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Bitcoin application Abra is in the global promotion
This week America bitcoin Conference (NorthAmericanBitcoinConference), P2P digital cash startup Abra announced next month will begin to extend its network.
Abra last May to begin preparations for the plan at the time, CEOBillBarhydt said, in 2014 the establishment of the Abra expects to complete the transition as soon as possible. “.
But the latest news shows that long-term plan specific actions may be taken.
Abra published this week revealed Bowen, the global release of the network will include support for bitcoin trading, storage, and 50 kinds of traditional currency wallet service, and the traditional currency can also point to send through the service.
Barhydt said, the system has been well prepared.
We have completed a number of steps of the system last year, built infrastructure can be extended to millions of users”.
This is located in the Silicon Valley start-ups will be selected in the market gradually launched the service, users can use the mobile phone number to send digital cash.
As previously mentioned, users’ machines’ function, and the exchange partner of the start-ups together for the system to provide liquidity support. Abra users can find “ATM” in the vicinity, into bitcoin exchange or legal tender in the application software on cash.
“I put 500 dollars into the ‘machine’, he accepted the money after using a mobile phone will be free to send me money, the money will be automatically converted into bitcoins, not by their Abra wallet currency type limit. The Abra system can complete the double exchange in the most busy time”.
This feature is currently still the ultimate perfection, but if the loading success, the company will launch “in the world”.
Focus on usability
The key of this product is available. Barhydt always said, even if his 70 year old mother can easily use the Abraapp.
But although he makes no mention of such confidence, or the number of users and companies’ ATM ‘number. He said, at the end of spring will not be published data; but mentioned Philippines has thousands of “machine”, there are a lot of people to apply for the application.
CEO borrowed an old comparison, Abra system and excellent step together; mentioned position and expenses and ratings are “some factors of ATM.
Of course to become the “main motive machine” or make money. “ATM” can be independently set exchange rates (Abra will be extracted from about 20%), so the user cost differences.
“If you are in Mexico City,” teller machine “will be charged 1 – 2.5% of the transaction costs, but also compatible with ATM”.
He also said that, around the user less in rural areas, may need to pay 3 – 5% transaction fee.
However, Barhydt believes that the application of some “ATM” will be in charity and relief projects, to help people get money. This transaction is free of charge, Abra will not be pumped into.
“Their motivation is to let people learn to help themselves, such as they have generally cannot receive financial services. Think about think of African refugees fled Somalia, europe”.
To overcome the obstacles
Abra to promote this “ATM” system, hope that ordinary people can register as “ATM”, to help the platform to grow together. However, some observers believe that this network technology, there are still some problems.
University College of Dublin (UniversityCollegeDublin) Associate Professor PaulEnnis believes, is still not sure whether the platform can be applied on a large scale, of course not just because it uses the bitcoin network.
“Although the body” ATM “(humanATM) sounds novel, but most people are still concerned about the basic problems, that is to say whether cheaper than Western Union (WesternUnion)”.
Ennis stressed that each user will pay attention to the cost factor, even if only the bitcoin wallet users as well as open source. He said this is a challenge, but also particularly high return “”.
In the short term prediction of Barhydt most Abra users will use ‘machine’, but more people will choose to bind bank account.
“I predicted that 50% of users will use the exchange partner network, using Abra through bank accounts; the other 50% users will use the ATM network”.
The main obstacle is the lack of large market exchange partners, such as the current European partners have not. Barhydt said that the current focus of work in the area, to the bank account to bind more.
“We look forward to cooperation with global exchange, the area can also get more partners”.
Barhydt has a lot of bold ideas on the future trend of Abra, but these expectations also need to carefully distinguish finishing.
Has been selected so that some businesses also accept payment plan for the future sale of commercial API.
It sounds easy, it is time-consuming. The actual situation is Abra still need to build “ATM” network, improve the liquidity of the system, and continuously improve the system availability, for businesses of all ages.
Some observers have confidence in the company’s plans.
Cambridge offbeat Financial Center (CambridgeCentreforAlternativeFinance) senior assistant researcher GarrickHileman Abra said, “I believe that the model is feasible”.
“There are two key factors in its success, one is Abra ‘ATM networks’ scale must reach critical mass; another is the need for universal cross-border transfer of value alternative channels of mass”.
At present is to solve these problems, but the world will be released next month is an important step in the start-up enterprise, the company has raised $14 million in venture capital.
Barhydt concluded that the world has not seen things such as Abra.
“Banks and bitcoin field there are many domestic payment software, but there is no transfer between any two world mobile phone global P2P solutions”.


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It’ll be a single-disc release and at the moment doesn’t list any extras and just the original Japanese language track.
The light novels began back in 2000 and there are twenty-one volumes out as of last fall.
While the folks at Sentai Filmworks brought out a standard definition Blu-ray version of Kino’s Journey on February 26th, 2019, Japanese distributor Frontier Works has finally decided to do the same.
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After weeks of speculation, Apple has finally taken the wraps off the new Apple TV, which will come in two versions—$149 for the basic 32GB model and $199 for a 64GB model—when it becomes available next month. The big question for those looking for a new streaming media player is, was it worth the wait?
Based on what we've seen and heard at the Apple event itself, we think the answer is an unqualified yes. Apple TV has always made sense for those who already live in Apple's world, but over the past year the platform has started to feel a bit outdated, especially in light of the regularly updated Roku players and newer contenders such as Amazon Fire TV. With its faster processor, Siri voice and gesture control, plus a new app market, that's no longer the case.
We'll be doing a full evaluation of the new Apple TV for our streaming media player Ratings, but based on the product info and demos at the Apple media event today, here are three reasons we think the Apple TV is worth considering, despite its higher-than-average price tag.
1. Siri Voice and a New Remote
Yes, Siri is finally coming to Apple TV. Using the microphone built into the new remote control, you access content across multiple video streaming apps, including iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Showtime. During a demo, the presenter was able to look for movies by genre, cast, director, date, or age ratings. You can also impose additional filters on searches, such as first selecting "Bond" movies, and then limiting the results to only those starring Sean Connery. And you can ask for recommendations, such as "kids' movies." One especially cool feature shown during the demo was to rewind by a few seconds and turn on captions, simply by asking what a character on the screen just said.
The new remote has a glass touch surface so you can swipe to navigate through the updated, more modern-looking interface, plus gesture support, which makes it friendlier for playing games. The remote has Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology, and both an accelerometer and gyro for gesture-based controls. Apple says the remote can last three months without a charge, and it has a lightning connector for charging from another Apple device.
2. Faster Processor and tvOS
To go along with its new, slighly taller chassis, Apple TV is getting some improvements under the hood, namely a faster processor (the 64-bit A8, not the new A9X chip in the new iPad Pro), and a special TV-optimized version of the company's new iOS operating system, called tvOS. The player has built-in 802.11AC MIMO Wi-Fi, plus Bluetooth communication with the new remote, so you don't need line of sight between them. It also supports infrared (IR) commands. The back-panel connections are similar to the older Apple TV's with HDMI, optical audio, and wired Ethernet inputs, plus a micro USB Type-B port for service.
3. Games and Apps
Perhaps the biggest announcement is that Apple is opening up its app store to third-party developers for apps ranging from games, to fitness and wellness titles, to shopping. Games appear to be a big initial focus, with an emphasis on casual gamers. At the event, two games—Hipster Whales' "Crossy Road" and "Beat Sports" from Harmonix were demonstrated, and they will be available at launch. Apple already does a brisk business in casual games on its mobile devices, and adding this capability to Apple TV is a smart move, especially now that the player has increased horsepower and a more game-capable remote control.
With the revamped Apple TV, Apple will become more competitive with both Roku, which has regularly updated its players, and Amazon Fire TV, which has some similar characteristics. We're looking forward to getting a new Apple TV as soon as it's available and putting it through the paces in our streaming media lab. Check back next month for our full evaluation.
Copyright © 2005-2015 Consumers Union of U.S., Inc. No reproduction, in whole or in part, without written permission. Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this site.


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The Swedish Gaming Authority has extended the license for video slots in Sweden for another five years. The license is now valid to 2023 after an appeal.
Online casinos were originally granted a license for two years but this would allow it to only offer regulated deals to players.
The license was awarded to other countries including Denmark, Italy, Spain, Malta, and the United Kingdom.
The CEO of the Videoslots company, Alexander Stevendahl stated that the online gaming organization is dedicated to both safety and fun. They are happy to have received the five-year license grant. They put the players first and are looking forward to the growth in the Swedish gaming market.
This is not the only gaming company in Sweden to have an extended license. The LeoVegas company received a two-year license agreement.
The Swedish gaming industry has seen some changes in the past year. There were new regulations passed for gaming and private gaming company is now allowed to apply for the license.


