see the air cargo market?
“Scheduled cargo capacity, and mainly the belly cargo capacity, continues to increase as well as the competition within the charter market, but there will always be a need for charter flights and I strongly believe the need for charter flights will continue to grow steadily.
“NeWay Logistics is here for the long term and we are looking to assist and serve our customers throughout the years ahead,” Burger observes.


text:
Last year Dropbox announced a preview of the new Dropbox API v2. The new version simplified the Dropbox developer experience. In hopes to move toward a more simplified platform, Dropbox also announced deprecation of its Sync and Datastore APIs.
This weekend's look at what what going on in the world of APIs discusses Russian search giant Yandex's open sourced machine learning library, CatBoost. We also cover an Email Verification API from validation company SmartSoft, and look at HP's release of their data protection suite backed by an API.
Eight APIs have been added to the ProgrammableWeb directory in categories including eCommerce, Restaurants and Jobs. Highlights include an API for managing shopping cart services, and an API to retrieve job listings for remote workers. Here's a rundown of the latest additions.


text:
Want to join the conversation?
$WDC has appointed Mark Long as EVP, Finance in addition to his role as Chief Strategy Officer. Long will take over as CFO on Sept. 1 replacing Olivier Leonetti who is leaving to pursue other opportunities, but will continue as CFO through Sept. 1 reporting to CEO Steve Milligan and will continue in an advisory role to the CEO through Oct. 1.
For the past few years, $AAPL has been buying domains with the iCloud name. According to a report from TechCrunch, the latest acquisition was of the domain name iCloud.net.
$AAPL just released the first look of its $5 billion Cupertino campus, now named Apple Park. Take a look.
Looking forward to the first $TSLA earnings after SolarCity acquisition.


text:
India’s passenger vehicle sales slumped 23.7% in September, the eleventh straight month of declines, prompting an industry body to flag more job cuts
CALIFORNIA: Apple Inc will release a software update that will allow users to turn off a feature that slows down iPhones when batteries are low on charge, Chief Executive Tim Cook told ABC News. Apple will release a test version of its iOS software next month that shows users the health of their batteries and will let them turn off a phone-slowing feature meant to prevent sudden shutdowns in iPhones with older batteries, Cook said in an interview with ABC News on Wednesday. Cook said the phone-slowing software,…
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES: Twitter Inc reported a sharp slowdown in quarterly revenue growth on Thursday and said it would cut nine per cent of its global workforce. The microblogging service said its user base ticked up 3 per cent to 317 million average monthly active users in the third quarter from 313 million in the second quarter. Analysts on average had expected 316.3 million monthly active users, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount. Twitter has been struggling to sign up new users amid competition…
NEW DELHI: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan has warned that a "sharp" slowdown in China's growth posed a threat to the global economy, highlighting possible impact from the shadow banking system of its neighbour, the Reserve Bank of India said.
NEW YORK: After a dizzying two weeks that saw a rapid plunge and rebound in equity prices, investors are looking forward to a week of economic data that may provide clarity on the likelihood of a near-term U.S. interest rate hike and help tamp down the market's recent wild swings.


text:
APPLE FILES COUNTERSUIT AGAINST EPIC GAMES ON THE BASIS OF BREACH-OF-CONTRACT
While Fortnite stays off the App Store, Apple files a countersuit against Epic Games’ attempt to breach the App Store policy and avoid paying fees. This comes after a District Court ruling that kept both parties rather on a balance, ordering Apple not to block Epic’s Unreal Engine while the subject game (Fortnite) should remain out of the App Store unless it comply with Apple’s rule. However, Apple’s lawsuit alleged that Epic deliberately in breach of contract and so request that the court should award damages that will potentially prohibit Epic from attempting anything like this in the future.
The whole drama began in mid-August when Epic deliberately slipped in an in-game payment for Fortnite that made it skip Apple’s 30% cut, and gradually launched a PR campaign calling Apple a monopoly and the App Store rules unfair practice. Apple responded by banning Epic’s account from the App Store and could’ve gone ahead to block Epic Games Unreal Engine after the ban, it equally made it clear that this action could be avoided by the game giant by simply removing or adjusting the in-game payment. However, Epic sought to have a court reverse the ban but only succeeded in restoring accounts that are not related to Fortnite.
At the moment, it’s evident Epic intends to show that Apple is practically a monopoly and the iOS giant practice should be deemed unlawful, while on the other hand, Apple aims to show that isn’t true – instead, the company has filed this suit that alleged Epic wrongdoing. However, it wrote:
“Although Epic portrays itself as a modern corporate Robin Hood, in reality, it is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that simply wants to pay nothing for the tremendous value it derives from the App Store.
“While Epic and its CEO take issue with the terms on which Apple has since 2008 provided the App Store to all developers, this does not provide cover for Epic to breach binding contracts, dupe a longtime business partner, pocket commissions that rightfully belong to Apple, and then ask this Court to take a judicial sledgehammer to one of the 21st Century’s most innovative business platforms simply because it does not maximize Epic’s revenues”.
While the drama takes a different dimension based on Apple filing, it’s important to state that it won’t be necessary to analyze the case in detail, while we are still miles away from the point when the two giants’ claims and counterclaims could be summed-up and compared, it will be right to focus on the court ruling based on the filing. This is because it will take weeks before the preliminary injunction against Apple is decided, and more paper would’ve piled prior to that.
But there are concerns whether a structured company like Apple, which has total control over its hardware-software ecosystem, qualifies a monopoly. If it isn’t, its countersuit filed against Epic will practically put the game giant in a bad position. If it’s eventually figured out that it is, then Epic’s unlawful act would be justified.
It’s anticipated Apple’s countersuit would follow after Epic’s, considering Epic’s high-profile breach of contract it demonstrated, although Apple is yet to specify the scale of damage it seeks, as analyst anticipates eight digits.
What is your take as Apple files countersuit against Epic?


text:
Following a successful holiday season, the retailer has plans to expand with 170 locations.Five Below has announced it will be expanding following a successful holiday season. The retailer will open 170 stores over the next nine months to bring its total to more than 1200 locations.
In 2020, Five Below opened 110 new stores, bringing their current store total to 1,051. They began expanding with 11 stores across Ohio, Maryland, Florida, Texas, New York, and Mississippi the first week of February 2021. Five Below will continue with grand openings slated for every weekend through November 2021.
The retailer reported a 21.1% year over year net sales increase to $722.3 million for the nine weeks ending January 4, 2021.
“We are very pleased with our holiday sales performance, which surpassed our expectations,” said Joel Anderson, President, and CEO of Five Below, in a statement. “These strong results illustrate the broad appeal of our Wow offering at amazing values as well as the inherent flexibility of our model and merchandise offering. We featured extreme value products, as well as Wow gifts in our expanded Five Beyond offering, all of which resonated with customers.”
Five Below is a retailer for tweens and teens, and they offer trending, high-quality products from $1-5 value. The retailer has begun expanding its values with more products beyond $5. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the retailer can is now in 38 states.
Five Below is responding to consumer demand for discount goods by expanding its physical footprint across the country. Although the retailer faced the same closures and limitations due to COVID regulations, it still pushed forward with its expansion plans in 2020 and will continue with this strategy in 2021.
In search of more detailed profile insights on businesses to bring to a developing or bustling shopping center? Retailsphere can help. Allow us to help you locate the best tenant to fill your vacancy. Schedule a no-obligation demo today.


text:
We’re still trying to get to bed here in Barcelona, but that hasn’t stopped Nokia from releasing new apps to their Collection.
The latest is NFC Writer, which is exactly what it sounds like: a clever app to write to blank NFC tags specific functions or tasks. We’ve seen similar apps before, like the excellent NFC Launchit, but for some Nokia users they may prefer the more streamlined design of NFC Writer.
From the app description:
“Nokia NFC is a Windows Phone app which allows you to read/write any standard NFC tag. You can create NFC tags to launch applications, check-in to places, update social status, or even make phone calls or send text messages by simply waiving your phone over the programmed tag. Once a tag is created you place the tag in a convenient place, then tap your phone to it to perform the actions that have been stored to the tag. While the tags are created using your Windows Phone, they can be read by any operating system that is NFC enabled!”
The app has built in Foursquare support allowing you to generate NFC Tags that will allow you to check-in with just a tap of your phone or post a tweet to Twitter. Likewise,you can “like on Facebook” or even bring up a Google+ account (no joke).