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- Clothes and footwear are set to get dearer due to increase in raw material prices and rate hike
- The govt recently notified an increase in GST on apparel and footwear from 5% to 12%
NEW DELHI : Apparel retailers, hit by rising cotton yarn and acrylic prices, said the upcoming hike in the goods and services tax (GST) on clothes and footwear could dampen demand.
The government recently notified an increase in GST on these products from 5% to 12%, effective 1 January.
Several apparel makers and retailers Mint spoke to said they are already facing inflationary headwinds across a range of raw materials as well as shipping. For instance, cotton yarn prices have increased in the past 12 months, they said. This has prompted retailers to revise prices or consider a revision. Now, a 7% jump in GST is set to make clothing dearer.
Ludhiana-based apparel retailer Madame said it could hike prices by 10-11% starting February and March.
“We are increasing prices a little bit to accommodate both the increase of GST and raw material prices. They won’t be too high because consumers won’t be able to take it,” said Akhil Jain, executive director, Madame.
Jain said the costs of cotton yarn and freight have gone up, making imports from China pricier. The company is dealing with a 30% jump in overall raw material costs.
Cotton yarn rates are “dangerously high”, said Lalit Agarwal, managing director of value retailer V-Mart Retail. As a result, the cost of apparel for manufactures is up almost 20%. With an additional 7% jump in GST, the end product is set to get even more expensive, he added.
“We have not seen this kind of price rise in two decades. Our customer base is primarily lower-middle class—their budgets are very limited. They may either consume less or look forward to lower-priced products,” he said.
The shift, however, may be temporary, he added.
This bad news came when apparel brands were reporting a recovery in demand. The festive season, weddings, reopening of offices and increased mobility have prompted shoppers to step out and refresh their wardrobes.
The GST Council’s notification came as a “blow”, the Retailers Association of India (RAI) had said last month. The industry association expressed concern over the impact of the hike on the already ailing apparel retail businesses.
“The 7 percentage point hike has been proposed to address the issue of inverted duty structure in the textile industry faced by a small segment of the total textile value chain. However, such a steep increase in the GST rate will adversely impact 85% of the industry, while trying to ease the problem faced by not more than 15% of the industry,” it added.
Retailers are “very worried”, Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, RAI, said, adding that it is hardly the time to create a financial burden on an industry that is trying to limp back to normalcy.
Consumers too are facing inflationary pressure on every front, and price hikes now could impact discretionary purchases, said others.
“From January onwards, this (GST) will come into play. This will impact our margins, and obviously, when the prices go up, it has an impact on consumption,” said Sunil Sethi, executive chairman, Modenik Lifestyle, which manufactures innerwear and casual clothing for men and women under the Dixcy and Enamor brands.
Consumers will search for discounts, he said. “Manufacturers are also going to be constrained in terms of offering discounts because they are also getting hit by higher costs,” he said.
Sethi expects value apparel to benefit in such an environment.


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60 Minutes' Credo: Talk to DC Bureaucrats, Regurgitate
By Ken Magill
60 Minutes’ hack job on Internet marketing Sunday night supposedly involved a year of background work. But CBS’s producers apparently decided only the federal government’s side of the privacy debate was worth presenting in any detail.
It was clear the segment was going to be a hit piece from Steve Kroft’s opening remarks:
“Over the past six months or so, a huge amount of attention has been paid to government snooping, and the bulk collection and storage of vast amounts of raw data in the name of national security. What most of you don't know, or are just beginning to realize, is that a much greater and more immediate threat to your privacy is coming from thousands of companies you've probably never heard of, in the name of commerce.”
Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill couldn’t have said it better. In fact, she didn’t say it better. All she had to do was pile on:
Steve Kroft: Are people putting this together and making dossiers?
Julie Brill: Absolutely.
Steve Kroft: With names attached to it? With personal identification?
Julie Brill: The dossiers are about individuals. That's the whole point of these dossiers. It is information that is individually identified to an individual or linked to an individual.
Steve Kroft: Do you think most people know this information is being collected?
Julie Brill: I think most people have no idea that it's being collected and sold and that it is personally identifiable about them, and that the information is in basically a profile of them.
Not surprisingly, 60 Minutes failed to present a shred of evidence that anyone has been harmed by profiling for marketing purposes.
The show also never explained why companies compile, buy and sell marketing profiles. Nor did CBS allow anyone to explain to viewers that marketers aren’t interested in individuals, they want access to large groups of people with similar profiles who are likely to buy their stuff.
The report never discussed the economic activity, jobs, or inexpensive consumer access to goods and services made possible by data mining. Even with the inclusion of a brief excerpt of an interview with Epsilon CEO Bryan Kennedy, the report effectively ignored the business side of the privacy debate altogether.
Meanwhile, Kroft came off as quite the consumer advocate. The irony of his report possibly leading to regulations resulting in higher consumer prices, choked access to goods and services and lost jobs apparently never crossed his mind.
The producers at 60 Minutes think data-driven marketing should be regulated because … well, they really don’t know for sure. They’re simply repeating talking points from Washington without a hint of skepticism.
Something evil is happening. They can’t prove it. They just know it.
“The media are taking their cue from Congress and the FTC, who are ferociously bent on regulating our industry,” wrote Direct Marketing Association CEO Linda Woolley on the trade organization’s blog. “They don’t trust that marketing data used responsibly for marketing purposes is harmless. They have tried for more than two years to find harm, and despite being unable to do so, they continue to push a policy agenda that will shut down many of the data-driven marketing practices that fuel our data-driven lifestyles. While they focus on the ‘data brokers’ their policies would impact every business in America – large and small. In the eyes of many policy makers (and 60 Minutes), we are all ‘data brokers.’”
And it’s not like the 60 Minutes crew lacked access to the people who could have—tried to, is more like it—set them straight.
The DMA reportedly made itself available for background. Epsilon’s Kennedy sat down for a long interview.
No matter. 60 Minutes had their angle going in and they were sticking to it.
After watching 60 Minutes purposely ignore one side of the Internet privacy debate, why would anyone who understands how marketing works trust CBS to deliver fair and factual reporting on any subject?


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GOOGLE has officially released a new privacy feature that could erase important photos forever and delete any online backups unless users take certain precautions.
The latest feature “Locked Folder,” was introduced by Google Photos earlier this year and has already been rolled out on its own phone brands.
"Locked Folder" is a feature that gives Google users an extra layer of security with storing sensitive photos behind a secure passcode.
The unique code set up by the account owner will make it so their content is inaccessible from the main image feed.
“You can save sensitive photos and videos to a folder protected by your device screen lock in the Google Photos app,” Google said.
“Items in Locked Folder won’t appear in the Photos grid, memories, search, or albums and won’t be available to other apps on your device that have access to your photos and videos."
It was originally only available to Google Pixel smartphones but has now begun to branch out to more Android devices.
For iPhone users, Google has promised this feature in early 2022.
MOST READ IN TECH
NEW FEATURE WARNING
Although it provides more protection for photos, unlike Google Photos, the new feature does not back up all of your images in the cloud.
Everything that the account owner stores in "Locked Folder" will only be located on your local device.
Once placed in the folder, all other copies are immediately erased.
Meaning, if you lose your phone or erase it, all of your Locked Folder items will be lost forever.
This also applies to switching to a new device or rolling over your content to it.
To set up the feature, open your Google Photos app and go to Photos.
Then tap on Library, Utilities, then Locked Folder.
SPYING GOOGLE APPS
Previously, Google warned millions of its users how to identify when apps are spying on them.
Through a new feature, users were alerted when the camera and/or microphone is activated on their devices.
It's very similar to a warning that already exists on Apple's rival iPhone.
The Google feature was added to phones in the latest Android 12 update.
So if you don't have that, you won't be able to see it.
The new indicator appears in the top-right corner of the screen.
You'll see a camera or microphone icon when an app attempts to access either respectively.
It prevents apps from surreptitiously listening in – or even watching through your camera.


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Beijing policy advisors see it as unlikely that China will meet Phase One trade deal pledges to purchase U.S. goods by a year-end deadline, several told MNI, despite Washington linking the commitments to potential reciprocal cuts to tariffs brought in under Donald Trump.
This week's virtual meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden has raised hopes in Beijing that some tariffs imposed on Chinese goods during the 2018 trade war could be removed. While U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also suggested recently that the U.S. and China could reciprocally lower some tariffs, she added that China should meet Phase One commitments.
Consumer goods such as laptops and toys may receive exclusions on U.S. tariffs, said Shi Yinhong, a China-U.S. relations expert at Renmin University and an advisor to the State Council, though he was less optimistic about any broad cuts to import duties given lags on purchase commitments made under the Phase One deal.
As of the end of September, China had only complied with around 60% of its pledge to buy USD200 billion in additional U.S. goods and services over the two years until the end of 2021. Its target is 76% met for agricultural products, but only 61% for manufacturing goods, and 49% for energy purchases, according to a report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
China may not have the economic demand to meet the purchase targets, said Shi, adding that the country could still demonstrate good will in its attempts to do so. Insufficient supplies of U.S. energy products and export restrictions on high-tech products such as chips have also made it difficult for China to boost imports from the U.S., advisors told MNI.
MOVE ON VISAS
Vice Premier Liu He, chief of the Chinese side of the China-U.S. economic dialogue, attended the video call with Xi and Biden, noted Wang Huiyao, founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization and an advisor to the State Council, who said the meeting could be followed by ministerial-level discussions on trade. Shortly afterwards the two countries relaxed restrictions on journalist visas, he noted.
"The two countries may continue with a Phase Two trade negotiation…and it is very likely to promote lowering tariffs as the U.S. is pressured by high inflation and supply chain bottlenecks, while China has expressed willingness to cooperate," said Wang.
Xu Hongcai, deputy director of the Economic Policy Commission of the China Association of Policy Science, agreed that the presidential meeting paved the way for Phase Two talks.
"Surely, China hopes to start negotiations soon, but we can afford to wait," he said.
Other advisors though were less convinced of the likelihood of Phase Two talks once the Phase One agreement expires at the end of the year, noting that the Biden administration may not follow the framework for negotiations with China set under President Donald Trump.
Tariff exclusions for some Chinese goods may come before broader talks, said Tu Xinquan, dean of the China Institute for WTO Studies at the University of International Business and Economics. The office of the U.S. Trade Representative said last month that it will receive comments on the potential reinstatement of exclusions of tariffs for hundreds of Chinese products, he noted.
U.S. business groups have also pushed for reductions in tariffs, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday that the U.S. was looking at cutting some of the levies. The U.S. administration has stressed that it remains committed to address areas not yet covered by Phase One, such as industrial subsidies and excess capacity, and that it will continue to pursue longstanding concerns over intellectual property theft and market access.
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Tata Motors is all set to announce the pricing of the Nexon EV Max on May 11. Earlier known as the Nexon EV long range, the Nexon EV Max will have more power than the standard car. We can confirm that the Nexon EV Max will come with a 136hp motor, which is 9hp more than the unit that is currently available on the standard Nexon EV – which will continue to be sold as is.
- Nexon EV Max likely to get 6.6kW AC charger
- Will get around 400km claimed range
- Will come with more safety and convenience features
Tata Nexon EV Max: what do the new teasers reveal
Tata Motors has partially revealed the Nexon EV Max, and from what we see, the SUV looks more or less identical to the standard Nexon EV. However, there could be some difference in badging. The teaser also reveals the Nexon EV Max’s new centre console, replete with the all-new rotary shifter that also gets illumination and a park mode.
Additionally, it is expected to get new features such as an electronic parking brake, ESP, four-wheel disc brakes, cooled front seats, cruise control and an air purifier, among others. As reported by us earlier, the Nexon EV Max will also have selectable re-gen modes.
Tata Nexon EV Max: could get more powerful charger
The Nexon EV Max will likely get a more powerful 6.6kW AC charger as opposed to the 3.3kW AC charger in the standard car, which takes approximately 10 hours to charge the battery. Tata could be offering the more powerful charger as an option to help the larger battery in the Nexon EV Max charge faster, although the 3.3kW AC charger is expected to be retained as well.
Tata Nexon EV Max: expected price, bookings, delivery details
The new Nexon EV Max will sit at the top of the Nexon EV line-up in India, and will have an on-road price of around Rs 20 lakh, according to sources. Most Tata dealers are accepting bookings unofficially and deliveries are expected to commence sometime this month.


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Ford Credit’s first campaign – is that enough?
Published: April 04, 2023
Ford has a new digital-only campaign, with the lines, “The best Ford ever. Is the one you call yours” And it is not a campaign that aims to sell Ford cars. But Ford Credit that finances the purchase of Ford and Lincoln vehicles.
Ford Credit is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company founded way back in 1959. This is its first direct-to-consumer ad campaign in direct response to the changing times. Getting financing when buying a car used to be something everyone did – you buy a car and also pick up a loan at the car dealership itself. But things have changed.
We now have online car shopping, and the car-financing and the car sales marketplace has become a lot more competitive – there are banks, credit unions and automaker-controlled lenders who target customers sooner in the buying process. About 40% of customers, who buy Ford or Lincoln cars, opt for Ford Credit.
The goal of this direct-to-consumer campaign is to increase this percentage by creating awareness and ward off the competition.
Ford Credit positions itself as a
Frictionless finance provider that offers ease, clarity and flexibility.
Ford Credit’s head of global marketing in a press release.
Earlier, people who shop for cars and sign up for loans at the dealership. Now with even car sales happening online, the evolved customer does his research first – regardless of whether he shops for a car or a car loan. To be able to keep up with this, it is great for brands to create awareness among its audiences.
This digital only campaign will primarily operate on paid spots on Instagram and Google Search.
What we think about this –
Ford Credit operates in what is called a ‘captive financing’ space – now these are financing companies that are owned by automobile manufacturers. So wherever there is an outlet that sells these automobiles, you can be pretty sure that the financier is also present. So a consumer can buy a car, and take a loan from the captive financier. This is the reason why 40% of Ford owners have auto loans from Ford Credit. Not being satisfied with this, Ford Credit gets into action mode and does a campaign (its first since 1959) to increase its customer-base.
This is a very smart move – as McKinsey predicts that a varied and ever-growing set of lenders that include large banks, regional banks, online retailers, and fintechs are considering moving to this asset class. The primary reason being the low delinquency rates in the auto loans sector. So businesses that are complacent about their market share might take a beating.
But this will not be enough. It is important to take things a step further. The auto-loans market is on the edge of massive growth and expansion. Conventionally-strong brands just can’t take it easy in a scenario with new-comers jumping in to the ring, and old-timers starting to hone their wares and strut their stuff. You have to do what it takes to get the attention of your customers. You have to do some magic – digitally.
For example, Capital One has developed a tool which allows customers to shop around for cars and to see if they pre-qualify for an auto loan without letting it affect their credit score in any way.
AutoFi is a company that supplies digital retail systems to car dealers, banks, OEMs, and online marketplaces. They now have a cloud-based pricing platform called Real Payments. Real Payments allows customers to prequalify for financing, see costs, prices and monthly payout amounts across various vehicles in a matter of seconds.
That is kind of the place where brands need to be at. That’s where Ford needs to be as well. The cars are great! Car financing is great! But the brand needs to make use of all the advances in technology and apply it to the process of getting a loan to own a car as well. Be it metaverse or Generative AI, it is all there to create magic for the discerning marketer. It just needs a strategist to take things forward.
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China Nears Deal to Build Jeeps
It’s quickly becoming apparent that good ol’ America won’t be the only country staking claim to manufacturing Jeeps. Fiat Chrysler has already said the new subcompact Renegade will be built in Melfi, Italy, making it the first place outside the U.S. to build the iconic Jeep nameplate. Now it appears a deal that will allow China to build Jeeps is almost done as well, according to Reuters.
The Jeeps in China would be manufactured at a plant Fiat Chrysler operates with its Chinese joint-venture partner, Guangzhou Automobile Group Co.
Industry insiders suggest the first China-produced Jeep will be the Cherokee, which is built on the same platform as the Fiat Viaggio. Production is expected to start by mid-2015, according to Jeep officials.
The move is part of a Fiat Chrysler strategy to capture more of the growing market for small SUVs, which is expected to reach annual global sales of 3 million by 2020.
Still, I can only imagine the kind of comments this one is going to stir up among die-hard Jeep enthusiasts.


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With majority car sales coming from the lower segments, small cars have always been instrumental in the growth of Indian car bazaar. A report by SIAM shows that 4 out of 5 largest selling cars in the year 2012 are hatchbacks and things don’t seem to be changing anytime soon.
Maruti Suzuki Alto 800 has once again emerged at the top of the annual sales chart. However, the Tata Nano has been featured in the top 10 for the first time in its career. There is now no doubting the fact that the various upgrades being carried by the 2012 Nano have paid off well. Hyundai Eon too makes an entry in to the coveted top 10. The only sedan to make an appearance in the top 10 is the Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire and is one of the top four cars in the list. All these four cars are from Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.
We won’t be too surprised to find the Nano featuring in the top 5 next year. What with the Nano diesel close to being launched.


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Steve Jackson Games Announces Layoffs
You should really read the entire announcement at the SJGames website, but for the sake of drawing commentary, I'll post the more informative bits here. They're not going out of business - rather just cutting back based on "incomplete financial statements".
You should really read the entire announcement at the SJGames website, but for the sake of drawing commentary, I'll post the more informative bits here:
1. Steve Jackson Games is not going out of business. Layoffs are not necessarily a sign of impending doom (except, of course, for those who got laid off); in fact, in this case the layoffs are a way for the company to keep from going out of business, by saving money in the most immediate way possible. The downside of layoffs: fewer people to work on products, which can mean missed release dates.
2. The most immediate reason for the layoffs is what's being called "incomplete financial statements." According to Mr. Jackson, the numbers would seem to indicate that the company should be making money -- sales are up, and people are paying their bills on time -- but they're not. Possible areas for the "cash deficit" include overstaffing and projects that aren't making enough money, instead turning into a cash sink.
3. Their Chief Financial Officer left the company a few weeks ago. The only thing this has a direct effect on is the fact that financial reports are now even more of a mess than they were before; already, they're a year out of date, making it impossible to track profit or loss for that entire time. Mr. Jackson himself has been "writing personal checks" to keep money in the bank. End result: company is losing money, even if it shouldn't be.
4. Products under development will still ship, because basically it'd be stupid not to ship them; they're a source of additional funding, which is sorely needed at this point. Products forthcoming include "Frag, Munchkin, Chez Dork" and Car Wars, which ships in October.
I personally think that this is more than just financial troubles at one company. It's pretty clear from the stunning failure of TSR (prior to Wizards of the Coast gobbling them up) that there's a problem in the RPG industry. Perhaps it's oversaturation; everyone already owns a game, and there are too many new games and game companies out there. Perhaps it's that darned computer game industry, which is sucking people's time and money away from pen-and-paper games. Or perhaps it's just that the RPG companies aren't changing with the times; for the most part, RPGs are still designed, marketed and played just like they were in the early 1980s, whereas computer games have come a long way since the Atari 2600 and Intellivision.
Maybe it's time for a change.