text:
The pressure on food retailers to save plastics is growing. Across Europe, major retailers are outdoing each other with strategies and pilot projects for plastic-free shopping and recyclable packaging alternatives. The British market leader Tesco is now forcing its suppliers to eliminate plastic wholesale packaging – and thus is expecting its customers to rethink their approach.
Across Europe, food retailers are pursuing two approaches in the fight against plastic waste: Firstly, the promotion of plastic-free shopping, i.e. the possibility for customers to buy goods in bulk. Secondly, reducing the amount of plastic in private label products. The British market leader Tesco is now going one step further and has announced that it will also hold the industry to account. Tesco wants to “take the fight against plastics to a new level”, according to its own statement. At the end of January, the retailer announced to abolish large containers wrapped in shrink film. In Great Britain, it is common practice to sell canned soups, beans or corn in inexpensive storage packs, which are then shrink-wrapped. This is to be history at Tesco starting as early as March.
Tesco’s initiative is remarkable in three respects: Firstly, because it is not limited to private labels, but also forces major brand manufacturers such as Heinz, Branston and Green Giant to reorganise their packaging logistics. In August 2019, the retailer had already informed 1,500 suppliers that it reserves the right to discontinue products that are packed excessively or with materials that are difficult to recycle. As industry leader, Tesco can afford to do so. Its market share of 20.9 percent (2018) is well ahead of Sainsbury’s (12.8 percent), which is in second place.
“Bold” violation of customer convenience
With the abolition of multipacks, Tesco is also imposing a degree of discomfort on its customers. The measure is not an optional extra for particularly environmentally conscious consumers who choose unpackaged fruit of their own volition. It affects all customers. Tesco risks upsetting consumers who are accustomed to convenient and cheap stockpiling. More than 40 percent of Tesco customers regularly use multipacks. 183,000 bulk packs pass through the retailer’s treadmills every day, the most popular being baked beans, tuna and canned tomatoes. Tesco has assured customers that there will continue to be special offers for larger quantities.
Thirdly, unlike many pilot projects for plastic avoidance in the retail sector, the measure is not limited to a few test stores, but applies to all 2,658 Tesco stores from the outset. Since studies show that more than a quarter of all Britons buy a large part of their weekly requirements from Tesco, the potential savings are considerable. According to the company’s own statements, the savings potential is 350 metric tons of plastic per year. The British retail primus feels vindicated by consumer surveys. For example, in the Global Data study “How Britain Shops” last year, 60.7 percent of those surveyed said that sustainability plays an important role for them when buying food.
Remove, reduce, reuse, recycle
Tesco’s initiative is part of the “4-R Strategy” (“Remove, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”) and follows Sainsbury’s promise in September 2019 to halve the amount of plastic in stores by 2025. Tesco has also announced that it will replace plastic bags for fruit and vegetables with paper bags by the end of 2020, and in April 2019 began collecting non-recyclable plastic packaging in ten test stores. For its own brands, Tesco continues to work to reduce the proportion of plastic in packaging. In the future, plastic straws and disposable crockery will no longer be used, nor will “second lids” be used for cream or yoghurt cups, nor foil packaging for greeting cards and textiles. Tesco aims to save one billion plastic parts by the end of 2020.


text:
Completing a successful executive search process isn’t just a matter of finding the right candidate for the moment, but also identifying a leader who can bring your company into the future.
there is a great deal of low-hanging fruit in the IoT sector, leaving organizations with many opportunities to leverage the technology now even as it matures.
Robots are emerging as players in many industries. Autonomous vehicles are disrupting transportation and logistics. Industrial robots are emerging in manufacturing and warehouses.
During the first half of 2017, there were some whispers that the war for talent was ending as the economy stabilized and competition between organizations dwindled.
The digital transformation movement is getting a great deal of attention in today’s enterprises. Businesses across just about every sector are facing pressure to innovate, and traditional business models are being disrupted.
Many businesses are facing situations in which they must reconfigure and update their processes to keep pace with new customer expectations and marketplace demands.
The rise of blockchain is occurring quickly as the technology gains a great deal of attention in a variety of sectors.
Artificial intelligence is gaining prominence as organizations work to deepen their use of automation.
Self-driving cars could soon be on the horizon. There are many pilot programs on the roads and while the industry still facing technical and regulatory hurdles, progress is happening quickly.
Blockchain technology has been dominating headlines for months as the digital ledger solution is behind many of the cryptocurrency trends that have been garnering media attention.
It's critical that CIOs and CTOs take note of which programming…
Businesses can always stand to improve on their Industry 4.0…
Tesla's latest claim is just one of several intriguing pieces…
San Francisco / Bay Area
YES Partners, Inc.
325 Sharon Park Drive, #221
Menlo Park, California 94025
© 2017 YES Partners, Inc.