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Qualcomm and Samsung announced this morning that the next "premium" Snapdragon SoC, the Snapdragon 835, is already in production on Samsung's 10-nm FinFET process. This will be the first major revision of Qualcomm's top-end processor since the 820 introduced the company's custom Kryo CPU core.
Qualcomm and Samsung have worked together many times before, of course. Samsung fabbed the Snapdragon 820 on its 14-nm FinFET process, and ultimately used that processor in the Galaxy S7. The Korean company says its new 10-nm process allows "up to a 30% increase in area efficiency" compared to the previous 14nm technology. That apparently translates into the designer's choice of 27% higher performance or 40% lower power consumption.
Snapdragon chips are among the fastest ARM-based processors outside of Apple's devices, so the 835 should be impressive when it comes. Samsung says the 835 is expected to ship in devices in the first half of 2017.
|Gigabyte XK700 keyboard will challenge your limits||1|
|Microsoft and Intel set to bring AR to the people with Project Evo||3|
|Global VR Association hits the road with Sony and Samsung in tow||2|
|Fitbit buys Pebble, leaving watch owners in the lurch||11|
|Bluetooth 5 spec promises increased speed, range, and throughput||9|
|Microsoft makes Windows 10 run on ARM devices||29|
|Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition: an overview||47|
|We have a winner in our limited-edition Corsair RM1000i giveaway||15|
|Jonsbo cases drop thick tempered glass on the competition||9|


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At SMX (Search Marketing Expo) Paris today, Google’s Behshad Behzadi was presenting on some of the new features that will be available with Google Now On Tap. Google Now On Tap was announced recently at Google I/O 2015 that bring contextual awareness from within ... Read More »
Google Now on Tap was one of the coolest features the company showed off at this year’s I/O conference in May, but it’ll only be available in Android M later this year. However, for those that want a taste of how it will work, Google’s happy to oblige.
Today, Chrome for Android received an ... Read More »
At Google I/O last week, Sundar Pichai announced a new Android development training program named Nanodegrees. Google wants to enable the next generation of Android developers because they see how fast Android is growing and how they need bright minds like you to make it awesome. They have partnered with Udacity, a leader in scalable online education, to ... Read More »
Most Tweeted This Week
Google has long let you do things like view your search history and download your account data, but today they launched a new tool to make all of that even simpler.
Every month, Google updates those interested in the state of Android, showcasing just how much of the market is taken up by each version of the mobile platform. For the period ending June 1, Google showcases yet another month where the company’s latest public release, Lollipop, continues to grow.
Android 5.1, the newest release, ... Read More »
Google ATAP is constantly announcing cool new projects for the future, and the latest is Project Jacquard. It’s not just some new high tech device though, but instead a push for creating interactive textiles. The new Jacquard yarn looks and feels like normal yarn, but is made out of conductive threads.
This yarn can ... Read More »
Last year at Google I/O, Google announced a completely new design standard with material design. The Android community quickly fell in love material design, and it wasn’t hard to forget the Holo design of old.
Over the last year, thousands of Android apps have adopted the new standard with beautifully simple ... Read More »
There was no louder applause during the keynote this morning than when Anil Sabharwal, Director of Photos at Google, announced that Google Photos will offer unlimited storage of users photos and videos for free.
This was the knockout punch to an already impressive presentation on everything that Google Photos is bringing to users starting today ... Read More »
Google Maps is probably the best means of navigation of all time (except maybe a rally co-driver), but it has a major downside that people have been complaining about for a long time. You need a data connection for navigation, and the offline mode is tough to use and only works with the basic map ... Read More »
Google Cardboard was a strange release at last year’s Google I/O. It almost seemed like a joke, until we realized the implications. Instead of an overly expensive virtual reality headset that’s not even in a consumer ready form yet, you can build yourself a headset out of cardboard. This means that you can take advantage ... Read More »


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Ophir Sternberg of Lionheart Capital and Out of the Box Ventures
As the founder of Lionheart Capital, a developer of swanky hotels in Florida and luxury ski lodges in Colorado, Ophir Sternberg has had a pretty successful run in commercial real estate.
So when COVID-19 shuttered most of the projects in his retail division, Out of the Box Ventures, he tried to leverage his financial acumen to help suffering tenants.
“This was a Black Swan event that no one could have anticipated. Looking at the marketplace, I saw strong stances being taken by landlords who demanded that rents be paid in full and national chain tenants saying they’re not going to pay,” Sternberg said. “I told our leadership, ‘Let’s come with a fair formula to help them get through the next few months.’”
The proposition OOTBV came up with: Pay your common area maintenance (CAM) charges and taxes, but pay no rent at all for April or May. Those rents are forgiven.
Few mall and shopping center landlords have wiped April and May rents off their books, so OOTBV’s offer appeared generous. National chain tenants, however, were not impressed.
“We got letters from their lawyers about what they wanted and what they intended to do, but not one of the national chains responded in any way to our offer of two months free rent. I guess it was because we were still asking them to pay something,” said Sternberg.
Independent retailers were more gleeful. “We’re getting a lot more nice letters and appreciation from the mom-and-pop businesses in our centers,” Sternberg said.
Sternberg and his team are keeping busy watching what develops through the crisis and setting out individual plans for properties. OOTBV’s basic premise is to buy existing properties and redevelop them to suit current consumer needs.
“This crisis is making changes in the retail environment happen faster than anyone would have thought,” Sternberg said. “We’re spending a lot of our time looking at master plans and designs and thinking about who our next tenants are going to be. We’re anticipating a lot of re-zoning.”


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A consortium of firms launched a gold-backed token with the DGLD ticker on a Bitcoin (BTC) sidechain.
Swiss fiscal news outlet AllNews stated on Oct. 15 that digital asset managers CoinShares and MKS, as good as wallet service supplier Blockchain, announced the launch of the token. Its progress took two years and the provide of the token is already valued at over $20 million.
Meanwhile, the physical gold is held in vaults managed by way of bullion manufacturer PAMP in Ticino, Switzerland. It’s tokenized making use of the Ocean Bitcoin sidechain developed via blockchain organization CommerceBlock.
Sustainability of gold meets Bitcoin’s security
The challenge reportedly leverages the immutability of Bitcoin’s blockchain, with each and every token being equivalent to a tenth of a troy ounce of gold. The authorized entity behind the token can also be centered out of Switzerland and is a member of the Swiss self-regulatory organization monetary offerings standards association.
CoinShares president Danny Masters commented, highlighting the benefits of combining bodily gold with Bitcoin’s protection. He defined:
“DGLD combines the steadiness of the sector’s most sustainable asset, gold, with the protection of essentially the most resilient network on the earth, Bitcoin. […] you could now have the peace of mind that includes bodily gold held in a Swiss vault, with the same comfort as conserving an ETF on gold, however now not the identical phases of middlemen.”
high quality regulatory framework
DGLD isn’t area to the same regulatory constraints as gold-founded funding products similar to exchange-traded funds.
The token reportedly falls under class five of the Swiss fiscal Market Supervisory Authority taxonomy on stablecoins, which is reserved for crypto assets linked to commodities with property rights. MKS president Marwan Shakarchi commented:
“With DGLD, we’ve created a brand new gold property layout that permits you to digitally use physical gold stored in a vault 24/7. DGLD has the abilities to profoundly exchange the way gold is used on a everyday groundwork.”
As Cointelegraph said final week, Australia’s greatest worthy metal refinery, the Perth Mint, and InfiniGold, a fintech startup concerned with invaluable metals digitization, have collectively launched a gold-backed digital token as good.


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Plans on a roll for protected bike lane in Eugene
It would stretch 13 blocks along High Street, between East 19th and East Sixth avenues
Bicyclists in Eugene have something else to look forward to.
The city is planning to improve a bike lane along 13 blocks of a busy street near downtown so bicyclists can travel more safely. Planners are working on a proposed two-way, protected bike lane along High Street between East 19th and East Sixth avenues.
When completed, the revamped bike lane will allow bicyclists to travel from the Ridgeview Trail in south Eugene to riverbank paths along the Willamette River near downtown on a connected series of bike lanes and off-street bike paths.
A protected bikeway has a physical barrier between the bike lane and automobile travel lane, said Reed Dunbar, a city transportation planner. The new bike lane is slated to include curbs and medians to separate cyclists from the cars and trucks. The medians would be low enough that emergency vehicles could drive over them if necessary. Construction on the new bikeway could start in 2019.
The only other protected bikeway in the city is a two-block section of Alder Street, from East 11th to East 13th avenues where parked cars “protect” cyclists from moving vehicles. High Street now has a one-way bike lane, where bicyclists ride alongside cars without any sort of barrier.
Matt Ritzow, the general manager and partner owner of Paul's Bicycle Way of Life on Alder Street, hadn’t heard of the plans for the bikeway, but he said he supports the idea of protecting cyclists.
High Street is a busy street, Ritzow said. Several intersections along High Street can pose dangers for cyclists and motorists. Ritzow said he has a number of cycling friends who have had close calls or been struck by cars at the intersection of East 17th Avenue and High Street.
Ritzow has concerns about the city's idea to allow bicyclists to ride in both directions in the bike lane. High Street now is one-way for both motorists and bicyclists. Ritzow said motorists might not look for bicyclists traveling in both directions.
The city had a similar problem when it put in the bikeway on Alder Street, he said.
Justin Bezelj, owner of Life Cycle Bike Shop on Pearl Street, also said he had not heard of the new protected bikeway. However, anything that would help with the safety of cyclists would be an improvement, he said.
One of the goals of the city's transportation plan is to increase the number of people riding bikes, Dunbar said. Creating protected bikeways is one way to do so, he said. People often feel more comfortable riding in a bikeway that is separated from automobile traffic.
High Street is the northern segment of the River to Ridges Bikeway that will connect the Ridgeline Trail in south Eugene to the Riverbank Path along the Willamette River, Dunbar said. The southern portion of the bikeway, on East Amazon Drive from Dillard Road to East 33rd Avenue, will have a two-way protected bike lane that will be built this summer. The middle section of the bikeway, through Amazon Park, is already complete. The High Street bike lane will complete the bikeway.
The High Street bike lane will cost about $1.7 million, Dunbar said. Upgrading traffic signals will be the most expensive part of the project. About $1.5 million of the total cost will be covered by a federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grant.
Traffic signals for bicyclists will operate independently from motor vehicle stop lights. The separate signals are meant to prevent accidents between cyclists and motorists at intersections.
The East Amazon Drive bike lanes will cost about $1.7 million, he said. The East Amazon Drive project includes three bridges over Amazon Creek, rebuilding the running path and widening the sidewalks along Hilyard Street. About $1.5 million of the East Amazon Drive project will be covered by a different federal grant.
Dunbar said that the High Street plan should not affect automobile traffic in the area significantly. However, the bikeway could eliminate some vehicle parking spots north of East 11th Avenue.
The city also is studying traffic flow in the entire downtown area to determine how other possible changes, such as the impact of opening one-way streets to two-way traffic.
Residents interested in the plan can learn more and fill out a survey at eugene-or.gov/3879/High-Street-Bikeway.


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In the United Kingdom and retail bookmakers across England and Wales have reportedly re-opened after being forced to close their doors a little over 13 weeks ago as the nation entered its third coronavirus-related lockdown.
According to a report from the Racing Post, the Monday move is part of a plan from Prime Minister Boris Johnson to gradually get the country of some 68 million people back to normality following a year in which over 127,000 have died as a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic. The 56-year-old’s government is now purportedly hoping to have removed all remaining social distancing restrictions by June 21 with the revival for high street sportsbetting shops having been accompanied by the re-opening of hairdressers, gyms and pub beer gardens.
Despite the long-awaited re-openings, land-based betting shops in England and Wales are still reportedly prohibited from offering chairs or showing live pictures from sporting events such as soccer games or cricket matches. Such venues are also purportedly now required to follow strict capacity restrictions that top out at eight punters as well as limits on how long individual bettors can remain in any one property.
Alongside all of these and the re-opening bookmaking locations are now only permitted to offer a pair of electronic betting machines while moreover being obliged to close from eight o’clock every evening and limit individual customers to a maximum of two daily visits.
Even with all of these constraints and the Managing Director for independent bookmaking firm Chisholm Bookmakers Limited, Howard Chisholm, reportedly told the Racing Post that he is ‘looking forward’ to re-opening his firm’s 35 venues spread across the northeast of England. He purportedly furthermore declared that ‘staff are really pleased to be going back to work’ and that his executive team has ‘been around all the shops making sure everyone’s prepared.’
Chisholm reportedly declared…
“We know with the restrictions it’s not going to be as sociable as it is normally but we coped with the tier three restrictions before Christmas and the customers understand what needs to be done. Very few people come into a betting shop and spend all day there or all day on the machines so that shouldn’t affect things in the way people think it might.”
For his part and Michael Dugher, Chief Executive of the Betting and Gaming Council lobby group, reportedly welcomed the move in advance of telling the Racing Post that the re-opening of betting shops could help to boost the battered finances of British horseracing due to the resumption of associated payments to the Horserace Betting Levy.
Reportedly read a statement from Dugher…
“It’s been a long three months for betting shop staff as well as their customers and I know they’re all looking forward to safely getting back to business thanks to the best-in-class anti-coronavirus measures in place.”


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A lot of noise has come out of the electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) in the last 24 hours. A lot of this talk has come from an appearance on the CBS news program 60 Minutes by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, and also the manufacturer of advanced rockets and spacecraft technology, Space X.
While there were several interesting aspects to the interview with Musk, and the 60 Minutes profile which was generally glowing, it was a comment made by Musk which has received the most attention.
ValueWalk's Raul Panganiban interviews Dr. Kathryn Kaminski, Chief Research Strategist at AlphaSimplex, and discuss her approach to investing and the trends she is seeing in regards to quant investing and hedge funds. Q1 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more The following is a computer generated transcript and may contain some errors. Interview with AlphaSimplex's Read More
Tesla CEO’s Fear of failure
The Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO stated that he never expected the company to be successful! This is not the sort of comment that we usually hear emanating from the head of any company, let alone a multi-billion dollar one such as Tesla. But Musk stated that he wasn’t sure if Americans in particular were ready for the concept of an electric car, but that he had hoped Tesla would be able to “address the false perception that people have that an electric car had to be ugly and slow and boring like a golf cart.”
Tesla has certainly done more than that, establishing itself as a serious rival to the Detroit Big Three car manufacturers. The last eighteen months have seen a period of almost constant growth for Tesla, until the company hit a bit of a snag over the last few weeks. But the long-term prospects for Tesla may still be good if their plans to sell significant amounts of vehicles in pollution-ridden China come to fruition.
Musk’s enthusiasm for Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), which apparently went beyond the usual practical considerations of business, is perhaps understandable given the way that he views himself. When Musk was asked about how he sees and describes himself, he answered that he considers himself to be an engineer, and that this is what he has been engaged in since he was a child. Musk emphasized his interest in “things that change the world or that affect the future”, along with “wondrous new technology”, and evidently the Tesla CEO has big plans for the company going forward.
Tesla’s 2008 crisis
The assertion that Musk didn’t expect Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) to be a success was not a baseless assertion. Instead, it appeared to be very much grounded in what was going on in Musk’s life and Tesla at the time. Back in 2008, Tesla was losing significant amounts of money, the US economy was in a parlous state (arguably this hasn’t really changed) and SpaceX had also failed to reach orbit with its first three rocket launches. Meanwhile, Musk filed for divorce, and according to the 60 Minutes interview was on the verge of a nervous breakdown at the time.
Eventually, things turned around for both businesses. Space X had a highly successful fourth flight, and received a $1.5 billion contract from NASA. And Tesla managed to raise funding before 2008 which kept the company afloat before its recent upsurge. Musk’s vision and sense of optimism had been rewarded and even in the highly competitive motor trade Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s future now looks bright.


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This Week in Weed: There's No Cannabis in Football!
No weed ads during the big game, interesting findings out of Michigan, and High Times goes global. It's the week in Weed!
Welcome to Green Entrepreneur's video recap of the cannabis news you might have missed this week, hosted by our cannabis correspondent, Conrad Martin.
CBS says no to cannabis ad during Super Bowl
Are you ready for some football? Apparently football isn't ready for cannabis. CBS has rejected a proposed super bowl ad from cannabis company Acreage Holdings. The ad was intended to outline the medical benefits of cannabis and featured a veteran with combat injuries and a child with seizures.
University of Michigan has interesting survey results
In a survey conducted by the University of Michigan, 44% of medical marijuana users have ceased or significantly reduced the usage of their prescription medication. The survey also revealed that 78% of cannabis users consume marijuana to treat a medical illness.
High Times acquires a European cannabis fest!
In acquisition news, High Times Holding Corp. Yep - that high times - spent seven million dollars to purchase the Spannabis Festival - the largest cannabis festival in the European Union. With the move, High Times is looking to expand its reach and gain international exposure.
Related: Cali Cannabis Cup Cancelled!
Be sure to keep up with all things cannabiz by checking out the newly launched GreenEntrepreneur.com
If you missed the last episode, check it out here: Cannabis Battles Alcohol & Tobacco!


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The ‘shop local’ message was reinforced in Banbridge when independent businesses from across the borough lent their support to the Independents’ Day campaign earlier this month.
Shoppers in Banbridge were able to avail of a range of attractive promotions offered by independent traders throughout the day as well as enjoy the family fun activities organised as part of the initiative.
Independents’ Day is a UK-wide campaign which highlights the importance of local traders to their local economies and called on consumers in Banbridge to ensure a proportion of their spending was with independent businesses on Saturday, July 4, and beyond.
The campaign was led locally by Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council, with significant support from the local Chambers of Commerce and the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association (NIIRTA).
Michael Donaghy, chair of Banbridge Chamber of Commerce and Trade, said: “It was fantastic to see independent traders from Banbridge town centre and across neighbouring towns and villages come together in support of such an important campaign such as Independents’ Day.
“It’s important to reinforce the ‘shop local’ message and remind people just how vital these independent businesses are to the lifeblood of our local economy.
He added: “Council has an important role to play in boosting local businesses and the Independents’ Day campaign was a great example of the public and private sector working in partnership.
“I hope those shoppers who visited the businesses taking part were able to get some good offers and that everyone enjoyed the family fun.”
The businesses taking part in the Independents’ Day campaign were from a wide range of sectors, including hair & beauty, jewellers, fashion and the hospitality sector. The family fun activities on the day included musical performances, face painting and giant board games.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/armaghbanbridgecraigavon


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| Posted on Thu, September, 10th 2015 by THCFinder
The 2016 Election is in full swing, even though it’s still 2015. The stakes are high, and whoever is elected President of the United States in 2016 is going to largely affect the direction that cannabis policy in America goes from then onward. 2016 will be a crucial time for cannabis reform. There have been a lot of cannabis victories this decade, and a marijuana friendly President would only help to increase the marijuana movement’s momentum. A President like Chris Christie would set the movement back quite a bit.
There are a lot of candidates this election cycle for President. On the GOP side, Donald Trump seems to be getting the most attention, although there are still a ton of people in the race. For the most part on the Democrat side things have widdled down to three names – Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. Although, Joe Biden doesn’t seem to be getting much traction, and still seems to be in an ‘exploratory phase’ of his candidacy.
Traditionally, cannabis consumers tend to favor Democrats. No, that does not mean all of the time, so if you are a non-Democrat and consume cannabis, calm down, I’m just pointing out the math. For me, I have never liked Hillary Clinton from a purely cannabis policy standpoint. I have always felt that she is ultimately against cannabis, but realizes that appearing to be neutral on the issue is good for her political career, so she uses classic tactics to make it appear like she’s semi-sympathetic to cannabis. I wrote an article about it last year that you can read if you like.
I don’t know of one cannabis consumer that is voting for Hillary. That’s not to say that they aren’t out there (again, don’t freak out), but I know A LOT of cannabis consumers all over the country, and not one of them is expressing support for Hillary. Maybe they are closet Hillary fans and plan on voting for her on the down low, but they definitely don’t talk about her publicly. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, seems to be really popular among my cannabis consuming friends and colleagues, and that level of popularity is growing everyday.