text:
Publishers oppose Amazon's bid to gain Web names - WSJ
NEW YORK, March 10
NEW YORK, March 10 (Reuters) - Two publishing industry groups, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, are opposing Amazon.com Inc's request to own new domain names, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The organizations argue that allowing Amazon to have such domain addresses that end in suffixes such as ".book," ".author" and ".read" would be a threat to competition, the paper said.
Barnes & Noble Inc has also opposed Amazon's request, the paper said.
An Amazon spokesman declined to comment on the objections, the paper said.
Last year the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers began a process to allow organizations to register for new Web address suffixes, other than ".com" and ".edu."
The ambitious plan to liberalize Internet addresses attracted 1,930 applications, almost half of them from north America, with Amazon and Google Inc applying for dozens of domains including .cloud, .buy and .book.
- Exclusive: Angry with Washington, 1 in 4 Americans open to secession
- U.S. Secret Service investigates after man jumps White House fence, reaches doors
- French jets strike in Iraq, expanding U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State |
- North Korea says imprisoned American tried to become 'second Snowden'
- Alice, steampunk and a false name: enigma of an American jailed in North Korea


text:
I’ve been one of Nike’s most widely marketed athletes. If I can’t secure maternity protections, who can?
In her video above, the Olympian Allyson Felix tells her story around pregnancy and Nike.
I’ve always known that expressing myself could hurt my career. I’ve tried not to show emotion, to anticipate what people expect from me and to do it. I don’t like to let people down. But you can’t change anything with silence.
Last week, two of my former Nike teammates, the Olympian runners Alysia Montaño and Kara Goucher, heroically broke their nondisclosure agreements with the company to share their pregnancy stories in a New York Times investigation.
They told stories we athletes know are true, but have been too scared to tell publicly: If we have children, we risk pay cuts from our sponsors during pregnancy and afterward. It’s one example of a sports industry where the rules are still mostly made for and by men.
I have my own pregnancy story as a professional runner.
For most of my life, I was focused on one thing: winning medals. And I was good at it. At 32, I was one of the most decorated athletes in history: a six-time Olympic gold medal winner and an 11-time world champion. But last year, my focus expanded: I wanted to be a professional athlete and a mother. In some ways, that dream was crazy.
I decided to start a family in 2018 knowing that pregnancy can be “the kiss of death” in my industry, as the runner Phoebe Wright put it in The Times last week. It was a terrifying time for me because I was negotiating a renewal of my Nike contract, which had ended in December 2017.
Olympic runner Alysia Montaño had accomplished all her dreams but one: being a mom. When she finally went for it, she faced her biggest challenge yet — her sponsors.CreditCreditEzra Shaw/Getty Images
I felt pressure to return to form as soon as possible after the birth of my daughter in November 2018, even though I ultimately had to undergo an emergency C-section at 32 weeks because of severe pre-eclampsia that threatened the lives of me and my baby.
Meanwhile, negotiations were not going well. Despite all my victories, Nike wanted to pay me 70 percent less than before. If that’s what they think I’m worth now, I accept that.
What I’m not willing to accept is the enduring status quo around maternity. I asked Nike to contractually guarantee that I wouldn’t be punished if I didn’t perform at my best in the months surrounding childbirth. I wanted to set a new standard. If I, one of Nike’s most widely marketed athletes, couldn’t secure these protections, who could?
Ironically, one of the deciding factors for me in signing with Nike nearly a decade ago was what I thought were Nike’s core principles. I could have signed elsewhere for more money.
But when I met with the company’s leadership in 2010, one woman told me about a Nike-sponsored initiative called the Girl Effect that promoted adolescent girls as the key to improving societies around the globe. By joining Nike, she said, I could help empower women. She told me Nike believed in women and girls, and I believed her.
Which is part of why my recent experience has been so heartbreaking.
My disappointment is not just with Nike, but with how the sports apparel industry at large treats female athletes. This isn’t just about pregnancy. We may stand behind the brands we endorse, but we also need to hold them accountable when they are marketing us to appeal to the next generation of athletes and consumers.
Last week, thanks to the voices of a few brave women, the industry took a step in the right direction. Brands like Burton, Altra, Nuun, and Brooks came forward to announce new contractual guarantees for women who have children while being supported by their sponsorships. A few days later, Nike also committed to changing its maternity policy, announcing, according to The Wall Street Journal, that “it is adding language to new contracts for female athletes that will protect their pay during pregnancy.” I applaud Nike for seeing that change was necessary, and I look forward to specifics, from Nike and the rest of the industry who has yet to commit to contractually protecting women.