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*Kanye West’s album “Yeezus” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts but only sold 327,000 units the first week, the lowest first week sales since he released his 2004 debut, “The College Dropout.”
Last week, the fourth week since the album released, “Yeezus” sold 29,000 units. As of last week, Nielson SoundScan reported total units sold of only 459,356.
Editor of Billboard, Joe Levy, feels that the album is performing just fine considering it hasn’t been promoted in the traditional sense.
“With almost absolutely no promotion and certainly nothing traditionally defined as album release promotion, no single, no video, no magazine covers. … This is a fan reaction based purely on interest and anticipation,” he said. “I think given the way he’s approached this release, he’s doing quite well.”
“Yeezus” is a lot darker than many of West’s previous albums and is far from the mainstream margin. The album has no big singles with the song “Black Skinhead” released two weeks after the album dropped and it’s music video days later.
“It’s like the difference between making an art piece and something that’s just driving for commercial success, and I think he’s at a level of celebrity where he can do that, and the next record he can come back and have an album with five singles on it if he chooses to,” said Faith Newman, the A&R executive who signed Nas and also works with 2 Chainz. “He’s just in a different class of artists.”
J. Cole’s album released the same day and it’s sales have surpassed West with 478,647 albums sold. It features collaborations with Kendrick Lamar and Miguel, who appears on the radio hit “Power Trip.”
Jay-Z also is responsible for grabbing much of the attention from West with Samsung giving 1.2 million copies of “Magna Carta Holy Grail” to its Galaxy mobile customers, the album sold 528,000 units this week, debuting at No. 1.
“If you look at Jay-Z, who staged an enormous media event around the release of his record and is following it up with a tour, you’re looking at an artist who is utilizing all available channels to promote his record, and, in fact, creating new ways to distribute and promote his record,” Levy said. “If you look at Kanye, he’s an artist who consciously decided to use no available channels to promote his record, and he’s got good reason for it. Not only has he intentionally made a difficult work of art that he wants to stand on its own terms, he’s just had a baby. He’s got other things on his mind.”
To read more on the story go to MSN Music.


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The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has formally launched OpenRoaming, a platform of federated Wi-Fi networks that allows users to seamlessly move between hotspots without the need to reconnect or enter security credentials.
With OpenRoaming, compatible devices have their identity verified just once – usually by a mobile operator. There is no need to manually search for Wi-Fi networks or enter passwords. The idea is that using Wi-Fi is as frictionless as 4G or 5G, with users passed between cell sites.
As telcos invest in fibre and 5G infrastructure, the concept of converged networks that combine fixed, cellular and wireless connectivity is gaining traction. OpenRoaming hopes to simplify the wireless element of the equation and reduce fragmentation.
- Orkney hopes 5G can transform island connectivity
- Canary Wharf gets OpenRoaming
- What is 5G? Everything you need to know
The advantages of OpenRoaming are myriad, with end users benefitting from faster speeds, a more reliable connection indoors, and lower battery consumption. On the other hand, businesses can enjoy enhanced productivity and rollout new applications - for example, Wi-Fi can be used to provide location services to shoppers seeking a retailer, or to a project team looking for a meeting room.
The technology has been successfully trialled in Orkney by Cisco and has been rolled out commercially in London’s Canary Wharf. Members include firms from across the mobile industry, including AT&T, Boingo, Broadcom, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom, Google, Intel, Orange, Purple Wi-Fi, and Samsung.
The WBA says business can provide additional value to their existing services or create entirely new commercial business models. It is inviting more operators, venues and other firms to join the consortium.
“Wi-Fi is already arguably the most successful wireless technology of our time, but with these globally agreed standards and policies, we can take public-guest Wi-Fi to another level in terms of ease-of-use and global availability,” said Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the WBA.
“The WBA OpenRoaming creates an open framework for all types of players to join and develop their Wi-Fi services and create new business opportunities. We invite venues, vendors and operator/identity providers to join WBA OpenRoaming and revolutionise Wi-Fi usage around the world.”
- Boost your connection with the best Wi-Fi extenders of 2020
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Steve McCaskill is TechRadar Pro's resident mobile industry expert, covering all aspects of the UK and global news, from operators to service providers and everything in between. He is a former editor of Silicon UK and journalist with over a decade's experience in the technology industry, writing about technology, in particular, telecoms, mobile and sports tech, sports, video games and media.


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Start your engines! Beginning today, CSR2 fans can now experience their favorite drag racing game in a brand-new way with the launch of CSR2 AR Mode.
In honor of Words With Friends 8th anniversary, we’re excited to announce the launch of the Words With Friends Social Dictionary – introducing 50,000 new words in
Attention all racers!
We are excited to announce that we have partnered with Time Inc.’s People, the leading authority on celebrity, pop culture and entertainment news, for the launc
Calling all wordies! Starting today, you can now play Words With Friends for Instant Games on Messenger!
Get your GIFs ready!
Today, we’re excited to announce the upcoming launch of a multi-month, The Fate of the Furious series of events in CSR2.
Calling all sports fans!


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The online video company is in talks with several U.S. pay-TV providers to put a Netflix app on their set-top boxes. Netflix, often viewed as an alternative to pay-TV, is already available on many devices. But the fact that cable companies are considering inviting it in suggests they no longer view it as a threat.
Indeed, broadband, not video, is the source of cable's future growth. Netflix is one of the top sources of U.S. Internet traffic and a primary reason that consumers pay up for faster speeds. An app on the cable box will make it easier for existing pay-TV customers, many of whom already subscribe to Netflix, to watch while keeping them on cable.
For Netflix, which has a similar deal with Virgin Media in the U.K., this could help push up subscriber additions and viewing hours. But the company also sees it as a way to push broadband providers to adopt its Open Connect content-delivery network.
Open Connect helps Netflix save on delivery costs and helps broadband providers, particularly smaller ones, run it without overloading their own networks. But larger providers such as Comcast see Open Connect as a way for Netflix to avoid paying for its traffic—making this a likely sticking point in negotiations.
Netflix on cable boxes may pose a bigger threat to TV networks than to cable companies, according to Janney Capital Markets. More people watching Netflix could mean it pays networks more for their content. But making Netflix more like another cable channel could mean cannibalizing ratings down the line, threatening advertising dollars and potentially even affiliate fees.
TV networks could respond by yanking their content from Netflix. But subscription video on demand accounted for 5% of operating income for the six largest media companies in 2012, Sanford C. Bernstein estimates. And that is likely only to grow.
Pesky adolescent or no, Netflix is rapidly coming into its own.
Write to Miriam Gottfried at Miriam.Gottfried@wsj.com


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Shrinking Print Industry (03:29)
For 300 years Americans have relied on newspaper to receive information. In the digital age journalism has shrunk— dozens of newspapers have closed and there are 30% less positions available. Laura Frank lost her job when the Rocky Mountain News closed in 2009 and explains the days of a 40-45% profit margin is gone.
Replacing Newspapers (02:07)
Owners decided to sell after "Newsweek's" circulation dropped by 50%. The magazine was bought by IBT, merged with "The Daily Beast," and released as a digital publication.
Today's Marketing Strategies (03:25)
Bill Grueskin explains that digital publications must investigate methods to drive readers to their website. Peter Vandermeersch runs NRC Handelsblad in Amsterdam and must cater to print and digital platforms. Dan Gross discusses the difficulties modern publications face.
Finding a Balance (02:14)
Christian Van Thillo began to develop sites for the digital savvy while also concentrating on printing newspapers. Paul Smurl, the general manager of digital products at "The New York Times," explains that mobile technology is the future of digital publishing.
Transition from Paper to Digital (02:13)
Experts do not feel that print media will cease within their lifetimes— both "The New York Times" and "De Persgroep" circulation has not declined significantly. Smurl and Van Thillo describe how digital readers and print subscribers are separate demographics.
Are Newspapers Obsolete? (00:49)
Gross says that kids who grow up today will not know how to read a newspaper. Experts discuss the mistake the media made by giving away its content for free initially. "The Huffington Post" is one of the most famous news aggregators and is partly powered by unpaid bloggers.
"The Huffington Post" (02:41)
Nicholas Sabloff describes news aggregation. Van Thillo and Vandermeersch complain that aggregators steal content from publishers. Sabloff feels it is essential for a digital platform.
Charging for Content (03:57)
Edwy Plenel describes how newspapers provide information, but news aggregators offer opinion and entertainment. Smurl explains how successful paywalls have been for the "The New York Times." Grueskin cautions that other U.S. publications have not found paywalls as financially lucrative.
Will People Pay for News? (03:50)
Vandermeersch explains the difficulties of asking subscribers to pay for content they are used to receiving for free. Smurl suggests approaching consumers for their input. "Buzzfeed" is a digital social news and entertainment company that incorporates social networking.
Social Media's Influence (02:00)
Social media allows consumers to become editors and publishers. "Buzzfeed" incorporates social networking to distribute and market the website's content. Jack Sheppard explains that the company uses an algorithm to determine which stories are the read and shared most frequently.
Logging Every Keystroke (02:51)
Unlike print publications, digital magazines can determine exactly which articles are being read. Chart Beat is computer software that compiles consumer data in real time. Tony Haile describes how the program can help build a loyal audience and then monetize it.
Shareable Advertising (03:28)
"Buzzfeed" earns income by helping brands create marketing that looks like news articles. Plenel cautions that shareable advertising dissolves journalism into entertainment. Haile and Sheppard disagree.
After Rocky Mountain News Folded (03:26)
The Columbia School of Journalism offers a dual degree program of Computer Science and Journalism. "I-news" sells its investigative news articles to other agencies for distribution. Frank explains how crowdfunding creates a predictable revenue stream.
Non Profit Models (02:20)
Kevin Davis prefers to not chase the same revenue models as for-profit companies. Over 80 non-profit media organizations participate in the Investigative News Network. Plenel formed "Mediapart," a digital news organization.
Civic Duty to Pay for News (02:00)
Plenel describes how creating short, anecdotal, entertaining pieces undermines the value of investigative journalism. He and his partners invested over five million euros in "Mediapart." Freedom of the press is not the privilege of journalists— it is a citizen's right.
Changes in Journalism (04:17)
Frank believes that high quality journalism makes a difference in society. Plenel wants to create an English version of "Mediapart." Publicists and journalists discuss the future of publishing and how to make a company viable.
Credits: Stop the Presses (00:25)
Credits: Stop the Presses
For additional digital leasing and purchase options contact a media consultant at 800-257-5126
(press option 3) or firstname.lastname@example.org.


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Turning queues in to marketing tool
Hi-tech plasma screen que boards hit Gitex 2004
Finding the queues at Gitex a little wearing? Never mind, help could be on the way, thanks to general electronics retailer, Jacky’s.
The Hong Kong-based company is hoping to take the pain out of queuing with its new hi-tech plasma screen queue boards, which are being demo’d at Gitex Shopper.
Jacky’s coo, Ashish Panjabi, said that when people have to wait in queues, whether at the bank, the hospital or in a store, it is a wasted marketing opportunity.
“People get impatient, bored, even slightly tense, when forced to wait with nothing else to do,” he said, “but when you entertain or inform them while they wait, it’s a different story.”
As part of the plasma screen display, the queue system information can be incorporated with any other information, such as advertising, news, corporate or product information.
In addition to being a targeted marketing tool, the system also helps companies to assess employee performance, service levels and overall client/customer relations.
Panjabi also added that the company is looking to enter news markets.


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Vinyl's popularity has resulted in a mini surge of interest in vinyl pressing plants. For example, a vinyl pressing plant was used as a humorous backdrop for a Jack White Record Store Day promo video.
Detroit's Last Vinyl Pressing Plant
A recent piece on Vice's Motherboard on the shortage of vinyl pressing plants includes the above video and gathers together information from the last few years.
They tell a story of competitors buying failed pressing plants to gather parts to new plants opening that always have more orders than they can fill in a timely manner.
Given the limited supply of vinyl pressing plants, indie labels putting out vinyl may well be able to sort things out through word of mouth, online or off. But it would be nice to have an up-to-date list that would be updated in the future as well.
This is the most complete list I could find and it was last updated in 2012.
@Buzzsonic has a Vinyl Pressings Twitter list that features many currently active pressing plants but is limited to those with Twitter accounts.
These are the only two that also mentioned Polysom, a vinyl pressing plant in Brazil that was featured in Wax Poetics,


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HP and Microsoft Roll Out Appliances
One year after announcing a $250 million, three-year pact to deliver next-generation data center technology, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Microsoft today unveiled five appliances that offer Exchange and SQL Server in turnkey configurations.
The two companies' offerings range from a so-called private cloud in a box designed to virtualize databases to a $2 million data warehouse appliance. The latter marks the official release of Microsoft's largest and most scalable version of its database to date, SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Warehouse edition, code-named Project Madison.
"We're paying off on the announcement we made a year ago," said Doug Small, HP's director of infrastructure to applications business.
The new HP E5000 Messaging System for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is the first time Redmond's core e-mail platform is available in a turnkey configuration. The companies say the system can be deployed in a matter of hours. Small emphasized the system's design around high availability. "The solutions have high availability directly built into it to ensure secure communication across the whole messaging system," he said.
A system designed for mid-sized business will support 500 mailboxes, each at 1 GB, with an enterprise version designed to accommodate 3,000 mailboxes at 2 GB apiece. Organizations can cascade multiple appliances to scale them out, Small said. The Exchange appliances, due to ship in March, will start at $35,000 each just for the hardware, software licensing is separate.
The other appliances are centered around SQL Server: they include the HP Business Decision Appliance, the Business Data Warehouse Appliance and the HP Database Consolidation Appliance.
The Business Decision Appliance is aimed at rapid provision of BI implementations, said Fausto Ibarra, Microsoft's senior director of BI. "It's designed as a self-service BI solution, with everything you need, software and hardware, to empower end users to analyze large amounts of data from any number of data sources," he said.
Microsoft said the appliance is optimized for running both SQL Server and SharePoint and can be installed and configured in less than one hour. It also runs the PowerPivot data analysis tool for Excel and provides a single dashboard for auditing, monitoring and managing BI solutions running on the appliance. Pricing starts at $28,000 for the hardware only. It is available now.
On the high-end of the spectrum, HP today began shipping the Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance, announced back in November, which the companies say is 10 times more scalable than previous SQL Server deployments and capable of delivering queries 200 times faster.
For those looking to build smaller data warehouses based on SQL Server, HP announced the Business Data Warehouse Appliance, which is a scaled down version aimed at small and medium businesses, also built on SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse edition.
"The Enterprise Data Warehouse Appliance is targeted at the high-end data warehousing scenarios, but there's also many cases where companies are looking for an entry level data warehouse or a data mart that compliments their enterprise data warehouse," Ibarra said. "The HP Business Data Warehouse Appliance is aimed at smaller data warehousing deployments. Also it's very complementary to the Enterprise Data Warehouse. It works together but it's independent." The smaller Business Data Warehouse Appliance will be available in June, Microsoft said. Pricing was not disclosed.
The last of the five is the HP Database Consolidation Appliance aimed at integrating hundreds or even thousands of databases into a private cloud environment. The system is optimized for SQL Server 2008R2 and Hyper-V Cloud which is designed for rapid deployment, Microsoft said.
"Nowadays most companies are looking to build private clouds to get the benefits of public clouds, get them into their own data center," Ibarra said. "Essentially [that means] having a private cloud solution which can enable them to consolidate transaction applications, sharing pools of resources and making it very easy to allocate capacity." The HP Database Consolidation Appliance will be available in the second half of this year. The company did not disclose pricing.
While the new appliances will be available direct and through any HP or Microsoft channel partners, both companies are emphasizing customers would be best served acquiring them from partners engaged in the companies' joint Frontline Channel Partner program.
"We're not constraining the product availability, we have a specific program that we've developed and funded as part of this initiative that has the targeted training and other resources available," Small said. "So it will be in a partner's best interest to sign up for either the SQL or Exchange subset of the Frontline partner program to get access to the program."
Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz.


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Tron Foundation has recently introduced a new product called TronChat which was developed as a result of a successful partnership with dApp. The key description of the newly introduced app is the promising affirmation of "Share Media, Chat and Earn Tron".
According to official information shared by the company, the new app combines the functionality of Instagram, Venmo and Telegram. The new product has also been unofficially called "baby blockchain" of the main social platforms listed.
The key message states: "Social media was never built to make you earn money – Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and others were created with the sole purpose of generating revenue for platforms based on user activity and personal data TronChat was created to solve this paradigm and allow users to gain from their daily interactions with social media ".
The announcement went on to explain: "As lifelong developers with experience in social media, we wanted to do more than wait for someone to create the first" killer "dApp for the blockchain world." TronChat allows anyone and anyone to easily gain TRX to do the things they love most on social media, bringing true use and utility to both cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. "
Users can then use the same features as other popular social media platforms, including sharing photos, videos, stories, messages, chats, chat rooms, sending TRX messages, creating subscription-based content / premium and direct notifications. In addition, there will also be a tipping feature so that users can tip one at the other using TRX tokens.
The announcement also confirmed that the development process of both versions for iPhone and Android is almost 60% complete. The official version of these versions can be announced at any time and users will be informed about the developments of the new versions.