text:
OPPO mobile unveils world’s first under-screen smartphone camera
Qiao Jiadong, Product Manager at OPPO, speaking at the event said, “OPPO is committed to product and technology innovation that creates a more immersive and comprehensive experience for users,”
“USC is part of OPPO’s vision for the future that we hope will promote the industry’s technological evolution from zero to one.
“We also view our technological innovation as a way to expand the imagination while opening up a wide range of application scenarios.”
OPPO Mobile premieres first Under-Screen Camera that offers more immersive full-screen experience.
According to him, “USC is OPPO Mobile’s latest innovation in new-generation smartphone form factor. By integrating the front camera and the screen, USC provides users with a complete view, an immersive screen and an integrated body.
“It also enables users to see and capture the entire screen, take photos, use face unlock and make video calls.
“As OPPO Mobile’s latest under-screen display solution, USC features a customized camera module that captures more light; zoning control is employed on the screen, together with “highly-transparent” material that enhances transmittance of light through the screen.
“Besides, through OPPO Mobile’s customized algorithm, haze removal algorithm and white balance algorithm, USC can enable complete photography experience and support features like smart beauty mode and photo filers in the future.”
“As smartphone offers more functionalities nowadays, users have higher demand for immersive and broad screen view.
“From the water-drop screen to pivot structure, to USC technology announced today, OPPO has been exploring the best balance between ‘thin and light’ and ‘full screen’.
No comments yet


text:
On October 22, Walmart recalled about 3,900 bottles of Better Homes and Gardens Aromatherapy Room Spray due to “a rare and dangerous bacteria and risk of serious injury and death,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The aromatherapy room spray was manufactured in India. It tested positive for a bacteria that causes a disease called melioidosis.
Four people developed the disease in Kansas, Minnesota, Texas and Georgia. Two of them died, including one child.
Melioidosis is extremely rare in the U.S., but far more common in tropical and subtropical countries such as India. People can be infected after breathing the bacteria in the air or swallowing it.
The symptoms of a lung infection can include coughing, chest pain when breathing, high fever, headache, sore muscles, and weight loss. Because the disease is so rare, it can be difficult to diagnose.
The recalled aromatherapy spray cost $4 and it was sold at about 55 Walmart stores and online between February and October 21, 2021.
The recall includes 6 scents of the spray:
- 84140411420 Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) Gem Room Spray Lavender & Chamomile
- 84140411421 Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) Gem Room Spray Lemon and Mandarin
- 84140411422 Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) Gem Room Spray Lavender
- 84140411423 Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) Gem Room Spray Peppermint
- 84140411424 Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) Gem Room Spray Lime & Eucalyptus
- 84140411425 Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) Gem Room Spray Sandalwood and Vanilla
Because the bacteria is so dangerous, consumers should not use — or even open — the bottle, and it should NOT be thrown away in the regular trash.
Instead, consumers should put on gloves, double-bag the bottle in two zip-top plastic bags, and put the double-bagged product in a small cardboard box.
Then, consumers should return the double-bagged and boxed product to Walmart for a full refund, plus a $20 Walmart gift card.
Consumers should also disinfect their homes, including any fabrics or surfaces that may have been sprayed. Sheets or linens can be washed with normal laundry detergent and dried completely in a hot dryer. Bleach can be used if desired, according to the CDC.


text:
Stock Insiders: Royal Wins’ ‘skill gaming’ algorithm is levelling the playing field in boom gaming space
Link copied to
Stock Insiders is a new podcast series focussed on investing hosted by renowned business journalist Oriel Morrison. The program is sponsored by Barclay Pearce Capital, Australia’s leading corporate advisory and equities trading firm.
In this episode Oriel chats to Peter Gan, CEO of Royal Wins (CNSX: SKLL).
Royal Wins is the first pure skill gaming app that facilitates wagering and betting real money.
The Canadian listed company has developed a mobile gaming space that rewards its consumers on merit rather than luck.
Peter recently made an appearance with Oriel on an episode of On The Bid – Pandemic demand spike, esports growth and NFT markets.
To hear more about the company’s digital gaming studio and expansion plans, click below.