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How Coke and Pepsi Make Millions From Bottling Tap Water, as Residents Face Shutoffs
The beverage giants were allowed to keep bottling in Detroit, despite substantial uncollected water bills
In recent weeks, on a quiet stretch of Detroit’s west side dotted with vacant homes, a 262,000-square-foot Coca-Cola manufacturing facility has buzzed with activity, even as many businesses in Michigan were ordered by the state to temporarily close to combat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Coca-Cola churns out a number of beverages here, including Dasani bottled water, which generated more than $1 billion in U.S. sales in the past year, according to market research firm IRI. It’s a good time to be in the water business: As the coronavirus pandemic spread in the U.S. throughout March, bottled water sales increased 57 percent over the same time period last year.
But among the products, such as toilet paper and hand sanitizer, that Americans are panic-buying, bottled water is unusual: There is no shortage of safe drinking water, and health officials have tried to assure people that public water supplies are not contaminated by the coronavirus. Hoarding bottled water simply isn’t necessary for most people.
What’s more, most bottled water sold in the U.S. comes from the same municipal sources that supply tap water—a fact that might be unknown to most consumers. Coca-Cola makes Dasani at the company’s Detroit plant by purchasing, treating, and bottling municipal water before selling it at a significant upcharge to consumers. Pepsi bottles its Aquafina water brand in Detroit the same way.
The business model is hugely profitable. The cost to buy that municipal water is exceedingly low—and once bottled, the markup can be around 133 times greater, a Consumer Reports analysis of company water billing and usage records found.
But what’s good for businesses isn’t necessarily good for consumers, according to CR’s review, which included the examination of hundreds of pages of billing and other records obtained through public records requests, and interviews with environmental law experts, industry consultants, residents of Detroit, and consumer advocates.
For starters, bottlers and consumers aren’t always treated as equals by water utilities, CR found. In Detroit, whose policy prior to the coronavirus crisis called for shutting off water to residents if they fell $150 behind in their water bills, 2,800 homes were estimated to be without running water at the start of the pandemic. (Read more about cities that have not restored water to residents during the coronavirus crisis.)
But bottlers in Detroit have also racked up tens of thousands of dollars of past-due water bills that went unpaid for months, CR found. Not once has their access to water been shut off over the time period we examined. When asked why, the city cited the companies’ strong payment history and an ability to pay their bills. The city said in a later statement that it had made errors collecting past-due balances.


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Northbrook-based Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide said Monday it is opening an office in Chicago’s River North neighborhood.
Blue Chip Marketing said the office at 10 W. Hubbard St., which has space for 25 employees, will create opportunities to attract more international business.
“We believe this office represents the future of the adaptable workplace,” said Stanton Kawer, CEO of Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide. “It’s a completely flexible space that’s truly designed for our employees to work and take advantage of everything Chicago has to offer.”
The agency’s clients include Procter & Gamble, Ricola, Celestial Seasonings, Blue Bunny and Fisher.


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Researchers find pig DNA in seafood products
Prawn balls yielded pig DNA in samples tested by the NUS team
NUS researchers have uncovered one of the worst cases of food mislabelling in Singapore, with pig DNA being found in seafood and expensive ingredients being swapped out for cheaper substitutes.
Their discoveries regarding seafood bought in supermarkets and restaurants in Singapore have been published as a preprint. The manuscript has also been submitted for formal review.
Pig DNA in cuttlefish and prawn balls
“Arguably, the most serious case of mislabelling for a multi-religious society like Singapore involved pig DNA in cuttlefish and prawn balls. We initially suspected lab contamination, but the same seafood brand repeatedly yielded pig DNA in five samples which were bought at different times and places,” wrote the team from NUS Biological Sciences.
This is a serious problem given that many people avoid pork for religious, ethical, or health reasons such as allergies, added the team which was led by Professor Rudolf Meier.
“Fortunately, the samples were not labelled as halal or kosher, but such cases do highlight the need for regular testing of heavily processed, multi-species seafood samples,” the researchers added.
High-value products were mislabelled
The team also found that about 7.6 per cent of single-species seafood samples were clearly mislabelled. Higher-value products — such as prawn roe, wild-caught Atlantic salmon and halibut — were replaced with lower-value ingredients including fish roe, Pacific salmon and arrowtooth flounder.
Though the percentage is “comparatively low”, the “low rates are somewhat deceptive” because of the widespread use of vague common species names that do not allow for a precise assessment of the expected ingredients, the researchers said.
The problem was worse for mixed-species products, where 38.5 per cent of samples were mislabelled. For example, all mixed samples labelled as containing crustaceans — crab, prawn or lobster — only yielded fish DNA.
“Increased demand has created incentives for seafood fraud via mislabelling. Such fraud is particularly common for fillets and heavily processed seafood products because they are not readily identifiable by eye,” noted the researchers.
The team added that most fraud appears driven by the desire to maximise profit because profit margins can be significantly increased by substituting expensive and desirable food species with less desirable and cheaper ones. They concluded that there is a need for more regular testing of seafood samples.
See media reports.


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Despite recent proclamations that a seemingly profitable (and occasionally-violent) Black Friday saved retailers specifically and the American economy generally, the proof's in the performance pudding: look for dismal earnings reports in January.
In short, while "''spending may well be strong, and that could help us get through another Christmas,'" the American retail sector is hurting. The signs may not be obvious yet, but there's no denying that "'the economy is unbalanced and we're still in an enormous crisis.'" In short, as a restructuring consultant trained to see the underperforming train coming down the tracks, it's time to identify the 3 components that prove that Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) have done little to help American retailers.
1) No money, mo' problems: The American economy is in trouble. No election, nor (temporarily good) news out of Europe, nor (possible escape from) fiscal cliff can put lipstick on this economic pig: in the 2 nd and 3 rd quarters of this year, American GDP grew 1.3% and 2.7% respectively. These rates reflect that the "US is right around the stall speed," meaning that after the crash of 2008, fewer Americans have more money to spend. Consequently, no matter how many sales or deals or cyber-anythings retailers offer this year, there's simply less holiday-specific cash available for spending to the "average" American family.
Given this reality, then, the most and obvious basic remedy for most retailers is to drop prices to boost sales, an act that may increase revenue in the short term but in turn crush gross margins and, in some cases, fail to cover the longer hours (see below) and higher staffing rates this strategy traditionally demands. Look for a rash of distress in this space come late January and early February, as retailers finally come to terms with the low-profitability hangover of the holiday season.*
2) Longer hours belie short spending: Much has been made of recent news that Macy's is extending holiday hours, and, while the retailer is looking to leap to the head of the department store line, look for other retailers to follow its lead and keep the doors open longer. As a turnaround consultant, receiving news like this doesn't often suggest a drive for greater or more extended customer services, but instead the desire, nay, need, for a desperate retailer to get as many opportunities for touches with the customer as possible. Few retailers approach the holiday season as the time to cut costs, turn inventory, and maximize profitability, but by extending hours during a slow version of a traditionally high-sales month, these retailers are placing extra high bets on consumer procrastination and, in turn, are catering to these last-minute shoppers seeking (for the retailer, low gross margin) sales. Consequently, longer and longer hours for retailers this year don't necessarily signify a new obsession with customer service, but instead a last-minute desperate dash for revenue.
3) A single season does not a successful year make: Obviously, the retail industry has, traditionally, depended heavily upon the holiday season for revenue. The past few years, however, have been particularly grim for the industry, with numbers trending down month over month in 2012. This, in turn, has led to an increased reliance on the holiday season to save not only the American retail market, but America's economy itself. And while much will be made of any incremental gain in sales across the industry, it's important to remember that there is simply less to spend this year: it's nearly numerically impossible for the American consumer to compensate for a less-successful 2012 over a month of spending at the end of this year. Consequently, while many retailers comfort themselves that they're doing all they can to chase those "sales-that-save," they'll soon realize this holiday season was not enough to boost revenue to pre-recession levels, shrink the recent depression in gross margins, and drive down production and storage costs.
Ergo, while we all spend and drink and celebrate ourselves into oblivion this holiday season, it'd be wise for consumer and retailer alike to keep in mind that we all must wake up on January 1, 2013, and, while rubbing our temples and opening our Excel programs, realize Black Friday (and the consequent spending season) didn't save us, we need action, and start rectifying the mistakes and misjudgments of 2012.
* Interestingly, however, the recession should offer a tremendous boost to luxury brands and stores in 2013, given who's recovered and who hasn't.
Margaret Bogenrief is a partner with ACM Partners, a boutique crisis management and distressed investing firm serving companies and municipalities in financial distress. She can be reached at email@example.com.


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Toronto's Andrea Addario lives next to one of the world's greatest Halloween haunters. As she tweeted, he exhibits "extreme genius" every year, and this year is no exception: he's studded his tree with giant measles viruses made out of pumpkins and carrots, along with a coffin-shaped sign reading "VACCINATE YOUR KIDS." (Thanks, Allen!)
The idea of paid protesters is a favorite of the right, though as always, the thing you accuse your opponents of inevitably turns out to be the thing you're doing yourself (Trump paid actors to cheer his presidential campaign announcement and big industry groups pay actors to protest regulations that undermine their profits).
In the early days of the web, everyone wanted a .com domain for their site. As a result, all the good ones got snapped up. But .com no longer has the cachet it once did. In fact, many new businesses and individuals are opting for other top-level domain extensions. One of the most memorable is […]
As you shiver your way through February, you’re probably thinking about paying your heating bill. But in just a few short months, the summer sun is going to come calling — and the fear of pulling that energy bill out of your mailbox will start becoming very, very real. Air conditioning accounts for about an […]
Despite legalization in 11 states and decriminalization in 15 more, marijuana-based products are still an often tough sell with many Americans. While the psychoactive THC portion of the plant remains controversial, the medicinal impact of the non-altering component of cannibis, CBD, is widely hailed. Many portions of those claims still await medical verification, but for […]